Kai, The Informologist

From a neutral point of view, it’s an intensive, exciting game that ended with United losing all 3 points, and the league wide open. Yet from a fan’s point of view, no, United did not play well, not for the first 85 minutes at least. They are definitely capable of sweeping Chelsea off their feet, but I believe like many had said, Sir Alex Ferguson’s team selection and tactic selection were not generous to him.

It was an early kickoff, from my point of view, at 7:45am. Later on we spent a large part of the day settling down one of the newcomers.

I’m really glad that spring/summer is here to keep them long pants away.

It was an awful game to watch from the start. The first half was United’s fault, but the spoiler came from a midget linesman who only had a side view of the touch by Michael Carrick – who clearly did not orchestrate the pass nor balanced the ball in an unpressured situation using his left-hand. That is the nature of football.

A call with no rare occurrences to reverse.

And that’s the nature of football, much at stake, not only on the league table, but on the bank. Who doesn’t know the money invested into football. Who doesn’t know that the Chelski ‘empire’ is built up from money? And would it not be a logical sense that bribing the linesman would be a much easier and less riskier job than bribing Alan Wiley?!

Yes, I am very upset by the defeat of United today. Yes, the first half goal was well-deserved. I do not credit my team for their incapabilities to score or prevent that goal. But the second half was fair game. Rooney’s goal was a result of an erratic pass by Ricardo Carvalho. I almost praise Wayne Rooney’s determination towards goal. Yet an ugly ugly side of football is revealed here when linesman awarded a (fill you own verb of disgust) penalty – all thanks to the oil dweller from Russia.

I’m not saying that the race is over. It’s still on, and I’m not going to speak lowly of West Ham or Wigan, both are troublesome teams to deal with especially at this stage of the season. And to be fair, Chelsea is handed a more difficult pair of games to play (Newcastle and Bolton – one has much left to prove and the other battling relegation with precious points needed to gain). But I just cannot stand the decision which seemed to have been made so casually without even serious consideration for the severity of the game or the position of the player.

Chelsea played a football game where nobody is of a higher caliber. However, since the team is filled with high-caliber players, anybody, whether on field or on bench can come up and make a difference. That’s the nature of the new team that used to only relied on Zola – back in the good days, where evil hasn’t shrouded a well-manner team. Applause of course should be reserved for the good sportsmanship from both Drogba and Ashley Cole who respectively called for stoppage of game following Vidic’s injury and the avoidance of a yellow card.

Man Utd seem to have lost the luxuriant passes and the gracefulness of the plays that carried them thus far. The defensive line are still holding pretty well, so far conceding just 21 goals, in contrast to the 75 by Derby, or Chelsea’s 25. Midfield is having trouble gluing up in the last few games to provide a support for the boys up front. Giggs need to lead the likes of Nani, Anderson, Ronaldo to play a more stable role alongside Hargreaves and Carrick, both providing precision and stability so far. These days it was not rare for the strikers to track the ball all the way back to the front third of the field. And today’s game seemed to be a ghost rematch of Barcelona, where Man Utd looked puny rather than majestic.

I still have faith for the Red Devils for they still have composure alongside many other attributes. More worries for the limping Wayne Rooney and the concussional Nemanja Vidic. The trials and test begins – match-up against Barcelona will start from 0-0, so is the competition for the championship which at the top of the table, starting at point 81.

It wasn’t my best day – I was 40 minutes late for the final project fair that concludes 2 semester of project work. Why? I thought it was on Saturday for some reason!

Anyhow that was over, and the day went along quite fast afterwards. Aside from the journals that are due on Monday, I’m pretty much graduated.

Yeap. One from YY’s lunch box, one from Sunny Palace and one from YY’s friends. Crazy day.

G-disked 7 machines, it was quite fun hooking them wires up actually.

We might be getting a pastor for our church soon, but there seems to be so much more we need to pray about it. It is an exciting perspective nonetheless. The God who provides.

This look really good.

Yes, after my last class of the semester… of my IU undergraduate degree (wow), I participate in a unlike me ritual of running and shooting baskets (at least not in recent times).

Exercising can really reveal your true character to some extend. For example, when you are pushed to the edges, could you give a little more? My coach once said, the little more you do after you have gone to the extreme is what you have learnt/gained. I can hardly do that now. Two games and I was out, if it wasn’t Jason, I couldn’t have played the other two. And it wasn’t even physical! Darn it summer, you came to soon!

Great asparagus dinner by the way.

Out.

Ronaldo pays penalty – for the second time this season, his penalty miss in a game resulted in a draw.

Being an Man Utd fan, it was 90 minutes of frustration, regret, disappointment and bits of shame. Frustrated becomes of their inability to keep possession or make anything out of it. Regret of all the erratic passes and shootings – definitely including the penalty shot, which I was never really confident in, Ronaldo fickles under pressure and I’m not sure if he’s experienced enough to be taking this sort of shots on this level of football. Disappointed because of all the hopes and expectations that the media, fans have mustered for the team. And shame, because of having not even 40% possession across the game.

