Congratulations, Spain. It turns out that, as usual, flopping and cry-baby soccer will always defeat thuggery and blatant kicks to the abdomen. Enjoy it - you deserved it.
I watched the World Cup Final at our house along with B- (who's French) his girlfriend (Polish) and their friend from Austria. I kept switching back and forth between the soccer game and White Sox - Royals. Bwahahahaha! (The final of that game: Chicago: 15 Kansas City: 5. That's 20x the scoring of Spain-Netherlands, by the way. Who's national pastime is boring now?)*
I guess that really, my main complaint against soccer is that I feel like the referee has way too much control over the game. The game is just set up in such a way that a player has as good of a chance of scoring the winning goal by flopping in the penalty area in the hopes of tricking the referee into giving him a PK as he does by actually attempting a shot on goal. Likewise, a defender might best be able to help his team by trash talking enough to make the guy he's defending lose his cool and head-butt him and get set off than by any actual defending he may or may not do over the course of the game.**
The only real winner of the final game was Paul the Octopus. 6 for 6. Do you think they'll put him out to stud, now?
Post-Script: Miami? Miami????? *Look who's on top of the AL Central now, bitches! ** Also, when I'm criticizing, it's a soccer game. It's only a football match when something cool is happening. Spain v. Netherlands was the epitome of a soccer game.
1) Ugh... I'm starting to get into that summer malaise of staying up all night either drinking and playing video games or just having insomnia until 5 am and then sleeping in 'til 11 the next day. You know what I'm talking about? And then I get out of bed only to discover that the internet hates me, and that the world is all batshit insane.
2) On Tuesday, Robyn and I went out to Indian food. This is right after I had gone swimming in the highly chlorinated pool at the U-I, and so my eyes were all blood shot, and I would occasionally begin to weep, silently, for no apparent reason. I think this made our waiter uncomfortable.
Anyways... he sat us down at a little table that was about six inches from the table next to us, where another young couple was trying to enjoy their meal. Except that they were really doing a piss-poor job of it. The boyfriend was being all sullen and cranky, and the girlfriend kept chattering inanely about how hungry she was, but don't worry, she was only going to order one dish, and they could share it, and blah blah blah.
Then they started talking about the World Cup, which seemed to be the only topic of conversation that could pique the guy's interest. Only they were doing it all wrong; they didn't know who was left in the tournament, or who had won in years past, or where the next World Cup would be held, and so on. So Robyn and I decided to help them out. Whenever there was a lull in the conversation, we would pick up exactly where they left off, addressing only one another, of course, and not acknowledging their existence. (Because you can't own conversation topics, man!)
3) Speaking of the World Cup, I hope that y'all have heard of Paul the Octopus by now:
In what has been a World Cup full of off-the-pitch intrigue, Paul the psychic octopus has emerged as the real star of the event. With Spain's 1-0 victory over Germany in Wednesday's semifinal match, Paul is now a perfect 6 for 6 in predicting winners. Unfortunately, as is the case with most clairvoyant creatures of the Cephalopoda class, Paul has begun to receive death threats in an act of thuggery from fans who are trying to intimidate and silence him. Thankfully, he will have none of it. After correctly predicting Germany to defeat Argentina in the quarterfinals, Paul began to receive notes from angry Argentinians who threatened to make a meal out of him. Oliver Walenciak, Paul's keeper, spoke on his behalf, telling the Telegraph:
"There are always people who want to eat our octopus but he is not shy and we are here to protect him as well. He will survive."
3) After we left the Indian food place, uh, restaurant, Robyn and I stopped by the liquor store. The following conversation took place - in some form, roughly - while waiting for the bus holding a six-pack of beer, a bottle of gin, and a sac of leftover Saag Paneer:
Me: I wonder if B- and his girlfriend are serious about wanting to go camping next weekend. R.A.: I dunno. But if we do go, we can sleep on tree roots again. Me: Not necessarily. If we go to a lake or a river or something else with a beach and no trees. R.A.: That would be nice. Me: Not that that doesn't mean that there won't be other things to cause us harm. Like spiders, or snakes. Nature is full of killbots. But the worse is getting caught in the branches of a tree and drowning. R.A.: Really? Me: Yeah, it happens all the time.* I've always imagined it to be such an ignoble way to die - just hanging there, like Absalom, hanging in a tree by his hair, waiting for David's men to find him and stab him in his gut. R.A.: I guess that the Bible wants you to get a haircut.** Me: I've actually kinda thought that it was funny, Absalom's death. R.A: So did Faulkner.
5) There are now four different cats in our house, and I have assigned each of them to a different nation of the Avatar world: Coraline the Airbender, Virgil the Waterbender, Gracie the Earthbender, and Tun the Firebender. Tun is always challenging me to an Agni Kai. You would understand if you knew Tun like I do.
* This, it turns out, is not true. You are actually 10,000 times more likely to die by falling down in your house than by getting caught in the branches of a tree and drowning. ** I have since gotten a haircut.
