Picture of health

WordPress, in their (somewhat sinister) benevolence, have expanded every users filespace from a paltry 50MB to a whopping 3GB in one fell swoop. Go raibh milé maith agat for that, and a photo gallery containing all the photos I’ve taken over the years at Waterford and Liverpool matches, good, bad and indifferent, is on its way.

Heap big words make heap big thoughts

This deals with epiphenomenalism, which has to do with consciousness as a mere accessory of physiological processes whose presence or absence makes no difference . . . whatever are you doing!?

Audrey Hepburn, Funny Face

A funny thing happened to me after I posted last night. With Waterford’s defeat in the Waterford Crystal Cup, I felt obliged after a seven week hiatus to get back into the blog swing of things – that whole chronicler for the ages and all that jazz. Posts up, I retired to the scratcher – only to find my mind racing with thoughts of Waterford and a sudden desire to make it to matches in far away places like, uh, Dungarvan. Heck, I might even ask for transhport to away matches from people who I avoid in work because they’re meffs – but they do go to the matches. I’ve always thought my love for Waterford spawned the blog. Now the blog is driving that love for Waterford. Curiouser and curiouser.

Start as you mean to go on . . . oh

With top soccer managers treating their domestic cup competitions with varying degrees of disdain, Brian Cody has cornered the market on the notion that you go out to win every game, reasoning that winning – and, more importantly, losing – are habit-forming. So you have to hope that Kilkenny’s recent loss to Antrim fits into his paradigm. On the other hand, you have to hope the beating Waterford got yesterday at the hands of Tipperary is the exception that proves the rule. The ‘experimental’ nature of the Waterford lineup is a source of comfort, and if you can’t experiment in the Waterford Crystal Cup, when can you experiment? But the problems in the full-back line is the itch we can’t scratch, and this game doesn’t suggest we have the materials in the lab to bring about a successful result to the experiment. As always, time will tell.

A spot of self-indulgence

Every blogger dreams that their viewpoint will be the essential, nay, definitive account of their chosen subject. Also, the temptation to meander off on any and every topic under the sun would leave you typing 14 hours a day. With that in mind, I’ve tried to stay focused on Waterford GAA in general and the hurlers in particular, with a record of everything I’ve done for Shankly Gates.

However, as we crank things up again for 2008, time for a diversion to the one truly beautiful thing I’ve ever created. Wednesday, 13th March 2002 – I remember the date as it was four days before I met my wife – and Liverpool were playing Barcelona in the Nou Camp. I was sitting two rows back near the corner flag, on the far right-hand side from the television cameras. It was right on half-time and Rivaldo was taking a corner. With the lag in digital cameras, I squeezed the button to take the photo just before he struck the ball, and got this:

Worth a thousand words of Shakespeare.

Liverpool v Wigan Athletic, 4 January 2008