On John Terry and Schadenfreude  

I’ll probably sound bitter and petty taking pleasure from the misery of others, but in my defense: it’s a survival tactic.  I don’t think I could stand the tortuous cycle of unbound hope and utter despair that is Arsenal FC if I couldn’t capitalize on the losses and shortcomings of others.  So far this season, Liverpool have, time and time again, been there to soothe the anguish of Arsenal’s bumpy campaign.  Arsenal got thumped at home by Chelsea, but Liverpool were there for me when I needed them, promptly getting knocked out of the Champions League.  When Arsenal drew to Burnley, Liverpool lost to Portsmouth. 

Yesterday, John Terry stepped in and did the job.  The captain of England and Chelsea (for whom I have an unreasonably passionate distaste) allegedly had an affair with the long-time girlfriend of England teammate and supposed best friend, Wayne Bridge.  The Daily Mirror reports that England captain Terry not only cuckolded Bridge, but also impregnated his girlfriend and forced her into a hasty abortion.  That John Terry is a classy man. 

This comes shortly after allegations that he took payouts to give journalists an unauthorized tour of Chelsea’s training grounds.  Which came shortly after John Terry’s father sold cocaine to an undercover reporter.  Which came shortly after John Terry’s mother was cited for shoplifting.  That Terry brood is a classy family. 

Though Chelsea are standing by their captain, there’s a good chance Terry will be stripped of the England armband only months shy of the World Cup.  Captaining England in the World Cup is probably the thing John Terry wants most and now he can't have it.  This makes me smile.  It must be the same shameful joy the eight Phil Mickelson fans in the world were experiencing when the Tiger extravaganza broke.  And for now, it’s good enough to take my mind off of Arsenal related anxiety.  Do I feel bad for Wayne Bridge or his unfaithful girlfriend?  No, to be honest.   But do I at least feel bad for sharing my Schadenfreud over this little internet outpost?  Ashamed, frankly.  

But it’s only 12 hours until Arsenal face Man United with their title hopes on the line.  I need all the smiles I can muster.  


John Terry's tears taste like Dom Perignon to me.

On the people who follow Team USA

At the time of writing, I am watching a U.S. men's national team home game against Honduras.  The game is in the 61st minute and the crowd is raucous.  It's not just typical, amorphous crowd noise, either; it actually sounds as though professional soccer is occurring.  There is discernible chanting and crescendos in volume occur as merited by the game.  On the surface, this is unusual.  Consider the following: the United States are trailing 3-0 and have only 10 men on the field, none of whom are named Landon Donovan or Clint Dempsey.  As this is not an official international weekend, top players in ongoing European leagues are not required or, in most instances, even allowed by their clubs to participate. Instead, a fellow named Alejandro Bedoya has substituted into the game.  "Who the hell is Alejando Bedoya?" I ask my girlfriend.  She usually has the answers to questions similar in structure and tone when we watch the E! Channel (e.g. "who the hell is that skank?"), but in this case, she has no idea.  The commentator, Max Bretos, paused noticeably between his first and last name.  He has no idea, either.  And Coach Bob Bradley just gave a look that could only be described as curious.  No one knows him.  Only Alejandro's mother and close friends know who he is.


Furthermore, consider that winning or losing this match will have a nominal effect on either team.  More than anything else, the coaches are using the game to scout their own players and as an exercise in tactics.  Also consider that it is 49°F in Los Angeles right now, where the game is being played.  If you know anything about L.A. sports fans, you will know that this is entirely relevant; if you do not, the previous sentence should make evident my point.  Despite all of this, the Home Depot Center sounds like a soccer stadium and, if not for the clumsiness of some of the players, could be mistaken for a European venue.  

