Why do people root for geographically improper teams?

This is how you select your rooting interests:

1. The answer you gave when people asked you whence you came as a freshman. Does that city have a team? If it does, this is your team.
2. If it doesn't, what is the next closest city with teams? Those are your teams.

Those are the rules.

If you live in east nowhere, you can sort of make it up, as long as the teams you choose are not the Cowboys or Yankees. Or, nowadays, the Red Sox. If you live almost in east nowhere but closer to a place with hateful teams, you may go a little further afield. (You're allowed to root for the Bills rather than the Steelers even if you are technically closer to Pittsburgh.) If you like sports they don't play in your country, you are also allowed to make it up. (This is my excuse for Manchester United, though it brings me daily shame and I wish I'd chosen Tottenham Hotspur or something all those years ago. And, no, MLS does not count, and to hell with the Philadelphia Union.)

If you are too advanced a being to believe in geographic identification, you are too advanced a being to indulge in the savage primal impulses attendant on sport, and you are denied the joys of being a fan. Geographic identification is real and a great bonding phenomenon. It is for instance true that every single Philadelphia fan is duty bound to vomit on small children when they whine. We have little cards to prove it.

Why doesn't J. Crew have cute grosgrain flip-flops this season?

Every summer, until this one, they have had brightly colored grosgrain flip-flops. The many upsides of these include: never ever giving you blisters, being quite waterproof, adding verve to any and all outfits, and, of course, being generally adorable. I usually buy a couple of pairs every summer and wear them until I walk through the sole. This is not an exaggeration.

But this summer, they have instead a vast array of flip-flops that shred your feet, and one, lone pair of fabric flip-flops that come in such fabulous colors as brown. And white. Brown is gross. White is asinine. You know, for something to put on your feet.

All I want is stripes. Or polka dots. Or cocktails. Or bicycles. Or anchors. You know, any of a gazillion things they used to make and I have owned! There is a market! I am it! Get it together.

Why is Serena Williams so full of it?

She is wondering why she has not been on Centre Court or Court 1 much at the Championships so far, when Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, and Andy Roddick have.

The reasons are, in roughly this order:

1. She is neither ranked nor seeded in the top five.
2. She is not a man.
3. She is not British.

It is not the All England Club's fault that she was injured and is currently ranked 25th in the world. It is rather generous for her to be seeded 7th. As the defending champion, she played her first match on Centre Court, and that is really all they owe her.

Next, people want to watch men play tennis more than they want to watch women. You might object to this, and I imagine Miss Williams does, but the All England Club is in the business of showing people tennis they want to watch, and not of catering to her whims, so a resounding "whatever" there, too.

Finally: Nadal got bumped from Centre Court so Andy Murray could play there, and I don't see Rafa complaining, so really Miss Williams can get over herself.

Why are annotated editions so useless?

The Folger's Shakespeare editions, for instance, were notable for explaining only the things I already knew, which was tiresome. And, as a rule, this is what they do. Sure, they might point up some useful fashion tidbit in an Austen novel, but you don't really miss anything without them. At least, you probably don't miss much more than you do in a contemporary novel from a foreign country (and no one has bothered to put out an annotated edition of Bridget Jones's Diary, despite the welter of peculiar British confections for sad single ladies).

There's a great deal of point-missing in annotating popular literature, because it turns even approachable stuff into mental obstacle courses. This, I submit, is not the point of novels. Except Tristram Shandy. And most post-war fiction, which is why I don't read it. And if you put in a note for every biblical reference in Eliot, that gets old in a hurry. It's usually enough for the reader to think, "Oh, that's biblical," and move on, in any case.

The best part, of course, is when the annotations are not only superfluous and irritating but actually plain wrong. Here, from Bleak House:

"There are some worthless articles of clothing in the old portmanteau; there is a bundle of pawnbrokers' duplicates, those turnpike tickets on the road of Poverty...."

To which the note, in Patricia Ingham's odious edition, is:

"His numerous tickets for toll roads indicate a nomadic existence."

No. They don't. Because there aren't actually any tickets for toll roads, you illiterate twit.

Why does Wimbledon have this bizarre new PointStream thing?

Yes, we've covered the vicissitudes of the Grand Slams (and particularly their internet presences) before, but Barnes and I are going to continue complaining until they're always perfect. Which means no Djokovic or Söderling in finals, no pointless wittering about the Williams sisters, at least one epic match à la Isner-Mahut (last year, obviously), no goddamn fifth-set tie-break, and no scoring platforms drastically on the fritz.

PointStream has not gone on the fritz for me yet. But it also is not useful. I don't need to know how many snails the Wimbledon website thinks Jeremy Chardy should have eaten for supper last night in order for him to win today; I just need to know what the score is and how fast he's serving. I don't need fancy graphics, or a million pointless metrics. I might want to know what the scores are in other matches, without having to wait for the spiffy transition.

In point of fact, I want SlamTracker back, but not broken.

Why is Richard Lionheart ever old in films?

The man didn't even make it very far into his forties. It may have been hard living, and Patrick Stewart may be sexy, and Men in Tights may have been a comedy, but Richard I died francophone and ginger.

