After months of de-activation I've restored my contact form with AJAX, courtesy of Wufoo. Check it out!
Update: Oh shite, I didn't realise the password-protect feature was kicking in here until I tried viewing the form on another computer. Have disabled it so you guys can view it.
Weekends (Fri/Sat) are great for watching the World Cup, because I don't have to go to work the next day. I'm blogging as Switzerland are playing Korea.
Park Chu-Yong received a yellow card and I told myself, "Switzerland look slightly better". A minute later, Philip Senderos headed in a goal. However he collided with Choi Jin-Chul and both ended up with bloody faces. Both sides are currently making credible attacks, but the Swiss defence seems tighter.
The teams in this group are the closest in points so far (discounting poor Togo). If Switzerland win and France draw, then Switzerland and Korea will make it to the next stage. If Switzerland win and France win, Korea is out. If France fail to beat Togo, they don't deserve to progress to the next stage anyway. They have more established players than any of the other three teams in their group. Excuses like "They're getting old" and "Djibril broke his leg" will not be good enough.
Well, I'm back to my busy phase. Got back from my holiday and had a few surprises when I checked my emails. May not bother replying to social emails. Work, work work.
Maid's on a 3 week holiday, so after coming home late, I start doing housework. I watch the World Cup, fall asleep on the sofa, wake up sometime between 1-4am, change out of my work clothes and go to sleep.
Then the day starts again.
In between, I have band rehearsals and piano lessons to practice for.
No, I still have not registered the song I performed last July, with COMPASS. No, I still have not sent any music to Taxi for appraisals.
No, I have not met up with various people I've promised to meet up with. I have two more friends with newborn babies that I haven't visited yet. Anyway, I've had the flu since I got back to Singapore, so it's just as well.
Bahhh.
I was roped in to help at an event over the weekend. Taufik* was there. After singing a song, he went backstage and stood around with the rest of us, waiting for his turn to sing another song. Seemed like quite a nice, normal dude.
The weather was hot, and I didn't want our star to get sweaty. A mischievous thought formed in my mind as I was fanning myself with some paper. I stepped up to Taufik and started fanning him as well.
Taufik gave a smile and said no need, it was alright.
"But ... I'm a big fan of yours," I punned.
Well, frankly I chickened out at the last moment and decided not to be so corny. Dang! On hindsight, I should have just said it. Ha ha.
*To non-Singaporean readers, Taufik is our first Singapore Idol.
Olé indeed! Spain simply outclassed the Ukraine 4-0.
The most famous strikers on both teams, ironically, failed to impress. Shevchenko was so quiet that I thought he wasn't even in the team! His few attempts at goal were blocked by a responsive and resilient Spanish defence. To be fair, Raul was called in as a substitute, but only when Spain were already up 3-0. It was an indication that he was not yet ready to start in a match. His team-mates were more than able to cope with his absence.
Goalkeeper Casillas was definitely not as busy as his counterpart Shovkovskyi, who was sabotaged unwittingly by a free-kick deflection from his own defense wall. If not for the Ukranian goalkeeper, more goals would have been let in as his defence was almost nonexistent at times.
Spain was playing free-flowing football - very much like Arsenal on a rampage - and while they were very good, it was also partly because the Ukranian midfield and defense allowed them to run riot.
The ineffectiveness of both star strikers, however, brings up a big question. Does a famous player deserve to be in the team even though he's out of form, or recovering from injury? Because it appears that reputation alone is not enough to win a World Cup match.
I'm thinking of Rooney, of course, and wondering if he can do any better if he plays tomorrow. Because if he can't, can England count on the somewhat out-of-form Owen? Perhaps Crouch and Walcott should play instead...
Wasted two hours of potential sleep by watching the France-Switzerland match. To be fair, neither team was particularly bad. However neither team was exceptionally good, either. So it was very much a deadlock.
The refereeing was inconsistent, said the commentator. There was some confusion in the Swiss camp when Thierry Henry left the pitch for treatment after falling down near the goalpost. One Swiss player was booked for not putting the ball out of play. In fact, several players were booked today.
It would be a waste to have so many yellow cards and not a single goal. Their other group rivals would be happy with this result, actually - because players with yellow cards have to be more cautious. Also, they only take a point each.
France will definitely not make it to the last four of the World Cup at the rate they're going. They seem to miss top scorer Djibril Cisse (who has a broken leg), as their other strikers were ineffective today.
