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Sports! by Ice Cream Jonsey 03/09/2008, 8:57pm PDT
Quétinbec wrote:

We were the favourites to win the World Cup but lost that game by 2 points to France, and Pakistan knocked us out of the cricket world cup not long after. You cheer harder when your opponents are from asshole countries that you'd like bombed. I don't see how Americans can get so worked up over their 'Phoenix vs Atlanta' match-ups, especially considering how mercenary their players are, and how slow and staggered their sports are (and all the tights and helmets and shit!!). You miss out. Don't doubt it.


I've seen this sentiment expressed elsewhere on the Internet, and I've always assumed that the foreigners who wrote it secretly didn't believe it. We live in a world where sweat and toil of Americans ensures pleasant lifestyles for citizens of all free nations, and part of that responsibility means not complaining when those we protect speak out about us. It's fine. So what I am about to say is not really directed to you, but this idea that somehow American sports are in any way lacking when compared to what the rest of you play. Furthermore, as a vital Caltrops poster, it is not my intent to put my balls in anyone's face, I just like talking about sports.

To that end, I can assure you that a guy cheering for his Toronto-based baseball team, like me, would love nothing else to see New York bombed. Not in a World Trade Center kind of way, but in a way where a dirty bomb goes off at Yankee stadium. After all, that place is filled with Yankee fans. I'm not saying I want there to be a whole lot of casualities... whatever the reverse of a neutron bomb is, is fine with me. The amount of time I spend thinking about other nations takes less than a second or two per week, so we replace "asshole countries" with "asshole cities" just fine. You can chalk it up to our myopia, it's cool. We all agree here.

But the sports you guys play are by definition horrible and stupid, otherwise someone wouldn't have invented football and so forth in the first place. If correct-thinking people (and by that I mean, people from the most successful and influential nation in the history of the planet) were okay with soccer and rugby, soccer and rugby would have prospered in this nation as well. Instead, they are regulated to a tiny subset of charming amateurs, all of whom lack the physical qualities to make any real money as a professional. Your populations are so low that it also makes for the pool of possible soccer and rugby stars to be irrelevant, if the United States ever cared to create soccer and rugby players.

I'm certain that with six weeks of training, the best football, baseball, basketball and hockey players we have would congeal into a world-class rugby team that would reveal the teams currently competing in the sport as a bunch of cauliflower-eared hunchbacks with a propensity for collared shirts. The money we offer to our athletes makes it insane to otherwise pick up any other sport in the world, unless you are not a good enough athlete to compete, in which case there are things like handball, water polo, jai alai, Mouse Trap and other forms of competition deigned to be in the Olympics ahead of baseball. The population of New Zealand (for instance) is under five million, the population of the U.S. is around 300 million, of course we'd be able to put together better soccer players if we cared about that sport - even when you subtract our Libertarians, our physically unfit, and those that are both.

You're right that the players are all mercenaries. The plutocrats that own the franchises in the four sports have rigged things to where they have control of these players for the large extent of their primes, however.

I am always happy to watch the World Cup, but let's not kid ourselves: any of the single-named phenoms to come out of Brazil would happily be the backup power forward on the Denver Nuggets or a placekicker for the 49ers if they possessed more natural talent and ability.


