034/2014 : Starting the burn

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Dave On Film

Back to work after the weekend. Took my own lunch into work so I wasn’t having another week of eating ASDA cafe dinners. They are bloody lovely but any hard work I was attempting to put into losing weight was just going out of the window.

After work I decided to escalate that somewhat by finding the Xbox One Fitness programme that I had swiftly forgot about the last time I had been on it.

I found a ten minute work out for fat burning that you do five times a week. It was a kickboxing one. Damn it was hard…but I managed the ten minutes. I guess every little helps. I will attempt to do it again…if I ever get the feeling back in my legs…!

Also saw this guy pop up on Supernatural…none other than Buzz from the Home Alone films! Good lad!

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033/2014 : More watch than walk

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Dave On Film

Last night we started watching Modern Family from the beginning. I had seen the first half of the first season but we started hammering it. Absolutely loving it.

Went for a walk with Derek this afternoon. We went down to the canal near home and walked from the Thwaites Water Mill car park down through two sets of Locks and then back. It was nice to actually get out of the house. I need to get more exercise!

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032/2014 : High Five

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Dave On Film

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Will you just look at all the rubbish on the pitch at Elland Road?

And for once, I am talking actual litter that was blowing around in the wind and not the quality of players on the pitch.

What a 24 hours in the life of a Leeds fan. Look back at yesterday’s blog to read about all the McDermott sacking shenanigans and the almost-sale of Ross McCormack. Elland Road was a sea of pessimism, with protests galore outside the East Stand before the game. It was said that McDermott allegedly hadn’t lost his job now and was free to come back, and the early reports were that he would be in a box with the new owners in the East Stand for the game…but then the next news filtered through that McDermott had been told to stay away after following legal advice…

…and the whole situation got much worse during the game when we went 1-0 down after 25 minutes. It was all set up to be one of those days…with the only upside being that at least we had the excuses ready for why we lost.

Just on the stroke of half time though, we equalised. A ball went high and bouncing into the box, everyone missed it, Kebe fumbled a shot and McCormack pounced and scored. Suddenly there was some belief back in the 31,103 fans who had turned out.

The second half was a complete turnaround and we played a whole lot better. Amazingly we started doing the one thing that I think is the key to us winning more games…we started closing players down instantly. As soon as we start doing that, things look brighter. We create much more chances, put pressure on and more often than not, and win games.

Five minutes into the second half, Kebe scored after picking up a great backheel from McCormack. He chipped it over a defenders’ leg and slotted it past the keeper. 

Leeds’ third goal and McCormack’s second came as Austin & Byram combined before Byram put a great ball across which McCormack directed into the goal. 62 minutes gone, 3-1

Our fourth game on 73 minutes. This time Cameron Stewart did well to get into the box and put a ball across to the back post and McCormack was there to smash the ball home and score his hat-trick! What a 24 hours for a guy who was almost sold last night!

Mowatt wrapped up the win by getting our fifth when the Huddersfield keeper took out his own defender and Mowatt lobbed the ball into the back of the net from a distance.

A fantastic atmosphere in the ground and a great win. It was exactly what was needed after everything that happened last night. 

One thing though, is that the Leeds fans are naturally giving the new owner a hell of a lot of stick. In my opinion, and the opinion of a few who sit around me at Elland Road, it’s worth noting that Cellino hasn’t actually done anything too bad yet. Yes, there’s been a whole lot of confusion caused by the entire situation, and some backtracking (it was announced that McDermott will be manager after all), but at the end of the day, GFH are an investment bank…they were always going to sell the club to the highest bidder…and if Cellino is the highest bidder and does gain control of the club, shouldn’t we be backing him and his money to take us forwards…?

Marching On Together!

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031/2014 : Transfer Deadline Day

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Dave On Film

Usually, Transfer Deadline Day goes one of two way for us Leeds United fans. Either :
a) We have zero action or;
b) we are being chased and we panic that our top striker is going to leave.

Well tonight something insane took place…we were all over Sky Sports News…but for all the wrong reasons.

At around 6pm everything was plain sailing…McCormack came out and said he was fully behind McDermott after a £4m bid was rejected and all was well…and then it began to fall apart.

A little bit of recent background…GFH Capital our current owners were planning in selling to a fairly local consortium called Sports Capital. All that was going well until yesterday when an Italian group apparently made a move for us. Now this would all be well and good, but the Italian group was headed up by Caligari owner Cellino…who has been done previously on fraud! There was also a big threat from the Sport Capital owner who said he would proceed with legal dealings towards GFH and the Italians IF it went ahead.

