Arsenal Ladies 0-0 Umeå IK

Following Arsenal's away win in Sweden, a scoreless draw in the second leg of the European Women's Cup Final made the aggregate score one-nil to the Arsenal, and Arsenal the queens of Europe. Arsenal's 19 straight wins have clinched a league title, and they can complete the treble next week in the cup final against Charlton Athletic. And that dear friends, is the news from abroad.

The Vikings Draft

In the first round, with the seventh overall pick, the Vikings took Adrian Peterson. I have mixed feelings about this, because on the one hand, Peterson could be a superstar, but on the other hand, I wouldn't have put runningback on the top of the list of desperate needs. And some of the Vikings needs struck me as a bit desperate, sitting in the stands with my head in my hands last year. Maybe our monstrous offensive line (half of one, anyways) will get it together and punch more holes this year and Adrian Peterson will exploit them in spectacular fashion, and Chester Taylor will go back to being a solid back-up, and Ciatrick Fason will actually convert some third downs as a short-yardage specialist. The Vikings certainly run the ball enough, so Peterson will show what he's worth early, if he doesn't get hurt. But all that kind of gets at why I groaned when we took Peterson, after a long string of runningbacks who showed some flash then turned out to be nuts, like the guy with a fake penis, and all the raving about Taylor last year: it all depends on the offensive line, and if they don't open anything up it doesn't matter who's running the ball. Our favorite play last year was running Taylor and Fason up the gut only to bounce off Matt Birk's backside, so we better have something better to do with Peterson. On the gripping hand, the Vikings got burned fairly badly by passing up the best available talent in the past, and nobody got why we drafted a receiver in '98 until Moss torched the Packers on Monday Night Football.

The Vikings did have a desperate need at wide receiver, because we've gone through a ton of guys who can't ever seem to get open. This includes a #7 overall pick who was a midget with alligator arms and small hands who didn't know how to catch a football. Because of his physical limitations he could only run deep routes, and as it turns out, he only decided this winter that after being in the league a couple years and catching nothing, maybe he should get his eyes fixed so he could see the ball coming. In the second round, the Vikings took Sidney Rice, who is tall and can jump, really fast, comes back for his QB, and isn't afraid to fight for balls (previously we've had receivers just watch interceptions... I hope Seattle is enjoying that guy). I have high hopes for Sidney Rice, because there's not a lot else to pin my hopes on in the Vikings passing game. They did also take Aundrae Allison in the 5th round, who has a fair bit of potential as well.

On defense, I've felt the Vikings were somewhat overrated, since they got very little pressure on quarterbacks, and relied heavily on forcing turnovers. In the second half of the year, everybody got that the whole line was keyed to the run, the linebackers didn't cover the middle, and one of our corners wasn't suited to the scheme we were running, and in one game the Patriots threw for like 8 TDs before my rising stress level exacerbated my lower back pain to such a degree that I finally just left. (And got yelled at by some weird lady for limping out.) In the 3rd round the Vikings took cornerback Marcus McCauley, who I hope is the more physical corner they need to play the Tampa-2 scheme that's trendy now, which Sex Boat Captain Fred Smoot wasn't suited to. In the 4th round the Vikings took Brian Robison, another defensive end, who unfortunately looks to add more of the same: he looks like a squad guy who'll help defend the run. But things may still improve, since Chad Greenway will come back from injury and hopefully improve the linebackers, and more importantly, the Vikings drafted a linebacker from Oklahoma... named Rufus. Sounds good to me.

In the seventh round, the Vikings added a couple more players who were both interesting in their own way. Chandler Williams is a return specialist, which could certainly be useful, if they added enough depth to have some decent blockers on special teams. But I'm more amused by the drafting of Tyler Thigpen, a quarterback from Coastal Carolina, and apparently that is a real school... apparently nobody was available from Wilson Picket State Teacher's College. You don't expect much from a 3rd QB, which is the spot he'll be competing for, except maybe a little bit of potential to someday be a mediocre back-up, so why not go for a small school guy.

Really, overall, there are some good players, but I wonder how much difference it will make over last year. The Vikings didn't get much from their offensive line, and this crippled the rest of the offense, and ran a west coast offense with the wrong receivers for it. The only big change is a new receiver, and hopefully some improvement from the Tardis at QB. The defense may have more depth, and a hole or two less in their coverage, so that's good, but there's little hope so far for a real dynamic change to the team, unless it's Peterson, due to the timidity of the Vikings in free agency. The player who really could have blown things open was available for a 4th round draft pick, but unfortunately he isn't a Viking... Randy Moss went to the Patriots. The only saving grace is at least the Packers didn't get him, since Brett Favre was gunning hard to have a receiver to throw to in his 8th retirement year. Now we just have to wait for the $900m stadium the Vikings are clamoring for before they'll spend any money in free agency.

