Techno-cool or pathetic and boring?

It's Friday night and I'm sitting on my couch watching the Cubs beat the Milwaukee Brewers as well a watching Peter Ebdon take on Marco Fu in the Snooker World Championship. Both are streaming videos on my computer.

Does this make me a savvy sports fan, taking full advantage of the technological wonders of the 21st century? Or does it make me a guy sitting alone on his couch watching two sports most people think are pretty damn boring?

I suppose the correct answer is 'all of the above.'

But hey, I can be cool too: I'm also keeping an eye on Green Wing, which is on the TV in the background

Decamillenialus

Today is my decemillenialus, my 10,000th dailyversary, my 10k day. Today I am 10,000 days old.

It is one of those things that might very well have passed me by but a friend of mine, who celebrates his birthday about a month before me, invited me to celebrate his 10,000th day and I realised that mine was coming soon as well.

So, today I am having a little get together at The Spaniard's Inn in Hampstead, north London. I sent out a very sarcastic e-vite to some friends asking them to come along. The point of it really is to just get some people together and spend a lazy Sunday afternoon together.

I did get some guff from people telling me that 10,000 days isn't all that important because it isn't a milestone year. I think that is real bs. It has taken me more than 27 years 4 months to get this far. Most milestones come every couple of years. 10, 16, 21, 30, 40 etc. Plus, this is a big number!

Anyway, I'll let my loyal readers know how it went.


Technorati tags: Decamillenialus, Milestone

The morning run

Avid readers of this space will know that I like to run. And after months of saying I was going to do it, and days of almost doing it, I finally did it.

I ran to work.

I think it is about 4.75 miles. That isn't very far for me to run, well, it is a medium distance I suppose. During the week, I run anywhere from 2 miles in the winter to 5 miles in the summer. On the weekends, I run from 4 to 9 miles.

Normally, I don't have all of my work clothes strapped to my back, so adjusting to that took some doing. It was actually a bit easier than I was expecting. My back wasn't nearly as weary as I thought it would be.

I have learned some important lessons though. The first is to really get your clothes nice and tight on your back. It isn't very pleasant to have them bouncing side to side while you are trying to run forward. The second is to separate your shoes from your nice dress shirt in the bag. After my shower at work, I was a little disheartened to see scuff marks here and there across the front of the shirt where my shoes had been rubbing it. The third, and I can't confirm this as I haven't yet tried it but I suspect it is true, is to take side streets. Almost the entire distance was a cloud of choking fumes, and the smell coming off the back of a van carrying hot tar was especially nice at 7.30am.

I also need to hammer out the logistics of it all. How do I pack the bag, how much clothing should I keep at work, how do I keep the smell of my running clothes that I stuff into my bag and the end of the day from infiltrating my work clothes that I may pack the next morning? Disinfectant? Deodorizer? The possibilities are endless.

Technorati tags: commuting, London, Running

That's not nice

An anonymous commenter suggested that the activities described a couple of posts ago should be "reported in full" to a certain member of staff at my place of business.

Now, that is a perfectly legitimate comment to make, but I had to take it down because it uses somebody's name without their permission and I just don't think that is very nice. How would you like it, Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, if I went around quoting your name every place I went?

I've also had to review my use of other organisational names and whatnot to which I am connected. I've decided to take those down as well. On the internet, a little bit of anonymity, as you Mr. or Ms. Anonymous will surely agree, is sadly both necessary and preferable.

The Masters: a dreary recap

Been trying to write something for the blog about this year's Masters tournament, and I can quite put my finger on my thoughts.

Basically, I was rather unimpressed by the whole event. Mickelson was kind of just around and ended up being the winner in the end. It isn't like he put forward some sort of herculean effort to pull it off. He was only ahead by two strokes most of the final round, yet he was all but assured victory by the time he hit the 13th tee. Why was that?

I'm not saying you have to decimate the field, ala Woods in 97(?), to be a true champion. But you have to admit that the most interesting contender was Olazabal, who managed to go from +3 to -5 in the span of sixteen holes (3rd round 17 - 4th round 15). It took Mickelson nearly four rounds to traverse the same distance.

I guess I don't value steady progress (Phil) as much as I do the late surge (Ola), but Phil's steady progress was just so ordinary. Hard to get excited about that.

Also, with all the complaining that has been going on about the relentless Tiger-proofing of Augusta National, I took a look at the PGA stats site to see who is hitting the ball so far. Turns out that there are 22 players from the 2005 PGA freshman class amongst the top 50 in driving distance and only 5 in the bottom 50. So, maybe they do have something to worry about.

Technorati tags: golf, The Masters, Phil Mickelson, Augusta National

Audience pep talk

"...the sort of place that bring the best out of the best."

That is the final thought of the pep talk that Gary Lineker gave viewers just as coverage of the final round of The Masters just started on BBC2.

Why is that? Why do the producers insist on the motivational speeches before big sporting events?

I think that you only get these little sermons for the events that are watched by more than just core fans. The Super Bowl is watched by hundreds of millions of non-fans and the Olympic swimming finals are surely watched by more than swimming fans. And you will always get Bob Costas giving you his thoughts on the spirit of [insert sport] and the traditions of [insert event].

