This is a game we have played many times already, and I am glad to share it with you, my Facebook friends list.

1. I share an innocuous/inflammatory opinion or fact
2. Some people click "like."
3. Someone comments with something like "so true!"
4. At least one of you disagrees, respectfully
5. Someone picks up the disagreement and makes it less respectful and more trollish
6. Everyone freaks out on that person, or on me if my friends list contains a large enough cross-section of people dumber/smarter/more diverse than I am
7. Mass unfriending, hurt feelings, and general piss-offery occurs.
   

(Drinking game version: take a drink every time someone likes your comment, disagrees with something you personally just said. If anyone mentions you by name - clickable - then finish your drink. Alternate drinking game version: Same rules, but be the first to comment on a post by George Takei. Please call the ambulance in advance.)

Let's Play again tomorrow!

Or, alternatively, quit.

If Soccer is such a "world sport," then why are American Soccer fans watching American Football? Basketball? We consider Baseball to be a national pastime; that's the one where the guys take turns hitting a ball and run around the bases, with the gloves and the bats and the sunflower seeds. It's very unlike your what-do-you-call-it Football. Why don't we love soccer more?
It boils down to six reasons, the reasons that soccer will never catch on in the USA:

1) Low scores. 1-0 is a respectable score in soccer. Really? In Basketball, a 100-98 score is a good game. A 1-0 baseball game is boring. In American football, each touchdown is worth SIX points. SIX! A herculean performance by a pitcher for 0 points in baseball is akin to having a goalie with upwards of 50 saves, but that is an individual performance, and the pitcher's team, of course, can score as much as they want. Maybe as Americans we like individual sports stars that make lots of plays. Wilt Chamberlain. Michael Jordan, Jerry Rice, Tiger Woods. Quantity, WITH quality. But mostly quantity. American Sports are like fast food. Quick. Easy. And yes, we have a problem with portion size.

2) Football has already been taken. No copying of names. We are exceptional, and taking the name for our sport is no bueno. Sure, maybe you named it football first, but that's not the point. You hear that South "America"?

3) Whiny babies get paid. Big time. This might be the exception to the American Fast Food Sports rule above. We allow a Peyton Manning to be a big whiny baby, but he's a Quarterback, and he's surrounded by giants that will protect him. No one will argue that Ronaldo is an incredible athlete.

4) No instant replay, no control of refs. Boys like rules. and the more rules, the better. In fact, once you have established those rules, you have to refine those rules and come up with a complicated set of enforcement techniques to make everyone adhere to the rules.

5) No biting. Seriously. Biting? This rule was initially not a part of this list. But suddenly we have to include it. I can tell you that if Kobe Bryant bit another forward every other game, the benches would clear and he would end up with no teeth. There is no question that he would be booed out of every stadium he played in - including his home team. Biting? I am left with the opinion that biting in sports must be a soccer thing.

6) You can't be fat and do this well. This is very-un-American. Maybe anti-american, in fact. From Football to Baseball to yes, even Bowling, we have heroes with heft. And if success can't come through being overweight in that sport, well that's just not attainable for most of us - hence, un-American.

For these six reasons, the sport they call football but we call soccer will never really "make it" in the USA. That is, unless they change the name, the format, forand allow you to score in some way just by kicking the ball without all that tiring running around.

If this is Satan's Spiritual Structure, you have to admit pretty serious progress by the big guy in red over the last couple decades. 

3 ways “Beiber Fever” Is Like Type 2 Diabetes

Pop star Justin Bieber has sold his music all over the world, and is one of the hottest stars anywhere. So how is BieberFever like Type 2 Diabetes?

