Month: October 2008

Muahaha – glad I was in the car while it was hailing 🙂

It started when I got the car moving and the bombardment was just finishing as I was parking up 🙂

There was a film out a while ago called Indecent Proposal. The synopsis of the plot was that John Gage (played by Robert Redford) would offer Diana Murphy (played by Demi Moore) $1m to spend a night with him. In bed.

The film has a look at the relationship of Diana Murphy and her husband around the $1m offer. I have to admit I’ve never seen it but it’s definitely springing to mind at the moment. In Robert Redford’s shoes, you have a certain Texan billionaire (who for some reason is a Sir …) and in Demi Moore’s stilettos you have the English Cricket establishment …

The scene is Antigua, where there’s a tournament going on with a “Stanford Superstars” team, Middlesex, Trinidad and Tobago and finally England. It’s Twenty20 cricket, which should be the most exciting and fun version of the game with the event being a showcase to show cricket off to the non-cricketing world.

There’s just a couple of problems … The pitch has a big influence on how a game of cricket goes, the bounce can be good, low or nasty and there are different speeds too. Good bounce and decent pace (the ball “coming on”) means good scoring and tense games. High bounce can get nasty as it can lead to broken fingers or worse. Slow and low pitches make it difficult to hit the ball out of the ground as the batsman is always reaching for the ball without any confidence to hit through their shots.

Instead of being a spectacular showcase, we have a slow and low pitch. What’s worse is that the floodlights at the ground are also low, making catching awkward. Dropped catches that would have been held at any other ground have changed the results in the games so far. The shameful thing is that the combination of slow, low pitch and bad floodlights is making good International players look utterly inept. And that is bad for the game in general, not just for the players on show.

It’s terrible timing too, as it’s clashed with the Baseball World Series. I try and watch as much baseball as I can get away with, partly because I like watching the execution of perfection that Major League Baseball puts on show. Things like a double play that the fielders make look like child’s play, plus bonuses like Joe Blanton, Phillies pitcher, smacking a Homer that amazed everyone in the crowd. It’s a well grooved sport but there’s still room for class to show and luck to come to the party. It’s a shame that TV timings and work mean I can’t catch more baseball.

So where does the Indecent Proposal reference fit in ? The games in Antigua are leading up to a $20 million showdown between the England team and the Stanford Superstars, winner takes all. Personally, I think it’s an attempt to move away from the Twenty20 series in the West Indies by looking to outside competitors. I’ve put up an opinion of the Stanford Twenty20 competition before and it wasn’t a good one – I turned off their grand final because it was boring and tedious – for a cricket addict ! So the money has gone to bring in people from a successful Twenty20 tournament.

It’s a little sad and the media backlash has been happening over the last couple of days. The players are stating publicly that they don’t particularly want to be there – the harsh reality of the aftermath of the Indecent Proposal thing is really coming to light.

That’s enough cricket for now, except to say that while there’s actually cricket on the telly as I write this, I’m actually watching Ice Road Truckers instead. Yep, I’d rather watch the guys on the ice than the sport I’m addicted to.

Also in the news – it’s birthday season ! I’ll be buying the donuts in a fortnight but before then … Crazie Party. Which I have a lot of work to do to prepare for it because we’re having it at my place this time and the house is a tip. Too much accumulated garbage that I’ll be moving into my spare room.

Love your weather terms 🙂

We had a bit snow here in NJ. Heavy wet now. So early in the season. The next day we had a bit of sleet. Nothing Bruising!! 😉

Just some wimpy states side pellets LOL

Friday’s Fill-Ins mentioned I was having the car serviced on Saturday. Gosh that was weird … Getting a car serviced and walking out without paying them anything ? That’s one hell of a novelty 🙂 It’s not quite as good as it sounds though, I have to get a couple of new tyres which will cost me roughly £230 plus the service wasn’t actually free, I’m paying a monthly fee for the next couple of years in return for servicing.

It’s getting colder here at the moment … I used to joke that it was too freaky a coincidence that there would be snow just before the annual RAC Rally (now known by other sponsor name …) that would last through the Rally, melting in the last day or so. The snow would be there for the Rally and then would disappear straight afterwards. And it’s that time of year again ! It’s also let me find out about a new gadgie on the car :

Yellow snowflake = it’s 5 degrees C outside
Red snowflake = it’s 1 degrees C outside

Translation – bloody cold.

Got spotted this morning by one of the work people in my “cold weather gear”. Which is identical to my “warm weather gear” except for the addition of black leather gloves. Or “Assassin Gloves” as they’re known around the project 🙂 I like that image 🙂 But what would really get me strange looks would be people knowing that I’ve handled and fired a wide range of firearms, including a sniper rifle :-). But that’s from quite a while ago now and the actions of a few Crazy People means I’m not likely to get the chance to do that again. At least not in the UK.

