Small picture but big love

I love this: I’m watching the Earthquakes match live on the web thanks to Yahoo! Sports. There is no local show but the game is being televised back to Dallas (I’m guessing, given the bias of the ads and commentary) so someone made the deal to put the feed up. From the schedule on the broadcast page, several games a week are available this way so if you don’t have FoxSportsWorld to get the games regularly on cable, check this out. The choice is between a fairly small but sharp picture or fullscreen and blurry.

Doesn’t hurt that the Quakes are winning 2-0 as I write this, at the half.

However, if the news on the team staying in San Jose doesn’t change by Sep. 17 I wonder how much attention I’ll be giving to MLS after this season. FSW shows plenty of high quality EPL, French, Dutch, German, Brazilian and Argentinean football, more than enough to sate my demand if MLS leaves the Bay Area.

Final: The Quakes put another ball in the netting, Landon putting it right onto Ching and it was over with half an hour left (stats). Excellent overall performance, with Onstad needing to make only one real save all night. We jump ahead of Dallas and out of the basement, next weekend Colorado comes to town and if all goes right we’ll be in third place and setting up a run to the playoffs.

Sleep study makes Bill sleepy

Since I complained to the doctor recently about being surprisingly tired, fatigued, even though I’ve lost plenty of weight and been exercising regularly, he ordered some blood tests. They came back negative. Next was the unsupervised sleep study which I did last night.

Not a fun thing and, not too surprising, not conducive to a good night’s sleep! Given the difference between how I (and other people) normally sleep and how one is forced to sleep during this test, I do wonder how the results can be valid. Hell, the doctor had to give me an Ambien (sleeping pill) so I could even fall asleep at all.

The test basically involves attaching half a dozen sensors to various parts of your body: a tube with prongs that go inside the nostrils, one on either leg, one on the end of a finger, one around a wrist and two on the torso. All of these are at the end of a wire, with the other end of all of them coming together in a thick box which captures the data all night.

The recommendation, and reality, is that while wearing this mishegas one must sleep on his back, which I can normally never do. But I was encouraged to try and not take the pill, so I laid there for an hour listening to TS1 enjoy her sleep until I finally gave up and took it. Finally went to schluffy land and for all of five and a half hours. Great. Especially considering I hadn’t slept well the night before, I expected the pill to get me a good seven hours or so but that was too much to ask for.

Now I get to wait two weeks for the results to be processed and sent to my doctor. I mean, we all know how slowly electrons travel in computers, right? Maybe tonight I’ll finally get some rest.

Jamaica 1-1 USA: Phew!

What a tough game we had today opening the group round of World Cup qualification against the Reggae Boyz at The Office (Jamaica’s nickname for its national stadium), and this with the home side missing two key players due to injury. But chalk another one up for the (for now at least) Earthquake stars as Brian Ching scored the tying goal in the 89th minute off a slick little pass from Landon Donovan. I have to say, until that last gasp effort I was expecting a loss!

We had a very weak effort in midfield all game, sloppy passing that was no trouble at all for Jamaica to break up. This is no Grenada, let me tell you, with most of their starters playing in MLS or England–Damiani Ralph is third leading MLS goal scorer–and they are big and strong. USA is more fast and pacey, with very young, thinner players like Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley. Fortunately our backline was pretty tough and kept Kasey Keller from doing much work; their one score came in the 51st off a corner kick when one of the US players was out of position (not covering the far post) and left an opening too wide for Keller alone to handle.

The American team next faces El Salvador on Saturday, Sep. 4, at home and what I’d really love to see–do you hear me Bruce Arena?–is Donovan starting in midfield and Ching starting up top. Leave Chris Armas on the bench and position #21 just behind the two strikers, free to roam, in a 4-3-1-2 formation. We have more than enough defense for this and will get much more offense.

For Now

Why did I say “for now” about the Earthquakes? Rumors about Mexican power Club America buying the team and moving it to Houston or San Antonio are hotting up and say the announcement could come as early as tomorrow or Friday. Great timing as Soccer Silicon Valley is putting on a Save the Quakes rally Friday (noon, downtown San Jose, free hotdogs and lemonade, lots of Quakes past and present, be there!) and Saturday is a special old timers’ match celebrating the 30th anniversary of the original NASL Earthquakes. With all the rich men here in the Valley, isn’t there one who wants to step up and buy the team which won two of the last three MLS crowns?

