Sunday Night Hockey

After so many weeks of home losses and badly played games, Chelmsford surprised us all tonight. It was a league game against the hated Milton Keynes Lightning, and none of us were altogether optimistic about our home team's chances. As the game started, I turned to Calvin and said "We're going to win tonight" -- but I don't think either of us really believed it.

There must have been something in the air, because within minutes of the first period it was clear that Chelmsford were playing well -- both teams were playing well, to be fair -- and it could be a close-run game. Passes were meeting the right players, shots on goal were being successfully saved -- but at the end of the first period it was still a no score game. You could tell the crowd was a bit edgy, comments were made regarding last weeks' game which saw only one goal in the full sixty minutes, and that was against Chelmsford.

The second period saw the quality of hockey maintained -- good interceptions, the usual handful of penalties, but the clock was ticking away and I was starting to think there would be no score in the second period. Jon hadn't been able to make tonight's game, so I was drafting out a message to tell him there was no score at the end of the second -- when Chelmsford took first blood, and made the score one - nil. First blood was truly taken with a fight towards the end of the period -- the crowd cheering louder than when we scored.

The third and final period had everything to play for, a one goal lead wasn't anywhere near safety against the Lightning (whose fans seemed to be inexplicably wearing red cowboy hats tonight) -- so it was just as well when Chelmsford took it up to 2 - nil. There was still at least 15 minutes of the period left, and although Milton Keynes needed three goals to take them into the lead, I didn't have so much faith in Chelmsford that I thought they wouldn't mess it up. All they needed was to play defensively, but could they manage it? The quality of the game was easily the best all season, however the threat was there -- it wasn't our game yet.

With four minutes left on the clock, and Chelmsford still winning two goals to nothing (and the constant, incessant drumming of the Lightning fans -- being met with shouts of "You're losing!" from home team fans), the Chieftain boys drove home another goal against Milton Keynes. The clock ticked down, and we had a happy glow of winning a home game after so many weeks of disappointment.

There was five seconds to go, when a Milton Keynes shot just drifted lazily into the Chelmsford goal -- all the more frustrating because at any other point in the game, there might have been at least one defender hanging around, able to easily intercept this effort. Instead of a decisive 3 - nil shutout, because of a lucky visitors goal we had to settle for 3 - 1 instead. But you can't turn your nose up at that.

Last year, a home loss to Milton Keynes marked the end of a run of several wins for Chelmsford -- here's hoping tonight's victory marks the start of such a run of good fortune, and good playing.

After Saturday night hockey

I've neglected to mention recently that the hockey season has started once again. The games thus far haven't been much worthy of individual posts, or else I've felt I had better things to post about. But I really enjoy going to the hockey, it's one of the few things I look forward to at the moment -- and on a Sunday night, it's a great way to end the weekend. Starting Monday morning with a hangover is sometimes less fun, but it's a trade-off.

So far Chelmsford have won one game (the first -- which was encouraging) and lost two, although they've given both teams a good run for their money. This week's home game was last night (Saturday) rather than tonight -- which meant we could stay out all night, even if after a 5-3 defeat we weren't exactly celebrating.

I knew I couldn't really stay out all night last night, because I'd volunteered to drive today, delivering meals to the sick and the housebound in London. I wasn't scheduled to drive this week, normally I only volunteer about once a month -- unlike pretty much every other volunteer, I don't live in London and so it ends up taking my whole day. I said no at first when I was asked this week, but on the third time of asking I thought about how these people don't stop needing meals just because there's not enough volunteers. I figured I had no excuse, I had no other plans and already spend all week doing precisely nothing. I figured it would make me feel productive and get me out of the house.

The human contact is good, as is the feeling of doing something for other people. I always enjoy meeting a different navigator every time, and fantasising about romance, or that they'll be wealthy and want to buy my art, or the owner of some company and think my winning personality is exactly what they need. So I volunteered my time after all -- maybe I'll write about it later, maybe I won't.

But last night. After the hockey, our friend Pete (of punk rock bands The Filaments and Suicide Bid fame) invited us out in Chelmsford, since he lives there now. We hadn't been at the bar very long when others joined us -- others including Deb. There's a history with her, for anyone who wants to search her name, but I can't be bothered to go into it all. Until recently, I hadn't seen her in ages -- she, too, has moved to Chelmsford but we never saw much of each other before that anyway. Last time I saw her -- a couple of weeks ago, or maybe last week -- she complained I hadn't sent her a valentine this year.

