Too cool not to blog

That is mad sick design.

One day I will make my 'Howard' T-shirt - but it doesn't look this cool even in my mind.

My toe hurts - Lazyness: An Essay

'Cause that skilless muppet Edward steamrolled me. Won't be picking him.
Also my calf hurts, cause Ian (who I keep calling Neil depsite them looking nothing alike) caught me in his earnest to win the ball on Monday. I will be picking him.

This makes me realise I have forgotten just how injury prone I am after a year away from playing football. Also my groin is a bit tender, all along that right leg is stuffed atm, esp. given the knee situation.

Lazyness
So as I was explaining to Steph, and described here for all of you, I need something to play. I love playing games, deal with it.
Something else I love is being lazy. Yet, paradoxically I also hate the sloth in me. I hate getting in the shower. But once I am there good luck getting me out. "Turn off the water" I hear you thinking to yourself. But I am stubborn enough to anticipate the loss of water and quickly step out of the shower's path at the first drop of sub-optimal-temperature water. So stubborn, I have on occassion remained in the corner of the shower for as long as it will take for the hot water to return, even turning off the shower and pretending to be finished only to resume when the heated flow is re-established. I can spend hours in a shower.
I can totally deal with luxury. Luxury is great. I could totally go a regular scalp massage. I love the feeling of getting my haircut, so much so I usually close my eyes for the entirety of a hair cut. Sometimes this has unwanted consequences.

So to return to my point, I come home these days, after a day of uni, followed by a few hours in the park with a ball at about 9pm or later, and all I want to do is be lazy for 2 hours. I'll typically be on my computer, eating my oversized dinner portion because I have eaten no breakfast, a pathetically small lunch, and been exercising for several hours, and going through my daily list of soccer and comic pages and reading my email. This is what I call passive lazyness. I can easily spread this from a 30 minute session to a 2 hour haul where I'm starting to read about Bahrains world cup qualifying campaign like I give a shit. But during this time I look at the clock and think, "I better get a move on, I'll only have 2 hours to be lazy!", and then I move into active lazyness. In a role reversal, active lazyness infact requres less physical effort than passive lazyness, but it's different because after a good session of being actively lazy, I feel rested. Another way of looking at it is as a time to turn off my brain. It's important for me to turn off my brain regularly, because I've inherited my father's "Brain the size of a planet"* and it can be a burden being a genius all the time. It really can.

Also
Got my car back from repairers. No more shit bucket Holden for me. Finished the day with 20c in my pocket (shit you not). Back to the bottom of the bank balance for me. My home away from home.

*Mine's larger.

Game reviews, and phraseolgy in general

I love magazines and articles with a tongue in cheek style! I'm going to have to read 1UP articles more often.

Battle for Middle Earth 2:
"this game was the closest you could get to waging hobbity war"
"woe unto anyone who has to go toe-to-toe with the power-giddy elf queen Galadriel"

Galactic Civilizations 2: Dread Lords:
"Steve Barcia's magnificent 1993 opus about ants, cats, bears, and frogs in space"
"a race of goody-goody aliens who look like Billy Idol, obviously making them extraterrestrials."

OMGWTF?

Wow... that guy has all kinds a problems...
Broke up with your girlfriend? Don't do what this guy did! - here

My Dream Sci-Fi MMORPG

Ever played the classic Wing Commander: Privateer? Indeed, Privateer 2?
Hang on... my dream Sci-Fi MMORPG is WingCommander: Privateer Online!

To fill in those who don't follow, I want a Sci-Fi space combat MMORPG where the player begins as a bum with 2 space credits in his pocket and a rusted single seater space fighter to become a hero of the universe!

The basic options in the classic game are: Bounty Hunter, Pirate or Trader. In my game I would expand this to: Military (multiple factions).

1. Bounty Hunter: takes jobs, server and player created to assasinate, transport or escort.
2. Pirate: destroys other players for salvage, ransom, technology theft and cargo theft.
3. Trader: transports items and technology from planet to planet for profit.
   
