Timberwolves roster finalized

Just in case anybody but me was keeping track, the Timberwolves have cut their roster down to 15 players by agreeing to a buy-out with forward Juwan Howard (formerly of the University of Michigan Fab Five).  The Wolves traded for Howard earlier in the off-season with the belief that he'd give Kevin Garnett some help in the paint, and with KG off to Boston a 34-year old Howard didn't fit into their long-term plans and also really didn't want to play for a rebuilding team.  They gave up so little for him, two guys who'd done virtually nothing in Wolves uniforms, it's really no big loss, and I'm glad the Wolves cut Howard when they couldn't trade him to a contender like he requested.  Also unbeknownst to me, the Wolves told Wayne Simien not to bother reporting to the team, and despite rumors he would be re-traded five minutes after being acquired, Antoine Walker is still listed on the roster, so the final result of the Ricky Davis trade may be the Wolves get a draft pick, Walker to provide some scoring from both forward positions, and to swap back-up centers, Mark Blount for Michael Doleac.  Now they don't have too many high salaries (only Ratliff, Walker, Jaric, and Buckner make more than $3m), and plenty of playing time for the players with upside.

Likely starters (from what I'm hearing):
Theo Ratliff   C
Al Jefferson   F
Antoine Walker   F
Rashad McCants   SG
Randy Foye   PG

I like Ratliff, although he'll slip down the depth chart as he moves further into his mid-30's so that will be a potential hole in the roster in a couple years, and the team lacks a legitimate 7-footer.  Al Jefferson looks great, and Walker has been a great scorer in the past and Wittman claims he can play the 3, so that should be fun.  Our recent draft picks McCants and Foye certainly have potential, especially Foye, so we'll see in the next year what they can do in a team where most touches don't go through the MVP.  The potential weak spot is shooting guard, where McCants isn't the world's greatest defender, so he may not start and there are a lot of guys pushing for time at that spot.

Bench:
Michael Doleac  C
Mark Madsen  PF
Ryan Gomes  F
Craig Smith  PF
Corey Brewer  F
Chris Richard  F
Greg Buckner  GF
Marko Jaric  GF
Gerald Green  GF
Sebastian Telfair  PG

For big men offf the bench they'll have Michael Doleac at center, Mad Dog is the veteran hard man, a great defender and rebounder but not so great with the ball in his hands (although I have seen him score on Shaq), and Ryan Gomes looks like a great all around bundle of energy, I'm really impressed with him.  Craig Smith in his second year should continue to develop in the same mold as Madsen but adds a wicked offensive move to top it off, and Corey Brewer has this long frame and a lot of talent, but like KG ten years ago he needs time to bulk up to handle the NBA, and I don't know what our second round pick Chris Richard has to offer yet.  Greg Buckner and Marko Jaric are both swingmen, Buckner is supposed to be a defensive stopper while Jaric shows some flashes of brilliance as a creative player when he can pull his head out and can run the point depending on match-ups.  Sebastian Telfair actually looks like he might work out as a point guard to the point were Randy Wittman is claiming he may occasionally Foye at shooting guard with Telfair in the game.  That may not be a lot of depth at point guard, if Telfair isn't reliable and Jaric filling in can't handle speedy guards.  At the end of the bench, Gerald Green is another swingman with some scoring ability, but right now just looks lost on the court, and I assume second round pick Chris Richard is going to be coming to games in a suit this year.  In addition to Richard and Green, one more player is going to have to show up to the games in a suit rather than a uniform, and I believe Madsen is currently injured.  When he comes back, it will be interesting to find out who's considered superfluous.

The Prisoner Returns?

Christopher Nolan, director of such films as Memento and Batman Begins, is reportedly attempting to get the rights to film a big screen adaptation of “The Prisoner”, which was Patrick McGoohan's follow-up to “Secret Agent Man”, a more straightforward spy series. “The Prisoner” was about a spy who resigns his post, only to be kidnapped and subjected to psychological games in an eerie, polychromatic village, never sure if he's being interrogated by the enemy, or his own former employers. It was exceedingly bizarre in points, like when the whole series culminated in a raging gun battle with guys in gorilla suits to the tune of “All You Need is Love”, but to anyone who's actually seen it, it left a lot of iconic images in their heads. It was like the dark and dysfunctional mirror image of In Like Flint, or a 60's beach party movie director made an expose about psychological warfare.

Unfortunately while it certainly holds up after forty years, it is still very much a product of its time. The suave superspy with nary a hair out of place has been done to death by forty years of Bond movies, so while McGoohan used this archetype as the calm center of a world that changed every week with a new opponent and a new game, it cannot be used again. Given the tendency of all these exploitations of old TV properties to solve all their problems with self-aware parodies of their source material, “The Prisoner” is particularly ill-suited to an update... it's too silly to begin with to parody. Mike Meyers made use of some of its icons for Austin Powers (who does #2 work for?) but as part of a larger mix.

Christopher Nolan did rebuild the Batman franchise when it looked desperately played out, and he did it by taking it seriously again, so maybe he can pull it off. However there's another risk to all of this, that having a movie that's like Kafka in primary colors playing in the same multiplex as films like Rendition is going to seem a bit flippant. Done right it could be inspired, but the people who buy old TV properties and dress them up have to hedge their bets by winking at the audience and insecurely sneering at the source material. So I don't have high hopes.

The Nuts

I've been enjoying the World Series of Poker, which is filmed, edited, and shown by ESPN long after the tournament is over and print media have already named the winner, but fortunately the amateurs who won the last five years have been faceless enough (at least before the tournament) that I don't remember who won. I know watching people play cards sounds like the most boring thing on earth to most people, but the point is the bizarre characters who populate this subculture.

