Back among my friends

I'm back from my vacation, which nicely coincided with the all-star break. I see that Kinney and Oscar have been keeping this place roaring along, so I don't harbor any pretentions that somehow everyone missed me. Also a shout out to Seattle Matt's comments on the Real Madrid game. Still, there were a few developments that happened while I was away that I'd like to address:

Kovalenko/Kuykendall to NYRB: It seems that to defeat DC United, the Red Bulls have decided to become DC United. Well, that makes a certain degree of sense. D's household (which is to say, my wife and two cats) are upset to see Dema go to the Red Bulls, but it's more of an "Aw, shucks" then a "aw, f*ck." I'm also happy to see that Bruce has added Shawn Kuykendall to the roster over in New York, since I was something of a fan of his during his stay in DC. Good luck to them both.

Tino to LA: The trade of Santino Quaranta to Los Angeles has been well analyzed by Oscar. Oscar does wonder about LA as a destination for Santino, but for me it makes a certain degree of sense. It gets Tino out of our conference, it also procures the second part of the allocation that combines nicely with the one we got from the Red Bulls (in other words, NYRB was already paying us for something, so we could get more from LA). As for Tino, I wish him well. He was a maddening player to watch, showing moments of great promise, and then moments of pure despair on the pitch.

OPERATION: DEFLOWER - I see that there is sentiment for spreading this out over a few weeks. Works for me. Remember, let us know about your stories. You can just go to an MLS game, and enjoy the soccer, but it makes it easier if you have a good host. So be good hosts folks. And drunk ones.