Bangs look good on nobody

Bangs look good on nobody. I didn't really realize this until I saw a movie where somebody had distracting bangs. Granted, it was V for Vendetta and the bangs were on a Guy Fawkes mask, but it was still distractingly stupid. Nobody needs to frame their face with a keratin helmet. Don't be afraid of the forehead, seriously. Cut the hair, don't cut the hair, it all works. From the buzz-cut to hair down to the small of her back, there are endless possibilities. Some people can pull it off (mainly girls under the age of 10) but even they're just treading water, and look better with real hair. My proof is this, meet Loco, the Angolan footballer who cut off all of his hair except the bangs... yikes.

Steve Irwin, requiescat in pace

Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, was just killed by a stingray.  Their venom isn't generally lethal, but they have long stingers, and it got him right in the heart, and the resulting wound killed him almost instantaneously.  He hadn't been so popular since he wrangled a crocodile while holding an infant, but I'm really going to miss his infectious enthusiasm.  The time he brought a giant python onto Conan O'Brien's set and this 30 foot snake was nearly overpowering its handlers, who couldn't get it offstage was certainly a memorable moment in television.  (Apparently reticulated pythons eat chicken.)

I really thought if a TV animal expert with proper respect for animals was going to get killed while filming, it would be Manny Puig from Wildboyz.  Actually I would definitely have expected Steve-O or Partyboy to be killed or maimed long before Steve Irwin or Siegfried and Roy.  Right before I read the news about Steve Irwin, I was watching an episode of Wildboyz where Steve-O has a wild black bear eat honey and marshmallows off of his chest, and Manny tries to wrestle a feeding blue shark (with David Hasselhoff looking on as lifeguard).  One of them has a rock python tattoo for god's sake, from letting a rock python bite him so he could pour ink into the wounds... how are these guys still alive?  Although Steve-O did go to clown college, where he must have learned a thing or two.

The guy in India who relocates king cobras that wander into populated areas would have been another likely candidate, since he's been bitten so many times he's allergic to the antivenin.  Although scientists have genetically engineered mice to be resistant to cobra venom, so someday, your pet store will be able to sell you a mouse that, like the mongoose, cannot be killed by cobras.  It's too bad biochemists haven't licked that whole AIDS vaccine problem yet, but at least their laboratory mice won't be killed by cobras.  Unless they get long, sharp fangs stuck through their necks somehow, that might actually still kill them.  Or murine AIDS, since obviously they won't be vaccinated against that either.

I actually spent more time than I took to write the rest of this finding an adjective "murine" that I thought would be analogous to feline, apian, or ovine so I could make that joke.  I'm building a catalog of adjective forms derived from Latin names, no man should know off the top of his head that apian flu and ovine spongiform encephalopathy are fictitious diseases spread by bees and sheep, I really need help.  Does the squalus really live in squalor, is that really fair?

Mike McMahon era officially over

Well, that's it. The Vikings have taken a couple more steps in building a new team, including trading C.J. Mosley and a draft pick to the New York Jets for Brooks Bollinger, who will replace McMahon at back-up QB. Losing Mosley could really suck, since he had potential as a pass rusher for the Vikings, (and I don't know what round the pick was). On the other hand, we needed a veteran QB to back up Johnson, because in football terms he's very old and injury prone. But this exposes a potential problem regarding personnel decisions.

Mike McMahon was a bust as a back-up QB, and totally stunk up the joint, so they had to cut him and make a trade for a replacement after the pre-season. The only reason he was signed in the first place was because he used to play for the Eagles and he "knew the system". Then we swapped receivers with the Eagles, they our guy and made him a starter and we got a guy we buried way down the depth chart who "knows the system". Now we've also signed a guy the Eagles cut because he was injured, but then of course, he "knows the system". 22 guys have to be cut today and now I'm wondering if having played for the Eagles is going to be the determining factor in determining the final roster. But then I don't "know the system".

V for Vendetta

This movie got a horrible reception when it came out, and I have to concur in that I really couldn't recommend it to anybody. However, it had a lot of merits, or perhaps more accurately, a lot of potential. The story of disobedience and revolt by the population of an authoritarian regime was extremely captivating. The importance of symbolism, fear, the way a population forgets history, and how any show of disrespect can undermine the authority of a regime, were all near perfect in their presentation, and with a surprisingly light touch, given some of the controversies invoked by the film.

What makes it ineffective is in a word, Hollywood, primarily through the casting. Any peripheral scene, or any scene where no credited cast member has a spoken line, is enthralling. When Stephen Fry and the girl with the glasses take off their masks at the end of the film, I nearly shed tears. The authoritarian regime is presented reasonably competently, if not terribly interestingly, with Stephen Rea's Inspector Finch the lone highlight as a man with the intelligence to dig deeper into his society's workings but not the courage or imagination. Stephen Fry I felt was absolutely perfect as the dilettante rebel, keeping illegal cultural artifacts and engaging in minor subversions well below the public radar, but believing nothing serious will ever happen to him.

Unfortunately, the lead actors are truly the stone that sinks this movie, by being such predictably poor casting choices. I even like the actors, Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman, but they just don't have nearly the right presence. Casting Natalie Portman as Evey Hammond is obviously the Hollywood's need for everybody to be young and photogenic, but for Portman it comes out as wilting and fragile, and so exceedingly pliable and vulnerable, that she can't sell the transformation to fearless rebel. She really can't hold the screen with much better actors around her, and this kills a lot of scenes, having no real interaction between her character and others. It's still hard to even take her seriously as an adult, which worked exceedingly well for Closer where everybody pushes her around and talks down to her level, and was great when she was at her acting peak around age 12-13, but falls pretty far short here. Her English accent seems like a transparent affection, and in addition to being distracting, makes her again seem like the American kids who go to Oxford and try to assume a new identity, which again makes her seem like an adolescent. The other contenders for the role, Bryce Dallas Howard and Scarlett Johansson, I feel might have brought some more adult qualities to the role.

Hugo Weaving's breathless, otherworldly speaking voice may have contributed to the fact that he's best known for playing an elf and a computer program, but here it makes it hard to see that under the mask and the grandiose symbolism, V is just a pained, twisted man. This adds a lot when it does occasionally manage to poke through, so it would have been nice to see more of it. As it is, with nothing visible underneath in Weaving's performance, V comes across as a ridiculous shell, most clearly in the scene where V destroys the Old Bailey, and is standing on a rooftop with Evey reveling in the destruction. With his impassive Guy Fawkes mask, and just the black gloved hands sticking out of his flowing black cloak, and a low wall in front of him, he looked like a reject from that castle Trolley used to visit on Mr. Rogers, with the little puppets of King Friday and Prince Tuesday. It was incredibly hard to take him seriously after that, especially when he's making eggs and toast while wearing a grinning mask. If the original actor cast for the role, James Purefoy, had stuck through the film, I feel like he would have given a much better impression of a man under the mask, which is what the film needs to make V real and not ridiculous.

