viens petite fille dans mon comic strip
viens faire des bull's
viens faire des WIP!
des CLIP! CRAP!
des BANG!
des VLOP!
et des ZIP !
SHEBAM! POW! BLOP! WIZZ!

fall is here, hear the yell
back to school, ring the bell
brand new shoes, walkin' blues
climb the fence, book and pens
i can tell that we are gonna be friends

walk with me, suzy lee
through the park, by the tree
we will rest upon the ground
and look at all the bugs we've found
safely walk to school without a sound

here we are, no one else
we walked to school all by ourselves
there's dirt on our uniforms
from chasing all the ants and worms
we clean up and now it's time to learn

numbers, letters, learn to spell
nouns and books and show and tell
at playtime we will throw the ball
back to class, through the hall
teacher marks our height against the wall

we don't notice any time pass
we don't notice anything
we sit side by side in every class
teacher thinks that i sound funny
but she likes the way you sing

tonight i'll dream while i'm in bed
when silly thoughts go through my head
about the bugs and alphabet
and when i wake tomorrow i'll bet
that you and i will walk together again
'cause i can tell that we are gonna be friends

It doesn't matter how shitty the people are, there's something romantic and alluring about Paris that makes me want to visit again and again. The way every street is a work of art, the poetry of the language (even when it's referring to you as an idiot), the café culture ... it's hypnotic.

I'm listening to Metallica's Master of Puppets at the moment, and just got done listening to a few tracks from ... And Justice For All, and i still don't get it ... is there even a bass guitar in there? Let's put it this way ... if Jason Newsted or Cliff Burton f@$#ed up a note, would James Hetfield or Lars Ulrich even notice? To my ear, they could be playing a bass version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on endless repeat and the Metallica powers-that-be would remain blissfully ignorant.

It's not that the bass is way distorted, is it? Does Metallica's bass work as basically another rhythm guitar? Hrm.

Speaking of Herr Newsted, Rock Star: Supernova got arguably worse last night (if that's possible). First up was Lukas's appallingly bad rendition of the Verve's anthemic "Bittersweet Symphony". He already had a strike against him taking on a song that is my greatest single of all time, but to make matters worse he gave a pathetic growling, emo performance of it. Oh f@$#ing hell. Then to my amazement, the panel of judges all raved. WTF?!?! Poorly-disguised porn refugee Storm Large did her usual creepy strip-tease/pole dance number, this time of the Dramarama classic "Anything, Anything". I think my favorite moment was after the judges gave a negative review of one contestant, and resident host/block of wood Brooke Burke offered a meak "I liked your performance" before the show went to commercial.

The new Amusement Parks on Fire album Out of the Angeles is in my grubby little hands (or more precisely, in my grubby little hard drive), and it does not disappoint. It won't win over anyone not sold on their self-titled debut's swirl of neo-shoegazing noise, but to a fan it's a worthy sophomore effort.

Prey is still tweakin' my melon ("daaa weeeaasssselll!" ... *shudder*). I just tangled with my first boss of sorts, a giant alien beast with two huge machine guns mounted on his arms. I somehow emerged victorious by hiding in a side room and knocking off one of his guns by activating a force field as he reached in to do bad things to me. My favorite weapon so far ... big alien gatling gun. The plot is slowly unfolding, although i still haven't found out exactly why demonic ghost children are chasing me around. The puzzles are at just the difficulty level i like ... challenging without being frustrating, and taking advantage of the game's special features, namely spirit walking and changing gravity.

My exploration of Prey has however been limited as V and i started playing Rockstar's Table Tennis. Very fun, surprisingly deep game mechanics but still relatively easy to pick up and play. I haven't quite figured out all the various ways you can charge up your shots though, as every now and then i see Veronica's score meter flash and without fail, she then unloads a vicious slam on me. It seems she is my better in this (lone) video endeavor. I do reasonably well when i use the Swedish giant Jesper, who forgoes spin and serve for raw power.

While Sean was here last week i also tried playing a few things on Xbox Live, something i haven't delved into with the 360 other than to download a few miscellaneous mini-games from the Xbox Live Marketplace. First the two of us tried Call of Duty 2, which unfortunately doesn't allow split-screen games online, unlike Halo 2 (unless i'm just not seeing that option). So i went online against 5 or 6 opponents, and was surprised that i held my own. The next day we tried FIFA World Cup 2006, which lagged something awful. I played as the Dutch against an opponent using England. They were no world-beaters, but i stunk something terrible. I gave up an early goal, then equalized when my opponent tried to clear a ball in his penalty area, and had it ricochet off my lingering striker straight into the goal. I almost got another in exactly the same fashion, but later gave up a lousy winner on a breakaway. Doh. I'll have to get online more in the future. I've heard lackluster reports on Prey's multiplayer, but maybe i'll give it a go.

I started watching a Tivo'ed copy of the National Geographic Channel documentary Lockdown! Gangland last night, before Veronica came in the room and expressed her displeasure at watching vicious prison stories. I found it fascinating though. Something about prison ... i wouldn't last ten seconds in there, but i have a perverse obsession with fiction and nonfiction centering around jail. I used to be horrified by the HBO show Oz, but somehow could never change the channel. And managed to turn on the TV every week when a new episode was aired. This documentary is amazing however in that it's all true. The guards described how prisoners smuggle in drugs by having friends send them cards that have been soaked in methamphetamine, or by inserting thin layers of heroin between two identical postcards.

Can't write about my weekend without delving into the heat wave that has gripped the Bay Area since last Thursday. I caught the weather report on the news on Thursday night and saw highs of 104° and 105° predicted for Friday and Saturday. I consoled myself that this must be for regions further inland, like Livermore, but come Friday the thermometers in Redwood City shot up to those levels. Egad. The problem with our little house is that it does its job almost too well. It traps heat so effectively that it is very difficult to convince it to release it. In the morning the interior is relatively cool, and manages to stay so until 2 or 3pm when the fires outside really began to heat up the air inside. However, after the sun goes down and temperatures outside begin to slide into the 90's, 80's, and 70's, the house holds on to its 90° temperatures for dear life. Falling asleep is no fun when you're covered in sweat. Our fan does an admirable job but cannot stem the tide of the heat. Ack. Tara's favorite position of the last few days has been lying on the hardwood floors, panting with her tongue hanging out.

