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I was originally going to head over to Nick’s tonight with the Xbox 360, but just as I was ready to leave noticed the Formula 1 second practice sessions was starting on TV. I’d checked online and it wasn’t scheduled until 11p.m, but forgot that would be 11p.m eastern time so 7p.m up here! But, Nick + Jason are coming round here tomorrow night instead as Kat’s going to do some studying at Marie’s house.

Anyways, watching F1 on Speed TV was weird as it was three British commentators to one US guy with one of the British commentators sounding a lot like Pete Ayliss, the golf commentator. Very bizarre listening to that kinda slow, laid-back accent, but on car racing! The US guy was talking about the new Honda F1 car and how they’d paid an advertising firm $200,000 a month for over a year to help them find sponsors, yet in the end they went for a livery showing their eco-friendliness which is cool, but are also giving people the opportunity to have their name on the car itself.

Sure enough, on the Honda F1 website you can go and make a pledge as to how you’re going to help reduce environmental damage, make a donation of at least £1, and have your name appear on the race car. It’s only the size of a pixel so you’d need one hell of a microscope to see it, but is pretty cool - the picture above shows where my name will appear on Jenson Button’s car! You can see the full-sized pledge here. Not to be outdone, we made a pledge for Kat and figured I’d get my dad in on the action since we used to head down to Silverstone for the British grand prix for years

All for a good cause and sounds pretty cool to have your name on an F1 car - if you want to do the same, here’s the Honda F1 My Earth Dream page. The car is meant to be able to hold up to 2 million names, so get in quick!

Was hovering around -20C, but we headed out for a walk with Marie + Rocky Has just been so pretty the last few days it seems a shame to waste it, so on with all the winter gear and out we went! About half way round the river, up comes a snowmobile sliding sideways. Nick had been out hunting and saw us walking by so came to say hi, then rode off into the sunset:

Coming up on the airport, we saw the drilling and earth moving machines that had been laying all the foundations for the new water purifying station a few weeks back. There’s been a couple of guys wandering over and looking at plans, but no more actual work going on. These machines will get floated back up to the Bethel on barges once the ice breaks:

We’d seen a Yute Air aircraft flying in earlier on, and as we got the airport we saw it taxiing ready for takeoff:

I’d been waiting weeks to end up at the airport as there was an airplane taking off, and finally timed it right. Standing in the middle of the river at the end of the runway, all I could do was hope the pilot got it into the air!

There’s a sign along the river bank at the end of the runway warning barges not to dock there for loading or unloading. Fairly obvious, but back in October/November last year an aircraft was trying to land and ended up crashing into the bank right around here. The plane was overloaded with groceries for the local store, and the pilot got out safely - luckily Nick was there working on the airport building and dragged him to safety.

A couple of basketball teams are due to fly into the village to play some games against our school tomorrow evening and Saturday morning which should be fun. The girls high school team are already 5-0 or something and heading to Bethel for a district tournament soon thanks to their results. Might go see some of the matches over the weekend depending on how many kids start climbing all over me. Some of them still think I’m Spanish ‘cos I talk funny…

The Super Bowl party at Nick’s was really good fun yesterday afternoon, though doesn’t look I’ve been missing much in not getting the half-time shows when I’ve watched it back in England. Even aside from putting Prince as the headline act (not a fan of him at all), it wasn’t all that impressive. His line of “Can I play the guitar?” before going into a solo during Purple Rain was obviously rhetorical as surely someone organising it all should have shouted “NO!” to save him making such a mess of it.

Barbequeing hot dogs outside whilst it’s -3C with Nick standing in a pair of shorts and no socks was certainly different too! At least Indianapolis overcome Hester’s touchdown-scoring kick-off return to win pretty convincingly, though aside from the 1st quarter the game wasn’t quite as close or exciting as the Madden version on the Xbox 360 the night before (though both games did have a number of fumbles + interceptions!).

At least the workmen building the new water purifying station have quietened down a little - 7a.m starts both Saturday + Sunday whilst they had the water disconnected at school allowed them to drill all the foundations. All the materials and equipment they had right outside the houses have all been cleared this afternoon, so once some snow falls (forecasted for tomorrow), it should start looking a bit better than exposed mud covered in tyre tracks

Getting ready for Nick’s Super Bowl party this afternoon, we realised this morning that for some reason our local channels on Dish Network ain’t working at the moment. Got in touch with the provider, and they’re claiming ‘minor technical issues’ which doesn’t bode well. Really looking forward to it though, as it will be the first time watching the Super Bowl live rather than a recording or re-run.

