remember me?

I bring you pictures of Carlos Bocanegra's time with his new French team because that's all I can understand. And really, when it's Carlos Bocanegra do you need anything besides pictures? Not so much! These were taken over the past few days at training (duh). In the preview to the set of pictures they pointed out that the American flag was there for our boy Los. Don't you love it?

In actual game news, according to the info I translated using Babel Fish (does anyone have any other suggestions?) Carlos wasn't qualified (that's the word they used) to play in Rennais' last Intertoto Cup game, a penalty kick win against SC Tavriya Simferopol on the 26th. This win allowed Rennais to go on to the next round. I tried to find some info on their opponents but I didn't see any info. Maybe if I dedicated some time to it instead of throwing a post together while wearing a towel because I just got out of the shower, I might be able to deliver some info. Anyways, does anyone know how you're not qualified to play a game after playing 60 mins of the last one? Did he get a yellow card suspension that quick? If anyone would do it that fast it would be Carlos.

But that's all I have to offer you on the Carlos Bocanegra front. Rennais' Ligue 1 season starts Saturday August 9th against Olympique de Marseille. I'll try to catch it on the internet but I make no promises.

Time out: I found out some more info on the Intertoto Cup. It's amazing what you find when you click random links on the Stade Rennais home page (where I got all of these amazing pictures from). Apparently, they have been drawn to take on Stabæk IF of Norway. The first game is August 14 in Norway and the return game in France is August 28th. If they pass this round they will officially be in the wannabe Champions League aka UEFA Cup. That would be pretty sweet for Carlos and might actually make his move to France worthwhile as I don't think Fulham's qualifying for any tournaments anytime soon. Maybe that Carlos thought ahead? No, I'm betting someone did that for him.

australian gold

So that might not be totally legal there, Drew, but I understand. How the heck else are you going to handle Yao. Australia played China yesterday? this morning? this evening? (this time difference is going to really do a number on me) and won! Good for the Australian team! I don't really know what their chances are in this Olympics but Andrew doesn't want you to count them out. They play the United States team next week which will obviously be a good game to measure themselves. The last time they played the US team in the World Championships, Andrew stole the show for the first five minutes and then the US team woke up and it was all over. I hate watching shut outs but what are you going to do. Andrew's a better player now and hopefully a better leader so I'm looking for the team to do well. I just hope he doesn't come back to Milwaukee totally disappointed because I'm looking forward to this coming up season for the Bucks and he needs to play a big part of getting this team to the playoffs again!

And because you can't have enough Andrew in your life, here's a video where Andrew says the sport he would most like to watch while in Bejing would be soccer. A man after my own heart.

my trash is better than your trash

The Boyfriend and I had a discussion on Monday about the Cubs/Brewers matchups. For those not from Milwaukee or Chicago, these games are a pretty big deal even when they're not battling each other for first place. Chicago fans won't want to admit it, but they do take these series a bit seriously otherwise they wouldn't make the trip up to The Good Land every chance they get to watch one of the games. The Boyfriend is a Cubs fan and was saying that he'd rather go down to Wrigley Field to watch the game because people are better behaved down there. I pointed out that as a Cubs fans, he probably doesn't notice all the douchebag behavior because he's not under fire from anyone. He didn't agree. All around the fans are douchebags when it comes to these games. I remember one game up here when two guys were getting into it in the cheap seats(I try not to pay a lot for baseball tickets) and a White Sox fan had to get up in front of everyone and tell them to shut up because neither of their teams were close to being World Champions and pointed to his couple year old White Sox World Series t-shirt. It was pretty funny and I had to give it to the guy for putting himself out there to cut the tension like that. Everyone gets all drunk and starts picking fights with anyone that moves that's not wearing their shade of blue. Zach pointed out that the Cub fans usually leave the women out of it and I reminded him of the time he was in the bathroom at the McDonald's near Wrigley and I was standing around by myself waiting for him and some dude started to give me crap. Not like good natured ribbing, which is to be expected if you're wearing the other teams jersey, but shit talking. When I told The Boyfriend about this when he got out of the bathroom he asked what I expected wearing a Brewers jersey down there. The Boyfriend had no recollection on Monday of this when we were having this discussion, of course.

These games bring out the trash from both cities and make the games less enjoyable. Yesterday's game actually would have been a baseball game I would have watched. Zambrano against Sheets. Thankfully tickets cost an arm and a leg and I didn't go because it was just more of the same last night. This is kind of a perfect story, except for the women getting knocked out by the Cubs fans for trying to break up the fight, because it just proves my point. There aren't any better fans in this series. They all get drunk and get stupid and I don't want to hear anyone, including The Boyfriend, try to stick up for their team. See, I hate baseball so I don't really care about either of the teams. Brewer fans kind of annoy me, but I always think I should go for the hometown team. On the other hand, Cubs stuff is always so cute. I usually am the antagonist and wear whatever is going to cause a stir with the people I'm with.

And no, Ryan Braun didn't really have anything to do with this story but couldn't you just lick him?