bar exam #4: Procrastination abounds. This time - The World Cup.

Anyone who read my earlier posts probably read Dave Eggers piece in Slate about the World Cup. Right? RIGHT?!?

It starts off like this:

"When children in the United States are very young, they believe that soccer is the most popular sport in the world."

and it actually uses the word excelsior (complete with exclamation point!) in the middle of a sentence about flopping.

probably because i'm an American and i realized that i know nothing, I've at least taken to researching the world cup. but, seriously, i think everyone and anyone should be totally interested in the World Cup or learning about it if you have no idea what the world cup is or that they are playing with lighter balls - thank you adidas - which are supposedly the cause of "high" scores like 4-2. [Due to the"Teamgeist" (team spirit) ball, "There's going to be a lot of goals when the World Cup starts. But I guess that's people want to see."]

here is some information, which someone looked up for me when I asked how the world cup is set up (is it like the NBA championships? like baseball? how long are we talking? weeks? months? is there an eastern conference and a western conference? communism v. capitalism? american league and national league? er...the United States and Britain v. the United Nations? see. complete ignorance.):

"America is agog with World Cup fever. OK, let me refine that slightly. The vibrant slice of America that spends every weekend coaching or "scrimmaging" or glued to the Fox Soccer Channel or GolTV is agog with World Cup fever. The rest of the nation is dimly aware that something slightly bigger (but no less alien) than the Eurovision Song Contest is on the way."

Also,

"the top 2 teams in each group (of 4) go on to the next round in the world cup. The 32 teams are broken up into eight groups. Each team plays the other three teams in its group. The top two teams from each group advance to the round of 16. The winner of each group plays the second place team of another group. The winners advance to the quarterfinals. Win again and you're in the semifinals and guaranteed two more games -- yes, World Cup teams play for third."

other information: May 27th's Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me had a "Football expert" on for "Not my Job" - I recommend that.

"Soccer expert and radio host Steven Cohen plays our game called "Do whatever it takes to win, and then promise an investigation afterward." Three questions about cheating in sports."

and, of course, there is even a podcast (not sure if there is a textcast) about the world cup too.

Err, and Kirk sent me this: ""Also, Liverpool striker Peter Crouch (he's 6'7" and weighs about nothing) has been selected to start, and maybe he'll break out The Crouchbot, his goal celebration 'robot dance'..." (i can't stop thinking barty crouch & quidditch world cup).

Kirk loves the robot dance. (he won't stop!)

PS/ a note to the grammar police: In addition to my normal run-on sentences, misspellings, and incorrect use of commas, sorry about the quotations & the block quotes. i didn't think i was gonna block & then i did. now, i'm too lazy to fix it and would rather apologize.