Pitch Pitch Baby

Guess what started today?

If you guessed the UEFA European Football Championship, you are right.

Sadly, I don't have time to really "get into" the tournament this year not to mention I'll be in Seattle during the finals which means if either of my sweetheart teams: Germany or Spain is in the finals, I'm going to have to take dire measures to see the game.

I taped the tournament pre-show and one of today's games plus one game tomorrow (Germany v. Poland, obvious) and added the daily highlight show to my DVR subscriptions. Also during today's game they mentioned that there is a friendly between Argentina and the U.S. tomorrow which I also taped even though the idea of having time to watch two complete games tomorrow is out of the question. I still haven't seen Doctor Who or Battlestar Galactica yet. Plus we have to do some household errands and we're invited to a house-warming. And I have to finish my story.

It's hard to be me. I'm going to set my alarm for tomorrow and get up early.

I'm working on a writing project for the writer's meeting next weekend and since I've organized my time poorly PLUS been side-tracked by other obligations, I'm in a crunch so I held today's game over my head as a big, juicy carrot on a stick to keep me on task. As it turns out, my story is about soccer so my entire day was immersed in soccer. But as usual, it took me way longer than expected just to get the first draft ground out so I didn't give up until 6pm. That means I spent most of the day chained to the computer and didn't work on any of the other things I need to do. Oh. Well.

A few brief notes about Euro Cup. The super-annoying Dave O'Brien is not involved. D'oh! I guess he doesn't get out of bed for any soccer that doesn't involve the U.S. No problem Dave — you do what you do best which I'm sure has nothing to do with soccer.

Instead we've got my favorite commentators ever: Adrian Healy and Tommy Smyth and some new guy named Andy Gray, who is new to me but has a colorful history in sports and looking at that bio, his personal life as well.

ESPN classic is airing the games live. Maybe my recollection is hazy but I don't recall ever having the Euro Cup live and free on cable. It is obvious that the ad-selling team had a great start with a killer VW ad and another hilarious Honda Pilot ad. Car ads have got to be great coin. But at some point they must have lost steam leading to some desperate sales including something called FungiNail which the commercials tells me "women have trusted for years." Really? So, men don't get nail fungus? I don't know. I'm just telling you what I learned from the ad.

There was also an ad for something called a Grill Daddy which is basically a grill brush with something inside that squirts water. So basically you can squirt some water on your grill and use a brush OR you can have it all in one handy device with the Grill Daddy. Be sure to tell them pamrentz.com sent you.

The game today was awesome. Portugal v. Turkey. I already knew Portugal was a bunch of hotties (hi Nuno Gomes!) but who knew that Turkey fit the bill, too? My favorite Turkish player is named Kazim Kazim. Hm, Wikipedia says his name is Colin Kazim-Richards. I don't care. Kazim Kazim is one of the best names ever and Turkey lost so not like exaggerating his name gave the team an advantage. There were some slow moments but lots of highlights in this game. The first goal, by a guy named Pepe (see why soccer is so great?) was a particular classic making me wonder once again how anyone can think soccer is boring.