Your "To Everything, A Season" Quizo Update

I watched the final of Euro 2008 yesterday, and as the day wore on and it became increasingly obvious that Ze Germans not only had no intention of winning but apparently didn't seem all that interested in actually PLAYING, I began to worry about what would happen if Spain actually won something.

Spain's failure to win a major tournament in the last 44 years transcends legendary. It's tough to make an analogy to some other sport that you non-football lot would understand; I cannot think of a single other team anywhere that has been so consistently talented and yet consistently managed to fuck everything up as badly as the Spanish have.

Well, okay, I can, kindasorta: take the last, say, 15 years of college basketball where Kansas has been a top 10 team every year and a decent favorite to win the national championship. Now make them even better - say one of the top 2 or 3 teams - and instead of the Jayhawks' standard second-round self-immolation, imagine they get to the Final Four every time and THEN try to set themselves on fire like they normally do but they even fuck THAT up and instead burn down the arena and all their fans. Oh, and take that 15 years and triple it. Kansas' now-broken string of underachievement is the only thing that's really close to the kind of cock-up-ery that has plagued Spanish football for FORTY FOUR YEARS, and in actually isn't really that close.

The beauty of Spain is that they don't just go out with a whimper. They come in as heavy favorites, perform well early, and then choke so spectacularly that even Phil Mickelson trembles in the face of their mighty chokage (or would, were he intelligent enough to comprehend the on/off switch on his television, never mind knowing that a country called "Spain" actually exists). The Mets' 7-game collapse at the end of last season? Imagine that level of choketacity, bottled up into a single game, and that your team did it EVERY TIME THEY PLAYED FOR YOUR ENTIRE LIFETIME. That is Spanish football.

So you get an idea of what we're up against with Spain when they're winning 1-0 with several minutes left. The texts started flying: "Does Spain have a choke left?" "Can they still lose this?" "Always be wary of the Germans." And so forth. The Germans had to come up with a miracle equalizer in the last few minutes, because to not do so meant Spain would win and, Christ, that obviously can't happen.

Then the final whistle blew, and I sat there watching the celebrations on the pitch.

But... but... Spain didn't lose. Spain won. That can't be right. Spain didn't lose, so ERROR ERROR ERROR! DOES NOT COMPUTE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

Sorry, went a little Dalek there for a second... moving on...

A little while back I was walking past a bar in a casino after a mildly disappointing round of Texas-style Hold'em when a cocktail waitress I knew from another casino came by. We headed in, I bought some drinks, we got to talking, and at one point she looked at me like I had three heads.

"Are you actually enjoying this song?" she asked. Apparently I had been lightly bopping my head to the techno song that was playing over the bar speakers.

It is important to note that I cannot discern the words of this song, merely that I can hear the backing tracks and that I am aware of vocals which I cannot make out.

"Yeah, it's not bad," I said. "It's well-put-together."

She gave me an indulgent smile. "Are you sure?"

"Yes I'm sure," I said, and I began to launch into an exegesis on how to construct a good techno track.

She interrupted me about halfway into my second sentence and said, still smiling, "this is Miley Cyrus."

I said, "it's wha?"

"Miley Cyrus," she said. "You know, from Hannah Montana? On the Disney Channel? My niece loves it. She's eight."

I opened and closed my mouth a few times, trying to say something. What eventually came out was: "Yes. I see. Well." (pause) "Yes." (longer pause) "It's still put together pretty well." (pause) "Yes." (pause) "Fucking hell."

Flash forward a couple weeks after that. I'm on vacation at Disney World, it's our last day, and my family and I are at Epcot. They tell me repeatedly that I should do the Test Track ride while they go get lunch - there's no FastPasses left, but the wait for a single person is only 30 minutes (as opposed to 130 minutes for a group), and that gives them time to go eat in the restaurant in Mexico (which I do not want to go to) while I wait.

"It's worth half an hour," my father says. When we used to go when I was a kid I thought my Dad was something of a wuss when it came to rides, but after a) aging 15 years since my last trip, and b) riding Mission Space a few days before that and wishing afterwards that Poseidon would impale me on his trident and end my misery, my views on rides have gotten a lot closer to his. So on his advice I get in line for Test Track. This is actually going to be the only line I will have waited in the entire trip, so before they go to lunch I fish my iPod out of my bag.

