Hot Dog Eyes

The Germany F1 race that was.  Great result.  Nico on track to maybe snatch a championship away from Mr Ham.  Mr V Bot driving the wheels off the best looking car in the paddock so as to drink first - spray next from the second top step, and a 20th to 3rd aggressive jaunt in the best car by Lewis to look glum on the podium. Again. Have some fun lad, it's only motorsport.

It was full of great sporting moments.  Fifth qualifying Daniel losing 10 places avoiding turn one carnage and recovering to 6th at the end.  Well thawed chocolate cake.  Mr Massa the crasher going upside down for a while to try out his roll bar.  Rhubarb and apple crumble at lap 20.  Mr Kvyat hosting a Torro Rosso BBQ and looking a bit upset.  Mr Alonso driving the wheels off his red spaghetti vehicle - punching above his weight and doing brilliantly.  Lindt mint intense with the last pitstops,  Kimi getting rather squeezed between his friends and teammates. A mostly German winning in an English built German car in Germany.  All's good.

Whisky Blues

Well, 3/4 of a bottle of Macallan 12 over two night gave me GORD.  And gave me the munchies at midnight.  And caused my exercise desire to flee.  If I am to continue pushing my BMI downward, then I will have to discontinue EtOH consumption.  At least until we visit the Rockpool restaurant during the F1 weekend.  My prediction for my Saturday morning weigh-in is:  moderate weight gain.

palace of aged beef - and pasta hopefully

Have just booked Park&Fly and now will think Rockpool thoughts.  We have previously eaten there quite late - 2100 - but Jen isn't likely to last that long, so I think 1900 with the crowds is our main option.  Closer to home: we will tonight hit a different Indian restaurant to make it two of those in three days.  You have to be excessive sometimes when Mum's away...  I also just realised how close my holidays are - woot!

Indian fast food

I have been watching the MotoGP testing and am pleased to see Mr Rossi performing like his old self.  Mr Marquez is currently home relaxing with a broken fibula - all's good, he'll be back. 

Sir Rossi

My Taff seems to be settling in to life on campus.  She has labeled her lectures (so far) as being great, fun, interesting...  Uni must have changed since I was a lad ;-) 

 

I AM listening.  What?

A birthday

It was my Jen's birthday today.  I trust she had a lovely day - well, except for the four fruitless hours trying to track down the Judge's case of the week.  Lunch was up the coast at the HPF, and dinner was at a local Indian restaurant.   So we ate too much twice in a day then...  Just as well it only happens once a year.  The night was finished off with the annual construction of the Christmas tree.  All's good in the northern rivers!

 

The F1, MotoGP, SBK, Nascar, and Indycar seasons are over.  At least the NFL boys are still throwing the pigskin around in the snow.  Ant West was just pinged 2 years worth of Moto2 results for consuming an energy drink.  The Mikado would have something serious to say here about the punishment not fitting the crime - I'd just prefer that the braindead idiots from CAS were merely first up against the wall come the revolution.  The vast majority of genuine drug cheats from international cycling have escaped free - it's just reusing the concept of the public scapegoat to make themselves look good.  Self-serving pompous impotent pen pushers the lot of them.

Red bling.  It's becoming an obsession.  An ex-paramedic pommy mate told me he'd seen a clutch lever just like it stuck through a blokes thigh.  Cool.  And it's only 18 months until I get my ZX10. But who's counting.

It's a struggle sometimes.

Formula 1 eh?  The pinnacle of motorsport.  Awesome stuff.  In an absolutely mind-numbing sort of way.  I get that Mr pointy-finger Vettel is a very good driver, and a likeable bloke, in the best car, but there comes a time when people just stop sitting down to watch it.  The engineering in the car is so good that it's borderline cheating, and it's incredibly reliable - except with his teammate whose relative number of car failures and pit-lane stuff ups is moderately statistically mysterious.  I think the wisest course is just to ignore the wunderkind completely and pretend that the championship and each race is just for 2nd.  Right, that whinge is out of the way.

