Thursday, August 31, 2006

Deadline Day

Not much happening on the Everton front...Killer has departed to Wigan but that's about it.

BBC Deadline Day updater

Yahoo! Widgets - Get Weather, Photos, Calendar, and More on Your Mac or Windows Desktop

My latest investigation topic...gotta be some that'll help a chap keep upto date with the news and sport.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

More pics

More Peru piccies :

Desecrated desicated Pre-Incan graves near Nazca:


Vultures (Condors) circling above my head always makes me nervous.


The Inca Trail (specifically the walk up and up and up to Dead Woman's Pass)


Us knackered but slowly drying off at Machu Pichu.


Nice shot of lovely Cusco.


and finally this which I think I'll always find funny :

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Estadio FĂștbol Club

Estadio FĂștbol Club

Went to this place whilst killing time before our flight home...good fun if you want to watch a match in Lima.

Monday, August 28, 2006

A.W.O.L. (Andes, Where Oxygen's Low)

Well there's a pretty good reason for my lack of blogging in the last few weeks.

The wedding went swimmingly although by the end we were pretty knackered...everyone else seemed to enjoy the excellent food (provided by Tony Bonner a chap involved with Waterloo) and drink (that went without saying really). The speeches all went really well. My new Father-in-law's one was really nice and had a very good story about Anne (you'd have to know her for it to make sense)...my bestest Bro did me proud too. It was a bit soppy for a while be we muddled through.

The next day a few people dropped round then we met up with a few people in The Vic and got the marriage off to a nice smiley start. Jack got me us a special best wishes message from none other than David Moyes and some of the Hospitaliers got me a match worn Lourdes footy shirt. People were far too generous to us in general, loads of money and gifts and Auckland rugby tops and stands of oak trees planted in our honour,

After that we had to turn our attention to our honeymoon....Peru! Two days in which to get everything ready for it. Dusted off the old travelling backpack and set off for Lima, as it happens it was just on the crest of the wave of extra security in the wake of the latest terrorism alert. We were quite lucky there.

We were due to meet up with a Tucan Travel tour of the country, this allowed us to squeeze everything into the available time. Not only that but the people on the tour were all great, great people.

Thanks to Andreas, Ashley, Ashley, Bruce, Darren, Chris, Marty, Dave, Leigh, Brian, Claire, Reima, Nain, Steve, Yuko and Bjorg for helping make our honeymoon absolutely superb...sorry we weren't able to keep pace with the Cristal, Arequipana & Cusquena intake.



The two highlights were the flight over the mind bogglingly interesting Nazca lines





and the trek to Machu Pichu.



Both of these were brilliant. Getting up to Dead Woman's Pass was a pretty big struggle.



The last 200 metres were slow going but eventually we reached the top at 4215 metres above sea-level. It was still a struggle after that but our porters, guide and chef kept us stocked with silly amounts of food and drink. We had a really great trek.

The morning we got to Machu Pichu was rainy and misty but it didn't dampen spirits for long...it was fantastic just to be there at this Inca city on top of an Andean mountain.

Whilst we were away we kept up with Everton's progress and were chuffed to see AJ net twice and help the team off to a really strong start. Next up : Those who's name we don't mention. COYB!

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Wedding album

Some piccies of our wedding :

Album

Big, big....think everyone had a good time. I know we did!

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Practice





Did these today in a quieter moment...quite cool. Found a good bit of shareware :

Easy GIF Animator - animated GIF editor

Had the practice for the wedding too, quite fun actually. Should be okay on the day I think. Fingers crossed.

Monday, July 31, 2006

Countdown

Only 5 days 'til the wedding...I am sh*tting bricks about the speech etc etc etc. Really looking forward to the actual service, just worrying myself sick about all the other stuff.

Will be glued to this all week :

BBC - Weather Centre - 5 Day Forecast in Celsius for Liverpool, United Kingdom

Bad pennies

Look who's turned up. Remember this Blackistone on Everton fans. Well, wonder if he's changed his tune now.

http://www.evertonfc.com/news/archive/tim-howard-s-us-diary-day-five.html

"I spoke on the telephone today to a well known local columnist with the a big local paper.

I used to watch Kevin Blackistone when I watched a sports programme called Around The Horn and it was nice to chat with him.

He is a big hitter in the states...similar to the guys who are on Jimmy Hill's Sunday morning TV chat show."

Story from The Dallas Morning News by Kevin Blackistone from 2001 :

http://www.big12.net/stories/021101/men_02110114416.shtml

"And above all, no matter how much you mortgaged to get in to the big game, you don't have the right to pelt the opposition, its fans or the referees with bottles, lighters, coins, batteries, bags of excrement, your great granddad's false uppers, your ex's door keys or the marbles you've apparently lost.