A cornucopia of small observations

Table of Contents (to make it easier to identify items you might skim over to humor me)

1. Midwesterner brutally attacked by Calgary resident

2. The BK stacker game was real

3. Crème brulée is dead to me

4. Jesse Jane weighs in on HDTV

5. Oh I like that Baby. I put on my robe and wizard hat.

6. Why does Kaka get treated like, well, caca?

7. American sports in Europe

8. Big ass tunnel to Russia

9. Let me tell you something about Kansas City

10. Coming soon to Absolut Rufus

1. Detroit resident Johan Franzen was brutally slashed by a guy in a Flames jersey, and this has me worried my friend PJ could be next. I think he's a bit worried too, because he keeps talking about finding a new job and moving to Hong Kong, or Singapore, or Zug, like he's trying to put some distance between him self and any marauding Calgarians. Plus he keeps doing all those triathlons, to escape by land or by sea, and flinching away from swinging tree branches like he's haunted by the spectre of some swinging hockey stick... good luck and lace up those running shoes, buddy.

2. In reference to a conversation I had with the Captain regarding the Burger King stacker ads, there really was a platform game based on stacking burger components. It was Burgertime, and I really did play it back in the day on the electronic abacus that was the Apple II, so there's no need for incredulous raised eyebrows. The wikipedia entry also clears up the long-standing mystery of why one of the monsters chasing you around was an egg. It's still got nothing on Lode Runner, but at least I have proof it was real.

3. I'm officially giving up on crème brulée, because I finally just saw the last straw, you cold crème brulée people obviously aren't going to give up, and I'm never going to get proper crème brulée again. You know what clinched it? The store across the street from me has fucking crème brulée ice cream, to try and make sure the first taste the unsophisticated have is icy cold, just like the crap they keep trying to foist off on me at otherwise fine restaurants. Crème brulée ice cream? I'll stick to Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream, thank you very much.

4. Jesse Jane, star of such films as Pirates and a favorite amongst some of my close associates, offers a perspective on the move to high definition video promised by new media formats. Apparently like all of us, Ms Jane has certain physical flaws, that previously were no hindrance to her professional career, but are captured in excruciating detail in 1080i HD resolution. Some stretch marks on her stomach can still be covered with a liberal application of tanning spray, leaving her fans no uncomfortable reminders that she's somebody's mommy, but apparently her breasts are another story. Ambitious breast augmentation left her with gigantic, bouncing, yet oddly misshapen breasts, and slathering on tanning spray doesn't help. Ms Jane soldiered on with a mediocre boob job for many years, but now she's having them redone so they look a bit more grown than bolted together, leading the way into a brave new world of high definition. I'm just amused that one of the first consequences of the new technology is a woman actually having to look like a woman, because we're really going to get a good look at her.

5. I think this whole (I hope fictional) collection of chatroom logs of nerdy cybersex gone horribly wrong is fucking hilarious. And I don't care if the rest of you agree.

6. Watching the Manchester United vs AC Milan semi-final this week, I found myself wondering why is there no love for Kaka? Watching him take a Clarence Seedorf pass and waltz through the United defence (United play defense about as well as they spell it, based on this game) for his first goal was pretty entertaining, but his second goal was brilliant. Dida boomed a long goal kick into United's half, and Kaka beat his man to it, flicked it by another defender, and headed it back into space out of the way of a final United defender who came leaping in and missing the ball entirely, took out his own man. I haven't seen downfield blocking that good since Cris Carter retired from the Vikings, and Kaka used it to score his second goal. He had a couple chances to complete the hat trick, where it looked like he had to be spraying nerve gas on defenders to make them appear so sluggish and disoriented, but only came up with a couple weak shots, which was unfortunate for Milan who weren't exactly on top of their game defensively either. Maybe that's why Kaka gets no love, because in that game, Wayne Rooney was the hero, coming up with a last-gasp goal to give United a lead heading to Milan for the second leg, and while either of Kaka's misses could have nearly locked up a spot in the final. It's not fair to blame him since Milan ran out of gas in a fast-paced game and lost the Snarling Dog to injury, which United exploited in the second half after Milan dominated the midfield in the first. Some of the times when I've seen Kaka do his best for Brazil the rest of the team seems to be half asleep, or it's a brilliant ball from Kaka that creates a goal for a relentlessly self-promoting media whore. Much like Kevin Garnett, a guy who's team-oriented but doesn't ever take his whole team on his shoulders isn't going to win an MVP award, but maybe that's about right.

7. The NBA is apparently planning its next expansion, and it's not to Oklahoma City, who have been poised to snatch either the Hornets or Sonics from New Orleans and Seattle, respectively. David Stern is supposedly quite interested in putting five NBA franchises in Europe, which is a pretty daring proposal, since they already have a Euro-league with international rules where the game isn't decided at the foul line. I don't know where he's thinking of going, maybe Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Paris, and Zug, but Madrid and Barcelona already have thriving teams, and Italy's got Bologna and Benetton Treviso. Maybe they'll hit someplace new, reasonably wealthy, and sport-starved and plunk some teams down in Brussels, Berlin, Basel, Copenhagen, and Vienna. American-style leagues are driven by TV money not match-day revenue anyways, and dividing up compact Europe five ways as a catchment area doesn't require plunking down across the street from the competition in the most overcrowded markets with the highest operating costs.