4. Military: polices shipping lanes and govt installations, and goes to war.

Game economy has to be structured to encourage Traders to employ escorts (make transport ships weak, and fighters have too low a capacity to earn profit). Pirates will need no encouragement, but the penalty of being a pirate in Privateer was too high - instant death after you reached a certain rank of 'evilness'. Make it possible to hide your pirate reputation via identification codes (like paint change in GTA), changing ships, jamming communications and sensor sweeps, operating out of nebulae that prevent identification.

Have all members of the universe start off attatched to a particular faction, and enable an online 'democracy' by having users vote or abstain, on politics - who to invade, embargo etc. Only a few main types of global govt commands, which would start server driven dynamic political changes. For example, a decision to 'Embargo' State X would move a number of State Y's warships (where the military pilots are stationed) onto the border, and generate job missions to confiscate all cargo from ships with destinations from Y to X, or X to Y. With each successful job completed, Goods peculiar to each State (of which there would be many to unsure trade is necessary and profitable) would dramatically increase inprice, bringing out smugglers trying to bust through the embargo, or take the long way around - where pirates would be waiting! Pretty awesome hey? Global political conditions might last for a maximum of 4 weeks but be on different timers, so while X and Y are not-trading, Y might be invading Z.

'War' would lead to the most exciting political state. If Y declares war on Z she sends most of her military ships to Z's border and invades their nearest planet. Each factions planet space would have a roughly linear invasion value, so war could be waged along a 'front'. Missions would include escort of personel (diplomats) through enemy territory, destruction of military stations and fleets!(aww yeaaah!) Supply jobs for traders would be commissioned to fuel the war machine, inparticular difficult to source resources from neighbouring states; and arms and technology shipments would be attractive to pirates - such high value jobs would be 'leaked' to pirate job boards to create pvp missions. Finally persistant salvage from epic battles could be collected by privateers or even fought over. To further encourage participation, and to swell 'military' ranks, privateers can enlist for military missions.

To keep 'military' careers intersting, a player need only complete one or 2 military missions each play session and can then choose any of the others on the side - even piracy (so long as they aren't caught)! Political states could range from: Allied, Neutral, Embargo, War. Allied would provide a trading benefit (less tax on goods and sharing of technology), and would go to war together if attacked (think of the possibility, Universal War!). The votes on state changes would be initiated by player conflict (X number of State X's ships are destroyed in a week, or particular missions completed by Trader or Pirate guilds).

Pirates and Traders would be given a huge incentive to form guilds - namely, Persistent Base Creation! The costs would be huge, so that only traders or successful pirate guilds could, or would want to create them. Bases would have be persistant in the universe and could be created on any number of asteroids that would be strategically placed in anticipation of either Trader of Piracy occupants. Base benefits would include, cheap repair and technology upgrade (if available), somewhere to store ships and items at no cost, base defenses and information scanning. This last technology would allow suitably ugraded bases to view intercept job news and political developments (so pirates can discover and attack convoys). Similarly Trader and Pirate factions would be encouraged to send states to war to maximise profits and be given periodic server generated missions to provoke 'incidents' such as the destruction of a military station or civilian base, or assasination of political figures.

Technology would be different state from state, with a trading state making the best Cargo Transports, a militaristic state making the best Fighter Ships, a technology producing state selling the best Ship and Base Improvement Tech's, and an anarchic terrorist state providing the best Fighter and Base Defense Weapons. Ships would have to be purchased direct if you couldn't find a player/guild to purchase from (guild's could get bulk discounts to make this viable, also the missions to get the tech/ship would be increasingly difficult). Technology on the other hand would be spread by players as it was server released, and bought and sold as a commodity (tech codes) until it was spread globally, and new techs - ship designs, base designs, improvements. This could be incorporated with resource movements, so that manufacturers need both the code (recipe) and materials access to create those items for players.

