One Or The Other

Pharmacy, Health and Beauty Provider
Guardian Pharmacy most definitely. I like the ambience, the display, the wide range of options. And it doesn’t just sell health and beauty products; it also sells travel-related items. One thing I can’t stand though is the presence of hawk-like over-zealous promoters from the various pharmaceutical companies.

TV Drama: Navy NCIS or NCIS LA
I was excited when I saw NCIS LA was coming to our screens and even more when I learnt that Chris O’Donnell would feature. Several episodes since and I still am not convinced. Navy NCIS is great though: I laugh out loud every time I watch it. Just like I do when watch House.

TV Drama – Forensic Science: CSI Vegas, New York or Miami
Definitely the first two for me. I don’t watch CSI Miami. There are some characters in there that I don’t like.

Brands
For brands, it’s Italian for me, baby! Italians are and have always been great inventors (da Vinci and Michelangelo come to mind) and they have great style. But if you ask me, European or American brands, it’s European for me. I don’t fancy American brands like Cole Haan and Coach. I do wear Guess footwear though.

Grocery Shopping
Well, we all need to eat, don’t we. I try to cook even though it’s some simple dish because I want to control what I eat, how it’s prepared, the amount of sodium that goes in etc. I used to go to the farmers’ market (the produce cost less and are fresher) but the greengrocer who used to have a stall there has long since relocated to another site. So I get my supply from Sogo because it’s the nearest supermarket. I find Giant doesn’t stock fresh fruits and vegetables; instead they’re content to display over-ripe decaying fruits and vegetables. As for vegetarian meat, Isetan KLCC supermarket (not Isetan Lot 10 though) and Giant Ampang Point carry a considerable stock.

Football Team
AC Milan any day over Internazionale, and Barcelona over Real Madrid (I hate the diving cheating players though, c’mon Barcelona, we expect more from you. Even your fans don’t want you to win playing like that). I can’t decide who I dislike more or hate less: ManUre or Chelshit. As much as I can’t stand Moanrinho, kudos to Internazionale for prevailing against Barcelona despite suffering harassment and dirty tricks, playing in front of noisy home supporters, playing majority of the match with only ten men, and possessing less 30% of the play. Heck, they even had sprinklers turned on when they were celebrating their progress to the CL final (stay ‘classy’, Barcelona). For once, I don’t respect Barcelona and its supporters. No, wait, make it the second time, after that comment about Cesc. I hope the Spanish team at the World Cup won’t be all that bad.

Anyway, I still prefer Arsenal the best ;) No contest.

Random Confession: I have a soft spot for Aaron Kelly (American Idol) and hope his journey will continue on. As for The Amazing Race, I had earlier rooted for married couple Joe and Heidi then I rooted for father/daughter team Steve and Allie before stopping to root for anyone figuring I’m only jinxing anyone I root for. I’m now settling on cowboy brothers Jet and Cord and brothers Dan and Jordan. C’mon brothers!

It’s A Greek Tragedy

I’ve been following the Greek financial tragedy for some months now with interest (excuse the pun). Well, I’m not an expert and certainly don’t know much but I know enough that debt-stricken Greece’s credit rating has been downgraded to ‘junk’ status and that some other Eurozone countries (namely some of the Club Med countries) may follow suit. You may read more on Greece’s greasy economic woes and what it can do here and here.

The only positive thing (well, for us outside the Eurozone anyway) is that the Euro has been depreciating for some time now. Sorry if this sounds ‘tasteless’ but this is one of those situations where one person’s loss is another person’s gain. Where the Ringgit traded above MYR5 for every Euro just 365 days ago, it now trades around MYR4.32 against the Euro.

And I’m waiting for it to depreciate further.

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Well, well, it looks like the Italian Job will be tested by German efficiency. Bayern Munich will face Internazionale in the Champions League final. I prefer AC Milan to Internazionale any day and hence hope Bayern Munich will win.

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Collected my passport yesterday morning. It’s now 48-page thick and the pages have pictures of the country’s monuments in there. I’m determined to put it to good use seeing that I parted with RM300 (hefty! I can fly somewhere with that kind of money) and especially since I ‘lost’ six months when I renewed it before expiry. InsyaAllah. Amen.