Of course, this scenario makes sense for one reason: the people making all the noise are Honduran.  It seems all of Latin America has had their turn at drowning out American fans, and Honduras is getting their chance tonight.  Southern California is, for all intents and purposes, an away match for Team USA; it's no coincidence that they play important World Cup qualifiers exclusively above the Mason Dixon line.  Even in the dead of winter, demographically homogenous and bitterly cold places like Sandy, Utah and Columbus, Ohio host matches.  Majorities aren't assurances of an advantage, however.  In 2006 I was apart of the American crowd that was a sizeable majority in their last two matches at the World Cup, against Italy (whose fans don't travel as much as other European powers, I've come to learn) and Ghana.  We weren't as tepid as, say, Lakers fans in the first quarter, or US Soccer fans in 1998, but  we weren't intimidating or even mildly distracting for that matter.  Sam's Army, a vocal US supporter's club, banged their drums as hard as they could and occasionally exhausted their collaborative creativity with complicated cheers like "USA! USA! USA!" or "Ole Ole Ole Ole, USA, USA."  Like the team themselves, they never got going with any conviction.  It was embarrassing, frankly.  An established supporters club 15,000 strong can't come up with anything better than "Ole Ole Ole?"  Imagine the sounds of our impotent Ole's against the voices of 30,000 English fans when we open the World Cup in Rustenburg.  That's like bringing a spork to swordfight.

I don't mean to say that American soccer fans are dispassionate or fair-weather.  Quite the opposite; in fact, I would go as far as to call us dedicated.  Or we are at least gluttons for suffering.  Our perpetually almost there team has little chance for glory; the sport itself is constantly being belittled in our country; our "superstar" looks like a child actor; and to top it all off, we play a distinctly unattractive brand of soccer.  As an England fan told me at World Cup 2006: "The only problem with being a U.S. soccer fan is having to watch the U.S. play soccer."  Read that sentence again in an English accent.  It's almost as infuriating in its smugness as its accuracy.  He was absolutely right: they don't give us that much to cheer for.  All things considered, Sam's Army is nothing if not loyal.  And, on the whole, a pretty soccer savvy group as well.  The U.S. has the largest population of registered soccer players in the world—it shouldn't be too surprising to find that most fans are quite knowledgeable on players, history, tactics, etc.  So, the question begs to be asked: Why have we been so consistently out-voiced by tiny tropical nations?  Why, given our sports obsessed culture, can't we muster the energy to come up with a better song than Ole Ole Ole?


Here is a theory: as products, popular American sports (football, basketball, baseball) are designed to explicitly and, often times artificially stimulate spectator enthusiasm.  The competitions themselves are constantly being punctuated by cues for the audience: we are the inventors of the full count, fourth down and goal to go, the shot clock, the two-minute warning and probably a thousand other overt signals to the crowd, "Stand up.  Cheer.  Your team needs you now."  We put giant electronic boards in out stadiums to tell us just that, in case we somehow forget while watching the game.  If the athletes fail to hold the attentions of the consumers, we have also mastered audience diversion.  We fathered the 7th inning stretch and halftime extravaganzas featuring celebrities and fireworks and if we're lucky, wardrobe malfunctions.  Still unwilling to hand over your applause?  Well, we got some guy to dressed up as Chewbaca from Star Wars who's going to do a flip off of a trampoline and dunk a basketball.  And then of course, there is our most important cultural export of the last hundred years: cheerleaders—attractive women dressed in glittery underwear whose job it is tell us, vocally and through suggestive pelvic gyrations, when to cheer, what to cheer and even how loud to cheer.  We even had a football league based entirely on gimmickry called the XFL.  It was like the NFL, only Vegas had thrown up on it.  The league was not very good and folded after only a season, but that a football and professional wrestling crossover league would even be considered proves that we have a certain appetite for the choreography our sports experience.  Professional sports in America are productions that don't bother camouflaging the theatrics.  We embellish them, if anything, and that's what fans have come to relish and, more relevantly to my point, that's what makes them cheer. 

We're now into the 75th minute.  The Americans recently scored.  A tall lanky fellow named Clarence Goodson headed in off a corner kick.  The stadium has gotten quieter.  No cannons sounded, F14 fighter planes did not buzz overhead, ditzy blondes did not jump in unison.  Yawn.  Soccer, at least English soccer (which is the most popular import here in the States) is, shall we say, understated.  The game itself is subtle.  As we Yanks are wont to point out, soccer is low scoring.  It also has few stoppages and momentum is more obscure meaning there are few cues for the audience to get involved.  Situational understanding becomes more of an intuition than a matter of down and distance or knowing the strike count.  Off the field, there are no light shows or pyrotechnics to introduce the players, no one is solicited to sing or dance at halftime and, as far as I can tell from this side of the television, team mascots aren't going up and down the aisles of Premier League games with pneumatic t-shirt guns.  There is, rather, a regal traditionalism to the game's ceremony.   Like noblemen, the teams march out single file from the dressing room tunnel, each hand in hand with a cherubic British child.  They politely shake hands and the game is underway.  And in the stands, there seems to be equally rigid customs, generations old.  The pre-kickoff singing of the club's anthem with scarves held high, the militant segregation of home and away fans, the choral synchronization of their cheers—it's almost frighteningly ritualistic.  If I were entirely new to the sport, it wouldn't completely shock me to learn that live animal sacrifices are regular post-match occurrences.  And that's what it makes it great.  There is a grassroots mystique that lets us believe that the game is owned by the fans.  There's no need for additional spectacle because that't the purpose of the audience.  


