Musings of a nonconformist who happens to like football

New blog.

2007-12-04T21:47:00.000+08:00

My new LJ-version is at http://heiko.insanejournal.com.

Reasons have been specified on that journal itself: these post relates to the history of SUP with Livejournal, this was typed by a Russian user (basically, similar things).

This wired article is a good explanation:

"The reason (the deal) is so suspicious for us, is that some oligarch is willing to pay so much for something that is not worth so much," says Yaroslav Grekov, the Russian LiveJournal blogger known as "moska," who is one of the biggest critics of the deal.

"That's why I am thinking that Sup's goal is not to earn, but rather to spend money for some very important reason ... the destruction of our LiveJournal community, which is very organized and even dangerous to the government."
[...]
"In today's Russia no tycoon can even think about investments in media without the permission from the authorities," says Russian economist Grigory Sapov, who posts on everything from football to tensions between Russia and Georgia on his LiveJournal blog. "Bearing in mind our next year parliamentary elections, there is an evident trend to clear the social space from all -- even would-be -- independent opinion generators," he says.

[...]
Hosting in Russia, for example, puts traffic between LiveJournal and countries like the Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia on wires that can be tapped by the FSB, the successor to the KGB. Russian-language blogging from former Soviet Union states or even European bloggers would be exposed to Russian intelligence services -- even without court orders to seize data from Sup.

Monty Python's Philosopher's Song

2007-12-02T20:48:00.001+08:00

I love Monty Python. It's just the right amount of slapstick, and a right amount of intelligence.

The Philosopher's Song (Monty Python)

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Schopenhauer and Hegel
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya'
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
SOCRATES, HIMSELF, WAS PERMANENTLY PISSED...

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it all the way;
Half a crate of whiskey every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart: "I drink, therefore I am"
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed!

I have no words.

2007-09-29T18:45:00.001+08:00

HIATUS

There will be a long hiatus, not because I have lost any interest in football. It is still one of my more cherished pasttimes, but aside from Schalke and Leverkusen, there is very little reason to watch the matches of Bayern and also Chelsea.

I leave you with my latest pursuit:

5) My heart boils over when I think that you might believe that I am guilty of these crimes and that in your heart of hearts you think that I am really guilty of all of these horrors. My head is giddy with confusion, and I feel like yelling at the top of my voice. I feel like pounding my head against the wall. What am I to do? What am I to do?
6) I bear not one iota of malice toward anyone, nor am I bitter. I am not a Christian but I do have my quirks. And if you really want to know, more than anything else, I am oppressed by one fact which you have perhaps forgotten: once, most likely during the summer of 1928, I was at your place, and you said to me: "Do you know why I consider you my friend? After all, you are not capable of intrigues, are you?" And I said: "No, I am not."
At that time, I was hanging around with Kamenev [an alleged Trotskyist, later shot]. Oh, God, what a child I was! What a fool! And now I'm paying for this with my honour and with my life. For this forgive me, Koba [a nickname for Stalin]. I weep as I write. I no longer need anything, and you know that I am probably making my situation worse by allowing myself to write all this. But ... I must give you my final farewell. It is for this reason that I bear no malice toward anyone, not the [party] leadership nor the investigators, nor anyone in between. I ask your forgiveness, though I have already been punished to such an extent that everything has grown dim around me and darkness has descended upon me.
7) When I was hallucinating, I saw you several times. Once I saw Nadezhda Sergeevna [Stalin's late wife]. She would never believe that I had harboured any evil thoughts against you. [In the dream] we talked for hours, you and I ... Oh, Lord, if only there were some device which would have made it possible for you to see my soul flayed and ripped open! If only you could see how I am attached to you, body and soul.

~Bukharin, in a personal letter to Stalin three months before being executed and allowed to consume poison.

Goodbye, sweet prince

2007-09-24T00:06:00.001+08:00

Standing beside Shevchenko, tactics board in hand, Roman Abramovich is the man telling Essien how to play football. Shevchenko is merely there to translate. In another room, attending to the press, Mourinho is utterly unaware of his employer's actions.
-Guardian

Of the 185 games he was in charge of Chelsea, they won 124, drew 40 and lost 21, a record that includes a 60-match unbeaten run in Premier League matches at Stamford Bridge.
The statistics go some way towards justifying Mourinho's famous description of himself as "a special one", made during his first press conference as Chelsea boss.
-BBC

Jose was out to make history for Chelsea and some big $$$ fuck ruined it. Well, $$$ heals all wounds, lawlzamirite.

Stylish play, my ass, it's looking darn sad right now, even if that Obi guy didn't get sent off looking at the way we're sucking we'd have lost.

Goodbye, Mourinho.

Remember when students were a potent force in society? Yeah, me neither.

2007-09-22T17:13:00.000+08:00

My history essay.

2007-09-03T21:09:00.000+08:00

I wrote an essay about Hitler last year. This was my summary of all 4000+ words of it (after I submitted it and went into post-submission delirium):

Hitler Essay

HERE BE ESSAY. IT BE ABT HITL0R, YO. AHEM!

BLATHER BLATHER HITL0R BLATHER BLATHER BLATHER. BLATHER, BLATHER BLATHER BLATHER. KUBIZEK, FAP FAP BLATHER BLATHER, HITL0R BLATHER BLATHER. BLATHER, BLATHER, BLATHER. KUBIZEK FAP BLATHER. I AM AN IDIOT WHO HAD TO WRITE 4000 WORDS BECAUSE I BE STUPID. PLEASE DON'T FAIL ME, I'LL CRY BECAUSE HITL0R IS HAWTSOME. BLATHER HITL0R FAP BLATHER.

CONCLUDATION: HITLER FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP. KUBIZEK FAP FAP. DA ENDZ.

Schalke 04 vs Leverkusen (Schalke Homeground)

2007-09-02T12:59:00.000+08:00

Holy crap!

Life hasn't been kicking my ass as much, so I have time and energy to watch the full match - but not enough to watch it live.

Nonetheless, this is another of those EPIC matches - and one of the reasons why I am so infatuated with both teams. Everytime they face each other, they produce magnificent ~~drama~~ tension, which has been unparalleled even by England/Germany. (Let's see, I fell in love with them in Febuary 2007, when they played against each other?)

We have Neuer saving like Jesus, and then Adler starts saving like Jesus. Both seem to have had a lacklustre season, but during this match, their full potential starts guzzling out like beer in Octoberfest.

(Though, I'm very disappointed that Adler is not wearing black. He looks strange in white.)

Also, GAH. Seriously, everytime Kuranchan goes near that goal, MARK HIM LIKE HIS NAME WAS MARK. Ohgod. Seriously.

Krstajic gets a nasty-looking injury with his leg bent double. Ow. (I just realised that there's a LOT of march babies in Schalke. *Squee!*)

After the 1st Half, I went to sleep because I couldn't stay awake. :( That's also partially because I didn't get to see this scene, which is just short of being an awesome manpile, but is adorable nonetheless. Also, I was really disappointed with how things were going with Kiessling, who was unfairly judged by the judge, and also somehow very accident prone. Poor guy.

Then there were mandatory off-sides from both parties. Which is the epitome of a good match, especially when one goes in.

The amazing save by Rene Adler.

Which is also really awesome because you get to see our dear, cute Kuranchan pout. Kekeke.

And this was a really heart-attack inducing moment when the ball was SO CLOSE TO GETTING IN BUT JUST DIDN'T GET IN. It's one of those moments that REALLY need to be re-watched in slow motion just because the brain can't comprehend the sheer monumental possibility of the moment. (It's 42%! /dork)

Everyone wants a piece of Adler's goal, but they can't get it. ;_; He's amazing this time.

I swear, nothing brings out the best in each other except both 04s. XD I love these two teams so much, especially when they play against each other. Hee, I miss the brawl last season.

This post is XKCD's fault

2007-08-22T18:53:00.000+08:00

I want to date a Linux developer*

My credentials:
9) I know how to code basic HTML.
8) I know what a GOTO is even if I don't know programming language. Nevermind if it's outmoded.
7) I read XKCD.
6) I always google before asking "what is this?", thus reducing the headdesk to stupid questions ratio .
5) I know what rule 34 is, and will gladly rape your childhood with it.
4) I will replace lovers' quarrels by flooding your chatbox with memes.
3) Real sex will be replaced by cybersex and crappy pr0n descriptions.
2) I will romance you with CAT MACROS/LOLCATS.
1) ????
0) PROFIT!!

*Actually, no, not really.

To Anonymous (Yay! Someone actually reads this? Oh joy!):
I'm born on the same day as Willy Sagnol (different year).

It's actually quite Brechtian how I haven't found anybody IRL who likes football but isn't a tool.

Half time update

2007-08-19T23:55:00.000+08:00

Looks like Leverkusen has solved their fatal problem when it comes to the defense, but due to Lincoln's absence it's now really difficult to have that many chances at offensive, Schneider alone is not enough.

Oh god, I missed Kiessling so much. <3 回眸一笑百媚生indeed! <3 <3 <3

VDV is indeed a HSV man, even though he's about to leave.

Hitler was an emo

2007-08-09T22:51:00.000+08:00

It's Guess-A-Pubes time!

2007-08-04T21:07:00.000+08:00

So, is it Hitzlperger, Hilbert or Gomes? >:D

Yeah, that's the logo of that Stuttgart crest:

- Source

"I see London, I see France..."

Picspam

2007-07-31T00:28:00.000+08:00

;_;

D:

:D! ♥

Liga Porkal - Bayern/Schalke04

2007-07-30T21:54:00.000+08:00

The jokes about footballers being kinda gay are wearing out, and I still don't have enough time or energy to properly watch the matches (downloading Bayern/Schalke04 now). So here is one of the more interesting moments in the Bundesliga, from Stuttgart/Bayern.

VB is a man of personality. He... Injects life into the BL. Of course, he also gets banninated for three matches, but still, it doesn't make him any less awesome. (Oh dramarz!)

On another note, I am still a huge fan of Neuer-tan. Any match that has Neuer in it automatically tilts me over to his side, because I can't stand to watch his face when the goal goes in.

In the game against Bayern, he really should have been much more aggressive against Klose, but upon careful consideration, it seems like it really isn't part of his personality. He just doesn't want to risk hurting anybody, it seems -- even though it meant leaving a gap, he tried to avoid the Klose collision at all costs. The more I watch the BL, the more reasons I find to like Neuer.

Also, Kuranyi is still in the match. Nonetheless they couldn't break through the Bayern's iron defense. It's frustrating to watch, especially since I couldn't decide whether to root for Bayern or for Schalke.

Oliver Kahn did well in the match, I might add. He shouldn't be getting so much flak for his age, his performance has demonstrated that he was well in place for that match, especially due to his experience. Sometimes you really get the feeling that the younguns are really kind of green, even Neuer, or Rensing... There are places where veterans won't be freezing, sometimes they will make a mistake in judgement, but not as often, and not because of inexperience.

Come to think of it, Olli would probably be yelling at Klose if he was the one being challenged. Not like it would intimidate Klose, but at least it's fun to watch when the goal goes in and he gets even more pissed off. (What am I saying? Gah.)

[edit] Also, I love CCTV5's commentators so much. This guy is saying that Chinese Men's basketball team has - "lost, lost and lost", and therefore "this is a problem to ponder over". They will also say things like, "The Iraq team has, without regards for their stamina, persisted in playing a high-speed attacking stance..." in the DOHA Asian cup. This is not something one sees in English commenting, it seems like English commenting is designed to make you watch the pre-match speculation (which in the end won't really tell us anything), whereas Chinese commentating always puts things in perspective and discusses the more cerebral parts.

This is also my favourite commentator. Too bad CCTV5 isn't playing Bundesliga anymore. ._.

New season, depressive sentiments

2007-07-22T21:23:00.000+08:00

Much congratulations to FC Bayern for a successful transfusion. It has certainly made the team stronger, I'm actually looking forward to the Champion's League already. (For us to be able to kick Werder's ass - yowza!) Bayern is once again resembling the European power that it was - and, oh god, Oliver Kahn's kit looks like the one from 1999 where he played against Man Utd. There is still hope of Oliver Kahn retiring in glory, which I will hope for.

The people whom I do miss, though their replacements are certainly a potent force, is Roy Makaay, my fellow Piscean, as well as, from Schalke, Kuranyi, also a fellow Piscean.

Schalke 04 has been disappointing, because the team has been drained in this transfusion - it has lost one of the Altintops, for instance, to be replaced by... Huh?. Nonetheless, I will continue to support Schalke 04 as Neuer-tan is in the team. He seems to be in form, still, which is pretty much all to be said about him (as well as the fact that he's as cute as ever?). What I despise is his liking of Lehmann, but that's only because I hate Lehmann fans. Heh.

I don't really want to know the current state of Leverkusen, since I really didn't have time to keep up with the transfusion news. I'm having a pessimistic view about it now.

Nonetheless hopefully I will be able to watch Lokomotiv/CSKA today. And if not, I will cheer myself by re-watching Green Street. Nothing better than some good old testerone fight-clubes-que blood-letting.

In other news, I have developed a crush on a historic/literary twink of all twinks: Heinrich Heine. He is currently on my desktop wallpaper.

Seriously, look at him. So pretty. What soft brown hair and striking blue eyes!

I forgot to put in the following lyrics:

Du bist wie eine Blume
so hold und schön und rein;
ich schau' dich an, und Wehmut
schleicht mir ins Herz hinein.

Which would be highly ironical, considering how pretty he himself is:

(Why yes, it did utilize an exclusion layer!)

Rafael Nadal + Football = WIN

2007-07-01T09:20:00.000+08:00

Being a n00b to tennis (and frankly, not all that interested), I am rather happy to learn that Rafa likes Real, and that he doesn't have shitty taste in football teams:

Hey Rafa, I know you love football so your opinion would be helpful. My boyfriend supports Manchester United and I support Liverpool. Do you think I should dump him for his appalling choice of football team? - Siobhan, Liverpool
RN:Hahahahhahahahaha. Funny question. Dump him if you don't like him but not for supporting another team. I don't dump my coach although he supports FC Barcelona. :-)

Hi Rafa, if Real Madrid could just sign one new player this summer. Who would you want them to sign? - thanks, Phil C, London
RN: I like very much Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka. Easy, huhhhh?

-Sauce

...Why does he only like the pretty boys? *nudge nudge, wink wink*

Though, the original question was something like, "Hey, I have shitty taste in football teams, and my boyfriend has an even shittier taste in football teams."

Oh, curse you, EPL. Look what they have done to the Chelsea jerseys. This isn't some bad joke. Look at it, it fucking glows in the dark. Apparently, it was designed to align the jerseys with the ambitions of the team.

Perhaps the ambitions of the team state, "LOOK AT ME!! MAKE ME YOUR SHOOTING TARGET IN THE DARK! RUN ME DOWN WITH YOUR CAR WHEN THE VISIBILITY IS LOW! PLAY REAL LIFE GRAND THEFT AUTO WITH EASY TARGETS AND HUEG WALLETS!" Perhaps their management has finally decided, "No more of that fluffy Smurfs shit! We're no filthy androgynous commies! We shall be NEON SUPERHEROS!" ...Hey, at least they're noble.

