Architecture, Football and FOOD

8 Months Old

2011-02-12T00:05:00.000-08:00

It's been a while. Kenzo has been growing at a rapidly increased pace - emotionally, mentally, and actually, finally for once, not physically. You see, Kenzo is, how shall I put this - "great." He has always been in the 95th percentile for weight (at least) and usually about 90 for both head and height. So at least you can make the argument that he's proportional. (What am I saying? Actually, he's beautiful. No worries there.) But finally, the kid has begun to move around on his own, trying to crawl (can only do so backwards to date), rolling all over the place, and for some reason he gets stuck under the couch an incredible amount. So with this new activity, his body has de-chubbed a bit and he looks better than ever. The cheeks are still there - oh goodness, are the cheeks still there. But in all the other places he seems to be a bit more normal looking.

But the mobility is the real incredible part at the moment. As I said, he can't quite exactly crawl yet, but what he can do is sit up, then bend over, then get up on all fours and rotate a bit, then sit back up in a different position and start all over again. Some other recent huge developments are that he can now feed himself crackers with his hands, he can pick things up with his thumb and forefinger, and he can actually mimik us. If mommy and daddy say something that Kenzo says a lot, he will listen to us and start to make that noise. It's not quite talking obviously, but you can tell that the wheels are turning up there which is pretty awesome. Soon he will be crawling, then running, all over the house and our worlds will collapse. But to see his continuing development is incredibly exciting.

Bath Time

2010-08-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite times of the day (or, every couple of days because we're durrrty like that) is bath time. Since he was quite young, (specifically - since his belly button was fully healed) Kenzo has been taking a bath with me holding him in the water, and Mommy washing him. (Sorry ladies, no photos.) So I have the good fortune of getting to dunk his lower half into the water, which he looooooves.

I had always heard that bath time was one of the harder parts of parenting, and who knows, maybe one day it will be. But this kid loves getting in the bath. He can be screaming, screaming like there is no tomorrow, and as soon as his toes hit the warm water, he looks up at the ceiling with this surprised look which soon turns into pure contentment.

We systematically go through each step in the washing process, which stays the same each time. All in all the baths usually take about 10 minutes but with prep and cleanup that usually turns into 30.

Bath time is one of those times that is different in every household, so I think its a pretty special time for everybody. It's a moment where there are no interruptions, no distractions, its just the family working together to clean the little guy and have some fun if possible. I think out of all the great and horrible moments that come with raising a child, bath time will be one that I remember most.

8 Weeks Old

2010-07-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

Exactly 8 weeks today. There was no real fanfare - he's now part of the family rather than some sort of new addition - plus we have been celebrating behavioral milestones more than aged ones recently. Like his increase in smiles, the first actual tear shed from is eyes, and number of degrees of incline his head can achieve during 'tummy time.' Of course, that's only an exaggeration...we don't actually measure degrees.

There was a moment today which sort of freaked me out because I realize how easy it is to become horrible, horrible parents. Let me explain. Recently, Kenzo has been much more cooperative in terms of giving us time to eat. During the day, and into the early evening, he has become much more tolerant, quiet, and manageable. This makes it easy to let him do his own thing, whether it be in his swinging chair, bouncy chair, or on the couch. He loves these places, so we've been letting him just hang out more than we did before. So today, he was in his bouncy chair after being fed. It just so happened that at the same time, dinner became ready, and Asako and I realized that this was a great opportunity to try and eat together without interruption. So we ran over to the table and started scarfing while talking about each other's days. At a certain point, Kenzo coo'd out to us, and we realized that he was sitting in his bouncy chair, only 2 feet away from our large television screen, staring straight up at it while something awful like "Extra" snuck its way into our living room. Kenzo was just sitting there, alone, watching Extra. I wanted to slap myself on the wrist. So we ran over and saved him and we all ate as one big, happy family.

The end.

6 Weeks old

2010-07-17T16:47:00.000-07:00

Kenzo has been around now for 6 weeks and 2 days. That's almost as long as it takes me to typically get around to cleaning the toilet. But miraculously, I've cleaned the toilet at least thrice since Kenzo was born. That's what having children will do to a man.

The best moments of my day occur when he's laying flat on his back, doing the inverted running man in a desperate attempt to pass gas. Once he does, an angelic smile emerges on his face, and he is instantly the king of the room. Congratulations go around the room for relieving some of his gas, and with the very human-like stench of ripe fart still wafting, I pat his belly and declare him a very, very good boy. (Only in my dreams would I receive responses to farts similar to this. This boy has no idea how good he has it.)

The worst moments of my day occur around minute 85 of his gut-wrenching cry fest. The moment at which your checklist of possible quick-fixes has been exhausted, as has your last whit and ounce of patience. It's the moment where, may God have mercy on me for saying this, you wonder why you made the decision in the first place to put this child and all its responsibilities upon yourself. The moment where you feel the now-familiar chill of old sweat on your back after endless minutes of picking up, rocking, vibrating, shushing, singing, and any other -ing which might potentially put this little guy to sleep. There are many moments of what the Japanese call "Tai-hen," extreme difficulty without real mental challenge -- and from what I hear, that will soon change as they get older. But for now, the challenge is mostly physical. Besides that, there's the emotional challenge of not letting yourself feel like a failure for not knowing what on Earth is making him so upset right now.

But those moments when he locks eyes on me, when I know his belly is full, his diaper is empty, and every potential dream he could ever have is still alive and well - those are the moments that give me energy like I've never felt before. The moments when he turns his head and closes his eyes and looks just like his mommy did the night we met - or the moments when he yawns and starts to cough a little and looks just like I did in my last cute photo ever taken - and I think about the fact that he's got actual thoughts running through his little head - thoughts that are neither mine or his Mommy's, but are in some way mine and his mommy's...these are the moments that just blow my mind and make me realize that the "tai-hen" part of being a parent is only a quick anecdote. These are the moments where I am his father and he is my son, and I finally realize why my Dad didn't give up on me after the first thousand times I disappointed him, because this bond is like tungsten steel, and like nothing I ever could have anticipated.

Nil Lara - My First Child

2010-07-06T08:40:00.001-07:00

I have known of a wonderful Cuban-American singer/songwriter named Nil Lara since a good friend of mine introduced me to him in college in 1998. One song was always a favorite of mine, entitled "My First Child." It was always a beautiful song, but obviously it's recently become even more dear to me since Kenzo came along. For any parent who needs an excuse to couple over in tears (that ISN'T because of sheer frustration and exhaustion) please listen to this song.

Amazon page - preview the whole album here - its worth it.

I have a son.

2010-06-24T15:03:00.000-07:00

If anyone checks this blog anymore, which I believe they do not, I now have a son. Kenzo Finnegan Sperry was born on June 3, 2010, and I am so excited and a little terrified to be a dad. But mostly excited.

I'm going to start writing a lot about raising children, so if you're not into that sort of thing, I suggest removing this blog from your favorites list - since I'm sure it's already there currently.

Thanks.

Thinking about Springtime

2010-04-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

I think everyone loves springtime. Is this right, I wonder? Hard to make such a generalization, but I love it enough for everyone, so we'll just say yes - everyone loves springtime. The smells of fresh landscaping, the sounds of groups of people walking slowly down the city streets, the fact that exposing skin for more than 20 seconds won't result in some sort of burn - it's just a wonderful time of year.
But I wonder why, exactly? Is it because the weather is so perfect, or more because the previous weather was so lousy? I'm a huge believer in the idea that without bitter, there is no sweet. And I think that without having to put up with those horrendous 3 or 4 months of Chicago winter, there would be far less excitement over spring. And as someone who lived in Los Angeles for three years, and moved away - almost primarily - because of the weather, I consider myself a bit of an expert in this topic. In Los Angeles, there are about 4 days of lousy weather per year. If you've never lived there, you might think this is another exageration, created by the bright lights and overdramatic Hollywood influence. But it's absolutely, 100% true. Rain is so scarce in LA, you forget what its like. You lose track of time. Did this happen a month ago, or a year ago? I don't know, every day has been exactly the same for as long as I can remember, so how can I tell how many days its been?
With perfect weather every day, there's nothing to get excited about when perfect weather comes along. "You want me to go to the park with you? Oh, it's perfect outside? Huh. Maybe tomorrow. Ren and Stimpy is on." This is what happens when time is no longer of the essence.
So I, like everyone else on this planet, loves springtime. But in stark contrast to some others on this planet, I wouldn't give up the harsh winter for a minute. Because I know that the worse winter gives me during the cold months, the sweeter the honey will be come March/April. As far as I'm concerned, there really can be too much of a good thing.

Thinking about Writing

2010-03-28T20:05:00.000-07:00

We watched "Julie and Julia" tonight. It was a great movie. Nothing groundbreaking - but that's just the point.
I've had the worst weekend - doing taxes, a horrible cold, working all day today (Sunday)...and so we decided to have a quiet family evening with an easy movie and some down time. The movie was fantastic, with beautiful scenes of Paris, cooking, and some great background music. What hit me personally, though, were the bits about the main character blogging. Obviously, I blog as well, and as a couple of you may know, I've tried writing fiction. I have a couple stories working in my head(and just a bit on paper), but like, I assume, thousands of people every day, I get stalled along the way. I have ideas which sputter and then die out, like a worn out riding lawn mower. This movie was a real inspiration to me, to go with an idea, hit it hard, and continue - with heart - and make...something.
Even as I'm writing this I'm thinking of the scenes where the main character types and narrates what she's typing as she's typing, and it makes me want to do the same.
Another thing, though, that this movie made me realize is that I worry far too much about writing about what other people don't know. For some reason, I have this phobia of writing things that other people already know. I don't always write about new, wonderfully exciting topics, but I think that I'm at my best when I do. But I started thinking - why? When I go to a blog, I go because I know the subject matter. This movie's premise - that the main character would cook her way through the 500+ recipes in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in exactly 1 year - is an excercise in the expected. Everyone knows this book. If you have the book, you know what comes next. She simply takes a book, cooks the meals within this incredibly well-known book, and writes about her exploits. It's devilishly simple, which is EXACTLY why its such an endeering story.
It made me remember my childhood - sitting in class. The teacher asks a question, and I think I know the answer, or at least have something valid to say. But do I raise my hand and answer? No. Because I think that what I have to say might be obvious to other children in class, and then they'd laugh at me. They'd laugh because the thing which I thought was so important as to actually raise my hand and say it was old news to them. I needed to keep my mouth shut until I knew I had something strange and new to say. And I think that fear still plagues me to this day - just in different manifestations. And now I guess I can say - I doubt I'm alone in feeling this way.
So I'd like to thank Nora Ephron and "Julie and Julia" for a wonderful 2 hours of my weekend. And to enjoy a 2-hour film about food, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a wife who is so incredible at cooking that she single handedly has turned me into the obsessive foody that I am today. So it goes without saying that I need to thank her too. And after just seeing a movie about food, the title of this blog post is about writing...that's the true sign of a well-written human story.

Sick.

2010-03-26T11:43:00.001-07:00

I'm sick.

When you're sick, do you focus on the fact that the germs which are currently waging biological warfare against your immune system are actually someone else's germs? They're germs which are not of your own body, but actually travel. They're hitching rides from body to body, reproducing, growing in strength and destructiveness, infecting human after human after human. These are not my icky germs, they're someone else's icky germs, making me feel horrible.

Do you ever think about that? I do.

Thinking About Books

2010-03-24T20:37:00.000-07:00

I'm an architect, and enjoy geeking out on architecture books. I have far too many, and know many other architects who have far more than I do. It's something we enjoy doing in our profession - growing our home libraries. (I have a feeling this might have something to do with the fact that if you amass enough books in shelves on a wall, it can almost feel architectural - like the books cover such space that they become divisions of space. Difficult to move, almost structural. It's got little to do with the information within the pages - because really, who has time to read?)

The first book that I ever truly got excited about was a book that I purchased WAY too late - that I had already genuine knowledge of before I bought it. It is a book entitled S,M,L,XL by Rem Koolhaas. This book has around 1,000 pages, composed of large photos, random conversations, dictionary-type diatribes, and some really wonderful contemplations on architecture and design. Anyway, when I was in undergrad, this book was HOT. It was the book that everybody was geeking over. I never bought it because I could barely feed myself on the measly pittance I was making at the architecture library. Oh, I also didn't buy it because I WORKED AT AN ARCHITECTURE LIBRARY. One of the perks. Virtually endless selection without having to pay. Anyway, at some point, the book went out of print. So the prices absolutely skyrocketed for used copies. We're talking 800-1000 dollars per copy. That's how popular this book was.

Well, fast forward about 3 years, and I'm in grad school in Los Angeles. I'm walking through an independent book store, when I happen to come across this book, on sale for 70 bucks. So I natural begin to sweat. I think they made some mistake in pricing this gem, and think that since it's just an architecture book that nobody knows about except us nerds, they'd just give me this thing without thinking twice. PLUS - the cover art is in a new color that I hadn't recognized before, so I get REALLY greedy and sweaty...and the words "limited edition" go streaming through my head in neon colors. This is my lucky day. I'm about to buy a book worth at LEAST $1,500 bucks (if I play my cards right) for like 50 bucks!! So of course, I beg my now-wife to let me buy it and explain to her just what value this thing is. (She is also an architect, but not quite the nimrod I am over bound paper.) So we buy it, I become proud again, and I go home to find out that they've just re-released this book, and within 1 month, every retard at my school has a copy - probably bought for much less than I paid. So now I'm both a geek AND a loser. Mouth shut, Jaimee. Mouth shut.

So now, there's this architect that I love named Peter Zumthor. He won the Pritzker Prize last year, so you should all know him. Well he has a fascination with releasing books in limited quantities. So if you see something you like of his for under $100, you better snatch it up. I have a couple small works of his, which are absolutely wonderful. I was also given a big picture book of a single building that I visited a few years ago, as a gift. These are three of my favorite books. Anyway, there's an old one called Peter Zumthor: Works which I don't have, but was just put on alert that somebody is selling a library bound copy of...so I went on Amazon to see how much the used, out of print version is - One thousand, eight hundred dollars. No, not BETWEEN 1,000 and 800, but $1,800.00. For a book. It's paper.

Now, this guy is my favorite architect. He's one of the most gifted architects of the last few hundred years. He's honestly the real deal. And his books are gorgeous. But almost 2 grand for 200 pages of dried pulp? Even I can say - ARE YOU MENTAL?

Who's with me?

Thinking about Free Time

2010-03-15T11:50:00.001-07:00

Many times, I'll talk to someone, casually swapping weekend run-downs and stories. For some reason, it always seems like my weekends are far less interesting than other peoples'. Either we work at the office, we work at home, or we run errands. That's basically it. Maybe once every other month, we'll do something like go to a park or see a film(actually this one is more like a couple times a year). But it seems that most of our free time is spent either working (so what IS free time, anyway?) or cleaning up after ourselves. We like to keep a fairly clean house, but nothing special - usually we just clean extra hard before we know someone is coming over. I guess we might enjoy eating more than your typical family, so maybe more time is spent researching, shopping, cooking, cleaning, and of course, eating. But this doesn't feel like free time - it mostly feels like, well, more work. Work that we love of course, but still - cooking isn't necessarily easy. It's fun, but not easy. So it seems that my life is taken up, mostly, by work, more work, eating, cleaning, and I guess you can throw sleeping in there as well. These things seem to me to be parts of every person's life. Things that I could not do without. But the thing is that after all these things are done, what time is left for anything else? It seems not much. So I'm left to wonder - where, exactly, do people get all their free time?
Sometimes when I hear people listing all the many things that they've done recently, or things they've accomplished, or events that they've seen or participated in, I think to myself "I need to do that more often" or even "sometime." And then I sit down and make a list of all these things I want to do and as I turn over to the fourth page, I think "How?"
For instance, watching movies. I love the idea of watching movies - I love cinema as an art, I love watching the Oscars, I love almost everything about film. Except for the fact that for 2+ hours, I'll have to sit in front of a screen and watch this thing, without interruption, and without doing anything else. If I only have 2 hours free, then that's IT. That's my day. I guess this goes back to the travel post about how there are too many great places to see, but there just doesn't seem to be enough time to make a hobby of that.
Even a bit more worthy pursuits, such as research or independent study. To REALLY get something out of it, one would have to devote at least 5 hours a week to something like that. 5 hours a week doesn't sound like much initially, but think about every single night for an hour, or ALL of one weekend (that isn't spent on chores and tasks.) That's hard to come by. But if you want to get into something, you need to devote the time to it.
So I guess in the end, when I think about it for an extended period of time, I just enjoy doing things that I, myself, don't consider to be "free time." And as always, the grass is always greener on the other side. I'm sure that other people see me and say "man I wish I had time to do that" just like I think of them. But from this side of the fence, it doesn't feel like I've WISHED to do these things, so I do them. It just feels like these are the things I must do - and once I do them, on to the next! Because there just isn't enough time to stop and relax.

Thinking about travel

2010-03-12T20:34:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about travel quite a bit lately. I guess that's mainly because I've been traveling a bit more for work recently. I used to always want to take business trips. I thought it commanded some kind of respect, and displayed a certain level of achievement. These days business travel is more of a headache than anything else. Most of my trips are single-day trips. Which makes for one heck of a busy day. Two flights in the same day (in two directions - not connecting flights) just takes the energy right out of you. The funny thing is - in many ways I prefer these trips, because it means I don't have to spend a night away from home. While I love travel, seeing the globe, experiencing different cities and such, I guess I don't love it more than laying my head down on my own pillow next to my wife at night.
But besides business travel, there's real travel. Travel for the sake of travel. Vacation, if you will. My wife is Japanese, so we go to Japan often, at least once per year. This used to be vacation - now it's just seeing family. I say that as though its not interesting anymore, which couldn't be further from the truth. But after going 5 or 6 times, you have seen every touristy place at least once, and it begins to be more about the family than the place. But there are still those little moments - when I'm alone on the train, a bit lost or confused, or hunting down a favorite house of mine, with music going on my headphones and the perfectly trimmed boxwoods gliding past me as I walk on the textured sidewalks of Tokyo - that the rush of seeing things you've never seen before comes back to me.
But back to real travel. What I personally love is learning things, rather than relaxing. People sometimes make fun of me for never having gone to the Bahamas, on cruises, or even Hawaii. While this does sound nice every so often - the sand between your toes, the fresh beer while watching the sun go down over the ocean - I feel like there just might not be enough time for something like that. Living in the US, its so hard(and expensive) for us to experience different cultures, since our country is so large. In Europe, you can travel 2 hours by car and experience 4 completely different cultures, languages, cuisines. It is the same to an extent in the US, but nowhere near as grand. So I feel like I'm behind the 8-ball on travel. There are so many great places to see, so many different types of food to eat, and currency to spend, that every trip has to be to a new place. The list is impossibly long, but it never hurts to look into the future and say "someday, I'll be there."
I can remember a distinct feeling for each place I've been. Sometimes its from a scent that won't leave me(Japan). Sometime its a taste(Rome), sometime its a temperature(LA, California). Sometime it's a vision(Hartford, CT), or sometime its just a moment that I keep remembering over and over(Vals, Switzerland). But every place has something. And these bits of my life that stay with me are what make it so great.
I love travel, and I think knowing the world, and always wanting to know more of the world and its people is the greatest gift this planet can give us.

A fresh start

2010-03-09T20:42:00.000-08:00

Well it's 2010, I'm about to become a father, and I realize that I have hundreds, if not thousands, of loyal readers out there who are just DYING to know what I'm thinking. Just thirsting for some input into my mind. Because if there's one thing the world needs more of, it is people like me, Ochocinco, and Fergie constantly spewing out any scraps of gibberish that pop into our heads. Yes, I consider myself to be in the same ilk as Ochocinco and Fergie.

In a weird way I've grown to hate blogs. I've certainly fallen out of love with Facebook, and only had a casual relationship with Twitter to begin with. Blogs have gotten lumped into the social media category - somewhat unfairly - because these other platforms have skyrocketed in popularity by standing on blogs' shoulders. Blogs have seemed, though, to stay in the picture because of their range. There isn't a single page layout, or tool palette that makes them successful. There isn't a faceless administrator who updates no matter if you're ready and willing or not. There aren't strangers coming from your past that make you either join their e-club or enjoy seven sleepless days and nights due to guilt and regret. The best blogs are the best because of content and personality. The words, images, and information that is added is what makes them redeemable. In a weird way - the effort, creativity and truth of a blog - rather than just "brain-spill" is what separates them. These are just my opinions, though.

So what I have decided to do is start writing on this blog again - I'm not promising every day or anything because that's just asking for failure. But I'd like to keep the ol' fingers in check and make sure my noggin is working. So what I've done is compiled a short list of things that I've been thinking about recently. I think, at its most simple, and probably best, a blog is just a depository for thoughts about random subjects, with occasional links thrown in. There you have it - that's my idea of a great blog. Ground breaking, I know. I'll use these bullet points of interest and expand on them a bit. I'll throw them out there and see what sticks. I doubt there will be any real progress made or decisions come to, but in this case the journey will just have to be more important than the destination. Because there probably won't be one.

So that's what I'm going to give you. Just some topics, with my thoughts on them - as random and all-encompassing as I can. I believe that is what will make this space interesting for me to write and for you to read. In the end, as all blogs do, I'm sure readership will dwindle down to 0 (or maybe 1 if Brett stays as loyal as he has for the past few years. Good morning, Brett), and this blog will be by me, for me alone. So for this space to be truly successful, it has to clear the cobwebs out and nimble up my mind so that the net can be cast farther out than I've ever been able to cast it before.

We'll see how often I post, and for how long this lasts - hopefully for many many posts to come. And if anybody came here looking for posts on architecture, football, or food - you might yet be in the right place. Or, you could just go to http://www.plexdesign.wordpress.com/, http://www.urbanpalate.wordpress.com/, or http://www.sportingo.com/ (and search under my name.)

I couldn't come this far without a little self-promotion, could I?

A New Boxing Fan

2009-11-15T20:57:00.000-08:00

This weekend, the big Pacquiao vs. Cotto fight was on. (Well, it wasn't really "on," but I was able to view it using methods in which I will not go into in this public forum.) I had wanted to see it at a local bar with a friend, but when it ended up that I would watch it at home, I figured Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood would put up her usual wall around anything related to sports. This time, I was incredibly pleasantly surprised when first, she quite willingly allowed me to show the fight on the big screen in our living room, rather than alone in the office, where I usually watch it. Then, as she sat with me watching Pacman systematically break down the bigger, stronger Cotto, we began shouting at the same time, talking strategy, talking punches, talking the way I would talk with any buddy of mine during a match. She was actually enjoying this! At a certain point during the fight I turned to her and said "So you actually like this, don't you?" And she responded positively.
We have a new boxing fan on our hands, ladies and gentlemen!!

Can't WAIT for Pacman/Mayweather this summer. It's gonna be -UGE!!!

hi brett.

2009-11-10T20:30:00.000-08:00

This is your second dedicated blog entry.

Bloom App

2009-10-07T13:54:00.001-07:00

I have an I-Pod touch, but it does not [yet] have the upgrade necessary to install and play APPS on it. I will be performing said upgrade AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, after seeing this demonstration of an ambient music generator app by the brilliant Brian Eno.

Bloom Demo - YouTube

Twitter

2009-10-06T09:51:00.001-07:00

What's up with Twitter? Who out there Tweets? How did we allow this thing to become a common verb? I'm a bit disturbed that this new "language" has become so ubiquitous - although I must admit at times I'm very drawn to the software and want to begin using it.
Although if I did, I would imagine I would probably never write anything, but just follow people. Is that how it works? Can I just pick and choose? I don't even know.
But to hear all these celebrities and (gasp) news presenters using the word "tweets" on nationally-broadcast public television and radio just makes shivers run up and down my spine.

Thoughts?

Bears and Magpies

2009-09-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

I have to be honest - I can't remember the last time the Bears lost and the Magpies won in the same day. Usually they both lose - and somehow, the Cubs, Bulls, and Blackhawks also lose on the same day. That's just how my life goes. But today, keeping up their streak of clean sheets (almost 500 minutes now without conceding a goal), Newcastle United, looking very - refreshing? - in their custard and cream striped away kit, struck again to go top of the table in the Championship with a 2-point cushion. Mr. Soul Glow himself, Fabricio Coloccini scored his first goal as a Magpie to win the match 1-0. Today we beat a VERY good Cardiff side at their home ground, which I predicted to be our toughest match of the season. Speaking by the numbers, I was wrong - the toughest match is West Brom away - the only match we haven't taken maximum points from. So, these two matches (Cardiff and West Brom away) being in the books, I have to say that after just 6 matches, the most difficult part of our schedule is behind us, and no one would have expected the position we'd be in at the moment.

Now for the Bears. Unfortunately I'm writing this post at 10:54 CST, minutes after a crushing defeat to a Packers team that was, let's face it, just a lot better than we were. Cutler looked bad at first glance, but in truth it was his receivers that must shoulder most of the blame. We need to do something about that - but honestly, the game was had in every department, by the Packers. We weren't good enough in the secondary, our coaching staff called some howlers, Forte couldn't get going although he showed some good spots, obviously our receivers, even the LONG SNAPPER had an off day. Really the only good aspect of this game was our defensive line - if only Miranelli could do for our O-Line what he is doing for our D-Line, then we might have something going for us. To win this division - which I still think is possible - we need to really put some stuff together and get our minds in position to play at this level. Tonight we looked like a bunch of children on the field.

And we're BACK!

2009-09-10T19:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the gap in posts, folks. I'm sure my enormous readership still exists after this 4-month hiatus.

So here's what's happening - I've been taking the ARE (Architectural Registration Exam), which includes a ridiculous amount of study/reading time, working a LOT since my office staff size has been cut in half, trying to figure out what the heck to do with our living/real estate situation. Public apologies go out to my good buddy Brett who, because of my confidence's magical disappearing act, was let down yet again by me backing out of a major cabinetry project. The Mrs and I have been indulging in quite a number of downloaded Japanese dramas which has been interesting, and are preparing for another trip to the Land of the Rising Sun. This time, Mrs. Architecture- footballandfood's cousin (more like a sister) is getting married (more specifically, she's having a wedding party after the real wedding - which happened to take place in Maldives. Must be nice!). Her cousin is marrying a fine fellow who I've grown quite close to - he's a businessman working in Tokyo, but has comtemplated going to business school in the US, so he came out for a week earlier this year to visit Northwestern and U of C. This trip culminated in the afore-mentioned most eventful day.

