• Steve Austin, one of the steroid monster pro wrestlers, is in trouble for reportedly beating his wife.  I'd think it would be bigger news if a pro wrestler didn't beat his wife, but then I don't really follow the "sport" all that closely.

• Future looks bright for Padres fans, which I guess describes me.  I work there, and my dislike for the job sort of taints my view of the team, plus they've been down the last few years, and are on their way down again this year.  But they've got a ton of talent in the minors, as well as some good young players on the team now, mostly pitchers, and in a couple of seasons in the new ballpark, with more money to spend, and lots of quality young players, they should be championship contenders.

• This is my "Jesus Fucking Christ" article of the day.  This quote pretty well sums it up:

I saw that link on This Modern World, which has a pretty good cartoon this week as well.  I laughed anyway.

• That nutty couple from SF with their vicious attack dogs that mauled and murdered a woman got their 2nd degree murder convictions overturned on appeal.

The convictions for manslaughter held up, so they'll get some prison time at least, not that it should really bother them, since they were keeping the dogs for some people who were in prison already, white supremacist guys.  So a couple of years in prison, full protection from the nazis while there.  Big punishment for allowing their vicious, dangerous, violent mutts to menace everyone in their apartment building, and finally, inevitably murder some poor woman.  I don't have a lot of sympathy for people with noisy and/or violent dogs, as you might observe.  Nevertheless, I think the judge was right, though in this case the spirit of the law might have been better to observe than the letter.

• A fun game for about 5 minutes.  You need flash.  Wait for the oil tanker.  Poodles are fun too.

• Yet another reason it's best I have no children. Nothing annoys me more than being asked the same thing repeatedly.   Ringing phone, a person who can't hear me talking, kitchen timer, etc.  All drive me nuts.  Of course if/when I have children, the little bastards will by god be trained when to STFU.  And stuff.

Yet another day of to many news items.  I'll try to go for the quality over quantity from now on.  And yes, I say that every two weeks.  Hopefully I can trade an hour of surfing news for an hour of other site content generation.

Oh yeah, the one thing that's popular that doesn't interest me, I'm supposed to do that.  Well it's easy today, this picture is the most popular on Yahoo all day, and it makes me wince.  Probably since I can too easily imagine that as my forehead.  Do not click this if you have a snake phobia, or you probably won't sleep for a week.

occer!?

Or is it football?

It's "soccer" in the US, "football" everywhere else.  And since they value the sport much more "everywhere else" than we do here in the US, I suppose I should use "footie" for it.  But I'm going with soccer, just be an ignorant American, convinced that our way is best, even when it's not (I.E. the Metric system).

So I was looking on Snopes at that somewhat ridiculous Starbucks flyer with the effeminate orange and red coffee that people have been protesting.  I went from there to this item about the $20 oragami. A guy at work showed me this the other day, with the $20 folded just as shown in the images on Snopes.  It's obviously just a stretch of the imagination and chance, but is momentarily creepy.

While on Snopes.com, I have to read this sports item every time.  It's just the most bizarre story I can imagine.  I would pay to see film of this game.  And this is how I get to "soccer".  Or perhaps "footie".  Anyway, here's a quote.

Barbados was leading 2-0 well into the second half of play, when Grenada finally managed to score a goal in the 83rd minute to make the score 2-1. Barbados realized with three minutes to play that they were unlikely to score again in the time remaining and deliberately kicked the ball into their own goal to tie the match at 2-2 and force an overtime period. Grenada then attempted to score on their own goal to prevent the match from going into overtime, but Barbados had already started defending Grenada's goal to prevent them from succeeding. The two teams then spent the remaining few minutes with Barbados defending both ends of the field as Grenada tried to put the ball into either goal, but time expired with the score still tied. Four minutes into overtime play, Barbados scored and advanced to the finals.

Speaking of soccer.  Well, football now, I guess, as we've changed countries.  I'm probably an evil American, but I find this damn funny.  Various Mexicans in a fury over being whipped in the World Cup, and by the US, of all countries!

"It hurts us here," said Jose Luis Luviano, 21, punching his chest. Tears melted the Mexican flags painted on his cheeks. "There has to be an end to this disgrace where (Americans) treat us like rats and idiots."

All stood and sang as the Mexican anthem was played. Many screamed obscenities at the "Star Spangled Banner" — signs of resentment at a wealthier, more powerful northern neighbor that Mexicans often feel treats them with disrespect.

For decades, Mexicans took pride in dominating the United States in soccer, at least. But U.S. teams have steadily improved and now have beaten Mexico in five of their last six meetings. Mexicans continue to scoff at the state of soccer knowledge among U.S. sports fans, whose nonchalance toward the game makes defeats even more bitter.

The best part, the undercover Americans in the bar.

Relatively calm amid the uproar was a group in Mexican jerseys that claimed to be from Canada. Asked why a Canadian would have a southern U.S. accent, Michelle Tate, 27, admitted she was from Memphis, Tennessee.

"We went out and bought Mexican jerseys and Mexican T-shirts as camouflage," said Chris Calott, 41, an architecture professor from the University of New Mexico.

"I wouldn't be watching if I weren't here," Tate admitted. "I didn't even know that the World Cup was every three years."

Of course the punchline there is that it's held every 4 years.

Same story elsewhere, rioting near the El Paso border check point after the game.  It was a bad time to have a car with US license plates.

I'm just watching the US vs. Mexico game replaying on ESPN2 now, and they don't score much in this sport, but it's generally very exciting when they do.  Not a lot of concession goals.  Other sports have easy scores at times, or meaningless ones.  Lots of easy baskets in the average NBA game, football has short field goals and 1 yard touchdown runs, etc.  One other benefit is in soccer you get to shout, "Goooooooooooooal!" every now and then, and that's much better rolling off the tongue than, "Touchdoooooooown!"  Though I do enjoy a lively "fumm-baooooh!" in football when a QB coughs it up on a crunching sack.