h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, OK as long as I can vote for Colin "that was never a try" Hawke. Just think yourself lucky that Trevor "I couldn't possibly go anywhere without a whistle in my mouth" Fisher hasn't quite made it to international standard technical refereeing yet.

hey colin hawke has his good days too - actually there's a good guy coming through the ranks in nz who should hopefully be up to light internationals by the next world cup - guy by the name of steve walsh if memory serves correctly (and of course he's from harbour, my province). you saw it here first.

I bring news - iMax, the whooping big screen in auckland will be playing the world cup final live at 4am in the morning, if the all blacks make it, taking up two thirds of the 27m by 20m screen. tickets are of course $98, continuing the tradition of recent years of making sure that rugby is accessible to the nz public, eg terrace tickets for npc semi-final $20, no student discount. gosh that's good pricing for a family day out if you want to take the kids. grrrrrrrrrr. and they read out the huge list of the sponsors names and who ever thanks the fans ay?! except michael jones.

How many people does the iMax Theatre hold?

I heard after a certain amount of time watching stuff on the enormous screen your body goes into sensory overload. I'm probably wrong.

Point taken on the pricing. All modern-day sporting events are way over the top as far as pricing is concerned.

don't know how many the iMax holds, haven't been (it's $15 normally) but reckon it's pretty big from what i've heard. yeah i heard the same thing about the sensory overload. apparently it's laregly propaganda because the real reason the films are so short is because the film is incredibly expensive. but i should imagine that trying to take in a screen bigger than the side of most houses would be pretty taxing. especially if it was rugby and there's one of those damn technical refs and you spend the whole time jumping up and down going "for god's sake he was a mile offside you idiot" and then getting yelled at to sit down by everyone else because they paid so much for their tickets.

the irritating thing is that a lot of the people who go will go because it's perceived as a cool thing to do, not because they're rugby fans, just like with the star wars re-releases(not Episode I), where all these non-fans went to the midnight sessions because the first one got on tv and they sneered at all the fans and made fun of them, which sucks i reckon. grrrrr. sorry very ranty today.

You get the same at large sporting events over here. People who can afford tickets go not because they enjoy it but to impress their friends/clients. Rant....

Yes, this World Cup tournament, for example, has suffered from over selling to corporate hospitality. Tons of allocated tickets were never collected by non commital corporate types, resulting in half empty stadiums. Imagine how much better Murrayfield, for example, would have looked if they'd sold cheap tickets to local schools, clubs, etc. Hopefully, the unions will learn the lesson that you can't treat paying customers like second class citizens and expect them to keep attending.

Unfortunately, the unions will always prefer people who pay £100 for their ticket and not show up, to fans who are out on the terraces week in week out supporting their local side. But look on the bright side, if they continue to ignore the real fans, the fans will begin to desert rugby. That would bring an end to their professional sport, quite quickly.

yet more ranting, I don't know. Referees, professionalism you got to laugh, otherwise you'll be crying in your beer.

It is a national day of mourning in New Zealand. Grown men crying into their beer everywhere

Sob

Still could be worse, you could've had tickets for the 3rd place playoff then find out you can't go cause of work (Agh!!!!!!).

My condolences... France is just going to have to win then!

C'est la vie.

Here are some things for New Zealanders to ponder on this sad day...

A/ Taine Randall & Jeff Wilson are GAY! (No doubt about it now)
B/ Who is going to buy all those ALL BLACK WEET-BIX TINS now? (The national NZ breakfast dish)
C/ Will there be super special deals on BLACK FORDS now? (NZ rugby sponsor)
D/ What about all those poor jerks who bought the ALL BLACKS cellphone covers?
E/ I bet ADIDAS (NZ rugby sponsor) is feeling a bit stink today!
F/ Do we have to boycott FRENCH-FRIES now?
G/ Will the souvenir shops still be selling ALL BLACK jerseys for ridiculous prices?
H/ What was the TAB (NZ betting agency) paying for France by 12 POINTS or more?
I/ What is the TAB paying for South Africa by 20 POINTS or more?
J/ The LEAGUE TEAM is doing well isn’t it?
K/ The CRICKET TEAM is playing crap!
L/ Will this screw up JENNYS re-election hopes? (NZ Prime Minister)
M/ I’ll bet HELEN is quietly laughing today, cause she knows the answer to L. (Leader of the NZ Parliamentary Opposition)
N/ What are we going to do with all that TICKER TAPE the Auckland City Council would have no doubt already purchased?
O/ What are we going to do if AUSTRALIA wins the WORLD CUP!!!!!!
P/ What are we going to do if we lose the AMERICAS CUP! (Yachting)
Q Bring back BUCK! (Legendary ex-All Black skipper and tough guy)
R/ Does this mean MORO bars don’t really work? (All Black sponsor)
S/ Do you think Air New Zealand is glad it didn’t paint the whole plane? (Painted black and featuring pictures of the front row forwards)
T/ Should we kill all the people who say, “It’s only a game”?
U/ Will the nation be silent now we have nothing to talk about?

with the exception of the guy who won $20 on a scratch kiwi, put it on the 12th horse/dog in the next race, won $400 on that, put it all on the French to win by 12 (must be his lucky number) and now has $60,000 (NZ) more than he did at the start of the day. TAB must be breathing a sigh of relief - apparently they were up for a gynormously huge loss if the All Blacks won - oh well there's always next time.

and the final should be fun because we won't have to worry about a repeat of that last tri series game and can watch with a bit of objective admiration for the sheer beauty of the game. or somesuch

cheer up LT, the next four years will fly by and in the meantime there's always the America's Cup!


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btw why didn't anyone get this upset over the silver ferns losing?

The netball players were desperatly unlucky to lose and at least they went down fighting. There are a couple of good h2g2 netball threads commenting on the Aus-NZ game.

What we really need now is a tree and some rope for John (Mr Corporate Coach) Hart

i sense a non-aucklander among us

haven't seen the game yet, but it seems that everytime we put a foot wrong the call is for the coach (who ever the poor hapless soul is) to get the sack. mind you i bayed just as loudly for laurie mains's blood many years ago

who would you pick to succeed hart?

besides i think it's all a bit ironic that nzers have been planning the victory parade for months - perhaps we need a bit of humility, not a new coach. (that oughta get you going LT )

sorry feeling rather irreverent today (just swallowing my grief )

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You mean apart from the Silver Ferns themselves? Thank God the ABs didn't blub (publicly at least).

And now Jonah has plenty of free time to drive his new TVR (I bet that movie cameo in The World Is Not Enough is looking pretty good now).

i seem to recall that when the ABs lost in South Africa that time there was a fair bit of blubbing, or maybe i'm projecting i guess that's the diference between a last second loss and a second half loss. maybe

good grief did they really offer jonah a cameo? does he get to be fifty feet high?

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It was difficult to tell in South Africa, could've been the botulism...

I'm not sure what role they offered him, but he turned it down because of his rugby commitments. Maybe they wanted him to a big steel mouthguard.

His agent was saying the other night how it could've been a major advert for the game of rugby. Is he right? It's certainly not unknown for sporting figures to have guest-starring roles, Michael Jordan, Mark McGuire, Vinnie Jones, etc. But did they increase awareness for their sport or just boost audience numbers?

yeah lock stock and two smoking barrles was cool, but if someone hadn't told me he was a soccer player i wouldn't have known and it didn't exactly get me out there kicking the round ball around.

it's a bit like saying that making a spice girls movie gets more people singing i would have thought

hey rumour is (stress: i still haven't seen the game and am not likely to see it for a week) lomu got a fabo try, going through seven players (in the first half of course) yesno?