Our weekend began a bit early when Michelle and Sean drove up from L.A. on Thursday to hang out for a couple of days on their way to Redwoods National Park in northern California. I met up with them in Redwood City and drove them up to the city that evening for dinner with Veronica at Thirsty Bear, followed by a jaunt to Popscene. Sean and i discussed web programming while Ima Robot played onstage. Around 12:30am the two of us left the girls to their night of dancing, opting to return home as i had to get up for work the next day.

My Friday work day ended up only running until 2pm, when i sent off a revised copy of my postdoc's paper to Sam Gambhir for review, then headed home to fetch Michelle and Sean for lunch. Liberating them from the stuffy house, we had a leisurely meal at City Pub on Broadway in Redwood City. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching Montel and Maury (and i thought All My Children was bad ...). Shafted in attempts to get dinner reservations in the city at favorites Betelnut and Slanted Door, we invited Naomi and Phil down for kebabs and belly dancing at Kan Zeman. They served us the usual wonderful meal, and we got to see my favorite performer do her sword-balancing routine. Mystifying. She even got me to get up and shake my hips with her. What a sight. Despite our initial intention to head to the city for drinks and cooler temperatures afterwards, we ended up bidding farewell to Naomi and Phil (who opted for just that) and instead returned home to Tara and the heat, whiling away the night with intermittent games of Guitar Hero and assorted Xbox 360 titles, and watching the Soup and a DirecTV special live concert by Gorillaz.

Saturday morning was, to the untrained eye, a lazy affair. To the more astute observer, it was the four of us trying unsuccessfully to do something useful in the baking heat. We slowly rotated through the nice cool shower, then drove down to Menlo Park for breakfast at Stacks. The thermostat in my Jetta told me it was 113° outside, which i doubted. A local bank's reading of 130° was even less credible. According to weather.com today, temperatures in Redwood City peaked at 109°, so my car wasn't too far off. Egad. Michelle and Sean lefted for the slightly cooler environs of Eureka around 3pm, and V and i decided to drive over to Best Buy to look at air conditioners and take advantage of the cooled store. A handwritten sign informed me they had sold every last one of their AC's, but we wandered around anyway, with me trying to resist the urge to pick up a beautiful Alpine IVA-W200 car stereo/DVD/iPod/satellite radio. We returned home and took doggie for a car ride over to San Mateo to fetch a dinner of Le Cumbre burritos, then again revisited our own personal hell and ate dinner while watching old episodes of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? on the Game Shown Network. I got an additional air-conditioned interlude at 9:30pm when i drove to SFO to pick up my parents, returning from Amsterdam after a 10 day cruise around Scandinavia. Little did they know they were exchanging humid Europe for scalding California.

Faced with another record-breaking day on Sunday, V and i concocted a scheme to beat the heat by taking Tara to the beach in Half Moon Bay. My short-sighted brain however failed to appreciate that we would not be the only ones with this idea, something that became clear to me when we saw the backup on the 92 heading over the mountains to the coast. Eek. We tried taking Woodside Ave. through the woods towards La Honda, but Tara tired of riding in the car not long after taking this route, and we decided to pull a U-ey and head home. Home again, heat again, jiggedy jig. I escaped one more time by taking Veronica's Mini for a long overdue wash. After that, i only had to while away 90 minutes or so in the house before the two of us left to drive up to San Francisco for the evening's Raconteurs show at the Warfield. Arriving in the city by the bay, i was thrilled to experience mere 70° temperatures, which felt heavenly to me in my shorts and t-shirt. We had dinner at the quite good Sanraku in the Metreon, after which i saw my next laptop at the Sony Style store (the lovely hi-res 11" TX770 Viao), and resisted the temptation to buy the beautiful hardcover Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album at the Metreon bookstore. After grabbing a mocha frap at Starbucks, we walked over to the Warfield and had a good time relaxing while watching the brilliant Raconteurs show. Unenthusiastically we then returned to Redwood City, which had cooled only to about 85° by midnight. Yick. We cooled the house by opening all the windows and doors and cranking the fan, to a degree which allowed us to sleep. Albeit in the living room directly next to the windows and fan.

Weather.com informs me temperatures should begin dropping now, starting with the mere 95° today in Redwood City. By midweek we should be down in the 80's, which at this point will feel to me like winter.

It's bizarre ... Rock Star has become a parody of itself in just its second season. Denied of any long-standing INXS-type bands in need of a singer, the producers seem to have cobbled together a sort of poor man's metal supergroup, "Supernova" (which causes that lousy Liz Phair song to course through my head every time i hear the name). The band consists of Mötley Crüe drummer and hot chick magnet Tommy Lee, and a couple of musicians best known for being substitute performers in big acts ... Gilby Clarke, who took over guitar duties for Guns 'N Roses when Izzy Stradlin left (and who i keep confusing with Butthole Surfers leader and "Jesus Built My Hotrod" scatman Gibby Haynes), and Jason Newsted, who stepped in as Metallica's bassist after Cliff Burton died in 1986 until leaving in 2000 (probably tired of taking James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich's shit). I personally could never understand why Metallica needed a bass player, since their music is so guitar-heavy. Then there's the anti-Simon judge/commentator Dave Navarro, who is able to find something good to say about the most awful performer. I was amazed by one of his rare less than congratulatory remarks, in which he said "I feel like i'm looking at the winner of some contest". Is that a prediction? Isn't that a positive comment? Have we just entered some alternate reality where this endeavor is NOT considered a contest?

