Of Euro 2008 Winners

Congratulations to SPAIN for winning the Euro 2008 Finals

Germany 0-1 Spain (Torres, 33)






The better team won, good one touch football at times, free flowing attacking football.

Well done

Of Worthy Players

Alright, enough is enough..

On May 19, i provided a review on arsenal's first team for the 07/08 season

I had commented the following on 2 players:

3. Bacary Sagna [8/10]
Relevation of the season, unknown french that Wenger dug out and shone at the earliest opportunity, keeping the right-back position for himself for a long time to come once he returns from injury, but that would take some time

22. Gael Clichy [9/10]
My choice for top player of the season, full of energy and determine, this guy rocks. Chases the ball non-stop, makes some mistakes but shows his determination on the pitch to recover from those mistakes and chase down the last ball, great at attacking runs too. Additional info: This lad played all 38 games for Arsenal this season, how's that for reliability?

Both have signed new deals, Clichy is a hard-to-find player in recent times, a player who is not only loyal but is also man enough to not let his agents do their shit with the club

"In my head it was always clear: I wanted to stay at Arsenal so I did not have to look any further or to wonder who wanted me. I gave them a guarantee of confidence. I am super happy. I hope that we can continue like this for another few years. It is just an extension of two years, so it binds me to the club for four years, so if I go to the end of my contract, it will be eight years that I will be at Arsenal. If everything goes well, I hope I can fulfil my contract."

Now that's an Arsenal player for you!

Adebayor?

Want to leave the club? FO! you are not even worth it. One good season doesn't make you king, 30 goals this season when it could be 50 doesn't make you worth getting the wages Henry got you asshole, get your stinking face off the club and move on, think about your god-damn retirement when you are 24, i hope you break your leg during training after you left the club and earn all the money you want doing nothing, and hell yeah, you'll be happy doing that.

Eduardo will get well, you break your leg and die

Hleb?

Oh, cry baby hleb, buy out your contract? Barcelona, Milan wants you? Haha, i'm laughing my arsenal off now kid. 3 seasons with the gunners, one decent showing in midfield finally but i wish you could shoot instead of pass when you have the goal in sight. Lack of goals, now no one wants you, are you going really buy out your contract, wait for SAFFC to make a bid or beg wenger to let you stay at the club?

Comon people, Arsenal FC is a different football club, even without superstar signings and great names which cause crazy money, we can still challenge. And if people like adebayor and hleb wants out, please Prof Wenger, strike them off and save us the agony of having this shitheads in the team

Out

Of My Football

Arsene Wenger after beating Middlesbrough 7-0 at Highbury (January 2006)"We could have scored more."

Having scored that own goal on that rainy saturday morning against TAS.. i somewhat feel that the football mojo in me is no longer that, i no longer have that feel when the ball comes to my feet, i no longer have that voice that goes "take him on, take him on"

Thierry Henry on diving
"Next time I'll maybe learn to dive, but I'm not a woman."

Of course, we lost that match, not by alot, but my own goal contributed to the deficit

You cannot say that you are happy when you don't win.
- Arsene Wenger

Is it the football off-season(well, Euros aside) that's causing this?

'As long as no-one scored, it was always going to be close'
- Arsene Wenger

Help, i need my football mojo back

"Behind every kick of the ball there has to be a thought."
-Dennis Bergkamp

Got to put on my jersey more, now that my colleagues from BAS got me my 2nd Arsenal Home Kit of the 07/08 season and my good old buddy from army and police got me the 07/08 away kit

If you do not believe you can do it then you have no chance at all.
- Arsene Wenger

Give me back my feeling damnit

Arsene Wenger reflecting on his first game in charge ahead of his 500th at the helm
"I remember I took away the chocolate bars [on the way home] and the players were singing ‘we want our chocolate back’".

Chocolate, mojo, wonder if that works

Of That NDP

NDP 2002, 6 long years ago where the great old dame of kallang was still alive, kicking and very happening, the National Day Parade is the biggest show in Singapore every year
By mentioning NDP, the parade holds more weight to me and i have never really fancied the post parade shows that had massive numbers of school children, folks and older folkers in all sorts of costumes

Of course, the fireworks at the very end to the tune of national songs such as "Count on me Singapore", "One People, One National, One Singapore" and even the national athemn, "Majulah Singapura" evokes great waves of emotions and patriotism, it makes us forget about the traffic jam after the parade, it makes people forget about all the worries regarding the cost of living,the future for singapore's children..

