Some sad news from home in Brawley, Erin’s bird died today. I “inherited” Melanie when I moved into the house 4 years ago and although she was very much Erin’s pet I made sure she got fed, watered and some small amount of attention. I often referred to her as “the forgotten pet” as she’d just sit in her cage quietly most of the time being ignored. She’d come to life when Erin was around, talk and sqawk like crazy for her attention. We had a spell where I thought she was sick a couple of years ago but recently she seemed full of beans so I am quite surprised. She may not have provided the attention and affection that our dogs bring but she enriched our lives in her small way.

No football today, and none tomorrow, suddenly my day seems a whole lot longer. What am I going to do when the tournament is over?! Anyway, this lull allows me to slip in a single of the week. Upcoming British star, Keisha White, performs a cover of Joan Armatrading’s The Weakness of Me. Just gorgeous.

I took this sex i.d. test from the BBC which tries to determine your brain’s gender. It takes about 15 minutes, and you’ll need a ruler but the results are somewhat interesting.

My brain came out as “50% male” which apparantly is the score that the average man gets when taking the test, and one of the tasks revealed that I strongly prefer masculine faces. No, it doesn’t say if that includes beards.

A cracking game between Spain and France brings the round of 16 to a close. I correctly predicted 6 of the last 8 teams so I now have 25 points going into the quarter finals. My original final four prediction was Germany, England, Brazil and France but the group positions have put Brazil and France together so that isn’t going to happen. I’m guaranteed one team in the semi final but will be on the edge of the seat for the Germany and England games, very hard to predict how those will go. Argentina are playing great and England, well, England is England. Hopefully there will be a points update in the newspaper tomorrow to see how I am doing.

In my previous post I wrote that I had 13 points (out of 16) from the World Cup first round. In Saturday’s edition, the newspaper revealed that the leader (a veteran of Beat the Press sports competitions apparantly) had 14 points so I am currently in joint second place.

I got the winners of the first three knockout matches correct (along with everyone else I bet) so I am still in contention. Today’s other match might see that change, I bet I am in the minority for picking Portugal over Holland. But if they win I’ll be moving on ahead for the $100.