Just got back from a weekend wedding trip to Kansas City which forced me to miss Arsenal’s first slip of the season and Lehmann’s second fuck-up in as many Premiership games. Arsenal Clips has the highlights, there’s also a nice little pack by FootyTube. Really disappointing to see us drop two points so early in the season against a team we should handily beat. My hate for Lehmann right now is only surpassed by US Immigration at Toronto airport.

Also missed was the Toronto FC/Chivas clash which saw TFC go six straight games without scoring a goal. When I said ‘Season Over’ a few posts ago I got flamed on certain discussion boards. I’m not i-told-you-soing but I told you so.

Finally, coming back from Kansas City at Toronto airport I see a big tall black dude and he looks familiar, it’s Chris Bosh. All I said to him was “Hey, Chris” and he’s like: “Hey, what’s up man”. Judging by where he was picking up his luggage, he was coming from Las Vegas. I snapped a pic without security looking:

So you work hard on your blog to try to get people to read it, you beg Arseblog to link to you, you put up highlights etc etc. Turns out I’m wasting time because I just realized looking at the WordPress Dashboard that all I have to do is create a site and put up some Flickr porn and booyeah! you make it to the frontpage of WordPress.

I also worked up a new header for the blog. It’s a work in progress but at least on first glance it appears like a sports blog.

Later.

A 1-0 victory over Saudi Arabia clinched the Asia Cup for Iraq. It’s ironic that they beat their free-spending Saudi neighbors in the final who leave no financial stone unturned when it comes to preparing for football tournaments. Add to it Saudi Arabia’s involvement in 911 which lead to the Iraq War and we see that this is the closest thing to revenge the Iraqis will ever taste.

After the victory you didn’t read the normal, “We’re so happy and lets get drunk” quotes, instead we get Iraqi captain, Younis Mahmoud, saying stuff like:

“I want America to go out. Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but out. I wish the American people didn’t invade Iraq and, hopefully, it will be over soon.”

Fair enough I guess, in the only airtime the guy will probably ever receive he calls for political change. How often do you see that in America? You think if Terrell Owens wins the Super Bowl he’ll call for Medicare reform? If that wasn’t out of place, how about this:

“I don’t want the Iraqi people to be angry with me. If I go back with the team, anybody could kill me or try to hurt me.”

Now why anybody would want to kill the guy for winning Asia’s premier football tournament is beyond the scope of most people’s imagination. Maybe because he partook in a team which had both Shias and Sunis? The football team is probably a microcosm of what Iraq should be and this is probably one of those cases where politics can learn from sport. And to put things in perspective the victory came only a day after 30 Iraqis were killed in bomb attacks.

This is an Arsenal/TFC blog but I thought this deserved its own post.

As both my loyal readers know I was on vacation last week. One of the stops was Barcelona and since there’s no football to watch I settled for a tour of the Nou Camp. While perusing their “museum” I came across this:

I looked for a nearby trash can to puke my guts out and couldn’t find one, the only other option was to hurl all over the stereo that was blasting out the Champions League theme that originally attracted me to that part of the museum. Instead of the CL theme they should be playing this video over and over again. It’s much more fitting of the real story and would do justice to everybody involved on that most unfortunate of days.

The Nou Camp sure runs a pretty crappy tour, you can’t even sit in the players seats and there’s not even enough space to stand on the sidelines with all the gypsies around. You can’t even take pics in certain areas, WTF? I also did the Santiago Bernabeu tour which was much better, all I kept thinking about was the Henry goal. Here are some pics from both stadiums.

They’re selling Henry shirts in almost every store in Barcelona. It hurts to see that shit. There’s so many kids wearing Barca clothing (and I mean shorts, shirts and socks) that you don’t even think that it’s a football uniform anymore. The Nou Camp is a money making machine really, no wonder they can afford anybody they want.

I’m beginning to see Jose Antonio Reyes’ point about the weather. See I was in London where it was hot, balmy with overcast skies and girls looked like they wore diapers. In Madrid and Barcelona the weather was picture perfect and even the ugly women were somewhat good looking. I say all the power to Reyes for wanting to leave England for Spain, he just wants to get some ass in the sun. Can’t really blame him.

The biggest thing I realized was how inferior Toronto really is to Barcelona or Madrid in terms of public transportation, airports, street system, cleanliness, facilities, restaurants, atmosphere, nightlife and just about anything else you can think of. The only good thing about coming back was the in-flight movies – Children of Men and The Lives of Others. The former is good, the latter is brilliant.

