Paul Allen Is On a Boat

I'm really glad there's a picture slideshow within the article I'm about to post or otherwise you wouldn't believe me. Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and owner of the NFL's Seattle Seahawks and NBA's Portland Trail Blazers, has an enormous yacht. I mean, ENORMOUS. It has submarines (yes, plural), other boats on board (you know your yacht is gigantic when it houses other boats), a basketball court, spa, pool, bar, immigrant family, six copies of the Zapruder film, O.J. Simpson's real gloves, the last part of The Sopranos series finale, and many other extravagant features. Yes, I made some of that stuff up, but it's not like it'd be out of place on board that yacht.

By the way, as far as names for boats go, "Octopus" is pretty solid. It has a marine feel to it, obviously, but it's not as commonly thrown around as "shark" or "whale". Plus, octopuses (octopi?) have a lot of surface area to them, much like Paul Allen's boat. No word yet on whether the average octopus stows away boats and submarines. Think about it, if somebody said to you, "yeah, my dad's got a boat; it's called 'Octopus'", I guarantee you'd imagine a pretty dope boat, not some lackluster dinghy. Well, I would at least.

As you probably inferred from his titles when I wrote them above, Paul Allen is a very rich man. Supposedly, he's worth around $10.5 billion right now, which is down from the $16 billion he was worth prior the U.S. economy going down the tubes. Owning a $200 million yacht is nothing for him. In fact, he only bought "Octopus" after he got bored with "Tatoosh", his other multi-millon dollar yacht. I just wonder how he decides which one he's going to "drive" when he wants to travel somewhere. Seriously, how does this come about? I might email him and ask how he chooses which yacht to take to Spain or Italy or wherever it is that billionaires ship off to.

I'm not the type to start controversy, but I'm gonna need Paul to do America a favor and step up his yacht game just a bit. It appears as though Roman Abramovich is out-dueling him right now. I know the Cold War is over and all that, but I don't want to lose to Russia in anything.

Ever.

Remember how good it felt when we beat the Russians to the moon (astronaut > cosmonaut)? This is like that, but just a little different. Come on Paul; do it for the children. They need hope for a brighter tomorrow; and nothing says "brighter tomorrow" like owning that baddest stable of luxury yachts the world has ever seen. USA! USA! USA!

~~ Lank