Mauricio Ingrassia has got to go. Seriously.

I am in a very sour mood today. Long Bech State's women soccer team had one of the biggest opportunities to win a postseason trophy...and they wasted it. They lost to UC Santa Barbara on penalties, 6-5, after drawing even 1-1 through 110 minutes.

After the Gauchos converted the match-winning penalty, I couldn't stay. I saw enough and I disgracefully stormed out. I invested $8.00 to watch these guys get it done...only to see our status as bridesmaids continue for another year.

Because of this, I sent an e-mail shortly after to Vic Cegles, the school's athletic director, to consider not extending Mauriocio Ingrassia's contract, and even sack him. Fire him. Do anything we can to get a new head coach who can get us the hardware as well as the wins, like Ali Khosroshahin of USC (formerly of Cal State Fullerton).

I have lost faith in Mauricio, as well as exhausted my patience. He should be gone if we don't get an at-large bid.

On Pacific and the whinings of a rich old bastard boy from Stockton

A story. During Long Beach State's game with Pacific a while back at Amos Alonzo Stagg Stadium, in the closing moments of the game, a fan from Pacific yells obscenities at the official. By this point, he should be escorted out and banned for a few games. Now this gets even more interesting: as he is being escorted by police, the university president, Don DeRosa, joins in the colorful tirades.

Is that how you guys do it down there? And I thought I had issues...

Don DeRosa:

Bitch.

A pointer: Pacific had a Big West title in 1998. That was their only year. Meanwhile, those Stangs have hogged the hardware, winning it 6 out of the last 10 years. Another reason why I resent Cal Poly in women's soccer.

Meanwhile, the ladies rebound from the match from hell against Fullerton, to gain repentance with a 1-0 victory over UC Riverside. Down at the pool, Long Beach State's men's water polo team actually did something right, squeaking by Stanford 7-5. At least they can rest assured that they will not finished the weekend empty-handed.

And news, news, news, of all news besides the Galaxy ending their abysmal season with a whimper: Suiseiseki has been toppled by Tsukasa Hiiragi in Saimoe 2007. See my previous post for all the details.

A busy week down at the Beach…

Six dollars. Count them. One, two, three, four, five, six.

With six dollars I can buy a trio of carbonated liquid at this place called La Mexicana. La Mexicana, located at the corner of 21^st Street and Santa Fe Avenue, is a place where I went to as a kid. When I was young, I would but Funyuns, a type of onion-flavored deep fried corn rings. I would eat those incessantly, and eat them with sandwiches, with the food my mom and dad cook for me, or just by itself when I am watching something on ESPN.

Nowadays, I ditch the Funyuns for those tin cans full of carbonated liquid. But they are not just carbonated liquid. They are a type of carbonated liquid that is laced with chemicals that would seem like illegal substances, but are actually safe. Those chemicals are called taurine, L-carnitine, caffeine, and vitamins and minerals. And that’s just the basics of what’s in that liquid outside of sugar, water, colorings and natural flavors.

The kicker: they are only 2 bucks a can. Cheaper than similar stuff down at the Bookstore or at your regular am/pm. 2 x 3 = 6. Hence, six dollars.

In short, I go to La Mexicana before I hit the PCH 171 heading eastbound for the battlegrounds of the Beach (or the 190’s to 173, the 90’s, or Passport D on the weekends). Sometimes the battleground will be a large body of water with nets on either side. Sometimes the battleground will be a simple football pitch. Other times it will be inside a facility that is shaped like those architectural landmarks in Egypt. Still it could be a softball diamond, or a track, or a practice gym.

In any case, I go to La Mexicana to drink up Rockstar. Zero Carb is my Rockstar drink of choice, because it’s a less-concentrated, but refreshing rendition of the 5-Hour Energy Drink of notoriety. Occasionally I will sip a Rockstar Juiced if Zero Carb is not available. The pomegranate version is what I end up drinking, though I also like the guava version. On rare occasions, it will be a drink other than Rockstar for these games, or it might be a Rockstar and another less potent one, depending on the importance of the contests, and the number of contests going on. It might be a NOS Energy, Full Throttle Mother (acai-flavored), or [even more rarely] TaB Energy. I don’t like using Red Bull for these games, because I use them for study sessions and completing assignments.

