I journeyed down to Villa Park to watch
Villa play Wigan yesterday, and I'm still miffed as to how they lost
2-0 when they should have won easily! Villa should have been cruising at half-time, but yet again they didn't convert the chances they had into goals. Villa are away to Manchester City next Monday night.
Over the other side of the pond, despite a much, much better game in terms of penalties taken and shots against, the
Caps lost
3-2 against the Panthers. However, it all went pear-shaped again last night: 13 penalties taken and 41 shots against during a
4-0 loss to Carolina. Those two areas need a hell of a lot more work.
Posted By Gary On
October 23, 2005
At long last we've finally beaten the enemy from across the city! Sunday's superb
1-0 victory at their place was such a sweet moment. Words alone cannot totally describe my elation at the final whistle. I hope
Villa will use this victory as a catalyst now to jump start their season. Up next for Villa: Wigan Athletic at home.
Over the other side of the pond in the
NHL the
Caps beat the Tampa Bay Lightning
3-2 on Sunday night. The game actually ended 2-2 after overtime, and was decided by a shootout, which I thought was really exciting! The Caps travel to Florida tomorrow night to take on the joint top
Panthers at BankAtlantic Center.
Posted By Gary On
October 19, 2005
There was a players only meeting held after the
Caps lost
5-2 at home to the Islanders on Thursday night. I sure hope it does some good. It was pleasing to see a team thump the Thrashers for once, though. The
Leafs beat them
9-1 in a game that included 147 penalty minutes! The Caps play the
Lightning next on Sunday.
Posted By Gary On
October 15, 2005
An
8-1 loss to Atlanta, a
3-2 win against the
Rangers and a
7-3 loss last night to
Carolina. Yep, it's going to be a long, long season for the
Caps and their fans. Ovechkin is looking
good, though - he has a point or more in every game thus far. The
New York Islanders are the visitors to MCI Center later this evening.
Posted By Gary On
October 13, 2005
The
Caps got lit up last night, losing
7-3 to the Thrashers. What I found most disturbing last night (other than the awful penalty killing) was that, for the second time in two games, the defence left Kolzig totally exposed. He has faced a total 76 shots in two games! The Caps play the Thrashers again in Atlanta this evening.
D.C. United closed in on the top spot in the Eastern Conference when they beat Real Salt Lake
3-1 during midweek. A win against arch rivals the MetroStars tonight, and a New England loss to the Kansas City, would see United go top. It promises to be an interesting game, as both teams still have quite a lot to play for.
Posted By Gary On
October 8, 2005
Oh yes! What a superb start by the
Caps. They beat the Blue Jacket's
3-2 and Ovechkin scored two! On his first shift of the game he delivered a body check so hard it dislodged the support between two pieces of plexiglass along the end boards! I felt it over this side of the pond! The Caps play the
Thrashers tonight.
Posted By Gary On
October 7, 2005
Woohoo! At long last... hockey! The NHL 2005-2006 season
opens tonight with all 30 teams in action. The
Caps start the season at home against the
Columbus Blue Jackets. I
really hope the
network upgrade happening tonight doesn't affect my listening into the game on
WTNT AM-570. I will be most upset if it does!
The Caps have had a pretty poor preseason: a
6-0 loss to Carolina,
3-2 and
4-0 losses to Buffalo, a
5-2 loss to Philadelphia,
3-2 and
4-3 wins against Pittsburgh, a
7-6 loss to Philadelphia and a
7-1 loss to Pittsburgh. Don't write the Caps off this season like
some have, though. They could
surprise quite a few people.
That said, the Caps have pretty much rebuilt from scratch following their roster purge a couple of years ago. Thankfully, the youngsters have had a year in the
AHL with the
Pirates to bond and develop: it's all about them now. 2004 No. 1 pick Alexander Ovechkin will be a big success I'm sure, but who else will step up?
