Table of Contents (to make it easier to identify items you might skim over to humor me)
Midwesterner brutally attacked by Calgary resident
The BK stacker game was real
Crème brulée is dead to me
Jesse Jane weighs in on HDTV
Oh I like that Baby. I put on my robe and wizard hat.
Why does Kaka get treated like, well, caca?
American sports in Europe
Big ass tunnel to Russia
Let me tell you something about Kansas City
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 17th 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.
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