This ball.

This ball was created by Adidas for the 1970 World Cup. I always thought that's just what a soccer ball was. Like, who designed the baseball? You don't know. That's just what a baseball is. Likewise, a white ball with black panels is just what a soccer ball is, as far as I have always known. And yet it didn't even exist until 1970, when it was created by a giant shoe company.

And this, to me, is proof that we're living in a radically different age in advertising. If Adidas created the ball that everyone in the world thinks of as "a soccer ball" today, we would know it. Adidas would brand the shit out of that thing. Am I right? I'm right.

According to the LA Times, Adidas has created a new ball for the 2010 World Cup that is not nearly as appealing to the eye as that old ball. Here is the new ball:

New ball.

The name of this ball is the "Jabulani." 50 people worked on this ball exclusively for 5 years, and the soccer players hate it. It's designed to work under South African conditions, which are supposedly really weird. Like, so weird that no soccer ball ever created can be used there, or something. The weather is so strange in South Africa that a normal soccer ball would explode all over the field when kicked. One would think they would've mentioned that in their campaign to get the World Cup. "Hey! We want the World Cup! FYI: You can't play soccer here!"

I think I'm going to try to watch the World Cup this year. I don't know anything about soccer, or any sports, really. But the World Cup is one of those things like the Olympics where you don't have to know anything about it to become an overnight expert. It's a level-playing field right now for most of us here in the States. I mean, I don't think I'm going to gain the respect of my sports-fanatic peers by having deep inside knowledge of the World Cup, but maybe I can finally learn to care about something other than ferrets and shotguns.

I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told.

But nonetheless, we live in Los Angeles, so we have 2 cars. One Honda Civic that sees a fair amount of road time, and one Ford Focus that sits unused 300 days a year. It's kinda like having a spare bedroom for the 1 week a year when your parents visit. Ever so often, I'll have to drive somewhere to meet Sarah or run some errands on my own. But really, I could accomplish pretty much 95% of the things I need to do with a bike and a tiny bit of motivation.

Today was one of those days that I needed the car and the car needed gas. This only happens about once every two months, on account of how seldom I drive. I had one rule when it came to getting the gas: do not buy from BP. There's a reason for this, and it has to do with the news. Have you heard about the news? It's an information-distribution system whereby you can learn about things that are happening in the world. Sort of like a sitcom, but real. If you have heard of the news and you watch or read the news, then you probably know that there's some kind of oil disaster happening right now. And BP is the company responsible for this oil disaster.

Now, let's get one thing straight: all oil companies are evil. Oil is evil. It's what they call a "necessary evil," because no one has taken the time to establish an alternative system to extracting it from the ground and using it to power things. These alternatives do exist and could, with relative ease, be implemented to make the use of oil less necessary -- "relative ease" in terms of, say, "wiring the entire country for electricity," mind you, not relative ease in terms of choosing between butter and margarine at the grocery store (team butter, holla!) -- but as of this writing, plans to implement these alternatives have gotten about as far as the nacho delivery service dreams of a hungry stoner. We've known for quite some time that oil is evil and dangerous ... decades, even ... but we have still not put much effort into fixing the system for reasons that are unclear to me but probably have something to do with Americans' innate distrust of things that are natural and people who remind them of hippies.

The point that I'm getting at is, I don't know that BP is any worse than Shell or Valero or any of the rest of them. The process of removing oil from the Earth and turning it into energy is messy and hazardous and should come to an end. The BP disaster just happens to be a particularly nasty example of why this process is a bad idea. But regardless of their relative evil in comparison to other oil companies, they are still the current leading representatives of a Thing that is Quite Bad, and therefore, they deserve to be made an example of. This oil spill presents people like me who are not particularly fond of the oil-into-energy system with an opportunity to have a small say in what happens when companies do egregiously bad things to our planet. That small say comes in the form of a boycott.

Theoretically, anyway. I had one rule this morning, and I broke it. I did not break it knowingly. Well, not at first, anyway. I pulled into the Arco gas station, stuck my card in the card thing, agreed to pay the $.45 fee for using an ATM card (further evidence of evil), and began to pump my gas, when I noticed a little sign on the pump that said something to the effect of "Arco, a division of BP."

If I was a committed activist, I would have immediately taken the hose out of my gas tank and driven elsewhere. But I did not do this, because I was already in the middle of filling up my tank and did not really want to go through the whole process over again. Note: as I mentioned earlier, I only do this process about once every 2 months. Moving to another gas station would have tacked an additional, at most, 5 minutes to my commute. On top of that, there was another gas station right across the street.

There is no excuse for my laziness, but I can try to rectify it by preventing others from making the same mistake. Knowledge is the solution. If I had known Arco was a part of BP, I would have never gone in, and would have never put $40 back in the pockets of the fat bastards who are currently hard at work doing nothing while their giant, unsealable tube fills our oceans full of dead, gelatinous dinosaurs.

Clearly, this BP shit is ridiculous. It's beyond ridiculous. And what's even more ridiculous is that as far as I know, there has been no major boycott of this company so far. They are responsible for the single worst environmental disaster to ever befall America, and people (like me) are still lining up to buy their product, even when there is another gas station right across the street. It is insane. If we can't even stop ourselves from giving the biggest public enemy in America our money, then we are doomed.

Just so you don't make the same mistake I did, here's what BP owns. I would encourage you to not give these establishments your business any longer. It's kind of literally the least you can do.

BP Owned Companies
BP (obviously)
Arco
AMPM
Castrol Motor Oil
Amoco

Also, to at least balance out my idiocy, I gave $40 to the Greater New Orleans Foundation. That's another remarkable thing about this whole disaster ... there really doesn't seem to be a concentrated place to donate money. I guess it's because it's hard to tell just what our money can do ... it's not like we could fix the ocean if we only had enough money. But the G.N.O.F. seems like a respectable organization, and they have kindly volunteered to erase my guilty conscience for a small fee.