Hmmm lets see what else. I think in general, this is a catch-up post - letting all you loyal readers know that I'll do my best to perk this web-space back up. Onward!

Japan - May 09

2009-05-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

We came back from Japan this morning from a very fast and very eventful and memorable trip. The main reason we went was to celebrate Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood's parents' 60th birthday. We went as a complete surprise to them, and only had informed a small handful of family members of our plans prior to coming. Incredibly, nobody spilled the beans and it all worked like a charm. I have never seen such purely surprised and happy faces as those displayed by the parents, and we were lucky enough to get it on three separate video cameras!
We also got to see and take photos of the M-House, our first built single-family house. It turned out incredibly nice, and it was so great to see a design of ours become reality, and even better to see how happy the clients were. Overall and wonderful trip. We are planning on heading back there for another short trip in September to go to our cousin's wedding party, so we are very excited for that.
I'll post some photos either here or to facebook as soon as I get them downloaded.

Sports and Fraternity

2009-05-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

Not as in they greek system, but actual "fraternization," as in a quality of being like brothers or of a brotherhood.

This is a hilarious video clip as a follow up to the previous post. Why do we stupid sports fans feel obliged to become a member of whatever team we choose to support? How can we just automatically join the club without any application process? Is it really that easy? See the video - sound required.

Mitchell and Webb

Thanks to Cousin Ray for the link.

Sports and Happiness

2009-05-12T06:34:00.000-07:00

Why do men(and some women) take so much enjoyment in sports? I must be in the upper 10% of this category, and when I think about it, I have no idea why. Does it make my life any better, really, if my team wins? (Or in my case, usually, worse when they lose) Do I learn any skills? Yes, I think so - teamwork, perserverance, etc. But I don't think this is why we love it so much. Is it the testosterone-driven version of soap operas?

Anyway, yesterday was a killer day. Newcastle actually won a huge match which will help us immensely in our bid for safety from relegation. The Blackhawks won game 6 to put them into the Semi-Finals. This is HUGE for the Hawks, being a very young team in a league that is still hoping to gain some popularity. The Cubs had the day off - so they did NOT lose!!

But why do I care about any of this? I'm still faced with the same moral, professional, economic issues that I was yesterday. In the long term, the Hawks going to the semis doesn't really stack up against the thousands of retirement dollars I've lost in the past couple years....

The Most Eventful Day

2009-05-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

This past week, Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood's cousin's fiance was in Chicago checking out MBA programs that he'll be applying to for 2010. So he stayed at our place and we did enough different things to thoroughly tire me out. I've had some guests, and I've had some busy days, but nothing beat what happened yesterday for being just down right busy.
It started by the three of us heading down to Millenium park to show him everything it has to offer (I won't go into the park here) and we bumped into an old friend. Then we headed over to the Gleicher Center at the UofC school of business and bumped into ANOTHER old friend. Now I'm getting the feeling that I know pretty much every person in this city. Just one of those things. Then after lunch, we settle in to start watching one of our favorite sports events of the year - the Kentucky Derby. We head on over to Stretch Run, place our bets, and head back home in time to prepare some damn strong mint juleps. Well, as anybody who watched the race knows, a HUGE underdog won, and although none of us picked that horse, Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood was WISE enough to pick the Show horse - #2, Musket Man. So this was a point of excitement for us all, and we strolled back over to Stretch Run to collect our winnings. While in line, who do I see hanging out with a beer in hand, jeans and a button-up collared shirt untucked, looking loose as a goose after a good Sunday afternoon wholloping of the Florida Marlins, but LOU PINIELLA, head coach of my beloved Cubbies. So of course, I get a nice hand-shaking in and Lou gives me a "Good to see you" as if we've been homies since Junior High. What a feeling!
Up next was the Bulls game 7 against the Celtics at Hop Haus, rounding out what HAS to be the best first round playoff series in NBA history. A lot of beer and beef later, The Bulls ended up losing but a killer time was had. My friend Chas came and met us, and Chas, myself and Yoichi (our guest) headed over to Joe's to watch the end of the Hawks game and the Hatton Pacquiao fight. The Mrs. went home to a relaxing bath and a Woody Allen movie.
So by the time we went from Hop Haus to Joes, the Hawks came back from 2 goals down to take the lead, and we were able to see them finish off with a 5-3 away victory! This was just a warm up to the main event - the FIGHT. We snuggled into a tight table and immediately started talking some wicked Pac Man trash, because most of the guys we were sitting near were Hatton Supporters. Well, not even two rounds later, we were obviously the ones with big grins on our faces, as we were lucky enough to see one of the most dominating physical performances I have ever witnessed in my life, surrounded by good-humored company and, of course, more beer.
By the time we got home, I was exhausted, we were satisfied with the last day of Yoichi's trip, and I have to say it was one of the all-around most eventful days of my life. (In the "quantity" sort of way - not necessarily the "quality")
Just thought I'd share.

Catchin Up

2009-04-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

Folks. It's been over three weeks since I've posted on the beloved AFF blog. Since I've posted, the Blackhawks have gotten to the second round of the NHL playoffs, the Bulls have performed MORE than adequately against the reigning champion Boston Celtics in the NBA playoffs, the Cubs have failed to impress anybody at the beginning of the season, and Newcastle United continues to prove how much of a bother the Premier League must be to all of their players. But really - why SHOULD they play hard? They're millionaires!! (?!)
Since I've posted, the SWINE FLU pandemic has swept the fears of the world, and today, the first Chicago cases were suspected, immediately shutting down a school. The first death was reported in the United States, or anywhere outside of Mexico.
Since I last posted, Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood's cousin's fiance from Japan has come in and has been staying with us for a few days while he is checking out business schools in the Midwest. We took him to Carnivale the first night he was here - STILL probably the most fun restaurant in my fair city. NO ONE who walks in can walk out without a smile on their face - it just isn't possible.
Since I've posted, I have failed to qualify for yet another design competition, but we have posted our entry on the PlexDesign Blog. It's a nice little project that we thoroughly enjoyed creating. We are still in the process of making documents, so more will come.
Since I've posted, my favorite Senator of the moment, Mr. Arlen Specter, switched from being a Republican to a Democrat. I personally think this means virtually nothing, except for the (now ubiquitous comment) fillibuster-proof majority the Dems now hold. I don't think this will alter the way Mr. Specter votes at all - which is exactly the way it should be. Republican and Democrat should only be a label - not a responsibility for certain voting patterns.
Since I've posted, I have unfortunately experienced the death of a family member very close to me. This obviously caused an incredible amount of heartache, stress, and reflection. It reminded me of something I recently read by Manuel De Landa in A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History, when he discusses the natural flows of the Earth. We humans are only results of these energy flows which have been going on for billions of years. We are a temporary manifestation of these flows of energy which comes from the Earth. We are little bits of matter, cells and energy, which are temporarily released from the Earth itself, to return back to the Earth after a short time. It's the cycle of life, it happens constantly, every day, and we must prepare ourselves for this. Beyond the physiological side of death, it made me reflect on life as well. On family. On the importance of sharing moments with those who are close to you, and creating families to spend time together, and to carry on traditions, honor and memories. The importance of living life on both ends of the spectrum - the up side and the down side. Realizing that life is at its most honest and effective at those very few moments during our time when its too devastating or its too uplifting to filter your emotions. Few moments allow you to get to realize this first hand, so when they come along, I've learned that its important to let them affect you.

Yet Another New Blog

2009-04-07T15:18:00.000-07:00

That's right.
As I'm sure you're both already aware, I've got a new blog for everybody to look at, and I'll try not to let my attention to the new guy lure me away from ol' faithful here, Architecture, Football and FOOD.

www.plexdesign.wordpress.com

(We'll see if blogger will allow links to a Wordpress site)

This is the blog for Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood and my design firm, PLEX DESIGN. I'll be keeping the content on that fairly straightlaced and professional, while this guy will continue to be the garbage pail for my thoughts.

Keep on the lookout for the impending public release of YET ANOTHER blog from yours truly - this one will be all about the good tasties...FOOD. Coming soon to a webspace near you....and, I guess, everybody. (Everybody who is able to access the web, at least, which, in today's flattening world (Big ups to Thomas Friedman there), is becoming, in fact, everybody.) I've said too much.

Another Return to the Toon

2009-03-31T21:19:00.000-07:00

Sound familiar?

Well dear readers, it's been at least 4 games, so Newcastle are eligible to replace their manager again. Honestly though, how long ago did this stop being funny?

Last night in a complete shock appointment, Newcastle United replaced their interim manager to the interim manager (sound like a hit British-turned-American television show to anyone else?) with another interim manager. This time, it's the legend, the golden boy, the chosen one, the great SIR ALAN SHEARER.

This appointment brings a couple completely disparate thoughts to my head. First off, sheer and utter joy. Alan Shearer is a hero of mine. This is a local boy, born in Gateshead to an sheet metal worker. Grew up loving Newcastle United with all his heart. As he got older and his feet became more and more golden, he somehow turned up at Blackburn. Obviously, he couldn't stay there for too long, and that was when the great Manchester United came calling. And as much money that they would throw at the great man, as many songs that they would sing for him, he rejected the Mancs for his true love, Newcastle United. He stayed there for ten great seasons and became an absolute legend to the Geordie faithful, and the club's all-time leading scorer. Now, mind you, he never won a single piece of silverware during this time, but from all he said and did during and after his career at Newcastle, he never once regretted his decision and is still the biggest living legend in the Northeast of England.

That same lack of silverware in a striped shirt might be the biggest reason he is chosing to return to his beloved club - this time possibly opting for a striped necktie. A squad led by Alan Shearer will be a worthy squad in the eyes of a Newcastle supporter, and we will all have true faith in the fact that, while he may not have a lick of individual Premiership experience, he will bring a passion and fire to the game that not even King Kev can match.

This brings me to my next point. The inexperience. While I DO believe this is a very timely and wise decision by Mr. Ashley, to bring in a man who can galvanize a team and bring an energy to the club at a time when a few quick points are so desperately needed to just get us out of the relegation quagmire, looking at the future beyond the next 8 games, things get a little murkier. As I mentioned, he's got no Premiership experience apart from being Glen Roeder's right-hand-man while picking up the horrible Souness pieces. He's taking charge of a club in absolute crisis, with an ownership that has proven to be indecisive, obtuse, and difficult. He's doing more of a favor to the club than the club is doing to him, this can be sure.

So during the next 8 matches, one of two things will happen. 1) The Chosen One won't be able to steer the ship away from the iceburg that we've all been able to see since October, and we will continue towards the Coca-Cola Championship. If this does happen, it might be an actual blessing for Mr. Shearer, as he will have less pressure (this is an arguable point, since we MUST be back up after only one season), have a younger squad willing to listen to him, and after the year be able to come back into the top flight with a squad who is his, and is working as a unit. Or 2) The Golden Boy will turn out to truly be golden, and we will escape relegation. Then over the close season, there will be many, many, many decisions to make. The first - what happens to Alan? The second, in conjunction - what happens to Joe Kinnear, Dennis Wise, and all of the above's relationship to Cashley and Lambias? The third - what happens to the overpaid and underperforming players? The fourth - what happens to our current, fantastic youth squad? The fifth - what happens with bringing in new players? And so on. These questions are dreadfully obvious and vague - I'd hate to be in Alan's role when the specifics come into questions - since, keep in mind, he and I technically have the same amount of top-flight managerial experience....

So for the night, may my voice be horse and may my pint glass be empty. Over and over again. But we all know what happened last time Mike Ashley made an emotional decision to win over the Newcastle United supporters - King Kev tempted us all to believe and we ended up swallowing the trojan horse whole. Let's not let the same thing happen again.

HOWAY THE LADS AND HOWAY SIR ALAN SHEARER!!!

Plex Website

2009-03-18T12:03:00.000-07:00

For anybody interested, we've updated the PLEX website. We'll be adding a few more things in the coming days, so check back.

Name of the Year

2009-03-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

I hate to acknowledge the fact that there may be other blogs better, funnier, more informative, less offensive, bedder spellled, more interesting, or less blatantly plagiarized than mine, but I have to call attention to one of the funniest I've seen in a while. Enjoy.

Name of the Year

M-House

2009-03-15T19:31:00.000-07:00

Man, it's been a while since I've posted, and even longer since I've posted on behalf of Plex. But here they are, in all their glory, the first construction photos of our first house. This house is located in the old area of Tokyo, in an insanely urban suburb. The old house was demolished and the clients rebuilt on the same lot, slowing the process down considerably. Now it's looking like they will finish everything sometime in April, and everything is moving along quite nicely, it would seem.
Hope everybody enjoys these. I'll put them up on the plexdesign.net website soon so make sure you check there for them soon.

Step 1

2009-03-03T09:06:00.000-08:00

Step 1 in the new push to reorganize and renovate the condo has begun.
We are moving the furniture around so as to 1) make a more intimate, defined living space, 2) open up a certain wall in our great room which we have plans to partially demolish. We have moved the furniture and last night I removed some shelving from a wall which then required some patching and painting. I, the man that I am, immediately began patching and painting, and basically finished it all in one night. However, you can very clearly tell where I patched. The paint was fine. But the patching and sanding - not so much. This is something I'll have to work on.
Step 2 will be ordering a rug to truly define the cozy living space. We have ordered samples from FLOR (Yes, Flor, the annoying carpet tile catalogue that comes seemingly every 2 weeks to every house in america that never gets read) because the FLOR system actually is much cheaper than getting a rug at anywhere besides IKEA. And as much as I love Ikea, we've decided to say no this time.
We're truly pumped about this new venture in our living arrangement. It will be a big undertaking, but since the economy and housing market is limiting when or IF we'll ever be able to sell our house again, we figure we'll be here for a while, so we might as well enjoy it.

The Condo

2009-02-26T13:25:00.000-08:00

There has been yet another new brilliant plan for development of our humble abode. Every day that passes brings a new idea of how to make our condo more useable, attractive, close to perfection, basically better. We, as architect, will always be thinking and re-thinking about what to do with the space where we live. And even after we've made any modifications to our space, I'm sure they will be quickly followed by new ones. This is just the way we are. It is our passion and our hobby.
Yes, I'm aware that I've been crying wolf about this for roughly a year and a half now, and all the beautiful ideas that we've come up with and HAVENT done anything with or about could fill a book. But we have devised yet another one.
This has less to do with the bathroom, and more to do with the living/dining/second bedroom space. We'll see how it goes, but from our calculations it could REALLY help the usability of our place. It, of course, involves knocking down of some wall area, and making the second bedroom more of a sub-space of the living room. it already has a partial-height wall - we'll just by taking a bit more advantage of this. We will also be changing the point of entry into this room. All of these changes will be done with the idea in mind that if we are to sell the property, it will be extremely easy and inexpensive to revert back to the original design.

Just wanted to keep everybody up to date.

A Rant

2009-02-17T10:11:00.000-08:00

Okay.

We have a client, who will remain unnamed, who apparently has a problem with me. First, a couple weeks ago, I sent him a set of drawings, and he sent back comments for me to modify the drawings. I did the modifications, sent him a NEW set of drawings, then he writes a nasty email to my superior saying that I missed nearly ALL of his comments. Well, upon further review of his email and its attachment, he was looking at the OLD set of drawings AGAIN. He saw the exact same set of drawings twice, and said that I missed MOST of the comments. He didn't even see the new set that I sent him. Idiot.

And this time, he sends us an email in his pathetically cryptic English capabilities, misspelled, non-punctuated, as always. He tries to convey in words what's in the little head that he owns, and, as always, does a terrible job at it. Knowing how it is my responsibility to read his mind and come up with a solution BETTER than what he asked for, I go above the call of duty and make some spreadsheets for him. Well, he has a problem with these, so he decides to write to me and my boss and the attorney on the job, telling me how "he doesn't like the spreadsheets." and then he talks about how they're too "complicated." Yeah - for him, maybe. It was like when George Bush was trying to score one on Kerry for Kerry saying that the procedure for voting for funding the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan was "complicated." YES, IT IS COMPLICATED. Deal with it.

Anyway, twice in a row now, I've been villainized for my client being a moron without enough time or patience. And I fear that I will be punished for it, in the end.

Weekend Review

2009-02-15T20:05:00.000-08:00

Just got back from a quick trip to the burbs.
Last night Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood and I said to ourselves "we haven't been to see the fam in a while" so we called them and scheduled a paired-down dinner. She still can't eat much solid food since having a wisdom tooth pulled on Monday, so the meal of the night was a hearty (what ISNT hearty when you go to my mother's house for a meal) potato-shimp soup, with chives, cheddar cheese, and bacon to garnish. Homemade cornbread and a Dr. Pepper rounded out the meal for me, and it was close to perfect. I got schooled by the missus in Wii bowling, and then got schooled by pops in Wii MLB 2008. The more things change, the more they, seemingly, stay the same, as no matter how natural the electronics companies try to make video gaming, ol' Kev sure does suck at it, still.

Crazy Time

2009-02-11T06:54:00.000-08:00

As some (both?) of you may notice, I've been sporadic at best with any new posts. I apologize for that, and there are a few reasons for this.
A) The office has been getting weirder and weirder. As you all know, the economy is hitting everybody wicked hard these days, and while it seems like I've been saying that for most of my life by now, it is still expected to worsen, and we probably won't be out of the woods for another three years, minimum. My professional office (which will go unnamed) has been recently been hit incredibly hard from this, and we have begun laying people off. It started as an exercise of efficiency, by "trimming the fat" or our small corporation of 70 employees. But after the first round of almost 20 people, we had to make another cut of 9 employees just this past week. This second round really hit us hard, emotionally AND professionally. These are now people who were really, really valuable to the office, and losing them has made it much more difficult on the rest of us.
So, as you can see, the 8-6 portion of my day has gotten not only much more stressful, but much more strenuous in terms of workload as well. I don't have any time during the day to write, and I'm pretty much battered by the time I come home, so the blog has suffered because of this. Apologies all around.
B) I'm beginning to mold and shape what I would like this particular blog to be about (again.) My thought is that this will be more of a personal running diary, and will be about whatever the heck I want it to be about. I've taken the liberty to start two NEW blogs, one being solely based on architecture, and one being solely based on food. These are still in their infancy, and have basically nothing on them yet. Once they're up and running a bit, I'll publicize them. Also, as some (both?) of you may know, I was asked a while ago to write for a fan site called Sportingo.com. I did a couple posts then stopped, but recently I added another post there, and I plan on doing most of my football writing on that page. So please bookmark it, and you can search for my name under the "authors" area.

So for these reasons, this blog has been a bit inactive recently. I am having to sneak even this little message in at work. I'm going to try my best to keep contributing, because I really enjoy doing it, and I especially getting feedback from you guys, my beloved readers.

Should we call it "The Obama Bowl?" Or, "The Super Obama?"

2009-01-31T06:27:00.000-08:00

Finally, I found a reason to watch Sunday's game.

Monte Carlo

2009-01-27T04:57:00.001-08:00

One of the interesting things about Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood's Dad is the fact that he used to be a Rally racecar driver. (Which reminds me that one of the (possibly the only) interesting things about the word "racecar" is that it's spelled the same going forwards AND backwards. Palindrome!) Tomorrow he'll head off to Monte Carlo to be in the official "cheering team" for a team from Japan participating in the Rallye Monte Carlo Historique. It's basically an all-star race for veteran drivers. This team in particular won the actual race in 1979, and they'll be using the same car that they won it with. He will be in support of No. 15 Nakagawa and Morikawa's team, driving a Mazda. The funny thing is that most everyone else is driving Peugots, Mercedes, Alfa Romeos, Porches and the like, and the Japanese team is representing with a Mazda! You have GOT to love that.

The So-so-Bowl...

2009-01-19T05:13:00.000-08:00

Well, what do you know? The Superbowl will be between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers. YIPEEE!! Thanks to American sports' belief in parity, it has become official: I have ZERO interest in basically all championship games anymore!!! There are no superpowers in American sports. There is no good, no evil. There is even no history anymore. The Cardinals (apparently) have the second longest drought in sports for championships. But WHAT Cardinals team does that refer to? The Arizona Cardinals, with the future hall of famer, pretty boy, young go getter behind center, Matt Leinart? Oh, my bad. Leinart, the "future" of the Cardinals got replaced by the "history" of annoying God-touting players and even more annoying players' wives, Kurt Warner. Or the Phoenix Cardinals? Or the St. Louis Cardinals? Or was it the CHICAGO Cardinals? The Chicago team, by chance, happens to be the last Cardinals franchise which DID win the championship (prior to it becoming the Superbowl).

My question is: Who cares? Who cares who wins this Superbowl, or any other Superbowl for the past few years. Neither team belongs there. The Superbowl champion will not be the best football team in the country, period. So what are we celebrating? Champion of what? One game? And then what? After two weeks, EVERYBODY will forget who won. Let me ask you this - honestly - how long does it take you to remember who won the Superbowl last year? (I remembered pretty quick because I'm a Giants fan.) But how about two years ago? I'd have to Wikipedia who won it three years ago because God knows I can't remember that on my own.

I'd hate to be a pro-England Anti-American blogger, but I remember Premiership champions. Maybe that's because it's plausibly only going to be 4 or 5 teams. Maybe it's because there are no playoffs, and the team with the best RECORD at the end of the season is Champion. End of story. No artificial drama or extra rounds for TV money's sake. Maybe it's because the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker and parity is thought of as mercy in English football. I don't know. But this seems right to me. I know that every year, I can hate the good teams because they'll beat my team. I know who will be contenders, and if a new contender comes along (Aston Villa or maybe Man City in the future) it will probably take them a while to build a worthy team, and they'll probably remain contenders for a while. There is NO flash in the pan.

Maybe I'm just grumpy because I have to go to work on MLK day. But I don't give a TOSS about the Superbowl this year.

A Rebirth of Theaters

2009-01-13T06:52:00.000-08:00

There is a fascinating new cultural trend that I've been noticing slowly gaining in popularity over the past year: showing big events in theaters, put on by private organizations, TV stations, etc. This is a very interesting development in culture on a number of levels.

1) It is signalling an even great trend towards 3d viewing - since a large screen and easy distribution of 3d glasses make large audience theaters very attractive.

2) It is mimicking the phenomenon of people moving OUT of the suburbs and back INTO the city. This was triggered for a number of reasons - gas prices, environmental concerns, mortgage crises, typical ebb and flow of living habits, etc. But when people opt out of viewing something in the privacy and comfort of their own homes, and opt for going out on the town, to see and be seen, and give up comfort for an added adrenalyn rush of partaking in a group/social event, it signals that a resurgence of openness and energy is beginning to take shape.

3) Broadcasting local events, such as live shows from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, around the country to theatres, shows an embrace of modern technology and a willingness to modify habits based on available possibilities. This is something that is incredibly important to me as a contemporary architect, and I hope that it will transform from a social trend to a broad cultural taste, allowing more every day people to embrace new technologies and aesthetics in their design and architecture.

Here are some links to various new uses for the every day movie theater. I would love to get everybody's take on this so comments are, as always, welcome.

Premiership Wrap

2009-01-11T13:40:00.000-08:00

Round 21 in the Premiership was a bit of a strange one. Two games were cancelled, and Newcastle didn't lose. I know - strange.....
The weather was quite cold and dangerous in parts of the country, which caused many smaller clubs some serious headaches, mainly with frozen pitches. But the games that did go on were not without some serious drama.
First, before any kickoffs even occured, Rafa Benitez came out with a pretty surprising tirade against Sir Alex Ferguson of Man United. Not surprising based on what he said, since everything he said was pure fact and very well known by everyone in the league. But it was quite surprising that anyone actually have the gawl to say an unkind word against the Patron Saint Sir Alex, who, if it were up to the British media, would be immediately crowned king and Savior, and a new "Alexian Church" would be started where instead of stale bread for a host, we'd nibble off used pieces of Sir Alex's gum, and instead of a cross or star of david, we'd all worship a photograph of one of Ferguson's famous geriatric goal celebrations.
Rafa Benitez went down a pre-written list and stated all the media outbursts by Ferguson, and the FA's response (or, lack thereof). He compared that to other managers' outbursts, and the following fury which was unleashed upon them by the FA. Basically proving, fairly simply, how biased the FA are towards the biggest of the clubs. Now myself being a supporter of a team much, much further down the table, I can see some incredible hypocracy with this outburst, since Rafa and his players have gotten off the hook on many instances as well - case in point, Saint Steven Gerrard being arrested by Mersyside police for a barfight - almost the same as Joey Barton's charge. Now, Barton, being a Newcastle player gets put in headlines every day for the next week or two, and with Gerrard - POOF! A day after his arrest, it's completely disappeared from the headlines, and lips, of any media outlets. Let's talk about bias, Rafa.
Now to the football.
Newcastle were lucky to get a point at home against fellow struggler West Ham. Recent reports suggest that roughly half our team is looking to move to a better club, with Michael Owen having already reportedly agreeing to terms with Man City for a summer move, N'Zogbia opening his huge, annoying mouth again, stating that while his agent hasn't actually spoken with anybody yet, he'd looooove to go to Arsenal, and Given being one foot out the door, also to Man City. Anyway, Owen is still here, and he did his job well, putting away a nice goal to give us the lead. Our defense couldn't handle Bellamy all day (I never realized just how quick that guy was until Saturday) and I wasn't surprised at all to see him equalize quickly. In the second half, Seb Bassong fouled a player in the box, and we were lucky that it wasn't called for a penalty. Besides this play, he was MONEY all day, as he has been all season.
Their second goal, though, was truly horrific. Culminating a spell of 20 minutes of just about the worst football I've seen by any team this year, we gave Carlton Cole about 45 seconds to receive the ball at his feet, put a few moves on a few players, bend down, tie his shoes, give himself a good old spitshine, play a quick game of Go Fish with Scott Parker and Lucas Neill, and cooly put away the go-ahead goal. Shay Given, at that point, held up a sign saying "Man City or Bust."
But with just over 10 minutes to play, we were threatening time after time. Unfortunately all of our crosses were easily cleared before they could cause any trouble.....until the young'n Andy Carroll, sporting a classy new cornroll infested hairdo finally put his height to good use and powerfully shot home a header to tie the game up. It ended that way, but we were REALLY lucky to escape with a point, because the way I see it, we are a team in crisis, and I'm really concerned for the rest of the season.
In contrast, today's match between Man United and Chelsea displayed football at its finest - as it usually does. Watching the Newcastle match contrasted with the Man U match today, it was like watching two different leagues. Man U ran out deserving 3-0 victors, and Liverpool can now officially begin shaking in their boots, because with two games in hand, and only sitting 5 points behind them, Manchester look to really be hitting their stride now. Their youngsters put in good performance after good performance, with Johnny Evans coming through today INCREDIBLY strong, after Rio was a late scratch after waking up with a bad back. He, Raphael, Nani, Anderson, Possebon, and Danny Welbeck are all going to be the stars of about 6 years from now, and Man U show no signs of letting up. That was the most clear difference today - Manchester looked full of spring and energy, and they completely ran past and confused Chelsea. It was a demolition - and Big Phil was correct when he said that if his team continues to play like this, they'll quickly be removed from the title race.
Good thing Newcastle doesn't have to worry about that.