 

There's two races to go in this F1 season, and they are both wee hours local time events.  I may or may not arise at the required pre-dawn times.  Kimi is out until 2014 out after a well timed back operation and is replaced by Heikki - for who the alarm clock may well be obeyed.  Mr Webber is down to his last two races before heading to Le Mans-land - it will be sad to see him go.  The intricacies, subtleties and rumor that is the F1 costume-drama circus have become rather more distracting this year:  there has been Pastor vs Williams, Sergio vs McLaren, Kimi vs Lotus, Felipe vs Ferrari, and probably Mark vs RBR.  There's also the complete lack of any wet races, and the stewards' penchant towards pathetically over-spanking all minor misdemeanors.  Whatever happened to racing?  Bring on the next turbo era!

Now the other motorsport that graces our TV is the one without two too many wheels.  No, not MotoGP, but the SBK Tom Sykes show!  OK, so Motos 1-3 did get watched and Marc the genuine niño prodigio kicked butt.  I'm not sure who we were wanting to win the title - with the exit of Mr Stoner, I don't think we cared.  But the racing quality was always there - with any of the three Spaniards capable of winning any race.  The aging Mr Rossi still appears to enjoy riding around, but his presence does rob us of a real 4th title contender.   New rules and new bikes might bring it alive again next year.  Hopefully.

Mr Sykes on his Ninja.  For the first time in twenty years, Kawasaki did it!  Way cool.  It made 2013 all worthwhile.  This means I will definitely buy that ZX10.

Away away

A wee trip down to Sydney happened. Had a brilliant time with Andy, Keryn and the wee cousins - so glad they could put up with us for the week!  Eight days of relaxation, 2000km, and only 21 hours in the car.  Very nice.  Nearly hit a kangaroo at 105kmph in the first hour, but all's good.  After several years of telling me about it, Dad located the missing pocket watch he had told me about.  Twas a Waltham from about 1925 (movement number 24823563) in a double hunter Philadelphia watch case co 'Victory' case dated to a few years before the movement.  Very pretty.

 Taff and Lach have completed their archery training course and are well into it as a monday night before dinner exploit.  It is fun to watch, and am jealous that I'm not participating...  Maybe one day soon.  In the meantime I will be buying them a target bow to share, to use after bike riding.  My problem is that they are both left handers.

Gen, Bell and Jen at Coolongolook on the way to Sydney.  Twas a very hot day that one.  37degC+

Sydney Dragway and Eastern Ck.  The Nationals.

Top Fuelers.  Top noise too!  Andy, Lach, Jen and I loved it.  SOOOO violent!

After getting home we found a message from the jewelers to say our silver anniversary wedded ring set had arrived.  Uber cool!

The kids during lunch stop at Kempsey on the way back home.  Hours in the car will make one look that enthusiastic!

even stevens

MotoGP Week 6

The motogp championship after week 6 has the top 3 dudes now equal in points. It was a brilliant race, a brilliant last few laps, and an incredible last corner. I'm not sure even Rossi knows how he does it - he's a magician, no wonder he has 99 gp wins to his name now.


True racecraft from both of them...

Lach did it again. he picked 8 of 10 with 3 bonuses, and I managed 8 also, but with only one bonus.

So the points are: Lachy 77, Cam 63

gobble gobble

See - it isn't that far from Hamilton to Button. Maybe a hundred yards?

And they could still see each other at the finish too... (pic)

FOTA has decided to push for KERS to be scrapped - probably just to get back at Mosely. The powerboost system on A1GP cars works well - mainly because it is the same for the whole field. KERS should be either mandatory or not at all, and apparently it is quite expensive - so much for cost cutting as the underlying sport philosophy. It certainly gave Barrichello a headache when attempting to get back through the pack after a one-garage-sided startline clutch problem.

Six from seven. Go Jenson! Who's writing the 2009 script? Maybe we do have something to thank spanky max for. Probably not.

trailing badly... still

MotoGP Week 5

The second flag-to-flag race in a row, and rather entertaining it was. Lots of different leaders, much drama, atrociously changeable conditions, and the right man won. Melandri got his nose in front for a very wee while, the Suzuki pair showed promise, the Yamaha boys filled out the minor places, and Hayden came next to last again. So all is right in the world. These machines were cut back to 800cc a couple of years back to make the sport safer - so why were they commonly reaching speeds of 340kmh at Mugello? Phillip Is will be interesting... The 250 race was rather amazing - about 8 passes on the last lap in the rain, with the TV coverage of that lap mostly filmed from a chopper above. Coolness.

