Our hotel was literally on the doorstep of the Eiffel tower. We didn’t go up the tower itself while we were there though because any chance we had it was either too foggy, closed because of the snow or the line was too long. Still, it’s magnificent to look at and pretty cool how there are no other tall buildings around.

While we were there, Paris had its heaviest snowfall since 1989 I think, but it didn’t get in our way too much. The full day we spent there we did a bus tour and got off at basically all the stops and saw a lot of the city that way. The Louvre supposedly takes 2 days to do properly, but most of the stuff is pretty boring so we just checked out the more famous stuff like the Mona Lisa. The rest of our time as spent walking around the city and eating some nice food. I tried snails for the first time ever and they actually weren’t too bad. I wanted to try frogs legs while I was in France too, but never got around to it.

After Paris, we headed south-east to Dijon (where the mustard comes from). A much smaller city, we did some walking around there and on our second day there drove 3/4 of the way to Lyon checking out sall villages along the way.

France is the first place, in particular Dijon, that we’ve encountered people who just have absolutely no understanding of English which made for some awkward dining and shopping experiences. We are in Luxembourg for a night at the moment and then a couple of days in Germany and it’s home time for me!

London was my highlight of the trip, akin to walking around a real life monopoly board. We did all the standard things road the underground, went to the Tower Bridge, London Eye, Trafalgar Square, Oxford Circus, Buckingham Palace and the list goes on. We did a few day trips to Birmingham and Manchester as well as a tour of Warwick Castle.

One of the best days was actually our last day there, driving back to the Eurotunnel we stopped by the henges at Avebury and Stonehenge. It was a really misty kind of day and just made for an eerie sort of feeling. Stonehenge in particular was amazing, to be up close to such a unique and famous spot.

Overall, an enjoyable time in England and nice to be able to understand the language again for a few days. I look forward to seeing more of the UK and in summer time if I do get around heading back for the 2013 Ashes series.

We attempted to go out for breakfast, but it was a ghost town around the hotel. We found somewhere crappy to eat eventually and then checked out as quick as we could. If our Brussels experience had ended there it would have been one of the worst places I’ve ever been to, but thankfully we drove into the main part of town.
We took in some of the sites like the Royal Palace, Parliament, Grand Place Markets, Cathedral of St. Michael and Manneken Pis. Lunch was probably the highlight for me, I had an authentic Belgian serving of black and white sausage with apple sauce. Just what I need after the ordeal of the night before and walking around in the cold all morning. Later, I had a pretty tasty waffle as well!

It was a short drive to Bruges. This time the hotel was less fancy, but perfectly located. We checked in just as the sun was setting and had the main market squares right on our doorstep. It looked amazing at night with all the medieval buildings lit up, Christmas lights and decorations, market stalls and heaps of people walking the stone streets. For dinner I had a Flemish stew cooked in Belgian beer, again hit the spot!

It snowed overnight and we spent the morning exploring more of the town before heading for the Euro Tunnel from France to the UK.

My fellow Life Fish JoopJan lives an hour or so out of Amsterdam. I missed him in Vegas by a day earlier in this year so I was keen to finally meet him while I was close by. He came into the city and we had a nice dinner, a few beers and he showed me around a bit. Even though I was incredibly jet-lagged that night, I had a good time and he is a really awesome guy. One of the things I love about online poker is the friend it gives you around the world.

The next day was a long and really enjoyable one. We started out by taking a canal boat tour, then went to Madame Tussaud, the Amsterdam Dungeon and the Royal Palace. The highlight came at night though when we did a walking tour of the Red Light District. It went for over two hours and included a 45 minute Q&A with an ex-prostitute. It was a Friday night, there were heaps of people around and the place was buzzing.

On Saturday we woke up to the first snow of the trip, we did a final bit of sightseeing and shopping in the morning and then hit the road for Brussel, Belgium.