Trust me, when you watch the second game of a three game series between two fifth place baseball teams in mid-May -- a game only the jobless, the infirm or a serious fan would watch -- you don't get nothing.

---------

Tiger Woods just hit his second shot on number two. 306 yards - from the rough - to make it to the green.

Sick.

Technorati tags: The Masters

MLB.tv

Cubs 2, Cardinals 2, bottom of the 8th inning.

I know that because for the first time in a long time, I am able to watch baseball. I've signed up for MLB.tv, meaning I can watch 2400 baseball games over the course of the 2006 baseball season. Friends will know that I am only really interested in 162 of them -- the ones that the Chicago Cubs will play.

I love being able to watch the games. In the year before I moved to London, I went to about 30 home ball games and a couple in Milwaukee...

Wait...

I LOVE BASEBALL!!! Derek Lee just hit a home run in the bottom of the 8th to take the lead.

Okay, back to the topic at hand...

So, yes, I went to many a game that year. I'd say over the course of my life, I've been to well over one hundred Chicago Cubs' games.

Since I've been here though, I've had to make due with the odd game broadcased on Channel Five, which is only a Cubs game once in a blue moon. And you have to listen to this moronic English guy gas on about something he just doesn't understand.

I've felt the loss too. I can't talk baseball anymore. I don't konw the numbers or the trends. You can read the papers and trawl the internet for info, but you can't get a feeling for your team or the Major League without watching.

Of course, as great as MLB.tv is, there is one problem which may cause a bit of a problem. I can't choose which team's coverage I get. So, right now I have to watch Cardinals-biased coverage. It sucks. The announcer keeps saying that they hope the Cards can hold on so Pujols can make it to the plate. Eff that!

The other thing, besides the wrongly biased coverage, is the fact that you get weird local commercials, like the commercial for the St. Louis-area supermarket Schnucks. A couple of things come to mind: One, that is a stupid name for anything, but probably fits right in in St. Louis, and two, Schnucks is but one letter away from Schmuck. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, St. Louis!

I need my WGN coverage. So, if any of my loyal readers have some pull with Major League Baseball, can you please figure out a way for me to get WGN coverage whenever I'm watching a game?

UPDATE: CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN! Juan Encarnacion just popped up to second baseman Jerry Hairston Jr to end the game. Go Cubs! Cardinals suck!

Technorati tags: baseball, Chicago Cubs, MLB.tv

Week in review

Another Saturday, and it could not have come too soon for me. I had an unwieldy week that really wore me down. I'm sure my dedicated readers will remember my last post where I described my strenuous walk through the Darbyshire muck fields. Monday was a Monday, but Monday evening did not go too well. I contracted some sort of stomach bug or I was food poisoned in some way, because... well, just trust me on this one. That carried through Tuesday until Wednesday. I got back to work Wednesday afternoon (I'm such a trooper) where I had to pour over hundreds of sheets of paper with lots of little numbers. Wednesday night was a colleague's leaving party, but I was quite restrained and made it home by 10.30pm.

Thursday night, ahh, Thursday night. What a night! I was wined and dined by corporate Britain, and I loved it. A software developer who makes one of our core products had a party at Madame Tussauds. Had to wear a suit, which I don't get to do very often, and had free food, free drinks and free entertainment compliments of a multi-billion dollar corporation.

I can't remember the last time I went there. I'm not sure I've ever been to Madame Tussauds before. Not really the kind of place I would choose to spend £21.99, just to walk in the door. A couple tons of moulded wax, no matter how realistic, is just not worth it. But I don't mind when the cost is subsidised by the company that just launched "the uOne Media Services Portal to push convergent content services over instant messaging, IPTV and 3G" (and you all know how I feel about convergent content services).

The food was fantastic. They were serving these little pastry parcels with little cuts of steak on top. I'm not sure how you engineer the perfect preparation of a couple thousand little tiny steaks, but whoever figured it out should be given some sort of extravagent gift. The wine left much to be desired, but one should not look a gift-horse in the mouth.

Now, I thought that would be it, but it we were all (400 guests, by the way) guided into a ball room where they were serving real food. Little salmon fillets with a honey glaze, sausages with mashed potatoes and onion gravy, lamb tortilla wraps, noodle salads. There was also a server walking around with small portions of fish and chips wrapped up in the financial jobs section of the Evening Standard. And for desert they had a chocolate fountain and profiteroles and fruit!

The purpose of being wined and dined is to get some face-to-face time with the customer -- namely me (and the others from my particular organisation) -- so when it was all over, the account manager took me and the two other business analysts out in Soho to a blues bar.

I suppose some of my loyal readers will be used to this kind of life. Perhaps you are a doctor, entertained by the pharmaceuticals industry, or you are a politician, entertained by any lobby who can pony up some dough. You are used to slick corporate gigs, but I, a lowly business analyst working for a (large) charity in the UK, am not privy to such socio-commercial events.

