As I still have a "bulldogs" tag on this journal I figured I would jot down some thoughts.

At the end of the 2003 AFL season the Western Bulldogs and their rookie head coach Peter Rohde were in "Win Now" mode, a top 16 finish giving them the confidence that a few shrewd trades would allow them to compete with the likes of Brisbane, Essendon, Collingwood and Port Adelaide for the 2004 premiership. With this in mind they traded their second round draft pick (19) to Fremantle for versatile utility Steven Koops.

Koops played 11 games for the Western Bulldogs, averaging 10 disposals and contributing to two wins in a campaign that saw them finish 14th.

With the pick they received, Fremantle drafted David Mundy.

I've thought about this trade occasionally over the past nineteen years. Imagine if a more practical David Smorgon had chosen to continue the rebuild in 2003 and picked up Mundy. How would the 2008-2010 Bulldog's preliminary finals have gone with Mundy in the midfield going head to head with Lenny Hayes? Would the injury curse of 2006 have seen him as the sixth Bulldog to go down with an ACL that year? How would Mundy have celebrated in 2016 with Picken, Matthew Boyd and Dale Morris? How would Mundy's cool head have helped settle his team mates in 2022 after four straight goals leading into half time by the Dockers in an Elimination Final?

Perhaps this was one of those sliding door moments, where the bottom three finish in 2004 - giving the Bulldogs a priority pick (Ryan Griffen, ultimately traded to GWS for Tom Boyd's kicked a goal, Boyd's kicked a goal) - worked out in the end. The fact that Mundy spent all of 2004 in the WAFL, and assuming he devloped with Williamstown in the same way, means the Bulldog's drafting of Griffen would have occurred regardless, thus bringing little comfort.

There have been worse trades in AFL history, but a basement dwelling team trading the first pick of the second round for an AFL legend who would go on to 374+ games must surely be in the top ten at a position similar to where David Mundy will end up in the all time games list. And there is a certain sense of irony in the fact that, in 2022, Mundy's poise, experience, and contested possessions were precisely what Fremantle needed to inflict another failed season on the Bulldogs. The only solace for their fans now would be knowing that in 2023, nearly two decades later, the last traces of the Peter Rhode era are over.

Note - This entry is slightly unfair on Steven Koops, whose injuries forced him to retire before the 2005 season. (Although that was not before he joined the AFL Indigenous All-Stars for a final game in Darwin against the Bulldogs in February 2005, where he and his team mates beat the Dogs by 28 points, 12.19 (91) to 10.3 (63))

You’ll definitely have noticed by now the decline in breakfast related entries on my journal over the past twelve months. The root cause of this has been the crack in my tooth which ran all the way to the nerve. Like most of my injuries, this appeared from the ether like the misdirected spell and neither filling nor crown were able to relieve the symptoms of pain whenever I bit down on something small and firmer than peach flesh. This excluded all the good breakfast cereals.

First thing this morning I munched down on berries, yogurt, and a bowl full of crushed up Weet Bix, rolled oats, and muesli complete with flaxseed clusters and pepitas. And I had no pain. Later, I sucked down mouthfuls of Bhuja nut mix with sultanas with no regard to which side of my mouth the nuts and grains should be masticated. This was amazing. For the first time in over a year I was able to chomp without lightning bolts of agony racing down my jaw. A shroud was lifted. I felt like I might not be a completely broken down human being existing on this planet out of habit.

And the secret to this turnaround? It was simply to pay an endodontist thousands of dollars to drill a small hole in me and extract out the pulp of nerves and blood vessels in my tooth that were connected to the pain centre in my brain. That was it! I can’t believe how easy it was. What else can I get root canaled? My hamstring tendon? My lumbar spine? My iliotibial band? My Western Bulldogs fandom 2007-2010? And after all that, my wallet?

Someone once told me, and I'm paraphrasing a little, "Brad, your journal entries are terrible but sometimes the last line is good."

Could this be correct? Is almost everything I write simply dross that delays a fleeting, tingly nugget of brilliant literacy?

