OBlog Archives

When it's free porn.

Ok so I should say that when I say football I mean English football (soccer) not what our American friends call football. This all on Superbowl weekend as well. My prediction for that is that a team with the word "NEW" in their name will win.

Anyway, back to the story. Recently I came across this bit of software that allows you to watch TV channels from abroad, interesting but not that spectacular until you realise that it means you can watch live soccer over the net that is not being broadcast on local TV, more importantly games that I actually want to watch.

I mentioned this software to a friend at work, having watched the Liverpool game the previous weekend in perfect Chinese commentary, and this saturday afternoon I sat down to watch the Spurs Vs Man Ure game at 3 p.m. (it was actually a stream of the Setanta sports US broadcast). It was all fine until half-time. I'd got up to make a cup of tea but had left the PC on during the ads, when in the kitchen I heard something that didn't exactly sound like an ad or football, I came back into the room (pardon the pun) to see that it had somehow switched to streaming the playboy channel (not sure who'd be streaming that at 4pm UK time/11am EST). What made it worse was at the same time, my work colleague had just hooked up and was about to sit his 9 year old son in front of the same stream. Not surprisingly my phone went to confirm that what he was seeing was what I was seeing, to which the answer was yes. Fortunately a quick refresh and we both got the football back and were able to watch Man Ure fluke a last minute equaliser.

I've no idea if this is legal or not, but I guess if the biggest risk in watching live streaming football is the occasional blast of porn, it's a risk I'm prepared to take.

When it's a bowling ball.

One of the guys at work decided that he wanted to take up bowling a bit more seriously, not sure why, but he has these whims every now and then. He decided to go to the local pro shop and put a deposit down on a ball. He then dragged me down to the shop to try and convince me to buy my own ball, but I said I'd wait and see how he got on with his own.

All was fine until I got a phone call yesterday morning from him saying that he'd picked a free ball and did I want it? The problem is that he's left handed and the ball was right handed (apparently there is a difference). He'd been to a wedding the day before and was chatting to someone, mentioned that he was buying a ball and they said that they had an old one and were planning on throwing it out so he could have it for nothing.

Now here comes the expensive bit, if you've got your own bowling ball you can't really turn up to the local alley with it in a Tesco carrier-bag. You either get laughed out of the place or the bag splits before you get there and the ball rolls down the street. So a proper bag is needed. The other problem is the finger holes are a little small for my chubby fingers, so I will need it re-boring. Oh and on top of that, the previous owner had his name etched on the ball, so I'm going to have re-name myself Andy.

Of course, now I've got my own ball, I've now got to go more often and raise my average above 42, so all in all it could prove to be a very costly freebie.

Having read Webmaster J's business plan, I have decided to formulate my own. I could have delved into Maslow's triangle but decided to follow that of American billionaires and sports teams.

The plan is to offer $8m (well below the market valuation) and fund this purchase with a number of high risk loans with no real collateral behind them. I then plan on interfering with the way the website is run, denying funds for new servers, hard-drives and memory. This should then upset the "fans" of the website prompting protests and boycotts of the site. This should then come to the attention of a few people wearing tea-towels on their heads to whom I'd sell the site to for $12m. I'm happy, Webmaster J's happy, and nuts to the fans of the site.

All I can say is - "Gillette, not necessarily the best a man can get"

Ok so it's over two months since I've blogged, and yes I've seen a doctor and prunes have been prescribed.

So happy New Year, and a big apology two both of my regular readers for the lack of content recently. I'd love to put it down to being abducted by aliens or something, but it's a combination of too busy at work, a bit of can't be aresedness and lack of interesting things to say.

So onto the blog, the real reason for it is that I was doing a bit of research at work the other day and came across a competitor's website. Pretty run of the mill stuff, the usual things I'd expect to see until I stumbled onto the "recommend a friend" page, a bit unusual for a forex site, but even more unusual was the fact that you got a free gift for recommending a friend, a pot of clotted cream. I had to double check as this seemed a tad strange, but no it was true, for each friend you recommended to their website you got a free pot of clotted cream. Now obviously I would like to point you to this site, but that would be disloyal to my company, plus it's winter and strawberries are out of season.

Talking of doing double takes I had to do one in the supermarket the other night. I was walking past the display where the have the business cards for local merchants and services when one caught my eye. I thought it said 10% off slut hire, and although knowing that the supermarket was in a rough area of the city, I knew this couldn't be right as the normal discount is usually 25% off. Actually it was 10% off suit hire, but that was less interesting.

