The metric system vs. couch potato metric

I'm not ashamed to admit it... I like the metric system. It's a very organized and sensible way to measure things. In fact, if I had it my way, there would be 10 months in a year, and 100 days in a month. I wouldn't stop there either... there would be 10 hours in every day, and a 100 minutes in every hour. Seconds would be replaced by centi-minutes. It would all be very structured and organized, like a Swiss clock.

Of course, things are not so tidy in the real world. In fact, the United States refuses to change to the metric system. This decision once resulted in a space probe missing Mars completely because somebody had done the imperial to metric conversions incorrectly. The imperial system is a little odd, but that's not really what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about football fields.

You've probably seen it on television or in a magazine somewhere. Somebody will say that such a distance is almost 4 football fields in length, or that such a distance is over 7 football fields wide. Why football fields? Because people who sit on the couch and drink beer can relate to the world in terms of football fields. It's terrible because I know it's only the beginning.

The couch potato metric system will use beer kegs to quantify liquid volumes. Weight will be measured in buffalo chicken wings. The time it takes for a pace car to do a lap at the NASCAR track will be a unit of measure. Area will be measured in the splash size of your drinking buddy's vomit after he's had 2 plates of nachos and a 6-pack of beer. This is really a frightening state of affairs, but only if you're sober enough to realize it.

[ Incidentally the length of an NFL football field is 120 yards (109.728m). If you are in Canada, then football fields are 150 yards long (137.16m). If you are in Europe, then soccer field lengths can vary between 110 and 120 yards, making it a horrible unit of measure in the European Union. ]