Entries from June 2004 ↓

Well, it’s the worst since Japan/Korea 2002.

.France was the latest victim of the “bizarro rules” football that has been the Euro2004 tournament, losing 1-0 to Greece in Lisbon this afternoon.

Let’s look at the teams that have been knocked out:

England

France

Italy

Germany

There’s really no reason to watch anymore. Since Dennis Bergkamp retired from internationals, there’s no impetus to pull for Holland - plus there’s no way I’ll root for any side featuring the Horsiest-Faced Cheat In The World.

I suppose I could pull for Sweden, as they do feature the only Gunner left in the tournament, good ol’ Freddie Ljungberg. Have to admit though, I don’t hold out much hope for them beating the Dutch tomorrow.

COME ON FREDDIE!!!

That means now!

.A large number of web sites, some of them quite popular, were compromised earlier this week to distribute malicious code. The attacker uploaded a small file with javascript to infected web sites, and altered the web server configuration to append the script to all files served by the web server. The Storm Center and others are still investigating the method used to compromise the servers. Several server administrators reported that they were fully patched.

If a user visited an infected site, the javascript delivered by the site would instruct the user’s browser to download an executable from a Russian web site and install it. Different executables were observed. These trojan horse programs include keystroke loggers, proxy servers and other back doors providing full access to the infected system.

Further Details:
SANS.org

This only effects Internet Explorer, so I’d recommend switching to either Netscape or Mozilla immediately!!!

France take on Greece today in the second 1/4 Final match of the Euro2004 tournament.

.Arsenal skipper Patrick Vieira is in danger of missing today’s match, as he is still recovering from a deep thigh bruise he suffered during France’s last group stage win against Switzerland.

My prediction:

Thierry Henry sends the Greeks home early with two goals of his own, and he’ll set up a third.

It’s a good thing too, because the Olympics are only a few weeks away, and Greece really needs to turn it’s attention to completing all of the construction in time!

Beckham no longer welcome in England?

.The England captain missed yet another penalty kick in today’s EURO2004 quarter-final loss to host nation Portugal.

(Darius Vassel also missed during the shootout, but then he’s not a national icon)

So, England’s out. I guess that means I can root for Arsenal(I mean France) unabashedly now.

ALLEZ LES BLUES!

TEEHEEHEE!

Got a few new albums to review, each will get their own treatment, but here’s a quick tease…

.Recent listens:

Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand

Gomez - Split The Difference

Muse - Absolution

Velvet Revolver - Contraband

I was really surprised by how much I liked the Velvet Revolver album. Muse sound like they’re trying too hard to be Radiohead, and Gomez was just middle of the road rock. As for Franz Ferdinand, well, one of the songs is overtly homosexual, which, for me, now taints the rest of the album during repeated listens. The music is still good, but knowing that the lyrics are directed towards men lessens my enjoyment of the songs. It’s hard to explain, but I like to think that I can somehow relate to the lyrics of the bands I like to listen to, and in this case, I just can’t. They’re out and their proud - just be ready for it when you listen. To be clear, I do not begrudge anyone their right to express their romantic feelings, it’s just that my romantic feelings have historically been directed towards women, and will continue to be so. I’ve therefore gravitated towards lyrics that express those sentiments. This hasn’t decreased my enjoyment of bands such as Belle & Sebastian, but then, they’ve been a bit more ambigious in their lyrics, or maybe I just haven’t paid as much attention to them because the music is so great.

To answer all you smartasses out there, yes I paid the bill. As it turns out, the server this site resides on was hacked.

.We’re hoping that there won’t be need to make major changes, but this may be an opportunity to shore up the site some.

We’ll keep you posted.