HTML is a piece of cake: I’m happy!

In the last couple of days, I was trying to round up a couple of posts for this blog but couldn’t find the finishing touches that I was looking for. So then, I decided to entertain myself playing with the template. And boy, did I have fun!!! When you start playing around with Blogger’s templates, codes of HTML and CSS it can be a very absorbing, engrossing and most of the time frustrating experience. Most of the time because I think I got there in the end.

With the help from some friends (amogst others tips-for-new-blogger.blogspot.com), I began by adding a menu navbar. Then, I gained confidence and dived into that wonderful world behind ‘Edit HTML’ (who would have thought it a few days ago!). The template was starting to look more like something I like (please remember there is noting more relative/subjective than tastes). But thanks to this excellent post by jacqsbloggertips.blogspot.com I could add the final touches (for now!) by writing the codes myself in the CSS section. Unbelievable. I don’t need a lot to be happy!

                                                      (http://onemoremonkey.com/index.php)

I started this blog a few days ago just trying to communicate and exchange ideas with people with similar interests to mine, always with the idea of keeping on learning new things. I haven’t interacted so far (hopefully that will come) but I am glad I already learnt so much.

You wouldn’t think this is the most beautiful blog design around. But for me, it’s. And you know why? Because I (sort of) created it!

Any experiences daring to approach HTML? Have you tweaked your blog?

I fell in love with the Ryder Cup

I am in no way in a position to express informed opinions about golf. I have been to the driving range some times but my swing is as erratic and hilarious as Diego Maradona’s reactions. I used those putting practices spaces but putting is much more difficult than it looks. I don’t even watch the sport on TV so often (usually the majors but also there has to be involved a player I liked).

But this weekend I watched the Ryder Cup and fell in love with it. It’s a shame I couldn’t watch it live yesterday (the deciding fourth day) but I just caught the highlights. Of course, the nail biting finish with Europe regaining the cup by beating the US 14 ½ - 13 ½ and the event being decided at the last match (almost the last hole) providing an absolutely compelling viewing certainly helped. It was great drama as sports can create. It is not exactly golf’s World Cup because only Europe and the US play it. However, it has an amazing feeling about it. There is big rivalry that in the past went a bit too far.

In the more ‘technical’ note, I like that the competition tests the player in different ways. In the four-balls, the hole is won by the best score of the four players and therefore your partner can save you if you have a bad hole. In the foursomes, each pairing plays with one ball with the players taking turns in the shots. An individual sport like golf becomes a team sport. And finally, in the match plays each member of each team play against one of the other team in an individual confrontation.

Here you can see the highlights from the Official Ryder Cup website

This time there were incredible performances I particularly enjoyed. For the US, Tiger Woods started the weekend not so well (and in the first matches was carried by the excellent Striker) and after suffering a trashing in the second session recovered like a true champion in the last match (at some point he scored birdie-birdie-birdie-eagle-birdie). Rickie Fowler showed that he is a start of today at only 21 years-old halving his single match recovering from 4 down wining the last 3 holes and keeping the American dream live to the last single match-play. For Europe, I enjoyed Luke Donald’s almost unflappable display, Ian Poulter exuberant performance the last day, Miguel Angel Jimenez playing with the usual charm and charisma and the Molinari brothers playing together.

A thought for Hunter Mahan: he was the unlucky guy to lose the last match. But no disgrace for him, he played really well for the whole weekend and with a lot of nerve in the last match but was just beaten by Graeme McDowell who was unbelievably solid considering what was at stake.

And I used to think golf was a boring sport... Long live the Ryder Cup!!!

Did you like the Ryder Cup?

Rubbish unlikely look-alikes (I)

Gonzalo Higuain - Argentine Footballer                       Edoardo Molinari - Italian Golfer

A pass to the net

Barcelona are not playing their best football right now. In their three La Liga games at home so far this season, they lost one, won one and drew the other scoring just two goals in the process.

However, they can still produce magic moments. Argentina's World Cup 1978 winning coach Cesar Luis Menotti said that sometimes a goal is a pass to the net. Messi's goal yesterday is the best example.

Why we love sports

As a teenager, I never gave my parents any trouble apart from being a bit untidy at home and lazy for school, doing just enough to pass the exams. The latter would annoy my Mother and she could not understand why I spent so much time watching sports when I was not practicing them (football and rugby mainly, with some spells also of handball and tennis). She used to tell me that watching so much sport was a waste and will leave me empty. In truly teenager fashion, I never bothered to come up with a response but I am not sure I was able put up a reasoned argument (beyond “..because I enjoy it”, which is still fair enough).

