Manchester United Domination is Back!

Since the departure of Jose Mourinho, it looks like Manchester United is all but set to be the sole dominant force in English football once more, pretty much like the 1990s. What is the reason? Is it because of an influx of fresh young blood into Manchester United’s already star-studded team? Is it because of Chelsea weakening due to Jose Mourinho’s departure?

The answer is actually closer to the second question compared to the first one. Why? All of us knew that Sir Alex Ferguson is a wily old manager with the reputation of winning matches days before the match-day itself with his notorious mind-games skills. Since Jose Mourinho’s infamous departure from Chelsea, Fergie is once again free as there is no one else to inhibit his mind-gaming forays within English Premier League. (Just for information, Jose Mourinho seems to be the only one in the world who is able to equal if not beat Fergie’s mind games, and with all due respects, Arsene Wenger is far from equaling Fergie’s mind games, in case you ask me about him).

The sign of this was very clear in the 2006-2007 season in which Manchester United were crowned English Champions for the first time since 2003. In this particular season, Mourinho’s influence in English football had already diminished due to the fact that his relations with Roman Abramovich was deteriorating fast. Ferguson was able to capitalize on this situation and go on with the championship winning season.

The sign became clear this season, or if you have been reading football news intently everyday like me, you would have already noticed Ferguson’s latest mind-games scheme, in lieu to Sepp Blatter’s latest proposal (refer to the previous posting on this proposal to know more about this). The very first victim to taste Ferguson’s regained dominance in English football is none other than Arsene Wenger, the person who has been bullied by Ferguson’s mind games for almost a decade.

Ferguson stated before their encounter in the Emirates Stadium, in the scintillating match which was ended 2-2 due to William Gallas’ heroics late in the game, that if Sepp Blatter is to go on with his proposal soon, Arsenal would be the ones who are protesting the loudest.

On the surface, it seems to be one simple comment blurted out by an old man. However, we have to recognize the fact that it came from one of the greatest managers in the world and that the comment came just before their match against Arsenal. What more can one ask for a proof that this was intended to stir up Arsenal’s morale prior to their match?

The effect of this little mind-game to the match is up to each fan to judge whether it was a success or even a failure as Manchester United did not win the match.

One thing for sure, however, is for the fans of EPL clubs other than Manchester United to endure a prolonged period of Manchester United domination in English football again…

Football Manager 2008

A nice football game. Decided to take over Chelsea in this game. Not because of their fame and fortunes, but because I like their shirts .




This is the result of my first ever competitive match in Football Manager 2008. As you could see in the picture above, my Chelsea side won the Community Shield against Manchester United 4-2 in a scintillating fashion.

Sepp Blatter's latest proposal

FIFA President Sepp Blatter has proposed for a new rule in which European Union clubs are no longer allowed to field more than 5 non-local players. (For example, Arsenal FC is only allowed to field at most 5 non-English players). This proposal has shaken the European Union footballing world, and this proposal is expected to make as huge if not bigger impact on football as the famous “Bosman” ruling.

Let us take one league, the English Premier League. Upon hearing about this proposal, many young English players would be delighted as they would be having more opportunities to grace the field week in week out with their teams and possibly getting into the limelight and be a superstar. The England National Team manager will also be delighted as more talents will mean more choices of players to choose from.

Meanwhile, top clubs in the league, especially Arsenal will lament on this rule as they have little or no English players in their squads. One notable example here is of course Arsenal. Their first team and even their reserves squad has very little number of English players. To compound this, the few English players in Arsenal’s team are actually fringe players with little or no potential to be world class players competent enough to compete in the highest level.

In my personal opinion, this proposal will not materialize, at least in the short run due to fierce challenges by the top clubs, and especially if G-14, the organization of 18 top clubs in Europe are already come into the fray, it will be a draggy and long legal battle.

However, we don’t know what might happen in the long run. Perhaps this will still materialize, albeit to the expense of the popularity of Sepp Blatter among Europe’s top clubs. All of us know that the charismatic and colorful president has taken such stances before, most notably in the introduction of “Home-grown rule” in the Champions League squads two years ago (in which this rule was also lamented upon by top clubs).

In any case, football fans like us can only keep our fingers crossed so that whatever policies or proposals are implemented into the beautiful game, the entertainment value and fair play elements won’t be eroded.

Viva la Futbol!

Football's funny moments

May I present, a compilation of various funny and exhilarating moments in football!

For Chinese (hokkien) music fans, enjoy the music. For those who can't stand listening to Hokkien songs, just turn the volume all the way down and enjoy the video.

Thanks!

Man Utd 1-0 AS Roma

It is very sad to say that AS Roma has been defeated by Manchester United at Old Trafford by a single goal to nil.

It has been known all along that Old Trafford is a very tough cauldron to win matches in due to the intimidating atmosphere that the stadium brings, even when the stadium is empty, the intimidating elements are still there.

This intimidating atmosphere was proven just before the match when Alexandre Doni, AS Roma’s first choice goalkeeper was “taken ill” prior to the match and had to be replaced by Gianluca Curci, a young goalkeeper who is dubbed as the next Gianluigi Buffon. Doni was ill perhaps due to his traumatic experience in the same stadium five months ago when he let in no lesser than seven goals.

Actually, as a fan, I always prefer Curci to be the first choice goalkeeper for Roma. The quality he possesses is obvious for all to see and putting him on the bench for every match is not doing anything good to his development and he might even lose his potential to be the next Gianluigi Buffon. It is very sad to see the number of young goalkeeper with immense potential being left to rot on the bench. Two other examples are Libis Andres Arenas who is rotting in Lazio as well as Oscar Ustari who is warming the bench in Getafe.

For the match of Man Utd vs Roma itself, the winning goal was scored by Wayne Rooney at the 70^th minute to prevent Roma from taking back anything from their visit to Manchester.

Even if Roma is defeated, this does not mean that their chance of progressing to the next round of the competition is hampered. There are many other matches to be played in the group stage of the Chsmpions League.

Forza Roma!

Man Utd vs Roma

Manchester United will be hosting AS Roma on Tuesday (European time) in their Champions League group stage match. This is the rematch of last season’s quarter final of the same competition. To be specific, this match is the rematch of the second leg of that quarter final in which AS Roma were trounced a whopping 7-1 and effectively knocked them out of the competition despite defeating Manchester United in the first leg which was played in Rome.

If all of you are thinking that I am posting this entry to express my support for Manchester United, like the majority would do, you are dead wrong here. I am not a football fan mercenary who is hopping from one team or another. I reckon there are way too many football fan mercenaries in this world. One great example is when Jose Mourinho left Chelsea and when Juventus were stripped of their two league titles and demoted to Serie B. Many of the fans of those two clubs left the club and decided to support other teams. Back to the main point, I am supporting and will still be supporting Roma no matter what.

In my opinion, there’s a chance Roma could stage a revenge against Manchester United at Old Trafford and brining back all 3 points to Rome. This is so despite the recent departures of some stars like Cristian Chivu and more recently, due to the fact that Roma were just thrashed 4-1 by the incumbent champions of Serie A, Inter Milan.

Many people would dismiss Roma’s chance to even get a point from this match based on tha latter fact alone. However, as a football analyst, we have to read scorelines between the lines. Which means, the 4-1 scoreline is actually does not reflect anything much. Think about this, it was a build up to the Manchester United match and Roma must choose to prioritize between these matches. Roma rightfully chose to sacrifice the Serie A clash with Inter as the Champions League clash is more crucial and this is compounded with the revenge effect. Also, focusing on Serie A would be pointless as Inter is predicted to run Serie A ragged and dominate again. In short, Serie A has been decided right from the start of the new season.

I am hoping that Roma could give Manchester United a run of their money and get all 3 points. I also hope to see Francesco Totti lifting the much coveted UEFA Champions League trophy in Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow in May 2008!

Feng Shui is a reality

For those of us who do not believe or are underestimating the power of Feng Shui, it would be good if all of you could revamp your images on Feng Shui.

For many people, especially non-Chinese and Westerners alike, Feng Shui might be thought as a ridiculous superstitious belief which serves only in making those who believe become a fool.

However, let me share with everyone my wonderful and perhaps scary experience with Feng Shui.

It happened a few days ago when I decided to remove the mirror in my bathroom to be put in my room instead. Just 2-3 days after the removal of the mirror, I had a terrible splitting headache. The pain was really unbearable, it is reminiscence to migraine in which one point on the head feels like being impaled by a knife.