The bottom line is that the 15 or so people they've collected for this farce include some truly horrible singers. I've seen the Cars classic "Just What I Needed" performed like a pole dance by someone named Storm Large, which MUST be a porn name. Then there was the Aussie's acoustic rendition of Nirvana's "Come As You Are", which Veronica cleverly noted looked and sounded like Billy Crystal's impersonation of Sammy Davis Jr. in old SNL sketches. More than a few of the contestants have decided to whip out a guitar in addition to singing, something i'm not sure wins them any points. Maybe (MAYBE) INXS wanted a true bandmate and not a stand-in singer à la Mark Wahlberg in Rock Star, but these guys? Doubtful. Tommy Lee? Let's be serious ... the guy just wants to get laid. All the men can probably leave right now. The other guys? They're rockers! They just want someone to stand in front of them and get nuts while they lay down the music! I don't think they're interested in sharing the songwriting or instrumental responsibilities with some bozo they won in a contest.

The new Muse single "Knights of Cydonia" doesn't inspire the distaste in me that the operatic oohing and ahhing of "Time Is Running Out" and "Stockholm Syndrome" did. They've toned down that insufferable wailing, but instead the band seems to have become Mansun at their most prog-rock, Queen phase. It's an improvement, but i'm still not sold. Dunno if i'll be listening to the rest of it. iTunes random play, i leave it to you to acquaint me with it further if you, in your infinite wisdom, deem it suitable.

Didn't know head Manic Street Preacher James Dean Bradfield was recording a solo record, but here it is. Not bad.

What am i holding? What's the deal with the psycho kids? WTF?!?!

I got in some time with Prey from Friday through Monday. That game is messing with my head. In a good way. At the outset, it's a relatively straightforward story of a regular Joe who is abducted by aliens and has to fight his way out. But as you penetrate deeper into the massive alien spaceship, things get weirder and weirder. One of the game's innovations is that gravity is no longer a constant. In other words, the floor is not always the floor. Certain lighted tracks allow you to run up walls and across ceilings, while you also encounter switches that when activated shift gravity so that whatever wall the switch was on is now the floor. The game has given me motion sickness a few times now, but i'll gladly suffer for an experience this unique. Suffice to say, it's very weird having a gun fight with enemies who are standing on the ceiling. The plot is getting decidely bizarre as well ... the aliens seem to be harvesting humans for food or some other resource (the word "protein" occurs on many of the spaceships' placards), but i've now encountered several ghostly childlike wraiths that have me wondering how they figure into the aliens' plans. Another of the game's advances is the spirit walk, which your Native American protagonist can use to cross force fields and solve puzzles. The developers took this one step further however. When you deplete your health, instead of dying and going to a "Game Over" screen (and reloading and continuing from wherever the last save point was, etc etc), you are whisked to a spirit world where you have about 15 seconds to shoot phoenixes with a bow and arrow. After this period, you start the game where you left off, with your health and spirit energies refilled based on how many phoenixes you hit. Very cool ... removes that annoying "try this, die, restart" dynamic that slows down many other titles.

As discussed previously, V and i bought Rockstar's Table Tennis at Best Buy on Sunday, but we haven't given it a go because of our home improving. I'm curious to see how the Grand Theft Auto developer handles a simple sporting title. By all accounts it's a good game ... the cashier at Best Buy didn't stop fawning over it for the three minutes we spent paying. He did get us a $5 discount though so i'll let it slide.

Astute readers will have noticed the chain links in the menu bar on the upper right (actually, REALLY astute readers will have observed that i beautified some of the menu icons). I've added a links page, after generating one for Ana's forthcoming site. Not much on there yet, but they're coming. I drew the chain links myself in Photoshop ... not bad, eh?

My weekend was consumed by that most mundane of tasks, the beautification of the house. A necessary evil, yes, but being required doesn't make the process any more stimulating. On Saturday morning i awoke around 10:30am and set to masking our newly yellow walls in the back room, facilitating subsequent painting of the trim and wainscoting. Allowing for a brief trip down to Menlo Park to pick up brunch at Stacks (where i was temporarily seduced by the idea of forgoing home improvement to attend a street fair on Santa Cruz Ave.), we completed painting by early evening. This included the wood frames in between the panes of glass in the window and door, which are a particular pain in the butt. We enjoyed some down time, during which we both took late showers to remove a day's sweat and paint, and i watched the mostly lame Adam Sandler remake of the Longest Yard, funny mainly for its plethora of NFL cameos past and present (Brian Bosworth?!?!). We then had a late late dinner at Gordon Biersch in Palo Alto, where i barely remained conscious to the end of my mushroom swiss burger.

Content that our painting chores for this back room were completed, we awoke Sunday with a new to-do list consisting of completing the renovation of this space into our new entryway (intending to make better use of our back door that opens towards the driveway). This list included buying a new ceiling light fixture for the room, replacing the two or three light switches and plates, getting new knobs for the cabinets, and putting up blinds on the window. Veronica also managed to include a trip to Nordstrom's anniversary sale and shopping for a new bed at Crate and Barrel. We tackled the shopping chores after brunch at the lovely California Café off the Stanford Shopping Center. We were unable to find a new bed or any shoes or clothes worth buying at Nordstrom, but did emerge with four nice glass knobs from Restoration Hardware, a new light fixture, blinds, and light switches and plates from Home Depot, and ... an unplanned copy of Table Tennis for the Xbox 360 from Best Buy, as V wants to try playing something on my new system.

