My Son Lost His Balls ...

... which, basically, is perfectly normal for a doggie when he's been neutered.
Now, speaking of the other balls that SuperDawg lost in the past week, there's A) The fuzzy, squeaky soccer ball which he misplaced at Grandma's house and B) The fuzzy, squeaky mini-football which he fumbled in the weeds and high grass this morning whilst he was "conducting business."
Jeez ... ya try to give yer kids a set of values and some inexpensive toys and then ... all ya get is defiance.
Well, and sometimes some kisses on the knee.

The troubling aspect of him starting his Thursday by losing that football in the high grass is that Grandma (Mrs. PF7's mom) STILL hasn't found the soccer ball under a table or behind a couch inside her 80-year-old, Tudor-style home.
SuperDawg might've been sending a message that he's fed up with the World Cup. We watched most of the Italy-Germany match together on Tuesday (Independence Day) and then saw the second half of France-Portugal yesterday.
I'm sensing that he was trying to tell me that Germany would be hindered without Torsten Frings.
It meant that Germany's defense was nuth-Frings-pecial.

This isn't to say that the Mrs. and I should have bought ourselves a German shepherd puppy.
And, this isn't a declaration that the World Cup has gone to the dogs with Germany losing in the semifinals. The Mrs. liked the way midfielder Bernd Schneider played, but I've been partial to backup goalie Oliver Kahn and midfielder Sebastian Kehl.
Kahn and Kehl ... I have my reasons.

Only one week ago, at the same time that Germany and Argentina were engaged in penalty-kick drama, I was at the bottom of Niagara Falls.
Which maybe is where German fans wished they were, via the express route, after Italy ruined their 4 July, as the Europistas write it.
I was with the Mrs. on the boat which takes visitors to the fury of the Canadian falls (the Horseshoe Falls) ... the Maid of the Mist, they call it.
My final report: There was no lady in the water and, happily, no snakes on a plane.

OK ... so I only made reference to the slithery reptiles because, only minutes after Germany's loss on 4 July (as the Euros write it), there was an advert (as the Brits say) on the telly (as the Brits say) for a cinema show (again ... the Brits) -- "Snakes On A Plane."
Apparently, this is an upcoming film starring Samuel L. Jackson, an actor who I once respected until I learned that he was starring in a movie called "Snakes On A Plane."
What's next? "Pythons On Mini-Bikes"? "Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes Robbing Liquor Stores"?
Kinda reminds ya of that ol' joke -- "Question: Where does a king cobra sit on a non-stop flight from La Guardia to Heathrow? Answer: Anywhere he wants."
'Cept that snakes don't actually "sit."
And ... I just made up that joke.

Call me old school, but I remember a time when the world was a simpler place and they were making intelligently-written and brilliantly-acted (without over-acting) snake movies ... such as Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube and Jon Voight in "Anaconda."
Now, THAT was a film which delved deeply into the complexities of the human-snake paradigm.
We can only hope that Samuel L. Jackson delivers a similar portrayal.
There's nothing worse than a snakesploitation film.

Anyway, "Snakes On A Plane" might top my list of this week's headliners (edging out the retirement of Steve Yzerman and the death of Ken Lay). I guess I'm SUPPOSED to toss Joey Chestnut into that equation -- for the mere fact that his hot-dog eating performance vs. Kobayashi was a dandy tuneup for Germany-Italy.
Well, that and the fact that Joey and I (and the head ref at the Super Bowl, Bill Leavey) all attended the same glorious university.
Here's something else: They don't call Takeru Kobayashi by his nickname ("The Tsunami") any more -- which is the politcally correct thing to do when you're cramming a new world record 53.75 hot dogs in your mouth in 12 minutes.
Watching such a feat, I grumbled, "This is disgusting."
Then, I took another drag off my Marlboro.

So, to recap: Thursday kinda sucked without some robust soccer-bopper action. There was nuthin' good to watch, sportingwise, because, let's face it, without Venus' headlights on high beams in her RBK tennis top, all that we're left with is Mauresmo's high beams on her RBK top.
It used to be about the tennis.
At least it was when Steffi was buzzsawing her way through a fortnight at Wimbledon.

I wouldn't have had to worry about topspin and toplessness if ESPN hadn't finally finished that 800-segment package called "The Ultimate NFL Depth Chart."
Any time it's Salisbury N' Schlereth breaking down something bit-by-excruciating-bit, "depth" oftentimes turns to "death." Actually, the classic aspect of what turned out to be a mini-series was that it probably required a few hours to shoot and then, since it was spread out over 37 days (or thereabouts), America got to see Schlereth with his yellow tie and pink dress shirt combo platter for all 37 episodes.
Some people might defend Schlereth's right to wear a yellow tie with a pink shirt.
We call those people "losers."

I usually watched 23 to 38 seconds of that nonsense before Schlereth's yellow-tie-with-pink-shirt had me running to board a plane -- ANY plane -- which had snakes on it.
The sensation of puff adder venom pulsing through my bloodstream is a sensation of which I have no experience, but can that result of lungs-on-fire, a windpipe collapsing and a brain scrambled with toxin-induced hysteria and panic be any worse than Salisbury?
FYI: I think the consensus was that the Panthers were going to win their make-believe Super Bowl -- and about the only thing ESPN didn't do was have the guys act out this make-believe Super Bowl while wearing their ugly dress shirts/slacks/dress shoes.
"Act One, Scene One: The Panthers' first play from scrimmage following a touchback on the opening kickoff. Salisbury, as Delhomme, fakes a handoff to Foster, played by Schlereth, and looks downfield for Steve Smith, played by Golic, who is well-covered by somebody named Trey Wingo. The subsequent pass falls incomplete and Salisbury spends the next 15 minutes dissecting the Cover 2 defensive assignments, even though Wingo was playing man not zone, blah blah ... "

ESPN is frickin' frightening.
But, at least they make up for it with material that is confusing.
Like those spots for ESPN360 (whatever that is). I don't really care that it's a cartoon Bill Walton and other cartoon characters who are more ambiguous than Gary and Ace, the Amibiguously Gay Duo.
What bothers me is that little gray dog with the eye patch.
How'd the dog lose his eye? Is it an eye patch which is "just for show"? Shouldn't Walton have been a little more pro-active in getting the dog to a vet so that a cone could've been secured to the dog's neck?
Yeah, it's real funny, Red ... canine glaucoma is a laughing matter, ha ha.
It's not as though Red can grind up some of his extra reefer and sprinkle it on Scruffy's bowl of Alpo.
Red needs to be educated that medicinal marijuana is not to be used recreationally.
Bottom line: Those ads totally need Gary and Ace (and the penis-shaped car) to achieve a heightened sense of credibility.
Bottom line 2, the sequel: Gary and Ace enjoy references to "the bottom."

Well, I need to get to the bottom of SuperDawg losing his football one week after losing his futbol.
He's the all-time sweetest pooch in the history of the universe, but, sometimes, I wonder ...
Is there an agenda in play here?

The investigation will reach its "full-scale" potential quite soon, I predict ...