| About Me |
 First Name: Jason Last Name: Lewis Age: 31 Gender: Male Sexuality: Hetrosexual Birthday: 27th October Star Sign: Scorpio |
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Latest Entries |
| Semi-finals it is then... | ||
| Because the Football Association says so, Fabio Capello is required to take the English national team to the semi-finals in the World Cup 2010 and/or Euro 2012. Now what I find amazing is why on Earth are we targeting anything less than winning these tournaments? I think that is an incredibly defeatist attitude to have, what is the point of even entering the competition if you don't think you can win? The first thing that needs to happen in this country is to promote grass roots football more, bigger, better footballing academies and limiting the amount of foreign players allowed to play in the English leagues to increase the pool of players to choose from. At the moment there are certain premiership teams that field entirely foreign teams which means that there is only a small number of top flight players to choose from. The way things are going, within a few years the England manager will have to start picking from second tier players which maybe a good thing.. less ego.. more passion!!! At the moment England have some world class players, but eleven world class players don't make a world class team, there are far too many ego's in the national team, until they learn to truly play as a team then success will elude us, we'll never see the likes of 1966 ever again. At the end of the day, money rules the game these days even at international level, players assume they have a god given right to be in the national team. Players that are excellent for their club sides but fail miserably at international level, maybe there are too many Englishmen in the national team, maybe it's the language barrier? But I do like what Capello has been doing, shaking up the 'established' team and bringing in new faces to assess what he has to choose from when the qualifying games start for the World Cup just after the Euro 2008 tournament, which England will not be part of because of Steve Maclaren's useless management, again like the players Maclaren is good at club level but simply can't cut it international level. But the players have to accept part of the blame as frankly they were rubbish, how many let off's did the English team have in Euro 2008 qualifying? They only needed a draw from the final game at Wembley and somehow managed to lose to Croatia to crash out of the tournament before it even started! Anyway back to the original point, aim to win the damn tournament, never mind realistic expectations, if you are not in it to win, don't even bother competing. England aren't going to win anything at all thinking that they aren't good enough to win the tournament, IDIOTS! | ||
| 06 May 2008, 22:11 | ||
| Lack of communication! | ||
| Yet again I have been let down by work, and yes again it's the lack of communication issue, I knew there was a gig on tonight (by reading flyers and posters around the place) but I had no idea of whether I was required. I had to chase up the club manager to find out whether my services was required tonight. To be honest I wasn't up for doing tonight anyway, I like my ears just like they are... WORKING... the headline act are so insanely loud onstage, typical Spinal Tap attitude, amps set to '11'. But I do resent the fact that another engineer was brought in to do the whole night because he was asked to engineer the headline band. That's not the way it works, if any band wants their own engineer, the band pay their engineer and the venue pays the house engineer to work the rest of the night and keep on a eye on the guest engineer. The Voodoo Lounge is the only venue that I know operating that policy. Every venue I have visited as a bands engineer I just engineered the band I was with and the house engineer did the rest! Tonight I don't mind so much as I really didn't want to work tonight, I've been feeling a little off-colour the last few days. But that isn't the point as I have been passed over three nights in the past four weeks. If this is going to happen on a regular basis I need to look into alternative opportunities. I love working as an engineer but if I can't make a living from it and save towards my goal of moving to America then I simply have no option but to take another job, whatever that may be. One thing is for sure, I am doing no more favours, I will be charging the same as every other engineer in Plymouth, £50 flat rate for upto 6 hours, then £10 per hour after that. I have to make up the lost income somehow, so my fee has to go up, it's simply the only way for me to go! | ||
| 05 May 2008, 22:48 | ||
| Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye... | ||
| Plymouth Argyle lost to Wolves, and denied them a play-off place in the process by only allowing them to score once when they needed to score three to overturn Watford. So Plymouth remain in 10th place but could have made it as high as 8th if we managed to beat Wolves as Sheffield United lost to Southampton which meant that with Leicester only managing a 0 - 0 stalemate with newly promoted Stoke City. I find it quite ironic how one former Argyle manager gained promotion and another got relegated! So Mr. Holloway, how's life at your BIG club now? I suspect that in the coming days you will be receiving your P45 in the post. Of course you're always welcome at Home Park, we need a new tea boy!!! Despite losing to Wolves I am very happy, the Pilgrims put up a good show to deny Wolves a play-off place and were unlucky to lose in the 87th minute. Hollowords took his so called BIG club down to the third tier for the first time ever, not what Mr. Milan Mandaric imagined when he poached Holloway from Home Park. Holloway talks a good game, but even with the millions that Mandaric has poured into the club he failed to get the job done. So who is lacking ambition now? You'll be lacking employment as I seriously doubt Mandaric will stand for this kind of failure! Now what would make it for me next season is for Argyle to get promoted to the Premiership, that'll make Holloway GREEN with envy!!! Work tonight was made even better by the band dedicating their set [sarcastically] to Ian Holloway which was greeted by a huge cheer and chants of GREEN ARMY, which brought a smile to my face, WE ARE THE GREEN ARMY and don't you forget it Mr Holloway! | ||
| 05 May 2008, 00:29 | ||
| I can't believe that I am about to write this... | ||
| But I will be supporting Manchester United in the Champions League final as I can't bring myself to support Chelsea (at least not since Abramovich took control). Liverpool were knocked out of the competition going down 3 - 2 (4 - 3 on aggregate) after extra time. Ultimately as I feared, Riise's own goal at Anfield came into play but not for the reason I thought. Rafa Benitez must have wished he'd kept his mouth shut about Didier Drogba being a 'diver'. The Ivory Coast international netted two for Chelsea, scoring the first and deciding goal to book Chelsea's place in Moscow. The score was 1 - 1 at full time after Fernando Torres does what he does best, find the back of the net mid way through the second half. Sami Hyypia brought down Michael Ballack in the 98th minute and Frank Lampart calmly slotted the ball into the bottom right sending Reina the wrong way to make it 2 - 1. Then seven minute later Liverpool found themselves two goals behind, Drogba sweeping Anelka's slick pass into the back of the net. Ryan Babel unleashed a shot out of nowhere from 35 yards out that Petr Cech had no chance of stopping. Which set up a frantic final few minutes as Liverpool poured forward looking for their third goal to take them through. But sadly for me and all Liverpool fans Chelsea stood firm and resisted resolutely to send them through to the final. I can't really blame John Arne Riise for the own goal but you have to think that we would be on our way to Moscow if he just left the ball, but I guess there is always next year as we are all but assured 4th place which gets us into Europe next season! | ||
