Il gioco ugly. People aren't very happy with the Italian team down here, myself included, thanks to last week's now infamous incident (if you missed it, see the video here). Italy's the butt of jokes continent-wide, and will be for a long time to come. The emails are flying -- there's this and this and (warning: may offend) this.

Today at soccer, a guy I was covering took a dive in the box, and later admitted it to me sheepishly. "So, are you Italian?" I asked. He laughed.

I think it's time to adopt children, so that I can teach them to hate the Italian style of soccer.

Long night's journey into day.

Thursday

7:00 pm: Soccer practice.
7:30 pm: I quit because my hip is sore. Full recovery will take longer than I had hoped.
9:00 pm: Begin getting ready for bed. Set the alarm for 1:50 am, since USA/Ghana game will be on at 2:00 am.
9:23 pm: Circuit breaker trips, as it is wont to do. We can't run the dryer at the same time as the bedroom heater. I reset the alarm for 1:50, and the time to 9:23.
5:00 am: I wake with a start, and quickly realize that I should have set the clock to 21:23, not 9:23. Nuts. I've been waiting four years to watch Team USA in the cup, and now I've slept through the critical game.
5:02 am: Learn from the internet that the USA lost. Groooaaaannn... Sleeping through it was a mercy.
5:04 am: Switch on the TV, and Australia is already losing 1-0, after the second minute. Groan again...
5:38 am: Australia equalizes! Justified penalty. Australia seems to be dominating.
5:45 am: Halftime. I jump in the shower and quickly ready myself for work.
6:11 am: Croatia goes ahead 2-1, on the softest goal I've seen in the WC so far. This was our replacement keeper, who coach Guus decided to start that day, for some reason. I hate and feel for him.
6:12 am: We only need a tie to advance. For some reason, I just know we're going to do it. So I run down to the tram stop to head down to Federation Square for the action.
6:15 am: Come on, you stupid tram...
6:30 am: Arrive at Federation Square. The cops are preventing any more people from getting in, but you can see the screen from the street. On top of a small set of stairs there are two policemen on horses; squeezing behind them are two guys angling for a better view, essentially standing in a pile of horse dung.
6:34 am: Kewell equalizes! Much jumping and screaming. I timed my run perfectly, as they say.
6:45 am: The barriers come down. We all run up as far as we can go. You'd think it's Texas Hold'em night the way cards are flying on the field.
6:47 am: Game over. Jubilation! People are chanting, singing, lighting flares.
6:50 am-7:30 am: Victory celebration. Fans take over Melbourne's busiest intersection at the corner of Flinders and Swanston. Cops on horses try to move them off, but they keep filling in behind. The trams start to pile up. Fans are singing: AuzZAY! Auzzay Auzzay Auzzaaaay! Auzzaaaaay, Auzzaaaay! Somebody climbs up on a tram, dancing. After fifteen minutes, Guy with a drum starts leading people up the street, in what is now apparently a new tradition (which happened spontaneously after the last match): the victory march to the Parliament building. Sights along the way: People slamming their hands on the windows and doors of the backed-up trams. Somebody climbed atop a phone booth to dance. At the Nike store, there is a window display of Socceroos jerseys; a line of guys got down on their knees and did we-are-not-worthy bows. Fans surround a Chinese guy sweeping the walk in front of his store -- and he starts dancing with them. Somebody climbed on top of a truck and danced as it rolled down the street.

On arriving at the Parliament house, the crowd is already singing "Waltzing Matilda". I hang around for a half hour or so just to soak it all in, and burn off some more of the disappointment at the USA loss. I decide it's time for work.

On the walk to work I decide my traditional American breakfast won't cut it, so I stop for a meat pie.

Speaking of.

As I mentioned before, I'm back! Following yesterday's return to action, boring match reports are back over on The Dull Blog.

Speaking of soccer, after a little too much jocularity at the wine tasting, it was all I could do to make it to the living room for the Australia game last night, let alone downtown. It was a good match, a respectable match, but a disappointing result for the Aussies.

Speaking of international flavors, over the weekend we went rented a car and went up to Footscray to have Ethiopian food. Very yum.

Speaking of tasty news, The Comedy Channel is going to start showing The Daily Show at 9:30 nightly, instead of the once-a-week Daily Show Global Edition on CNN at god-forsaken o'clock in the morning. Now there's no reason to leave Australia. Well, at least once we convince our families to move down here en masse.

And speaking of family, Happy Father's Day, Dad!

What a corker of a match that was. USA should count themselves lucky to come away with a point against Italy, in a match where anything could (and did) happen.

