he fallout from Tuesday night's corked bat incident involving Sammy Sosa has been fast and harsh. When the Cubs player was found to have taken a corked bat into the game, he was ejected from the game; Friday the Major League Baseball Commission handed down an eight-game suspension to the home-run hitter, who in 1998 was neck-in-neck with Mark McGwire to set a new home-run record. But the more unbearable fallout is continuing with no break in sight: Sports columnists and reporters and their never-ending assessment of the situation.

"What a shame," said Denver Post Sports Editor Thad Griswald. "This guy, he's a player. He's a good player, and before this there was no doubt he was a Hall of Famer. Now, even if he goes into the Hall of Fame, there's going to be an asterisk by his name. The next time he hits a homer… nobody may say anything, but everybody's going to wonder."

Statements very much to the same effect and with equally melodramatic tones have echoed throughout the week. Sosa's intention to cheat, or his innocence of the charge, have given the fading sport's many pundits an opportunity to talk with misguided passion about something other than salary caps and free agency.

ESPN 2 late-night commentator Art Biederbeck: "The sad thing is that at this point it doesn't matter if Sammy meant to cheat or not. He will always be remembered for this as much as his race with McGwire for the record—did he or didn't he? It will always accompany the name of Sammy Sosa. He may not even make the Hall of Fame now. And if he does, mark my words, folks, there will be an asterisk there."

Mortals everywhere who had been only vaguely following the sport of baseball as national interest in the sport wanes for more clock-oriented, fast-paced sports like football and basketball, now find themselves driven away from even catching box scores out of fear they'll catch another diatribe about Sosa and his mystery bat.

"It's criminal that everyone leaps to conclusions about Sammy Sosa's entire career on the basis of one bat," complained D.C.-area WRBI sportscaster Cory Alvin. "They checked 76 of his bats, all in perfect condition, but this one is going to haunt him. Out there, someone's always going to wonder if every homerun in his career was from an illegal bat. And that's the real tragedy of all this."

As the story snowballs, with Sosa planning to appeal his 8-game suspension next week, no end is in sight to the over-dramatization of the story. Sports shows on network and basic cable, as well as 24-hour sports channels, are expected to roll out sports authorities one after the other, including broadcasters, former Hall of Famers, and current players to deliver the same basic positions over and over again, rather than conclude Major League Baseball will make a decision and allow it to stand as the official position. The best hope for relief from the continual coverage of the story is the death of a Major League player, like Reggie Jackson or something, especially from a horrible disease or even murder.

"It's a real problem with sports commentators," said baseball fan and author Max J. Hartley. "Nothing new has been said about the sport in at least 20 years, maybe more, and a lot of these guys aren't well versed on other issues, so a lot of passion gets channeled into these seeming non-issues. But what they don't realize when they go on television all hangdog or write a real melancholy column with this Sosa bat story, it's going to stick in people's craw. They may make a good observation down the road, something really original about the state of baseball's popularity or the real free agency problem, but people will always think of this in the back of their minds, this pretentious posturing about an incident that was in all likelihood an accident, or at worst an attempt by a player past his prime to cheat a few runs. It will dog them for their careers. If they ever get a shot at the Sports Broadcasters Hall of Fame, even if they get in, there will be an asterisk by their names."

ush administration officials are calling the war on Iraq and "unqualified success" today after the announcement that US forces have found scores of embarrassing home videos shot by Saddam Hussein's son Uday, amidst the rubble of a once-fabulous liberated palace.

"We've said all along that the Husseins were in possession of these videotapes," stated press secretary Ari Fleischer, who's supposed to be retiring but won't go away. "There have been doubters and detractors who questioned our presence in Iraq, but on this day vindication is ours."

After a confused silence and brief mumbling from among the assembled press corps, a closeted reporter for another news organization asked the question this reporter would have asked eventually.

"So does this mean you're discontinuing the search for weapons of mass destruction?"

"Weapons of ma- Son, you've been watching too many comic book movies. We've set up a nice little playroom for liberals out there in the hall, with a ball pit and everything, so why don't you just take your little fantasies out there and let the grown-ups talk. Our actions in Iraq have always been about finding these videotapes and proving to the world that the Husseins are real class-A jerks. Now, I can understand how there might have been some confusion, as WMD is Iraqi for VCR," said Fleischer, pausing to see if anyone bought that.

