Bend it like Beckham (your contract that is)

Being a week away from the Seattle Sounders FC home opener, I’ve got soccer on the brain. I’m eagerly anticipating the inaugural season of the latest expansion team to join the MLS. Seattle is a great soccer town and it’s about time we finally got our own MLS team. It turns out the timing couldn’t have been any better as the Sonics have left, the Mariners and Seahawks are doing fairly dismal, we have a great team of talent and high hopes to enjoy.

 

One of the great opportunities having the Sounders FC provides is to have lots of other soccer stars come to play in our stadium and to get to see these players in person for 90 minutes. David Beckham is a great soccer player and I’ve always wanted to see him play in person but figured there were slim chances of that. When he joined the LA Galaxy over a year ago, those chances suddenly jumped off the page as we were getting our own expansion team in Seattle. It was only a matter of time for a home game hosting the Galaxy that would most likely bring Beckham to our stands.

 

Unfortunately, it would seem that fate has thrown that chance into the wind. Sounders are set to host the Galaxy on 5/10/09, it will be without David Beckham who will be continuing to play for AC Milan. I’m not sure why the Galaxy ever “loaned” him out in the first place it’s a bit of a slap in the face if you ask me. If Beckham wasn’t ready to fully commit to the MLS because of World Cup 2010 goals then he shouldn’t have done it. LA offered him too much cash and gave him too much leeway in his contract that now they have this odd situation that makes their front office look to be getting a raw deal.

 

 

This is the 2nd time I’ve missed out on seeing Beckham play in Seattle. In 2004, Qwest field played host to a Manchester United vs. Celtic match that was a great game to see, however at the end of the season prior to that year, Beckham left Manchester United to play for Real Madrid.

 

It seems like Beckham will never play here, which I guess is fine. While I used to actually give it thought, we have our own team of stars now and Beckham just seems like an over paid NFL player. All he needs to do is blame his team mates on his playing performance and he could be T.O.

The Legend of the Seeker Continues to Disappoint

I have a feeling that for many fans of the Sword of Truth series watching the TV show “Legend of the Seeker” is like seeing  a car crash. It’s horrible to see, but you can’t help but not look away. At least that is how I feel and why I continue to watch. I guess there is a part of me that keeps hoping each episode that they will some how fix some of the major plot problems and complete inaccuracies they have presented in the series so far.

I still don’t understand why they settled on the concept of the series. Instead of using the books for more of a guideline on how to tell the story of Richard and his ever changing quest of being the seeker, they instead chose to take the universe created in the books and then create other stories that never happened in the book series. This format lends itself much better to be told as a prequel or rather taking place in some other timeline than when Richard and Kahlan are adventuring in the Midlands and beyond.

 

The last episode “Remnant” (Episode 13 of the 1st season) sort of had that quality to it, telling the history of a previous Seeker and his confessor. They did a good job of creating something that was believable in the universe of the history of the Midlands, however, the need to tie it together with Richard, Kahlan, and Zedd was unnecessary and just made for more discrepancies between the series and the books. About the only good thing in the latest episode was Bridget Reagan’s cleavage, it practically should have had a credit in the opening sequence.

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Speaking of Bridget, she and Craig Horner who play the two leads of the series can’t act themselves out of a paper bag. But considering the type of show, that really isn’t too surprising and I didn’t expect much out of either of them from the beginning. They somehow managed to not meet my already low expectations. The delivery of dialogue is weak and uninspired. Horner lacks the depth to play a complicated character such as Richard. Richard has many sides to his personality and yet Horner only ever really shows one, maybe two if placed in an appropriate situation in an episode’s storyline. Reagan delivers all of her lines with the same monotone flatness completely lacking emotion most of the time.

 

Bruce Spence who plays Zedd is one of the better characters of the series. The only flaw I see in his performance is that he’s too serious in playing Zedd. In the books Zedd comes across more whimsical, with a very distinctive style and his own funny quirks and habits. There was only one episode that partially explored some of Zedd’s funnier traits and they should delve deeper into his character if they want to help the series.

 

Based on the preview of the next episode, I’m already cringing at more murder to the storyline. Apparently Richard will be heading home to Hartland (which he never returns to in his fight against Darken Rahl in the first books) and for some reason is dressed as a D’Haran soldier for all if not most of the episode. A gar will make an appearance again which hasn’t happened since the first or second episode and I have a funny feeling Richard will make friends with it and call it Gratch.

Mastermind

Just found this little jewel and it’s way too fun to put down. Mastermind is a great little flash strategy game that puts you as an evil overlord who builds up a criminal empire complete with your very own minions to do your bidding. It’s a lot of fun and has some campy humor to go along with the solid game. Not too terribly complicated, Mastermind is a take on the Dungeon Keeper type of strategy game that makes you the evil doer. Evil Genius was a less successful version of the game that came out a while back. Good concept but didn’t really follow through in the game. I’d write a little more but I’d rather go play some more. Enjoy!