The Thread Of Randomness

[CTarana45]

New folder on the Seven! On July 4th, I installed some software on the Seven! Afterward, I noticed a new empty Pictures folder named Slide Shows!

Christopher Tarana

[CTarana45]

I Like General Electric! It has nothing to do with the fact that a friend worked there! Put four kids through college, getting a Master's in Engineering!

Christopher Tarana

[rbos86]

I'm going to a concert, in Utrecht.

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets.

I like it, know what to exoect, since I own the blu-ray of such concert in The Roundhouse, London.
I want to see and hear it with my own perspective.

Greetingz,
R.Bos

Been there..!
It was awesome, they played a lot of early Pink Floyd -work, from every early album, but not from 'Dark Side of the Moon', and other later albums. Just the work from Syd Barrett's years, and further.
Titles like 'Astronomy Domine', 'Atom Heart Mother', 'Scarecrow', 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun' and 25 minutes of 'Echoes'...Wonderful!
The sound was good, the visuals sublime, the atmosphere amazing.

Time to think, how to return to the regular world..!

[Redirect Left]

To absolutely no one's surprise, Football did in fact not come home at Euros 2024!
But good news for Brits, its less than 2 years until the start of the World Cup 2026 across North & Central America, where a certain amount of football fans can once again become borderline hooligans!

Also means it should be a good at least... 4 month before I hear anyone saying its coming home.

[Chrill]

I think this streak of football not coming home may not end in our lifetime. Which I'm happy to hear.

Since England last won a major tournament in 1966, no major World Cup upsets have happened but the following have actually managed to win the Euros:

- Czechoslovakia (1976)
- Denmark (1992)
- Greece (2004)

Actually, the English team has not achieved a top 3 finish since they won. Even Sweden achieved that, winning the bronze back in 1994!

- Sweden (bronze, 1994)
- Poland (bronze, 1974 and 1982)
- Turkey (bronze, 2002)

But hey, there's always next time eh?

[Redirect Left]

I do feel for our coach, Gareth Southgate. He gets so much hate & abuse from certain fans whenever one of our team messes up, or slightly isn't in the right place or ideal play, as if we're all on FIFA and he is controlling them directly with his gamer juice'd PS5 controller.
We have 2 consecutive appearances in the Euro's tournament final match, we got to the quarter finals of the last World Cup. We even won one of the Euro's matches this time on penalties, which infamously we absolutely suck you know whats at.
Man is cooking, let him continue cooking. Instead a certain section of the fans just immediately rip into him and blame it all on him.

Also our women's team is doing really well the past 3-5 years too, so that is pretty nice.

for some reason, it is stuck in England's psyche that we need to win a tournament in a game we invented*

*but not really, the football has existed since at least Mesoamerica times, and China/Japan started using it for an organised game, the Brits found out and as we usually do, stole the idea and slapped a few extra rules on that do nothing but cause annoyance and hate in the fandom...

[Chrill]

Also our women's team is doing really well the past 3-5 years too, so that is pretty nice.

Now the lionesses I do fear. We are playing you tomorrow, the winner goes through and the loser is forced to play a play-off round. May the best team win!

Regarding Southgate, with the players available he should do better. You were lucky to escape the group stage, let alone make it all this way. England had no place in the finals, and the tactics made stars invisible. England needs a new manager.

[Redirect Left]

Also our women's team is doing really well the past 3-5 years too, so that is pretty nice.

Now the lionesses I do fear. We are playing you tomorrow, the winner goes through and the loser is forced to play a play-off round. May the best team win!

Sweden vs England (for Womens matches only) is a relatively well coloured routine. Wins on both sides, some of which were painfully so. Google says our last encounter was a 4-0 for England, and then a few years ago (2018!) you beat us 2-0 so, it seems fairly random which team gets the win with us there.

One thing I will say for our current team & coach for the Lionesses. They've done so much for not just women's football, but also women's teams in general here. They're all massive supporters of getting more women into sports and it really shows whenever they've been asked or spoke about it.
Before the Lionesses got massive as of recent years, oddly it was the Olympic Womens Curling team after they narrowly missed Bronze at South Korea 2018, and then scooping the gold in China 2022 , which somehow gained interest in both the sport of Curling, and also women too into the sport, which as you can imagine isn't all that well catered for in terms of sports centres and infrastructure here, at least outside of parts of Scotland. So it kinda helped pick that up a little too.

[Chrill]

Curling is famous in Sweden every four years, we do have a lot of wins there.

Yes, the women's game has absolutely exploded in recent years. It's amazing to see. I think what people connect with is that it's more genuine. There is not too much money to ruin the players, it's affordable to attend, there is no hostile hooliganism so you feel welcome and safe. It's what sport should be.