Last night Nick came round and we ran through Chicago vs Indianpolis on Madden ‘07 for the Xbox 360 as a bit of a warm up - last 50 seconds of the 4th quarter, Nick on 3rd and 8 on his own 22, 1 point ahead (playing as the Colts) after my failed 2 point conversion just before this drive, and the power goes out If it wasn’t so expensive to get a baby UPS shipped up to here, would definately get one as I’ve lost count on the number of times the power has gone out in the last minute of a game or 20 yards from the finish line on Need for Speed: Carbon!

But, if the actual Super Bowl (assuming we can watch it!) is as close and exciting as the Xbox 360 version, should be a good game - I’ll be cheering for the Colts even though I played as the Bears last night!

Well, started doing some Christmas shopping today, i.e. buying stuff on-line Been about 4 years since I actually went into shops, too much hassle! Never had any problems with deliveries as I don’t leave it until a week before Christmas, which the press always seem to ignore when publishing articles about people spending loads of money on-line and not getting their gifts delivered in time. More fool them for leaving it so late! But, if anyone’s after some cool + unique knitwear and clothing, check out Snood, recently formed by my cousin Ruth!

And if Christmas shopping wasn’t exciting enough, figured out yesterday Kat has Dish Network TV up in Alaska, which just happens to provide ESPN, Fox sports and NFL Network (amongst 60-odd other channels). Reckon that will keep me busy during the day!

With a break in the weather yesterday afternoon, I went for a wander to try out the Nike+ iPod Nano gear. I was taking the iPod anyways with going for a walk, and thought it would be cool to give the Nike+ kit a try too. Just set it up to go for 10 minutes (although I forgot to stop it and let it run a bit longer since I was enjoying the Danko Jones track!), then got home and plugged it into iTunes to see what happens. Zips you off to register at nikeplus.com (though it is optional), then brings up a very flash website to display all the data:

Granted it was only 10 minutes on + off (I ain’t built for running’!) so covered about 1.37km, but for more serious runners this would be pretty serious piece of kit. Even just in terms of their website and how it handles the data was pretty impressive from a coding + design point of view (see, there’s the real me - none of this running malarkey!).

It maps out your pace, timings, distances travelled, etc. so you can clearly see in the screenshot where I was jogging for a minute, walking for a minute, jogging for a minute, walking for a minute, etc. Doesn’t seem to play nice with Firefox for setting up goals, but you’re meant to be able to define what you’d like to achieve, and it then compares your workouts against what you should be achieving at intervals to reach your goal which could be fun. It’s a neat piece of kit, and might encourage me to start jogging, but even just as a way to track my walks it’s cool, and sure Kat will find more of a use for it since she’s into her running (though maybe not in Alaska…).

As I head out and do quite a lot walking and stuff, thought it would be cool to play around with the Nike+ gear for the iPod Nano. The idea is a little sensor sits in your shoe, effectively acting as a pedometer, which relays data back to your iPod to calculate distance travelled, average speed, total time, calories burned, etc. For runners, it seems very popular as it’s able to track up 1,000 workouts, with the ability to sync back to iTunes and also to nikeplus.com so your times can be shared and let you compete against friends anywhere in the world. I ain’t quite daft enough for that kind of running though!

Kat got me the cool armband for the iPod for my birthday rather than having it sitting my pocket and banging against keys + money when I’m out + about, or you can wrab the band back on itself and works like a soft case to fit in your pocket or whatever. The Nike+ sensor fits nicely into the Nike running wallet (with a bit of padding to stop it sliding around) which clips onto the shoelaces of your shoe, and doesn’t look as daft as it might appear!

Tempted to go out and try it this afternoon, but am knackered + feeling very lazy today! Think I’ll just leave it until tomorrow, do some studying for the OS X Server exam instead, and give it a whirl when the birthday cake + sweets have worn off

First time I’ve got to see Sunderland in person this season (though watched a couple of matches on TV), and other than being a division lower and having had an influx of players, not much difference Weird seeing Roy Keane in the dugout and Dwight Yorke on the pitch in a Sunderland shirt, but they still seem to have a basic lack of control and common sense. There were some excellent moves in the first half, but just didn’t lead anywhere or broke down. Some excellent passing combinations would be ruined by stupid errors - either players being over-confident and trying things beyond their skill, or simply loosing concentration.

