Where I’m @

20020628

First post in several days, and this only to peep the IMS/ISC bid to become the administrator of the dot-org TLD. It’s almost hard to believe some times just how awful Verisign is. Yet another horror story about a domain getting sold out from under the rightful owners appeared yesterday on Zeldman, and it makes us nervous that a domain for which we recently acquired high-level responsibility is up for renewal in under two weeks. Which is worse: that it may have already been renewed and we’re stuck with them for another few years? or that it hasn’t yet been renewed and we risk having it sold to the next schmuck who thinks it’s a cool name?
Hence, we hereby are doing our part to spread the dot.
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20020617

Gender Reassignment Surgery by Mouse
Somehow, we managed to louse up putting ourselves on a map of World Cup fans, indicating ourself as a “girly, womanly, female, feminine dame”. Emmanuelle set it up, and though Bleahh does not usually go for that kind of thing, we’re feeling rather proud that the U.S. is having its best performance since 1930, beating Mexico handily early this morning (EDT). The Mexicans’ attitude after the game — petulance, snide remarks — is unfortunate because they played, by and large, an excellent game. They were beaten, in large part, because the U.S. team was not afraid and therefore took chances, truly tried their best, showed that they can play well sometimes. Germany does scare the team, though, and that’s why they’ll lose come Friday.

Really, the Mexico team played quite well. And yes, that was a hand ball, but Landon Donovan also did not foul (at least not beyond the acceptable physical contact of international soccer) the Poland player in the 4th minute of the U.S. – Poland game. Sometimes you get bad calls.
If Mexico had won, we’d be reasonably happy for them, as they’re a good team and deserve to go far.

20020613

Dreadful
As if the first Harry Potter movie weren’t disappointing enough, with that faux-Tchaikovsky music crammed with a trowel into every available crack and crevice, the next one looks to be even worse. Nothing has changed with the music, of course, and a scene with Ron and Harry driving the flying car looks to be something that belongs more in the Scooby-Doo movie than in one with potentially more substance. AOL has put up a 30-second teaser at the official site, though you can directly look at the high-bandwidth RealAudio version as well.
The only saving grace will likely be, as with the first, the real actors in the pic, like Ken Branagh, Richard Harris, and (in the best casting they got) Alan Rickman.

20020612

Rebecca Blood has an excellent and succinct (redundant though that may seem in the weblog world) post about the whole hoo-hah surrounding who knew what in the days before or soon after the September 2001 terrorism.
Frankly, we don’t really want to know that the attacks were preventable. Our brother-in-law was in a plane landing in DC that day. The SO works three blocks from the WTC (but was not at work at that time, on that day). Knowing that either one had a fairly good chance of dying and that those who are assigned to protect them did not do it would just about kill off any faith we do have in the government.

20020611

M'enfin!?
As a friend wrote this morning, there is no joy in Mudville today. Or in Albertville, Deauville, Trouville, or La Ville des lumières itself, for the mighty Bleus have struck out. The metaphor is perhaps too apt, but there you have it. Three games, no goals, no wins. Losses by the #1 soccer team in the world to teams ranked #42 (Sénégal) and #20 (Denmark), and a scoreless tie with #24 (Uruguay). Being a soccer fan in America, though, teaches you to have backups — you can’t generally depend on your national team to go very far — and with that in mind we say Go USA! Go (in Danish) Danmark! Allez Sénégal! Forza Italia! Brasil!

But that’s all.

20020607

Something stuck in our craw this morning about the promo copy for an event this summer at Rockefeller Center (we walk underneath nearly the entire east-west length of it on rainy days and in the winter months on our way to work). Beginning June 26th, there will be an installation by Nam June Paik. What bothered us was that the copy read “For the Summer of 2002, Rockefeller Center, in association with the Public Art Fund, will exhibit 16 automobiles by renowned Korean artist Nam June Paik.” Certainly, Nam June Paik is not exactly a household name in a land where even the President pronounces the destructive atomic force as new-kya-ler. But why exactly do they specifically refer to Paik as Korean? Wouldn’t most Americans walking through Rocky Center see the name and intuit that Paik’s not American? Why not mention Paik’s gender as well, which most Americans, including Bleahh, frankly, would not divine from his name? Does it matter to most people what the specific nationality is? Which is in fact the hidden rub of the whole thing: Paik seems to be American. Onegook claims he has American citizenship, and listings at the University of Michigan, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Art Museum of the Americas (at the Organization of American States), and the 1998 Kyoto Prizes catalogue him as American. Artcyclopedia files him under Korean and Art in Context ambiguates with both Korean and American listings. The point, of course, being that someone at Rocky Center did sloppy research, and that’s no good for anyone.

20020606

Glory Be!
After an eternity — but a worthwhile one — Mozilla 1.0 is out. The Mozilla.org site was down last check, but keep trying. You can also FTP, of course.

The Ramones seem to have reached their life expectancy. This time, it’s Dee Dee.

MEH.
France manages to hang on to the possibility of making the second round by tying a scrappy Uruguay 0–0. We went to the gym this a.m., and so managed to watch nearly all of the first half, most notable for the ejection of Thierry Henry, one of the standouts from France ’98. It’s not really clear just why he got the boot when the Uruguayans were slashing and kicking all over the place. Just to show what kind of game it was, though, it should be noted that there were three more cards in the game, all yellow — two to the Uruguayans and one to the French. ESPN web commentary.
Uruguay has always stuck in our memory as a highly physical team. Back in 1986, when the World Cup was in Mexico, there was a brutal collision between the Uruguay goalkeeper and a forward for the opposing team (whose country is lost to history). On the replay, it was clear that the keeper deliberately smashed into the opposing forward to try to take him out. We’re undecided whether they Urugayans are tough or dirty.
But this game, they were neither, which is perhaps sadder. Neither the gall to be dirty nor the guts to be tough. Actors were plentiful on the Uruguay side, most notably the Sisqo-haired Dario Silva, who took a big dive in the first half.
Not that les Bleus were exceedingly stellar. Starting off a little lackluster, they came alive when Henry got sent off. From there until nearly the end, they controlled the play, seeing a particularly good performance from David Trezeguet. But as has been the problem with United States teams in World Cups past, they just couldn’t put the ball in the net. Now they have to beat Denmark by at least 2 goals to make it through to the second round. Allez!

20020605

We went to some trouble this morning to tape the first and possibly most crucial game of the 2002 World Cup for the United States (versus Portugal), to watch a little bit of it before leaving for work (enough to see us score in the 3rd minute), and to avoid contact with anyone who might have watched the game. But nevertheless in our inbox, the top email was from our parental unit with the result in the &@#%&$!*& subject! Best laid plans, and all that, perhaps.

Anyway, you may review ESPN’s commentary from the match; it’s usually pretty good, and in this case the chauvinism of the commentators is acceptable. Unlike the recent broadcasts on ABC, in which the commentators had a hard time finding much to say about Cameroon in one case and Sweden in the other. (Ireland and England being the favored parties, respectively.)