so unexpected...

Some unexpected events took place within the last 12 hours or so. France won Spain in their World Cup match and I saw a real cobra while running this morning. Okie, so it's only 2 things, but they sure went against all that normally should took place.

All was well in the soccer match. Spain was leading, and the look like they were going to the quarter finals to get whipped by Brazil. However, France squeezed all the experience form all their old men from long long (It's nong if you watch Singapore Idol.) ago and managed to come back to win 3-1. I think what was truely unexpected was the display of football that Spain tried to pass off as an attack. To say they were underpreforming was a true understatement. Imagine, they were beaten by an underpreforming French team that brealy made it into the knockout round. The French team better show some grit against Brazil, if not, Spain would really have lost in vain. At the moment, I still think a Spain-Brazil match would be much more exciting than a France-Brazil match. We'll just have to wait till after the match.

The other thing was the snake. If you didn't know, the cobra is indigenous to Singapore. They are actually native to Singapore. But the thing is you just don't see enough of it to believe a fact like that. I sure didn't when I first saw the snake listed as a native species.

Self denial at work.
Singapore=Safe. Cobra=Dangerous. Safe=/=Dangerous.

Therefore, Singapore cannot possibly have a native snake like a cobra.

But after seeing one real one slithering across the track, I'm force to believe. At first I thought that it was a normal black snake. It wasn't really big. I thought: WOW! Snake! Then I saw its hood. Okie, cobra. Side step. Luckily, it seemed more interested in getting off the track. Honestly, after seeing the snake, getting off the track shot up in my pirority list.

Okie, I thought of one more unexpected event. Our Singaporean representative at the World Cup makes me proud to be Singaporean. That's right, it's Shamsul, our very own referee. I really hope he's chosen as the referee of the finals. Don't you think that most of the other referees are just rubbish at what they do? Their decisions seems so bias at times. In yesterday night's match between Brazil and Ghana, the Ghana team accused the referee of having, and I quote, "anti-Ghanian biasness". Shamsul was voted as the best referee in a poll somewhere, although this cannot really be confirmed.

Therefore, to encourage reader participation for the 6(I think.) regular readers of my blog, please leave a comment on whether you think Shamsul should referee the Finals of the World Cup. If you don't regularly read this blog, maybe you should start. If not, just leave a comment and maybe consider. Consider harder if the answer is no.

And if you have cable, the movie on Disney channel tonight is the Emperor's New Groove.

my dad... the pseudo soccer god...

Father's day just passed. It happened 3 days ago. Well, now is soccer season. World Cup fever sweeps the world, literally. And since it's also father's day 3 days ago, this entry will be about these 2 things: My dad being a pseudo soccer god. He thinks he knows everything about the game.

I think something about being old is that you think everyone values your opinions, no matter how baseless they may be. My dad is nice and all, but when it comes to watching soccer... DO NOT watch with my dad. Especially if you don't like to have a 3rd party commentor beside you.
It's not even that what my dad says is relevent. He just makes a gazillion comments about the way that the game is being played. Like how they should be passing the ball up instead of passing it back to the defenders.

My dad also likes to make predictions. Not really good ones, but logical ones. And when his predictions come true, he acts like he won the 1st prize of toto. I mean he didn't even bet on it, so why is he so excited? And he'll just go now about it. Okie I've heard enough.

I think a side effect of soccer fever is the fact that it has the ability of turning everyone into a soccer god wannabe. Luckily it only happens once every 4 years.

crazy frog...

Who has not heard of Crazy Frog? It's that ultimately irritating frog that spins techno music while "ringing". He rings because all the sounds that he is able to produce sound like bells and whistle.

And yes, I've used the pronoun he. I was channel surfing again today and I chanced upon an advertisement for the World Cup on Malaysia's channel, TV1. The advertisment featured Crazy Frog. However, what was really interesting was that it's groin area had been mosaic/pixlated/blurred out. I thought that was weird. Were Malaysian television that conservative? Crazy Forg does not have show any genitals, not in Singapore anyways.

After pointing it out to my brothers, I was informed by my older brother that in actual fact, the original Crazy Frog that was created in the UK had portruding genitals. In full sight!!! Well, how did it turn into the conservative Crazy Frog as we know it in Singapore? The most possible reason was that we imported our Crazy Frog from the US instead of directly from UK. When Crazy Frog was exported to the US, they too did not approve of the exposed genitals. Therefore, the exposed genitals were erased.

Hence, the advertisement I saw on TV1 was most likely imported directly from UK. Which explains the "cover up". It's still kinda weird.

I think I complain too much..

Ever had one of those days when you think everything is just going wrong and God isn't there listening to you bitch so you just let everything you feel wrong stay wrong.

After publishing the previous entry, now on pandora.com the song the Perfect day is playing. Pandora is a online radio. It seems we are not as alone as we think. Every little detail of our insignificant life has been taken care of by no one less worthy than God Himself.

I can't say that i'm now feeling great and "happy-ier" but I do feel less of this Sunday.
This Sunday where I don't exist. Cause now I know I do.

i don't exist...

I don't exist on Sundays. Especially Sundays like today, where I have chosen not to attend church service. On days like these, The day waste away, the time spent doing things just seemed like motion done without intention.And the worst thing is that I feel restless and tired all at the same time.

I woke up early enough, but I would have been late for service, but i must admit that's not a really good reason to miss a service. I had lunch with my parents. After lunch, I had a read. I fell asleep. Not good. I fell asleep less than 5 hours after I woke up. And now i'm still sleepy, but I'm blogging. Where is the meaning of life on days like these?

I feel like I could do without all these Sundays. These Sundays where I don't exist.

self-denial...

I think I write about how Channel 5 should be run once too often. But what the heck.
World Cup fever is offically here. The Sports section carry about 5 pages worth of World Cup news everyday. Everywhere you go, you can see balls, soccer jerseys and other related stuff.

But today, I will be talking about the coverage. The coverage on free to air television, Channel 5. The way that they hyped up the matches that they are going to show on television, you'd think that they were going to show every single match. In actual fact, they are showing only the opening match, semi-finals and finals.

Everytime Channel 5 hypes an event over the top, you know that they are in self denial about what they can show. Really is trying to show more matches so hard? Or expensive? Starhub is actually charging more during this period. Have they given up so easily the ratings war? I say. Buck up! If they can actually show more matches or quality programmes, I'm sure less people will see the need to subscribe to cable.

Quality programmes include not showing reruns. For example, Lost is rerun on Saturday afternoon. American Idol and now Singapore Idol is rerun on Sunday afternoon. Desperate Housewives is rerun on fridays 11pm, at least for this week. That is still prime time mind you. Aren't there other programmes to show? Really, if there aren't enough quality programmes, maybe they should just stop running 24 hours. It will save some running cost. Stop telling yourself that it's fine. Self denial kills.