Congrats Mats!

Congratulations to Mats Sundin and Team Sweden! What a game! Only thing I disliked was the intermissions had no analysis, they swapped to other sports (cross country skiiing?! ICE DANCING GALA?!)

I would like to volunteer myself for further BBC Correspondance on the "Coolest game on Earth"

Finland v. Sweden - Watch it!

I turn off my Xbox to find, hockey! ON TV! HERE! IN THE U.K., hockey!!!!!!!!! Whooooooooo!!!!!!

It was Finland v Russia that was on. So I started to watch with excitement. Yes I know Canada is out, but still, anyone that watched this game would have noticed the abundance of Canadian flags and jerseys in the crowd. Canadians need hockey. It doesn't matter if the game doesn't even involve them, they are interested. The same is true of the NHL, Phoenix v. Nashville, San Jose v Atlanta, Columbus v Minnesota, who will win? who will lose? who cares? Canadians. That's who. So from this you can infer, I was deeply engrossed by the Finland v. Russia game.

So Finland score, and then they score again. In very quick succession! Then the teams had appeared to switch ends, and I am sitting there thinking, well what moron put cameras on both sides of the rink?! Then Finland score again. (To put this in perspective this had happened in the space of 2 minutes max). Then I realize, there is not cameras on the other side of the rink at all, the BBC is being a Big Bastardin' Cockface and only showing the damn highlights of the game, and my mood sunk. Still I did watch a very convincing Finnish side defeat Russia 4-0.

Then I realized I was getting old(er) when I saw Pavel Bure, manager of the Russian side. Wow, it really was 12 years ago he led the Vancouver Canucks all the way to the Stanley Cup finals against the New York Rangers (who ended up beating Vancouver and taking home their first Stanley Cup since 1940)?

Anyway the good news is Sunday at 12.50 the aforementioned BBC will be showing the live final Sweden v Finland on BBC2. This promises to be a great game with so much at stake and the history between these two teams, I am sure to be entertained! If anyone wants to come round and watch it with me, feel free (although I doubt anyone will take me up on that).

There is one aspect of the game I am not looking forward to however, let me explain. When I was growing up, my Dad, who is a BIG football fan, used to watch "Soccer Saturday" on TSN. He used to get absolutely infuriated with the commentary from these Canadian guys, who kept saying Soccer with such a North American twang it drove any British person nuts, and on top of that clearly did not understand the game very well. I used to think he was nuts for being so bothered by it. Not anymore. I find myself doing the exact same thing over here. I feel a certain rage when someone is commentating on hockey with no real clue what they are on about. The funny thing I have noticed is they always have a go to guy that knows his stuff. Soccer Saturday used to have a guy called Graham Leggott, who if my memory serves me correctly was from Aberdeen. Here the BBC seem to have some North American chap (still not quite Bob Cole/Harry Neale) to deal with such complex commentary such as "forechecking", "Passing it to the point", "just past the hash marks", "dekes", "dumps the puck" etc. I found this comparison rather amusing. Basically, I have become my father.

Oh and DHL picked up that package today, lets see if Amazon promptly refunds my money....

"Hello out there, we're on the air, it's hockey night tonight. Tension grows, the whistle blows and the puck goes down the ice. The goalies jump and the players bump and the fans all go insane, someone roars, Bobby scores! At the good old hockey game. Oh the good old hockey game, is the best game you can name, and the best game you can name, is the good old hockey game" Stompin' Tom Connors (The good old hockey game)

Offside

Based on Craig's comments to my last post, I have decided to enlighten some of you, here is the offside rule in ice hockey.

"An attacking player is considered offside if both his skates go over the blue line into the attacking zone before the puck does. "

That's it. So with that being said you can look forward to me not talking about this at a party near you for hours on end.





I was home for 6 today, not too shabby, maltesers in the vending machine, and DHL is been kind enough to sort out the debaccle that has been the returning of the aforementioned undersized laptop case. That being said I only got 1 number on the lottery last night....

"If there's a goal that everyone remembers, it was back in ol' '72. We all sqeezed the stick and we all pulled the trigger, and all I remember was sittin' beside you. You said you didn't give a fuck about hockey, and I never saw someone say that before. You held my hand and we walked home the long way, you were loosening my grip on Bobby Orr" - The Tragically Hip (Fireworks)

Once again, I spoke too soon

I never learn do I.

Russia. They put us out today. 2-0. I can't say I am suprised, Canada did not seem to have that usual feeling of confidence after the rocky road that was the journey to the quarter finals. Defending a gold medal is difficult to do, the onus is on you to perform. We didn't. We are on our way home (well not me I am still in Glasgow).



Then again the Russians are 7-1 all time against Canada. Of course none of this matters really because of the 1972 Summit Series, oh yes and the failure of communism. (Sour grapes anyone? That was a joke BTW I have nothing against Russians, or anyone for that matter, I am a true pillar of diversity!)

