Couldn't Have Said it Better

The first part of this opinion piece from rugbyheaven.co.nz is exactly how I feel:

http://www.rugbyheaven.co.nz/4331053a22363.html

See: Winning back the fans – MARC HINTON

Treo Battery Life Acceptable

After following some of Brother Gordon's advice I switched email off and only used bluetooth when necessary. Now the Treo lasts two days without a charge with moderate use. Somewhat acceptable. Heavy use means you have to charge it overnight otherwise it will konk out at 3pm the next day.

Appointment of Deans a Mistake for Australia and New Zealand

Let’s take a little history tour. The 2003 All Black side was young and inexperienced but coached by a charismatic young ex-player on the way up. The All Blacks met a hugely experienced Wallaby side in the 2003 semi-final and got dicked. We lost it. We choked. We blamed the coach. After all he was drinking with the players for God’s sake! We sacked him and we instantly felt we had lanced the festering boil of failure and were on the road to recovery. We laid down a four year plan to win the next world cup. Good’o, carry on, no worries mate.

Fast forward to October 2007 and we have our new coach and, man-for-man, the best side by far in RWC 2007. This time, however, we perform even worse against lesser opposition. What does the NZ Rugby Union do this time? It re-instates "the coach that did no wrong", the coach that can’t explain the loss except to say “the French played really really well”. Go figure. Well I’ve figured and I am telling you that the reason the NZRFU re-instated Henry is that they were trying to make amends for sacking Mitchell in 2003. Nothing more, nothing less. And this decision also hit a chord with the NZ public for the same reason: atonement for past guilt.

Today Robbie Deans has been announced as the new Wallaby coach. I am in two minds about this appointment. Culturally, Deans is going to find Australia, Australians and coaching the Wallabies a steep learning curve. The Australian psyche is more confident and independent than in New Zealand. Hometown folksiness like Dean’s sending his wife around to a player’s house with scones to welcome him to the team will be met at the very minimum with raised eyebrows and sniggers to outright derision in Australia. This is a country that breeds the very best winners the world has ever known and they tell you about it quite a lot, trust me, I live with them. Humility is not their cup of tea; they feel at home with sarcasm, and, my favourite, “putting shit on people” is a national past time. Dean’s will have heaps piled on him in no time at all given what he's got to work with. He appears to have a more fragile ego than other international coaches and that doesn’t auger well when you are in the land of knockers.

Deans is far better suited to coaching the All Blacks. His loss to New Zealand will be sorely felt but I suspect not as bad as the Australians think it will be for New Zealand. The NZ Rugby Union should avoid the knee-jerk reaction of banning him from the Crusaders, because, as the Chinese general Sun-Tzu wrote, keep your friends close but keep your enemy closer. Deans is now our enemy.

My New Palm Treo 750v

I have now had my Palm Treo 750v for two weeks so I thought I would write up my experience.

My previous PDA phones have been an iMate JASJAM (Dopod) and before that an O2 Xda Mini. This new Treo is probably the best of these three overall.

First and most importantly, it’s the lightest. Unlike the O2 or the JASJAM you can actually have this phone in your shirt pocket without your shoulder drooping.

This model Treo runs Windows Mobile 6.0 which is a dream for synchronising with my Vista laptop. All that syncing stuff always worked very well on all these devices but Windows Mobile 6.0 takes that to a new level. I particularly like the way the Mobile Sync automatically detects new photos from your phone and downloads them – no more navigating with Explorer to try and find the location of the images and copying them manually.

[I gave my old phone to Alyssa and encountered a bizarre issue. I wanted to DELETE all the contacts and appointments in my old phone before I gave it to her. Do you think I could do that? No, Billy Gates decided that I am too stupid to be trusted with a delete all function so he simply removed it. I had to go through a number of steps I discovered on the tech tips pages to clear out my stuff without erasing the entire device]

The Treo is even simpler to use that the older versions. Mobile 6 is not much different but Palm has added several neat little features not in the standard version. One is that the phone is permanently in “contacts” mode when at the today page. That is, whenever you type in letters on the keyboard it starts searching the contacts for a match rather than having to first go to contacts then typing the name. Another neat feature is that when you press the green phone button it pops up a menu with all your recently called numbers ordered from most recent showing the name of the person and a submenu IF you have USED more than one number for that person.

