FIFA World cup - go aussies

Driving into work today I was listening to SEN, the sports radio station here, and they were talking about the World Cup with that idiot Patrick Smith talking with the great KB about it.

KB, like me, was enthused by the draw and said we should go in with some confidence, and Patrick Smith was saying that it was so difficult that we're unlikely to get passed the group stages - in fact bookies are giving us 150 to 1 odds of getting through, so I'm off to put some money down on that bet, because for $100 it will be the easiest $15,000 I'll ever win!

With my limited knowledge on the history of World Soccer, let's have a look at this.

Australia is currently ranked 21st in the world - in September we were ranked as high as 14th.

Serbia is currently ranked 20th and again in September were ranked 13th.

Germany ranked 6th, in September ranks 4th, and earlier in the year for over 12 months had bee ranked 2nd.

Ghana is ranked 37th, and in September were 32nd.

Yes, they're all good teams, Germany will be tough but not impossible - we played them once in a World Cup match were they beat us 3-0, but that must have been the first time we got to the world cup in the 70's and got smashed by everyone. Since then we've played once more, and lost 3-4, a very honourable score line for a country who has soccer ranked as their 4th or 5th major national team sport?

Ghana we've played a few times, and the ledger is on our side, so there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to beat these guys.

The game against Serbia I think will be the decider as to who goes through or not - we seem to be one rank behind them for some time and my gut tells me that we're an even stevens contest against them and will come down to who takes their opportunities.

My prediction is that we will lose to Germany 2-1, beat Ghana 2-0 and beat Serbia 2-1 putting us through to the next stage against England.

We'll be England because they're chokers and then play France in the Quarter Finals - now my head says we'll lose that, but then we performed incredibly well against Italy last time around, showing that we can compete, and we duffed a few goal scoring opportunities against Brazil in for me one of the most entertaining matches of the cup, even though we got a pasting it was non stop action. So if we do beat France, although that's unlikely even for an optimist like myself, guess who'll be the lucky buggers to play Brazil - we will in a 7-2 pasting goal fest, they'll smash the pants off us as if they were made of glass, but will be fun to watch none the less.

So to those out there that feel as though we don't have a chance, chance a $100, win $15k and enjoy the games because I think it will be a cracker, and you're a cracker if you don't think we have a chance.

Go boys!

Enjoy,
C

Over the weekend, I was thinking about my belly, and how I'd like to lose it for my upcoming wedding in June, and I've always been partial to those meal replacement drinks - mainly because I like milk shakes and they're easy, no thought required.

So I stumbled upon an aussie website call www.becominghealthy.com.au and what got my interest was that they had different shakes for different requirements, and also offered free help from their dietitian Bill Cootes.

I'm glad to say I've purchased my shakes, and am now waiting to get them across which should be a couple of days away, but that's not what I wanted to blog about. What I wanted to blog about was something that Bill ran through with e today...

I was talking to Bill about my height weight, what I want to get down to what I'm doing now, etc... and I mentioned that normally I would drink 8 to 10 coffees a day, a lot I know, but I have a habit of drinking it like water, I have my mug by me and just keep drinking away, then I might have one or two when I get home.

So Bill got me to write some figures down and do some calculations.

I have 2 sugars with my coffee, so 16 teaspoons of sugar a day, and there are 6 grams of sugar in a teaspoon = 96 grams of sugar x 4 calories = 384 calories from the sugar in my coffee alone per day.

Now in 1kg of body fat there are 9000 calories. So if you decide to eat someone, don't eat the crackling I guess?

So if you take 384 calories from sugar in my coffee multiplied by 365 days a year = 140,160 calories, divide that by 9000 calories or 1kg of body fat and that's a touch over 15.5kgs, 34 pounds or 2.4 stone in the really old measure.

Now I don't drink that many coffee's on the weekend, because I don't have a pot of coffee ready to be pured like I do in the office here, but I thought it was amazing to think with all the fad diets out there, that something so small a change in my life style could potentially have such an effect on me.

Cool huh?

Enjoy,
C

Yes, it's been confirmed with the purchase of a new Trek, that I have turned... into a cyclist!

