Cubs vs. Sox showdown

During what has been a long, torturous season for the Cubs, there have been few bright spots.

Sure, we saw Ryan Dempster have a 33-inning scoreless streak this past month. The Cubs also had a stretch where they won 15 of 20 games around the All Star break, a brief tease of respectability that ended with a sweep at the hands of the Cardinals last weekend by a combined score of 23-1, including a 12-0 loss last Saturday that saw the Cardinals score a team record 12 runs in the seventh inning.

Beyond that, the only bright spots, besides the promises from Theo Epstein for a brighter future, have been in commercials. We featured ex-Cubs Kerry Wood and Andre Dawson shilling State Farm Insurance recently. But there also have been these great spots by New Era with actor and Cubs fan Nick Offerman of "Parks and Recreation" and fellow actor and White Sox fan Craig Robinson ("The Office") squaring off.

Round 1 appeared in April at the beginning of the season.




Round 2, which premiered in May, had Robinson quizzing Offerman on how far he would go to end the Cubs' World Series drought.



Round 3, appearing for the first time a week or so, ago, have an ultimate staredown.




Unfortunately for the Cubs, the Sox got the better of them in the overall series, taking four of the six games they played, including sweeping the three at Wrigley Field in May. So continues the long season.

What's in the ivy at Wrigley Field?

Wait Til Next Century returns with one of the few highlights of this long Cubs season, Kerry Wood and a surprise guest in this State Farm commercial.

U.S. Game Two and World Cup advertising

The United States play their second game of the 2010 World Cup today, this time against Slovenia, who is currently leading Group C with three points after beating Algeria on Sunday, 1-0 (The U.S. and England are tied for second place with one point due to their 1-1 draw on Saturday).

The good news is American goalie Tim Howard should be back in the net after suffering bruised ribs against the English. He'll be needed to ward off a surprising Slovenian attack, but the U.S. are the favorites against the small Eastern European nation.

I won't go so far as to call this a must-win for the Americans, but Slovenia is winning in the group with their win and England likely will take out Algeria. Three points, needless to say, would be good here.

Game time is at 9 a.m. CDT from Ellis Park in Johannesburg on ESPN. England and Algeria follow at 1:30 p.m. CDT on ESPN2.

But it's Friday, and what better way to kick off the weekend than with some great World Cup-related commercials.

Here's a fun one from BP airing in South Africa:



A boy works on getting another player to play the beautiful game with in this spot from Stratos, a candy company in Norway.



Pepsi has this spot featuring Ivory Coast's Didier Drogba, Brazil's Kaka, and Argentina's Lionel Messi:



World Cup Blog had labeled this Pepsi spot as positively the worst World Cup-related commercial to come out of the 2006 tournament in Germany. It features England's David Beckham and Brazil's Ronaldinho back when they were relevant to the game rather than just as celebrities.



And finally a spot on thinking positively from First National Bank of South Africa:



Happy Friday!

The World Cup's coming to a galaxy near you...

Adidas has this great spot leading to the start of the World Cup later this week: