Seahawks Live Blog

The game is about to begin and I can't wait. Got my green jersey on and it's football season!

I'll do a live blog for the first few series of the game. When the backups start trickling in, I'll just write a wrap-up of the game.

7:02- Game Time: Curt Menefee is on the call with Warren Moon as the color commentator. Coutu gets the first kicking duty. Him and Mare are fighting for the ONE spot this year.

7:04- Big hit from Redding. Welcome to Seattle.

7:05- LT is playing in the preseason and they hand him the ball. Seattle is on it.

7:06- River pass across the middle and the reciever is murdered. Great hit to cause the pass to be incomplete.

7:06- Confusion on the punt return for the Hawks. Forsett was back.

7:08- Jones runs around the outside. The Hawks need the running game this year.

7:10- The offense is looking pretty good for the first few plays of the game. And of course, Hasselbeck's first pass goes to Carlson.

7:12- Ryan comes out to punt. Stupid Hawks getting rid of Plackemeier last season. Touchback. Nice work.

7:16- Gates pass across the middle. Great open field tackle by Grant. The defense has looked very sharp at this point so far.

7:17- I might have spoke to soon. First a catch for the first down in the flats by Gates. Then a 7 yard run by LT. Uh oh. And then another Gate catch for the first down. The Chargers are sure moving the ball.

7:19- LT stopped for a one yard gain by Mebane just forcing his way into the backfield.

7:19- The defense almost gave up a huge pass down the middle to Gates again. But he dropped it. Thank goodness.

7:20- Tapp almost with the interception in the middle. In his hands and out. It was 3rd down, but then Lucas was called for holding. So 1st down Chargers just past midfield instead of the D leaving the field. It is preseason, so better to get this stuff worked out now.

7:22- Sproles in for LT and got his head taken off by Hill on the screen pass. Ouch.

7:22- 3rd and 3 for the Bolts and an over throw by River with great coverage by Grant on Gates. That was some great one on one coverage.

7:23- Butler in to take this punt. 3rd round from Penn State. But not this one, punt downed at the 4 yardline.

7:23- Commercial about cars.

7:25- Hasselbeck comes back into the game deep in his own backfield. Pass complete to Burleson for 11 yard gain. Nice!

7:26- Jones up the middle for 7 yards. Cut and go. No dancing. Nice running.

7:27- Hasselbeck to Housh. His first catch as a Seahawk. 5 yard gain. 1st down!

7:27- Curt and Warren are doing a great job too.

7:28- Hasselbeck flushed out of the pocket and throws the ball away. Phillips was going to eat him.

7:28- 3rd down now and Carlson tried to make a one handed catch but dropped it. Looked like miss communication. Preseason.

7:29- Hasselbeck on the sideline discussing stuff with his receivers. That's a good site to see. Work it out now. Be effective later.

7:30- Another GE commerical followed by another Great Clips commerical. It's time for some new commercials.

7:31- Rivers out and Volek in. Looks like the Chargers are starting to put in backups. 0-0 score.

7:32- Pretty much the whole Seahawks D is backups minus Curry and Grant.

7:32- Hawthorne with a huge hit. The Heater is back.

7:33- Volek with a nice pass to the flat for the 8 yard gain on 3rd down. Naanee beat Curry to the ball.

7:34- Bryant has been in on most of the plays this drive.

END OF THE FIRST QUARTER

7:37- Alright, I'll go through the Hawks next drive. Chargers ball. 3rd and 2. Overthrow.

7:38- Butler fair catch. Wallace coming in to play.

7:39- Another PEMCO Insurance commercial. I like those. They make me laugh.

7:41- 2nd string offense in. The 1st team looked alright. Still a lot to work on.

7:41- Kerney on the sideline chatting with the guys in the booth. He's very good on the TV. He has a career on TV in the future.

7:41- He says he likes the new high energy of the new coaching staff. He also used to work under Mora when he was in Atlanta with him.

7:42- Because of Redding, he's switching from left to right on the d-line.

7:42- Kerney also says that he approves of Curry and that Curry really looks to learning from the veterans.

7:43- On 2nd down, Butler had his first catch for the Hawks. For less than 1 yard. But it's still a first catch in the NFL. On 3rd down, flag for illegal formation. The 2nd team O did not look good. Hawks to punt.

With that, I'll call it a night for this game. The backups are in and I'll let you know my thoughts on the rest of the game later. I'll also be switching between the Hawks and the Sounders FC game that starts in 15 minutes.

Seahawks Gameday Preview

Man I have waited far too long to write these words. It's Seahawks gameday!!!

Sure it's just a preseason game, but it still means that the Hawks are back, and football season is here. Oh yeah!

