How to Land yourself a Professional Cricket Player

Just memorize the rules of Cricket:

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.
Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out.
When they are all out, the side that's out becomes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out.
Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in.
There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.
When both sides have been in and all the men have out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.

Howzat!

A note: Today's tip is not my creation, but it was funny enough to put it in anyway.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_towel_explanation_of_cricket)

Some Cricket Facts

Here are 10 things I learned about Cricket last Friday.
Please note: The additional info is based on my own knowledge and the opinions that are stated are my own and does not indicate anything else but my thoughts:

1. It happens once in 4 years: Cricket World Championship. The first one was at 1975, in England. By the way, it was The West Indies who took the championship. They also won the following Championship. But it stopped there.

2. This year it take place in Guyana, South America. I am almost certain Guyana was once a colony. Next to Guyana lies Suriname, An Ex-Colony of the Netherlands. At first Suriname was a British colony and New York was a Dutch colony. There were loads of gold in Suriname, the Dutch knew it but the British didn't. That's why the Netherlands offered Britain a swap, and they agreed.

3. Many Ex-Colonies are participating at the Cricket World Championship: India, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Zimbabwe, The West Indies (Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad etc.) Australia, New Zealand, Ireland. Some of the mentioned above suffered, were exploited and abused more than others.

4. England, the biggest imperialist country ever, have never won the championship, though getting into the final for 3 times. How ironic.

5. The referees are dressed like colonialists.

6. Surprisingly, Pakistan lost to Ireland at the first stage of the games, and is out of the competition. Less than 24 hours after their defeat, the Pakistan coach, Bob Woolmer, who's actually an Ex-English-Cricket Player, was found unconscious in his hotel room. It is suspected he was actually poisoned and was strangled, which caused his death. The case in being investigated by the Guyana or the Jamaican police (It was unclear by the article I read...).

7. The match I was watching at Dublin Airport was between Ireland and England. Unfortunately, England won.

8. About the game itself: In the Cricket World Championship, a match will last 1 whole day (8 hours in total). The Non-World Championship match will last few days!!!
It's pretty much like Baseball: there are a bat and a ball, but it shaped different than the baseball ones.
There are two teams that are playing against each other, of course. One team is at the field, while the other one is hitting the ball and tries to gain as many runs as possible.

9. For further information go to www.cricinfo.com or at their world cup website http://uk.cricinfo.com/worldcup2007

10. So for those of you who used to think like me that cricket is boring: Think Again!
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

The Saga of Dublin Airport

Well, I have just landed at the Dublin Airport, where I'm supposed to meet Dan. Yeah, yeah, he had to go on a business trip and was supposed to land at 19:00, 2 hours after my plane lands. I decided I'll wait for him at the airport.
Well, nothing is supposed to work as planned, so when I landed I called Dan, and he told me there'll be a delay, and he'll probably land at 20:00!!! I knew something like that would happen! Why couldn't my flight be delayed??I just hope nothing else will occur out of the blue...

Well, at first I was thinking to go to the city, put my suitcase (which is quite big to travel the city with) at a luggage deposit, but at the tourist info i was told that there are 2 places in Dublin where I can deposit it, but they are both quite far from the area where Dan lives and from the more interesting parts of Dublin. So I decided to stay at the airport. And what can be better than writing my next post at the airport? So that's why I'm sitting down at the airport under the Meeting Point sign, my dear suitcase is next to me, and I write everything in my cool 888.com notebook.

It's 18:25. I have 1.5 hours left. If I find nothing better to do, this might be a very long post. Talking on the phone could be nice, but expensive- almost 1$ per minute for incoming calls. and that also means I'll have to convince people to call me... maybe that's not such a good idea after all.

5 minutes have passed.
There are some available Internet access positions, but it costs 1E per 10 minutes! so expensive!
hey, I can also watch and try to understand Cricket. The TV in front of us, the people at the Meeting Point, is on, and there's a cricket match. Everybody around me are quite fascinated by the match between Ireland and England.
Another 5 minutes have passed. It's going to be soooo long... That post.
Hey, I've got a wonderful idea! I'll go to the tourist info and get some ideas for Monday- Tuesday.When I come back, I'll explain.

Well, I'm back, after spending 20 minutes at the line, so that the nice lady at the tourist info would tell me that she has no info about Northern Ireland, and she gave me the address of the tourist info in Belfast (for Or's Travels Advice- near the Jury Hotel, at Royal Avenue. Hey! you've earned a free link! You lucky bitch!).
after that I bought a bottle of water, drank some, ate my last sandwich from this morning, yes, it was delicious, and no, I suppose (I use that word so much. I think, or even better- I suppose I'll have it as a label) it wasn't spoiled. After that I drank some more, and my mom called, so now I have 40 minutes left!

Ohh, No!!! I now look at the board, and his light will land at 20:10! that means I have to wait another 15 minutes!!
So now the countdown is 55 minutes.
OK. So now I have the time to tell you all ( all of my 3 frequent readers) what's on for Monday. Dan has to go to Northern Ireland for a business trip, by a rented car. I'll join him. At first I was terrified, I thought he was supposed to go to London or some other place in England, and I'll have lose 2 days with him (If I want to join him that means we'll have to book myself a flight, too expensive. And besides, there's always the chance there are no available seats on the flight). So he has to go to a place called Banbridge, and it's quite close to Belfast, so I'll take a bus there, or Dan will drop me there. I better not drive the car, unless I'm in the mood for an accident. I'm sure I'll find what to do and where to go there.

There's a couple in their mid-20's sitting next to me. they are fighting and laughing like 5 years old... What's wrong with you people??? (Dear Ellen, this one is for you!)

So now I have 40 minutes left, I filled 3 pages in my cool 888.com notebook, and I still have to type it later on today. So I think I'll watch Cricket after all, and keep you updated in what I've learned about it in my next post.