Miscellany, or How I learned to stop worrying and embrace the BS that is World Cup Soccer

• SOBOTKA is GONE. Traded to St. Looie for their 4th round pick from 2008, David Warsofsky. Warsofsky is about 5' 3", 160 lbs and hails from MarshVegas. I believe he currently patrols the blue line at BU. Surprisingly, a hockey player from BU/MarshVegas (or his insufferable parents) has not taken 5 minutes to compose his own Wikipedia page. BUT, since Warsofsky (and/or his parents) probably googles himself daily, he'll find my whining about the trade and create said Wikipedia entry post-haste. YOU GOT TRADED FOR VLADDY. Those are some big shoes to fill - so I'm a little irrational. Vladdy averages some 25 hits per game and was fun to watch. Of course, with the trade rumors regarding Savard swirling like crazy, I spoze that it's likely that both players are being shipped out of town as punishment for the line change gaffe.
• USA is out of the World Cup. Seems to me the biggest problem with US futbol in the World Cup is that they fail to advance just as they're beginning to get the nation behind them. Folks who rarely care about soccer just start to get sucked in, but the team chokes in the playoffs.
• Futbol would be a helluva lot more fun if there were fights. I mean, seriously, someone slide-tackles your ass and it was dirty? Time for a donnybrook. Don't roll around and cry. The Euro flopping/acting/injury-faking has been much-talked about, and it sucks how it's made its way into American sport (Pau Gasol). But that's the way it goes. Ya know, the Sox need a bench-clearing brawl, time for some bad blood, time for some team-unifying, visceral experience.
  
• On a related note, the Canadiens are looking to sign Samuel Inkoom of Ghana to their farm team due to his formidable acting skillz.
• Speaking of skillz, Hal Gill sucks.
• Mike Tirico was talking to a British dude and a German dude before the England/Germany game this morning, and Tirico asks something like, "so what's this like for your respective countrymen?" The Brit guys starts, "This is D-Day..."
• Okay, here's a reason that soccer blows. England clearly scored a goal here, the ball bounced a good 6 feet behind the German keeper after deflecting off the bar, and because they don't have instant replay or a ref behind the net, or near the net, the goal wasn't counted. That's BS. Did the ref bet the under? Rumble in Brighton tonight if England loses.
• My neighbor is running a shop-vac/leaf blower on a Sunday morning. Fuck this shit.