The
MLS starts again this weekend and I for one can't wait! MLS is going to look slightly different this year, too. The MetroStars have been
purchased by drinks firm Red Bull and have been renamed
Red Bull New York, and the San Jose Earthquakes have
moved to Houston, Texas and been renamed
Houston Dynamo.
So what are my predictions this year? Tough call. I got it more or less correct
last year when I said L.A. Galaxy would come back strong - they won the MLS Cup
and the US Open Cup! Expect them to be challenging again this year. I also expect my favourite MLS team,
D.C. United, to be in the mix for the big honours, too.
With the exception of Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake the other MLS teams are perfectly capable of being contenders, too - but I don't think so. Red Bull New York - under new ownership -
might come out of nowhere and do some damage. My dark horse for this year, though, is
FC Dallas. I'm not sure why, either. Just a hunch.
Posted By Gary On
March 29, 2006
It wasn't a particularly good game of football to watch, and neither
Villa or Fulham looked likely to win the game, although both McCann and Barry had good chances to score for Villa during a crazy goalmouth scramble in the first half. The game finished
0-0. Up next for Villa: Arsenal away on Saturday. Wonderful.
After another three losses last week to the Canadiens (
4-2), the Panthers (
3-2) and the Lightning (
4-3 OT) the
Caps beat the Hurricanes
3-1 last night to snap an eight-game losing skid and avoid setting their longest losing streak since the '81-82 season (13 in a row). The Caps play the Hurricanes again on Wednesday.
Posted By Gary On
March 26, 2006
I shouldn't really... Hang on. What am I talking about? Of course I should. This is getting an entry all of its own! They Who Must Not Be Named were beaten
7-0 at home by Liverpool in the FA Cup quarter-final, and humiliated in front of a national television audience last night. And I thought my beloved
Villa had problems!
Posted By Gary On
March 22, 2006
I'm well over a week into my trial of
NOD32 and so far I remain very impressed. Apart from the taskbar icon, the virus definition update notices, and when it detects a virus, I hardly know it's there. It's also the only product not to miss a single in the wild virus in 7 years of testing - that's a pretty impressive track record.
I'm still hunting around for a decent firewall, but I think I'll just stick with the Windows Firewall for now, and invest in a hardware firewall (or perhaps a router) that does
Network Address Translation instead. From talking to others and reading the points the author of
this web page makes, it seems like better solution.
Posted By Gary On
March 19, 2006
What a rubbish weekend for my teams. I'll start with my beloved
Villa. They were 3-0 down at half-time against Everton yesterday, and lost
4-1 in the end. Not good. Not good at all. I'm not quite at the point where I'm calling for O'Leary's head, but I'm close. A loss at home against Fulham next weekend may tip me over the edge.
As for the
Caps, well, it was another loss last night - their fifth straight -
4-3 in overtime to the Florida Panthers. It's not nice to see them get beat all the time, but then again nobody expected the team to make the playoffs this season. I think they have the nucleus of a very good team there. Next year might be different.
Posted By Gary On
March 19, 2006
It has been another miserable week for the
Caps. They lost
6-4 at home to the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night and
5-4 away against the New York Rangers last night. They're going to have hard finish to the regular season, too. The Caps have 17 games left, most of which are away and against playoff chasing teams!
Posted By Gary On
March 17, 2006
Despite outplaying Blackburn on Saturday
Villa lost
2-0. Then on Wednesday night in the FA Cup 5th Round replay they lost
2-1 to Manchester City. Injury problems aside, recent Villa performances have lacked passion, desire and commitment. It is worrying to say the very least. A win away at Everton on Saturday is now a must.
Posted By Gary On
March 16, 2006
I was just about to start reading
Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming when I realised that I hadn't mentioned anything here about the two previous Fleming novels I've read:
Live And Let Die and
Moonraker. They're great novels. Well worth checking out. Personally, I thought Live And Let Die was the better of the two.
Posted By Gary On
March 14, 2006
The
Caps beat the Pittsburgh Penguins
6-3 at home on Wednesday night, but followed that up with a
4-3 shootout loss to the New Jersey Devils on Friday night, and a
5-2 loss at home to the Ottawa Senators on Sunday night. They play the Buffalo Sabres at home later on this evening. A Caps win would be nice!
Posted By Gary On
March 14, 2006
I'm currently listening to
Tri-State by
Above & Beyond over and over again. It hasn't been out of my CD player all weekend. It's a fantastic album. The lead track, Tri-State, has to be one of the most simple, beautiful pieces of music I've heard in a long time. The rest of the album is pretty damn good, too. Nice one, guys!
I finished reading
The Sum Of All Fears by Tom Clancy yesterday evening. What a superb novel. I actually had several chapters left to read when I started reading yesterday afternoon, but Clancy is such a superb writer I just couldn't put it down! It's now my second favourite Clancy novel behind the legendary
Red October.
Posted By Gary On
March 13, 2006
Despite the fact the beta is apparently open to U.S. residents only, I managed to download and install Microsoft's
Windows Live OneCare this evening. I didn't like it at all. I know it's still in beta, but it's nowhere near as good as it could be. So an hour after installing it I had uninstalled it! Sorry Microsoft, keep working at it.
Posted By Gary On
March 11, 2006
So the hunt goes on. On the firewall side of things I have trialled
Zone Alarm and
Lavasoft Personal Firewall, of which Lavasoft was the clear winner. I did not like Zone Alarm at all. As for virus protection,
PC Tools AntiVirus is good, but it's nowhere near as good as
NOD32, which I am trialling (and loving) at the moment.
Posted By Gary On
March 9, 2006
After a
2-1 loss at home to Newcastle, a
1-1 draw at home to Manchester City in the FA Cup, and a
0-0 draw away at Charlton, it was good to see
Villa beat Portsmouth
1-0 on Saturday and get a vital three points. They play their next three games away from home, starting with a difficult game against Blackburn on Saturday.
Over the other side of the pond the
Caps beat Toronto
5-3 in their first game back after the Olympic break. They went on to lose their next two games
7-1 to Ottawa and
3-2 to Atlanta, before bouncing back with a big
5-2 home win against the Islanders. The Caps play Pittsburgh at home later on this evening.
Posted By Gary On
March 8, 2006