| 01 May 2008, 16:31 | ||
| An All English Affair! | ||
| The Champions League final will be an all English affair for the first time in the history of the competition. Manchester United made it through to the final last night courtesy of a superb strike from Paul Scholes from 25 yards out! But the question now is who will be their opponents, will it be Chelsea or Liverpool who meet in the second leg of their tie at Stamford Bridge? Obvious if you've been a regular reader of my blog you'll know where my allegiances lie. But I fear that Riise's late own goal in the home tie will be Liverpool's undoing as they now need to score in London which based on recent games will be a challenge. But Liverpool never do things the easy way, you just have look back a few weeks in the return leg at Anfield against Arsenal to see that! What is annoying for me is the fact that the game is on Sky TV and I don't have satellite, so my only option is to go out to the pub, but I am skint; the money I earn tonight will be going straight on rent. The £9 I have in my pocket needs to be used for food to keep my going until Saturday. So I guess I will have to keep tabs on the game online. It's annoying that United's game that I wasn't bothered about seeing was on ITV but the game I really want to watch is not! I really hope that Liverpool don't lose as tonight will be unbearable as my co-DJ is a United supporter and we have plans to go watch the final (if it's Liverpool Vs Manchester United) in mid-May! ADDITIONAL: Now I am really annoyed, just spotted on Uefa.com that I can watch the game online via Sky.com and it would only cost £2 to watch the match which is great as I have just over £3 in my account. So I sign up to the site and get to the payment page and find out that it's actually going to cost £5. It's only £2 if I am a Sky Sports subscriber, which the site failed to tell me before going through the hassle of signing up. Now if I were a Sky Sports subscriber; why in the hell would you want to pay extra to watch the game in lesser quality online when you simply watch it on TV. Yet again Sky have managed to piss me off!!! Another thing that bugged me today is the fact that Clarence House has announced Prince William had paid a SECRET visit to the troops in Afghanistan. First thing that springs to mind is it's not a very good secret if as soon as he is home safely they tell the whole world. The young prince who recently got his 'wings' from the Royal Air Force took the controls of a transport plane to Kandahar to take supplies and bring home injured troops. That in itself is fine as that's what he has trained (and paid) to do but coming home and telling the world is damn right irresponsible. Do they not think that the Taleban watch TV and have spies around the world. Now every time a transport plane flies in, it will be more likely to be shot at on the off chance the prince in onboard, which endangers the flight crew on those flights, and they don't get a public mention for doing what they get paid very well to do! |
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| 30 Apr 2008, 17:53 | ||
| Fucked Up! | ||
| I have been watching the story of Elisabeth Fritzl who was imprisoned in a cellar in her family home in Amstetten, Austria for 24 years by her father, Josef Fritzl. I am not shocked easily but this really shocked me, especially that the crimes were perpetrated by her own father, and supposedly the mother knew nothing of it; which I find extremely hard to believe! Not only was the 18 year old women imprisoned; she was also sexual abused and gave birth to seven children fathered by her father. It's hard to imagine what it must of been like for Elisabeth being locked away without seeing so much as a glimpse of the outside world for 24 years. Not only the effect on the daughter, but also the effect on the children she gave birth to. I really find it hard to believe that any father could do such things to his own daughter. The ordeal may now be over for Elisabeth but what about the future, can her and her children function in society after being so isolated for so many years, quarter of a century without daylight has to have taken it's toll on the [now] 42 year old woman. I'm now going to talk about a football club that I rarely mention, Manchester City. I have been reading today that manager Sven Goran Eriksson will be fired as manager at the end of the season. The Swede only signed a 3 year deal for the club at the start of the season but was told by owner Thaksin Shinawatra that he was "not the right man for the job" despite guiding City to a top 10 finish. I don't know what the hell Shinawatra was thinking about when he brought Eriksson to the club, Champions League football after just one season of building, it doesn't work that way Mr. Shinawatra. Noel Gallagher has branded Shinawatra "a nutcase" and "living in cloud cuckoo land" and I can only agree with that. It really seems to be complete madness to me to fire a manager that has led the team to their highest league finish in years after only a year in charge. It seems that there are too many team owners with loads of cash who don't know anything about the game firing managers willy-nilly. I have said it time and time again, stability will bring success, not a new manager! I don't know why I am so annoyed with what I am about to write about because it's nothing that I didn't expect to be honest. Saturday night was Black Catz and Simon who runs the night is trying to put live music on every month, and last Saturday was Welsh industrial band Acid Tongue. I met the guys and had a chat for about 30 minutes while setting up for soundcheck and found them to be very nice guys indeed. So I did the soundcheck, things were sounding good if a little feedback like because the system [and room] was cold, but I knew it would disappear with some people stood in front of the system. People were coming in steadily for the two hours before the band were due on and it was starting to look quite busy so I had hopes that the band would get a decent crowd. But of course as per fucking usual in this damn city, 60% of the crowd went downstairs or outside when the band started playing. I felt really bad for the band as they gave it their all and the end of each song was met with complete silence. If the band were assholes then I wouldn't have minded so much but they were top guys and deserved better. They were very understanding saying they have played to worse crowds in the past, but they must have been pissed off with the reaction of the crowd. It baffles me because it was the sort of music that these people supposedly like, but it seems that if it isn't from a commercial band [e.g. signed/known band] which was proven as they played Head Like A Hole by Nine Inch Nails as the final song of their set. But as I said, why I am even surprised, Plymouth is such a backwater and ignorance of live music is rife unless it's a covers band playing popular songs, but they'll pay a small fortune to hear a DJ play what they can hear in their own homes any time. |
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| 29 Apr 2008, 19:16 | ||
| Why couldn't we have shown this form a month back? | ||