The Man who snapped the Mugello Rossi streak...

Dry practice and qualifying were followed by a wet warm up. This spurred Lach and I to some rather rash pre-race rejigging of our predictions. Sad story that - I got 8 points and Lach 9... The moral of the story: barring carnage, the top boys will always fill out the top steps.

Lachy 63, Cam 54

Yeah, Monaco baby

There is very little to compare between the F1 circuit in Monaco, and the Indycar track constructed as constructed at Burke Lakefront Airport. A bit processional, but who cares? Jenson!

Mr Button, Mr Webber et al, Mr Hamilton (pic link)

Tallying up the points of F1 guessing game saw me beat Lach 38 to 31. Now, if only that would translate to better MotoGP success. Lach didn't mind - he is still buzzing after burning petrol furiously in the mud for two hours yesterday. At the end he had used nearly 1.5L - an amount that would keep a Bugatti Veyron going for just over 10 seconds at full throttle. I don't think anyone has taken one of those cars bush bashing...

come and warm yourself

By this roaring candle. It stopped raining, the floods went away, and the river went down. The view out the back now looks this way:

A well watered and somewhat flat paddock on the north side of Lismore...

Lach and I picked up our mate Justin and went out to visit Lorin and Kirk up the Nimbin Valley road. We tip-toed out through the floods, never exceeding 190kph, and placed Lachy upon a 125cc Thumpstar and said go. He got rather dirty, collected a few bruises, but rode for 2 hours, gained some skills and had a ball.

Lach on his Thumpstar, Kirk, Justin, Lorin and Lach

Lach and I have picked (what else do you do when the girls are away visiting babies?) our order in which the 20 F1 GP qualifiers will finish tonights Monaco race. It's too much work to type them all out - but just take it that we will be peeved if Jenson doesn't win!

Monte Carlo

This weekend sees the fast boys returning to Monte Carlo - the city of no run-offs, no kitty litter, no tax, and no certainty in outcome. If rain is an instigator of chance in a grand prix, and this city is in itself just a big casino (not a cow town), then the combination must be the best chance for Mr Hamilton to show us that he is still a top driver - even though he has a (relatively) garbage car. Obviously we are still rooting (in the american sense) for Mr Button, but it would be nice to see Lewis do very well here. He has payed for his lying scandal, and deserves forgiveness.

So Lach and I will (probably tomorrow night after qualifying - such bravery) place all entries of this F1 GP into the order in which we feel they will finish, and award ourselves points (out of 5) for each contestant according to how close they come to that chosen position - max points for guessing correctly, and one point for being 4 places off etc - for a max score of 115. A score of about 15 would be a good result I feel!

Mr Hamilton in better times...

"Monte Carlo, which lies in the French Riviera on the Mediterranean Sea in Monaco in the corner of France and Italy is known internationally as a playground for the rich and famous. It is widely known for its casinos, gambling, glamour, luxurious yachts and for sightings of wealthy businessmen and famous people. The permanent population is about 3,000. Monte Carlo quarter includes not only Monte Carlo proper where the famous Le Grand Casino is located. It also includes the neighborhoods of Saint-Michel, Saint-Roman/Tenao, and the beach community of Larvotto. It borders the French town of Beausoleil."

I feel no desire to visit this place. If I had the sort of income where tax was important, then I think the Isle of Man would be more of a go. I detest a comfortable climate.

damp

Not as damp as Bravus up in Briswegia, but enough so that we have water views! A rather dramatic rain depression camped off SE Qld and later NE NSW and dumped a rather lot, precipitating a bunch of work for the SES of both states. The Wilson river peaked at 10.4m in Lismore - about a foot below the top of the CBD levy bank. The flood surge now travels downriver to Coraki and onwards to reach Ballina in a day or so. It seems strange now to not have the noise of rain thundering on the roof. But we can live with that...