I will not be watching the Brazil match, but I do expect a victory. It may not be by a huge margin as they aren't playing against minnows. It should be an exciting match.
South Korea did a great job against Togo, coming from behind. Ahn Jung-Hwan may once again rouse his country and team for another great World Cup finish.
The best match I watched yesterday/two days ago would be Australia v Japan, where the Socceroos came from behind to score two goals. It was a tight match, lively to the end.
As part of an assignment I have to look for football (that's soccer to Americans) jokes. Do you have any links to contribute?
While at Borders in the Bullring, Birmingham, I spotted a football joke book with a really good one on David Beckham attempting to ride a horse. Harrods also had a collection of football joke books which were pretty good.
On Googling around, I've found more football jokes here - they're uncannily similar to the stuff I found in the books. Now which came first, the joke websites or the joke books?
Technorati Tags: football jokes
Since our subscription to the World Cup channel on cable TV hasn't been activated yet, we watched the French Open and saw Justine Henin-Hardenne beat Svetlana Kuznetsova in a nervy final.
I've generally supported Henin when it comes to women's tennis. However, her hunger to win has proven on a few occasions that she's willing to keep quiet when the umpire mistakenly calls her opponent's shot out.
This time round it was Kuznetsova, who (despite being down a set) honestly conceded a point by correcting the umpire, who had pointed to the wrong spot on the clay. This provoked sounds of outrage from the audience, as the umpire was quite a bit off his mark, and prompted more support for Kuznetsova, for being so sporting.
The commentators noted as well that Kuznetsova is known to be an honest player, whereas Henin never gives her opponents any points (even if they actually deserved it). These little anecdotes usually doesn't get reported in the news, which is why I'm saying it here.
When veteran ladies' champ Martina Navratilova arrived to award Henin the trophy, I wasn't surprised if she had hoped that her doubles partner Kuznetsova would win instead. In terms of ability, Henin was slightly better, but in terms of heart I think Kuznetsova won it with the audience.
Technorati Tags: tennis, French Open, 2006, Justine Henin-Hardenne, Svetlana Kuznetsova, sportsmanship
A quick review before I go to sleep:
It was a most exciting match, especially in the first 16 minutes. A bit of dubious refereeing, though.
Lehmann was disappointing - certainly not in his recent Champions League form, though the Costa Rican goals were fast and furious. Admittedly, Germany was busy attacking and had lapses in defence.
If more goals are let in too easily, Oliver Kahn could be called up in future matches...
We just got home from dinner. I stepped out of the car, turned back and noticed a large grasshopper sitting on the roof of the car!
We observed it for a short while, then I dashed off and got my Ixus camera.
Here's my best shot of it ...
However, after several more minutes of close observation it started to stare back at me. Suddenly, it jumped at my camera! I was taken by surprise and dropped the Ixus! Fortunately it's still working fine.
Grr ... what an aggressive insect!
After two weeks in Europe I can't say I'm absolutely elated to come back. I've seen the best museums and tasted the best cheeses in France, eaten the best cured hams and paella and drunk the best sangria in Spain, shopped at the finest store in London, read quality newspapers that (finally!) didn't have English mistakes in them, and visited my university city, Bristol.
The last thing I wanted to do upon coming back was to fall ill, but my throat became sore after leaving the plane yesterday. And I wasn't the only one. Today, my PowerMac G5 refused to start, showing the grey screen of death every time I started it up. I went to our family iMac, downloaded various instructions from the Apple Support site and tried them all out. Finally, pulling out the power plug for 15 seconds seemed to reset the system and it has gone back to normal (for now).
I did wonder if it was a heavenly sign that I was meant to purchase my MacBook Pro now. I was fingering the individual keys on the new MacBooks a few days ago at the Apple Store in Birmingham, wondering if I could buy one and claim back my VAT.
However, I did not receive a confirmation from God, and the G5 has since been fixed, so I will hang on until those new Intel processors and Mac OS 10.5 emerge.
[A side note - after this happened to me, I tried to back up more data to Strongspace but the service was also down! Looking at the forum, it seems this has been happening lately. Murphy's Law.]
I will backdate my blog posts to cover my visits to Paris, Madrid, London and other areas. You can start by viewing Paris day 1 here, along with photos of the Louvre and Orsay museums.