Old Lady Post: Good News/Bad News, Mercato Edition

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON AUGUST 18, 2010

Let's start with some good news, shall we?  There are about two weeks left in the transfer window.  That means that the suits will not have to create a breach in the time-space continuum to make our dreams come true.  They can act within the confines of our three-dimensional linear-perception-of-time existence and do the right thing, if they want to. 


And more good news:  While I was trying to figure out a way to scam my employer in order to be in front of a stream for the Juve-Sturm game tomorrow, my employer handed me the afternoon on a platter without me even asking.  Now the only obstacle to an afternoon of joy, aside from the zebras themselves, is my cable company, which can't always be counted on to provide me with access to the Interwebs, despite the fact that I pay them to do it.


Unfortunately, it's time for some bad news.

Old Lady Mini-Post: Ding Dong Poulsen's Gone

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON AUGUST 12, 2010

Two down, three to six more to go, depending on your point of view.





Sorry Liverpool fans (of which I am one).

Old Lady Post: Football is Suffering

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON OCTOBER 27, 2010

Juventus went to the Renato Dall'Ara last Sunday.  Some stuff happened, and then some other stuff happened and then Bologna parked the bus in the second half and Juve worked really hard but could not find a way through.   Here's the cold hard truth:  I don't want to talk about it.


Oh, Vincenzo.......

Old Lady Post: Wet Zebras and UEFA Draws

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON AUGUST 6, 2010

Well, then.  That's done.  Whew.   In a match in which the ball spent a lot of time skidding around in the mud and coming to a stand-still in puddles, Juventus managed to eke out a 1-0 result against Shamrock Rovers in the "home" leg in Modena.  Juve advance to the play-off round against SK Sturn Graz of Austria on  August 19 and 26.

In other UEFA draw news, Palermo meets NK Maribor of Slovenia, and Napoli meets IF Elfsborg of Sweden in Europa League, also on August 19 and 26.

Sampdoria meets Werder Bremen in the Champions League play-off round on August 17/18 and August 24/25.




what Bianconeri see when they have nightmares



You've all probably heard the good news/bad news about Giovinco, is that the stuppid, stuppid zebra suits have loaned him to Parma for the whole season.  Good news for him, because he'll presumably get to play (Hear that, suits?  HE'LL GET TO PLAY.  *grumbles*  all the broke-ass mids Juve fielded last years and STILL Elf warmed the bench) but bad news for Juventus and its tifosi because we all know what happens to discarded zebra wunderkind.  They hone their craft elsewhere while nuturing a big ole grudge so when they play the zebras, they kick ass painfully and embarassingly.  *rant rant rant*


Where was I?  Oh yeah!  Don't expect much, cos I only saw the last 16 minutes and I'm having technical problems like woah today, but here goes:  HARK! The  Europa League Match Under the Sea:



Um, it was wet.

Old Lady Post: Zebras in Dublin

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON JULY 30, 2010 

So.  On account of the craptastic season that Juventini everywhere would like to forget, the Bianconeri traveled to Dublin this week for the first leg of a At Least They're In The  Europa League Third Qualifying Round against Shamrock Rovers.   Man oh man.  How awful would it be to get bounced by Shamrock Rovers?  Not that anyone cares, but Mr. D's team is Liverpool and they had to go to Skopje (they won).  It could be worse.  It can always be worse.   Gio was captain.  Lucas captained The Reds (oh the shame!)


The Hairz were there



I actually found a stream for the first time EVAR! (my friends at the Paleolithic Club are going to be really uncomfortable when they find out).  I missed the first 20 minutes or so, and then I fought with an Irish feed that alternated in 30 second cycles of lovely and clear and in English and thirty seconds of dark.  The Irish commentators kept expressing their view that Juve is still the awesome powerhouse it used to be, which was amusing.  At half time, I switched to a blurry but continuous feed that I assumed was in Spanish and didn't notice until maybe minute 70 that it was in Italian.  And on top of that, I was knitting, so take all that into account and don't count on me for journalistic accuracy.

Old Lady Report: Lyon Friendly and URGENT HAIR NEWS

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON JULY 25, 2010




Remember Olympique Lyonnais?  A Champions League semifinalist, home squad of suspended French Number One Hugo Lloris, and the club that gave us Fabio Grosso (Thanks.   Thanks a lot.)?  Juventus played OL in Cosenza in Regione Calabria (ancestral homeland of Dirtbunnies) this weekend and, surprisingly, won the match 2-1.  Don't get excited.  It's only the preseason and Juventini should have learned from last year that preseason results and form are meaningless at best and a cruel visit to Oppositeland at worst, but it is still satisfying to register a victory.

Here's your Starting XI  your Starting X plus some pitch-invading Car Salesman:

Smile, Lanza!  You're touching a legend!

Juventus: We Haz a Marcolino!

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON JULY 8, 2010




Lots of good things happened late last week while Dirtbunny was cruelly isolated from zebra stuff because of a family obligation.


First: 

moar armz plz

'S true!   Juve has obtained Marco Motta on loan from Roma Udinese.  Lordy lordy does Juve need a right back!  He didn't play much last year for Roma, but I think he's packing big guns good and even if he's not, he can't possibly be worse than Zebina, C.D.  Win!


BRB *doing Snoopy dance*

Simmering the sauce

We have achieved the stage of the bolognese when I don't have to stand there and watch any more.  If I just remember to stir it once in awhile, that's enough.  The biscotti are sitting in a turned-off oven for their final crisping, and they will be ready in time for lattes.  And so I am finally sitting down.  Aaaaaaaaaaahhh.