The film also makes great use of music, but again, Hollywood needs a dramatic score with violins playing to let them know what emotion to feel, and this is distractingly bland and cliche. Dario Marinelli's score really can't stand next to the songs that close the film, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and the Stones' Street Fighting Man, both of which are what the movie really called for. I also can't go without mentioning Dynamite Ham's "BKAB" featuring Malcom X and Gloria Steinem that apparently kept a lot of people glued to their seats during the closing credits. But it's classical music, political techno, and a song from two generations back, all of which I can see making nervous suits say "You didn't even give them a good bang at the end so they'd know
when to clap!"

This is also interesting in that it's the third Stephen Rea film I've seen, and like Colin Firth is always playing Mr. Darcy, he always seems to be channeling the spirit of Ned Broy. In "Michael Collins" he plays Ned Broy, an Irish policeman who becomes an informant for the Republicans after starting to listen to Collins, in "The Crying Game" he's an IRA volunteer who quits after conversing with a British soldier, and in "V for Vendetta" he's again a policeman who starts to question the regime after listening to V. He's also a Belfast Protestant who had three children with an IRA bomber who was part of the Dirty Protest and hunger strikes. Kind of interesting to find a Presbyterian from Belfast who keeps playing revolutionaries.

Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD

Initially, I really didn't get why there was even a conflict over the format of the next generation of optical media, the mode through which high definition video recordings could be sold. The primary advantage of seemed HD-DVD I understood to be that it's cheaper to run an assembly line that can switch from HD-DVD and normal DVD, which frankly didn't sound all that great. In terms of space, HD-DVD would also be a minor improvement over regular DVD, whereas a DVD holds multiple times what a CD can. Blu-Ray makes a much bigger jump, and like DVD, should allow more things that weren't possible in existing media. HD-DVD would have to be replaced with something else much sooner. Then I found out why HD-DVD is winning the format war: Sony is stupid.

Obviously we already knew this, with their stupid anti-piracy software their CDs secretly install on computers, and the exploding laptop batteries don't help. But they're at it again, announcing that they're selling the first Blu-Ray drives, which will be usable for storage, since they can read data from blu-ray discs. However, you won't be able to play Blu-ray movies on them, because they haven't sorted out what DRM they'll use, but they're selling the things anyways (you can burn a pirated movie onto a Blu-ray disc and play it on one of these drives, though). Seriously, Sony Electronics have a superior product, but are holding it back because Sony Media hasn't figured out how to break it yet. This has apparently happened multiple times in the US at least, with stuff like MiniDisc, which apparently the rest of the world thought was great but we missed out on. The Sony Playstation which got DVD players into a lot of homes won't play Blu-ray (not enough anti-piracy hardware), so nobody's going to buy Blu-ray discs because they have a player already. Meanwhile HD-DVD is showing signs of actually being available, like Netflix is planning on renting HD-DVDs.

The other stupid thing is Sony is limiting the licensing, to control who puts out content in their format. Having a Sony-only format that only plays on Sony equipment and is entirely controlled by Sony helped kill Betamax, but apparently it's better to lose money than to lose control. This explained one thing I'd really been curious about, why the porn industry was behind HD-DVD. Apparently it's because Sony doesn't want to allow any porn producers to put anything out on Blu-Ray. So basically they have an electronics product you can't buy anything for in the immediate future, that will only have limited content as time goes by, and a format that requires very specific DRM-capable equipment.

The great thing about all of this is, nobody can tell the difference. VHS to DVD is huge, DVD to high definition is... not so huge. The only thing that really blows your mind in high def is sporting events, and you can't really sell a lot of recordings of live sporting events. Also, there are formats with better compression already spreading that make the DRM'ed Sony format obsolete. However, the real irony is Sony has now put out a product that can only play pirated movies, that really brightened my day.

Vikings screwed early

Usually they start out strong and the wheels come off mid-season, or just whenever they play the Giants. Finally, a New York Football Giants free season, one I can enjoy without an impending sense of dread, and it's starting with terrible omens. They didn't look that great against the Raiders, but I figured I shouldn't read too much into that, but even that seems to be getting worse. Then the St Peter Police Department got involved.

The giant, glaring weakness in this team was the horrible, horrible play at linebacker, so the big off-season debate was whether they'd done enough to shore up those positions. Their first round draft pick was a highly rated linebacker, but after playing one quarter of a preseason game he's out for the whole year. This is following our new strong safety having a season-ending injury while backing up during training camp. So we'll still have the giant glaring hole in the middle of the field on defense... boy that linebacker we got for Moss was a great pick-up. Continued improvement on the defensive line would go a long way, but late in games the wide-open middle and sloppy tackling will apparently still negate the improvement of the line and the secondary the past few years. Don't get me started on how unbelievably bad our coverage teams were.

The talent level of our offensive skill position players has gone down, now that Moss and Culpepper are gone, but theoretically the offensive line should be a lot better, and the running game along with it now that they have a decent runningback who ranks football ahead of weed. On the other hand, the team's best receiver will probably spend the season in jail, after he led the St. Peter police department on a 100 mph chase to avoid a DWI. That certainly worked out well. I'd just like to point out once again, that for all the criticism of Randy Moss, he didn't miss entire seasons because of jail terms and failed drug tests, unlike other recent Vikings offensive starters. At least Tavaris Jackson looks like he might be the real deal at QB for next year.

This just doesn't look good... the improvements to the line and the running game may lead to the offense actually holding the ball long enough to keep our defense from collapsing late in games, which would be an improvement, but they're still not going to score on anybody. 3rd down is still going to be rough with wide open passing lanes across the middle, so the D isn't going to smother anybody either. Mediocrity abounds, and in a year we play the AFC East and the NFC West, I won't get to heckle my friends the Dolphin and 9er fans. I hope they look better by the opener against the Redskins. You know, I'm actually kind of glad that's a road game, I think spending the 5th anniversary of 9/11 with 64,000 people in a building with almost no exits would really unnerve me so much I wouldn't enjoy the game.

Starfleet Medical Ethics, and why I'd never use the EMH

In episode #130, "Pathfinder", Voyager is contacted through a new communications technology created by Lt. Reginald Barclay (better known as Howlin' Mad Murdock on the A-Team). At the end of the episode the crew toasts Lt. Barclay, and the captain asks if anybody knows him. The Doctor mentions that he read Barclay's file, and in a stunning lapse of professionalism, tells everyone about Barclay's amusing medical history (which includes phobias, addictions, and one time turning into a giant spider). Have his ethical subroutines just been corrupted, deleted, and rewritten so many times that after five and a half years they just don't even kick in anymore? Is his usual contribution to cocktail parties to tell everybody the 1st officer was a bedwetter?

I also assume that the file had a picture of the guy, so when the captain asked if anybody had a reference for the guy, you'd think that the Doctor would mention that in a sense they all sort of met him back in episode #10, "Projections", WHEN HIS HOLOGRAM TRIED TO STEAL THE SHIP. You'd think that would be something people would remember, the time Ferengi pirates sent a hologram from the alpha quadrant who charmed the whole crew before trying to murder them. It would also be a bit more appropriate than "Apparently he's sought extensive treatment for his crippling fear of transporters, what a freak." Granted, the Doctor's program had been rewritten or taken over by self-aware smart bombs and the like, and his holoemitter had been broken or embedded in the brain of a borg drone about 120 times in the intervening episodes, so maybe it's understandable he'd forget some things. Kind of makes you wonder what medical knowledge he's also forgotten though, doesn't it?

