We are the Champions my Friends....

OK... I let the entire World Cup commotion die down a bit before I decided to give my view of the event. Besides... I am Zotime, how could I post something that is current?

The World Cup in one word was... memorable.

Not only did Italy win, but the game lived up to all the hype.

The French and Italian put on a show in the game. One for the ages! The game lived up with plenty of drama, suspense and even a thrilling end with some lasting intrigue. The Italians outplayed France in the first half but only managed to have a 1-1 tie heading into the second half. During the second half, France showed why it deserved to be in the finals as they repentantly attacked the Italian side, but to Italy's credit, they did not break in their defensive end.

With just minutes to play a key event occurred as Frances star player head butted a Italian defender in clear sight of the officials. As his legacy flashed before him, Zidane was Red Carded and ejected from the match. The match ended tied in regulation time.

During the overtime periods, France (still playing shorthanded) tried to attack on several occasions, but Italy held. Italy had exhausted itself during the game and looked to head into penalty kicks. The overtime period ended and penalty kicks would decide the winner of this World Cup.

Both sides took turns, neither side faulted until the French side missing key player Henry, Vieira, and Zidane missed a critical penalty kick. To Italy's credit, they removed the bad taste in their mouth of loosing the 1994 World Cup to Brazil by not missing a single kick.

However, the whole world wants to know is what did Materazzi say to Zidane to provoke the head butt? Several speculations have come forth to the extent that Materazzi called his Zidane a terrorist, others say that he called his mother and sister a whore; still others state that Materazzi didn't say a thing.

Several days after the event, a Rome newspaper stated that this was the exchange between the two. (I will paraphrase what they stated and I believe this to be accurate when you review the tape)

Z: Let go of my jersey...

M: I'll take your jersey from you. (Let's go of Jersey)

Z: Wait until after the game... I'll give it to you after we win.
(A tradition of soccer matches is to exchange jerseys after the game)

M: ...I'll just take it off your wife after I'm done with her.

At this point, Zidane turns around and head butts Materazzi.

Several have told me that this showed poor sportsmanship on Materazzi part for sterribleuch a terible thing. To this, I state that from the time I was a teenager, trash talking has always been part of any game. If one cannot keep their emotions in check during a game then they do not deserve to win the game. What Zidane did was have a giant meltdown on the grandest stage during the most pivotal moments of a game.

Would the outcome have been any different? Ah, this will be talked about for decades, as the French fans will attest that their best players did not finish the game. To this I answer by stating that Italy gave up only two goals throughout the whole tournament... one on a kick that was redirected by an Italian player (USA v. Italy)... the other on the Zidane penalty kick on a very questionable foul. A great defense will always beat a great offence.

S. P. I. T. N.

Sorry I’ve been away for a while, but it took something like this to get me back. This weeks loogy is our favorite TV news channel.

What are these guys thinking? Not only do these real men of genius highlight one-sided news coverage, but they actually have the gall to put human life in harms way. I think that CNN, MSNBC, ABC, BBC, NBC, CBC, FOX and the rest won’t rest until they can get one of their war correspondents killed off while they are on live remote. Just think of the ratings!

Oops, we just lost Anderson Cooper... this is the CNN cameraman… back to you Wolf.

That ain't no woman! It's a man, man!

That is one of my favorite lines from the Austin Powers movie.

Is the woman’s movement done? I see that Renee Richards fight to legalize men playing on the woman’s circuit has brought out a new breed of players on the tennis tour.

Can you guess which one is a male?




Sorry, but this is a trick question… they are both female. One is Amelie Mauresmo the other is Svetlana Kuznetsova they were ranked number 2 and 3 a year ago. Below are a few action shots of Amelie…

Sorry fellows, but she came out of the closet and is a lesbian… go figure.




At least Amelie can actually play tennis not unlike this one.

Kingdom of the Wild

The females of the house had an interesting experience late last week. It seems that my wife left the door to the garage open and a chipmunk was able to sneak into the house. All was well for the little guy until he was spotted by the girls. That's when the screaming started and everything went haywire. The screaming must have alerted the chipmunk that all is not well in Neverland so he started running around the house trying to figure out how he could make his escape from all the screaming.