| Before I say anything about the match I am very disappointed in Paul Sturrock for not playing Paul Wotton in the final game at Home Park this season given their history together. Even if it was only as a cameo for the final 10 minutes to say goodbye to Home Park in a fitting manner, but he didn't even feature on the subs bench! Anyway, Plymouth played a blinder today beating Blackpool convincingly 3 - 0 with Jermaine Easter kicking off the scoring in the 4th minute slotting Rory Fallon's pass into the box into the back of the net. It was 2 - 0 in the 23rd minute, provider of the first goal, Fallon got up above the defence to send Luke Summerfield's corner goal bound. Summerfield was provider again for the third goal, which was almost a carbon copy of the second with Fallon beating the Blackpool defence to the ball to head home Summerfield's free kick into the box. But even with this comprehensive win, Plymouth still lay in 10th in the league because Ipswich were four points ahead at the start of the match and the Tractor Boys managed to salvage a 2 - 2 draw at Deepdale so are two points ahead with one game left to play. Sheffield United beat Bristol City at Bramall Lane to remain two points clear of Argyle in 9th. So basically Plymouth need to win, Ipswich and Sheffield United need to lose or draw for Plymouth to finish in 8th or one of the teams needs to lose or draw to finish 9th. A loss for Argyle could mean that we slip to 11th if Burnley beat Crystal Palace, a draw for Plymouth will mean they'll remain in 10th matching last years achievement! A win is a must to finish higher than least season! Liverpool salvaged a 2 - 2 draw at St Andrews as Birmingham let a two goal lead slip through their fingers. Mikael Forssell made space for himself to lash home James McFadden's cross into the top left of the net in the 34th minute. Sebastian Larsson unleashed a fierce curling free-kick from 25 yards out that crept inside the left post after Martin Skrtel shoved James McFadden off the ball in the 54th minute. Then suddenly it seemed like Liverpool woke up and started playing with Peter Crouch finding the target in the 63rd minute finding himself in space to fire home from 12 yards out. In the 76th minute Yossi Benayoun found some good fortune as his headed effort was deflected off Radhi Jaidi to send the keeper the wrong way. Both Andriy Voronin and Yossi Benayoun had opportunities to clinch the win but fired narrowly wide. This draw all but secures 4th place with two games left to play with nearest rivals Everton nine points behind with a game in hand but Liverpool have commanding goal difference over their Merseyside rivals. But of course the big game for Liverpool will be on Wednesday night against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the Champions League hence why key men Gerrard and Torres were rested today! |
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| 26 Apr 2008, 18:31 | ||
| A sad day for all 'true' Pilgrims! | ||
| Sorry Lucy, it's another sports entry, romance is a little thin on the ground right now, at least what I want to divulge anyway, that'll stay between myself and Erin. So a new era at Plymouth Argyle is upon us; stalwart and first choice captain Paul Wotton will not be having his contract renewed by Paul Sturrock and will be leaving the club in the summer. I for one am very sad to see Paul Wotton leave the club he has served with passion, blood, sweat and tears for more than 10 years. I know that Wotton never truly cut it in the Championship but he is still a valuable player for his set pieces and penalty kicks. It seems that Sturrock is having a serious clearout, the list of players leaving is momumental. Paul Wotton leads the departures which also includes Lee Hodges, Lilian Nailis, Nick Chadwick, Gyorgy Sandor (who never even made a first team appearance), youngsters Reuben Reid and Jake Moult will also be axed this summer. And the one player that Sturrock really wanted to keep; Paul Connolly had decided to refused a new (and improved) contract at Home Park and will be heading for pastures new. Mat Kouo-Doumbe and Nadjim Abdou are in contract negotiations with the club and Sturrock is keen to sign Scots Russell Anderson and Gary Teale on permanent contracts if agreement over salaries can be agreed. Now the future worries me, the Scots that Sturrock has brought in have been less than impressive to say the least and now we have a huge gap in the middle of the park. If we lose Doumbe and Abdou then it's pretty much all change in the team and I just have a feeling that funds to replace the outgoing players won't be available as the money from the selling of players this season will be going towards completing phase two of the stadium redevelopment! Day two of six at work was pretty good actually, although the night itself was unremarkable, it was another bread and butter club night. Although I have to say the guys putting on the night put a lot of time and effort into the decor and visuals which looked amazing. And the sound-system sounded sweet with dubstep (chilled out drum n' bass) and minimal techno (which I fail to see the point of). But I got to talk a bucket load of engineers, many from deep blue sound and one guy that's an amateur engineer that talked a load of sense. So a night that I would have hated musically turned out pretty good, got to talk about sound, engineering techniques and equipment which I actually quite enjoy doing, yes I am a complete geek when it comes to that, hence why I love my job (most of the time). But tonight is the one I am looking forward to because it'll be the first live night I have engineered for two weeks because of bands requesting their own engineer, let's hope I can remember how to engineer live sound eh? A+E Line (sludged up German electro-pop apparently), Supenik and El Coda will be playing tonight, should be an interesting one. Now it's time for my favourite subject, it's BUSH-BASHING TIME! Why does America and George W Bush think they have the divine right to dictate who can and can't have nuclear power and/or weapons? Before the White House were threatening Iran over their nuclear power plans and now it seems their attention has turned to the Syrians and wait for it... North Korea! I would say thank heavens that George Bush will be out by the end of the year before he starts World War III, but John McCain is another Bush [read: warmonger] and nothing will change. I pray that the democrat candidate will get elected be it Hilary Clinton or Barrack Obama, but frankly America isn't going to vote for a black man or a woman! |
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| 25 Apr 2008, 15:27 | ||
| What have you done Mr. Riise? | ||
| It all went horribly wrong for Liverpool in the first leg of their Champions League semi final tie against Chelsea. Liverpool started slowly allowing the visitors lots of space for Avram Grant's men to surge forward before starting to peg back Chelsea and take control of the game. Dirk Kuyt spurned two excellent chances before eventually finding the back of the net in the 43rd minute from close range. The home team went in 1 - 0 up at half time looking on the ascendency and came out with all guns firing, outpassing and outplaying the men in blue creating chance after chance but couldn't find the target. Then it was Chelsea's turn to push forward as the game started to get stretched but couldn't manufactur a clear cut chance. Liverpool were denied twice by Petr Cech in the final 10 minutes tipping Gerrard's shot over the bar and blocked Torres' effort. Liverpool looked like they would be taking a 1 - 0 lead into the second leg at Stamford Bridge until the final Chelsea attack of the game and John Arne Riise put the ball into the top of his own net in an attempted headed clearance. So Riise's mistake gifted Chelsea an vital away goal which means that Liverpool definitely need to score at the Bridge and may have just given Chelsea the advantage in the tie. Let's hope that The Reds can put in one of their trademark never-say-die performances in London, but unlike last years semi final with Chelsea, the return leg is away from home so Liverpool won't have the Anfield crowd lifting them higher like in last years semi final win! | ||
