Ole, ole, ole, ole

After reading posts about the soccer World Cup from both Xine and Wren. I'm going to throw in my two cents. (OK, that seemed weird to refer to "Wren" as I'm used to using her real name. It's almost as odd as being referred to as "Nervda".)

Personally, I love the World Cup. It's the only international sporting event that I really care about. The Olympics are just so-so for me. Normally, I'm not a jingoist, but when the U.S. plays soccer, I'm for them all the way. It's the only thing that this country is really ever an underdog in.

I watched the 1998 World Cup with my late grandmother. She passed away that autumn. We had a great time watching, as sports were one of the few things she could watch on TV and understand 100% (Weirdly, she LURVED "World's Strongest Man" too.) My entire knowledge of geography in Chinese comes from watching the World Cup. It was a game with in a game:

-What teams are playing?
-Um. England and that little country on the Atlantic next to Spain. Erm...
-The ones that own Macao? Portugal, William.
-Yeah, Portugal.

In 2002, I woke up in the middle of the night to watch games by myself on Univision on my TV with rabbit ears. Occasionally, I'd call my friend Steve in Florida after goals. It was weird because I'd see a play 10 seconds before he did, so I'd yell "GOOOOOOOL" only for him to be confused for a little while and then his TV would finally catch up. I think I ruined a couple of games for him that way. Sorry, dude.

This time, I'll be watching with the J-Dawg himself. We'll miss a week of games while we're off in the woods on vacation. We'll have a little shortwave radio which we may or may not use. C'mon BBC! I'm saddened by the US performance so far, but I think they'll earn a little respect some Saturday.

I'm rooting for: USA, Trinidad and Tobago (everyone I've ever known from there is unbelievably cool), Argentina and Netherlands (I love the orange jerseys and precision style). The brain knows that Brazil are the favorites, but I can't root for them. It's like pulling for the Yankees, or GM, or the US snowboarding team.