Saturday, September 30, 2006

Party [X-posted from my LJ]

Loan Wolves end-of-season party last night.
The Wolves had put on our posh frocks for the occasion.  We assembled for drinks at Bar Soho.  I was first Wolf there, so was our leadoff drinker for the night.  After a couple of beers we went to Bistro1 for a good value meal and several glasses of wine.  I had the spicy sausage salad starter, followed by the Cumberland sausage and mash.  I like sausages.
After dinner, we had the awards ceremony.  Everyone got a joke award (complete with certificate) for something.  I was the recipient of the "Florence Nightingale" award for player with the best first aid kit - and most need of it.  Most Valuable Wolf was a deserved joint award, to Paul and Ben.
We then went on to O'Neill's in Wardour Street.  first we were up on the top floor, which was a bit too noisy for most of us (and the playlist was aimed at people with the musical attention span of a goldfish - the DJ considered "Seven nation army" to be "an old classic").  On the first floor, though, we found a table by the window, with a brilliant view out over Chinatown.
Lots of laughs, dancing, drinks, with a fun bunch of good people.
Sadly, I forgot one of the golden rules on my way home.  Never fall asleep on the night bus.  'Cos some chav nicks your mobile phone if you do that.  Arranged a new one from Vodaphone, but I'm going to have to get everyone's numbers again.

End of Season Party- Low Point, High Point

Low Point - getting home. I wandered around for a while and my beer compass eventually got be back to ICSL. Then a hours nightbus trip around the whole of North London got me into bed just after 3am!

High Point - What can I say - all that dancing! We may not be all that coordinated on the field, but we sure can move! Love Shack, baby love shack!

Photos now on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kjscott

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Hope we have a practice next Saturday

I hope we can have a practice next Saturday as I may very well be around for that one

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Go on then... Low Point, High Point

I can't believe no one won. I can't believe we managed to miss that rain! Special mention should go to all those in the bar who suggested the name Target for me. I'm sorry I can't remember who said it first, it may have been Richard. I like it. I feel that it sums up my cunning ability to be hit by both balls and runners (but only when they are going at full speed) and also the fact that everyone kept hitting the ball straight to me last night - more of that below.
Anyway, shall I get the ball rolling?

Low Point: Not winning :-(

High Point: Generally having a cracking time at second base. Due to Paul's misguided tactics (as if every ball would get pass me and Andy!) loads of the balls came my way allowing me to make some nice outs with some dodgy throws to first. Particularly pleasing was still managing to get Paul out when I missed the tag by gently throwing the ball over to Darren who had run over to second. Sweet!

Over to you...

Northern Caribou 3 - 3 Southern Dingoes

[X posted from my LJ]
Last night the Loan wolves played an end-of-season friendly, against ourselves. The team was split according to which side of the river we live. So, as southernmost-dwelling Wolf, I was a Dingo. If you see what I mean. "SuperBen" captained the Dingoes, and Paul "the Gobfather" was leading the Caribou. We've been working on our nicknames, as we're finally about to be getting the shirts printed.
I brought my Grolsch beer tube, and my Stella coolbag, and there were plenty of cans in evidence. Everyone was gung-ho for it, but it was a pretty friendly affair. Dingoes in red, Caribou in black or white (somehow, their plan to wear white in the field and black at bat got confused, and half the team turned out in each colour). Teams proved pretty well balanced - we were lucky that coach Darren had been persuaded to turn out for the Dingoes, being as how he lives in Clapham.
We wanted to get an early start, but the kids' baseball team were on the field, being shouted at by some angry sadist (e.g., to a kid of perhaps six who'd dared to open his mouth; "SHUT UP! I SAID SHUT UP!"). So it was nearly seven when we took to the field, and the game was curtailed by bad light.
Great fielding, dynamite pitching, and some poor batting (from me, in our case) kept the game tight and the scores low. I enjoyed being more active at Right Field, sprinting in to back up First, and on one occasion accidentally (honest) booting a ball into dead territory and preventing a home run from Paul. Ben got the only home run of the day with a cracking hit. The Dingoes lost a 2 run lead to end with a tied game, thus confirming our spiritual affinity with the other Wolves, who've beeen snatching high-score draws from the jaws of victory since my grandad's day.
At end of a softball game, the convention is that the teams get into huddles and give a rousing three cheers for the opposition. So we did, with Ben leading the Dingoes:
Ben: Hip Hip...
Dingoes: HUURAH!
Ben: Hip Hip...
Dingoes: HUURAH!
Ben: Hip Hip...
Dingoes: HUURAH!
Ben: Hip Hip...
Dingoes: bemused looks, as we'd mostly expected to stop at three...