Today's view from our back balcony of north-of-Lismore. It is not normal to see any water in this view...

This weekend is the temporal venue for the celebration of the half century continous duration of the nuptular conjunction of Arthur & Margaret Petrie, maternal uncle of Jennie. Such celebration with be celebrated in the lovely village of Cooranbong. Cooked carrot. Jen and Taff accompanied wee Gen and Bell on their first ever air born commution to join said anniversary party, and even though the weather was abysmally inclement, all partially digested finely chopped carrot stayed out of the ubiquitous brown paper bags often found in the seat pocket.

trouble and strife

What I need is a soul screaming, lava fired, full-on bitchin' mid-life crisis. They are available in numerous colours, but the only good ones are of green pedigree with a black and purple heart. It all stems from not being able to choose one's own crises. Where's the fun in chewing out duodenal stress craters just because we cannot dance the steps demanded by a syncopated lunatic employer who inherited their position of corrupted power by virtue of the rule of continuing ineptitude. And that's just the breakfast cereal. No, I say. No. We must stand up and be counted. Some people are, of course, taller lying down than standing, so they may still participate from the supine position should they choose. The point is: if you must have a truely great crisis to believe in, then you must by your own volition, grasp it about the throat, look it steadily in the eye, and headbutt it until you see more stars than a month of astropod. Fit ya nut n brind im, see yur jimmy. etc. No more than 600cc, you understand, and about half as many wheels as is normally considered safe. The chances of the war office bankrolling this one? Who needs to look for a crisis then? I think I'll have another bowl of cereal.

beaten again and again

MotoGP Weeks 2 & 3

Week 2 of the MotoGP championship, the Japanese round, saw Lach and I pick 8 of the top ten in the top ten, but he put two in their correct spots to my one. So the cumulative scores after Japan are:

Lach 30, Cam 24.



The Spanish masterclass by Mr Rossi shed the following light in the Cam vs Lach conflict: Lach picked 9 with 3 correctly placed, and I picked 9 with 1 correct. Best ever result at that track by Mr Stoner - way cool. Scores are now:

Lach 45, Cam 34.

Mr Lach has now won three rounds to my none. Things are looking grimly like an omelet.

beaten

MotoGP Week 1

Battered and bruised by Lachy :
He guessed 9 of the top ten with 4 is the right spots for a score of 19.
I got 9 of 10 also but with only 3 in the right spot for a score of 15.

Next week - revenge!

BTW, it was a cool race of total control from Casey. Valentino will be back though - and the two of them are a class above everyone else. Once again the Yamaha appears to be the bike of choice, with 3 in the top four. The next best Ducati was rookie Kallio in 8th - the people who say Casey only wins because of his bike are loopy, no one else can ride it and haven't been able to for three seasons now. Except maybe that rather cool race won by Mr Corser.

To rossi or not to rossi

A competition of sorts will now take place between Lachy and I. The MotoGP season is starting tonight with a night race in Qatar, and we will blog our predicted top ten in the order we expect them to finish. One point will be awarded for each rider making the top ten, and extra point will be given where that rider finishes in the predicted position. Further, these latter points will carry an iterative bonus equal to the number of riders correctly positionally predicted per round, for a maximum point score of 65. My round 1 preds are as follows:

1. Casey Stoner
2. Valentino Rossi
3. Chris Vermuleulen
4. Loris Capirossi
5. Jorge Lorenzo
6. Alex De Angelis
7. Randy De Puniet
8. Colin Edwards
9. Andrea Dovizioso
10. Mika Kallio

Pastry and Sheep

There was no pastry in the freezer. It was nearly a catastrophe. Then I remembered that one can actually make it from base ingredients. It was a shock revelation that. And so a life-lesson was born. What else can this be applied to, in a society comprised of prepackaged fast fixes, and beta-tested highly processed short chain fatty acids? I guess the burning question is: can Ross Brawn do anything with the Honda in 09? That Barrichello and Button have a drive is nice and all that (the latter still being my favourite under-performer), but is nearly making the top twenty each week going to be satisfying, or should we just check the freezer again to see if anything there can go faster?



