Archive for the ‘Distractions’ Category

Peep Show is a brilliant show. That Mitchell & Webb look is a great sketch show too. But in my opinion, the best work they have ever done, isn’t any of the material they are famous for.

For me, the best work they have ever done is actually their Radio 4 series – That Mitchell & Webb Sound. It must have been popular (for Radio 4 at least) as it ran for four series, and each one of them was brilliant.

Highly recommended.

Last week, myself and James went to the MEN to see Evanescence. They played a very similar set to the one I saw last year in Leeds, but with a few changes, taking out some of the stuff from their new album in favour of a few classics.

Photos did not turn out well though lol.

Last year, the Alderney Gambling Control Commission suspended and then revoked the gambling license of Full Tilt Poker, one of the biggest poker sites on the internet.

Since then everything has been quite, but earlier this month, Poker Stars (the biggest poker site on the internet) announced it had acquired Full Tilt and would be re-launching it in early November.

It’s going to be maintained as a separate product from PokerStars.com and players will have access to their existing accounts and balances. This is good times as Full Tilt was my favourite site (especially for when you’re bored and want to play a bit of rush poker 😉 ).

Almost every sport, even the dullest and boring, has one event that enjoys such a good atmosphere, that it makes the sport, at least for a brief period, actually watchable.

For American football, it’s the Super Bowl, for athletics it is the Olympics and for cricket, it is the IPL.

For golf, it’s the Ryder Cup.

A competition that takes place every two years, the Ryder Cup differs from normal golf tournaments in that instead of each golfer playing for themselves, it is a competition between two teams – Team USA and Team Europe.

So unlike regular golf that is dull and boring, in the Ryder Cup you are given the chance to cheer on your team as players work together to further their team and defeat their opponents. And the crowd really do cheer – it becomes something akin to a scene out of Happy Gilmore as the crowd scream for their side, even as the golfers play their strokes.

Team Europe having emerged victorious two years ago in Cardiff, they now went to Chicago (the venue alternates each time) to try and defend their title.

After day one is wasn’t looking too good – Team USA had a 5-3 lead and by the end of day two the lead had increased to 8-4, and only stemmed at that because of a magnificent finish by Ian Poulter who managed consecutive birdies on the last five holes!

So it came down to the final day, 12 points available meaning that without taking into account draws, we could only lose 4 matches and needed to win the other 8 to draw things 14-14 – thus allowing us to retain the Ryder Cup as the current champions.

Again, everything hung on Ian Poulter who was the only early starter to be trailing his opponent. If he could pull it back, there would still be hope for Team Europe to make their greatest comeback ever, but if he lost it would be all over.

By this point, the NFL had kicked off with the 49ers via the Jets, so my live blog of the game includes updates from both the NFL game and the Ryder Cup.

19:01:39

Poulter needs to win his game if Team Europe is to have a chance. Meanwhile, the @49ers will start from the half way line.

Somehow, Poulter did pull it back, gaining the valuable point for Team Europe, and our other golfers put in a magnificent performance too to bring things all level.

It all game down to the final two games, Kaymer v Striker and Molinari v Woods. On the last hole Kaymer managed to clinch the victory, ensuring we had at least equal points to Team USA, meaning that they wouldn’t take the trophy away from us!

As it happens Tiger Woods went on to miss a put that allowed Molinari to tie the game, and thereby give us a one point lead! This was bad news for the bookies who ended up losing a huge amount of money (money they wouldn’t have lost if it had ended 14-14).

I don’t actually use This Is My Jam, but I’ve been listening to some cool albums recently, so I thought I would share them.

Jack’s Mannequin – People And Things
I’m sure, like me, you discovered Jack’s Mannequin while looking for different versions of Panamore’s Misery Business and stumbling on the compilation album It’s A Misery Business, of which contains their song The Mixed Tape.

They (and I’m being generous there, because it all seems to be Andrew McMahon and a bit of backing) have since released a new album, which I think is their best work yet. They’re a bit emo, so I imagine Si listens to them as well, but not so such that you well adjusted people wouldn’t like them either.

Bowling For Soup – Presents One Big Happy
Bowling For Soup have come out with a new album that features not just themselves, but also The Dollyrots, Jaret Reddick and Kelly Ogden & Patent Pending. Turns out, that combination works really well.

Particularly the album’s first song, “Lets go to the pub”. For some reason, that song really speaks to me.

I got Sky Go so that I could watch the live Formula One and NFL. I pay for NFL GamePass but unfortunately even though I’m paying a lot of money for it, they still black out any games that Sky Sports are showing.

Overall, I’m disappointed.

Firstly, I can only put it on two devices. Now I have loads – a laptop, a phone, a work computer, a tablet, all of which I would like to use it on depending on situation. But I can’t, because I can only register two devices.

Secondly, they have disabled display mirroring, so I can’t plug my iPad into a TV and watch it on there. It’s just stupid though, because I can just plug my laptop into a TV and do it that way, so they’re not stopping anything.

Streaming has worked quite well though. I was able to stream last Sunday night’s NFL with only a few stops for buffering and it looks pretty good on my 27″ screen.

Being in Dublin and going round the generically tourist bits, you can’t help but notice there is a lot of stuff about James Joyce – he is one of the major literary figures in the country’s history after all.

So having some time to kill while we waited for our flight back, I decided to attempt to read Ulysses. I use the word attempt not to suggest I was trying to read it all in one sitting, but to suggest I was seeing if I could read it at all. After all, Elina had said she struggled, and her language skills are significantly beyond my own.

I’ve so far made it through the first part, of which there are three, but the first is much shorter. Even that has been hard going – I had to head over to Wikipedia at regular intervals to check my understanding matched up with theirs! I seem to be roughly following though, so all is well.

We went for a wander round the newly renovated Central Arcade on Briggate. Turns out the Woo pushers have already moved in their and opened a shop named Mystic Moon. They even do tarot readings.

A couple of weeks ago I was speaking to a friend who works for G4S, the company that totally messed-up the Olympics security.

He was telling us how we can somehow become some kind of comic villain – he only works on reception and yet he was telling us how kids have been booing him every time he goes out to get some lunch.

More importantly however, it turns out that G4S have a corporate song! Not just any song, but a rock power ballad with someone singing “G4S, protecting your world…” It’s brilliant! Check it out below.

Michelle has very inconsiderately infected me with Korean pop music memes.