With that being said, I am looking forward to this week’s action. Women’s soccer and women’s volleyball have the heavy hitters coming. Fullerton and Riverside will be visiting George Allen Field, while UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly will be dueling the Beach at the Walter Pyramid. It will be interesting to see if we can lift a finger to UC Davis and Stanford at the Campus Pool on Sunday. It would be sweet to beat Stanford in anything other than men’s volleyball.

Never mind that after a Beehive State split, the hockey team will be coming back on the 19th to take on UCLA. That should be a win.

And I’ll need to muster up six dollars to pay for that tasty liquid ammunition in those little 24-fluid ounce tin cans. Chug, chug, chug.

Know your place, Mariners.

Thank god [sic] that the Mariner Miracle never materialized and the Curse of Jorge Campillo was lifted.

On Fan Appreciation Day, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim defeated the Seattle Mariners, 7-4. And the champagne, which was on ice the past two days, was uncorked, and it was a fun party all over.

Meanwhile, Long Beach State’s women’s soccer team wraps up their trip in Norman, Oklahoma with a 5-0 win over North Texas, exacting payback for a 1-0 defeat in their last meeting in 1999. The day wasn’t so great for the men’s water polo team, getting their comeuppance from the alumni, 8-7. Next year, old boys, brings some whips with you, to haze them for their futility [sic].

Okay, who wrote our university’s women’s soccer media guide? Fess up.

Today, in a effort to kill some time before attacking my assignments (I will go ahead and do some MGMT 425 work after I post this blog), I went over to George Allen Field to see our ladies face the Baylor Bears. Finally, our ladies are able to actually win at home IN REGULATION. Hallelujah. We defeated those grues from Waco by the score of 3-0. Only one save needed for Liz Ramos, 12 for the Baylor keeper. That was how one-sided this match was.

Next up: a trip to Norman to face not the Sooners, but a couple of teams in Middle Tennessee State and North Texas, the latter who we have faced a couple of times. Note: some revenge is in order; in our last meeting with the Mean Green (in 1999, an ignominious season to forget), we lost to them 1-0.

Before the game, though, I bought the media guide for our team, and it was not until page 15 (the media guide, $5.00 [I had to sell some bottles the day before to muster enough to buy it, as well as a Rockstar, Trident, and this Sunday’s Press-Telegram) that I saw some errors in the guide. (As if Evan Longoria returning to play women’s soccer for Long Beach State was bad enough…good God…) For example, in Rachel Whiteaker’s section, it says “…at the Long Beach State,” and “…at the Central Florida”. It was the same for Mariko Stirckland’s section. Here’s an idea, guys: drop the “THE” in the statement.

Some more errors:

Page 22: in the record, they spell Sahar Haghdan’s last name wrong. (Haghan? Haghand? Who are they? I don’t remember anyone with that last name on our team; what’s up?)

Page 25: Poor Dr. F. King Alexander, they cut off his section early, and didn’t complete everything. How to fix it? Simple: resize the text to something smaller!

Page 29: Misspelled Brianna Truelove’s last name in the Academic All-Stars section. (Who is Turelove? That’s a questionable last name, along the lines of Texas Tech kicker Keith Toogood.)

This is why we have proofreading and editing tools, guys. Apparently, whoever wrote this forgot to use it. No offense, but these errors can make a negative impression on the professionalism of people up top. It’s the truth. If I was Dr. Deborah Gaut, I would give the person who wrote this a D, if not an F, for making the mechanics errors all that apparent.

A side note: Murray State defeated Lambuth yesterday, 48-13. You can breathe a sigh of relief now, Dr. Alexander.

I think they are still jealous of the cold hard fact...

...that we are still the defending Olympic gold medalists in rugby for over eight decades. So they decide to thumb their noses at our rugby team.

PARIS, 14 September - Yesterday evening in Paris a RWC 2007 Appeal Hearing was held into the case of USA centre Paul Emerick.

The Appeal Committee comprised Chairman Justice Wyn Williams, Bruce Squire QC and Judge Guillermo Tragant.

The Appeal Committee upheld the decision of the Judicial Officer, Professor Lorne Crerar, in suspending Paul Emerick (USA) for a dangerous tackle on England's Olly Barkley in the England v USA match on 8 September.

The Appeal Committee was satisfied that the tackle in question was very dangerous and, in the circumstances, a five week suspension was the correct sanction.

