I finished Ghost Recon 2 over the weekend. Veronica was becoming increasingly agitated when i told her i was going to kill some Mexicans, despite my assurances that these were evil ones who were trying to bring nuclear weapons into the U.S. The game, like its predecessor, is undeniably brilliant ... amazingly beautiful, with precise controls and a host of fantastically imagined bleeding edge military technology. The story in the sequel was a bit of a let-down, particularly the ending that left me wondering if i had made some mistake in my final actions. But i look forward to future Tom Clancy squad-based shooters with renewed excitement.

Veronica and i were discussing Muse the other day when i remarked about their oft-cited similarities to Radiohead. V protested vehemently but i maintained that the singer, particularly on their last record Absolution, was doing a thinly-veiled impersonation of Thom Yorke. She called me a few days later to ask what specific songs bore the resemblance, so she could play them for her officemate and Radiohead fanatic Cindy. My response was "Hmmm. Ummm. Let me thiiiink ... umm. Oh yeah .... ALL OF THEM."

(in all seriousness, when i first heard "Time Is Running Out" i thought it was Radiohead)

Okay, the match report on today's Champions League final between Liverpool and AC Milan sums up why i'm sick of the English league. Have a look at this pair of direct quotes:

"There will be no consolation for the Merseysiders' vast following that Milan's crucial opener was a fluke, Andrea Pirlo's 45th-minute free-kick flicking off Filippo Inzaghi to give Pepe Reina no chance."

"... some will remain convinced [AC Milan] should not have been allowed back into the tournament after initially being expelled in the wake of the Italian match-fixing scandal ..."

Unbiased reporting? Really? The live online commentary was loaded with even more choice judgements, but i'm not particularly compelled to troll it for more quotes. If you read between the lines of the English reports, A) Milan shouldn't have been in the tournament at all, B) Milan's first goal should more or less be ignored, and, most annoyingly, C) Liverpool are a better team than Milan and were denied victory only through a freak cosmic accident. The latter being analogous to the argument championed by Rams fans in the wake of their shocking loss in Super Bowl XXXVI by the underdog Patriots. What these reviews fail to appreciate is how Milan's defense lived up to its impressive reputation, and how Dirk Kuyt's late goal, closing the gap to 2-1 and giving the English side hope of another incredible comeback, (c/sh)ould have been disallowed for offside. Now Rafa Benitez has remarked that not all of the three minutes of second half stoppage time were played, which i'm sure will be repeated and amplified until it appears Liverpool would've orchestrated a second majestic comeback if not for referee misconduct. Perhaps if i spoke Italian then i could get the oppositely polarized review, but alas i cannot. I'm just plain exasperated by this sort of crap on English soccer news websites. It reinforces my desire for sport to be boiled down to its ultimate essence ... two men fighting to the death. No holds barred. No spin there ... if you're dead, then you lost. Simple.

V and i caught a movie on a whim after dinner in downtown Redwood City on Saturday night. We saw that the last showing of Hot Fuzz was starting only a half hour after we finished our meal, and bought tickets and whiled away the time next door having ice cream. The flick, another from the team of director Edgar Wright and actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost who made the hilarious Shaun of the Dead, focuses on an overachieving London policeman (Pegg) who is exiled to the country for making his fellow officers look bad in comparison. Used to nonstop action, Pegg struggles to adapt to his new job in a sleepy village in western England, until he begins to suspect things aren't as tranquil as they seem. The film is really the trio's homage to action movies, and is loaded with visual and verbal references to the cop film canon. I was particularly amused when Frost tells Pegg "Forget it Nicholas, it's Sandford", paraphrasing the famous line from Chinatown. Wright reuses many of use visual flourishes from SotD, particularly the rapidly edited shots emphasizing repetition (Pegg closing his locker and leaving the station spliced into shots of pint glasses being filled at the pub, for example). But his style is a good one and the jokes are downright hilarious, so it's no bother.

Despite my affection for ice cream, for some reason i am just not attracted at all to the concept of Coldstone Creamery. I take no delight in watching ice cream get pulverized on a granite countertop. For this reason, i was very amused that the ice cream place next to the downtown Redwood City movie theater is entitled Marble Slab Creamery. Hrm? Is the marble refrigerated perchance? How many other ways can this concept be uniquely franchised? Chilly Rock Creamery? Winter Quarry Creamery? Frozen Lava Creamery? Hmm ... that last one's got a ring to it.

We keep finding more worthwhile restaurants around the hopping Redwood City downtown. On Friday night Veronica was stuck at work until 9:30pm, delaying her return home and our subsequent quest for food until after 10:30pm. Most of our usual haunts were closed, but we spotted Tarboosh, a Lebanese place across from the theater that was still buzzing. We had a yummy meal of kebabs on the patio, and were interested to learn that you could also pay $15 for a hookah for the table, as several neighboring tables had done. Definitely a spot to revisit, especially if i decide to get adventurous and amuse the restaurant with my attempts to smoke.

I picked up a bunch of old Bruce Springsteen records last night, for no other reason than i wanted to hear what Artie Lange and the Killers keep raving about.

Okay, i might have fibbed slightly in my previous rant against television juggernaut American Idol. Apparently i do have a vested interest in teenage phenom Jordin winning the competition. Not because i'm rooting for her persay, but because i cannot stand that beatboxing poseur Blake. I didn't see him sing Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name" the first time round, so his encore performance on last night's finale was my first experience with his stilted, overstylized, grating interpretation. It's difficult to one-up an 80's hair band in overperformance, but Seor Lewis accomplished just that. Whenever he peels into one of his vocal breakdowns, i turn to Veronica and start quoting Eddie Murphy in the Golden Child: "i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i want the knife!".

(what, you're not intimately familiar with the Golden Child?)

If you drink a six pack of Guinness and squint your eyes really hard, then Amy Winehouse might have some kind of trashy allure. Otherwise she looks like a semi-retarded $20 prostitute who may or may not be hiding something in her jockeys.