Where did the title for today come from ? Sunny day today and I was at an offsite meeting at lunchtime. I like this particular meeting because the gorgeous Miss S goes to it. (I don’t spend all my time gazing at pretty people – honest !). Sunny before, Apocalypse afterwards. I had enough time to leg it to the car before the heavens didn’t just open, they got ripped asunder. By the time I’d driven around to the gate people to hand back my temporary ID, conditions were poor enough that the gate guard fella was highly reluctant to leave the safety of his guard house to cross the road to the car …

This wasn’t rain.
This wasn’t snow.
This was Hail Bombardment.

I’ve put in a previous post something about the “Damp”, “Murky”, “Dangerous” and “Nasty”, today added “Bruising” 🙂

Lol – my last vacuum got defeated in the Battle Of The Living Room. It got too hot and something popped off the side that shouldn’t have popped off …

I’m glad you got a smile 🙂

Thanks for playing, have fun this weekend!

Re: #3: with a vacuum. Happy Friday Fill-ins!
http://smilingsally.blogspot.com/

I finally got around to doing another one of these ! For the original site, please see Janet’s site here.

1. Right now, I’m feeling a little nervous of what will get reported at the car service tomorrow …
2. Having dinner with a beautiful woman is where I want to be.
3. How does one stop the rebellious march of the dust bunny army ?
4. The barometer that is my friends keeps me on track.
5. Please don’t judge before knowing all of the facts.
6. A smile from a pretty lady always fills me with joy.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to just plain chilling out (Lost In Space on now!), tomorrow my plans include getting the car serviced and Sunday, I want to relax, chill out, play some games !

Today’s post is dedicated to the Blonde With No Name (although I now have a good idea what that name is !) Mrs B walks past my desk most days, with today being slightly different. As well as Mrs B, there was a balloon being pulled along. It said “Happy 50th birthday”. Unbelievable ! Mrs B has the smooth grace of a dancer and is often seeing going Zoom up the floorplate in cycling gear on her way out the door. There’s a lot of energy in a tiny frame there but that’s not the thing that stands out.

It’s the big smile 🙂

A smile from a gorgeous lady will always brighten the day and Mrs B always has that cheeky little grin ready and waiting to erupt. My team moves across site in a week or two and it’s the big smiles from a few of the ladies in the teams next door which is something I will really miss.

Happy 50th birthday tomorrow Mrs B !

Not posted too much over the last week – been a little busy, away from home for a couple of days and missing ideas for things to post. And a little caught up in games too 🙂

Warcraft has been my main game for the past few months, with occasional sojourns into Master of Orion 2 for a bit of Galactic Domination. However, there’s a phenomenon I call “just-70-depression” that tends to hit people. Warcraft has an experience system called “levelling”, where as you play your character gets experience. As they gain more levels, they can wear better equipment and they hit harder.

Just one problem … There’s a level cap. You can take the character up to level 70 but no further. Until Blizzard (maker of Warcraft) come out with an expansion pack that is … There’s one of those coming next month and I’m really not sure if I’ll buy it this time. (Yeah right – I’ll have a pre-order in when I get the interest in WoW back). Up to 70, you can explore the rich world that Blizzard created for WoW, getting variation from going through the different areas. At maximum level, it’s repetition time …

I’ve reactivated my sub in another game now – Eve this time. Eve is a space game, still massively multiplayer and allows a much slower, more relaxed pace. WoW is a lot more immediate in comparison. You can’t totally fall asleep in Eve but at least it’s not twitch gaming like most others. There’s no level cap either in Eve, a character keeps on learning different skills so they can fly different ships, shoot different guns or make different items.

Anyway – all the above is deja vu from a couple of years ago – I tend to switch between games to suit what I’m interested in at the time. Bit of twitch gaming – Warcraft. Galactic Domination – Moo2. Wargame with ZZZZs – Settlers IV. Relaxed multiplayer space – back to Eve.

Oh – I mentioned I was out of town for a couple of days. I was up norf in Glasgow on business, which was nice – change of scenery is always good. Joked with the girls on the hotel front desk about stalkers, not had one of those for a while and I kinda miss it. Was a bit knocked out though for a couple of days after. Think one of the bugs I’ve been carrying got some revenge on me.

I don’t tend to have sick days, even though my diet is something that would make a nutritionist recoil in horror. Or rather, I’ll keep plodding along not allowing anyone to see just how much I might be suffering at any one time. But what keeps me going is things like having Miss A ask me how my weekend was as she’s walking past my desk.

Right – time to grab some food, get ready for having the Grand Prix delayed coverage on in the background and maybe sneak a quick mission in before it starts … And update the A to Z challenge on my disused other blog with another book read 🙂

LOL!

Can you believe I had to explain the word “nowt” to my Canadian partner when my sister used it in a text message just recently?

The thought of that still makes me giggle.