Euro 2012 Group Draw & Reaction

Group A: Poland, Greece, Russia, Czech Republic
Group B: Spain, Italy, Rep. of Ireland, Croatia
Group C: Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Portugal
Group D: Ukraine, Sweden, France, England

Quarter Finals:
Game 25 A1 v B2
Game 26 A2 v B1
Game 27 C1 v D2
Game 28 D1 v C2

Semi Finals:
Winner 25 v Winner 27
Winner 26 v Winner 28

Here are my thoughts... since you've waited so patiently for them over the last 48 hours. I apologize for the wait; I know you've been on the edge of your seat wondering how I feel about these groups.

Group A is a tough one to call. Poland could do pretty well w/ their fantastic goalie & the fact that they are one of the host nations. Home town crowds will obviously help a bit. However, Russia will probably go through too. Aside from the home country situation, I think Poland, Greece & the Czechs are all pretty good. I guess I would like to see Tomas Rosicky ;lead the Czech Republic through the quarter finals, but it will be a rough group of mid-level teams. In the end, it won't really matter, because I don't see any of these teams getting past the quarter-finals. We'll say Russia (1) & Poland (2)

Group B is less tricky, I would say, & I'm sure most people would predict Spain & Italy moving on. I suppose, I will too, but it'd be nice to see the Irish get past the Italians. I wouldn't put money on it though. Spain (1) & Italy (2)

Group C will certainly be called "The group of death" by pundits (if it hasn't been called that already). I would say it's more likely to be the group of tears though as we're almost certain to see Cristiano Ronaldo squirt out a few when Portugal fails to edge past Germany & The Netherlands. In fact, I would be willing to put money on them getting gout of the group stage... if I had money to bet & was a betting man. Germany (1) & Netherlands (2).

Group D shouldn't be much of a problem for France & England, but then again, one never really knows what those two under performing squads will do. While the Ukraine is the other co-host, I don't see them getting out of the group like Poland. Based on sheer talent, I will go against the British talking heads (& Arsene Wenger) & say France will win the group w/ England taking 2nd. (They seem to see it happening the other way).

If this is what happens (& it's sure not to now that I've actually posted this), we'll see the quarter finals thusly:
QF1: Russia v Italy
QF2: Poland v Spain
QF3: Germany v England
QF4: Netherlands v France

The semi finals are obviously tougher to call, & in the past, I think I've stopped here for propriety's sake; however, for fun, I suppose I'll go all the way now.

SF1: Italy v Germany
SF2: Spain v France (if France takes a shit in the group stage, I would see The Netherlands getting past either The Ukraine or Sweden).

As far as the finals are concerned, the odds makers seems to believe that Spain will win it all again, but no country has ever repeated. This means, we're either going to see a little history, or we aren't. Shocking revelation, I know. I'm going to go w/ history but ignore my fanatical devotion to the FFF & say Germany will beat Spain in the finals.

I was going to get into my beliefs about the French squad for the tournament, but I'll hold off on that for another post. Keep checking back though... it will be pretty soon. We've got a James Bond post & a couple holiday season posts coming up soon, & we'll start the nominating process for your 2012 Visions of Ypsi Memorial Celebrity MILF of the Year contest now too. in order to be eligible, the person must meet a couple criteria... she must be a celebrity & she must be pregnant now or had a baby in the last 5 month so as to ensure she wasn't eligible w/ the same pregnancy last year. Post your nominations here in the comments section or e-mail them to me.
Here is a link to all of last year's contest posts, & @ the bottom, you'll find a link to the posts on the old blog too.

Holiday Post #12: The Winner

We were going to call this post "All is Quiet on New Years Day," but the silence you're hearing is actually the residual effects of low voter turn out. (Plus, we've never quoted U2 before, & we're not going to start now.) I guess that's what happens when the candidates just aren't very inspiring. Here we have a lesson we should have learned from George Bush & Michael Dukakis or if not then than at least from John Engler & Geoffery Fieger. Fieger Time!" didn't work then, & "Applegate Time!" was always-already destined to fail now. Oh well, we can suffer through this year like we suffered through the George Bush's single term & come out the other side (next December) w/ a better crop of nominees. Stephanie & Jason both abstained based on the fact that the nominees sucked. Daye said multiple times that she was about to vote but never did. Neither Courtney nor Steve ever got around to it either which means that w/ the 1 late vote on facebook, the returns look like this:
Alicia Keyes: 1
Mariah Carey: 2
Neal Patrick Harris: 1
Penelope Cruz: 1
Jodie Sweetin: 1
Pink: 1
Alanis Morissette: 2
After a grand total of 9 votes, we have a tie between 2 less than stellar pop songstresses which basically means the final decision comes to me. And this isn't the easiest of decisions since I'm rather sympathetic to the belief that this year's crop has yielded some strange fruit. I was actually pulling for Danica McKellar, but such is life. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, You don't go to a Celebrity MILF of the Year contest w/ the MILFs you want, you go w/ the MILFs you have. Before we announce the winner though, we need to give a little shout out to NPH. He was never going to win, but his nomination was a kin to Run-DMC being nominated for a Grammy in 1986. The floodgates are open & in 10 years, you may see gay men dominating the contest.