The day we arrived in Singapore we got in at 5am and had to kill time before checking into the hotel. It was a super long day since I got very little sleep on the flight, but we managed to do a lot of things. Highlights included Duck boat tour of the city and harbor, going on the Singapore Flyer at night (massive Ferris wheel type thing) and going to the SkyPark on top of the brand new casino at night. The views from both the Flyer and SkyPark were spectacular.

On the second day we did a bus tour and at night we went out to dinner with my Uni friend Bryan, who I hadn’t seen since I graduated four years ago. He took us to a really great Chinese restaurant and ordered us an awesome meal, the best dish being the crispy chicken. After dinner, Bryan and I went out for a few beers while the other two went out shopping (a theme of the trip). It was great to catch up with him and chat about sport, sports betting, life in Singapore and politics. I didn’t know a whole lot about the Singaporean political system, but came away enlightened. Since he graduated from Melbourne Uni and returned home, he’s served 1.5 years of his 2 years compulsory national service in the army. That really makes you appreciate freedom I guess.

I caught up with Bryan again today before we went to the airport, did some shopping and we saw a movie to pass time before our flight. I’m super excited about going to Europe for the first time, albeit really not looking forward to the cold. I’d recommend Singapore for a couple of days stop over for sure, especially if you like shopping.

Pic 1: View of casino and Singapore Flyer with skyline in background at sunset
Pic 2: View from the top of the Flyer at night
Pic 3: For pwnchizzle’s viewing pleasure… this is me in my Singaporean gardens achieving ultimate enlightenment.

October was a pretty grueling month, apart from my success playing live I was pretty disappointed with it. It’s kind of a weird time of year in general for me, footy season is over and cricket hasn’t really started and I don’t have a lot of distractions outside of poker. I think next year I might look to do some traveling at around this time. A while back I posted about having some concentration/blurred visions issues, which at the time I attributed to going cold turkey on caffeine. I got checked out by a doctor and optometrist this month. We kind of figure out I was getting temporary short sightedness as a result of gazing at my computer screen all day. SO since then and definitely from now on I’m going to be looking to take more breaks to allow my eye muscles to relax for a bit.

October Results

- 80,000 hands – Achieved

- 1 session of sweating a friend per week – Failed

- Review top 5 regulars on my list – Failed

November Goals

- 80,000 hands

- Work on my discipline and concentration, in particular making some big laydown vs. nits

- Take more breaks

- Talk more strategy with friends

Gym/fitness

Not quite as happy with my effort in October as I was in September. Didn’t set the world on fire in gym, but also didn’t slack off too much. Had ambitious goals of running a lot, but struggled for motivation most of the time and cricket kind of got in the way a bit. Total fail at playing a single game of squash in October, hoping to rectify that in November. I’m going to Europe at the end of November for a few weeks, I really want to try and keep up my gym work and more importantly eat well while I’m traveling.

October Results

- Run 100km – Failed

- Get back into Squash – Failed

- Set some new PBs with weights – Pass

- Attend on cricket training per week – Achieved

November Goals

- Run 40km

- Play 2 sessions of squash

- Set some new PBs with weights

- Attend on cricket training per week

- Don’t eat crap while on holiday

Other

October Results

- Learn 4 new Ukulele chords and work on my strumming and chord progression – Failed

- Play a ton of Fifa 11 – Achieved

November Goals

- Relax and have fun on holiday and use time away to just think more about the future

Clip To Inspire

This month’s song comes from the Soft Pack, from petteytheft’s hometown of San Diego. I like their sound

It’s been an eternity since I last blogged about the trials and tribulations of the might Agent Orange Sports Club. LifeFish readers will never have heard of them so I will provide a bit of background. We are an indoor sports club that formed in 2006. At first, we only had an Indoor Soccer side, but soon after we started an indoor cricket team too. I take my indoor cricket a lot more seriously than I do soccer (mostly because I never played soccer growing up and thus am not all that co-ordinated).

