French Connection (formerly known as London Connection)

- Antoine Walker won an NBA title. Even if it was with Miami, it´s cool. Here´s the guy that I´ve admired most since entering the NBA in 1996. The guy who the few basketball buddies I have could relate me to. It´s been all about Antoine these past NBA years. From the day he was drafted, to the glorious EC Finals, the day he was traded to Dallas, when we brought him back last year for half a season... until his ring with the Heat. I´m just happy for him. Tremendous basketball player. He even holds a record: In the 2002 playoff first round series against Philadelphia, Walker knocked down six 3 pointers in the second quarter alone, the most ever in one quarter of a playoff game.

Really commited to the Celtics as well. And his "wiggle", just awesome. Sometimes you get attached to a player and you don´t know why, with me it´s been Walker and now that he has his ring, it feels good, just that! Congratulations Antoine!!

Flag down!! I just received the following e-mail from my flatmate today:

"Title: Double Loss

Not only Spanish team had not made it to next round... you now also have to take the Spanish flag off your window. Apparently we received some complaints (from neighbours (?), police (?) or God knows who else...)"

Unbelievable!!!! Gotta find out who the little b*tch in my building is. No love for Spain at all...

... I´ve started to think we might be CURSED or something!! I mean, the way out national team always fails, underachieves, gets robbed, etc. is beyond belief. Really!! You can only sense it if you support Spain and maaaaybe a bit if you are an "Engerland, Engerland, Engerland..." fan. Other than that maybe the Dutch have been a bit unlucky but at least they displayed some quality. I was thinking of actually summing up all the Spanish World Cup and European Championship failures over the past 20 years but as I did that with my buddy Cases on the phones yesterday already for like 2 hours. First thoughts of "Will Spain ever get past Quarter Finals in our lifetime?" came up and that´s something considering he´s 33 and I´m 26!!! So instead of torturing myself a bit more, I´ve decided to quit on football... Haven´t checked the Football section of a newspaper in almost 3 days (record!!)... Let´s see how long it lasts. Bets accepted... :P

Other quick thoughts:

I´ll be in Düsseldorf for the weekend next week! Not for the World Cup but for a Rheinparty some of last years colleagues are organising, most notably Pau, Nacho, Jorgito and Dani Nokia... It´s gonna be cool. Last year it was wicked and we even "sold" the word "Chuleten" to a German bloke as a new trendy expression for meat. He even bought into it... Crazy night by all standards! "Zu Spät" song coming up for sure!!! "... doch eines Tages werd´ ich mich rächen..."

Then, I´m still due an update of the Frankfurt-Lautern Road Trip to follow this weekend (hopefully)...

Labels: The Ramblings

Bill Simmons making draft predictons for the Golden State Warriors and Rudy Gay from UCONN being their possible selection:

WHAT THEY WILL DO: Probably something much dumber ... you know, like pick another guy who looks good on paper and disappears in big games. On the bright side, maybe it was destiny for the Bay Area to have an NBA star named Gay.

Awesome!!!

Labels: The Ramblings

... Spain is out of the tournament! I'm absolutely devastated. Two consecutive losses on the big stage!! I'm in the "everything sux" mood. Too many questions with no real answers:

• Why in this f*cking world did we play like $hit in the second half?
• What was that sh*tty call, that led to France's second goal??? The refereeing has been such a travesty in this World Cup... It's beyond belief!! Henry dove like the damn f*cking ba$tard he is? Damn him!!!!!!!!!!! He's a b*tch!
• Why does always the other team seem to be luckier than Spain??? That second goal was a joke!!! It's science fiction that the ball actually went in!!
• Why did have to be France who beat us? Does it get any worse in terms of sports rivalry? I don't think so...
• Could anything cheer me up these days? Can't think of anything...
• Why did Luis Aragones take out Villa?!?!? WTF?!?!?!?
• Why is Vieira suck a prick???

Allright, I just hope England, Argentina or Italy, in this particular order win the tournament. If any of the other teams lifts the trophy on the 9th of July, the end of the World might be near as well...

I also feel sorry for my buddies (Nacho, Dani, Cheso and their boss Sanyu) who attended the game. At least the Spanish supporters showed some pride, which the players, who didn't even walk towards the stands, didn't!