Two days after the terrible headache started, I remembered about the mirror and decided to return the mirror to its original position, which is in the bathroom. The miracle happened right at this point of time. Just merely a few seconds after putting the mirror back in the bathroom, the headache suddenly subsided. The pain did not go away and as this entry is being written, the pain is still there, however, it has subsided considerably compared to when the mirror was still outside of the bathroom.

Based on this incident, it is important to respect Feng Shui and put things in their rightful place. This is because, putting things like mirrors in the wrong place could distract the flow of Chi energy by either inhibiting it or reflecting it to another place, resulting in jeopardy for those who live in the house.

The message is clear. Feng Shui has been tried and tested and the whole mechanism itself had been set with extreme scientific accuracy and precision by the wisemen of China in the past. Think about it, of Feng Shui is not true, why do people rake out millions of dollars just to hire a Feng Shui master to look into their houses and listen to their advices?

Ketoconazole

The oral medication used to treat tinea capitis or yeast infections (candidiasis) is the administering of Ketoconazole.

This chemical works more or less in the same way as the creams. It basically interferes with the enzyme that helps to synthesize ergosterol in the fungal cells.

Even though ketoconazole is an essential drug used to treat fungal infections, some patients may find the treatment process painful due to the side effects that are brought by this drug. Some of the side effects include nausea, dizziness, fatigue, and some sensitive patients even develop new rashes and itchiness.

Road to recovery is never easy and the recovery itself comes with a rather heavy price to pay sometimes.

Tinea Capitis

Tinea Capitis is one of the several types of tinea which affects the scalp of a person. Tinea is an infection caused by fungus. Other types of tinea includes Tinea Corporis, which affects body parts like arms or legs and tinea cruris, which affects the groin area.

Due to the fact that everything about tinea can be found either in wikipedia or by typing “tinea” in the search box of google, I shall not delve into the fine details to prevent unnecessary duplication of efforts.

This disease is very resistant to treatment and the treatment itself is very costly and consisting of oral antifungal medicine and antifungal creams. The medicines are working by basically destroying as well as inhibiting the synthesis of ergosterol, an essential component of the fungus’ cell membrane. Ergosterol is mainly used in the synthesis of Vitamin D as well as to make the membrane partially permeable. Ergosterol is actually the equivalent of cholesterol, which is found on animal’s (including human’s) cell membrane.

When ergosterol is no longer present due to the action of the medicines, the permeability of the cell membrane of the fungus will be affected such that ions in the fungus cell such as K+ and H+ will rapidly leak out of the cell resulting in the necrosis of the cells (death).

Tinea capitis is perhaps a common disease. However, take it lightly at your own peril…

Old Lady is smiling in Italy

There’s something strange in the Italian Serie A matchday this week. The strange thing is the “Old Lady” is smiling throughout Italy at that time. In case you are wondering what on earth I am talking about or wondering whether my sanity is still within me, what I meant by Old Lady is simply Juventus FC. (Again, as per the previous entry, no prize for guessing the correct answer…)

To cut the long story short, all old boys of Juventus were shining for their respective clubs in all the matches.

First and foremost, Inter Milan, the incumbent champions of Serie A. Ibrahimovic, who is a former Juventus player netted 2 goals in their 3-0 victory over Sampdoria. Secondly, Adrian Mutu, another former Juventus player who was there for 2 years scored a goal to equalize the score to 2-2 for his club Fiorentina against my beloved AS Roma and thus earning Fiorentina a point from that match. The last one is perhaps the most significant one. Fabrizio Miccoli, former Juventus striker scored the winning goal at the very last minute to give his club, Palermo a 2-1 victory over AC Milan.

Besides the Serie A, there are similar phenomena in Serie B. A former Juventus defensive midfield Alessio Tacchinardi scored the opening goal for his club, Brescia in their 2-2 draw against Bologna.

By looking at all these, we could clearly see that Juventus is the team of the week. Everyone who is associated or at one point connected to Juventus was smiling.

Let us hope that in the next matchday of the UEFA Champions League, the lady-luck will be on AS Roma’s side in their match against Manchester United in the “Theatre of Dreams” which is the Old Trafford Stadium. In this match, AS Roma will require luck if they are to get their revenge for the 7-1 drubbing against the same opponent in the same venue as well as the same competition last season.

Hull City vs Chelsea.

I have decided to support Hull City in their upcoming match against Chelsea in the Third Round of the Carling Cup (formerly and better known as League Cup) and the match will be played in the Kingston Communications Stadium, or KC Stadium in short, which is the home ground of Hull City.

I have decided to root for the extreme underdogs mainly because of the Special One’s departure. In case you are wondering who the Special One is, the answer is Jose Mourinho (no prizes for guessing it correctly, even if you are an old lady who has limited knowledge on football). Chelsea’s current situation is just like one of the Malay proverbs “Patah Kemudi Perahu Hanyut”. If this is translated to English, it literally means when the ship’s steer is broken, the ship will be lost in oblivion. Chelsea has just lost a guiding light, a great leader. Another proverb that could be used to describe Chelsea is they are just like “chickens that have just lost their hen”. This situation is appalling. To add to all these, the current replacement of Jose Mourinho is someone who does not even have a proper UEFA coaching license. Yes, perhaps his license is pretty good or even very good in his native Israel. However, we are talking about managing a top club in one of the best leagues in the world.

Actually, the root of all these problems that have been hitting Chelsea is none other than Roman Abramovich. The Russian is reminiscence to Florentino Perez, the former Real Madrid chairman who infamously sacked Vicente del Bosque and Fernando Hierro for not agreeing in his decision to purchase Beckham. At the first place, it is already very wrong for a chairman to meddle in the first team affairs of a football team, let alone purchasing players and demanding the poor manager to play the player in the first team week in week out. Think about it, put yourself in Jose Mourinho’s shoes. You have successfully assembled a cohesive teams in which the players are all put in place properly and you are ready to dominate the world of football just to realize a little while ago that your chairman has just bought a certain Andrei Shevchenko and Michael Ballack who are clearly not suited to be in the team and they are also not suited with the style of English Premier League. I am sure anyone would be fed up with that kind of board of management.

Back to the Third Round match of Hull City against Chelsea. I just hope that Hull City could pull a big upset against Chelsea and knock them out of the League Cup. This will be the battle of a tiger against a lion. (Hull City’s nickname is “The tigers” while Chelsea has a lion on their logo).

I believe an upset is in store for all of us because firstly, Hull will be playing on front of their own fans in their own full house stadium and secondly, their attack will be led by Henrik Pedersen and Augustine “Jay-Jay” Okocha. They may not be the greatest due to their age nowadays. However, I have a feeling that both of them will be the ones who deliver the sucker punch to Chelsea.

Go TIGERS GO!

Gearing up for the big battle!

I am currently assembling all my available troops in the process of gearing up to brace arguably the war of my life at the moment. The outcome of this battle will decide where I might be at 1^st January 2008.

At the moment, I am heavily outnumbered. Compared to the 100000 troops that the enemy have at their disposals, my troops can hardly be considered an army. However, I have to win this battle with all my might.

If I win this battle, I will have my foot firmly stepping on this piece of land where I am in now. If I lose, I may have to move on to other areas, which will be harsher and perhaps send my city-state into jeopardy. At the moment, the chances of coming out victors in this battle is quite slim, 40% chance of winning can be considered a very generous and lenient estimation by any standards….

Mourinho left Chelsea (Elaboration pending)

My favorite manager Jose Mourinho has left Chelsea FC in “Mutual Agreement”.

My verdict on this would be that Mourinho might end up in FC Barcelona this coming January if things do not go well and Frank Rijkaard gets the sack.

Perhaps, a manager swap with Arsenal may occur if the takeover by Usmanov, a Russian businessman is materialized. However, I do not think Mourinho will relish this opportunity as I believe Mourinho has developed a degree of phobia to wealthy Russian chairmen.

Trying time

Progress in Suikoden has not been good due to time constraints at the moment. However, starting from next month onwards, there will be PLENTY of playing time for me, and the playing time that will be available is in fact comes in excess. It is scary to think that I have an approximate of 3 hours of playing day at least everyday. Even more so on the weekend, I keep my fingers crossed that I will have a sufficient number of games to sustain me until November, but I doubt that will happen considering the amount of playing time I will be having from October to the end of November.

