My Favorite Soccer Commercials

Is anyone else disappointed with the 2010 World Cup commercials?  I am.  They just haven't interested me as before.  Not that I would run out for Adidas or Nike cleats every four years (my Adidas cleats are over 12 years old). And if I did go to the store, I wouldn't miss a minute of any matches, because I can watch on my phone, while driving.  Anyway, this Cup's commercials are disappointing because they're  just selling products, rather than appealing to the imagination.

We who watch soccer on TV (WWWSOT) remember the old days, when there was no live soccer on TV.  The few matches we saw were tape delayed and edited for American TV, i.e. play was cut out and commercials were put in.  At some point, we started seeing live soccer.  Then, when corporations figured out that WWWSOT are above the national average in education and income, they decided to make soccer-themed commercials.  The earliest ones I remember were run-of-the-mill ads with soccer players, e.g. Tab Ramos (Snickers) and Mia Hamm (Pert). Then the ads turned into short films.  I've put a few of my favorites below the break.

FOLFOX Round 9: Or is it faux FOX

FOLFOX

• FOL– Folinic acid (leucovorin)
• F – Fluorouracil (5-FU)
• OX – Oxaliplatin
  

Leucovorin was in short supply, so it was excluded from my treatment regimen this round.  It's a freakin' vitamin, how can there be a shortage.  I think I'll have to start getting my drugs at GNC.  Of course, GNC supplements may contain banned substances, which will disqualify me from the 2010 World Cup.  As I was never even invited to training camp, this won't be a big deal.  However, I have been repeatedly invited to buy tickets.


Actually it should be FOLFOXCAMAGALOXIDEX because it includes :Calcium and Magnesium (to dampen the neuropathy), Aloxi (for nausea), dexamethasone (to increase the efficacy of the Aloxi),

The good thing was that I remembered to shave this time, sparing me the agony of tape removal.  You want terrorists to talk?  Rip their chest hair off with medical tape.

If you attend any PTA meetings, or any meetings whatsoever, read this blog.  you'll recognize some of the players, but i hope it's not in the mirror.

Finally, for the deep thinkers, Dan has a book recommendation.

Fie, Fi, Fo, Fum.

The US men's soccer team opens it's World Cup against England.  To stoke the fires of patriotism and fan the flames of jingoism, here are some reasons why we should dislike the English, at least for June 12, 2010.

1. Their Players I: John Terry and Ashley Cole - to be fair though, put together, they didn't score off the field nearly as much as Tiger Woods.
2. Their Players II: Joey Barton and his family. These guys make our felon-athletes look like Sunday School teachers.
   
3. Their Food: To get decent a decent meal, the English had to colonize three-fourths of the world. Look at all the problems that caused.
4. Cricket:  "How long is a game?"  "Two innings."  "So it takes, what, an hour?"  "No. Five days."
   
5. Their Cars I: Jaguar, Land Rover, British Leyland, the list goes on.  Their cars are all crap.  They even made one called Tourette (insert your own joke).  Thankfully, they don't build cars anymore, letting the Germans and Indians handle that.  Don't get me started on their motorcycles.
6. Their Cars II: They drive on the wrong side of the road.  The Canadians had enough sense to drop that idea.
7. The Royal Family:  If they were American, they would be in a trashy reality show on Bravo.
8. Their Sitcoms: Why, oh why, does PBS still subject us to Are You Being Served?  It's not, and never was, funny.  And I am unanimous in that.
   
9. Their Honors: Knighthoods for singing?  Singing?!  What I want to see is Elton John v Paul McCartney in a joust.
10. Amy Winehouse.  'Nuff said.

To the Scottish and Irish readers: "Because they're bastards" may be a good enough reason for you, but it's not on my list.  Anyway, in the spirit of '76, I'm going to dump my venti chai peppermint mocha latte into the Anacostia.  It should improve the water quality.

FOLFOX Round 8:: 66.66666666666...

Eight down, four to go.  And it seems like just yesterday that I started all my treatments.

