Compared to Connecticut, but not really. I'm in Southern California.

Yea in my mind that is nearish but I always forget how huge states are out west.

So does anyone else think it's incredibly self centered and selfish to plan a birthday vacation for yourself and expect your friends and family to join?

For example: say your bday is July 1st and you tell everyone you want to go to New Orleans for your bday, you control the itinerary and won't budge on the dates. You are asking everyone to take off from work on specific days and spend their money on a vacation celebrating you.

speaking words of wisdom

That's pretty bold. And millennial.

It's Code 3's bitch sister, isn't it?

"Incredibly lol" is a better way to describe it. It's self-centered and selfish too, but anyone who'd do this probably gets off on being called that.

It becomes a lot more acceptable if the birthday celebrator pays for it, or if "family" is close enough that they're basically sharing funds anyway.

And potentially even have to get a babysitter.

I have a friend who would surprise no one if she tried to pull that birthday stunt.

Destination Birthdays up in hurrrr

After your 21st bday you don't get to make a big deal about another one until you're 100.

I know Dids loves his birthdays.

I've always been curious about the sport of cricket. Right now the World Cup is going on, and I can't watch it without contortions (of legal and illegal varieties) or, at the easiest, paying for access. I've got cable with ESPN, Fox Sports, NBC Sports, and CBS sports. Those channels are currently showing everything from a replay of a women's college basketball game to a replay of poker that happened last year to a sports talk show called, "His and Hers." Is it really more profitable for NBCS to show "Total Gym. Does it work," than live cricket?

I guess, only because of my faith in relentless capitalism, but man is it frustrating.

RDH,

I suspect it's a case of cricket being a huge deal globally, so rights actually cost real money and are not worth paying for the audiences the U.S. would generate.

I do know it's a big deal that this time you can buy all the games on ESPN online or something.

Cricket is actually one of the world's most popular sports owed almost entirely to the Indian subcontinent and the kind of zealous sports following that honestly, eclipses anything you've ever seen.

There's 1.7 billion of them and they're bat**** crazy for the game. You could make a good case for Sachin Tendulkar being the most 'deified' sportsman ever.

A friend of mine once said something along the lines of "Imagine David Beckham at the height of his fame, now imagine that he captained us to winning the World Cup, scored a hat-trick in the final with a last-minute free-kick winner, and he still wouldn't come close to the admiration and love that Indians have for Tendulkar.

Perhaps he slightly improved 100 people's lives today with 2 hours work - that's a pretty good return isn't it?

I think you could make the case that Sachin Tendulkar is the most famous person alive. He's got to be in the top 3 with Obama and the Queen. Perhaps the pope... Ten years ago I'd have tried to argue for Jackie Chan too.

Sci,

Not sure I buy that.

India/pak/Sri
Aus/nz
UK
South Africa

Does anyone else in the world really give a **** about cricket?

Some islands in the west indies/Caribbean care about cricket. So no. Not really.

I've never heard of that guy.

No, but that's the thing, they don't have to.

WRT India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh we're talking about a massive population of people where an incomparably vast percentage of them (male/female/young/old) are all into this one, unrivaled sport.

Those facts alone get you up to a huge, huge number in terms of sheer popularity.

Rasta,

A) you don't seem to understand the concept of a containment thread

B) nobody said he isn't very popular

El D.

Bangladesh
Sri Lanka
Zimbabwe
West Indies

GnT,

Yeah, with my first line I meant indian subcontinent.

Didn't know about Zimbabwe.

West Indies, of course.

But none of those have any impact on my point. I think that's likely to leave out far too much of the world's population to have a chance of sachin being at that top few most famous globally level.

Erm...So I'm not allowed to talk about Cricket?

Probably true actually. I'm struggling to see how the number of people in the world who'd recognise a picture of Tendulkar but wouldn't of Obama or the Queen could possibly outnumber the reverse.

We already have a thread about the most recognizable people in the world.