BillSaysThis

The English Premier League got off to a good start when Ruud van Nistelrooy and Wayne Rooney got goals either side of halftime, John O’Shea and Roy Keane punching through from back of midfield and with Everton never really troubling new keeper Edwin van der Sar. I think the problem is obvious, the Toffees need more double vowel players! Their only boy, James Beattie, went off injured at 20 minutes.

My Reds, while bettering last season’s loss on the Teeside grass, couldn’t take advantage after Middlesboro defender Ugo Ehiogu took a red card bringing Gerrard down just outside the box (though surely saving a goal for his booking) despite pounding Mark Schwarzer for the remaining 20 minutes. Stevie was bitterly unlucky as he was probably within 12 inches of scoring at least three times.

On the plus side Liverpool did the job in midweek winning the away leg of their third round Champions League matchup with CSKA Sofia on the back of goals from Djibrill Cisse and Fernando Morientes. Neither were big impact players last season, the first for each with the team, due to injury and orientation difficulties respectively but must step up this term.

Milan Baros seems destined to take his deception and attitude elsewhere and unless prodigal son Michael Owen makes an unlikely (and I think unnecessary) return Cisse and Morientes will be required to score to make Rafa Benitez’s lone striker formation for road games. I don’t see Peter Crouch, tall and expensive as he is, playing that role even if he can stay healthy for long stretches; at best he will be the late pair of fresh legs with the occasional start at Anfield.

The two games reminded me clearly of the difference between a topflight league like the Premiership and Major League Soccer. I got a hint a couple of weeks ago watching the Chelsea-DC United friendly. The claim that American clubs don’t play with the same speed and power is absolutely true. Of course today’s four teams all finished in the top six last season but I have little doubt that if the three newly promoted sides came and played a half dozen meaningful games each against MLS clubs the record would be no worse than 15 wins and three draws. Maybe one loss in a lucky, close match.

In any case, I’m still thrilled to see the Earthquakes quietly sneak into first place in the West and overall with a 7-1-1 run. Doesn’t hurt that Dallas and the Galaxy have fallen flat though seeing Ricardo Clark named player of the month for July is really quite a shock. Since most of these matches haven’t been televised and I haven’t had the patience to watch on the PC, I must have missed an amazing transformation. If the Quakes can keep going through October, a Brian Ching return could see us with a very good opportunity to take a third (and last?) league trophy.

Next big match on my schedule is Wednesday’s US World Cup Qualifier with Trinidad & Tobago coming to Hartford, CT, for the first game of the second half of the final round. A win won’t clinch a berth in Germany but with group leader Mexico hosting third place Costa Rica three points will end the question for all practical purposes. Should both squads win this week the next WCQ, with the Mexicans coming to Columbus in early September, could easily determine the final rankings.

This has got to be my favorite time of the sports year, MLS moving into high gear, EPL starting fresh and the US Men working hard for a good seeding at World Cup 2006.

Not for production: Technologic Systems uses NetBSD OS to control Toaster because, of course, they could.

Is Someone Stealing Your Internet Connection?. I suppose if you send an uninformed small city reporter out to get a story that has edge than Greg Barnes delivered exactly what was wanted. On the other hand, if you want to do journalism with, say, facts instead of fearmongering than perhaps another choice would be better. Stronger adjectives witheld for the sake of civility. [via Doc]

I’m gonna die young–Jim Gilliam, not me in case you got a shock there, very sad news for an intelligent, aggressive guy trying to make a difference in this world.

I learned another of life’s little lessons the night before last: If you slice up a green chili, wash your hands thoroughly before attempting to dislodge eye boogers.

I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Anita Rowland but have enjoyed and respected her through her blog for the past few years–enough to keep reading her without an RSS feed ;)–so I was sad to read her Bad News, Again and find that her cancer’s decided she needs another workout. So send your good thoughts and well wishes towards Seattle tonight.

My Realtor, Betty Chen is now hosting the Mercury News’ Ask the Expert forum on Saratoga real estate and is activating her blog. If you’re asking, I’d definitely recommend her to anyone looking to buy or sell in the South Bay–she’s a ball of energy and got us a better price in less time on the market than two neighbors selling the same units two weeks and two months before us, respectively.

I was wondering why Robert Scoble, usually fairly prolific with the posting, hadn’t been seen in my aggregator for awhile so I went over to the site and saw the comments on his post supporting Molly Holzschlag. Geez, people get rough but some of these guys were going like they were sticking pins in a Scoble voodoo doll for pleasure. Some of the time I feel, though much more mildly, that Rob goes a bit too far into cheerleading mode but damn. Rob, we love you anyway, turn off comments if you must, but get back on the horse!

From SportsFilter, my predictions for EPL 2005-06. Looking good for Liverpool, the optimist in me says. We’re also doing the fantasy league again, here’s my squad, a little light on LFC players in an effort to spend wisely.

If Garret says so, I must help the Blogger Twins.

McNealey and Schwartz get stock options–and stock: Cuz things, uh, are going so well at Sun. Oh wait, no they’re not, that’s why these two stellar executives laid off another 1000 people two weeks ago.

Working on a redesign for this blog, a little late for that Reboot but time to get something simpler and cleaner. Will let you know how it goes, maybe. Right now just wondering about the old Firefox v. IE issues, probably need to revist the box model hack lessons.

Later: Got the IE centering thing answer from the All My FAQs wiki.

Naughty!