Apparently the volume on my iPod is far too loud, since a few minutes later while I'm standing in line, a little girl in front of me who might have been 10 or 11 pokes me in the arm. I reach into my pocket to pause the iPod and say, "yes?"

She says, "are you listening to Miley Cyrus?"

"No," I say, far too quickly to fool anyone over the age of 13.

She actually looks at me with suspicion - her brow furrows and she squints at me - and says, "it sure SOUNDS like Miley Cyrus."

"No, no, no," I again say way too quickly, giving a laugh that, again, only a child of this age wouldn't recognize as pathetically fake. I reach into my pocket to pull out the iPod and surreptitiously hit the "Track Forward" button as many times as I can before pulling it out. "It's..." I look at the screen to see what's come up. "Motorhead."

Fuck.

"What's Motorhead?" the little girl asks.

Oh, FUCK!

"It's, er..." How to explain this to a ten-year-old girl? "Well, they're a band."

"Oh," she says. She pauses for a moment. "Do they listen to Miley Cyrus? They sound a lot like her."

I say, "I doubt very much that they do."

"Are you SURE you weren't listening to Miley Cyrus?" she asks me again, clearly not sold on the idea.

"Nope," I say. "Motorhead, baby!"

I put up the horns, albeit weakly.

The doors to the ride mercifully open at this point - the wait ended up being more like three minutes, though the longest three minutes of my life - and a voice in the back of my brain screams, "YOU HAVE SUNK TO A NEW LOW!"

JLK

Your "I'm Terrified Beyond the Capacity For Rational Thought" Quizo Update

It's been a sort of weekend where a whole bunch of things happened that I was certain would never occur. This is fairly surprising when one considers the staggering vastness of my intellect and my ability to consider the most outlandish possible outcomes of any given situation.

Saturday afternoon, after going to the pub to watch the Manchester United - Arsenal match, which ended somewhat badly for the Gunners, I somehow ended up watching Brokeback Mountain.

Now Brokeback, understand, is a movie where I've never quite understood why I have it on DVD. The first recorded instance of this phenomenon was a couple years ago when, at the Best Buy in Moorestown, I bought the Special Edition DVD of Schindler's List with a bunch of other DVDs. I remember walking back to my car and stopping in my tracks in the middle of the parking lot. I pulled the movie out of the bag, looked at it, and said, "why did I BUY this?" I couldn't conceive of a situation where I would ever actually WANT to watch Schindler's List. Despite the aforementioned vast intelligence and imaginatory ability I couldn't see myself ever sitting around on a Saturday afternoon, bored, and saying to myself, "you know what, I feel like watching Schindler's List." Despite the movie's obvious quality it does not exactly top the list of weekend pick-me-up movies. Brokeback Mountain is the same kind of movie - great, to be sure, but not really something you'd ever look forward to watching.

I did end up watching my DVD of Schindler's List a couple years later, though to be fair I believe it was on a Tuesday night, and I was working at Best Buy at the time. This is a general life situation in which watching Schindler's List will actually improve one's overall mood.

I originally watched Brokeback on my computer when it came out - to this date one of only two films I have ever downloaded off the internet* - and I vaguely remember thinking when I bought it, "why am I spending 17 bucks on a DVD I'm never going to watch?" Saturday, though, I was going through one of the many piles of assorted media littered throughout my space, small mountains of books, DVDs, and video games it would take the National Geographic society to accurately map, when instead of the video game I was looking for** I came across my still-unopened copy of Brokeback Mountain.

For some reason I was possessed by a desire to watch it, possibly caused by the fact that it was still in two-year old shrink wrap. It is of course as good as I remember, but watching it didn't exactly put me in the best mood. I decided to go with my timeworn method of making myself feel better: spending money (aka adding altitude to said mountains of books and stuff).

On the way to the store I was stopped at a light across the street from a funeral home. Sitting there I noticed something outside the funeral home, on the patio.

"That can't be right," I said.

I looked closer.

"No, there's no way that's what I think it is."

I tried to squint a little to get a better look, but I was still seeing something that could not possibly be there.

"There's no fucking way," I said.

The light changed and as I drove past I got a close look at what was outside the funeral home. It was, in fact, the impossible thing I suspected from across the street.

A wedding party.

The whole bunch. Groom, bride - in what I assume was a Valentine's Day-themed dress of white with red highlights - groomsmen, bridesmaids, the whole whack. Standing around outside a funeral parlor and - this is the absolute kicker, the thing that drives it totally over the top and me insane - DRINKING CHAMPAGNE.

