Monthly Archive for August, 2008

LFC: Another Late Winner

Published
by
moby
on August 29, 2008
in football
. Comments

For the third time this season, Liverpool left it late - very late - to score the winner in their match, this time in the 2nd leg of the 3rd qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League against Standard Liege. Having drawn a rather clueless game in Belgium, the Reds were expected to give a much better showing at Anfield, but it was the Belgian side that played brilliantly. They defended magnificently and took whatever opportunity they had to sneak in a counter attack.

The Anfield faithful, and the ones thousands of miles away, struggling to stay awake at 3 in the morning, ie. me, were left wondering if it could be one of those nights. A tiny slip, a stolen away goal and it could have spelled disaster for the Reds - both psychologically and financially. The windfall from qualifying for the group stages of the Champions League is too big to let slip.

It was in the dying minutes of the second half of extra time that Babbel crossed from the left, Kuyt somehow got his legs in front of the covering defender and the Dutchman scored the vital goal. Standard Liege had a couple of chances to equalise and steal the match from Liverpool but the Reds barely hung on for the win.

It was indeed a frustrating night that could have ended in disaster had Kuyt not come up with the winner. Time and time again, Liverpool failed to break down a resolute Belgian defence and they got more and more frustrated as ideas and time ran out. They say the mark of a true champion is to play below your best, yet still manage to carve out a victory from somewhere. They also say, champions play beautiful football. Occasionally, at least. It’s been three late winners so far. The results are great, but they way the team huffed and puffed throughout the match worries me. One day their luck will run out and the winner might not come at all.

And with news that Liverpool are to play PSV Einhoven, Marseille and Athletico Madrid in the group stages of the UEFA Champions League in three weeks time, they have got to step it up a notch or two. This surely looks like the group of death.

UEFA Champions League 3rd qualifying round, 2nd leg:
Liverpool 1 - Standard Liege 0


[Skysports]

Nikon D90 - The Camera For The Advanced Amateur

Published
by
moby
on August 28, 2008
in photography and video
. Comments

At long last, the update to the Nikon D80 is set to be released! Come mid-September, the world will finally get their hands on the Nikon D90, the world’s first DSLR with motion capture, ie. VIDEO!!. DSLR owners have long lamented the lack of video functionalities in their cameras and with the impending release of the D90, that void will certainly be filled.


[Wired]

Specs include 12.3 megapixel CMOS sensor, sensitivity range from ISO 100 to ISO 6400, 4.5fps continuous shooting, 11-point autofocusing, live view on its 3 inch LCD screen and of course, the all-important video shooting at 24fps 1280×720 motion JPEG.


[CNet]

The camera, designed specifically for the advanced amateur, is set to retail at a street price of US$995 (body-only) or with the new f3.5-5.6 18-105mm VR ultrasonic kit lens for US$1,299.95. Add about US$179.99 and you can also get the all-new 30MB/s 16GB Extreme III SDHC card to store the images from your spanking new D90 camera.


[CNet]

Also check out these guys working with award-winning photographer Chase Jarvis, who each got to play around with D90s. How I envy them!

Everyone Needs A Lightsaber

Published
by
moby
on August 26, 2008
in web discoveries
. Comments

For those times when I feel abandoned, left alone, neglected or simply forgotten in the dark, crying for help ….

Plurk Screenshot

Perhaps this will brighten up the day:

It’s so cool! A tiny, little lightsaber I can wave around with and pretend I’m a Jedi in the office stuck in a boring job.

[link: Geek Alerts]

The Sporting Event No One Really Cares About

Published
by
moby
on August 26, 2008
in news
. Comments

As the curtain draws on one of the most successful and spectacular Olympic Games ever, another event has just begun in the North-western English port city of Liverpool, which by the way, is also home to the most successful English football club, Liverpool FC, and probably the greatest band ever, the Beatles!

What major international sporting event am I talking about? Why, it’s the World Firefighters Games 2008, of course! The 10th edition of the bi-annual Firefighters Games, which started in Aukland, New Zealand in 1990, is being staged in Liverpool from the 25th of this month to 3rd September.

About 5,000 highly-tuned, beefy and brawny firefighters from all over the world will be competing in 60 sporting events (the Olympics had only 38 events), ranging from the traditional sporting events like swimming, marathon running, and wrestling, to the more obscure sea angling, arm wrestling, assault course, bucket brigade, fire house cook-off (mmmm!! yummy!!), fire truck challenge, poker, stair run, toughest firefighter alive, treasure hunt, and the ever popular tug of war.

