Here are the two 2008-2009 football jerseys for two of the largest teams in the English Premiership. Newcastle United is sponsored by Northern Rock, while Manchester United is sponsored by AIG.

Northern Rock, back in February of 2008, due to heavy losses sustained from the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, was taken over by the British Government.

AIG, just this week, due to heavy losses sustained from the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, was taken over by the U.S. government.

We should have more foreign governments competing in the English Premiership…. maybe eventually we can all just play some footy to decide world affairs instead of having stupid wars?

the game was fantastic… scholesy’s little backheel to wes brown for a fantastic cross to ronaldo’s headed goal was an absolutely sublime move, and rooney’s huge huge cross to ronaldo was fantastic. it definitely wasn’t a boring match, thankfully – though the pitch looked shitty (leading to van der sar’s slip up on lampard’s goal, and terry’s botched PK).

so that wraps up an awesome season for manu – a glorious double. what to do now that manu’s season is over? hrm. the USA has some intriguing finals coming up against England, Argentina, & Spain. those should be great, and i guess i can get back to following our local Earthquakes & MLS.

Completely worth it

The meetings went really well, one of the things that was interesting was observing the agile development process in a large corporate environment. We’re on agile at Songbird, and it’s one thing to see it work well in a small group of 30 people, but to see it in place at a company of several thousand was pretty cool.

So far I’ve had some great food (screw all you who disparage British food – I love it), an insane amount of good beer, and for the first time in ages, I got to watch a Champions League match on TV at a reasonable hour in a pub full of cheering fans. (Yay Liverpool 2-0 over Inter!)

my favourite line…

Yes it’s a romantic appointment, yes it is an almighty gamble, yes it’s a soap opera and yes, it is very Newcastle United. But we love it.

holy crap, can it get any more amazing than an Israel goal in stoppage time over Russia!?!?!?

…. too bad Owen is out now from the friendly with Austria.

Will McClaren finally given Jermaine Defoe the run he deserves now?

I’m going to Boston for Tech Days, which works out great for the September 12th Mexico vs. Brasil international friendly match that will be played while I’m there.

I’m psyched – I’ve never seen Brasil play live before