It is strange to note that I have chosen the most depressing day of the year to do my first blog in ages, but there you go.
Blue Monday (link removed as no longer active)

Right I'm off, have another quiz to compile to tax the bumpkins, so look for that on the site in the coming days.

Adios.

Bloody work, had to stay late for the umpteenth week in a row, that means that I've missed the pub quiz again. I'm sure the country bumpkins will be sending out the search parties soon.

I've just found we've got a local library, they kept that quiet.

Ok, so I promised to post an update with the results of my gambling on Saturday. The bad news is that I wimped out on Saturday after a quick visit to the shops in the morning, I decided with the help of the British weather that it was too effing cold to be standing around for 3-4 hours facing directly into the wind.

I feel vindicated in my decision as Liverpool won 3-0 and the main race of the day was "contested" by just two horses, so I didn't miss that much.

Anyway, here's to Ian Holloway the first Leicester city manager to win his first game in charge since 1943.

Well it's a unanimous decision, well if 2 can be counted as unanimous, it looks like I'm going to the races tomorrow, all I need now are the winning tips. The bad news is that my usual betting partner in crime can't make it, which means I can't rely upon him picking the losers allowing me to get the winners so don't hold out much hope for winning big. Will post the results tomorrow. Come on Hoof Hearted.

Well England lost to Croatia and failed to qualify for next year's European championships. It's especially bad given the lifeline they were thrown at the weekend, but no they decided to balls it up.

It brings to mind the lyrics of a song by those poodle permed rockers, Poison, "I tried all night not to break down and cry as the tears rolled down my face." All I can say is that whoever was singing couldn't have tried that hard.

It's been emotional.

A number of you have been asking where I've been, what I've been doing, why haven't I been blogging? Well, when I say a number, 1, but 1 is a number. The answer is that I have been busy and couldn't be arsed, that and as I've said before, I don't have that much of a life and therefore not much to say.

So onto the dilemma, it appears that I may actually have a free day on Saturday and I don't know whether to go to the horse racing at Huntingdon (it being Peterborough chase day, the most prestgious day on the Huntingdon calendar) or to stay in and watch the football live on sky and then whatever sport I can find for the rest of the day. On the plus side it'd be good to get out and get some fresh air and daylight, on the downside it'll be effing cold, could be expensive and I'd miss watching Liverpool.

So I thought I'd leave it up to the hoardes of loyal readers to decide, so should I:

a) go to the races,
b) stay in and watch the footy, or
c) actually get a life?

Vote by posting a comment.

And no, I'm not talking about some dodgy film sequel starring Nicholas Cage and John Travolta, I am in fact referring to coincidental fact that I too went to a hockey game this weekend. I went to see the Nottingham Panthers play the Hull Stingrays. The score, sponsored by East Bay Rag, was 5-1 to the Panthers, the first two periods were a bit scrappy and there were a lot of mis-placed passes, however in the final period an almost completely different Panthers side came out and took control and scored three goals. There was an injury to one player, three pucks went into the crowd but no fights, although there were a couple of occasions where it looked as if it was going to kick off. I do hasten to add that I had arranged and bought the tickets before realising that our webmaster had just gone to a hockey game.

This was my third hockey game, my first being a proper NHL game where I saw the South Florida Panthers play Carolina Hurricanes, which was a much grander affair with video replays and ice dancer cheerleaders. My second game was a Peterborough Phantoms game, which was a re-arranged game after the first one was called off due to a hole in the ice. Peterborough is a lower league side, probably equivalent to the old division 4 in football, so everything is a bit tatty and small scale, but the atmosphere is fine and they won 6-3 and there was a punch up when I went to see them.

One thing I had forgotten, or maybe it was just more in your face at Nottingham, but everything is sponsored, the team, the period breaks, the helmets, the penalty boxes even the bloody air in the arena. So everytime there was a break in play not only did their young girl cheerleaders try and react to whichever random tune they played (I'm convinced that one of the girls on the middle row had just turned up to watch the game, but was given an outfit and told to join in, she was that far out of sync) but everything had it's sponsorship message read over and over again, even now I could tell you that the away penalty box was sponsored by PWP (not that I could tell you who or what they do). Another thing that has made across from the states is the over-sized replica jerseys, well they maybe over-sized for the majority of fans, but I guess for me and most of the American population, they are snug-fit.

That aside, hockey is a much more friendly and civilised spectating experience than football (soccer), you can take beer to your seat, there's a real mix of ages and genders in the crowd and you don't feel intimidated if it's your first visit. If you've never been, I highly recommend it.