The new football season got underway in England last weekend with the first games of the 2009/10 season for clubs in the Chmpionship, Leagues 1 & 2 and for clubs in non-league football. The Premiership kicks off tomorrow.
Over the past couple of seasons my hometown club Peterborough United have gained successive promotions and are now playing in the Championship. Things didn't go too well last weekend when they lost 2-1 at Derby County. A 4-0 midweek win over Wycombe Wanderers in the Carling Cup will hopefully give the club some momentum going into tomorrow's game against Sheffield Wednesday.
The club have once again brought in some young players to bolster the promotion push. I'm hoping for another good season and although I think promotion may be a step beyond the team I'm hoping for a good top-half finish. A play-off berth would be a bonus. Promotion to the Premiership would be dreamland!
In the Premiership things may be a bit more interesting this season. Many people are backing Liverpool to pip Manchester United to ther title but not me. First and foremost I'm a Manchester United fan so will always back them to win the title.
Whilst I think the loss of Cristiano Ronaldo will have an impact I believe that United have been shrewd and may have made the capture of the summer by signing Michael Owen on a free transfer. It's true that United will miss Ronaldo but the squad is strong enough to absorb that loss and move forward successfully.
Liverpool and Chelsea will push United hard but I'm hopeful that the Red Devils will have enough strength to beat back the challenge. I don't think Arsenal are as strong as they have been in the past and they will come under pressue from Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City and Aston Villa.
At the foot of the table the three recently promoted teams; Birmingham City, Burnley and Wolverhampton Wanderers will struggle and may well be joined in a relegation dogfight by the likes of Sunderland, Hull City and even Portsmouth; who seem to be in a bit of turmoil at the moment.
Coming in November to ABC in the US...
The Guardian aren't doing Fantasy Football this coming season and I didn't fancy having to pay for the Telegraph Fantasy Football when I'm not working. However, Sky to the rescue. Their 2009/10 game is once again free.
Just go to here to sign up.
I have also set up a private fantasy league. If you want to join go to the link and sign up. Create a team and then join a Private League. The PIN number that you will need is 1371.
It's Free To Play.
I have spent the last couple of months costing up a new PC. As has been the norm for me I decided that I would once again build a system myself rather than buy a complete system. This mainly meant that I could pick and choose my own components and decide where I could cut costs and where I could pay a wee bit extra. I gave myself a budget of about £800 and this is what I've purchased:
Antec 1200 Full Tower Case
Antec CP-850 850watt Continuous Power Supply
ASRock M3A790GXH/128M Motherboard with onboard ATI HD3400 VGA
AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHZ Socket AM3 Black Edition Processor
OCZ Reaper HPC 4Gb DDR3 1600MHz (2x2Gb) Dual Channel Memory
Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 32MB Cache Hard Drive
Optiarc AD-7241S / 24x Internal SATA DVD-SM Drive
Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit with Free Upgrade To Windows 7 Ultimate E
I also bought a couple of extra 120mm case fans and a floppy drive; which I haven't installed. My total spend has come to approximately £780.
Before transferring ownership of my old PC to my Dad I took out the Western Digital 74GB Raptor drive that was in it and am using that on the new system as my boot drive.
I still have 2 purchases outstanding for the new PC but they will have to wait until I can get some cash together. I still need a GFX card and LCD monitor.
I have managed to get everything installed on the new system and have only really come across two niggles. ClockTraySkins doesn't seem to like Vista Ultimate 64bit and my wireless mouse isn't working. I also still need to christen the new PC.
Nice and relaxing...
Cool, collaborative music video from the Japanese band Sour. I don't think the song is anything special but the video is great...
Today marked the 4th anniversary of my mam's death. Dad, Catherine and I took some pink roses up to the Chapel of Rememberence at the local crematorium. It's nice and peaceful up there and I had an opportunity to spend a couple of minutes in quiet reflection.
Roll on October 2009...