OK, now on to your winner. I hated her 1st album w/ a passion. It was over-played on the radio & over-praised by the critics. Isn't it ironic then that all these years later I have to do this. I feel like James Tolkan in Top Gun when he has to send Maverick & Goose to Miramar. The saving grace here is that she played God in Dogma... & for once kept her enormous, Julia Robertseque mouth shut. It's not the best Kevin Smith film, but when compared to "One Hand in My Pocket," it seems quite brilliant. So here's to her; your Visions of Ypsi Memorial Celebrity MILF of the Year: Alanis Morissette.

Holiday Post #11: Elections, Links, & Tests; Oh My... & a Happy New Year

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Holiday Post #10: Another in the Arsenal Highlights Series

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Holiday Post #9: I Got a lot of Problems w/ You People!

As a fun post-Festivus post, here's a quick airing of grievances.

1) Friends who say, "You really need to see this movie... it's fantastic," when the movie is really not so good. We watched the aptly named The Runaways last night (the rock music biopic about the band of the same name). It's a very schizophrenic film. It's like it can't decide if it wants to be an arty Doors-esque thing or a teen pop flick so it tried to do both. One or the other would have been fine, but both doesn't work. It also spent a lot of time fitting in the rock bio-film cliches @ every opportunity. The only thing it didn't do was end w/ a death which is only because it focused mainly on Cherie Currie & Joan Jett... both of whom are still alive. Had it done more w/ the others, they could have included more of Sandy West, they could have dealt w/ her struggle w/ lung cancer & added a more poignant ending. Or maybe more about Joan Jett's relationship w/ The Sex Pistols to lead up to Sid Vicious' death. On the positive side, I dig the music & might see if they have any @ the library.2) Speaking of The Sex Pistols, the second problem I have @ the moment is w/ Arsenal. FYI, John Leydon is a HUGE Arsenal fan; that's where the transition comes from. Anyway, they play Chelsea today, & their record against Chelsea is recent years sucks... SUCKS! Chelsea striker, Didier Drogba has played Arsenal 13 times during his tenure in West London & has scored 13 times. To make matters worse, Jason is a huge Chelsea fan & I'll be watching the match w/ him. The real problem here though is that we have a month long transfer window opening up after New Years, but Wenger probably won't buy anyone. They need another central defender. One great one & three mediocre ones aren't enough, especially when the great one has been hurt for most of the season. Along w/ a central defender, they need to ship out Diaby, Bendtner & Denilson. It may be time for Vela to go too. There's too much dead weight when perfectly good replacements are available. Wenger doesn't need to read this though because he's been getting this same info from all corners lately. If any of these changes actually happen though, I'll be happy to retract problem #2.(If nothing else, @ least Diaby was good for this hilarious picture.)3) My third concern is really w/ Mother Nature. I'm already done w/ cold weather. This is just ridiculous. Bring on Spring already, for crying out loud.

4) Racists, sexists, homophobes, & other narrow-minded people who choose to discrimitate rather than accept. There's our big shout-out to political correctness before moving on to problem five.

5) People who have yet to vote for your Visions of Ypsi Memorial Celebrity MILF of the Year. It's easy. Scroll down & read through the nominees. They may not be fantastic, but they are what we've got this year. Once you've weighed your options, post your vote in the comments section... Easy.

Holiday Post #8: At the Weekend (w/ special mention of pork products)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Holiday Post #7: It's a Trap!

Begging your indulgences, we'd like to post another Star Wars X-Mas video, but this 1 is in the vein of sarcasm. Also, we'd like to thank the good people @ Jason Duerr for this video. Also, also, we'd like to remind you that the voting has started. I was informed yesterday that people are sandbagging to ensure a stupid outcome like last year's Sarah Michelle Geller doesn't happen again, but it's still important that people start voting because we only have a 11 days left.