That he spoke mostly French is offensive to the soul, so that particular historical quibble may be let go. The age thing, however, is bizarre and unforgivable in its ubiquity, especially as Bad King John is generally played young and hale (if dissipated and ineffectual). There was an age difference, obviously, but it wasn't vast.

I mean, if Richard lives that long, Eleanor of Aquitaine has to be a million billion years old. And, while she did die in her eighties, a million billion is more than eighty.

Why do lazy recreational cyclists get in front of me and proceed to meander slowly all over the road when I'm trying to get somewhere?

Get over to the right, moron, and maybe just go sit in a corner until you stop being such a useless waste of space.

And don't you dare look at me resentfully when I say "On your left!" and blow by you. I'm in a hurry, and you deserve it.

Why didn't Ruler On Ice run in the Derby or the Preakness?

This year, it didn't matter a jot, because no one was gunning for the Triple Crown and, let's face it, two-thirds winners are a dime a dozen. And, in general, there are thoroughbreds who need that extra furlong, just as there are thoroughbreds who can't deal with it at all. On a practical, purely racing, level it makes complete sense.

But, on a moral level, all the horses should make a good faith effort to run all three races. It's pretty lousy to come in at the Belmont, as a distance specialist, just to ruin someone else's chance at glory just because you couldn't be bothered to run the other two. Heck, maybe if you'd run the other two you wouldn't be able to win the Belmont, so you are, essentially, cheating.

Also, Ruler On Ice is a stupid name.

Why does espnW exist?

Don't go there. The fewer page impressions, the better; perhaps we can convince ESPN to give it up.

espnW exists, depending on your mood, somewhere on the spectrum between useless and offensive. Which for the internet is doing pretty well, I suppose, but for ESPN's generally excellent content is poor.

It purports to be a sports site aimed at women. In order to attract women, they have softened the color scheme, upped the coverage of women's sports, given greater prominence to those emotive pieces you skip on the main ESPN page, and (this is the best part) made it difficult to find, you know, scores.

The color scheme is neither here nor there. I know women who resent the spotty coverage of women's sports, so fair enough there as well. But those columns not about sports are miserable, since they either accuse you of racism or are about drugs. Or both. It's a little suspect to presume, as well, that women are more interested in the so-called human side of sports as opposed to the, say, sporting side. This brings me to the worst point. Finding actual coverage of actual sports on espnW is difficult. There is no bar with live scores, and the menus are not intuitive (at least, they do not work the same way as regular ESPN menus, and I am unwilling to waste more time on them).

What is the point of this? It alienates women who like sports, and women who don't like sports will still not like sports. Women who like sports are perfectly capable of using the main site. They can deal with the red color scheme and the actual sports coverage, I promise. The single benefit of espnW is that it does not carry Bill Simmons's column, which achieves the admirable goal of eliminating the misogynist content. But there is still no reason for it to exist.

Women like sports for pretty much the same reasons men do. Plus Fernando Torres.

Why do people have those weird religious signs at football games?

Until I looked it up, I assumed that John 3:16 ran something like this:

"And Jesus hiked the ball, and, yea, Simon Peter ran a hook route and did receive the oblate spheroid. Verily, the Philistines in the secondary were much dismayed as he crossed into the zone of ending. And the people looked on amazed."

It is not that at all.

Why is Helm's Deep obviously indefensible?

For whatever reason, a last-ditch fortress of impregnability is required. It is situated in a ravine, with its back wedged between imposing walls of rock. The keep itself has high, sheer sides, and for extra points a giant horn of sorts. So far, so good.

The keep has a wall jutting from one side that protects...um...nothing. Well, except for a bunch of Elven archers, but they're not even supposed to be there, so I'm going to go with "protects nothing." It certainly does not protect the keep.

The keep is protected by a giant, smooth, unobstructed causeway or ramp. You take issue with my use of "protect" here? You think I am inaccurate? You think it would be ludicrous to claim that such a causeway could be considered a line of defense by anyone except the tragically insane?

Congratulations, you have an infinitely greater understanding of siege warfare than Peter Jackson. Perhaps you have even read the book, which clearly refers to an outer wall, because Tolkien didn't suffer from severe deficiencies with regard to strategy or common sense.

Come on. Not only did the battle take a million years, because of the stupid Elves and the stupid Haldir-death and the stupid stupid, but it was ludicrous in every way. There is no reason to employ gigantic siege ladders to take a meaningless wall, nor to explode that same meaningless wall with your new-fangled gunpowder when you can just walk up to the front door.

Also, maybe Shadowfax can make it down that hill without becoming an unfortunate ball of broken legs, but no normal horse could.

Why is John Harmon such a jerk?

I spent most of Our Mutual Friend, as I assume everyone does, wanting to kick Eugene Wrayburn in the pants. But, to Eugene's credit, he gets kicked quite comprehensively, and is the better for it.

Harmon just lies. A lot. To everyone. He sets up elaborate schemes to prove that Bella is worth marrying, and then lies some more, and then lectures her, and then lies some more, and then demands to be trusted. He assumes, over the course of the novel, some four identities. And marries her under one of the false ones.

He finally stops lying, it's true. But there were a lot of lies, and they were important and unfair ones, and somebody should probably have told him off, instead of just being pretty and adoring.