as an australian, can you still support vale rossi, while casey stoner is racing?
i can’t link to any videos and show you any footage (or even interviews) of the laguna seca round because dorna is so tight with the licensing… but anyway… after the race, casey voiced some concerns about rossi’s lines; apparently he was coasting mid to late corner and pushing casey wide intentionally, and then there’s that pass on the corkscrew, crazy, but again, i can’t link to it… and the way rossi behaved post-race… not cool.
so now, to me, the rossi camp has lost a bit of sheen, i guess he never was a gentleman, but none of them are, are they?
then again, casey had a pretty wild temper when he was in 250’s, racing against dani pedrosa… he has to beat rossi on the track, he’s certainly quick enough, just stay rubber side down for the most part.
weird, i used to be neutral about it, not any more.
last night, after watching sports tonight on channel 10, as soon as i saw it was the judge judy ep of the simpsons, i switched over to watch some “news” on channel nine… which was fine, death and destruction, followed up with heart warming story, then 10 minutes of AFL **groan**, then half a mention that went like this:
“…and in racing news, current world motogp champion, australian casey stoner finished 3rd behind dani pedrosa and five time world champion valentino rossi…”
i said out loud, talking to the tv:
“FAIL, they qualified edwards, rossi, stoner, lorenzo, can’t these commercial news channels get ANYTHING that isn’t AFL right? damn!” …the voice in my head, then reminded me the race was in shanghai and their time zone isn’t too dissimilar from ours… and then the penny dropped.
i am the idiot, and they just spoiled the race.
terrific.
being the glutten for punishment i am (or diehard fan? whatever), i watched the race this morning anyway, once edwards outbraked himself it was actually pretty boring, credit to lorenzo for riding with a broken ankle and still finishing in the top five! freak.
the 2008 motogp season got under way last night, first race since the fifties to be run at night! i can’t help but think the only reason they did it was to slot the race into the “correct” time period for TV audiences in the US… oh well… it was lit up like day for the most part anyway, still, it can’t be a very “green” approach can it?
the racing itself was excellent, seems to be a very competitive field this year, former superbike world champion james toseland looks confident, casey and the duc look absolutely formidable… the commentators were saying dorna might be looking at limiting the ducati somehow, and i think that’s utter crap, motogp is about building and racing the fastest bike you possibly can, they are purpose built. if ducati’s bike is faster than everyone elses, then suck it up and go back to the drawing board - no one ever changed the rules when mick doohan was winning… maybe mr.honda is more is equal than others? that said, casey has always been at the pointy end of the pack, no matter what hardware has been underneath him…
i can see why the ducati has an advatage in the world superbikes, because those bikes are based on production models and the ducati is a 1200cc (named 1098 strangely), and the rest of the bikes are 1000cc… so yeah, room to change a few things there…
interestingly the commentators also said, “pedrosa said hayden doesn’t know how to setup a bike, that’s why he’s riding last years model”
yikes, that’s a bit harsh… i wonder how that garage is getting along now?
…ended up falling asleep on the couch on sunday (do you blame me?), not only was i worn out but lost404 was a “kate” episode, BORING… i wish they would just explain how the “oceanic 6″ got off the island and get back to telling the main story line; the present. i’m sick of seeing what is essentially the past, being eeked out, damn.
if i ever want answers i’m addicted to the wrong tv show, huh.
oh yeah, newcastle had another 5 goals put past them on the weekend, terrific. form from the last 5 matches?
2 goals for,
16 goals against,
granted our last 5 opponents were:
arsenal (cup),
arsenal,
‘brough,
‘villa,
man u.
but c’mon! 1 premier league point from a possible 12… it’s not looking good at all. i wish big sam was still around. there, i said it.
good to see another season of bike racing has started again, i haven’t finished watching race 1 yet, so don’t stress about the spoilers… hmm, that said i did see nori have a massive slide and high side after giving max biaggi the finger, classic stuff! (i’ll try to find a youtube vid of it).
in case you hadn’t noticed we’ve been up to brisbane for christmas; catching up on writing is always hard, i never know where to start, or what to catch you up on…
anyway, our families and friends are all well and it was great to catch up and celebrate christmas with them… the holidays in a nutshell; food, excellent and an over-abundance there-of… weather, strangely cool and wet most days…
interestingly, a couple of us went to a motorcycle museum out past ipswich on christmas eve, the owner had many interesting stories to tell and i was blown away to discover he had a 500v-due, sb8r, and mh900 to name just a few of the rarities sitting in a fairly nondescript shed in a fairly nondescript location…
finally, FYI, there are a bunch of photos from christmas here, and i have to say, it’s good to be back home in melbourne, and “writing” again… it sucks having things pop in and out of your head, and thinking; “i must remember to blog about that when i get back…”
hey, so i had a brainwave the otherday, instead of trying to find plug-ins for every web2.0 app i use, why not just use a rss reader for wordpress? so now you’ll notice my del.icio.us and digg feeds are on the right side, neat and easy, sah-weet…
i also would like to change the twitter digests to be weekly rather than daily, they’re a bit too often for my liking atm… we’ll see
alright, otherwise things are going well, mum and dad are down from brisbane for a visit to see our little boy and help out where ever…
umm, sport… rugby, kind of disappointing for england to have lost, but i only wanted them to win to rub australias noses in it but having eddie jones involved in the south african setup is enough i guess…
the australian motogp was good, although free to air tv annoys me yet again… the other ducati was running 5th, they took an ad break and loris is now in 2nd? the coverage proceeded as if nothing had happened… talk about infruiating, damn
to follow-up from earlier, kim’s birthday dinner was good, i think i’d prefer a regular knife as opposed to a serrated knife to eat steak with, my steak was excellent, but the knife just tore it apart instead of slicing… i know there are places that are so confident, they give you a bread and butter knife (or just don’t change it over for a “steak” knife) when you order steak… maybe i’m used to that… oh and, kim was very happy and lots of fun was had…
the rugby result on saturday wasn’t ideal, the all blacks made a couple of crucial handling mistakes that lost it for them, it was actually quite funny, once the clock ran down and the siren went, all the aussies jumped up and cheered, but seeing as the kiwi’s were within 7 points, all the NZ supporters stayed sitting and quietly watched the game (albeit on the edge of their seats)… but no, the magical try didn’t come and the once vocal all blacks fans, including me, were silenced…
also in days just gone, i managed to watch the assen motogp, such an amazing circuit, esp. after watching the misano supers where there is really only one place to pass (safely), assen has unusual cambers and looks as though it rides like a collection of back roads instead of a scientifically designed laboratorial rat race, very refreshing and oft sorts the men from boys…
yes, i know i’m a little late, but after getting very sick of continually searching through digg for “that thing i saw last year”, i FINALLY decided to start using del.icio.us
…and now in the meta section of the sidebar you can now see what i’m using it for, or add this page to your delicious profile, enjoy!
