Category: Favourites

It’s the final countdown to our much delayed, much anticipated and much feared trip to Scotland. Originally we were due to be over there for my birthday, but due to me losing a job and moving house, we delayed it till now. And I’m not looking forward to it for my own reasons.

Firstly I should be thankful that frivolous spending on our Delta AmEx cards has allowed us to fly using our SkyMiles, and after our last flights to Edinburgh from Atlanta, we decided it had to be done right, so we’re doing it right by flying 1st class for 4 out of the 5 flights we’ll be taking to and from.

But the downside of using SkyMiles is you don’t get the flights you really want, and Charlotte’s airport flies nowhere that helps us, so we’re going this route….

A 10,250 mile round trip that goes from Charlotte, NC to Houston, TX then to Paris, France before ending in Edinburgh, Scotland. This is a 24 hour trip starting lunch time Saturday, we leave Charlotte at 12:30pm and land in Edinburgh on Sunday as 4:30pm. You know that’s going to be fun. At least the way back is a bit more civilised, Edinburgh to Newark, NJ then finally to Charlotte.

As I said, thank goodness it’s mostly first class, the only leg that’s not is Charlotte to Houston. But seeing as I have a fear of take-offs, Saturday/Sunday will be a bad day for me.

Oh, and we’ll be in Edinburgh for the final week of the Festival, how on Earth did I agree to that?

For our Fourth of July weekend, we were visited by my brother and his family (by way of Chicago and Washington, I might have mentioned this before) and even though they were only here for 3 days/4 nights and even though they insisted they were only here to relax after 3 days of driving, we were run ragged the whole time…

Even before they arrived on Thursday evening, we spent pretty much the whole of the day running around, cleaning up, preparing guest bedrooms and what have you, as well as renew Robyn’s tags and clean her car. So they arrived around 7pm and we gave them the 5c tour, helped unload their SUV, and then took them for dinner at a Japanese Steakhouse for some hardcore flaming hibachi action (as well as Colin trying to impress us with his Kobe beef knowledge). Apparently they liked our beds as they slept for most of the next morning, in fact we had to crank up the early morning Rock Band action to wake them.

We then took them to Birkdale Village in Huntersville for some lunch at Maddi’s Southern Bistro (a place we take everyone) and to show them the village and also show where we used to live. Robyn and Heather decided to run in the central fountain to cool off as it was hot and humid the whole day, and with it being hot and humid that meant there was a nice big thunderstorm brewing away while we toured the Davidson 4th Celebration. While Heather was enjoying herself on the kids attractions, I managed to lose my phone in a quick dash for some shelter. I didn’t even realise I had for maybe 25 minutes, and a quick search of the path I took revealed nothing. Now coming where I come from, if you lose something like an iPhone, it’s as good as gone before it even hits the ground, but in sleepy Davidson it’s a different matter altogether. A quick chat with a police officer revealed it was found and it currently resides in the Davidson PD, and a quick walk there and a quick call to it proving it was mine was all that was needed. Crisis averted.

In fact, we discovered this morning that Davisdon PD emailed Robyn’s work email from it to let her know that “The owner of this iPod lost it. Davidson police has it.” and gave a number to call. My faith in humanity has definitely been restored.

Now, for the evenings entertainment we had a literal front row view of Davidson’s fireworks display, due to where we live, we’re right on the Cornelius/Davidson border and they were launching the fireworks within 150 yards of our front door. It was very loud, and smelled of sulphur for hours afterwards, but we sat on our upstairs patio and took them in at close range and it was awesome. If they do the same next year, we’re going to set up a little lemonade stand out front and make a killing!

Saturday, we took them to Mooresville for lunch at a Cracker Barrel before doing a little shopping before we met up with Jill and Ryan for a cheesesteak dinner and some bowling. On Sunday we were invited out on Jill and Ryan’s boat on Lake Norman, Heather really enjoyed herself both in and on the water but in the end we had to high tail it back to the shore as a lightning storm quickly rolled in. We rounded off their weekend with a trip to Concord Mills.

