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This article is a tad late as it relates to an event last Friday, but as happens every now and then, that work stuff has gotten in the way of what's really important. Anyway, went to my first ice hockey game - San Jose Sharks versus LA Kings.

First off, I have to say that I quite liked the game. Unlike the more traditional baseball and American football, this was fast moving and interesting. At least for the first period anyway as unfortunately the Sharks were terrible going down 5-1 which really meant that the second and third periods were very one sided.

Some interesting things though. When there's a break in the play, the TV coverage cuts to commercials. The game doesn't restart until they get the go ahead from the network to make sure that the viewers don't miss anything. Initially this seemed like a really strange concept until my mate who I went with pointed out that it's not like the blatant advertising in the UK where our teams had sold out and put the sponsorship across the front of their jerseys. And I do remember when advertising on shirts first came into soccer and there was the discussion on which teams were selling out and I guess we've just gotten used to it now. I hadn't really thought about it, but other people think it's sacrilegious to desecrate the team jersey.

The next thing (and I'm told this is relevant to Sharks fans only) is that the crowd seemed to be needed to be told what to do. The display boards frequently came up with instructions like "make some noise" and really bad chants like "beat LA". OK so maybe "Blue Army" isn't the most inventive, but we did have a lot of very creative songs as well like "When You're Smiling". Just to sidetrack for a second - I just searched to see if anyone had put these songs up on the web and yep there's a great website ForFoxSake and the songs are on there so now you can see how bad the songs are.

Finally, whenever the Sharks had a "Power Play" which, contrary to what I thought is not when a player runs over a flashing power up and then starts running twice as fast as the other players for 30 seconds, is actually when the opposing team goes a player down after they've committed a foul and been sent to the sin bin. Anyway, at this point the fans are instructed to make this weird motioning with the hands - I guess to look like a shark chomping on something, but it's unfortunately the action I've taught William that you do for a crocodile. Regardless, it looks like some demented version of the Birdie Song.

Don't get me wrong though. I did enjoy it.

A Happy Halloween to all of you! So, what was the most scary thing that happened to you? .... What's that? ..... Oh! That's nothing ..... I had a prostrate exam.

Straight Up!

I suppose if you're going to have one Halloween is as good a day as any to have one. Long story short, we've just changed medical plans and I had to go in and register and do the physical etc. If you're not from the US this won't make sense to you. I haven't figured out the medical system here and I don't really think anyone else has. The essence is you pay money and belong to a group that will treat you. But back to the story at hand I went in to meet my doctor, went through the usual stuff and blah, blah, broken neck, blah, blah, higher risk of etc. etc. and then I get asked, "when was the last time you had a rectal exam?"

I was kind of expecting the question and unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), I haven't had one in a long time. "Well, we should really do one".

At which point I laughed. Not really a lot else I could think of doing and said "I thought you were going to say that. I'd rather not, but if you think I need one then OK". Now, to his credit he said "I'll tell you the truth, when I woke up this morning, this wasn't at the top of my list of things I wanted to do, but yes, we should do the exam".

A quick drop of the trousers, application of the old KY and wham, bam thank you exam.

Then a little surreality. "Did that feel uncomfortable?" My look must have given away the fact I was thinking - you just had your finger up my arse, I'd say that was pretty uncomfortable. So he added "I don't mean the fact that I had my finger up your bum, was there anything else?" To which I replied "if you were doing something else, I was unaware of it because I was somewhat focused on the fact that you had your finger up my bum." Which resulted in further clarification of "no, not any other sensation, but did you feel anything other than my finger like any other irritation".

The answer to that was no and thankfully everything was OK. All the bits that were supposed to be up there were there or whatever it was he was looking for. Although I was tempted to say - I'm struggling to think of anything more irritating than have a bloke poke his finger up my arse, but that wouldn't have been constructive.

So, I at least take comfort in the fact that I keep seeing all these flyers promoting regular prostrate exams as part of good health and the fact that I won't need another one for a while.

Just a couple of days after writing the article that the fun had been taken out of Halloween as it was now a glorified costume party rather than a celebration of the undead, news comes out of New Jersey of a 24 year old man that was caught having sex with a 92 year old woman. And yep, you guessed it - she was also dead!

