Warranties

Warranties has got to be the one of the best things that come along with the products that you buy..haha. On Wednesday, I went to the Nikon headquarters at Fuji Towers to hand over my camera for servicing and repairing the damaged sensor motion. It was kinda efficient in the admin and stuff but it could only be ready 1 week later. So, Mama would have to collect it from me and I would have to figure out another day to get it from her. And the repair cost comes to zero dollars because of the warranty!

And then yesterday, I made a long walking trip deep into the warehouse areas of Yio Chu Kang to find the giant Apple retail center so as to get a replacement for my conked out earphones. It was quite impressive really the whole ambiance of the place. I was directed into the service center and I told the person there about the problems with my earphones. Hmmm..they didn't even bother checking whether what I said was really true. They had just replaced it with another set of earphones without plugging in and testing my spoilt ones. I'm sure those bunch of earphones are retailed at S$55 at the Apple shop..haha..and I got free replacements for them. I think I'm pretty darn right when I said that each earphone cost peanuts for the big corporation and just imagine the profit margin they make with each fella that "innocently" buys it from the shop. Anyways, I'm keeping those Apple earphones as spare ones as those white bunch of stuff can't stand prolonged blasting and usage. I would be relying on more on a new pair of Sennheisers which I bought today. I tested it for a while and it sounds really superb and way much better than the Apple ones. The old Sennheisers that I have were still working very fine but because of constant usage, a section of the rubber wiring had gone off and exposed the naked wire in the process. I was using it as backup until I bought a new pair today with my spare funds..haha. Anyways kids, remember to keep your warranty cards well and renew your warranties because you'll never know when your stuff is gonna get screwed up..lol. It seems as though companies nowadays don't really bother relying on exclusion clauses when it comes to warranties although they could do so considering that some of the damages brought to them by the customers were actually due to consumer negligence rather than poor workmanship.

Btw, I had a chuckle as I passed by a driving school while walking to the Apple retail center. Apparently, they use modern Honda cars as testing cars (Civic if I'm not wrong) and their internal training circuits in the driving school are all equipped with traffic lights. Ahhh..I guess that's where all the S$2000 of driving lessons fees goes to..haha. I just had the itchy urge to flash my P licence in front of the young folks handling the car. *grins* Another strange pattern that I see is that all those driving instructors wear black speckys as if to send the signal to the nervous drivers sitting beside them that they mean business..haha

Mhmm..I'm going back to Inti tomorrow and I'm pretty pleased to have completed a couple of stuff that I had set out to do.

Five Star Performance

Carlos punishes Carson for his blunder

Man Utd swept West Brom aside with a tornado 5 goal whipping and created a new Premier League record of 11 consecutive clean sheets at the same time. The miserly defence record was even more impressive considering that the backline was rotated quite often, with Van der Sar and Vidic being the only players to play in all 11 clean-sheets.

There were speculations that Man Utd would be winning another 1-0 scoreline following the huge amount of injuries and more matches to be played in a week. West Brom started brightly for a moment but Ferdinand was in the right places to shut them down. Soon, it was clear that United were having the lion's share of possession. Slick passing moves between Berbatov and Carrick in navigating through a crowded box lead to Berba in grabbing the first blood of the game. The angle was tight but Berbatov's superb technique and control enabled him to guide the ball past Carson.

The Baggies condemned themselves to hell when their very own captain, Robinson slammed a two footed challenged against Park from behind and Rob Styles promptly produced a red card to the dismay of the Hawthorns. There was no question about that lunge by Robinson and it looked pretty bad on camera considering that he didn't even look back after slamming onto Park. Not long afterthat, United increased their lead to two after Carson did a massive boo boo with his goalkeeping. Giggs crossed a ball into the box and Carson did caught it but for some reason or so, he let go of the ball with his butter fingers and Tevez punished him by smashing the free ball into the net. Haha..Carson had this "it's not my fault" look on his face, claiming that Vidic was obstructing him but in fact, the one which had contact with him was one of his defenders. Lol, his horrified teammates gave him no sympathy looks for that kind of boo boo.

United nearly lost their clean sheet record in the 56th minute when Donk broke free of the back four and gave a shot. Fortunately for United, the ball hit the crossbar and was deflected away. That would have been game on if that had gone in. Immediately afterthat, Vidic showed his appetite for scoring by heading in the third from Giggs' corner. For the fourth goal, Giggs showed yet again another superb assist and awareness on the field by setting up Ronaldo to score the fourth. Giggs had been fabulous in this game with his three assists, 2 coming from his trademark crosses and 1 from his quick thinking. Looks like he's doing pretty well with his secondary role in the middle..haha.

