Last Days of the Robin

For those of you who have known me through my university days in Edmonton, you know that I worked at the dirty bird, Red Robin, while I finished off my schooling. I was a master server and could sling fries with the best of them! I was also known to step behind the swinging door and chop some veggies and whip up some world famous buzz sauce.

Shortly after moving back to Calgary and before I found meaningful employment with Rockford Developments sweeping out recently dry walled multifamily dwellings and cleaning out by hand mud filled storm drains, I was again fortunate enough to work at the Robin. I felt a little sorry to leave but when all the Red Robin establishments in Calgary closed two weeks after I left that feeling subsided.

Really that has nothing to do with today's update.

By 2:30 mountain time the round robin portion of the tournament will be done and the draw will be set for the first matches of the elimination round.

It has been a hectic week of games with 4 matches being played per day. The only bad thing about the schedule is that there are always two games being played at the same time. How do they expect me to keep track of both games. I only have two monitors and I need to at least try to be a little productive. I can only imagine what the lady across the hall thinks when she hears me cheer loudly at a scoring opportunity. Fortunately for me she usually turns her hearing aid down when she's not on the phone so I can assume that my shout resembles only a faint mouse squeak to her. That would explain why she is constantly jumping on her chair and looking under her desk.

More importantly here are the match-ups as we know them right now:
June 26
Uruguay v. South Korea
USA v. Ghana

June 27
Germany v. England (bring out the riot gear for that one)
Argentina v. Mexico

June 28
Netherlands v. Slovakia

June 29
Paraguay v Japan

It has been a hard fought battle among our ranks. Shareski (25 pts)has come out flying and hasn't looked back. Jeff and Jamie are close behind at 22pts. Jim from Regina, the city that rhymes with fun, started out a little shaky but has managed to move into the upper echelons. But he has not forgotten about the little people he left behind. He made good use of the ESPN message boards and heckled me mercilessly. Steve and Dick round out our top group with 20 points. There is a log jam at 19 points with Lumpy, Dan, Ryan, Kent and Pete. I'm one back of them at 18 and Mark and Brock are one back of me. The Godfrey's are still have hope with Al and Elaina rounding out the group.

So bye bye Round Robin! Elimination round begins Saturday. Make sure you go in and fill out your picks. For our offline friends be sure to e-mail me your picks as soon as possible.