I was really pulling for one of a few people to win, like either Maria Ho, the woman who went the deepest into the tournament, or Scottie Nguyen, the former champ and Vietnamese immigrant whose peculiar grasp of the English language requires that he punctuate ever sentence with “baby”, like in his most famous line, “You call it's gonna be all over, baby.” I was also rooting for the Italian kid Dario Minieri who took an early chip lead looking all cute and cherubic in a burgundy and orange scarf that had everybody calling him Harry Potter... it was Roma he was supporting, not Gryffindor, but a man wearing a scarf indoors is still like wearing a button that says, “Yes! I am Eurotrash... ask me about a single currency and my latent homosexuality.” Mainly I was rooting for Dario because he actually won a porsche gambling online but doesn't have a driver's license, and this unused machine was annoying the hell out of everybody who sat down at his table.

There's usually at least a few bizarre events involving these characters that make it all memorable, and really just because I wanted to see how well the embedded video worked, I thought I'd show you one. In Texas Hold'em, the expression “the nuts” refers to the particular combination of hole cards that is unbeatable given the cards on the table... for instance if there are four hearts on the table a player with the ace of hearts holds the best possible flush, the “nut flush” in fact. So they don't appear often, but when they do, it's a cause for great joy and great anguish, as seen here.

Timberwolves 106 - 85 Bucks

There's something very metaphorically satisfying when a clash between wolves and deer goes so spectacularly in favor of the toothy predators, and the Timberwolves tore apart the Milwaukee Bucks.  The big attraction of the Bucks was seeing their 2.11m forward 易建联, newly arrived from the Guangdong Southern Tigers but best known for selling vans sneakers in his chain of Jianlian's Beach Shops, and as predicted the drunks weaved their primer-colored pickups over the St. Croix to waveringly yell "Yeeeeeee!!!" every time he touched the ball until beer sales were cut off in the fourth quarter.  Frankly I thought Yi was uninspiring, although he did score 13 points off the bench mainly by drawing fouls, and contribute six rebounds and a couple blocked shots, maybe because at one point Craig Smith, a bruiser who gives up seven inches to Yi but has some nasty moves to hang with taller forwards,  got a shot off over him and this made Yi look like a tourist:  he may be hot stuff in Guangdong, but for a soft player with a scoring touch cracking the NBA is harder than dubbing Nicholas Cage into Cantonese.  Yi punished Smith for trying that move again by blocking his shot, but despite his obvious ability, Yi is going to have to do more to intimidate in a league where Yao Ming still hasn't made it out of the first round*.  Frankly I'm not all that familiar with most everybody else who plays for the Bucks these days, and their atrocious shooting tonight (including 4-19 from behind the 3-point line) didn't make me scour my program for details...I don't even want to know the idiot was who threw up the lazy alley-oop that Corey Brewer snatched out of the air while the intended target went flying behind him with a hurt look on his face.

On the Wolves side, after a couple games I think Al Jefferson is the real thing, and a fitting crown jewel in the pile of players the Wolves got for Kevin Garnett.  The backdoor plays the Wolves ran with him tonight were a treat, and his 9-12 night contributed to blistering 61.2% shooting for the Wolves, as did Rashad McCants going 8-8.  (McCants improved his shooting percentage by throwing the ball away so often he didn't have to take many low percentage shots.)  24 points and 12 rebounds in 30 minutes is a nice game from Jefferson, and Theo Ratliff surprised me by showing some moves, after years of sleepy looking stiffs from Stojko Vrankovic to Mark Blount made me forget there are active centers in the NBA.  Corey Brewer, our top draft pick out of Florida, did start out a little rough, and obviously has a lot to learn about the NBA, but he made up for some of his shortcomings looking for rebounds and blocked shots trying to use those long arms to contribute.  The two people who really stood out to me tonight though were Ryan Gomes and Sebastian Telfair, other pieces of the Garnett trade.  Gomes pulled out some sharp passes in traffic to make things happen, and was just generally a force for the Wolves, as was Telfair, who was surprisingly sharp running the offense.  There are some good players on this team, and the level of hustle they show going for rebounds and taking chances looking to create scoring opportunities for each other makes them a blast to watch, and while tougher opposition than the Milwaukee Bucks is likely to prove beyond their reach, the future is bright.

*-Okay, I'll admit I'm just bitter because when I tried to ask Yi for an autograph, all he said was, "比 Nicholas Cage 讲的广东闭合的嘴走开, 您是恼人的对我!"  (I can't read or write Chinese so he wrote it down for me before giving me the finger.)

Pacers 106 - 95 Timberwolves

The Wolves got outscored in three of four quarters, and really it was Indiana's game the whole way, but it was a pre-season game so nobody cared (or showed up, judging by the dismal attendance).  The Wolves did live up to my prediction that they would be worse than last year, but a lot more fun to watch.  In several stretches the Wolves went through real sloppy shooting funks where even the lay-ups wouldn't go in, but as a result at one point in the second quarter they got 3-4 offensive rebounds on the same possession, and even as they kept enthusiastically thumping the ball off the rim, I realized they were showing more heart keeping after the ball than I'd seen from the Timberwolves in a long time.  I don't mind so much when they screw up, both because they'll get better, and because they show some actual excitement about being professional basketball players, something that hasn't been true of the Wolves roster since the end of the 2004 Western Conference Finals.  My only real disappointment is I wanted to see more of Randy Foye, one of last year's few bright spots, and to see what young talent but notorious headcase Sebastian Telfair was going to make of his last chance, but both are nursing injuries.

