Ball Talk VII

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To : Chairman

Board of Directors

English Football Association

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Re : Application for the post of England's Manager after World Cup 2006

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Dear sir,

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I have always been a keen admirer of English football and it's supremacy on the world stage ever since time immemorial.

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However, I am getting appalled and bewildered by the recent performances of England in Germany right now, particularly with the knock-out stages looming ahead. The players looked seemingly jaded beyond their years of experience in the Premier League. Sven-Goran Ericsson, folically-challenged as he is, doesn't keep the spirit as intact as well as when he first helmed the team to numerous victories. It could be damning to think that his off-pitch antics and on-bed rendezvous could be detrimental to the spirit of The Three Lions, but apparently his clairvoyance in this matter is clearly not needed anymore after July 10.

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I believe that Steve McClaren will be a good manager for England to rebuild it's footballing image back to the pinnacle of the ol' glorious days.

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However, I wish to give the Board a chance to appreciate my managerial talents as well, for I believe England deserves the best to rebrand it's image again.

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Here is my list of managerial experiences so far :

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1. Head Coach of my Void Deck Soccer Team - unbeaten in 20 games in as many months, successfully fending off opposing neighbourhood teams containing a mixture of boys, aunties and void-deck apeks.

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2. University Hostel Champion of Winning Eleven - deft fingers and lightning-quick reflexes made me the man I am today.

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3. Successful Manager in Championship Manager - Highlights :

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a) Became Manager of Wrexham and successfully led team from Nationwide to Premiership Champion in just five years.

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b) Was headhunted by Arsenal and Bayern Munich.

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c) Led Arsenal to 11 consecutive years of Premiership champions.

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d) Led Arsenal to 11 consecutive years of European champions.

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e) Managed to snap Nicolas Anelka to Wrexham for a mere transfer fee of 200 pounds.

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f) Build a bigger 60,000-capacity stadium from a miserable 3,000-seated mini-stadium for Wrexham, and having an excess of 100 million pounds at the end of every financial year.

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g) Swept ALL major trophies every year for Arsenal.

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h) Appointed Manager of Spain and went on to win two World Cups and two Euro Cups.

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With such sterling records, I am sure the FA will no doubt grant me an outside possibility to allow my talismanic charm to take England to new heights, for which I can no longer bear to see them spiral down to the depths of footballing sewers.

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I can be contacted at my email and h/p as attached in my CV. I will call the Board for a follow-up and will be free to attend any interview as slotted by the FA.

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Thank you for your kind attention and may God bless the Queen.

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Yours sincerely,

Sunset
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Beautiful whirls of crimson and shades of red...

...amidst hues of yellow and orange over my head.
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I guess we have to pause sometimes in our lives. And learn to appreciate the things around us.

My Favourite Peeve

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The god-forsaken jam on the CTE filtering towards the PIE came to a virtual crawl yesterday.

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I'm still cool with that. It's like 6.45 pm and rush hour is everywhere.

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EXCEPT that I wasn't prepared for this a**h**** in a black Jaguar who suddenly swerved in, narrowingly missing my rear bumper by a fraction of an inch.

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From my rear-view mirror, I could see the young punk smirking victoriously behind his dashboard, contentedly embracing himself for being such a skillful driver on our highways.

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AND talking on a handphone as well, without a Bluetooth earpiece in sight. For the whole time yakking away like nobody's business, slipping in between traffic like metalloid diarrhoea.

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How insinuating! Bladdy cockanaden!

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God! Was I peeved, man.

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This a**h*** needs a frickin' refresher lesson in basic civic-mindedness and highway code - like, totally.

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Firstly, he didn't signal his intention to come in to the left lane. He just swerved in, the crass moron.

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Secondly, he didn't acknowledge the rear driver he nearly trampled on with his gigantic ass of a car, not even with the slightest hand gesture of apology and courtesy.

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And lastly, the friggin' a**h**** was talking on his mobile the whole goddamn time. I mean, he is seriously a deep pile of shithead waiting for an incident to happen.

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I was plotting to (a) brake suddenly and let him crashed his Jag into me, (b) wait for a chance to go alongside him and give him the 'no-no, you can't use the hp while you're driving, you big freak' finger gesture, or (c) take a photo of him with my camera and sent it to the Traffic Police.