Another cool feature is that SMS messages are arranged into “chat sessions”. You select the conversation and then it lists all previous SMS’s from that person just as you would see in MSN Messenger or similar chat applications.

Mobile 6 makes sure that you never lose a number. If you receive a call from a number that is not in your contacts it makes sure you can save the number to a new contact or an existing contact.

The keyboard is pretty finicky to begin with and I still make mistakes when typing an SMS, however I am getting better with it and I can see that with another week or so I will be able to type as quickly as I was on the JASJAM.

This device is the first PDA/phone that I’ve had that you can use one-handed - useful when you are in airports and need to make and take calls while you are lugging bags or a laptop around. I lost the stylus of two days and never had any problems operating the phone.

Best: A switch on the top of the phone to turn the sound off. This way you can switch it off in your pocket if you forget to when you enter a meeting. No more getting the stylus out and turning the volume off.

Worst: Battery life. Now this is a shocker. The battery will not last a busy day on the phone! It needs to be charged EVERY night. I am quite unhappy with the batter life to be honest. I am seriously considering purchasing a second battery for when I go on business trips. Given the likely purchaser of this type of phone is a power user/business person, then wouldn’t they have made sure the battery lasted at least a day of heavy use! I checked the net for reviews and some claim it lasts 2 days with moderate use. Perhaps mine is faulty.

Worst Gotcha: This is not a problem with the phone but a gotcha to watch out for. Windows Mobile 6 and MS Exchange 2003 allow you to configure your PDA to receive email by push technology (similar to a Blackberry). Well it works great and so I configured it on my phone and started getting emails when they were sent to my work address. Then I checked my Vodafone bill after a week: $650 in charges!!!!!!!!!!! Yikes, after getting back up off the floor I disabled the feature and got on the landline to Vodafone. They informed me that I didn’t have a “data plan” – I stifled the urge to tell them I had a “shove it up your date hole” plan. Seems that I can purchase 100MB for $20 a month which would do my mail but because I didn’t have a “data plan” I was paying premium rates. The nice operator (he says through gritted teeth) said to call back when I got my bill at month end and they may be able to reduce it. Fortunately it is a company phone…..

In summary this is a very good phone but the whole combined PDA/phone/iPod things is still a little way off.

Henry Re-appointed

So Graham Henry has been re-appointed as All Black coach. I have boycotted Rugby News generally since the dismal failure of the RWC2007 - one that is the worst ever choke in my recollection – so the comments below need to be taken in that context.

I am glad that they are not doing a Mitch like in 2003 (knee jerk reaction is to sack the coach). What I am not happy about is that they continue to say they, the coaching staff, did nothing wrong and that the strategy was right. I have not heard anyone in the coaching team say "hey man we got it wrong but we won't make the same mistake next time".

Why, knowing the draw a year in advance, did they ponce about prior to the cup with easy games? Why did they NOT understand in their guts that the Frogs would truly test them and that they would HAVE to have a plan to win the match by 1 point? It was destined to be close given previous world cups. The type of the game was spot on from previous world cups. All highly predictable. Yet we failed to have an appropriate game plan - just the pure belief that "running rugby" and "we score tries" mantra would win it. Dumb, dumb, dumb. And from what I hear there is a collective state of denial going on in NZ over this.

They DID do some things wrong, big time wrong. Admitting it means you can learn from your mistakes. Failure to admit your mistakes means you are doomed to repeat them.

The denial has gone on too long now for Henry to publicly admit his mistakes so I will be waiting to see if Henry shows signs he has learnt from his mistakes. Time will tell.

I often wonder what the fall out would have been if the Aussies had gone on to the semis.

I have not yet donned an All Black cap or jersey (but I occasionally do sneak on some great AB socks Mum gave me).

GO THE MIGHTY ALL BLACKS!

How Today's Mass Media Controls Us This Way

http://www.alterati.com/blog/?p=49

Interview with Naomi Wolf

As some of you know I am very interested in US politics and it can be argued that the US is on downward slide into martial law. This is an interesting interview with Naomi Wolf - an international best selling author. She highlights the preparations for dictatorship and martial law in the US. Whether you actually believe it will happen or not, you will be surprised with what she says. I can vouch for her statements in this interview having actually read the ACTs and presidential orders and followed the development of this over the last several years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW9PulYpjGs

Her key question is: Why implement all this if you do not intend to use it? Of course they fully intend to use it. So then the question is: What "disaster" will require them to use it?