The part of this story that is the best part of the story but doesn't not really have anything to do with the story is that, as I was filling up, the guy at the pump next to me took off with the hose still in his gas tank. I heard a loud "pop," and looked over to see gas spilling all over the ground. He got out of his car, picked up the now nozzle-less hose, tossed it toward the gas pump, and then got back in his car and attempted to drive away. The BP police managed to stop him and get him out of his car before he could leave the parking lot. He walked toward the office with a smile, like, "okay, you guys caught me." I would've thought it was an act of civil disobedience if he didn't have such a dumb-looking beard.

Right, it was an ad. An ad masquerading as the front page of a newspaper. Which, okay, whatever, newspapers are broke. Fine, make every page an ad. I can't tell you the last time I read insightful reporting in the LA Times, anyway. I wish the ad in question didn't feature that awful picture of Johnny Depp, because there are few things more disturbing to me than his hair and makeup choices as the Mad Hatter. I don't like to look at it one bit, particularly when I'm drinking my morning coffee and on my way to Vegas to gamble and whore monger.

But that isn't what really bothered me about the whole affair. What really bothered me is this. Enhance.

What? Who's taking the reins on health care, now?

So that no one would confuse it with actual news, the editors of the LA Times removed every word that people might have accidentally confused with information. They couldn't even be bothered to replace the copy with something entertaining. They just took out the nouns and said, "to Hell with it." I'm fine with covering the front page of a newspaper with advertising. What I'm not fine with is doing so lazily. The ultimate irony is that no one blinked an eye about the fake articles being completely unreadable, because no one actually reads the newspaper. Front page fail.

Elsewhere in the front section, though, the editors managed to redeem themselves with one of the most awesome quotes I've ever read. Background: there's a new reality series on E! called "Pretty Wild" about a family of wannabe starlets living in Los Angeles. While they were shooting the series, one of the daughters, Alexis Neiers, became involved in a criminal trial. There's a group of bandits known as the "Bling Ring" that crashes celebrity house parties and steals things from them. Kind of like how in college I used to go to frat parties and steal all their toothbrushes so the guys would wake up in the morning with their nasty breath and be unable to do anything about it. Only not as mean, because on the morning after a house party, a toothbrush is way more valuable than a Marc Jacobs designer dog carrier or whatever the "Bling Ring" was stealing.

Okay, I realize this is already a totally weird story. But it gets weirder. Supposedly Neiers' became involved when she and her friends were caught on security video stealing some stuff from Orlando Bloom's house. Neiers defense:

Neiers was taken to a Hollywood police station for questioning. She told police she had no idea her friends and acquaintances were robbers and was so drunk and horrified when she realized they were ransacking Bloom's house that she vomited and urinated in his bushes.

Hahhahaha. She was so shocked that she had to vomit and pee in the bushes! That is one amazing excuse.

Peter: I haven't felt this bad since we took acid and went to see Shields and Yarnell!
Flashback to Shields and Yarnell show. Shields and Yarnell perform their famous robot couple routine on stage. Peter and Lois stand up in the audience and begin removing their clothes.
Peter: It's people! Soylent Green is people!
Lois (screaming): You're no Mummenschanz!

But that being said ... WELL PLAYED, SETH MACFARLANE.

Bonus videos: Please put your hands together for ... Shields and Yarnell and Mummenschanz!

Fashion designer Alexander McQueen has taken his own life at age 40. His office confirmed his death, saying: 'It is a tragic loss. We are not making a comment at this time out of respect for the McQueen family.' He was found at his home in London.

Full disclosure: I'm not really sure who Alexander McQueen is.

But then! I totally know who this guy is!

Alec Baldwin, a star of NBC's "30 Rock," was examined Thursday at a hospital after his daughter called 911 saying he had threatened to take pills after they argued, a law enforcement official said.

Baldwin's daughter called 911 at around 12:10 a.m. from his Central Park West apartment, according to the official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the person wasn't authorized to speak publicly.

What the hell is going on with Alec Baldwin and his daughter? Man. That guy is totally the crying-on-the-inside type.

But who really cares about any of that stuff? Because now we know that dinosaurs really looked like this:

Awwwwwesommmmme!!!

Just kidding. It's not a bloated monstrosity. It's fun and smart and everything good about TV, and also sometimes silly and totally convoluted. And I do believe that the writers know exactly where they're taking us. I am just getting somewhat impatient at having to wait. But such is life. Sometimes we just have to wait.

Last night's episode was okay. I mean, at this point, there's really no such thing as good or bad. It will be bad if the series ends badly, and it will be good if the series ends goodly. But the point is, about twenty minutes before the end, this comes up on the screen:

Hmm. I can't quite read that. ENHANCE.

Finally! Thanks for keeping on top of it, Eyewitness News!

Other things to do to stay healthy during the flu season is to avoid swine flu parties, avoid physical contact with people known or suspected to be sick.

So when you get that evite that says, "Come to my swine flu party! I promise you won't get swine flu!" DON'T GO. I mean, respond with a "maybe" so as not to hurt your friend's feelings. No reason to be a dick about it.

I am sorry to hear that you died. If it weren't for The Basketball Diaries, I might have quit the basketball team and gotten addicted to heroin and lived through a bunch of bad stuff and then written a bestselling novel about it and had Leonardo DiCaprio portray me in a movie. But I read your book and realized that wasn't cool so I never did it. Also I can't play basketball.

Lest I come across as flippant, let me just say you were a great writer and poet and you will be missed. In your honor: