JamieZ

Fantastic news. I'm thrilled to have him stay on as a coach.

I've got a pretty good head start as my father is an avid genealogist. I spent a fair bit of time in my youth tagging along on trips to local cemeteries, libraries, town halls, and Mormon churches. We've got several threads traced back through European royal lines (once you've managed to do that, you're golden, as that's all been done for you, generally), but a lot of other lines run cold in their respective countries of origin. That said, most of my ancestral lines have been in North America for a long time, with the exception of some of the Germans, who arrived in the late 19th century (my last name is Ziegler, which is the German word for brick-maker). There aren't a lot of cool stories, but it's helped to create a pretty coherent picture of my ancestry, to a point. One of my ancestors, though, a guy named David Fletscher Wiedericht, was an Alsatian German who was conscripted into Napoleon's army, went to Russia, survived, made it all the way back, and said, "Eff this, I'm going to North America." And in that respect, I suppose I think that's one of the coolest things I can think of about being an American—that at some point along every ancestral line, there was somebody, somewhere, across an ocean—in my case in Germany, the Low Countries, Northern France, or the British Isles—who said, "Eff this, I'm getting on a boat, embarking upon a journey I don't know whether I'll even survive, and going to some place I've never even seen before to start over. That's how much I'm sick of these windmills (or cows, or sheep, or Catholics...)." And that's pretty cool. I also think the DNA analysis stuff is really fascinating, although it's dangerous to be too simplistic or to read too deeply into that in certain areas. But in my case, it was interesting A) in a big picture perspective, in that both my maternal and paternal lines are very old, pre-Indo-European lines that each have a population locus about 13,000 years ago in a place called Doggerland, a land mass that connected the British Isles to continental Europe during the last ice age and is now buried underneath the North Sea. When temperatures started to warm, people moved to the north and south into neighbouring areas, like Lower Germany and the Low Countries and the British Isles, and that phemomenon and behaviour corresponds with my prior knowledge of where my ancestors came from. And it's been useful in disproving family rumours of potential Native American bloodlines due to strange adoptions or even gypsy blood in the mix (the German word for gypsy is "Zigeuner," and when lots of gypsies came to the States, they changed their name to "Ziegler."). But nope, nothing funky in my genetic profile, just a bunch of honkeys. Anyway, I think it's all really cool.

Primal Scream - Culturecide

If you're expecting the new Daft Punk to be the second coming of Disco Jesus, you're probably going to be disappointed. If you're willing to go into it without unrealistic expectations, you might really enjoy it.

Primal Scream - More Light

R.I.P., Jeff Hanneman.

One of my Top 5 favorite albums of all time.

If we do lose Benteke—which is not something I'm treating as a foregone conclusion, by the way—and stay up, here's another argument for Altidore. Check out that assist.

http://youtu.be/ExiPGKoBRpE This is a track off of a recent tour EP released by the Faint.

On a day we're not even playing, with several weeks left in the season, seventy minutes into a match that may or may not be decisive in any way regarding our final league standing? That's when it becomes "official?" I don't like the way things are going any more than anyone else here, but come off it, man.

http://youtu.be/GMIF93jqRN8 Listening to Chet Faker tonight. He's kind of like an American James Blake.

Bear in mind, spitting on our flag does absolutely no good for the 90% of us Americans who are also outraged about this.

Well, the good news is Federico Macheda won't be there to score against us this year...

I agree. There's more substance to it than the last one.

I'm hearing "fire," as well.

Today is Patriots' Day in Massachusetts, a civic holiday to commemorate the battles of Lexington and Concord: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriots%27_Day

The scale thing is absolutely true. We are also more sympathetic to incidents in similar cultures/English speaking countries too. I mean there were bombs in Baghdad today which killed 30+ people and not much was said. It's just the way we are as human beings I guess. I think about it all the time. You have to be selective or you lose the ability to function. I strive to be aware of things on the global scale but to focus on the things I can control in my tiny, tiny sphere of influence. But you're right, it hits closer to home when these things happen near you or in an area you can relate to. There was a shooting on Christmas Eve last year—it was reported on BBC—in which a man killed his sister, set fire to his home, and opened fire on the firemen and policemen who responded. That happened in my hometown and my friend's husband was one of the firemen who was killed. I have friends running this race in Boston. It does hit closer to home, for sure. Thankfully, all my friends are accounted for and okay.

People are so desensitized to casualty numbers, anymore, that it hardly registers at times—but that's a real guy who'll never walk on his legs again. What cause is worth doing that to people, on any scale, whether in single digits or by the millions?

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/two_explosions_at_boston_marathon_iMR0LCkcwASg0RQfVsH1yI A couple of Americans I've been speaking to say that the NY Post is about as reliable as the Express, so hopefully this isn't accurate. That's not far off. For what it's worth, I tend to refer to BBC coverage before I even look at American news outlets.

You do realize he was just a kid, right? He was what, 19 at the time, walking into a team in disarray in the middle of a campaign? He's improved considerably in the four years since his loan at Hull.

I've always thought Jozy would be a good replacement were we to lose Benteke, but I'm not sure he'd be a great complement. Not to mention he's hardly a player we'd be able to snag without some heavy competition from other clubs. He's at 28 goals for the season in all competitions and there's quite a queue for his services. But hey, I'd still love to have him.

If more R&B sounded like this and the Weeknd, I'd listen to more R&B.

Agreed. It looks like when you accidentally start to button your shirt on the wrong button holes.

The kids are alright.