All this and riots too! I don't follow sports, but I have an affinity for hockey (which my stepfather played and taught me) and soccer (which my father played and taught me, and which I played very poorly). So I was surprised by two things:

• The Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup (AGAIN) and I wasn't even aware of it;
  
• The US team had advanced another round in the World Cup, and no one was aware of it but me.
  

The whole world (except the US) is electrified by this very interesting World Cup (as witness Fauxhemian and Sexychick, to name just a couple), but here in the States, where we're having our best year ever (by Jove, we actually won a game!), the notice goes next to the box scores for high school basketball. (I shamelessly stole that joke from a very old Mad Magazine.)

Anyway, we're advancing into the next round, despite losing to Poland (I will never understand this system), and while it's almost certain we'll be eliminated very soon, hey! Keep the Dream Alive. Time to call my old college buddy (and rabid soccer fan) Geoff--that is, if he isn't himself in South Korea by now.

Oh, yeah, hockey: I hate the Red Wings, ever since they destroyed the Caps a few years back in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The surprise wasn't that they won, it was that I wasn't even aware the playoffs were happening.