At this visit we learned that my platelet counts are low due to the oxaliplatin.  That's really a direct, rather than side, effect.  The drugs are supposed to kill rapidly dividing cells, like tumor cells, and blood cell precursors happen to divide rapidly.  Side effects, like the numbness in my hands and the cold intolerance, are hanging around like bad house guests.  So my oncologist dialed back to dose, rather than delay the treatment.  He may be concerned that some of the side effects may become permanent at the regular dose, or that my platelet count will be so low that I'll bleed to death if I cut myself shaving.  I could solve that by waxing my legs instead.

The infusion went according to plan.  I packed my chemo bag with snacks, my laptop, and a DVD of In Plain Sight - Season 1 (who knew there were so many protected witnesses in Albuquerque?)  There were no schedule mishaps or drug formula substitutions.  It all went like clockwork.  Anyway, I have four treatments left and the side effects will only get more intense.  But, what else can I do other than suck it up and push through.  Anyway, I can be persuaded to lay on the couch all day from June 11 - July 11.

No U8 game this weekend, but last Saturday the boys played another hard-fought game, this time with two subs, but we "lost" by one goal.  Nevertheless, we passed the ball well, took a lot of shots, and scored a handful of goals. One of kids even did things that showed he actually listened during practice.

At match time, we did not have a referee, so I reffed the first half.  Thank goodness U8s don't use the offside rule.  I'm a bit vague on the ref's hand signals, other than pointing which way the possession goes.  After all, who looks at the ref during the match?  There must be a sign for "shut up" that I could show to the parents who constantly yell "KICK IT!"  It's freaking soccer, of course they know to kick the ball.  The ref showed up for the second half, claiming that he was stuck in traffic from Baltimore.   Must be a long closing-time rush hour, because our game was at 8 AM.

The Lion Doesn't Sleep Tonight

One of the problems I have is sleeplessness.  Sometimes I don't feel sleepy until 2 or 3 AM, and on the days that I do get to sleep at a reasonable hour, I wake up early.  Waking up early, one notices things in the neighborhood, like when the garbage truck comes, and that guy (I'm assuming it's a guy) a few doors down who starts his car promptly at 5 AM and lets it warm up for exactly five minutes, no matter what the weather.  Oh yeah, and the boids choipin' and boipin' and eatin' doity oithwoims.


The other thing one does when sleepless is to find interesting tools on the internet.  I found a travel map generator to show the countries of all who have visited this blog.  It's not a live, updateable tool, so if you leave the page, your data are lost.  You also can't save the data.  I haven't figured out how to embed the image yet, but you can find a link on the right sidebar (or just click here).

I also found another hit counter with a map, that started on May 27, so it won't include past hits.

So far, the countries in Continent Bingo are:

Africa: Morocco
Asia: India, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates
Europe: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom,
North America: Canada, United States
South America: Chile
Oceania: Australia

Antarctica:  no hits yet (how about you, Dan?).  I suspect that internet access from the research stations is routed through the home countries' servers.

Everybody talks about the weather...

... but no-one does anything about it. Charles Dudley Warner

Well, I'm going to change all that. This must really be the coldest Spring on record.  Just when I think it's starting to warm up, we get another cold front and I'm back to wearing gloves for soccer practice and games.  I'm tired of it.  So I'm trading in my Honda Accord for a Hummer and I'm going to remove the catalytic converter.  Screw the ozone layer and let the stupid polar bears swim.

Two Saturdays ago, the U8s played another game with only six players, but we won this one.  Well, we don't keep score in this rec league, but the kids do and mention it during the match.  I can't blame them.  There were six of them running all the time in the midday sun without respite.  Who would begrudge them some satisfaction?  Our first two were scored before the sixth player arrived.  We started with five (the quorum) so as not to forfeit.

The opposing coach was yellow carded for mouthing off at the ref.  Obviously he didn't read the e-mail, sent earlier that week, about coach and parent behavior.  He was also way, way, waaaay off base on his protests.  They were all 50-50 balls and the kids bumped into each other - expected for U8 games.  I'll bet this coach, when he plays, is a diver.