...Oh wait, I get it now! Their ambitions are clearly to bartend in the dark!

This is Ugly Jersey Season. In celebration, I shall post the seasonal hymn:

Tis the season of ugly kits, tralalalala, lalalala.
Let's dig our eyes out in gross disgust, tralalala, lalalala.
O abominable colours, tralalalalalalala.
It glows in the dark, fahlalalala lalalala.

I can't wait to check out Bayer 04's and Schalke 04's jerseys... *cringes* Oh well. Good news, though: Schalke injects some hotness into their team! Oh joy.
I can't wait to watch after-match celebrations. *glee*

Der Online-Shop präsentiert sich ab sofort in einem neuen und moderneren Design ...
- source

Would you like to know why this gives me the heebies jeebies?

It's because everytime it's new product season and "creativity" must be shown, the ~~Nazis with no sense of humour, or zeitgeist for that matter~~ people from Marketing say, "New and modern", it makes me think that they are still stuck in the period of bellbottoms, Grease and Saturday Night Fever. The internet was probably something from Science Fiction back then. There is nothing more than saying, "Hey, I am out of touch with the times" than calling something "new and modern". We're not in the fucking DDR, buds.

Speaking of the DDR, only people hobbling around with walking sticks and who applaud themselves for knowing how to use the keyboard, one finger at a time, would think of the term "digerati"s. Douglas Coupland's characters would have groaned so hard.

[edit] I wonder if Adler had any say in his goalie kit. The guy is a Capricorn, and black is a very Saturnian colour. I can imagine him going absolutely livid at the idea of a pink tutu equivalent of a jersey kit... And somehow, I imagine that he probably has some influence on the matter. Or perhaps black is simply a Bayer 04 tradition? (Don't know, need to check, too lazy, etc.)

Crappy design is a way of life, as is cuteness plus Socialism.

2007-07-01T01:50:00.000+08:00

I love the quotes on this thread, regarding the German national team jersey designs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emperor_Norton

The new jersey seems to pay tribute to the Koeman/Thon (?) incident, when Koeman said he will use the German jersey to wipe his ass...

True story.

Spiegel's recent jersey design competition shows why fans should never be allowed to ~~maim~~ design shirts: unless the team wants to win 2008 wearing an ugly national jersey... What the hey.

Though I have to say, ugly jerseys from the German team are never a thing of the past. One can always comfortably look to it in the future. Congruency, I suppose - perhaps 06/07, the period of good-looking Bayern and National jerseys, are an anomaly. Once they have gotten the attention of the world, it doesn't matter whether their jerseys look like crap afterwards, yes?

Also, welcome Miroslav Klose to Bayern. It is good to see him smiling once more:

Perhaps he is simply amused that the new Bayern shirt has a pantyline.

Also, I didn't watch the match, but at our last game at the Kallang Stadium, Singapore has lost 3-0 in a friendlies to Australia. *facepalm*

I had to get my daily cuteness fix, and then I realised that, hey, Sandmann can be found on Youtube. I loved the ones with DDR stereotypes, though, including the out-of-proportion ~~HDB flats~~ Plattenbauen. I love how everyone is always kind to each other in Sandmann's world. Well, one can still dream, can't they? Allow me to copypasta some Youtube finds.

This has got to be my favourite ever. It seems like the Socialists are out to cute everyone into submission - a worthy cause, I would say, and an awesome way, too. (What else to expect from a group of people whose embelm is a hand holding a rose?)

MIFFY! "Aber meine Bluemen sind Kaput." Aww.

Mistaken P Wrongingston's Diktionary of English

2007-06-10T17:47:00.001+08:00

I lub me some Jon Stewart. ._. It really sucks to not get it on free TV.

Stephen Colbert + Pop Culture parodies = AWESOME.

Livejournal VS Fandom (Fandom: 1, LJ: 0)

2007-06-02T13:31:00.000+08:00

First of all, I'm not part of fandom, or Fandom. I do not like Harry Potter, POTC, LOTR or any of those catchy popular fantasy movies. I think those movies are made of Disney-esque commercialism and major FAIL.

Now, another thing: While I am not a part of fandom, I think politicising "Fandom" is like shitting in public: It's distasteful, and you simply do not do it.

The recent scenario was with Livejournal perma-suspending a bunch of journals which ~~Six Apart misguidedly thought was pedophile~~ expressed interests in "Lolita", "Shota" as well as other various trigger words. A Harry Potter Fanfiction Community was suspended, as well as several other communities.

My take on the whole scenario was that it's just... Insane. And a bit ridiculous. And possibly breaks the boundaries of Fanon by referencing Canon. Which is just all sorts of mindfuck, and "WTF don't you guys have a life?" as well as, "No, you guys are not pirates at war against the establishment." But yes, Six Apart fucked up with Livejournal. It clearly does not understand that a large proportion of LJ's money is coming from ~~mostly underage kids writing underage kids porn and then wanking about freedom of speech~~ Fandom (who else would bother paying $30 or so per year just to have 100 icons about ghei sechs?). Which warrants it being called stupid, as well as the fact that it has repeatedly remained rather ambivalent about creepy, actual pedophiles on the internet, yet suddenly launched a ~~Night of Long Knives~~ massive purge, while users and communities which the members of the Livejournal community has complained about at large for being creepy pedophiles have remained largely ignored, except for a bunch of communities.

Among things that have been bahleeted are, a Harry Pottery fanfic community (because Harry Potter fanfiction means that one must be a pedo, nevermind that it's about fictional characters that mostly only immature underage kiddos would write about), a Shota community (because obviously Poju is totally realistic), a Nabokov community (because censorship of classic literature is always cool) and a bunch of actual pedophile communities. Fandom, because of Harry Potter as well as their fanfictions being at stake, decided to go to major war against Livejournal, by singing... A fucking POTC3 song.

How fandom of Fandom, dare I say.

Here are my non PC thoughts, mainly bordering on the "WTF THIS IS HILARIOUS" and "OH NOES MY BRAIN JUST BROKE".

It's just so goddamned amusing, that the only way LJ is going to get up in arms are with a bundle of freaks from fandom who have no life but to click on reply 10000x.

Also, a fandom response is to write fanfic about the whole event. My brain just broke.

I think this sums it up:

BLAH BLAH FANDOM WILL RISE UP TOGETHER blah blah blah

Seriously, is Disney cutting a check from all this shit? You guys need an anthem? For Livejournal?

Also, obligatory first poster. Cue video that one should post to every FIRST!!! Sinfest comment.

And AHAHAHA Perverted Justice calls LJ stupid. Classic Between-Organisations Wankery moment, y/y?

LiveJournal continues stupidity... just differently
Today LiveJournal/SixApart deleted a ton of LJ's that violated their "terms of service." We went after LiveJournal/SixApart months ago, with a very specific list of pedophile blogs and communities. Not only were the staff at LiveJournal/SixApart beyond condescending and rude in their replies, they defended the advocacy of pedophilia and pedophile communities as being acceptable under their Terms of Service, something we contested in our original Writeup about them.

So today, LJ decides to finally do something about the pedophile communities that had sprung up on their service. However, rather than listening to us months ago, they decided to just wipe out whole fields of communities whether they were related to those who advocate child rape or not. We're not quite sure who is running the show over at LJ, but until they state without condition that actual pedophile activists and those promoting child rape are disallowed from their service, we will continue to list them as an aggressive Corporate Sex Offender.

Apparently LiveJournal can't tell the difference between what a pedophile community is and a Harry Potter fan-fiction community despite being told months ago which is what.

So, can we all go back to reading ~~delicious underage kiddies~~ HP fanfics, nao?

Khimki/Spartak, FC Moscow/Lokomotiv

2007-05-28T23:28:00.000+08:00

No real commentary about either match from the Russian Premier League, except that I learnt who the FC Moscow coach was, and that Khimki has hot guys.

Russia seems to have pretty good goalies. Not an Akinchen stereotype, mind.

I FOUND A RUSSIAN FOOTBALL SITE IN ENGLISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:D!!!!

Recreativo vs Real Madrid (La Liga)

2007-05-21T03:01:00.000+08:00

BReaking out of my HIATUS to write some bollocks that has nothing to do with anything, ever. (BEcause I'm too tired to actually write a real post or actually watch football properly, for that matter.)

Nonetheless, I did get my football fix, despite the fact that Stuttgart ended up winning. Boo. :( I don't like Stuttgart. I wished Schalke 04 would win the BL.

Watched FA Cup yesterday. Chelsea/Man Utd has to be the most boring match on earth, with the exception of the last few minutes of extra time. You have no idea what Ballack is doing there, and nobody is even trying. It's also funny because everyone else is like, "DROGBA!!" and we're like, "CECH IS AWESOME FOR MAKING ALL THESE SAVES." :D I <3 my ~~Bambi-eyed Cech~~ goalies.

However, it was fun, for a variety of other reasons, such as having a buddy to drool over guys with, the lack of Man Utd fans at bar, etc.

Watched a bit of the Spanish League today. It's Iker Casillas's birthday. This guy has been the one most prominent guy when playing against Bayern Munich in the CL, and he deserves to be applauded and honoured greatly in such times of team instability. (Hell, I'm not even a La Liga fan...)

It's also far more entertaining that the finals of the FA Cup. The EPL is bollocks.

~~Although I do want to watch Liverpool/AC... I also don't have time, and anyway I don't really care who wins either way.~~

In other news, CSKA Moscow is without Akinfeev, and probably somewhat unrelated, but is still sucking even in home league. :( Dood.

This was what the EPL lacked:

This last minute goal by what's his face (who'd been playing shittily the whole match -and then scores a goal out of nowhere) is made for you:

Of course, the obligatory:

List of (really lame) nicknames that I use to call footballers, at least privately

2007-05-13T11:32:00.000+08:00

CSKA:
Igor Akinfeev - Akinchen

FCB:
Oliver Kahn - Olli-tan
Bastian Schweinsteiger - Schweini
Lukas Poldolski - Poldi
Phillip Lahm - Lahmi
Michael Rensing - Rensi (People usually use Rense or Michi)
Andreas Ottl - Ottl

Schalke04:
Manuel Neuer - Neu-tan (Speaking of which, he truly is a "tan". SO CUTE! fdksjfksjfks.)
Kevin Kuranyi - Kuran-chan/Kuranran (Uh, don't ask.)

Leverkusen:
Rene Adler - Adler (I have a problem with thinking him as "rene", tbh)
Stefan Kiessling - Hershey's Kiesses (Lame, I know... But he's like chocolate. So addictive. T_T)
Bernd Schneider - Schnix (Duh)

Others:
Jens Lehmann - Mehwhocares.
John Terry - Terry
Frank Lampard - Lamps
Petr Cech - That Tall Dude/My Bambi-Eyed Cech
Andriy Shevchenko - Shevchenko/Chenko
Jose Mourinho - Rin-rin
Shunsuke Nakamura - Nakamura-tan

Actually, yes, this is relevant.

2007-05-03T00:00:00.000+08:00

The quote from Vonnegut was, "For god's sake, be kind."

Kurt Vonnegut is in heaven now. :)

2007-05-01T21:48:00.000+08:00

I have come to realise, by the reading of Vonnegut's writings, that I am simply a Humanist, insofar as my values are concerned. Humanism is, in Vonnegut's words:

Kurt Vonnegut, who died Wednesday night in New York, was honorary president of the American Humanist Association. “I am a humanist,” he wrote in a letter to the organization’s members, “which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead.”

I discovered the Humanist Manifesto in 2005, when I was taking my first history course in the university and reading up all sorts of random, unrelated crap in an attempt to understand the modern state of society. Among Mein Kampf, the Duties of Man and other odd assortments which one eventually gets around to reading if one is genuinely interested in history as opposed to being a textbook flipper, I came across the Humanist Manifesto II.

Below are the relevant quotes:

"While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves."

"Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction. Ethics stems from human need and interest. To deny this distorts the whole basis of life."

"The preciousness and dignity of the individual person is a central humanist value. Individuals should be encouraged to realize their own creative talents and desires. We reject all religious, ideological, or moral codes that denigrate the individual, suppress freedom, dull intellect, dehumanize personality. We believe in maximum individual autonomy consonant with social responsibility."

"Institutions should be responsive to expressed desires and needs. The conditions of work, education, devotion, and play should be humanized. Alienating forces should be modified or eradicated and bureaucratic structures should be held to a minimum. People are more important than decalogues, rules, proscriptions, or regulations."
-- Humanist Manifesto II, Paul Kurtz & Edwin H. Wilson (1973)

I don't believe in a heaven or hell. Sometimes, I am of Schopenhauer's opinion that existence is hell - suffering disturbing the blissful calm of nonexistence. But sometimes there are people and things that make it much less painful. Many of them happened to be kind people. Some of them did not need religion as an excuse to do good; they just did.

“And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, ‘Kurt is up in heaven now.’ That's my favorite joke.”
- A Man Without a Country, Kurt Vonnegut

There really isn't much point in this post, except to say:

Behave decently, people.

Cho Seung Hui and Virginia Tech Shootings

2007-04-23T20:16:00.000+08:00

The difficult part for us will be to learn something from all of the victims, the ones who happened to be on both sides of the trigger, to see if we can look within ourselves, our society, and our culture to affect enough change to ensure that this never happens again, to be able to recognize the signs of someone begging for help, before he can no longer be reached, to stand up for the people others see as outsiders when they are picked on and bullied. To begin to live outside of ourselves and realize that events like these do not just happen, that we are all accountable to some extent when we have pushed someone over the edge or simply ignored them or cheered them on as they jumped.

- Source

Frankly speaking, I think to blame Cho's actions solely with mental illness is wrong and totally missing the point.

We aspies are very good at what one would call "perseverating" - and I've been looking up about him since I saw the video.

Basically, he was bullied and mocked relentlessly for not being very well-spoken, given very little leeway by his educators, had the additional stressors of a) being a disabled student who didn't seem to get much help or support from his family or educational institution, b) coming from a low socio-economic background, c) coming from a socially disadvantaged racial minority.

I am not excusing or condoning his actions. I am saying that society needs to examine what the fuck is wrong with itself instead of blaming it on mental illness and goes back to thinking that everybody and everything is fine and dandy when it isn't.

Also, much of the media reporting is being "cleaned up" and politicised as we speak. Even his diagnosis of autism was erased from this article. Still, a quick google and his wikipedia article has mentioned bullying.

There are many things that strike me as being very similar between what he did and what I did, and there are three major differences between him and I:

1) I pretty much gave people the vibe to fuck off and thus didn't attract much bullying.

In fact, I believe that in Cho's case, a huge factor was that he wasn't very good with language and I was one of the class debaters in secondary school; another huge factor was that he was an asian in a predominantly white environment whereas I'm part of the racial majority. A friend of mine who also has a strange accent but isn't Chinese reports being teased a lot in school.

2) I was given help when I needed it most - I could never thank the educators who did enough, but I would sooner spurn the ones who didn't, and that is the majority of our educators, sad to say.

