Munich

I arrived in Munich today after a lovely six hour train ride with no book, and with the bitter taste of defeat to top that off (I´ll comment on that later) to find a lovely city here in the south of Germany. The place I'm staying at is very nice, it seems like a bit of a party hostel, but I'm only staying here one night so it shouldn't bother me much. After I had checked in I was in search for some dinner, and I was trying to find the Weiss Brauhaus. Well, while I didn't know any Spanish, at least it was some what similar to French so the street names weren't that crazy; that is not the case here. I had to take a picture of one of the streets because it's name is Dreifaltigkeitsplatz. No joke. I did find the Brauhaus eventually, but it was packed, so I settled on another fine establishment where I got sausages over sauercrout and potatoes. Naturally, I finished it all off with a fine pilsner and it was a great way to start my German days.

There are some castles around the area that I'll check out here in the next couple of days, along with other beer gardens because I've been seriously deprived of good beer on this trip.

As for the whole football thing, we all know how much I loved to play, and how much I love watching, coaching, and commentating on the game. However, in the past couple weeks I've been almost embarassed of my game of choice. It seems to me that the days of self monitoring and responsibility, sportsmanship, and honesty have disappeared. The entire Brett Favre saga has been a damn shame, and an example of a lack of chivalry that should be shown by one of the greatest players at the ultimate leadership position. I realize that retiring is a difficult choice to make, but if you say you are retired, don't go on a one man crusade to revenge the GM that wouldn't let you come back a month after your first retirment ceremony.

Last night was another great example of a lack of sportsmanship. I didn't get a chance to watch the Oregon-Boise State game, however I have seen the Legarrete Blount punch to the BSU player's face on youtube. While in Blount's defense, from the replay the BSU player seemed to mouth off and deserve to get his clock cleaned, but show a little more restraint. If you say in a nationally published, and well known magazine, "we owe them (Boise State) an ass-whoopin'" you better damn well back that up, and if you don't, then you better expect plenty of trash talk back your way.

Then to top it all off, I'm going after the fans. The amount of trash talk on the internet these days is childish at best. You have grown men, assumingly, writting on blog posts here and there about all this and that, and then come up with a moniker of some sort to completely erase any reprocussions from their voice. I don't particularly care about shit talk back and fourth about teams, but when it comes to criticizing a coach, player, or front office person, you better damn well own up to it. To go by some sort of alter ego, and write anything you want regardless of how juvenile or false it may be, in my opinion, is pissing on the First Amendment. We as Americans have the wonderful right to be able to express ourselves without being censored, including on the internet, and there are millions of people who hide behind fake names, taking advantage of a faceless forum. If it's something you believe in, you shouldn't have to refer to yourself as "Duckguy8," or some other name, own up to it, because you can in this country without reprocussion and to not do so is offensive to those who don't have the luxuary of freedom of speech.

John Fredrick Stokes