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In April my girlfriend Laura and I booked a week long holiday in New York for late July. As someone who spent their childhood reading Spider-man comics and watching Ghostbusters at least once a fortnight I can’t overstate how bedwettingly exciting it is to be able to visit this city. I don’t intend to be all pretentious about my stay. I’m not particularly bothered if I miss the ‘real’ New York. I want the full unashamed NYC experience, the Empire State Building, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty etc. I want to see a baseball game, a show on Broadway, I want the works!!! And with the pound being so strong at present there’s a good chance I can afford to do it all.

Over the past couple of months I’ve been looking into what’s on during our visit. My ideal choice of Broadway show would be Spamalot. I wouldn’t mind seeing The Producers again but it’s coming to Cardiff in the autumn so it’s kind of a waste. That said the roles of Roger De Bris and Leo Bloom are to be played by Russ Abbott and Joe Pasquale for the end of the British tour so I might not attend the Cardiff leg. Sportswise I’m not fussy, preferably baseball or basketball. Although I understand getting hold of tickets is notoriously difficult. I could settle for some soccer action with New York Red Bulls (cringe) with their new signing ex Villa player Juan Pablo Angel. I went on their official website earlier, in their last game they drew 3-3 against Kansas City Wizards (double cringe) It says that both teams played in the 6-2-2 formation…It’s a wonder anybody scored. I might give that a miss to be honest. I also wanted to catch a music act while over there but for weeks I was having no luck finding something that took our fancy. Rage Against The Machine are headlining a hip hop festival called Rock the Bells. Other acts on the bill include Cypress Hill and the Wu-Tan Clan. Sounds pretty cool but I feel it’s a little too hardcore for us and we could quickly find ourselves out of depth. That left a choice between Meatloaf, The Police, Michael Buble or Minnie Driver. The term ‘middle of the road’ doesn’t cover that pile of crap.

Then out from the darkness came a huge surprise. I switched from the usual websites I’d been scanning to a different one and about a minute later found exactly the kind of thing I’d been searching for. One of my favourite bands, The White Stripes, playing the world famous Madison Square Gardens…bingo, we have a winner!!! We purchased the tickets pretty quickly for a tidy $124.00 which worked out £64.00 for the pair of us. I was shocked at the amount of add on fees the Americans have when you by a ticket. I thought Ticketline UK were bastards for demanding a one pound booking fee, it’s nothing compared to them. But hey it’s worth it, I’ve wanted to see the White Stripes live for a while now and it’s going to take me leaving the continent to do so. If you take away Jacks ill advised Coca Cola advert from the equation they really are what a great band should be. I bought their new album Icky Thump yesterday and I’m really getting into it. Took me a couple of listens but I found that with the last one. Stand out tracks for me so far are Rag & Bone and I’m Slowly Turning Into You. Great to be able to warm up for July by watching them on the BBC interactive at the moment, if you haven’t caught it yet please press the red button!

Lust for Senior Knock-Out Twittering

Despite a valiant effort, Italian Costantino Rocca at Conwy Golf Club, couldn't find what was needed to win the European Tour Senior Welsh Open on Sunday. Great to see the course packed out with spectators for such a big event, and Sam Torrance play the course. Was also good to see nobody completely ripped the course up! Save Mr Quiros, scoring a new course record "64" off the back tees! My turn to play the course with the exact same setup as the weekends event tonight, as I go into the 3rd round of the Club Championship Knock-Out - it's a hard and long enough road getting to Round 3, now the course is setup at pretty much it's hardest setting...

So what else? Wrexham sign Eifion Williams, formiddable striker, who i hear can also play left midfield, so maybe the talk of Wrexham being top heavy with strikers isn't entirely true. I hope Juan Ugarte makes a full recovery from his injury / surgery complications though, if not, with regret, he'd have to go. What a striker when 'on it' though...

Twittering on... Ive added my Twitter badge/widget to this site, a kind of mini-blog I have open on my desk at work which only allows 140 characters, sort of SMS style, to just blog quick thoughts and stuff... i'll twitter away in that from time to time, it's down the right hand side.

That's about it for now... oh, I heard Travis' new track last night on the drive home, it's shit (like it was gonna be amazing or something). It's Iggy Pops "Lust For Life" drum beat slowed down with just terrible guitar and lyrics over it. The track started with no introduction or indication as to who or what it was, and I honestly thought, cool, a slowed down "Lust for Life", how's this going to work, could be interesting. No, it's just some middle of the road guitar band, with some bastard moaning on about his 'genes'. No apologies, it's shite.

"Where were you when I was edging?"

And you'd forgotten. OK, long time no post. A lot can happen in a month. I've upped-sticks / up-rooted from my 27 years or so of Conwy living and headed out towards Chester (just still in North Wales). A commute back 'home' to Conwy sees me driving into the postcard scene every other day, yet still I know it's "just Conwy". The other week days the commute takes me along Mold Road, Wrexham and every other day a twitch for a season ticket as I can't but help looking at the stadium, and peek through the gates to get a flash view of the green pitch and the concrete steps (soon to be demolished) of the Kop...

Reason for the move, is mainly down to my girlfriends new job out near Chester, working in a large .com company (9 years into this internet malarkey as a job/career, and i'm still keepin' it real in the N.Wales agencies! He tells himself...).