We might not see an Usain Bolt zooming up the stairs in the stair run, nor a Michael Phelps splashing his way to gold in the open water swimming event. We might not even see a single event on TV, but it’s a very important gathering of men and women from the fire services from around the world in a celebration of sports, camaraderie and unity as proud and heroic firefighters that they are.

I wish I could watch the cook-off because I hear firefighters cook a mean steak! Mmmmm ….

links for 2008-08-24

Published
by
moby
on August 25, 2008
in daily links
. Comments

My Beloved Monster And Me

Published
by
moby
on August 24, 2008
in maya
. Comments

IMG_5321

One weekend while at Harbourfront, Maya was confronted by a green monster in a trash can.

LFC: Ugly Win Is Still A Win

Published
by
moby
on August 24, 2008
in football
. Comments

For the second successive Barclay’s Premier League match in a row, Liverpool needed a late goal to snatch a winner from what looked like a very poor game. The gaffer says Liverpool must emulate Chelsea and win ‘ugly’ if they were to mount a serious challenge for the title this season.

We can’t play beautiful, free-flowing football all the time and expect to win 5-0, but in today’s game, Liverpool were poor for most of the match. As John Burridge said on TV, Liverpool “played like a 4th division side”. For once I have to agree with the man with the questionable sense of fashion (he even took a shoe off in studio. I saw it!).

Scrappy, ugly win it may be, but there’s no denying what a beauty Steven Gerrard’s goal was. The fightback started when, a goal down from a Mido strike, Jamie Carragher collected the ball outside the penalty box from a rebound off the Boro defender’s arm, fired a powerful volley that deflected wickedly off a Boro player, wrong-footing the goalkeeper and into the net.

Up stepped Gerrard in the dying seconds of the match for a fantastic placed shot to the far post for the match winner. As much as I’m in awe at his superb match-winning goals, I’m beginning to really worry about Liverpool’s over-dependency on the captain to provide the magic touch from his magic boots which I will gladly kiss if given the chance!

Well, a win, ‘ugly’ or otherwise, is still worth three points and I’ll take that gladly with both hands. Two wins in a row. Not a bad start to the season so far, but there’s still a huge room for improvement.

Bring on Standard Liege for the return leg of the Champions League qualifier in mid-week!

Barclay’s Premier League: Liverpool 2 - Middlesbrough 1

Gary Glitter Released From Prison

Published
by
moby
on August 19, 2008
in news
. Comments

Lock up your children! Gary Glitter, incarcerated for child molestation in Vietnam, has been released from prison by the authorities there pending deportation from the country.

And guess what?

He’s contemplating moving to either Hong Kong or Singapore.

Glitter said he was thinking about resuming his singing career and that he might move to Hong Kong or Singapore.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, was convicted in March 2006 of molesting two girls, ages 10 and 11, from the southern coastal city of Vung Tau. He served two years and nine months of a three-year sentence, which was reduced for good behavior.

He was also charged and convicted of child pornography in 1999. This is one foreign talent that I would NOT welcome if he decides to move here.

[link: Yahoo! News]

Nobody Likes You Anymore, Eh, John?

Published
by
moby
on August 19, 2008
in news
. Comments


It seems like the world is against John Mayer for breaking up with Jennifer Aniston. Or so he says. He had lots to say about the whole breakup affair, defending himself against rumours that he was a cheapskate (Jennifer paid for everything when they were going out) to him being unfaithful to her.

He was obviously pissed when groups of paparazzi hounded him and incessantly asked him questions about the breakup.

“If you guys are going to run stuff and run every lie under the sun, have somebody stand up for somebody. Have me as a man who ended a relationship stand here and write some truth. Have me stand up for somebody and write that Jennifer Aniston is the smartest, most sophisticated person I think I’ve ever met. She’s one of the most lovely people I’ve ever met in my life and I’m going through something that’s a very personal thing and you have to give that up. You have to give everything up because you can’t have it all and it sucks.

“I’m sorry that the story’s not interesting, but it’s about time that somebody stands up for that girl and I think she’s great.”

Mayer reflected on the situation as “the most normal thing in the world – There’s no lying, there’s no cheating. There’s no nothing.

I doubt we’ll really know what went wrong with him and Jennifer Aniston, but she’s keeping largely quiet about it, as she did when Brad Pitt dumped her.

So the “it” couple is no more.

I love John Mayer’s music and he may be a nice guy but when I first read about his relationship with one of my favourite Friends, I knew it wouldn’t last, given his history with women.

Oh well ….