If I had not been given that help, I might have ended up a) flunking out of school, b) gotten batshit insane. I have been given help - not from psych experts, but care, sympathy and leeway from my educators. I've said elsewhere that I've written even more violent stories than he has, and I have let a couple of teachers read it. They were accepting of my prose. Instead, Cho got persecuted for writing what he did, which was arguably less violent than what I had written.

In fact, these days when I went for therapy, the therapist declared that there was nothing that she could do for me and discharged me immediately after seeing me. Apparently, I wasn't stupid enough for the "You have two choices" "therapy". When I went to see a counsellor in Junior College, the counsellors basically did NOTHING for me. It was the teacher and the principal who had faith in my abilities and believed in me that made me aspire to become a better person and helped made my depression bearable.

There is another thing that you must know: Depression is not a demon in itself. It is present amongst many creative souls. It is something that can be made much less painful with human companionship and understanding. There is nothing worse that you can do to an already depressed person than to shove him aside so that everything is alright in your make-belief world. And there is nothing more that you can do for a depressed person than to show them that there is somebody who wants them to live and become a better person, not by virtue of what they can do for you, but by virtue of faith and understanding.

Because seriously: We are not animals. We are humans. We should be capable of taking on others' pain and suffering, especially those who are sidelined, and those who are weak.

3) Our culture is a non-violent culture.

Most of the school shootings and perpetuation of violence I know is based on the gun-culture in America: Shoot them before they can shoot you. This is the basic rationale for bearing guns there. According to the people who support guns, they claim that having civilians carry guns lowers crime rates, but I seriously doubt the validity of the numbers cited by pro-gun members. Many of them also quote it as a "right" and part of the constitution. Remember that this is something that Singaporeans will never hear of.

I hope that from this incident, instead of blaming the one individual who lashed out at the society which bred its dissatisfaction, we will look in on ourselves to find the empathy to care for and understand those who need it.

Frankly speaking, school shootings will never happen in Singapore. But... Do we want a society like Japan's, where the suicide rate amongst schoolchildren is so high, it's insane? Or do we want stories of school children and teenagers murdering one another as is common in Japan, mostly as a result of bullying gone awry? In our society, because we don't have guns, the disadvantaged are the ones who are going to be hurt. And what are we doing about it? Isn't it missing the point to wonder about whether the disadvantaged will lash out, when we have no means of lashing out, rather than to help us, the ones who need it most?

I feel accountable even though I didn't know the guy. I wish I could have known him so that I could have cared for him the way some of my educators cared for me. And if I should ever see somebody else like me, I will fight for him all the way to see that he doesn't go along the route of self-destruction.

What will you do?

Bayer Leverkusen/Bochum & Lacrimosa - My Last Goodbye

2007-04-09T19:43:00.000+08:00

Bayer Leverkusen/Bochum was insane. Copy pasted from my personal journal (too lazy to make a real update):

Apparently he was the one who made those mistakes, not just in his own-goal, but also a severe mistake in defending. He basically just kicked the ball over to the attacker of Bochum while trying to pass it back to Adler.

So they changed a midfielder, Voronin (also their top-scorer), up. This should be interesting.

As expected there is something about their defense. In the midfield they can't turn around quickly enough in certain situations. So it creates a huge vaccuum and nobody to defend. You can't just rely on the goalie at that time.

Also, Kies is now partnering with Volonin (hahaha partnering). Interestingly, I never got the impression that Kies has much rapport with other forwards.

They changed another defender down for a midfielder. It seems like it's working, I guess. Leverkusen is having more chances. They are playing with their usual pace now.
Indeed, it's one of those cases where Bochum's defense suddenly began to be thrown off.

..Hm. Kiess just got a red card.

I feel really shitty at the thought of Kies getting a red card at that moment. Bayer 04 was just on a surge of energy. I guess Kies just got pissed and tried to challenge the referee's decision. But seriously this isn't the first time anybody tried to do that. I just feel really shitty at the thought that Kies might get flack and not be able to start up later.

I guess, if anything, he's my favourite footballer, and probably my favourite person in the whole world. Damnit. If there is anything that I can do, I would, irrational as this is. It just really shits me that this should happen at this time, for such a stupid reason. I guess in a way I understand his feelings all too well.

...Oh, shit. Now it's 4-1. -_-; Oh, I like how Adler is the only one who goes "shikkari" when everyone else is kinda like, "omgded", too. Even when Karim scored his own goal. And now when the 4th goal goes in at a totally irretrieveable time, too.

Addendum: Yes, I know that it's wrong to challenge the referee. Knowing that he deserved getting sent off, regardless of how it feels, isn't of much help. Part of my reason for being worried was the fact that he did not perform as well ever since he got to start up. Leverkusen playing badly didn't matter, and if it was 3-0 since the beginning, fighting back more goals would be the right thing to do. There is nothing more humiliating than admitting defeat at such times, especially when you're Bayer 04 Leverkusen.

Along that train of thought, the reason I adored Kiess was that, every time Leverkusen gets into a scoring depression, they would send Kiess up and he would magically score. Not only that, this guy has a very strong integrity. He doesn't play foul, he doesn't dive, and every time he's knocked down he stands up with a really straightforward bent to it. It's not something you see in football. I guess it just really shits me because while I know that he wasn't necessarily in the right, I also felt that, at the point where he just scored 3-1 and finally was going to have chances, and then got fouled so many goddamned times, of course he's going to be pissed. But at the same time, understanding how he felt doesn't help how I feel, since it only makes me feel shittier.

But I still make the conscious decision to continue supporting him, and being a fan, anyway. This is a player - a person who deserves my loyalty.

Anyway, I finally got around to listening to Lacrimosa. You know what, if Gawth Nite didn't play such shitty dance tracks and played this instead, I would totally go every damn time.

Ignore the images, and listen to the music. It's ethereal. And way better more dramatic than Phantom of the Opera, which last I saw the crowd, resembled shitty family-oriented events for petit bourgeousie where everyone goes because of the hype. (And I actually have a ticket, but I'm only going because I wanted to watch it since I was 12. Go figure.)

There is that much history
There is that much to learn
[...] Fascinating to grow old
It's fascinating to be born
Fascinating to decide
And sometimes even to be right

Finally, here's a picture to cheer everyone up:

Small dick is smaaaaaallll.

Bundesliga 07Apr07

2007-04-08T20:05:00.000+08:00

Stuttgart/HSV:

Even at 3-0, HSV did not capitulate and kept on trying.

I think it's more admirable that their fans are still cheering them on at 3-0 , and then cheered so loudly when they scored a goal.

Compared to those who left earlier in the game, I feel really happy for them. This is true loyalty in character, and having faith in your favourite team is loyalty indeed. I'm by no means an optimist, but when you think about it, HSV has been pretty much crap most of this season. It must have been hard for even the most optimistic fans. I like the goodwill of the fans in this match.

The final score was 4-2. Even though they were playing 10 players against 10 players, at least 2 goals were scored by Stuttgart after the 11th player had gone off. Naturally they had an advantage. I guess the lesson here is that all is not lost even when you're losing. Especially with people, they're weird creatures.

With regards to Bayern/Hannover, both sides had many chances. The fact that Hannover didn't score more was just luck. At least twice it bounced off either a defender or the goalpost. (If I didn't see wrongly...)

I couldn't pay attention because the video quality was so bad. Hopefully I can download it, because it has quite a few Rensing shots, too.

More importantly, Schweini scored. Which is important because it's been such a long time. Ottl played really well, facilitating the score with Poldi, who didn't try and steal the limelight but with amazing intuition passed to Schweini. OMG. This is SCHWEINSKI KTHNX.

Which brings me to why I think HSV didn't do so well. You have a situation when VDV is pretty much in the position where he's better, and he tries to score by himself because anyway he's the better performing dude.

Indeterminable HIATUS.

2007-03-27T14:40:00.000+08:00

HIATUS.

WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK.

Will update when I have time.

No worries, I'm still watching futbol. :)

2007 photos

2007-03-09T10:28:00.000+08:00

Pictures are 800x600 px. Click to view larger version.

Gashaus, on a not-very-goth night.

07 Mar 07.

I kind of intend to make him my "travel around the world" mascot. It's the most practical thing I can come up with - nobody likes pet boogers. Although, the sucky thing is that I lost my pictures of Berlin, and I doubt I really took any symbolic photo in NYC. Howell.

Here's the Durian at the background... I mean, Esplanade.

MY tulips. Which the weather killed, in the end.

I'm such a lazy bum that I didn't even bother uploading the pictures that I took in Beijing last year.

This is what I look like IRL.

I've had a good footie week, with Champions League and whatnot. Bayern/Real was somewhat of a heart-attack for me, and even now I still can't talk about it without my hands shaking while my voice stammering.

UEFA Cup's Leverkusen/Lens was somewhat of an enlightening match for me, in term of strategy. I learnt quite a bit from this match, and hopefully some of the younger members of Leverkusen/Lens did, too - enough to win on home ground, please! I don't want them to lose.

And since I received an invitation to publish articles at Sportingo, which is a website run by fans for fans (so they claim), I suppose I might just try my hand at writing an actual article about aforementioned matches. Since it will be my first time at attempting actual commentary... Well, I have nothing to lose but my ego...

Though, frankly, if one wanted user content one could easily get those at forums, where "opinions" (albeit with shitty grammar) run rampant. Just saying.

Although I was talking to a non-sport-fan that I know of friend on LJ, and they mentioned that they would totally buy newspapers just for the sports section if there were slash involved. Hell, if I could ever make a fans for fans page... *smirk*

Do I smell the revolting stench of self-esteem?

2007-03-07T08:46:00.000+08:00

Though so far no musicals have made it to my movie links because I'm anal about my list of favourite films (statements must be made! It must be profound! And so on.), there are certain films that seem to have faded into obscurity due to bannination in Singapore (At least, I haven't seen it aired!), and The Producers is one of them. To be fair, films that break into song and dance make me sit back like a child and giggle mindlessly while chewing on my finger because of the sheer sensory joy - but, it is hard to find a musical that makes a statement enough. That, and I can't afford good stereo and I have rather sensitive ears, which means that if the sound or singing sucks, my ear will break into horrendous pain and I will die a horrible death from ear-bleed.

You have to admit, The Producers was, if nothing, extremely gay. That, mixed with the most homoerotic episode of history (ah, complete with the sweet flavour of oppression!)... It makes me crack up and roll around on the floor.

The funny thing was - if you actually watch the Third Reich propaganda speeches where Hitler makes use of his hands - he actually resembles this caricature!

Although, this comedy strikes me as incredibly American. Perhaps it is because of the sense of great irreverence towards the subject. (In all seriousness, I think the best way to treat this collective blip of history is to understand it - and then make fun of it, because there is nothing worse than badly made serious anti-Nazi propaganda.) Like this guy (he's a jew) who dressed up as Hitler on International Dress Up As Hitler Day - there's nothing cooler than somebody who a) has a sense of humour, b) who doesn't make himself out to be a victim. Although, it probably is racism to assume that all Jews are intelligent and capable of laughing at themselves and others.

I think it's progress when everyone can talk about the Nazis without skirting around the topic, revelling in victimhood (whether you're German, Russian, English or Jewish, I don't give a shit!) and resorting to ridiculous insults.

On that topic, I do think there are much more serious topics than dwelling in the rather dysfunctional past these days. It is one thing to know about the past, and another to hang guilt on people who have nothing to do with it anymore. (Unless they don't acknowledge it, in which case go ahead and fuck their shit up.) Such as global warming, for instance. And the fact that basically capitalism makes it impossible for us to stop global warming. How about that?

UEFA Champions League - Chelsea/Porto (2-1)

During the first half, it seemed as if Chelsea simply couldn't make it - Terry was sitting on the stands looking worried, and Porto was vehemently defending their goal. I think the problem was with Drogba - the man either seems to have been locked by the defense, or was so severely self-important that he had to score everything by himself when the better thing to do would be to simply pass. (The other problem with EPL teams, I feel...)

Porto's performance in the second half was strangely disappointing, considering how well they were doing in the first half. Then again, I notice that everytime I watch a Chelsea match, they somehow manage to score during teh second half. I wonder if this is Mourinho's strategy to make the other party let down their defense?

As for Barca/Liverpool, one really would not expect Barca to perform so shittily, so... I watched like 10 minutes of it and wasn't even paying attention, tbh.

Now, excuse me, I'm going to throttle my neighbour for making such horrendous noises. :/

And yay, goth night in Singapore! Now I a) no longer have an excuse to be a hermit, b) hope I won't come back weeping and cutting myself while bathing in the blood of virgins because I have been rejected for wearing sports shoes.

The local emo scene has been so bloody depressing mainly because - not because it is emo - but because even if I do stereotypically live in my (black) hoodie, fantasize about vampires and like MCR, I simply hate the pretentiousness of these retarded middle class kids who somehow end up looking like carbon copies of each other. And, really, emo kids are the main reason I haven't actually bothered listening to MCR, because I would fucking hate to be associated with them (besides, I hate Thursday, Bright Eyes, Dashboard and all that. I don't like Rites of Spring, I don't like Sex Pistols, I don't like I would set myself on fire for you... Count me out, plox).

So, with emo and metalheads being that ridiculous (Shit, I still remember the time when Baroque came to Singapore and a bunch of idiotic metalheads were calling them "Backstreet Boys" because they were apparently too retarded to do something vaguely constructive with their lives), I kind of am skeptical about the goth scene since... Well, approximately my aesthetic sense would fit into that since I've been wearing black since I was fucking twelve and when I read Voltaire's Oh My Goth! at sixteen, I really did relate to it a lot (Eh, even with my rather embarassing colourful period and a certain broke art student/bum-like phase), I really don't know if I like Synthpop/EBM/metal/Post-punk that much - maybe a couple of industrial bands here and there, and about a grand total of one band from each genre (Specifically, Wolfsheim, don't have, Agalloch, don't have). And while I do enjoy finding out more about music... There is a certain threshold towards people spewing off bands that you've never heard of and equate quality with obscurity. To whit, I hate retarded elitists.

That, and I can't afford actual boots. :/ And anyway I fucking hate shopping.

So, all the while I've been wishing that there is a goth nightclub to visit (one that I know about, given that I'm a hermit)... And now that there is one, shit, shit, shit. Do I really want to be there?

Somehow, I quite expect every scene to be pretentious where there's groups of people concerned...

*sigh* :/

[edit] Went. Most boring shit ever filled with dumb metalheads. Will not go again.

I finally figured out why I love, love, love the Bundesliga.

2007-03-05T08:46:00.000+08:00

...Or at least, some people/teams in it.

From a discussion in Livejournal, somebody mentioned sportsmanship and how Zidane's headbutt showed a lack of it. This was my response:

Speaking of Sportsmanship, where - ahahahahahahaha - Christiano Ronaldo would have dived (in the box), Stefan Kiessling didn't, after the goalie tackled him and he kind of just jumped over the dude and remained on his feet. You should have seen Timo (the goalie) go ":D ♥" at Kiessling. XD It was so cute. *wibbles and dies*

(Sigh. Reason 101 why I love the Bundesliga.)