So, fast forward back to tonight. All of a sudden it is announced that Brian McDermott is sacked as our manager. Just a few minutes later, Ross McCormack puts himself in the window by speaking on Sky Sports about how disappointed he is with what has happened and that had he known it was going to happen he would have bailed out earlier today.

Cue complete and utter disarray.

Everyone was backing McDermott saying he shouldn’t have been sacked and then panicking at the prospect of our top scorer going elsewhere. The reports started coming in that six teams were in for McCormack.

So as everything started unfolding, some fans on Twitter had headed down to the ground. Cellino was there. So they all started chanting pro-McDermott chants. Cellino tries to leave the ground in a taxi, Leeds fans give chase…for about an hour. In the end the police turned up to escort Cellino away from the ground.

Meanwhile…McCormack tweets this :

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And everyone breaths a massive sigh of relief.

What a day to be a Leeds fan. We moan about not being involved during Transfer Deadline Day, then we’re all over it!

Who knows what tomorrow will bring…Marching On Together!

Finished my first week off at work. Really enjoyed it and learned a tonne of stuff. Looking forward to my second week.

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030/2014 : Fantasy Shortlist

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Dave On Film

Mark at work mentioned Final Fantasy just before we left work…so I just had to play a LOT of it tonight. Elle was watching Orange Is The New Black on Netflix so I managed to get around 5 hours play in tonight. It is certainly bringing back some amazing memories from when I first played the game back on the PS1! What a game that was. To this day it ranks up there within the top three games of all time that I have played…if not right in there at number one. The story is brilliant. The graphics are still majorly poor (although they were amazing for the time). I completely forgot I had downloaded the game until earlier this week. I downloaded it well over a year ago.

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Got Shortlisted today. Can’t say what for yet though…the quest continues!

It looks like the fun and games at Leeds United continues. Now Sport Capital have stood down from bidding for Leeds. It looks like the Italians will be coming in which also means that a new manager will be coming in too. It’s all massively up in the air at the moment and no-one really knows what’s going down…but in typical Leeds United fashion, we’ll probably all just bend over and take it up the shitter when everything falls apart!

Joy!

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029/2014 : Bargains

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Dave On Film

Found out ASDA have a staff store today. Bought a load of packets of Walkers Baked for 20p a bag. I know how to live.

Loving my 4:30 finishes. Got home and played catchup with The Following and a couple of weeks old episode of Jonathan Ross.

Also watched a couple of episodes of season 4 of Supernatural. I need to put more episodes onto the iPad now!

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028/2014 : Progression

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Dave On Film

Forward progression and backward progression in equal measures today.

Firstly at work. Second day in the job and all went even better than yesterday. Plenty of progression in learning VB and also SQL. There’s a big learning curve but a lot seemed to fit into place today which was nice to see coming along.

Also, my first ASDA freebie as we got this little bad boy free in the cafe at work :

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And now for the backward progression. Leeds United. Oh the joy that is being a Leeds fan continued. We played Ipswich and I wasn’t expecting too much anyway but it didn’t get any better.

A 1-1 draw was the result but it’s the off-pitch shenanigans which are hitting the headlines. GFH capital were meant to be selling to one company but now and Italian company has come in and trampled all over whatever deal was set to be out into motion. Now no-one knows what’s happening. The head of the original deal is hitting out at GFH and the Italian company in the press! It’s all a bit messy!

Just another day in the life of a Leeds United fan!

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027/2014 : The Royal Jumble

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Dave On Film

Started my new job today. It was really good and interesting and I have a tonne of stuff to learn. It’s really interesting.

But now onto the Royal Rumble…

The rest of this post contains huge spoilers…

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it’s the start of the Road To Wrestlemania and the first PPV of the year. Historically the Royal Rumble has provided huge shocks, twists and turns, sending someone either worthy or pushing someone who needs a helping hand to the top, sending them straight through to the coveted main event at Wrestlemania….but first there were some other matches.

The PPV kicked off with Daniel Bryan vs Bray Wyatt and what a match it was. The crowd fully got behind Bryan throughout the match and the atmosphere in the arena was truly amazing. It went back and forth and was truly memorable. Daniel Bryan really knows how to work and whip up the fans into a frenzy. The “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Chant was ringing out through the whole arena for most of the match.