"If I said it I meant it, I'm not really demented, I'm just saying it's been said again and again. Not that I'm all that grounded, I'm already dumbfounded, I'm a liar, believe me, baby" - Econoline Crush (All that you are)

Things looking up?

First let me say that fighting over e-mail is crap!

On a happier note, Brodeur stood up to the Czech's despite a dodgy knee (ditto) to win the game 3-2.

Craig was kind enough to lend me "Our Lady Peace - Healthy in Paranoid Times" from his trip to the U.S.A. I am on track 6 just now and loving it so far! Well worth the 1165 days required to record it.... www.ourladypeace.com


"This is for everything we had It's the good and it's the badIt's the state of love and trust And this is for you And this is for us" Our Lady Peace - (Love and Trust)

Why does nothing ever work?

Why? I mean seriously why?

• I order a 17" laptop case from Amazon.co.uk
• It takes them over a month to deliver this.
• They send me an invoice for a 17" laptop case, complete with a 15.4" laptop case
• I got on to their tip top customer service who said "When you placed order for "Port Designs Seattle Messenger Bag", it was 17" which was incorrect. Now the correct size is 15" for this item." (Ok so basically you lied? Or potentially this is the first in a series of laptop bag shrinkages that will ravage laptop users worldwide)
• Ok fine, it's no good to me so I try to return it, and get this lovely email going thats fine, click on this magic link to have DHL come and collect the item (things are looking up)
• Go to the website, spend/waste 10 minutes of my time filling out all my details to be greeted with "Customer Verification Access Denied : We have been unable to process your request because the Identifier code has already been used."

I hate returning things, it is always such a hassle. In fact I am so angry I could curse. Fortunately unlike some people, I can spell Fock You. (Focker).

In case you are wondering that is my gift from Saturday's party, although from what I hear I wasn't the only one to fall foul of the sharp tongue of this whisky drinker.

I can't even be bothered to find meaningful lyrics, hence:

"What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more! Whoa oh oh, oh oh oh, oh whoa, oh oh oh, uhh" - Haddaway (What is love?)

Finland

Well my Finnish comrades from my old hockey club in Aberdeen are never going to let this one go.... good thing I am not up there anymore.

FFS Canada, score a goal at least, 120 minutes, 34 seconds is unacceptable!

At least I am not the only one having a particularly terrible week

"Bye, bye self-respect. I haven't much of it since you left. I missed out on the best of you. Someday I will find the secret to your social chemistry, then I will print it on a T-shirt, and it will make you wanna be with me. And if I wear it past your work, you'll see other guys are jerks, much like pheromones for flies, you will not avoid my eyes" - Barenaked Ladies - Somefantastic

Plane Crashes, missing shoes, gut wrenching stuff

Ok so I know I have been quiet for about 2 months, an then all of a sudden I have posted twice in the same day, but I imagine this is the last you will hear of me until April.

Earlier this morning, I posted because I just had that feeling where I wanted to get stuff off my chest, although as you can probably tell if you read the last post (I'm not very good at this) I did that somewhat "half-assedly" as a certain influential Mr. Steven Page might say.

Also I do not claim to be a writer. I am literate. I can read write and speak english et en peu de français. (Notice the correctly placed cédille! [Notice the correctly placed accent aigu!]). The fact is after last night's mental dump I went to bed, and went straight to sleep (a novelty in itself). I then had the most vivid dream, and I woke up feeling rather strange. (read: "I wake up scared, I wake up strange, and I wake up wondering if anything in my life is ever going to change, I wake up scared! I wake up strange, and everything around me stays the same!") It's funny how some bands have a song for every aspect of your life (Barenaked Ladies - What a good boy).

Anyway by now you can see why I am not a writer, it's a Billy Connelly-esqe style of randomly hopping from one subject to the next, although always managing to find my way back to finish a train of thought. On that note, I will try and describe this dream (and hopefully stay on topic until the end).

It's mid-afternoon, it's overcast and I am sitting in the airport lounge at Glasgow airport. It's the downstairs EasyJet Lounge, with walls such a bright orange it almost makes up for the consistently overcast weather. I am waiting with some colleagues for work as we are heading to London for training on influencing skills. We are sitting around talking about how bad this course is likely to be, American corporate and flowery soft skills to the worst degree. I am sipping on a bottle of Kronenburg, much like the other drinkers in the room, although a few were enjoying vodka and coke. Just then the final flight boarding call is made, which as strange as we seem to have missed any previous calls.

So we went through the gate and got on board a Boeing 737. We took our seats but as we were the last to get on and the flight was busy we sat seperately. The plane took off swiftly and we were at cruising altitude in no time. There was some turbulence, and then one of the passengers was in a panic, she was telling everyone that she was smelling smoke. I couldn't smell anything but the next thing I know we are in the midst of an emergency landing in a field. The landing was rough and loud. "The worst part was hitting the ground, not the feeling so much as the sound."

