Barca Away (CL)

I sold my team for 2 packs of crips and a pint of porter. While I sat in my semi-air conditioned office building, shuffling papers for the good of those who can't afford an attorney but need representation. FOUR THOUSAND AND NINE MILES away, mas o menos, my beloved club dropped the ball against my other loved but not as much club.

In a perfect world, it would have been a final. I would have loved another Arseloba final. But no. 90 degree weather NO! Building management ceasing to realise the outside temperature is not suppose to equal the inside temperature NO!

So, I remember at one point in time, leaving my desk, absentmindedly walking out into the hall to check my phone for scores and messages, and getting this distinct sinking feeling.

It was as if I heard thousands of souls crying out in pain and then silence.

It was no moon.

The little green light danced at the top of my mobile. My comrade, A Certain Scouser, had been sending me various texts on the colour of Theo's boots and the statistics of Barca versus Arsenal completed passes. That was all I needed to know that it had all gone pear shape with no room for recovery.

I had to wait for my usual mid-week vehicle of ArsenalTV to take a good look at the highlights this morning. I dared not read an actual article of the foretold disaster that laid, well now behind me. My only real surprise about it, is the Arsenal scored first off of a really bad ball, all the way around.

I made mention to the actual tie on the Pub blog, found here. I honestly can't really think of much to say about it all. We got beat. We got beat well. We got beat honest.

ChelskiGirl sent me some condolences, to which I could only reply with indifference. I didn't expect much to happen. A miracle was needed. ACMilan also thought I'd be a bit more upset. I actually think it wrinkled him a bit that I wasn't.

I don't know. I have seen many highs and many lows to not really care when the expected result is concluded and... well... expected. The score line was not even a surprise. Let's just say, all of the goals were even underwhelming.

By the way, GET US OUT OF FUCKING SCUM WHITE!

I will not stand for this shit anymore. Seriously!

WE ARE THE FUCKING ARSENAL!

OK good news, now that I've let that out, mentioning clubs that play in white who are usually facist dictator loving narcissist. My Real loving cousin finally made it back from the Middle East. There is a nice video of him and his wing returning.

Hopefully I can get him out to some Crystal Palace games and World Cup ties this summer. We will see. We will see.

Oh and headline of the week, courtesy of the Guardian.
MANCHESTER UNITED CRASH OUT OF EUROPE

I swore it said crashed in Munich before. Oh wells, not going to grasp at too many straws to fit my own agenda.

And a little note to ACMilan, I will dig out the post where you said it was going to be an all English final. I will throw it in your face and say to you, I told you it was not going to happen.

Never doubt the great predictor! I got nine lives and a sixth sense.


~LeChat

Liverpool at Home

Once again the red tide of Scouse has been turned back during a mid-week fixture. As usual, yours truly could not avail himself to witness it at the pub, due to reasons beyond his control and for once, not concerning actually being at work.

Yes, that's right. SNOW BOUND, like a 19th century family trying to get through the Sierra Nevadas with only a few days rations and sick children. Something has got to give and if I have to resort to cannibalism, so be it.

ArsenalTV, however, gave me hope of watching, in shambled fashion, the match. It's sort of like watching a bad security tape or web-cam.

OH there's an image...there's another image...OH WAIT a couple of seconds of movement...

You can see what I am getting at. I do like the commentators though. They are a very insightful lot and the pre-show is kind of nice. They will run the highlights from a previous meeting, which is crystal clear and without all the jumpiness and buffering of the live broadcast. The thing that gets me is how clear the warm-ups are, then the whistle goes off and I'm left with what amounts to 1980's scrambled porn.

In other news, WOLVES bettered the Scum. I like Wolves, well real wolves, not too fond of Wolverhampton but they beat the Scum so that is satisfactory in my book. Mentioning wolves, I remember seeing this thing on Iberian wolves a couple years ago. I had a Siberian Husky at the time and for some reason, it was the only time that she was actually tricked into howling with the wolves on television. Funny thing that was.

Mentioning Iberia, it was one of the few airlines, up until recently that you were still allowed to smoke on. Now I am no smoker but I did find it interesting that it was one of the last holdouts, figuring since it was a Spanish airline and the Spaniards have a considerably different opinion on the issue of smoking in confined spaces.

MENTIONING the Spanish, brings me to this whole thing of not liking Franco or fascist too much in general. Actually, I have a down-right dislike of their sort and so do the Catalunyans.

MENTIONING CATALAN, there resides a little place there called BARCELONA, which houses a great and wonderful team in La Liga that goes by the name FC BARCELONA. Now I do have a fondness of said team, as they have had many dealings with the Arsenal in the past.

