The strange things people say

[peterbirks]

1) John Terry, on being awarded the European Player Of The Year Award: "I couldn't have done it without my team mates". Well, yes, I imagine that if he'd turned up for the matches on his own, it would have been a bit difficult. Then again, if Chelsea had still won the League, he would have been even more of a push-in. Strange choice, though. One would have imagined them going for a Lampard rather than a Terry.

2) McAfee and my IT Department, on being informed that the auto-update of the Scanning Engine and the auto-update of viruses fails on my new machine.

"It's normal for it to fail. Try it again and it should work".

I'm sorry. What? It's normal for it to fail ?? Apparently this minor irritant is so minor in McAfee's book that they didn't even consider it worth fixing. Is there any other industry full of people so clueless when it comes to learning how to serve customers? (Well, I'm sure there are many such industries. Perhaps we should have a top 10 of idiotic statements like this. NTL would be up there.)

Oh, and I did try to install it again. It still failed. I tried later, in case McAfee's servers were busy. No luck. So, still no computer link-up to the office from home, because it can't install the newer scanning engine, which means it can't update the virus-protection software, which means the Secure Client network spots that my virus protection is not up to date, so it won't connect me to the office. This strikes me as a slight case of sledgehammers and nuts. One would have thought that there would be an "overrule" button. But, no. So paranoid are companies about the vague chance that someone will try to destroy the entire newtork at a moment's notice, that if you haven't got the latest up-to-the-minute spot-on anti-virus software, well, your machine won't turn on, and that is that.

A bad weekend on the poker front, dropping $200 without including the live trip. More irritatingly, 3.5 hours of double-tabling yesterday afternoon (one $3-$6, one $2-$4) only knocked $33 off the bonus dollars, whereas I had been anticipating something like $60. So, a losing session on tight tables without much rake. Not clever. Maybe I should focus on pot-limit omaha, a game where I know that I can win :-)

The Party Poker April Bonus only stays live until Wednesday, and I had been hoping to clear the Ultimate bonus by then, but it seems like an impossibility now. And with the weekend reducing the week's profit from $220 to $20, it's been a struggle all month. I'd like to be able to write the Ultimate bonus "to book" before April 30, at least.

Comments

[slowjoe.livejournal.com]

I can justify to myself that Terry won because he has to do a tougher job. Each week, he gets isolated against an attacker, and has to win the duel. And HAS won the duel.

Lampard has benefited from playing in the best side in the country, as the attacking central midfielder.

Unfortunately, that's the exact opposite of the argument Mr. Terry put forward himself, reinforcing your first point.

Regarding your second point, there is a significant subset of techies who are adopting linux (a rather user-hostile environment) because of the kind of insane "normality" you point out. It sometimes seems like you get a choice between logic-friendly and idiot-friendly.

I do not view this as a good thing.

[andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com]

Strange choice maybe, but no surprise to those of us who checked Betfair out last week and say Terry at 1.01 and Lampard at 5.3 ...

Andy.

Chelsea - Good or Bad Thing?

[(Anonymous)]

So where do you stand on the whole Chelsea/Abramovich thing? Is it so abhorrent to have someone come in and buy the title for you? From the standpoint of Man City, a club roughly on a par with Chelsea, I know it would give me a great deal of pleasure for such a thing to happen to my club, but also a sprinkling of guilt.

Buying a title has been done by Blackburn and I'd guess Dalglish's Liverpool. What seems to distinguish Chelsea's achievement is (a) the fact that the football they play is so damned pretty at times, in contrast to Blackburn who won ugly an awful lot of the time and (b) Morinho who is such a delight in all things. Talking about the game last night between Arsenal and Spurs, he spoke about how conflicted he was by wanting his own players to 'win' the title and the fact that he liked Spurs so much. That honest (and relatively deep by footy standards) speaking is just great.

I don't think the rest of football resents Chelsea as they did Blackburn for those reasons, although of course anyone who sticks it up United is going to win our vote.

And of course we can point up the fact that we're the only team in the Premiership to beat you.

Geoff C

Re: Chelsea - Good or Bad Thing?

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

This point has been raised at work more than once, confronting Chelsea fans somewhat more vocal than me. I am also reminded of the Liverpool banner at the Chelsea match: "Respect has to be earned, not bought", to which the obvious response is, "what makes you think we want your respect?" We want the title. And we don't really care what a bunch of non-fans think.

On a more serious note. Obviously it would be nicer to win the title with a bunch of home-grown, home-trained, English players. But, as they say in Poker, you have to go with what you are dealt. And the attitude that Chelsea have just "bought" the title also reminds me of the typical condemnation of popular papers like The Sun, as if being popular is easy.

All the money in the world won't work without the right motivation and the will.

Pete