Okay, i'd like to meet the person who designed the online forms that the NIH is now using for all their grant applications. Or more precisely, i'd like to meet him/her and clock them. What a friggin' horrible interface. I banged my fist on my desk at least five times today while trying to transfer my application into the PureEdge application that manages the forms. For an agency that is funding the best minds in the country, you'd think they'd come up with something a little less ... well ... retarded.

Quite a bit has gone on since i last posted six days ago. First off, a sweltering two day heat wave descended upon the Bay Area, of which i got my first taste when i met Fred for lunch last Wednesday, emerging from my office for the first time since 8am and almost getting knocked on my ass from the heat. Ouch. Temperatures peaked at 100°C in Redwood City, giving our new lawn a true baptism by fire. I had arranged to drop off Veronica's old Toyota Tercel at a donation house that afternoon, so i headed home early, changed into a t-shirt and shorts, and spent twenty minutes trying to jump the mostly expired battery before succeeding. I drove a couple of miles to the place, leaving the car running in the driveway as i was fairly pessimistic about the chances of it starting again without assistance. They printed the forms for me and completed the transaction, seemingly not caring that the car was in less than spectacular condition. Unfortunately for me though, i had failed to devise a strategy for getting home after relinquishing ownership of the car. Eek ... a twenty minute walk home through the heat. I changed again and slathered myself in sunblock before driving back to Stanford for our softball game. Despite the weather, we put in our best effort yet, losing 9-3 in a competitive and good-natured game. Our defense is evolving, and despite some base-running errors from our foreign contingent the offense is gelling as well. V stuck around in the city that evening in a vain attempt to win Radiohead tickets, so i had a take-out dinner from Whole Paycheck before whiling away the night driving around shopping for a fan, finally purchasing one at Bed Bath & Beyond. That took the edge off being in the house and let me get some sleep.

I came in late to work on Thursday so i could watch the U.S.A.'s must-win World Cup match against Ghana from 7-9am. Quick summary: it was a better performance than we gave against the Czechs, but not nearly up to our effort in the Italy match. In other words, mostly disappointing. Landon Donovan was MIA again, and as such our offense was mostly harmless. The only player who ran at the African defense and looked like he was there to win was Clint Dempsey, someone who was thought to be a young fringe player going into the tournament. The die-hard members of Sam's Army will claim we got screwed by a bogus penalty decision against Oguchi Onyewu, but i didn't feel particularly aggrieved about it. There was contact, and although i personally wouldn't have called it a penalty, i can appreciate why the ref did. The guy who won the penalty, Razak Pimpong, didn't ingratiate himself with the American fans between earning the penalty and trying for a few more later on. At one point late in the second half he collapsed in a heap for no apparent reason, and had to be stretchered off. After wasting a good two minutes with that routine, he made a miraculous recovery and came right back on the pitch. Geez. All i could think about when seeing him was Mike Ditka's praise for his tiny Korean youth soccer player Byong Sun in Kicking and Screaming: "Way to go Bingbong!". Anyhoo, the Americans are out of the World Cup, at the hands of the surprising and worthy Ghana team. The American soccer gods had better produce a better team before they start hyping them to death. Step one: get more players overseas. Landon Donovan's ridiculous claim that "he plays better when he's comfortable at home" is sounding more and more like an admission that he couldn't hack it in Germany with Bayer Leverkusen. Our best players need to be competing at the level of Chelsea, AC Milan, and Barcelona ... miles above the likes of Real freaking Salt Lake that they get in the MLS.

Fred managed to get the Radiology Giants season tickets for Friday's Bay Bridge game against the Oakland A's, so with his wife Amanda and our MIPS chum Jianghong, we headed north on the Caltrain to AT&T Park. We settled into our box seats by the middle of the first, equipped with a couple of hot dogs, some garlic fries, and a beer. The more vocal A's fans made it feel like we were in Oakland, and were rewarded for their enthusiasm as the Giants blew a 3-2 lead in the top of the ninth and lost 4-3. Doh. It was worth it for the sausages and Ghirardelli hot fudge sundae. After yet another grant-dominated week, i was mostly exhausted by the end and suffered through the long train ride home to return joyously to my bed.

More World Cup on the weekend ... i went to rewind my Tivo to the beginning of the Germany/Sweden knockout match, but made the mistake of turning the TV on first and heard the announcer say "2-nil Germany" ... doh. So i skimmed that for highlights, then watched the afternoon's showdown between Argentina and Mexico. Great match, in keeping with the Argentine's run of good performances. To Veronica's chagrin, the goal of the tournament was scored in extra time by Maxi Rodriguez, a looping volley from the edge of the box that arced over Mexican keeper Osvaldo Sanchez to put the South American side into the quarterfinals. Sunday i caught the entirety of yet another unimpressive England win, with David Beckham temporarily distracting his critics with an excellent free kick to score the game's only goal. I also saw the card-fest between Portugal and the Netherlands. Truly bizarre ... the ref completely lost control of that match. Four reds and a mind-blowing 16 yellow cards, both World Cup records. England made out like bandits ... what looked like a daunting quarterfinal encounter with one of two strong teams is now very winnable, with Portuguese midfielders Costinha and Deco suspended and playmaker Cristiano Ronaldo nursing a gash on his thigh from a horrible challenge by Dutch defender Khalid Boulahrouz. The Dutch can't complain at their exit, they had way too many issues to make an impact in the tourney. As Soccernet commentator Ernst Bouwes astutely points out, "[Dirk] Kuyt worked on his own up front as wingers Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben were seemingly only interested in finishing their runs with shots on goal". Story of the World Cup for Holland ... Robben is fantastic but you can see that when he kicks into overdrive he is only concerned with scoring, and that makes him relatively easy to defend. He's not going to dribble through six defenders very often. He must mature, both for his country and (more important to me) for Chelsea.

On Saturday night we left poor Tara dog all by her lonesome to attend Leisure in the city. We met up with Gary, Naomi, and Jenz, as well as NorCal expatriate Kevin and his girlfriend Amy, up from L.A., and had a bunch of drinks and danced. We made reconvened at Pop Roxx after Leisure closed at 2am, but i was mostly dead by that point and just watched the fun from a table. It was good to hang with the gang and unwind from work a bit, but unfortunately the price for said relaxation was a Sunday spent in a zombie-like state from my interrupted sleep schedule. V and i also worked some more on our newborn lawn, which worryingly is already yellowing in patches. Presumably from the recent heat, perhaps coupled with the inability of our sprinkler system to completely cover the entire grassy area, or due to the failure of certain sod regions to take root. Our gardeners are returning tomorrow to replace the dying patch. Other than that, we watched the very sharp and witty Saved!, which oddly shared a lot of the same clique and popularity issues as Mean Girls which we caught a few weeks ago. But Saved! in general rang truer and avoided the head-slappingly bad "everyone gets along now" ending. Later in the evening i revelled in the season premiere of the Venture Bros., which answered the question "How do you have a second season of the Venture Bros. when the Venture brothers died at the end of the finale of season 1?". After flirting with several possible theories, the premiere provided a solution, rooted in Dr. Venture's experience with his "death prone" children.

I also received a second birthday gift from my parents, the highly-acclaimed Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox 360. I gave it a whirl on Saturday, and was impressed with how it captures the visceral and chaotic environment of the battlefield. As i imagine it, at any rate. Very good, although not quite the strategic masterclass of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter.

Next weekend we're down to L.A. to see Veronica's family, returning for my parents' fourth of July BBQ. After this R21 gets resubmitted on Friday, i'm going to need a four day weekend.