Roger Federer is the Greatest Individual Sportsman That’s Ever Lived

We’ve been lucky enough to see him a bit over the last few years and he’s always been impressive, but what he did to Andy Roddick earlier this week was just obscene. I don’t ever remember seeing a top class player get so completely and utterly dismantled before. Roddick was lucky to pick up six games, frankly. Could very easily have been much worse.

I’m confident that in 15 years time we’ll look back at Federer as not just the greatest tennis player who’s ever lived, but simply the greatest individual sportsman ever. He just defies belief, the guy is incredible, but the best bit is he’s a joy to watch. Skipping… jumping… almost dancing his way through his matches, he’s unlike any other player before him. He combines the best of all worlds and I absolutely love watching him play.

Cox Cable, a Farce in Many Parts

So we just moved house this weekend. We transferred our cable Internet service to our new place and cancelled the land-line which we never used. Imagine our surprise when the cable at the new place worked from the very minute we moved in! Oh, the internet joy!  Everything else may have been in boxes, but at least we were able to get online!

Fast forward a couple of days to yesterday and Cat gets home from work to find a Cox guy driving away from our house. That’s a bit odd, she thinks to herrself, but thinks no more of it. A little later it turns out that (of course) our Internet isn’t working anymore. Cox (of course) are certain is has nothing to do with the guy who was at the house. Absolutely impossible they said, it must be user error.  Translation: it’s my fault, not theirs.

This user error turned out to be the Cox guy who instead of simply disconnecting our phone, cut the entire cable to the house. SWEET. The best bit is, we still have to pay for the guy to come out today because they classify it as a failed self installation. But… it’s not on our bill yet (paperwork not processed), so we can’t dispute it. Which is just surreal, basically. Makes me wonder how they’re still in business…. oh yeah, monopoly.

Really Annoying Things

# 42 (in a series).

Moving into a new house with a lovely fireplace. Building a fire to go in said fireplace. Not being familiar with the operation of the innards of the chimney above said fireplace, meaning that said fire results in you pretty much smoking yourself out of your own house. Good work there.

**cough**

Word Verification Software

You know what I’m talking about, right? When you look something up online, and the site has some sort of crapola technology in place to make sure you’re not a bot. Wavy letters and numbers that you have to type into a box OVER AND OVER AND OVER until you get lucky and hit the right combination. Safe cracking, internet style.

Small wonder that the likes of Ticketmaster are in business anymore, thinking about it. Then again, they gouge you so badly on the tickets they do manage to sell that I guess they can afford it. Just imagine how reasonable the ‘convenience charge’ would be if that bloody word verification gubbins worked better.

I’d really love to know how many attempts it takes people to get the right word, on average. I’m going to guess around three or so.

Why The Internet is Good

This weekend was the divisional playoffs in the (American) football.  My local team, the Chargers, who were expected to finally do something this year, crashed out in comical style.  But that’s another story, this weekend was really all about the ‘fuck da eagles’ girl in the crowd of the New Orleans game.   As you watch the clip below, remember that this went out live to the entire country on Saturday tea-time. And now it’s online for ever. Excellent.

It’s the best thing ever (again)