Rob Styles launched a flurry of yellow cards around the seventy plus minutes mark. It started off with Bednar first and that fellow's reaction was caught on camera! Apparently, he did a gesture on his head indicating that the referee was a crazy fool. He was fortunate that the referee didn't see that...lol. Afterthat, Berbatov was involved in a contentious 5th goal when he looked to have beaten the offside line, and then passed to Ronaldo who have also looked to have beaten the line. Both occasions looked to be offsides but it was very close and the referee gave the goal to United. Obviously, the West Brom players were mad and a bunch of them started to crowd around Rob. And Rob flashed the yellow at Carson and Donk for being whiners.

Haha..this match is one of the moments when you have a "lol" defence and West Brom shows you how NOT to do a good defending. The centerbacks had little awareness of their teammates around them and they always end up clashing and bumping with one another when United started to attack. Communication was bad between goalkeeper and defenders and they were all over the place. None of them knew what the other was doing. Haha..the West Brom manager was just sitting in the stands with a bored look on his face and he was going "please get this game over with please. I had enough." Hmmm..I think the combination between Carrick and Berba is starting to look very delicious. And coincidentally, both are former Spurs boys..haha. Carrick had looked rather impressive lately and his passing looks to be deadly with the sort of vision and awareness to unlock defences. And with Berba popping up at the right places at the right time, it's another branch of arsenal United could depend on now that Carrick's all well again.

Things are looking to shape up very nicely for United after the second set of results. The Scousers continued to drop points after a 1-1 draw against Wigan. This meant that Chelsea would now be in second position after securing a 2-0 win over Boro. Ahhh..Rafa is having trouble stopping the rot at the Kop. Not only are they losing their lead position, they are going on a free fall position with Aston Villa waiting in the wings to leap over them. United's lead stretches to a possible 5 points if they could win their game in hand. Hmm..next game won't be easy though. Everton had shown the Gooners that they are no pushovers after holding them to a 1-1 draw. But of course, it won't be as fiery without Wayne playing on the field. =p

Hibernated CNY

While everyone was already gone by Saturday morning, one figure was sneaking out of Inti in the wee hours of 9 pm to catch a bus to the Seremban terminal. Thankfully, I managed to hitch a ride to Penang at 11 pm on Saturday..haha. Since it reached Butterworth at about 5 am in the morning, I went there to one of the mamak's stall (more like gerai than shop) to enjoy roti telur since the bus to my aunt's house is only operable at 7am. This year's Chinese New Year reunion dinner was held at my aunt's house where all my mother's sisters gather together with the rest of my cousins and my grandmother. It's unfortunate that my uncle couldn't join because he had to work on that day. I wish I could have stayed longer with my cousins but I've got broken stuff that needs to be dealt with and repaired using my warranty cards in the country down south. So, I've followed my Mama and brother down south where they're miserly with the CNY holidays even though the Chinese were the majority there. Or perhaps Malaysia was being too slack..haha.

For some strange reason or so, I had this compulsion to sleep during this festive period. On Saturday itself, I took a good 4hrs nap. Then, at the bus, i slept from 11 pm to 5 am. When I reached my aunt's place I slept from morning all the way till 2 pm in the afternoon. And at night, I turned in early at 10.30 pm and woke up only at 10 am. Gosh, those hours of sleeping are crazy and it's as if I'm some animal in hibernation..haha. I think it has something to do with all those deprivation of sleep as a result of the irritating thesis papers. Sleeping early is one of the crimes in Stan's dictionary. Mhmmm..I'm thinking of some late night activities since I'm all refreshed after paying off all the sleeping debts. And no CNY is complete without munching on those makan and drinking goodies. =p

Settled

Language itself is an imperfect constructive representative of one's intention. It cannot totally capture what one would mean because it has walls to dictate the limits of the unspoken meaning that is found in the mind. It does not necessary take into account everything that is going through a person's mind. My general writing style has been more or less consistently being the same from the beginning of this blog up till now. It is sarcastic and unbashfully straightforward but I'll never use it to target with malice on a specific group of people that I know personally. I made one careless complacent oversight in covering my emergency routes and everyone ends up assuming the worst. Different people have different ways in expressing their elation when they excel in something that they like. He or she may get carried away in a wave of emotions in expressing out their joy but they don't mean any harm to those around them.

I could only interpret the events that transpired for the past week or so as an instance of mass hysteria. One event triggered the other in a domino effect and there had been so many intersections that could have stopped the domino trip but, miscommunication kept delaying it from halting until the last minute. Silence had a part to play because it causes assumptions, thoughts and misconceptions to continue manifesting to the point that fact and perception becomes indiscernible.

