FIFA, Soccer, FIFA Soccer

1. When we were in Scotland I discovered I very much like watching soccer. We went to a Rangers game and had great seats. It was very cool. We also watched a lot of soccer on TV. Even though the first two games I watched ended 0-0 ties, they were still interesting.

Soccer has its strengths and weaknesses. Its most obvious drawback is not very much scoring. These Simpsons clips speak much truth about the sport's drawbacks:



Low scoring is also sort of a virtue because scoring a goal in soccer is kind of like catching a long bomb in football or hitting a home-run in baseball. Goals are rare enough that they're always exciting.

I also like the fact that the game is a constant flow of action. There's really only one break at the half.

There seems to be a conservative divide on soccer--that is liberals like it and conservatives think American sports are better. I'm not sure why that is. Also, I find most American fans of soccer really annoying for some reason. Like I saw a bunch of galaxy fans with their scarfs on in LA and just thought it was kind of obnoxious and not very authentic.

2. I really haven't played video games that much in the last 4 years, but in Scotland I played a lot of FIFA 10, and got really into it. I thought maybe it was only fun because I had a lot of people to play with, but I've had FIFA 11 for 2-plus weeks now, and I still look forward to playing every day. There are some differences between 10 and 11. Passing is harder in FIFA 11, and so is making that chip/lob-shot over the goalie. But it's more or less the same game I've been playing straight for over a month. Not sure why the game has such depth, but it does.