WEEKLY WHINE

Portugal gets its kicks

Well, I bet you've got your calendar marked for the Euro 2004 tournament. Just like ours, even though we don't have a 2004 calendar yet. [Actually, we still haven't flipped our 2003 calendar to today.] Anyway, they've already revealed the appearance of the match ball, and they're hours away [at the time of this writing] from the draw. That means it's already time once again to heat the GoobNet Mailbox to 1,200K for our safety before we break the seal and see what you've got to say about the world's somethingth biggest football tournament.

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What the hell is "thermal bonding"? - Eric Najera, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

You don't want to know.

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I do too. - Eric Najera, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Ask Adidas what it is. Oh sorry, "adidas". Was lowercaseification the Queer Eye recommendation of the week?

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Doesn't that new ball just sound so different? - Dave Beckham, Madrid, Spain

You'd know, not us. And welcome back to Queer Ear for the Straight Deer, with our special guest, heterosexual footballer Dave Beckham.

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Ooh! Ooh! Do a Queer Eye reference about me! - Elaine Prufrock, Alexandria, Egypt

No. Shut up. This is supposed to be about Euro 2004 anyway.

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That match ball has a neat name, doesn't it? - Vasco da Gama, Porto, Portugal

"Roteiro"? Sure, whatever. Better than "Fevernova": the fever that doesn't go. "Roteiro". Sounds like one of Bender's friends from Futurama, doesn't it?

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Jeez, can you go one week without a Futurama reference, please? Some of us don't watch cartoons, you know. - Wendy Miklosko, Thessaloniki, Greece

Bite Roteiro's "revolutionary new carcass".

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Is Beckham, like, so blatantly on the take from Adidas that he has to be quoted about the new balls they make every couple of years, with all that rubbish about the "whole new look and feel"? - Luis Figo, Madrid, Spain

Let us see. "It seems to be dipping a lot, which is obviously good for me and other free-kick takers." And then, "No one has ever seen anything like this before." I think they put those quotes in the vault and bring out the same damn things every time they create another ball.

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Bite my wife's tanned organic ass. - Dave Beckham, Madrid, Spain

Thought you'd never ask.