Congratulations to Italy, who made it into the 2006 World Cup finals! They'll go up against either Portugal or France, depending on who wins today's match. As always, I was rooting for some non-European nation, but all the global-south teams have been eliminated. At least if Italy wins, it'll be a vindication for their bogus tie with the US.

In other soccer news, Islamist gunmen in Dhuusa Marreeb, Somalia, gunmen tried to close down a cinema broadcasting the Germany-Italy match -- because it carried advertisements for alcoholic beverages. When the crowd protested for their right to watch the match, the gunmen fired, killing two people.

Here's what I don't understand: I've been reading parts of the Qur'an as research for the novel I'm writing. It keeps going on and on about what will happen to the non-believers on judgment day, the paradise which awaits the true believers, and so on -- just like the Christian Bible. So if Allah/God/Jehovah/Altin/whoever is going to cast all the wicked pagans into a lake of fire, why is it so important to punish the sinners in this life?

I'm not trying to be dismissive of anyone's faith, really. (And I'm not trying to pick on muslims; I know that plenty of violence has been committed in the name of Christian purity.) But if it's a foregone conclusion that the wicked shall burn forever in hell for all eternity, why are you trying to ban their immoral activity? As Salt n Pepa said:

There's only one true judge, and that's God
So chill, and let my Father do His job

Word. As for the picture -- I was playing the excellent PS2 soccer game Winning Eleven 7, and when Senegal scored a goal against me, their team went to the corner and did a little dance. I thought this was odd (no other team did it), so I looked it up. Apparently it's based on an event from the 2002 World Cup:

After French-based Pape Bouba Diop opened the scoring for the African side in the first half, he tore off his shirt and threw it on the grass. No sooner had he done that then a group of team mates arrived and started performing a dance around the shirt. It obviously brought them luck, as France failed to convert any of the numerous scoring opportunities they had and Senegal held on to score an upset victory.

So now I play as Senegal all the time, that I might see my players dance for victory.

Grr!

I finally found something I could create a Wikipedia article about: the chaos theory of literature, as laid out by Harriett Hawkins and N. Katherine Hayles. I wrote my senior thesis on this at New College, and I've always been fascinated by it.

So I submitted it for Recent Addition, the "Did You Know...?" section on the main page (today's urgent entry: "student development theories are tools used by scholars and teachers in understanding how students gain knowledge"). Imagine my frustration when I was told that my article (which someone else added to, and another person added categories for) would not appear in Recent Additions because I did not properly cite my sources (even though I'm unclear about why not).

Now it looks like the article will be deleted because it is (in the words of the guy who nominated it for deletion) "pomo [postmodern] nonsense".

For the blurb on the main page ("Welcome to Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"), they should add: "however, your edits will be massively reworked, belittled, and quickly deleted." Ah, online community!

Good News

The good news for today, however, is: I finished a chapter! Hurray! Time now to do a little dance in the corner of the field. And buy comics. And play video games.

TimeWaster™

The Dubya Sunday Bloody Sunday clip thing is very well done. And fun. On a bun. In the sun. It's number one. He sings about a gun. Watch it, hon.

Today I'm listening to: Groove Salad!