And yeah, I agree. This usual perception of masculinity and how it's supposed to be is killing us. :/

That, and the part where Neuer went around trying to stop everyone from getting too mob-esque.

At the moment, I am having the biggest ever crush on three Bundesliga players - the first and foremost being Manuel Neuer, who radiates pure niceness, Kiessling and Rene Adler. (Theoretically, I like Benedikt more than Adler, but in the end I didn't watch Benedikt on the pitch, so I don't know how he performed. After all, there are two things that I like - one being prowess, and two being their actions on the pitch.)

There is a certain culture in different countries' leagues. I managed to watch CSKA/Spartak as well, and it was cool. Spain and Italy both have amazing leagues, but I am not sure how Spanish teams are (I'm not very fond of Spanish things in the first place, and I know it's biased, but it's extremely personal and I am not quite ready to deal with it yet), and as for the Italian League, from watching Inter/Bayern and speaking in general, I get the impression that Italian league is quite foul. I certainly do not condone such behaviour on the pitch (haha, why else would Inter end up having having three red cards in one row?)... As for CSKA/Spartak, you know that there's a problem with russian football and general suckitude, although when it comes to playing foul they aren't exactly a master at that, either. So, I like Russian teams okay.

As for the EPL, I simply don't like it. It is more brutal than the Bundesliga when it comes to action - in general, that is why it ends up with such severe casualties - with the example being Chelsea of recent times. This is the main reason I am not fond of EPL, even if I can't substantiate it with any statistics, and I'm not exactly about to waste my time researching something I don't like. Nonetheless, you can observe it. Why else would everyone's pet hate seem to be Man U, especially with Rooney and Ronaldo? I do find them entertaining, personally, but for example, what Stefan Kiessling did in abovementioned example would be quite a rare occurance in the EPL.

I'm kind of freezing my butt off right now, so I'll copy pasta an image of Kiessling here. Maybe I will post reviews of Friday's and Saturday's matches - those two days were quite eventful, and I am certainly happy to report that my favourite teams did well, with the exception of Schalke 04, but even then you can argue that Frank Rost did deserve the HSV win.

What attracted me to the German National Team in the first place was how they treated other people on the pitch in the 2006 World Cup - you don't see them diving as much, you don't see them playing too roughly, and even Frings' supposed "punch" was extremely sissy and seemed to be for self-defense.

In the end, this was the team that I liked because, hell, the way Podolski treated everyone was amazingly nice, Lehmann is quite a fair person (Okay, San Marino - although in my opinion he shouldn't have ventured forth in the first place!), and Olli Kahn is likeable because, hell, why not, despite the fact that he was being quite whiney and a bit emo about being on the bench, he still dealt with it. (Haha, I love love love Olli Kahn, even with his bad dress sense.)

Even in the match against Italy, you see the Germans trying to help the Italians up if they accidentally tripped over each other, and I just remember the Germans being flustered and the Italians being quite hostile. I don't think that is an examplary behaviour even if Italians did win the World Cup.

In the end, I like to think that it's not the winning, but the treating-people-decently that counts. Italian and English teams are formidable compared to German teams in the Champion Leagues (and forget about Russian teams), but really - there is something to stand up to, and winning isn't everything.

That is why to me, the German National team was the winner of hearts, and so - this is why I like watching the Bundesliga.

It was funny, because I think people can see it, too. For example, when I was watching England/Portugal in the local Mac Donalds, I said very loudly (that I was supporting Portugal) "Because I don't like the way they (the English) played!" And it was funny, because after I exploded as to why it was important to me, everyone present actually began cheering for Portugal.

As for why it is tied into gender roles - in general, gender binary demands that males be more aggressive - and that often translates into uninhibited violence. This exaltation of "masculinity" is killing us all - especially in an environment that is highly masculine, considering that football is a very "masculine" sport (as compared to... Table tennis? Or chess?).

This extreme and rather outdated yet prevalent stereotype of masculinity is killing us all because it prevents us from treating each other like civilised beings. And the reason I am having the biggest crush on Manuel Neuer and Stefan Kiessling at the moment is because of their actions on the pitch, not just their talent.

Because frankly, I think treating others as fellow human beings - even opponents - is extremely good sportsmanship. I don't want to support something that at its heart is corrupted, without regard for others and heinous.

Sometimes I think we need a SMILE!Revolution. Like at the cover of The Invisibles #1: "Say you want a revolution. Smile."

And this entire post actually reminds me of a phrase a friend once said (of another guy), when I was in Berlin: "He is a gentle German."

We were exchanging ideas about observed culture at that point of time - and in a way, I know what he's talking about. Gentle Germans. Why not. It's like, Sensitive Singaporeans. Ha.

The thing about stereotypes, unfortunately, is that it is observable and generally applicable. My contention is, unless you can prove that the norm is otherwise, you can't criticise others for generalising.

Nonetheless, when it comes to certain things - when it comes to knowing certain people - Singaporeans, for instance - lord knows how much I hate this place and its goddamned people - that incident at Mac Donalds makes me think that as long as they don't have a stake in it (ie: monetary gains, or hell, even in petty scenarios - a seat in the MRT), they don't mind rooting for the right thing. That was only one situation, however, and history has always proven otherwise, even in a rather convulated way - so, perhaps not.

Regardless, sometimes I think that supporting something, or liking something that's nice, is validating your faith in the human condition. I don't proclaim to know everything, but that is why I like certain teams and certain players, and why I am happy that they win, and sad when they don't.

Feder-Bear

2007-02-28T23:50:00.000+08:00

Tennis is a classic sport. So classic that, in fact, until I watched the match between Nadal and Federer (by accident, too!), I did not have any idea what a visual treat it was to actually watch ~~cute Spanish boys in action~~ a good tennis game.

...SO, I GOT A FEDER-BEAR. YAY. (Months after it came out, though. Because, tbh, I couldn't find it.

It comes with a headband, a plastic racket, TY tags (duh) and, as typical of TY bears, looks like a blur dud. It also comes in a shirt that says "Federer 1" (SQUEE. That reminds me of goalkeepers!), and also, satin ~~underpants~~ ~~boxers~~ shorts. To say that it's cute would be an understatement. I got two of them. Squee!

Sadly, it does not come with a Roger Federer. ...Or a Nadal-Bear.

Pictures say a thousand "FAPFAPFAP"

2007-02-27T01:20:00.000+08:00

The Demon...

And the angel. ♥

~Faz.net

I have no idea what it's talking about, sadly. ;_; It's too difficult.

BUT SHIT, AM I GLAD TO FIND A PICTURE OF HIM IN WHITE. OH GOD.

Ha, this is why I love the Bundesliga so much.

Oh, and check this out:

Dude: OMG YOU JUST SCORED!!!
Kiessling: :|

His hair looks like ramen. ♥

An exciting weekend - Schalke 04 versus Leverkusen, Chelsea versus Arsenal

2007-02-26T20:18:00.000+08:00

Schalke V Leverkusen 0:1

Let Adler Save You Today!

Watch the fucking video. Seriously. Adler saved like Jesus, especially in the second half. The Schalke guy was shaking his head at disbelief over that, and meanwhile, Kiessling lobbed a ball in. It was like watching a superhero Jesus (Adler) saving like mad and the Metatron thundering Y-hw-h's ball into the Garden of Eden (Kiessling). Or something. Yes, I just totally butchered a certain myth.

Schalke had like 15 tries at the goal in the second half, and it had no chance of getting past Adler. On the other hand, Kiessling looked rather pissed that he was sent out for the goal at such a later stage.

Towards the end, there was a fight, which wasn't surprising considering Chelsea and Arsenal was fighting as well. It was like Fight Day or something.

My Bundesliga boys fight like sissies. ♥

Schalke's goalie, Neuer, looked like an angel in white (can you tell I was extremely stoked about the match?), especially as he flitted between the arguing ~~sissies~~ mob, on the verge of a ~~drunk~~ footie fight, trying to stop everyone from getting too crazy. I love this guy. He's the reason I like Schalke 04. (And even more of a reason, now that he's wearing a white jersey. *sigh*)

Here's an extended video of what happened. Schalke's Lincoln bitchslapped (It looked more like punched when I first saw it) Schneider, who apparently said "And you're a Brazillian" and the guy goes "Fuck Brazillian" and whooped him.

Even the whooping looks sissy. Seriously. xD

While I'm youtubing, I found an old video where Leverkusen's H-J Butt did a Penalty Kick. It was pretty cool.

Chelsea V Arsenal 2:1

When I say that Chelsea is the lesser evil of the English side, I just mean that they're more likeable. The men don't look like they're all pumped on testerones, and John Terry seems really likeable, as does my Bambi Eyed Cech.

On the other hand, putting Terry into the match right after his ankle injury recovered was Not Cool At All. I understand , though, that it was a must to win that game (After all, it was the finals of the Carling Cup, whatever the CC is - there's sure to be $$$), but overall it just made Jose Mourinho look like a Dark Overlord.

John Terry got kicked in the face as well (by accident, probably), and actually went unconscious, and needed breathing aid. O_O

Then a fight broke out between Arsenal and Chelsea, leading to a bunch of B& red cards. I haven't seen the field so empty since Bayern/Inter in the CL. My Bambi Eyed Cech was doing good as usual - though, some of his moves looked worrying because of what happened to his head the other time. Oi. It really depends on whether the other party wants to hurt you, or not. *hint* -_-

Also, Chelsea FC now has a deal with Youtube. I'm only watching it for the hot guys, who aren't as hot as the Bundesliga guys.

I really don't like English football.

Bayern V Wolfsburg - 2:1

Finally Bayern was winning again, after Olli got boob-molested in the match against Aachen. Oh joy.

Actually there really was nothing to say about this - it was just that Van Bommel seemed to be on a roll these days. TBH it seems like the Bayern members will be on rolls - like the time Makaay was super-inspired for the Champions League and didn't score much for Bundesliga, for starters.

It was like a match made for the fans - Scholli playing and all. There was a real celebratory mood.

And, contrary to expectations (hah), Poldi actually scored.

Honestly? Since when was Fox News good?

2007-02-26T17:21:00.001+08:00

...14-year-olds becoming pregnant are becoming a trend according to one fourteen-year-old, says FOX news, whose source was -

THE AMAZING DAILY MAIL!!

TBH, Daily Mail is probably ever so slightly worse than Fox News.

And so! Bad journalist practises are the rage today according to the h., whose source is -

JUST ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE!!

...Ha. Bet you ten bucks that the rednecks will be jumping all over the zing! OUTRAGE!!! morality wagon over one teeny baby popper chav waaay over in the UK. (Oh wait... They don't hate Europe, they just hate the ones that allow for gay marriage. Silly me.)

Reports on Schalke 04 and Bayer Leverkusen's HOLY GOALIE coming up soon. Once I wipe the drool off my keyboard, that is. :d

An undergrad with the soul of a grad student - and UEFA Cup

2007-02-23T15:13:00.000+08:00

I'm no grad student (hell, if I ever graduate, that calls for a huge party, and that's considering the fact that I would rather drown myself in alcohol (which is quite the equivalent of getting stomach flu) than do. But, shit, story of (some) of my life. Also, this happens to me all the time.

Oh yeah. True story. Undergrads are like that. (Explains why I'd like to shoot them all, personally...)

Ha, which is funny, because the best advice I ever got from someone who graduated is to ignore my peers.

Speaking of which, I updated the links on the right sidebar ever-so-slightly - go check out the web links. Some of them do rock; that's why I linked them!

UEFA Cup

Haifa/CSKA - 1:0

In other news, CSKA played against Haifa yesterday. They had more chances, but the one goal during the first half was perfectly executed and frankly, CSKA didn't stand a chance. What they did stand a chance, however, was to score back - which, from what little I'd seen of the match since they began playing Spartak on that channel after half of the CSKA game - and they failed to do so.

The problem with CSKA was, pretty much, a familiar situation where if the defense breaks down, it totally breaks down and the goalkeeper becomes the 12th player. Unfortunately, what this means is that if the goalkeeper is at the wrong place, they can easily score a goal in without anything between the posts. (Many's the time when poor Akinfeev has this shocked look after the ball has slipped through and he's just out front... *sends the man some mental cuddles*)

Akinfeev was, as usual, awesome and incredibly CUTE (er, relevance?). But this time it wasn't like the game against Arsenal, where their defense was brutally attacked, pillaged and raped, leaving only chance and our awesome Akinfeev to defend. It was more a case of CSKA sucking, just like Bayern these days.

Blackburn/Leverkusen - 0:0

Which pretty much is the same situation with Blackburn/Leverkusen (which I also watched) - Blackburn had a lot of opportunities, but it either didn't get past Butt (who was f*cking awesome! &hearts), or they simply botched the chance.

TBH, Leverkusen didn't play all that well - Blackburn did put up a very strong fight.

Since the previous match was 2-3, Blackburn will be dropped while Leverkusen will go on.

Hey, at least one of the teams I actually like are going to advance.

Sexism in Rock

2007-02-22T14:04:00.000+08:00

Question(Interviewer): "Isn't there a part of you that worries about how that shapes your fans' perception of women?"

Answer (M. Shadows): "Eh..I know what I should say. But I make my own decisions. There were bands onstage yesterday at Warped Tour going, "Hey, girls, if guys ask you to show them your tits, don't fucking do it!" You know what? I grew up going to big rock concerts, and that's what happens. I think that's funny. If those people take what I say and try to idolize it, that's just like me idolizing Axl Rose and picking fights with fans.

Its in I believe the September 05' issue of AP with Underoath on the cover.

~MCRF

According to said thread, the band that was saying this was MCR, which makes me respect Gerard all the more.

Champions League Last 16 Knockout Stage and I'm not OK (I promise)

2007-02-22T12:30:00.000+08:00

So, it has been a long time since I last saw Chelsea and my BEC (Bambi-eyed Cech). It is indeed a treat to watch Cech make the saves - very quick, effective and physical, like an extra defense player. Like many people have said, EPL is more physical than BL, which is why - to be somewhat of a rebel - I refuse to watch EPL, because if I wanted physical I'll just go to Orchard Road on a Saturday.

This was the results (OTOH) of the CL knockout round. The ones that I care about, anyway:

Barca/Liverpool - 1-2

Apparently, Barca lacked a backup strategy and Liverpool defended really well.

Arsenal/Whatever - 0-1

This was really a surprise for me - one would never, ever, expect Arsenal to perform so badly. But then, sometimes there's the thing about doing well in their home leagues versus doing well in the Champions Leagues... Which brings me to:

Bayern/Real 2-3

Thank you, Van Bommel, for saving us from total and utter disgrace. I really would like to consider setting up a "HAY OUR TEAM WAS SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD BUT NOW THEY SUCK" club, specifically for HSV and FCB fans. *thumbs up*

...Well, there's still the home ground match. I'll give them the benefit of doubt and say that it's hard to win when people boo you veverytime you get the ball, but seriously, with their recent performance in the BL, it's really hard to say. They do have a track record of performing better in the CL, however, even if ever-so-slightly better.

Chelsea/Porto 1-1

Apparently, Terry wasn't around. I don't remember more than that, because I was trying to watch Barca at the same time, and then decided to miss the second halves because I was having a flu, only to stay up late because my nose is blocked and I keep coughing the cough of doom.