To find out, I wrote a program to take the last sentence from 15 random entries and to combine them into, apparently, what will be my greatest journal entry ever.

The Last Sentences
What an empowering and humid day.

I may not have a nice whiff for the next few weeks, but today things have stunk as good as ever. I will get there, eat Sizzler, catch up with cousins, watch Bulldogs, eat more sizzler, drive home. Hopefully I didn't just earthquake jinx myself.

I microwaved my lunch in the office kitchen today like I was James Bond. It took me about five minutes to fill the sanitary bag with shampoo, but it should be at least five weeks before I've emptied it again. Oh, and did you know it's possible to talk on the phone for 30 minutes? The shell... it's actually a beard!
"A Mochary," he whispered.
Coffee and sunset has become like red and purple clothing, I like both, but never at the same time.

Good work you fucking moron.

So there I was, down $125 but happy at least in the balance of the world. And as I lay there, with practically the cooked contents of a children's petting zoo in my stomach, I realised why it was that the animals don't like Christmas, and why I do.

This Summer has brought 400mls of rain, in between days of warm sunshine and greenhouse like humidity. When I lie in bed early in the morning I can fucking hear the lawn photosynthesizing. This bothers me, because I have to mow it, and I hate mowing. I mowed for two hours today and I scowled at every plant I passed.

The five day forecast is for up to 110mls of rain and a mean daily maximum of 27 degrees. That's terrifying. You can actually see the grass growing in the hours after a storm, thickening and creeping further and further up the back stairs.

I am never going to use the phrase "like watching grass grow" to describe something boring again. From now on it will mean "horrifying". Someone will be, like, "Brad, did you see one of the Western Bulldogs dislocate both his knees in the first quarter of Saturday's game?" and I will reply, "I did, I saw the super slow-motion replay and you can see the bulge of the tendons as they lose grip of the knee cap. It was horrifying. It was like watching grass grow."

I've had quite a few keyrings over my life so far. There's usually been a queue and - during my high school years - there has been a rotation too. So it was a little strange a month ago to notice that I had no keyring. I think the last one to be on there was a Western Bulldogs one but I haven't seen that one since September. My keys now said nothing about my personality except that I drove an Australian car.
Then Chow went to Europe and made it a competition to guess how many kilos he would gain while he was over there. I won, and yesterday in the mail I found this:

Thanks Chow. Now the people at airport parking will have an insight into what makes me Brad.

Another week down. Another Western Bulldogs reference inserted into a Rip It Up review.

I'm excited about football.
The Western Bulldogs called me today. They wanted money. It was nice to speak to them.
I looked at the odds on Betfair for teams making the Top 8. The Bulldogs were 1.22, and assuming they make it payout would be at the end of August which is just under seven months. That seems way better than a term deposit. But there's always the risk they don't make it.

I think the only way they won't make finals this year is if I bet all my money on them making it.
They're playing an intra-club match on Saturday. If I could bet on them winning that I would.

Also I'm going to put it out there, not joining Fantasy Footy is like the best thing you can do to give yourself more free time over winter.

Since Thursday some time I've had two journal entries in my head for tonight, one for if the Bulldogs won and one for if the Bulldogs got thrashed.

I guess I was hoping - and I'm not saying life has been rough lately, but - with all the injury crap and work crap I've put up with the last 12 months I was hoping some of that energy might be channeling into the Bulldogs. Like, SURPRISE! Remember 2009? When you got railroaded into a shitty job and couldn't even lift weights or play basketball to relieve the stress? Remember it good, because that's when the Dogs won the premiership.

As discussed in a previous entry, I know I take following that team far too seriously in lieu of other passions, but it's for the best. My heart-rate was triple what any normal person's would be like watching the TV on a Friday night. I probably burned 1000 calories. At the same moment Vanessa fell asleep.

Still, I'm proud of my team. As someone who's been on basketball teams who finished top only to plummet out in finals, I know that failure and commitment don't correlate. There's always next year. When I wake up it will no longer be Winter.