Returning home, i immediately stripped off my shirt and set to work in the oven that is our well-insulated house. First up, remove the old light fixture. Easy enough. First problem though ... the old fixture is wider than the new one, meaning there's a ring that will now be visible that hasn't been painted in a while. As i have no idea what color the ceiling is or where the old owner might've hidden the paint, that meant ... dammit ... we had to paint the ceiling. For now though, we decided to just prime and paint around the new fixture, allowing me to finish the job after getting the new light up. That took an hour (paint dries fast in the heat), during which i replaced two light switches and shocked myself once. I turned off the breaker that controlled the ceiling light, but apparently the other switch that controls the outside lights is on a different circuit. While unscrewing the power connection i noticed my hand trembling, then got a nasty shock up my arm to my shoulder. Eek. That scared the crap out of me. I then resolved to switch off all the breakers. Smart move, Einstein. After finishing that job, i returned to putting up the new light fixture. However when positioning the new bracket, i succeeded in pushing it through the ceiling drywall, creating a three inch hole extending out of the circular hole for the light mount. Fan-f@$#ing-tastic. After Veronica talked me down from my fatalistic malaise, i regrouped and set about putting up the fixture, deciding to worry about the hole later. However, the not-so-good folks at Hampton Bay don't seem to understand the physics of mounting a ceiling light. Or i'm trying to place blame somewhere other than myself. After screwing a mounting bar into the ceiling mount and connecting the wires (no shocks this time), the fixture then attaches via a threaded central rod that inserts into a hole in the mounting bar. Inserts, mind you, not screws. I heaved and pushed to get the thing in, but only succeeded in dislodging the mounting bar. At this point i chose to take the whole thing down and go to Home Depot to get some nuts to reinforce the whole apparatus, but this threaded rod is only meant to go one direction ... in. It took me two wrenches and a lot of torquing to free the fixture.

V again calmed the raging beast within me, and we took Tara for a 9pm drive up to Colma and the only late-hours Home Depot in the area, followed by fetching dinner at In 'N' Out. Arriving home once more, things went relatively smoothly and i managed to complete the @#$&% installation. It's interesting though, i needed that hole in the ceiling in order to hold the mounting bracket in place while i forced the fixture in. So perhaps everything happens for a reason. The two of us then managed to get the blinds up with significantly less fuss, the only notable problem being a short-lived inability to release the pull string.

I awoke Monday morning and wandered through the back room, but was mesmerized by the hole in the ceiling. Not able to ignore it until the evening, i climbed onto the step ladder with a piece of cardboard and a can of spackle and closed it up. When i got home from work at 6:30pm, the only thing on my mind was completing this @$#!^ %$@&% room. I stripped down to my boxers and set about priming the ceiling, which was accomplished in 30 minutes with me drenched in sweat. Shifting gears, i put a second coat of white on the wainscoting, which Veronica had noticed was a bit uneven. I then again climbed up to the balmy ceiling and put on a coat of white, finishing by 8:30pm. Egad. V got home late from work and we had a dinner of chicken and potatoes from Whole Foods, then i wrapped up my domestic evening by doing a couple loads of laundry and tidying the living room.

Tonight i'm planning on continuing my domestic renaissance in a more leisurely fashion by washing some of the pile of clothes, towels, and sheets in the laundry room. Also, now that the back room is completed we're going to move a side table in there, forcing a reorganization of the bedroom the piece is exiting.

I will live in a tidy house one day. Oh yes.

Spent a little time yesterday writing a silly script for generating collages of cover artwork from my library. You can play with it here. Leave the search field blank to get a completely random selection, or specify a search type and phrase to get a mural of albums from 1994, by David Bowie, or in the shoegazing genre, to name a few. Click on one of the covers to enlarge it, then click on the link below the image to get more information on the album. Enjoy.

The Rays, one of two Stanford MIPS softball teams and the one for which i'm the starting first baseman, won their first game yesterday. Or more precisely, let's say we got our first non-loss. Hopeful of our chances upon learning our opponents, the BC Bombers, had lost 26-0 to an opponent we'd lost to by the much more respectable scoreline of 31-9, we arrived early and got in some batting practice. However, when our 6:45pm start time rolled around, only 8 of the BC Bombers had arrived, meaning they didn't have sufficient numbers to play. Forfeit! We win! Eager to get in some play anyway, two of our players went over to their side and we had a scrimmage. To boost our confidence further, the Rays won the game 17-12. I'm still not happy with my swing but got three base hits, one a good line drive into center. At first base i connected with Fred at shortstop a few times, and made the last out of the game receiving a great throw from Craig in the outfield.

Still haven't played Prey, despite having owned it for over 40 hours now. Must be some kind of record for me.

I'm really enjoying the first of the X-Men Complete Age of Apocalypse Epic collections, although from what i've read the first is more a smattering of loosely collected stories from the Age of Apocalypse universe, with the last three volumes containing the real story of the rise and fall of En Sabah Nur in this alternate timeline. However, it's depressing the hell out of me. As any good dystopian drama should.

It's a damn shame (for me, anyway) that "The Boiler" by Rhoda with the Special A.K.A. is one of the best post-Terry Specials songs, but i can't listen to it because of Rhoda's ultra-realistic screams during the rape that concludes the story.

After leaving work around 5:30pm yesterday evening, i once again drove up the 280, a jaunt i used to take every day when we lived in San Mateo. The reason for this wistful drive however was a trip the dry cleaners in Belmont to pick up some overdue clothes for Veronica and i. From there, i headed over to the post office to mail an also overdue form to the DMV completing our donation of the Tercel. As i'd just received a $10 gift certificate for Best Buy in my email earlier in the day, as well as a big reimbursement for my Atlanta trip from ASCO, i then cruised over to San Carlos and decided to buy the newly released Prey. A first-person shooter for the 360 that's getting a lot of good press regarding its graphics and innovations within the genre, i figured it was worth a try. I then searched unsuccessfully for some Kérastase pomade at Longs and a beauty store described by Veronica as the "7-11 of salons", picking up some aspirin at Longs as allergies had given me a nasty sinus headache.

