The Minnesota Thunder open their season tonight in Portland at 9 p.m. CST. The team returns 11 key players from last season, when they went 13-9-6 and were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs. The Thunder did suffer one huge loss: central defender Dustin Brannan. An indomitable force in back throughout last season, Brannan's now suiting up for the Kansas City Wizards. Alejandro Diaz, a 6' 5", 31-year-old native of Uruguay will try and fill Brannan's role this year. Much of the team's fate will hinge on whether Diaz is up to the task. A live radio broadcast of tonight's match can be found here. The Thunder's home opener is next Saturday at the Metrodome. Lord knows why it's not at The Jimmy. As usual, all Thunder news can be tracked at Blue Sky Soccer.

The Indomitable Drinky Crows, currently tied for first place in the Cities Sports Connection Inter B co-ed rec league, also return to the pitch this weekend. We take on the Lot Lizards on Sunday morning at the unseemly hour of 9:15 a.m.

The Oxford American's southern food issue (which is on newsstands now) is, of course, filled with all kinds of fantastic stuff. I've been hopscotching through it the last couple days, but so far my favorite piece is Yusef Komunyakaa's sweet essay about cooking raccoon. Here's a snippet:

Mark's been posting all kinds of great poems in honor of national poetry month or somesuch nonsense. I'm pretty much a philistine when it comes to poetry, but since it's nearly the end of the month (and since this blog has been pathetically silent of late), here's some verse from the great Charles Simic that I like.

I went to Chicago last weekend with a trio of fellow soccer retards to mark the ignominious dismissal of Peter Wilt as the Fire's GM. Despite a few lame moments--like having our flag confiscated by sub-Neanderthal security guards and the refusal of my car's stereo to play any CDs other than Marah and Ween--it was an excellent time. The Fire won, 2-1, on a stoppage time goal by the diminutive Brazilian newcomer Thiago (who, by the way, is going to be one hell of a difficult player for defenders to contain). Here's a good overview of the Wilt situation. Here's a swell letter from a pissed off Fire fan. Here are some pictures from Saturday's game.

Speaking of Brazilians, there's an excellent profile of photographer Sebastiao Salgado in the 4/18 issue of the New Yorker. It's not available on-line, but worth tracking down. I was amused by this aside.

A signed Cartier-Bresson print--a tree-lined country road--is one of the few photographs on the walls of their Paris apartment; another is a picture of the soccer legends Franz Beckenbauer and Pele talking to one another, naked, in a postgame communal shower.

I assume that photo was snapped after a Cosmos game. (Speaking of which, check out this odd site devoted to the creation of a Cosmos franchise in MLS.)

The Game of Their Lives sounds pretty lame. Personally I'm looking forward to Hooligans.

My initial lottery bid for Germany '06 tickets was unsuccessful. Damn.

I'm off on an ill-advised trip to Chicago tomorrow a.m. for the Peter Wilt Memorial Match.

The fledgling Nomad World Pub, in Minneapolis, is now regularly showing European soccer matches. 

The only MLS game I caught last weekend was New England v. Columbus. I'm even more impressed with the former following that 3-0 thumping. I like that kid James Riley who played at right midfield. He's smart and puts in a lot of dangerous balls. I think when Cassio gets healthy the Revolution might do well to make Riley the starter at right back (replacing that thug Marshall Leonard).

Has there ever been a more dull Premiership campaign? I ask this in all seriousness because I have no idea. I claim zero historical expertise. But this has to rank as one of the lest interesting seasons ever. Chelsea's had the top of the table secured pretty much since Christmas. Arsenal and Manchester United will finish behind them and who really cares in which order. I can't generate any sincere interest in whether Liverpool or Everton secure the final Champions League playoff spot. Even the relegations tussle is pretty drama-less with only four teams--West Brom, Norwich, Southampton, and Crystal Palace--truly at risk of being dumped.

I stopped at the Big Top liquor store on my way home this evening. The stoop-shouldered, caucasian gentleman ahead of me in line--blue jeans, flannel shirt, dirty tan windbreaker, scuffed work boots, hair the color of cottage cheese; probably in his mid-70s--was buying two 22-ounce bottles of St. Ides and two 40-ounce bottles of Budweisser. Of course, he paid by check.

I've been overwhelmed for the last two weeks with a CP cover story that hits the streets Wednesday. It's about deadbeat taxpayers and hopefully will prove semi-amusing and informative. It better anyway, because it nearly proved permanently debilitating. Only Big Gulp-size helpings of Robitussin and enough chewable vitamin C to recreate the pyramids allowed me to survive the last week.

Hence no blogging.

But while I was floating my way through this period of journalistic hell, the MLS season started. Last weekend--hunched in front of my computer, covered in a blanket, unshaven for lord knows how many days, clutching a bottle of Robitussin--I managed to take in at least part of four of the week's opening matches. Here are a few random thoughts.

I think that Michael Bradley kid is going to be a pretty fine player for the Metrostars. So they might suck a little bit less than anticipated. But it's tough to take too much away from that game given the horrid rain and wind.

I never should've picked Andy Herron for my MLS fantasy team. I guess I figured someone would have to score goals for Chicago now that Damani Ralph is off somewhere in Russia and Herron seemed a likely candidate. But he was ineffective and visibly flustered against FC Dallas and I developed a strong dislike for him. He sulked off the field in the 66th minute. Nate Jaqua was much more dangerous--at least in the first half. Now Chicago has signed this Slovak dude, Lubos Reiter, to bolster the attack. Herron might soon find himself on the bench. Chicago will probably not score many goals.

How is it possible that D.C. spent the entire off-season basically trying to fill one exceedingly important spot--central defense--and the best that they could come up with was an undrafted 22-year-old out of Florida International University? A defense featuring Bobby Boswell, David Stokes, and Nick Rimando is scary.

Taylor Twellman was an absolute beast in the second half against San Jose. It was inevitable that he would score. And he did, slotting home the equalizer with a fantastic touch to beat Pat Onstad. (It was the MLS goal of the week.) He's going to score a fuckload of goals this year. I really like that New England team. They play with a lot of emotion. The addition of rookie Michael Parkhurst in the back might give them enough defense to contend for the MLS title. But Marshall Leonard is a horrible, dangerous player.

Your fucking server is down. Meaning I cannot access documents describing the pathetic bastards who file for bankruptcy protection. Meaning that you're making my already hideously poor life even worse. Please attend to this matter. Thank you.

Paul

The chicken magnate has died. I grew up a block from Frank Perdue's home in Salisbury, Maryland. As a kid I used to shoot hoops on the basketball court in his backyard. We also played war and hide and seek and everything else in the woods on his property abutting the Wicomico River. He never seemed to be around in those days so nobody complained. Then he married Mitzi sometime in the late-80s and became a more regular presence in Salisbury. I guess she liked it there.

Symbolically Perdue's presence has always been all over Salisbury. The business school at Salisbury State University is named after him, as is the stadium where the A-ball Delmarva Shorebirds play. My main academic motivation (however limited) growing up was to avoid spending my life as a chicken sex-er at the Perdue plant out on Route 50. Everyone who passes through Salisbury on their way to the beach is reminded of the Poultry King by the noxious stench of that factory.

The other day I was at Rainbow Foods and noticed that they're now stocking Perdue products. Guess I'll be eating chicken tonight.

"It takes a tough man to raise a tender chicken."