The last two days I got to experience the World Cup in the two different ways I plan on spending the next month.

During the week, I will be having to track the games on the computer while trying to be quite. On weekends, I will be at my local soccer bar with other supporters as I sip coffee and enjoy the action.

Needless to say, I prefer the latter.

I know that a lot of you who are unlucky to not to be in Germany are recording the matches to watch at night, while trying to avoid results. I am not like that. I just can't wait for six or so hours so I can catch the match. So, my plan has been to watch the match tracker of the games, then catching them at night when I get home, where three games will be waiting on my DVR.

The only problem I had was which match tracker to use? I decided to try the one on the FIFA World Cup website at first and found it to be pretty boring. Not a lot of details of the German-Costa Rica match but it did have a chat feature. In a smart move, they made sure that all comments on the chat were legit before they were posted, or else we would have a lot of spam and desperate guys looking for women in Brixton and Boseman.

I then decided to try out the Fox Soccer website. They had even less descriptions of the play, but there did have a cool little gadget where they showed, via animations, where the shots were taking place and the result. Still, I was not satisfied.

But, I then remembered the place where I always go to track the big European matches and they were doing the same for the World Cup. The Guardian's tracker is just a reporter recapping the match with a lot of snark while answering the best of the emails the writer gets during the match. I used them for the Ecuador-Poland match as the guy mocked the Polish midfield play while there was a long discussion on an Iranian supporter driving through London with his nation's flags flying around the vehicle and that the UK embassy in Teheran is located on Bobby Sands Street.

Of course, the hardest thing to do while doing this is to make sure you look like you are actually working. One of my bosses, who thinks I am a lazy guy (even though he doesn't give me anything to do), would flip if he saw me doing this. Knowing my luck, he would make me do some bizarre task as a punishment, like wash the tarp in his SUV (he actually has done this to me. By the way, if you know of a Chicago company that needs a guy who has writing and customer service skills, please email me at this address.)

When I got home on Friday, I watched both matches before going out to play in a pickup game at an indoor soccer center. The Germany win over Costa Rica was a fine start to the tournament, while Poland should be packing their bags, as they will be going home in another week.

This morning, I went down to my favorite soccer bar here in Chicago, The Globe Pub. Even thought the first match, England vs. Paraguay, was kicking off at 8:00am Chicago time, I had to get up at 5, since the bar said that they would be showing a rugby match between England and Australia and it was easy to assume the Brits who came in would stick around for the other form of football that morning.

So, after spending time shaking the cobwebs out of my head and getting the cat fed (who lets off one of the most evil sounds ever heard when he demands his food), I got on my bike and road in a cold shower down to the bar. Considering this is typical british weather, the atmosphere was pretty perfect for watching and England match.

When I got there, I had a minor shock. Turns out, the rugby match was taking place on Sunday morning. Too late to turn back, but there were a lot of spots open to sit down. So, for the next two hours, I spent the time drinking coffee to keep awake and talked with people I knew.

By the time the kickoff time came for the first match of the day, The place was packed with people to the point where they had people lined up half a block waiting to get in, a long wait it turned out since the bar was stuffed to capacity. In addition to the large contingent of England fans, there were some people that have Chicago Fire connections, including injured defender Jim Curtin, who lives around the corner from the pub, and former GM Peter Wilt, who is a frequent visitor to the bar.

Except for the own goal early in the match, the crowd was not all that loud and boisterous compared to past World Cups that I have watched at bars. Maybe it was the combination of the weather, the time of day or the fact that England played some piss poor soccer that kept the enthusiasm down. It was more like watching Wigan and Birmingham City playing instead of a World Cup match.

As time was running out, I had to leave the bar and go to a Starbucks temporarily so I could do a brief interview on a local internet show hosted by one of my friends. I talked about the World Cup for 10 minutes and pimped my website as well, before heading back for some breakfast while waiting for the second match.

There was still a decent crowd in the bar as Trinidad and Sweden kicked off, but everyone just assumed that the Swedes would romp to victory. That didn't happen as Shaka Hislop had the game of his life to secure a point for T&T in their World Cup debut.

After that match, I had to head home to get some housework done and watched the Argentian-Ivory Coast match. While the former world champions got the win, the Ivory Coast gave them quite a battle, a sign that Group C is going to be a dogfight before its all said and done. Should be interesting to see how Serbia and Holland turns out tomorrow.

Sunday is going to be a big day for us here in Chicago. Mexico will face Iran, and I will be in the bar again, rooting for the Iranians while hoping that nobody accuses me of hating America for doing that. Then its off to Bridgeview, as the Fire play their first ever match at Toyota Park.

The World Cup is on and as far as I am concerned, life is sweet right now.