The FUCKING World Cup...

[The Curmudgeon]

Gaaaaaaah. It's no secret that I'm no football (or "soccer" if you'd prefer) fan, but you know, I can handle it. It's an enormous deal in this country, and that's fine. That's what football stadiums and the Sports channels are for. No problem.

But God DAMN.. this World Cup has seen every waking part of everyday life saturated with the damn sport. I'm serious - newspapers, websites, TV adverts (since when did McDonald's become huge football supporters??) - EVERYTHING is fucking football, all because England were in the competition. Mrs C is a big football, particularly Newcastle and, in this case, England, fan, so there was no escape in my house from it either.

Thankfully, it'll all die down now because England are out (and in typical British style, if we ain't in it, we don't care) but these last few months have been beyond irritating.

I know America was in the World Cup as well, but I'm reliably informed soccer is as relevant as platform shoes and flares in the US. So is this total domination similar to say, the World Series or the Superbowl?

[trashcanman]

The Super Bowl is universal here. Men, women, and children who never gave a crap about football in the 364 days prior are all excited at Super Bowl time. This year I'm a bit dumbstruck because people at my work are actually discussing the World Cup. This invariably leads to some jackass (possibly me) carrying on about how watching a bunch of dudes kick a ball back and forth for the length of a good movie with a typical final score of 0-1 just ain't happening. Sports in general has just lost it's appeal to me. Too time consuming and too dull long stretches. And the constant time-outs for commercials are sickening. I used to be insane over basketball, but now the only sport I really follow is MMA. 15 minute matches and shorter if there's a knockout or submission. That's action. These guys trying to hit balls with sticks or put them into hoops or between posts or whatever just don't interest me much anymore.