According to the news articles, Anthony Merino, a lab technician (in the morgue) at Holy Name Hospital was caught in said necrophiliac act by a security guard. Apparently a spokesman for the police said “When you think you've heard and seen it all, something like this happens.” Well, I'm glad you don't come across this every day is all I can say.

Article on ABC News if you are interested.

I knew him well. 'Tis with sorrow that I look back and remember the days when Halloween had something to do with the undead. Time was when you tried to dress up as the most frightening thing you could think of and then try to scare someone. Now it seems that it's just a big commercial fancy dress party.

William had picked himself out a fireman's outfit for Halloween and Karen wanted to go to the zoo to take some photos of him. They had a pumpkin patch and the idea was that it would make for a better picture than just in the front room. And it appears that everybody else in San Francisco had the same idea, so the zoo was filled with many a family and their little darlings dressed as Spiderman, Teletubbies, Fairies ... well, basically anything you can think of except for anything traditional. Nevermind, the kids seemed to love it, including William and I suppose that's all that matters.

P.S. William's the one in the fireman's uniform. Not sure who the witch is! (Maybe I'm wrong, maybe somepeople did get dressed up to frighten other people. Maybe I'll just lie down on the couch to save the hassle of being sent there later).

Link to more photos of William and his shiny helmet.

We've all heard the stupid saying around not "assume" anything as it makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me", but my assumption only really made me look stupid and not anybody else. Quite mundane really, the indicator/turn light on Karen's car had gone on the back of the car. She got a new bulb but couldn't undo the wing nuts in the boot/trunk so asked me to do it. I assumed that chaning the bulb would be the same as it has been on any car I've had in the UK, that you just open a flap and take the old bulb out and replace with the new. I thought it odd that it wasn't just a little door and that there were wing nuts in the first place.

After a failed first attempt that resulted in fetching a pair of plyers, I got the wing nuts off. Based on my assumption above I tried to pull away the plastic housing in the boot/trunk only to find that it was further fixed with a couple of screws. Frustrated and thinking I needed to go back in to fetch a screwdriver, I gave the housing a quick hit. At which point the back light unit shot out. (Kind of like that "Only Fools and Horses" episode when they take the chandelier down to clean it, but on a much smaller scale).

Whether it's just this car or a US thing, it seems that rather than having a simple flap to open to change a bulb, you have to unscrew the back light unit held in with three wing nuts and take the unit out to replace the bulb. Still, I think there was only half the street watching me make a complete hash of doing something so simple as changing a light bulb!

.... such that I am forced to go to a two year old's birthday party? I suppose it has to happen, kind of every year really. Well, not a two year old's birthday as next year it'll be a three year old's birthday party, but each year I'm guessing that we're going to have a party. At least I've got 12 months to prepare for the next one. It really does seem kind of strange that parents would want to hold such an event - between the kids screeming, grabbing toys and shouting “mine” then pushing the other kids away, running away so the parents had to chase them, streaming snot down the front of their faces and pooping themselves it was .... actually there wasn't anything else, that was it.

I'm sure most people who have a kid will say it's great and convince themselves they had a good time. Sadly I missed the denial injections when William was born and am stuck with reality. Which is why I grabbed a couple of mates and headed off out to the pub.

There are some photos of the birthday party if you are interested, but I will say now that they are not the best pictures I've ever taken. There are some better photos of William playing with his toys that I took today. If you're really up for it, however, there are some videos of William at his birthday and opening his presents. I'm quite pleased with the video of the birthday as I think it highlights the screeming and running away, albeit the running away is me to the pub.

First, congratulations to South Africa. Second, contratulations to Kimi Räikkönen. Third, wooden spoons to all of Her Majesty's loyal subjects.

Lets start with the rugby. I have to be honest and say that I really didn't think we were going to get to the final, particularly after the thrashing that South Africa gave us in the group game. We should take credit for the significant improvement we showed and for the wins over Australia and France. South Africa have played consistently well throughout the competition and are worthy champions. Yes, we can keep looking back and saying “what if” the try had been given. It would have made it a different game. Well, it wasn't given and we have to live with it, so lets congratulate South Africa and give ourselves a little pat on the back for at least making the final.