They left early on Monday morning and we basically collapsed for the rest of the day.

All in all, a good time. Now we’re gearing up for our UK visit later next month…

Finally after some 2½ years of using the version 9 label and theme, I’ve upgraded to version 10. If version 9 was served up from a Commodore 64, then version 10 runs off a Pentium 2 running Windows 95.

Not a lot has changed bar the look, and its another third party theme, this time I’m opting for the less is more look of DePo Clean by Derek Powazek. Though I do need to get my hands dirty and bend it to my will, so this is just a starting point, there shall be no fancy stuff going on, just simple tweaks and, if your lucky, actual content.

In reality I’m pretty much done with blogging, I’ve been doing it for eight years almost now and it just isn’t as fulfilling as it used to be. When the hefty renewal notice for this domain comes in around August time, it might be time to let it go, while its unique and fun, its certainly not worth the expense of being a .co.uk in a .com world…

After much hilarity (read: ineptitude) we’re back online, some 3 weeks after we officially went off… So what’s happened in those 3 weeks?

WEEK 1: We moved house, all by ourselves (kinda). Originally we were going to move the boxes and get movers to handle the heavy furniture, but on the Friday night (our moving day) Robyn was like “let’s get the mattress, I want to spend the night here and while we’re there let’s get the sofa too!” No small feat… On the Saturday Robyn’s parents rolled in and gave us a much needed extra couple of pairs of hands. Jason (our then current, but now old, next-door neighbour) also pitched in above and beyond and 95% of the stuff got moved in about 6 hours, many trips to and from the new house, but hey! we’re almost there. On the Sunday we got the rest and then I didn’t go the the Springsteen concert… During the week we sold the remaining two tickets for $350 meaning my quick thinking back in the day made us $650, not too shabby, but I really wanted to go.

WEEK 2: I tidied up around the old house, bringing loose items back when I went. On the Sunday John and Marchellina came down from Chapel Hill to help us unpack and move furniture from the garage to correct places. Big help and awesome job! Now we have a semi-decent looking home instead of a haven of boxes and un-made furniture.

WEEK 3: General unpacking of small items, I put the guest bed and the IKEA Expedit together myself (OK, with a little help from Robyn) and for some reason, the cable company played games with me…

Now we’ve had Comcast in Atlanta and Time Warner in Huntersville, so we know bad customer service… Windstream blows them away with sucky customer service. Firstly they no-showed on the install date, 5 phone calls tracked that down. Then they no-showed the next day when they promised they’d be there, then they postponed us by 2 (TWO!) weeks as apparently, they just didn’t want to connect us. No big deal usually, right? Well they have some weird deal with our development where the cable/internet/phone bill is included in the HOA fees. So we’re paying for it if we get it or not, and we’re stuck with them and only them.

Add to this they don’t have cablecards (despite advertising TiVo on their home page) so we’re stuck with basic cable, no free QAM HD channels and a pretty lousy lineup. I say this as they are missing the one channel I need most of all, Fox Soccer Channel. Even if we had digital cable, it’s not in the lineup, in fact the lineup is so screwy that they have ESPNHD but not ESPN2HD, what’s up with that??

So yeah, tomorrow (well, technically today) is the day of the UEFA Cup Final, a competition FSC cover. But I won’t miss it, I’ve found a sports bar in Mooresville that’s showing it, I’ll be there, alone, wishing and hoping for a Rangers win, drinking alone. Sounds like a good reason to liveblog my experience.

As for the rest of this week, Robyn’s parent are coming up Friday night was we have tickets for the NASCAR All-Star race again, my decent into NASCAR fandom continues unabated…

Way back at the start of this year, I set forth 5 goals, after the 1st quarter I’m probably no closer to attaining 3/5. I haven’t bugged Robyn for any material items, but then nothing of note has come out since then… And let’s face it, Rock Band for the Wii is due out June 22nd. Last week we saw a house (a proper house, not a townhouse that we were looking at in the same development) that is perfect in many ways…

For starters, we’re in the best place to be right now… We can buy a house without needing to sell one. And as the market goes further and further down the tubes, we’ll be making out like bandits soon enough. And even though Charlotte isn’t sliding down like, for example, Atlanta, that doesn’t mean everything is coming up roses here. But we’re ahead of the curve.

