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.