Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Three items today (Item 1 may be a little slow, but stick around for items 2 and 3!):

1. Although tennis has not been terribly succesful (at least in terms of the actual sport of tennis) this year, I'd say I'm doing pretty well at the two parts of the tennis team that I consider to be the most important: the movie game and gatorball.

The movie game is the activity of choice in the back of the bus while traveling to and from away meets. The first person names a movie (example: Pulp Fiction), the next person names an actor from that movie (Steve Buscemi), the third person names another movie with that actor (Fargo), and so on, until a participant is unable to think of another movie with an actor/another actor in a movie. They may then challenge. If the previous player is unable to name another actor in the movie they named/movie with the actor they named, the challenger picks a new film and the game continues. If the challenged player comes up with another actor/movie, however (William H. Macy), then the challenger is out of the game.

It is a fun game, and I tend to be pretty good at it, if for no other reason than I seem to have the requisite knowledge of action movies necessary to hang with the teenage boy crowd, plus a slightly more obscure set of movies I can bring up to knock people out (mostly Cohen Bros. and killers like "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues"). In other venues I'm not so successful--when I tried playing this with my parents and aunt before I got completely destroyed--but I was 4 for 4 on the bus ride home.

Gatorball is an enjoyable, made-for-phys-ed sort of game, played with the eponymous spheroid--a ball filled with a foam heavy enough to allow for long throws, yet light enough so that getting whaled in the face doesn't hurt too much. I don't wanna into the dirty details, so let's just say that it's a far more athletic activity than actually playing tennis, and now that Messers Houle, Holbrook, Smith, and Valesano have departed, I'm one of the better players.

2. So the AP news service has been asking the leading presidential candidates some personal questions lately. The last one was What is your "favorite fitness activity?" and, not that I'm racist or sexist or classist or anything, but I found the responses rather amusing:

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden: Weightlifting

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton: Speed walking

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama: Basketball

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson: Horseback riding and tennis

Now Joe, Hillary, and Barack I can understand here. They all did their best to use this question as an opportunity to emphasize the traits they want to make more prominent: everymanness (to coin an excellent word), womanliness, and blackness, respectively. But what is Bill thinking? "Horseback riding and tennis"? Is he trying to emphasize his wealth and priviledge in the hopes that the American people will recognize him as their superior and vote for him out of deference? In any case, I've concluded that the candidates did not go far enough in their responses. My reccomendations:

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden: Punching out cattle, resurfacing pick-up truck beds

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton: Cooking, cleaning, nagging

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama: Running from police

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson: Touring the grounds on a jewel-encrusted litter carried by a team of manservants

You're welcome, Mr/s. Future President.

3. I'm thinking I'm gonna cut all my hair off one of these days. Probably a buzz cut, for simplicity's sake. The big hair has become a burden once again, the weather's getting warmer, and I have a feeling Lost Lake Lodge might not be thrilled about a waiter having an out-there afro. Although I suppose I could go for the "Rugged and Unorthodox"-type waiter: stubble, unkempt hair, tight t-shirts, opening up bottles of wine with a bowie knife and my teeth. People like that, right?

Oooooor I could go for the clean-cut fella with the buzz cut and an irritating perchant for answering any rhetorical scientific queries his customers happen to pose to one another and correcting any economic fallacies they happen to make in conversation. Oh man, I can barely wait to hear some asshole complaining about the national debt, so I can pwn him, then get a 9% tip. Awwww yeah.



P.S.: Spiderman 3--fewer musical numbers, more Bruce Campbell, please.