A Shameless Ripoff

OK, I'll come clean straight away and admit the following is a straightforward cut-and-paste from a forwarded email I got a while back, but I was trawling my inbox just now and re-read it again. There's some great definitions!

NEW OFFICE SLANG

World Wide Wait - The real meaning of www.

404 - Someone who is clueless. From the Web error message, "404 Not Found," which means the document requested couldn't be located. "Don't bother asking John. He's 404."

Chips and Salsa - Chips = hardware, salsa = software.
"First we gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa."

Cobweb - A WWW site that never changes.

Cube Farm - An office filled with cubicles.

Egosurfing - Scanning the Net, databases, etc., for one's own name.

Keyboard Plaque - The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on some people's computer keyboards.

Mouse Potato - The online generation's answer to the couch potato.

Oh-no-second - That minuscule fraction of time during which you realize you've just made a terrible error.

Open-Collar Workers - People who work at home or telecommute.

Plug-and-Play - A new hire who doesn't require training.
"That new guy is totally plug-and-play."

Seagull Manager - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, dumps on everything and then leaves.

Stress Puppy - A person who thrives on being stressed-out and whiny.

Under Mouse Arrest - Getting busted for violating an online service's rule of conduct. "Sorry I couldn't get back to you. AOL put me under mouse arrest."

Xerox Subsidy - Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace

In order to maintain a modicum of rugby relevence, I'll put a link to the England team to face the Barbarians. My first England game was against the Baa-Baas in 2004 (England lost!) and you can see more of the photos here. Jason Leonard was propping for the Barbarians, the only time I've seen him on the rugby field.

Guinness Semis

Great to see Sale achieving a place in the Guinness Premiership finals, with a win over Wasps at the weekend. They deserve to go all the way as they have clearly been doing very well this season, and finished 6 points ahead at the top of the table. Wasps will have to lick their wounds and regroup for next season.

And poor old London Irish got a drubbing at Welford Road, being beaten by the Tigers 40-8, Irish's only points coming from Olivier Magne's try and Mike Catt's penalty.

And talking of Catty, he makes the trip down under as part of the Enlgand squad to tour Australia in June. Glad to see there's life in the old dog yet (or Catt, in this case). Here's a gratuitous picture of him to fill up the blog a bit.

Flickr Updates

I have been a bit lax of late about posting more photos to my Flickr album. But since its the end of the season, I thought I would gather together the best of this year's crop and post them up to Flickr. They are arranged into sets which roughly follow the major teams I've taken pictures of.

As the season is closing, I suspect the summer will see a lull in posts here. But if I do say anything, it's probably going to err towards the Just Mad rather than Rugby Mad of the title. A summer of silliness seems fair enough, especially if it gets really hot and my brain begins to fry in the new office I've been forced into (where each developer has at least 3 machines under their desk, the aircon is pants and its so hot already you can bearly think). I must be a bit like one of Terry Pratchett's trolls - I get more stupid the hotter it is, and perhaps I need to put my head in the fridge for normal thought processes to resume.

And talking of silliness, at least tonight's telly includes the penultimate episode of Series 2 of the barking mad Green Wing on Channel 4. Its fab comedy, and brightens the end of the week!

If You Can't Beat 'Em...

... get them to join you!

I read with interest that Saracens have signed three London Irish players for the new season - this after they beat us in the last round of the Premiership! The new boys are Paul Gustard (flanker), Rodd Penney (centre) and Ross Laidlaw (fly half). Hopefully it will bode well for the 2006/07 campaign. Plus Saracens' head coach Mike Ford is in talks with the RFU about a possible role coaching England - will have to wait and see what comes of that. Meanwhile, retired back-rower Alex Sanderson is heading down-under to work with Eddie Jones at Queensland Reds for a year, before returning to Saracens at Vicarage Road.

Not a lot of other news to comment on, apart from the imminent recall of good old Catty for the England tour to Australia in June. He has the distinction of being the last player to handle the ball in the 2003 RWC final - kicking it to touch in the 100th minute so that thousands of England fans could go nuts over the win. He's been playing well for London Irish, so its great news that Robbo has decided to give him another shot at international duty.

Talisman or Albatross?

In her comment to one of my recent posts, Vixxxie1 raises an interesting question - does my presence at any given game act as a talisman or the Albatross-like kiss of death for the team I'm supporting?

This set me thinking, so I had a quick look at the stats for the games I have been to. It can get a bit confusing as I have several teams which I like - and my support will change depending who's playing (fickle creature that I am!).

It basically goes like this - first choice for country is of course, England (or the Lions every four years). In the Premiership, it has to be Saracens, then Bath. But then I've been to a game between London Irish and Wasps and who was I rooting for then? Not really sure. Wasps, probably! So these figures (as with any stats) should be taken with a pinch of NaCl (that's a chemically geeky joke, for those not in the know).

To summarise, if Saracens are playing then I'm gunning for them (although if its against Bath then my attentions get distracted by a certain Second Row beef), otherwise its Bath. The stats for Bath and Wasps were only counted when Sarries weren't playing them, to give their totals below (Lost column includes draws too):

Team Won Lost % Won
England 3 3 50%
Lions 0 1 0%
Sarries 12 11 52%
Bath 1 2 33%
Wasps 2 1 67%

So what to make of it all? Not a lot really, except to say it's a fairly small sample! And my presence doesn't seem to make any difference either way. Maybe I should start supporting Wasps on these figures? No, I thought not...