The Staples to Naples Rally

I had a friend who joined this rally in 2006. The annual event required you to drive in a cheap (around 100-200 pounds) car, drive it from England through to France, Switzerland, and end in Naples, Italy.

He and his mates went in an '93 Audi (for 150 pounds!?!). There were 5 of them in the car and I just can't imagine how hard it is to sit in a packed car while driving 1,000 kilometers a day for four days.

He said someone came in a BMW that was covered in astroturf. Another group came ala Ghostbusters. I guess the coolest entry was a van that doubled as a pub...complete with beer dispensers. It's not hard to guess which one was the most popular.

Some guys threw eggs at the other cars...but only at those who were part of the rally. They all had a good time but some went too far and eventually got arrested.

If you're living in that part of the world, you might want to put this on your list!

What is Aussie Football?

I find it hard to join in on the conversation when people are talking about stuff I know nothing about. A favorite topic of conversation in the office kitchen is football. I always thought I could hold my own in sports talk, but this one? Nah...I don't think I can wing my way through Australian football.
So to at least bring myself to an "acceptable" level of Aussie football knowledge, I made the effort to learn as much as I can about it by watching on TV and reading the sports pages.

To begin with, there are actually THREE football codes being played in Australia.

Rugby League is very popular in New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland (QLD). The dominant professional league is the NRL or National Rugby League. I can only hope to try and explain it in American Football (NFL) terms: It's like a game of running backs (to many Australians, by the way, comparing Rugby league to American football can probably get you in trouble). Forward passes are illegal. Almost all the players have the body of Jerome Bettis(the Bus!). Everyone plays both ways (including kicking!). The game is free flowing and does not have the play stoppages that you have in the NFL between downs.

Another code is Rugby Union. I guess this is the original Rugby code as it is played in more countries around the world. If you saw the movie Invictus (with Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman), the game they played there is Rugby Union. The leagues related to this code that I hear most often in Australia is Super 14 where (and I might be wrong here)teams from South Africa and New Zealand are participating. There are also a lot of organized games between countries such as the Bledisloe Cup (exclusively between Australia and New Zealand). There's another one between Australia and England but the name of this series escapes me at the moment.

What's the major difference between League and Union? In Union, the ball is always "live". Even after a player with the ball is tackled, the opposing team can grab and take possession of the ball. So you will notice that the player seems to be tucking the ball in while passing it on to his mate. A Kiwi friend told me that a Rugby Union game can end in a zero-all tie and teams will still be happy because they played well. I really dig how the players put the ball back in play after it goes out of bounds. Players pick up their teammates (like ballet dancers) to help them grab the throw-in.

The third is Aussie Rules football...if I were to explain it to an American, I would say it's a game of wide receivers and punt kickers. A lot of jumping and drop-kicking the ball. It seems like the scoring is just dependent on kicking goals. It is popular in the states of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. To give you an idea, if you were to read a paper in Melbourne, you would be lucky to find a small article about the NRL...in contrast to 8 pages of AFL news!

It's interesting to note that there's only one NRL team in Melbourne (the Storm) and it's one of the best teams in the NRL.
On the other hand, Sydney has one AFL team: the Swans. In a newspaper article that I read last year, the Swans are the most popular team in Sydney...beating NRL teams such as the Parramatta Eels and the Sydney Bulldogs. It helps to have the whole city behind you.

There you go. That's a short overview of the different football codes from the point of view of a newbie.

The Apple iPad Keyboard

This is the first post that I am writing from an iPad. Early this week, we finally took the plunge and got ourselves an iPad keyboard from Apple. I'm a classic impulsive buyer but I did my best research with this one: I took the time to read two reviews and watch three video-reviews on youtube of three different brands(I was in a hurry!).

In the end, I did what most "sophisticated buyers" do: I played it safe and went for the one Apple sells. I didn't have to pay more it as it was in the same price range as the others.

There's a couple of reasons not to like this keyboard: You can only use it with the iPad in portrait mode. It's heavy. Looks weird. Takes up too much space in my bag. Wait a minute...that's more than a couple!

Despite all that, it's still an Apple. The least I can expect is it will work right and it really does look cool. The keyboard really looks like that of a Macbook so this might be the closest that I'll ever get to the real McCoy.

Whatever, it's good to finally blog without starting up the PC.

EURO ROCK: The TV Program that "Showed" Us New Wave

EURO ROCK. Do you guys remember this? In the early eighties (1984?), my cousins and I would be stuck on the television every Saturday afternoon for thirty minutes to get our weekly fix of new wave. The thing was, new wave was not popular enough for the TV stations to pickup so no new wave videos for pinoy teens.

The show didn't confine itself to new wave...it is probaby more accurate to show that it was showing alternative brit music (or anything "not" pop). But I associate it more with new wave because this is were I first saw new wave acts.
I have no recollection of their names, but the hosts were two brits. The lead guy was easy to remember because of his wavy brown hair and a moustache that can give John Oates a run for his money. The other bloke was a tall blond guy who resembles the actor Paul Bettany. I wonder what those two guys were doing back in Manila then? Were they married to Pinays? Did they own clubs? Or were they just two bored British Expats who wanted to do something different on weekends (they could be engineers for all in know!).

Anyway, thank god for those two brits: I would otherwise have never seen music videos from the Cure, Tears for Fears, Depeche Mode, Echo and the Bunnymen, the Clash, the Sex Pistols (the last two are not new wave but I really liked them), etc… And to think that they showed only two videos a week! But those two videos meant a lot to me.

Wherever you two pommies are: cheers!

(*Can anyone post their shows on Youtube! That would really be cool)

A Great Accessory for Dads: the Ergo carrier

Thousand of young Australian couples have put off having babies. When we went to parenting class, the typical age profile for first time parents was more like between 30 to 40 years old. There must be a thousand reasons but I can tell you about one: young dads just don't want to give up videogames. How can you play God of War or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare when you got both hands tied up carrying baby?

Well that's why they created baby carriers! In my case, we have an Ergo baby carrier that allows me to play NBA 2K11 even though baby needs to be carried. Great for multi tasking 'ey? :)

(thanks for @ajayjorge for this wonderful tip)