Vive Le Football Libre!

After being sponsored by Adidas for as long as I can remember, the French national soccer team has switched to Nike as supplier for their gear. Nike launched the new kit with this video:

Wow.

Seriously, I mean WOW!! I saw this a few days ago and haven't been able to stop watching it. This video makes the the French team look so bad ass it's ridiculous. You've got people getting pushed in the mud, insane tricks, ridiculous slide tackles, and did that guy really breathe in the shape of a bird??? Vive le France!!

This commercial is so cool, that it even made the song from the De Beers Diamonds commercials (circa 1993) cool again. Sorry Blood Diamond.

After annoying my girlfriend and anyone else who would listen, I finally found someone who was as equally impressed as me. My co worker Scott, who broke the news of Optimus Prime being in the parking lot, and I figured out that the poem in the voice over included fencing terms. Yeah, I know, how could it ever get any cooler? (ok ok, I won't use the word cool anymore)

The voice over poem is from the 'Duel' scene in the play Cyrano de Bergerac and is narrated by French hip-hop artist Oxmo Puccino. Translation below:

Elegant like Celadon (1),
Agile like Scaramouche (2),
I'm warning you, dear Myrmidon (3),
That at the end of the envoi, I touch.

Tac! I parry the tip of which
you were hoping to make me gift,
I open the line, I block it...
Hold on tight to your spit, Laridon (4),
At the end of the envoi, I touch.

Envoi
Prince, ask God for Forgiveness.
I quarter, I skirmish,
I cut, I feint...
Hey! there, then!
At the end of the envoi, I touch.

1. Hero from "L'Astrée", a French pastoral novel.
2. Character from comedia dell'arte.
3. Son of Zeus.
4. Dog from a LaFontaine tale that never gets out of the kitchen.

Its a rough translation I got off another site. I think the "I touch" is supposed to me "I strike".

btw, the new kit will be worn on February 9 against Brazil.

The Tale of the Ironic Mustache

After about 2.5 weeks of not shaving, I'm proud to say that I finally grew a beard. It's not like I was Grizzly Adams or anything, but it was mine and it was cool. Anyway, it was itchy and of the patchy, Sidney Crosby variety, so it was time to shave it. Before I finished shaving I thought it would be fun to see what I looked like with a mustache. It didn't look half bad. It wasn't serious or anything, but it had a certain 70's cop/porn star look about it. I left it to see what my friends/coworkers would think.

Before I get too far, I'd just like to point out that I'm not opposed to mustaches. It's that few people can sport them and still look respectable. Like the people below.

So if you're not Tom Sellek or my dad, please be careful with that facial hair...

So anyway, back to me. Not that I'm a rah rah, look at me type of person, but I was at least expecting people to notice it and/or have a good laugh about it. When I walked in, I got nothing. No comments, no laughs, nothing. Just weird looks. I felt people looked at me and thought "sh*t, does he really have a mustache? That looks horrible. I hope he's not serious. You know what, I'm just gonna give him a weird look and not say anything about it. Yep... situation avoided"

Even one of my good friends (Prudence Bonds, thats right I called you out!) in the office didn't notice it. I had to tell her that the thing different about me was the mustache. She then asked if I grew it over night (like that's even possible. I'm not Indian). She also completely missed the fact that I had a beard previously... sigh...

For the record, I'm clean shaven today.

*sigh* It's almost Valentine's Day

Is it just me, or is Valentine's Day way to close to Christmas? It's not like in high school when all you had to do was get a candygram watch other people get candygrams. Now since we're sort of adults, we have to get real gifts. To make things worse, my girlfriend's birthday is at the end of November, so that's 3 major planning/gift giving dates right in a row.

Let me share the story of what happened to me last year. Not only did I do a good job with her birthday. I killed it. I knew she wanted to get into biking, so I got her this really cool retro cruiser bike and fixed it up. Exaggerated pictures below.

Yeah, I was a beast fixing it up. Then, along with a few of her friends we organized a surprise birthday party which went better than expected. I also got her a soccer jersey for our favorite team, Arsenal, so she wouldn't feel left out when we went to watch the matches. And oh yeah I designed a card for her and had her friends sign. So in short, yeah, I killed it.

That was all great except for one thing. Her birthday was at the end of November. I left myself with hardly any options left for Christmas less than a month later. I ended up getting her a book. Yep that's right a book. She told that was what she wanted, but c'mon.... it was a book.

By the time Valentine's day rolled around like 6 weeks later I was finished. I can't even remember what we did. I think we went out to dinner maybe. It was brutal trying to come up with something.

Looking back, I guess I peaked too soon. Maybe I'll start just getting crappy birthday gifts so that whatever I do for Valentine's Day looks better. *sigh*

Wait, then what's a truffle?

Did you know that there are truffles and other truffles, and they're different??? Ok, you probably did because after asking around it seems like I'm the only one that didn't know the difference. A few months ago someone offered me a chocolate covered truffle. I had heard of truffles (thanks Talespin), so I thought they were supposed to be really good. I also knew that they were like mushrooms that grew underground, you needed a pig to find them and they were like 50 bucks each. That may be wrong, but that's what Talespin said, so I'm sticking with it. I was ready for a treat. Maybe my palette isn't sophisticated enough, but it tasted like a salty ball of dirt covered in chocolate. I smiled, said mmm good and was done with it.

Flash forward to this week. My friend Adele (of gosh gee golly fame) offered me some chocolate truffles. With the bad experience still fresh in my mind, I declined but everyone else had one. And they loved them. Now I was confused. When I tried one, it was a ball of chocolate and amazing. What was going on?

The fact that the truffle(fungus) I had was covered in chocolate added to the confusion. Eventually we got it figured out though. For minute it was kinda like the "who's on first" sketch.