I can't live in this world.

JLK



* 1408
** Final Fantasy XII

Your "Why, Jose, Why?" Quizo Update

I was at the bar on Wednesday night for my show - a little bit on that in a little bit - when my phone rang. It was Bill, a friend of mine who is a supporter of Manchester United.

"You been reading the papers?" he asked.

"No," I said, "I'm at the pub for my show. What's up?"

"Your boy Mourinho just quit Chelsea. It's all over the fucking news," Bill said.

"Yeah, very funny." I am certain this is a windup.

"I'm serious! The board had some kinda bust-up with Mourinho, he walked the fuck out."

"Come on, man, this isn't funny," I say, though I am starting to get worried. I'm fairly certain Bill wouldn't mess with me in this way, but I'm not 100% sure. Then my phone beeps. I have a new text message. I keep talking. "Where'd you read that?"

"It was in the Sun!" Bill says, indignant. The Sun is vaguely the British equivalent of the New York Post - they are not above completely making things up if it suits their bizarre pseudo-journalistic aims. "After your pissant little draw last night - "

"Come on, Bill," I interrupt him. "You oughta know better than to trust what you read in the fucking Sun..." My phone beeps for a text message again.

Then it beeps again.

And again.

Then it beeps for an incoming phone call.

It is at about this point I realize this is not a windup.

Jose Mourinho has quit his job as manager of Chelsea.

As shocking as the news was at the time what would come over the next four days would devolve very quickly from bad to worse to ridiculous, the most egregious element being that Jose was actually FIRED. Five trophies in three years? Not good enough. I won't go over the entire story in detail here - if you're really interested there are a number of very interesting articles on the subject in The Guardian - but suffice it to say Chelsea has, in the course of the last five days, gone from nouveau-riche international football powerhouse to broken, dejected laughingstock.

I was at the pub again yesterday to watch the Chelsea-United match and Brian of Alias Pseudonym Undercover made the comment that "firing Mourinho is like firing Bill Belicheck." I responded that no, not exactly, firing Mourinho now is like firing Bill Walsh three days before the 1988 NFC Championship. It is lunacy. It TRANSCENDS lunacy. It is a decision that exists in some dimension of capricious, brain-damaged insanity beyond the bounds of known time and space. Did you see that movie "Event Horizon?" It's like the evil dimension in that. I know, the movie sucks, yes, but it has Sam Neill and Larry "I Refuse To Call Him Laurence" Fishburne and it works for the analogy I am trying to create here.

On the plus side, after Chelsea's loss to United yesterday morning, the Eagles went and scored eight touchdowns, even if those throwback uniforms are truly hideous. I hope you weren't playing fantasy football against anyone who had an Eagle on their team. Ouch. Of course, I played against a guy who had Tom Brady. And Marion Barber. And my first five draft picks COMBINED for a total of seven points yesterday. God, I hate the world.

On the show tip, I'll toss up the URL for the thing one more time - www.phillybinge.com - but basically if you don't tell me in the next, like, twenty-four hours when you're coming, guess what? You're probably not going to get tickets. Dealer's Choice is the best show and the hottest ticket in Philly. Everybody and their goddamn brother is coming to see this thing this week. When I said last time that if you roll up at 7:45 on some show night you were probably going to get seats, but they wouldn't be very good? Yeah, I lied. If you roll up at 7:45 some show night without reservations you're not going to get a seat. Bummer for you. Good for me, as this thing ended up costing dump trucks full of money, but bummer for you. It's really quite good. Remarkably good, in fact. It's a shame so many of our fine Quizo folk probably won't get to see it. Like I said - you've got maybe 24 hours before the run sells out. Get on it.

The only downside of producing the hottest show in Philly is that I constantly get asked the question "so what are you doing next?" It felt weird saying "nothing" or evading the question, so now I've settled on the answer, "it's this great new show called 'Going Back To College For My Education Degree.' It's really long and tickets are REALLY expensive."

JLK

Your Wildly Vacillating Quizo Update

I have railed against the weather numerous times in this space - previous instances of summer cold or winter heat or snow in April or whatever - and despite the fact that it is dark, cold, and raining in mid-August, the weather specifically is not what I'm shaking my fist at today. No, the problem is that for the last weekend life in general has taken this strange sort of erratic turn and, well, I tend to think my life was interesting enough beforehand.