It was this very celebration on a national scale where i first met my wife. Incidently, she decided to take part in the parade as she was roped in by her "careperson"(read: form teacher variation for poly-lecturers) and i, i decided to take part as soon as i saw that A4 paper on the Temasek Business School notice board

When we first met, there wasn't any fireworks or military band rocking with their music in the background, it wasn't a fairytale meeting, nor was in happily ever after.. in fact, it was a simple "hello" on the SBS bus that was chartered to send us to the stadium for our trainings. Names were exchanged and i came to know that she was from Marketing as well, meaning we took the same course for year 1 and year 2. We later learn that we could both in the same class for year 3.

Side-track: Temask Polytechnic has this course in year 1 which is called Business/LOM/Marketing. All students enrolled in this course have a choice to apply for Business/Logistics & Ops Management/Marketing at the end of year 1. As of all course, there is a limited for LOM and Marketing classes.

For marketing, a total of 6 classes were to be formed for year 2. By the end of year 2, students then choose to specialise in either RETAIL MARKETING or MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS. Although our Diplomas will eventually read "Diploma in Marketing", we took pride of the fact that we are Marcom people.
Back

So now, both of us opted for the Marcom option for year 3 and when we met at NDP rehearsals, we were both waiting for the results for that, out of 6 classes, 3 would contain marcom students, we have a 33% chance of being in the same class

This 33% chance changed our lives forever : )

Of Being Back

For those who sent me the well wishes, once again, a big Thank You for remembering and for sending me those message/smses

I went for a short trip to Batam on friday and returned home on saturday evening. Nothing much to shout about for the trip, it was just some quiet time for me and my wife away from the hustles of life in Singapore

More updates when the feeling comes, and i do intend to blog more about how i met my wife at NDP, so stay tuned : )

I guess me and my wife has reached a stage whereby gifts are not that important between us and being there for each other has become the greatest gift and a daily treat, but this is what so gave me:














So sweet right? Yeah, that's my wife




Back, ah, the hectic life of a singaporean

Of Days were the those - more

A chat with an "old friend" inspired this post

An sentence that i type to be exact: i load loads of fun in school.. despite the lack of academic achievements

You see, back then, school didn't seem to be just about studying and getting results, there was more

Having joined NPCC under highly dubious reasons in sec 1, i was determined to prove myself and struggle to make an impact till somewhere in sec 2. It didn't help that our instructors, who were CIs(Cadet Inspectors), did not know who i was when i emerge the top scorer for the corporal promotion test.. abit of glory there maybe? only self statisfaction, nothing more... by sec 3 and 4, i was making decisions and overcoming obstacles and i am proud to say that i lead the unit with integrity and diligence(my school moto) till the very day i left the unit.. and i came back for short burst to help out without becoming a CI myself.

Perhaps the experience of being a leader in sec school took its toil on me and i was not motivate to join any particular CCA in poly, despite this, i managed to score a Distinction for CCA Involvement in poly - i joined ad-hoc events that i liked and gave me points, the NDP Parade(where i met my wife), was one of those events

For a notoriously difficult to handle class, it was sheer irony that we had the highest percentage of Leaders of the Uniformed Groups. The respective heads of NCC(HH), NPCC(myself) and Scouts(SX) were in my class, what we didn't have was Girl Guides(maybe some of our guys will qualify if they joined), Band(come on, band? leadership? uniformed?) and Red Cross(ncc, npcc and scouts know first aid too).

