It has officially been announced that USF1 have requested a delayed entry into the Formula1 World Championship until 2011. Originally USF1 announced that they had requested that they be allowed to miss four races to join the F1 grid at the Spanish Grand Prix in May. I really hope that the FIA don't allow USF1 to compete in 2011 as I believe that it would be unfair to the other teams that got rejected in favour of USF1. I would rather have Stefan Grand Prix take USF1's place; at least they seem to have gotten their shit together in a much shorter time frame than USF1 had. The rumours are that Stefan Grand Prix would be allowed to race in 2010 and having to yield that place to USF1 should they manage to get their shit together by that time. USF1 had the same opportunities are their rivals to develop a car and they failed to do that. In my opinion, USF1 should be booted out in disgrace and Stefan should be given a permanent entry. Plus I consider Serbia to be a bigger market for F1 than the United States will ever be, too many fans of CART/IRL and NASCAR here in the US to make a major impact, even with a US based F1 team.

I finally managed to find a PS3 that is sensibly priced, it's a refurbished unit but it's in excellent condition and it comes with everything except the owners manual. It was returned to a well known electrical retailer and apparently works perfectly and it does come with a 60 day warranty from the seller. It was on Ebay but the seller has a very high rating from tens of thousands of people so I am reasonably confident and I paid by Pay-Pal so my purchase is guaranteed should it go horribly wrong.  I guess the next step in the PS3 BluRay remote and  Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, not quite the full version but should keep me going until November, plus BluRay movie goodness!

I do wonder just how under exposed the average American is? I don't want to be disparaging to Americans but I do not sound even remotely Australian as many Americans think I do. This comes about because so many people that I talk to during my work day seem to think I am from Australia. I really don't understand the logic of that thought process as my Devonian accent sounds nothing like an Australian accent, or even Austrian (one for the George W Bush fans), anyway I digress!

Another annoyance is the lack of availability of the Playstation3 in the US. I have looked everywhere, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, K-Mart and lots of online stores, the only place I can find one is on Ebay and those prices are massively extortionate. I'm not willing to pay 50% more than the retail value, I don't want one that badly. One of the main reasons I want to get it is for the BluRay player to take advantage of our new HD television, the other reason is Gran Turismo 5 but that doesn't come out until December 2010. I can wait but I am amazed by the lack of availability here in the US, Sony have yet again fucked up by underestimated demand; how many people have bought X-Box 360's, or Nintendo Wii's because they couldn't get hold of a PS3. It's not for me, I don't want a Wii or a X-Box as neither have a BluRay player, which is half the reason I want a PS3.

Finally, Subway (the fast food sub shop) and how useless they are! A few months ago Erin and I went to a subway on Rock Rd and they have no bread, not just just a certain type of bread, NONE AT ALL! Why did they even bother opening the doors? Last night Erin and I dropped by the Subway on Harry St and Webb Rd and it took more than 15 minutes to process our order as we went through the drive-through and then they managed to not give us our chips (crisps for my British friends) and they put additional condiments on my sandwich such as vinegar, salt and pepper. Erin wanted to go back out and get the chips but at that point I was tired and wasn't feeling the best so I told her to leave it as it wasn't that important but it has put me off buying Subway again as it's not exactly cheap food and it certainly isn't fast judging by our last experience at the restaurant.

It's been another slow month for blog entries, this is only the second entry for the month and I don't see another one before the month is out. The reason; work has been keeping me busy, nine to 12 hour days plus general family life doesn't leave too much time for Internet usage. But despite the lack of online time; life is good, we got nearly $10,000 tax refund this year and we have treated ourselves to a new RCA 40" 1080P television which we picked up for just over $600, next step will be digital cable as analogue 480P television signals look horrid on a 1080P screen. I also want to get a PS3, I mainly want it for when Gran Turismo 5 when it comes out but it does have a built in blu-ray player, which brings the price down to about $160 as blu-ray players cost around $140 for a cheapish one. Although family life is starting to become a struggle especially for Erin as she feels she never gets the opportunity to go out as we can rarely find a babysitter for just a few hours, let alone overnight so we can have a real night out. I don't mind being at home so much as I have spent much of the last six years before moving here to the US in bars and clubs working and partying. If Erin decides she wants to go out tonight to a friends birthday bash I will stay home and take care of the kids so she can let her hair down for an evening. I have been almost tea total these days, it is months between having a beer for me now, when I was back home, going a day without at least one beer was tough. Family life has certainly changed me for the better although it would be nice to have a night out with my wife without having to worry about being conservative because we have to pick up the kids the same evening.

