So I was watching a fight last night, and a soccer game broke out…

Yes, I’m talking about the battle royal between Portugal and the Netherlands yesterday. As the perspicacious twohundredpercent notes under the subdued headline “Fight Fight Fight Fight Fight!”, it was awful, shameful, horrid…and vastly entertaining.

For connoisseurs of slow-motion train-wrecks, it was truly Must See TV. My favorite bit was when Univision’s Pablo Ramírez and Jesús Bracamontes jokingly reassured viewers that they weren’t tuned into the wrong channel—that this was not, in fact, the lucha libre over on Galavision, however much it might seem like it at first glance. What a way to finish off the weekend.

I have also been able to stay amused, even during the duller matches, keeping my eyes peeled for lookalikes. The coaches have been especially good fodder for this. Keith Olbermann’s twin somehow wound up coaching Iran; Luiz Felipe Scolari seems to me like a cross between Gene Hackman and Gerald McRaney; and while I can’t put my finger exactly on who Ricardo Lavolpe reminds me of, I’m sure he must have played a villain in one of the second-tier spaghetti westerns.

Yesterday, I was also able to spot among the luchadores a long-lost Osmond brother, going under the name of Cristian Ronaldo; and several World Cup bloggers have already remarked on the resemblance between yesterday’s overworked referee Valentin Ivanov and “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” fixture Ryan Stiles.

Good times, good times.

Oh, and for those of you who care about it, there was some pretty good soccer played here and there too. Though not in the England match. If Sven’s men sneak into the final it’ll be mostly on account of their ability to make opponents, as well as spectators, lose their will to live. And that would be my explanation of why the Ecuadorans showed no sense of urgency whatsoever yesterday despite being behind, even when it got to the 80th minute…or the 85th…or the 88th…

The quality of the 2006 edition of the World Cup has been generally excellent. There have been fine examples of offensive soccer (particularly prized for those of us who remember suffering through Italia ’90); some hard-fought matches full of incident, including even one or two of the scoreless draws; delicious minutes of unbearable tension, such as during the incredible—and bizarre—Australia v. Croatia match last night; and much more.

The quality of the officiating, however, only continues to grow as a concern. For the first week or so of this World Cup, the main worries were the quantity of yellow cards, the refusal to grant penalties even in the most flagrant circumstances, and some iffy performances from linesmen. Worrisome, but at least survivable.

But then things started to get much more bizarre and strange. Even more bookings than before, including some straight-up red cards; hence matches finishing up with only nineteen men on the pitch. A sudden rash of iffy penalties. Goals that went over the line but didn’t count; and offside goals that did.

And then last night, a World Cup first: Three yellow cards for a single player, in the same game. (They’re supposed to be sent off after their second.) That’s about as egregious an error as I can imagine. The reason they call it a “booking”, after all, is that after the referee shows the player the card, he writes it down in his book.

Okay, maybe that referee—one Graham Poll, from England—just has a little trouble reading his own handwriting. But there were four other officials on duty, yet none of them seems to have noticed anything either; or if they did, they didn’t say anything. Including the reserve referee, who had nothing else to do but sit on the sidelines and watch the game on a television monitor.

It’s just flabbergasting. When was the last time a college basketball player was erroneously left in a Final Four game for ten minutes after picking up his fifth foul? Seems inconceivable to me; but then the NCAA has never been run by a Eurocrat.

I suppose the one saving grace in all this is that, most of the time, the officiating insanity has cut both ways. (Though not always when Team USA was on the pitch…but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?) So in that sense, contrary to the headline above, it hasn’t been Super Bowl XL all over again. But it still has to stop.

I have three recommendations for addressing the situation. First, there should be more communication amongst the officials. In American football, the officials always conference before making a decision on a penalty. So why haven’t the World Cup referees been chatting with their colleagues on their little headset thingies before deciding whether to issue a card, or grant a penalty, or such? If nothing else, it would give some of the more hot-headed officials the opportunity to cool off for a second before booking a player for ordinary dissent or some other marginal-yet-visceral insult to their authority.

