Preliminary reports are that there was under 9% turnout for the election today. That's pretty weak. Altho (according to Sarah) not as bad as the lowest on record which was down around 5%. Still not sure what was actually decided in this. I think only the top two vote-getters for mayor go on to the general election. But since the incumbent mayor got over 80% in the primary, I don't think there's much chance of anything major changing by next month. Like I said, for city council, it was "choose three" out of seven. The top three were the two incumbents and the local publisher guy. This probably tells us something about the values of incumbency and name-recognition in a low turnout election.
Watching the Brazil v. Mexico friendly right now. El Tri holding an early 1-0 lead. Brazil, of course, looking dangerous. Every once in a while, they'll go to replay on some stunning bit of play by Brazil. Which always just seems to be tossed off casually in the run of play. So far it hasn't produced anything but shots skied over the net (oh, wait, there's one straight at the keeper). Anyway, viva Mexico!
Semi-related to my post last week about patenting a sammich and totally fascinating story about the now-iconic Keep Calm and Carry On poster. The stuff about the jerk trying to trademark it is pretty interesting but what I really loved is the history stuff, Shorter version: the poster, which seems so emblematic of the British homefront in WWII was actually never released to the public.

Durham Bulls 2011 season came to an end tonight, on the road in Columbus. They were swept in the playoffs. Wednesday night's game was close, w/ Bulls losing 3-0. Last night they got crushed 8-3. I didn't really think they were gonna go on the road and sweep 3 in Columbus but I was hoping they'd at least win a game and make it interesting. Oh well. Columbus did have the best record in the IL this season and based on the two playoff games we saw in Durham, they were the better team. I think I saw this on Watching Durham Bulls Baseball so it's not original w/ me but I agree that the Bulls seemed to be missing speed (esp. in the outfield) as well as offense in general. Losing Brandon Guyer and Desmond Jennings Brandon Guyer down to Tampa put a hurting on the Bulls playoff chances.
Still, it was a good season. Fifth straight year in the playoffs. We're pretty spoiled here. Some year (hopefully not any time soon), they'll end up sucking and the summer won't be nearly as much fun. Sarah was wondering how come the Bulls had done so well when they didn't seem to on the nights we were there. I don't remember them losing more than winning but they may have had a win percentage below their yearly total for the games we attended. Obviously that's an artifact of the small sample size. Well, either that or we're jinxes. Hope it's not that.
See ya next year Wool E!
And now it's time to focus on the Rays perhaps quixotic drive to catch the Red Sox or Yankees for the wild card. Hey, after beating the Sawx tonight, they're only 5.5 back. It could happen.
Also meanwhile, just as I started following Man City (I'm all for plucky underdogs but I also like to root for teams that have an actual chance of winning something) they sack their CEO for sending a dickish email to the mom of one of their players mocking her battle with cancer. Or something. I found it somewhat confusing. More details here. Makes it a little hard to warm up to a rooting interest. But Arsenal are clearly in disarray and I still cannot muster any enthusiasm for Chelsea. I was thinking that QPR might be this year's Blackpool, the plucky underdog to root for even though they have no chance just because they are a plucky underdog (tm). But given how rough things are getting at Everton (money woes compounded by injuries to key players), they might actually fit the plucky underdog role.

Following up on a couple of recent posts...
After doing some more reading up on EPL, it's becoming clear that this is almost definitely not the year to start rooting for Everton. They're operating under major financial pressure. Lots of opinion that they don't really have the players to make a serious challenge and don't have the money to do anything about that. At least it is a good year to stop rooting for Arsenal. Since Fabregas has gone to Barça, my interest level in Arsenal is way down. As it the quality of the team.
Guest-hosting Divaville Lounge yesterday, I opened with several sets of booze songs. It's post time! Anyway, one of them was that Fats Waller song I posted here, "Abercrombie had a Zombie." And I said on the air that I was surprised that a song recorded in the early 1940s (it's on a Waller comp called Last Years: 1940-1943) would mention the zombie cocktail, which I always associated with the late 40s into 50s fad for all things Polynesian. Tropical, tiki, exotica, etc. So big ups to my friend Kevin who passed along the info that the zombie was apparently the novelty cocktail hit of the 1939 World's Fair.

i always wake up at the crack of ice...

So that's one of the craziest things I've seen lately. I'd honestly have expected the hot baguette vending machine to have been invented in Japan. So, vive le France, I guess.
In other news, here's an interesting slide show behind the scenes at a Vegas buffet pastry kitchen.
In other, other news, I may have (once again) picked the wrong team to back in the Premier League, as Everton started their season with a loss to just-up-into-the-division QPR. Oh well.
Don't think there's any other other other news. Or if there is, I'm not remembering it just at the moment.

Just finished watching USMNT win easily, if not all that impressively, over Canada in their first match in Gold Cup. Tim Howard wasn't tested much in goal but he had a few nice moments. I mentioned last month that I was considering rooting for Everton next EPL season mostly cos Howard's their goalie. Which might lead one to wonder why I didn't mention Fulham. Two things, really. One, I'm not much of a Dempsey fan. Two (and this is a more significant sticking point), Fulham is owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed. And a man's gotta have some standards in life...

