I'm a Soccer Fan now, errr Football fan...errr I'm confused.

So I have always been a sports fan.  Anyone that knows me that I can talk at length about any of the major American sports and even some of the ones that aren't played here.  I can tell you about the great NBA teams from the 70s as well as reciting all the great Jordan era moments.  From the years 1987-1998, I consistently watched Jordan vs whomever while doing my homework during the week.  If you want to know why Willie Mays is my favorite baseball player or why the Brooklyn Dodgers make me wish I was born decades ago.  Joe Montana, Steve Young, and Jerry Rice are my all time Football (American version) players of all time.  Some of my most favorite memories is watching football with my dad in our apartment in Honolulu.  (In fact, we even watched this year's Super Bowl together in Manila just like old times, which is one of my most favorite moments during the trip.)  He liked the San Francisco 49ers so of course that was my team throughout my childhood until I moved to Seattle (where we have our own team).  I remember how emotional it got during the Seattle Seahawks' run to the Super Bowl in 2005, and how I drank a whole bottle of champagne when they lost unfairly to Pittsburgh.  I really hate those Steelers up to now.  NFL, NBA, MLB, college, you name it we can talk all night.   

But last week I truly became a soccer fan.  I attended the league debut of the Seattle Sounders FC vs New York Red Bulls (what a terrible name), and what an experience.  I have been to countless sporting events:  Professional and college football, NBA, baseball, even hockey (not very impressed).  I must say that a live soccer match is probably the best experience so far.  It was the first soccer match that I have ever been to and something the city has been anticipating for over 18 months.  The hype definitely delivered as evidenced by the accompanying YouTube video.  

I have always liked soccer even though I never understood the obsession.  Most of my experiences have been tangental and never direct.  I never had a rooting interest in a team nor did I grow up with the culture.  I remember being excited about the 1994 World Cup that took place in the US, and then disappointment in a Final that ended in penalty kicks.  I remember visiting France in the summer of 1999 and the streets of Paris celebrating winning the World Cup...from the year before.  It was really loud.  There was disbelief when I was following the US Men's team in the 2002 World Cup advancing all the way to the quarterfinal round and losing only 1-0 to Germany.  I arranged 2006 World Cup viewing parties at 6am as the games took place in Germany.  (side note: drinking beer and eating BBQ at 7am is ridiculously awesome).  

In the last few years, I have really started to follow some of the club teams around the world in addition to the international matches.  I really love the English Premier League especially since Francesca is from there, and that a lot of the games are shown on the soccer channel here.  I developed a particular fondness of Chelsea because of the blue jerseys and Didier Drogba.

Now, I have my own team.  And it feels so much more visceral and more immediate, more life and death.  There is nothing in sports like rooting for your own hometeam and being in the middle of a crazy fanbase.  I felt that during the 2001 Mariners' run in baseball, 2005 for both the Seahawks and Sonics in the NFL and NBA respectively.  But this Sounders experience seems much much different.  This is only the first game.  Seattle fans are naturally subdued and reserved as is the Northwest nature.  This is the first game of the season and the place was going completely bonkers!  And soccer in person is remarkedly different than watching it on TV.  You can see all the plays developing earlier and how "small" the field really is on the player level.  Plus all the chanting, singing, and celebrations with strangers that I don't even know make it so much better than any sporting event I have ever been to.  We stood up for the entire match!  As my friend told me, this chair is a "coat rack, nothing more".

Sorry this is generally incoherent.  It has been almost a week and I still cannot wrap my head around this night.  I know, I know, sports is just sports, right?  It doesn't matter as much as the economy or terrorism or almost everything in life.  But you know what?  I was never under any allusion that sports is bigger than what it just is.  The best thing is that we the fans feel like we really own this team and they represent us.  Maybe that is all that matters.

Back Home?

I will write more about my trip to the Philippines.But I will say this.I have not been this homesick in regards to the Philippines since I was a child.  I really had to fight back emotions. I really did not want to come home. Well, I don't even really know where home is now.

I had a wonderful time.  I will write more later.  Just getting over jetlag and dealing with working again!

Song of the Day

So yeah I guess we have snow0

So we have a blizzard here in Seattle

The Dream Fight

Tonight is the big fight: Pacquiao-De La Hoya in Las Vegas. I am watching it over at a friends house. I will be rooting for Pacquiao of course but I don't think he will win. Ok, ok I take that back. I don't think it is likely that he will win, but the great variable is Oscar De La Hoya.

