I would now like to present to you a short picture essay, detailing why I get pissed off during certain football matches when defenders screw me over.

I bought these gloves as a Christmas present to myself, and frankly, they’re a necessity. Playing in goal 2-3 times a week for a year on artificial pitches is hard on the wear and tear scale for (I’d safely assume) someone of a relatively more nimble frame. However, take the usual vigours and rigours of goalkeeping as performed by a 17 stone plus man with bad ankles on an artificial pitch, and you have some of the problems further detailed. Regardless, putting these things on motivates me beyond most other things I’ve attempted.

However, they don’t do anything to help my knees.

Pictured here first is my left knee. The red and green circles are places where I actually seem to have gained more bone; my kneecap is misshapen now and those spots feel like dead, hard lumps. The blue one is a spot where my knee is permanently red and hurts like all hell all the time. Grand. However, you will at least appreciate that this knee seems to bend properly.

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Next up is my right knee. Wow. Much like on the other knee, the yellow and green circles seem to be surplus bits of bone I’ve somehow accumulated. You figure it out. The long blue one requires some more description: my kneecap on that side has actually buckled underneath itself. The end of it towards my shin has actually folded inwards towards my leg. It hurts. The red circle is a spot that my phone’s camera does not do justice. That spot is permanently purple and grey, and it looks fucking awful. It’s just utterly, utterly wrong. You’ll also see the fact that this leg doesn’t straighten out properly. Yup. I wish that was an optical illusion.

So, bearing this in mind, when a defender (and I’m not singling people out here, truly) puts in a less than stellar effort and then expects me to bail them out is infuriating. When said defender then accuses me of not giving it everything, I’m only just short of a murderous and violent rampage.

This site got hacked.

It’s not hacked any more.

So much news, so much of it unimportant. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I’m also not feeling in the most elaboratory mood (even though I think I just made that word up), so deal with the shortness.

Malmsteen is the worst gig I’ve ever been to, and I want my money back.

I bought custom goalkeeper gloves and besides looking awesome, they feel great and I’ve won every game I’ve used them in so far.

America is fucking hot. When the wind blows, it’s hotter than when it’s still.

All I did in America was buy cheap tat, drink beer, play pool and watch baseball. It would be the perfect place to live if it wasn’t actually America.

I’m signed up to a games rental company and quite frankly, I’m getting my money’s worth, without question.

I’m going to Bloodstock and I’m taking a Welshman with me.

I’m going to Bloodstock dressed like a metal Santa. Yeah.

I’ve got job interviews galore because I need to get the fuck out of my current place NOW.

One of them is paying £3500 a year more than I’m on now for a 4 day week.

Another is paying £5000 a year more and paying for my study.

Kev air drumming is one of the funniest fucking things ever.

Orange bacardi will kick your ass.

Blaze Bayley’s new album (The Man Who Would Not Die) FUCKING RULES. I cannot stress that point enough.

‘Electric cage on a pole match’ it’s the best pseudo-Russoism I’ve ever heard.

Fuck BT.

Staple guns are fun.

Polystyrene is fucking expensive.

I need new bass strings sooner rather than later.

Barring bullshit, at the time of writing I’m about to move within 3.5 games of the division leader in my fantasy baseball league.

It’s too fucking hot for my liking.

Two stroke is fucking expensive.

My knees are getting progressively creakier.

My sleeping patterns are totally shot, thank you very much, international air travel.

That’s it for now. Deal.

I’m pissed off with the amount of football trick videos there are on YouTube.

Well, that’s not strictly true. I’m pissed off that none of them contain goalkeepers. I’d love to see how a team of fucking 11 Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s would do in a league. No defenders, no keeper, no one who can pass. I’m sure that’ll work a fucking treat.

So I need to come up with a keeper-ish trick, master it, and then get it filmed onto YouTube. So far the only thought I’ve had is in the warmup for the Snickers is to throw the ball, Peter Schmeichel style, as hard as I can into a crossbar, run after it down the pitch and volley it as it drops into the other goal – with the scenario that if it goes in or hits the bar, either one was actually what I was intending.  I dunno, maybe someone else can come up with something. Rene Higuita had a scorpion kick, so I’m open to ludicrous methods of saving shots too. How about if someone takes a penalty while I’m facing the wrong way, so I just have to dive and hope it hits me? I suppose it’d look good if I saved it, if nothing else. Hmmmmmm. Answers on a postcard!

I’m not in the business of cutting long stories short on this page, but to sum up, I’m not moving into the house I thought I was.

So, we go to pick up the keys and then go through the inventory of the place with the agent. First time seeing the house since looking round there in the first place, at which time I’d pointed out various things I wanted fixed – paint chipped off the walls, skirting coming away from the walls, etc.. That kind of crap.

So of course, not only is all that stuff not done, but other stuff I hadn’t noticed first time round isn’t done either. This would be bad enough. However, then add to this that the entire place is coated in a layer of filth – this too, would be enough by itself. Then, the garage is packed full with the stupid landlady’s shit still, and our mass of keys does not contain a garage key – again, this would be a big enough problem if it was the only one.

After much, much consternation and general anger directed towards the agent, a deal was struck whereby the slumlo-…, sorry, ‘landlord’ would come back from Brussels and get this shit taken care of. Which, as we should have really figured out in advance, meant come back, clean for 20 minutes and then tell us to take it or leave it.

Uh, we’ll leave it, dumbass.

The same day I find this out, I get told about a house in New Road (I realise this will mean nothing to the vast majority of people who read this, but fuck you) that was up for rent. Irrespective of how the place was, being in New Road was such a huge advantage for so many reasons – closer to football, closer therefore to the pub we go to after football, right by Kev’s, right by Parkway. I could go on.

Well obviously when I looked round the place it turned out better than the other one anyway, didn’t it? The rooms are bigger, the whole place generally looks better, the garage is separate from the building (more on that soon), the bedrooms are bigger, everything. The only thing worse is that the garden is smaller, but who the hell cares? You can only really use a garden half of the year anyway, and in this country it’s closer to a quarter.

Oh, and the place is cheaper too.

Of course, most importantly, is the garage. It’s a standalone building, it’s not attached to anything else. It’s also right by Kev’s, and it’s also about 60 feet from the nearest house. Now that Danish is finally finishing uni, and now that we have a place to practice, the band’s coming together. Huzzaaaaaaaaaah. Oh, and for added hilarity, The Squeak’s playing keys. Not sure how it’s going to work yet, but we’ll see.

I’ve also had a week off work due to a concussion. I get absolutely nailed at Pro 5, hadn’t been feeling right for a week or two, and then I got monster headaches. Bad enough that my GP sent me to hospital to get a CT scan, so yeah.

Got myself a couple more games since the last post on here too – Boom Blox, Guitar Hero 3, couple more VC games. Meh. Can’t be bothered to talk too much about them right now.

Also, I oculd watch John Terry cry all day long. Best footballing moment ever, the cheating bastard.