One of the underlying causes of all of this is that the constant stress of obsessing about the horror show that my job has become is beginning to cause noticeable cracks in my psyche. This wouldn't be so bad were it not for the fact that it was pretty well cracked to begin with.

Things started well enough on Thursday night when I went to a book signing by William Gibson at the library. This was quite the big deal for me, bringing to 40% my completion rate for Meeting My Top Five Literary Idols - which is close to as impressive as it's going to get when one considers that meeting F. Scott Fitzgerald or William Shakespeare would require, respectively, some serious necromancy and some really, REALLY serious necromancy, and the fact David Mamet scares the shit out of me. (For the record, the other 20% that I successfully met was Neil Gaiman.)

The reading/signing thing was cool - he has aged an awful lot recently, but he's still sharp and funny, and when he signed my books he commented happily on how well-traveled my copy of Neuromancer was.

Then on the way home from the signing my car blew up.

This is only slightly an exaggeration. My car overheated fairly dramatically - the temperature gauge swinging back and forth over the redline, steam occasionally, but not constantly, billowing out from under the hood - and the next morning when I went to open the hood (it being too dark to see the engine at the time being, you know, night and all) there was coolant fluid pretty much everywhere, so it's a safe bet that SOMETHING with coolant in it, a hose of some sort I'm guessing, failed rather catastrophically while I was driving to the comic shop from the signing. I figure I was lucky to limp the car home. After consulting my finances and my personal feelings on the matter I determined that I am sick and fucking tired of spending money keeping this goddamn 16-year-old whoring sonofabitch car running. So, after my show is over I will be out and about on the market for a car.

Show, you say? Why yes! A show. Perhaps you've heard I produce shows. It's called Dealer's Choice. It is by Patrick Marber and it will be playing in the Restaurant at the pub opening on September 18. Originally we were going to be part of the Philly Fringe, but that is a gigantic pain in the ass to say the least, so we're not. Someone in my ridiculously talented cast - and here I do not exaggerate even the slightest little bit, this bunch is the most talented single group of actors I think I've ever seen in a show in this city, I don't know how in the HELL they're working for me - came up with the idea of calling our show the headliner of the "Philadelphia Binge Festival," and I liked it so much I decided to steal it. Tickets for the show are a scant $10, and if you get there early enough you also get to have dinner. So it's like going out for dinner and a show, only you're going to one place. Ask me for details. Website is up and ticket sales begin shortly.

Everyone remember the Medea references? Oh, that was nothing. Prepare to be besieged.

Anyway, a rental car later, me and some of my boys (and their moms and sisters, which was a little odd) were on our way to the Meadowlands on Saturday night to see the Los Angeles David Beckhams (nee Galaxy) play the New York Red Bulls. I wasn't sure what to expect from the experience necessarily, but two tailgates (totalling some 7 hours, both before and after the game), being pressganged into cooking for more than a hundred people at said tailgates, 66,000 fans in the stadium, spending the game next to several hundred Red Bulls supporters who can be charitably described as "completely insane" and NINE FUCKING GOALS! was certainly not it.

Sunday morning saw a big-time shock in the Manchester derby, and then something less of a shock as Chelsea and Liverpool played another spiteful, mean-spirited game that ended, mercifully, in a 1-1 draw, though I'm still convinced Chelsea left 2 points on the table there and could have won. The combination of the beginnings of cold and rain, the knowledge that I'd have to go to work 18 hours after, and the fact that we didn't beat the filthy Scouse put me in quite the pissy mood. Until I got home, at least, where after weeks of prodding I finally convinced my father to watch Hot Fuzz which - as I predicted - he loved, thus once again proving the age-old axiom "I am always right."

Then, just before bed, I pulled out my new William Gibson book to read before sleeping, and I noticed that one of my Top Five Literary Idols apparently inscribed all of my books "To Joan."

I don't even smoke anymore, but there aren't enough cigarettes in the goddamn world for this.

JLK

Your Extra Primo Good Quizo Update

A couple things from around the horn this week:

- Though I have never actually sat through, from beginning to end, an unedited version of it, Trading Places is by a country mile my favorite Philadelphia movie and is probably one of my top-five favorite comedies of all time. I watched it again yesterday for about the 90th time and sweet zombie Jesus it still cracks me the hell up, even when I'm on the tail end of a 17-hour, three-city wedding celebration extravaganza that saw me go something like 34 straight hours without sleep. I especially love the fact that there is an entire website - http://dangerouslogic.com/trading_places.html - dedicated to explaining just what happens at the end of the movie, which I cheerfully admit I STILL don't completely understand. But hey, cheer up, Coleman, in a couple hours you gonna be richest butler who ever lived.