So we went to see a single family house, having previously viewed a townhome in this development, we knew this is where we wanted to be. And you know that saying “you know as soon as you open the door”? Oh, we knew… This place is gorgeous, dark hardwood floors throughout, dark wood, stainless steel appliances, the list goes on…

We actually went to see it twice. Now we’re crunching the numbers and initially it looks favourable.

So who knows, there is a downside… If we move soon, we face the possibility of moving the cats to a strange new house then ditching them as we leave for 2 weeks in Scotland at the end of May, or we wait till after then and face the possibility of my brother and his family visiting while we’re still unpacking. Or we move really soon, but too soon for me as we haven’t even begun packing.

EDIT (8:40pm): Well, we made an offer… Now we wait… SQUEEE!

EDIT (1/4/08 3:00pm): Oh shit, our offer was accepted, now we freak out! SQUEEE!

The Brighton at Antiquity (set)

Originally uploaded by FLC.

Another year, another shot at glory. This time I’ve made one significant change to my March Madness routine of years past, no second guessing myself, version 1 of the brackets is sticking after the advice of Brian last year (I never did find out how he did though, a flaw perhaps?)

So yeah, I’m backing Kansas to go deep again, will I ever learn? And I’m on the Tyler Hansbrough Farewell Tour Bandwagon™ all the way to the end this year, so for that reason, and that reason alone, I’m opting for blatant homerism and backing North Carolina over UCLA. And sorry Dave, I’m not buying into Memphis to go far.

The worst part is I’ll miss all the opening weekend as we’re heading to Atlanta this weekend, so if you see me, excuse me for glancing at my iPhone every so often, gotta keep track of my LOCKS!

Normally when a basketball team makes a bone headed mistake off the court it doesn’t affect me, but when the Charlotte Bobcats jumped the gun on Sunday I was there to capture it and in turn set off a series of events that lead me to here today.

First a little back story, since it opened in 2005 Charlotte Bobcats Arena has been Charlotte Bobcats Arena, and that’s pretty rare in modern arenas and corporate sponsorship. I can only think of four other big arenas that don’t have corporate sponsorship, Madison Square Garden in New York, Rose Garden in Portland, New Orleans Arena in New Orleans and The Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit, but I digress… Recently it’s been reported that the Bobcats are in talk with Time Warner Cable to rename the arena the Time Warner Cable Arena, quite a mouthful no?

Now this hasn’t been officially announced, but on Sunday at the game against Toronto, on the sideline they had big Time Warner Cable Arena signage on the rotation. Odd I though, as at this point I hadn’t heard anything about it being renamed, so I snapped a picture of it. Later that night I uploaded it to Flickr and thought nothing of it. The next day at work I received two calls in quick succession on my iPhone from a number I didn’t recognise, and when I get calls at work from numbers I don’t know, I kick them straight to voicemail. So I had 2 missed calls and no voicemail, kind of an odd combination. So I called it and it took me through to the secretary of Greg Economou, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Bobcats Sports & Entertainment, another mouthful, but needless to say, he’s high up in the Bobcats organization. Not knowing why he would call me I left my name and number and about an hour later he called me back…

He explained that it was a mistake to display that signage, and in order to defuse a potential hiccup, would I be able to remove my image from Flickr?

Now, before I continue:

OK, now that’s out the way, he proceeded to say that he would repay me for the inconvenience. Whatever I wanted, tickets for a game, be his guest at an event, press pass to get on the floor, whatever… Now I was quite taken aback by this, I mean, if you were offered pretty much an open door to a major arena, what would you do? I did the first thing that came to mind… Tickets to Springsteen in April! I said this as I’d previously mused how extortionate the prices for this event were, and how often to you get to see Springsteen and the E Street Band live nowadays? Consider it done he said, he or one of his associates would call me.

