Go Spain!

¡Viva España!

Explanation: Spain won the EURO 2008 soccer tournament yesterday (or this morning, if you watched the TiVo-delayed broadcast). I'm partial to Spain because I met my wife there while on vacation in an island paradise. Also because the Netherlands were already eliminated from the tournament.

As I watched the game this morning and realized that I might not be able to see the whole thing, I considered posting a "Do not tell me anything about the EURO 2008 final" status message. Then I considered my readership and decided that I'd better not chance it.

Metric Post

My favourite part about the European soccer championships is how the players all give 0.1 kilopercent.

Explanation: It's just awesome to watch. Every player wants to win the championship, and they'll go the extra 1.61 kilometres to get there. They fight tooth and nail for every 2.54 centimetres. And with those kilosingles of fans behind them, rooting them on, it's quite a spectacle. Then, throw in games like this weekend's that went into extra time and shootouts: my heart was 0.45 kilogramming, and I wasn't even on the pitch with those guys. I can't wait until the semifinals start!

Special Blog Bonus: The new Death Star is available from LEGO. It's a mere 0.0004 megadollars - get one today before it's too late. Did I mention that it comes with (among others) LEGO Grand Moff Tarkin?

Snake Eyes To King's Knight Six. Check.

Fussball ist wie Schach, nur ohne Würfel.

Source: This quote is attributed to German footballer Lukas Podolski.

Explanation: Translated, Mr. Podolski said, "Football is like chess, but without the dice." Words of wisdom. I heard this on last week's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me when they referenced an article on famous German football quotations. Other gems include:

Mailand oder Madrid - Hauptsache Italien. (Milan or Madrid -- the most important thing is it's Italy.) - former midfielder Andi Möller

Es steht im Augenblick 1:1. Aber es hätte auch umgekehrt lauten können. (The score is currently 1:1. But it could also have been the other way around.) - German sports journalist Heribert Fassbender

Jetzt stehen die Chancen 50:50 oder gar sogar 60:60. (The chances are currently 50:50 or even 60:60.) - Former Bayer Leverkusen manager Reiner Calmund (whose IQ was once measured at 140 on a German television show)

Special Blog Bonus: Also on the show was this joke, told by Roy Blount, Jr:

Two men grew up in eastern Kentucky. One went off to make his fortune up North, while the other stayed home to run the farm and take care of the old folks. The one who went north prospered, was transferred to California, and rode the corporate ladder all the way to his company's presidency. Work kept him so busy, he never came back home to visit.

One day the one back home sent a wire, "Papa died. Funeral on Friday." The one in California wired back "Can't come. Must go to Japan for merger talks. Give Papa very best funeral, and send bill to me. Least I can do."

So, they buried Papa, and the company president got a bill for $8000. He paid it, and a month later he got a bill for $145. He paid it. The third month, he got another bill for $145. So, he called his brother and asked "What's with these $145 bills?"

His brother said, "Well, you said you wanted Papa buried in style, so I rented him a tuxedo."

What Do Homer and Zidane Have in Common?

From the archives:

Well, animals are not like people, Mr. Materazzi. Some of them act badly because they've had a hard life, or have been mistreated...but, like people, some of them are just jerks. Stop that, Mr. Zidane.

Source: The World Cup and the Simpsons. I love these combinations of pop culture sources.

Explanation: OK, the World Cup element of this was because Zinedine Zidane went and headbutted the Italian defender Marco Materazzi during extra time in the 2006 World Cup Final. For one of the world's premier players in his final game, this was not exactly a high note to end his career on. Zidane was ejected from the game, leaving France short-handed. France went on to lose in penalty kicks.

Here's footage:


The Simpsons part is from the Bart Gets an Elephant episode. The Simpsons win Stampy in a radio contest, and after hilarity ensues for about 20 minutes, they give him away to an animal refuge, where he starts butting another elephant. When Marge asks the warden why Stampy is attacking all of the other elephants, the warden responds: "Well, animals are not like people, Mrs. Simpson. Some of them act badly because they've had a hard life, or have been mistreated...but, like people, some of them are just jerks. Stop that, Mr. Simpson." The camera zooms out and shows Homer repeatedly heatbutting the warden.

Here's a clip from the episode:

Allow Me to Rant For a Moment

All I wanted to see was some soccer. Is that too much to ask?

Explanation: So, the listings said "UEFA Champions League Final" and instead the Trenton Thunder game was on television last night because Roger Clemens was pitching. The Trenton Thunder! Nobody cared about anyone else playing in that game except Clemens. In fact, ESPN was bouncing back to the Baseball Tonight crew whenever the Portland Sea Dogs took the field, because all THEY cared about was Clemens. So, instead of seeing an exciting uninterupted soccer game with a global audience of over a billion people, I was forced to watch sporadic footage of a meaningless minor league game where an overpaid 44 year old man occasionally threw pitches to kids half his age. And when I didn't get to see that, I was stuck with Peter Gammons, who may be the only person on ESPN older than Clemens!

It's bad enough I live in this Americacentric universe where we actually believe baseball is an exciting sport, and ignore soccer, even though the rest of the freakin' planet believes otherwise. Then again, the rest of the world didn't know anything about the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, so why should we believe them now? We'll just go on happily eating our "Freedom Fries" and pretending that "America's game" should be the world's game, and that it should be a huge Olympic event in which we can dominate (like basketball) even though the last Summer Olympic host country had barely even heard of baseball before their Olympics. What do billions of soccer fans know, anyway? They can't even touch the ball with their hands, so the game must be stupid, right? Give me a "sport" where 90% of the action is standing around, adjusting athletic cups, and spitting. That's what I'm talking about!

So, fine, I'm stuck in America and this is how we're going to do it. I can accept that, but on top of that, I'm stuck in the New York metropolitan media vortex, so I'm forced to care about every little thing pertaining to the city, including its precious jewel, the Yankees, and their precious "prospect" in Mr. Clemens. Our country is bigger than one city, people! The sports world has more to offer than the Yankees, Mets, Knicks, and Rangers. And don't even get me started on the Jets and Giants. They don't even freakin' play in New York even though you'd never know that by talking to a New Yorker. Noooo, poor New Jersey is like the ugly stepsister who's always around, but nobody ever acknowledges. And yet, here we are again, right in our state capital, again playing the doormat to the throngs of New York media. It's just sick. The whole thing sickens me. We have to get over ourselves and look at the big picture. We have to take our blinders off and see that the world is more than just us. It's more than just the 100 miles surrounding our house. We're the minority now. We're so entrenched in our culture, we don't see the big picture. The world is passing us by, and still we sit proudly and believe that it revolves around us. We must get out of this rut! We have to stop buying into the garbage that the American media is shoveling into our homes night after night!

So anyway, I didn't want to watch baseball, so I flipped over to American Idol and watched that instead. Can you believe Jordin Sparks won? I'm glad. I was really rooting for her.