Brazil over Germany in the final, 3-0.

    Just got back from Yearly Kos in Vegas, about to commence Germany v. Costa Rica and the rest on the TiVo.  Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy.

    Will post much on what I saw an heard at the convention later on.  Fascinating weekend.  Cranked both my hope (about fellow Americans) and skepticism (about our politicians) up a notch at the same time.

    But for now, I gotta go catch up with the rest of the world.  Oh boy oh boy oh boy…

    PS: Not that you asked or probably care, I’ll generally be cheering for whichever country is the underdog in most matches, especially if they’re also an economic underdog.  This way, when you see Ecuador playing Poland, for example, you have two good reasons to root for Ecuador.  (Who just won 2-0 on the TiVo.  Hurray!)

    So while my much-adored, sport-mad, heretofore soccer-poor Australia will be high on my list, I’ll be hollering for Ghana and Ivory Coast and so on even more.  (Slightly better soccer, much worse economies.) 

    Which means that I’ll be cheering for Trinidad & Tobago hardest of all, by a considerable margin.  Smallest nation ever to reach the World Cup, they have virtually no chance of winning even a single match, and yet the Soca Warriors, simply by their presence in this arena, are a source of national pride.

    Besides which, Tobago is spectacular, as I believe I may have mentioned once or twice.

    UPDATE! Sweden 0, T & T 0!  Whoo-hoo!  Sweden could have won 5-0 or worse, given the run of play.  But they didn’t.  Ball after ball went zing! just past the T & T goal or was blocked at the last instant by the keeper, who was magnificent.  The whole second half was less like football than watching a drunken knife-throwing act and rooting for the girl to survive.

    I know to a lot of you, this is meaningless, but what I would give right now to be munching on a roti at Store Bay right now and just looking at the smiles on everyone’s faces.  

    Seriously, if you’re missing the World Cup, you are missing out. 

    Brazil over Germany in the final, 3-0.

    Just got back from Yearly Kos in Vegas, about to commence Germany v. Costa Rica and the rest on the TiVo.  Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy.

    Will post much on what I saw an heard at the convention later on.  Fascinating weekend.  Cranked both my hope (about fellow Americans) and skepticism (about our politicians) up a notch at the same time.

    But for now, I gotta go catch up with the rest of the world.  Oh boy oh boy oh boy…

    PS: Not that you asked or probably care, I’ll generally be cheering for whichever country is the underdog in most matches, especially if they’re also an economic underdog.  This way, when you see Ecuador playing Poland, for example, you have two good reasons to root for Ecuador.  (Who just won 2-0 on the TiVo.  Hurray!)

    So while my much-adored, sport-mad, heretofore soccer-poor Australia will be high on my list, I’ll be hollering for Ghana and Ivory Coast and so on even more.  (Slightly better soccer, much worse economies.) 

    Which means that I’ll be cheering for Trinidad & Tobago hardest of all, by a considerable margin.  Smallest nation ever to reach the World Cup, they have virtually no chance of winning even a single match, and yet the Soca Warriors, simply by their presence in this arena, are a source of national pride.

    Besides which, Tobago is spectacular, as I believe I may have mentioned once or twice.

    UPDATE! Sweden 0, T & T 0!  Whoo-hoo!  Sweden could have won 5-0 or worse, given the run of play.  But they didn’t.  Ball after ball went zing! just past the T & T goal or was blocked at the last instant by the keeper, who was magnificent.  The whole second half was less like football than watching a drunken knife-throwing act and rooting for the girl to survive.

    I know to a lot of you, this is meaningless, but what I would give right now to be munching on a roti at Store Bay right now and just looking at the smiles on everyone’s faces.  

    Seriously, if you’re missing the World Cup, you are missing out. 

    So I get to the Riviera in Vegas, which is an older hotel and shows it in every surface, and I’m wandering through the empty casino area at about 8:30 this morning, trying to find the convention area and wondering if I’m even in the right place for this shindig.

    And then I come around the corner and standing right in front of me is Joe Wilson.

    As in Ambassador Joe Wilson, author of the op-ed piece that blew the whistle on Bush’s lies about Iraq trying to buy yellowcake from Niger.  Ambassador Joe Wilson whose family was made an example of in revenge by the White House by outing his covert CIA wife, Valerie Plame, the first CIA operative in history to be outed by her own government, the case which has led to the indictment of Dick Cheney’s chief of staff and which will ultimately probably result in many more similar prosecutions.

    Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was personally responsible for staring down Saddam Hussein just before the first U.S. war in Iraq, obtaining the safe passage home of numerous American citizens.

    Gen-u-ine American hero Joe Wilson. 

    Nice guy, it turns out.

    Last place I ever figured I’d meet this guy was in the hallways of a cheesy old Vegas hotel.

    Truly interesting country, this America. 

    But then we all knew that.

    So I get to the Riviera in Vegas, which is an older hotel and shows it in every surface, and I’m wandering through the empty casino area at about 8:30 this morning, trying to find the convention area and wondering if I’m even in the right place for this shindig.

    And then I come around the corner and standing right in front of me is Joe Wilson.

    As in Ambassador Joe Wilson, author of the op-ed piece that blew the whistle on Bush’s lies about Iraq trying to buy yellowcake from Niger.  Ambassador Joe Wilson whose family was made an example of in revenge by the White House by outing his covert CIA wife, Valerie Plame, the first CIA operative in history to be outed by her own government, the case which has led to the indictment of Dick Cheney’s chief of staff and which will ultimately probably result in many more similar prosecutions.

    Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was personally responsible for staring down Saddam Hussein just before the first U.S. war in Iraq, obtaining the safe passage home of numerous American citizens.

    Gen-u-ine American hero Joe Wilson. 

    Nice guy, it turns out.

    Last place I ever figured I’d meet this guy was in the hallways of a cheesy old Vegas hotel.

    Truly interesting country, this America. 

    But then we all knew that.

… stays in Australia.

    By popular demand (there were numerous emails this week), here’s a boy, an Aussie rules football, and an alpaca:

    This image and a skillion similar ones have apparently been all over the Aussie news lately.  Although apparently this is bad for the alpaca, which will grow to think it’s natural to kick human beings around.

    Here, we’d elect him to some sort of political office.

    For my own part, I’m off to Vegas for the convention all the cool kids are already at.  I understand that what happens in Vegas… can usually be resolved by broad-spectrum antibiotics.

    If I come home in a footy jersey, with a distant smile on my face, and covered in alpaca hair… we will not speak of this again.