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I decided not to do option (a) because my small car was probably only bumper-car fodder for him; besides, he'll probably laugh anyway for having to pay peanuts for my misery, and because he'll simply change to a Roadster in his goddamn car garage the next day and continue hounding other motorists with his kitsch mannerism. Option (b) was out because I can't go that fast to be alongside his Jag at any given time anyway (duh). Option (c) somehow tells me that I don't want to be the first person in Singapore to use a camera AND get caught shooting a person talking on a phone while driving. Duh. How stoopid can that be?

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As i kept giving him my icy stares of death over the rear-view mirror, I told myself that maybe in the real world, some people do get away with many things. Isn't it so ironic that you don't find a TP to book the greatest a**h*** who really deserved to be slapped with tons of fines when you need one?

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I hope that you, the driver of a black Jaguar registration no SCL ***** are reading this, and maybe start growing some brains and start behaving the way you stand in society, in that black luxury car of yours on our common roads meant for all stratas of society.

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It is because of you that I am disgusted by the way I perceived people in big, expensive cars - big, bulky and domineering on the outside, but mostly empty space inside.

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Moron.

Evolution of The Empire
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Another photoshopped collection of the Empire's armada of destruction. I was on a whim and started to collate the variants of TIEs from many a webpage. Of course, only some of these models made it onto the movies; the rest are prototypes or game versions on the PS2 / X-Box.

Hmm. I think it's cool.

Ball Talk VI - Evolution of The German Jersey

I had a whole day to recover for tonight's game. So I photoshopped some pics to showcase the changes in design for Der Kaiser's minions over the years. The 1990 jersey is still the most eye-catching, though.

Achtung! Ze Germans are on the warpath.

Ball Talk V : Half-Time Report

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With all the football superpowers in the world clinching a place in the final sixteen, I guess now the World Cup's just starting.

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The German Juggernaut continued its' impressive roll like the elegant automotive engines they churned out every day - silent, with a dash of deadly precision. I am made to believe that this is the victorious squad of 1990 reincarnated, with Ballack posing as midfield maestro Matthaeus, orchestrating the flanks with the ambidextrous penchant for rampage and obliteration of their opponents to shredded prata pieces.

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Ecuador is a surprise. Poland sucked. Costa Rica was just lucky to be in.

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The English, still claiming that football originates from its soil, was just a lot of balls. Beckham is overrated, and tries too hard to please. Sven-Goran assembled a campy group of individuals who managed to string a few passes together like amateurs do and still calling themselves millionaire footballers.

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Sweden worked like IKEA does : packed and ready to go. Yet, like IKEA, I don't think they'll go far up the ladder and win the Cup, because they'll be only accommodating to the masses.

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Argentina is a who's who of the world's best footballers. I think this could be their year, although I am optimistic the Germans will halt their impending march to world domination.

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Holland, Italy and Portugal - the perennial pretenders of every World Cup. Always there, but there never.

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France, the most sordid assembly of Le Blues ever, relying on the magical incantations of Zinedine He'sDone. Poor fella never looked so lost on a soccer field before.

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Ghana who? Hey, the media bestowed them the title of The Brazilians of Africa, okay - don't pray pray. Every World Cup has its' fair share of the Motherland, right from Cameroon's Roger Milla to Senegal's rastafarians. Ghana, no doubt, is history in the making, until it's Goner.

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Ukraine. Switzerland. Australia. The surprise entries of the last sixteen. I'd figure all of them will be exterminated by the quarter-finals, unless the footballing gods fell asleep at their thrones.

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Brazil. The originators of stylo-milo soccer. The samba kings. The favourites. The team with the fattest striker.

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With all these concoctions in Germany's stadiums for the next two weeks, I'd say we're gonna have a mega party for everyone this time around. The final sixteen are all so unpredictable, it's like seeing the greatest boy wizard Harry Potter accidentally casting a wrong spell and found himself menstruating the next day.

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Still, I am sure the crowd will be the best performers yet. With all the razzle-dazzle of the glitterati coming at them for the next fourteen days, everyone will want to soak in the atmosphere and let it stay that way for at least two years before the Euro Cup starts again in 2008.

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The party's just starting. Really - now. Oh, I wish I was a punk-rocker with flowers in my hair.

Entrapment

The recent debate of the promising young doctor who was supposedly ensnared into a trap by the CNB sums up a new term I can only connect to Catherine Zeta-Jones.

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Entrapment - “A defence that claims the defendant would not have broken the law if not tricked into doing it by law enforcement officials”

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Entrap - “To lure into performing a previously or otherwise uncontemplated illegal act.”

