For all the England Football Fans Out There

Dear Bro,


AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!


In case you have not heard:

The Skysports Headline:

England bow out with loss

"England failed to get the point they needed to qualify for Euro 2008 despite a stirring second-half fightback as they lost 3-2 to Croatia on a dramatic night at Wembley."


Ever since the advent of the internet and it's never ending instant supply of information I have not only been tortured by poor quality play by the Cincinnati Bengals but am also now subject to constant heartbreak courtesy of the English national team.

Qualifying for the Euro 2008 group required that they play 12 games against 6 teams (home and away) and finish in the top 2 of the group to qualify. Sounds like a tough task right...

Here are the teams in the group and the order they finished:

Croatia - Croatia is actually a very strong team, finishing third in the 1998 World Cup and qualifying for every major tourament since saying "toodles" to the rest of Yugoslavia in 1990. This is the team that won the group.

Russia - a fairly big county, but since the break up of the Soviet Union they have not been a soccer powerhouse by any stretch of the imagination. Rarely every qualify for major tournaments these days.... This is the team that edged out England for the final spot.

England: no comment....

Israel - This country barely has enough room to have a soccer stadium, let alone enough population to field a world class soccer team. Plus, I thought Israel was in the Middle East, not Europe???? They actually have a solid team, but world class.... hardly...

Macedonia: with a population of 2 million and another offshoot of the former Yugoslavia, the main thing Macedonia was famous for was for not getting directly involved in the 1992 Balkans conflict. When you discuss world soccer with knowledgable individuals, Macedonia is not the first team that will be sprouting from their lips....

Estonia: a former Soviet vassal, population 1.3 million... again not a powerhouse in world soccer...

Andorra: ANDORRA... a population of 71 thousand.... I'm not sure if any of this team play for professional teams in Europe....I am getting even more depressed as I type this....



So lets recap... England, a supposed world powerhouse in soccer, missed out on making the Euro 2008 finals because they could not come in second place in a group with the countries listed above....

AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's a Big World after all

Dear Bro,

I seem to remember from our days in Southern California that you and I visited Disneyland on several occasions to attend to a day of fun at the amusement park. Between the Matterhorn and Space Mountain I don't think we rode too many of the other rides, but I remember when we took Michelle we always had to ride that kid pleasing, worst song in the world playing, boat ride through badly designed figures of Children from countries around the world entitled "It's a Small World".

The only redeeming quality of the ride was that the air conditioning was always turned up full blast, thus creating the coolest spot in the park on a hot summer's day. Of course, while riding though the building you had to listen to the song "Small World" with it's repetitive chorus that, though originally written by the Sherman brothers (Robert & Richard) to promote world peace, would probably be the most effective interrogation tool at Guantanamo if they put it to use.

Well, it appears that for 2008 the ride is going into a major overhaul that will require a year of upgrades until it can reopen. What gives? Are the animatronic (Disney's word.. not mine) native figures all going on strike? Have the Asian countries of the world filed suit in court against Disney because the Asian room on the ride sings "Small World" only in Japanese?

Nothing quite that exotic or political... I assure you....

It appears that Disneyland is having major problems with backups on the ride because the boats keep "bottoming out" as they pass through the building. You see, when the ride opened in 1963, the ride was designed for the average American male and female, who weighed about 175lb and 132lb respectively. Well, as you know, since then McDonalds has replaced General Foods on the Dow Jones Industrials top 30, and as an indirect result the average American couple that rides this one is probably 175lb plus 135lb each, thus causing the boats not only to sit lower in the water as they attempt to float past the numerous singing automated (my word) children, but in many cases scrap along the bottom of the tank like a u-boat in a crash dive.

Here's an idea, when they re-open the ride in 2009, not only should they made the water deeper but they should have boats that you have to peddle to keep them moving. You could plug it as an "eco-friendly" ride as the peddle power could be harnessed in some way to power the ride, plus it would burn a ton of calories....

"It's a small, green, healthy world after all"
"It's a small, green, healthy world after all"
"It's a small, green, healthy world!"