The NFL is also proposing having the Superbowl overseas, which kind of makes sense to me. Currently, a lot of NFL cities are cut out of it anyways, and ordinary fans are priced out of the game, and the people who can attend can probably spring for a little more airfare and a couple more hours in the air. It doesn't make much difference to me if the game is being played at Wembley, De Kuip, Allianz, the Stade de France, delle Alpi, or Tokyo or Montreal or Sydney or wherever, since I'll be watching it on TV anyways. The league is also discussing shortening the fairly pointless four game pre-season and adding a 17^th game, which would be played at a neutral site overseas. I think this is a cool idea, and I thought it was cool when the Wolves and Kings played two games in Japan to insane crowds to start one NBA season. Unfortunately the only place they go to NFL games outside of the US is Germany, so every game would have to be in Mainz, Koln, or Gelsenkirchen. It will probably come to nothing, but it's an interesting idea if you can find 16 venues for an international game the last weekend of the season, when the commissioner is proposing this game. Or fewer venues and put this game immediately before or after the bye week for each team throughout the year, depending on how far away the game is. Wake me up when the Vikings-Bears game kicks off in Singapore.

8. There's another proposal to create another land link between Asia and the Americas, this time in the form of an undersea tunnel. This is not as dumb as it sounds, since the area is well north of the Ring of Fire, and it's not any dumber than the proposed 57-mile enclosed rail bridge with cars driving on top in the summer months. The benefit would be energy imports from Russia and other imports from China and the rest of Asia wouldn't have to go by ship and pile up waiting to get unloaded in Long Beach. The big problems are getting rail links through Siberia and Alaska that could hook up with something else, and justifying something even crazier than the broke-ass Chunnel. You never know, maybe this will get the Russians to lay some 4'9” rail from the Bering strait to China, though... you know, the gauge that EVERYBODY BUT THEM USES. (Okay not everyone, but I'm enjoying the hyperbole for right now.) Because the convenience will but undercut even further by having to build a humongous switching yard with a giant crane that runs constantly in arctic conditions on острова Диомида (Big Diomede to you Capitalist Pigs) to move all the containers onto new undercarriages.

9. Let me tell you something about Kansas City. The Royals did a nice thing for Minnesota last year by finishing an otherwise crappy season in very fine form, sweeping the division-leading Tigers and giving the Twins the opportunity to win the division. Twins centerfielder Torii Hunter felt so grateful that he promised to send champagne to the Royals to show some gratitude for being sportsmen and giving the Tigers everything they had. Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished, and Torii Hunter unwittingly fell afoul of baseball rules that prohibit giving gifts to another team in compensation for performance, so the Royals had to return the champagne and Hunter was facing a three-year suspension. With this hanging over his head, he had to face the Royals, who as it turns out are mean drunks who didn't like being cut off, because one of their pitchers beaned Torii in retribution. (Yeah, yeah, “there was dew on the ball”, sure.) I can't speak for Torii, but that's the last time I consider buying a drink for somebody from KC.

10. Coming soon, hysterically angry Vikings draft coverage (I can't help it, I'm still working out a lot of rage over that Falcons game). And in the next couple days I'll hopefully finish and post reviews of the last ten movies I've seen at startthe#$@%ingmovie.com.

That is all.

Top 10 Things I'm Looking Forward to at the Big Wedding

10. Going with PJ to pick up the wedding cake, and finding he plans to get a “cake” alright... from Cornelier's.

9. The bridesmaids singing “We are Siamese if you Please” (let me dream)

8. Cruising Lake Michigan and making the Captain do the “I'm the King of the World” thing from Titanic again. Come on, we did it in choppy water in the rain last time, and it's not like we've gotten any smarter since then.

7. The happy couple taking their vows in the form of song: a duet called “Sesame and Ivory”.

6. The Captain having an uncomfortably long dance with the bride, through several songs, until she passes somebody a fortune cookie with a cry for help inside. (After all those games of Mercy, nobody gets free from that guy's grip.)

5. Seeing two dear friends share their first dance as man and wife... breakin' it on a cardboard square to the dulcet tones of DJ Bigfoot.

4. Rudolf showing us how to party ADO Den Haag style, at least until the national guard shows up..

3. Dr. Euler catching the bouquet, and immediately dashing back to Switzerland to keep it hidden from the Jews.

2. This enlightened exchange between in-laws after a few rounds of Amstel and Tsingtao:

“I'm from Den Haag, so if one of you slanties calls me a Kraut one more time I'm putting you all back on the boat to Shanghai.”

“Oh you know you round-eyed devils all look alike, now fuck off back to Denhagen and leave me alone, you Nazi queer.”

