IV

The trailer for Grand Theft Auto 4 was released last week, showing very little but also quite a lot of the forthcoming game.

The trailer was short, but managed to show off what to expect. Looks on first viewing that the game will be set in a New York/Liberty City style city, although they could just be leading us on as to its true location. I think a more real and life like (well, more real than GTA 3’s version) NYC to play around in would be brilliant.

Can’t wait until October!

Elated at the Rebate

I was informed by Royal Mail the other day that I was to receive a tax rebate of £360! It came through with my payslip today, though it was £310 – unless i heard it incorrectly on the phone…!

I’ve bought an 80gb iPod to replace the recently deceased 20gb model. The foolproof plan with this iPod was to get an extended warranty to cover any possible (most probable!) breakdowns. I don’t want another repeat of my past experiences, though this iPod is infinitely better than the previous pod.

Plus I’ve got two days off work from today, woo!!

Gutless, Spineless, Inept…

England limped to a 3-0 win against Andorra last night, a performance no better than against Israel. Steven Gerrard got two goals and David Nugent scored on his debut to give England a win they barely deserved.

Steve McLaren will look at the result and say ‘job done’. Judging by his super short (2 minutes) press conference he truly believes that a bad performance and a result against a tiny side like Andorra is acceptable. I only wish that we’d either drawn and lost to get McLaren out of the job. The only problem now is getting it through to the players how much it should mean to play for your country.

Wayne Rooney is a great player, he’s got bags of talent but when it comes to international games he’s really quite poor. It makes you wonder wether club managers drill it into players how much more important their club is over their country. It’s a damn shame if this kind of thing does happen, because ever since the mid-nineties you get the feeling that they just don’t care as much.

I’m quite patriotic, proud to be english and all that, and the only people that felt the same as me in that stadium last night were the fans. The guys who pay their money to see their country are more often than not supporters of lower league clubs, leagues that still have have passion and effort in abundance, so they were quite vocal in their displeasure of last nights performance, as they’re used to so much better. The pampered premiership ’stars’ had the cheek to moan about the booing both they and the manager received! What are the fans supposed to do when their so-called superstars are struggling at 0-0 at half time?

I just wish England were a pleasure to watch, rather than a bore.

iGiveUp

My iPod finally stopped working earlier. The clickwheel had been faulty for some time, but now it refuses to work at all. In total frustation i threw it against a wall, not helping it one bit but helping myself.
I’m looking at other means of listening to music now. Most of my music on this laptop is on iTunes, so the logical step is to get a new iPod. But I can’t be arsed going through this again 18 months down the line! Getting a Creative Zen and loading it with my music might be a ballache, but what else can I do?

Up and Downs

Nottingham Forest continue their upturn in form by beating Cheltenham 3-0 at the City Ground. From all accounts it was a routine victory, with Cheltenham not showing much fight, just a shame that we didn’t score a few more. Bristol City continue their spawny luck, scoring 2 minutes before the end of the 90 to beat Doncaster, and in the process keeping the distance between us two at 4 points. Had they drawn that game, we’d have been just one point behind them and, as they are our next opponents, a chance to get back to second!

As it is, things all went to form and we still trail them, but by a reachable amount. To be honest, i’d lost a lot of hope of promotion after our recent fall in form, and it’s good to see the reds making a go of their promotion push when it seemed to be dead in the water. I know we’ll most likely feature in the playoffs, but previous experience of playoff games has left me not confident we can go up that way. It’s either automatic or not!

Fresh from the Forest game, I tuned into Five Live for the England match, knowing full well that things had hardly changed from their tepid performances in past games versus Croatia and Macedonia, a part of me still believed they could pull a performance out of the bag and prove the doubters wrong. What I now know 24 hours after the game is that we need not only a change of manager, but a shake up in the team. The starting eleven yesterday seemed to be full of players who believed they had made it, simply by being in the England team, and somehow didn’t need to show any effort or skill.

Players that play brilliantly for their club and then don’t bother for their country? There is something seriously wrong in the England set-up. We won’t win anything, let alone qualify, if the situation stays like it is. McLaren was okay coach, certainly not international standard, and it astounded me at the time that they went with him, especially as at the time we needed a fresh break from the Eriksson regime. He makes Sven look good, as at least we produced the odd performance under him! I hope the bad form continues, and he’s forced out, because we’re going nowhere under him.

So, the bad England result brought me right back down. I’ve spent the sunday with indigestion pains (despite eating hardly anything! ) and am currently in the middle of watching the first (new) series of Doctor Who, in anticipation of the new series starting next week. It amazes me that the BBC can produce two consistently excellent dramas in Doctor Who and Life On Mars, but also create crap like Hotel Babylon and some shitty Graham Norton-fronted talent show!