For the World Cup from Las Vegas, a book explaining soccer’s offside rule

Posted on by June 8, 2026
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OffsideThis is a shameless plug to sell a book I wrote some years back. It has nothing to do with Sin City, other than I ended my 20 years as a referee of youth soccer here after becoming New to Las Vegas.

But it has a lot to do with the World Cup, which is hard upon us. One of the great mysteries in all of sport will again rise to the forefront.  What the hell is the offside rule?  I’m here to provide a higher understanding.

“OFFSIDE: A Mystery” is my 2014 novel about the murder of a referee of youth soccer in a southern California suburb at the height of the 2006 real estate bubble. A hot-tempered Latino coach with a gang background is accused of the crime, as it happened after he screamed at the ref over an offside call—caught and posted on a new service called YouTube. It falls to his daughter’s boyfriend, a former high school soccer star in a down-and-out job, to uncover the truth, and in the process learn about himself.

The book includes a fair amount of my trademarked snarky social commentary about money, greed, Southern California history and race relations, and the forces behind it all. Plus a whole lot about the history of soccer (and soccer parents), and particularly the law of offside, which among its many permutations provides the clue to resolving the murder case.

I absolutely guarantee after taking in the book (at only 204 pages in paperback, a pretty quick read) you’ll know everything there is to know about the law of offside–and maybe a few other things, too. You might call the book a historical novel.

After all these years, OFFSIDE remains in print. It’s available on Kindle or Nook for just $6.99, and in paperback on Amazon for $13.95. Click here to order. As I have told folks for years, the book is not autobiographical. After refereeing in four states, I’m still around.

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UPDATED OVER AND OVER: In Las Vegas, how about a perp pool on when the first Trump pardonee gets re-arrested?

Posted on by June 6, 2026
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perp pool

Jimmy Hoffa (via Wikipedia)

SEE UPDATES ON ALL 23 PERPS AT END OF POST

Originally published January 21, 2025
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A half-century ago, I was part of a ghoulish office pool started in the Philadelphia bureau of the Associated Press, where I worked at the time. On what day of the week would Jimmy Hoffa’s body be found? He was the convicted, mobbed-up ex-Teamsters Union president who suddenly vanished after leaving a Detroit-area restaurant in 1975. His disappearance quickly became a national sensation. It was widely believed–then and now–Hoffa was done in at the behest of one of his supposed organized crime cronies.

Six of us hacks each pitched in $5.00 (about $30 in today’s dollars). I chose Saturday.

As it turned out, Hoffa’s remains were never found. He’s still missing. So no one won the office pool (except my supervisor, who didn’t return the wagers even though there was no “winner”). Hoffa was legally declared dead in 1982, although the case officially is still open.

The Hoffa bet popped into my mind amid the big news last night that newly re-inaugurated President Donald J. Trump pardoned or commuted nearly 1,600 rioters who had a hand in storming the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021. Those receiving his grace included several convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Since I’m now New to Las Vegas, let’s start a new pool. In what month going forward will the first of these releasees be re-arrested on charges of committing another criminal act of some kind? In my view, with such a large universe of suddenly emboldened suspected hooligans for whom law and order has proven to be an elusive concept, it’s certain to happen. Just a matter of when.
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In Las Vegas, an eye-catching political ad shot on a cellphone

Posted on by June 2, 2026
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As a registered independent at the New to Las Vegas world headquarters, I don’t vote in party primaries. And as a journalist I don’t make political endorsements. But I get to critique, like a movie critic. I did this two years ago about an antisemitic campaign mailing put out by the Nevada Central Republican Committee against U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen.

Now, at a time when the two top-grossing Hollywood films were made by YouTube creators, I have to admire the utter image cleverness and seeming cost-efficiency of the nearby ad shot on a cell phone for Joe Dalia. He’s one of three candidates vying for the Democratic nomination in next week’s primary to be Nevada state treasurer.

Since the incumbent is term-limited, this is an open position and hotly contested. All the candidates–including Dalia–are complete nobodies statewide. So an ad like this, if it catches on, can make the difference in candidate name recognition, and therefore success.

Now, for all of his aw-shucks, I’m-just-cheap persona, Dalia is a lawyer who used to work for Meta. He found the scratch to air this ad during expensive breaks on CNN. And I imagine it wasn’t edited on his cellphone. For all of its charm, it’s clearly not a complete selfie; you can see both of Dalia’s hands. Someone else was operating his cellphone camera.

In the 30-second ad, Dahia says, “Do you know Nevada’s holding a billion dollars in unclaimed funds? I’ll do more to get that back to you.” What he doesn’t say is that he’s on record stating that money from that fund should go to state education programs and perhaps a state development fund schools, rather than directly to taxpayers, as a viewer might surmise.

But I digress. It’s a helluva pitch.

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Hey, someone tell the Las Vegas newspaper the airport name was changed in 2021

Posted on by May 23, 2026
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In 2021–on December 14 to be precise–the name of the major airport in Las Vegas was officially changed to Harry Reid International Airport. The idea was to honor the longtime U.S. senator from Nevada through 2017, who died just two weeks later at age 82. The old name had memorialized another long-time Nevada senator, Pat McCarran. He was a proponent of aviation whose political persona in later life before his 1954 death at age 78–racist, antisemitic, anti-free press and maybe corrupt–had not weathered well.

So it was a little surprising at the New To Las Vegas world headquarters today to open the Las Vegas Review-Journal (yes, I still get the paper, along with others, thrown to the door) and see the map displayed nearby. It shows the route of a new water pipeline to be built across the Las Vegas area. Toward the upper left-hand corner is labeled … “McCarran International Airport.”

In this new age of AI, of course, one never knows where the underlying information is really coming from. But maybe this helps explain why the RJ, which editorially was never much of a fan of Reid, is now the second largest daily newspaper in the country never to have won nor be a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.

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