The feel of the game itself would need to provide excitement for flight-sim players like me and enable a benefit to good dogfighters, but also give non-sim players an option - automated turrets and employing escorts. Gorgeous graphics of course, ala Eve or X3. But unlike Eve, there must be a 'planetside' feel, not just one industrial space station interior after another. Privateer created authentic stereotyped feels for each planet (industrial, university etc) and this was possible by the small exterior pics and the necessity to travel planet side to Bar's or Commodity markets to gain access to missions or items respectively. This would be upgraded to a small 3d engine where players would run about in 3rd person and be able to chat.

Reputation would be important, and despite the masses of information available, it musn't be made instantly available - to encourage exploration and deception!
"He's using a scan blocker..."
"Means he's a car thief. Blast him!" The Fifth Element
This is what we're trying to achieve. All players can fire on anyone, but it affects their reputation if it is 'observed'. Observation is made by other players nearbye, or within range of NPC space stations or any Military craft. Individual users who are defeated in combat also observe, but observation is limited to "Pirate activity in this area", this way players can get a feel of dangerous areas of the universe if they are linked to faction news service. Scan blockers can be turned on and off so pirates can submit to scans by military missions, or traders who want to hide their cargo from would be pirates. A technology upgrade could include false data inserters! Cargo scans would have to be done at close range, tractor beams would be available for salvage and for military to enforce embargos, or pirates as a ransom weapon. Nebula and asteroid belts would prevent you from seeing enemy ships on radar, and make visual scanning (guild colours) important. But at the same time, a guild colour would represent the reputation of a party and would also be detected by Military if that colour was observed as a pirate faction.

Some other non-typical mission types might include regional Race tracks, Space combat tournaments, and Round the Faction/Universe Cannonball Runs! Scouting missions to locate Trade, Pirate Guild bases or Military Capital Ships (for all factions). In all the main mission types would include:

• Scouting
• Transport
• Escort
• Combat (attack/defend)
• Embargo - scan and confiscate
• Police - scan and confiscate/destroy
• Tournament

A balance would have to be reached in allowing persistant bases and ships, while also allowing for destruction/theft of ships and components to encourage piracy/guild membership. Faction wars would allow use of military ships (5 lives) which would launch from the capital ship as long as it survives. However simple reallife destruction and theft of increasingly more expensive ships would be too much of a loss, however bases MUST have incentive to be destroyed to keep down population and maintain group animosity. Salvage to pirates from a large battle would be worthwhile, and destroying Pirate bases would make nearbye shipping lanes safer for traders (pirates spawn from their own base).

This is MY dream Sci-Fi MMORPG and if you are a game company who wants to give me $100,000 to take my idea and earn yourself millions of bucks, let me know! Otherwise this idea is totally copyright my huge brain.

A short Discourse on World of Warcraft, subcription fees, and the MMORPG industry

Basically, building on their hard earned, and well deserved history of making great games without exception (I didn't like Diablo but had to concede it was very well made, spawned a franchise, and sold a million copies), Blizzard made an MMORPG that even subscription adverse gamers would give a go, and ultimately strugle to give up!

Now that I've long left the fold and won't return to WoW, I've remained a part of the subscription paying gaming population (inactive), and paying an on going fee no longer restricts my purchases. Indeed, I demand and expect more from paying a sub, namely a continuously improving and dynamic playing experience.

What I would like to see next though, is the next step in the MMORPG business model that it at it's most advanced stage in Asian countries, namely South Korea and China. Instead of a hefty monthly fee subs are reduced to very small time hourly payments. I want this option available as an alternative fee structure, so that I can pay as I play and not feel like I'm losing value from not playing avidly, more so in a game that like CoH & CoV which according to the reviews doesn't benefit from long play sessions many other MMORPGs demand. And it's good for the industry as a whole, because although I don't mind paying a sub, I DO mind paying several.

