if you want to say hello (or something less pleasant) get thee to the messageboard.

five questions from buhrger. if you didn't ask these of me, ask and you shall receive five from me, whereupon you post your answers with these instructions and perpetuate ad infinitem.


( answers )

tonight's soccer match was satisfying; a closer as joyful and electric as the opener.* those tickets were the best present i ever bought.

now, on to the playoffs.






*yes we won, it was fan appreciation night with a lot of joyful appreciating by the team, and C finally snapped and shouted down the guy behind us who yells at the ref every time we get carded (even when we deserve it). the guy shut up for the rest of the match. aaaaah.

(Sounders FC clinched a playoff spot tonight, but that is not what i'm here for.)

i found out tonight that there is a cute pop song about Kasey Keller. i went looking for it and found it on youtube, playing over video of the victory it chronicles.

but i wanted a better recording. and that's how i stumbled upon a photo slideshow of him at his old Bundesliga side, Borussia Mönchengladbach, set to a catchy tune - Cologne, Cologne, die scheiße vom Dom. *snicker*

the coda to the video is a clip of him leading the stadium in singing it. (Cologne is a rival, and yes, Keller speaks fluent German.)

sometimes i love the internet so much.

a pretty good Major League Soccer player (under the salary cap) has about the same salary as a Senior Technical Writer. MLS has had a lot of financial trouble over the years and does not have the kind of deep pockets as an organization that the NBA, NFL, or even NHL has.

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.

from mimerki

olive - green, my favorite shade of my favorite color. (i don't care much for the food.) i like to wear it; it brings out my eyes. (there was a while where this led to a penchant for military surplus.) i think perhaps also that it, like orange, doesn't get enough love from the world at large.

match - is that a game, or my complement, or a source of fire? i enjoy them all. equal or complement is the best - those are the sort of people who bring me great joy.

soccer - came with C, who started playing at age four. (i was pretty much incapable of sports other than swimming until adulthood, although i liked watching the back and forth ones like hockey and basketball.) i didn't get too interested until we watched the 1999 Women's World Cup, which was just freaking incredible. i was watching to support women's sports (which inevitably cause me to burst into happy tears at some point) but in the process got a bit interested in the game itself.

fast forward to 2007, when i got C the Best Giftmas Present Ever. i got two season tickets, because going to $sportingevent alone is sad, assuming that i would keep him company until he found a more enthusiastic soccer buddy. turns out that's me.

i'm bemused when i think on it. perhaps i enjoy it because it was unknown during my childhood and it's kind of a fringe thing in the States but big in the rest of the world. anyway, attending the games is huge fun - an electric atmosphere where most of the stadium stands the entire game. and i've gotten to the point where i know names and numbers and style of play. 29,000 people, yet it's still intimate enough that the players circuit the stadium at the end of the game to thank the fans. on Wednesday i found out that you can totally hear our section chanting "Allez Le Toux!" from the field, since he came right over and gave us a thumbs up. squee.

my younger self hates me a little for it. (while youngest self is all "i belong!") but i also feel like i have a window into the wider world of sports fandom and a better understanding of others' enthusiasm for their spectator sport of choice.

movies - movies were a big part of my life as a kid. there wasn't much tv to speak of since we got three and a half stations (one was intermittent) and cable would not arrive until just before my senior year. it was a 25 mile drive to the nearest theater, and my brothers went weekly. (tickets were $2. they could afford to go a lot). i got towed along more often than i probably deserved. once home video hit, we tried renting movies, but that was also 25 miles away, so we ended up joining Columbia House and building a library of about a thousand films on the old CED VideoDiscs. (i can still tell you the exact moment when it's time to flip over Raiders of the Lost Ark.)

anyway movies, my window into a larger world. these days i engage more in the SIFF binge than in a steady diet.

dessert - my favorite! i used to just love sugaaaaar, now i love a really well-made confection with an interesting combination of flavor and texture. doesn't need to be very large, or very sweet, but it is the proper end to a meal.