That being said, an indeterminate number of lightyears from Earth (the only explanation for their variable progress and the way people always catch up to them is if they went in the wrong direction most of the time) and if you get sick, your medical options are limited. You can go see the EMH whose medical ethics and long-term memory are intermittent, or you can see the other health care provider... an ex-con who was only halfway through his sentence for treason when he got pressed into service. I have to assume the replicators are working over time making vitamin C for a crew that's desperately afraid of going to sickbay.

Things that are not that great

There are in fact, some things that really aren't that great. I mean I'll readily admit they're good, I'm not a total idiot or anything, but they're just... not that great.

CSI, for instance, is really not that great. I've only seen a couple episodes of this show, but I've discovered that apparently everything in Las Vegas is covered in semen. Car accident? Better check the driver for semen just to be sure. I don't have a problem with people apparently going at it on every available surface, I'm really all for that, I mean sometimes the only thing you can find to cuff a woman to for sex and spanking is going to be playground equipment. Er, for example. Crowbarring in a few juvenile sexual references (like I just did) isn't really that big a deal, I mean SVU has hit some groaner moments like the lawyer moonlighting as a stripper, which wouldn't have been so stupid if it wasn't for the "feel of men's eyes" soliloquy by a coworker. These were like the first heterosexual strippers I've ever heard of, but that's another story. The thing with CSI is the constant attempts at momentous lines, obviously inspired by the Jerry Orbach teaser quip from like, every Law&Order episode ever. The one that finally did it for me was the guy who really caught Hannibal Lecter talking about roller coasters: "You see, for me it's not about the track. It's about the thrill." As opposed to the people who ride for the #@%&'ing scenery, but since it's in an amusement park full of vomiting kids and flashing lights in an otherwise vacant splotch of blacktop, I'm guessing the scenery really isn't all that great.

Kyle Lohse was also not that great. I'm not knocking Lohse, I'm just saying he... well, I'm saying he wasn't that great. He had years to turn into a quality starting pitcher for the Twins, and the Twins have done well by trying to keep talent coming up through the minor league organization. So they ship out guys like Kyle Lohse and Doug Mientkiewicz who have no future, with the Twins pitching prospects and Morneau-for-4 having a better trade-off of offensive and defensive skills at first base. Everybody tends to agree that keeping talent flowing into the minor league organization has worked, but there were grumbles about Lohse and Mientkiewicz, both because of a perceived lack of value in the trades, and because of a sense that a play-off run was being hurt in order to build for the future. Here's the thing... Kyle Lohse wouldn't pitch in the play-offs anyways, and if the margin of victory in making the wild card spot is Kyle Lohse winning as a starter, you really aren't going to win the world series. The same thing went for Mientkiewicz, he was superlative at the sport's easiest job to fill (playing first base), but it's unlikely you'll notice a huge difference between him and his replacement, so it's better to go with somebody that can hit. This meant the Twins could likely make better use of the roster spot by promoting somebody from the minors, even if they got nothing for Lohse and Mientkiewicz. Nobody wanted Lohse or Mientkiewicz enough to offer a lot in return, since they had few marketable rare abilities. Getting them out of the way of minor league talent and stocking up a bit more in the minors was good business, because they weren't that great.

Seinfeld? Not that great, I'm afraid. Here's the proof, the legacy of Seinfeld is in the concepts, the banal things that were formalized and exaggerated to comedic proportions, like the implied agreement of tupperware when formalized and applied to giving food to the homeless. The thing is, you don't actually have to see the episode to appreciate the observational humor, and I've recently come to the conclusion that it actually helps not to watch the actual episodes. Part of Seinfeld was the narcissism and lack of empathy of all the characters, which was supposed to be funny at their expense, but that aspect really misfired a lot. Generally they're just being cheap and petty, and obsessively so. Is there a shortage of people like that, because I don't think there is one that justifies broadcasting a daily fix of them. Like George freaking out for the entire episode about how he has to chip in for a $12 bottle of wine and a dessert to bring to a dinner party, in my experience there are actually plenty of people who are that cheap and aggravating, so it's really not funny. The show is popularly recognized as having jumped the shark when they took that same attitude too far, and nobody cared when George's fiancee died. Eventually the show even had to recognize this and punish the characters for their narcissism in the series finale. The physical comedy and intermittent yelping by Kramer only works in small doses, so if you watch two episodes back to back, it's immediately clear why Michael Richards' schtick didn't outlive this show. Also, George being depressed and pathetic, an intermittent running theme, is not great escapist entertainment for me, for some odd reason.

Big Slick is also surprisingly not that great. You'd think it would be, you really would, but it seems like whenever somebody throws away most of their chips, they went in with Big Slick, and they're not happy about it. The idea is that playing Texas Hold'em, there are only two starting hands that dominate Big Slick, Bullets and Cowboys. Against any other pair, it's even money before the flop. However, it's always the hand where people get fucked in crazy ways, like making trips on the flop then losing to the Wheel. It's just not that great is all I'm saying. Also not that great is when the short stack picks up fishhooks and goes nuts figuring it's time to make their last stand, because they always get chewed up by a bigger pair.

Obviously I'd also have to include poorly edited gonzo porn. Often poor editing means holding the same stable shot for so long that you see the point when the performers have to kind of mentally start the loop over, like shift their weight and shake out tired muscles before going back to the same mechanical motion. What also stands out in this process is the mental reboot, where somebody stops moaning, looks irritated and bored, then starts a new series of moans. The close-up anatomical shots, much as I love them, if held for so long that they start to lose any cohesion with the rest of the scene, and become just clinical, well, they're not so great. I will happily admit to loving gonzo porn, but when you point a camera at it and nod off, so does the audience.

Once on top of the world, but now just not so great anymore, the Beckhams. David's limitations really stood out during the World Cup, since he can't get past fullbacks, can't keep up with his assignment on defense even on set pieces, and is into the phase of his career when his speed and endurance will continue to drop drastically while he takes longer and longer to recover from more frequent injuries. His England career is over, since his sole contribution at international level is set pieces and the occasional long ball or cross if the whole defense sags off of him, like a Steve Kerr 3-pointer. He is likely to be dropped from Real Madrid's first team, and his wife's shopping and nightlife needs mean he's got two options, some second-rate London club like Tottenham Hotspur or... well actually just Spurs, or he can admit he's past it, and sign up with Red Bull New York or the LA Galaxy, and tap new markets for his image. Then again, he and his wife were booed at an MTV awards show, and got tossed again when they demanded that an LA store throw out the plebs so they could shop without being mobbed, were asked by management, "Who the fuck are you and why would we do that?" Actually, is he even that attractive to androphiles anymore, with his goofy personal grooming and body art choices? Which brings me to Posh, whose career ended eight years ago. The end of her husband's international career means she's not the leader of the Wags (Wives and Girlfriends) that traveled the length and breadth of Germany to the embarrassment of normal people all over England. (On an etymological note, Wags is a plural noun with no singular, since a lone member of the Wags is a wife or a girlfriend, not a Wag.) What was really sad was on all the endless cuts to her in the stands looking like an old lady with her over-sized sunglasses, sitting next to her and stealing all my attention was Ashley Cole's girlfriend Cheryl Tweedy looking hot, completely outshining the queen bee Posh, who looked by comparison, well, not that great. Although apparently Cheryl backs up the idea that Posh isn't nearly as useless as most of the other Wags, and with her understanding of how to work the media Becks went from that guy with the hair in his eyes who kicks people to international sex symbol.

