June 13 2010
Dear Soccer… (+retraction*)
Dear Soccer,
This was supposed to be our year. The year where I finally could see the endless excitement in you. The year you would tap into my inner hooligan and chug beer with me until I pick a fight with some random scottish dude and pummel fight until people separate us and I spit stray teeth at him out of spite. This was to be the year I could look at David Beckham and see something other than some android douche with a creepy hologram wife. And I wanted the wild eyed hopes of the US winning the World Cup and adding one more notch to our bedpost of American world f*ckery!!
You were supposed to be extra juicy right out of the gate too! We Americans secretly (or publicly) wanted to hand the brits a big face smack for squatting in our Gulf and making diarrhea everywhere. It would be a satisfying crotch grab to humiliate England in a sport they cherish and Americans barely acknowledge as an actual sport.
And out here in Brooklyn every bar with a TV was packed too! French bistro bars and Irish pubs were so loaded that people spilled out into the streets! Even bars that had no previous interest in sports had jacked up TV’s and were standing room only…
But soccer… I gotta tell you. You friggin choked. You had a open net to grab Americans in a hooligan headlock, jam our faces to the screen, and show us what you’ve been so mental about all these years. You could have finally opened our eyes to the hidden excitement of sport that just looks like a bunch of prancy dudes running around like pedigree poodles chasing a ball. We wanted to see what you see!
And what do you give us?
First off, you give us a blaring horn full blast the entire game. Right in our ears. I thought something was wrong the the friggin TV— turns out there was something wrong with the actual people! I tried to imagine myself sitting in the stadium surrounded by fans who simply refuse to stop blowing horns. Even our worst drunk a-hole Jets fan has the etiquette to only blow his air-horn a half-dozen times a game max.
And… a tie? You give us a 1-1 tie. Probably the lamest of all sports scores. And your dickheaded snooty announcer made fun of our fluke Buckner style goal. Hey, it’s your goalie that sucks! Don’t be all trying to take us down a notch! You’re lucky you didn’t lose! And the tie game didn’t even end exciting against a burning clock or something. It just ended with a whatevery whatever.
I’m sorry, soccer. I really hoped this would work out. I like you. I used to play you alot. But what the hell, Soccer!? This was your moment to shine! Get your UK team to friggin beat us 5-4 so we can vow revenge! Or have us beat on the Brits to get our interest going in actually winning the whole thing! Give us something to get behind! 1-1 tie with our temporary fake enemy?! Yawn. And now I’m supposed to care if we beat Ghana!?
And for frucks sake! Shut up those horrible tuba kazoos or whatever the hell they are!
ok bye!
tOdd
*RETRACTION: I think the horns are now like energetic, charmingly atmospheric and funny– but I still get bored watching the sport. I may have been too quick to judge vuvuzelas as flat out annoying and I kind of want one.
ok bye!
tOdd
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American world fuckery eh? just what world titles do you yanks hold anyway?
Baddest asses around…try and dispute it and see what happens to your little island…maybe we can make it a prison colony like you guys did Australia…
Did you miss the Olympics? Ryder Cup? And your asking us what we won….what has England won? Tooth rot?
Americans win the olimpics every year
Actually Canada technically won the winter Olimp… I mean Olympics. You can say the US won more medals, but we actually WON the most events – plus the only one that counts: Hockey.
What is the budget and head count of the press office?
thank you for saying that about the horns. it drives me nuts! i hear a lot of people complaining about them, being the first (and hopefully only) year they have been used. is it a south african thing? WAHERERERERERERERererERERERerere the whole friggin game. and on the Germany Australia game too. AHHHHHHHHH. they need to ban them already.
also, the brits kinda play dirty, just like in the gulf. cleats to the chin AND try to judo kick the knee right after? C’mon!
great post and read too btw. Your writting gets better all the time.
I love soccer and Brits, but not at the same time. Baseball is fine but not as great as cricket. Basketball is rubbish. Bless you all.
Soccer is just plain stupid. The field is way to large and there are too many people running around on it. Every single game ends up with a score like 1-2, 0-1, 0-0 etc… and that’s after 90 minutes of game time. It’s so darned uninteresting it hurts just thinking about it.
So take it from me; stay the hell clear of soccer as long as you can.
i kinda disagree. i dont know much about soccer, but i thought the game was pretty rad. and it seemed like a tie was really a win for the us.
i agree about the horns though. people are just sitting there blowing wonky sounding horns for 2 hours straight? wtf, are they retarded?
To me, soccer is for little kids/teens. Something for them to do to keep them in decent shape, out of trouble, off the tv 24/7; something to teach them teamwork. It’s a bit more exciting than baseball, but not as rough on the body (for growing kids) as football. It’s easy to get excited about a game when you’re watching your kid. (But professional soccer played by grown men? So boring.
