Introduction

Gutentag (or whatever it is),

From hitherto forward, this blog will be devoted to the musings of a law school student. Clearly, the average reader won't find much here very interesting.

For now:

I'm watching the Eurocup. Who knew that soccer was such a big deal? Here I am in the US, minding my own business (read: pretending other countries don't exist), paying attention to football, baseball, hockey, etc. Why was I never privy to this fantastic sport, where hundreds of thousands of inebriated Europeans (the best kind!) dress up in funny/national costumes and flock to massive stadiums to watch their favorite icons do battle on the "pitch", with the outcome usually decided by corrupt referees. In all honestly, this is great fun. I kind of wish I was in Europe right now (like the rest of my family, cough cough).

For all intents and purposes, soccer seems to be one of those games where the viewer can be covertly lulled into a pleasant daze, only to be rudely awakened by a peculiar Scottish man spouting things such as "Bloody rubbish, that call was!", or something like that (I've always had problems understand those crazy Scotsmen). With that being said, I find the commentary to be highly entertaining due to the brutal honesty. In the US, it's almost an unwritten rule that a commentator isn't supposed to criticize the referee, no matter how egregiously blind the said individual is. Maybe there's a veiled "that call could have gone either way" or something innocuous like that, which always seemed to get me incensed.

In contrast, while watching the Eurocup it almost seemed that while there was one game occurring on the field, a second was occurring in the booth, as the color commentator was making a sport of slandering the head umpire. For the life of me I can't remember what exactly he said in his deep brogue, but I can clearly remember sarcastic statements regarding the ump being "the best the world has to offer" as well as several not so sarcastic statements using several colorful combinations of the words "rubbish" and "ridiculous", coupled with a tendency to roll his "r's" in his vehemence. Add a healthy dose of my homebrew - Cockup IPA -, my girlfriend, and a clean apartment, and I was thoroughly happy.