In other news, since I'm a relatively new fan of MCR's, I've been doing quite a bit of catching up. From the LJ community chemicalromance, I found this interview regarding "I'm not OK (I promise)" (no, I have no idea what MCRmy is and I'm not about to plunge in while getting sorely treated like a n00b, kthnxbi), and decided to google it (since, apparently, after tossing in bed for hours with a cold plus bad stomach reactions to paracetemol means feeling like DEATH and anyway it's pointless to try and sleep when your nose is the biological equivalent of a clogged pipe).

It turned up the video, which I found absolutely awesome, being one of the miserable "boy would I like to HIT somebody" kids. (Like I said before, I never was bullied, but I would really like to go Columbine on certain people.)

...So, I think I finally understand, more or less, what people mean when they say MCR saves lives, and that they taught people that "it is okay to be not okay" (I quote from memory). (I theorize that I must sound like a wagon-jumper at the moment!) In a certain respect, I do somewhat regret having dismissed them as "emo", but... Meh. What's done cannot come undone.

I'm happy to have found them. Since my teenage years I would take an album and listen to it repeatedly; since then (ah, intarweb) I have diversified my range of music, but nonetheless there's this thing about being worthy of becoming the anthem of the moment... It used to be Marilyn Manson (love the satire) or something or other, but now it is MCR.

(You said you read me like a book/but the pages are all torn and frayed)

In other retarded news, IMVU has a very retarded userbase in which contest holders forget to state rules. Well, there was a particular thread in which a girl posted about being bullied and self-mutilating, and then I somehow had a good convo about Palahniuk until the Palahniuk guy and I went to sleep, only to wake up to find that the thread has been hijacked by retards who insinuate that just because people are honest about self-mutilation, they are necessarily being attention whores.

The only reason I bring this up is so that I can say: FUCK THEM. It's okay to not be okay, and all the more because it is constantly suppressed that we should come out and say so.

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

Schweini is single? Hrm.

2007-02-19T01:15:00.000+08:00

Bastian Schweinsteiger (22) ist wieder solo. Der Bayern-Star bestätigte gegenüber BILD, dass die Beziehung mit seiner Freundin Daniela beendet ist. „Leider haben wir uns nach dreieinhalb Jahren auseinander gelebt“, sagte er. Die 21-Jährige ist schon aus seinem Haus ausgezogen. Schweinsteiger: „Wie ich gehört habe, hat sie bereits einen neuen Freund.“
-Bild

Translation:

Schweini is single. The Bavarian star has confirmed with Bild that his relationship with his girlfriend Daniela has ended. "Unfortunately we have not lived together in three and a half years," he said. The 21-year-old has aleady left their house. Schweinsteiger: "I've heard that she already has a new Boyfriend."

In other news, the internet ensures that hypercapitalistic exploitationists get pwned by giant pink penises. I love Something Awful. :)

National Anthems and Bayern/Aachen

2007-02-18T03:59:00.000+08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_anthem

OMG SQUEE!! Having just heard the European Anthem for the first time, it surprised me that it sounded familiar - and realised that it was the one tune I'd been practising in beginner guitar: Ode to Joy!

(Though, one would find it incredibly ironic at certain junctures!)

National anthems are interesting, in that they always, inevitably, turn out to be horribly kitschy. This takes the cake, really - but, on the other hand, the best anthems are the ones with historical significance, such as Das Deutscheslied, which was written long before Germany was formed as an aim for unification. <3 And La Maiseillaise sounds really happy, too!

Afghanistan's national anthem makes me LOL really hard, because it's... so... Hawaiian. Cheerful and happy, too!

...I missed Bayern/Aachen, though.

Aachen moved ahead with their first chance of the match in the 10th minute when the ball dropped at the feet of Klitzpera following a deep corner.

Oliver Kahn pulled off a good reflex save but Klitzpera was quick to the rebound, just getting enough contact on the ball to take it past Philipp Lahm on the line.

Bayern had almost complete command of the game thereafter but their finishing was dreadful.

Roy Makaay, who had gone close with a free kick early in the game, missed chance after chance in a one-sided match but the worst failure came from Roque Santa Cruz, who hesitated when presented with an open goal and allowed the defence to clear.

'We just played one good half,' Hitzfeld complained. 'In the first half we had seven or eight good chances but we weren't cool enough in front of goal.'

-ESPNsoccernet

It sounds really frustrating!

Oh motherland

2007-02-17T00:59:00.000+08:00

Longevity bears no meaning when:
Corrupted by desire to be free,
Your children leave for greyer lands.
May your life wither as suddenly as
the poor victims of your wicked hands!

May my tulips' wilted corpses remind me
of what you made me out to be!
Children whom you should have nurtured -
As a mother, you have thoroughly failed.

Always, always! Remind me of the weather
under which even angels lose their feathers!
Always! Remind me of postmodern horror -
of my university's Kafkaesque honour!

May you burn in the seventh layer of hell!
For your deathknoll tolls many bells.

- from Oh Tulips, My Tulips
In which I tried to eulogize the death of my tulips. RIP, my fair beauties. Your epitaph shall be, "FUTILITY IN A LAND OF NO BEAUTY".

Also, HAPPY FUCKING NEW YEAR. ^_^

Wolfsheim - Kein Zurück

2007-02-16T02:10:00.000+08:00

Wolfsheim - Kein Zurück

Es gibt keinen Weg zurück

Weißt du noch wie's war
Kinderzeit, wunderbar
Die Welt ist bunt und schön
Bis du irgendwann begreifst,
Dass nicht jeder Abschied heißt
Es gibt auch ein Wiedersehen

Immer vorwärts, Schritt um Schritt
Es gibt keinen Weg zurück
Was jetzt ist wird nie mehr ungeschehen
Die Zeit läuft uns davon
Was getan ist ist getan
Was jetzt ist wird nie mehr so geschehen

Es gibt keinen Weg zurück
Es gibt keinen Weg zurück

Ein Wort zu viel im Zorn gesagt
Einen Schritt zu weit nach vorn gewagt
Schon ist es vorbei
Was auch immer jetzt getan
Was ich gesagt hab ist gesagt
Was wie ewig schien ist schon Vergangenheit

Immer vorwärts, Schritt um Schritt
Es gibt keinen Weg zurück
Was jetzt ist wird nie mehr ungeschehen
Die Zeit läuft uns davon
Was getan ist ist getan
Was jetzt ist wird nie mehr so geschehen

Ach und könnt' ich doch nur ein einz'ges Mal
Die Uhren rückwärts drehen
Denn wie viel von dem, was ich heute weiß
Hätt' ich lieber nie gesehen

Es gibt keinen Weg zurück
Es gibt keinen Weg zurück
Es gibt keinen Weg zurück

Dein Leben dreht sich nur im Kreis
So voll von weggeworfener Zeit
Deine Träume schiebst du endlos vor dir her
Du willst noch leben irgendwann
Doch wenn nicht heute, wann denn dann?
Denn irgendwann ist auch ein Traum zu lange her

Immer vorwärts, Schritt um Schritt
Es gibt keinen Weg zurück
Was jetzt ist wird nie mehr ungeschehen
Die Zeit läuft uns davon
Was getan ist ist getan
Was jetzt ist wird nie mehr so geschehen

Ach und könnt' ich doch nur ein einz'ges mal
Die Uhren rückwärts drehen
Denn wie viel von dem was ich heute weiß
Hätt' ich lieber nie gesehen

My shitty German translation with the help of Altavista and Beolingus (Feel free to point out mistakes):

Wolfsheim - No going back

There is no way back

do you still know what was
childhood, wonderful
the world is colourful and beautiful
till you understand someday
that not every goodbye is said
there's still a "see you again"

always forward, step by step
there is no way back
what now is, will not come undone
time drives us from there
what is done, is done
what now is, will no more come undone

a word too many in anger said
a step too far forward taken
it is already over
what always was is now over
what I said has been said
what seemed eternal is already the past

there is no way back
there is no way back

ah, and could I nevertheless just once
turn the clock backwards
i know today how much from then
I would rather not have seen

there is no way back
there is no way back
there is no way back

your life turns only in circles
so fully from squandered time
you move your dreams endlessly over
still you want to live sometime
but if not today, then when?
because "sometime" is still a dream too long forth

always forward, step by step
there is no way back
what now is will no more come undone
time drives us from there
what is done, is done
what now is will no more come thus undone

ah, and could I nevertheless just once
turn the clock backwards
i know today how much from then
I would rather not have seen

PS: Since my German is rather horrible and it has been some time since I translated anything, my translation skills are a tad rusty, but hopefully I shall practise it with trying to do that with Rilke poems in the future.

To be fair, I'm not really as familiar with German slang as much as I'd like to be, nor am I really that familiar with German culture. Plus, it was kind of hard trying to chat with 14-year-olds on IMVU while at the same time tabbing around in Beolingus... At 3.30am , when you're braindead.

Also, my German is godawful, and in no way is it indicative of my ability to translate other languages into English.

You can't sue me for disagreeing with you.

2007-02-14T02:23:00.000+08:00

Recently my dad sent me an article regarding the so-called "clash of titans" regarding Phillip Yeo and Lee Wei Ling's argument and, while no part of the medical intelligentsia, it is a duty of mine as a Singaporean to oppose Phillip Yeo. Focusing on our strong suits instead of utilizing foreign talents is simply neither beneficial to Singapore, nor is it logical because we need to make use of what advantage that we do have and provide local talents opportunities instead of hyping up big shots.

Oh. And benefitting patients? HEAVEN FORBID!

"Fanmail"... Ha. I haven't followed the entire debacle, but I suppose that Phillipp Yeo has utilized it as a means of attacking people who agree with Dr Lee. Kiss my behind, you can. "Fanmail" is, "OMGZ HI I LOEV U U R TEH BEZT N TEH HOTT SECHS PLZ???"

This isn't a fan; this is me agreeing with somebody who makes sense.

On another note, I have a lot of respect for this Dr Lee.

Source: Straits Times

Somewhat unrelated, but here's a related article on Phillipp Yeo. I said nothing (else), you can't sue me. Trala.

On my soapbox

2007-02-07T14:10:00.000+08:00

Here's the bitter truth about chocolate.

Show some love for the world - don't be a classist fuck and buy your loved ones socially conscious fair trade chocolates instead.

Love,
Your Resident Everything-Hugger

Give up, Get down, It's the hardest part of living

2007-02-06T00:50:00.000+08:00

There are times when I want to throw rocks at the TV, but watching the Singaporean Crossfire (which is nothing at all like the CNN American Crossfire, in which Stewart pwned everybody) is something that I do like, partially because they do invite people who speak exemplary Chinese, and partially because it's a discussion where they invite people to do some, if superficial, self-reflection.

(Are Singaporeans too busy? YES!! ! NOOOOOO! YESSS!! NOOOOOOOO!!!) The definitions that they have made are too undefined, but okay, I can accept that.

Which brings me to Singaporean news.

Everything is, of course, strictly apolitical, but this greatly narrows down the scope into stupid shit like buses colliding in some fucking remote part of China in a cramped 30-minute programme.

I have no idea if people are truly so stupid, or if people become stupid because the media tells them to be. At any rate, I strongly suspect that part of the reason is because of our infamous political arm, which reaches far and wide and snuffs out all intelligent thought.

Now, anybody who knows a somewhat more in-depth version of Singaporean history would probably feel too jaded and emotionally drained to feel like fighting for whatever it is that they could believe in. ...Or anybody who knows of Mr Brown's column...

To say the least, even though most Americans are dumb as hell as well (hey, why discriminate?), the fact is that their shows are better-directed, and while bi-partisanship hurts the multi-national nation, it simply allows for a wider variety of thoughts. Eventually, if anybody has the interest, they would be able to piece together a somewhat coherent world view representative of each political train of thought.

Of course, there are the "I-think-gays-are-unnatural and-should-not-marry-but I-have-a-gay-friend-so that-makes-me-not-a-homophobe" retards. I have known a real live republican who claimed to have independant thought, but continuously watched Fox News (I bet he would have keeled over if he had seen me laughing at The Daily Show, because he was the sort of asshat who would argue that The internet parody of This Land showed Kerry to be a flipflopper (HUH WTF?)), chose to live in a conservative middle-of-nowhere red state, and of course, delighted in listening to Rush Limbaugh. (The only radio talk show host that is worse than Rush Limbaugh is Hal Turner.) He positively balked at the idea of moving to a neighbourhood where there was remotely any sign of support for Kerry/Edwards, and hated Berlin, which is very much a liberal and rather unique city.

People LIKE to think that they are open-minded, but face it: Having a friend from the lower class does not automatically exempt one from being classist, in the same way that having women as friends does not exempt one from being a misogynist, or having a couple of gays as friends does not exempt one from being a homophobe.

The existence and capability of being at peace with these subtype of people show a natural propensity towards co-existence. It is imperative in order to have a dynamic and discerning population. (Although arguably, the discerning portion will always remain tiny.) This is why I am a modern leftist, and this is why while libertarians think leftists are dumb and conservatives think leftists are wimps, I simply think that politics cannot and should not be subjective (ie: run by libertarians or conservatives), given that reality, like I said many times before, has a liberal bias.

In the end, Singaporeans LIKE to think that they're intelligent - many's the time when we see idiots correcting others' grammar and HULKING at others for not speaking the Queen's English - but really, they're fucking stupid. Xia Xue is one stellar example, because she represents the Singaporean layperson - fucking bimboes.

Bundesliga - Werder Bremen/Schalke 04

2007-02-05T01:54:00.000+08:00

This season's Bundesliga is actually interesting and rather jaw-dropping:

Nuremberg highest win of the season moved it to sixth place, and dealt a lesson to one of the Bundesliga's youngest teams by thrashing it in the second half.

Iwan Saenko scored in the 25th for Nuremberg, followed by Vratislav Gresko in the 50th, Markus Schroth in the 69th and an own goal from Ludovic Magnin.

Hamburg's winless streak reached 10 matches with a 1-1 draw against Arminia Bielefeld. Last season's third-placed club led from the 10th minute when Danijel Ljuboja's scored, then Bielefeld's Marcio Borges equalized in the 89th.
- MSNBC

I think it is pretty safe to say that FC Bayern stands no chance this season. I don't typically watch games that don't involve Leverkusen or Bayern, but Schalke's win agains Werder Bremen today was well-deserved in the sense that they have totally beat the other party in terms of skills, physical grace and sheer technicality.

Not being a pro at football, I do strongly admire the German teams for the sole reason that when a German team is playing well, it is extremely cerebral, less physical (than EPL), and acts like a well-oiled machine. It does not need to score often, but it will defend without fail (including our pretty boy Manuel Neuer, of course!), turn the game around very quickly and effectively, and though it doesn't make as many attempts at scoring, it utilizes strategy that, having distracted the other team from defense, will make very effective and threatening attacks.

Though, to be frank, the only guy I pay attention to from Schalke 04 is their cute goalie. :) My personal preference is for Schalke against Werder. Werder tends to go for higher scores and compromises on defense, but as proven by today's match, that is not the strategy a winning team would make.