What's really also not so great are top five and top ten lists and the like, because it's so hard to be definitive, exhaustive, and self-conscious in form all at the same time. Particularly not so great is this list. It's long-winded without any sort of structure, which makes it difficult to read and impossible to scan for relevant highlights, which given the completely random set of topics makes it unlikely the one or two people who might consider reading it will get anything out of it. I mean no section subheadings, no numbers, just long, undistinguished paragraphs of morose, possibly bitter-sounding prose? Reworking sections to avoid the impression of the usual hysterical, ranting style of my emails and blog posts would have been great, but I didn't do it, so perhaps that is also not really so great. Boring and cryptic sections up front like the entry that doesn't even identify what Big Slick refers to, and continues with more nicknames like presto, I mean that can't be too great. And really, with the volumes I could write about gonzo porn and its undeserved negative image, to just mention the bad instead of writing a spirited exploration of its merits, well, even I think that wasn't too great a thing for me to do. Boy would I ever owe my readers an apology if I had any.

American Citizenship Test

1. If you catch a home run ball in the top of the 9^th, what do you do with the ball after the game?

a) Wait around until after the game to get it signed by the hitter

b) Give it to a kid

c) Take it home and give it to your brother-cousin

d) Nothing, because you threw that piece of shit back onto the field!

2. Ulysses S Grant was a general in:

a) The Spanish-American War

b) The War of 1812

c) The War of Northern Aggression

d) The Civil War

3. America's best cultural export is:

a) Hawaiian shirts

b) Detroit Automobiles

c) Texas football

d) Chicago Blues

4. The French are best described as:

a) A historical ally whose support was critical to a US victory at Yorktown

b) A former colonial power with crucial political influence in Africa and Russia

c) Cheese-eating surrender monkeys we keep having to bail out of wars

d) All of the above

5. The electoral college system is:

a) An 18^th century vision of government that should have been abolished by the 17^th amendment

b) An undemocratic system that favors regional, rural and agrarian politics

c) The Founding Fathers' way of keeping black lesbian communists from screwing up the country

d) What the hell is the electoral college?

6. Which best describes Canada:

a) A G7 nation and parliamentary republic with its own unique blend of immigrant cultures

b) A bland, humorless snowdrift with 30 million Napoleonic complexes

c) The 51^st State

d) All of the above

7. Which of the following American contributions to world cuisine is edible:

a) The McDonald's Happy Meal

b) Velveeta slices

c) Possum fresh off the grill (if you know what I mean)

d) Pumpkin Pie

8. What do the 4^th and 5^th amendments protect Americans from?

a) Unreasonable searches and intrusion by the police

b) Being forced to turn over evidence against themselves

c) Getting cornholed by gay rapist French communist university professors

d) A and B, but only if you're not a terrorist

9. South of the United States one would find:

a) Mexico

b) The Republic of Texas

c) Lazy people who want to hike across a desert to work two jobs (lazily)

d) Señor Frog's

10. If somebody says something you don't like, what does the Constitution say about that?

a) Everyone has a right to free speech (1^st amendment)

b) Everyone is entitled to the same rights under the law (14^th amendment)

c) Shoot the bastard! (2^nd amendment)

d) A and B, as long as you support the President and not the terrorists (Bush & Nixon Administrations)

Bonus Question:

Which of the following people is truly an American hero who risked his or her life for freedom:

a) Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox

b) Ralph Hinkley, the Greatest American Hero

c) Jessica Lynch, that baby Osama bin Laden threw down a well in Iraq

d) G.I. Joe, a Real American Hero

Scoring:

Add up the number of times you answered “D” here:

American Index _____

If you have an American Index of 7 or higher, congratulations! You are sufficiently American, and you can stay as long as you want.

Add up the number of times you answered “C” here:

Redneck Index _____

If you have a Redneck Index of 3 or higher, yee-haw! You are a Red State American, and you have 30 days to relocate south of the Mason-Dixon line.

The Wicker Man

I just finally saw a trailer for the Nicholas Cage remake of The Wicker Man. Creepy supernatural people keep turning into bees and flying away, so obviously this isn't a faithful remake of the original film, which retains a healthy amount of skepticism through Edward Woodward. The thing is, amping up the horror with all this goofy shit with the girl having glowing red eyes on the poster, etc. would actually makes the movie a lot less scary than the original, because it establishes before you even get to the theater that it's all fantastical and not grounded in reality. There can be no dawning sense of horror as Nicholas Cage figures out what's going on, because there's already people turning into clouds of bees (or maybe it was flies) in the trailer.

The very act of casting Nicholas Cage also means the movie has to give him a very different character, because Edward Woodward's devout Protestant virgin from the original just isn't an A-list actor popcorn movie character: Nick Cage has to be much more world-weary, cynical, and imply hot sex with every breath. The characterization in the original allows for the tension and revulsion of Woodward towards the people of the island in the original, and lets him stay a detective fiction character who's stumbled into a ghost story and is having none of it, thank you very much. In my opinion the gut punch of the original film comes from the way detective stories and horror stories begin the same way, before diverging, and people bursting into clouds of bees kinds of blows that.

According to what I've read, the remake apparently decided to make the tension between the policeman and the people of the island not be over Christianity versus paganism. Instead, it's about gender, because being an authority figure as a policeman, Nicholas Cage will represent the patriarchy of the outside world, versus the matriarchy of the island. Unfortunately, female antagonists subjecting men to horror doesn't work too well, because half the audience needs it to be a girl power moment, so they can't follow through, unless she's a cartoonish villain in an action movie. If you think it's just me being paranoid, see Amber Benson talking up the empowerment moment of Kathy Bates crippling a man with a sledgehammer in Misery in that 100 scariest movie moments special. Somebody taking pride in that was the creepiest part of the whole show. That and the numerous times I've heard about peer reviewed studies of matriarchal societies show them to be free of violence and social inequality, without any being named (studies or societies) kind of leads me to believe they'll be toothless in this version as well.

My assumption is once again, we'll get a remake that totally missed what made the original stick in anybody's head for 30 years. With most of these remakes, we already know the story, and where the originals were suffused with the politics and culture of the day, the remakes substitute cartoonish versions of the same issues, which are safe and do nothing to unnerve modern audiences. You don't address today's issues, you look back at the attitude of 30-40 years ago so the audience all agrees and you don't take any chances. (I may have made fun of the hamfistedness of it, but the X-Men movies did actually engage with some of modern society's areas of discomfort.)

