Poppin' and Lockin', FOO!!

I've often told Mrs. Architectureandfootball, if there was any one thing that I wish that I could do that I have absolutely no chance at ever being able to do, it'd be this. Or of course, there's Elsewhere. I've always been amazed by poppin' and lockin'. And I always will be. I give these guys major respect.

On another quick tangent - I'd like to apologize for the lack of proper punctuation in all of the Japan posts. See, the apostrophe is Shift+2 on a Japanese keyboard and it just isn't efficient to reach up there when I'm flying along typing a post.


Today we've got the first major snowstorm of the 2007/2008 winter season here in Chicagoland and I, for one, am loving it. That has partly to do with the fact that I'm a fan of snow and partly to do with the fact that I work 2 blocks away from where I live so I don't have to drive in this mess. Fortunately.

So for anyone keeping score - in my last post I reported that the Urawa Reds won the J-League, but in a MASSIVE surprise in the last match of the season, the Reds LOST to the LAST PLACE TEAM and the then-second-place team won their match to catapult them to the top!! Now THAT is some excitement, people.

Tomorrow Newcastle has the good fortune to play their game in hand again Arsenal. We're in a TERRIBLE spell lately and while I've always counted our game in hand as a good thing, I've known that it's against Arsenal, so it really didn't count for anything more than another pointless game - MAYBE one point. Even though it's at SJP. So tomorrow we'll walk onto the pitch knowing that we've got a tough battle to A)get the press off of Big Sam's back, B)get the supporters off of EVERYBODY'S back, and C)at least TRY to start getting our season back on track. Fortunately, after this match we've got four (potentially) winnable games, but that really hasn't been worth a box full of hair for the first fourteen matches. I'm hoping Smith sits the bench (even though he was quite exciting last match. He can create a lot if he actually tries - but then completely chokes every time he's got a good scoring chance.) and Viduka gets the start along with Martins. They need another match together. Barton is slowly starting to show his stuff, and we need to capitalize on the guy before he goes to jail. So hopefully he'll start with Butt in the middle, with N'Zog and Milner on the wings. The Defense will be rubbish no matter what the lineup is, so I won't get into it. If anybody has Setanta Sports, watch the match tomorrow at around 3pm ET/2pm CST.

Last but not least - my beloved Illinois Fighting Illini are going to the Rose Bowl!! I don't want to hear about all the reasons we don't deserve to be there. I'm starting to actually SYMPATHIZE for what Ohio State had to go through while they were the undefeated #1 ranked team this season....until we beat them. HA! Oh - the Illini didn't play a tough enough schedule...Oh - the Illini have three losses....Oh - the Illini aren't in the SEC so they don't deserve ANYTHING.
HOGWASH!

We'll just let all the pundits whinge and moan and on January 1st we'll be showing them who deserves to be in the game. Remember the 2005/6 Rose Bowl when Reggie Bush was supposed to take USC on his back and win the thing all by himself but got run over by lowly Vince Young's Texas Longhorns instead? I do.

Finally, if anyone happens to read this before this weekend, there's another sporting event to take note of - an ENORMOUS boxing match between Floyd "Prettyboy" Mayweather and Manchester's own Ricky Hatton on Saturday. This is a huge match for a number of reasons, but A) it seems to be one match on a ladder which is attempting to make the sport of boxing relevant again B) Mayweather may very well be one of the best boxers in history - but Hatton's style will throw him completely out of his element, and C) neither of the opponents are from NBC's "The CONTENDER."

One is a pretty, quick-to-cover, defensive style boxer, and the other is brutally ugly but nice as pie, ball-out, sprint at your opponent at the bell offensive boxer. Either this will be enthralling or boring and frustrating. But it'll be something.