BillSaysThis

Wake up too early, before the alarm clock is even close. No Italy-South Korea match on Tivo, no idea why, but the overtime would have been left off even if the game had been recorded (think I fixed that for the quarters). Email access from work seemed spotty although difficult to diagnose. Someone entered a request in our other system to have the ads removed from their Blog*Spot account with no payment because it “messes up the look.” A person I know writes and makes me jump through hoops for no particularly good reason.

Worst of all, no Sweet One!

Will dinner and Bad Company with the bud cheer me up?

Alan Dean Foster is a prolific science fiction author and among his most popular books have been the stories of Flinx and Pip. These novels are set in a galactic future dominated by the Humanx Commonwealth, a multi-species, multi-world government founded by humans and Thranx (picture insects more or less scaled up to people size). After nearly 30 years of writing novels and short stories in this mileau (only about half of which involve the Human/Thranx duo), Foster decided to tell the tale of the founding of the Commonwealth. In fact, he wrote a three novel series called just that. I thought I’d reviewed the first two books (Phylogenesis and Dirge) last year but checking the website I see that’s not the case. Oh well.

In Diuturnity’s Dawn, the stage is set and readers, who know the general shape of the outcome of course, can smell the ink on the treaties and hear the rustle of the parchment. Though we know where we need to be at the end, Foster is a good enough writer to make the journey interesting, and he focuses on three separate sets of people who come together in the conclusion. The author explains: “One takes place on the colony world of Comagrave (see map of the Commonwealth on my website) and involves the AAnn and a momentous archeological discovery. The second revolves around an intercultural human-thranx fair on the world of Dawn (also on the map), and the third takes place on the thranx capitol world of Hivehom and centers on a female human diplomat stationed there.”

Diuturnity, by the way, is a real word. Though why it’s part of the title is somewhat confusing.

The pacing of the novel is somewhat problematic: it’s too slow, although at the end finally gets into gear. The characters and the plots are not bad, although the absolute adherence to cycling through the stories, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, all the way to the end is a bit unnecessary. This is definitely a book for ADF fans, the readers who just have to know, if you get my drift. I think I enjoyed the first book of this trilogy more and most of the Flinx and Pip novels are more fun to read.

Count me in – World Cup fans miffed at TiVo, Sonicblue

One of the biggest disasters in American corporate history, thousands out of work, companies destroyed, a few people dead, just so former Enron CFO Andew Fastow could avoid losing a little money. Apparently it will take some very subtle and sophisticated prosecution to hold Fastow accountable but may be able to put him in jail. He’s not the only one who deserves jail time but I sure would be happy to see him go in for awhile. As one Anderson exec, who was not part of the scandal, put it: “In effect it was, heads I win, tails you lose.”

More yellows, they just keep coming. A strange one against Brad Friedel that was simply a mistake by the referee. Who made a huge one early in the second half when John O’Brien got away with a handball in the box.

Friedel has played up to the top flight level he’s shown throughout the tournament. He had no business at all in the first half, essentially, but had to be at his best for the entire second half.

Mexico takes a red card to Marquez with an elbow against Cobi Jones in the 88th minute. They’ll be down a man for the remainder and they’ve used all their substitutes too. Jones drew a yellow card a few minutes earlier too.

Only the 89th minute but Sam’s Army is singing Na Na Hey Hey (Goodbye) already. Five minutes of stoppage time to go!

94th minute and Donovan almost makes it 3-0 off a Jones cross but the ball sails over the top. The Americans have never put on a shutout in the World Cup before today.

Is this the most exciting win for US Men’s soccer ever? You bet it is! Two quality goals, nothing cheap or easy about either, against a quality team. The US makes it into the Round of Eight. Bring on Germany!!!

USA! USA!

In the 66 minute, Landon Donovan put a terrific header into the net and the US up 2-0. Only a minute later it seemed like Mexico would have a penalty shot on a foul in the goal box against Luis Hernandez. Instead the yellow card went to Hernandez for taking a dive.

And the yellows are flying, five in the second half alone. The US took three in the first eight minutes of the second half and Blanco, Mexico’s star, just got one for giving a knee to an American player trying to get up on his feet.

