Archive for the ‘bike racing’ Category
Thursday, October 19th, 2006
the current motogp situation is quite unique; the championship will be decided at the last race of the season, apparently something that hasn’t happened in 13 years and even then wayne rainey who was leading had his career ending crash two rounds earlier… the year before that (1992) doohan and rainey battled till the end, and rainey ended up winning; the only time in the premier class’ history the rider arriving at the final round, behind on points, has ended up winning the title…
that brings us back to present day, nicky hayden arrived at portugals estoril circuit ahead, 13 points by memory, but having his team mate run into the back of him mid-race has pushed him 8 points down on new series leader; rossi.
as always, i’m torn as to who i’m actually supporting… i think nicky, he’s has improved remarkably this season, and him winning will prove rossi has a worthy adversary in this generation, rather than just statistics as has been the case for at least the last season, if not more! (sorry, sete!)…
the first video is the incident that could’ve been avoided had honda taken danny aside and said: “don’t do anything stupid when riding near nicky, and let him pass you if necessary”…
the second video is nickys reaction, i have to say, i would’ve been far less professional in his situation… that must’ve been so hard for him hey…
needless to say the final round should be an absolute cracker!!
Posted in bike racing, generica, youtube | Comments Off
Tuesday, October 10th, 2006
hey, nothing exciting to report really, weekend was good, i didn’t do much, just came to the realisation that i need to get motivated… i need to do my tax, and other fun stuff like that… exciting huh…
kim and i had a chat about buying a place down here and things, and i got official permission to buy another motorbike… but kimmy wants to ride too, which is fair enough really, it’s just i realised i’d be worried about her coming off…
then **click**(that was my brain btw), she has felt/feels/will feel the same about me… hmm… i must be getting old, i am no longer 100% convinced we’re bulletproof… (sitting in a chair for four weeks while your shoulder heals from a reconstruction will probably have something to do with that too huh).
back to the exciting stuff… which bike to buy? let alone which house?
i currently have no idea, but will keep you posted…
Posted in bike racing, generica, melbourne | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, September 20th, 2006
motorbikes not swiss cake rolls, i tell you, going to the motogp has made me really want to buy a bike again hey, damn… the trip to philip island was excellent as you could probably imagine, our seats in the stands on turn 6 (siberia) were great, and included a clear view of one of the super screens…
the bikes were so loud it’s difficult to explain, there was a joke going around, “they’re so loud it’s like someone grabbing you by the shirt, shaking you around & yelling in your face”, if you can imagine that, you’re almost there… without earplugs in, the noise from the motogp bikes made me kinda dizzy, it’s that loud seriously, awesome huh!
the racing itself? top shelf, i saw casey stoner have a big slide but catch it in final qualifying, seeing it in real life really emphasizes just how quick these guys are hey… truly freaks! the main race was interrupted by a shower but that only added to the drama with the whole bike change-over rules now, it was great to see chris come 2nd, esp. considering his pole at laguna seca… rossi passed sete on the final corner in style and marco melandri? well, motorcycle control personified!
i can’t wait to get my hands on the footage my brother filmed from our seats, should be very cool…
Posted in bike racing, generica, melbourne | Comments Off
Monday, September 18th, 2006
hey everyone, just a quick note to say i survived the philip island motogp, it was excellent to say the least, I’ll write a proper post later on, but in the mean time i’ve posted a bunch of photo’s in the gallery…
Posted in bike racing, generica, melbourne | 1 Comment »
Monday, September 11th, 2006
i just finished watching the sepang motogp, and wow, that was unbelievable, i know i probably say that everytime but i can’t help it with the philip island race so close…
first amazing replay; dani pedrosa catches his right knee on the bumpy sepang ripple strip in a practice session… it’s at about the 30 second mark….
next is quite a long one, but equally amazing, in last nights race rossi’s bike was obviously not nearly as quick as capirossi’s… but he fought well and kept pace in the tight technical sections of the track… coming into the final corner he knew he had to block loris, and slid the bike in sideways to be as wide as possible, but also to be as slow as possible and put capirossi off line… at about the 3 minute mark….
Posted in bike racing, generica, youtube | Comments Off
Sunday, July 30th, 2006
hey, what a weekend, feels like i’ve been going non-stop… a friend of kimmy’s is staying with us for a couple of weeks while she holidays down here, today we did a walking tour of fitzroy gardens and the queen victoria markets, my legs are killing… it was nice though, i got a couple of decent photos and it feels good to be out and about… getting some fresh air and what-not…
our day didn’t really start until 11am though, because of a poker night i had last night and the girls went out… the poker night was really good, i had some guys from work around, we ended up playing “last man standing” and i came out on top, i would’ve been quite happy to just stop the game at a certain time but they wouldn’t have it… hopefully it can be an occasional thing…
also on saturday i had a kebab on the corner of mavern rd & chapel st’s “lambs on spit“, words cannot describe how good it was (only they call them souvlaki down here)… actual roast lamb, this crazy garlic yoghurt dressing and the lightly toasted pita… wow!
this week, i’ll be buying the tickets to the motogp, can’t wait!
a shame about the newcastle united result from last night, although 3-2 to PSV isn’t that bad, the positives are that ameobi scored from a milner cross, luque scored (from the spot), duff got some time on the pitch, and if they can keep scoring goals maybe we’ll be ok this season? it’s also good to see jason culina scoring (albeit for PSV), but he’s a socceroo and you’ve gotta support him…
ok, that’s all i’ve got for the moment, talk to you laterz.