2008....AF&F style.

2009-01-04T16:12:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Brett's great suggestion to do a "year in review" post, I'm doing a "year in review" post.
If you look back on 2008 with that 20/20 vision everybody always talks about, one word sticks out in your head: "Shite." I mean, barring Obama's wonderfully emotional and uplifting election, some great individual holiday/family/personal moments, some good food, and an occasional (and I mean REALLY occasional) Newcastle victory, 2008 was littered with economic crises, joblessness, wars wars wars, bad baseball, bad football, and even bad American football.

I'd have to say my favorite moment of the year was, of course, the moment when CCN predicted Obama's victory on the big screen at Grant Park, and I let out of surge of joy and excitement with all my friends there that night. From that point on through the rest of the night it felt like we were all together, on one team. Walking back home on Michigan Avenue, all was right with the world. People singing and dancing in the streets, not a single frown on a face as far as you looked, and somehow, we would all come out of this mess that the GOP had put us through for the past 8 years.
Some other highlights were: Of course, our trip to Japan, Christmas with my little nephew and some great food prepared by my Mom, the day Keegan was announced to take over NUFC's reigns, our emphatic victory over Spurs last season at White Heart Lane, our trip to Via Osteria, and another trip we took to a little restaurant called Bistro Campagne in Chicago, which I did not document on this site.
The lowlights were: definitely the day that many of my friends and coworkers got laid off at the firm, and it sunk in REAL QUICK how tough the next year or so is going to be, if we're lucky enough to stay employed for the next year, and the day that King Kev left Newcastle. I like to keep this place a happy one, so I won't get too into the downers of 2008.

So, it certainly was a tough one to get through, especially the last few months. But look - we're all here. We've made it. Let's get our chins up off the dirt, and keep walking forward. Because at the end of the day, as long as there is still architecture to enjoy, football to watch, and good food to stuff your face with, the world is still worth hanging out in.

Oh, Glorious Beef

2008-12-29T07:17:00.000-08:00

Thanks to three-dimensional image capturing technology, a thorough and deep appreciation for dry-aged beef, and my good friend Paul Preissner, please enjoy:

The Secret Peter Luger Steakhouse Vault

Gotta love the holidays.

2008-12-28T21:58:00.000-08:00

Why must I keep writing about my teams losing?

The Cubs choke in the playoffs. Newcastle are just awful, and inconsistent. The Bears, justly so, choked on the last week of the season to NOT get into the playoffs. Where shall I begin on the ever so easy criticism of any of my favorite sports franchises?

First, Newcastle. Mike Ashley has decided that - hey - since the market is junky and since my team has won a game or two, I don't feel like selling any more. Maybe next week though. Stay tuned! Oh boy, Newcastle is such a caaraaaazy place - these Geordies are gonna LOVE me when I tell 'em the good ol news!! Uh - sorry Mike. As this week has shown we are nowhere NEAR being able to compete for European spots. We beat Tottenham at the last breath, which we all knew we would do (we somehow OWN Spurs), and that got us all in a hot mess. But then we go on to lose to Wigan on Boxing Day (even though it truly was down to some awful decisions by the ref) and then get ABSOLUTELY SPANKED by Liverpool at home. This match was just pitiful. It shows the gap in teams within the Premiership. Similar to the Bears, we do not deserve anything from this season, if anything, we deserve to go down so that the board will be forced to basically declare bankruptcy and start again. It's that bad. We're paper thin, our defense is an absolute JOKE (especially when Steven Taylor shows his face around the pitch) our midfield can NOT provide decent service to our strikers, who, by the way, will pretty much all be on the way out either in January or this summer. So we'll be left with a carcus of a squad anyway - might as well do it in the Championship.

The Bears, who truthfully were awful all season long, didn't make the playoffs, even though all they had to do was WIN against the TEXANS today, based on some other results going our way, and we could have gotten in.

But think about how poor this team is.

Lovie Smith clearly doesn't know how to emotionally prepare a team for a big game. The defense has been shite ever since Rivera left, and how DARE any NFL franchise to hire an ex-Illini coach to ANY position on the coaching staff.

The defense is the most overpaid group of players assembled in the league. Time after time after time today, they blew their coverage, didn't get adequate pressure on the qb, left GAPING holes all over the field, whether it be running or passing, made stupid penalties at inoportune times, etc etc.

The offense is run by Kyle Orton, who literally might not get a starting job on ANY other NFL team, and for some reason, we haven't gone after a QB for a few drafts now. Or free agents. Or trades. We seem to be happy watching the little bitch fight that is the annual Orton-Grossman "QB Controversy." Our wide receivers are awful. Both tight ends are better than any of our receivers. Devin Hester is an absolutely spoiled little brat who's fast with ZERO hands. He's a terrible receiver, and he didn't return a single punt this entire season. So.....what's the benefit of having him on offense -- I mean -- our team, again??? Matt Forte is clearly the best part of our offense, and he's a frigging rookie - we didn't even expect anything out of him this season, and he came on and blew it up. So good for him - but why do I see Adrian Peterson out there so much in clutch situations when Forte is the only opportunity we have of producing?

Special teams have been phenomenal all season, especially the punter and kicker. But when we needed an on-sides kick today to give us a chance, Gould put forth the most pathetic attempt I've ever seen. It's clear we hadn't practiced that - and if we had, good thing we wasted all that time, because it was certainly a waste.

Oh well, at least now I get another 5 months of watching Newcastle embarrass themselves, watching the Bulls embarrass themselves, and soon enough, I'll get to watch the Cubs embarrass themselves too. Go Blackhawks, I guess.

Librivox

2008-12-27T12:40:00.000-08:00

I know this is a poor excuse for an entry, especially after such a long hiatus (Happy holidays, everybody!!) but I just quickly wanted to share this link with everybody

http://librivox.org/

This is a FANTASTIC website, where you can download audio books, or read texts, all of which are free and in the public domain. They give options of how to download, one of which is a very smart and efficient podcast download - you can go chapter by chapter so it doesn't take up a large amount of hard drive space. Anyway, go in there, browse and start reading/listening to some of the classics!!

What on Earth is going ON?!

2008-12-14T13:12:00.001-08:00

So, somebody stop me before I get carried away here, but have Newcastle actually turned a mini-corner, here? This weekend we took on Portsmouth away. Portsmouth - not the toughest team in the Prem since 'Arry left for Spurs, but the quality is obviously there. And we truly crushed them. 3-0, all goals coming in the second half. Their all-star strike force was left goalless by a new, gelled defensive four (Beye - Curlycini - Bassong - Enrique), our midfield showed calm, patience and intelligence to control the game away from home, and our strike force showed that the Owen/Martins front line can most certainly work.

Take a look at our recent matches:

11/3: 2-0 win vs. Villa

11/9: 2-1 loss at Fulham

11/15: 2-2 draw vs. Wigan

11/22: 0-0 at Chelsea

11/29: 0-0 at Middlesboro

12/6: 2-2 vs. Stoke

12/14: 3-0 win at Portsmouth

And a recap:

11/3, we CRUSHED Villa, now a top-4 side.

11/9 was the match that Cacapa lost for us, where our team played quite well, and he was to blame for both goals. We haven't seen a bit of him since that horrific effort.

11/15 we had WON, but Bramble saved a point for them on THE LAST PLAY.

11/22 was a solid away clean sheet against a top-4 side

11/29 was another solid away clean sheet at our rival's stadium

12/6 we were 2-0 up and playing well, and SOMEHOW gave it away. After this match, I said we were going down.

12/14 (today) we truly deserved 3 points away from home.

Now that's 3 clean sheets out of our last 4 matches, 10 points from our last 7 matches, and some VERY good performances all around. In the Stoke match, we were up by 2 with a clean sheet, until Kinnear switched up our back four, which was playing so well. He brought Steven Taylor on, and we lost the lead. Today, there was not a sign of Steven Taylor, and the clean sheet was kept. I think JFK has learned from his mistake with Stoke, and he'll be playing it safe at the back for a while.

Now we've got Tottenham at home, Wigan away, and Liverpool at home to round out 2008. We have a VERY strong record against Tottenham, so if we don't get a win it will be a disappointment. Wigan away might be tough (because I really like what Steve Bruce has done with the club and wish he would manage Newcastle!) but we should still get 1 or 3 points if we play up to our ability, and then Liverpool at home. Can't see 3 from that, but should be able to secure a draw. That's either 5 or 7 points. If we get 5, it will surely put us in a strong, mid-table position going into 2009, and we will be able to try shooting for a spot in Europe, rather than trying to avoid relegation. It's a massively exiting table right now if you look at it. We're sitting 14th at the moment, only 1 point away from the relegation zone, and only 4 points away from 8th spot!! And it's almost Christmas! So, anything can still happen, and even though I had all but given up hope last week, with every quality performance that we put in, the closer I will be to saying "Intertoto Cup- Here we come!" But not yet.

Easy Gratin

2008-12-08T19:06:00.000-08:00

You know what sucks worse than the Cubs? Newcastle. You know what sucks worse than Newcastle? Not much. But one thing is this: Boring dinners. Nobody is better than Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood at taking something that's quick and cheap and easy, and turning it into an interesting, visually pleasing, and delectable dish.

Tonight, we felt like having a hearty pasta dinner. We cooked up some skirt steak (a favorite of ours...great fat content, very tender meat, and not the most expensive cut) and to go with it, turned a simple box of 365 Brand shells and cheese into a nice 3-cheese gratin.

All you have to do is:

Cook up the shells and cheese like normal. But when you're stirring in the butter, milk, and cheese from the packet, add just a bit more butter, and about 150% of the milk called for. it'll be wet. Then, dump it into a glass pie dish, small Pyrex, or any other oven-safe dish. Then, add a bit extra pepper, sprinkle some shredded or shaved cheese over the top (we used a fontina, parmesan, and asiago blend that we got from Whole Foods, but gruyere would be great with this. Don't be afraid of stinky cheeses!), and then topped the whole thing with Panko, a Japanese bread crumb. Any bread crumbs will do, but not too much or too heavy. Then, throw it in the oven for about 20 minutes at 350-400, or until the top turns bround and crispy and Presto! You've got yourself a nice, fancy gratin dish that's good enough to serve to guests. And it looks nice, it tastes great, and it gives you just that much pleasure by feeling like you actually made something that WASN'T out of a box, even though it really was.

Bon Apetit.

AAARRRRGGHGHGHHH!!!

2008-12-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

Why do Newcastle suck so bad? This has got to be a new low. We go up 2-0 in the first half. We are OWNING Stoke. (Oh yeah - we're playing STOKE CITY. At home. Relegation fodder.) Owen gets two great goals and the good times are rolling.
Then after halftime, we bring Steven Taylor back on, move Beye to MIDFIELD, and completely use negative tactics and just sit on our asses all half. They get one in the 60th minute, but we're still one up. Then, we take out Oba, and put on Viduka!! WHY OH WHY??? Oba can actually RUN and play defense and create chances!! Viduka is a waste of flesh and space.
Then we give up the equalizer at the 90th minute!!! OOOOOHHHH this has me steamed. These guys, once again, have shown a lack of passion, and lack of professionalism and a lack of manlihood. These guys are spoiled little babies who do not deserve to play in the Premiership. I hope we go down. We WILL go down.

The Color of the Future

2008-12-04T09:56:00.000-08:00

Pantone, the most widely used and respected color classification company in the world, has announced that next year's color will be MIMOSA.

While there will, indeed, be many people drinking their breakfast in the coming year, I just can't see this color taking off....reminds me a bit of the "sweaty deli cheese" from Top Chef a couple weeks ago.

Special Comment

2008-12-03T20:37:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here watching the Charlie Gibson interview with President Bush. I've read articles poking fun at it. I watched John Stewart do his usual, hilarious bit on most of what was said. (I, too, will feel a pain in the heart when I can't hear him rail on Bush every night...but I suppose there are other things having to do with politics that might be marginally more important than my giggles.) But as I sit here and watch it again - how dare this guy say these things without the slightest bit of regret, remorse, or even acknowledgement that he has put this country, and the world as a whole, through some of the worst times in modern history.

"You know, I'm the President during this period of time, but I think when the
history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions
that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived
in President, during I arrived in President."

Okay - THIS IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. He's acting like, to put it in terms I can understand, a junior architect at a small architecture firm. He's saying "Well, you know - it's not my fault. This shit was already here, so I was like 'whatever.' I mean, who am I to change it?" If he doesn't take responsibility - who does? Apparently, his father. (which is even more weird - "over a decade or so" hits his father's term dead on...some serious Oedipal stuff going on here...) And not only that - and this is obvious - "before I arrived as President, during I arrived in President" - ARE YOU SERIOUS? I know we don't all speak perfectly during live interviews, but 90% of my international friends who use English as their 2nd or 3RD language don't butcher it like this. And oh yeah - have I mentioned that THIS IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

GIBSON: Did you call him on Tuesday about the Fed putting up $600 billion, and
Treasury $200 billion --
BUSH: Yes, yes.
GIBSON: You called him about
that, too?
BUSH: I sure did -- oh, no, no, no, I have not on that.

---HUH?? So what exactly did "Yes, yes" mean? That first yes might have been just a 'kneejerk' reaction yes - kind of like when Cheney said "Hey G - you want to give those mo-fos some shock and awe?" And then Gibson saying, in complete shock "You called him about that too?" And George, starting with "I SURE DID." Can you get more affirmative than that? And on the dime, he does a 180. "Oh, NO, NO, NO." Like "Oh, silly Charlie. Silly, Silly Gibby-Wibby. What do you think I am, a TARD?"

BUSH: Oh, yes. As I said, some times are happy, some not happy. I don't want
people to misconstrue. It's not -- I don't feel joyful when somebody loses their
life, nor do I feel joyful from somebody loses a job. That concerns me. And the
President ends up carrying a lot of people's grief in his soul during a
presidency. One of the things about the presidency is you deal with a lot of
tragedy -- whether it be hurricanes, or tornadoes, or fires, or death -- and you
spend time being the Comforter-in-Chief. But the idea of being able to serve a
nation you love is -- has been joyful. In other words, my spirits have never
been down. I have been sad, but the spirits are up.

Well, I'm exceedingly happy for you, Mr. Pwesidennn. Those hurricanes you speak of...any idea that those were actually partly caused by YOU and your irresponsible ecological decisions? Those deaths you speak of - were you referring to the innocent Iraqi civilians who lost their lives because of the war you started based on false pretense, ego, and bigotry - ALMOST 100,000 OF THEM??? Well - I'm sure the families of the 100,000 dead are having a rough day every now and then - but at least you haven't beaten yourself up about it. I mean - the last thing anybody in this world wants is for your feelings to be hurt.

GIBSON: ...do you feel you were in any way able to change Washington? Or do you
feel --
BUSH: I think we did. I think we brought a results-oriented
government, and we insisted that people focus on results...

You dick.

GIBSON: Is there one more deal in you? Is there one more thing you really want
to achieve?
BUSH: ...wouldn't it be interesting for baby boomers not to
retire in nice places, but to retire -- during their retirement, go help people
deal with malaria or AIDS. In other words -- and I'm not suggesting that's
what I'm going to do, but it is the kind of thing that intrigues me.

John Stewart hit this one out of the park. He said something like "That's like going up to a homeless man on the street and saying 'Hey, wouldn't it be great if I just walked up to you and gave you, like, $10,000 or something? Heh. Man, that'd be something. Well, see ya!" I mean - THIS GUY IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!! He's been giving these interviews for 8 years. He just a)distanced himself from "normal" baby boomers, and b)said that he's really NOT THAT interested in helping the world after he leaves office, such as his father and Clinton are doing right now. Ugh. Can you even imagine Barack Obama saying anything remotely as stupid as this?

Look, I have to stop typing about this or I'm going to have a heart attack. It just makes me mad and depressed that after this whole emotional lift of Obama's victory, and even with all the high expectations of what will come, there are still people in the world who still think this guy deserved to be President. They don't realize that he lowered expectations for our most important position of Government. They don't realize how he ripped the constitution to shreds on so many occasions. They will continue to believe crap that he spews out, and similar crap spewed out by similar evil politicians in the future. And with two wars, the worst economic crisis since the great depression, the whole evil, evil Proposition 8 debacle...there's just still so much evil, negativity, and stupidity in this world. And I'm not blaming John Stewart for joking about it. John Stewart is a freaking comedian. It's his job. But Charlie Gibson - PLEASE. Act like a f****ng journalist. Please. Take your job seriously, Sir. An "Uh-Oh moment?" He actually asked Bush if he had "an Uh-Oh moment." Why is he being let off the hook like this? Why don't we look at these crimes more seriously? As the great David Cross once put it, we're treating this guy like he just won a bronze medal in the Special Olympics.

Hopefully more upbeat commentary tomorrow.

The Crappy Baby Bears

2008-12-01T22:08:00.000-08:00

I'm going off topic today.

Did anybody see that Bears game on Sunday night? This was one of the more pathetic displays from this team that I've seen in a while, and it can pretty much all be pinpointed to one moment, and I think it's pretty obvious what moment that is.

The Bears are down to the Vikings 1 or 2 yard line. It's the first half. We're up 7-3. We've had a very solid hold on their offense, and we've threatened a couple times. We're in control of this game. On first down, we run up the middle for no gain. Madden (again) praises the enormo-brothers on the Vikings' defensive line, for, well...being obese. And being....there. In the middle, where our guy ran. Anyway. Second down - same thing. Third down, we try to go outside - no gain. During all this, we're not calling time outs, we're not calling hard snaps, we're not sending guys in motion, it's just pound, fail, pound, fail, pound, fail. (That sounds really bad, I know)

Then the Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma game from a couple weeks ago pops into my head. Same thing - visiting team, 4th and goal, early in the game, missed the opportunity, the home crowd IMMEDIATELY got back into the game, and really spurred their team on. From that point on, TT never had a chance at that game.

So I said out loud - "Lovey, please kick it. You HAVE to kick it." But then, once again - no time out, no thought about it, Orton calls hike, gives it to Forte, up the middle, fatness is there, and that's that. I could have screamed.

After that, the very next play, Frerotte throws only the 11th ever 99-yard pass, while still crying in our milk splatter. This is textbook, poorly coached, mentally unprepared, Bears. I have to blame Lovey Smith for this play - this series - which changed the game, and maybe - just maybe - changed our season. Or should I say "ruined."

And I won't go into the part where Madden starts talking about Fatty Fat Fat's family, because he had FINALLY run out of wonderful, amazing, awe-inspiring things to say about his Fatness' on-field play. He was telling how Fat Albert wouldn't let his daughters date - UNLESS they guy showed up for the date with A)enough money to buy his house (Which - still after a full 24 hours I have NO clue on how this is relevant to the courtship and possible future of his family) or B) show up to the date with $50,000 in cash. Is it just me, or is this remarkably similar to straight-up, no holds barred prostitution? Am I missing something? And good ol' Madden goes on and laughs, and talks about this guy like he's the "Real Man" father of the year.

Maybe I need to stick with English football.

Turning a Corner? Doubt it...

2008-11-23T15:59:00.000-08:00

The feeling must be bittersweet for all of us Newcastle fans today...While we can take a good amount of heart knowing that we well and truly stuffed an almost full and certainly stronger Chelsea squad at their home field, we also found out that the sale of our club won't happen until after Christmas.

The match was a classic one - we were certainly played off the pitch by a stellar Chelsea club, who were oozing quality with every move forward. Great buildup in the midfield, easy and solid defensive stops, a confident goal keeper. The only thing they couldn't do was score - which is surprising, knowing our defense. But as I always knew, Sebastian Bassong was IMMENSE at the back - FAR better than Steven Taylor has ever been. He was a great partner of Coloccini, and with Beye, they made 3 wonderful defensemen. Jose Enrique, on the other hand, was slow, scared, and immature most of the game, and he must be replaced. He did make a few nice defensive stops, but as soon as he gained control of the ball, he IMMEDIATELY gave it away. Butt was also strong in defense, but as always, horrible on the ball. The rest of the midfield played very intelligently, and did the best they could, but were simply outmatched by Chelsea. But as a squad, we showed we could play as a unit, play with heart, and battle for a very hard-fought draw, which will satisfy all.

Then, later in the afternoon, the news came that Joe Kinnear had been told he will be the manager for another month, meaning we're not close to a sale. This can't be a surprise for anyone, and in certain ways, I'm incredibly comfortable with Crazy Joe. He's a no-nonsense manager, which is something that we DESPERATELY need right now. After the emotional antics of King Kev, and all this rubbish talk about Shearer coming on to manage us (heaven forbid!!), what Newcastle need is a professional, stern, intelligent manager who will lead us in a NEW direction. No more of these comemorative picks from days gone by. Joe Kinnear has been a shot of what we need going forward. He isn't intelligent enough, but he's a start - and he's a FANTASTIC short-term guy, always telling the truth, being the microphone to the fans that Mike Ashley has never been.

But we do, indeed, need Ashley to sell this club. We need stability, first and foremost (how many times have I said that) and with Ashley around, it will never come. We need a solid base. We need Dennis Wise to leave. We need the manager to have control of the club - from the tactics to the purchases and sales. The January transfer window is coming up fast, and there will certainly be some movement of current Newcastle players OUT of the club - I mean - who on Earth would want to play for a club like this? Let's just hope Kinnear can convince Ashley to get some new faces IN as well - so we can stay up in the Premiership after this horrendous season is once and for all behind us!!

But for the next few weeks, we've got a great, memorable win to build on, we've got a few manageable games coming up, and if we can win or draw a few in a row, I think we'll be in a much more stable position by Christmas. It's REALLY congested down at the bottom at the moment, and I believe that the next few weeks will really set the table and define who will be battling relegation this season. If we can keep our heads above water now, it'll help us a LOT down the stretch.

**Update**

I just watched the highlights of the Manchester City v Arsenal match. If anybody hasn't seen this game, please try to catch some highlights. I predict this match will be the beginning of the long, slow, inevitable culture shift which will bring Manchester City into the upper echelon of the Premiership. Man City looked so good, and hungry, and frightening, and talented, and Arsenal looked so weak, and pathetic, and confused, and young and immature....with the obvious glaring difference in funds for the two clubs (Man City becoming instantly more wealthy than many countries in this world, and Arsenal consistently having to rely on Wenger's talent to find young, unknown stars of the future) there will be a change in heirarchy in the next few years...and I'm afraid for Arsenal they won't be on the benefitting side. As much as I love the football they try to produce, they're being picked apart game after game, and the other clubs are rapidly catching up to them. Keep your eyes on Man City because they are one exciting team to watch. They played real football against Arsenal - the way Arsenal once thought they could beat all others. And it was a sight to see.

Topic Merry-go-round

2008-11-16T21:35:00.000-08:00

1) Xefirotarch. My thesis instructor, Hernan Diaz Alonso, recently published a monograph of all of his work, a good portion of which was designed with the help of myself and Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood. The book is called Xefirotarch: Excessive. A few things about Hernan's work - it's as much art as it is architecture - only a couple pieces have actually been built, and those were gallery installations rather than actual inhabitable buildings. So it is a bit hard to justify his existance as what has always been known as "architect." But this flaw is just one in a grand series which Hernan holds, all of which form the pieces making up his masterful mystique. Just like the vampire and horror films he aims his buildings to aspire to, Hernan has built his career on legend and potential.

Back to the book itself - it's a beautiful piece - big, colorful illustrations, great design, great packaging, the typical intriguing narratives by Benjamin Bratton, my old instructor and Hernan's right hand man. For any art/architecture fringe fan, it's a must have, and it looks crazy gorgeous on your shelf.

2) When am I just going to give up on Newcastle? I know it'll never happen. Because if I would have done it, I would have done it by now.

Not only do we draw to Wigan. Not only do we draw to Wigan at home. Not only do we draw to Wigan at home on an 89th minute goal. Not only do we draw to Wigan at home on an 89th minute goal, just after we had taken the lead with an 87th minute goal. But we lose to wigan at home on an 89th minute goal BY TITUS BRAMBLE, just after we had taken the lead with an 87th minute goal.

For those of you who aren't keeping up, Titus Bramble was once a Newcastle player, and will forever be known for some of the most hilariously awful defensive plays ever committed by a Premiership player, while he was a Newcastle player. We, thankfully, got rid of him when Big Fat Sam came to town last season, but since then, he CONTINUES TO HAUNT US!!!!

It's a curse. I know it's a curse. Newcastle is cursed.

3) The Bears lost. As well. Again. All my teams are cursed.

4) Just thought I'd share some photos of my cats:

La Fin du Monde

2008-11-15T23:01:00.000-08:00

I've got a feeling quite a few beer drinkers know this one already. But as I was strolling through Whole Foods today, with the green light from Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood to go ahead and pick us up some spirits, I ran across this old favorite and couldn't say no to its sweet song.