Halftime for USA-Mexico and the Americans are ahead 1-0 at Jeonju Stadium on Brian McBride’s blast in the eight minute off a lovely pass from Josh Wolff. The US is playing a very defensive layout, four defenders plus Reyna hanging back from a rightside midfield spot, and this is frustrating our southern neighbors. Enough so that their extremely agitated coach Javier Aguirre has used one substitution already, sending MLS vet Luis Hernandez on in the 28th minute in place of Morales in order to have an extra attacker. The strategy has had its plusses, the Mexicans have twice the possession time of the Americans, and the Mexicans held the ball in the US end for most of the last five minutes of the half.

By the way, McBride has a hottie blonde wife, they showed her during a halftime profile without naming her. But definitely hot.

USA: 45 minutes away from the team’s first win ever in a World Cup knockout stage game. And a matchup with Germany.

Last year I got to spend Father’s Day with my dad, probably the only one since I moved out here, and even two weeks more as we took a great trip to Italy.

Here are two of my favorite pictures from that trip:

  

A new photo gallery for yesterday’s SF Chat Regs party, Jean’s SF Party, is now up and available. The party was held at Mujer’s place in San Jose, with Dean cooking some amazing food, in honor or our pal’s visit from Milwaukee. Of course with this group, any excuse for a party is just fine.

Digital physics – Wolfram, just the most public of the new paradigmists: What’s So New in a Newfangled Science?

Well me. No team going out with zero goals in the first round makes me happier than France. But still, haven’t they heard of the guillotine? Calude Simonet, president of the French Soccer Federation, commenting on coach Roger Lamerre’s chances of staying on: “Cutting off heads is not the way we do things.”

Picking up on a post I made here earlier this week, NetworkWorld Fusion’s Compendium weblog quoted and linked me in Novell’s purchase of Silverstream a mistake?. Thanks Adam!

The boys in Bristol screwed me over last night, switching coverage of the Denmark-England game from ESPN to ESPN2. So Tivo recorded a couple of hours of SportsCenter. Instead of an exciting 3-0 win for England featuring goals from both the Liverpool strikers, Owen and Heskey. Dayum!

You know, between the taskmaster and the boys kicking balls, there just hasn’t been much time for movies lately. But I want to tell you, even if your busier than me, you need to make time to get out of the house and down to the cinema to see The Bourne Identity. There’s a simple reason: it’s an excellent movie, maybe the best big money film of the year so far.

Matt Damon plays Jason Bourne (well, he’s sort of Jason Bourne, we never do really know) and Franka Potente (Run Lola Run) plays Marie, the $20,000 taxi driver while Chris Cooper, with all of Texas in his mouth, leads the hunt for them. All three really act, which is not particularly something you look for in a straight action movie, and they don’t use a lot of computer effects or wire-aided martial gymnastics as crutches.

Julia Stiles, apparently glad to have a role where she’s not playing a high school hottie, plays a CIA agent running an illegal Paris office; she doesn’t even get to look that hot and in the one scene where we see her full on, she looks sort of hippy. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who played Simon Adebisi on Oz, shows up as a deposed African dictator trying to blackmail the bad CIA people into putting him back in office. Walt Goggins from this season’s surprise hit, The Shield, plays a CIA desk jockey. Clive Owens (The Croupier), a fellow member/victim of an experimental CIA drug-enhanced warrior program gone bad, tries to take down Damon but in the end just isn’t good enough.

One reason for the good result is that it comes from a strong source: a great novel by Robert Ludlam, who also exec produces or at least gets a credit for that. Scriptwriter Tony Gilroy has a great pedigree–Bait, Armageddon, The Devil’s Advocate, and Extreme Measures–but doesn’t really need to add much here. Director Doug Liman is the man, showing surprisingly good form in his first big action flick; you wouldn’t think Go and Swingers would have prepared him for this. But he crunches Damon and Potenta through car chases, assaults, and traps, twisting them time after time, until finally Damon can turn the tables on Cooper. Limon often uses Damon’s face full of confusion, guarded yet confident, to fill the screen. Good job!

Highly Recommended

That’s not me talking, it’s a female doctor in Pakistan quoted by Nicholas Kristoff in August 1914 in Pakistan (NY Times: mefi, mefi) but it sure scares the hell out of me. More:

“The Indian Air Force and the Army are raring to have a go, and only political authority is holding them back,” said Sumit Ganguly, an Indian author.

“Hamid Gul, a rabble-rousing former lieutenant general and head of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, says that the moment India strikes, Pakistan will call for a jihad against India and invite Muslims from all over the world to sneak into India and wage attacks. He added that Pakistan would also support separatist movements around India and might even bomb India’s high-tech centers. “If India attacks,” said General Gul, “then it’s `Come one, come all, it’s Jihad!’

