Chelsea 1 - Man United 1.

After losing to lowly Sunderland in the League Cup on December 17, 2013, frustrated Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho made his often repeated boast that winning a match 1-0 was the easiest thing to do in football.

“If I want to win 1-0 I think I can as I think it is one of the easiest things in football. It is not so difficult.”

Oh, but it is.  

The comment was made in frustration, but is an apt summary of a favorite tactic of "the special one", especially in playing in major matches away from home.  It also makes being a Chelsea supporter an extremely stressful proposition.  

Today was a case in point.  Chelsea are playing away to Manchester United.  It was s a good game - Chelsea are soaking up pressure to a certain extent and attacking when it suits them, and Manchester United are doing most of the pressing and probing of a Chelsea defense that is for the most part about as impenetrable as the Death Star defenses;  and when one Man United player does successfully skim down the trench and find himself with a chance to hit home the lanky Thiboult Courtois is there to sweep up the pieces.  

Early in the second half Chelsea Legend Didier Drogba scores on a corner kick by swatting his walker at the ball as it flies by (that really isn't fair - it was actually a good near post header that was owed probably mostly to his long experience as a center forward.  Still - I was amazed he lasted all 90 minutes).  This was moments after Eden Hazard was in on goal and managed to shoot it right at United's keeper.  Chelsea seem to be running rampant for a moment, smelling blood.  

But Man U rally a bit and as Jon Obi Mikel starts to warm up on the sidelines I feel my heart tighten with fear.  Mikel goes in for Oscar, it's a defensive midfielder for an offensive one, and it signals that Chelsea are going to try to get out with 3 points on the goal of their geriatric striker rather than press for the all important second goal.  

Far be it for me to second guess The Great Jose.  If anyone can protect a one goal lead Chelsea can, seeing as they have 15 feet tall Courtois in goal and the ever faithful yet arrogant John Terry leading the backline. Mourinho may be "playing the percentages", thinking that if his team press for the 2nd goal they are more likely to give a goal up to United then they are just sitting back and playing to their strengths, especially with ol' Drogba playing up forward.  And it is true that a draw on the road is maybe not a bad result, though Chelsea have the quality to be unhappy without taking home a win.  

But in the back of my mind I felt that Manchester United, slow start though they have, still have the quality to somehow score one goal, even against Chelsea.  For the final 20 minutes my heart rises into my throat with every United attack, every free kick, every corner kick.  And just as I start to relax as the game finally goes into stoppage time, just as they are about to wrap up the win and go home with three points, the utterly thinkable happens:  Ivanovic fouls Di Maria (for which he was sent off, unfairly in my mind), which sets up a last ditch effort free kick.  

Past free kicks have been poor - either too low and easily dealt with by Chelsea's defense or so high that Courtois (who is like 28 feet tall) can just pluck them out of the air.  But not this time.  The kick is far enough off the line that Courtois must stay in goal, and Fellani has a header on goal.  Courtois makes an excellent first save but the rebound falls to Robben van Persie who slams it into the goal so hard I fear the net might rip off.  He pulls a Brandi Chastain in celebration, which his no-nonsense dutch manager (who I am starting to dislike greatly) later chastened him for.

I swear - "Dammit!" being my word of choice today, which all things considered is fairly conservative and decently tasteful selection - and slam my fist into the ground.  This hurts, a lot, and it reminds me that football is just a game, not to be taken too seriously.  I just do hope that the dropped  points don't come back to haunt my beloved blues.  

FYI - in pulling images for the blog I did a Google image search of Jose Mourinho.  Delightful!  If you want to see a study of facial expressions ranging from sheer to joy to bored derision, you can do no better.  

     

Surely Ed Gillespie Realizes That Only Donuts Can Buy My Vote

Listen.  Do you smell something?

It smells like crumpled suits and shiny shoes.  Hair gel and soap from the Hampton Inn.  A hint of aftershave. An odd aroma off gum covering the breakfast of coffee and campaign trail biscuits, and...what's that?  A whiff of tobacco, the cigarette quietly smoked outside the campaign bus in the predawn gloom while the press isn't watching, just to kind of take the edge off?

It must be a politician on campaign, arriving at the shipyard to press some palms and remind us to vote for him to be our Champion, lest the government decide that everything is groovy and we don't need a Navy anymore.

I've seen a number of state politicians grace the 46th street gate, but today it was none other than Mr. Ed Gillespie, Virginia's republican candidate for US Senator, going up against Mark Warner.

He shook my hand, asked for my vote, to which I said "okay" though I don't intend to vote for him, but then I stopped and asked him a question:  "What are you going to do about global warming"?