My old college roomate turned me on to du Monde, at the time it was far less widely distributed, and he basically only knew of it having spent a good amount of time each year up in Quebec for the Amateur World Championships of footbag. (That's a whole nother post in itself) Since then, I've been sporadically picking this gorgeous thing up - it's quite pricey, but if you're looking for something strong, tastey and really cool looking, a couple times a year is a bare minimum. (For a great anecdote, there's a legend that this beer was named after a long night in the marketing offices, when the suits couldn't think of a name for it. One of them proclaimed - "Hey, its not the end of the world!" and the rest is history.)

La Fin du Monde is a Belgian beer, tasting a bit like Duvel but much more spicey and orangey. For this time of year, its a bit light for my taste, but tonight I made an exception. I'd say the perfect time of year for this one would probably be May - it's a bit too spicey for the dog days of summer, but has the refreshing citrus kick that will get you in the mood for the beach.

It's brewed in Quebec, and the same brewer makes a few more, Don De Dieu, Trois Pistoles, and Maudite. All of these brews are over 8% alcohol, and make for a great beer to enjoy, rather than simply get drunk to. These are certainly beer drinkers' beers, for the price is enough to drive the average high school senior away. But for those of us who were born before this date in 1987, have a go. It's a sure thing.

Back by Popular Demand....

2008-11-10T22:26:00.001-08:00

Discussion about another Newcastle defeat!!

Enough of this enlightening, positive political banter. Who cares about socio-political victories whose effects will be heard and felt throughout the world for years to come? What's the USE in discussing recent events that our grandparents wouldn't have even DREAMED of only 30 years ago, but we're lucky enough to see and experience them in our relative youth??? Newcastle lost! Let's talk about that!!!

Well, okay.

Newcastle technically lost, but really, you could say that Claudio Cacapa lost. If he had not been on the pitch, if the Magpies fielded ten men to Fulham's eleven, we honestly, cross my heart, would have won that match. We outplayed them. We outpassed them. We outran them. We did everything right, except A) only scored once - should have had more and B) oh, those two silly little missteps from Cacapa, costing him and his teammates the GAME.

If anyone has forgotten, it was Claudio Cacapa who was absolutely, take-no-prisoners-style SMOKED last season by Benjani of Portsmouth, and whose smoking led to THREE goals in the first ELEVEN minutes of the match. We ended up losing that one 4-1, but more importantly, Big Fat Sam took Cacapa off the pitch after a measly 18 minutes, and Cacapa's confidence was forever GONE after that day. He's never looked a proper player after that, certainly not prepared or talented enough for the premiership.

So while we DID only score one goal, I am certain that had Steven Taylor been fit for this match, we would have EASILY won. The problem is, he wasn't - and we can't expect him to be fit for every match. So you've either got Cacapa, who is obvious garbage, or Seb Bassong, who's a FANTASTIC player, but has virtually no top-flight experience at Central Defender. I know the whole hindsight being 20/20 thing, but as soon as I saw Cacapa's name in that line up I said "Where's Bassong?" and that's the truth.

Anyway, Newcastle are back in the relegation zone, arguably where they belong. We're a pisser of a club, a club nobody wants to buy, for good reason, a club who's name now goes hand in hand with hilarity of the highest order. The only prospective buyers for Newcastle are American, and that's simply because A) they probably don't know what they're getting into and B) the dollar is quite strong now compared to a few months ago, and as a business decision, it's a steal. We are being reduced to WARES, and we're not even talking Nordstrom wares - we're talking Burlington Coat Factory. Newcastle are that single remaining DKNY Jacket that's gone from Showroom to department store to outlet mall to liquidation sale bin to Burlington Coat Factory, and even NOW, nobody will touch this accoutrement. It started its life as a proud, respectable $249.99 list, and now soccer moms won't even touch it for a limp $39.99. Such is Newcastle.

Electoral Shift Map

2008-11-06T07:37:00.000-08:00

Another great interactive map from the New York Times.

Once again, proud to be American.

2008-11-05T21:38:00.000-08:00

So I tried to write a funny post about Barack Obama winning the presidency and just couldn't do it. I tried writing an Onion-esque article poking fun at the fact that all of the sudden, every SINGLE person with a mouth and a microphone, no matter what they said prior to election day, just can't get enough of our new president. But I just couldn't do it. I tried to play this whole thing down, but it didn't work. I know it's got something to do with the fact that I'm an incredibly unqualified author. But I'd like to think it's also got something to do with the fact that I'm so damn happy, and proud, and excited about what's gone on in the last 48 hours that I just can't trivialize it, even if I tried.
I'm going to describe it the way I heard it described earlier today, and pardon the language, but it's just bar none, the most effective description I've heard yet.

"It feels like we f***ing blew up the Death Star."

I LITERALLY could not have said it any better. I've tried. And this is the best. Think about that scene in Return of the Jedi, when the Ewoks, after recently emerging victorious in their ground battle, look up at the where the Death Star once was in their sky, but has been replaced by an enormous expanding ball of flames. Then they all begin to rejoice at once, and it cuts to other cities throughout the galaxy, all rejoicing at the same time, over the same event, and their collective hopes for a more peaceful and productive future. In one amazing, powerful, joyous instant, all of their lives had changed for the better, and that invisible, heavy burden of the Dark Side had been lifted from their shoulders. There will be a better tomorrow, and as the Ewoks knew it then, every nation on our planet, on this day, rejoiced together, as one human race, because we all know it now.

Barack Obama is not a perfect man, and he will not be a perfect president. But he is many things that we can ALL get behind. His intelligence will lift our struggling nation up and get us back on a pragmatic, positive path. His elegance and wit will make him and the US a leader of other nations once again, and America's respect will be restored. His passion and dedication will demand respect from all the world's leaders - friends and foes alike. And his race, as much as it has been covered in the media, IS true proof that anyone, with any background, any skin color, any personal difficulties, can do ANYTHING in this great country of ours.
Last night I had the absolute privilege to celebrate with Mr. Obama himself and 250,000 of my closest friends at Grant Park. While being too crowded, uncomfortable, and incredibly draining physically, I will never forget the moment that the announcement was made that he had made it over the 270 vote hump. An infinitely deep bellow was let out by all of us there, and as we were all screaming at the top of our lungs, jumping up and down, dancing with each other, smiling, crying, and trying to capture it all on our digital recorder devices, nobody was thinking about the last 8 years of tyranny and secrecy. Nobody was thinking about the problems that await Mr. Obama when he takes office next January 20th. Nobody was thinking about the deception created by George Bush and his divisive Republican cronies. We were in love with America, in love with our new president, in love with the new, positive world we live in. And we couldn't put this into words, so we just cheered, cheered, cheered. I'll never forget that night, and we can all feel so lucky that we are alive to have witnessed an achievement so great, not only for Mr. Obama, but for our country and our planet. If a black kid from Kansas with a funny name can become president of the United States of America, then why can't you or I do anything we want to do? Of all this talk about "hope" from his campaign, he's gone out and proven it. He's shown us. You ALWAYS have hope.

I'll finish with the video from the very moment his victory was announced.

A Sign in my Elevator

2008-11-03T19:53:00.000-08:00

Funny for so, so, so many reasons.

Here's the back story.

The original note posted in my elevator was showing that the meeting, originally scheduled for the evening of November 4th (obviously: election night), had been cancelled. Not a night where too many people would be willing to head to some windowless office to discuss the proper disposal of pet excrement. This is something that I'm sure that 95% of the people in my building realized, and probably quickly chuckled, like I did.

But one guy, one lonely, bored person decided that it was SO funny, that he or she went back to his apartment, turned on his computer, opened up Microsoft Word, wrote the first sign saying "Whose the idiot that scheduled the condo meeting during a Presidential election?!!", printed it out, went back to the elevator, BROKE INTO the plastic sign display, and left it so we can all revel in his glorious dark wit. The thought of this, in itself is almost enough to make me wet myself.

But then, there's the second part. Somebody, very correctly, noticed that this GENIUS who posted his comment had used the improper spelling in "whose." So he decided that it was absolutely necessary to again BREAK INTO the plastic sign display, remove the original comment sheet, and write below the original note "WHO IS the idiot who doesn't know usage of "whose?"" Now - again, it's hilarious that this guy decided to take it upon himself and deliver guerrilla justice to the first comment's author and give him a nice, big GOTCHA! moment. And he did - the only problem is, in his haste, he, himself completely grammatically butchered his sentence.

Now, before somebody says anything, yes, I realize I'm basically doing the same thing as these guys, only on the Internet instead of with Sharpies on my elevator sign. But that's okay, because....ummm......OBAMA '08!!!

GO VOTE, PEOPLE!

post-japanlog1

2008-10-29T08:28:00.001-07:00

^The interior of a Japanese Shinkansen (or bullet-train) car^

I'm expecting there to be two of these post-japanlogs, only because I'm now and work and can't dedicate much time to this, for hopefully obvious reasons. I just wanted to let all my loyal readers know that I have returned from the land of the rising sun, and am now back in Chicago, at work, and trying my utmost to recover from a particularly cruel bout with jetlag. I have recently discovered that nighttime cold medicine will do wonders, and I hope that one crucial dose that I took at an awful hour of the night last night will have put me over the edge to normality in my sleeping habits.

Japan was, of course, wonderful and enlightening and relaxing and incredibly busy, as it always is. Having since moved to Chicago, I've gained a lot of responsibility and pressure at my job, so I'm now starting to realize just why people need to wind down every now and then. I understand country houses and golf habits. If you have been reading the blog recently, you will know how fond of ohn-sens I am, and so these two topics are about to dovetail into a head-first dive into finding out where some great spas are in this country. There HAS to be someplace in this country as relaxing as any of the Japanese ohn-sens and I'm dedicating myself to finding it. For some reason, I have a feeling its not going to be in the Chicagoland Metropolitan area, but that is no deterrent. I'll travel.

The trip had many highlights: The Japanese modern houses I saw, the trip to the South with Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood's brother, the great dinner with her cousin and her cousin's fiance and drinking way too much of way too many new alcohols, the realization by my niece and nephew that I, truly am, the coolest white dude to ever set foot on Japan, of course the ohn-sens, heading out on my own in the Tokyo metro subway system, and the food, food, food.

I'll add many more photographs later - hopefully tonight or tomorrow night. But for now, I guess I have to try and get some work done.

japanlog3

2008-10-20T16:11:00.000-07:00

some more photos from our trip south.

man for as long as this trip is, its harder than i thought to find enough time to piece together a blog entry.

i will do a short one again for now.

our trip to the south island and region was fantastic - we saw nagasaki, hakata, kurume, shinoseki, hirojima and a few other small towns and villages which names escape me. great photos to be uploaded at a later date.

got back yesterday and saw some more family just south of tokyo in Zushi, and today we are off to mt. fuji for a day/night/day of nature and hopefully an ohn-sen. sorry to be so short!

japanlog2

2008-10-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a rainy day here in Tokyo. Which actually kind of heightened the senses a bit. We went to a couple of our usual Aoyama spots, such as Jangara Ramen and Anniversaire Cafe, where we saw they ubiquitous young television star with well to do suit-friends of his.

But what was more interesting about yesterday's excursions were the two houses we got to see - the Moriyama House by Ryue Nishizawa and the Small House by Kazuyo Sejima.

Jangara Ramen

This place looks like any old hole in the wall, but its known for the best Hakata Ramen in Tokyo and I make a point to go here every time we are in town. Hakata Ramen is ramen with white broth and a lot of fatty pork. Its a fast, loud, and incredibly delicious place for lunch and if you are lucky you can get a seat by this window, looking out onto the busiest street in Aoyama, where all the hilarious Harajuku girls walk down the street strutting their stuff.

Moriyama House - Ryue Nishizawa

Tucked away in a very dense part of old-downtown Tokyo, very near to Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood's Uncle's saw mill factory, this house, or more accurately, collection of small houses, sits quietly. This is every architect's dream, to design a complex of tiny, single-room structures like this. Actually we have very similar plans for a country house, if we ever get the opportunity. But the urbanity of this project is what makes it fantastic. Within this incredibly dense and urban city fabric, Nishizawa has created a hyper-dense and urban HOUSE, one which treats the lot like a small version of the city itself. Of course there are always questions like `well what if i have to go pee at 2am - you mean i have to go outside?` YES. You do. That is part of the experiment and the downfalls of living in a house like this in conjunction with the incredibly interesting relationships it creates with the users and the community are BOTH essential to its beauty.

Small House - Kazuo Sejima

This house has always been a favorite of mine, for its obvious simplicity and its attractive formal gestures.

It was quite tough to find - again tucked away in a different part of the city, but we finally did and it was worth the long, rainy walk. This was one of those times when it looked a lot different from the perfect, glossy photos they published just after it was built. The details of placement on site and building access became much more interesting and powerful than the actual form of the building.

japanlog 1

2008-10-13T01:40:00.000-07:00

This will be short and sweet. We are into day 2 of the trip to Japan and its been an excercise in adjusting to time difference so far. Good times had, of course, but nothing huge to speak of besides three quick events.
1. The night we got there, (not being counted as a full day) we went to a restaurant called Popeye, because the owner, who used to be a professional baseball player in japan, looks exactly like popeye the sailor-man. He served us a traditional autumn soup which beats, hands down at that, any other food thats supposed to taste warm and atumn-y. This soup is basically stock, chicken, and a special mushroom (no, not that type of special) all put into a special clay pot (YES, that type of special!) which is heated directly over a flame. the pot has very little ventilation, but the aromas of the smoke and flame are directed into the pot, giving it its, well, smokey flavor. This was incredible. I cant think of the name at the moment, so that will follow in a later post.

2. We had lunch with two of Mrs. architecturefootballandfood's high school friends - one guy who i already knew, toru-san, and one girl who i only knew OF, the one and only, Ando Yuko. If you arent familiar with this girl, please get so because in my opinion she is putting out some of the best music from the island of japan. She is basically a pop-rock singer but incredibly creative and musical. the lunch started as this weird `you're ando yuko and i listen to your stuff more than i listen to oasis` vibe, mixed with a `you're white and bigger than i expected and married to my high school friend' vibe. i felt like i was sitting with this big star. but as usual, yuko-san eventually turned into just another nice, normal japanese friend of mrs. architecturefootballandfood's, and we had a great time over katsu, cabbage salad and beer. As usual, Toru-san was the life of the party, and it turns out he was recently in Aurora, on business. And he didn't even call.

3. Today we went to the local ohn-sen, or public bath. It was amazing and relaxing - just what i have needed for a while. This excursion is quickly becoming my favorite things about this culture, and I look forward to hitting the ohn-sen a few more times before we leave. Sitting there, naked, with about 40-50 other naked japanese men in 2-foot deep pools of red water (it has to do with minerals added so that your skin doesnt dry out after sitting in water for an hour straight), it struck me how different our two cultures were. I realized that, no matter how wonderful and logical and necessary a place like this was for humans, a place where you could go and relax and let the stress fall away, we as Americans could probably never appreciate or accept it. Certain people would think its somehow `too gay` or `evil` and ruin it for those of us who had graduated the fourth grade and could handle being in a natural state with other mature, civilized people who could appreciate the difference between nudity and pornography (John Ashcroft, anyone??)
I know it isn't everybody's cup of tea, and I'm fine with that. Anyway, see what a keyboard does to a guy with good intentions? Somebody take this soapbox away. I had a sweet time bathing with a bunch of other dudes today. End of story.

So hopefully I'll be able to write a bit more soon. Otsukaresamadeshita!!!

Off to Japan!!

2008-10-10T05:27:00.000-07:00

This time for 17 days. Nice, long trip. We haven't taken any vacation from work since last November when we went to Japan, so I think it's about time.

I'll try to send links while we're over there. I'm sure I'll have time. Now it's time to go pack myself into a sardine box that is the 777. Siyonara!

The Cubs suck worse than Newcastle.

2008-10-04T22:24:00.000-07:00

I don't know if that's true. But I support the two most pathetic teams in modern sports. THAT is true.

The Cubs, just moments ago, capped a 9-game post season losing streak, to increase their level of embarrasing ineptitude in the post season. This is not just another frustrating loss. This is monumental, I'm furious, and these players should feel incredibly ashamed of themselves.

Alfonso Soriano is the worst post season baseball hitter playing today. This is a fact. Of ALL active players who have at least 100 at bats, Soriano has THE VERY LOWEST batting average in the entire league. He's consistently showed it. People get on A-Rod for his post seasons. And they should, because he's terrible in the post season. Terrible. Guess who's worse? Our very own, Alfonso Soriano. Because, and I'll say this again - ALFONSO SORIANO IS THE WORST POST SEASON HITTER PLAYING THE GAME. And it was painfully obvious when he struck out for the last out of the series. He was nothing more than a child up there, swinging without conviction, without any desire what so ever to actually make contact with the ball and fight for a win. He simply wanted to go home. Alfonso Soriano should be removed from the Cubs staff, because he's simply not fit to wear the uniform. We need players with spines, who can show up and play in the post season.

After finishing the regular season with the best record in baseball, proving that they ARE good enough to succeed in this sport, over the last three games, they have shown that, while they are very talented baseball players, they are not men. They do not have courage or honor. For the second year in a row, they've gotten to the post season, and immediately folded under the slightest bit of pressure and excitement by being embarrassingly SWEPT away like children, and off to their summer vacations.

The Dodgers played a fantastic three games, and fully deserved to win. They are a good team - but the Cubs would have lost to a poor team as well. It didn't take a good team to beat them - it would have taken any team. A minor league team. A softball team. A cricket team. A curling team. Even a team with me on it could have beaten the Cubs over the last three pitiful games.

I hope the players go home tonight, and realize that because of their lack of any desire, courage, inner strength, or character, now most of an entire city is upset and depressed, and will have to endure yet another year of jokes directed towards US for supporting a group of losers such as these Cubs.

Crazy Joe Kinnear

2008-10-03T13:39:00.000-07:00

I mean, what does it really matter who we chose as interim manager? If we're to believe the rumours and local papers, King Kev might be back as manager in the next month or so - maybe even with a 10% stake in the club. And whomever stepped in, it was always obvious that he would be stomped on by the London Press (God bless'em). I was under no impression that we'd ever get anybody of any quality - I mean, who on earth would perform the footballing equivalent of the following situation:

-April 15, 1912; 9AM: Man picks up paper, reads "TITANIC HAS SUNK!"

-April 15, 1912; 12PM: Man takes train to British coast

-April 15, 1912; 5PM: Man arrives at British coast, inflates raft, begins slow trek West, towards America

-July 22, 1912; 8AM: Man arrives at reckage of Titanic, climbs aboard empty ship and into captain's room, where he attempts to revive engines

-July 22, 1912; 9AM: Man dies.

[What do you mean, "forced analogy?" I don't see any forced analogy.]

But then Kinnear steps in. I'd never heard of this guy prior to his appointment - but I must say, he's been a fantastic addition. Just a load of common sense, good times and swear words. What more could you ask for? Jose Mourihno, kindly step aside. We have a new definition of "special one."

He's been slowly taking all the pressure off the players buy spitting out any crap that comes into his head.

-How long ya here for, Joe?

-"4 games. No, 6. No, until the end of October. But I'm still serving a touchline ban. No, I'm not."

-After a fairly typical mis-reporting by the London press:

-Kinnear walks into the room with reporters:

-Kinnear: "Which one is Simon Bird?" - he is the Daily Mirror’s north-east football writer
-Bird: "Me."
-Kinnear: "You’re a c**t."
-Bird: "Thank you."

This guy just gets better and better.

Ill Doctrine

2008-09-27T22:02:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if I've ever given a link to this v-log or not yet...I think I may already have...but Ill Doctrine is PHENOMENAL. I got the link from my bud Amanda Jo and it QUICKLY went up on my favorites list (which, by the way, has gotten exponentially longer since election season began). Now, I know this isn't a politics blog and I don't want to turn it into one. It'll all be over soon, I promise. But this is just too good.

Below, I transcribed his latest entry in case you all are at work and can't view video or don't have sound cards or something. He perfectly synthesizes my thoughts on how absurd this whole fear of "elitists" our country has when picking its president. Hello - umm....we're basically interviewing people for the most important job in the entire world. You don't want someone who is elite? Who DO you want? Anyway, the following is in no way my creation - although I wish it was. It's taken directly from illdoctrine.com, so please visit the website and don't sue me for plagiarism.

---

okay people people people the economy -= do you understand whats going on right now? Seriously do you get it? Are you even paying attention? Do you understand what's happening? Because I...don't. At all.

I don't know what any of this stuff means, man. I don't understand economics. Apparently the whole world is gonna end unless I give all my money to that guy Paul something from the Smothers Brothers show? I mean, really? Are you su- I mean, I dont know.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I pay attention. I read Paul Krugman just like everybody else and understand about 2/3 of it. But do I ever feel like I fully grasp WHY the economy is doing what it's doing? Hell no. Do you? I'm not convinced that anybody does. And that's why this situation is so scary, because I don't really know what to believe, and I don't know HOW to know who I can trust. I feel like we're in an episode of ER where the government comes bursting in the room, like:

-"Okay, we need 700 CC's of everybody's money, stat!"

-"Well, okay...how does the plan work?"

-"No, no, there's no time to talk...STAT!"

-"Well, is there going to be some oversite? How..."

-"No, no...stat! Just give it to me, stat!"

-"Are you even a doctor?"

-"Stat! Don't you know what stat means?"

-"But I don't know what 'stat' means. I don't know for sure what any of these stats mean. And you are asking me to have a whole lot of faith that you know better than I do, even though you didn't see this coming, and you can't really explain it to me."

...And that is the dilemma facing every American right now. After so many years of being guided by our anti-intellectualism and voting against anybody who acts like he thinks he's smart, suddenly our entire future hinges on having faith that these guys are smarter than we are. This is not a good feeling. So, my fellow Americans, I'm here to ask you - that feeling you're feeling right now, hoping and praying that your leaders are actually smarter than you, please remember that feeling when you go in the voting booth. Because just this once, I think we really need to vote for the annoying smart guy.

I know how you feel, he's always got this smug look on his face and it brings up all our esteem issues from high school, but we need him right now. As soon as this crisis is over we can give him a wedgie and lock him inside his locker. But this is his moment.

I know this is not an easy choice, but this moment in history is a time for courage, it is a time for change, it is time for a nerd we can believe in! And I know we can make this happen.

---

Please, someone give me a bridge to nowhere...at least then we'll have a direction.

2008-09-21T21:47:00.000-07:00

With Newcastle quickly becoming one of my least favorite professional sports teams, due to the purely insepid behavior of each of its various divisions (owner, board, players, even supporters at times)(example, example, shocking example), it was really refreshing to turn on the last twenty minutes of the Chelsea-Man Utd match this evening. This is football the way it should be played and every once in a while I am reminded of the fact that the club I support is really only there to either A) act as a pawn in the much larger drama played out by the top clubs or B) make me and every Geordie miserable as retribution for our various sins or character flaws. It's a punishment sent to me by a higher being.

Watching Solomon Kalou come on as a substitute in the 75th minute then put away the tying goal in the 80th made me remember the good ol' days, just less than a month ago, when we were scoffing at even the THOUGHT of buying a player like Kalou - he's on Chelsea's BENCH for Christ sake - why would he be good enough for KING KEV'S ARMY??? Now there's no King Kev, no army to speak of, and Kalou would easily be the best player on our half of the ball.

It's distressing for me, watching a club full of very highly paid grown adults, play a game that we all love, but playing it with such disdain for the current situation and such lack of spirit. I most certainly feel for the players and I fully understand that crap that happens off the field can quickly manifest into on-field crap. But times like these are when heroes are born. If King Kev was the leader, and he left, and the interim manager doesn't want to grow a pair and fill in for the emotional beacon of the team, then one of these players (ehem - Captain Michael Owen?) HAS to step up to lead.

It's just sad seeing such a great club become such a public announcement for how NOT act as a football club - at EVERY level.

Maps and Graphs

2008-09-17T22:14:00.000-07:00

I came across this link the other day:

Strange Maps Blog

This is something that is right up my alley. Some of these graphics are incredibly thoughtful, informative and beautiful. Some of them are so calculated and forced, they not only show information in a new and interesting way, but they also show how difficult map making and analysis of information can be. Diagramming is the perfect blend of information and aesthetics and very few people can do it well. Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood is particularly versed at diagramming, and she basically did an entire thesis on it at SCI-Arc.

Obviously the most famous information designer, at least I would say, is Edward Tufte.
This guy is truly brilliant. In many ways, he made diagramming cool. Although probably the coolest thing about him is how hard he's worked, virtually by himself, to put himself where he is. He began as a statistics professor at Princeton, and after collecting material for his lectures, he put out his first book, The Visual Displaly of Quantitative Information out of his garage, completely self-funded AND self produced. He's always been a staunch critic of Powerpoint, which I agree with 99% of the time (the one exception ).

But something about this blog's respect for both sides of the quality spectrum is what gives it its charm. I wish I knew of more websites like this - virtually no immediately usable information on it - but nothing that you come across will be boring. It all not only makes you laugh and think, but typically it looks great - or at least so horrible it's great.

Post 100!

2008-09-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

"It's been a bit too long since I've written"...and thus, with those words, probably the most likely words that I've started out with throughout the majority of my first 100 posts, will also start post #100! Man a lot has happened since I started writing the Architecture and Football (original name) blog....the obligatory first 'real' post, my first architecture school jury inclusion, we hit water, I took a serious look at my two favorite cities, we lost another competition, Roeder got the sack, we did some life changin', we went to Japan, Big Sam got the sack, King Kev got the job, I got a new keyboard, Brett went on vacation, Newcastle almost got relegated, I started writing about food (and drink), Newcastle DIDN'T get relegated, we ate well and I got scared, and, last, and certainly least, King Kev left Newcastle.

That's just a sampler platter of some of the witty, awe-inspiring, death defying bloggery that's happened over the past couple years on this glorious, glorious, glorious, glorious blog.

It has been glorious.

That's since I started the blog. But since I last wrote....not much has been all that glorious. King Kev is still gone. Newcastle lost to Hull. Hull. The fervent Geordie supporters displayed the passion that's written their page in football lore, and protested like they've never protested before, and for once, they got exactly what they wanted and fatty-boom-blatty Mike Ashley has decided to put the club up for sale. Unfortunately, seeing the mess that the fans are capable of putting an owner in, no other billionaires have the sudden urge to jump into our electric eel tank of a club, big surprise as that may be. So now, we've got no coach, no owner, no passion, our players are biting each others heads off - and oh yeah, did I mention we lost to Hull?

