We are well into the Major League Soccer season — the regular season wraps up October 26 — so if you’re in the market for domestic soccer at a great rate, the MLS Live subscription has recently dropped its price. With only seven weeks remaining in the season the key question seems obvious: is the $25.99 worth not even two months of content?
Few things can flood my memory banks with thoughts of my childhood better than hearing the startup music for certain Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) games. From FIFA Soccer 96 to Cal Ripken Jr. Baseball — and of course other games such as Super Mario World and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past — I have fond and vivid memories of spending hours in front of the TV. I wasn’t fortunate enough to own a SNES, instead I relied on my friends to get my video game fix. Sometimes I would simply watch my friends play and be amazed by what I was seeing on the screen. Those high quality graphics pumping through the 16-bit chipset was something that captivated me. For the first time in my life rather than pretending to be Cobi Jones or Kasey Keller in the backyard, I could pick up a controller and really play as my favorite soccer stars.
Fortunately there is a way to go back in time, at least for video games, and it doesn’t even require a DeLorean. Short of purchasing an older system on eBay or Amazon, the best way to replay those games is to download a system emulator. To be a nine-year-old kid again isn’t something I find particularly appealing, but it would be a lie to say I didn’t occasionally long for the days of playing on a SNES again.
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It’s the first morning of the weekend in late summer or fall. After a long five days of working, class, or both, one may imagine sleeping in and taking it easy. But not you. You are football fan. You have made the conscious decision to wake up early, prepare food — perhaps even have an adult beverage or two — and watch football.
That’s right, as a football fan you are willing to sacrifice sleep in order to be entertained by the biggest sport in the world. Perhaps more accurately spelled fútbol, the beautiful game has gained popularity here in the United States thanks in no small part to USA’s win against Algeria in the 2010 World Cup, the entirety of the women’s World Cup 2011 — especially the USA/Brazil match — as well as the improbable escape of the men’s team in the so called “Group of Death” in this year’s World Cup. For many casual soccer fans these major events put the sport front and center. Even at the club level, not even a month ago we set a US record for the largest crowd to view a live soccer game when two storied clubs, Manchester United and Real Madrid, faced off against each in the University of Michigan’s Big House.
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I don’t have much to complain about — particularly when it comes to technology — but when my Chromecast first arrived I must admit I was disappointed I couldn’t stream things like baseball or soccer right away, as I hit a bit of a technical snag. In my mind, the universal plug-n-play (or UPnP) seemed fairly straightforward. While I’m not a network engineer, I pride myself on my ability to get something up and running, particularly something as seemingly simply as Chromecast. To see a picture like this was immensely frustrating:
