Jim Dalrymple.com

Manchester United has certainly had its share of ups and downs over the past few years. Unfortunately, some of the problems the team has can be easily avoided—one such problem is Ronaldo.

I’m getting really tired of hearing the announcers talking about how fancy Ronaldo’s footwork is. Who the hell cares when he can’t do anything with the ball. He may be able to get around a couple of players, but he is so inept, he doesn’t know what to do next.

I actually don’t think he moves past the players as much as he moves sideways. At any rate he is useless. Ronaldo spends as much time rolling around the pitch as he does trying to figure out what to do with the ball. Pathetic!

Man Utd. Need more players like Wayne Rooney—that man is a talent. Sir Alex hasn’t been playing him as much as he should lately, but he’ll regret that.

Perhaps the best acquisition for any team recently was Van der Saar—he is one hell of a keeper.

Last week was incredibly busy. It started off with my birthday and ended with a fun weekend with Michael and my father attending the Windsor exhibition. The exhibition had two things that I had never seen before: a truck pull and a demolition derby.

On September 19th I turned 38. I don’t feel that old—I still listen to heavy metal, I’m playing guitar more than ever, work is going well; in short, I feel younger than ever. Maybe I’m just kidding myself—to be sure I think I need to buy a Porsche.

Monique bought me a new Zakk Wylde Overdrive pedal for my guitar, which has made a big difference in the gain level playing my Les Paul. My parents got me a new strap for the guitar and there were other assorted items, as well.

Last weekend Michael, my father and I headed off to a truck pull. I’ve never been to a truck pull before, but it was a lot better than I expected. The amount of money spent of these rigs must be incredible. Many of them were running alcohol and when they powered up it almost blew your eardrums.

Better than the truck pull was the demolition derby. These guys are just insane. They pile in their cars and just go, smashing into anything in their way. Some of the drivers actually had a strategy, but most of them just crashed.

A busy week, but it was a lot of fun.

Living in the same area that Sidney Crosby is from in Nova Scotia, I’m happy for the guy. I hope he goes on to break records and be one of the best players in the NHL … ever! But really, do we have to be so desperate for news?

The headline in the sports section of the local paper here in Halifax is “Crosby hits crossbar.” What’s next, “Crosby ties his shoes,” “Crosby takes out his garbage,” or how about “Crosby plays Xbox.”

Crosby got an assist in the game and by all accounts, played a good game—why not report on those facts? Are we really so desperate for the guy to score goals that we will report on the fact that he hit a post or crossbar?

Oh and the Bruins beat the Pens 5-4 in OT. Go Bs!

Depending on which newspaper you read or the news station you listen to, we could be hit with anything from a tropical storm to a hurricane. Ophelia is heading our way after battering North Carolina.

The storm, according to the Canadian Hurricane Center, has been very hard to track. They are counting on the storm taking an Easterly track, moving over the cold water of the Atlantic Ocean and losing steam as it hits Nova Scotia.

The problem, it seems, is that the storm has shifted its course several times and has threatened to take a more Northerly course. This, for us, would not be a good thing. This would effectively allow the storm to gain intensity, getting it back to hurricane strength.

Monique went to the grocery store yesterday and there was quite a mix of people shopping. Some had there shopping carts filled with everything but a power generator and others were treating the warnings like any other day.

We were caught off-guard once before when Hurricane Juan pounded us a couple of years ago. Nobody wants a repeat of that mess. We are stocked up but it’s hard to tell what the storm will bring.

It’s been raining all day—very intensely at times, but the storm isn’t supposed to hit until the wee hours of tomorrow morning.

Besides being great friends, Ozzy Osbourne and longtime guitarist Zakk Wylde have made some of the best heavy metal songs of all time. Fans of the pair were a bit distressed earlier this month when Ozzy posted a note to his Web site looking for a new guitarist.

Ozzy has blessed Zakk’s solo project, Black Label Society, which has become more of a lifestyle for band members and fans. However, even with Zakk’s busy touring schedule, a new CD and an upcoming DVD he said in a recent interview that he is willing to play with Ozzy again.

“Ozzy knows I’ll always be there for him,” Zakk said in the interview. “What comes around goes around, ‘cause I remember Ozzy, awhile ago when he was lookin’ for a guitar player, he goes, ‘Zakk, it’s a nightmare.’”

“I mean the bottom line is, with Oz, he makes the calls, he’s the boss, you know what I mean? Whenever he tells me to jump, I ask, ‘how high?’ With us it’s real easy, Sharon calls Barbara Ann, my wife, and goes, ‘Tell the idiot to be down at rehearsals on Wednesday.’ ‘What time?’ ‘Tell him to be there at 1 O’clock.’”

Let’s hope that Ozzy decides to ask Zakk to play on the next CD.

Yeah, yeah my first post in a while and I’m whining—deal with it! I’m not sure what the hell happened to me this afternoon, but I have had a dull headache for the last couple of hours.

It started around lunch and just hasn’t gone away. I’m too damn busy to just go up and lay down for the rest of the day, although that’s exactly what I want to do.

Most of the work involves phone calls today, too, so people seem to be screaming on the other end. I just want to reach through the phone and strangle them.

My plane just took off from San Francisco, so I’m probably somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 feet in the air as I head home from attending Apple’s music event earlier this week. That was a damn fine event—it’s no wonder Apple is leading the way in this industry.

Of course the big announcements of the week were the iPod nano and the Motorola ROKR. I love my little nano—it was so cool, I’m almost afraid I might break it though.

The iTunes phone is another story—at least in my experience. I know some people have it working, but I wasn’t able to get it to work and neither were many others. That was disappointing to me, but that wasn’t the big thing for me anyway; the nano is the big announcement.

I love how Apple keeps changing the game on its competition. They aren’t changing the rules, they really are changing the game.

I’m looking forward to getting home and seeing Monique and the kids.