Back from a hiatus

It's been a while since my last post. Don't really know why I haven't but it's probably because I watch Euro2008 football at nights after the kids are down. It's been a fun tournament, although my underdog team, Croatia, screwed themselves against Turkey. I am still stunned at how Croatia lost the game literally in the last minute. It really sucked! I was up until 3am last night just being brooding.

We had a great morning today. Nice hearty breakfast and off to the playground with the kids. FoML1 is really a happy kid and I love watching her play with others. She's feeling more at ease with her English and can keep up a decent conversation. FoML2 is still doing a great impersonation of a sack of basmati. I've been trying to get her to stand on surfaces other than her dad. She actually planted both feet on the park bench today. I'm calling that progress even if it lasted less than a minute.

Euro2008

In case you don't follow soccer, Euro2008 tournament started yesterday, with the Swiss hosting the Czech Republic. I was surprised to find out that all the games are being carried by ESPN, which means I can turn on my TV and catch a real game of football for the next 3 weeks or so. The only kink in this plan is the fact that we don't have cable. We haven't had cable since we moved from San Francisco. And the only reason we got cable in San Francisco was because the World Cup was on in Japan/Korea and I had to tape the games to watch after work.

Being a Verizon DSL subscriber, I have access to ESPN360 which lets me watch these games live on my computer for free. It works fine, but the resolution is crappy and I have a 15" laptop monitor. Not exactly the same experience as watching it in HD on a 42". On a tangential note: HDTV was created for watching sports. Period.

Yesterday's match recap: Czech 1 - Switzerland 0 and Portugal 2 - Turkey 0. I took great pleasure in watching Portugal kick some Turkish ass. Of course Ronaldo is one of the best players out there and Portugal is the European Brazil. Great football, but a letdown when it comes to tournament elimination. Although I thought they had a good chance in 2004 but Greece played well above their heads.



I put this YouTube thing in there just to see how it works.

Today Austria, the other host of the tournament, takes on Croatia then Germany and Poland play what should be a great game.