Biased Refs

Last Wednesday, as i've probably said, i was in Dublin for school's U16 water polo. So i'm guessing you'd all like to know how it went? Well, in short, we played like troopers, got screwed by the referees, and therefore lost out.

Game no. 1 saw us getting sin bin penalties 6 times, while the other team got none. I managed to knock up 2 sin bins without doing anything massively wrong, so of course i was duly reminded that one more and i'd be ejected from the game. The game ended in a 8-8 draw, and we decided to opt for sudden death, goal the winner. So we were going nice & well, until the ref decided to give the other team a penalty for no reason at all! Therefore they scored and we lost!

Game no. 2 saw the two most biased refs come together (water polo has 2 refs). This time both teams got sin bins, but the other team got 3 penalties! 3! To add to all the crap, our coach then got throw off the poolside! Basically, the ref tried to warn one of our guys about nearly getting into a fight. Our coach asked the ref if he'd seen it. The ref went "no, but i know it was this guy". No effort to warn the guy from the other team, pfff. So our coach told him to go away and give us some peace (it was a timeout), and then he got kicked out! That game ended on a tiebreak too, and we lost 4-3.

So we played well, and got messed up by the refs. I'm not just saying that, they really were the most biased i've ever come across!

TAPFS

If you like Pink Floyd, even a little bit, or you like class visual shows, go see the Australian Pink Floyd Show. Last night was incredible! Since the real Pink Floyd ain't touring anymore, these guys are really the alternative, although they are pretty damn close to the real thing. Myself and Niall went and decided to stand, which was a good choice.

They kicked off by performing the 'Wish you were here' album in it's entirety, then they took a break cause of technical problems. 20 mins later, and £45 lighter, the two of us had two t-shirts and a concert DVD before going back in to see the rest of the show. The cool woman let me pay for my t-shirt in euros & pounds (:.

Anyways, i'm trying to list most of what they played. Second half contained (in no order) Us & Them, Another brick in the wall Pt2, The Great Gig in the Sky, Comfortably Numb, Money, Run like Hell, Mother, In the Flesh, On the Run (i think), One of These Days, and a few Syd Barett-era songs, which were class.

Anyways, these shows are massively visual. They have loads of coloured lights, big projection screens, lasers and whatnot. Highlights had to be:

• All the lights shining on the audience during the chorus of 'Shine on you Crazy Diamond'
• The saxophone guy, who was class!
• The hugely extended Another brick in the wall Pt 2.
• Money, just cause it's a class song.
• Lasers, specially during Run like Hell
• The guy with the Auzzie hat and long hair playing 5 keyboards

Then there was Comfortably Numb, where during the solos they brought down this huge disco ball, and splattered every light they had on it, which was really an eye feast.
The vocal scat solo in Great Gig was incredible, better than the way the real Pink Floyd do it on my live album.
Then there was One of These Days. I wasn't expecting this to be played, but as you were probably told, it's been my MSN name for like 2 weeks. It was class! I've been to quite a few concerts with strong bass, but this was unbelievable. In the build up the bass was so strong that it just incased everybody in a shell of low frequency vibrations for about 10 seconds. It's one of the most incredible things i've ever heard! Then during that, they blew up their big pink kangaroo mascot which was the size of the stage, and when the music really got going, the roadies bounced it around! It was class, you had to be there!

So, some brilliant music all supported by lots of visual videos during songs, in Pink Floyd's style, except replacing their pink elephants with pink kangaroos. It should be renamed The Australian Pink Floyd Experience. I'm so going next time!

To complete the night, Niall and i got into his car, drove 5 metres, and realised that we had a flat tyre! Great! So we spent about 20 mins under the M3 bridge getting our hands dirty and doing a good job. Yea, the tyre stayed on all the way home thankfully!

Dublin Calls

Jamie, since your random pictures post was so good, i think i might just copy it, without your permission!

Dublin calls again tomorrow, for water polo this time. I will be captaining our water polo team to glory. Or not. In reality we may well get a good beating, but who cares! It'll be fun, as we will play at least 2 games in the classy NAC then get a kick ass meal in some nice restaurant near Drogheda on the way home. Even if we do get beaten, we could try for a dip in the fun pool, which well over twice the size of Lisburns! While you are all at school! Hah! Apart from Stevie, who will probably be on Xbox Live. Nah, i quite like school everybody, with all the incredibley random stuff goes on down there.

Quote of the day: "You better come down during easter ya hoebag!!"

Yup, that made me laugh. Cheers!

On another note, good luck to Graham as he goes for an early dip in the pool tomorrow! I'm coming next Wednesday, although you'll probably hate yourself for being up so early by that time!

St. P

Well it's been a while as you've all probably noticed, for quite a few reasons, like school, music exams and swimming training taking up some time. Actually at the minute i have more free time than i've had this year, which is certainly a good thing. Now i just have to use it wisely. Nah, Bebo has been taking up quite a bit of time, as after being bombarded with 10 bloody Bebo emails everyday i decided to join for the fun. 5 days later, there are good things and bad things to it. The good things are using it to keep in touch with people outside Belfast. It's incredibely useful for doing that (it's more of a European thing than American). On the other hand, my profile is kinda screwed, and annoyingly keeps telling me that i'm 17, when 16/6/89 is clearly scribbled over the page. Stupid thing. Point of that is that Bebo was partially to blame for distracting me off blogging.

Happy St Paddy's day by the way. Green all around for everybody. And a day off school! Anyways, the original dates in my calander for the 17th onwards was the International Schools in Scotland. Not cause i was sure i'd make the Irish team, but just to remind me that that was what i was training towards. Of course i didn't make it in the end, and i've never really wondered whether i was blame or nobody was to blame. I did train loads towards it, but i'm pretty sure in the end it was just down to 5 guys, 4 of them over 18 months older than me, just having the age advantage. It's something that had affected me at primary school, and it's returned this year. Pity though, it would've been a good trip. But i do look on the brightside about it, there's not much else i could've done to get on that team again, and there were others who missed out on a second year. Anyways, that's that kinda half rant over.

School Concert, 30th/31st March (Thursday/Friday), if we get sorted out in time it should be a good one, so it could well be a good night out. Unfortunately, we will not have a representitive of the Bank of Ireland presenting it and cracking some good jokes, but it's the music that counts!