The Weekend in Sports
I subscribe to an investment newsletter, and I frequently get junk mail from other newsletters trying to persuade me into buying a subscription. On Friday, I got an e-mail from Nick Vardie, the Global Guru. His letter read,

GERMANY: A GIANT AWAKES?

Fellow Investor,

This week, Germany is awash in optimism. Winning the 1954 World Cup helped to heal Germany's national psyche after the war and kicked off the Wirtschaftswunder -- its post-war economic miracle. Hopes are high that the surprisingly strong (if ultimately unsuccessful) performance of Jurgen Klinsmann's German team in the semi-final of the World Cup will help bring Germany out of its self-imposed funk.

The letter went on and on about Germany's economic opportunities, but something about the first paragraph struck the wrong note.

I replied,

Dear Global Guru,

Germany lost in the semifinals to Italy, 0-2.

Regards,

Oven

The following day, Germany beat Portugal 3-1 for third place. It's interesting to me that they have an extra game to see who comes in third. But Saturday's Main Event was not the World Cup. A buddy of mine from business school had a surprise 40th birthday party at a friend's house in Los Angeles, not too far from the Beans. My buddy studies Krav Maga - it is some kind of Israeli martial arts that I'd never heard of before - and he is big on Ultimate Fighting. So the friend, our host, rented a dozen Mexican wrestlers to compete for our amusement in a ring in his backyard! You've seen the ads for Nacho Libre? That's essentially what it was - all masks, capes, and costumes. It was nuts. The highlights (lowlights?): Wrestlers getting thrown out of the ring into the audience. One of the female guests, hit by a flying wrestler, was hurt. Is there no word for liability in Spanish? Another wrestler, flipped upside down through the air by his opponent, made such an impressive arc with his legs that they snagged and severed the cable TV feed to the house. The controlled chaos lasted about forty minutes, and then the mighty gladiators changed back into their street clothes, ate as much food and drank as much beer as they could get their hands on, disassembled the ring, and then drove off into the sunset. Only in L.A.

On Sunday, the Italians beat the French on penalty kicks. This agreed with me - I preferred the Italians for their non-Frenchness. The only thing that might have improved the match was masks. - served up by Oven @ 10:48 PM