Vuvuzelas on Stun

We’re told there’s going to be another outbreak of Sport in a moment. For those who dislike Adventure, the Stinque Incredibly Annoying Vuvuzela Button is the one on the right.

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FUTBOL!!!! Due to other commitments this morning I didn’t have time to get the WC Hotties up before the game. That will come after the game.

11:15 am isn’t too early to drink, right?

SanFranLefty: Soccerball bars in Chicago open up at 6:30am on Saturdays for English football in-season. Not too early at 11:15am, then, no.

And they got Christophuh to narrate the pre-game montage. Weird.

“and the home… of the brave.”

Stinque TV now begins a new broadcast day.

Terry McCauliffe in the stands with Bubba. Hopefully he brought be booze. And didn’t drink it all.

Bill Cleeeen-TON, as they say on Univision!

Hey speaking of Spanish, has Nabeesco arrived in Madrid yet?

Just hung up our pride flag on the deck. Twin Peaks has the ginormous pink triangle on it, Pride parade is tomorrow.

@SanFranLefty: We have the Stanley Cup rolling down Halsted Street in our parade tomorrow. You?

Official Viktor Kassai is a Hun.

Screams from the right indicate that one set of neighbors has checked in.

Optimistic strike from Dempsey there. Easy save.

DAMN IT! Bad turnover, bad defense — ANOTHER EARLY GOAL. GHA 1:0 USA.

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! THEY SCORED ON US
@chicago bureau: Backstreet Boys, Alice Walker, and Nancy Pelosi are our grand marshals.

@nojo: When we score a goal and it’s recalled, then we know it’s a rerun.

Get yer heads out of yer asses, boys!!!

My nerves are going to need more than Shiner Bock to get through this. I need to break out something stronger or more herbal.

@SanFranLefty: ABC sez we’ve choked early in 8 of 22 games.

Holy crap. Our lad in goal didn’t do much of a job cutting down the angle on that shot.

@SanFranLefty: Coffee. It’s Saturday, and I’m rarely conscious before late afternoon anyway.

It’s like I told myself through the Blackhawks’ Cup run — you needed to score one anyway.

So are Mick Jagger and Bubba going tomcatting together in Cape Town later tonight?

Bubba’s with Mick. That dude knows how to roll.

@nojo: I’ve been up since 7 am doing manual labor, after not getting home from the Red Sox/Giants game until 1 am. Between that, this game, and the Pride parade tomorrow, I’m not going to get much sleep. Suppose I can call in sick on Monday like half of The City will be doing…

Hey, Talibunny’s giving her 75 K speech at Cal State Stanislaus today. Hope they remembered the bendy straws.

Hey then — where can we get one of those defense fuck-ups?

Tim Howard is so fucking hot.

ADD: Announcer says US playing like “rabbits in a headlight” – is that Limey-talk for “deer in a headlight”?

“The US looks like rabbits caught in the floodlights.” I love Brit announcers.

@nojo: Jinx.
He said “floodlight”? Either way, made me laugh.

@SanFranLefty: Yes, floodlight. It was the double-switch that scored the goal.

I’m not sure I have enough beer in the house. I polished off my first bottle in less than 15 minutes.

You never see the ShinCam in American football.

SUB IN — Edu for…. Clark. Hmmmm.

@SanFranLefty: That’s what happens to me during debate liveblogs. But it’s a reverse logarithm: Each successive bottle takes longer to polish off.

Now we’re waking up a little bit — the offensive play and possession has looked clueless for USA! USA! USA! so far.

And ANOTHER breakdown on D almost takes us two down. Yuck!

Lunchtime! Let’s see what’s in the fridge…

Ah! Widmer!

AND YET ANOTHER TURNOVER leading to ANOTHER chance. COME THE FUCK ON!

Corner kick to the US comes to…. fuck all.

I keep waiting to see a carny horse race on that fence.

Motorcycle crashes in slo-mo HD are awesome.

Mr. SFL just brought home some carnitas tacos from a taqueria in the Mission after doing our grocery shopping. I love that man.

still trying to figure out why Bob Bradley the Gargoyle started Clark over Edu at halftime.

Why do I suspect the boys partied too hard with Clinton last night?

@Signal to Noise: How’s the Gore story playing in PDX?

Tapas and vino Rioja apparently only help the Spanish squad.

Ma Nabisco should be coaching USA with the amount of Sport Smack she’s talking…

Local political commercial: eMeg sees the “human cost” of people out of work every day. Especially since she’s responsible for many of them.

Feihaber for Findley to start the second half. We have one sub left.

@nojo: no, wait, that’s Carly. Tommcatt’s not alone.

Waiting for Mother in Law to go back to her hotel so we can start drinking.

OOOOH. That was close for U.S. America.

My block just cried with agony.

@Mistress Cynica: Why wait?
@chicago bureau: My philosophy in playing soccer is that garbage goals count for a point like pretty goals. Just get the fucker in there, don’t worry about setting it up all perfect.

Telestrators in Real Life: All the players are shadowed by X’s.

Our Brit commentator is Ian Darke. Also our second-string Bond Villain.

@nojo: Europeans are more prolific floppers, it seems.

Just back from Fairway (spaghetti carbonara later) – we had a goal stolen from us?

I’m getting a good feeling about this…

@Nabisco: And Sara Pastasauce…
@blogenfreude: Not yet.
@Dodgerblue: Italians and French. That’s why the 2006 final was so excruciating. The Brazilians are pretty big drama queens, too.

Can’t watch the PK. Don’t fuck it up.

Damn near fucked it up too — another six inches right and it was off the post and out, as opposed to off the post and IN THE OLD ONION BAG.

No controversy about that tackle on Dempsey in the box. Clear penalty.

