The Off Topic Topic

[Josquius]

Tyr, did you get your bike sorted out ?

Do you want me to post you a spare inner tube, necessary tools and a puncture repair kit ?

I found a new bike shop hidden away near my house- ahh schizophrenic Japanese cities- and paid to get it fixed.
I've a puncture repair kit but couldnt track down the puncture and it all felt rather risky.

Up by 4 against Angola in the quarter final, first half almost over.


Handball?

The European Handball Federation is in Vienna and were looking for an accounts payable guy. I considered applying, because I like handball (THW Kiel supporter), and this could be a fun assignment.

I decided against it, because Austrian handball scene is almost non-existant (so any perks you get like free tickets might be useless), and because I figured that such a gig wouldn't really pay all that well.

Really?
Wow, handball must be REALLY unpopular then, I always thought Austria was one of the places it was most popular

[Syt]

No, in some parts of Germany, handball is definitely #2 sport after football - very much so in North Germany, with the big clubs in Hamburg, Kiel and Flensburg.

In Austria that would be skiing, maybe ice hockey if you look at team sports only. Almost everyone to whom I mention handball gives me blank stares.

[Capetan Mihali]

Was ist handball?   

Apparently American handball and European handball have nothing in common except the name. 

So European handball is something like a combination of indoor soccer and basketball?

[Ideologue]

I'd be scared by the terms "tentatively" and "intermittent".

This is what the National Archives says about "tentative" offers:

Once the Selecting Official has made a final selection, he/she will contact the selected candidate and extend a "tentative" offer of employment. Our Office of Human Resources Services will then extend the "official" offer of employment to the selected candidate. Tentative offers typically are extended by telephone; official offers are extended by telephone and are followed by a formal letter outlining the terms and conditions of employment. Candidates who were interviewed but not selected are notified after the selected candidate has accepted the official offer.

Assuming the Small Business Administration uses the same federal lingo, this sounds very good.

Looking at "intermittent" positions, I found this on a message board:

The next offer came from the Small Business Administration (SBA) as a paralegal Specialist at a GS 09/11, this is intermittent not to exceed 4 years.

If this is a similar offer, intermittent sounds pretty good if it's "NTE" four years.

Based on these snippets, I think are most likely in order.

I'm gonna call 'em to be sure (a four year actual term of employment is A-OK), but I still think it's only when I'm deployed.

Except in all likelihood there is a period of training first, which would provide me a GS-9 salary for a few months.

Then he suggested I get rid of my cats.

[Tamas]

Was ist handball?   

Apparently American handball and European handball have nothing in common except the name. 

So European handball is something like a combination of indoor soccer and basketball?

que?

[Ideologue]

I love you little naifs running around with submachine guns thinking "my state has castle doctrine i'll never get in trouble with the law" without a clue how absolutely fucking abysmal the county jail is, let alone prison.

This sounds like an argument for me to expand the death penalty.

[Tamas]

Was at a small concert last Saturday, a couple of old Hungarian rock legends played acoustic songs.

One of them had a clone of Bryan Adams as a guitar player:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5TWQLvq1Go&feature=g-all

[Admiral Yi]

Was ist handball?   

Apparently American handball and European handball have nothing in common except the name. 

So European handball is something like a combination of indoor soccer and basketball?

Yes.  Our PE teacher made us play it for a week.  No dribbling.  You can only take three steps with the ball.  The goalie gets smacked in the gob a lot.

[The Larch]

Was ist handball?   

Apparently American handball and European handball have nothing in common except the name. 

So European handball is something like a combination of indoor soccer and basketball?

What's American handball? You mean your so-called "Football"? :p

Now seriously, handball is also very popular where I'm from. The default lines in school and street sport courts are handball ones. Back in the day in the late 90s 4 of the teams in the top Spanish league were from my area. In Spain I'd put it in 3rd position, if lucky, in following of sport leagues (behind football and basketball and slightly ahead of indoor football, and ignoring individual sports like tennis and travesties like motor "sports").

It's an extremely niche sport, though, and it can't compete with footie even if our teams are amongst the best ones in the world and the national team is of top calibre. Most teams are from small-ish cities with no other strong sports team, and are thus almost continually in weak economic positions, for instance Balonmano Ciudad Real, one of the strongest teams from the last few years, had to move this year from Ciudad Real (population 75k people) because they couldn't survive in such a small market, and relocated to Madrid, which hadn't hat a handball team since the early 90s. Teka Santander, one of the strongest team from the 90s, folded in 2008.

The goalie gets smacked in the gob a lot.

IMO it takes a special kind of derangement to play handball goalie. Those guys need to have crazy reflexes and get hit really fucking hard constantly while wearing no special protection at all. I don't know where the gob is supposed to be, but if you mean the face or the crotch, then then answer is yes, they do get hit a lot.

[Capetan Mihali]

One of them had a clone of Bryan Adams as a guitar player:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5TWQLvq1Go&feature=g-all

  Adamsz Bryán?

That troll in the background isn't working too hard at the tambourine.   

[Josquius]

Previously I'd only heard of handball from some Austrian girl I know who is a player. They play it at my school here though, looks like weird stuff, I don't get it.
Doesn't seem to be the most popular of sports though, they have more than a full team but the kids are probally second lowest on the pecking order after the track and field kids.


In other news...it was time consuming and inefficient but I've just made pseudo pizza using bread.
Yey.

[Admiral Yi]

What's American handball? You mean your so-called "Football"? :p

Two players use their hands to smack a ball against a wall. Like squash without a raquet. Typically played by priests and young gangsters at the crossroads of their life.

[Josephus]

Was ist handball?   

Apparently American handball and European handball have nothing in common except the name. 

So European handball is something like a combination of indoor soccer and basketball?

Yes.

When I was a sprite young lad growing up in Malta, our school made it so that every boy had to participate in at least ONE sport. All the good athletes played soccer. Next up, the cool kids played basketball.
Those of us nerdy and unathletic were left to play handball. It was actually fun.

[The Larch]

What's American handball? You mean your so-called "Football"? :p

Two players use their hands to smack a ball against a wall. Like squash without a raquet. Typically played by priests and young gangsters at the crossroads of their life.

Oh, in Spain that's called "Pelota vasca". It's huge in the Basque country, Navarra and Rioja. People bet shitloads of money on it and players are local celebrities. Jai Alai is one of its many variants. For some bizarre reason it's also very popular in the region where my mother comes from, rural Castilla, and every tiny village has a court. Apparently it's traditionally popular amongst priests because back in the day people would play against the village church walls after mass.

[Zanza]

What's American handball? You mean your so-called "Football"? :p

Two players use their hands to smack a ball against a wall. Like squash without a raquet. Typically played by priests and young gangsters at the crossroads of their life.

Sounds like basque pelota.