i’ve been falling behind a bit and catching up with this crazy thing always seems so daunting… so i’ll try to wrap the last couple of days as quickly as possible…
umm…
the socceroos lost to uraguay, 2-1, goalkeeper error, very tough to swallow, what was weird was SBS didn’t even broadcast the match? instead they showed some iron chef i’ve never even seen, lose to a challenger where “eggs” were the theme ingredient? i can only guess there was some sort of licencing restriction with that international friendly… and i can only hope the same doesn’t happen at the upcoming asian cup! damn.
italian motogp, mugello, always a great race with so many italians in the lineup and the fans are die hard… good result, although i think barros should’ve let casey in for 3rd… it could even be a career limiting move on his part, but that’s probably just my biased support for casey coming through…
last weekend we finally finished watching series 3 of lost and 1 of heroes, the lost finale, i thought, was excellent and even surprising! i’m not going to give away anything, and yes, i realize saying the lost finale was surprising is like saying eggs are a good saturday morning breakfast, but anyway… speaking of, kinda, we have discovered a new favorite restaurant, it’s on st.kilda road called “barbarinos & wong“… it’s so good, the honey chicken, the sweet & sour pork, they even sell ribs and steak… i have a feeling we’ll work our way through their menu in the near future…
after spending far too many saturdays driving around melbourne, we’ve finally found a bigger place to move into, great, now all we have to do is pack everything up, move it, then unpack it all… can’t wait…
nah, it’s not that bad, and a few friends have offered to help us out, which is great… serious offers or not, people hate moving, i know i do, and in my book, even offering to help shows genuine friendship… thanks!
…and finally, to all those who are curious, yes, kim has developed quite a tummy, she had another check up and everything is going really well… the little guy is kicking and moving often now, oh and congrats to cass and adrian as well on the arrival of “dean michael”… excellent news!
champions league final tomorrow morning 4.15, be there… or don’t, whatever…
either way, i think/hope liverpool wins 2-1… i think harry kewell will play, and play well, he might even set up or score a goal. and no matter the result, i believe this time tomorrow i will still be incensed about the way milan tried to con the ref… if only i could put money on that somehow… i can’t wait to see stevie g own the midfield tomorrow…
i managed to see the monza round of the world superbikes, damn i love that circuit, it’s a classic you know? relatively untouched by the safety or politically correct police… just like assen, brands and hokenheim (before the redesign)… amazing the way the tyres warp from prolonged high speed like that… i hope nori wins it, especially after that highly debateable points deduction a couple of years back, if he can keep up the consistency, he should be able to…
the french motogp was also good to see, aussies 1st and 3rd, plenty of close racing… i can only imagine how frustrated nicky is these days…
there was an international motor-sport event in melbourne, and i had completely forgotten it was coming up until sunday morning… the world superbike series visited philip island, but there was no press before hand and very very little during, i wonder if there would’ve been any at all if troy bayliss didn’t win the first race? it’s not that i don’t like afl, it’s just that it gets so much attention in the news, other sports tend to miss out, and the actual afl season hasn’t even started yet!
hmm, here in melbourne, the other sport that seems to be getting a lot of attention is the swimming… i know we’re hosting the FINA somethings, but if you think about, swimming can only try to be as exciting as motorbike racing; people would say “they just go round and round, isn’t that boring?”…
uhh, motorcycle racing is dangerous, exciting, the racing is closer and, i believe, it demands more from a competitor… although i do concede this is an argument one can never win, as it is subjective… but this won’t stop me from thinking that swimming only gets the coverage it does because australians are fairly good at it, bearing in mind troy bayliss won the world championship last season, hmm…
i also watched the liverpool vs man u match on sunday afternoon (making sure not to look at the internet beforehand), i’m sure acres of space have been dedicated to stevie g and the liverpool formation, so i’ll try to keep it short. he just looked bored on the right, and was only ever influential when he came inside, sissoko shouldn’t have started, pennant should’ve been on from the outset… bellamy made vidic look silly on a number of occasions, kuyt didn’t stop running for the full 90, but even though liverpool dominated, they couldn’t convert their chances, and o’shea put away a skippy free kick…
darryl beattie had just finished saying that he thought rossi might be running harder tyres and doesn’t look quite comfortable yet…
who’da thunk daz could pull such a pearl of wisdom…
what an excellent outcome for the championship overall tho, nicky was humble in victory (some would say almost to the point of being un-american), and rossi was supremely gracious in defeat, what a true champ, fighting to finsih in the points but still unable to do quite enough…