Enough about Football. Jeez, 4/5 of this blog has been about footy. On to a bit of food.

Let me let all you readers in on a couple of culinary secrets that I've picked up over the years. I don't often do this, but I'm going to give you clues into the good life without a fair and balanced exchange of goods OR services. I'm just going to straight up throw it at you. Two of em. Pen and paper ready.

1) Add grapes to salad. Green ones. Serious - then, use a vinaigrette dressing (I recommend shoyu flavored Del Pietro dressing) and sprinkle just a bit of cheese on that mutha. It'll change your pathetic little salad-eating life. (Oh, also - if fresh dill is within 4 miles of your house, get it in that salad! Don't ask - just do it.)

2) When you make an egg omelet, there are two secrets. 1)Add milk to your egg mixture. This is easy - not all that secret. Just a bit though - don't overdo it. 2) start with high temperature as your pour in your egg/milk mixture. after it hardens a bit, pull the edges towards the center at 4 points, letting some loose egg replace its spot against the pan. This will give some depth and wrinkle to the outside. Then, as you add your additives (I'm not giving you this secret) LOWER THE HEAT. Very low. cook the rest on low, and before it's totally hardened, fold that biyatch in half, turn off the heat, and let it cook itself, creating a seal. This will leave your omelet just a bit wet, but cooked all the way through.

Usually I just give restaurants to go to. But this is one from the old Architecture Football and Food cookbook. Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood has many more recipes, but that's for another day.

And last but not least, for the architecture tip.

This is on a personal note. We've stopped all progression of the bathroom remodel. This is for the simple reason that we've decided that we eventually WILL want to move out of this condo - and hopefully rent it out while we build our own place somewhere on the North Side. So, instead of throwing money in to a design that will almost surely not get an adequate return, we've readjusted our attention to paying as little money as possible to add enough real estate "pop" to our place, like adding mosaic tile to our kitchen backsplash. HGTV says to do so, and who are we to question HGTV? We're also testing our interior design skills by buying really cheap furniture (mainly from Ikea) but using it in really inventive ways to make a super-modern palace for Mr. and Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood. It's kickin' like Van Damme did in his most enjoyable dream sequences, and hopefully it'll get us a pretty penny once we show this sucka on the market.

Please visit this website. It's cool.

I don't want to get into anything to overtly political, since it's not in the title, but please just let me say this: If John McCain and Sarah Palin (SARAH PALIN??? SARAH PALIN!!!) win the presidency over Barack Obama and Joseph Biden, I will think VERY, VERY hard about moving to Japan once and for all. This is a more obvious choice for president than I've ever personally seen, and it's gotten to the point now where listing reasons why isn't only long-winded and almost boring in its clarity, but it seems to almost weaken the argument, because after a certain number of points, it sounds like whining. It's weird.

That's all I'm going to say about that. Because if I say any more, I'll most certainly be accused of being sexist.

I want to thank all the readers who have stuck with me through these horrible, horrible first 100 posts. I'd like to say that the quality of my writing will get better, but after this long without any noticeable difference, its safe to say that this is the muck that you're stuck with. Enjoy the next 100.

The King is dead; Long live the King.

2008-09-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

Talk about gloom.

In my years as a Newcastle supporter, very few of them have been positive. After following the Magpies for a while, you quickly realize that there aren't going to be too many good days, and when they come along, you've got to relish them. Most of your days will be spent head in hands, looking at your empty pint glass, wondering what happened between minute 3, when everything seemed like you still had a chance at this match, and minute 93. It's rough going, generally. But these last couple days have gone far, far beyond the typical depression that sweeps over you like the thick, cumulonimbous that is commonplace in the weather pattern that is NUFC. This was "Hurricane Kev," as it were.

A couple weeks ago, we were in season 2 of King Kev's reign. We had 4 points from our first two games, we were in fifth spot in the league, the transfer window was still open, we had a bililonaire English owner who, while at times a bit frugal, really seemed to care about the club he was funding. We had made a couple REALLY exciting aquisitions in Jonas and Curly-ccini, and there was nowhere to go but UP. The national media was even finally giving Newcastle and King Kev some respect after putting in a really fine performance at Old Trafford. Clear skies.

Now fast-forward to Thursday of this week. We get pounded at Arsenal. Kev gets in a petulent screaming match with that little brat Nasri. Transfer deadline day comes and goes with two signings - neither of which make the hairs on your arm stand up - let alone being the "Wow" signing that Ashley promised. You see Manchester City get the huge monetary backing that we all thought we would get when Ashley took charge. King Kev threatens to leave, doesn't, stays holed up in some hotel in Manchester, nobody's talking on either end, so you have to settle for news reports that who knows if they're right, and finally, King Kev, the saviour and only shining light in the future on Newcastle United, resigns. This isn't just a bad day - this is a bad couple weeks, and if you really think about it, this means that nothing really GOOD can happen for the next 2-3 YEARS. SERIOUSLY. I'm not overreacting here. King Kev leaves. Dennis Wise, who the fans HATE, stays. Mike Ashley stays, who just sided with Wise over Kev. Derrick Lambias, the managing director, stays - even though he looks like a tool and nobody knows really WHAT he does - but there are rumours that HES the one who fired Kev in the first place. The REASON Kev quit is because Ashley put the ENTIRE team up for sale on the last day of the transfer window: so you tell me - what PLAYER is going to take to the field this season with an undying passion for quality and victory? What player wouldn't want to get shipped out of there ASAP? For that, what MANAGER would like to come into this laughing stock of a club, and this revolving door of a position? Think about it - whoever comes in knows that A)the fans - the most powerful fans in the UK - will be fervently against them. B)They don't have power to buy or sell players - the reason why KK left in the first place. C)They will probably only last a few months before Ashley gets bored and sacks their butt and D) They will get to join a long line of laughable men who have come and gone from this position without having won anything or succeeded in any way.

Sounds like a great ad for the position, huh?

I don't know what to predict exactly, but the atmosphere at the matches is sure to be ugly at best, and I'm guessing the players won't be playing with any inspiration, let alone with the agressive, passionate attacking style that KK was beginning to get the to play with. The wind will have been taken out of all of them, and I'm not really looking forward to the rest of the season. I mean, whatever manager we do get, it will not be an improvement on the King. I guess this was inevitable - but nobody imagined it would come just 8 months into his reign. There's no interest there for any of the Geordies, and now, instead of one massive love fest towards Newcastle that we had a couple weeks ago, it's nothing less than a violent civil war between owners and fans, and the worst part is that the players, God bless them, will be the ones stuck in the middle.

Now, being the forever optimist that I am, I will leave my readers with one little tiny light at the end of this black-hole of a tunnel. There are very dim rumblings that the middle-eastern billionaire who was interested in buying our club out a few weeks ago may revive his interest after seeing the backlash that the fans gave towards Mike Ashley. If this were to happen, there are rumours that he would bring back King Kev, supply him with a might war-chest to buy players, and, of course, give him the power and responsibility that should intrinsically come with the title of "Manager." But all this is VERY speculative. It is, however, currently, the only way that we could all go back to being truly happy again. :(

The Unfortunate Current State of our Beloved Club

2008-09-02T17:54:00.001-07:00

At the moment, I'm still attempting collect my thoughts on this saga that is Kevin Keegan and Newcastle United.

Here is what I know:

1) Kevin Keegan is the most successful manager (not in terms of numbers, but in terms of my own knowledge and witness of the football I've seen under numerous Newcastle United managers) of the club since Sir Bobby Robson.

2) KK plays the type of football that makes me want to watch it - the type that inspires and invigorates. He gets the fans excited about the club and the beautiful game, whether they win that week or not.

3) Mike Ashley is a business man. He's in this to make money. This is not something I can argue against. I believe all the owners are in it to make money. The route they choose to make that money, however, is the variable. Some managers, like Roman Abramovich, choose to invest big in order to win big, thereby trumping their massive input with an even more massive output. Other managers, such as I believe Ashley to be doing with Newcastle, play small-ball. He's trying to buy cheap, foreign, inexpensive talent to prove that they've got the goods for the Premiership and hopefully sell them for big money in a couple years. This may work to a certain extent - but its essentially building a bridge out of toothpicks. It's like saving your pennies in a glass jar so that someday you might be able to buy the Taj mah Hal. It's clear that he's not in this to become the greatest football power in the history of the game, he's in it for five years to make 100 million pounds and buy himself a lifetime supply of beer.

Here's what I don't know:

1) What - EXACTLY - is Dennis Wise's role in all this? Nobody likes this lad, including King Kev. It's clear that he's a little weasel who likes to disrupt things and ruffle feathers so that he can benefit personally. It's been rumoured that he's in charge of signing only YOUNG talent, as in NOT the first team. It's been rumoured that he's in MA's ear, running the club like a dark influence, just waiting to take over after he's waited long enough. It's been rumoured that HE was the man who put up THE ENTIRE SQUAD for sale, and almost sold Alan Smith, Joey Barton, and ST. MICHAEL OWEN, all behind Kev's back. This is disheartening for obvious reasons.

2) Why on God's earth did Ashley hire Keegan, a man who wears his heart on his sleeve and certainly has his own very solid opinions about the game, if he was intending on hiring a ridiculously complicated hierarchy of directors? It seems that Ashley didn't have confidence in his own chosen manager, so he filled in the anticipated gaps with micro-managed positions so that nobody would be overworked. When all this does is alienate people, especially the manager - a position which is supposed to be executive in everything related to the football - INCLUDING TRANSFERS.

What I believe happened (please don't go starting any rumours from this):

I think that Keegan has been slowly getting more and more upset at the appointment and continued reliance on Dennis Wise by Mike Ashley. Keegan came in and after getting acquainted with the squad (the first couple months of poor results in his tenure) has done ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong. He's re-energized the Geordies about their club, got the football to be really fast-paced and beautiful again, and has brought the club back on to the track towards greatness. And he and WE always thought that once the transfer window came, he'd really have the opportunity to begin to mould his squad. Well, that window came and he quickly realized that it wasn't his money OR choice of who we would sign. One of his most important duties as manager was ripped from him and given to that little weasel Dennis Wise. After expressing disappointment to the management and having numerous "crisis talks," Ashley promised Kev that he would give KK divine right on who we would sign and that he was, in fact, in charge of the direction of the club. But money was indeed tight, so he needed to create the funds for this - thus being a bit more lenient in terms of who left the club. There is an overall picture of where we needed to be, and 12M for James Milner could get us in that direction. So Kev swallowed his pride, took the money, only so that he could sign who he wanted in the next few days. Well, those days came and for some reason, he AGAIN wasn't given the power to do so. Dennis Wise (with help from Tony Jimenez) once again had the privilege to sign who he deemed good enough, and SELL who he deemed not good enough, without ANY input from King Kev. Suddenly, the saviour who brought back scintillating football back to St. James Park had become nothing more than a pawn, who was here only to satisfy the fans. So, he issued an ultimatum to Mike Ashley. Either things change and Wise leaves, or I do. Ashley probably said: Okay, get to steppin. The news broke, the inevitable riot act occurred, and Ashley, who had been living in his bubble the past 2 years was ASTOUNDED from the incredible level of support shown by the Geordie faithful for their fearless leader. Ashley withdrew his dismissal, but King Kev realized that the structure was obviously flawed and he wanted out. At this point, I think Kev is truly just getting his monetary ducks in a row so that he can get out without losing any money. Like I said, if I were KK, I'd probably do the same thing, and if he does choose to leave, I wish him the best.

It's a sad day here at the offices of Architecture, Football and Food. My owner has, once again, made a complete mockery of my club, just when I thought he was bringing it back to reality. My favorite manager who was Newcastle United through and through is on his way out, we've got a CRAZY thin squad who are going to be lucky to break into the top 10 and are actually going to struggle against The Unwashed (Sunderland) in the NorthEast Derby this season, and we've got a fan-base who, at its heart, doesn't know whether to show up for any more matches this season or any season after. A club who lives by its heart dies by its heart, and the light is growing dim.

GET IN!! Keegan not sacked YET!!!

2008-09-02T11:13:00.000-07:00

Official Club Statement

...And it's gotten worse.

2008-09-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

It is with a VERY heavy and incredibly overworked heart that I have to report that the Saviour, King Kevin Keegan looks to be no longer manager of Newcastle United Football Club. If this is true, no matter how it came about, no matter who is responsible, no matter what the conditions are for it, it is a cruel day for all NUFC supporters, and makes a further mockery of my beloved club. I can't say too much about it at the moment because no official news has broken yet. But after such a topsy-turvy, up and down close to the transfer window (which was - I have to say - quite underwhelming - but when looked at the transfer season as a whole - not too shabby in the slightest) this was the last thing I needed.
If King Kev goes, a party of my black and white heart will go with him, and I'm not sure how long it will take the club to stabilize itself. Aw, who am I kidding - Newcastle have NEVER been stable!! That's why we love them so much, isn't it?!

I'll keep my loyal readers posted.

To cheer up this incredibly depressing day, please visit this site and, if in Chicago, GO HERE!!
Scooter's Frozen Custard

Early Season Newcastle Rants and Raves.

2008-08-31T21:15:00.000-07:00

The premiership season is now off and running, so prepare yourselves for more frequent football talk.

After three weeks, Newcastle are 1-1-1, giving them 4 points, and having very definite MIXED feelings about the upcoming season. While I'm very happy with our draw at Man Utd and our clean sheet win vs. Bolton, and the overall difficulty of the early season, which is now behind us. I am, however, a bit less thrilled at the manner in which we lost to Arsenal this past weekend, though, looking like the Newcastle of old: rushed, unorganized, and feeling lucky just to share the same pitch as the infinitely more deserving Gooners.

The off-field news has all been doom and gloom, as usual for the London press. According to them, Keegan is ready to quit, Ashley is ready to sell, Owen is ready to walk, and the sale of the under-performing and never-achieving-expectations James Milner is reason alone to shelve the entire season. (This kid is NEVER going to deserve his 12MILLION pound price tag- he runs like a horse and has a heart of gold, but he can NOT look up when he's dribbling and has a cross like a 4-yr-old girl. Just FORGET about him using his weaker left foot. Off with ya, Jimmy. Thanks for everything, but we've got more important things to worry about.)

The close of the summer transfer window is always a turbulent time at St. James Park, and this year is no different. This off season, Keegan has already done a fantastic Job. We made quite a bit of green on the sales of Emre, Rozenhal and Milner. After the purchases of Jonas Gutierrez (who's already become a fan favorite), Fabricio Coloccini (with some of the best hair since Keegan's playing days), Danny Guthrie (very young central midfielder who was supposed to be a squad player but easily walked onto our starting XI) and Sebastian Bassong (versatile defender who passed a trial before being signed) we're still actually 1M pounds in the BLACK. Now compare this to Roy Keane's INCREDIBLE panic spending (almost 40-million pounds in the red) at Sunderland, who now sit in the relegation zone (I know, still early days), and tell me King Kev has been out of the game for too long.

Just tonight, two new signings came through the door: Deportivo La Coruna striker, Xisco, and Valencia midfielder, Ignacio "Nacho" Gonzalez on loan. Depor's fans are GUTTED that we've taken Xisco from them, since Curly-ccini came from Depor this summer as well. Apparently, they were the two best players on the squad. Gonzalez is highly rated, but apparently couldn't get much playing time with David Silva ahead of him. So while I've heard glowing reviews, I'll have to wait to pass judgement on this one.

At least one more signing is rumoured to be on their way, and the Michael Owen contract saga is always an ongoing affair. These will be watched with very close eyes.

However, the other HUGE piece of NUFC transfer news is that Everton are rumoured to be ready to push through their 3million-pound bid for Alan Smith and all that's left is for him to agree personal terms. If this happens, it will certainly be one of the most efficient moves the club will have made all summer, because while we will be losing a net of 3m in transfer fees on him (brilliant Sam Allardyce bought him last season for 6m) his 60,000 pound/week salary will not be missed in the slightest. And maybe, just maybe, this surplus in wages can be reinvested into the club via Michael Owen's new contract.

Now, one final piece of recent news in Joey Barton's inclusion in the Arsenal game, and its odd effect on the conclusion of the match. I'll break it down quickly if some of you didn't see it(shame on you). Barton is a very bad boy. He's a jerk, actually - a true waste of human flesh. Just a true thug at his very best moments. He recently got out of jail for beating up a 16 year old kid outside of a McDonald's restaurant in Liverpool, and I was NOT happy when Keegan fought to keep him in the club. Ashley wanted to fire him on the spot, but Keegan insisted that he could really continue to help the club. I thought - this guy would be fired if he were in any other profession than football. I don't want to be associated with him, so I don't care how much he could help the club - he should be punished. But to be honest - since those initial emotions have subsided, I'm actually quietly excited about having Joey back in our squad, and here's why.

Yes, he's a horrible human being. Please forgive me in advance for overlooking this, because I'm really not. I know this - but I've gotten past that now, and I ask you to do the same. 1) He takes pressure off the rest of his team mates. The same as how some of the Bulls loved playing with Dennis Rodman. This guy takes all the bright camera lights on to him, and off of the rest of the team PURPOSELY, so all they need to think about is their sport. 2) He makes the OPPONENT constantly think about him when he's on the pitch. This weekend, you should have SEEN how he took young Samir Nasri out of his game. Barton came on, hearing the incredible boos swelling through the crowd and was just soaking it all in. He LOVED it - JUST LOVED IT. Then, at the first 50/50 ball, he lunged in BEFORE Nasri got there, and made a perfect challenge for the ball. He won the ball, and Nasri fell awkwardy after being well beaten in the challenge. But because he's Joey Barton, Nasri thought it was somehow dirty and illegal. So, the next time down the pitch, Nasri, like the sad, intimidated child that he is, cowardly stuck his foot out and blatantly tripped Barton from behind - in the rule book a straight red card. But apparently, none of the four referrees saw it (yeah right) and not even a foul was called. 3) He gives a "cutting edge" to Newcastle United. We've been in mid-table for a while, we haven't had a real character on the squad up until Jonas just joined, and having Joey around just makes things more interesting, and we automatically become a little more tough and physical as a team. I love that, and it makes for some really interesting football. And 4) HE'S ACTUALLY A GREAT CENTRAL MIDFIELDER. This is something that people seem to overlook because they're so much more interested in the drama that is Joey Barton. And of course, the London press would never actually care about football ability for a Newcastle player - they're only interested in headlines. He's got phenomenal pace and stamina, and he's a very creative player going forward - something we've been drastically needing since getting rid of Emre.

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, that was nice. Thanks for reading my rant. I know it was a bit unorganized and flatlined, but it sure was therapeutic.

Osteria Via Stato

2008-08-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

What has been going on recently? You know, I used to be able to go to a restaurant, and then once I'm in there, I'm like "Oh, okay - this is a Lettuce Entertain You Restaurant. Okay - it sucks, but at least I know why." Now, every time I walk into a restaurant and love it, I go home, do a quick Google and BOOM - It's a Lettuce Entertain You!! It used to be just TGI Fridays and the sort - but here's a quick list of River North L.U.E.Y. spots that I adore:

-Big Bowl

-Brasserie Jo

-Nacional 27

-Osteria Via Stato

-Scoozi

-Tru

-Wildfire

-WowBao

I mean, you may have an argument against maybe one or two of these, but in large, this is a great list of fine dining establishments that serve a VERY wide and special variety of goods with fantastic dining environments. I've got no worries endorsing any of these.

But this post isn't an unpaid advertisement of L.U.E.Y. (although if anyone from the corporation would like to add me to the pay roll, I'd be more than happy to keep pumping these out (or as Ben Folds says: "People tell me Ben, just make up junk and turn it in/But I never was alright with turning in a bunch of shit/I don't like wasting time on music that won't make me proud/But now I've found a reason to sit right down and shit some out. ")) So let me continue with what we're all here for, my heartbreakingly truthful review of Osteria Via Stato.

I decided to go here only after Quartino had a 50 minute wait. I fully expected Osteria to be even longer, and actually wondered why when I heard the wait was only 10 minutes.

I had walked by Osteria about a hundred times before, thinking that it would be a typical, fairly commercial River North tourist trap. But every time I looked through the windows, it was dark (a big plus) and people were always smiling. How bad could it be? Well, as it turns out, not bad at all - in fact, it was one of the nicest dining surprises I've had in a long, long time.

We were taken to our table through a couple of doorways and hanging clothes. It was quite a treck - a really cool way to start a meal. As I said, it was really dark and furnished with rustic wood dining furniture. We sat at a six-person rectangular table with a divider in the middle and shared it with a different couple. A bit different from what you'd expect, but another cool difference. Once we sat down, I, as usual, immediately took a look at the wine list. After my many years of ordering, drinking and loving wine, I still have NO clue how to differentiate wines beyond the simple Cabernet/Pinot Noir, etc. So when I saw that they have a wine flight option for $15 where they give you three wines, getting more dark and bold with each new wine and partially paired with your meal, I was over the moon. I ordered it, and Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood ordered a Pinot Grigio, straying from her usual, time-tested choice of Chardonnay. We ordered a cheese plate to start, with Robiola (basically an Italian Brie) and the must-have Parmesano Reggiano. Then for the main course, we ordered the hand-rolled Cavatelli with mushrooms and brown butter, and Parmesan-crusted Filet Mignon. This is quite an authentic Italian dining experience, so they encourage A) eating in courses and B)sharing plates. So we shared all these plates and my God were they phenomenal.

The wine: The first was a white called Suave - too fruity for me. The second was a Cabernet called Memo - phenomenal - crisp and dark - perfect with the pasta. The third was not much different from the second and I didn't get the name. Not good enough to write about. So overall, I've had better wine, but the progression just works so well. I love wine flights and really recommend them when possible.

The cheeses: Robiola was fantastic, especially paired with this great fig sauce that they brought with it. They gave us pear and roasted nuts to cleanse the pallet.

The pasta: So tender and flavorful it's hard to describe. You could really tell that it was hand-rolled and it just felt like it came straight from somebody's grandma's farm in Santa Brigida or something.

The meat: ordered medium rare, and the flavor just flew off my fork and punched me in the tongue. This filet was freaking unbelievable. I wanted to get a different crust on it but was OH SO GLAD I didn't when I took the first bite. This was one of those steaks that was so good, A) the back of my mouth starts to ache because the saliva can't come out fast enough just thinking about it, B)I didn't want the meal to end because I wouldn't be able to taste the damn thing if it did, and C) once it did end I refused to eat or drink anything for a couple hours (i'm only human!) because I wanted to keep it in there before having to revert to memory. This was an 11/10. This was freaking 3 thumbs up. If you're in Nova Scotia reading this, this steak is worth the trip to Chicago. (Maybe not. Please don't blame me if you actually come here, order the steak, and actually say, seriously, to yourself "I don't know - I mean, the steak's good and all, but with the price of oil being what it is currently, that was one expensive plane ticket.")

My fingers hurt. Go to Osteria Via Stato. Just - shhhhhh - just go.

Roman Abramovich

2008-08-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I had this great idea all set up to give you loyal readers a wonderful story including both original topics for this blog (architecture and football), but tonight in doing research for it, I have found out it's actually false. Anyway, I'll do a similar story. If you want to take a look at some info on the ORIGINAL story, please check out La Leopolda, the most expensive house ever to be bought in the history of expensive houses. It was originally built for a mistress of a king of Belgium, and covers upwards of 20 acres. I mean, personally, if you're looking for scenic views and European charm, look no further.

Anyway, in researching this indiscretion, I ended finding some pretty sweet junk on Roman Abramovich, the one believed to be the unnamed Russion Billionaire who bought La Leopolda. For those of you who don't know him, Roman Abramovich is the son of an oil magnate in Russia, who, at the fall of the communist empire, requipped all of his previously-goverment-owned company's wealth and since has been known as the world's 12-richest man. Also known as the owner of Chelsea Football Club and hence, the real-life incarnation of Doctor Evil. Please first grab the nearest bucket in case you feel the urge to blow chunks, and see below for a list of his exploits.

1) Francis Bacon's Tryptich, Bacon's most prized painting, bought for $86m.

2) at least four houses, ranging from $20m - $250m, the latest being the largest, most expensive new single-family home in Great Britain.

3) Chelsea Football Club, bought for 150M Pounds in 2003.
4) His fleet of yachts, the crown jewel being the 100M Pound, 400-foot Perolus, with a staff of forty, two helipads, a disco, and a half-indoor, half-outdoor pool.

5) Two submarines

6) $23.5 BILLION

Look, you can't blame the guy for being in the lucky position he was in, being handed billions and billions of dollars from you parents who, after serving the evil empire for so long, profited greatly at other peoples' expense. No, you can't blame him for that - but you can blame him for buying CHELSEA. [shudder]

Premiership 2008-2009 Preview

2008-08-14T19:22:00.000-07:00

With only a couple days to go before the Barclay's Premier League kicks off, things are really starting to get exciting. I know, I know - all you can think about right now is the Olympics and Brett Favre, right? Well, at least that's all the American media can think about. But fear not, wise reader - you've entered a nice Favre-free zone. Just sit back, relax and start readin'.
Norman Hubbard of soccernet.com just put out a great little rhetorical question list to get our minds crankin' prior to the season. He issued 10 very important questions for the league - and I will do my best to answer each of them as my season preview.

Is Samir Nasri really the new Zidane?
I hate questions like this. Of course not. I see Nasri as a Charles N'Zogbia type. The kid can run and run and juke and juke and has some brilliant pace and skill on the ball. He just needs to learn how to score. What's that you say? Arsenal is full of great players on the ball who need to learn how to score? Yeah, I agree with you. Which is why Arsenal won't get any further towards winning the Premiership this season as they did last season.

Is Jose Bosingwa finally the answer to Chelsea's full-back difficulties?
To be honest, yes. Just look at this defensive line: Bosingwa, arguably the best young Portugese defender, John Terry, arguably the best English defender, Carvalho, arguably the best overall Portugese defender, and Ashley Cole....who's also pretty good. Adding Deco to their midfield (for 7m!) and keeping Drogba makes a VERY promising, economical offseason. I choose Chelsea for the pre-season favorite for the Premier League champions.

