Adebayor scores 3 goals but so did I

  

“Phew, I almost blew that”

Don’t go feeling all too smug about yourself, you gangly 2metres of shite. Against a hapless Derby County, in a match of foregone conclusions, you got 3 in. So did I. Against far superior opponents. *cocky*

AKM GREATEST MOMENTS 

Goal 1: A goal of dogged persistence.  Followed up on Terr shot, clattering the keeper in the process, with the ball trickling across the goal line. Moments earlier, a similar attempt failed. 2nd time lucky.

Goal 2: Spread the ball to the right flank (Yiren), who picked out Liwei on the edge of the box, whom in turn squared it to meet the efferverscent AKM’s well-timed run into the box, finishing off the move in style. (*woo hoo*)

Goal 3: Another assist from Liwei. Defence splitting pass down the middle, with AKM again on the end of it. With great (fumbling) control, AKM killed  off the ball with his first (3) touch (es), and drilled a shot in for his third of the afternoon.

 

AKM in motion

We are all going to Heaven, We are all going the other way.

Almost 2 months since the last entry. What has changed? Henry has left the house, Cesc is still Fab and and Spurs are still shite. Well well, nothing much has changed. Or has it?

On the work front, the load is piling up. The big projects of 2007 are on my desk and I’m relishing it. May it be the year i earn my stripes as a researcher. I’ve even started baring fangs at certain individuals. It won’t not be long before I snarl at every perceived infrigement of my personal space.  I’m not an easy person to work with. You have to fall in line with my (slack) pace.

On the personal level, I’m letting go. The diet and exercise regime is stuttering. I always intend to gym/swim but seldom get around to it. I’m slipping into the dark side, staring into the abyss, chasing after the butterfly, 0r whatever one call the slow descent into moral emptiness.

And I don’t intend to wake from the delusion just yet. Hopefully I possess enough to eventually jerk myself out of it. It’s going to be messy.

Goodbye England Rose

 In happier times..

Dude, i will miss you, your smirks, scowls and all.

I don’t know what happened to “I’ll be here as long as the club needs me” but you have the right to go wherever you want to be. Barca isn’t such a bad place to be after all.

 Thierry Henry, 1999-2007

Henry: I’ve always wanted to play for Spurs

Arsenal’s superstar Thierry Henry sensationally retired from the world of football to play with balls of a different kind. Revealed in an exclusive with The Moon, he said,

“I love Arsenal too much to fuck them upside down with mindgames. The fans should only take so much shit from me. After a season of whinning, moaning and more whinning, I wanted to leave on a high. I will never be able to play for any club after Arsenal. It wasn’t a tough decision.

 I’ve always wanted to play for Spurs. They will never be as big as Arsenal. But well, you know we Frenchies are strange”

The Only Gay In The Village (supposedly)

It’s going to be hard to ever leave. Not with colleagues ever ready to play unsuspecting pranks, having a laugh at your expense. This was the sight that greeted me when back from lunch one fine afternoon. My workstation, plastered all over with pink stars and red ribbons, with Hello Kitty figurines discreetly placed at all corners! My desktop wallpaper received a complete makeover too ! (1st pic top left. Click to enlarge !)

 

And on another day, not 1, nor 2, but 3 of this !

In case you can’t figure out, it read:

“Sometimes I like to put a sock in my underwear and pretend Im a pornstar”….

Overnight, my cubicle became a conversation piece.

Tonkichi at Takashimaya

 Was itching to go Tonkichi ever since I read this post http://joonelovesfood.blogspot.com/2006/12/tonkichi-art-of-tonkatsu.html a few weeks ago. I must have walked past countless times without noticing this jap outlet at 4th level, Takashimaya. Having the whole afternoon to kill today, I decide to seek out the place and indulge myself. The place was full and I had to wait a good 15minutes (a long time by my standard) before being ushered to a seat. I plonked myself down, got a slight shock at the steeper-than-expected prices, mentally dismissed material considerations as frivolous concerns, and settled for the most enormous pictorial display of meat i can find on the menu- the Jumbo Tonkatsu ($21) - and even convinced myself to throw in a chawamushi ($3) for good measure.

I must admit, it is about as perfect as the blog described. Bitting into the crispy breaded crust and the generously thick slices of pork loin, together with a dash of the  yellow wasabi, literally sent me tearing. I whiffed, sniffed and dabbed at my eyes, and proceed to gratefully wolf down the remaining.

The best part of the meal for me? The invitingly glistening sticky Japanese grains! I’m not kidding ! I know it sounds crazy but I swiped clean my bowl of rice with part wasabi, part some strange sauce. With the tonkatsu barely half-touched ! The serving auntie saw that, came up to my table, and asked. “Another bowl?”. I had to suppress all inclinations to contort my face into a smile, and shake my head to indicate a reluctant no while every pore was crying out “YES PLEASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEE ! “

If anyone thinking of visiting, jio me! I’ll have just the riec and miso soup.

Frenzied days of my life

Im out of my depressive episode and am swept up in a reading (and shopping!) frenzy. Stumbled upon this site www.bookcentrals.com when looking around for Thomas Friedman’s THE WORLD IS FLAT. Saw it in Times at $28 on Friday. The site selling for $20. Admittedly, the site’s selection is rather bland and uninspiring, fiction and non-fiction alike but i suppose it’ll improve with time. 

