Unless you’ve been living under a rock or don’t care, Michael Clarke, vice captain of the Australian Cricket team recently dashed back to Australia during their tour of NZ to dump his fiancee Lara Bingle for allegedly ‘fidelity issues’.  He finally spoke to the press yesterday.  I know what he was really trying to say so I’ve corrected his statement under what he actually said.  Enjoy.

From Michael Clarke’s announcement to Media:

“It’s part of what we do,” Clarke said. “Being a professional athlete it’s not just about what you do on the field it’s what you do off the field as well. We have to accept that and for me it was important to do what I had to do in my personal life and it’s important for me now to be back with my team-mates and make sure I’m concentrating on playing a Test match for Australia.”

FIXED THAT BELOW!:

“It’s part of what we do,” Clarke said. “Being a professional athlete and having an extremely hot fiancée who is often in the media for being nude, it’s not just about what you do on the field it’s who you do off the field as well. We have to accept that and for me it was important to do what I had to do in my personal life and it’s important for me now to be back with my team-mates and make sure I’m banging every hot piece of Auckland ass I can so that I can concentrate on playing a Test match for Australia.”

Lookie what we have here Intels new 6 core, 12 thread processor — the 3.33GHz Core i7-980X. I can feel Nez working out the cost estimates now for his next upgrade and if he really can part with that last kidney of his  At least for the majority of us we can look forward to this and kind of ‘#’s of processor overkill’ to be in our future box/laptop in a few eons time.

More unmanned then manned aircrafts being purchased by the States signals a turned towards Skynet supremacy. 24 cadets at the Air Force Academy received the first wings awarded in the institution’s history for pilots specializing in unmanned aerial systems and other remotely piloted aircraft. Prepare to be terminated.

Source

• 1.5kgs Apples
• 5.7L Purified or Boiled Water
• 1kg White Sugar
• 3 Lemons
• (I added a fresh Nectarine off the tree outside)

Tools:

• Couple of Buckets
• Muslin Cloth (had to substitute a tea towel)
• Plastic Bottles
• Time

Without going into an in depth process diagram simply carry out the following:

1. Freeze the apples for a few days
2. Munch, moosh, mangle the apples using brute force or a food processor. Boil water at same time if need be but leave to cool
3. Dump the munched, moosed, and mangled apples into bucket 1 and add the water
4. Leave to sit for about a week in a cool area stirring morning and night. Cover with tea towel
5. Strain fermenting substance through the cloth into bucket 2; add sugar, and the juice and grated zest of the 3 lemons, place back away in the cool area for a further 3 days
6. Grab your desired bottles or jars and insure they are clean. Grab the bucket with your tasty beverage and filter again through a cloth into bucket 1. Using some skilful maneuver — a funnel or some rolled up cardboard — pour the liquid into the said vessels insuring there is enough of a gap to avoid bottle exploding. Place bottles away in cool area for 7-10 days
7. Drink

Simple, clean, and surprising great tasting! Notes with my batch:

1. Did 2 days in freezer
2. I also added a nectarine here for some extra flavour
3. Yup
4. Yup
5. Not having the correct filter cloth I am thinking that the tea towel removed too much of the pulp at this stage — more on this later
6. Got hold of the 89c budget plastic soda water bottles from the local supo. Made 3x 1.1L, 1x 1.4, 1×0.6L = Just over 5L. Tried first bottle 5 days in, fizz wasn’t too bad. Second bottle 2 weeks post bottling was definitely a tone fizzier and slightly less sweet
7. The more on this later part — Alcohol level seems low as using a extremely scientific process of having a pint of this only just makes one tingly. Using my drunkometer I am guessing it is in the 2-3% range or I am a hardened drinker (a possibility). Recipe predicts that this will end up around 4%

A cloudy mellow yellow colour, tastes sweet, less apple more lemony, strong flavour, refreshing served over ice on a hot day.

Thanks to an outstanding bowling display from Tim Southee in the 48th and 50th overs, NZ kept the Australians out but could only salvage a draw as the Australians scampered for 3 runs on the last ball and Michael Clarke was run out by Nathan McCullum by a brilliant piece of fielding after only 2 runs, effectively tying the match.

As is the custom in T20 Internationals, a Super Over was scheduled 5 minutes later to decide the winner of the match.  This has only occurred twice in the short history of T20 Internationals and this was the first time the result was to be accepted as official.  The first occasion also involved NZ, when they played the West Indies on Boxing Day, 26 December 2008.  The West Indies won the match and the experiment was widely considered a success and the ICC announced that this would officially be how a tie was to be decided in a T20 International from then on.

NZ won the Super Over and ultimately the match in spectacular fashion and claimed the victory.  The following day there was a lot of stirring in Australia with disgruntled Aussies claiming that the match was tied and that the Super Over did not count and therefore Australia still remained unbeaten for their season and had won the T20 series against us!

That didn’t seem right to me at all, nor did it seem right that cricinfo.com, arguably the best Cricket resource in the world for match coverage and statistics, also has the game down as a ‘tie’ in their record books.

Should this not be recognised as a Win to New Zealand?

I wrote a curt email to Cricinfo asking them why they’d recorded the result as a tie and begged the question, what the point in the Super Over was if the result was not official? Why do we bother with it at all if it does not count?  I have still had no response.

I did some further digging today and found that the ICC, the governing body for International cricket, who set all the rules and regulations for the International game, has actually published a detailed rule book for T20 Internationals.  I found the following details interesting.

So officially, the result of the Super Over determines the winner according to the ICC

The way to decide the winner of the match should the Super Over still result in a tie and an equal number of batsmen dismissed begins to border on the ridiculous.  See below:

The fine print of how to determine the winner of a match that has resulted in a tie, and the Super Over has also resulted in a tie, a bit convoluted and unnecessary perhaps but we cannot fault them for their meticulousness

Alright guys, I see what you're doing here and I appreciate it but if a match result EVER has to be determined this way, GOD help Cricket!

When you consider that in the albeit short lifetime of T20 International cricket, this has only occurred twice, and the probability of these other tie breaking scenarios occurring are well beyond the most remote you could imagine, it’s good to know the ICC has got this contentious area of the game well documented and surely there is no refuting that based on this, NZ won the game fair and square?

Campbell Live anyone?

Tait gives McCullum the Finger but it was Tait that got the finger in the end when he failed to bowl Australia to victory in the Super Over

According to British Scientists the most repelling sound to the human ear is the sound of someone vomiting.  This is closely followed by the sound of a baby crying, a dentists drill and radio feedback.  I for one am extremely surprised that the sound of fingernails scratching a blackboard is not the most repelling sound, it’s not even in the Top 5!

• 2-3 minutes in length
• something everyone knows
• a crowd-pleaser
• mostly vocal (no more than 8 bars of instrumental solo (no long lead-out or lead-in)

Or, this.

Other suggestions are welcome.