Messages

Very frustrating, I've stayed up until 2am and haven't seen a ball bowled yet

It's stopped raining and about to start in 15mins. If it doesn't rain any more it will be a 38 over per side match

not ideal for a World Cup Final, but nothing much can be done about weather

Australia won the toss and will be batting first


EDIT: 281-4 off 38 overs, If Sri Lanka can get the runs it will be an awesome win

Unbelievable innings from Adam Gilchrist 149 from 104 balls (13 fours and 8 sixs) one of the most entertaining inns you will ever see, and to do it in a world cup final, even better



Edit 2: Australia won, Jayasuria and Sangakara for Sri Lanka had great starts but 1 of them had to stay there for them to have any chance

rain interrupted and they lost 2 more overs, which lost them even more momentum and then the game finished in the dark.

not the best way for a game to finish, but Australia were the dominant side all tournament and deserve the cup

Good way for McGrath to retire from one day cricket with an undefeated in tournament world cup win, and Test cricket with a 5-0 Ashes win

I don't know if Smith made the wrong decision to bat, I think they just batted really badly, Smith and Kallis both throwing their wickets away early, they were terrible shots.

The rest of the guys with the exception of Gibbs and Kemp, just didn't think they could win

for AUS, Gilchrist got out early, then Ponting but the rest of the guys didn't panic, and cruised to the total

Just some interesting stats for AUS in this world cup

The most wickets they have lost in an inns is 6

They have bowled out the opposition in every match except against Bangladesh which was rain effected and reduced to 22 over game

Their lowest score batting first was 322 (5 inns batting first including against SA, NZ, WI)

England were the most competitive opposition




It's going to be an interesting Final, and I guess Sri Lanka's tactics to rest their top bowlers against Australia may work in their favour.

I really think Australia can win but if the Lankan's have a good day, especially their bowlers, they definitely could win.


I'm sure everyone will jump on the Sri Lankan bandwagon as I'm sure everyone likes to support the underdog, and I'm sure everyone outside Australia (and some Australian's) would like to see AUS get beaten

This world cup seems to have been going for so long, glad it's nearly over (well into the footy season already)



It's Definitely the 2 best teams throughout the tournament in the final, which will hopefully produce a thrilling final

Age is a strange thing with relationships, I've had a couple of older and younger women,

10 years is the biggest gap, I was 30, she was 40, we're just friends these days, and she has kids 15 and 9, who are also my friends, it just wouldn't work cause I want to have kids and she's had her share

8 years comes in next I was 29, she was 21, wasn't that serious, she was a bit young

at 22 I also went out with an 18 year old fresh out of high school, that was a lot of fun but she was just starting uni, and we were heading in different directions


I guess age does play a part but usually age determines what stage you are at in general, but people are at different stages at different ages, and you just have to find a compatible person.

I do agree though not to mess with teens when you're in your mid twenties, no matter how mature they are (portray) you do eventually notice the immaturities, and they are still developing, it's best just not to go there. [just my opinion]

My older sister 33 is married to a 42yo they started going out when she was 25, they have 3 kids

My younger sister 28 is married to a 29yo they started going out when she was 15, they have 1 kid

2 of my friends at 31 are going out with 23yo's  The girls are definately more mature than they were 2 years ago when I was with one of their friends.


For me at this stage of my life 25-32 is probably a good range but no strict rule

I can't believe we're debating guns again, and as usual it's Americans who try to defend the right, when it's clear from the outside that it is THE major reason for high murder rates.

there's plenty of knives, baseball bats, cricket bats in all countries, but it's still guns that are the problem. There's just a lot more guns in the USA.

You just have to watch Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine to see the stats. And the part where he compares Detroit to the Canadian city visible across the lake (sorry can't remember its name) which shows a huge difference between 2 cities within spitting distance.

People seem to keep there own opinions, but the answer to minimize the risks is obvious, but stubbornness gets in the way.



This massacre was a tragedy, the 2nd section could have been avoided if everyone was evacuated (or at least minimized) but it didn't happen, so nothing much can be done about it now. He mailed a package with video's, photo's etc to NBC during the crime.

They look at all the evidence after and see that this guy had been planning and had a lot of attributes to commit this type of crime, but as if anyone could have guessed, I'm sure there's plenty of people in similar states of mind as this guy   right now in every city in the world, but most won't act on it.

This type of crime is rare, don't know if availability of guns is as much of an issue in cases like this, cause if someone gets this into their mind, I'm sure in any country, if you really want a gun, you can get it whether it be legally or illegally.


being a hero, bringing your own gun to save the day, is not the way, just having that gun in your house or car could come back to haunt you in a few years when you get shot by your 5 year old.

oddly enough, the 4 sides that made it thru are the sides that are ranked 1-4 in the icc world rankings in ODI's

EDIT: a couple of days later (sun 22 April)


WI are Playing ENG right now in the last game of the super8's and WI just lost their 1st wicket at 131 in the 23rd over, where has this form been, I'm sure with the pressure to perform off, they can play a naturally good game.


