Global Flyer Update 7

3.45PM AEST: The go-no-go point has been shifted forward to 0900 UTC, which is 7pm my time.

And, because he's going north from around 30 degrees N to 51 degrees N, it isn't really a matter of saying x degrees to go. Maybe we need the x and y axes: 63 degrees E and 9 degrees N to go.

EARLIER, at 12.15pm AEST:

About half an hour ago, they passed the same longitude from which they took off: Cape Canaveral.


When I first checked-in this morning, the plane was over the middle of Texas (I'd just missed seeing Midland drop off the map). That seems to be around the time of the most recent update on their website. Fossett is quoted thusly:

"The decision of whether to go for it or turn back is looming, currently I would say the chances are no more than 50/50. I will have until around 11:30UTC, a couple of hours into the final leg across the Atlantic, when I reach the point of no return and will be forced to make this crucial decision."

That's in around nine hours, at 9.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time.

He's currently flying at a heading of about 44-46, which means pretty much due north-east. (North is zero, east is 90, south is 180, west is 270.) But the U.S. east coast also seems to curve to the north-east up to Cape Hatteras, so he's tracking along off-shore at present. My point is, I'd say he's already started the "final leg across the Atlantic", but maybe he doesn't consider himself to be going "across" yet until the coastline recedes.

EARLIER, at 10.00am AEST:

They're about as close to Pensacola, Florida, as they're ever going to get.


Apparently, he's altered his route; but I hadn't heard of the route they say he was originally going to take, so I don't know when this 'alteration' occurred.

87.87 degrees to go.

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Global Flyer Update 6 - breaking radio silence

They're at west 145 degrees, approaching Mexico; but that's something like four or five hours away when I'm in bed.

Aren't these [stolen, not copyright-free] pictures purty?

I hope they will still be flying over America when I get up tomorrow so there's something to see on the close-in view, otherwise it'll be another bloody ocean.

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Brosque and Dilevski in Socceroos 18-man squad

Out of eight A-League players in the 18-man squad to play Bahrain later this month, two of them, Alex Brosque and Spase Dilevski, are currently with the Queensland Roar.

It's a mid-week game on a non-FIFA-sanctioned date, so the Europe-based players aren't in the team.

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Global Flyer Update 5

Within the past hour, they've passed 180 degrees east, and now the longitude counts down from 180 west. Landing near zero west makes it all nice and easy to work out. 172 degrees to go.

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Global Flyer Update 4 - Look! Up there!

Way up there. They're at 153 or so degrees east, right up there north of me now.

Surrounded by nothing.


But it's such a big plane, you wouldn't think getting down would be the problem from here...


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Global Flyer Update 3 + a plane flys into mountains.

The plane has just passed 139 and a half degrees east. The equivalent of Mt. Isa.

A little further north from where they passed is the site of the world's deadliest single-aeroplane crash, that of JAL123. If you've never heard the sound of a fully-laden 747 crashing into a mountain, listen to the end of this. (Takes a while to load on dial-up connections. Takes a while to get over, after listening to the whole thing.)

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'Dacking' proudly re-enters the language... or does it?

I was going to write a short post about how good it was that the word 'dacking' had re-entered the language and was being used as a normal word. (And possibly how sports reporters get a lot more leeway than real journalists.) The Sky News sports report on the Sydney Swans high school dacking incident (see links below) used the word twice in three sentences without explaining what it meant or using any different vocal stress, and there are no apostrophes around the word (as in my subject line and first sentence) on the Sky News Active sports screen.

But then I looked on Google News - gee, I wonder if people will be able to find that if I don't provide a link? - and there are several stories from News Corp papers. The stories 10 hours ago don't have apostrophes but the one two hours ago does.

And the Adelaide Advertiser not only uses apostrophes in the headline and story, they use the phrase "pulling a teammate's pants down" more than dacking. Wimps.

So, I'm not sure if the word has proudly re-entered the language or if news editors have had a rethink this morning and have decided that we are not yet ready.

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Global Flyer Update 2

They've just hit Japan. 240 degrees to go.

In Australian terms, that's the middle of Western Australia.

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Global Flyer Update

They've passed 60 degrees east longitude and are heading for Pakistan. I hope that airways clearance has been obtained way in advance, otherwise things might get hairy flying up there above Karachi. Three hundred degrees to go.

>>> The Prime Meridian that's what that Greenwich mean-time zero degrees east latitude thingy is called.

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Yes, I'm okay.

I'm a bit sore like I've done a long hard weekend of gardening; and I've got a few cuts on my knees and fun-looking bruises, mostly on my fleshy bits (upper thighs, belly.) I was going to post a photo - using the camera since now both our new phones are busted. Frickin' Panasonic. Don't buy Panasonic mobile phones, don't even accept them if they're free - but I couldn't get a good view that didn't also get a lot of me in the picture.

My helmet and glasses came off, but it only took me a few moments of wandering around after I'd clambered off the lady's bonnet to realise what was wrong with the view and find my glasses, so I figure I'm okay.

