The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain...
Sigh...summer is here. I can't avoid admitting it any longer. It's totally here and I'm totally like FOO. At least it means I can golf. I keep telling myself that...
May's Ten Happy Things is, per usual, pretty sportscentric. As a note to my sister, Mary, there's a fair bit about Sergio this month as well. I just figured I'd give the warning. I know how you feel about him...
Here's to hoping I can get through May's list without anyone cursing me out, bitching me out, or wishing me dead. One can only hope. With my fingers tightly crossed, here we go!
10. The French Open is completely underway. While it's my least favorite out of tennis' four Slams, it's still pretty cool - for two reasons, mainly. One - I have DirectTV and DirectTV really spoils tennis and golf fans. When there's a major tournament in either sport, they reserve a number of HD channels where you can watch all manner of goodies. For the French Open, there's a mix channel that shows all the matches being played at once...and then, of course, each individual channel where you can watch a specific match. There's also a bunch of interactive menus so you can always know what the hell is going on. They do this for all four of the Slams and each time they do it, I totally geek out over it because, frankly, it's awesome. Two - this year seems to be the French Open of change. For starters, that idiot Nadal is OUT. He's won the thing the last four years in a row...but this year, he got his butt picking self ousted in the fourth round by this random Swedish guy. So we're guaranteed a new Champion this year. Additionally, Andy Roddick is still in it. That's a big deal. American men, in general, don't usually do very well at the French Open. The tournament is played on clay, a surface almost impossible to find in the United States. Andy, to the best of my memory, has never gotten past the second round. Usually, he's out in the first round. This year, however, he got a really favorable draw and he's doing really well. His next match is against Gael Monfils, a young French player who is the new up and comer, which will probably spell the end for Andy. I don't expect him to win. He might....but he's going to have to really work for it to beat Monfils. Nevertheless, Andy has been BRILLIANT this French Open, which is really refreshing if you're like me and you're sick to death of seeing the American boys suck it up in France. Go Andy go!
9. Okay, this is my huge geek moment for the day. Okay, well, I'm a geek all day, every day...but that's beside the point. I don't know if you've seen it but there's a new trailer out for the new Transformers movie. Ravage is totally in the trailer. Another Transformers movie is excellently cool in and of itself....but a new Transformers movie that includes Ravage? Yeah, that's geektastic. Ravage is the SHIZZ! When I saw him in the trailer, I just about filled the cup.
8. Let's start with the golf, shall we? It's been a good month for my boys. Paul Casey, one of the newer additions to the Top Five, has been kicking his fair share of superior ass. Paul is this funny little English chap who has knocked Luke Donald right out of my Top Five. Mind you, I still love Luke Donald...but Paul Casey is way more fun to watch. First of all, he's really good. Second of all, he's easily got the best ass in golf. Yeah, I said it. Laugh if you want. I don't care. He's really, really good....he's storming up the rankings....he's incredibly fun to watch......and you have the added bonus of a really nice ass while you're at it. Can't go wrong there. Anyway, he's been winning like crazy. He just won another. Here:
7. Moving on, The Players Championship was the second weekend in May. You might remember me going on...and on....and on.........and on about The Players last year. Sergio won last year...in a playoff....on the Island Green...which was AWESOME. I digress. Sergio, unfortunately, did not win this year. That's not surprising. The Players has never had a repeat winner. The year after someone wins, they usually play awful the following year. A lot of champions haven't even made the cut the year after they've won. Sergio, thankfully, made the cut. He didn't contend but he hung in there. He didn't completely embarrass himself. That's all fine. I wasn't expecting him to win. He's going through some stuff right now, the poor thing, so I can give him a break for not playing so great. Anyway, this year's Players was awesome for a lot of reasons. First of all, because Sergio was the defending champion, coverage of the tournament was centered around Sergio until the third round. All the lead-in coverage and the first two rounds were Sergio, Sergio, Sergio. Naturally, that's a good time for me because, you know, I love me a Sergio overdose any time I can get one. Secondly, my Number Two - Ian Poulter - played AWESOME. He was one of many in the running to win. He came in second. That's pretty damn good. It was like an awesome one-two punch because coverage went from Sergio, Sergio, Sergio to Ian, Ian, Ian. Good stuff. Finally, my boy Henrik Stenson.....you remember Henrik. He's the dude in his underwear.....he totally won. The leaderboard was a log jam at the top but when it counted on Sunday, Henrik played the best and totally won. Right, so, how great was my life that weekend? It went from Sergio, Sergio, Sergio to Ian, Ian, Ian to Henrik, Henrik, Henrik. We even got to see Henrik be all cute with his little daughter, which is like beyond adorable. Actually, we even got to see Sergio being all cute with Henrik's little daughter during the trophy presentation. Yeah, it was a total golfgasm.
6. Okay, building off The Players, I'm going to take the time to share some of my Sergio overdose with the rest of you. My list, my rules. *wink* As I mentioned, a lot of the lead-in coverage for The Players was centered around my favorite little Spaniard. It was just Sergio all over the damn place. The PGA, being the wonderful people that they are, put this little gem together:
That laugh at the beginning there when he's talking about school? Yeah, that just about made my universe. I cannot tell you how many times over I've watched that video. I know...I have such a sickness.
5. In addition to that video that was a complete and utter Sergiogasm, the PGA Tour website did this article thing that kind of chronicled Sergio's career from its inception on. This article came complete with baby pictures. That's right. You read that correctly. Sergio Garcia baby pictures. Here:
There has to be an addiction program for me somewhere. Sergio Anonymous or something.
