I just can’t accept that any more than I can accept because The Hobbit.<\/li>
<\/ul>SO I don't know if Bill said this or how he responded at all, but the argument can't and shouldn't be "bible" vs "radioactive dating" or "bible" vs "fossil record". We can debate the reliability of our scientific data and methods and results. But there is no reasonable way to frame the debate such that the bible is presented as the alternative. The debate really is, and has to be, just "religion vs science." Or, to put it slightly differently, "religion vs observation." To gain understanding of the world around us, do we rely on our observations of the natural world, made to the best of our ability, or do we rely on faith?
And we can't rely on faith. I mean, honestly, the whole debate is pointless, because we can't use religious beliefs as the foundation of education in any public school. The United States of America cannot, in any public institution, rely on faith as a source of information about the world. If American citizens are to be truly free to practice their religions, they should be able to attend public school without being taught the beliefs of another religion. (ie you don't even need to delve into the muddier waters of the Establishment Clause, because teaching religion in public schools violates the Free Exercise Clause. A place where religious beliefs are taught is a religious service, and Americans should be free to go to public school without being forced to attend a religious service.)
And if we cannot use faith as the basis of our understanding of the natural world, then we must use observation - even when observation is in conflict with religion. If someone thinks we shouldn't be using observation of the natural world to draw conclusions about it, then that is what they need to say. Not "don't use carbon dating," not "we don't know how accurate the information the mars rover provides is" (idk if that's something people say), not "we can't trust the fossil record.
Because that's the thing about science: it doesn't need to be incontrovertibly true. That's actually the most important part of learning about science. Yes, it's great to get some basic understanding of how the world around us works, and yes, a small number of the kids will go onto further study where the information will be useful. But learning to question things and study them and base conclusions from that study is so important. And it's not like science pretends like nothing will ever correct its current understanding? Pointing out that scientific positions have changed doesn't weaken the idea that science is the appropriate source of knowledge about the universe.
So there's no point in saying that this or that widely-accepted scientific position might be wrong. It doesn't change the fact that observation is the best and only method from which to draw conclusions about the natural world that can be used to teach public school. If you think conclusions about creation and evolution are wrong, then you need to be able to demonstrate that using observation. Or you need to argue that observation - in general, not specific types - is not the correct method with which to gain an understanding about these subjects. If you think specific types of observation lead to faulty conclusions, that can certainly be argued, but in no way does that lead to religion or religious texts becoming an acceptable source of knowledge.
It doesn't matter how wrong you think evolution is - hell, it doesn't matter if evolution is<\/i> wrong!! The replacement of these theories, methods, or conclusions is not, and cannot be the Bible, which is a religious text and provides no evidence for its veracity beyond its mere existence.
And if you think\/say the Bible can be used in concert with observed evidence to support conclusions that are radically different from those accepted by the scientific mainstream, then you are probably lacking thorough scientific understanding of the evidence yourself, and\/or taking advantage of the lack of understanding of your audience.<\/a>
The Islanders won while I was writing this!! Now I need to figure out if I take a shower tonight or just go to bed... I need to stock up on sleep because I'm going to see \"A Gentlemen's Guide to Love and Murder\" on Broadway during the opening ceremonies this Friday (or rather, during NBC's broadcast thereof) and am considering just watching the rebroadcast at 1AM. >______> One of the rare times when I kind of need a DVR."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:349395","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/349395.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=349395"}}],"title":"guingel @ 2013-11-20T14:49:00","published":"2013-11-20T19:45:32Z","updated":"2013-11-20T19:54:41Z","content":"so a call was put out for internet hugs for
![](\"https:\/\/l-stat.livejournal.net\/img\/userinfo_v8.png?v=17080&v=915\")
<\/a>shana0809<\/b><\/a><\/span> and I was going to send her a couple pictures of cute athletic spaniards, but hahahahaha "a couple" and long story short here's a picspam.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/1593592\/1593592_original.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/1038902\/1038902_original.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2133620\/2133620_original.gif\" "\\"\\"")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2125319\/2125319_original.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2118602\/2118602_original.gif\" "\\"\\"")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2432987\/2432987_original.gif\" "\\"\\"")
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2251945\/2251945_original.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/585795\/585795_original.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Neither of them are Spanish, but how could I resist this?
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/1997383\/1997383_original.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/1114478\/1114478_original.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/1832323\/1832323_original.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/1595239\/1595239_original.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
... there would have been more, but at the start of this process, I thought I was going to send links on twitter before I realized how super impractical that would be, so I filtered out a bunch. But hopefully these add some shininess!"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:349113","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/349113.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=349113"}}],"title":"Matt Martin\/Casey Cizikas picspam and mini-primer","published":"2013-11-08T16:52:53Z","updated":"2013-11-08T17:17:03Z","content":"
[x<\/a>]
Matt Martin and Casey Cizikas are on the Islanders' 4th line and are responsible for all the physical, grinding, energy-changing stuff<\/a>. They kill penalties for us (sometimes they are good at this, I swear to god!) and also super duper hot dudes in love.
Zeeker centers the line and is also our best faceoff man, which I admit is not the most meaningful compliment. One of the youngest players to get regular minutes, and pretty tiny for a player with such a physical style (officially 5'11" hahahaaa). He's also kind of stupidly gorgeous.
And has a habit of looking like he's in porn? Or at least should be?
More uncomfortably suggestive pictures of him can be found here<\/a>.
So qt I'm even into his headshot:
Matt Martin is big, and brawny, and a total babe. Officially 6'3", 210lbs, tends to lead the league in hits, knows his job is to stand up for his teammates. Also a super sweet guy with an adorable lisp that the Islanders call upon to do a lot of the tough post-loss interviews. <333
Here he is in glasses yesssssssss:
Here's his butt:
Matt and Casey are ridiculously cute about each other - total adorable flirty bffs. They were drafted to the Islanders a year apart and started playing on a line together a bit before the lockout. As far as I can tell they hit it off almost immediately and now spend a lot of time hanging out and giving each other a hard time in the most adorable, loving fashion. And being hot and looking really really good together.
Not much else to say, so here's a bunch of pictures and gifs and twitter caps.
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2555760\/2555760_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2552751\/2552751_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
<\/span>![\"http:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2608297\/2608297_original.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2608297\/2608297_original.jpg\")
![](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2552457\/2552457_original.png\")
They did a bunch of these little Q&A vids and it was GREAT. Highlights: (1<\/a>), (2<\/a>), (3<\/a>)
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2555145\/2555145_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
<\/span>![](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2566843\/2566843_original.jpg\")
![\"http:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2608623\/2608623_600.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2608623\/2608623_600.jpg\")
This is apparently Matt "yapping" at Casey<\/a>, before they'd ever really played together.
![\"http:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2607880\/2607880_original.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2607880\/2607880_original.jpg\")
That's pretty much all you need to know but if you want to learn about more about their careers or the team, there's links galore in the Islanders primer<\/a>. Zeeker and Matt are on page 2<\/a>.
<\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:347512","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/347512.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=347512"}}],"title":"what the nut, livejournal?","published":"2013-10-01T00:25:25Z","updated":"2013-10-01T00:26:10Z","content":"Had a lovely weekend of autumnal good times with friend!Corey - went to crafternoon at the NYPL (I would be on board based purely on the name, tbh) and made little quilted coasters! I had to depend a lot on Corey for guidance - both because she was ahead of me and could pay better attention to the instructions and also because she was just following better. XD But I finished, eventually! Here is a picture, I think it's super cute: https:\/\/twitter.com\/ambitiouspants\/status\/384128462979485696\/photo\/1<\/a> (Here is Corey's, with a view of what mine looked like after the alloted time ended: https:\/\/twitter.com\/ambitiouspants\/status\/384075844068462593\/photo\/1<\/a> It took me 3 episodes of Sports Night to catch up.)
And Corey made us pumpkin risotto and I have finally seen Road to El Dorado (super duper fun, and as slashy as advertised), and for breakfast we had crepes with apple slices fried in butter and cinnamon and it was SO. GOOD. (Corey made the crepes and did all the frying, but I chopped an abundance of apples! This was also our technique for the apple crisp we made later. XDD) (Celebrating autumn properly involves a lot of eating. Also Corey jumped in with her Smith-acquired skills at using up loads of apples after excessively enthusiastic apple-picking expeditions.)
On Sunday we went to the medieval festival at Fort Tryon Park, which was fun but also incredibly overwhelming! It was way more crowded than the last time we went... which I'm assuming was last year but may have been a couple years ago. There were kind of too many people to really be able to experience much. On the other hand, just looking at the people and all the amazing costumes is probably the best part of the experience anyway, and it was pretty great! Corey's teeny pooch Millie did not really enjoy herself, and slept all afternoon, but that was for the best because we watched Radioland Murders, which is a George Lucas film that came out in 1994 and is TERRIBLE. Especially the lead actor. We were totally betrayed by the Netflix reviews and decided to give it a try - it had 3 1\/2 stars there but I think that showed up as 4, but it has only 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. Get it together, Netflix reviewers!! Oh well. So yeah, now I can warn you all - interesting concept, terribly executed.
All right, mostly I'm just making this entry as a test because my previous entry<\/a> has disappeared? It's not showing up on friend's lists, or my journal when you actually go to guingel.livejournal.com, and my calendar says there's no entries that day. Even more annoying\/weird\/unsettling, when I click on the edit link it says no such entry exists!! But when you click the address, it loads. Anyone have any clue what might be going on with LJ there?
... if you can even see this entry? [edit: ok, it appears to exist... for the moment! At least it's not a chronic problem? Fingers crossed!]"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:346155","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/346155.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=346155"}}],"title":"Islanders tweets: Matt\/Johnny edition","published":"2013-09-20T13:53:06Z","updated":"2013-09-27T12:52:30Z","content":"Matt Moulson has spent enough time tweeting about how much he loves Johnny that I had to give these tweets their own post. (There's a couple from JT, but he's not as prolific or adept a tweeter!)
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2582054\/2582054_original.jpg\" "\\"Screen")
Matt. MATT.
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2600745\/2600745_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
YES. YESSSSSSSSSSSSS. Ugh Moulson you are my hero<\/a>. If only Islanders PR were as delightful and perfect and obliging as you are!
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2600475\/2600475_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
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looooooooool this makes me so happy, idek.
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2597407\/2597407_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
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(The congrats are because Matt just told him he didn't go play elsewhere during the lockout so he could be with his wife and newborn nugget.)
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2593844\/2593844_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
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These comparatively sincere "I owe my success to Johnny" tweets KILL ME.
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2601269\/2601269_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
I tried to avoid fantasy football tweets but this was just... kind of adorable.
Don't think their teammates haven't noticed, btw:
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2565001\/2565001_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
Had to find these on tumblr since profile pictures were relevant and it made no sense otherwise (ps I agree with JT):
(Where did he even get this picture??? Lacrosse memories photo album??)
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2598174\/2598174_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2595341\/2595341_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
![](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2567867\/2567867_original.png\")
THEY ADOPTED JOHNNY'S BB PROSPIE TOGETHER!!!
Matt and Johnny are both super into lacrosse (and Johnny played lacrosse with his Matt's brother as a young nugget) so... drama!! XD
![](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2567090\/2567090_original.jpg\")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2563667\/2563667_original.jpg\" "\\"Screen")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2602136\/2602136_original.png\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2563918\/2563918_original.jpg\" "\\"Screen")
![](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2567997\/2567997_original.png\")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2585836\/2585836_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
("roomie" probably means Kyle, who I believe is Matt's road roomie.)
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2585458\/2585458_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
(contract extension had occurred.)
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2584367\/2584367_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2583593\/2583593_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2583426\/2583426_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
how about if these three didn't hang out together and my life expectancy was extended about 10 years???????
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2584034\/2584034_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2583008\/2583008_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
(Johnny fixing Matt's house is chronicled below)
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2582687\/2582687_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
(A lot of the old pictures no longer load, but I remember Matt talking about giving his dog a JT toy in an interview somewhere...)
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2584709\/2584709_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2582392\/2582392_original.jpg\" "\\"Screen")
read from the bottom up, and brace yourself:
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2607019\/2607019_original.png\" "\\"\\"")
JKDISORJHESIORfs;ldskfofpopeweA??????
<\/a>
Master Post<\/a>
Islanders Primer<\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:345656","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/345656.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=345656"}}],"title":"Islanders Twitter Highlights Masterpost","published":"2013-09-18T18:58:20Z","updated":"2014-07-03T23:32:15Z","content":"Islanders Primer<\/a> to go with all these amazing tweets - in case you want to know more about the guys!
I tried to keep this only to the best tweets and there's still so much that I had to make splinter posts. This one has all the flirting and chirping and complimenting, the others are more focused.
Matt\/Johnny post<\/a>
John Tavares NHL13 Cover Campaign<\/a> - less kinky than the NHL14 campaign, but incredibly enthusiastic
Additional Player Highlights<\/a>
Colin and Grabs and Johnny: (these make more sense if you've watched Colin's NHL 13 cover vote promotion video for Johnny. See <\/span>here<\/a>. I thought for so long that Islanders PR came up with that video and then the team started chirping Colin about sleeping on JT's floor. HAHAHA. All the tweets from March are before the video.<\/span> Which means they just teased Colin about being a dog named Diesel who is Johnny's pet for months. Wow, I thought they came up with the idea for the video based on Colin staying with Johnny and then made jokes based on that but NOPPPPPPE.)<\/span>
![](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2551928\/2551928_original.png\")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2548313\/2548313_original.jpg\" "\\"Screen")
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![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2549190\/2549190_original.jpg\" "\\"Screen")
![\"http:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2602820\/2602820_original.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2602820\/2602820_original.jpg\")
![\"http:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2601782\/2601782_original.png\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2601782\/2601782_original.png\")
Plus Matt:<\/span>
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2555988\/2555988_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2550058\/2550058_original.jpg\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2550309\/2550309_original.jpg\" "\\"Screen")
Colin and Grabs, also interesting on their own.<\/span>
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2548686\/2548686_original.jpg\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2552179\/2552179_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2554860\/2554860_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
(someone definitely sat the boys down and told them "TALK ABOUT HOW EASY THE TRAIN TRIP IS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE" before this little field trip. XDDD)
![\"photo\"](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2556327\/2556327_original.png\" "\\"photo\\"")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2554614\/2554614_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
Casey Cizikas and Matt Martin pretty much just use twitter for flirting. (And are so smitten, I had to make a separate mini-primer<\/a> for them.)
So I was completely stunned to learn that Zeeker and Marty were never at our AHL affiliate in Bridgeport at the same time. Zeeker was only called up to the Islanders in Feb of 2012. So as soon as he got there, he was making Marty listen to Call Me Maybe and they were beginning a Chipotle tradition:
This is after about 6 weeks of friendship, as far as I can tell.
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2581553\/2581553_original.jpg\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2588225\/2588225_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
Matt was also prone to flirting with Travis Hamonic, who no longer has twitter. They used to be road roommates.
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2590089\/2590089_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
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![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2588764\/2588764_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
(Fairly certain the "teenage girl" comment is totally tongue in cheek, since Marty is aware that his choice in programming is also primarily marketed at teenage girls. Thus, I choose to find this darling. Grif is one of our awesome prospects. <3333)
The boys are really, really into chirping each other,<\/span> although often in the most cuddly way possible.<\/span>
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2571599\/2571599_original.jpg\" "\\"Screen")
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![](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2565739\/2565739_original.jpg\")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2586054\/2586054_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2572175\/2572175_original.jpg\" "\\"Screen")
<\/span>![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2586594\/2586594_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2599007\/2599007_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2599356\/2599356_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
<\/span>![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/ic.pics.livejournal.com\/guingel\/326674\/2573343\/2573343_original.png\" "\\"Screen")
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Johnny is pretty much everyone's favorite chirping target - especially for his lack of poker, soccer, and tweeting skills.
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(I believe Matt Martin was doing a Q&A at the official account here.)
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If I had to guess, I'd say Johnny's pretty bad at poker.<\/span>
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(Aww, Johnny's inability to lose gracefully at anything)
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Matt gets it on this one too. He says Grabs is genuinely the best player, so I guess he gets cocky.
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Takes some guts to chirp John Tavares about his looks, I gotta say. ;)
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Mental. Images. Everyone went out to Minnesota for Okie's wedding, but Matt missed it because his wife was super close to giving birth.
read bottom up:
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I would like to summarize what led up to this but I couldn't follow it at all, sorry! A very complex chain of chirps.
Of course, Grabs is also happy to lavish JT with compliments.<\/span>
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When Johnny was in the All-Star Game, everyone livetweeted their viewing experiences:<\/span>
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They're generally super into giving me warm fuzzies.
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Always Chipotle.<\/a>
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oh my god these children going to movies\/meals\/apparently tennis together all the time. <3333333 Sometimes in fic when they write the players' entire social lives being their teammates, I'm like "hmmm, maybe... but surely they have other friends?" But apparently that really is the Islanders' lives. XDD (PS LI is kind of a cultural wasteland but it's not THAT bad - you can totally get into NYC and stuff like that! haha. They're all going to end up on a bowling league together, aren't they?) (Oh shit now I need that fic.)
Johnny's not the only member of the team whose play gets loved on.<\/span>
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read bottom to top - these are from when Grabs was playing for Team Austria at the Worlds:<\/span>
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(I didn't screencap any of the goal congratulations, but I'm sure you can guess they're there.)
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Arthur Staple is our beat reporter. I love this exchange.<\/span>
Islanders Primer<\/a>
Matt\/Johnny post<\/a>
John Tavares NHL13 Cover Campaign<\/a>
Additional Player Highlights<\/a><\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:345439","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/345439.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=345439"}}],"title":"2005 Matt Moulson article, reproduced for your reading pleasure","published":"2013-09-18T18:06:05Z","updated":"2013-09-25T13:07:19Z","content":"So I couldn't get this to load in the internet archive or anything, even though I stg I did at one point, and I managed to open a cached version from google, but I know nothing about google caches and it didn't feel like something reliable enough to link to, so I figured I might as well make a post for it.
Also, Matt is precious and I love him. The interview is from 2005, when he was a senior at Cornell and much-beloved co-captain of their hockey team. I was going to bold highlights but it's just kind of a constant stream of him being earnestly adorable.
This is Google's cache of http:\/\/cornellsun.com\/node\/15955<\/a>. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Aug 18, 2013 17:11:00 GMT.
10 Questions With M. Hockey Senior Forward Matt Moulson<\/span><\/span><\/b>
November 9, 2005
By Archives<\/span><\/a><\/span> <\/span>
Before traveling to Boston to take on arch-rival Hahvahd, men's hockey senior co-captain Matt Moulson tried to sneak a few wristers past Sun Senior Writer Per Ostman.<\/span><\/span><\/i>
1. How happy are you now that the NHL is back in business?<\/span><\/span><\/i>
Oh, very happy. I finally have something to watch on TV again. Obviously, it's good from a hockey standpoint. The league looked pretty bad there for a couple months - it looked like they weren't going to get anything done. But it's nice to see that there'll be some jobs opening up.
You're from Ontario. Explain to the kids who aren't from Boston, New York, Chicago, or Detroit just how popular hockey is up north.<\/i>
It's just as important as you think. There are all those stereotypical comments, that all we have in Canada are lumberjacks and hockey players.
I think there are some curlers running around up there, too.<\/i>
Haha. Yeah, and some curlers. But everyone loves hockey in Canada. I don't know many people that didn't play it at a young age. Everyone gets into it; it's the thing to do. There's nothing better than Saturday night - Hockey Night in Canada.
Wayne Gretzky really is a god, isn't he?<\/i>
Oh yeah.<\/span><\/span>
2. Do you like the new NHL rule changes?<\/span><\/span><\/i>
Yeah, actually. I originally thought that I wouldn't because I was against the shootout. But now, I find myself cheering for a tie every time.
It's exciting, isn't it?<\/i>
Oh, it's one of the most exciting things I've seen! I honestly didn't want them to change it. I thought it would wreck the game, but now that I can watch hockey every day, I want to see it every time. Except when the Leafs play. I want them to win.
What about the other rules?<\/i>
I think the tighter penalties are opening up the game a lot, especially offensively. And the two-line passing - I don't know why they didn't allow that earlier.
That was always the issue. Scoring is up now, the game flows better, and the TV ratings are climbing.<\/i>
Yeah, and you get teams like the Ottawa Senators scoring eight or ten goals a game.
Didn't they crush Buffalo by some ridiculous margin last week? Something like 10-2?<\/i>
Yeah, it was 10-4. We're seeing outrageous scores, like 8-1, 6-4, 10-0.
Do you think that these new rules and the added scoring are ultimately good for the league?<\/i>
I think they still have some work to do, especially in creating loyalty with the American fans. Most of the teams are in the U.S., obviously. It's a good start and it's very exciting, but I think they can do more with marketing and things like that. Especially with the small-market teams.
Would you like to see these new rules trickle down into the college game?<\/i>
I think it would be a good idea. I think the whole OHL [Ontario Hockey League] has switched to the NHL rules. All of the major junior leagues have switched. It makes the transition to the NHL that much easier, and that's where all of us eventually want to play. I think they'll slowly implement the new stuff into the college game. <\/span><\/span>
3. Fighting is still illegal is college hockey. Should they change this? It's part of the game everywhere else.<\/span><\/span><\/i>
I think they should. Especially this year, you see a lot of scrums after the whistle and stuff. Every whistle in front of the net, there are guys pushing and shoving. It slows the game down. They've cut down on it recently, but usually what happens if you can't fight is a lot more stickwork - slashing and hooking. I think it would be exciting to have a few fights in front of the Lynah crowd.
Oh, they'd love it. They'd riot. The roof would blow off. <\/i>
I don't know, I mean the college game is pretty good, but -
Let's be clear, though. This isn't a goon kind of thing. It's not about goonery. We're not talking about Tie Domi sucker-punching Gretzky.<\/i>
It's part of the game. When I watch hockey, I want to see some goals, some nice plays, and some fights. I think other players like to see them, too. It would cut down on those stupid scrums if the guys could just fight and get it over with. Maybe we could have a one-fight rule, or something.
Have you ever wanted to drop the gloves while playing here at Cornell?<\/i>
Hahaha, probably a couple of times.
Any names you want to drop?<\/i>
I can't really think of any names. There have been a couple times when a guy has given me a cheap shot or something like that, and I felt like going after him. But you have to just suck it up.
Could you have taken him?<\/i>
I'd like to think so, but the guys on the team would probably disagree.
[Laughter]<\/i>
Yeah, I could have taken him. Maybe I need to start out with some smaller guys to get my confidence up.
Yeah, with bullying, you want to start slow and work into it. How much harder is it to throw a punch on skates than on foot?<\/i>
It's a little harder. I've been in lacrosse fights, and it's different. You have to have a lot better balance, and the other guy's tugging on your sweater to try to pull you down. <\/span><\/span>
4. You mentioned that you're happy about jobs opening up in the NHL. You were drafted in the ninth round by the Penguins in 2003. Why did you stay in school?<\/span><\/span><\/i>
Haha, well I didn't really have an offer then.
Ah, so that made the decision pretty easy.<\/i>
I suppose I technically could have come out.
So you only stayed because there wasn't a solid offer?<\/i>
I don't want to say that, exactly. I mean, I came to Cornell to get a good education and win a national championship. And I didn't have either at that point.
Wow, Cornell must love you. "I want to get a good education and win a national title, in that order." You're the poster boy. Do you think you can have success in the NHL?<\/i>
I think I still have a lot of work to do, but I continue to work on the things I need to work on, I think I can play at that level.
I think you just set the record for using "work" in a sentence.<\/i>
Hopefully, I'll be able to win a Stanley Cup with Sidney in Pittsburgh.
Do you know Sidney Crosby?<\/i>
No. But I'm talking about him like we're best friends! You know, me and Sid.
So, it definitely looks like you'll be playing for the Penguins if this happens?<\/i>
Well, the way it works is that you have to sign a contract by August 15th after your senior year, or you become a free agent, so that's actually really good for the college guys. But anything can happen. You never know.
What NHL player is your game patterned after?<\/i>
I don't really know. I've got a couple of favorite players out there. Joe Sakic and Markus Naslund.
You kind of look like Joe Sakic. <\/i>
Yeah, I've gotten that before, actually. But I'm not sure who I'm like - guys that score a lot, have a good shot.
I love the modesty.<\/i>
I wouldn't compare myself to those guys, but they're definitely who I try to be like.<\/span><\/span>
5. Explain to me once and for all why it's a hockey "sweater" and not a hockey "jersey."<\/span><\/span><\/i>
It's both.
Both? Forgive me, I'm American. You're going to have to explain this.<\/i>
That's a good question. I don't really know.
