greece weren't actually any good when they won. (There's a long sad story about me not winning £1000 on greece - they were 50-1 when they got to the quarters and i decided that no one in an 8 man race should be that long odds, but then i was late for meeting a mate for a beer, so i wavered outside the bookie's where i saw the price, and so took my £20 to the pub instead).

Belgium were quite good in the late 80s/early 90s, i think. But your point stands up - see also sweden, czechia, etc etc

He couldn't do it even when he was Ryan Giggs

which soccer is more lol, england or mexico

tough choice

Man, I totally forgot that brief period in the mid-90s when the Czechs were really good at football.

there's a line of thinking that runs that, given england's size and to a lesser extent range of other sports played, sort of qualify for the WC, go out in the second round maybe QFs, is about the right sort of performance for them.

i met a nice british family a few years ago, and then when i turned my back, they went all space alien on me. turns out they were just speaking welsh.

but taking elliotr's variance argument, i think that there's a solid case to be made that the last decade should have been one in which the england team was at a peak, whereas it's really been running at average. THe last generation of players featured a lot of actually really quite good talents - gerrard, beckham, scholes, some of the defenders, owen, etc, plus rooney as a younger name, should have been a really good side, but they have consistently underperformed.

Culpability for this runs through the sport and british society - a stubbornly unprofessionalised coaching system, a desire to buy results short term at the expense of long term development, a media and public which is unforgiving of failure and unwilling to forgive experiment in the name of improvement, and players who respond to that by playing defensively - seeking to not make mistakes, rather than to excel (a cause and effect that is notably only really seen in the national side, rather than in the clubs). The worst thing that can happen to an england side is often that they go one nil up early - for over a decade they have responded to going into the lead by retrenching and defending and seeking to hold out, retreating further backwards as the game goes on, rather than continue to play. England players rarely if ever look like they're enjoying themselves.

Totally standard in north wales is when you go into a shop and two people are speaking in english, they look at you come in and then switch into welsh immediately.

few pages behind but grats kokiri on your jerb!

How do they identify Englishmen by sight?

how easy is it to convert a rando laptop to unix? Is it worth doing? Can you surf the internet/do wordprocessing/etc on a unix machine? Is it likely to run faster or whatever on unix rather than with windows?

One thinks they've won WCs, the other actually has. Better to hearken back to the good 'ol days than to be a complete embarrassment to your country by your existence.

Unix, but not Linux?

it's a freeroll, plus maybe people they don't recognise?

pretend your talking to someone who doesn't know the difference?

EZ - http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop

depends. it can be frustrating.

yes of course, Ubuntu comes with all that ****

not rly.

I naturally did this without being told.

linux a unix-like OS. that's the one everyone uses. only hardcore geeks use any non-linux unix installation.

and like 95% of non-tech savvy people who use linux use ubuntu.

it's probably as easy to install as windows nowadays. maybe easier to use than windows 8, from reports i've read, although i've never tried w8 myself.

free BSD!

Linux's not Unix

what did bsd do? probably deserved it.

i don't usually free my BSD until 6pm, and right now i'm at my father-in-law's house, so i probably shouldn't do it.

ugh beer and cereal does not go together well

what's the learning curve like going windows -> ubuntu?