For those of you unfamiliar with indoor cricket or cricket itself, the indoor version plays a lot differently to the regular version of the game in terms of both rules and tactics. However, the fundamentals of batting, bowling and fielding are still very important. We play in a six a side competition, once a week all year round. At one stage we actually had three teams going so I was playing three times a week, but with outdoor cricket as well that all got a bit much.

When we first started out we were in the bottom grade (M grade I believe). The team has changed a little over the years, but there is four of us who have been there since the first season. We won the B grade premiership last season (unfortunately I missed the game as I was hanging out in the USA with the Life Fish). Next week, we begin our play-off campaign to defend our title in the same grade. Hopefully, we can also earn promotion into A grade and complete an almighty rise to the top.

As reigning champions it’s been a bit of a weird season. We’ve struggled to get a team together consistently, having to draft in inexperienced players and never really getting anything rhythm with our performances. We started out the season in A grade, but after the grading period ended we were dropped back down to B/C league. We’ve managed to get a bit of experience back the last couple of weeks and finished the season strong to make the finals of B grade. As captain of the side, I’ve got a few selection dilemmas for the first week of the finals now as we managed to unearth some talent while others were injured and unavailable.

A few months back we ordered a new playing strip. Our previous one was a plain orange polo with our name written across the back. Two weeks ago we took delivery our new ones and they are absolutely awesome, by far the most professional in any of the leagues at the indoor sports centre. I’ve attached some snaps of me modelling it!

I’ll be sure to keep everyone informed of our finals performances via the blog. In the mean time, I’d welcome anyone interested to follow us on our web site, Facebook and Twitter!

When St. Kilda missed a few shots at goal early in the 3rd term, the game was all but over. I ended up leaving the ground early in the last quarter as the game turned into a thrashing and I didn’t really want to be there anymore. On the train home there were a lot of St. Kilda supporters in decent spirits, despite their team still only having one premiership in 114 years.

It was disappointing that the game ended up having a 56 point margin in the replay, the effort of both sides in the first game deserved something more epic. I’m absolutely gutted that Collingwood broke their 20 year drought and even more upset that they did it in such convincing fashion and have a young list so they may be in line for more success in the next few years.

In October I’d like to get back to playing some serious volume as well as work on really improving my game away from the table. I’d like to try and go beyond reviews of my own hands and into studying some other regulars, taking in a bunch of videos and delving into some strategy discussion.

September Results
- 80,000 hands – Failed
- Constant and thorough hand reviews ala August – Achieved
- At least 5 poker free days – Achieved
- Tackle 3 of the most important concepts I want to delve into – Pass Mark

October Goals
- 80,000 hands
- 1 session of sweating a friend per week
- Review top 5 regulars on my list

Gym/fitness
Started out the month really well on the cardio side, but that has kind of slipped away in the later half of the month. The guy I’d been playing squash with went overseas and my girlfriend and I haven’t found the time to go and play badminton. From a weights point of view I’m really happy with my output in September in terms of volume of gym sessions and effort I put in. I’m going to Europe in late November and I know I’m going to eat crap and not exercise as much as I should while I’m over there so I kind of want to be in awesome shape before I get there. Hence, through October and early November I really want to push myself. The weather is starting to get better in Melbourne and I’d love to get out and do more running in the next few weeks.

September Results
- Really push myself each weights session, not just go through the motions – Achieved
- Protein shake after every session – Achieved
- Play either Badminton or Squash at least once a week – Pass Mark
- Attend every pre-season cricket training session – Achieved
- Dedicate more time to health and fitness and less time to poker – Pass Mark

October Goals
- Run 100km
- Get back into Squash
- Set some new PBs with weights
- Attend on cricket training per week

Other
September Results - Learn a song on the Ukulele – Achieved
- Test drive more cars and make a decision on a purchase – Achieved

October Goals
- Learn 4 new Ukulele chords and work on my strumming and chord progression
- Play a ton of Fifa 11

Clip To Inspire
Nick Cave is one our best Aussie musical exports and I’ve been enjoying this song from his side project band Grinderman.

