Oh, it gets better. I did manage to get them to acknowledge that I had sent them the form and could they please start the review - only now they're saying the review process itself will take six weeks, not the previously advertised two, after which the recall itself, if they grant one, will still take 90 days.

>(Though Duke remains one of the
>prettiest schools I've ever seen.)

... when it's not covered in passed-out basketball fans, burning cars and vomited-up cheap beer.

Noooooooo thank you. I'm actually glad Maine's basketball teams never accomplish anything. The hockey teams do, sure, but hockey fans aren't quite as... what's the word I'm groping for? Subhuman, perhaps... as hoop fans.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Oh, it's not that bad. My ex-girlfriend is a Duke student and Blue Devils fan; I visited her there a couple of times before the basketball season started, and it's absolutely gorgeous, all Gothic and old, big stone. Even the newer buildings, which, on the interior, are plainly recent construction, manage to keep that antiquated feeling.

>Noooooooo thank you. I'm actually glad Maine's basketball
>teams never accomplish anything. The hockey teams do, sure, but
>hockey fans aren't quite as... what's the word I'm groping for?
>Subhuman, perhaps... as hoop fans.

Any well-publicized sport tends to inspire riots, I think. Outside of the United States, soccer is the most popular sport on Earth, and the rabidity it inspires, particularly in South America and Europe, is downright frightening. In this country, where soccer is slightly less popular than hockey (and, ironically, I think women's soccer is going to prove the more profitable, because of the way they're doing things), the fans are downright civilized compared to football, baseball, or basketball fans.

-- Sean --
Rabid Crack Weasel #42
http://www.thebrokenlink.org The Broken Link 4.0 is live!
"All tribal myths are true, for a given value of 'true'." -- Terry Pratchett
Follow my random thoughts
Follow my creative process

See, for instance, the 1969 Soccer War between El Salvador and Honduras, when the countries went to war over the result of a soccer match.

--
Jonathan Lennox
lennox@cs.columbia.edu

Wow.... And I thought most wars were fought over land, religon and Who killed who.

Pattrick

In Latin America, soccer is religion. No joke.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

In all honesty, you can also put Europe in that category.

-- Sean --
Rabid Crack Weasel #42
"All tribal myths are true, for a given value of 'true'." -- Terry Pratchett
The Broken Link
Follow my creative process

*looks up from a list with the headline "The 10 best ways to kill Ronaldo"* Um... I didn't get that last part. What did you say again? ^_^;

the Saint Maradona picture I have on my desktop is proof of that.

>>In all honesty, you can also put Europe in that category.
>
>*looks up from a list with the headline "The 10 best ways to kill
>Ronaldo"* Um... I didn't get that last part. What did you say again?

I said I want a copy of that list...

Pangaro, Just friendly rivalry
Relaxed Marijuana Weasel #22
Paying attention to the wrong part of the speech since 1986

heh. perhaps a copy of the "10 best ways to kill ronaldo AND NOT
GET CAUGHT" would be better suited for your purposes..:)

Okay. I think we have a winner for the award for the stupidest war in world history.

Unless you count Europe's little meltdown over the assassination of the Arch-Duke Ferdinand. Given his monumental unimportance to any of the individuals involved in starting the war, as a cassus belli that's not much better than a soccer match. And I suspect the Soccer War wasn't quite as bloody.

>
>Makes me wish I'd win the lottery or something and be able to sidestep
>all of it. Hell, the universities of the UNC network would probably
>have me going to a public university even if I could afford a private
>college -- the state schools in the Connecticut State University
>system were not pleasant experiences for me, but the UNC schools have
>interesting programs, and the UNC Chapel Hill campus is as pretty as a
>lot of private schools I've seen. (Though Duke remains one of the
>prettiest schools I've ever seen.)

For my own part, I went to another part of the UNC system, East Carolina University (class of 1985), and we in Greenville tended to have something of a love-hate relationship with the Big 4 (UNC-CH, NCSU, Duke and Wake Forest). ECU fans aren't particularly rabid, though we do occasionally get up to shenanigans like tearing down the goalposts at North Carolina State. We'd rather drink beer, all things considered; ECU has a long-standing reputation as a party school.

But to get things back on topic, student loans bedevil me. I'm still wrestling with paying back loans that I had to take out when I attended law school at George Washington University in Washington, DC (which had the charming habit of raising tuition EVERY SEMESTER. And for the record, my savings covered undergraduate school well enough, but then again, that was 1981-85.) In fact, I've got to write Sallie Mae a letter about that before the 27th. Basic problem is, I just don't make enough to cover all my other bills _and_ those damned student loans too. (Which kinds of brings me to a juddering halt every time I contemplate going back to school to try for another degree...)

-Joe-

P.S. For the record, I like expensive beer. And ECU's basketball team stank on ice this year.

Give me a little time....say, a couple of years....and I just might come up with an interesting signature.