R13: Halfway Hotel, I could use a beer or two.

Yep the Dees lost to the Pies, but now you can share the pain. Halfway Hotel.

Halfway through the season and a good time for a breather.
After last week's hoopla and Ice Caspades this is one of those boring, not particularly chatty weeks.
I've just popped back from a Demons planning camp where they've started grafting Neville Jetta's torso onto Sam Frost's shoulders in hopeful anticipation of playing finals and meeting 7 foot 100 inch Mason Cox again. He should be banned.
Otherwise did anything else happen last weekend, can't remember cos apparently this weekend started last night and everything's gone blank.

Phil Smith has jumped Lloydy to take a decisive lead in the Drunk. Last week's best was Coxy, up 10 with a perfect score, 6 outa 6 and zero points margin. Biggest Loser was Garth, slip-sliding away, down 12.

R12: Rance auditions for World Cup, Queen's Birthday Party and lots and lots of ice.

Queen's Birthday (Party)*, Shivery ice-slide. A stretch maybe, but if you'd thought this was any more than a self-indulgent, self-serving playlist of favourites you're kidding yourself.

* Yes, I know...  I saw Boys Next Door doing this at Macy's in Toorak Rd, Feb 3 1980. Had a TABLE at the front of a room the size of my bedroom, about 80 people there... Hang on, what are all these people doing in my room. (Thanks Frank).

A smorgasbord of footy this past and up-coming week. Champion divers, Brownlow favourites rubbed out, a round of lop-sided games, a couple of interesting results. A week coming of Queen's Birthdays, AFL on Ice and season-defining games.
Beanies off to Neale Daniher. Grand man at my club.
Screen goes wobbly... I'm back in 1998 at the Demon's season launch lunch. Stavros and I were doing the Demons membership stuff and Jamie Shanahan had just joined. Saints Stav and Frankie Materia made a bee-line for Shana's to give him a small piece of their minds (it was all they had). Quick as a flash ND read the play beautifully and laid a lovely shepherd.  I would have shirt-fronted the both of them personally.

The week in Drunk... largely stasis.
Hero: Dickwad. Zeros: Kurts and BobCatter.

R10: We salute Sheeds. Player, coach, actor. Legend.

Hats off to the AFL's mad genius. And let's bring back the lace-up jumper.

Umpire, strike back.

My 7 y.o. lives on a diet of Star Wars and Scooby Doo. Both wise choices, they teach a lot about how the world really works.

Scooby Doo shows invariably end with the line "...and I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling kids". Star Wars, as we know, prepares us for a world ruled by Evil Empires.

Meddling. Evil. This of course brings me to the AFL and their relationship with their goal umpires.

Why do the evil AFL emperors always feel the need to meddle in what works naturally as a near-perfect organism? How can you review a goal that's been called a goal, watch the review, see that it IS in fact a goal and call it a point? And why are they constantly threatening our galaxy with twilight Grand Finals?

The Dalai told me once over a few Coopers', "Dick, a train is a train and a plane isn't. If you want a plane go to the airport". I'm not sure what he meant by that, we were both a bit shickered by then.

If you want to meddle AFL, take Carlton's 4 snore-fest Friday night games off them and give them to teams who want to, and can play. In case you were wondering, the Dees have had a total of about 3 Friday night games over the past 4 years.

And us Drunks? We have our 3rd leader in 3 weeks now. Lloydy, buoyed by his Dons' resurgence, has stealthed his way to the top this week and we're starting to see some worrying separation between the leaders and the rest of us.
B.O.G. this week were Franco SKN and BobCatter Sam, both up 8, and this week's witches hat was Blue Bolter Rob, down 8.