I'm sure you're all up to your neck in football enough as it is I promise I won't force-feed you much more in terms of World Cup goodness, but this closing remark on the tournament needs to be said:

Italy has done what I didn't think they could, and have walked away with a tremendous final and tournament performance to sieze the Coppa del Mondo. This World Cup saw a number of ups and downs for me: initially I was rooting for Australia who dazzled us with some brilliant games that were truly the most inspirational of the tournament. Unfortunately, the fateful draw (and my luck) pitted them against my own blood, Italy. Very tactfully (as I was going to watch the game in a crowd of 20,000 screaming, mostly intoxicated Australian fans), I decided to sport my Australia colours for that match, but my heart was divided evenly between my desire for both teams to progress.

Although the rest is history, at least Australia can stand proud now, and claim that they were only ousted by the tournament Champions themselves, to cap what has been a magnificent entry for the Socceroos. And as I stood in an equally-sized crowd last night in Melbourne's little Italy, proudly donning my Italia 2006 jersey, I had realised what would perhaps have been the best result I could hope for in this World Cup.

It's truly a marvellous day when Italy has claimed what has eluded them for 24 years, and at the same time see Australia making such a strong impression on the world stage in a sport that is largely foreign to them -- an impression that is hopefully the first of many in the World Cup limelight to come.

Viva Italia! Oi Oi Oi!

Phillips-head: Check.
Earthed? Check.
Nerves? Definitely NOT in check.

Saturday ear-marked the momentous occasion when I would venture into the unknown; where no Peter has ever gone before (well not this one). I had 48 hours of non-business day period ahead of me and a hackle-raising desparation that could flay paint from walls. Yes, my hard-drive, with over 2 weeks worth of exam preparation and materials (for an open-book exam I was sitting in 2 days), was irreperably corrupted. And I had to (personally) do something about it. Ugh.

Let me just say it was not fun. And the whole time I just *knew* I was going to break something expensive.
But it was a learning experience, that's for sure. For someone who used to call up a technician if his printer wouldn't install the first time...discovering that power is in short supply (running 2 SATA hard drives really take up a lot of juice in an older machine), and that once a hard drive is corrupt you are NOT going to boot from it whatever you might think, is definitely...unique. It took me positively ages though, but I was finally able to swap the hard drive into another PC, boot it from the other HD, then recover the much-needed data from a really awesome program I managed to dig up over the Internet after much trial-and-error. It comes highly recommended, as it allowed me to backup *everything*. Here's a little plug because it saved me weeks and more than a few grey hairs. The pricing is even quite reasonable considering the intensive psychological duress I've avoided in utilising it.

Anyway, I do feel I've deceived you all somewhat and I need to rephrase a sentence above to conclude my ramblings:

For someone who *used* to call up a technician if his printer wouldn't install the first time...he'll still be doing so in the future, let's just hope the stupid machine breaks down during the week next time!

Oi! Oi! Oi!

I'm writing this quickly as the adrenaline is still coursing through my veins. My hands are shaking, and typing is slightly difficult-- I blame it on euphoria. It's World Cup 2006, and Australia has done what the world said they never could:

Australia has just (not 10 minutes ago) come up from what looked like a certain 1-0 loss against Japan to completely dominate the match in the last 10 minutes and score THREE goals to win 3-1. Wow, just wow! Talk about being completely juxtaposed-- not 20 minutes ago I was hurling abuse at the box as fast as my mouth could humanly hurl. Australia had dominated possession throughout the game but could NOT finish- it was painful to watch! Not only that, but they conceded a nasty goal about halfway through the first half that was CLEARLY obstruction and should have been disallowed (he pushed the goalkeeper out of the way!). Losing a goal to a referee's blunder is also *very* painful.

But Australia--oh boy, do I take it back. That was simple the most stunning finish to a game I have ever witnessed in my extremely long and involved football history. You sure showed them guys. Even if you don't like football- you can surely relate to the mixed emotions in such a short period that I just experienced: I don't know if I should laugh or cry, so I'm going to do a bit of both!