I think I may look into attending more of these in the future.

Camping in the Peak District, part I

I'm back, safe and sound. This weekend was a little less trecherous than the weekend I spent climbing in Scotland, but it was still a lot of fun.

We drove on Friday night to Edale, a tiny town in Darbyshire. By the time we arrived, all there was time for was a quick drink at a local and the setting up of tents. It was raining and dark and everyone else at the campsite had gone to bed, so we had to struggle through the rain and dark, and do it without waking everyone else up.

I am not accustomed to sleeping out doors. Nor am I accustomed to sleeping next to other men, so I was having quite the experience. Dave, my fellow tent-mate, had to deal with me having a slight panic attack during the middle of the night due to my clausterphobia. I had to wake him when I couldn't manage to get the hatch to the tent open because of the stupied mosquito net. I managed to get it open and stick my head outside for a little while and soon everything was calm. Of course, everyone decided it would be a good thing to make fun of me the next morning when they heard of my struggles. Apparently, I'm the only person in the history of humanity to have a tough time sleeping in a 6'x4'x3' box with another person hogging the precious oxygen.

The next day proved to be soggy and cold, and then dry and cold, and then soggy and warm, and then dry and warm, and then soggy and cold. It was a rich meterological tapestry. We trekked up Kinder Scout. It is quite a place up there. It is a boggy plateau, many square miles in area, with extremely undulating terrain. The mud was so thick in placed that it nearly ate people alive. It was a very strenuous walk because you are constantly fighting to keep you footing, and picking yourself up from the tumbles you take every ten or twenty seconds. There was a number of groups walking here and there, but within minutes of walking, they were completely out of sight. I can see how it is very easy to get lost. When you are up there, you are alone. People can be fifty meters away, and you might have no idea that they are there, because they may be treking along a stream or behind a group of rocks.

We made our way around the plateau and past Kinder Downfall, a waterfall on the plateau's northwest corner. Then we made a long trek home, about two hours, down Jacob's Ladder and along the Pennine Way, back to our camsite near Edale.

I was dead on my feet as we arrived back. For some reason, Dave and I decided to run from the base of Jacob's Ladder to the camp, but we didn't make it very far. It was too wet to gain traction.

I did manage to get to the pub though. Believe me, nothing tastes better after a long, strenuous day out than an beer. For my part, I had two pints of Grey's Best Bitter at The Rambler.

When everyone was assembled, we drove to a pub in Hope, a few miles down the road. I had a steak and ale pie which went down quite well with a few pints of Black Sheep. We went back to The Rambler. I managed to fall asleep while the rest of the crew played card games. They were nice enough to document the disgrace. I'll get that photo to you when I get a chance to make it a bit smaller.

We went home, crawled into bed, and I slept like a baby till the next morning.
More on that later. Till then, here are some photos from me and from Doug.

Technorati tags: Edale, Kinder Scout, Peak District

Going camping

Going camping this weekend. Should be fun. Purchased some new waterproof trousers, some thermal underwear, and a new pair of walking boots for the experience. I'll be in the Edale Valley, in the Peak District.

I'll be moblogging the weekend, so if you'd like to see the pictures, go to my Flickr page.

Technorati tags: Hiking, Peak District, Edale, moblogging

Bach's St John Passion

Last night, under the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, I listened to the London Mozart Players perform what I consider to be one of the finest examples of Baroque music, Bach's St. John Passion. It has long been one of my favourite pieces, a work that I almost know by heart. It is this piece that convinced me that Baroque isn't the stodgy, emotionless bore so many are convinced it is. The long somber notes of the Evangalist illustrate how Simon Peter wept alone after denying Jesus, the relentless, rolling rhythm of the introduction foreshadows the events to come, the warmness and beauty of the final choral sections.

I am not a religions person. Never have, and probably never will be. But this piece of music is perhaps as close as I have come to a religious experience.

And what could be more perfect than hearing this work in St Paul's Cathedral.

Before the performance, we were asked not to applaud at the conclusion, but to sit in silence. At first I was a little confused, but I suppose there is a reason for this. The Passion is usually performed on Good Friday, and depicts the last day of Jesus. The piece ends with the crucifixion and death of Jesus. And while the spirit of the ending is that of hope, the story does not reach its conclusion until the resurrection on Easter Sunday. The passion is but half the experience, as a good friend of mine is wont to point out. You have to listen to Bach's Easter Oratorio for that.

But, after the final notes of the piece were struck, the chords from the organ and the orchestra and the sounds of the chorus, hung in the space of the cathedral. To applaud would have ruined the experience. Like I said, almost religious.

I try and avoid using any combination of the words religious, experience and spiritual in the same sentence. Sentences like "I'm not religious, but I am spiritual" really grate on me. It reeks of pseudo-intellectualism and non-conformity in a conformist kind of way. It seems as though people who are not-religious-but-spiritual, are all not-religious-but-spiritual in the same way.

I prefer to say that I am neither religious or spiritual, but I enjoy reflecting on the sublime experiences of life.

