World Cup 2018 - No Match Discussions

Here are the standings up to the semi-finals: Qt3 World Cup Pools - Google Sheets

That’s a good point. Maybe a bonus point for a team getting to the finals? Just to distinguish it from the third place game. And maybe a bonus point fo reaching the quarter-finals and a point for the semi-finals?

I think we might need a tournament to figure out changes to scoring. Who’s up for joining a Euro 2020 pool?

If I haven’t over-eaten myself off this mortal coil by then, I’m actually really interested to try. It’s been fun watching the matches this year, and now taht I have “real” TV (read: Youtube TV) for the first time since my dorm in college, I feel like I can actually keep up with stuff okay :)

I’m up for it. Can we get them to start now?

Sooner! How about Copa America 2019, to be held in Brazil?

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From The Guardian.

On a somewhat related note: he’s actually doing it.

Spoiler alert - it’s not what England fans are looking for.

I thought I’d turned off all notifications, but google still updated me on the match. Luckily nothing has happened in the match yet, so I was able to turn off the notification. All notifications should be off now on my phone.

When I step into my car at work, the radio is on. So there is a danger I’ll step in and NPR will come on and tell me who won before I get home. I just have to remember to switch it off as soon as I turn on the car.

Media LOCKDOWN man! Its the only way to be sure! Safe drive!

I’m gonna be in that situation tomorrow. Fortunately my phone won’t be an issue since I have no notifications from news/sports sites at all, but I’ll have to avoid any live radio while in the car. To the podcasts!

Can someone, anyone, shut John Strong up? I can’t believe he is doing the last 3 matches. Hey John, there is a game on, shut up about what happened in 1986.

Well that didn’t work at all. One of the guys at the event that was causing me to miss the live match announced the result, completely out of the blue. Had no idea anyone there was even paying attention to the Cup. Oh well, saved me a few hours.

It worked for me, for the most part. Right as the match started, my OnePlus One (as opposed to my phone, where notifications were off) piped up with a Google alert that England had scored. Once I turned that off, I was able to avoid any other news. So the only thing I knew was that England had scored early when I watched it later that evening, which didn’t really spoil anything for me.

I’ve been able to record quite a number of games during the workday or when sleeping in on weekends, and then watch them in the late afternoon or evening without spoilers. The keys are listening to a CD or podcast in the car, avoiding lunch places with TVs, and letting friends and family know not to message me about the games. I guess I’m not subscribed to any notifications that have to do with soccer, so that was never a problem. The only time I had a game spoiled, was when the power went out in the middle of watching the game on the DVR. Unfortunately, after my cable rebooted, it returned to live TV rather than the recording, which was just announcing the score right at that minute.

Ah yes. I remember it well.

[pulls up his rocking chair and lights his pipe]

For me it was the Duke vs Kentucky in the NCAA tournament 1992 Regional Final. A minor game in history, to be sure, as any college basketball fan will know.

I was just out of college and working my first job waiting tables at a big deal country club in Williamsburg, VA called Ford’s Colony. They had three dining areas. The formal dining room. The Mixed Grill (an extra ‘e’ for Ye Olde Colonial Williamsburg may have been added, but I don’t remember). And the Men’s Grill (see above parenthetical).

I was working the Mixed Grill in my first job as a waiter, as you had to work your way up to the fine-dining room. Only the Men’s Grill had a TV. The Men’s Grill was called that because, well, only men could eat there, because it was a bar off of the men’s locker-room. And only one dude worked that room. The bartender, Collins. He handled that little dark-paneled, leather-chaired room, and he would order and go and grab food for the men who lounged there, smoking cigars and watching sports TV.

There was no corresponding Women’s Grill. The female members of the country club protested this from time to time. This never went anywhere.

At any rate, I was working a closing shift in the Mixed Grill on the night of this amazing game. I had set my VCR at home, with appropriate time buffering, and was just itching to get home to see it. Duke was my favorite team (I know, @marquac …I know), and I was so excited for this game.

There was no “notification” phone madness to deal with…and avoiding the radio on the way home would be simple. I had let my bartender, Jim Glendinnning, know that I did NOT WANT any scores from the game, and being a sports guy he gave me the nod. The other waiters and waitresses could not have cared less, so I wasn’t worried about them. I’d head straight home after we closed the grill and crank up the VCR.

But that dick Collins kept running in from the Men’s Grill to yell out the scores to the kitchen crew. Which…on balance…I have to say is probably fair. They were probably asking for updates, and not many people have the sports-recording gene. But as the game got late and got amazing, he’d run in and yell even more fervently, because the game developed into a freaking marvel. As I came in to get food for my tables, there was no way to avoid it. So I had to just surrender to it and be a part of the social happening.

I still went home and watched the whole thing.

-xtien

The problem with the Copa is there are only 12 teams. My fear is that most folks would pick the same teams.

Yeah, you need a bigger pool.

We could get a standard fantasy football league going for the English premier league next season? I’ll set it up if there is interest.

Ah, Collins. He is the only man who has heard the tale of how I lost my leg.

This so sounds like a line from the “Archer” TV show.

-xtien