So i've moved. Into the groove of the A55 commute, and Wrexham traffic systems. I now have a "Welsh Water Account Reference Number", pay "Council Tax", have a "BT Account Number", have several shopping hours in IKEA under my belt (as well as the meatballs) this must make me a veteran? Had to laugh when emptying my jeans pockets (for the first spin in the washing machine) to find a Homebase Spend & Save Card 'application form' - that'll be from the time I had to nip there and buy my very own 'claw hammer'! We're also contracted to keep the garden tidy: a lawn mower, edging knife and a pair of garden shears are in the shed. What more could I want... mmm that Black & Decker Workmate? Never!...?

So there we are, i've been shopping in places I never thought my card would be swiped, and sorting everything an unfurnished house might need... As a break in the middle of this lot I was at a mates party one weekend in Shrewsbury, don't remember too much about it save the "hungover, ive got to pull over in this lay-by to lie down for an hour" drive home.

So anyway, just briefly, football. Morecambe the first home game of the season... roll on August. Our house backs onto the local football clubs ground/field, already i've looked them up and where they stand in the Welsh League system... think Conference North. More posts soon.

Wales v Czech Republic - Millennium Stadium - 02.06.07

Giggs is gone. To be fair I think most Welsh fans had been expecting this decision for a while. I know I had, it's crossed my mind before every game I've been to in the past two years. He could have gone after the play off loss against Russia or joined the exodus of players after Mark Hughes last game against Poland. He didn’t, he stayed around became captain and put in some of his best displays for Wales. Notably the double header against Northern Ireland and Azerbaijan where he pretty much single handedly dragged us to our first competitive wins under John Toshack. He clearly embraced his role as captain of his country, I’m sure it meant more when Gary Neville got the nod ahead of him for his club when Roy Keane left in 2005. It’s hard for me to imagine Wales without Giggs, I was eleven when he made his debut against West Germany in 1991. His commitment has been questioned over the years and his displays criticised at times. Let’s be honest, he really should have clocked up more than 64 caps in that amount of time but I think it’s crazy to suggest he somehow saved his best performances for Manchester United. I’m not sure what some people expected from the guy given the players around him and the level of opposition.

All opinions aside Saturday was a great occasion for all Welsh fans. It would have been nice to have had more than 30,000 in the Millennium Stadium for his send off. Had there been more than three days notice of his retirement I’m sure more could have made it here. I’ve read on a couple of message boards that the atmosphere in the stadium was once again dire. I have to disagree with that, ok it wasn’t amazing but it was miles better than the San Marino game. The Czech supporters were great, the “Thank you Ryan too” banner they unfurled at the start of the match was much appreciated by us Wales fans. Call me soppy but I like this mutual respect between fans. There’s a nice trend of Welsh crowd not booing the National Anthem of the opposition. You can understand some of the lads getting carried away against England and Northern Ireland but what’s the logic of jeering an anthem just to be offensive. I’ve always felt that if you boo the anthem the team will often react and play with more fire in their bellies. It’s the first step on a rocky road and before long we’ll be throwing patio chairs at foreign police officers. Anyway kudos to us for not doing it.

The game itself was great, it proved that there is such a thing as an exciting goalless draw. I’d say it was the best I’ve seen us play in ages. Beaumaris born goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey was excellent on his first start for Wales. (Re: My Blog 06.03.07 for more info) Naturally his shot stopping on the day caught the eye but what I liked was the confidence he had when collecting some of the Czech crosses. The defence looked strong. Jan Koller wasn’t given a sniff. Gabbidon thankfully had blown away the cob webs the week before against New Zealand and along with James Collins and Nyatanga they looked untroubled for most of the match. Ledley was brilliant down the left, it was a benchmark performance for him and he couldn’t have timed it better with Giggs going. Simon Davies looks like he’s growing in confidence since moving to Fulham, he had a great opportunity to score in the first half but didn’t hit it immediately as was required. His head dropped for a bit but he did alright in the second half. Apart from rattling the cross bar Koumas was quiet by his standards but did everything efficiently. It looked like he was clipped by one of the Czechs early on and struggled after that. Bellamy ran and ran like he always does for us, with Giggs gone he’s now our ‘main man’ and I’m sure he’s up to it. Ricketts and Robinson did their best and arguably put in their best performances for Wales but I can’t help but feel they were the weak links. If you swapped them for Bale and ideally David Jones of Derby we would look alright.

And Giggs? Well Giggs was Giggs. Giggs took the ‘Man of the Match’ award. Giggs gave a performance that pointed out how much we’d miss him. Giggs split the Czech defence and for a brief moment looked like he was going to score his greatest goal for Wales. Oh I can’t tell you how much we willed him to put that past Petr Cech, the noise would have been immense! I’ve got to admit I found it quite emotional when he passed the armband onto Craig Bellamy. I thought it was a great touch and a very symbolic gesture. I hadn’t realised until seeing the interviews on telly that he’d cried. I think that was final proof of how much playing for Wales meant to him. On a lighter note I found it quite funny when he was being subbed because he took his time walking off the field as he was enjoying his standing ovation. Any other situation he’d have been booked for time wasting. The Czech Republic who needed all three points clearly wanted him to hurry the hell up and get off the pitch.

He described the game as a ‘benchmark performance’ for Wales. It could have been a case of the team raising their game for the occasion, them wanting to give Ryan Giggs a decent send off. Although I’d like to think we’ve turned a corner, I’d like to think it was an indication that something clicked together. Perhaps now we know we’re not going through we may find ourselves playing without pressure and pick up a few unexpected points. I as a realist understand we’re not going through to Euro 2008 but I’d just like to say Wales have still got 18 points to play for and......oh come on let me dream!!!