One Sorry Blog

It’s a Good Time to Be a Sports Fan
By Ace Cummins

In the recent past, the first round of the NBA Playoffs and the beginning of the MLB season haven’t piqued my interest. Maybe it’s because the NBA Playoffs haven’t been that competitive, and/or boring, and my teams in MLB have been disappointing to say the least. But this year it’s different. There are some great stories and great games in the NBA Playoffs, and I find myself watching complete baseball games in April! A good time, indeed.

A few months back I thought the Mavs were an absolute lock to win the title this year. But now… not so much. I still think they are the favorite, but they are quite vulnerable. Even their first round match-up with the eighth seed Warriors has them in a tough spot. The Warriors looked like a team that wouldn’t quit in game one, holding on to the upset victory. Game two, however, they fell apart almost instantly and looked like they would be their own worst enemy and have no chance at another win.

But that’s what makes tonight’s game three so compelling. Which team will show up? Will the Warriors’ first home playoff game in 13 years give the team the lift they need? Watch tonight to find out. And if you don’t get a close game filled with big shots and exciting plays, there’s a good chance you’ll see a team melt down and get a bunch of T’s. What’s not to like?

As for baseball, if you are a fan of our beloved pastime, what’s not to like this season? There are so many stories and so many great performances. A-Rod in April? Are you friggin’ kidding me? And the Yankees are still under .500? Nice. Have you seen Jonathan Papelbon pitch? If not, you should. He might be the most dominant pitcher I have seen in a decade. Seeing him pitch the ninth is worth the price of admission alone. And Dice-K? His gyroball? Good stuff. At least it has us talking baseball again.

This weekend’s picks:
Tonight
Boston Red Sox (D. Matsuzaka) (+122) @ NY Yankees (A. Pettitte)
If you plan to watch any baseball this weekend, this is the series to watch. Duh. And Dice-K vs. Pettitte is the premier matchup. As a must watch game, you gotta throw some ducats on it. The Red Sox swept the Yanks at home last weekend. Will the Bronx Bombers be able to turn the tide? I say no. The Sox are the better team right now and I think Dice- K has proven his composure and will rise to the occasion. Plus, Papelbon is the new Mariano. The Sox only play eight innings when he pitches.

Dallas Mavericks @ GS Warriors (+4.5)
I have struggled with this one. I thought the Warriors would be a lock in this game, but after the game two fiasco I am not feeling so solid about their team maturity. But the crowd is going to be pumped and we can’t forget that game two was the only time the Mavs have beaten the Warriors this entire season. Gotta take a home playoff dog in a game that is destined to be high energy and likely very close.

Saturday
Cleveland Cavs (-4.5) @ Washington Wizards *****My 5-Star Pick*****
Lebron = good. Wizards = not good. Cavs have played terribly and have still won the first two quite easily. All the criticism King James and crew are taking right now will be taken out on the depleted Wizards.

Detroit Pistons (-4) @ Orlando Magic
Maybe this should be my 5-star pick. But it is an elimination game, so anything can happen. However, if you can name the leading scorer on the Magic, I’d be surprised. They are TERRIBLE. And have been for a long time. The day they signed Grant Hill was the day the franchise died. This team would have won 20 games if they were in the Western Conference.

Ace Cummins: 7-3 overall, 3-0 on 5-star picks

The Yankee Influence
By Julie Nisbet

I was raised on British humour. Actually, scratch that, I was raised on Scottish humour, which is undeniably funnier than English humour, but for argument’s sake, we’ll just wrap all of the jokes originating from the United Kingdom, under the banner of “British Humour.” It’s hard to describe British humour and I’m not even going to try. I just know that the shit is funny and I also know that whenever the Brits come up with a groundbreaking funny show, American producers are lined up around the block, waiting to pounce. Now, very occasionally, this idea works, and the American version of the show isn’t that bad. But in my opinion, the vast majority of the time, the American version is so much worse than the British version that I just don’t understand why they do it. So here it is folks, my top 3 British TV shows that were transformed into an unwatchable American equivalent.