But with the commercial remakes, exploiting known properties, you get the remake of the Stepford Wives that had the women better off as robots in the end, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre without meat packers, Dawn of the Dead without Vietnam or race relations, The Hills Have Eyes without nuclear testing, and even though it's not horror The Manchurian Candidate without the original's Cold War paranoia. What stood out as an exception last year was Land of the Dead (a possible parable of Red State America) but that's because it was made by George A. Romero, who was active when these movies were about more than having Michael Berryman jump out and say "Boo!" Even Count Chocula has a fascinating subtext of antisemitism that makes Mel Gibson look open-minded and tolerant. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to burst into a cloud of hornets and go build a nest on somebody's balcony.

Italian Referee Scandal Fallout

For anybody not following this story, what was long suspected in Italian football, that some top clubs (Juventus in particular) got favorable refereeing, was finally proved. Juventus had a scheme for seeing that friendly referees were assigned to their games, and supposedly to counteract this Milan had a scheme to skew the assignment of linesmen. Franco Zefirelli was once sued for libel after making a film trying to highlight all the questionable calls that go Juve's way, but now he's been vindicated. Milan, Lazio, and Fiorentina were all caught in this scandal when it broke, and all have been punished. There was little evidence that Milan was directly interfering, and the top management weren't be directly implicated, so they really aren't coming out of this too badly. Here are the penalties:

Lazio was relegated to Serie B, and will start the season with a 7 point penalty. They could be back in Serie A the next year, depending on whether their players stick around. Lazio may have a giant fire sale and take a little longer to recover, given the drop in income.

Fiorentina was also relegated to Serie B with a 12 point penalty, so they'll have a rougher time climbing back up even with players sticking around. Following a good World Cup, Luca Toni should bring in a lot of money if they sell him now.

Juventus got hit the hardest, relegated to Serie B with a 30 point penalty. Especially not knowing who'll stick around for next year, the penalty will mean next season they'll be playing to avoid relegation to Serie C for the 2007. The prosecutor's recommendation was relegation to Serie C with a 6 point penalty, which would have meant they'd be in Serie B in 2007 for sure, this way they'll have to fight to even be sure of that.

Milan had 44 points deducted from this season, meaning they went from 2nd to 7th, and a 15 point penalty next year. The crazy thing is theoretically Milan should have missed out on European competition because of that deduction, but Empoli, for what reason I don't know, doesn't have a license to play in European competition, so Milan will possibly play in the UEFA Cup. A 15 point deduction means Milan also has a shot at playing in the Champions league in 2007, or at least the UEFA Cup. This is pretty significant, if they do well in Europe they won't take a big hit to their income and can keep a strong squad together, while their biggest rival will be rebuilding for years.

It's not clear yet how the loss of top players and the income to retain and replace them will affect these clubs. Going into next year, a largely unchallenged and stocked with talent Inter Milan will find a way to choke the title away, leaving it wide open. Francesco Totti's decision to stay his entire career at Roma has been criticized in the past, since he could have been a bigger star at a bigger club, but now that decision has to be looking pretty good to him, with only choke-happy Inter between him and another scudetto. It should be an interesting season in Serie A and Serie B, for sure.

The Aftermath of the Headbutt

Supposedly Italian lip-readers have tried to ascertain what Marco Materazzi said right before Zinedine Zidane head-butted him, and according to submissions to the Corriere della Sera, this is what he said to set Zidane off:

"Guarda, Zizou, che quando Sartre propone di restaurare la dialettizzazione intersoggettiva resuscitando la libertà che, pur non essendo mai scomparsa come condizione dell'agire individuale, è divenuta il modo nel quale l'uomo alienato deve vivere a perpetuità il suo carcere e finalmente la sola maniera che egli abbia di scoprire la necessità delle sue alienazioni e delle sue impotenze, secondo me non ha capito una mazza"

(translation)

"Look Zizou, when Sartre proposes to restore intersubjective dialectization, thus resuscitating freedom, which, even if it has never disappeared as a condition of individual actions, has become the way in which the alienated human being must live his prison forever, and finally the only way that he has to discover the necessity of his own alienations and impotencies...well, I think that he's talking bullshit"

Apparently the first rule of French football is if you're going to talk trash, you better damned well leave Jean-Paul Sartre out of it. Actually, what did go around seriously was that Zidane was sick of Materazzi grabbing his jersey, so he told him he could have it after the game if he wanted it so bad, which they both confirm, although Materazzi says Zidane said it in an arrogant way, justifying his own insulting retort. The unofficial story goes on to say that he called Zidane's (recently hospitalized) mother a terrorist whore, and further suggested that all arabs were dirty muslim terrorists. Somehow I don't think that's what I'd say to a legendarily short-tempered French arab player who's been thrown out of 14 games, sometimes for headbutting or stomping on opponents. The last time was actually IN GERMANY, for fuck's sake (Juventus v HSV in a Champions League game in Hamburg).

Zidane only says he shouldn't have done it with children watching, because he knows as a father how hard it is to teach children appropriate behavior and that media images of misbehavior like his just make it more difficult. He also confirmed that "hard words" were spoken about his mother and his sister to set him off, but didn't say what they were. Materazzi claims he didn't know what terrorist meant, which is usually how I pick my insults. Materazzi's Keanu-esque nickname "Matrix" never seemed more appropriate than when applied to a guy who got headbutted in the chest so hard he couldn't get up after using a word he didn't understand.

Creepy Bee Video

I was trying to look up some information on hornets, yellowjackets, and other wasps to help out Candy Man with the nests they keep building on his deck, and I came up with this really creepy video of 30 hornets taking on a nest of 30,000 bees.  Martin Sheen's narration was apparently inspired by his voice-over musings about Vietnam in Apocalypse Now, and the music really adds a dramatic tinge to the unfolding horror, but the weirdest thing is as the bees are mercilessly torn apart... well, there are human screams dubbed over the footage.  I found that odd anthropomorphic touch to be really, really creepy.  Now, between that video and all the Candy Man jokes I keep thinking of every time I talk to Paul living in the wasp-infested shadow of Cabrini Green, I keep expecting bees to fly up out of everything I touch.  Seriously, I'm too freaked out to even watch the Charlotte Sting (they have center who's like a young, estrogen-rich Arvydas Sabonis), and don't even even bring up Vitesse or Borussia Dortmund.

Let the Dog In

I've been at my parents' house for over an hour, and the neighbors' dog has been sitting outside their back door barking its head off waiting to be let in for the entire time. Apparently 3-inch thick glass on the windows to block the dog out was cheaper than a few hours of obedience school. I just thought I'd mention that. Don't get me started on the people across the alley from me who have a 3 foot square patch of artificial grass on their concrete porch so their dogs can piss and shit on it in full view of everybody.

Hollywood Hunger Strike

I read a brief mention of Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn going on a hunger strike in support of Cindy Sheehan, which initially really surprised me. Obviously those two have been vocally opposed to the war, so the issue wasn't a surprise, but a hunger strike is pretty serious business. While studying a film about the hunger strikers in the Maze in 1981, I got a detailed account of how the human body starts to break down without food. The damage done to the eyes and other organs is permanent, and significantly shortens the life of most hunger strikers. Bobby Sands died after 66 days, but well before that he and the other strikers in the Maze lost their eyesight, become delirious, unable to keep down water, and eventually went into comas as their bodies shut down. In other words, it isn't like that Simpsons episode where Homer gets up after not being on a hunger striker for weeks and eats the hot dog with southwestern toppings on it.