Second, start seriously considering instant replay. As I mentioned before, there’s already a spare official sitting there watching the game on a monitor. So for the absolutely most critical questions—such as whether a ball went over the goal-line, or whether a goal-scorer was clearly offsides—why not use him? Fans of American football already know, all too well, how instant replay can be fallible in its own right; but it can help if used sparingly and under proper guidelines. With every single goal being so incredibly important in soccer, surely it would be worth the effort to correct even two or three of the worst officiating blunders of each World Cup. Imagine a world where the “Mano de Dios” goal had never counted…

Third, make the referees’ jobs easier by attacking the epidemic of diving, play-acting, protesting players. This is admittedly a tall order; but I have a modest proposal for a first step: A new award, to be given out at every future World Cup, for the player who most valiantly stays on his feet and plays on after receiving the hardest of fouls.

The award should be given a name that evokes machismo, or nobility, or preferably both. I can’t think of anything super-terrific off the top of my head, so for now I’ll just call it the “Tough Man Trophy”. (Hmm…perhaps Ford would be interested in sponsoring it. Do they sell “Built Ford Tough” trucks in Europe? In South America?)

The winner would be given a nice trophy…and a cool €1,000,000. Suppose that would be enough to keep the odd Italian on his feet?

Mmm…now that is a poser…

A little over two years ago, I made my smartest computing decision since the time, back in the ’80s, when I chose a Mac SE to take with me to college. It was a simple yet life-changing decision to take control of my own e-mail, by acquiring my own domain name, adding POP service to it, and moving my primary e-mail address there.

My primary purpose in doing so at the time was to free myself to hop between cut-price dialup ISPs, without having to constantly worry about changing my e-mail addresses. (Thankfully, I was eventually rescued from that communications purgatory of bare-bones telephone service, cheap dialup Internet, and lifeline cable television when I got a raise at work and then took advantage of an excellent bundling deal from BellSouth.) The best and most lasting benefit, however, was nearly two years without spam in my primary e-mail box.

How did I manage that? It was a combination of precautions on my part, and the vagaries of the trade on the spammers’ part. The most important precaution was to establish a Yahoo! Mail account, and then give out only that address, to everyone except the most trusted sources. What helped me out on the spammers’ end is that it hardly pays for them to seek out e-mail boxes on custom domains like mine…domains they may not even be aware of.

Perhaps a little explanation would be in order. Spam operations tend to focus on domains where they know there are a lot of e-mail addresses—AOL, EarthLink, various other ISPs, Hotmail, Yahoo!, et cetera. A large number of e-mail addresses means it is worthwhile for them to try two favorite methods of reaching people: One, to try to figure out ways to harvest e-mail addresses (via hacking, monitoring traffic, or suchlike); two, to simply blast millions of e-mails to the service in question, each addressed to a more-or-less random guess as to what e-mail addresses might be in existence.

But it’s not worth the time or bandwidth to employ these tools against a single person who has set up his e-mail on some custom your-name-here.com domain…nor even to find and catalog such domains in the first place. Therefore, so long as I was careful (read: paranoid) enough to prevent my e-mail address from actually being handed to spammers on a plate—either directly or indirectly—I was home free.

And so I was; and it lasted for almost two years.

A few months ago, however, either I slipped up or they found me via some new spamming technology. First a small trickle of spam started coming in; now it’s more of a tidal wave. Or so it seems to me—I’m sure there are people whose addresses have been published on the Internet for some time who would want to slap me for complaining about a laughably small total of a dozen spam e-mails a day. But to me that’s an extreme imposition, since I lived without any spam at all for almost two years; and I didn’t have any filtering setup in place when it started to come in.

The holiday from spam, and now my rude reacquaintance with it, not only left me more sensitized to the annoyance of spam, but also to the pointlessness of it. How many idiots can there be out there who would arrange to refinance their home through some jerk who sent them a barely-literate nuisance message out of the blue? How many fools would trust a spammer who sent them an e-mail touting pH,rMa/cUt!iCls (the mangled drug names being an attempt to get around spam filters) with not only their money but their health…and for that matter, why aren’t more of them already dead from taking counterfeit drugs? How many people could there be out there who regularly use e-mail, but are somehow unable to get any information about where they might get an attractive loan offer or the prescription drugs they need, except through random spam?

