We were coming up on a bit of a sporting harmonic convergence, as the World Cup quarterfinals start today, and the Tour de France starts tomorrow. But while the top footballers in the world get back into the swing of things after a couple of days off, the Tour will miss at least two of its top contenders thanks to a new doping scandal.

Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso, the other two riders on the podium with Lance Armstrong last July, were suspended by their teams based on a Spanish-led investigation that has implicated almost 60 riders in a blood doping scheme. One team has already been dropped from the race, while another - featuring Alexandre Vinokourov, another top contender (but not implicated) - is pretty heavily implicated, but will still race.

This has shades of the 1998 Festina scandal, when a team-wide doping bust nearly stopped the Tour cold. The race will still go on this time, but with none of the podium finishers from last year competing, it's not going to feel right.

As bad as this news is, it does benefit the top Americans - Floyd Landis, George Hincapie, and Levi Leipheimer - none of whom were implicated. Let the conspiracy theories commence.

Book Log 2006 #25: The Baseball Uncyclopedia by Michael Kun and Howard Bloom

Is the Metrodome really the Homer Dome? How does David Aardsma mess up the symmetry of baseball record-keeping? And is Cal Ripken, Jr. over-rated? All of these questions and more are tackled in this humorous work, which mixes the opinionated viewpoints of its authors with some hardball analysis (statistical and otherwise) to give us answers.

This is the sort of book whose entertainment value is inversely proportional to the level of baseball knowledge held by the reader. The humor generally works, but there are a few occasions where I thought the jokes may have sounded better than they worked on the page (though now being nearly two months in my rear-view, I don't have any examples).

So it's worth a look, though you seamheads out there may get bored with it.

I had the great misfortune yesterday to hear that Paris Hilton song. OK, I'll admit to some liability in the matter, as I tuned back to it after originally tuning away. Unfortunately, it was not the sort of Kevin Federline rapping apocalypse that I'd hoped for.

It was, rather, a completely forgettable and typical pop song. I wouldn't have known it was her if they didn't say so beforehand, but neither would I have cared who the singer actually was had I not known.

The song is kind of like what I think would have happened had No Doubt started off as 14 year olds on a Disney Channel show. The music is reggae-lite (very lite), and Hilton's vocal is Gwen Stefani wannabe (very wannabe). Lyrically it's similar to the generic American Idol songs that the finalists get stuck with. In fact, I can't swear that it wasn't one. Maybe Diana DiGarmo sang it?

Anyway, that's several more pixels than the song is worth. Though I did read a Boston Herald piece that called Hilton an "heirhead," which wins hands down against "celebutante." So that's something.

For those of you who don't know, ESPN360 is available for trial use. Which means that you can stream World Cup right to your desktop. As much as I think that's a great idea for March Madness, I don't know if we want to go from increased sick days to bandwidth use taking down the Internets wholesale.

Getting back to the beautiful game, I can't claim Cooch's level of performance in picking the preliminary results, but I did OK. I tabbed 12 of the 16 teams that went on, though I only had eight in proper position. As for the four I missed:

* Ghana over the US - I prefaced a US trip to the second round as blatant homerism. Those who picked Ghana instead either did the same thing, or were drunk when they made their picks. Don't try to deny it.

* Australia over Japan - I work with a guy from Liverpool, and he warned me ahead of time about the Socceroos. I looked at their 30 year disappearing act from the Cup and figured that their tournament would be like the US visit to Italy in 1990. Clearly, I was wrong. I still think people who called this were fondly thinking of Foster's and Nicole Kidman when doing so, but I do know at least one reasonably knowledgable fan who saw this coming.

* Ecuador over Poland - OK, proabaly should have taken 2002 to heart, but that was a tough group.

* Ukraine over Tunisia - I actually spent a fair amount of time on this one, but went with Tunisia based on having been to the Cup before and the questionable health of Shevchenko. I also figured one African team would advance, and really, they seemed like the best candidate.

OK, I'm back. The short and not wholly accrurate story for my absence can be found here. A fuller account will hopefully be forthcoming.

Hola, amigos. I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya, but I've been too busy to get to the computer much. More later, of course.

Book Log 2006 #24: Chasing Lance by Martin Dugard

The title of this book plays on the multiple ways the author chased Lance Armstrong during the 2005 Tour de France - in cars while following the race, in person trying to get some interview time, and in the more metaphorical sense of chasing an ultimate goal. Each of these gets a reasonable and balanced amount of page time - the first two get most of the print, while the final chasing theme lurks throughout before coming into focus at the end. This makes for a pretty well-composed book, though one that doesn't give the race or Armstrong the sort of total focus that one might expect going in (which I didn't find problematic).

It's also a good perspective on Armstrong that isn't from his camp or further innuendo about doping. The perspective is realistic and even a bit optimistic, which given the default to cynicism in cycling is a bit refreshing. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be naive.

Recommended, especially as the first Lance-free Tour of the millenium will kick off in less than a month.

