Ya know what's cool?

Ya know what's really friggin' awesome? Having more money in your savings account than you owe on your credit card, that's what! I'm leery, though. The government just deposited a ridiculously large sum of money in my account. I was expecting some, but about an eighth of what they gave me and I can't quite work out how they came to that amount. It's wonderful of course, but I'm afraid they're going to realize they made a mistake and demand it all back at an inopportune time.

Plop

Here's a blogpost, since I've been so spotty recently. I've spent nearly every waking moment today on the couch. I only got up to flush the toilet repeatedly (it's partially clogged and nothing has fixed it entirely), making myself some food and coffee, and taking the gross dog out to poop. The gross dog (my roommate's dog, not mine) has developed a sudden fear of grass and so instead of pooping on the lawn she's been depositing her crap on the sidewalk, the basement carpet and the office floor. I have to physically drag her onto the grass and stand there for twenty minutes until she gives up and drops a load. God I dislike that dog, and it pains me to say that about any canine. Oh and I broke up a cat fight, which surely embarrassed our boy Butters, but I can't let our kitty get stomped on! While sitting on the couch I did a bit of homework, so let it be known that I wasn't being completely lazy, just mostly immobile.

Moving and Stuff

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was stressed out and looking for a new apartment. No, nothing's gone wrong with my roommates; I love living in this house and think my friends are the best roommates I've ever had. It's just that my main downstairs counterparts have just found out that they're expecting a baby. Good news for them! But it means that there will be three adults (including me) living there full time, two kids part-time and a baby fulltime on the main floor. It's simply too much and since infants aren't quite capable of getting their own damn house, I'm going to make way.

It's come at a bad time for me financially, too. When I came back from Europe early, I spent that money I'd saved on some stuff that I'd wanted for awhile, thinking I would pay it back with money for school. But the first setback came when the people who give me school money informed me that I'd taken too many electives and thus couldn't be certified for the term. So that left until November for me to get a full paycheck. I then had to put the trip across the country on my card and with the other stuff already on there I accrued quite a bit of interest to pay back.

And now I need to have some money saved up to move into an apartment. Lovely.

On the bright side, it's been awhile since I've lived by myself and I'm kind of looking forward to it. Hopefully I can find a small place nearby so I can still visit my friends and use the basement for music making and recording.

Oh Come On!

The Timbers lost last night and while they didn't play very well at all, the other team, Austin, spent far too much time lying on the field with phantom injuries and taking all night for goal kicks and free kicks. The Austin goalkeeper was the biggest culprit with the timewasting and the idiot ref let him get away with it.

So this morning I wake up early and follow the English games online for a bit and then decide to go to the bar and watch the later match. I get there and once my eyes adjust to the dark interior, who should I see sitting a foot in front of me? The Austin goalkeeper and one of their forwards. How unfair is that, the perfect opportunity to tell a coupla cheats what I think of them and it's 9:00 in the morning and I'm totally unprepared! I settled with glaring at them and am pretty proud of myself for not bursting into laughter when at halftime one stood up and said he needed to walk, else he'd get a cramp. Yes, then he might have to spend twenty minutes lying on the floor and that'd be fairly embarrassing. I'm also consoled by the fact that the keeper has an absolutely awful haircut. It was a mullet AND a fauxhawk! You'd think someone would let their poor Euro teammates know that those styles are simply not done in America.

Sometimes I'm Mildly Productive

Give me a bit of time by myself and I will actually become productive (eventually). A lot of things have happened recently that were slowly adding up the stress and so this last holiday weekend I was looking forward to going to the lake and forgetting about things for a few days. However, it poured all weekend at the lake and the power was even knocked out Sunday night, so while everyone was cheerful, joking and we made a great time of it anyway, we were all crammed indoors and none of the floating on the air mattress or going for pleasantly slow boat rides in the evening that I had envisioned occurred. My parents, who I had caught a ride with, and I opted to cut out early and I accompanied them all the way back down to their house so as to actually get that break I'd been looking for.

This morning I woke up just after everyone left to the sound of someone drilling concrete or maybe there was a monster burping across the street. In any case, there was a strange sound happening seemingly right outside my window at far too early an hour for there to be such noise. Normally I would not be awake at 8am, beautiful morning or not, but I pulled myself out of bed then had to mediate a dog-cat fight.

There's a lot of floor space at my parent's house, one of the things I love about it, so I used my dad's weight set and worked out my shoulders and lats before hopping in the shower and giving my hair a serious conditioning. Then I lounged in the sunny room and read a National Geographic all the way through, slowly. After I put that down, the dog and I had a chase-the-ball-around-the-house game and I finished off the coffee. I caved eventually and brought out the laptop I'd been avoiding and while perusing the apartment listings I tried to convince myself that I really could fit into a studio and after a few minutes I actually wasn't morbidly depressed by craigslist. I even contemplated furniture!

