It’s been a busy couple of days and the work/life balance has swung a little far one way, but it’s done for now and I’m going to have most of the weekend off.  A couple of nights ago I met some friends for a drink in Bellevue one evening, I’be been developing rather a taste for good IPA’s recently, and Monday night I tried a Ninkasi IPA.

It’s excellent, I’m a total beer snob and is a quite excellent beer. This evening I did a little happy dance when I discovered Albertsons stocks the Ninkasi IPA. It really is good.

Today got a little out of control with work,lots happened and it fell to me to close out some paperwork to get parts moving. As tough as my day has been it’s always nice to be missed by the guys, even if it is because I have the opposable thumb needed to use the tin opener.

I was not able to go to the Sounders-Colorado game at Qwest tonight, work got in the way of those plans. It was interesting to sit here listening to Arlo White calling an OK Sounder performance while tapping away on my laptop. Evens looked sharp initially, if he plays like this I can see why Sigi is so high on him. Montero finally got onto the scorecard with a brace and set up the JK Hurtardo for the first goal with a well placed free kick. New boys White and Friberg both played a part in Montero’s goals.

A little worry over Zakuani and Evans maybe picking up injuries, hopefully neither is nothing serious. A solid performance, but it gets serious now.

A lot to be positive about tonight in Sounderland, would have been nice to be there to watch the champions take on the cup holders. A trip to South Carolina may put paid to the home opener and I’m not happy about that prospect. I’m trying to get out of it, but stuff like that happens on this program.

In the champions League Harry Redknapp’s Spurs side came out with a game plan and executed flawlessly against AC Milan tonight at White Heart Lane. Spurs were defending a 1-0 lead earned on a memorable night in the San Siro three weeks ago.

Milans tactics were predicable, they had to take the game to Tottenham and be more adventurous than they were in the first leg. And they did just that, they played well, had a good passing game and Clarence Seedorf (who I think played when I saw Ajax in 1995) looked especially sharp and was very effective in spreading the ball around.

There are huge risks to sitting back and absorbing pressure and Milan had a couple of decent chances, the last one falling to Robinho in injury time. It’s a testament to Redknapp and Tottenham that they really had the measure of the Italian Champions tonight.

With the job done and Tottenham in the draw for the quarter finals they can feel good about where they are. It would be easy to be awed by playing a side with the heritage and players of AC Milan, but they were not and that’s a testament to Redknapp and his style.  Tottenham have proved they have the discipline and ability to alter heir game to match the circumstances.

It may be the London clubs first run in the champions league, but they played like they belonged there and there is no one they should be afraid of at this point.

I believe any side that wants to win this tournament is going to have to meet Barcelona at some point, clearly they are the best team in Europe once again. But last year Inter showed even the Catalonians they can be beaten. The final is at Wembley in May, dare we hope of an all London final? Imagine the atmosphere at a Tottenham verses Chelsea final.

I had an appointment before work this morning and was a little late leaving the house. This was the view out the front window, this really has been a wonderful place to live. While I am looking forward to the next stage of the wonderful adventure that life is, it’s mornings like this, as cold as it was, that make me take a moment and think “yeah, I have it pretty damn good”

Last year when Arsenal came to the Camp Nou in the Champions League quarter finals they got hammered, they were taken apart by a great Barcelona performance. This time was different, the stats show that Barcelona outclasses the London team, and that was not the reality.

The pain may be greater because with 30 minutes left to play in the tie Arsenal held a 3-2 aggregate lead when disaster struck. Robin van Persie was sent off for the softest red card I think I’ve ever seen. He played the ball through after the whistle had gone and was got his second booking for the game.

Arsenal missed van Persie last weekend in the rather uneventful 0-0 draw with Sunderland at the weekend and against Barcelona, down such an important player I think it’s fair to say this really did change the game.

