The next time you hear some pretentious American tries to call soccer “futbol”, feel free to remind him that the majority of the English speaking world calls it soccer. A quick breakdown:

“Soccer” World:

• USA
• Canada
• Ireland
• Australia
• New Zealand
• South Africa

“Football” world:

• U.K.
• Belize
• Liberia
• Nigeria
• Various Caribbean countries

As someone who last week wrote a $365 check to the Town of Luther for a speeding ticket (valid, I was going 65 in a 55) and a ticket for “failing to yield to an emergency vehicle” (completely ridiculous, I didn’t pull over fast enough for Barney Fife) I take a tremendous amount of enjoyment in seeing a police force whose only seeming service is to poach money from highway travelers for a tiny town take such a black eye:

Jerry Pendley had worked for the Luther Police Department for about three weeks before his arrest by Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers on Monday. The U.S. Attorney’s office says Pendley lied on the documents by not noting he had been arrested and charged twice on suspicion of assault and battery.

moral of the story:

1. stay off Route 66 – take the Turnpike when you’re going between OKC & Tulsa
2. if you do happen to get a ticket in Luther, don’t go to court with a reasonable request to reduce payment on the meaningless ticket – they won’t do it and the judge will charge you $44 to appear in court
3. support politicians who strip little towns of the right to issue tickets on highways if their ticket revenue exceeds reasonable limits

Here on the fourth day of 2010, I found one sentence that might do the best job I’ve seen yet at putting the last 10 years into a nutshell (from this NY Times article):

“A dollar is no longer a dollar in this country,” said Mallory Duncan, senior vice president of the National Retail Federation, a trade association. “It’s a Visa dollar. It’s only worth 99 cents because they take a piece of every one.”

OK, so maybe it doesn’t sum everything up… just imagine that terrorists are buying steroids with their Visa cards and then you’re there.

This is kind of brilliant, from a marketing perspective - pitch a retread of an 80′s era sci-fi series as a scathing critique of the Obama administration:

Nominally a rousing sci-fi space opera about alien invaders bent on the conquest (and digestion) of all humanity, it’s also a barbed commentary on Obamamania that will infuriate the president’s supporters and delight his detractors.

otherwise, what is the appeal of a silly prime-time alien-invasion soap opera?

It will be very interseting to see how you can pull this off:

Budgeted at around $150m (£91.5m), the film will chart Muhammad’s life and examine his teachings…

… In accordance with Islamic law, the prophet will not actually be depicted on screen.

Many people are already aware of the TED conference. If you are not, you should be. It’s the most interesting and engaging thing available online, and best of all – it’s free.

TED is simply a conference where interesting and acclaimed people are invited to come and speak (usually for around 18 minutes) about a topic of their expertise. It’s pretty tough to actually go to the conference, the tickets are in high demand, but all of the presentations are available for free online.

Some of my favorite TED talks:

• Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce & some larger implications on human choice
• Bill Clinton on Rwanda (this really hits home to me because of his honest & uncomfortable assessment of the failure during his administration to work effectively in this country to stop the genocide…

And I’ve embedded my favorite talk below, Ze Frank – he’s probably one of the most creative individuals in the world:

I’ll leave the debates to other people, my dog Fido and I will be enjoying the NFL while he’s wearing his customized Michael Vick jersey:

You stay classy, NFL Shop.com.

• The wonderful Straight Dope column addresses the question “Are pit bulls really that dangerous?”
• I love stuff like this: It turns out that autistic children & adults are very good at working with 3-D models: Google Sketch-Up gallery.
• Kind of sickening to read about the mass of garbage in the Pacific Ocean that is twice the size of Texas. (HT: Jason)
• I use a self-hosted Word Press install for this site (and anybody else’s site I help with). These people have a very interesting product to offer – conversion of a .psd (Photoshop) file to a Word Press template. The reality of this is you could have a professional designer design your site in Photoshop for an hourly rate and then have these people turn it into a Word Press site for less than $1,000 all-in. This option would be any turn-key design from a firm in both price & features on the back end.

I’ve seen a trend on websites like Lifehacker and Flickr where people show off the contents of their bag. Their bag is unloaded and the items are methodically laid out for others to review. (personally, I think 90% of this is designed to show off their Mac toys…)

I’ve decided to play along and show off what is currently in my bag, see below:

A quick review of the inventory (from right to left):

• A banjo – I can really only play one song, which my mom doesn’t like because it sounds depressing. I have always felt this was quite a feat – to play a depressing song on a banjo.
• The Complete Book of Breastfeeding – I currently don’t breastfeed, but if I ever start I’m fairly sure that if I suddenly start it will come as such a shock that I’ll require the use of a manual.
• Canned Pumpkin Pie Filling – This is good to get gum out of hair.
• Roomba – for quick carpet cleaning, as required.
• My super-cool iBook. I know you’re jealous. It’s a vintage 1998 model.
• A stud finder – for the joke that never gets old (where I hold the stud finder up to my chest and say “beeeeeep”).
• Prestone De-Icer – obviously for hair styling.
• My universally despised, yet oh so comfortable fur-lined crocs. I’m a slave to fashion.
• Ulysses by James Joyce – for light reading on the toilet.

I’m just glad this wasn’t around when I was in school. It just would have been one more thing that I felt like I was missing out on.

By the way, don’t you love it when technology parents don’t understand meets irrational media-fed fears? As if the kind of kids who are sending naked pictures of themselves would be in bible studies if it weren’t for cell phones. These were the same kids sending naughty messages via telegraph.

I really think that I could start a rumor that satanic drug gangs are using Facebook to get kids hooked on meth as part of an initiation ceremony via subliminal messages left in rock music. I just need to find a way to also involve Obama’s secret birthplace & muslim heritage, gluten-free diets and the do-not call registry. I am open for any ideas you may have.