(Bianca doesn't seem to hibernate properly when Opera is running. but only sometimes. trying to isolate before i report a bug. grr.)

short day today due to the Sounders FC match. one film and a nice lunch with C, and then March to the Match and hopefully a righteous asskicking. i think i will take my camera again.

big crowd. never underestimate the draw of a Scandinavian language film in Seattle.

North is a slow burn, ultimately charming. a depressed Norwegian guy who is afraid to drive undertakes a journey northward via snowmobile. he meets people, stuff happens.

the picture in the previous post is my seat for the entire Sounders FC season. i am amused.

i put down a deposit on tickets two years ago, as a Yule gift for C. he started playing soccer when he was four years old, so he's...invested. IIRC he actually squee-ed when he opened the card. tickets plural because sending someone to a game alone is just sad. i wasn't sure if the extra ticket would always be for me, or just until he found a soccer buddy.

nope, it's my ticket. i'm looking forward to the next match.

too much stuff to cover tonight, but it's enough to say that the people in front of us were two dads and their daughters. lots of young women there, and a really diverse crowd. all that can be good about live sports without the boring or the knuckleheads. (i assume the knuckleheads part is because it's too much of a fringe thing in the US. i'm okay with that.) the hot chocolate vendor carries cans of whipped cream with him. they shot off a sparkle cannon for every goal. there's a band.

i should repeat that the game is not boring. since the play doesn't stop, you've got to keep your eye on the field. and soccer players are hot.

next time i will warm up beforehand. my throat is raw from the screaming.

ETA: sorry for the mystery - this is the plaque on my seat at Qwest field.

buh bye, Sonics. there's now no reason to keep you around.
the Storm can stay in Seattle.

C said "i can see the livejournal post now", so i feel obligated.

C has allowed me to trickle gifts to him the past few days, and i am grateful.

i handed him the certificate for this last night, and he did a little dance. there was also something akin to squeeing and a more-bonecrushing-than-usual hug. (if you have not met him, he is a taciturn man.)

i've done something with friends most nights this week. at work i've been running, with looming deadlines and weezlgrrrl on vacation. (the other nights? packing up C for GenCon and Tomb Raider: Anniversary.)

okay, i wasn't running on Wednesday afternoon, when we went to a Mariners game. in a suite. with sushi. it was my first trip to Safeco field (i'm kinda meh about baseball and C hates it, so it hasn't been a priority) and somehow i don't think all the seats in the stadium are upholstered in leather. i got to use a spare ticket and hang out with steve98052, watch baby M chew on an expensive smartphone, and listen to my grandboss sweetly tell the story of the rally fries. very nice.

then i spent the evening chez scarlettina.

Thursday, teeth. (filling took 90 minutes instead of an hour. Dr. S says: "difficult. decay went below the gum." side of my face was numb through the afternoon. bleah.) then work. then the hothouse with mimerki (much needed) and Annapurna. which has no signage facing across the street. so there was some extra walking.

today, freaking marathon. work was killer, but it was followed by a flawless bus trip to the U District for dinner with shadow_and_veil, divinityof_fire, and buhrger (!!!). food meh, conversation yay, pilgrimage to Mix yay (vanilla ice cream, coconut, nutmeg). continuing conversation yay, and i got to touch buhrger's calluses. i'm still up and writing because bottomless chai + ice cream = one alert and perky girl.

maybe i should go play some Tomb Raider.

i'm looking forward to SLGC's national anthem performance at a Storm game this year. i can't describe the experience of attending as anything other than sweet. as the fight continues over providing public subsidies for the Sonics, i keep wishing that the Storm weren't part of the Sonics package. i'd give up some tax dollars to keep moms and dads rubbing elbows peacefully with moms and moms, to keep kids seeing that it's okay for girls to play sports and for boys to dance, and to keep an actual team of freaking national champions around.

the new owners don't seem to see family values the way that i do.