WIP Wednesday: This is not SportsCenter

The only problem with my habit of falling asleep listening to SportsCenter is that when sporting events don't go my way, I end up hearing about it over and over again as I drift off.  And I'm pretty sure it has wormed its way into my dreams in some cases.

I really only need to live through the US men's soccer team loss at the World Cup yesterday once.  Every time I think of the effort that Tim Howard put into making sixteen saves on goal, ugh, I feel terrible for him that they couldn't get that win.  At the same time, though, I'm positive about some of the youngsters on the team, like Yedlin and Green.  So I still believe that we will win, it's just going to be next time.

Thankfully there's lots of other sporting news to think about.  The rest of the World Cup, of course.  Does Colombia have what it takes to beat Brazil?  If both teams play the way that they have been, I think so.  And France versus Germany, that is just made to be classic.  And Costa Rica, the final representative of the CONCACAF.

And then on some totally different blades of grass, we have Wimbledon.  Man, everyone thought that because the first Tuesday wasn't crazy like it was last year that we might be safe, but no!  We've got Czech women taking over the bracket, which I love, and teenagers running amok on the men's side.  I'm sad that Nadal and Murray are both out of the running, and kind of hoping the Dmitrov is able to take it to Djokovic.  Upsets are exciting, but there's also the risk that the remaining top players are able to just breeze through the final match or two, and that's not nearly as fun.

While I've been watching all of these events, I've been knitting.  And walking.  As long as I don't have to be reading a pattern at the same time, I can knit and walk fairly comfortably.  So far, I haven't even stepped on the cat once.  Who's the athlete now, huh?  I've finished the back of my Twist of Death, now working on the front.  It's not the most interesting to photograph, but this gives you an idea of how the color is working up, which I really like, it's very denim-like:

I'm a little afraid that I won't have enough yarn, but I should, so hopefully I'm just being paranoid.  Once I finish the front I shouldn't need much to join it together with the back again and make the little sleeves.  And when I think about it like that, it doesn't seem so crazy to have this done before the end of the World Cup.  Winner!

Do you watch sports while you knit?  Or maybe knit while others watch sports?  For more WIP Wednesday posts, go to Tami's Amis.

WIP Wednesday: Group of death, Twist of Death

Anyone else been watching all of the World Cup matches?  I'm loving it.  And like most things I love, it's made even better by sharing it with people on Ravelry.  A group of us are just chatting away and sharing the projects we're knitting while the players run up and down the pitch.

I actually finished my colorful shawl over the weekend, and I also blocked my bow (stay tuned for those this Friday), so I decided to be a little crazy and cast on another garment with inset sleeves with the vague goal of trying to finish it before the end of the tournament.  That's why I'm calling it the Twist of Death.

The pattern, Twist Pullover, was featured on the cover of knit.wear a few issues ago, and was knit in yarn from one of Austin's own local dyers, so it was on my radar for quite some time.  Nearly two years, but whose counting?  I bought the yarn, in the same colorway in fact, in the Yarn Crawl last year.  After digging around the house for a while to rediscover the magazine, I went to the extreme lengths of, gasp, swatching:

I got the stitch gauge, but not the rows, so I'm just going to have to fudge those.  I've cast on 292 stitches and knit the first few rows, but I'm not sure what my chances are of actually finishing this before the final goal of the World Cup.  As guaranteed as the Netherlands advancing, or as impossible as Spain, or somewhere in between?

Are you watching the 'footie'?  For more WIP Wednesday posts, go to Tami's Amis.

Proofs and penalties, or a random World Cup memory

I'm learning in my professional life the importance of having a good manager, but as I student I always knew the value of a good teacher.  I had a really great math teacher in high school, Mr. Spiller.  How great?  After taking his class as a Freshman, a large handful of nerds, myself included, took a summer school course with him so that after one year of Pre-Calculus with another teacher, we could spend our Junior and Senior years taking two more years of Calculus with him.  It's a testament both to our irredeemable nerdery and to his coolness as a teacher.  His walls were plastered with pop culture posters and a collection of Pez dispensers, but aside from that, he was just very good at teaching math.  It was worth six weeks of unnaturally early (for a teenager) summer mornings to be in his class as much as possible.