In a big school with big uniform groups, territory became an issue. NCC and NPCC technically lord over 3 basketball courts each, while the scouts had a smaller field(about half a football field) to themselves. Band members stay in their hall and appear on an ad-hoc basis to "march" around, girl guides used an even smaller field near their room and i remember the red cross appearing on NPCC's basketball court

Wonder how many basketballers used to curse me when i chase them off the courts on saturday because i need the whole "parade square" to drill my cadets.. haha



Days were the those, wonder what triggered all these memories

Of Days were the those - 'O's

Thinking back to those days where the sour smell of school uniforms fill the air, i was still a boy in secondary school, figuring out my role in life and deciding between football or basketball

School was a great place to be, not for studies but more for the friends. Being in a class full of only boys in a co-ed school has its significance. In my time, Design and Technology(D&T) was taught only to boy in sec1 and sec2. This resulted the formation of all boys class in sec3 after streaming was completed, the girls were deemed to lack the foundation knowledge that the boys were taught in sec 1 and sec 2.

And so, for a couple of years, there would always be this notorius all-boys class among the express stream, some even labelled this technical class as the "normal of express"..
Not that we really care

In a way, people have always had an expectation from us, we were expected to be a hard-to-manage class, we were expected to not to well, passing was a benchmark that others set for us...

Perhaps i'm bitter, but trust me, i really am not. I still remember how when i was in Sec 3, my class of boys were split into different classes for our Mother Tongue language.. why? No one bothered to say why, maybe they felt it was a waste of resource to place a teacher in the class, maybe maybe...

And so, i ended up in this "commerce class'' with some of my mates. Oh well, i applaud the teacher for telling us this (translated) "If you don't want to pay attention to the class, just sleep or do your own thing, don't disturb". And disturb them we did not. Chinese classes became a short nap or extra time to doodle on the textbook or create fanatasies on how the D&T project would turn out

When i got a surprise B4 for my 'O' level chinese, my chinese teacher in sec 4 (yes we have one for ourselves now), commented that "people like you should be happy with a B4, don't waste your time".

To me, it was simple, i did not study for the exam and i got a B4, so why not try again and i might be lucky and get a higher score? Try i did. I finished my secondary school education, with about 20% effort put into chinese studies and walk away with a B3

I also remember how our physics teacher, in the last leg of our preparations towards O levels, told my face in his face that "no more time, don't ask questions". Wow, for that moment we understood as a class, her duty was to vomit the content in our face, and all we had to do was listen, no more time during class, therefore no questions, i wonder if physics taught her that
As expected, i spent months after the examinations wondering if i would pass Combined Science (physics/chemistry) and was lucky to get a C6.

I also remember how our Maths HOD, we incidently was our A.Maths teacher, told us specifically that "you know how many A1s i need to cover a failure from your class so that the overall aggregrate is a pass?" Eh sir, we don't know, but maybe if you bother teaching us how to calculate, we would be able to give you an answer.

Most of the guys in my class went for A.Maths Paper I. Some didn't.

I skipped the Paper II know that my Paper I score likely be disgraceful. Oh well, an A for A.Maths, Absent also being with A

Despite the lack of confidence from majority of the teachers that my class could do well/decent in poly, i'm glad to say most of us are quite ok with life now. Special thanks must be given to the selected few teachers who with treated us just like any other student and gave us a chance to learn

Glad that some of my classmates now are in local university, completing their degrees, majority are armed with at least a polytechnic diploma, others have made headways in other academic and non-academic areas, air steward for the national airline, overseas undergraduate who plays football and coaches in aussieland, animation designer, army officers, club bouncer, photographer, undergraduate in Southhampton with job awaiting him...

And more importantly as people, we have survived and may we thrive

Of Wise Choice

And so, Arsenal has officially announced the signing of youngster Aaron Ramsey. What's so special about this kid, well... Manchester United wanted him and was prepared to allow him to return to Cardiff on loan as part of the deal, Arsenal was interested in him and Everton joined the race to provide young Aaron with additional option of Premier League football

Let's see, Manchester Utd had Gary Neville host his around Old Trafford, while Arsenal flew the boy and his family over to Switzerland to have a nice little chat with Professor Wenger on what Aaron can done at Arsenal.

Easy does it for this one...

And the new signing gets to parade with our new kit... which i think looks crap

Bad contrast with the background in this picture make the kit look worse

Of Wise Words

Posting at 2.18am, i apologies for some of the language use that is coming up...

