Tigranes

To be fair, lip readers have come up with a wild variety of insults, and that link IS the Sun. It would be just as unfair to condemn Materazzi without at least Zidane telling us what he said.

tl;dr, kthxbye. on zidane: If Zidane does reveal what was said, it probably wouldn't be word to word (in the press ,anyway, maybe to FIFA) - then of course, Materazzi will deny. Accusations, counter-accusations, pulling names into the mud while a lengthy FIFA investigation draws little of import and media focus fades away. At this point, since I realy don't see Materazzi getting punished (by the public or by FIFA) much, I'd rather that Zidane could retire in peace. If I were him, I wouldn't be too bothered anymore by the ruckus of those he has left behind.

Soccer doesn't suffer from lack of US interest, so amazingly enough, no non-USer cares about US viewership. Not being angry, just ironic. US statistics are so often seen as representative of the world (that matters).

So it's okay to kill villains?

Half the Italian team has tattoos.

He had a shoulder injury. Other rumours include insulting his mother (who is sick and in hospital now apparently), mocking Zidane's football mentor who recently died after a long cancer battle, suggesting his castration, etc, etc.

Pixies is wise. Anyway, kumquat's quote is right. Not that it excuses Zidane, but it doesn't matter - Zidane will be one of the best players of football history, and he certainly was the most entertaining player of the cup, because he had style and flair and actually used it to the team's advantage *cough* *CR17* *cough*. Besides, he's retired from football. It's rather trivial to worry about what he feels, or what he is; but the rest of us (uh, those of us who like soccer, anyway) should think about the current state of football and its dirty nature from this incident; the diving, the whining, the shirtpulling, the racist comments from players and fans, timewasting, etc.

Not at all. In any event anywhere, if you dig long enough you'll find similar 'curious' connections. I have seen far more mysterious and intricate numerological connections (esp. to 9/11) in forwarded emails from high school kids.

No, I'm trying to imply that the lack of condemning evidence has nothing to do with the validity of an elaborate conspiracy theory based on numerology and what is absent, with no materiality. There's no need for Atreides to explain himself.

But do you like mine?

On the morning of September eleven, I woke up and noticed I had two legs parallel to each other, which CLEARLY forms an eleven. Then I had precisely nine cups of coffee that week. OMG?!

Pirouette, check, Screaming agonised face, check, entire body in the air, check Obscuring ref view, fail.

Right, then when Italy wins you're right, when France wins the evil conspiracy has been thwarted by the force of supraromanticism tha has bestowed its light on Zizou. I'm on board, where do I sign?

Well, the first and second dimensions could either be described as extant withiin the third dimension (in this universe) - either that, or humans cannot see/feel the first and second dimensions. Because for example, a 'point' or a 'line' cannot exist in our universe which is 3D, so everything has depth and size.

Yeah, lighting would be phenomenal. IE engines looked as good as they did because of the meticulous lighting. It's just one of those things that makes immersion and style go up in oodles.

Low-tech graphics are fine if they have style. Right now menus have style but lack polish, and as for those pseudo-Roman generics on the field... Gwarb?

Yet Coupet will retire from the international stage after this tournament in all likelihood. Is anyone reassured by an upcoming Landreau-Frey pairing?

It's from the Codex, Fallout > Magic.

Dungeon crawlers should be designed to be played at such a pace. As much as I enjoy Icewind Dale, I felt that it was too combat-heavy for its own design system, and thus 'wore out' the player. Perhaps that has something to do with my penchant for playing a single game for hours on end, however... I can't think that many dungeon crawlers are supposed to be played that way.

Thank God, the stupid arguments about Volourn are over and we can move on to talk about the game, ja? I think one promising sign is that the number of classes and skills are not very large (7 and 23, respectively). Many small-time games try to encapsulate a huge variety of gameplay options to satisfy the Fan's Lament of streamlining and dumbing down - but it looks like these guys have realised the difficulty of trying to achieve that in an indie game, and picked their way through. Not too sure I'm attracted by the heavily Roman-influenced setting (Weimer & Co's Byzantine setting seems more interesting), but I suppose they wanted the postapocalyptic element in there too. Looks good to put on a long-term watch.

Yeah, Ronaldo played well. It was really funny to see every Port attack end in a cross straight to Barthez and a simultaneous Port dive, however. France weren't as entertaining as they were vs Spain and Brazil, but I rather suspected that would always be the case. Hopefully the final can give a good show.

When Odonkor came on for the Poland game, I was very amused: the commentators warped on for minutes about his amazing breathtaking speed, then Odonkor, a fresh subtitute, proceeded to race a tired Polish full back for the ball, lose by a yard then get reprimanded for holding on to the other's shirt. Anyway, I'm definitely a French fan (since 98), but I have to say Portugal and especially Ronaldo are playing very well. They are passing quickly and moving around to disrupt the Vieira/Makelele wall, so the back four has a lot more to do. I suppose since they are losing they can't disrupt and bog down the game like they did to the Dutch, and that's all the better for the viewer.

Now, now. We should all learn to appreciate the art of the future.

Even kids are starting to dive around in the little league. What I mean by that is that some of the growing generations (in which I'm included) are beginning to accept diving as a *legitimate* attempt at something which is perfectly fine if you get away with it, and should be congratulated. Diving needs to be minimised, not left to fester as it is now. mkreku: football players are expected to do that, too. But only after rolling on the ground and earning a free kick. THEN they can bandage their whatevers and fight on heroically!

Practically, diving is a good idea to employ in 'moderation' in modern football. That's practically. I also know that we now see diving in little kids playing soccer, and some (especially under 20) believe it is 'entertaining'. I don't know. I think it's horrible, and while it will never be eradicated, this kind of "oh well" attitude makes it worse. Diving is a horrible thing, because if everybody stayed on their feet like their lives depended on it we'd see much more flowing, and much more entertaining football. IMO diving should be abhored and their dedicated disciples (e.g. Drogba) attacked much more severely. The Italians have always been guilty of it in the past, but since I haven't seen the semi-final I won't presume to apply the law of precedence there. Italy are a good team and they can sometimes play very entertaining football, but there's a reason I don't support them. Anyway, Frenchies. Scolari's Portugal is aggressive and isn't afraid to use such tactics, so we shall see how the older French squad rides out the frustrations, I don't think they'll snap like the Dutch did. The fitness question might come into play, however, if it goes into extra time, especially since Ribery and Henry will be exhausted during normal time as the main sources of pace in the team.