If I had many, many hours available to me (say 35hrs in each day), and could pay as I play, I would have CoH & CoV, a space flight sim MMORPG with some kind of extra interactivity (no such game exists yet), and WoW to join in with my friends who still play.

I need something to play!

I need a game. I finished X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse, it was groovy fun. And for $25 groovy value! Now I need something else to play. Also I sold, World of Warcraft. I rarely sell games, especially good games. And WoW was great. It took a bundle of my energy, time and money. I need something to take its place!

I downloaded a couple demos, but they either failed to satisfy, or whetted my appetite! X3: The Reunion had killer graphics for a space sim, The Battle for Middle Earth 2 looks like what BFME should have been but wasn't (a proper RTS in ME). Star Wars: Empire at War was also cool, a remake of Armada but crossed with an RTS instead of a FPS flight-sim in the Star Wars universe to boot! Finally some good licensed games!

Sci-Fi and Comics were my first genre loves, in that order so I thought I'd go find out exactly what the deal with City of Villains and it's predecessor City of Villains are all about. Turns out they are parallel MMORPGs and one subscription allows you to play either side of the same game, clever business model eh? (on top of the individual purchase fees, cleverer still) What's stopped me ordering online and playing right now is 2 fold:

1. If I have a box edition I can later sell the box, as I did with WoW; and
2. The reviews say it's best to play in short stints since it's action style, not traditional role playing style - and it's monthly, not hourly subscription, oh Korea...

Since I am poor, I have no intention to pay full price for games atm. So that means it's off to the bargain bin on the legal side of affairs! ;)

• FLIGHT SIM: X2: The Threat
• RTS: Battle for Middle Earth
• MMORPG: City of Heroes (finding a boxed copy in Aus may be problematic...)
• COMIC BOOK: Freedom Force v The 3rd Reich (it has Starforce copy protection though)
• ACTION: FarCry, Prince of Persia 2, Splinter Cell:Pandora Tomorrow, Fear (not all very old but I can borrow these off friends, If I shell out for a DVD rom...)

Games on the distant horizon include, Civ 4 (borrow off of Adam some time), Empire Earth 1 and 2, Rise of Nations 1 and 2, Galactic Civilizations 1 and 2, and the most recent Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia (both 3). Gee, anyone get the feeling I'm behind the times in games? Also Warhammer: Mark of Chaos.

Mexican Marriage Mayhem

A Mexican couple were recovering separately after a marital spat got out of control and saw them firing guns, throwing knives and hurling homemade bombs, Mexican daily Milenio said on Monday. - lols! - here

Cassie got me beat up

Elko says:
yeah... worked it out. i had a big weekend
Julian says:
u think u had a big weekend - i had a bouncer take cheap shots at me in the stairwell as they kicked me out of academy!
Elko says:
LOL what night was that
Elko says:
??
Julian says:
last night man! lucky for me he couldnt punch hard. caught me at least once in the chest and once in the face!
Elko says:
HAHA Good on ya man. Good to see you getting acting a bit like me! what id you do?
Julian says:
our night was winding up and it was just me, steph and her housemate cassie, and peeps were always trampin on our stuff on the ground. so I put out my hand on the wall to make him go around, then him and cassie had words and he pushed her so i pushed him back
Julian says:
then we scuffled a bit, and then bouncers came so i let them have him. then it turns out he was a bouncer or somethin! and took me out the stairwell
Elko says:
thats a shame... are you going to do anything about it? good to see you stick up for yourself. I have been kicked out and band from many night clubs.
Julian says:
hehe yeah i bet. nothin to do about it really, and im none the worse for wear fortunately. first thing i did when i got out was check my face was ok hehe. fortunately im still gorgeous
Elko says:
Dork! I hate bouncers... They are just as bad as cops... worse I would say... not smart enough to be a cop but just wants to do somthing where they can make themself a big man...
Julian says:
hehe totally. I was totally reminded of in primary school when teachers are talking about bullys and shit - i mean who rags on a guy half his weight with backup? meh - too bad, academy's my fave club
Elko says:
dont worry about it man... all bouncers are the same... no matter where you go. They would get into fights most nights. they wont even remeber you
Julian says:
hehe groovy

