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Schwyz - Ukraine: 0-0 zzzzzzZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ

This nails it for my money. Soft, soft penalty, but possibly not incorrectly given. In any case, 'I've seen them given', as they say. I was going to mention the foolishness of O'Neill (?) going into a slide in that situation. And I agree, the door was left open for the ref to award the PK. I just think a better ref would have swallowed his whistle. Sorry, I disagree. Going into a slide was probably the only thing he could do. not so. He could have remained standing. Really, he went down too early.

Having watched a few repeats: a totally incorrect decision by the referee. Theft indeed. I am not so sure. That was very stupid of the Australian defender to drop to the ground in front of the Italian, who then continued to trip over him. OF COURSE he could have jumped, but there is no rule that says he MUST. So when he doesn't he trips and when he trips, it's a foul. Foul = PK. Surely the ref could have NOT given this PK and I doubt even the Italians would have been very surprised. NOW, IF FIFA would finally try and seriously get a grip on all the diving and flight lessons, they should introduce a rule that FORBIDS a player to seek a foul. It's one thing to foul your opponent, but in my opinion it's much less fair to run into your opponent and then claim a foul. FIFA is all brouhah about the health of players coming first, but often enough players put their own health at stake in order to gain a little or -- more often -- to put their opponent to disadvantage. As it is now, the old adagio: The best ref is the ref that you don't notice, does not apply in the least to this tournament.

of course this game HAD to end in a theatre. sheesh.

I love GPC 1 too, my copy is a bit worn , but still enjoyable. I only have Vol. 2. It's a 2LP set with 6 longish tunes. 's Nice! Vol. 1 is a studio set, right?

Italy hasn't seen much opposition in the tournament yet. The Aussies have and may have the edge on the Italians in this game. BUT a lot depends on the ref (again): Australia is known to play a more physical game, which I think is okay as long as you can put up with some yourself -- and they certainly can. The Italians are the Diving Kings, specialised in provoking free kicks just outside the penalty area (like Totti managed against the USA) and specialised in looking innocent (the Argentinians are better at the latter -- which reminds me: can someone invent a scrambler that keeps Maradonna off my tv screen?). A childish ref will be a disadvantage to Australia as we already saw in their match against Brasil where their midfield efforts were blown off time and again by a finicky ref.

I'm not defending the Dutch here - I hate diving as much as you do - but they're not the only ones who are guilty. There's a lot of diving in this tournament, and I think it's not fair to single out the Dutch. I think Ruud Gullit clouded Red's vision a bit here. The thing is, the Dutch hate diving. Even more when it's their own team doing it. So Gullit got upset and all ITV viewers with him. In the game I saw, the Portugese were much more eager to act than the Dutch. Which is not to say that the Dutch diving upset me more.

I think it's a stretch to say the ref owed the Portugese any favours...remember, they went down to 10, then 9, first, and received more yellows than the Dutch. yes, that was AFTER the house caught fire. I think if the ref had handled the situation better and acted upon all the little shite the Portugese were pulling to "get back" for the foul on Ronaldo, then he might have kept things under control. The first two cards went to the Dutch within the first ten minutes. It took ten more minutes for the Portugese to receive their first yellow. Those 10 minutes were crucial, setting the atmosphere as the ref didn't have his eyes in the right place, gave too many silly free kicks to the Portugese and close to none to the Dutch. He *was* making up for his decision on the foul on Ronaldo, who kept limping to and fro, reminding everyone what bad guys these Dutch were. Once people knew this ref could be fooled, they continued their crap. As for the Dutch diving, Robben should have acted some better when they kicked him in the shoulder. Just like Figo went for an academy award with a Dutch elbow in supporting role. Oscar for special effects. There certainly are some bad actors in the Dutch team, but they cannot hold a candle to the Italians (who must have invented it; do they have schools where you can learn this stuff?) or the Portugese for that matter. So instead of "Dutch diving", you'd better refer to "feghing diving" in general.

BTW and watching some utterly awesome passing on, and ball receives of Van Persie: woa! Who placed those passes? Television was too fast and too little informed here, but it got me thinking that if Beckham would put in such a ball everyone would go on about what a brilliant player he is. Well excuse me, but some dude in the Dutch team was placing back-spin balls on Van Persie that were not only terrifically placed, but dropped dead in front of him; and not only in this match.

Can anyone shed any light on this? I too was mystified, and we can't rely on ABC/ESPN to get to the bottom of anything. I wasn't impressed with Ruud's replacement. Van Basten said he didn't like Van Nistelrooij's performances in the group games. According to Van Basten his positioning left a lot to be desired, and his finishing was quite poor; he said that there was "not enough football" in Van Nisterooij's game. which is actually true as Van Nistelrooij played like a regular overweight Ronaldo. Not that Kuijt did any better, but at least he walked some metres to put himself in a position to receive the ball (he might have idealy dropped and fought like Rooney did). Van Nistelrooij is not the right guy if you are playing with a 3 up front system where the centre should take the outside and v.v. every now and then (total football). It seems to me Van Basten is sort of hoovering in between too many tactical concepts to get anything across. Then again, they made it through the group of death and showed how to keep Argentina tame by keeping them busy in the midfield with early attacks and fast passes to and fro. There's a nice core for Van Basten to work on.

pfff, side one got really annoying with all that endless feeping and fooping so now it's The Griffith Park Collection 2 / In Concert (Elektra) w/ Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Lenny White.