the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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I'm back! How's this place? Did we lose the girls? by Quétinbec 02/28/2008, 1:37am PST NEW
    Sounds like I missed... NOTHING. NT by Jerry Whorebach 02/28/2008, 2:45am PST NEW
    Another hero, fallen NT by Gang who couldn't shoot straight 02/28/2008, 12:22pm PST NEW
    This is probably not what you wanted. by Lizard_King 02/28/2008, 6:03pm PST NEW
        Can't we just say we've seen the pictures of QB and we know where the problem is NT by I need clarification 02/28/2008, 6:34pm PST NEW
            Let's be frank about INC's wife and Asian pairings in general. by Quétinbec 02/28/2008, 10:48pm PST NEW
                Re: Let's be frank about INC's wife and Asian pairings in general. by I need clarification 02/29/2008, 1:51am PST NEW
                    BDR was a great man and life's punished you for what you did to him... by Quétinbec 02/29/2008, 6:41pm PST NEW
                        No he wasn't, he still isn't, you're not, you never will be. Learn it, live it. by I need clarification 02/29/2008, 6:51pm PST NEW
                            Any more of that and I’ll make fun of your wife. Final warning. by Quétinbec 03/02/2008, 4:33am PST NEW
                                New Zealand sounds like a terrible place and has made you a terrible person. by And your parents before you. 03/02/2008, 5:14am PST NEW
                                I thought you were an inventor! Pads on glasses is the best you could do? by I need clarification 03/02/2008, 4:46pm PST NEW
                                    Sorry for my racism! I'm back and refreshed from the world's southern-most city! by Quétinbec 03/08/2008, 2:27am PST NEW
                                        Are you going to stand for that, Creexul?! NT by Fussbett 03/08/2008, 10:51am PST NEW
                                            Here's my reaction. by Jhoh Creebul, Witch Toucher O_O 03/08/2008, 12:27pm PST NEW
                                        "Big fucking deal" = It's hard to furiously type through the tears NT by Mischief John 03/08/2008, 11:03am PST NEW
                                        Re: Sorry for my racism! I'm back and refreshed from the world's southern-most c by I need clarification 03/08/2008, 7:39pm PST NEW
                                        Re: Sorry for my racism! by Seven-Five 03/08/2008, 9:55pm PST NEW
                                        Re: Sorry for my racism! I'm back and refreshed from the world's southern-most c by Entropy Stew 03/08/2008, 10:24pm PST NEW
                                            OKay, okay, that's enough, everyone (myself included) by I need clarification 03/08/2008, 10:32pm PST NEW
                                            I don't know what just happened but I have a boner and a copy of FFX. NT by Zsenitan 03/08/2008, 10:33pm PST NEW
                                                If it's any consolation, I don't have any idea what the fuck that meant either NT by Entropy Stew 03/08/2008, 10:42pm PST NEW
                                            Re: Sorry for my racism! I'm back and refreshed from the world's southern-most c by Quétinbec 03/09/2008, 7:12pm PDT NEW
                                                Sports! by Ice Cream Jonsey 03/09/2008, 8:57pm PDT NEW
                                                    That's not entirely true by I need clarification 03/10/2008, 12:16am PDT NEW
                                                    Psh, everyone knows the world's greatest sport is... curling, I guess :( by Jerry Whorebach 03/10/2008, 2:34am PDT NEW
                                                    by Huey Lewis and the News by Fussbett 03/10/2008, 6:18am PDT NEW
                                                    Until the 1990's, blacks were excluded from foreign teams playing South Africa. by Quétinbec 03/10/2008, 4:56pm PDT NEW
                                                        You must be kidding by USA! USA! USA! 03/10/2008, 5:19pm PDT NEW
                                                        30 white guys and their pet isn't exactly racially diverse by I need clarification 03/10/2008, 7:37pm PDT NEW
                                                            Re: 30 white guys and their pet isn't exactly racially diverse by Quétinbec 03/11/2008, 1:20am PDT NEW
                                                                so you're saying that rugby players are a bunch of faggots NT by point taken 03/11/2008, 5:13pm PDT NEW
                                        Fussbett has beautiful hair! NT by I WANT TO TOUCH IT 03/10/2008, 2:16pm PDT NEW
                                Re: Any more of that and I’ll make fun of your wife. Final warning. by Souffle of Pain 03/03/2008, 6:04pm PST NEW
                    Everyone wants a piece of the BDR exit story by Ray of Light 03/03/2008, 9:28pm PST NEW
                Children of any race get most of their looks from their mother by FABIO 03/17/2008, 11:39pm PDT NEW
                    *spit take* NT by Gregor Mendel 03/18/2008, 12:13am PDT NEW
        Yeah, I'd rather be right about guns being shit. It helps me feel tough. NT by Quétinbec 02/28/2008, 10:49pm PST NEW
    Sounds familiar. You should've said THESE HITBOXES ARE BULLSHIT after missing. NT by Fussbett 02/28/2008, 6:15pm PST NEW
        COME ON! I was aiming right at it! *quits* NT by Poor sport 02/28/2008, 6:54pm PST NEW
    you are a terrible shot NT by Grumah 02/28/2008, 7:13pm PST NEW
    Get more cyber upgrade modules NT by FABIO 02/28/2008, 7:56pm PST NEW
        Go back to Quake! NT by Mischief Maker 02/28/2008, 8:08pm PST NEW
            cake 3: the reckoning NT by Grumah 02/28/2008, 11:27pm PST NEW
 
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