WHEREIN JOHN COLLINS CONTINUES TO BE POOOOOOR AND THE CBC CONTINUE TO ANNOY ME

[Collins: 'Poor defending by the centre half.'

Geez, so didn't expect you to say that, John.]

Former Fulham player John Collins joined CBC's commentating team during this World Cup and the 'expert analysis' he has contributed thus far can be accurately described in one word: Poor. Not that his analysis has been literally poor -- although, yes, there's that as well -- this is more about the fact that the man cannot divorce himself from saying the word 'poor' at least 20 zillion times in every single segment he's in. Grating doesn't even begin to describe it. The other day's Holland/Brazil quarterfinal presented the man with yet another opportunity to be an obnoxious broken record and disappoint he did not. After Jason de Vos finished giving his ramble on how Holland managed against Brazil's non-defense, Scott Russell (who, bless him, is likely being briefed during each break on how to simply pronounce players' names properly) turns to Collins and asks what his thoughts are. Of course, our Collins pipes up with what has become an old stand-by for him during this tournament: 'Poor defending. Poor goalkeeping.' That was it. That was all he said. Other canned responses from John have included: 'Poor finishing', 'no chance' and his signature 'Pooooooor'. The man can't be stopped.

Worse than John Collins' poooooor analysis has been the CBC insisting that we be subjected to the opinions of drunk fans at half time. Via field reporters stationed at different ethnic bars around Toronto, viewers are made to put up with a variation of the same thing every day:

Saphia Khambalia (shouting over a crowd in Little Portugal) : Who do you think is going to win today?

Fan wearing a Portugal shirt, scarf, etc. replies: PORTUGAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Saphia Khambalia: Back to you, Scott.

I get it, CBC. I get that Canada's a funny old place to be a football fan. I get that once World Cup fever hits, Torontonians en masse bust out their grandmum's/grandad's/mother's/father's/distant- relative-you-spoke-to-one-time's flag and go nuts for a team that they don't give a hoot about for the four years in between World Cups. Your concerted effort to package the multiculturalism of this city which, is already very visible during the World Cup without all your extensive spotlighting (please see: car flags and College street during Italy games) is veering into try-hard territory. Scratch that, actually. It has arrived in the land of try-hard. It has set up shop, put in a down payment on a nice house in the suburbs and is now planning a family.

[During Spain/Paraguay: 1. Reporter promptly screws up David Villa's name. Where's Scott Russell's people when you need them, huh? 2. When she asks the Paraguay fan on the right what he thought of his team's performance in the first half he says he 'wasn't really paying attention' and then rambles on about how he only just started following Paraguay that morning after hearing about 'this really hot fan'. I wish I were joking.]

A gaffe of Chris Kamara proportions from the CBC's man in South Africa, Kim Brunhuber, completed the CBC's circle of epic-fail today when Brunhuber lamented that Dirk Kuyt hadn't scored a goal yet in this tournament. You are physically there at World Cup, right, Kim? Watching the matches and such? Well, watch harder, sir. You're missing important stuff... like goals.

The one thing I can say the CBC have done exceedingly well however is that it's basically been wall-to-wall World Cup on the network. When CTV had the World Cup, it felt like matches were jockeying with all sorts of other shows for airtime. The CBC have showed most matches live on their main network. I think it was every single match, actually. And when matches were running simultaneously they were on their sister channel, CBC Bold. They've have also been great with repeating matches played in the day again in the evening as well as streaming matches live online and on-demand.

I DON'T EVEN KNOW: CRISTIANO GETS HIS NAILS DID

[Xtina lounging around a pool in NYC: Um, definitely worth the click to enlarge.]

His nails are painted. That's all I really need to say here, right? HIS NAILS ARE PAINTED.

Also, these rumours are pretty hilarious.

source -- Guest of a Guest via Fashion Indie

VIDEO: RENNES PLAYERS AT THE WORLD CUP

[Is 'Los wearing man-capris? I'm also having trouble understanding Gyan's pants.]

