FA Cup 4th Round

United are through to the next round after a 3-1 win over Tottenham. Don't let the scoreline deceive, Spurs were quite good in the match. It was Robbie Keane who drew first blood after Ferdinand and co. were caught ball watching. Tevez equalize some ten minutes later. Spurs would have taken the lead again since Jenas had two clear one-on-one chances but United were very fortunate that he turns out to be an awful finisher. At the 69th minute, Rooney and Dawson were struggling for the ball and when both men fell in the penalty area, Dawson appeared to have handballed. What was worse is that that handball was seen to be a deliberate since his hand looked to have directed the ball of Rooney's leg and yes, a straight red card. The last goal by Ronaldo was a bit of luck again since the Spurs keeper actually guessed the direction right but it was just unfortunate that the ball rolled past his armpit. This Spurs side is certainly a revitalized side under Ramos. It's very attacking football and one can see that players like Aaron Lennon were causing tremendous problems for the defence particularly Evra.

Boo-boo to Liverpool once again although they won the match 5-2. They were trailing TWICE and I got a little shock when I switched on the TV to see Liverpool going down by 1-2 to a group of part-timers Conference group team. The unlikely hero Yossi scored a hat-trick to save Liverpool the blushes.

Now, Man Utd's next 5th round opponent is - Arse-nal. Woah, what a draw while Chelsea and Liverpool get easy stuff. Well, looks like cup final comes early for the United players! Haha..I think Man Utd got a slight advantage since the fixture is set at Old Trafford :)

Father's love

Yesterday was another tiring day due to my grandfather's weekly visit to my uncle and aunt's place. I reached home later than usual yesterday also due to the crazy rain that seem to pound non-stop on the highway journey. It's just pretty amazing to see the blank and bare dark sky flashing constantly from the lightning strikes.

Anyways, the sermon at church yesterday was interestingly given by Datuk Paul Low from KL, touching on the topic of God's fatherly love. From the contents of his sermon, I can see that he's a very well-learned and successful man who has a high reverence for God. He included some topics of discussion like the existence of evil as explained philosophically by a line of argument that I came across in NBS' uni philosophy paper too. I was quite enlightened after listening to his sermon. Personally, I'm just thankful that God's fatherly love has kept me going steady in my tumultuous life journey.

Makan bill

I got to know more about my fellow Lasallians at St. George's at the youth meeting today. One is Fa Man who is Form 5 this year and the other is Cassim who is currently waiting for his STPM results. Lol, at the same time I give them some insights on my life in Singapore also lar. After youth meeting, I went down with Cassim to the mamak stall below to have food. Then after makan, in a hurry, I tumpang Estee's car back to my house. It was when I stepped into my room and digging out some coins from my pocket that I realise in horror that I didn't pay my makan bill at the mamak stall!

So, I quickly got my grandfather to drive me back and it would really be super pai seh if Cassim or any of the church members sitting there had to pay the bill for me. When I reach there, to my relief, Christine said that nobody touch the bill and even the mamak boss was clueless that I had not paid my makan bill yet(speaking of free food..lol). Anyways, I paid my sum and went off afterthat. Ahh..looks like I need to remind myself to pay my makan bills earlier when I eat there..lol.

The kids are not alright

Being pissed off at your own team-mate right in the middle of a mauling by your opponent is not a very smart thing to do. Lol, who would have thought that there would be a repeat of friendly fire at the field after the Bowyer-Dyer incident! This time, it's Arse-nal with Bendtner and Adebayor being the stars. Apparently, Adebayor was being pissed that Bendtner didn't pass the ball to him and it seemed that the giant Togo striker headbutted his dear fellow gooner. At 4-1 down, it's already shameful but nooo..these gooners decided to heap more misery on themselves by self-destructing themselves right in front of their bitter and fiercest rivals. Captain Gallas had to pull them apart while Bendtner points to his smashed nose as if to tell his captain that such "injustice" to him is not to be tolerated and must be redressed. The White Hart Lane crowd must have been enjoying every minute of it. At the end, 5-1 was the result with more potential trouble set to creep into the dressing room for Arse-nal.

Well, Professor Wenger must have forgotten to teach his kids to behave on the field. Bendtner's father wants Adebayor to be punished for offending his son but it remains to be seen if Wenger wants to offend his star striker in the first place. With van Persie injured, Wenger needs to watch where he is stepping at. Arsenal's footwork may be superb but mental strength does play a part too in the championship race. The gooner's young squad somehow display a lack of maturity in handling pressurising situations and the diverse national background of the squad compounds the problem. Haha, if the gooners wanna continue to take a swipe at one of their own, they're welcome to do so and it's Man Utd's gain in the next coming months :)

Facebook!