Of course, they followed up the loss by making another big trade in the continuing process of blowing up the team and starting over.  Out so far, Kevin Garnett, and guards Mike James, Troy Hudson, and Trenton Hassell.  Now in the latest trade they dumped another guard, Ricky Davis, who goes to Miami as a third scoring option behind Dwayne Wade and Shaquille O'Neal.  I'm just happy the clutch of guards dominating the roster is breaking up, and the Wolves are finally getting bigger.  The Wolves also included a center in the trade, Mark Blount, who had an unfortunate tendency to drift out and take 18-foot jump shots on offense...a big man with a jump shot can be valuable playing off a dominant power forward and drawing out opposing centers, but you need a better team to take advantage of it.  The Wolves got four pieces in return, including another center to replace Blount in Michael Doleac, and a young forward who has missed most of his career with injuries and salmonella.  The big pieces though are a lottery protected draft pick, so basically late first round, and Employee #8 himself, Antoine Walker, who was at one time a fearsome scorer in the front court, and Garnett's departure leaves a huge hole.  On the other hand, there's a reason Miami was looking to dump him, and he may be a bit nuts and not all that interested in being part of the Wolves rebuilding effort.  This has sparked speculation that the Wolves have another trade in the works including Walker, so the total result and purpose of this trade may not be clear yet.  So far I would say the trade opens up playing time at shooting guard for the young guys, and brings in three potential future benefits: first it frees up cap space in a couple years aiming the Wolves towards a big free-agent year, it brings in another draft pick to round out the roster, and Simien may live up to his potential and become a solid contributor.

Tonight, I may learn more as I go to the Wolves-Bucks preseason game.  First and foremost, I'll find out if the general dirtiness of Wisconsin pro sports fans exposed in such clarity this year by the Packers and Brewers visits to town extends to the Bucks.  I will also seek any opportunity to ask Chinese import Yi Jianlian if he can hook me up with a pirate DVD of the new National Treasure (unless Yi speaks Cantonese... Nicholas Cage cannot be dubbed into Cantonese), and possibly even to report on the Wolves new acquisitions if any of them get playing time.  But seriously, Brewers fans:  dirty people.  Packers fans:  DIRTY PEOPLE.  Can Bucks fans really fall that far from the tree (which no doubt drips sap on everything within reach)?

Cowboys 24 - 14 Vikings

It's stunning that this game could have been as close as it was given the Cowboys racking up nearly 400 yards of total offense while Tavaris Jackson went 6-19 for 65 yards.  The defense almost outscored the offense again, when Kevin Williams recovered a fumble and ran it so far back he required oxygen (that return was called back) and when Cedric Griffin recovered a fumble, dropped it, and recovered it on the bounce to run 50 yards for a TD.  Adrian Peterson did score one TD for the offense, but unfortunately our field goal unit also gave up a 68-yard TD return on a blocked kick.  For all their success moving the ball, I can't believe the Cowboys didn't score more... as it were they were fortunate to get TO's score on a total breakdown in pass coverage by the best players in the Vikings secondary.  The Vikings couldn't hang onto the ball long enough to do much with it, going 2/12 on third down, and while I won't say Jackson looked anywhere near good, I still wonder how he'd be with a year as a starter, decent play calling, and somebody to throw to, given that nobody but Peterson steps up on offense to make anything happen under pressure...  anybody looked good as QB when Cris Carter and Randy Moss could make plays on uncatchable balls.  The Vikings will still stink this year, but that's at least a couple weeks where they stayed in games to the end, and hanging in there with the Cowboys, holding the lead at halftime... that isn't half bad.

Now if only my underperforming fantasy football team, the Brussels Sprouts, could turn things around.  Leaving town without setting a roster, and then forgetting about them during the bye week didn't help their record too much.  Usually the league of European soccer fans isn't so tough a challenge, I can't believe I'm on a six game losing streak.

The Rules of New Glarus

The first rule of New Glarus is you stay in the lodge when skiing conditions are sub-optimal.

The second rule of New Glarus is you DO NOT SKI WHEN CONDITIONS ARE SUB-OPTIMAL.

The third rule of New Glarus is if someone says Gruzei, you have to answer back.

The fourth rule of New Glarus is you do not ask where the steak tartar came from at the New Glarus Zoo's attached Bar & Grill.

The fifth rule of New Glarus is you do not go out without at least 700 chf (and no US currency).

The sixth rule of New Glarus is never give directions to or from New Zug.

Die 7. Richtlinie von neuem Glarus ist Sie muß ScheisseDeutsches sprechen.

The eighth rule of New Glarus is if this is your first time to New Glarus, you have to bring chocolates.

The ninth rule of New Glarus is you do not eat excessively spicy food (for instance any dish with garlic).

The tenth rule of New Glarus is you do not flush the toilet after 10pm!

MS to Dida and Nobo

Fuck'em if they can't take a joke Dida, you may never have to go back to Glasgow anyways.  For those of you not keeping up on the news, Brazil and Milan keeper Dida was hit with a suspension for his antics in the Celtic - Milan game, when a Celtic fan ran onto the field and hit him.  Dida chased him a few steps before collapsing claiming, and was removed by stretcher claiming a head injury.  His reaction was a bit bizarre, but apparently Dida has been a bit jumpy ever since he was badly burned by a flare thrown at him from the stands a couple years back, so I can't really judge him too harshly for getting spooked and having a bit of a meltdown.  I really do not understand why he was suspended, since his actions only hurt his own club, costing Milan a substitution, and it took place outside the normal course of the game and cast no aspersions on other players, so it didn't even have the potential to affect the result of the game.  The fan is banned from Parkhead for life, and this isn't the first time... that guy who was miming an airplane at Captain America a few weeks after 9/11 got a lifetime ban as well.  This is annoying, because ordinarily I'd be inclined to root for Celtic to upset a giant like Milan, both because Gordon Strachan is hilarious (Can we have a quick word?  "Velocity.") and also because I like to show some solidarity with any fellow Catholics who get shot at with crossbow bolts... stay transubstantiated, y'all.

