Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Speaking of rugby: last weekend, I downloaded some other matches, and Lisa suggested that I watch one in the evening back "home" in the trailer. I don't need an internet connection for that as long as I first launch the video while connected to the internet so I can establish rights to the file. Anyway, as I was watching a game last week, she decided that Kuma Bear was interested in rugby, too.

( Kuma Bear photo behind the cut )

Lisa isn't terribly interested in sports, but she says that Kuma is.

It's very busy here at PDX this evening, where my flight to Oakland is delayed 45 minutes but not oversold. The former meant that I had time to go have a relatively leisurely dinner after checking in, but it also means that I won't be able to take the Capitol train home because I won't connect to it. Instead, I'll have to take BART and a taxi home from there. Oh, well, such is the way of travel.

Unfortunately, I didn't have an opportunity yet to download either of the Rugby World Cup semi-final matches, so I don't have a match to watch on the flight tonight. (I tried setting up a download while I was eating dinner, but it said that it would take about three hours.) I do have a match from the New Zealand national league, though, and Cheryl says it's a good one, so all is not lost. And I loaded the half-battery into the CD-ROM bay, so there's no chance of running out of power partway through. (But it isn't a very long flight anyway.)

I've always thought that PDX was a nice airport, especially since the Concourse B/C renovation was finished. It appears that other travelers thing so as well, as Conde Nast Traveler awarded PDX Airport of the Year status for 2006.

Update, 18:40: Good thing there's more than one way to get home from OAK. We're still stuck here waiting to go. The delayed inbound equipment was first announced as "needing additional servicing," followed by "we have swapped equipment; the new plane will be here shortly," to the new equipment taking a lot longer to get ready than expected. As I write this, they're saying, "Ten more minutes," but they've been saying things like that for the last half hour or so. At least PDX is a comfortable place to wait.

For those of you on my f-list who are following the Rugby World Cup, thank you for posting your comments behind cuts. I can't see the matches until, at the earliest, the day after they happen due to the licensing agreement with MediaZone, and in fact it will probably be later than that given when I'll have the time to watch the knockout-stage matches.

I'm going up to Oregon for the weekend and will be out of e-mail contact from about 3 PM Friday through late Sunday evening. Originally I wasn't even going to take my computer, but I came up with an idea that means I'll have to take the machine with me. I have a subscription to MediaZone that includes the Super 14 matches, a couple of which will air tonight my time and thus be available for download tomorrow morning. I can download a match, launch it briefly (you have to do this while connected to the internet in order to establish rights to view it), then set it aside. Then, at the airports and on planes (space available), I can watch the matches.

Although I'm very busy with the project I have here at work, it's not yet so critical that I'll need to fire up the computer for the relatively short time I'm in Oregon this weekend, but I'll use it for entertainment coming and going.

There's no way I can watch all of the S14 matches (and I probably wouldn't want to do so even if I had the time), but I do hate paying for the subscription and not getting some use out of it.

(No, there are no US teams in Super 14. That's just the only rugby-related icon I have.)

I spent most of the evening hanging out in the basfa party, which seemed to me to keep a decent amount of traffic and conversations going on, and that's good, given that we are down at the end of the hall like that. I have no desire to offend someone by leaving them out, but to me the standout conversation of the night was one I had with karisu_sama about The Late Unpleasantness. (If you don't know what it is, trust me, you're probably better off not knowing.)

About 11:30 PM, I realized that I was having some difficulty keeping focus. This is surprising, given the artificially time-shifted schedule I'm keeping, on which it shouldn't be much later than 6:30 PM by my body clock. However, as I'm commuting from Fremont, twenty or so miles away, I figured that it was prudent to head home sooner rather than later, as I would be unlikely to be more alert if I stuck around.

Cheryl pointed out that the USA Rugby team is playing for a spot in the Rugby World Cup against Uruguay on Saturday at 2 PM at Stanford. I've decided that I'll go ahead and go to the game, so I won't be at Silicon on Saturday until probably after 5 PM or so, depending on how long it takes to get down to San Jose after the match. I have no commitments to Silicon -- I'm not a program participant, and there aren't a lot of things on the schedule that interest me personally, so I'll probably just hang out again during the evening. The basfa or loeg parties are good places to look for me.

Saturday afternoon, David Gallaher and I arrived early for the Ireland A-New Zealand Maori match in Santa Clara. There was a line of cars queued up to pay $5 to get into the parking garage. I told Dave to turn right instead of left and we parked for $1.50 in the Caltrain parking lot. Few people seemed to notice this option was available.

( My impressions of the match )

In the end, Ireland were unable to score any more points than the US had against the Maori, but were not destroyed by NZ the way the USA Eagles were. Final score was New Zealand Maori 27, Ireland A 6. (Link is to a news story about the match from American Rugby News.)

We had an opportunity for a bonus match, as the American semi-professional Rugby Super League played their championship game right after the Ireland-NZ match; unfortunately, Dave needed to get back to Fremont to help dinogrl tear down her classroom. From what I read, the RSL final was a much closer affair, with OMBAC scoring the winning try in injury time to defeat Belmont Shore, 36-33.

I'm glad that I was able to attend all three of the Churchill Cup games in the newly-expanded format. In previous years, only four teams played in the Churchill Cup, and all of the games were played in Canada. This year they expanded to six teams and played two sets of pools, one in the USA, before the final round in Edmonton. NZ Maori will play Scotland A for the Churchill Cup, while England and Ireland will play for the Plate and, as expected, USA and Canada, coming last in their respective pools, will contest for the Bowl.

Despite the home sides being dominated by the visitors, I'm glad to see the International Rugby Board and the sponsors of the Churchill Cup including the English Rugby Football Union taking an interest in developing rugby in North America. The only way the US and Canadian sides will improve is by playing better sides like this. I heard an announcement at the game that the same six sides will contest again next year. I'd be surprised if they come back to Santa Clara, only because I'd expect them to play somewhere else to give another city a chance to see the matches, but if they do come back to the Bay Area, I expect I'll make an effort to see the matches.

There will be more international rugby at Buck Shaw Stadium in a few weeks as the USA takes on Barbados in a Rugby World Cup qualifying match; unfortunately, it will be on July 1, and I'll be a bit busy in San Diego at the time.

I know that the USA rugby team is outmatched by the Irish and NZ teams, even when they are sending their "A" sides (what Americans would probably call the "B" team, since they are secondary squads). Still, I feared that we'd be blown out by Ireland. Instead, the Eagles did better than I thought they would, and even led for a few minutes when they got the first score three minutes into the match with a penalty goal. Still, Ireland are a better team, and they won, 28-13.

( My day in the sun )

It was very warm and sunny today, with no cloud at all. I was slathered in sunscreen. I hope it worked. Cheryl, who was also watching the other pool match being played in the rain in Toronto, said that today's game was a great advertisement for California tourism.

I'm looking forward to the next two matches.

I have a subscription to MediaZone's rugby package, purchased after Fox Sports World changed their name to Fox Soccer Channel and dropped everything except soccer from their schedule. Before going to bed last night, I took advantage of having broadband by starting the download of the four Super 14 matches that had been played so far. Sure, it takes hours to download those huge files, but I was asleep while it was happening. (Except for the mystery phone call at 5 AM, grumble.) I then pulled down the other two matches this morning.

I probably won't have time to watch all six matches, but now I can select them without having to concern myself with the 60-to-90-minute download time before watching one.