This was on Monday afternoon, now almost 72 hours have passed with no reply and I’m unsure what to do? Like I said, the Bobcats are a client of ours, so I don’t want to be a dick and rock the boat on this. But on the other hand, a man’s word is bond, right?

Another thing that kind of weirded me out was how quickly he found me. The picture hit number 3 on Google for the term “Time Warner Cable Arena”, but even then there no mention of my cell phone on my Flickr account, somehow within 18 hours of posting the picture to Flickr my cell phone was buzzing away. He worked hard to track me down, and it wasn’t even a “are you the Gregor Smith who was at the Bobcats game last night?” He knew it was me, there was no beating around the bush.

So yeah, what should I do? I’ll prolly call his secretary in a few hours, maybe I’ll push the picture back from the privacy of “marked as private” on Flickr and see if it reenters Google quick as before. Many possibilities…

After witnessing some spectacular work in last night’s Slam Dunk contest, here is Dwight Howard’s efforts from beginning to end, direct from my TiVo to you…

Prepare to be amazed.

AKA: A Day In The Life Of…

It was 4 years ago today I first landed in Atlanta, at that point I had no idea how long I’d be staying, might have been a week, maybe a month… In the end it was 3 months, and after a month back in Scotland tying up loose ends, I went back for, what appears to be, good. Of course, if you met me you’d never know I’ve only been here 1431 days, my accent has all but been eradicated except for when I talk to my family on the phone (much to Robyn’s chagrin) and that for 2½ years I was one of the countries public emeries, an illegal alien… I joke that I floated in to Miami on a basketball but yeah, I’ve only been an official resident since June 2006…

Anyways, for some reason that sounded good way back when, I decided that on January 24th, to mark this auspicious date in my life, I’d document that day in my life, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s boring, sometimes it’s indifferent, funny fact, this would be the first “day in the life” I’ve done that I’ve actually worked…

You can catch up on 2005, 2006 and 2007 if you want.

(more…)

I haven’t been to many basketball games in my time, 2 Hawks games, 4 Bobcats games and now I can add a UNC Tar Heels game to that list.

As I said earlier, I surprisingly won a nice weekend package as part of a competition a client of my work ran, 2 nights hotel, tickets to the North Carolina Tar Heels vs. North Carolina State Wolfpack game last Saturday, a hospitality brunch and a signed UNC jersey. Pretty sweet I thought, so off to Chapel Hill we headed on Friday night, we made pretty good time and arrived around 9pm to check in.

The next morning we went to downtown Chapel Hill to The Carolina Inn for a big, all you can eat brunch before heading to the game. Now I’ve seen college basketball on TV before, I’ve followed the last 3 or so March Madness’ pretty religiously (failing each time) but I had no idea what to expect. What I got was 2 hours of noise the likes I’ve not heard since the days of going to Ibrox to see Rangers play

I think it was a combination of the band in one corner, the very boisterous student section on the other side and us being so far back that noise reverberated off the roof, but my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. Yeah, also, for tickets that was part of a competition, you don’t expect to be in the 3rd row closest to god… But it was all good.

The game it’s self was a blowout in favour of UNC, NC State barely led for the first few minutes before UNC just burned them with defensive rebounds and lights out shooting, proving why they are ranked number 1 in the country. Enjoyable, well as enjoyable as a blowout could be.

While we had no affiliations to the game (Go Dawgs!) we enjoyed the people watching, and the near choreographed routines that everyone, except for us, knew… People watching at it’s best.

I would say you should go see a UNC game if you can, but apparently it’s a loooong wait for tickets, so nevermind.

We spent the rest of the weekend in Chapel Hill, Robyn compares it to Athens, GA. in terms of look and general vibe, you can take that how ever you want. It’s a college town with lots of bars and restaurants, and not a lot of parking. Hopefully this weekend we don’t have to head back to the Chapel Hill area, 3 out of 4 weekends was more than enough…

Tar Heels vs. Wolfpack – January 12th 2007 (set)

Originally uploaded by FLC.