1. Justin Bieber and Type 2 Diabetes are both very common. Justin Beiber has 27 million followers on Twitter. According to the American Diabetes Association, Type 2 Diabetes occurs in over 25 million Americans. Coincidence? I think not!
2. Like Bieber Fever, Type 2 Diabetes is avoidable. While 13-year old girls flock to Justin Bieber concerts and Type 2 Diabetes has a similarly meteoric rise in incidence rate in America, it doesn’t have to be this way. You can avoid buying the $150+ tickets, and avoid certain foods and exercise more. Like running away from Justin Bieber. That would be good. 
3. Type 2 Diabetes is treatable by injection; Justin Bieber may be similarly treatable. Insulin injections prevent hypoglycemic shock. Some literature is beginning to show that Type 2 Diabetes may be curable, but most people with Type 2 still treat with daily insulin injections as necessary. Similarly, injections of Maroon 5 or even Coldplay may reduce your risk of Bieber Fever.

Be sure to eat right, exercise, and try to avoid sugary, tasteless Pop Stars in favor of more flavorful and healthy musicians and food choices.

Can we stop with all the "bullying" stuff? And I don't mean stop bullying. I mean stop insisting everyone stop bullying? I don't know where you grew up, dear reader, but where I'm from there were assholes. These people either grew up and earned their lesson, or remained assholes. I wasn't protected from them. It sucked. I was a scrawny, quiet kid. But I learned an important lesson from them: there are people in the world who are dicks.

If we remove this important lesson, are we preparing our children any better for the future? If we shelter our kids from the "rain" of life, will they grow up thinking they don't need an umbrella?

Christians have a saying: "When life is difficult, don't pray for a lighter load. Pray for a stronger back." It's well conceived. The answer may not be to insist that life for your children conform to your reality. Instead, let's prepare each other to get through life's difficulties. When we prepare our children by helping them have high self-esteem, we're doing a wonderful thing. But when that high self-esteem has a basis in sailing through life without difficulty, we're doing nothing more than preparing our children to be given a giant wedgie by life later rather than sooner. 

I studied theater history in college, and I remember that practically every great early actor came from unbelievable adversity. In fact, it seemed to be a prerequisite for awhile that to be a great actor you had to have your ass kicked early in life, and then those experiences(presumably) led you to greatness. I remember thinking - "wow, maybe my life hasn't been hard enough for me to be a great actor..."

And of course that's silly. Great actors - and great people - can come from any socioeconomic level, from orphans to opulence. Isn't it interesting, though, how child stars tend to fall- and fall hard - later in life? Could it be that they had it "too easy?" Perhaps they needed a swirly.

A variety, a richness, a diversity of experience that includes the unexpected, the shocking, the awful, and the sad, is what constitutes life. When we insist that everyone be nice in youth, we're removing life's difficulty from their experience and falsely presenting life as an easy walk through a flower-strewn forest path. When we teach our kids happy-happy-joy-joy, we're not preparing them for the random "I-jacked-up-my-truck-y'all" douchebag who will flip them off in an intersection for no apparent reason. We're not preparing them for the random jackass in a bar, or the meth-addled toothless trainwreck who asks them for money "for food, totally." We're not preparing them for the power company accidentally shutting off their power due to a mix-up, for getting laid off, or for a dog that runs at them suddenly

We're not preparing our children for a job market where they might be one of 50 applicants for any given position, let alone the punk who yells "faggot!", or worse, driving by - just because. Because some people are just dicks.

Life isn't a combat situation, but adversity is a large part of it. I'm not suggesting we abuse our children, or let them be abused to prepare for later adversity. Of course we would never sit idly by and let our children be attacked. But can't a tiny bit of difficulty be a good inoculation for the adversity they'll experience later?

I wasn't always a coffee addict. I came into it gradually, dropping Coke and Pepsi and mocking their use as I slowly pushed my coffee consumption window into well after midday. Coke and Pepsi are for those who lack erudition. I am refined. I drink beans that have been ground up with hot water over them. Much more swank, no?

My coffee habit took work! Coffee is an acquired taste. Like heroin. Okay, bad example. The knock on heroin is it's crappy delivery system. Injection?! Pshhht. With coffee, you are pour and a gulp away from bliss. If heroin had such easy access, we might be buying stock in "HeroinBucks" or "StarCrack".

While my analogy sucks and is completely offensive, the comparison isn't completely foreign. Coffee's addictive properties make the dull warmth, the tooth-coating, bad-breath inducing aspects seem like a badge of honor.