Many people would congratulate me and some people have even urged me to be thankful for the “luck” that I have for having plenty of playing time. However, I am far from happy as instead of blessing in disguise, in this particular case, there’s actually a curse in disguise. On the surface, it seems really awesome to be having plenty of playing time to boot, but it is actually not that great after all.

First and foremost, those three hours or more each day designated for playing is actually not a leisure time. Those hours are actually the waiting time between two demanding activities of the day. Secondly, on these days for the two months period (from October to November) I must wake up before the rooster even gets to the REM sleep, which is in the unholy hour of 5am and from that time onwards, I will be kept really busy like a prisoner in a concentration camp until at least 8pm before I could feel the comfort of my home. Even then, nothing could be done as it would be so late to do anything and the next day, the cycle starts again. Thirdly, during the long hours of waiting, it is not that as if I will be getting a very comfortable place to play Suikoden or any other games I might be playing. Instead, I will be playing in the worst of all places with so many disturbances and irritants alike constantly bugging me. This is compounded with the fact that I would not be at 100% due to the early time I have to wake up at and the demanding and sometimes ridiculous activities that I have to go through on the day.

So I am just praying to God, god, goddess, deity, Zeus or whoever is up there listening that I will get through this trying time in one piece. The whole struggle will start from 8^th October 2007 and will stretch all the way until 25^th October 2007 if I am lucky or if I am unlucky, it will last until 22^nd November 2007.

A weapons peddler and a wise man

Once upon time, there was a weapons peddler selling his goods in the streets. On that particular day, he was selling his best shields and swords. In an attempt to grab the attention of the public in the bustling streets, he promoted his weapons by shouting out loud the best features that his shields and swords possessed.

“My swords are the best! It is able to slice through anything in this world!” He went on promoting about the greatness of his swords.

“My shields are second to none! It is able to withstand any weapons in this world!” He continued to promote his shields.

A wise man happened to walk by him at that time. The wise man turned to the peddler and asked, “Young man, if I may, I would like to ask you just one question regarding your fine weapons.”

The peddler, visibly happy as he managed to secure the attention of somebody replied, “Hohoho, go ahead, sir. My weapons are the best! You won’t regret purchasing them!”

The wise man then went on to ask his question, “Young man, what would happen if you use your sword to slice your shield, since your sword is able to slice through anything while your shield is impervious to any attacks?”

The peddler’s face turned pale as he was at a loss for words. Furthermore, the question was asked in front of a very large crowd…

What is the moral of the story? Post your answers!

Chinese undead

Have you ever wondered why Chinese undead are all wearing that particular type of dress while moving about by hopping around with their arms stretched out in front of them?

The reason dates back to when the Japanese started to invade China. During this time, the Japanese slaughtered so many Chinese military officers (The dress is actually that of a military officer of China at that era) that there are too many corpses all around in the cities of China for the people to handle. To be efficient, the people devised a special method to clean up these corpses perhaps for identification purposes or just a part of the ceremony being held to treat these corpses as they should be treated. The method to line up these corpses was to tie their hands onto the trees by using ropes in standing position. This explains why the hands of these corpses are positioned as such.

On why they are moving around in hops, it is because of one very simple reason. All of us know that corpses are stiff in nature, and thus, they are not able to move swiftly and with relative ease like what we living people are doing. This is why they are moving about that way.

If any of you readers are wondering why I am suddenly bringing up this topic, this is because a friend of mine was talking about this in his website and I would also like to convey this message across.

Suikoden V

Progress in Suikoden so far

The current game being played by me is Suikoden 1. Suikoden, the very first installment of the Suikoden series can be considered as a very short and simple game. Many gamers are saying that Suikoden is a merely a warming up compared to playing other RPG games such as the Final Fantasy series or even Xenogears. Nevertheless, Suikoden is one of the best games around despite its 2D nature. In terms of audio, it boasts one of the best sound systems and the quality of the audio in the game can be compared to some of not most of the modern games.

To cut the long story short, I am currently approaching the half-way point of the game, and for those who have played the game, I am now at the Scarleticia Castle, right after the Liberation Army failed miserably in attacking Milich Oppenheimer’s Scarleticia Castle due to the giant and poisonous rose pollen which protects the castle.

2008 Olympics Qualifier AFC Region standings

This is the latest standing of the 2008 Olympic qualifiers for AFC region as of the posting is written.

Group A

Iraq 4pts 2games

Australia 4pts 2games

Lebanon 3pts 2games

North Korea 0pt 2games

Group B

South Korea 6pts 2games

Bahrain 3pts 2games

Syria 1pt 2games

Uzbekistan 1pt 2games

Group C

Qatar 4pts 2games

Japan 4pts 2games

Vietnam 1pt 2games

Saudi Arabia 1pt 2games

There are three vacancies left for AFC in the 2008 summer Olympics. By looking at the tables, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that only the teams which come out on top of their respective groups will join China, the host country and qualify for the actual tournament next year.


On paper, and based on the current standings, many people would have predicted that Australia, South Korea, and Japan will qualify for the actual tournament. However, as it has always been, anything can happen in the world of football and teams that are languishing at the bottom of their groups can even rise in the remaining 4 games and come out top. All eyes will particularly be fixed to Vietnam, which is the only South East Asian country in this round of qualification as well as North Korea, which is an isolated country and is the only communist country left in this world. It would be a major shock if both teams can qualify from their respective groups. Keep your fingers crossed. Anything can happen in football and we could even see Vietnam or North Korea hogging the medals next year!

England 3-0 Israel

Many wouldn’t have guessed an injury-ravaged England team with morale at an all-time low would have beaten Israel 3-0 with relative ease. This is true even when it is taken into account the fact that Israel did not play to win but they simply defended like there is no tomorrow to grind out a goalless draw, a feat which they were able to pull off in the earlier encounter with England at home in Israel.

The goals came from Shaun Wright Phillips, Michael Owen, and Micah Richards. This victory is significant to England as firstly, it saved Steve McClaren’s job as England manager, for now at least. Secondly, it boosted the morale of the English team significantly and they couldn’t ask for more prior to another vital home game against Russia next Wednesday. Last but not least, a victory means that England obtained another 3 points and a step closer towards qualification to Euro 2008 which will be co-hosted in Switzerland and Austria. Also, this victory was also meaningful as it is the first victory of England in the new Wembley Stadium.

Vietnam 1-1 Qatar

A great match between Vietnam and Qatar has just finished. This is one of the matches of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics qualifier. On paper, it looks like Qatar is going to be the outright winner in the match and Vietnam will have to settle as the whipping boys. However, that was not the case. It was an entertaining and swashbuckling football on offer live from Hanoi.

As could be seen in the title, the match ended with the two teams sharing the spoils at 1-1. Both of the goals in the match came at the first 13 minutes of the match. At the 10^th minute, Qatar capitalized on a terrible defensive error made by a Vietnamese defender who slipped and a Qatar striker got the ball and simply just passed the ball into the back of the net. A very beautiful goal and from this goal, many people would have thought that it is the start of a heavy thrashing of Vietnam by Qatar.

However, it was not to be. Just 3 minutes after Qatar had taken the lead, Vietnam got a free-kick in a very dangerous position just outside Qatar’s penalty box. There were several players standing around the ball. One of them was number 9, Le Cong Vinh, the golden boy of Vietnam football. There was one other player besides him. Le Cong Vinh made the run-up to hit the ball, but just before he hit the ball, to everyone’s surprise, he kicked the ball softly in front of him just for Vu Phong, number 17 who had been lurking from behind to hit the ball. The ball flew like a rocket and hit the back of the net for Vietnam’s equalizer. Game on.

From here on, it erased all earlier predictions that Qatar would thrash Vietnam heavily. Thoughts of Vietnam scoring at least one more goal and win this match even surfaced as Qatar’s goalkeeper, whose handling was clearly bad made some schoolboy errors, only for his defenders to spare his blushes by making last ditch and desperate clearances. Having said this, it does not mean that Qatar defenders were excellent in the game. They were in fact quite slow and clumsy. They allowed many free headers. This is of significance as Qatar’s defenders are all at least 180cm tall while Vietnam’s strikers are 160-170cm. It is shameful for the Qatari defenders to give free headers to shorter players. However, Qatar didn’t concede any goal due to luck. From here on, this match resembled an English Premier League match. It was a swashbuckling attacking football spiced up with high physical elements. Pure entertainment. The only thing lacking was of course more goals as the scoreline stayed 1-1 until the end of the match.