I really don't know what makes grown-ups so petulant at U8 games.  If they get that upset about the little calls in a U8 rec game, they shouldn't be coaching.  Maybe some of them are trying to impress the parents with their "knowledge of the game."   Really, what do you say to the ref during the game, other than "Man down."  My role at the game is to make sure the kids get enough playing time (which is really easy when there are no subs) and enjoy the game.  After that, I yell encouragement and minimal instructions like "Stay in your goal!" and "Move up, defense!"  Some of them (the keeper and defender) usually stay in their positions.  Others just roam the field.  Commanding them not to bunch up is futile.  We talk about it in practice and run drills where they're spaced apart and passing, but during the games, all except the keeper and the defender chase the ball.

Soccerheads: Read this article on US defender Clarence Goodson, a protege of Joe Doc (Skill Kills!).

FOLFOX Round 7: If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Wednesday

The first six rounds of chemo all started on a Tuesday and ended on a Thursday.  I plan my week around it, e.g. so that I don't have to wear the chemo pump during soccer practice on Thursday evening).  However, this week was different.  I was teleworking Tuesday morning, expecting to go to the doctor's office at 1:00 PM, when I got a call from aforementioned doctor's office to remind me of my appointment on Wednesday at 1:00 PM. 

"Wednesday?" I asked incredulously, "I always have my appointments on Tuesday, why is it on Wednesday?"

It turns out that they scheduled me for Wednesday, but I did not catch the error.  I have the tentative times blocked off on my calendar, so when they told me the appointment, I must have just heard the time and updated only that on my smart phone.  How smart is it if it didn't catch the error?  Anyway, I talked to one of the nurses to see if they could squeeze me in on Tuesday afternoon, but she said it was impossible because my drugs arrive by overnight courier on the morning of my appointment and thus,  wouldn't be there until Wednesday morning.

"So, I'm not picky.  Could I just have someone else's chemo?"
"No," she laughed. "It doesn't work that way."

So, come Wednesday, I'm sitting in the infusion room, getting my drugs and reading Soccernomics, when the English nurse (she's from southern England, I hope, for her sake, she's not a Portsmouth fan) tells me that one of my drugs, Leucovarin the "L" in FOLFOX, arrived in a saline solution, which is different from what I usually get.  Saline, it turns out, is incompatible with oxaliplatin (the "OX), so she couldn't run it in the same iv line to my mediport.  Instead, she had to find one of my junkie veins and run a new line into my arm.  Fortunately for them, nurses and phlebotomists never have problems finding my stout veins.  The only trouble she had was seeing the veins under all that hair.  You kow what hairy arms mean, don't you - tape.  Anyway, they had to use this work around for several patients and assured us that it was only an anomaly and would not happen again.

Two chapters, a couple of comments on Soccer Insider, and a nap later I was out of there.

Our soccer team lost another game.  The U8s play 6-on-6 and exactlysix players(out of 11) showed up for the game.  So they were exhausted quickly.  Nevertheless, these six played their best game of the season.  Our meandering defender got out of position many times to chase a winger, but he followed the ball doggedly and shut down many chances.  Our goalkeepers (I did rotate at this position) stayed on their line and actually fell on the ball instead of trying to kick it away.  Our forwards and midfielders passed better than in any other game and got many shots off.  Unfortunately, fatigue set in early and many of the shots were hurried.  A 0-3 loss was not bad, considering.  One bright side is that I could toss out my substitution scheme at the start of the game.

FOLFOX Round 6: At The Half

I'm midway through the FOLFOX treatments.  My oncologist says I'm "doing great."  Funny, I don't feel great at all.  But his perspective includes a whole lot of cancer patients and mine includes me.  The side effects are piling up more, so it's going to be an uphill climb from now through July.

I found a new side effect.  Sometimes, one of my fingers will just stick out and not relax at all.  Another time, I made a fist with my right hand and, when my brain told my fist to relax, it didn't.  Being scientifically minded, I repeated the experiment and used my left hand as a control.  The left hand relaxed, but the right didn't.  Anyway, this has only happened once so far, but I imagine it will again during round 7.  I hope the finger won't get me in trouble.