In America, there are no such pretensions of ownership.  We know there is some corporate entity puppeteering our fan experience to maximize their commercial assets.  And we don't mind, per se.  No one really gets into a big huff when we rename our stadiums AT&T Park or BuyRight Stadium.  We enjoy the innovations that are ancillary to their greed.  Our relationship with our teams, then, is more explicitly, consumers to manufacturers.  We responsible for little more than consumption itself.  Standing to sing during a game?  For the American sports fan, the price of admission means someone else should be doing all the singing.  Preferably someone pretty, and famous.  

On Team USA and the Springfield Isotopes

Fulham’s Clint Dempsey became the latest American injury victim over the weekend after hobbling off in the 62^nd minute in a loss to Blackburn.  His club released a statement regarding the injury on their website, which can pretty much be summed up by this: Hurt knee. Out 1 day to 4 months.  “Moderate damage to a ligament”?  Returning “prior to the end of the season”?  The fact that they’re being so vague would suggest to me that 4 months is probably more accurate.  Fulham manager Roy Hodgson is a shrewd operator and will surely do everything possible to not tip his hand so late in the transfer window[1].  Simple supply and demand tells us that the moment Fulham reveal they need strikers, they will instantly get more expensive, meaning there are literally millions of reasons for such a tightfisted club to avoid transparency with their injury updates.  Cost of James Beattie with Clint Dempsey back in two weeks: practically free (provided that the manager refrains from head-butting him in the shower).   Cost of James Beattie with Clint Dempsey out for the year: £5 million.  If he was going to be back shortly, Roy would have shouted it from the rooftops.

And so continues the Confederations Curse… another American down.  Since last June, when we beat unbeatable Spain and scored Brazil-like goals against Brazil, star players have been subject to misfortune and folly that even tragedy-savvy Greeks would appreciate.  Central defender Oguchi Onyewu blew out his patella in a meaningless game with no one even near him.  This was days after striker Charlie Davies narrowly escaped death on the DC beltway.  The driver in the incident was killed, while Davies suffered a lacerated bladder, a broken leg, facial fractures and a broken elbow.  Meanwhile, Onyewu’s central defensive partner, Jay Demerit suffered from a freak eye injury while taking out a contact lens.  Said eye subsequently became infected and required surgery.  I’m not making this stuff up.  This series of pre-tournament calamities reminds me of that episode of The Simpson’s where Mr. Burns assembles a team of Major League Baseball players to compete in the local softball finals for his Springfield Isotopes, shortly before which each player falls victim to some ludicrous fate.  Roger Clemens is hypnotized into thinking he’s a chicken; Wade Boggs is punched out by Barney in a pub argument over the greatest British prime minister (Boggs advocated Pitt the Elder, Barney went for Lord Palmerston); Mike Scoscia gets radiation poisoning, Steve Sax is wrongfully arrested, etc.

What’s next for Team America?  Will Bob Bradley kick his son and starting midfielder, Michael, off the team for refusing to shave his sideburns?  Is Tim Howard going to disappear into a 4^th dimensional void like Ozzie Smith?  Hell, Landon Donovan might already be suffering from acute gigantism a la Ken Griffey Jr.  Thankfully for American fans, Donovan’s case has thus far been restricted to his forehead.

It’s not even February so I’ll stop short of declaring that we are cosmically doomed, but the fact remains that Team America are only a freak accident or two away from the guarantee of another World Cup three and out.  Sure, this team is more talented than previous sides, but the depth still isn’t there.  England  can afford a few over-zealous disputes on who in fact is the greatest British prime minister of all time.  They have the luxury of replacing injured stars with other stars (questions about Gerrard's fitness?  Play Barry or Joe Cole.  Aaron Lennon and Theo Walcott out?  There's still some guy named Beckham).  But the US?  They're soon going to be fielding players whose pay is on par with your average accountant of fictional nuclear safety technician.  Will the likes of Dempsey, Davies and Onyewu make it back in time or are we going to have to count on the Homer Simpsons of the soccer world?
We'll know in 1 day to 4 months, I guess.