In terms of fair play, we could not say that this match was a match with fair-play. There were moments of madness as well. One notable incident was when a Vietnam goal was rightfully disallowed. In a confusion in front of Qatari goal, Anh Duc, one of the Vietnamese strikers sensed an opportunity and stuck his arm out to get the ball into the net. He succeeded, however, he was not to be crowned Vietnam’s Maradona. The referee spotted this and immediately disallowed the goal. He even booked Anh Duc for deliberately using his arm to have an attempt towards goal.

All in all, I believe the intensity and the level of entertainment were remarkable for an Asian football match, especially for a South East Asian side, which is in this case, Vietnam. We could see that Vietnam football is rising and they are catching up with the big boys in Asian football. For an information, almost all who played against Qatar were also involved in the 2007 Asian Cup in which Vietnam was the only one who go through from the Group Stage. They were eliminated by eventual champions Iraq. From here on, Vietnam has to build on from this great match to win the subsequent matches. It will be remarkable if they could finish on top of this group which includes Japan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. The team which finish on top of the group will get a berth on the 2008 Olympics soccer tournament and have a shot for the gold medal as well as rubbing shoulders with many wonderful talents worldwide.

Suikoden II

Waiting time of 3 solid hours can be reduced to a mere 3 minutes by playing Suikoden II.

"Negarakuku"

I think I have to update to appease a little cute girl known as Gwendolyn ^^, and to appease her, this update must NOT related in any ways to soccer.

Have you ever imagined that your national anthem is a rap song? Well, under normal circumstances, I do not really think that anybody has ever thought of this on their respective national anthems. However, this has already happened in a very beautiful country which is located in South East Asia. This wonderful country that I am talking about is none other than Malaysia, the country which is “truly asia”, according to their tourism promotional campaigns to the people worldwide. That’s beside the point. The point for today is the alternation of the national anthem of Malaysia into a rap song. This alternation of the Malaysian national anthem is done by a Malaysian citizen of the ethnic Chinese who is studying in a university in the Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), and the world got to know about this as he posted his well-decorated video of himself singing the song into Youtube, the video sharing website. The video, besides featuring him singing with the Malaysian flag as the background, also features some clips from the Malaysian tourism promotional campaigns as well as an assortment of pictures with regards to Malaysia. The purpose of him doing this is simply to highlight to the world about the biasness in Malaysia (such as racial and religious segregation in the country) as well as to highlight about the rampant corruption within the country. The message is being conveyed through, of course, the lyrics of the song which is in a mixture of Mandarin, Chinese dialects as well as some extracts from the original version of Negaraku.

As all of us have known, the title of Malaysia’s national anthem is “Negaraku”. In the song conjured up by this Malaysian student, the title is “negarakuku”. This title is obviously derived from Negaraku.

Regarding to the reactions in his native Malaysia, there have been mixed reactions there. The government is of course upset with the act that this boy has done, however, they could not sue and penalize this student whatsoever as there is no evident of treason in his video/song. This is basically due to the fact that the student conveys his messages in the song in a careful and smart manner so that it does not suggest anything about him criticizing the country with his own opinions, however, he tried, and succeeded in creating the impression that the message is basically neutral and based on what are really happening in the country.

On the other hand, the Chinese ethnic in Malaysia have been supportive of his actions as someone who dares and has the guts to bring out these problems in Malaysia to the world in this manner has finally emerged out of nowhere. Therefore, he is being a hero and a zero at the same time here. Nevertheless, the student’s family did make an apology to the government on behalf of their son and since his video attracted overwhelming public attention, the student has since removed the video from Youtube. But, the videos are still available in the site as people have been uploading the copies of the videos into the website.

My comments on this? I have no comments on this. I am sorry… (No freedom of speech here and anywhere else^^)

New boys in their debuts

After a long and enduring wait, football has finally come back to entertain us. Yesterday marked the start of the new football season, for English Premier League and German Bundesliga at least (among the top four European football leagues). There was one interesting pattern on the first day of the new footballing season. The pattern which is valid for both leagues was that the new boys (debutants in their respective clubs) flourished.

In the German Bundesliga, Luca Toni scored in his first ever appearance for FC Bayern Munich. In that match, FC Bayern won comfortably by the scoreline 3-0.

In the English Premier League, it was more interesting. First one would be Michael Chopra, who scored the winning goal for the newly-promoted Sunderland at the very last minute against Tottenham. By scoring that goal, he became an instant hero or perhaps he is a fan favorite already, for the moment at least. At Blackburn Rovers, Roque Santa Cruz also managed to score in his first ever appearance for Blackburn. In that match, Blackburn won 2-1 against Middlesbrough. Also, not forgetting Portsmouth’s new boy John Utaka who managed to score in their thrilling 2-2 draw against the Premiership new boys Derby County.

Probably the most interesting is Manchester City. Most of the players in the squad, including the team manager was appearing on their first ever appearance for Manchester City as well as in English Premier League. However, everyone in Manchester City excelled. In the goalkeeping department, Kasper Schmeichel kept a clean sheet. He was mostly covered by the solid defensive backline led by Vedran Corluka and Javier Garrido, also debutants. In the midfield department, Stilian Petrov and Elano exceeded all expectations by zipping through West Ham defences. Finally, in the striking department. Both debutants Rolando Bianchi and Geovanni scored to condemn West Ham to a 2-0 defeat.

Even though most of the new boys excelled last night. It was not the case for some. Just look at West Ham. They do have new boys in Craig Bellamy and Fredrik Ljungberg. However, they did not meet the expectations on their shoulders. Perhaps, it is safe to say that Lady Luck was smiling at the new boys who are new in the English football, not new boys who transferred from another English club. For Michael Chopra, it was an exception, but at least he is new to the English Premier Division.

First day of EPL

Rolando Bianchi and Roque Santa Cruz do not need to take too long before scoring their maiden goals in the Premiership!

A follow up will be written tomorrow.

Exhaustion of Ideas

Billions are being set aside each year by people around the globe just for watching movies in the cinemas. The rationale for doing so varies. Some of them go to watch movies in the cinemas as they want to enjoy their favorite movies on a huge screen, some of them go to the cinemas as they do not have a VCD or more recently DVD-player at home. Another group of these people go to the cinemas simply because they want to socialize with friends, family members or with their loved ones. Whatever the reason is, these people are spending a huge amount of money per year.

Well, the reason why this article is written is not to blabber about people who go to the cinemas and splurge their money, making the owners of the cinemas richer and richer in the process of course. It is people’s right to spend their hard-earned money in whichever way that they like. They can even choose to throw their month’s salary into the ocean, it is their choice. Who am I to control them? That’s beside the point. So, the purpose of the writing of this article is actually to assess the quality as well as the worthiness to spend those dollars/pounds/rubles or whatever currency it may be for the movies.

First and foremost, people in many generations have witnessed lots and lots of movies. There have been any types of the movies that are produced. From love stories to violence story about war. It has been incredible to see how the media has been flourishing since the first movie was created in the world.

However, ideas that can be generated by human brains are limited. In fact, ideas for good movies have run out. This is evident in the 21^st century. We could easily see that the movies that are emerging in this century lack creativity and innovation. There is simply no new stories being created whatsoever. Every movie that comes out is either a sequel to an already existing movie (such as Spiderman 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, to infinity :P) , a movie adaptation of novels (such as the infamous Harry Potter. Infamous!), or simply a spin-off to a successful movie (such as Star Wars).

This is really disappointing as people are longing for new things, not the same thing over and over again. It is good to see Spiderman flying around with his web for once or twice, but thrice? Beat it! Furthermore, the third sequel for Spiderman was not up to standard and many people came out of the cinema frowning. This is so disappointing. It seems that Hollywood has run out of ideas to create new movies, but to generate profit and to sustain their image, movies must still be generated and as a result of this, combined with the lack of new ideas, sequels after sequels are and will be created.

Again, using Spiderman as a gage, I am not really surprised of in 10 years time, we could still see Spiderman 8, Spiderman 9, Spiderman 10 being screened in the cinemas. If this is the case, going to the cinema will no longer be an option, at least for me. This also makes me realize that everything in this world is limited, not only fossil fuels are limited. But simply everything…

Suikoden II

Another game which contributes to my learning in English language has been secured. The game is none other than Suikoden 2. This classic game not only laid a solid foundation for my English language but it also contributed to my social life.