The most chaotic time I ever had was ordering a coffee and a sandwich at Heathrow Airport, that place is overcrowded to the point of a stampede breaking out any second. Also swung by Marrakech where the temperature never dips below 65 Celsius. Great historic town, worth a visit if you’re into history ‘n stuff and aren’t afraid of getting sun tattooed to the point of dehydration.

Here’s something for you Raptors fans, do you recognize anyone in this pic?

I’ll get back to blabbering about the Raps, TFC and the Gunners soon enough.

PS: Thanks to my wife for taking a blurry photograph of me and the Champions League trophy. I mean how often do you get a chance to take a shot like that? Don’t worry honey, I’ll still try to love you.

This needs to be said. So I got Rogers Cable and Internet for my house a few months ago and they offered to give me some free channels for a limited time, stuff that I never watch like Fashion TV and some other such stuff that I never watch. I declined but they urged me to try them out since they were free for the first few months, I finally said yes. So for a little while I get all these channels which I don’t even want but I figure since I’m not paying for them, I may as well have them, maybe the wife will like something.

A few months go by and I suddenly see a bill of $160, about $45 over the usual Internet/Cable bill. So I call them up and ask about the discrepancy. Of course they tell me that I was supposed to call in after 4 months and cancel all the channels that I never really wanted in order to not get billed an obscene amount. I tell them I never wanted them nor was I ever informed to explicitly call and cancel the services and simply assumed that once the free period was over, they would just go away. My plea fell on deaf ears and they charged me $45 extra for stuff that I don’t even care and never even wanted. No apologies, nothing, if anything they accused me of trying to pull a fast-one by watching these channels for an extra month and then trying to find a way to not pay for them. This is what I call a Corporate Con.

This is nothing less than stealing from the consumer under the pretense of providing services. A man already has enough to worry about in life but now you also have to be on the lookout for your cable company pulling fast ones on you. The crazy part is that this must happen a hundred times a day, I could tell that the woman I spoke to on the phone had gone though this a thousand times before and pretty much had a scripted speech to give me once I told her about the problem.

Rogers makes enough money providing expensive home phone service, horrible mobile services and anything else they can get their filthy hands on. Is it really necessary for a big corporation to throw low blows like these at the consumer to stay in business? Or maybe this is how they got in business.  Either way, it sucks.

There was Lin Elliot and his three missed field goals, there was Steve Bono and his three interceptions, there was the Colts not punting the entire game and then there was today, a deserved 23-8 defeat in Indianapolis. If you had told me that the Colts’ high-powered offense would only score 23 points in the game, I would’ve said that the Chiefs would win by a couple touchdowns. You would’ve been right and I would’ve been wrong. Why? Because Kansas City’s offense proved to be about as potent as Mr. Burns and the Colts defense looked a lot like the Steel Curtain. If it hadn’t been for the uniforms you would’ve thought the Chiefs were ballet dancing on offense.

Lawrence Tynes can’t believe he sucks after
shanking a 23 yard FGI should’ve figured out that all this pre-game talk of Larry Johnson running all over the Colts “porous” run defense was nothing but wishful thinking and statistic generated nonsense. Larry Johnson may as well have been sitting in the stands and Trent Green may as well have been babysitting and letting his wife play instead. The Colts defense didn’t even have to work that hard to prevent Kansas City from getting their first first down until three minutes left in the third quarter! That’s right, no first downs in the first half and Kansas City still managed to only be down 9-0, courtesy of three Petyon Manning interceptions – of which two were by Ty Law – and the defense coming up big in the red zone. Chiefs even had God on their side as the Colts suffered back-breaking penalites on second and third downs which vastly helped the Chiefs cause. Earlier in the half Law, after intercepting Manning, had scrambled to the Colts 10 yard line giving Kansas City a perfect chance to go up 7-6. Trent Green then did a nice little dance and tripped over his high heels on third down and Lawrence Tynes then made him proud by shanking a 23 yard FG attempt. Pathetic. It was at that point I knew deep down that this was going to end in tears.

