Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Ashes, Ashes we all fall down

Sorry for the lack of updates lately; I’ve been growing a moustache and didn’t realise how much time it would take up.

I’m an excited little pirate right now, as it’s getting close to the beginning of the Ashes – according to my horoscope, it actually begins on Thursday. And they say that those things don’t work. Pfft.

Due to the untimely demise of Paul the Psychic Octopus, I am putting my faith in Todd the Psychic Dinosaur, an inflatable T-Rex who lives at my house to predict the outcome of this tremendous sporting series.

Todd sees all and knows all

Ponting is a girl and will once again show himself as Australia’s worst ever captain. He’ll also get caught hooking the ball a lot and will spend the majority of the Ashes looking confused and spitting on his hands. Top score of 47 and an average of considerably less.

Mitchell Johnson will struggle to make the ball land anywhere on the wicket. The word “unpredictable” should be used as a drinking game when listening to the Channel 9 commentary, and will lead to unprecedented levels of alcohol poisoning among Australian cricket fans.

Michael Clarke will continue to look like a 15 year old boy and will miss at least one Test match due to him having the body of an 87 year old crack addict.

Shane Watson will have that stupid, smug expression knocked off his stupid, smug face. He will also miss a Test match due to him sharing Michael Clarke’s 87 year old crack addict body.

Mike Hussey will force-feed his critics a piece of humble pie. Should get a nomination for Australian of the Year, get a Guernsey to host the Logies and will be romantically linked to Jennifer Aniston.

Marcus North will make a mockery of the Australian selection process by not scoring any runs, not taking wickets and dropping a lot of catches, but will keep his spot in the team, simply because no one really knows what he looks like, so they can’t tell him to stop turning up.

Brad Haddin will be at his fumbling, bumbling best behind the stumps, is only in the team because he has always been "the next Australian wicketkeeper" following Adam Gilchrist's retirement. He should probably pop over to Dirty Dirk Nannes' house with a case of beer as a 'thank you' for breaking Tim Paine's hand the other night, or he'd be watching the game on cricinfo.com score updates like the rest of us.

Xavier Doherty will be under a spot of pressure; he’s stepping into the massive ballet shoes of Nathan Hauritz and making his debut against a team who aren’t being paid to lose. Could quite easily become Australia’s Dan Vettori, just not as good looking.

Simon Katich is awesome and will one day rule the galaxy with Mike Hussey.

Doug Bollinger will require more than a “hilarious” prankster personality to keep his spot in the team. I am also hilarious, and all my hair is my own so I am probably closer to securing a spot than Douggie.

Peter Siddle grew up wrestling crocodiles and using snakes for dental floss while lumberjacking his way through Victoria. It wasn't until he began his life as a professional cricketer that his body began to fail him. Won't take many wickets, but will succumb to injury before he gets dropped.

Steve Smith will keep being that short, chubby blonde kid who can’t bowl as well as that other short, chubby blonde kid, and we should all probably get over that and maybe even look at dark-haired leg spinners for a change.

Ben Hilfenhaus will kick himself that he wasn’t born in England so he could be part of a winning team.

Todd’s prediction: England win 2-1.

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Neigh

It’s the first Tuesday of November, so it’s time to buy a new frock, donk some feathers in your head and donate $20 to the nearest bookie, all in the name of celebrating the “Race that Stops the Nation,” the Melbourne Cup.

This day fucking astounds me, honestly. For those not in the know, the Melbourne Cup involves a bunch of horses who run a lap of a racing track, you know, kind of like every other fucking horse race in history. The winning jockey is named a national treasure and Australia’s greatest athlete, the horse is given the good bits of hay and immortalised on a Carlton Draught stubbie lid trivia question, and the cashed-up alcoholic dickwhacker owner is declared a saint who can speak to animals, when all they really did was buy a fucking horse who happened to run slightly faster than all the other horses in the race.

The day itself used to hold some kind of prestige; now it’s an excuse for drunk sluts to be drunk sluts from 8am, and if you haven’t spewed on yourself, lost a shoe and hooked up with eight pissed fuckmuppets who are at the races for the sole reason to hook up with drunk sluts, then you’ve failed, and you might as well just stick to drinking the dregs of champagne from bottles that you “found” outside corporate tents. Nothing warms my cold, dead heart more than seeing drunk bogans at the races leering at a television camera during the evening news.

The only reason the race actually stops the nation is due to the fact that a lot of people around Australia are quite literally forced to have a punt on the outcome of the race, so there’s at least $2 of vested interest there. I also remember during each year of school, students had to sit down and observe the yearly custom of watching a bunch of horses run around a field. It may not have left a glowing reminder of a “great Australian tradition” in my memory (other than seeing my primary school teachers crying because they bet their yearly salary on a horse that probably still hasn’t finished), but it did inspire me to think that a more interesting way to run the race would be if half the horses went in the opposite direction to the others, and the jockeys carried morning stars and cricket bats.

I’m not saying the day is a complete waste of everyone’s time though, far from it. If you enjoy the Cup, good on you. If you’re one of those dickheads that makes the news because they slapped $250,000 on a trifecta, only to have one stupid fuckbag horse come in fourth and so you lost it all, good on you. If you have a punt and win, good on you. If you enjoy shrieking at brightly coloured midgets sitting on thoroughbred nags, good on you. Just leave me out of it while my I am forced to drink beer, eat chicken sandwiches and ignore my phone calls at work.

I went for a job as a blacksmith the other day and the guy asked me if I had any experience shoeing horses.
“No”, I replied, “but I once told a donkey to fuck off”.