Posted 8:26 PM by Dr_Rock
And on the subject of US sports, how on earth are you supposed to keep track of what's going on in your favourite sport? I have enough trouble keeping up to date with the Premiership and Football League, but in the States it's games almost every night of the week.

Years ago, before US football took off in the UK, some friends and I decided to adopt an NFL team each. I chose the Denver Broncos, and subsequently adopted any Denver-based team as I discovered new sports. I spent the early hours of several days in 2001 watching the Avalanche lift the Stanley cup, I breathed a sigh of relief as the Nuggets narrowly avoided the worst record in NBA history, and my hopes of the Rockies and Rapids winning anything seem to fall apart with monotonous regularity.

However, it's difficult to keep track of "my" teams when they play six times a week, let alone keep track of the other teams around them. I've come to the conclusion that this is why I'm so poor at fantasy games...
link |

Posted 11:52 AM by Dr_Rock
I've never been particularly athletic, even during my schooldays. My major sporting claims to fame at senior school were twofold: I equalled Bob Beamon's (then) world long jump record - as a triple jumper; and only missed out on a track world record by five seconds - though five seconds in the 100m is an awful lot to make up.

I was (and to an extent still am) an excellent armchair sportsman. I spent some years following Crawley Town FC around some godforsaken non-league football grounds, later to realise that shouts of encouragement of the "well played, son!" variety were becoming worryingly possible from an age point of view.

With the internet age came a new form of sporting excellence for couch potatoes like me - fantasy games. And no, not the sort of fantasy I can imagine some of you thinking of. Fantasy football (both soccer and the gridiron variety), rugby league, cricket, baseball, ice hockey, basketball - you name it, I've played it. Badly.

It adds a little interest when watching a game on TV if you can get behind a player for the fantasy points he scores, and brings sports otherwise ignored on the Sky Sports schedules into play. And whilst I'd love to add NASN to my satellite package, I can't justify adding the ridiculous subscription fee to the already ridiculous subscription fees I pay.

It's watching all the US sports that raised some questions in my mind that would otherwise have passed me by. My evidence is purely subjective, and so I am open to being told that I'm just imagining the whole thing:

• Why are so few gridiron quarterbacks black, when so many other players are?
  
• Why are there so few (no?) black ice hockey players?
  
• Why are there so few white basketball players?
  
• And whilst not a sporting question, this came to mind having whilst watching basketball: why do black people bother with tattoos?

link |

Posted 9:10 PM by Dr_Rock
Like a large number of the population, I watched the documentary on the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire fraud last night. Call me a sad individual if you will (it will boost my flagging comment count if nothing else!!), but I found it fascinating viewing.

The evidence looked pretty damning from where I was sitting, and yet I read this morning that Tecwen Whittock is still proclaiming his innocence, stating that he was "suffering from an allergic reaction" at the time. I can only think he was allergic to the correct answers, as his cough only seemed to manifest itself whenever the right answer was read out.

The Ingrams too, protest their innocence, yet some of the comments made during the show beggar belief. In considering too many questions, the Major dismissed the correct answer with a strong preference for an incorrect one, only to turn this on its head to achieve the right answer. I can accept his never having heard of Craig David (I often wish I hadn't either), but I can't accept the argument that he must be the right answer for the same reason.

Bizarrely, I knew the answer to the £1million question - unfortunately I'd never have made it that far to prove it - but the Major's comment that he had no idea what a googol was, except that it was the right answer (surely if it's the right answer, you know exactly what it is), when you stand to lose £468,000 if you're wrong, was the cherry on top of a cake already over-endowed with sweet and sticky toppings when it came to confirming his guilt.

As for Celador's suggestion that a movie of the scam could follow - please don't. Quiz Show was interesting because the scam was driven by the programme makers. Who Wants To Be A Guilty Millionaire (Almost) just isn't going to work...

I liked the comments on my local radio station this morning:
"How will the TV ratings for Millionaire fare against those for the Michael Jackson interview?

A Higher
B Lower
C The same
D Craig David"

And well done to the manufacturers of Benylin for taking the first advertising break with their "got a persistent cough?"...
link |

Posted 1:09 PM by Dr_Rock
Via Unknown Rhythm, I came across the Aztec Astrologer which offers (with caveats about taking it too seriously) the chance to discover your birth horoscope according to the Aztecs.

My birthdate is 8 Cozcaquauhtli. Cozcaquauhtli is Aztec for "explosion in Scrabble factory". Er, actually it's "the sign of the vulture who symbolises old age and riches" - a symbolism that I've achieved half of!!

