New Year

It's New Year's eve, and as usual...... I don't have any plans. I'll probably just sit at home with my wife, watching Cicak-Man, Room Raiders or some other equally loser show on TV. Why bother going out? It's going to rain anyways.
And I really don't feel like squeezing through a crowd of sweaty Mat Rempits and noisy Ching Chong Chengs in the middle of Bukit Bintang

Moving on, my New Year's resolution are as follows:

1. Be a loving husband and good bloke
   
2. Spend less and save more
3. Learn to play the guitar (3 years in a row and I still SUCK!)
4. Not celebrate a 5-1 win over Newcastle in a Southport club and get arrested for bashing up the club's DJ
5. Boycott Yasmin Ahmad's bullshit films
6. Read more
   
7. Be a YES man, YES man, YES man
8. Poke friends on Facebook and play Elven Blood (or whatever it's called)
9. Continue my Legends of CM post part 2,3,4,5,6 & 7.
10. Learn to iron properly

Snippets

Poor Rafa. He's having a surgery and will miss the Arsenal game. Sammy Lee is in charge and I'm sure he'll do the right thing (that's playing our 20 million striker instead of Benayoun or Kuyt). Little Sam could do a Phil Thompson.

My favourite injury-prone player (apart from Liverpool "legend" - Harry Kewell); Darren "Sicknote" Anderton finally hung his boots a few weeks ago. Spurs are my 2nd team, and Anderton was one player who always caught the eye, whenever he was fit enough to play, that is. Part of a semi-successful Euro 96 squad, Anderton always looked classy on the ball - the total opposite of Dirk Kuyt.

I disagree with Perak's & Penang's plan to buy new Camrys to replace their current fleet of Perdana. The Perdana may be crap compared to the Camry, but where's the national pride bros? They should be loyal and stick with Proton, even if it means that they have to "suffer" a bit. I'd respect that. They can still bash Proton in the papers of course, but choosing foreign make or local ones just sends a message of disloyalty. Sure, one can argue about quality, or getting the best out of your money but I can only accept that reasoning if it was a personal purchase.

You go and help build bridges, get people out of their homes safely, retrieve documents and provide shelter - but what do you get in return? Accusations of stealing people's shit, being lazy & just "eating, menghabiskan beras" and being unhelpful slackers. That's grossly unfair. Why do you even bother helping out? People should be more thankful in these difficult times.

And lastly..... hats off to the Iraqi dude who threw a big ass shoe to Bush. He's got some balls.

The evolution of a bloke's mantra

In the beginning,
"Bros before hos"

then,
"Hos before bros"

back to,
"Bros before hos"

and finally,
"Wife before bros before hos"

Well actually, there shouldn't be "before hos" on the last one, unless you're looking for trouble.

Mash-Ups

Todek, the Young Leader
Embraces change, strives for excellence, "together we make it happen!", influences peers, thinks "global"

Todek, the smart-arse cynic
Mocks management, questions reasons for "initiatives", avoids participation, hates the word "inculcate"

Here, I present to you.....

Todek, the Young Leader vs Todek, the smart-arse cynic

Round 1
(At a meeting)
Leader :
During this difficult times and troubled economy, we need to be twice as smart to survive!
Cynic :
Great. I look forward to spontaneously develop an IQ of 400!

Badabing-bing-bang!!!
1-0 to Cynic


Round 2
(During an "engagement session")
Leader:
As I had my nasi lemak this morning, I pondered on something.
(Leader then shows a Power Point slide of nasi lemak ikan bilis telur goreng)
Sure, the chicken contributed. But the ikan bilis committed!
(Damn, I'm smart)
Cynic:
So, we're the ikan bilis who should die so that you can have a nice breakfast?

Badabing-bang-boom!
2-0 to Cynic.

BOOYAH!

Inspired by (and plagiarised) Dilbert.

Japan Pt 2

In Japan, there's this Italian food chain called Saizeriya which caters to young "Western" Japanese kids and also to loser non-sushi-eating Asians like myself. Imagine Laksa Shack, but with Italian food. The existence of a Saizeriya outlet in each city that my wife & I visited was a great relief to me as it gave me an alternative to the usual raw Japanese stuff, most of which I cannot stomach.

Anyhow, one of the more interesting conversations I've heard (or in this case, overheard) occurred in a Saizeriya in Hiroshima. It was mix Japanese-English dialog between a Swedish bloke and a Japanese girl. They were talking loudly at the table behind me, so I couldn't help but eavesdrop.