[link: The Superficial]

‘Fierce’ Maternity By Christian Siriano

Published
by
moby
on August 19, 2008
in fashion
. Comments


The Project Runway whiz kid, Christian Siriano, is launching a maternity line next month.

The fierce and talented designer collaborated with his two friends and founders of Moody Mamas maternity clothes, to create a collection called Fierce for Moody Mamas by Christian Siriano.

No tent dresses are available in this collection, it seems.

[link: The Cut]

Boycott Tropic Thunder

Published
by
moby
on August 15, 2008
in movies and news
. Comments

Various disability groups in the US have been outraged by the repeated usage of the word ‘retard’ in the movie, Tropic Thunder. The DreamWorks movie, staring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black, among others, is about a group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie who are forced to become the soldiers they are portraying.

Although the movie is a satire about Hollywood, the actors and the movie industry in general, there are scenes in the movie where being intellectually disabled, or ‘retarded’, is funny. A coalition of disability groups, led by Special Olympics, protested to DreamWorks and demanded that certain objectionable scenes be removed, but the studio refused to give in.

I understand parody and I can even laugh at certain stereotypes, eg. about my race or something, and I’m quite liberal when it comes to censorship but when an offensive and hurtful word such as ‘retard’ is used repeatedly such as the case in this movie, it’s crossing the line between parody and downright offensive behaviour, which is disappointing because I like Ben Stiller’s movies before this one. And it’s even more disappointing to know Ben Stiller gave up his time to do a television special in 2006 to raise funds for people with autism.

Sure, some parts of Tropic Thunder is actually funny. I’ve seen the trailer and there are some funny lines in it, but portraying people with disabilities as a joke is cruel.

The Special Olympics-led coalition has issued a protest statement on its website, part of which reads:

Declare that under the guise of “parody,” whether intentional or not, Tropic Thunder demeans, insults, and harms individuals with intellectual disabilities by using the “R- word.” Furthermore, it perpetuates derogatory images and stereotypes of individuals with intellectual disabilities including mocking their physical appearance and speech, supports the continuation of inappropriate myths and misperceptions, and legitimizes painful discrimination, exclusion, and bullying;

TOGETHER, we declare our intention to make the public aware of the need to create and foster inclusion of individuals with intellectual disabilities as a matter of social justice by:

* Boycotting the film and explaining to our nation’s children why the film is harmful;
* Educating the public, especially young people, about intellectual disabilities through far-reaching awareness campaigns to ban the use of the “R-word,” and other initiatives to permanently change attitudes and promote inclusion;
* Calling on Hollywood studios, writers and executives to pledge to make this the final chapter in a sullied history of demeaning portrayals of individuals with intellectual disabilities and assist in public education campaigns; and
* Requesting that Congress investigate and conduct oversight of how Hollywood portrays individuals with intellectual disabilities and the effect these portrayals have on our nation and around the world.

Detailed facts about why the movie is so offensive can be found here.

Do your part. Even if you’re not planning to boycott the movie, understand that contrary to the saying “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”, derogatory and offensive words such as ‘retard’ do hurt. People with disabilities need our understanding and support. Throwing the R-word around and making it seem funny isn’t nice. At all.

Support the cause here.

LFC: Lucky Escape In Brussels

Published
by
moby
on August 14, 2008
in football
. Comments

It was the the same story, the same pitiful display away from home from the former European Champions, this time in the 3rd qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League. What promised to be an exciting match (and one which, on another day, Liverpool should have won) fizzled out into a duel between the Belgian league champions, Standard Leige, and a Liverpool side that looked out of sorts early in the season.

No doubt the absence of Gerrard in the starting line-up (recovering from a thigh strain), a couple of injured players and some away on international duty at the Olympics, made the Liverpool side slightly unbalanced, it was still a strong side, parading the new strike partnership of Torres and Keane.

Alas the central midfield pairing of Alonso and Plessis failed to control the middle of the park and the defence were caught time and time again ball watching as the Belgian side came straight at them from the start, guns blazing, and they were almost immediately rewarded when the ball bounced off Reina’s right hand post, nearly crossing the line, only for the Liverpool keeper to claw it out.

Reina had to be called upon again when Standard Leige were awarded a dubious penalty for a hand ball on Dossena which appeared to have been outside the penalty box. Reina saved Liverpool from a poor spot kick that ensued.

Liverpool appeared lost throughout the match and despite my initial excitement with the start of Liverpool’s season, it was lost in a sea of mixed frustration and sleepiness. I dozed off at half-time and if not for little Maya waking me up with her cries, I would have missed the whole of the 2nd half, which wasn’t much better than the first.

