Hey

Seve Ballesteros died the other week. One of my golfing heroes. I had been thinking about him for a month or so before he died. I even linked to a video of him on my Facebook page a few weeks ago. I knew he was poorly, but not that bad. Watching him on those videos, wow. The swing, the passion, the soft hands. Some of the shots he hit were amazing. Has there ever been a more talented golfer? And the celebration on the 18th at St Andrews in 1984 when he holed the birdie putt to seal the win is probably the best celebration in golf. No-one came close to him in the 80's. His Masters performances in that time were amazing. Won it in '80 and '83. '85 - Lost a duel with the great Bernhard Langer. '86 - Had it won! After his second shot on 13 to three foot for eagle, his caddy stupidly offered to shake his hand. And Seve shook it! The Golfing Gods don't like that kind of thing. They gave him that putt, but then he put it in the water on 15 and 16, and Nicklaus shot 30 on the back nine to beat him, Norman, and Kite, in probably the best Masters ever. '87 - he was in the play off along with Norman and Mize, but missed a three footer at 10 and was out, and then on the next hole Mize chipped in to destroy Norman forever. He had the lead in '89 too, but dropped away. Quite a performance. He starred in the British Open too, especially in '88 when he and Nick Price had a shootout. That was an amazing tournament. He was a little before my time, but he definitely set the scene for the European dominance of golf with Lyle, Faldo, Woosnam, Olazabal following him. It's really sad to see him go so early. I've mentioned it before, but there is an interview with him on the eve of last year's British Open when they invited him to a past champions dinner but he couldn't go, so the BBC sent a reporter to his house to interview him. He had that faraway look that Alzheimer's sufferers get, understandably seeing how they had to cut out a lot of his brain out to get rid of the tumour, but otherwise he seemed okay. It's a great interview. Tiger's out injured again, and out of the top 10! Sometime this year we'll get the news that he's hooked on painkillers. I have no doubt about that. He has looked stoned off his nut in some of the interviews I've seen of him.
Swannies beat the Bulldogs in Canberra! Amazing! And a good win against Port, too. Shocking loss to Hawthorn though. Buddy has never really played well against us in the past, but he sure did on Sunday. North this week. Hate 'em.
Can I just say that it is hilarious that someone died planking. And there's another guy in a coma from planking, I hear. He should die of embarrassment.
I'm reading Hyperion again, or at least listening to it. Books have become like movies to me. I no longer feel the compulsion to watch or read something to the end if it doesn't have my full attention. I've got heaps of movies on my computer that I've watched the first hour of but turned off, never to return. Never Let Me Go, sorry, had to let you go. True Grit, nup. Tron, nup. Same with books. Even the latest Iain Banks books have failed to see the end. Is it me? Kind of. But if I'm not compelled to keep watching or reading, whose fault is that? The tragedy would be if I stop starting things. But sometimes I just want to watch or read something I know I will love. So I have gone back to Hyperion, and I will read it until I don't want to anymore. Which will probably mean I'll read the whole series of 4 books again. This book is one of those things that I envy people who haven't experienced it, and I wish I could go back and experience it again for the first time. Seven people on a pilgrimage to meet the Shrike, a mythical killing machine who grants the wishes of one and kills the rest. As they make the journey, they decided to tell each other their story, and the book consists of these stories. The first one is about a priest's journey to find the Bakira, descendants of the crew of a colony ship that is thought to have crashed on the unexplored side of Hyperion hundreds of years ago. A great, nightmarish story.