Come here, I'll talk directly into your face. It's MAAAAHVELOUS. I'll bet you want another cup right now dontcha huh dontcha. 

Personification is IN. 

At least for commercials. The AFLAC duck, Geico Gecko, Joe Camel, the Cheetohs Cheetah, Honey Nut Cheerios Bee, Golden Crisps Bear, Honey Smacks Frog, the Taco Bell Chihuahua, Trix Rabbit, Serta Sheep, Kraft Macaroni's Cheeseasaurus Rex, The Nesquick Bunny, Snuggle Bear, Charlie the Tuna. And who could forget the Tootsie Roll Pops Owl. There are probably a bazillion others, and I'm not exaggerating.

Those are just the ANIMALS. Nevermind the creepiness of Fruit-of-the-Loom Fruit in your underwear or the at-risk-for-assault M&M characters(date rape is so cute when it's chocolate).

Still. STILL. Nothing seems so eyebrow-raising as the latest Geico pig commercial. Apparently the little British Gecko wasn't cutting it, so now we're to pigs. In this commercial, we have a pig playing with his iPhone(cute) while a woman suggests they fool around.

It has come to this, Dumbericans. This. Where this happens and we chuckle. And then realize what we chuckled at and we take a shower.

I don't really care that GoDaddy's superbowl commercial has an obligatory Danica Patrick appearance and "flips the script" by having a hot blonde frenching a well, with all due respect let's say the guy is unattractive. It's a nasty lil commercial bit of shock jockeying, it's memorable in a "why-would-I-do-business-with-a-company-that's-doing this-without-Danica-Patrick" kinda way. I get it. We're supposed to remember it, think "ewwwwww!" but GoDaddy is in our minds. Howard Stern, thanks for this.

That isn't the intention of the Geico commercial. The main story is the pig's obliviousness, the cute Fruit Ninjas reference at the end; but it's punctuated with a supposed-to-be-clever bit about a woman who apparently wants to have sex with a pig.

• Were the writers trying to make the woman look desperate? Is a woman hoping to get some from a literal pig somehow entertaining?
  
• Did the marketing team thing pig sex would be a funny thing to play with conceptually?
  
• Was a woman trying to get it on with a pig THAT MUCH FUNNIER than a man? Because you know THAT was a conscious decision.
  

Anyway, I remember it, fo sho, and I'll remember that the marketing team at GEICO is a bit disturbed. That's what I'm looking for in my next auto insurance policy - a team of freaks behind it. 

Way to hit your target market.

Overall, America has an overalls problem.

Every day, overalls are talked about in the media. The media would have us believe that people are wearing overalls too much and that overalls are wreaking destruction on our country. We are bombarded with images of people in overalls. The horrible damage overalls cause to our country is obvious to anyone paying attention. It’s time we told the truth about overalls and proposed overalls control legislation in our country.

Overalls ownership has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. Studies show that Americans continue to kill fashion with overalls more frequently than the next 10 civilized countries combined. We would expect overalls in Mexico, or in Guatemala – or even in Switzerland, where overalls are plentiful but very tightly regulated. Sure, Switzerland has similar clothing restrictions, but they also have mandatory fashion training and limit the number and type of overalls per household. Despite the mandatory training, they also have two-thirds of the number of overalls we have in the USA. 

The Swiss also have the sense to never wear overalls in public. That’s really an important point.

For the really civilized countries, overalls are banned from the general population. As a result, overalls are rarely, if ever, seen. The damage caused by overalls decreases. Can you imagine wearing overalls in the British House of Parliament? On the runway in Paris? It’s preposterous to even think of a single reason overalls would exist in these countries, so they have proceeded with strict overalls regulations despite the supposed lack of freedoms it entails.

(Critics of the international overalls violence statistics counter with the claim that in countries like the UK, “overall” violence has increased despite the prohibition of overalls. It’s an absurd claim, and please note the deceptive use of the word “overall” instead of “overalls.” This kind of misleading with statistics is a common tactic, but it does little to further the debate.)

