I still can't decide

Seriously, I've been driving myself crazy with this soccer team name thing. I'm going to be an inaugural season ticket holder, and I plan on buying a profane amount of merchandise with the name on it, so I'd really like it to be something good that I like and am not embarrassed by. So, I've narrowed it down to AC or Atoms.

AC
PROS: Infinitely more likely to win than Atoms (which has no chance, I've come to terms with that); it's kind of not all that terrible; it's sort of like "Athletics" which is kind of cool.
CONS: At the end of the day, it's a lame ripoff of another team in another country, and has nothing to do with Philadelphia. Also, it's not "Atoms", which I love.

ATOMS
PROS: I really love it; it's a part of Philadelphia history; no other team on the planet has it; the Atoms have won a championship more recently than the Eagles; it would be like a "protest vote"; whatever you think of it, I simply don't see how it's worse than the official choices.
CONS: It won't win; the only people who actually remember the Atoms are (a) middle-aged soccer fans with long memories and (b) nerds like me; if I waste my vote on something that obviously won't win, I run the risk of "Union" winning, and that's no good.

I don't know, what do you think?

Much is afoot. Wedding planning continues unabated. The trucks to Clearwater are being gassed up and loaded. According to Wikipedia, today is Kristen Schaal's 31st birthday (but look, I'm an engaged man now, and as the President said the other day, the time has come to put away childish things). The Eagles totally forgot to bring their defensive players to Arizona (worst game ever, I can't even think about it without getting angry and confused and scared).

But enough about those things, let's talk about something truly important: the name of our new soccer team! I'm disappointed but not at all surprised that they're apparently going for some kind of Euro-ripoff name. I don't know why they feel the need to do such a thing: it's just going to turn away or at the very least bore casual fans, and this is a city that already has a rich sports culture, so why do we need to just co-opt ideas from far off places? I'm not saying we need to resurrect "Atoms" or "Fury" or anything like that. I love the name "Atoms", I've always been fascinated by the Atoms, and I plan on wearing my Atoms t-shirt to the stadium at least once. To be honest, because I've read a lot about them and they represent, to me, an important and interesting slice of Philly sports history, and because I am a melodramatic nerd, it would actually mean a lot to me to be able to go to a soccer game and root for a team called the Philadelphia Atoms. But I'm not going to write that in as my vote, because I like the idea of keeping the name retired and starting fresh with something new (and also for strategic voting reasons, but more on that in a bit).

Let's take a look at the options.

SC: Boring, but tolerable. To their credit, I like the fact that they've basically gone for "Soccer Club" instead of "Football Club", because there are already two teams in the league (Dallas and Toronto) named "FC" (which by the way is totally uncreative nonsense, I mean come on Dallas and Toronto, get it together), and also because this is Philly, where we already have a game called football that we really like and will never be less popular than soccer. Sorry, Europosers, we call it "soccer" here; if you don't like it, move to Portsmouth or something.

AC: Also boring, but I have to admit that it's growing on me. It's soccer-ish and a nice, subtle reference to the Philadelphia Athletics (if indeed they intend it to mean "Athletic Club" and not some dumb European thing, and by the way I apologize if I sound really xenophobic, I don't hate Europe or anything, Europe's cool, I'm just really annoyed it's not going to be Atoms and I'm taking it out on a whole continent).

City: This is just dumb.

Union: Appalling. Awful. I hate this name so freaking much. Also: it's almost exactly the same as "United", and there's already a team called "DC United", who will presumably be one of our biggest regional rivals. So why would I give my team the same name as... ugh! Oh god, so stupid.

Write-in Options: Besides "Atoms" I have no ideas that I think will win. Over on the Sons of Ben message board, a couple of fans are pushing for something like "Philadelphia 2010" with the idea that the nickname would be "Zolos", a made up word that looks sort of like "2010". (This, in case you're wondering, is one of the reasons why I have yet to post on this message board, despite my total excitement about the new team and the fact that these guys would, one presumes, be my new soccer buddies. I'm just afraid of going on there and saying "Um, guys, has it not occured to you that 'Zolos' is totally cheesy and lame?" and getting flamed. I guess I could try to play nice, but really, "Zolos"? Am I being that unreasonable?)

Anyway, I'm leaning toward just voting for "AC" because it has a better chance of winning than "Atoms" and to lessen the chance that "Union" or "2010" will win. Look, no matter what happens, I'm going to be a huge fan, and alienate my future wife and our future family by wasting even more of my time watching absurd amounts of sports, and I'll buy the team's jersey no matter what's on it, because this is the kind of blind loyalty that I subscribe to for reasons I can't explain. I'm really looking forward to it.

