This is the September review, so we're now 75% gone.
After a slow winter, a number of
sports were back underway for September - it was actually difficult to keep up since I got a PVR to record whatever is on commercial television.
The
AFL finals both began and ended during September like usual. The only match I went to was the preliminary final between Hawthorn and Port Adelaide. I only got to the game about ten minutes before kickoff so I was almost in the back row. The Power started better but kicked too many points, then the Hawks took control of the game. I decided to leave half way through the fourth quarter, since in the margin was 29 points, only to almost miss a thrilling comeback which fell just 3 points short.
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| The "twilight" match between Hawthorn and Port Adelaide. |
We had another catch up to watch the
Brownlow Medal like we did last year. Amir, Dave and I had been on holiday since the last time we had all seen each other, so there was lots of souvenirs to be exchanged. Debbie cooked some good snacks and the event itself didn't drag on quite as slowly as in previous years, so overall it was a success.
I won a ticket in the ballot for the
AFL Grand Final but gave it away since I don't like Hawthorn very much. As it turned out I did not miss a lot on the field, as the game was totally one-sided.
I recorded most of the
FIBA World Cup games that were shown on TV. Here is a very brief summary:
- Round 2 - Australia vs. South Korea
- I watched a bit live but it was pretty boring, an easy win
- Round 3 - Australia vs. Lithuania
- A surprising win for Australia, always leading but almost fell apart at that end
- Round 4 - Australia vs. Mexico
- Round 5 - Australia vs. Angola
- I didn't bother to watch, Australia lost (maybe on purpose) and rested their starters
- Round Of 16 - Australia vs. Turkey
- Just when it looked like Australia would win, two big three pointers and they lost by one point !
- Round Of 16 - USA vs. Mexico
- An easy win for the USA, but they still aren't playing great
- Quarter Finals - USA vs. Slovenia
- I flicked through it pretty quickly, a massive win
- Semi Finals - USA vs. Lithuania
- Both the other teams from Australia's team progressed further than them
- The game close at half time, but all over after the third quarter
- Semi Finals - France vs. Serbia
- It looked like it was going nowhere as Serbia were always ahead by double digits
- Then a thrilling finish out of nowhere, back and forth three pointers
- France almost caught up several times but never quite got there
- Final - USA vs. Serbia
- I actually still haven't watched it yet, since I already know who won
The
NFL was back at last, now we get three games on Channel Seven every Monday morning, but we don't get the USA Thursday night or Monday night games unfortunately. I signed up for only one fantasy league this year, even though I am pretty much done with the random luck that occurs each and every week - I think this will definitely be my last year as it just is not enjoyable at all. Anyway, here are a few quick notes from the games I watched:
- Week One
- Monday - Atlanta vs. New Orleans
- Monday - Dallas vs. San Francisco
- Monday - Denver vs. Indianapolis
- Game of the week, Colts came back from 24-0 and almost won
- Week Two
- Monday - Carolina vs. Detroit
- Monday - Denver vs. Kansas City
- Chiefs could have tied at the end, but messed up the final play in red zone
- Monday - Chicago vs. San Francisco
- I started getting really sick of hitting fast forward after every play by the third game
- Week Three
- I was at home on a sick day so I actually got to a watch a bit more for once
- Monday - Philadelphia vs. Washington
- High scoring, lots of action and a close finish
- Monday - Denver vs. Seattle
- A great Superbowl rematch, and another overtime game
- Monday - Carolina vs. Pittsburgh
- Week Four
- Monday - Chicago vs. Green Bay
- A great high scoring game, Packers couldn't be stopped
- Monday - Philadelphia vs. San Francisco
- Monday Dallas vs. New Orleans
- Tuesday - Kansas City vs. New England
- The Patriots got destroyed, might be time to get worried about their offense
I had yet another up and down month with my
running. I thought the holiday in August would give me time to recover, but within a week my hamstring-like injury was back the same as before. I tried to ramp up my running a bit but started getting nose bleeds when I tried to go at full speed, it happened twice in under a week. I managed a couple of sessions at 4:00/km during lunch breaks at work, only to come down with yet another different type of injury, this time a hip joint problem that put me out of action again and ruined any chance of having a good result at the upcoming Melbourne Marathon - half marathon event. I also attended a small event called the
Australian Running Convention - I was a little sceptical of it, and it turned out rightly so as there was only a few pretty pointless guest speakers and some vendors. Wasn't worth the money and we left half way through the day.
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| A blood stained shirt - I didn't even realise. |
I finally completed my
tax return for the year. This year when you do it yourself online you are forced to sign up to this stupid
mygov site, which was annoying and took too long - and after it was all done I had to pay back about $230.
After several weeks of effort my
holiday report is finished, it took forever to write but I was pretty happy with the result - it came in a little under 20,000 words. On a sort of related note, I finally got around to digging through
old emails from my ISP account between 2004 and 2013, to see if there was anything interesting in them. Most of it turned out to be pretty boring and repetitive, but I may put together an article to summarise it.
Back at
work nothing much has changed. The guy who sits across from me got fired suddenly, meaning I had to basically drop everything and take on new work with no handover or support, which was pretty frustrating at first but quietened down after a while. The only other "exciting" thing to happen was getting a new computer with larger dual monitors - only I had to spend a couple of days to reinstall and reconfigure everything, but I've had plenty of practice doing that in the past with my computers at home...
Finally the prices of the
PlayStation 3 came down enough that it was worth buying one. Since approximately 95% of the games are now released on both the PS3 and XBox 360 there really isn't much point paying for both until they become cheap at the end of their lifetime. I was able to fund the purchase by cashing in my $600 worth of spare coins - I took them down to the bank on my sick day, only on the way there the whole bucket full of coins tipped over in my car and went everywhere! The bundle deal I got was pretty good value for under $300, it came with a second controller which costs $60 or more by itself, plus a cheap $30 game Little Big Planet Karting that I probably won't play. Since then I also purchased Gran Turismo 5 for just $20 and ordered Gran Turismo 6 and The Last Of Us online for about $40 each. Sadly, there's only a few more PlayStation exclusives that I really want to get - and a few more maybe's. The bundle didn't come with many accessories, so I had to also get a separate HDMI cable and remote control - it's quite good because it can also control the Sony TV that it's connected to.
So that's finally it for another month, here's the usual closing credits:
- Books
- Desperation by Stephen King
- The main storyline was a bit weak, but the characters were well defined as usual
- Pretty weird and unrelatable themes
- Very up and down
- 5 out of 10
- The Dead Zone by Stephen King
- About half way through so far, not really sure where it's headed
- TV
- Hard Knocks - Atlanta Falcons
- Unfortunately there is only five episodes, so it's all over very quickly
- Each year the training routine is very similar, but it's still an entertaining show
- 8 out of 10
- The Challenge Season 25 - Free Agents
- A fresh twist and format this season
- However it became much too random who was up for elimination each week
- 9 out of 10
- The Recruit
- Better than I expected for an AFL reality show
- Some of the contestants were a bit annoying but most got eliminated early
- A few challenges were pointless and didn't relate much to football ability
- The special live final episode was pathetic, a disappointing way to finish
- 7 out of 10
- The Amazing Race Australia & The Amazing Race Canada
- Both started and finished around about the same time
- The Australian one was actually the better of the two, the cast was well picked
- 8 out of 10
- Video Games
- PlayStation 3
- XBox 360
- Grid 2
- I tried really hard, but just wasn't a fun game so gave up for now
- 2 out of 10
- Saints Row 4
- About 30% through, hoping to finish it soon and get on to Gran Turismo
- The game is quite fun and addictive, but I really don't like the superhuman abilities
