Weekend Summary

Eventful trip.
Fun time bonding and fellow-shipping.
Tired body.
Realisation, again, that I am blessed with a wonderful partner.

Good weekend overall.

Wembley Stadium Design - Bland and Generic?

Do you realise how the Wembley stadium looks so much like Arsenal's Emirates Stadium? The styles of each stadium looks so so similar.

They should take a look at new stadiums such as Bayern Munich's Allianz Arena or Beijing's new Olympic Stadium. Even the renovated Athens Olympic Stadium or Berlin's Olympic Stadium looks much better. As for older stadiums, have a look at Camp Nou and the San Siro.

Have they run out of ideas in making each stadium unique? I guess why the atmosphere at Man Utd's Old Trafford stadium is so different from its city rivals. Old Trafford was upgraded bit by bit, and so even after the renovations and expansion, it still managed to retain most of its character and uniqueness.

Oh well...

Chicken Breast

The Hokkien word for chicken breast is "Heng Kam Bak"... and don't you forget it! :)

Whome should Man Utd get for the next season?

A left-back = Gareth Bale?
A right-back = Micah Richards?
A defensive midfielder = Owen Hargreaves?
A left-winger = Nani?
A striker = David Villa/Fernando Torres/Dimitar Berbatov/Michael Owen?

Congratulations Man Utd!

After 3 years of waiting... Man Utd has finally won the Premiership title again!

It is no mean feat considering the quality of the opposition, especially Chelsea.

It took the whole team all of their skills, understanding and effort to be at the top this season.

The young 'uns came of age this year: Rooney, Ronaldo and even Fletcher... and the old ones, its was as if they found their 2nd wind and had a great indian summer: Van der Sar, Solskjaer, Larsson, Neville and especially Scholes and Giggs.

And of cos... the way Sir Alex put all these elements together, persuading Ronaldo to stay, recruiting Carrick to protect the back 4 and kept the team playing attacking, exciting football that sometimes put our hearts in our mouth, and other times lifting us up to "7th" heaven!

Lets hope they have enough in their tank to finish with a bang and end the season with a double. Here's to the next season!

New member of the family...

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... the latest addition to the Chen family!

I present to you... err...

(please ignore the lard of fat carrying her)

Urm... we haven't come up with a name for her yet (Edit: we finally came up with Ashe, which is a nice name). Yes, its a she and she's a Korat cat (at least we are 99.99% sure she is a Korat cat!).

Korat cats belong to one of the oldest breeds of cats in Thailand and apparently, they are given as a pair to newly-weds and prominent dignitaries as a symbol of good luck. So they are known as the "good fortune cat" in Thailand...

She's a beauty isn't she?

Depth of squad...

The problem with Man Utd this season isn't not having a great 1st team, its not having a good 2nd team. With a long, tiring league like the Premier League, you need to have at least 2 good first teams in the squad if you want to succeed on all fronts.

With 1 domestic league, 2 domestic cups and 1 European league to compete for, you need a really big squad, comprising of a good mix of youth and experience, with at least 2 players per position in the team. However, as with every big squad, the biggest headache is to make sure that everyone is happy and that morale is high. The cost of maintaining such a big squad is also enormous.

Unless Man Utd's owners can back the manager is maintaining a big squad and ensure that each player recruited are skilled, team players, an assault on 4 fronts is near impossible.

Now, if only Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Laksmi Mittal and Ingmar Kampard would be persuaded to buy Man Utd from the Glazers...

Too good to be true

They were poor. The very game Man Utd were expected to stand up and be counted for, they did not turn up. :/

At least Fergie had the guts to say that they were poor. Jose, you sore loser, learn from him will ya? :P

Oh well... there's always next season...

Now that Rooney's no longer ignorable...

Whom will be Man Utd's wild-card this time? Scholes? Carrick? Fletcher? Giggs? Even Ronaldo maybe? Hmm...

As for AC Milan, Man Utd have to watch out for Filippo Inzaghi though. That guy's a poacher par excellence... but I really hate the way he behaves on the field... whining and moaning, diving and asking for a yellow card to be issued to the opposition. That is just not cool, no matter how many goals you score. That's why I prefer Pele than to Maradona. I really hope Cristiano Ronaldo will start to lose those bad, bad habits soon.

Anyway, about 2 hours to kick off. Add oil, Man Utd!

Reading between the lines

I just read an article from the Daily Telegraph which had an exclusive interview with Kaka...

Now if I read the article correctly, and I am doing a bit of my own speculation here, there is might be a possibility that Kaka may be interested in playing in the Premiership and more specifically, Man Utd!

Imagine the prospect of lining up an attacking force of Rooney, Ronaldo and Kaka! If we get a world class centre forward to complement them (Zlatan Ibrahimovic maybe?)... what a dream lineup that would make.

My ideal handphone

I've been thinking of the kind of dream handphone that I'd like to have and I came up with this:

It should be a handphone that is built for an active lifestyle, something similar to the Nokia 5500 and it should contain features such as a
- shock-, dust-, scratch- and splash-resistant body,
- torchlight/emergency light - from flash function,
- FRS walkie-talkie function (especially useful when you are out of phone range),
- sports tracking software including heart-rate monitor, calorie meter, pedometer etc,
- GPS system, digital compass, altimeter, barometer and thermometer,
- multiple individual daily alarms,
- countdown timer with multiple timers and alarms,
- 1/100 sec. stopwatch with lap memory,
- world time - individual cities time,

...as well as more common features such as:
- hi-resolution, auto-focused, flash camera,
- hi-resolution video camera,
- 2nd hi-resolution camera for video calls,
- PIM including to-do list, calendar, reminder, journal/notes, calculator and converter,
- multi-band radio, and
- stereo media player.

