Back for our second day picking who to cheer on and against in the round robin phase of the World Cup. Yesterday we each had our own Groups to rank, today we come back together and do the final two groups together. As luck would have it (it really was a random draw), the Group most interesting to Americans gets double-coverage today (Turner couldn’t join so check the comments to see if he weighs in). Think of this as a first look at this weekend’s big match-up. Before diving into all of the individual criteria that will be used for the big game, I will give you a sneak preview: an additional fact you probably didn’t know about this weekend’s coming game. The Netherlands and Denmark are in fact different countries. You are welcome.
Shadow: Back for more World Cup goodness. I am thinking that every group should just be “Most Beautiful Women” as that was quality time spent last night. Although at one point I did have to ask my 13 year old daughter to move away from where she could see my laptop since Google Images was being particularly unpredictable with the amount of clothing being worn by the search results being returned. In comparison, these topics seem rather rote and boring, but I shall marshal on regardless.
Group: C (U.S., England, Algeria, Slovenia)
Category: Famous Person
SD:I decided to go with a theme within a theme for Group C. I am going with the most famous George from each country. Why? I don’t know. Does it really matter? Call it the Summer of George if you must have a reason.
Most Hated #1: Slovenia. Slovenia appears to have no Georges at all which puts it at a considerable disadvantage in a contest measuring their most famous George. The closest I could get is mathematician Jurij Vega who calculated Pi to 140 places (almost completely accurately). He also did some stuff around logarithms that I might have understood back in college. Poor Jurij isn’t much of a representative for Slovenia. Factor in ‘non-George’ Slovenian Sasha Vujacic who is probably the NBA player I hate the most (because he is not very good and flops more than the entire Italian national soccer team) and Slovenia is destined to be the most hated.
#2 Algeria. Cheb Abdou is the ‘Boy George of of rai music’ – a gay Algerian music star. The entire preceding sentence is just so phenomenally non-sensical I love it and am currently trying to figure out how to weave some part of it into my fantasy football team name this fall. Really the only negative to Cheb’s performance here is that his name isn’t actually George. Though I guess it could be argued bearing the title ‘the Boy George’ of anything is even better than being born to the name George. Jay Cutler has been called ‘the next Jeff George’ for years, but isn’t it more fun to call him ‘the Boy George of NFL quarterbacks’? Screw it. Cheb has earned Algeria a promotion.
#2 England. King George III was King of England when the Revolutionary War was lost to America. On a personal level, he went slowly insane over time and unlike practically every other Monarch in the 16th-18th centuries he was faithful to his wife throughout their marriage and had 15 children. No mistresses at all for George – male or female. He was definitely not the ‘Boy George of Kings’.
#3 Algeria. Turner is the “Boy George of THH contributors”.
Hee hee. I could do this all day.
Most Loved: #4 U.S.A.. I may loathe Fox News and think Sarah Palin is an embarrassment to anyone with a functioning brain but that doesn’t mean I don’t love the U.S. And when you love the U.S. there is only one place to start: George W. Bush…oops, strike that, I mean George Washington. The father of our country, commander of the continental army in the Revolutionary War, first President, supposed wearer of wooden teeth and mythical chopper of cherry trees. He also is honored in a city bearing his name by the most phallic monument in the world – sort of the ‘Boy George of Monuments’.
Shadow: Wow, this one is tough, since the definition of “Famous” can be stretched nearly to the point of breaking, which I will now do with glee. My definition of famous for this THH is which country’s top Twitterer has the most followers.
Most hated 1. Algeria: Top Tweeter: Amine Guerfil (daguerfi) (1,147 followers) Latest Tweet: “Check this video out — Best bee in UltraSlo slow motion macro http://youtu.be/BSXLrjX41Wg “
2. Slovenia: Top Tweeter: Dasha (dasaples) (4,926 followers) Latest Tweet: “New York City – http://ow.ly/1TsS8 *I would really like to live there… “
3. England: Top Tweeter: lilyroseallen (lillyroseallen) (2,172,043 followers) Latest Tweet: “just bought Glee album with GaGa songs. love love love”
Most Love 4. United States: Top Tweeter: Britney Spears (britneyspears) (5,096,336 followers) Latest Tweet: “Thanks everyone this was fun! You guys asked some great questions and lets do this again soon. Bye! xoxox – Brit”
Once again the US of A comes out on top. Not super enthused about the top of the US twitter list (Britney, Ashton, Ellen, Gaga, Obama), but, hey, a win is a win, however you get it. So, it comes as no surprise that I will be pulling for the Stars and Stripes…and Algeria and Slovenia need to get themselves some honest to goodness celebrities if they want to compete in 4 years.
Group: E (Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon)
Category: Random Fact
SD:
Most Hated: #1 The Netherlands: While the Netherlands may have a lot things going for them (solid economy, low unemployment, world famous painters and writers and a national capital that doubles as the sin capital of the world), one thing it doesn’t have is interesting trivia. Here is the best I got: The Dutch are among the taller people in the world yet there is a 2 centimeter (almost an inch) average height difference between the north and the south. Now I need to know why the Southerners are so much shorter. But if that is the most interesting thing the Dutch got going, they better plan to go drown their THH-failure sorrows. Luckily, I hear Amsterdam is a good place to take your mind off of bad news.
#2 Denmark: the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen was named Most Livable city in the world by Monocle magazine. Which is good news if you are Mr. Monopoly or Mr. Peanut but probably not that pertinent for the rest of us.
#3 Japan: Japan is made up of 6,852 islands. Before today, I would have put the over/under at 15. But this does help explain why the mad scientists in Godzilla movies and the evil geniuses in Bond movies always have their own secret island lair.
Most Loved: #4 Cameroon: the name Cameroon is a derivative of the Portuguese word for shrimp (Camaroes) due to explorers seeing an abundance of crustaceans in the Wouri river. It isn’t the most riveting piece of trivia but it might be the most useful. You know if you are making small talk at a cocktail party over the next month, the moment you see the boiled shrimp plate you will steer the conversation to Cameroon and impress the lovely, young woman next to you with your vast Cameroonian knowledge. Any trivia that could get you laid has to make the boys from Africa the most loved country in Group E.
Just hope she doesn’t like a man with a monocle. If she does, send her to Copenhagen.
Shadow: Most Hated: 1. Netherlands: A man in the Netherlands built a scale replica of Noah’s Ark, complete with life size replica’s of animals, as well as a rooftop petting zoo. Really? Is this necessary? Possibly the Netherlands is like France, and instead of revering Jerry Lewis, they revere Steve Carrell and the man was simply copying Evan Almighty.
2. Cameroon: I was originally going to make a tasteless comment about Cameroon containing the second wettest place in the world, but I have successfully stifled it…this is kind of a family blog after all. Instead, their random fact is that it is the only home on Earth for the Bongo antelope and very rich people pay a lot of money each year to come and try to shoot one. Since this is an even numbered year, I am against hunting.
3. Japan: Most Japanese “All You Can Eat” buffets have a time limit (usually around 90 minutes). Combine that with always eating with chop sticks and it is easy to see why those buggers are so skinny.
Most Loved 4. Denmark: This one is for SD and Turner: Denmark has this highest number of breweries per capita of any country in Europe. To quote Homer, mmmmmmmmmm Beer.
That is it for us. You now have definitive arguments for whom to cheer for in each game over the next 3 weeks. Also, be sure and come back this weekend or early next week as I will be posting a somewhat unique view on the opening round US/England match.
Until then, cheerio chaps.
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I can’t wait for the US-England grudge match, and the fact that I get to hang out with Turner while watching it is even better!