Archive for June, 2006

Here’s one of my least favorite World Cup stories.
It’s my 20th birthday — June 5, 2002 — and I arrive home for work at 1 a.m. (I was interning for this very paper).
In one hour, the U.S. will take on Portugal in the WC opener. I sit down and turn on the TV, and SHZSHZSHZSHZSHZSHZSHZSHZ (the noise of static. I guess that’s what it sounds like).

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The Tour de France starts Saturday and Lance declined to defend his titles. (Too bad that whole marriage with Sheryl Crow didn’t work, by the way)
The 2007 Tour was supposed to give everyone else a chance, but just forget that. Early Friday three of last year’s top Tour riders were kicked to the curb for “doping.”
And were talking top names here. Ullrich, Mancebo and Basso are as well known in cycling circles as Manning, Woods and Wade.
But in cycling, what’s new?

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Osama bin Butthead has made another recording.
But what’s new? It seems like the world’s most famous terrorist is doing more recording than his favorite group — the Dixie Chicks — these days.
This new one is 19 minutes — almost two minutes longer than In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.
In it, Osama says:
“Ooga booga booga. Ooooooga. Boooga. Bushah. Islama booga booga booga booga. Allah ooga. Islam booga booga.”
I don’t speak Butthead.
But those who do have translated the latest oogas and boogas say old Osama is pretty pissed off about us killing his terrorist buddy Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Just last week, terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri — not to be confused with terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi — called on all al-Qaeda terrorists to avenge his terrorist friend’s death.
Terrorist al-Zawahiri is Osama’s terrorist deputy — meaning you should take him about as seriously as you would Barney Fife.

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I found out recently that I contracted the worst sexually transmitted disease known to mankind – KIDS.
For now it’s only one, but I heard after the first, it gets harder to stop. Kids show up in the family like a VW full of clowns.(without the big shoes of course)
My friends tell me they have a “surgery” for that, but no way Jose. I’ve been married for a little more than 2 years. I mean, what do I actually know?
Burping, changing, feeding and crying are four terms I haven’t been related to for almost 24 years.
The doctor visits, the sleepless nights are shortly on the horizon, but my wife and myself made the decision as the family. Heck, I’ve never even held a kid, and now I have to worry about my own.
Now I guess it’s time to be the man I was raised to be.

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The First Baptist Church opened its doors to the Wichita Falls Independent School District’s back-to-school teacher assembly last summer and somebody got offended.
To quote the great philosopher Gomer Pyle — “Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!”
Notice I said ‘SOMEBODY” got offended.
That’s a singular noun.
But as the pool hall philosopher used to say: “One little turd can spoil the whole punch bowl.”

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What do you do when you see your boss hugging a man in the alley?
(A.) Lower your head and act like you didn’t see it.
(B.) Turn around and run and hope he doesn’t see you.
(C.) Buy him a subscription to “Gay Guys Gone Wild” magazine as a Christmas gift.
(D.) Smile and say “Who’s your boyfriend?”
(E.) None of the above
I chose (A).
But Carroll Wilson knew that I saw him.
So I resorted to (D.), only with much more tact.
“Who’s he?” I asked as the other guy drove off and CW and I walked in the back door of the newsroom together.
“My priest,” he answered.
Forgive me father for that last thought.

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Let’s play a quick word-association game. Brazil is to greatness as Spain is to _______.
a) underachieving losers
b) a floundering group of fools once group play ends
c) non-greatness
d) all of the above
I’ll go with D.

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Newspaper obituarites never do life justice.
A person is born. A person lives. A person dies.
A funeral is scheduled.
Their family must now carry on without them.
Most people deserve more than that.
Charles Harmon deserved much, much more.
You see, Big Charlie was a great man.
If you never met him, count it as a blessing that you missed.

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If you watched all 210 minutes (plus injury time) of soccer this afternoon, you didn’t see a goal scored in the run of play.
You would have witnessed a weak penalty kick and game that was decided by penalty kicks, but not an actual earned goal. Pretty hard to do.
If you haven’t caught the highlights, Italy’s 1-0 victory had another officiating blunder (and in other news, the sun is hot and water is wet).

