Yum!

It's nice to lean back and sip some cool and refreshing. Don't worry your Majesty, you'll get yours. But for now, I'm just savoring the sweet. Congratulations Dirk!

Haterade Plus: Now With More Electrolytes!

Recently I've been sipping the Haterade. And it's been really good lately. I find that, just by adding some human tears, you get an enhanced taste that mimics a delicious margarita.

El Heat have been making me feel muy bien. I don't feel at all bad for D-Wade when he complains that everyone just wants the Heat to lose. You created a super-mega-über team. Of course I'm going to want you to lose! But seriously, I don't see the Warriors crying. That's because they don't have this expectation that "if I try hard, I should succeed". It's a common assumption, especially in American culture. But there are a lot of reasons why, even if you try hard, you shouldn't succeed: you don't have enough resources, you have poor health, you were attacked by bees, a madman runs your country, your name is Charlie Sheen, etc.

At this point, the Heat are going to make it to the playoffs for sure. The question that everyone's wondering is how they'll do in the playoffs. I can't decide what is more delicious: "First Round Exit On the Beach" or "Final Game 7 Beaten By the Buzzer Iced Tea".

Food poisoning: the sport

I received some feedback asking me what food poisoning as an Olympic sport would be like. We completely leave the world of judging to the lame events; this is going to be one of the central events of the Olympics so it needs to have a proper amount of objectivity in determining the winner.

For food poisoning, then, what determines the winner? Is it amount of material ejected? From which end? Do we combine both ends? Do we use the same kind of food? (Or, should I say: 'food'?) Is this a test of endurance or a test of speed?

The small-minded will spend hours poring over these different dimensions. But the visionaries among us will look at the current Olympics and realize that we can split this into multiple events! Here is a partial list of events in my mind:

1) 100 m dash. After eating a standard meal (it would be the same thing for everyone) you have to diarrhea a line that is 100 m long as fast as you can. There cannot be a space between spurts more than a meter long. This tests foot speed, pass-through-the-colon speed, and determination.

2) Hurling. Like the name suggests, after eating as much of a poisoned food product, you would see how far you could throw up.

3) Spurting. Like the above except the other end.

There's actually a lot more in my brain. I wrote out a number of them, but deleted them all because some things should actually stay in my brain and not on the internet.

Mmm. Haterade.

The Yankees. USC. The Lakers. The Celtics. North Korea's soccer team. Any team with Terrell Owens. The Patriots. The Cowboys. Any team owned by Al Davis.

The best part about watching some of these teams play is relishing in the loss. Seeing the disappointment in their athletic achievement is an ice-cold refreshing glass of Haterade. The experience is enhanced when you've got two of these teams playing one another so you know that one of them has to lose. I now officially welcome the Miami Heat to the menu of teams that I will love to hate.

I'm definitely not one of those guys that hopes athletes get hurt playing. No way, my friend. That kind of Haterade be way too strong. Plus, you don't want a guy to say stuff like: "Oh, I was hurt. If I was healthy we would have had a chance." You want the circle to be complete; you want the guy to try his hardest but fail in the most spectacular fashion, completely helpless in his own physical ability to prevent defeat.

This is why the neighborhood kids didn't like to play with me.

I was talking to an Ohioan about the King. He was convinced he was going to stay in Cleveland because he felt that LeBron wanted to win a championship in Cleveland and that Cleveland was really close to putting together a championship team. He also felt that Cleveland could offer LeBron the kind of money other places couldn't. The latter was true but I pointed out that LeBron probably had more money than he could spend, so it couldn't be all about the Benjamins. So he went back to talking about how even if the King wanted to be the Lord of the Rings, Cleveland was the best place to do it. I thought for sure that James was going to the Knicks, if they could put together the right team, but when I heard about Bosh and Wade being in Miami I thought that was where LeBron would go. Nothing stunning here, since LeBron already said he's going to Miami, but I thought I'd just drop that piece of wisdom for you. Like I'm so smart I can predict things that have already happened.

The problem with putting all these superstars together is that they have to win a championship. It's the way I felt when the Celtics put together their team. It's going to be fun watching the Heat, because I'm pretty sure all the other teams in the NBA are going to be pretty amped up to play them. So thanks, Miami, for expanding my menu selection. All I can think of is how many delicious cases of Haterade are just chilling in the fridge, waiting for next season to start.