- From a purely personal-health-related standpoint, I cannot in good conscience recommend embarking on a 17-hour, three-city wedding celebration extravaganza, unless you are a) suicidal, b) a goddamned idiot, or c) both. Seriously, kids, do not do as I do. I spent most of last evening flipping between Trading Places and the PGA Championship, alternatively counting the minutes until I could go to sleep without waking up at 4 in the morning and wishing God would smite me with a lightning bolt and end my interminable misery. Sleep is not for the weak. You will not sleep when you're dead (well, you will, but that's not really the point). Punch me in the face the next time I say those things.

- Obviously, don't punch me in the face. That would be, shall we say, an "exceedingly bad choice" on your part.

- I used to know a cocktail waitress at the Borgata who said that all the serious gamblers she knew were Bob Seger fans. I wouldn't call myself a "serious gambler" necessarily, but I am a long-time admirer of Seger and I have to put this out there: can anyone tell me what the FUCK the song "Ship of Fools" is actually about? I've been listening to it for more than ten years and the fact that I can't get my mind around it drives me absolutely bonkers.

- The Premiership season started this weekend, and yay! The soul-bludgeoning nightmare of seven whole weeks without soccer is finally over. Man these odd-numbered summers (i.e. without a World Cup or European Championship) are tough to take. Clearly, I (and others of my ilk) deserve some kind of commendation for enduring it.

JLK

Your Maturity Arrives Quizo Update

It's nice to know that I have finally advanced to a state where I can still hate Los Angeles - I mean seriously, deeply, intensely hate, like fondly remember the end of Transformers not just because it had giant robots but because they DESTROYED FUCKING LOS ANGELES YEAH! - but that I am now able to at least set that aside for a few days and have a good time out there. The sense that I essentially spent four days pillaging every remotely enjoyable thing in Los Angeles County helps. It makes me feel kinda like a pirate. Because, you know, they pillage stuff. Or is that Vikings? Eh, I'm fine with that too.

Of course, Chelsea beating the LA David Beckhams (nee Galaxy), Joe Cole autographing my jersey, sunny, 75 degrees, 10MPH breeze and no humidity every second of every day, getting kicked out of at least two bars, being interviewed on Australian television, and a free, private Paul Oakenfold show helped.

Pictures and video are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/john.kozempel/LosAngeles2007

I hope everyone is looking forward to hearing about this trip for the next five to six months, since it was so awesome it seems unlikely I'll talk about anything else.

JLK

Your "One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall" Quizo Update

Let's spend a minute or two talking about the Transformers movie, which I saw last week.

Transformers is the greatest movie in the history of ever. It is the crowning achievement of all human endeavor and is the single most important piece of entertainment since the dawn of human civilization, if not before.

Deviations from or disagreements with these statements will not be tolerated. Freedom may be the right of all sentient beings, but if you bitch on Transformers in my presence I will kick your ass right off this planet.

And that's all we need to say about Transformers.

The movie was far and away the highlight of the last week, since the only thing that even could have competed with it (before I saw the movie, at least) was my trip to New York this past weekend to hang out with the New York Blues (the official East Coast Chelsea supporters' club), and that ended with me watching my friend Tim, who was at the time the single drunkest being in not only this universe but through several layers of parallel dimensions on either side of it, asking a prostitute if she knew where the Kwik-E-Mart was. You haven't been mortified until you've watched someone ask a hooker for directions to a fictional convenience store.

You'd think that the only single woman at the party leaving with you and your friend is a good thing, even when said friend's blood has enough alcohol in it to successfully clean your sparkplugs, but trust me - said friend spending a 30-block cab ride threatening to throw up all over you and said single woman and then, after said cab ride, walking up to said prostitute and saying, "hey, do you know where the fucking Kwik-E-Mart is? Come on! I know you do! Where - is - the FUCKING! - Kwik-E-Mart?!" is not repeat NOT a good thing.

This is my life, and it's ending one minute at a time.

Finally, if anyone would like to see the New York Red Bulls play the Los Angeles David Beckhams on August 18 for $25, please let me know by noon tomorrow - the aforementioned New York Blues are getting a group ticket thingy and this is, to my knowledge, the only way to buy tickets to only that game (and not, as they normally make you do, also buy tickets to three others).

