Archive for August, 2007

Firstly ‘Football’ means Gaelic Football. In Ireland, football doesn’t mean ‘soccer’ which is a shame as it suggests Gaelic Football is the number one form of football in Ireland, but it’s not. Soccer is. Technically, Gaelic Football isn’t football anyway, as you’re allowed use your hands so where that term came from is beyond me.

To all of my American readers you’re probably going WTF? football IS soccer. But no, i live in Ireland and we do everything arseways here so if you ever come to Ireland, never refer to ‘football’ as ‘soccer’ or ‘soccer’ to ‘football’ as it will confuse people..

Anyway, I was asked which is the more skillful game and why.. So here goes.. i dare someone to steal this post and post it over on boards.ie GAA forums section You’d be a dead man walking.

Hands

If a ball comes near you, your instinct it to raise your hands to protect your face/catch ball. In soccer, you have to think, and head the ball in a certain direction, no hands allowed which is un-natural. This is the biggest difference imo – it’s what makes soccer more skillful.

Air -v- Ground

Football is played in the air. Rarely will you see a player choose ground over air in open play. Soccer must be played on the ground, if you play it in the air, it means you’re a defensive side that aren’t skillful enough to play it on the ground.

Targets/Goals

In football, you have goals and points, a huge target of unlimited height. In soccer, the area to score in is limited, and rectangular in shape, meaning the ball must go left or right/ not up. Therefore control is needed to keep the ball not only on target, but relatively low to the ground.

Space

In football, you have more space, but less time. In soccer you have more time but less space. If you gave Leonardo Da Vinci a day to paint the sistine chapel, he’d get a door painted and a pretty rushed door at that. Give him a week to paint a door, and you’ll have a door of the finest quality

Offside

Another huge difference… football doesn’t have this rule, soccer does. This requires both defenders and forwards to predict/anticipate what direction and pace a ball will be played at. It requires teamwork and high levels of awareness. Therefore a tremendous amount of skill is required to get the offside trap just right.

For anyone who doesn’t know what offside is, basically it’s a rule which stops goal hanging (staying around the goal area to act as a threat). In football, you can goal hang and get away with it.

And that’s it. Soccer wins every time. Let the bloodbath of comments commence

Today i was in Croke Park yet again (God, i’d never been there in my life up until march, and now this my 3rd/4th time in it, plus i’ll be in it at least once more before the year is out!).

Anyway, it was to see my home county – Monaghan play the defending All Ireland Champions – Kerry. It was a David and Goliath occasion with the storyline to match (almost).

Monaghan were expected to lose yet Kerry never lead the entire match – up until the last 2 minutes

Final score was 1-12 to 1-11; Monaghan lost by a point. Heartbreak all around but i wasn’t beat up too much.. i’m not a huge GAA fan.

Here’s a few panoramic snaps and normal snaps all unedited..

I also stayed for the first half of the hurling match between Limerick and Waterford. First time seeing hurling live. Has a nice fast pace but you can’t see the feckin ball as it gets mixed in with the fans in the stands. I thought it just looked like that on TV, but no, it’s the same in the flesh. Make the ball BIGGER Or give it a flourescent colour or something..

Here’s a list of deals or opportunities i’ve come across.. from domains to hosts to free cash etc..

I’ll probably add this as a page over the next few days and keep adding to it as i go along..

Free Money or Cheap Money

• PayPerPost – probably the best deal of them all. Sign up, blog about them and they’ll pay you $20 paypal. Easy money and it doesn’t cost you anything.. what have you got to lose

• Yahoo – $105 for $5. Mr Chow (get in there John Chow, ya legend!) pointed this out for me.. if you sign up here, you’ll get $105 worth of ads for $5.. i’ve signed up as it’s simply too good to refuse. (note; you must be a new signup to use this link).

• Bidvertiser – Sign up with bidvertiser and you get $20 in free ads – no strings attached, no hidden fees. They’re not as big as google or yahoo ads, but hey, it’s $20 in free ads so there’s nothing to complain about.

