Merry Christmas, from your friends at KFC!

OK, in the interest of timeliness (and the fact that the photos make me giggle), I will share my favorite story involving the Colonel and Japan.

The last time the Hanshin Tigers (based between Kobe and Osaka) won the Japan Series was 1985. They won it on the shoulders of Randy Bass (or Basshu to the 日本人), who won the Series MVP and the Triple Crown that year. [EDIT: If you only see boxes, that says "Japanese" in Japanese.] He also would've tied or passed Oh Sadaharu's (that's right, I put the surname FIRST) single season home run record if he hadn't been walked 6 times in the last two games by the Yomiuri Giants (managed by Oh at the time). Of course, he also hit 54 homers in 130 games, compared to Oh's 55 in 140. But, as always, I digress.

So, the Hanshin Tigers won it all for the first time ever and some nutty (and likely drunken) fans in Osaka jumped into the Dotonbori canal. But this wasn't random. It's Japan. The fans shouted out a player on the Tigers' roster, and the fan who looked most like the player took the plunge into the polluted river. Well, they got to Bass, and the nearest foreigner with a beard was a 5.5 ft. statue in front of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Needless to say, the statue was never seen again, and the Tigers haven't won it all since, but they finally got back to the Japan Series in 2003. KFC stores hid the Colonels inside just in case.

So have a Kentucky Christmas, which you can apparently celebrate with some lovely KFC wine. Mmm, I'll just leave it at that. KFC wine.