By those definitions, Adrian Yeo wasn’t entrapped, he was busted. Or, if you like, caught with his pants down.

He was already doing illegal things (Ecstasy, Ice, and Ketamine, to name but three of them) and known to be doing it, so his law-breaking could hardly be considered uncomtemplated. The police simply set up an old-fashioned sting operation to nab him, and one more drug abuser is off the streets.

As for his ruined chances of becoming a medical doctor, I’m actually pretty glad I won’t be seeing him in an examination room anytime soon, especially if it happened to be some sort of check-up that involved rubber gloves and plenty of Vaseline.

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That still doesn’t mean it’s an unequivocally good thing. Surmising that it’s good for the crime rate, let’s take this thing to its logical conclusion, and see what a day would be like if we all floored the entrapment pedal:

8am: You drive to work and there’s an ah beng in a WRX sitting two inches being your rear bumper on the highway. You do one of two things: if you have a decent car you stomp on the throttle to blow him away and show him who’s boss. If you don’t have a decent car you pull over, and wave him past… with your middle finger, just to let him know what an a**h*** he is.

Weeks later you get a summons in the mail for using abusive or insulting words or behaviour, because it turns out the a**h*** was a police officer who was goading you all along. That’s a maximum $2,000 fine you’re looking at.

Or worse, if you did the first thing you get hauled in for racing, in which case you can kiss your car goodbye, because they can confiscate it.

12noon: Your day improves when the intern you’ve fancied for a month suddenly comes over and asks you out to lunch, and you seem to be really getting on. After your designated lunch hour is up, she tugs on your shirt sleeve as says, ‘Ah, just tell the boss you’re meeting a client. Let’s go have coffee.’ And you do, for two hours.

4pm: A dude shows up at the office with a stack of pirated DVDs, and you pick up copies of X-Men 3, Cars and Aces Go Places 7 for $25 after a satisfyingly intense round of bargaining. Bad move; turns out the seller was undercover and you’re now looking at a fine for possessing uncensored material and violating intellectual property laws.

9pm: Because you’re in a shitty mood from the DVD bust, you haven’t been able to concentrate all day and now you’re stuck in the office working late. Ah, but the intern you fancy is staying late, too, and she comes over cooing that you look stressed, and since on one else is around, starts to massage your shoulders. One things leads to another. A nice end to a lousy day.

Except twelve hours later you’re called into the boss’ office because the ‘intern’ was working for management and you’ve been busted for taking a three hour lunch and for fraternizing with a subordinate, so guess what? Your ass is fired.

At least you get to go home early.

Sure, there would be less crime around if there were more entrapment, but if you think about it, life would be pretty shitty.

Brokeback Cheap

It pays to visit cheap book sales at those neighbourhood mini malls.

A book for $4, 3 for $10. Really cheap.

Annie Proulx, by the way, also wrote Brokeback Mountain, which I'm hoping that The Shipping News isn't a sequel/prequel to it. I enjoyed 'Tis by Frank McCourt and thought a follow-up by the same author would be nice. I simply bought the Harmony Silk Factory because I like the quirky cover.

I remember a section of the weekend papers that quoted one of the STOMP bloggers mentioning that 'women drivers are such lousy drivers that if there were only two cars left in Singapore, and both of them were driven by women, they would still crash into each other'.

Haha!

Apparently, as I was driving back home in the evening, a sleek black 3 series beemer and a grey 5 series beemer had evidently 'bumped' into each other along Tanjong Pagar Road during rush hour, causing a tailgate that stretched for a couple of blocks down. Singaporean drivers are pretty civilised in the sense that we don't honk when a jam builds up, but rather we stretched our necks and looked for important digits that could change our immediate future at Singapore Pools' branches. I imagine thought bubbles sprouting endless mentions of "Ah, women drivers. No wonder, lah" in the air along the crawling road as every motorist passed by the two females in powersuits cornering each other with details for the sake of claiming insurance proper.
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"Ah, women drivers. No wonder, lah".

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I trust the Education Ministry will see to it that the selection criteria for Native English speakers teaching English Language in our schools be stringent enough, or else we'll have a new generation of Singaporeans hollering 'g'day!' in the morning, yoodling in the afternoon and saying 'word' before every sentence.

