Speaking of MLS, we've been inspired by the show The League to make a fantasy MLS league. It's driving us all mad. I have teams going on two different websites. My team is absolutely beautiful on one website, but the one that counts isn't quite right. It's driving me nuts.

The MLS season is just around the corner....

Saturday can't come soon enough.

Got back a couple of days ago from one of those SoCal weekends where I got to see some people and relive the relaxing and carefree days of undergrad life. Kind of. Also, we got in a fight with the staff at a restaurant in Diamond Jamboree.

Can't believe the week is almost over. Nor can I believe that the last of the teams that I've been rooting for has been eliminated from the World Cup. Germany put up a good run. It's too bad Paul the Octopus sealed their fate. Also, they probably should have not been sleeping during their match with a surprisingly strong Spain. I guess I'm wearing orange on Sunday to root for the team that I have distant blood ties to. Also, they played a lot better than Spain overall.

MPRE is fast approaching. Might want to start studying for that on my BART rides to/from the city instead of playing Pokemon. Don't want to have to take it more than once. And I should also get around to finishing grading those competition entries. Such a bother. Deadline is fast approaching though. Crazy.

Other random tidbit of today, I actually bought music today. Hasn't been happening much this summer (especially compared to last summer). I got The Like's new album. I like it a lot more than their first. It's super 60s poppy and very catchy. It was between that and the Blitzen Trapper album, which I will get around to buying eventually. I think the only reason I chose The Like is because I've had Release Me stuck in my head for the last few days.

Anyway, it's getting late. Probably time for bed.

Just saw Inter win the Champion's League final. 2-0, both scored by Milito. It was pretty awesome and led to a rare series of tweets from me about sports. Weird, I know.

Anyway, this Nike commercial was one of the highlights.

19 days until the World Cup!

On Saturday, we decided to see the first Earthquakes game of this season. They were playing Real Salt Lake who are the defending MLS champions. We knew it wouldn't end well, but we also want to support MLS soccer...so yeah.

Chris made us go there very early. They'd been announcing on the radio that they were giving away jersey style shirts to the first five thousand people. Somehow that meant we needed to be there an hour and a half early. We got our shirts. On the other hand, so did people who were trickling in 30 minutes late. Oh well. Gave us some time out in the sun.

See these nice seats we had? Didn't last long. Will explain in a bit.

We were also there early enough to watch them stretch. Always fun I suppose.

We also had these great third row seats for the first half of a game. They were really good. At some point in the beginning of the game, one of the Real Salt Lake players flipped over that white guard rail like right in front of us. It was AWESOME.

You see? Earthquakes player is arguing with the Ref. Trying to card him. He got red carded later in the game. Sadness.

Which brings me to another point. One of the reasons that I love soccer is that I LOVE to watch the dramatics they put on to get their opponents carded. It's absolutely delightful.

Anyway, so we had these great seats. Then this family came and said we were in their seats. Chris squabbled with them over the tickets for a while until one of the kids pointed out that we were in the wrong section. I don't know. I wasn't in charge of finding the seats. I was too busy looking for free swag. I guess this was a bit of karma though. The night before Umma made me James and Mia go watch Mitty's production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (kind of awkward considering Mia's the only one who went there...three years ago). When we got there, some girl was sitting in Mia's seat and we fought her for the seat.

So we had to move up to higher seats. In all honesty it wasn't that big of a deal (except for the fact that we had a lot less leg room). We were at a higher location so we could see more of the field. Thus, we were still happy. (Except for James. He sulked for most of the game).

In the end, the Earthquakes lost 0-3. It was depressing, but this frustration is really only part of the true soccer experience.

Assuming we're both in the area over the summer, Chris and I hope to go to more of the games. We're kind of planning around watching some of the better MLS teams play, so I think we're in for a lot more depressing games from an Earthquakes fan perspective.

We went to Eduardos afterwards for dinner. Meant we missed out on Earth Hour. Oh well. Next year.

Before I start my post officially, I'd just like to point out how angsty and emo my little brother is. Here is my little brother the last few times I've taken him places:



This was at Bastille Day.



This was at the Inter game.

I have a series more of them. This should be a new feature on the blog. Angsty James pics. I'm sure this is going to be a regular feature on the up and coming Korea blog. (Still deciding whether I want to resurrect the old one or make a new one, by the way.)

Anyway, I wanted to post some pics from the Inter game. Oppa, James, Uncle Brian, Chabba and I went to Stanford Stadium to see Inter Milan play Club America last Sunday. They're touring as part of the World Football Challenge or something like that. I don't know. Mia, Chris, and Kristina saw Inter lose to Chelsea the other day at the Rose Bowl. Milan got their butts handed to them in a game against Club America yesterday too, I think.



Anyway, I assumed that Club America would be some US team. Figured people wouldn't be that into it. Was wrong. Apparently it was a Mexican team. Being that we are in the great state of California, this meant that the Inter Milan fans there were greatly outnumbered by the Club America fans. It was slightly scary, but it also made the game a little more entertaining. Nothing about soccer will frighten me as much as being in Germany for a German game did. Few things in life, actually, are as scary as that was.