And to other people with rhythmic monomonikers that sound like lower Manhattan neighborhoods, this link is what I can dredge up for how to connect with Netflix friends.  Having no friends <sniff, sniff> I've never needed to be too clear on the procedure, so I hope that works.

Euro'08 qualifiers winding down

Group A - Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Finland

Belgium has been eliminated, but four teams are still alive in Group A. With two games left to play, the Poles and Portuguese are leading the group by a win or better, with the Serbs and Finns trying to get back in. The Portuguese and Poles can clinch with any stumble by the Finns and Serbs, or by winning next week, so they're almost certainly likely to wrap things up.

Group B - France, Scotland, and Italy

The Ukraine's loss to Scotland put them out of it, and the Scots' loss to Georgia (go Bulldogs) has tightened things up for the remaining three contenders. Italy has a game in hand and will almost certainly win against the Faroe Islands, so they're in control of the group and it really comes down to two games: Ukraine v France, and Scotland v Italy. First comes the Scotland-Italy game, in which the winner gets to the finals and the loser can be eliminated by France if they get at least a draw against the Ukraine. In this situation a draw favors Italy, and an Italian win puts them in with France. The French are also in with a win or a draw, but France is on the road and the Ukrainians have been making France their bitches for a long time.

Group C - Greece, Norway, and Turkey

The Greeks are already in after their win in Istanbul , and with two games left to play the Norwegians have a two point lead on the Turks. The next big game is Norway vs Turkey, and unless the Turks win, Norway is in and they're out. Assuming Norway can handle Malta, the Turks really need to win in Norway and at home against Bosnia to upset the Norwegians.

Group D - Germany, Czech Republic

Due to a really poor showing by the Republic of Ireland, the Germans and Czechs are already in, which is good what with the tournament being in their back yard. Amusingly the Germans just got spanked by the Czechs, and given the weakness of the top seeds (Austria, Switzerland, Greece) the Germans have been accused of throwing the match to try and get a lower seed in the tournament, since the 4th top seed will almost certainly have the toughest draw.

Group E - Croatia, Russia, Ingerland

England really put themselves in a tough spot losing to Russia in Moscow this week, so all the Croats need to lock up a spot is a draw in either Macedonia or London, and the Russians can virtually eliminate England with a win in Israel (trickier than it used to be). An Israeli win would put England (and Croatia) through with a draw, while a draw would mean England probably needs an outright win over Croatia. Should Russia win, they're in, and England would need Croatia to lose in Macedonia and to lose by at least two in London. Bottom line: the Croats need any result, the English need basically a win and a draw by themselves or the Israelis v the Russians, while the Russians can practically lock it up by winning in Israel.

Group F - Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Northern Ireland

The next matchday is the showdown: the leaders Spain v second place Sweden, and the two hangers-on meet when Denmark plays Northern Ireland. Only the winner of the DEN v NI game will still be alive, and really they need to hope one of the two leaders implodes. Basically Sweden and Spain are well on their way to the Alps next summer.

Group G - Romania, Netherlands, Bulgaria

The Romanians are in, and the Dutch can finish it with a win at home against Luxembourg. Should they fail to do so, the Bulgarians can overtake them with a couple of wins and a near-complete implosion by the Dutch. So I wouldn't plan on that happening.

For anyone looking to buy tickets next summer, here's who you're likely to see:

Qualified (5 spots):
Austria (hosts)
Switzerland (hosts)
Greece
Germany
Czech Republic

Almost certain (8 spots):
Poland
Portugal
Norway
Croatia
Sweden
Spain
Romania
Netherlands

Undecided (3 spots):
Any two of Italy, France, Scotland
Either England or Russia (that's the USSR to you, Fred Thompson)

Long shots:

Finland
Serbia
Turkey
Denmark
Northern Ireland
Bulgaria

Not attending but sorely missed:

Belgium

Movies that didn't suck quite so hard as I thought they would

They all looked kind of silly, but turned out to be pretty fun.

Behind the Mask

I was actually quite amused by Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon, despite its direct to video origins. The film is about the iconic slasher movie killers of the 70's and 80's, and exists in their universe, where Jason Voorhees, Michael Meyers, and Freddy Krueger really walk the earth terrorizing oversexed adolescents. It begins as the documentary film of a crew of graduate students who are interviewing a would-be killer, Leslie Vernon, who is in the midst of creating his nightmarish, supernatural persona and picking out a virgin teenage girl to stalk and terrorize. And it does explain a lot, knowing that movie serial killers do a lot of cardio to be able to chase people down while looking like they're barely moving. Leslie is so surprisingly charming in explaining the rules of his chosen calling and waxing mystical about the purpose of these killing sprees that it actually works, and you can believe that there are student filmmakers so naïve and fascinated by darkness that they can document his work without really confronting it.

Surprisingly the filmmakers find enough to do in their coverage of Leslie's preparations that it doesn't drag waiting for the big finale. This is the film that answers all the questions nerds ask when watching slasher movies, like why doesn't anybody try the windows (nailed shut) and how he pops up everywhere (carefully herding people where he needs them) and why every small town has a serial killer legend and some young journalism student stumbles onto all the evidence nobody else has put together (he plants the article clippings for her in the library). It's pretty funny, and to avoid being a 20 minute concept stretched out over two hours it brings in enough well-timed surprises and holds enough back to turn Leslie's planned run-down upside down and keep the finish from stagnating. It plays with very tired ideas in a much more self-conscious and nerdy way than Scream, and that's a lot of fun.

The Simpsons Movie

The Simpsons had become so self-conscious and lazy, explaining all their increasingly dated pop-culture references and lingering over their in-jokes, that I could scarcely countenance attending a Simpsons movie (particularly now that I've become such a patron of The Theeatah). The film avoided winking at its audience so much, and showed a lot more of a fresh spark than the laboriously telegraphed jokes of the last few episodes I've seen. This wasn't near the old peak, and the days of “Marge vs the Monorail” are long gone, but it's still a pretty good time, and I really did laugh. If this was their last hurrah, they went out well.