| 22 Apr 2008, 22:43 | ||
| The dream is finally over! | ||
| Plymouth Argyle's faint hopes of gaining a play-off place evaporated on Saturday afternoon as Home Park hosted Preston North End. Despite Argyle having a 2 - 0 lead with 15 minutes left to play, Plymouth only managed a disappointing 2 - 2 draw. Manager Paul Sturrock elected to start Jamie Mackie and the young lad made an impact in the 12th minute unleashing an optimistic shot from 35 yards out that took a fortuitous deflection on its way into the top of the net. Paul Wotton doubled the lead from the penalty spot after Krisztian Timar was bought down by Youl Mawene. Then it all went horribly wrong; Neil Mellor reduced the deficit one minute after Wotton's penalty kick capitalising on Argyle's defensive frailties. Then the win was snatched away from Argyle in almost the last kick of the game in a goal mouth scramble that Plymouth failed to clear! So basically Plymouth threw the game away in the final 15 minutes with defensive lapses allowing the visitors to score two late goals. Argyle are now seven points adrift of 6th place with only six points left to play for, so the premiership dream is over for this season, now we need to concentrate on finishing in our highest league position ever; we have 10th to beat, which is where we finished last year! Liverpool have all but secured fourth spot in the Premiership with their 2 - 0 win over Fulham at Craven Cottage. The Reds are now 8 points ahead of Everton who lost to [Liverpool's midweek rivals] Chelsea at Goodison Park with three games left to play this season. But there is a slim chance that Liverpool could still catch Arsenal as the Gunners are only five points ahead with nine points available! Anyway, manager Rafa Benitez decided to rest Steven Gerrard who has a neck strain and Fernando Torres who was on the bench but wasn't played. Jermaine Pennant opened the scoring on the counter-attack picking up Lucas Leiva's threaded ball to unleash an earlier shot that Kasey Keller wasn't expecting. Pennant turned provider for Peter Crouch 53 minutes later with a neat little pass for Crouch to run onto to release a low drive that Keller couldn't stop! So the next big game for Liverpool is Tuesday against Chelsea at Anfield in the champions league, hence Benitez effectively playing his 'B' team at Craven Cottage, but sadly Steven Gerrard is still a doubt! |
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| 21 Apr 2008, 00:12 | ||
| Nearly Perfect! | ||
| I got my new laptop yesterday and had a day of fighting Windows. I had the idea to dual boot Vista (for home use) and XP (for my DJ'ing activities). But of course it was never going to be that simple! You can only dual boot if you have XP pre-installed and not the other way around without loads of hacking of the bootloader and partitioning of drives (easier said that done with an OS present). Also it wouldn't allow me to copy certain required files across to the hard disk despite XP being installed in a completely different folder. So in the end I ditched Vista completely as reclaimed some 10GB of hard disk space that was being taken up by the restore partition. Now you might be asking; why do I want to install a 'technically' inferior operating system? Well the answer is simple, my external soundcard which allows me to run two stereo channels (FOH/Monitor) doesn't work in Vista because Creative has discontinued support for the product! Now I have a legit product key for Vista but I don't have the Vista software as I overwrote the restore files which were located on a separate partition on the hard disk; OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) don't actually supply a physical copy of Windows anymore. You need to burn a (backup) DVD from the hard disk image, cheap bastards! Other than that I am very happy with the new laptop; it has a slight glitch in the TFT but I can deal with that; it has what is known as a dead pixel on the active matrix. Which can be one of four things; either the pixel is literally dead (black) or constant 'on' pixel (either red, green or blue) and mine is red, which is kinda annoying, but I'll get used to it! It's technically not a fault; there is a certain tolerance for dead pixels before it becomes a fault. That tolerance seems to be between 6 and 11 pixels dependant on the manufacturer. But the important thing is that it performed excellently under the conditions it was bought for; my DJ'ing activities, so on that front I am very happy, I can't complain about one dead pixel when I got the laptop for a third of the retail price! I just read this news on the BBC website and I am astonished! How drunk must you be to not notice a six inch knife in your back? The Russian man was out on the lash after work with a colleague and was stabbed in the back by his drinking buddy during an argument! The man spent the night in the works offices, then in the morning got on a bus home, ate breakfast, then went to bed to catch a couple of hours sleep. His wife noticed the knife's handle sticking out of his back upon waking him and the man who stabbed him turned himself into the police. Just how hardcore are Russian people to not notice being stabbed? While we are on the subject of strange things; on the other side of the World in Australia two policemen were left embarrassed as a crook they'd arrested drove off in their car while handcuffed as they collected evidence. The coppers made the mistake of handcuffing the arrestee with his hands in front of his body instead of behind his back allowing him to climb into the drivers seat, start the engine and drive off leaving the policemen stranded! In sport; Plymouth Argyle have found some new investment from the far east. K&K Shonan Management Corporation have bought a 20% share in Plymouth Argyle. Hopefully the new shareholders are willing to splash a little cash to strengthen the squad and hopefully hang onto the likes of McCormick, Halmosi and Timar. But at the moment no real details of the investment has been publicised but manager Paul Sturrock has gone on record as saying that next season Plymouth will be prime promotion candidates next season. I'll wait and see; as a long suffering Argyle supporter I wont be counting my chickens before they hatch! |
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| 17 Apr 2008, 20:29 | ||
| The Last Week! | ||