Ok, I'm a bit late to catch on this one but I'm in Facebook now! I've been using Friendster for a long time and since I'm free today, I might as well try Facebook out too. One noticeable change of course is the load of *dunnoewhat* that is clogging the profile page! Haha..I'm abit lazy to retype my profile again so I juz copy and paste stuff from Friendster. Facebook just have this overloading amount of things to do and I think pple can easily spend a good 30 minutes using those features. Hehe..the funny thing is that I can even spot some of my teachers and adults that I know in them! The only thing was that I'm still a little clueless at first on how to add some of the hillarious boxes on the profile page. After looking around at pple's profile, I got a hang of it. Ok, let the profile clogging and information overflowing begin ;P

Call of Duty 4

The makers of the game that revolutionise World War II combat from Medal of Honour has now turned their attention to modern warfare. In 2003, Call of Duty is probably one of the first to offer authentic weapon targetting with the players using the genuine "iron sight" and reticles of weapons for aimed shots rather than just some cheap zoom in crosshair. After 3 or 4 installments of the series, the team had probably exhausted the list on which WWII battle they should work on. However, CoD 4 is ain't any history lesson since the storyline is fictitious with modern inspirations from the Iraq War and Somalia. Nevertheless, the wide-ranged of authentic arsenal of modern weapons like the M4A1 carbine, AK-47, G3, MP5 and RPGs were interesting. Now, players get to try on the iron sights of modern weaponry with the M16 bringing some memories back for me personally..lol. Oh, and check out the Javelin anti-tank missile! It really makes you feel the awe of how much rocket launchers have improved since the days of the Panzershreck or the Bazookas. Btw, one missile cost around US$80 000 and it was said to be very effective in hunting down Iraqi tanks during the war.

I've finished the single player campaign and I must say, the gameplay experience was excellent although short. The game's "Mature' rating certainly points out that it is gonna deliver some really serious stuff in combat warfare. The wide range of colourful vocabulary from the accented British S.A.S and the blood splatter on the walls from headshots and bullet sprays are some of the stuff that helps CoD 4 earn their audience rating..lol. From the start to the end, CoD 4 captured the combat experience very well and maintaining the adrenaline. Graphics wise, it was truly one of the best eye-candies I came across. Human facial model features were thoroughly detailed. The whole level of Prypiat in Ukraine was modelled authentically on the real-life location in Chernobyl with the eerily famous ferris wheel. Of course CoD 4 don't have any mutants like S.T.A.L.K.E.R roaming around, just some legions of whacko ultranationalist armed with Ak-47s swarming all over the area. On the experience line, CoD 4 again offers something new this time, "death" simulation! They actually produced specially scripted level scenes just to allow players to helplessly feel the grasp of "death" and the seconds just before everything would come to an eternal blank. Very creepy too and it could give the players the shudders. Some interesting plot twist also came from those "death" scenes.

The one small thing that I would be critical about the game is that it sometimes forces you to take the initiative to storm forward so as to get the game script moving. For instance, especially in the US Marine missions, unlimited amount of enemies will come streaming in if the player do not take the initiative to storm forward to certain checkpoints. Technically, the player won't run out bullets (since the floor is packed plenty with fallen corpses) and so, camping would just meant that he would be locked in some eternal firefight. This problem doesn't arise much in S.A.S operations though since they are covert-ops in a specific area instead of an all out war that the USMC engages in.

Overall, CoD 4 is a brilliant game in every aspect especially the FPS experience and probably one of the best I played in my life. It gets me going to research more on modern weaponry too!..haha. They really should get an expansion set going :)

Man Utd 2 Reading 0

Late goals by Rooney and Ronaldo sealed the 3 points for Man Utd. It's a pretty tight match considering that Reading last held United to a 0-0 draw at Old Trafford by parking a bus in front of the goal. This time, they are more adventurous with a more attacking line-up. There were several brilliant runs by the United players, especially with the through balls to Ronaldo, just that he wasn't able to put the ball behind the net. Van der Sar was not particularly alert this time, quite blur with several glaring mistakes. Anyways, I didn't know that Hargreaves could take free kicks pretty well...haha..beautiful curling shot but was denied by a superb Hahnemann save.

Even towards the 90th minute, Reading was quite scary as they come close in spoiling the party. It's just that one moment of concentration lapse that allowed Ronaldo to solo counterattack to seal the win. Kudos to Reading for the match, although they lost, it was a loss with dignity based on the way they played. Hahnemann again made several impressive saves with Lita, Kitson and Harper being quite a threat to Ferdinand and Vidic. The Reading team had the fighting spirit and showed it through their determination and quality movements in their attempt to get the equaliser. Of course, it was totally unlike last week where Newcastle I would say, is shameless in their loss. Maybe King Kev would come back to the TV station for an encore and declare "I would love it if we beat them, love it!"