3. Whose Line Is It Anyway?
It’s true, white people love Wayne Brady, but the American show just doesn’t measure up to the original. Although the producers kept some of the original British cast (albeit, the American and the Canadian) and generally kept the same format, they made a couple of major mistakes. The first was that they didn’t realize that you can’t get away with the same jokes on ABC that you can get away with on Channel 4; the FCC just won’t allow it and the humor suffered because of it. The second mistake…Drew Carey. Oh, Drew Carey! I know that it was probably his idea to Americanize the show, and that’s why he was allowed to be involved in it, but he really shouldn’t have been. Clive Anderson’s dry, sarcastic, unscripted comments were a huge part of what made the show hilarious. Very few people could have filled his seat. Drew Carey didn’t, and shouldn’t have tried.

2. Coupling
I would like to know who thought making an American version of a British TV show that was a remake of an American show would be a good idea. Coupling was a British knockoff of Friends and, honestly, it wasn’t that funny in the first place. Most of the jokes that were funny were too risqué for American audiences (see FCC regulations above), so seriously, whose idea was it and do you still have your job?

1. The Office
I’m having a hard time with this one because I like the American version but how can you have an article about the American influence on British television without mentioning The Office? Yes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, yes, Steve Carrell is funny, yes they’ve finally figured out that word for word translation of the British show isn’t a good idea, but it’s just not the same. Nothing will ever compare to the hilarity of Tim putting Gareth’s stapler into a jelly mold (that’s Jell-O for my American readers), or “Gareth Keenan Investigates” or David Brent’s inspirational speech. If you like the American show, seriously, don’t watch the British one. It will just ruin it for you. RUIN it I say because although John Krasinski looks uncannily like Martin Freeman, Jim ain’t got nothing on Tim.

One Sorry Blog News Service

Buenos Aires – With their sixth houseguest in three months having come and gone, one young couple is telling anyone who will listen that living in someone else’s space is no joke.

“Call it etiquette, good manners, coming correct, keeping it real, whatever,” said Paul Rivas, “there are rules to being a houseguest.”

Nevermind that, as the erstwhile host’s girlfriend, Clare Nisbet, is quick to say, Rivas is “not much of a host.” With the eye of one who is always trying to tighten up his own houseguest game, Rivas has been studying houseguest behavior closely for the last 15 months. The young Californians living in Buenos Aires have had six houseguests and two housemates since January, some with tighter game than others.

A friend of Nisbet’s who came with a boyfriend presented Nisbet with New York’s finest chocolate and Tetley tea upon arrival, but her boyfriend broke part of a bed by standing on it while trying to help Clare’s friend lower the blinds. Two women visiting separately left stacks of celebrity magazines behind when they left, the houseguest exit gift equivalent of a complementary mint from the jar on the way out after paying the bill at Carrow’s.

“I was ready to name Little Julie (Nisbet) the best houseguest when I got the Cadbury’s Mini-Eggs she sent in another recent houseguest’s luggage,” Nisbet said, “but Paul and I discussed it and since she’s family she wasn’t really eligible.”

Clare explained that if for some reason Julie hadn’t been a good houseguest, Clare would have been pissed off, and would not have written off Julie’s unacceptable behavior as the foibles of being a houseguest, like she and Paul been forced to do on more than one occasion. For example, one three-peat houseguest was a liability as a houseguest and an absolute disaster on nights he just crashed on account of drunkenness.

Then who’s the best houseguest? Rivas believes it’s the Life Artist Bubba Ray Robison, who never arrives at anyone’s house without two bottles of $100 tequila, a carton of cigarettes, corn tortillas and hot sauce.

“Are you kidding?” said Nisbet, making a face. “Bubba’s room looked like something you’d see at the dump, he shed enough chest hair to carpet the place, and when he snored it sounded like a rhinoceros fart. He slept from 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. and he broke part of a bed humping. I disagree. Though he did make me a purse.”