That's soccer I'm talking about there, by the way, for those of us who haven't been paying attention.

JLK

It's a beautiful game. No, really.

A discussion came up today on one of the Chelsea e-mail groups that somehow got around to the subject of the MLS and Alexi Lalas' comments about the... shall we say... "disparities" between the American and English leagues. I said something that was a tepid defense of part of his inanity, but was then inspired to write the following

********

By the way, lest anyone think me some sort of apologist, let's make one thing clear: while I do not think the MLS is a "rec league" necessarily saying that it is on par with the big leagues in Europe is folly. It is absolute, unabashed folly. The MLS might be the talent equivalent of the Championship, but I honestly haven't seen enough Championship football to make an accurate guess.

I'm sorry, MLS. I've tried to watch you. Screw you. You're boring. If there is nothing else on and I need background noise while I'm working on something else I will watch your substandard product, but even reruns of Mythbusters (ones that I've already seen) counts as "something else on." The one article I read made the oh-so-witty comment that "the concept of marking" does not appear to have reached the MLS. Fuck that. The concept of RUNNING does not appear to have reached the MLS. The vast majority of the players seem to have no desire to win whatsoever, which is not surprising when one considers I make more in 6 hours at a poker table on Saturday night than 90% of MLS players make in a week.

You want me to watch you, MLS? Here's an idea. PUT A FUCKING TEAM NEAR MY HOUSE. I live in the fifth-largest city in the United States where you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some 10-year-old playing soccer. I live 4 miles from the BIGGEST YOUTH SOCCER CENTER IN THE UNITED STATES but the nearest MLS team plays at the Meadowlands. Ten years on and there are teams in Columbus (15th biggest city in the US), Kansas City (40th) and Salt Lake City (122nd) but not in what is, at worst, the second- or third-biggest soccer city in the country.

You bring in David Beckham and then you stick him in LOS ANGELES, which may be the most sports-apathetic city in the world. You're the LaSalle University of professional sports: you try to do the right thing, and then you colossally fuck it up. At least my fair alma mater has the good grace to feel bad about it afterwards and apologize; you completely fuck everything up and then ask me why I have the nerve to not love it. Fuck you, MLS.

JLK

Your Peril Masquerading as Landscape Quizo Update

I was quite distraught this weekend that Tiger Woods did not win the Masters, despite the best efforts of everyone PLAYING at the Masters to let him win. Time and again Tiger would slip up, and time and again the entire field would back up their scores to keep him in contention. Once he put his second shot in the water on 15 yesterday, though, it was too late for the field to rush and course-correct themselves to keep Tiger in the hunt, since everyone else was pretty much in the clubhouse by then.

I will admit, though, that those Sam Elliott IBM commercials do make it go down a little easier.

That, however, wasn't the most important sporting news to come out of this weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr4e0us7zxI

This is a conversation I had Saturday afternoon with a friend of mine who is a big Manchester United fan.

Me: Hey, you know what the first mp3 player was called?

Him: No?

Me: The RIO!

Him: Shut up.

Me: You know what my favorite city in South America is?

Him: Shut up.

Me: Actually it's La Paz.

Him: Oh.

Me: But I'm also a big fan of RIO!

Him: Shut up.

Me: Hey, let me put my favorite Peter Allen song on iTunes. Let me just find The Boy From Oz on here...

Him: What?

[I Go To Rio starts playing]

Me: (singing) RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOO... I GO TO RIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Him: Shut up.

Me: (over Peter Allen) Or, you know, I could put on my favorite Duran Duran album. Want to guess what that is?

Him: God I hate you.

Me: When I get a new car I think I'm going to get a Kia Rio.

Him: You're not going to buy a Korean car.

Me: Sure I will. You know why?

Him: Please die.

Me: Because HER NAAAAAME IS RIIIIOOOOOOOOO AND SHE DANCES ON THE SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND!

In all honesty I don't really have a favorite Peter Allen song - I do have the Boy From Oz soundtrack on my iTunes, though - but Rio actually is far and away my favorite Duran Duran album.

Most importantly, Chelsea is three points back with 6 to play. GAME ON, BITCHES! GAME ON!

JLK

Your Back To Earth Quizo Update

It's a good-news-bad-news kind of day.

