Addendum To: You Know, I Should Blog About This World Cup Game Before The Final

So I checked the standings after France, and I, won.  As before the World Cup Final was played, I did that trick where I scrolled sloooooooowly down the standings.  But I was under no illusion that I somehow leaped over nine other people and won.  And I didn't.  I finished four points behind the winner, who got 14 of the 15 Knockout Stage picks right.  (He got Spain beating Russia, but really, who didn't?)  I was kind of beating myself up for thinking I had selected Belgium to beat Brazil when I actually had the opposite, but even if I did get that pick right, my three incorrect Round of 16 picks (Spain over Russia, Portugal over Uruguay, Switzerland over Sweden) doomed me to finish a point behind this guy who's based in Hermitage, Tenn., so I would have lost anyway.

The only shame I now feel is feeling that I was so good in the Knockout Stage, and really the entire World Cup, but because there is only one grand prize I didn't win much.  I finished with 63 points, tied with two other people, but if the tie-breakers is total goals for the tournament predicted, I beat out those two and thus technically finished seventh.  For a huge, nationwide tournament like that I should get something.  But I don't.  Well, I do; because I finished first among all prognosticators who declared the Mall Of America Hooters his Favorite Location, I get free buffalo shrimp and free fried pickles.  But there were, like, two other people from the area who played, and I waxed both of them.  Also, I now need to know how in the heck I get that free food.

One observation: I used to like the World Cup just for the spectacle itself.  Sure, they need to play more Group Stage games, they have to go back to the Golden Goal and I still don't understand why referees get to subjectively pad out injury time.  But that's a part of the game, and I have made peace with it.  But this time around I was watching all these games through the prism of this contest at Hooters.  I wasn't really a Neutral; I had a dog in each fight, and my mood would swing from good to bad depending on whether I chose correctly or not.  Such is the corrosive effect of gambling.