This dates back to how we first really got talking -- I was working as a bartender, she came in on valentine's day night and complained about not having any cards. So I made her one, wrote in it in Spanish and on the back "now I want your phone number". Since then, she's requested a handmade card from me every year -- I guess her boyfriend never paid much attention, or whatever. I didn't bother this year for a number of reasons. But when she asked me recently, I didn't have the heart to say no -- or even "Don't be silly, it's September".

Either way, I saw her again last night. But I had also learned something interesting this week. All the times when I asked her out and she turned me down, because her boyfriend wouldn't like it -- she was already cheating on him. So, really, it was just me. For the record, the only reason I was asking her out when I knew she was taken was that her friends had told me she wanted an excuse to break up with him. I know this is hardly anything resembling a good idea, but it seemed reasonable at the time.

I'm not angry at her, because really what right do I have to be angry about anything? I do feel a little rejected, even though I don't feel what I used to for her. And I wonder who exactly she is, deep down -- if I see who she really is, which in a way links back to comments left on my last post. Just because you know someone in real life, doesn't mean you know the "real" them. There wasn't and won't be any animosity between Deb and myself, but I keep my distance from her.

The evening of course ended much too soon -- although in its favour, it did end with getting Subway, half of mine I saved for breakfast. A steak and cheese sub with green peppers and chilli sauce is an odd start to any day. Today's food deliveries went well, although largely without event -- but I might choose to go into detail another day.

Twisting my mellon, man

I tell you something that's really twisting my melon today -- I thought I'd be all clever and switch to the Haloscan comments, just like his eminence the Baron Hashbrown suggested. Granted it looks cool, but the comments have a life on their own outside of the blog itself. Diary-x went boom last year and my diary disappeared -- but I still have all the comments that were left, saved on Haloscan. Except they are now disembodied comments. And Haloscan has booted all the existing comments off my blog, so it looks like nobody loves me. Don't fret though -- any comment that has ever been left here automatically gets emailed to me, so I have them all tucked away.

So -- Sunday Night Hockey. Chieftains lose! Again! I'm starting to understand why the Chieftains are middle of the league, they're just not very good! Sunday night's game was against the Swindon Wildcats. Do you suppose you get many wild cats in Wiltshire? Apparently, yes -- one of the things I do love about England is there are supposedly any number of panther-like big cats, just randomly roaming the country side.

Anyway, I was pleased to see the Chieftains playing better last night -- the passes were connecting, the team seemed to working together as they should. But they weren't getting the goals. First blood as usual went to the visitors, but I wasn't shaken -- this is all familiar now, and I was sure the Chieftains could come back.

And they really tried, mounting a sustained attack on the goals and eventually equalising the score in the second period. Everything rode on the third period -- and we gleefully swore at the Swindon supporters after a lucky goal was disqualified because they had too many men on the ice. It was short-lived when they made up for it with another goal.

And that pretty much sealed it for the Chieftains. They tried, they struggled, they raged (although not like last week's rage) and they still lost.

Update: after some guidance from the genius Baron Hashbrown and trawling of t'internet, I have found a way for Haloscan and Blogger to coexist. Granted, at this point it's currently showing both links, but I'm not sure there's a way around that for old posts.



Happy Mondays - Step On.mp3

Saturday Night Hockey

The truth is, we were probably out-ranked from the start. The Sheffield Scimitars were a formidable opponent, and even my attempts at optimism or blind faith in the Chieftains seemed to fall flat with friends before the game. I kept saying I had faith the Chieftains could win it, we'd give our predictions for the final score -- and I did think the Chieftains could pull it off.

The first period was close, and toughly fought -- until first blood when to the Scimitars with minutes left on the clock. As I've said before, though -- put the Chieftains in a corner, and often they come out fighting. Often literally. The second period saw the goal lead for the Yorkshire men increase further, but not without some great effort and defence from the Chieftains -- but the truth was, they just weren't good enough.

Last week was some of the best Premier League hockey I have seen -- they were on form, and their victory was hard-won and well deserved. Saturday's game was frustrating, the passes weren't caught, the puck frequently lost. They just were not up to form, despite starting their comeback with a powerful goal instead of rising to the challenge from the team second in the league, the Chieftains seemed to struggle.

The third period really turned the heat up on the rink -- the Chieftains weren't going down without a fight, and in the space of mere minutes, Sheffield's lead had been closed to a draw. Even a draw against Sheffield would have been a result to be proud of -- if not necessarily earned -- and the tension was getting unbearable. As the final period started dwindling, we thought Chelmsford had done it -- a shot at goal and for a second it looked like it went it. Instead it was as close as it might have been possible to get, and that was all the Scimitars needed.