So here I am, recently I mentioned that I might have turned... into a cyclist, now I can confirm the change has occurred, with football only a faint memory in my mind I have now found my new sport to pursue, cycling.

I picked up my new Trek today, had it fitted, and got all my goodies that would allow me to be the fastest racer between the ages of 32.25 and 32.33 in the St Kilda East area that in live on the third floor of an apartment with a GF and a really big dog!

OK, so I'm aiming to be the champ within a field range small enough to be just me in it, or on the other hand unlikely to have a gun cyclist fit into the same category, but hey, it's a goal.

Now, if you didn't already guess, I love racing, as long as you can control/drive/ride it, I say race it, and sell the TV rights so I can watch it on a Sunday - and what I really like about the bikes, from a riders perspective, once you've got a bike and a helmet, you're pretty right to go racing.

In the past I'd looked at racing my RS250 that was sitting in the shed, but to be fair, with the cost of tyres, transport, upkeep of the bike, and other associated costs, you're talking quite big money, and that's before you consider being competitive.

So my true goal is now, to build up some miles in the old pasty white legs, lost a few kg's along the way, and hopefully before the end of Q1 for 2010, I will have gotten out there and at least had a race.


Can I also thank Jae from Omara Cycling for his advice with the bike, setup and all the extra goodies, and generally the deal he did for me, it was great, a pleasure to deal with, and the confidence that I can hit the streets with everything I need and armed with some helpful information to make it a good experience.


Jae has also promised to start using our service too, so kids, there might be a holiday afterwards!! Thanks Jae.

(probably not - holidays are for the weak :)


Enjoy and have a great weekend!
C

So it's the Spring Carnival, and we're coming towards the end of the big races - and what a set of races it's been.

I must admit, it's great to be in Melbourne when it's all happening - all of a sudden racing experts appear out of the wood work, and people gather in the kitchen here in the office to watch the big races, speaking about trainers, jockeys and horses they hadn't heard of more than two days ago.

Personally I'd like to thank Faint Perfume for getting me back onto the right side of the ledger today - I lost $30 on the Melbourne Cup, and won $40 on the Stakes today (using a free bet :) ), so I'm more than happy.

In fact I think I might throw caution to the wind and put the $10 I'm up on another horse and see what happens!


Go horsies go!!


Enjoy,
C

Well done Mark

I just wanted to congratulate Mark Webber on an outstanding year, and an outstanding final race too.

I sat up until 2:00am watching the race, and was enthralled by it - with 9 laps to go Jensen nearly 5 seconds behind, started taking chunks out of Marks lead over him, and on the last lap with Marks car not handling as it had been to hold the world champ off to claim second was amazing.

Considering Jensen is the best over taker in the business, it was a pleasure to watch.

But for Mark who came fourth in the championship I think is a real testament to his driving ability when you consider the following.

During the off season he had a nasty accident where he broke his leg, and was in doubt to even start the season, and was using pain killers whilst driving all the way up to the Spain GP. Then with other things like battling against the double diffuser of Brawn and some issues with reliability to boot, I think he's done an outstanding job, and hope to see him higher in the order next year.

And I still think that his first win in Germany was one of the best I've seen - in the past, and was acknowledged by Vettel yesterday, generally speaking after the first couple of laps that order was generally the order the races finished in, and obviously this year has been different, but for Mark to get a drive through penalty, which I still think was too harsh, and yet still go on to win the race, after effectively pitting once more than his next closest challenger in the race, just shows some great driving skill.

It's only a shame that now, I have one more Moto GP race to watch, but three of my favourite sports are done now for about 6 months, I'm left wondering what I'll be staying up late for now?

Maybe I'll take up reading?

Enjoy,
C

I thinking I'm turning?

Wheels that is. Bike wheels.

After years of being super negative towards cyclists, I think I'm about to turn into one - and I'm as shocked as anyone who knows me, and knows my distaste for cyclists.

During the last Tour de France, I must admit I'd really only watched it for the first time because it was on at the same time as the Ashes series in England, and during the breaks, and rained out sessions I'd flick across to SBS and watch the cycling.

To my surprise it was actually enjoyable to watch, I think that Phil Ligget commentating had a lot to do with it, as he explained what was happening so that someone who had no clue, like me, could enjoy without dumbing it down sop much as someone who followed the sport would be turned off by it.

