I maintain that I should win the long-distance award at this year's V@V. Here is why.

I have to be in Italy and Barcelona the week before Barcelona. Now, I could stay over in Barcelona and oggle topless babes on the beach. But no . . . I'm going to attend a business meeting on Friday morning, and then rush to the airport in order to board a plane to fly to Atlanta, and then Charlotte, and drive up to Winston Salem (with a brief stop in Lexington to eat some Western NC barbecue), so that I then can pick up Otis (whom I've brought down the week before, a 700 mile round trip) and take him on Saturday morning to V@V. All totalled, I will have traveled about 14,000-plus miles to get to V@V.

I say, that extraordinary effort deserves the long-distance award. The spirit of the award is to recognize the person who has come the longest distance just to see Scott dance around in tight little shorts.

But Scott claims that I am a "CHEATER" since I live in Washington DC, and therefore (in his view) will be artificially inflating the miles by coming to Winston Salem from Washinton via Milan and Barcelona. In his words, "No Soup For You - Come Back Next Year."

I say, therefore, that it follows that Scott Sturdy is a Soup Nazi. I have warned him, not to make me open up a can of fruitcake whoop-ass on him. Otis deserves the long-distance award. Fair warning -- award me, or I start a food fight (and a fruitcake hurled is not a pleasant experience).