5-4

A vastly depleted Praedator's outfit managed to sneak home a heroic victory last Thursday. Playing against the undefeated competition leaders, things were looking grim when only seven Praedators lined up at the kick off. Thankfully a late comer arrived to fill out a skeleton crew.

The Bates brothers (x3), Weapon, Chunga, Slappy, LotW and myself were the only one's who made it to this Australia Day show down. Our pivot, our other pivot and the nuggety rake all failed to show or had other commitments (sacrilege!). Arrayed against us was what appeared to be two teams, some of which were backing up from playing A grade.

The opposition won the toss, but foolishly decided to run into the sun (the only real consideration when you win the toss at Birrong Park). The first half was a ragged affair for the Praedators. The heat and humidity was oppressive, the grass was long and it was hard work. By half time we were down 3-1, a lone try to Mr Dependable (Marto) keeping us in it. Thankfully there were some hopeful signs. We were hanging in there and the opposition seemed a little down on energy for some reason.

The second half was probably the best half of football I've been involved in for a long, long time. Amazingly we managed to lift our effort levels. A dummy to chunga/pass to LotW resulted in him streaking away down the wing. Then a switch of play to Ted gave him some room to stand up their shoddy blindside defense. Timmy chimed in as well and suddenly we were up 4-3 with 10 minutes to go.

What followed was the Siege of Birrong Park, 2006. The opposition were always going to come back and they countered ferociously. Afew penalties and we found ourselves defending our line desperately for 4 or 5 sets back-to-back. Brilliantly, the boys swarmed, shouted, kicked and cussed until we eventually forced them to make a mistake. In the set that followed we managed to ruck it out and kick it deep into their half.

Unfortunately we gave away a penalty at this point and shockingly allowed a big fat gumby to run straight through us and score! 4-4 with almost no time left!!!

The remainder of the half was like a slow motion ballet. Somehow we found ourselves attacking their line, but with zero gas left, we seemed bereft of ideas. I suddenly found myself with the ball and angled hard across field, trying to entice someone to chase me, thus breaking up their line. Chunga was outside me and I knew he would come back in. I was going to dummy like I normally would, but changed my mind at the last minute and gave it to him. He seemed to hesitate but then the inside defender slipped! For what seemed like an eternity he looked around before realizing that no one was close enough to touch him. Three or four steps later he had put the ball down and the siren went!

You Beauty.

Dreams...

Last night was a rather restless night.

First it was quite humid. Secondly there was a mosquito on the loose somewhere, and finally temperature control commands were being given by the boss, requiring fan and a/c changes throughout the night.

In any case I dreamt about oztag. It was the first game back from the Christmas break and I was raring to go (this game is actually on tonight). I won the toss so we were receiving. Phi takes the kick off and manages to beat his man (this would never happen in a real game). I scramble after him in support (again unlikely in reality). However at the moment he is about to pass it to me, he balks and takes the tag instead. It seems I'm holding a pillow. I try and put it down but I just can't let it go for some reason. So frustrating haha, I wonder what that dream meant? Maybe it meant oztag is on today and I was holding a pillow in my sleep... who knows?

In the next dream I was on my new bike (btw I bought a new bike off ebay, it was cheap but flies along and is exactly what I wanted, I'm in love...) and I was riding along minding my own business... when a black tiger with a white face appears and starts chasing me! There are plenty of people around but it seems just interested in yours truly. I am on a long, large boulevard and I have to ride up and down several times, weaving by pedestrians, before I manage to lose the tiger.

Hopefully a more restful night is in store for me. That will depend on whether we get up in oztag I guess...

BattleField 2, what a great game!

I have rejoined the first person shooter world recently by installing BattleField 2. An excellent game, narrowly missing out on greatness due to its lack of co-operative multiplayer (LAN party special).

You can't really complain though. Outstanding graphics, well designed maps, tight gameplay and the madness of 32 on 32 player action can't be beaten. If its a first person combat simulation you are after, this is it. You can do anything from being an assault trooper, to driving humvees to crushing infantry in tanks, to being a gunner in a helicopter! For the truly skilled you can even be a fighter pilot (its blardy hard to fly those jets around with keyboard and mouse I tell you!). The best and most additive feature of all though, especially for a hard core RPG'er like myself, is the global stats and score keeping. You can gain rank, get awards, medals, ribbons and badges! There's no where to hide either because everyone can view everyone else's record. Damn but I can't wait to make it to Sergeant!

Enough of the marketing spiel though, I've had some titanic battles already on the Internode, Xtra and GameArena servers. I'm mostly cannon fodder sadly (well AK fodder anyway), but I've managed to gain four of the basic badges available. Lmlucoz has also been promoted to Private First Class and is well on his way to Lance Corporal, woohoo! My stats are terrible of course, but I've always gloried in adversity.

Favourite maps are Wake Island (there always seems to be good battles here) and Strike on Karkand (intense firefights, no planes! haha).

Say hello if you see lmlucoz out there. I'll be that medic running suicidally across the road drawing fire :-)