We barely had time to curse them for being Northern bastards before the score went from 3 - 3, to 4 - 3 and finally 5 - 3. The Chieftains took the final buzzer as a good time to pick a fight, eventually the players were dragged off each other. Not ones to let it end there, although Sheffield took their win, the teams took the fight off the ice -- expressing the frustration of the home fans to have come so close to beating a team with an 8-game winning streak.

It's a small consolation, however, to see that the Milton Keynes Lightning lost 6 - 0 to the Peterborough Phantoms this weekend. You're not singing any more...

Sunday Night Hockey

Last week's home defeat was the Chieftain's first since November 5, and there was more than the usual level of anticipation this week as the Chieftains faced the Peterborough Phantoms.

In recent weeks, it had felt like the Chieftains didn't find their game until the second period -- but not so tonight, when goal followed after goal, until the buzzer ended the first period with the Chieftains enjoying a 4-0 lead. Chieftain's number 50, Randall, lead the way scoring himself a hatrick and assisting in the fourth goal -- but the game wasn't entirely one-sided; the Phantoms fought for all they were worth, making for some of the best premier league hockey I have seen in weeks.

Perhaps the Chieftains were too busy patting themselves on the back for their four goal advantage at the start of the second period, when the Phantoms scored right off the buzzer -- and the Chieftains 55, Howard, was sent off for various dubious penalties -- but mainly fighting with an opposing player. The penalties weren't the sole arena of the Chieftains, with more tripping and hooking coming from the Phantoms than you could shake your stick at.

By the end of the second period, the Chieftains four-goal lead was long gone and the Phantoms had managed to overtake and grasp a goal lead of their own. The Phantoms fans seemed sparse -- and less annoying than last week's MKL fans -- but they surely thought the Chieftains spell had been broken.

How wrong they were, Chieftains not only equalised but won in the final period. 3 points for the Chieftains, and the Sheffield Scimitars this Saturday.

Sunday night hockey

I described last week's Chieftain's game as "scrappy", I believe -- although the Chieftains won, and that was what counted, their game was disappointing. This week the inevitable happened, and they lost.

The Milton Keynes Lightning had with them a vociferous army of supporters, banging their drums and dancing. Yes, dancing. It was that level of depravity.
The first period appeared to be passing again without score -- until the Lightning struck with two goals in relatively quick succession.

The Chieftains went into the second period on the back foot, but we tried to remain optimistic -- "It will just make their crushing defeat more humiliating" I said, and Jon reminded us of a game a few weeks back that started slowly, then saw the Chieftains fight back from a disadvantage to winning with a handsome margin.

Then in the opening minutes of the second period the Lightning scored again.
3 - 0 was not insurmountable. If any further goals could be prevented, a humiliating home defeat could be avoided.

It looked good, it really did. Further attacks were fought off, and the Chieftains seem to play well when you put the screws on them. Before long, instead of trailing 3 - 0, the Chieftains had closed the gap to just 3 - 2.

But there it stayed. There were penalties and sustained attacks on the goal, but the Chieftains just didn't get it together enough. The buzzer sounded, and before the drums of the Lightning had even faded we were leaving in disgust. There's always next week.

I predict a riot

I've been threatening a hockey post for weeks, so here you are -- what might become a weekly slot, if there is enough to write about.

Tonight saw another home win for the Chieftains -- but what should have been a comfortable game against the Barons was instead scrappy and low-scoring. A first period with no goals at all hardly had the crowd on their feet, and the usual drums were strangely quietly as the fans had little to sing for.

A low-scoring game shouldn't necessarily make for an uninteresting one, but the Chieftains didn't seem on top of their game -- frequently losing their possession, and fouling up shots at the net. Things got worse as the Barons drew first blood with a lucky goal. There was the usual penalties for and against both times -- the usual refs with no idea what was actually going on, and several opportunities where it looked like there would be blood on the ice before the night was through.

Energy was low, even moving into the third period -- what usually spurs the Chieftain boys into an aggressive counter-strike this evening seemed to do little to encourage them. Everything changed when Randall evened the score, and suddenly with everything to play for we realised that we could still win this tonight. A 1-0 lead was hardly insurmountable, I've seen them recover spectacularly from far worse, but it was the equalising goal that I think the team needed to show them.