There are positive however few they maybe, and all of them are granted from Barcelona. Firstly, we are still scoreless, so anything scored by a red shirt on the 29th will meant victory. Secondly, after making almost 20 shots, Barcelona still didn’t break through Van der Sar.

No, it wasn’t a mouthwatering game, but lots of luck for the visitors. Yes, to be honest, we could have been down 3-0 by the half, but we stayed up.

This morning’s Facebook checking give sights to the new Facebook chat that was talked about on TechCrunch awhile back. This is pretty awesome – and as my friend says, people will spend much more time away from Wikipedia and more time on Facebook, for sure now.

Oh, good morning.

I have been working on formulating question for hours.

Anyway, it was a beautiful day out. Spring will only be here briefly and summer heat should be taking over fairly soon. Back to thinking up questions.

Woo, nice sunset. And no coats needed!

I was suppose to be at Borders doing reading for a class, but ended up finishing all the Avengers on the comic shelf, plus Spiderman, Nova and some other stuff. Along the side was a ‘Martha Stewart Living’ magazine. This probably sounds wrong, but I really like reading this magazine that talks about recipes, ways to better organize, and other tips. I have pitifully requested for a free subscription once (and will probably do that once more).

Anyhow, I grew really fond of the pictures in the magazine, it just have a very light and clean feel to it, even if mud or dirt is involved. It reminds me of pictures taken and edited by Heather B. Armstrong on dooce.com – they always have a glowing effect that warms up the picture (I tried ‘warming up’ picture by making the ‘temperature’ higher, but it didn’t work).

There’s a long way to go from where I’m at to where I want to be in terms of photo taking. Till then, I will continue adore them other photographers.

It’s my turn for the Powerpoint duty once more. It can be a tiresome job at times mainly because I find myself being at ECC for 7 hours straight.

The practice start at 4pm and immediately it felt quite different, the songs and lyrics fall together fairly smoothly. Although at times it felt as if it was a duty, but I felt closer to God with the songs, sharing and prayer throughout the service. The song ‘We are Hungry’ just brought back much memories. I was especially moved when Paul, the worship leader gave us a few minutes to come before God ‘humble and broken’. That was a wonderful feeling of intimacy.

It can be a very different lifestyle that we lead, but its fruitful, fulfilling. And when serving becomes tiresome, God still provides rest, He always does. For Jesus said:

“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. “- John 10:10

And the bible also said:

But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.

Life more abundantly? Run and not be weary? Amen, I will take some.

For a 布道会. It was really good couple of sermons – the one and only God and the God that saves. The latter one should have really hit home some serious thoughts for non-believers and believers alike. Think about your life this way:

First half of your life: You use your health to earn wealth,
Second half of your life: You use wealth to earn health.
And it doesn’t matter how much wealth you have or how long you live – for anyone’s case, you don’t know when you will die.

I was sleepy throughout the day, and it was probably a tag-on from the night before. We finally tried some Cresent Donut on our own and spent some quality time with ‘friends’.

The only thing that bewilders me is how irrelevant age and responsibility can be. It contradicts my thoughts that they correlates – the elder, the wiser. How I wish.

Finally, one more week to go!

We had a 5.4 magnitude earthquake, and I slept right through it.
Funny thing – a weather forecast man was talking about the weather when the quake occurred. See how he reacts.

It was rushing hour again after the Wednesday presentation. I thought of giving myself some time off, but it seems like we had to jump right back and work out all the details by next Saturday. And not forgetting some of the 11 questions and 4 current event for the topic class.

I shouldn’t complain since I don’t really need to study for any exam or write dozen page long papers, but I really prefer to deal with more obvious work rather than this litty gritty stuff. It can be somewhat annoying.

I just thought of these things after the prayer meeting had passed:

• Parents coming to the states
• Seattle trip between May 4th to May 11th (I’ve booked the hotels but now it seem that was done in too much of a hurry)
• My housing situation for next year – I don’t just need to find a place for me, but for Pipi as well
• S.F trip between May 20th to May 28th
• A good weekend! – Don’t forget Powerpoint!

Yeap. Just prayers for today, now that everything is starting to settle down.

It’s been awhile since I last did a link sharing. With much more time, I have mustered a bunch of them (all from Stumble Upon), hope it’s fun for you.

• [Game] 50 Free PC Games! Download them, play them, all for $0.
• [Photography + Craft] Ready-made Camera – now you can make your own cameras, just print them and follow the instruction (however easy or difficult it may be!) Have fun!
• [Cartoon] Real-life Simpson? I’ll definitely watch it if they are being casted.
• [Photography] Clone yourself - today! Nah, just using the technology of photography.
• [Religion] Read the “memo from God“. It should make you twitch a little, at least.
• [Photography + Travel] Ahhh, the Great Wall of China – if you haven’t been there yet take a sneak peek first!
• [Game] You can’t play game at your job. Absolutely not, except for Drag Soccer – once you master it, the computer seems more like a ‘dumb-dumb’.
• [Game + Cartoon] Awww, this is where the Team Fortress originated from.

