Happy Birthday, Kasey!

Sorry I'm a little late but apparently Kasey Keller turned 37 yesterday. Happy Birthday!

Christmas Music Online

Thanks to Finetune:

Christmas Mix

Christmas Pop

Christmas Rock

Enjoy!

HS All-South Players from North Carolina

Click here... :)

A Different Kind of Ball

Bad News Hughes once again makes me laugh so hard I hurt myself. Definitely not a safe read for those easily offended about male body part discussions, or for Lance Armstrong fans...

How I Feel Pretty Much Every Night

(thanks to toothpastefordinner.com)

It's Definitely No iPod

Funny line of the day, referring to a blog post about how "Yoga Mamas" can kick Soccer Mom butts (no, I'm not linking to it because it's a stupid premise anyway--BRING IT, Yoga Mamas!):

"it thinks it has a hip tone. . . but actually, well, it's just so zune."

The "Bag of Antlers" look

Over at White Trash Mom there's a good discussion about how CNN is reporting that celebs are "too thin." Well, duh. They just now noticed? As the mom of a 12 year old who wears women's size 0 jeans, this phenom concerns me a lot.

Coolest Thing I Saw This Past Weekend

...or maybe even all month!


Vend-A-Moo. (The one I saw was in Blacksburg, SC, and I didn't have time to stop and take a picture of it, but it looked just like the one in the article.)

Genius!

Esmee sings one for the old folks!

What I'm Thankful For, part 2

I am SOOOO thankful that I don't have to use dialup all the time, anymore. My sister has dialup ony, at her house, and I've had to use that for the past 4 days. Argh. It was bad enough having to read my email in a browser window, instead of with my Eudora. What creatures of habit we are, huh? Anyway it "only" took me 7.5 hours to get home from ATL, so that's something. Traffic only semi-sucked today. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend. I enjoyed seeing my parents and my sister's family, especially my four year old nephew. And I definitely enjoyed my sister's hot tub and my dad's cooking.

What MLS Players are Thankful For

With Thanksgiving upon us, MLSnet.com asked players, coaches and team executives two questions: If there is only one person that you could thank for you being a professional soccer player/coach/executive, who would it be and why? AND Besides turkey, what is your favorite Thanksgiving dish? Many thanked their parents and early soccer coaches, while pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes were the favorite non-turkey dishes. Find out what others in MLS are celebrating this year by clicking the MLSnet.com link.

What I'm Thankful For, part 1

It took me 9.5 hours to go from south Chapel Hill to just north of Atlanta yesterday. It normally takes me about 6. I am thankful that my sister had plenty of beer ready for me when I got here. I am also thankful that my two youngest did not kill each other in the car on the way down.

Gabe makes the MVJ Team

The Chicago Jewish News Online lists their picks for the "Most Valuable Jews" in baseball for 2006.
Gabe Kapler, of course, makes the list.

Something I learned from reading this article is that you can get Jewish baseball cards. Very cool.

NC All-State Team

North Carolina Soccer Coaches Association

2006

Men's All-State Team

Results from the weekend

From the 2006 CASL Shootout in Raleigh NC:

Triangle FC 88 Navy 1, Manhattan Thunder 0
Triangle FC 88 Navy 2, Texas FC 1
Triangle FC 88 Navy 0, CUP (Ohio) 3

(Thanks to wjarretc for the photo.)

School Project Karma

I should have known better than to post an article about how much school projects suck. Guess what my daughter had to do last night?? Make not one, but two, cookies in the shape of Africa, with frosting rivers and Hershey Kissable mountains. And I got to buy all of the stuff and help make them, yippee! And not only that, but because they are so big and fragile, she can't take them on the school bus, so I get to give her a ride to school this morning! I'm so freakin' lucky! Pinch me!

And after we got them all made and assembled, she told me they were "just" for extra credit...this from a kid who has something like a 98 average in every class. That's my girl.

Chimps: Smarter than Human (Men)?

An American anthropologist reports:

Male chimps, unlike their human counterparts, show a distinct sexual preference for females on the riper side of life, an American anthropologist reported in a paper.

Contrary to his own expectations, Martin Muller of Boston University found after years of observation that male chimpanzees consistently sought out the oldest females within a troop for sexual intercourse.

I Love this Page!