What on Earth does all of this have to do with the World Cup, you might ask?  Well, that summer just happened to be 2006, when Germany hosted the World Cup and the United States, like today, found itself in a group with Ghana.  Their match happened to take place at the same time as a test.  This was back in the day when, being the nonconformist that I was in the midst of football-crazed Texas, the only sports I paid any attention to were tennis and soccer.  Knowing this, Mr. Spiller, as he made the rounds up and down the aisles during the test, slipped me a piece of paper with the score of the match in-progress.

Since then, I have inexplicably become a crazed fan of a few more sports, including football, and at least vaguely proficient in discussing several others.  I've accumulated many memories over the course of those years (for example: Go Spurs Go!).  But this one still ranks as one of my favorites.  And we didn't even win.

At the time of this posting, we've just entered halftime for another US-Ghana match.  I hope we win this one...

Movie Madness Monday: A League of Their Own

I'm not sure exactly how I came to be such a sports fan in my 20s, it's not something I would ever have expected based on all of my previous years of apathy outside of tennis and international soccer.  Now I'm practically rabid at the start of the college and professional football seasons while in deep denial of the end of the summer tennis season.  (Go Nadal!)

One sport that I've still maintained just an outside interest in is baseball.  I played softball when I was younger, went to a single Mets game via a college excursion, and have kept tabs on the Texas Rangers as they've come tantalizingly close to winning the World Series twice in a row.  I could also maintain a fluent conversation in some of the larger talking points of the sport due to my high intake of ESPN.  But it's safe to say that I love this movie about baseball more than I love baseball itself.

I can quote 'A League of their Own' the way some people can rattle of statistics memorized from the back of a player's trading card.  My best friend owned this movie when I was a kid, so it was often our entertainment of choice.  It's not on Netflix Instant, but it is certainly on DVD and in my collection now.

This is one of the great examples of the sports movie genre, telling the story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League which was started in an attempt to keep raking in ticket sales while all of the male players were off fighting in World War Two.  So, again, you've got some friendly feminism, and there's even a little random knitting thrown in.  It was the 40s, after all, and these athletes also had to be domestic goddesses.

From the dairy farm where the Hinson sisters are recruited to the climactic World Series, there is some drama involved here, but the best parts are the comedy.  In fact, I could easily just watch the amazing middle of this movie and ignore the end.  I'm not going to spoil the ending for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.  But for those who have, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who feels the way that this Entertainment Weekly writer does.

Aside from that, though, this is one of those perfect, easy-to-watch movies that you can watch any time, and it doesn't matter whether you pop it into the DVD player or catch it halfway through on TV, you'll get sucked in.  You know how some movies you need to be in a particular kind of headspace for?  This one is pretty much suited for all moods.

For more movie reviews, go to Amaryllis Musings.

Game, set, match, history

It took 77 years and four match points, but it happened: a Brit won Wimbledon.

I wasn't on Henman Hill, but I was cheering right along with them.  From my first time watching Wimbledon, I've been rooting for the home team.  I almost don't know what we're all going to do next year with a defending champion.  But there's a lot more tennis to be played until then.  Next stop: the US Open series on the road to New York.

I'll be thinking of them grinding it out on the hard courts as I pound the pavement myself.  I've found the plan I'm going to follow: Hal Higdon's Beginner Supreme.  I like that it's longer than most other programs, because it pairs a 12-week starter set that will get me up to snuff for the 18-week set that more experienced runners can train from.  I have my calendar marked, Week 1 starts on the 22nd.

Which also happens to be the first week of the US Open series, which starts with the BB&T Atlanta Open, which was the last title that my other Andy, Roddick, won before retiring.  Coincidence, or another sign of the aligning stars in the new world order of sports?

Are you ready for some...tennis?!

Yes, yes, I know that football is coming.  And I'm excited, sure I am.  I have become one of the legion of Americans waiting to see if the officials will come back from their lockout, how Peyton will play for the Broncos, and how long it will take for it to be Tebow time in New York.