My presiding deity is Itzpapalotl, the Black Obsidian Butterfly, who "flutters round at night striking terror into the hearts of men. She signifies the terror of a nightmare and the ultimate evil associated with the night. She is a destructive but beautiful demon who represents the evil that comes out of darkness and the destruction of all that we hold to be good". Phew!!

Apparently, I can "look forward to a long and prosperous life" in which I will be "quite lucky, but beware of a darker and more sinister side to (my) nature". Well, I like George Formby, how much more sinister can you get?

The week is 1 Atl (Water), whose "presiding deity is Chalchiuhtotolin, a form of the god Tezcatlipoca as the Jewelled Turkey. Those who saw this terrible apparition of Tezcatlipoca could enjoy great riches and wealth, provided that they could hold him by the tail. Few who saw it at night however had the courage and generally ran away in fear". Just be careful whose tail you're holding onto, OK?

link |

Posted 8:52 PM by Dr_Rock
Dustbinman, with the help of Vodkabird, pointed me in the direction of a DJ name generator. After a few tries, it offered me DJ Electro Blade, which I thought was some sort of shaver. Then it offered me The Rok Wizard - much more me!!
link |

Posted 8:45 PM by Dr_Rock
I don't often spend lunchtime in the pub, mainly because the merest sniff of a lager shandy at that time of the day is all I need to be falling asleep at my desk in the afternoon - not something that goes down well with management.

However, with the apparent onset of (a temporary) summer today, one of the lads mourning the passing of another year, and an important job appearing to be coming to a successful conclusion (touching wood with my four-leafed clover-wrapped rabbit's foot - not that I'm superstitious, you understand), an hour in the beer garden of the local hostelry seemed like a good idea.

And so Murphy's Law Of File Servers came to pass. As we arrived at the gate of the pub, my mobile rang. It was the helpdesk - one of the mail servers had died, and could I please come back to the office to fix it. As a result, I spent that lunchtime as I do pretty much every other lunchtime - not in the pub...

And as an aside, why do we consider the rabbit's foot to be lucky? After all, it wasn't very lucky for the rabbit...
link |

Posted 7:30 PM by Dr_Rock
Little did I realise that my escapades with travel-to-work rainwear would prove so popular - to date, I've had four referrals from Google from people wanting to know about Knirps umbrellas. I'm astounded...
link |

Posted 9:18 PM by Dr_Rock
The Eastbourne Herald reports this week that the town is "one of the top 10 divorce hotspots in the country". The figures come from the Office of National Statistics, and reveal that 13.3% of the town's population are either divorced or separated. Also in the top ten are Hastings, Margate, Torquay and Penzance, with Blackpool leading the way with 15.2% of the population. (They say marriage is a roller coaster - there's your proof).

So now when throwing stereotypes around, as well as saying that people only move to Eastbourne to die, we can add "or get divorced". However, I can report that this is not true, as the young and fertile Mr & Mrs VeryVeryBored are not only moving to Eastbourne, they are demonstrating their very fertility by bringing VVB junior into the world here too. Actually, as an acquaintance of Mr VVB, the thought of him demonstrating his fertility is a thought too far, but I digress...

The findings show that stress is brought into marriages by:

• Long working days for hoteliers and landlords
  
• People expecting a holiday atmosphere all year round (in Margate and Hastings, for heavens sake?)
  
• People retiring to the town (presumably as a precursor to dying) and suddenly living in each others pockets 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

And I thought stress was brought to the marriage by the wife... (only joking, ladies)

And the best places to live if you want to remain divorce-free? Harrow, Chiltern, the Scilly Isles and Oxford, apparently.
link |

Posted 8:50 PM by Dr_Rock
There are some things that never cease to amaze me. And the simpler those things are, the more I seem to hold them in awe and wonder. I remember as a fresh-faced I.T. technician in my first "proper" job, installing a Novell NetWare network for my first employer (a v2.15 network, for the technically-minded amongst you) and being amazed the first time I launched an application that wasn't installed on my local PC to see it appear onscreen.

And in that vein, I'm still amazed when I see referrals from sites I've never heard of. So thanks to Colourfool for putting Turned Out Nice Again on her links.

