Waiting for my new toy

I ordered a new toy, not last weekend but the weekend before, and I'm still waiting for it to arrive. More details when it finally gets here.

*C'mon, hurry up!!*

It's not soccer mate.... it's Football

Last night (Wednesday), I went to the Football (or soccer) at ANZ Stadium, Homebush, to see the Socceroo's play Bahrain in a World Cup qualifier match. The Aussie's had already qualified, but it was still great to go and see them play. I don't really follow the soccer... oops, Football, but I have enjoyed going to see the Socceroo's play a couple of times. I went with my girlfriend and some of her friends from work. We had good seats, in row 13, so fairly close to the action, and down beside the goal. Fortunately, the end of the field we were sitting at, was the end that the Aussie's were attacking in the 2nd half, which is also when they scored both their goals.

The first half was ended scoreless. The Socceroo's had more possession and a number of shots at goal, but hadn't been able to score. In the second half, they seemed to play a lot better and scored 2 unanswered goals to bring the final score in at 2-0. It was great to witness the win and it was a good game, but it was a damn cold night! It was freezing there.

Below is a picture that I took during the game. It is not very good quality, it was taken on my Nokia 6300.

Great Success

I went to a mates place last night to watch the State of Origin. Each year when I go there, I barrack for the team that I have picked in our work Footy Tipping competition, and follow the score closely (because we also pick the margin). Anyway, I picked QLD to win by 12 points (or so I thought), so I was disappointed when they won by only 10. When I got to work this morning though, I checked the results of the tipping, and I had actually picked QLD to win by ten! YAY!. Final score was 28-18.

New T-shirt

I found the following t-shirt on a website called Final Gear. They are my source of news for all things Top Gear and Fifth Gear. Recently they ran a competition to design a t-shirt, and below is one of the designs that was successful. I decided to get this t-shirt to go with my I AM THE STIG t-shirt. Can anyone translate the Morse code? -Don't worry, I already know what it says ;-)

Victory Boy

In a previous post, I mentioned that I had been in Katoomba at KYCK. This years theme was Victory Now, Victory Later, so they they brought in Victory Boy. This is his intro video. Very cool!

New

I walked into Woolies today and found these Orange flavoured M&M's in the chocolate aisle. So I bought a packet. Never seen them before, so it will be interesting to see what they taste like



EDIT: Sorry about the crap quality photo... it is from my Nokia 6300.

UPDATE: They taste like orange... A bit like Jaffa's actually.

False Start

For Christmas last year, my wonderful girlfriend gave me a V8 Race Experience. This is conducted on the short track at Eastern Creek Raceway (for Sydney-siders, and at various other tracks around the country). The short track at Eastern Creek is basically the "Flip Flop" which joins Turn 4 to Turn 9 and cuts out the section of track that runs around "Corporate Hill". They give you the option of driving a Ford or a Holden. The cars start as standard Falcons and Commodores, but they get a roll cage, racing seats and harnesses, modified exhaust (and don't they sound awesome!!), slick tyres, a locked diff (I think) and a body kit that makes them look like a V8 Supercar.

This morning I wake up and it is raining. That's not a good start, because they don't run the drive days in wet conditions. The cars run on slick tyres, ie. no groves to disperse water on the track, hence the not running in the rain rule (click here to see what can happen in the wet on slicks). There is a number to call that gives a recorded message with info about the weather and track conditions. During the day the weather cleared up and the sun was shining. A couple of calls to the weather hotline and the it appears that the weather is clear and the track is dry and the cars are running, albeit they are somewhat delayed due to the morning rain. That's OK, I was booked in at 3pm, she'll be right.

So, I head out to the track. You have to be there 15mins early to register and sign on etc. At this point you can also take the option of purchasing a DVD of footage from your drive for $49. I take this option. They give you a blank DVD in a case that you give to your driving instructor and he pops it into a DVD recorder in the car and you get a recording from a couple of cameras in the car that point at your face while driving and out the front of the car at the track.

Next is the drivers briefing. The guy runs through some racing techniques and safety type stuff. This lasts about 30mins. After this they send you to the pits to get into a race suit and helmut. At this point during our day, some guy in a car on the track has run off the circuit and hit the wall. The cars that are currently on the circuit are stopped and the onsite paramedics are dispatched. All is fine there are no serious injuries to either the driver or the instructor, however the session has been delayed to make sure that everything is OK. Safety is paramount for these guys.

So here we all are. About 25 guys (and 1 girl) were all suited up waiting in line to drive either a Ford or a Holden (I was in the Ford queue, because Fords are better). Just as we are thinking that we are about to get a drive, the black clouds roll in and the rain tumbles down. Oh, this isn't good. It's 4pm. The cars have to be finished on the track by 5pm. The track has to be dry before the cars to go out. And it is raining. That is not a good equation. When it was still raining at 4:30 there was no chance we would be going out on the track. I now need to re-book for another time. The next block of dates are in July, so I'll call them in the morning and re-book.

John Bowe was there too, today. V8 Race offer a John Bowe Experience where you get some flying laps with John.

I was really looking forward to getting out and driving a V8 Race car. Oh well. I hope it isn't raining next time.

UPDATE: Re-booked for Wednesday 8th July. :-)