Obviously the Colts weren’t going to go without a touchdown. So after Peyton Manning realized throwing downfield isn’t working out, he decided to pick off the fatigued Kansas City defense underneath which was fairly easy since they’d been on the field the entire game. A touchdown later, and now trailing 16-0, the Chiefs offense decided to earn 5% of their salary and scored to make it 8-0. It didn’t take the Colts long to score again when Trent Green got the ball back trailing 23-8. This was the time that Kansas City needed to rally. So when the Chiefs really needed to score, Green proceeded to float one long enough for Bob Sanders to check his watch, book a tee time and then finally take out his baseball glove to nab the interception. The game was over.
Trent Green decides fumbling is fun

The Colts were even nice enough to give the Chiefs another chance by not scoring on the ensuing two possessions, but the good ‘ol boys from KC who were just happy to be there ended their misery courtesy of Trent Green who obliged with a fumble and an interception. The long list of playoff misery and disappointment continue for the Chiefs and Kansas City is a town you don’t want to be in right now. It really does suck to be a Kansas City Chiefs fan.

Herman Edwards was asked at halftime whether he’d consider benching Trent Green whose offense generated a whopping zero first downs in the first half and replied, “Not now, not ever”. Is Green really that good that he’s untouchable or is Damon Huard really that bad? Didn’t Huard get them in the playoffs to begin with? Maybe he should’ve been the one to start the game instead of Green who looked rustier than a coffin nail. Every time the camera focused on Larry Johnson on the sidelines, he looked like he hadn’t even broken a sweat and was just waiting for the game to finish so he wouldn’t be late for his pedicure.

Give credit to the Kansas City defense. They’ve been much maligned over the past decade but tonight they played their guts out the entire game and maybe with a little more support from their offense, they could’ve pulled this one out. My favorite part of the game was right after Ty Law’s second interception, the KC offense went three and out and that’s when the camera focused on Law who responded to the offense’s effort with a profound expletive. The amazing part was that I had just used that expletive a second before he had.

Let’s focus on the run-defense of Indianapolis defense and the running game (or lack thereof) of Kansas City. The Colts defense had been hearing how they suck all week long and Larry Johnson had been hearing how great he was and how he was going to plunder like a wild beast over them. The problem was that LJ and the Chiefs actually started believing that it was going to be that easy while the Colts were motivated by the bad press and decided to issue a statement. That and the unpreparedness of the Kansas City offense is the only way we can explain why LJ ended up with 32 meaningless yards. It was like KC had hoped the running game would be the answer to everything and didn’t bother drawing up a Plan B. You know what they say about keeping your eggs in one basket.

NFL.com Highlights (Need Real Player)

ESPN.com Coverage (Need Flash)

The last time a movie made an impression on me was about a decade ago when I saw Fargo which I proceeded to own and watch many times over. Since then, of all the movies I’ve seen, nothing comes close to Pan’s Labyrinth which is headed to my Hall of Fame.

This is close to one of the most beautiful and critically acclaimed movies that has ever been made. The end of the Spanish Civil War in the mid 1940′s serves as the backdrop for this tale of a pregnant mother who marries a Spanish military general and brings her daughter along to stay in a remote military outpost. The daughter, an avid reader of fairy tales, encounters characters and creatures which – real or imaginary – serve as a parallel to both historic events and her family life.

Serving under Franco, the sadistic and violent Army Captain, Vidal, played convincingly by Sergi López carries the film along with Ivana Baquero who plays the daughter, Ofelia. The cast also includes Ariadna Gil and Maribel Verdú.

The lighting and special effects in the movie are immaculate and the musical score fitting. From the creaky house that the family lives in to the dark hillsides where the military action takes place, everything in the movie is perfect and fitting. Although cold, dark and mysterious one one end, it manages to surprise you with some playful themes when you least expect it.

Although pitched by some reviews as a fairy tale story, the movie contains scenes of extreme violence and is not for the squeamish. You’ll literally have to look away a few times, especially when the Captain gets going.

Originally titled, El Laberinto Del Fauno, the film is written and directed by the imaginative Guillermo del Toro who ensures there is not a single dull moment in the entire film and has you rooting for a character at all times. This has already won a number of awards and I’ll be shocked if this doesn’t take home a few Oscars.

Below is the full two minute trailer and the shorter one and here is the movie poster. Here’s another movie poster. Pan’s Labyrinth is currently playing in select threatres in Toronto. Watch it if you get a chance!

