The competition is wide open

WPH 0-0 STU

Top of the table Saints should feel lucky they got away with a draw. We should feel disappointed that we didn’t put away a good number of chances to win the game.

Playing at the infamous Pidding Park where three people broke their legs in a season not too long ago, had me in a sweat all week. Either it was an urban legend, or they fixed the potholes, because the ground wasn’t too bad.

I had an enjoyable first half playing on the right wing, where I was unfairly matched against to their entire left side. They were skilled on the ball, and effective with their passes, but just too slow. James S saw some good chances go wide, when he should have scored. I felt with the loss of Phil this week our finshing just wasn’t good at all.

Another great chance was blown by Duey in the second half, although I felt sorry for him. He found himself at the top of the box, with time and space, and everyone yelling for him to shoot. Naturally he blew it, but if only they told him to take his time, he could have passed the ball past the keeper.

Late in the second half I was on the end of a precise pass, and well on my way to goal, before finding myself eating grass. Their slow defenders obviously had had enough, and one blatantly had a hack at me. According to the ref, if it had been a cynical challenge he would have given a card. Cynical? They guy didn’t even dream of getting the ball, I probably could have forgiven him if he’d tried to chase me and put a slide tackle in but he just threw the foot in to take me out. Even more pissed off when I realised I couldn’t move my shoulder I came down so hard. It got pretty bruised and has been causing me a lot of difficulties; can’t change gear in the car, can’t put on clothes, etc.

On the free kick, Dan put a great header from the top of the box, bound for the bottom right of the goal. Somehow the keeper manager to not only get a finger to it, but to deflect it upwards and sideways, missing the goal. Just like the disappearing/re-appearing goalkeeper from the old FIFA games. If you know what I mean. Still a great save though.

So disappointing that we couldn’t take full points from these guys, but heartening to know that halfway through the main draw, there isn’t a team that we can’t beat, if we play our best

More silverware for Liverpool

Almost like a repeat of Istanbul last year. The best FA cup final I’ve ever seen.

Sorry to any West Ham fans, I like you guys, I like your team and congrats on getting into UEFA, but you guys didn’t deserve to win.

There’s no real denying that luck played a large part in their three goals. By contrast Liverpool scored some absolute crackers in return.

Cisse for all his faults, hit a superb volley, off a difficult angled cross. And then Gerrard. Do I need to say more. As if his first goal wasn’t difficult enough, or more timely. I don’t know how on earth he was able to control his shot on the high bounce and hit it too the top left. But his second goal…

What a hit son! 35 maybe 40 yards, he middled it and some late swing. In the dying seconds of the game, all class.

And then Reina in the shoot-out. I still don’t understand why more goalies don’t wait a bit longer before committing to a side. Some penalty takers can disguise their intentions, but only the best. Reina was gold.

I know Rafa admitted luck helped out Liverpool but, he’s too modest, you couldn’t say they didn’t deserve to win.

Blahfg

WPH 2-4 RYD

This match started off poorly, with us conceding a dubious penatly in the first minute. Minutes later at the other end I missed a routine header, one of those ones you relive for days afterwards. We battled for the rest of the first half, giving away another cheap goal from some sloppy defending.

The second half we didn’t fare any better and soon found ourselves three goals down. The other team were able to magically conjure up more players as some of their team left at half-time. The ref wasn’t really interested in taking control of the game, let alone some dodgy ring-ins. The opposition were one of those teams, that like to tackle hard and late, but can never take any back. I don’t mind a physical game, but please, you gotta take what you give. In the end we were pretty much psyched out of the game, and with the ref’s control on the game sliding downhill, it got a bit ugly.

Thankfully some show of determination from Matt got us a goal after he ran through five or six of their players, who all had a chop at him. His shot was blocked by their last minute “goalkeeper”, who was wearing the shorts and socks of another club and a singlet top for God’s sake. Phil tidied up his mess.

In the last quarter of the game, I was able to make a run down the left wing and a poor cross became some Ronaldinho “magic” as the ball swerved and looped over the keeper’s head into the goal mouth. My expletives at such a bad cross obviously confused the keeper, since he casually watched the ball go into the net, thinking it was going to miss. I hate those sorts of goals, everyone loves to talk about them and tell you it was a great, and they always make you feel cheap. I’d have much rather it been some sort of own goal, or better yet a completed cross that was put away.

