Which football are we talking about. American, or the rest of the world? because in America, football is huge - but I honestly don't understand the appeal, even though I live in Pittsburgh and I'm expected to be a huge fan of the Steelers. Don't get me wrong, I have pride in being from a city with the best American football team in our country, but I still just honestly don't care for the game. Or any sports for that matter. I enjoy playing some, but watching them is boring.
I love my country and I accept stuff like color and theater being changed from colour and theatre, however there are so many things I can't stand.... I hate the English system, I love metric, and football makes so much more sense then "soccer", and wtf does football have to do with american football other then they kick the ball... once.. with their foot, and I guess they run with their feet?
So see, not all Americans agree with a lot of the shat we're taught - as far as differences between us and other countries.
What's the 'English' system? As far as I'm aware, both America and the UK use mainly Imperial measurements, feet, pounds, miles, acres - although the UK is getting more 'metrified' with each generation (young people rarely talk of fahrenheit, ounces and pounds for food weights, and pints for anything other than beer and milk).
I used to hate the word 'soccer' but now I don't mind it - it is an English word after all, not an Americanism, and because there was already a dominant Football code, America had the right to call it soccer. Whatever people say about American Football being a stupid name, their forgetting all modern football codes' mutual roots and the fact that all many games are no longer logically named - basketball doesn't have a basket, gymnasts aren't naked, water polo doesn't involve horses, steeplechasers don't go anywhere near a church, athletes in the hammer throw a round ball on a chain, not a piece of DIY equipment... the list goes on.
I will however defend 'colour', 'theatre' and 'centre', not because they are 'more correct' as someone linguists state, but because that's how they were universally spelled. Noah Webster's new words might have been easier to spell, but they created a schism in the English language that wasn't necessary and only served to distance the US from the UK (and the Empire). Why stop at changing the word 'colour'? Why not go the whole distance and spel evri wurd lyk its pronownst?
Originally Posted by Marko @SiLVERFIRE - when you say you "hate the English system", do you mean like imperial measurements and weights?
Yes, I can't stand the fact that I even prefer imperial... for no reason other then because I'm so used to it. However it makes almost no sense on a daily use. I mean if you want to convert 5 feet to inches, well now you need to multiply 5 times 12.. the metric system makes so much more sense and is easy to convert.
Maybe I'm just bias though because I'm used to the system on file sizes:
1MB = 1024KB
1GB = 1024MB
1TB = 1024GB
1PB = 1024GB
Though the metric system makes more sense (to us anyway, i know alot of 50+'s who still struggle getting their heads round it, yet find the imperial way second-nature), i also prefer alot of imperial measurements, e.g. MPH, Stones, pounds and ounces, feet and inches, etc.
But to be honest, I have to agree with SiLVERFIRE; I myself am an American, but American Football, I guess Arm Egg really, is a pretty dumb sport. The countless injuries you get from playing it doesn't really sound like fun. And I don't get how it's entertaining to watch? My dad's a fan, both my uncles' are fans, and pretty much every other guy I know is a fan. And what's up with Superbowl Sunday? How much do people really need to spend on a freaking television to see a freakin game between two teams? I just don't get it. It's stupid. Not to mention a huge waste of money (Knowing your drunk buddy is going to throw his empty beer bottles at it if he hears his team lost.)
If you ask me, that's Arm Egg and its impact on American culture in a nutshell. I find European Football much more enjoyable; it's a not a huge cluttered mess and I can actually tell what's going on. I just hope there's nothing like Superbowl Sunday in Europe.
Rubbish. American Football is great once you've learnt the rules. Like anything, you get from it what you put into it. Sport is sport is sport to me, the interest is in the contest. That said, there are sports better than others, in my eyes, ones that strike the right balance between skill and luck. I think American Football fits the bill pretty well. I don't like tennis much because you know beforehand most of the time the eventual winner, and some matches just seem like processions to an end you can already predict. Football (the soccer kind) is, in my opinion, the finest sport ever played though, just because it strikes that balance perfectly - goals are rare enough that one or two can decide a match, yet the scope for lucky results isn't too big. Plus there's also the fact that 75% of the world's countries seriously compete, meaning results have a bigger social impact than most sports.
Hockey... thats a fun sport to watch, because it's rough but it flows and if you're watching two good teams, the balance is pretty decent. I don't like sports, however if I HAD to pick one sport to watch, it would be probably be Unreal Tournament, but since that's not real, hockey.
Heh, big football fan here. It's the best sport to watch, and the World Cup probably has as many viewers as the Olympics.
Sports like American football and basketball are fine to watch, but there's just nothing that keeps you at the edge of your seat. They'll do better, you'll cheer them on, it provides a constant flow of entertainment.
Association football keeps you bored while they're knocking the ball around, but when someone's in the final third of the pitch, you just sit there and stare, clenching your fists at the hope of a goal. And if they do score, you get to shout or tell everyone on the Internet that they did and everyone supporting your side gets as excited as you. You get a great moment, and you can tell everyone on the Internet that "my team beat your team" and they'll either go "**** you", or "woo, yeah!"
Association football just has a lot of passion in it. I've seen people give out discounts or boycotts over football results. I've seen people talk for hours about a single 3 min incident. You don't get that from any other sports. It may be a sport with cheaters and divers and a lot of boredom, but it's the best sport to watch with friends because of its unpredictability and the sheer pleasure of a comeback. Heh, kinda why my competitive game designs like to follow that "10% chance of scoring, 90% of nothing happening" model.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.