I AM THE REAL WEEZE AND I AM ALSO FIRST ALWAYS FIRST BITCHEESSSS!!! HATERS HATE AND PRETEND WEEZE BUT THEY AREN’T REAL BITTCHESSS!
I think the next story everyone should comment as the real Weeze.
WTF?!?!?!?? Soccer?!?!?!?!? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LMFAO.
ROFL “This was to be the year I could look at David Beckham and see something other than some android douche with a creepy hologram wife.”
Perfect description.
Jimmy from UK
What a read! Great writing Todd.
S. S.
I literally couldn’t have expressed it better myself….You just perfectly summed up why I don’t give 2 shits about it! The horns, the arrogance, the lameness and non-excitement. I have enough problems watching hockey, but at least hockey has action and fights….soccer is just lame.
I can’t wait until REAL football starts.
Where does arrogance come into this Goats? I can understand the horns being annoying and the game being lame (if you’re not used to the game). But arrogance. You can say the same thing for Americans and REAL football. I believe it comes down to personal taste.
the one thing that really does irk me about the game is the way they roll around like babies when they are trying to get the ref to call a foul. you’ll never see an NFL or NHL player do that.
GET OFF MY LAWN!!
I tried to watch it, I really did. After 15 minutes, I was pretty much done. Also, any competitive sport where there isn’t a clear winner isn’t competitive. The entire experience pretty much reminded me why I don’t watch soccer.
Todd this breaks my heart to hear, the game was exciting as all H-E double hockey sticks (can we cuss or is that a against the rules?) You just have to learn to appreciate the sport not the score, or maybe it’s just not for you. But man o man I had a blast and I’m still having a blast, haven’t missed a game yet.
Dempsey is a coked out god!
And I called green screwing up, you english haven’t had a decent goalie since Seaman and even he had his blunders.
Todd: Shut up those horrible tuba kazoos or whatever the hell they are!
They are called Vuvuzelas and it’s a South African thing. Blowing the horns are suppose to wish their team good luck. I admit the horns can be annoying, but as Americans you’re not used to that and that’s okay.
Keep up the good work, I like your writing.
Classic “American” thinking, you just proofed me that people in the U.S. are all a bunch of idiots.
You’re an ass todd.
Typical yanks on two fronts – “squatting in your gulf” – blame haliburton; like every time theres a screw up by a yank, a brit is sorting the mess out for you just like a petulant teenager screams as his mom from the back seat of the minivan on the way to an emo concert.
Secondly regarding the scoreline, thats football. When a team gets beat 3, 4 or even 5-0 it makes it all the sweeter. Plus if you notice, the “thing they kick around is ’round’ like a ball. They also kick it, therefore you have to use your ‘foot’. So “foot” + “ball” means that the game has its own descriptive name that the rest of the world uses.
you really need to learn BP IS 40% OR MORE OWNED BY FUCKING AMERICANS you stupid cunt
and its football world cup not soccer you american retarded twat
A US oil company has been accused of contaminating an area of the Peruvian Amazon where it and its successor company have drilled for oil for the past 32 years, creating misery for the local Achuar people and widespread lead and cadmium poisoning.
A report issued by a coalition of protest groups including Amazon Watch and EarthRights International yesterday accused the company, Occidental Petroleum, of violating Peruvian and international law by dumping an estimated 9 billion barrels of toxic waste in the area since it started prospecting in the early 1970s.
The “produced waters”, as the waste is technically known, were allegedly dumped directly into rivers and streams used by the Achuar for drinking, bathing, washing and fishing. Medical research documented in the report showed dangerously elevated levels of lead and cadmium in the Achuar population.
“Oxy’s activities fell far short of the accepted industry standards throughout the course of their operations, as the company discharged massive quantities of contaminated waters into local streams, stored wastes improperly, and caused periodic oil spills,” the report alleges.
Occidental turned over the oilfield in the Corrientes river basin to the Argentinian oil company Pluspetrol in 2000, and has since divested itself of all its Peruvian petroleum interests, but the report said the pattern of spillage and poisoning continued unabated.
“Oxy’s destructive patterns, and the resulting human rights and environmental harms, have continued on Pluspetrol’s watch,” the report alleges.
Occidental did not return a phone call seeking comment. The company is holding its annual general meeting in Los Angeles today, when the groups behind the report plan to hold protests.
This is not the first time a western oil company has been accused of human rights and environmental violations in the Third World. EarthRights International previously brought a lawsuit against Unocal for alleged abuses in Burma, and won a court settlement on behalf of the indigenous peoples in US federal court in 2005.