Kiola

Mel and I went to Kiola and stayed at Parksie's beachhouse for the weekend. We were joined by Jake Snr (Mel's brother) and Claire and their friend Brooke "Hossie" Hosford. Of course it was a beautiful weekend and we took the opportunity to....wait for it......fish. Here's hossie's fish - a good sized Bream.




I caught an Australian Salmon (in NZ it is called a Kahwai). This was also a good sized one. The shot of me holding them in the kitchen was because the person with the digi cam left the beach so I had to take a shot after I had bled it. It gave a great fight including jumping out of the water twice to try and shake the hook.

We caught these fish and a couple of smaller ones at dusk on Pretty Beach (next to Kiola beach) just by slinging a line into the drink about 20 metres.

Check out the barbie with the fish. The Kahwai tasted very AVG which is no surprise as Dad always only ever used them as a bait fish for that reason but I had to learn it for myself. The Bream was excellent though.

Peita's Fish

Here's a picture of a Tailor Peita caught at Patonga that I forgot to post last week. Tailor are a great sporting fish and this little one gave a good fight!

Patonga

Mel and I took the kids to Patonga to kick off the camping season. We caught some good fish and generally had a great time even though the weather was poor until the Sunday when we had a beautiful dya of sunshine!

Confessions of an Economic Hitman

I recently was directed to look at a lengthy interview of a guy called John Perkins. This interview covers some of what he wrote in his book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman". I recommend you watch this interview as it will give you a new perspective on what some of our "trusted" agencies are up to.

Synopsis: John Perkins was hired by the NSA to work with private consultancies to work deals between resource rich third world countries and the World Bank and other lenders. The idea was to saddle them with debt and then when they inevitably couldn't pay their loans they would be asked for "favours" of whatever kind that was needed at the time (e.g., support a UN resolution, give away resources to a US company). Later he explains the deal between the US and the Saudi Arabian royals to keep oil flowing and prevent further oil shocks.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbdnNgqfs8
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29GhXsx7-Rs

Fishing

Ian and I went fishing on my boat in the hawksbury near the mouth of the river and caught a couple of Trevely before I had engine problems and we had to cut the trip short.

Tree House

Over the weekend brother Ian, with my assistance as gopher, built this treehouse for the girls.

They love it! Many thanks to Ian.

An Idea

I have another idea about the Haka.

Rather than start a game with the Haka lets END games with the Haka. And only do the Haka if we WIN. We make the Haka a celebration not a challenge. The media still gets what they want and we get to only do the Haka if we win. That adds to the status of the Haka because it is only associated with winning.

Failure

I know that my extensive and informed readership is eagerly awaiting my insightful response to the the complete disgrace of the All Black performance in the quarter finals so I will not disappoint you and shirk this responsibility.

When I was thinking about what to write I thought: I could harp on about the ineptitude of the senior players on the day; I could lament their poor decisions; I could lambaste the newbie referee and yell treasonous insults at his NZ boss Paddy O'Brien; I could laud the French for their defense. commitment and passion and reflect on the lack of all three in the All Blacks; I could speak of the horror of watching the match unfold and feeling the dejavu of 1999 and 2003, and; I could regale you with all of the jibes I have been getting from my Aussie friends and the swiftness with which the All Black choker jokes were coming through (almost as if they had the send button poised to click at the end of the game).

But I won't. Instead I will talk about what needs to change in no particular order:

1. Ditch the Haka. It makes us think we are immortal when clearly we aren't. Stirs up the other team even more viz the frogs and its getting too repetitive. This is very controversial I know but I seriously think that it has detracted from the game and our performance. I know that Adidas will be horrified and there will be an outcry from the media but tough. If it ain't benefiting the team then we don't need it.

2. Cut the budget in half for the team. This will result in less support staff meaning less namby pamby softness and more focus.

3. Change the tri-nations to every two years because we get enough practice playing SA and Australia and not enough playing the northern hemisphere

4. Tour the Northern hemisphere when they can field their #1 team - not have tours which give us a false sense of self-belief by playing second string or end of season/past peak sides.

5. Widen the tri-nations to include Argies and a pacific island team.

6. No more "trust the coach no matter what stiff upper lip crap" any longer. If we think that the coach is screwing it up then lets admit we're making a mistake and intervene.