Full Trailer

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=7401189602050755954]

Shorter Trailer

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5d4f1nyLgg]

Saddam Hussein was one cool cucumber when it came to dying. For a man who’s about to have his neck ripped in half, he looked composed, confident and not even a least bit scared of death in his final minutes. As he was being brought towards the gallows by what appeared to be a bunch of hired goons, he was actually talking normally and calmly to the people about to execute him. He declined to wear the black mask which is supposed to make it a little easier for the soon-to-be-dead. He was calm enough to actually respond to the taunts of him going “straight to hell” with a dignified, You think that’s bravery? He then recited a Kalma and halfway through the second recitation, the baseboard opened up and the most anti-climatic hanging in the history of history was complete.

Does anyone have the video of Timothy McVeigh getting killed? Or for that matter any other criminals sentenced to death? Why was this video made public? I for one think whoever decided to make it public was counting on Saddam to act like a coward and cry like a little baby before he’s about to get killed. That didn’t happen and instead Saddam looked like a man who didn’t regret any of his actions and firmly believed in whatever he did, right or wrong. I dare to say that he even looked brave and perhaps even gained greater support and sympathizers after his death. I would say the majority of the Sunni Muslim population across the globe agrees with me.

There are even some reports that the night before his hanging, the executioner was dangling the rope in front of his cell, taunting him that it’s waiting for him in the morning. If that is true, it’s pretty pathetic on the part of the government. How can a government call itself civilized and then release a video of a former leader getting killed behind the propaganda that it provides “closure” for his victims. Yes, he was a brutal dictator and caused many deaths, but I hardly believe that he caused even 1/10th of the deaths in Iraq that George W. Bush’s regime has caused. But that is a perspective most people refuse to even adopt or even care to examine.

The timing of the hanging is ridiculous to the point of being offensive. Eid ul-Adha is one of the holiest days in the Muslim calendar and why the Iraqi government chose this as the day of his execution is beyond my comprehension. Perhaps Nuri Kamal al-Maliki thougt that he needed to keep his promise of executing Saddam in the year 2006? If that was the rationale, then it certainly sucked since it soured the day for Muslims who were both for and against his execution. Would it have made any difference if he were to be executed on say, January 15th?

I am not an Iraqi and did not suffer under Saddam’s rule nor was I saddened or jubilant when he was executed. From my perspective, he died a very dignified death. He looked death straight in the eye and did not budge from what he believed in. He knew it was his destiny to die in such a manner and was not surprised, scared or even bothered by the cowards who waited until he was tied to a noose with his hands and legs cuffed before speaking against him.

It appears to me that MapQuest is better at directions since it seems to put a lot more thought in when dishing out directions for trips. Here’s a brief summary of how my faith Google Maps ruined my trip.

I had to go to Washington DC from Toronto and despite the Mrs. Arsenalist telling me to print out the MapQuest directions, I trusted Google Maps and its AJAX loaded interface to provide me the directions. After entering the departure and destination addresses, Google Maps gave me directions which had me travel on US219 for about 150 miles. Now, if you’ve ever been on a US highway (not an interstate), you might know that it travels through countless towns where speed limits drop to 35mph and its single lane with little room for passing for the majority of the way. Not to mention traffic lights and next to no places to eat or rest, which makes for a frustrating drive.

Out of curiosity, I entered the same directions on MapQuest and it had me entirely skip US219 and instead take I-79 through Pittsburgh which is a full blown freeway where speeds rarely drop below 75mph. Although, it did add about 70 miles to the trip, it was much more preferable than going through towns like Bradford, PA and Ellicottville, PA which are not very fun to drive through.

So, is MapQuest better than Google Maps? If you believe Nathan Weinberg, MapQuest seems to know the speed limits across the country and can provide a much more desirable route than Google Maps which seems to be using something like a very unsophisticated version of Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm to figure things out.

MapQuest also gives the user routes based on preference of shortest time or shortest distance. It also has options to avoid highways, tolls or even seasonally closed roads. Given the options to customize your trips based on all these options has huge advantages and can avoid getting you stuck behind a station wagon going 35mph for 35 miles. So despite AJAX being splattered all over the browser, Google Maps as of now cannot compete with the old, industrious MapQuest. At least when it comes to directions.

Here are the two different Maps for the Toronto to DC trip. Although Google Maps predicted an estimated 9 hour travel time, it turned out to be much more since the traffic on US219 and other US routes was miserably slow.