The team’s over-reliance on Gerrard was evident once again as Liverpool only sparked to life once he came on midway through the second half. Even with Gerrard on the field, the team couldn’t find a way through, devoid of ideas and were lucky to escape with a goalless draw.


[Picture from Sky Sports]
Boss was frustrated (and surprised??) with the team’s poor performance. So was I!

It Starts Tonight!

Published
by
moby
on August 14, 2008
in football
. Comments

VS

Finally! At long last, the football season gets under way tonight as Liverpool take on Standard Liege in Belgium in the 3rd qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League. The close season has been great with Euro 2008 and of course, the Beijing Olympics but I’m just dying for the season to start.

The first matches of the new English premier league season is still two days away, but this is Liverpool’s first major assignment in its 2008/2009 football calendar. For Standard, their season got under way earlier and they already have a major domestic trophy under their belt with a 3-1 win over Anderlecht on Saturday in the Belgian Super Cup.

To say that Standard, who are the reigning Belgian league champions, have an uphill task against Liverpool would be an understatement. The underdogs, though, will try their best to lift the game against the 2005 European champions, whom I think would not take this game as a forgone conclusion. Far from it, I feel that Liverpool needs to get a good result so that they can get this game out of the way comfortably and concentrate on getting a good start to the domestic season - something which they have failed to do for some time now. And we know what the result of a bad start to the season has done to the team with dreams of Premiership glory evaporating before October.

Well, first things first, this European tie is just as important. Standard’s American defender, Oguchi Onyewu, who scored two goals in the Super Cup is suspended while a couple of other players are out due to injuries. Liverpool, though, welcome back captain fantastic, Steven Gerrard, who has recovered in time, although the side is weakened by injuries to Martin Škrtel, Fábio Aurélio and Philipp Degen while Javier Mascerano and Ryan Babel are in Beijing playing for their respective countries.

I’m excited at the prospect of seeing Fernando Torres and Robbie Keane in partnership up front. The game starts in 15 minutes!! The first of many sleepless mid-week nights for me.

Come on you, Reds!!

The Dark Knight - The Kiddie Version

Published
by
moby
on August 11, 2008
in movies and video
. Comments

Can’t get enough of the Dark Knight? Here’s a hilarious parody staring kids. The Bat-tricycle looks ultra-cool! :lol:

Useless Stuff You Don’t Need: Ionic Ashtray

Published
by
moby
on August 11, 2008
in useless stuff
. Comments

If I get this contraption, which promises to eliminate smoke and odour from cigarettes by means of some fancy schmancy smoke to ion conversion process, will I be able to smoke in the office? :P

[link: Collections Etc.]

Skittles Feet

Published
by
moby
on August 10, 2008
in advertising and video
. Comments

I’ve never been a fan of Skittles, and I’m sure this ad will, from now on, make me associate funky feet smells with the candy. Feet fetish I have not!

[as seen on AdFreak]

My Alma Mater Has A Blogging Club

Published
by
moby
on August 10, 2008
in web discoveries
. Comments

Found this piece of news through Tomorrow.sg.

It seems that St. Andrew’s Junior College has started a blogging club? I think it’s great that the students are utilizing this medium of communication to report on the various goings-on in and around campus, in addition to the regular school newsletter, IOTA.

And the blog’s using Wordpress too! Cool!

A good try but I feel the blog needs more content and judging from the number of comments, the level of participation isn’t very high. The design and layout could do with some work too.

Still, reading about the rugby finals between SAJC and ACS (I) at the Padang sure brings back a lot of memories. Another loss, eh? Ah …. I’ve experienced a couple of those as a supporter. :)

And the canteen food reviews made me reminisce about the roti john stall I used to patronise a lot when the campus was still at Malan Road all those years ago.

I’ll be adding this blog to my RSS reader just to catch up with little snippets of Saints news.

SAJC Blog Screenshot

I Want To Break Free

Published
by
moby
on August 5, 2008
in maya
. Comments

Nothing can be more boring than to sit it out, strapped to your stroller while your siblings run about freely. I bet Maya’s itching for the day she can finally run. The feisty baby at 8 months has already started cruising around the house and it’ll only be a matter of time before she’ll chase Ajab and Ayeed all over the place.