7. No more strength and reconditioning and no more rotation. Pick a top 15 and only drop players when they are injured of die. An adjunct to this is to play less tests during the season.

8. No more one-dimensional playing. Build a team that can THINK. Last time we had a team that could change their game plan was Sean Fitzy 's in the 90's.

9. Look at the cup draw and make sure there are games that get harder through pool play and if there aren't then schedule an All Blacks A vs B game DURING THE COMPETITION to keep the guys match fit.

10. Less cotton wool treatment of the players. Yes, they will get injured, but hell that's the game; use our depth to our advantage.

11. Prepare no further out that 12 months from the next cup. Don't stress about it, don't think about it. Don't talk about it until 2010.

12. This is the most controversial: Lets forget winning the cup. As New Zealanders lets just say it doesn't matter that much. Our test record is fantastic and we win practically all the time other than at World Cups. Perhaps we need to just not place as much expectation on ourselves next time.

I seriously considered getting into AFL in the days following the debacle but that's a cop out. It is our darkest hour, I know, but I will continue to support the not-so-mighty men in black despite this.

Lets hope they adopt some of my recommendations ha ha ha ha.

France Here We Come

Well now it is off to Cardiff to waste the Frogs and redeem ourselves for the 1999 failure at Twickenham - a very very dark day in NZ rugby history. I remember the day well. My brother Ian - a dedicated MAB fan from way back - and I were sitting in my house (now long gone and all the money from it taken by my ex-wife ...but I digress) watching the semi together in the middle of the night. We were pretty happy with the effort at half time but we weren't confident. And our feeling turned out to be right when the frogs came back and beat us with a classic display of French brilliance.

What is different about that episode and this coming Saturday?

Firstly today's team is much better than 1999. Secondly we've been ambushed by the Frenchies before and we will be going into this quarter final looking no further than this game. Thirdly, this team has a few mongrels in it unlike Hart's team of "good boys" in 1999. If the Frogs start doing the niggle then Hayman, Collins and Robinson will be there to do a bit of enforcement. Fourthly, we have forwards domination. And last but not least their inspirational half Pierre Mignoni is OUT. Yipee.

I note that Bernard Laporte has been talking up his prospects and trying to influence AB game plans in the media. I love the build up cause you see all the gamesmanship. Henry is pretty good at this unlike Mitchell in 2003.

The Romania game had a lot of positives which were well covered in the press. Its is clear now that if the ABs click on the day then they can beat all teams in this final 8 - not doubt about it. I think they are mentally tough enough and have the goods.

Speaking of mentally tough enough. Witness the Welsh on the weekend. They were 53 minutes in to the game and they started to panic cause they were behind. They went for tries instead of taking points on offer from penalty kicks. That was poor choices and the panic was obvious which pushed Fiji to defend defend defend which they did and eventually the decision not to kick was a deciding factor in the game.

My picks:
Australia will defeat England (this is my hardest pick cause something inside me says that England have not played their one good game of the tournament yet and this will be it)

Argentina will defeat Scotland for sure.

NZ will cream the Frogs (this is the game that the all blacks will come together and make hardly any mistakes - or only make them in the first 20 minutes)

South Africa will beat Fiji

This is now the time when the dept will count. Unlike all the other teams the All Blacks have 30 test players all with a lot of experience. In these next two games people will get injured or front the judiciary and get suspended all of which means you need to call on your reserves.

GO THE MIGHTY ALL BLACKS.

PS: Look for the "other" haka Kaponga for the Frogs.

Yet More Rugby Opinion

I read that the Frogs are making out that a Cardiff quarter against the All Blacks would not make a dfference which I think is probably true. Initially I thought forget it and that a home game is always better especially in Stade de France. But then I recall the nightmare choke in 1999 and that it was at Twickenham.

They will have good support in Cardiff but on balance and with the Graham Henry legacy, I hope that if we meet France at Cardiff then the crowd will be 60% with the ABs.

Now to the ball issue: I believe that is real and does account for a lot of wayward kicking from Carter, Wilkenson and Pretorious on the weekend.

As for the grey jersey issue with Scotland vs. MABs: Crap...total shite. Similar jerseys do not cause you to drop balls, they cause you to pass to the wrong person or not pass cause you are confused.