[This is from six years ago, written in a work notebook uncovered in sorting out the move…]

I can see a whole life racing time
In a single tear dripping from your eye,
Colors and expression and people pass through
Baby born, an old woman waiting to die.

My head feels the heat from the passion
Radiating from your cheek to my skin.
I would pull away, run away, except our
Horses gallop together, as the day begins.

“Make me taste yesterday’s passion,”
You scream across the morning sun
Trying to say what, I wonder idly,
Since our lovemaking was so mundane.

Another tear slithers down,
And another, catching the light
Glaring in my eyes, glaring thoughts
Confusion spreading, anger rising to match

The horses jump a brook and we cross
Into a new terrain, peopled with brush and ravines
“Stop,” I say, “tell me why you need this taste.”
But you ride on, oblivious in the morning sun.

Oh man, oh man, if you have a broadband connection go and get the hi-def version of the new Serenity trailer. Suh-weet! September 30, I am so there. Which reminds me that this is the first movie all year to give me that urge, to see the movie the first night. Cool!

Pete from The Blog of Doom was one of several to report getting offers for his domain from Brandon Oropallo of Verisoft LLC. These were all in the area of $1000, which seems pretty pricy considering the offer was only for the domain name, not the content or other material. Pete’s got a good name, I’ll grant him that, especially with the upcoming Doom movie.

Still, I was surprised to receive an offer from the same guy of $2300 for billsaysthis.com! Too bad he didn’t offer me the money for capspace.com, I’d definitely part it with for that sum. Maybe he’ll read this and make the offer. TS1 and I have a vacation a’planning for winter and the cash would be sweet.

Brad Davis scores the game winner: One of my SpoFite buddies actually got to see the Gold Cup semis and Final and posted her pics on Flickr. Cool!

I tell you, getting LittleSteven back from Fry’s yesterday morning was a relief. Though it also meant nearly a day of pulling down Windows updates and patches, reinstalling and updating Office, reinstalling UltraEdit, SmartFTP, HotPopper, WinZip and SharpReader, reinstalling EazyBackup and restoring from backups. Last, copying back all six gigs of music files (all ripped from CDs I own, Mr. RIAAman!). Plus, TS1’s PC Twiggy is having an ongoing problem with Norton AntiVirus and the instructions provided by Symantec are not terribly useful so that’s still being tended to.

However, making the chores much lighter are the two wins the Earthquakes had this week lifting them into a tie with FC Dallas for first place in the West. The Texans do have two games in hand and one of them will be made up Wednesday so this may not last but I’ll enjoy it while I can. Our boys get a decent break now; no more matches until after next Saturday’s All Star exhibition against the Premiership’s Fullham and none of ours were picked for it.

I was also happy to watch the US Men win the Gold Cup over Panama (in Spanish as I couldn’t figure out how to get to the third audio channel for the English commentary), 0-0 after extra time so we won on penalty kicks. Kasey Keller was the man, though two Panamanians blew their own chances by hitting the crossbar and going over top. I thought their keeper, Penedo, was the only one preventing a US landslide as he made up for many mistakes by the back four. Nice to have the trophy.

Alerted by AdamV, I popped over to Amazon to check out the free (after rebate and with two year service agreement) Motorola RAZR offer. See unlike some women, my TS1 is not excited by the prospect of shopping for shoes, clothes or jewelry but by the prospect of a slimmer, shinier new cell phone. Can’t explain it, I just accept it, happily since a new phone can generally only be had every couple of years.

But it has been two years since we got our matching pair from Sprint and her birthday is coming up. Shopping at Amazon for a complex product attached to a complicated contract is never easy, though. Finding answers for simple questions requires searching for the phone number the retailer refuses to put anywhere on its site and dialing. Fortunately I got a human quickly and he knew the answers:

No, you can’t order two phones on a family plan through Amazon. No, you can’t transfer your existing cell numbers to these phones because they’re pre-authorized before shipment.

Answers on the service plan had to be got from the telco, though, and of course aren’t (easily) found on their website. Cingular at least puts some 800 numbers right on a page labeled Contact. Here’s where we get to the real meat.

The woman I spoke with gave me the answer (sending photos taken by the phone’s camera costs 25 cents a shot but one can buy packs 20 or 40 as a monthly plan) and then switched into sales mode. She could, she said, give me the same price on the phone as the website even though the website says otherwise. Thanks but no thanks, since neither channel will match the ZERO DOLLAR price tag on Amazon.

Uh oh, I must have said something bad. Cingular has exclusive rights to sell these cool phones in the US, Amazon must have gotten them from someone in Europe, maybe Vodaphone. That doesn’t seem likely, I responded, since they’re being sold with Cingular service plans.

Even so, better to spend $200 to get it from her since doing almost anything wrong on the plan from Amazon will either cost me the rebate or a $250 penalty. Even being one day late with a payment would trigger a calamity. Self, I thought, what strange Sales Zone have we wandered into, or is the woman just getting close to the end of a quota period and short on her numbers?

We went around this same track a few times, my dander rising higher each circuit, though the saleswoman didn’t seem to realize it or care. Finally I told I was offended by an out and out attempt to scare me into buying from her, which she insisted was not the case at all. She was only explaining the facts. Then went straight back to the egative pitch.

I finally had enough. I said I don’t do business with companies that treat customers this way, that it’s simply despicable. Instead of Cingular getting one and possibly two new users and making my sweetie very happy, we won’t be considering them at all.

[As an aside I’m wondering where this fits into Dave’s calculus, and if Cingular is more clueful towards the web than Audible.]