Anyway, we got there a little before the game started. Early enough to watch the team members warm up. Also early enough to put on our war paint. Being that it was very hot that day (way hotter than it was today when I was FREEZING at Music in the Park), the face paint had pretty much melted by the time we got there. This gave us a unique challenge.











The game was a lot of fun to watch. I decided about a year ago that I wanted to get into soccer. Part of this came from being in Europe at the time of the European Cup. Ask me why this didn't happen when I was in Italy when they won the World Cup. Seriously, ask me. I won't have an answer. Anyway, I also figure that I need to follow some sport. Why not choose the sport everyone else in the world loves? Anyway, this was a fun start. I don't really know too many soccer players other than the really big ones and a hand full of players on the Italian national team, so I wasn't sure what to expect.



Let's see.

I got a weird picture of Matrix (as Oppa insists I refer to him because I wore his jersey and all).



I got pictures of various players rolling around on the ground in pain.






Oppa says that Balotelli's supposed to be the new hope for the Italian team. I wasn't seeing it today (or at the Chelsea game for that matter), but I hope that this is just because it's pre-season.







I got to see Ibra in one of his last games wearing an Inter jersey. Even though he wasn't really into it, he totally danced circles around the other players.








I got a cool shot of Cordoba after he scored the goal for Inter.



My snotty uncle figured Inter'd lose. They did. It was sad. It was close though. Ended with 1-1 and then Inter lost during the penalty kicks when Viera missed the goal.



It was a fun game though all in all. Glad I set this up. After the game, we decided to get something eat. Seeing as we wanted to escape the gloating Club America fans, we ate at Chevy's.

I'll post the last of the pictures that I liked from the game.

















That's about it. Next, I'll be posting my Miggs post.

Oh yeah, throughout the game I also tried multiple times to text to win a free Inter Milan jersey. I didn't win. I'd be a lot happier if I had.

I was supposed to do some more serious research on firms tonight, but I watched Inter lose to Chelsea tonight instead. TV's not working in this room and this happened to be one of the few nights that I decided to leave my laptop in the office, soooo I couldn't get anything done really while I was streaming the game.

Instead, I'm going to blog. Meant to talk about the weekend my cousins were here. Tyler and Becca got here on Friday. We took them to get yogurt and Pizza My Heart (they have pretty cool new shirts there by the way).

I spent Saturday morning at the Immigration Clinic in Japantown. Good time to be there, too, apparently. They were holding the Odom Festival there. We had lunch there. A lot of good food. We went straight from Japantown to Great America. The last time I was at Great America, this so-called "Flight Deck" was still called Top Gun. You might remember this time. We didn't ride it anyway. Not because of the long lines, but because we had our little cousins with us. Speaking of which, it was not crowded there at all, which is something I did not expect to see on a Saturday during the summer. Dumb economy. Kind of. We actually got quite a few rides in even with our long stop in the games section where everyone spent way more than the $3 I said they could spend on games. Good times. My favorite part of Great America is the little boat racing thing in the children's section. I was delighted to find that it was still there. There's also this new-ish Survivor-themed ride that looked interesting. Probably would have gone on it if we weren't with little kids. Next time maybe. If there is a next time. Disneyland >>>>> Great America any day.

Sunday, we went up to Rohnert Park to help Uncle Brian look for a new place. It was a slightly productive day. We took Bruce with us. There was a lot of traffic on the way back. Stopped by Chabba's house and looked at his India pictures. Then we went to the movies. Umma to the Proposal; Halmony, Tyler and Becca to Transformers 2, and James, and I went to Public Enemies. I really liked the movie. You can't go wrong with a movie starring Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and Marion Cottliard. If you do, you should be given some sort of award for failing at life.

On Monday, it was back to work. I don't remember much of what we did that day, but I do know that we were sad to find out that the San Quentin tour we were supposed to go on was canceled due to a swine flu break out. Lame. After work, we went on a quick walk and then took Grandpa out to dinner for his birthday.

Tuesday was the first of the three days went spent at court in Palo Alto watching a trial. We watched jury selection, which is a pretty fascinating process to watch. After work I raced through traffic to get back home, sat down for like ten minutes, and then turned around to take James and the cousins out to Santana Row's Bastille Day circus. It was kind of a cute celebration put on by Left Bank.

It was actually a lot more fun and well done than I might have thought it was going to be. There was dancing, and body contortions and beat box juggling (which is pretty much as awesome as it sounds). They pretty much used like 3 French songs and the Moulin Rouge soundtrack though. I don't know how legit that is, but I like the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, so it shouldn't matter.





Oh and there was a guy spinning a cube around with his body. That was kind of amazing.

(this scene does not translate well as a photo, but I have to give you something to visualize the sheer awesomeness of the moment)

After the performance, we got more Pizza My Heart and yogurt, and then went home. They left the next morning. It was a fun, but busy weekend, for sure. I would post about this past weekend, but my eyes are about to fall out of my brain, so I should probably going to sleep.