or the fact that i got up at oh god thirty in the morning to get to work for an 0600 shift, or my coworkers’ interest infecting me by osmosis, but i find myself more than regularly interested in the soccer game on television. (yes, folks, we’ve discovered what justifies turning off cnbc for the workday: championship football. er, soccer. hey, dammit, all the announcers are saying football, it seeps in, okay? besides, it’s not like i like (american) football, anyways.)

the only problem is i cannot choose which team out of this matchup to support. all my typical determinants in sports matches where i have no compelling reason to support either side are evenly matched: pop culture (doctor who nine wanted to play for man united and i really like “life on mars,” which is set in manchester; but doctor who ten is from scotland and is arguably my favorite doctor of the two), beverages (england has beer but scotland has scotch! pick just one?! i can’t do it!), or personal experience (i like glasgow and glaswegians, but i’m entertained by a lot of mancunians and plan to visit there as well one of these days). even watching the players for klutzy moves and mocking them isn’t helping me out, since apparently the pitch is wet because they keep slipping and falling all over the place, and they all appear to be rather good players. i think maybe i’ll just cheer for everybody. yay! you scored on a penalty shot! yay! you got a yellow card! yay, you fell on your ass! YAAAAAAAY! (hey, at least i’m not singing any football songs.) ((yet.)) ETA: bill mocks me for supporting man u at all. it is “like rooting for the house in blackjack.” but the glaswegians had stupid uniforms!