UConn James

And now, they may have a chance to get two birds with one stone.... (knock on wood).

Uruguay = Flop! Flop! Come on....

Top shelf, where mama hides the cookies!! Go Oranje!

It's catch-and-release that keeps the lawyers and courts in business.

Rocked my 'Nederland' track jacket today! Not that anyone who saw it knew or cared....

Reuters: Two in three people want video replays, [globalized] poll shows

It was the Immaculate Happy Ending (attempt)!

NYT: FIFA president apologizes for refereeing errors Note that this is not necessarily a video replay system. In the offing is a 'Hawkeye' system (as used in tennis) for soccer or a chip embedded in the ball that goes off when it passes the goal line. Also has been said that a referee assistant might be used to help police the field better. I've thought this for a long time --- that's a hell of a lot of area for one dude to cover. NFL has, what, 8 people in a crew for a field that's close to a third the size?

The final "Totally LOST" video set. Still waiting for Doc's Part 2 of his final, final LOST thoughts that was promised in this column (that duey linked here) a couple of weeks ago. ----- The geography of LOST, created by a US DoD cartographer. ----- I, too, haven't read the Red theory yet... so the admonishment is pretty hypocritical. Was kind of hoping for some discussion here to motivate me to get to it. I haven't started a re-watch yet. This is the longest amount of time after a finale that I've gone w/o starting. Still just giving it time to digest and take a break from it so I can come back with fresher eyes. I'm probably going to wait until early August so finishing S5 converges with the S6 release. Which is totally going to be ruined, b/c the first thing I'm going to be watching is the epilogue. .... Perhaps I should wait and start the rewatch in late August, then.

Couple more links.... "How 'LOST' Should Have Ended" short cartoon parody. USA Today: "What to expect from 'LOST: The Complete Collection." ----- No discussion about the Vozzek69 stuff?

Sad, but typical. What exactly is so unclear about the 2nd amendment? Unless I missed a subordinate clause that says "... unless you live in X, Y or Z."

Yeah. That's wonderful. Shhh!! Just sweep it under the rug and no one will notice. 'Huh? What? Move along --- nothing to see here!' Like Tom Donahoe banning criticism signage at the Ralph, action like this is the last gasp for scoundrels.

I'm Dutch heritage, so they've been my main horse. In all the matches I've seen of them, I don't notice much flopping on their part. Just tough play and nice attack. An article today: Link Heartily disagree that it will "make the game worse." Having at least some recourse for blatantly blown calls can't be bad.

I'm pretty sure tennis is bigger in this country than soccer ever will be. Especially when there is NO recourse wrt refs who are paid off by the mob / have personal or international grudges / just plain f--- up. Sports-fixing scandal may be acceptable and play well in the rest of the world, but not here. Until soccer initiates the process of replay --- and what better place to do this than the World Cup where there the technology is there and everything's in place...? I can understand how it might not be feasible in SA, Africa, etc. But how people can live with this product --- specifically the ref problems --- is beyond me. If this Cup doesn't make FIFA do anything in the way of replay, I don't see how anything will. Teams have to start boycotting the tourney, leagues have to form outside of FIFA. Soccer is second only to WWF/WWE in sham factor. Like I wrote upthread, I don't condone physical violence on them, but I can sure understand how it would happen in the heat of the moment.

Resident Horrible Person Ed (name has since changed to... ) would smoke you all with his Honda Fit.

They still have a ways to go before a switch to an 18 game season. (I'm all for it.) Will it happen before the Toronto series deal runs out? If it does, that scenario of 2 regular season games at Rogers is likely. They may have to revisit the contract given such a change.

Makes a heck of a excuse for getting out of weddings and clothes shopping with the missus. " [tongue click] Oooo, sorry about that, but I've gotta work on my nuclear reactor on Friday."

