Maya Angelou and a Gold Trophy

Tomorrow FIFA will spend three hours pulling balls from four bins to place them in eight groups.

It’s taking that long because FIFA has refused to use any technological advances to aid them in staging the draw. Oh, that and 91-year-old Nelson Mandela will be conducting the draw himself, so they’ve budgeted in extra time for when he tells long stories that go nowhere, like that time he caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. He needed a new heel for his shoe, so he decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. He had tied an onion to his belt, which was the style at the time.

Mandela is actually too old to even attend. He taped a message. Wuss. Always looking for the easy way out that Mandela.

Also on the bill is Charlize Theron, who, by all accounts, is black South African. She is also an idiot. Throw in Bishop Desmond Tutu, Cristiano Ronaldo, Haile Gebrselassie, and Johnny Clegg, and that sounds like a fun party to attend on acid  (or the premise of another bad Mitch Albom book). Although C-Ron is probably still a douche when you’re tripping balls.

There are 2000 guests (oh wait, 1999 guests), over 1500 cops, 32 balls, 24 FIFA reps (who have been hanging out on—not making this up—Robben Island), and three bands all to do what an Excel spreadsheet could pull off in a couple of nanoseconds.

Yes, praise the lord that South Africa is such a rich country so it can afford all of this excess.

Anyway, with such a colossal lightweight host in the seeded pot, a good chunk of the world will be praying to draw into Group A. The joke is on them as there is no God (see the kind of things you learn on UF?).

Still, given the gap between that group (it also can’t have any of the other dangerous African teams) and a potential Group of Death featuring the likes of Spain, Ivory Coast, and France (or Brazil, Ghana, and Portugal), it might be enough to justify sitting through Angelilque Kidjo to find out who wins the lottery.

Although if you’re like me, you think this thing is rigged. This is just bad scripted programming. I swear for the 2006 draw on the US feed, the commentator said what pot we were drawing into before we drew into that very pot, despite the fact that were still 3-4 groups on the board we were eligible for (someone back me up on this). Now, with a black and popular president who isn’t starting unpopular wars (he’s only escalating them), the US is a decent bet to be on the receiving end of benevolent FIFA shenanigans (I’m holding out slim hope that FIFA screws the Mexicans instead).

We’re aiming to liveblog this bitch. If someone can score us some window pane, we might even do it on acid.