I don’t remember their last goal, all I could think of was a nice putdown to say to the ref. Then I realised it probably wasn’t worth the effort; he wouldn’t have even carded me. Loser.

*grumpy*

MI:3

MI:3 makes up for the disappointing MI:2

For starters John Woo didn't direct. Don't get me wrong, I love his work; Face-Off, Windtalkers, Paycheck (which is a fantastic movie). Too much explosions and cheesiness, and none of the clever plot twists of the first movie. I watched the original movie several times before I completely worked out how eveything happened. It's still good to watch even now.

Anyway, MI:3.

Tom Cruise played Ethan Hunt differently (I think) to the first outing but still was a good performance. Ving Rhames was cool baby, and the IMF team of Jonathan Rhys Meyers (who I rate as an actor) and Maggie Q who wears the hottest dress since nowhere in the Vatican scenes, were great aswell.

Show stealer without a shadow of a doubt was Philip Seymour Hoffman as Davian, who was on another level totally. No cheesy Bond villian here, Davian was a chilling bad guy, cold, cruel and emotionless. He was so good I couldn't believe that Billy Crudup, who plays Ethan Hunt's boss, was the real mastermind behind the plot.

I was completely drawn in by the plot from the very first scene, which set the tone for the rest of the movie. You knew what was coming, and every step that lead towards that event was worrisome. Ethan proposing to Julia, capturing Davian and him learning Ethan's name, the attack/rescue on the bridge. That underlining plot was built very cleverly to that climatic moment.

And the action scenes were sensational. Each was worked so well to build up the intensity, never giving you a break. From the factory in Berlin to the Vatican City, which was a riot, to the awesome scene on the Washington Bridge, to the impossible leap in familiar Shanghai, I was constanty on edge.

I felt a little let down by the ending, not that I didn't want a happy ending, but letting Julia into the IMF seemed a little off. Anyway I can't let a couple of minutes ruin a great action movie.

Sound! Glorious Sound!

Yeah mother bitches! My 5.1 surround sound is finally pumping!

This issue has been plaguing me ever since I started using Ubuntu. My stupid Creative Labs card just wouldn’t play nice. I finally found the missing element to get 5.1 sound working with my Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24bit.

The guys at ALSA absolutely rule for being able to support this card, given no information on how it works.

Right, so how does it work.

ALSA (1.0.10) supports my card through the ca0106 module. My sound has always worked but I’ve never been able to get it working with 5.1. The key was the ~/.asoundrc.

I’d been playing with Beep Media Player (which is now the best media player ever!), and noticed that the ALSA plugin can be configured. I was able to play with the device that BMP uses and realised that my sound was indeed working from all channels except not at once. CA0106(hw0:0) was the front channel, CA0106(hw0:1) the rear, CA0106(hw0:2) the centre/sub-woofer.

Reading through the ALSA wiki I found a dude’s .asoundrc, that did some routing of the devices and channels, and I did get 5.1 surround sound going, but with extreme stuttering. I will be back to that page very soon, to work out how to low-pass the sound to my sub-woofer.

In the end the Gentoo Wiki provided the gold. The Gentoo Wiki is a friggin great source of Linux info. Everything is really well documented, and those guys know how to configure their shit. Gentoo 2006 is getting a shot on my PC soon.

Anyway here’s the link and the ~/.asoundrc file, its not even for my chipset, but if it works I’m using it.

#########################################################
#This is the standard setting (see: “!default”)
#This profile, the default loaded, upmixes stereo sound to 5.1.

pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm “surround51″
slave.channels 6
route_policy duplicate
}
########################################################
#This is the normal spdif output profile (optical, toslink).

pcm.!spdif {
type plug
slave.pcm “hw:0,1″
}

#######################################################
#This is what one could call the “factory default setting”, in other words, it only plays the actual channels.
#so if you fx want to watch a 5.1 movie, on the analog output, this is the option you want.

pcm.analog {
type plug
slave analog_slave;
}

pcm_slave.analog_slave {
pcm surround51;
format S32_LE;
}

Credit to 01mf02, Alrua, and ALSA-project.org Guide and individual customizations of “.asoundrc”

Unbelievable my sound works!!!!