In fact, Rivas agreed with his betrothed’s summary of Robison’s residency, but maintained that a litany of unfortunate circumstances was a small price to pay for the company of a bona fide life artist and insisted that gift-giving trumped hygiene.

Rivas recalls a few houseguests at his old house on the Mesa, The Piece, who would have been in the running for worst all-time had they been invited by Rivas and not one of his many housemates. A stone-cold psycho water polo chick from Lompoc once borrowed Rivas’s housemate Yogurt’s truck without permission, got a parking ticket in I.V. and didn’t tell him about it. The younger brother of Rivas’s cousin’s ex-boyfriend, The Golden Do-rag, and two of his friends lived like squatters for a three-day weekend before taking two Chumash Casino buses to get home. And another of Bonnie’s associates rolled some chick back and left a condom wrapper on the floor beside the living room couch, which Rivas discovered while eating dinner.

The worst houseguest ever? Rivas would only say that it was a surprising tie between the traveling/homeless guy that Rivas had to kick out of The Piece for kissing Nisbet without permission, and a guy he and Nisbet thought would be solid but turned out to be a niggard.

“The traveling/homeless guy was older, and he had a knack for never failing to show up with a single tall boy can of Ice House in a paper bag just as the tri-tip was coming off the grill,” Rivas recalled with his head cocked and eyebrows raised, “but at least he managed to stay clean without locking himself in the bathroom for 45 minutes every morning. ”

Rivas is referring to the freeloader who, in addition to never offering to pay for his share of anything, ever, not groceries, not a restaurant meal, not a taxi fare, nothing, routinely bogarted the only bathroom in the four-person apartment every morning without offering so much as a head’s up, a situation which once drove Nisbet to go to a remote corner of the house and pee in a bucket.

“He was something else,” remembered Rivas. “One time five of us went out for dessert, and having seen that we all split the check evenly at dinner, and he ordered a Johnny Walker Blue, double!”

Even after being told that the foregoing was a bold statement, Rivas remained firm in his allegations. How does he know that’s what the undercover tightwad was thinking?

“Because the night before, when we sent him up to the bar to order his own drink and let him get a little Spanish practice in,” Rivas said, becoming animated, “the bastard ordered Old Smuggler, the cheapest whiskey in Argentina!”

Although Nisbet still cringes at the unwanted contact with the traveling/homeless guy, she raves that the other former lousy guest has been exceedingly helpful since he returned home. Rivas remains unimpressed, however, stating that the fact that the guy who had been a shitty houseguest had been cool once he’d gone back home only proved what they knew when the guy left their house: that he was a cool guy but a shitty houseguest.

Could it be that there really are rules to being a houseguest?

“Now that I think about it”, Rivas said, not having thought about anything, “there’s really only one rule of being a houseguest: Have tight game.”

Soup (Is) for Dummies
By Clare Nisbet

Over the last two weeks, the temperature in Buenos Aires has dropped 20 degrees, the skies have opened up and regaled us with thunderstorms, and I have finally started winning the battle against my first official cold of the Southern Hemisphere winter. That, my friends, can only mean one thing in terms of a blurb about cooking: soup! I know it’s a little more geared towards those south of the equator but those of you in the US and elsewhere can still take advantage of the odd chilly day or an unseasonably bad cold to try your hand at homemade soup that, while it may not cure everything, sure feels like it does.

Over the past year in Buenos Aires I have been getting increasingly more adventurous with the stuff. The thing to remember is that soup is like empanadas in the sense that it’s really difficult to mess it up. You can put almost anything in it (leftovers!) and as long as you use a good stock, it ends up tasting good. If you want to get crazy, soak some lentils overnight (or, fine, get a can) and chuck those in for yummy nutrition. I started making soups by cooking some vegetables in a big pan (potato, carrot, onion, celery, etc.), adding some water, some stock, simmering it until the veggies soften and that’s it! I sometimes add leftover barbeque meat, corn, black beans and you can make delicious combos of any of the above. My main advice for making easy soups at home is not to skimp on the stock. Buy a good, name brand stock (veggie, chicken, beef, whatever your little heart desires) and the soup for beginners will turn out better. The most important thing to remember is that soup does not need to look pretty to be damn tasty!