We've got an old '79 Ford F-350 with a stake bed that has, as one mechanic who recently did the brakes on it said, "More balls than a herd of elephants." No lie, we had three mafia blocks on it and it didn't crouch much. The creeper gear is great too --- many a yard saved when delivering firewood or moving family members (one trip usually did it), where the owners said previous trucks have spun out and destroyed the grass. The body is rusting tho. They don't make 'em like they used to.

I believe there is a certain acreage requirement here, but I think you need to contact your local town hall for a permit to establish a small family plot on private land. Here's another link that ran in the NYT last year about the 'home burial' process.

This is a pretty good article about the procurer of donated cadavers at my alma mater's med school.... Gotta say that this is a worthy cause to help advance science and medicine, for those who are comfortable with the idea.

Mark Wahlberg the (terrible) actor, or Mark Wahlberg the host of "Antiques Roadshow"?

Another thing I just thought of, after the funeral thread here on Off the Wall.... The Others' funeral rites now make a lot more sense. Setting Coleen's body adrift into the ocean meant that MIB would have a harder time possessing it. Perhaps that's what they did with Paul's body as well (Amy's husband before Horace Goodspeed).

That's something one learns more and more as one gets older. Add in the caveat that this applies only if you know what you're doing in the task at hand, and there's a high likelihood that you won't f--- everything up. I would say that with a viking funeral, there's a host of factors that you need to get right. Ensuring adequate fuel (no "this pile of brush should do it" estimation), calculating drift, assessing fire conditions should the vessel ground, etc. There's always the chance that such a rite can end up as "'Viking Funeral' Forest Fire Kills 4; 50 Acres Ablaze." That would kind of suck. I wonder if there's any private companies that do this.

And some dude named Miller won the Vezina. Can only hope this pays dividends next year, the FO gets a couple of pickups, and that the window stays open long enough.

Just a bit of info about the DVD release. The epilogue's title is... "The New Man in Charge" and will run 11 minutes. There is a video of Darlton being interviewed by Diane Sawyer from just before the finale that's very interesting. Lindelof says specifically that "before all is said and done," there will be "significant illumination" about Walt, the fertility problems on the island, and the polar bears. Since we saw none of these in the finale, it looks like these will be areas covered in the epilogue. (I have also read that the DHARMA food drops will be explained). BTW - here's part 1 of that interview. ----- Forget if it's been mentioned, but Emmy nominations will be announced on 8 July... usually ~ 8 a.m. ET iirc. Special dispensation was granted for "The End" to be considered for nomination. I believe "Ab Aeterno" is also one that's getting a lot of heat, mainly for Nestor Carbonell. I really hope this show gets its due. ----- Vozzek69 was always the best read on DarkUFO, and for some reason, I never saw this post. Comprehensive in its scope. Here's a link to his or her website, featuring a 250-page LOST book titled "Things You Never Noticed About LOST." Among the things in the free .pdf sample is the bit about there being more to it than black and white --- black, white and red. This owes to several examples s/he gives, most notably Michael's card joke, "What's black, white, and red all over?" I had never made that connection. And, before reading all of that section, I'm going to write here that one of Hurley's main colors was red --- t-shirt in this last season, the gold course flag, the flower he put on Libby's grave, the Camaro(?).... ----- I've also read shortly after the finale (but never got to it) that MIB essentially chose suicide. And when you think about it, there may be a case for this. We know that peoples' deepest wishes/firm intentions come true on the island. So when Jack said, 'I don't know how, but I'm going to turn out the light and then I'm going to kill you' might have given MIB/FLocke pause. Yet, he says, "Let's get on with it then." Perhaps after learning that the island had a new protector, he may have been a little resigned and was ready to go for broke against the odds --- say, 5 percent that he can best Jack, and 95 percent that whatever kept him there for ~2,500-2,000 years is conspiring to keep him longer. Some might understandably choose to take those odds, as "life" as MIB knew it was grown unbearable, and if he couldn't get release from the island / the Cerberus entity, he could get some release in total death.