Holiday Post # 6: The Holiday Special!

We've been watching a lot of X-Mas episodes 'round these parts recently: The Office, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Joe Polka Show, 30 Rock, Happy Days, Seinfeld, etc. Of course, they're all great, but we've also watched a few X-Mas films: Miracle on 34th Street, A Smokey Mountain Christmas, White Christmas, A Christmas Story, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, even Paul Blart: Mall Cop (which is sort of Die Hard meets Mallrats meets a really poorly written movie). We also have A Christmas Carol DVRed & Jingle all the Way in the queue. Of course, there's also this little piece of Christmas fun: "Christmas in Hollis" by Run-DMC! That said, the most important Christmas special can actually be watched right here on Drifting into Deep Water, so after you vote for the Visions of Ypsi Memorial Celebrity MILF of the Year, check out all of your favorite stars, including Bea Arthur, Art Carney, The Jefferson Starship, Harvey Koreman, & the cast of Star Wars in the one and only Star Wars Holiday Special! (This video only feature the 1st 10 minutes, but once it's over, it'll direct you to the following video, & so on, & so on, & so on.

Holiday Post #5: The Song

Before we get to the meat & potatoes of this post, I'd like to inform everyone that my grades have been posted & I'm officially on my pseudo-vacation (pseudo in that I'm still working @ the bookstore). I'd also like to take this moment to remind everyone to Rock the Vote. We only have a couple weeks left, but as it stands, only my sister has actually voted. Some of y'all sent in nominations, but you need to actually vote now too. You can do so by scolling down or just going here.

And then while you're hanging out @ the corner of Visions of Ypsi & Memory Lane, you can wander down the snow covered path that is the Visions of Ypsi Holiday Posts. It needs a little salt, but the ice is clearing & you can enjoy your stroll.

when doing so, you'll see that a few years ago we started a little tradition that I think would transfer well to the new blog. Every holiday season, starting w/ X-Mas 2007, I write a new holiday song. Last year, we wrote "A Swingin' Christmas Time", we gave 2008 a miss, but in 2007 we wrote this little rockabilly number, "All I Want for Christmas is Cash". Without any further ado, I give y'all this year's ditty, a sort of punk number... Elvis Costello meets Hank III: "A Stocking Full of Shells." Enjoy.Last year after the office party
You puked inside my Cadillac
You spilled champagne on my new Cosby Sweater
Before I'd had the chance to take it back

So all I want for Christmas is a shotgun
A shotgun and a box of shells
All I want for Christmas is a Colt-45
So I can blow you straight to Hell!

The next day while we trimmed the tree
You bitched about my brand new decoration
It was a battle scarred Rancor from the Hallmark store
But you broke it without any hesitation

So all I want for Christmas is a shotgun
A shotgun and a box of shells
All I want for Christmas is a Colt-45
So I can blow you straight to Hell!

Then last night as I was mixing up the eggnog
What to my little eyes appeared,
But you in the corner drinking all the rum
so I had to settle for a cheap beer.

So all I want for Christmas is a shotgun
A shotgun and a box of shells
All I want for Christmas is a Colt-45
So I can blow you straight to Hell!

So all I want for Christmas is a shotgun
A shotgun and a stocking full of shells
All I want for Christmas is a AK-47
So I can send your whole family straight to Hell!

On Stranger Tides

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Holiday Post #4: And the Nominees Are...

We @ Drifting into Deep Water are proud to present the 7th Annual Celebrity M.I.L.F. of the Year Contest (AKA The Visions of Ypsi Memorial Celebrity MILF of the Year Contest). Before you vote, however, be sure to read the rules:
1) The nominations have been considered and narrowed down, just lunlike last year's 11, to a nice round 12 contestants.
2) Each reader of Drifting into Deep Water is allowed one (1) vote.
3) Votes are to be posted in the comments section of this post. Votes sent via e-mail or as a Facebook post will be counted if & only if we so choose.
4) Giving people shit based on who they voted for is not only accepted, but encouraged.
5) All votes posted by 12:00 AM on New Years Eve will be counted.
6) Voting is closed @ 12:01 AM New Years Day.
7) Late nominations will be considered, but discouraged.
8) Those nominated but not included on this official ballot are not eligible for late nominations.
8.1) Nominating a gay man who has recently welcomed the arrival of twins via a surrogate if awesome, but may not be quite w/in the scope of this contest (in that he would be a STILF, not a MILF). We'll include him just in case y'all disagree (in this case, the "ST" is in reference to his character, Barney Stinson]).
9) If a voter wishes to change his or her vote, she or he must petition the writers of Drifting into Deep Water.
10) Anonymously posted votes will only be accepted if the writers of Drifting into Deep Water are told who the person is who is voting anonymously. In other words, the post can be anonymous and anonymity will be protected, but we want to know who is voting to ensure true single votes.
11) We @ Drifting into Deep Water will only cast a vote to break a tie if said vote is necessary or if we don't like who won. If you don't like that, you can get your own Celebrity MILF of the Year Contest.
12) As always, nominees must not have been eligible last year so we're setting the cut-off dates @ August. Any celebrity to have given birth before 1 September 2009 is ineligible.