Tonight the Hawks open their preseason at San Diego with a game against the Chargers

I'll be watching it and report on my thoughts after the game. And yes Brandon, I'll be wearing my rave green jersey. The one you hate so much. The one pictured beside this article. Hehe. But the best part about that jersey is that with both the Sounders FC and the Hawks playing, having a neon green jersey allows me to support both teams. Epic.

Game time is 7 PM. So an hour before the Sounders FC get going. The game will be shown on KING 5 as well as 710 KIRO AM.

According to seahawks.com, new rookie Aaron Curry will be playing a lot during the game. Here's the article.

When linebacker Aaron Curry checked into training camp last Saturday, the Seahawks’ first-round draft choice had three priority items on his do-to list:

One: Show the coaches enough in practice during the week that he would be able to play in the preseason opener against the San Diego Chargers.

Two: Play as much as possible, despite missing the first eight days of camp while his six-year contract was being finalized and the tradition where starters typically play only a couple of series in the opener.

Three: Make the kinds of plays in his NFL debut worthy of the fourth pick overall in the NFL draft.

Check, check, and check back.

Curry will start, and play a lot, against the Chargers on Saturday night.

“You’re going to see him do a lot of different things, and you’ll see him play into the third quarter and through the third quarter,” coach Jim Mora said.

Mora’s checklist for Curry includes: playing “a significant amount” at strong-side linebacker in the base defense; playing as one of two linebackers in the nickel defense; and even rushing the pass as the right end in the nickel.

Read the rest of the article HERE.

Sounders FC gameday: Blue Kits

The Sounders FC take on the Los Angeles Galaxy tonight in perhaps their most crucial game of the season.

This marks the third successive road game for Sounders FC (7-5-8 and 29 points), who have lost two in a row and gone winless in the last three MLS matches. Meanwhile, the Galaxy (7-3-10, 31) has won five and drawn once in its last six games. It will be the first league home game for L.A.’s David Beckham since his return from a loan to AC Milan.

The recent Sounders losses have dropped them to fourth in the West with their 29 points. Houston is still in 1st with 38 points and they just keep winning. The Galaxy are in 2nd with their 31 points. In 3rd is Colorado with 30 points. And then the Sounders.

So this game is HUGE! The Sounders need a win tonight to stay in the race. A loss and they would fall further in the standings in the West.

And according to Jose Romero over at the Seattle Times, evidently the Sounders will be debuting their blue kits tonight. The blue jerseys and blue shorts with the green socks have not been worn except for in preseason play as pictured above.

Perhaps this change is just what the Sounders FC need.

The match starts at 8:00 PM on KONG TV.

We'll keep you posted after the game.

SCARVES UP!!!

Northern Rangers: The Ape Caves

This week the Northern Rangers headed down to Mount St. Helens to hike, camp and explore.

One of the attractions of the active volcano is the Ape Caves.

Facts about the Ape Caves

• This cave is the longest continuous lava tube in the continental United States.
  
• There are two different routes to explore. The upper cave and the lower cave.
• The lower cave is an easy hike and about 3/4 of a mile long.
• The upper cave is about 1 1/2 miles long.
• The upper cave also includes obstacles and is much more difficult.
  

Driving Directions

• From Interstate 5 take Exit 21, the Woodland Exit
• Travel east on Highway 503 and USFS Road 90 for about 36 miles
  
• Turn left onto USFS Road 83 and proceed another 2 miles to the junction of USFS Roads 83 and 8303.
• Turn left onto USFS Road 8303 and proceed about 1 mile to the parking lot of lower entrance to Ape Caves

One thing we did notice about the caves was the amount of garbage in them. Please, if you do the hike, don't litter. If you pack it in, pack it out. It's that simple.

Epic Photo: The standoff

Moo.

Welcome to the Michael Vick era Eagle fans!

Amazing what NFL.com's customizable pro shop can do. Even though he's not officially on the roster yet, I thought I'd waste a little time and invite pet-lovers everywhere to welcome in a new era in Philadelphia Eagles football history.

By the way, does PETA even try to protest in Phili? Do they want to mess with Eagles fans who would be frying up thousands of cows and chickens during tailgating? I see that ending in two way... bloodshed and somebody throwing batteries at Pamela Anderson.

Oh and don't worry about Donovan McNabb, he's only one of the best QBs in NFL history, they're not going to replace him with Vick who's been in the can for the past two years. Look for Vick to play WR, maybe HB or split a small amount of time with McNabb under center. Can you imagine Vick and McNabb in the same backfield.

Epic Video: Music City Miracle

Just reliving some former Titans magic. By the way, that was not a forward pass. Casey is jealous because the Colts don't have a cool play like this.