1. This guy's wedding toast.

Black Bike and Mother of Pearl, or How I keep my obsessive compulsive Oscarquest going

Some people may wonder why it is that back in the winter of 2001 I decided to set about my extremely anal project of seeing all the award nominated films I could, and what might continue to drive this eccentricity after five years. My original intent was to reduce the number of outright bad films I saw (often multiple times) by having a checklist to guilt-trip me into seeing something other than the Curly Whip of Zorro or whatever was playing close by, and I could annoy people on Oscar night by explaining why their favorite actor lost. I still see ridiculously bad movies (Ghost Rider, 300, The Da Vinci Code, 16 Blocks, and I could go on and on) so that didn't work, and let me tell you, there are some serious dogs that get to go to the Oscars as well (Poseidon, The Black Dahlia, Babel, and many more), and nobody would invite me to an Oscar viewing party to hear me explain why their favorite film's anachronistic, jejune mish-mash of Carmina Burana and Mozart's Requiem doesn't qualify for an award for best original score. (Or at least they've never invited me back.) So sometimes even I wonder why I've taken the last remaining tranquil repose in my life and made such work out of it, tracking down every excruciatingly tragic Chinese wuxia, English comedy about limping coughing towards death, desperate American musical revival, dreary Hollywood biopic centered entirely on the subject's drug use, or all-singing, all-dancing falafel drenched Israeli homage to the aforementioned American musicals, all drenched in our Western culture's horrid fascination with its own decline as we each stare into the darkening eyes and torn stomach of our own Dying Gaul... at least Spider-Man 3 would be a known quantity.

But this week Carice van Houten and Orla Fitzgerald gave me an answer: sexy girls on bikes. Once I saw those two chicks wheeling it through WWII Den Haag and 1920's Cork, I knew I was, like... I was home, man. Amidst all the prestige pictures and arthouse dreck that failed to catch the wind in their sails, there are those moments when all the threads of a good film come twisting together into this tense knot that will snap in all directions in the next gust of wind, that violent, cathartic burst of the heart and surge of blood through veins and the mind, that all those Greek playwrights were sounding out through their giant wooden masks and pounding across the echoing stone a thousand years before Rome, London, and New York, until across a thousand flickering screens Aeschylus, Yeats, Bertolucci, O'Toole and Williams and Mirren cry "I am!" Okay, I just threw in that last part to be pretentious, but there is such beauty in some of these films as to shake you to tears and put you back together, if you can find it. But really, I just like that occasionally you get some cuties on bicycles. The Wind that Shakes the Barley (Palme d'Or at Cannes is how it got my attention) is a moving story about the combined power of and the tension between idealism, optimism, pragmatism, faith, hope, love, and resolve, about two brothers who join the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1920 Cork with a heartbreaking performance by a captivating Irish girl on a bicycle (above, right), and Black Book (Best Film not in the English Language nominee at the BAFTAs, just missed an Oscar nod) is a fantastic thriller in which a devastatingly sexy Jewish woman tries to survive the Holocaust, the Nazi occupation of Den Haag, and the Dutch resistance, with the aid of a black bike. I really had Oscar fatigue after the last of the awards were given out, but two cuties on bicycles in one week... somehow that's got the wind at my back again.

(By the way, I never actually got disinvited from an Oscar party for being a pedantic annoyance, I don't even know what jejune means, and I only refer to the cinema as "tranquil repose" to get a laugh out of anybody who's seen the Doctor Who episode "Revelation of the Daleks", where Davros is running a cryogenic freezing facility for the terminally ill next to a meat-packing plant and nobody finds this suspicious.)

On MLS "Beckham Rule" signings

Allegedly, and I can't stress enough how bad my sources are on this information, Zinedine Zidane will come out of retirement to play with David Beckham in Los Angeles. I heard this on Pardon the Interruption, where they spent more time bitching about soccer in the 70s than they did actually giving any details. This is not necessarily the lunacy it appears to be, it is possible Zidane would decide to conquer the New World, it's just that unlike global brand unto himself David Beckham, his potential reasons for doing so aren't obvious. Maybe like Jurgen Klinsmann he'd like to get his kids out of the media circus that would surround them in Europe, or his wife is suggesting LA (she's a Spanish actress who loves the ocean). It's possible he wants to play but won't face the indignity of the reserves or a lower division, but if Djibril Cisse and Frank Ribery leave l'OM this summer, they'd be tossing hookers with baguettes through Zizou's window to get him to come home to Marseille. (Despite being French, Zidane features prominently in the African football magazine I buy occasionally, because his Arab identity and Algerian heritage are so iconic.) Zidane is more than any other player the guy I'd want to see in MLS, because he is incredible to watch, and if the refs protected him from legbreakers, he could be like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in college basketball: so good it's not fair. Just watch some of the balls he put in front of Ribery last summer. He and Beckham are like the quarterbacks of a sport that doesn't let you use your hands. And maybe the Galaxy can play with three playmakers, if Becks goes back to being a winger and Landon Donovan a mezzapunta to Zidane's fantasista (and I'll go back to using Italian sporting terms to put on airs).