So while I am busy at home cooking up giant pans of idiot-proof soup, I pulled in the help of the big guns for this article. Growing up, one of my fondest memories of growing up on the icy tundra of Glasgow was my mom’s homemade soup. To this day, whenever I get the slightest tickle in my throat, I want my mom’s soup. Mary, being the kind soul she is has allowed me to share her recipe. Naturally, we have left out a secret ingredient or two but this soup is amazing, nutritious, and full of good vitamins for any one struck down with the plague. The recipe is a little more complex that the idiot-proof (or APB for you porteños) versions that I use. However, those of you with an adventurous spirit to try new recipes will not be disappointed. Direct from the Goleta Foothills desk of One Sorry Blog:

The recipe is a typical Scottish one - a puckle of this and two puckles of that so the following quantities are not exact. But here goes:

5-6 big carrots, cleaned and chopped
2 cups split red lentils
2 onions, chopped
Stock to fill a big pot (chicken stock is good, vegetarian also works - stock cubes are fine)

Put everything in the stockpot; bring to a boil and simmer until lentils and carrots are soft. Liquidize (or even just mash with a potato masher if you don’t have a blender - as long as the carrots and lentils are soft enough, this works.) Then add orange juice to taste (usually about a cup). I usually don’t do salt and pepper in this since the stock often has enough salt but if S&P’s your thing then go for it.

My Parents Let Me Watch Rated “R” Movies
This Film Is Not Yet Rated, 2006, 97 minutes, NR

By Ryan Hernández

Not since Citizen Kane has a director focused his lens so clearly on the concentrated power determining public opinion. In his documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, director Kirby Dick examines one of the most widely known, but rarely examined institutions in the United States, the Motion Picture Association of America. The MPAA is the organization that determines whether a film receives a G, PG/13, or R rating. The notorious NC-17 means the death of a film because it does not get the advertising or distribution of an R-rated picture. Originally released at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 2006, it went on to play in select theatres throughout 2006 and is finally available to home video.

The long-held stance of the MPAA is that their work benefits the filmmaker, that the majority of parents find their work helpful, and that all films are rated along equal lines. Through interviews including Academy Award winning directors, A-list actors and industry insiders, a very different picture is presented. They argue that the MPAA operates in the interests of the 7 studios who sponsor it, and who not coincidentally compose 95% of domestic film business and 90% of all the media in the United States. Matt Stone of South Park fame recalls their differences in handling the censorship of his independent film with the Paramount feature from very vague and harsh criticisms in the first instance to very specific and helpful in the latter. The MPAA has also has also served as an informal industry agreement between Washington and Hollywood which limits the need for state censorship boards, but at a great cost to transparency.

The most interesting aspect of the film is its dissection of the MPAA’s double standard for rating violence and sexuality. The best example of this comes via split-screen comparisons of a scene where a girl’s breast implant is stabbed out in Scary Movie, which earned an R-rating, while the visible pubic hair in by Maria Bello in The Cooler garnered the much more severe NC-17. Also revealing is the standard that fully-clothed female masturbation and fully-clothed gay sex of any kind are automatically rendered not suitable at all for children under seventeen; as Kevin Smith exclaims in disbelief, “even with a fucking parent!?”. John Waters quips that by simple virtue of the internet “today’s teenagers have seen more pornography than their parents”. Theresa Webb of UCLA’s School of Public Health studied 98 of the top 100 grossing films of 2004. She attributes the absence of censorship for violent content to the profits made off the young male audience. She concludes that it is not a coincidence that this demographic is the one at greatest risk for committing violent acts.