This worst news for Officer Dangle fans everywhere

You're heartless Comedy Central, absolutely heartless.

"Reno 911!" won't be answering emergency calls anymore.

Comedy Central has canceled the mocumentary series after six seasons.

The news broke the way a lot of news tends to break these says, with a tweet.

"Reno 911! was cancelled at 1:30 pm today," the show's co-creator/star Thomas Lennon wrote on his Twitter feed Thursday afternoon. "Won't be wearing the shorts again."

Now where the heck am I suppose to watch Police buffoonery? Oh wait, I live in Spokane, I can just watch the police department here...

Epic Video: Boy, Bronco fans really do hate Jay Cutler

This makes me laugh because (a) Casey's fiancee is a Bronco's fan, (b) they're going to be terrible this year and (c) this kid just burned 80 dollars in a terrible economy.

About the EWU marching band... just kidding!

I feel sorry for the EWU band students who thought they were going to have a lot of Dungeons and Dragons time on their hands.

Eastern Washington University officials have reversed their decision to discontinue the marching band, they announced this afternoon.

Faced with $13.3 million in budget cuts, the college had decided to cut marching band, which would have saved about $30,000 this year.

“EWU has faced severe budget reductions in the past six months and eliminating the band seemed like one of many budget reduction possibilities,” Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs John Mason said in a press release. “But recent robust enrollment projections, not available at the time the University’s budget reduction plan was adopted, mean the University will have funds to support the marching band.”

Alumni that were suddenly worried about the lack of a marching band (even though they didn't even notice them during games) can now rest easy, and the rest of us can continue to point and mock.

Nothing says "I give up" more than mom jeans

I was at the Spokane Indians games yesterday and I noticed a large amount of Mom jeans. Now the promotion of the night was "Go Green" so I doubt that energy saving had much to do with the fashion choice of the fans, unless you got half price for looking frumpy.

Who came up with mom jeans? And who thinks that this sort of fashion actually looks remotely presentable? To your right is Jessica Simpson. By most accounts, guys would say she's an incredibly attractive lady regardless of if she put on a couple extra pounds.

Now give her some mom jeans and now she looks like a before photo in a Jenny Craig commercial.

Yikes! Not exactly the desired effect you want to have with your jeans. The two belts don't really help either.

So please, join me in the campaign to do away with Mom Jeans and stick with either shorts, regular jeans or sweatpants.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go firebomb a Walmart.

Epic Photo: He's Back!

WSU head coach Paul Wulff is back on the sidelines for practice after not being allowed near the team for three days due to NCAA violations back when he coached at EWU. Surely a blow that will bring down Cougar football as we know it.

In other news, EWU is still hamstrung with it's no-postseason sanction by the NCAA. Even though Wulff is no longer there and the only actual people that get hurt by this are the student-athletes.

Hooray NCAA! Way to continue to be the worst sports organization since the XFL went out of business!

Why Spokane is slow... stoplights

So I'm headed to work today and I came to the realization that I spend more time waiting at stoplights than I do actually driving. Perhaps I should switch my route to work but after the city of Spokane has decided to tear up every north-south road in the county, I'm in a bit of a pickle.

Not only are their roughly 56 stoplights between my house and work, but they must be on some sort of sensor that causes them to instantly turn red when I near them. Then the same sensors must burn out since I find myself waiting at the light for 2 minutes while the opposing traffic does not go through the intersection (since it's Spokane and we don't have traffic).

Then in turn lanes, the stoplights apparently give you .235 seconds to make that turn before turning yellow and then red - meaning that a Jetta has enough time to almost cause a head-on and everyone else just has to wait in line.

Perhaps I've reached a point in my life where my commute actually plays a large part in my mood and how the day goes. If that's true, I think I've officially grown up.

And don't get me started on pedal bikes that think their motor vehicles that can ride down the middle of the lane.

Soccer is quickly consuming my gaming soul

I was over at Jose Romero's Seattle Times blog on the Sounders FC and he posted a screen shot of the FIFA 10 game from EA Sport. While my sports video game love has to go to the Madden series, I may now pick up FIFA as well.

Why? Well I remember having a soccer game for the NES and it being among my favorite games to play. Despite being low-scoring, soccer translates pretty well to the controller. Passes, slide tackles and trying to fend off penalty kicks... it's was all in the NES game so I can only imagine was 2010 will bring the poser soccer fan like myself.

Since soccer is always in action, it's a lot more for the gamer to digest than say trying to break up a no-hitter against the computer.

It's funny but basketball and baseball really don't translate that well to video games (compared to Madden) while hockey and soccer games seem to fare much better. I'd be much more inclined to play a match against a friend than a nine-inning baseball game that would take three-hours in real time.

