A geography lesson for you

Hooray America!

Soccer sucks! (or does it?)

An interesting thing happened yesterday, the US defeated Spain 2-0 in the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup (which is a warm-up for the World Cup). That snapped 15-game winning streak by the Spanish, who were the no. 1 team in the world.

Now, I could sit here and make some sort of poem about how great soccer is but that really wouldn't be truthful and I don't really feel like going through hate mail at the moment from people who actually have a point.

Soccer is boring and low-scoring. Unless you have something emotionally invested in it, you should probably just bring a pillow to the match. But we should have something invested in this win, because this was the biggest win in US Soccer history. Hands down. This is Idaho beating USC in college football. Douglas knocking out Tyson.

Now the reason I've actually enjoyed soccer so far this year has been the Seattle Sounders FC. Having a somewhat hometeam town to root changes the rules a little bit. When you're resting on every errant pass in front of your goal, the blood pressure tends to rise a bit. And that's the beauty of it, once you emotionally invest in soccer, it's actually pretty exciting.

However, all we as Americans have had to root for in terms of soccer was:

(1) Our youth soccer team where the parents cared more about the game than the kids. Where is my orange slices?

(2) Our high school soccer teams that was full of a bunch of skinny nonathletic guys that couldn't play any other sport. Factor in that they thought they were awesome because they played soccer (and were short) and the fact that they were usually a bunch of those creepy guys that hit on all the girls - and nobody in the entire high school really cared to see their team win.

(3) The MLS - which, I'll be honest - is basically the WNBA of professional men's sports in the United States.

(4) A crappy international team - usually we're so bad that when we play Brazil, their players make fun of us while the game is going on. Nothing you can exactly get behind.

That's not exactly the kind of teams that tug at your heartstrings and earn your attention.

But at least last night soccer gave us something compelling and pretty entertaining. If you get a chance to watch the replay you'll see that Spain was the waaay better team and held the ball for most of the game.

However, the United States got a lot of lucky breaks and their defense was pretty ferocious. Lots of blocked shots and slide tackles. Also, their goalie was spot on for the game and he needed to, he was getting peppered the entire second half.

If soccer could keep giving us moments like these (which it cant), people might like it.

Things America should do instead of playing World of Warcraft

1. Learn to play soccer so we can actually beat somebody when the World Cup comes around. I'm tired of quaking in my boots when we face Trinidad.

2. Discover some way how we can connect all those exercise machines to power plants and generate electricity. Think about it, America would get thinner and become less dependent on oil.

3. Watch hockey again.

4. Read a little and grasp a basic understanding of the english language so we can stop having "Hotzeechicka23045" log online and say things like "Thatz my girel!" and "Ima hot stuf!"

5. Spend more time perfecting that MySpace shot that shows juuust enough cleavage.

6. Spokie mentoring. Every spokie needs a mentor. Where else are they going to get their drugs?

7. Finally realize that Magic Johnson is the worst tv personality ever.

8. Cribbage anyone?

9. Tell somebody is the US government that all those workers they pay for road construction are taking a little TOO long of coffee breaks. In fact, they actually made you hold the stop sign for a few minutes while they got some joe.

10. Make fun of Tony Romo's ghetto booty.

Apparently Ichiro Suzuki will play baseball until he's 80

With Casey and I getting up in years, I mean lets face facts - we can't wait to order off of the 55 and older menu at Denny's, we've been thinking about life expectancy...

And apparently Japan has the highest life expectancy.

A girl born in Japan today will likely live to celebrate her 86th birthday, the longest life expectancy anywhere in the world. Men fare best in the tiny European nation of San Marino, where the average boy will live to 81, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

The West African country of Sierra Leone has the shortest life expectancy for men — just 39 — while Afghanistan fares badly for both sexes, with men and women living on average to 41 and 42 years respectively.

How did the United States fare? Despite us all being fat and owning guns, we actually rated pretty well.

In the United States, the life expectancy for men rose to 76 from 72 years, and for women to 81 from 79 years.

In Russia, the average life expectancy for men dropped to 60 from 64 years since the time of the Soviet Union. For women the drop was less marked, to 73 from 74 years.

... Although I better lay off the vodka.

Headlines from around the world

This current crisis is not "The Great Depression" - you can always trust are media with delivering the most cheeriest of stories. Yay! We aren't in the worst economic downturn of the last 100 years. Hooray!

Pirates too slow for cruise ship - Somebody needs to do something about the pirates off Somalia, although don't worry too much because they have slow boats...

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - The luxury American cruise ship teeming with hundreds of tourists just might have been too much for the Somali pirates to resist.

But the bandits, riding in two skiffs and firing rifle shots at the gleaming ship, were outrun in minutes when the captain of M/S Nautica gunned the engine and sped away in the Gulf of Aden, a spokesman for the company said Tuesday.

How the heck do you get outrun by a cruise ship? "Cruise" ship. As in, not going really fast ship.

This sounds like something that would happen to me - Wounded deer attacks hunter.

Good thing it was still warm - I mean if you're going to throw something at your girlfriend it might as well be a sweet potato pie.

Company is selling trips to edge of space - No word yet if the ships will be piloted by monkeys.