It never fails to impress me how unenthused Carlos sounds in literally every interview he does. Not quite bored, simply unfazed: 'Another day, another World Cup, bitches.'

via F.Y. Carlos Bocanegra

WHEREIN I AM BORED AND PARANOID IN BETWEEN MATCH DAYS

[Random Ferndando Muslera pic, just 'cause. Anyhow. Not everyone's dreading the end. This guy's pretty darn excited for it to be over already -- Dave Martin at the Ottawa Citizen: 'As far as I'm concerned, having our TV screens filled with faux football for the last four weeks has been no picnic ... this past month has been a giant annoyance.' It gets me that guys like Martin are paid to write this stuff. Truly, mindless.]

There are two very different emotions swishing around in my head right now. One, granted, is that of anticipation. Who isn't looking forward to the impending Spain/Germany semifinal clash where hopefully Spain will crash out and be generally hilarious*? On the other side of the coin, there's the knowledge that very soon World Cup 2010 will be over. Finito, history, done. And boy, is that itty bitty fact ominous. It f***ing looms. This World Cup will be in the books, the trophy hoisted, confetti strewn all about and then ...well, and then all we'll have is the vast expanse of boredom and an endless stream of unsubstantiated transfer rumours to comfort ourselves with. I'm not certain where your allegiances lie, but having to face the fact that Fabregas is probably going to skip off to Barcelona in a few weeks isn't exactly my idea of a pleasant time.

The seemingly endless days (hours! minutes! seconds!) in between the round of 16, the quarterfinals and so on are already enough for one woman to bear but the slightly paranoid feeling of 'MUST SOAK UP AS MUCH FOOTBALL AS YOU CAN NOWWWWW!!!' is pretty much unbearable. Someone make it stop.

*Please see: the Dame's irrational Spain hateration -- founded mostly on Sergio Ramos' annoying hair, winning Euro 08 with infamous jerk Aragones at the helm, and just being plain better than everyone else... stop being good, damnit.

TIET TMI du Jour: Speaking of 'making it stop' someone make Joachim Loew stop. This is the second time he's done this. And I know he's supposed to be the best dressed manager at this tournament but him and Hansi Flick are wearing matching sweaters so that theory has got to be deftly rattled to pieces at this point.

VIDEO: MARCEL DESAILLY'S REACTION TO GYAN'S PENALTY MISS

['HOWW? HOWWWW?' Oh, weren't we all wondering the same thing?]

We're simply not talking about France. No, seriously. We're not. At least not for a little while. Thuram coming out and suggesting that Evra be banned from playing for France ever again (get real, Tutu) was just about the last straw. However, what we can do is share a little giggle over Marcel Desailly's -- he of Ghanaian origin -- reaction to The Penalty Kick That Didn't Go In and Will Now Live Forever in the History of African Football (yes, that's its official name).

via 101 GG

I AM UP IN THIS BLOG FOR NO APPARENT REASON: JULIAN DE GUZMAN - YOU GO, GIRL!

[Unlike Gretchen Weiners' hair which is full of secrets, Julian's hair is full of magic.]

If you know anything about TIET, you know that our dedicated google-stalking obsession with on-pitch fighting knows no bounds. So even though I've been full-on pretending like the MLS doesn't exist for a little bit (gosh, world cup, you're such a like nuisance), my ears perked right back up again when I heard that there had been some lulzy fightsies that occured at this week's Dynamo/Toronto FC game. Dynamo's Joseph Ngwenya got into it with TFC defender Nana Attakora and it looked for a moment like they were playing one of those creepy choking games that excruciatingly bored children in the American midwest are into these days. Then Toronto's Julian de Guzman got involved with some macho 'hey man, that's my bro you're messing with!' lunging action at Ngwenya which was when fortunately/unfortunately the fight started to get broken up.

Oh, and there was also a shirt removal. 4:30. Dan Gargan. That's all I'm saying.

[Moronic fighting begins at 2:05. Other than that, this was the boringest match of life.]

TIET TMI du Jour: I doubt very much that this falls into the 'too much information' bracket for most but please see the following.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

ANGRY KEEPERS: KINGSON = BEWILDERED

['I'm in the car, he on the ground, trying to figure out what the f**k just happened.']

This is the face of a keeper who has absolutely no idea what the hell just hit him. And he stayed frozen like that -- all gape-mouthed and blank-faced -- for a good 30 seconds. Spotted after Diego Forlan's absolute blinder of a free kick at the Uruguay/Ghana quarterfinal.