Steph's B'day Weekend

Started Saturday with 4 hours of soccer, not that I played for the whole period. In fact I was 30 mins late to begin with and then when I finally came on, had to sub myself off twice hacking and wheezing! I assembled a decent, but not polished first team and will make a few changes but am happy with 7 outfield players plus the keeper. Stuck around to play a bit for Sash's squad and held my own physically and skillwise which I was happy with. I'll have to play more on weekends to make up for the lack of training im doing.

Rehydrated well, dropped in on Cassie for a half hour and had lunch in Fyshwick then headed home for a much needed cold shower and rest. Woke, wrapped Steph's present - a Beckham Real Madrid jersey, assembled my costume and overnight things and headed off.

I am the Cheshire Cat! My costume rocked the house. Pictures to follow eventually. Stephs partey was fun, and the Alice in Wonderland Tea Party theme worked well. Chris Wall as always had a mad costume, in this case the Mad Hatter. Steph was Alice and Bryn... needed to work harder! Ranse was lame, and Steph's friend Linda (who it turns out is training in the 2nds/3rds squad, and fully elbowed me in the gut at summer comp, some introduction) was the queen of hearts. Dilani and Charlie were also lame...sub-continentals... ;)

Classic Lines from Crash

Elizabeth: My fathers from Puerto Rico. My mother's from El Salvador. Neither one of those is Mexico.
Graham: Ah then I guess the big mystery is who gathered all those remarkably different cultures together and taught them to park their cars on their lawns?

Country song:
Gonna buy me a rope and lynch me a nigger
I'd shoot 'em dead first but I done broke my trigger
Gonna get out my sheet Put my hood on my head
Gonna string 'em up good
Then they'll be dead
Home of the brave and the land of the free

DVD Reviews 12: March

Crash - ensemble
Drama, Action - Won the Oscar for Best Picture surprisingly. Not as great as it sounds, I feel it's a nod to encourage more ensemble films which since the advent of the $20million+ star wage, have dried up in numbers. Film itself deals with racial undertones in middle America, LA. Excellent cast inc. Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Ryan Phillippe, Terrance Howard and to a lesser extent Brendan Fraser. 3.5 stars.

Osama - foreign
Drama - An afghani low budget film about life under the Taliban for a girl who must dress as a boy to earn money for her family. Poor production values, but authentic setting and realistically disturbing ending. 3 stars.

Vanity Fair - Reese Witherspoon, Mira Nair [D]
Drama - Based on the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, Nair's film is sumptuous in production design from hair to sets to spectacular costumes. Witherspoon is very good, bringing complexity and nuance to the social climber Becky Sharp. Excellent supporting roles are filled by Romola Garai, Rhys Ifans, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Bob Hoskins, James Purefoy and Gabrielle Byrne. 3.5 stars.

Cinderella Man - Russel Crowe, Renee Zellweger, Paul Giamatti, Ron Howard [D]
Drama - A well made, acted and directed movie which was released in a market previously saturated with 'safe' movies (Seabiscuit), and ultimately failed to find the little something to make it a great movie. 3.5 stars.

Elizabeth Town - Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Cameron Crowe [D]
Drama, Romance - I fell asleep by the end, that gives you a small indication that the film lacks the gripping romance of say, Jerry Maguire, which director Crowe garnered so much success. There's a few 'small town USA' films recently(Garden State), are middle americans looking for a semi-seachange, but don't want to go too far into red america? 2.5 stars.