I have a dream. It's not a big dream, it's a little dream. My dream is that the USA will actually score a goal in this tournament.

It can all turn around next weekend. Our group is completely up for grabs. We need to beat Ghana (which will NOT be easy) and for Italy to beat the Czech Republic (which, well, who knows?). It will be something to watch.

My schedule today:

5am: Wake to watch USA v. Italy.
10am: Soccer match. I'm back! I've asked to play only 15 minutes though.
2:30pm: Wine tasting.
7pm-1am: Nap.
1am-3am: Australia v. Brazil. Right now I'm planning on going down to Federation Square to watch. It'll be cold as heck, and the middle of the night, and the trams will stop running by the end of the game -- but the amazing might happen.

What a sweet moment last night as Australia came back with three goals in the final six minutes to cancel out Japan's unjust early goal. It was enough to make an Aussie march on Parliament! Marjorie came out at around 3 a.m. to find me dancing around the living room. (Next game is against the Brazilians, who will hand the Socceroos their asses of course, but you never know, so I'm definitely going to head down there.)

My bliss lasted about an hour, until about five minutes into the USA game. Ugh. In true soccer fandom tradition, I'm already of the opinion that we need a new coach. I think he forgot to tell the Team USA players that they were playing in the World Cup.

When in Rome. In LA I also did yoga for the first time ever. It was pretty tough. There was no experience of enlightenment or even relaxation, but I didn't really expect any the first time. Mostly I just tried to keep from falling down.

It is 5 AM, and you are listening to Los Angeles. Or at least, when you are on still on Los Angeles time, you are getting up at 5 AM. At least there's stuff to watch on TV.

We are back in Melbourne now and trying to get back on schedule. Luckily, Monday is a public holiday, but Monday night Australia and the USA play back-to-back into the wee hours. Sleep is overrated anyway.

We really had a fantastic visit back to the states. I can say, objectively, that my six nieces and nephews are the most adorable in the world. What a great day we all had, splashing around the water park.

The flight back was, to get back into using local phraseology, a piece of piss; we slept most of the way, and our neighbor stayed in her seat. Kudos to Air New Zealand.

Arriving in Melbourne we were greeted with bitter cold and grey. The sun's out now but it's still all nipply outside. Inside our house, it's at least not windy.

Atlanta summary:

Saw a lot of friends, but not everyone we wanted to see.

Ate a lot of good food, but missed several restaurants we wanted to eat at.

Wow, I forgot how fast everyone drives.

Also forgot how every new condo is called a "loft" so that they can charge you an extra 20% for not finishing the place.

I can't believe Chic-Fil-A is still using those morbid cows in their ads.

Likewise for Geico and the gecko.

Strip malls are breeding exponentially.

Marjorie's parents are the best! (After my own, of course.)

Things I had completely forgotten about in the US:

Check-cashing stores

Radio Shack

Popeye's fried chicken

Cashiers at clothing stores asking "Did anyone help you with this?"

Just how big a Super Target store can be

TV ads for feminine products

Right on red
The standard US coins seem smaller than I remember, too. And why are all the dollar bill denominations the same size and color?

We did have a blast in LA. After too much shopping in Santa Monica, we finally went our for proper Mexican, and just hung out in the booth all night while friends of Michael and Kristina stopped by and took off again. From that description it doesn't sound like a glamorous LA night, but you had to be there.

We're in (very north) Atlanta now, doing to much shopping and taking care of other errands. I thought we were getting over the jet lag but last night we were both awake from 4 am until 7 or 8. Bleah.

Well, I claimed to like flying, but this flight wasn't all that great. Not the airline's fault -- Air New Zealand was timely, with good food and service, and TVs in every seat back, which is getting more common these days, thankfully. I watched The Fastest Indian and The Matador, which were both good; also parts of Syriana, The Producers, and a lot of TV episodes. Interesting cultural aside -- the pilot interrupted everyone's movies to announce the result of a New Zealand rugby match.

But I was stuck in a center seat, next to a guy with serious personal space issues. Crying babies will eventually stop, but a guy who huffs at you when you try to push his knee out of your space is a flying nightmare. Of course, it's tough to sleep while being constantly irked. I would have got into it with him verbally, but I knew the adreneline that would result would've made sleep impossible. I thought about queuing up Brokeback Mountain on my TV and then rubbing his leg seductively as an aversion tactic but was afraid it might've had the opposite effect I was intending.

So I'm operating on sunlight and Mountain Dew at the moment (the first thing we did was make a run for the border). We're about to run out to Santa Monica to do some shopping, and there's a shindig of some sort tonight, so I'm just going to push through.