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[1] The English equivalent of the trade deadline is January 31.

Have you gotten your World Cup stab-vest yet?

In keeping with the week’s them of irrational fear, I present to you perhaps the most incredible product of our young 2010: The Protektorvest.  According to the manufacturer’s website, the vest provides not only “protection from potential attacks from blades, knives bottles and broken glass,” but you also have the opportunity to “turn your stab vest into a special and exclusive fan article,” by having your team's logo printed on the chest.  Unlike the discretely paranoid hidden money belt, the Protektervest is intended to be worn as a very explicit statement of your irrationality.  To me, that sounds like the prime opportunity to turn yourself into a "special and exclusive" stab victim.  Though in that way, it’s sort of the perfect product: your purchase and subsequent wearing of this article is almost guaranteed to actualize its very purpose (especially if you got the Japanese bullseye flag or the English crosshairs).  What if you could sell a condom that had the same powers?  Everyone who buys one immediately becomes a target for random, unprovoked sex.  You'd be richer than Bill Gates. 

I don’t think these guys are necessarily great businessmen, though.  Despite advertising themselves as the “No. 1 Personal Protection Clothing for the World Cup 2010 in South Africa,” I see no indication that they’re planning to expand their line to include ProtektorScarves (especially popular with football fans), ProtektorHats or even ProtektorSessories.  I’m going to want matching Kevlar wristbands to go with my vest.  Duh.  Also, the vest retails for $69.95 which is suspiciously low for something that is alleged to protect my “vital inner body parts from stabs, cuts, slashes and blows from sharp, edged (sic) or spiked weapons.”  Spiked weapons?  Thank god, I’ve always been worried about random medieval mace attacks.  What’s even more suspect is their charity promise: “We are working close with charities around the globe who are fighting against knife crime.  We think they deserve our support and therefore will donate $1 vest sold to charities.”  You want to stop knife crime?  Wouldn’t a rash of random stabbings actually benefit these guys the most?  If there is an unusually high rate of knife crime on tourists leading up to the World Cup, Protektorvest headquarters would be the first place I’d look.   

On Television and Conan

Apologies for the non-sequitur, but I think what’s happening with the Tonight Show is relevant for those in my demographic who, like me, were raised by television.  It was a childhood I remember fondly.  I woke up to morning news, came home to cartoons and was gently rocked to slumber by the local news and late night talk.  Like any good parent, TV had some pretty outrageous bedtime stories, only instead of princes and dragons, it offered Joey Buttafuoco jokes, the Dancing Lance Ito’s and closed each evening with a musical guest.  (Sorry, unless your dad is Mel fucking Brooks, that’s not going to be topped)  Back then, before the heady days of Tivo, on-screen channel guides and even remote controls[1] with which to jump back and forth, you had to choose one or the other.  The children of the 80’s had “Magic or Bird?” we had “Leno or Letterman?”  That choice wasn’t a matter of simple preference, it was an expository statement on one’s very being.  I was (and still am though I never watch) a Letterman.  Where does that put me politically, philosophically, socially, spiritually?  I have no idea, but I think my being a Letterman is more richly descriptive than being conservative or Buddhist or bisexual[2]. 

That being said, I’m moderately saddened by these recent developments with Conan and NBC even though I long ago stopped watching late night.  They should have known the golden age of the 11:35 time slot was going to die once Leno left.  Like any great empire, the success of the charismatic post-local news funny man was also the source of his downfall.  The longevity of each late night personality through the years gave them a direct association with their respective generation.  The grandparents watched Sullivan or Allen[3].  The parents watched Carson (or Koppel, if they never had sex).  And the current TV consumer associates the conclusion of their day’s media intake with either Letterman or Leno.  I don’t love Conan, but the problem isn’t him—he’s actually pretty good at what he does.  The problem is that the current audience, raised by Jay and Dave, is the last generation of Americans whose chief entertainment is television.  I’m not saying TV viewers as a whole are disappearing; we’re watching more television than ever, if anything.  The internet enhanced the viewing experience.  Not only can you watch Lost, you can now also catch up on episodes online, read blogs dedicated to plot conjecture and find out exactly what Matthew Fox was doing all these years between Party of Five and Lost. 