Halfway through the film, Dick enlists the aid of a private investigator to determine the authenticity of public statements made by Jack Valenti, President of the MPAA. In so doing, he learns that the votes which determine the ratings include a Catholic priest and an Episcopalian minister, as well as double votes by the chairman of the board, and employment terms lasting beyond set limits. Dick does finally succeed in exposing the identities of the MPAA appeals board: not surprisingly, all 15 of them were executives of production or distribution companies. The distinguishing feature of the film is its ingenious employment of digital technology to free it from production costs and studio constraints. This Film Is Not Yet Rated mainlines the director’s vision into the viewer’s mind and proves to be as entertaining as it is illuminating.

Women also found to watch Sex and the City to exhaustion and talk too much.

One Sorry Blog News Service

Buenos Aires - For one man, sharing a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment with three women has been a learning experience.

“The first thing I learned is that chicks read in the bathroom, too, just like dudes,” said Paul Rivas, the outnumbered male in question.

No sooner had Rivas shut the door behind him Monday morning, fearing he’d forgotten his book on the dining room table, than he spied People magazine lying right there in the bidet. Not exactly Felipe Pigna, but a revelation nonetheless. Rivas had long believed women didn’t read in the bathroom and struggled with the wherefors of this. Although Rivas has shared living quarters with women in the past, he states to have never seen such blatant displays of on-toilet reading, and attributes the irrefutable evidence to the 3-1 majority of women to men.

“Apparently, simply being the majority worldwide isn’t enough to drive women to read on the can,” mused Rivas, who added that he has lived with one of the women for more than a year and would not describe her as a bathroom reader. “But put three women in a house with only one guy, and they’re reading.”

Another shocker for Rivas was that women cease to bother making their beds when living in numbers. His aforementioned companion makes the couple’s bed daily as if she was Sergeant Slaughter, and continues to do so, but the other two girls, who say they make their own beds when living alone, have yet to even flinch at their own or each other’s unmade beds.

“It’s a kind of mutual tolerance of sloth that I hadn’t anticipated,” said Rivas, “and it has a snowball effect. Like the hair thing. There’s hair everywhere now. Clare always leaves hair everywhere, but three times the women leave not three but nine times the hair.”

No stranger to living in sub-impeccable environments, Rivas, who once shared an apartment with Ian McAvoy for an entire year, claimed to not be bothered by the nest of female slovenliness in which he is currently ensconced. Instead, it was “all the talking and Sex and the City” that has had him “climbing up the walls”.

According to Rivas, not only do the girls watch Sex and the City from start to finish, as opposed to the five minutes at a time he can stand it, but they become engrossed in the show to such a point that begin to discuss it as though they were professors and the show a scholarly work. That the three girls are from Santa Barbara and none of them has ever been to New York has a negligible effect on how much they watch or have to say about the show.

“There was a time when I only watched Sex and the City,” Jenny Fickert said without a hint of regret.

“Are you kidding?” Clare Nisbet chimed in. “When Paul’s not around, I watch Sex and the City like it’s my job. Which it kind of is, I guess, I mean at least this way I can pretend I have girlfriends who talk about stuff like this. Paul never wants to talk about anything but his sorry-ass blog.”

As for all the talking, when Fickert and Nisbet aren’t watching Sex and the City, Fickert is asking Nisbet what she should wear. Nisbet, rather than ending the conversation then and there with a ‘Wear what you dig’, as Rivas would, seizes the opportunity to answer a question about which she clearly doesn’t give two hoots, grateful for the opportunity to speak out loud on any topic at all, however inane.

“Her answer started with ‘Wear whatever you’ll be comfortable in…’” Rivas shuddered. “That was probably all she had to say about what Jenny should wear, but surely she kept talking. I don’t know though, because I shut my brain off at that point.”

Lately, when Sarah Howell isn’t watching Sex and the City, she’s been asking Nisbet how the latter has been feeling. Rivas acknowledged that Nisbet has been suffering from a tubercular cough, that her nose is raw from blowing it (even with ultra-soft tissue), that her camera had been stolen and that she has worn herself out entertaining visitors in the last two months, and that this is exactly the reason that asking her ‘How are you feeling?’ is a waste of four words.