The ABs have a tradition of destroying the next team they play after a poor performance. So in this respect Romania is in for a torrid time and we should expect 100+ points. In a way I think that having a weak team play the All Blacks following a poor performance (at least aspects of it were) is a good thing. The defense will be poor and the aggressiveness at the breakdown will be limited to the first 20 minutes. So this will mean the ABs will again have plenty of room to move and pass the ball. Contrast this with a stronger team in which the ABs would tighen eveything up. At least this way we might see if their handling skills/focus has improved rather than a change in game plan to keeping it tight/not passing.

I have seen the ABs play two types of games this and last season. They are capable of grinding out a ruthless no-flashy-crap game so I know Henry has that game plan available to him at anytime. Look for that game plan against France in the Quarters (or the Argies).

AB Review

Last nights’s effort had positives and negatives. Firstly the negatives. The error rate was horrendous with SippingVino Sivifarter the #1 offender when he botched at least two tries. The number of times they got the freaking ball passed into the bread basket and then dropped it was outrageous! It was like watching a bloody training session when they drop the ball and laugh and smile at each other saying under their breath “it don’t matter cause this is just training”. Um sorry, the time for training is over; the time for excuses is gone; you drop balls like that and you should be dropped from the team! Then what about the number of unforced turnovers, knock ons etc? Total shit. If they play like this against worthy opposition we will be sitting here going “oh shit what went wrong?’ in a few weeks time.

THE PROBLEM IS CLEAR: 1) LACK OF GAME TIME; 2) LACK OF CONTINUITY IN THE COMBINATIONS and; 3) LACK OF HARD ARSED OPPOSITION.

Now the scrum was just evil. The Abs destroyed the poor scots. To their credit the scots did not completely capitulate like the frogs did a few years back. But what I was concerned about was that they didn’t convert that total domination into points as readily as they should have. The lineout was satisfactory but then they didn’t have a vickerman or mattfield to deal with.

On the positives. IF and ONLY IF, they can actually catch good passes like the kids do in my local village club U16 comp, then they will destroy all comers. I have watched almost every game of this world cup and no team has the power of the ABS – the superior depth everywhere. If they can sort out the silly errors then there is daylight between this Abs side and the rest of the RWC contenders – including South Africa.

Speaking of the Yarpies, they really showed they played their best game against woeful England because the effort against Tonga was pretty slack. To be honest the Yarpies missed a few goals and the Tongans played like a side possessed – at times. The All Blacks will play like the Tongans did for 80 minutes so the Boks have to look hard at what happened in that game. Mel and I both thought this game was the best of the cup so far for excitement and contest (rather than quality).

But back to the positives from last night. The commitment at the breakdown was starting to look like old times. I enjoyed watching the ball get turned over seemingly at will and the second half domination of possession. The repeated setting of the scrum was just withering for the scots. No front row can take that for long and when they get back up to run around the park they are stuffed. Man of the match goes to the front row. The rest of the Abs need to put glue on their fingers and start training.

I also watched the Wallybees play Fiji. Not a bad game but nothing really to write home about. The Fijians were tighter than I expected but the Aussies were just too good around the park. It didn’t tell me much about how the Wallybees are tracking but a few individual efforts: Rocky Elsom and Wycliff Palu stand out. Oh, and who’s Berreck Barnes this week? Where was he? Another example of over‑hyping killing a young talent.

The Importance of Good Teeth

I have always been one of those people that looks at other people's teeth when I meet them. Sort of like how some women look at shoes to judge a person (rightly or wrongly) I look at teeth.

Straight teeth indicate your family had enough money to make sure you had straight teeth when you were a child ; an indicator of better upbringing (whether true or not that's what people generally think).
White teeth indicate healthy living
Clean teeth say you look after yourself and care about your appearance (who likes bad breath?)

It is for these reasons that I spent a fair bit of dough getting mine fixed and for this reason that I assisted Melinda-Jane - my wonderful partner - to pay for our daughter Alyssa-Jane's braces. Yesterday Alyssa had her top braces removed and here is a picture of them. You look great Lussie! I'll post the complete job later.

More On Rugby

I have further considered my comments below and one thing I guess we have to remember is that coaching staff KNEW the schedule for RWC2007 so they could have planned it differently etc. So this is their strategy through and through so we must TRUST that they have it right cause they know the players and the requirements better than we do. Unfortunately when I think like this I also recall Mitchell's journey to nowhere in 2003. He supposedly had it all planned and laid out. At least in 1999 we could claim injuries and playing out of position. In 2003 we choked and got done and we just got caught believing our own press.