Less uggh, more confusing

If I publish a new post, the edits to existing posts are pushed out as well. Annoying but less painful, assuming deletes work properly.

Later: Blogger Support seems to think there is no problem, let’s have a test.

Still… uggh

Let’s just say that yesterday’s issue is still an issue. I’d reported it to Google Support and got a fairly useless response–the problem ticket generator form allows you to select whether the problem applies to one blog or none in particular and since this problem happens to me across blogs I selected the latter and the email I got simply asked which blog had the problem. And I sent my reply at lunch time but of course didn’t hear back before quiting time. Now that’s well-trained support, right?

error test post

I am getting an odd error trying to republish an edited post:

550 www/2004/08/isnt-he-bit-like-you-and-me.phtml: No such file or directory on file:www/2004/08/isnt-he-bit-like-you-and-me.phtml

I might understand this problem if I had the per post pages enabled, but I don’t. This happens on any post I try to edit and republish. If you don’t see this entry then it means the problem applies to new posts as well.

Update: If you can read this then the problem is corrected. I suppose.

Update, next night: Can you read this?

Intransa in the news

Intransa Inc., an Internet protocol-based storage area network systems company where I just finished up a product management contract, has raised a $25 million Series D round to take the company to profitability next year. The company was beginning to ramp up, with very strong distribution deals in the US, Europe and Asia when I left and hopefully this money will see them through to the Promised Land.

Also of interest, Dr. Avi Katz, Intransa’s CEO, will be the speaker this Thursday night for the JHTC.

SF, for a break

/. points out a great PopSci article, Is Science Fiction About to Go Blind?, which focuses on the concept of the Singularity and how SF writers are dealing with it, particularly Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross. For someone like me, who prides himself on keeping up with what’s what in science fiction, this is an eye opener.

Also to Orion’s Arm, an amazing shared, openly created future universe with stories, cosmography, online gaming and more.

And speaking of gaming, how about Agyris?

Today’s movie: Collateral

Pam invited us to go see this film and, since we wanted to see it anyway, said sure. Always good to spend time with the lady with the funny hat even if she wouldn’t wear it to the movie house, plus we had some pretty tasty BBQ after.

Collateral comes from director Michael Mann (Miami Vice, Heat, Ali) and scripwriter Stuart Beattie (first big American credit) that rides a fairly standard Hollywood formula but turns many of these aspects against itself to succeed:

  • Hit man hires a cabbie to drive him around one night while he takes out the witnesses planning to testify against a drug lord
  • Weak hero (Jamie Fox) starts out scared of his own shadow but overcomes it through events and provocation, but mostly because of true–not needed by the script–goodness in his heart
  • Tom Cruise cast against type as the bad guy, with gray hair and a scraggly beard, which only matters because Cruise has such a positive, pretty boy reputation and he confounds expectations in ways that less strongly-typed actors couldn’t
  • A slick, stylish production, visually, sonically, even in the editing that will be no surprise to Mann fans

Pam said this was the best movie she’s seen this year and I’ll agree with her that this is excellent but I’d rank it second to, but not far behind, Bourne Supremacy.

definitely recommended

Tottenham 1-1 Liverpool

Playing the opening match of the English season, Liverpool travelled down to London to face Hotspur with new headman Rafa Benitez, a completely new starting strike force and without Michael Owen. On the latter move, captain Steven Gerrard spoke for the whole team in saying “Shock, really. Obviously, we came back after pre-season (training) and Michael was here, so we thought he was going to be playing for us this season. But Real Madrid have come calling and everyone knows how difficult it is to turn them down.”

The Reds opened well, dominating the first half and leading on Djibril Cisse’s lovely little redirect of Carragher’s push. Spurs seemed a little unsettled by comparison, even after 13 warmup matches, and had nothing in the offensive third; ‘Pool had six of the first seven shots on goal and we were a bit robbed of what should have been a PK once, if not twice. Whatever new manager Jacques Santini said in the locker room must have been heard by his players as they came back to the pitch much better organized and determined to go forward together.

