The World Cup Has Laid Waste To The Internet

Internet servers throughout the world have experienced unprecedented levels of traffic over the last couple of days, and technicians everywhere are feverishly working to add support beams to the servers, place buckets under the memory leaks, and tie ethernet cables into firm half-hitch knots. CNET reports:

Traffic to news sites globally started a steady climb about 6 a.m. Eastern time and peaked six hours later at noon, reaching nearly 12.1 million visitors per minute.

This is the busiest the Internet has ever been, eclipsing the time in February that I realized I had 11 million tabs running simultaneously in Firefox. Whoops! Anyway, the enormous spike in traffic is certainly thanks to interest in the World Cup; in part, Americans trying to remember how the Hell soccer works. After the jump, I've included a list of some of the searches we've entered into Google.

1. how many halves are in soccer
2. there are two halves obviously, stupid question, sorry mr./mrs. google
3. do the players still get to eat oranges at halftime like my third grade soccer team did
4. is alexi lalas still playing
5. is pele still alive
6. differences between soccer and a loaf of bread
7. it seems like there was probably an air bud soccer movie called "air bud: world pup"
8. there was! i knew it! i didn't even know about it, but i arrived at the idea independently!
9. is south africa the one with apartheid
10. who is apartheid
11. what position does apartheid play
12. the game clock counting up is like a hummingbird flying backwards, it terrifies me, why do they do this
13. is "yellow card" named after the band and if so why
14. mock me if you will, but all i'm trying to do is make an earnest and sincere effort to learn about this sport, and if you are mean to me you will only alienate me
15. how to play freebird on a vuvuzela