Telling it like it is

We've been watching the wrap-up of the 2005 Dakar Rally on OLN for the last couple of nights. It's been amusing to watch the over-cocky Robby Gordon get put in his place. The guy thinks he's some sort of superhero because he's competed in some Baja races and won. He seriously thought he'd win the Dakar too. Well a quadruple roll beat the smugness out of him early on, and he got continually demoted and demoted by the VW team until he became second support driver. They interviewed him during the last couple of days and he was lacklustre and didn't even want to finish because he was nowhere near the top of the class. Eventually he admitted he'd radically underestimated how difficult the Rally would be. It was amazing to watch as he just got more and more pissed off at the fact that they'd thrown millions of dollars at the race and couldn't even break the top 10. Whoever he is (I'd never heard of him before) he proved that money + arrogance does

*Yawn* .

That's it for another year then. The Fed and State accepted out e-filed tax return today. So we're done. Just wait for the refund now :-)

I delved into the murky waters of downloadable music again today. This time looking for "I Want More" by Faithless. Shock of shocks, itunes actually had it! Plus they had a neat offer - sign up using PayPal and get 5 free downloads. So I popped the latest iTunes on my PC and set up and account, and downloaded the track for free. Great. Well, no. You see iTunes downloads files in .m4p format - it's an advanced version of .aac encryption with digital rights management built in. ie. you can't play the music on anything other than the PC you used to download it. ie. it's a crap system. Fair use does mean that if I purchased the music (which I have) then I can play it wherever the hell I like (which I can't). I need the files to be in .mp3 format so I can play them on my various mp3-reading audio systems, like my car radio. But iTunes would rather I didn't do that. They'd rather I installed this PC in my car and play the music like that instead. Or the

The Holland supporters were in full presence 

We just got back from an entertaining afternoon's sporting, watching the World Sprint Speed Skating Championships at the Utah Olympic Oval. It's the first time we've been to that venue - very nice. It was satisfying to see a huge Dutch contingent present - more so than any other country. They brought along the supporters club and the Kleintje Pils brass band. Which was nice, because they handed the Americans their asses on a plate in the men's competition. At 13 of the 15 pairs raced, the Americans had podium positions 1 and 2. And then in the space of two races, they'd been pushed off completely by two Dutchmen and a Canadian. Of course the Dutch supporters had a party. It was a lot of fun.