Today’s featured deal at Squarz.com calls for a quick kick around two stories from the world of soccer, starting on the home-front…

Did you catch Team USA’s upset of Venezuela last weekend? Nothin’ like a 97-minute nail biter! Ricardo Clark’s header in the final seconds snapped a 0-0 tie and a 13-match winless streak against South American squads. Check it:

Today, word form FOX Sports is that Clark’s performance has earned him a starting spot in tonight’s match against Panama. Cool considering Clark has hardly played in the last six months. He hasn’t seen time with his German second-division team since July, and hadn’t logged any US national minutes since August.

From “feel good” to “flat broke…”

ABC News is reporting that Europe’s top soccer clubs collectively lost more than $2 billion in 2010. Citing UEFA researched published today, their debts continue to rise ahead of the association’s plans to sanction clubs for overspending.

Said sanctions will certainly be widespread — 65% of 665 clubs spent more than they earned, bringing Europe’s soccer debt to $10.9 billion.

Clubs that overspend in an initial two-year monitoring period can be excluded from UEFA competitions starting in the 2014-15 season.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out and what it means for the future of European soccer.

On a lighter note, Squarz has partnered with SoccerCorner.com to line up a pretty sweet deal:

- Pick a free square on Friday’s Knicks vs. Heat game board and receive an instant $10 off any order of $75 or more.

- If your square lines up with the game’s final score, we’ll set you up with a $50 SoccerCorner.com gift card!

The offer is only good for the first 300 Squarzheads, so you’ll want to get after it.

Good luck!

What’s good Squarzheads? Today’s web gem is a MUST SEE video of a man using hypnosis on a cop to avoid a speeding ticket. It’s mighty incredible!

But, before we get there, we’ve pulled over a handful of interesting facts about speeding tickets in the US:

• One in every 6 drivers will get a speeding ticket this year.

• The average speeding ticket costs $150.

• 41,000,000 x 150.00 = $6,150,000,000. That’s over 6 BILLION dollars per year of speeding ticket revenue alone!

• Over 95% of people who receive a speeding ticket never contest it and just pay the fine.

• A police officer will fail to show up to court between 30 to 50% of the time. This is immediate grounds for a dismissal.

• Paradise Valley, Arizona became the first town in America to use photo radar in 1987.

• Brooklyn, Ohio became the first city to mandate seat belts while driving back in 1966.

• More men than women receive speeding tickets, but more women fight their speeding tickets than men.

• In July 1879, two men were fined for speeding horses in Seattle.

• The first known speeding ticket on file was issued in 1910 to the wife of Canada’s Prime Minister. She was traveling at a whopping 10 mph over the limit!

• The average traffic cop will cost a city $75,000 per year in salary, bonuses and benefits. The same police officer will make the city an average of $200,000 per year in traffic fines! How’s that for a profit margin?

Top 10 Speeding Ticket States:
1. Ohio
2. Pennsylvania
3. New York
4. California
5. Texas
6. Georgia
7. Virginia
8. North Carolina
9. Massachusetts
10. Connecticut

And now… the video!

For background’s sake, the man you’re about to see is a 26-year old Montreal native named Spidey who practices what he calls “social magic.” He’s explained that, while he didn’t technically hypnotize this cop, he used NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), which the use of words and body language to influence someone’s subconscious while they are in an awake state. More on this after you watch it:

Pretty insane, right?

Spidey has cited a few techniques that he used to “confuse” the officer:

1. Interruption - He cut the cop off quickly and asked if he spoke English. It worked to instantly derail his intended line of thinking.

2. Subject change - Spidey further leads the cop off his scent by inquiring about the location of the nearest gas station.

3. Gestures - You surely noticed the snaps which coincided with the word “forget.” Hand signals, like snapping, are intended to add even more distraction.

4. Confusion - When Spidey tells the officer, “you know sometimes you get up and go do something, and you forget why you’re there. It just slips from your mind.  You don’t know if you remember to forget or forget to remember.” It’s a rhetorical question without an answer, which drove the officer’s mind into a perplexing loop. Adding, “I’m glad I found you” (even though the cop found Spidey) closes the confusion loop.

Apparently, when these techniques are used together in just the right way, it can lead to the subconscious takeover that you just witnessed. Spidey claims a 25% success rate with this technique. Although, now that he’s released this video, we’re guessing that his local police are well conditioned to avoid his mental maneuvering.

Obviously, Squarz doesn’t recommend that you drive around in pursuit of unsuspecting cops to confuse. We just think it’s an über interesting video!