What do you mean, you don't know? Aren't you from Canada? Don't they tell you how to answer dumb hockey questions from Americans?<\/i>
I don't know! The only thing I can think of is -
Since there's ice and it's cold, it's a sweater?<\/i>
That could be. Maybe it's because you're out there, playing on the pond. You know, wearing a sweater. I remember all the kids would wear the sweaters to school, you know, just around. So it was just like a regular piece of clothing. I had a Gretzky sweater that I wore everywhere.
The Edmonton one, right?<\/i>
No, actually it was the Kings.
Are you kidding? They're not going to let you back into the country.<\/i>
No, I had the Edmonton one, too.
You really had the Kings? Barry Melrose and his mullet, flowing in the wind?<\/i>
Yeah, it's good stuff. <\/span><\/span>
6. You guys travel to Boston this weekend to play Hahvahd. What's the hardest arena to play in as a visitor?<\/span><\/span><\/i>
Well, it's not Harvard, because it's mostly our own fans.
Beautiful.<\/i>
Yeah, that's what makes it such a good trip. But the hardest arena to play in? I don't know, I have to think here.
Go ahead. Take your time. <\/i>
We seem to struggle at Dartmouth. Yeah, we struggle a lot in there. I don't know if the fans are the most hostile, but -
What, do they throw sheep at you or something? Or is that Vermont?<\/i>
No, nothing like that. They're pretty loud though. Everyone gets excited to play us. It's pretty hard to play on anyone's rink.
Hockey fans are notoriously rabid and are seated right on top of the ice. What's the the most offensive thing a fan's ever yelled at you?<\/i>
A lot of swear words.
Any favorites?<\/i>
Lots of the F-word, and "You Suck!" Oh, let me go back for a minute. The Colgate crowd is the toughest to play in front of. They like to swear a lot.
They're just angry because their school is named after toothpaste.<\/i>
Yeah, their student section is right behind our bench, so the like to give it to us pretty good through the glass and stuff, telling us how bad we are, things like that.
Anything creative?<\/i>
I remember when I was a freshman, we went out to Western Michigan. I got a penalty, and the crowd would go, "Matt!" They'd yell your name - no, one guy would yell your name, "Matt!" And then the crowd would go, "Matt!" And then they'd go, "YOU SUCK!" That's pretty funny.
And terribly creative.<\/i>
I don't think I really hear many people yelling at me on the ice. Just our bench telling me to shoot on a power play. "SHOOT THE PUCK, MOULSON!"<\/span><\/span>
7. Give me your favorite hockey movie.<\/span><\/span><\/i>
It would have to be Slap Shot.
I knew you were going to say that.<\/i>
Yeah, Youngblood is up there, but -
Wait, Youngblood? Rob Lowe is the worst hockey player in cinematic history, right?<\/i>
Oh, he can't even skate!
Do you guys sit around in the locker room saying things like, "hey, we're puttin' on the foil!"?<\/i>
Yeah, a lot of Slap Shot quotes get thrown around in there. I don't think it's nearly as funny for people who don't play hockey. My other friends that watched it just think it's a really bad movie. It's one of those acquired tastes. But it's a classic.<\/span><\/span>
8. What's the hottest women's team at Cornell?<\/span><\/span><\/i>
I have to go with the tennis team, man. My girlfriend's on the tennis team.
Listen, man. I don't care if your girlfriend's on the tennis team. You can't do this. I know you're a big, tough hockey guy and you score a lot of goals, but I'm not afraid of you.<\/i>
But I don't see any of the other teams!
I'm not looking for individual hotness. I want hotness in total. I thought you said you've read this column before?<\/i>
I mean, I -
Is the rest of her team hot?<\/i>
Yeah, they're all good-looking! The tennis team is a good-looking team.
Do you have a thing for skirts or something?<\/i>
Yeah. I mean, I enjoy the skirts.
Have you seen the field hockey team? Or the lacrosse team? I guess those are kilts, but still.<\/i>
Yeah, they're good-looking too, but I think the tennis players are better.
Is there much tennis in Canada?<\/i>
No, not much. Maybe that's why I like them.
Well, there you go. Something new and different.<\/i>
I'm sorry. I have to go with tennis. I'm a boring guy.
Please. Don't apologize.<\/i><\/span><\/span>
9. Molson or Labatt?<\/span><\/span><\/i>
That's a tough one. I'll say it's a tie.
Tie? Molson doesn't get a few extra points here?<\/i>
No, I'm a really big fan of Labatt.
The name thing doesn't mean anything to you, does it? <\/i>
I mean, I like Molson.
Yeah, a lot of people like Moulson.<\/i>
I've been into Molson Export lately. But I like them both. It's a tie.
"I like the tennis team because my girlfriend's on it, it's tied, I really like hockey ..."<\/i>
I told you, man! I'm a boring guy.
Tell me? You didn't tell me! No one told me this! You said, "yeah, I'll do the interview." You didn't tell me you were boring!<\/i>
You should have picked someone exciting!
Hey! You're the captain, man! You score the goals! Who's more exciting than you?<\/i><\/span><\/span>
10. If you could have dinner with any three people, living or dead, who would they be?<\/span><\/span><\/i>
Umm, hmm. I should say something and be a real wuss.
Do it. Go ahead, be a wuss. See what happens.<\/i>
I could [laughter] I should say something [laughter] ...
Say it!<\/i>
No, no. I can't.
Come on. You're killing me.<\/i>
No, I can't.
Alright.<\/i>
Okay, three people. Yeah, definitely Wayne Gretzky.
He goes without saying.<\/i>
He's a lock. Hmm. Who's interesting? People probably pick Ghandi or something. What have you had in the past?
I don't think I've had Ghandi, but Christy Planer wanted to cook for Jesus. I've had some Bill Murrays, I have had some dead grandmothers, I've had a Vince Lombardi.<\/i>
Who's my favorite comedian? I'll put Owen Wilson on there. I love him.
What's you're favorite Owen Wilson movie?<\/i>
Wedding Crashers. Definitely.
It's an instant classic.<\/i>
Dead grandmother, huh?
You don't have to feel guilty or anything. You don't have to go in that direction.<\/i>
No, I'll go with my grandmother. She died before I was born.
Look, I'm touched, but Kelly Kramer already said that three weeks ago.<\/i>
Oh man, I can't go with that if Kelly went with that.
You're right.<\/i>
Can I wiggle my girlfriend in there?
No. I bet you have dinner with her all the time. She's off the table.<\/i>
Yeah, that'd be embarrassing.
You, Owen Wilson, Wayne Gretzky, and you're girlfriend. That would be awesome.<\/i>
I don't think she knows any of those people.
She doesn't know who Wayne Gretzky is? Do you guys have anything in common?<\/i>
No, not really. It's a weird relationship.
You're telling me.<\/i>
Who could be my third guy?
Who were you going to say before, when you were being a wuss?<\/i>
My girlfriend!
Oh for the love of [head explodes]<\/i>
Who would be interesting? What about Aristotle? He'd be fun.
Aristotle.<\/i>
Yeah, put him in there.
We'll throw him in. Just for the hell of it.<\/i>
Yeah, just for old time's sake.
Maybe we'll learn something.<\/i><\/span><\/span>
10 Questions with Per Ostman will appear every week, or until he gets fired. Questions, suggestions, and threats can be sent to per.ostman@mac.com.<\/i><\/span><\/span>
Archived article by Per Ostman<\/span><\/span><\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:343959","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/343959.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=343959"}}],"title":"canada olympic hockey roster: fangirl version","published":"2013-09-03T02:57:07Z","updated":"2013-09-03T03:00:09Z","content":"So much talking head babbling about which players from Team Canada's Olympics orientation camp will actually make the final squad, and none of them seem to be taking cuteness into account. Or how much Laura loves them. Shocking oversight, I am driven to make my own list. From this roster<\/a>.
In alphabetical order but numbered so I can keep track.
Goalies:
1. Corey Crawford
2. Braden Holtby
3. Carey Price
Sorry Lu! I love you too but you aren't as fuzzy as Crow, as curling-related as Holtby (nor do your eyelashes measure up, which I know is not a fair comparison for human beings), or as outrageously sexy and delightful and perfect as Pricey.
Defense:
Ugh poor defenders. They get no press and I'm always left barely knowing what they look like, even for my actual teams. Let's see who I know...
1. Travis Hamonic :DDD (BABY!!! I'm so proud of him for getting invited. I hope this inspires him and Okie into total beastmode for the beginning of the season. And that they don't then fall into a shame spiral if they aren't selected.)
2. Duncan Keith
3. Kris Letang
4. Brent Seabrook
5. Marc Staal - imaginary boyfriend Staal *___*
6. PK Subban
7. Shea Webber - mostly for cuddling Sid
And I'm short one. Doughty, Phaneuf and Vlasic (who I just discovered is a cutie) can fight it out for the last spot. I'M SORRY DEFENDERS!! Apparently all the people I've never heard of are more likely to be selected?
Forwards:
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah how can I choose just 14?? Ugh this is going to be so hard.
1. Sidney Crosby
2. John Tavares (PS guess who is bursting with pride every time someone mentions that he's a lock. All those trips to Worlds instead of making the playoffs! Also, you know, being one of the best WJHC players ever :))))))) #proudmama<\/a>)
3. Patrice Bergeron - this is kind of a toss-up with Sharpie. They're both babes.
4. Jordan Eberle
5. Taylor Hall - Can Hallsy and Ebs both go? I feel like... people seem reluctant to pick them both because it's too much youth and inexperience, and world juniors seems to mean a LOT to Canadians when it comes to this sort of decision, so... But obviously they're both locks for me.
6. Claude Giroux
7. James Neal
8. Jeff Carter - I feel bad that he didn't get to go last time. And I can't bring him and not Richie, of course.
9. Michael Richards
10. Eric Staal
11. Jordan Staal
12. Martin St Louis - ok this is actually my pick for the actual tournament. I want the little old dude to make it!
13. Jonathan Toews
14. Steven Stamkos (ngl, this tweet<\/a> of Jeremy Roenick's bothered me enough that I'm not totally over Stammer RTing him, even though he seems like a sweetheart and I know RTing something isn't the same as being angry enough to actually compose a tweet, and I'm sure he just is clueless, but. XP It's keeping me from getting 100% on board the Stammer train and I'm tempted to swap him out for little Matty Duchene. But who is more likely to bro around with JT? Matt will just be following Sid around like a puppy. Better bring Stamkos in case PK or Ebs don't make it. D: This is something Pietrangelo has in his favor, actually... Not that my entire world revolves around Johnny?)
Okay! Actually managed to keep it to 14 on my first pass, it's a sign!! Sorry Kuni!! Sorry Sharpie! DDD: Also sorry to fandom for the \"Morning to Wake You\" lols I am denying us by leaving off Rick Nash, but outside of that fic I find him incredibly... dull. But fine if he goes. I'm a million times less interested in Getzlaf and Perry now that they aren't on a line with Bobby Ryan. But actually I have feelings about almost all the forwards, I didn't even realize! It's the poor defensemen where my list only has a few points of overlap with the official lists. >:((((
Don't ask me to make those into sensible lines of any sort. DDD: I can't even figure out who is capable of not being a center?<\/a>
The world of sports was friggin out of control today, by the way. Like, come on tennis, it's transfer deadline day. I need you to keep things under control. At least Ferru apparently became the fifth man to reach all four Grand Slam quarterfinals in back to back years - along with only Roger, Rafa, Novak, and Ivan Lendl. :))))) Once again, #proudmama<\/a>.
I'm also super proud of my darling beloved hunky musketeer, Tommy Robredo... but I'm also quite sad for Roger? So. :\/\/\/ Yeah I don't know. I became a tennis fan in 2010 so I missed the years when he was dominating and I just love him now. But I also love Tommy! Complex.
Annnnnnnnd Real Madrid. ;_________; Um. At least Kaka will be happy? I hope! Sheva's not up to anything, right? Someone get him a job at the club!!!! And I'm optimistic for Arsenal, whose lives I end up excessively invested in because my sister is so into them. But. :|||| Honestly either Perez is even worse at... everything... than we'd thought, or there's some type of sketchy background thing where the owners of Tottenham are going to give him preferential treatment in non-football business dealings or god knows what, because nothing that has happened makes sense for Real Madrid.
I've been at my parent's place for Labor Day and wasn't on the internet so much, and am left totally boggled by the entire day. But I had fun doing puzzles and stuff with my mom! I'm totally freaked out that Rosh Hashanah is on Wednesday, though - I have a serious hardcore deadline on Thursday, and I thought I'd be ok to only work one day of the long weekend, but I thought i'd be able to work late on both Tuesday AND Wednesday! And that is not the case. So tomorrow I have to get up early to go into work from Long Island, and then stay super late trying to get as much done as possible. Meeeeeep. Oh well. Hopefully I will be motivated and productive and my noggin will be firing nicely after the weekend and I'll get shitloads done and it'll be fine. >___> (Worst case scenario I skip Rosh Hashanah, which wouldn't kill me but would be a major bummer.)"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:343571","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/343571.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=343571"}}],"title":"ok yeah this wasn't even going to be an intro post and now it's my position on everyone in hockey","published":"2013-08-30T00:46:56Z","updated":"2013-08-30T01:36:42Z","content":"Hellooooo livejournal! As is my annual tradition now, I'm posting right after I went to the US Open. XDD But I don't have pictures yet so I'll post ABOUT the US Open some other time.
I've recently made a bunch of new friends through the friending meme\/prompt challenge post at
![](\"https:\/\/l-stat.livejournal.net\/img\/community.png?v=556&v=915\")
<\/a>home_ice<\/b><\/a><\/span>. I kind of got the impression that a lot of people like me came out of the woodwork - newish hockey fans (or new to fandom) who have been enjoying hockey fandom on tumblr but who haven't been able to make new friends and have been really missing the community aspect of livejournal fandom. Anyway, everyone seems totally delightful! It's really, really exciting to have people to gab constantly about hockey and hockey RPF and cute hockey players with! I haven't gotten my twin sister into hockey yet (although she's much more mildly interested in the fanfic side of things than I am anyway, plus we don't talk about smut that much - but we're usually very much on the same page about players and people who we like) and she's great for squeeing to normally, which takes some of the pressure off my internet life.I kind of focused a little on friending people who were on twitter, because that's where I do most of my social networking these days. And then I proceeded to tweet like a maniac for about 12 hours straight. XDD I... got a little excited? Bored at work + suddenly know a bunch more people who care about the stuff I'm excited about + also lbr a willingness to share anything that pops into my head = word vomit. It doesn't hurt that I'm the world's least laconic human being - except when I'm trying to write fic, for some reason. So I'm sorry to anyone who suddenly found that their entire timeline was me. >__> I'm going to be much busier the next couple days, at least? (I might declare an unfollow grace period - I really feel like people don't necessarily know the volume of tweets they might be getting when they say \"oh yeah, let's be friends!\" and I want to give them an out before they loathe me, haha.)
So yeah, quick current fandom rundown, although this was touched upon in the meme - mostly doing the sports and sports RPF thing these days: hockey, soccer, tennis. Big into Avengers, have been an avid reader of the DC Universe for much of my adolescence but they're a steaming pile of crap lately. Was really into Sherlock and Teen Wolf fic, and reasonably into both canons, but not so much anymore. Various Joss stuff is always relevant. Terry Pratchett enthusiast. I'm leaving a bajillion things out - I need something to be excited about, something to throw myself into and learn new things about. When there's no new fandoms, I'll start reading loads about Antarctic exploration or WWII spy technology. [ETA: also was very much into Japanese boybands, especially as produced by Johnny's & Associates - TOKIO are my favorites, of course, also into V6 (old people yay) and Arashi and at various points Kanjani8 and NEWS. And I've watched a certain number of dramas, although none recently.]
I'm also a fervent feminist (but absolutely in no way a radfem) and am always attempting to be more and more anti-racist, and I do tend to post serious shit sometimes or launch into rants. Currently trying to address some of my transphobia & ableism problems so I'm a safer space than most places but not totally safe.
Soccer: Schalke and Real Madrid. Absolutely wildly in love with Raul. Used to be a Liverpool fan but I was already moving away from them and I was so disgusted by the way they handled the Suarez racism incident that I'm not more than a casual fan now. My aforementioned sister is a huuuuge Arsenal fan and since she cares a lot more than me, I'm fairly invested in them as a result of caring about her emotional state. XD Also hugely into women's soccer. I'm madly in love with Spanish superstar Vero Boquete<\/a>, which she probably knows because someone LINKED HER TO THAT POST and also to these gifs<\/a>, which were posted at a point when my entire tumblr was filled with Vero gifs I'd made. I am often in small fandoms and have a lot of fourth wall problems. DX
Tennis: David Ferrer! Samantha Stosur!! Andrea Petkovic, the entire Italian Fed Cup Team, most of the Spanish Davis Cup Team, Andy Murray, Tommy Robredo... probably loads of people I'm missing. There's a lot of room in my heart for tennis players. I've been pretty lazy about following it lately.
HOCKEY: I grew up on Long Island, but when I got into hockey, I knew they'd been terrible and wanted to save myself the stress and pain. I wanted hockey to be a little more chill than my experiences with soccer! And
<\/a>kikigirl<\/b><\/a><\/span> stepped in and got me into the Pens (YAAAAAAAAAY) and I explored various other teams as well, but we weren't able to get affordable tickets to see the Pens play the Rangers, and I really wanted to see an NHL team while the blush was still on the rose, so I checked out the Islanders and discovered that I could get really great seats to see them play the Tampa Bay Lightning for just $65 (not cheap, haha, but cheap for pro sports tickets). And I was laughing when I told people at the time, because of all the NHL teams to see, the Islanders vs the Lightning seemed like... well, like no wonder I was able to get discount tickets!And then it was. Such. A good. Game. It was the April 6th game that the Islanders won 4-2 and I actually did manage to write about it in my previous entry<\/a> so I won't go on about it but basically I was hooked, and totally in love with the Coliseum (and so was my dad! He hates the fighting and wasn't a hockey fan, but he's a good dad so he went with me and I'm so glad he had a good time, and now he's totally an Islanders fan too :333). And then the Islanders started kicking ass!! (I became a Pens fan just before they went unbeated through March, and I became an Islanders fan just as they started rocking their way through April, JUST SAYING.) So dad and I look like bandwagon fans, but we actually snuck in just before! But just in time for stuff like this<\/a>! (I used tumblr as an LJ a couple times so I'll link to those here now cos I'm compulsive like that. XD)
So of course I HAD to try to get playoff tickets when the team I just fell in love with made it to the playoffs for the first time in...6 years? 7? That whole saga is in my previous entry but wooooow watching the Pens vs the Islanders was so emotionally destructive for those first few matches. XDD It was NOT \"i like them both, I'll be happy whatever happens.\" It was \"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BABIES WAIT BUT NOOOOOOOO\" and the Islanders lost the first game 5-0 and I felt SO BAD for them and tumbljournaled<\/a> some feelings. And then... they totally won the second game. Except after the first one I was like \"shit I can't watch this alone again\" so I made some friends (not into hockey) go to a bar with me, but they were mostly showing the Knicks. And the Islanders went down and I got drunk as hell and they tied and I was still drunk and we went to get dessert and the Islanders won! So I kind of didn't fully experience that game. But I was SO relieved that I wouldn't be seeing an elimination game!!
And the Islanders lost their first home playoff game in overtime, after an epic game - they hadn't won a home playoff game in 11 years. UNTIL I SHOWED UP. And it was an absolutely incredible experience which I luckily already wrote about<\/a>. The atmosphere, though!! The dressing rooms at the Coliseum might be from the dawn of time, and there might be just five stalls in the bathrooms, but it is a GREAT place to watch hockey. It was absolutely electric - dad and I were both so tense, and the game was completely wild and intense and amazing.
So. Yes. BUT I also adore the Penguins!! It took me a while to find a player that I wanted to latch onto - I just am wildly in love with Sid, and I love Geno, but because I developed a love for the Penguins instead of falling into it, I wanted to have a player that wasn't one of the two most famous players in the world to latch onto and have my own feelings about... and it ended up being James Neal? XDDD Haha I also love Tanner Glass, and I have Duper and Flower feelings like all right-thinking human beings, but awwww Nealsy is my pretty, confused little darling! NGL if I ever find out he's intellectual I will be kind of sad.
I'm a pretty relaxed shipper, btw - if there's a character I love, I'm happy to ship them with anyone, but I have pairings I love and I have a couple OTPs. I am totally into how fandom writes Sid\/Geno, I'm also delighted to read Geno\/Nealsy, I savored our brief dalliance with Brenden Morrow\/Nealsy, I coo over Paulie and James, someone is writing a Sid\/Mario\/Natalie series that I am reading over and over... I'm very easy.
I actually don't read as much fic about the Oilers, though - they're my third team. I don't have the same relationship with them as I do with the Pens or the Isles though, yet - just a lot of warm, cuddly affection. But yeah, it's not that I don't ship Ebs\/Hallsy, it's that I'm... not aroused by their dynamic? So I'll read oodles of posts about what the two of them get up to, but not oodles of fanfic. Nuge, I am into. Throw in Nuge and his prettiness and his quiet seriousness and maybe a touch of vulnerability in his position, and I will read any combination of Oilers. Or Gabe Landeskog. [ETA: I feel bad for not mentioning all these other teams that have loads of players that I love - Canadiens and Hurricanes and, to be completely honest, Rangers are probably atop that list.]
Blackhawks and I, by the way, have a cordial relationship. I enjoy a lot of their players - I'm very into Bollig\/Shaw, I'm REALLY into Johnny Odouya. Patrick Kane kind of broke my ability to suspend my disbelief about him not being an obnoxious bro (I don't necessarily think he's worse, he just made it impossible for me to pretend I'd like him at all, and I don't have a lot of respect for him) but if a fic establishes a character for him well, I can still embrace the fanon version most of the time. I prefer Jonny-centric fic, especially when he's more vulnerable. I am really into vulnerable Jonny Toews... I am really into vulnerability full stop!
I used to have an absolutely raging crush on Jonny Toews, but it's faded a bit - the bro thing maybe, but just that he's... I have a crush on 2010 Tazer, when he's young and a prodigy and a bit insecure in his position. Now he's pretty confident, and I'm not into him as much - not a reflection on him as a person. (or on anyone who is still into him, of course!) I am SUPER into him at this Team Canada camp thing, he's looked so sweet and excited and THIGHTASTIC.
So yeah, that's a lot of words about a team I don't follow but since there's a lot of squee about them around - I am basically squee-ready and fanfic-ready but unlikely to initiate.
Anyway, these days I spend a lot of time crushing on John Tavares. Even though he's by far the Islanders most popular and well known player and I totally thought I'd have to find a James Neal, it turns out he's not so popular in fandom that he can't meet my obnoxious hipstery needs to like someone different (although of course they're all my babies - Matt Moulson and Kyle Okposo are probably my two other biggest faves). And I adore Johnny. He's... intriguingly hard to place? He contains multitudes. Very competitive multitudes. When you see him with people he knows, like PK or Matt Moulson, he's kind of giggly and relaxed. When you see him with the media, he is so endearingly, heartbreakingly awkward and a bit shy. (I am DESPERATE to find a way to gif his press conference when he signed his contract extension but you really have to hear it<\/a>.) This is the side that gets set up to live with Doug Weight and then Matt Moulson when he first joins the Islanders, you know?
And then on the ice, he's a leader. A first overall draft pick who is the reluctant face of a struggling fanchise, pulling it out of obscurity. The only guy the media talks about, the guy that the other teams gun for, the guy that's expected to make things happen even though he's still basically the youngest in the room. And he's always been someone whose talent has been widely discussed, who's been expected to carry a lot of weight on his teams and live up to a lot of pressure.
It's all a very interesting combination - is he confident, cocky? Does he like to be in control? Or does he like to be taken care of? I love each aspect so much, and I love the combination. But it does make him hard to fic! But I ship him with EVERYONE anyway. :D I am honestly trying to become a semi-competent writer of fanfiction primarily so I can maybe increase the volume of Johnny fics in the world.
<\/a>
Haha everyone else has been writing great little posts about something in fandom, and I'm like \"HERE READ ABOUT ME FOR AN HOUR\". But I like knowing that the people I'm dealing with know who I am, I guess? (haha I hope so, given how personal I got on tumblr this morning!) I like representing myself accurately - I hate when people put words in my mouth or make assumptions about me - it's probably why I go on so long, I want to really express every feeling. Idk. Anyway, I do have some more generic fandom-related thoughts that I was going to put into this post, I didn't actually set out to make an intro post!! But given my tendency towards long-windedness, I will have to just cut myself off here!"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:343187","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/343187.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=343187"}}],"title":"look, it's been an entire year and this is just 3,500 words! (many of them about hockey.)","published":"2013-04-30T19:32:40Z","updated":"2013-05-01T00:44:20Z","content":"(Bolding is for skimming clarity, not emphasis.)
