Warning! Cricket-related statistical orgy ahead. If you are too stupid to realise what a fantastic game cricket is (in fact, let's not mess around, it is the best game) you may want to scroll down a bit (you know who you are).

Phew! After some slight nervousness towards the end there, N.Z does indeed win 3-2, and my pants remain safely. unmasticated. BIG props to local lad Nathan Astle for his best one day innings in many moons. Apparently he hasn't scored under 80 in his last 5 one day innings in Dunedin. Here is a nifty photo of the last shot of the match - very shortly after this was taken the ball was on the roof of the stadium, and in one blow Nastle had his highest one day score, his 5000th one day run, (first NZer to bring this milestone up) and the winning runs were scored. Yes.

The innings was also Astle's 12th O.D.I hundred which took him past such extremely accomplished players as the great West Indian opening batsman Gordon Greenidge, the incumbent Sri Lankan captain and dynamic master of the first 15 overs Sunath Jayasuria, his former team-mate the fierce-eyed, hawk-nosed Aravinda de Silva, and even the legendary Master Blaster himself, Viv Richards (!)

12 centuries now places him 7th equal on the all time list for most one day centuries (see the list here) with South Africa's Gary Kirsten, just 2 behind Brian Lara (who has played 43 more matches than him). He is the only Kiwi in the top 40. The innings also propelled Astle to 11th in the international one day batting rankings (and if you follow international cricket in all its glory, or alternatively, are very interested in applied statistical analysis systems for some sad and strange reason, then you really should have been here by now).

The moral of the story is this: Astle. He's damn good. And the NZ team can be awarded a definite 'Doesn't Totally Suck at One Dayers" award following the completed the one day season. All right.

Torshin has once more spelt 'weird' as 'wierd'. He seems to know he's wrong now, but is still doing it to annoy me more than anything. That's OK - the main thing is he is aware of the error now. This could prove vital, beacuse if at some point in the future (say, next Tuesday, at around 12:57 pm), a crazed F-15 pilot contacts him by radio and informs him that unless the correct spelling of the word 'weird' is given, the AGM-65 Maverick currently targeted on his forehead will be fired, (this situation could arise...possibly under some kind of Benocracy) the knowledge I have instilled will save his life. And that's all the reward I need. Now if I can only get him to stop spelling 'truly' with a superfluous 'e', he has every chance of being able to live a long and happy post-revolution life. (In one of the internment camps, naturally.)

Following one of the links off Luther's page the other night, and bored as a Middle Eastern oil deposit as I was at the time, I managed to make what I think is the first TBALC entry in Pseudodictionary. So go here to marvel at the entry for O'Doom. It is the first 'o' word too, so that is pretty cool. I also entered a definition for Ninja - it is similar but slightly different for a couple of other entries for the same word. Everyone should go there and flood their site with TBALCisms.

Cricket nerdery is now followed by Star Wars nerdery, with the Vader and the wookies and the lightsabres that HURT me, mmmeehhhh... [glaben!]
Last night I was suddenly struck by the fact that I have both a Playstation 2 AND a DVD (The Phantom Menace). This took too long. Conclusion - I am dumb. But then I made up for it by playing around with it until 7am. DVDs - before, my attitude to them was, yeah, pppffff, whatever, but now that I have one I realise they are COOL. Especially the ones like The Phantom Menace with hours and hours of extra stuff. Perhaps the best thing though is pause without stupid streaky video lines. Likewise crystal clear super slow-mo. The audio commentary was interesting. One complaint that people had about the movie went along the lines of 'the battle droids suck, they're completely non-effective, and no actual people get killed, how convenient that they're all controlled from the one ship' etc etc. In the commentary George Lucas expalins the first time they show up on screen that they are supposed to suck. He wanted to present them as comic and bumbling and posing no threat to the Jedi (thus showing how awesome they were.) The Jedi are pretty much invincible against them, until the destroyer droids (rolling ones) show up. He also talks about the control ship aspect (as well as happily acknowledging it is a plot device) - the Trade Federation does not want to grant independence to the droids for fear of having a large army that might not do exactly what they are told, or even turn on them - as a faction motivated by greed they fear the ambition that others may have, so they essentially maintain a slave army. But most importantly, he said that the general crappiness of the droids, and the weakness of a single ship controlling them all are important to the overall plot, as the shortcomings of this mechanised, remotely controlled military structure prompt the galaxy at large to look for a much better way to conduct large scale military operations - which is an integral part of the plot of Episode 2. Aha!

A few interesting other comments were made - the whole midichlorians thing was apparently something he always wanted to do, even in the original trilogy, to clear up some of the mysterious nature of the Force (probably missing the point there, George), and he decided on this particular idea because he is a big fan of the idea of symbiotic relationships. The other revealing comment was regarding the scene where Qui Gon, Jar-Jar et al. have dinner with Anakin and his mum which was the 'hardest in the movie' because it was '10 minutes of non-stop dialogue' which is 'hard to pull off without the audience getting bored'. Apparently 'no director ever wants to include a scene like this but one is always necessary' and gave the example of the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy explains the whole story of the Ark to the government blokes at the university. I think this pretty much confirms that he has made and will continue to make these films as primarily action movies and is an action director. So some shoddy dialogue in is movies now and again is perhaps understandable (if not desirable, or justifiable - here's hoping he got some help on the writing for Ep.2 ) Stick to the jaw-dropping action sequences and fantastic concepts George, and give your dialogue to a serious author to polish up -maybe you could call in David Mamet, or perhaps Steven Soderbergh? This, I feel, will be all good. We need Jedi trading snappy Ocean's Eleven style witticisms.

Also good on the DVD: the highly amusing sight of Ewan McGregor making lightsabre noises in his fight practices. They had to tell him to stop. Ha! He and Ray Park were apparently going at it so hard practicing that final fight that they both needed a new carbon fibre lightsabre thingy after every time they ran it through. Cool.

Last night 'Celebrities' was played with a Canadian and an American. The aim is to get your partner to say the name of a person or thing written on a piece of paper without actually saying it, or any of the syllables. Much fun. I thing the highlight for me was Nic trying to get Adam to say 'Eek the Cat', and after Adam had established it was 'something the Cat', Nic said: "It's something you might say if you were surprised or frightened."
Adam: Shit the Cat?
Nic: No...er...what's the sound a mouse makes?
Adam: Squeak?
Nic: Right! So shorten that.
Adam: Um...Squee the Cat?
At this point time ran out. Who hasn't heard of Eek the Cat? Not enough early morning What Now cartoon hours put in by Adam obviously. Although possibly 'Squee the Cat' would have made a better cartoon. Nic also took about 20 seconds to name 'the lead singer of Queen'. And he lives in the same house as Hamish.

39 minutes until FREEDOM! And on that happy note we end.