Up for the Cup

Tomorrow is the first round of the FA Cup, a chance for teams from minor leagues to compete against Football League sides.  There is no equivalent tournament in any major US sport; Mahoning Valley Scrappers will never take the field against the Damn Yankees in any competitive game.

I have not, in the past, paid too much attention to the first round, as teams from the top two divisions in English football do not join until the third round, which is played in early January. This year my team, Norwich City, have slipped into the third tier; known rather confusingly as League One. They have been drawn away against Paulton Rovers, from a village of a little under 5000 people. Paulton get the chance to play against a team who were in the Premier League just a few years ago in a match televised live on national TV.  They play in the Southern League Division One South & West. That places them five divisions below Norwich City; a David to Norwich’s relative Goliath.

For once I do not want the underdog to triumph.

Small World

I enjoy watching baseball, both at games and on TV. I enjoy reading about the game and learning about the intricacies. However, I still find it more than a little arrogant that  a competition with twenty nine teams from the US and one from Canada crowns its winner as “World Champions”

Last night in the sixth game of the 2009 World Series, the Damn Yankees clinched their twenty-seventh title and their first since 2000. It is a heat warming story of a Goliath out-spending everyone else in the sport to assemble a team of the best paid players and going on to win.

A Passive Activity

The post title is a quote from an article in the newspaper known as the Grey Lady. It discussed how TV networks are reacting to the increasing use of the DVR.

I think that they are great innovations, freeing one from the broadcast schedule, without having to balance a stack of video cassettes and remember to set the recorder for each show. When we play back a show, we skip through the all too frequent commercial breaks. These occur more often than in the UK, breaking the dramatic flow.

It appears that the effort of pushing the fast-forward button is too great for nearly half of US viewers of shows on their DVR as they slouch on the couch. This is good news for networks, who had been understandably worried that as more shows were recorded for later viewing, they would lose watchers of the adverts that pay their bills. The ratings agency, Nielsen, have now started counting not show audiences, but those who watch the adverts at broadcast or within three days, and this discovered that TV viewers are even lazier than we might have thought.

[NYT]

Halloween

Halloween is a much bigger deal here than it is in the UK. Many of the cubes in the office are decorated with spiders, gravestones, and other spooky paraphernalia. My doctor’s office was likewise festooned, including a sign saying “Morgue” on the door from the waiting room, which was  a little disconcerting. In every town Halloween stores open for a few weeks that sell decorations and costumes.

Last night from a little after 6pm, when dusk arrived, until around 9pm there was a steady stream of children and teenagers, all in costume, trick or treating. I saw countless pink princesses, assorted Zombies, comic book characters, and Vampires. There was one Viking, of the NFL type and a Michael Jackson. I was in costume, as V from V for Vendetta, which I wore to the office on Friday.

I was able to reduce Superman to tears; ok it was a four year old in a Superman costume who found my mask too scary. I removed my mask and his father carried him to the door to collect his candy.

The Critic

I attempt to write the occasional amusing post as a Brit living in a strange land. My efforts seem over shadowed by another expat who on a weekly basis posts an audio commentary on video games. If you have any interest in the subject, then he is worth a listen. The  added bonus is that if you take him at his word then your spend will be low as he is unremittingly non positive about the games he reviews, but always funnier than negative.

Added bonus is that his non de plume is from a game that I spent many hours playing with my family. A link to Yahtzee’s page

Curry

To add to the known health benefits of coffee, red wine, and dark chocolate, the BBC is now reporting that curry can help treat certain types of cancer. Thus we have a healthy diet of coffee, curry, wine, and chocolate…. yay for science or at least an understanding of science based on popular reporting of isolated studies.

And as a bonus here is a story on the dangers of eating lettuce.

Build It and They Will Come

Planning permission to build an NFL stadium in the City of Industry, an Los Angeles suburb, has been controversially rushed through. The problem is that for the last fifteen years LA has not had an NFL team, since the Raiders and the Rams left in 1994. It seems odd to start planning a stadium without a team, but this is the US, where teams move frequently. There are a list of six teams that are thought likely, including the two former LA teams and the San Diego Chargers.

Burned Them Before All Men

Does going door to door begging for candy not sound like a great way to spend Halloween night? How about a book burning and BBQ instead? A church in North Carolina is organizing a burning of bibles and a BBQ. Yes, you read that correctly, they are burning bibles. They hold that all translations other than the King James version are the works of Satan. Since this invalidates my qualification in Religious Education (Grade 1 CSE), which was based on the Good News Version, I cannot comment on the doctrinal nature of this event. However, I am fairly surely that the BBQ will work better with charcoal than with bibles and CDs of Gospel music.

Monster Backs Down

The power crazed energy drink form that claimed that a small craft brewery with a beer called Vermonster was impinging on their trademark has backed down. Common sense seems to have prevailed, even to Monster dropping their demand that the brewery pay Monster’s legal costs for launching this crazy claim.

[WCAX.COM]

The Online Advantage

I wrote yesterday that independent bookstores had suffered a loss of business to online retailers like Amazon. Here in the US, Amazon has an advantage that they do not have back in the UK. A mail order business does not have to charge sales-tax on a sale unless the delivery address is in a state in which the business has a physical location. This means that Amazon only charges sales tax in five states. For California residents this means that the local store has to charge 8-10% more. Customers are supposed to declare all such purchases in their end of year tax declaration to the state. However, this provision is not well observed or enforced. Thus localities lose out twice; from diminished tax revenues and from loss of spending to support local business.

Businesses such as Amazon claim that it would be too complex to calculate and remit the correct, which with each county in each state having its own sales tax rate seems reasonable at first glance. However, Amazon run the online store for Target. Target has a presence in nearly every state in the Union, so Amazon charge and remit sales tax from these purchases. The real reason for opposition to a change in the law is that they wish to retain their unfair advantage over local businesses.