The tapes in question offer a meticulously detailed look into the life of a dictator's son, documenting nearly everything Uday did between purchasing the camera and skipping town for an undisclosed location with his arms full of gold bars and porno magazines as the US forces advanced on Baghdad. While it is questionable if acquiring the tapes justified the deaths of thousands, few can argue the supremely embarrassing nature of the tapes themselves, a prime example of what happens when you give an absolute moron absolute power.

Several of the tapes cover Hussein's last few birthday parties, which were all tainted by bloodshed and Uday shooting down piñatas and piñata-hanging servants with an assault rifle. The most tender moments from these celebrations show Uday strapping his servants into giant human-hamster wheels and rolling them off a cliff, in homage to the 1982 Richard Pryor hit The Toy.

Too many tapes document Uday's triumphant recovery from one of Saddam's yearly attempts on his life, which left him paralyzed in one leg and forced to pee sitting down. And don't you know we feel that pain, sister. Most find the endless hours of physical therapy sessions backed by the Gloria Gaylor tune "I Will Survive" painful and debilitating to watch, but Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times argued that they were "inspiring and raw. One of the ten best home videos of the year." Which is more proof than we really needed that a couple years ago somebody replaced Roger Ebert with Rex Reed in a really-fat suit.

Other videotapes from the collection are not so highly-acclaimed, including the hilarious "I'm Too Sexy" tape, which has been making the rounds on the Internet this week. The infamous tape features Uday Hussein miming the 1991 Right Said Fred hit while stripping seductively in front of the camera, revealing more body hair than a water bison and what Larry King has called his "24-pack abs." Girl, you mean but you the truth!

Most of the publicity has been focused on the tapes of Uday's infamous palace sex orgies, which turned out to be more disappointing than the sequel to The Wizard of Oz. If you call Uday swapping spit with a couple of drunken and entirely homely Iraqi girls hot, let me tell you you've been watching too much CNN, sugar.

Most disturbing of all the discoveries were Uday's collection of pre-recorded videocassettes, which included a terrifying selection of really lame American films. Among the horrors revealed were Green Card, Bounce, Only the Lonely and the complete Sandra Bullock catalog. Let's just hope man-child here had access to a local Blockbuster or some kind of Iraqi Netflix or something, because damn!

Hussein had been known to torture Iraqi athletes who performed poorly in the Olympics, which is the only possible explanation for his ownership of three copies of the golden retriever sports flick Air Bud. Beyond the fact that he was working on boning up his resume of mad despot quirks, of course.

Apparently the Husseins didn't have time to pack up or destroy the incriminating tapes before fleeing the country, choosing unwisely to focus instead on plundering Iraq's gold and riches. Boys, all that loot may buy you happiness, but you can never buy back your dignity honey. Believe me I've tried.

Most of the reader mail and random catcalls I've been getting on the street lately revolve around my new haircut, which I refuse to discuss beyond warning that cutting your own hair is harder than it looks in the movies. Everything in the mirror is backwards because of the dyslexic nature of Mirrorworld, much like modern-day Japan, and that factor has a serious effect on haircutting skill in both places.

The second-most popular topic for conversation and befuddled inquiry, however, is The Matrix Reloaded. This is the long-awaited sequel to 1999's The Matrix, a film that was loved universally by white male teenager geeks everywhere.

Thousands of people have seen this new Matrix film, many of whom are seniors who thought it would help them understand why their PCs have so many buttons. Some others expected to be entertained, and others still expected to have their horizons challenged by a pasty white guy faking karate. Most left the theater confused, while the rest are still there, trying to figure out if the movie is really over or if they're still watching a movie about the movie being over.

Those who escaped The Matrix Reloaded (and those who are still trapped inside but have cell phones) have turned to yours truly to explain the conundrariddle that is the film's plot. Since it's my job I'll do what I can, but don't piss and moan to me if you have a brain aneurysm while reading this.

I could rattle off a list of specific questions, but instead I'll address the most common query, which is: "Huh?"

As the first film made vaguely clear, Neo and his gang are humans who were freed from a computer world simulation run by machines that took over the real world and are using captive human bioelectricity to run their blenders and RC racecars. Don't ask me why the machines couldn't find a more low-maintenance power source that didn't need to be fed tacos and Frito chips all the time, these apparently aren't the brightest machines that ever took over the world.