“Hamid Nasir Chattha, a prominent politician, noted in a newspaper essay yesterday that Pakistan had spent a fortune acquiring a nuclear capability and suggested that as a result it would be almost a shame not to use it: “If the use of nuclear is unavoidable for the survival of Pakistan, then it must be used with no hesitation.”

“A survey of Pakistani elites published in a recent book, “Pakistan and the Bomb,” found that 98 percent believed that Pakistan would be justified in using nuclear weapons ‘if India were about to attack Pakistan across the international border.'”

“The U.S. Naval War College held an India-Pakistan war game not long ago in which each country’s leaders were played by officials from that country. The games began with a terrorist attack, grew into a border war–and then Pakistan covered its retreat by firing four nuclear weapons at pursuing Indian troops. India responded with 12 nuclear warheads. The U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency estimated that the result would have been 15 million casualties.”

Okay, I’ve basically quoted the entire article but I hope you’re getting the deadly point.

Not Uncle, but Walton: Wal-mart is going to start selling cheap PCs ($300-600) with Lindows, NOT Windows, pre-installed. I think this is a very cool development, because who but retailing behemoth Wal-mart could stand up to MS? My buddy Evan, though, says: “Talk about buying a pig in a poke! Only people who know what they are doing can afford to risk this kind’a system and I think most of them would rather roll their own. In the end I expect there to be a lot of unhappy dumb Walmart customers.”

Thanks to the boys in red and white and their 1 – 0 tossing of Portugal, the American team will go through to the Round of 16 even after a terrible 1-3 result against Poland. The thing is, this match was almost as bad as Italy-Croatia in terms of the referee, who disallowed a Landon Donovan goal in the fourth minute that would have tied things 1-1. Donovan allegedly fouled the defender just before his shot and this was just a complete load of hooey, there is no way that was a legitimate call. Not only did the crap call leave Poland ahead, they were able to counterattack while the Americans were still fuzzy and put a second ball in the net. The third Polish goal, much later in the game in the 65th minute, who knows about that. But 1-1 instead of 2-0 after five minutes, that’s a completely different game to play in.

I can’t blame American goalie Brad Friedel, though, as only the third goal can be marked against him and he made several other brilliant saves. No, the big black mark has to go against defender Jeff Agoos for the first two goals. Agoos went off on an ankle injury in the the 35th minute but coach Bruce Arena stuck with the man who had delivered so much for him (four NCAA titles together at the University of Virginia, then two MLS championships with DC United) far too long and we were reduced to nail-biting until the results came in from the South Korean match when there was about two and a half minutes of stoppage time left in our game. Thankfully the Portugese did themselves in with a red card and then a second player sent off with two yellows in the game.

Next up for the US: the undefeated Mexicans in three days. We have a good past history against the southern neighbors but minus defender Frankie Hejduk, who will be unable to play after picking up his second yellow card of the round, I am not at all confident. Will Arena hide behind the Hejduk absence to stick with Agoos? What the hell:

Go USA!!!

Only One Week – with me on the team and Fortune Magazine says Pyra is the Cool (Media) Company of 2002 [via Steve]

After playing almost the entire game as if they were scared to get near the Mexican goal, Italy got an amazing bit of luck from substitute striker Alessandro Del Piero with a late header AND a surprise victory by Ecuador over Croatia to squeak through to the next round. Mexico played an excellent game, lots of ball control and defense, pushing forward with confidence. They only needed a draw to advance and after taking the 1-0 lead in the first half there was really little doubt about that.

Interestingly, ESPN used Giorgio Chinaglia as the commentator on this match and I thought he was a good choice. He did not favor his old side and was even more critical of them than the Mexicans. Of course, the Italian team was deserving of the criticism. I don’t know what was wrong with Totti today but he was bad and should have come out much earlier for del Piero than he did. Then there was the questionable decision of Trapattoni, the Italian coach, to play Maldini and Panucci deep in the defense and on the opposite side of the field from their normal placement.

Props to the Mexican team with a very pretty header from Jared Borgetti in the 34th minute, going away from and with his back to the goal, and solid midfield work. They win the group and will face the runnerup from Group D in the next round, either the US, South Korea, or Portugal. Italy will face the Group D winner. The final games for the group, America-Poland and Portugal-South Korea, are early tomorrow morning and I can hardly wait!

Argentina’s smoking gun – take a look at this photo and decide for yourself