Yeah!!! :)

Nokia or SE, are you reading this???

Oh well, back to work... :/

Should I say: I told you so?

Hmm... I wonder if Sir Alex Ferguson was reading my blog yesterday or did he have the same idea as I did: Put heaps of attention at Ronaldo and keep a tight lid on his plans for Rooney...

It worked didn't it? Hmm... looks like I may have a future as a football pundit. ;)

No one's looking at Wayne...

It seems like the whole focus on tonight's match between MU and Milan is on MU's defence, Ronaldo and Kaka. Hmm... interesting... where is Wayne Rooney figuring in all this?

If I was Sir Alex Ferguson, I'd have a word with Rooney and tell him that no one is really looking at him and it is a great opportunity for him to take the game by the scruff of the neck and shine while all the focus is on Ronaldo and Kaka.

Wad'ya think?

My deepest wishes...

Deep down in my heart, I have been harbouring a few wishes... hoping they will come true but most likely they will not.

The 1st wish would be to give Su Yin her dream wedding.
The 2nd wish would be to visit Japan, my dream country to visit.
The 3rd wish would be to produce a full-length animated movie. Maybe I can get someone to fulfill my 2nd wish??? After all it is the land of Anime?
The 4th wish would be to build my dream home.
The 5th wish would be to get all the boy toys I want (maybe I should write another post about this...)
This 6th wish would be to watch a MU match in Old Trafford.

Now, for all these wishes to come true... we come to my final wish:
Get Bill Gates to donate US$ 1Billion into my bank account.

Ya... that would do just fine. :)

Callous

I think the showing of the video of the Virginia Tech gunman over and over again just reeks of sensationalism...

It was done callously and without any thought for the ongoing investigation and for the grieving family.

It was the very thing the killer wanted the NBC to do. They just played into his hands...

Why should we glorify his actions? He was a sad and disturbed guy with lots of issues. Sighs...

Tagged: 6 weird things about me...

I have been tagged by Alvin to blog about 6 weird things that you might or might not know about me.

Okay...

Right...

Hrm...

1. I play Football Manager with a passion that sometimes drives Su Yin up the wall.
   
2. I love adding vinegar to my Penang Hokkien Mee (Spicy Prawn Noodles).
   
3. My nightly dreams are in Technicolour, Dolby Digital and also is so 'virtual' I can smell and taste the food I eat in my dreams.
4. I listen to BBC World Service radio. Have been doing it since I was 13 or 14.
5. I like both Classical Music and Dance Music.
6. I have watched the first Die Hard movie at least 25 times (Watched it in the cinema 3 times).
   

I am really an ordinary guy. Really... Don't know what I did this :)

Anyone else want to join Alvin in his madness? Post it up on your blog. I am not going to bother tagging someone else. Yes... I can't help it. I am too lazy. :P

Down with Nike

I hate the new NIKE "Nike Plus" advertisement.
Its so intrusive and irritating and its in Windows Live Messenger.
I wouldn't mind if you have to click on the image to access the advert but this one is so, so intrusive as the advertisement, which comes in the form of an video ad, is triggered every time you roll your mouse over the ad image.
This is so irritating!

I say "DOWN WITH NIKE!"

Hmm... maybe I should boycott Nike?

Watch your mouth!

It is one of the hardest things I have to do...

Help me in my weakness, Lord.

"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart,
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer." - Psalm 19:14

"Can God make a rock so big that he cannot move it?"

During the CG meeting last night, one of our members brought out this question and we had a short discussion on this question.
This is a question often ask by people who wants to trap Christians because either "yes" or "no" would somehow make you and God look bad.

I did a bit of searching and found this on the Web...

"Can God make a rock so big that he cannot move it?"
Think about it:

If we answer yes, then there’s something that God can’t do: He can’t move the rock
If we answer no, then we’re saying that God can’t build the rock either way, we are forced to put limits on God’s power.

So what’s the answer?

The answer is to admit that there are some things that God can’t do:

• He can’t do the logically absurd or the contradictory, e.g. God can’t make square circles or triangles with four corners.
• He can’t sin.
• He can’t die.
• God cannot act against his holy nature.
• He can’t fail to do what He has promised.

In fact, there are some things that you can do that God can’t do:
You can be illogical,
you can sin and
you can die.

When we define omnipotence, and say that God is able to do all things, what we mean is this:

God has infinite power over his creation. Nothing stands out of the scope of His sovereign control. God’s will is never frustrated. What He chooses to do, He accomplishes, and He has the ability to do it.

(Psalms 115:3) Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him."

Good answer this.
So ya, there are things God can't do... and aren't you glad that He can't?

Hot

Anyone who dares to dispute the existence of global warming should come to my room and stay in it in the afternoon.
It is so hot that you still sweat in an air-con room.
There must be something we all can do to elevate the problem... :/