I wonder if we can use NLP to make you remember to play Squarz!? Hmmm..

Say pal, do you speak Spanish? 

Bueno, bueno. ¿Sabe donde hay gasolinera es?

Around the corner to the right? Oh, right. I REMEMBER.

You know sometimes, when you wake up and you try to REMEMBER to play Squarz but you just forget to REMEMBER? I guess if you REMEMBERED you’d have forgotten to forget to play Squarz for free. But if you don’t REMEMBER to play Squarz today, then you won’t get an automatic 20% off any order at Roto Gear. And REMEMBER that three grand prize winners will win a Sony Wireless Headphone System — a $175 value……. REMEMBER!

Play Squarz.

Well.. did it work?

And so the stage for the sequel is set. A pair of late-game field goals and the fate of two men’s feet (one made, one missed), gives us our gladiators for Super Bowl XLVI. February 5th. Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Eli Manning and the New York Giants meet Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in a rematch from four years prior.

Given the fact Squarz winners are determined by the outcome of major sporting events, we’ve been hit with a flood of questions asking for our pick in “the big game.” Vegas has the Pats favored by three points and a 53 point over-under. But, quite honestly, we don’t know just yet. As evidenced by Super Bowl XLII, anything can happen on any given Sunday; New York were heavy underdogs heading in, but topped New England 17-14.

The way we see it, there are only two safe bets in all of sports:

• Play Squarz and you’re 100% guaranteed to save and/or win.
• Reporters at the Super Bowl’s Media Day are 100% guaranteed to ask stupid questions.

Honestly, as good as the game will be.. it can only hope to be half as entertaining as the annual Tuesday circus that precedes it. Take a bunch of dimwitted and pretentious media folks from all over the world, few of whom know much about American football. Have them pretend to know what they’re talking about or who they’re talking to. Hilarity ensues.

To supplement our point, we dug up this Mental Floss Media Day Exposé from 2010. In it, writer Bud Shaw highlights some of the more ridiculous questions asked throughout the years.

Like the time a Japanese reporter asked San Francisco 49ers QB Joe Montana, “Tell me, why do they call you Boomer?” Uhhh, they don’t. You sure you’re not thinking of Bengals QB, Boomer Esiason?

Or the time when St. Louis Rams QB Kurt Warner was asked, “Do you believe in voodoo and can I have a lock of your hair?” The follow-up: “Is Ram a noun or a verb?”

The time when MTV’s “Downtown” Julie Brown asked Emmit Smith, “What are you going to wear to the game on Sunday?” (Note: Emmit wowed audiences by wearing…. his uniform!)

There was the year that Bronco’s running back Detron Smith was asked, “What size panties do you think you’d wear?”

It was the place that Titans d-tackle Joe Salave’a was asked, “What’s your relationship with the football?” Because stupid questions call for stupid answers, Salave’a said, “Strictly platonic.”

And the place that Washington quarterback Doug Williams, the first black quarterback to play in the Super Bowl, was asked, “How long have you been a black quarterback?”

I mean seriously, who ARE these people??

At least Buffalo’s Thurman Thomas had the right mindset heading into the Media Day frenzy. Asked how he mentally prepared for big games, Thomas said, “I read the newspapers and look at all the stupid questions you all ask.”

The stupidest of all? Super Bowl XV. Oakland Raiders quarterback Jim Plunkett had answered a question about his parents. He talked of growing up in a special needs household - his mother was blind and his father, also blind, had recently passed away.

Five topics had passed when a Philadelphia columnist, who had been struggling to be heard for ten minutes, finally shoved his way into the interview and said, “Jimmy, Jimmy! I want to make sure I have this right. Was it dead mother, blind father or blind mother, dead father?”

So yeah, looking to make a little wager? Let it ride on Squarz and the stupidity of the sports media.

Happy Friday, Squarzheads! As we brace for a wintery weekend here in Chicago, we can’t help but wonder if the rest of the world is bracing for something much bigger.

Let us explain…

First, it’s important to note that we’re not crazy. We’re very normal, level-headed, thoughtful and rational people. We’ve never been probed by aliens. We’ve never been attacked by ghosts. And we’ve never had conversations with the dead. But the subject matter of today’s post has us 100% curious, confused and, quite frankly, creeped out. It could just be a widespread hoax and, if so, we’d totally cop to taking the bait. But for now, we don’t know what to make of it.