Will Robbie Keane form the best strike partnership in the Premier League with Fernando Torres?
I'm assuming he meant BESIDES Obafemi Martins and Michael Owen. But besides this obvious omission, I would have to agree that they are. Fernando Torres is obvious. He's the most exciting striker in the league, setting it COMPLETELY en fuego last season. But he's small-framed, and plays mostly on the ground. Robbie Keane, as much as I dislike the guy, is more like Superman. He is quick, he gets stuck in, not afraid to hit or be hit, and he can go up in the air. Not incredibly successful in the air, but can certainly compete with some of the best. If Crouch would have been used more effectively by Rafa, this move would have been a reduction in effectivity. But since Rafa didn't, I believe this will, in the end, make Liverpool a better team. But we all know their midfield, defense, and crazy, crazy manager will spoil things for them, and they'll finish at the MOST 3rd again this season.

Can Andrea Dossena end Liverpool's left-back problem?
The good news? The guy's Italian. Italian defenders are probably the biggest reason why the game of football has such a bad name for diving...they've been historically so GOOD, they drove Italian strikers to start diving to create dead ball opportunities. So it's a good move to bring an Italian defender in the squad.
The bad news? He's Italian. Not Spanish. And we all know Rafa's dependence on Spanish talent. Arvalo Arbeloa? Fabio Aurelio? Are these guys honestly better than Riise? Well, maybe, but you get my point.

Can Jo change the fortunes of Manchester City forwards?
Jo is a great capture for City. They're lack of striking ability in the past 5 or more years is glaringly obvious and getting the most exciting, under-20 year old Brazilian striker - how can you beat that? It's a shame the club will be disbanded by Christmas.

Will Fabricio Coloccini give Newcastle defenders a bad name?
BOOOOYAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!! FabriZio Coloccini could be, if all goes correctly, the best signing by Newcastle since Sir Alan Shearer. Their past failures to secure a good center of defense is well known and often-times hilarious. But this Argentinian, linking up with another fellow Argeninian (and fellow brilliant Keegan signing) Gutierrez, will immensely help that tarnished reputation. Have Newcastle done enough this offseason to truly turn their fortunes around? No, not yet. Are they starting to show promise that they're making all the necessary adjustments to change them from a laughing stock on many levels to a true, consistent competitor in Europe? You bet. Maybe not this season. (Okay, fine. Definitely not this season.) But in two or three - we'll be there.

Can Paul Robinson become England's No. 1 again?
I love Robbo. He's freaking HILARIOUS. I wish Robinson and Titus Bramble could somehow get on the same team because I would buy a season ticket and fly over there EVERY WEEKEND just to get my jollies off it. HAHAHAHAAAAAHHAHAAAAHAHAHAA!!!
No, he can't. I mean, the ONLY reason he could is because England is full of mediocre-at-best keepers, but come on. It's freaking Paul Robinson.

Will Peter Crouch prove a long-term signing for Portsmouth?
Hells yes. Anybody who knows me knows I love Peter Crouch and was gutted when NUFC didn't get him. And as much as I dislike 'Arry as a person and public figure, he's not an idiot. He's actually one of the most intelligent managers in the English game. So yeah, I think he'll keep him for a while. It'll be really interesting to see Crouchy and Defoe next to each other. The two England strikers have been criticised for so long, so how will they do on the same line, in a league that boasts some of the most prolific international strikers in the world?

Does Valon Behrami mark a change of policy at West Ham?
I mean - yeah, West Ham has brought in more international players. Yeah, Behrami for 5mil is fantastic business. But here's the thing - THEY LOST NOLBERTO SOLANO!! Just ask Newcastle - when you lose Nobby, you have to find a new way to win. West Ham is West Ham is West Ham. Booooorrrriiiiinnnnggggggg

Can Luka Modric and Deco make the playmaker essential in the Premier League?
Luka Modric? Nope. He's too small and frail. He's already injured for H's sake. I'm not bitter - I'm glad Spurs swiped him out from under Newcastle's nose this offseason. I thought so at the time, and I still do - Arda Turan is a MUCH better, more promising, more penetrating playmaking central midfielder. Deco, on the other hand, was a fantastic pickup for Chelsea, and the only question will be whether he can play with Lampard. We all know that Gerrard can't. But Deco and Gerrard are very different players. I would love it, LOVE IT if the playmaker became more essential in the Premier League.

And finally, what you've all been waiting for (especially Brett) my full prediction for the Premier League this season.

1. Chelsea
2. Manchester United
3. Liverpool
4. Arsenal
5. Everton
6. Tottenham
7. Portsmouth
8. Aston Villa
9. Newcastle
10. Fulham
11. West Ham
12. Middlesbrough
13. Sunderland
14. Blackburn
15. Wigan
16. Bolton
17. West Brom
18. Stoke City
19. Hull City
Liquidation: Manchester City

Les Nomades and Impending Doom

2008-08-07T20:11:00.000-07:00

That ol' time of the year has rolled through again - the illustrious wedding anniversary. Mrs. Architecturefoodballandfood and I have been ceremoniously tied via two small metallic loops around the fourth digit on our respective left hands for four whole years now. That's 1,461 days (don't forget that leap day). That's a long time. So I was more than happy to drop a nice dime for something that we both truly enjoy - going out to a fine dining establishment for an evening meal.

Up until this point, we had gone for a different cuisine every year, but this year I said "Screw it." Year 1: Sushi. Year2: Steak. Year 3: French. Year 4: Screw it: French again. But this year we went classical french, to a LOVELY little place a block east of Michigan on Ontario called Les Nomades.

I'm not sure how it got the name, but doesn't quite seem to fit because when you walk into the intimate and very personal ground level dining room, it feels like it's been there for longer than I've been around. The owner greated us at the door when we got there and immediately I felt like I was wanted and expected, and they were truly happy to see us. When I said our name and reservation time, she looked at me as if to say "of course I know it's you, silly. We've got your usual table set up right over here."

They led us to a corner table, and did the usual act of pulling out the table for both of us so we can easily slip in. The cool thing about the seating was that all the benches were apholstered on the seats, but the backs were open slat wood. But loose pillows were scattered about so you could lean up against it. Again - like you were back at your really cool, rich, French grandma's house. The weird thing about the seating was that we, coincidentally, were seated next to a rather peculiar group of three - two women and a man - all ages combined must have been over 200 years, and all net worth combined must have been well over $200 million. I only heard the man, a rather portly old fellow, who looked like he had been wearing that same suit and tie for the past 30 years to perfection while whipping the little people into place, say about three words the entire meal. One woman was also very quiet and easily interrupted by the other woman, who looked like she could have been the sister of the first woman. But this one clearly got the vocal gene in the family, as she could NOT be stopped from blathering at the mouth over everything. I now know her family history, how the father of her children was, in fact, a good father, when he was around, her acceptance of our country's dependence on foreign oil, her love of soft, strong cheese, and surprise at the recent return to strength of the stock market after a recent drop in the price of oil. I'm honestly not one to pry (more than any of you) - anyone in the restaurant will now know just as much as I do about this woman. She's just a loud talker. Very, very loud.

Anyway - the food. It's a prix-fixe place, so you can either choose 4 or 5 courses. We went with the 4 and were happy because we were VERY close to being full full full at the end. You get to choose from a list for each course, and the courses were: Plats Premiers, Deuxieme, Les Poissons or Les Viandes et Les Volailles, and Les Fromages et Les Desserts.

For my Plat Premier, I chose the roasted sweetbreads with Spanish chorizo, smoked paprika and potato(pictured). This was the heaviest of all the choices. I chose this because I had read some internet reviews about this dish, and having never actually tasted sweetbreads before, all I knew of them was that they are glands - these being of beef - situated near the throat or heart. They're also used in pate - these were deep fried and I'll tell you - they were increable. (That's pronounced in-cray-AH-blay)(HA!) very crunchy and golden on the outside, and chewy and warm on the inside - similar to eating deep fried fat, but with a bit more substance.

For my Deuxieme I had the warm asparagus salad, crispy poached egg, frisee, mache, parmesan cheese and truffle. Again, the heaviest possible choise. Again, a home run. The crispy poached egg was like nothing I'd ever tried before- almost like a panko-ish exterior, and the poaching was perfect. As soon as I broke into the yolk, it dribbled all over the dressing and made a new concoction which was somewhere in between an angeoplasty and lighter than air. But I don't quite know where, exactly. It was bold and delicate simultaneously.

For my "les viandes" meaning "meat," I had the Roasted Venison loin, kabocha squash, brussels sprouts, juniper and sherry brown butter sauce. Guess what? It was the heaviest of the choices. It was mainly a very medium-done venison loin surrounded by little bits of veg and dressings. The venison tasted like a very, very lean cut of beef, but the flavor just jumped out as soon as it hit my tongue. It was my first time with venison, and I intend on having it again.

For my desert, I took my staple, the flourless chocolate cake with liquid ganache center and vanilla ice cream, with, of course, a regular coffee. (I've been on this regular coffee kick - I haven't ordered espresso in ages.) And maybe it's because I've had so many of this exact same desert throughout the country that I can now call myself an expert on it - but this was my least favorite part of the meal. I really loved the homemade vanilla ice cream, but the cake was very crumbly, dry, and there was little textural variation within the cake - it was just dry......then liquid. No seeping, no conversation between the two. Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood went with the restaurant's famous souffle - with Grand Marnier. This was my suggestion to her, and as usual, when I get a poor plate, she always manages to get the best. She loved it - it looked spectacular, and very few dishes can beat a great souffle. So kudos to her. (Jealously)

So obviously I loved this place - obviously the food is unparalleled to any french place I've been to in this city. The only french food that I've had that's beaten this was Jean George in NYC - known as one of the top 10 restaurants in the world. So no hard feelings there at all. But where this place really stood out was the atmosphere - no frills, not trying to be new or different - just GREAT. And that's a quality that's missing in more and more establishments these days - not just dining establishments, either. Les Nomades exudes quality - rather than surprise or obvious wit - in every detail.

Now my fingers are tired, but I already wrote the title to this post, so I certainly can't go back now. Onward with the impending doom part. Of course, I'm referring to my Newcastle United. We're now just 10 days away from the first match of the season, against Manchester United, and about three weeks away from the end of the transfer window. While every day that goes by my excitement for the start of the new Premier League season grows and grows, I can't help but thinking that we're going into this season like a fourth-grader who decided to stay out two extra hours playing tag in the schoolyard rather than studying for the spelling test. Sure - I MIGHT get a perfect score - there's only 26 letters in the alphabet right? There's a chance. But will it happen? Even the kid knows - of course not. I feel frighteningly unprepared for this new season - even though we've made a few key, and I believe genious, personnel appointments.

First was Jonas Gutierrez from Argentina. He's a quick winger, and in his couple preseason matches, has shown he's a devil with the ball at his feat. The other thing is that this guy just WONT STOP RUNNING. He's got heart and soul - something that too many Newcastle players lack, and I think the fans will absolutely adore him and he'll help our team immensely. The next aquisition was young Danny Guthrie, who's come on and already scored two goals and set up a couple more. He was supposed to be a squad player for us, but is showing just how woeful our current midfield is by easily earning a spot in the starting XI. Will he get it? Doubtful. But he certainly deserves it over the jailbird, Joey Barton, and maybe even over the ageless Nicky Butt. The third signing isn't even completed yet, so knowing my club's history with this business, I hesitate to even bring him up. But Fabrizio Coloccini will make a FANTASTIC aquisition to the squad - assuming he adjusts to the speed of the game. He's a big, terribly strong central defender, someone with intelligence and experience, something we've DESPERATELY needed for the longest time. But Newcastle has a way of making great talent look laughable on the back line - so we'll just have to see how this guy copes. I hope to God it works out. And from where I sit, that's all I really can do.

A couple more signings before the end of the window would be nice - there have been many, many rumours. I stand firm on my belief Sebastian Larsson would be a perfect player for us, and while I seriously doubt he'd break his brand new contract extension, Bafetimbi Gomis would be my personal choice for a big, strong striker to take the place of Viduka once he reveals he's having season-ending ankle surgery in the second week of the season, probably.

San Soo Kab San

2008-07-31T20:38:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, you've heard all kinds of stories about Korean BBQ and "OOOOH, look how many cute little dishes you get" and "OOOOOOH I can't believe all these little guys are free!" and "OOOOOOH I get to cook it myself on this cute little grill" and "OOOOH what is this weird vegetably thing?"

Yes, these are natural reactions to Korean BBQ from an American after eating there for the first time - so if you ever see them on a review, please disregard it. It's a very different style of dining from what we are typically used to in this neck of the woods - but after going a few times, it becomes all part of the norm, and although the appeal will never wear off, it's just another perk of the many perks of Korean cuisine.

San Soo Kab San is the only Korean BBQ place I've been to in the Chicagoland area, but after eating at many establishments in LA and New York, I can say that it does rank up there. It's definitely a no-frills place, but what it lacks in style and presentation, it makes up in taste and -how should I put this - memorability.

After a recent "facelift," a lot of the restaurant looks different and, well, orange. A very memorable paint job added to its appeal, but unfortunately they didn't go as far as to replace the desparately-in-need-of-replacing oversized vent hoods over every table. We happened to have a functioning one tonight, but the poor family next to us didn't, and with the amount of sauces, spices, and blood sticking to the burners, you're in for a smokey, effervescent evening.

After the 10-12 dishes of appetizers came to our table and we began to scarf them down, our Bulgogi arrived. It was a busy night tonight and we didn't want to wait extra long for the skilled hands in the rear of the kitchen to cook our meat, so we instructed them to bring it out raw and we cooked on the grill at our table. Our raw marinated beef plate came out, heaping with meat. This is possibly the biggest appeal of San Soo Kab San over the restaurants in NY and LA - you get A LOT. And Korean BBQ is never cheap, and it's always so tasty you never want to stop eating it, so it's good when you get a lot. After we started eating the beef, our bibimbap arrived in its hot stone pot. Bibimbap is basically rice with many small vegetables on top with a raw egg. After a quick dash of red sauce, you mix it all up until its nice and gooey and crispy all at the same time. This goes perfectly with some grilled meats, and soon the meal is really flowing with arms going everywhere, each taking their own from a family-style setting, different dishes being passed, and so on. While I expect there are better Korean restaurants in the US, and while I ask anyone to let me know if I'm wrong, I firmly believe that San Soo Kab San, at 5247 N. Western, could very easily be the strongest Korean BBQ Chicago has to offer. If you're looking for a place to go and have a GREAT time, eat and drink well, get a little pissed at the waitstaff, and come out smelling something awful, San Soo Kab San is the place for you.

A bit of Food...

2008-07-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood and I went to the famous "Walnut Room" for Brunch on Sunday. Was actually kind of a fluke, as we had hoped to catch the cafeteria at Macy's Seventh Floor open. We've heard they've got a fantastic bowl of Ramen there, but alas, they're closed on Sunday. Mostly not too surprised to see that, really... So instead, we stopped over to the famous, old, beautiful room and were indeed surprised to see how reasonably priced the brunch was, so figured "what the heck?"

We ended up getting the salmon ceasar salad and the Smoked Salmon. The ceasar was fairly typical but very, very fresh, crisp and tasty. Cant go wrong with a ceasar, but this was defo above par. My smoked salmon came on a toasted bagel with lettuce, tomato, capers, and a fantastic cream cheese spread which was really soft and creamy. The bagel was toasted only on the inside so that the outside was very chewy and soft, but when you bit into the sandwich it gave a really lovely crunching sound that felt good eating, as well. I'd HIGHLY recommend the smoked salmon, and the Walnut Room on any Sunday for a fantastic brunch in a beautiful old place that's usually packed - but apparently not on Sundays!

Finally, I want to share a link with everybody that I found the other day:

http://www.greasefreak.com/
It's a fantastic website listing multiple Chicago staples on the food pyramid, with only a name, a photo, and a few ratings. No endless commentary on greasefreak (like you'll find on Architecture, Football and Food) - none needed. The stark, simple design, enormous catalogue of restaurants and down-to-bones information given is perfect for the viewer to make their own decisions. It's a fantastic tool when trying to find a new Chicago dive to stuff your pie hole in.

Early Depression and Bathroom Update

2008-07-27T15:39:00.000-07:00

Well, Newcastle had their second pre-season friendly this weekend and I must say, I'm not too surprised to already see a shocking loss posted on the board. We traveled to newly promoted Championship side Doncaster with basically a second-string squad. Some sad news saw my man Obafemi Martins travel back to Africa for the funeral of his mother, who tragically died in a fire. She was an enormous impact on his life, and his brother had said he was the closest to her in the whole family. Michael Owen was fighting a case of the mumps apparently, a bunch of others have "knocks" and, h yeah - Joey Barton is still in jail. With all of our strikers out, we had to start with Ameobi and Smith up front and the proved just how inept they are, missing chance after chance. They had plenty of chances to be fair, and still couldn't get one past a side who's last match was played in League fricking One.

Good news was, though, Guthrie played well again, And SebastienBassong, the U-21 French International trialist had a great run-out and looked a nice backup to our thin defensive line. Hopefully we will tie this kid up in the coming days and have a bit of depth for the future.

So, with our team so so thin, hopefully this will shock Mike Ashley into action to sign some new, quality players - not just shock buys like we're so used to. We certainly got the structure in place to do it - we just need our owner to foot the bill. Come on Mike.

And back to the ongoing saga of the bathroom reno! Well, we've once again changed the design. The more we started thinking about our place, our life, and our future, we still think there may be a chance that we'll move out somewhere, maybe to the Gold Coast area, maybe to Lincoln Park, maybe to Evanston, who knows. We love it here for now, but only time will tell where our heads will be in 2030. So we decided to let go of the Japanese bath sticking out into the bedroom with a large open window idea. Instead we're just going to make a giant bath/shower so we can really fill that sucker up and have a nice soak if wanted. And we're going to use the space which was once designed for a bath as EXTRA STORAGE. We've decided to implement a walk-through closet(same as before) but now, behind both sides of hanging clothes, we'll have a full height cubby wall, holding any longer-term storage we'll ever need - like off-season clothes, athletic equipment, old clothes, books, anything. In a place as small as this, extra storage will be incredibly useful, and if I dare say, we'll probably be able to up the resale value on this bad boy if we advertise STORAGE! STORAGE! STORAGE!!!

So while we'll be losing a little bit of luxury in our bathroom plans, it'll be 90% the same, and we'll be able to really make a killing if we choose to sell the place in the future. But it does mean that we'll have to take two steps back in the drawings........

Here we go again...

2008-07-19T15:38:00.000-07:00

It just seems like yesterday I was posting a finale post to the sad, poor, disappointing 07-08 season, putting up pathetic little photos of the Titanic, thinking I was funny (okay, KNOWING, confidently, that I was funny - I mean, like, dead funny) and now guess what - THE NEW SEASON HAS BEGUN!!!

Earlier today, my beloved Newcastle United Football Club played their first preseason game of the, well, erm, preseason, against Hartlepool United at Victoria Park. Hartlepool opened the scoring early with a fairly easy and well played goal and I thought, well, here we go again. The feeling of pain, hurt, disgust, regret, anger, and familiarity all came running back again. "Come on - this is a LEAUGE 1 SIDE" I thought to myself. Just before the half, Damien Duff put in a pretty nice goal to tie it up. The second half saw young Dannie Guthrie come out for his first time in a Newcastle shirt (today's being the sporty new Purple Away kits, as you can see above. I quite like them - wha'dyou guys think?) and make a FANTASTIC impression by quickly setting up Damien's second goal of the game with a brilliant forward pass, and then took his own goal some minutes later. Maybe it was a bit of a well-placed mis-hit, but I'm sure the kid'll take it. Then Duff finished the game off with another nice goal which was, get this, set up by ADAM SMITH and SHOLA AMEOBI. And let me tell you - it was a nice setup.

So the big stories of the match were Duff's hat trick and Guthrie's first start. The smaller stories were the following

Jonas Spiderman Gutierrez sat out the match because some paperwork hasn't been taken care of yet. He'll get in there soon I hope.

Owen and Beye were both kept out because they weren't feeling 100% before the match. It was wise of King Kev to leave them out and I hope to see them both soon as well.

James Milner, the target of Liverpool and Aston Villa this summer, moved from his usual winger role to a central midfielder and looked REALLY comfortable in there. He's always been a scrappy lad who loves to run but he never really had the best cross for a winger. Well, hey - why don't we see how he can do in the center? Seems about obvious enough and he showed some good stuff today. We'll see if KK wants to continue with it.

N'Zogbia started on the left wing and moved to Left Back later in the game, and I, for one, didn't hear a single whinge out of him...maybe I was standing too far away. HA!

So after the match, I got the not-quite-as familiar feeling of a job well done after a 4-1 victory. I know it was only against Hartlepool but come on - it's been a while since we've had this big a victory. (Not counting our last 4-1 win at Spurs of course - they don't really count as, well, they're Spurs. They're just easy.)

Anyway, if any of you would like to hear the eloquent King Kev wax about the match, here it is.

FC Tokyo and GINZA

2008-07-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

I recently got a request from a reader to discuss the intreaguing season of FC Tokyo thus far to date. And I know ALL my readers must be sorely missing my match commentary since the Newcastle season is still about a month away. So until then, I'll try to do a better job of keeping everyone up to speed on the intruiging and somewhat enigmatic J-League season as seen from the eyes of a Tokyo FC supporter.

The season started out as well as we could hope for. J-League starts in March, and goes into November, lining up with MLS and opposite of the English Premier League. We started off 1-2-1 and then won 3 straight to ease into the third position in the league. At this point, the League went into the "golden week" schedule, similar to the christmas schedule in the Prem, where teams play 5 matches in a 15-day span. During this span, we won 2 and lost 3, but somehow we remained 3rd in the league. We continued at third place, after the following two games earned a win and draw.

Last week, we had to play the first place Urawa Reds, who I like to thnk of as the Japanese equivalent to Manchester United. A very large fan base, continually successful, and red uniforms. Urawa lost first place last season in the VERY LAST match of the season, by losing to one of the lowest position teams. We weren't as lucky as they were against them this time, as the Reds beat us 2-0, and that, coupled with some other unfortunate results for FC Tokyo saw us drop all the way down to 6th.

Finally, this week on Tuesday, the 15th, Tokyo lost ANOTHER match to drop even further - this time to Antlers of Kashima. After a 58th minute go-ahead goal by one of our Brazilian wonders Cabore, Antlers went on a rush with four goals in the final 30 minutes. This is a very disheartening loss, dropping us down to 8th place, and putting Antlers into 1st in the league, just above Reds by two points.

I'll be going to Japan in October and REALLY hope I'll be able to attend another match. If so, expect more photos. Until then, keep reading for more updates...

GINZA

Staying on the Japan front, we went to a new Japanese place for lunch today in River North at a restaurant called GINZA which is on the ground floor of the Tokyo Hotel. The Tokyo Hotel is straight out of Blade Runner, which is why I always thought the two restaurants on the street level (GINZA and a similar-looking chinese place) would also be ghetto and not worth my time or money. But at least in GINZA's case, boy was I wrong. Yes, it looks ghetto on the outside AND inside - no getting around that - but it's the BEST kind of ghetto. Inexpensive blond colored wood paneling, imitation "Oriental" style lights, and rice paper covering all the windows gave it a real hole-in-the-wall feeling that is so typical of only the best, cheap, street-food restaurants spotted throughout Tokyo. And surprisingly, once we got in, we heard a LOT of Japanese being spoken, between us and the waitresses AND between the waitresses and chefs. We went for lunch, sat at the bar (they've got a sushi bar that takes up over half of the space in the restaurant - great for atmosphere, and my favorite place to sit - always) I had the katsu-don (fried pork cutlet over rice and onions) and Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood had the sashimi special, both of which were delectable. Asako's sashimi was not only great tasting and a good variety, but also very interestingly presented. I got the katsudon because it's greasy and heavy and perfect for a ghetto environment such as GINZA's. So, if anybody is ever near ESPN Zone but don't want the crowds or overpriced fatburgers, I HIGHLY recomend GINZA at the foot of the Tokyo Hotel for a great time and a great meal.

Marketing

2008-07-10T21:51:00.001-07:00

After hearing this past weekend that Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood's cousin is going through with the house we designed for her and is already in advance negotiations and value engineering with the contractor, all I can think about is continuing our little side project and building more houses and small architecture projects. We've been doing graphic design as our main money maker for way too long, and we've really always wanted to be architects, well and true. So now there are three things that we need. 1) a license. We actually DONT need it to do small house projects and stuff. But if we ever plan on becoming proper architects its the only thing we need to break that glass ceiling. And I just received my notice yesterday that I finished all necessary preliminary steps and now I can begin taking exams!!! Now I just need to start studying for them..... 2) A killer marketing strategy. This has been all I've been thinking about recently. How can a tiny little "office" like ours get clients - and the right kind of clients - to keep this feeling going? How can we turn one or two projects in to one or two hundred? I need to find out what that Facebook kid did. 3) PROJECTS. Hopefully this will come after we succeed at number 2. Or heck, even before. Spread the word people!! PLEX is BOND.

Any great marketing strategies? Leave 'em here.

A Change of Pace

2008-07-06T21:08:00.000-07:00

For once, even while the ever-exciting transfer season of English football is going on, I'm actually NOT going to write about it (even after we signed a very quality and promising Argentinian player this week.) Nor am I going to write about food, which has quickly become the topic that most readers of this blog look forward to (and by "most," I mean two out of three), even though Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood and I made up two new recipes this week.
This blog needs a touch of class, a touch of personality to it. So I'm going to once again write a bit about architecture, and a very personal project for the missus and myself.

But first, I'm going to give you a link which you may or may not care to visit. Blog Tokyo, Expat Tokyo is an incredible resource of many great blogs by English speakers living in Japan, some American, most foreigners to Japan, all speaking and typing in English. There's some fascinating stuff going on in these blogs. As anybody who knows me knows, after my first trip to Japan, I was hooked, and I immediately fell in love with the country, its people and customs, and I love the fact that I get to go there every year. But even in those moments that I haven't been there in a while, I sometimes really long for it, and many times I wish I could live there, for countless reasons - most of them being cultural/quality of life related, but more and more increasingly, it has to do with a certain disdain for my own country - almost always being politically related. Anyway - these blogs simultaneously fill a void in me, and also make the void even more expansive, and that's something you gotta love.

