Well, the Spanish football team has proven me wrong; I didn't figure they'd get past Italy, much less win the semifinal as well. Germany will be tough to beat in the final, but there's no reason Spain can't beat them if they play like they have so far. Hard to believe that a team coached by that ancient jackass Aragones has made the final of the Eurocup, proving that the coach doesn't have much to do with the way the team plays, I guess.

Housing starts in Spain over the first trimester of 2008 are down 36% over the same period last year; all the real estate statistics, secondhand housing sales and number of new mortgages and that stuff are significantly down. To my unscientific eyes, asking prices for apartments in Barcelona have fallen by a third over the last year. The stock market is down as well, about to drop below the psychological barrier of 12,000 points; it's off something like 15% on the year. Rising interest rates--the Euribor is at 5.3%--and high oil prices--$140 a barrel--don't help matters any.

Weird pervert news around here. The guy who raped the horse last year got five months in prison for cruelty to animals. This kind of sicko needs to be kept away from everybody for a long time. And remember Javier Rodrigo dos Santos, the Prevert of Palma, the guy who ran up €50,000 on a municipal credit card in gay brothels? He's now been accused of child sexual abuse. Jeez. We've got just about as many weirdos around here as they do everywhere else.