First off, I'd like to reveal the lack of haikus. Sometimes Texas and Wisconsin lose on the same day and sometimes there's a man foolish enough to put those two teams in the national title game, damning himself to life (or year) of mockery and shame, horrible, unending shame. That is why I'm now drinking Natty Light and thinking about West Ham.

Long story short, during last year's World Cup I made the decision to throw better judgment to the wind and adopt an EPL team. I guess the recent run of success of certain Boston-area sports teams this century fucked with my fragile psyche enough for me to convince myself I wasn't getting enough punishment on a daily basis. I was also working a shitty summer job and drinking a lot at the time, so, you know, there's that. Basically I ran off a few arbitrary criteria (criterion? Crichton?) that included, among others, being based in London and somehow angering Jason's Chelsea loving bitch-ass. Take that, add a black guy named Nigel and endorsement from Billy Bragg, and voila: West Ham United.

Within weeks, it seemed I had struck gold when Javier Mascherano and Carlos "I Look Exactly Like The Apes From The Beginning of 2001 And I Don't Care Who Knows It!" Tevez under incredibly suspicious circumstances. Apparantly EPL rules prohibit the ownership of players by a third party to prevent outside interference. This is only being investigated now, which is odd, because the fact that Mascherano and the Unfrozen Caveman Striker were owned by an Iranian businessman named after a low-quality Korean car company was common knowledge to everybody at the time. But I digress.

Basically, the season is now winding down and West Ham is certainly going down like something that goes down hard, fast and spends a literal assload of money along the way. I know there's a Pacman Jones/gay porn joke somewhere in there, but I just don't have the energy to ferret it out.
Here is where I would have the option of lamenting the Hammers poor fortunes and the fact that I will be following a Championship team next season. Instead, I will list the silver linings to this ever-so-cloudy cloud.

1. Eggert Magnusson. He looks like the illegitimate love child of Mr. Magoo and Gary Oldman as "Old Dracula." Plus he's from Iceland, one of the few countries that just adamantly refuse to stop whaling. According to Wikipedia, they want to export it to Japan, but Japan doesn't want any of their whale meat. Somehow this hasn't stopped them from whaling, which just proves what we all already know: there's nothing like the thrill of killing a large, practically defenseless, seaborne mammal. Fuck those whales.

2. Tevez. He doesn't want to leave, even though the club is obviously going down, which I admire. In reality though, it's probably because his primitive mind is incapable of learning a second language. He lived in Brazil for two years and never even came close to learning the language. That takes will, balls, and a whole lot of learning disability. As long as no one says anything in Spanish, everything will be cool.

3. Millwall. If there was ever shirt that said "I Am Batshit Insane" without using any words, it would be a Millwall jersey. When they made the 2004 FA Cup final and none of their supporters were arrested, that was newsworthy. It's gonna be good to see those guys twice a year.

I can't really think of anything else. Damn, I though that list would go on longer. In conclusion, I don't know why I posted this rambling, at times incoherent diatribe.