In my sudden insatiable thirst for knowledge, I am lapping up those business/marketing/ self-improvement books i used to avoid like organic food. So you have any 7 Habits of Highly boh-liao people, How to make enemies and sabo friends and the like, please put me out of my financial misery and lend me thy books. I spent $70 on 4 such books (Tipping point, Blink, Wisdom of Crowd, World is Flat) in a week and am on my way to finishing the third. This cant go on. No, I dont want Bak Kut Teh for the Singapore Soul.

I’ve yet to sink that low..

Get a grip, RAfa !

Rafa on CL exit:

“What do you want; to win the Premier League and the Champions League? The team that won the league this year spent £20m after winning the Premiership on one midfielder. Not a striker, £20m for a midfielder. Chelsea, Arsenal (???) and United are spending money, big money, every year for the last five or 10 years…”

 When you include Arsenal, you must be delusional.Blame your failure on your own stubbornness to sign top class players when you had the money.  Or buying players that fit in your tactically astute but as enjoyable as licking paint style of play. You spent 65million in 3 years! and that’s not enough??! Minus players you sold, your net spending is 46m !!! (while arsenal is 6 to 10million)  That just show how brilliant you are in the transfer market!!

 Shut your fucking gap and stop having an inferiority complex.

Psst…rafa…heard that fergie splashed 52m in a day…

***

Three years in the Red: How Liverpool’s transfer record under Benitez compares to other major clubs http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/european/article2581120.ece

2004-05

Liverpool’s major signings:

Josemi, Malaga, £2m

Garcia, Barcelona, £6m

Alonso, Real Sociedad, £10.5m

Morientes, Real Madrid, £6.3m

Total expenditure: £26m

Tot income from player sales: £11m

Net spending: £15m

Net spending for 2004-05

Chelsea £91m

Man Utd £26m

Arsenal £800,000 profit

2005-06

Liverpool’s major signings:

Reina, Villarreal, £6m

Mark Gonzalez, Albacete, £4.5m

Mohamed Sissoko, Valencia, £5.6m

Peter Crouch, Southampton, £7m

Daniel Agger, Brondby, £5.8m

Total expenditure: £30m

Total income from player sales: £12m

Net spending: £18m

Net spending for 2005-06

Chelsea £35m

Man Utd £14m

Arsenal £10m

2006-07

Liverpool’s major signings:

Bellamy, Blackburn, £6m

Pennant, Birmingham, £6.7m

Kuyt, Feyenoord, £9m

Arbeloa, Deportivo, £2.6m

Mascherano, West Ham, £1.5m*

Total expenditure: £29m

Total income from player sales: £16m

Net spending: £13m

Net spending for 2006-07

Chelsea £39m

Man Utd £4m

Arsenal £4m profit

***

Engine

In the dearth of any vaguely interesting movies on the screens now, I caught Engine, a jap 11 episodes drama starring posterboy Takuya Kimura. While never a fan of his, I finished the series in a day (almost). It is that gripping. Im lazy, so cut and paste from wikipedia again.

“Kimura’s character (Kanzaki Jiroh) begins this drama as a second driver to a better driver in Europe. He used to be a star driver in Japan. Unfortunately, when he accidentally crashes into his first driver during a practice run, he loses his job and finds himself a washed up racer who is getting a little too old for the sport back in Japan. Because Kimura’s characters always love their jobs with a boiling passion, he wants nothing as badly as to race again. He just needs that feeling he gets when he hears the sound of the engine and grips the steering wheel around a sharp turn. Unfortunately, his old racing team now has a better, younger driver and they don’t need or want Kimura’s character anymore.

He goes back to live at the home of his foster father and sister who raised him. They run a small orphanage-like home for unfortunate children whose parents can’t take care of them. Koyuki plays a young caregiver (Tomomi Sensei) who has just been hired there. The kids don’t like her because she doesn’t seem to understand their feelings and makes misguided attempts to help them. Kimura’s character, on the other hand, was an orphan himself and is still very much like a big kid, so he is just what the kids need. Despite the fact that he hates children and just wants to get back into racing instead of helping out at the orphanage, he agrees to drive the orphanage’s van and take the kids to school, etc. in exchange for being allowed to live there…”

 ARgh, got to go. Will write a better review that the above. The drama deserves better.

Stumbling without recourse

2nd May came and left. My one year anniversary in the job. Im going to miss the place. 

Lost my way a little in the past week.

Met up with friends almost everyday. Ate at Waruka (Jap restaurant) in consecutive days, had late night suppers of roti john, soya milk, fish hor fun,  moaning and whinning to anyone within earshot…

I think i am emerging from the cocoon of self-pitying melodrama.

Today was the first time we met again at the workplace since she went on her weeklong trip. Her sustained indifference did not hurt as much today 

I do hope i am recovering.

Yes, I’m aware its very much self-inflicted. And yes, I do accept the logical consequence of my deeds. And no, I have no regrets.

But that doesn’t mean it don’t hurt.

I have an (informal) interview tmrw. Been a while.