It’s not that we’ve replaced TV consumption with the internet, it’s that we’re consuming more media than ever before (in more mediums than ever before).  With such inflation, there comes a natural shift in demand.  The shrunken attention spans of the viral-video generation have no patience for hour long shows with draconian amounts of commercials and fillers.  Just how annoying is the we’re back from commercial, but we’re not actually back, we’re just getting your hopes up to send you back to commercial?  Why put up with that when the internet will boil down the show for you the next morning?  Even for those who possess archaic, pre-Tivo amounts of patience, is there a demand for current events regurgitated in joke-form at the end of the day when Twitter and Facebook already did so in real time.  Think of how frequently Dave and Jay open jokes with “Did you hear about this?”  Actually, yeah.  Yeah, we did hear about that.  Many times, in fact.  Even Shaq tweeted about it.

While I thought it was a noble gesture for Conan to take a stand with his open letter to the viewing public, I think it will ultimately be futile.  Men of his ilk are going the way of the dinosaur.  Our pop-culture ecosystem is as intricate and fragile as anything seen on Planet Earth; even the slightest imbalance can cause extinction.  It’s disheartening, but inevitable… they cycle of life.  All I can really say is, “thanks for the bedtime stories guys.” 

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[1] Maybe that was just our family; we were poor.

[2] Of which I am none.

[3] Not mine.  My grandparents didn’t watch shit because their government thought television was bourgeoisie decadence.   

On Togo, Angola and Soccer on the Continent of Africa, Pt. 3

Was this Michael Mann’s fault?

In 1995, Michael Mann’s Heat was released, starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.  In the United States, it was a box office success that garnered critical acclaim.  It was also highly profitable in South Africa, but not so much as a feature film as an instructional how-to.  The film, which opens with a methodical armored car heist, became the template for dozens of similar crimes in South Africa over the next decade.  Basically, Michael Mann provided henchmen with a step-by-step on how to engage, disable and disarm large armored vehicles with the use of some tire spikes and machine guns and Val Kilmer.  Without an accurate account of what exactly took place on Friday in Angola, any suggestion that the real criminal mastermind behind the attack was actually Michael Mann would be purely speculation, but it should be noted that Africa, as a whole, is frequently subject to copycat criminals.  Just look at what’s happened on the Somali coast after the resounding success of Jerry Bruckheimer’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.  There are now literally hundreds of young, black Jack Sparrows prowling the Indian Ocean.  If there is an upcoming summer blockbuster about criminal masterminds executing a fail-proof plan to incite mayhem at a major sporting event, I suggest that Hollywood pushes its release until after this July 11.  Their blueprint for evil genius will significantly less useful when the tourists and their money have left South Africa.  

On Togo, Angola and Soccer on the Continent of Africa, Pt. 2

After some debate, the Togo team has confirmed its withdrawal from the Africa Cup of Nations.  The tournament kicked off as scheduled yesterday, Hosts Angola took a 4-0 lead into the last eleven minutes only to shit the bed, allowing Mali to come back and draw 4-4.  Even if every single game for the rest of the tournament had four goal comebacks, I will still only remember ACN 2010 for this incident (and being that this is 2010, I will remember forever) and this incident alone.  Any soccer that will be played will only be a footnote.  When they write about the finals of this tournament, the first and last paragraph will contain some variant of:  "the tournament was marred by an armed attack on the Togo team bus."  When the Ivory Coast win the tournament, Didier Drogba will immediately dedicate his game winning goal to the victims.  When they kickoff the next ACN in two years, the prematch analysis will focus on security upgrades.

This is all the more reason the World Cup has to be the cat's pajamas.  2010 is Africa's statement of intent to the developed world and whether South Africa likes it or not the ACN in Angola is the preamble.  The body of said statement better be impeccable or African soccer violence will forever become apart of the world sports lexicon.  

On Togo, Angola and Soccer on the Continent of Africa, Pt. 1
I wanted to avoid the topic, honestly, but if I’m to dedicate myself to blogging about the World Cup, I suppose I can’t avoid discussing the recent developments at the Africa Cup of Nations.  If you haven’t heard: Africa is a fucked up place.  