Who would do any sort of business whatsoever with these parasites, who devote most of their time to finding new ways of getting around safeguards that people have put in place for the express purpose of not having to hear from them ever again? (And if we find out who, shouldn’t we go take away their computers, and telephones and power tools and firearms and car keys as well, to stop them from hurting themselves or someone else?)

Anyhow, it all seemed quite perfectly pointless to me already; but then, just this past week, I started seeing something new in my junk mail folder, something that topped all else.

Blank spam.

That is, a spam e-mail, with a standard spammy random/nonsensical/garbled/missing subject line, and no text.

No text. Nor any return receipt requests, malicious attachments, hidden scripts, or anything else. Just plain old nothing.

What on Earth could the purpose of that possibly be? Do they now expect me to e-mail them to inquire how they might like to swindle me?

Bizarre. Idiotic. Infuriating.

And that, my friends, is the unbearable pointlessness of spam.

Are what I am fussing over now. There are so many WordPress options and plugins and features and modifications and so forth that a person can tinker with—even after having had a template professionally designed—that it can be overwhelming.

I was up too late last night working just on the favicon (that little graphic thingy that appears next to a bookmark, and in various other places depending on your browser); but at least I am pleased with how it finally came out. If I hadn’t been able to take advantage of a free trial of the excellent Studio program from Microangelo, I might still be working on it. Man is it ever hard to fit two reasonably well-formed serif capitals into 16 by 16 pixels.

Any readers who are interested in whiling away the hours ginning up favicons for their own website could do a lot worse than starting with the favicon entry on Wikipedia, and the aforementioned free demo from Microangelo. Several of the links at the bottom of the Wikipedia article are rather helpful also.

When I am a bit closer to the end of this tinkering madness, I will write up some posts describing some things I have learned and discovered and installed and tweaked. In the meantime, I have placed an automatically-updated list of active plugins on the still-under-construction About page for anyone curious. I will also likely continue to post the odd tip here and there along the way.

But now it’s time to get back to learning a little about PHP, so I can improve my chances of not breaking things as I play around with stuff deep in the guts of my theme…

Don’t you need somebody to hate?

When there’s a big sporting event going on, I mean.

I know I sure do. Rooting for your favorite team is great, sure; but nothing quite gets the blood pumping and the passions stirring like rooting against players and teams you absolutely despise.

So it’s a bit of a concern that the two teams I have hated the most in past World Cup finals appear changed this time around, and mostly for the better.

Could it really have happened that Croatia got through the first half-hour of their opening match with only a single foul? That their solid back line not only managed to frustrate Brazil throughout the match, but fairly for the most part as well? That their strikers gave us so little in the way of theatrical tumbles to the turf? Davor Šuker would be turning in his grave, if he were dead.

The last two go-arounds, the Croatian side were the fiercest-fouling, hardest-diving, loudest-complaining, brazenest-cheating sons of you-know-whats this side of the Pecos. I loved them, because I relished loathing them. Now they’re just a reasonably-solid European side that’s performing better than expected but has little chance of going deep into the tournament. How much fun can I be expected to squeeze out of that?

But at least there’s the Argies, right? Those South American spurii, worshippers of the most famous World Cup cheater and customer of the Colombian cartels in the world; those irritating mama’s boys, whose long, stringy, greasy hair would fly into the air as they fell to the ground and cried out in pain after being lightly brushed by an opponent—they’re still in fine, despisable form, right?

Well, only sorta. Hernán Crespo is still on the roster, true; and the blood pressure still spikes each and every time the television cameras find Maradona in the stands, as they are want to do. But the six goals they racked up against Serbia and Montenegro…those weren’t just totally legit, they were brilliant. A fine performance all around, with very little to criticize, on grounds of either substance or style.