Technorati tags: Bach, Easter, Baroque

Sights and sounds this morning

Sights
Big Brother is Listening - The Atlantic Monthly - The US government is watching terrorists eat their cornflakes in the morning!

Assorted blog entries via Bloglines including The Rothenberg Political Report, Daily Kos, Escheton and The Accidental Hedonist.

Sounds
NewsHour with Jim Lehrer - Discussion of White House Chief-of-Staff Andy Card's resignation (RSS feed)

Gallup Poll Daily Briefing - biggest concerns for American's are health care (61% say it is an issue they are concened about) and Social Security (51%) (RSS feed)

2am NPR news summary (RSS feed)

Channel 4 News' Snowmail - Is education in Britain as bad as it seems? (RSS feed)

Bits of CubsCast - Sheps, Sneetch and Lou celebrate one year of podcasting their miseries as Cubs fans (RSS feed)

The beginning of NPR and WBUR's On Point - a discussion of divided political views on immigration reform: the House bill which makes undocumented immigrants criminals and the Senate bill which would legalize them if they begin the road to citizenship. (get the RSS feed through here)

Technorati tags: The Atlantic Monthly, blogs, podcasting, NewsHour, Gallup Poll, NPR, SnowMail, Cubscast

Tavarez, at it again

God, I love Julian Tavarez. I remember he pitched the first game that Fred "Dead" McGriff played for the Cubs and spent the whole time mouthing off to various members of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Technorati tags: baseball, Julian Tavarez, Cubs

Damn, no milk!

Just got into work. Made some coffee, but alas, there is no milk. What to do?

I played golf this weekend. A nice course in Mitcham, south London, appropriately named Mitcham Golf Club. I think the layout of the holes is fairly straighforward. The beauty of the course though is in the undulating fairways and tough lies just off the fairways. Also, it has the fastest greens of any course I have played in the area (I should note that I haven't played any of the hoity-toity courses around London). The kind of greens where you keep saying "but I only just tapped it" as the ball goes rolling past the cup.

The one drawback of Mitcham GC is that there are so many freaking rules one has to follow to play there. They even have a rule about the kind of socks one must wear if one is wearing shorts (the shorts must be uncreased and fitted).

To be fair, many of the rules are understandable and commonsense, like no spikes in the pro shop, but there are some which are just outdated and nonsensical. If you are on the putting green, you must not putt into a cup that still has the flag in place. They go so far as to underline that rule. Out-of-date rules still apply at MGC as well, like no hats when you are in the lounge area. That rule stopped applying in general society like forty years ago.

I suppose they are trying to keep to a certain high standard of conduct, but I think the high-browness of it all is negated if you can yell curses across the lounge and no one really seems to mind. Classy.

The socks, by the way, must be white and either pulled up around the calves or short, but they cannot be rolled down or crumpled.

Technorati tags: golf, dress code

I went to a CAMRA festival last night. CAMRA is an organisation which CAMpaigns for Real Ale. Given than there are hundreds, if not thousands, of ales, bitters and stouts brewed across the UK, it is a shame that you can only get Green King at one in five pubs.

I've always been a stout man myself. I like it dark and a little sweet, although I can appreciate a nice IPA from time to time. The best stout I tried last night was a Whitstable Oyster Stout. Very nice, rich but not overpowering. I started out with the Wentworth Oatmeal Stout which was a little too sharp for my liking. The Fullers London Porter was also nice, but not as nice as the Oyster stout.

Also tried some ciders as well. I enjoyed Janet Jungle Juice, and not only because the name.

The people at these kinds of events are best described as socially awkward in every circumstance other than this, and possibly Star Wars conventions. Ironically, I was the socially awkward one at this event. I didn't have the requisite long, stragly hair. I wasn't missing any teeth, and the teeth that I do have are the normal color. I wasn't wearing any 80's heavy metal t-shirts or, my personal favorite, a shirt that can only be described as a pseudo-medieval man-blouse made of crushed velvet with lace up arms. As my friend said, he was taking dress down Friday to a whole new level. I responded that it is dress down Friday, not dress like an dork Friday.

Technorati tags: CAMRA, beer festival

Oddities of the commute: oh crap!

When I get out at the Thameslink station, I have to make my way up Pentonville Road. If there is one distinguishing feature of Pentonville Road, it is dog excrement.

Yes, dog shit is caked here and there along the entire length of the street. There is one particular clump which has drawn my attention as of late. It is just near the corner near my office. It has been there for a very long time. It should have washed away by now, but perhaps this particular canine has some sort of GI problem because that thing has staying power.

What makes this parcel so interesting is that it has gone through periods of being frozen, dehydrated and, just take my work for it, fully hydrated. It was a bit chilly a couple of weeks ago and there the clump sat, as frozen as a deer in headlights. Over the next few days, it managed to thaw and relax (some might say it was chilling out -- pun intended). Then we went through a very dry patch and the fecal matter was bone dry and somewhat grey in color. Then the rains came and it soon returned to its brown glory.

It managed to dehyrate and rehydrate a number of times before it was finally swept away. I was sad to see it leave.