Brian Lara is retiring so I guess this is his last match, I'm sure I predicted this in this thread way back before the tournament started but I can't be bothered looking back, I really hope he performs well (he has just entered the crease) but I'm going to sleep now as I can only get updates off the net, I would love to see his last innings, good luck Mr Lara, one of the best batsman in history.


AUS smashed NZ in the last match by 215 runs (348 v 133) their biggest loss ever, and it is possible that these 2 teams will play in the final

I have a feeling AUS wont win (even though they have comfortably beaten every team) they are due for a loss and SA are a very unpredictable team to play in a semi final.

The last semi final they played (2 world cups ago) they tied, SA needing 9 runs from the last over Klusner hit 2 fours in the 1st 2 balls of the over needing just 1 run from the remaining 4 balls and eventually still needing 1 from the last ball, there was a run out and the match ended in a tie (one of the most exciting finishes to a game ever), with AUS ahead on the table they made the final and smashed Pakistan

I think SA will remember that match going into the semi, and will desperately want to make AUS pay for that humiliation

I lurk more than I post (since 2002), does that make me a lurker?

Timosity - if you bought it and it was screwed, then have no qualms about getting it from P2P.

The only problem with that is I'm pretty sure you need the exact same version of the game for it to work, and I'm not going to bother downloading all discs. eg. in a lot of games if you've got saved games, and you try to open them in a different version, they don't open and give an error message. but it may be worth a try if I can't fix it

As long as the scratches are only in the plastic and the metal foil layer isn't damaged, you could try getting one of those scratch repair kits that work by grinding down the damaged part of the plastic. You can see a number of different products at: http://www.computercleanusa.com/products/getprod.asp?product_id=cd-335
Try asking around if any of your friends have a device similar to the Gamedoctor/Skipdoctor product on that page, that's the kind of device that dvd rental shops use to repair their discs, and it's probably the safest way to do it as they always peel off an even layer.

I'd never heard of that, thanks for the info, cause I think it is just surface scratching

There's been quite a few games since the last post

Australia is still undefeated with one match left to play against NZ before semi's. They comfortably beat Sri Lanka by 7 wickets.

It was a very strange tactic for them to rest their 3 top bowlers for the match (Malinga, Muralitharan and Vaas) I guess the reason for this is if they have to play AUS in final, the batsman haven't got any practice against them yet.


AUS will finish on top, NZ & SL will be 2nd or 3rd and either ENG or SA will make up the 4

England and South Africa play tonight, so that will almost be like a semi final, If England win they will probably make it thru but West Indies are still able to cause some trouble for England in the final match of the Super 8 if they smash them. If SA win tonight, they will take 4th

Just off topic slightly,

I bought all 3 GK games on ebay a couple of years ago, I never got to finish GK2, It's on 6 cd's and the only cd that is screwed is disc 6, and even some of disc 6 works, so I've still never finished it. and I guess I wasn't too far from the end.

very frustrating at the time, is there any way to repair a totally scratched cd, I'm guessing data cd's that have lost vital info are impossible to repair, I've tried to copy the disc before, but it eventually gets to a point where it cant read anything and the disc just keeps spinning.

I'm not predicting a 7 wicket win, The runs are on the board for England so That's always important, but they'll still have to bowl well.

They were heading for a large total, Pietersen 104 and Bell 77, they were eventually bowled out with 1 ball to spare, great recovery by AUS to keep them to 247.

I always look forward to see Gilly start the innings, Hopefully I can stay awake long enough, lucky it's a public holiday tomorrow

EDIT: next day

Well Jon, you were right, Aus won by 7 wickets, pretty comfortable win. The only problem Aus have is the lack of batting for the late middle and lower order, which they may need later on. Hayden, Ponting and Clarke have done pretty well all tournament.

NZ should be leading the comp after the next match which is against Ireland, with a better net run rate

AUS just regained the No.1 world ranking for ODI's after this match, which they lost it in the recent series in NZ in late Feb.

They were only out of the no.1 position for just over a month, and had been in that position since the ranking system began in 2002, unfortunately on the 1st of April (like a week ago) the team in the no.1 spot got the annual US$175,000 bonus, which was South Africa, Australia got $75,000 for being 2nd.

I'm sure that money for these sides isn't that important, but I'd like to see stats of how much they donate it to charities

Bangladesh are definitely an improved side, they now have a slim hope of making the finals, This game has opened up hopes for every side except Ireland.

