Jag kommer ifrån England

So how are we all doing? I know, I know, I haven’t blogged in ages, sorry about that. Most who know me or have followed my blog for any decent amount of time won’t be surprised but I am a little disappointed in myself as I’ve been pretty good this year at being fairly regular. In my defense I’ve been pretty busy and I haven’t been moved by anything lately to warrant posting but I suppose I shouldn’t be making excuses. I think I’ll just apologise and say that I’ll try to update more from now on.

One thing that will help this is the fact I’m not at work next week and even better I’m actually doing stuff that may warrant a blog post or two (probably here and on our holiday site). First off I’m going to Edinburgh to stay with my brother who I will then play 7-a-side football with to raise money for the CF/Butterfly Trust. I’ve been looking forward to this for quite a while as it’s been a long time since I last played football with my brother. I’ll return home from this on Monday evening but the on Tuesday I’m off to Sweden for 4 days visiting some friends near Stockholm. I’m probably even more excited about this as I’ve been learning Swedish off and on for about a year and while I’m still on the basics it’ll be fun and will help me learn. I’ll also be taking my camera with me so it’ll give me chance to put some new stuff on my photography site. All-in-all next week should be good and long overdue as I haven’t taken a reasonable holiday since Christmas and with work being busy lately I think it’s deserved.

That's quite some flexibility

Seriously, I hate it when I’m right sometimes. Look two posts down and you’ll see what I mean when I posted about England Cricket’s World Cup win I wondered whether that’ll be the only one we’ll win and I was right. While I didn’t really say why I thought this I just had a feeling that the England football time wouldn’t emulate their Cricketing counterparts.

Watching the games England played in was, for the most part, rather painful. Our first match against the USA was marked by an unforunate keeping error. Our second against Algeria was, well, forgetful. However things did pick up for our final group game when we looked a little sharper and sealed passage into the next round. However it was there we were systematically picked apart by a ruthless Germany team. It showed up many problems that the England team have: lack of pace, lack of desire, lack of talent and a refusal from the manager to change.

When England picked Capello I applauded his stance of not picking those who were injured or not playing regularly. Instead he would pick those who were fit and on form for their clubs. I applauded this because it meant that those picked for England were players who deserved to be there and were likely to perform. However he renegade on these principles by picking Gareth Barry and Heskey amongst others. I just couldn’t understand why. Many have pointed out the lack of choice but I say why only look at top clubs? Why not look at the top Championship clubs where the quota of English players is greater or those clubs who prop up the Premiership? Darren Bent for example was on form all season yet he wasn’t selected to go to South Africa.

Capello’s other problem was his reluctance to abandon or adapt the 4-4-2 formation. You only need to look at the USA and their comeback in their final group game to see what happens when you adapt to a situation. Capello’s refusal also lead to the farcical “revolt” led by ex-captain John Terry. What was made out to be a united front lead to Terry being hung out to dry by his fellow team-mates. Whether this was pay-back for the old Wayne Bridge affair is pure speculation but either way it was shameful. Thankfully we weren’t as bad as France who just went from bad to crazy rather quickly.

In the end I’m glad England went out because we didn’t deserve to go further and were shown up by better team. I also hope that in the wake of our poor performance we dump our supposed “Golden Generation” and start looking to the future and see Capello stick to his principles and only pick those who deserve. The FA could learn a thing or two from the ECB and the way the re-grouped and regenerated the National side. While the England cricket team aren’t winning everything they’re at least genuine contenders as opposed to over-hyped under-achievers that the England football team has become.

Epic, just epic!

Those who’ve followed my blog for that last year or so will know I covered, along with the rest of the blogosphere, RATM’s triumph over Joe and the X-Factor. A friend and I were lucky enough to get tickets to their “victory” gig in Finsbury Park, London which was last night and I can tell you, even though I hurt, I’m still buzzing.

I’ve been a huge Rage Against the Machine fan for many years and was absolutely gutted a few years ago when they went their separate ways. Then they started touring again these last couple but I’ve never been in a position to see them. That all changed last night and my word were they f’in amazing. I’m not the biggest mosher or even someone who just goes all out at a gig but this was different. I just had to get involved and experience it. I managed to survive through eight of the sets twelve songs and while I wish I was there for the finalé, Killing in the Name, I enjoyed watching. The setlist, for those who are interested, was:

• ‘Testify’
• ‘Bombtrack’
• ‘People Of The Sun’
• ‘Know Your Enemy’
• ‘Bulls On Parade’
• ‘Township Rebellion’
• ‘Bullet In The Head’
• ‘White Riot’
• ‘Guerrilla Radio’
• ‘Sleep Now In The Fire’
• ‘Freedom’
• ‘Killing In The Name’

This was definately a life experience I’ll never forget and a gig I doubt will ever be topped for me. I still can’t believe I was there and watching videos of the opening song, Testify, and know I was somewhere in the front go crazy with the rest of them still gives me chills.  The energy and the atmosphere was just amazing and everyone, in my opinion, knew they were part of something special in terms of what we achieved at Christmas and at the gig itself. It was an epic night and one I won’t soon forget.