Finally, the DRAMARZ!!! for Schalke/Werder was amazing, too. There was probably even more drama than Singapore/Thailand. Haha, I love the Bundesliga.

It's also way better than most Singaporean drama serials, given that not only is it real, it also forces you to use your brains. ;)

In slightly personal news, my attention tends to be shot for matches sometimes, so I picked up a new hobby while watching football - nail polishing. This is the only time when I don't move my fingers as much, and also, while it's drying (which takes a godawfully long time), I will have more impetus to pay attention to the game. ;)

ASEAN Championship - Singapore/Thailand

2007-02-04T21:01:00.000+08:00

I'm not very optimistic about this match. Not because we are going to lose, but because it is rather undeniable that we are playing badly.

From the previous match, I have discerned two patterns (since only Singapore-related matches get shown on free TV here and only after Malaysia/Singapore), and that is: Our attack sucks.

Thailand has a formidable midfield. This allows them to, before we can attack, turn the game around and attack incessantly at our goals. Their attack is not always inspired, but when faced with such a situation, eventually Singaporean defense will make a mistake and the ball goes past the goalkeeper. On the other side, Singaporean attack is always more accurate than Thai attacks, partially because we depend on one person by the name of Allam Shah. Since we cannot afford to concede goals, we must concentrate heavily on defense, so the midfield cannot make as many attacks against the goal as they could have against Malaysia.

Add that to their home-ground advantage, and our team of mercenaries are playing quite awfully. This isn't a lie: Just like being thrown bananas at will demoralise certain goalies, having Thai people yell "thailand" deafeningly will create a psychological effect. Singaporeans will never cheer as loudly as this, not even on home ground.

On a completely unrelated note, perhaps ASEAN football isn't as successful as western football for one reason: our players are simply not hot. The malay guys are pretty cute, and L. Lewis stands out in the sense that his shorts are deliciously short.

If you notice, tall Germans tend to have deliciously form-fitting short shorts on their long legs... And this is what distinguishes L. Lewis from the rest of the team: before he kicks an offensive ball, he would hitch up his pants. :d

So, if our sponsors have any brains, they would shorten the jersey shorts! ;)

[edit] The guy who beat up one of our boys should have gotten a card. First he fouled, and then he headbutted our boy. Zizou got a red card for headbutting somebody; I don't understand why this guy was let off only with a free kick. :/ Though, our boy should have steamrolled and drama king'd it like Matterazi.

THANK YOU KHAIRUL AMRI. ♥ That was one amazing and utterly inspired shot. Maneouvered past the two defenders and shot right past the goalie - that is indisputably perfect.

The manpile at the end was a nice treat. ;)

On another note, somebody should fire Bernard Lim for shitty reporting. I have never heard international football made out to sound so boring by a commentator - although in general local reporting is always either lame and retarded, or biased and boring. Psh.

Why it is easiest for an overseas fan to like FCB.

2007-02-02T21:39:00.000+08:00

...Because, seriously:

FUKKEN SIGNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ♥

Did I mention that I liked FCB mostly because of Olli? Hohoho. They're really nice to their overseas fans. ;_;

[edit] To celebrate, I put on Russian Red Army Choir music. Turn on your volume!

The sheep does it again - Penn Jillette link

2007-02-02T15:10:00.000+08:00

Penn Jillette

Read why at the bottom of Neil Gaiman's blog entry. Why yes, I do admit to being a Gaiman groupie, if it were possible to be a writer's groupie. Funny how I outgrew being a musician's groupie, but I would never, ever outgrow writers.

In the world of football, I am remarkably happy regarding Singaporean football being still quite undead despite being a team of mercenaries.

Credit must go to L. Lewis, and the one goal conceded to our defense's carelessness. Apart from that, I am glad that we have won, and sure as hell hope that we'll win the next game.

On the Bayern side:

"We regret this step. Felix Magath did a very good job in the last 2 1/2 years in Bayern, with great success, especially the two doubles," Rummenigge said in a statement. "But we, as those responsible for the club, had to react to the current developments. Concern about qualifying for next season's Champions League led us to reach today's decision."

Magath won the Bundesliga championship and the German Cup with Bayern in his first two seasons with Germany's biggest club.

But his third season has been troubled. The team lost at Borussia Dortmund 3-2 at the start of the second half of the season Friday and dropped to fourth place in the standings after drawing 0-0 with lowly Bochum at home Tuesday.
- Source

Frankly, I can understand why a lot of Germans hate FCB. If I were German, I probably would, too. I guess I just like the home-grown, organic players like Rensing, Lahm, Schweinsteiger and Ottl. The stereotypically German antics are fun, too, but I don't really care about that - despite liking FCB, going to Munich is an idea that I don't entertain very well. I don't like rich or pompous places, and I am absolutely convinced that I will be utterly miserable should I engage in the Oktoberfest.

So, I am rather glad that Magath is fired. He does well when the team had Ballack. Apart from that, with the three-strikers scheme, it seems like his experimentation proved a severe setback. Moreover, our team currently needs a lot of beating up to progress.

Plus, it's Kahn's retirement soon. While it was sad that Deisler would retire on such bad terms, I do hope that Kahn will retire in a better state.

Late-night rambles - MCR, Singapore/Malaysia, Dortmund/Bayern

2007-01-27T03:28:00.000+08:00

Da hab ich Stein auf Stein zu mir gelegt,
und stand schon wie ein kleines Haus, um das sich gross der Tag
bewegt,
sogar allein.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke

I've nearly forgotten what it's like to stay up so godawfully late just to watch a few grown men in shorts run about kicking some stupid ball. Oh dear god. *digs eyes out* (Waiting for Dortmund/Bayern.)

Fuck you, FC Bayern. Fuck you.

On MCR:

Also, fuck MCR for being so goddamned likeable. It's interesting, I find, that Gerard's art actually, to some extent, resembles Jhonen Vasquez's. (See, I told you I'm a nerd.) The extent of course depends on what style he's trying to achieve, but mostly... Well, from Invader Zim we could see how JCV's art style cleaned up.

And this is from the guy who yelled the Death quote. Oh dear lord.

Ah... I fucking love Gerard.

See... I only cherish parallels because in this world, anything perpendicular is bound to come crashing down.

So. MCR AND FUCKING SMASHING PUMPKINS. OH DEAR GOD. IN JUNE. (No, not linking, I'm evil. Not even sure if I can go/will go, since the impact of being around lots of people who are happily glued together by a tent at a fucking festival by myself = DO NOT WANT, even if it's Smashing Pumpkins. And curse this godawful place for not ever having a band over for more than one day.)

Curse my having missed Coldplay. Curses!

That quote above is for every one who has suffered heartbreak. Because only in the shadow of hurt are we at our most sincere. (Although the original quote was about the poet's mother. Seems like every artist has a mother complex, or else they are officially not artists.)

On Singapore/Malaysia:

You can't really say that the goal was No. 18's fault, since it basically took an unexpected curve, right. Even as a spectator you can't have expected it, much less as a player. It's a good thing that the goalie caught on, even though it would have missed. A second time would be unforgiveable.

To be fair, Malaysia actually has somewhat of a better team. You could tell that the Singapore team was quite strained, not just physically (seriously, I seem to find that the Malaysian team had better stamina, although I only watched the second part), but otherwise strategically we made up for it.

Actually, I'm not even sure if it's because their style was more inspired and we basically played like Chelsea against MLS - mostly mercenaries.

Aide got sent off, which was absolutely unnecessary, in my opinion. One of those WTF moments in football.

But... Well, frankly I could barely stop myself from falling asleep on that match. Dortmund/Bayern is so much more interesting. Heh.

On Dortmund/Bayern (ongoing)

[edit] DAMN. What the hell. Is our defense useless?

[edit an offside later...] Yes it is.

[edit after 1-1] HOLY SHIT! I CAN"T DECIDE IF THAT IS PERFECT OR CHANCE OR WHAT. I FUCKING LOVE BAYERN. That serve is so bloody beautiful! Also, is it just me or does Magath's ears and hueg! head make him look like the Erlkoenig? DUUUUDE.

Also, this meme made me LOL because it said The Scientist. And I'm a softie for that song. (Yes, I know that MBTI has the Scientist archetype. No, I will not acknowledge that.)

Your Love Type: INTJ

The Scientist

In love, you tend to be very private and withdrawn - even when things are going well.
For you, sex is important in a happy relationship. Less important when things aren't going well.

Overall, you are confident, intelligent, and serious about commitment.
However, you tend to hold back and not show your emotions.

Best matches: ENFP and ENTP

What's Your Love Type?

[edit 1-2] OMFG!!! MAKAAY!! THAT WAS THE MOST FUCKING INSPIRED GOAL I HAVE EVER SEEN!! I LOVE THIS TEAM!!!

-- Cuddliest. Butt. Ever.Prinz Poldi ♥

Now he looks more like Sandmannchen than Elfking.

fskjkjskfjs need sleep.

[edit 2-3] ...OH SHIT. The second shot was PERFECTLY EXECUTED. It wasn't even luck, it was just... Whoosh. The third one...

I think I'll emo and go to sleep. No wait, the blue-eyed Prinz is coming on! Go, Poldi, go!

...Actually, it doesn't look likely. Dortmund is all fired up now, it's really hard. ¬_¬

Gerard Way's interview and some personal jazoo that you won't care about

2007-01-18T01:49:00.000+08:00

Gerard says his schooldays were, "Pretty Solitary. I didn't have too many friends. I was really isolated and found solace at the comic book store. One of my first days in high school I sat all alone at lunch time. It was the classic story - the weird kid in army jacket, a horror movie T-shirt, long black hair. People were never really mean to me, they just left me alone. I think I wanted to be alone too."

"I spent a lot of time holed up in the basement depressed. I found it hard to leave the house," Gerard says. "I'd been through art school, got out and realised that there were no jobs for me. I went through a lot of negative stuff. I'd sit there beating myself up for not accomplishing anything."

"The positive side was that I ended up with a notebook full of ideas. I even wrote a story called "I brought you my bullets, you brought me your love". It was about gangland murders in Chicago. But, the point was, I had all these ideas and it meant I was already shaping an aesthetic for this band - I just didn't have a band yet."

Now can you tell why, at age twenty-one, when I've seen so many goddamned things, been through so many things, when I'd thought I've finally come to the point where I've been through some of the worst and most fucking depressive period in my life, and this is the one band I have to fall so bloody hard for?

And it only began with... what I'd posted before? (Although technically, I had been listening to I brought you my Bullets before that.)

Because this is the one thing that reminds me why I am still alive. Even if it is true that life feeds on life, and that human life is ultimately an expression of the highest form of cruelty (and an expression of will to live is the highest form of cruelty, for with a will to live comes will to power), there is still a reason to breathe. The journey to take. (Besides, who would shout Gaiman's Death quote into your ear? *cracks up* For heaven's sake, I still remember the times when I loitered at the bookstore - first Towers books, then Kinokuniya (back when they allowed
browsing *cough*) looking at comics. Alone. Dressed in black, or a school uniform of a school I did not belong to.

Hell. Somebody once said that the reason you write is so that one out of two hundred might actually understand. I wonder if anybody will understand. That when, finding out about Gerard's story (noir-style) set in Chicago, I was reminded of some of the earliest shit I wrote (which really sucked, by the way)... Gosh, I never did grow out of the 90s, did I? I wonder how many 90s' kids still remember the film noir, the beautiful films seeking such intensity, with their femme fatales and their anima, and their heroes and their antiheroes. (Well, I'm vaguely aware of something known as the goth subculture, but I never fit in with any subculture, so.)

I'm awfully glad that I will never take the route of fucking myself up with drugs, alcohol or cigarettes. Not that it's anything to be proud of, it just bores me. There are so many ways to seek intensity. Like running away to North Dakota, when you're about to enter Uni, for instance! Ha.

Freefall. When you're constantly experiencing vertigo, there is no need to push things further.

...No. The difference is, of course, manifold. I shouldn't relate too much to anything (although Schopenhauer did regard music as the highest form of aesthetics, since it is the only without form and hence appeals to the soul (or something)). Words. Words are ...mediocre. That was why I lost the desire to write, or draw. Instead, there was a stronger desire to create something else, but it wasn't music. It was action, for the ultimate expression of the will to live is action and why the fuck am I rambling about schopenhauer again.

Gosh. I do really like boys who respect women, though. If there is a spokesperson for the generation, if there is someone to speak for the misfits who never had anybody to hang out with in school, I wouldn't mind if it was Gerard.

Because:

Rickly: "There was a level of humanity in there that meant people would be able to relate to it. I was amazed by it because I had never seen it in a person before."

Gerard: "I have a high level of empathy and it makes me ill. It's a gift and a curse. It's why I can connect so strongly with crowds - I can feel emotion so strongly it makes me sick."

Gerard is much more real than all the shit that they have on TfuckingV. (And that's why I don't watch it, except to watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report, and some football.)

Also, I suppose commenting actually reveals that I'm ... not actually chronically angry in person. Oops. RAWR! FDSFGS.

Also, randomly, the comment about humanity reminds me of Milan Kundera. Whose works I sincerely admire.

For the first time in... years, I think I finally found an author that I like, a band that I love, and a couple of topics that interest me (football aside*cough*). Here's hoping that the early-twenties and still in fucking uni learning jack shit from "peers" whom I don't really want anything to do with burnout won't set in.

Rhjhdkasd.,.

Oi, media needs to learn the difference between "asocial" and "antisocial". And isn't Xanax for anxiety rather than depression? Bugger it all for a lark!

I'm into this. So hard.

2007-01-16T12:56:00.000+08:00

Bleached blonde, check. Black uniform, check all it needs is a red armband. Ghostly atmosphere (for a lack of a better term), check. Genuine weird faces at the mirror, check.

I've never seen anybody else use their eyes in a photo like that, and actually succeed at it. I do have an affinity with those whose glare could pierce through your heart. This is the alpha glare - or, perhaps, a glare that sufficiently defends one's wellbeing. Even if you had a gun in your hand, there's still a game going on. This glare is what ends it. And I am in love with glares, because only equals could possibly have them. (Okay, I'm really not eloquent, not today, not ever.)

To say that I like this aesthetic sense would be a bit underrated. Obsession is like a heart attack. For some time, you've been building up on the cholestrol and constricting your blood vessels, and then one day you're collapsing on the floor from TEH HOT.

I do wonder how many people got over breakups listening to Smashing Pumpkins. Ha. Losers. And no, I will not admit the effect that Cancer has on me, with current life events and all that. I guess it really does reflect parents' feelings, huh.

Your spirit will carry on.

My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade

2007-01-14T17:21:00.000+08:00

This is horribly juvenile, but, shit, I like My Chemical Romance. The truth is, I don't like that sort of shitty "dark" techno that goths are supposed to listen to, but holy fucking hell, this is so horribly juvenile, and besides, I fucking hate the emo subculture.

...It makes me want to go goth (not Bosnian), however. Like the wondrous teenage years which I spent in all the black clothes I could ever find. (Actually, I used to wear black because a) I had no dress sense; b) it's easy to match; c) hell, I liked the fact that it matched with my hair.)

