“You actually set a record. A record for being an asshole.”

Let’s see if Noel Gallagher is laughing now. Citeh’s attempt to out-Chelsea Chelsea just ran into a wall. The newly rich club has been attempting to feel the fiber of Kaka’s (AC Milan/Brazil) fabric to the tune of £100million. The whole thing just blew up after his negotiating team got pissed at Man City’s tactics.

The Kaka to Man City rumors have been flying around ever since the team was bought by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Dubai. Money is no limit and the new owners want to show that by making Kaka the centerpiece of their new team which they hope will challenge the Big 4 for domestic and international supremacy. Too bad Kaka wants no part of it.

The Daily Mail reports that Kaka (who might love Jesus more than Kurt Warner) turned down a reported offer of £500,000 per week to stay with AC Milan.

‘All the messages coming my way said to choose with my heart and at the end that’s what the choice was. It was absolutely not about economics. At the end what counted was my history, where my ties are and where my heart really lies.’

Milan owner (and Italian Prime Minister) Silvio Berlusconi expressed relief at Kaka’s decision. That surely has nothing to do with the fact that the fans were losing their minds and holding candlelight vigils in front of the striker’s house pleading for him to stay. Berlusconi may have taken flak from the fans but £100 million goes a long way towards buying several players under 40 or paying off judges to give you immunity from prosecution.

Citeh has egg on its face and to make things worse, fellow Brazilian Robinho has gone AWOL. He was already demanding that the team get Kaka or he would leave. He had another bust-up with manager Mark Hughes and now the team can’t locate him. Chelsea manager Phil Scolari has the hots for him (but not in a Wenger kind of way). He was furious when Chelsea missed out on him last August and he still would love to add him to the squad especially in light of the team’s recent form.

If Chelsea somehow manage to pry Robinho away from Citeh, I will be first in line to get the Robinho Number TBC jersey. It’s either that or an Abramovich jersey with a pound sign under the name. Straight cash homey.

Robinho shouldn’t get too upset. He may have signed for the wrong Manchester team by accident but they are making moves in spite of Kakagate. All-purpose asshole Craig Bellamy was just purchased for £14million from West Ham. Manager Gianfranco Zola is laughing all the way to the bank along with the rest of England. Who knows if the deal is truly dead but this debacle can’t make Citeh owners happy.

Football is dead to me after Willis McGahee and the Ravens were debacled by the Steelers on Sunday night. McGahee’s illegitimate kids can rest easy. Their dad is alright although he probably has a lingering headache. Bring back the Mark Kelso helmet!

Now that football season is effectively over, I have to look elsewhere for sporting satisfaction. Baseball season is almost upon us but I’m an Orioles fan (I so wish I wasn’t) so I have nothing to look forward to except another season of mediocrity and straight doo-doo from the pitching staff. Think I’m being overdramatic? Ask Leo Mazzone about the Orioles organization.

“If I had to do it all over again, I would have never done it,” said Leo Mazzone, mostly a national television analyst on baseball these days, reflecting from his home in Roswell. He inherited a bunch of soft pitchers in Baltimore who couldn’t adjust to his hard but effective style. He was booted after two seasons.

To hear Mazzone tell it, his firing was a relief. “Once I got there and saw how they operated compared to the Braves, I knew I made a mistake the first week of spring training,” he said, before chuckling and adding, “I said to myself, ‘You know what? I done messed up.’

“The lack of organization. The lack of discipline. The lack of overall professionalism. I was shocked, and I couldn’t believe it.”

He didn’t just throw the Orioles under the bus. He drove it over them several times. Orioles fans shouldn’t waste time getting mad at him. Daniel Cabrera probably disagrees but the results speak for themselves. The pitching staff is inhabited by pitchers who show flashes of brilliance followed by sustained periods of inexplicable self-destruction. Andy MacPhail really hasn’t done anything to address this but last year’s Erik Bedard trade (which resulted in some nice pickups including All-Star George Sherrill and Adam Jones) and the imminent resigning of Nick Markakis will fool me into thinking things are changing until the inevitable summer collapse. Where are Lenn Sakata, John Lowenstein and Tito Landrum when you need them? Orioles Magic. Feel it happen.

O-R-I-O-L-E-S! This song will never leave me.

If you feel like fucking, well come on. It’s up to you! Actually it isn’t if you’re staying in Swaziland during next year’s World Cup in South Africa. The Swazi police took time out from finding new teenage wives for the king in order to ban prostitution thanks to a law that’s been on the books since the 1800s.

All is not lost for our soccer fans cum sex tourists.

“During the 2010 World Cup tournament, we are expecting tourists from all walks of life,” [Bongani Dlamini, a spokesman for the local organising committee] said. “After we have taken a decision on prostitution, we will then make a statement or even advise the tourists accordingly.

“For example, when a tourist who needs the services of a sex worker arrives and finds that prostitution is prohibited, we will advise him accordingly that he has to propose for love to a Swazi girl first and then consent for sex.”

“Yeah whatever. Sure I love you. Now take off your shirt.” If that’s all it takes to get some Swazi love for the night, I’ll go one step further in taking it back to the old school. A guy I knew in college used to ask his hookups if they wanted a pizza then bail after the deed. Hookers take pizza in lieu of cash, right? A Domino’s Pizza has to be worth more than 100,000,000 Swazi Lilangeli. Oh wait, that’s Zimbabwe. Imagine if I gave her Little Caesar’s. Two pizza pizzas? Two chicks at the same time. Beautiful.

Let’s take a moment from the hilarity and insight that you crave and we give on a bi-monthly basis. We’re gonna get a little serious on you. Bear with us or just skip this post.

Take a minute to reflect on the events in Washington DC this morning. Today’s inauguration of Barack Obama is a milestone in our nation’s history (as cliched as that sounds). It’s something I wasn’t sure I’d see in my lifetime and I never thought I would see it this soon.

I first became aware of President Obama in 2003 when I was introduced to him in Chicago by a friend who was a campaign volunteer and former law student of his. We were in a dive called Yakzies across from Wrigley Field back in 2003 for an Obama for Senate fundraiser. At the time I was a new arrival from DC, tired of politics and had no interest in hearing one more politician wax idiotic about what he or she was going to do when elected. I was nagged into going and after hearing him speak for a couple minutes, I was amazed that I was actually interested and intrigued by what he had to say. Another friend recently reminded me that I was raving about him at dinner a few days later and I actually called him “a man of the people” in explaining why I thought he was the man. Perhaps a bit overboard considering I didn’t know much about him at the time. I thought he would make a great senator but at no time did I imagine he would be president in six years.

Obama has his work cut out for him and we have yet to see what kind of president he will be but we can worry about that when the inauguration jamboree is over. Try to enjoy the moment no matter where your political sympathies lie.

I better get my reparations check and mule by next Friday or I’m gonna go apeshit. I don’t want the 40 acres. That’s work I don’t need and I can’t sell the land for anything in this real estate market.

Picture via Chicago Tribune