After V came home and i finished watching the end of the baseball All-Star game, we drove down Woodside to Malibu Gran Prix to take advantage of their $10 Tuesdays, during which a tenner gets you unlimited miniature golf and video games. We plunked down our money and got in a round of golf, in which despite an early challenge from self-professed horrible golfer Veronica (i think she was trying to psyche me out), i emerged victorious. We then got in some video games, which was very cool since the place just puts unlimited credits on all the machines, meaning you can go to whatever you want to play, press start, and off you go. Despite the crowds, we played the pistol-shooter Area 51 until our arms got tired. We then shifted onto Super Bikes, a motorcycle racer based on the Fast and the Furious franchise (although luckily not too closely) featuring a bike chassis you sit on and lean to steer. Quite fun. We played a few fighting games (one of the more recent Street Fighter incarnations, and the new Tekken 5), but unfortunately each seemed to be suffering from at least one faulty joystick or button. We got in one game of a Dance Dance Revolution descendent in which you beat on three pads with two drumsticks, in time with backing music. Way cool ... given my long-standing inclinations towards drumming, i was in heaven. More fun than Donkey Konga, despite the lack of good tracks.

My new 300GB Lacie external firewire hard drive showed up at work today, so i'm currently formatting it and will be at long last backing up my overflowing mp3 collection shortly. It's now at 226GB, pushing the capacity of my 250GB internal drives. I may need to explore new storage strategies shortly. My obsession with optimizing the quality of my mp3 artwork continues, and i regularly interrupt whatever i'm doing when i notice some fuzziness, jpg artifacts, or muted colors in the cover image of whatever just popped on my iTunes. By the way, if anyone happens to have the artwork for the 1988 album Concrete by Versus ancestors Flower, or perhaps an original copy of the album and a scanner, please let me know.

The phone operators of United's Mileage Plus program are the stingiest bunch of Nazis i've ever had the displeasure of conversing with. As i'm lackadaisical about updating my contact info, each time i have to go through something with them i'm forced to try to recall my last four addresses. I don't know what my apartment number on 7th Avenue was! Nor do i know my telephone number when i lived in the Presidio. Can't i just give you my social security number and be done with it? I guess they want to make you jump through as many hoops as possible in order to get something out of them. Not an unheard of tactic in the airline industry ... i remember my friend Ryan fighting with United customer service for upwards of 3 hours at the airport to get them to change his flight. Their response went from "that's impossible" to "you can't do that" to "it's done" as he argued with representative after representative.

So Zinedine Zidane is on French TV at the moment, offering a long overdue reason for his unbelievable assault of Marco Materazzi in the waning moments of the World Cup final. His explanation? "He pronounced very tough words about my mother and my sister". Surely a lousy translation, but still ... that's it? Have you ever played in a professional game before? If the NBA went by this logic, we woudn't see more than two seconds of continuous gameplay before a brawl erupted. Like it or not, trash talking is a part of modern sport. And it's going to stay filthy, despicable, and obscene as long as it has its desired effect on one's opponent. Which it certainly did in this case.

Detestable as it may be, verbal abuse is part and parcel of the trade of a professional athlete. I can't see any real way to regulate it, and i'm not sure it needs to be regulated. Someone said something stupid about your mother? Say something stupid about his mother. Or better yet, shove his words down his throat by humiliating him on the field/court/pitch. Zidane is now whining about how he was provoked, and how the authorities always blame retaliation but never provocation, and that without provocation there would be no retaliation, blah blah blah. Did Materazzi punch you behind the ref's back? No. Did he kick you in the groin? No. Did he rape your sister? No. Did he say he would? Maybe. But they're just WORDS. It's still no excuse for you to turn into Andre the Giant. Zidane has apologized but declared he doesn't regret his actions, for if he did it would mean Materazzi's statements were right. I don't really follow this logic, and it's really just a semantic game at this point. I don't think there is any real explanation or justification for what he did, beyond that he lost his s@$# for a few seconds.

Speaking of professional wrestling, what is it with footie players and head butts? There's something completely ridiculous about it. If you're that pissed off, why don't you just deck the guy? Is a head butt more likely to be missed by the refs? Are you worried about injuring your hands? I could see this argument working in baseball. A player with a broken throwing hand is screwed, but nonetheless a bench-clearing brawl is done with fists, not head butts. But for some reason, soccer players are worried about breaking their hands. That they don't use. Odd.

Apparently i've listened to seven hours of Jim Gaffigan since December. So anyone wondering how long it takes me to be able to recite quotes ad nauseum, now you know.

After clearing out the back hallway on Friday night, consisting of moving some bags and then emptying the armoire, sliding it into the kitchen on top of some Nordstrom bags, and finally refilling it, Veronica and i set to masking and applying primer on Saturday morning. We got most of the room done by 4pm, except for the door and two windows. We then halted our efforts to ready for the evening's activities, consisting of a trip to Shoreline to see Nine Inch Nails, Bauhaus, and Peaches. Wonderful show, but deafening. We got home around 12:30am, after waiting for the dirt parking lot to clear enough so we could exit out the curiously little-travelled back route. For some reason, despite walking right past a perfectly good exit on the way from the amphitheater to the parking lot, the concertgoing masses hopped in their cars and all crowded out the way they came in. Weird, but good for us.

I spent the World Cup final catching up with old bioengineering friends at the Phoenix in San Francisco. Max is doing his medical internship at St. Mary's in the city, so he organized a get-together including class of 1996 BEASTs Kathy, Donna, Michelle, Pete, and the two of us, as well as 1997 BEAST Lance. We met at the Phoenix on Valencia in the Mission at 10am, and had breakfast and pints while watching the match. What a match too ... no end to the drama. An iffy penalty only seven minutes in gave France the lead, although the legendary Zinedine Zidane almost flubbed his cheeky chip, hitting the bottom of the bar and luckily for him rebounding over the line. This served to galvanize Italy, who deservedly equalized on a Marco Materazzi header from an Andrea Pirlo corner twelve minutes later. Italy's set pieces were causing the French all kinds of problems, with Luca Toni later being denied another headed goal only by the crossbar. However after halftime, the Italians seemed content to lapse into their defensive shell, with their attacks becoming increasingly infrequent and toothless. France however could not penetrate their rearguard. Into extra time, where Zidane sent a free header speeding into goal but was denied by a brilliant save by Gianluigi Buffon. Then came ... the incident.

