Would you convict this man?

It's always fun to hop on over to the other side of the pond for a look at what batshit things the hooligans associated with soccer (or "football," as I believe they call it over there) are doing. This little gem in the Daily Mail was just what I needed to cleanse my palette of that ugly Randy-Moss-restraining-order aftertaste. A couple of weeks ago, footballer Bob Malcolm parked his Range Rover smack in the middle of a British highway -- perpendicular to traffic, mind you, so he was across both the middle and the fast lines -- and decided to take a nap. Naturally, he was arrested and taken to court (or "the loo," as I believe they call it over there). His excuse?

Malcolm, who has played three times for Scotland, added: "I would also like to stress that at the time of the incident, I was not driving my car... I had pulled over to the side of the road and was sleeping."

Oh, right, ok. As long as you weren't doing something crazy like DRIVING on the highway, I guess we're good. Thank heaven we cleared that up.

Oh, but it doesn't stop there:

Writing on QPR's website the day after his arrest, he confessed: "I want to apologise to all the supporters and in particular the young fans.

"I recognise that footballers are role models and that, as such, they should set a positive example. On this occasion, I have failed to do that.

"But I must say that I was very upset and frustrated with the poor performance of the referee in our match at Plymouth the evening before."

Well then. As with the Celtics loss to the Bobcats the other night; as with the Patriots almost losing to the Colts earlier this year; as with the Padres being eliminated from playoff contention: blame it on crappy officiating. It seems that we Americans have something in common with our British counterparts after all. Yes, Virginia, it's always the referee's fault.

Australian football players are awesome

So they play football in Australia. No, not like the kind of football that's actually soccer (get it right, every country in the world except America!), but a kind of football that bears no resemblance to any other sport you can think of. It's played with a ball that looks like an American football and can be kicked or carried, but not thrown, and the field has 4 field goal posts and is shaped like a giant oval. (See video above if you need a visual.) Like rugby, the players thrash the everloving hell out of one another and don't wear any pads, and the teams all have stupid names like The Magpies and The Roos. Basically, it's what you might see if you did a whole bunch of drugs and then watched a regular football game. The point is, though, that just like all Australian athletes (I can only assume from what pop culture has taught me), the players of this bizarre game are big dumb oafs. Yay!

An amateur Australian Rules football player celebrating a grand final win was rushed to hospital after accidentally swallowing a bottle cap out of a beer-filled premiership cup.

The 24-year-old from Adelaide inadvertently gulped down the serrated West End beer cap after downing the beer left in the bottom of the cup.

"They filled the premiership cup with beer and were passing it around among everybody,'' Royal Adelaide Hospital emergency department registrar Dr Robert Douglas said.

"He felt something in his throat, and it was a beer bottle cap in his chest, stuck in his oesophagus.''

Tests showed the man's blood alcohol concentration was almost 0.11.

Seriously? This guy sounds awesome. He's the type of guy who was so fun to hang out with in college because he was always so much more of a mess than anyone else -- you could count on him to be out in full form on a Tuesday evening, thereby legitimizing everyone else's being out.

The more I read stories like this about international sports tomfoolery (I feel like British/Irish/Australian sports talk should always contain one or more of the words "shenanigans," "tomfoolery," "hooligans," and "buttocks"), the more disappointed I am in American athletes and their failure to live up to international standards of sports-related idiocy. Come on, Sidney Ponson. Enough with the drunk driving/drunk speedboating/drunk walking down the street and terrorizing little children. I'm sure you could take a beer cap or two to the small intestine.

Also, I just Wikipedia'd Sidney Ponson. Did you know that he was KNIGHTED in 2003 by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands? (Ponson is from Aruba, which is part of the Netherlands kingdom. Apparently, the Netherlands is Holland.) Thus, his full name is Sir Sidney Alton Ponson. Like... a knight. Can't you just picture Sidney Ponson riding around on horseback whomping on non-Christians with one of those dangly spikes on a rod? Eating mutton? Kidnapping, but then eventually wooing, damsels?

Ok, so maybe my only knowledge of what it means to be a knight comes from having gone to Medieval Times. Sue me.