I saw Sweden play Brazil last year at our national arena in front of maybe 30,000 people (FOR A FRIENDLY!) and it was fantastic. The Brazilian fans were cheering even when Sweden scored, everyone was just happy to attend. It was a wholesome party!

And it helps that we win. Sweden were ranked Number 1 in the world as recently as last year, and we are currently ranked 6th today.

[Redirect Left]

I think what people connect with is that it's more genuine.

100% this, you see it in both on pitch and off too. The fans are a lot more mellow, the players themselves are more friendly with each other. You see a lot of needless spats amongst players in a lot of men's sports, recently i noticed it even in Tennis at Wimbledon that just passed, and the women players tend to just shrug off anything negative.

There has been matches i would really like to have attended, such as the FA Cup finals, or Manchester City vs Manchester United. But i am always put off by the narrow chance of some fecal matter really hitting the fan and being caught up in it.
Maybe I'm just a coward, but it really does put me off going to big football, just because of how bad the environment can get sometimes.

[Redirect Left]

The Olympics have begun!

It was a rather entertaining, although a little disjointed opening ceremony. The boats in the Seine was definitely a unique idea, that no doubt took a lot of planning, but I'm not so certain internally if it was truly better than a regular ceremony in a large arena or stadium. It was nice to see Celine Dion in action, and she still has the voice for sure!
We've now got around 2 weeks of top class sporting, with each country hoping for the best performance they've had to date. I'm personally hoping Tom Daley can give the UK another medal in the diving category.

Throughout the ceremonies & events however, security services will be thoroughly reviewing what happened in the sabotage of varying railway lines into Paris. It's a little scary though, nearly all larger countries have rail network that passes through no where, with cables trailing along side the tracks. So this kind of attack could be repeated anywhere. Let's hope the review finds it was disgruntled locals, rather than some plot by outside forces.

[Chrill]

The Olympics are a funny thing. I've spent more time watching table tennis this last week than I ever have in my life. Sweden won a silver medal in the men's singles with Truls Möregårdh, who was ranked 26th going into the games.

Now, Sweden just defeated Japan to reach the finals in the Men's table tennis Team (where they play doubles and singles between 3 players per nation). This was also very unexpected.

China owns table tennis, nobody can defeat them, but hey we can give it a try in the finals on Saturday.

[CTarana45]

On the new Seven computer, I'm studying more Religion and History!

Christopher Tarana

[Redirect Left]

I got very sad.
Things arguably got out of hand and now I have a Cruise booked for February as my first holiday to anywhere.

...sadness is a powerful weakness.

[Chrill]

Is it some sort of roundtrip cruise, or are you headed somewhere specific?

[Redirect Left]

Is it some sort of roundtrip cruise, or are you headed somewhere specific?

It's a roundtrip cruise, i treated myself to a nice pleasure cruise (because i was very sad, so it will fix it... come february).
All dates are for next year.

22/02: Southampton (Embarkation)
23/02: Rotterdam
24/02: Rotterdam (hurray for overnight, so i can explore at my own pace instead of rushing back for early evening)
25/02: (At sea)
26/02: Hamburg
27/02: Hamburg (see previous statement)
28/02: Brugge Port (for Bruges)
01/03: Southampton (Disembarkation)

P&O Cruises who it is booked with offered me either 7 days of free parking in Southampton, or a free coach to & from a destination of my choice along their routes. Its a 5-6 hour drive all the way down south to Southampton, so I opted for a free coach, and it'll collect me and drop me off fairly local to me. So win win, no payment for transport at all.

I figured if I get a cruise it's all paid for, I can eat & drink for free. No worries about extra cost, and because its a P&O Cruise, its a British one so there's no gratuities or extra to pay. In theory I can do the entire thing without paying anything else. (but that includes no buying anything in the ports of call so... eh). Meanwhile if I had got a flight to say Germany, the total cost to me after the flight was potentially endless for a week, need a hotel, food, drink etc etc. I figured a cruise would be a fun first holiday and no worries about extra money.

[Chrill]

Meanwhile if I had got a flight to say Germany, the total cost to me after the flight was potentially endless for a week, need a hotel, food, drink etc etc.

I'm actually currently in Germany, having flown to Berlin on Monday. There is no extra cost for me, because I am paying with a different card that is not connected to my bank account so I don't get the bill until September. And as we all know, September me is not the same person as current me. Ergo, free trip!

(of course, a month from now I'll be cursing at myself for not keeping track of my spending but hey)

[Redirect Left]

A problem for future Chrill to face, present Chrill lives problem free!

[Chrill]

We got Oasis reunion before GTA 6.

Or at least so it seems. They are announcing something tomorrow at 8am (Aug 27th), and essentially everything point to a large UK tour including Manchester, London, and potentially Edinburgh with more places also being speculated about.

Yes, I will definitely be buying tickets if I can get my hands on them. Toniiiiiight I'm a rock and roll starrh!