The French
This is a little off topic, but since a Euro, and maybe a frenchie might win the WSOP this year, and um... you know... the globalization of the game all that, and all the people traveling to Vegas from far-flung places, I thought I'd loosely tie in this article I read...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080707/wl_time/mostobnoxioustouriststhefrench
It says, according to a French website, that the French are regarded as some of the most obnoxious tourists. Even in their own country they find them obnoxious. I didn't know that. Not that, I should be surprised, because when I've traveled, the French are by far the most obnoxious hosts. So why wouldn't the travel poorly too. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. Pariseans, and larger city folk, are obnoxious. People in rural France are not quite so bad.
Still, in this HATE-AMERICA era, it's surprising that our most vocal critics, the French (whose national pasttime is criticism), are less liked abroad then we are. Another thing the French do well is organize bodies to govern (actually bureau-crate) things they are not particualrily good at or had nothing to do with creating. FIFA... FIBA (they are trying to tell the NBA what to do now)... the Olympics, and any day now, we'll have an international poker body created by the French to regulate one of our American past-times, poker.
So, next time you see a loud, boisterous, obnoxious American making an ass of himself on a WSOP telecast and a stoic European taking the beat with aplomb. That our donkey (or ass) just laid on his donkey ass--remember at least we still tip well (something the French, according to the article do poorly too). And if that stoic European is French, he deserved it. Maybe if they tipped a little better the poker karma would work a little better in their favor.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080707/wl_time/mostobnoxioustouriststhefrench
It says, according to a French website, that the French are regarded as some of the most obnoxious tourists. Even in their own country they find them obnoxious. I didn't know that. Not that, I should be surprised, because when I've traveled, the French are by far the most obnoxious hosts. So why wouldn't the travel poorly too. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. Pariseans, and larger city folk, are obnoxious. People in rural France are not quite so bad.
Still, in this HATE-AMERICA era, it's surprising that our most vocal critics, the French (whose national pasttime is criticism), are less liked abroad then we are. Another thing the French do well is organize bodies to govern (actually bureau-crate) things they are not particualrily good at or had nothing to do with creating. FIFA... FIBA (they are trying to tell the NBA what to do now)... the Olympics, and any day now, we'll have an international poker body created by the French to regulate one of our American past-times, poker.
So, next time you see a loud, boisterous, obnoxious American making an ass of himself on a WSOP telecast and a stoic European taking the beat with aplomb. That our donkey (or ass) just laid on his donkey ass--remember at least we still tip well (something the French, according to the article do poorly too). And if that stoic European is French, he deserved it. Maybe if they tipped a little better the poker karma would work a little better in their favor.
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