I imagine a bunch of scotsmen in kilts invading Changi Airport very soon and dishing out scottish accents in classes in a bid to convert our society into a coalition of pseudo-anglophilias. Aye, I'll say this to them, that they can take away our lives, but they can never take our FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(cue Braveheart's soundtrack)

In a previous post, I said what I had to say about Ja and her weak judging stance. Evidently, even our local papers agreed.

I will now say that even though school's gonna start pretty soon, I am still enjoying the last stretch of holidays.

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In fact, my holidays will officially end on July 10, and not Sunday. I'll pray for all the balls they're worth.

A Job For A Career

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I had this clear objective of finding The Adventures of Baron Munchausen on DVD yesterday.

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I still couldn't find it in shops by the time the sun sets.

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I think one of my uncles does a really cool job for a living. He drives those monster trailers that chauffeur new cars from one point to another. Incidentally, I bumped into him ( not literally though ) yesterday after I collected my car for servicing. I think he was loading up some new Mercs CLKs and SLKs up the ram himself, seamlessly revving those cars up like stacking lego bricks from side to side.

What skills. He's even posing Zoolander-style for the above shot after the upper deck is done.

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When I was young, we were brought up to aspire to become future 'doctors, lawyers and engineers' - the stereotypical professions of choice of parents then.

At that time, I must admit that I was getting apprehensive that my future job scope was pretty limited and narrowed to only three choices, because Mak said that only these three jobs give you good money and a good future, and also very 'up'.

I realised later that she only want the best for her children. All mums want that, I guess.

Sometimes, after catching seven baddies in three minutes when I play police and thief, I decided to become a law enforcer, but was forced to denounce this oath almost immediately by uncles and aunties because they say 'police only know how to catch people'.

At the back of my pubescent mind, I realised that I didn't want to run for the rest of my life chasing crooks like a demented marathoner with no finishing line to aim for. My cousin repeatedly tell me later if 'I tired after I run very far, how to go back home liddat? Tired oreadi, what'.

Yeah, hor.

The next week after procrastinating to be the arm of the law, I dwelled on the idea of becoming a firefighter. Our neighbours had a small fire in their kitchen and for the first time in my life, I saw firefighters up close and personal fighting a small black kwali from a supersoaker-like gadget.

I thought he looked really cool with all that mask and other assorted paraphernalia around him. I wanted to be just as cool as Mr Firefighter and wear his mask like a noble emblem.

I hated the mask years later during NS time when we had to go through a mock chemical defence exercise. The mask sucked the life out of me, and the oxygen that streamed through smelled like chlorinated urea.

I did play a lawyer in a primary three concert on stage, but I never really like wearing those rolled-up wigs, so I didn't consider Law at all from that day on.

I did harbour a secret ambition of becoming a - get this - an astronaut. Dad got me tons of books regarding the solar system and beyond, and when I start to excitedly expound the possibilities of extra-terrestrials over dinner when I was nine, he knew I was halfway there to being an astronut.

I have a good theory that people who don't plan their career for the future always end up happier than people who do. Which is obviously true because our ministers, who can swear that they've never even dreamt of becoming one, are always seen smiling and cheerful and Kodak-friendly.

Or either that, they have good dentists.

Lines Of The Day

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Overheard on Power98 's Top 40 Countdown : Oh-So-Much Lurrrve for Socialites Paris and Nicole - everybody's fav bimbos!

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Ryan Seacrest : So, did you invite Paris and Nicole for the premier of The Omen?

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Julia Stiles : (quickly) Paris and Nicole who?

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(background crew sniggered loudly on air)

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Ryan Seacrest : Hmm, guess I can see much love between you guys...

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Julia Stiles : (quickly) she didn't return my calls...

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(background crew started to create weird grunts)

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Ryan Seacrest : You were pretty upset huh?

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Julia Stiles : (quickly) yeah, I cried in my sleep every night.

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(background crew erupted onto the Laughter Scale of 10 out of 10)

Riverdance

Dinner at Clarke Quay provided me with some night shots I couldn't wait to snap away.

I kinda like the last shot above, with the contrasting colours interplaying with the blanket of the night. It also appears that the pic actually contains all three primary colours, by sheer coincidence. Wow.
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Told ya ceilings are nice things to look up to.

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At Great World City, I came across this quirky-looking nature-inspired single-seater.

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Which I realised later, that imagining sitting on the biggest flower in the world doesn't exactly induce a sensory euphoria, because the rafflesia isn't exactly a fragrant flower after all.