I thought that it would be impossible for Becks and Zizou to be reunited anyways, since every team was supposed to get one designated player (aka Beckham Rule, salary cap exempt player), but I see Red Bull NY traded for Toronto's exemption. They signed Juan Pablo Angel, a Colombian striker who was a star for River Plate in Buenos Aires and for Aston Villa in Birmingham (Roll Tide! Er, wait...no.) This is on top of signing "Captain America" Claudio Reyna, who was a solid holding midfielder for several top flight teams in England. This is cool, because it means MLS has become wealthy enough to change the flow of talent a bit. Early on MLS had a few players in the twilight of their careers or toiling away in obscurity in from other leagues that it pulled in, and they made a big difference. Then there was a wave of players from Europe looking for one more day in the sun who had nothing to contribute and all quit after a few weeks, while the top talent developed in MLS headed over to England and occasionally Holland as fast as possible. If the new rules mean there's another crop of older talent that can come in and offer some organization and style, and maybe keep the ball in play for more than three seconds, and the exodus of younger talent can be slowed down just a smidgeon, the combination of big names showing a flash of sexy football and American players sticking around a little longer may put enough of a face on a team to garner a little bit more media attention, and all three factors will reinforce each other. But no matter what Wilbon may have seen jotted down on a napkin at Billy Goat's or wherever PTI gets its information, I'll be shocked to see Zidane in a Galaxy shirt.

On Euro2012 and the 2007 Copa America

UEFA has officially settled on the location of the 2012 European Championships, following next year's alpine extravaganza being co-hosted by Austria and Switzerland, and it's going to be Poland and Ukraine in 2012.  They beat out another joint bid from Croatia and Hungary, which is the second rejection for the Hungarians after they put in the Imperial bid with Austria for Euro'04, so maybe they can work out something with the Romanians for their next bite at the apple, although I'd expect Euro'16 to go to somebody in the north of Europe, like the Scandinavian or Celtic joint hosting bids that have been posited but never solidified in the last few years.  The big losers are the Italians, who are bitching about it being a political decision to give the tournament to eastern Europe.  Since the last time a tournament was held east of the Elbe was Euro'72 in Yugoslavia (and Italy hosted the World Cup in 1990) it was about time.  The Italians didn't really have a shot given the complete crisis atmosphere in Italian football with the murdered policemen, games being played in empty stadia to avoid crowd violence, and the refereeing scandal, but they were apparently counting on the Euro as a way to shake money out of the government to renovate a lot of aging stadia, particularly in Torino.  This could be the longterm decline of the game in Italy if amidst a sea of troubles, they were forced to do what English teams do:  build their own facilities and charge the fans an arm and a leg to pay for it (it's actually cheaper to have a French ligue un season ticket and take the train to France every other weekend to see them than to go to games in London, plus you get to stroll down the boulevard with a baguette under your arm).  Now Italy has to hope to beat out England, China, or the United States for the 2018 World Cup (2014 is supposedly a dead lock for Brazil, if they can get 10 modern stadiums built in time).  The primary criticism of the Poland-Ukraine bid has been the poor infrastructure, particularly roads, and the hassle of the border crossing, but this may turn into a positive opportunity at a precarious time.  Having Ukraine work with EU-oriented Poland on this project, and build transit links to their neighbor that the Poles will stretch into the EU, might build some bridges westward-looking leaders in Ukraine can build on... link Kiev and Warsaw and maybe you've got a highway from Donetsk to Berlin.

Coming up a little sooner, this year Venezuela hosts its first Copa America, the traditional South American championship.  Venezuela has long been the milkman's kid of South American sports, being crazy for baseball and complete crap at soccer.  (Oh by the way, Venezolanos, thanks for Johan Santana, sorry about flipping the lights off on El Presidente.)  CONMEBOL, the organization of the 9 large South American countries that are actually good at soccer plus Venezuela (who have been getting better recently, and it's not like Bolivia was that great either), has decided to start rotating the tournament between all its members, as well as making it a quadrennial tournament like the Euro, so it's a pretty big deal.  The thing is, with ten members, CONMEBOL needs a couple friends to make up the numbers, so they regularly invite Mexico, and recently they've invited whoever won the North American continental championship, which means the United States will be going to Venezuela.  The way the brackets are set up for this 12-team tournament, the US has two shots at a quarterfinal game with the host, although the only likely one involves Venezuela winning their group and the US finishing as the 2nd best 3rd placed team (which is certainly possible).  I think the US has a good shot at the quarterfinals, since we have Argentina to stomp on everybody in our group and keep the scores low, then Paraguay who sucked in the World Cup, and Colombia, who lost to a much less impressive US team at the Rose Bowl in their last tournament meeting in '94.  Should the US finish 2nd, which is possible, the US probably meets Brazil and go home, but if they finish 3rd it's probably whoever came out on top between Uruguay and Venezuela, or between Ecuador and Mexico, meeting one of those pairs in the quarters and the other pair in the semifinal.  Seriously, finish second, win a couple games against Urugay and Mexico, and the US has title shot against the winner of Brazil vs Argentina, playing for the whole enchilada in front of Hugo Chavez.  If the US can make the semis, they'd probably get a 3rd place game against Brazil or Argentina in Caracas.  So finish 3rd, get a little lucky, and the US can irritate the hell out of Hugo Chavez by showing up at some marquee games of his tournament.  Maybe he and El Diablo can even get a friendly bet going as to who does better, and at least one of those two will have to publicly eat shit over it.  Not likely that it will all fall into place, but don't squash my dream.

