blogging it real

Well you go and teach a couple of classes and then hurry in and check how the Triathlon went and low and behold if we didn't scoop the Gold and Silver medals. Fantastic effort Hamish and Bevan!!! Why is it though that we can't really swim for shit compared to the Aussies and Americans, can't win much in the cycling bar Ulmers gold, and haven't won a medal for running for god knows how long, but when you combine the three into one event we sweep the top spots?!

With three gold and one silver so far I'd like to emphasise how it's all about quality over quantity FOR SURE BRO!!! And I strongly recommend looking at the medal tallies which have number of gold's listed first rather than total medals. It look a bit better from our perspective (18th v 31st).

Moving along to my specialty area, I see that the Warriors have snared Ivan Cleary and Kevin Campion as coaching assistants next season.

If Steve Price, Nathan Fien, Ruben Wiki plus those guys involved don't turn the club around then nothing will. If you'd asked me, or probably any other Warrior fan a couple of months ago who they would like to see brought into the club then I don't think you would find a better list of names. And in this case it's all about the quantity of the quality.

But wait, there's more! Monty Betham has announced (tearfully) that he will step aside as captain of the team for 2005. My mother never really rated the guy as a leader and initially I never even rated him as a player. But I admit that he impressed me much more later on and there's no questioning his work ethic and commitment to the team. He should make a great vice-captain or stand in leader should Price or Wiki be injured next season (which I'm sure they will be).

And finally I've noticed a brief yet important piece on the Central Coast bid for the NRL. In it chairman of the consortium behind the team, Russell Tate says:

"There is nothing more we can do in terms of presenting the case for the Central Coast Bears other than waste more time and money and build false hopes for the people of the Central Coast," he said.

"It is now clear to us that expansion was never going to be allowed at this time and we frankly don't see that changing under the current NRL administration/control.

"The financial underwriting for our bid was subject to a licence being granted by September 2004 and in the current circumstances that underwriting will now lapse."

Tate said the position would only be reviewed if the NRL's decision-makers clearly stipulated expansion would proceed and firm criteria was provided.

I don't necessarily disagree with the NRL's decision to keep the status quo for at least another two seasons, although I wouldn't have minded some fresh blood from outside Sydney, BUT I think they have fucked up big time by basically providing no direction for the coming years. Surely it wouldn't have been that hard to say to the Gold Coast bid "you will be in by 2007 at the latest" and something similar to the other two bids. They want to expand the league into the three bid areas, so why not put a time frame on it. They don't have to guarantee it in stone but they could at least show that they have some kind of clear strategy up until 2009. They are called five year plans and most decent sized and even small sized businesses have them.

Anyways it's off to try and beat the missus at Athens 2004 on the play station 2. She keeps thrashing me, but at least we've beaten them in the team sports at the real games (hockey, men's and womens, and the womens basketball). She hasn't taken it too well so I'd better continue to let her beat me.

But for those who hate sport and are wondering how they managed to read this far...here's something scary. Twenty one million "tube" wells have been drilled in India to get at ground water. We're fucked folks. Regardless of our 'efforts' to save the planet for future generations we haven't got a shit show and we'll be handing them a dust bowl and telling them to eat it.