That pile of tenacious dog feces will live on, forever more, in a small place in my heart.

Technorati tags: Commuting, London, Underground, Dog crap

Table tennis hyperbole

Just woke up and watching some of the BBC coverage of the Commonwealth Games. Table tennis this morning, Paul Drinkhall of England versus Zi Yang of Singapore. Drinkhall had a very good shot, kind of a backhand slice about four feet off the table. The announcer said it was a "shot of pure audacity."

What?!

Technorati tags: Commonwealth Games, Table Tennis, BBC, hyperbole

Betrayed 30 years ago

Just watched a pretty moving segment on Channel 4 news about an Iraqi man who was tortured by Saddam Hussein's men. 30 years ago, Karzan Sherabayan refused to give up the names of people the police were looking for. He should have been killed, but he was spared. Karzan was captured by the police after another man in the village named him. After 30 years, Karzan confronted the man who turned him in to Saddam's police.

Click here to watch to report, which aired on Channel 4 news.

Technorati tags: Channel 4, torture, Iraq

Politics is like driving

Just read this great quotation on Daily Kos:

Politics is like driving. To go backward, put it in R. To go forward, put it in D.

Arsenal v Real Madrid: embedded

Last night I participated in what can only be described as a hysteric, homoerotic orgy of football worship. Yes, I watched a Champion's League football match, Arsenal versus Real Madrid. It was a meeting of European -- make that World -- football giants. My friend Ben said this was the biggest match Arsenal had ever played, and they were playing it at home, only a mile from my house. But I didn't watch it in my home (not known as a place for hysteric homoeroticism) or at a friend's house. I watched it at the Twelve Pins, a pub near Finsbury Park Station, just around the corner from the grounds of Arsenal. Inside were approximately 25,000 mostly male, sweaty, head-shaven, chain smoking, lager drinking football fanatics with a dubious sense of fashion (see below), and I, your humble servant, dutifully jotting down my random thoughts for your eventual dismissive reading.

Ben said the atmosphere in this pub would be electric, even more so than watching the match first hand. He was right. I've been to quite a few important sporting events in my time: Michael Jordan's last home game for the Chicago Bulls, NBA Final, Cubs playoff games, crucial Big 10 football games, etc. I know a good atmosphere when I see one. But a good atmosphere is not something you judge, it is something you feel. Like almost all things good in this world, you can't describe it, but you know it when you feel it. And I did feel it.

Things got off to a rocky start when I was watching the wrong television for the first ten minutes. (Watch this space for my analysis of the first minutes of Liverpool v Benifica!)

I was soon put right.

Throughout the match, I wasn't reacting to the events on the pitch so much as following the lead of the supporters around me. Ohh-ing when they ohh-ed and cursing when they cursed. My eyes don't always pick up on what has happened, and I can't always tell what is important from what is just run-of-the-mill because I think a football match drones relentlessly forward, with advances into enemy territory building and collapsing at an interest-numbing pace.

In fairness, that is not always the case. Anyone who is interested in sport and competition can see the value of a steal at a crucial moment, lament a mistake or recognize that the referee needs glasses. Competition is competition no matter what, and with just a little bit of effort you can become embroiled in just about anything. Take, for example, my quadrennial interest in curling. I know when it is going well and I know when the shit hits the fan but I don't know anything about curling.

I appreciated most of the evening, if only because I generally like watching sports and the atmosphere was so charged. I find that my interest in football is directly proportional to the number of people around me when watching the match. You will never find me watching a match on my own and chances are you won't find me watching a match in a group less than five or ten.

The evening was foreign to me in many ways, and there are some things that I noticed that you just wouldn't catch Americans doing when watching sports.

Singing Songs -- the British love this stuff. They break into song whenever anything happens and even when nothing particular happens. It is entirely random, predictable only by employing some arcane strand of chaos theory. I find this endearing. When Americans sing songs at a game, it is either the national anthem or the seventh inning stretch. Either way, both come at prescribed times and not when action is taking place on the field.

Hugging -- Don't get me wrong, American men hug one another when really good things happen to their team. But it is kind of an uneasy, off-center slapping of one another's back. To be sure, there is no nipple alignment, and the touching of chests is kept to the absolute minimum (note that bumping beer belling is acceptable). Last night there was full-on bear hugging. I find this endearing as well. I should note that American athletes have a habit of slapping each other's asses. This activity does translate to the fans.

Celebrating a 0-0 score -- You really gotta love a game to enjoy the thrills and chills of a scoreless draw. Let me tell you, when the referee blew that whistle, the drunk crowd at the Twelve Pins went ballistic (as did I), becoming more hysterical and more homoerotic than I really thought possible. I don't find this endearing. But, a drunk crowd celebrating a non-victory doesn't bother me but a newspaper headline that reads "Gunners' football glory" does. Arsenal were not glorious in their draw and a 1-0 aggregate victory is perhaps the least convincing victory in the history of keeping score. But even if it was glorious, they really havn't won anything! All they got is a place in the quarter finals of the tournament. Moreover, beating a team like Real Madrid and going on and on about it suggests that David beat Goliath. Arsenal are one of the best teams in the Premiership; they even went undefeated a couple of seasons ago. They are a big league team with big league victories in their past. Sure this is an accomplishment, but let's not get delusional about its importance.

