Good thing it could never happen...

We are watching the 5th series of the TV action series '24', following the heroic Jack Bauer as he saves the Free World while regularly stepping above the responsibilities of his pay grade.

Last night US President Charles Logan, woosie that he is, learned that his key assistant, Walt Cummings - self described 'patriot', had been dealing with terrorists to create a weapons of mass destruction scenario, which would cause panic within the US population and give weight to the Logan administration increasing military funding to deal with this threat.

Beth and I both thought, 'thank heavens it's only a TV show and this could never happen in real life!' Silly script writers, how could there ever be a less than fully competent US president being manipulated by his trusted, but reactionary, key aides?

Rick Clise

My friend 'Has Gone to New York'

A dear friend of mine in Seattle once told me that in the 80's a lot of his gay friends were dying around him from AIDS. Although these men died, their memories didn't disappear. They just became inaccessible. He said it was like they had moved to New York. It wasn't until I lost people close to me: my mother, mother-in-law, friends, that I understood how he felt.

I don't know why, and I don't mean to trivialise the lives of these real, but no longer present, people, but I woke-up about an hour ago and wandered down-stairs thinking I could watch some World Cup soccer on SBS. But no, there's a brief recess from the World Cup until Saturday. SBS's excellent TV coverage of the soccer in Germany has become a little friend. I don't know why I remembered my Seattle friend's phrase this morning but I did.

Rick Clise

Aussie soccer - what a run!

What bad luck for the Socceroos. I felt certain when they went a man-up that they would get past Italy, but it didn't end-up that way. So much to say, most of it already said. Go Socceroos! You make us proud.

Red hot drill bit

In the process of making the mounts for a wall-mounted sculpture I had to drill holes in some 3mm thick stainless steel flat bar. I've never seen a drill bit glow bright red until then! Off to get that 12mm bit sharpened.

World Cup losers

I have always loved soccer. Started playing at boarding school where I was so bad that I was installed as goalie on the fifth team. My contribution to the game was being large and filling-up the goal mouth more than my team-mates could.

Then there was soccer at Garfield High School in Seattle. Garfield wasn't known for the depth on its soccer team - we had only enough players to field a team. Garfield was a football, basketball, and marching band school.

Our soccer team would typically be beaten 0-10 or some such humiliating score, but my team-mates liked to beat-up the other team after we lost. 'Taught them a lesson!' Kowalski was the only other white guy on the team and I was forever being mistaken for him. 'You white boys all look the same to me,' would be the explanation. Nevertheless.

After starting as goalie I moved to playing defense, and ended-up as centre half as I could run forever (not fast, but I got there.) In this position I scored the only goal our team made the whole season! Wasn't actually a shot, but more a cross to the forwards who could normally be counted on to dribble the ball to the opposition defense while thinking that they played with the skill of Pele. I think the only reason why my kick scored a goal was because the other team's goalie had fallen asleep from lack of any serious challenge. Anyway, call it my 15 minutes of fame. And that was the game where my Dad was in the stands. He didn't miss my goal!

So I'm watching the World Cup, which requires a bit of dedication in Australia. The first match of the 'day' starts at 1:30 am Adelaide time, and the last one starts at 4:30 am. I'm sure the phrase, 'The tyranny of distance' was written with this in mind. But, the Socceroos play Brazil on Monday at 1:30 am. Cannot miss that match!

As I'm watching Sweden beat Paraguay this morning I noticed the ring of red-coated crowd control people standing around the playing field. All standing with their backs turned to the soccer, facing the crowds. At first I thought these unfortunate folks are spending a huge amount of time at the world's best soccer matches and they are not able to watch a bit of it. But maybe they are rabid gridiron or Aussie Rules followers and can't stand the round ball game. Thinking, 'I wouldn't watch soccer if you paid me!'

I imagine they get home after a hard day of staring at the crowds and watch the replay of the game with the family, 'there I am, right there! Did you see me wiggle my fingers at you?!' 'Oh Dad...' say the kids.