In the army, people used to say:

When you are smart, act blur
When you are blur, act smart


For me, this works way better:

When you are smart, act blur, keep your mouth shut
When you are blur, keep your mouth shut, don't act smart, act smart people are damn cb




There you go, an inspirational production arising from a casual msn chatting with an old friend

Of Traffic Woes

Who gets the blame when someone gets knocked down on the road?

The jaywalking pedestrian or the driver would did not keep a lookout?

A post by another blog about how a top civil servant was clear of criminal neglience in the fatal accident of a 16 year old boy made me create this entry

His point about double standards in this instance sounds relevant enough to me

"Coroner Yeo, returning an open verdict, said evidence suggested that Wrixon could have failed to keep a proper lookout for oncoming vehicles.”

I could not believe what I read.

Is this the same court that ruled in favour of the wife of an americian millionaire who was killed in a car accident when he deliberately violated the traffic laws?"

What's your verdict after reading the post?

Even if the courts have ruled in Ms Chin Li Fen's favour, the guilt of killing a 16 year old boy will haunt her forever

Teach your kids, nephews and nieces about road safety.. or get them to be a top IRAS officer

Choose

Of Euro2008

Somehow, the European Champions 2008 seem to have lost its gloss.. perhaps due to the timing of the matches, the fact that its only the qualifying rounds, or that stab-hub wanted us to pay more to wake up at 3.30am to watch a match.. euro2008 just seem.. ehm, boring

Made $5.50 from my bet on Croatia overcoming Austria at the latter's home.. lost $10 when france drew their opening match against Romania.. oh well.. net loss of $4.50

The few upcoming games are too risky for me.. betting tiny bets just brings some excitement to monitor what goes on there

Spain take on Russia, don't write off the russians

Sweden play someone.. oh, its the defending champions Greece.. i would take Sweden to win, but too lazy to do anything about it

Germany looks strong and i would be keeping an eye on them

Italy lost 3-0 to Netherlands.. what happened to italian mastery in defending? Have the total football of the Orange Army finally found its feet?



More updates when i decide to bet, till then, hold your horses

Of Arsenal Kit?

Arsenal Kit Leaked?

Of "Marketer"

So you want to be a Marketer?

Having immerse myself in the academic aspect of Marketing since 2001 till now, i have also had practical application in terms of working with real life clients for school projects as well as contributing ideas and making decisions towards marketing efforts. In a way, i have been in the practice for some 7 years.

In reality, however, the world of marketing is diverse

What makes a marketer? Are sales people doing marketing? Is the customer service staff behind the counter a marketer? Now, is it that marketing executive seating in front of her computer doing administrative work a marketer? Is the account executive of a big ad agency like BBDO a marketer?

The true is, there is not black and white in the world of marketing, marketers live within the shades of grey and define their perimeters, ask a marketer a question and the answer is also certain. "It depends" depends on which context you are looking at, depends on what objectives you are trying to achieve, there is such a great mix of marketing practises that makes it hard to differentitate.

So more often than not, ask a marketer a question and expects to have more questions flying back your way

Creative Directors, Art Designers, Media Planners, Media Buyers, Buyers, Display shelves in-charge, Counter sales staff, telemarketers, insurance agents calling your mobile, the uncle selling ice cream that rings a bell to attract your attraction, LV, Prada, Coca Cola, Disney, the auntie who sets up a table at serangoon central selling knife-sharpening equipment at $10
They do marketing don't they?

How about you? Why do you dress up? Why comb that hair? Why carry that phone that says a message about you, why do you not just use your NRIC name for your email and other contact names like your MSN name and facebook account name?

Are you a marketer then?

Let's not forget the totally different sort of marketing, the ones that my grandmother(when she was alive), my mum, my wife, me, the aunties, the uncles do to get food on the table, that's marketing too

So you want to be a marketer?

Of I'm Back

And so i'm back to reality, to work, to duty to the nation, to preparing for exams, to managing relationships in the family...

The air in bangkok is really really bad

Kind of certain this will be my last trip... though Chatuchuk will be worth going again after i get my place in mid-2009

And so i'm back with a great list of things to be done..




Next trip - Perth - 6 July, mark your dates