Hibernation's not normally something undertaken by human beings. But I did it goddamnit. Me and my Shield DVDs. Together. Romantic stuff. I'm not going to wax lyrical about The Shield because it started like 8/9 years ago and was going for the better part of the 2000s so everyone's already raved about it more than enough, but I will say that the praise is completely warranted.

The show isn't a slow burner like I've found The Wire to be (gotta get through those box sets at some point too), it's full of action and is completely gripping. I do like how even just in season two I'm completely and utterly confused over which characters to like and dislike. Some of them are obvious - Aceveda's a bit of a dickhead, Danny's generally alright - but the rest of them are somewhere in the middle. Dutch is obviously the man though. A complete and utter dweeb. Fuckin' funny, though.



I dare any of you to watch this and tell me that Vic Mackey is not the man, albeit a fictional one.

So I didn't just make one impulse buy. I made two. Mr. HMV (Ian HMV, probably) has made a killing out of me this week. I picked up Transformers: War for Cybertron (360) for about 20 quid and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West for a similar price, 25 or so. I haven't played Enslaved yet, when I do I'll try and write some quick thoughts about it, but I have played an hour or two of Transformers and this has to be said - it's actually really quite good. It's not reinventing the wheel, in essence the game is the Gears of War engine with big bastard robots in place of Marcus Fenix and Dom, but that's not a bad base to create your game on. The environments are also very samey, but that's to be expected. You're playing as gigantic fighting robots clubbing each other about on a planet made almost entirely of metal from what I can deduce. It's unlikely to feature levels based outside of that, perhaps a garish level based in an ocean, or an Amazonian jungle. It's just not happening. Anyway, it's good.

Have about a million DVDs to post to lucky eBayers. Should probably try and do that at some point. In addition to revision and swimming through the sea of football that continues to flood into my vision. I have also decided to make a concerted effort to listen to more music in 2011 and try and keep up. 2 January will mark the end of that.

Either we're the champions elect or we're slipping. God knows what to believe. Was gonna write a nice happy blog about the 2-0 win over Sunderland. Delightful images would be used, emoticons, smiling faces going :-D, cheerful and inspirational tunes by popular recording artists such as Kool and the Gang. Then we've just had the 1-1 draw with Birmingham, yet another draw plucked from the jaws of victory. I'm not as furious as I was after the Fulham and Everton draws but that's just because it's becoming a running theme and I'm becoming a little bit bored of it all. I could complain but the only real criticism I have is that the team was a little bit too happy to sit back and absorb the pressure, just like they did against Everton, instead of just keeping possession when for large portions of the match they had Birmingham pinned back into their own half. With that said, we're top of the table with at least a game (for some two) in hand over the nearest rivals so it's not the worst position to be in. Hopefully we can win the next two league games. Stoke at home should be easy enough. West Brom away, smart money says a draw. Fuck.

Might make a comfort video game buy. Transformers: War for Cybertron it is. Dad made a similar random buy, just buying a random cricket game for the 360. Seeing the pride on his face at making it "past a level", amazing. Granted, said level was one of about two dozen steps on the tutorial. I say "one". It was the second.

Alright day as Boxing Days go, I suppose. Why? Because I did fuck all, saw United win in a fairly dominant fashion, then I proceeded to do fuck all when I got home. Well, I also retrieved my razor from my student house after going without it for a week, encouraging the filthy beard, but there’s literally nothing else to that anecdote. It’s surely a culdesac of despair. Might do a proper United report tomorrow if I can be arsed.

I will now proceed with attempting to recover from my third cold of December (this week’s specialty symptom: sore throat/no voice) and starving myself to restore some equilibrium to the food consumption for the month. May go and buy some box sets, it seems appropriate.

Christmas money going on DVDs of The Shield and Scott Pilgrim and The Wire.

FOR THE BABY JESUS.

Manchester United 1-0 Arsenal

Well that was somewhat satisfying. Perhaps not as emphatic as it could have been but who cares, a win’s a win and that was fairly business-like as far as those big games go. I was very nervous prior to the game, what with Samir Nasri being touted as the new Lord King of Professional Football and all that, plus this was United’s first match against one of the main title rivals in the league, and I think they came out of it rather well. Which is kinda funny, considering how all season United have been written off as a poor side. Clearly, terrible. They just keep winning though. How annoying, inconvenient and quite frankly rude of them.

A lot of the credit for the win has to go to the midfield five, a good tactical move from Ferguson. I’m a massive Berbatov fan but I can see why Ferguson opted for a 4-5-1 and Rooney is much better suited for that formation than Berba, who works best with a strike partner in a 4-4-2. You could even have done 4-3-3 with a front trio of Berba, Rooney and Nani, but that would have meant sacrificing a midfielder, and the midfielders on this occasion did a very good job. Anderson is finally meeting the high standards expected of him and he did it in a big, important game here which is even more impressive. Hopefully his form continues because he’s been good for a while now since he came back. Fletcher was his usual combative self and really played a vital role in United winning the physical battle in the middle. Carrick was his usual hot-and-cold self but he generally contributed. Nani was a bit wasteful going forward but tracked back when he could, not only helping in the midfield but lending a helping hand to Rafael too. However, Ji-Sung Park may have been the best player on the field. Not only did he grab a good goal but he never stopped running and trying. And he wasn’t a headless chicken either, he was getting involved with everything and was one of United’s better attacking forces. Outstanding. Makes me depressed to think I ever doubted him after his poor start to the season, :-/

The defence deserves a lot of credit too, obviously. They made dealing with some of Arsenal’s attempts at goal look ludicrously easy, simply clearing balls out of the box with no issues, often reducing the likes of Andrey Arshavin to fringe shots from outside the penalty area that dragged wide. Vidic and Ferdinand are probably the best defensive partnership in the world and the full backs were similarly tremendous. Patrice Evra had a good game and seeing him charging forward on his own in injury time was quite a sight. Rafael was also impressive. He’s still slightly naive when it comes to keeping an eye on his direct opponent, like when Gael Clichy would be allowed to wander down the wing with little attention being given to him, but his pace and persistence allow him to make up for that most of the time. Great little player.

Player Ratings: van der Sar 7, Rafael 8, Vidic 8, Ferdinand 8, Evra 8, Fletcher 7, Anderson 8, Carrick 7, Fletcher 7, Park 9, Rooney 7

Hey all. Just texting this bad boy out. Attempted many blogs over the years (and there have been so many years). None have survived. This doesn’t bode well for this one. But we’ll see. I theorise that if I combine all of my daily Twitter posts into one blog post that may be acceptable as a form of blog entry. Probably won’t help me achieve much. A pointless exercise, most likely. I’ll try and not do that.

I will write a lot about football and occasionally television, however. That I can guarantee. If you like neither of those things, first of all, fuck. Secondly, you probably shouldn’t read this blog. Yeah. GTFO. More specifically, there’ll be posts about Manchester United. That rules out a certain percentage of football fans too. I’m really cutting into my target demographic here.

Arsenal vs. United tomorrow. I will write. And we will win. Probably.