Monday, October 23, 2006

Manchester United 2 - 0 Liverpool

United Back On Top




This was a match dominated by Man Utd. Their passing was crisp, fast and flowing. Liverpool were totally outplayed and outclassed. Man Utd showed much more determination when it came to challenging for 50-50 balls. Also, Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic played exceptionally well and look to get better with every game.

Liverpool looked jaded in the midfield. The Liverpool players, especially Gerrard, are probably getting tired of Benitez's tinkering around. As a player, it affects your morale greatly when you aren't sure of your place in the team no matter how well you play. And even when you play, you aren't playing in your best position. What was Pennant doing on the left side of midfield?





You can't deny the second goal by Ferdinand was a great one. Watch the replay. Look at the point where the ball hits the net. It's right in the corner, just inside the cross bar and far post. You can't stop a shot like that.

So now, another rival is 11 points behind and we're top of the table. Certainly a victory to savour.

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Sunday, October 22, 2006

Video Of The Day #10




Jose Mourinho. I'm sure most non Chelsea supporters hate him, but not me. He's the perfect manager in my opinion. Sure, he maybe be arrogant, but he always backs it up with results so he knows what he's talking about.

I actually prefer another version of this video, but embedding is disallowed, so I recommend that you click here for the other version before watching that one.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Moving On

I was supposed to blog about this 2 days ago but I got sidetracked, so here it is.

I'm unemployed.

Yep, I resigned from my job 2 days ago on the 18th. For 11 months I've been working in DFS as a Sales Associte. Actually I had wanted to resign much, much earlier, but everytime I wanted to resign, I kept getting transferred to another department which led me to say to myself, I'll give it another shot. In total, I got transferred 3 times. The job had no prospect and didn't pay well, so earlier this month I finally decided that that was it, it's time to get out. And I handed in my resignation letter.

It's been good working there, and I'll never forget all the wonderful (and not-so-wonderful) people I've met. But for now, it's time to move on.

Talking about moving, I was surfing Digg as usual when this link came up. It's called Lords Of The Logistic and if you think you're good at moving things, I tell you, these people will put you to shame. Here are some pictures:











Those poor piglets.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Video Of The Day #9




Ah, the tragedy of love.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Video Of The Day #8



In the light of North Korea's recent nuclear test, here's something from The Daily Show that's somewhat related.

If you're wondering why I'm writing much less nowadays, it's because of all those damn videos on YouTube.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Video Of The Day #7



This has got to be one of the best South Park episodes. Especially more so if you're a World Of Warcraft player. I'm not one and even I found it funny. The first scene in the Blizzard boardroom is hilarious. I heard that they might take this down soon, so watch it quick!


"In the outside world I'm a simple geologist. But in here, I am Falcorn, defender of the Alliance. I've braved the deep mines and defeated the bloodfish.. arrgh!"

"Hmm. Looks like that guy just killed you."

"What? Why? WHY?!"

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

The 3 Gods Of The Internet

I've always told people that there are 3 gods of the internet.

First, there's Google, which definitely has achieved internet godlike status. Then there's Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia where you can find information on almost anything. Sometime back, it gathered some controversy due to it's open editing process which allows anyone to edit it's articles. And finally, there's YouTube, which I'm sure needs no explaining.

Well now, 2 of these gods are merging.

Google to acquire YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock

As soon as I told some of my friends about it, they were worried that YouTube might no longer be free, but that definitely won't happen because the free sharing of videos is one YouTube's key reasons for success. After the merger, I don't think that YouTube will be changing that much. Google will try to find ways insert advertising into the site to gather revenue like Adsense. Also with YouTube, they'll be able to tap into a wealth of user information, much more than their competitors Yahoo and Microsoft.

Here's more information which I got from Digg.

It'll be interesting what happens with YouTube and Google from here on.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Video Of The Day #6




This is going to be hell of a movie. Since I read about the Battle Of Thermopyale, the Spartans have been the epitome of bravery and courage to me.

"Our arrows will blot out the sun."

"Good. Then we will fight in the shade." - Dienekes

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Video Of The Day #5



(YouTube Link)


Simply hiliarious. If that happened to me, I'd have done the same.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

To Not Play Beautifully

I realised I haven't talked about football for a very long time.(Actually I haven't blogged much at all.)

The World Cup was held this year in June and I'm sure that before and during the World Cup, every one knows or at least has heard the term, "Joga Bonito".

But for those of you who still don't know the term, Joga Bonito simply means "play beautifully" in Portugese. In the Nike commercials for Joga Bonito, it shows various footballers (actually, mostly players from the Brazilian national team) displaying lots of skills and tricks, like fooling opponents with clever flicks and stepovers, etc.

I have to admit though, at first glance, I was impressed. I can't even do a quarter of the tricks that was shown. I'm sure most of you felt that same. But as time passed, I realised that it was just a whole marketing campaign by Nike and that in reality, Joga Bonito was just a bunch of crap.

Why?

Simply because I feel that Joga Bonito has taken away one of the essentials of football. Teamwork.

Joga Bonito has taken away teamwork and instead put the focus on trickery and showmanship. Of course, I'm not saying that individual skill is not important, it is. But when it comes to playing in a team, one has to put the team above himself. Showmanship takes away all that and instead focuses on entertaining the crowd for self glorification.

After the commercials came out, I saw more and more people trying to learn Ronaldinho's flip-flap. I couldn't help but wonder, instead of learning a trick that you'd hardly use in a match, why not focus instead on mastering your ball control or passing? I've never even seen Ronaldinho use the flip-flap in his matches.

Secondly, I don't believe in "Playing beautifullly". I believe only in one thing. Playing to win. That's why after my team Manchester United, I support Chelsea. Because Jose Mourinho believes in the same philosophy. Efficiency over entertainment. It's better to win 1-0 than to lose 5-4. Because at the end of the day, only the result matters and people only remember the winners, not the losers.

Well you might say that playing beautifully is important in entertaining the fans. I agree with that statement to a certain extent, because while playing beautiful football does delight the fans, what fans really want is for the team to win trophies. And if you're winning trophies, you won't be playing boring football that's for sure.

Perhaps I don't like the idea of Joga Bonito because I'm not really a flair player. If you ask me to do stepover or a flip-flap, I'll give the ball right back to the opponent. The style of play that I like the most is Wayne Rooney's. He doesn't overdo things. He just keeps things simple and beats the opponent with his timing and pace. And most importantly, he delivers.





And to illustrate my example of someone who overdoes things, here's the one and only, Cristiano Ronaldo.




But then again, that's just my opinion.