Some background:
I'm a football (not throwball, FOOTBALL) fan. I've played since I could walk, and as with anything that interests me I have always kept up with what the best in the world are doing. In 1992, a young fellow named
Ryan Giggs was playing for the
Famous Manchester United. He was 17 years old. I was amazed, and I have continued to follow him, his career, and his club for the last 17 years.
Throughout that time, Man United has had the biggest players in the world on the stage at Old Trafford:
Cantona,
Keane, Beckham,
Scholes,
Stam,
Schmeichel,
Ronaldo, and
Rooney to name only a few. During the Giggs era they have won every possible top tier honor for an English club, including two European Cups, eleven English Premier League titles, four Football Association Cups, the FIFA Club World Cup, and countless lesser accolades.
In short, I have been a fan of the greatest football club in the world for 17 years.
Now, the Derby:
A Derby Day is when two clubs from the same city or region play each other. In the US, there are many high school, college, and professional rivalries that qualify. Jets-Giants, Cubs-Sox, Yankees-Mets, Michigan-Michigan State, North-Henry, ad infinitum.
In football, there are several very important derbies that every fan knows about: Liverpool-Man United, Internazionale-AC Milan, Real Madrid-Atletico Madrid, and Boca Juniors-River Plate (Buenos Aires). In English football, you also have the North London Derby between Tottenham and Arsenal, the Merseyside Derby between Liverpool and Everton, and various other derbies that range from pub leagues to the Premiership.
Now that you have the basics, let's discuss my favorite: the Manchester Derby.
First contested on November 12, 1881, the Manchester Derby has an official Football Association tale of 62 wins for United and 41 for City with 49 draws. Fairly competitive, sure, but as anyone who knows anything about sports rivalries can tell you, the record doesn't matter, its the spirit that counts, and there are few things on this planet more spirited than the blue half versus the red half in Manchester.
Yesterday marked the umpteenth Manchester Derby, and had special significance as both teams are looking likely to finish near the top of the league this year. The game was intense, and truly a rollercoaster ride, as my neighbors can probably attest to given my early morning shouting fits (kickoff was at 7:30am here), but in the end the famous Man United won after a last-gasp strike by former Liverpool player Michael Owen.
Best of all, following the match, City striker Craig Bellamy was captured in this pullitzer-worthy photo interacting with one of the 76,212 Mancunians who made this day, in the words of United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, "the best derby of all time."
The 2010 Winter Olympics are coming up in Vancouver, BC. The gold medals will be made out of recycled circuit boards, which is pretty cool, because recycling is good and waste is bad. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Also, if you are on fire, stop, drop, and roll. 
The modern day skylines of Rome and London burn in your fireplace. Pretty ingenious, and the potential for other creative things to faux-burn is endless. 
Melton wool is named after the town of Melton Mowbray in Leicstershire, England, which is famous for pork pies and some cheese that may or may not be blue. I know that because wikipedia says so, and the people who post on wikipedia are infallible.
Saw these graphs for Good (a magazine, I'm told) on Cool Hunting this morning. I'm really impressed by the cleverly intuitive layout of the bankruptcy graph above and the transportation and drug use graphs below. The flickr page for Good Transparencies is chock full of goodness like this, and when I get around to perusing the magazine, I will let you know if it is worth your valuable time. Whether it is, in fact, good. Done now.
Speaking of valuable time, I have recently begun a job with a rather strenuous work schedule which is largely responsible for the dearth of posts this last week. So to my regular readers: rest assured I will do my best to make it up to both of you.
The next time you get in trouble with your special lady (or special gentleman, or gentlemen, or lady and gentleman, or any combination thereof) just give them this. If that doesn't work, you must have done something really shitty or be dating Hitler or the Taliban.
Juxtapoz has an interview with consciousness expander Mark McCloud who, according to some reports, has a collection of blotter paper--the modicum of choice for LSD consumption for some four decades now--more complete than the FBI and DEA. The article is fascinating, as are the images.
Best Buy has just dropped the price of Sony's PlayStation 3 $100 to $299. They are also now hooking it up to your TV for you for... $130. Now I'm no math whiz, but from my calculations, a sales tax of %6.5 makes the former $399 price point sell at $424.94. The $299 price point sells at $318.44. Now I'll exhaust my mathematical tricks by telling you that $318 + $130 = $448.00. 
Pretty cool stuff. All the benefits of solar power without the aesthetically horrific panels. Going green without compromising is the wave of the future, and these tiles are the surfboards. Or something. I need coffee.
First contested on November 12, 1881, the Manchester Derby has an official Football Association tale of 62 wins for United and 41 for City with 49 draws. Fairly competitive, sure, but as anyone who knows anything about sports rivalries can tell you, the record doesn't matter, its the spirit that counts, and there are few things on this planet more spirited than the blue half versus the red half in Manchester.
Yesterday marked the umpteenth Manchester Derby, and had special significance as both teams are looking likely to finish near the top of the league this year. The game was intense, and truly a rollercoaster ride, as my neighbors can probably attest to given my early morning shouting fits (kickoff was at 7:30am here), but in the end the famous Man United won after a last-gasp strike by former Liverpool player Michael Owen.
Best of all, following the match, City striker Craig Bellamy was captured in this pullitzer-worthy photo interacting with one of the 76,212 Mancunians who made this day, in the words of United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, "the best derby of all time."