But right now, what's important is an Olympian still seeking a grand slam gold, a missing Rafa, and an ever-more-obvious lack of roof.  That's right, it's the US Open.  As the commercials say, it must be love.  No matter how deeply I am pulled into the mainstream sports, my ultimate loyalties will always be to the slightly more indie game which has been with me from the start.

If football is a high school jock, what is tennis?  Maybe the preppy nice girl.  I don't know, I'm still distracted by the fact that the school year is just starting here.  Forgive me, I'm a student for life.  Seriously, if I could make a living taking classes, that's what I'd do.  Preferably at Sarah Lawrence.

And if I did that, I'd go to the US Open every year.  I went once, and got to see Berdych, Federer, and Roddick play, and Murray on the practice courts.  Got Tommy Robredo's autograph as well.  Unfortunately, it didn't give him luck enough to win, but I still cherish it.  Here's an action shot of Roddick from then:

I'll be following Andy with ever-escalating hopes, as well as the rest of the players, for the next two weeks.  Hopefully this morning's deluge of rain will be the last we see until the winners have safely raised their trophies.  Because as amusing as it is to see Tom Rinaldi standing in the middle of Arthur Ashe in full flood regalia, I'd rather be watching match play.

Give it your best?

The other night I was watching some tape-delayed primetime Olympic swimming drama, and a thought occurred to me.  It was a semi-final race, and the commentator was remarking that a particular swimmer needed to save their legs and 'only' swim a certain time here in order to qualify for the finals.  They had other races to swim, and there was no need to burn out a world record when they would have to do the same again tomorrow, or even later that day.

While I've been watching the Olympics, I haven't been up on all the news.  Despite my dad accusing me of watching one stream on the TV and another on my iPad (I wasn't, I just had what was streaming online via my iPad plugged into the TV to make the picture bigger), I'm focused mostly on the tennis, with the primetime coverage in the background while I knit and draft blog posts in the evening.  I also want to catch some women's soccer, but that's another story.

So I only vaguely remembered hearing about this badminton scandal, where people were up in arms and players were retiring from the sport altogether because teams were deliberately losing matches in qualifying rounds because they didn't need to win them to advance, and losing would actually give them an advantage in later rounds.  They were disqualified for not performing to their best ability, and it's been a huge scandal of sportsmanship.

I'm just not sure how the two things are so different.  A swimmer only swims fast enough to make it to the finals, a team only wins the matches that help them win the tournament.  They are both examples of holding back.  I can see where it's not really fair to the audience, to watch something that isn't a competitive ideal.  But in my mind, this is a fault in the organization of the tournament if teams can extract so much advantage from this.

Just another thing to ponder this Olympics as I knit furiously.  Because I'm always putting forward my best crafting efforts, I have completed one of the lace dishcloths in a planned pair.  Can you see the hearts?

The Union Jack Monster is nearly done, by the way, there are just some finishing touches to be decided and done before he's ready for his close-up.

The Olympic sport of sports coverage

When I think about the Olympics this year, it's mostly connected with Ravelympics/Ravellenics.  I'm almost done with my Union Jack improvised monster, and have already started my second project, a pair of dishcloths.  I can knit things up so much faster now, it's amazing.

It seems like there are two things everyone not crafting is talking about when it comes to the Olympics: the Queen jumping out of a helicopter with James Bond, and how awful NBC's coverage is.

For my international readers, and any Americans not watching, NBC Universal is showing live coverage of the Olympics online as well as on their basketful of other networks, like MSNBC and Bravo.  NBC itself also has live coverage throughout the day, with occasional breaks for local news, etc.  However, they are saving what they feel are the most popular events to show on tape delay in primetime.  Basically, pretending like we don't already know what happened earlier in the day.  Because we don't go online, watch ESPN, or listen to NPR.  We also wear corsets and have candles in the streetlamps.

This is nothing new for NBC.  Their desire to pretend that we live in the dark ages of information is something tennis fans know all too well.  Until this year, we were being held hostage by their coverage of the last week of Wimbledon, when they would put semi-finals and even the finals themselves on tape delay and block any means of watching live.  Thankfully tennis seems to be the one sport with great TV coverage because it's taken over daytime on Bravo.