Lakiha Spicer: Mike Tyson has yet again impregnated a woman. This time, it's his relatively new wife. whether or not she's really a celebrity is open to debate, but he sort of is, so we'll allow it. We will refrain from all ear-biting jokes at this juncture.












Rachel Zoe: I imagine a couple of you know who this person is, but seeing as I haven't watched Bravo in years (& she hasn't been mentioned on The Soup, I'd never heard of her. Her show has been on for a couple years & she's married to some investment banker who is now famous for making a different kind of deposit.












Alanis Morissette: We here @ Drifting into Deep Water have never been huge fans of her music, but she played God in Dogma... that has to stand for something. Plus, we are able to bring you this cool picture of her pregnant belly all hennafied.












Christina Applegate: Does she have a sit-com? I think she does, but I'm not certain. Even if she doesn't, she definitely had one when I was in high school. Her real claim to fame though is her role in Don't Tell Mom the babysitter is Dead... brilliant! Apparently, her fiance, Martyn LeNoble, is the person who knocked her up. I didn't take the time to figure out who that is... you can do a little research on your own.












Stella McCartney: Just 2 days after the anniversary of Lennon's assassination, Paul's Daughter gets this nomination... He's always stealing John's thunder.The baby was actually born a couple weeks ago though, so it was a prelude to the anniversary mourning. Here's to hoping her next kid has smaller ears.










Neil Patrick Harris: He seems like a good dude. He's fantastic on How I Met Your Mother & his activism seems pretty impressive too. I have no idea who the surrogate is, nor do I think she would qualify as a celebrity even if I did know. If he wins, it would be legend... wait for it...











Mariah Carey: One of the few nominees to legitimately be considered a celebrity. I'd quote one of her songs here, but I'd have to look them up first... "don't go chasing waterfalls"? I don't think that's right. I think that was TLC. As it turns out, for someone whose songs I can't name, she's had a hell of a lot of #1s... yeah, I looked it up after all. I guess I do know her version of "All I Want for Christmas is You." Does that count?











Danica McKellar: The former Wonder Years star has claimed that the best part of pregnancy is that her "boobs are bigger".. Well, it didn;'t take a child star from the '80's to tell me that, but it doesn't hurt. We'll see if her assets add up to a victory in the competition... get it, "add up"? because she writes books about math! Nevermind....











Nina Garcia: According to some random pregnancy site, she is a judge on Project Runway. If any of you have ever seen the show, you can verify this for us. i was excited for a minute, because I thought she might be one of Jerry's daughters, but I don't think that is the case.











Pink: Here we have our 2nd rather well known pop-singer. Like Mariah Carrey, I've never listened to her music, but I won't deny that most of you love it. I guess that's not quite true; I did hear that anti-George W. Bush song she released 4 or 5 years ago. That was pretty alright, & if she wins this, she too will be able to say, "Mission Accomplished!"












Jodie Sweetin: Before you ask who this is, I'll give you a hint; she was on a really bad sit-com around the same time as The Wonder Years, & Married, w/ Children. Still not enough? OK, a really, really bad sit-com. Another hint? OK, a sit-com w/ the Olsen twins, Bob Saget, John Stamos, & Dave Coulier. her status as a celebrity was good enough for celebritypregnancy.sheknows.com, I guess it's good enough for us. I don't know who the father is, but then again, if the arc of her show is any indication, she probably doesn't either.












