Your Edge of Your Seat Quizo Update

My father and I have for a while now had an ongoing but civil disagreement - of course it's civil, because rule #1 is dignity, always dignity - as to the exact nature of the source of Tiger Woods' continuing excellence. He maintains that Tiger has made some sort of Faustian pact (c.f. Tom Brady, Dr. Faustus) in order to attain his golf prowess, while as we know I hold that Tiger Woods is in fact an android built by Satan, powered by the Dark One's unending hatred of the human race.

After this weekend's US Open, however, we have realized that were are both wrong and have come to the same conclusion:

Tiger Woods is, in fact, Satan himself.

No one but the First Among the Fallen could have engineered the kind of performance we saw at a BRUTAL Torrey Pines the last two days. Going into Saturday Tiger wasn't exactly out of contention, but he wasn't playing well - his gimpy knee was clearly giving him trouble - and then on the 6th on Saturday he took a tumble and further aggravated said gimpy knee.

Of course, this whole "injury" and "arthroscopic knee surgery" thing is obviously a clever bit of misdirection to distract us from the fact that Tiger is actually The Devil. What human being could, after further injuring a supposedly already-injured knee, go on to shoot FIVE UNDER FOR THE NEXT SIX HOLES ON the LONGEST COURSE IN GOLF HISTORY? After every tee shot Tiger grimaces in obvious pain, but it is not the pain of his "inflamed knee." No, it is the pain of maintaining the facade that he is human and not the Morningstar come to devour the souls of humanity.

This is a guy who, were he human (he is not), was walking around the course with an obvious limp, doubling over in (fake) pain after every shot and generally being - by his standards - wildly inaccurate off both tee and fairway, and STILL managed to force an 18-hole playoff for the championship today. Face it, folks. Tiger Woods is The Devil. It's the only explanation. Read your Bible. It clearly says in chapter 14 of 1st Kings, "and the Deceiver shall make an impossible 65-foot putt for eagle on 17."

Note that 1Kings 14 also tells us, "and on the third day, he of the sinister grip will make quadruple-bogey on 13 and prove that he is a gigantic fucking choke artist who sucks."

Tonight's game marks a number of semi-historic occasions as well. On the one front, Oprah's Book Club is going for their third win in a row, which is something I'm sure none of us want to see happen. On the other front, tonight will be Dr. Dan's (of Das Boot) last Quizo before he moves on to, I dunno, some kind of doctor thing in Arkansas. Dan's been a week-in-week-out regular since something like the third Dark Horse Quizo ever - back when his team was "Suck It Trebek," still one of my favorite team names of all time - and we are certainly disappointed at his departure. So we have Das Boot fighting to get a win at their team founder's final showing versus Oprah's Book Club looking to impose their hideous dynastic will on us all.

Hell, that's almost as exciting as watching Lucifer play golf.

Almost.

JLK

Your "So, That Happened" Quizo Update

Well now.

We certainly can't say the last few days have been.... INTERESTING, at the least.

Thursday saw the long-awaited return of Lost, even if it is - at the moment - for a shortened eight-episode mini-season. There is talk now that this may not be the case much longer, that the WGA strike may in fact end as early as this week. It's too late to save most of the admittedly-limited television that I watch - even a settlement tomorrow would probably mean there wouldn't be new episodes of Lost or 24 until the summer at the earliest, more likely fall - but a resolution soon should save Battlestar Galactica (which doesn't start airing until March) and when it comes to television as long as Galactica finishes its run everything else can fuck off.

But that premiere on Thursday! Great googly moogly. When Lost is on its game - which is still most of the time - it's no worse than the second- or third-best show on television, the the fourth-season premiere shows it. The show has so many levels of awesomeness it's oftentimes hard to keep up with them. It's the little things that make a difference. For instance: when Hurley is hallucinating in the police station, his vision of Charlie swimming in the mirror puts his hand on the glass and it says "THEY NEED YOU." Or when Jack and Hurley are playing basketball and Jack only gets as far as H-O, which are the 8th and 15th letters of the alphabet (c.f. also Charlie "standing next to the Ho-Ho's").

Did you also happen to notice - I did not until my second viewing - that in the scene in the cabin it's Jack's father in the rocking chair? Oh yes.

Admittedly if you don't watch Lost this not only doesn't make sense but probably sounds pretty silly, but if you do watch it's FUCKING HUGE.

[Soccer content ahead]

Saturday saw some... well, I would say something like "quality soccer action," and the games themselves were great, but the results kinda pissed me off. Spurs (aka "fucking Spurs...") scored early against Manchester United and then actually played defense for almost an entire game, something relatively unheard of. Of course, the key word in that sentence is "almost" as they allowed a goal at the very end of the game, preventing Chelsea from closing the gap on United and Arsenal.