The Barons should never have been a match for the Chieftains, the game was stop-start all night, and I think the two combined are what made it seem so washed-out. It could have gone either way, but the victory was sealed by Palov's goal in the second half of the last period. With only 9 minutes remaining on the clock, the Baron's seemed to take the familiar approach of looking for trouble. They could still have equalised -- you could tell everyone there felt it, just as there was going to be tears before bedtime.

Despite a penalty in the closing minutes, the Chieftains secured their win -- but even with the game won, a fight broke out and it seemed like someone wasn't going to be happy without settling their own score...

The year, in 25 points or less

An idea stolen from the captivating Madame Boffin, who used this formula to mark her blogiversary about a month ago. I don't remember when my blogiversary is (I think maybe February), so I'm just doing this now since it seems as good a time as any. The year, in a random order.

1. Last Christmas day I was working in a pub. By Easter, I had quit my job and gone to work unpaid in London for a multinational PR company, in the hope of bettering myself. Whether it paid off remains to be seen.
2. In February, bored and restless, I bought a snowboard and took myself off to the French Alps. I suck at snowboarding -- only slightly less than how much I suck at surfing -- but I'd never been to Switzerland or France before. Highlights included travelling by bus from Geneva to Le Arcs, in France, while listening to Johnny Cash and getting pissed with a couple of other guys I had vaguely spoken to on some snowboard forum in a bar above the clouds and thousands of feet above sea level.
3. I saw Pearl Jam play the Astoria in London, after Jon managed to beat the odds and get two tickets. I took the day off work, stating I had "family commitments".
4. In August for the first time in years I camped at the Reading festival, and, yes drank a lot. I rocked out to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Twilight Singers and the Arctic Monkeys -- but Pearl Jam were unrivalled in their brilliance. I am still wearing my weekend wristband pass, four months later.
5. I spent the whole year free of any medication for depression. I don't see any shame in taking the medication if it's needed, but at the same time I like not having to take any. I like the lack of side effects the most.
6. I started going to the gym a lot, and started to look and feel better for it. I then stopped going altogether when I changed jobs and could no longer make it. I'm now probably more unfit than I was this time last year.
7. I went on a couple of dates with girls. I went for noodles with a cute Kiwi girl named Philippa, then I took her to the hospital. She always had excuses not to see me again and eventually stopped replying to me. I also met Jade, by all accounts an Oxford-educated lawyer doing pro-bono work for the disabled until her high-powered job started in the Autumn. We met for mohitos on Brick Lane, and funnily enough she too had excuses not to see me again.
8. Via the miracle medium of the internet I started talking to a girl who lived vaguely locally and was really eager to meet me. After only a couple of days I decided she was way too eager when she was planning picnics in the park and telling me she cared. I'm still not sure if I sabotaged a good thing, or had a lucky escape -- because needless to say we didn't meet.
9. I met Fiona for the first time in years, managed to avoid making a twat of myself and though I was left with a vague feeling of longing, think I handled it all reasonably well.
10. A statement that can not be applied to my friendship with San -- it's pretty incredible we remain friends at all, when we seemed to think that carrying on with some sort of quasi-open-relationship over the summer wasn't going to end in tears.
11. Aside from Pearl Jam and various bands at Reading festival, this year I have also seen Juliette & The Licks, Twilight Singers, Incubus, Foo Fighters, Motorhead, Terrorvision and probably some I'm forgetting.
12. I left my job in PR in London to work in a call centre in Essex. This was not necessarily through choice.
13. I have been to countless job interviews, and have been rejected for more jobs that I can count. There were at least three jobs as trainee assistant managers for three separate pub chains, about five different PR agencies, and an assortment of other jobs including junior photographer, picture desk assistant, a couple of newspaper feature writer positions and one media sales job.
I have met even more recruitment consultants, and am even still in vague contact with a couple of them. Even though I don't think any are still looking for work for me.
15. I have taken ownership of a skateboard, even though I can't skate. I haven't decided yet if I might learn, but I think it's nice to look at.
16. I have tried and failed to sell my snowboard. I successfully sold my widescreen tv and surround sound dvd player to my parents for their new flat, because I was broke. I have considered selling my body to get a job in marketing. I have wondered if working in marketing equalled selling my soul.
17. I have failed to sell my art, even to my parents. I wanted a print on canvas for their flat so I had something tangible to show for what I am doing with my life -- especially since my brother has laid the floors and plastered the walls. They decided it was too expensive.
18. I have proved myself free of any sexually transmitted infections or disease, and bought a new book with the gift voucher I was given in payment for taking part in a clinical trial on the day.
19. In a continuing exhibitionist theme, I have taken off all my clothes and posed nude for an art class, along with a group of strangers all also doing it for the first time.
20. I have discovered a new passion for live ice hockey. Having had a passing interest in the sport for years, I started going with my friends to see our local team play.
21. Posted various personals ads online, quoting various songs, attempting to be funny or just be "myself": all to varying degrees of limited success.
22. Inspired by Jason Lee as Earl Hickey, I started on a campaign of my own to be a better person. I apologised to a guy in the pub who I was a dick to at school, he said he had no memory of it and brushed it off. I also emailed a girl I went to school with, she said she forgave me years ago. In a similar vein, I was inspired by Danny Wallace to "say yes more", I can't report of anything particularly life-changing coming out of either episode. A self hypnosis CD managed to convince me for a few days I was the warm little centre that the life of this world crowded around. The effect wears off if you don't keep listening to it.
23. I rubbed shoulders with overpaid and overexposed celebrities at a PR event. I tried to think of something interesting to say to Natalie Imbruglia, I'll let you know when I have come up with something.
24. I have been drunk many times over the course of the year. But it was the work Halloween party with the vodka luge that really takes the crown for drunk and disorderly. I have only very hazy memories of buying Burger king, hiccuping on the train, losing my travelcard, and throwing up in someone's hedge. Classy.