As primary school students, my friends and I without a doubt were die-hard PSX addict and one of our favorite games was Suikoden 2. To cut the story short, Suikoden 2 catalyzed the friendship among us all.

Now that I have reached a decent level in English language, I am going to play this game for one more time. The purpose is simply to really understand the plot and storyline this time.

EPL 07-08

Tomorrow will be the start of the new English Premier League season. 20 teams in the top division of the English football will be in the contention for the much coveted trophy. (Although in reality, only 4 teams namely Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool that will really be chasing for the title, but technically, there are 20 teams fighting for the title).

The big four have completed many signings and have spent millions of pounds to bolster their already great squad to grab not only the Premier League title, but also the cups available (FA Cup and League Cup, as well as the ultimate prize in European football, if not the world, the UEFA Champions League trophy). Besides the big four, the rest of the teams have purchased many players of their own, and most of them are superstars. This will be explained below.

Looking at the transfers that have been done so far among the Premier League teams, I could see many interesting transfers going on. It is also important to note that during the off-season, there was an influx of superstars from other European top football leagues coming in to the Premier League. Despite the critics who claim that these stars won’t be able to shine in their debut season in the Premier League as they will have to adjust to the physical demand of the “toughest league in the world”, I am certain that these superstars will add another dimension to the already star-studded league. This may also mean that there will be more teams challenging for the title and the competition at the foot of the table to avoid relegation to the lower division will be interesting and entertaining as well due to the fact that the signings of the superstars from other leagues not only done by the top teams, but also the rest of the teams. Such signings include the transfer of Claudio Pizarro and Roque Santa Cruz to Chelsea and Blackburn respectively. (Both of them were from FC Bayern Munich of the German Bundesliga as well as other signings like Florent Malouda from Lyon to Chelsea). There are many others, especially in Manchester City. But there are simply too many of them to be mentioned here and for Manchester City’s signings, it will be explained in the next section.

Besides transfer dealings aforementioned above, another interesting thing that occurred in English Football is of course the acquisitions of clubs by foreign billionaires. These takeovers without a doubt strengthen the teams concerned considerably, most notably in the financial area. The most recent acquisition and perhaps the most interesting one is the takeover of Manchester City by Thaksin Sinawatra, the controversial former prime minister of Thailand. Even the takeover itself was really complicated with many issues such as frozen assets and many others (too detailed to be mentioned here yet again…).

Since the takeover, Manchester City have undergone a lot of changes. (For your information, I have been supporting Manchester City from 2003 as I wanted to deviate from the norm of supporting Manchester United). First and foremost, Sven Goran Eriksson, the very famous former England manager has been installed as the manager of the club. For the players, Manchester City have finally gotten rid of the wasted talent in Joey Barton and they have bought many superstars from overseas. Most notable ones are Elano from Shakhtar Donetsk, Valeri Emilov Bojinov from Juventus, and Rolando Bianchi from Reggina. (One interesting note: These 3 players are really good in Football Manager 2007. It seems that Sven Goran Eriksson signed them based on the game. Hehe).

With the takeover, Manchester City have finally joined the league of giants in the Premier League and let’s hope that the blue side of Manchester will finally rise from the shadows of the red side of Manchester, that is Manchester United. Perhaps, they could even challenge for the title this year! My apologies for being bias, since my other favorite team in the English Premier League is Chelsea. But nevertheless, I am pretty sure that the future of the English football is really BLUE! Onwards Chelsea and Manchester City!

The biased statement aside, let us all hope that the 2007-2008 English Premier League season will be a great one and of course, the season where fair-play dominates the scene hand in hand with the swashbuckling attacking football that all of us football fans yearn every week! Onwards English football!

Xenogears

Xenogears is secured. More games to be played, and thus more time to be killed. Those 3 hour long of waiting I have to endure every Friday will be nothing more than an extra playing time. Perhaps, 3 hours is not enough when it is spent playing your favorite games.

Legend of Legaia

I have said before that my life will be filled with GBA. Not entirely true. To be exact, PSX will also be a part of my life.

I have just gotten a privilege to get hold onto and play Legend of Legaia, one of the games which I played in my childhood. This is one of the games which contribute to my learning process of English Language.

GBA

This is the follow up to the previous posting about my life with the GBA!

However, this post will be something of a bad news.

Life has not been so nice to the owner of this site and ultimately, he has yet to have a sufficient amount of time to sit down and play the GBA games. It has to be understood as the owner of this site is a very busy man whose life is packed with many interesting as well as not-so-interesting stuff.

To cap it all off, I have promised myself to set aside one day, which is the day after tomorrow (as tomorrow will be hell as well for the whole day) to play GBA and enjoy myself. I suppose, Thursday will be a well deserved rest for me.

Anyways, if you have any questions, comments, or even something to share about GBA and its games, feel free to contact me or do so in the chatbox.

Regards

Golden Sun

First and foremost, I would like to thank CK and AJ for helping me through a difficult period in my journalistic career. Whatever little support you two have given me are really appreciated. I love you guys! Muuuack!

When we are talking about nintendo nowadays, many people would say "Nintendo DS". No longer will people talk about older consoles from the company such as gameboy advance.

However, I, being the typical outdated dude have just started (for the second spell) playing Golden Sun. I have obtained the two series of Golden Sun, the first one as well as the second installment (The Lost Age).

I will get on with the games starting with the first one very soon as I am currently very busy with many works now.

I will keep you guys updated on Golden Sun in the near future. I also have a plan afoot to play pokemon fire red and emerald once again after I have finished Golden Sun. Perhaps, Tales of Phantasia and Sword of Mana will soon follow.

If you guys are playing or have played the games aforementioned above, please contact me and if possible give me some tips regarding those games.

My GBA filled life starts today!

Regards,

Alvinbeo

Dear Spammers

Spammers,

It seems that all of you have won a battle. Congratulations. I admit my defeat. Oh man... It cost me my chatbox...

But it is alright. I reckon that the spamming was done by people who know me. I am not against anybody and everybody is my friend. However, many people are against me and I assume that the reason for being against me is because they are simply jealous of me. They see something really good in me that they try to demoralize me and try to bring me down. Dream on, this spurs me to write even more. Thank you guys

For you guys, I swear in the name of Saturn's ring or whatever that you guys will develop a severe cancer. *pop*, the mutations of your proto-oncogenes have started. Congratulations.

people who are jealous of me or against me will die very soon.

People who are against me, if you hate me so much, tell me right in front of my face, I am okay with that. But please, just leave me alone and let me mind my own business. You are wasting your time and my time if you are disturbing me. It is useless, trust me.

I hope you guys enjoy your life with cancer.

I love you guys, (spammers and people who are jealous of me and try to bring me down)

Alvinbeo

Iraq 1-0 Saudi Arabia FT

Finally! Iraq has won the Asian Cup 2007! Will elaborate on this later!

Iraq vs Saudi Arabia HT

It is half time now. We expected fair play in this penultimate match of Asian Cup 2007. However, at 37th minute, an incident happened. This incident involved Iraq's number 10 and captain and star striker Younis Mahmoud and Saudi Arabia's 19. The Saudi player got his face quite close to Younis Mahmoud's face and the Iraqi captain made use of the situation by acting as if his face was shot by a shot gun from a point blank range.

Fortunately, Mark Shield, the Australian referee got this one right. He knew Younis Mahmoud was acting, but he reckoned that there was a contact between the two players. So, he took a diplomatic stance by giving both players a yellow card each.

The second half is resuming soon. The second half can only get better!

Lucky South Koreans

South Korea have just clinched the third place in the Asian Cup 2007 despite being down to 10 men and being on the backfoot most of the time. In addition, South Korea also escaped 3 certain goals with a huge stroke of luck.

As a football fan, I am not very happy with the defeat of Japan. The reason is simply because throughout this tournament, South Korea have not been playing in accordance to Fair Play. They are very rough and they fall down by the slightest touch to win free kicks and even penalties.

Too bad USA prevented North Korea from entering Asian Cup 2007. Otherwise, the South Koreans would be ashamed with themselves especially if North Korea can end the tournament in a better note than them. I am confident North Korea can play in a fair play manner. I have witnessed this last year in the AFC Youth Championship in India where North Korea U-19 team clinched the title in a scintillating fashion and with fair play manner.

