What were the English thinking?

I overheard my dad explaining my 5 year old son how the scoring works in tennis. It was the US Open tournament and Belgian's Justine Henin was in the final. "Love" is "zero". You increase from "fifteen," to "thirty," and then (not forty-five, but) "forty". Then you switch between "deuce" and advantage". What were the English thinking? The scoring in soccer was so simple. Where did the scoring system used in tennis come from. I had to look it up.

Although the origin of "love" as a "zero" score is often heard of as representing the French word l'œuf (meaning 'egg') due to the similarity in shape between an egg and a zero, it is more plausible that it originated from the phrase 'to play for love' (of the game). The origins of the fifteen, thirty, forty scores are somewhat unclear - one common explanation is that the scoring system was copied from the game sphairistike, which was played by British officers in India during the 19th century. That game's scoring system was based on the different gun calibres of the British naval ships. When firing a salute, the ships first fired their 15-pound guns on the main deck, followed by the 30-pound guns of the middle deck, and finally by the 40-pound lower gun deck.

The scoring system is also sometimes said to have medieval and French roots. A clock face was used on court, with a quarter move of the hand to indicate a score of fifteen, thirty, and forty-five. When the hand moved to sixty, the game was over. Previously, tennis had a scoring system like table tennis or "ping pong". This explanation seems unlikely since Medieval France predates the advent of mechanical clocks, with sundials being the chronometer of choice at the time.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_score

Argentinean Tidsbits

While on vacation in Argentina, I kept track of a couple of tidbits. Did you know?

• Buenos Aires counts over 58,000 taxis, all colored black with a yellow top? (I recently observed City Taxi in San Jose, with the same color scheme.)
  
• It hadn't snowed in Buenos Aires since 1918. People were going nuts for the little white things coming from the sky. It might get cold in winter, but snow is extremely rare. Traffic stopped. The long distance buses did not leave a day or two. Especially not in the direction we were heading.
  
• Soccer wunderkind Lionel Messi plays with number 18 in the Argentinean selection. Official kid-size t-shirts go for about 150 pesos or $50. I could however buy a black market shirt for about 40 pesos. The only gotcha, it has the name Messi on the back and number 19.
  
• Es lo que hay - That's what it is. Although inflation is under control for many years now, one can still run into shortages occasionally. On our trip, we ran into laundromats closed because of a shortage in water, a shortage of milk and closed gas stations. Because of speculation with natural gas, drivers switched from running the engine on natural gas to gasoline causing a temporary shortage. One could only gas up 20 pesos worth of gasoline.
  

Thieves

It is the call you do not want to receive: "Hello, this is officer Gretzky, I am in your house. Your house has been burglarized. Please come to your house." It was 2pm in the afternoon.

On my way home, I went over the set of items of value in our house. Luckily the list is rather small. And after today I plan to keep it that way. (It has been on my to-do list for a while to make an inventory sheet with serial numbers.)

I wondered why the police was already in my house. How did they know there was a burglary? How did they even get my cellphone number? The first answer popped immediately into my head: Jim! No burglary alarm can replace vigilant neighbors. I am lucky, very lucky, to have a retired neighbor across the street who loves to smoke a cigarette outside in front, while he talks with his cats. The answer to the second question became clear later on: the list of contact numbers we keep on the fridge for the baby sit.

It is weird to see close to ten police cars in front of your house. And they never park neatly. Apparently, there had been close to 15 cars in the street when the burglary happened. Four officers were combing through my house, taking pictures and fingerprints. A couple others were taking statements from people in the street.

Luckily they caught the @#$%#$@$ards. Two of them. A third was in a car on the look out and evaded capture. It was all thanks to a quick call from Jim. He noticed two people who did not belong in our neighborhood, and especially not walking up to our house. A big black gang banger with a T-shirt to his knees, and another fella, which Jim couldn't describe very well. They were hanging around the place for a while, rang the bell and then went to the side of the house. A look-out car stopped in front. The cops apparently were here very quickly. First an officer on his bicycle. Then many many police cars and officer with guns drawn running behind the thieves.

Our stuff is almost all recovered as the big bags were left when the cops were hot on their tales. There are a couple of items missing and we are still checking which other items might be missing. The fence was broken down as the apparently fat burglar wasn't able to jump it, and thus ran straight through it. He broke a few more fences down his path.

The list of items which were removed from the house show these guys were out to make a quick buck. Beyond the obvious items (necklaces, digital camera, etc.), they even took

• My son's piggy bank (why carry all those pennies and quarters?)
• Toy walky-talkies (range: 5 meters)
• DVDs: a spindle of empty DVD-R and a collection of Pixar DVDs.
• 24/7 timer (which they needed to disconnect from the lamp)
• two big traveling bags (to carry the loot)

We were very lucky. Great response from the police force. And especially thanks to Jim!