It started last Thursday. January 12. In a forest. In Conklin, Alberta, Canada. Several hikers began hearing strange sounds. Unfamiliar, unidentified and unsettling sounds. When the noises persisted, on and off, the men reached for their FlipCam and documented what they were hearing. It all starts around the :20 mark.

 Weird. But it hasn’t even scratched the surface. See, if that were an isolated incident, it would’ve totally debunked by any number of logical explanations. But it wasn’t. It happened again. This time, on January 15. Also in Canada. 620 miles away from Conklin, Alberta, in The Pas, Manitoba. A man begins hearing the eerie noises while at home and, like the previous occurrence, begins filming.

It sounds like a whale, underground and calling for help. Or the dragons in Skyrim. Whatever it is, it’s freaky. And whatever it is, it has now been reported in cities AROUND THE WORLD! Winnipeg, Glasgow, Denmark and Chicago — home of Squarz — included. Yikes!?

In this next video, a user compiled all of these reported noises, from all across the globe and all within the past week.

Chills.

The sounds range in description from “bizarre and creepy” to “industrial and mechanical.” They appear to be multi-directional and seem to have no single traced source of origin. Those who have heard and documented the sounds say that they could be coming from directly overhead or directly below the earth.

The UAP (unexplained acoustic phenomena) have spawned many theories as to what they might be; from the concerned to the skeptics to the ridiculous.

A few YouTube user comments:

- “Aliens. Obviously.”

- “Sounds like hell opening up.”

- “2012: it’s the end of the world, y’all!”

- “Sounds like Mordor is preparing for battle.”

- “Not sure, but it sounds like the beginning to a death metal song.”

And from a skeptic: “This video is soooooo fake people! They are just trying to get some hits on youtube.”

Some have even suggested that it’s the sound of a sasquatch-like creature. Pointing to the fact that in October of 2011, scientists declared that they were 95% certain they’d found an elusive Yeti in Siberia.

As we stated, we just aren’t sure what to think. Are these omens of an impending disaster? Is it deep-churching in the Earth? Perhaps an indication that things are becoming unsettled? What about you? Leave us a comment on the Squarz Facebook page or on Twitter and give us your best guess as to what they may be.

Oh, and before the sky swallows us all, you should play Squarz!

Today’s featured deal is from LacrosseCorner.com: Take an instant 10% off any purchase just for playing. Grand prize winners will receive a $50 gift card.

To learn more and to pick your FREE square, click here.

Squarz is saddened to report that the longest recognized winning streak in organized sports has finally been squashed.

According to the school’s website, Trinity College lost yesterday’s squash match to Yale 5-4, snapping a 252-match winning streak that dated back to the 1997-98 season!

We found a few things to really put this beast in perspective. The day that Trinity’s winning streak began:

- Bill Clinton was still President and Tony Blair hadn’t yet assumed the role of British Prime Minister.

- Microsoft, the world’s most valuable company, bought a $150 million share in a “troubled business” called Apple.

- Princess Diana and Mother Theresa were both still living.

- Evander Holyfield still had both of his ears in tact.

- A gallon of gas cost $1.22.

While sad to see the record end, Trinity’s squad still has plenty to celebrate; the Bantams are the 13-time defending national champions. And, hey 8-1 ain’t a bad record.

This next part is amusing — following the loss, Trinity officials called this year’s team “the school’s most inexperienced in years.” HA! They sound like that overbearing parent who goes atomic when their straight A+ student brings home their first “regular A.” Guys, enough with the putdowns, eh? They just delivered 13 straight national titles.

We have to assume that Yale was particularly proud of last night’s victory. Snapping Trinity’s streak, in some part, avenges their 2011 loss and this painful photo that made the rounds following the match. Trinity is in blue. Yale, in white.

No, this isn’t a promo poster for an upcoming Vince Vaughn movie about a comically lopsided squash squad. It’s real. Real embarrassing.

We also have to assume anyone who put money on Yale is swimming in piles of cash right now. What do the Vegas odds look like on a 252-0 team?

They’re probably about the same odds as our Syracuse vs. Notre Dame pool. You. Can’t. Lose. Seriously…

Pick your free square on the board and we’ll give you an instant $10 off any purchase of $50 or more at FatBoy’s Outrageous Cookie Dough.

If you have the winning numbers (based on Saturday’s final score), you also win 2 free boxes of FatBoy’s Dough. Legit, a win-win. It costs nothing to play and you come away with something regardless. Get in now.

Good luck Squarzheads! And good luck, Trinity — your luck is bound to turn around sometime.