The Ipswich Saga

The 2012/13 season has begun, and while it may only be three games in I've already lost the hope I had on opening day. There are several factors to these feelings of disappointment and frustration, and perhaps come deadline day on Friday I'll be left with egg on my face and nice slice of pie to eat; but as of right now, the feelings are there in force.

Opening day arrived with hope, it ended with a well-earned point against freshly relegated Blackburn. The performance was good, perhaps we could have gotten more with some improvements. That was okay though, it's the first game of the season, the team is still gelling together but most importantly we played well. Could we keep up the level of performance, perhaps grab another point away to Watford. Every team has an opposition it struggles against, for Ipswich this team was Watford. 15 games in all competitions, home or away, since Ipswich had beaten Watford. It took another 90 minutes before Michael Chopra scored the winner, but not only had we gotten a good draw against Blackburn, we'd also gone to Watford and beaten them whilst keeping a clean sheet. Things were looking up, although it was only two games old, this season could be a success. Things were about to change.

Blackpool are a good side. I'd even go as far to say that Blackpool are the best team in the Championship this season. If they don't get an automatic promotion spot then I will be very surprised. Travelling to Bloomfield Road all I wanted was a good performance, I didn't think we stood a chance at a win, a draw would be a huge surprised. 2-0, 3-1, a scoreline like that would be fine if combined with a fighting performance, something that could continued to be built on. 6-0. Blackpool 6, Ipswich Town 0. There are no words that can describe what happened that Saturday afternoon in Blackpool. All I knew was that the team needed strengthening, especially in defence. There was a week left in the transfer window, this is something that surely would be addressed by the board and the management staff over those few days. They couldn't ignore it again, surely?

The final week of the transfer window was interrupted by a trip to Carlisle in the Capital One Cup. A perfect arena for us to get over our drumming to Blackpool, score a couple of goals, keep a clean sheet and continue on a cup run. It start well enough, we scored within 20 minutes and we had started well. We were on top and if we could score a second goal before half time, the game was ours as Carlisle had nothing. We didn't score before half time, infact we didn't do much else before half time... or after it. What we did was switch off, give up and concede in the 90th minute... again. Then we conceded in extra-time and got knocked out of the League Cup by a lower league team... again.

As with Ipswich Town for so many seasons, there was no fight or determination. No grit. No guts when it mattered. No travelling to a far away stadium and grinding out a win. It's not like we lost to Carlisle while playing our reserves, firstly because we don't have any and secondly because they've changed the rules of the League Cup so Football League teams (Championship, League One and League Two) have to play full strength sides in every game. Premier League teams don't. Such a fair rule.

The team lacked depth and the manager was aware of it. Players needed to be added, the board needed to work quick. They did work quick, a double bid for the Peterborough attacking pair of George Boyd (left midfielder) and Paul Taylor (striker) was accepted. They arrived in Ipswich and passed a medical before leaving on Wednesday night after failing to agree terms. Not a promising start. In the past few hours it's been reported that Paul Taylor has since agreed terms with Ipswich, some depth to the front line and perhaps someone who can score more regularly than Chopra. Alongside this piece of news, Daryl Murphy has rejoined on loan from Celtic... again. If you were to put all the players that Ipswich could sign in a barrel, Murphy would be close to the bottom of it, perhaps only reachable if you scraped said barrel. But anyway, that's two attackers added to strengthen the side, which alongside midfielder Guirane N'Daw who is also joining on loan, has made the team look a bit deeper and stronger. There is still a glaring weakness with the squad though.

On Monday morning, Ipswich Town had four centre backs contracted. Luke Chambers, signed during the summer for free after his contract with Nottingham Forest, where he was captain, expired; much needed signing for a team who has had defensive problems for several seasons. Tommy Smith, a youth product who played for New Zealand at the World Cup, he's decent enough for the league and is still young but prone to mistakes; good enough for the team for now, but not if we're serious about promotion. Jack Ainsley, a recent youth graduate who isn't highly rated by anyone, no more than depth. Damien Delaney, old, Irish defender, good for depth. Well, he was good for depth until he was released today. The termination of Delaney's contract means that there are 3 natural centre backs at Ipswich. Three. This is a huge issue if not addressed. There is a fresh rumour going around that we are after Sean St. Ledger from Leicester. That would be an important signing if we can make it, but given our negotiating history and the tightness of the clubs finances, it's a big if.

