How to get Box seats at the National Championship

Step 1. Find out that the day of the national championship of football league that the national championship is going on. Any planning ahead will surely ruin any hopes of getting box seats as you will have already spent money on other tickets.

Step 2. Make sure to not have enough money to buy the tickets at the box office. If you do have enough, you surely will purchase tickets here. However, a visit to the box office is essential as this is where the ‘scalpers’ hang out.

Step 3. Make sure you appear as you have no idea what you are doing. The best way to appear this way is to, in fact, have no idea what is going on. The scalper will offer you tickets at face value, but you will get them for less. In fact, most likely whatever you say you have on you is likely to be the purchase price.

Step 4. Again under the guise of not knowing what you are doing, as you approach your gate make sure all high-school age girls notice that you have regular seats. This is where their boyfriends will be sitting, and undoubtedly, where they will want to sit. What happens next is pure brilliance. They will offer daddy’s box seats for an even swap of your regular seats-and feel like they are getting the better end of the deal—but you must, again, act like you have no idea what is going on.

Step 5. Enjoy hurling and football league; where no pretending is needed, you will have no idea what is going on.

Football League Basics—
As I said, it is somewhat of a cross between Australian rules football and football (soccer). The object of the game is score more points than your opponent. Points are scored by kicking a ball throw uprights (American football uprights) for one point, or kicking it into a goal (world football/American soccer) positioned below the uprights guarded by a goal-keep for 3 points.

Teams try to advance the ball down the field getting the best possible shot at the uprights or the goal. A player can only advance the 10 meters at a time. After 10 meters the ball must either be bounced off the ground, bump passed to a teammate, or kicked. Skilled players will choose to advance the ball on their own further than 10 meters by bouncing the ball to themselves (dribbling it) or kicking it to themselves. Why not just dribble it every 10 meters as this seams much simpler? I am pretty sure players can not dribble the ball in succession; each time they choose to dribble it must be interchanged with a kick to themselves.

Each side plays 15 players at a time, 2 halves lasting 35 minutes a piece. The game is played with a standard round soccer ball. That’s it in a nutshell. Oh yeah, the entire game opposing sides are absolutely whaling on and bludgeoning each other. It’s a real blood bath.

Hurling: Essentially a cross between the above mentioned sport, la-cross, and field hockey. Hope this is helpful. Cheers! Martois.

So much to tell...

(Another Pointy Pony--This One Spotted in Dublin)

Dublin has been great--too much info to write about in this shady internet cafe--but here is a preview of what's to come.

1. a jamacan limbo star getting under a bar set to the height of a wine bottle
2. traditional irish music in a traditional irish bar
3. a tour of the guinness factory with a special photo for ac's collection
4. how to score box seats at the irish football league championship (this game needs explaining, but its closest to a cross between traditional soccer and australian rules football--so the only ones that might have a clue here are sissy, myself, carew, and cantine.)
5. an imcomplete and very superficial review of the cold war kids
6. the book of kells
7. snakes (that's right, muther f'ing snakes) in dublin
8. a discussion on the delight that is black pudding

Roma 2: Manchester United 1: Stella Martois 6

Sissy and I went to a local pub to watch the highly anticipated match between ManU and Roma. 30-40 minutes into the match Scoles (ManU midfielder) got his second yellow card and forced ManU to play a man down for the rest of the match. Just before half, Roma scored a goal on a dodgy deflected corner kick. Roma has a reputation for putting corners into play too early. Several balls used during a match so that errant shots don’t have to be chased down and slow play. In this case, Roma played the corner almost before the other ball went out. The teams would trade goals in the second have, so this first goal proved to be the difference.

The real action took place after the first goal, and was televised during the mid-game break. After the Roma goal, Italy fans began taunting the ManU supporters. Separated by glass, the Roma fans made obscene gestures and starting hurling beer bottles at the English section. Fine, and par for the course. “Football” crowds have always made America football crowds seem like lambs of the god. The reaction by ManU fans was also to be expected. Completely shocking and horrific to watch was the handling by the Italian Riot police. They were already lining the English section at the start of the game. When the ManU fans reacted to the beer bottle missiles that had targeted them, the Italian police began beating English men, women, and children. Dogs were spared only because they were not allowed in the stadium (aside from guide dogs for the blind, and these were given quite a beating indeed).

The camera captured several police beating unconscious fans already bloodied and on the ground. The phrase “hitting a man while he is down” has renewed meaning and significant imagery for me.

The reason I scored the match in my favor by 6: The Abbey is about 2 blocks from my place and its featured whisky this month is Glenkinchie at 2.20 a nip; game, set, match. I just hope they don’t have Italian riot police guarding the whisky.