where all my tracks will be concealed

Table of Contents
1. Happy father's day!
2. Happy birthday early!
3. Congradulashuns graduates!
4. My work situation
5. Rant about the World Cup

1) Happy father's day, Daddy!

2) Happy birthday (a day early) to my youngest niece, Allie! They're growing up so fast :)

3) Congradulashuns, class of 2006! I'm so sad that I'm not there to see it, even if it would have meant trying to make the rounds of multiple departmental graduations. I hope it's a lovely day for everyone.

4) My work situation: Well, so much for the weekend. I worked from 10-2 yesterday and from 9-5 today, and I know there was more that I could have done (there's *always* more, unless you're Oliver Twist), but I couldn't take it anymore and so came home instead. I should have kept working yesterday, but I wanted to go shopping and have lunch. I didn't really buy much of interest for myself, except for a completely unnecessary crystal perfume atomiser, but I love it and it's a much cheaper and more portable souvenir of my time in Dublin than the set of wineglasses that I almost bought. This means that I've spent two of my last three weekends in Dublin working. Hopefully I'll be able to get some time out of the office next weekend, if for no other purpose than to pack all of my belongings.

5) Rant about World Cup: I should have blogged last night, but I got really mad after watching the Italy/USA soccer match...so mad, in fact, that I watched a stupid Steven Seagal movie rather than turning on my computer. I actually really enjoyed the game; we were down by a man for most of the second half because two of ours were sent off (as opposed to one from the Italian side), and while we weren't exactly stellar (our sole point came from an own-goal off an Italian), we managed to hold Italy to 1-1 and keep our hopes alive. I thought it was splendid that we kept in the game with 9 players, and I was feeling rather patriotic about the whole affair. Then, my patriotic feathers were ruffled by the Irish commentators after the match. The in-match commentators had agreed with my belief that the US performance was noteworthy, but the studio commentators spent the entire post-match discussion dissing the US for how brutally they were playing.

Essentially, the whole commentary sounded like a sideways discussion of American foreign policy, rather than a straight-on discussion of footballing tactics and talents. In fact, one commentator went so far as to say that it's no wonder our players fouled so much when they got warlike messages from the commander-in-chief. He also characterised it as 'ridiculous' that one of the players said that they were doing it for the 'boys in Iraq.' I would agree that the player potentially doesn't care all that much about the boys in Iraq; but, the New York Times (not the most conservative paper in the world) reported the same quote but the context appears to be that the player said he was inspired by the American fans in the city in which the match was played--it's the city where the Rammstein military base is located, and so there are 40,000 US soldiers stationed there, and the American fans were out in force.

I'm probably being too sensitive about this; I'm in a foreign country, commentators are entitled to their opinions, and I can't expect that another country will have nice things to say about America. But, I haven't read any other commentary, including on BBC's website, that seemed hostile to the American efforts in the match. And it's rather ironic that 2/3rds of the commercials during the matches are for American products, and that most of the television programming is American, and that the World Cup match led directly into a Steven Seagal movie from the late nineties (how many television programmers in the States would use the fantastic lead-in of the World Cup, or Super Bowl, to promoted 'Half Past Dead'?). So between the commentary on the US side of yesterday's match, the same commentator's comments about the Angola keeper the night before (which admittedly I found amusing, but I would have been pissed if I had been Angolan), and his dismissive attitudes towards virtually all players and teams, I'm quite sick of the after-match commentaries. I wish Ireland was in the World Cup, so that I could see whether he would explode from trying to say something positive.

This probably ties into the political correctness that is common in the US and somewhat unseen here. Someone in the office actually referred to the Italians as 'Eye-ties' in a non-ironic manner, which secretly thrilled me, even though I was surprised. And if a commentator in the US had been so brutal about the Angolans, they probably would have had to issue a public apology. But, I'll own up to my own hypocrisy--I wouldn't be so mad if this hadn't been about the US. I just feel like major sporting events, like the World Cup and the Olympics, should be about the athletes and not about the policies of various countries.

And in answer to Not Applicable - I have seen that Adidas commercial, and I love it...but I must say, I have a pair of Adidas, and they don't seem to be bringing me any closer to being able to draft even one semi-attractive dude. I can't even get someone who looks like Ronaldinho, and he's not exactly a prize. Maybe I need to switch away from the silver-and-pink Adidas and go for something more sporty. But, question--are they playing the 'stupid american' Budweiser commercials in the States? Budweiser is, for some inexplicable reason, the official beer of the World Cup...and they're running tons of commercials with two dumb, ultra-American sportscasters saying things like 'They're not doing so well now, but at least they have the third and fourth quarters to make up the difference' [there's only two halves in soccer], or 'First Frankfurt, now Hamburg...what's next, Cheeseburg?', or 'First it hit the first guy's head, and then it bounced off of the second guy's head into the goal! What are the odds of that?!' I think they're pretty funny, but are they playing in the US? They definitely don't beat the Volkswagen commercials, but they're satisfactory for now.

Okay, time to watch the second half of the France/Korea match...take care, everyone!