So, I actually like MCR's aesthetic sense. And no, I don't mean that I like the videos which look like they were done from their parents' garage.

The only beef that I have with MCR, though, is that it is utterly, terribly, horribly juvenile. Like in Welcome to the Black Parade, "I don't care" is sung repeatedly... And you know what? Fuck it. Apathy is not cool. Being defiant is just another excuse for being apathetic retards?

Okay, look: Just because you were brought up in a middle-class suburb and cut yourself doesn't mean that you got over everything all by yourselves. Belief in self-determination only applies when you actually have things to overcome, immature dipshits.

The idea that retarded bourgeosie teenagers will listen to that song and think it's cool makes my skin crawl and me twitch.

Actually, I'm in a good mood now, because OMFG THEY GOT MY FIRST LETTER AND I THINK I GOT OLLI KAHN'S SIGNATURE although I suspect they only sent it coz they think I'm from China. Hee. This is so awesome.

Anyway, Gerard Way is right; I never got bullied by my peers, though the authorities did bug me a lot. As long as you don't get in the way of the horribly rigid bureaucrats, you need to know how to protect yourself from your peers (or as the retarded counsellors will put it, "friends"). Because seriously: These idiots will never know that nonconformist and rebellion is never cool. And you, the real nonconformist, who really isn't cool because you don't fit in, will eyeroll and think everyone else is bloody retarded.

So, kid, if you can't fit in, my only advice is: Wear black, look somewhat violent (but not violent enough for the authorities to want to hurt you, although them conservative asshats probably will want to hurt you regardless, and you'll have to fight to protect yourself from those who are supposed to protect you, but that's another can of worms altogether) and... Learn fucking karate.

That said, MCR cracks me up as much as Bollywood does.

[edit]
Okay, fuck, I just saw MCR's Black Parade pv and it is fucking awesome, given that I lovelovelovelovelove uniforms, and also fuckgerardishot and also, it's not an anthem for apathy.

But I still fucking hate scene kids. Neener. (Okay, actually I don't- I just think the scene is retarded and don't see why people love to conform and be elitist fucks.)

Holiday's greetings, nihilistic-style

2006-12-25T17:46:00.000+08:00

H A P P Y C H A N N U K O N S U M E R I S T M A S!

Being the only agnostic atheist at the table, one is eventually relegated towards the backseat of conversation. Silence is sometimes the best treatment against arguments.

Fundamentalist faith seems to be rooted in an implicit or unconscious belief that religion is really fake, and that one must run from truth in fear. Faith becomes an excuse and synonym – even a sign of moral nobility – for refusing to fairly examine other-than-Christian ideas.
-exchristian.net

Of course, this is a world where those who value logic and reason above all are sidelined as "intelligent people who are not like us".

I shall refrain from commenting on the supposed intelligence of yours truly and raise an eyebrow at such inherent prejudice.

Sartre was right:

Hell is other people.
- no exit

Still, it's nice to know that the big J actually supported secularisation of the state in Matthew and Luke. The fundies, the "I am a straight man who raise two straight children" (paraphrased) who want to convert the state ain't got a leg to stand on. Moses leading the "chosen people" out was only a sign of stateless nationalism... Nothing more. Nationalism exists only when a group of people hold a perceived group of similarity and ideals and therefore, even if illusorily, have common interest.

Except, if you comment upon this to those people, they'll probably lapse into silence, mostly because they fail to understand.

Remind me of my intelligence, again?

I am very much against such organised religions as they seem to be nothing more than fitting the bill of a cult and encourages prejudice. Traditionally, it used to be the dividing line between nations; it unites as well as divides; now, in the time when nationalism is past its expiry date, it is nothing more than division.

(Oh, and I was the kid who liked rock and weird shit, so these assholes who told me I was going to hell could suck it, too. Fuck the 'youth'. Ignorance due to age is nothing worth celebrating.)

Nobody really needs a real entry on Jews... I mean, News.

2006-12-21T22:51:00.000+08:00

First of all, Bayern sucked yesterday.

Rensing sucked just as badly. Benefit of doubt says that the man-wall was blocking his vision, but a lot of experience won't hurt Mr. Pretty Boy. I mean, shit, I like this dude, he's about my age (I'm Ottl's age), but come on. That kind of mistake is just unforgiveable.

Although when the third goal happened, you might as well wonder what the hell happened with the defense. They kind of froze in place. And it wasn't snowing. (Although it was raining, yay! Renbaby looked hot with wet hair.)

It'll be 2007 soon. (I don't actually have a new year's resolution. Why bother?)

So, to reminiscise:

a) I miss the 1990's, even though I was kind of too young during most of it -- but hey, it had shows like Bel Air and the Four Heavenly Kings wasn't bad, and even pop back then didn't suck as hard as it does these days. Even the Spice Girls were tolerable... Compared to Britney Spears.

b) I did what I haven't done before, in 2006. More of that in my personal LJ -- most of it is NOYB. But then again, I've done a lot of things that I haven't done before during each of the earlier years, and I suspect that's just because I was young. When you're young, you don't often have much experience, so things tend to seem kinda new.

c) I also did what I'd done before. Not much news, there.

d) The economy seems to suck. Depends on what sectors... But well, at the lowest level, no pay raise is given-- while fees are hiked up all day long. Fucking A job, gahmen. Please get your head out of your metaphorical anus -- I don't know how many people actually are stupid -- or blind -- enough to buy the faux optimistic cheerleading bullshit. Then again, GDP didn't include Per Capita, I think. What do I know, I don't study economics? All ah know is mah grampa used to say, that things didn't cost their weight in metaphorical gold.

I don't know who reads this thing, so drop a note if you do... Actually, scratch that. Nobody's going to drop a note because nobody reads this thing. You'd have to be pretty masochistic to do that.

I have a lovely note for everybody this Christmas (Actually, this year's Christmas is good for me... Well, better than clinging to somebody's skirt like last year, or pining for a beloved about a continent away the one before). The reason it's not actually quoted elsewhere, though, is that much as I'm a cynical bastard, I don't actually want to spoil anybody's sport. So, I figured that if you're masochistic enough to read this darned thing, a little quote can't hurtcha:

"No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close."
Chuck Palahniuk

Have fun thinking about it while you open your presents, and remember, kids: It's down the road, not across the street. Cheers!

Fresh Prince of Bel Air

2006-12-19T17:33:00.000+08:00

The usual thing about AmeriKKKan admin, and ... UEFA Knockout Stages.

2006-12-15T21:49:00.000+08:00

I'm not even in the mood for raging. Sure, some dumbass in Amerikkka doesn't know about the real happenings, but neither do I. *shrug*

Am I the only one who remembers a letter from years back, when the Iraq war was starting? Some dude wrote a letter into our States Times, criticizing the US policy, and some retard wrote in to say, in a pro-US uppity manner, that -- I quote from memory -- the US does not "query the layman for their policies".

...Do I even need to say anything about that retard? Seriously, the only thing Singaporeans are good at is the Appeal To Authority Fallacy.

SO!

Bayern fans are angsting over the Champion Leagues draw:

Champions League knockout round draw

FC Porto (Portugal) vs. Chelsea (England)

Celtic (Scotland) vs. AC Milan (Italy)

PSV Eindhoven (Netherlands) vs. Arsenal (England)

Lille (France) vs. Manchester United (England)

AS Roma (Italy) vs. Lyon (France)

FC Barcelona (Spain) vs. Liverpool (England)

Real Madrid (Spain) vs. Bayern Munich (Germany)

Inter Milan (Italy) vs. Valencia (Spain)

* Home team listed first; first legs Feb. 20-21, second legs, March 6-7

Bolded: The stuff I actually care about. Source: SportsIllustrated @ CNN

...Uh. Oh shit.

What are our chances against Real? Also, why the fuck is Arsenal, the one team that I actually wish would lose, so bloody lucky?

Shut up. I wasn't really asking you.

Hey, at least Leverkusen is in the UEFA Cup. I WANT ME SOME KIESSLING, DUDE BE HAWT.
And Schnix too.
And Butt.

Blah blah blah.

The pretty! The pretty!

2006-12-12T16:24:00.000+08:00

ARGH. I wish fatass men would just drop dead already.

Only the men. Because females don't act like the fatter they are, the more they're fucking entitled to some skinnyass bimbo model. Also, shut up about reverse sexism. It only exists when you're self-serving fucks who play the "I am so entitled, revoke their voting rights, and females should go back to the kitchen" game.

Here's some BEANOS for your EYES!

So, here's some football banners from here. Credit given so that I don't get LJ-lynched. Oh, and also because they actually made some Kahnbanners. Fukken stoleded, along with other pretties.

Replace "support" with "think he's an ingenious striker".

Was mann liebt, das neckt sich. ♥ (Nevermind that "neckt" sounds like "neck" in English, and that brings together an image of making out. Excuse me, I'm over in that corner stopping the nosebleeding.)

Bend over, baby! (Technically, yes, I support this guy, no matter how much of a whiney, self-important fuck he can sometimes be, because at least he's redeeming and he's the team ~~whore~~ leader who motivates Bayern so well. Nevermind that he totally brought Germany out of the funk in 2002. Like the public, I should have a short attention span. Nevermind that Klinsi's failed WC campaign only brought them to the third place. Nevermind that the "mistake" he made during crucial moments in that legendary match against Brazil was due to torn ligaments. All these should be overlooked because, apparently, we are all kay poh fucks who should care about his personal life, because, duuur, that's what people do. Guh. Did I mention that he's cuddly?)

This is here only because I like good ol' JT:
And yeah, the totally pimped out P-dude. Because, no matter how inconsistant he is, that's 99% what happens anyway, and shit, who cares. Maybe he'll pick up in FCB... Uh, one day. Makaay doesn't score well in the CL, but he does in the BL, and vice versa for Pizza. And his smile is so goddamned cute.
Of course, HIM. How could you not like lil piggy? (Nevermind that he's all starry-eyed about Olli. *snicker*)

Replace "support" with "think C. Ronaldo is amusing and very pretty".

...Well, mostly. Goalies are awesome:

Chelsea/Arsenal - doom.

2006-12-12T14:12:00.000+08:00

Sometimes Blogger really, really sucks. And here's just one example of Blogger sucking ass. Or maybe most people are really so bloody stupid that they have no idea what hair colour suits them. (Protip: If you're brown, don't get brown hair or you'll just look like a pile of ... dung. And if you're yellow, that applies, too. Unless you're white, in which case you should get black hair and totally wear black makeup, like a piece of zen thingy.)

Then again, so many idiots keep saying, "I do this to express myself", as if they are what hair colour makes them. If they are seriously bleached blonde on the inside, they should just drink bleach and die.

Which brings me to this webcartoon series, We Are Robots by The Frown. Those of you familiar with Jhonen Vasquez would probably like this one, especially.

So, I had finished typing up an entry on Chelsea/Arsenal and Blogger ate it up. Excuse me, I'll be moping on a corner of the intarwebs.

And how DARE people not support Hildebrand to be number one. It's okay to hate Kahn. Anything the guy says is just shit. How DARE he backstab my dear Timo. Because, like, we all know that Timo is a soft cuddlebunny on the inside and, duh, we all know that he reads shoujo manga together with Lahmi. Aren't they so cute together? And Timo looks hot in the Cyprus/Germany match. Because, like, that's all that really matters. And Lehmann? He was such a fair guy against the San Marina because, gasp, he TOTALLY refrained from doing something UNFAIR! ...Oh wait.

Seriously, though. I'm still angry that Chelsea didn't win. Now that they're in somewhat of a quagmire in the EPL, and Arsenal wasn't playing with their best squad. Which means that Chelsea does have some bigger problems than what we think it is.

Although, to be precise, I only support Chelsea because I hate Arsenal, don't care about Liverpool, and while Man Utd is very entertaining, I don't like them enough. Plus, many Man U supporters and Arsenal supporters are douches.

Oh wait. Not that football supporters are not known for being douches. My bad.

I actually didn't get to watch the match. *shakes fists* From what little of reports I've seen, it appears that individual Chelsea players did perform well enough, save for Hilario, since Cudicini was out (and my poor bambi-eyed Cech isn't back yet) with another injury. My usual contention with Chelsea is group coordination; it usually plays more like assembled stars rather than a real team.

And, considering that Chelsea is the lesser of all evils (aside from the small teams which bear no chance), well... I guess that pretty much says it all about the EPL, and the Singaporean dumbasses who still have colonial hangover. Oh shi-

That said, all football fans are annoying, regardless of gender. Except for Jon Stewart, who is just awesome.

"If you think that means Tottenham Hotspurs is going to raise to the top, no! Sheffield Wednesday shall, before them!"

[edit @ Dec 15, 06, 11.24pm] I just realised: WHY THE ---------------.. .DOES MIROMIRO HAVE A 'Tler 'Tache in the first picture?

Oh my fuck, iz dat sum Poldi.

2006-12-09T18:57:00.000+08:00

I was about to go neanderthal on Blogger for being a sluggish fucker, but decided that it might be one of those memory sinks that Mozilla is prone to. I'm using IE now, and feeling like a Micro$uck whore. I miss you, tabbed browsing. You are always on my mind. ;A;

Tonight, Bayern will be playing Energie Cottbus.

...So.

There's news that the RIAA claims to protect musicians, and then asks to lower musicians' royalties. No big surprise, in reality: Teh System is full of hypocrisy and bullfuckingshit. No amount of Politically Correct phrasing will justify that. And anybody who refers to demand curves will be not-so-politely asked to kiss my rearend.

Bart Herbison, executive director of Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), said the company’s use of unclaimed funds is a bone of contention among the songwriting community. Unclaimed funds can be used to fund lobbying activities that may or may not benefit the artists, he said.American songwriters are already dealing with a royalty structure that favors the recording industry. With average annual incomes of $5,000, increasing numbers of songwriters are pursuing other professions. He said the industry needs every penny it can get.“This is a sore spot for
songwriters,” Herbison said. “It’s ludicrous to say you can’t find Dolly Parton or Bo Didley.”
[...] the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board is conducting a trial to set web casting rates and terms. Copyright office representatives said they do not comment on trials taking place, but one party involved, Ron Gertz, said an issue under discussion is whether the board should permit only one organization to collect and distribute digital music royalty fees.
-source: Nashvillecitypaper

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Recording Industry Association Of America is lobbying to reduce rates on royalties paid to songwriters. Citing general music industry change, RIAA Executive Vice President and General Council Steven Marks told the Reporter that they’re hoping to ensure that “record companies can continue to create the sound recordings that drive revenues for music publishers.”
-source: CMJ.com

Oh yeah, two other sources: Hollywood Reporter and whatever.

My question is, since when do musicians actually matter in the music industry? It's whoever looks fuckable, gets signed up, whoever gets the most ads and playtime. Fuck quality, Seriously.

So, apparently some songwriters aren't earning much -- now I finally have an idea why popular songs suck so badly these days. There is no wonder that hits are full of crap about humps. Oh, god... It's all coming back -- that horrible song playing at the mall. ONCE YOU HEAR IT, YOU CAN'T UNHEAR IT -- AND IT'S DOOOOOM AFTER THAT.