But really, if you haven't voted yet and/or don't care, and you feel like helping me out, please vote for anything but "Union", that's all I ask.

DVDs and updates

Thanks to Andrew for hooking me up with a huge pile of old Phillies video yearbooks, so I can revel in the glory of various terrible late 80s teams that I only dimly remember and were uniformly pathetic. It's great. I also ordered a bunch more DVDs from the Phillies website, plus the World Series box set (it hasn't arrived yet, but I'm sure it's the greatest object ever produced by humans) and for the hell of it, a couple of old Eagles DVDs too. The "2004 NFC Champions" DVD arrived today and it's fantastic, and has successfully pumped me up for tomorrow's game. Holy crap, the game! We're in the NFC Championship game! I only saw/heard 75% of the Giants game because I was traveling around Northern California at the time. Fantastic, glorious stuff. This one just feels different, and I think it's because we're already the reigning champions of the pro sports world. The Phillies have helped us just relax and enjoy it for a change - enjoy the experience of a good, fun team playing better and going farther than we ever could have thought they would. It feels great. It feels nice not to take sports so seriously for once (of course, once the game starts, I'll be cursing and throwing things and having unhealthy heart palpitations just like the old days, and I can't wait).

Meanwhile, why didn't anyone tell me wedding planning was this complicated? You really dropped the ball, people.

FLY EAGLES FLY!!!

Dumb Things Bill Simmons Said (Eagles Playoff Edition)

Okay, I've calmed down a bit but I was really just wildly annoyed about this Friday and yesterday. Long story short, Simmons offers some Clippers tickets last week to a friend of his who's a "die-hard" Eagles fan:

So Clipps-Dallas or Iggs-Dallas? Hmm, that should be pretty easy ... an early-season NBA day game between an historically & dysfunctionally miserable team and an aging, underachieving, boring team with zero playoff or global implications ... OR a last-game-of-the-year showdown between the football team I've rooted for fruitlessly for 45 years, still dreaming that they'll pick up on Phillies karma and do the unthinkable by somehow eking their way to Tampa and then making the third time the charm ... and the hated, evil archrivals who come as close to the Celtics as any pro team ever has in terms of hatability ... BUT -- even if Al's Raiders manage to upset the Bucs, making the 4.15 tilt a winner-goes-on, loser-goes-home Instant Classic, raising the specter of Wilbert Montgomery all over again, I just don't think I can let myself get sucked in again. Andy's not up to it, Donovan's not up to it, our receivers aren't up to it, Westy can't do it all by himself ... after last weekend's debacle in DC, sitting there with a raging flu all by myself for seven hours, nursing the unlikely Raiders over the Bucs and then watching the Iggs self-destruct against a team who had pretty much folded the tents and whose coach had pretty much said, "ok, just put me out of my misery ... " I can't do it to myself. I would rather take my kid to a totally meaningless, emotionless NBA game, set the TiVo in case the Raiders pull it off and then torture myself trying to avoid the score on the Staples scoreboards and listen to Sirius on the way home and then close the door and suffer in silence. So yeah, I'll take the tickets.

Of all the asinine lunacy Simmons has printed over the years, perhaps nothing has pissed me off as much as this nonsense. Last Sunday ended up being one of the greatest days in Eagles history, and this guy missed it because he was at a Clippers-Mavericks game. And now that I think about it, that's not even what I'm annoyed about, because that's his thing and he has to live with it. (It does amuse me to imagine him someday going to an Eagles tailgate, and talking to some 700 level types who have been drinking since 5 AM, and them going "Hey, remember that awesome game when the Birds beat Dallas by 38 points?" and he'd have to say, "No, I missed it, I was at a Clippers game", and, well, then he would have problems, and rightly so, because that's just stupid.)

No, what annoys me is that Simmons gets to print this idiocy without anyone being able to call him on it, and now him and other like-minded national media d-bags get to walk around thinking that this guy represents all Eagles fans. I mean, look, I have no idea if the Eagles will do anything good in these playoffs. Reid annoys me just about constantly, McNabb is painfully inconsistent, the receivers are basically horrible... but damn it, if you consider yourself a real Eagles fan, and they're playing a potentially do or die game in the season finale against the Cowboys... you sit your ass in front of that TV and watch it. Period. And if you're not going to do that, at least do something productive with your time; don't spend your day subjecting your innocent child to a Clippers game. For crying out loud, man.

Seriously, screw this guy and screw Simmons for being friends with him.

If you're from outside Philly and all you know about Philly fans is what you read in Bill Simmons columns, I would like to assure you: the Eagles drive us nuts, but they're in the playoffs and we're behind them all the way. Go get 'em, Birds.

GO EAGLES!!!