The World According to Gio

zortwife just arrived with a bowl of popcorn and a Pepsi, even though the game doesn't start for another half-hour and ESPN's coverage doesn't start until five minutes to. She's currently installed in front of the tv watching the pre-game coverage on Univision. Eeeeeexcellent.

Relatedly, I want to extend my thanks for the Founding Father's amazing foresight in scheduling Independence Day to coincide with what might become one of the better matches of the World Cup. That was rather stellar scheduling!

Go Germany!

I'm somewhat speechless.

We munched our way through two bowls of popcorn to assuage some of the stress and giosmum opened a bottle of champagne at the start of overtime on the grounds that she was going to need it either way. As much as I wanted Germany to prevail, I have to admit that Italy was perhaps the stronger team and their performance at the end was truly stellar. With all teams I feel obligated to support out of the running now, my prediction for the final is a showoff between Italy and France. Portugal, while agressive and in possession of excellent actors, has nowhere near the skill we've seen from Italy and France during the last two matches. I'd really like to see Zinedine Zidane take his team to victory one last time, though I'm not sure they can beat Italy, whose defense is just mindboggling.

And, just because I can, here's the only football song I've got, a cover of "Long Way from Liverpool" performed by the Toten Hosen. Right-click and save, please.

Long Way from Liverpool