Here I am, Back again

WHAT I'M LISTENING TO: A lot of Radiohead's "Karma Police". Great song.

WHAT I'M WATCHING: MLS, of course, and some Nixon stuff. A doc and the Stone film.

WHAT I'M READING: Finished "All the President's Men", almost done with "The Final Days", both by Woodward and Bernstein, both on Nixon, perhaps the most interesting President we've had in the 20th Century.


SO I've been gone for awhile. Been busy with life. Summertime is time to be outside with the boy, who loves to swim in his pool and loves to go to the park. Time for grilling, as I love to grill. Time for mowing, as I love to mow. But seeing as we haven't had more than five minutes of rain here in Northern Indiana since my birthday in April, the grass is dead. Yellow, dead. Oh, we've had days where the clouds were gray and you couldn't even see the sky beyond them. Yet it doesn't rain, or it pours for two minutes. It's sad really. I can't even bother using the sprinkler, because we'd have to run it 24 hours a day just to keep the dry grass green. Here's a few things on my plate:

I AM THE UNITED CURSE:
DC United has played half the season now. Not too bad, but they were predicted to be champs by many, and are not playing like champions. I think it's my fault. I don't believe in curses now, mind you, but this time I have to.

DC United right now has a record of 7 wins, 5 losses, and three ties for 24 points. However, in games where I watch them, they have 3 wins, four losses and 2 ties. So in games without me watching, they have 4 wins 1 loss and 1 tie. That's a huge difference, and I think it's my fault. If they do make it to MLS Cup in November at RFK, I may have to avoid watching just to help their cause.

GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD:
Number One Son is going to be three in just over two weeks. Boy Number Two is due in late October. My job decides to cut hours because corporate America can make more money that way. So now I'm looking for a part-time job. Until I get one, we have to rebudget. That meant that ole Dung Master had to call up DirecTV and cancel Setanta Sports and my sports package that brought me Fox Soccer Channel and GolTV. Still get my Direct Kick, as that was already paid for. It means less soccer for me. Not that it's the end of the world (the Euro leagues are off-season anyway), but I do wish to at least get FSC back in August, when the Premier League starts up.

So I'm off to find another job.

THE SCREENPLAY:
Kept me from here for awhile. I finished my first draft, and am now working on the final FINAL draft. Once that's done, I send it out and hope somebody buys it. Maybe, if I'm lucky, they can get Paris Hilton and Nick Lachey to star in it. Wouldn't that be grand?

THE DIRECT KICK CHALLENGE:
For all of you (i.e., nobody) who cares, here it is!

ABC-1
ESPN2-13
FSC-11
Direct Kick-39 (4th of July bunched up the numbers here)

So that's 39 games by midseason for $79, or $2.03 per game. Best bargain in sports, and still another half-season to go!

The MLS All-Star game is Thursday night at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado against Celtic of Scotland on ESPN2 live at 8:30 pm EST. Who cares? All-Star games suck, basically. I'm more excited about Beckham's arrival (nice Sports Illustrated cover, eh?) and the Superliga starting than some meaningless game against a pre-season club.

But of course I'll watch. Haven't missed one yet.

Be Seeing You.