Wedding Crashers - Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn
Comedy - a poor movie with some funny jokes interspersed, esp first half. Vince Vaughn doesn't have a face or demeanour for comedy. Isla Fisher is hilarious as the freaky, immature Senator's daughter (also she gets her kit off!). Owen Wilson is good but needed to be paired with say Ben Stiller. Will Ferrel's cameo is hilarious, but too late in the film. 2 stars.

Sky High - Michael Angarano, Danielle Panabaker, Kurt Russell, Kelly Preston, Mike Mitchell [D]
Childrens, Superhero - Young actors Angarano and Panabaker are excellent, and Russell is terrific as SuperDad. Mary Elizabeth Winstead was cute as Gwen. Production level was very average. Best line: "I'm Ron Wilson. Bus Driver!"2.5 stars.

Red Eye - Cillian Murphy, Rachel McAdams, Wes Craven [D]
Thriller - Craven has made teen, shock horror his own. That's not a good thing. Be prepared for clumsy, frightening music and effects, and yes, the badguy is behind the door. Well acted, poorly directed, terribly scripted. A shame, since Murphy could have been made terrifying by the right director. 1.5 stars.

100 inch lcd hdtv

I want one! - here
100 inches, 6 mega pixel resolution, holy crap!

cowboyjulian

cowboyjuliansmall
Originally uploaded by lordstok.

vamamos!

My sympathies my friend, You've no manner of luck at all!

Did I mention I crashed my car? Oh right I did. Let me continue the story then!

So on Tuesday last, I decided to drive my mum's car (el shito buckito). Problem - car won't start. The immobilisor wasn't responding and after I took to it with a screwdriver discovered it was minus an important ingredient to success - a battery. After some frustration I decide to ring for a cab since I really can't afford to miss work with a looming excess.

Canberra Cabs have instituted a new fully automated Stupidmotron(c) telephone booking service. "Would you like a cab... if so say...'Yes'" Which worked fine until...
"Do you live at ...not my address...if so say...'Yes'" After which I was put indefinetely on hold till I hung up. I then tried Elite Cabs who use the same system, but thankfully a telephone operator was able to correct my address and send the cab.

Fortunately, or not, by then my Mum had reached work and I was officially very late for work, so I rang Mum who informed me that the faulty car immobiliser had a functioning baby brother I hadn't been informed of the birth of. Cab canceled, put in 15 odd litres of fuel, go to work.

That evening I kept Steph some company and despite the hilarity of Ron Wilson: Bus Driver! my troubles would continue. In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, a thirsty V6, 15 litres odd of fuel, and most importantly, a faulty fuel gauge and fuel warning indicator light combined to inconvenient effect. My car rolled to a stuttering stop on the Monaro highway, right beside the roundabout to Chisholm. Annoyed but not beaten, I rolled up my sleeves and jogged to the nearest petrol station.

However, In the newspaper the previous day there had been a small article that caught my attention but failed to register fully in the short term memory lobe. The underground petrol tanks of the Chisholm BP had sprung a leak, emptying a large amount of fuel into the neighbouring stormwater drainage forcing the excavation and temporary closure of said servo. The leak had been fixed however, and it would be back to business as usual shortly. But not shortly enough.

I was to discover this after a few minutes of earnest jogging. Consigned to admit my failure at affecting self-help I called the NRMA. HOWEVER... this fine evening, of all evenings, the NRMA computer systems had decided to have an early shower, and without my membership number handy, nor my car registration nearbye (as I don't know my mothers car's rego) I was forced to forego immediate call up, not to mention that the wait on assistance would be 90 minutes! (this is at 2am...) Resigned I placed my faith in my friends and Adam Hawkins was rudely awakened but soon appeared at my side to ferry me to and from the next nearest petrol station. I hope he performed well in his job interview some short hours later.Having faced enough troubles for one night, I hurried home for some sleep. Hurried a little too fast infact, as I was soon to discover.