Alicia Keys: Yet another pop singer, but this time, 1 who was name checked in "Thunder on the Mountain" by Bob Dylan on his 2007 release, Modern Times. The lyrics go thusly: "I was thinkin' 'bout Alicia Keys, couldn't keep from crying / When she was born in Hell's Kitchen, I was living down the line / I'm wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be / I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee." This all I know about her so I can't really comment on anything else... except that she was hanging out on a yaught w/ Queen Latifah after her wedding... I kind of dig Queen Latifah, but her 1st album isn't really as good as all the fuss suggests. I've seen it listed on a bunch of top album lists lately, but when it came out, it didn't impress me at all.











...dary.

Holiday Post #3: The Kids

As I'm sure you're aware, Solstice is in the Christmas performance @ their church. She performs as part of the children's choir for a few songs @ the end of the 1st act. They have 10 shows over the course of 2 weekends; I went on Saturday & was blown away. The production is fantastic. The 1st act is basicaly a series of traditional mid-20th century X-mas tunes. The 2nd act is an overview of the X-mas story. She's been working so hard, & they did so well.When we got home, I took Aiden & Isaiah up to the super-cheesy tree lighting ceremony in Depot Town. They had free cookies & cocoa, plus a bunch of ridiculous, bougie, 50somethings singing carols. Aiden was bored out of his mind, but Isaiah enjoyed getting to meet a couple dogs & eat a couple cookies.

Yesterday, while Stephanie & Solstice were at Solstice's evening performance, I took the boys to see the free showing of A Christmas Story @ The Michigan Theater. Aiden had been looking forward to it, but Isaiah had no idea what was going on. As it turns out, he loved it. He even laughed @ the appropriate spots. Later in the evening, I even caught him saying, "Meatloaf, meatloaf." That was pretty sweet. I think we may need to take a road trip to Cleveland to check out the Christmas Story House Museum. If we go, I suppose we could hit Tony Packo's for a coney on the way home... this idea is starting to sound better & better. Watch this space... you may get updates about an awesome day trip. In the mean time, keep submitting the nominations for The Visions of Ypsi Memorial Celebrity MILF of the Year Contest!

Holiday Post #2: The Tree & the Contest

Last weekend, after we watched Arsenal ascend to the top of the Premier League for a couple hours, putting up the holiday lights outside, & finishing the raking of the front yard, we headed down to Ida w/ Elizabeth, Dan, Sam, & my Mom to get the X-Mas tree. As per usual, we went to the Matthes Tree Farm which comes complete w/ a natural beard Santa, a petting zoo, free coffee/hot chocolate/pop corn, & a little local arts & crafts area from which I scored a bottle of super hot hot sauce to add to my collection. We pulled in & had the tree down & on the car in 15 minutes. It was a new record. Plus, we got the tree from the economy area which, as the name suggests, scored us a cut-rate price.Elizabeth & Dan took a little longer, but they're newbies so it's understandable that they would lose the race. Afterwards, we hit the petting zoo, let Isaiah sit on Santa's lap (where he completely forgot what he wanted, but loved sitting w/ him none-the-less), grabbed some of the free snacks while enjoying the clarinet ensemble, & then let Isaiah take a pony ride... during which he shouted, "I NEED A PONY NOWWW, MOMMY!!!"

When we got home, Elizabeth went to get beer, & by the time she got back, the tee was up & I had the lights on it while Stephanie quickly made cornbread to go w/ the chili & hot dogs we ate while watching Christmas Vacation. I'm not a huge fan of the film, but Dan stands behind Cousin Eddie the way I stand behind Arsene Wenger. Afterwards, we watched Miracle on 34th Street about which Aiden stated, "It's black & white, but it's actually not bad." I'll take that as a positive review.
And speaking of giving back, we're now nominations for the Visions of Ypsi Memorial Celebrity MILF of the Year Contest. Next week, we'll compile a list of the nominees, post the mini-bios, & start the voting. The nominating rules are thus: 1) The nominee must embody some semblance of celebrity, 2) The nominee must have either gotten knocked up or dropped a kidlet this year (celebs who adopted are eligible also), 3) the celeb was not nominated for the same child last year, & 4) the celeb is a MILF. Here is the winning post from last year when it was simply The Visions of Ypsi Celebrity MILF of the Year Contest.

More to Come

So here's the 2nd post on the new blog. I've been contemplating this for a couple days; the idea of creating & maintaining this seems a little silly since the readership has gone down lately, but w/ the European Championships are just 2 short years away, plus we have the Celebrity MILF of the Year contest coming up soon so it seems like I need to suck it up & push forward. With the holidays right around the corner, you can also expect the newly penned holiday song so keep on checking back & we here @ Drifting will keep updating.

Stay strong, true believer.