The good news is that my back doesn't hurt anymore and hasn't for a couple days. The bad news is that this means I don't really have an excuse to consume dangerous quantities of painkillers any more and thus have to live on this lousy planet with everyone else. I couldn't even pull a Brett Favre and get hooked on them and claim that's why I throw so many interceptions. I do kinda miss the purple clouds, though.

The good news is that Chelsea won the Carling Cup yesterday, defeating Arsenal 2-1 and winning us our first silverware of the season. The bad news is that Chelsea and England captain John Terry got kicked in the face and was knocked out for a little while, but he seems to be okay.

The good news is that the Oscars were last night and Martin Scorcese finally came up big. The bad news is that I was supposed to go to an Oscar party down the shore last night and the FUCKING SNOW prevented me from doing so.

Remember that bit a couple weeks ago, from that one psychotic e-mail that went out because Dr. Chill complained that I hate everything, where I talk about how wonderful snow is? Yeah, that was a lie. I hate it. I HATE IT. I hate it more than anything. MORE THAN ANYTHING, do you hear me? It drives me insane. Then last night I'm trying to get ready for this thing - which was black tie, further pissing me off, because goddamn I look good in formal wear, as those of us who were here on Barrymore night are aware - trying to divine from the weather forecasts whether it's safe to drive to Somers Point. Or, more accurately, whether it's safe to drive BACK from Somers Point at 1AM.

All the websites and TV stations were being relatively noncommittal and I was about to take the plunge when the thing on weather.com changed from "light snow, with a possibility of sleet and a secondary possibility of some icing" to "DON'T DRIVE TONIGHT IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE ZOMG WEATHER DEEEEAAAAAAAAATH!!!!!!shift1"

So much for that idea.

Did anyone catch that one commercial during the show last night, where Diane Sawyer is doing an interview with Bob Woodruff? He's that reporter who got bombed in Iraq and needed massive brain surgery and whatnot. I certainly have nothing against him, but during the commercial they quote this one bit where Sawyer asks him incredulously - Diane Sawyer, curse her black soul, is always incredulous about something - says "so you have no fear of death anymore?"

At this point I said out loud to the TV, "you know what, if I took a fucking RPG to the dome and lived to tell about it I probably wouldn't be scared of a whole hell of a lot anymore either. I'd be like, skydiving? You got it. What? No. Parachutes are for pansies."

Then I peeked outside and saw that the entire world had been encased in snow and ice and STILL wished I'd gone to the Oscar party. Goddamn snow.

The good news, though, is that my recent back injury, while comparatively healed, gives me total immunity from shoveling, since that's how I did myself last time. The bad news...

Well, I guess there isn't any bad news on that one.

JLK

Your Return to Normal Quizo Update

After the... shall we say... generally adverse reaction to last week's e-mail I have once again returned to our regular format, providing you with your weekly dose of sarcasm and misery. This is not to say that I don't hope people occasionally laugh - though recent evidence indicates I am somewhat deficient in that specific area - but misery is more interesting, most of the time.

A brief wrapup of recent events:

Saturday morning saw Chelsea beat Charlton 1-0, which when you consider that Charlton may be the worst soccer team in the entire world (including, like, the Wissinoming under-11s) is not that great a result, especially when Andriy Shevchenko could have had about 4 goals if he would only remember that the key to scoring is to not kick the ball directly at the keeper. Chelsea's win did put us a scant three points behind Manchester United, though that certainly wouldn't last ( c.f. Sunday morning, a bit later)

Saturday night was Johnny Goodtimes Quizo Bowl 3, which my team would have won if I were not such a goddamned idiot. There was a time when I actually played Quizo quite regularly, but since it passed recently I have apparently gotten out of practice and am now subject to pathetic mistakes that cost me and my teammates many hundreds of dollars. I would hang my head in shame were I capable of shame or guilt; as it stands I merely get pissy at my teammates for not catching and correcting my wrong answers.

Sunday morning Manchester United was playing at Tottenham, who have an excellent record at home (9 wins of 12) and with a draw would close our gap on United to 4. Hell, a win would keep it at 3. Of course, neither of those things happened, Tottenham got absolutely thumped AT HOME 4-0 and drive United's goal difference into 6 figures. I spent most of Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon muttering "fucking Spurs..." to myself until just before the Super Bowl when I did my back carrying laundry, preventing me from going anyplace other than my couch for the game.