Family Outing: Vivo City 4/8

Mygazines Expected To Be Hit With A Barrage Of Lawsuits

Published
by
moby
on August 4, 2008
in news
. Comments

The site that offers whole magazines, scanned, free for your reading pleasure is expected to be hit by multiple lawsuits of magazine publishers who have had their work ’stolen’ from them. Many popular magazine titles, albeit scanned copies, can be found on the site and it’s available for anyone to read but this blatant copyright infringement by Mygazines has incurred the wrath of publishing associations both in the US and the UK with member publishers being encouraged to sue Mygazines for putting out unauthorized copies of their magazines on the internet.

The site that launched quietly is likely to out with quite a big, and expensive, bang.

[as seen on the Inquisitr]

Keywords

Published
by
moby
on August 4, 2008
in ajab
. Comments

This weekend marks the start of a new phase of Ajab’s education as I have started him off on how to use the pc. On Saturday, I sat him down in front of our pc, fired up MS Word and asked him to type out the alphabets from A to M, which is what he and his classmates had been taught in school. Little did I realise that he could recognize all twenty-six letters already.

Ajab's First Computer Lesson 1/5

I’m starting him off early on using the pc, even though it’s not in his ’syllabus’ in school, because I was concerned about the slow pace at which his speech is developing. As yet, the only word he readily utters is ‘car’. Occasionally he’d say other mono or duo-syllable words like ‘duck’ or ‘water’, but he would seldom say it when we ask him to. Not having a speech therapist in school for the past few months isn’t helping either - the school is having difficulty in recruiting a new speech therapist still.

In any case I’m thinking that in today’s highly connected IT environment, what better way for him to communicate than via the pc. As show in the case of Amanda Baggs, a very articulate autistic woman, but not in the vocal sense. She has severe functional autism and has never spoken, but read her blog (yes, she types out her posts herself) and you’ll know how intelligent this woman is.

I’m not giving up hope that Ajab will one day learn to get out of his bubble and talk like a normal toddler, but I’m equipping him with the tools he’ll need to survive in today’s world.

Even if it means typing with one finger, one letter at a time, although I hope he’ll learn to type properly in future.

Ajab's First Computer Lesson 2/5

But for now, it’s simply typing out the alphabets at his own pace. I guess he’s good at it because he has very good matching skills and memory. Initially I had to show him where each alphabet was on the QWERTY keyboard. Once he recognized each alphabet and their location, he could do it on his own without much help, although he insisted that I say out loud each alphabet as he pressed the keys.

Ajab's First Computer Lesson 3/5

What impressed Trin and I was the fact that he could sit there in front of the pc and really concentrate on the task, which is something that rarely happens in class. The fact that Ayeed was asleep and Maya was not in the room to distract him helped, of course, but it’s still a rare occurrence to see Ajab sit still for more than five minutes when he’s not watching TV.

Accompanying him in his hand wasn’t the usual string (he still has a string fetish to this day!) but some cotton filling from a cushion he dug out. He kept it between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it, occasionally rubbing it against his nose as he sat typing the alphabets.

Ajab's First Computer Lesson 4/5

It took him a while before he managed to complete typing A to Z. What took so long wasn’t the difficulty in finding the alphabets on the keyboard - he kept repeating his task when just a single letter was out of sequence, even though he’d already reached as far as U or V (he seems to get V and Z mixed up a lot). Whenever he makes a mistake, he’d press the backspace all the way to the start and re-did the whole alphabet all over again, even though I told him he only needed to remove the letters that are out of sequence and not the whole thing.

Well, he did this over and over and over again. I think he must have given it 8 or 9 tries before finally getting it right in typing all twenty-six letters from A to Z in sequence. I’m amazed he didn’t scream and give up in frustration. He simply gave a sigh, dropped his shoulders, backspaced and started all over without much fuss.

Ajab's First Computer Lesson 5/5

I’ll be continuing this ‘training’ until he’s proficient enough with the alphabets before starting him off on spelling, probably next month. All this is of course not taught in school, so I’m hoping he’ll get the hang of it and be happy with his progress.

Flickr 888 - 24 Hours Of Flickr

Published
by
moby
on August 1, 2008
in news and photography
. Comments

Flickr invites you to celebrate life on a very auspicious day, 8/8/08. On the day that the world comes together for the Beijing Olympics, Flickr wants you to post a picture any time during the day to the Flickr 888 group.

The first 24 Hours of Flickr event was held on May 5, 2007 and it attracted more than 7,000 entries. It’s very interesting to see similarities and differences in how we spend the day in the many pictures that were uploaded.

The Flickr 888 group opens on 8th August for submissions. Go ahead and join and be part of this world-wide event!

[link: Flickr blog]