I often find it difficult to really get emotionally invested in a game of any sport if my team isn’t playing. I’m so passionate with my hatred of Collingwood though that I have no such problem when they are playing and I found out on Saturday that it’s even more so when it’s a Grand Final. For much of the 2nd half I had a heap of nervous energy and excitement.

The signs for the Saints were terrible in the early stages of the match, Collingwood kicked a goal within the first minute and proceeded to dominate possession for much of the first quarter and kick some tough goals and you got the sense that it was going to be their day. They went into quarter time a couple of goals ahead.

In the 2nd quarter Collingwood absolutely dominated, they went inside their forward 50 zone a ridiculous amount of times, but somehow St. Kilda’s defence managed to repell a lot of their attacks. Collingwood’s key forward Travis Cloke missed an easy set shot and then an open goal from 15 metres out on the run, if he’d kicked either of them you got the sense the game was Collingwood’s at half time. He didn’t though, and while the margin was under 5 goals St. Kilda had hope.

The 3rd quarter in a Grand Final is known as the premiership quarter, so often the team that makes their move in the 3rd goes on to win the match. St. Kilda’s one and only ruckman picked up a hamstring injury in the 2nd, forcing them to make a few positional changes and it changed the game dramatically in their favour. The intensity of the contest lifted dramatically, St. Kilda started to apply their famous frontal pressure and Collingwood began to crumble. St. Kilda were able to get a bit more of the ball than they did in the 1st half and were pretty efficient when they got it down forward. The scored 3.3 to Collingwood’s very inaccurate 0.5. It set-up a dramatic final term with the Saints trailing by just 8 points and with the momentum.

The final quarter was a classic, the endeavour from both teams lifted a notch and it was frantic. The first goal was going to be crucial for either team’s self belief. It took 7 or 8 minutes to come, but Collingwood managed to kick it giving themselves a 14 point buffer. Five minutes later though, St. Kilda’s Lenny Hayes (awarded medal for best on ground) kicked a long bomb goal and the Saints got another in quick time! The margin now 1 point.

When Brendan Goddard lept up and stood on the head of his opponent and took one of the more memorable Grand Final marks and kicked the goal, St. Kilda hit the lead for the first time in the entire match! Being at the ground, you go the sense that it would be the moment that defined the match and I guess in a way it did, but not how we thought!

Travis Cloke managed to get another set shot at goal from just on 50, it feel short and got pushed through for a point, putting Collingwood within a goal. A few minutes later another deep ball into the Collingwood forward line fell to him at the back of the pack and he kicked it, returning Collingwood to the lead by one point, with 3:30 left on the clock.

Collingwood took another mark on 50 and another set shot fell short, this time pushed out of bounds rather than through the points, any score there and the game probably doesn’t end in a tie. With 2 minutes left the Saints worked it up the other end and a scrappy kick inside 50 that could have rolled any number of ways ended up not sitting up for an open Saints player and instead rolling through for a point, levelling the scores.

A hush came over the crowd of 100,016 for the last minute and a half of play. St. Kilda had the ball up their end, but couldn’t manage to get it through for any type of score. The siren went, players collapsed on the ground, everyone in the stands just stood up and murmured to each other, it was the most eerie thing ever, nobody knew what to do. The last time the Grand Final was drawn was in 1977 and before that 1948, so for a lot of us we were either too young to remember it or it happened before we were born.

Since the game, debate has raged whether or not we should have extra time in the Grand Final rather than a replay. It was such a bruising contest where both teams played like they didn’t have to play against for 5 months and now they have to do the entire thing again next week. i like the idea of a replay, but maybe that’s just because it was one of the best games of AFL I’ve ever seen and I want to go through it all again.

Who knows what will happen next week and how much energy players have left, it could end up being a one sided match if one team recovers better than the other. The general consensus about the game is that Collingwood should feel the most disappointed to only tie, if they had taken their chances in front of goal and been more damaging with their domination of possession they’d be premiers right now. Meanwhile, the body language and attitude of the Saints players post game was excellent, hopefully that translates into a win next week!