This made me laugh.

My dog (Yes, he lives with my parents but so does my brother and I still refer to him as my brother)..anyway, my dog's name is Yoda coz he has cool Yoda-like ears and (obviously) wields a mean lightsabre. I'm definitely going to get him one of these outfits!

The road forward

Not too long ago I found myself sleeping in too often, not getting to work as early as I'd like and the relentless pile up of bills, tasks and things I wanted to accomplish getting on top of me. This was not a good state to be in so it was time for a change. I've tried to cut out watching tv just for the sake of it and tend only to watch when there's something I REALLY want to watch like a football match or a specific movie. I've a stack of books on my bedside cabinet that I'm starting to work through instead. This stack includes my national geographic subscription which had begun to arrive every month like a big chunk of yellow guilt in brown paper pointing at me accusingly and highlighting my inactivity. This week has been about getting up early and taking the time to get ready for work, prepare my lunch and head to the office as close to 8 O'Clock as possible. This has really helped me get through my workload and I feel I'm accomplishing alot more and then feel more satisfied at the end of the day.

I've never been a heavy sleeper and I hate going to bed early. I tend to wait until I feel like I'm going to fall asleep and then take that as the indicator of it being time for bed rather than any pre-scheduled bedtime. By combining this with a set wakeup call of 7.00am I'm trying to instill a bit of self-discipline and develop a sleeping pattern that I can carry forward. While navigating through a couple of blogs tonight I coincidentally came acrossSteve Pavlina's How to be an Early Riser post which reinforces a lot of the ideas I'm trying to implement. If its caught your imagination there's also a part two. If, grasshopper, you master these disciplines then you are ready to ascend to the next level and read his self disicpline posts

One foot in the weekend already

Very lapse on the blogfront of late so a quick recap to bring me up to speed......Celtic won the CIS Cup very comfortably (3-0) against a poor showing from Dunfermline.....Keane picked up a hamstring injury in that game and is out for a few weeks.......Beat Inverness 2-0 in Parkhead on the following wednesday......me and my fiancée went to that one and although it was a poor game we had a good evening out.....Liverpool beat Everton 3-1 in the derby game at anfield on Saturday even with Gerarrd being sent off after 17 mins.....Celtic beat Livingston 2-0 on Sunday to put them on course to win the league if they win their next game.......their next game is hearts at Parkhead and I've got a ticket!!.....I'm swamped in work at the moment and will be working my socks off this weekend.....

Speaking of socks I have a couple of those sad pairs of socks with the days of the week on them. Yesterday I noticed I was wearing a Monday sock and a Friday sock. Very curious, a subconcious plea for it to be the weekend again or just the side effects of getting dressed in the dark?

How To Do Things and Stuff

Two of my favourite websites at the moment are MAKE and Instructables. Admittedly they're a bit geeky but have an explore and you can find out how to do and make just about everything from smoke bombs to water divining. Check out the Kong Cam. That was my contribution to the DIY community.

Things I saw on YouTube that are awesome

• A "do the robot" dance off


• A ninja dude


• Some Dynamite Dancing

Paddy's Day Links

If I was back in Ireland today I'd have the day off and probably be face down in a pool of my own [insert bodily fluid of choice here]. Well I'm not and Scotland doesn't seem to keen on this day off in honour of a sainted Welshman so instead I'm going to post a few Oirish links and repeatedly listen to the national anthem on my mp3 player.

• Official St. Patricks Day Festival Homepage
• St Pat googled
• Dropkick murphys do a great rendition of fields of athenry
• The Horslips - always good to get a session going
• Potato Recipies :)
• The Black Stuff
• Oirish movies: Finian's Rainbow, Darby O' Gill and the Little People, The Commitments ,Intermission , The Snapper

I'm getting teary eyed just thinking about 'em. Even though its pure americanised-oirish pap I've always liked Finians Rainbow. The Leprachaun who's growing taller is hilarious "DOOM AND GLOOM.....". Pub quiz fact - it's directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Happy Paddy's Day

Just realised it is now past midnight and therefore friday the 17th of March. Happy Paddy's day.....*HIC*

Neil Lennon in knifefight shocker....

...allegedly! Actually he cut himself tidying up his house. He's still gonna play on Sunday though. Why? coz he's a trooper thats why!!!

How to win a Pride Fighting match....

