Archive for the ‘Distractions’ Category

Elina laughed when I said Sam Ryder was up to second in the bookie’s odds. Possibly because every year the UK surges in the odds only for our hopes to be cruelly smashed. But not this year!

It really makes you think what could have happened if we had sent good songs this whole time. Instead, we sent James Newman, Electro Velvet and Engelbert Humperdinck.

Let’s enjoy the song one more time:

After 11 years at the Detriot Lions, Matthew Stafford moves to Los Angeles and wins a Super Bowl. Here’s a meme about it:

In another step towards normality, we were able to hold our Eurovision party this year, albeit with only a couple of friends and far more COVID testing. This is good because Eurovision is really a thing you need to do with other people. We also did our own voting and our top six came out as:

Russia, 19
Malta, 16
France, 15
Finland, 14
Ukraine, 13
Iceland, 11

France came 2nd, Iceland came 4th, Ukraine came 5th, Finland came 6th, Malta in 7th and Russia in 8th. So, we were on the mark with most of it. But Switzerland took us by surprise. It was a joke entry, right? And, Italy one, which also did not make it onto our scoreboard.

I didn’t like the songs when I listened through before the contest but the night itself won me over. A few of them will make it onto my Eurovision Spotify playlist: Italy (Zitti e Buoni), Sweden (Voices), Finland (Dark Side), Serbia (Loco Loco), Cyprus (El Diablo), and maybe Iceland (10 Years). I’ve also added Romania (Amnesia) which did not make the final.

One of the things they don’t walk about much in NFL is playing through the pain. You get beat up but you just keep playing. Thi is how my Super Bowl went. Despite a painful stomach ache from about half time, I managed to consume 2,300 kcals of the buffet I prepared. Including a slice of the 4,500 kcal cheesecake I made.

Oh, and Tom Brady really id the greatest. Not that anyone doubted.

Move over all other TV shows, The Good Place is better. I think I’m on my 6th run-through at the moment. I took a quick break after the 4th run-through to re-watch some BoJack. But then it was back to The Good Place. Why settle for anything less?

Not only is it a good way to learn about ethics in a fun way, it’s also fun and heart-warming, and provides a level of closure that possibly no other sitcom ever has. It’s 104% nerfect.

As some of you know, my film interests are predominantly films about rats than can cook. So, I watch Ratatouille. And not really anything else. But I also watch TV, and when I watch TV, I watch The Good Place. Anyone who has seen A Good Place will understand why: once you have seen the best TV show, why would you settle for watching something less good?

In one of the episodes, John makes a quick reference to a film about Sarah Michelle Gellar as a chef. I hadn’t heard of that so I went investigating whether it was a real thing and it turns out that it is: Simply Irresistible is a 1999 film about Buffy working in a struggling restaurant while falling in love with the manager of a fancy department store. There are no vampires but there is something much better: a magic crab that gives her the power to pour her emotions into the food.

Finding this film has opened my eyes. Maybe I am not solely interested in films about rats than can cook, but open to any films about non-human animals with magic cooking abilities!

Back in the day (like ten years ago) the 49ers were good. We had Jim Harbaugh at the helm and he was ace. He took us to the championship game consistently, and almost won the 2013 Super Bowl.

Then we went 8-8 and the 49ers fired him. And we entered the dark ages. 5-11 under Jim Tomsula, 2-13 under Chip Kelly, and 6-10 and 4-12 under Kyle Shanahan. Luckily, by the third coach in three years (we’re the only NFL team to ever do that), they decided it might be best to pick one coach and give him a chance.

Third season in and Kyle Shanahan’s team is on fire. We went 8-0, with the only unbeaten team being the Patriots, and even our losses have been close: a missed field goal in overtime allowed the Seahawks to finally deliver us a loss. And the Ravens and Falcons only managed to take the lead at the last minute.

So, it’s great to be a 49ers fan again.

With one distinct downside. I pay a lot of money for NFL GamePass, which allows me to stream all of the games. However, Sky Sports show two on Sunday evenings and these are blacked out on GamePass. When we were crap, nobody wanted to show our games. But now we’re got again, Sky Sports are once again showing the 49ers games. You can’t have it all, I guess.

Q: Which knight was famous for sneaking up on his enemies?
A: Sir Prise

The Critérium du Dauphiné is considered the main warm-up event for the Tour de France. This was a write-off from start to finish for Team Chris.

I misread the stages. It looked like there were lots of mountains and not much for the sprinters. So, I didn’t even take a sprinter. Turns out this was not correct. The hilly days were not hilly enough to drop the sprinters and there were only a handful of mountain days, all of which were mopped up by the breakaway.

Froom suffered a horrendous crash, for which he is still in hospital. Kruijswijk also dropped out due to illness. That left Fuglsang, Pinot and Quintana. They managed the overall win, 5th and 9th between them that did a lot to boost my points, but the gap was way too big. Froome being out meant that Woet Poels would then race for himself, which helped the other teams.

Congratulations to Bogdan, who takes his first win in the de Mezzanine

The Women’s Tour of Britain is a 6-day stage race. It doesn’t receive the same level of coverage as the men’s events: you can’t watch it live on TV, for example, but it’s growing rapidly. Superstar Marianne Vos lead out my fantasy team.

It was all going so well. D’Hoore took the early sprint stages and Vos and Deignan were mopping up the GC points. After the first couple of stages, Team Chris had an 800 point lead, that at the time seemed unassailable.

Alas, it was not to be. Vos crashed, and despite Deignan taking the overall win, Team Chris was eventually relegated to last place.