Given all that, I thought it was hard to believe that Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Willie Nelson, and Danny Glover were willing to sacrifice their bodies to the extent you have to before a hunger strike gets serious. I'll concede, Sean Penn seems nutty enough, maybe Willie looks at his drug-riddled 73-year old body and wants wants his onrushing death to mean something, and I'm sure Danny Glover doesn't have anything better to do. Since Susan Sarandon says she protests out of responsibility to her children, I think she might also find it irresponsible to tell them mommy has to protect their future by leaching all the nutrients out of her internal organs, deliriously and blindly vomiting on them when they visit her, and lapsing into a fatal coma to make a point to the press. In any case, of the 546 constitutional office holders, 544 don't have any influence over the war, and the other two only watch Fox News (who probably won't cover the story).

So fortunately, the initial report was misleading, and the hunger strikes won't interfere with production of "In Search of Captain Zero", "The Colossus", or "Be Kind Rewind". Apparently there will be a "rolling programme" [sic] of hunger protests, in which the actors will take turns abstaining from food for a day. So every day, there will be a single rich person abstaining from food, which I'm sure the president will find intolerable. I mean, he'll spend a whole day fretting about Susan Sarandon being inconvenienced, then he doesn't get any relief when her day ends because then Danny Glover will be uncomfortable somewhere. Until September 21st, International Peace Day, when they conclude their protest after less than three months. They couldn't even keep going until the midterm elections? Will the Minnesota DFL even have chosen
candidates for congress and the senate by then? I think I should find six people and have rotating food hours until Bastille Day. I'll start us off: I won't eat between 8 and 9, and 2 and 3, somebody will take between 9 and 10 and 3 and 4, and by July 14, I'm sure America will have rallied behind us.

One other note about hunger strikes, I find it amusing that the British government recently campaigned to get a name change for the street in Tehran where their embassy is located. Previously it honored former prime minister Winston Churchill, but in the 80s the Iranians renamed it after another former member of parliament... Bobby Sands (better known for his poetry and terrorism than his three week term in office). Iranian passport control officials apparently sometimes greet Irish tourists by raising a fist and saying "Bobby Sands, no food. Welcome to Iran."

Brazil in the Last 4 World Cups

Just in case anybody else was keeping track of the Brazilian mystique, here's everybody they've beaten in the knock-out rounds of the last 4 World Cups*:

2nd Round Wins:
United States '94
Chile '98
Belgium '02
Ghana '06

Quarterfinal Wins:
Netherlands '94
Denmark '98
England '02

Semifinal Wins:
Sweden '94
Turkey '02

Final Wins:
Germany '02

Out of all those knock-out games, only the Dutch team from the '94 quarterfinals was a threat to win anything, but their best player also walked out during the tournament. There were a couple good draws in there that Brazil won on PKs, but that's against legendary penalty chokers Italy and Holland, not exactly dominating the sport. Adding the teams that lost to Brazil in the first round but went on to the knock-out rounds, since they would arguably be of the same caliber:

1st Round:
Turkey '02
Australia '06

I'm just saying, those quarterfinal wins were all solid, but even I was surprised to look back and see how many tomato cans their wins came against. And even then, a lot of those involved close scrapes and dodgy refereeing, I mean the ref apologized to Marc Wilmots for screwing him after one of those games. I would say against teams who went into the World Cup looking to win, Brazil went 1-2-2, so I'm taking the field again in 2010. (I didn't count Germany and England in 2002, both could have been eliminated in the first round without anyone raising an eyebrow that year.)

*-Nobody's even reading this, much less keeping track, but allow me my delusions. Some days the only thing that keeps the loneliness from driving me insane is my close relationship with my collection of singing potatoes.

France v Portugal

Just to clarify, no matter what ESPN says, there is no magazine called El Equipe in France and there was also nobody named Em Jacquet in the stadium. There is a magazine called L'Equipe, who once printed an apology to Aime Jacquet after they ripped him and he won the World Cup.

God I love fucking France. Actually I love anybody who takes out Portugal so I don't have to watch them try to flop their way to a win. Seriously, my fucking god does Cristiano Ronaldo go down more easily than an East Dubuque stripper with a $20 bill in her hand. I've never seen dives so obvious go unpunished, either, when he's out of position and can't make a play on the ball, so he runs up to somebody and tries to fall against them. The play where Nuno Valented megged a defender on the edge of the box and sent a pass through but missed Ronaldo and Postiga, upon which they both fell over at the same time was priceless, especially since the French defenders were moving away from them.

What makes it funnier is France scored on a penalty, when Thierry Henry just inside the box faked a Portuguese defender out so badly the guy fell down backwards, but took a desperate flail at the ball after Henry had already moved it away to set up his next move. Henry took a crack on the shin as he turned to pursue his ball, which really only hindered him slightly, but he hit the ground arms windmilling. He clearly made a meal of it when he went down, but it was a foul clear as day. Zidane did his funky hook shot where he faces right and whips his leg around to send the ball left, perfectly placed inside the post. Ricardo read it perfectly, but couldn't get to it. I'm actually tremendously impressed with Ricardo, I assume he'll be catching a train to Spain this fall, since he's listed as playing for Sporting in Portugal.

Given that penalty, Portugal figured they'd try their luck, and a few minutes later, Cristiano Ronaldo couldn't get to a cross so he put his hands up and takes the most theatrical dive I've ever seen, running in with his his hands up and jumping as high as he can when he gets near a defender, letting his body go limp at the apex of his flight, descending like tragic Icarus into the sea. If there hadn't been a cross going over his head, the guy would have been carded for diving, so he came out of it fairly fortunate. This didn't stop the Portuguese bench from going nuts, mobbing the 4th official, and throwing a water bottle onto the field. Seriously, they conduct themselves like animals, and Cristiano Ronaldo has such a reputation now that he misses as many legitimate calls as he gets, and I think the Dutch didn't just hammer him because they knew he'd dive anyways. It only infuriates me because the guy is seriously so fucking talented.

France certainly kept it nightmarishly close as only France can do. When Cristiano Ronaldo dove for a free kick in the 78th minute, his shot went right to Barthez, who scooped it straight up in the air. That almost led to the equalizer, but Luis Figo headed the ball over the bar. Injury time took a year off my life as the Portuguese were relentlessly pounding away at the French goal. Even Ricardo came all the way up for that, taking bicycle kicks outside the box to keep Portugal's attack alive, and that guy handles the ball well for a keeper.

Zinedine Zidane has said he's retiring from club and country after the World Cup, and is certainly playing every game like it's his last. Tonight he was incredible in maintaining possession, which is really the thing that's really freaky about him. He can play keep-away with 3-4 players from one of the world's best teams, and it's like a 6'5" man holding a ball over his head to keep it away from 7 year old kids, nobody's even got a chance at getting it from him. At one point he just casually stood and stared down the entire Portuguese back line, like "You guys know better to even try, huh?" The final is going to be an absolute hell of a game.

