Queensland Roar 3 Perth Glory 3

Okay, let's ramble.

First up, this is so frustrating it's making me weep. When I try to open my C drive, it puts up a search screen. The menu is all in the wrong order. I have no idea how to fix it. Have pity, I beg you.

Next, poker frustration. Move on to the next paragraph if you don't want to know. Poker is like a jigsaw puzzle, right, and it's like there's a hundred pieces that you have to know to be good. But here's the thing. They're not steps in a ladder. You don't learn A, then B, then C, up to Z, then you're Dolly Brunson. No, you gain a piece here, you think you have a piece there. But you're missing that bit of sky, and you put the tiling on the temple the wrong way round, and the picture you thought was there isn't. So I've been playing for a while, and studying a bit, and I'm pretty sure I've learned some things, but sometimes I feel like I'm just missing all the key pieces.

Also, here's a thing. I don't have any problem with people who disapprove of gambling. Maybe your god told you not to like it, or you truly feel it is a menace, which softheaded men will piss away the family exchequer on. Obviously, I don't agree. But on the other hand, I don't agree with you about Jesus. So why the fuck are you banning my poker, you arsewits? I'm not touching your Jeebus, am I? It's hurt me in two ways: first, the wowsers made it scary for Americans and more particularly for sites that are publicly listed to allow Americans to play -- how amusing that that bastion of liberty should deny people the right to throw their money in my direction as they please; second, it's actually banned here too. Yes, I am an outlaw. But Australia simply does not enforce it, and most sites have it in their rules that Aussies can't play, but don't care that they do. Except Carbon Poker. And I want to sign up with Carbon to get some free goes on Sharkscope.

Look, it's a general principle that I subscribe to that if you're not harming anyone else, what you do is no business of anyone else's. I'm a small-l libertarian in that way (the difference is that big-L libertarians think you should do what you want even if others are hurt, so long as you're a big business). The argument that gambling hurts families is tenuous, and one can ask whether it's any business of the government's that it does (I think there is a genuine argument that it does, and that that has powered the ban here, but not the one in the States, which is motivated by religion).

And I believe that it is better to resolve secondary harms by punishing the secondary harm, not by banning the activity that may or may not lead to harm. Why should I be prevented from gambling just because Joe Schmo runs up huge debts on his CC? That really is Joe Schmo's problem, not mine. I also don't believe drivers should be fined for not wearing seatbelts, nor for not having their passengers wear them. But if you crash, and your passengers aren't wearing them, and they die, you just killed them. Outcomes, not behaviour.

***

The other night I was drinking with M, my English friend. He was saying that he had tickets for Muse, and I couldn't help saying THEY SUCK. Because they do suck, profoundly. And we got talking about bands, and I realised that I had been listening to electronic music so much that I couldn't bear rock. So I am trying to wean myself back by listening to Palomine by Bettie Serveert (which is just a brilliant album) and by using shuffle on my iTunes instead of just listening to Venetian Snares all day.

But don't you find that the scope of rock is just so narrow? It doesn't really lend itself to experimentation, and once you've heard enough, you've heard it all. Yeah, I'm exaggerating a bit, but that's not so far from true. If I was to say to you, name me three new rock things that I might like, you have just about no chance of picking something good. But if we said, make it dance, well, you just might mention something I liked.

Now yes, I know, that's just me, but be honest, has much enthused you recently? For me, I've heard tons of good new music in the past year, but none of it is rock or anything like it. Even the bands I do like have profoundly disappointed on their second albums, even where they tried to do something new.

Maybe it's just because I'm getting old?

Yeah, but I was in HMV at the weekend, trying to spend a gift voucher I got for my birthday, and I was thinking, will I still be trolling the racks of record shops when I'm 70? You don't see many 70yo groovers. But I don't love music any less now than I did 20 years ago.

I couldn't find anything though. How bad is that? An entire shop of music, and I couldn't find anything to buy. I could have bought some classical, I suppose. HMV resolutely refuses to stock any decent electronic music (except for a couple of things I already own), so I might have to.

***

So I should do a report on the last Roar match, hey? The thing is, it was just unremittingly awful, and it's hard to write anything more than that. This time Farina had them play 451, which is atrocious at home to the worst side in the league. (Zenella's tennis coach, K, who stands next to me at matches, thought it was 433, which is just one more black mark against him in the pundit stakes, because there is clearly a difference between the two tactics, and the Roar were packing the midfield, not playing with wide attackers.)

It's frustrating because you just can't help feeling that it would be easy to fix the Roar's problems. I've been saying it for a long time, but they need to play 442, and get the ball forward quickly. We have the personnel for that shape too. I truly think that Farina won't play it because he doesn't think it's fancy enough for a man who played in Italy. Either that or he's truly clueless.

K was pissed off with me and M, who also goes to the football, because we were indulging ourselves in chanting "Sack Farina". You can't blame the coach, said K. But he would say that; he's a coach. And of course you can blame the coach. That's part of football. Trust Aussies not to understand that.

Anyway, the Roar were generally poor. Seo, at last played in midfield, had an uncharacteristically poor game. Tiatto was solid but not progressive. Marcinho played okay, but he would be much more effective if he played a bit closer to the front man. Kruse and Zullo had poor games, surrendering possession easily and rarely threatening. Had we played 433, they might have been more useful, but they were behind the play too much going forward. The back four were mostly okay. Moore is pretty solid, and McLoughan, badly out of position at leftback, is too, although he doesn't get forward at all. Ognedonkey is awful though: he lacks pace, positions himself poorly and is usually responsible for the soft goals we often concede. I can't even remember who was at rightback. Up front, Reinaldo was abysmal again. He. Must. Be. Dropped. When Lynch came on, he did well. The game had opened up a bit and he found some space. He would be much better as a target man than Reinaldo. Nicholls came on for Tiatto and did precisely nothing.

Best on field for us was, erm, tough choice... I think I'd have to go for Lynch. He has been trying hard every week and it worked for him this time. He took a nice goal, and scored a pen nervelessly. No one else on our side could really look back at this match with too much joy, although perhaps Marcinho wasn't so bad: I just want more from him. The referee was quite simply at a different game; some of his decisions were bizarre.

posted by Dr Zen @ 3:01 pm