Swede :
So yeah, nice to finally meet up.

Girl :
Hai, hai. Yes. Nice to meet you.

Swede & Girl continue talking , bla bla bla for a few minutes.


Swede :
Have you ever kissed a girl?

Girl :
Hmmm....... Well, I've never told anyone about this, but actually, I once had sex with a girl.

Swede :
(Trying ever so hard to keep his cool)
Oh, really? How did that happen?

Girl :
Oh... it happened a long time ago. I had just finished college. We were drunk at the time, she was someone I knew from school. Oh my God, I'm so embarassed telling you all this. I've never told this to anyone.

Swede :
Don't be embarassed. I think it's good to experiment.

Girl :
Really?

Swede :
Yeah. Sex is good. Sex is supposed to be fun. If it's not fun then what's the point? But what's fun for you may be different for me. And, how would you know whether it's fun if you don't experiment?

Girl :
(Laughs shyly)
Hmm... I guess you're right.

Swede :
I like to experiment. Try new things, new experience... you know? I think you should too.





And then I thought, "Yeah... Swede's gonna get lucky tonight!"

Football

Watching the Malaysian football team play is painful, kinda like watching Liverpool - but much, much worse. It's like self-inflicting mental torment on yourself. But surpisingly, I keep coming back for more. I don't know whether that's loyalty or I just like torturing myself.

This somehow brought me to think about the legendary football game that is Championship Manager.

Championship Manager, or more affectionately known as CM to fans of this ridiculously addictive game took a lot of my youth, especially during Uni. And I'm sure many other football fanatic would second this.

There were countless times when CM and study clashed.... and CM would always win. I can't recall how many times I chose CM over a boring afternoon lecture, (It would always start like this: I'll decide to be 10 minutes late to the lecture to play another match but eventually ended up skipping the whole lecture altogether). I remember one time when I sat through a class planning my team's off-season transfer dealings & budget, completely ignoring my Week 7 Mechanics lecture. Or the time when I scribbled my latest genius 4-1-3-1-1 formation (complete with individual player runs) instead of taking notes during my tutorial. Damn, those were happy days indeed.

So, in the spirit of reminiscing about CM, I'd like to share some of the legendary & almost mythical names I've encountered throughout my CM career. Note that I'm only referring to CM3 and its subsequent updates (i.e. 97/98, 99/00, etc) - basically before it became crap (i.e. CM4 or Football Manager onwards).

Cherno Samba
An absolutely unbelievable young striker - can be bought on the cheap from Millwall. Starts the game at age 15 if I recall correctly, Samba is the one player everyone should have on their team. He once scored a hattrick within 15 minutes and single-handedly won a FA Cup final for me. Good in the air and very pacy (definitely >18 points in the Heading & Pace stats) this guy can easily score 30+ goals a season. I remember when all my housemates were playing CM at the same time with each having the prolific Samba on our respective teams; shouts of "SAMBAAAAAA!!!!!" would be heard every other minute, hailing yet another heroic effort by our boy Cherno; such as scoring the last minute European Cup winner against AC Milan or blasting 5 goals past sorry Luton Town.

Outside the digital world however, few have heard of Samba's achievement. I remember reading that Liverpool at one point were interested, but that then died off. However, his non-existent real-world success notwithstanding, in my opinion Samba is still a legend. Good job, son.

Japan

As the Customs officer began to unzip my travel bag, I immediately began to regret not paying attention during Japanese class back in school. I didn't understand a single word the bloke said and had no idea what to say to him.

So there I was, standing silently in front of a Japanese Customs officer dressed in a frivolous lime green uniform (complete with matching hat!); unable to explain my rather "dodgy" travelling status - alone, no permanent residence address & apparently on "holiday". It didn't help either that I had BIN typed in huge capital letters on my passport, which gave the lime green chap all the more reason to be suspicious. Fuck.

The Customs guy then went through my belongings, seeming intent on finding something that will result in me spending my first night in Japan behind bars. But luckily, I didn't bring anything dangerous; thank God I left them Chinese melamine biscuits behind.

The whole ordeal lasted a good 10 minutes and I was borderline late to catch my train to Tokyo....... but fortunately I wasn't THAT late, so I got on the train just in time.

Hah. Drama.

To be continued.....