The Kingdom

The Kingdom was somewhat mocked as CSI: Riyadh, and that's more or less exactly what it is, a long procedural cop show that concludes with an unexpected crazy-ass kidnap and shootout. All the clichés are there, including the sacrificial lamb, the guy you know will die in the last reel, the craven politicians, and on it goes. However, I do have two nice things to say about The Kingdom, the first being that it does get the job done... it works, even as CSI: Riyadh. I was pulled in enough that I didn't check my watch or roll my eyes, and usually I'm pretty cynical about anything this heroic and topical (still scarred by 300). The other thing is it really tries for something deeper, and while it's not subtle and offered very little that lingered in my thoughts long after, it does have heart. I may be selling the film short, because after setting itself up with very conservative memes, the American FBI agents strutting off the plane like the A-Team, diving into this den of corruption and violence to kick ass and chew bubblegum, it does also temper its perspective in small doses and builds on that for a conclusion. The Americans' counterparts in the Saudi police are slowly fleshed out as real people with the same sense of patriotism the Americans, and they gain a certain amount of dignity as the film progresses. For instance the Saudi colonel's repeated demands for the Americans to stop using foul language initially just blends into the bleating opposition of the Saudi government and military (and our American heroes just swear more to show their resolve) but as they really start to work with the local police, it becomes more clearly a manifestation of the same sense of principle that is driving both the FBI and the locals. Actually that was the one thing that really lingered in my mind from this film, when Ashraf Barhom tells Jamie Foxx about how he became a cop because of seeing the Incredible Hulk fighting bad guys on TV. So The Kingdom wasn't bad, Ashraf Barhom was good, and Jeremy Piven was great in his brief appearance as the jaded state department liaison (some say reprising his role from “Entourage” a little too closely).

جمهورية العراق 1 – 0 المملكة العربية السعودية

I picked up a copy of World Soccer yesterday waiting for a movie to start, and discovered to my chagrin it was the September issue (meaning it came out in August in the UK), but this reminded me of an game that to my surprise I hadn't commented on when it took place. At the end of July, Iraq won the Asian Cup with a 1-0 win over Saudi Arabia in the final, and this was a remarkable event in several respects.

The first is just the stunning achievement that it represents for such a talented generation of Iraqis to shake off the legacy of Uday Hussein's tenure as minister for sport and win the continental championship, building on their surprise showing at the Athens Olympics. Along the way they had to take on some of the toughest powers in the region, including a couple of Asia's Big 4 that dominate regional competitions (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and South Korea), and Asian newcomers Australia to boot. The Saudis were looking for a record 4th Asian Cup, and Younis Mahmoud's winning goal was a huge shock to Asian football.

As continental champions, The Iraqis secured a spot in the 2009 Confederations Cup, to be held in South Africa as a World Cup warm-up, along with world champions Italy, American champions Brazil and the United States, and whoever wins next year's Euro'08, African Cup of Nations, and OFC Nations Cup. (I can only hope we don't meet the Iraqis for the nightmare that will be after the sporting press got so worked up about the Iran game in '98.)

There may be a significance to this game beyond the football pitch, because like France's World Cup team in 1998, the Iraqi national team is a unifying symbol: everybody may hate each other, but they all love the national team. This doesn't always work, as in the case of the united Yugoslavian basketball team that was broken up by political pressure and threat of violence, and while the unifying spirit of Zinedine Zidane, Didier Deschamps, and Lilian Thuram winning a World Cup together dealt a body blow to the National Front, racism is very much back in fashion in France. Nevertheless, it is nice to see one non-sectarian, post-Saddam Iraqi institution that is not only functioning but thriving, and hope this promotes the growth of others. And for the rest of us, Iraqi athletes are about the only image the West has of the nation of Iraq as a participant in a larger world culture, so I wish them well.

Iraq 1 -0 Saudi Arabia
'71 Mahmoud

Vikings 34 – N Halsted Bears 31

This was the most entertaining Vikings game I've seen in a long time. When the Bears tied it up at 31 all, I was sure the Vikings were going to lose but I was still overwhelmed with gratitude at finally seeing a competitive game. I was going to give you all a thoughtful analysis, but by the time the game ended I was so hungry I decided to get a little drunk and eat a lot of sushi instead.  But here's what I pieced together later.

Given the play of the Bears offense, I'm shocked the Bears didn't score more, and at the same time I'm surprised they even kept it close. The first half scores by the Bears were both kind of freak events, like Devin Hester's 89 yard punt return where atrocious Vikings tackling and some mad running by Hester got him a touchdown (tying Lando Calrissian's Bears record), and on their second TD, Bernard Berrian went deep with Antoine Winfield in single coverage, and when the usually dependable Winfield fell down, Berrian was an easy target for a touchdown pass. In both cases, the Bears took full advantage of the opportunity and executed, so this isn't sour grapes, but you can't keep counting on those opportunities. The Bears also closed the half trying to take a lead into the locker room, and on 4th and inches in the Vikings half, the Bears ran a QB sneak only to have Vikings tackle Pat Williams rip the ball out of his hands before a pile of bodies rolled over them both.

The defense held, and after the Vikings punted the Bears made one more attempt at a first half lead. When time started running out the Bears made one more shot at a big running play tossing the ball to fullback Jason McKie, but Ben Leber hit him so hard the ball squirted out of his hands and flew ten yards forward to a lurking Antoine Winfield. So at the half, things were looking good for the Vikings defense unless they had another freakish breakdown in the secondary, since despite some big running plays the Bears offense hadn't put together a long enough drive to reach the red zone a single time.