Now I would said because I enjoy it and because sometimes sports can resemble arts in as much as unleashing deep emotions and also they can produce moments of magic and brilliance. Lately I came across some moment of brilliance (in these cases individual) that remind me why I love sports.

Exhibit A: Luciana Aymar’s Maradona-esque goal against China in the 2010 Women Hockey World Cup in Rosario (Argentina). The dribbling ability and stick-skills are out of this world. The commentary is legendary, is not the one of this goal but the one of Diego’s second goal against England in the 1986 Mexico World Cup.

Exhibit B: Kumi Yokoyama’s Messi-esque goal against Korea DPR in the 2010 U-17 Women Football World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago. The beginning is not so brilliant but then the way she passes from ‘foot-to-foot’ not once but twice before finishing is remarkable. The commentary is also very good!

Exhibit C: something very different from the previous two is Andrea Pirlo’s goal yesterday for AC Milan against Parma in the Calcio encounter. The way the ball travels without moving (bending, spinning) for such a long way before finding the top corners defies dynamics. As the commentary says: "The reaction from Ronaldinho says it all".

Diego Maradona’s sheer madness

We all love Diego, don’t we? No, of course not everybody loves him. His figure will be controversial for our lifetimes and beyond. I know I love him. I loved it to death as a player and I love now the character, the public persona (not so much the coach, I am afraid to say).

This week he went to Moscow for promotional activities. In the press conference, he put up again his case to regain the position of Argentine National football team coach and was duly – and fairly – criticized for the manner in which he did so. In this article (in Spanish) in La Nacion, Argentine newspaper, the columnist points to Diego’s lack of self-criticism, of ability to learn from past mistakes, of coherence and of respect for other people including Sergio Batista, the current interim coach.

But I am digressing here. The reason I love him now is for his sheer madness, his ability to amaze, to bring a smile to my face with his charisma and eccentricities. In Moscow, participating in a charity event, he had to shoot some targets to raise money the institute of hematology and transplantation in the Russian capital. He hit 10 out of 16 targets (although carrying an injury in his knee) and raising US$ 500,000. As usual, he put a real show.

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa was a painful experience for Argentine fans with a sad exit in a heavy defeat to Germany in the quarterfinals. But if there is something I would remember with joy, these are the “Diego Moments”. Via You Tube: Diego smoking a cigar in training, domesticating the somewhat controversial Jabulani ball and re-affirming his macho-condition in front of the press. Are you sure you don’t love him?

How to decide the next book to read

Someone could think that I am a bit like the main character in “Sex and the City” who always coming to new questions for her newspaper column. As seasons went, these questions in what once was an original TV series became increasingly irritating. But believe me that this is a genuine question I pondered for some time.

During this week I came across a couple of answers. The first was in this Guardian article on the page 99 test. The idea is "open the book to page ninety-nine and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you" (Ford Madox Ford). A new website (page99test.com) is coming up shortly to carry out this idea in which after reading the page readers would be invited to whether they would be interested in reading the rest. Similarly, in page99test.blogspot.com they invite American authors and university professors (I believe) to test the idea on selected books. I just performed the page 99 test back trying it with a few books I read (and a couple I couldn’t finish) and it seems a like a good idea.

Of course, in the internet age you can have this question answered for you. Which book will show you books according to your preferences. I tried it briefly and not so sure whether it would work. But it could be a useful tool anyway. The number of books considered is simply amazing.

Another online option is What should I read next? Just input a book you liked and given other people’s reading list you will get several suggestions. I think it is overall not bad although some of the replies are nonsense (a “The Catcher in the Rye” search leads to Freud’s “The Interpretation of Dreams” and “Harry Potter”, really?).

For similar sites, please see this great post.

In the last week I learnt that Amazon released “Kindle for PC” as a free application. Therefore, you can download on your computer the sample of every book in Kindle form in Amazon (apart from the free books that they offer) and read for free usually the first pages / couple of pages in order to have a better idea on a book you are interested to get hold / buy.

(some of my book shelves)

My approach? Not different from most people’s I guess. I follow suggestions from friends and also go for books that draw my attention in newspapers reviews / internet reviews. Then, when I like an author I like to read most of his/her books and see how these vary and his career developed. However, this led me to several disappointments in the past. Normally, following suggestions or authors I enjoy I get most books from my local second-hand charity shop and buy the rest (those which are no likely to appear in that shop) brand new. Normally this means I have a pile to read and I am never short of options. But in the future, for books that I am not so sure about, I’ll try the options described above.