Aussie Rules

Got to watch a bit of the Nashville Kangaroos take on the Louisville Kings game this afternoon. Much fun.

It was pretty hot, but i managed to hide under some of Elmington Park's nice shade trees for most of the game, so it wasn't too bad. I used to watch Aussie Rules on Fox Sports World years ago. I was hooked. So much so that when FSW stopped airing games and i was desperate for a fix, i actually downloaded the demo version of EA Sports Aussie Rules game, AFL 99. I couldn't get the controls right, so i just set players to zero and watched it play itself. Repeatedly. Yes, i am a loser.

It is a really cool game though. I always describe it to people as the closest thing in the world to real Calvinball. The ball and field are both oval/oblong. You have to dribble the ball on the ground every 15 meters as you run, you can only get the ball to your teammates through an underhanded punch (like vollyball) or kicking it. You score by kicking through tall uprights at the far end of the field. The umpires throw the ball in the air like a basketball jump-ball, except they throw it about 30-40 feet in the air. It is pretty much chaos.

By now i have to admit i have forgotten many of the specific rules, and things were a little hard to follow. Probably would have been better if i could have heard the announcer they had on a PA system calling the game - but he was on the other side where there was no shade. But today was mostly about going out a supporting the teams a bit...and of course for the photo opp. Nice sunny day + violent sport + no face masks = really cool shots. At least i think so.

For those of you who have never actually seen a game, i shot video of one quick segment. Normally there is more time in between a starting toss and a goal, but thankfully it made for a good, quick demo. And it was pretty indicative of how dominant Nashville was in the game.



Next 'Roos home game is Sept 8th against the Milwaukee Bombers. According to the website, they have never beaten Milwaukee in 4 tries, so the game should at least be more interesting than this blowout. And the weather should be cooler.

For the record, the Kangaroos club also has an associated Netball team (sort of Australian version of basketball). My friend Matt and his wife played on that team for a while just for fun. We got to see them a while back at one of Nashville's Australian Festivals. Don't know if they still play or not.

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Oh, and for those keeping track at home, i uploaded this video to Vimeo. Going to start switching over. It looks like video on Flickr may be a while in coming, if ever. One nice thing about Vimeo - you can download the original source video if you want to see a higher quality version of anything. Much better than Google Video or YouTube.

Last random note on that topic: Google just closed down its Google Video store and is supposed to be getting out of the video business somewhat. Blogger just added 'upload video' to the editor where you can not just embed video stored somewhere else, but now upload videos straight to Blogger (like it has always done for photos). Google owns Blogger. Explain that one to me.