| Really has been pretty uneventful to be honest. I bought myself a new laptop to use for my DJ'ing activities. It's a 2.8Ghz Intel dual core, 2GB RAM and 120GB hard disk; all for £270, but sadly it's running Vista so I will need to install XP on it to be able to use it with my Sound Blaster Extigy as there aren't any Vista drivers for the card, and never will be as Creative has discontinued support for the product. Erin also bought herself a new laptop so she is no longer being screwed over by Rent-A-Center for a laptop that is barely capable of running the operating system. She had already paid in $1700 into a laptop that is only worth $600. Now she has her own laptop that she paid just over $500 for, and has much better specs than the one she was effectively buying at an extortionate rate, $43 per week for a Celeron based laptop with 512MB running Windows Vista, which barely runs the OS! Yesterday I went out to the pub to watch Plymouth Argyle play Sheffield Wednesday on Sky Sports. And frankly I was rather disappointed in what I saw. Things started well with Peter Halmosi's freekick from just outside the penalty area getting a wicked deflection off Deon Burton wrong-footing Lee Grant to give the Pilgrims the lead after just two minutes. Then it all went pear-shaped as Plymouth seemed to sit back on their lead and allowed Sheffield to have the lions share of possession. It just seems like the whole team were playing with a major negativity complex, not closing down the Wednesday players, only making the tackle in the final third of the field. Frankly I thought that The Owls were the better team, having much more urgency and passion than Argyle ever looked like having during the match. Peter Halmosi who has just come back from injury was substituted in the 60th minute and The Pilgrims were sitting back even further allowing the home team to push forward even more. And eventually that pressure turned into a goal for Sheffield, the Argyle defence failed to close down Tommy Spurr allowing him to find space to launch a rocket from 25 yards out. Then a few minutes later Plymouth had a massive let off only being saved by the woodwork, and 'Super' Luke McCormick had to work overtime to deny the home team all three points. Now what baffled me is why the hell did Argyle manager Paul Sturrock wait until the 86th minute to bring Jamie Mackie on to replace Steve MacLean who had done bugger all during the game and even more bizarre bringing on Rory Fallon in the 90th minute. It seems that Sturrock can only think retrospectively instead of being proactive bringing on Mackie after 60 minutes and not let the game plan stagnate, a second goal would have all but finished off The Owls, but that didn't happen, Plymouth never looked like they were chasing the second goal. I find the type of football that Sturrock likes to play to be negative, instead of positive play, pass and move play, it's more of a 'hoof' ball game right now. Many have been criticising Sturrock and I have resolutely been defending him, but based on this performance I have doubts creeping in about Sturrock's credentials within this league. So the end result; a 1 - 1 draw which has all but killed off any remaining hopes of a play-off place, but every cloud has a silver lining; Ex Argyle manager Ian Holloway's Leicester City dropped into the bottom three because of Argyle's failure to get the job done. Plymouth are currently in 10th five points adrift of 6th spot and Wolves (currently in 8th spot) who we meet in the final game of the season have two games in hand over Plymouth! |
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| 15 Apr 2008, 17:57 | ||
| Heartpounding moments! | ||
| Liverpool being Liverpool can never do things the easy way, especially in European competition and tonight was no exception. Liverpool started the game with the advantage having an away goal to their name courtesy of Dirk Kuyt in the first leg at the Emirates. In the opening 25 minutes Arsenal kept the ball well and should have done better with some of their chances and Liverpool; on the rare occasion they had the ball gave it away far too easily. Arsenal opened the scoring in the 13th minute when Liverpool failed to clear their lines and allowed Vassiriki Diaby to move freely through the penalty area to meet Alexander Hleb's neat little pass to unleash a shot that out of position Jose Reina couldn't stop! Suddenly the pendulum swung the way of Arsenal having their away goal and having the overall lead. Almost out of nothing, Liverpool levelled things with Steven Gerrard swinging in a curling cross from the byline and Sami Hyypia met it with his head looping the ball into the top right to make the scoreline 1 - 1 on the night and 2 - 2 on aggregate. Liverpool's form man this season Fernando Torres made it 2 - 1 on the night making space for himself for a superb turn and shoot effort that Manuel Almunia had no chance of stopping. This goal eliminated the possibility of it going to penalties as if the scores finished level; The Gunners would go through on away goals. Liverpool stepped off the gas a little after Torres' goal and that allowed Arsenal the space to play their passing game and the chances started to flow Arsenal's way again. Suddenly Theo Walcott came on to inject some pace into the Arsenal squad and what pace that boy has. He picked up on a loose ball on the edge of the Arsenal box and ran the whole length of the field to lay off the ball to Emmanuel Adebayor to tap home making it 2 - 2 on the night and Arsenal are suddenly in the box seat with seven minute left on the clock. Liverpool were fortunate a minute later to be gifted a penalty when Kolo Toure was deemed to have pulled back Ryan Babel. It seems like it was six of one, half dozen of the other but as a Liverpool fan I'll take it! Steven Gerrard stepped upto the spot and fired home emphatically to regain the lead in the tie. Ryan Babel made sure of the victory deep in injury time latching onto Dirk Kuyt's clever pass, running half the length of the field, wrong-footing Almunia to slot home from six yards. So Liverpool make it through to the semi finals to face Chelsea in emphatic style in the end, although the scoreline does flatter the Reds, Arsenal played their hearts out and one man undid them and that man was Ryan Babel earning the penalty and making sure of the win at the death. | ||
| 08 Apr 2008, 23:28 | ||
| Disappointing weekend of sport! | ||
| Plymouth Argyle's hopes of a making the play-off's are fading fast as they fell to the second successive defeat being beaten by Charlton 1 - 2 at Home Park on Saturday afternoon! This loss means that Charlton leapfrog the Pilgrims as Plymouth drop down to 9th, but amazingly only two points off a play-off spot but West Brom and Wolves have two games in hand and Ipswich have a game in hand over Plymouth. So things are looking grim for manager Paul Sturrock's play-off aspirations with only four games remaining this season. It's a game that Plymouth really should have won after Charlton's keeper Nicky Weaver was sent off in the 3rd minute for deliberate hand ball. And Plymouth looked like they were in for a comfortable win as they were dominating possession but still had to wait until the 60th minute for Jermaine Easter to send Gary Teale's headed cross goalbound. But Argyle's lead was short lived as Luke McCormick punched instead of gathering the ball gifting on-loan striker Leroy Lita a free header. It was another goalkeeping error from McCormick that gifted The Addicks the lead as he failed to gather a headed cross to gift Lita the easiest of tap-ins. Plymouth will be ruing this loss as the Pilgrims were denied by the woodwork early on and having a man over, it's disappointing for everyone involved, I bet that Luke McCormick is feeling like hell right now, I know for sure he won't be happy with his performance; we all know he is much better than this performance would have you believe! Liverpool also dropped points being held to a 1 - 1 draw at the Emirates on Saturday afternoon. But I guess that Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez will be the happier manager as Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger would have liked to have capitalised on Manchester United's draw at The Riverside. Liverpool had the majority of the play in the first half as Arsenal looked lacklustre at best as the teams met for the second time in four days. Peter Crouch was form man today as he