My latest ruinous object of desire for visitation later this year is Byland Abbey. My great great (several dozen great) grandmother Gundreda persuaded her son Roger to bankroll a bunch of itinerant monks who felt the need to displace some sheep near Coxwold in North Yorkshire and build said edifice. Henry the Ate dissolved this one as well on St Andrew's day in 1538, as you do. No wonder the Pope crossed him off the Vatican christmas card list.

land speed record

The next 6 days include the due date for my last two assignments and a Dragonforce concert at the Tivoli in Briswegia. Speed Metal, Mmmm. They will be supported by Universum, an Adelaide based melodic death metal group with a cool and varied, fairly middle of the road sound. Oh yes, and this is my last holidays til late next year - I'm expecting my sanity coefficient to drop about 10% per month until then. Lachy, Bravus and Cassie will be attending said gig also and if the sound intensity is as great as last time, I will need to equip Lach with industrial ear covers as well as the silicon ear plugs. We will be able to communicate which song is playing by sign language. On the subject of sound, Number 6 has reported the Bloodhound SSC plan to hit 1k mph - uber cool.


The iPhone thing. It is a cool little toy in a very geeky and gadgety way. It does so much cool stuff but as a phone is rather ordinary compared to your average Nokia. It's WiFi broadcast strength is a little over the top: it blows away all our competing devices like an aircraft landing light to a glow worm. But it has become a permanent fixture in my top pocket... Now just to ruin it for half the crazy pumpkin users in the world - the secret combination is:


Happy Helloween

last week

This last week was the last week before the last week of semester. I'm pretty chuffed about that. Next semester has the potential to be absolutely terrible. Can't wait. My intentions to fit a bit more painting in between cholelithiasis and azeroth have rather found a snug fit amongst the gutterish mud and refuse commonly known as wayside. Observing the sabbath as sunset friday to sunset saturday gives a welcome break from the awful books. Spent a few hours last night filling in the radiography staff holes that appear when theatre beckons a crooked finger to the evenings lovely solo worker and then sinks its claws to the bone. Literally. That's orthopaedics for you. Still our fearless leader soldiers on - leading his exhausted troops from the safety of a bunker lined with coffee cups.  I finished gathering my ultrasound appendectomy journal data by 0030 and fronted up back to work bright and early half an hour late at 0900.
I painted one of these - but am not letting on which.

Last weeks Monaco F1 was uber cool. It's the first time Lach has stayed up with me to watch a European timezone GP, and Lewis wins it, and goes into the champ lead. We were both sad for Sutil after Raikkonen rearranged his rear end, although I did think that Raikkonen did incredibly well just to get it under control enough to hit him... Monaco was our favorite NFS-5 track - all five versions of it! Am currently playing Race 07 with its 300 different cars and 32 tracks etc etc. At least it doesn't have Tiff Needell yelling out "what do you think you're doing? - this is not a dodgem track!". I think that is where road rage comes from.

Except Europa

It should be easy to follow Mr Hamilton's progress throughout this season, title forthcoming or not. Messrs Button, Webber, and Coulthard require that bit more barracking fortitude. There remains a strong probability that our home will be supplied with electricity for the period encompassing the Malaysian F1 GP. Channel 10 are delaying the race from 1800 until 2300 local time, perhaps to ensure that our sparky utility people have a chance to finish rewiring the whole suburb like they attempted last weekend. Having said that - there is a one-in-a-million chance that I will be called back to work for the duration of the race. And as Mr Pratchett has often said: "million in one chances usually show up nine times out of ten".

Clockwise from top left: Mr Button going hard, Mr Hamilton on three wheels, Mr Webber with no engine, Mr Coulthard with only three wheels.

Lach and I have gone through the swamp and back with FLC's POTBS wonderful new and improved patching method that doesn't work whatsoever. I reckon those dudes who do have a half decent game will lose a big portion of their subs over this one. They have lost us. We have briefly resubbed to LOTRO and are looking into Ever Quest 2 as well. WoW remains off the menu until Furgus the great trips up from the city of sin for an Azeroth, KKK, and Guinness week some months before the WOTLK opens up Northrend. Until then I will have to do the odd uni assignment. Or not.