Hellooooo, livejournal! If I waited five days, it will have been a full year since I posted! Which is annoying because I really should have done a US Open write-up like I did once before, because i'll want that. I'll just summarize: awesome time at the US Open<\/b> last September! XDD I finally got to see David Ferrer play in person!! He was the last of my favorite players that I hadn't managed to see, and as expected, was utterly gorgeous in person. And I saw the beautiful Dustin Brown, and Petko playing mixed doubles with Eric Butorac, which was the most adorable thing ever and they were so precious and smiley! I friggin love mixed doubles. We also were able to get tickets for Arthur Ashe and I therefore saw a bit of Kim Clijster's final match, against Laura Robson. And then we were smart and watched Sara Errani beat up on someone late in the day because the next match on the court was Kim's mixed doubles match, her actual last match now that I think of it, and we were all very emotional and supportive and it was lovely. (Also I love Sara and the entire Italian Fed Cup team.)
So yeah that was super fun. And me, my sister, and my brother-in-law went to Newport to see the grass tournament<\/b> there, and also the crazy mansions. It was fun and the visitors and inhabitants of Newport were all unknowing participants in a preppiness contest. The men's title was won by a 60-odd year old man wearing pink shorts with a cardigan around his shoulders. The women's title was won by a young woman that Katie and I still affectionately refer to as the princess of all preppiness, she was at the tennis wearing gold boat shoes, formal navy blue shorts, and a red blouse with an anchor pattern on it. With appropriate jewelery and long straight blonde hair of course. :') (This was last July, and yes I am a freakshow for remembering it.)
Oh, and I also got into cricket? Just a little bit. Can't remember when, but I watched Fire in Babylon<\/b>, which is this amazing documentary about West Indies cricket in the late 70s-early 80s, when they were becoming a team that would absolutely dominate the cricket world for a decade. I don't particularly follow cricket much but I have watched that documentary about 80 times and now have a massive crush on Vivian Richards and an icon to match. :D
Work's been good<\/b>, I have an actual unit now! Two co-workers! I share a cubicle with one of them and at first it was kind of tense but then hurricane Sandy happened and my entire office got moved to temporary quarters and the whole unit was sharing a little office together and we all became bros. So since then it's been quite pleasant and chatty in our cube - he's an Arsenal fan and so is my sister so we discuss their fortunes and I complain about Schalke. XDD The cube, unfortunately, is in a very loud area which still drives me crazy, but I actually like sharing most of the time. Or at least, I like being able to chit chat when I feel like it, sometimes I still want more privacy and just a calmer atmosphere. Other work news is that my boss says he's trying to work out the admin stuff needed to get me a raise, thank god. To be fair, I'm not particularly struggling, but also to be fair, I'm not rolling in it and I'm basically being paid an entry level salary after 5 years because the base salary went up since I started, and I am definitely doing significantly better and more important work than I was when I was entry level. But my boss does recognize it, so now it's a question of them figuring out how to take care of it - I'll probably nag him about it again soon.
But speaking of Schalke!! Last time I updated, I was about to go see them in Philly! AND IT WAS AMAZING. So, so incredibly awesome to see them all in person - to be watching the warm-ups and have Raul right in front of me<\/b>, running towards me... it was amazing. And we were in the front row for the game and saw some amazing action and it was just the coolest thing. I still feel so lucky that they came to America during the short period while Raul was there, and to a city I could get to so easily! PLUS omg my brother gets family hotel discounts cos he works for a massive resort owned by Sheraton or something, so we got to stay in a super duper nice hotel, AND they gave us 50% off room service, which isn't always a part of the discount, and it was the GREATEST. I've never gotten room service and breakfast came with all these tiny pots of jam and personal carafes of OJ and little dishes of butter.
And possibly even better was the Schalke fan we met on the trip down, who we know as Holtby Bro. He was on the Amtrak train down from Manhattan because he's from Gelsenkirchen but was on vacation in NYC, and still went out of his way to trek down to Philly to see Schalke play a random MLS team. XDD He was DEVOTED. We were wearing Schalke gear too so we had a little moment and he was surprised that we were American. XD Then we helped him in the Philly train station find the commuter rail and get the tickets he needed to get to the game later, and then several hours later we were in the shuttle going to the game together!! He started singing Schalke songs and there were only 2 Philly fans to 4 or 5 Schalke fans and they were like \"...whoa.\" THEN he was in the shuttle and commuter rail back with us and was bonding with all the Philly fans and they traded scarves and it was AMAZING. Epic, giant bald dude with an earring. Schalke faaaaans <33333
I asked my roommate<\/b> to move out last May, because she was thoughtless and messy and did her dishes once a week and I thought i could do better. So I went roommate-less for the summer, as a treat to myself (like a staycation that I have to pay for? I also went to a friend's wedding in Massachusetts and then road tripped up to Buffalo with a friend, which was fun and now means I'm bffs with her tiny dog) and watched every second of the London Olympics from an air mattress that I set up in front of the TV and was extremely happy. Also, thoughtless, sloppy roommate unsurprisingly left behind a lot of stuff - but like, surprisingly good stuff. Like her coffee maker. And a Christmas tree? And a VHS player that I am determined to use! I did of course contact her about it but she didn't want it!
Unfortunately, because I got so sucked into the Olympics, I didn't start searching until late in the summer, and ended up at the last minute signing on with a 22 y\/o young woman learning to be a ballerina and working at a tailor. She was very nice as a roommate, quiet, took good ? I'm not the most extroverted roommate - I'm happy to chat but only briefly, and I was always left feeling like I'd rejected her, or like she was lonely. So I don't know, but she moved out after only three months. :|||| Gaaaaaaaaaaaah. At least she paid her rent and everything - she was definitely flaky so it's kind of bullet dodged, I guess. Except I had a very stressful roommate search in November and December!
But my current roommate is working out pretty good<\/b> so far. She's very sweet and chatty but not too chatty, she doesn't make me feel like I'm being cold and mean when I just want to watch videos on my laptop for a few days. Of course sometimes I can't understand her Chicago accent, which can make conversation hard! And there was a weird situation last Monday where she brought a guy home at 11:30 even though we definitely have the type of roommate relationship where you give the other a heads up if you're bringing someone home, don't do so on weeknights, and generally, hopefully, only bring home only people you know and not strange men? Gaaaah. And then they were coming and going, which was even worse, and I stacare of things, but uncomfortably needyrt angrily stomping into the bathroom (I'm usually pretty good about passive aggression, it was more of a \"HEY SOMEONE ELSE LIVES HERE AND IT'S BEDTIME.\") so then they leave again and she comes back alone, thank god, and I poked my head out and asked if she was in for the night and asked her not to do that again. I was going to clarify the next day but she seemed cool so I just let it be. But she did mention that she had the day off, and I was thinking \"UHHHH JUST BECAUSE YOU HAD THE DAY OFF DOESN'T MEAN IT WASN'T STILL A MONDAY NIGHT FOR ME?????\" ... there are occasional moments of intense ditziness.
But we shall see. Basically it's working, she's very quiet and takes care of her dishes and doesn't give me a hard time about anything I do, and she goes to bed at around 9 and is a heavy sleeper.
HAHAHAHA NEVER MIND SHE JUST TOLD ME SHE'S MOVING OUT IN SIX WEEKS. She got transferred at work. SIIIIIIIIIGH AUGH. So back on the horse. I could move, but I like paying $900\/month, I like my building, my landlord, my neighborhood, how quiet my apartment is, how big and nice it is. I don't like having to deal with roommates and I don't like being so far away from my friends, but there isn't really a great place for me to move where I could be somewhere convenient to work and friends and be able to afford a nice one-bedroom. (After living in my beautiful large apartment for five years, it'd have to be a REALLY nice studio for me to consider it.) So for now, I think it's best for me to keep getting roommates!<\/a>
So yeah, the newest thing in my life is hockey<\/b>. XDDD I've always enjoyed it as a sport, especially since falling in love with the Mighty Ducks movies, and then with curling and my love of Canadiana, I'd hear about hockey goings on but nothing that sucked me in. But then I'd check this tumblr a bunch: http:\/\/waxjism.tumblr.com\/<\/a> which I found because of Teen Wolf (briefly a fan) and just really liked, and she started posting a bunch of hockey stuff, so I was able to get sucked into the personalities in a slow, subtle way, and then I started reading fanfic and it was all over.
But then there was the \"which team tho???\" process, and it was kind of bumpy and weird.
<\/a>kikigirl<\/b><\/a><\/span> is a Pens fan and my only close friend who loves hockey, so she was getting me to watch Penguins games and I wanted to embrace them but I had to create my own relationship with them and I was worried it wouldn't happen. But it did!! And now I adore them, and am especially excited that they traded for Jarome Iginla, which I know is sad in many ways but I just was madly in love with him from day one and love having him on my team and want all good things for him. And I adore Sid as well, and you know, all of them. :D And being a Pens fan has been super fun. I had it way too easy, of course - the first game of theirs that I watched was the last one in February, a loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. Then they didn't lose a single game through the entirety of March! So I felt like I brought some good vibes around. XDThen I wanted to have an NY area team, and I thought it'd be the Devils because I love Martin Brodeur and Ken Daneyko, and I still am fond of them (I'm trying to be chill about the hockey thing and not feel the rivalries quite as much as in soccer - I still root against rival teams, but I don't feel as much vitriol towards them and their fans) buuuuuuuut things worked out differently than I expected.
<\/a>kikigirl<\/b><\/a><\/span> and I were going to try to go to a Pens-Rangers game at MSG, but it didn't work out and I still really wanted to go to an NHL game, and my parents live really close to Nassau Coliseum, and tickets are really cheap there, so... I went to see the Islanders vs the Tampa Bay Lightning<\/b>. XDDDDD So random, but - IT WAS AMAZING. It was easily my best live sports experience, especially men's sports. A lot of the credit for that definitely is how easy the transportation was - even leaving, we live in the opposite direction as the highway so there was no traffic - and it helped that we had great seats. But it was also a really fantastic game and there genuinely was a great atmosphere. Lots of families, lots of women around, which was great (except there were only 5 stalls in the bathroom, cos the building is old as the hills). The team played well and played really hard - effort is something that I have an easier time seeing in person, how hard they go in for what would be called a 50\/50 ball in soccer (I do a lot of comparing), that sort of thing. And the way the game played out was just amazing - we were up 1-0 after the first period, then they equalized! We went up again to be 2-1 after the second (so we got to spend both breaks winning) but then they equalized again! My dad apparently felt totally despairing at that point, but we scored again! And then they pulled their goalie (one of my fave things in hockey) and it was still super tense, and then with 15 seconds left there was a great empty-netter - he just cleared it out and it drifted gently into the goal. The commentators (we checked the highlights) compared it to a curling rock. :DDD
So that was just completely fun and delightful and now I'm an Islanders fan!! Against all my better judgement, hahaha. BUT!! Then they went on a points streak for most of April, and qualified for the friggin playoffs!! For the first time since 2007!! :DDDDDDD It was all so exciting and wonderful and I was delighted to have been tricked into loving them. I had to buy playoff tickets<\/b> as soon as we clinched, even though we didn't know who we'd be playing or what the schedule was. They're moving to Brooklyn in a couple years and tickets will all be way more expensive, and I just had to do it.
Of course, then we stop winning the last couple games of the season and end up the 8th seed in the eastern conference and of course are facing the Penguins in the first round<\/b>. Of course. XDDD In a way, it's good, because one of my teams will go through. But I wanted to be able to root for the Islanders without hesitation, whereas in this matchup I'm pulling a little harder for the Penguins - aforementioned Iginla factor, plus greater expectations, plus better chances of going farther. Plus it's just so much more difficult a matchup for the Islanders! They've been playing great and most of the other teams in the conference have shown a lot of weakness, but the Pens have been a different level. However!! It does mean that i'll get to see both teams I love, and it'll be amazing to see the Penguins in the playoffs, and even if things go badly whichever way, I can be consoled. So I'm definitely feeling fairly good about how things worked out.
Also amazed at how the scheduling worked out - I knew that the higher ranked team had \"home ice advantage\" but I had no idea how that actually worked or how the games would be scheduled, especially in the shortened season, but I went for Islanders home game 2 ($65 each after fees, in the corner on the upper level, which is still pretty dang close). Which I kind of thought would be the third game of the series. The playoffs start today so I thought that'd be maybe on the weekend and it'd be nice. Well, what I forgot was that I'm doing an awesome house tour of fancy Greenwich Village townhouses on Sunday - it's a fundraiser, but I'm volunteering and get to go on the tour for free. I did it last year and it's the greatest, I friggin love seeing inside rich people's homes! Very beautiful and luxurious and kind of fantasy-ish. So I realized that game 3 might conflict with this, and then spent the whole weekend fretting at various levels, while I came to terms with the possibility of having to sell off my tickets. I also didn't know who we'd be playing at that point, so there was just so much freaking out, watching scores, waiting for schedules.
And of course it turns out that game 3 of Pens-Isles is indeed on Sunday afternoon, and I would have had to miss it. Except Islanders home game 2 is actually GAME FOUR of the series!! Which I didn't realize until quite a bit after the schedule was released, because I think they just said \"game 1\" and the date and time rather than \"Islanders at Penguins\" and the date and time. So then I kind of saw an offhand comment about the first two games being in Pittsburgh and I was like \"WAIT WHAT\" and spent the next hour in adrenaline-fueled confusion<\/b> - a terrible state in which to be. XDDD
But YES. It turns out the game I got tickets for is a week from today at 7 PM and I will absolutely be able to go, and will also be able to go to the house tour! And I'd completely forgotten when the tour was when buying the tickets and totally preferred game 3 (cos game 4 could be elimination if the Pens sweep, and regardless of my feelings about the ultimate result, I'm going to the Coliseum to make noise for the Islanders) and totally thought weekend tickets would be great, so if I'd actually understood the scheduling, I almost definitely would have gotten home game 1 tickets and then I wouldn't have been able to go!! All morning yesterday I was kind of still in shock from both relief that it worked out and from how narrowly my ignorance saved me!! WACKY. TIMES.
So now, a little over 2 months from really embracing hockey fandom, I am going to go see my two favorite teams face each other in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. To quote a meme - that escalated quickly.
I'd like to stop there because it's such a good conclusion, but I have to talk briefly about my first experience being a female fan of a major American sports league<\/b>. It can be. Exhausting. I mostly just go to spaces dominated by female fans, but I don't avoid all mainstream sports media, PLUS for me a big part of liking a sport is being a fan of specific athletes. And it is so, so incredibly hard to feel secure that the athletes I'm full of affection for are not secretly total sexist assholes with a history of treating women horribly that they've always gotten away with because of how we treat male athletes.
I'm slowly navigating my way through it and trying not to let it stop my enjoyment of the sport - and great experiences like seeing the Islanders play their asses off help a lot, there's definitely a lot of pure joy to be gotten out of it. But it's also tiring in a different way than soccer, because it's so close to home and so very much a part of the culture that I have to live in, so when powerful, popular men are constantly only talking, in fluff pieces and interviews, about women as if they just exist to be eyecandy, and saying stuff about how they'd never let their sister date a hockey player - but not that they think the hockey players need to change their behavior, because it's fine to treat other women in whatever way you wouldn't want your sister treated - it actually hurts more than whatever drama comes out of European soccer. Plus it's much more likely to be in English, especially in the countries where there might not be loud voices condemning sexism when it occurs.
Plus hockey is such a white privileged sport and racism is also a problem, definitely in a bigger way than I've seen in MLS (although I'm not the most reliable judge of how much racism is a problem in MLS). Black players are few and far between and are sometimes treated differently by fans, with more hostility if only occasionally outright racism. And the hockey media is kind of into veiled racism in lots of self-congratulatory comments about how family-oriented hockey is and how well-behaved hockey players are (ps not necessarily the case). They talk about family support as if it's the only sport where athletes are helped along by their parents? By the way it's also one of the most expensive sports for kids to play, as far as I know. Obviously white privilege here, but I don't feel tense about this the same way as I do about sexism - I don't get nervous about it when a player is interviewed or when we get insight into their personal life because I don't think they'll accidentally expose their racism, you know? But it's also something I don't have to worry about the same way, and fans of color and just generally smarter people than me have pointed out various problematic elements so it's also something I try to acknowledge and keep in mind.
What hockey is comparatively good about, certainly compared to European soccer, is homophobia, with the You Can Play project pushing education about acceptance. So that's good - because like, I'm sure there are lots of problems facing gay athletes and gay fans, but at least I know there's movement being made, the problem being acknowledged and steps being taken. So I can relax about it a little.
(This isn't really related, but it's a significantly more homoerotic sport than I expected of North America? So many more roommates than soccer! Not just road roommates, although that's sadly gone as of the new collective bargaining agreement, but also lots of players just living together. It's amazing, and makes for a lot of truly delightful fluff pieces, when they aren't talking about women!)
<\/a>
Oh and you can find me as ambitiouspants on twitter<\/a> and tumblr<\/a> now - especially twitter, where I am far too prolific."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:341116","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/341116.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=341116"}}],"title":"my heart belongs to a \"brick wrapped in reinforced concrete\"","published":"2011-12-19T14:35:36Z","updated":"2011-12-19T14:39:08Z","content":"Why am I at work and not at a meeting of the Kyriakos Papadopoulos fanclub??? (which I assume has a New York branch.)
So far just since Saturday, Kiri has -
Scored his first goal in the Bundesliga:
(It was the fourth goal in Schalke's 5-0 victory over Werder Bremen, coming after Raul's third Bundesliga hat trick - I've been giddy all weekend.)
Shadowboxed the corner flag:
Rocked out with Raul and the Schalke fans and a dude wearing an excessively creepy skull mask:
(He also took a turn on that drum.)
Did this:
Defeated a ridiculously large dude at arm wrestling, twice:
(Video here<\/a>, arm wrestling epicness is towards the end. oh, kiri <3333)
Gave an interview where he spontaneously decided German was too tough and just started speaking in english out of nowhere:
(Third video here<\/a>, they don't let you link directly to individual vids. So hilarious though!! Fuchs and Draxler are so presh as well. And KIRI SPEAKS ENGLISH YUSSSS.)<\/a>
And within the past couple weeks, Kiri has also -
Been featured in one of the most amazing photoshoots ever:
CUTEST. CENTER BACKS. EVER.
Recorded a question in truly epic German for Schalke's advent calendar contest, while holding an extremely embarrassed Ucchi in a headlock:
(video here<\/a> and it's the greatest thing ever.)
I FUCKING LOVE THAT KID. XDDD He's so extroverted and ridiculous and I'm really happy knowing he's on the team because i'm sure he helps bring everyone together - it's actually nice that he's not one of the native German speakers, I think - he's probably comfortable babbling away to everyone regardless of what language they speak. Plus he's built like a tank and I'm just glad to have him playing for us. XDD
He's actually the only Schalke player that I've seen live!! The Greek NT played the Ecuador NT at Citi Field, the Mets stadium, and my sister lives pretty close so we went to see Kiri. (or, as everyone else calls him, Papa.) It was a super duper fun experience! Kiri played well and there was a fantastic atmosphere, we had great seats and we left just early enough that the train was nice and empty. At the time I didn't know Kiri as well but I loved him for being a big, funny-looking mouth-breather (he has a tendency to just run around with his mouth gaping open XD) and for playing for Schalke. And he was so cute, they put down this weird turf on top of the baseball diamond and when they came out after halftime Kiri was all poking at the point where you could see the baseball part starting under the turf. idk, it was adorable!
And since then he's become one of Schalke's starting center backs and we've seen more and more of him, not least of which was this amazing video<\/a> of him reading Hans Sarpei facts - Hans Sarpei being a Schalke player who, it seems, is kind of the Chuck Norris internet legend of Germany with a massive facebook following. Ahhh, Kiri's terrible German. XDDD I have almost no clue what he's saying but it's the best video anyway.
P.S. Still wildly, madly in love with Raul - so utterly thrilled about his hat trick and all the lovely attention he's been getting this weekend and how much German he's been speaking lately and how insanely adorable and precious and perfect he is. :DDDDDDD Ahhh, Schalke! They may break your heart but they will be ludicrously adorable and delightful and lovable while they do so!
Contract talk: Schalke has a lot of big negotiations to do this January, I'm quite concerned about Farfan and Raul and I know there's quite a lot of financial considerations going on, but... hopefully something will be worked out. Fingers crossed! It seems like Raul and Schalke both want him to stay and it should be a matter of seeing if Raul will accept what Schalke is willing to pay, which will apparently be a paycut for him even if he signs the same contract because he used to be getting some type of massive stipend from Real Madrid (idek) and that's expired. So it'll depend on what Schalke can afford and what Raul will find reasonable. Farfan has more market value and is more able to uproot himself so I hear he's currently asking for more than Schalke are willing to pay... I think he's a fantastic player and very important to us so I hope something can be worked out there. Having a strong second half of the season and being back in the CL next year would be ridiculously delightful so fingers crossed... but you never know what Schalke will do! XD<\/small>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:340931","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/340931.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=340931"}}],"title":"historical nerdery - celebrating discovery of south pole, reading about WWII spies","published":"2011-12-17T15:12:55Z","updated":"2011-12-17T15:23:09Z","content":"If I end up making this entry public, it will start a trend of my public entries being about Sir Ernest Shackleton - although in this case somewhat indirectly. Wednesday the 14th was the 100th Anniversary of Roald Amundsen reaching the South Pole! To me, anything about Antarctica is immediately about Shackleton, his character and achievements tower over all else.
I wanted to do something to commemorate the day, and I'd made plans with my work friend Alison to go to a bar we like called that's Antarctica. They weren't doing anything special to celebrate but at least it would feel thematically appropriate. However, when I got in that day I had an email from her that she didn't think she'd be able to get out of work until 9PM (things are very crazy for her and she's working a lot of overtime. I, on the other hand, get out between 4:30 and 5). Luckily I was able to make a contingency plan to get dinner with friend!Corey.
Corey an I have been making plans to go to a Polish restaurant to get pierogis for months now, I think - I started craving them and suggested we go back to Poland (we went on a whirlwind two-day trip to Bedzin and Krakow last spring and ate lots of delicious pierogis) so that was the original plan but then I was thinking we could do something more thematically appropriate if we went to a Scandinavian restaurant, since Amundsen was Norwegian. Apparently Scandinavian cuisine isn't particularly popular in NYC, one of the top results was the restaurant at IKEA. XD But luckily of the 4 non-IKEA options (3 of which were different locations of the same chain and one of which was ridiculously expensive), one was perfect!! A little bit fancier than my usually dinners out but not prohibitively so, and since it was a special occasion I was ok with going a bit upscale. AND it was super close to Antarctica Bar, which was perfect because Alison realized that she might be able to get out closer to 7:30 (the 9PM estimate was based on a fit of exhaustion and despair the night before).
So even though earlier in the day I'd been all despairing about my ability to make plans and have a social life (in addition to Alison's expected cancellation, I'd failed to give Corey advanced notice about a Shackleton viewing fiesta that Katie and I were going to have that weekend and she couldn't go so I wasn't sure if we were going to have it at all or when etc etc) everything worked out incredibly well in the end! The Scandinavian restaurant, Smorgas, was absolutely delightful!! And pricey for me is not extremely pricey so if you don't mind $20-$30 entrees then I highly recommend it, and I will definitely be back if I ever want to go somewhere special. Very lovely atmosphere, very quiet between 6 and 7, delicious food, and they gave us a teeny free sample of delicious mulled wine at the end of the meal! Corey and I talked about puppies and compared the personalities and leadership approaches of Amundsen, Scott, and Shackleton, and it was a lovely way to celebrate the occasion! Thematically appropriate activities are just more fun than normal activities.
Actually I need to go back soon because now I know what gravlaks is! (Or gravlax, as it's more commonly known outside Scandinavia.) I was too nervous to order it there but I was watching the Cooking Channel last night and it was some type of French Canadian Christmas Special and it was amazing and he made gravlax, so that was incredibly convenient. XD
After we finished dinner, Alison was able to tear herself away from work and meet me at Antarctica! It was woefully empty of South Pole celebrating revelers, but the fact that it wasn't packed was nice anyway. Alison was thrilled to be out of the office, although we did fall into bad habits and talked a lot about work. It was more about general issues than about Alison's own difficulties, though, so it was less upsetting and I was able to contribute more. Anyway, I was very happy that I was able to celebrate the day.<\/a>
Although Antarctic Exploration is no longer my most recent nerdy historical subject of interest! A wikipedia research excursion into the British perspective on WWII (starting with the Battle of Britain) lead to a more intense immersion into technological aspects of WWII which lead to an overwhelming interest in tactical deception operations and double agents, eventually leading to me taking several books on the subject out of the library (unfortunately, one of them is 800 pages long and impractical for reading on the subway). SO. AWESOME. I've always avoided WWII before, because to me it's so overwhelmingly overshadowed by the Holocaust.
