At last
27 June 2006 - 10:36.
Some 3 months, and several hundred dollars worth of treatments later, I finally got a clean bill of health from the physiotherapist yesterday. Apparently now all my bones are angled the right way. About time.
Now I can pick up where I left off, and slowly start getting myself back into competition condition for the fall's head race season. My goal for this year is very simple - I want to race at the Head of the Nicomekl, and to not embarass myself (read: don't finish last). Seems simple, and will probably turn out to be harder than it seems - the race in question is 5 KM long, and goes down a river with lots of twists and turns.
An American in.......
23 June 2006 - 16:57.
This news story just boggles my mind. I don't even know where to begin poking fun at this one. Somebody should shoot this person before he reproduces....
What do
you think?
Fucking ESPN
19 June 2006 - 20:52.
I'm in Seattle again. All week. Bad enough, right? Wrong. It seems that no TV station here feels any compulsion in braodcasting game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. not NBC, not ESPN, not ESPN2. Instead, they were broadcasting (respectively) news, the college World Series of baseball, and the fucking American Paintball Championships. No hockey though.
The fucking paintbball championships.
The game ended, and Edmonton lost, which disappoints me. And it's right about 8 pm when I go back to ESPN, to see the highlights of the game. They lead off with the news that Carolina hass won the Cup, and then they go to highlights. Of last nights basketball game. Then they went into baseball highlights from today's games. Excuse me?
Arguably the most storied sports trophy in North America, the Stanley Cup was first awarded 113 years ago, and it was done again tonight. How the fuck can a major sports network relegate a Big 4 championship to being the 3rd sport in line? And I'd bet that if there was useful football news, the Cup would have been 4th. I'm just apalled.
Congrats to the Canes. And a big woohoo to Edmonton for making it a great series - Canada is proud of you, boys.
The Beautiful Game
17 June 2006 - 09:03.
Like many other people of European descent (my family are mostly English), I've been enthralled this past week or so with the World Cup. The games make me late for work... I wake up early on days off so I can watch the matches... and the goings-on of the whole tournament leave me with frequent smiles on my face, that sometimes last for a good long time.
The latest of these last was a brief camera shot that Sportsnet showed a few minutes ago, prior to the Ghana - Czech Republic match. Two players, one with skin as white as the driven snow, the other with skin black as night. They stood there clasping hands, and you could see from the facial expressions that they were trying to understand each other's words, but were having trouble doing so. The puzzlement was palpable, from the furrowed brows, the tilting head, the whole body language. It all said "what are you saying?". But it didn't matter, because they both had these huge grins on their faces.
And that's a large component of why it's called the Beautiful Game, and why the World Cup is so important to football fans. It's not about the moves, or the goals. It's not about spectacular bicycle kicks, or 22-yard free kicks that end up in the back of the net. It's about the cameraderie, about unifying the entire world behind their love of something bigger than themselves. Iran is in the tournament, and despite any political happenings they get treated the same as the Americans.
There are no borders in football. There is no religion on the pitch. The are rules of conduct, unwritten in any book, that are inviolate, and fans will give their own country's players a hard time for transgressions of these. The most bitter of foes will help one another up from the ground on a regular basis. Why does it all happen? Because it's about something larger. It's about something that world leaders never seem to quite grasp. It's about respect.
Monarch for life
13 June 2006 - 09:18.
Courtesy of WserverNews and The Register, today piece of silliness offers you the chance to receive the honorary title of King of Piel.
Piel Island, you see, is an island in Morecombe Bay, to the north-northwest of Blackpool in the UK. The short version is that the Brorough council has taken control of the island since the last King 'abdicated'. Seems that the innkeeper of the pub on the island (who is also seemingly the caretaker of the island) is traditionally afforded the title of monarch, and now the borough councile are looking for a new sovereign.
I can imagine worse things... being on a small quiet island, being forced to sit in a pub next to a fire while drinking beer... it really sounds tough. The official website for the opportunity is
here.
Sorry, Charlie
12 June 2006 - 12:42.
I really wish I had something compelling to write for you folks, who now apparently number in the dozens daily. But truth be told there's not a whole lot interesting going on in my life. I'm working a fair amount, I'm rowing, riding motorbikes, and I'm being social with people. I've never been a big fan of drama, and I try to avoid it most fastidiously. While this is great for my own sanity, it makes for lousy blog fodder.
I could go on about work, but it'd get stale pretty quick. Most people can only tolerate so much griping. I'm not seeing anyone, so no ramnces to report about. If you don't row, you won't get it. And if you don't ride, you won't relate properly.
Maybe this is all a sign that I need a more interesting life.
Beautiful....
08 June 2006 - 15:31.
Nice. I just got out of the elevator I was trapped in for the last 20 minutes. As if I needed more reasons to hate this town. Just fucking ducky. Quack quack.
Break Point
07 June 2006 - 20:41.
The stress is starting to get to me I think. I have headaches. I can't sleep. I wake up with a sore face from grinding my teeth at night. I feel like I can bounce quarters off my shoulders. Manic/ depressive tendancies, and I'm finding myself driven to distraction by little things that normally wouldn't bother me.
I'm still in Seattle, working on phase two of the migration project that was started last year and typically working 12 hour days, since Sunday and through till this coming Saturday. And although it's all going extremely well, I can't help but wait for the other shoe to drop. There's gotta be some footwear lying around here somewhere, and I just haven't seen it yet. Waiting for it is killing me. And if it doesn't fall on my head this week, then it'll likely slap me upside the face in a week's time, when I'm back here to finalize the whole project. In the meantime, I'm feeling stress of epic proportion.
To quote Robin Williams from Good Morning Vietnam: "Never before in my life have I seen a man in more dire need of a blowjob."
Ewwwww....
05 June 2006 - 12:51.
I got a link to this video in an email journal I subscribe to. Looks like the video was taken at some sort of gymnastics or dance meet. This link is safe for work, but be warned though... the person in the video moves in ways that are just wrong. It's like watching a train wreck. The human body just wasn't designed to do some of these things. Tell me what you think.
The Liquid Lady video (3 minutes of video, may take a bit to download)
Revelation Number 4
04 June 2006 - 22:49.
I really am not fond of Seattle. No... wait. That's not a revelation... I've known this for a long time. Damn. So why am I here agin?
Murfle.
I wonder....
03 June 2006 - 08:44.
Someone asked me something yesterday...
If you're having sex in a room with a Clapper, do you have to be gentle to avoid making it work?
Just imagine it... in the right position, the sound of slapping flesh may trigger the Clapper to turn the lights on or off. Do you turn it into a game? Try to make the lights go on and off? See if you can get some sort of mild strobe effect? What would the neighbours think - maybe that your home has serious electrical issues? Would it be distracting to the business at hand?