Okay back to the architecture. Here's the scoop. Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood and I are (not surprisingly) architects. We eat, sleep, and breathe it (well - that and Newcastle United!!)(And actual food, of course. We enjoy eating real people food. Hence, the reviews on this blog.) so when we recently bought a new home in the River North area of Chicago, while we absolutely LOVE the place and are so happy we get to spend time in a place as cool as this, we immediately wanted to screw with it a bit. A house is like a laboratory for us - it's a great scale for us to look at, think about, and change. And we're pushing full steam ahead into our first real project within our house. Now, let me assure you - we've got big, big plans for pretty much every square inch of this house - but with a fairly limited budget you really can't take care of all of it at once, so we're spreading it out a bit. So the first area we've decided to take on is the master bathroom/walk in closet. This project, if we actually go through with it, will probably take quite a few months from here on out to finish. So I just wanted to introduce everybody to it, and let you know that you'll be hearing more from me about it in the future.

Basically, what we've got now is a bedroom, and off of the bedroom, there's a little 3' wide short hallway. To the left of the hallway you've got a walk in closet, about 5' x 7', and at the end of the hallway, you've basically got your typical master bath, double bowl vanity, toilet, and combo bath/shower at the end of the space. We've been beating ourselves over the head to figure out how we can use the space better, and hopefully get a more "Japanese" bath configuration in there, which is a separate shower and bath, all in one, big wet zone. We want our bath to be very, very simple and clean, like everything else we design, but give an extreme sense of calm and weight. As most of you know, we constantly want to be surrounded by clean white - so the majority of the project will be stark white, with very nice dark grey stone throughout the tub area.

This project, as I said, has come through countless maserations and editions, ranging from the near brilliant with one or two insurmountable hang-ups, to the obsurd with hardly any redeemable qualities. Unfortunately for my ego, I must say that the majority of my ideas fell into the latter column - per typical. HA! So here we are today - we think we've slowly solved each problem and have come to a wonderful and doable solution. Right now we're at the stage where the easy, fun design-y part is over and we've begun really looking at tiny, tiny details about wet/dry zones, materials, lights, where corners meet each other, etc etc. The way architecture works is like everything else in that the more detail you get into the more problems arise and just as soon as you think you're out of the woods, something new and horrible pops up. We've come into this already about 300 times, and it's only a matter of time before it happens again. The question is, will it be something big enough to deflate the whole project or can we somehow navigate through it. This is something we'll have to figure out.

So I look forward to taking you through this journey of ours.

Oh, also - great news tonight in that the house we designed for Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood's cousin is, indeed, going through and after securing a general contractor in Japan, we found out today that they've been slowly and steadily going through the "value engineering" phase of the project where they try to get the budget down enough by taking out size or individual pieces of the project little by little. They've done a great job, and apparently they're on schedule to start construction in the fall sometime. We'll be heading out to Japan this fall, so hopefully it'll be begun by then. We'll keep you informed on this too! Don't forget to keep checking plexdesign.net for updates! (it's been funky on Internet Explorer lately - but should work fine on Firefox for some reason)

Comments welcome.

Euro 08 and Sangria

2008-06-29T21:02:00.000-07:00

This year's Euro Cup was one of the best international football tournaments I've ever seen in my short life. I know I haven't even been on this earth for 30 years, and I haven't been watching the footy for probably about half of that time, but ask any pundit and they'll say the same - if you missed this tournament, you missed something special. From the great surprises of Turkey, the "Cardiac Kids" (god, I hate that nickname), and Gus Hiddinck's quick, exciting, young Russia team; to the big guns that didn't let us down like the two obvious choices Germany and Spain, and the numerous matches going to extra time, or including scoring in the final minutes (ney - SECONDS!!) of the match; this tournament was a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Recently, UEFA has had discussions to increase the number of teams from 16 to 24 for future tounaments because so many quality, high profile teams were left out, with England being the obvious example. But in my opinion, while I would have loved to see England play against some of the other best teams in the world, I really didn't miss them. There was a cleanliness to the tournament that spawned from England's omission, I think. And just as the Champion's League has become less special and more convoluted since more teams were added, I think the Euro Championships should remain at 16 teams for similar reasons.

For the final today, my buddy Charles came over to watch the match with Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood and I. We had previously decided we would support Spain in this one, mainly out of pity, since they hadn't won an international tournament in over 40 years. But also, Spain are an incredibly exciting side, and their coach is to retire after this tournament, and what a great sendoff a championship would be. So that being said, the only appropriate way to watch a game in Spain's corner, is to have a nice cold Sangria in your hand! (right? I'm not really sure actually, but why the hell not?) So the new food entry is a great, great, great recipe for an easy SANGRIA.

First, buy a bottle of mid-range red wine - Merlot will do just fine. If you can though, try to find a spanish wine (from SPAIN) which are usually just called "red wine" or a spanish equivalent thereof. Trow (that's my Chicago accent - trow) the whole contents of the bottle in the largest pitcher you can get your claws on. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar, 2-3 shots of gin, one little can of mandarin oranges (including juice), one little can of mixed fruit coctail (including juice), the cut up one lemon and one lime, squeeze the juice into the pitcher and then trow (there it is again) the lemon and lime in there as well. If you can, refrigerate this overnight. If not, try to put it in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Then, right before serving, add about 3 cans of ginger ale, and serve the whole thing over ice. It's refreshing, it tastes GREAT, and it'll get you hammered nice and quick. The sugar takes all the sting out of the red wine and the only thing you're left with is grown-up punch. Enjoy! And Viva Espana!!

Thinking positively

2008-06-11T13:24:00.000-07:00

1. Eider Gudjohnsen 2. Steven Davis 3. Vassilios Torosidis 4. Carlos Cuellar 5. Miguel Veloso 6. Rui Patricio 7. Aaron Lennon 8. Kevin Nolan 9. Brian Howard 10. Aiden McGeady 11. Deco 12. Moutinho 13. Jermaine Pennant14. Steven Pienaar 15. Thierry Henry 16. Christoph Metzelder 17. Scott Brown 18. Mbarek Boussoufa 19. Luka Modric 20. Bafetimbi Gomis 21. John Arne Riise22. Artur Boruc 23. Fernando Amorebieta 24. Allan McGregor 25. Peter Crouch 26. Luis Fabiano 27. Giles Barnes28. Aaron Ramsey 29. Paul Scharner 30. Tal Ben Haim 31. Anthony Gardner 32. Achilles Emana 33. Lisandro Lopez 34. Guy Demel 35. Simon Vukcevic 36. Steve Sidwell 37. Klaas Jan Huntelaar 38. Medy Eltio 39. Luis Antonio Valencia 40. Andy Johnson 41. Richard Dunne 42. Mamadou Sakho 43. Leighton Baines 44. joaquin Sanchez Rodriguez 45. Eren Derdiyok 46. Ivica Olic 47. Jimmy Briand 48. Jean Makoun 49. Darren Bent 50. Stephane Sessegnon 51. Nelson 52. Zoltan Gera 53. Oscar Cardozo 54. Hugo Campagnaro 55. Nicky Shorey 56. Stephane M’bia 57. Bruno Alves 58. Edgar Davids 59. Amara Diane 60.Michael Dawson 61. Arstote Lusinga 62. Abdeslam Ouaddou 64. Luis Boa Morte 65. Djibril Cisse 66. Arda Turan 67. Jonny Evans 68. Anton Ferdinand 69. Tomas Ujfalusi 70. Fernando Amorebieta 71. Juan Carlos Marino Marquez 72.Mauro Zarate 73. Mario Gomez 74. Justin Hoyte 75. Diego Forlan 76. Yohann Pele 77. Loic Remy 78. Wayne Hennessy 79. Eren Derdiyok 80. Fabricio Coloccini 81. Alvaro Negredo 82. Kieran Westwood 83. Pablo Aimar 84. Gary Madine 85. Mikel Arteta 86. Nikola Zigic 87. Roland Linz 88. Roland Juahasz 89. Aaron Spear 90.Alexis 91.Pascal Chimbonda 92. Seb Larsson 93. Marcelo Mattos 94. Allan McGregor 95. Antonio Reyes 96. Van Der Vaart

96 Frigging players.

Newcastle have so far been linked with 96 players since the season ended and June has just begun. Some of these are ludricrous, some are way overpriced, some are out of our league, but there's a few who seem to fit just right. I'd go out on a limb to say these few are 20. Bafetimbi Gomis, 50. Stephane Sessegnon, 66. Arda Turan, 80. Fabricio Coloccini, and 92. Sebastian Larsson. Larsson is the guy who's really got me turned on recently - way too good for Birmingham, who are going down, is available at 4million pounds, playing international football right now. I've got a feeling Gomis and Turan will go with more Champions Leauge quality sides, so goodbye to them. Sessegnon would be a great signing if he doesn't get swiped up by Arsenal, and Coloccini would be a great asset to our defense.

I think if we can get 3 of those five guys(with a creative central midfielder to start - praying for Turan!!), along with continuing to pick up incredibly exciting youngsters, we'll be set and ready. We might not get back into the top six next year, but top ten is a very, very achievable goal. We were only two games away from a top ten finish this year, and this was the worst season in the history of Newcastle United football. And it's quite clear to anyone who paid attention - after Keegan came in and had a few games to work with the guys, the results started to show what kind of quality we were. Our 4-1 destruction of Spurs on their ground isn't much to scoff at and shows how good we can be if we're on the same page - but the 2-0 loss at Everton was deserved, and shows how long we've got to go before breaking the top 5 or 6.

Also - very happy to see Scolari taking the post at Chelsea - I always thought he was the man for the job. He's not only a master tactician but a thrill to watch on the sidelines. Let's see if he can get into any more fights with players or referrees on the pitch. HA!

Randoms

2008-06-01T20:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a rare post which will cover all three aforementioned topics...AND MORE!!!

First and foremost - I'd like to welcome all the nice people who happen to be fellow-acquaintences of my buddy Craig Unterseher, who just recently moved down under to Melbourne, Australia. He'll be documenting his travels on his very own blog, http://www.darkhorse-au.blogspot.com/ (and he put a link to this one on his) so check it out if your jonesing for some koala-talk. Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood and I went to grad school with Craig, and he basically got us our current jobs, so we're pretty close to the kid. Seeing the back of him was hard, but we know that he's going to love Melbourne and we wish him all the best, as I'm sure all of you do as well.

ARCHITECTURE:

Frank Gehry, my not-so-favorite architect, has a new proposal for a tower to do in the downtown financial district of Manhattan, steps away from where our friends used to live, and where Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood used to work. And it's odd for me to say - but this tower, I love. I love the basic simplicity of it, but the intense detailing, adding up to be so much more than the sum of all its parts. I usually don't like Gehry's stuff recently, but this one excited me from the moment I laid my eyes on it.

FOOTBALL:

After my last week's post documenting only a small portion of a VERY large list of potentials for Newcastle to pick up in the transfer window, we have made some movement this week. Unfortunately, it's movement in the wrong direction. Instead of adding to our already small squad, we're subtracting from it. Emre, our enigmatic attacking central midfielder has been sold to Fenerbahce. Reports say, however, that we've gotten 8m pounds for him, and after buying him for less than 4, that's quite good business. So while I'm not happy that our squad has gotten smaller, I am happy that A) we're reportedly getting a good amount for him and B) we haven't sold him to another premiership club. Now here's the bad news - another report says we've only got 2m for him. That would be crappy.

Further news is that we've also sold Damien Duff to rivals Sunderland for 5 million, the same amount we paid for him. He's a great player and a great guy, and it'll be good for him that he won't have to move his family, only going over the river. But I hope, now being a rival, that his injuries will increase and he'll rot on their bench like he did on ours, so he can't score against us!

FOOD:

Bacino's of Lincoln Park: The Mrs. and I went up to Lincoln Park this afternoon to frequent one of the few Dairy Queen's in the city of Chicago proper. (I want to keep this portion of the post about Bacino's, but for the record, Dairy Queen still has the best chocolate milkshake I've ever had. If anyone debates this, please leave a comment because I'm on a mission.) So while up there, we were walking down Lincoln Ave, and we kept finding these great looking places to eat, and finally decided on Bacino's. I had never heard of it before, but it was completely crowded, and pizza didn't sound half-bad to either of us. Once we got in, the decor wasn't much to get excited about, but it did have fully-open front windows, giving it a great early-summer lunch experience. We were both happy to see thin crust on the menu and went for a 12" with anchovies and mushrooms. (Who here likes anchovies? I never even had them until about 2 years ago and just assumed they were horrible because they get so much bad pub. But if you haven't had them, I highly suggest it because they're gloriously salty and wonderful.) The beer selection was top notch, with a bunch of strange and interesting drafts, as well as a huge list of domestic bottles and an equally intriguing import bottle list. It made today just a little bit better.

Side note - Bacino's claim is that they're "heart healthy" pizza but I don't really see how or why. I didn't ask any questions and it certainly didn't taste "heart healthy." But I will go back in a HEART-BEAT. (SCORE!!)

Early Summer Wheelings

2008-05-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

After just a couple weeks after the end of the disappointing Premiership season there have been plenty of movers featured on the back pages of papers throughout the Northeast - but unfortunately no shakers have shown yet. Here's a quick update of some of those mentioned.

Bafetimbi Gomis - Currently a member of St. Etienne of French League. People have called this kid a young Didier Drogba. I don't know how many times I've heard that, but as far as I can tell, there's still only one Drogba. So yes, he's big and tall, yes he's got a great YouTube video, but I never really saw much in this one until yesterday when he came on for the France national team and won the game single-handedly. Two SUPERB strikes are documented here.

Achille Emana - Another member of the French League, this time with Toulouse, and this time, a Cameroon international. This means another one gone during the ACN, which happens every other January. I don't know much about this player except that he's also big, strong, and young. A central mid, it would be nice to have cover (and a future replacement) for either Nicky Butt or Joey Barton. But I think this one's yet another in a long line of baseless rumours.

Amara Diane - Wow - big surprise - another African international playing in the French League. This one is from the Ivory Coast, currently at Paris St. Germain. The kid's got a good scoring record playing at a halfway decent club. Rumour has it he's a fan of Kevin Keegan and has come out and said he'd like a move to Newcastle.

Shawn Wright-Phillips - I still like this guy. It seems like when he gets a chance at Chelsea (which happens once in a blue moon) he plays a solid game, but makes one big blunder which continuously hurts his reputation. You can mark that up to the weight of Chelsea. His pace is his greatest asset, and it's the one thing we need if we want to play with true wingers.

Carlos Cuellar - Signed by Rangers a year ago from Ossasuna for $2m, now they want $7m for him. And he's worth it. The man won player of the year in the SPL this year and that 7m pricetag is PENNIES for the mega-clubs that are going to want to buy him.

Arda Turan - After losing out to Spurs a couple weeks ago on Luca Modric, spirits among the Toon transfer groupies were at an all time low. Not only was Luca in the palm of our hands (reportedly) and we lost him - but we lost him to SPURS. The same guys we seem to lose every player to. But the news of us being interested in another young playmaker, this time Turkish, and a good friend of Emre, raised all of our spirits. Check him out. And please forgive the awful music. I didn't make the video.

Put a Fork in her

2008-05-18T21:20:00.001-07:00

i am writing this from my ipod touch!!! This horrible, seemingly never-ending train wreck of a season has finally come to an end. My congrats to Manchester United for taking the season as they justifiably deserve. Newcastles was that of a bit of a roller coaster - and honestly - if it was a rollercoaster it would have been a DAMN good one - almost all downwards at terrifying speeds.

Here's a bit of a recap:

August wasn't too bad for us a great first win at Bolton under Sam Allardyce for his first match. Oba scored a thrilling overhead kick and all seemed great. A couple bore draws followed, then an easy 2-0 win over Barnsley. Clearly we were on to both a Premiership title AND the Carling Cup championship.

September, however, was a different story. We were able to continue our points rise by barely beating Wigan 1-0. But the next match could have marked the beginning of the very early end. a 1-0 loss to Derby. DERBY. This will have been Derby's ONLY victory this ENTIRE season. After a quick 3-1 victory over the Hammers, we continued our slide with two bad losses against Arsenal and Man City.

The next two matches were better - home victories over Everton and Tottenham. Where's the consistency?? They're both great teams and we can't beat Derby? But after that fleeting moment of hope, here is where it started to get really really bad. Loss to Reading. Bad loss to Portsmouth. (I remember this one well - my buddy Paul came over to watch the match. He got to my place a bit late - in the 15th minute. We were already 3-0 down.) A VERY lucky draw to the scum of Sunderland. 3-0 loss to Liverpool at home. 3-1 loss to Blackburn. That was December 1.

At this point, knives were out. The next match was against Arsenal, we're in a free fall, fans are SERIOUSLY up in arms about Allardyce's continuous lack of ambition to go forward. So when we drew 1-1 v Arsenal, I was on top of the world. Then we WIN 2 matches in a row!! So the next week we have Derby at home. I think - heck yes this is an easy 3. I convince Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood to come to the pub for a nice match and Irish breakfast - telling her - hey, we're playing Derby at home. You'll get to see a win today. Nope. 2-2 draw and a lucky one at that. We actually left before we scored the tying goal,a nd I was in a sour mood for the rest of the day. Thanks, NUFC.

Oh boy - then it gets even better. Loss to Wigan. Loss to Chelsea. Loss to Man City. Draw to Championship side Stoke City. Then - on Wednesday January 9th, Big Sam got the Sack. Initially I took this negatively, then slowly realized that it was the right move at the right time, no matter what the papers from London said. What did they know, anyway?

Well, Nigel Pierson took over for us and didn't help much - a 6-0 drubbing at Man United. But then - on Wednesday the 16th, exactly one week after Sam's departure, on the same day as the Stoke replay, we announce Kevin Keegan as our new manager. We go on to win that match at home vs. Stoke 4-1 and EVERY member of the Toon Army was grinning and looking upwards. Until reality set in.

Scoreless bore draw to Bolton. Two CONSECUTIVE 3-0 losses to Arsenal. Middlesborough draw. Villa 4-1 loss. Another HUGE Man United loss. Blackburn loss. Liverpool Loss.

This brings us to Monday, March 17th. Can you believe this? Basically from middle September to Middle March, the season has been RIPE SHITE. But at Birmingham this night, with even MORE rumors of sacking the manager around, we went down 1-0 in the first half, came out the second half and FINALLY put on a display. We got all our African players back, we got players back from injury, King Kev had a full squad to choose from and he went with his new, genius formation - the 4-3-3 with new captain Michael Owen in a pulled back striker position. This is when the floodgates opened. VICTORY to Fulham. VICTORY at Tottenham. VICTORY to Reading. Draw AT Portsmouth. Easy 2-0 victory over rivals Sunderland. All of the sudden, due to Keegan taking control of HIS team, now we put a great run of victories together. We then drew at West Ham, lost a hard match to Chelsea, and finished the season with a poor 3-1 loss at Everton.

So there's your season. Basically a high at the beginning, a HUGE run of poor results, and then a nice patch at the end to save our butts.

Good Season went to:

Nicky Butt, Steve Harper, Steven Taylor, Habib Beye, Abdulaye Faye, Michael Owen, Obafemi Martins, Kevin Keegan, Chris Mort, Mike Ashley

Bad Season went to:

Sam Allardyce (obviously), Alan Smith, Geremi, Joey Barton, Mark Viduka, Sanchez Jose Enrique, David Rozehnal, Damien Duff

Next season we're going to need a LOT more dedication from players, a better game plan from the coaches, and more monetary dedication from the owner. Let's get back into Europe, okay?

Failure and Wildfire Steakhouse

2008-05-05T19:08:00.000-07:00

Well, as most of us predicted (in our heart of hearts), Newcastle couldn't pull out a victory or draw today against Chelsea - we lost pretty handily to one of the two best teams in Europe. So obviously no big surprises there - they're in the CL final for a reason. If we could use Newcastle's performances against the two Champions League finalists as a springboard for a fairly accurate prediction of the final game (which will be held on my BIRTHDAY this year - have I mentioned that??)....
NUFC vs. MUFC: 0-6 at SJP, 5-1 at Old Trafford. Grand Total: 11-1 MUFC
NUFC vs. Chelsea: 2-1 at the Bridge, 0-2 at SJP. Grand Total: 4-1 Chelsea

So, uh yeah. that's a 7-goal swing for MUFC so based on these numbers they should take the CL final easily...usually it's not that direct though. This IS a direct relationship to how much disdain and disrespect I show Man United, so now you can see why then rarely see any plaudits from this poor NUFC supporter!!

Anyway, today's match assures that the title will go down to the last day of the season for the first time since 1999 and that's exciting stuff, no matter who you root for.

Wildfire Steakhouse
....Another blog entry about beef? You got that right.
This is a totally different place from Fogo de Chao. This is a very traditional steakhouse - you walk in, you order a drink, you order a cut of meet, you order sides, they come out, you eat them, you pay, you leave. This is another Lettuce Entertain You restaurant, so any real surprises are few and far between. They've got money to make, damnit. But the quality is high, the service is GREAT (my buddy's wife works there) and the atmosphere is always condusive to a good time.
This time, we ordered a nice pinot noir and it was wonderful. I wish I could remember what it was. I do remember, however, the meal I ordered: ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY BEEF WELLINGTON!! Ever since I started watching "Hell's Kitchen" I wanted to try one of these(they make these things every bloody night on that show). It sounded as close to perfection as you could get - a filet mignon drenched in something close to french onion soup, wrapped in pastry, baked, and then served in another bath of french onion soup. All my favorite things all wrapped up into one handy dish. And I'll tell you what - I was absolutely right. This thing was legendary. I feel lucky to have been there because it was the special that night and they only serve it one night a week (Saturdays). Not only was this great for the obvious reason of having simply delectable ingredients throughout, but the way it's constructed helps its cause immensely. You see, by drenching the beef in onion sauce then wrapping it, you keep all that moisture inside while it's cooking in the oven. So what comes out when you cut into it is a perfectly cooked, medium-well steak that doesn't have even a hint of being over done. It could be the best-prepared steak I've ever had - and I've had a lot of good ones. And while I would like to give the staff at Wildfire all the credit for this - I think the real praise goes to it's namesake, the Duke of Wellington (his name was actually Arthur Wellesley).
So while I give Wildfire a very strong 3.5/5 stars, I give the Wellington a 4.5. The 0.5 point its missing is due to presentation - because honestly, how nice can you make one of those things look? But the taste makes up for it. EAT BEEF!

It's been a while

2008-05-01T15:59:00.001-07:00

I have to stop sporadically falling off the face of the Blog-Earth like this.

You see....what had happened was......Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood's parents came in to town for about 17 days, and stayed in our second bedroom, which happens to be the same room my computer resides. Therefore, I had limited access to that room, especially at night, when I typically create these glorious posts. So I have to apologize - I did not get sufficient time to add new ones at appropriate times. But there will be a lot to cover....let's see what happened....

-Newcastle MATHEMATICALLY saved themselves from relegation

-Manchester United has tried increasingly hard to give the Premiership title away to Chelsea and now they're in a dead heat with the Red Devils relying on my beloved NUFC to pull out a result.

-CL finals are upon us, and the match is being held on my birthday this year - May 21

-I went to some fantastic restaurants, most of which I've been to before (Wildfire, Ai Sushi) but one new one (Alinea).

Monday, Newcastle take on Chelsea (at 10am on a Monday - come on!) and Chelsea haven't had all that much luck at Saint James Park over recent years. In fact - even TITUS SHAMBLES scored in the match against Chelsk a couple years ago - which shows just how much trouble they have there. If we win vs. Chelsea, the race is over and Manchester take the crown. If we tie, there's only the SLIGHTEST of chances for Chelsea to take it, and if we lose(heaven forbid for us all) it'll go neck and neck until the end. Watch this space.

With NUFC being mathematically safe from relegation, the supporters and club now look to moves we can make in the offseason to improve our massively underachieving club. The common thought is that we're pretty strong up front, we need some creativity and maybe a right winger in midfield, definitely a left back and most definitely a strong CB, and we're (as always) all set at keeper. There are rumbles we've already got a deal tied up for the up and down, unwanted Liverpool right back John Arne Riise. My personaly opinion is that, once again, we're going for someone who's past his prime, but truth be told, he's better than we've got now, so for 4 million pounds and 30,000 per week, it's not that bad a deal. I mean, he's only 27, so he's got a good 3 more years left in him. Other rumors include Gomis up front, Defensive midfielder Sessegnon from france, Darren Bent up front (no!), Eren Derdiyok from Sweden, Deco from Barcelona, and many, many others. Newcastle, being long-known overpayers, are typically linked with every available player out there, except for the really good ones, who only get linked with Man U and Arsenal. So I usually don't pay too much mind to these, but it's always exciting.

The CL finals are next Wednesday, between Manchester United and Chelsea. This is the first time in a long time (maybe ever??) that there are two English clubs in the final. It'll be held in Moscow. I am quite disappointed that two English clubs are in the final, not only because it'll be personally more boring since I watch these clubs all the time and I usually like watching CL football to see OTHER clubs stack up AGAINST English ones, but also because it shows the growing gulf between the English league and the rest of the world, while the English national team continues to struggle. While I'm happy that I get to watch the best league in the world every weekend, I wish it was more due to local English players rather than billionaire internationals (including far too many uneducated and laughable American owners) buying up all the talent throughout the world. But that's just me. Back to the game.
I believe on a neutral pitch, Manchester will Beat Chelsea around 8 times out of 10. They've got more fluidity, more natural talent, and don't need as many tactics to win. Chelsea DO, in fact, need brilliant tactics to win, and lucky for them, I believe they have them. Don't let that sound like they haven't got the talent though, because Drogba, Lampard, Terry et all are some of the best in the business. But at this moment in the history of football, no one on the planet - and I'm not exagerating - no one on THE PLANET can touch Christiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro. He, combined with Nani, Anderson, and the rest can create the type of football that fans like myself only dream that every club could produce. So if you have any chance to watch this match on the 21st of May - you might want to pay attention.