And indeed, there were some difficult moments - I was generally looking into aspects that I'd never really studied before, and overwhelmingly from a British perspective, particularly focusing on areas of Allied success, so generally it was fascinating and as positive as this sort of thing can be, certainly not depressing. But since I have quite a number of unresolved psychological issues about the Holocaust (of which my grandparents are survivors) there were times when I was unable to avoid following a link to something I knew would be disturbing or upsetting, trying to confront this stuff little by little. Since I was coming at things from a British perspective (much of which we never learn about in American schools) there were certain stories from POWs who were in the concentration camps, and hearing about how horrible their conditions are, and then how horrified they were at how much incredibly worse all the Jewish prisoners were being treated is really lingering.
However, for the most part what I was reading about what just absolutely fascinating and cool. The whole period was so technologically fascinating. Nothing was digital but the war was motivating everyone to push all the existing technology to its absolute limit. I've never been someone interested in military history or certainly weapons development but I actually got quite fascinated. The Battle of the Beams<\/a> was one of my favorite parts - the progression of Luftwaffe radio navigation and British methods of thwarting this, lead by awesome science dude R V Jones<\/a>.
This technological\/scientific aspect also launched me into a whole exploration of cryptology and in particular the German Enigma machine<\/a>. If you give something a cool name, I am significantly more likely to read its wikipedia page. The Enigma machine was broken by the allies using valuable assistance from Polish codebreakers and a very early computer designed in part by Alan Turing. Decrypts from Enigma messages were known as ULTRA and were an extremely valuable source of intelligence. I ended up reading quite a bit about the history of cryptology as well. I was able to kind of grasp some early forms of encryption but the nitty gritty behind the decryption of the enigma was waaaaaaaaay to complicated and mathematical for me to understand. And nowadays everything is computery and much less interesting to me.
But the BEST BEST thing is the secret agents - particularly the allies' Double Cross System - run by the Twenty Committee... or XX Committee. XD That right there shows you that all the cool, fun people were working on this stuff. I say \"allies\" but really it was the British, they pwned double agents and military deception. In part this was opportunity and stuff but the British military system was apparently a lot more flexible than the American and allowed for more opportunity to get quirky creative types together and let them make magic.
Basically, every single German agent sent into the UK was captured and often turned into a double agent. Germany did not have a single agent in Britain that wasn't controlled by the Twenty Committee. Part of the reason for this overwhelming success is that the German intelligence agency, the Abwehr... basically didn't like the Nazis much. So most of them were highly unmotivated to select and train really excellent agents. Agents were often chosen for convenience - \"Oh, you speak English? Let's parachute you in... please try to be loyal\" and stuff like that. Or quite possibly in some cases the Abwehr controllers were actively trying to sabotage the whole effort, we don't really know. The head of the organization at the beginning of the war was implicated in the plot to assassinate Hitler, so that should tell you something. Additionally, the very nature of the organization and the hierarchy disincentivized speaking up if they later suspected that their agents had been turned. If an Abwehr officer was found insufficient, they would have to enter the army, instead of hanging out in sunny Madrid relaying information. Plus, having agents and supplying information provided prestige, especially if no one looked too closely at the quality of the information.
There were a lot of really interesting double agents, many with awesome code names. Tricycle is one of the most famous - quite possibly an inspiration for James Bond (Ian Fleming was floating around coming up with awesome crazy schemes), although not good looking, he was a wealthy adventurous playboy who apparently was just incredibly charming and irresistible to women. His codename is said to come from his fondness of threesomes, although I've also seen the explanation that it was derived from his two subagents.<\/a>
But the greatest double agent - and one of the coolest people OF ALL TIME - is Joan Pujol Garcia, aka GARBO. Absolute genius, fascinating dude, wrote some truly epically entertaining bullshit spy letters to the Nazis. Vital part of the D-Day deceptions that caused the Germans to keep numerous divisions at Pas-de-Calais, thinking the Normandy invasion was just a diversion.
HOWEVER. I think I should actually just end this entry here and write about GARBO another time. I just got his autobiography and I'm so friggin pumped! (half the chapters of which are written by the historian who tracked him down - and unfortunately the historian has a slightly questionable reputation, but on the other hand there's no doubt that the man he found is indeed GARBO so I think it's safe to assume the text is overall as accurate as a book written 40 years later about very secret things can be.) It was quite the struggle just to get it, though! It was supposed to come out in February so I pre-ordered it (it was published 1985 but reprinted 2011) and then I kept getting emails moving the release date forward and back. Then finally I was told it was shipped but I got a little \"we couldn't deliver this\" note from the post office, and I requested redelivery but they totally ignored me, and the USPS site didn't recognize the serial number on the delivery slip. So I had to go to the post office this morning to get it and the whole thing felt faintly ominous, but the pick up actually went really smoothly so I was happy. :) And now I think I will just read it and not write about it anymore!
Or I'll keep re-watching Ouran High School Host Club... either way. XD (Well, I can't take Ouran on the train when I go home for early Hanukkah later!)
Speaking of re-watching, thanks to
<\/a>ohmiya_sg<\/b><\/a><\/span> linking to the JE Index a little while ago, I've totally been re-immersing myself in Johnny's stuff. XDD This<\/a> is still a highlight though!! (God, there's so many arashi sub communities though! And I've been gone for so long, I have to go through a whole bunch of membership processes and I keep forgetting where I've applied and yeeeesh.)Oh god and speaking of Schalke, there has been so much unbearably cute<\/a> Raul stuff lately! Or a quote from our sporting director about rumors that Raul might go to Qatar - \"We will speak [with Raul] in January. I do not think Raul will move to Qatar. Raul has not played football so long just to earn money. He will not go anywhere without his family; they will decide his future with him.\"<\/i> <33333 THAT'S HOW I FEEL, HORST HELDT! Ahhh I can't wait til I get an improved photoshop for Christmas so I can make gifs of all these new videos.
Haha, I like how long ago I said \"i'll just end this entry here.\" Really for me this isn't a long one, though! Basically almost nothing is behind the cuts. XD I wanted to shorten it for your friends lists but obviously everything i'm saying is way too fascinating to be cut... clearly..."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:340718","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/340718.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=340718"}}],"title":"Mississippi Personhood Amendment","published":"2011-10-11T23:55:45Z","updated":"2011-10-11T23:55:45Z","content":"Originally posted by
<\/a>gabrielleabelle<\/b><\/a><\/span> at Mississippi Personhood Amendment<\/a>Okay, so I don't usually do this, but this is an issue near and dear to me and this is getting very little<\/s> no attention in the mainstream media.
Mississippi is voting on November 8th on whether to pass Amendment 26, the \"Personhood Amendment\". This amendment would grant fertilized eggs and fetuses personhood status.
Putting aside the contentious issue of abortion, this would effectively outlaw birth control and criminalize women who have miscarriages. This is not a good thing.
Jackson Women's Health Organization<\/a> is the only place women can get abortions in the entire<\/i> state, and they are trying to launch a grassroots movement against this amendment. This doesn't just apply to Mississippi, though, as Personhood USA, the group that introduced this amendment, is trying to introduce identical amendments in all 50 states<\/i>.
What's more, in Mississippi, this amendment is expected to pass. It even has Mississippi Democrats, including the Attorney General, Jim Hood, backing it.
The reason I'm posting this here is because I made a meager donation to the Jackson Women's Health Organization this morning, and I received a personal email back hours later - on a Sunday - thanking me and noting that I'm one of the first \"outside\" people to contribute.
So if you sometimes pass on political action because you figure that enough other people will do something to make a difference, make an exception on this one. My RSS reader is near silent on this amendment. I only found out about it through a feminist blog. The mainstream media is not reporting on it.
If there is ever a time to donate or send a letter in protest, this would be it.
What to do?
- Read up on it. Wake Up, Mississippi<\/a> is the home of the grassroots effort to fight this amendment. Daily Kos<\/a> also has a thorough story on it.
- If you can afford it, you can donate at the site's link.
- You can contact the Democratic National Committee<\/a> to see why more of our representatives aren't speaking out against this.
- Like this Facebook page<\/a> to help spread awareness.
<\/div>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:339359","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/339359.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=339359"}}],"title":"US Open 2010 Memories Post of Doom! Yes, 2010.","published":"2011-09-02T14:05:33Z","updated":"2011-09-02T14:05:33Z","content":"AHAHAHAAA THIS ENTRY. I went to the US Open on September 4th 2010 or something, started writing the friggin entry on the 27th, got back to it on like... February 2011 and variously after that. I AM GOING TO FINISH IT TODAY. I've already been to the US Open again in the meantime but tomorrow is my approximately one-year anniversary because once again I will be back at the US Open for the first Saturday of the tournament. Having this entry in between my 2011 write-ups won't be confusing, right?
I knew... so much less about tennis. And sadly, we only have a couple camera-phone pictures this time. And I didn't know very many players and I was much more into Rafa than I am now and it's all quite strange. This is why you should write stuff within 2 months of what you're writing about, ha. I'm sorry because it's probably really hard to follow what was written when and how I felt about tennis\/tennis players at whatever time I was writing. XD
As I said at some point in the writing process:<\/i>
OK so my trip to the US Open was 23 days ago... from when I started writing this dang thing. Now it's been months and months and another Grand Slam and it's a totally different season and I've learned an incredibly lot more about tennis. BUT I still want to write it up and I'd written about bits of it before and I think I'll remember all the highlights. The vast majority of it was written within two months of the event, I promise! XD
It was, in a word, AWESOME. We got day tickets for the Saturday session - so that means that we had all day and could run around going anywhere we wanted except Arthur Ashe. This was perfect. As was the weather! I was with my twin sister Katie, her fiance David, and his sister Steph. We were meeting up with Brian, a friend of David's, whose family goes every year. One of his brothers was a competitive junior tennis player and is now playing for Stanford or something, so they're a big tennis family.
Generally we were watching the third round of the singles matches, I believe. Definitely for the singles matches.
Summary of the day:
1) Arrive via bus, not crowded at all! Had to walk a ways to get to the tennis, especially as they were charging admission to the Botanic Gardens. XP No big deal, though - passed some youth soccer games and a bunch of people in jerseys!
2) Security is easier than expected, and we're in. Preppiness abounds! I ogle the posters of past winners, Katie and I get excited about the giant tennis balls you're supposed to have people sign. Katie goes on to count their presence in the various courts - they look hilarious sitting next to people or on their laps. We also note that many people appear to be wearing tennis ball-colored shirts.
3) Schedules cost money, so we kinda fake it til we make it using the overhead screens and our keen tracking abilities. When we arrive, Soderling v de Bakker is happening in Louis Armstrong and Monfils v Tipsarevic is happening in the Grandstand. We were going through Louis Armstrong to get to the Grandstand anyway, so we sit for a bit in there before heading into the Gael-Janko match.
4) I get antsy, but wait until everyone is ready to head to the Grandstand. Hahahaaa. Gael and Janko are having an AWESOME MATCH and the place is utterly packed. You can't even stand at the balcony. We give up.
5) I get even more antsy sitting watching Soderling dismantle de Bakker, so I keep trying to find a spot in the Grandstand where I can see something. End up squatting down peering between people's legs. Far better than any of the spots I'd found while standing. Wish I'd worn shorts instead of a skirt, but whatever.
6) Sated and worried about my sunscreen situation, I head back into Louis Armstrong.
7) Time to meet Brian's family. However, they are in a smaller court and we are left waiting until the changeover [when I initially wrote this entry I didn't know what a changeover was and I wrote \"until the current game ends\". Awwwww 2010 Laura, so cute.<\/i>]. I realize I don't know Brian's family nor do I particularly care about the match going on. I have a US Open to explore!
8) Having been instructed to stalk the practice courts, I bring Katie and Steph with me. After some initial confusion, we figure out how things work - and just in time for RAFAEL NADAL TO SHOW UP TO PRACTICE. HE IS SHORTLY JOINED BY FERNANDO VERDASCO, THEY ARE HITTING TOGETHER.
9) We lose our shit.
10) Lunch! Takes forever. I debate leaving my \"holding down the table\" position to see if anyone else has shown up at the practice courts but man up instead and make small talk with Brian.
11) Have been attempting to find out when Tommy Robredo's doubles match is occurring. Call dad, try to direct him to a schedule online, am told it was at 11. Shrug this off because the day is already awesome.
12) I take a quick detour to the practice courts, but then rejoin everyone back at Louis Armstrong, where Mardy Fish is taking on Arnaud Clement. The first game is still happening when I get there, a 10-minute exchange of deuces. Admire Clement's head accessories.
13) Mardy Fish appears to have lost some weight!
14) Katie and I get the urge to roam. Unfortunately, Brian (who had been on a plane all night to get to NY) has fallen asleep in the aisle seat. Gentle nudging accomplishes nothing. We wait out another game and are able to escape.
15) We wander around the smaller courts. A doubles match catches our eye, it's great fun to watch! The results of another doubles match pop up on screen. It's Robredo!! The match is one court over! A quick scurrying and we are feasting our eyes on his fine, white-clad Spanish hiney.
16) The way we end up sitting and the way the players arrange themselves, Robredo is never quite as close to us as he could be. This is probably for the best, and we both fall in love with him anyway.
17) Both David and I want to see Juan Carlos Ferrero's match. Me because he's a delicious Spanish Armada member, and David because he's interested in him and Jugen Melzer as dark horses. Katie heads home, I meet David at the Grandstand so we can watch some women's tennis and be ready for the imminent Juanqui.
18) As though haunted by the Grandstand's earlier 4-set epic between Monfils and Tipsarevic, Patty Schnyder and Yanina Wickmayer end up fighting it out to a third set tie-breaker. Fun to watch, but less so after a long day when it's keeping you from Juan Carlos Ferrero!
19) It might be the result of the impatient waiting, but I declare Juanqui to be the least attractive of the Armada members I'm familiar with. Still, cute - and I like that he has left long tails where he ties off his headband.
20) We don't stay long, and get home in time for dinner! I spend the night at Katie's, we watch Crackovia and the video of Rafa and Roger giggling for 15 minutes, and uproarious good times are had by all. Well, mostly at that point we're very sleepy, but it was still fun.
Further details, as required-
[see, I cleverly got the top part down so I'd be able to remember everything! Most of these details were also filled in very quickly as well, but I only got up to item 12 so after that it's written in 2011 and pieced together from memories and pictures and comments I left at ontd_tennis at the time.<\/i>]
5) On attempting to see Tipsarevic-Monfils.<\/b>
I don't know if anyone remembers Tipsy-Monfils but it was quite a good match! If I remember correctly (which is becoming increasingly unlikely as I delay this entry more and more), Tispy had just defeated Andy Roddick - at the US OPEN!! bum bum BUM and so on. So anyway they're both interesting players to watch and the place was fucking packed. I remember feeling quite frustrated because there were a lot of cases where if one person had shifted slightly we both would have been able to see?
But yeah I ended up on the balcony that attaches the two courts, peering between people's legs. I could see most of the action except that which was happening on the side near us - sort of under the balcony, you know. It was ok, I didn't know that much about tennis at that point anyway and I was just happy to get to watch Gael jumping around. However - the skirt I was wearing did make the experience somewhat interesting, being a tad on the short side. I don't think there are likely to be any exciting photos of me popping up somewhere, as I was slightly back, but you never know. Luckily I never go commando. (Again, the people in front of me were not sympathetic about the concept of noticing there was someone squatting behind them and trying to arrange their legs in a helpful way. In-person tennis fans are not always the most kind and generous of folk, it seems, although my experiences online have been very satisfying.) [Wednesday 2011 people were nicer! The weekend thing probably doesn't help at all.<\/i>]
9) Rafael Nadal and Fernando Verdasco<\/b> - HOLY SHIT. HOOOOOLY SHIIIIIIIT. We show up at the practice courts and there's fence all round, most of which is either inaccessible or covered with mesh that makes it very difficult to see through. But there's a little space set up where you can see one of the courts and there's benches and stuff. And right next to that is the place where the players come and go but there's security and little bike rack barriers (whatever those are called) so that people can be let in to get autographs, but in a controlled amount.
This is a lot to take in for the very clueless, so we spend a little time orienting ourselves and trying to figure out if anything exciting is happening. There was kind of a fuss by the entrance so we're like what? what?? And then it's like. . . OH HEY RAFAEL NADAL IS SHOWING UP.
RAFAEL NADAL.
We're like \"aaaagh what do we do let's get closer\" so for no reason at all me and Steph get ourselves let behind the barrier. This means you're next to the mesh rather than actually able to see so if you don't want an autograph it's a little pointless, except we were in the area that was right next to the bench where Rafa sat down on to get himself together, so we could see him there through the mesh and I could have reached out and just poked him. I mean. He was right there, sitting on a bench. AHHHHHHHH. Uncle Toni was next to him and one of the fans said hey and Uncle Toni said hey XDD
But finally we realize that we should go back to the bench, where Katie had already secured us perfect seats!! And while we were doing this. . .
FERNANDO VERDASCO SHOWED UP. BEAUTIFUL, NAKED, UNDERWEAR MODEL, CUDDLY, TWEETS IN ENGLISH, FLIRTS WITH FELI LOPEZ FERNANDO VERDASCO. HE WAS THERE TO PRACTICE WITH RAFA.
fjsiogjritojsdlkgfdlgkdtohpktoypkadl;skdlmfxdkmriejar
At first, Rafa was in the side of the court next to the viewing area, and Fer was behind the mesh. I love them both so I kept leaning forwards to see Fer.
Rafa was wearing reasonably tight clothes. Enough to cause a visceral physical reaction from this young lady. XD Shorts were above the knee - visible thigh! He looked gorgeous.
Not that you can tell from our phone camera photos. XD
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The overwhelming impression was. . . health. It wasn't shocking or excessive, he just looked like an incredibly healthy, athletic guy - tall, but not looming. Ohhhh swooooon. *_*
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Rafa was quite serious - although of course, all the damn conversation was in Spanish. Curse my lack of comprehension! Then again even if they were speaking French, which I ostensibly actually speak a bit, I would probably not do much better. But anyway, yes, he seemed quite intense - whereas Fer was much more light-hearted and smiley, joking around, very VERY adorable!! (of course when they played each other a few days later Rafa pretty much took Fer apart, but hey I guess Fer had a better time getting there!)
So at first Rafa was in the part of the court in front of the benches and Fer was over behind the mesh but I love them both
10) On lunch taking forever.<\/b>
Apparently the US Open does not have a good system set up for this. I was lucky that I just had to wait while other people were fetching the food but I have a niggling feeling that Feli was on the practice courts around this time. It's hard to be dissatisfied about anything about my day but I do kind of wish I'd seen him. I just. . . can't imagine him actually existing in person! XD [I saw Feli in 2011! :D And we brought sandwiches!<\/i>]
11) On being told Tommy's match was at 11.<\/b>
I later realized that to someone not used to reading tennis schedules (which, honestly, is still me as well) it looks like everything starts at 11, and I'm not really sure what I was expecting from my dad. XD They just give the games that are scheduled to occur in each court in the order in which they will happen. Then you sort of guestimate based on how long games take when you need to be where.
But I felt ok when he said 11 because we had just arrived and didn't have everything under our belts well enough to seek out a doubles match on a smaller court, it's not like I was sitting idly watching something less interesting or whatever. Of course, I'm even happier that we ended up catching it!
12) On the Fish v Clement match.<\/b>
A definite highlight was the phrase \"Advantage Fish.\" Ahhhh Katie and I still say that to each other sometimes. The chair ump had a good accent, too. And, according to a comment I left in _tennis at the time and saved as a reference for this post, there was a woman sitting behind us who kept encouraging Mardy to go on the offense and giving him advice and said he was driving her to drink. XD At that point I was too young and innocent to be bothered by pro-American bias and it also really wasn't bad.
15) On finding Tommy Robredo.<\/b>
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!! This was the start of a love affair that persists to this day [because this is getting written September 2011 so that phrase is actually meaningful - although his appearance singing Jingle Bells in an ATP video helped as well] and when Katie and I were back at the US Open on Wednesday (August 31, 2011) we missed Tommy dearly!! *___________* We declared him to have \"dashing, Three Musketeers good looks.\"
::swoon:: Tommy is so flawless!! Even crappy cell phone pictures cannot fail to display his beauty. And incredible tan lines. Watching hot guys play doubles is just so super fun because of all the bending over while they wait for their partner to serve. And on Tommy this is all \"hello, ladies. How do you like my thighs? I worked extra hard on these tan lines just for you <333\" and of course we were all crying and pulling our hair like that girl at the Beatles concert at the end of Hard Day's Night.
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Honestly, Tommy Robredo waiting for serve is just one of the most rewarding sites in tennis. Sometimes he wiggles!! That's when he's waiting for his opponent to serve. Ugh, he is the best.
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With Marcel Granollers! Who we have since become fond of as well - and we thought he was ADORABLE at the time, too... it was funny, because I'd heard of Tommy but not Marcel, and we thought Marcel was just this total random kid who was playing with Tommy. To this day I think of him as being at least 3 years younger than he is. He's so tall and awkward. :333 He served great and Tommy was returning beautifully. ::sigh:: I miss him.
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As I said in the _tennis comment<\/a> where I originally posted these pictures - \"Amazing cell phone action shot!\"
This match also created our little special relationship with Rajeev Ram (but not Lipsky! Where was Lispky in 2010??). We were there rooting for Tommy and Marcel but felt slightly like bad Americans, especially since the little stands were full of people saying \"Come on Raj!\" and \"Let's go Raj!!\" I'm pretty sure Raj lost but we loved the enthusiasm of his fans. We stopped by another match of his yesterday and heard the same cheering! It was like the months just melted away...
18) On Yanina Wickmayer.<\/b>
Even a year later, I have a joke grudge against her for how long this match took. I've forgiven Patty Schnyder - I think Wickmayer had more chances to close it out so I resented her more?
19) On my foolish youth.<\/b>
I don't know - Juan Carlos Ferrero in person didn't impress me the way Tommy did, or Fer giggling away on the practice courts, but having seen him much more since this day, in videos and interviews and cuddling ridiculous dogs, he's just so elegant and dignified and sexy - it's hard to imagine myself ever thinking he was funny looking. A lesson on judging from appearances alone, before you hear someone's smooth, sex-on-a-plate voice and see their fabulous purple hotel.
[And there you have it! So 12-19 were written just now, the rest at various times between September 27, 2010 and probably like... April or May of 2011? Ahhh, the days when I kind of only knew the Armada. :3 What a good starting point! The following summary was written back in 2010, by the way.<\/i>]
Overall thoughts!
Strangely enough, I highly recommend going to the US Open on a day when you're not too stressed about seeing any particular matches. Going in with an attitude of \"whatever I end up seeing is cool\" is a lot more fun and less stressful. I mean, there were a few things I wanted to catch and I think it's pretty feasible to see at least a glimpse of whatever you wanted, but yeah. It was just less stressful this way.
[2011 note: on Wednesday I had about 20 matches that I wanted to see and that kind of works good too, because when you see that many matches it's hard to be dissatisfied if you miss one. XD It did lead to me spending a lot of time tracking the scores and thinking about our scheduling, but not to the inhibition of my enjoyment. But I'm sure some people would hate that... Anyway I guess my advice for going to a slam would be to have a bajillion players that you love and then you'll be excited no matter who you see, even if the matches themselves end up being less good or something.<\/i>]
I also recommend moving around a bit. I did a bit more roaming than most of my companions and I ended the day with less of a headache, because I spent less time sitting in the sun. However, probably more serious tennis fans than I would be more interested in catching an entire match, or at least an entire set. . . or at least not slipping out of every match right before the end because you don't want to get caught in a crowd.
But for me, hopping from court to court and match to match worked out great! Louis Armstrong was kind of our home base, and it's definitely my favorite court - the seats all have backs, instead of just being benches. Maybe I got spoiled but I ended up in the Grandstand at the end of the day and it was kind of rough on my back. But yeah, I also went and explored the smaller courts and popped in and out of the Grandstand throughout the day and saw some good stuff. Also, Louis Armstrong lets you come and go during the match, for some reason. I mean, not just in between games. Obviously you're not supposed to and we generally waited to leave, but it was nice not to have to wait to enter.
My other advice for the US Open is to go on a day with perfect weather. My god, did we luck out. Beautiful, sunny, not too hot - it was starting to get windy, which would end up causing a lot of problems for the players, but for us sitting in the stands it was very sweet. Also I was apparently the only one of my group to adequately apply sunscreen! Although most people just got a couple of little patchy burns. I actually ended up squatting in the sun early on and got paranoid so I applied another layer, so yeah.