There was an attack on the Togo team bus in Angola where the tournament is being hosted.  You can read up on it here, or operate on this very unofficial summary: the Togo team caravan were laid siege to by Angolan rebels in Cabina, a northern province bordering the DR Congo.  The machine-gun attack, perpetrated by separatist group FLEC, lasted up to 15 minutes.  Fortunately gunmen concentrated most of the fire on the lead bus, which mostly carried miscellaneous equipment.  There have been three deaths reported (a driver, a member of the technical staff and an assistant coach).  There have been reports that three players were also struck (though that number has changed a couple of times), with goalkeeper Kodjovi Obilale in critical condition.   

My hesitation probably stems from not wanting actualize some deep-seated fears about Africa.  I had been doing a pretty decent job of allaying my reservations up until now.  When it became apparent that I was going to the World Cup and that said World Cup would in fact be held in South Africa, I started sweeping fears under the rug of beautiful Table Mountain and soccer (sweet, all redeeming soccer).  These being fears of an Africa full of venereal diseases, thieves, occasional leopard attacks, and most of all, the capricious occurrence of human violence—fears likely perpetuated by years of western media, as news from Africa only seems to come in three categories: 1) Rebel faction commits an act of arbitrary violence 2) Corrupt government leader overthrown 3) Genocide in progress. 

With the prospect of the World Cup looming, I’ve convinced myself that somewhere beyond the reaches of the news cameras, there is a safe Africa, a place where children aren’t familiar with firearms and Asian tourists can safely take way too many pictures of absolutely nothing.  But now that such news has permeated the bounds of the soccer world, my sensitive constitution has been aroused.  And I wonder if this mythical safe Africa exists.  And if it does, does it reach past the enclaves of rich whites?  I’m spending, what is for me at least, a small fortune to get out there and I’m quitting my job to do so.  Even I can’t say that it’s all for the soccer.  Given the magnitude of the sacrifices being made, I will want to explore.  But is cultural immersion possible in a place whose culture is in so many ways defined by the devaluation of humanity (slavery, apartheid, war)?  And I guess this is, in essence, what my most rational fear should be.  Not that I actually be involved in a terrorist incident at the World Cup, but rather: will my travel experience be dictated by what I want to see or what I am able to see from behind the walls of my resort, safely guarded from my own fears?[1]

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[1] Another reason I was hesitant to ruminate on the Togo incident: I feel like an asshole for talking about the impact of the deaths of three innocent people on my World Cup travel experience.

It’s 2010.  I will remember 2010.

A good friend of mine recently got engaged.

Somewhere down the road, I will randomly discuss their marriage (hopefully in the present tense) with common associates and someone will inevitably query, "It hasn't really been that long, has it?"  With absolutely certainty, I'll retort: "Yep.  It's been that long."  Said associate might be impressed with my memory, but he/she will have been fooled.  I love this couple dearly and I'm sure the ceremony will be pleasantly memorable, if a bit booze-filled... but they will have little to do with my sharpness—not the radiance of the bride or how drunk the best man was (I have a feeling he, whoever it is, will be very, very drunk) or even for the fact that I helped introduce them.  Nope, nothing like that.

"They got married the year South Africa hosted.  And the year _______ won," I'll inform the curious party. I'll always remember because 2010 is a World Cup year.  2006 was not the year of my last year at Cal or my entrance into the workforce; 2006 was Germany... was bad schnapps, doner kebabs and the crown of a Frenchman's skull planted into an Italian chest.  Like anyone else rounding the turn for 30, I'd be struggling to come up with my grad year (it's inexplicable; we're young but all of my contemporaries have to think for a long second to come up with "2005... I think") were it not for the World Cup.  But I remember it vividly: it was fucking hot, I looked like a clown (my head was not designed with tight fitting caps in mind), my father wouldn't set the damned camera down, and, most importantly, I was going to leave for Germany in 13 days.  

That's just how things work for me, you see.  I live my life in four year cycles that culminate when 32 countries come together to drink beer, sing some songs and watch rich men kick a ball around.  The World Cup isn't just an event, it's my life's compass, the precipice from which I look out at the vast plains of my existence—everything will be spoken of in relation to it.  (I think this is how other people treat marriage or child birth: "Everything was different after we had little Pete," or "That was the year my whore ex-wife ruined my life by agreeing to marry me.")

You can be sure I'll remember _________ and _________'s wedding.  I'll remember it because of its close proximity to my life's quadrennial plateau.  Congrats guys!  You've picked a good year.  I will remember 2010.