Paul O'Connell British Lions Captain (image from http://lionsrugby.com)
Saturday marks the first game in the British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa. Their first game will be against the Royal XV in Phokeng. The starting team were announced a little earlier this morning and I’m delighted that Mike Blair has been given the chance to show what he’s capable of.
For some reason the fact that the tour starts in two days completely took me be surprise. I’ve obviously known when the first game was going to take place, but the announcement of the team this morning completely caught me of guard. The surprise is really that it’s almost June already. Where has 2009 gone?
While I love these provincial games in the tour, I’m obviously looking forward to the tests against South Africa much more. I have some fantastic memories of watching the last Lions tour to South Africa back in 1997 and on occasion will still watch my Living with Lions
DVD with one of my flatmates. With Jim Telfer’s motivational speeches still being some of the most inspiring speeches I’ve ever heard.
The fact that Ian McGeechan is the Head Coach again, and there are a few Scot’s in this squad, helps to keep my interest. It also helps that the games will be on TV at a reasonable time of the day, and not extremely early in the morning as the last two tours have been.
Annoyingly because of other commitments I’m going to miss the game on Saturday, I’m intending on watching every other game on the tour. I have a good feeling about this tour. We have a really good squad, and I honestly think they’re good enough to beat South Africa once again.
For all your Lions tour news check out the official Lions website – LionsRugby.com
Image from the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk
Congratulations to FC Barcelona. They deserved to be crowned Champions after that magnificent performance last night. I must admit it surprised me that they outclassed, and out played Manchester United to the extent they did. I fully expected Man Utd to take advantage of their make shift defence, and dominate the game.
Of course it’s difficult to dominate the game if you never have the ball. The central pairing of Ineista and Xavi must surely be the most talented midfield partnership in the World. The understanding they both seem to have with each other was a joy to watch. With the ball at either of their feet they completely controlled the middle of the park and made the Man Utd midfield look like they had no clue what they were doing.
While the superb performance of Ineista and Xavi would probably have been enough to control this match. Man Utd then had to deal with the magnificent Lionel Messi. His creative influence and attacking threat decimated the Man Utd defence. There was a moment in the match when he was surrounded by three players, fouled, and then managed to get to his feet first while still in complete control of the ball. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and my flatmate and I both had a look of wonder on our faces for a few minutes.
I never realised how much Man Utd depended on Darren Fletcher in the middle of the park. While I doubt he would have been able to stop the domination by Barcelona, I do believe Xavi and Iniesta would not have had the same influence over the game that they had. Even with Fletcher there to attempt to wrestle control of the match from Barcelona, too many Man Utd players just didn’t perform. Much of that can be attributed to the fact that they never seemed to have the ball for more than a few seconds at a time, but their attacks just seemed rushed, and unfocused, especially when compared to Barcelona’s methodical and precise attacking style.
Barcelona truly deserved their win last night. They are the best attacking team in the world by far, and simple joy to watch. Man Utd while a fantastic team, will need to take a hard look at themselves, and strengthen that midfield for next season. There are a couple of players just not good enough, that became obvious when they stood against the current Champions of Europe, and were found wanting.
I may have talked about my favourite applications before. Whether it was here or over at Silicon Souls I’m not entirely sure, but I thought I’d mention a few apps that I’m absolutely loving at the moment. They aren’t ground breaking applications, or ones that are completely life changing, but they do make my life much easier. So I thought I’d share the love and let you know about a few I think you should have a look at.
1Password
This password management application is fantastic. It stores everything from website user accounts and passwords, to the contents of your wallet, and much more. The fact that I’m able to sync the database to my iPhone is unbelievably useful, (to me at least). This app has come in so handy, on so many occasions, I have no idea how I got by before I started using it.
Luckily my good friend, Lance, was given a license to give away a while ago and decided I would make the most use of it. He wasn’t wrong. However, at the moment if you want to use the application it will cost you a one time license fee of just under $40
It’s well worth it. A trial version of the application can be downloaded here.
Evernote
This is another application that I find myself using on a daily basis. In fact I can’t remember a day in the last few months I haven’t used it. Evernote is a note taking application that can be accessed from multiple sources, and syncs between them all to make sure no matter how you access them, they are always up to date. It allows text notes, iSight notes, and a multitude of other things. They also have an iPhone version, which means I can get at any note I’ve created, from pretty much anywhere.
Before I found Evernote, I was writing things down everywhere. It wasn’t very efficient as I almost never knew exactly where everything was. With Evernote I’m much more efficient, and much more organised.
There is a free version, and a premium version for those that want it. Personally I’m fine with the free version. You can download it here.
Tweetie
Tweetie very quickly became my favourite Twitter application on my iPhone. With the ability to handle multiple Twitter accounts without having to constantly log in an out it became a huge time saver for me. However this was only available on my iPhone. Recently, atebits, released a Mac desktop version of their client. After less than a day of use, it became my favourite OS X Twitter client by far. It does the same as the iPhone client, in that it handles multiple accounts easily, and is so much easier than logging in and out of accounts, or running multiple clients that connect to different accounts.