I'd rather imagine sitting on the laps of a trio of bananas in pyjamas gone chao-tah ( burnt to a crisp blackness ). That'd be surreal.

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Peaking Over Sunset
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Bukit Timah never felt so gentle in the evening. Everything else didn't matter anymore when the gentle sweep of the 'summit' breeze sashayed me into an oblivious sense of calm even the profused sweating didn't matter anymore.

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I didn't want to leave so soon, but the arresting dusk brought over a foreboding sense of errie solitude that seemingly forced us to make space for the denizens of the dark to contemplate the heavens afterwards.
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Pleasant evening indeed.

Detour
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A slight turn into a corner of the universe...
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.. I never forget.

Retro Indeed!
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I realised that this must be the most coolest-looking chandelier ever. And probably the most overlooked.
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Defying gravity from the lift lobby's ceiling of Macdonald House, I hesitantly looked up and saw this retro swirl of art deco hanging precariously away from curious eyes.
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Kinda looked like baby Kar-El's space egg when he left Krypton for Earth, except more groovy and psychedelic. It also didn't help that the ceiling of the lobby was too high for normal people to take notice of this gem of an art.
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There's also a plasma tv which was showing the results show of Singapore Idol. Yup, I wasn't interested at all, which explains why I find my physical self paying a visit to Citibank ATMs here to pay my bills during the evening.
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To quote a student regarding the Idol contest, who mentioned that most of them are like 'lounge singers', I apprehensively agree that it's always easier to chastise others than thyself, but the fact remains that Idol is a national platform to showcase our best vocal talents and should not be translated to mediocre karaoke singing sessions that robbed viewers of good primetime entertainment, never mind the degenerate level of musical appreciation showcased for an hour every Wednesday night.
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Or either that, we'd becoming tone-deaf and are beginning to celebrate mediocrity for the sake of entertainment.
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Maybe we can just blame it on our small gene pool, where egocentric individuals continually thrived on the weekly Top 40 list for ear fodder and musical accompaniment, and indirectly perpetuating a coalition of bathroom crooners of boyband songs.
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Or we can just blame ourselves for not supporting our local talents enough.
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Hmm. Risque business indeed, the entertainment industry.
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Ja can't comment for nuts. Her words are always left hanging ( or is it bad editing? ), and she always sound monotonous. Her stance is also uneasy on screen. Is this the same Diva-Ja all these years? I think Douglas O's a better choice, lah. Or maybe Malaysian Idol's judge Paul Moss. That guy beats Crappy Cowell hands down anytime.
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As I pondered these thoughts in front of the tv in the lobby, I hesitantly conclude that all my obiquitous reflections in Macdonald House's life lobby had fell to nought, for I had forgotten to bring my wallet from my car parked at Plaza Singapura, and had to retrace my steps back again some five hundred metres away.

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Now that's life entertainment.

Eh? Mana sidebar?

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Sometimes I can't find my 'links' sidebar when I reread my entries.

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Damn! Some moron hacked into my site!!!

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...

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Go to View and change the Text Size to medium or smaller.

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Tada! The links column appear again.

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Duh.

Hey People, The Gahmen want you to smile.

Practical Magic

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During lunch, our empty banter led on to the topic of magic, and how preposterously unreal and freaky some of the stunts were. Case in point was the illusions featured on Totally Hidden Extreme Magic, which bordered between the planes of reality and impossibility.

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I know people say that everything is all fake and 'use mirror, string, what'.

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I was in the Singapore Indoor Stadium when David Copperfield literally flew over our heads. My friend brought along a pair of binoculars to spot those invisible wires, but we didn't found any.

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I saw one of his amazing illusions on TV once, where he reunited a long-lost father and son on a tropical beach - get this - through a projector. The son was initially with Copperfield on stage, and was asked whether he wanted to meet up with dad shown frolicking 'live' on sandy beach on the whitescreen. The magician simply whisked the young lad off into thin air and onto the same beach his dad was on, apparently waiting for his appearance. Such magical drama.

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I think magic is a wonderful means of entertainment, although I'm not sure cutting yourself with a gigantic rollerblade and rejoining your body parts later on with nary a scratch is a good way to impress your family members. That said, I believe that some elements of these illusions actually reek of black magic, or the occult - a powerful form of magic humanly possible with the devil's association.

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Or I could be wrong. It could still be 'mirror, string, what'.