looked an ever present threat forcing a brilliant save from Manuel Almunia from 30 yards out. Crouch finally made the breakthrough in the 42 minute with a superb low drive from just outside the penalty area. In the second half, Arsenal looked like a different team looking much more threatening, pushing forward, pinning back the Reds (playing in white) making the breakthrough nine minute after half time. Nicklas Bendtner made an amazing run from 35 yards to meet Francesc Fabregas' free kick to out jump Peter Crouch to send the ball goalbound to bring the home team level. Liverpool had a chance to win it late on but Andriy Voronin made a complete mess of his shot sending the ball skyward over the bar despite not being under any pressure! Liverpool are still not secure in 4th place as Everton won at relegated Derby County to move within three points of their Merseyside rivals. Liverpool meet Arsenal again at Anfield in the second leg of the Champions League quarter finals with Liverpool having an away goal to their name, so all they need to do is keep a clean sheet to make it into the semi-finals. The weekend's sporting disappointments came on Sunday afternoon in F1 as Lewis Hamilton had a disastrous race and lost his lead in world drivers championship. The Briton failed to get off the line quickly and fell back to 10th by the first corner then ran into the back of former team mate Fernando Alonso on lap two losing his front wing. Then to compound his problems he found himself taking the scenic route back to the pits as he pushed too hard drifting off the track as he had no front downforce. After pitting for a replacement nose cone, he found himself at the back of the grid somewhat off the pace of the Ferrari's and BMW's, eventually finishing the race well out of the points in 13th. Fellow Brits Jenson Button and David Coulthard tangled on lap 18 ending Button's race, Button blamed Coulthard for the incident but from what I can see it was half dozen of one, six of the other. Jenson made a lunge up the inside, Coulthard closed the door; it's a racing incident as far as I am concerned, Coulthard eventually finished in a very distant 18th! So Felipe Massa has finally entered the title race with his win from second on the grid dispatching pole sitter Robert Kubica before the first corner and led the race from start to finish! Kimi Raikkonen is the new championship leader after Hamilton's failure to score any points while the Finn scored 8 points for second. BMW's Kubica finished the race in 3rd while team mate Nick Heidfeld followed the Pole home in a formation finish! Heidfeld has also leapfrogged Hamilton in the championship dropping the Briton back to third! Now what is amazing is that BMW are constructors championship leaders because of their consistency over the first three races; who would have thought that before the start of the season. I think that BMW must be on for their maiden win this season, they claimed their first pole position this past weekend. I wonder what they can achieve this season now as they have surpassed everyone's expectations including their own, could they actually win the constructors title? My weekend has been excellent despite the sporting disappointments. Work on Friday was good, it sounded fantastic even if the bar staff did moan about the volume levels, but after all it is a live gig, there really isn't much point if it's not loud, you need to feel the music. Neither myself, the promoter or the bands thought it was excessively loud! The headline band [Skankt] actually asked if they could take me on their tour as they were so impressed with my work. And I chilled out over a couple of beers with the bands afterwards. Saturday was another good night, two excellent metal bands, No Quarter Given and I can't remember the name of the other band [sorry guys if you read this]. Both bands were impressed with my sound engineering prowess saying that I was the best engineer they had ever worked with. For one band to say that is amazing, but both bands saying that put me on a massive high. It's wonderful to hear that people appreciate all the effort I put in making them sound amazing, but having a quality band using quality equipment helps me as an engineer massively. Sunday was a chill out day, watched the Grand Prix, spent time with Erin and Conner and played some computer games, which topped off an excellent weekend for me, I don't think this weekend could have gotten much better, well maybe if I won the lottery! The following scene took place on a BA flight between Johannesburg and London. A White woman, about 50 years old, was seated next to a Black man. Obviously disturbed by this, she called the air Hostess. "Madam, what is the matter," the Hostess asked. "You obviously do not see it then?" she responded. "You placed me next to a Black man. I do not agree to sit next to someone from such a repugnant group. Give me an alternative seat." "Be calm please, the Hostess replied. "Almost all the seats on this flight are taken. I will go to see if another seat is available." The Hostess went away and came back a few minutes later. "Madam, just as I thought, there are no other available seats in Economy class. I spoke to the Captain and he informed me that there are also no seats in the Business class. All the same, we still have one seat in First class." Before the woman could reply, the Hostess continued: "It is unusual for our company to permit someone from Economy class to sit in First class. However, given the circumstances, the Captain feels that it would be scandalous to make someone sit next to someone so disgusting." She turned to the Black man and said, "Therefore, Sir, if you would like to, please collect your hand luggage, a seat awaits you in First class." At that moment, the other passengers who were shocked by what they had just witnessed stood up and applauded. If you are against Racism, please pass this message to all your friends. |
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| 07 Apr 2008, 17:15 | ||
| It's back on... | ||
| It seems that I can't be without Erin for very long, she received my birthday gifts in the afternoon of the day that we split up and she got very emotional about it as she was watching the DVD's I sent her wearing my Plymouth Argyle shirt. And I got all emotional when she called; hearing her crying just broke my heart. I do want to be with Erin but I am trying not to let myself get so emotionally involved until we can meet in person which is likely to be Christmas time now, but we have hatched a plan to make that happen, more on that later. I was feeling like I was a little trapped and very frustrated as I had all but given up on any sort of social life here in the UK in the pursuit of getting the cash together to fly out to the US in June and yet still seemed to have no cash towards the airfare at the end of the month. So I am going to try to have as normal life as possible here with a view to making it to the US at Christmas. Things came to a head a few weeks back when Erin went out for the evening and I came home early-ish and she still wasn't home despite telling me she would be home at 9pm (3am BST) at the latest and I got home about 3:15am (9:15pm CDT) and I kinda lost it (see previous entries for details). Anyway, Erin went out again last night for her birthday (again changing her plans as she said she wanted an evening in with me watching some movies) but I just let it go and stayed out having a couple of drinks with the band that played last night, then came home at 2am and went to bed, watched a couple of episodes of Red Dwarf on DVD and fell asleep about 20 minutes into the second episode. I am not giving