Thankfully, and no disrespect meant, Sheffield Wednesday were poor. Against better opposition, especially in the second half, Sunderland would have conceeded at least two goals. Poor linesman decisions didn’t help, with some Sunderland players clearly becoming paranoid and not running through when on the ball. Ironic that Leadbitter’s goal came from a pretty poor couple of minutes play!

But, as we had passes for the Black Cats bar, turned out to be a good afternoon. Much nicer standing having a couple of drinks in a warm, comfortable, carpeted bar rather than surrounded by concrete pillars, burger stalls and toilets! Seats were pretty good too, just off to the side of the goal, but up in the Black Cats club seating area meaning padded seats. Makes such a difference, really does!

Nice to get to another match with dad too - it’s his 60th birthday tomorrow and my birthday on Tuesday, so was kind of an early celebration maybes, but also good to spend some more time together. Think all the matches towards the end of last season were part of a realisation I wasn’t going to be there much longer. Didn’t expect to still be here *this* season, but good to make the most of it!

Just cos I’m not working at Greencroft (or working at all, for that matter…) didn’t stop Trev from giving me a bell to see if I fancied going to the football. What with it being the start of the Premiership season today, and there being absolutely nothing to smile about being a Sunderland supporter, I figured “Why not?”. New seats this season, too. A good bit closer to the pitch, and my seat was perfectly dry even if a dodgy roof meant Trev got dripped on!

Heavy rain before kick-off made things interesting, with the pitch clearly waterlogged. Playing the ball to feet didn’t work too well with the water just slowing it down, and a few interesting tackles went in with players sliding around all over the place. Bit of fun. Much like rain brining excitement to Formula 1 giving Jenson Button in winning a couple of weeks ago!

Wigan can genuinely feel disappointed - they not only outplayed, but outclassed, Newcastle for the majority of the 90 minutes. Scott Parker’s goal for Newcastle was quality, but Shola Ameobi’s was more of a joke - he’d simple been sauntering up behind play, 15/20 yards behind the ball as he had done all game, when a deflection off the keeper from N’Zogbia’s shot bounced his way and he managed not to sky it or miss completely!

Still, I’m just bitter with Sunderland loosing 3-1 to Southend, of all teams, which now sees them rooted to the foot of the Championship with nothing from 4 matches. Feels like last season, except a whole division lower - and still not even close to having the quality to win matches

A tale of two halves! This re-scheduled match after being snowed off a couple of weeks ago certainly caused some excitement. A shocking performance in the first half from both Sunderland and the referee somehow finished in Sunderland leading 1-0 going into the break after a goal from Le Tallec. Some terrible decisions in the first half by Riley didn’t improve in the second half, though seemed to balance out with a total of 4 yellow cards (most needless) for both teams.

Kevin Ball obviously gave them a hammering during half-time, but it worked. They actually seemed to have some heart, and my man Nosworthy ran his little heart out, causing all sorts of problems for Fulham who just didn’t seem to know what to do. It was his attempt on goal that caused the keeper to parry into the path of Chris Brown who put away the second goal. Sunderland haven’t actually scored two goals at home in a Premiership match all season so it looked comfortable until Radzinski scored for Fulham with 15 minutes left.

But, a nerve-racking final 15 minutes with chances for both teams finally ended up with Riley blowing his whistle not for yet another inocuos foul (having not signalled after plenty of full-blooded fouls!), but to end the match, the final home game, and the first home win! Go on, look at that scoreboard at the final whistle - how many times have opposition teams scored in the final minute or two to ruin such a thing of beauty!

And, after celebrating amongst themselves, the players went for a bit wander - a lap of honour to thank the fans, with the even stadium announcer paying tribute to all the supporters that have followed the team through a pretty terrible season. Considering this was a mid-week match a lot of the promo tickets were for kids, there was still just shy of 30,000 fans in the ground.

And still the fans were chanting everything from “Top of the league, we’re top of the league” to “We’re shite, but we 2-0 up” Here’s to next season then, though I doubt I’ll be able to catch a game or two!