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This would be cool though. I wish a magician does this ultimate act - to conjure a recent-dead person on stage / screen , and let a audience relative who had missed the last living moments of the deceased make up for lost time by sharing those things you'd really want to say but didn't have the guts to say it when he's/she's still alive. I can't imagine the effect of seeing a lost loved one again in the physical form, though - maybe a surreal concoction of grief, fear, anxiety, confusion etc but definitely an innate yearn for the loved one to come back to us again. Then after when you're done talking to him / her, the entity simply fade away in the hollowness of the stage.

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I'd buy first row tickets for this.

Ball Talk VI

The people of Ivory Coast are known as Ivorians.

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Or is it Ivory Coastians?

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Ivorese? Coastese?

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A minor glitch occurred when, after a few minutes, the initials 'TNT' ( Trinidad and Tobago ) were later replaced by 'TRI' on our tv screens. Probably the earlier initials proved to be too... explosive?

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Referees make the best classroom teachers yet. A student caught talking in class while ref's delivering a lesson will get a firm yellow card in the former's face, no arguments. A second offence will eject him out from the period. Period.

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By the way, I wonder too what'd we call people from TNT.

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Is it Trinidadians? Tobagons?

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Trinidadese? Tobagonese?

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Brudder?

Ball Talk V

It's pure torture.

9 pm - 11 pm 1st LIVE game

11 pm - 12 am PS2 Winning Eleven Part I

12 am - 2 am 2nd LIVE game

2 am - 3 am PS2 Winning Eleven Part II

3 am - 5 am 3rd LIVE game

5 am - 9 pm Unconscious

Screeching Tires

The stretch of PIE towards the airport after the Ubi flyover is getting more mundane.

It used to be very thrilling and exhilarating a couple of months backs. Every motorists would brake their vehicles in unison at the sight of a large Fiona Xie billboard on the outside of the Osim building.

I think the Traffic Police was getting concerned with all the unnecessary distraction, so maybe they ordered the poster to be brought down, sensing that male motorists pay more attention to the curves of Fiona rather than the curves of the asphalt.

Sometimes I realised how looks (and clever advertising) can really kill. Really.

Clever advertising.

I mean, I wouldn't be caught dead drinking from this cup.

To make it really effective, I'd have to orientate the cup so that the bridge of the nose would align with my au naturel version. I could do that, but why bother? I don't think I want to play a part in this gimmick, cos I really can't see the effect myself, unless someone photographs me with it, which then would make me look like a dork, playing out the role of the guy falling into the traps of crass commercialism in the long, repugnant annals of ad history.

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Anyway, rotating hot cups of choco isn't actually a very intelligent thing to do in public. Try stirring.
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Plus, every busybody around me is gonna compare whether my nose is as perfect as that, uh, perfect-looking nose, and then mentally decide for me whether I need to undergo plastic surgery or not. Sheesh.

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The fate of my nostrils in the hands of others. Yikes.

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I COULD play along and upturned the nosecup though, and make those perfect lips appear above my nose. Now THAT would make a pretty impressive ( and sabotaging ) advertising for the plastic surgery company.
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I wouldn't be caught dead carrying these either.

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Kinda cool, but skewed. I mean, I don't go around advocating that it's alright to hang smiling old men or walk around Orchard Road seemingly with a Taurus. It's a statement alright, and probably a deathwish too.
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NO WAY. I'd say no to being used as an object in this tomfoolery.
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NO WAY am I gonna be lured as media pawns in this forsaken industry of inflicting wallet damage.

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NO WAY am I going to be manipulated by crude advertising and wanton acts of media brainwashing.
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NO WAY.

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Hmm.
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This jedi robe from yahoo auctions looks nice. I bet it'll look good with my obi-wan costume and lightsaber.

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Hmm. Think I'm gonna buy it. Yes. I will.

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The Force is still strong with me.

Ball Talk IV
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Of course there's no better way to watch a World Cup match than to watch it live.
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But then, unless you have connections to a Saudi prince that easily dispense world cup tickets to every match like soap, chances are 99.9% of us will be transfixed to the goggle box every evening, ever-ready and armed with a vocabulary of Hokkien expletives waiting to be spouted at the slightest goof made by the referee.
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I realised that I find it uneasily queer if there's no live commentary presiding over the matches. Those angmoh voices are inseparable elements for spectator exhilaration. I'd imagine a surreal, soundless sensation when Ballack scores from 30 yards and no bavarian announcer actually went berserked over the microphones. It is just so different, and not very happening.