...hit the other guy with the floor. Hard. Preferably in the face. Following up on my other posts, I finally got round to watching more of the Pride FC DVDs. I'm on Disc 2, Critical Countdown 2004. The fights are way better on this disc. By way better of course I mean more people get hit in the face. Few notable mentions - big seven foot brazilian dude called De Silva or something who looks like a large tree and speaks like André the Giant (Remember Princes Bride, I love that movie..), also some japanese guy who came out wearing a pair of pyjamas and carrying a pillow. As fantastically over the top as WWF (or WWE or whatever) but with more real face kicking. Highlight has to be Quinton "Rampage" jackson's awesome slam. The fight was going the way a lot of them seem to go where there two fighters end up in a grapple type hold situation on the canvas and all the men in the audience get uncomfortable coz its looking a bit Brokenback Mountain. Rampage Jackson was having none of it though and decided to stand up with his opponent's legs still locked around his neck. He must have lifted the guy about 8 feet off the ground before slamming him into the ground head first. The commentators cheered, Rampage split his face open, his opponent passed out (few punches in the head first to make sure) and the crowd lost their friggin minds!!!

Jimmy Johnstone Links

• bbc
• bbc - Jimmy Johnstone life in photos
• Pat Nevin talks about Jimmy Johnstone
• Tributes
• CelticFc.Net
• Guardian Unlimited
• Jimmy Johnstone Dot Com
• Jimmy Johnstone Wikipedia entry

Farewell to Jinky

Sad news today as Jimmy Johnstone, arguably Celtic's greatest player, died at the age of 61 after a prolonged battle with illness. One of the most exciting players ever to grace the turf, the Lord of the Wing will never be forgotten by hoops fans the world over.

Snowed Inn

Was out in Gourock on Saturday night and when we left the pub in the early hours somone has coved the place in eight inches of snow!! No taxis so the night was spend trudging a bloody age to get home. There was a brief snowball at first but after a couple of hours everyone was just cold and tired. Couldn't make it back to where we were supposed to be staying so we bedded down for the night on a friends sofa. Had to wait a couple of hours for a taxi this morning to take us to where we'd parked the car. Had to dig the thing out and the it was a crawl up the motorway to get back home. Not the most successful weekend of recent times.

West of Scotland seems to have taken a right good hammering from the weather this weekend. Next few days doesn't look that great either.

Fight Club Part 2

According to the commentators TOTAL ELIMINATION 2004 is a knockout tournament featuring "16 of the best atheletes in MMA in the world. The production values on this thing are amazing. There has to be at least 4 million peolple at the arena (ok not really 4 million but certainly a big number like : loads). The fighters are being introduced. I'm going for Murila "Ninja" Rua as my pick. Why? Coz his nickname is ninja, duh! The introductions are going on for ages. Hurry up and kick each other in the face!!

First fight takes 4 and half minutes. Some poor japanese guy just got his face smashed in by a big american dude with a blue mohawk. While mohawk man walks around the ring victorious, about 10 people run into the ring to try and glue the japanese guy's face back together. Mohawk man goes to the next round. Wouldn't American Idol be way more watchable if the contestants had to sing AND fight their way to the through each round.

An angry sounding fat japanese man in black rimmed glasses is doing the introductions for the next fight. Not being a fluent japanese speaker I can only assume he's saying "LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE". Murila "Ninja" Rua sucks. Ninjas are meant to be lightfooted and nimble lethal fighting machines. Rua did his best impression of a sack of potatoes and got seven shades of shit punched out of him by some mad russian. Thank god I'm not betting on this.

Fight Club

Got a lend of a DVD of a mate today. No, not one of THOSE kind of dvds but the Pride FC Fighting Championships, The World's Premiere Mixed Martial Arts Contest 2004 Heavyweight Grand Prix 6 Disc Set. I do like a bit of the Ultimate Fighting so my mate recommended this as good viewing. As the name suggests its a 6 Disc box set with the box and discs emblazoned with large blokes with angry facial expressions and who look like they enjoy hitting people. Preferably in face. From what I gather Mixed Martial Arts basically equates to kicking and punching lumps out of each other as hard and as often as possible. Mostly in the face. Right, Disc one seems like the best place to start. Its called Total Elimination 2004 and as it loads the backdrop contains clips of some mixed martial artists have a rare old time. The menu says SELECT A FIGHT. Had I been designing the menu I would change the text to START A FIGHT coz I think thats funnier but maybe you don't joke around people like this or they hit you. Probably in the face.

PLAY....

American Fitba

Watching USA Vs. Poland on Channel Five with American commentators. Brilliant but odd. Never heard the phrases: "Whistle on the play" and "Change of the roster" used in football before. The commentator guy also keeps pronouncing Boruc's name Boruce.

Toe Upate: Played a bit of 5s on it today. It didn't fall off or change colour too much. result!

Rangers Lose to Villareal

:)

Don de Don Don

Another home victory, another walk in the park for Roy Keane. Not only was the crazed corkman superb throughout, he also grabbed any bad performers (Telfer, McManus we're talking about you) by the scruff of the neck and dragged them up a level. Any doubters about Roy Keane being able to fit into the team (and I include myself on that one) should be silenced by now.