It will probably come down to the Net Run Rate to decide 4th spot, with England in the better spot as long as they aren't thrashed by the Aussies tonight. Maybe they'll thrash the Aussies and give them a wakeup call (but I think they already did that in the previous series)

If West Indies can turn around their form right now, they still have a hope

Very interesting game, when you look at the stats it was a great bowling effort by both sides, although I haven't seen any pros say it ended up a difference between extras. if you look England bowled 4 wides and 4 no balls (8 runs) Sri Lanka bowled 2 wides and 2 no balls (4 runs)

The difference was 2 runs, (but 3 for England to win) so it did come down to bowling if you want to look at slight technicalities.

2 good sides, with close game.

England pretty much have to beat Australia on Sunday to be a chance, luckily England beat Aus in the recent series, which is the only hope for them to cling on to.

I think the teams Australia are most vulnerable against are NZ and SL, if ENG beat AUS, then that will do a lot for NZ and SL.

Still got no idea who will win, but it's a pretty close encounter between the top remaining sides

It's going to be very tough for WI now after losing to SL, they have 3 games left with SA and ENG being the harder ones, they should beat Bangladesh.

It's hard to pick, but I think it may be AUS, SA, NZ & SL going on form, ENG & WI have the players but the form doesn't seem to be there yet, but teams can turn that around, even single players, It's hard to write off a side with Brian Lara or Kevin Pietersen. England have still got more games in hand, but against tough sides. It will be interesting seeing it unfold



The crowds have been disappointing, understandable at neutral matches but not when the Windies play, It may have to do with ticket prices which I've heard are high, also food. I guess it's just big business trying to rob people who can't afford it. I'd rather see people on seats, If they were smart, they would have cheaper tickets and have an increase of people (attracting more people) and sell more food and drink. and If the Windies don't get thru (likely) there won't be much local interest, leaving empty stadiums in big matches

My Premiership winning Cricket side, I'm 3rd from the right




A couple of action shots with my team batting






The Celebrations with the lucky frisbee (owned by the guy sitting on the lefts 3 year old daughter) which is one of the last times it was seen as it now resides on the roof of the kebab shop 

I've just seen my first Live action in the World Cup, I'm on Holidays this week so, I've stayed up till 3:40am to see the first half of this match between WI & AUS. Hayden batted really well after a slow start

With AUS getting 322, it should be a hard task for WI

I think Aus, Sri Lanka, S Africa, NZ or WI

which is most of the teams left, so no solid prediction

Australia just got their 6th score above 300 in a row which is a record, this 322 is the lowest of them


Edit: Interesting, The rest of the day was washed out, but they have a reserve day, and because Aus batted a full 50 overs, the game will continue tomorrow with WI chasing the runs off a full 50 overs. This must be a new rule (prob only for world cup from the super8's onward)
Hope it doesn't rain tomorrow


Edit 2: Stayed up again to see 2nd half of the match, Australia won quite comfortably bowling the Windies out for 219. They never looked like getting the runs, Lara got 77 and Ramdin 52, but the run rate kept going up the whole time. Australia bowled pretty well, but I think it was more bad batting, with the pressure of having to score fast.

We won our Grand Final Today, there was a bit of rain which only made it harder for us with less overs to get them out, but we did it.

Yesterday we scored 240 all out and they were 0-18 at the end of day 1

we eventually rolled them for 137 with 9 balls left in the match. If it ended in a draw (if we didn't get them all out) they would have got the premiership for being ahead on the points table (by 1 point after the whole season)

So it was a very sweet victory, and quite convincing.

Ive just got home from the pub after celebrating, left my car at the first pub, I'm on holidays from work for the next week so I can pick my car up tomorrow (remember boys and girls, don't drink and drive)



Haven't seen any games yet in the world cup, but Australia beat South Africa last night quite well, scoring more runs than they did against the easy sides (377) beating SA by 83 runs

quite a good win with SA getting a score that would beat most sides, (this is the 1 and 2 ranked sides in the world with SA being 1 and AUS being 2 after the recent wins against AUS by NZ and ENG)

This will give AUS a lot of confidence with Andrew Symonds coming back from injury (which makes a shitload of difference in the field) going into the Super 8's




I'm on such a high after the way we won our Grand Final, It was so deserved after a very long season (29 weeks) which we only lost 3 games out of 16 (including 5 outright wins and all by more than an innings [fucking awesome effort])

I got 28 runs batting at no. 8 (in a 61 run partnership which was the highest in the match) and 2-23 bowling in the final and finished with 46 wickets with an average of 9.89 for the season from 176 overs which is the best I've ever done, and was the best for the whole association in every grade, not bad for achieving this passed the age of 30, I am fitter than when I was 20

India is most likely out as well after being beaten by Sri Lanka

India will be praying Bermuda beats Bangladesh, but I can't see that happening.

