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i’ll just stick the non-football link first. they have their weekly top 25 viral e-mails.

next is one of their writers who is walking from london to frankfurt for england’s first world cup match. he’s on day 22.

the last doesn’t appear to have a link so i’ll have to reproduce it. it’s supposedly from “internet pranksters” anyway.

internet pranksters have dreamed up a set of rules for blokes to give to their partners during the world cup. sorry girls, but we couldn’t help ourselves - so nip down to the offy for supplies, pass us a beer, then cut this out and stick it on your fridge…

world cup charter

1. read the sports section of the sun every day during the world cup so you can join in the only conversations i’ll be holding. fairlure to comply will lead to you being totally ignored.
2. during the world cup, the television is mine at all times. even glancing at the remote control will be considered an act of trespass.
3. if you have to pass in front of the tv during a game, please crawl on the floor without distracting me.
4. during games i will be blind, deaf and mute to all conversation unless i require more booze or nibbles.
5. keep at least 2 six-packs of lager and nibbles in the fridge at all times. in return, you will be allowed to use the tv between 12am and 6am (except during replays).
6. if you see me upset because my team is losing, do not say “it’s only a game” because i will love you less. you will never know more about football than me and your so-called words of encouragement could spark a divorce.
7. you are welcome to sit with me to watch one game and talk to me during the half-time ad-breaks providing i am happy with the score.
8. the replays of the goals are very important. i don’t care if i have seen them or i haven’t seen them, i want to see them. again and again.
9. tell your friends not to bring any babies to the house or hold child-related events because i will not go.
10. if a friend of mine invites us to his house on a sunday to watch a key match, we will accept immediately.
11. the world cup highlights on tv every night is equally as important as the live games themselves. do not say: “but you have already seen this…why don’t you change the channel to something we can all watch?”
12. avoid comments such as “thank god the world cup is only every four years”. i am immune to these words, because after this comes the premiership and champions league.

alecko eskandarian was fined $250 for his goal celebration last week. i’m sure he’s crying about that. there’s no doubt that he makes more money than i do and i would consider it well worth $250, at least. joel posted something about this when it happened. i disagree. for one thing, red bull tastes like crap so i can see why he would spit it out. obviously, that’s not the point. as long as nobody is being a complete moron (racist remarks, etc) i’m all for a little taunting (”i fart in your general direction”, “your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elder berries”). take of your shirt, point to your club badge while standing in front of the rival fans. it’s not personal. it’s just a game. you just have to be mature when your being a complete juvenile.

moving on. someone posted the combined salaries for m.l.s. teams as well as the top player salaries. you have to respect what the new england revolution have done and be shocked at what chivas hasn’t. i guess money reall isn’t everything. to me, the bigger problem is the bottom of the player salaries. it’s hard to imagine many prospects wanting to stay when they’re barely making over minimum wage. maybe they aren’t that good.

lastly, we have the attendance numbers for the first couple of weeks of m.l.s. for the new season. if you could get 10,000 to 15,000 on average i would think you’re doing pretty good. the new jersey red bulls v new england revolution for a 35,000 opener is pretty impressive. even more impressive is new jersey’s drop off to 1/7 the attendance against a supposed rival d.c. united. i guess they didn’t give out as many free tickets or something. for slight comparison, granted it was a monday night, the fulham v wigan match i went to the other day only had 17,149 which is not a sell out. sure manchester united is selling out 70,000, but i would think the bigger issue is money coming in from television rights. i guess m.l.s. first needs to get from having money going out for television.

alright, so it’s not m.l.s., but it is football. i saw this while looking for the fulham figure. the bbc has info on their world cup coverage. they claim it will be available in high definition, but have no further information on how to receive it. hello? (alright, so there is a link in the side bar and you can only get it through satellite or cable) this is really the best part to me:

Viewers will have the audio choice of BBC match commentary, Five Live’s commentary, the real-time noise from the stadium - or the fascinating option of listening to commentary from foreign broadcasters.

nice. if only espn could get a clue and just go without commentators and just the stadium noise. then just get someone decent for pre game, half-time and post game. preferrably, people who actually like football.

so, if you slap the hand, you have to give a pat on the back. bush is at least making some attempt (alterior motives? still trust issues) to turn things around. removing $2 billion in tax breaks for oil companies reporting record profits would seem like a no brainer. although, he can’t actually do it, congress has to. maybe it’s a start. there’s some more today with congress getting oil companies tax records. how is this going to get prices to drop? it’s not. it may end up making the oil companies look bad, but it’s not going to do anything else. the only way prices will go down is if supply increases (not going to happen) or demand decrease. poor city planning and urban sprawl are part of the problem. even with gas at $3/gallon that’s still not really significant enough for people to change their ways.

on a musical note (man that’s bad), it’s good to see some musicians actually standing up for themselves. even if they are only canadian.

interesting english world cup blog. indeed, where is that u.s. world cup song?

one computer bit. after installing the new ubuntu i started seeing weird problems with random scrolling in firefox. it turns out that it’s because they enabled the scroll strip on the touch pad. how annoying. who ever though it was a good idea to integrated it right in the same surface? i’m constantly accidentally setting it off. i guess i’ll have to figure out how to turn it off now.

what the hell? so the pub around the corner actually has the barcelona match on. so, i’m sitting at the bar minding my own business. enjoying the match. this guy comes in about 20 minutes into the game and stands next to me. gets a drink. mumbles something which turns out to be, “can you hand me the ashtray”. then he persists to talk throughout almost the whole game. turns out he’s a baseball fan. do i care about boring ass baseball? no. i try to be nice, but he just keeps going on and on. i think he may have already been drunk when he got there. he continues to talk throughout the second half. it’s even more annoying because i can’t really hear him very well so i’m constantly saying “what?”. then he offers to buy me a pint. i try to decline, but it doesn’t work. i go take a piss. he ends up coming in after me. starts talking at the urinal. what the hell? then i notice that he’s not even at a urinal, but pissing between 2. i continuously try to tell him that i think baseball is boring, but it doesn’t really have any effect because he’s got to be drunk. after getting most of the way through the pint i finally just left.

at least barcelona went through. oh and he was a spurs fan. i hope arsenal wins and knocks them out of the champions league.

someone sent this blog post to the london linux users group mailing list. it’s a bit frighteningly uninformed to say the least. i find the comment about his i.b.m. laptop a little strange since it was mostly likely built in china. unless, of course, it’s ancient. the site seems so generally crazy that you wonder if it’s really a democrat trying to make republicans look like a bunch of nationalist wackos.

they had another story about atheists that’s pretty funny too. the video with kirk cameron is ridiculously uninformed. a banana? really? are they just going to ignore every other fruit? i usually associate bananas with monkeys so i guess he’s really saying he believes in evolution.

on a lighter note, here’s a shakespearean insult generator.