@SanFranLefty: I was gonna say, don’t overlook the Brazilian oscar-worthy performances. And I’m waiting to drink because I get enough disapproving looks as it is.

Really, I could just turn off the Telly and follow the match from the neighborhood noise.

And USA go close AGAIN! COME ON BOYS!

@Mistress Cynica: Second Widmer here. Helps dull the unexpected anxiety.

@chicago bureau: US could have three goals if they had a trailing player for the richocheting-off-the-keeper garbage goals. That’s how Donovan scored in the last game, that’s the majority of my goals.

The neighbors may be watching Univision. Their reactions are a few seconds behind the ABC action.

Two subs on for Ghana in the last couple of minutes — including the end of the day for Boetang, the goal scorer for Ghana.

@nojo: That, and nicotine. Nicotine. My faithful friend.

I’ve given up trying to figure out a good gag for the England-Germany match.

@nojo: Don’t mention the war.

“We did not start it!”

“Yes you did — you invaded Poland!”

Come on, man. Think. What would Fawlty do?

@chicago bureau: Afraid I’m not a Fawlty fan. Tried, didn’t stick.

@nojo: My suggestion is that the game be played in Belgium – the place where Germany and England have traditionally worked out their differences.

OT everybody. After that first half, I’ll fucking take it.

Congratulations to ABC for getting extra commercials.

@nojo: Bangers and mash v. wienerschnitzel?

@chicago bureau: Hopefully the US won’t play the first half of OT time like they played the first half. No golden goal any more, it’s a full two halves of 15 minutes of play each. I have to confess I’d like to watch Tim Howard in the goal on penalties kickout. I am certain he’d be entertaining.

@nojo: The announcers’ assumption that the viewers are fair-weather fans who know nothing about the game is getting a little old with their “We welcome people discovering soccer” and “don’t turn off your TV yet” comments.

Three-day tennis matches set a high bar.

Altidore off, and on comes Gomez. With a “zed,” Ian Darke advises us. And that’s the last change available to USA! USA! USA!

@SanFranLefty: And yet, I’m a fair-weather fan who knows nothing about soccer.

Also, “zed”.

@SanFranLefty: You HAD to bring up the first half. You just HAD to do it. DAMN IT — GHA 2:1 USA

Ma Nabisco pines for the days of the Golden Goal. I reminded her that the night is young.

Africans beat Americans in awesome face paint.

@Dodgerblue: That was a beautiful goal.
@chicago bureau: Why did they take Altidore out? He’s the best player out there. Now he can’t take PKs either (if it comes to that).

And, we’re into Extra Widmer Time. No hackwork for Nojo this afternoon.

@Dodgerblue: Of course – wish I could find the Clarkson video where they arrived in Belgium to challenge the Germans to a race in WWII aircraft.

“Diving embellishment”. Noted.

“The last drop of drink in the Last Chance Saloon.” Brit cliches are fun!

Well, that was fun. See everybody in 2014.

Great. Now I have to watch bad baseball until hockey season. Brilliant.

The better team won. Other than a rally in the second half, the US didn’t have the spark. They did all of the textbook things that my soccer coaches say to never do. They weren’t communicating, they weren’t supporting one another and following behind their teammate’s passes. Our fullbacks were atrocious, left flat-footed on both goals, not marking their players and being caught behind on breakaways by Ghana. US was not first to the ball. The midfield needed to take shots – as my Irish coach says – “You can’t score goals if you don’t take shots, girls” and I felt that they were so busy futzing around to set themselves up for a perfect goal that they weren’t taking shots from 30 yards out and following their teammate’s shots for the ricochet garbage goal (my team nickname is the “garbage collector” because that’s how I score).

But if Howard had scored on that last minute corner, that would have been fucking awesome. I have never seen a keeper come up to get in the scrum on the other side of the field for a corner, but given his height it was brilliant.

@chicago bureau: Spain, Mexico and Holland are a lot of fun to watch, as are the Brazilians when they actually play and aren’t flopping like dead fish.

@SanFranLefty: Donovan’s take: “I don’t know what we did, but it sucks.”

@SanFranLefty: Importantly, they supplied Entertainment. That second-half spurt forced overtime, so they can leave without looking like losers.

@nojo: Alexei Lalas just said everything I said about the US’s performance.

@SanFranLefty: my team nickname is the “garbage collector”

I swear to god, that’s a geek term for memory management. (Not available on the iPhone — you have to collect your own garbage.)

@JNOV: In life there are no winners or losers.

@Benedick: Heh.

TJ/ Album from Hands Across the Sand on my FB page. We were late due to the adolescent circadian clock and traffic, so we chose to meet at the only beach in AC where surfing is allowed. A surfer refused to have his picture taken with us because he’s not down with the cause, and no one on the beach would take a group picture of us (same reason). Let’s see what they’re saying in a couple of months…

@JNOV: The Vuvuzelas piled in the dumpster tell the tale.

@nojo: Those things are Vulvazillas, and they often fight Mothra.

@SanFranLefty: Exactly the analysis throughout the game on ESPN radio yesterday. Heard bits and pieces driving to the grocery store and through the back door while getting the yard ready. I figure the RW does not care for the game because there is no guarantee of US America world domination.

@chicago bureau: I was at a thing for the Association of State Democratic Chairs with McAwful in his DNC days. He opened his wallet on the party boat and covered our bar tab. Talk about a frenzy of drink buying once he said “the drinks are on me!”

The summer party went well. Small, but with a lot of our oldest and best friends and some new ones. Uniform disappointment with the Dem gubernatorial campaign here. Frito pies were awesome. Oranges compliment a tequila shot. Have you seen the Droid sky map app? Coolest thing ever. The thumb I cut chopping onions hurts worse than my head (which is not at all.)

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