football, football, football

I've watched a lot of soccer lately. I mean, a lot of soccer. Or football, if you prefer it. Saturday alone I watched Uruguay-South Korea on television, most of USA-Ghana on television, some of it on satellite radio, then watched DC-Columbus in person. Yesterday I watched the two matches, and along with much of the world, was utterly disgusted by the refereeing failures.

I know, more than most, that referees are not perfect. I did it myself for a few years, and while I won't pretend that preteens playing football on Saturday mornings on the rec field is comparable to the world's elite whizzing across the pitch in South Africa, I will say that it's quite easy to miss a play. That being said... these are the world's elite, and (theoretically, at least) the world's elite referees are who are invited to come. You simply expect better.

Of course, if we'd simply put an RFID chip in the ball, such as has been available for years and years, at least one of those controversies might have been avoided. Oh well.

With my United States out, I jump bandwagons, perhaps predictably, to Japan. Though the Dutch look nice, too. US soccer... I don't know. While our stated goal, before the tournament, was to make the knockout round, and in that respect it's mission accomplished, obviously we missed a golden opportunity. There's been a lot of talk about replacing the coach. I... don't know. I don't think it would be an improdent move. We might need another coach to take us to the next level... but what worries me more, frankly, is the future of our players. Where's our next Michael Bradley? Our next Landon Donovan? What really, really frightens me is that our youth system is still haphazard, and while our players have all the heart you could ask for, I don't see anyone on the horizon with the skill and talent that we need to make a serious run at the cup for 2014. I do wonder, slightly, if we might try refocusing our effords on the 2022 cup, which we're likely to host. A long way off, perhaps, but eh. I just feel that, having squandered a chance to make a run to the semifinals, we have to salvage something out of this.

if it's thursday, it must be jupiter

Inaugural post, and I throw in pictures. Because everyone likes pictures. Well, in this case it's only one picture, but it's still a nice one. Here I intend to ramble on about my various obsessions, opinions, passions, complaints, and such. Which is what most blogs are about, isn't it?

One of those obsessions is Sailor Moon. Another is Pixiv. Combine the two, and you get http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=7230313 and other such goodies. There's an incredible amount of art on pixiv. As with anything else, a good bit of it is junk, but in my opinion, less than might be found on, say, deviantart, which I avoid like the plague.

Sailor Jupiter? She's not even my favorite, but it's Thursday, and so it has to be Jupiter. I intend, at least for now, to pick something of the week--a song, a figurine, a picture, a sporting contest--and expound upon it at length. But, since it's late, I'll probably just cheat on that and attend to the real in depth stuff later. Well, I suppose I will point out that, as I looked through the artists, Jupiter is rather less popular than Venus. This does make a bit of sense; blondes have more fun, after all, and Sailor Venus, or Minako Aino if you prefer, is definitely a more compelling character than Makoto Kino, not least because she's batshit insane.

Still, to say that Minako is more interesting is not to shortchange Makoto. Honestly, all the girls interest me, which is why I continue to obsess over the series after so many years. Makoto has her own quirks, and perhaps in a future fanfic post I'll address this at greater length.