Where do you think you are? At Stanley Park in Liverpool with the Everton soccer team in the house!"

Anyway I was walking down Bold Street on Saturday when I was asked to sign petition by some Socialist Workers, it was aimed at stopping the Israeli attacks in Lebanon. I said I'd be happy to do it if there was something in it about getting Hezbollah to release the two solider and condemning their rocket attacks..."Nope" I was told "Hezbollah was a resistance organisation" I looked puzzled and said they were as bad as each other so condemning one would be like validating the other. "Nope" I was told, "if someone was coming at you with a gun and you've got a knife then you've just got to stab them haven't you?". I said that was fair enough but Hezbollah have snuck upto the gun owner, stabbed him then hid behind their mums & cried foul..."Nope" I was told, "it's all to do with zionist aggression" (I kid you not they actually said "Zionist aggression"!)...I walked off.

I was 100% behind the anti-Israeli petition but at the end of the day there has to be balance & even handedness. Bombing a civilian target like happened in Qana is an appalling atrocity but it's as bad to fire rockets from a building housing civilians knowing that there'll be a counter strike.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Everton lose on pens to Club America

MOYES STILL PLEASED

By the sounds of it we did pretty well in the first half but faded badly towards the end and conceded an equaliser right at the death, it was really, really hot according to the official website. Arteta nipped in with a free-kick for our opener in the first half. More progress? Hope so.

People on The People's Forum say Lescott and Yobo looked strong together so that's a major plus...It'd be nice to see Beats and AJ start getting golas though.

Saturday, July 29, 2006

SO FAR NOT SO GOOD, WAYNE - Brian Reade

SO FAR NOT SO GOOD, WAYNE

Can't argue with this can we.

Nice to see England regain a bit of form...they wrapped a highly impressive win over Pakistan today :

BBC Test Match report





People are arriving back from Lourdes...reports indicate a good time was had by all although the heat did take it's toll by the sounds of things. Nigel popped along to ours to round off a two country 48 hour working/drinking session so we chewed the fat and polished off our Becks supplies.

Friday, July 28, 2006

Schadenfreude Utd V Wishy-washy Hippy Town

Cubs Fans, Cubs Haters, Please Take a Look - Front Office Football Central

Me and Sara were having a chat about sporting schadenfreude and basically agreeing that it's very odd to meet a sports fan who does'nt reval in the misfortune of their rivals.



Sara is a Cardinals fans and Diana, my other American Evertonian type pal, is a Cubs fan...just go onto google and search on "Cubs Cardinals Suck".

You know those people who say stuff like "Oh well if Sunderland can't win it then I hope Newcastle do". Surely they are just playing at it. Us Bluenoses will always chuckle when the redshite lose, why not...they love to smirk at our misfortune. Long may it be the case. My point is that sports fans are the same the world over. We went to an AFL game and the guy in front of us was SO sarcastic towards the oposition, in New Zealand we watch rugby with a family of Aucklanders who'd donned Wellington Hurricanes gear in the hope that they'd beat Christchurch. It's just the way of things.

Fortress?

£80m takeover battle looming for Everton

How odd that it should be an institution called Fortress involved after the Christopher Samuelson debacle :

Erm...Was it Eric Templar?

Wonder if this will come to anything?

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Landis gives positive drugs test

Landis gives positive drugs test

Sad stuff...it leave such a bad taste in the mouth, especially considering how much it means to the French.

Tim Howard's U.S. Diary

TIM HOWARD'S US DIARY - DAY ONE

TIM HOWARD'S US DIARY - DAY TWO

I know these things are fairly generic but it's all part of the build up to the new season.

We drew with Columbus Crew last night but we had a fair few players resting again. Anichebe seems to be doing very well at the moment. Watched United take Celtic apart last night, makes our 1-0 look a lot less positive. Still pre-season counts for very little, would like to see AJ & Beats up and running though.

Telegraph | Sport | Liverpool ground to a halt

I'm sure this is all pie-in-the-sky about Everton's potential new stadium but I was surprised at the level of the kopite's debt. £80,000,000 can buy a lot of journeymen French and Spaniards. Personally I think all these rumours of their stadium project grinding to a halt is just softening the fans up for when they sell the stadium naming rights.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Punishments cut for Italian clubs

Punishments cut for Italian clubs

Well that's pretty pathetic isn't it...just like Spurs in 95. If you are a big enough club and you cry enough they always look after you.