Most singers sound like whiney retards in the first place, and with royalty sucking holy ass, naturally songwriters are going to find a way to circumvent the system -- or, to put it mildly, fuck it up. That is why we have low-quality, memetic, repetitive rhythms (or rather, the lack thereof) alongside horrible tunes and references to sex and... uh, goddamnit, those goddamned humps. This sort of thing makes Baby Jesus cry, or want to maim some motherfuckers.

Seriously, nobody knows what music is this days. Protip: If you want quality, go look for Red Army Chorus' Song of the Plains. That's some motherfucking quality. And that's The Reason 101 why leftists rock so hard: MUSIC IN ITS ORGASMIC THROES, MAN!!!!! Ah, ah, ahhhhh~

Speaking of Orgasmic throes, C5 isn't showing Bundesliga games, so... Meh. Hopefully I'll be able to watch it-- I've missed quite a few Bayern games recently.

So, here's some orgasmic... Uh. What.

Because we all know that football is made of hotness and... guh. When Poldi made that two goals against Spartak Moscow within 2 minutes of his appareance (I shit you not, casual reader), we were all happy. Being a young footballer, though, his performance is kind of inconsistant, so I personally thought it was a waste of 10m euro when he did transfer. (Insert comment about Ballack having left, and the midfield, here.)

Here's me, eating my words. Not because of performance, mind you.

It kind of gets confusing as to who's the pimpdaddy around here because of the bling. So, to clarify: this is Prinz Poldi, and FCB is his pimp.

I shan't mince words: OH MY FUCK.

GUH. *THUD*

There should be a slogan or something. "FCB: We are the champions - and the hottest."

I might be pulling this German phrase entirely out of my ass: "Wir sind der Meister - und der heißer."

CSKA Moscow/HSV

2006-12-07T08:36:00.000+08:00

So, as per the morning rag (picking these up really does wonders for your garbage):

The latest UN studies have shown that inequality of wealth distribution (on this fucking planet, expletive mine) is shocking: 50% of the world's wealth is concentrated in the hands of 2% of the population.

I knew that I shouldn't have started typing the previous entry, or picking up the fucking newspaper, because I knew that I would get some freaking information that would once again show that a) reality has a leftist bias; b) this world is majorly fucked and no amount of bullshit about revolution, free speech or even talks of charity will change anything.

50% of the world's poorest own less than 1% of the world's wealth.

Oh, and also, it says:

American commercial firms are planning to use the concept of "aromatic bus stops" to induce people's consumerist desires.

(Exact translation.)

So, these days, not only are we downgraded to consumers of the hive mind who desire uniform things such as make up, branded goods, ironed hair, we're also going to be convinced that we need milk. The idiots who say that advertisements can be ignored are, well, bloody idiots. I don't think they'd fucking get it even if you beat them across the head with a clue by four.

Then we upgraded to having commercials blasted at us in fucking irritating octaves in public transport. At least MP3 players are getting cheaper as we speak; beat being brainwashed into a conformist consumerist by being a conformist consumerist. How smart.

Now, we're going to have to figure out how to block out smells. According to neuroscience (off the top of my head), only smells go directly into our brains.

Guess what that means? We're being assaulted on all fronts these days, and that's right, because you're not the one with billions of dollars in your pockets, you can do jack shit about that.

Oh, and apparently, this is fucking news:

The image of skinny models affect females' self-assessment.

According to a survey conducted by University of Connecticut.

We need PhDs to tell us this? We're in big trouble, man. Even if you used your ass to think, you'd still come to the conclusion that being told constantly, sublimally, in newspaper advertisements, that you're supposed to desire to be skinnier and then be shown images of uncommonly skinny (and tall) models, you'd arrive at the conclusion: "HOW IS THAT NOT SUPPOSED TO AFFECT PEOPLE'S SELF ESTEEM?"

Goddamnit, people are fucking stupid. Everyone is being told that these are the desirable things and that if they do not desire and covert these things, they're therefore somewhat deficient. If women do not put on make-up and allow themselves to be objectified, they're being man-hating lesbians. Sweet. Awesome. The day that people actually become happy with who they are is the day capitalism fails.

This is why capitalism will never fail. It is far too easy to tell people that they're somehow incomplete without your product, and they will buy it, hook, line and sink.

Stockholm Syndrome.

You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need.
~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 19

...So.

CSKA Moscow lost to HSV yesterday. HSV made 27 shots against the goal while CSKA made 8 shots; Akinfeev made 8 saves and what's his face Wachter made 2 saves.

I think that sums up how much of a god Akinfeev is (and hot damn, those legs). If not for this guy, CSKA Moscow would probably be back in Motherland instead of UEFA Cup. Although I have to say that it probably has to do with HSV sucking holy balls this season that they are able to go for the UEFA cup instead.

I'm disappointed that they can't qualify for the Champions League thing, though.

I'm also hoping that somebody will kick Arsenal's ass because I'm really starting to hate that team.

Here's some pictures of Igor Akinfeev from the match. L'Igor. Because he's worth it. *snerk*

There was a classic moment where Akinfeev was looking for where his teammates were, and some HSV dude ran up to him and tried to get the ball. Akinfeev kind of picked up the ball in a way that said, "NO BALL FOR YOU!".

At least football is a good painkiller while we're on the way to hell in a handbasket.

Cheers.

OMG!

2006-12-06T08:06:00.000+08:00

Hamburger SV vs CSKA Moscow tonight!!!!!!!

Hot damn!

*tunes in for Akinfeev*

It seems like I missed quite a few Bayern games these days.

Also, this cracked me up because a) It has a couple of internet memes (The entire video is so weeaboo), b) FOOTBALLLLLLL. (Seriously, what's the S-leagues?) So, here it is.

Reality has a liberal bias

2006-12-06T07:50:00.000+08:00

Translated from one of those daily rags you pick up near the MRT:

Survey results show that Singaporean men could mostly be divided into the following categories: The Liberal, The Chauvinistic, The Confdent and The Anxious.
40% of those surveyed are "Liberals" [...] It is believed that their attitude towards circumstances are calmer.
37% belong to "The Chauvinistic"; most of them are 30-44 year olds, self-employed or white-collars. Aspects of this demographic include: Likes to spend money, coverts branded goods, has little in their savings and investment accounts, and pays much attention to their personal appearance and health.
[etc]

That's about 77% of the male demographic as represented by the men interviewed in the process (The younger demographic in their 20s are left out of the translation because of a lack of descriptive attributes in the report. "The Confident" only describes so much.).

Note that the report says, "...They may even accept same-sex marriage".

Which brings me to the point: Where is the so-called myth of the "conservative heartlanders"?

Aside from those power-hungry mid-life crisis idiots insecure with their own masculinity (er, we all know which demographic I'm referring to), that is. The demographics for the "Confident" could be put under the liberal demographics, especially since a large percentage of them have considered immigration.

This leaves us with the remaining 5%, who are above 50 and worry about the future of the young.

If we interpret this demographic according to how likely they are to be liberals, one would not have expected the first group to emerge as the biggest.

Naturally, this represents only the male population. But then, since we live in a patriarchy, the prevailing view of society is determined by that of men. (I'm not saying that this should be the case, but it is: The view of the masses are always determined by that of the ruling classes.)

So, where is the proof that Singaporeans are mostly conservative equivalents of rednecks? It's not like we actually have rural demographics here. The more I think about it, the more the claim that "most" Singaporeans are conservative is simply ludicrous. Where is the proof? The election results are not proof, since there is a lack of strong opposition here.

Actually, this doesn't belong here. I'll shift it elsewhere. Of course, without the specifics of the survey it's hard to determine much scientifically, but when it comes to social sciences, expecting a laboratory setting is near impossible in such scenarios.

I am still highly amused that older men are "calmer" and "liberal" because they have, duuuur, experience in life. I'm also willing to bet that they have not been coddled by our classist, capitalist society into being self-important, shallow asses like the "Chauvinist" demographic appears to be. 8D

was halten Sie von Lehmanns BAMBI-verbot?

2006-12-02T11:24:00.000+08:00

Arsène Wenger (57), hat seinem Keeper die Reise zur BAMBI-Verleihung am Donnerstagabend in Stuttgart untersagt - Lehmann solle lieber für das Ligaspiel am Samstag gegen Tottenham Hotspurs trainieren, so die Begründung. Ehrung oder Training, Sport oder Show: Was halten Sie von Lehmanns BAMBI-Verbot?

I have begun to like Lehmann less after this. I don't usually like to read such pages, but whatever, this time it's rubbish, pure and simple. Those who think that it's right, I don't understand such people. :/

A fan's wishes

2006-11-29T01:55:00.000+08:00

Mittwochmittag, halb eins an der Säbener Straße: Oliver Kahn, Mannschaftskapitän des FC Bayern, stellt sich im LIVE-CHAT auf FCB.tv den Fragen der Fans. Diesen Termin sollten Sie nicht verpassen!

-- Oliver Kahn is going on a chat to answer fans' questions on FCB.tv on Wednesday noon.

I will not be there, but hopefully a chat log will be public.

One of the questions that I would like to know, surely, is the question of whether Olli would think that if not for circumstances and rivalry, it would be possible to be friends with Jens. My speculation is that since the WC06, it should be a hot topic as well. Jens has taken the initiative with open arms to express a possible friendship (again, if not for circumstances), so, if Olli were to respond, it would not only shut the mouths of those cynical people who like to tarnish such a beautiful moment with their twisted views, it would also truly make the Summer's experience a complete and wholesome fairy tale.

The past week's Bayern, and the Pizza delivers

2006-11-26T23:39:00.000+08:00

I was out yesterday, so I missed HSV/Bayern game. If Bayern had lost to HSV, it would have been a setback to the players. But on the whole, since they performed well against HSV, there is no real need to perform against Spartak in the Champions League so far, since they are mostly guaranteed a place in the Champions League after these matches. It is CSKA Moscow that I worry for, since I want them to be in. I don't care about English or Italian clubs that much (except for Chelsea, but even then, I would certainly pick a German or a Russian team over them any day).

Germans have humour!

It is hard to imagine a pizza delivery service working particularly well in Moscow. The traffic jams and near-gridlock conditions at all times of the day and night in the metropolis of 11 million would surely render the pizza inedible by the time it was finally delivered.

By contrast, Bayern's own 'Pizza Express' is proving an outstanding success. Claudio "Pizza" Pizarro's cracking brace in Wednesday evening's meeting with Spartak Moscow had his coach beaming from ear to ear. "Claudio was the best striker on the park, and not just because of his goals," Felix Magath enthused afterwards.

-- FCB's article on Claudio Pizarro

Pizza delivers-- LMAO.

That meant another start in the central playmaking role for Bastian Schweinsteiger, but with Andreas Ottl preoccupied in containing the midfield threat posed by van der Vaart and Iran star Mehdi Mahdavikia, the Germany starlet was unable to stamp his authority on the opening exchanges.

-- FCB's Match Report againast Hamburg SV

I have the feeling that Norddeustscher would probably hate the Südes Stern more after this. 8-D

They didn't call Pizarro a Pizza service in German, though. Oh wait, they did:

Jeder, der schon einmal in Moskau war, kann sich nur zu gut vorstellen, warum es in der russischen Hauptstadt wahrscheinlich kaum einen Pizza-Bring-Service gibt. Der Pizza-Bote würde bei dem vielen Verkehr und ständigen Staus in der Elf-Millionen-Metropole nämlich nie pünktlich beim Kunden ankommen. Und wer isst seine Pizza schon gerne kalt?!?

Bayerns „Pizza-Service“ hatte damit aber keine Probleme. Claudio Pizarro lieferte am Mittwochabend beim Spiel gegen Spartak Moskau im Luzhniki-Stadion einen Doppelpack aus, bei dem sein Trainer ins Schwärmen geriet. „Claudio war nicht nur wegen seiner beiden Tore der bestimmende Stürmer auf dem Platz“, meinte Felix Magath nach dem Spiel.

-- FCB's article on Bayern/Spartak.

The article's title is "Pizza Doppelpack" -- LOL. Pizarro did deliver twice.

It is my contention that FCB is probably the most commercially run of all German league clubs, especially internationally. I don't know if that is a good thing, but I don't really care.

Right now, I like Schalke 04 and CSKA also, even though it is not possible to watch Russian matches.

Wonder if Bayern will play against St Pauli again? (I want to watch a game!)

Bundesliga06-07: Bayern gegen Stuttgart

2006-11-19T05:03:00.000+08:00

Der Hüne des Südern hat seit dem Spiel gegen Leverkusen geweckt.

EM 08 Quali -- Zypern gegen Deutschland (1-1)

2006-11-17T05:35:00.001+08:00

Timo findet es schwer zu fassen, warum Blogspot ist so scheiße. (Ich hatte eine Artikel geschrieben, und dann Blogspot aß es auf.)

♥

2006-11-05T15:16:00.000+08:00

Poldolli!

Igor Akinfeev (CSKA Moskva)

2006-11-02T23:27:00.000+08:00

This guy is so fucking amazing.

The End of a Dark Tired Year (Night Photography)

2006-07-21T01:39:00.000+08:00

Pictures are 800x600; click to view.

walking like giant cranes

Then she showed me this picture

and I knew that it meant “happy,” like when I’m reading about the Apollo space missions, or when I am still awake at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. in the morning and I can walk up and down the street and pretend that I am the only person in the whole world.

- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon

Photography: Hong Kong

2006-06-28T03:03:00.000+08:00

The following are 800x600 in dimension. Click! It really shows the details. :)

Nazism: Bringing it into perspective since the end of WWII.

2006-06-24T16:57:00.000+08:00

There's always great comedic element in Right Wingers.

Aside from the fact that Hitler = Queen (not that that's a bad thing, in my equal-opportunity-dating opinion), there's just all sorts of pictars! that are SSexploitable.

Let's see:

Not only was Hitler a queen, he was a furry at heart.

Also, he was a camwhore at 4chan:

Indeed, Nazism has spawned countless fanboys and fanworks...

...From Japanese animation...
...Crappy photo manips...

...Good photo manips (original was from an advert from the BBC history channel, ich glaube)...

To Japanese cosplayers:

Protip: Dude in question is actually Torihada Minoru... Which Translates to Goosebumps Truth. If you're still taking him seriously (but damn, is he hot), you should scroll down this page at his official site (I want the poster with the rose, ooh!)

...Fanworks...

And maybe some slash-friendly depictions of Hitl0r Youth:

Great movie. ;3; Also, here's a cool flash site... Actually, I saw it for the first time round, and came all over the place. *_*;

Indeed, it is the mother of all fandoms.

Especially among, er, monozygotic twins who claim to be part of the "eugenic" "aryan" thingy. No wonder Hitler was emo, he was so misunderstood.

If anybody gets their undies in a twist about it, I'd say, "It's you who don't understand." Also, I fukken want an iron cross.

Remember, kids! If you become a drug-free vegetarian, you're becoming a drug-free vegetarian with Hitler!

*Faggotry is sexy, especially in uniform.