The big contusions are slowly moving with gravity, and since I've been mostly sitting on my arse for the last two days, they have now joined and spread rearward to cover an area larger than my hand. Fun.

There are still clearly visible triangular marks in the middle of the bruises, though. I can't remember what part of the front of the lady's car I hit. The hematomas are a nice share of maroon, just in time for the start of the Super 14s.

Oh, yeah... and my suspected broken hand turned out not to be.

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Internet Explorer 7 beta 2 is out...

Now, I'm not a big fan of IE. I was willing to leave it on my desktop for Boycat's Mum to use, but she likes Firefox now, too. But work uses IE exclusively, and the product I write for is delivered to the user's browser over the intranet, so maybe we can start planning for some of these features that are finally coming to Internet Explorer.

I could see us delivering news of updates via RSS. I can't wait for tabbed browsing at work. I'm not familiar with the thumbnail extension for Firefox, but I've downloaded it and I'll check it out tomorrow.

But of course, given the time it takes our I.T. people to security check new software for use on the network, it probably won't be until IE8 is out.

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I'm savouring my last Doctor Who

I'm only up to the end of episode one of Survival at the moment, although I'll have plenty of time to watch the rest now.

I'll just say that people rarely manage to make pussy-cats scary. The X-Files couldn't do it either. Showing a picture of a cat on a wall and playing ominous music over the top just ain't gonna cut it. Especially, when it looks like Salem from Sabrina.

Despite what's said about it in the show, Perivale seems happy to be associated with Ace.

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Flap those wings, Steve

I gotta admit that I'm a sucker for things like Steve Fossett and Richard Branson's latest world record attempt. 80 hours in a plane; lots of will-he-make-it, won't-he-make-it moments... And I especially love it when I can follow it easily because the Virgin Global Flyer's website has a frequently updated map tracking where the plane is. I love maps.

Hey, I'm off work until next Monday, this will be perfect: cable news coverage (because we all know they love something like this, too - three and a half days of being able to fill airtime with just some dot in the sky or glitchy video) supplemented with the net.

He's just crossed the zero-degrees line, whatever that's called. Y'know, the line where you go from some number of degrees west to zero east, due south of Greenwich U.K.

Only 360 degrees to go, give or take.

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What do you get if you cross a 50cc motor scooter with a family station wagon?

Really sore, with minor cuts on the legs and some interesting bruises.

This (left) is what my bike used to look like.

Very Mod.

I'm not sure what it looks like now. We last saw it when we dragged it behind the ice freezer at the Beenleigh Ampol to wait for the insurance company to arrange a tow out to their assessment centre.

The accident happened Tuesday on my way to work.

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Queensland Roar Wrap

The end of the A-League season was pretty much as you'd expect from a new league with a salary cap. Perth beat Newcastle 3-1 to move into fifth place, so the Qld Roar ended in sixth, three points behind fourth-placed Newcastle but only two points above seventh-placed Melbourne.

In fact, six points was the difference between third and seventh; and four people shared the 'golden boot' award for most goals in the regular season, with eight. (Qld's Alex Brosque was one of them.) All of which serves to refine my impressions of the first year of the A-League: there are two top teams, then Central Coast and Perth, then the rest, and New Zealand. I'm not currently impressed with Newcastle at all, they look like the Roar did in December.

But the crowds were good, and excellent if you exclude New Zealand. We got 13,000 at Suncorp for the dead-rubber and almost 10K at Newcastle. You'd hope the ground is full next Friday night in Newcastle, but whoo... the part-time fans might not like what they've seen recently.

And apparently, the merchandising sold well for the Qld Roar, at least, so things are looking good for the future, especially if coaches get to settle in and learn how to cope with the particular constraints of the league.

So, my tips: Central Coast and Sydney. Adelaide over Central Coast and then... what did I say last time? I'll just do it with my eyes closed... Adelaide.

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Blogger ate my homework

I posted three posts yesterday that all disappeared after they'd gone on line. (And one at the other place. The re-post seems to have stuck for that one, but I'm afraid to hit refresh.)

The blog ate my homework... honestly!

Luckily, for the last post, there was a copy cached in my browser so I could re-do it, but the other two appear gone. And they all appeared online, so it's not like they all got lost when I hit 'post' and were never there at all.

Of the two posts that I couldn't reconstruct, one was about Courtney "I Killed Kurt" Love getting out of home detention. I thought the other was about the Rocket Racing League, but I see that post is still down there.

LATER: After a little bit of googling, I discovered that it affected everyone, you know, even blogs that people read.

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Queensland Roar, Queensland Roar, I ain't gonna do this rhyming thing no more.

Originally posted on Saturday, February 04, 2006, but something is very wrong with blogger.

Well there you go, the end of the season for the Qld Roar. 2-2, one man down for a lot of the game, against third or fourth-placed Central Coast. Two wins and a draw with an aggregate of 9-3 in the last three games against the teams that ended up second through fourth... not bad at all.

Miron might just keep his job after all -- even though we didn't reach the mythical 30 points he's been going on about -- but will we keep the team together?