[Apparently this is key, because I did it again this year and was fine, whereas Katie waited until lunch at 1-ish and got burnt. Apply sunscreen before you go and then touch it up between 11:30 and 12 and then you're probably good - although if you feel hot any time later, add more sunscreen!<\/i>]"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:338982","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/338982.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=338982"}}],"title":"US Open 2011 - Wednesday, Part 2","published":"2011-09-02T04:03:04Z","updated":"2011-09-02T14:07:19Z","content":"So we eventually wandered over to Gilles, who was in the fourth set of his match against Ricardo Mello. And it was very crowded (packed with French people!!). And we were almost the last people let in our changeover and there were basically no seats left and we ended up Right. Behind. His. Chair.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6190\/6103700881_c453c3faa2_z.jpg\")
SO CLOSE. SO AWKWARD. Hahaha every time he came back for a changeover I didn't even know where to look. I was like \"ajdidsofds Gilles is right in front of me I should soak it in... but what if he looks at me? And we make eye contact from like 2 feet away??\" It was the closest we got to anyone and we spent the whole day on small courts.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6062\/6104247838_5ef17e33e1_z.jpg\")
And of course, he is ADORABLE up close. *_________* So presh!! Such, um, sinewy legs...
He wasn't playing well when we were there and kept shouting at himself in French. And the crowd was all French and kept saying \"Allez Gilles!!\" And making these \"ooeuuah\" sounds that are really hard to transcribe but extremely French. It was fun as hell.
And Katie captured his derp face!
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6074\/6104249724_b7990de8a1_z.jpg\")
but mostly he was pretty.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6185\/6103702845_a43efa4279_z.jpg\")
And he ended up winning the 5th set! Probably because we left. . .
Flavs was next, back on the court where we saw Feli. Good times on Court 11.
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Flavia was all fuckin' business. She's so light and jokey and full of personality that I was actually a little surprised, but hey - she was doing her job and she was taking it seriously. It was epic. And she played pretty great! Beat a fellow Italian, Romina Oprandi, who wears a ridiculous hat with a bill that goes almost straight up. So Flavs clearly was not going to go down to someone in a hat like that.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6197\/6104273850_8fe1e38df1_z.jpg\")
Bam. While I'm talking clothing, I love her kit!
But it was a bit of a blow-out so we didn't stay too long. Also I think we were behind Oprandi's cousins or friends or something. . . two dudes kept cheering for her super hard.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6065\/6103729501_ae0e2f8496_z.jpg\")
Pablo Andujar is one of the hunkiest players on tour, so obviously we had to stop by and watch him and doubles partner Daniel Gimeno-Traver (who had lost the 5-setter against GGL) beat up on douchey Bernard Tomic and Ivan Dodig. (Tomic in particular comes across douchey. he was wearing a hat backwards...)
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6076\/6104276306_d160f624a1_z.jpg\")
Particularly exciting because Andujar's shirt was coming apart! Unfortunately, this just meant something was flapping at his shoulder, but we were so overcome by his hunkiness that we imagined him flexing his muscles and ripping the thing to shreds.
At this point the evening was wearing down and the timing became a major concern, cos several matches that we really wanted to be able to sit and get good spots for and watch for a while we're all due to start somewhat shortly - an all-Spanish doubles match featuring Marc Lopez and Marcel Granollers, Jamie Murray's mixed doubles, and Ana Ivanovic-Nenad Zimonjic mixed doubles. (We also thought we'd be able to stop by Aisam's mixed dubs but his team withdrew. :\/)
Ana-Nenad was starting later, and the other two matches were on adjacent courts. We decided to start with Marcel and Marc.
AND OH MY GOD WERE THEY CUTE. They were playing GGL and Albert Montanes and Marcel came in all joking around with Montanes and we totally were thinking they were ready to just switch partners. Everyone was very relaxed and in a good mood. Lots of smiles during the warming up. :D Marc Lopez is just beyond adorable and was looking quite trim and attractive up close. Quality stubble.
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Marcel was also looking cute, although seeing him just made us miss Tommy Robredo more. We were flashing back to last year when Marcel was that adorable awkward gangly kid playing with dashing Tommy. :33333 (Cos I'd only been a tennis fan for two and a half months and I'd managed to discover Tommy - although I didn't fully appreciate his perfection until I saw him in person - but not Marcel.) ::sigh:: memories. . .
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Not that Marcel isn't presh on his own!
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6075\/6103737029_3466c5da09_z.jpg\")
This is one of my absolute favorite pictures of the day. SO ADORABLE, Marc Lopez waiting for Marcel to serve. And giggling while doing so. They were all SO SMILEY, especially Marc. :D
Unnnnnfortunately it was not all fun and games. After only 3 games - without even a changeover! - GGL had to retire. (remember that 5-setter I said was important?) ::sigh:: So that's why we don't have oodles of pictures of chatty, giggly Spaniards. We thought we would have more time with them!! ;____;
However, the entertainment was not over yet! Marc had two friends who were over on our side of the court, so he came over to the little fence to talk to them. I was sitting. . . right next to that bench!! His friends were very good-looking, by the way. And of course Marc was all smiley and it was all very adorable. Then... Feli Lady reappeared!! We'd noticed her before, getting to the match all early like we did, haha, and we were like \"omg is that Feli Lady?? Here to support Feli's friends??\" and after the match her and her friend were standing right up on top of Marc's friends and I heard one of them say, really loudly, \"I got a great picture of them talking!!\"
I was like \"...wth, Feli Lady. That's... so rude and awkward!\" but then it turned out - she'd befriended Marc's friends! God, she's good. Advanced level fangirling. When they turned away from Marc, one of them said \"You forgot to get her picture!!\" - I guess they wanted to take a pic with Marc. And his friends looked so upset that they'd forgotten!! They were looking back to where Marc was already practically across the court like \"ooooh nooo!\" thinking \"do we shout at him to call him back? but he's so far! and it'd be a pain for him! but we promised this lady DD:\" and it was SO CUTE. But Feli Lady was cool, she was like \"haha no, don't worry about it, i got a great picture of you guys talking\" and everyone was happy again.
Oh, and they asked the dudes why GGL retired, which I assumed was because of the 5-setter earlier (we'd been worried that he was going to just withdraw, to be honest, so at least we got three games!) and I got the more specific answer that the long match had led to some sort of problem with his toe. Hopefully he'll feel better for his next singles match!
All that concluded, and Katie back from the facilities (she missed all the above because I got all nervous about time... I stink. :( ) we whisked over to Jamie Murray and Nadia Petrova playing doubles against Leander Paes and Elena Vesnina. Jamie and Nads are a good combination but neither of them was firing on all cylinders tonight. Leander was a bit off as well but Elena was being awesome enough to overcome that. Again, I felt so bad for Jamie, but it was such a fun match to watch. Mixed doubles is just massively entertaining.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6210\/6104285742_048e3369b0_z.jpg\")
Serious faces. :(
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6181\/6103737773_f3af4a9d20_z.jpg\")
Happy faces. They were a good team, though. Elena is adorable!!
I was joking that Katie should take a pic of Leander's butt, which she'd done for me with Feli earlier, and she actually did because she's mean. But I won't inflict it on you.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6073\/6104290042_9778e3564c_z.jpg\")
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MOST AMAZING MOMENT. Ahahahaaa a squirrel ran along the fence and hopped onto the court. WPS fans will remember a similar incident at the final, just this past Saturday. A fucked up sickly crazy squirrel ran onto the field and ran in circles and stopped play for 5 full minutes, until he was dragged off under a box.
This squirrel was way cooler and was just confused and adorable and hilarious for a little. Katie and I were like \"WHAT THE HELL SQUIRRELS, LEAVE OUR SPORTS ALONE\" but we were cracking up. And as you can see, Elena was laughing and trying to shoo it with her racket. XDD
An old dude who was working for the tournament had been chilling next to use in between changeovers and he missed the squirrel action so he came back and was like \"what's going on??\" and hew as adorable. <333 We thought he'd left but as we were leaving he was coming back in and we were like \"YAY!\" haha idk, we amuse ourselves.
Anyway, at this point I checked twitter on Katie's iphone (i don't have a smart phone, I'm like the only person in the universe) and Judy tweeted a picture of the squirrel. Jeiwofjsifd we were in the same match as Judy Murray!!! What if she was RIGHT BEHIND US hearing us freak out over being in the same match as her??
Luckily we could tell from the angle of the shot that she wasn't, and Katie was able to spot her!
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6210\/6104289148_31f4a9c82e_z.jpg\")
Can you find her?
We stayed for most of the first set but I started to get antsy because the match before Ana-Nenad was wrapping up. I wanted to get there early because it was going to be on a tiny court and we anticipated that being very popular, even though it was late - and even though EVERYONE was in Isner-Baghdatis. They had to make an announcement that no one else was getting in (chronologically this happened in between Andujar and Marc-Marcel, I think. We also got crepes at that point! So tasty!!) and we'd just seen ENORMOUS lines right before they made that announcement.
Of course...after we got there all early and got ourselves good seats...Ana-Nenad was moved to a larger court. Haha that was good though - it was around 8 at that point and most of the courts were empty. There was just like... one other doubles match stretching on.
At this point I was pretty friggin tired (also at this point in writing this entry, although I did it in three sittings) so I was thinking about my back and the time as much as anything. But! Ana is lovely. And the crowd was so behind her! Cheering madly for every shot she made, gasping in disappointment over the misses. (although the woman next to me, clearly a fan, was calling her Anna - like anne-uh, the American way. Um. ...)
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6075\/6104291848_8cea0a51cf_z.jpg\")
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And Nenad is very, very attractive. My heavens! So hot!! And doing all doubles strategy things and being awesome. It was really fun to watch them interact, although they were pretty serious business.
bonus Ana epic action shot:
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6066\/6104295704_8688a34760_z.jpg\")
So yeah... I was totally slagged at this point so we didn't stay the entire first set there either. It was around 8:30 and we finally head for home!
A super-duper incredibly full and fun and satisfying day! I can't believe how many awesome people we saw! And just had so much fun doing it. Everything went well and everyone was nice and we stayed hydrated and happy! I love doubles, so it was fantastic to see so many matches, and especially with so many of my favorite players!
We're going back on Saturday and we expect to be more interested in the bigger matches and less into the smaller ones, which will allow us to be much more relaxed and stationary and kind of get into the tennis more. I anticipate Petko will be playing, and hopefully Juanqui vs Marcel, and Verdasco and maybe Feli again! Unfortunately, it looks like David Ferrer won't be on Saturday cos he's playing tomorrow, but it still looks like a fantastic line-up. And maybe I'll see Ferru on the practice courts again! of course if he hits with Rafa I won't be able to get a glimpse. XDD Anyone know where the practice schedules can be found? (if anyone got this far.)
Oh, and I have to end by saying once again that all the pictures were taken by my sister Katie, and aren't they amazing? :D I'm such a proud twinsie. There are at least a few more of most of these people so if there's anyone you'd like to see more of, feel free to let me know!"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:338899","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/338899.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=338899"}}],"title":"US Open 2011 - Wednesday, Part 1","published":"2011-09-02T03:58:32Z","updated":"2011-09-02T13:16:30Z","content":"Yesterday Katie and I went to the US Open! IT WAS AWESOME. We saw at least a game or two of 18 matches, I think, and did drive-by hellos of 2 or 3 more. XD We went with quantity over quality - there were only about 5-6 matches that we saw close to a full set, and the rest we popped in for a couple games and soaked in a lot of doubles action and then ran.
Katie brought a telephoto lens and took absolutely gorgeous pictures - so, in pictures, here is Laura and Katie's Big Day at the US Open. :D I'm splitting it into 2 entries because there are so many pictures!
It started, like all good things, with Feli.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6073\/6103562837_6d6c8768b8_z.jpg\")
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Gratuitous Feli-butt!!
We raced right over to Feli's match and heavens was it worth it! His shirt is gorgeous and his skin was glowing. He was focused and playing well. Of course we got \"I'm not on TV\" half-assed hair but WHATEVER. He was very well behaved - I really liked his attitude, being very careful and taking an effort to hit the ball to the ball kids and not just kind of whacking it out of the way, and he even - gasp! - put his towel back himself once instead of just chucking it at the kid! I really like that sort of thing. And he was playing solidly - not killing his opponent, but not giving us too much stress either. Good boy, Feli. :3
We were briefly sitting next to Feli Lady, a super-intense fan who we love. Overall, everyone we ended up sitting near and eavesdropping on were hilarious, it really enhanced our experience. I'll copy Feli Lady from a comment in ontd_tennis. Feli Lady was just such an unabashed fangirl - but fanwoman, cos she was over 35, I'd say. She only sat next to us briefly because as soon as a seat opened up in the front row she was THERE. And she was all shouting \"GO FELICIANO\" and her friend was talking to these random dudes behind them and was like \"oh yeah, she loves Feliciano\" and she was just so hyped, it was awesome. She was blonde and pretty enough but like I said, not super-young. We saw her again later, I think. XD [Watch her totally read this and it be super awkward. This is always my life. Hi Feli Lady! Sorry for creeping on you.]
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6073\/6104117206_a96493d291_z.jpg\")
Then we saw Oli Rochus play doubles and it was as magical as you might imagine. Especially when his partner, Andre Sa, is 6'1\". (Oli is the shortest man on tour at 5'5\". We call him Little Boss and think he's fantastic.) Oli lost his opening round on Tuesday so I felt SO lucky that we were able to see him in the doubles!
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6070\/6104119180_fe45f2eb9a_z.jpg\")
Beasting.
They were down a set when we came over but won the second set! And we got to see an Oli Rochus ace!!
Then... this happened:
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6066\/6104115310_ec586422ff_z.jpg\")
This was on a tiny little side court and we were sitting in the front row of the little bleachers, so we're basically on the court, and Katie has a big camera with a big telephoto lens - not enormous but normal big - and Oli Looked Right At Her. Hahahahahaa I cannot believe the face he's making! Katie was SO EMBARRASSED! She buried her head in my shoulder which just made the whole situation more weird. This is the last pic Katie took of Oli, she could not bring herself to lift her camera after that.
Unfortunately they lost the match, but we were so happy to have seen him!
Then we walked around a lot and stopped by a couple other random matches, just to check people out quickly.
We saw Kiri, dominating and accelerating:
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6069\/6103574855_e2af861044_z.jpg\")
and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who was embroiled in what would become a 5-setter (THIS IS IMPORTANT LATER):
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6189\/6104122500_3e2ef3a84b_z.jpg\")
He's quite cute in person! As is Maria Kirilenko but that goes without saying rather.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6063\/6103578655_1534002cef_z.jpg\")
Janko was practicing on a random court, i think it was 5 - there were two courts that just had practicing but all the big names stayed on the protected, designated practice courts where you can only see a little bit. Anyway Janko is an ass but he's a very very hot ass so we stopped to ogle for a little.
Then to the practice courts themselves!! Haha at first we were like \"uhhh I dont' recognize anyone\" and I still can't quite place the dude on the near court... then we realized that Petko was right behind him, and behind her was Sam Stosur hitting with Venus Williams (who was wearing a Sloane Stephens costume and totally fooled us! Bun, visor, turquoise top! She was too far away for us to really see. Anyway it's weird that we actually saw Venus at the US Open...).
Behind them was. . . David Ferrer hitting with Juan Carlos Ferrero!! Two of my favorite players - Ferru possibly my favorite - and one of my favorite friendships on tour. :333 We totally wouldn't have recognized them if someone behind us hadn't ID'ed them but after he said that you could totally tell even from a distance. Ferru was bouncing all over the place. :DDD Juanqui hit him some lobs so he could practice his overhead and then he was helping Juanqui practice his volleying. So adorable.
We only have pictures of Petko, really, because she was the closest and Katie wasn't confident about the fence. They turned out great, though, so if we see more epic people far away on Saturday we're going to get more.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6183\/6103593463_13d78ff890_z.jpg\")
She looked AMAZING. Oh my god. *______* Just hitting with her coach (who Katie actually recognized first from twitter) - quite serious and focused, doing pretty well from what I saw.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6192\/6104141364_c2ed5030f6_z.jpg\")
MUSCLESSSSSS.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6197\/6103598737_83fa0cc260_z.jpg\")
God, and she was glistening and just so, so lovely.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6083\/6104142596_9ff41524c1_b.jpg\")
A big one since there's so much background action. We were like \"oh! haha! you can totally see Sam and Juanqui!\" If we'd known we would have creeped on them photographically but it was good anyway!
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6081\/6103597975_0e12bc41fa_z.jpg\")
No Venus but you can see the action on her side of the court.
haha ok. I couldn't restrain myself from posting all the Petko pics. No regrets!!
Then - Pico time!! So lucky that he was playing dubs, we could see him all close up. So adorable!! AHHH SO CUTE.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6206\/6103600685_fd891513b0_z.jpg\")
It's so obvious that he has a great disposition. And great hair. Even though he's not smiling in these pics, he was just peppy and up all the time. :)
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6078\/6103601699_d0912bc6e9_z.jpg\")
Oh, and he was playing Andy and Joni! Andy Ram and Jonathan Erlich, doubles specialists from Israel! So the bleachers were half full of cheering Argentines and half full of cheering Jews, it was super fun. I like Joni and Andy too so I was happy to see them as well.
After Pico, I think we had lunch and a little chill time? It might have been before... or later. Anyway, it was good to sit in the shade and drink lots of water. Then, it was back to see Feli finish things up. :DD We had better seats this time and it was very very satisfying.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6183\/6104629904_3be8baafc6_z.jpg\")
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6082\/6104629066_108d91ba6f_z.jpg\")
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6079\/6104086121_6c79458bb3_z.jpg\")
nomnomnom. Of course his hair was even worse at this point but his eyelashes were more than making up for it.
Onward! To see Jamie Murray (and...Santiago Gonzalez) face doubles team\/bffs extraordinaire, Melpet! aka Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner.
Poor Jamie. ::sigh::
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6190\/6104089955_4852c01a97_z.jpg\")
However, Melpet were BEYOND adorable!!
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6190\/6104088451_fa21b71192_z.jpg\")
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6191\/6104089173_c3af798b21_z.jpg\")
So cute, so bro-tastic, so clearly enjoying themselves. And of course, they dominated. . .
Then we decided to check out Julia Goerges because it was pretty quiet and we totally thought we had time to see Delpo still. And Julia is cute and she was playing on the new court 17 and the seats had backs!
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6186\/6104236070_a3c9474001_z.jpg\")
Julia was nice enough to breadstick her opponent, and up next was Ivo Karlovic and partner (Frank Moser) playing the Bryan Brothers. We both wanted to see that in person so we stuck around but they took FOREVER coming out. XPPP
Still... worth it just to see Ivo duck to get out the door.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6078\/6103687867_7c9b71dc1b_z.jpg\")
hahaha so satisfying.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6192\/6104234890_b96d1a6e1d_z.jpg\")
Also worth it to get this picture. XDD
However, while they were still just warming up we noticed that Delpo was leading 4-1 in the third set. . . AAAAGH!! So we ran the hell over to Louis Armstrong but he's too friggin fast! There was just a point left when we got there. So we didn't get to soak up the amazing forehand in person. :( But we did get to soak up the adorable Delpitude in person!!
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6200\/6103689343_3542e5bfbd_z.jpg\")
I. . . don't even remember what he said but it was adorable. I was cooing so hard. And he thanked the Argie fans in Spanish. :3
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6084\/6104232386_d198357b9f_z.jpg\")
hahaha cos all the balls he hit to fans went friggin twice as high as the stadium before coming down.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6064\/6104237716_e2fc3192ea_z.jpg\")
:33333333 <--basically Delpo's cuteness reduces me to just :3333
Anyway, Sam was on Louis Armstrong next! So we moved close and settled in to ogle her biceps for a set or so.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6186\/6103690751_dc43ab029b_z.jpg\")
So cute!!
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6209\/6103692457_35d0bd333b_z.jpg\")
Luckily she brought the arm-porn because the tennis wasn't that great.
![](\"https:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6077\/6103695253_813631d834_z.jpg\")
Not that I can stay mad at her! But we didn't even stay the whole set, I think. Haha there was a guy yelling \"Go Coco!!\" cos she was playing American Coco Vandeweghe (I cannot even with that name) and it was just hilarious. But there was also good support for Sammy. :)))
I can't remember exactly when but at some point after this - kind of scattered throughout the afternoon - we did some undocumented doubles drive-bys. I had to see Fabio Fognini because he is a hilarious troll. We came, we saw, we cracked up, we walked away. Actually we did note that his doubles partner, Simone Bolelli, is a very good looking man.
We also stopped by Vera and Pavyluchenkova's doubles, cos I loves Bepa and she looked adorable, and they were beasting. And we zipped past Jarka and Bethanie Mattek-Sands's doubles to see Bethanie's knee socks and just general self. We also peeped in on Jarka's mixed dubs. She replaced beautiful Bellucci with alternate Brazilian Bruno Soares. MUCH LESS ATTRACTIVE but they seemed to be having fun.
Oh and we said hi to Lipsky and Ram because at our first US Open we watched them play Tommy and Marcel and there were these dudes shouting \"Come on Raj!!\" and we got all invested. There were dudes shouting \"Come on Raj!!\" yesterday today but they still lost. ;__; But at least we said hey. And I said hey to Rennae Stubbs's doubles match because she is an epic legend and I wanted to see her and it was awesome. Even though she lost too. :((( But she looked epic and hardcore doing so, and one woman shouted \"Good hustle, Rennae!!\" and it was.
AND we watched a bit of Butorac and Rojer. XDD We adopted them as our random American doubles team possibly even more so than Lipsky and Ram even though Jean-Julien Rojer is from Cura\u00e7ao in the Dutch Antilles. But Katie watched a match of theirs with a total bro commentator and yeah, we're invested. There are actual pictures of them cos we settled in for a bit but I think they didn't get uploaded. . . whoops! They were playing Dima Tursunov and Grigor Dimitrov and once again their doubles lovin' was too much for their opponents.
I also can't remember when this happened, but at one match we saw a couple, a man and a woman, wearing exact matching outfits. Oh my god. It was like. . . if we were in the WASP Alps generally, they were WASP Mount Everest. If Mount Everest were in the Alps. They were both wearing khaki shorts and lime green polo shirts. I begged Katie to take a picture but she wouldn't. ;___;
And now that I've broken the chronological flow, this is as good a place as any to switch entries! Part 2!<\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:334648","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/334648.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=334648"}}],"title":"this entry is pretty pointless, but I need to ramble about Shackleton","published":"2011-01-07T23:33:18Z","updated":"2011-01-07T23:33:18Z","content":"wow, sir ernest shackleton looks so different when he has a beard to when he's clean-shaven. of course, he also tends to grow the beard primarily when he's on an antarctic expedition and that'll age the skin a bit. It's not that he's really old in the beard pics, though; he didn't live to a super old age or anything.
no beard:
![](\"https:\/\/imgprx.livejournal.net\/8700a72f444e7448249914561c2104eafb8a7446c295d81c3f9fd51d2da3c945\/P2WlxyVijxKgh2tr8MdTU0Mdsf-ah7h03E-BT7cBwdHf_wjbhtWgGlkvDUZwG14_tU1Y0y2RTzFiUgBd0kpqrxZAuF7-as3RvWAftB5yPhf-AKyKv9MDjH9euwFmLHgR8Uu3-mZRI8Y-AidJfg0:vPFDbm4EIIEIClmWEkXTYA\")
![](\"https:\/\/imgprx.livejournal.net\/88f7045bbae5357b3b0dd03822e030fd78477239749ca22f6d0ba7f1de475d9d\/P2WlxyVijxKgh2tr8MdTU0Mdsf-ah7h0y0ePQqZcitHH5xDRkc6iGwQgCUtyDQNmuVBRjC_bcBALHl0B0kprrx5A2yKAK-GA7lFcoQVuJF_8HPGNpMBHnSNarhUwfA:YzBcETbgywHsoHvqKs_PbA\")
beard:
![](\"https:\/\/imgprx.livejournal.net\/cf8bedc0b11663db974662becc1acb101ad9e3234858787e91cdf5fb5918a812\/P2WlxyVijxKgh2tr8MdTU0Mdsf-ah7h0yFmVCaFfmZ7F-huaks6zRkszT0JlGUI-o1JZkzzacExMEFMLmAt0rQhbxSWBa9bRvRRatBYjNw:7QppmC2xmgM07jze8oM3dw\")
![](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/8\/83\/Ernest_Shackleton.jpg\")
lolz:
![](\"https:\/\/imgprx.livejournal.net\/6d92f953e3a254fdffd24cb80bb7aacd280d2bea3c609b37687e55094f8d410f\/P2WlxyVijxKgh2tr8MdTU0Mdsf-ah7h0yFmVCaFbjtPY_x3Ams-mDUQyBUl2DFQ_uVBS0w7XcUYXTXcekx0o6wNd20THOeqK4V9Eqx8vIALrUf4:CUz8zHe50YUOZla6i2fJwQ\")
(promotional image - antarctic expeditions needed sponsors)
although he looks even more different in this picture, to the point where I don't feel 100% confident saying that it's him:
![](\"https:\/\/imgprx.livejournal.net\/83d1a72fba96d1ccdbf9b76116be4c8ecc6bc804a64932a2e50cf6972afa8463\/P2WlxyVijxKgh2tr8MdTU0Mdsf-ah7h00FyFRrxXgN7c4UyD28KqBQUvDUZwG14-tU1biDjQd0xWFEBBmAo1-lUbxmTHOeqK4V9Eqx8sKxz4EvGaoshNxGhIrh59c24LvkKs8SFY:yexoc5W3J7SQZYjyKK501g\")
My beloved former roomie got me a little book that I assume is an excerpt from South: The Endurance Expedition<\/i>, it's by Shackleton but covers only the open boat journey to South Georgia Island and subsequent crossing. It's AMAZING, and reading it is once again bringing to the fore my massive love and admiration for that man. And the entire crew, really - especially Tom Crean and Frank Worsley. And Frank Wild even though he's not really in this book, having been left in charge of the rest of the men back on Elephant Island.
here's a picture of Tom Crean with puppies:
![](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/9\/9c\/Tom_Crean.jpg\/250px-Tom_Crean.jpg\")
"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:333858","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/333858.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=333858"}}],"title":"sports and toys and food joy!","published":"2010-12-05T22:05:05Z","updated":"2010-12-05T22:05:05Z","content":"ahhhhhh, reading articles about the Davis Cup. :D And Schalke! God, this weekend really did its best to make up for last on the sports results front! Although actually last weekend I was like AUGH I'LL JUST FOCUS ON CURLING and the curling results this time weren't so amazing. Although I still like the teams in the finals (which are happening now) well enough, which is the key thing with curling.