And number 25: I started blogging here permanently, after diary-x died. I also came to think of this as my new home online and not a temporary measure. This is in no small part to some of the great friends I have made through my blog.

Solitude lengthens and flames

My last post was an example in itself of what I meant in the first paragraph, how the last post can seem ominous or to grow in weight and/or significance the longer it is left as my last post.

Since then I have considered posts about ice hockey -- I really, really need to start posting about the Chieftain games, but other than the score and the emotion they would be fairly short on details -- considered and rejected numerous subjects for Musical Monday, felt bored enough by work to not want to relive it in blog form later, and everything in between.

Instead I won't update about any of it. I've been having fun creating labels for my blog, then assigning them to posts -- it's not unlike with my gmail. Having to decide how many times one person has to occur before they get promoted to having their own label -- then there's competition between labels, feeling some people should have more posts than others, not wanting work to have as many, wondering if "depression" should have its own label. And if it does, which posts get labelled as such and which just get labelled "blue". Maybe there should be labels like "self-indulgent whining" and "How long has it been since she dumped you? Get over it!".

There are so many more labels needed. But I also want to upload (repost) all of my old diary-x entries. I don't believe there will ever be a viable replacement for d-x any more, I don't believe my old entries will ever see the light of day again if I don't repost them. But then maybe it's depressing to see how far I don't move on?

I have application forms for working abroad in Australia and Canada, but I hesitate. Despite hesitating because at this point I don't have the initial funds they require to start the process, I also hesitate because I'm bothered by the words "what then?" -- say I do go abroad, what do I do then? Obviously, being abroad couldn't be much worse than being here -- but what happens when I come back? It seems in England the closer you get to 30 without solid career experience, in something, the less employable you are. That's what the work experience/internship was meant to be about.

Am I scared of failing, and so instead do nothing? I want to leave, I want to get away -- but I don't want to come back a year older, with my tail between my legs with nothing solid to get my "career" on track. I don't really want to have to come back at all, but that's not really the point -- and probably not even an option. I just don't know where this leaves me. My current job is only a limited 3-month contract -- that's both a blessing and a curse, in some ways.

It strikes me sometimes as absurd that I should want to know what I'm going to do with my life -- if I look at my parents' lives, I don't think their 'careers' were what they would have said "Yes, that's what I shall do with my life", but that doesn't change a thing for me now. I always say it's Step One: Get a job. Step Two: Move out. And from there, it doesn't matter.
But maybe it should instead be "Move out" first, and then "Get a job"? Live dangerously, throw myself into the hands of the fates and see what happens.

But "what happens" so far has tended to be ending up back here, in this black hole of a town.

I'm desperately now trying to think of something to lighten the mood -- I hate it when this blog just seems to be saying "Wah! Life sucks", because it really isn't so bad. I want to capture the feeling of getting out of work and driving home -- even though it's just one day and it's a 6am start again the next morning, the feeling of driving home with my music playing and a smile on my face. Or the feeling of just playing a song I love. I need more moments like that.