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The World Cup

davorg on 2002-05-29T17:15:41

Only a couple more days to go until the World Cup starts. A month-long celebration of the two things I understand least - football and patriotism.

Luckily we have Big Brother to keep us sane.

Oh ghod...

pdcawley on 2002-05-29T19:27:08

Not sure which one I like least. Big brother, or the world cup? I predict that I'll be doing a lot of reading for the next month.

Re:Oh ghod...

broquaint on 2002-05-29T21:01:26

I concur. Although at least I can converse about the various aspects and characters of Big Brother whereas the World Cup is totally over my head (although this didn't stop me betting £10 on the winner for some reason ...).

Maybe now would be a good time to learn all the things I always wanted to know about, like how to patch perl to gain success, fame and fortune ...

Football

Matts on 2002-05-29T22:15:06

I didn't used to like football, until I went to Uni. There I was surrounded by raving football fans for the first time in my life. So I started watching with them. I think it's partly that you can't just sit down and say I'm going to learn to enjoy this - part of it is the whole group excitement thing, and part of it is that there are some complex aspects of the game that need explaining by friends ;-)

Even now I'm not a "fan" - I don't go out of the way to watch league matches. But I do enjoy watching the international games. Watching for me is an adrenalin rush, and I think that's what most people get out of it.

Re:Football

darobin on 2002-05-29T23:56:23

Same here. I certainly am not into the patriotism part of it. I'd like France to win because I can think of the tremendous partying that would occur if it happened and because it's fun teasing all my non-french friends (ie the majority of the people I see daily in this district) but I'd be equally happy if any team that I can find a remote reason to support won (especially if it were an African team, I don't think any African country ever won before).

I started watching football after moving to Paris when a friend of mine that happens to be a truly excellent cook told me he pretty much only invited people to watch football games. I'm not really interested, but watching it with people that care is fun as you get the same rush you can get from suspension of disbelief (ie when something in your brain starts to act as if you cared). Strangely enough, I also enjoy talking about football when I don't even follow it. But I guess that has something to do with alcohol ;)

Re:Football

jdavidb on 2002-06-03T17:01:35

I realize we're talking about different sports with the same name, but one of the great things about my school was NO FOOTBALL TEAM! Very unusual for an American university, especially in Texas. So I never had a chance to become infected.

Every year some freshman who wishes that instead of a commuter school with no football team we had a normal "better" school with everybody in dorms and a football team tries to start a petition or something in the school paper to get a football team. They are always met with resounding silence: we have a tremendous foreign population, and a tremendous engineering population, both of which are mildly to strongly inclined not to care about American football. I presume such freshman eventually give up and go to another school after some parting shots about how none of his classmates cared or wanted to "make a difference."