USA national team members Landon Donovan, left, and Oguchi Onyewu, artistically out of focus, face Italy at 1:30 p.m. today in Pretoria, South Africa (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell).

I haven’t missed a USA national soccer team game in four years.

It’s a streak more important than Kobayashi’s six-year hot dog eating run.

Although people might be afraid that modern technology might eventually take over the world, I’ll happily accept our new robot masters, for that modern technology is going to keep my streak alive.

My digital video recorder will be humming away as the USA faces Italy at 1:30 p.m. today (ESPN, Galavision) in Pretoria, South Africa on the second day of the 2009 Confederations Cup, held the year before each World Cup as a dry-run of sorts.

Eight teams compete, including the six regional champions: Brazil, Egypt, Iraq, New Zealand, Spain and the USA. The hosts, South Africa, and the reigning World Cup champions, Italy, make up the rest of the field.

Thank you digital video recorder. While I’m trying to track down that last piece of information for a story, Landon Donovan and the boys will be facing Italy in a rematch of their 1-1 draw during the 2006 World Cup, a game that saw three red cards and is still fresh in the minds of American soccer fans.

It might be a little Big Brother-esque, but all their actions will be recorded and saved on a cute, inconspicuous black box next to my TV.

I’ll see you tonight, Landon and company. Until then, I work.

I’m loving it more than McDonald’s.

Credit: icanhascheezburger.com

This week has been chock-full of lessons.

I’m writing this story that uses these “model citizens” as an example. My editor suggested I run a background check on them to make sure their story checked out (thanks Matt!).  And the results were quite surprising. Let’s just say that if they were on “Parental Control” (the MTV show where parents pick out dates for their kids, I blame Ashley for my knowledge of this show), they would be eliminated as a good pick by any sane parent. Then again they might be kept for drama purposes.

We were told during orientation (and many, many times during j-school) that journalists should be skeptical and that if your mom says she loves you, to check it out.

Well that lesson was reinforced today. And I’m back to searching for more model examples.

Tweeting on Twitter? Taking over the world? Please, no.

Tweet, tweet. Tweet, tweet.

Did you hear something? That sounded an awful a lot like someone screaming in pain from social networking ruthlessly taking over their lives. Oh, it was just someone updating their status about life or sharing a TwitPic of a cute little puppy.

My mistake. But wait, isn’t that kind of the same thing?

As you can probably tell, I’m not exactly the spokesperson for Twitter, or social networking, by any means. I’m generally concerned that intimate relationships/friendships are drastically depleting every single day. With texting, emails, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, AIM, Google Chat and every other form of virtual communication, face-to-face contact is becoming a thing of the past. Funny too this comes from someone who didn’t live that long without a computer-based world, isn’t it? What really got me was an instance that took place a few weeks ago at a bar back home in East Lansing. A friend of mine wanted to approach this girl he knew from a class but couldn’t muster up enough courage to do so. What did he revert to? Texting. After an hour-long conversation via BlackBerry Messenger, he ran into her at the bar and began to talk there. Is this world we’re living in pathetic or simply a means to an “in”?

Girls, is this not creepy? Or is it a way to make things happen?

Sure, it doesn’t always work out that way and it’s not always in regards to picking up someone of the opposite sex. But whatever happened to approaching a girl and getting shot down like old times? That’s the world I want to live in. Ha!

I learned this my first day on the job. When I arrived in the press box at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium to cover the Women’s College World Series, writers Berry Tramel, Jenni Carlson and Scott Wright were already there. I was a little nervous (my first day and all) and a little intimidated (I’ve been reading those writers’ work for years), so I listened a bit to see what I could pick up.

It didn’t take long before I discovered Berry likes to give nicknames. A few examples: MKB, Miss Saigon and, my personal favorite, J.G. Whitfield.

Each nickname makes sense when you get him to explain the thought process that went into it and each is acceptable in all references to the person for Berry. I wondered how long it would take before I received a rite-of-passage nickname from Mr. Tramel.

Three days.

I arrived at the stadium on Sunday and was greeted by a shiny new nickname: Corleone. The nickname makes sense in and of itself to anyone who has seen Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” because my last name is Corley. But the explanation goes deeper, like it usually does with Berry. Apparently–and I have yet to check this out for myself–on the first day my work with The Oklahoman went in print, there was a column in the paper that mentioned either the Godfather or Don Corleone himself. It was meant to be.

Welcome to The Oklahoman.