But yeah, Schalke beat Bayern Munich 2-0!!! Raul was injured but I don't think too badly - looked like a split lip? (pretty bloody, but he walked off of his own power.) And Real Madrid managed to pull out a 2-0 win over Valencia, although they only scored after one of Valencia's players was pretty questionably sent off. I felt bad, it'd be a really tough match for a Valencia fan to watch. (and omg we need Pipita. D:)
I was at home for Hanukkah so we were actually eating latkes and I left soccerstand.com open, it's a gametracking website (with gambling stuff as well I guess XD) and it makes a noise when someone scores so luckily there was a pause in the conversation and we hear this little noise from the computer in the next room and I jumped up and raced over to see what was going on.
So I got to combine delicious amazing latkes with a victory for Real Madrid!!! SO. GREAT. And Schalke won just before we started peeling potatoes, and that morning Arsenal won - not my EPL team but I like them well enough and they're the team of the guingeltwin so I'm happy when she's happy. She was getting really worried about them, they are not having the season the could be. Giving up some games they really should win and stuff.
And then today, Serbia won the Davis Cup!!! AHHHHH I'M SO HAPPY FOR THEM!! Serbia has never won it before and you could really tell how much it meant to all the players, I can't even tell you. I really get the feeling that winning this as Serbia means more to them than winning individual titles might. I know Novak Djokovic, world number 3, is so proud that he can represent Serbia in a positive manner to the world, and tennis in general seems like an important source of positive pride. And they've achieved this with a lot less resources than most of the countries they were competing against - there's almost no national budget for tennis so most of the players, their families have to really fucking work to help put their kids in the position to become top players.
So, I'm really, really happy for them. :D And the finals happened in Belgrade and I follow one of the players, Tipsarevic Janko, on twitter and when they made it to the finals (he didn't have a good match this weekend but he was vital in getting them there) he tweeted \"I don't know what's going to happen (party wise) if we win the finals in Belgrade!!\" and Katie and I have been saying \"(party wise)\" all the time since then. XD
Plus, today I went to this huge asian grocery store near my parents house and i was able to get rice because I was getting a ride home, AND I found these char siu pork buns that I've been looking for since i got back from Manchester 4 years ago. SO SO EXCITED!!! If these are half as good they will be amazing, the ones I used to make in England were pretty much my favorite food ever.
PLUS my mom got herself this ridiculously awesome lego set<\/a> and she let us help her put it together and it was SO SWEET. omg it's amazing and i love lego. THERE IS A LEGO ESCALATOR!!! So, so great. I just love the way they use the limited medium of a few different types of bricks - with some specialty pieces, but really minimizing the variation - and then just design ways to use them to make really specific, realistic looking structures. So, so satisfying to take a bunch of little blocks and put it together to make an escalator or window washer station or cash register!!
Annnnd I finally ordered the guingeltwin her christmas presents and my dad ordered me a new coat as one of mine! I want to make my dad a print of this panel from All Star Superman that he loves but I don't really know how to do it. Plus I don't have any great ideas for my mom so maybe I'll wait til Dad's birthday to do that. . . in July. XD
So hopefully this evening I'll get some cleaning up done on my room and also public my craigslist ad for a new roomie. ::sigh:: My one downer!! I wish I could find the card reader for my camera so i could put the pics of my living room with furniture in, I just have the ones from when I first moved in."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:330787","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/330787.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=330787"}}],"title":"actually, I'm feeling like I'm having an icon crisis today, but I can't make new ones right now!","published":"2010-08-18T17:03:38Z","updated":"2010-08-18T17:05:05Z","content":"I know, I haven't posted in forever and now I'm just doing an icon meme. If you're wondering what I've been doing with my time, I have been watching sports. Or hanging out at<\/a>ontd_extreme<\/b><\/a><\/span>. I also went to the USA-Brazil match, which I actually did sort of write up but it's sitting in an email draft - it started as a comment and then I was like \"what the hell, I'm going to write down everything I can remember!\"
Of course, it being not only my first football match but also only my second major sporting event (I'd gone to a Mets game the week prior, before that it was minor league all the way) I think a lot of the stuff I wrote down was exciting to me but normal to most people. I was definitely fascinated by seeing everyone warm up before the game! Since that's what I don't get to see on TV.
And roomie!Corey and I did have a fun moment when we were waiting to leave - huge crowd of people waiting to get back on the trains to NYC (stadium was in New Jersey - but it was actually an easy trip, there were just quite a lot of people trying to leave all at once) and at one point we ended up right on the other side of a barrier from a train that had already loaded and was waiting to pull out. There was a very handsome man of maybe 35 years leaning against the door of the train, looking very solemn. We were staring at him because he was so poetic and fascinating, so he spotted us staring and we smiled at him and he smiled back and we waved and he blew kisses and we blew kisses back. It was fun, and I felt like we cheered him up - and it was hilarious because then after all of this. . . the train did not pull out. EXTREMELY AWKWARD SITUATION. XD Luckily eventually our line moved. This stuff does not happen in movies, I'm just sayin.
. . . I don't know what that's the anecdote I decide to share after several weeks of radio silence. I also saw a friend from my study abroad in Manchester last week, after a two year separation, and that was completely, completely awesome and deserves more of a write-up, really. And I saw some of Katie's friends from college that I like as well. It was fun, and a pretty eventful week actually. And my roommate is returned and her mom is visiting, so I've been worrying about that but of course they are being as unobtrusive as my roommate always is, and I am only left worrying that they don't feel comfortable enough using the living room.
Hahahaha oh my god I just got a phone call and I had my legs curled up underneath me and when I shifted to get to my phone I completely put my foot into my garbage can and almost knocked it over. Luckily it only had a kit-kat wrapper in it.
All right, there you go. Now this entry is pretending to be a real one. (Are you supposed to change the code words? I like these though :D)
1.) Reply to this post with the word PIRATES (or NINJAS) and I will pick six of your icons.
2.) Make a post (including this info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3.) Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4.) This will create a never ending cycle of icon glee.
I made both<\/a>ktdone<\/b><\/a><\/span> and <\/a>buhdderkupp<\/b><\/a><\/span> do this for me because I am greedy, so I have 12. Actually, 11. There was one hilarious duplicate.
1.![](\"https:\/\/img.photobucket.com\/albums\/v651\/jobiegirl6\/3266741.jpg\")
I LOVE JOEY B. LOOOOOOVE SO MUCH. And I know we'd be bffs because I have incredible allure to people from Delaware. (IT IS TRUE.) And when I saw this picture I knew it required an icon with a sketchy comment. JOEY B I WOULD LOVE YOU EVEN IF YOU WEREN'T VP.
2.![](\"https:\/\/img.photobucket.com\/albums\/v651\/jobiegirl6\/3266742.png\")
One of my two icons I didn't make myself! (I'm not a good icon maker, I just really like making them so much that it seems silly to use someone else's that much. Although lately I've been frustrated by my general difficulties maintaining a nice image quality, I don't know what's up.) I not only really enjoyed the Vancouver Olympics from an Olympics perspective, I also enjoyed it from a Canada perspective. Being a huge Canada fangirl. So this icon is perfect. :D Plus, Mounties!! <333
3.![](\"https:\/\/img.photobucket.com\/albums\/v651\/jobiegirl6\/3266743.png\")
ohmigod. Will Eisner's legendary The Spirit, as drawn by Darwyn Cooke. I have such a hard on for Darwyn Cooke's art. And he was such a perfect fit for the Spirit! I don't use this icon enough because I know most people I talk to don't know what it is, but I love it. Maybe I'll make it my default for now, I've changed my default about 80 times today. Anyway, even though it's a bit awkwardly shaped for an icon and I worry that it's not legible, I love how perfect the words, the pose, everything - ooh, Darwyn Cooke!!
4.![](\"https:\/\/img.photobucket.com\/albums\/v651\/jobiegirl6\/3266744.jpg\")
BWAHAHAHA OK so for actually quite a long time, I was a big fan of Japanese boybands, and TOKIO in particular. This is Leader. He's almost 40 and he's awkward and not good-looking and hilarious. And I photoshopped muttonchops onto him. I was on a muttonchop photoshopping frenzy. When I posted the results, I was asked why I did it. It never even occurred to me that this would be a question. Why wouldn't you photoshop muttonchops onto people?
5.![](\"https:\/\/img.photobucket.com\/albums\/v651\/jobiegirl6\/3266745.gif\")
This is from the Merode Altarpiece<\/a>. As you can see from that awkwardly large image, Robert Campin's Northern Renaissance masterpiece, features, above the angel Gabriel's head, a teeny tiny Jesus, rocketing towards Mary's crotch. Womb. My sister is an art history major, I am a religion major, we team up and do stuff like this<\/a>. Zoom in<\/a>!
6.![](\"https:\/\/img.photobucket.com\/albums\/v651\/jobiegirl6\/3266746.jpg\")
Devastatingly hunky curler Johnny Mo makes a shot with the best sweepers in the world, Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert, ready to go. :D My curling icons are some of the ones I wish were nicer quality but also, curling is kind of hard to icon. Is this<\/a> the full size? No it's not. Close enough, though.
1.![](\"https:\/\/l-userpic.livejournal.com\/61552928\/326674\")
Hahaha another Japanese boyband one. This is Murakami Shingo, of Kanjani8, aka Hina. I'm not much of a K8 fan but I will always adore Hina. And there's something really funny to me about him shaving. I've gotten a lot of opportunities to use this icon, actually.
2.![](\"https:\/\/l-userpic.livejournal.com\/64685571\/326674\")
::swoons, fans self:: Levon is the sexy as hell drummer for the Band. He's also the only non-Canadian member. He also does vocals on a lot of their songs but even though he still performs with his daughter, he no longer sings because he SMOKED A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT. There's a story about when they were filming some of the studio pieces for the Last Waltz and he was smoking two cigarettes at once - \"One cigarette in one hand and another cigarette in the other hand.\" Apparently he offered one of the Staples Singers one of the cigarettes because he \"didn't want them to think he was greedy.\" See, that is class. Step aside, Xabi.
3.![](\"https:\/\/l-userpic.livejournal.com\/72534798\/326674\")
WISHBONE!! What more is there to say, it is the best show ever. Hard to find pictures from, though. My friends and I had a Wishbone revival fiesta during senior year, it turns out the episodes are still totally enjoyable. I should use the icon more.
4.![](\"https:\/\/l-userpic.livejournal.com\/77209189\/326674\")
Bwahahahaha see above. Yes, I need to say bwahahahaha any time Leader is mentioned.
5.![](\"https:\/\/l-userpic.livejournal.com\/97232291\/326674\")
This is from art by illustrator Stina Persson. I know I was looking at fashion illustrations at the time so I guess that's what she does (I don't care about fashion but I like fashion illustration). I was talking a lot about race and politics and gender on LJ so I wanted some more neutral icons that could be used in a serious situation. And I'm from New York. I always forget I have this one, though.
6.![](\"https:\/\/l-userpic.livejournal.com\/98942856\/326674\")
Jordan Malone, Apolo Ohno, and Travis Jayner upon receiving their bronze medals from the short track men's relay at the Vancouver Olympics. I wanted an icon with Jordan in it, I think, since I was stanning for him a bit at the time. But not just Jordan, because his face is. . . his face. He has since demonstrated that while he's a great guy, he has a lot of issues with women and they frustrate me, so I'm less enthused. It's still a cute icon, though. :D Hopefully I'll use it a bunch when short track starts up again.
Now to see if the right explanations ended up with the right icons.
I'm so long-winded."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:330288","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/330288.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=330288"}}],"title":"slightly awkward sled hockey introduction post","published":"2010-07-22T17:36:13Z","updated":"2010-07-22T17:36:13Z","content":"Damnation! I never finished updating\/refining this entry, originally posted in my beloved winter sports comm (I just learned way too much more about all the athletes and I didn't even know where to start) and tonight is the sled hockey episode of Ace of Cakes! I will just take a quick skim through and then post what I've got. Sorry it's so bulky and yet incomplete!
At the Paralympic level, sled hockey is a sport for athletes with lower limb disabilities (at a more casual level, anyone willing to be strapped into a sled can give it a try). All the same rules as stand-up hockey, same rink, same puck, same nets. But the players are in sleds (sledges if you're not in the US, we're the only people who don't call it sledge hockey) which have two blades on the bottom, and they have two shorter sticks that they use to propel themselves around the ice.
![](\"https:\/\/imgprx.livejournal.net\/e405f178bbf2756c416fecc77e9d8f3433d16e1a79d0f107be68ba2e73cfee04\/P2WlxyVijxKgh2tr8MdTU0Mdsf-ah7h0yFmVCadAjtjc8BPRjI-mB0dpFVd7EUx1s0Z8kTzZZhAKKGEttRc49EMWxFrKNvy-2V9RqS5UGTOjPuaXo_59hWhUgTxzdWIW_kmwyVdALcU_JTJAKS-rvkIu3FZMQaginGYOm06mF4OD8Oix6yQGlvkf:t8fj1B8brCK86wV8CfwJVg\")
Team USA's adorable captain, Andy Yohe, and a player on the Japanese team model their sled hockey gear for you. ;) (Andy is sadly not featured in this entry, despite his endearing awkwardness in interviews.)
There are two blades but at the highest level I think they're about an inch or so apart so the balance involved is pretty prodigious. And the sticks are about 2 feet long and have a regular blade on one end, then pointy picks on the other end that are used to propel yourself. So players slide their hands up and down the stick to switch from moving to shooting. You can shoot with both hands or sort of dribble, and pass the puck underneath your sled, it's all really awesome. The puck handling just looks really, really cool. For me it definitely makes it even more fun to watch than stand-up hockey.
Although the two sports are pretty much the same - I think sled hockey might have a slightly different pace but it could also just be the teams I've watched. But yeah, apart from the sleds and sticks, I think one of the only rule differences is a new penalty: t-boning. The players check the living hell out of each other, but you are not allowed to drive the point of your sled into another player - no perpendicular hits in the sleds. It's a really physical game, though - and when you get checked in sled hockey, you're not going into the glass. You're being slammed right into the unforgiving lower wall of the rink. Also, very sharp picks<\/a>.
Here, you can discover sled hockey alongside Rick Mercer (and Canada's 2006 gold medal winning team! yeeeah!):
Rick Mercer is my hero, by the way. He's the only way I get to see Paralympians get interviewed - he hung out with Brian and Rob McKeever and it made me so happy. I wish there was someone doing that in the US. . . (and just more people covering the Paralympics in general, obvs.)
Here's a sample of the game itself:
Normally I hate videos filmed from the crowd, and I don't like sports videos without commentary, but I think this one is really good. Of course it's Canada and Norway whereas I plan to focus on Team USA, but oh well! Try not to get mental whiplash or anything. (I initially focused on Team USA because I was heartbroken about team Canada, who didn't win a medal - and I still am heartbroken, but now I'm just absolutely, utterly in love with USA's sled hockey team. Actually thanks to the research I did to initially put this post together for _extreme!)
Team USA plays a hard, fast game of hockey. They like to send the puck out to open ice and have one of their team members race for it, because they know they'll be able to get to it first. They the youngest team in the competition. All but three of them were under 25 when they won gold, and 7 of them were under 21. XD
Bah, I could only find another vid from the stands to show USA hockey - it's not as good because some of the action happens at the other end of the ice, but there's still some cool stuff.
USA Hockey<\/a> actually has pretty good amount of info available on its athletes. Some videos, articles, pictures, even a blog. Also, this fabulous media guide<\/a> about all their teams. Sled hockey starts at page 202, although I will be quoting from it in this entry! (The women start on page 116. Dude, there are more hockey stats and Olympic hockey history in this pdf than my puny mind can comprehend.) (Btw I've been able to download it fine, but not open it in my browser, idk what's up.)
Anyway, I want to introduce you to a couple of Team USA's incredible athletes, because they're what really makes me enthused about this team. It's such a young, adorable team! I picked these three guys because they were kind of the names and faces that stood out to me while watching the Paralympics on Universal Sports, before I really had a handle on what was going on. But really, you do hear some guys' names more than others but the whole team is so strong, and so young and so cute, I could have featured any of them and I want to do more!
But yeah, all three of these guys are incredible hockey players. And I'm not saying that in a \"seriously guys I want to stress how athletic they are because they're paralympians\" way or whatever. I keep talking about it just because it blows me away. It makes it so much fun and so exciting to watch them, they're incredibly good on the ice. I tend to only really like sports when I see a really high level of skill, and I like sports that really display that - like I love watching Kevin Martin curl, because you know he's going to pull off these amazing shots and the whole team is just like a well-oiled machine and it's beautiful. Anyway, um, it just really excites me and is, honestly, really hot when someone is incredibly skilled at something.
Alexi Salamone<\/b>
Position: Forward
Height: 5-5 (165) [tbh, I'm not sure about the heights & weights they give for the bilateral amputees. . . seems a little confusing. But I don't know who to ask about this or if it's really inappropriate to do so.]
Weight: 135 (61)
Birthdate: 6\/17\/87
Hometown: Grand Island, N.Y.
Current Team: Buffalo Sabres Sled Hockey
Disability: Bilateral Amputee
I initially chose Alexi when I started this project because he'd been in that Inspirational Visa Commercial and I figured it'd be easier to find stuff about him. But indeed, he is one of the stars of the team. He scored in every game but one at the paralympics, and in that one game he had two assists. He was first named to the US national team in 2003, at the age of 16!
Al also appears to be a massive badass. One of the announcers was talking about how he gets all fired up and is quite a feisty player after he got a penalty for, I think, charging another player. The announcer was kind of like \"Yeah, he's a really angry player. . . uh, I mean, he has to get a lot of speed because he's not the biggest guy on the ice.\" XD On the other hand, I have both seen Alexi as a little kid because his parents rock the home videos (see below, it was on ESPN - I'm not that much of a creeper!) and I have seen him with<\/i> little kids talking to a school after winning gold, so I have a more cuddly impression. Would not want to play hockey against the guy, though!
Mississippi is voting on November 8th on whether to pass Amendment 26, the \"Personhood Amendment\". This amendment would grant fertilized eggs and fetuses personhood status.
Putting aside the contentious issue of abortion, this would effectively outlaw birth control and criminalize women who have miscarriages. This is not a good thing.
Jackson Women's Health Organization<\/a> is the only place women can get abortions in the entire<\/i> state, and they are trying to launch a grassroots movement against this amendment. This doesn't just apply to Mississippi, though, as Personhood USA, the group that introduced this amendment, is trying to introduce identical amendments in all 50 states<\/i>.
What's more, in Mississippi, this amendment is expected to pass. It even has Mississippi Democrats, including the Attorney General, Jim Hood, backing it.
The reason I'm posting this here is because I made a meager donation to the Jackson Women's Health Organization this morning, and I received a personal email back hours later - on a Sunday - thanking me and noting that I'm one of the first \"outside\" people to contribute.
So if you sometimes pass on political action because you figure that enough other people will do something to make a difference, make an exception on this one. My RSS reader is near silent on this amendment. I only found out about it through a feminist blog. The mainstream media is not reporting on it.
If there is ever a time to donate or send a letter in protest, this would be it.
What to do?
- Read up on it. Wake Up, Mississippi<\/a> is the home of the grassroots effort to fight this amendment. Daily Kos<\/a> also has a thorough story on it.
- If you can afford it, you can donate at the site's link.
- You can contact the Democratic National Committee<\/a> to see why more of our representatives aren't speaking out against this.
- Like this Facebook page<\/a> to help spread awareness.
I knew... so much less about tennis. And sadly, we only have a couple camera-phone pictures this time. And I didn't know very many players and I was much more into Rafa than I am now and it's all quite strange. This is why you should write stuff within 2 months of what you're writing about, ha. I'm sorry because it's probably really hard to follow what was written when and how I felt about tennis\/tennis players at whatever time I was writing. XD
As I said at some point in the writing process:<\/i>
OK so my trip to the US Open was 23 days ago... from when I started writing this dang thing. Now it's been months and months and another Grand Slam and it's a totally different season and I've learned an incredibly lot more about tennis. BUT I still want to write it up and I'd written about bits of it before and I think I'll remember all the highlights. The vast majority of it was written within two months of the event, I promise! XD
It was, in a word, AWESOME. We got day tickets for the Saturday session - so that means that we had all day and could run around going anywhere we wanted except Arthur Ashe. This was perfect. As was the weather! I was with my twin sister Katie, her fiance David, and his sister Steph. We were meeting up with Brian, a friend of David's, whose family goes every year. One of his brothers was a competitive junior tennis player and is now playing for Stanford or something, so they're a big tennis family.
Generally we were watching the third round of the singles matches, I believe. Definitely for the singles matches.
Summary of the day:
1) Arrive via bus, not crowded at all! Had to walk a ways to get to the tennis, especially as they were charging admission to the Botanic Gardens. XP No big deal, though - passed some youth soccer games and a bunch of people in jerseys!
2) Security is easier than expected, and we're in. Preppiness abounds! I ogle the posters of past winners, Katie and I get excited about the giant tennis balls you're supposed to have people sign. Katie goes on to count their presence in the various courts - they look hilarious sitting next to people or on their laps. We also note that many people appear to be wearing tennis ball-colored shirts.
3) Schedules cost money, so we kinda fake it til we make it using the overhead screens and our keen tracking abilities. When we arrive, Soderling v de Bakker is happening in Louis Armstrong and Monfils v Tipsarevic is happening in the Grandstand. We were going through Louis Armstrong to get to the Grandstand anyway, so we sit for a bit in there before heading into the Gael-Janko match.
4) I get antsy, but wait until everyone is ready to head to the Grandstand. Hahahaaa. Gael and Janko are having an AWESOME MATCH and the place is utterly packed. You can't even stand at the balcony. We give up.
5) I get even more antsy sitting watching Soderling dismantle de Bakker, so I keep trying to find a spot in the Grandstand where I can see something. End up squatting down peering between people's legs. Far better than any of the spots I'd found while standing. Wish I'd worn shorts instead of a skirt, but whatever.
6) Sated and worried about my sunscreen situation, I head back into Louis Armstrong.
7) Time to meet Brian's family. However, they are in a smaller court and we are left waiting until the changeover [when I initially wrote this entry I didn't know what a changeover was and I wrote \"until the current game ends\". Awwwww 2010 Laura, so cute.<\/i>]. I realize I don't know Brian's family nor do I particularly care about the match going on. I have a US Open to explore!
8) Having been instructed to stalk the practice courts, I bring Katie and Steph with me. After some initial confusion, we figure out how things work - and just in time for RAFAEL NADAL TO SHOW UP TO PRACTICE. HE IS SHORTLY JOINED BY FERNANDO VERDASCO, THEY ARE HITTING TOGETHER.
9) We lose our shit.
10) Lunch! Takes forever. I debate leaving my \"holding down the table\" position to see if anyone else has shown up at the practice courts but man up instead and make small talk with Brian.
11) Have been attempting to find out when Tommy Robredo's doubles match is occurring. Call dad, try to direct him to a schedule online, am told it was at 11. Shrug this off because the day is already awesome.
