It’s Christmas time – well almost – and that means life at the Hindmarsh house is getting exciting. Ordinarily this would mean the kids, but it’s me who is a big kid and just can’t wait for Christmas, and I never could. As a kid I would regularly snoop to find my presents early until the time I did, got caught and found a load of trouble.

But I honestly love getting into the spirit of the season and have been in the process of decorating the roof of the new house with lights. It’s a trial and error process, and fortunately I’m yet to have the Homer Simpson experience of falling off the roof tangled in the lights – I did say yet!

I’m using the rope lights this year instead of the fairy lights to go along with the Santa Claus on the aerial, the tree, the shooting star and the Merry Christmas sign. I’m hoping the kids will love it, but I have competition around the corner as my own Ned Flanders looks to outdo me ( I don’t dislike the guy his display is just looking very good).

I’ll take some photos and post them on the blog.

I’m also looking forward to Andrew Ryan’s buck’s day this weekend. I can’t imagine it being too big a day, we’re all old enough to know better and Mick Vella is providing the beverages, so they should be provided responsibly.

I’ve been playing a bit more golf and have won the battle against my slice, until I stop playing again that is. It’s really a sport where you have to be very dedicated and constantly working at your game, but I’m on top of it for now.

I, like thousands of others, missed out on Bon Jovi tickets so the next target will be Foo Fighters - the  boys always put on a great show. In another life I would have loved to be in an 80s glam rock band.

I go back to training on Monday and I’m ready for it, but I’ll know whether the body is on about Wednesday – it probably won’t be.

So on to footy and I suppose Piggy Riddell has been in the news. What happened, happened, but I have never been targeted when I was out. I think it depends on where you are, also if people dislike you there isn’t much you can do about it.

Hages has reportedly asked Mark to become an 80 minute player. I’m sure he could do it if he cut back on the junk food. I mean no disrespect to Piggy I just know he likes the stuff, however I will say he doesn’t drink as much as some people would have you believe.

However I would like to see him maybe play 60 minutes with part of it as an impact player.

I want to clear up a couple of enquiries I often receive and address a few things. First off ‘Cashy’ I think it would be very difficult to keep both Inu and Hayne. Jarryd looks like he is wrapped up and to keep Krisnan would be great, but I would imagine there will be a lot of very enticing offers coming his way. The players are so much better at a young age these days and it’s very hard to keep them all. In the case of these two I hope we can.

As for it being the year of the Eel in 2008 I certainly hope it is. I want that premiership more than most people know, having come so close to winning one. Not winning one would always disappoint me looking back on my career. It’s a huge deal to me; I struggle to watch grand finals as it is.

With all the player signings still going on, maybe we should have a draft week? It’s not a bad idea but the idea was scrapped about six years ago. It could work but I still think it’s very hard to be uprooted from where you want to be.

I can see the penalties coming for grapple tackles in early 2008. But what is a grapple tackle?

I think the penalties should be for a choke, not a wrapping tackle around the shoulder and neck, those tackles have been around for years, and to disallow them would take away from the game. In my opinion there should only be a penalty when a player’s momentum has stopped and they are being choked around the neck on the ground, otherwise we risk the game looking like touch footy.

Hindy