While we're on the topic of basketball, I'd like to thank Chris Cohan for failing financially so that he now is looking for a buyer for the Warriors. Not only have you made the past 10 years great in terms of consistently giving me low expectations, but you've prevented the Warriors from being on any list of teams that people love to hate!

GOAL!

I'm off to take a nap before I cheer my boys on, but here's a good luck post for the Yanks. The past few days I've been reading a lot about US Soccer. I've even taken the liberty of nicknaming some of my favorite players. Like Clint "Mark Young" Dempsey. Or Jozy "Slowest Black Man Ever" Altidore. Sigh. That's not very nice; I'll try to come up with a more encouraging one. But, as my wife often reminds me: I'm not nice.

One thing I've been struck by is how a lot of people are commenting on the maturity of Landon Donovan. It's encouraging to see a player feted not just for this ability, but also character transformation. I especially appreciated his insight into how his ex-wife's perspective on acting helped to transform his own perspective on competing in soccer.

This is one of the best compilation videos I've seen. Ever. In the history of compilation videos. I like this particular video because the excitement and emotion is palpable. I've had my share of sports related yelling-screaming-euphoria in my life so I can identify. My favorite is the guy that takes his shirt off and slides down the stairs. Enjoy! Extra goal if you can name the movie the soundtrack comes from. Hint: It's a movie with a hobbit in it. And one of Jennifer Aniston's exes.






Go Yanks!

World Cup vs NBA Finals

We don't have a TV. But before you cry for me, Argentina, it's actually not that bad. First of all, I didn't have to buy a TV. Second, I didn't have to buy a cable subscription. Third, TV here really isn't that great. It's mostly commercials. Sure, some of it is good language practice, but then my language would consist of Chinese commercial clichés. It would be like someone saying "Set it and forget it!" every time you started talking about cooking. Or they would always insist on paying everything in 10 easy payments of $19.95. And then quietly add that shipping and handling were not included. The only reason I would want to get TV is for sports. The NBA Finals, as we are speaking, are going on right now. Even though I'm kind of interested (and I could watch) I find it surprising that I'm much more interested in the World Cup. Part of the reason, I think, is that I've seen many Lakers vs Celtics NBA Finals. True, there is a desire for me to see Kobe denied again, but I've seen these two teams win it before. The World Cup on the other hand, is a completely unknown quantity to me. I played soccer in high school (translation: I rode the bench on varsity and got some garbage time as a senior) so I have an appreciation for the game, but I don't really follow American soccer. It's mostly because:

1. American soccer is played poorly. By poorly, I mean MLS soccer is pretty boring. The players aren't that skilled.
2. The best American players go overseas to play. Which increases the quality of MLS soccer, obviously.
3. The national team doesn't get together to play that often, because of individual professional obligations, so it's often difficult to follow. Usually the best mediocre American players are on the national team because all the best American players are away making money. But when the Olympics and the World Cup comes around, they somehow free up time to play. Probably because all their teammates are playing for their own national teams.

I think that's why I find the World Cup much more compelling. While I find Kobe crying about losing pretty significant, I'm more interested in some of these national rivalries. I mean, if you think about it, sports are just a proxy for war. We live in a more civilized age now; it's much better to embarrass other countries by kicking a ball into a net than dropping a bomb on their capital. Don't give me any of that "Friendship and Harmony of Countries Playing the World's Sport!" (I think that was the original motto for the first World Cup played in China). If they were really interested in that, they'd take all the players and randomly create teams from them. That would be awesome.

So while the Lakers/Celtics match-up bores me, here are some World Cup match-ups that totally spin my wheels:

1. North Korea vs South Korea. At half-time, I heard they are planning to a re-enactment of the sinking of the submarine. Complete with a giant parade balloon of Kim Jong-Il fighting Godzilla.
2. North Korea vs USA. If North Korea wins I can see the Pyongyang headlines now: "Dear Leader's urine-laced sports drink enables defeat of evil imperial forces!"
3. New Zealand vs Australia. It's like Eli Manning vs Peyton Manning. You're either happy because you know one of them has to lose or you are happy because you know one of them has to win.
4. Algeria vs Egypt. Egypt's not in, but that doesn't mean I can't dream. There's this bitter rivalry between the two. This makes for a more exciting game because that means the players will be more focused on fighting one another rather than playing the game.

If you're looking for a good primer to the teams, Jeff Blum's World Cup Preview is a great start.