“She’s feeling shitty, and having to say so just makes her throat hurt. Why would someone ask this?”

Clearly, Rivas still has a lot to learn about sharing space with women.

Obama, Rudy and Doolittle
By Ace Cummins

With College Hoops season over and still weeks before I suggest laying some Benjamins down on the NBA, we are amidst the doldrums of gaming, so I thought it would be fun to share some betting propositions with non-sports fans who read One Sorry Blog. You see, whatever your area of expertise, whatever your vice, you can bet on it. Politics, entertainment, snooker, cards, whatever, you can bet on it.

In the realm of politics and entertainment, the big items on the board these days are the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, and the one-and-only American Idol. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Read on at your own risk. I am not responsible for any wagering done on the props below.

Politics
Odds to Win the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election
A Democrat -155
A Republican +125

Good news for us Progressives. Of course, I will not be surprised if Democratic strategists completely blow the generous head start W has provided, but it’s nice to know Vegas thinks we can do it.

I just realized that some of you may not understand what the betting numbers mean. I will lay it out in simple terms: if you bet on the Donkeys to win at -155, you will need to wager $155 to win $100 (i.e. $15.50 to win $10, etc.). If you bet on the GOP, then for every $100 you wager, you will win $125. Dems are fairly heavy favorites right now.

Odds to win the 2008 Democratic Primary
H. Clinton +135
B. Obama +185
J. Edwards +500
A. Gore +600
B. Richardson +1200
J. Biden +3000
Three at +5000

Clinton is still the favorite, but Obama has closed the gap as of late (good news for OSB founder and Obama supporter Paul Rivas). These numbers are not likely to change much until actual primary votes are cast, but you never know when someone will do something stoopid. Unless you have a favorite that you really think will have the goods down the stretch or you like a longshot to make a move, you will likely get the same odds a year from now.

Odds to Win the 2008 Republican Primary
R. Giuliani +185
M. Romney +275
J. McCain +350
F. Thompson +600
Many longshots

John McCain has officially hit the skids, and people are finally catching on to the fact that he is batshit insane. Once a favorite, even Mitt Romney is starting to pull away from him. Crazy. The Dems should start strategizing how to beat the former NYC Mayor, because I think he’ll win. He has to against that group, right? Sigh.

Entertainment
Now for some “lighter” odds: American Idol. Whether you watch it or not, it is a phenomenon.

Headed into this week’s ousting of Haley “Short Shorts” Scarnato, the odds were as such:

Odds to win 2007 American Idol
M. Doolittle -150
J. Sparks +200
B. Lewis +350
L. Jones +400
Sanjaya +650
C. Richardson +1700
P. Stacey +2700
H. Scarnato +4000

The odds at the bottom were spot on according to the bottom three this week, right? So you figure the top must be dead on, too. But the tides change quickly. Not too long ago, Lakisha was the favorite, and she has suddenly hit some hard times, falling back to fourth. Melinda is a heavy favorite, maybe too heavy. She is good, but can she really win a final showdown? Now might be a good time to lay some cash down on Sparks, Lewis or Jones. For the love of god, not Sanjaya. We’ll see how the new odds shape up when they are released.

Notes: Headed into last year’s semifinals, Katharine McPhee and Taylor Hicks were sitting on 4-to-1 and 10-to-1 odds, respectively. They both cruised to the finals. Money can be made here, folks. You never thought you would get paid for watching that show, did you?

Questions, comments, love letters, hate mail, recipes, money and DIY tips can be sent to ace.osb@gmail.com.

Ace Cummins: 7-3 overall, 3-0 on 5-Star picks.

Over the last 12 trips from the United States to the Buenos Aires Desk of One Sorry Blog, 20.8% of travelers have had their luggage lost for 1-4 days.

