Yeah, so I’ve been a little lax in the writing these past few weeks, but I’ve got a good (if not lazy) excuse. Ladies and gentlemen, it is World Cup time!

Typically a large majority of Americans have to be reminded that this grand culmination of the FIFA championship is going on. This year, however, a couple of factors have conspired to bring the World Cup to the attention of Americans.

The first of those factors are the two goals that FIFA officials robbed the US team of in the first round of play. Nothing unifies Americans faster than the thought that we are getting screwed over by some foreigner. That combined with the general hatred of referees in any sport and you’ve suddenly got Joe Six-Pack talking about the World Cup with his buddies on their bass boat.

The second, and way more important, factor has been the ever-present drone of the vuvuzela.

Never before has a two dollar piece of mold-injected plastic generated such a buzz (see what I did there?) on such a grand scale. Broadcasters have had to create new audio filters to cancel out some of the noise, whiny players (I’m looking at you Cristiano Ronaldo) have complained that is breaks up the players’ focus and doctors have been all over the media warning about potential hearing loss due to the 144 decibels these little monsters can pump out.

At first I really didn’t think twice about the hub-bub. It was kind of nice having something to distract from the inane commentary while I watched the first round of matches.  After the third day of three-match-a-day footie (and yes, I’ve been watching every single match), I just began ignoring them.

Then I tried watching an MLS match.

The play was good, I had beer and grilled meats, but something was missing. That’s right, I wasn’t enjoying my footie because it didn’t have the constant drone of the vuvuzela. In just one week I had been turned into Pavlov’s bitch.

Lucky for me, however, I had a variety of means at my disposal for faking that vuvuzela feeling. The easiest was to just get on the internet and download an mp3 of the buzz. Next, I hopped into the iTunes app store and found a couple of free apps that filled my need (plus it’s a great app for confusing people in bars).

So, damn the naysayers. I can understand banning vuvuzelas at events like Wimbledon and the US Open, but these plastic horns are here to stay. Besides, I’ve been seeing them at high school and college football games for years.

Haters gonna hate.

Aging sucks.  That’s not saying anything that people don’t already know. I myself am in my mid-30s and I still get carded buying smokes on a regular basis.  Hell, one of the reasons I really like going to my regular drinking holes is that I don’t get that suspicious stare when I order a drink.

Like I said, I’m not old.  At least, my mind isn’t old. My body, on the other hand, has different ideas.

I’m put together funny. Yeah, I know that sentence alone sets me up to a bevy of grand insults (most of which I’d laugh my ass off at), but it’s an undeniable fact. Almost all of my joints have way more give than they should. This can be exploited in good and bad ways (if you haven’t seen my “elbow trick,” you are missing a show of shock, wonder and potential revulsion) depending on how I apply myself.

Recently, that application has been recreational soccer. “What,” you say to yourself, “that wussy Euro-sport?” Yes, that wussy Euro-sport. My hatred of soccer haters will definitely be addressed in another posting.  Either way, I play soccer on a lovely little co-ed team and get a fair amount of exercise while I’m at it (before negating that exercise after the game at the bar drinking beer). In the course of the two and a half years I’ve been playing with this group of people, I’ve noticed that I cannot play without two knee braces if I intend to walk in the three days immediately following a match. In the past eight months, if I have a lot of cross-field passes, my right ankle feels like it wants to fall off the next day, and I won’t even go into how bad my hips hurt if I’ve got to move across the field quickly when I play defense.

I still play pretty decently, so I keep it up.  This week, however, I think I finally discovered the limits. This week, I took one hell of a header right into the ground, and by header, I don’t mean I hit the ball with my head, my face hit the ground well before my body. To quote the wise sage Yogi Bear, “It’s alright, I landed on my head.” Unfortunately, the rest of my body followed my head (like it does). Not smart enough to throw my hands out to catch myself, I landed with my hand pinned between my chest and the ground: injuring both hand and ribs. Apparently I also slid cartoon-style with my legs swung up behind me. Two days later and that’s not doing any favors for my neck. Squeezle (who doesn’t attend my games due to the violence of amateur sports and the potential for amphibian sightings), to say the least, was not pleased: she’s been waiting for me to seriously injure myself from the first day I walked out on the pitch.

This wasn’t unexpected.  I’ve broken a few toes over the past several seasons, but that’s close to the most serious injury I’ve obtained during a match, and I almost always have broken toes (another piece of evidence that I’m put together funny: I have scary-long monkey toes). Several of my friends have jacked up knees, ankles, etc. from this league, so it was probably only a matter of time before my clumsy self got taken out with something serious.

Now for the worst part about all of this: I suck at standing on the sideline not being able to play. When I last had a broken big toe, I hurt it worse by being on the sidelines “ghost playing.” I know, right? That kind of crap qualifies me to be picked up by the short bus to go to work, but it happened. At this point, I’m guessing I’ll be sidelined again this next week (if squeezle has anything to say about it), and I’ll probably aggravate something worse by fidgeting around “encouraging” my teammates.

Add on this situation the fact that continued injuries are pretty much inevitable as I get older, and it’s almost downright depressing. Then again, I’ve got good meds for that, and I do like to drink away my sorrows, so bring it on.  As soon as I can I’ll be right back on that pitch to get ready for the next round of hurt.

I’m smart like that.