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Muted experience, definitely.

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The fonts used on those jerseys are getting quirky and stylo. I like the fonts used on Paraguay.

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I have a theory that no parents of sound mind will name their son Beckham, or any other football luminaries.

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Owen and Gerrard is still alright, and Ronaldo a bit too fancy, but the whole planet's gonna be watching when Beckham Tan Ah Tiong of Sembawang Street 11 takes his first kick at the rubber ball in kindergarten. It's an ominous sign that he'll become a local wrestler if he punctured the ball instead of kicking it away.

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Don't.Destroy.Your.Kids'.Lives.By.Naming.Them.After.Famous.Clowns.

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At the end of 90 minutes, everybody's on the field swapping jerseys with everybody, except with the referee. I'm waiting for the moment when one of the officials actually stripped down to trade with Ronaldinho's. I don't know whether it's a bookable offence or not, but it'll be fun to see him booked himself into the pages of Football History.

Ball Talk III

5 important things that matter most during the next thirty days :

1. My two good friends.

2. My favourite number to pop up my existence.

3. A shoulder to cry on.

4. My favourite relief.

5. Preferred outfit for ANY occassions for the month.

Most Feared Household Equipment after 30 days.

Ball Talk II

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I remembered this incident when the group of us went jogging from bedok south to east coast via Bayshore condominium, and one of us spotted Michael Vana, who was a hot foreign soccer talent back then, walking along the other side of the road opposite us.

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Instinctively, my soccer-crazy friend stopped jogging, and frantically waved his hands to attract Vana's attention, shouting even above the roar of traffic.

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He didn't quite catch the soccer star's attention though, but his effort didn't go to waste, for apparently, a taxi suddenly ( and mysteriously ) appeared on the road beside him in an instant.

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My friend suddenly realised what he just did, and thinking fast on his feet and trying to be non-apologetic, politely said this to the cab driver who had pulled down the window to enquire his presumed passenger's destination:

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"Eh uncle, ah.... (professional pause)....now what time ah? My watch spoilt".

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Needless to say, the taxi driver rolled up the window and fumingly accelerated away, but not without leaving a Hokkien swear word about my friend's sexual organ.

Ball Talk I
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A friend noted that our local man-in-black going for the referee-ing job in Germany this year looked a bit like our local man-in-yellow-boots.

Hmm. If our local funnyman is really going to do the refereeing, I think taking out the yellow boots and shoving them into a player's face will surely be a kickass way to caution a player on the field.

Sweet.
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Just two more days to go, and guess what the German squad has been up to lately.
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Attending watch-making workshops! Haha! Tactical maneouvering indeed. Check out Sebastian Kehl's watch. It's a... GASP... PAM 114!

Haha! Germany and Panerai - my passions, united at last!

Down, But Not Out

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While preparing for some lessons, I came across this article which rightfully declares the mis-use of science for aborting foetuses with Down's syndrome, and disregard the embryo as a mere entity in transition to nowhere.

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"I am sorry, Dr. Lejeune that we have taken your discovery and are using it to abort 80% of Down Syndrome babies. I am sorry that you are not here to champion the rights of Down Syndrome children and at the same time, glad that you are not here to witness how far down the slippery slope we have gone with pre-natal genetic testing and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. Instead of curing the patient, we are killing the patient and calling it good. It seems that the only racism that is still acceptable, and even embraced, is "chromosomal racism." "

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How I wish everyone would sit up and take notice of this.

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6.6.06

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Armageddon is here. Nowhere has it happened before...

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...that every anticipating guy in the world is holding his breath for a metatarsal of a man-boy to heal and change the world completely.

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It's Scan Day for the Rooney-man.

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And, oh, there's also a new movie premiering in town preaching the Number of The Beast as its' talismanic box-office attraction as well. About some boy who was born with the numbers '666' as a birthmark. Luckily it's not four digits, otherwise our 4D counters sure overflooded with quadruplets of sixes overnight.

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Armageddon is upon us, O believers of the World Cup. Thou shalt forsake thy peaceful slumber, and sacrifice productivity till Kingdom Come.