I've watched matches of De La Hoya since the mid-90s, and he is above everything an extremely technical and accurate boxer. He seems to excel at destroying an opponents' defense and picking apart someone until they have nothing left. I have seen it time and time again that when De La Hoya is focused and determined there is nothing that can stop him. However, I have seen several fights where either he is uncomfortable or not aggressive enough. In the past few years, the invincibility of the Golden Boy has definitely faded. He reminds me of another technical fighter that was prone to lapses in ability, Lennox Lewis. Lewis, boxing fans will remember, was knocked out by a relative unknown, Hassan Rahman. He had a tendency to be either overconfident or to look past his opponent. I feel that De La Hoya has that same tendency.

Pacquiao will be who Pacquiao is: aggressive, fast, and relentless. He has certainly improved a lot over the last 10 fights, but he was extremely raw when he debuted on the worldwide stage. It almost seemed that he has no style and no strategy. His strategy was to hit the other guy a lot of times; tactics be damned. Recently though, he is starting to really become scary. His trainer, Freddie Roach, has taught him to tone down his attacks, maneuver better, throw combinations. Pacquiao's wild style, the tornado of punches is a bit more restrained. I think he still takes way too many punches, but you have to respect his bravery and relentless push. The one thing that Pacquiao knows is how to take a punch.

De La Hoya has the reach, the weight, the pedigree, and even the technical skills. The smart money is on the Golden Boy, and his experience....Ugh, forget what I am saying. I absolutely can't stand De La Hoya. His preening, his overconfidence, his Hilary Clinton-like ability to be completely disingenuous. Pacquiao is my guy. I've loved his career since the beginning. His battles with Erik Morales and Barrera were epic. Heck, I'd love this boxer even if I weren't Filipino. Pacquiao in 8 rounds.

The great thing about Pacquiao is that he has the same tenacity that the great ones like Jack Dempsey and Joe Frazier had. He really is relentless. He keeps coming and coming. I wonder sometimes how long his career will be as his ages slows down the speed and fury that he has now. As I stated before he really can take a punch. If you ever watch a highlight video on Youtube, you'll see a lot of devastating punches the he inflicts and absorbs. I think the fight tonight will be decided in the first two rounds. It won't end in two rounds but the first time Pacquiao shrugs off a lethal De La Hoya patented left hook, the Golden boy will realize that this is no ordinary fighter. One would have to drive a Kenworth truck straight through Pacquiao's defense to knock him down, and even then he will still keep coming. If the fight evolves to a street fight and De La Hoya gets away from the technical aspect, it will be Pacquiao's night to lose.

The biggest question mark will be whether or not Pacquiao's power will come with him as he moves up in weight. As demonstrated in the David Diaz fight, the power is still there at 135 lbs. Diaz's dismantling at the hands of the Mexicutioner (Pacquiao's awesome nickname) was a sight to behold. It is hard to imagine that this is the same fighter that started his career at 106 lbs. His power and speed has consistently followed him throughout his career. When Pacquiao's furious combination hits De La Hoya for the first time, take note of the Golden Boy's reaction. If he backs down and is staggered, Pacquiao will be victorious. De La Hoya doesn't like getting hurt and is not a brawler. He will back down.

I really do feel sorry for De La Hoya because he has everything to lose and nothing to gain in this fight. If he wins, the public will remark that he essentially beat a smaller fighter. If he loses, his legeacy will be tarnished and his reputation for being soft and delicate solidified. If Pacquiao wins, the sky is the limit. We will become the face of boxing and it will be momentuous night in the history of the sweet science.

Blade Runner

I finally saw my first Blu-Ray movie today, and I watched the immortal classic Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford. I know it is kind of weird to consider Blade Runner a "classic", but the movie was made in 1984 and is 26 years old.

(For the folks that don't know what a Blu-ray disc is, it is essentially a DVD in high definition.)

The Blu-Ray version is like watching a completely new movie. The high-definition makes Blade Runner look like something that was released this past summer. The special effects, which in 1982, were ahead of its time, still holds up, even in the face of the plethora of big budget CGI movies. I have only seen the movie on various VHS tapes and cable showings, so I have never experienced it so clear and crisp. I wonder if even the original showings in the theaters looked like this.