A few days after Real Madrid seal a £56m deal for Brazilian star Kaka comes news that they have been given permission by Manchester United to discuss the details of a proposed £80m move for Cristiano Ronaldo. A lot of people have already; just 10 hours later, had lots to say on the matter. I'd just like to remind everybody that he has always expressed a desire to play for Real Madrid. If he doees leave then I wish him luck and say "Thank You" for the 6 years service that he has provided. I will be more than delighted if he goes on to win many trophies at the Bernabeau. With one caveat; that none come at the expense of Manchester United.
A lot of names have already been bandied about as possible replacements or targets. One thought I have is that United already have a young gun that could step up; the Serb, Zoran Tosic. Lyon forward Karim Benzema, Bayern Munich winger Franck Ribery and Wigan midfielder Antonio Valencia are some of the names mentioned. Benzema has stated that he is happy at Lyon and I'm fine with that. Bayern are allegedly looking for anywhere from £40m to £65m for Ribery. He's good, but not that good. I'm not 100% sure about Valencia either.
One player I would love to see at Old Trafford come August is Lionel Messi. Although I doubt that the little Argentinian wizard would want to leave the Camp Nou and he would likely cost a significant chunk of that £80m. Andreas Iniesta may end up being surplus to requirements at Barcelona if rumours of him been offered as part of a swap deal earlier in the week are true. He has shown repeatedly the sort of quality that would slot right into United's midfield. Another is Andrea Pirlo, who apparently is unhappy with Kaka leaving AC Milan. There doesn't appear to be any other players, especially in the Premier League, that would get a United fan excited.
Oh, one final thought. United need to get a permanent deal sorted for Carlos Tevez. They guy gives 110% and deserves the love he receives from the Old Trafford faithful. It's time the club follwed the fans' lead.
I attended the local county council election count last Friday and the local european election count last night. Both counts seemed to go on for an interminably long time although I must admit the counting staff did an excellent job under difficult circumstances. Neither event were particulalrly good news for the party I support, the Liberal Democrats. And, no doubt everybody in the UK must be aware by now that the BNP has managed to grab two seats at yesterday's european election counts. One in Humberside and one in the Northwest.
I heard a commentator on BBC Radio Five Live last night state that this was "a dark day for British democracy." Whilst I don't agree with the BNP I feel that the commentator is extremely wide of the mark. The electorate in those two regions elected the BNP in fair and democratic elections. Whilst people may argue about the fact that the seats were won under a proportional representation system, the fact is that that is the system in place. As much as I, or anybody else, may dislike the BNP and what their mandate is, the fact remains that they have as much right to be on the ballot paper as any other political organisation.
It may be a dark day for British politics, note I said politics and not democracy, and a sorry indictment of the British electorate but it is the end result of a wholly democratic process. I may be extremely disheartened that the BNP have won 2 seats in the European Parliament but I recognise the fact that the democratic process remains intact.
Sadly another member of the fantasy fraternity has slipped away. David Eddings died yesterday; 2nd June 2009, aged 77. Eddings was the author that introduced me to the fantasy genre. I had been a fan of sci-fi up unti reading Pawn Of Prophecy. I still read the occasional sci-fi and/or non-fantasy book; most notably Tom Clancy, but the main genre that I enjoy is fantasy. Such a shame that we won't get to read any more of the Eddings' output.
The Champions League final kicks off in about 25 minutes. I will be cheering on Manchester United, who are attempting to retain the trophy, by beating FC Barcelona.
Today was the Whitehaven Musical Festival and Chrissy's daughter was entered into the poetry recital this morning. She's had a birthday since she won at Workington in November and was entered into the slightly older under 8s class. She recited 'My Little House by J. M. Westrup' and was selected as winner in her age group; out of a total of 15 entrants. A lot of the entrants were very good and I think she won mainly because she recited the poem in a nice, clear voice and took her time with it.
I received back my TMA02 for my M150 course this morning. I scored 87% and most of the marks that I lost were in my Javascript implementaions; which didn't really surprise me. I'm not too keen to learn JavaScript; or any other programming language, more than I have to, and am trying to make do with the knowledge I have or that the course imparts. If I can scrape by with what I have then so much the better as far as I'm concerned.