@NUS

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Well, I got to give it to them. In spite of its' extreme cheesy-ness, at least the sartorial NUS Business School ad reeks of credible effort and 'creativity' in it. It's actually the NTU ad which shocks me, because the whole crap looked like it was assembled and juxtaposed by a bunch of techno-savvy primary six students from their school's AVA Club completing their termly assignment in a mad rush. Really non-professional at all, for a world-class university, at that.
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And NTU is supposed to be TECHNOLOGICALLY more adept than all other universities here.
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Yeah, right.

Lessons

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Friends recommended me to read this blog of a young Singaporean gal who was suffering from cancer.

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Which I just did.

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She passed away last week at the age of 25.

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I envy her inner strength to chronicle her last moments in print, and I applaud her positive outlook in her entries, even on the brink of an impending finality.

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I am made to realise that we must always look out for that silver lining in those hovering dark clouds above us, and no matter the pain, we must always cherish the good things that happen in our short lives.

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"why do we rejoice at the birth of a new life, but mourn at the loss of it?"

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We mourn not because we are sad for the dead person. The dead person doesn't care. We mourn because we lost something in the death of that person. Hence, it becomes that much more important to recall how that person has enriched your life. Down the other path (i.e dwelling in the hurt of loss) lies cutting yourself off - EVERYONE dies, hence, we will lose EVERYONE eventually, and if all we feel is pain, we face a very real danger of cutting ourself off.

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Parents should never bury their children.

Bamboozled

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Am feeling damn shacked.

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This morning's coastal run was one of the most gruelling ever. It could be because of the morning sun, blasting away its' beams mercilessly on barebacked human beings and other assorted denizens of dawn. Damn hot.

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Or it could be the banana nut crunch breakfast, with that extra topping of cranberries and strawberries. How to cycle like that?

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Or it could also be the suspiciously-panchit tyres - damn bike felt heavy at some point.

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Nevertheless every revolution on the crank is a muscle-pounding stressbuster that leaves the emotional baggages trailing miles away in the obliterating tailwind. The feeling is simply endophins-laced.

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I just came back, popped a gatorade and instantly my sugar fix is redeemed for the past three hours.

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And found myself in front of ze monitor now.

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I love Japanese gameshows. They're so quirky and idiotic ( sometimes suggestive ). Being a nation of extremes, I have no doubt the Japanese' penchant for innovation and how they capitalise quickly on original, radical ideas like fish to water. On TV now, there's a gameshow where contestants have to dress up like samurais within a time limit and ending up looking like samseng dorks. Then they get to jump over obstacles with all that get-up, which of course will impede their progress, so they'll fall down in zany, limb-threatening fashion amidst cheering crowds, which seemingly looked eager to see contestants get impaled.

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Kinda makes you feel very idiotic and moronic. If you're taking part, that is.

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The fact that the contestants looked very stoic and docile and actually execute all those stupid stunts can only suggests that they were probably brainwashed prior before telecast, maybe even treated to a sumptious buffet of radioactive sushi before the show starts so that their brain activity indicates mental retardation for the next half an hour.

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And after that, it's basically Simon Says all the way.

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Did I mention a nation of extremes?

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Yup. True true. If you have watched Battle Royale, you'd agree with me that only Nippon people can come out with something as radical as this - killing your friends in gory fashion just to be number one in class.

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Banzai.

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As I went to the supermarket to get some stuffs yesterday, I came across a group of boys playing soccer at the void deck.

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My brothers and I used to do that when we were young. Our void deck was our home from 9 to 6 pm, and especially so during the school holidays. We would always team up with other boys from the neighbouring blocks and played soccer for almost the whole stretch of daylight. Looking back at the boys, I realised how liberated they (and I) were to actually just kick a ball around and score goals Pele would have been proud of. We had all the time in the world to thoroughly immersed ourselves in our obscure existence in a small corner of the universe.

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Occassionally, there'd be fights amongst us ( duh ) for petty reasons like offside and foul throw, but then I realised growing up means having to deal with stupid boys who liked to argue for the sake of arguing, so sometimes a punch or two is necessary to silence these bozos.

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My cheek would hit the fist of the perpetrator, after which my bum whacked the sole of his left foot with a tremendous boing, and then I found myself hugging the cold, artificial floor of Mother Nature.

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Yup, I was silenced alright.

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In spite of all this, I wished I could relive these precious boyhood moments - the soccer-playing, not the karate.

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I watched one of the boys score a magnificent curler into goal ( a space between a pair of pokemon slippers ), and then hesitantly I withdraw myself from asking them for a quick penalty shootout.

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Haha. I guess boys will always be boys.