Behind on everything except for an obvious weather observation

[danceswithwords]

I'm back from the family reunion. The TiVO runneth over and I was sitting right in the middle of a swarm of infants and toddlers on the flight from Atlanta to San Francisco, and in my experience, children that age can handle about 3.5 hours max of an afternoon flight before things start getting hairy. That flight is 4.5 hours. I was counting on

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[danceswithwords]

It must be nice to now have easy access to something that was a novelty for so long (was that the case when the US hosted the WC in 94? There must have been better coverage then, no?)

Sadly, there really wasn't, although I believe ESPN did air some key games live. This is the first cup where (ETA to clarify) English-speaking American audiences have gotten real coverage; to its credit, ESPN (the sports channel) has gone all out, airing all of the games more or less live and bringing in commentators from Europe who know the game and can talk about it intelligently. In the past, they've used familiar domestic faces who don't know the sport and who spent a bunch of the game explaining what offsides is, and saw their viewership bleed over to Univision, the Spanish-language network, because people prefer not understanding the commentary at all to being talked down to. So in terms of American sports media taking the game seriously, this cup is a real landmark.

Some really great, and unexpected, teams are rising to the top now. I feel your pain with France, because lord knows I understand what it's like to just reflexively facepalm when you contemplate the state of soccer in your home country, but part of me is rather pleased that some of the traditional European powerhouses aren't doing well this time. Japan has a pretty vigorous domestic league at this point, and it's nice to see that translating into a competitive cup team.