Plunkett ruled out of two Tests

This probably warrants a mention just because it seems English cricket is ravaged by injuries left, right & centre. Vaughn, Flintoff, Harmison, Jones, Giles plus several others have all suffered since the ashes. Seems odd really to get this many injuries.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Rooney reveals bust-up with Moyes

Rooney reveals bust-up with Moyes

icLiverpool - Rooney in Moyes rant

Usual bullshit....he's hardly going to say "I was a greedy kid who had his head turned by an even greedier agent and so turned my back on my boyhood club when they needed me most." He had to come up with something like this. Why on earth is a 21 year old putting out an autobiography? Nonsense.

"I suppose he expected to get most of the attention himself following a good season when Everton had ended seventh.

"But when he realised I was getting so much of the limelight I felt he resented it."

"I would have gone almost anywhere just to get away from David Moyes," Rooney said in his autobiography, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail.

"To me, he appeared overbearing; just wanting to control people."


Ah right, over-bearing manager eh Wayne? Well United would be the perfect choice then wouldn't it. Why throw the boot in when Everton and Moyes in particular have been nothing but polite and complimentary about him since he left?

As the entirety of Goodison once said : "Fat little knobhead...you're just a fat little knobhead"

Monday, July 24, 2006

hail, hail

Right-oh....hopefully the wedding stuff is in hand. We rounded off a few things but ultimately had a bit of a weekend off. Saying that I did have to get up at 3:30am on Saturday to help with the Lourdes departure (nice to see everyone, but still a bit gutted I'm not going though). Hopefully catch up with them on the webcam at some stage :

Rosary Square

Rosary Basilica

Grotto

Anyway did some shopping on Saturday :

The Lotus Room

thought this place, was worth a mention. We got a coffee table from them at the weekend. Absolutely gorgeous...great shop if you have a penchant for ethnic furniture.

And on Sunday got down to the business of watching Everton take on Celtic on telly. Not too bad for this stage of the pre-season. Looked bright enough with some key personel missing (Cahill and our entire first choice back four). We lost one nil but it was nice to get a look at them.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Everton take on two teams at once!

OBJECTIVE ACHIEVED

How long was the footy season over for? 6 days? On Saturday Everton kicked it all off again with two games at the same time...one at Port Vale and the other at Bury. The Bury game in particular was interesting 'cause it was AJ make his debut and aparently most of the Neville clan are involved with at Gigg Lane :

"The match against Bury will also give Phil Neville the opportunity to play at a ground that means a great deal to his family.

He told evertonTV: "My mum is the secretary, my dad used to work there as the commercial manager, my grandad is on the car park and my gran does the catering so we have monopolised the whole club!"

Johnson missed a hatful of chances but was still mobbed at the end (EVERTONFC.COM report, Guardian report)

Anichebe grabbed a brace in the game, without a huge amount of fanfare this could be his year. It'd be nice to see him and Vaughan play a part this season. It'd be just nice to see poor James Vaughan kick a ball after the nightmare he's had. It's be horrible for him to be cut off after such a fabulous start to his career.

Everton team V face Bury: Iain Turner, Phil Neville, Mark Hughes, Joseph Yobo, Patrick Boyle, Leon Osman, Mikel Arteta, Scott Phelan, Bjarni Vidarsson, Victor Anichebe, Andy Johnson. Subs: Stephen Connor, Darren Dennehy, Scott Spencer, John Ruddy, Alan Kearney.

Everton team V Port Vale: Richard Wright, John Irving, Gary Naysmith, Alan Stubbs, David Weir, Andy van der Meyde, Lee Carsley, Simon Davies, Kevin Kilbane, James Beattie, James McFadden. Subs: Jamie Jones, Lee Molyneux, Ryan Harpur, John Paul Kissock, Steven Morrison
.





Nice to have Everton back...here's a couple of vida to get us all in the mood (the second one is the final seconds of the nail-biting 10 V 14 game against Blackburn).

In other news the test is progressing towards either a plodding draw with the batsmen on top or a nail-biting final day finish. Nice to see some England batsmen in three figures though.

The main focus of my weekend was on Saturday...we all went to Chester races for my stag do...Fabulous afternoon for it, not a cloud in the sky. I'd never been racing before but I enjoyed every minute of it. I didn't do too bad either, most of my horses cam first or second and I ended up ever so slightly up on the afternoon. Didn't last very long once we got back to town though...called it a day at 11pm, having started at noon that'd not too bad though.

Waterloo have signed Mike Petri a scrum-half from Penn State in the US :

AmericanRugbyNews.com: Petri signs with UK Division I club

Gainline.us report (note the link to the wikipedia page I started)