up on having a life here any more as it's depressing me as I don't want to be coming home to an empty bed if Erin isn't there for me to talk to. Yes I love spending time and talking with Erin, but that can't be my whole life. I can go out and have a few drinks and enjoy myself, I just have to keep my drinking under control like I did last night. I enjoyed having a drink and a chat with the boys from Renegade Beat and I enjoyed the gig, no problems and it sounded amazing once the place started to pack out. Anyway, the plan for us is to try to save back any spare money we have and pay it into a PayPal account until we have enough for airfare. The plan is to pay in about £25 per week each, and maybe more if we have more spare money than expected. That way it's out of reach for both of us, we can't just buy something on our debit cards without thinking as we would actively have to transfer money from the PayPal account into a bank account which would take a couple of days at least. This is the best way we can think of for making this relationship even a possibility. But at the same time I am trying to remain slightly detached as I don't want to feel the way that I have been feeling the past few weeks again. When you are into someone so intensely as myself and Erin are to the point of missing that person so much it hurts when they aren't around, emotions tend to run very high and that is very bad for our relationship prospects! Work has been good, Monday was the monthly Cafe Concrete; which was pretty uneventful, had some bizarre feedback issues with a laptop which baffled me as you wouldn't think an electronic device could feedback. But that was easily resolved by muting the internal laptop microphone. Wednesday was Alternation and that worked out pretty well, we had a couple of live bands on before the club nights started so that boosted the bar takings, which is good for the health of the night. But as expected the people that came to see the bands left pretty much straight away and the regular club goers sat downstairs until the live music had finished. This baffles me as for the last band it was free entry, so they could have seen the excellent Dead or American for free. Either way, I don't really care, I made some extra cash by engineering the gig beforehand and have got even more engineering work because of it! Friday was live Reggae/Ska night and all the bands were fantastic. Exeter based Scavenger Type kicked off the night with their mellow reggae beats, top quality start to the night. Then local ska act Renegade Beat hit the stage and ripped it up getting the crowd up and skanking. Then headliners Skankt stepped up onto the stage and suddenly their upbeat ska tunes had the dancefloor packed out which was wonderful to see at a live gig! Tonight is the regular true metal night; Cerebral Punishment with two live bands on tonight, which will keep me happy as club nights are normally boring as hell for me; even if it's easy money! |
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| 05 Apr 2008, 15:24 | ||
| Single Again! | ||
| After weeks of uncertainty over my relationship with Erin I have decided to call it a day on our relationship as I am never likely to be in a position to make it happen. I can't even afford to save up airfare despite making loads of sacrifices, pretty much giving up on any sort of life outside of work, sleep and spending time with Erin. I wanted it to work so badly but I guess that I have been deluding myself over the past eight months. Everything is against this relationship working, residing on different continents, her parents hate me without even meeting me, and getting a work permit is more hassle than is to be believed! I think that it was unrealistic to believe we could make this happen without some sort of cash injection from somewhere as my incomings just about cover my living costs. So I think its for the best for me to let Erin get on with her life, follow her original plan to come to the UK to make a new life for herself and Conner. I blame myself completely for break down, seems I don't have what it takes to make this happen, Erin is a wonderful person and I really hope that she can find happiness as she deserves it more than most. I will always love Erin but I hope in time I can truly move past this and be happy. I need to sort out my own head before even contemplating entering into another relationship. I am certainly not looking towards to the US again, that is incredibly silly, there are too many roadblocks in the way to make it a feasible reality. I am not on myspace anymore (and have no intention of joining up again), so the likelihood of meeting someone abroad again is next to none. I should have never allowed myself to fall for Erin, I should have just kept it as friends as we can't even be friends anymore because of this whole disaster. I actually really loved talking with her about everything and I doubt that I will ever meet anyone that will interest me on so many levels. It's just my luck that my perfect woman is in another country, I don't know why I am even surprised about that, story of my life, everything I want in life is just out of reach! Now the big question is where do I go from here? Do I slip back into my old life of working then spending the nights earning going out getting off my face or do I stick to to my resolve and stay off the booze. But what do I have to come home for? an empty bed, a life of loneliness, doesn't sound very appealing does it? I am never going to find anyone by staying home feeling sorry for myself, but I find it so incredibly hard to meet new people. I meet people all the time in my professional life but those people are never really going to be friends or a partner for me. Maybe it's my destiny to spend my life alone, besides can I really ever find someone that truly compares to Erin, I would always have the feeling that I am settling for someone because I can't have the one I really want. I have many questions and no real answers, I just hope that Erin can forgive me for being such disappointment! I just hope that Erin can accept my gifts that I sent for her birthday in the way they were meant to be (with my love) and not send them back to me, I want her to have them! PS: While writing this I have been thinking about how much I love talking with Erin and I really don't want to lose that. At the basic level I enjoy spending time with her, talking, laughing and generally enjoying each others company but that hasn't been the case recently because of the pressure I am feeling to make it happen romantically. Maybe in time something more could happen IF and/or WHEN I have gotten my head together. I think Erin may be the key to me getting myself out of this cycle of depression and alcoholism I have found myself in. It was silly to allow ourselves to get this deeply involved without even meeting in person, getting engaged over the internet without even meeting is insane. Anyway I have texted her asking if she wants to be friends, let's see if I get a reply. |
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| 02 Apr 2008, 16:18 | ||
| Have we bitten off more than we can chew? | ||