The plane came to rest under an overpass that looked scarily like the 410 extension. Some of the passengers scurried to the exits and made their way outside the plane. I left the plane by the foremost left exit, noticing smoke billowing from the front of the left engine. Some of my collegues were standing outside of the plane, far too close. I ran over and urged them to move away from the wreckage. As we were walking away I stood on a thistle with my right foot, and I realised I have lost a shoe in the fracus.

Just then through the smoke you could see violent flames that were heating the underside of the wing so much it appeared to be glowing red hot. There were still people on board the aircraft, and I was shouting "Get out! Get out! it's gonna go up any second!" Standing there frozen, I suddenly got this overwhelming feeling that despite the vividness of everything, this was just a dream and I was not in danger. I ran towards the fuselage to and was trying to help people get out of the way. Then I heard a crackling noise, sort of like the fuse of a firework, I lost the feeling that it was a dream and ran and threw myself on the ground. The jet fuel caused a massive explosion and despite feeling the heat of it all I escaped relatively unscathed.

The next thing I am in my hotel talking over the days events. Still, strangely with one shoe, and bits of thistle stuck in my foot. Then the days events are forgotten, as if it never happened and we were talking about life in general. I won't go into too much detail about who I was talking to, or what we were talking about (due to my policy of blog half-assed honesty) but it was great, I felt really good. It was so real, then I woke up. What a come down that was.

Now it's 10.25am, I am cold, hungry, and looking forward to a day of nothing.

Well I hope you enjoyed that. I am not really one to believe in dream analysis of any sort but a few things are troubling me about this.

1. Why was the passenger who raised the alarm a girl by the name of Ashley Oakley whom I attended Elementary School with. Probably haven't seen her in at least 10 years, weird
2. If I was flying from Glasgow to London why did the crash site look like the 410 Extension?
3. The crash site obviously wasn't the 410 Extension as I stepped on a thistle, so was probably still in Scotland
4. Why was there a plane crash?
5. What happened between the crash and the hotel?
6. And what the f*** was all that stuff about at the end, I mean seriously, my mind is just f**king with me now

In any event if I have a dream it's ususally a series of nonsense events, although this one was scarily vivid. Although I am sure I am reading too much into it. I should just stop drinking.


"Do you know everyone you ever swore you'd love for life? I don't know them anymore. I know their names, I'd recognize them on the street but I don't love them" - Barenaked Ladies (Maybe Katie)

I'm not very good at this

It is obvious to me that I am not very good at this.

Blogging involves a certain level of bare, outward honesty that I cannot seem to ascertain. As such updating this site with regular goings-on in my life seems somewhat difficult.

So big deal; In the last week or so I have

• Acquired Tragically Hip tickets for London in July
• Split up/Got back together with my girlfriend
• Waited patiently for test results to find out if the lumps removed from my best friend's arm are in fact cancerous.
• Drank a beer (Moosehead) every night this week (that's a bad sign)
• Drank a Guinness and a Bailey's in the same glass (cheers G, apparently this is known as an Irish car bomb)
• Drank far too much on a work night out (noticing a theme here?)
• Drank not nearly enough at Gary's party (I think I am kicking the habit?)
• Stressed myself out at work (every day this week)
• Wasted an entire day in Edinburgh
• Spoke to a friend who was recently promoted, and is climbing the career ladder
• Spoke to a friend who is bumming around Thailand (seems happier than most of us)
• Watched a Yaris smoke a 323F (seriously)
• Watched Canada defeated 2-0 at the hands of Switzerland (yes thats right, Switzerland. Monsieur Brodeur, this pic sums up how this goalie (me) is feeling this week!).

That's not all that interesting. Well maybe it is. Perhaps if you are reading this and you don't know me you will identify with what I am saying. Perhaps if you do know me, you will gain too much detail into what is going inside my head. I am not sure I particularly want either eventuality.

The fact is it's almost 2am. Something is troubling me.

What is troubling me? Like I am going to post it here on the internet in full view of all of you! (thus defeating the whole point of this blog). Needless to say it is under my skin and is driving me round the twist!

Perhaps I should just try and do the 74th million techy blog....(na). Unless anyone is interested in my insights into C#/Java/Eclipse RCP/T-SQL (anyone?)

"And if, if , if I always seem distracted, like my mind's somewhere else, that's because it's true. Yes it's true. It's this stupid pride that makes me feel like I have to follow thru, even half-assedly, loving you. Why must I always speak in terms of cowardice, when I guess I should have just come out and told you right from the start. Why must I always tell you what I want is this, I guess cause I didn't want to break your heart." - Barenaked Ladies (Break Your Heart)