And, of course, Chelsea also chose not to help themselves in that regard, with an absolutely gorgeous goal from Nicolas Anelka - really, you should try to find it, it's quite something - cancelled out by giving up a soft one to Jermain Defoe, meaning that instead of us winning and United drawing and getting closer to first place, Chelsea drew when United drew and Arsenal won, meaning that by the end of the weekend we're actually FARTHER off the pace now. Of course, we are in the League Cup final in a few weeks and Arsenal is, let's say, decidedly not, so that's something.

[End soccer content]

Then there was the Super Bowl yesterday, which was... yeah.

Even the most ardent football fan has to admit that yesterday's game was three quarters of utter garbage. I mean, really, ugh. However, as I semi-predicted two weeks ago, some combination of a) whatever hideous black magic the Giants have wrought, and b) the expiration on Saturday of Tom Brady's Faustian pact meant that the New York Football Giants once again managed to eke out a win against a clearly-superior team and - inexplicably - win a Super Bowl in the process. Suffice it to say I don't think anyone really saw that coming, as the odds against either or both of those things happening had to be slim at best. Of course, revelations that the Patriots, hereafter referred to as "Cheaty McCheaterson," had been plying their rules-snubbing trade as far back as the Super Bowl in 2001 could, I suppose, have had something to do with it on some cosmic level. Karma's a bitch, yo.

Round 2 of the Tournament of Champions tonight. Results from last week are on the website. Let me tell you how much fun compiling all THAT was...

JLK

Your Increasing Entropy Quizo Update

A friend of mine turns 30 today - happy birthday, Brian - and I was at his birthday party over the weekend and came to a strange realization.

There were, I dunno, maybe 15-20 people at this thing, including a couple married folks who had brought along their kids. It was about as grown-up a party as I've been to in a long time, no wanton stupidity was on offer like fighting with Norwegian shipwrights (my 28th birthday), or people drinking beer out of saucepans with straws (my 25th birthday). Suffice it to say this was not a party in which anyone would end up sleeping in a bathtub (my 30th birthday).

I'm at this party and I'm taking it all in; everyone is just standing/sitting around, talking with each other, eating Brian's Delicious Food - back when Brian and I and a bunch of other guys lived in a house in college the rule of thumb was that Brian's food was always delicious - generally having a pleasant time while the few little kids hung out with each other and did, I dunno, whatever the fuck little kids do at grown-up parties their parents take them to.

At one point I caught a glimpse of said kids and was very violently hit with this wave of memories of MY parents taking me and my sister to THEIR friends' houses for parties when we were young. In fact, a couple people reading this will actually also remember those parties, from both the tall and short perspectives, so to speak. You know who you are.

It's Saturday night and I'm having pleasant conversation - well, as pleasant as I get in conversation, which still tends to involve a lot of shouting - at a party with people who brought their kids.

Then, the realization:

Oh, God, I have turned into my parents.

This knowledge didn't get any easier to take after I considered it for a bit. You may recall I was pretty sanguine about turning 30, but this one hurts. This one really hurts. This shit makes me feel OLD. My friends and I are (for the most part) respectable adults. We have responsibilities beyond (but not without) acquiring video games. We have to plan our social lives more than three hours in advance. We bring our kids to our friends' houses.

I've turned into my parents. Except for, you know, having two kids and a house and something like 5 academic degrees between them, but in all the ways that matter to my warped brain at this particular moment, I've turned into my parents.

My little Zen moment was broken when one of the mothers at the party - Christ I can't believe I can say that about people I know - came into the room saying "Kylie? Kylie?"

I immediately jerked my head up and said, "where? WHERE?!"

My friend Justin said, a look of absolute pity on his face, "not THAT one."

It turns out that she actually was looking for her daughter named Kylie and my hopes were dashed. Hey, stranger things have happened. I once saw Paul McCartney at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike; Kylie Minogue at a birthday party in Fox Chase isn't much more unlikely.

And, finally, there is hope that the Patriots' despicable unbeaten season can finally be stopped, since the New York Football giants seem to have acquired some sort of foul magic - voodoo, perhaps - that makes good teams turn to crap when they play the Giants. If you had told me four months ago the NFC Championship would have been between the Packers and the Giants and that, what's worse, the Giants would actually win I (and just about anyone else) would have laughed in your face and said that you were clearly insane, or at the very least retarded. Because, folks, I'll tell you what - the Giants are NOT THAT GOOD. They're not. But somehow they have managed to tap into the arcane energies of the universe to turn other teams that ARE good into total crap. The hope now is that whatever hideous black magic the Patriots have worked is not as strong, or that Tom Brady's Faustian pact expires on February 2.

One cannot live without hope, after all. So, you know, go Giants.

Wow, that hurt more than I thought it would. Think I sprained something...

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