I don't know what to say.

England fans spent an astonishing £200m stocking up on provisions on Saturday morning ahead of the World Cup opener against Paraguay, reports the Sunday Mirror.

Apparently, the supporters bought 10 million cases of beer and six million pizzas, while Tesco say they sold three million barbecue sets as temperatures soared.

The World Cup Is A Massive Party vs. The English Still Don't Know How To Cook

And there are a number of different captions for this tidbit. All I have to say, however, is that the Wold Cup has been fantastic so far, and I'm really happy there is football to watch all day, every day. My only complaint is that there are only 3 per day.

Myspace is for Babies

I give up. I am officially too old to get into the theirspace. Perhaps I didn't come across the hook that would have kept me in, but I am completely disinterested with it, and my blogging stopped as a result. Actually, I think I just had an internet lull that generally coincides with a busy lifestyle. At any rate, back to the blogspot.

Kiss My Blogspot

I'm almost certainly sold on moving this bitch to the myspace realm. It's been a slice, but the grass is greener, believe me. Firehead might be moved.

It takes one to know one

Over the last month, myspace has come up twice in conversation. Once, at work as to how market a film to the kids, and again as a friend embarking on a journey looking to share pictures and poetry. I've also declared myself a generational agnostic, as I found I am in the disputed territory of birth years 1976-1981, and having a myspace account is definitely a GenY requirement.

So, firehead is signed up, and at first blush, it is seems to have done for blogging what html has done for the internet. (That is a presumptative statement, as is term 'presumptative'.) There are some obvious attention seekers, and they are not shy! I wonder if this is actually a generational thing, or if it's more like "Girls Gone Wild!" where every year the phenomenon gets older, "but the girls stay the same age".

At any rate, that's my latest e-mission (yellow card,) and if all goes well, I may even move the blog there!

I've also heard a lot about the pedaphiles...
(red card)

Good Loser, Bad Loser

Sports reporting is a regular target for me and a great number of other people, and for good reason. I won't get into that now, but I will empathize given the number of stories that need to be published daily to feed the insatiable sports media appetite of the fans themselves. Today I came across a couple of articles, and without any further research, I am going to make a sweeping generalization, but let's remember - I'm not getting paid for this, either.

Yesterday, there were two terrific high-stakes games played in my two favorite sports. Arsenal played Barcelona in the Champions League final, and Edmonton played San Jose in a potential elimination game in the second round in the Stanley Cup playoffs. While the stakes and stages are remarkably different in many ways, they are both high end contests, and in both cases there were jubilant winners and devastated losers.

There is an interesting difference in the sportsmanship displayed after the two games. While hockey trails (European) football in nearly every aspect of how the game is run and presented, you cannot argue that the character displayed by hockey players after suffering defeat isn't impressive, and that the display of the footballers isn't the contrary:

From The Edmonton Sun after the San Jose Sharks bowed out of the playoffs:

"It sucks. It's brutal. It's frustrating," said Sharks centre and Edmonton native Mark Smith, hitting a hat-trick of quotes after a 2-0 loss in Game 6. "We had a 2-0 series lead and didn't get it done. I thought we had a team in here to win the Stanley Cup."

So did Scott Thornton.

"It was a great series, give credit to where it's due," he said. "We lost a tough Game 3 but our team never lost confidence. Up until the last five minutes we really felt we were going to win and take it back home for Game 7."

"I think we were sitting back in this series a little bit too much, so let's not worry about one post or something like that," said defenceman Ville Nieminen, as honest a quote as you'll find anywhere.

"They came at us hard and really wore us down physically," said Smith. "And they did a great job defensively shutting us down, especially our power play.

"They have the team toughness," said Nieminen. "When we get that department we will be a great hockey team, but it was not our time yet."

Not by a long shot.

"Give them credit, they're a good team and they came at us hard," said defenceman Scott Hannan. "We've got things to learn from this series."

From the BBC:

(Arsenal's Thierry) Henry told BBC Sport: "We haven't got anything out of the final, despite all our hard work.

"I was kicked all over the place. I expected the referee to do his job. I don't think he did."

The Frenchman, who was fuming after the game, also felt Samuel Eto's equaliser should have been disallowed for offside.

"I'm not usually a troublemaker, but I've just seen the television and Eto'o's goal was offside.

In the first half Rafael Marquez and Carles Puyol went right through me and they didn't even get a yellow.

"Then I got the ball in front of the bench and Mark Van Bommel kicks me and I end up getting a yellow."

Henry added: "When you see Eto'o is offside it kills you."

"It's just sad. You can lose, but to lose like that.