Today's biscotti is Lemon-Anise, only I hate anise, so they are Lemon-Vanilla.  This is the recipe:

I left the magazine on my knitting bag, so Tiki borrowed it and edited it for me.  Maybe it's compulsive to slog through recipes just because they're there, but if I were really compulsive, I'd be forced to use anise instead of being flexible and changing the recipe, right?

Flotsam. Also: Introducing the Bunny Baking Project

So I got up for work one day this month and saw this by the front door.  Can anyone explain this?

Um, yes, those are pants.  Yes, Mr. D's pants.  Why are Mr. D's pants draped over the back of the sofa next to the front door?  Maybe he didn't want to waste any time when the dial-a-whore arrived.

Juventus Transfer News

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON  JULY 1,  2010

Juventini have plenty to forget this summer what with the steaming pile of doo that was 2009-2010, not to mention the Juve-style fail by the Azzurri, oh, and a shortened summer break on account of the Third Qualifying Round matches for the At Least They Made The Europa League on July 29 and August 5. 

I know, bb.  I know.
 

Is there any hope that it could get better in 2010-2011?  An optimistic person would think yes, but Dirtbunny is old enough to have learned an important life lesson:  Expect the worst so it hurts less when they don't deliver.  Let's see what the mercato has done for us so far....

Old Lady Post: The Triumphant Homecoming of Manninger! (sort of)

I know this is from last week but it's the best I got.


Can you feel it?  The impending doom?  Settling over you like an itchy and somewhat smelly blanket that you just can't get away from?   Every time you shake it off and feel the fresh air of Juve 4-0 Lecce, or something similar, here it comes, scratchy and stale, reminding you who you're dealing with:  Salzburg 1-1 Juventus.  At half-way through the group stage, Juve sits third in the group A table with three points.  This represents Serie A quite ill, and it makes the tifosi cranky.  Ugh.


The Hairz were there.

Azzurri in South Africa: The Long Flight Home

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON JUNE 28, 2010


So much for that.  While our boys scrub off the rotten tomatoes that met them at the airport, let's rehash every painful moment, shall we, so we can decide what went wrong and learn from it?  Hmmm?  Any takers?


Yeah, me neither.  I'd rather forget.   While we wait for time to dim the painful memories, perhaps it might be advisable to try on this thing called "optimism" and count our Azzurri blessings.  After all, it could have been worse.

"could have been worse?"  bleagh.    BRB.  Need to wipe puke from laptop.


Ahem.

Old Lady Post: How much scratch does your boy make?

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Perhaps you're merely curious.

Perhaps you'd like a little reassurance that you aren't all that underpaid.
Perhaps you aspire to be a WAG and want to know which ones are the richest.
Perhaps you want to point and laugh.

Whatever your motive, courtesy of La Gazzetta Dello Sport, here are this year's numbers, arranged by team, from the poverty-stricken teams to the big spenders.

ADP and the Ladies in Bianconeri

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON MAY 12, 2010


The season is almost over and that means the summer transfer season is about to begin.  Please don't ask me when, precisely: I'm new at this.  Transfer rumors make me incapable of attending to the mundane details of life, such as retaining employment so I can pay the electric bill so I can do things like this here post.  Last year was bad, because ADP was going to China, MLS, Spain.  Pirlo was going to Chelsea.  Gattuso and Zambrotta were going, well, no one was sure where they were going, but they weren't going to stay at Milan.  That all worked out nicely in the end.  This year, the Bianconeri rumor mills have already informed us that Zlatan Dead Guy is returning to Juve, ADP is going somewhere or not, Gigi is going to Man City  Arsenal  anywhere they have a Champions League slot, and Giovinco is going to be loaded onto a space pod and blasted out into oblivion so tifosi stop questioning the wisdom of not allowing him to play.  It is only going to get worse.  When the transfer window opens, I am probably going to have to institute at least a partial interwebs embargo.  However, I am currently free to wallow wherever I want, and so I went to the Juventus blog on The Offside to listen to like-minded disappointees hurl rhetorical mud at zebra management, and lo and behold, whatever did I find there?

Dirtbunny News

Although you wouldn't know it from here, I do a lot of writing elsewhere for my friends who appreciate football. I've decided to go back and post some of those entries here because many of them are awfully damn good, even ifthey are crammed with inside jokes and whatnot.

Please consider them to be rated R, and if the f-bomb bothers you, well, there are a lot of f-bombs.

Also, my space bar is sticky, and sometimes I can't be bothered to fix every single one.  Please be patient.

It was a busy month chez nous.  My job got bigger and I had end-of-year craziness to deal with that was never my problem before.  Mr. D had to go to Pork Barrel University again.  We took a vacation for the first time in three years.  The old folks visited.  Football started, and so did both Champions League and Europa League, as well as qualifying matches for Euro 2012.  This year, this means more than just hours watching football and thinking unclean thoughts about football players because now I am writing about it for a online community of Serie A tifosi.  I'm responsible for covering Juventus, so I'm doing match reports after every match (one or two every week), and covering the transfer market and whatever other news may come up.  I love it, but it's a time commitment.  Aaaaaaand,  Kirby stopped walking, so he spent a few days in the hospital getting expensive tests, and his progress since then has been up and down.  When he's up, he can do pretty much everything, but his balance is tetchy and he's prone to falls.  When he's down, he can't walk, has to be carried everywhere, and has to be supported when he potties.  And no, we still don't know exactly what the cause of all this is, and yes there will be more vet trips (including tomorrow) so the doggie neurologist can assess his progress on his treatment plan.  The space bar on my laptop needs to be hitjust so, which means weird things happenwhen I write.  And there has been knitting.