World Cup a Go-Go (final qualifiers)

The past week here in France was a big one, as the national football team (soccer to us Americans) faced Ireland in two matches that would determine who gets to go to the big show, and who stays home.

This is interesting because France, generally considered a powerhouse on the national stage and a regular shoe-in for the World Cup Finals, has been lackluster to put it mildly. For them to come down to the wire against a scrappy upstart like Ireland speaks volumes. I don’t profess to know even a tenth of the whole story or to understand the sport as just about everyone else in the world but Americans do, but let’s just say there has been a lot of well-published tension within the team that has made this a trying qualifying season for them.

Needless to say, the first match was Saturday the 14th. Erika and I went to watch the game at an Irish pub with one of her lab mates. The match was unusually dull with France pulling a win out of the hat 1 – 0. The more interesting thing is that I have finally gone into one Europe’s famous “Irish Theme” pubs. Yes, the drinks were typically whiskeys, beers, and ales from the Green Isle, but that’s where the Irishness stopped. The Rambler (sounds Irish, don’t it?) was staffed by French-speaking bartenders and the majority of the crowd were there in support of Les Bleus.

The real action was last night, Wednesday the 18th. At about 8:30pm local time cars outside started honking and cheers of joy reverberated through the streets. Either this was a pre-celebration or something else happened. Peeking out our window, our street was clogged with traffic as, about a block down, hundreds of people were lighting off flares and fireworks. It turns out it was the local Algerian contingent celebrating their country’s own do-or-die moment against Egypt, thus qualifying for the World Cup Finals at the last chance. Yaaay!!! Our first football victory street celebration!!!

The revelers made their way down our street towards the center of town, blocking the oncoming traffic (which is no mean feat as we live on quite a busy road). Erika and I grew concerned that if the second France vs. Ireland match, which started at 9pm that same night, ended in a victory, we would have to go through this again. Sure enough, around 11:30pm I did hear some honking but not that raucous celebration I was expecting with a French win. When I had last checked before going to bed Ireland was up by 1 – 0, so I assumed that the honking might have been celebration by Lyon’s small, but dedicated Irish community.

It turns out I was wrong. France tied up the game in extra time, thus giving them a higher aggregate score and qualifying them for the Finals. The problem is that the scoring drive was assisted with an obvious handball by French superstar Thierry Henry and, since none of the referees actually saw it happen, the score had to stand (there is no video replay rule for officiating, yet within seconds of the video of the dastardly crime was playing on the giant screens in the stadium for all to see).

And so now I am living in the country that will have gotten into the World Cup Finals on an obvious violation. Even if France goes all the way and takes the tournament, that one violation will hover over them always.

Go Les Bleus!!!

Do you think Furries can sell Pepsi?

OK, we all know that advertising is really different depending on where you are in the world. Japanese commercials tend to be way out there. But considering that Europe is basically our cultural relatives, there is simply no reason for what I am about to show you.

Have you ever heard of Furries? For those who don't know, Furries is the name for a group of people who find anthropomorphic animals in sexual situations to be very erotic. Whether it be via artistic representation, or even dressing up as animals, these people really get off on it. And that's fine for them.

Now, have you ever heard of Orangina? Orangina is a carbonated citrus beverage popular in Europe.

What do these two have in common? Well it seems that Orangina has embarked on a disturbing marketing scheme which I can only think is aimed to appeal to to the burgeoning European Furry demographic. I first noticed this as I walked past a shop and saw this sign. I didn't think anything of it until about a block later, when I realized that what I had seen was an advertisement of a sexy pinup girl with the head of a giraffe. My suspicions were confirmed as I began to pay better attention to these little quick mart-type places everywhere I went. Sure enough there were Furries on these ads all over the place. Even worse, it was for Orangina. Its kind of disturbing seeing all the Furries around hawking a drink that is aimed towards the whole family. Imagine Pepsi or Coke doing the same thing and you'll get the idea.

But that's not all. I was looking online to find an image to include here in the blog, just so you would know exactly what I am talking about. What I found instead was much more, and much worse than I could have imagined. Bear-man and Deer-woman flirting on the swings. Octopus-woman giving a lap dance... WTF?!?

This commercial is a little under two minutes long but I recommend, in order to ensure the most damage to your psyche, that you sit through the whole thing.

This will temporarily blind you and/or make you question your faith in humanity (ie- the Orangina Furry commercial.)

Whoa... what just happened?

We were told that it is slowly catching on here in France, but it is still not that popular. But, man, Halloween was way weird yesterday.

Our friends informed us that children don't regularly dress up and that adults may throw on a costume for a party. So we knew it was going to happen but it was still surreal. We were out around the town yesterday and, in all that time, saw just one little girl dressed as a witch. The only other costumes I recall seeing were the two of the cashiers at the supermarket, one dressed as a witch and the other one simply wearing a wig. The witch theme was the most common by far, by a count of 2 to 1 over wig lady.

This got me to thinking about how Americans tell time. Sure, we have clocks and calendars and watches, but we also tend to rely on the commercial nature of our holidays. Oh, there's a whole aisle at the store dedicated to cheap Halloween costumes and another dedicated to candy: must be October (or late September)! Look, Christmas ornaments, decorations, and displays: must be November 1st!!! Hey, Easter decorations: must be March, and about time for Christians to celebrate the zombie transformation of Jesus!

But we don't have that here. At least not for Halloween. It makes me curious as to whether or not the rampant commercialism associated with other holidays will be present here as well. If not, how am I ever going to know what time of the year it is?

Well, Erika and I stayed home last night, she cooked dinner while we drank beer and watched scary movies. Drag Me To Hell was the first film on the list and it sucks. I understand what Raimi was trying to do but he failed miserably in my mind. I simply don't think you can make a campy horror film with a real budget and CGI effects. I also think his camp skills are wearing thin anyways. Erika thoroughly enjoyed it, so that's good.

Next we were going to watch the highly-acclaimed Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In (which is so highly-acclaimed that, of course, Hollywood is rushing an Americanized remake), but the version we had was done in an incredibly bad English dub, enough so that it was distracting and we simply had to stop it.

So, instead, our last movie was the ever reliable and well done 28 Days Later. I have to say, that film has aged well, and Danny Boyle is just an excellent director!!!