And thanks too to the visitor who found their way here from a Google Search for "Knirps umbrella". Honest. Go on, try it - you know you want to...
link |

Posted 8:01 PM by Dr_Rock
The latest in an occasional series of things which bug the hell out of me, are boy racers who think it waaay cool to remove the silencer from their exhausts. Not once, but twice on my stroll home in the Eastbourne sunshine this evening, my thoughts were shattered by the cacophany of noise that is a deliberately unsilenced exhaust. The first was so ridiculously loud that I reckon it could have drowned out the noise of bunker-bombing in Baghdad. The second had the word "customise" stencilled across the rear window. For once I was in total agreement - customise it by putting a silencer on it, idiot...
link |

Posted 8:06 PM by Dr_Rock
I've just heard Mariah Carey on The National Lottery Wright Ticket singing a Def Leppard song!!!!! Is nothing sacred?
Er, I ought to explain that I only had the programme on because I didn't want to miss the start of Casualty...
link |

Posted 10:42 PM by Dr_Rock
Following on from Murphy's Law of Blogging, one of the trivial things that exasperates me most is Murphy's Law of Precipitation, particularly Murphy's Law of Precipitation When Walking To Work. I have always walked from home to work, and even when that journey involved South Central's finest, there was always a good amount of walking to be had at either end of the journey. This is mainly because I'm a dreadful driver, and as the age of forty heads towards me at breakneck speed, I've resigned myself to the fact that I shall be a perennial pedestrian.

This situation - which will be alien to those of you with a full driving licence (and which in Eastbourne gives you the right to drive the 150 yards to the newsagents for 20 JPS and a copy of the Eastbourne Herald) - means that I have battled with the elements for many years whilst trying to retain some credibility in my appearance. I started off with an umbrella - a Knirps umbrella to be precise. In the late 80's / early 90's, their advertising tagline was "You can't k-nacker a K-nirps". You can. And I did.

From there I tried a Tescos carrier bag on my head. No street cred there, and additionally, like the umbrella, I wasn't saved from the unpleasant experience of sitting in the office in squelchy trousers that didn't dry out until just before hometime, when of course the experience was repeated.

Eventually giving up on street cred for a more comfortable existence, I bought some bright blue waterproofs. In the office I became known as the Blue Gnome - I'm over six feet tall, for goodness sake - but dryness was mine.

And to return to the subject, Ronnie Corbett-like, the problem this now presents me with is that days fall into three categories: those when there's not a raindrop in the sky, and those on which you can't see the sky for raindrops, are easy - waterproofs off and on respectively. The third category is those days when you can't trust the rainfall to do one thing or the other. As the rain begins to fall, I decide to ride it out (or more accurately walk it out), but as the rain begins to fall harder, there comes a cut-off point when the waterproofs have to go on to prevent Squelchy Office Syndrome. Of course, Murphy's Law states that as soon as the waterproofs go on, the rain stops. Take the waterproofs off, and it starts to rain again. Leave them on, and you arrive at work in glorious sunshine with the entire office looking at you and reaching for the nice jacket with the overlong sleeves. I hate it when that happens...
link |

Posted 10:19 PM by Dr_Rock
The Irish have joined in the war in Iraq. A huge convoy of trucks has set off from Dublin for the long drive eastwards. Half of them are loaded with sand and half with cement.

Sources say a massive mortar attack is planned.

Sorry!! :-)
link |

Posted 9:16 PM by Dr_Rock
According to Murphy's Law of Blogging, as soon as one decides to add a regular feature to a blog, the source of material for the feature lets you down. And so it is for this week's Eastbourne Herald Watch. The Letters Page, indeed the Letter Of The Week, however, offers this observation:

"What a pleasure it has been to see in the town centre a group of smartly-turned out, clean cut and pleasant young men. I refer, of course, to the Coldstream Guards.
Contrast them to the scruffy, lager-swilling, work-shy yobbos one is accustomed to seeing in that part of town.
Surely there is an urgent need for the return of National Service"

It is my belief that the letter-writer, Mr E M Pinkney, is a former National Serviceman, and has never got over the fact that future generations have missed out on the opportunity to experience what he would no doubt tell you were the best days of his life. I've seen Lad's Army however, and I beg to differ!!

I would also go so far as to suggest that the usefulness of National Service, like the ability of the average home-owner to leave their back door open without any fear that the stereo would go missing as soon as you blink, is a thing of the past. The reason that these Guardsmen looked so smart and pleasant is because they wanted to wear the uniform, and were proud to wear the uniform, something that could never be said of your average National Service squaddie.

And when it comes to national security, I offer the opinion that the difference between the Guardsman and the National Serviceman is akin to the difference between the fight-to-the-death Republican Guard and the surrender-at-the-first-opportunity conscripts in Iraq.
link |