What's a good day for you? For me it's sitting on plane for the whole day, watching movies, reading, doing puzzles, looking out the window... I'm a freak, sure. But that's my tomorrow. And what's waiting for me at the other end of this flight? Three words: proper Mexican food.

I'm an idiot, because after mentally preparing for my dentist appointment today, and mentioning it to several people, I plum forgot to go. Rescheduled for Friday.

It only adds to what promises to be a mad week of preparing for our trip stateside which we embark on next weekend. So much to do, still, and lots to wrap up at work, plus two talks to give.

It's been two years, four months since I've set foot in the US. Crazy, man. I can't wait to see everyone -- especially all the nieces and nephews, include one niece I've (shamefully) never met, who's four. We're all going to go for a bit of splash, which should be a hoot.

I'm twenty five years and ten thousand miles from where I last had to face a dentist's drill, so I was a bit apprehensive. There are four fillings to replace; I was hoping to do them all today, just to get it done with, so he just did one side.

"We can fire up the camera again if you want to watch what's going on," he said.

Yeah, no thanks.

The worst part is still the needle. I just have to close my eyes and go to my happy place as soon as he whips that thing out. The other worst part was that the drill occasionally found the resonant frequency of my skull. Yesh, I did thound like thish for a while afterwards, but beyond the needle, the procedure was without pain.

I'm glad to get rid of these fillings. Not because they're mercury -- I don't buy the hysteria about that -- but because they were leaking. My mouth has been like a petri dish lately (ick, I know, sorry). As a bonus, the new fillings are white instead of dark.

I get to do it all again on the other side next Monday. At least I know what to expect now.

Singapore and the UK have banned this ad for Australian tourism in their respective countries.

Singapore I can understand, but the UK? The people who brought us this and this and this?

Had my visit today with Arthur O'Scoppy (he's friends with Fizzy O'Therapist).

The last time I had surgery I was in my twenties, and so had that immortal, indestructable feeling going in. This time I was a little more apprehensive. Still, I couldn't have been that nervous, as I took an hour long nap before the operation after they were done with the prep work.

I couldn't help having the opening theme from Six Feet Under in my head as they wheeled me down the hall, though.

They put me on the operating table, then turned on my drip and said "You're going to start to feel a little strange." "Stranger than being surrounded by all these people and lights and equipment while half naked, you mean?" That was the last I remember, before waking up in post op and asking, "Stupid question, I know, but have I had the operation yet?"

Apparently, it took about twenty minutes. I can walk, without crutches, but slowly and gingerly. It's six hours later, and I just took a couple of pills but probably could have done without. Signs are good for a quick recovery.

No numb groin neither!

Last fall every weekend was gorgeous, it seems. This fall, not so lucky. Today was drizzly and cold. But, we went to check out the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre and had a nice romp around their facilities. It was good practice for our impending trip back to the states -- we're planning a big family gathering at Disney's Typhoon Lagoon. Fortunately, Marjorie and I still have the ability to run around like kids and even went on their waterslide.

The other movie we watched last weekend, at least partly, was Devdas -- the most expensive Bollywood epic ever made.

The quality of music, dancing, and acting were an order of magnitude above your average cheesy Bollywood potboiler, but that only made it less fun.

In fact, several incidents really gave us pause. In one, the main character Devdas finds that his true love is marrying someone else, after he spurned her. They argue, and he sucker-smacks her with a necklace, making her bleed from the forehead. On her wedding day, I might add. Instead of her giving him the heave-ho, they instead decide together that this injury will be a symbol of their love.

In another, her mother is expecting his family to welcome her daughter, but instead they reject her, because she is of low caste. The mother, distraught, is heard to comment, "I came here to wish you a long life and grandsons. But instead I wish you granddaughters!"

India's a messed up place.

Happy Easter! Just wrapping up a nice four-day weekend. Highlights:

Soccer practice on Thursday night. Scrimmaged when I probably shouldn't have, but it was a tonne of fun. Drinks afterwards at The Limerick Arms.

Lots of movies. Somehow I had never seen "Glengarry Glen Ross": outstanding.

Bowling at Melbourne Central while waiting to see "March of the Penguins". Video jukebox played our videos on screen right next to the scoring. Sophie Ellis Bextor, woo hoo!

A fine bottle of Prosecco to celebrate Easter.

Sleeping in.

Finally found the book in a local Borders. Fun to see your name (and words!) in print. Would've bought it, but I can get it cheaper back in the states. For some reason, I didn't expect to see it in the "self help" section. While browsing there, I learned an interesting fact: women, it seems, are from Venus, while men are from Mars. Who knew?