When Will I See You Again

I was running out of empty pages to my current passport which is due to expire in April 2011 – no thanks to indiscriminate immigration officers who merrily stamp people’s passports - and finally I drew a line in pencil across the two remaining empty pages (they are back-to-back) and wrote ‘for visa’ diagonally across. I would have happily continued using the passport until October this year (no thanks to the six-month rule) but I have to apply for visas from two countries. And I would have taken my chances and still apply for the visas but because the two pages are back-to-back and because I may run into problems in at least of the countries I hope to visit, I finally (and reluctantly I may add) decided to renew my yet-to-expire passport. So there went RM300. To make things worse, my new passport will be valid only until October 2015, meaning I can travel with it only until April 2015. If I had not needed two visas as I do now and just wait for the passport to run out pages and space before, my new passport would rightfully expire only in April 2016, which means a ‘loss’ of six months for me. Bloody hell.

Oh yes, now you can renew/apply for a two-year passport for RM100 but in the long run, it works out almost the same. Over ten years, for a two-year passport, you need to apply five times at a total cost of RM500 and take new passport photos five times. On the other hand, for a five-year passport, you pay a total of RM600 and take new passport photos only twice. And three times less the hassle and waiting. And oh, the system had to go offline or something to that effect this morning and my transaction (along with everyone else) took much longer than it would have. I also had to ‘scan’ my thumb numerous times before the system could capture it (switching from one machine reader to another and from one thumb to another...). What a bother and no way am I going to endure that every two years. Spare me already.

I can’t be bothered to wait for another two hours and will only collect my passport tomorrow morning. That is at least one beauty of the system here: your new shiny pristine passport is ready two hours after you make your payment. And the office at Pusat Bandar Damansara is open every Saturday and Sunday morning – well, except for this coming weekend as it’s Labour Day weekend.

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I’m also gutted over the footie results on Saturday. I know we hardly created chances but I thought we threatened more than Man Sh*tty did (and they had Tevez). I also saw some players running around like headless, mindless chicken (Disastre and Diaby came to mind). Anyway, am glad we didn’t concede what with Flapianski aka Flopianski in goal. Ade somehow reminded me of Chucky, that Child’s Play horror movie doll, with his never-ending sickening grin. And why did the camera keep panning on him is what I’d like to know. He’s an evil one, he is. Take a look at this and refresh your memory.

What a disappointing April it has been football-wise if you’re a Gooner. Why, only last month we were still in contention for at least the league title.

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I flicked through an old album Saturday evening, of pictures of us way back when, when I was a mere toddler. Three weeks since he left and if anything I miss him more every day. Everything else grows and I suppose I shouldn’t expect missing him to ever fade or diminish altogether. Because at the same time, everything builds, including our courage, strength and ability to cope with it.

Sometimes I feel he’s near, so near I can feel his presence. I feel like he’s watching me. Is that possible? And sometimes I whisper back what I feel. People always say we will meet again on the other side. Will we?

And you, oh, I miss you so much. When Will I See You Again, love?

Not a recent photo

Earth Day 2010

It’s Earth Day today – so soon after the volcanic ash effects from the eruption beneath an Iceland glacier forcing airspace closures across northern Europe for the last few days and the earthquake in China. Are those natural disasters simply nature’s way of telling us to treat it well or are they just acts of nature?

On my part, I continue to –
- Carry shopping bags and water bottles with me when I go shopping or travelling
- Carry food containers when buying food especially from the cafeteria here and even food bought from food courts
- Use detergents that cause the least impact on the environment
- Use public transportation
- Use resources as efficiently as I can.

I did not participate in Earth Hour because I already try hard to be energy-efficient everyday and not just on one designated evening. And besides I feel there are a lot of other more meaningful things that one can do to save the environment but hey, as long as it starts somewhere, why not. The problem is that’s where it stops too, for most people. They still use plastic bags, pack their food in polystyrene containers (made from liquid hydrocarbon no less), throw rubbish thoughtlessly, and drive everywhere... in short, do not change their lifestyle.

Happy Earth Day, everyone. In tribute, I’m wearing shades of green today. Well, except for my shoes.

Missing

...from this blog
Aye, I plead guilty.

...my big brother
An image of my late brother trying to bear his pain suddenly flashed in my mind yesterday and made me very sombre. Requiescat in pace.

...my beauty sleep
No thanks to the loud and rowdy shenanigans from my inconsiderate and selfish neighbour. There’ve been too many incidents already with the most recent being last night. I think they hail from Planet of the Apes because human beings would surely know how living in a community is like and should be. Do it again and I’ll call the police.