AKA: Days and Days Late, So Many Dollars Short

First up, the pitiful excuse, my mother was in town from December 21st through January 8th, so I tried (tried) to not be anti-social and spend countless hours on the computer doing whatever it is I do to waste time, but that said we didn’t really do much…

As I said, she arrived the Friday before Christmas… In Raleigh… One thing we’ve found out, Charlotte’s airport is close and nice and all that, but no-one flies to or from it bar US Airways, and well, they don’t go many places that helps us. Say what you want about Hartsfield in Atlanta, at least you could go places from there. So yeah, we shuttled up to Marchellina’s outside Chapel Hill to pick her up and to make matters worse, her flight leaving London was delayed… So the next day after breakfast we played Santa to Marchellina’s kids a few days early before heading back to Huntersville.

We had Christmas Dinner at Jill and Ryan’s on Christmas Eve (as Robyn’s parent’s were leaving Christmas Night to head back to Georgia). The following day we opened our presents to each other (we really didn’t get much as we splurged on iPhones barely two months beforehand) before heading back to Jill and Ryan’s to open the rest.

That was pretty much that, uneventful. We were working pretty much every other day, so it was nice to get a day off. Over the weekend John, Marchellina and the kids came down to spend a day in the village which also meant we could get the family picture we missed the weekend before.

The following week was a bit more exciting as first we attended the Charlotte Bobcats exciting overtime win over the Indiana Pacers. Like I said, it was an exciting match, and we had sweet seats courtesy of Lowe’s which made for some cool photo oportunites. As that was on New Years Eve we stayed at home and set off some fireworks, much to neighbourhood kids delight. This started a minor forest fire (seriously) which was quickly doused.

2008 started off with some house hunting in South Charlotte, as our lease is almost up here, we’re looking at our options before deciding if we want to re-up for another year. So we looked at an area called Ayrsley, which was nice, but too far for Robyn to commute to Mooresville. Later we found a new development in nearby Cornelius called Antiquity, and by new I mean it currently has about 30 houses and a whole lotta dirt. This was a much better option, right now it’s the option we’re most likey going to take, but we have to wait for our floorplan to be built, which might take a little longer than we’d really want, so do we wait or keep looking?

The following weekend we drove back to Chapel Hill to drop my mum off at Marchellina’s so she could fly back home early the following week, we thought this would be the last time we’d do that trip for a while but alas no… On Monday I got a call saying I had won tickets from a client for the big UNC/NC State basketball game the following weekend, so that 3 trips to Chapel Hill in 4 weeks for those counting at home. It should be fun, college basketball generally has a better atmosphere than NBA games so I’m really looking forward to it… Look for an update on that sometime in the next year.

Christmas 2007 (set)
Bobcats vs. Pacers – December 31st 2007

Originally uploaded by FLC.

This was taken on July 21st 2006, at one of those APWBWGTTD nights out at Manuel’s, if I remember, this was the one that started out at Rocky Mountain Pizza but they always invariably end up at Manuel’s.

Anyhoo, who would have guessed that just over 18 months later Brian would propose to Lori. Truly awesome news, even if Lori wasn’t part of Team Awesome.

Congratulations guys, we wish you all the best in the future.

Lori and Brian

Originally uploaded by FLC.

Duane is doing a month long posting extravaganza, Lori has denounced them, I’m feeling apathetic as this year has been, as the kids say, absolutely bollocks for record buying and movie watching, I’ve really done neither. This was the year I topped up my classic collection by downloading stuff like The Beatles Anthology, the first 6 Bob Dylan albums, the best of The Eagles, Elton John, Elvis Presley, Ani DiFranco, Goo Goo Dolls, John Lennon and Carly Simon (?) And yes, I even downloaded the Spice Girls Greatest Hits, sue me!

