This one ends kinda rough. Please secure your jaws in the upright and locked position.
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Playlist
1. Luke Doucet and White Falcon – Long Haul Driver
2. Carolyn Mark and NQ Arbuckle – Officer Down
3. Elliott Brood – Write It All Down For You
4. New Found Glory – Truck Stop Blues
5. The Ting Tings – Shut Up and Let Me Go
6. Woodhands – Talk
7. Amanda Palmer – The Truth
It’s World Cup time and I love following the games. I’m a rare kind though in that most people around here will never watch a game outside of the World Cup, where I will watch one any time I’m given the chance. That’s unfortunately not often as I don’t have cable so I don’t get the special channels that carry the games from the leagues around the world.
In fact, I’d rather watch a good game of footy than our “national sport” hockey.
I was talking with an English acquaintance the other day about the World Cup and she asked me why I thought that soccer was so big everywhere else in the world, but not in Canada and the US. After thinking about it for a minute, there’s one very big point against North America that other soccer leagues don’t have to compete with. Geography.
Most countries that are extremely soccer crazy are in Europe and South America. These countries are small (comparatively.) The US and Canada each comprise of almost 10 million square kilometers each. Yes, there are other large countries in the World Cup. Brazil and Australia come in just after the US with 8.5 and 7.7 million kilometers, respectively.
However, the next largest 2010 World Cup countries? Argentina with about 2.8 million kilometers, Algeria with 2.3 million and Mexico with just short of 2 million.
All of these smaller countries have very tight-knit soccer leagues because it’s easy to go and see a game live. I’m sure in some of these countries you wouldn’t have to drive more than 2 hours to be able to see your local team play 50% of it’s regular season. If I want to see a professional soccer game here in Canada, I have to drive 2 hours just to see a home game, and chances are there aren’t 50% of the regular season games within a 2 hour plane ride.
So what? Hockey, Baseball, Football (American style) and Basketball all manage to do just fine with the same geographical issues, right? Those other sports have one advantage: the action happens in small and predictable locations. This means they easily lend themselves to TV coverage. So if your team is playing far away, that’s ok. It’s beamed into your living room or nearest sports bar and you don’t miss a lot of the action. Hockey and Basketball are played on very small playing fields. Most of a baseball game is going to be on the pitcher and the batter. A majority of plays in football don’t extend more than 20 yards, with most of the action within a 5 yard span. That makes it really easy for the TV camera to zoom in on the action and make sure you get it. In a soccer game, you may need to see the movements of 4 players 40 yards apart to see the whole play. On a field that’s normally around 115 yards long, the cameras have to stay so panned out that the players look mostly like specks. That’s not interesting, especially on a standard definition TV less than about 36 inches. Maybe now with big screen high-definition TVs soccer might pick up in viewers in North America, but you still don’t get to see in the action like with other TV sports.
Basically, a large-scale soccer league system will never work as well as other sports in North America. However, a conglomerate system might. Pockets of 10 to 12 teams in mini-leagues for regular season play, with rival teams close together. The whole continent could probably support 6-8 mini-leagues, who then supply their two best teams to a season-ending 2 or 3 weeks of playoffs until a final champion is determined. Ontario/Quebec, California and Texas could probably all be league areas on their own. Then include a North Eastern (Canadian Maritmes plus North East US), Southern and North Western (Manitoba to BC, North Western and Mid-west US) League and you’ve got solid groupings of teams that would not only create close rivalries, but inter-league support once the playoffs were reached.
Will this ever happen? I doubt it. If a new game would take hold of the populace of North America I would guess it to be something like LaCrosse first. I don’t see soccer being able to go too big with anything more than high school or collage level teams. All my best to the MLS and they’re doing a great job, but they’ll never be the NFL or NHL in this area of the world.
I’m only posting this to test some new WordPress Plugins. If this works, it should post a link to this topic to both @orion549 and @radiofreefc on Twitter. If this doesn’t work, you may see a few more of these.
A little taste of some acoustical songs that have been piquing my interest.