12) I take a quick detour to the practice courts, but then rejoin everyone back at Louis Armstrong, where Mardy Fish is taking on Arnaud Clement. The first game is still happening when I get there, a 10-minute exchange of deuces. Admire Clement's head accessories.
13) Mardy Fish appears to have lost some weight!
14) Katie and I get the urge to roam. Unfortunately, Brian (who had been on a plane all night to get to NY) has fallen asleep in the aisle seat. Gentle nudging accomplishes nothing. We wait out another game and are able to escape.
15) We wander around the smaller courts. A doubles match catches our eye, it's great fun to watch! The results of another doubles match pop up on screen. It's Robredo!! The match is one court over! A quick scurrying and we are feasting our eyes on his fine, white-clad Spanish hiney.
16) The way we end up sitting and the way the players arrange themselves, Robredo is never quite as close to us as he could be. This is probably for the best, and we both fall in love with him anyway.
17) Both David and I want to see Juan Carlos Ferrero's match. Me because he's a delicious Spanish Armada member, and David because he's interested in him and Jugen Melzer as dark horses. Katie heads home, I meet David at the Grandstand so we can watch some women's tennis and be ready for the imminent Juanqui.
18) As though haunted by the Grandstand's earlier 4-set epic between Monfils and Tipsarevic, Patty Schnyder and Yanina Wickmayer end up fighting it out to a third set tie-breaker. Fun to watch, but less so after a long day when it's keeping you from Juan Carlos Ferrero!
19) It might be the result of the impatient waiting, but I declare Juanqui to be the least attractive of the Armada members I'm familiar with. Still, cute - and I like that he has left long tails where he ties off his headband.
20) We don't stay long, and get home in time for dinner! I spend the night at Katie's, we watch Crackovia and the video of Rafa and Roger giggling for 15 minutes, and uproarious good times are had by all. Well, mostly at that point we're very sleepy, but it was still fun.
Further details, as required-
[see, I cleverly got the top part down so I'd be able to remember everything! Most of these details were also filled in very quickly as well, but I only got up to item 12 so after that it's written in 2011 and pieced together from memories and pictures and comments I left at ontd_tennis at the time.<\/i>]
5) On attempting to see Tipsarevic-Monfils.<\/b>
I don't know if anyone remembers Tipsy-Monfils but it was quite a good match! If I remember correctly (which is becoming increasingly unlikely as I delay this entry more and more), Tispy had just defeated Andy Roddick - at the US OPEN!! bum bum BUM and so on. So anyway they're both interesting players to watch and the place was fucking packed. I remember feeling quite frustrated because there were a lot of cases where if one person had shifted slightly we both would have been able to see?
But yeah I ended up on the balcony that attaches the two courts, peering between people's legs. I could see most of the action except that which was happening on the side near us - sort of under the balcony, you know. It was ok, I didn't know that much about tennis at that point anyway and I was just happy to get to watch Gael jumping around. However - the skirt I was wearing did make the experience somewhat interesting, being a tad on the short side. I don't think there are likely to be any exciting photos of me popping up somewhere, as I was slightly back, but you never know. Luckily I never go commando. (Again, the people in front of me were not sympathetic about the concept of noticing there was someone squatting behind them and trying to arrange their legs in a helpful way. In-person tennis fans are not always the most kind and generous of folk, it seems, although my experiences online have been very satisfying.) [Wednesday 2011 people were nicer! The weekend thing probably doesn't help at all.<\/i>]
9) Rafael Nadal and Fernando Verdasco<\/b> - HOLY SHIT. HOOOOOLY SHIIIIIIIT. We show up at the practice courts and there's fence all round, most of which is either inaccessible or covered with mesh that makes it very difficult to see through. But there's a little space set up where you can see one of the courts and there's benches and stuff. And right next to that is the place where the players come and go but there's security and little bike rack barriers (whatever those are called) so that people can be let in to get autographs, but in a controlled amount.
This is a lot to take in for the very clueless, so we spend a little time orienting ourselves and trying to figure out if anything exciting is happening. There was kind of a fuss by the entrance so we're like what? what?? And then it's like. . . OH HEY RAFAEL NADAL IS SHOWING UP.
RAFAEL NADAL.
We're like \"aaaagh what do we do let's get closer\" so for no reason at all me and Steph get ourselves let behind the barrier. This means you're next to the mesh rather than actually able to see so if you don't want an autograph it's a little pointless, except we were in the area that was right next to the bench where Rafa sat down on to get himself together, so we could see him there through the mesh and I could have reached out and just poked him. I mean. He was right there, sitting on a bench. AHHHHHHHH. Uncle Toni was next to him and one of the fans said hey and Uncle Toni said hey XDD
But finally we realize that we should go back to the bench, where Katie had already secured us perfect seats!! And while we were doing this. . .
FERNANDO VERDASCO SHOWED UP. BEAUTIFUL, NAKED, UNDERWEAR MODEL, CUDDLY, TWEETS IN ENGLISH, FLIRTS WITH FELI LOPEZ FERNANDO VERDASCO. HE WAS THERE TO PRACTICE WITH RAFA.
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At first, Rafa was in the side of the court next to the viewing area, and Fer was behind the mesh. I love them both so I kept leaning forwards to see Fer.
Rafa was wearing reasonably tight clothes. Enough to cause a visceral physical reaction from this young lady. XD Shorts were above the knee - visible thigh! He looked gorgeous.
Not that you can tell from our phone camera photos. XD
The overwhelming impression was. . . health. It wasn't shocking or excessive, he just looked like an incredibly healthy, athletic guy - tall, but not looming. Ohhhh swooooon. *_*
Rafa was quite serious - although of course, all the damn conversation was in Spanish. Curse my lack of comprehension! Then again even if they were speaking French, which I ostensibly actually speak a bit, I would probably not do much better. But anyway, yes, he seemed quite intense - whereas Fer was much more light-hearted and smiley, joking around, very VERY adorable!! (of course when they played each other a few days later Rafa pretty much took Fer apart, but hey I guess Fer had a better time getting there!)
So at first Rafa was in the part of the court in front of the benches and Fer was over behind the mesh but I love them both
10) On lunch taking forever.<\/b>
Apparently the US Open does not have a good system set up for this. I was lucky that I just had to wait while other people were fetching the food but I have a niggling feeling that Feli was on the practice courts around this time. It's hard to be dissatisfied about anything about my day but I do kind of wish I'd seen him. I just. . . can't imagine him actually existing in person! XD [I saw Feli in 2011! :D And we brought sandwiches!<\/i>]
11) On being told Tommy's match was at 11.<\/b>
I later realized that to someone not used to reading tennis schedules (which, honestly, is still me as well) it looks like everything starts at 11, and I'm not really sure what I was expecting from my dad. XD They just give the games that are scheduled to occur in each court in the order in which they will happen. Then you sort of guestimate based on how long games take when you need to be where.
But I felt ok when he said 11 because we had just arrived and didn't have everything under our belts well enough to seek out a doubles match on a smaller court, it's not like I was sitting idly watching something less interesting or whatever. Of course, I'm even happier that we ended up catching it!
12) On the Fish v Clement match.<\/b>
A definite highlight was the phrase \"Advantage Fish.\" Ahhhh Katie and I still say that to each other sometimes. The chair ump had a good accent, too. And, according to a comment I left in _tennis at the time and saved as a reference for this post, there was a woman sitting behind us who kept encouraging Mardy to go on the offense and giving him advice and said he was driving her to drink. XD At that point I was too young and innocent to be bothered by pro-American bias and it also really wasn't bad.
15) On finding Tommy Robredo.<\/b>
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!! This was the start of a love affair that persists to this day [because this is getting written September 2011 so that phrase is actually meaningful - although his appearance singing Jingle Bells in an ATP video helped as well] and when Katie and I were back at the US Open on Wednesday (August 31, 2011) we missed Tommy dearly!! *___________* We declared him to have \"dashing, Three Musketeers good looks.\"
::swoon:: Tommy is so flawless!! Even crappy cell phone pictures cannot fail to display his beauty. And incredible tan lines. Watching hot guys play doubles is just so super fun because of all the bending over while they wait for their partner to serve. And on Tommy this is all \"hello, ladies. How do you like my thighs? I worked extra hard on these tan lines just for you <333\" and of course we were all crying and pulling our hair like that girl at the Beatles concert at the end of Hard Day's Night.
Honestly, Tommy Robredo waiting for serve is just one of the most rewarding sites in tennis. Sometimes he wiggles!! That's when he's waiting for his opponent to serve. Ugh, he is the best.
With Marcel Granollers! Who we have since become fond of as well - and we thought he was ADORABLE at the time, too... it was funny, because I'd heard of Tommy but not Marcel, and we thought Marcel was just this total random kid who was playing with Tommy. To this day I think of him as being at least 3 years younger than he is. He's so tall and awkward. :333 He served great and Tommy was returning beautifully. ::sigh:: I miss him.
As I said in the _tennis comment<\/a> where I originally posted these pictures - \"Amazing cell phone action shot!\"
This match also created our little special relationship with Rajeev Ram (but not Lipsky! Where was Lispky in 2010??). We were there rooting for Tommy and Marcel but felt slightly like bad Americans, especially since the little stands were full of people saying \"Come on Raj!\" and \"Let's go Raj!!\" I'm pretty sure Raj lost but we loved the enthusiasm of his fans. We stopped by another match of his yesterday and heard the same cheering! It was like the months just melted away...
18) On Yanina Wickmayer.<\/b>
Even a year later, I have a joke grudge against her for how long this match took. I've forgiven Patty Schnyder - I think Wickmayer had more chances to close it out so I resented her more?
19) On my foolish youth.<\/b>
I don't know - Juan Carlos Ferrero in person didn't impress me the way Tommy did, or Fer giggling away on the practice courts, but having seen him much more since this day, in videos and interviews and cuddling ridiculous dogs, he's just so elegant and dignified and sexy - it's hard to imagine myself ever thinking he was funny looking. A lesson on judging from appearances alone, before you hear someone's smooth, sex-on-a-plate voice and see their fabulous purple hotel.
[And there you have it! So 12-19 were written just now, the rest at various times between September 27, 2010 and probably like... April or May of 2011? Ahhh, the days when I kind of only knew the Armada. :3 What a good starting point! The following summary was written back in 2010, by the way.<\/i>]
Overall thoughts!
Strangely enough, I highly recommend going to the US Open on a day when you're not too stressed about seeing any particular matches. Going in with an attitude of \"whatever I end up seeing is cool\" is a lot more fun and less stressful. I mean, there were a few things I wanted to catch and I think it's pretty feasible to see at least a glimpse of whatever you wanted, but yeah. It was just less stressful this way.
[2011 note: on Wednesday I had about 20 matches that I wanted to see and that kind of works good too, because when you see that many matches it's hard to be dissatisfied if you miss one. XD It did lead to me spending a lot of time tracking the scores and thinking about our scheduling, but not to the inhibition of my enjoyment. But I'm sure some people would hate that... Anyway I guess my advice for going to a slam would be to have a bajillion players that you love and then you'll be excited no matter who you see, even if the matches themselves end up being less good or something.<\/i>]
I also recommend moving around a bit. I did a bit more roaming than most of my companions and I ended the day with less of a headache, because I spent less time sitting in the sun. However, probably more serious tennis fans than I would be more interested in catching an entire match, or at least an entire set. . . or at least not slipping out of every match right before the end because you don't want to get caught in a crowd.
But for me, hopping from court to court and match to match worked out great! Louis Armstrong was kind of our home base, and it's definitely my favorite court - the seats all have backs, instead of just being benches. Maybe I got spoiled but I ended up in the Grandstand at the end of the day and it was kind of rough on my back. But yeah, I also went and explored the smaller courts and popped in and out of the Grandstand throughout the day and saw some good stuff. Also, Louis Armstrong lets you come and go during the match, for some reason. I mean, not just in between games. Obviously you're not supposed to and we generally waited to leave, but it was nice not to have to wait to enter.
My other advice for the US Open is to go on a day with perfect weather. My god, did we luck out. Beautiful, sunny, not too hot - it was starting to get windy, which would end up causing a lot of problems for the players, but for us sitting in the stands it was very sweet. Also I was apparently the only one of my group to adequately apply sunscreen! Although most people just got a couple of little patchy burns. I actually ended up squatting in the sun early on and got paranoid so I applied another layer, so yeah.
[Apparently this is key, because I did it again this year and was fine, whereas Katie waited until lunch at 1-ish and got burnt. Apply sunscreen before you go and then touch it up between 11:30 and 12 and then you're probably good - although if you feel hot any time later, add more sunscreen!<\/i>]"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:338982","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/338982.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=338982"}}],"title":"US Open 2011 - Wednesday, Part 2","published":"2011-09-02T04:03:04Z","updated":"2011-09-02T14:07:19Z","content":"So we eventually wandered over to Gilles, who was in the fourth set of his match against Ricardo Mello. And it was very crowded (packed with French people!!). And we were almost the last people let in our changeover and there were basically no seats left and we ended up Right. Behind. His. Chair.
SO CLOSE. SO AWKWARD. Hahaha every time he came back for a changeover I didn't even know where to look. I was like \"ajdidsofds Gilles is right in front of me I should soak it in... but what if he looks at me? And we make eye contact from like 2 feet away??\" It was the closest we got to anyone and we spent the whole day on small courts.
And of course, he is ADORABLE up close. *_________* So presh!! Such, um, sinewy legs...
He wasn't playing well when we were there and kept shouting at himself in French. And the crowd was all French and kept saying \"Allez Gilles!!\" And making these \"ooeuuah\" sounds that are really hard to transcribe but extremely French. It was fun as hell.
And Katie captured his derp face!
but mostly he was pretty.
And he ended up winning the 5th set! Probably because we left. . .
Flavs was next, back on the court where we saw Feli. Good times on Court 11.
Flavia was all fuckin' business. She's so light and jokey and full of personality that I was actually a little surprised, but hey - she was doing her job and she was taking it seriously. It was epic. And she played pretty great! Beat a fellow Italian, Romina Oprandi, who wears a ridiculous hat with a bill that goes almost straight up. So Flavs clearly was not going to go down to someone in a hat like that.
Bam. While I'm talking clothing, I love her kit!
But it was a bit of a blow-out so we didn't stay too long. Also I think we were behind Oprandi's cousins or friends or something. . . two dudes kept cheering for her super hard.
Pablo Andujar is one of the hunkiest players on tour, so obviously we had to stop by and watch him and doubles partner Daniel Gimeno-Traver (who had lost the 5-setter against GGL) beat up on douchey Bernard Tomic and Ivan Dodig. (Tomic in particular comes across douchey. he was wearing a hat backwards...)
Particularly exciting because Andujar's shirt was coming apart! Unfortunately, this just meant something was flapping at his shoulder, but we were so overcome by his hunkiness that we imagined him flexing his muscles and ripping the thing to shreds.
At this point the evening was wearing down and the timing became a major concern, cos several matches that we really wanted to be able to sit and get good spots for and watch for a while we're all due to start somewhat shortly - an all-Spanish doubles match featuring Marc Lopez and Marcel Granollers, Jamie Murray's mixed doubles, and Ana Ivanovic-Nenad Zimonjic mixed doubles. (We also thought we'd be able to stop by Aisam's mixed dubs but his team withdrew. :\/)
Ana-Nenad was starting later, and the other two matches were on adjacent courts. We decided to start with Marcel and Marc.
AND OH MY GOD WERE THEY CUTE. They were playing GGL and Albert Montanes and Marcel came in all joking around with Montanes and we totally were thinking they were ready to just switch partners. Everyone was very relaxed and in a good mood. Lots of smiles during the warming up. :D Marc Lopez is just beyond adorable and was looking quite trim and attractive up close. Quality stubble.
Marcel was also looking cute, although seeing him just made us miss Tommy Robredo more. We were flashing back to last year when Marcel was that adorable awkward gangly kid playing with dashing Tommy. :33333 (Cos I'd only been a tennis fan for two and a half months and I'd managed to discover Tommy - although I didn't fully appreciate his perfection until I saw him in person - but not Marcel.) ::sigh:: memories. . .
Not that Marcel isn't presh on his own!
This is one of my absolute favorite pictures of the day. SO ADORABLE, Marc Lopez waiting for Marcel to serve. And giggling while doing so. They were all SO SMILEY, especially Marc. :D
Unnnnnfortunately it was not all fun and games. After only 3 games - without even a changeover! - GGL had to retire. (remember that 5-setter I said was important?) ::sigh:: So that's why we don't have oodles of pictures of chatty, giggly Spaniards. We thought we would have more time with them!! ;____;
However, the entertainment was not over yet! Marc had two friends who were over on our side of the court, so he came over to the little fence to talk to them. I was sitting. . . right next to that bench!! His friends were very good-looking, by the way. And of course Marc was all smiley and it was all very adorable. Then... Feli Lady reappeared!! We'd noticed her before, getting to the match all early like we did, haha, and we were like \"omg is that Feli Lady?? Here to support Feli's friends??\" and after the match her and her friend were standing right up on top of Marc's friends and I heard one of them say, really loudly, \"I got a great picture of them talking!!\"
I was like \"...wth, Feli Lady. That's... so rude and awkward!\" but then it turned out - she'd befriended Marc's friends! God, she's good. Advanced level fangirling. When they turned away from Marc, one of them said \"You forgot to get her picture!!\" - I guess they wanted to take a pic with Marc. And his friends looked so upset that they'd forgotten!! They were looking back to where Marc was already practically across the court like \"ooooh nooo!\" thinking \"do we shout at him to call him back? but he's so far! and it'd be a pain for him! but we promised this lady DD:\" and it was SO CUTE. But Feli Lady was cool, she was like \"haha no, don't worry about it, i got a great picture of you guys talking\" and everyone was happy again.
Oh, and they asked the dudes why GGL retired, which I assumed was because of the 5-setter earlier (we'd been worried that he was going to just withdraw, to be honest, so at least we got three games!) and I got the more specific answer that the long match had led to some sort of problem with his toe. Hopefully he'll feel better for his next singles match!
All that concluded, and Katie back from the facilities (she missed all the above because I got all nervous about time... I stink. :( ) we whisked over to Jamie Murray and Nadia Petrova playing doubles against Leander Paes and Elena Vesnina. Jamie and Nads are a good combination but neither of them was firing on all cylinders tonight. Leander was a bit off as well but Elena was being awesome enough to overcome that. Again, I felt so bad for Jamie, but it was such a fun match to watch. Mixed doubles is just massively entertaining.
Serious faces. :(
Happy faces. They were a good team, though. Elena is adorable!!
I was joking that Katie should take a pic of Leander's butt, which she'd done for me with Feli earlier, and she actually did because she's mean. But I won't inflict it on you.
MOST AMAZING MOMENT. Ahahahaaa a squirrel ran along the fence and hopped onto the court. WPS fans will remember a similar incident at the final, just this past Saturday. A fucked up sickly crazy squirrel ran onto the field and ran in circles and stopped play for 5 full minutes, until he was dragged off under a box.
This squirrel was way cooler and was just confused and adorable and hilarious for a little. Katie and I were like \"WHAT THE HELL SQUIRRELS, LEAVE OUR SPORTS ALONE\" but we were cracking up. And as you can see, Elena was laughing and trying to shoo it with her racket. XDD
An old dude who was working for the tournament had been chilling next to use in between changeovers and he missed the squirrel action so he came back and was like \"what's going on??\" and hew as adorable. <333 We thought he'd left but as we were leaving he was coming back in and we were like \"YAY!\" haha idk, we amuse ourselves.
Anyway, at this point I checked twitter on Katie's iphone (i don't have a smart phone, I'm like the only person in the universe) and Judy tweeted a picture of the squirrel. Jeiwofjsifd we were in the same match as Judy Murray!!! What if she was RIGHT BEHIND US hearing us freak out over being in the same match as her??
Luckily we could tell from the angle of the shot that she wasn't, and Katie was able to spot her!
Can you find her?
We stayed for most of the first set but I started to get antsy because the match before Ana-Nenad was wrapping up. I wanted to get there early because it was going to be on a tiny court and we anticipated that being very popular, even though it was late - and even though EVERYONE was in Isner-Baghdatis. They had to make an announcement that no one else was getting in (chronologically this happened in between Andujar and Marc-Marcel, I think. We also got crepes at that point! So tasty!!) and we'd just seen ENORMOUS lines right before they made that announcement.
Of course...after we got there all early and got ourselves good seats...Ana-Nenad was moved to a larger court. Haha that was good though - it was around 8 at that point and most of the courts were empty. There was just like... one other doubles match stretching on.
At this point I was pretty friggin tired (also at this point in writing this entry, although I did it in three sittings) so I was thinking about my back and the time as much as anything. But! Ana is lovely. And the crowd was so behind her! Cheering madly for every shot she made, gasping in disappointment over the misses. (although the woman next to me, clearly a fan, was calling her Anna - like anne-uh, the American way. Um. ...)
And Nenad is very, very attractive. My heavens! So hot!! And doing all doubles strategy things and being awesome. It was really fun to watch them interact, although they were pretty serious business.
bonus Ana epic action shot:
So yeah... I was totally slagged at this point so we didn't stay the entire first set there either. It was around 8:30 and we finally head for home!
A super-duper incredibly full and fun and satisfying day! I can't believe how many awesome people we saw! And just had so much fun doing it. Everything went well and everyone was nice and we stayed hydrated and happy! I love doubles, so it was fantastic to see so many matches, and especially with so many of my favorite players!
We're going back on Saturday and we expect to be more interested in the bigger matches and less into the smaller ones, which will allow us to be much more relaxed and stationary and kind of get into the tennis more. I anticipate Petko will be playing, and hopefully Juanqui vs Marcel, and Verdasco and maybe Feli again! Unfortunately, it looks like David Ferrer won't be on Saturday cos he's playing tomorrow, but it still looks like a fantastic line-up. And maybe I'll see Ferru on the practice courts again! of course if he hits with Rafa I won't be able to get a glimpse. XDD Anyone know where the practice schedules can be found? (if anyone got this far.)
Oh, and I have to end by saying once again that all the pictures were taken by my sister Katie, and aren't they amazing? :D I'm such a proud twinsie. There are at least a few more of most of these people so if there's anyone you'd like to see more of, feel free to let me know!"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:338899","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/338899.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=338899"}}],"title":"US Open 2011 - Wednesday, Part 1","published":"2011-09-02T03:58:32Z","updated":"2011-09-02T13:16:30Z","content":"Yesterday Katie and I went to the US Open! IT WAS AWESOME. We saw at least a game or two of 18 matches, I think, and did drive-by hellos of 2 or 3 more. XD We went with quantity over quality - there were only about 5-6 matches that we saw close to a full set, and the rest we popped in for a couple games and soaked in a lot of doubles action and then ran.
Katie brought a telephoto lens and took absolutely gorgeous pictures - so, in pictures, here is Laura and Katie's Big Day at the US Open. :D I'm splitting it into 2 entries because there are so many pictures!
It started, like all good things, with Feli.
Gratuitous Feli-butt!!
We raced right over to Feli's match and heavens was it worth it! His shirt is gorgeous and his skin was glowing. He was focused and playing well. Of course we got \"I'm not on TV\" half-assed hair but WHATEVER. He was very well behaved - I really liked his attitude, being very careful and taking an effort to hit the ball to the ball kids and not just kind of whacking it out of the way, and he even - gasp! - put his towel back himself once instead of just chucking it at the kid! I really like that sort of thing. And he was playing solidly - not killing his opponent, but not giving us too much stress either. Good boy, Feli. :3
We were briefly sitting next to Feli Lady, a super-intense fan who we love. Overall, everyone we ended up sitting near and eavesdropping on were hilarious, it really enhanced our experience. I'll copy Feli Lady from a comment in ontd_tennis. Feli Lady was just such an unabashed fangirl - but fanwoman, cos she was over 35, I'd say. She only sat next to us briefly because as soon as a seat opened up in the front row she was THERE. And she was all shouting \"GO FELICIANO\" and her friend was talking to these random dudes behind them and was like \"oh yeah, she loves Feliciano\" and she was just so hyped, it was awesome. She was blonde and pretty enough but like I said, not super-young. We saw her again later, I think. XD [Watch her totally read this and it be super awkward. This is always my life. Hi Feli Lady! Sorry for creeping on you.]
Then we saw Oli Rochus play doubles and it was as magical as you might imagine. Especially when his partner, Andre Sa, is 6'1\". (Oli is the shortest man on tour at 5'5\". We call him Little Boss and think he's fantastic.) Oli lost his opening round on Tuesday so I felt SO lucky that we were able to see him in the doubles!
Beasting.
They were down a set when we came over but won the second set! And we got to see an Oli Rochus ace!!