The brutal truth is Arsenal did not pose much of a threat, but none the less they were in this game until the last 30 minutes. It’s been a tough 10 days for Wenger’s team, loosing to Birmingham in the Carling Cup, failing to take what most people saw as a must win game against Sunderland and now being knocked out the champions league.

The big games keep coming, as next weekend is the FA Cup quarter final against Manchester United.

Three weeks ago the first leg of this game produced a fantastic game of football. Tonight was different, Barcelona came out to do a job and clearly showed Arsenal more respect and played a tactically a very different game. They played with control and dominated possession; at the Emirates they played with more flair, played further forward and gave Arsenal space to work in.

Tonight they took that space away, denied the visitors the ball and showed why they are week-in, week-out the best team in the world. Barcelona knew what they had to do and executed perfectly. They were good when they needed to be, controlled the rest of the time and the 3-1 score line is reflective of the level they played at.

There were early defeats in the group stage that mean Arsenal ended up facing one of the group winners. This is a good Arsenal team and they play some very attractive football. They still have a chance in the Premier League and the FA cup and there are moments where they look like a different team (going from 4-0 up to 4-4 with Newcastle a few weeks ago), but when they play well they can beat anyone.

The FA Cup game at United is live on Saturday, it’s has the makings of a great game of football. Then of course next Tuesday is the opening game of the Sounders season.

I stopped in Central market to grab a couple of things for dinner tonight and saw how beautiful an evening it is.

There are a few things that have become clear from watching England in the Cricket World Cup.

First, there is still some life left in the 50-Over format of the game. As much fun as the Twenty-20 slugfest can be to watch, the longer one-day game can produce drama and intrigue not present in the shortest version. Also looking at the runs being scored in this world cup, the shorter games influence is clear to see.

Secondly, the most interesting team in this tournament is England. They are not playing the best cricket and seem to be missing some flair and depth. This was especially evident in the very poor showings against Holland and Ireland (still possibly the biggest shock in the history of this tournament). But England provides drama and compelling cricket by the bucket load.

Following the tradition of England teams in big tournaments the game against South Africa was a “must win”.

Coming off the loss to Ireland (there is no excuse, England were just woeful) they had to win against about a very good South Africa, nothing less would keep them in the tournament and get them out of the group stage into the knock out.

In the game against India on Wednesday we saw a couple of truly great individual performances. The story against South Africa was that of a team effort.

England batted first and after a run of 300+ scores in this tournament the England score of 171 all out (45.4 overs) looked very beatable, but the deteriorating wicket was making it difficult for the batsmen.

Strauss, Bell, KP and Michael Yardy were all out for single figures. The captain Strauss described some of the English batting as “criminal”, he was not wrong. But somehow this was enough. Ravi Bopara was in for he slightly out of form Paul Collingwood, had the best performance, hit a very controlled 60 and won the man of the match award.

There were times that the game seemed to be all but over for England, after 32 overs South Africa seems to be cruising along nicely at 124 for 3, then the tide turned and they fell to 127 for 7 and England saw the chance to take this one. The English bowlers found something else in the pitch and took the games to South Africa, Stuart Broad had a devastating spell and ended up with a very impressive 4 wickets for only 15 runs in 6.4 overs.

South Africa made 165 all out and handed England an unlikely victory. The next game is against Bangladesh in Chittagong on Friday, a win there guarantees a place in the last 8.

There is nothing better for morale than snatching an unlikely victory, especially coming off the humiliation against Ireland mid week. England did enough and there were times their bowling was really good, but I think they know that 171 should not have been enough to win this.

On the bright side, Strauss and his team have shown they can raise their game to the level of the good teams after a victory over South Africa and the thrilling draw with India. They needed a little luck and found it this morning. I’m not sure they deserve to be, but they are still in this thing.

There is something surreal about watching cricket being played 14 time zones away from Seattle, but it’s been drama filled, and that is one of things I want from my sport.

This weekend is Emerald City Comicon in Seattle, it’s a huge event taking over most of the downtown conference center.

