This has been without a doubt one of the more miserable weeks of my life. The World Cup has ended, and I have to go back to actually working all day instead of taking time off to watch the world’s best play the beautiful game. Before I get into the details of how awful this week has been, I wanted to comment on last Sunday’s final. At halftime, TYAC’s own Raf Crowley and I meet up to watch the remainder of the game. Almost simultaneously we said, “This has been hard to watch”. The avalanche of fouls from the Dutch effectively slowed down the Spanish attack and kept them off the score sheet for 90 plus minutes. I can only imagine how ugly things would have gotten if the Arjen “Old Face Killah” Robben managed to convert one of his chances to put the Orange on top.
On a complete side note, can we agree to end the hate parade on Nigel de Jong? While it is apparent that de Jong has been taking some Kung Fu lessons from action move legend Jackie Chan–stop talking so much shit about the guy. Everyone hates de Jong for the simple fact that he does not play for their favorite team. If he did play for your favorite team, you would love him for being the dominating midfield enforcer he is. I fucking love watching him skull crush other EPL jacklegs while suiting up for my squad, Manchester City. The same thing happens in hockey. There is not a single person outside of the Toronto metropolitan area who thinks Tie Domi is a “model citizen”. He was the ideal enforcer/scumbag that inspired the next generation of hockey thugs. However, if he ever put on a Sabres sweater, you better believe I would be pounding PBR and dancing in the TYAC home offices while he bashed Brett Hull’s face in. Enough of the de Jong love, let’s get to the worst week ever.
Monday
While I expected people to be talking about the World Cup Final, listening to all the fair-weather fans invent ridiculous suggestions on how to “fix” a game they had only watched four times was unbearable. These “ideas” if you could call them that included, among other things, eliminating the offside rule and making yellow cards function more
like an NHL power play. I got so tired of explain
to people why they were so absolutely wrong I locked the door to my office so everyone thought I had left for the day. Some jackleg on the four letter network even advocated having the World Cup every two years, “to make it more like the Olympics.” I got news for you dipshit, the
Olympics are ever four years. The same athletes (extremely rare) don’t compete in both the winter and summer games.
The only highlight
of Monday was listening to “Lighting Cup” Jon Levy talk shit to the 8 year old trying to catch fly balls during the Home Run Derby, “Jesus Christ kid, make a fucking play out there!” I thought I was a bad person.
Tuesday
The day at the office wasn’t so bad, but instead of coming home to watching a World Cup match on the DVR with commentators that actually understand the game they are watching, I had to listen to Tim McCarver do the color commentary for the MLB All Star Game. After that display I am going to need notarized documentation that proves Tim McCarver is not retarded.
Wednesday
Instead of continuing to put off reading the stack journal articles I need to read for my PhD proposal, I was actually forced to read them. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to read about 50 papers from technical journals with titles like, “The Journal of Containment Hydrology” and “Environmental Science and Technology”? If you want to know what it feels like, beat your head against a wall about ten times, drink a cup of coffee and do it again. The sad thing is my advisor is a real big soccer fan as well. He came into my office to complain about all the work he has to catch up on because we had been watching the World Cup instead of working. Apparently, the joke is still on me. He has tenure, and I need to graduate.
Thursday
The morning stared off okay–nice sunshine and a decent breeze that we don’t often get here in Gainesville. Then, all hell broke loose. The sky opened up and dumped buckets of rain and shit for about 7 hours. I got caught in this downpour while on my way to a meeting. After finally getting there, I had to sit in my rain soaked clothes for two hours listening to people bitch about God knows what. At one point, I looked down at my watch and it was 2:15pm. Last week I could have been sitting at my desk patiently waiting for the 2:30 kick off, instead I am sitting here listening to some women bitch and moan about the Alachua County Public School System. Fuck me.
Basically, with the World Cup over, I have to return to a real work routine that does not involve 2 ½ hour breaks to watch soccer. Luckily, the weekend is finally here and I can drown my sorrows in the gigantic bottle of Jameson that is in my freezer. Hopefully, your Friday will be much better than the rest of my week has been.
Before you work to grab your celebratory cocktail, let me hit you with Puck’s Free Advice. When you’re out at the bar this weekend try yourself one of my new favorite shots, the Oil Slick. It’s particularly relevant due to the nightmare that is the Gulf Coast, and being a resident of Florida, I
have authority to speak on these matters. Also important is my experience with booze intake. Face it– I know a good drink when I taste one, and you should trust me. An Oil Slick is a shot of Goldschlager with some Jagermeister poured on top. If you don’t’ like these two liquors, you probably don’t films like Tombstone either, so fuck off. Sorry for partying.
Puck is the Pop Culture Guru for The Yanks Are Coming. He can be reached at puck@yanksarecoming.com but really he just needs to get a Twitter account so he can be more accessible.