This is what it's all about:


PEOPLE DON'T PLAY SOCCER BECAUSE IT'S FUN... ASK ANY SOCCER PLAYER, MOST OF THEM HATE IT, BUT WE COULDN'T IMAGINE OUR LIFE WITHOUT IT... IT'S PART OF US, THE HATE/LOVE RELATIONSHIP... IT'S WHAT WE LIVE FOR... WE LIVE FOR THE PRACTICES, PARTIES, CHEERS, LONG RIDES, TOURNAMENTS, BITCHES, THE TIGHT ASS CLEATS, GATORADE, & COACHES YOU HATE BUT APPRECIATE... WE LIVE FOR THE WAY IT FEELS WHEN YOU BEAT YOUR RIVAL BY A GOAL IN THE 90TH MINUTE, & YOU KNOW THOSE 2 EXTRA SPRINTS YOU RAN IN PRACTICE WERE WORTH IT... WE LIVE FOR THE WAY WE BECOME A FAMILY WITH OUR TEAM, WE LIVE FOR THE COUNTLESS SONGS WE SING IN OUR HEAD WHEN WE RUN ALL THOSE MILES... WE LIVE FOR THE PLAYOFFS, CHAMPIONSHIPS, WE LIVE FOR THE HOMIES WE MAKE, THE PRACTICES, MEMORIES, THE PAIN, THE NICE CHERRIES WE GET WHEN WE MAKE A SLIDE TACKLE, IT'S WHO WE ARE... WE'RE SOCCER PLAYERS!!!

School Projects Flat Out Suck.

From CSMonitor.com:

It can wreck marriages and destroy family life, and it's more burdensome than travel soccer, football practice, or the Boy Scouts: It's the school project...

Please, oh please, dear curriculum developers, give us parents a break: Ban all make-work projects. Parents have jobs, too, you know. We do our children's homework. We serve on school boards, coach basketball, and volunteer with the Boy Scouts. Now you want us to be creative?!

Here's the whole article: "A Mom's Plea: Don't Make Me Do School Projects!"

OK. Seriously. No one noticed this?

This toy is, uh, a little oddly shaped.

Kasey's Got "A Bit of Swelling"

KELLER HOPING TO SHAKE OFF INJURY.

Gabe Kapler, Bargain Bin item?

Foxsport's Baseball Free Agent Shopping Guide calls our Gabe a "bargain." Hopefully the REd Sox will realize this and keep him for another year.

End of the Journey

From the NC Soccer forum, a touching essay about one parent's last few weeks as a classic soccer parent:

My youngest kid's classic soccer career is now down to fewer team practices than the fingers of one hand, and her last three classic club games ever in the upcoming Shootout - she's U18 and this is the end of the ride. The practices haven't impacted me much the last couple of years, ever since she got her license and began driving herself, so I long ago got past the mixed feelings of immense relief from the burden of being her regular soccer practice chauffeur and regret from missing the camraderie with other parents of observing the practices and chatting each other up. I'll love having control of my soccer-season weekends back for e.g. beach trips instead, but I'll miss terribly the games and tournament weekends, at least for awhile.

He goes on to conclude:

Enjoy the ride those of you with younger classic players - IT'S THE JOURNEY THAT'S THE THING, NOT THE DESTINATION. All too soon that day will arrive for you and your kid too that it's over, finis. Relax and enjoy the ride and the people you ride along with while it lasts, you and your kid.

Read the whole post here.

I'll be there soon enough with the oldest, but the youngest is only a U-13, so we have a while yet.

Get Well Soon, Kasey!

Over the weekend, two Americans met in Germany when Hamburg SV, with defensive midfielder Benny Feilhaber, 21, now a regular starter, tied 1-1 at Borussia Moenchengladbach, whose keeper Kasey Keller, who left the game with a shoulder injury in the 32nd minute, after which HSV got its goal. Keller is out with a strained ligament and is doubtful for his team's next game vs. Hannover 96.

Free Thanksgiving Coloring Pages

For all the little ones out there: Thanksgiving Coloring Pages.

When did "Bad" become "Cool"?

I didn't write this, but I wish I had. Article on "The Escalation of Cool", and how "bad" moms are suddenly the coolest ones out there.

Suddenly, at least when it comes to what publishers are thinking about what makes books and newspapers sell, if you aren't a bored mother, a depressed mother, an I-could-care-less mother, a mother who drinks, you are not a mother who is having an authentic experience.

Let's take a look at some of the current memoir out there right now. Some of these authors are friends of mine or writers I know, and some of these books are fantastic, despite the marketing angle taken by their publishers. So my intent is not to slam anyone, but I want to look at these titles.

Confessions of a Slacker Mom
Confessions of a Naughty Mommy
The Three-Martini Playdate
Sippy Cups are Not for Chardonnay
Mommies Who Drink (and, lest we be accused of leaving out fathers, Daddy Needs a Drink
Peanut Butter, Playdates, and Prozac

Notice a trend?

Moms have always been "bored" or "scared" or "messed-up"; they just didn't go online and blog about it all day long.

More:

Memoir is all about transparency. But motherhood is about non-transparency. Memoir, like all writing, is about drama and conflict and plot and character. Motherhood is about consistency and keeping your cool -- it is all character and no plot. (Or rather, the same old plot with different characters.)

