A Comeback Like Unto Lazarus

Last year Felipe Massa had a big crash and there was doubt right at the start as to whether he'd live. When it became established that he would, there was then doubt that he'd ever race again.

Just before the start of the F1 season, Felipe was making fastest practice laps left, right and centre.

And now we've had the first race of the season, in Bahrain. In which he came SECOND.

Wow. Just wow. Out of words.

Things That Are Fabulous

Unlike the Brat, I've not quite been ignoring the Olympics. Its schedule being from ohmygod o'clock in the morning until dinnertime rather meant that I didn't see much of them during the week, but it wasn't for lack of interest.

The weekends were different, and the Weasel and I spent hours watching people in full-body condoms zoom around tracks on ice skates, slide down hills with sticks tied to their feet, do aerobatics while attached to large tongue-depressers etc.

Which leads me to Yet Another List: Things That Are Fabulous.

Thing One: The Norwegian Curling Team's Trousers

Behold the magnificence

The sartorial equivalent of the loud drunk guy at your cousin's wedding, these bad boys (the pants, not the Norwegians) are available for sale for a paltry $US 89.95 per pair. If you can't quite stretch to that, you could always buy a "Respect the Pants" t-shirt for a much more accessible $US 15 or join the Facebook fan group, where you can learn to tell people how awesome their pants are in Norwegian.

And remember -- a man walks down the street in pants like those, you know he's not afraid of anything.

Thing Two: Johnny Weir

He's sparkly, he's outspoken almost to a fault, and he's ridiculously talented. Seriously. To the point where we can forgive him for being Lady GaGa's bestie.

No, really. Check it out:

As if anything else need be said. But sadly, it does. A couple of commentating velocipedes in Canadia made some crass remarks about Johnny's apparent

sexuality, including a suggestion that he should have to take a gender test.

WTF, CANADIA?? We thought you were immune to that kind of nineteenth-century homophobic bullshit.

Butanyway. Johnny, being the outspoken guy he is, had something to say about it. This is what he said:

And that, ladies and germs, is what a class act looks like. And why you, Johnny Weir, are fabulous. Long may you sparkle.

Good news, two counts thereof

You know, if a guy had to take the rest of the GP season off to recover from a head injury, they could wish for a worse person to take over their driving duties than Michael Schumacher.

That's right -- Michael is back, keeping Felipe's seat warm for Ferrari for the remainder of the season.

The Cheap Seats continue to wish for a complete recovery for Felipe -- the news that he's up and walking and off home to Spain next week was faaantastic to hear.

He's back!

Dan Carter just played his first game of rugby since snapping his rubber band Achilles tendon six months ago.

I pity whichever team was facing Southbridge -- you don't expect a club side from a two-horse town to contain one of the best players in the world, and I doubt they got much warning.

Dan admitted that he'd been a bit more careful than usual, but he's feeling okay and hopes to play for Canterbury next week in the NPC.

Yay!

The Italian Job

We nearly had one of the great upsets of world sport this morning. The All Whites squared up against Italy, one of the towering colossi of the soccer world, for a friendly match in Pretoria.

With the score at 2 - 1 to the All Whites at half time, yours truly was holding her breath (always fun when trying to work) waiting to hear whether or not they would prevail.

Sadly the answer was no, with the final score 4 - 3 in favour in Italy.

A round of applause (and a round at the pub, hopefully) to the All Whites -- scoring any goals against Italy at all is an achievement, never mind scaring them the way you did.

You've made this Kiwi proud.

Oops.

OKay, we apologise. We will no longer be calling them the "Slack Caps". We don't know where they pulled their current performance from, but it's awesome.

We're still calling ol' Jesse an idiot though, for breaking his bat when he got out. That would have been an expensive bat. Even if he didn't pay for it.

Go the Penrith Panthers!

Now that might seem like an odd headline for someone to post when it's reasonably widely known that they don't give a fourpenny sideways about rugby league.

But when the Panthers do something as cool as hire Aussie league's first openly gay cheerleader, I think they deserve a bit of recognition for it.

So go the Panthers and go Aaron Neich!  I wish you a long and happy career in your chosen art.

The day of epicness

So.

Yesterday.

Well.


I headed off to the cricket at 10am, cos I am a freak like that and I was meeting a friend in a pub at 10:30 before the gates opened. And of course, it was pissing down with rain. So we sat in this pub, well past the appointed start time of the cricket, and figured it would be cancelled, stuff would be a draw, and all would be sucky.

I waited until 4:30 when I could see no sign of improvement and hopped on a bus to go back to the hostel and watch the Highlanders snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as is their usual custom.

Then I went next door to the net cafe and had a heart attack when I realised that yes, there was gonna be some cricket, holy shit. One mad dash and taxi ride and madder dash later, I'm in someone else's seat yelling and screaming and loving my cricket, even if it had turned into a twenty20.

Then the rain returned, i stood in it, for it was beautiful and soft and heavy and tropical and all kinds of gorgeous, so I ended up soaked to the skin and being snogged by random Australian who had never thought of the beauty of his own town's rain before.

And somehow, despite more than 3/4ths of the game being played, and us being ahead on the D/L par score, they abandoned a match we should have won. Martin Guptill was utterly amazing. Fults was good, Tayor needs a spanking every time he tries to play on the leg side, and Daimante (who is much older than he looks) was very cool. We should have won. Moral frigging victory to us my friends.

I'm heading off to Melbourne tomorrow, whereby I return to the deep south as a homeless person until I can find a flat. I'm not going to the actual twenty20 in Sydney, as it would have cost an arm, leg and my future firstborn to buy the tickets. I'll watch it on telly in Melbourne.

If you don't think the cheap seats are a place for sappiness, turn away now...
Because of the way NZC have scheduled no tests in the South Island and only one ODI, I will probably not see my boys in the flesh again this summer. I am feeling quite melancholy about that, (aided by the huge amount of alcohol Ive been drinking) and I would just like to say to any of them who might be reading, and any of my readers who actually care, that I just love seeing live cricket, I've loved it, it's been awesome, and win, lose or draw, they're my absolute heroes.

Bring on India.

Bring on Rugby.

Long Live Cricket.

"Sign her Tits Tim!"

And now your news from Sydney Australia.

Ive been to two games... In Australia. of course the first at the MCG was really brilliant, we won, I watched ostrich boy and Neil Broom (Broom, really?) win it for us. Elliott should have got man of the match, but having no hands, he couldn't accept a large cheque, so they gave it to pup. I was never worried about our state of the game, so long as we keep the Aussies batting boring, we would be fine.

They batted exciting today in Sydney. it was great. It was hot, (I have very bad bikini sunburn) and we bowled badly. Really really badly. Tim Southee was asked to sign Maddy's autograph book, whereby the crowd decided he should sign her boobs. Timmeee, next time you're presented with opportunity to sign a nice pair of tits, take it mate.

I though I couldn't love and respect Baz McCullum more than I did... I do now. So full of painkillers he could barely stand up, a face the colour of milk, sweating like it was the heat of the day in India... And he still smashes sixes. What a fucking hero.

Still 2-1 up.

Quote of the night comes from Tobias, the German in my room - "So cricket, that is kind of like golf?"

No Toby, no it is not.

Off the field my wallet has been stolen, I have no money, and am very sunburned. Bad, bad times.

Guptill fan club now has five members. Tomorrow I'll put it on facebook.

See yous all in Brissie!