It was about then I looked at the clock hoping that my mom's show (she watches some soap opera) had finished recording so I could flip channels and I realized that it hadn't even come on yet because it was only 11:20. There are many days that I don't even get up until then. So I made a deal with the dog that at noon we'd go for a walk to try and kill time while it was taping. Meanwhile I found a download for Weeds season 4, which I'd been itching to watch and got it set up. We walked, I made lunch, fixed some things on iTunes and found a new Top Gear episode on the tv. It's not even two.

Timbers live-ish!

So I was going to live blog the Timbers game, since it'll be the first time this year I've seen a Timbers game all the way through on television. It'd be no use recalling matches I've been to live. Every call against the Timbers is crap, no matter how far away from the action I am and the action in teh stands (recently there have been a lot of fights or at least shouting/slapping matches) often overshadows the rest of the game anyway.

But I got caught up trying to figure out why I couldn't get any sound from the guitar amp through my recorder and to my headphones monitor. I guess the phones jack is broken. Crap. Anyway, better late than never....




FULL TIME 0-0

Well, the Timbers have certainly played better, haven't they? They looked slow and even though they were running in at least an inch of water in places, so were the Battery and the Timbers were still slower. Who knows what would have happened if there hadn't been an iffy red in the first half.

In any case, the streak continues with 24 games unbeaten in league play. I'ma finish off this beer and go back to musical endeavors. What's next for the Timbers? Thirsty Thursday at home against Rochester and then away on the 7th in Austin. The next three games after that (11th, 13th, 17th) are all at PGE Park. If they manage to take first place - and they should! - they'll get a by-week the first round of the playoffs. Much to look forward to! Thank you, virtual crickets, and good night.

90:00+2 - Another corner for the Timbers. Hayes to take it. It's headed away, McManus loses it and the counterattack is only thwarted by One T.

90:00+1 - Pore kicks the ball off a defender from a corner. Great kick, but it gets cleared anyway. McManus gathers in midfield and launches it out of the park.

88:00 - Charleston player goes down in the box and appears to be injured or at least winded. Never a penalty though.

86:00 - Ohhh! Great play - one two passing in the middle, then out to the wing - but Forrest somehow misses. Finally some attacking threat.

85:00 - Will someone please score (from the Timbers) so that I can go back to fiddling with my broken electronics in the basement? This is dull and I'm a bit worried we're going to concede at the last moment due to playing for a draw even with a man up. Ooo, scary screaming woman is back.

83:00 - Portland given a freekick for a foul and someone on Charleston gets a yellow for.... I dunno, making a mean face at the ref or something. Nothing happens from the free kick.

81:00 - Kevin Forrest is on the field. I imagine he's the one who replaced Nimo. Farber is hauled down and the ref calls advantage..... for Charleston. Oh USL refereeing, how I won't miss you.

79:00 - Farber called for a foul when replays show he got the ball and the player jumped over him. "Ummm, maybe it touched his little finger or something," offers the commentator.

78:00 - Aside from some strange screaming sounds from a female member of the audience, not much is happening. Nimo just came off for somebody.

75:00 - Keita off, McLaughlin on. Hmm.

72:00 - Charleston are being allowed far too much possession and too many crosses for having only 10 players. C'mon Timbers, pick it up.

69:00 - Some Timber made a nice slow square pass right at the top of the box for Charleston's Yoshitaki to rocket into Portland's Stephen Keel. Dreadful pass there. Portland's lucky to get away with that. Again, I'd like a goal or two.

67:00 - The band is now playing that "nah n-n-n-nahhhh n-n-n-nah" song. Are they warming up for college football season? Are they always there? Why?

65:00 Ref calls a foul on Charleston that probably wasn't a foul and then places the Timbers freekick about thirty feet behind where the non-foul occurred.

62:00 - Charleston almost score, but thanks to last ditch defending by Keel they didn't. Poor clearance though and they have another opportunity to kick the ball into the stands. Or, whatever those tent things are behind the goal.

58:00 - Cronin catches the freekick, Portland plays keep away for two minutes. Whoa, is that a forward pass??? Whoa. I'd like to win, please. Ooo, Savage out for Rodrigo Lopez. Lopez as you may recall scored on a gorgeous dipping freekick against Burnley last month. Immediately Timbers almost score.

56:00 - Yellow card for Hayes. Charleston get a free kick in a dangerous area. Suzuki off, Farber on in his place.

51:00 - McManus shoots(?) and it nearly goes out for a throw-in. Yikes.

49:00 - Keita whiffs a shot, then Hayes trips over the ball. Let's settle down, ok?

47:00 - Good build up for Timbers, Pore just offside. More of that, please.