One win, two draws and one loss is the record of results for Plymouth Argyle since my last blog entry. Beating Barnsley 3 - 1 away from home was a good result but then followed up with two disappointing home draws against Swansea and Leicester City. Today's performance against Sheffield United at Bramell Lane was much better showing excellent spirit to come back to from 2 - 0 down at half time to a final score of 4 - 3 to the home side but ultimately it is still a loss. Plymouth remain in 23rd in the league with only Peterborough below and Sheffield Wednesday five points ahead. Sadly I believe that Plymouth are strong candidates for relegation at this time unless Paul Mariner can inspire his men to a series of wins, at this time I don't see that happening, one excellent performance comes along once in a while then it's back to draws and losses. At this point I believe that Mariner is living on borrowed time, how long will Sir Roy Gardner put up will this level of performance given the amount of money pumped into the club this season.

Liverpool aren't fairing much better in the Premiership, losing to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium and a lacklustre draw with Manchester City at the City of Manchester Stadium. Benitez has been generally supported by the Liverpool fans but I wonder how long the fans will remain loyal if fortunes don't pick up. At least things are good in the Europa League beating Unirea Urziceni 1 - 4 on aggregate to move into the last 16 of the competition. But that being said it's disappointing to even be in the Europa League after starting the European campaign in the Champions League.

Formula 1 is back in two weeks time and it seems based upon testing that Ferrari are the team to beat. McLaren are struggling in relative terms after all the big words at the end of last season that McLaren will be the team to beat. USF1 has become a complete laughing stock after all the hype of having a US based team. The North Carolina based team has asked the FIA to allow them to miss the first four races to join the grid at the Spanish Grand Prix in May; almost a full two months after the season started. Personally I would rather have Serbian team Stefan Grand Prix on the grid as at least they seem to have gotten their act together using the Toyota chassis despite not even having a place on the 2010 grid. You have to say that in general, F1 has become a joke in the past 18 months with all the scandals and attracting new teams to the sport has been farcical given that new teams were forced to used Cosworth power by the FIA and two teams USF1 and Campos Meta are serious danger of not making the grid for Bahrain, if at all this season. At least we will have one historic name on the grid this year in the form of Lotus, shame that Pro-Drive (Aston Martin) wasn't chosen because they wanted to use Mercedes engines and not Cosworth.

I have been incredibly busy with work and family life in recent months. I have been working almost 60 hour weeks, which is great financially, not so good physically as all I do is work and sleep. But life is good in general, it's nice not having to worry about finances for a change. Baby Alya is doing well although she has come down with a cold, she is sounding all stuffed up and the doctor seems to not want to do anything about it. It worries Erin and I as Alya has been like this for almost two weeks now. Conner has been verbally diagnosed by the doctor as having ADHD and his school teachers want him on medication, something that Erin and I don't want. We don't want our son all drugged up all the time. Plus we think it's more than ADHD, the older he gets the more autistic we think he is; his comprehension skills are poor, as are his reasoning skills. It doesn't matter what we say to him, he somehow associates it with racing and computer games. We have been given another lead to an autism specialist that may be able to help, I hope this one pans out as we desperately need some help as we don't seem to be able to get through to him at all.

Plymouth Argyle have been disappointing being beaten in the last three games; and lay in deep shit in the bottom three, nine points adrift of safety. Plymouth's latest disappointment was being beaten by fellow struggler's Reading yesterday at Home Park. Paul Mariner's management skills aren't any better than the man he replaced it seems, a few players have come in, Kenny Cooper and Damien Johnson and many others have gone out on loan. It seems that these new players haven't made an impact, although they have only been here for a week; it's too early to make judgements but I expect to be disappointed given the recent standard of signings at Home Park. Bradley Wright-Phillips has been the biggest disappointment, getting injured before the season started and only making four appearances, making little to no impact on the games. I am really starting to worry that Argyle will be playing League One football next season, tough times ahead!!!

Liverpool have faired a little better winning their last two games to move up to 4th in the Premier League. Which will ease the pressure on Rafael Benitez who was recently linked with Juventus. The Spaniard saying that he was flattered but happy to remain with Liverpool. I think that Liverpool's target this season has to be Arsenal and third place; winning the league has gone unless Manchester United and Chelsea completely forget how to play football; we can hope...