Monday, June 27, 2016

We Are All Iceland

You Beautiful Long Named Bastards
So I don't know, or even much care, what your reaction is to Brexit. I'm going to keep this basic, and pretty much throw the morons who voted to leave the EU under the bus because my 401K has lost all of the gains that it had slowly recovered over the past six months of relative peace and prosperity.

And sure, maybe it will all come around and work out in the long run, especially for Americans who'd like to go to Little England on the cheap, because their currency has gone through the floorboards. Also, if all kinds of foreigners with money leave London, you'd have to think that we're going to get downright unseemly amounts of customer service when we come visit. Are you ready for Brits to really, seriously pretend to care about American sports? You haven't begun to see pandering until you've seen Brits doing everything they can to keep making enough money so they can avoid eating their native cuisine. It's what has fueled centuries of cultural hegemony, folks.

But that's in the long run. In the short, we had a David Vs. Goliath sports moment in the Euro 2016 soccer / football championship, where a bunch of people with bonus point Scrabble names from Iceland -- Iceland! -- took them out in the round of 16.

How bad is this for England? The coaching staff resigned immediately afterward. The people who know and care about this kind of thing say that it will go down in history as one of their worst defeats. And in classic English fashion, they are making the defeat all about them, which means that even in defeat, they are going to be hated. Instead of giving due to an amazing Cinderella team that played a great game. Instead, it will all be about English keeper Joe Hart's mistakes, Wayne Rooney being as useless as ever in a game that mattered, and Harry Kane, the player that England supposedly wants in a touch situation, well, blowing it.

I don't generally go for game as more than game, because the Internet is filled with all of that idiocy, and players don't care about that nonsense story. Game is Game, and if that's not enough for you, there's plenty of Not Game out there that will fill your little mind with Stories.

But when the world (and the Almighty?) give you a lay up like this one?

You take it.

Because schadenfreude, the German term of taking delight in the misery of others?

That's as EU as it gets right now...

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