Wearing scarves indoors -- I'm not sure why the scarf is such an important icon for fans to wear, but it is. I have a younger cousin who idolized his team's scarf. He carried it around with him like a child carrying around his blanket. I suppose I can understand wearing a scarf when it is cold and one is outdoors, but there were people wearing their scarf inside on a relatively warm night. I find this somewhat endearing, but at a level far below the hugging and the singing.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I was swept up in all of this (indeed, my friend Gurmokh has videos and pictures of me as proof). Of course, I was drunk, so that had a lot to do with it. I cursed the referee, defamed the opposing players and might have, at one point, suggested that the entire fan base of Real Madrid could burn in eternal hellfire. I was caught up in the moment and I had a lot of fun doing it. I bear hugged, I cheered and drank some more. It was a lot of fun, but that is because winning is fun... oh, wait.

Technorati tags: Arsenal, Real Madrid, Champions' League, Sports, Drinking, Cultural Differences

What I read this morning; plus: no kissing allowed!

The heard of patent litigation darkness
Turns out we might owe a small company that seems to sue companies for a living a whole crap load of money.

Dangerous Games
The most heated competition in the 2008 Olympics could take place not in a stadium but in the Taiwan Strait

Schools for Scandal
Bush has the option of being remembered as a corrupt Coolidge or a corrupt Ford.

Plus, I hate couples who insist on being all smoochy-poo in the morning. I find it violates my human right to a gag free commute to work in the morning.

What I'm reading this morning

Turns out that Rob Schneider can't act

An eclectic mix of good websites: especially good is www.crooksandliars.com; www.archive.org/web/web.php, The Wayback Machine, where you can see what a web page looked like 5 or 10 years ago; see cats degraded at www.stuffonmycat.com; and, a place to ask and answer questions at ask.metafilter.com.

Time to impeach Bush?

McCain in 2008?

Wood need surgery... again

CNN's vision of Saddam

I think this is very telling: the US addition of CNN has a story whose link reads "Hussein calls for unity -- against U.S." but the international edition of CNN has a lead story reach reads "Hussein: I ordered farms razed."

The US version is old news and the international version seems more important. Why are American readers given two different stories?

Destination: Adventure!

Loyal readers of this space will have seen the photos of my last adventure to Scotland. Actually, this was not only my first adventure in Scotland but my first adventure ever, discounting those baby things like crossing the road, going into a dark basement and watching clips of the Exorcist alone when I was 5.

To be an adventure, it must have peril and peril did this have. In fact, I probably came the closest to death that I have ever been. I may be blowing this whole thing out of proportion, but walking along a knife-edge ridge with 200-meter drops on both sides seems pretty perilous. One wrong step and… well, you get the picture.

An adventure must also have an element of the unknown. To be sure, I looked at some of these mountains and had no idea what I was in for. Again, I may be making mountains out of molehills, but when I looked up, I had no idea that this is what I’d look like when I got there.

Most of all, adventure should end in triumph and this one surely did.

Photos from Scotland

Well, I've returned from my mountaineering holiday in the highlands of Scotland. I've posted some of the photos here.

Most photos on the mountain were taken with my handy Nokia 6230 phone and emailed to my Flickr account. I can't believe I just wrote that.

Scotland I (version 2)

That last post was a little out there. I apologise. Never really came around to finishing my whisky story.

By the way, just found out that one can spell whisky two ways: whisky or whiskey. But, if you spell it with the e, then that is Irish whiskey, and if you spell it without the e, the it is Scotish whisky. Who knew?

I woke up this morning to the sound of seagulls. You don't that every day. Well, perhaps my loyal readers who live on the coasts do.

Anyway, I recommend it once in a while.

Scotland I

Well, I'm in Scotland right now, Dundee to be exact, my friend Doug's parent's house to be exacter, and I'm sitting on their sofa in their living room to be even more exacter still.

Flew up on EZY147 last night (that is easyJet flight 147, direct from Luton to Aberdeen, the granite city). Pretty unpleasant flight to tell the truth. The guy in front of us was watching a DVD with his son about planes blowing up, which I wasn't nearly as offensive as the fact that he wasn't using headphones, and had in fact plugged in a set of external speakers. Having to listen to multiple explosions through cheap speakers with a lot of tinny-sounding treble and no bass and not seeing the actual screen, while sitting in the most uncomfortable seats in the industry and having to deal with the left over odors of my neighbor's Pret deluxe sushi set, did not make for a very good flight.

Then again, I paid £34 for it, so I can't really complain.

After we landed, Doug's friend Chris picked us up and drove us an hour to Dundee. I hear Scotland is a beautiful country, but it doesn't look any different from Sri Lanka in the dark. The roads seem nicely lit though (good street-level reflectors too), which might put it a step ahead of Sri Lanka.