Book Log 2006 #23: Edison and the Electric Chair by Mark Essig

Thomas Edison was not a nice guy. Nothing makes that clearer than his involvement in promoting the use of the electric chair in executions. While he stood against the death penalty, Edison didn't let his scruples stand in the way of using capital punishment as a tool for doing damage to his main business rival, Westinghouse, and their use of alternating current.

To be fair, the Westinghouse folks weren't exactly charming, either. In fact, it's hard to find anyone in this book who inspires positive emotion. It's enough to make you want to go back to whale oil.

That all being said, the book is an engaging read and a nice introduction to the "battle of the currents" and this particular skirmish. The author makes an interesting point at the end - that Edison's involvement in the electric chair may have allowed capital punishment to persist in the US while it faded from use in other Western democracies - that could have been expanded. I'd recommend it, though.

In his blog coverage of the World Cup, Michael Davies laments that US fans don't have a song to sing. He's got a point; songs are an integral part of soccer fandom, and when done right can be pretty darn impressive.

In one of his entries, Davies suggests 10 songs, but he misses what I think is the obvious choice: My Country 'Tis of Thee. Most Americans know the first verse, and its tune is easily recognizable to a variety of Europeans.

This does take a page from English fans who sing "God Save the Queen," but it's a good start until we can find the right song. Or until everyone learns the words to "America, #$!&* Yeah!"

OK, well, that wasn't exactly the way the US wanted to start its World Cup campaign. Losing is bad enough, but the -3 goal differential just adds insult to injury. Looking more like we'll need to knock off both Italy and Ghana to get through. Which is doable, I suppose, though it'll require better play than what we saw today. Now if only Claudio Reyna didn't hit that post...

And looking at my own picks, I see that I made some typos. Every time you see the word "Italy," replace it with "Czech Republic." It's what I meant. Really.

Picking Japan to advance over Australia also looks a little fraught now, given how the Socceroos stormed back to take their game over Japan. Socceroos just may be my favorite team nickname in the entire tournament.

Book Log 2006 #22: Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson

Split into two parts, this book begins by making the argument that things like video games, movies, and TV are actually making us smarter (video games by requiring us to figure out rules and requirements as we play, TV and movies thanks to increasingly complex narrative). The second half makes the linkage to your brain and its development.

Or at least I think it does, as I didn't actually read the second half. For whatever reason, I never really fully engaged in this book. I like the premise, and the first part was certainly well-written enough, but it didn't click.

So I suppose I'd recommend it, though I'd be interested to see if other people can't quite get into it either.

Blogger ate my first attempt at providing you with my World Cup picks, and while that's a pretty clear karmic "don't tell me about your picks," I'll persevere.

First Round (in finish order)

Group A: Germany, Poland
Group B: England, Sweden
Group C: Argentina, Netherlands
Group D: Mexico, Portugal
Group E: Italy, USA
Group F: Brazil, Japan
Group G: France, Switzerland
Group H: Spain, Tunisia

Yes, I'm a homer for picking the US. If I had to make any one change (outside of the Czechs over the US) I'd go with Ukraine over Tunisia.

Round of 16

Your winners: Germany, Argentina, England, Mexico, Italy, France, Brazil, Switzerland

Round of 8

Winners: Germany, Italy, England, Brazil

Semis

Germany over Italy, Brazil over England

Finals

Germany keeps serve and wins it all, while Italy keeps England off the podium

There they are, the picks that will guarantee a Togo-Iran final. Enjoy!

It's primary election day in several states today (we here in Massachusetts don't get ours until September), and the two most interesting races (to me, at least) are in California.

One is to replace Duke Cunningham, who recently went to prison for taking bribes. Or, as the AP article put it, "for taking bribes on a scale unparalleled in the history of Congress."

Which, when you think about Congress, is something.

The other notable race is for governor. The Governator is running unopposed, but I find it interesting that his likely opponent is the Duff Beer VP for calendars and fake IDs. An endorsement from MADD is out of the question, I think.

And while there's no election there today, sad to see Bill Weld abandon his run at the New York governorship. A sad day for the Carrot Topped WASP.

One of the things I meant to mention about going to Maine last week was the gas prices. From Augusta to Stockton Springs, I don't think we saw a price over $2.80, which was interesting given that there are very few places around home that were below $2.95. Even now, prices at the stations we most usually pass aren't down significantly from the last two weeks, even though the price of gas is supposed to be down a bit.

That we could fill up in Augusta for $2.72 (and discover a place down the road for $2.69) a gallon, yet the best we can do now at home is $2.95 is a little odd. We did come up with a couple of explanations, though:

1. At least one company has tanks on the coast, where deep water and cheap land made an ideal location for a tank farm. This might explain lower prices for that company, but not a consistent range in the $2.70s.

2. Wages are generally lower, so the price of gas is, too. Not sure if I buy into this, as the cost of most other consumer goods are about the same between here and there (based on my observation, though the wife may have a keener eye for this).

Anyway, the difference does make me feel like we're getting a bit of the gouge. Though I shouldn't complain based on the gas station across the street from work, which is charging $3.19 a gallon for regular unleaded.