So the pickings are slim this year, so slim that my top 2 favourite CD’s of 2007 weren’t even CD’s at all…

Favourite CD’s of 2007

1. U2 – PopMart 1997: Live From Mexico City

Yep, this was in fact a DVD audio rip. And as bad a reputation Pop had (personally I loved it), PopMart was, and still is, the best live experience a person could possibly have without the aid of hallucinogenic drugs. Sure it started off bad, but by the time I saw them at Murryfield in Edinburgh during the European leg, they were in full swing and it was downright awesome, and this is a rare U2 live DVD in that it’s a complete concert, start to finish. It kicks off with Mofo, and the full on sonic assault doesn’t let up till the very end of Wake Up Dead Man, of course it helps if you’ve seen the DVD or been to one of the concerts as you can visualise the visuals, there were lots and lots of eye candy, seriously, YouTube some videos for the greatness.

2. Radiohead – In Rainbows

The “CD” that would change the recording industry? OK, maybe not, and maybe people were clamouring for something “more”, something more like OK Computer. Overall it was a pretty polarising album, either you loved it or you hated it. I loved it, sure it was no OK Computer, nor was it another The Bends, but it stands up on it’s own., it was a real grower, and in a few years time I’m sure people will appreciate this, just give it time. My personal favourite track is Bodysnatchers which sounds like it could have been lifted from the Kid A/Amnesiac sessions, go figure.

3. Martina McBride – Waking Up Laughing

Seriously, Martina McBride has a great voice and here she does nothing wrong. This is just a wonderful album from start to finish, the stand out tracks are of course the singles, Anyway and How I Feel, but I personally like Beautiful Again, which is actually a catchy, almost jangly song about child abuse and teenage pregnancies, quite a strange mix but also uplifting at the same time. This marks the first album that she has co-written songs and produced an album solo and in the end it’s solid menu of quality songs by one of country’s best singers.

4. White Stripes – Icky Thump

Even though they’re dressed up like Pearly Kings and Queens, they still have some of the mariachi tinge from the last album left over. I like this album even though there’s no Seven Nation Army here, definitely no Blue Orchid, and certainly nothing as catchy as We Are Going to Be Friends. I’m guessing that’s actually a good thing, it shows there are not resting on their laurels in the break since Get Behind Me Satan. Instead it has the flashy Little Cream Soda, the corny Rag and Bone, the swaggering I’m Slowly Turning Into You and the Southern-fried 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues and that, my friends, is what makes this a good album.

5. Foo Fighters – Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace

This is the album In Your Honor should have been, while it falls short of the downright rocking genius of The Colour And The Shape, it’s a better effort then the last few (if you count Skin And Bones). Maybe it’s my blind faith in the Foo Fighters that keeps this as high as it is, but I genuinely think this is a pretty good album, it’s got a nice flow of fast/loud and slow songs that roll along nicely, I can sit down with this and play and rewind all day long, so it has palyability value, and to be honest, not a lof of this years albums can say that, even in my bubbling under category, I’ve only listened to Modest Mouse like once, it just got in there by default.

Bubbling Under: Saul Williams – The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, The Wreckers – Way Back Home – Live From New York City, Interpol – Our Love To Admire, Rilo Kiley – Under The Blacklight, Modest Mouse – We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank

Favourite Movies of 2007

Again, didn’t see much this year, so it’s a list by default rather than merit…

1. Hot Fuzz

What do you get when you add EVERY American cop action movie and place it in a sleepy English country village? It’s The Bill on steroids… And it’s awesome, seriously, seriously awesome.