It was a question in honor of my Dad, who for a time would always answer those political questionnaires congressmen and women use to stay in touch with the constituents with a single query:  "What are you going to do about global warming"?  No one has ever answered him.

So it was Ed Gillespie's turn.  To his immense credit he stood there and actually answered the question, answered it honestly.  He recited a list of facts about how the US has worked very hard to lower emissions and make industry cleaner, but then said he wouldn't shut down our coal fired power plants if China was going to continue to build their own coal plants.

It's a valid stance to take from an economic perspective, but I don't agree with him.  I believe that global warming is real, and while I understand there are natural shifts in global temperature I have to believe that human activity is a contributing factor, though the question is to what extent.  I just think there are too many of us, we use too many resources, we spew too much shit into the air.  I believe at a certain point the Earth's ecosystems are not robust enough to handle it.  What is hard to guess at is the actual impact that global warming will have, how dire it will actually be.  I fear we are going to find out in the not too distant future, a future we have probably missed our chance as a global community to change.  Now we deal with the consequences.

Fun, yeah?

Anyway, so there is your answer Dad.  The answer is: not much.

But I didn't tell Ed any of this.  I knew he wanted to get back to greeting shipyard workers so I wished him luck, shook his hand again, and let him be.

And I left thinking:  "I kind of like that guy."

Contrast that with Mark Warner, and this horrible add which aired during Virginia Tech's debacle against Miami on Thursday night.

There are three things about this add that just make my insides writhe like a Slytherin Snake:

First, there is the statement that Frank Beamer said getting into the ACC was the best thing that ever happened to Tech, and Bruce Smith's confident assertion that coach is always right.

No!  No no no no NO! Tech rose to prominence in the Big East, and their early domination of the ACC was a function of their rise to national fame which happened in a different conference.  Since joining the ACC I would argue that the Hokies have been in a very slow decline, and now we've settled into the miasma of mediocrity that most ACC football teams demonstrate week in and week out.

Beamer is always right?  No!  As the team has fallen apart over the last two years the best that Frank can do is make twisted faces of utter disbelief on the sideline.  "How can we playing this poorly"? they seem to ask.  I don't know Frank, you are the coach, how can they?  Great guy and we owe a lot to him, but after this season he should be encouraged to retire so that he can go open a few more restaurants or write that romance novel that has been rattling around in his head for the past few years.  All things must end, and I hope that Thursday night was the death knell of Frank Beamer's tenure.  Let us move on.  

Third (and most important):  Why do I care if Mark Warner was instrumental in getting Tech into the ACC?  Even if I thought it was the right thing to do (which I didn't) and it had all turned out swimmingly, what does that matter?  Sure, it is something a governor should maybe do, if he can, but is that really the feather in the cap?  With endless war in the middle east, with Ebola sowing West Africa with death, with income disparity increasing, with the country's social fabric stretching and tearing, with the nation's finances in ruins, what does it matter if Tech got into the ACC or not?  Should we really be voting for any politician because he helped some football team change conferences?  That doesn't buy my allegiance, Mr. Warner.  A box of a dozen Krispy Kremes would, but that does not.

And I stopped watching the add thinking:  "I kind of don't like that guy".

Well.  I am still voting for Mark Warner, even though his stock has gone down in my book by a lot.  It's more because I don't agree with Ed Gillespie's policies and economics that anything else, and Mark Warner's alternatives are things I tend to agree more with.  That is a good reason to cast a ballot for or against a candidate, rather than some damned old football team.

On Approaching 10,000 Views

As of starting this post I am about 60 page views away from hitting 10,000 page views on the blog.  I'd like to especially thank my parents, my friends, my wife, and various Chinese and Russian organized crime syndicates for helping me reach this point.  I'd also like to thank my main man Bruno Mars, who is responsible for over 400 page views on this blog alone (that's a rather swarthy 4%).

10,000 sounds like a lot, but it really isn't.  I have 169 published posts, and currently I appear to average about 59 views per post.  Decent bloggers, I know, average at least.....3 times that many?  Maybe?

At any rate, clearly the blog hasn't gained much traction, which is probably because, to this day, it really doesn't stand for much of anything.  It isn't about anything.  With a few rather startling examples there is little sense of moral outrage, there is little self-righteous indignation, there is not a lot for people to agree or disagree with, nothing to love or to hate.  It just kind of is this goofy, zany, long-winded, infrequent, crappy thing.

I've been wondering recently how long it can go on, honestly.  All things, after all, must come to an end.

But I don't think it's time yet.  It all feels a bit unfinished, to end it all now.  Making these little posts stokes the illusion that there is a writer rattling around somewhere in my engineer's exterior, and I don't feel that it's time to snuff out that illusion just yet.

So I write on.  Let's give it another 10,000, yeah?