Because I hear that Baird is going to play in the Romanian slave league. Now, when I first read about this, I thought Baird's transfer was just a temporary thing to cover the big gap between now and the new A-League season next September; but SBS says it's for four years and the Fox commentators were talking like it was goodbye to the Roar for one of our best goal-scorers. And there's always that chance that Brosque will be leaving...

We ended up with a good team there, we don't want to lose it now that we've found some strikers (even though the two above have been there since the beginning.) Reinaldo doesn't seem to achieve a lot but it seems that something happens just by him being there. And... and the fact that I can't name another striker says it all, I think. I'm not saying we don't have loads of great attacking mid-fielders, but we have no strikers to spare.

Let's see now, if Newcastle win in the final regular season game tomorrow, we'll end up in fifth place four points behind fourth. But if Perth win, we would only be three points behind fourth, but we'd be in sixth. A draw would be the same as a win for Newcastle. I think I'll go for one of them, because fifth is better than sixth.

>>>And should Miron keep his job? Well, on the one hand, we don't sack our coaches that often here in Brisbane. Unless it's the Qld Reds. And he did manage to get a dangerous team together, but it was a little too late. But then again, he was the one who reminded everyone of the 30 point target and we did end up with only 28. Give him another go and let's review it next November.

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Today, we are offering half-price on all broken items...

One of the reasons I went into such detail with my wasteful consumer-lifestyle updates previously was, of course, something that I forgot to write about at the time. I'm not sure if it's interesting enough to actually write about now, but hey, it's my blog, etc.

Way back in the history of time when I was a lad -- you know you're getting old when you start to make jokes like that, by the way -- a friend and I once recorded a sound-piece (it certainly wasn't a song) and we got someone else to do some vocals over the piece. This person either was working or had recently finished working as a pleb at a store like Target. Anyway, over this soundscape-thingy he launched into this great ad-lib like he was doing an announcement over the store P.A. and it began with something about offering "half-price on all broken items".

I still remember that bit, and it often floats into my head. Dealing with the girls at the return counter was one of those times.

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To fly. The dream of man and flightless bird alike.

The Rocket Racing League is due to start in 2007! Currently, though, they've only flown a prototype and are just now building the first 'production' model, out of a planned ten X-Racers.

But I don't want to be cynical. While I think 2007 will be a stretch, I really want to see this. It'll be like Star Wars: Episode I, except, you know... good.

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A-League Finals

I bet the FFA kinda wishes that Sydney hadn't won tonight. Now we know the top two will be Adelaide and Sydney, which means neither Central Coast or Newcastle have really anything to play for in their games this weekend; they aren't even playing each other which would have added a bit of spice. Still, we're playing the Coast, so the less enthused they are, the better.

And the FFA -- like me -- probably wishes that the final four hadn't been decided last week - the crowd at Suncorp for a dead-rubber will be interesting, so will the size of the fickle Newcastle crowd -- but at least it didn't affect tonight's record crowd of 25,557 in Sydney. And the best thing about the crowd, which still looked anaemic in the expanse of the stadium, was that they sounded like a football crowd. The atmosphere for the few minutes surrounding the handball, penalty and first goal was actually like it was a real football match...

And not only do we know that Sydney and Adelaide are the top two, we know that they will be playing each other again next week, and the week after, and then most probably two weeks after that. I don't know if I've written it down here or in the other place, but it seemed obvious from early in the season that there were two standout teams (guess which ones,) a bunch of average teams, with the Central Coast as the top of them, then some mediocre teams (of which we were threatening to be the only one for a while there,) and New Zealand.

So, the arrangement of the semis... Adelaide vs. Sydney and Newcastle vs. Central Coast over two legs. The winner of the first fixture (the major semi-final) gets a bye, the loser of the second fixture is out. The other two play each other. The loser is out and the winner goes on to play the winner of the major semi in the final.

My tips? Toss a coin for Sydney v Adelaide, but the stats listed below say Sydney has the edge. Central Coast over Newcastle, unless Newcastle can turn around from last week's drubbing. Then Adelaide over Central Coast and it's back to Sydney v Adelaide for the final which this time, I'll say, will be won by Adelaide.

>>>Ahh, New Zealand, poor suckers. I read an article a while ago about the problems lone Kiwi teams in Australian competitions have, most notably that every second weekend there was no game of that sport played in the entire country which made it hard to for supporters and sponsors to get behind it, but it's so long ago that it would take too much effort to find again*. But now I'm reading in the NZ Herald that there's speculation that they'd try to get Bleiberg if Qld hired Farina.

*why do people keep putting up money to back the teams? Greed. Dreams of the big pay-off in the Australian market.

>>>One thing I was saying last week was that Sydney vs. Adelaide would be interesting over a two-legged match. Tonight, I saw the scores for the previous matches this year and they were Sydney 2-1 at home and Adelaide 3-2 at home, which makes an aggregate of 4-4, but Sydney have one more away goal, so they would go through.

>>>And if anyone is interested in 'what my heart felt' (see last week), I was going for Adelaide tonight so that it would give one of the other teams a chance to make number two.

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