Everyone At Work Is Talking About The Game

It’s Password Day!  My email password is no longer PuppyB0w!  

You know, Jeremy, this was awfully good timing for you to have this as your email password and have it expire the day after the actual Puppy Bowl.  Remarkable foresight, I'd say. 

Or pure luck, one or the other.  

So, in case anyone is unawares, yesterday was the day of the most highly anticipated sporting event in America....Puppy Bowl!  It's an annual tradition that corresponds to some football game wherein a bunch of puppies are let into a playpen and allowed to frolic for a while on national television.  It's adorable.  

Also included is the halftime show featuring kittens who are let into a playpen and allowed to frolic for a while on national television.  This year's halftime show also included penguins and internet sensation, Keyboard Cat.  It really was quite the spectacle.  

So, right around the time of the last Password Day, I looked at the calendar to see when the next Password Day was going to be (you know...the day all of my work system passwords expire, and I spend half the morning going through different systems and emails resetting a dozen different passwords and hoping beyond all hope that the new password I've chosen follows all of the different sets of rules for all of them...no such luck).  I immediately noticed that it was going to be today, the very day following Puppy Bowl.  My course of action became clear.  

I spent the last however many days are in between Password Days in anxious anticipation of Puppy Bowl, since I reminded myself each time I had to log into something.  It really was quite exciting, and now that Puppy Bowl has come and gone, I must move on to my next password.  

At this time is when we remind our readers that neither this, nor any of the passwords featured in "Password Day" posts were ever used as Jeremy's email password.  Don't bother trying them.  You won't succeed, you'll look foolish while doing it, and the only thing you stand to gain is a bunch of boring technical worky gibberish anyway.  It's just not worth it.

 

They Made A Documentary Or Something

For Cubs fans, winning the world series would be the greatest thing since sliced bread   

Chicago is quite well known for their bread.  Though usually, it's at the bottom of a deep-dish pizza, but that's hardly worth mentioning.  

So I was made aware of something fascinating yesterday.  Baseball is still happening!  Here we are in this semi-mythical time where all of the major sports are apparently playing.  Hockey season started a couple weeks ago, the Football season is in full swing, Basketball starts up this week (I was made aware of that even more recently than the baseball thing), and Baseball begins its World Series this week.  I was surprised that baseball was still happening...I would have thought they would have sorted that out by now, but apparently they need a couple more weeks.  

Anyway, this year's World Series features the Cleveland Indians versus the Chicago Cubs.  That's not a joke.  

The Cleveland Indians (and why I've typed "Clevelant" both times so far, I will never know...thank you, Spellcheck) last won the World Series in 1948, which I found at least a little confusing, since I thought they had won in the 1989 season.  As it turns out, they merely won a divisional playoff tiebreaker game, and lost the American League Championship Series to Chicago.  Box scores and particularly statistics for star pitcher Ricky Vaughn are difficult to locate.  The Indians made it to the World Series the following year, again on the strength of Vaughn's right arm, but strangely again, no statistics for the following series are available.  Regardless, it is a fantastically long championship drought.   

But it pales in comparison to the Championship Drought of the Chicago Cubs.  

Highly Reliable Sources have informed me that the Chicago Cubs' current streak of championship-less seasons is the longest in all of North America's major professional sports.  The last time the Cubs lifted Lord Stanley's Cup, The Vince Lombardi Trophy, The Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy, The Commissioner's Trophy (Seriously...that's the name...awful) was in 1908, when precisely none of the current roster's grandparents were alive.  I mean...I'm guessing...but I'll bet a dollar that I'm right.  

Another thing that didn't exist in 1908...sliced bread.  

As we're well aware, sliced bread was invented in 1928, and it was the greatest thing since bread was wrapped.  So, quite literally, if the Chicago Cubs were to win the World Series this year it would be the greatest thing for Cubs fans since sliced bread. 

Why Is This Not A Thing?

A cricket-inspired tea break during a football game would be hilarious

Just about anything cricket-related is hilarious, really.  


Typical American Blag imaginary personality.  Condescending towards anything not popular in the US.  Cricket happens to be immensely popular in many countries, and is a perfectly worthwhile sport.  Even if nobody anywhere has any earthly clue how it's played.  To illustrate my point, I recently found this clip from a webpage somewhere while researching cricket world records:

• A World T20 qualifier game in which Ireland came almost assured of progressing to next round. They posted solid 189/4, hitting 11 sixes and Netherlands had miraculous task of chasing it down inside 14.1 overs to make history and go through. Stephan Mybrugh showed the way, scoring second fastest T20 fifty and rest of the batsmen contributed. Dutch team hit 19 sixes that day, a record for an inning, breaking all time record.

That's absurd. 

I know that a "Six" is the cricket equivalent of a baseball Home Run, and that a Googly is the equivalent of a curve ball.  Thus ends my knowledge of cricket rules. 

I do know, however, that cricket games can be remarkably long.  So long, in fact that there is a special category of cricket games called "One-Day Matches," which, as the name might imply, take place within a single day.  Playing time is usually in the neighborhood of 6 hours.  This is the short version of the game.  "First Class Matches" are played over the course of 3-5 days with 6 hours of playing time each.  Holy crap.  Everyone involved in this nonsense has to REALLY like cricket to put up with it for that long. 

Regardless of the variation, there are special rules in place which dictate when the game is played, the weather, the lighting conditions, et cetera.  Included in these are times and duration of snack breaks!  This is a terrific concept.  Players battle it out on the field for hours at a time, then take a break for tea.  I'm not joking about this.  They drink tea. 

I think this should be applied to more sports, particularly ones where the outcome would be funny.  For instance, American Football.  Teams spend the better part of 4 hours running into each other and throwing each other on the ground while giving players on the other team concussions, torn ligaments, and other assorted injuries.  Because of the nature of the game, players tend to be on the larger side of humanity, with some tipping the scales at over 350 pounds.  They also wear large padding to protect from some injuries, and most of them have large amounts of sports tape wrapped around themselves to protect existing injuries. 

Now, just imagine of these 350 pound football linemen in full uniform, with pads and tape and tattoos and eye black, holding up a saucer and sipping tea out of a fine china tea cup.  Pinky out, of course.

Let's make this happen, NFL!  Tea Break!