DP SWAMIS

That means a lot to us Swamis. Time to get back those turbans we left at the dry cleaner back in December. Time to get those repairs made to our magic carpets we've been putting off for so long. And time to talk to our accountants about Clinton's new magic carpet tax. Having taken care of that, it's time to begin another fall of forecasting the travails of the Omnipotent Octagon. That begins of course, with the Quakers' game with the Lafayette Leopards. Because we needed some background on the Leopards, and because it's the beginning of the season and our Swami skills aren't quite up to snuff yet, we didn't really want to test our magic carpets too harshly so soon. We therefore rubbed our turbans, hopped on our magic carpets and headed up 33rd to the gates of the Philadelphia Zoo. We were most dismayed to learn the zoo has no leopards. "We have snow leopards -- two," said feline-keeper Ann Hess, and of course that's good enough for us. We asked Ann to enlighten us with her picks, which she did in the midst of feeding the animals ("a jaguar, as a matter of fact"). Despite her obvious feline ties, she wisely chose Penn over Lafayette -- but dismayed us with her choice of Princeton, although they are the Tigers. Having been slightly impressed by her knowledge of Ivy football ("I don't know anything about football"), we decided to test our magic carpets a bit and head to Easton, home of Lafayette. There, we decided to check in with alumni relations to see if they even had any alumni worth visiting. The clueless secretary who was unable to help us with our task shoved us off to her boss, Joe. And when we asked Joe, he said he had to talk to his boss. This could be a sign that Lafayette's alumni are a less-than-distinguished bunch. We were proven right when Joe came through, and we were shocked to be reminded that Yoda, Pete Carril, went to Lafayette. Not even Swamis remember everything. Pete was, as usual, glad to see us, and offered us ale to sooth us after the usual harrowing trip on the Turnpike. He also shared with us his usual smattering of Yodaisms: "Poor Columbia. It seems they can't win no matter who's coaching them. And that guy they've got now seems pretty good." "[Yale-Brown] is always a funny game, 9-0, 9-2, scores like that." "Colgate got beat pretty badly by Holy Cross, and Holy Cross got beat pretty badly by Army, so I have to choose Dartmouth." He chose Princeton ("I got to go with my own school") and then countermanded that dictum by taking Penn over Lafayette ("Penn's got a very good team"). I guess that's why everybody confuses him with that short green guy. He did give us the following disclaimer before he shared with us his feelings on the upcoming Ancient Eight action: "I'm a basketball coach. At least I was when I got up this morning." And having said that, it's time to end this installment of Swami knowledge? We leave you with those six little words which warm the heart of every true Swami -- until next time: Brown sucks. Keith Elias really sucks.