And even the trademark Argentine footballer hair seems to be fading, in favor of mullets and awkward-looking short cuts. Some readers may find this an odd thing to focus on; but I find it a lot easier to hate a guy with pretty-boy long hair than one with a mullet. The latter, you just feel sorry for.

It’s even hard to knock the Albicelestes fans, who, from what I’ve seen, have been both a large and a positive presence so far this World Cup. Also, a fella can’t help but notice how nicely the sky-blue-and-white stripes suit some of those señoritas argentinas…

Yikes! I’m going impossibly soft here! Can I still find somebody to hate? Help!

Sunday update: Disregard that call for help for now. Croatia came through brilliantly today, and look to be finding their old form after all. Dado Prso backing into a Japanese defender to draw a penalty kick (a punishment I was sure, after the first week of matches, that FIFA must have secretly abolished) was only the highlight of a solid performance full of diving and complaining and other annoyances.

I’ll find myself at sea once again, however, if on Thursday the Croats can’t get past Australia—rough customers themselves, truth be told; but how could one ever manage to hate the Aussies?

Thank goodness for the World Cup. With three matches kicking off each and every day, it has monopolized my attention in my free time, shoving politics mercilessly to the side.

I’m finding that the longer this little holiday from politics goes on, the happier I am about it. Summertime is typically the height of Silly Season in politics anyhow, and so sensible persons are always advised to pay the never-ending clown show in D.C. less mind at this time of year, World Cup or no World Cup.

For instance, were any of us edified in any way by the whole Gary Condit saga? (Remember?) Is anyone going to remember what the “Hadji Girl” nonsense was all about in a year’s time? (Hey, I’m normally a confirmed political junkie, but I have no idea what it’s about now. Hooray for the World Cup!)

So, if you care for soccer at all, be sure to have some matches TiVoed while you’re at work, and be sure to start watching one immediately whenever you find yourself wondering what’s going on in the world of politics. If you can’t stand soccer, well, I feel badly for you this month; but try to find something to fully occupy your thoughts and your free time this summer. The political scene will still be there when you return from your holiday away from politics, and odds are, nothing of any real significance will have changed.

Of the many and varied benefits of having a blog, one of the most richly satisfying is the ability to get pet peeves off one’s chest by announcing them to the world. And so, I present Blog Goliard’s inaugural Pet Peeve of the Week:

• Sportscasters’ use of the word “within”

This particular broadcasting commonplace has landed on my ears with a clang for as long as I can remember. (Which would be since round about February, but that’s not important right now.) If someone tells you that the nearest gas station is “within” five miles of here, you would expect it to be, oh, somewhere between three and five miles of here, right? But in any event, less than five miles. If someone tells you that they live “within” the city limits, you would expect their house to be inside of said limits, yes?

So when a sportscaster tells me that, say, the Edmonton Oilers have pulled to “within a goal” of the Carolina Hurricanes, my first thought is: “All right, they’re less than one goal behind now!” Followed by: “Wait a minute, it’s impossible to be behind by less than a goal.” And then: “I’ve really got to blog about this pet peeve sometime.”

So now I have.

Not only that, but I’ve set myself up nicely for next week’s pet peeve: “Pedants who object to niggling details of English usage.” Sweet.

If any of you out there were trying to reach this website over the last hour or so, you would have noticed a short, cryptic error message in place of this lovely new blog.

It would have stayed that way much longer had I not backed everything up shortly before doing what I did that made everything go haywire.

Backing stuff up saved my bacon this time. Whereas not backing stuff up has gotten it fried many times in the past.

So that’s why I’m sending out this helpful little reminder to the world: Back up early and often! Back up your backups, even!

(Oh, and while I’m at it—I’ll bet you should really be flossing more. And make sure you eat your vegetables. And don’t make that face; what if it froze like that? And…oops, sorry, parental overdrive kicking in at an inappropriate time here, sorry.)

I’ve even got a few bonus lessons for those of you running WordPress blogs:

1) Before installing any plugin, read the readme file.