So in summation, I do not really care if Cesc leaves to go back to Barca. It is his prerogative. He's a man who has to do a job, just like everyone else. He's currently doing his job well and by all his personal claims, likes his employer. He just wants them to be suc-CESC-ful. Isn't that what we all want, well with differing degrees of who want to be successful?

I think I've said enough today. I need to go unstuck myself and my German machine. So for those in the area, be safe and stay warm.. for those in warmer climes...

FUCK OFF... haha!

~LeChat

Chelsea Away

Ah, once again stuck in the homestead because of another weekending snowstorm. I'll just keep it short, not to bore you with the details of my ordeals. Thank goodness for the ample supply of food, rum and cola that resides in my home.



Saturday started out as a white wash. I watched the Scousers play on ESPN while trying not to fall asleep. It wasn't the game, just me hibernating as much. Most of my day was filled looking for free movies on the internet and playing video games.

A few of the crew either gave a call or sent a text. Nothing too exciting. Of course, I decided it was better to sip on Brugal most of the day anyways. I had a cold, well the remnants of a cold from earlier in the week and was not feeling much for shoveling either.

As for Sunday, it ended up being much of the same. I started out the morning with a small bit of shoveling around the car, just so I could at least start it. For some reason, I didn't think about parking at the end of the 40 foot driveway, even if it would block in the neighbors.



I guess that is the bad thing about a shared drive, but it was eventually shoveled. After the debacle of Chelsea Arsenal. I had ArsenalTV to thank for broadcasting the audio. ACMilan also gave a call to give me a few updates. He had made the drive up from DC but he also didn't have a 40 foot drive to help with shoveling out.

I knew it was a lost cause and am kind of glad to be snowed in. Depression is so much better when you are alone. The only thing to hope is that the Arsenal will pull it through the rest of the season.

Now to look forward to the next big snow. A few more inches on Wednesday just to kick a supporter while he's down.

~LeChat

Hull at Home

This weekend I found myself stuck in quite a bit of snow. I would like to say it was about 12 inches on the ground before I even ventured out but I wouldn't be exactly truthful, as I didn't measure. I spent half the morning trying to order the game package from local cable company, to no avail.

Everyone was probably doubling up on some channels at the same time and I'm impatient when it comes to myself buying stuff. If I'm ready to buy, give me service and give it to me now. Otherwise, I am just window shopping so don't bother me.

I got a few messages from A Certain Scouser inquiring why I wasn't at the pub. My answer, of course was along the lines of, "Do you see all that snow on the ground?"

That went back and forth for a few moments, but basically I was stuck. One bad thing about living just outside the city, no way to get to the city. I could have tried to find a bus running or called a cab but it's not worth it. Most people in the general area don't know or simply can't understand the concept of driving in weather; snow, rain, fog, or otherwise. I'd rather take my chances on my own and decided it would better be spent doing fuck all.

Anyways, DJM told me to order by remote on my cable box. ALSO, to no avail... about this time I was purely frustrated with my local cable monopoly. I hopped onto Arsenal.com and forked over a few quid for ArsenalTV.

Have you ever felt like a junkie, needing to get your fix somehow? I even endured the early game on ESPN2 with Mr. ONION BAG Smyth. Now I was dropping my hard earned bucks on the choppy picture from Arsenal.com. It was like watching a slideshow with audio commentary, except with no "oops I didn't mean to snap a picture of that woman's bikini clad bottom" pictures.

By the way, some "Stephen Hunt" fan decided to take the piss out of me on my mobile as well. I still can't figure out who it is. I wish they would step forward before I start prank calling them from various other phones. So in short, Mr. or Ms. Stephen Hunt fan, HA fucking HA!

or as ChelskiGirl put it, "Hunt's a dirty cunt."

SUNDAY

Much of the same, absolutely nothing. I spent the good portion of the morning digging out from the 20 odd inches of snow in my backyard, plus the 50 foot of driveway. This is the one time I miss living in the condo, well this and the cats but that's a different story.

Luckily my RealMadrid loving cousin came out to assist and we ended up with a 3 man shovel brigade with the one kid up the street. I still owe that kid a couple of bucks, he worked like a "insert whatever cultural stereotype you would like" trying to "insert whatever direct object you think that above said stereotype would work very hard for or against."

Am I being PC? Not at all, just I have to many I can throw out there and I want to make sure I offend everyone equally. I have a long list of things but it doesn't matter. They are all bad.

ACMilan gives me a call about going stir crazy and that he was thinking of heading up to the pub. I let him know that I was worn out from all the shoveling, that being two long ass driveways and a couple of cars. At first, I thought I would make it out but my body hit the bed and the next thing I know it was once again dark outside.

I do love the snow, but I do love football in the pub, with my mates, much better.

~LeChat