Extreme nitpick: it’s ‘bonspiel’, not ‘bonspeil’. ‘Bonspiel’ is a word that means, oddly enough, a curling tournament.
Carry on.
“The Devil Went Down to Georgia” is a song written and performed by the Charlie Daniels Band and released in 1979. The song tell the story of a boy named Johnny, in a variant on the classic deal with the Devil. Johnny’s final boast after defeating the Devil in a fiddling contest, was recorded for the Million Mile Reflections album as “I done told you once, you son of a bitch, I’m the best that’s ever been.” To accommodate radio airplay, the 45 RPM single release overdubbed that portion of the lyric as "'Cause I told you once, you son of a gun, I’m the best that’s ever been."
“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, a song written by Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm, was one of the biggest hits for their group, The Band. Joan Baez recorded a version of the song that became a top-five chart hit in late 1971. Helm stopped singing it because he so disliked Joan Baez’s version, according to The Band organ/accordion/sax player Garth Hudson. Baez’s tempo is much faster; The Band’s recording takes around 4 minutes while she sings it in around 3 minutes.
Canadian football tends to be wilder and more unpredictable than American football. There is a theme to the differences in the rules between the two games.
When there is a difference in the rules, the Canadian rules consistently tend to favour a more wide open game, while the American rules tend to favour a more controlled game:
The three down rule encourages more passes, which are inherently more unpredictable than rushing;
The wider and longer Canadian field gives more play opportunities;
So too does the 12 man roster;
The shorter one yard distance between the opposing lines in Canadian rules makes quarterback sneaks more likely to succeed, both on third down gambles and scoring chances with the ball close to the goal line;
The absence of a fair catch rule means that on punts, the ball is always live and the receiver has to be ready to run every time, with a greater likelihood of significant yardage gains and even touchdowns;
The 20 second play clock, instead of the 30 second clock, means that the offence has to keep moving more quickly, and reduces the opportunity for clock management in the last minutes of the game;
The three minute warning at the end of a half, instead of a two minute warning, combined with more liberal rules for stopping the clock and keeping possession of the ball (e.g. by being the last player to touch the ball as it goes out of bounds) keeps the game more fluid, with greater scoring chances and turnovers;
The location of the goal post on the goal line makes the range for field goals longer, thus more opportunities to score;
The possibility of scoring on a missed field goal can be significant in a close game.
There are currently nine teams in the Canadian Football League, all of which are based in Canada. In 1993, the CFL attempted to expand into the United States, with the addition of the Sacramento Gold Miners. Three more American teams were added in 1994 (Baltimore, Las Vegas, and Shreveport), but the Las Vegas team folded after just one season. Two more teams (Memphis and Birmingham) were added in 1995, and the Baltimore Stallions won the 1995 Grey Cup.
Due to financial and attendance problems, however, all of the United States-based teams formally ceased operations in the off-season, and beginning in 1996, no teams outside of Canada have competed in the CFL.
The Montreal Alouettes have been one of the mainstays of the Canadian Football League, but, in fact, there have been three separate Alouette franchises.
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The original Alouettes team, which was founded in 1946, folded in 1981, after Nelson Skalbania’s brief ownership of the team (which featured signing a number of NFL players to big contracts) turned out to be financially disastrous.
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After the demise of the Alouettes, Montreal was awarded a new franchise for the 1982 season. The new team was originally named the Concordes, but was considered to be a continuation of the old Alouettes team, from the standpoint of franchise records and players. The team struggled financially, and, despite being re-branded as the Alouettes in 1986, it folded on the eve of the 1987 season.
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The current version of the Alouettes came into being in 1996, when the Baltimore Stallions (the most successful of the teams from the CFL’s short experiment with U.S.-based teams) relocated to Montreal, and adopted the traditional Montreal team name.
The municipal coat of arms of Montreal, Quebec, Canada features a beaver on its crest, a wreath of maple leaves, heraldic symbols of England, France, Scotland, Ireland and First Nations, over a scroll with the civic motto, Concordia Salus, which is Latin for “well-being through harmony.”
The best quality cowboy hats are made of 100% beaver fur. John B. Stetson worried about the waterproofing of his hats, and finally decided to make his hat of beaver felt. It took about 42 beaver belly pelts to produce a high quality hat. Because of the tight weave of most Stetson hats, it was waterproof enough to be used as a bucket.
While a bucket ist is a list of things you want to do before you “kick the bucket” (die), there are three separate meanings for a “fuckit list”
- A list of people you would like to have sex with before you die.
- A list of the things you thought you would do in your lifetime, but never did and now think “Ah, fuck it.”
- A list of things you would do if you knew you were dying soon and could get away with anything without serious consequences.
In the season 3 episode of Friends, “The One With Frank Jr.,” the group discusses their “freebie lists” – their lists of five celebrities with whom, if the opportunity were to ever present itself, they would be allowed to have sex, without suffering repercussions from their significant others.
In the episode, Ross has Isabella Rosselini on his freebie list, but then replaces her with Winona Ryder, as Rosselini is frequently outside of the U.S. Later in that episode, Rosselini actually makes an appearance at Central Perk.
Winona Ryder later appeared in Season 7 of Friends, starring as Rachel’s sorority sister with whom Rachel shared a kiss after a Hawaiian-themed party in their college years.
And the last woman on Ross’ list was Dorothy Hamill (!).
The term “electoral college” is not actually used in the United States Constitution.
Although the United States Constitution does not specify who should swear in the President, the Chief Justice of the United States has traditionally done so. Others to administer the oath have included the Chancellor of New York (for George Washington, in 1789), a Vermont notary public and justice of the peace (Calvin Coolidge’s father, in 1923) and a U.S. district court judge (for Lyndon Johnson, in 1963).
Manchester United Football Club has won more trophies than any other club in English football, with a record 20 League titles. It was the highest-earning football club in the world for 2016–17, with an annual revenue of €676.3 million, and the world’s most valuable football club in 2018, valued at £3.1 billion. Among its highest-profile former players are David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo.
[not in play: the interesting life story of Sarah Tilghman Hughes, the judge who administered LBJ’s oath of office in 1963 Sarah T. Hughes - Wikipedia]
David Lloyd George is the only British prime minister who did not have English as his native language.
Richard Garriott the video game developer who flew a privately funded mission to the International Space Station is known by the alter ego of Lord British. He is also the son of former Skylab and Shuttle astronaut Owen Garriott.
In 2002, the Royal National Theatre staged Simon Bent’s adaptation of the John Irving novel A Prayer for Owen Meany: On Faith starring Aidan McArdle as the title character and Richard Hope as John Wheelwright
Bent is a city in and the capital of Bent District of Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 4,302.
Link fixed: Sarah T. Hughes - Wikipedia
In play:
There have been movies called Bent released in 1997, 2013 and 2018. The movies are each different and do not have the same plot.