I'm sure you've all seen it by now. Some insignificant tussling between Materazzi and Zidane in the 110th minute, some words exchanged, and then Zidane losing his mind and charging headfirst into Materazzi's chest. I've seen headbutts in football where the victim makes much, much more of the incident than it actually was, but this does not fall into that category. This was VIOLENT. Zidane struck the Italian's chest with some serious force. Although this occurred behind the play and the ref didn't see it, the linesman did and notified the ref soon thereafter, forcing him to send off the legend. What a way to end his career ... instead of the dream conclusion on the big stage everyone was expecting, Zizou left in shame and tears. Let's respond to the reaction around footballdom. There is no debating, it was a red card. 10 out of 10. Whether the ref saw it or whether the linesman saw it on a video replay is a separate debate. Zidane absolutely deserved to be sent off. Also, what Materazzi did or said to provoke him is also irrelevant. I can only imagine what kind of trash talking went on, but i have no reason to believe it was any worse than what gets said day in and day out on pitches, fields, diamonds, and courts by professional athletes. Zidane spectacularly and unacceptably lost his cool. Did Materazzi "get Zidane sent off", as France coach Raymond Domenech has suggested? Don't think so ... acting is irrelevant when you get a bald head pounded into your chest. The Italians protested furiously to the officials, but with complete justification. Some message board posters are saying Materazzi should've been sent off as well ... for what? There's nothing in the replay that depicts him doing anything illegal. He didn't dive or act, and he didn't retaliate. His only crime may be knowing the right phrase to get under Zidane's skin. It may have been something in extremely poor taste, perhaps racist or abusive, but again ... athletes deal with and dish out this stuff constantly without going ballistic. Besides, what better way to respond than by denying your rival the World Cup? As opposed to leaving shamed and empty handed. Blaming the Italians is ridiculous ... his supporters may not want to admit it, but Zidane shoulders all of the blame for this.

Did it change the outcome of the match? Who's to say? The French were having more of the ball and were probing the Italian goal in extra time, but neither before nor after the dismissal did they look like scoring. On to penalties, with the French without their best taker in Zidane, and also missing Thierry Henry (inexplicably subbed for Sylvain Wiltord), Patrick Vieira (subbed with an injury), and the mirror-shattering Franck Ribery (who caused Lance to comment to me on his ugliness). The Italians proceeded to make all five of their penalties, meaning that David Trezeguet's miss off the bar on France's second take gave the cup to Italy. Would Zidane have changed the outcome? On paper, no ... he would've made his, but couldn't stop the Italians from converting their tries, and Trezeguet still would've been one France's takers. But in intangibles, you have to wonder if his dismissal weighed on the French during the tense shootout.

At the end of the day, congrats to Italy, deserved winners. While i was thrilled to see the whining Thierry Henry denied football's greatest prize, i am a bit saddened by Zidane's end. A brilliant player who, like it or not, undoubtedly tarnished his legend on the final day of his international career. I'm however happy to report that my kit-wearing jinx was broken, as despite the fact that i had on my Juventus jersey, the Italians nevertheless emerged victorious. Juve will soon learn what punishment they receive for their role in the match-fixing fiasco, with relegation to Serie B looming as a probable outcome for the Italian champions. Strike that, they'll probably not technically be champions either after the tribunal gets done with them.

After fun with friends, football, and Irish breakfast in San Francisco, i brought Veronica lunch and we resumed painting our back room. By early evening priming was completed, and before bedtime we completed one coat of the yellow. I like it, but V isn't a huge fan of the color and is taking some time to warm up to it. I left her to paint on her own for a bit while i drove over to Borders to pick up a Perl book for Veronica, the text for an online class she's taking. While there i also found volumes one, two, and three of the X-Men Complete Age of Apocalypse collection that i'd been looking for, and bought those. I grabbed a pizza and some salads from Whole Paycheck and came home for dinner with V, followed by finishing off the back room's yellow. This week we'll tackle the trim and then shift our focus to the kitchen, which will also be yellowified. I read 50 pages or so of the first Age of Apocalypse compendium in bed while waiting for Veronica to finish her Perl homework, quite interesting. With the maze of overlapping comics it's difficult to know exactly where these stories fit into the X-Men pantheon, but so far they make a compelling saga on their own.

The U.S. sports pundits' treatment of the World Cup seems to reflect the desperation with which the American soccer powers are marketing the sport here. In years past i had to read a litany of columns blathering on about how boring the sport is, or how the U.S.'s soccer flubs occur because we don't care not because we aren't any good at it (the "why blacks don't dominate hockey" argument). This year however, the columnists are eager to compliment the sport, although in the most backhanded way possible. Take Sports Guy Bill Simmons, a favorite of mine, and his treatise on why he loves the World Cup. Apparently it's because the sport is boring enough that he can do other things while it's on TV, and still catch the occasional dive or theatrical moment. ESPN's Jim Caple feels that baseball would be as popular as soccer if the sport was marketed globally. A proposition i feel is so wrong it doesn't even merit discussion. Oh well. When the popular sports media is pushing to get rid of the offside rule or otherwise boost scoring at the expense of strategy, you know the U.S. at large just isn't ready to be a footballing nation. The beauty of the game is in its simplicity, its grace, and its strategy. Like no other sport, it reflects the abilities and demeanors of its participants. Bad players, ugly games. Great players, beautiful scenes. It's the perfect mirror for society, civilization, and humanity. Perhaps too poetic or realistic for our country.