One Sorry Blog News Service

Buenos Aires - “You’ve heard of slugging percentage?” Paul Rivas asked Clare Nisbet as the latter returned from Ezeiza International in Buenos Aires with Jenny Fickert, the latest houseguest, sans luggage. “No? Well on flights from the U.S. to here, baggage handlers lug 79.2 of passengers’ luggage successfully. They’re lugging .792.”

Sound good? The problem is, as Rivas would later enlighten Nisbet, lugging is a fielding statistic, not a batting statistic. There is a 20.8% chance that baggage “throwers”, as Nisbet refers to them, will not successfully field your luggage in the U.S. and dispatch it to the correct plane for Buenos Aires.

“When he said, ‘OK, Spilborgis* is batting .290, and this would be like batting .090,’ then I understood perfectly,” Nisbet recounted. “Because I know that Spilly is good and that people who come visit me are always losing their luggage.”

Paul lost his bag that had all the good stuff in it for four days in January, and Little Julie Nisbet was without her belongings for three days last August. Fickert would go without luggage for one day.

“Are you kidding?” asked Nisbet, not really wondering if anyone was kidding. “We’re definitely getting better at dealing with it. We were able to get Jenny’s bags back in a day, all because we know what happens now when luggage is lost.”

The vote of confidence in recovering Fickert’s bags reflects a new optimism in Buenos Aires travel matters around the One Sorry Blog desk in the same city. No one had lost a passport until last week, and in that case it was miraculously returned to him only nine hours after he really needed it.

Taylor discovered he’d lost his passport at 5 a.m. Tuesday, a morning on which he was to travel to Bariloche. He and his girlfriend Heather missed the plane, went to the Embassy, got another passport, and learned his original passport had just been delivered to the Buenos Aires desk of One sorry Blog shortly before they were to board their rescheduled flight.

Upon finally reaching his seat, Taylor sunk into a much-deserved full-body slouch, the tension gone. “I wasn’t worried, I mean I got another passport in a couple hours, but sometimes having tight game ain’t easy, that’s all.”

While throwers will be throwers, a .792 lugging percentage seems to indicate that the blame for lost luggage cannot solely be assigned to the luggers themselves, and more than a bit must lie with the airlines scheduling international connecting flights 40 minutes from each other. The only two ways to know one’s luggage won’t be misfielded are to take a direct flight or take only carry-on luggage. The second option is not as crazy as it sounds, given that there exists a sporting chance that one will not be greeted by one’s luggage after the US-OSBBAD journey.

“You should carry a change of clothes anyway…” Rivas started, only to add, “Nevermind. I was gonna say take a big carry-on and don’t check any luggage, but I’d sound like my mom, and a 28-year-old man doesn’t want to sound like his mom too much. .792? Take your chances.”

*Santa Barbara baseball hero Ryan Spilborghs, to whom the Santa Barbara broadcaster habitually referred as Spilborgis.

You Say Crepes, I Say Panqueques… Either Way, We All Say Grub in 5 Minutes or Less!
By Clare Nisbet

Honestly, people, impressing guests in your house with international cuisine is easier than you think. I first fell in love with crepes bought from a vendor beneath the Eiffel Tower. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes can surely attest to the fact that there is nothing in the world more romantic than strolling the cobblestone streets of gay Paris hand in hand with your age-inappropriate lover with a face covered with splotches of Nutella and a pie-hole stuffed with complex carbohydrates. My love affair continues now with panqueques, the Argentine version of the same but with one surefire winner of an addition – dulce de leche. These sweet treats are so delicious that your guests will be bowled over with your talent and worldliness, and so easy that they will be a secret you must keep.