Tomorrow will be the match to determine the winner of Asian Cup 2007 between Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Let's hope there will be fair play throughout the game and let us all forget about the third place game. South Korea have been sending a very wrong message to the world. The message from them is simply, "Cheat and you will win the game".

This is wrong. Please play fairly. This message is directed to all aspiring footballers out there.

Asian Cup 2007

Asia’s premier football competition, the Asian Cup will be starting very soon. 16 top Asian national football teams will be rubbing against each other’s shoulders to compete for the much coveted trophy and to be officially recognized as the strongest team in Asia. This year’s edition of the quadrennial competition will be quite different from the previous editions due to several factors. First and foremost, this will be the very first time that the competition is hosted by four different countries at the same time. The four host countries are Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. This is so basically because these countries do not have adequate number of large stadiums. However, they do have world class stadiums. Malaysia has Shah Alam Stadium and Bukit Jalil Stadium with the capacities of 69372 and 87000 respectively. In Thailand, there is the 65000 capacity Rajmangala Stadium. In Vietnam, My Dinh stadium with 40000 capacity is also a competent in the international stage. Lastly, Indonesia has the 100000 all-seated Gelora Bung Karno Stadium. This world class stadium will be the stadium in which the final of the competition will be played.

Another key difference to this year’s tournament will be the inclusion of Australia, who has just joined the AFC (Asian football federation) recently. We have seen how competent and star-studded the Australian national football team is from last year’s World Cup and we can be sure that they will provide much entertainment for the fans as well as giving the powerhouse nations of Asia a run for their money in this competition, therefore adding depth to the competition.

16 teams are going to compete for the trophy. They are divided into 4 groups in which there are 4 teams in each group. They are all drawn into the groups in such a way that the host nations will not be in the same group and in each group, there will be a balanced number of strong teams and weak teams. Besides to prevent the host countries from playing each other in the same group, the seeding system is also in place to prevent the strong teams from playing each other in the early stage of the competition.

All matches in group A will be played in Thailand, all matches in group B will be played in Vietnam, all matches in group C will be played in Malaysia, and last but not least, all matches in group D will be played in Indonesia. Two teams from each group will advance to the quarter finals. Now, we are going to look into each of the 4 groups and analyze the chances of each team in the group to progress to the quarter finals.

Group A consists of co-hosts Thailand, Australia, Oman, and Iraq.
In this group, I would expect Australia and Iraq to progress. Both of these teams, especially Australia are simply in a different league from Oman and Thailand. For Thailand, even though they are arguably the strongest team in South East Asia and the fact that they will be playing in the home soil, they are just not strong enough in a stage beyond South East Asia. For Oman, they are quite weak for a West Asian side, and playing far from home does not really help. Either Oman or the co-hosts Thailand will be the whipping boys in this group.

Group B consists of co-hosts Vietnam, Japan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
In this group, I expect Japan to top this group, without doubt. Either Qatar or the Emirians will join Japan in the quarter finals. The race will be for the second spot between Qatar and the UAE. For Vietnam, I am so sorry, they will just be a “Point Collection Center” for the other three nations.

Group C consists of co-hosts Malaysia, Iran, Uzbekistan, and China.
I would bill this group as the Group of Death of this tournament. Again, it will be very cruel to the co-hosts as Malaysia will surely be the whipping boys here. China, Uzbekistan, and Iran are the most powerful teams in Asia and it is as good as saying that Malaysia is in this group just to make up the number. This will be very tight, so tight that the difference in points among these three teams will be very little or even goal difference will be the decisive factor in determining which of these three will finish first, second, or be eliminated in finishing third in the group.

Group D consists of co-hosts Indonesia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain.
Well, Indonesia, the best team in the world is here! Indonesia will be the Champion! Haha, just kidding. Seriously, it will be clear cut in this group. South Korea and Saudi Arabia will progress while at the current state, Indonesia will be the whipping boys. I am not trying to be bias, but I think Indonesia might have the chance to salvage some points by drawing against either Saudi Arabia or South Korea and perhaps beating Bahrain. Hopefully, they may even progress if lady luck is smiling on Indonesia at that time!

So, I would expect these 8 teams to be in the quarter finals. Australia, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea. For the overall champion, it will be one of these: Australia, Japan, and South Korea. My heart keeps telling me that this will be Australia’s year. We shall see next month.

Lastly, all my predictions here are based on the strength of the participating teams on paper. We all know that anything can happen in football. Perhaps, all four co-hosts will be tugging it out in the semi finals! Nobody knows. Only God knows what might happen in the Asian Cup. Also, we shall keep our fingers’ crossed that there will be swashbuckling and entertaining football being played and the games will be played in the fair-play manner. Onwards, Asian football!

Hell on earth

The world is too harsh towards people who are not adept in the fields of science and mathematics even though they are really good in other fields such as writing.

Just look around at people who are gifted in mathematics and science. For students in school, they are enjoying many benefits from being good in these two fields. They are considered the cream of the crop. They are constantly being praised non-stop and get special places in prestigious institutions. Meanwhile, students who are good in subjects such as music and humanities (eg. History and Geography) but not so good in mathematics and science are considered as dumb students. One more thing to add is that prestigious competitions like the mathematics Olympics or science Olympics are being organized frequently to highlight the talents of these kids in science and mathematics. You won’t get to see history Olympics or geography Olympics, not in a million years at least.

For those in the working world, they are having large amounts of income. It even exceeds David Beckham’s or even George W Bush’s annual income. Those engineers at least earn 5 digits figure each month (in US dollars) while a typical neurosurgeon earns at least US$500000 per annum, that’s equal to George W Bush’s salary each year.

Let’s move to those who are good in writing, for instance. No matter how many pieces of high quality books they produce, the recognition is just not there. People won’t take you seriously even though you may be a successful writer. Even though you are successful, you won’t be enjoying life as much as those “smarties” do. Let us take a look at a few examples. First, being a successful journalist. Being a journalist is not easy at all. One mistake and you are dead for sure (such as the recent case in Russia). Secondly, even though you are a great writer, people will try to find every little mistake in you and try to bring you down. One example is one successful Turkish writer who was about to receive a nobel prize. Someone who is eligible for this prize must be someone of a great stature. However, people still do not take him seriously and some people went on to accuse him of faking historical facts regarding a massacre of Armenians by the Turkish in the past and demand that the nobel prize not to be given to him. These are just a few examples on how difficult life is for these people, unlike their science adept counterparts who will receive nobel prizes without any disturbances. There is one more point to support this, which will be discussed in the following section.

Up to this point, I am sure many people are having this in mind: “This is not true! How about Beethoven? Mozart? Mark Twain?”

Beethoven and Mozart are famous long after they have passed away. Their lives can be described as “Miserable”. As for Mark Twain, he spent most of his life in jail and flirting with trouble. Some are even arguing that the Mark Twain we now know is actually not the real writer of the story, but only an inmate in the prison cell who found the scripts inside the cell. This is the same for Mozart and Beethoven. There are similar arguments revolving around them. If these are true, we could see how miserable life is for people who are good in arts instead of science and mathematics.

In conclusion, life is much easier for people who are adept in the fields of science and mathematics compared to people who are adept in the arts field. I think the root of this problem is because of the fact that the world is emphasizing too much on science and mathematics. Schools and institutions globally are focusing too much on nurturing the future scientists and physicians rather than nurturing future musicians, historians, or writers. This is bad for the future development of arts and someone with power out there should, has and perhaps must do something to rectify this problem. This is the sobering truth about this so-called beautiful world. Well, the world is beautiful for those engineers, doctors as well as for students who are good in science and mathematics. On the other hand, for many people like myself who are not really good in mathematics and science but good in other fields, world is hell. This is hell. No matter how good we are in our fields, we can even dream of getting an income close to those engineers and doctors.

Last but not least, I have to apologize if this article is sub-standard compared to my previous articles. The reason is simply because I am currently behind the “writer’s block”. Writer’s block is a condition affecting writers where ideas are not flowing as they should and this condition also affects the overall quality of the essay and linguistic skills of the writer up to a certain extent. Most likely, this condition is caused by insomnia that I have been suffering from in the past week. I would like to beg the understanding of everyone and I would also like to request for your comments on this issue. Thanks.

Reply to the people

The owner of this site is very grateful as yet again, there's an influx of messages coming again today. I am really thankful to you guys!

To Crisis_Vyper: Haha, the sarcasm adds weight to your comment. Seriously, man!