Then, of course, the game came on, and the Sex Cannon's antics made all the pain go away. We love you, Rex - never change. Not one bit.

Then Peyton Manning won the Super Bowl MVP and I got pissed again because he certainly doesn't deserve it. There's no justice, I swear.

JLK

Your "Life is Once Again Pain" Quizo Update

If anyone is keeping track of such things - and I severely doubt that anyone is - you may recall a Quizo update from about a year ago (February 27, to be precise) which occurred after I spent an entire weekend moving out of my old apartment and moving a bunch of furniture out of my old office. This, as you may recall, led to a significant amount of physical pain and the infamous "pain" speed round.

Well, folks, we're back there again. And, let me remind you, pain can take on many forms.

First we have the sort of pain caused by seeing something so strange, so odd, so unbelievably weird that you get that tickle in the back of your brain that you realize is your actual consciousness writhing in agony.

Saturday night, upon returning from the theatre, I found an instant message waiting for me on my computer. Now normally I am very good about putting up an away message so that people think I am not just ignoring them when I am unable to receive one of the many thousands of IMs I get on a daily basis. This one said:

"Is this John?"

I looked at that and realized that the only way someone could have actually GOTTEN my IM is if I gave it to them or they read it on the Quizo website, which is essentially the same thing as me giving it to them. OBVIOUSLY, yes, this is me. Who else could it be? Let's look at my IM for a second: "LSUKozemp." It's been that for almost ten years. There are only something like 25 people named Kozempel in THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES, and as far as I know I am the only one who went to LaSalle, and I am for damn sure the only one who a) is, in fact, me and b) tells people "my IM is LSUKozemp." At that point I am seriously starting to worry that someone is out there who not only managed to obtain (through whatever means) my IM but for some deranged reason thinks that SOMEONE OTHER THAN ME WOULD BE USING IT.

Put another way: did one of you IM me this weekend? If so, I was at the theatre. Sorry. Leave a name next time.

Speaking of theatre, this week is your last chance to see Medea, playing at the Second Stage at the Adrienne, tickets $20, box office 215-563-4330 or www.prosfromdovertheatre.com. And that's the last time we'll hear about that.

There was also emotional pain this weekend, though thankfully it was all sports-related and thus reasonably minor. Chelsea lost to Liverpool on Saturday morning, which - though painful - was made considerably easier by the fact that the 7:30AM starting time meant that there were reasonably few Scousers at the pub and those who were there were, frankly, surprisingly well-behaved.

Then, on Sunday afternoon while watching the conference championships, we had two little muddles. First, the Chicago Bears' embrace of a cold weather running offense means I was denied one of the greatest pleasures of the NFL, i.e. watching Rex Grossman - aka "Sexy Rexy," aka "Rextasy," aka "The Sex Cannon" - throw interception after interception and generally be the worst, most hideously overrated and undertalented quarterback the NFL has to offer. That displeased me greatly. There are few things more entertaining than watching Sexy Rexy completely self-destruct.

Then, of course, came the AFC Championship. After a first half in which it seemed that Bill Belichek and Tom Brady's Faustian bargain was going to come through big-time once again, Peyton and the Colts fought back to take the lead.

The situation, then, is that the Patriots have the ball on the 20, with 54 seconds left, down 4 points.

I said to my father at this point, "well, clearly, the Patriots are going to win."

Note well the fact that Tom Brady - who I am largely ambivalent towards but hate his fans with unbridled passion - has engineered an astonishing SIX game-winning drives in the postseason. Tom Brady, in that respect, is the Jack Bauer of the NFL. 4 down, minute to go, 80 yards - yeah, he's got them right where he wants them.

Then he threw an interception and... and... it suddenly became clear that something is dreadfully WRONG with the world. Hence more emotional pain.

And, on a final and physical pain note, yesterday morning I was awoken by an incredible, earth-shattering pain in my left leg which has since been determined to be a cramp. I maintain that if this is a cramp it is no ordinary cramp, but the Mayor of Cramp City in Cramp County in the United States of Crampia on Planet Cramp in the Cramp Galaxy. I mean, fucking OW. It still hurts. This is why I may still be walking with a cane tonight, because there is a good chance I will be unable to fully flex my left leg. But, hey, House teaches us that leg pain and cane usage is an excuse to be cruel and aloof and not give a damn about other people's feelings.

So, well, at least now I have an excuse. Thanks, House!

JLK