Chick Corea - Is (Solid State)

yes, being cut off of the goings on a bit, I was wondering what the hell was going on with the Dutch playing style. Not at all what I had expected. It was pretty shite. Funny that Paul Breitner commented that the Dutch were playing "Ergebnisfussball" and that that was something to spit at. My thoughts on that comment: "You invented it feghbrains!" heheh. FWIW, Brasil was playing good ole German style "Ergebnisfussball" four years ago and it got them the cup against a German team playing more total-football oriented. Same accounts for Greece two years ago, utter "Ergebnisfussball" (damn, they even had a "libero"!), next to no fun at all and it got them the euro-cup against the Portugese pissers (sorry 'bout that). I still wonder when it will dawn on folks that the era of beautiful "total football" is really over and that the next wave of boring shite is hitting us like a tornado. I'd rather not that happens, so I'll be rooting for the Germans who have not yet shown one trace of sitting in the back and hoping for the best in this tournament. Unlike all the others, Argentina included.

Eric Kloss - Sky Shadows (Prestige, distr. MPS)

Hey! I am the first one to do it. I will put out a yellow for it ah yes, ashes on my head, you may kick me in the face and I will take the yellow card for that.

LOL! Ruud must have been smoking his hair. As if the Portugese are not really really out to drop and -- much much worse -- provoke cards for their opponent. It's all over now, but that shite that Figo pulled with the headbanging (WTF!) and the theatricals to get Boullabaisse the red was much below even Portugese standards. The problem with this match -- and the Dutch -- is that the ref doesn't look for the little disruptive shite that goes on and that kills the atmosphere; then the Dutch start banging back (there is some Englishness in them after all) and get the cards. Especially cool how that Portugese dude almost kicked off Robben's arm and saw, which card? None actually, as it was Robben who got the yellow on that action. Cool runnings, ref! Of course if the ref had given Bouillabasse red after that jump on Ronaldo (the little pisser) then maybe he might have held this under control. As it went now, the ref seemed to have felt he owned the Portugese a favour, and another favour, and a favour, and before the knew it, the house was on fire or rather ablaze. This wasn't a game, this was war and very ugly. Someone should blame the ref, so let me be the first. At least he likely set a record for most yellows and reds.

the temperature was very similar to yesterday's. Why Germans can run and move under such heat and English would not be able to is a mystery. The English might have looked better, they were still abysmal; no ideas, no tactic (WTF *was* the idea of 3-5-1 anyway if you are not going to play the midfield?). A decent goalie would have countered Beckham's kick, it wasn't *that* spiffy. So there. I'll agree with you on Rooney. Still, this was an utterly boring game for an outsider not putting for any of the two teams.

Just curious, did you mean Freddie Redd or Sonny Redd, the composer of "Mustang"? just as curious as in the linernotes Sonny Red Kyner explains the title of his tune: "When my roality check comes in, I'm gonna buy a Mustang!" Or something to that effect.

the second one was certainly deserved. Germany had just started a real fast attack and Lucic killed that off with this "tactic" foul. Those kind suck the most, because they really kill the game. Sweden has developed a bit of a habit of playing like this with loads of little fouls in the midfield, slowing down the game and playing on their forte of the fast counter attack. Can't remember what the first yellow was for, but I had the impression the referee had shown the second before it dawned on him whom he was showing it. Still: yellow card offense = yellow card offense, whether it entails red or not.

correct!

easiest is to use a so-called web-crawler that can make you a local copy of a website on your harddisk. There is plenty freeware around, the wikipedia entry on web-crawlers lists some. Sorry I can't be more specific, I haven't much time to try and error, but you will want a programme which you can tell to go only one link deep so you don't end up with all the cactusses and aquaria also on the site. You will want to right-click and copy the URL of the various "chapters" (W.vocal1, BlueNote2, ... etc) and then mirror each with one link depth, which would be he link from the thumbnail to the large cover images. Hope that made sense.

ordered the Monk and Rollins sets for a friend and though the disks are the same (K2 masters), these are not nicely packaged in thick cardboard box with booklet. You get a bare bones packaging deal without any info on who plays on what tune. So this is similar to the last stock of the larger OJC sets they had: disks only and not much more. Still a hell of a deal!

Umm...any particular reason? Chewy has been listening to too much Phil Collins off late.

house is about repitition underneath, disco is about the extravagancies on top. don't get yourself caught pointing upward while wiggling your hips on the wrong tune!

note that you get a different payment page if you enter Deutschland instead of Großbritannien. Please send me all your money.