Myspace stal...er...search is one way to kill a couple hours of a stagnant Thursday night. Question is, how many Metros are on - or are faked on - Myspace?

As it turns out, quite a few. Let's start with the ones worth disclosing.

You might still be ruing that state of disarray we seemed to be in through the preseason. Fangueiro? Swiorczew...the hell with it....who WERE those guys? Was the front office doing any work to improve this team between November and February? Or was it backburnered because Alexi was too busy getting his Myspace Music page up and running? Seriously - started the site on 1/16/06? That's five days before the draft, fer chrissakes.

Former Metro or not, Eddie Gaven always seemed like the quiet type. Or the type to get fakespaced by some adoring kid out in the suburbs, a la Freddy Adu and his small army of Fakespacers. Or the considerable number of Landon fake-artists. I'm betting on the latter.

But they're not all fake, and there's where my niggling sense of ethics and privacy rears its ugly head. I could put names and links here for a laugh - and in fact was about to do so. But then, just about all these guys are around my age, and (as you can imagine) are doing the same stupid, silly or just plain fun things there that the rest of us do there. So let them, I say; they're not getting paid enough to give all that up just yet. It's not like they're inviting fans to friend up with them.*
In Page Six style, I'll just ask... which Metro simply says he's "living and working in NYC....and help as a soccer coach to young kids around the area." Well, that's putting it mildly, isn't it? Nice bit of humility there from one of our starters (for the moment, anyway). Maybe that easygoing nature is why he's got so many more lovely ladies on his than I have on mine. Speaking of lovely ladies, a certain Metro midfielder proudly proclaims that he's "found her!!!" Good for you - now get to producing this season if you want to build that special someone a love nest. Click here, click there...you'll find a couple former Metros with something in common...one who seems to have shambled out of the league, another just working his way up overseas. If you're halfway adept, you'll run upon another overseas-based star - I mean a guy you'll be seeing in Germany this summer. Never saw him as the Quagmire type, really. Root around a little bit more, and you might just discover our very own Metro Red Kyle Orton situation. You'll know when you see home..r. Crotch grabs for Metro!

Proof positive that MLS players are just as attuned to the power of social networking, mediated self-expression and identity construction as the rest of us. Or, they too get off on creeping to 17 year olds posing in their boyshorts on those long pregame nights in suburban KC hotels. Either or.

*This whole "allow them a little private space" thing doesn't apply when we're talking about a guy who scored against us last weekend. "Listening to a lot of James Blunt"??? You freaking wuss. Even a Jersey shirt won't redeem you from that.