Pretty much how I felt.

Those of you who subscribe to my RSS may have noticed that I re-posted the past 4 blog posts on Saturday. This wasn’t a glitch it was down the fact that, somehow, this blog had short-term memory loss. I’m not sure why it happened as requests to (mt) support yielded only more frustration. It may have been the way I was explaining things properly but either way I couldn’t make them understand my predicament. My own theory is that my machines both at work and home were still, somehow, going to the old server and I was posting there. This is odd as I was sure the DNS was pointing to the correct server but it’s the only explanation.

Fortunately the RSS feed that Livejournal pulls through for this blog still had the posts on there albeit slightly out-of-order. So the posts were recovered from there and re-posted with correct dates. I appreciate I could’ve just done this in the first place and not contacted support but really I just wanted an answer than a resolution. Either way it’s all sorted now and the blog is still here, it’s still working and that’s the main thing and to be honest I’m glad it was only a minor loss of data as opposed to the whole darn domain going down. So all-in-all I’m still considering the server move a success just not as seamless as I’d hoped for.

England World Champions?!

I appreciate I’m a little late in blogging about this considering the final happened last Sunday. Anyway, last Sunday saw England take on the old foe Australia in the final of the World Twenty20 (T20). Both teams were the pick of the tournament along with Australia being undefeated and England losing just the once on their march to the final. The question would be who would come out on top.

I didn’t get to watch the whole match as I was playing cricket during the final. However from what I did see and from what I’ve read it was a cracker of a final. Watching Australia’s innings during tea I was surprised at the risky runs they were taking and the many chances England had at running out the Aussies early on. While we did get one we could’ve gotten many more and I wonder if that was nerves for the most part? I was also impressed by the hunger England showed and I think that’s what helped a great deal as England wanted it more than Australia. I hope the England football team can show the same amount of hunger when they take part in the World Cup!

The only other major talking point of the final was the “Englishness” or lack thereof of England. It’s interesting to see that from a batting point of view, England’s main weapons were not English born. Pieterson and Kieswetter and South African and Eoin Morgan is Irish and has even played against England! It’s certainly a sticky subject for many pundits in the game. Some don’t care and others think we’re treading a fine line. Personally I don’t mind it too much, the selectors have picked the strongest side and the fact that some have adopted English nationality shouldn’t be a problem. They played with passion for the cause and gave everything whilst playing for their adopted country. I’m sure if you asked any England football fan if they would have minded Giggs playing for England I know for a fact none of them would. I know it’s harsh on some of the English talent in the county game being overlooked and a foreign national being picked ahead of you. At the end of the day England went to the West Indies determined to win and picked a team the felt could do it and that’s fine by me. The fact that it had a foreign element shouldn’t matter unless it gets silly and that’s not likely to happen. It certainly says something when, even when we win, we find something to complain and be disappointed by.

Apple meet Steam

The first part of this posts’ title is a passing reference to my blog a couple of days ago about the Pens predicament a game 7 against the Canadiens. Unfortunately they couldn’t win on the night on home and were soundly beaten by a motivated Montreal side. I haven’t watched the game but know enough from the reports that the best side won out on the night.

As for the latter, well, the logo should give that away as last night Steam arrived on the Mac. One of the many negatives people cite against Macs is the lack of gaming support. While not strictly true there’s no denying that there’s a lack of class A titles for the Apple platform. That however has changed to a certain degree with Steam on the Mac top titles like Half-Life 2, Portal, Left 4 Dead and many other Valve titles will, eventually, be ported to be played natively on OSX. What’s even better news is that, until the 23rd, Valve are giving away Portal… for free!

I’m really excited about this as I can now play HL2 on my Mac, once they’ve done the port, but also pick up new titles with ease. One of my favourite games, Football Manager, is a Steam title so another rather cool reason to be happy as these days I much prefer digital copies as opposed to physical media as to be honest, the house I live in is cramped as it is without adding more stuff! It must be said though that while this will decrease the relevance of the old “there’s naff all games for the Mac” argument it doesn’t completely kill it off. There’s plenty of titles out there that still won’t see the light of day on a Mac for various reasons but perhaps Valve’s move will help to increase the number of top titles appearing on the Mac.

All or nothing now!

