Northerner

World Cup predictions

Who will win the world cup this year in South Africa?

Germany was looking promising but have lost Michael Ballack to injury which greatly hurts their chances of advancing. They still remain a threat.

England have too many distractions and they might have the best defence in the tournament but their strikers are thin if you take away Wayne Rooney. They always find a way to lose but do have an easy draw.

Brazil are probably given too much credit from the public. I don't expect them to do much damage and they don't even have Ronaldinho on their team. Kaka hasn't had a great year and their list of strikers will be their downfall as they have relied on offense in the past to win their World Cups.

Argentina are without Cambiasso and I think that will come back to haunt them. Maradona as a coach is a big joke and with a talented squad people will be calling out his name as the reason why they have failed with the world's best footballer in Lionel Messi.

France, forget it. They might be missing Ribery and Benzema didn't make the cut. Good defence but their offence might let them down.

Italy are another overrated team. Yes they won the last world cup in style but played perfectly. This years' team doesn't look anything as good as the last one. Their downfall will be their offense. 

Spain have a good chance but it all depends on the health of Iniesta, Xavi and Fabregas. With their team they can certainly do better and by winning the 2008 Euro championships they now have the confidence they lacked previously.

Portugal always put together a good team and will be exciting to watch.

Some possible upsets in the making:

Serbia have a good strong team that don't have the best defense or offense but are stable in all aspects of their team.

Ivory Coast do rely on Drogba to carry them but the rest of the team can certainly play good football.

The rest of the teams have no chance at all.

Predictions on the winner. Germany!

A bad year for John Terry

Bad year for John Terry

the only thing good that happened to John Terry this year is that Chelsea won the Premiership but aside from that you could call it a year that John Terry would like to forget. Chelsea were booted out of the Champions League by former coach Jose Mourinho. Terry had personal problems off the pitch as the British tabloids posted that Terry had an affair with his former Chelsea teammate and England squad member Wayne Bridge. The next match between the 2 saw Wayne Bridge skip handshakes with Terry and also announced he will not play for team England, which are short on players. Another consequence of this was having his captaincy of English squad removed and possibly disrupting the team ahead of the World Cup.

If you thought things couldn't get worse well they did a little bit more. Terry suffered an injury late in the season and is now a risk to team England. 

The final draw is John Terry's father was charged for dealing cocaine. How much does John Terry make? Can't he just give his dad some money so he wouldn't have to go to such lows as to start dealing cocaine. I don't know who is more embarrassed John Terry or his father.

A rocky year in the life of John Terry might be the black cloud over team England at the World Cup.

Texas mixes politics with education

The state of Texas is now going to force feed their students things like creationism and religion. Ironically enough the people who voted in this new law are also Christians themselves which I would call a serious conflict of interest.

The unfortunate side effect of this is that other states use the same textbooks as the state of Texas. This is what happens when politics interferes with education.

Even more stupid is that these new textbooks will give America more propaganda that the UN is bad for the United States and threatens their freedom.

America wants more oil and gets it

America has gone crazy about oil for as long as anyone can remember. It wasn't long ago that Sarah Falin Palin was chanting 'drill baby drill' claiming that the US needed to drill more because it was safe and harmless to the environment. It is ironic that when America wants more oil that it gets it and now they don't want that oil which looks to ruin much of the coast land in the gulf of Mexico.

It is another unfortunate incident involving off shore drilling but this is the reality of the life we live in that is too dependent on oil consumption. 

French Open 2010

The French Open happens in May and is one of the 4 grand slam tennis events in the year and is after the Australian Open and before Wimbledon. The French Open made news earlier in the year over some controversy surrounding the location of Roland Garros. 

The problems the French open has are trying to expand the number of tennis courts, facilities and to accommodate spectators. There is a growing concern that if the Roland Garros event doesn't get access to more land to expand then it might have to relocate outside of Paris. This would be an embarrassing problem for this grand slam and leave a black eye on tennis. 

If these problems can't be sorted then this legendary event will have to undergo some extreme changes such as moving from their historic location to a further location from Paris.

poker psychology article

I stumbled upon a website that talks about the psychology of poker www.sbcnonline.org/ and it made me think that poker could be more than just a game of math. If you get the luck to chat with any poker pro they will usually tell you the game is more about psychology than the math but both are important for success. 

I think there can be better advice found at the twoplustwo forums but this article was a good eye opener. 

I see lots of poker adverts on the telly in the UK and it seems to have exploded in europe recently especially in the northern parts where they speak english very well. 

Well it is time to play poker with some internet strangers.

Cannes film festival 2010

The Cannes film festival is happening this month with another spectacular lineup planned for this prestigious event. This even always attracts the rich and famous and it has certainly become a world class festival and party. 

The closing awards ceremony takes place on May 23rd and will most certainly make news around the world.

Tim Burton seems to be the focal point of this year's festival. Burton has had his fair share of success in the past few years releasing many blockbuster movies. 

It will be exciting to see which movies emerge from this festival.

1 million ipads sold by apple in 1 month

Apple has sold 1 million ipads in it's first month of sales. These figures are shocking and may represent a change in how we use computers. Who knows maybe in 5 years people will look at these devices the same way we look commodore computers. These tables are hot selling items and it has put pressure on other manufacturers to do the same to produce these in mass quantities.

At least with this healthy competition it should represent a small victory for the consumer in getting what they want and having these companies fight for their business.

Now I want an ipad