Amazon Watch, meanwhile, has thrown its support behind a lawsuit in Ecuador pitting indigenous peoples against Texaco (now part of Chevron), which stands accused of failing to safeguard the disposal of waste materials, poisoning the groundwater and causing debilitating skin conditions, respiratory illnesses and cancers in the local population. The company has contested the action. An Ecuardorian court is expected to rule imminently in that case.
The Achuar tribe straddles the Ecuadorian and Peruvian borders, and has ample experience of fighting western oil companies. A year ago, the Ecuadorian government seized indigenous lands where Occidental was drilling for oil – a move that Occidental is still fighting to have overturned.
“My people have suffered for 35 years from Oxy’s presence,” Andrés Sandi Mucushua, the president of the Federation of Native Communities of the Corrientes river, said. “Oxy has extracted petroleum from our ancestral territory, contaminating and destroying it. We have seen our rivers, farms and animals sicken and we have become ill and died from the contamination. It is important that Oxy shareholders are told what Oxy has done in the Peruvian Amazon.”
Occidental first signed a contract with the Peruvian government to drill for oil in the Amazon in 1971. Large-scale production began four years later in an area designated as Block 1AB. It became Peru’s largest onshore oil field, producing as much as 42 per cent of Peru’s total oil output, about 115,000 barrels of crude per day.
The report’s authors said that blatant disregard for the well-being of the local population was a common feature of oil company activity in many indigenous areas around the world. The executive director of Amazon Watch, Atossa Soltani, said that companies were on notice that if they didn’t take steps to clean up their mess they ran a risk of being taken to court.
Occidental’s decision to get rid of its remaining drilling rights in Peru was widely interpreted as a response to the accusations of environmental and human rights violations. Occidental itself, meanwhile, characterised the move as a business decision.
“Oxy needs to move decisively and rectify its past mistakes by helping to clean up the toxic mess and assist the Achuar with their health problems,” Mr Soltani said. “Otherwise Oxy will face further negative publicity and potential legal actions.”
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) – Exxon Mobil claims it spent $45 million cleaning up a Texas oil refinery contaminated by the federal government’s manufacture of jet fuel and other war material during World War II and the Korean War. It wants Uncle Sam to pay it back.
Exxon seeks reimbursement of clean-up costs that it says will continue.
The oil giant claims the United States converted and expanded the oil refinery and chemical plant in Baytown, Texas, in the early 1940s to produce aviation jet fuel and other war-related materials and continued to operate the facilities through the Korean War. It claims the Government enacted legislation that gave it unprecedented power to assume control over industrial complexes.
Exxon says Uncle Sam built five more plants at its Baytown manufacture raw, war-related materials, such as synthetic rubber. It claims the government oversaw day-to-day operations of the plant, including waste disposal, and “generated substantial hazardous waste” during the 1940s and 1950s.
“Much of the solid waste generated from the operations was treated and/or disposed of at various surface impoundments at the Baytown complex. Most of the treated wastewaters was ultimately discharged into nearby surface water bodies, such as the Houston Ship Channel, Scott’s Bay or Mitchell Bay, at the Baytown Site,” according to the complaint.
Read more: http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/03/31/26018.htm
A bit strong mike but well said 😀
Todd – good read and good site but just remember us brits have found your cartoons and visit the site from time to time and will point out when something “isnt quite right”
thx pete i to im british and bp is no longer british then poish workers working here its nearly 50% owned by americans and have a head office in the us.
only stupid americans calls it soccer
only stupid americans calls it soccer
that’s true, mike. smart americans know the sport isn’t worth discussing no matter what name it goes by.
Dear the United States of America.
We don’t care if the majority of you don’t care about football.
That is all.
I don’t understand why people who don’t like soccer want to stop others from enjoying it. I enjoy watching soccer, I enjoy playing soccer and soccer is my favorite sport but if you don’t like soccer, no worries, its not important. Go USA and great game.
P. S. What is important is to love one another.
its not soccer its football, you play american football, its that simple
On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are now demanding $1bn in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along the coast.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell
Apparently soccer makes people very angry.
Valuable info. Lucky me I found your site by accident, I bookmarked it.
Americans dig sports they can play, or pretend to play. Lets be honest, your grandma could play baseball. Yall can at least manage to fake-play amerfootball or basketball. Short bursts of activity and then a lot of schmmozing around. But most Americans are too fat ass to run around for 90 mins straight so they just cant associate with it. McDonalds is an official sponsor hmmm? Viva La Football!
Yah Dood! Dont forget NASCAR
http://i.imgur.com/6M4k9.jpg
last week our class held a similar discussion about this subject and you illustrate something we have not covered yet, appreciate that.
– Kris
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