Next it's the Formula 1 Grand Prix. All the jokes I've had over the week on the New Zealand rugby team choking that I haven't had time to publish, I can just change the name and substitute in Lewis Hamilton. Again, it's his rookie year so he should take some credit for having got into a position to win the championship, but we have to worry as he had two bites at the cherry and failed. Lewis obviously has considerable talent and I just hope these last two races don't impact his career. Most drivers start in the lower teams and work their way up after they've gained some experience in order that they don't make the rookie mistakes Lewis made. So, he needs to put it behind him and move on. One person that doesn't let emotion get in the way is Kimi “Ice Man” Räikkönen. I'm really happy that he's won the championship. Kimi is a great driver and has struggled with some of the worst luck I've seen. Well, all the stars seemed to align for him today as he picked up the win (courtesy of Felipe Massa) and the championship.

First, a massive congratulations to England for battling away to earn a place in the final of the Webb Ellis Trophy (a.k.a. Rugby World Cup). This was a fantastic achievement for a team that's not really played that well for quite a while, including a crushing defeat by South Africa in the group stages of this competition.

Trying to watch rugby in the US is like trying to find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The only option you have is pay per view. Fortunately I was in Africa and the UK for the group games so I got to watch those fine, but find myself shelling out $25 for each of the remaining games (the England ones anyway - I'm not paying to see the others).

After the match, I was obviously ecstatic and was really looking forward to the post match interviews, but I didn't make it that far. I have no idea where the feed was coming from or who selected the commentators, but we ended up with a Paddy and an Aussie. The after match analysis consisted of two whining idiots that seemed to be very bitter. The Irish guy kept going on about the fact that Ireland have beaten England over the last four years so if we will the World Cup we should give it to Ireland. The Aussie said that England had cheated through the whole tournament to get where they were. After about 10 minutes of this mindless conversation (seemingly independent conversation) one of them said something about the fact that they should say something positive about England as they'd won and the other said no, they couldn't think of anything.

Now, I freely admit it wasn't the most interesting game I've ever watched. It's the semi final of the World Cup between two rival nations - it's not going to be a spectacular event, it's going to be a hard fought battle. I also admit that England did well to hold the French off and slow the game down sufficiently so that we could win further taking the sparkle and creativity out of the game. But, we went in with a plan, executed it perfectly and won the game - against the host nation. There were a lot of things you could have commented on that England did right to win the game.

After the comment about not being able to think about anything positive to say I turned the TV off as I was in too good a mood to listen to a couple of miserable whining gits. It seems odd that you would want to work in commentary if it's going to upset you that much.

Still, we're in the final. It's going to be an incredibly difficult game as we have to play South Africa again. On current form, you have to fancy South Africa, but lets hope we learnt something from that defeat earlier on and maybe, just maybe we can spring a big surprise.

Well, it's been a few days now since “the event”. Everything seems to be back to normal now so I think I can safely write this article and maybe it will help some of you out there. As with most of you, I've read all the articles on disaster recovery and the need to have an adequate plan, but do you ever really think it's going to happen to you? I certainly didn't. But at least I had a plan (well sort of).

So, as most of you know, I've been traveling and that’s where this story starts. I returned to the US on October 29th all well and good. Actually, better than all well and good as Karen and William were spending another 10 days in the UK which meant I had some peace and quiet and could spend some quality time with my cats. Karen had done her best to prepare for my being alone and had gotten in enough microwave meals to last me until she returned and all of that good stuff. Except for one thing. An underestimation of the increased beer intake that comes with being alone.

In hindsight it’s obvious that this would have been an oversight and I should have known that Karen would not have a true appreciation for the beer intake before she came along, so I totally accept full responsibility for this.

As you can see, that’s bad, but would you really call it a disaster – probably not yet. Now lets add in that it’s Friday night when you open the last beer in the fridge, realize that there are no more and the shops are shut. Yes, it’s panic time. Then ….. it dawns on you that the rugby is on at 6:00 the following morning and you’re not going to have any beers to drink during the match. You really are left with no choice but to declare a disaster.

