I'm not a soccer (for non-U.S.: football) guy. But every 4 years there are these 4 weeks, when it is just impossible to not get drawn into the magic of the ball and teams from all over the world fighing over it. And this year the cup takes place in Germany where I was born.
Here in California (the home of the German coach Juergen Klinsmann, alias "Klinsi") we are preparing for the opening event - Germany vs. Costa Rica - which we will watch with a group of expats at Gordon Biersch in Palo Alto on the big screen. (Dan Gordon runs a chain of Mini Breweries - a nice chap who is apparently the only Dipl.-Braumeister, Master of Beer Brewing, awarded by my Alma Mater, the Technical University in Munich, Weihenstephan branch. If you meet him you wouldn't be able to distinguish him from Franz Joseph Strauss... ;-)
The opening game will take place in my former home town Munich (capital of the state of Bavaria) and the Bavarian government has kindly invited us German expats for Weisswurstfruehstueck (White beer breakfast with White sausages and Bavarian Prezln) at Gordon Biersch (the game starts at 9am or so, local time). This, for once, is a really good spending of tax dollars, isn't it?
On June 28 I will arrive in Munich, but probably won't get a chance to visit one of the games. But during the final on Sunday 7/9, I will be together with the db4o team in London, including our Brazilian friends, where we will watch this key event together!
The German DOT-NET Magazin, one of the largest Computer publications in Germany, has published a free online betting game for the world cup on
http://www.wm2006-tippspiel.net/ (unfortunately German only) -- the website is powered by... db4o !
Register now, enter your estimates to who will win, and win nice prices!
Anpfiff!