Summer Cricket Fever Dream

Summer has arrived in the northern hemisphere.  Well, it's close enough anyway.  After spending it's winter down in Australia it has finally returned to the top and has brought with it so many interesting things.  For one, cricket!

The weather up here is warming which means the cricket is back.  Sure the Cricket World Cup (#cwc11) was only a few months ago, and the IPL has been on for the last month.  It's back to the international stuff, though, and Test cricket!  Today I caught small bits of Sri Lanka vs England in Cardiff.  It was the second day of the test and Sri Lanka went all out for 400.  That's a pretty good score for an innings... I think.  Still learning y'see.  I love watching those white uniformed bastards battle for superiority, I really do. 

Also going on in the world of cricket is the IPL final.  This is harder for me to really sink my teeth into.  It's a more familiar form of sports for my American brain, city teams in a league.  So many years of soccer has, however, conditioned my brain for national teams so I don't mind that.  The IPL has been notoriously hard to find online.  Sure I can find match summaries and live updates, but unless I'm watching the game I have trouble following the league.  I managed to watch only two games, Kings XI vs Deccan and Mumbai vs Kerala.  I'm also not as informed about India as I am about, say, England or Japan.  That is another barrier to following the IPL.  All of the big name players compete in the league so there is a lot of excitement, certainly, but it didn't capture my interest this year.  I was too busy and the schedule is extremely tight, understandably, so I mostly passed on it this year.  Maybe next year I'll give it a chance, though that depends on so many different factors in my life. 

I'll try to catch the IPL final Madras... oops Chennai vs Bangalore.  There are some players that I'm familiar with on those teams.  MS Dhoni, Michael Hussey, Chris Gayle, Doug Bollinger, AB de Villiers, and Daniel Vettori. 

Ashes recieved a package from Cricket Australia in the mail the other day containing childrens cricket sets.  We had been expecting the delivery for a while but I guess the whole thing got stuck overseas for quite a while, to our frustration.  Luckily I arrived home from work last week to find a huge package sitting on the porch addressed to Ashes.  I had to resist the urge to open it until she finished work and then we busted it open.

Inside was a large duffel bag with the Milo in2cricket logo on the outside and stuffed full of cricket gear inside.  Six cricket bats, a dozen cricket balls, six sets of stumps and field markers were the contents.  We immediately took a bat a piece and went out into the yard for a quick hit around.  We didn't play long as the yard at the place we rent isn't meant for activity, but it was a lot of fun to finally have our own stuff.  Yes, it's meant for kids.  That won't stop me from enjoying the hell out of this stuff as much as any of the kids that will use it.  On a day that isn't raining (of which there have been few lately) she's going to bring the set into her preschool and play the game with the kids.  I'm sure there will be videos or photos to accompany the experience, so look forward to that as well.  For the moment I've rarely been without a cricket bat by my side over the last week.  It just feels good to have one around, like I'm not so out of touch with the cricketing world.

We haven't got any major travel plans this summer, unless some kind cricket organization wants to invite us to a game... which of course is highly unlikely.  So we'll just resort to the standard day trips this year.  We have got a cartload of new trip possibilities in our immediate area.  Since we moved down to Massachusetts last fall we haven't had a chance to explore much since winter was so extreme this year.  This means we have dozens of destinations in western Mass to visit.  There are also hundreds of places in a 2-3 hour radius to occupy us all summer.  Adventures await, and hopefully the accompanying articles!

I have a few more half completed posts about Sydney to finish, and after that I can move on to other stuff.  So look forward to even more gushing about Australia's finest city, as if you aren't already sick of hearing it.

Zombie Apocalypse Not Forthcoming

So 2011 is turning out to be the year that I've all but abandoned blogging it would seem.  I've had long stretches without posts before but not so many this close together.  Through the mists I put up a post every month or so.  That simply will not do.  I'm supposed to be a writer, damnit!  So write I shall.  Whatever the subject may be I'll just let it flow.

At the moment I should comment on the non-event that happened on Saturday.  The no-pocalypse.  I was ready for that to happen.  Knowing that I wouldn't fit the bill for what an evangelical, American Christian organization would consider "salvation-worthy" I had to be prepared for what would happen down here.  Zombies.  Even if there wasn't some manner of rapture (which there wasn't) I was at least expecting some playful mad scientist to shatter a vial or two of zombie plague in the major urban areas.  That's a reasonable expectation right?  That didn't happen either.  The day before all this hubbub the CDC released a plan for a possible Z-Day.  An official government organization has a plan for zombies!  The timing seemed right.  Certainly anyone 30 or younger already has a detailed plan for surviving a Z-Day scenario, probably a few plans.  It was kind of the CDC to give the older folks a quick how-to guide as well. 

Despite so much foreshadowing and buildup nothing happened.  The clock rolled over to a new day and I sat in my basement, cricket bat in hand, for nothing.  Zombies did not devour the earth.  While I couldn't have cared about the lack of a nutball cultists version of the rapture not transpiring the lack of a zombie invasion was more distressing.  It's odd to think of being disappointed by a lack of zombies since I would almost surely die, as would anyone who already thinks they're an expert, but that's how it goes.  No, I think life continuing in a normal manner is just fine in the end.

Seeking the apocalypse is something that some people do as a form of escapism.  Can't handle the pressures of their life so they join some sort of death cult.  Then these creeps claim to be the voice of God, or to understand secret messages in the Bible and lead the weak willed down a bad road.  False Prophets.  That's the most artistic term I've heard used.  Cult leader is the most "modern" I would say.  I'll go with false prophet since it paints a picture of these manipulative crazies as being another in a long, long line of deceptive liars.  I feel sorry for those that contributed their life savings to this effort and now see their lives in ruin.  They get to keep on living and really is that such a bad thing?

I never believed, though just before the "appointed hour" I did listen curiously.  Of course there was nothing.  And for that I'm grateful.  American evangelists are so exclusive and ready to damn the whole world for not being them that they feel the apocalypse is always just around the corner.  They can have that life of constant fear and judgment.  Me, I'll take the life with a cricket bat in one hand and the Zombie Survival Guide in the other.  I'm ready you undead bastards.

Trouble in Time

Okay okay okay so I know I've been neglecting this little blog of mine for several months, several critical months.  I haven't got a good reason why.  Laziness would be the largest reason, maybe apathy.  However, those aren't good reasons.  Now I'm going to get back into the grooooooove of blogging. I might have to gimmick it up at first in order to find my rhythm again.  A blog a day like last year during the World Cup?  Perhaps.  That's how I do things

This ghost town is going to be alive again.  No more gold prospector spirits roaming around scaring tourists!

Here's some things to expect from this blog in recent future.
- Stuff
- Things
- Whatzits
- Serialized stories?

I've had a LOT going on right now and tons of ideas floating around my head.  So trust to see some proper content here real soon.

P... probably.