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

<<(Ie - the Man U's and the Chelski's don't have to win EVERYTHING because those b@stards have cornered all the money and 90% of the resources - there is still room for an unfancied lowly outsider to pull off an upset!)>>

Hah! NFL is carefully structured so that the worst teams get first pick of the best college players, and the teams all have a maximum wage bill, and also there's some kind of cap on earnings for the clubs too I think. Any money over that goes to either the owners or the NFL, but can't be spent on players.

And the *point* of that post being that there aren't any outsiders, really.

Derren Brown is gay.

the australian football league (AFL) also has a draft and salary cap modelled after the american system.

that it works is indicated by the fact that of the last 10 premierships, only 3 have been won by traditional powerhouses of the competition. the others went to either new clubs or clubs that had waited decades between premierships.

but this 'socialism' in sports administration only goes so far in establishing the principle that you can create equality via economic manipulation.

despite decades of concessional draft picks, financial assistance and the like, some of the poorer performing clubs still look no more likely to gain a flag than they ever did.

so there will always be outsiders in professional team sport.

My heart bleeds.

By the way, does anyone know the etymology behind "rock bottom"?

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Yeah, that's true, you need good infrastructure, coaching, signings etc to make a good team. But.. the likes of Wigan will *never* be able to take on Manu Utd, no matter how well their club is run due to financial constraints. It would be nice if that wasn't the case.

how some sporting clubs maintain a winning culture is a topic all to itself.

the first president of ireland, douglas hyde, was a protestant.

George Washington's dentures were made from the jawbone of a hippopotomus and joined together with springs.

The longest kiss underwater lasted 2 minutes, 18 seconds.

(Rock bottom is an idiom from the 1800's alluding to digging down until you hit the bedrock, at which point you can dig no deeper.)

You share your birthday with around 9 million other people in the world.

That's not correct. That would assume a world population of only 3.285 billion, less than half of the current estimate.

I stand corrected, you celebrate your birthday with approx. 18.2million others around the world. Thank you Count.

Italy have never won a game in the World Cup by more than two goals.

Actually, that's bollox.

"Frozen Pizza is my favorite kind. Particularly Red Baron"

Good call. The local grocery had a 2 for 1 sale, so I tried a couple. Pretty good stuff, and even my wife ("cheap means bad") liked them. So now I have a freezer full ...

Not quite as good as fresh baked, but the combination of convenience, price (less than a dollar for half a medium) and flavor is hard to beat.

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Not inconceivable though, for Italy.

"Frozen Pizza is my favorite kind. Particularly Red Baron"
~*~price (less than a dollar for half a medium).~*~

What?!?!?! They're selling them to you for two bucks, but for the starving college student they cost five?!

Where are you?

Suburb of Houston, the HEB grocery chain had 2 for 1 last week, with a price of $3.60. So ... standby ...$1.80 each, $0.90 for a half ...

Of course a half pizza is 2.5 servings per the box ...

That's so unfair.

In fairness, we have the Astros ...

Here's something else - Mary Kay Cosmetics has 1.7 million salespeople worldwide, 14,000 in Houston. Bigger than attendance at Astros games ...