In 2007, if we fail, it will not be through choking, it will not be that we are surprised by a stellar performance, it will be that our strategy was wrong and the battle hardened South Africans were too good on the day.

The above are pre-RWC jitters from a dedicated MIGHTY ALL BLACK SUPPORTER and cannot be used in a court of law or against me in any way whatsoever forever and ever so help me God (which I don't believe in anyway because its symbolism for pagan astrological sun worshipping anyway).

The Rugby

So I have been following the MIGHTY ALL BLACKS of course. Despite all the crapping on by Graham Henry and his fellow coaches, the ABs are NOT in any way being tested by these walks in the park and it is not doing them any good whatsoever.

In fact IMHO they are very bad for the All Blacks. Yes this team is the best prepared ever - but then so are some of the other teams e.g., South Africa. The game against Portugal reminded me of the start of the 2006 season in which the ABs won the games but played Islander rugby in which mistakes were abundant but outweighed by sheer talent and a crap opposition.

Don't be fooled. In the last two cups, at which we played them in pool matches, we beat Italy with a score in the 70's but Italy didn't score anywhere near the 14 they scored against us (2003=70 to 7, 1999=101 to 3); and in 2007 they scored TWO TRIES!!!

Portugal was a spirited side that did well and once again we let in 13 points!

Contrast that with the Boks who didn't let in a single point against the poms. Yes the poms were without ideas but still, they kept them scoreless none-the-less. The boks were pretty bloody good and Habana is going to be a huge threat to MacDonald under the high ball.

What I am seeing is that our line is porous. We are giving away points and relying on our overwhelming scoring prowess to win games. This will NOT WORK against the Wallybees. They pride themselves in locking down a game and winning it on defence. How good is a scoring machine that makes a few mistakes and lets in a few tries against a side that simply refuses to let you score trys? Their game plan will be simple: kick the ball into our half and either pinch the ball from our crap lineout or let us run it back at them (cause they know we think we can score from anywhere) and then keep tackling until they intecept us or we make a mistake and they get a kick at goal.

Another thing that is worrying me is all the positive press and statements from the coaching team that "all is good" and "we don't need good opposition to get prepared for the quarters". This is right up there with George Orwell's 1984 "Ministry of Truth" and "War is Peace" and "Freedom is Slavery". Get real!!!!! All Black machines are chiseled out of a series if hard arsed encounters. Take a look at the 2006 season as an example. They were crap at the beginning of the season and only came good during the Northern Hemisphere tour. Yes they won almost all their games (except the one that counted in Rustenburg).

I am deeply worried that GH's BIG squad, frequent rotations and reconditioning program is not the right strategy. OK there, I've said it.

Now I will put my DEDICATED ALL BLACK SUPPORTER hat back on: I did see evidence during the Portugal match of the AB's letting things go e.g., Aaron Maguer not tackling the Portugal scorer as he crossed the line. I know that they have enormous talent and it is literally impossible to play well when the opposition sucks. I see possible conspiracies in some of the squad's behaviour that sends me the message they are bluffing and they have more in reserve than they are letting on (e.g., lack of set moves).

Another positive is that we will certainly be the most resilient team against injuries and suspensions - we have the most experienced and talented bench of all the teams by far. Lets just hope its not our front row that gets injured/binned.

!!!!!!GO THE MIGHTY ALL BLACKS!!!!!!

APEC

Went into the city yesterday to see a client. It's as dead as a dodo. Like a Sunday.
Here's some pics of the snipers over George "Dubya" Bush's hotel:

Father's Day

Today was Father's Day. My daughter (14) rang me between homework and the computer and said hello and wished me happy fathers' day which was great!

I rang my dad who sounded great and he informed me of Ron and Val's diamond wedding anniversary to be held on 15th December. I think Mel and I will go to that.

Everyone's Doing It

So why not is my thinking?

RWC2007 starts in ONE WEEK from now. I am very excited about this.
My brand new 127cm Plasma is mated with my new Foxtel iQ box. I've cleared all the kids movies off it so that I have nearly 100% free space for RUGBY games. Doesn;t get any better than that!