It was nice to see a fairly physical game with some nastiness and diving end with one nice image of sportsmanship, when the captains, Zidane and Figo, exchanged armbands and jerseys. Those two are wily old veterans, both just fantastic to watch in their prime, and it was cool to see Zidane celebrating with his French teammates with Luis Figo's jersey on. Plus I will say this for Portugal, that is a cool color for a jersey, and that color looks great on the Italian keepers as well. The 3rd place game may be pretty good, since usually in these tournaments it's somebody talented who could basically give a flying fuck about 3rd place against some smaller team that gets a lot of pride from 3rd place, like Holland v Croatia in '98, so the small team wins. Germany will be playing at home, and Portugal still may have enough to prove that taking down Germany in Stuttgart would be good.

I'm so totally going into withdrawal once this is over, it's not going to be pretty.

France 1-0 Portugal
'33 Zidane (pen)

Germany v Italy

Fuck the game, I can't believe the goals! I have over the years ripped on the Italians for being so afraid of losing they couldn't beat a decent team unless their opponent choked the game away (like Holland in the Euro2000 semifinal), but my god they came out firing in extra time, and kept it up until the end. These Italians are much more aggressive than in previous years when they had the 5-3-1-1 going, and still so far nobody's scored on them but themselves. Anyways, a game with 2 minutes left in extra time with the dream match-up of the notoriously nervous penalty takers who choke games away, versus the German penalty machine that never misses, and for once the Italians decided not to go out like that.

The first goal started with a shot by Andrea Pirlo, taking a ball out of the air 30 yards out he settles and takes off, leaving a turning around behind him trying to figure out where he went, gets some room, and as Mertesacker tries to run with him to deny the clear shot, Pirlo cuts his shot back behind Mertesacker from 25 yards out, with enough power and height on it that Lehmann has to punch it out for a corner. Del Piero takes the corner, which was headed down and out of the box to Pirlo, who moved right and as defenders came his way and forgot about Fabio Grosso, Pirlo without looking up knocks a gentle ball into the box to him. A wide open Grosso takes the far post shot, out in front of the defenders who try to get in his way, but taking a nasty bend inside the post. There's like two defenders and the keeper on a straight line between him and the goal, and his shot goes just around them and then changes course into the goal. Just fucking evil, I tell you.

As all the Germans come forward, the Italians do what they do best, clear a long shot up into the air, and as Podolski tries to settle it, Cannavaro leaps in to head it forward, for the counter. Gilardino takes it in one on one with a German defender moving right across the top of the box, then cheekily cuts it back with a move that looks like he shouldn't be able to turn his ankle that way for Alessandro del Piero coming in behind him, and Del Piero takes the perfect shot over Lehmann into the far corner.

For most of this game the Italians were creating the better chances, even though they were few and far between and weren't getting much for it, while the Germans were settling for long shots by Ballack from 30 yards out. Podolski and Klose were pretty invisible for most of the game, hooking up with Ballack only a couple times in 2 hours. Pretty tough stuff defensively, but not the complete catenaccio defensive bullshit the Italians used to sit back with. When they came out for extra time the Italians really put some heart-stopping shots, like Gilardino going to the endline, and as a defender tried to close, cutting upfield and letting the guy run past him, then as Lehmann leans back to cover the far post, Gilardino bangs it in front of him, but off the post like a hammer. That was such a fucking awesome "We've forgotten more about this game than you ever knew" moment, making the Germans look so clumsy, I enjoyed it immensely. Seriously, shit like that is why I love watching France, the head down, ankle-breaking "it's hard work making you look this bad" playground moves. I just thought the Italians showed some fucking style is all.

Going completely backwards, the first half highlight for me was Francesco Totti running for a ball, only to have Michael Ballack get there first and instead of playing the ball, step over it so he could shield it from Totti and put a shoulder to him. Ballack realizes Totti's coming at him like a freight train and ducks down a bit, and Totti figuring he can squeeze a foul out of the wedge Ballack has made out of his body, jumps and rolls over Ballack's back, arms flailing, like he's been sent flying, and lands hard and stays down. The ref called a foul because of Ballack was so obviously playing to put a hit on Totti, not a foot to the ball. When Totti stays down, the ref came over and sarcastically started gesturing for him to get up and quit acting hurt to lobby for a yellow card, and even Totti looked like he was about to crack a smile at his own theatrics.

Italy advances to the World Cup Final, Germany to the 3rd place game, which they will almost certainly win, since the team with the most to prove always wins, and Germany will be playing in front of home fans.

Italy 2-0 Germany
'119 Grosso
'121+ Del Piero

France v Brazil

The last time these teams met in the World Cup, Zinedine Zidane took Brazil down to Chinatown, and honestly today wasn't a whole lot different. It wasn't the 3-0 anal probe the French gave them in Paris, but this does mean that in four World Cups, the only team to eliminate Brazil was France. I will be ranting more about Brazil because of all the tongues up their asses worldwide, but I'll do that once I take another look at previous World Cups. France is kind of the nightmare opponent for Brazil though, since they aren't intimidated, can match them in depth and experience, and have the star power to get calls, unlike most of Brazil's opponents (cough cough Belgium).

Brazil didn't really show much firepower in this game until the final minutes, and even then it was sparked by Ronaldo's blatant dive, falling over the grass in front of Lilian Thuram, who got the most ridiculous yellow card awarded in this tournament. I seriously thought it was on Ronaldo for diving until I saw Thuram arguing. The beautiful free kick over the bar by Ronaldinho just proves that cheaters never win, and that will be the last contribution of Ronaldo to World Cup soccer, since he's already too fat and slow at age 29. Actually maybe the yellow card that Kaka got up and demanded the ref give to Sagnol was more silly, because it reinforces the fall down then prissily mime waving the card gesture that's catching on in Europe right now.

For a lot of this game, France was really wreaking havoc on Brazil's defense, catching them in a completely disorganized state. Franck Ribery made some nice runs getting way behind their defense like the speedy little motherfucker he is, and Henry continued his usual run of offside calls. Brazil didn't have much by way of creativity on the offensive end, and France at their best in the last decade has had a curious ability to, when it looks like they're fucked, still stifle attacks and come up with clearances under pressure with a Gallic shrug. One image that will stick with me is Ronaldinho trying to maintain possession and find something to do with the ball while an immense Patrick Vieira was up against him stifling his every move and blocking out the sun.

France's goal was nice, a free kick taken by Zidane on the left, crossed all the way across the box, way over the crowd in the penalty area and everybody who rose up for it, finally dropping at the far post. There an unmarked Thierry Henry jumped up for it and kicked it into the roof of the net, up over Dida coming back across his goal. And then cocked his beret and blew smoke in Dida's face.

I knew France would castrate Brazil if they didn't blow it first. France plays Portugal in the semi-finals.

France 1-0
'57 Henry

England v Portugal

Given my vast experience with the international game at the highest levels, I feel qualified to question England's tactics. Supposedly today they were supposed to play at a higher level because Gary Neville would be returning at right back. He had a long-standing partnership with David Beckham on the right for Manchester United, and for that reason Beckham has always pushed for Neville to start for England and usually gotten his wish. The two of them used to overlap well, and Neville comes pretty far forward, which Beckham couldn't do this World Cup since he's past it and can't get beat anybody on the dribble, or get behind anybody off the ball either. Instead of bringing out his best, Becks was just invisible for most of the game, until he went out injured early in the second half.