On Yachting

This Easter Sunday I had a rare yacht club brunch, which got me to share the two things I know about the practice of being a yachtsman. I basically know two (and only two) things about everything, and whenever a topic comes up, I make sure to mention both of them. It's the second tidbit that makes people think there's more behind it, and they're only seeing the tip of the iceberg, which fosters the perception that I'm drawing these from a deep well of knowledge. Usually the people who sniff me out are the ones who know anything about the history of anything, like in addition to actual history, there's art history or the English canon, or theory, where for five minutes I seem to know what I'm talking about but then they find that I know nothing about things everybody else seems to have learned in elementary school.

For instance, I know two things about President Buchanan, which is two more than most people, and that makes me look like I know something about American history. The only exceptions I know are my junior year history teacher and the Captain, who each provided 50% of what I know about the late James Buchanan. Then the Sacagawea dollar came out, and I had absolutely no idea who she was or why she was on money, much to the consternation of my then girlfriend. Generally I've never needed more than two because I discovered that there are two laws of financial economics, two laws of welfare economics, and really there are only two things you need to know to get the underlying basis of the whole discipline (scarcity and diminishing returns), and you really only need to know two tricky things to puzzle out all the associated calculus problems: the chain rule and the first derivative of natural log. There are many works in the English canon that I never read en route to my English degree, because the two things I knew about them were sufficient to muddle through an exam, and the two works I'd actually read in a semester were sufficiently fertile ground for deeper analysis. Like the time I read two essays: one about translating Ovid, the other about colonialism and language and culture, and turned it into a paper about metaphor and metonymy, which seemed original and daring because I focused it entirely on talking about women's breasts. (In my defense, the actual theorists I was quoting from each devoted a couple two pages of each essay to that subject, and those were the only pages I examined carefully.)

But anyways, there I was at a yacht club, with boats and people wearing those white captain's hats. When writing about that experience, it's difficult to avoid the temptation to turn into Tyler Brûlé, or at least his well-fed, less affluent, and significantly less traveled distant cousin. Not to mention a little more perspective... I'm only punchy because I miss Tyler Brûlé, pretentious accent marks and all, because his column Life in the Fast Lane was a good read. He was always mentally creating a new world in his own image, from the lego bricks he observed throughout the world, like combining little pieces of the world's train services (uniforms from Japan, service from Switzerland, equipment from Germany, meandering pointless routes from Amtrak, perhaps). One of his articles on the good and bad of Italy was intriguing, encouraging a nation known for design to focus on adding value through a quality and style worth paying for, over things that are slapped together in China before being nibbled over by rats in a cargo container for three months. And when you look at some of the fine things that have come out of Italy, like saltimboca or Monica Bellucci, it's all about the simple perfection, where everything is just so, everything just naturally falling into the right place, and all it takes to make somebody look like royalty is the right shade of blue. And one good idea can ruin it all, like when some joker from Val d'Aosta throws cheese over it.

M. Brûlé aside, I had a fantastic Easter brunch at the yacht club, nice fluffy Belgian waffles with fresh fruit, lobster ravioli, and particularly the mozzarella, tomato and mushroom omelet made by an overstressed chef. Personally I thought he could have relaxed a little bit instead of snapping at everybody for not getting his self-service omelet ingredient selection procedure. I suspect he gave up being an overstressed asshole for Lent and had to make up for four weeks of ulcer-building frustration. I think he could have directed all that energy into improving the lobster ravioli, which I found a bit disappointing, but that could be because it was more or less my third meal without getting up and walking any farther than the buffet line.

In addition to the food I got to share my two yachting references that I use whenever I need to show a polite interest in boating. The first is the probably well known fact that the trick of boats is to never own one yourself, but just to cozy up to people who do. That way you get to enjoy the invigorating sea air, and somebody else will tell you which rope to haul on so you get to say “Aye, aye!” and feel all salty. It's the same deal as having a friend with access to a cattle ranch, five minutes of feeding and watering cows and I certainly feel all rough, even after getting outsmarted by a calf who pinned me against a fence while blissfully munching down a bucket of grain. (No cowboy boots, though, this ain't Calgary and I'm not an oilman with mommy issues.) The way I move past common knowledge and trick people into thinking I know more than I do is with something simultaneously practical and exotic (which I actually just overheard at a dinner party from somebody who actually owned a sailboat) and that's a few tidbits about how to get yourself a boat. I'll imply breadth of knowledge by suggesting a world of possible sailing experiences, then offer, “depending on what you're interested in...” hints on a few, like the best place to buy a boat (west side of the Panama Canal) and why (people hit the Pacific Ocean, get overwhelmed, ditch the boat with a broker and look for a new hobby), a way to sail a boat without paying for it (get a job sailing it from NYC to the Caribbean for some rich bastard), and a good way to sign on with a bigger boat crew (take a gig transporting it over the Panama Canal and see what the rest of the crew is like), implying that maybe, just maybe, I've done this in my wild youth. Then I change the subject, because I've exhausted my store of knowledge. So for anybody actually reading my blog, next time I tell you two boring bits of trivia about some random subject and you just want me to shut the hell up, ask me for a third fact and I'll have to beat a metaphorical retreat with my tail between my legs.

