Me too. I don't tell my sons, but the Reliant Stadium experience has been mostly miserable for me. That traffic...
Weather will be a factor for the Packers v 49'ers game. The high will be around -5f that day, and will no doubt be much colder by the 4th quarter. It may be the coldest NFL game yet.
It's a nice place with good sightlines but above the club level the seats are pretty far from the field . My favorite are the people who tailgate all game and don't go in even though they bought tickets. There are probably parking lots closer to their home that would be better for a picnic. I see sports attendance about choices for most and I think an increasing number of folks are choosing to sit at home and watch on TV. Colleges have this problem as well but is masked by the "tickets sold" attendance.
You got it all wrong, Westside. I'm one of those people who tailgates at the game all day with a game day ticket. The trick is. Get season tickets and parking pass. Sell the PDF on stibhub for 3-90X face value. Go to the tailgate using the original game day ticket and print out extra pdf's for your friend. They don't get scanned in the lots.
Ok, first of all, I will copy what I posted in the RSL thread about the Chronicle's game-day coverage: The reason I bring it up is I just saw Mathew's tweet tonight, the one soccer and MLS-related tweet I've seen him make in a while: THAT is what he decides to tweet from the WC selection process. Go to Hell, NM.
Ortiz apparently has a Dash piece upcoming tomorrow. I forgot about his excessive coverage of his daughter's favorite team that will draw all of about 3,000 tomorrow night. You could tell Nick that you told Darrell Lovell not to join the Chronicle because you wanted him aligned with an organization that actually makes money and will be around 10 years from now.
Houston chronicle: praising Davis for converting the penalty kick yesterday, wrote: "Not a bad contribution for a guy who was on another continent two days ago." (I guess Corey Roepken thinks that Brazil is in a different continent as the USA? South america is a different continent than "America"? That continues the ugly stereotype that Americans are clueless when it comes to geography).
This is how I learned it: I've seen some define an America continent where North and South are counted as one.
Any geographer that says that North and South America are one is wrong. They are two separate continents. They are two different tectonic plates.
I don't read the Chronicle as I don't think it is even fit to line a birdcage with, but is Ortiz completely out of soccer coverage? Noticed he was live tweeting the Astros during the Dynamo game last night.
Wow! Ja, ja, ja. Thanks for teaching me something i didnt know! Years of living here and i still have basic knowledge gaps, proper of a "foreigner". In the US, schools teach North and South America to be two different continents! I learned in school that there are only five continents, and the americas is only one. A recent Economist article subconsciously reinforced my knowledge (article title "airport shopping, the sixth continent") So this debate apparently is common. Example here. Even Nat Geog and wikipedia admit the debate. Central america often gets forgotten. So, those of us educated in some latin american countries think that the americas is one big continent. I personally got my education by listening to Violeta Parra, victor Jara, Mercedes Sosa, and others who used to sing about the "continente americano" as being only one. Now, IMHO, placing themselves into a separate continent from S America creates a sense of exclusiveness, typical of last century USA. Id be surprised if old US geographers placed Mexico in the North American continent!
Yes, we are taught continental drift and plate tectonics(see also Pangaea). Here is a map of the major plates. To me, the continents are a matter of geophysics and not geography. I would think old US geographers would count Mexico as part of North America even prior to the rise of plate tectonics in the 1950's. This map from 1777 by Thomas Kithchin (an English geographer/cartographer) shows everything north of Colombia as North America. (It's neat to see these old maps as new land is found, note the absence of the northwest US and Canada, as well as Antartica, which at that time was a theory, Terra Australis Incognito). There are plenty of even older maps that show them as two separate continents. Interesting, I did not know that it was taught that the two were one continent outside the US. Thanks, for giving another perspective Hydro!
Where I grew up I was taught that there were 2 countries in the world: . . . . . . . . . England and the rest
CONCACAFMEBOL I always thought it would make sense to combine for the club and country championships if not world cup qualifying. Seems like there would be more money to be had if you involved the North American audiences in these competitions. And maybe give Europe a run for their money.
What do the South American countries get? 2 quality opponents, maybe 1 or 2 (3 in a great year) others and completely out voted in every single way. Why would they want a merger?
I can't see the interest for CONCACAF. It would make it that much more difficult for CONCACAF nations to qualify for the World Cup. Club and country championships, maybe. Definitely, Champions League would be a lot more interesting. I'm not a big Gold Cup fan, of course part of that is the fact that they insist on holding it every two years which kind of devalues the importance. I'd prefer every four years.
I wouldn't be surprised if one day there is some epic travel second leg between, say Seattle and Boca Jrs. in a future Champions League de las Americas. That flight there and back would take 2 days just in transit.
Jose de Jesus Ortiz is filling in for Charlie Palillo today on 790 if you guys want to send him your love.