Being cool -- being "out" about being bored, about wishing you could be doing coke with your friends, about preferring to be drunk at a playdate -- is almost a way out of this dilemma. You're not being a bad mother, you're just cool. You're not being a good mother, you're just cool. It's just how you roll. But cool as an avoidance technique seems to be yet another thing that not only divides us against each other but also separates us from our fundamental role in this mother-child relationship.

Now it seems to be a "good" mother (in the pop-culture sense), you have to be a "bad" mother. First it was shocking to admit even so much as a crack in the facade. Now being on crack *is* the facade. This is also something that comes from the luxury of privilege. Desperate people don't have time for posturing. People actually on crack -- or facing PPD or dealing with addiction -- do not have the ability to sit around and muse about this stuff. Making these things the starting point for what's acceptable as an au courant mother denigrates the actual experience of those things, and then the authenticity of the entire experience is drawn into question.

Read the rest here. Great stuff.

Only for the 40-somethings

R.E.M. vs U2-which was the best band of the 80's?

Either you loved U2, or you liked them fine. Either you loved R.E.M., or you hated them. The delicacy at the heart of R.E.M.'s 1980s albums fostered introspection and brotherhood among those of us who loved them in those years: introspection, because the songs pushed the listener inward, finding significance in every line; brotherhood, because we had to band together to defend our heroes against the unfeeling jerks who found R.E.M. precious and maddeningly opaque. I assumed, of course, that those jerks were U2 fans.

Can you guess which one I was?

Here's a hint.

Ephemeral Soccer Mom

I admire this kid's attitude, actually. Here's how his mom starts off:

As the days of soccer season dwindle to a precious few, so does my scant life as a soccer mom. Actually, it's already ended, lasting about as long as Ernest Hemingway's Francis Macomber's happy life.

Earlier this year, my son announced his intention to play soccer for the overpopulated urban high school he would be attending in the fall.

"But you don't play soccer," I said, and not only did my kid not play soccer but he would be going to school with about a zillion kids who had been playing since they were practically toddlers.

Read what happens here.

Kiwi

Saddest thing I've seen today:

I Found the Lemming Movie!

About a month ago, I wrote about the myth of lemmings being suicidal. I mentioned a movie called White Wilderness, in which this myth was first created by Disney in 1964. Well, I finally found the clip! Warning, it's about 12 minutes long, and it might give you grade school flashbacks if you're near my age.

Caption this Kasey.

Gabe of the Day

Thanks to jasonhoke.com.

Christmas Ideas for the Soccer Fan

(and no, I refuse to say "Holiday Gifts" because the only holiday *I* celebrate in December is Christmas.)

Soccer Monopoly

Football Pitch Doormat

FruitBalls

Ice Cream Ball (for practicing dribbling and making ice cream at the same time)

The SoccerCouch

Pele Autographed Ball (don't let the kids play with this one!)

Best Teletubby Video Ever

Go Dipsy!

I Dare You Not to Laugh

What a chuckle this kid has!

Don't forget to vote!

Today is Election Day (here in the US anyway) so please be a good citizen and remember to vote! If you don't vote you can't bitch about who won later.

Welcome to the Club, Sister!

From the blog What on Earth is That Smell, the birth of yet another new soccer mommy:

When I married Brian, I seriously had no idea what I was getting into. Brian's family, as has been before noted, is SPORTS ORIENTED. For someone who spent her life staying home with her nose in a book, making lists, singing in musicals, playing the piano, reading encyclopedias and generally being a geek, this was a major shock.

Most of the shock has to do with attending my children's sporting activities. If Brian can help it, his children are going to play on sports teams, and therefore, as their mother, I find myself in the oddest of situations: Taking off my pajamas on a SATURDAY MORNING BEFORE 9 AM, putting on warm clothes, and sitting on the sidelines of a soccer field in freakin' November, with the wind and rain pelting me and the other parents. Screaming things like, "Quit shoving!" and "Ref, are you an idiot? She totally chicken-winged our player!" and "Come on, Green! See that round white thing rolling down the field? GET NEXT TO IT!"

I'm sorry - what? Marian the Librarian is now a Soccer Mom?

Here's how her kid's game went:

It was one of those the-ref-was-blind-to-everything-they-did-and-made-up-stuff-against-our-team games, and had I acted on the things I felt yesterday, I would've gotten Bri and his assistant coach the dreaded RED CARD. This team played dirty. Later we heard that their parents were taunting our girls that their coach sucked and they needed a new one. Who does that??

And they say I'm the only one who has a problem with refs :)

Because I Miss Seeing Gabe

Taken by Red Sox Chick at Newbury Comics in Dec 2005. Yum. Hope he stays with the Red Sox next year (after going free agent.)

Halloween on Franklin Street, 2006

My son is actually in this clip, for a few seconds, not that you'd be able to tell if you weren't specifically looking.

Comic of the Day

toothpastefordinner.com

What Spiderman Does on the Weekends.

Fashion Hint: Bigger shorts, guy.

Monkey Juggling

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, but I find it funny anyway.