Close To Home

One of our neighbours has had their car emblazoned with advertising for their company which I spotted as it drove out from the lane beside our house today. The company is Switched On Solutions, and they're an IT provider. Odd that I spent ages searching for IT/programming companies in and around York and it turns out there's one operating next door to us! I've emailed them with the intention of being nosey and popping round for a chat one evening.

Speed Demon

Been working on part of our software in order to speed it up. This particular bit was never particularly quick and could appear to hang your machine if you weren't careful so it needed doing. It's not particularly the kind of thing I enjoy though and this had more than a few places to trip me up and come crashing down disasterously. Think I've got it though, it's a vast improvement on what it was before and I've even got another idea to improve it again should I want to spend another week or so on it. Hopefully it'll disappear for the time being - it's one of those things that won't lie down and keeps coming back to haunt me though.

NCFC Handbooks

I've bought two of these off eBay in the last couple of days to add to the collection, from 1997/98 and 1998/99. They're from about the same time as I started going regularly so they're full of crap players and crapper games I was at. Those were the days!

Norwich City 4 Middlesbrough 4

One of those 'I was there' games. We were pretty good in the first half - Damien got the first which was a tap-in after a decent shot from Hucks that Schwarzer could only parry, then Hasselbaink got their goal by sticking out a toe which completely wrong-footed Greeno. 1-1 at halftime. Then we seemed to fall asleep - some absolutely woeful defending gave them two goals in quick succession, both from corners, and a classy free kick from Hasselbaink (again) gave them a 4-1 lead with about ten minutes to go. Gave over.

Hundreds and hundreds of people were walking out at this stage in a mass exodus, probably more than I remember seeing before (though that's probably just the effect created by the new South Stand as it's more open than the old one) when Ashton scores his first goal. 4-2. And then it goes a bit mental. All the momentum is with Norwich and Leon scores with a header. Then, deep in injury time, Hucks wins a free kick on the edge of the box. Ashton takes it and it goes out for a corner which Hucks knocks back in and Drury(!), completely unmarked in the box heads it past Schwarzer. 4-4 from 4-1 down in ten minutes and everything erupts!

Maybe it's just the miserable bugger that I am, but having witnessed one of the great comebacks first hand I'm still a bit despondent. We needed to win today - Southampton beat Liverpool, Palace beat Spurs and West Brom beat Manchester City so we've actually lost a place in the table and Palace have created a bit of a gap for themselves. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that we're not going to make it. Hopefully, today will be the catalyst.

Oh, we were first on Match of the Day. Wonders will never cease.

Leaving the Team

The boss announces one the programming team is leaving today. This company never ceases to amaze me - at most places if you resign you'd work out a notice period. Here you can leave the same week or even the same day in some cases. And, even better than that, no-one knows about it until the day that you're actually going. Laughable.

Don't blame the person for leaving though, I'd be off given half a chance, and he's gone to triple his salary on a six month contract (which I wouldn't fancy). I'll put money on him being back though - one of the perks of being related to the 'Technical' Director, and another of the things I don't agree with about this place.

Aston Villa 3 Norwich City 0

Oh dear. I was reasonably hopeful about this game - Aston Villa have been poor recently and Ashton was playing his first game for us but, by all accounts, we were pretty dire. Still no away wins of any shape or form for months and we're firmly entrenched in the relegation zone. Southampton and Palace both lost as well though, so hope springs eternal. Ha!

Shameless

Watched Shameless on C4 tonight. We'd been talking in the office about how Channel Four is the best TV channel at the moment and it's hard to disagree, although the current Celebrity Big Brother is a complete freak show. Shameless was excellent and definitely one of the best things on TV at present. Desperate Housewives tomorrow night.

Prague

David mailed today, wanting me to go to Prague with him for a catch-up, aka, lads weekend away. Nice idea, but a bit at the wrong time given our financial situation at present. I reckon we'd not get much change out of about £300 each which I can't really justify at the moment. And my passport's expired which is a minor problem. Sorry Dave.

West Ham United 1 Norwich City 0

Norwich lost to Wet Sham in the third round of the FA Cup today. Not entirely unexpected seeing as we've not won an away game so far this season. The media seem to be portraying it as a bit of a shock but it was all rather predictable as usual. Although a cup run would have been nice, I can't help thinking that this might be a blessing in disguise as we're in need of Premiership points rather more urgently - 'concentrating on the league' and all that.

On a better note, it looks like we'll be signing Dean Ashton from Crewe for a club record fee. Ashton looks a really good player so I'm very positive about this. He's scored 20-odd goals in the Championship so far so hopefully he'll improve our woeful goalscoring record and it's another body for the teamsheet as we're decimated by injury at the moment. Well done Worthy!

First Post

Here we are then. Reading through some blogs by people what I know has convinced me that this would be a good idea. Time will tell.

My first impressions are that keeping this up-to-date might be the biggest problem. I'll endeavour to post regularly, though maybe not every day. As a starting point, I'll mostly be writing about the following:

- Norwich City Football Club. I've got a season ticket, despite the fact I live in York - you can find me at CUB69 on a home match day. I get to a fair few away games as well. At the moment we're third bottom of the Premiership so my blog may be about our pathetic attempts to stay up to start with. Hopefully it won't get too depressing.
- Other sporting stuff. Nice and general this one.
- My fab house and the exciting events within it. Including the continuing adventures of my two little cats.
- My hopeless attempt to make money by gambling. It's not working terribly well so far.
- The cool and (mostly) crap stuff I keep buying and selling on eBay.
- My none too exciting job. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
- My website that's been in a state of limbo for longer than I care to remember. 2005 may be the year I finally get round to getting it published. Hah!