Champions League continues tomorrow and I'll be glued to the Villareal/Rangers game. hahah yeah right, with the Barcelona Chelsea grudge-tastic game on at the same time there is only one game I'll be watching. The media is really starting to get on Mourinho's back at the moment and I think their Russian tycoon could start to get a bit miffed if they fail to win the Champions league yet again. Sure, they're dominating the domestic league but the Champions League is the real top prize (and I'm not just saying that coz I'm a liverpool fan too). I can't be long before Mourinho becomes a target for Madrid too especially with his current level of popularity at the Nou Camp!!

Don de Don Don

Another home victory, another walk in the park for Roy Keane. Not only was the crazed corkman superb throughout, he also grabbed any bad performers (Telfer, McManus we're talking about you) by the scruff of the neck and dragged them up a level. Any doubters about Roy Keane being able to fit into the team (and I include myself on that one) should be silenced by now.

Champions League continues tomorrow and I'll be glued to the Villareal/Rangers game. hahah yeah right, with the Barcelona Chelsea grudge-tastic game on at the same time there is only one game I'll be watching. The media is really starting to get on Mourinho's back at the moment and I think their Russian tycoon could start to get a bit miffed if they fail to win the Champions league yet again. Sure, they're dominating the domestic league but the Champions League is the real top prize (and I'm not just saying that coz I'm a liverpool fan too). I can't be long before Mourinho becomes a target for Madrid too especially with his current level of popularity at the Nou Camp!!

It's snowing.....

And now in my best over-excited voice:

"IT'S SNOWING AND IT'S STICKING!!!!"

Link to webcam

Toe Job

I'm not a happy camper. Ten minutes into my first game of 5s in over a week and I'm limping out of the game thanks to an ill-timed (read: shit) tackle by a fellow player. Playing 5s with people from work tends to put the brakes on smacking someone in retaliation for rubbish (and painful) tackles so I'm indulging in a bit of self-pity instead.

I have what we call in the medical profession (thats Dr. Hooped to you!!) Turf Toe but can also be described as a really sore toe that hurts to walk on and once the swelling goes down is going to look gross and bruised and probably a bit yellow. A bit of searching on the web and a call to my private healthcare's 24 hour helpline and the diagnosis and treatment was complete. Actually I wouldn't recommend searching the web too often for healthcare advice as its easy to get carried away and imagine yourself having the symptoms for all kinds of nastiness.

So looking for the silver lining (and belive me its taking a lot of self control to be upbeat about this) with the advice being to take it easy for a couple of weeks I guess that gives me a bit more time to catch up on my reading, DIY (nothing heavy, mind) and other such 'exciting' pastimes.

Elephant Shoes

The Guardian Unlimited reports that Police are investigating claims by deaf football viewers who say that Liverpool full-back Steve Finnan made a racist comment to Manchester United player Patrice Evra in the recent league match where the 'pool lost 1-0. Myabe its my loyalty to an Irish and Liverpool player but I have to say I'm slightly skeptical about this for a couple of reasons:

1. Patrice Evra has made no complaint and does not back up the claims.
2. Liverpool FC went mental when this was suggested:

"The first either the club or the player knew about this matter was
through the media," a spokesman said. "There has been absolutely no contact from the Greater Manchester police. We have subsequently had a video of the match analysed by a lip-reader, who has told us there is nothing to support this
outrageous slur."

3. While I'm sure the deaf football viewers are expert lip-readers there must be a fair bit of room for discrepancies between what someone's lips appear to say and what they are actually saying.

To help validate point 3, here's a simple experiment. Say the phrase "Elephant Shoes" a couple of times to yourself out loud. If doing this in work, ignore the people looking at you like you're some kind of mentalist. Now find the nearest mirror and mouth the same phrase at different speeds and exaggerations of pronunciation. Looks like you're saying "I Love you" doesn't it? Again if in work, try mouthing the phrase to a colleague across the office. If he/she offers you a pair of Elephant Shoes then Finnan might just be guilty [allegedly - Hooped Lawyers]. If he/she offers you a punch/kiss/date then Finnan is probably innocent.

Gorbals goes boom

Been a bit lapse with the blogging of late so time for a spurt (???) of furious blogging over the next couple of days. Jonny was a lucky witness as they blew up the old gorbals (they really do have information for everything in wikipedia) over the weekend. Apparently the last time they tried something like this someone was killed by a flying brick. Using some perverse logic, the council decided that this time they wouldn't tell people exactly when the demolition would occur so that large crowds wouldn't gather to watch and flying brick deaths would be limited!!!
Clip:



Link to Jonny's post