The Ashes

Hi, Straggler.I know about the Ashes: I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (and all of its sequels). In that story, the ashes in the urn are the remains of a bail that was part of the key to open the Wicket Gate and allow the evil beings from the planet Krikkit to escape and rain terror on the universe. And, the English game cricket is said to be a tasteless product of latent ancestral memories from the ancient Krikkit Wars, which had severely traumatized the entire galaxy (it is one of many reasons why Earth has been shunned by the intergalactic community).-----Also, my advisor is English, and he tried to teach the lab how to play cricket at a party a while ago. I think his four-year-old son understands it better than we do, even after all that.Edited by Bluejay, : No reason given.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Straggler. No, I don't post my stuff online.I'm still unpublished. I've spoken to publishers, but I basically just don't want to shill out the money right now. It'll probably have to wait until after grad school.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Straggler.So, a draw means they ran out of time?Or they had the same number of runs?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, poor deprived friends from across the Pond.I am an avid American football fan, but, for now, I have only one addition to make: There used to be two competing professional football leagues: the American Football League and the National Football League. The first 3 or 4 Super Bowls were basically exhibition games between the champions of the two leagues. I think it was in the late 1970's when the NFL finally bought the AFL, and all its team franchises were simply incorporated into the NFL.That's where the two conferences come from.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Straggler. If it makes you feel any better, I also spent some time learning about cricket because of this thread.Curiously, as soon as you put up a thread about cricket, I've had a number of "incidents" with cricket. At our lab party, my adviser and his wife tried to explain how to play cricket. Then, some people were playing cricket in the parking lot across the street from us just last week. Then I accidentally opened a web page with some pictures of people playing cricket on it...It's as if I can't get away from cricket: it's sucking me in!

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Straggler.The reason there are so many rules in American football is because there are so many ways you can get hurt. Players are always running all over the field, on either side of the line of scrimmage, unlike in Rugby. The result is that tackles come from all kinds of awkward angles, and it's impossible to brace yourself against it.For instance, pass interference, like Perdition introduced, was added because the receiver has to often put himself in a very precarious, awkward position in order to catch the ball, and can't afford to look at anything but the ball while he's doing it: if the defense could shove him around before he caught the ball, he would almost certainly get injured. So, they outlawed it.Most of the other rules are for the same reason: grabbing the facemask often causes the head to be wrenched around, and neck injuries can happen, so no one is allowed to grab facemasks; quarterbacks are often watching downfield after the pass to see if the receiver caught it and how far they got after catching, so it's illegal to hit them too long after they've released the ball.The basic principle is quite simple, though.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

I would just like to step in and say that y'all have never sounded quite as British as you do now, while talking about cricket.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Straggler. I'm pretty sure that adding letters to words turns them into different words.And, how do you pronounce 8 consecutive d's?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Straggler. Yes, I can honestly say that I have never sung the England sporting victory song.I mean, I so seldom hear of England winning at sports that I hardly have the opportunity. And, when I do have the rare opportunity, I find that I'm usually too busy being upset about it to sing.Edited by Bluejay, : I think "too" has two o's in it.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

"Ingeeeerlaaaand Iiiingggeeeeerrrrllllaaaannndddd IIIIInnnnnggggggeeeeeerrrrlllllllaaaaannnnnnddddddddddd" (repeating ad-infinitum, as recommended).----- I sympathize: I'm a Cincinnati Bengals fan (if that means anything to you). And a Toronto Blue Jays fan (just because of their team nickname, mind you: I don't like baseball). I also have a habit of rooting for underdog countries that never win medals at the Olympics, like Estonia and Barbados.So, my favorites lose a lot. I don't usually sing about it, though.And, in all seriousness, England doesn't really do all that poorly at sports: I was just running with Onifre's joke.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.