Last night Frankenstein’s Fumblers lost an exhibition match against the lizardmen of the Turbo Freaks. That’s played three, lost three.

Oh well, those were the pre-season warm-ups and with the cup nearly over we have the league to look forward to.

Despite losing the Fumblers continued to provide entertainment and raked in a sizable purse, which along with it being a casualty free match means that we have the cash to spend on new team members.

Say hello to our new Flesh Golem, Bride of Frankie, (pictured on the right in characteristically stoic mood at a press conference to announce her signing) bringing that much needed feminine touch to the squad. Any notion that this is nepotism on the part of team captain, Big Frankie, is strongly denied.

Very True Mood:  optimistic

Last night the Fumblers became the first team to crash out of the Cup. After losing 0-2 to the Dwarf Giants and 1-2 to the Numinous Comets they creep back to their crypt in shame.

But, like all good undead, they will rise again!

Frankenstein’s Fumblers are now available to play exhibition matches, so all other losers, or any late comers who missed out on the Cup, or any confident winners up there in the heavenly half of the draw, come and have a go if you think you’re soft enough.

‘cos the werewolves are getting hungry, and want some more star player points…

Very True Mood:  optimistic

Last night the 2006 Old World Cup started. This, in contrast with the recent rubbish in Germany, is a Blood Bowl tournament played over the web with a few friends. My team, Frankenstein’s Fumblers, played the opening game against the Dwarf Giants.

The Fumblers have a nice mix of muscle, speed and cannon fodder. The Giants have muscle, more muscle and some muscle on the side. The Giants won 2-0.

As the cup is being played as a double elimination tournament this means that I’m not out but I do have an uphill struggle if I’m going to win. My next match will be against the loser of Numinal Comets (elves) vs Veni Vedi Viking (um, Vikings).

Very True Mood:  contemplative

Oh dear. Australians. What can you do with them? *

Linky link link if the video doesn’t play

*that they haven’t already done with themselves

And the one with the beard? I work with him. Take pity on me.

Very True Mood:  distressed

I take it that all the shouting and honking of horns outside means that England did okay in the footie?

( Spoilers, not for the football... )

Very True Mood:  cheerful

Okay, so yesterday I actually managed to speak to a “genius” at the Apple Store and he restored the iPod software on my Nano. And that’s all okay, except… quite often whilst the iPod is connected to the computer it will suddenly wipe all the data. All songs, gone. I can make it happen predictably by trying to copy album artwork over with the songs, so that’s disabled now, but it’s still happening unpredictably for some other reason. Grrrr.

My computer also had trouble with the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs CD. It decided that the first track was 49 minutes long (i.e. it contained the whole album) and that the second track was 15 hours long (maybe it contained a secret message from an alien intelligence?). Track three onwards are fine. I must check it an a regular CD player to see if it’s the CD and not the computer.

Doctor Who starts two weeks yesterday, and the BBC promotions machine is in full swing. Tennant and Piper are in all the weekend newspapers (oh dear, the David Tennant fashion article in the Guardian…). But much more excitingly on the web site there are trailers and “Tardisodes” (BTW, who would pay through the nose to download these to a mobile rather than watch them online?). And Mickey’s updated his web site as well (be sure to follow all the links.).

I’m trying to catch up with the 8th Doctor novels. I’ve reached The Last Resort and now have a dilemma. I have six of the remaining nine books but not Timeless or Sometime Never. The latter is definitely crucial to the ongoing arc and I think the former is quite important as well. Yesterday I looked in three Waterstones, two Borders, two Books Etc., Forbidden Planet, Blackwells, Foyles^[1], WHSmiths and the BBC Shop. No luck. Amazon are saying that they dispatch in 4 to 6 weeks, which if past performance is anything to go by means that there’s only a 50-50 chance at best of Amazon being able to dispatch them at all.

At least Oxford have run the boat race.

Oh, and the flat is currently full of knitters. But they brought cake so that’s okay.

[Update] - I just remembered that whilst I was in Foyles I noticed a stocky, balding chap staring at me as he walked past. Just after he left the store I realised that this was almost certainly Dom Sandbrook, whom I have mentioned before on this blog. Gosh, he has a Wikipedia entry, and I wonder whether if anyone I know was responsible for the ‘vandalism’ shown in the revision history. No, scrap that, I don’t wonder “whether”, I wonder “which”.

Very True Mood:  cranky

Right? No talking about the rugby. Got that?

Very True Mood:  distressed

Well, that was a bit of a surprise. No grand slam this year. And whoever wins tomorrow (and that will be Wales, won’t it?) is also in with a chance of winning the tournament.

Very True Mood:  surprised

I’m officially middle aged now as today I wore novelty socks bought for me by my wife.

However, they were Welsh Dragon socks and Wales did beat Scotland today (they seemed to be overpowering the Scots in the parts I saw, though the last Scottish try looked like a classic from what I saw on the news) so I see a new superstition in the forming.

Very True Mood:  happy

First half was okay. Second was just painful.

Okay, okay. England did play well - powerful, accurate and fast. Wales need to take the way they played in the first half, add that little extra oomph, and then keep it up for a whole match. From what I saw of Italy - Ireland it doesn’t look like a very promising start for the Irish either. So let’s see how France and Scotland fair tomorrow, but, so far, if the English keep this up all through the tournament then there won’t be any stopping them.

In other news I got my hair cut today. First time since the wedding; that’s five months. Lettice will be sad - she would like to turn me into a James May clone (except younger, non-smoking and less sexist, I presume) - but at least it’s now somewhere near to controllable.