There were some good guests this year, Wil Wheaton was especially good. Picked up a couple of books, met a couple of people whose stuff I enjoy, including Max Brooks. Had a few laughs, good food, hung out with friends and let my inner geek come out to play. Fun afternoon and evening.

Spent a couple of hours in a pool hall last night with friends, I’m not terribly good, but did win a couple of games so the trend is certainly in the correct direction. My mother always thought this would have been the sign of a miss spent youth, sorry mum… This was just what I needed at the end of a brutal, tiring week.

The last couple of weeks have been by far the biggest for the coalition government in London. The Libyan uprising has not only been David Cameron’s first big foreign policy test, but his reactions to it have not been great.

The last couple of weeks have found the raised a lot of questions about the coalition. Cameron was on tour with arms manufacturers and the increasingly marginalized Nick Clegg was skiing in Switzerland and had forgotten that he was in the role of acting prime minister. The Foreign Secretary William Hague stalled and repeated unverified rumours about Gaddafi leaving from Libya and mysteriously declining to call a meeting of the service heads. Both huge mistakes, you would have thought that after Iraq and Blair’s actions that senior ministers would be far more careful about passing on unsubstantiated rumour.

This week, the Government will be cross-examined in the Commons on its performance thus far and what went wrong with the extraction of UK nationals from Libya. Labour has settling into opposition rather well and Douglas Alexander is becoming an increasingly impressive Shadow Foreign Secretary, is right to insist that the statement be made to the house by Cameron, rather than William Hague.

It may have been the governments first test, but it’s not big enough to really show any level of incompetence beyond doubt. But there are still very serious questions to be asked, and it’s right that the PM who answers them in the house.

This week, the Government will be cross-examined in the Commons on its performance thus far and what went wrong with the extraction of UK nationals from Libya. Douglas Alexander, the increasingly impressive Shadow Foreign Secretary, is right to insist that the statement be made by the Prime Minister rather than William Hague.

The last seven days have not been good for the Coalition. The PM on tour with arms manufacturers; Nick Clegg forgetting on the slopes of a Swiss ski resort that he was meant to be Acting Prime Minister; Hague stumbling uncharacteristically as precious hours ticked by, reporting flaky rumours about Gaddafi’s supposed flight from Libya and mysteriously declining to call a meeting of Cobra. This was hardly the Coalition’s Hurricane Katrina – a crisis that revealed, definitively and beyond doubt, an administration’s structural incompetence. But there are still very serious questions to be asked, and it should be the PM who addresses them in the Commons.

This was not the administrations “Hurricane Katrina” moment, it is merely embarrassing rather than a real challenge to his credibility. but it is embarrassing for a man trying to find his place on the world stage. It’s not only the British PM that’s in this position. The US government largely stood there immobile. The UN and EU got involved, made noises about statements and resolutions, but ultimately nothing happened.

The British government has it’s own hawks, notably in George Osborne. The chancellor seems to be moving past William Hague as the PM’s true deputy in the government. There have been a number of reports that Osborne and not the foreign secretary is pulling a lot of the strings and is the real interventionist at the sharp end of this government.

In a speech in Kuwaiti last week Cameron said that it’s not for the West to impose their ideals and values on the region, but warned that “we cannot remain silent in our belief that freedom and the rule of law are what best guarantee human progress and economic success”.

In the same Kuwaiti speech Cameron said “political and economic reform in the Arab world is not just good in its own right, but it’s also a key part of the antidote to the extremism that threatens the security of us all”.

This hardly contains the power of the “Blair Doctrine” Chicago speech of 1999, where Blair laid out his thoughts on pre-emptive intervention under certain circumstances (see this post), but it is a step to defining what his government believes in and the countries place on the world stage. It is true that the current government sees the world (and the UK’s role in it) very differently to that on Labour a decade ago, but there are times when Cameron feels a little uncomfortable about the global legacy he inherited from Blair.