So I didn't sleep last night. I don't know why. It's probably got something to do with me sleeping so thoroughly for the past two weeks (on account of being on holiday) that my stupid brain felt no further need to rest. Stupid brain. Everyone always tells me that sleeping too much is bad for you, and that it causes things like obesity and depression. I always tell people that it's so much bollocks, and I tell them why they should be ashamed for not looking at the facts with a critical eye - unsurprisingly I don't have many friends; but the truth must prevail!
People who are depressed sleep more. But the reverse is not true. People who drink red wine are healthier, but the reverse is not true. Carbon dioxide emissions rise (by fractions of a percent) when the planet heats up, but that increase is not the cause, but a by-product.
Just because two things increase in tandem doesn't mean they are causally linked in both directions. People of the world, please learn this so that we can get past this reliance on faux science.
Anyway, before we get onto the sports news let's take a look at the business news affecting you, but to a greater extent me (it's my blog after all).
This article examines the austerity measures being employed by the Japanese to combat their two decades of economic non-growth. It includes phasing a VAT increase from 10% to 20%. The normally placid Japanese have been riotous with the news, which just shows how fucking stupid English people are for bending over and accepting their rise last year. I'm doing my bit for the Japanese economy by buying a camera. Online of course, it ended up being about 500 quid cheaper than buying it in a brick and mortar store. I'm counting down the days until traditional retail dies - when I can buy products in a foreign language online, surely things are simple enough for everyone to use.
This article takes a look at the prisons of god (not capitalised because other fictional characters aren't given such everyday reverence) and has some interesting news. Apparently a church fell on a kid (hearsay; I've not actually read anything about that particular incident) which presumably led to the vast majority of people in the west calling for the destruction of all churches and cathedrals (I suggest this isn't such a bad idea, assuming all religion went along with the buildings). This bizarre piece reads like a defence of cathedrals (which led to my previous assumption) and ends with one of the ugliest things I've ever seen.
I've not seen the Coventry cathedral in person, but that photograph is about as flattering as the infamous picture of ... I've forgotten her name. The woman who sang a bit and had hair like a beehive. She also had no teeth at one point. I don't know whether she died or not, but she took so many types of drugs with such dedication that I would be more surprised if she were alive. Her name was vaguely drug addled too. (See, I can do pop-culture too!)
Anyway, whoever she was, she wasn't pretty. She looked a lot like Coventry cathedral in that photograph. A face only a mother could love. I understand that it's somewhat petty to judge a human by the facade, but considering that buildings are primarily facade, I had to draw a comparison with something.
In hindsight I could have used another building. We all live and learn.
Let's move on before my mind unravels further.
If you haven't seen results for the MotoGP, rugby or rowing, look away now.
So first of all, the Cambridge Oxford boat race was this weekend. A man in a wetsuit disrupted the event and is now being sent to prison for a million years because he got in the way of some toffs in a fucking canoe. Grow up England, get your goddamn priorities straight. Murderers run around carefree, but a man making a point about (something that I'm sure is very just) won't be tolerated. Jesus Christ.
On the actual boat race itself - hold on a second, my alarm just went off, apparently my watch is telling me that it's the twenty-first century and no one gives a shit about two bullshit factories. Seriously, Oxford and Cambridge, no one gives a shit. Stop pretending. Stop. Now.
Terrible MotoGP news now. Valentino Rossi is no longer competitive. Despite the terrible effects age tends to unleash upon the human body, no one suspected Valentino was human enough to be affected. As such, his non-competitiveness is a sad event for his legions of fans. It seems the turning point was his move to Ducati combined with the leg break a couple of seasons ago. I'll have to download the race this weekend to see whether it's as exciting as seasons past, if not I'll have to wait for a Brit to become championship contending. Cal Crutchlow came fourth, which is pretty good.
Jamie Roberts has knackered his knee and is out for six months. I'm wondering whether I shouldn't give my knee an extra couple of weeks on top of my originally planned six, to make sure it's right. I don't have a medical staff, after all.
Aironi have gone bankrupt. While not particularly significant in of itself, it does beg the question about spreading the sport to new territories. Italy has been in the Six Nations for ages now, but their teams still exist within a fragile ecosystem. I wonder if this is an isolated case, or one that will be repeated in the future.
For gods sake Jonny. He's only gone and knocked 'Quins out of the second tier European cup. Of course headlines like this are disingenuous - if a single person could play the game of rugby it would be far less interesting. I'm thoroughly disappointed that Toulon won, as 'Quins look to be tentatively poised to win the premiership, or at least go into the playoffs in the lead. I say tentatively because a loss like this could de-rail their season. They're guaranteed a playoff spot, but that's no good if they keep losing.
Two things also need to happen to the premiership. Firstly, they need to double the salary cap. All the England internationals are playing in France at the moment. Sure, the downside will be that twice as many foreigners will play in England, but at least we'll have a capped England player in the league. Secondly, they need to increase the league size from 12 to 14. We need fourteen teams in the premiership.
The Saracens Quins game a couple of weeks ago was superb, by the way. We need more of those games. It helped that eighty-odd thousand people went to watch it in Wembley, making it the biggest non-international ever. Go find a replay of it and check it out. Brilliant.
To emphasize the required increase in salary cap, Saracens kissed the Heineken cup farewell after defeat to Clermont. Interestingly, Clermont is primarily frenchies, which goes to show that domestic talent can fare well in this age of the mix-and-match nationalities.
My camera should arrive either today or tomorrow. Having just checked my bank account however, I fear it may not arrive. The bank balance hasn't moved an inch.
Anyway, I've ordered the camera and a general purpose zoom, a battery grip (I've used a couple, and they're superb. It's difficult to quantify the ergonomics, but they essentially double the battery life) and a couple of 32 gig SD cards. The files in .jpg will probably be about 20 megs? (a complete guess) with the .raw probably being 80 megs. It's only a 22 megapixel sensor, so the files will be quite small. The competition has twice as many megapixels, so in the coming years we'll see how much of a limitation the pixel count really is.
I am bloody tired.
And that's pretty much it. I can't think of anything else to write about.
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