Siphiwe Tshabalala scored a superb opening goal for the home team after 54 minutes but some very lax defending allowed Rafael Marquez to equalize for Mexico after 78 minutes. Katlego Mphela had a great chance to win the game for South Africa in the dying seconds of the match but his shot came back off the post.
Things that I noticed during the game:
- South Africa aren't going to go far with their defending.
- Cuauhtemoc Blanco may be a legend in Mexico but if the ball isn't directly to him he hasn't got the legs to chase it.
- Oscar Perez is way too short in the Mexican goal for them to go too far in the competition.
- Manchester United's new signing Javi Hernandez showed a couple of flashes.
- Not too sure if Adrian Chiles is the right choice to front ITV's football coverage.
I'm not too sure if I'll manage to watch every game of the World Cup; a lot of them occur whilst I'm at work. But, I will try to comment on each game that I do see.
Image via Wikipedia
England's tournament gets under way tomorrow evening with a match against USA in Rustenburg. They then play on the evening of Friday 18th June in Cape Town against Algeria. Their final group game is against Slovenia in Port Elizabeth on the afternoon of Wednesday 23rd June.
Winning the group would lead to a second round tie against the runner-up of Germany's group and a possible Quarter-Final against France with Brazil waiting at the Semi-Final stage.
Ending up as runner-up in the group would likely see a second round tie against Germany, with Argentina in the Quarter Finals and Spain or Italy in the Semi-Finals.
I've increased the number of methods that people can now use to log into and comment on my blog. They now include Movable Type Native, OpenID, LiveJournal, Vox, Google, Yahoo!, AIM, WordPress.com, TypePad and Facebook.
Comments will continue to be moderated, apart from the few people that I've already pre-approved.
It's been a while since I posted any trailers/videos but with the new A-Team movie just around the corner I thought I would post a couple of trailers to whet your appetite.
I may just try and post at least one new trailer every Sunday.
On the morning and early afternoon of Wednesday June 2nd 2010 a local taxi driver, Derrick Bird, killed 12 people before taking his own life. No doubt everybody has either seen the TV footage, heard about it on the radio, read about it in the newspapers or seen the reports on the variety of news websites that have covered the story. I don't know why he did it or the reason for targetting the people he did. And, I'm not going to speculate on either.
I was pretty oblivious to the events that unfolded until early afternoon. With it being half-term and the main hall at work being used that day I had arranged to take that day off and run the Junior Club on Friday instead. As a result, I had got up, got washed etc, grabbed some breakfast and came back upstairs to play on the XBox. It wasn't until about 1:45pm that I knocked the XBox off and switched over to wacth some TV. I had planned to watch 'Going Postal'; the latest Terry Pratchett adaption from Sky, which I am going to finally get around to watching this evening.
It was rather surreal watching the events unfold in the local area. West Cumbria isn't one of those places that you associate with any kind of major crime; let alone a murderous rampage which ending up leaving 12 people dead.
I had some concern with the safety of a friend of mine who lives in one of the flats just above the Duke Street taxi-rank where the killings appeared to begin; although we later learnt that they had started much earlier and quite some distance away in Lamplugh. High Trees, Lamplugh was a place I had spent a considerable number of weekends at whilst growing up. A schoolfriend lived out there and we used to play tabletop games such as Car Wars and Illuminati there. I'm not totally sure but I think his parents may still live out there. Thankfully, he posted on Facebook that they were safe. And I recived a texted reply from my friend who lives on Duke Street to say that he was at college and was nowhere near the danger.
Whilst it's true to say that people in the local area tend to know each other; for example, one of the people I work with knew 3 or 4 of the victims and the gunman too, I realised that I didn't know any of the victims; or so I thought! As Wednesday ended I saw a post by one of my cousin's kids that people were saying her Grandad was one of the victims. Unfortunately, by the time I got home from work on Thursday it had been confirmed that one of the victims was indeed my cousin's former father-in-law, and her kids' Grandad.
It also transpires that one of my neighbours from a few doors away was also shot. Bird had apparently beckoned him over to ask for directions or something. He'd seen the gun at the last second and turned away but was shot in the back. He's now out of hospital but will need to go back a couple of times.
I know people would normally say that their thoughts and prayers go out to all the people affected by this. However, being an atheist all I can do is offer my condolences to all the people who have lost loved ones and offer my wishes of speedy recovery to the surviving victims.
Finally, I would hope that this awful incident doesn't end up stopping people holidaying/visiting here; West Cumbria is a beautiful place to visit and a nice, quiet place to live.
