In which I ramble pointlessly about sports

I've always had a love-hate relationship with American football.  That sport that hardly anyone outside North America follows unless they're American, drawing ridicule from hardcore rugby fans and Association Football fans who can't figure out why it's called "football" when it's not even played with feet (hint: it's because the "ball" is a foot long), much less a ball.  And rugby fans think it's a wussy version of their sport, simply because the players actually wear padding.  Being a big fan of Association Football myself, it almost feels like the two sports have to mutually exclusive, as per the whole "football" vs. "soccer" nonsense (FYI, both are valid: "soccer" is a shortened form of "association football", and the term was coined in, yup, England).