Then... this happened:
This was on a tiny little side court and we were sitting in the front row of the little bleachers, so we're basically on the court, and Katie has a big camera with a big telephoto lens - not enormous but normal big - and Oli Looked Right At Her. Hahahahahaa I cannot believe the face he's making! Katie was SO EMBARRASSED! She buried her head in my shoulder which just made the whole situation more weird. This is the last pic Katie took of Oli, she could not bring herself to lift her camera after that.
Unfortunately they lost the match, but we were so happy to have seen him!
Then we walked around a lot and stopped by a couple other random matches, just to check people out quickly.
We saw Kiri, dominating and accelerating:
and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who was embroiled in what would become a 5-setter (THIS IS IMPORTANT LATER):
He's quite cute in person! As is Maria Kirilenko but that goes without saying rather.
Janko was practicing on a random court, i think it was 5 - there were two courts that just had practicing but all the big names stayed on the protected, designated practice courts where you can only see a little bit. Anyway Janko is an ass but he's a very very hot ass so we stopped to ogle for a little.
Then to the practice courts themselves!! Haha at first we were like \"uhhh I dont' recognize anyone\" and I still can't quite place the dude on the near court... then we realized that Petko was right behind him, and behind her was Sam Stosur hitting with Venus Williams (who was wearing a Sloane Stephens costume and totally fooled us! Bun, visor, turquoise top! She was too far away for us to really see. Anyway it's weird that we actually saw Venus at the US Open...).
Behind them was. . . David Ferrer hitting with Juan Carlos Ferrero!! Two of my favorite players - Ferru possibly my favorite - and one of my favorite friendships on tour. :333 We totally wouldn't have recognized them if someone behind us hadn't ID'ed them but after he said that you could totally tell even from a distance. Ferru was bouncing all over the place. :DDD Juanqui hit him some lobs so he could practice his overhead and then he was helping Juanqui practice his volleying. So adorable.
We only have pictures of Petko, really, because she was the closest and Katie wasn't confident about the fence. They turned out great, though, so if we see more epic people far away on Saturday we're going to get more.
She looked AMAZING. Oh my god. *______* Just hitting with her coach (who Katie actually recognized first from twitter) - quite serious and focused, doing pretty well from what I saw.
MUSCLESSSSSS.
God, and she was glistening and just so, so lovely.
A big one since there's so much background action. We were like \"oh! haha! you can totally see Sam and Juanqui!\" If we'd known we would have creeped on them photographically but it was good anyway!
No Venus but you can see the action on her side of the court.
haha ok. I couldn't restrain myself from posting all the Petko pics. No regrets!!
Then - Pico time!! So lucky that he was playing dubs, we could see him all close up. So adorable!! AHHH SO CUTE.
It's so obvious that he has a great disposition. And great hair. Even though he's not smiling in these pics, he was just peppy and up all the time. :)
Oh, and he was playing Andy and Joni! Andy Ram and Jonathan Erlich, doubles specialists from Israel! So the bleachers were half full of cheering Argentines and half full of cheering Jews, it was super fun. I like Joni and Andy too so I was happy to see them as well.
After Pico, I think we had lunch and a little chill time? It might have been before... or later. Anyway, it was good to sit in the shade and drink lots of water. Then, it was back to see Feli finish things up. :DD We had better seats this time and it was very very satisfying.
nomnomnom. Of course his hair was even worse at this point but his eyelashes were more than making up for it.
Onward! To see Jamie Murray (and...Santiago Gonzalez) face doubles team\/bffs extraordinaire, Melpet! aka Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner.
Poor Jamie. ::sigh::
However, Melpet were BEYOND adorable!!
So cute, so bro-tastic, so clearly enjoying themselves. And of course, they dominated. . .
Then we decided to check out Julia Goerges because it was pretty quiet and we totally thought we had time to see Delpo still. And Julia is cute and she was playing on the new court 17 and the seats had backs!
Julia was nice enough to breadstick her opponent, and up next was Ivo Karlovic and partner (Frank Moser) playing the Bryan Brothers. We both wanted to see that in person so we stuck around but they took FOREVER coming out. XPPP
Still... worth it just to see Ivo duck to get out the door.
hahaha so satisfying.
Also worth it to get this picture. XDD
However, while they were still just warming up we noticed that Delpo was leading 4-1 in the third set. . . AAAAGH!! So we ran the hell over to Louis Armstrong but he's too friggin fast! There was just a point left when we got there. So we didn't get to soak up the amazing forehand in person. :( But we did get to soak up the adorable Delpitude in person!!
I. . . don't even remember what he said but it was adorable. I was cooing so hard. And he thanked the Argie fans in Spanish. :3
hahaha cos all the balls he hit to fans went friggin twice as high as the stadium before coming down.
:33333333 <--basically Delpo's cuteness reduces me to just :3333
Anyway, Sam was on Louis Armstrong next! So we moved close and settled in to ogle her biceps for a set or so.
So cute!!
Luckily she brought the arm-porn because the tennis wasn't that great.
Not that I can stay mad at her! But we didn't even stay the whole set, I think. Haha there was a guy yelling \"Go Coco!!\" cos she was playing American Coco Vandeweghe (I cannot even with that name) and it was just hilarious. But there was also good support for Sammy. :)))
I can't remember exactly when but at some point after this - kind of scattered throughout the afternoon - we did some undocumented doubles drive-bys. I had to see Fabio Fognini because he is a hilarious troll. We came, we saw, we cracked up, we walked away. Actually we did note that his doubles partner, Simone Bolelli, is a very good looking man.
We also stopped by Vera and Pavyluchenkova's doubles, cos I loves Bepa and she looked adorable, and they were beasting. And we zipped past Jarka and Bethanie Mattek-Sands's doubles to see Bethanie's knee socks and just general self. We also peeped in on Jarka's mixed dubs. She replaced beautiful Bellucci with alternate Brazilian Bruno Soares. MUCH LESS ATTRACTIVE but they seemed to be having fun.
Oh and we said hi to Lipsky and Ram because at our first US Open we watched them play Tommy and Marcel and there were these dudes shouting \"Come on Raj!!\" and we got all invested. There were dudes shouting \"Come on Raj!!\" yesterday today but they still lost. ;__; But at least we said hey. And I said hey to Rennae Stubbs's doubles match because she is an epic legend and I wanted to see her and it was awesome. Even though she lost too. :((( But she looked epic and hardcore doing so, and one woman shouted \"Good hustle, Rennae!!\" and it was.
AND we watched a bit of Butorac and Rojer. XDD We adopted them as our random American doubles team possibly even more so than Lipsky and Ram even though Jean-Julien Rojer is from Cura\u00e7ao in the Dutch Antilles. But Katie watched a match of theirs with a total bro commentator and yeah, we're invested. There are actual pictures of them cos we settled in for a bit but I think they didn't get uploaded. . . whoops! They were playing Dima Tursunov and Grigor Dimitrov and once again their doubles lovin' was too much for their opponents.
I also can't remember when this happened, but at one match we saw a couple, a man and a woman, wearing exact matching outfits. Oh my god. It was like. . . if we were in the WASP Alps generally, they were WASP Mount Everest. If Mount Everest were in the Alps. They were both wearing khaki shorts and lime green polo shirts. I begged Katie to take a picture but she wouldn't. ;___;
And now that I've broken the chronological flow, this is as good a place as any to switch entries! Part 2!<\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:334648","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/334648.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=334648"}}],"title":"this entry is pretty pointless, but I need to ramble about Shackleton","published":"2011-01-07T23:33:18Z","updated":"2011-01-07T23:33:18Z","content":"wow, sir ernest shackleton looks so different when he has a beard to when he's clean-shaven. of course, he also tends to grow the beard primarily when he's on an antarctic expedition and that'll age the skin a bit. It's not that he's really old in the beard pics, though; he didn't live to a super old age or anything.
no beard:
beard:
lolz:
(promotional image - antarctic expeditions needed sponsors)
although he looks even more different in this picture, to the point where I don't feel 100% confident saying that it's him:
My beloved former roomie got me a little book that I assume is an excerpt from South: The Endurance Expedition<\/i>, it's by Shackleton but covers only the open boat journey to South Georgia Island and subsequent crossing. It's AMAZING, and reading it is once again bringing to the fore my massive love and admiration for that man. And the entire crew, really - especially Tom Crean and Frank Worsley. And Frank Wild even though he's not really in this book, having been left in charge of the rest of the men back on Elephant Island.
here's a picture of Tom Crean with puppies:
"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:333858","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/333858.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=333858"}}],"title":"sports and toys and food joy!","published":"2010-12-05T22:05:05Z","updated":"2010-12-05T22:05:05Z","content":"ahhhhhh, reading articles about the Davis Cup. :D And Schalke! God, this weekend really did its best to make up for last on the sports results front! Although actually last weekend I was like AUGH I'LL JUST FOCUS ON CURLING and the curling results this time weren't so amazing. Although I still like the teams in the finals (which are happening now) well enough, which is the key thing with curling.But yeah, Schalke beat Bayern Munich 2-0!!! Raul was injured but I don't think too badly - looked like a split lip? (pretty bloody, but he walked off of his own power.) And Real Madrid managed to pull out a 2-0 win over Valencia, although they only scored after one of Valencia's players was pretty questionably sent off. I felt bad, it'd be a really tough match for a Valencia fan to watch. (and omg we need Pipita. D:)
I was at home for Hanukkah so we were actually eating latkes and I left soccerstand.com open, it's a gametracking website (with gambling stuff as well I guess XD) and it makes a noise when someone scores so luckily there was a pause in the conversation and we hear this little noise from the computer in the next room and I jumped up and raced over to see what was going on.
So I got to combine delicious amazing latkes with a victory for Real Madrid!!! SO. GREAT. And Schalke won just before we started peeling potatoes, and that morning Arsenal won - not my EPL team but I like them well enough and they're the team of the guingeltwin so I'm happy when she's happy. She was getting really worried about them, they are not having the season the could be. Giving up some games they really should win and stuff.
And then today, Serbia won the Davis Cup!!! AHHHHH I'M SO HAPPY FOR THEM!! Serbia has never won it before and you could really tell how much it meant to all the players, I can't even tell you. I really get the feeling that winning this as Serbia means more to them than winning individual titles might. I know Novak Djokovic, world number 3, is so proud that he can represent Serbia in a positive manner to the world, and tennis in general seems like an important source of positive pride. And they've achieved this with a lot less resources than most of the countries they were competing against - there's almost no national budget for tennis so most of the players, their families have to really fucking work to help put their kids in the position to become top players.
So, I'm really, really happy for them. :D And the finals happened in Belgrade and I follow one of the players, Tipsarevic Janko, on twitter and when they made it to the finals (he didn't have a good match this weekend but he was vital in getting them there) he tweeted \"I don't know what's going to happen (party wise) if we win the finals in Belgrade!!\" and Katie and I have been saying \"(party wise)\" all the time since then. XD
Plus, today I went to this huge asian grocery store near my parents house and i was able to get rice because I was getting a ride home, AND I found these char siu pork buns that I've been looking for since i got back from Manchester 4 years ago. SO SO EXCITED!!! If these are half as good they will be amazing, the ones I used to make in England were pretty much my favorite food ever.
PLUS my mom got herself this ridiculously awesome lego set<\/a> and she let us help her put it together and it was SO SWEET. omg it's amazing and i love lego. THERE IS A LEGO ESCALATOR!!! So, so great. I just love the way they use the limited medium of a few different types of bricks - with some specialty pieces, but really minimizing the variation - and then just design ways to use them to make really specific, realistic looking structures. So, so satisfying to take a bunch of little blocks and put it together to make an escalator or window washer station or cash register!!
Annnnd I finally ordered the guingeltwin her christmas presents and my dad ordered me a new coat as one of mine! I want to make my dad a print of this panel from All Star Superman that he loves but I don't really know how to do it. Plus I don't have any great ideas for my mom so maybe I'll wait til Dad's birthday to do that. . . in July. XD
So hopefully this evening I'll get some cleaning up done on my room and also public my craigslist ad for a new roomie. ::sigh:: My one downer!! I wish I could find the card reader for my camera so i could put the pics of my living room with furniture in, I just have the ones from when I first moved in."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:330787","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/330787.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=330787"}}],"title":"actually, I'm feeling like I'm having an icon crisis today, but I can't make new ones right now!","published":"2010-08-18T17:03:38Z","updated":"2010-08-18T17:05:05Z","content":"I know, I haven't posted in forever and now I'm just doing an icon meme. If you're wondering what I've been doing with my time, I have been watching sports. Or hanging out at
<\/a>ontd_extreme<\/b><\/a><\/span>. I also went to the USA-Brazil match, which I actually did sort of write up but it's sitting in an email draft - it started as a comment and then I was like \"what the hell, I'm going to write down everything I can remember!\"Of course, it being not only my first football match but also only my second major sporting event (I'd gone to a Mets game the week prior, before that it was minor league all the way) I think a lot of the stuff I wrote down was exciting to me but normal to most people. I was definitely fascinated by seeing everyone warm up before the game! Since that's what I don't get to see on TV.
And roomie!Corey and I did have a fun moment when we were waiting to leave - huge crowd of people waiting to get back on the trains to NYC (stadium was in New Jersey - but it was actually an easy trip, there were just quite a lot of people trying to leave all at once) and at one point we ended up right on the other side of a barrier from a train that had already loaded and was waiting to pull out. There was a very handsome man of maybe 35 years leaning against the door of the train, looking very solemn. We were staring at him because he was so poetic and fascinating, so he spotted us staring and we smiled at him and he smiled back and we waved and he blew kisses and we blew kisses back. It was fun, and I felt like we cheered him up - and it was hilarious because then after all of this. . . the train did not pull out. EXTREMELY AWKWARD SITUATION. XD Luckily eventually our line moved. This stuff does not happen in movies, I'm just sayin.
. . . I don't know what that's the anecdote I decide to share after several weeks of radio silence. I also saw a friend from my study abroad in Manchester last week, after a two year separation, and that was completely, completely awesome and deserves more of a write-up, really. And I saw some of Katie's friends from college that I like as well. It was fun, and a pretty eventful week actually. And my roommate is returned and her mom is visiting, so I've been worrying about that but of course they are being as unobtrusive as my roommate always is, and I am only left worrying that they don't feel comfortable enough using the living room.
Hahahaha oh my god I just got a phone call and I had my legs curled up underneath me and when I shifted to get to my phone I completely put my foot into my garbage can and almost knocked it over. Luckily it only had a kit-kat wrapper in it.
All right, there you go. Now this entry is pretending to be a real one. (Are you supposed to change the code words? I like these though :D)
1.) Reply to this post with the word PIRATES (or NINJAS) and I will pick six of your icons.
2.) Make a post (including this info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3.) Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4.) This will create a never ending cycle of icon glee.
I made both
<\/a>ktdone<\/b><\/a><\/span> and <\/a>buhdderkupp<\/b><\/a><\/span> do this for me because I am greedy, so I have 12. Actually, 11. There was one hilarious duplicate.1.
I LOVE JOEY B. LOOOOOOVE SO MUCH. And I know we'd be bffs because I have incredible allure to people from Delaware. (IT IS TRUE.) And when I saw this picture I knew it required an icon with a sketchy comment. JOEY B I WOULD LOVE YOU EVEN IF YOU WEREN'T VP.
2.
One of my two icons I didn't make myself! (I'm not a good icon maker, I just really like making them so much that it seems silly to use someone else's that much. Although lately I've been frustrated by my general difficulties maintaining a nice image quality, I don't know what's up.) I not only really enjoyed the Vancouver Olympics from an Olympics perspective, I also enjoyed it from a Canada perspective. Being a huge Canada fangirl. So this icon is perfect. :D Plus, Mounties!! <333
3.
ohmigod. Will Eisner's legendary The Spirit, as drawn by Darwyn Cooke. I have such a hard on for Darwyn Cooke's art. And he was such a perfect fit for the Spirit! I don't use this icon enough because I know most people I talk to don't know what it is, but I love it. Maybe I'll make it my default for now, I've changed my default about 80 times today. Anyway, even though it's a bit awkwardly shaped for an icon and I worry that it's not legible, I love how perfect the words, the pose, everything - ooh, Darwyn Cooke!!
4.
BWAHAHAHA OK so for actually quite a long time, I was a big fan of Japanese boybands, and TOKIO in particular. This is Leader. He's almost 40 and he's awkward and not good-looking and hilarious. And I photoshopped muttonchops onto him. I was on a muttonchop photoshopping frenzy. When I posted the results, I was asked why I did it. It never even occurred to me that this would be a question. Why wouldn't you photoshop muttonchops onto people?
5.
This is from the Merode Altarpiece<\/a>. As you can see from that awkwardly large image, Robert Campin's Northern Renaissance masterpiece, features, above the angel Gabriel's head, a teeny tiny Jesus, rocketing towards Mary's crotch. Womb. My sister is an art history major, I am a religion major, we team up and do stuff like this<\/a>. Zoom in<\/a>!
6.
Devastatingly hunky curler Johnny Mo makes a shot with the best sweepers in the world, Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert, ready to go. :D My curling icons are some of the ones I wish were nicer quality but also, curling is kind of hard to icon. Is this<\/a> the full size? No it's not. Close enough, though.
1.
Hahaha another Japanese boyband one. This is Murakami Shingo, of Kanjani8, aka Hina. I'm not much of a K8 fan but I will always adore Hina. And there's something really funny to me about him shaving. I've gotten a lot of opportunities to use this icon, actually.
2.
::swoons, fans self:: Levon is the sexy as hell drummer for the Band. He's also the only non-Canadian member. He also does vocals on a lot of their songs but even though he still performs with his daughter, he no longer sings because he SMOKED A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT. There's a story about when they were filming some of the studio pieces for the Last Waltz and he was smoking two cigarettes at once - \"One cigarette in one hand and another cigarette in the other hand.\" Apparently he offered one of the Staples Singers one of the cigarettes because he \"didn't want them to think he was greedy.\" See, that is class. Step aside, Xabi.
3.
WISHBONE!! What more is there to say, it is the best show ever. Hard to find pictures from, though. My friends and I had a Wishbone revival fiesta during senior year, it turns out the episodes are still totally enjoyable. I should use the icon more.
4.
Bwahahahaha see above. Yes, I need to say bwahahahaha any time Leader is mentioned.
5.
This is from art by illustrator Stina Persson. I know I was looking at fashion illustrations at the time so I guess that's what she does (I don't care about fashion but I like fashion illustration). I was talking a lot about race and politics and gender on LJ so I wanted some more neutral icons that could be used in a serious situation. And I'm from New York. I always forget I have this one, though.
6.
Jordan Malone, Apolo Ohno, and Travis Jayner upon receiving their bronze medals from the short track men's relay at the Vancouver Olympics. I wanted an icon with Jordan in it, I think, since I was stanning for him a bit at the time. But not just Jordan, because his face is. . . his face. He has since demonstrated that while he's a great guy, he has a lot of issues with women and they frustrate me, so I'm less enthused. It's still a cute icon, though. :D Hopefully I'll use it a bunch when short track starts up again.
Now to see if the right explanations ended up with the right icons.
I'm so long-winded."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:guingel:330288","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/330288.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/guingel.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=330288"}}],"title":"slightly awkward sled hockey introduction post","published":"2010-07-22T17:36:13Z","updated":"2010-07-22T17:36:13Z","content":"Damnation! I never finished updating\/refining this entry, originally posted in my beloved winter sports comm (I just learned way too much more about all the athletes and I didn't even know where to start) and tonight is the sled hockey episode of Ace of Cakes! I will just take a quick skim through and then post what I've got. Sorry it's so bulky and yet incomplete!
At the Paralympic level, sled hockey is a sport for athletes with lower limb disabilities (at a more casual level, anyone willing to be strapped into a sled can give it a try). All the same rules as stand-up hockey, same rink, same puck, same nets. But the players are in sleds (sledges if you're not in the US, we're the only people who don't call it sledge hockey) which have two blades on the bottom, and they have two shorter sticks that they use to propel themselves around the ice.
Team USA's adorable captain, Andy Yohe, and a player on the Japanese team model their sled hockey gear for you. ;) (Andy is sadly not featured in this entry, despite his endearing awkwardness in interviews.)
There are two blades but at the highest level I think they're about an inch or so apart so the balance involved is pretty prodigious. And the sticks are about 2 feet long and have a regular blade on one end, then pointy picks on the other end that are used to propel yourself. So players slide their hands up and down the stick to switch from moving to shooting. You can shoot with both hands or sort of dribble, and pass the puck underneath your sled, it's all really awesome. The puck handling just looks really, really cool. For me it definitely makes it even more fun to watch than stand-up hockey.
Although the two sports are pretty much the same - I think sled hockey might have a slightly different pace but it could also just be the teams I've watched. But yeah, apart from the sleds and sticks, I think one of the only rule differences is a new penalty: t-boning. The players check the living hell out of each other, but you are not allowed to drive the point of your sled into another player - no perpendicular hits in the sleds. It's a really physical game, though - and when you get checked in sled hockey, you're not going into the glass. You're being slammed right into the unforgiving lower wall of the rink. Also, very sharp picks<\/a>.
Here, you can discover sled hockey alongside Rick Mercer (and Canada's 2006 gold medal winning team! yeeeah!):
Rick Mercer is my hero, by the way. He's the only way I get to see Paralympians get interviewed - he hung out with Brian and Rob McKeever and it made me so happy. I wish there was someone doing that in the US. . . (and just more people covering the Paralympics in general, obvs.)
Here's a sample of the game itself:
Normally I hate videos filmed from the crowd, and I don't like sports videos without commentary, but I think this one is really good. Of course it's Canada and Norway whereas I plan to focus on Team USA, but oh well! Try not to get mental whiplash or anything. (I initially focused on Team USA because I was heartbroken about team Canada, who didn't win a medal - and I still am heartbroken, but now I'm just absolutely, utterly in love with USA's sled hockey team. Actually thanks to the research I did to initially put this post together for _extreme!)
Team USA plays a hard, fast game of hockey. They like to send the puck out to open ice and have one of their team members race for it, because they know they'll be able to get to it first. They the youngest team in the competition. All but three of them were under 25 when they won gold, and 7 of them were under 21. XD
Bah, I could only find another vid from the stands to show USA hockey - it's not as good because some of the action happens at the other end of the ice, but there's still some cool stuff.
USA Hockey<\/a> actually has pretty good amount of info available on its athletes. Some videos, articles, pictures, even a blog. Also, this fabulous media guide<\/a> about all their teams. Sled hockey starts at page 202, although I will be quoting from it in this entry! (The women start on page 116. Dude, there are more hockey stats and Olympic hockey history in this pdf than my puny mind can comprehend.) (Btw I've been able to download it fine, but not open it in my browser, idk what's up.)
Anyway, I want to introduce you to a couple of Team USA's incredible athletes, because they're what really makes me enthused about this team. It's such a young, adorable team! I picked these three guys because they were kind of the names and faces that stood out to me while watching the Paralympics on Universal Sports, before I really had a handle on what was going on. But really, you do hear some guys' names more than others but the whole team is so strong, and so young and so cute, I could have featured any of them and I want to do more!
But yeah, all three of these guys are incredible hockey players. And I'm not saying that in a \"seriously guys I want to stress how athletic they are because they're paralympians\" way or whatever. I keep talking about it just because it blows me away. It makes it so much fun and so exciting to watch them, they're incredibly good on the ice. I tend to only really like sports when I see a really high level of skill, and I like sports that really display that - like I love watching Kevin Martin curl, because you know he's going to pull off these amazing shots and the whole team is just like a well-oiled machine and it's beautiful. Anyway, um, it just really excites me and is, honestly, really hot when someone is incredibly skilled at something.
Alexi Salamone<\/b>
Position: Forward
Height: 5-5 (165) [tbh, I'm not sure about the heights & weights they give for the bilateral amputees. . . seems a little confusing. But I don't know who to ask about this or if it's really inappropriate to do so.]
Weight: 135 (61)
Birthdate: 6\/17\/87
Hometown: Grand Island, N.Y.
Current Team: Buffalo Sabres Sled Hockey
Disability: Bilateral Amputee
I initially chose Alexi when I started this project because he'd been in that Inspirational Visa Commercial and I figured it'd be easier to find stuff about him. But indeed, he is one of the stars of the team. He scored in every game but one at the paralympics, and in that one game he had two assists. He was first named to the US national team in 2003, at the age of 16!
Al also appears to be a massive badass. One of the announcers was talking about how he gets all fired up and is quite a feisty player after he got a penalty for, I think, charging another player. The announcer was kind of like \"Yeah, he's a really angry player. . . uh, I mean, he has to get a lot of speed because he's not the biggest guy on the ice.\" XD On the other hand, I have both seen Alexi as a little kid because his parents rock the home videos (see below, it was on ESPN - I'm not that much of a creeper!) and I have seen him with<\/i> little kids talking to a school after winning gold, so I have a more cuddly impression. Would not want to play hockey against the guy, though!