Posted in bike racing, food and drink, football, generica, melbourne | 1 Comment »
Monday, July 24th, 2006
(i’m praying for you dave!)
what a great weekend, we got to sleep in, sort out some paperwork, create some space in our spare room for guests, just generally catch up on things…
good news, newcastle won in norway 3-nil, and we’ve secured the services of damian duff!! how awesome is that! bad news, i missed watching the laguna seca motogp…
kim and i went to the city on sunday, bought an air matress and pump, i also bought a beanie, sometimes it feels like i’m getting an ice-cream headache just from walking around in the wind.
we were going to go to the jose gonzalez concert on saturday night, but decided we’d probably fall asleep in the middle… no disrespect to jose, we were just pretty tired… i know pretty much everyone in our group fell asleep when we went to see ottmar liebert… it’s sort of induced, hmm
on sunday while in the city, we went inside “melbourne central” (i think), and the shopping centre has been built around the old clock tower, how weird is that!
i’m gonna put some new links up so check ‘em out…
oh hey, before i go, i’m getting pretty annoyed with google ads now, especially in blogs, i think they de-value the whole thing… sometimes i get the impression people are just writing posts to get hits, and in turn get paid
(refer to my pay-4-play rant)…
i guess this stems from two things, i read an interesting article on cnet the other week about how decent blogs are good for professional journalists (ie: on a wage), in that blogs force them to lift their game… and i was also sent a link about a “professional blogger” earning more than US$100k just for blogging… how can the actual content be that interesting? weird…
reminds me of that millionaire twenty-something y.o. guy who won gold at the winter olympics, his own country disowned him because he was a renown spammer, but australia gladly accepted him regardless…
it’s funny isn’t it?
the whole concept of digg and technorati, what do i care about what other people are blogging about or “digging”?
i’m not sure really, but it doesn’t stop me from having a couple of technorati feeds on my Googel-IG site, each searching on separate things… like “newcastle united” for instance… like i said before, more direct web surfing, with no actual “surfing” required… speaking of, why hasn’t dr.mcninja got RSS going yet?
damn.
Posted in bike racing, football, generica, melbourne, tech | 1 Comment »
Monday, July 17th, 2006
so the world cup is over huh? but still the french, italians and fifa are debating about what happened, and what should now be happening… i’m quite happy just to let it go now, i’ve heard france want to replay the final? and because of the match fixing in italy, some people are saying the title should be stripped? yikes…
i guess, at the end of the day, nobody is really singing the italians praises for winning (except them of course)… they just won it, simple and effective… just like greece in 2004…
in other sports news i guess, i watched the german motogp this morning, rossi won it starting from tenth on the grid, what a freak! although he had to fight all the way, he is the difference, it seems he could win on almost any machine…
Posted in bike racing, football, generica | Comments Off
Monday, June 5th, 2006
hey, what’s doin? i’m ok, the same exchange server at a client site broke again today so that sucks a bit, but i’m sure we’ll get it sorted, as the title says, i’m new at this whole melbourne thing but, a couple of things have occurred to me over the past couple of weeks…
in my experience, a lot more people smoke here than in brisbane (maybe it’s the temperature?), and many people spit in the street here… weird huh, spitting? what’s up with that? maybe it’s because of the smoking? i don’t know…
today was exceptionally cold, fog all day! unbelievable… apparently it didn’t get above ten degrees C. awesome huh! i love the cold! seriously (and that seems kinda weird now that i’m actually writing it).
hmm, the weekend wrap, seems to be a bit of a tradition now… friday night i worked, woohoo! although it was kinda interesting to walk through melbourne on friday night, all the cool kids were out, i never feel like i’m dressed quite right? …
saturday we went to a local cafe for brekky, the waiter was still training and kimmys order was stuffed up, great, cold toast and avocado! don’t get me started! yeh…
saturday arv, kimmy’s uncle and auntie + kids from brisbane visited, they were down for a wedding, kimmy even made scones for afternoon tea! sah-weet! it was good to catch up, we’ve only been gone for four weeks, but it seems like a while, and nothing changes so yeah, great!
saturday night we got thai from a place on chapel st. it was awesome, red curry chicken, ohh yeah… i’m easily pleased… we also arranged to meet a guy from my work and his wife for “brunch” (i feel pretentious using that word) on sunday, which was excellent, it was great just to sit around and chat, before i knew it we’d been there for two and a half hours!
sunday night i watched the socceroos take on holland, and taped the italian motogp… the australian team was very wasteful in possession, i’m not sure brett emerton should play right back ever again… vince grella was very tough in challenges… the dutch may complain that maybe the australians approach to the match wasn’t right, a week away from the world cup and all, but you try to tell an australian to play a sport half-heartedly… good luck! the one-one draw was flattering for us, mark schwarzer played out of his skin and probably secured his place as our number one keeper in the process!
the italian motogp, unbelievable, the best race in recent memory, seriously, if only casey could’ve hung on… rossi is a freak, the ducati’s always looked unstable at speed, nicky hayden still frustrated at podiums but no wins… this season should go down to the wire! stupid dorna, forcing a capacity change to 800cc when the playing field finally levelled out!
later, i want to talk about the drumming in bloc party’s silent alarm, and the lyrics on the artics monkeys album, so study up before i talk to you again huh? ok.
also, why haven’t brand new released an album recently? what’s up with that, dammit…
hmm… i might create a seperate category for music rants, and maybe even football, that way people who wanted to catch up on just melbourne news could, without being bombarded by my opinions on my opinions…
Posted in bike racing, food and drink, football, generica, melbourne, music | 2 Comments »