With honours even, and light going (I couldn't find my beer where I'd left it in the outfield), we headed to the pub to unwind. Pub was crowded but Darren knew about a quiet (almost deserted) place round the corner, some sort of social club (anti-social club?), and we piled in there. Had a few beers and a natter, and we considered arbitrary grounds for deciding teams next year (glasses v no glasses, cat people v dog people, innies v outies?).
Good evening, but the theory that after this game at least half the Wolves would have known the taste of victory came to naught. Even against ourselves, we still can't win. Well, the end-of-year tournament's on the 23rd - let's change that statistic then.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Evening Practice at Clapham

7 dedicated Wolves (Manjiv, Alison, Vic, Paul, Julian, Peter and I) turned up for practice last night at our normal southern training base, or so we thought. It turned out that not only was there a GLSML Div. 4 match going on, on the pitch itself, but there was also a Nike Run London event/promotion, so we had to play across the road this time. It wasn't a bad pitch, (thanks to Paul for bringing some throwdown bases) and in stark contrast to the proper pitch, it actually had grass on the field.

After the normal Wolves warmup and throwing and catching practice, we carried out a drill that I had devised earlier in the day. Basically, we had a full infield, pitcher and a right fielder, plus the batter. As the ball was pitched, the batter had to hit the ball, and run to first base, whilst the infield worked together to field the ball and attempted to throw the batter/runner out. The purpose of the right fielder being involved was for them to run in and back up first base (unless of course the ball was hit directly to them :-) ). As we each switched it around to give everyone a go at batting, it was interesting for everyone to play in positions that they had perhaps never played in before. Special mentions go to Manjiv for making some great catches at first base, and Julian for making a nice back up play behind first base to stop the overthrow (and ducking well to give the third base person a chance to see the first base person when doing that tricky, long diagonal throw) . Also, Vic did very well with her throws, getting more power on them than before, by using a run up few steps, something that perhaps other Wolves can learn from. I felt that everyone was consistently hitting the ball harder than usual, which was good to see, and people were definitely thinking about what direction they were hitting to. On Paul's suggestion, we kept the same drill as above, but started making double and triple plays. Hopefully we can get some double plays in the upcoming tournament, as we were looking pretty slick at times last night. Now we just need to do it in the games.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Saturday, September 02, 2006


And here's me...

Creating a southpark character for your profile

There are four stages:
  1. Create character at South Park Studio
  2. Grabbing image and saving on computer
  3. Uploading image as part of a post
  4. Adding uploaded image to your profile
Stage 1 use instructions at website

Stage 2: Grabbing image

After you have created your character take a printscreen of the page.
Open Microsoft Photoeditor (Should be in Office Tools menu)
In Photoeditor select Edit / Paste as New Image
Use Select Tool (Icon looks like dashed rectangle) and click and drag to select your picture.
Choose Image/Crop from menu. Then do OK. You should now have just your character.
Save image (Menu item: Image/Save)
Choose a filename and a filetype (jpeg) in the save options dialogue. Save your file.

Stage 3: Uploading image.

Create a post in the the City Uni Softball Blog. Use the add image icon. In the resulting pop-up browse to where you have saved your image and then upload your image. Post your new post and view it.

Stage 4: Adding image to profile.

Right click on the image in your post and choose the following option: Copy Shortcut. (If you are using Firefox choose option: Copy Image Location).
Now open your profile.
Edit profile.
Paste the shortcut into Photo URL
Save profile.

That's all!