Anyways, I don't have to prove to anyone about anything. If you want to continue thinking that I'm an egoistical bastard that steps on those around him, then so be it. I don't wish to waste my time on people who are hell-bent on holding onto false impressions without taking the effort to clarify and understand the true situation. I'm only answerable to my close friends and no one is fit to judge what my heart is except for them and God above. If someone's motive is to find fault with another and have no interest in reconciliation, every single conduct or word would be construed to be offensive even if is not meant that way. For those who took the time to be understanding of the whole situation, thank you for your kind patience and rational calmness. God Himself knows the true nature of my heart. Everything that has happen in my life is done by God's grace and I give thanks to that. I take no credit for my successes because it was God himself who allowed it to happen in the first place. Like I said before, God can take away everything that I have with just with a snap of His fingers even if I were to try my pathetic best to hold onto it. I am only human afterall.

Everything happens for a reason and God may yet take this episode to teach me an interesting lesson on the nature of life. One of them is "Don't thesis and blog at the same time. Thesis blogging screws your life."..haha =p

Btw, for those who are being pulled into this spot in the cyberspace by nature of inadvertent advertisement, feel free to come back and visit again now that you know its location..haha. Browse through the past archives and you'll discover a kaleidoscopic array of topics that are being touched on. There's many other stuff to cater to your reading interests ranging from music, entertainment, gaming and football from one person's biased perspective. Enjoy your stay here, thank you and have a nice day..*beep* :)

Muahahahaha..it's done!

Ahhhh..today marks the end of thesis nonsense for Year One. Gosh, for the past 2 weeks or so, I've been rushing like mad to complete my ELS and criminal thesis papers. It's all because Stan has been slacking his arse during the hols and he has to pay for his slackness after school has reopened. Sometimes, I really can't help it but end up doing things at the last minute again..haha. Even though I always tell myself to learn my lesson from the previous time. But this time is better coz I managed to do some reading during the hols. But sometimes, I would always think while having a long dateline, "why do today when you tomolo to do"..haha. Can't help it..this is automatism..haha.

The most shocking horror happened when I discovered that all the readings that I do for criminal law during the hols for the thesis was irrelevant and almost useless. And summore I had only like 5 or 4 days to start from 0 words to 3000 words. So I rushed like mad, and to my amazement, I managed to complete it within 3 days or so even with me taking time off to fetch the worship team to church. Yea, I am really grateful to God for being graceful in helping me to complete the thesis paper and it never cease to amaze me how He won't let His servants fall behind when they are doing His works. Like in the last semester, even with the contract law paper being on the Monday itself, I went by faith to go practice on Saturday afternoon and serve by playing drums on that Sunday, and that took a lot of time off my revision. But God is good, and he blessed me with marks that ended up even higher than the papers that I had prepared harder for. Sometimes, some of these things are just unexplainable divine intervention.

Right now I'm feeling super relieved. Since I've didn't play games, watch dramas or even had a good night's sleep, I'm gonna go do just that for the whole week. I need to complete Call of Duty 5 and get started on FM 09 and FIFA 2009! Plus, not to forget, there's Battlestar Galactica and Prison Break Season 4 with many movies to catch up. Slack and slack is the way :)

Charging Upfront

Berba celebrates his last-minute finishing with Carlos and Michael

Man Utd moved to the head of the Premier League for the first time this season after their relentless 10th consecutive clean sheet in the Premier League. The defence has been something of a bad ass miser in the League for the past month and of course, games are not won with 0-0 draws. It threatened to look that way for United's match away at the Reebok stadium despite United's domination and good attacking play which pushed upwards very often. Many shots were on target but Jaasklainen was in one of his best days as goalkeeper as he stopped shot after shot. One of his best saves was when Anderson blasted one on target from outside of the box and Jassklainen prevented the young Brazilian from scoring his first for United.

I think Evra's absence is really felt in the game because while United's attack were excellent, it was one dimensional. Very often, the final ball was a disappointment because after all the possession, the finishing was just poor. With Evra in the team, he would act as an excellent support left wing back with pace to the left winger, in this case, Ronaldo. That was how the Chelsea defence was unlocked in Old Trafford. Evra is very skillful when in comes to wing attack. For the Bolton match, neither John O Shea or Neville could fulfill the role. Neville was once like that in his younger days but those old legs cannot be expected to perform the same way as he did 10 years ago. Scholes' introduction was refreshing to the squad and he had a few opportunities to use his classic outside-of-the-box-blast but he was closed down by the Bolton defenders on those occasions. Rooney was also another figure that was missed because his physicality would have aided in snatching those rough balls from Bolton.