Lots of back and forth for more than 15 minutes and then Benitez pulled a little shocker of his own, making a tactical substitution of Florent Sinama-Pongolle (as a midfielder) for Cisse in direct opposition to expectations that he would be a more adventurous manager than Gerard Houllier. Here we go, playing to not lose instead of playing to win.

And sure enough not 10 minutes later the home side made us pay with a brilliant little twist away by Jermain Defoe that squeezed in between Riise and Dudek and into the back of the netting from short distance. Benitez said he was satisfied with a result on the road and that he took out both starting strikers because they’d run out of energy, but that doesn’t explain why he stopped the aggressive tactics that went so well early; there’s no question that FSP and Stephen Warnock (Baros’ replacement) could have both played up top rather than the 4-5-1 form.

The starting XI was a bit surprising as well:

  • Dudek in goal over Kirkland even though the latter is finally reported healthy
  • Carragher in central defense partnered with Mr. Rock Sammi Hyypia, Josemi and Riise to either side
  • Finnan giving width on the right side of midfield, his first appearance out of the back line since coming to LFC, a surprise since in preseason it was Riise in this spot and Finnan as fullback

Didier Hamman played most of the game as our defensive midfielder, until being replaced by Igor Biscan in the last minutes, was a non-entity most of his time and I wonder if we will see more changes in midfield for next Saturday’s home match against Manchester City. Depends on whether we do sign Xabi Alonso, if Nunez (the throw-in from Real Madrid on the Owen deal) can prove his fitness in time, or perhaps even Biscan will move Hamman aside.

For sure another draw will not be acceptable.

Today’s book: Mr. Paradise

Elmore Leonard is possibly the top mystery writer in the US today (Riding the Rap, Get Shorty, Glitz) and his recent novel Mr. Paradise is a great example of why. Leonard usually sets his stories in Florida or LA but this one goes back to his native Detroit and while you might think a guy his age would be way out of touch with current culture but he does his homework. Really well, as best I can tell.

Basic plot: Mr. Paradise is an older, retired criminal defense lawyer who enjoys his golden years by having his hooker girlfriend come over to do some live cheerleading while he watches videos of University of Michigan football victories. He has two former clients taking care of his other needs and each of the three has been given a promise of reward after the lawyer expires. But one of the men finds the situation’s changed and he is no longer content to wait for nature to get the job done.

But criminals usually make mistakes, at least in novels like this one, and so DPD Homicide veteran Frank Delsea has no real problem figuring this one out. He gets a really hot chick out of the investigation too. The bad guys pretty much all go down, they have to.

The beauty, though, is the way Leonard has with English; plot and characters are secondary even if he does a fine job with them. He just writes books that you don’t want to put down until they’re done and then you want to go back to the library and get another.

recommended

New Jersey is known for twisted politics but today’s news really makes me go Holy Moly! Really sad that McGreavey is going down for being stupid but (mostly) Republicans will push it against the gay community.

You know where you can stick it.

The Giants suck. No doubt I hate baseball but tonight is even worse because the Giants game has gone into extra innings and pre-empting/delaying the (already tape-delayed) Earthquakes-Fire broadcast. Both sides may currently be in last place in thier respective divisions but are still strong squads that match up well against each other and I was really looking forward to watching. Making it worse, FSN hasn’t even bothered to have the announcers say anything or to run a crawl on the bottom of the screen telling us whether they’ll join in progress.

As I wrote the last sentence, the Pirates hit a home run to win the game. 7:24. How long will it be before the soccer is onscreen? Oh sure, let’s show some commercials (five) first, then back to the idiotsannouncers.

Looks like the entire match will be broadcast, at least, given that their opening with a normal pre-game run up.

Later: We lost 2-1 when we should have won 3-1 or better. Landon hit the crossbar, Mullan hit the left post, the ref gave us one PK but completely missed a second (not to mention giving out cards like they were bites of chocolate). Mostly, even with a man advantage for the last 50 minutes, the Quakes just never got it together tonight. I would also question Coach Kinnear’s decision to put Donovan on in place of Derosario to start the second half; I would have put Donovan on, for sure, but in place of Waibel and gone with a 3-5-2. Damn, with both Dallas and Colorado also losing tonight we blew a good shot to climb back into third and instead remain in the cellar.