Despite occasionally flirting with a spectacular comeback, Chelsea finally conceded the Premiership crown to Manchester United last weekend. Needing victories in their last three matches (not to mention losses by United in both of their last two), the Blues had Khalid Boulahrouz sent off early against Arsenal and scraped a 1-1 draw only through a late Michael Essien header. In a conciliatory email to my friend and United supporter Sean, i congratulated him on a fine season and admitted that it would have been a travesty if Chelsea had pipped the title after they did nearly everything wrong this year while United were brilliant. I'm left to ponder whether Roman Abramovich and Peter Kenyon will fully prostitute the club i've loved for ten years, shoving the polarizing but skilled José Mourinho out the door and possibly alienating and subsequently exiling the heart of the team in Frank Lampard and John Terry, then bringing in a slew of new superstar recruits who will undoubtedly sell replica kits but fail to gel once again.

It's difficult to imagine that such a strategy could establish Chelsea once more as the dominant team in England, especially while United's young attacking nucleus of Rooney and Ronaldo continue to develop and Alex Ferguson gradually solves his defensive woes. Two years ago comparisons between the young Ronaldo and Chelsea's Arjen Robben were significantly tilted in the Dutchman's favor, but now those evaluations are clearly reversed. Why? Cristiano Ronaldo has certainly learned to apply his unlimited potential to something more useful than endless crossovers, but i think Robben has not only suffered from injuries but also regressed due to a lack of discipline and structure at Stamford Bridge. At the World Cup he showed his dismaying tendency towards playing one on 11, and at Chelsea Mourinho seems to have relegated him to his back pocket, to be produced only as a sub when José needs some late-match inventiveness. Hardly a recipe for player development. Elsewhere around the league, i've been impressed with Arsenal's commitment to youth as well, and while Wenger and co. have had their growing pains i have to think our London rivals will be challenging for the title again before long. Liverpool ... well, i think Benitez has made it clear this season that he is much more concerned about the Champions League. That's the only way i can rationalize his squad losing to the likes of Fulham domestically while defeating giants like Barcelona on the continent on the way to another CL final appearance.

But really, this is a problem at Stamford Bridge. We have to address our own issues before we can begin to think about competing with our foes. First off, keeping Lamps and Terry is imperative. If Abramovich has to pay them what he pays Andriy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack, so be it. The Englishmen have certainly done more to deserve it than our two high profile, low impact imports. Regarding our manager ... i like Mourinho, but i don't consider him essential to Chelsea's success. However, i do think removing him at this stage would be a mistake as any managerial change will surely set back our progress at least six months as the club adapts to new leadership. I would love to see the Stamford Bridge execs give more control to Mourinho so that he can mold the squad according to his tactical vision. That was a huge reason for our downfall this season. Mourinho was refused money to bring in new defenders because apparently they didn't fit into the management's strategy for marketing the club. Meanwhile we sustained injuries across the back line and our defense went from stalwart to hemorrhaging overnight. And that summarizes my third and final recommendation ... the club execs need to make a commitment towards producing a successful footballing squad, instead of a successful commercial squad. Signings like Ballack make sense on the accounting sheets, but little sense on the pitch. Everyone outside the Stamford Bridge luxury suites knew this before Ballack signed with the club, and it became painfully apparent once he began playing. Can we do it? We undoubtedly have the resources and the foundation of talent, but without a cohesive strategy (an Alex Ferguson guiding the ship, to give some begrudging credit to our rivals), we're not going to achieve the glory that United has enjoyed.

Also off with a whimper, my hair. Last week i could take my unkempt curly hair no more and scheduled an appointment with Samuel. It seems every time i see him, he ends up giving me some variant of his current hairstyle. This time, when i asked how i wanted him to do my hair, i actually ended up responding "Like ... well ... yours". As you can see, the sides and back are quite short once again, while i've got a subtle faux hawk going on up top. Oddly i'm still adjusting back to short hair ... would've thunk part of me might miss long floppy locks ... but i was pleased that i styled my hair in less than a minute this morning. Amato referred to me as a "young Republican" at lab meeting this morning. I guess my new appearance was a stark contrast to my old dirty hippie looks.