That’s it – have a good weekend.

Thanks to ‘Cute Coffee Tree’ for the information.

“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security released today an interim final rule extending the period of Optional Practical Training (OPT) from 12 to 29 months for qualified F-1 non-immigrant students.” – via DHS

Here are the criteria to be eligible:

• Currently be participating in a 12-month period of approved post-completion OPT;
• Have successfully completed a degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) included in the DHS STEM Designated Degree Program List from a college or university certified by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program;
• Be working for a U.S. employer in a job directly related to the student’s major area of study;
• Be working for, or accepted employment with, an employer enrolled in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ E-Verify program. E-Verify is a free, internet-based system operated in partnership with the Social Security Administration that helps employers to determine the employment eligibility of newly-hired employees; and
• Properly maintain F-1 status.

For more information, visit DHS or IU Office of International Services’ OPT page.

If truly extended, it would be worth the $340.

Go beat them – not you Cahill, because you are injured at a time like this! Shame on you! No, your promise to return better than ever doesn’t help to ease my anger.

—

Update: Nope, no last-minute grasp for the Toffees. It was a much better game though. Sadly, Man Utd are cut to 2 points with one game in hand.

Yes, I did watch the Chelsea vs. Wigan game for all of the 89 minutes. I gave up hope as time counts down for regular time. I closed the window of ‘LifeFooty’ and went back to research. What a waste of time, it wasn’t even a good game!

A minute later, I was back on Firefox (like I always am) and onto Soccernet. Final score 1-1. It was amazing, so I turned on Live Footy and manage to see the last replay of the Emile Heskey goal. I was screaming on the inside, since I was still in the library.

Personal opinion, I don’t think Chelsea deserves the win if the opponent is any other team. It was a sloppy game from the start, no one emerge to take charge at the Stamford Bridge. Wigan was careful (at times, too careful). The balls were not being kicked around hard enough, they were just rolling. People weren’t jumping in to tackle. Wigan got their lucky break amongst the countable few chances that they were privileged to throughout the game. Looking at it democratically, out of 3 teams – that is Man Utd, Chelsea and Wigan, 2 of them had hoped for this result, so I’d say the resulting draw is favorable.

Today, again at 3pm ET Chelsea will visit Everton at Goodison Park and hope for a lucky break of their own. Now with both sides struggling to bring their best men onto the field for the game and the growing tradition for David Moyes’ men to uphold upset against top teams, the favorite of the game is surprisingly Everton (if you understand this: the odds is that Everton is only given 1/4 ball, which indicates their likely chance to win over drawing or even losing!).

As a Man Utd fan, I’m undoubtedly going to root for Everton whose manager has done a fair share to bring the team up to their current status in recent years. If Everton were to bag this game, I will be expecting a white flag from Chelsea. Honestly, who is listening to Avram Grant anyways – not his players, I don’t think. At this time of the season, with retrospect, Jose Mouriho is very much being missed (again, at least by the Chelskis).

Go Toffees!

You can try, but the response might not change.

Speaking of tech support – here’s a 3-panel that I think is quite funny. Funny because it does happen in real life. And here’s another… wow… this is really. wow. I won’t be surprised that there are people who really did that. Mmm… yeah. Oh my gosh. Uh huh, uh huh.

Actually, we haven’t yet encounter any of these silly request, but there are cases quite similar to those, so when reading about them, it gets to be quite funny. And guess what, there’s a website dedicated to this tech-support-thingy. Very interesting.

Now, say it with me – “All Hail the Machines!”

(There’s a fairly good chance I’m one of the people causing the joke.)

Winding road of uncertainty.

Well, because I had a few days running of finishing up my one and only presentation for my informatics topical class. It was on the topic of identity and how our identity are being redefined because of Internet. Here’s the presentation and here’s the survey questions (my professor indicates that it would be a good idea to post this at the end of a presentation).

Now that’s over, my semester is pretty much done, except for the capstone fair next Saturday and some other nitty gritty stuff that I’d need to get done. By next Wednesday, I would be done with my last class of my college career. I bet it would feel very sudden at the end of the day.

Plans for next year include continue working at the tech support job that I’m currently at, and looking for a full-time elsewhere in the country (preferably Seattle) – and if that doesn’t turn out by June 30th 2009 (or rather, end of this year), I will be applying to graduate school. I’m really starting to get interested in new media studies, but I need to identify its real-world job potential before diving in. Otherwise, I may go for MSIS (or MSIM – both being referred to as the technology version of MBA) in schools like UT-Austin, UW-Seattle, IU-Bloomington or Syracuse. By then, I’d hopefully pass my 2nd GRE with flying colors.

These days, both YY and I are starting to get restless and uneasy about our future. But God’s good!!! And He kept us encouraging one another and seeing our prayers answered, making the weight of our worries lighter by the day. This I will hold onto:

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” – Psalm 23:4

I will soon be doing a post on the ‘hidden secrets of Bloomington’. Stay tune!

It got me thinking, why did one fail while the other succeed (so far) after their roles in the World Cup. Only possible conclusion – the manager.