Speaking of CONCACAF, I've been trying to keep up with the current round of corruption allegations going on w/ FIFA. Here's a pretty good overview from the Guardian. Altho by halfway thru even that started to feel like trying to recap the entire run of General Hospital or something. So, viva el presidente, I guess. Nothing like an unopposed election to hold the standard of democracy aloft. Any time there's photos of suitcases full o[ cash involved... well, that's just never a good luck.
In other news, I loved this rant about "organized" atheism that was on Balloon Juice over the weekend.

good times...

Today ended up being okay, altho it started off looking like it was gonna be as Monday-ish as all hell. Weekend was good. Sarah and I finally made it to the gun safety class. Back in like February I got a 2 for 1 deal from one of those deal sites (I think it was Living Social) for a firearm training class and range time. So (sensibly it must be said), before they'll let us stand around and shoot off live ammo, we had to go to a three hour class on how not to kill ourselves. I'm being a smartass. The class was really good. The instructor was quite good. Covered all the basics, reinforced points that should be obvious and taught me a bunch of stuff I hadn't ever really thought about before. Which makes sense since pretty much everything I know about guns I learned from Mythbusters. I think the class comes with an hour of range time but apparently, things are pretty booked up right now (no surprise -- there were 18 people in the class on Saturday) so it might be a while before we get to go blast holes in paper targets.
In other news, Copa Oro (CONCACAF tourney) started up yesterday. Pre-tourney consensus seems to be that it's US or Mexico most likely to win. Watched Mexico v. El Salvador last night and altho the first half was close (scoreless at the half), Mexico came out and sliced them up right after halftime. 3 goals in about 15 min. and they went on to win 4-0. Was surprised not to read much about Honduras, seeing as how they made it to World Cup last year. Also surprised that several people tipped Costa Rica as possible spoiler. They're only ranked in the 50s by FIFA, altho apparently they've done well in previous Copa Oro tourneys. Of course, they opened by beating the snot outta Cuba (5-0), so maybe those folks were right to sleep on los Ticos. Honduras plays at 11 tonight so I'll get a chance to see what they look like. Bummed that the early game tonight is only on a network that we don't get -- even tho Jamaica v. Grenada is not exactly a world-class matchup. USMNT starts tomorrow night. Group A (Mexico's group) is actually playing their next round of games in Charlotte. But it's Thursday night. Even if we wanted to pony up the major coin for the tickets, we'd end up having to spend the night in Charlotte (I don't really feature a 3-4 hour drive starting after 11pm and 4 hours watching futbol in the early June NC heat) and miss work on Friday and this isn't a good week for either of us to do that. Plus, honestly, I can follow the games better on TV, even on Spanish language TV.

Today was the final Sunday in the Premier League season. Still haven't found a team I can 100 percent get behind. Was following Arsenal for a while. Mostly cos they've got Cesc Fabregas (from Spain's national team). But he was hurt most of the year and rumor has him leaving. Maybe that's why I didn't click with the Gunners. Or maybe it was something else. Either way, it's fine, as Arsenal had a craptastic end to their season. Was also following Blackpool for a while. But their plucky underdog charm wore thin in pretty short order. And now they've been relegated (no doubt all my fault for being a fair-weather fan). Maybe I'll try following Everton next year. They've got US goalie Tim Howard in net. That'll surely make for a frustrating season -- sorta like deciding to root for the Padres or Dolphins or Hawks. They might be good but their unlikely to be competing for a championship at the end of the year. Still, I guess that's what you gotta deal with if you don't want to be a front-runner or bandwagon jumper.

Watched the Mexico v. Paraguay friendly over the weekend. It was only showing on Univision (as far as we could tell) so we missed out on any commentary and play by play. My ability to pick up on futbol Spanish is pretty limited. Still, it was an enjoyable match. El Tri tore it up in the first half. I think they kinda parked the bus in the second half, altho none of the commentary I read called them out for that specifically. Paraguay was ranked higher than Mexico going into the game, I suspect largely based on having done better in South Africa last year. But they left two of their best players (inc. Roque Santa Cruz) off the team. They were both offensive players but the consensus seemed to be is that Paraguay's inability to generate any offense put too much pressure on their defense which allowed Mexico to slice them up (3-0 at the half).
One thing we both noticed was the presence of vuvuzelas in the crowd. The game was played in Oakland but it was basically a home game for Mexico. I've mostly been watching EPL where they've banned vuvuzelas. So I wasn't aware that they'd caught on. I'm actually a vuvuzela fan but Sarah's on record as having no interest in attending any live sporting event at which there's a risk of vuvuzela activity. Mexico's actually going to be playing a match in Charlotte in June. But it's a Thursday night so even if they were playing the game in a cone of silence, we wouldn't be able to go. I also heard that Man U is playing Barca in DC sometime over the summer. That should be a killer game. Altho I'm not sure that I'd be able to follow a futbol match live. Even w/o commentary on TV, the camera's still point to where the important stuff is going on usually. And if they miss something, there's instant replay.

Can't remember where I came across these but they're fun: early 20th century futbol postcards. Retro-riffic.

In other news, I'm actually NOT having to work today. And that's fun. Plus the Penzeys store in Raleigh is now open. Way geeked about that. So we'll be field tripping over to check them out.