Its been almost a week since I wrote something here. I'm afraid that not too much seemed funny. My goal here is to be funny. Not 'knee-slapping laugh-out-loud" funny. But kind of "crack-a-smile-while-sitting-at-the-computer" funny. I'm trying to be tell your friends funny. And I do have kind of a funny story about I set out to buy a computer last weekend and wound up with a new bed, nightstand, some sort of end-of-the-bed bench, media cabinet, and picture of horses.
But for one reason or another, that story doesn't seem quite funny enough. So I figure this is the time to tear down World Cup Soccer. Radio's Lazlow, whose short updates on XM radio I enjoy, pointed out that if you want to attract people to your blog you should say something controversial. I currently have a "no-way" policy about discussing politics or religion in this forum, but I figure attacking a sport that is popular in pretty much every country in the world might be enough to upset people. Thankfully everything I know about soccer will fit into a couple of paragraphs.
Soccer - from the Latin soc which is Latin for "the most popular sport ever", and the Latin cer, which means "except in the United States". Soccer is what occurred when somebody asked "what would happen if we took ice-hockey, changed the puck to a ball, got rid of the sticks, made the goals a little bigger, and instead of ice - played on a grassy field the size of Rhode Island?". What happened is Soccer. If only that person - who I am going to call Fred (for no particular reason) - if only Fred had asked "what would happen if we took ice hockey and allowed one player to wear a rocket like Wile E. Coyote?", I would be writing another entry about how terrific hockey is. Instead I'm saying this - If you make the above changes (the ones to make it into soccer, not the Wile E. Coyote ones), hockey becomes boring.
Every four years we have the Olympics, where all the countries of the world come together and play every sport known, and pick a gold, silver, and bronze medal winner for each one in about 15 days. Also every four years (but not the same year), we have World Cup Soccer. The only sport played is soccer. No Acme products are used to make it more interesting, its just soccer. Yet even though it is just one sport, as far as I can tell the World Cup runs for about a year, or at least the entire summer. The United States is out before the competition actually begins. There is one good thing about this, the United States players are allowed to quietly return to their jobs washing dishes in peace. In other countries where people care about soccer these people are occasionally killed - and there really isn't anything funny about that.
So why is soccer popular everywhere but here? I'm not sure. I think a lot of it is because the TV coverage usually involves one camera mounted on top of a skyscraper about a half mile away. It doesn't make for exciting television - and I'm a baseball fan.
I'm sure the "powers that be" will keep pushing soccer here. And we still won't care. We have the MLB, the NBA, the NFL, the NHL, NASCAR, the NCAA, and probably a few other acronyms that I'm forgetting. We just have too much going on.
Now that's out of my system. I wanted to do a World Cup article before it was over. Next time maybe I'll get around to complaining about the Cubs. I have a hunch they won't bounce back between now and then.
If you read this, please drop me a line with an honest comment, that way I know if anybody is paying attention. Although I guess I probably look like a guy who would ramble on when nobody is paying attention anyway.
Note: I found a picture of a Wile E. Coyote toy somehwere on the interent. I hope putting it here was legal.
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