So, I spent an hour and a half at the Maryland Motor Vehicle Adminstration (the DMV in most other states).  The reason was that someone stole my rear license plate and I had to get a new set.  The thieves also stole my University of Florida license plate frame, so I have to go to webmart and buy a new set.  I wonder if I can get one with Heather Mitts' picture.

I shouldn't complain, but...

When I write "I shouldn't complain," it means that I'm going to complain, but I want you to think I'm a reasonable person who usually knows when to hold his tongue.  Anyway, the topics of my pique are in bold.

The side effects are increasingly annoying.  My sensitivity to cold objects now lasts the entirety of the two-week treatment cycle.  The effects modulate somewhat in the last seven days, but they do not subside completely.  Right now I'm typing this in a room that's probably at 70 degrees, but my fingers are tingling and I'm making more typos than usual.

Fatigue is also an issue.  It used to begin the day after my pump was disconnected., but it now starts earlier and lasts longer.  That's a bit of a problem when trying to run a Cub Scout den meeting, soccer practice, and the game.  Fortunately, those aren't all in one day and I can usually recruit other parents to help out.

My weight is beginning to drop - I lost a pound since my last weigh-in.  Even though I try to "eat as if it's a chore," the insensitive taste buds don't allow me to enjoy much.  I'll probably drop five to ten more pounds.  If you know me, you know that I can't afford to drop weight.

It would be nice if parents brought their kids to the soccer game on time.  I ask that they get there 15 minutes early to warm up and stretch, with the unreasonable hope that all 11 players will be there at game time.  At the last game, only six players were present for kickoff (the U8s play 6v6).  This completely screws up the line-up and substitutions that I plan. 

The referee lined the players up for an equipment check.  She did that last season too and is the only ref to do so.  One of the kids, despite everything I've told them and their parents, wore his shin guards over his socks.  At least I could blame the ref when I told tell dad that his son could not participate until he was properly in uniform.  This dad also yells "KICK IT!"  whenever the ball gets near his son.  I've asked the parents to refrain from coaching, because I don't want the kids to just boot the ball aimlessly, but that is also an unreasonable hope.

We lost the last match horribly. The mercy rule (add another player at -5 goal differential) was implemented in the middle of the first half.  Adding the player didn't help.  Part of the problem is that we took our team picture an hour before the game, and the boys ran around during the waiting time and may have tired themselves out.  So, rev up the "Fire Coach 270" bandwagon again.

I just put golvs on to tyoe.  Cqan you tell?>

FOLFOX Round 5: When It Absolutely, Positively, Has To Be There... Whenever

Nothing ever goes as planned.  I went to my infusion appointment last Tuesday, as I do every other Tuesday.  But I waited a little more time in the waiting room.  When I got to the infusion room, I noticed that one patient was getting extra attention from several nurses.  Not that I'm jealous, mind you.  It's going to happen in an oncology practice that someone has an emergency from time to time that takes a lot of attention.  So I sat in the recliner and waited until one of the nurses was free to hook me up and start my infusion.  In all, I was in the oncologist's office for five hours.

When I went back two days later, to have the pump disconnected, I was supposed to get a Neulasta shot.  Unfortunately, the shipment of refrigerated drugs was sitting on the ground in Memphis.  I'm sure that the Eyjafjallajökull is taking the blame for that.  Have you noticed how the English-language new services never mention the volcano's name?  It's always "the volcano in Iceland" or  "the volcano that has disrupted air travel in Europe."  C'mon, can't anyone pronounce Eyjafjallajökull?!

On the positive side, the "Fire Coach 270" bandwagon is idling.  The U8s are now 1-1, with a +6 goal differential.  We have more wins and more goals than DC United. The last game was fun for our team, but not so much for the other.  Most of them hadn't played soccer before and they were younger than our team.  Next time we outmatch a team (if there is a next time), I'll probably institute the 3-passes-before-you shoot rule or take a player off.  I informed the other coach that she could add a player at 5-0, but she said they "weren't keeping score."  Sorry lady, the kids do keep score.