RNS dk/djp

Williams, Squire, Tragant and Crerar can go hang themselves for their apparent jealousy that for all the accolades their teams have won, we are still the best at Olympic rugby. It's the truth. And we would kick their asses at American football. It would be over by the first quarter.

Speaking of which, Hawaii got back to their usual mojo, defeating UNLV, 49-14, but this time using some more run from the run-and-shoot system. Colt Brennan ran for 3 touchdowns, passing for two more, and Ryan Mouton out of juco national champs Blinn JC intercepted a pass for a touchdown, while Tyler Graunke hurled one more score, this time to Malcolm Lane in relief.

Bring on Charleston Southern. Nobody cares about a bunch of black college easybeats like Johnson C. Smith (who?) anyway.

It seems the number "49" is looking to be a good number.

San Diego rolled over Northern Colorado 49-13 (Seriously, Bears, did you think you were reallyt ready for a Division I FCS mid-major team? Get a gut check and go back to D-II, you Greeley grues) , USC rolled over Nebraska 49-31, and Mike Hart turns from Lola of the Copacabana into Joe Namath of the New York Jets with Michigan pasting Notre Dame 38-0.

The latter result was not "49", but was close, given that Notre Dame flat-out sucks.

Meanwhile, Long Beach State women's volleyball wraps up a road show in Denver with a 3-2 victory over Ohio, and the men's water polo team splits a couple of matches at the NorCal Tournament. Oh yeah, and the women's soccer team defeated Oklahoma, 2-1.

Only low notes were Long Beach City failing, as well as the Roughriders choking. Booo.

What a way to wake up, eh?

There are athletic sites, and there are athletic sites that deserve major lulz. Exposed!

So I came back from Smorgasport on campus, and a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Oklahoma at George Allen Field, and when I got back to my laptop (it was downloading some torrents while I was away), I saw the score: Lakewood 40, Mayfair 3.

Now, at first, I wasn’t so sure if Lakewood was going to be able to be focused, after the ignominious start to the year. But I can deduce three reasons why Lakewood wanted this game:

1. They are 0-2. Well, they were 0-2. But I had a gut feeling that if this was how they would play, they might go winless. I do not remember a season in which my high school’s football team actually suffered a winless season. Those guys didn’t want to see that, either.
2. The game against Tesoro was a tail of two halves. We were up 21-10 at the break, and as the guys took the field for the second half, I warned, “Hey, 21-10 is not a good-enough lead. You gotta add to it, because that can be made up in a hurry.” It pays to listen. Apparently, they didn’t, and the Titans won, 24-21. I could imagine Coach Thadd MacNeal not being the least bit happy with the performance, and I could also imagine him yelling it to their faces. (I shouldn’t go into detail with the bus ride that followed, but to keep it short: you can’t tell me that there aren’t any nappy-headed ho’s who operated the coaches on Long Beach Transit. That means someone close to you lied, straight up. They must be fish-slapped, immediately. In the groin.)
3. Mayfair wrested the Milk Bucket away from them last year. That had to leave a bad taste in Lakewood’s mouths, and they wanted that back.

Apparently, Mayfair coach Mike Fitch wasn’t ready for what his Monsoons were going to be up against. They were facing an angry, frustrated, hell-bent Lancer football team looking for answers, and someone to smack the devil down on. MaxPreps predicted that Mayfair would defend their trophy.

This is clear proof why statistics should be burned at the stake when it comes to these rivalry games, because they are meaningless.

Let’s see if this blowout over the Monsoons will get them ready for a shot at evening their records against La Palma Kennedy.

“This is madness!” “Madness!? THIS IS VEGAS!”

Tim Duncan, where art thou? The USA assrapes the Virgin Islands, 123-59. I wonder if Kobe Bryant is still viewed with contempt here in L.A., for his tirade with the Lakers. I think so. And I hope he apologizes for his faggotry, because that was a low blow.

Meanwhile, the Galaxy lose…again, this time to Chivas USA, of all teams! 3-nil. Why is Yallop still our coach!? The bloody cunt…I’ve had it up to here with his futility. And the nightmare continues…

The Angels lose, and the Mariners win. I fear the Halos’ year is going to hell in a hurry.

At least the Armada clinched the second half. And our women’s soccer team impaled Azusa Pacific, 5-0. And I got a B in Business Law. Oddly enough, in my junior college Business Law class, I also got a B. Co-incidence? I just hope I got the same grade in Management.