Got to Doug's house, ate some food, watched some television and drank some whiskey. Doug's father asked me what kind I wanted. Now, I would consider myself to be in the early stages of novice-enthusiast when it comes to the whiskey. I know what big brands not to drink and I have a healthy disregard for Irish whiskey. That is all that can be reasonably expected of me at this point. I have a few favorites, but I keep them to myself.

I went to a Burns' night celebration a couple of weeks ago, and there were like fifteen whiskeys there, and I hadn't heard of any of them. I was about to ask if one of my favorites was there, but then I didn't want to be looked down on as the guy who drinks "corporate whiskey," the equivalent of the guy who listens to "corporate rock" when there is an obscure, poorly produced, cacophanous band of too-kool-for-skool hipsters who could ruin the experience just as easily, but then I wouldn't be giving in to the Man. (That last sentence was all about emotion, so I don't care if it doesn't read well... or at all.)

Anyway, I drank whiskey, and life was good.

Not quite sure how I came upon funglish.com, but I can assure you that this guy wants to show you lots of crazy Japanese things with lots of crazy Japanese hand movements.

Each page of this site is chock-a-block with Mr Hand Signals pointing or gesturing. On one page, Mr Hand Signals is showing us how to hold a vase, a crazy Japanese vase, so crazy that it doesn't even exist! Wacky!

This page seems to be some sort of wacky Japanese bulletin board, where people leave disturbingly titled video posts like I just cannot stop.

But, wait! There's more crazy Japanese wackiness. See Mr Hand Signals and how he sparkles, in a super-efficient Japanese kind of way.

The PR guru

Why are powerful public relations experts always referred to as gurus?

Fd up txts

CNN.com - SMS boom leads to digit damage - Feb 22, 2006

Apparently 3.8 million people are suffering from RSI because of text messages. Can't quite figure out how this is happeneing. I mean, no one is being forced to text, right? There aren't computer programmers telecommuting via text message, right?

Everyone I know with RSI got it using computers for 8 hours a day, so unless people are sending texts for 8 hours a day, I think there must be something else going on.

Well, it turns out that people actually are spending 8 hours a day texting. 10% of survey respondents say they send 100 texts a day. That is roughly one every 15 minutes for an entire day.

I'm guessing that the people who send 100 texts a day are the same people who talk about what he said to her after that guy came over, and oh my god! I can't believe she just said that!

You know what I mean.

Except each text conversation would go something like this:

Hey

How ru

k

book (the cool kids use book instead of cool, notice how I still use cool)

ru bzy

no

wanna hang

k

when (same person, by the way)

8

where

my haus

book

l8rz

l8rz

I could have condensed this whole thing into three texts, possibly two if both texters are smart.

Hey, I'm bored. Want to hang out later?

Sure, how about 8 at my house? Text if that is a problem.

I get 160 characters for every text and I use those 160 characters to their fullest extent. You can say a lot on 160 characters:
Whoa! Had an amazing day! Managed to get fired, get a new job making 20k more, plus I robbed a bank and donated the “proceeds” to charity. I’m Robin Hood!

It has everything, tells a good story, has some sarcasm (denoted by the quotation marks around proceeds), plus it is punctuated.

Anyway, I think I've gone a little off topic.

PS I still have six characters to play with on that last text!

Bobsled

I find it very disconcerting that the British refer to the bobsled as the bobsleigh. Sleighs are for things like Santa Claus and going to grandmother's house, over the river and through snow. Sleds are fast and fun and Olympic in nature.

I also find it disturbing that the British refer to the leader of the curling team as the skip. They also refer to the big containers for trash removal as skips. They are wrong: the captain of a team is a skipper and I can't think of the name for the other thing, but I'm pretty sure it isn't a skip.

A skipper can also be the captain of a ship.

Olympics II - the weekend

Did a great deal of Olympics watching this weekend. Woke up early on Saturday to watch the men's Super G. The first half of the field went down the slope but the event was postponed due to poor visability. That was a real pisser for Pierre-Emmanuel Dalcin, the Frenchman who was leading the field prior to postponing the event. Many a skier far superior to Dalcin were coming in with times more than a second slower, which, in the world of skiing, is like fifteen minutes.

It is a little odd that Dalcin has a fan page; I didn't think skiers who ranked 38th in the world commanded that much affection. But who am I the judge. I had a fan page once, but I had to ask my mother to take it down -- it was making my sister jealous.

Anyway, when the weather cleared, the competition began again and Norway's Kjetil Andre Aamodt ended up winning, edging out Hermann Meier. After Dalcin failed to finish (he missed a gate) he flicked off the cameras. Classy. The French are just pissed of because they missed out on the 2012 Summer Olympics. Who ended up getting them? Oh yeah, I remember.

I managed to get in the entire biathlon, that heady mixture of skiing and advanced weaponry. Loyal readers will recall my lack of enthusiasm for the biathlon. The thing is, I enjoyed watching it. It was exciting and the shooting really did add that je nes sai qua (did I spell that correctly?) I didn't know, for instance, that every time the skier misses a target, he needs to ski once around a 150m loop. Miss three and you need to ski nearly half a kilometer to make up for your shooting deficiency.