To Luqman: Thanks for commenting! All the way from Bali. wow. Enjoy your time in Bali!

To April: Haha, what's with the doubt?

To :) = Thanks a lot! Your comment is also great! But why didn't u type your beautiful name here? haha. Your name is a nice name! put it in next time! hahaa

To Yohan: Thanks for your little support. Good luck to you too. :)

Should school uniform be abolished?

School uniform, this has been a topic of many arguments and debates across the world. This topic is also hot in exam questions for students. People have been debating, should the idea of school uniform be abolished? Or should it be kept? This topic has produced an endless stream of debates involving students as well as adults.

Those who are for the idea of school uniform will argue that school uniform is necessary as school uniform is a mean to bridge the social gap between the affluent students and the poorer students. They also argue that school uniform will help to instill discipline in the students. On the other hand, those who are against the idea of school uniform will argue that school uniform does not really equate students. It is also being argued by them that students should not be constrained into wearing school uniforms and that they have their rights to wear any outfit they want to school. Now, I am going to delve into these reasoning thrown out by both parties.

Let us now examine the arguments offered by those who are arguing. While it is true that school uniform gives a sense of equality among students, it is only true to a certain extent. First, it only gives equality to students who are studying in the same school. Based on my personal experience, there is no equality at all when students from many different schools are gathered in one place. When this happens, one could see a lot of differences. Some are wearing the uniform of an obscure school, some are wearing the uniform of an average school, while some others are wearing the uniform of an elite school. By looking at this alone, we do not need to be a neurosurgeon to see that equality is absent here. Biasness may even occur. People will certainly have better impressions towards those from elite schools. If those students are gathered in the room when they are wearing their own clothes, there won't be any difference as nobody knows where each one of them is studying and therefore, impressions won't be formed based on the color of their uniforms anymore. For some students who are not in elite schools, they may even feel down when wearing the uniform contrary to those who are in elite schools who wear their uniform so proudly that they even wear it on public holidays (I have seen people from elite schools who are wearing their uniform on a Sunday. What the hell?) Also, school uniform won't be so effective in bridging the gap between the affluent students and the poorer students. There are some other factors that have to be considered. One example is that, some students may be bringing with them expensive laptop computers to school to aid in their studies while some students are not even able to purchase a textbook. We could see the difference in them even though they are all wearing the same school uniform.

Lastly, regarding the disciplinary issue. Discipline problem will not be solved just by making the students wearing school uniforms. Even with the school uniform, students can also be indiscipline. Again, school uniform is not the only factor that determines the disciplinary of the students. There are many other factors that are correlated. School uniform is one of these factors. However, this is not the only factor that determines the discipline of the students.

In conclusion, the debate seems to be stagnant now. I am also lost now. In my personal opinion, it all depends on whose opinion it is. It is obvious that students who are studying in the elite schools would want the idea of school uniform not to be abolished. Perhaps, some of them would want school uniforms to be mandatory even on public holidays and outside school. On the other hand, those who are not in the elite schools would want the idea of school uniform to be abolished with an immediate effect so that they could wear their own clothes and being anonymous to public and not being known where they are studying at.

What do you guys think? Should the idea of school uniform be abolished? Or should it be kept? Please comment and tell me what your stand is with your reasons. I have provided two of the reasons above. I am sure there are many more reasons that can be provided. Alright guys, debate it out! Give me your thoughts! Thanks a lot!

Reply to everyone

Due to high amount of messages coming in, the replies to all will be in this post

Alexjhon: Bannernya keren kan? haha. Mengenai artikelnya, itu semua asli karangan gua. kalau lu masih meragukan ya. haha.

Mich: Hmm, maybe I am degrading myself, but when I checked my articles with Microsoft Word 2003, that software found quite a number of grammatical errors. Mostly careless ones though.

Colleen: Thanks for wishing me luck in my exams. I am in dire need of luck! Haha, of course it's cool. (the quiz)

Sherr: Yes, a typical essay in GP is 500-1000 words long.

Conclusion of La Liga 06-07 and tribute to my first love in soccer

The Spanish La Liga has finally been concluded. Real Madrid won the title. I am so happy for them. Even though my favorite team is AS Roma, Real Madrid has a special place in my heart. This is very first team that I know in my whole life and the first team I controlled in a video game (Winning Eleven 2002). In other words, Real Madrid is my first love in football.

What makes La Liga so special this year is that the title was clinched by Real madrid in a scintillating fashion, instead of other leagues such as English Premier League and Italian Serie A, where Manchester United and Internazionale Milan won their respective titles in a one horse race. In La Liga, it was not one, not two, but three horses race among three great teams in Spain, if not in the whole Europe. They are Real Madrid, Barcelona (the title holder as well as Champions League winner the previous season), and Sevilla (UEFA cup holder and it is a top team now). The winner of the title was not to be decided until the penultimate match of the season, the final one, to set one of the most nerve-wracking title races in the world. Even within the 90 minutes of the last match day, the title changed even changed hands between Barcelona and Real Madrid before it is finally official that Real Madrid is the title holders.

The situation before the last match day was this, Real Madrid was on top even though they are tied on points with Barcelona as they have better head-to-head record against Barcelona. While Sevilla was 2 points behind the two teams. For Sevilla to win the title, they had to win their home match against Villarreal while hoping that both Real Madrid and Barcelona slip up in their last matches. For Barcelona. they have to win their match away to the already relegated Gimnastic Tarragona while Real Madrid doesn't win against their opponent. Lastly, for Madrid ton win the title, they have to win against Real Mallorca at home. They just had to as Barcelona is expected to steamroll against Gimnastic Tarragona.

The matches of both Barcelona's and Real Madrid's were really heartbreaking, especially the first half. At the end of the first half, Real Madrid were trailing 1-0 to Mallorca while Barcelona was 3-0 up against Gimnastic. At this point of time, the title belongs to Barcelona. However, this was not to be at the end of the 90th minute. Barcelona proceeded on to win their match 5-1 while Real Madrid clawed back from 1 goal down to win 3-1 down. At the end of the matches, Real Madrid got the title. Not forgetting about the third "horse", Sevilla. They were beaten 1-0 by Villarreal.

Real Madrid is my first love in football and will always be in my heart. Congratulations to Real Madrid as well as to David Beckham and Roberto Carlos who are leaving Real Madrid for Los Angeles Galaxy and Fenerbahce respectively with their heads held high and with La Liga gold medals to show off to their new team mates next year.

Origin of Japan

Many people like the country of Japan. There are various reasons for this. Some people like the culture, some like the movie stars/bands/singers or whatever, some like the video games, and some extremists like the porn industry in Japan. Even though all of these people have their own unique reasons, they are all nonetheless being in the same bracket. They like Japan. However, I believe less than 5% or even lesser of these people care about the true origin of Japan and the Japanese people let alone knowing it. Actually, the land of Japan that we know today was originally empty. The Japanese people that we know today were originated from China. I heard this story quite a long time ago, but it is still very fresh in my memory. The story is as follows:

Once upon a time, in the great land known today as mainland China, lived an emperor who was very powerful, authoritative, and feared throughout his kingdom. He ruled with an iron fist and anybody who dares to oppose him or displease him will face certain death. Even if those are his own ministers or servants. However, days passed into months, months passed into years, and the emperor was getting older and older. By this time, the emperor became really concerned and he cannot accept the fact that he was aging. Slowly but surely, he will have to give up his kingdom as well as everything when he finally dies. He wanted to stay young forever so that his reign could last forever and ever.

After putting a lot of thought on this, a thought passed into his mind. He was very sure that a special herb which is able to make one to be immortal exists somewhere in the world. Immediately, he called some of his servants and gave them an order. The order was to search for a herb that is able to make one stay young forever and thus becomes immortal. The servants got worried as they knew that it would be very difficult to find such a herb, if it could be found at all. However, no questions may be ask on the emperor's orders! The emperor also added that the servants are not allowed to come back before they could find the herb.

A few days later, the servants started their search all over the kingdom. Even outside of the kingdom in the distant lands to find the herb requested by the emperor. They entered and exited villages after villages, forests after forests, and mountains after mountains. However, they were not able to find such a herb. Since the servants were not allowed to go back to the emperor before they could find the correct herb. They decided to extend the search into the seas. They set sail in the hope to find a herb in some land beyond the seas. After a long sailing journey, they managed to find a land. They landed there, and start exploring the land. After exploring the land for some time. They realized that this land is uninhabited. Eventually, after spending quite some time looking for the herb but to no avail, they began to realize that this herb is non-existent after all, as expected. Since they are not allowed to come back to the emperor before they could find the herb and since this new land is uninhabited. They decided to stay there and never come back to their kingdom. Finally, they stayed in the land and reproduce, until today. These people make up the group of people we know as Japanese people.