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Just about every week my little grandson Nicholas surprises me with something he says.
I know Grandpa is prejudiced, but believe me, the wisdom this 3-year-old boy has will amaze you.
But on Sunday he surprised me and amazed me like never before when he said:
“Grandpa, tell me a story about God.”
Now we weren’t at Sunday school or some tent revivial at the time. In fact, I don’t think this little guy has ever been inside a church in his life. Mom and Dad don’t go, and Grandpa hasn’t pushed the issue.
I was driving him home.
He was sitting in the backseat and I was singing his favorite song:
“Well, the monkey wrapped his tail around the flagpole
and scratched his elbow with his foot.”
When I sing that, Nicholas reaches down and grabs his foot and rubs his elbow on it.
We do that all the time. We do a lot of things together.
But up until Sunday, we had never talked about God.

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Things England midfielder David Beckham is good at:
1) Getting my wife to watch soccer when she hears his name on the TV.
2) Getting my wife to read a soccer magazine, in the hope of seeing Beckham shirtless.
3) Scoring goals on ridiculously-swaying free kicks.

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Sometime while watching four World Cup soccer games today, I finally had had enough.
No, not of the soccer. Keep the games coming, I’m loving every second of it.
I’m talking about the refereeing, which has been sloppy, overly-cautious and downright deplorable at times.
I wasn’t pleased with the red card of U.S. midfielder Pablo Mastroeni against Italy, but I admit it wasn’t a smart foul
I cringed when South Korea’s goalie saved a shot while standing a yard deep into his goal, costing France an invaluable tally.

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Well, that wasn’t the plan. Sure, Italy held up its end of the bargain, trouncing the Czechs 2-0.
But what a lackluster finish to a mediocre three games for the U.S.
The game-winning penalty kick in Ghana’s 2-1 win before the half was a bunch of baloney, but the bottom line is the U.S. didn’t play well enough to get out of this group.
Landon Donovan never got it going. Claudio Reyna was banged up and there wasn’t enough power up front.

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The deadline for turning in your 2006 Texoma’s Best Ballots is Friday.
So here are my final endorsements in the “Best Stores? category.
Sorry for all the “no opinions,? but I’m not a big shopper.
Best Antique Store. Astonias Antiques and Uniques on Monroe Street
Best Auto Parts Store: Auto Zone on Kemp
Best Boat Store: (no opinion)
Best Bookstore:
New: Books-a-Million
Used: Larry McMurtry’s Booked Up stores in Archer City
Best Bridal Shop: (Stay single)
Best Car Rental: Enterprise
Best Carpet Store: (no opinion)
Best Children’s Clothing Store: JC Penney
Best Children’s Consignment Store: (no opinion)
Best Computer Store: Best Buy
Best Convenience Store: Flying J

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The minute I walked through the door last night, my wife knew something was terribly amiss.
“What’s wrong,

Having sat through Graham Ball’s funeral — which was longer than “Gone with the Wind” — I know I will never be an Episcopalian.
In fact, I try to avoid friendships with Episcopalians just knowing that I will never, ever sit through another one of those marathons again.
If there ever was a chance in heaven that I would convert to the E-church, that door was officially closed when they opened it to gay preachers.
I don’t care if my barber is gay or my pharmacist is gay or my grocer is gay.
If any of the coaches I have to work ran out of the closet, that would be OK, too.
I don’t discriminate against homosexuals.
But there are some people that I do business with that I want to be hetero.
Like urologists, proctologists and preachers.

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ESPN soccer announcer Tommy Smyth said it best Tuesday afternoon.
“Man, the only way to go is with picture-on-picture on your TV.

I go to a men’s Bible study at my church bright and early every Tuesday morning.
To me it is a time of important spiritual male bonding.
Sometimes, our little group of guys gets into some pretty interesting discussions — like today when the subject of pre-destination popped up.
If God is the creator of everything, then He created Satan.
So God created evil.
Life then becomes a game with God as nothing more than a puppetmaster who rewards his good puppets with mansions on streets of gold for ever and ever and punishes his bad puppets by letting them burn in hell for eternity.
Eternity is a long time, my friends. It’s even longer than the last two minutes of an NBA playoff game.

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Father’s Day is supposed to be a “special day” for guys like me.
If so, I wasted one “special day” Sunday.
I spent 9 1/2 hours in front of my TV set watching two historic choke jobs.
Mickelson and the Mavericks.

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Just a day ago while watching Iranian soccer in a hypnotized fashion, I discussed with my friend John about the super coolness of some foreigner possessing an American name.
Like if Japan had a forward named Tom. Or if Ghana’s defender was named Brett.
At that time, I had no idea about Fred. He’s now my favorite player after the Brazilian sub scored his team’s second goal late in a 2-0 win over Australia.

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