It's been said before, but ... why does Cristiano Ronaldo cry so friggin' much? Bawled after losing the Euro 2004 final, wailed after getting injured against the Netherlands, sobbed after Portugal got eliminated by France. I don't remember but i would wager that he cried after Manchester United lost the FA Cup final to Arsenal in 2005. I don't want to get all Howard Stern here, but ...

i don't want to get over you i guess i could take a sleeping pill, and sleep at will and not have to go through, what i go through i guess i should take prozac, right? and just smile all night at somebody new somebody not too bright, but sweet and kind who would try to get you off my mind i could leave this agony behind which is just what i'd do, if i wanted to but i don't want to get over you 'cause i don't want to get over love i could listen to my therapist, pretend you don't exist and not have to dream of what i dream of i could listen to all my friends and go out again and pretend it's enough or i could make a career of being blue i could dress in black and read Camus smoke clove cigarettes and drink vermouth like i was seventeen, that would be a scream but i don't want to get over you

got on the rocket ship, but not with you we’re walking downhill i’m going to heaven but not with you because when i go i’m gone forever and i can never come back to you it’s too bad that we couldn’t go together now the comet’s come and disappeared a bunk bed ending, for our last hurrah my adidas laced with cyanide

Apart from my soccer foibles, the four day July 4th weekend was a good one. As stated previously, it began with a late night trek down the 5 to Los Angeles. V didn't get home from work until 7:45pm on Friday night, by which time i had packed, cleaned the house a little, and finished Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. We left around 8:40pm, stopping briefly in Gilroy to get dinner. Veronica and i encountered traffic on the narrow and dark 152 and again around Kettleman City, but arrived in the standard six hours. We spent the time listening to Howard Stern on Sirius. It's perfect for the SF to LA drive, as you get to hear a complete show. This one featured some great riffing on conservative blowhard Debbie Schlussel's hysterical condemnation of Superman Returns ... "Superman doesn't have muscles! Superman's gay!". As Howard cleverly noted, she's desperate to garner the kind of attention nutjob Ann Coulter does. But she'll need to start insulting real people to get it.

After a rather depressing morning and early afternoon watching the World Cup, and an SMFA friendly in which Matthew and England wiped the floor with my feeble U.S. team (although the result was more a testament to my atrophying Winning Eleven skills than my lackluster team), Dionne, Matthew, Veronica, and i headed over to the mall for a food court lunch and a bit of shopping for the girls. We returned and lounged for a bit more, watching the BJM/Dandy Warhols documentary Dig! (which seemed to grate on Matthew and Veronica, although i maintain that Anton Newcombe has a tortured, tragic genius about him) and getting in some head-to-head Guitar Hero battles. We then drove off to City Walk to catch the 10:30pm showing of Superman Returns, perhaps spurred on by Schlussel's rantings. We braved the crowds and secured seats in the balcony, then grabbed a dinner of hot dogs and nachos from the convenience stand. As for the film, i was mostly unimpressed. It was very uneven, dragging for long periods. You may want to stop reading here if you're worried about spoilers, because i'm about to cut loose. As far as i'm concerned, the film was essentially a remake of the 1978 original. Which is all the more disconcerting for me, because as i understood it this was supposed to be a NEW Superman story. This similarity includes the Lex Luthor/Ms. Teschmacher relationship, replaced here with Parker Posey's Kitty Kowalski but still using her as a decoy to distract Superman, her falling for the handsome superhero, and finally undoing Lex's plans because of her affection for the hero and her recognition of Luthor's insanity. The plot is also basically the same, focusing on a Luthor plot to create and dominate real estate. However, as Roger Ebert put it the magic of the original is gone. We see people fly all the time in the movies these days, so Superman had better do something truly magical to grab our attention. The plodding dialog didn't help, with Superman/block of wood Brandon Routh suffering through some really awful exchanges. Oh well. Bryan Singer may have escaped the X-Men: The Last Stand travesty, but Superman Returns isn't all that better.

Veronica and i again collapsed upon finding the bed kindly provided by Matthew and Dionne. This time i got to sleep in without the wake up call of the World Cup, and accordingly slumbered until almost 1pm. We had a nice outside lunch of home-cooked rotisserie chicken and couscous, then bid farewell to our friends and drove across L.A. to Whittier and Veronica's aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandmother. The rest of the evening was spent playing with their four chihuahuas, with their leader Shadow taking a liking to me and establishing himself on my chest.

After more doggie time on Monday morning and early afternoon, and a few games of Mario Superstar Baseball against Austen (in which i somehow emerged victorious, first 3-1 then 17-1), we surveyed Veronica's families gorgeous backyard, then hit the road to head back north. Another six hour drive centering on Howard Stern, capped off by hearing the incredible story of Artie's drug-fueled exit from Mad TV just as we pulled into our house at 11:30pm. Tara, who'd been dog-sat by the gracious Naomi over the weekend, had been by herself since noon when Naomi left for a job interview, was in raptures as the door opened and mommy and daddy strolled in. Naomi had gone so far as to vacuum and tidy ... awesome.

I awoke around 10am on the morning of the fourth, and immediately switched into domestic mode. I watered the lawn, then drove to Whole Foods to get corn and veggies for the afternoon's barbecue at my parents' house in Fremont. Veronica and i then spent an hour or so readying the corn on the cob for grilling, and making twelve skewers of peppers, mushrooms, onions, and zucchini for similar treatment. We headed over around 2:30pm, with Tara tagging along so she wouldn't be alone in the house for another whole day. This may have been the best day of her life. After realizing that she wasn't being taken to the vet that is a few blocks from my parents, she spent her first half hour in Fremont charging around the house and backyard, enthusiastically exploring her new domain. Tara then resumed her usual activity of begging for food, encouraged by the throng of new faces and abundance of tasty things. Veronica and i meanwhile spent the afternoon talking to my sister and Jeff, my aunt, uncle and cousin, Betty and Ted, my parents' friends the Bingles and my mom's Mission math colleague, and my parents. Apart from the dog, a highlight of the afternoon was looking through old photo albums with Veronica, Hilary, and Jeff, with my sister spitting out quips for every one of my adolescent foibles. Come 7:30pm the cats had done their usual number on my sinuses, so we brought doggie home. I spent the rest of the evening sneezing and catching a particularly good night on cable, watching favorites the Big Lebowski and Heathers.