Whatever, a big part of football died for me last night... Nothing makes much sense now, so talk to you another time!!!

Labels: Sports

Labels: Sports

Fan Park 1 in ´Lautern, a few hours, and 1 conga later. Picture featers Robert Huth look-a-like, if it wasn´t him after all... Still not sure!!!

"Angel" 1: Pancho flying

... Supergirls. "Green Tongue" and Jenny, who was cool because we went through some of the German classics from "Tausend mal berührt..." to "Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann...", songs you might only appreciate if a) You are German or b) You inexplicably started liking these song on one of your trips to the Oktoberfest, during your Erasmus year, etc. and for a reason you cannot explain, you end up playing'em in 95% of your parties... or c) you are so cheap you pretend liking NENA&co. in order to bump into a random German young lady at some random party somewhere in Deutschland...

"Angel" 2: no comments... His girlfriend begged him not to do it, but...

Ximo the Swan!!

Me being a bit of a traitor wearing a German bracelet. This was on Saturday morning. Got a bit carried away and exchanged my Spanish flag for it on Friday nioght :(

Summary of the Trip to follow tomorrow...

Labels: Sports

Here´s version 1 of my 2006 NBA Mock Draft (for Top-10 picks). I have to get myself more into the Draft but for now this should do. I´ve the Celtics picking the High School center but I wouldn´t rule out us trading down for Sergio... Well, here my picks:

1. TOR
LaMarcus Aldridge

2. CHI
Andrea Bargnani

3. CHA
Brandon Roy

4. POR
Adam Morrison

5. ATL
Tyrus Thomas

6. MIN
Rudy Gay

7. BOS
Patrick OBryant

8. HOU
Sergio Rodriguez

9. GSW
Cedric Simmons

10.SEA
Shelden Williams

More to follow soon...

Labels: Sports

Beautiful article on Len Bias, said to be one of greatest to play the game of basketball... even if he did not participate in one single NBA game. He died from heart failure, due to cocaine abuse, two days after being selected by the Celtics with the #2 pick in the ´86 draft.

Today, exactly 20 years from his death, many who saw him play those days still claim he has been the greatest ever, or that he would have been, had life given him a second chance... This one´s for you, LEN!! Rest in Peace.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=jackson/060619_bias

Labels: Sports

Dwayne Wade ruining Dirk's Birthday Party

Labels: Sports

The World Cup, just a bit of everything, for everyone... :D

Labels: A picture a day

Spain beat the Ukraine 4-0 yesterday. Easy game, in part thanks to the lame Ukranians, good win, some incredible goals, considering we´re talking about the always Worlc Cup haunted Spain, and a cool venue and city. Also sunny weather so it was about perfect. We went out until 3 so when I woke up this morning at 6:30 with the "Alcooohol, alcoooohol, alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, hemos venido a emborracharnos, el resultado nos da igual" chant I was about to jump out of te balcony...

Hard trip back to London Heathrow and straight to the office. Good service by DB today for a change! The Leipzig-Berlin track apparently is one of the fastest train tracks in Europe, or that´s at least what two Swiss guys told us on our way to Leipzig. Funny guys and they made the typical Swiss "yeah coming to the Third World..." joke when they spoke of Germany which, as always, was fun! Germans, perfect target for random jokes..

In the plane I had a conversation with someone after about 8 years since my last one... All of a sudden that really cute Polish young lady started talking to me, so our conversation went on for most of the trip which was cool for many reasons:

1) she was the hottest chick in the plane, by far...

2) it´s always fun to talk to someone from a country that you don´t know much about

3) Kataryna, her name, actually turned out to be a nice chatter

4) she looked like Uma Thurman, just about 10 years younger

As I was telling, I got the flu last weekend which led to two the following exchanges:

First one with my boss on Monday:

Him:"You sure you´re OK?"

me:"Yeah man, everything´s fine, I´m still a bit f*cked but getting better..."

Him:"You sure you will be able to travel tomorrow?"

me:"... pretty sure"

Him:"Man you look horrible"

me (thinking): "yeah man, thanks for ruining my Mpnday morning even more..."

On Tuesday when he saw me his comment was "oh, at least you look human today!"