It looks good, has a system icon to let you know if there are any unread tweets, and works with Growl. What’s not to like. Tweetie comes in both a free version, or an ad-free premium version for those that want it. If you have more than one Twitter account I would highly recommend you give it a try. You can download the Mac client here.
Any recommendations?
Those are three apps I use constantly. In fact if my Mac is switched on, they are guaranteed to be running. If there are any applications you think people/I should try out, please leave a note in the comments.
I think I’ve had a little too much coffee today, yet I still want another mug… Earlier this afternoon, while at Starbucks, I picked up a four shot monster of black coffee. which added to the amount of coffee I’d already had in the morning may not have been smart on my part. By the time I’d finished it I was slightly shaking and couldn’t sit still if you’d paid me. It felt like I was vibrating in my chair; I was wired to my fingertips.
I’ve had caffeine highs before, but never exactly like this one. Oh, the standard symptoms were there, but this one hit my like a sledgehammer, and then left me all within about fifteen minutes. They normally creep up on me and hang around for an hour or so. I still have a strange after buzz thing going on at the moment, which for some reason makes me want to do something creative. I don’t know what though. I have some more world building I want to do for the novel idea I was working on over the weekend, and I have an urge to pick up my guitar again. I also feel like running around… maybe that caffeine high is still hanging around more than I thought.
My brain keeps jumping from one thing to the next and back again with very little pause in between. So while I want to do these things, I can also see me stopping after a few minutes to do something else. This is no way to get into a creative groove. I think the best course of action is to make something to eat, sit down for half an hour to let my body sort itself out, and then see where we are after that.
Or I could have another coffee and see what happens.
I have so many different hobbies, and areas of my life that I’m trying to improve I don’t think there’s enough time in the week for them all. I find myself torn between the urge to write, play the guitar, read a book, go for a run, become a better cook, and well you get the idea. If I listed all the things I want to do with my time, I’d have no time to do anything else.
Out of all of my interests, I’ve been trying to force myself to make time to write, although not here as regularly as I’d like. Writing is more than a hobby to me, it’s something I feel compelled to do. I had an idea for a novel a few weeks ago, and instead of my normal method of just sitting down, writing, and figuring out where to go during the writing process, I decided to actually put in some time developing the story, and the characters beforehand. In spending more of my time writing offline, I’ve been trying to cram as many of my other hobbies into whatever free time I’ve had. This comes with the problem of trying to do everything at the same time and not actually getting anything done. It feels as thought the time is being wasted.
So I have a question. Do you have multiple hobbies/interests and how do you balance them in your life?
I ask because I’m not doing a great job of it in mine at the moment, and I welcome as many ideas as possible. Most of my free, non-working hours, are going to be spent writing, but how do I manage all of my other interests in the remaining time I have each week?
There are things that I’m going to fit into most days, for example, becoming a better cook is something I can do everyday. Getting healthier by running happens every couple of days. For the others do I just set aside specific days of the week to indulge in another hobby, and change which hobby it is every time?
I’m not really sure, but it’s clear I need to do something. I’m going to have to put some thought into it, and I welcome any input you might have.
My personal To-Do list is growing by the day, and I don’t even want to think about my work list at the moment. With that ever expanding list of tasks, both mundane, and interesting, you would think I would spend most of my free time trying to clear it down a little. You would be wrong.
I recently started re-reading the “Wheel of Time” series by Robert Jordan. I wasn’t planning on it, but with the latest book coming out later this year, and the excellent re-read Leigh butler is doing over on Tor.com I found myself picking up the Eye of the World and beginning what can only be described as a mammoth reading expedition. The “Wheel of Time” is one of my favourite fantasy series, and in fact I think only Steven Erikson’s “Malazan Book of the Fallen” is better, and every time I read it, it inspires me to write something of my own.
Of course even though it inspires me to write, it also draws me completely into the story and before I know it my evening has vanished. This wouldn’t be a problem if the series was a smaller one, but at the moment it sits at 11 books, and almost 9500 pages. I don’t even want to think of the word count at this point, let’s just say it’s a lot, and the series isn’t even finished yet.
So with these books gobbling up my time, and the urge to write standing over me waiting for me to finish them, I haven’t actually achieved anything substantial on my to-do list in the last couple of weeks. The minor things, like go for a run, or cook dinner for friends have been taken care of, but there are other things on the list that really need to be done sooner rather than later. It’s becoming more difficult each day to start on some of them, and because I have that moment of hesitation I find myself doing something else entirely. More than not that something else is beginning the next Wheel of Time book.
I’m almost finished the one I’m currently reading, and when I finish it I really have to make sure I don’t pick up the next one straight away. If I do there’s no chance of me doing anything productive for another couple of weeks. While I love the books, they do get in the way of pretty much everything.