Google Maps Directions: 484 miles (about 9 hours 2 mins)

MapQuest Directions: 557 miles (about 9 hours 18 minutes)

They’re everywhere. Everyone has wires plugged into their ears where music blasts it’s way across the eardrums and into your brain, slowly stimulating and killing your being. Streetcars, buses, subways, streets are all packed with people walking around like drones paying close attention to what they’re hearing and ignoring everything else. In a world where only they exist, these drones walk along, nodding their heads, sometimes even whispering to themselves the words uttered in the ears by their masters. So many people and so many things are just ignored and simply blocked from their minds.

Music has always been a huge part of peoples lives and people listen to it for advice before they even hear their own parents out. Such is the influence of music on people; it changes their attitude, their beliefs and even their perspective on life. You begin to see life through the imaginative eyes of the musician, you start believing that their thoughts are your thoughts, that their ideas and philosophy are in line with yours, you identify with them and you feel at home. Rhyming sentences and a rhythmic beat touch a nerve in your heart and you feel at home with an idea or feeling that has become personal, giving meaning to an otherwise static feeling. People find salvation and inspiration in music but I say it destroys your ability to think correctly and develop an original character true to your core beliefs, whatever they may be. This is true especially if you rely on it as a crutch in your daily life, as do so many people.

The sounds that a person misses when he’s is travelling through the city with their ears plugged are many and each sound carries with itself something real and concrete. Whether it is the sound of a firetruck whizzing by or the sound of somebody’s steps as they step on the bus or a noisy store on the street, they are all real and need to be heard, accepted and thought about. It is sad that we are blocking out the sounds of the world from our lives in favor of something artificial and contrived.

For a week, and only a week, unplug your ears and open them up to the natural sound of the world. You will be glad you did. I’m speaking generally to those who make it a routine to plug their ears on a daily basis to go a week without it and listen to the sound of life. The human touch is missing from our lives as it is; we’re plugged in to an electronic device at all times. If it’s not the iPod, its television, if it’s not the television, it’s the computer, if it’s not the computer, it’s the cellphone. I too am guilty of spending excessive time with these devices but it needs to be said that something isn’t right.

Just YouTube Tony Snow and you’ll see what this guy has to go through on a daily basis. This guy’s job is to lie. That’s what he does for a living. He was hired because he is a great liar. His primary job is to be the administrations mouthpiece and cover up the many, many faults of the administration. Recently I saw Thank You for Smoking in which a lobbyist is trying to convince people that smoking isn’t that bad after all by muddying arguments against it and discrediting credible sources. In much the same manner, Tony Snow has to wake up and convert blatant lies into debatable items, cover up for other people, water-down legitimate grievances, discredit facts and keep a straight face while doing so.

When he tried to cover-up the fact that Dick Cheney referred to water-boarding in an interview, it was sad enough. A few weeks later when the Iraq Study Group Report came out, he accused a reporter for being partisan when he simply quoted the report. Having worked at Fox News prior to being appointed White House Press Secretary, he’s had the proper training in bending facts and creating an even wash where there’s a clear cut case. When the Iraq report came out, Tony Snow simply couldn’t handle the barrage of questions at the podium and finally asked reporters to give him some time to “parse the report” which really meant that he needed more time to find a way to illuminate the report so it would be more favorable to the administration.

If you asked Tony Snow something like, “Has the administration done anything wrong, ever?”, he’d have a hard time responding with a yes. If you’ve seen a White House press conference held by Tony Snow, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Being the White House Press Secretary has now become the sleaziest job in the world and Snow is doing a fine job.

Snow also reduced the Lamont/Loserman election to simply: Do you take the war on terror seriously or not? When he was asked about the US Presidential veto on stem cell research, his answer didn’t go beyond: The President thinks murder is wrong. I’m surprised the press actually attends the White House press briefings because they never get anything out of them. Every question is conveniently dodged and every inconvenient fact is brushed aside as if it didn’t matter or was constructed out of thin air. There is absolutely zero sense of honesty on the part of the person speaking on the podium and the entire briefing is more of a formality than a fact-finding mission which it is supposed to be.

I’m not sure what kind of person you need to be in order to wake up in the morning and know that today will consist entirely of you twisting the English language and splitting hairs until your bosses look good.

Here’s the “parse the report” press conference for your amusement:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VRJ7zOwbWE]