In the United States, overalls are a “throwback,” aren’t they? In the early days of our country, overalls were important, even necessary. We did a lot more pig farming back then. And we had less fashion shows.

This is America, consarnit. Of course we have the right to wear overalls. You have the right to smell like horse manure anywhere you want to. But it offends my nose, and they are horrible to look upon. if your overalls-wearing happens outside of sport-mucking the pig pen, do you still have the right to wear overalls? Do we still want people out there destroying decorum in malls, theaters, and even in schools?

Overalls “truthers” go too far. They suggest overalls are not a problem at all, or that people criminally wearing overalls are “staged” by anti-overall activists. This is a despicable and horrifying strategy, a clear denial of reality – and an additional reason overalls regulations must be imposed and strictly enforced. After all, if we live in a country where a segment of the population is capable of denying the truth at this level, do we deserve to have our right to wear overalls?

Some say it’s the type of overalls, and that we should limit the types of overalls available on the market. The question isn’t really about the type of overalls, is it? Do we care if you are wearing overalls with six pockets or thirty? If you are wearing overalls in public, the damage is already done. When it comes to overalls, ONE PAIR IS TOO MANY.

In today’s America, there is really no good reason for overalls. Sure, we protect our right to wear overalls, and some flawed logicians go so far to say that overalls can protect us from the mud and muck better than other types of clothing. The more paranoid among us say that fascist dictators throughout history have banned overalls, and therefore subdued their populace. Please. If Obama’s America/ some future fascist dictator wants to take your overalls “over your dead body,” then get ready to have a dead body. They will get your overalls, using overwhelming force if necessary, and your puny pair of overalls will not stop them. You’ll be dead  - and wearing overalls. Is that really how you want to go out?

If the job is really mucky and dirty, no amount of overalls is going to protect you from getting filthy. I guess what I’m saying is for those conspiracy theorists that believe that some fantasy police state of nature in the future might exist and come after your overalls, restricting your right to protect yourself from mud and dirt, give it a rest. Your puny overalls are never enough for nature’s greatest drone attack: an entire pen of pig crap.

This is America, and we vigorously protect our personal rights. The problem is that overalls are very difficult to pull off. Most of the stories we hear of in the news, for instance, are about people who lacked any kind of fashion sense, indiscriminately purchased overalls and then wore them everywhere, without regard to decorum, absolutely killing fashion.

As the saying goes: your freedoms end where my sense of fashion begins.

Do overalls matter so much to us? Do we cling to our banjos and our poor dental hygiene, our obesity and our right to marry our cousins so much that we must defend our right to something so inane as overalls? Is there a place for overalls in a civilized society? Do they serve any real purpose outside of an imagined threat of future overall terrorism?

Pro-Overalls activists would have you believe that the solution is more overalls. Yes, it IS counterintuitive, isn’t it? It’s as if their love for overalls is so blind that they insist that they must kill ALL sense of propriety. What’s most odd about this is that they can’t seem to see the perversion of the argument. “Overalls are just an article of clothing,” they say. “Just because someone wears them inappropriately doesn’t make overalls bad.”

People. Is there really a “good” way to wear overalls?

Obviously I'm on one side of the overalls-control issue. But I welcome the opposing viewpoint. Will you be the one to articulate it?

Let’s continue the debate on overalls, by all means. But let’s avoid knee-jerk reactions that equate the wearing of overalls to some hallowed and unassailable human right. Remember, our forefathers wore dickeys and wigs. They had wooden teeth. Do we really want to take fashion advice from men who wore breeches, periwigs, and stockings? Fashion was far different in their time. It’s difficult to even say this, but it’s probably true: every one of our founding fathers would have been laughed off of project runway.

And that, well, that is about as un-American as it gets.

Author’s note. This is not meant to belittle violence or minimize the subject in any way. This is a serious issue. If you are on the other side of the issue, I welcome your reasoned opinion, and in many cases I agree, despite some of my satirical points in this post. The intention is that both sides should be able to find space in this analogy, and perhaps it will also allow us to get past veiled threats and intimidation. After all, no one likes a discussion with a pair of overalls held to their head, or even with the threat of overalls violence.