There were some extraordinary moves, such as Bryan diving through the ropes but being caught and hit with Wyatt’s finisher straight into the barrier.

In the end, Bray Wyatt hit his finisher again and won the match, much to the chagrin of the fans but it was an absolutely amazing match that I could watch time and time again…

…but from there it went downhill rapidly.

Next up was The Big Show vs Brock Lesner. Brock is constantly being billed as the biggest and strongest….Paul Heyman gives him the big words to back it up…yet he comes out to the match and before it starts takes ten minutes battering Big Show with a chair. To me it made him look weak. I was waiting for someone to call it an Equaliser, but it didn’t happen.

Brock won. Nobody cared.

Then the big title match. John Cena challenging Randy Orton. As the match started it became apparent that I didn’t care about the result. Furthermore, neither did the fans in the arena. Cue chants for Randy Savage, Daniel Bryan and even a “We want Divas” chant. It was clear that no-one cared what was going on. I haven’t seen as much dissent in fan appreciation since the Brock vs Goldberg match when Stone Cold was the referee and EVERY fan just chanted for Austin the whole way through.

Oh….Orton retained!

So now we come back to the Rumble. 30 men and absolutely anything could happen….unfortunately it didn’t.

As usual there was a few surprises. Two of them were just completely wasted. We had a return of Kevin Nash (which might last 24 hours when he probably gets pummelled by Brock Lesnar on Raw). Nash didn’t last too long though. Even JBL got in on the action…for all of twelve seconds. Two completely wasted big moments.

Sheamus returned. The fans went wild for about a minute then didn’t care.

As the numbers diminished and more and more superstars had had their chance…in came Batista. Joy! Batista came back on Raw last week…just 6 days ago. And here he was coming in right near the end. Batista, I will admit, I popped for on his return…just like I did the Raw after Mania 25….but as always happens with Batista, he comes back to a HUGE ovation…and a week later no-one cares what he does and he just becomes a fake-machine-gun-firing, rope-shaking nuisance.

Anyway…he got down to the last four…then Kane (who had been eliminated ages ago)…pulled Punk over the top rope. Then Sheamus was eliminated, leaving Batista and Roman Reigns.

Now I like Reigns. He’s up and coming and will be a future star. But he was never going to win this. The fans rallied behind him but all knew what was coming.

…and Big Dave threw Roman over the top rope to book his place at Wrestlemania…because yeah…everyone wants to see Orton vs Batista, or maybe Brock vs Batista as the main event (remember there is only one title now!). For me, the fans are not going to get into it at all unless something major happens. It’s the type of match which needs a high-profile special guest referee.

So the PPV was shocking apart from one match. NOT a good way to continue to promote the WWE Network in my opinion. Surely the WWE need to be pandering to the fans right now, not pissing them off.

A lot of people argue that they should have had Daniel Bryan return during the Rumble but I actually think it would have tarnished an excellent night for him if they weren’t planning on having him win anyway.

Mick Foley isn’t happy : https://m.facebook.com/RealMickFoley/posts/766587886704685

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026/2014 : PJ Day

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Dave On Film

Lazy lazy day today. Didn’t get out of my PJs all day. Well, when I say PJs I mean my Superman lounge pants.

Watched some TV before having a good blast on CoD Ghosts and FIFA 14.

Started watching Orange Is The New Black on Netflix. I ain’t a massive fan of it but Elle is loving it.

Had a bit of a 90’s movie moment later on when we watched The Rock. Elle has never seen it so it was good to watch. I love all those mid-90’s action films. It’s up there along with Con Air and Armageddon.

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025/2014 : SoA Complete

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Dave On Film

23 days after we started watching Sons Of Anarchy from the beginning, we get to the end of the sixth season, bringing us fully up to date with the rest of the world. Wow! What a ride!

Now we need another good series to watch.

Elle went out this evening to her sister’s for a girlie get-together. I stayed in and played some more guitar. I have now progressed onto the D chord too. It’s nice having more than two chords learnt. It’s just a case of stringing them together well enough to be used effectively.

Also watched The Wolf Of Wall Street. What a truly amazing film. Based on a real story telling the tale of a Wall Street trader who has everything and everything and the extravagant lifestyle that goes with it…women, drugs, drink, you name it.

Leonardo DiCaprio is amazing and it’s truly one of the best films I have ever seen!

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