Second one with my ex CECO class-mate Sue who was in London last week and whom I by chance met getting out of the tube at my station. I mean, I knew she was coming here, but come across here randmoly at 9pm, what are the odds? Which should remind everyone not to do sh*t and think you won´t be spotted... I´m just warning you here. Well, the conversation was more or less like this:

Her: "Hey you coming out finally"

me: "agh, cough, I have the flue"

Her: "Oh, and I wanted to introduce you to my Czech friend and some other people"

me: "oooooooh :( that´s too bad"

Her: "yeah, I´ve told her I was gonna introduce her to a tall and dark haired Spaniard" (me, just in case...)

me: "Uffffffffff, Susana, don´t tell mi this stuff about your hot mate when I´m sick..."

Her: "he´s not coming he is ill"

Czech in the background: "tell him we´ll just make him feel better"

me: "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..." :.(

What else happend, oh yeah, Swiss drew 0-0 against a sorry French team. A pitty the Swiss didn´t have the guts to give i a more risky go when they were in absolute control of the game from the 60th minute. The French team is well passed its prime and you could even see Zidane(!) arguing with the likes of Gallas and Thuram on the pitch... Still, Switzerland coould have gotten more out of this game if they had someone to put the ball into the net upfront. Senderos was excellent on te Swiss side, where Barnetta and Magnin caused most of the trouble...

Not much more for now, I´m falling asleep... Laterrrr

Labels: London

Labels: Sports

I could´t post yesterday but my guess was Miami in 6. The Heat didn´t look too good to me yesterday. No game plan, taking bad shots, I don´t know, there were stretches where they just couldn´t figure out how to score. I guess having Jason Williams and GP runing the show doesn´t help much either...
Well, I just hope they still manage to turn the series around, mostly for Antoine Walker, who, as some of you might know, has been my favorite player since joining the league. Come on Antoine show everyone some of your old Celtics Pride and go for the ring!!

Labels: Sports

Watch out for the last performer!!! Crazy!!!

Labels: Random stuff

Just check this link. This happened this week in a friendly game between Poland and Colombia!!!

Unbelievable!!!

Labels: Sports

Labels: London

Not much action in my blog as of lately... Been home a few days and now work is killing me!! specially yesterday, when I was about to throw my laptop out of the window... I'll be posting again this weekend, hopefully.

Interesting things that have happened these past few days:

- The Bank Holiday weekend in Madrid was cool. It's always nice going back home. Met some friends, partied a bit (a bit too much on Friday...), the usual stuff... The weather was sunny and hot, "same" as in the UK basically... Oh, and the first night, in the first Club, there was a guy who resembled the new look of a botoxed Axl Rose. Aweeeeeeeeesome!!!!!!! Too bad our ol' Axl actually lookes a bit f*cked these days :(


- Pernia replaces del Horno on the national team, that's awesome!!! Del Horno is overrated and his defensive effort is not even average (just ask Mourinho...). Now lets hope Luis doesn't decide to start Antonio Lopez as our left back. Then again, Pernia is just about to join our World Cup squad like 12 days before we face the Ukraine in our first game, which makes me wonder why we don't have a stand-by list as England, for example... Especially considering players ALWAYS get injured before a big tournament! Whatever...

- NBA Playoffs still underway... What the Suns are doing (2-2 vs Dallas) with a 6-man rotation, no big men and playing high speed every game, is beyond reality!!! These guys must be about to collapse collectively any time soon... I just hope they can keep up with their amazing run a few more games, though. Put my $$$ on them to win the title some time back, in August'05.
By the way, anyone missing Amare? Hmmmmmmm...
And then there's Dwyane Wade, who's shooting 0.666(!!!) on the Pistons in a Conference Finals!!! ... And he's averaging 30 points per game. That is SICK!

- This thing about taking planes at around 7am is sh*t. Second time in the past few weeks, last Tuesday... First I almost missed my flight because BA said they had closed the gate when I arrived at the check-in desk. Yeah sure... Then the early morning delkays du jour. What the f*ck?!?!?! How can be delays on the first planes that basically leave an airport in the early morning? Not to mention that the flights to and from London are always packed!!! At least the BA stuff is cool!!! Like'em!!!

- Switzerland 1 - Italy 1. Very young lineup by Kobi Kuhn... Still, decent performance by the soon-to-beat-France-in-the-opening-game Swiss team. That'd be a shocker! :)

More to follow...

Labels: The Ramblings