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Playlist
1. Buck 65 – Coo Coo Bird (Way Back When Acoustic)
2. The Burning Hell – The Things That People Make pt. 3
3. Metric – Front Row (acoustic and album)
4. Rancid – LA River (acoustic and album)
5. The Presidents of the United States of America – Peaches
Like REALLY trying to get used to this.
In comparing WordPress to Blogger, there’s so much info and stuff I can do, it blows my mind. Now I just need a portable PC so I can use this more. I tend to only come down to the desktop to check a few things and then run off again. That or get sucked into a Twitter/Facebook black hole.
There’s still a lot of tweakin and playing around with this that I want to do, though I’m not sure where to start. The Sidebar might be a good place. Current colours are BORING!
Finally had some time to work out the kinks for the new site and, well, here it is! I’ve switched over to WordPress from Blogger because Blogger doesn’t let you host your own blog anymore. So here we are! There’s still some fine-tuning to do, but overall I’m pretty happy with it. Maybe now I’ll use it more…
…Probably not….
Anyways, for ease of use I’ve combined the Radio Free Forest City blog posts with my personal one so all will filter out to the same places they used to eventually. And maybe having something to tamper with will bring me back into things again. We’ll see!
9 months and yes, this is all I can come up with. HA! Grab a beer and a patio chair, especially for the last 30 mins or so.
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You can also just listen here.
Playlist
1. Classified – Anybody Listening
2. Hollerado – Juliet
3. Dan Mangan – Robots
4. Woodhands – CP24
5. The Toasters – 2-Tone Army
6. The Planet Smashers – Missionary’s Downfall
7. Jesse James – First Day on a Brand New Planet
8. The Aggrolites – Free Time
9. Tim Armstrong – Hold On
10. Rancid – Life Won’t Wait
11. NOFX – Kill All the White Man
Getting sick of trying to make shitty audio better, I just record some good audio to give myself a break.
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Playlist
1. Fastball – The Way
2. The Headstones – Cubically Contained
3. Everclear – Heroin Girl
4. Everclear – Santa Monica
5. Rancid – Outgunned
6. Apollo 440 – Lost In Space (Theme)
7. One Inch Punch – Pretty Piece of Flesh
8. Oscar B. – Let’s Go Out and Kill Tonight
9. Rancid – Dominoes Fall (AAA mix [Acoustic/Album/Acoustic])
Some friends and I made a road trip up to Toronto at the end of May. After losing my recorder for a few weeks, this is the first half edited. More to come in a week or so, when I get the time.
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Playlist
1. Weezer – El Scorcho
2. Elton John – Saturday Night
3. Buck 65 – Wicked and Wierd
4. Jamiroquai – Deeper Underground
5. The Lonely Island – On A Boat
6. DMX – Party Up
7. DMX – Ruff Riders Anthem
8. K’Naan – If Rap Gets Jealous
9. Kid Rock – All Summer Long
10. Pink – So What
11. Pink – Dear Mr. President
12. Pink – I Have Seen The Rain
Pam and Damien’s wedding reception was a blast on May 2nd, these are the shennannigans that ensued.
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You can also just listen here.
Playlist
1. Barry Louis Polisar – All I Want Is You
2. Snoop Dogg – Gin and Juice
3. The Real McKenzies – Pour Decisions
4. The Police – Message In a Bottle
5. Poker Face – Lady Gaga
6. Rhianna – Disturbia
7. Flight of the Conchords – Doggie Bounce
8. Flight of the Conchords – Business Time
9. Led Zeplin – Misty Mountain Hop
10. REM – Shiny Happy People
11. Sir Mix A-lot – I like Big Butts
12. Spirit of the West – Home for a Rest
13. Garth Brooks – Fishing In the Dark
14. A.M. – Boom Snap Clap
15. Yes – Yours is No Disgrace
16. Olivia Newton John – Part of Your World
17. Journey – Don’t Stop Believing
18. Blondie – Call Me
19. Billy Idol – White Wedding
