June 26, 2010

Odds and Ends






  • Lastly, there is so little reason to bother with the World Cup -- the most complicated part of the sport seems to be the ranking system whereby they determine exactly how many draws are needed to move on to the next round, which teams that actually win their games deserve to be eliminated, and how many you have to lose before advancing.

    Nonetheless, everything involving North Korea is a candidate for humor, and they're seized the chance by hiring Chinese people to pose as fans for their games. It sort of makes sense that they're not going to allow actual North Koreans to leave their impoverished Stalineque nation just to attend a soccer game. On the other hand, it would look bad to have no one cheering for them, hence the idea of sitting, like, 100 identically-dressed Chinese guys in the crowd and paying them to cheer.