Hello,
The Women's World Cup kicked off today for the United States, the USA won 2-0 over a tough North Korea PRK team. The USA gets a big victory on it's way towards hopefully getting to the final 16. At that point it's elimination games. The group round games can end in ties, but obviously the elimination games can't. The USA has two more matches in the group round, if they win one of their final two they'll probably advance to the Round of 16.
Thanks to wikipedia.org this is the format of the FIFA Women's World Cup: "The competition takes place over the course of three weeks. In the group stage, 16 teams seeded into four groups (A,B,C,D) compete against each other in a round-robin tournament. In the knockout phase, the top two teams from each group advance to the quarterfinals, a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. The winner of Group A plays the runner-up of Group B, The winner of Group B plays the runner-up of Group A, etc.
The winners of the four quarterfinal games move on to the semifinal matches, which determine the contestants for the championship game. The losing semifinalists compete to determine third place."
The United States, Sweden, Colombia and North Korea are the 4 teams in Group C. On July 2nd, this Saturday, the USA plays Colombia at 12:00pm ET. Colombia lost to Sweden 1-0 earlier today. The USA then plays against Sweden on July 6th. In all likelihood by that point, the USA and Sweden and will probably have wrapped up their places in the knockout round. That game may be nothing more than a spirited practice. However if for no other reason, this game will feature two countries that have some of the most beautiful women in the world.
The name of the this blog is themusicaddict blog. Originally my goal was to write mostly about music and other entertainment. However I absolutely love sports. I love the passion, the competition and the dramatic stories that come from that. However my coverage of sports has probably overwhelmed my coverage of music. While I'll continue to cover sports, I'm going to try and tip the balance back to more of a music blog.
Having said that, um Frank McCourt is back in the news again. A judge is going to rule today whether the Dodgers will be able to go into bankruptcy. In something that will shock no one, MLB thinks that the Dodgers going into bankruptcy is a bad idea.
Somehow the players have been able to concentrate on their games. Although the club is not very healthy financially, the players don't have to worry about whether they are going to get paid or not. If McCourt can't cover their June 30th payroll, in all likelihood MLB will step in and cover the payroll. Still with so much uncertainty surrounding the team, it's hard to see how the Dodgers players can completely focus on the games. Somehow they've been able to.
With this teams lineup, they probably weren't going to make the playoffs. So their less than mediocre play should surprise no one. However they've now won two games in a row, including yesterday's game 15-0. Obviously that's fools good, but it's good to see the Dodgers have a break out game like that. The Dodgers finished with 25 hits and they were led by Matt Kemp (who else?). He had 4 more hits, 2 more RBIs and one more home run. He now has 62 RBIs and 22 home runs on the season. If he was actually playing for a good team, he would be an early favorite for MVP. But then again I'd hate to see how bad the Dodgers would be if they didn't have Matt Kemp.
There are all these other sports related things going on, but I'll spare you for the most part. The NFL and the NFL Players Association are meeting in the Minneapolis area for 4 straight days of negotiations. According to espn.com: "NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith met for labor talks in Minnesota on Tuesday without players or owners present". It seems the sides are getting closer together on a deal, but nothing is certain at this point. Some people are projecting about July 15th will be the cut off point for when there will be games lost. Even if both sides reach a deal, there are still a lot of things to do before they can start playing games. There are still court cases to work through, signing rookies and free agents etc.
Again I maintain my lockout thoughts. I hope there are games missed, both sides of this lockout need to be humbled. They need to see that people can live without them very easily. With no NFL, it won't change my life a whole lot. I'll find something else to do on Sunday afternoons and write about different things in my blog. I will focus on things that are much more important. Actually my life might be better without the NFL. Also there will be the superior product of college football around.
Meanwhile on July 1st, the NBA owners will probably officially lockout the players. It seems the NBA's lockout actually might be longer than the NFL lockout. In the NBA the two sides are seemingly even further apart than in the NFL. It would be too bad to waste one of the best NBA playoffs in a long time. But again when greed is your #1 deciding factor, maybe a lockout wouldn't be so bad.
After those amazing playoffs I'm excited about NBA basketball again. I was even looking forward to watching some Jazz games! I'm still a huge Jazz fan, but I've lost a lot of enthusiasm for them over the last few years. From players who have constant injury problems to not putting a very competitive team on the floor, to the sameness of the way the team played for so many years. Who knows what a lockout will do to my enthusiasm? Obviously I'm not going to gain excitement for a league who cares so little they aren't even playing.
I watched "Catfish" and the first two episodes of "Fringe" last night. I'll probably write about both of those things, but I'm going to let my thoughts marinate. Tonight is the finale of "The Voice". I haven't watched any of the episodes and probably won't watch the finale tonight. However I hear one of the 4 finalists is a fellow Utahan. That's Dia Frampton from St. George, Utah.
Here's her singing the Kanye West song, "Heartless". Of course Kris Allen used this same song to propel his way to an "American Idol" victory. I'm not a big Kris Allen fan, but his version of that song was simply amazing. Frampton's version isn't quite as good.
I'm not a big fan of this song, but here Frampton is singing Christina Perri's "Jar of Hearts":
The following comment was sent to me via e-mail. The commenter had trouble sending a comment as they didn't want to sign up for a blogger account. Can't blame them for that. I used to have my e-mail address on my blog, but I started getting advertisements. So I deleted my e-mail address from my blog. If you want to e-mail me a comment, here's my e-mail address:
ichoosetobecougarblue@yahoo.com. You can also continue to comment the usual way. Typically one blogger.com user comments on other blogger.com accounts.
Before I add other videos, I'd like to respond to a comment about my blog that was e-mailed to me. This is the comment verbatim: "We actually thought "No Strings Attached" was pretty good. Should it win some awards? Absolutely not. But it gave us exactly what we expected and wanted from it. One of the many things i love about Natalie Portman is that she doesn't take her self too seriously and is willing to do different types of roles.
From what i have seen about Johnny Depp, he seems like a pretty good guy and unlike many others in the entertainment industry doesn't seem to be motivated purely by money."
I understand "No Strings Attached" is a movie that gives you what you expect. That's how "Bad Teacher" was for me. With "No Strings Attached" though it's just a mediocre movie at best. As to the comments about Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp, my complaint had nothing to do with them. Natalie Portman is one of my all-time favorite actresses. I loved her in "V for Vendetta" and many other movies. I also think Johnny Depp is one of our best actors working. However he's been in some terrible movies, I didn't even mention "The Tourist". My comment is more towards the crap that Hollywood rolls out each year, the actors can only act in movies that are made. The blame goes to Hollywood, not the actors.
Here's some songs:
I'm going to go to "Electric Avenue", won't you join me?
The following song is so good and catchy, explaining why it's on my iPod over 20 years after it was released. Robert Palmer is "Simply Irresistible":
I don't think anyone will have an "Objection" to a tango with Shakira:
Now it's time for some religion, here's INXS preaching about "Original Sin":
Kiss' "Detroit Rock City":
This is one of those songs I listen to and think I'll probably like it. The song gets to its amazing second half. At that point I completely give in to the charms of this song. This is Arcade Fire's "No Cars Go":
themusicaddict
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