Posted By Gary On
October 5, 2005
Well I thought my new soundcard might arrive today but it hasn't yet. It'll most likely arrive tomorrow now. I don't even know where it is at the moment either. Tell me, what's the point of a
tracking service if it doesn't (or can't) tell you roughly where your parcel is en route? Parcelforce? Hmm. More like Parcel
farce if you ask me.
Posted By Gary On
October 5, 2005
Villa lost
3-2 at home to Middlesbrough on Saturday. I know they're having
injury woes again, but if Villa play like that against the enemy across the city on October 16th they'll get hammered. I hope O'Leary uses the two-week break wisely, and for goodness sake sort out that defence! A defeat on the 16th is unthinkable.
D.C. United on the other hand are faring much better. They thrashed arch enemy the MetroStars
4-1 away, and in doing so secured themselves a playoff berth, dashed the MetroStars own chances of making the playoffs and cost MetroStars Head Coach Bob Bradley
his job. United play Real Salt Lake tomorrow evening.
Posted By Gary On
October 4, 2005
Oh, crap.
NTL sealed their
takeover of
Telewest yesterday. Whether this is good news or bad news I'm not sure. I suspect the latter (although I really hope not). I remember when Tiscali took over LineOne a few years ago it was a complete disaster. I hope this won't affect the current excellent broadband service I receive.
Posted By Gary On
October 4, 2005
Hey, hey. Look what I've just found. According to
this Blueyonder are doing a network upgrade in my area on Thursday. I wonder if this is the upgrade to enable 4Mb speeds, or work being done to enable them shortly? Hmm. It's very exciting that's for sure! Those Steam downloads will be so much quicker on a 4Mb connection!
Posted By Gary On
October 4, 2005
A fresh copy of Half-Life 2 didn't improve things - it made things worse! I'm still convinced that the stuttering is caused by a sound issue more than anything else, though, so I purchased a new soundcard from
Komplett earlier. It's the
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value. It's OEM I think, but it's also a steal for �26.50!
Oh, and I'm still not totally happy with GazNET v5.2 yet, so I'm making the odd adjustment here and there to get it looking as intended. I might even allow comments again, but I may have to force people to register before they can comment to avoid the problems I had a couple of months back with comment spammers.
Posted By Gary On
October 4, 2005
I love
Half-Life 2, I really do. However, instead of playing it, most of my time has been spent trying to find and eliminate the cause of the extremely annoying stuttering I keep experiencing. A quick Google search tells me I'm
not the only one with this problem, either. Hmm. So, what have my investigations revealed thus far?
Well, I'm almost certain it's not texture thrashing. A powerful machine like mine should be able to handle the game on the highest settings. I've tried turning the detail settings all the way down and even turning the textures off completely; it still stutters. I've tried various other settings suggested to me; it still stutters.
I am convinced my HL2 stuttering is caused by a sound problem. I've noticed that when character speech (and some environmental sound effects) kick in, I get stuttering. However, I've tried turning the sound quality right down to the lowest setting; it still stutters. I've tried updated soundcard drivers and settings; it still stutters.
So, where do I go from here? Well, I've just downloaded a fresh copy of the game via Steam (thank goodness for broadband) so I'll see if that cures it. If not, I think I'll splash out on a more up to date soundcard. My current Soundblaster Live! Value is a fairly dated anyway, and this is the perfect excuse to buy a new card.
Posted By Gary On
October 3, 2005
It has been a long time coming, but GazNET v5.2 is now online! I told you it wouldn't look any different to the previous version, didn't I? I've spotted a couple of kinks that will need to be ironed out, but other than that everything looks fine. If you see anything at all that doesn't quite look right
let me know and I'll take a look.
Posted By Gary On
October 1, 2005
The all singing, all dancing GazNET v5.2 will be online at some point today. Hopefully it will all go smoothly and you won't notice a thing, but if things do start to break at least you'll know why! GazNET v5.2 is exactly the same design as this, but the layout has been done with Cascading Style Sheets and not tables.
Posted By Gary On
October 1, 2005
