I'm a 31 year old native Californian, and for over a third of my life I have devoted myself to a team playing 5000 miles away. How many times have I explained to passersby why "Zola" is written across the back of my jersey? Or why I'm wearing this crazy blue shirt, anyway? For years I persevered as our team struggled to consistently crack the Premiership elite. I made my pilgrimage to Stamford Bridge in 2001, and slunk away without even witnessing a Chelsea strike in a lackluster 1-nil defeat to Charlton. But I kept faith that one day everything would come together. And since the summer when I first heard the name Roman Abramovich, I've bid farewell to old heroes and watched new ones emerge. I've reveled in the puzzled stares of my non-footie savvy coworkers as I roared in ecstasy when Wayne Bridge scored the winner against Arsenal in the Champions League. I've savored my first live blues goals while following Chelsea around the country on its US summer tour. I've watched my first bit of Arjen Robben magic and wondered, "Does this wunderkind really play for us?" I've wept tears of joy at our first league title in 50 years. And I've tirelessly defended our club from its many detractors during its slips on and off the pitch. Be it scraping the bottom of the third division or filling the Stamford Bridge trophy cabinet, this yank will always see the world through blue colo(u)red glasses.

My weekend got off to a somber start as i headed home by 6pm on Friday night to hear the winner of the Fox "Ultimate Chelsea Fan" contest on Fox Football Friday. About halfway through the show, i discovered to my horror that this was not a competition to see who could write the best 250 word essay on why they are America's biggest Blues fan, but instead a big random drawing where the price of admission is 250 words. The show's hosts brought out a duffel bag full of entries and drew one at random. So congrats to Catherine of Collyerville, Tennessee, who's off to see the boys play Tottenham next month at Stamford Bridge. They didn't even read her entry ... geez. If i had known this i would've entered Veronica, my parents, and everyone else i can think of who would've graciously passed the prize back to me. For all i know Catherine of Collyerville, Tennessee can't even name anyone in the squad. Let alone anyone in the squad before the Abramovich revolution. What a crock. I'll post my discarded entry here shortly.

After the crushing of my spirit on cable television, Geoff and Naomi arrived to look after Tara while V and i headed down south for Sean's 30th birthday festivities. As it was already 8:30pm, we had decided to postpone our drive down the 5 until the following morning, so we got dinner and drinks at P.F. Chang's and then quickly introduced our guests to the mystery and wonder of Katamari Damacy before falling asleep. In a not entirely unexpected development, we didn't get our act in gear until nearly 1pm the next day, driving off in the Mini after a take-out Stacks breakfast with our housesitters. V handled driving duties on the way down, enjoying pushing her Cooper S to speeds of over 100 mph when absolutely convinced there were no police in a 10 mile radius. We were scheduled to have a pre-party dinner with Matthew, Dionne, Mark, and Martin at 6:30pm, but when we got on the 405 at 6:20pm and ran into a wall of traffic, we had to improvise. Traffic also waylaid Mark and Martin, so M, D, V, and myself had a huge Mexican meal at a taqueria near Dionne's ancestral home on the way to Sean and Michelle's.

Sean had taken Dionne's lead and reserved a giant Hummer limousine to ferry his partygoers around the greater Los Angeles area. We ended up hitting bars in Chinatown, Pasadena, and ... somewhere else in the greater Los Angeles area. In keeping with Sean's personality, it was pretty chill. No omnipresent dance floors or crunked-out club kids. Which was perfectly cool with me, even if some of our entourage would not shut up about finding a place with dancing. And i have to say, the first mix cd played in the limo ... which obviously came from Sean and not the more dance-interested parties in the car ... was excellent, and i need to get the tracklist from him. Norcal-turned-Socal resident Kevin met up with us in Chinatown and hit the last two places before cabbing back to his car. We ended the night back at Sean and Michelle's, with 1) Matthew passed out drunk in the car, 2) Dionne passed out drunk in their house, and 3) Veronica super-chatty and drunk at the party. I, the sober one, gathered them all up and drove us back to M and D's house. With a minor detour so someone could run out of the car to empty his Mexican dinner and booze all over the pavement.