It doesn't surprise me too much as Pakistan have always been really inconsistent, and India find it hard playing outside the sub continent.

I think Bangladesh have improved a lot over the last few years, and may become one of the better sides, I have no idea about Ireland, although the guy that scored a century for them, Jeremy Bray, is Australian

There's going to be a lot of pressure on India to beat Sri Lanka, That could be one interesting match, with India having to win to stay in the tournament and Sri Lanka in really good form. (assuming Bermuda don't beat Bangladesh)

England have to beat Kenya to stay in, they should, but Kenya aren't the worst team.

Australia v South Africa should be a really good match, both teams in good form, but yet to play a tough team eg. each other. both teams are already thru, but the winner will carry 2 extra points

Woolmer's death was apparently a strangling, so it's definitely now a murder investigation, very sad news

Congrats on Ireland for making it thru, but I think that's as far as it will go



Thanks Jon & bulghart, less than 18hrs till the start of my Grand Final, a couple of beers might calm the nerves

[The Big Day Out]

Summers Just over here and the festivals are over, although there are different smaller ones that go on at different times of the year, But the major one in Aus is The Big Day Out.

I've been to 9 of them over the years. I do enjoy the atmosphere of music festivals, but I prefer to see bands I like, at there own gigs indoors. Sound is usually pretty bad at festivals and with no sound checks, even worse.

If you enjoy hearing the music, don't bother going into the moshpit, at any gig the best sound you will get is usually near the sound desk.

The first of The Big Day Outs was in 1992 where Nirvana played, I didn't go to it and it was the only time they ever played in Aus. I never really got into them much but it would have been good to have been there.

Some notable bands that I've seen at the BDO

1994
SOUNDGARDEN
THE RAMONES
BJORK
SMASHING PUMPKINS
THE BREEDERS
PRIMUS
URGE OVERKILL

1995
MINISTRY
PRIMAL SCREAM
HOLE
THE CULT
OFFSRPING
SCREAMING TREES
SILVERCHAIR
THE FIREBALLS
SPIDERBAIT

1996
PORNO FOR PYROS
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
ELASTICA
THE PRODIGY
RANCID
NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS
REGURGITATOR

1997
SOUNDGARDEN
THE OFFSPRING
THE PRODIGY
FEAR FACTORY
SUPERGRASS
JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION
FRENZAL RHOMB

1999
SOULFLY
FATBOY SLIM
FUN LOVIN' CRIMINALS
HOLE
KORN
MARILYN MANSON
RONI SIZE
SEAN LENNON
THE LIVING END

2000
BASEMENT JAXX
BLINK 182
THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS
FOO FIGHTERS
NINE INCH NAILS
PRIMAL SCREAM
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS

2001
AT THE DRIVE-IN
BLACK EYED PEAS
LIMP BIZKIT
MUDVAYNE
PJ HARVEY
PLACEBO
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE
RAMMSTEIN

2003
JANES ADDICTION
FOO FIGHTERS
KRAFTWERK
PJ HARVEY
MACHINE GUN FELLATIO
MILLENCOLIN
QUEENS OF THE STONEAGE
LIVING END
RESIN DOGS
THE VINES
FRENZAL RHOMB
PRESHRUNK


2007
Tool
Muse
Violent Femmes
The Streets
The Killers
Jet
My Chemical Romance
Peaches
The Herd
Eskimo Joe
The Vines

I missed 2 BDO's where System of a Down played, and they are about the only band I wanted to see, I was away both times so I missed their own shows too, and I may not ever get a chance to see them again.


One of the main things I used to enjoy about festivals when I was younger was the abuse of drugs and alcohol (in combination). In Sydney these days they have sniffer dogs and try to bust as many kids with drugs as they can, seems pointless, as they should be trying to stop it from the other end, and let the kids enjoy themselves.

This year I went to it in Adelaide, and there were no sniffer dogs, plenty of drugs about, but I'm over that stage, but I did drink a bit

There have been some real hidings by South Africa, Sri Lanka & Australia, but more interestingly there have been some amazing upsets by Ireland & Bangladesh

Ireland tied with Zimbabwe which is a very rare occurrence to finish on the same score

Bangladesh beat India which will make it tough for India probably having to beat Sri Lanka to go thru to the next round

And Ireland Just beat Pakistan, which puts them thru to the next round, which means West Indies just have to beat Ireland or Zimbabwe to go thru. Pakistan (who were a decent chance of winning the world cup) are probably already out.

It's going to be interesting to see who makes the Super 8's but It's still going to be tough to pick a winner, probably out of WI, SA, AUS, SRI, NZ, ENG


My Team made the Grand Final yesterday, so I've got a week of stressing out, excitement and anticipation.
I took 3 wickets, 1 catch and 1 runout. The GF is played over Sat and Sun next weekend, can't wait