This is how more or less the story is. Again, I may have to apologize for any omission or inaccuracy as I am writing this based on what I remember and the story that I heard itself may not be accurate to start with.

Training of the Korean People's Army

Recently, I watched a very interesting video about the training regime of the soldiers of the KPA (Korean People's Army). I would now share with everyone whatever I have seen and analyzed in that piece of media as well as a background information about the Korean People's Army.

Korean People's Army is the military body of Democratic People's Republic of Korea (most commonly known as North Korea). It is in fact the fourth largest army in this whole world and it is absolutely the backbone of the virtually isolated country in this world. It has about +- 1000000 active personnel with +- 4000000 reserve troops. They are all well-trained and fully loyal to North Korea and thus to their Supreme Commander, Kim Jong-il. However, one huge turn-off of the KPA is the fact that most of their equipments are outdated Soviet models of the 1960s. Despite this, the soliders of the KPA compensate for this with their extremely good skills to make do with the equipments available and with their numbers. (Reminiscence to the Chinese, huh?)

Just like the Red Army of the USSR and the Chinese Army, the KPA's best unit is its land unit. It is their strength and only strength. On the other hand, their least best unit is either the navy or the air force.

Now, I would like to start with the main point and I am going to describe the training regime of the KPA based on the video. The training of the KPA is extremely tough for any standards. They do extreme trainings from martial arts (basically Tae Kwon Do) to trampling on broken bottles. In the video, it is shown that the soldiers are given intensive training on martial arts. They are also appear to be very good in the martial arts. They are able to break bricks, large numbers of them. Sometimes, they even break 11 bricks at any one time. For this exercise, it can be seen that they are able to break the bricks with any parts of their body. Head, palm, legs. The female soldiers are also not spared in this training, as could be seen in the video that the female soldiers are breaking bricks as well. Secondly, the soldiers are also trained how to get hit. They are being hit by heavy logs and even very sharp blade. The most interesting part is the part where the soldiers are being slashed by the blade. In this exercise, the soldier lies down while the other slash him several times with the blade. Interestingly, the soldier that's been slashed by the sword is not hurt. There's not even a single scratch. They are really well trained. Next, they are also training by trampling on broken glass. To add to this, one training consists of some soldiers lying down on the pieces of glass while other group of soldiers are trampling on their bodies. The soldiers who are lying down must do two sets of this training. One where they are lying on their backs to the glass and the other one where their chests to the glass. As with the sword exercise, these soldiers do not even get a single scratch from this hardcore training. Next, a less hardcore one. They are also trained on how to deal with multiple enemies attacking them. One soldier are able to handle as many as 10 enemies by himself in a swift move.

Another interesting training is the evasive training. This is where the soldiers are being trained to evade knives being thrown at them. Yes, they are all real knives being thrown at the soldiers. Any one small mistake, and one poor soldier will be dead. However, this is not the case for the KPA soldiers. They are all able to dodge those knives properly without any mistakes. There are several trainings similar as this one. One other would be the training where the soldiers have to jump over woods that are burning in fire. In this one, one small mistake will hurt them. But as usual, the soldiers are able to jump over the burning wooden structures properly. One last similar training would be the one where they have to jump over a passing car. One wrong timing and they are dead.

The soldiers are also well-trained in shooting. They are able to shoot targets which are very far from them 9around 100-200 meters) very accurately using old model Soviet guns such as the AK-47.

Those are basically the physical training. The KPA soldiers are also receiving battle trainings. Trainings where the equipments (tanks, planes, turrets, missiles, artilleries etc.) are being used in a real time training. It could be seen in the video that their mighty tanks and turrets are trained to destroy targets being set in the mountains far away from them.

I would like to apologize for the poor structure of this article and I may miss some other form of trainings as I am writing this based on what I remember from the video I watched.

If you are interested, you can find the actual video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DQzokgGS7g

Again, I have to apologize as I do not embed the video in this posting. I am still finding the way to do that.

COMING UP NEXT!

Coming up next in this site:

Training of the Korean People's Army! An interesting overview about the army of the most isolated nation in the world!

Also, the origin of Japan! Did u know that the real origin of Japan is because of a "medicine" that is capable of cheating death?

Stay tuned!

Psychological Warfare in FM 2007

FM 2007 is arguably the dirtiest and the shadiest among all the CM/FM series so far. Why? it is because of the new features that are injected into the game. To name a few of them, they are: Controversial goals by the referee (lots of them will occur), diving by the players (This may cost you dearly, from a clean sheet to the Champions League trophy. I have just experienced the former, which will be explained later in this post.), and of course the famous mind games feature, where you can attack the opposition managers before your players even kick a ball (I used this successfully to defeat Inter and subsequently making them lose points as their morale drops. This will also be explained later.

First and foremost, I will explain about the diving committed by the players. I was leading Livorno by 6 goals and it was 10 minutes before the game ended. Suddenly, from a swift Livorno attack, a cross comes from the right looking for the lurking Livorno strikers in my penalty box. When the cross arrives, I got a penalty. According to the screen, my fullback had fouled one of Livorno's players. A commentary was soon follows, "He surely dived" (The commentary referring to the Livorno player who got 'fouled'). Nevertheless, I conceded a penalty and it was executed without error by another Livorno player. 6-1 the scoreline stood after the final whistle. Well, in this particular match, it only cost me a good scoreline of 6-0 as well as my goalkeeper who missed out a sum of money (the clean sheet bonus). However, had this happened in the Champions League final, for instance, when the scoreline is 0-0 and it's 10 minutes before the final whistle. You concede the goal from the controversial penalty and you lose the match as well as the cup because of that stupid goal. Of course it will be heartbreaking, even though FM 2007 is only "a game" to some.

Having said that, I am not really complaining too much about this feature as it is also rampant in real life nowadays. Also, these little things do add depth into the game and if you are the one who benefits from these dirty goals, it will somehow add the satisfaction when winning a match or even a big cup like the Champions League.

Second thing that I am going to touch today would be the mind-games feature. I used it to my advantage to ruin Inter Milan, who has been level with my Roma on points since the beginning of the season. It was a few days before my home match against them and it will be a great match considering the fact tat both of us are level at the top of the table and this match has the potential to be the title decider. To be honest, I am a little concerned in approaching this game. Then, I recalled the manager interaction feature in the game (aka the Mind-games feature). I lashed out some negative comments toward the Inter Milan camp and the effect was immediate. I could notice that several of their key players like Patrick Vieira and their deadly bomber Adriano suffering a dip in morale. Some of my players were also suffering although those are not my key players, much to my delight. On the match day, just before the match, the Inter Milan camp replied, apparently they were also trying to hit my team psychologically. I replied with a further negative comment to them and didn't look back. I went to the match right away and take them on. I expected a draw for this.

However, I was totally wrong. Right from the opening whistle, Inter Milan were pinned back like headless chicken. To cut the story short, the scoreline read 2-0 at the end of the match, with my team totally dominating them, I created around 15 chances while Inter created less than five. The 2-0 scoreline didn't get any better due to some misses by my strikers (perhaps due to Inter's part in the mind-game prior to this match. I was delighted with this result as I moved 3 points above them. For subsequent matches, I do this to Inter. Just before their match days, I would give them negative comments. Now, I am reaping out the results. Inter have since been consistently drawing against small oppositions such as Reggina while squandering a lot of chances to score goals. They even lost some matches on the way. Currently, I have managed to distance myself 11 points clear above them and my team is looking really good for the title.

The conclusion is that, in FM 2007, it's not about textbook tactics and management procedures anymore. In this game, players are invited to be more creative in a cunning way. Matches are not won by tactics and good players alone. Matches are also won by the psychological warfare that is going on off the pitch. If you can make use of the mind-game feature in the game well and win those psychological warfares, you will find winning matches in this game relatively easy. One thing to take note, though. When using the mind-game feature, not only the opponents' players are affected. Your players are affected as well. However, in my case, my players are apparently very strong mentally. Therefore, they are not really affected badly, if not affected at all.