I Love You, Bianca

I'm listening to Ted Nugent and pondering one of sports' most surreal days, at least from this soiled couch. The US gets jobbed again, but it's hard to swing around the biggest cliche that just might be true- no quit in them boys. I doubt there's a single southerner on the squad, but again my Euro wife was amazed by the no-quit nature of her distant-second favorite team, and I was fighting waves of patriotic pride when Donovan did the slippy-slide, post-goal corner flag dive. They choke and they suck on the ball, but they keep coming. I was amazed watching the highlight show by just how many great scoring chances they had, and the offside ruling denying another good goal will only stoke American flames of victimhood at the hands of that big bully FIFA.

But they did it, and that one goal changed everything. They win the friggin' group and get Ghana, which is not Argentina or Germany or Spain or Italy last time I checked. In my stupid euphoria, I even checked the second round matchups, which are equally merciful- Uruguay or South Korea. Hey Holland, I'm looking at you in the semis- are you man enough? You only need to get past probably Italy and then Brazil, and therein lies the inherent injustice of the World Cup- overrate France and England and you give the USA a puncher's chance to get to the semi's. I love FIFA. I'm so fucking confused.

In other news, ESPN2 switched to Wimbledon after the early games and there was a misprint, surely, on the screen, showing American John Isner leading Frenchie Nicolas Mahut, 27-26 in the 5th set. Isner could hardly move, and I was still shaking my cheeks cartoon fashion when Mahut held to tie it up. At 35-35 I went to the gym. When I returned, it was 51-51. It ended, in darkness, at 59-59. The boys will come back, if they can get out of bed, to finish tomorrow.

The record books were shredded. The set has taken over 7 and 1/2 hours, so far, which alone beats the former MATCH record for time on court. 59-59. I beat Brad Ackerman 10-8 in the third set of a big final and felt as if I had fought five years on the western front. 59-59. I have no context. The only taint was the non-stop prattle of Hannah Storm, Patrick McEnroe and Brad Gilbert, who made absolute jackasses of themselves. By some accounts, Storm used the word "epic" 457 times. "Battle of wills" was uttered another 873. Producers stopped counting the signifier, "warriors."

Tune in tomorrow to catch the conclusion (maybe) of that match and final group play for Holland and others. Our Tahoe trip cancelled due to more child sickness, I'll be back on the couch catching up on more New Yorkers. I'm almost up to April.