On Pandas

The panda bear is truly a much maligned creature. Just look at what Hollywood has had to say about the panda, for instance Toby on The West Wing discussing the challenge of acquiring a new panda for the National Zoo: “Get a couple of regular bears, a can of black spray paint, a can of white spray paint, what's the difference?” To say nothing of Jack in Fight Club, when he describes the orgiastic fury of violence that made him wreck Angel's face by saying, “I wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every panda that wouldn't screw to save its species.” Why so much anger? The panda has certainly tried to reach out and make friends, only to be rebuffed at every turn. When she opened a restaurant to share the simple dishes of her native homeland at affordable prices, certain snooty members of the Chinese diaspora couldn't wait to heap their derision on it, and through their relentless harping, drive diners away from the Panda Express.

Some people have lovingly adopted elements of the panda bear's unique style, but that may have only made the problem worse. Much like the zebra and the penguin, the panda's two-tone style is intriguing in a Detroit minimalist techno sort of way, and doesn't clash with anything. The problem for these animals is their look got adopted by The Man: referees picked up the the zebra's gear, and wealthy capitalists started dressing up like penguins, but the pandas got it worst of all when the police introduced the panda car. Now at parties when a panda shows up, even the red pandas are like, “Who called the po-po?” But before the poor panda can explain, “No, my name's Ling-Ling, not Po-Po,” everybody's already gone climbing out the back window.

I think you can see the effect this has on the domestic life of pandas, like when Cho Cho and Chi Bai or Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing or whatever the pandas Nixon got for the National Zoo were called were clearly going through problems in the bedroom. Despite Ling-Ling's coaxing, Hsing-Hsing never seemed to rise to the occasion, and they weren't getting any younger. I can see how Hsing-Hsing might not have been feeling too excited about life, when he moves to America for a fresh start and the folks back home have already picked out a girl for him. I'm sure Ling-Ling's nice and all, but what if Hsing-Hsing just wanted to find a blackbear life-partner and adopt some orphaned polar bears whose mothers had drowned? Instead he's living in a fish bowl with flashbulbs going off in his face and strangers asking when he's having a baby... this is why Brad split on Jen. To keep trying to make it work, Ling-Ling certainly puts up with a lot. I mean she's obviously open-minded and committed to making it work, she's tried some things like finding some porn movies from Thailand that show other pandas mating, so she and Hsing-Hsing could watch them together to help him get in the mood. (I'm not making that one up, zoologists in Bangkok really have produced panda porn and it's been showed to pandas in other zoos to get them horny.) Maybe it's too much time together... I don't think grizzly bears even like salmon, they just know the importance of having a hobby that gets you out of the cave for a while so you're not getting on each other's nerves, and it was either golf or fishing.

But let's face it, if Hsing-Hsing wants to be picky that's up to him, but he's going to have to put down that bamboo and do some stomach crunches, and maybe hit Banana Republic to get a real shirt to put over that undershirt. In general a make-over could really help out the pandas, when you consider the level of style and class shown by their peers. In America, a brown bear won't go out to steal picnic baskets without first putting on a tie, and Smoky's got that hat he wears. Grizzly bears don't sit around slouching over their dinner, they know what posture says about them, so they rise up to their full monstrous height when they greet visitors. Koala bears down in Oz probably know better than anyone the importance of appearance and presentation. For years they've been exploiting that professorial image, putting up such a front of respectability that nobody ever comments on how their breath always smells of cough syrup. (Yeah, yeah, you were just “chewing eucalyptus leaves”, sure you were, now why are your pupils so dilated?) So ditch the white trash look with the wife-beaters and the thick eyeliner. Even the raccoons, when they come dig through the zoo's garbage cans at night, have to be telling Hsing-Hsing, “Dude, we're raccoons and we think your girlie needs to ease up on the mascara.” (Come on, raccoons are about the most white trash animal there is, scavenging for crawdads and digging through other people's garbage, there's no way they'd pass up the obvious joke about an Asian immigrant's eyes.)

Ten things to look forward to if your bank has been acquired by the British

10. Transfers from home office in London will go gaga for coworkers with a full set of white teeth, and with a little panache you can save a few bob on dates by passing off Billy Goat's as fine local cuisine.

9. No more of that herring and gouda cheese stinking up the joint, just the delightful musk of deep fried battered fish, just as God and St. George intended.

8. Credit default swap hooligans roaming the halls in Burberry caps really keep the clients in line.

7. The top few floors of the building will be turned into a giant clock set to London time, so you can close up shop at noon local time.

6. Burberry toilet paper really classes up the joint.

5. No more rolling over for Gerry and raising the white flag as soon as you see Deutschebank roll into town with their spiked helmets... this ain't Credit Lyonnais.