I had the weirdest dream after being woken up Sunday morning by Veronica on her way to the bathroom and falling back asleep. I was at the Academy Awards, which were being held at some fairly ho-hum auditorium. Kathy Bates was giving the Oscar for best actor, which apparently means she won best actress the year before in my bizarro Hollywood. She gave a speech that involved her wandering through the crowd, stopping at each best actor nominee and saying something, before finally stopping at the actor who played Sam Gamghee in Lord of the Rings ... Sean Astin, yes that's his name ... and dropping the Oscar in his lap. I don't know whether i should be more surprised by the manner of her presentation or the fact that my brain seems to think Astin is deserving of more industry recognition.

But lo, the weirdness continues. After this scene i wandered out of the auditorium and onto the patio outside, which looked like a sort of stadium entrance and was filled with thousands of blue-clad Chelsea fans. I notice Blues and England midfielder Frank Lampard sitting on a planter and go say hi like we're old friends. Which apparently we are. We shoot the shit for a while before he mentions (as if this is something he really wanted to tell me and had forgotten until now) that his dogs just had puppies and would i like one. Unlike the actual me, to whom the thought of owning a Lampard puppy is f@$#ing brilliant, i turned him down, saying that Veronica and i couldn't look after a puppy at the moment. Somehow the actual Ted shone through there.

Once fully awake, i got housed by Matthew in a few games of Winning Eleven 9 ... i really need to go rethink my whole method of approaching WE, as i just plain suck now. We also watched the latest episode of Flavor of Love while we individually readied ourselves. That show ... i dunno, these people exist in some sort of parallel universe where the normal rules of human interaction have been nullified. Maybe the whole cast are aliens and are showing us their culture, which is completely foreign from our own. Or maybe these people are just f@$#ing trash. Anyhoo, we bid adieu to our kind hosts around 2pm and headed over to Whittier to see Veronica's aunt, uncle, cousins, grandmother, and their pack of six dogs. That was very fun and relaxing, catching up with her family while Veronica played with their four chihuahuas, boxer, and white shepherd in their huge backyard. We then got an early dinner at Black Angus, where i somehow managed to consume almost all of my dinner special (an appetizer platter, salad, filet mignon, baked potato, and chocolate cake). I knew i hadn't eaten all day, but this was ridiculous. As the hour was growing late, we said goodbye not long after returning to their house. But not before Austen could clean my clock at Super Smash Brothers Melee ... after trouncing me in the first match, before the second he told me "use somebody you're good with this time". It just wasn't my day in the virtual competitions. We didn't hit the road until 7:40pm, and were greeted with traffic on the 5 until we had passed downtown. Although i averaged about 90mph on the desolate expanses of interstate 5, listening to my iPod on random as V napped, we still didn't get back to Redwood City until 1:45am. Naomi had Scion-ed back to Sacramento, but Geoff and his new bike Black Betty had remained, as it's a shorter commute to Novato from our house than from Sac. Tara as expected was almost doing backflips when we came in the house.

As a new Morrissey album is almost upon us, i need a new dismissive catch phrase to replace my Scottish-inflected "it's certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life". And Geoff kindly provided me with the inspiration on Friday night. He mentioned how if he ever saw him in person, he would kick him in the balls. To which i replied that he would probably write a song about it, similar to his piss-poor cover of the Jam's "That's Entertainment" where he embellishes the "lights going out and a kick in the balls" line by inexorably prolonging it with "is all .... that you'll get ........ in the name, of entertainment" (wow, looking at the lyrics to Moz's version, he really f@$#ed Weller's version around). So my new stock response for Morrissey discussions is drawn from David Alan Grier's über-prolific blues man on In Living Color, who for almost any topic of conversation responds:

"I wrote aaaaaaa song 'bout it! Like to hear it here it goes!"

I am charging you, my collective and individual readers, with the following responsibility and privilege. As of today, Monday, February 27, 2006, at 10:51am, i am committing myself to an exercise program that will include no less than five hours a week on the oft-neglected elliptical trainer in our garage. I intend to document my progress in these pages. Should you notice a dip in my reporting, you are authorized to harrass me until i provide accounting of exercise that meets the aforementioned criteria.