There are lots of questions to be answered by 11pm Friday night. I am again being hopeful that I won't be left with new questions come the passing of the deadline, but being an Ipswich fan that is probably wishful thinking.

Laptops: Place on lap only if you want to become sterile

As I write my first blog post since I was 15, I had to think about what I was going to write. Ideas, or the lack of them, swirled in my head. Should I write about BF3? My latest game MGS: HD Collection? My private life regarding University, new pets or how I'm going to soon turn 22 and want to become 11? All good ideas for future blogs perhaps, but slowly there was one idea that kicked and screamed to the forefront. It can't be ignored. It's my bloody shit laptop.

I used to be among the Master Race. Windows XP, BF2 and the occasional typed up Microsoft Word school report was my world. I upgraded certain aspects when they became slower and apart from a lack of sunlight, there was no real draw backs. But times changed. University loomed, a social life beckoned and the desktop in the corner which I built for myself became something that was to inflexible, to impracticable for my new life. I bought a laptop.

Now, I'm going to skip over my first laptop. I'm going to focus on my second laptop. The laptop I am currently typing on; HP Pavilion DV7. Bought for around £500 at the time, this piece of kit was supposed to be the best of both worlds for me. I could game on it, an option no longer available to me since I broke my desktop while drunk (whoops), and it was portable with a lovely battery life.

Oh how things turned sour.

First thing to go wrong is something that is always a danger with laptops; overheating. I tried to play, I believe, The Sims 2 on the laptop. Hold the laughter, it's a good game. Anyhow, the laptop shut down on me. Critical error. Whah? This laptop should be able to handle a game released in 2004 surely? It had not gone unaware that the laptop was running extremely hot. So, I got into contact with HP. They reassured me it was a well known problem and they could fix it. 2 weeks later, I was back on The Sims 2 and it was still spewing out more heat then my oven.

Fine, I thought, I'll just have to give up on the games. £500 for some technology that has a dedicated graphics card and I can't play 2004 releases. I'll take the bullet and limber on. I'm a University student! Forces me to study.

Only, the evil bastard of a thing decides to spring another surprise on me. It's not just games that causes my £500 laptop to die. Microsoft Word, take a bow, you too can boil my laptop! Currently typing this my hands are almost to the point of sweating (lovely, I know). Quick download of a hardware monitor tells me my processor is currently 76c. Fabulous.

Now, I know not every laptop radiates heat almost as hot as a slow cooker when using a word processing package. The next fault that occurs is the battery. 9 months into ownership, a big X appears on my the battery icon. Big Xs are never good. The charger that could last 2 and a half hours off charge soon lasted 30 minutes. What next to go wrong? The charger. The connection inside my laptop where the charger goes in becomes wonky. Now, unless my laptop is perfectly still the laptop will go off charge and turns off.

Is there a point to this sad story? Beyond me venting, yes. This is a warning.

Laptops are walking disasters. My girlfriends laptop has died, my laptop before it, the keys fell off. My dads laptop? The screen died. My brothers laptop went the same way as mine. Even Alienware laptops, of which a Uni friend had, spontaneously combust from heat and have to be held up by books to avoid melting into the table its on. They can't be upgraded so as to make them last and if a key falls off the keyboard, typing becomes a nightmare.

These days, tablets are coming of age. I once viewed them as wastes of money – why buy a tablet when you have a laptop? The reason is tablets don't overheat, are user friendly and do almost everything a laptop can do for much less then £500. The Google Nexus 7, my first tablet, has retired my laptop to Football Manager and Word Processing – something I could do on my Nexus is I bought an external keyboard. Bare in mind, FM causes 90+ heat.

My laptop is practically dead to me. Waste of bloody space.