A goalless draw would not look too bad on that occasion given that there were news that Chelsea were going down to a Stoke goal from Rory Delap. Well well, looks like Delap has other uses other than his hands eh..haha. Anyways, no win at Reebok will mean a wasted opportunity AGAIN to reach the top as what had happened many times this season. And it sounds like the same story when United left real late to win the game 1-0. It was a moment of brilliance from Carlos and his aggressive style in pushing forward caused two Bolton defenders to bungle up and bang embarrassingly into each other. He slipped through and provided a nice ball for Berbatov to connect a diving header. United fans can breathe easy afterthat because it was a kinda suffocating game where chance after chance were denied either by Jaasklainen or poor execution. United were clearly doing a lot of shots but it's frustrating that none of them were going in. Nevertheless, it's a fantastic result in the bag. 3 points is 3 points afterall. And Chelski rescued their season from a disastrous collapse when Lampard also left it late to provide a win for them at the Bridge. Awwww..I thought Stoke deserved to draw at least. But at least Scholari gets to keep his job for a few more months..haha.

With Man Utd having done their homework, the onus is on Liverpool to regain back to pole position with their match against Everton. As predicted, the derby was a stumbling block for the Scousers as they were held to a 1-1 draw at Anfield, courtesy of Cahill's last minute strike. Indeed, as mention before, there's nothing to worry with Liverpool being at the top even after they beat Untied 1-2 at Anfield. They always end up screwed up somewhere else. I'm still of the opinion that Chelsea would remain to be the strongest contender against Man Utd despite some awful displays recently. Ahhh..so now the Scousers are level on points but United have one more game in hand and technically, it would be a 3 point lead if Man Utd had won this missing match. Of course, it will also be nice if Man Utd could consolidate their position as soon as possible to have that 3 point lead. Hopefully, the partnership between Berbatov and Tevez be taken to one level higher now that Wayne is going to be out for a couple of weeks.

Transportman

Wahahaha..looks like I have officially join the list in GFS's transport ministry. Let's start off with what happened yesterday first. At around 8 am in the morning, I fetched Alvin and Li Lian for practice and it was my first time driving to Banting. The distance is obviously further than going around Nilai and even though the road is generally straight all the way, it's not that super easy considering that the road to there is filled with so many big lorries and giant tankers. So, there's lots of navigating and cutting lanes. And some of these lorries and even moving faster than cars and they can come out of nowhere at the right lane..haha. It gets irritating when I enter into Banting with a single lane road. Lol, and turning into the u-turn to church can be a screwed up for first timers coz out of nowhere there's like two lanes..haha. So, have to keep alert there.

When we reached the church, the gate was locked! So, we went to clarify stuff and apparently the drummer, Chandran, who had replaced me this Sunday had to go school and practice was shifted to the afternoon. There's was some miscommunication and this new message didn't go through. Lol, in the end, all three of us went to the McDonalds in Banting to makan and chit-chat before returning back to Nilai. Anyways, Chandran is a really good drummer, very composed and had good control in the volume.

Haha..then this morning, since word of mouth had spread that I had an automobile, Jason and Ben came to take the car too. It was very early morning at 7 and I just had 4 hrs of sleep after watching football on Saturday night. Lol, mama would have smack me for bringing a full load in the car under such conditions. But hey, everyone arrived safely for the two-way trip and I managed to keep a good concentration..haha. Since I'm not serving today, I had the chance to go makan Klang bak kut teh with the seniors in GFS. Wah, super shiok really and it's being a long time since I had that in the morning. Nilai bak kut teh just simply can't match up to that.

On a separate note, I managed to get both my criminal and ELS marks last week. Fortunately, I got 60 for my criminal law paper with some weird combi marks of 18,13,13 and 16. Next time must start very early to revise that paper liao. Apparently, last-minute rushing didn't work as well in that paper. The good results for ELS came as expected with me getting 72. Sometimes, I feel the nature of the class' preference in chit-chatting in Mandarin for an English-intensive course is a little unsettling. I kinda get worried that I end up being too complacent. You know the classic saying about the rules regarding areas where there's no competition..haha. I could end up not studying at all because of my complacency and then my grades drop instead because of my laziness and slackness. There's not a lot of people that I can turn to engage the discussion of the law, politics, gaming or stuff that I like in an advanced manner. The standards in Leeds are tough and I have to find methods to push my innate potential up. Sigh, forgive me for the rants, it just feels pretty frustrating at times working alone with my category of interests.