4. All the broken ATM's will finally be repaired (but they still won't dispense cash on cold mornings.)

3. Based on every conversation I've had with one of her majesty's subjects about North American geography, you can tell your boss Chicago to Milwaukee is a 9-hour flight and schedule a paid vacation day. (Given his parentage, this may also explain that time the Captain drove us straight east for an hour while insisting we were still in his neighborhood.)

2. To the great relief of employees, bonuses will now be paid in proper currency with a rich lady's face stamped on them, instead of distributing the millions of guilders left over in the vault.

1. From here on out, it's all bluefish and bluechips, baby. So put a couple lanterns in the window and enjoy the ride.

Wherefore art thou Fergie?

In the spirit of the admittedly adolescent WJWYD thought exercise PJ got me on a while back, an omnipresent magazine cover got me ruminating on the topic of Fergie. By which I could be referring to any number of things, such as:

1. Sir Alex Ferguson

The Manchester United boss is always spoken of by his proteges with great respect for his leadership and coaching skills, but also with a mixture of fear and amusement at his personality, because he's a total screaming lunatic. Seriously, he's one of those people whose knighthood single-handedly makes the case that KBE's, OBE's, MBE's and the like have become like winning a Hello magazine outstanding celebrity of the year award. It's not exactly like winning a Fields Medal when you give it out to somebody as classless as Ferguson because somebody blew their marking assignment on a corner kicks. Obviously a great football coach, whose career is symbolized by two things: winning the treble in '99, which is a unique sporting achievement, and kicking a spiked cleat at David Beckham's head during a locker room tirade, which he apparently did on a regular basis. (He kicked things at everybody, but Becks was the only one to play it up to the press for a purple heart.) Well, that and stuff like when Arsenal went the whole year without losing a game with Fergie proclaiming the whole time that Arsenal were still not in the same class as 3rd place finishers Man U.

2. Sarah Ferguson

The original tabloid era Fergie, or at least the first one I remember, but really better known as the redhead from the Weight Watchers ads. She married a shithead with a big house on the rebound when he couldn't work up the nerve to bring his former softcore porn actress girlfriend home to mother, (making it more amusing that his mommy was just portrayed onscreen by one of the stars of Caligula), and when she divorced him, she had to lose a lot of weight to get back into the market... this appears to be her entire claim to credibility when sharing her nutritional insights. Fergie also introduced Diana Spencer to her husband, which worked out great for her. By the way, I refer to her ex as a shithead because he was famous for his racist rants regarding what had to be done about his brother's ex-wife's boyfriend, combining hysteria over protecting the virtue of white women with a view that married women are the property of their male relatives.

3. Fergus from The Crying Game

Okay, while never referred to as Fergie, he was a fascinating character in a great movie, an inspired twist on Cal, which exposed me to the understated presence of Stephen Rea (as Fergus). Like a number of Rea's characters, Fergus has this sensitive and unassuming demeanor that makes him seem like a reserved, simple man adrift in the big city, but obscures this double life as a terrorist with an incredible aptitude for killing people. Fergus has the wit and the will to completely subsume himself into Jimmy the shy, sensitive construction worker, but within seconds he can plan and execute a shocking act of violence against somebody who'll never see it coming, even when they're talking directly to him. There are shades of this quiet man with kind, tired eyes hiding a streak of ruthless determination in Michael Collins and V for Vendetta as well. I'm just saying, even for the 90 minutes he appeared as Fergus, Stephen Rea he merits a little more study than the Dutchess of Pork.

4. Fergus Falls, MN

Sadly, when it comes to alliterative Minnesota towns, Fergus Falls falls rather short of the fictional Frostbite Falls in notoriety, and can't even claim to be the inspiration (Frostbite Falls is based on International Falls, MN). Without the lingering spirit of KGB agents and the antics of Moose and Squirrel hanging over the place, I couldn't really be bothered to do too much research on Fergus Falls. Especially when I could be watching such fine films as the Sci-Fi channel's homage to Hitchcock and Du Maurier featuring marauding killer crows, titled simply, Kaw. Seriously, they managed to come up with a title that promised even less quality film-making than their previous opus, Mansquito.

5. Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas

I first became aware of this Fergie when she was on some embarrassing moments show for having (allegedly) wet herself on-stage, and that may make her seem a little silly to me. The Black Eyed Peas strike me as kind of an overproduced version of Outkast, partly because of their overplayed endorsement deals with BBY, and also because of that song where they took that Dick Dale surf guitar song popularized by Quentin Tarantino, and updated it by adding a drum machine and shouting"Louder!" over it. The last time I saw them anywhere, they had four rotating singers trying to stamp their own mark on the song, with all of them but Fergie really overdoing it (one looked like he was having a seizure). It was like an American Idol montage where everybody dresses up like a cowboy, grins like a Stepford wife, and tries to be memorable singing one line of a song, only in this case were already signed and getting paid. Andre 3000 turned out to be surprisingly entertaining in his forays into acting (Dabu!), so I may warm up to Fergie depending on how she is in Grindhouse.

Which I suppose brings me to what my question should be... which Fergie was the right one to appear in Grindhouse? A question that may inspire me to getting around to seeing it soon.