Heading into the last loop, Vincent Defrasne was leading Norway's Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, because Bjoerndalen had missed three targets out of the first fifteen and Defrasne had been perfect. Bjoerndalen was catching up though, and the race became truly exciting when Defrasne missed two targets and had to ski an extra 300m. Bjoerndalen passed Defrasne on the last loop and led for much of the way into the stadium. When Defrasne made a move to pass Bjoerndalen, Defrasne stumbled and it looked as thought the athlete who led for the majority of the race would not be the winner. But Defrasne managed to regain his composure and ski past Bjoerndalen in the final fifty meters.

I also watched my fair share of Olympic curling, something that just seems to get better the more I watch it. The US team managed to kick to British ass, beating them 9-8, but the US lead the entire match, with the British playing catch-up for the final seven frames. Watching curling is kind of like watching a tennis match between Monica Seles and Maria Sharapova: there's a whole lotta grunting and sounds of a generally animalistic nature. That is how the shooter (s/he who throws the hammer) communicates with the sweepers (they who sweep the ice, thus melting it and slowing the rate of deceleration of the hammer). Yeah, that is all I have to say on that. I like the grunting.

Was a little disappointed today because the women's Super G was postponed until tomorrow because of th weather. That means I won't be able to watch it and the BBC has been crap about replaying these kinds of things. I'm also going to miss the men's giant slalom.

Fate has dealt me yet another cruel blow.

Solutions!

I sat in a training session yesterday. Nothing really interesting for the layperson, unless you like hearing about management information systems (you know who you are: late night sessions in front of the computer salivating over that hot new cost benefit algorithm everyone is talking about -- one hand on the mouse, etc.). Anyway, the name of one of our systems is the Case Reporting Solution. Don't you dare call it a program or system! Programs and systems are for the weak and stupid who think inside the box. Over here, we only think outside the box. That is why we don't have problems, we only experience challenges. In meetings, we don't follows agendas like other jackasses, we use session timeline solutions. We don't wipe our ass using toilet paper, we deploy a fecal remnants solution.

Another George!

I was going to mention that I think that George Stephanoloulos is an idiot. I was watching the ABC Nightly News on the BBC in London and he came on spewing nothingness about the whole Cheney-shooting-a-guy-in-the-face thing. It was stupid, not only because this isn't a real story, but also because Georgie S. is generally uninteresting.

Then again, so am I, so maybe I should give him a break.

Winter Olympics I

This is supposedly the biathlete shooting his rifle. Doesn't it look more like some guy looking to take out a crowd of people?

I find that a lot of the Winter Olympic sports don't make sense when you really scrutinize them. They make sense at first, but baffle the mind if you look too closely. Take the biathlon. Some guy skies to a stand, takes his rifle out and shoots at a target. Great. I love it. I can picture burly Scandinavian men two hundred years ago shooting reindeer and skiing home to feast and build furniture. But the modern incarnation seems to have taken the fun out of it: some guy skis to a stand, takes his rifle out, which is nothing more than a uber-high-tech series of tubes and joints, eyes up a stationary target, and then makes an almost imperceptible movement of his finger and a dot appears on the target. I just don't see the challenge. Sure, you've been skiing for about a twenty miles, your hands are cold, but the guy is wearing uber-high-tech gloves keeping his fingers nimble and the guns don't seem to offer any kind of kickback. And the target doesn't move!

The luge is another example. According to King Kaufman of Salon.com, the luge developed from the times when Alpine loggers would slide down timber trails to get home in the evening. Great. Sign me up. Today, some guy in a neoprene body suit lays flat on a sled and if he is good, he can turns his ankles in at an appropriate angle. What a tremendous athlete. If you can lie flat and immobile for forty-five seconds and turn your feet towards one another, you qualify for the luge.

The other thing that annoys me about the speed sports of the Winter Olympics (luge, bobsled, skiing) is how small the difference between winner and loser is. For example, the time difference between first and tenth place for the women's luge was 1.664 seconds. Mind you, the entire event is more than 3 minutes long. The percentage difference between first and tenth place is 0.89%... and I rounded up!

In the span of "one Mississippi, two Mississ...", ten people speeded over the line.

Doesn't that mean that we are reaching the limits of our speed? If there is that much compression of times, the only way we are going to get any faster is through improved technology. Well, either that or get better stop watches.

Going out

I don't have time to write because I am late to get a drink with my friend Josh.

What a Bublé

If you were going to be famous and your last name was Bublé, wouldn't you change it to something less rediculous?

Of course, things could be worse.

Pictures

I am sure that my loyal readers have been slightly dismayed what with the lack of posts and all. Don't worry too much. I've been off doing my thing. Getting a better job, making a lil bit more money. But the biggest thing to happen in my life since my last post is the introduction of a link to my photos page on Flickr. I never thought like could be this good, but it is.

Plus, I won £7.30 a couple of weeks ago in the EuroMillions lottery. Sure, the pot was worth £85million, but my winnings are pretty good.