| I am really starting to think that people like myself and Erin can never make an international relationship work. We both work like crazy but still never seem to have any money at the end of the month. Last month I had 200 pounds saved up towards my airfare for June, but it's now the 1st April and I have less than 100 pounds towards it. My target of having 300 pounds saved up by now has been completely destroyed and I have been exceptionally careful with my money this month, but I still have less money than I started the month with. What can I do to save money? I haven't been drinking and eating less than what is realistically healthy. Work has been inconsistent at best, and I haven't helped myself by destroying my laptop in a fit of rage (see previous entries for info on that). I have been deep in thought this morning after waking up early and I am starting to think it would be less cruel on Erin (and myself) to break it off and let her get on with her life, I don't want her to have to wait forever for me. I am deeply and madly in love with her and being with her is all I want, but are our ambitions realistic? Erin offered to pay for my airfare but I refused as she may need the money from her tax rebate in case of emergencies in future and I don't want her or Conner to have to struggle because of her spending money on airfare no matter how much we want to be together. Those fears have already come true as her washer and dryer have stopped working, also her car is refusing to start so has been sent into the mechanics to be looked at. All three of these things are likely to dent her savings and rightfully she is thinking that she can't get ahead in life no matter what she does and I am thinking the same, now more than ever. We need to talk about what we want to do as the June date is slipping away fast. Do we scrap the summer visit and just go for the Christmas visit, but I fear that I simply don't have the resources to make this happen. I could get a day job but that doesn't allow for me to talk with Erin as by the time she gets home from work I'll be asleep and I am really not a day person. Also a day job wouldn't actually make any difference to finances as I wouldn't earn any more money and I would have to work a lot more hours, even if it would offer more stability in wages. It really seems that we are damned if we do and damned if we don't, what do we do? We can't keep on having this relationship over the phone and internet, that's no good for either of us, but just hearing her voice and seeing her beautiful smile makes me feel like I am walking on air; ARGH!!! Whilst I am on the subject of airfare and airports, Heathrow terminal 5 has been a complete disaster from day one with many people having to fly out without their luggage or even worse have their flights cancelled completely. Which all comes down to British Airways incompetence, not training their staff in the use of the new high-tech systems and in some cases employees didn't even know where they were supposed to be working in terminal 5 and/or couldn't find parking spaces. The whole baggage loading systems failed because of a snowball effect because of the lack of training by BA. People have had to pay upto 200 pounds per night for hotel rooms for delayed flights and others have had to buy new clothes abroad because they didn't have anything to wear as their luggage was still stuck at Heathrow T5. There are 28,000 bags being stored around Healthrow that need to be returned to their rightful owners. This has been a complete farce and British Airways should be held accountable for their incompetence over the past week, they don't intend to reimburse the people that are out of pocket because of BA's massive screw-up. It's not even like they are a budget carrier, far from it infact, they are one of the most expensive carriers in the world. I doubt that many of the people that have been screwed about over the past week will fly with BA again and I don't blame them. British Airways are supposed to be the UK's flagship carrier, but this week has made them look like a bunch of amateurs. I have been watching Panorama this morning about the alleged child abuse at Haute de la Garenne in Jersey. I was shocked (and I am not shocked easily) by some of the stories that have come from former residents at the home including rape (both of boys and girls), pregnancies and forced abortions, physical abuse, being chained up, hit with sticks and much more. The abuse appears to be more widespread across the children's care system on this island than suspected, and even worse the authorities have been turning a blind eye allowing the individuals to still work with children despite the alleged abuse. This has been going on for more than half a decade and no-one seems to give a damn about it. It creates a compelling case for Jersey to come under UK jurisdiction if they want to be part of the UK if the internal police force and local government can't regulate themselves properly, how this sort of abuse could be allowed to go on for 50 years is beyond me. Check out the scale of the problem for yourself on the BBC iPlayer service (available until Sunday 6th April). A quick round-up of sport, Plymouth Argyle were comprehensive beaten by Coventry City away at the Ricoh Arena. The Pilgrims went down 3 - 1 to the The Sky Blues on Saturday afternoon and were lucky to have that scoreline as they were 3 - 0 down with nine minutes left to play when Steve MacLean grabbed a late consolation goal for the Pilgrims. Manager Paul Sturrock blames himself for the loss making wholesale changes to his squad but also pointed a finger at his players (lack of) commitment. Plymouth have fallen out of the play-off positions because of this loss being leapfrogged by Wolves and Ipswich and are now two points off a play-off spot. Let's hope for better luck when mid-table Charlton visit Home Park on Saturday afternoon, it's a must win game really if we are to maintain our play-off hopes with other teams around us having a game in hand! Liverpool have almost certainly secured a fourth place finish in the league and claim the final champions league spot after beating local rivals Everton at Anfield on Sunday. But there wasn't much in it, despite Liverpool dominating the first half they could only find the target once and of course it was Anfield's hero Fernando Torres who scored his 28th goal of the season for the Reds. Frankly Everton didn't deserve anything from the tie looking lacklustre for much of the game, Liverpool should have done better with their chances, but I guess that the scoreline doesn't matter as long as its in our favour. The next tie for Liverpool is a biggie, Arsenal in the champions league tomorrow evening at the Emirates Stadium. Let's hope that Liverpool's European form is better than league form as league meetings between the two teams have invariably gone the way of the Gunners. I'll have my fingers crossed for the Benitez' men! I know that I am a little late on this one, but I thought I'd give it a belated mention. England have managed to win a test series away from home in New Zealand beating the Kiwi's in the second and third tests. England set a first innings total of 253 largely due to Kevin Pietersen finally doing something with the bat in this series scoring 129. The home team could only manage to knock up 168 in reply with Ryan Sidebottom claiming 7 wickets for 47 runs while Stuart Broad claimed 3 for 54 to give England a first innings lead of 85 runs. In the second innings Andrew Strauss who is fighting for his international life knocked up a fine score of 177 from a marathon innings facing 343 deliveries while Ian Bell hit 110 from 167 deliveries. Cook, Pietersen, Ambrose and Broad all made useful contributions of 30+ runs on the way to an innings total of 467 for 7 declared, setting the Kiwi's a total of 553 to chase for the win. Monty Panesar was the hero for England in the New Zealand second innings claiming a personal best of 6 for 126 runs while Broad claimed another 2 wickets for 78 runs and Sidebottom polished off the tail leaving Tim Southee standing on 77 not out. |
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| 01 Apr 2008, 09:33 | ||