"I tried to do what I could and try and defend and try and bring the ball back and help the team, but if they allow an offside goal it is going to be even more difficult.

"Everyone was talking about Ronaldinho before the game. I didn't see him today and I didn't see Eto'o," he said.

"We can be proud, we can be more than proud, but, I'm sorry, some of the refereeing today was horrendous."

(Arsenal teammate Cesc Fabregas) added: "You have to be fair in football - you have to be honest and well done to you if you've won, but you have to win in a good way.

"And then you see a player like Marquez who is kicking Thierry all the time or trying to hit him all the time from behind.

"And then Jose (Antonio Reyes) goes to him to get the ball and he just makes theatre of it and goes on the floor to lose time.

"I don't like to be in the position of saying things about the referee but maybe it's true. If you look at the first goal for Barca, it's clearly offside."

Of course, I've gone and selected bits and pieces to illustrate my point, and (for reasons I won't get into) I didn't even see either game, but it's a pretty stunning contrast of reactions. Having said all this, however, while I am very much enjoying the Stanley Cup playoffs these days, I am really looking forward to the World Cup of Football. (Another bad comparison, I admit.)

N.B. I'd like to point out that while the criticism of the refereeing in the Champions League match is somewhat justified, the NHL is undoubtedly the worst refereed professional sport at the present time, pending the investigation of the Serie A.

The New NHL

I generally like Eric DeHatchet, but this one (Maurice is a positive first step) typifies the crap I get tired of reading in sports pages:

There was a laissez-faire quality to the Leafs under Pat Quinn, which just didn't translate well to the new NHL, with its stretch passes and quick counter-attacks - that Toronto either didn't or couldn't figure out. Under Maurice, the preparation will be far more advanced — and the players that need extra minutes to flourish (yes, we mean you Mats Sundin) will get their wish.

The first statement is an unqualified (and supporting) theory about 'the new nhl' which I am sick of hearing. Both in respect to hearing about and the painfully forced flattering of 'the new NHL'. But the second statement directly contradicts yet another statement about 'the new nhl' in the AP today:

With coach Peter Laviolette's system based on speed and wearing an opponent down with depth, Weight had fewer opportunities on the ice. So he learned to make the most of what he got.

"As well as being a different team and a different room, you're not playing as much and you've got to find your spots," Weight said. "I feel like when you're as deep as us, it's going to be different lines, and we have to make sure when it's our turn, we get out there and do it."

Somehow the previously crap Hurricanes have managed to get to the third round of playoffs, despite using a Pat Quinn-era philosphy of rolling four lines. The only thing about 'the new nhl' that pisses me off more than parking ticket penalties is the willing exacerbation of the uselessness of the sports media.

C'mon! Like the guy in the $3000 suit buys this shit!

"You're looking at the new Lenny Bruce"

Or so claimed the former Power 105.1 DJ "Star" as he was walked handcuffed from the cop shop to the courts. According to The New York Daily News:

In the running diatribe, the FM foulmouth said he planned to perform deviant sexual acts on the daughter of radio rival Rashawn Casey, who's known as DJ Envy on WQHT-Hot 97.

Star even offered listeners $500 to tell him where the girl goes to school. He also said he had a gun and suggested he might use it.

I can't see there being a lot of freedom-of-speech advocates getting behind this guy. There is nothing subtle or funny about this comment. OK, so I thought it was hysterical, but in the context of laughing at how far this 'personality' went beyond acceptable.

Now I'll listen to a bit of the radio now and again, and both of these stations play decent radio hip hop if I need some music to clean my room to. Usually, there's a small playlist of tracks in heavy rotation, with some celebrity gossip and hip hop beefs being aired in between. And I can imagine that this comment wasn't all that outrageous given the context of the rest of the trash-talking going on. But c'mon! The new Lenny Bruce? The joke is how far out there this guy actually is.

It will be interesting to see how this whole thing plays out, though. Hip hop radio is HUGE in New York. Huge enough to be paying this guy $4mil per year. There is a lot of money on the table, which means there will be a top legal team trying to get him back earning, and rival TV and radio stations looking to give him another chance to make them some money.

The cops will also be looking for their share of the publicity on this one:

Cops used a ruse involving Star's 9-mm. Glock to collar him, a police source said.

"We told him to come in and surrender the gun, but we knew we were going to arrest him," the source said. "Telling him 'Come in and surrender your gun' just sounds better than 'Come in and get arrested.' "

Pretty clever, eh? But if this is really hip hop, the real drama will unfold when DJ Envy looks to right this wrong. Stay tuned...