The Portfolios

It has all come down to this.

Two weeks ago, Chuck Norris Fan Club faced its toughest match yet. We were down, 2 games to 1 in a best of 4 series, and with only one player left on the court, we were staring a virtually impossible to overcome 3-1 deficit in the face.

Fortunately for Team Chuck, that one remaining warrior was none other than Bulgarian Dodgeball Legend Yanita Karatchorova.

Facing six opponents, the odds were highly stacked against Yanita, and the fans of Team Chuck could feel the legend of 10 straight victories with no defeats was slowly evaporating from the air. But Chuck Norris had other plans.

In the most inspired performance in the history of the Shanghai Dodgeball league, Yanita channeled the power of Chuck Norris directly from his ranch in Texas into her very blood. Charging forward against all hope, she quickly laid waste to three of her enemies, including one of their biggest killers. Having nearly leveled the playing field, she wisely retreated to the rearcourt to dodge her opponent’s counterattack.

With missiles flying in from every direction, Yanita stayed strong and alert, deftly weaving her way between the incoming projectiles, until her enemy was nearly out of ammunition. Then, her enemy wound up with his one remaining bullet and hurled it at Yanita with all his might. Like a lightning bolt of pure Chuck, Yanita stood firm and pulled off what some had considered impossible.

She caught the ball.

The crowd erupted as CNFC’s star player, Jamey Harding, took the court after Yanita had decimated four of the enemy. With only two remaining, it was only a matter of time before she and Jamey cleaned up and evened the score at 2-2.

After such a momentous charge, the enemy was unable to recover and CNFC cruised to a 4-2 victory, extending their winning streak to 11 and keeping their title of “Undefeated for Life” well intact.

Declaring Yanita the Player of the Week was a no-brainer.

After a week of rest (reward for its position at the top of the league), CNFC tonight faces the Dirty Half Dozen in the semi-finals – and assuming all goes well there, either the Golden Balls or the Urban Cowboys in the final. Team Chuck has defeated all these teams in the past. But anything can happen out there.

Still, after all we have been through, having stared defeat in the face so often and come out victorious every time, I have every confidence that the Chuck Norris Fan Club will walk away with its second straight League Title tonight.

CHUCK YEAH!!!

Pholph’s Scrabble Generator My Scrabble© Score is: 16. What is your score? Get it here.

Pholph’s Scrabble Generator My Scrabble© Score is: 12. What is your score? Get it here.

I found this neat page on the web that calculates Scrabble scores. Quite useless, really, but fun. Can anyone beat Xianyi’s 16 with their name? I doubt it. Unless you have a Z in there somewhere. Incidentally, Yoyo was born on April 16th, so that sounds like a golden Scrabble score to me.

Yoyo and I witnessed Tiger in the flesh on Sunday at the HSBC Champions tournament at Sheshan Golf Club here in Shanghai. Here you can see him lining up a putt on the 9th, but when I get my next role developed I expect to have a much better shot of him, which I shot up close after he finished his round.

It was really a great event. I, who love golf, was bound to have a good time – no surprises there. But many doubted that Yoyo would be amused at walking around a vast expanse of land for hours on end watching large men hit little balls at faraway targets. The doubters were wrong; she loved every minute.

In fact, this was not Yoyo’s first golf tournament. She accompanied me to the 2004 China Open, also in Shanghai, which gave tickets away for free because Chinese people don’t care about golf Tiger wasn’t there. The biggest name at that event was Thomas Bjorn.

But this one was huge. I guess there were over 10,000 people there Sunday. And media were all over the place, as were the corporate sponsers. They had an area set up to play games, and I took shots of Yoyo playing mini-golf and getting a free ten-minute lesson.

The Chinese love Tiger, and some will say it is because they love a winner. All Chinese F1 fans (that I have met) love Michael Schumacher. All basketball fans love Jordan. And all golf fans love Tiger. People become golf fans because they love Tiger. This is not limited to the Chinese at all; it’s a worldwide phenomenon.

I have to admit, the guy is MAGNETIC. Just knowing that I was on the same course as him made me feel electric. When I saw him up close, I felt magic. I can’t describe it. Star power, I guess.

I got tickets by playing up the media angle, getting a pass to the media tent and a free lunch. That meant that I got to go to the press conference the Tuesday before the tournament started, at which Tiger made an appearance and answered some questions. I tried to ask him if he would ever design a golf course in China (he recently announced the formation of a design company), but the moderator never called on me and eventually a Chinese journalist asked my question. Tiger answered in his usual loquacious, noncommital, and media-savvy way.

On Friday he shot the course record, 64, but in the end he didn’t have enough to win, and came in second – the same as last year. And again, a relative unknown won. This year the champ was Yang Yung-eun of Korea, who beat out third-round leader Retief Goosen in the final holes. Cool finish.