By the end of the first film, Neo has discovered that he's a God inside the Matrix, or at least the hero of any random Sylvester Stallone action film inside the Matrix, and he can fly and watch SNL at double-speed and all kinds of fancy crap like that. Whoobang, there you go, thanks for the nine bucks.

Reloaded is more of the same, except this time whenever they need to explain something, they drag out some retarded LSD flake and let him ramble on until the camera runs out of film. Audiences were understandably confused, and went searching through their backpacks for their copy of The Matrix Cliff's Noted.

Most people want to know how Neo blew up the robot squid toward the end of the movie, and also why they showed us Rip Torn on a gurney in the cliffhanger closing shot. Last thing's first: Torn had a three-picture deal with the studio and his cameo in Reloaded is saving him from having to be in Men in Black 3 with Eddie Griffin and Clint Eastwood. The Matrix guys owed Rip a favor after he talked them out of casting Dennis Leary as Agent Smith in the first film. So that mystery is easy enough to put to bed.

The squid thing is a little more complicated. Basically, and don't read this if you want to see the third film this fall (I throw that in for the film's cast and their families only), the "real" world (with the submarines and the underground Bob Marley concert cave and all the people with erector set attachments sticking out of their asses) is all just another layer of the Matrix. The machines built this second layer for all the assholes who didn't like the nice suburban one where everybody else lives and had to have their own grimy cyberpunk world to fart around in.

Neo discovers this when the retarded LSD guy confuses him into a state of Zen, but he doesn't want to tell everybody else they've been slogging around on the set of Aliens 3 and eating Malt-o-meal for nothing. When faced with the prospect of being molested by a robot squid, however, he opts to put the whammy on the squid and then fake a stroke to avoid having to break the news to the rest of the buccaneers. Yes, Neo's a big pussy, but that should have been apparent far earlier in the series.

There's a rumor circulating around that the reason Neo could blow up the squid is because he and Agent Smith melded at the end of the first film, so Smith gained the ability to influence humans in the "real" world, and Neo gained the ability to influence machines in the same. The truth is, I started this rumor to get some albino fanboy geek out of my office. I thought the rest of you would realize I was kidding with a story so stupid. Christ people, don't you have a cult to join or something?

Anyway, the next most-popular question I get asked is what in the hell is up with Agent Smith in this movie? Is he still a program or what? And what's with all those extra Agent Smith's that kept popping out of his ass? How much did Hugo Weaving get paid to play all those guys, anyway? I bet he got cramps from signing all those paychecks, damn. I wish I had a bunch of extra mes so I could cut my lawn with scissors or for when I got in a rumble.

Okay, so that's more than one question but you get the braindead gist of it. As for the answer, the long and the short of it is yes and no. Actually, Agent Smith is Satan to Neo's Jesus Christ, or rather the George to Neo's Wheezy. You read that right. The humans actually created the machines and the Matrix to transcend the limitations of their physical lives, much like how bored stoners created religion in ancient times. Without the Matrix, human life degrades into orgies and Bob Marley concerts, not a pretty picture. But within it, agents (a clever half-assed anagram of "angels") help guide the humans toward understanding their higher selves. Hey, you asked, I didn't write this shit.

In keeping with the Wacowski's theological circlejerk, Smith is the fallen angel who has gone against God's will, and who is waging war on the system itself and the chosen one. Neo is the Christ who is discovering his identity and the truth that beyond one system of belief there is merely another. Which I guess leaves Morpheus to be the Judas, so sucks to be him. I did think he looked kind of like the dude from Jesus Christ Superstar.

So naturally there have been other Matrixes (religions) and other Neos (Buddha, Mohammed, Jim Jones, Jenny Jones, etc.) who fizzled out after an exciting entrance, yadda yadda yadda. And if you've read this far all I can say is you deserve this mess, now you understand the folly of letting a couple geeks think they're deep. Perhaps you'll be a little more discerning with your entertainment dollars in the future.

Most of you who aren't nursing nosebleeds right now are probably still wondering where all the kung fu comes in. Open up your bible (it's holding up the saggy corner of your waterbed) to the chapter entitled "Jesus Christ Kung-Fu Showdown: Righteously Was Thy Ass Kicked" and all shall be made clear. If you're thinking "Bible? Huh?" all I can say is you might want to brush up on your religious texts before the third film kicks your brain in the balls and kung-fus it into braunschweiger, my friends.

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