When faced with this, I normally shut the door to my office, put my headphones on, and listen to U2.

Getting back to the story, my wife hearing the girls screaming ran for them thinking that one got hurt. As she was running for them and them running to her with the chipmunk in-between the women, all hell broke loose, as you could have imagined it. My wife is not the hunter of the family... she is the gatherer. So she ran for cover seeing the varmint with its giant teeth.

Ok so chipmunks don't have giant teeth. I'm trying to do my best with this story as to not make it sound like my wife was scared of a little critter.

My wife being pursued by the assailant ran for high ground. The rabid chipmunk ran for the door wall only to find out that the door wall was closed. He rose up on its hind legs banging on the door and trying to reach for the doorknob with no avail. So the assassin turned and ran into the room to see that my wife and kids have taken up a high vantage point in the room. They were all standing on the couch. The little murderer ducked for cover under the couch trying to regain its wits.

My wife seeing this ordered the young one the open the door wall to the outside so that the fearsome creature could escape should he choose. It is always wise to send the young one to do heroic deeds. First, they don't typically understand the risk involved, second they are usually the fasted and have the most dexterity and third, they fear authority figures and don't want to get on that bad side.

After a few minutes, (it must have felt like hours) the beast lunged for the door trying to dodge anything being thrown at it and made an escape. He lived to tell his story of how he encountered the big people and won to his furry friends.

Ever since this occurrence, the chipmunks of the neighborhood have been circling my fortress looking for a way and trying to get at my honey roasted peanuts. However, I'm not going to givkingdomkingdome that easily. I'm not that easily intimidated. Nevertheless, if it's a war they want bring it on Chip... this subdivision isn't big enough for both of us.

Busy Day

We were busy today getting ready for our annual 4th of July party. I was able to finish off a stack of little projects that take no more the 30 minutes each. It seems that these kinds of projects never get done. I guess it is because we always think of that we can put those off until next week.

Today we got some minor painting done, cleaned the workshop, caulked some seems, cleared some rubbish from the garage, cleaned up the basement, did some finish carpentry on the basement.

Speaking of the man’s room, it’s almost done. All we need to do now is put in the
wet bar and decorate the place. The wet bar can wait until we get some more funds to cover the expenses.

4th of July festivities include road rally followed by BBQ, poker and a softball game.

Hoffa, World Cup, and the IRS

I thought it be a good idea to recap what became of some of the blog posts that I wrote over the last month. For all those inquisitive minds… here you go.

Email insanity lasted for 4 days... I can't believe that someone didn’t loose their job. This general list had hundreds of supervisors, managers, and several VP’s on it. We even had a senior manager respond to all during this event. It got so bad that at the end we had responses to all with questions on how can I get something done, does anyone know how to contact such and such, and who wants to go to the bar.

The World Cup fever is still on fire as the quarter finals are 3/4 done with only the Brazil v. France match to. Home team Germany keeps got past the Argentinean team on penalty kicks. The Italian soccer team keeps its fans happy by outscoring the young Ukrainian Team. The much-anticipated match between England and Portugal ended as Portugal won on penalty kicks. Give England credit for playing shorthanded for over 60 minutes, as Rooney was red carded and David Beckham was substituted for after an injury. I wonder if it outdrew the previous English TV viewership. Evidently, the Ecuador v. English match drew a 79% English TV audience. That is why the World Cup is so hot.

We got our “Tax Return” back from the IRS. They even gave us interest on the large sum of money that we overpaid. That’s right folks… we got a check for $2.01.

Hoffa is still missing and the fly situation has calmed down a bit but has not been fully eradicated. Unfortunately, we still haven’t found the source.

My sleep pattern has gotten much more manageable. At least I can sleep soundly for 4 – 5 hours before waking up and the multiple rock music stations playing at the same time have subsided.

And finally… As my buddy used to say “the fix is on.” Who would have known that that the NBA wanted Miami to win the series. Shaq and Dwayne got all the calls to win the NBA “world championship.”