I said I was also surprised they didn't score more, and here's why: in the second half the Bears offense string together some sharper plays and held the ball a little longer, but without any end product, as five successive drives ended with a couple of punts, a couple of interceptions, and on their only trip to the red zone, a field goal. The Vikings scored three times to put them up by 14, the Bears really looked cooked, and I thought the karma of a little luck in the first half was being balanced out by stalled drives. Four turnovers is also tall mountain to climb, yet the Bears were actually doing well to still be in it. With less than four minutes on the clock and down two scores Griese threw his second interception, and that should have been it.

But of course, all Vikings – Bears games are bizarre affairs that proceed in a non-linear fashion to whatever their strange conclusion, and the Vikings chipped in by going 3-and-out, losing yardage and taking little time off the clock. For some reason, our conservative coach who likes to run the ball at all times decided that with the Tardis being off target for a lot of the game (only passing for 136 yards in total) and the most important thing being keeping the clock running, it was time for some passing plays. The Bears got he ball back and Muhsin Mohammed took advantage of yet another clusterfuck in coverage as he made a catch surrounded by white jerseys, and still ran away from them all to prance off to the end zone. The Bears defense held again, and moments later Devin Hester took a Griese pass 81 yards weaving through the entire Vikings defense to the end zone, tying the game. I said a lot of the Bears scores were a bit strange, but on that one, Hester just outplayed the Vikings: there were no fortunate lapses in tackling, they just got beat.

I really thought that was it for the Vikings, that destiny had made her choice and the Bears were going to find a way to win it in overtime. Part of my thinking was that despite scoring a lot of points, the Vikings didn't make it to the red zone all day, and it was really big plays that kept them in it. In the first half especially, I'd replay some downs to figure out what went wrong and I'd realize that many times on running plays to the right side, a down lineman had just been left unblocked when the fullback blew his assignment (I assumed, watching this happen). So our receiver on that side would realize this and come back to throw himself in the path of this onrushing monster, and one of the Bears physical corners would be free to sniff out the run on that side. The blocking really improved in the second half, and the Vikings correspondingly took control of the game. Troy Williamson was back to dropping passes again, and the over-excited Tardis appeared to be trying to impale his receivers with the ball, throwing too hard and too high. Before the end of the first half, Williamson showed why a blind midget with the tiny hands of an uncoordinated 5-year old is still our #1 receiver when he used his unparalleled speed to get past the Bears zone and hung onto a 60-yard touchdown pass, in one of the four big play touchdowns for the Vikings.

The real force the Vikings had in this game was Adrian Peterson, who split carries with Chester Taylor and still managed to run for a godlike 224 yards and 3 touchdowns (with Taylor adding another 83). I know the Bears' Tampa-2 base defense is vulnerable to the run, but zounds. Given how Peterson rages through opposing linebackers on a pale horse with hell following behind him, it remains a mystery why he doesn't get more carries, and he put another exclamation point on his game when the resurgent Bears kicked off to Peterson, lurking back at the 9 yard line. I really thought the Bears would win it in overtime, but Peterson took the kick-off 53 yards back into the Bears half of the field, and on first down, Taylor pounded it forward a few more yards to the 33, getting closer to field goal range. Then our coach had another moment of inspiration and called for an incomplete pass (well, he didn't call for it to be incomplete, but I don't know how surprised he should have been), and then on third down Lance Briggs caught Peterson in the backfield, losing four yards. With time running out, the Vikings went for a 55-yard field goal to win it, and Ryan Longwell came through on a kick that looked well out of his range, so the Vikings could win it 34 – 31, and send the Bears packing all the way back to Halsted & Melrose.

Win or lose, this would have been the first Vikings game I've really enjoyed in a long time, but the win was certainly sweet, and the first Vikings win in Soldier Field since 2000.

News from Switzerland: the cheese must be free

Apparently something finally occurred to the Swiss that has been admittedly slow in reaching a lot of the industrialized world, despite the best efforts of Adam Smith and David Ricardo: perhaps the people with the greatest stockpile of human capital, the greatest access to the entire world's financial capital, and the greatest social capital on the globe should maybe direct some of that towards industries other than low quality cheese. The Swiss have unilaterally ended all tariffs and subsidies, shifting their focus to higher quality products that do not require such a protectionist environment to thrive. Global luxury markets look set to explode as income inequality rises in South Asia, and there's nothing helps a Mangalore bank manager take the sting off a cobra bite like a nice cheese fondue.

Also at an end is the ridiculous farce of protecting Swiss dairy farmers with an 89 franc tariff on Kraft slices, as it slowly occurs to the Swiss public that no amount of government interference in the market will allow their farmers to compete on price when Germany, Austria, Italy, and France are right next door. And really shouldn't the symbolism have tipped them off to the inevitable futility of agricultural protectionism when their most famous export product is as full of holes as their import protection strategy?

So for anyone looking to drum up hedge fund business in London, this week's convergence strategy is selling the pound short and going long on the QUID (that cash-only space motel industry will take off any day now, and they'll leave the light on for you), and the divergence play is shorting ham and swiss on the CME sandwich futures exchange, and going long on curry fondue on the BSE.

Sir Ian McKellen at the Guthrie

Monday night I had the privilege of attending Joe Dowling's conversation with Sir Ian McKellen on the Guthrie's thrust stage, which was a fantastic good time. Obviously a few other people thought so since it was a full house of 1100, and simulcast to an audience in the proscenium stage as well. This is part of why they built the funky new modern building, so they can do cool stuff like this, despite Sir Ian's mild protest at the end of the evening that it didn't feel right to be using a microphone in Sir Tyrone Guthrie's theater.