I've just recently upgraded my old Toshiba 28" CRT Widecreen TV to a new Toshiba Regza 37RV635D 37-inch Widescreen Full HD 1080p LCD TV with Freeview. It was an absolute breeze to setup; living in an area that has already swiched totally to digital meant that the TV didn't need to tune in any of the old analogue stations. I was watching the new TV within 15 minutes of taking it out of the box. I'm quite impressed with the output so far, just waiting for a couple of HDMI leads to arrive before connecting up my BluRay player and XBox 360 in full HD.
One of the big drawing points was the fact that Toshiba/Amazon are offering a full 100% refund of the purchase price if England win the World Cup.
You can read a review here. Whilst you're doing that I'm going to watch something on it.
I woke up this morning to discover that my domain email and website wasn't working. A quick delve deeper revealed that the domain had been suspended by Nominet and that the renewal due date was listed as 12th April 2010. Remembering back 2 years I figured that my host had once again forgotten to renew my domain name when it had been due. I logged into their support section and raised a ticket. By the time I got into work at about 9:30am it had been sorted and the domain had been renewed up until 12th April 2012.
I am now the proud owner of a brand new HTC Desire smartphone. It shares more than a passing resemblence to the Google Nexus One. The internals are almost identical. It marks the first time in about 10 years that my mobile phone hasn't been a Nokia.
I'd had a good look at the N97 as a possible upgrade from my N95 but ended up dismissing it because there wasn't anything earth shatteringly great to suggest that the N95-N97 upgrade path was worth taking. I looked briefly at the Apple iPhone but there's lots of things about it that I don't like; especially the lack of multitasking, the lack of Flash and the tight control that Apple demands/enforces.
I then decided to have a look at Android phones and have been impressed over the last few months by a number of reviews. The Droid looked really impressive. When I first saw the Google Nexus One I instantly thought "That's the phone I want next." Then, I saw the HTC Desire; which is basically a Nexus One with an optical trackball, only 1 microphone and a custom UI bolted over the top of Android. Sense is a very nice UI and I am more than happy to wait for HTC to roll out an update rather than wanting to jump straight on an upgrade when Google release the next version of the Android OS.
I only received the phone on Monday so have not yet had a chance to form any opinions based on real long term usage but I am more than happy with the phone so far. Battery life isn't massively great when using the phone loads but I now have a new, more internet orientated SIM installed in it and have switched off the wi-fi; which apparently eats the battery life.
Anyway, so far I'm rather happy with my purchase.
It's been yet another month without any sort of post. So, I have a feeling that monthly updates may turn out to be the way forward.
Anyway, April saw the return of Doctor Who to our screens for a fifth series since the relaunch. Or, if you're counting from the very start, that'll be 31 now. I thought the first episode was a bit weak but there's been a few good episodes since. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series, and the return of the Silurians in a couple of episodes time; one of the few aliens from the original series that had me cowering behind the sofa as a kid.
At work, we had the kids in daily over the Easter period and on the Wednesday of the second week we took 23 of them to go and see How To Train Your Dragon. It was a lot of fun and the kids thoroughly enjoyed it.
I sorted out a total of 5 PCs in April and everything must be working fine because nobody has called me back with further problems. Talking of PCs, we took delivery of 9 new PCs at work this month. 6 for the IT suite upstairs, 2 for the office and a new server to manage them all. They're lots quicker than the old ones; although they still chug a bit with the accounts spreadsheets.
At home I've replaced the NetGear DG834G router that I'd been using for the last few years with a brand new Linksys WAG320N. I have also finally purchased a BluRay player and some films to watch on it. Might now have to buy myself a proper HD TV. Although; the monitor I bought in March is big enough to double up in that capacity.
Manchester United crashed out of the Champions League, Peterborough United got relegated from the Championship and it's looking more than likely that Chelsea may just snatch the Premier League title. A couple of dodgy decisions have given them the impetus bur if I'm really truthful then Manchester United have performed poorly in games they should have won and have lost games they should never have lost. Dimitar Berbatov has been missing for long periods of the season but I think they'ved relied too heavily on Wayne Rooney at times since the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo. Sir Alex Ferguson needs to spend on a number of areas in the summer; with right-back, central-midfield and wide-left being key areas. Another world-class forward wouldn't go amiss either.
Finally, I ended March expecting to get a new car just after the Easter weekend. However, it turns out that Citroen UK wouldn't have any available until August. I ended up going to East Road Garage in Egremont and ordering a Ford C-Max instead. On Friday April 30th I took delivery of a 1.8 Diesel Zetec version and am very happy with it. Citroen's loss is Ford's gain.