The next morning I drove to work, worked hard, and returned to my car - the mobile, often stationary, scene of my past and present angst. Enter key, no ignition. Odd. No imobilisor light either. Doubly odd. Is that my headlight switch turned to the On position? Oh dear. Not to worry sath I, get ye to the mechanickee! I return from the nearbye car dealership with jump start kit wielding assistant in hand. Turn key, engine turns, but not starting! Methinks ye have a problem, sath he.

In my rush to the land of nod, I had left the headlights on. Unlike my own car, the holden doesn't beep alarmingly at you when you leave them on and remove the key. I had already left them on in the cinema carpark previously(when I saw Brokeback Mountain... when was that?) but she reminded me to turn them off. 5 hours of sleep wasn't enough time to run the battery dead, but another 8 hours at work after only a short drive to recharge did the trick. But that was only the beginning and the lesser of my worries. When the power cut, the immobiliser, thinking it was being improperly tampered with or bypassed, switched from Stun to Kill. And kill it did. Fortunately, as both mechanic and NRMA guy (who arrived shortly after at my request, thankfully successful this time!) informed me, there was a little secret immobiliser key that would repair the damage, Do you have it? I stared blankly into space. Key? Phone calls to both parents later would reveal no Stockwell had ever heard of such a key, nor knew of its existence let alone possession. The only option left then was to drill the bolt and hotwire the immobiliser to bypass, since a new key and/or unit can no longer be purchased for our ancient motorised carriage unit.

The next day I retrieved the car, which now beeps annoyingly for 5-10 minutes after each start, because the NRMA guy or mechanic appears to have misplaced, or at any rate not returned, my immobilisor remote. I still have the one with out a battery.

Then - a weekend in Sydney intervened, then TODAY.

I told Luke today as he came to learn the ropes at the nursery, "Luke, I'll be happy it I return to my car and it starts!". It did, but I couldn't help but laugh out loud and bear a huge grin for the rest of the day after returning to the car park and thinking...

"Is that my car? The one with the rear quarter window smashed out!?"

But it's not true to say I have no-manner of luck! For what was most important to me remained intact in the cabin - my expensive football boots and my leeds shirt! In fact nothing of value had been removed at all! Or perhaps I haven't realised what it is yet!

A-League Grand Final Media

Video: The goal! - here

Weekend with Gabri

Gabe hustles down from Brisbane to squeeze in a night in Canberra. Vj, Luke and Steph came for dinner (also Vj's mates Dave and Zane). Friday night was hardly pumping though and we called it early at about 2am.

Managed to identify one player at the first mens trial game on Saturday arvo before heading to Sydney. Amy came along for a pretty groovy night at the Eastern in Bondi Junction but she left early. Apart from a bloody mary with waaaay too much tabasco sauce, twas a pumpin night, with a good population nicely spread out on the dance floor in the 'house' club.

Sunday, caught up with Amy again for a minute or two after a lazy wake up at Gabes then headed to the Game - A-League Grand Final! Gabe came through to score ticks on thursday evenin. The ticks were pretty good, dead center and just underneath the lip of the second tier, which was convenient cause we were on the sunny side, was nearer to the drink stalls, but inconvenient cause I couldn't wave my HUGE flag! (meh beg blew fleg) The game was not a classic, but sooo much better than the final NSL Final which VJ and I caught. The football was very entertaining, with lots of chances, and the Mariners were a bit hard done to not have at least one goal to their name. The winner was from Corica after a rejuvenated Dwight Yorke picked up the ball just inside the Mariners half and charged into the box, held possession for half a minute before teeing up the onrushing Corica who placed his shot well. Caught a small dinner with Steph before leaving, where our waiter, Jerry Zhu, gave us a free second round of drinks after I transferred a crappy phone video of the goal to him via bluetooth! Oh, did I mention I TAPED THE GOAL on my phone! hehe. The bleck blur is Dwight, the other blur in blue is Corica!

I'm recovering now, and very very late for uni, oh well!