2) Popularity Contest is a neat thing when it works, and all laud and honor to the author; but be aware that if it doesn’t work with your template, it can immediately mess things up, in the most thorough and scary fashion.

3) So did I mention that you really ought to do your backups?

(And don’t go swimming for at least a half-hour after you eat. And…oops, sorry again. Better quit now.)

Why is the title of this post in Spanish? Because I have not only been overdosing on World Cup soccer since last Friday, but have spent most of that time watching it on Univision.

No, I don’t speak Spanish. Why do you ask?

Okay, okay; I’ll explain. Last time around, in 2002, I didn’t have cable or satellite, just rabbit ears…and most of the games being broadcast in English were on ESPN. But luckily, I could pick up an over-the-air Univision affiliate where I lived at the time, and they broadcast every single game for the benefit of my soccer-besotted self.

So for a time, the Spanish coverage was my only choice. But after a while it became my preferred choice, and still is.

Now to be fair, things have gotten better over the years on the English channels. More games broadcast; no more clumsy attempts by American directors to edit their own video feed; slightly less annoying commentary. But I still prefer Univision, even though I only understand a small sliver of the commentary (but that sliver continues to get bigger all the time…yes! my World Cup obsession is educational!). Here are a few reasons why.

1) Studio host Fernando Fiore. I love Fernando Fiore. I want to be Fernando Fiore. And that’s all I have to say about that.

2) Pre-game ceremonies. Univision always shows the players in the tunnel waiting, then their entrance into the stadium, then the national anthems of each country…all without interruption. Big games deserve a fitting—though not excessive—buildup, and Univision’s team usually comes through quite nicely in this regard.

3) Color commentators. Sure, José Luis Chilavert may not be the most seasoned pro in the booth, but I loved him so when he was the keeper for the Paraguayan national team, and he’s still got lots of personality, so I’m always happy to see him doing a broadcast. But I’m even happier when I see “El Profe”, Jesús Bracamontes. Even with the language barrier, I tend to learn more from him than most of the annnouncers on ABC/ESPN. (Some viewers who are fluent in Spanish seem to deride him as Captain Obvious…but since it has to be pretty basic and obvious for me to understand anything on that channel, that might be precisely why I get so much out of El Profe.) And he’s got quite a daughter, too…sure can’t let her go without a mention.

4) Excitement. Most everyone knows about this one: When somebody scores a goal on a Spanish-language broadcast, by golly, you know they’ve scored a goal. It’s Latin passion rolled into some well-polished, iconic sportscasting shtick—how can you go wrong with that?

5) Concentration. While I do understand what the commentators are saying every now and then, most of the time it remains a blur…and that actually helps me focus better on the game. When I’ve watched a match on ABC or ESPN, I find I’ve got more factoids to throw around afterwards; but I’ve got more to say about the match itself, particularly the team performances and tactics, if I’ve watched it on Univision.

I probably could go on, but this post is quite long enough; and in a few minutes it will be time to leave the office, go shoot some hoops on the way home, then settle in my favorite chair in front of the TiVo for some Alemania v. Polonia. Here’s hoping for muchos golazos!

The prayer commonly known as the “Prayer of St. Blog” does not come to us from any of the saint’s known, authenticated writings, but rather from an unattributed cache of rare illuminated-HTML manuscripts, stumbled across by workmen at the famed Monasterium inter Retia as they installed the first abbey-wide LAN.

Whatever its true provenance, I wholeheartedly endorse the sentiments the prayer expresses; and as a longtime feminaferrophile, it seems only natural to me to observe the occasion of my blog’s relaunch by quoting just such a prayer. And so:

The “Prayer of St. Blog”

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Web.
Where there is flaming, let me bring peace;
where there is flackery, candor;
where there is arrogance, fitting mockery;
where there is ponderousness, wit;
where there is doubt, links;
and where there is error, Fisking.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to receive traffic, as to refer it;
to be appreciated, as to appreciate;
to lecture and be read, as to read and learn.
For it is in sharing information that we increase it,
and in visiting others’ blogs that we become worth visiting ourselves.

Amen.