It still rankles me that the shimmering, unparalleled "Untitled" by Interpol (a level of resonance they've been unable to duplicate, imo) was perverted by use in Friends. I could rant more, but ... 'nuff said.

My Kenneth Cole slim laptop bag has been on its last legs lately, with the stretchy strap gradually disintegrating. I contemplated different replacements, and finally setlled on an antique brown leather messenger bag. It's not a huge step up in volume from my old bag, but i like the way it fits all my laptop crap and notebook, and it hangs very comfortably in the typical cross shoulder configuration.

Veronica and i caught the first summer blockbuster, Spider Man 3, on Sunday night with new friends Frank and Jennifer. We prefaced the showing with a very nice Italian dinner, finding another winning restaurant in downtown Redwood City. I was reasonably excited to see the third installment, particularly because although i've never read any Spider Man comics, i find the Venom character wonderfully drawn and an interesting storyline (from what i've learned from Wikipedia). I've mentioned previously how i seemed to be the minority regarding my underwhelming reception for Spider Man 2. Unfortunately, i thought the third episode was equally if not more disappointing. The pacing is a mess ... the film is all over the map. It shifts violently from breakneck action to mind numbingly soapy drama to corny attempts at comedy. In a sense this reflects the comic and its lighthearted attitude, but on film it's a jumbled nightmare. Raimi and co. do well enough to preserve the original stories, but this leads to another problem ... the movie is hopelessly bloated. There's three villains, each with their own convoluted backstory that only tangentially intersect. And unfortunately the one i really wanted to see doesn't appear until the final half hour. Maybe i'm being overly harsh. Maybe the franchise has run its course, or needs reinvention such as how Christopher Nolan has invigorated the Batman series. I love the recent spate of comic book adaptations, but overly dense installments like this one or just plain lame efforts like Fantastic Four (money talks and bulls@$# walks, as evident by the forthcoming sequel) may bring that trend to a grinding halt.

One final note on SM3 ... i'm not sure why the filmmakers felt that the masked villains (Venom and the Green Goblin) should frequently shed their masks and expose their faces. It was odd when the Goblin showed off his automatically opening and closing faceplate, but it was downright bizarre when Venom's symbiote suit kept peeling back to reveal Topher Grace's face. It was even more unnerving seeing the scrawny Grace's head on top of the beefy Venom.

Speaking of being overly harsh, i was accused again of haterism on Saturday night as we met up with SoCal visitors Kevin and Shyoko and SF friends Nathan and Summerlea at New Wave City. Which is odd because i actually had a decent time. Unlike recent instances of the club that played like an 80's greatest hits cd, this time the DJ's seemed to find the right mix of familiar and obscure. The only knock i had on the night was that each DJ apparently felt compelled to pay homage to the night's Smiths and Morrissey theme by playing "Hairdresser on Fire" and "The Headmaster Ritual". I wasn't the only one who noticed, as i spied one of those updating digital message boards underneath the DJ booth displaying a message from another clubgoer: "Hey, why don't they play 'Hairdresser' for the 5th time. Haven't heard that one in 10 minutes.".

Every time i see the singer from CSS, i think of that sequence in the James Bond classic You Only Live Twice where he has to marry a Japanese girl to maintain his cover. When James asks his Japanese superspy counterpart Tiger Tanaka what the chosen girl looks like, he's told "she has a face like a pig". And yet by the end of the film Mr. Bond seems to have forgotten his reservations over her similarity to barnyard animals and gives her the JB special. Same with CSS ... the singer isn't "conventionally attractive", to use a P.J. Harvey descriptor, but she is damn sexy nonetheless. Like anyone who sings "let's make love and listen Death from Above" should be.