Restaurant reviews are to follow shortly.

Fogo de Chao

2008-04-08T21:26:00.000-07:00

BEEF!!

This is a celebratory post. This post owes everything to the Kansas Jayhawks. For without the Jayhawks' unexpected overtime victory in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, I would not have received a fair sum of money from winning my friendly little tournament pool. Without this sum of money, I wouldn't have gone, in celebration, to spur on our government by immediately spending it all at a restaurant with Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood. And without the sudden need to find a good, fairly expensive restaurant that I've never been to before, I would not have gone to Fogo de Chao, the namesake of this post and one of the premier all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouses in the River North area of Chicago.

Fogo is a strange place. It's one of those places that makes you love and hate something at the same time. We'll get to this in a bit.

So the first thing we did at Fogo was to get introduced to "the way things work here" as our very friendly and well-spoken introductory waiter stated. The fact that it's all you can eat and so on. Then, we ordered the house specialty drink, which is basically a special brazilian mojito made with sweet rum. Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood had the strawberry version, which was a bit too sweet, but oooohhhh so delectible. Then we went up to the salad bar - and of course, it's a shame because this salad bar was probably the best I've ever seen. And you don't want to waste your available stomach volume on high-quality ruffage. Then, once we were finished and READY, we turned our little signal discs over to green meaning "Bring the Pain." From there it's mostly a blur - a lot of filet mignon, some wonderful lamb, a lot of stuff wrapped in bacon, some very nice sausage, and fried bananas that I could have eaten all night if I felt like purging to make some space. I remember unbuttoning my pants at some point during the meal, and achieving a hightened sense of respect for beef and its preparation.

When you go to an all you can eat restaurant - and especially one like Fogo, where they actually focus on the QUALITY of the food as well as quantity, it is very important that you eat as much as physically possible. And this, I believe with all my heart. I ate very slowly on purpose - and it worked - I was able to put away more than I thought I could have, and then, all of the sudden, I didn't necessarily feel full, I just new that if I shoved one more piece of cow in my mouth I would parish. So - I pushed the plate away, closed my eyes, put back two more fried bananas, ordered a cappuccino, drank it, then gave up. Because I know when to say when. And as I got up and walked out of the restaurant, looking at all the other suckers who were about to go through the same ecstacy and excruciating pain that I just had, I began cursing beef, just as I had praised it during my food-drunken stupor of a meal.

I don't want to see a slab of beef for at least another 3 weeks.

But ask me tomorrow, and I just might want to go back to Fogo de Chao.

On a side note - while at Fogo, who sits down at the table next to us, than none other than the bassist from world-renown rock and roll group and Chicago hometown boys, WILCO: JOHN STIRRATT. Now THIS was a cool, VERY Chicago experience!

Newcastle Table-Climbing Watch and A Taste of Heaven

2008-04-06T18:17:00.000-07:00

With so many topics on this blog now (3) it's going to be hard to keep lines of thought. But I'm going to do my best. I've only been writing about one a week though so it can't be all THAT hard. Today we've got two topics.

Yesterday, Newcastle played Reading which always had "tough match" written all over it. We've come off four great performances in a row, the last two of which both tabbed 3 points. All of Tyneside was on a high, and pretty much everyone fully expected to get another win, but Reading was a team who could kill any giant. They always come to play, they play with their heart, and they play difficult, physical football. I rearranged plans with my bud on Saturday just to watch this match. So they had better perform for me. And that, they did. We went ahead after about 20 minutes with another beatiful Oba Martins goal. On 43 minutes, Michael Owen made it 2-0, and Mark Viduka finished the scoring for the afternoon in the second half, and Newcastle ended up being OVERWHELMING winners 3-0. Habib Beye, the ex French leaguer, had a fantastic match, and was involved in seemingly every play going forward.

Newcastle are now 12 points clear of the drop zone, and the fear that I felt just a month ago feels miles away. It's quite clear, when you look at the schedule, that Keegan came in at CLEARLY the most difficult point in the season, with not only the toughest part of the schedule, but also the most depleated side at his disposal. We lost consistently to teams above us. And now we're consistently beating teams below us and around us. This is absolutely typical for a mid-level team, which is what we are. We're no giant killers. We don't deserve to be in Europe. But we also don't deserve to be relegated, and now it's clear that we won't, and the boys can look forward to the next 5 matches and realistically think that we can win any one of them. Not only that but we can think about the off season and who we'll buy, and how we'll get back in to Europe, either with this coming season or the next.

For my second food entry, I'm actually going to write about food this time. Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood (her name is getting longer) and I went to a wonderful place called "A Taste of Heaven" (5401 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL 60640 / 773-989-0151) for brunch this morning, for our second time. Now, let me say, I'm a breakfast lover. Since my mom came out with this scrumptious sausage/bread/egg/cheese casserole thing in the late eighties, I've been hooked on breakfast, and while I don't eat it every day, I know a good one when I taste one. And this is a good one. All the food is made on the premises, the service is not only fantastic, but so fantastic that it actually elevates the dining experience from great to amaaaazin'. It's in a very interesting area of Chicago called Andersonville, a place where Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood and I seriously considered calling home, which used to be mostly lesbian population but is now primarily inhabited by gay blokes and young families. It's a great place to stroll around and some of the best little boutique shops and restaurants are there. It reminds me a lot of Park Slope, Brooklyn, if anyone is familiar. The customers at this restaurant usually fit that bill to a T, and the wait staff do everything they can to make every single person there as jovial as possible. It always puts a smile on my face -- and I haven't even gotten to the food yet.

Today I had the peaches and cream french toast and the missus had the special omellette - turkey sausage, spinach and goat cheese. I had some reservations about the french toast being too sweet before I ordered it, but decided to dive in and oh my goodness, was I happy I did. the french toast was almost more of a french cornbread, and the peach preserves used were thick and sweet and made me feel warm all over. But the crown jewel of the dish was the homemade whipped cream cheese that they slathered all over half of the plate. It was light, fluffy, and not too sweet - and made the dish sing.

The wife's omellete wasn't as nice as the french toast - but really, what could be? It was amazing as well though - it tasted as good as you could imagine, came with some nice hasbrowns (which, to be fair - this place doesn't have the best hashbrowns in my opinion - which I'm an absolute stickler for - but they're not half bad) but with most breakfast dishes in this place, they serve a green salad with green beans and vinigarette dressing on the side. It freshens up every plate and gives it an attitude all its own.

So if you're ever in the far north Chicago neighborhood of Andersonville on a Sunday morning (or any morning I think) PLEASE stop by my favorite place up there called "A Taste of Heaven." There's seating outside, it's a fantastic area, the wait staff will make you feel like family, and you'll have a meal like you haven't had in years - or months - or decades - depending on how well you like to eat....

Schlenkerla Rauchbier

2008-04-03T19:55:00.000-07:00

Of course, for my first food entry, I choose beer.

Schlenkerla Rauchbier is something they call a "smoked" beer. Brewed in Bamberg, Germany, in a 700 year-old cellar, this beer is truly like no other beer I've ever tasted. I won't go as far as to say it tastes like bacon - but it certainly does taste smoked. In the brewing process, the hops are mixed with burning beech-wood logs to achieve a serious smokey flavor.

This is certainly NOT a beer for a summer afternoon after you've mowed the lawn or played 90 minutes of football. But imagine early November, after you've raked leaves, and you come back in your den, peel off your thick coat, and you want something to warm you up. Yeah, sure, you could take a hot chocolate and sit with a teddy bear and cry about your ex-boyfriend, of you can open a Schlenkerla Rauchbier, sit back in your aged calfskin recliner and eat some cow.

This beer comes in 1 pt bottles, rather than 12-oz bottles. This is fantastic if you prefer to drink your beer from a glass, because it means you can pour twice. And anyone who doesn't love the action of pouring a beer, clearly doesn't love drinking a beer.

Tonight, I had this beer paired with a wild boar burger at my favorite burger place Hop Haus, right underneath my house in Chicago. It's got burgers ranging from classic and strong to surprising and wild, and the boar burger is somewhere in the middle. But for each burger, they've got a beer pairing, and it's got one of the best beer lists of any restaurant I've EVER been to. No Miller lights here - not even Newcastle Brown Ale. It's all interesting, hard to find stuff, and they all are scrum-diddly-umptious.

So next time you feel like warming yourself up on an adult, sophisticated brew, go for the Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier.

Newcastle [relegation] Watch

2008-03-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic day. As a Newcastle supporter, these days have been hard to come by so please forgive me just a bit of a gloat.

First off, let me set the stage by saying FSC had the match on replay today - and I hate these days. I can't go to any sort of football media outlet because I'll ruin the surprise of watching the game later and I just hate that. And then, once I do watch it A) we usually lose, meaning I've wasted all this time not checking any news, etc, just to watch a boring, miserable game and B) whether we win or lose, by the time I go on to my favorite NUFC blog sites to read all the other supporters' opinions, they're either off to bed or enjoying themselves in a bar somewhere with other Newcastle supporters and I'm here alone by a computer. Yipee.

But today, Mrs. Architectureandfootball and I had quite a household craft project to complete, so that, along with some movie watching took up all of my attention so not looking at the news wasn't too hard. Then, once the match started, it was off.

First, KK puts out the same side as the last two games. I love this. I don't necessarily agree with every assignment he's made, but this is great for two reasons - 1) he's giving the team some balance, some stability, that some managers (Allardyce) never achieve. and 2) he's playing a 4-3-3 (three strikers) AWAY FROM HOME. He's going into London, against one of the hottest clubs in England, the club who just recently won the Carling Cup - and he's TRYING TO ACTUALLY WIN IT. Not just squeek out a boring 0-0 draw. He's trying to score goals.

So we start the match positive, with Beye shooting once off the crossbar. We maintain a majority of the possession, and while I couldn't say we were dominating, I was quite pleased with the performance from the boys, being away from home. We give up a goal to Bent (horrible defense in letting the cross come in uncontested, but a spectacular header to finish it) but the lads keep on with it and continue going for chances. Then, of all people, Nicky Butt hits in a fairly easy looking shot in stoppage time in the first half. And right here I have to say - Nicky Butt, as much slack as I've given him, has probably been one of the main reasons we've played so well the last three games. He was my man of the match today, and honestly, recently we've been living and dying by Nicky Butt. As his game comes and goes, so goes Newcastle's. And today he was immense, pure and simple.

Second half comes, we show no signs of slowing down and after a foul just outside the box, Geremi takes advantage of some sloppy wall work by the Spurs defense and puts in an easy goal to ACTUALLY TAKE THE LEAD. Later, Owen scores a fantastic goal set up by Barton (who was great today) and a clever Viduka dummy. Owen has really come on as of late and has shown what a classy guy and player he is by really turning it on once he has been given the captain's armband. He hasn't showed as much as any one would have hoped, but with all the injuries he's had, and with the poor offensive displays shown by Allardyce, I think Owen is showing now that he loves playing and scoring goals and this team has REALLY started to gel as of late with him in charge. Then finally, to finish it off, my boy Obafemi Martins put in a stellar goal and you could CLEARLY see his relief and joy at scoring his first goal in a LONG time.

It was a great match by every single player on the pitch, barring Alan Smith who came on in the 78th minute(poor as always) and maybe Jose-Enrique, who still stupifies me sometimes. He's a great physical specimen who clearly has skill and potential, it just seems that his head isn't there sometimes. But we were able to get both Carrol and Edgar on in the end, and all the Geordies love our young kids (and what a talented bunch we've got at the moment...very exciting).

So now we're 9 points clear of the drop - looks like we'll be staying in so it's time to slowly start thinking about this off season!!

Other stuff -

For the first time EVER all #1 seeds have made it to the final four of the ncaa college basketball tourney. I think I'm still in first place in my pool, but not totally sure. It's strang that all 1 seeds made it, considering how horizontal the field was this year. GO KANSAS!!

Also - Saturday night we went to this amazing Polish restaurant called Szalas for dinner with some friends fromwork. Absolutely unbelievable food. I'm thinking of changing this blog to Architecture and Football and Food - because food is an incredibly important part of my life as well - and I think I put a lot of time and effort in my passion for it. I could offer reviews of recipes or restaurants that we go to and hopefully widen it up a bit - as most readers care nought about my beloved NUFC. Any thoughts on this?

Newcastle Relegation Watch - Goodbye, Shola

2008-03-27T15:09:00.001-07:00

Massive develpments hit today, as Shola Ameobi opted to take a loan spell at Championship leaders Stoke City for the remainder of the season. Shola moved to Newcastle from Africa at the age of 9, and has come up through the Newcastle ranks throughout his career. He was always a fan favorite, but could never live up to the huge expectations he gained by showing some great young class.

He was always one of my favorites, too - but I could never explain why. He would make some of the most awful mistakes I've seen on a football pitch. But he was a true Geordie, he loved the club, he loved the fans, and he always had a smile on his face.

So good luck, Shola. Hopefully we'll get to face you next year in the Premiership when Stoke get promoted! (and when we DON'T get relegated!)

"Shola Ameobi - Legend" YouTube video

Newcastle [Relegation] Watch

2008-03-24T20:33:00.000-07:00

After 60 days or so the man's finally done it. Finally. A victory. While the whole Geordie nation has been waiting for this since he first poked his head out in the crowd during that glorious FA Cup match, Kevin Keegan's had quite a bit of ground work to lay, and although it hasn't been a very fashionable or inspiring campaign as of yet, I truly believe that he's made wise and almost responsible decisions since coming. Not spending his 1-million pound treasure chest in January to keep it for the summer where the true talent awaits, having courage to move from cowardly, defensive football, to controlled, attractive, attacking football, giving Michael Owen the captain's armband and re-igniting his career to the point where I actually WANT him to stay on Tyneside. But this is just one man. Let's get down to the Relegation watch.
Newcastle, as I said, finally won a game, against a struggling Fulham side, 2-0. Fulham look favorites to go down for sure now, although it really pains me to say that. It's a team full of Americans, who my cousins support, with a great little stadium in London. I fear that none of the Americans on the team have the clout to automatically switch clubs to stay in the Premiership, so that means a lot fewer of us will be representing the highest level of English football. But such is life. Newcastle look a LOT safer at this point. Although other teams around us such as Sunderland, Middlesbrough, and Reading, the bottom three didn't fare to well, with Derby losing (obviously), Fulham losing to NUFC, and Bolton only picking up a point at home. So they, in effect, all spaced themselves out farther from everyone, securing everybody's place by just that much more. But there are still plenty of matches to go.
On the opposite end of the table, Manchester United played a great victory over Liverpool 3-0, showing how sub-par Rafa's men really are compared to true Champion contenders. Chelsea came back at the end to beat Arsenal, in effect leapfrogging their opponents to take over second spot. Now, Chelsea really look like a more likely team to swipe the title away from Man U if anyone is. Keep in mind - Man U still have Arsenal at Old Trafford and Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. And of course - Chelsea still have Newcastle - an automatic win for the Blues. So these final weeks will be exciting.

Now to something a bit more red, white, and blue: March Madness has engulfed us. If anyone has predicted this group of 16 teams in the entire county, I would be very impressed. A lot of good teams who have always had the potential to win more games than predicted - but this many of them? I mean - a 7 seed, a 10 seed and two 12 SEEDS?? This makes the FA Cup look like a run of the mill situation comedy. After a couple of my sleeper picks - Arizona and USC - both went out in the first round, I figured my bracket was busted and I was effectively OUT of the office pool - oh how I couldn't be more wrong. I'm currently tied for second with Mrs. Architectureandfootball! So we'll see if this brings out some hidden bad feelings if it stays close much longer.....until then, enjoy the matchups and GO DAVIDSON (And Kansas)!! (AND NEWCASTLE.)

Newcastle Relegation Watch

2008-03-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay.
Man United won handily over Bolton today - increasing their lead over Arsenal, while Chelsea drew in a THRILLER against Spurs, so the Red Devils have helped thier cause immensely today. But really - nobody cares about them. The big news is that Bolton LOST. That was Bolton's game in hand in relation to Newcastle, so now we're a clean 4 points clear of the drop zone. What all this boils down to is that this upcoming match against Fulham on Saturday will be the BIGGEST of the season. If we can take all three points in this one, we'll be 9 points clear of Fulham, and with Bolton playing AGAIN on Saturday, this time against Manchester City, this time at home, they'll surely be a tired squad and hopefully will retain 0 points. Then we'll be 7 points clear of the drop with 31 matches played and on our way to stay in the league.

Newcastle Relegation Watch

2008-03-17T17:15:00.000-07:00

Well, after an overall productive weekend for NUFC supporters, we're one point further away from the drop zone. Newcastle were able to get a well-deserved draw (1-1) against Birmingham on the road. Birmingham have been playing well recently, and did again tonight, but so did we and the scoreline was, from what I can say, an accurate depiction of the match.
In other matches, everybody around us lost (Hooray!) except for Wigan (which is bad), who beat Bolton (which is good) and Fulham actually BEAT a surging Everton. This was by far the most surprising match of the weekend in my book, and gives Fulham one last breath to survive this season and stay in the Prem. But to do so, they've got to come through St. James Park, and that match is next weekend. Neither side can emphasize enough how crucial this game is for their respective Premiership hopes, and I'm exceedingly glad it's taking place at SJP. I think we'll get our first victory under Keegan - but I really hope the boys take it seriously, because Fulham showed this week that they've got plenty of fight left in them.

So at the moment - Newcastle are 14th spot on 29 points, with the current drop zone sitting at 25 points.

The greatest thing about English Club Football

2008-03-09T20:32:00.000-07:00

In America, professional sports are professional sports. They're the guys getting paid big bucks to play the games we love, and we're the guys on the couch watching them with kettle chips and Natural Ice. There's no in between. But in England (and throughout Europe at that) there's a little something called the relegation system, otherwise known as the football pyramid. Basically it's this: All the clubs in the entire English country are ranked 1 through whatever it be. (By quick estimation I think it's around 1,400 teams - I kid you not) Now - The Premiership consists of 20 of them, the top 20. The Championship consists of teams 21-44, League 1 consists of teams 45-68, League 2 consists of teams 69-92. This is the League portion of the English system following that - well hell, let's just take it directly from Wikipedia to make it faster for me:
"The top tier of non-League football is the Football Conference, which contains a national division of 24 clubs (Level 5), followed by two divisions at Level 6, covering the north (Conference North) and south (Conference South), with 22 clubs each. Some of these clubs are full-time professional and the others are semi-professional. Below the Conference some of the stronger clubs are semi-professional, but continuing down the tiers, soon all the clubs are amateur."
So this is basically the system. As you can see - it's all interconnected, making it a bit easier for the schmuck on the couch, like myself, to feel connected to the teams. And at the end of each season, the top three or so teams go up one division, and the bottom three or so teams go down one division. This makes the whole thing very fluid and exciting (and that isn't even bringing up the wonderful FA Cup - GO ON BARNSLEY!) - and even if your team is on the bottom of the tables, it makes you keep watching and makes the end of the season very very important for not only the good teams, but the bad ones as well. I think it's a brilliant system, and usually I find the relegation battles MUCH more interesting than the Prem Championship races because A) the champion is usually decided around march anyway (usually) and B) the teams on the lower end tend to be the ones with smaller wages, less money flow, and the players are always fighting for spots and careers, and actually give a damn about the teams and supporters they play for. If you're at a top team and you do poorly there's really no need to worry - another team will come in and swipe you up (keep reading for more on this). It's the old trick of getting fired to get a pay raise.
Anyway - I've always loved the relegation battle. Always - that is - until the team I support was actually IN the relegation battle. Well, now we are and I'm not looking so fondly at the cute little relegation battle wayyyyy down there at the bottom of the table!!

So - here are Newcastle United - a team with Shay Given, Michael Owen, Obafemi Martins, Steven Taylor, Damien Duff, Mark Viduka, Habib Beye - all representatives on their respective National teams - are within three points of the "drop zone," and are very much in the struggle to stay in the top flight of the Premiership. Of course, it's easy to say "These players are too good to go down" and just shrug it off like it's just one, big unlucky streak. But I've been following this league to closely to think that ANYTHING can be explained by pure luck. That's NEVER the case. When something happens - ANYTHING - there's a reason for it. So let's take a look at NUFC's situation. They begin the season with Allardyce - a man who plays players out of position, using tactics that none of them are used to or respect. Keep in mind - these players make more in one week than I do in a full year - and they're being told to play differently than how they've played to get to this great point in their career. So obviously this doesn't go well. They lose big time. Then, in January, Big Fat Sam gets the sack - Justifiably - and Keegan comes in. Everyone is genuinely excited because he goes back to the more traditional - and fun and exciting - methods of playing football. By trying to score goals and enjoy yourselves. But it just so happens that at the same time, half the team is either injured, match banned, or in the Africa Cup of Nations. So he takes over only a fragment of the Newcastle side that he was given. Well, by the time he gets the full squad back, we've had losses - big ones - to NUMEROUS opponents - most of which were justifiable, whether it be due to away matches, quality opponents, what have you. It was just a very difficult time in our schedule. And we never stepped up. And somewhere in there, in the whole muck of changing managers, players being gone, fans getting too anxious, the players on this squad realize - we're shit and we're going to keep going down. Now - what do they think to themselves? The best case scenario is that we all play well and work hard and stay up and maybe make something of this squad, and the worst case scenario is that I don't give a crap, we'll lose, and since I'm on the National squad, I'll be able to find a job at any of the other premiership teams. I'll leave Newcastle, and pick up somewhere else." And that didn't seem like that bad of an option. These days in any sport, players aren't tied to a team like they were back in the day. They can be gone with a phone call. They know their own value. So since the Titanic had broken its hull, the players said - "I might as well just sit here on the deck at the lowest point and wait for it to sink - because I can see the rescue boats waiting for me."
Well, my friends, in the world of football, Newcastle United Football Club is the Titanic. It's sinking. Ashley, Mort, and Kev Keegan are all up in the captain's deck wiping the sweat off their brow, the players are comfortable in the rescue boats with the string quartets on them, and all us supporters, me included, are the little twirps running like mad just trying to stay above the freezing water levels. And run and struggle as we may - even if we get to the highest point on this junk metal heap of a club - there's no more rescue boats on the horizon, and the only thing we've got to keep us warm is the comfort of knowing that once our frozen bodies sink to the depths of the ice-cold Coca-Cola Championship, we'll be amongst friends - and without any of these prima donna's who put their ugly mugs on the TV every Saturday night and proclaim loyalty to this "Massive Club."

Prem Weekend Off...

2008-02-17T18:54:00.000-08:00

...but, OH BOY was there some faaaaaabulous drama!!

If anyone out there dislikes Liverpool as much as I do (and I assume there are a few of you), I hope you were paying attention to this weekend's FA Cup 5th round matches. I, unfortunately, had to go into work on Saturday to do some extra wonderful drafting for this extra wonderful project I've been working on lately. So the good new is, while I was there slaving away on a weekend, I was listening to the live feed from the BBC of the Chelsea/Huddersfield Town match, which was entirely entertaining. But once Chelsea scored their third and put the game away, they switched to the Liverpool/Barnsley match, which was tied in the 70h minute. At that stage of the game, Liverpool was POUNDING the Barnsley net with shots, but the new boy Steele, in goal, kept getting in front of EVERYTHING, putting on a show and frustrating both the sad, sad Liverpool players (especially Harry Kewell, who I just absolutely dispise) but also the nasty Kop support. But listening to it live, you fully expected Liverpool to put one of their many, many chances away into the back of the net, cleanly finishing off this round, which they were FULLY expected to win and move on, looking forward to Tuesdays Champions League clash with Inter Milan. But then, in extra time, when Liverpool STILL hadn't capitalized on any of their opportunities, and when the fans were REALLY starting to get worried, one of the many wonderful FA Cup moments occured. Somehow, Barnsely got forward, and their captain, Brian Howard, skipped into the box, attempted a shot, and was clearly fouled in the box, which should have been a penalty. The radio announcer beautifully took us listeners through the play and described how his foot lifted up to take the shot, but never hit the ball(which never moved actually) because his foot was hit from a defender's leg - clearly an obvious foul. But the ref called nothing, because he was obviously scared of being cut by one of the numerous thuggish Liverpool supporters. But almost before he could finish his description of the previous play, the same player got another chance in virtually the same area, and EXPERTLY put the ball away into the low-right corner of the net to SEAL VICTORY IN STOPPAGE TIME FOR BARNSLEY OVER LIVERPOOL - AT ANFIELD!!!

You should have seen it - I was sitting alone in my office, lights off except for my individual desk lamp, with my sad computer monitor glaring on my face, and inexplicably, my hands raise in the air, I let out a restrained wimper of a "YES!...." and then start to laugh silently due to the simultaneous enlightenment of listening to Liverpool and Rafa Benitez embarrass themselves yet again at the hands of their clearly flawed rotation system, and the embarrassment of expressing pure joy in a room of no one but myself and a bunch of computers.

Now, to keep on the football theme, this week starts the round of 16 in the Champion's League tournament, and this week we get to spoil ourselves with AMAZING matches, between Liverpool/Inter Milan, Roma(my new favorite Italian team after our vacation this summer)/Real Madrid, and Arsenal/AC Milan. These are matches that the football fan waits all year to see, and the round of 16 and 8 of the Champion's league is equivalent to the excitement achieved by the rounds of 64 and 32 of the NCAA basketball tournament. It's pure, pure bliss. So please check your local schedules, because (and thank the Gods above for this) ESPN2 often plays some of the best Champion's League matches for the American Public to see.

By the way, I was asked about not commenting on the Pavlik/Taylor bout this weekend - but I'll tell you why I hadn't much interest in it - they fought at 166 pounds, therefore nullifying any title ramifications for the fight!! It was due to earlier contractual obligations, but come on - what a let down. But I'll tell you what - on the 23rd, we've got the heavyweight unification bout of Klitschko vs. Ibragimov at MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, and finally we'll get to see a halfway decent heavyweight fight. It's been a while since we've gotten one of those. It's on HBO but I fully intend to watch it on Sopcast over the internet. Any thoughts on this fight - please post them here!!