I can also point the finger at Paul, who has an office next to us, and is a big cycling fan and has been trying to rope Skye and I into the sport.

I think lastly, what's tipped the scales is that I'm now getting on in my sporting pursuits and playing footy isn't something that I can do any longer, or really feel the need to play, and that probably goes for all contact sports really - it's just so hard the following day, and walking around like a mummy for 2-3 days recovering isn't a fun thing. But I am looking for something that will help me keep my weight down, and that is competitive, that I can still be competitive in - and since I have my mums legs, I'd probably be a reasonable armature sprinter on the bike.

So I spend the weekend either going around to various bike shops, looking for my first bike, and gear to boot, or looking on the net, I've found three bikes that I thought was OK.

They are;

a Merida from St Kilda Cycles

a MBC from Melbourne Bikes

a Giant from eBay, that the bloke bought some time ago and basically hasn't used.


It is really confusing because I don't know much about bikes, and on the forums everyone has an opinion, and instead of getting an entry level bike, you're pushed into spending several thousands on a bike that you don't know which way to go.

So I think I've made a decision - I'm going to bid on the eBay bike, but if that's no good, then i think the Merida is the way to go. At least the frame is a good one, and if I want to upgrade the running gear I can.


The next step is to get the bike and take it for a spin - now that will be interesting, because I did take one around the car park on the weekend, and an onlooker might have described me as having less balance than a circus bear on a unicycle is probably true - but after a good ride, that should be sorted out.



At least I can still bunny hop - though road bikes now aren't made for it, it will still look cool?



Enjoy,
C

Talking again about being remarkable...

Following on from my last post about being remarkable, based on what Seth Godin speaks about in his talks and books, I found something remarkable too.

OK, so hands up this happened because I made a mistake, but with that said, it's still quite a remarkable result.

Now our service has a feature that allows you to send a SMS to a virtual number, and that message is then forwarded onto a group - great for sales people on the road to tell everyone about a new sale they got, or for emergency alerts to where it can reduce the time it takes to send out to people that need to know by some margin.

So, I had a school send me an email about it, and I thought, I haven't played with it for a bit so I'd refresh my memory about how it worked, trying things I knew would work to make sure they didn't and vice versa - since working in an IT world, I've learnt about replication, where as coming from an engineering background it was always a matter of getting on to rectify the problem.

So with that I logged into my web account and sent a SMS to a test group that was already in there.

Now, because I generally use my account for testing, I assumed the test group just had my number in it - but it didn't, it contained 125 mobile numbers, whom I have no clue who they were or are.

The service worked great, and all 125 people got the message "this is a test message".

Bugger it, I could have done with not doing that, but there's nothing I can do about it now, I'm sure someone would reply, and I'll just send back a message apologising for it and I had the wrong number.

So over the next hour or two, I checked the inbox a couple of times, nothing, no one replied - odd, but good in a way, so I didn't worry about it again and went on with what I was doing.

It did nag a bit at me, and late in the day I went back to my account and had a look around, oh no, the service alias (which means the originator of the message I sent) was set to a mobile number I didn't recognise?

The next day, Lorretta, the building manager came to see me asking a question about her phone, she'd received so many messages and a number of calls from people asking who she was? Strange, but then it dawned on me that the message I'd sent, I sent it from her number.

It was because a while before she had asked me to SMS someone who wasn't getting the messages from her phone, and so she would get the response I set the messages to come from her number, and then forgot to take it off again.


Is that remarkable? It's a remarkable stuff up, that's what it was, but that's not what it is.

It is remarkable because she received 60 messages back and 5 phone calls - that's a response rate, to a test message, of over 50% - in fact one caller told poor Lorettra that he needed to know what she did because he was so intrigued by the message.


Now of course you can't send out to a marketing list "this is a test message" to trap possible punters to buy your wares, but it does show with the right message, response rate can be massive.


Compared with more traditional methods where a 2% response rate is almost unheard of, 1% is a real win, and average is less than that. In a world where no hears you any more because the noise is so loud, this is what it was like when the idea marketing was born, and you only had to whisper to be heard!


Now that's what I call remarkable!


Enjoy,
C