Blade Runner takes place in 2019 Los Angeles where mankind has built androids that replicate human features but are more capable in doing manual labor. They are called replicants, and are built with only a 4 year lifespan to keep their numbers smaller. Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a type of detective that specializes in hunting down rogue replicants. He is a Blade Runner. On Wikipedia, part of the concept is attributed to the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick. Other adaptations of his work include Total Recall (great), Minority Report (awesome), and Next (terrible).

The replicants have developed their own emotions and are trying to extend their own life. During the movie, I actually felt sorry for the replicants as their are slowly gunned down by Deckard. Their own memories are impants and artificial so they feel that they down have their own identity. The movie calls to mind the common Sci-Fi theme of "what is real?" and "what makes us human?".

What makes this movie an absolute classic is the setting and atmosphere. It seems to be an essentially crime-noir genre film set in the future with androids. If that doesn't sound completely awesome, then I don't know what to say. Harrison Ford retains the charisma from Han Solo and makes Deckard an even more distant and cold version of himself. What you'll notice when watching this movie is that a lot of things in future Los Angeles is in Japanese. Remember that the movie was made in the early 1980s when America was fearing a global Japanese takeover, which obviously didn't pan out. I wonder if Blade Runner was made today if everyone would be speaking Chinese (ala Firefly).

My favorite special effect shot is when Deckard is waiting in his car, doing what crime-noir detectives do (evoking pathos). Suddenly, there is a police car that zooms from up above (in the future we have flying cars), and instructs him that he is in a restricted zone. Harrison Ford identifies himself as a Blade Runner and the policeman acknowledges and flies away. The car flying away let an indeliable image in my mind when I was a child. I actually believe that cars could do they, and my drawings were filled with numerous flying cars that operated in the same way.

The city of Blade Runner greatly inspired my imagination. Whenever I read a book or thought of my image of a futuristic city, I immediately thought of Blade Runner. It is weird, being the immense Star Wars geek that I am, I do not dream of Mos Eisley or Cloud City, but instead I wonder about living in the nitty gritty Los Angeles of 2019.

A Word on Civil Rights

With Obama’s historic win in the presidential election there was only joy for me last week with one caveat: the passage of Proposition 8 in California. Proposition 8 essentially banned gay marriage in the state of California. At first glance, the passage of the proposition seems like a service to democracy and a free society. By that I mean that the issue was put to a vote and the people of California spoke; gay marriage is not what the people want.

However, I am here to tell you that this does not serve the cause of America and it only shows that there is much progress that needs to be in regards to equality in this country. Civil Rights or any type of equality is something that should not be voted on by the people. The rights of the people is something inherent. It is inherent within the Constitution and it is inherent in the 14th Amendment. This would be akin to determining whether or not an ethnic group should have the same rights as the rest of the nation. It is plain discrimination.

The Civil Rights movement in the 60s actually did not have the majority support of the American people at the time. If the issue was whether or not blacks should have a vote and equality, any measures would not have passed. Jim Crow would have lived on and on. The US Government took it upon itself to finally adhere to the words of Thomas Jefferson that all men were created equal. Heck, it even took an unpopular amendment to the Constitution to ensure that women had the right to vote in 1919. Brown vs. The Board of Education was not a popular decision in the US, but it established the precedent that “separate is not equal”. The rule of the majority is not a tenement of Democracy. Yes, our officials are elected by a majority. But ours is a nation of laws and rights. The United States is not and should not be ruled by the mob.

Gay rights and moreover, gay marriage is something that should be decided by the courts. Our judicial system’s responsibility is to interpret the law. It is not a citizen’s obligation or right. Imagine if everything in this country was determined by a vote. The majority would subject the minority to their own rules and discrimination would run rampant. Rights and equality is not to be determined by a popular vote. The whole reason for the existence of the judicial system is to guarantee that the minority is not oppressed by the beliefs of the majority

For instance, Islam is largely unpopular here in the United States. Would it be right to instigate a vote to determine whether or not Muslims can practice their own religion? How about the Mormons? Amish? Quakers? Catholics?

Remember that the Founding Fathers dreamed of a nation that is subjected to laws, not passion. The right to marry is a universal right and any ban based solely on a person’s belief or demographic is wrong and against the will of the Constitution.

Now, this does not force anyone to welcome homosexuals into their religion or their personal lives. But the Constitution protects them and everyone against discrimination and bigotry. People are allowed to dislike blacks, whites, gays, Muslims, Catholics, etc, but no one is allowed to discriminate or to suppress rights inherent in the very document that founded our country. This is non-negotiable.