Having seen Sir Ian McKellen on stage in Richard III at the Ordway and Dance of Death (which is that poster hanging on my wall) and on film in Gods and Monsters, which despite an Oscar is about the most tragically underrated film of all time, and having seen the incredible work in Joe Dowling's run as creative director of the Guthrie, including his own production of The Home Place that's currently running, I was really excited about this. I've generally found both of these guys fascinating people in their insights about their craft, and some of Sir Ian displayed that particular mix of intellectual gravitas mixed with bawdy juvenilia that has made Monty Python and Blackadder like crack to adolescent nerds, proof that there is somebody out there who speaks your language. For instance Joe Dowling referred us to www.mckellen.com, which is actually a pretty cool website detailing his career in pictures and his own words, and the years of e-posts in response to questions are really cool, and a bit to Joe's embarrassment, Sir Ian helpfully added that the porn on his website is really quite discreet.

Some of his most interesting comments on the theater over the course of the evening were about actresses, and after describing the pressure of playing in Stratford following in the footsteps of Lawrence Olivier, he went on to give his opinion that of his generation, the names likely to reverberate were not men like himself or Derek Jacobi or Alan Bates, but some of the women like Maggie Smith and Judi Dench, claiming we were living in “the era of great actresses”. This was also interesting when he got into a discussion with a girl playing also playing Lear in an obviously open-minded production, and he got on the topic of the lack of great roles for women in theatre, concluding that when Judi Dench asked him where was her Lear, the grand definitive part for an actress, he should have suggested that she just strap her breasts down and play Lear herself.

There was something intriguing in contrast to that remark, and to his whole general thrust that the rediscovery of Shakespeare in each new production or interpretation was the joy of it, like discovering the first time he played Romeo that the balcony scene is quite overwrought and funny when viewed from the audience's perspective. His counter-example to his general opposition towards encumbering traditionalism was when he claimed one cannot understand Twelfth Night without seeing it performed by an all-male cast. (Having first seen it as a high school musical, and later as Ken Branagh's grey-washed tragedy, I feel I may have come nowhere near understanding it.) Having done so much of it, he gave us one other interesting perspective about Shakespeare, talking about the roles he didn't want to play, the “easy” parts in Shakespeare, like Hotspur, Mercutio, and Puck, which struck me as a strong statement considering they are, or certainly can be, pretty memorable parts. His claim was though that there is no real challenge to them for an actor, and as a result you almost never see a bad performance in those roles... I couldn't help but think of the dreadful SoCal Romeo+Juliet in which about the only watchable performance is Harold Perrineau's Mercutio, and realize he was right.

It's really from their conversation about Tyrone Guthrie that I understood how much the character of the whole discussion, casual and funny but reaching for something higher than reverence and gossip, was really in keeping with its setting in the theater with Sir Tyrone's visage looming sternly over 2nd street. I hadn't realized that Sir Ian McKellen's start in theater was at Guthrie's theater in Nottingham, but he talked at length about working under Guthrie. Sir Ian described Sir Tyrone's particular attitude towards both great actors and great theaters as “iconoclastic”, which formed his belief that the theaters he founded in Nottingham and Minneapolis could challenge the establishment in London and New York, and that they needed that constant challenge if they were going to really be great artistic centers. This really echoes the birth of original American theatre when The Emperor Jones was performed on a wharf in Provincetown in 1920, a revolutionary play performed out on Cape Cod (during another era of safe commercial melodrama in New York) that later would be performed around the globe.

On that theme McKellen also lamented some of the great directors whose unconventionality and innovation required that they leave Britain to establish themselves, effectively producing amazing work everywhere but the West End. His first truly great performance was the open air production of MacBeth he and Judi Dench did with just a circle drawn on the ground to separate the cast and crowd, and the props strewn around the edge, with McKellen (as MacBeth) first appearing to make thunder for the witches in the opening scene, and this reminded me of how happy I have been to have seen some things make it out here to the lonely prairie like the production of MacBeth set in Liberia performed at the Lab a couple of years ago, and how much I have to thank Joe Dowling for that. Although on the topic of the Scottish play, McKellen noted that he was wearing MacBeth's tartan on his tie, and that he had given a similar tie to a delighted Sir Lawrence Olivier... shortly before he died.

He concluded by taking off his mike, or at least turning it down, as if he couldn't countenance performing Shakespeare in Sir Tyrone's house with a booming PA, so he could give us one unique performance. The only Shakespearean part not performed a thousand times in the modern age is a scene the playwright contributed to Sir Thomas More, and that was first performed by none other than Sir Ian McKellen, and he left us with a speech from that play, of which I will only reprint the first part. He chose to give it I believe for greater reasons than vanity, given some of the current anxieties in both British and American political discourse, because in this scene, Thomas More responding to an unruly crowd who are riled up about all the foreigners in England, where someone has just called for “removing the strangers”:

Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise
Hath chid down all the majesty of England;
Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,
Plodding tooth ports and costs for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires,
Authority quite silent by your brawl,
And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;
What had you got? I'll tell you: you had taught
How insolence and strong hand should prevail,
How order should be quelled; and by this pattern
Not one of you should live an aged man,
For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,
With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,
Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes
Would feed on one another.

Space Money

Attention Roman numismatics fans: despite the recent liquidity crisis and the reactionary remedies proposed by certain Illinois politicians, thankfully at least one problem has been solved as we enter a brave new era on the heels of Rick Deckard and George Jetson... how will we buy things in space? Travelex in a tremendous burst of vertical thinking has created space currency for space tourists to make space purchases in space hotels in... spacey space. Just to be cutesy, they called it the Quasi Universal Intergalactic Denomination, despite it being decidedly less than intergalactic, and I'm not sure how something is quasi-universal, but I'll let it slide because backronyms are in vogue, which is to say they're Very Overused Generators of Unbelievable Ennui... or is that too many adverbs? It certainly is developed for space, with rounded edges to prevent injuries in zero gravity, and able to withstand a wide range of conditions without degrading harmfully (unlike pennies which emit mustard gas when left in the sun too long... that's why I don't pick them up off the sidewalk). They're also pretty huge and ungainly, requiring an Elizabethan coin purse with a velcro top of some kind to carry them, which obviously just invites space pirates.