Starting Beckham and Joe Cole on the wings, Lampard, Hargreaves, and Gerrard in central midfield, and Rooney alone up front meant arguably England was playing with 5 attacking midfielders and no strikers. Rooney's best touches were sending the ball forward into dangerous areas with nobody on the end of his passes, since he had no striker to play off of, Beckham can't get forward on the wings, and Gerrard and Lampard were trying to set Rooney up out of midfield. France plays a 4-5-1 but they have a scorer up front, they expect their wingers to come up and get on the back side of everything, and of the two defensive midfielders, Vieira comes forward out of midfield into the box to play off of the wingers, strikers, and playmaker. Consequently, they looked better when Aaron Lennon came in for Beckham because he's fast as hell and gets forward.

I came into this game wishing there was a way they could both lose, because I hate watching these teams. England's over-stimulated, energetic style means that when they come up against a team with speed and control, England are just out of control. Portuguese players have speed but can stop on a dime and can hook up on short, controlled passes in a confined area, so against this, England players get all fired up to chase somebody down and then slam into him when he stops makes an unexpected pass. Combine that with the Portuguese penchant for diving and cheap shots, and the game gets a bit rough. In my opinion, Cristiano Ronaldo's reputation cost him some calls, since he has such a reputation for diving and whining. In general this game was pretty flat, with very few really good chances created.

Of course, England never goes out because they lost to a better team, there's always some freak stroke of bad luck that costs them the trophy. There was Beckham's red card ('98), Ronaldinho's 'lucky' goal ('02), the hand of god ('86), the piece of sod that moved ('04), or at worst, some minor tactical decision like their formation was a bit off ('00). Fortunately they have two "if onlys" for this tournament, Beckham's injury and Rooney's red card. Ignore the fact that Beckham was totally useless for most of the tournament, and just assume he would have had the winning goal in the 83rd minute off a free kick taken by Frank Lampard in his absence, despite scoring only one free kick goal for England in the last 3 years.

Rooney was carded after three consecutive offenses, but really going after somebody's balls twice isn't the mark of a classy guy. After the whistle blew Cristiano Ronaldo came over to check on his teammate's testicles, and Rooney, who was in serious risk of being tossed, decided to make it official by shoving Ronaldo. Two more guys came in to join the argument with the ref, and both paused to give Ronaldo an extra shove. I hate that little bastard, but seriously what a total lack of class, which wouldn't bother me so much if it wasn't coming from guys who constantly whine about how the rest of the world doesn't hold to the same honorable standard they do, and having 28 TV cameras on them kind of proves what a joke that is. Enough already, I'm even sick of complaining about it, much less watching it. (I have so many complaints about the inferiority of this world, and so little time to address it all.)

For their part, Portugal are dive-happy, classless cheap shot artists and Figo shouldn't have been on the field after his head-butt against Holland. Hugo Vianna got poked in the eye going for a ball, but sucked it up and kept fighting for the ball. He kept possession, and kept his feet until England took the ball back and started a rare fast counter-attack. Then suddenly his eye started bothering him again and he grabbed his face and fell over, meaning a sportsmanlike team would put the ball out of play so he could get treatment. England didn't buy his sudden relapse and ignored him. This whole tactic of stopping the game through fouling (Germany) or fake injury (Portugal) to get a chance to kill counterattacks and reorganize your defense is really starting to be a problem. Portugal has showed flashes of brilliance on their goals, but I've really not enjoyed watching them this tournament.

I was definitely impressed with Aaron Lennon, both for his play and for showing some class in a game that needed it. He went down in the box after a slide tackle by a Portuguese defender, killing one of England's best chances. The largely pro-England crowd went nuts, which is what I would do since it really looked like a penalty in real time. At the next stoppage in play a few seconds later, Owen Hargreaves got in the referee's face about it and got a yellow card for dissent, which is pretty poor sportsmanship. The only guy in an England shirt who didn't raise his arms and act as if he'd been robbed was Lennon, who just got up and ran back downfield. Lennon knew he hadn't been fouled, and the replay showed it was a clean tackle, so good for him, showing some sportsmanship with a whole generation of kids looking at him to know how they're supposed to act on the field. Lennon was later subbed out for Jamie Carragher, anticipating a penalty shoot-out, which turned out to be not such a brilliant game-winning decision.

On PKs, England just sucked, which is about par for the course. The other legendary horrible on PK teams are Italy and Holland, and the Dutch claim it's because they don't practice them because they think it's all down to luck and not skill. Sven-Goran Eriksson says England practice them constantly, but they're still 1-6 all-time to Holland's 0-5. The gold standard is Germany, who as a nation is around 90%, including their youth teams, women's teams, etc.

Anyways, 4 of the 5 Portuguese penalty takers faked out Paul Robinson by changing direction or hesitating to leave him flatfooted, even though Vianna put his off the post. Petit took a wide shot trying to get it past Robinson, who read that one all the way, so Portugal made 3 of the 5 they took. Cristiano Ronaldo, like the prissy little brat he is, did a double hesitation to force Robinson into just guessing, and then put it in the upper corner beyond reach while sending Robinson the other way anyways, so it was basically perfect, and that was the last kick that clinched it for Portugal.

England was a disaster, Ricardo read all four of their shots, and was only beaten by Hargreaves. Ricardo got a hand to that one, but Hargreaves had too much power on it for Ricardo to even slow it down. Lampard, who'd been taking crap shots all tournament, did the I'm too cool for school slow jog and then took a weak shot well within Ricardo's reach with no misdirection, basically a shot that would only work if Ricardo just chose to dive the wrong way, which he didn't do. Gerrard took a better shot, higher up with a lot more on it (like Hargreaves) which would have worked if he could have frozen Ricardo for a split second, but he just ran up and plunked it. I think they just played it expecting that half the time the keeper would dive the wrong way, so you just put the shot on target, expect 2-3 to go in for each team, and hope that the lucky break goes your way. The standard of English goalkeeping has plummeted in the last decade relative to the rest of the world, so this is probably how English keepers play it, figuring it's a 50/50 chance with no skill involved.

The one exception was Jamie Carragher, who came in specifically to take a PK, and thought he'd be tricky by walking back from placing the ball all slowly, and then whirl and run back to take it quickly, to get Ricardo out of his rhythm. Ricardo didn't even bother to go for it, and just stood there with his hands up looking at the ref while the ball went into the net. Because you can't take your shot until the ref blows his whistle. Carragher could potentially have gotten a yellow card for that, and had to go back and retake his kick. The second time he tried to hesitate so he could change direction while Ricardo dove the wrong way. Unfortunately, when Carragher pulled out of his fake kick, turned his body the other way, and looked up to take the kick, Ricardo was on his feet ready for it, and now knew exactly where it was going. I see why he would be England's secret weapon on penalties, since he seemed to be the only guy who figured out Ricardo was going to read their hips to know which way to dive, not just flop over whichever way he felt like.

Portugal reaches the semi-finals for the first time since England'66, where they will play France.

Portugal* 0-0 England
(3-1)
Red Card: Rooney ('62)