I’m sure I’m going to get asked, looking back, what went through my mind? What was I actually thinking at the point I realized there would be no beer in the house when the match was on. To be honest, I’ve heard the saying “it was enough to make a grown man cry” and I have to say I was pretty close to being reduced to tears. It was like my whole life’s drinking flashed before my eyes – which, lets face it didn’t take very long as typically you don’t remember much from the nights you’ve been drinking, so thankfully that didn’t get in the way of rational thought. Then the training kicked in. I just thought to myself “you’ve planned for this. You hoped it would never happen, but now it has you need to deal with it.”

I had heard that the stuff in those tall bottles contained something that could be drunk as a substitute for beer, but had never tried it. Now was the time. Weirdest thing though, the bottle was bloody difficult to get into as someone had stuck a cork thing in the neck. I tried poking it out with a knife, but that was just taking too long and didn’t seem to be getting me anywhere. I thought about just breaking the top off the bottle but was worried about the mess. In the end I just pushed the cork type thing into the bottle. It worked – out came something red.

Well, it wasn’t pretty and I’m not sure I want to do it again, but a couple of pints of something called something like “Cabinet Servinyon” and then some white stuff called something like “Servinyon Blonk” managed to get me through the match until the pub opened later on.

I feel luck to have survived this disaster and can only hope if doesn’t happen to you. But you need to ask yourself “are you prepared?”

... oh it goes on and on and on ....
... and it goes on .. and on .. and on ..

it's Heaven and Hell

They'll tell you black when it's really red
I think you should have stayed in bed
'Cus the words you're singing to this song
Are being made up as you go along

It's Heaven and Hell
Fool, fool!

Well, the trip to Concord to see Heaven & Hell (Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio), Alice Cooper and Queensryche unfortunately wasn't the best. I picked Mike up as I wasn't going to be drinking and headed off to pick up Curt, but unfortunately was unaware that it was the Folsom Street Parade.

The Folsom Street Parade is one of the gay, lesbian, transexual etc. etc. dealies that goes on. Basically where blokes walk round wearing very little leather - the “assless chaps” being one of the favored items of clothing. Now, to sidetrack for a second, this to me is not really playing hard to get is it. You're kind of putting it out there on display. Now if only I could get straight women to do the same for straight men ..... Not going to happen is it?

So, back to the story, I'm sat in traffic as they block the roads off for this event with the choice of either staring at the back of the car in front or the back of some bloke showing his arse. Well, I'm now very familiar with what the Chevy Impala looks like from behind.

Finally, we get to the event in time to see the last song that Queensryche played. Which happened to be the only bank Mike was going for. I couldn't say anything, but this happened the last time he went to a gig in San Jose when he got there late and missed the first band (in that case Whitesnake).

Next was Alice Cooper and I have to say totally fantastic. Thankfully this was the one I was really interested in seeing - I've seen Sabbath and Dio many times before. Cooper put on a fantastic show including a medley that started with Welcome to My Nightmare where these strange creatures came on (one of which was a woman), then went into Only Women Bleed where Cooper had a mock fight to beat up the woman, turning into Dead Babies as the woman came back on with a pram from which Cooper pulled out a baby and drove a stake through its heart before being grabbed, put into a straight jacket and then hanged to go off with the band singing I Love the Dead. I'm sure I'm missing another song in there somewhere, but you get the idea. A fantastic rendition of Halo of Flies and Schools Out, finishing with Elected. And don't you just love the bit in the middle:

San Francisco's got problems
Hell, California's got problems
And you know what?
I don't care!

Sadly the night didn't end there. Heaven and Hell came on. To give credit, Tony Iomi, Geezer Butler and Vinnie Vincent were great. Dio really wasn't on top of his game though. Some of the first songs were alright - I got into Children of the Sea, but it seemed to be a really short set of about 45 minutes into which they put about 20 minutes worth of solos in Heaven and Hell. And when Dio came back after the solos he seemed to be singing different lyrics to those which I know. I had the same problem with quite a few songs. I thought it was me at first as I hadn't heard some of the songs for a long time, but it wasn't. Several people said the same thing.

Anyway, it was still worth it - if not just to see Alice.