SAMUEL'S RANTS

External hard drive dies on me taking quite a lot of photos and music with it. And to think I switched it on yesterday to copy the photos to another external drive. Damn! The hard drive was making clicking noises, noises I assumed were coming from my Wii.

I was busy googling wii noises all the time while my hard drive was gurgling. Makes it even worse. Should have gotten a clue when the hd was so slow last night. I attributed it to Windows acting up again. What a waste!

On a happier note, Spain won on penalties. Justice done, for the game should have been Spain's. I thought they deserved a penalty and two free kicks from the edge of the box, which leads me to the refereeing. What the hell was the referee doing there at this important a game? Does UEFA have it in for Spain? Not just the penalty and free kicks, the ref had a uniformly horrid game.

Each time Spain made a break, the Italian who lost the challenge would go down in 'pain' and the referee just stops the play and negates Spain's advantage. I am positive that the referee does not have the authority to take the ball out of play unless there is a foul and to see the power go to the ref's head was maddening. As if this were not enough, David Villa gets a Yellow for slipping in the box. He did not ask for a penalty and neither die he 'dive' to make the ref give a penalty. What a shocker of a game from the ref. I hope this is his last game in the tournament.

This is my Arsenal fanboy coming to the fore, but I thought bringing Fabregas in made the game just a bit more open and pacier, and talking of pace Daniel Guiza looked all out of sorts there and Aragones must be so relieved his miss did not come back to haunt Spain. Daniel Guiza is the leading scorer in the Spanish league as is Toni in the German league.How, just how is that possible, both guys have just ambled along never looking like they would score in this tournament.

This sets up one mouth watering semi-final between Russia and Spain and I am pretty sure that we are not going to see a repeat of the 4-1 scoreline in favor of Spain. I hope Russia stay true to their attacking ethos they have shown so far and I am looking forward to Arshavin having a good game. Both teams are suspect to dead ball situations, so this should be a fascinating game.

The other semi though, with Turkey missing so many from suspensions and injury looks to be Germany's for the taking. So who do I support to win it all? Is it Germany cos Ballack has never won a big final always losing at the final hurdle, Spain because they have never won anything or Russia because they are just so exciting, or Turkey because they are not expected to even make the finals. I am a neutral and for a change, it is not going to hurt who loses or wins. What a relief.

By which I mean , spotty infrequent blogging in bad English. Hopefully there are no long breaks this time.

Before I leave, it is so refreshing to watch Euro 2008 without rooting for anyone. This has been a good tournament for a neutral, but is it too much to ask for Russia to do well? All teams I have supported bar the Red Sox have lost this year, so I hope I am not jinxing Russia, but seeing them lose would not hurt at all.

Seeing Arsenal lose everything can do that to you, you no longer care much about other teams cos no other disappointment is likely to match it, so hey the Lakers went down, but it isn't a big deal anyway. Here's hoping Arsenal and Lakers do better next year.

If anyone has noticed, there haven't been many posts on the political scene here. Primary reason being John Edwards stepping out early and also the fact that I took the Dem loss in the previous election hard and have no reason to get into the whole process this time. I am quite resigned to accepting the same outcome as earlier. I am having a very hard time believing Obama can overcome Mccain.

But hey maybe 'We can' do it. Wouldn't that be an awesome day?

There, I have finally posted something. That's a huge load off my back.

"It is commonly a weak man who marries for love." - Samuel Johnson

Never have I seen a top tier team so brittle as my beloved soccer club Arsenal, the question not being if they would fuck up, but when they would, and man oh man what a way to end the season.

 No win in five games and well on their way to a flameout today, already down to ten men and going by the track record of these petulant whiners, surely one more red card is in the waiting. Who would have thought that it would be a Manyoo - Chelsea race again, I thought this was Liverpool's season with Torre's addition, but they are out to prove that they are no less chokers than Arsenal.

 I am not waking up early for anymore of these paper tigers' games.

PS: I never saw great worth in Diaby certainly not to merit the comparisons with Viera, what a horror tackle, I do hope he gets the three match suspension. 

All the world's a stage