Now it's back to work, with the rest of my summer slated for writing papers. And going to review grants in Virginia for the Department of Defense. And flying to Hawaii for the annual SMI meeting. And perhaps a trip to North Carolina. What happened to the summers of old, swimming for four hours a day and playing basketball until 8pm? They've fallen by the wayside of nostalgia, increasingly blurry like a soft photographic haze and the mists of memory.

This World Cup really seems to be out to prove that i can't pick winners for s@$#. After seeing Argentina fall on Friday morning, Veronica and i got in a day of work before driving down to L.A., arriving at Dionne and Matthew's at 3am and falling asleep immediately after being groggily welcomed by Matthew and a perkier Cinnamon. I set my cell phone to wake me at 8am and emerged to find Matthew, Kevin, and Dionne on the couch soaking in the pre-game of the England/Portugal semifinal showdown. We settled in to watch the match with some donuts graciously provided by Kevin.

Despite my repeated statements of displeasure with England's poor showings, against my better judgement i picked them to reach the semifinals. Mainly because Portugal haven't been overpowering either, and were playing with key defensive midfielder Costinha and playmaker Deco due to suspension. The wily but overrated Cristiano Ronaldo was also a doubt because of a nasty thigh injury he picked up in the previous match against the Netherlands. My first inkling that i had erred again occurred when Ronaldo was named in the starting lineup, and began the match looking his usual showboating self. The first half played out with England marginally on top, creating the better opportunities although Frank Lampard was again anonymous and Joe Cole was oddly out of the flow of the game. But even going into halftime without a goal to their credit, it seemed England were destined to emerge victorious.

That is, until Wayne Rooney's frustration boiled over and he stood on Ricardo Carvalho's gonads while walking over him. Replays were inconclusive ... it very well could have been an accident, despite the footballing press's confidence that the young firebrand knew exactly what he was doing. Amazingly, Rooney's Manchester United teammate Ronaldo tattled to the ref on him, and after a brief scuffle between the two, Rooney was shown a red card. With captain David Beckham having already been subbed because of an ankle injury, England's leadership was decimated. Despite being a man down they struggled on valiantly, and arguably created more chances to win than their opponents over the rest of regulation. However, to England's horror the match went scoreless all the way to penalties. For some reason, England's confidence in taking penalties is shot ... there was a sense of finality as soon as the ref blew the end of extra time. And sure enough, Lampard (an automatic penalty converter for Chelsea), Steven Gerrard, and Jamie Carragher all missed ... the Portuguese keeper looked good in saving them, but he isn't THAT good. And the Portuguese celebrated their win, and many of the England players broke down in frustrated tears, and Sven Goran Eriksson did his usual "oh well" in his last match as England manager. History repeats itself (England goes out to Portugal on penalties, quarterfinals, Euro 2004).

So another of my final four was out. This one i should've known. Despite playing admirably a man down for the last 60 minutes of the match, England again showed little of the skill and strategy that you would expect from a team with this many individual talents. I have no idea what happened to Lamps ... he had such a bad tournament i'm now wondering if it will spill over into his performances for Chelsea next season. David Beckham resigned as England captain the next day, about two years too late if you ask me. Blues stalwart John Terry is tipped to be the next skipper, but you have to wonder if teams under his charge will fare any better when Eriksson protege Steve McClaren is running the show on the sidelines. Rooney may be in for a rough Premiership season, experiencing the kind of villification that Beckham received when he was sent off against Argentina in England's fatal 1998 World Cup loss. Although i kind of doubt it, because Beckham's treatment was as much a reaction to his flash, pretty boy image as his crime and its consequences. He continues to plead his innocence, claiming the stamp was accidental, and he may have a point. An astute commentator however pointed out that he may have bad blood for Carvalho from their United-Chelsea encounters. Especially considering that Carvalho is close friends with Chelsea right back Paulo Ferreira, who made the tackle that precipitated Rooney's broken foot last spring.

The afternoon's quarterfinal didn't improve my prediction rate, as Brazil again failed to reach the heights of their beautiful game, and succumbed to a well-organized and well-orchestrated French squad. Zinedine Zidane is playing up to his legendary status, and Thierry Henry is occupying the lone striker role wonderfully. Especially now that he can pose a threat either by running the offense, or by diving and winning free kicks and cards. Ponce. Brazil meanwhile never looked like a real attacking force. About halfway through the second half i realized that i'd heard Ronaldinho's name maybe twice all match. I'm not sure why Brazil manager Carlos Alberto Parreira had him all the way out on the left flank ... at Barcelona Ronaldinho has excelled playing either as a striker or just behind the forwards, being able to conduct the attack in a central role. At any rate, the South Americans were just plain outplayed by France, and deservedly lost. History repeats itself (France outclasses favored Brazil, finals, World Cup 1998).

So i got one team correct (Italy) in my final four. Pretty pathetic, but it gets worse. Seeing a not-particularly-talented German squad roll through the group stages and past heavyweights Argentina convinced me not to doubt the home field advantage, and i had suspicions that they would go on to lift the trophy in Berlin on July 9th. Wrong again, Teddo. For some reason in my preparations for my parents' July 4th barbecue, i completely forgot that the Germany/Italy semifinal was going on. So i missed it all, the 90 scoreless (but reportedly thrilling) minutes of regulation, the 28 scoreless minutes of extra time, and Fabio Grosso and Alessandro Del Piero's clinching goals just before the penalty shootout. Another Ted prediction bites the dust.

So what have i learned?

• Home field can get you far. But it can't get you all the way.
• England need a major rethink before they can escape their pattern of failure.
• Being hailed as the best footballing nation in the world doesn't win your games for you.

The second semifinal between France and Portugal is beginning in 45 minutes. I tip France to advance to create a rematch of the Euro 2000 final, with similar results. Which means bet the house on Portugal.