4. Despite my endless ramblings about golf and tennis and baseball, etc...I'm actually also a pretty dedicated hockey fan. Yeah, I know, you're totally shocked. Mer likes, yet again, ANOTHER sport. Oh, the humanity! Anyway, I'm a Penguins fan. Yes, I know that's odd. I'm not from Pennsylvania, I've never even been to Pittsburgh...but I'm a Penguins fan. There's method to the madness. My two cousins who taught me about hockey when I was a kid were huge Mario Lemeiux fans. HUGE. So, when they would show me hockey, more times than not, it would be a Penguins game because Mario was a Penguin. He owns part of the team now. He's a dedicated Penguin. Anyway, it kind of carried over. I mean, I root for the Blackhawks and all that but if it came down to it, I'd pick the Penguins over any other team any day of the week. The beauty of it is that the current Penguins are just loaded with awesome guys to watch. There's Sidney Crosby, who is like the new hot guy of hockey or something. He doesn't do it for me but he's supposed to be this big hockey sex symbol or some such thing. I don't really care. He's an awesome player. He's finesse. He's kind of Gretsky-ish. There's also Jordan Staal - who is one of three Staal boys who play in the NHL. There's a Staal on the Penguins, another on the Hurricanes, and yet another on the NY Rangers. Staals all over the damn place. Got some ice in your back yard in the winter? Yeah, there's probably a Staal back there too. At one point, all three Staals were in the playoffs at the same time. How proud are those parents, right? Anyway, back to the Pens. My favorite is Evgeni Malkin. He's this enormous, goofy looking Russian kid who just KICKS ASS. He's up for MVP this year. He's just stupid good. The Penguins are totally playing for the Stanley Cup right now. They're down two games to none against stupid Detroit but I'm not worrying about that yet. During the series against the Carolina Hurricanes (the series that got them to the finals), my boy Evgeni got the hat trick. For you non-hockey fans, a hat trick is three goals in one game. That wasn't even the best part though. The best part was Evgeni's interview after he got the hat trick. I knew he was Russian. I didn't know he was, like, off the boat Russian. He understands English just fine. His speaking, however, is not so great. They should not let this kid talk on TV. It was like the Russian version of Ozzie Guillen. His accent is so thick and he was just stringing together random words. They asked him what it was like getting the hat trick and he was like "well, I won face off and then it was lucky and I helped team so then I get scored." Huh? I kept walking forward toward my television while he was talking thinking that I would somehow understand better the closer I got. They asked him how it felt to be able to celebrate with his parents (because they moved here from Russia to be with him and are at EVERY home game) and his answer totally revolved around what a good cook his mother is. It was simply hilarious...and entirely endearing. He really is just this big kid. He's, like, my favorite hockey player EVER.
3. My little miss Shawn Johnson won Dancing With the Stars. She's the cutest thing in the universe and she was the total underdog out of the three finalists and she NAILED IT. Historically, whoever does the best free form dance during the finals wins and Shawn's was the best and she totally won.....and I totally cried like the dork that I am...... :-)
2. Get a load of this:
Okay, not only is that awesome because, well, it's Star Trek.....but I nearly had a heart attack laughing when old Spock said "dickheads". I don't know why, but that was just too hilarious for words. Leonard Nimoy on Saturday Night Live calling the haters 'dickheads'. Superb.
1. Perfect lead in for May's number one. Dudes....Star Trek. Oh my GOD, Star Trek. It was AWESOME. It could have been so disappointing and it so totally wasn't. It is my favorite Star Trek movie ever, which is saying something. I've been hanging on to the one with the whales for YEARS. Considering that the last Star Trek movie I saw in the theaters before this one was a complete and total traumatic experience (they killed Data, okay. They just totally killed him. It's this thing that Star Trek does to me. Every single Star Trek series that I've ever watched has managed to kill off my favorite character at one point or another. It's ridiculous.), I was relieved beyond measure that this new movie did not disappoint. I was worried about the guy they got to play Kirk....but he was perfect. I was even more worried about the guy they got to play Spock because, you know, IT'S SPOCK....but he was insane, crazy perfect. Beyond all my expectations. I was kind of eh about the kid they got to play Chekov....but then he opened up his mouth and spoke and he was PERFECT. It was phenominal. It was Trekker heaven. I've seen it numerous times. For those of you who haven't seen it, see it. For those of you who have, let me just say that I lived about 400 lifetimes during that scene in the elevator with Spock and Uhura. Oh my sweet chocolate transporters, what a scene. And Sulu with the fencing! And the Tribble! And Admiral Archer's prized beagle! And Scotty! And Kirk eating the apple during the Kobayashi Maru test! And the red shirt guy totally dying! And the Leonard Nimoy doing the "space...the final frontier" voice over thing. CHILLS! Oh man, it was some awesome stuff. I want to see it about ten zillion more times. The first time I saw it, I was with a friend who's completely not into Star Trek. Not the show, not the movies, nothing....and she totally loved it. It's awesome if you're a Trekker and it's awesome if you're not. It's just awesome. The only way that it could possibly be any more awesome than it already is would be if they figured out some way to get Sergio Garcia in there. Other than that, I have no complaints of any kind. Well, okay, the thing with the imploding Vulcan and the Amanda on the collapsing cliff thing kind of broke my heart but it fit with the story. It wasn't wrong. It was just sad....so that doesn't qualify as a complaint. BEST. STAR TREK. EVER.
So, my little Tribbles, there you go. I must admit, May was much more of a geek fest than usual but, as always, I totally don't care. I revel in my geekdom. I revel in my geekdom and my unhealthy obsessions and my sporting life. Now, go forth and embrace your inner geek. Hell, embrace your outer geek! Whatever works. :o)
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