• Text-Link-Ads – one of my main sources of income. Sign up here and you’ll get $100 in free links if you spend $125. They also have a great affiliate payout of $25 per referral so it’s worth joining

Hosts

With both of these guys you get a free domain FOR LIFE provided you stay with them.

• Dreamhost – these guys are my main hosting provider. I’ve had one or two issues, although in fairness they were caused by me They were quick and helpful and they are excellent value for money imo.. the offer ’1 click’ installs which make it a breeze to set up a blog like this or forum. They also offer an excellent payout rate per referral – $97. Sign up using this code: HEL01BG to knock $50 off any package.

• Lunarpages – these guys i use as my 2nd host or my backup.. loads of happy customers and they actually offer higher specs than dreamhost. I’ve had issues needed sorting with Lunarpages also and they were very helpful and lightening quick to respond.. They also have a payout of $65 per referral so that’s a nice bonus.

Domains

• GoDaddy – i like to keep all of my domains under one roof. GoDaddy are my favourite and they’re relatively cheap.

• $3.99 dot com’s – DomainsAreFree offer dot com’s for $3.99 – the cheapest around as far as i’m aware. I’ve bought a few from them, but their backend isn’t great so that’s why i stick with godaddy where you can manage them a little better. But if you like a bargain, $3.99 dot com’s are definitely a bargain. Note that the renewal fee does rise to $7 or $8 i think but you can always transfer it to godaddy and get a free 1 year extension

Today i was combing the web for more opportunities..

PayPerPost and Text-Link-Ads are my rocks now. The two combined have replaced and surpassed my old adsense earnings.

But just when i was starting to get the hang of Adsense, i got banned. I’ll never know why. But that was a harsh lesson – never put all your eggs in one basket.

So from that day on, i knew i’d have to shop around and do some experimenting.. i’m always on the lookout for new opportunities, particularly now that this is basically a full time job for me..

Linkworth

I stumbled upon Linkworth today – a sort of text-link-ads/payperpost mashup which sounds very promising.. I’ve seen a few people earning with them so i’ve decided to give it a whirl.

I’m still finding my way around it so it’s way to early to give any sort of review.. but hey, it’s another door opened and another chance to make money online

So i really don’t have anything to lose. As always, i’ll be sure to let you guys know how i get on..

It’s been a big summer of spending for many clubs.. and it all kicks off tomorrow…

£400m has been spent by premiership clubs on players this summer.. ($800m to those across the pond).

Predictions

I’m biased, of course i am. I support Man Utd. But can we really look at anyone else to win this season?

Carlos Tevez, Owen Hargreaves, Nani, Anderson.. the latter are probably two of the most exciting young players in the world.. the new ronaldo’s if you will..

Carlos Tevez single handedly rescued West Ham from relegation last year. He was always going to be too good for them (no offence West Ham).

Owen Hargreaves – well, i’m not a huge fan tbh, but he is of a higher quality than o’shea and fletcher, so he’ll add squad depth.

So Utd have strengthened big time. Nobody has left of note, bar Alan Smith who wasn’t a regular anyway.. Tevez has replaced him. There’s been a few outsiders sold like Richardson, but he was always a bit part player anyway.

So all of this talent added to an already strong group of players. It is possibly the best overall Utd side Sir Alex has ever had.

• Van der Saar, Evra, Vidic, Ferdinand, Neville, Giggs, Carrick, Scholes, Ronaldo, Tevez, Rooney as the first 11.

• Kuszcak, Silvestre, Brown, O’Shea, Park, Fletcher, Nani, Anderson, Hargreaves, Solskjaer, Saha as the second 11.

Either of those 11 would be a match for any premiership side.. So basically, Utd have 22 quality players ’1st team players’. They can afford 11 injuries and still be able to field a strong and experienced side

Not even Chelsea can match that. Liverpool certainly can’t. Arsenal are out of it imo, so should injuries kick in to all of those sides (and they normally do), then it looks like Utd are in a great position to retain the title

I’ve been around long enough to know however, this is a game nobody can predict.

Surprise package for the year? Sunderland. Keano doesn’t like losing and although he’s taken a bit of stick for his signings, i think he’s bought cleverly. They mightn’t challenge the big 4, but they won’t be far away imo.. 7/8th.