Warnie-land: part 1

Australia is a great country: The climate is comfortable, the beaches spectacular, and the suburban trains are carpeted (think about that last one for a minute: how long would a carpet last in any US city, supposing, of course, that the city had commuter rail in the first place).

But there are some things about Australia that require ridiculing. Right now. As a case in point, I give you the world's greatest cricket bowler: Shane Warne (pictured). What's that you say? "Never heard of him" you say? Having been in the land of Oz for 3 weeks now, I was under the impression that only retarded cave-dwelling pygmies had not heard of the most incredible cricket player in the universe.

Warne to KP, cropped, originally uploaded by hismethod.

To say that he is the subject of intense media attention is an understatement. The piercing green eyes of "Warnie" appear on magazine covers and in hour-long TV-special retrospectives, and the sports section of the newspapers (which in Queensland is to say almost the entire newspaper except for the weather page and the comics) have been fawning over the magnificent way he can throw a ball into the ground. There are special collector's edition Warnie memorabilia available at outrageous prices. Replica cricket bats, and so on.

This is all because this pudgy blonde bowler has reached the magical threshold of 700 wibble-blidgets (or somethings; who cares, it's cricket), many of them against the Poms (that's aussie-speak for "Limeys", which is itself a perfectly good slang word, but apparently not good enough for Australians, who invent silly words just to prove how upside-down they are).

Thankfully he's retiring. But I suppose that means he'll be on TV for the next 3 decades hawking luxury cars or watches. You've been Warned.