What I really couldn't figure out is what type of transaction these are supposed to be used for. Travelex suggests the development of inflatable space hotels means that everyone will be popping up to space soon and needing to change currency like all other holiday travelers, and for the sake of argument, I'll buy that they're just keeping ahead of demand. They also note that frequent transfers of financial data between the orbiting hotel and earth based banks would be highly impractical, to say nothing of the cosmic rays wiping the magnetic strip, so there'd be no charging your dehydrated ice cream midnight snack on your Visa card. So it starts to make sense, except I started wondering, who are these prospective travelers who have $10m per person for a vacation in space, but have such a lousy credit rating the space hotel can't run a tab and bill them back on earth? The data transfer problem is fairly well solved when you have some sort of vehicle transporting the hotel guests back and forth anyways, and you can put a piece of paper with everybody's tab in the pilot's hand. In any case, isn't this just a situation begging for an all-inclusive vacation package, like for $11m the hotel doesn't nickel and dime you to death over every bag of peanuts you have at the space bar?

Of course, other non-governmental currencies have been implemented with varying degrees of success, like flooz.com burning through $50m of VC money before their bankruptcy caused a sudden devaluation of the flooz credit. On the other hand, one type of specialized, corporate backed currency is tremendously popular (and it's not Itchy & Scratchy Money): casino chips, which can be used to buy a number of goods and services within the confines of the issuing casino. The thing is, you don't buy chips beforehand from a kiosk on the street and you don't carry them back out, unlike the QUID, which raises a couple other questions, like why are people carrying this shit back and forth to orbit instead of just having some issued to them on arrival as part of their hotel package?

Eventually I realized what problem they do solve: it's the only way to have an unlogged pure cash transaction in space, by which two parties meet in space and nobody registers who arrived with 10,000 QUID and left with zero, and who arrived with zero and left with 10,000. (And more importantly to the "all-inclusive" package, the hotel isn't involved.) So who offers a product or service in space that requires the exchange of a big bag of marbles? Two words: space prostitutes. Outside the legal boundaries of planet earth, and certainly pretty far from the prying eyes of cash-strapped authorities since NASA sure isn't going to be flying by, enough space money lets you do what ever you want in space, for a price... you knew there had to be a reason the Russians put a dog in orbit back in the 60s, and there are any number of activities even the Dutch would blush at here on Earth. But really it is kind of disturbing to think that as governments are starting to crack down on Thailand and other Asian destinations, somebody's opening a new frontier for sex tourism.

There is another possibility of course, specifically that you would travel between multiple destinations in space which are not all willing to all grant you a line of credit, but considering the joint efforts of the United States, European Union, and the Russian Federation are not enough to keep a single space destination going, and nobody's been to the moon since Apollo 15, is the inability to buy a pretzel from a cart vendor really the limiting factor in space tourism?

Google?

Hey what happened to Google? Or am I the only person who can't seem to get to it anymore? Seriously it's been a couple days, and it's starting to annoy me... at least Blogger works. Did they put all that IPO money into a CDO of Anthony Daniels' residuals for playing C3PO there's and get the guys who maintain the servers a bit PO'ed?

Brasil 4 - 0 United States

It took me a while to finish watching this game I was so disgusted by the first half play. Remember that Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns pulls Darryl Strawberry out of the company softball game and puts in Homer because he likes the righty-lefty match-up, despite Strawberry's 9 home runs (and Steve Sax's run-in with the law)? Basically that's the kind of logic the US went with in this game, benching #1 keeper and blonde sex kitten Hope Solo so they could play Brianna Scurry, because she played a great game against Brazil... three years ago in Athens. Predictably for somebody who's barely played, Scurry was extremely shaky and her defenders were in total disarray, and the whole team just looked beaten and lackluster. Scurry was beaten early and often, and I have to wonder how much energy was sapped out dealing with the locker room controversy. The US went down early, but the red for Boxx meant Brazil kept pushing their heads back down and they never emerged from the hole they were in... the only action the US got was on a Brazil corner Leslie Osborne went diving into her own goal. Trailing and a player short, the US brought in defensive substitutions and bunkered down in the second half, dragging out the inevitable.

I didn't bother to watch the rout of Norway in the 3rd place match once I saw Scurry in goal again. Hope Solo criticized the decision to start Scurry to reporters after the game (which was unwise) and was reportedly frozen out by teammates as a result, which is bad for her given the US residency program and the fact that according to legendary women's soccer coach Anson Dorrance, apparently many female athletes (and David Beckham) would rather lose than play with somebody who isn't their ZOMG bestest friend ever. This means she may never play for the national team again, and next year in Beijing we'll have to hope the increasingly past her prime Brianna Scurry holds up or the US will actually have to start capping Nicole Barnhart and some other green keepers. There were no shortage of keeper controversies last summer, but after initial tantrums (like Gregoire Coupet quitting the team when Fabien Barthez was picked over him) they all got dealt with professionally (Coupet came back after a couple days and apologized). I can only hope the women do the same.

Oh, and Brazil went on to lose to Germany 2-0 in the final, which I was also too irritated to watch after my long-lost cousin Trine Ronning scored an own-goal to start the scoring for Germany in the semi-final. Marta's seventh goal for Brazil also edged out Norway's Ragnhild Gulbrandsen and America's Abby Wambach for the golden boot, so capirinha and sauerkraut are not to be served in my presence until at least after the Beijing Olympics.

Brazil 4 - 0 United States
'20 Osborne (o.g.)
'27 Marta
'56 Cristiane
'79 Marta