46:00 - And we're off again. This better be more exciting than part one.

HALFTIME RAMBLINGS

Whoa, they just showed the commentator. He's probably 20 years younger than I pictured.

FSC has, without a doubt, the worst commercials of any television network. It's all balding cures and penis enlargement quackery and how to reduce your credit/tax debt. The worst right now though is the long distance calling card ad with all the people from foreign countries with THE WORST fake accents ever. Like they couldn't find ONE woman actually from India for five seconds of monologue? Lord.

Ryan Pore is talking. Said something flattering about the fans. *Pats self on back*

So I'm drinking a 16oz can of Rolling Rock. Mmmm, "Premium Beer". Didja know they're selling six packs of these big cans at the beloved Grocery Outlet for five bucks? Speaking of cheap beer from PA, if anyone knows where I can get some Iron City in a bottle, please let me know.

HALFTIME

45 + 2 - Ball bounces around in the Portland box making Timbers fans at home (at least me) nervous. Nimo then finds Savage who does really well for such a long-range shot. Aaaand after three minutes of stoppage it's halftime.

45:00 - Charleston have a shot on target and given a corner. Timbers knock it behind for another corner. Into stoppage.

43: - Announcer just called Suzuki a "rangey" winger. Okeeee... Battery goalkeeper shown yellow for timewasting. I say that just isn't smart to waste time in the first half. Karma says you'll need those wasted minutes before the end of the match.

42:00 - Ugh. Nimo has his great moments, but he does have a tendency to do a great move, dribble down the pitch and then hoof the ball into the stands, which is exactly what he did a moment ago.

40:00 - Boring. As you can tell by me live blogging for the online crickets I'm pretty bored today and at this point in the match, the game isn't helping. Portland has a breakaway but Pore is offside. I'd feel a lot better if the Timbers could get a goal against the 10-man Battery before the half.

35:00 - Good spell there for the Timbers. Someone in the middle finds Suzuki on the left who wins a throw in the corner. It gets back to the middle and McManus tries a nice through pass that gets broken up. Pore has tried to beat five defenders at once several times this match. Maybe passing to the open man would be the better option.

32:00 - Charleston have moved into their own half allowing the Timbers to have more slow and steady possession. Pass pass pass, not a lot of shots for the Timbers.

30:00 - This game ain't gonna be pretty. Late tackles galore. Probably doesn't help that it apparently deluged right before kickoff. Lots of standing water on the field. I just heard Nimo's name, he must have started again.

Is it strange living in a time when the Timbers are given calls and not on the receiving end of phantom red cards and suspensions? And by phantom, I mean the cards and suspensions were real, just not so much the fouls that caused them.

RED CARD!!!

26:00 - Battery player who hit/headbutted Pore is sent off. Might not have been much there on either end. Hmmm. Of course it works out well for the Timbers.

24:00 - Pore challenges the ball by running at the keeper, Battery player takes exception and hits Pore in the eye.

20:00 - Timbers fans hold their collective breath as Keita goes down with an injury. He went into two challenges and seemed all right, but then went down a few steps later. Did he twist an ankle? He jog hops off the pitch and looks like he'll be back on in a minute. Whew.

18:00 - Charleston had a corner and didn't do anything with it. Portland attempted a counter attack and made it halfway down the field before giving it away. Lotsa bad passes and giveaways by both teams. It's different watching this after Champions League all week.

13:00 - Charleston has a shot on goal, Cronin collects it.

12:00 - Charleston has a marching band. From the sound of it, not a small one either and they've been playing all game. Bit too much possession by Charleston for my tastes. Dude with English accent is doing the play-by-play with no color commentator backup.

Good things about home

- Home grown tomatoes. How can they be so good and so so so much better than anything from a store? When I got home there were four big tomatoes ready to go, three past their due dates and no good, a couple to be ready soon and many more to come. The sungold, cherry tomato plant had gone crazy and there was a bucket's worth of the orange candy-like fruit. I ate two tuna sandwiches over the past couple days that each had an entire tomato. There were pretty much tomato and a bit of tuna and cheese between bread.

- Stars? Strangely, the stars are out tonight. I have to escort the roommate's stinky dog outside now, as she's too ill-behaved and stubborn to simply go out, pee and come back and she'll end up down the street or disappeared entirely for hours. It's not often one can see the stars in Portland, due to clouds, pollution and street lights everywhere. Usually, the sky is an eerie orange at night. But while presiding over dog's nightly pee-on-the-blueberries I spotted the Big Dipper. And right where it should be, off the handle of the Big D, was the North Star. There were even some other less famous visible stars scattered around the sky. Wish that happened more often.

- Doing nothing. I'd say that I was multitasking today, but I don't think that reading with tv on or downloading things on the computer can be called "tasks". Multilazing I guess.