World Cup Day One. Wake me up please.

Ok- So the only thing worse than starting a blog and not posting is starting a blog, posting a couple of articles and THEN not posting. Guilty as charged. Truthfully though I've been involved in a couple of projects that have my time and attention elsewhere. But enough of that. The World Cup kicked off today so now my attention is FIRMLY back to football.

The first game was relatively entertaining. Home team matches are always highly charged, fun affairs and this match was no different. As usual, Mexico squandered a boatload of chances and Bafana Bafana (which I am pretty sure is IsiZulu for "really lame goal celebration") nicked one off of a sublime strike to force the Mexicans to come up with an equalizer to share the spoils. A good match but I have to admit I was lulled to sleep at varying points by the incessant drone of the vuvuzela's.

Luckily, I woke up in time for a match that needed no vuvuzela's to put me out. No, this one put me down for the count all on its own as France proved the only creativity they posess is in their various coiffures. Really. Even with a red card this game was the definition of a snooze-fest (not to take anything away from Uruguay's stellar defending) that will only feed fury of pathetic status quo wankers like Mike Celzic. I can't believe this guy can call Soccer a bore (today's France match notwithstanding) and then admit that he goes to bars to watch Mets and Yankees games.

Wow. Talk about boring. Celzic will complain about a nil nil draw but will no doubt babble on at great length about a "no hitter" which is baseball terminology for "nothing happened". It's about time the influence of the old school NY sportscaster and sportswriter was broken. Come on Mike, take a cue from Helen Thomas and retire.

Sorry, I digress. Back to the World Cup. Kudos to Skipper and the gang at ESPN for kicking the coverage into high gear. And Kudos for recognizing that Americans like the best of everything and that includes their match day commentators regardless of their accent. I must admit though, I miss Dave O'Brien and his "swing and a miss". Can you imagine the geography lessons Dave would have provided in South Africa? Oh well, I suppose we'll have to make do with Martin Tyler, Ian Darke, Derek Rae, Ally McCoast, Adrian Healey et al. Not too shabby.

I get a ton of emails. For some reason people want to know who my pick is to win it all. My pick? Argentina. Sure, I'd love England to win but I don't think it's going to happen again in my lifetime (oops... I just aged myself)...

One final note. I really don't know what I would do without my Slingbox. I've had one for the last few years and if you don't have one now, you should get one before you miss too much of the World Cup for silly things like work. Watch your TV ANYWHERE. Even on the bog. Terrific technology.

I'll be watching all the matches tomorrow and of course the USA/England match. I might even watch sitting on the bog, laptop on my lap using my Slingbox (how's that for a visual!). Let me know your thoughts on the match.

Until tomorrow.


By the way, please support my sponsors and the good people at Loan Modify Source. If you need your mortgage payment lowered and have no equity, a job loss or other hardship the people at Loan Modify Source can help. No upfront fees whatsoever. Tell 'em Nick sent you and get 10% off a modification.