The Final Showdown

And now one game is left to decide the fate of both franchises, as a winner-takes-all Game 7 will be played Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at Mellon Arena to determine which team will earn a berth in the Eastern Conference Finals.

via The Final Showdown – 2010 Stanley Cup Playoffs Coverage.

Another year and another Stanley Cup run for the Penguins. After reaching the final the last two years, both against Detroit, and winning it last year I guess you can say I was expecting a repeat performance. While it is still likely that we might win Montreal have certainly put up a fight. I’ve only caught 3 games of the six played so far in the series but one thing’s for sure the goalie, Jaroslav Halak, is the main reason the series is tied 3-3. The other reason is that, until last night, Sydney Crosby hadn’t scored a goal in the series!

I’m still hopeful for tomorrow nights game. With Syd now on the board I could very much see him turn up in a big way in game 7. The other advantage is that we have home ice so I fully expect the Igloo to be rocking come game time. If I can I’ll stay up and watch it but at the very least I’ll record and watch the next day. One thing’s for sure though and that is I’ll go to be Wednesday night with my fingers crossed as Montreal ain’t going to roll over.XX

Ahh the thwack of cork on willow.

So yesterday I played my first full game of the new cricket season for Bradley Stoke. It was for the Sunday Friendly XI and we were away to Lisvane CC. While not glorious weather for cricket we did have a dry day with occasional breakouts of sunshine. The ground however was lovely and is probably the best ground I’ve played on since I joined BSCC. I know the picture doesn’t show it but it was your archetypal ground; small white fencing surrounded the ground, lovely outfield and a rope boundary. It was also situated at the back of an industrial estate and next to a golf course so was lovely and quiet too.

As for the game itself we batted first and set a total of 269 runs off the forty overs for only 4 wickets. One of our batsmen got a century with two others getting a knock of 50+. After a lovely tea we went out to field knowing as long as we fielded well we should win. I opened the bowling and managed to post figures of 6 overs,1 maiden, 3 wickets for 16 runs on our teams way to winning by 140 runs as Lisvane posted a total of 129-8 off forty overs. I’m really happy with my start to the season and hope I can keep it up as my goal for the season is to average more than a wicket per game. While I know there’ll be games where I won’t take any wickets or just the one here’s hoping they’ll be few and far between.

Yay for viusal aids!

So after weeks of posturing, live TV debates and canvassing the UK has ended up with a hung Parliament. In all honesty this is nothing strange for a democratic country so all the ho-ha is slightly over dramatic (as is the picture I chose). However it seems that everyone knew this would be the outcome before we did.

The markets had speculated and prepared for it and the polls up to and including the exit poll were pointing to it as well. What will be interesting to see now is who will form a coalition with whom. You’d imagine that Labour and Lib Dem would form a coalition as the Lib Dems came about as a fork away from Labour. However some believe the Conservatives will be able to woo the Lib Dems into backing them. Personally I’m not sure, if anything the Lib Dems will be disappointed with their performance considering all the positive press Nick Clegg got after the first TV debate. If anything I predict that while we’ll get a coalition for a while it will likely lead to another General Election sooner rather than later.

It sounds strange to say this but I’m actually quite excited to see where this goes. What will be the major concern for the coalition if we get one. Will it be electoral reform in preparation for another election or will they continue to concentrate on the economy and sort that before moving forward with anything else? I’m hoping the latter as, right now, we need to make sure we come out of this recession before making plans and I’m hopeful that is the way this will go. It’ll also be interesting to see who does form a coalition and, if rumour is to be believed, will it be Labour and Lib Dem but only if Brown resigns? I doubt we’ll hear much if anything till after the weekend so for now we’ll just have to put up with the press making all sorts of claims especially the Murdoch lead press. In the end though I think any coalition will be fragile and we’ll end up going to the polls again.

Don't drop it!

This is just a quick blog post to let any regular readers know that this blog is moving. No, not domain, just servers. For the last couple years I’ve been running Fluffles.com and pntaylor.net on two separate gridservers hosted by Media Temple. While the package is relatively cheap ($20/mnth) over a year that adds up. So today I asked the question whether I can host both sites on one account/server and the answer was, yes, yes I could.

I probably should have done this ages ago as neither domain gets many hits nor passes lots of data so I rarely get anywhere near the allowance I get (1TB/mnth). So I figure the best option is to put them both on the same server and save myself some cash. I’ll be doing this over the next few days in which time, if you happen across my site, you may find it unavailable. Don’t panic! I’m hoping the move will be seamless and I have a lovely guide to follow which should be foolproof. Still, there’s every chance I could mess it all up and end up with a lot of work to bring it back to life so I guess I’m just asking you all to bear with. With any luck though, come Thursday, this site will be hosted on the same server as Fluffles and I can close the other off. In the mean time please cross your fingers!