Props to a kid with cystic fibrosis for competing at a martial arts tournament. Someone who can kick your ass while constantly at risk of drowning in their own fluids is not someone to be trifled with. Speaking of "What's your excuse" pics:
I have lots of thoughts on this. I'm curious to how many British people pay attention to basketball. I'm betting the answer is "not very much but more than baseball or American football." Now I am used to American centric media. The above is perfectly rational to me... Rowling is VERY British centric. Goblet of Fire covered the wider wizarding world beyond Britain a lot but none of the other books really did. Deathly Hollows struck me as odd. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione were trying to avoid detection it never occurred to them to hide out of the United Kingdom. When Voldomort was hiding his horcruxes, it never occurred to him to seek a horcrux or hide a horcrux outside of the UK. Despite the fact that there was a wider wizarding world, no one outside of Britain intervened when Voldomort and his cronies took over Great Britain. None of the Deatheater's enemies seemed to have the idea to flee overseas for safety. Now, I guess the other countries have their own dark wizards to worry about, but this is another blindspot. If I was Voldomort and I was struggling to solidify my hold on a conquered nation, I would invite other dark wizards from foreign lands to join them. Given that Voldomort is basically Wizard Hitler, he could have then used Britain as a base to export his ideology to the rest of the world. But nothing outside of Great Britain mattered...at all. It's like the entire rest of the world were all Ravenclaws. There was one Ravenclaw that mattered at least a little bit and that was Luna Lovegood. There was one foreigner wizard that mattered, at least a little bit and that was Victor Krum. I don't think Rowling liked sports much. Dean Thomas' favorite soccer team was one of Rowling's friends favorite soccer team, that's about the extant of her knowledge of sports. Ignoring the physics of a male Quidditch player make sudden maneuvers with a a rod against his groin, the whole concept of the golden snitch made the actions of the non-Seeker almost pointless. It was not really a balanced sport, it was basically a story vehicle to give Harry one more avenue to be exceptional by near-single handedly winning matches. As a means of competition, the snitch being worth 150 points is a bad idea because it makes the other player's actions meaningless. From a spectator sport, it's an even worse idea. The golden snitch is so tiny and hard to see that looking at it from the stands, it's basically invisible. So watching the two Seekers fly around would be pretty boring. Watching people toss the quaffle around or avoid bludgers, that would be interesting but because it has so little impact on the game, you lose the emotional stakes. I would not complain so much about JK Rowling if I didn't really like her stories. If I really dislike a piece of media, I won't complain about it, I just won't watch it or read it.
Some have predicted a baby boom from the CCP virus quarantines but the emerging data is suggesting the opposite. This is probably why.