At this very minute, everybody in Australia is sitting down to watch Lleyton Hewitt take on Marat Safin for the Australian Open Championship. The Aussies haven’t had a local winner in, like, decades, so it’s a pretty big deal. I haven’t watched much of the Open this year but I was glued to the screen during Hewitt’s semifinal with Andy Roddick. I was cheering for Hewitt (because I’m an expat snob, of course, and you all know how I hate America*) but it got seriously painful when Roddick started losing. He really does look so much like my brother; it was like watching Antny get his butt kicked. Anyway, the Final’s about to start and I’m a little torn. Yeah, I want the local underdog to win, but let’s be honest girls: Lleyton is a minger. (His new muscles are nice, but it’s just not enough.) And Safin is damn hot. I just hope it’s a close one…

Oh, and Roddick’s American Express commercials seriously cracked me up, especially the new version with his sad little empty seat. Very clever!

* Sarcasm.

Cousin Jenny sent me a great quiz: Which O.C. Character Are You? I came up in an exact tie between Anna and Julie Cooper. I can see that. The Snook’s was even funnier: He’s a cross between Caleb and Seth! Yeah, I can see that too. (And hey, how nice that we scored each other’s counterparts!)

Crap. Commenter Sara just mentioned that Soctopi are available for sale online here. I thought mine was a total original! At least it doesn’t look anything like mine. In fact, I can’t even tell if it has eight legs…

Font T-Shirts. Seriously nerdy, but man, I’d love a “Chicago” shirt. (A few minutes ago I pulled the latest Notre Dame Alumni Magazine out of the mailbox and thoroughly mentally embarrassed myself by thinking: “Huh. They changed to Trebuchet MS for the address block.” I’m a font nerd.) (Link courtesy of Awful Cufflinks.)

Kevin alerted me to the fact that the Star Wars Episode III title crawl has been revealed. Hmm, I’m decidedly not intrigued. I’m committed to seeing it, though. I’ve invested enough time into this series that I can’t imagine not seeing how it ends. (Jeff, however, is wavering.) Are you still planning to see it?

Bam-chicka-bam-bam!
So, the Apple service guy just stopped by the house… and while some of you may think that sounds like the opening to a really good porn film, I regret to say that reality failed to live up to your expectations. The only think he picked up was my iMac for repairs. Honest!

I kissed a Dell dude.
My friend Liz just IMed me to say that one of our college buddies, Rob Sudduth, is starring in a new Dell commercial! She says, “Theres a guy in bed with his wife and he calls Dell to see if they’re there 24/7 like they say… and ROB answers the phone and is a Dell guy… and the other guy says “Thanksgiving? and Rob says yes, Christmas? yes sir etc…” Okay, I don’t really get the last part, but how cool is that? Rob starred in a notoriously cheesy play with me junior year called Lie, Cheat, and Genuflect in which I played his love interest and got to smooch him on stage. And now he’s moved on to Dell commercials… I think that probably vaults him to the top of the Famous People I Have Kissed List! (Number one used to be Dickie Barrett, lead singer of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones whom I pecked after a show in London.) Anyhoo, I’ve been trying to find the commercial online but Dell doesn’t seem to archive their advertising anywhere. If anybody manages to catch it on a TiVo or a computer, please let me know!

50 Best Movie Deaths. I gotta say, I’ve always thought that Obi-Wan’s death was pretty weak. The fight was slow and there really wasn’t much build up, and the “death blow” was pretty crappy. It just went right through him without any sense of force. Darth Maul’s was much, much better.

Heather has written a wonderful and timely entry on weblog hate mail and how horrible people can be when they’re not talking to your face. Timely, since I got my own wonderful personal attack this morning: “there are plenty of misguded [sic] expats living abroad who no [sic] SO much more because of their current foreign surroundings… if you can’t tell your [sic] being an “expat snob” … read your post on when you returned to South Bend for the wedding.” I was confused at first because I couldn’t remember any rampant snobbery on my part when I got home. I had to go back through the archives and the only thing I could find was this incident with the dumb teenage couple on the plane. So, just to clarify, I wasn’t being an expat snob in that post, I was being an intellectual snob. My mockery had nothing to do with the girl’s nationality and everything to do with her NOT KNOWING WHERE ONE OF THE CONTINENTS WAS. It’s not like that is some random bit of trivia, now is it? And I felt my slam on the local school system was entirely justified, given that I’M A PRODUCT OF IT. Oh, and we call out bad writing around these parts too. I guess that makes us grammar and spelling snobs.

And you know what prompted that little diatribe? My praising Australia’s contribution to tsunami relief. I didn’t even mention the US in that post (and explained to a few folks in the comments that I didn’t intend it as a slam). Yet somehow, just because I live overseas, every time I say something good about another country it has to be interpreted as a criticism of the US. Come on, back me up folks. That’s ridiculous, right?

Dear Internets: Please note that the missing tsunami boy has been reunited with his family, so please quit forwarding me his picture! Thanks. Love, Kris