Pappus' plane

Today while I was at uni a couple of physics people came by and they were going to the cricket nets for a bit. I decided to join. One of them used to play fifth grade for UQ, one used to play in a pretty high-standard club competition in England (he faced Danny Morrison in one match).

The standard, though, was not too high. It took me a good fifteen minutes to pitch the ball anywhere other than two feet down the legside of the left-hander I was bowling to, but at least I wasn't hitting the overhead netting like one of the others.

Eventually we mostly worked out how to use our cricket muscles, and things got a bit better. By the end of it I was exhausted, and afterwards I struggled to write neatly on a whiteboard with my right hand. My shoulder, back and probably some leg muscles will start complaining more loudly tomorrow.

I had a haircut today. It's back to being very short.

The AFL Grand Final will be all non-Victorian, and the NRL Grand Final all non-New-South-Walesian.

Wikipedia has, at the time of writing, the worst rendition of God Save the Queen ever. Link (probably requires broadband or a longish time). The four minutes and thirteen seconds of American robot voice-induced aural torture is the worst possible advertisement for the program used to make it.

Also on that Wikipedia page are the lyrics to all sorts of extra verses that you don't normally hear. I noted with surprise that there is a French version and a bi-lingual version, which are sometimes sung in Canada.

By far the worst crime of the French language is to call the Catholic Mass 'la messe'. It sounds silly, and should be 'la masse'.

This is for not many of you: The Courier-Mail's breaking news section has the first word of each summary in capitals. This is a story from that news ticker.

I just caught the last fifteen seconds of Temptation, the new Sale of the Century. If it were on at a better timeslot, I would watch it regularly.

I played many games of cricket at Marchant Park, the home of Warehouse cricket. Some teenagers set fire to the club last night.

Today's ATY mentions the birth of Jalaluddin. He was the first man to take a hattrick in ODI's, which I didn't know. At the age of 41, he coached the Oman u/17 squad for a week or two, and I faced one ball from him in the nets. It was a warmup delivery for him, but he dropped immediately onto a good line and length. I didn't move my feet and defended it.

Pine Rivers travelled south of the river to play against Mater Hill in the 2-day B3 match that started Saturday. Rivers were skittled for 108, and thanks to a blatant caught behind given not out by their umpire, Mater Hill are 5/108 at stumps.

The Rivers' fielding effort was highlighted by a spectacular reflex return catch taken by Bahry. The ball was smashed back at the bowler and the batsman stared in wonderment for literally five seconds before walking off the field.

Sadly, I'm going for too many runs at the moment (albeit many of them through slips), and 2-56 from 13 was too expensive.

It is very cold at the moment, though it's even worse down south, with snow falling all over the place.

The Bledisloe Cup remains in New Zealand for another year. :(

The Australian celebrated its 40th birthday last Wednesday, including in Wednesday's paper an exact copy of their first ever newspaper. On the front page was news that Soviet mathematician Alexander Kurosh would be visting ANU for a month. How the profile of maths has fallen.

That faint and wild hope of a 7 in quantum has materialised. :D

Straight 7's for the second consecutive semester. :) The all-nighter on the EM assignment seems to have paid off as well.

Got the call-up to play cricket tomorrow (B3 winter). The standard of this grade is fairly low, and I did well in the two matches I played last year. It should be fun.