I've only just realised that I went the whole of March without making a blog entry; and it's not as if I didn't do anything in March. At the back end of February I started to have problems with my monitor. My 22" Compaq monitor died on me and I loaned my 21" IBM monitor back off my Dad, only for it to die less than a week later. I then grabbed my old 19" Belinea out of storage only for it to display a wobble all round the screen, making it totally unusable. A nice couple in Keswick offered me a 19" iiyama via FreeCycle which worked brilliantly. I have since purchased myself a new iiyama ProLite E2607WS-1 26" LCD TFT monitor and passed the 19" onto my Dad.
My OU Maths course is going reasonably well, completed my first main TMA after having to have 2 cracks at 1 of the questions and a score of 97 was totally unexpected. However, I have yet to make a start on the Astronomy short course that I'm also supposed to be doing.
In the middle of March I discovered that Jeff Dunham is playing some dates in the UK. However, attempts to purchase tickets have failed. None of his UK shows appear to be sold out; Ticketmaster still lets you try and buy tickets but can't even buy 1 ticket for any show. However, their companion GetMeIn site is offering tickets for various gigs but I'm not paying £140+ for a ticket with a face value of £33 or so. Ticketmaster had problems recently with tickets for Bruce Springsteen.
The middle of March also saw me ordering our new car; a Citroën Grand C4 Picasso. However, problems with the adaptions we've ordered meant that the order wasn't corrently processed until the end of March. We still don't have a delivery date.
I was at the Manchester Apollo on Friday night to see Machine Head. Doors opened at about 6:30pm and the first band; Man Must Die, came on stage just after 7pm. They were pretty good. Bleeding Through were next on stage; at about 7:40pm or so. They were also pretty good. Hatebreed were next on stage at about 8:20pm or so. They were very good. Machine Head came on stage to a huge ovation at about 9:25pm and proceeded to blow the building apart. They were not only awesome but they were very loud. I still have a buzzing in my ears as a result. With it being the last date of the UK leg of the tour, they ended their set by bringing all the other bands back on stage and took a group photo with the audience in the background. Mere words alone cannot express how good a night it was.
You can see some of the pictures I took on the photos section of my Facebook page.
For the first time in absolutely ages I was headed to the regular Saturday afternoon rpg last Saturday when I decided to pop to the bank and get some money out. Mainly so that I could pay Scoot the money I owe him for the Rammstein and Machine Head tickets that he purchased. I got to Paul's and realised that my wallet was missing. As I went back down to the car to see if it was in the car I slipped on his bottom step and went over on my ankle. Anyway, the wallet wasn't in the car so I went back round to the bank and it wasn't there either. So, I went to the police to report it lost, returned to Paul's to let them know I would have to give the game a miss and went home so that I could call the bank etc to cancel cards and such.
I got up Sunday morning and went to the hospital to get my ankle checked out. It turns out it's not broken just sprained. But, it still hurts like ****. Anyway, I got home and about an hour or so later a guy calls at the house with my wallet. He had found it in the car park outside Paul's flat. So, it must have dropped out of my coat pocket when I got out of the car the first time the night before. The money had gone but everything else was still inside it.
The latest upgrade of MT appears to have broken date-based archives. Category archives still work and a bug-fix should be included in the next upgrade.
I was at Academy 1 in Manchester last Sunday evening to watch Lacuna Coil in concert. They were supported by Dommin and Dirty Little Rabbits. Dommin were great and whilst Dirty Little Rabbits weren't exactly brilliant they seemed okay to me. Although, their keyboardist, Michael Pfaff, was more annoying than anything else.
I spent Monday recovering; and catching up on coursework for the Open University.
I was back in Manchester again on Tuesday; at the MEN Arena, to watch Rammstein and Combichrist in concert. Combichrist were pretty damned good and are rather unusual in that even though their studio albums have guitars they don't have any guitars on stage. Rammstein; as usual, were absolutely awesome from start to finish. This was the third time I'd seen them live and it was probably the best of the 3 shows that I've seen. Sorely tempted to go to Sonisphere this summer to see them for a fourth time.
For the past 13 weeks I've been working in an administrative capacity at Northside Community Centre. The position has been a New deal work placement organised through BTCV Enterprises. My placement ended on Friday when my New Deal programme came to an end.
Luckily, I have a brand new job to walk straight into; sort of.
The community centre had previously managed to secure funding for a part-time position that was due to run from August 2009 until July 2010. However, the place has never been filled; mainly due to the fact that the funding cheque wasn't received until the end of November. After entering into discussions with the funding provider it was agreed that rather than funding a 16-hour per week position and have it run into 2011 we could use the funds for a 32-hour per week position that would run from January until July.
So, I will be doing more or less the same job; but with added responsibility for the project the funding is intended for. My official start date is Monday 11th January 2010 and my contract will run until Friday 9th July 2010.
We have already started the process of trying to secure extra funding to extend my tenure further.