To make the perfect panqueque or crepe: combine about a cup of flour, a cup and a half of milk, an egg and chuck them all in a blender or mix with a hand mixer. Seriously, folks, that’s it. That is ALL you need to make the mixture. The trick is to make sure your pan is warm enough (put your gas burner on about three quarters strength and make sure you use enough melted butter). Pour the batter in and swirl to make a thin layer covering the bottom of the pan. When it starts to firm (check the edges), give it the good old college flip and cook about a minute on the other side. ¡Listo! The fun part from here is filling the panqueques with treats like nutella, jam, sliced banana, coconut shavings, chocolate sauce, apple sauce, or whatever your sweet tooth desires. The joy of these little treats is that they can also be served savory, rolled with ham, cheese, tomatoes, grilled, chicken, etc. They are as easy to make as a sandwich, and suddenly lunch is hot and not cold.

Take my word for it: I have served these bad boys to many a guest who has lavished me with praise, unable to believe what a talent I am with a saucepan. If only they new how easy it was… but that’s my little secret – and now, yours. ¡Provecho!

Watch it on the Big Screen and Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You
300, 2007, 117 minutes, Rated R

By Ryan Hernández

Leonidus, ruler of the Spartan polis, attempts to save his people from the Persian Empire’s imminent conquest by weapons of mass destruction in Zack Snyder’s epic 300. Scottish actor Gerard Butler calls to mind Gibson’s Braveheart, leading his platoon of 300 soldiers against the ozymandian might of King Xerxes in the year 400BC. 300 falls into the no-man’s-land between history and fantasy and in much the same vein as Le Pact de Lupe and the soon to be released Pathfinder. Historical accuracies are here obstacles to be overcome for preference of sensationalism.

In my 28 years of film addiction, I have never seen violence and carnage like this. It surpasses the accomplishments of past Guinness Book of World Records champions for “Most Violent Film of All-Time”, Red Dawn and Rambo III, by a wide margin. In fairness to the producers, I did learn things I would not have elsewhere. I now know how to kill a charging rhinoceros using nothing but a spear, and what elephants look like when thrown from cliffs onto rocks below. I must warn you that one viewing was not enough, as I lost count of the various ways to decapitate a human being.

Historical liberties are taken with the emotionally potent and oversimplified drama; hallmarks of Spartan timocracy such as homosexuality and pederasty are presented here as deplorable. However, the costume design sublimely mixes antiquity with modernity and in so doing clearly defines heroes from villains. Visual effects prove to be fascinating displays of symbolism. The oracle’s prophesy of the Battle of Thermopolae spellbinds like a witches’ brew as smoke and water animate the priestess into trance. Slow motion is used deftly to replicate the trepidation and reluctance before battle; our thoughts, like the soldiers, are adrenalized, anticipating the imminent attack. This is heightened all the more by Tyler Bates’ orchestral score, which goes well beyond trumpets and the drums of war of the time. If you must see this fabulous war movie, do so in the theatre as television cannot hope to duplicate the scale of battle communicated by the big screen and loud speakers.

The Appolline warriors with their beautiful bodies are measured against the ugly, the lame and the unnamed ordinary Persian soldiers. The body-pierced and Bedazzled androgyne Xerxes is a dark reflection of Leonidus’ simple machismo. The effeminate villain and the grizzly brute-hero are seen in the film’s source material, Frank Miller’s eponymous graphic novel. These stock characters appear in previous works like Ronin, and The Dark Knight Returns. Miller himself has said that the impetus for the project came from a 1962 film he saw as a boy entitled, The 300 Spartans. Like his film Sin City, 300 was shot on black and white film stock and then transferred digitally to enable faint color to ebb and flow with the carnage, perfectly imitating Miller’s long-time colorist Lynn Varley.

My original enthusiasm for both states’ moral ambiguity ran high as neither was presented as being better than the other. Left to our own devices, we might have interpreted ourselves as either the Spartans, fighting a foreign menace with inferior weaponry, or as the technologically superior Persians, frustrated by a long and drawn out battle. In such a case, the thousands killed from both sides might be regarded as our own. By the end of the film it is clear that the filmmakers intend us to internalize the monocular vision of Spartan superiority and infallibility. The last line of the two-hour adolescent rescue-fantasy concludes that violence no matter how brutal or unnecessary is legitimized if it is committed in opposition to “mysticism and tyranny”.