Simon Pegg is in great form as a cop from London planted into an otherwise quiet village where people mysteriously go missing and murders are brushed under the carpet, all is not as it seems and when he busts the cover open it’s all guns blazing in a showdown of epic proportions…

2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Again that was probably because I didn’t know what was about to happen, I mean I know what’s going to happen but I enjoyed sitting there taking in every twist and turn shown on screen and not nitpicking what was left out. Anyways, Year 5 for Harry is his toughest yet, discredited by the Ministry of Magic following his encounter with Lord Voldermort at the end of the Goblet of Fire, now the dark lord is out to get him. To make matters worse, the Ministry is taking over at Hogwarts leaving Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest of the children to fend for themselves in order to prepare for the upcoming battle…

3. Sicko

As I said, this is your typical Michael Moore documentary, highly controversial and padding over some elements… But hey, I come from the UK where healthcare is free (though there are private healthcare options) and knowing some of the medical bills I’ve racked up over the last 2 years I can kind of see his point. Put it this way, even though we’re on a nice Blue Cross Blue Shield PPO, if I ever need any kind of major-ish surgery, I’ll be on a plane to the UK quicker than you would believe.

[..]

Anyways, back onto topic after that little aside, this is a very good movie. Everyone should watch it, even if you don’t agree with anything he’s saying and you may think Moore is a bit of a dick, but I’d much rather have a dick standing up, getting things like this noticed than no one at all.

Read my review here

4. Rocky Balboa

Rocky Balboa picks up years after the conclusion of Rocky V, Adrian is dead, Rocky runs a restaurant and his son has grown up and moved on to a life in big business, Paulie is still hanging around but, really, the years haven’t been good on anyone. So up pops an ESPN show about who would win in a make believe fight between Rocky in his prime and the current heavyweight champion, Mason “The Line” Dixon, a computer simulation says Rocky would win by knock out which piques his interest in local, small-time fighting again while also riling up the champ… The only logical way to find out is in the squared circle. So Rocky comes out of retirement with his usual, highly uplifting training regime and steps through the ropes for one last fight.

Now I won’t spoil the end, but if you’ve seen any Rocky film then you’re more than likely to know what’s going to happen. It’s just one of those feel good movies where you know the underdog is going to come good in the end… Very much recommended.

Read my review here

That’s it, I would put in either Transformers or Ratatouille here, but I never got round to actually reviewing them, kinda lame on my part granted, both were very good though, Transformers would have been at position 3, Ratatouille at probably 2… Overall, it’s just not been a good year.

Up until a few weeks ago we had no Thanksgiving plans, in fact our plans was to have a mini Thanksgiving dinner at home. Robyn had dreams of a tiny turkey for two, and little portions of stuffing, sweet potato casserole and what have you. Upon hearing this, John and Marchellina invited us up to their home outside Chapel Hill, it would be a small family Thanksgiving…

So we left work at around 1:30 and made our way up I-85 suffering from a little bit of traffic around Concord Mills area. After making a couple of stops for lunch and buying 2 extra Wii remotes (we brought the Wii so they could see the fuss) we arrived at about 6pm. After a pizza dinner and setting up the Wii, we showed it off as we played Wii Bowling, Tennis and Boxing, rocked out on Guitar Hero 3, and messed around with a few of the channels. I think they were suitabely impressed, now they just have to find one…

Thanksgiving Day its self was pretty quiet apart from the meal, we had a long walk along the banks of the Haw River to work up an appetite for the awesome platter laid before us before we had to say our goodbyes and head home around 6pm as we both had to work the following day. We also needed to begin the clean up process as my Dad is coming into town today… We also put up the Christmas tree, but more on that later.

The Hostess With The Mostest

Originally uploaded by FLC.

Pack up the cowbells, for the dream is over. It was in our hands and we had victory (or at least a draw) in sight and it was stolen in the cruelest fashion. Don’t get me wrong, Scotland can take a lot from the last two or so years, but after all the hard work of beating France home and away, it all came down to the 1081st minute of the campaign and well, no one epitomises glorious failure quite like us.

Sure if McFadden had slotted *that* chance away, we’d all be dreaming about a summer in the Alps, truth is we dared to take on the two teams that played in the World Cup final some 16 months ago. Even if that shady free kick decision hadn’t gone against us, nothing was guaranteed at 1-1, but if Ukraine do end up beating France on Wednesday, it’ll just be that much crueler.

I’m still in a state of shock to be honest. I’ve never been so upset at the result of a game of football in all my life, and after nearly 30 years of highs and lows with Scotland that’s saying something.