Now all the game needs is repetitive commentary about the players putting stick-um on their hand and we have ourselves a product.

It's certianly not a wookie

This is...

(a) What Casey looked like after his recent hike.
(b) A photo of Jessica Simpson, she really let herself go after breaking up with Tony Romo.
(c) Something that could kick the crap out of Frodo.
(d) A Canadian.
(e) Not Sidney Crosby's playoff beard.
(f) Brandon's ex-girlfriend.

Please comment your answers, and feel free to have write-ins as well.

Epic Video: This is how you re-engerize a baseball team

Thank you Kevin Youkilis, you may have saved the season in Boston. By the way, Sox win 7-5.

How to tell if you suck at video games

1. Casey is better than you.

2. The big monsters with the flamethrowers point and laugh at you instead of actually trying to kill you in the game.

3. You get beat by your niece, who has no motor skills because she is a baby.

4. You play games like Wii Bowling, Nursing Home Games 4, Mario Card Stacking and the Canadian Football League Madden 2010.

5. When you play as Lebron on NBA Live, he acts more like Adam Morrison.

6. Your friends skip you when it's your turn to hold the contoller.

7. Even your friend's girlfriend that doesn't play video games laughs at what a terrible job you do.

8. Bowser on Mario Kart Wii really pisses you off.

9. You're not allowed to go to LAN parties or on WoW quests.

10. Somebody mistook your character's odd movements as somebody's internet connection going out. In fact, you were just trying to aim your gun.

EWU cuts marching band

Eastern Washington University will save $30,000 by cutting it's marching band.

Yawn.

I'm sure some music department people will complain a little bit and some boosters will lament about the "lack of atmosphere" by not having a marching band but I think for the most part - not a whole lot of people are going to turn their heads.

It's not knock against the EWU Music Department, they did a fine job putting on their productions but the average football fan nowadays doesn't give a rats behind about a marching band or the cheerleading squad. Maybe it's just the short attention span that affects our generation right now, but things that have been traditional so long just really don't fly anymore.

Having talked to several music majors at EWU, they really don't like being in the marching band. It's somewhat fun but I'm sure they'd rather be doing something else on a Saturday. I'm sure some of the members enjoy the experience but it's still a lot of work and time. They probably won't be up in arms about it.

And to save $30,000? In these times you've just got to make cuts and frankly there are more people that care about the product on the field than the halftime entertainment. I'm not saying music is less important, but I don't think cutting the marching band will cause the casual football fan to go nuts.

Sometimes I've heard people question why we have cheerleading and bands at sporting events anymore. We keep doing it because it's traditional and we keep finding people that want to do it, but generally it seems that fans aren't very enthused by either. I feel sorry for the cheerleaders out at EWU sometimes because the crowd sometimes just refused to aknowledge them.

Why? It's got to be generational. In our grandparents and parents age, the game was the big event of the week with plenty of pageantry and people really got behind the whole school spirit thing. Nowadays, there's so many distractions, so many sports, so much going on that these side items just kind of get caught up at static.

And now throw in that the economy is in tank, these sort of things just get thrown in the tank. It's a shame, but on the other hand these things don't seem to be a very high priority.

Don't screw with birds

They're hardcore. Got this photo from this rather interesting forum thread.

Can we stop the nasty at sporting events?

Come on America, you're better than this.

People will drop everything to rip their shirts off in the Tri-Cities for Cotten-eye Joe in one of the worst dancing traditions in sports history - but some Spokanites and Americans in general also like to enjoy a little strip-page at games.

Please keep in mind before you do this that (1) nobody wants to see your flabby self in the half-nude and (2) nobody wants to see you grind up against your wife/girlfriend. Since when did this become acceptable behavior in public? I'm all for having a good time but this sort of thing should be reserved for Animal House sequels and the Toyota Center in Kennewick, Wash.

Also not that in the above photo, this man's zipper is UNDONE. Yep. You stay classy.

Along with public displays of horrible dancing, I've also heard an number of stories concerning people that go out to the ballpark to makeout in front of everyone. Don't give me that crap about being in love, you're still a member of society and you should still be somewhat aware that you're doing it with an audience.

Again, when did that suddenly become a good idea for couples. "Hey honey, let's go blow 20 bucks on tickets and go mack out in front of complete strangers... sounds like a blast!" It's called a couch in the comfort of your home.

And I'm being light on how far these couples go - let's just say there's a few extra-base hits going on in front of kids, normal people and the rest of the viewing public.

... like have you ever heard of decency? Don't you feel just a wee bit embarrassed. I'm all for pretending to make babies, but do it in the privacy of your own home, not in a sporting venue.

Now if your will excuse me, I have to get the mental image of a 300-pounder with a g-string out of my mind.