Live is an important concept for sports-watching.  Aside from it being far less fun when you know the result, you lose that irrational suspension of disbelief that makes you feel like you can actually impact the way your team or player performs if you just shout a little louder, clap a little harder, or think more empowering thoughts.  And without that, a lot of the magic is gone.

You know who's good at magic?  Mickey Mouse.  Disney and ABC are one and the same, and they also include among their ranks the powerhouse of sports programming: ESPN.  ESPN, which, starting this year, had the entire Championships live.  They had it on ESPN2, then simultaneously on both ESPN and ESPN2 in the second week to catch all the important matches.  They even had it online on ESPN3 where you could choose to watch matches that would never make it onto the air.  The finals were live on ESPN and then rebroadcast on tape delay on ABC. So those who only get those basic networks still got to sleep in and watch on their own time with the same kind of coverage, while a whole lot of us got something a million times better.

All I'm saying is, NBC likes to pretend that gymnasts are actually getting their medals at 4 in the morning in London.  If they keep pretending, soon they are also only going to be pretending to have contracts for all of these events.  They have until 2020 to get it together...

Cubicle kitchen: Wimbledon Strawberry Blondies

Andy lost.  Sad face.  But there's another Andy to root for, Andy Murray.  Because the sheer explosion of exhuberance that would follow a British win at Wimbledon is enough to make it a desired outcome.  It's been decades since they had a champion at the Championships, and though I'm sure many would wish that Murray was an English gent rather than a Scot, that's part of what makes it great.

To spread the joys of Wimbledon, I decided to make something with strawberries this week.  Strawberries and cream are one of the many traditions at Wimbledon, along with the players only wearing white, and Andy Roddick raising my hopes only to dash them.  I scoured the web for the most appropriate treat, and decided on the White Chocolate Strawberry Blondies from love & olive oil.

Other than adding one or two strawberries extra, I followed Lindsay's recipe exactly.  Luckily the 8x8 pan fits in the countertop oven, so I was able to keep the additional heat in my Texas kitchen to a minimum.  Here's what came out:

I think I should have taken it out maybe one or two minutes earlier, as my edges were a little burned.  This might also be because the pan was quite close to the heat source.  But other than my own folly, this is tasty.  The melted chocolate in the batter really gives it a yummy flavor and a nice texture.  It's somewhere between cakey and chewy.

This one didn't inspire anyone to drop by my cubicle and gush over the deliciousness, but they did disappear over the course of the day.

Now to decide on next week's treat...

Ladies and gentleman, get your whites on

The Championships at Wimbledon have begun once more, ushering in my favorite fortnight of the year.  There's nothing like watching tennis players in their clean whites running across the green court and wearing it down to the brown soil.

Before I was ever a tennis fan in general, and long before I actually watched ESPN year-round with pleasure, I was an annual Wimbledon watcher.  It tended to fall during the part of the summer that I would be in the UK visiting my grandparents, and I was just a train stop or two away from the hallowed grounds of the All England Lawn Tennis Club.  Lately I've been just a few extra thousand miles removed geographically, but in spirit I'm right there with the strawberries and cream.

And this year, once again, my heart belongs to Andy Roddick.  He was an upstart with a rocket serve just as I was transitioning from a summertime fan to a true tennis lover.  And like your first favorite pop star, you always hold a soft spot in your heart for the first player you root for.  Andy's made it to the finals three times, losing each time to Roger Federer.  The last time was the hardest, with five long sets and several moments when he was just inches away from the title.  I can barely think about that match without getting a little teary, I can't imagine how Andy feels.

Even so, Wimbledon has always been a favorite for him, as it is for many players.  Here's a video of him talking about the tournament for SAP:

I don't want to get my hopes up too much.  After all, Andy is nearing 30, that desperate age for players when even someone like Federer starts to hear about how they're past it.  But he did just win a warm-up tournament in Eastbourne, so he's going in on a higher note than he left Roland Garros with.

And never underestimate the magic of the Wimbledon grass...