Daniel85

I was happy to see that someone put this peerless passage of play up on the YouTube.

Just look at all those Roos midfielders running around after our players ineffectually, like a group of unwilling VicKick kids. Awesome.

I thought Stokes’s disposal left a little to be desired, but it didn’t seem to worry Moons much.

Bring on the prelim.

Hey y’all. I’m back home now. I’ll post some more pics and stuff when I get around to it, but for now I just had to share something I came across in today’s Age.

I love it when sports writers try to act all cultured and literary. Check out this gem, from an article on Mark Blake’s role in the Cats’ defeat of Richmond by one Dan Silkstone (awesome name):

Yesterday’s encounter then, was a marriage of heaven and hell — a concept made famous by the 18th-century poet William Blake. It was his Geelong namesake, though, who wore the angel’s wings.

There’s a new concept in sportswriting– making literary allusions based on players who share names with famous writers. You just have to love The Age, don’t you? Even their sportswriters are pretentious fops.

The fact that The Marriage of Heaven & Hell has more to do with Blake’s appropriation of heaven and hell in his new mythology/philosophy than traditional ideas of the two can be ignored, I guess.

‘The Cats began the match with three players on the bench, while emergency Joel Selwood scrambled to get ready, having only minutes earlier been sitting in the grandstand eating a Mars Bar.’

From The Age.

… and a bucket of hot chips (in one of those newsprint pattern buckets) at Waverley Stadium was to stave off frostbite more than hunger. When you went to that underground McDonald’s in Moorabool St after a Cats game. When dad going to the toilet at quarter-time meant you could sneak a sip or two of his beer. (Why do all my memories of going to the footy revolve around food?)

I was on Youtube earlier looking for that new Smith Chips commercial which features the return of the Gobbledok. The freakin’ Gobbledok, man, have you guys seen it?! Anyway, it’s not up, but I found this hilarious clip from Seven’s World Of Sport after the famous Round 12, 1985 incident in which Leigh Matthews broke Neville Bruns’ jaw. And it all started cos Mark Jackson goes totally off his nut if someone slightly touches him.

Have a good look at Tom Hafey at about 2:04. It takes him a while to work out if he’s been insulted or not, and he’s seriously considering twisting McKenna’s mulleted head off with those awe-inspiring guns of his. Now that’s a coach!

I have decided to retire from backyard cricket.

It’s a decision I’ve been wrestling with for some time, but with the recent spate of retirements in the cricket world, I feel now is as good a time as any to bow out.

This Boxing Day will see my last game of backyard cricket. It’s fitting that I should bid farewell to the sport on the concrete and patchy grass in our backyard. It’s the ground I started on, and also my favourite to play at.

I’ve had many ups and downs in my career as a backyard cricketer. Easter ‘97 springs to mind, when I slogged it right into dad’s nuts and spent the rest of the day hiding in the laundry. He shouldn’t have been fielding so close.

I’ve also had the pleasure of facing some absolute ripper bowlers in my day… Uncle Shaun, dad, the kid from over the road who just rocked up and started playing whenever he heard the slap of corked leather on wood.

As I said, retirement is not a decision I’ve come to lightly. I’ve had to weigh up my love for the sport with other concerns, such as my comic book collection and family. One thing I always ask myself is “have you stood up on the day?” and if you’ve stood up on the day, then at the end of the day you can hold your head high, and give yourself a pat on the back. I feel I’ve stood up on the day, and I’ll probably stand up on Boxing Day, too.

Just like to thank mum, for the cordial and icy poles; the old man next door for not minding us borrowing his bin for wickets; and dad for not chucking too much of a wobbly when I unintentionally vasectomised him. 

As someone with only a passing interest in soccer, I wasn't over-excited when the news hit that Australia had made it into the World Cup. I mean, I thought it was good and all, but I wasn't exactly running around my living room with my shirt pulled over my head. I know this is heresy, considering the great importance Australia places on sporting achievements, and that several of my friends are huge soccer fans, but there haven't been any severed pigs' heads thrown through my living room window yet. Fingers crossed.

That said, I was walking through my local Safeway yesterday, and was struck by a marvellous sight. A solid gold bottle of Coca-Cola! It caught my eye within like two seconds of my entering the 'way, cos I'm always on the lookout for whatever crazy shit Coke or Pepsi are gonna pull next. I echo the sentiments of Matt over at x-entertainment.com when he says that he's absolutely in love with the craziness that has been the soda/soft-drink industry over the past few years.

The cereal aisle is another pitstop on my race around the worl– I mean my grocery shopping. The cereal world has been pretty lacklustre in the last few years, at least in Australia, so I'm always happy whenever something cool or weird pops up. Well, thank you FUSSBALL!!!!!, because now there's cereal in the shape of soccer balls!

Here's the loot:

I must apologise for the shoddiness of my camera work. Peter Parker I ain't. But anyway, without further ado, here's my review. Rooby rooby roo!

Nestle/FIFA Limited Edition Vanilla Flavoured Toasted Rice Cereal

I'm a bit unsure what they're trying to achieve with the marketing of this product. I haven't seen any ads for it, so I can only speak about the packaging.

The cereal is just your basic, unabashed sugar bomb, so it would seem to be aimed at kids, but they haven't really followed through on that with the box design. They could've given it a cute name, like, I dunno, "Soccer Balls" (or "Sokker Ballz" to be more extreme).

Another disappointing aspect of the packaging is that the cereal's main drawcard for kids, the magic soccer ball appearing act, is relegated to a tiny picture up in the corner:

They've obviously decided that soccer fever is what's going to put bums in seats (breakfast seats) as far as this cereal goes, and the kid stuff is secondary. All I'm saying is kids need to know this shit! This is the kind of stuff that they're going to be reminiscing about on their virtual reality goggles connected to the cyber-net in like 2025, just like we children of the 80s do today, except with our fingers on keyboards.

The box designers really did go all-out on doodads and possibly doohickeys, though. There's a nice little hologram sticker down in the bottom corner, which is reminiscent of the holo-foil that's a trademark of the Upper Deck line of sports cards (pretty much my main involvement with sports as a child). The FIFA logo you see is also tricked out, raised and shiny blue. Raised "blister" bits on cardboard always appeal to me, which goes right back to the Goosebumps logo. I used to rub those Goosebumps logos until the covers were bald.

Now onto the aforementionted gimmick to this cereal the 'magic' soccer balls hidden amongst the regular, shitty cereal. Just add milk. Now we all know that this stuff mostly never works out as well as on the box, so I'll be putting Nestle's crazy Swiss magic to the test right now!

Here's the back of the box, with simple to follow instructions that even a (insert the name of your most hated Premier League club here) fan could pull off!

So, I'm all set up here with my Kelloggs bowl and my home-brand milk:

Let's take a closer look at the dry cereal, before the magic happens.

I think I can pick out the magic ones already. I think I've said magic 300 times already.

And in goes the milk:

Not a spectacular result, but let's have a closer look anyway.

Looks appetising, huh? It'd be kinda cool if they could've worked some colouring into it. Looks more like some kinda cone or nut that falls off a tree in tree mating season than a soccer ball, but I do admit there was some change there. Is it magic? You decide.

Oh and hey, here's a bonus round. Try and guess what cereal mascot is at the bottom of my bowl.

Can you guess? Oh, the shape's still too vague? Okay, try this:

Got it yet? You'd have to be a complete idiot not to.

Yes, that's right, it's Toucan Sam!

Okay, this blog entry has gone on way too long. I'll review the gold Coke tomorrow. Cheers!