...the wins
Three consecutive defeats so far – Barcelona, bloody scums and Wigan. WTFK?! I feel as if Arsenal ripped my heart out of me, stomped and spat all over it. Have some respect and handle this love with care, will you.

...my baby
Come back soon sweetheart. I miss you lots.

The Last Kiss

My brother passed away at 2315 hours Tuesday night, some twelve months after being diagnosed with the dreaded C-disease. His strength, determination and strong perseverance in battling the disease had been admirable and exemplary. He fought until the end and he left in peace.

While I’m deeply sad and grieve greatly over his passing, I’m thankful that he no longer needs to suffer and that his end was swift and peaceful. He looked calm and at peace.

We all came to pay him our last respect yesterday – he sure had a lot of friends - and it was all I could do to stop the tears from falling when I leant over to give him one last kiss. Alhamdulillah, the burial ceremony went smoothly and he was laid to rest just after 10 am (OK, I lost track of time).

Allah SWT loves him more. May his soul be blessed and placed in Al-Jannah. We will cherish the memories of him. My prayers and thoughts will always be with him. May he rest in peace now. Amin.

God, I miss him already. Al-Fatihah.

No Matter What

I’m not sure if I’ll get up later tonight to watch the match. It’s bad enough that we’re already bereft of Captain Cesc, Gallas and Shava on top of Ramsey, RvP, Gibbs, Djorou... and it gets worse. No Song, no Campbell, and possibly no Rosicky. Goodness gracious me. It doesn’t look good.

Well, we are the underdogs anyway so there should be no pressure on us. We have done it before as ‘holic mentioned here. We have hope, we play with our heart and character and it ain’t over ‘til it’s over, dammit. We are not spineless.

No matter what happens, we will give our best performance. No matter what the outcome is, we will hold our heads up high, satisfied we have given our best. And no matter what, I will still love you, Arsenal.

Cesc martyred the rest of his season to give us hope last Wednesday (on this note, can you believe this outrageous post. Maybe you should rethink about ever returning to Barcelona, Cesc). It would be ungrateful not to at least fight. Come on Arsenal.

I’ll leave you with some photos of young Cesc during his days at Barcelona. For more images, go here.

The Late Show

The late nights of the previous week may have taken its toll as I felt sleepy all weekend. I normally turn in early Friday evenings anyway; the hectic week finally gets to me come Friday evening and it is all I can do to keep myself awake after 10.30 pm. But last weekend, I had a serious case of nap attack. And I had dreams including one where I was travelling.

I did make myself useful – I did my usual Saturday morning routine (it gives me some semblance of normalcy) and also washed my bedroom curtains (ugh). Then I went grocery shopping (I managed to find frozen vegetarian meat at Giant - something I didn’t manage to do at Sogo despite walking up and down the supermarket aisles several times - and I bought the last two packets). Upon reaching home, I cleared my larder of expired food – I’m guilty of overstocking food and forgetting all about them until well after their consume-by dates. Unfortunately, those are where my domestic traits end: I almost burnt the house down shortly after from microwaving my lunch. Well, the packet did say 10-15 minutes in the microwave; it was into the eight minute when I smelt something burning and when I got the kitchen, it was filled with smoke. My lunch got burnt to carbon charcoals and the kitchen smelt like it just suffered a razing fire. Needless to say, I spent the rest of Saturday and the first half of Sunday trying to clear the air from the burning smell.

I follow food instructions to a T. And yet, and yet... I almost burnt my kitchen

So much for trying to cut down on eating out and instead trying a cook-in

After the Saturday afternoon nap, I was ready for the footie match that evening (OK, I did glimpse the smelly match at Old Trafford. Chelshit beat ManUre). We were at home, were dominant (despite being depleted) and in control and we played the last 25 minutes against 10-men Wolves... and yet we couldn’t find the breakthrough until deep, deep, deep in injury time. We were wasteful but we showed the spirit of champs and we fought on. I abandoned the sofa and perched precariously on my gym ball in the last five minutes of stoppage time and as the clock ticked down, I started to cover my face and wondered if we would draw yet again after Birmingham and Barcelona. In fact, it seemed very much headed that way until we were saved in the nick of time – again. It was Saint Nick who resurrected our season on Easter Saturday and kept us in the hunt. Another late show by Arsenal. I was off my gym ball in a flash, turned on the volume and jumped up and down. Seriously, watching footie shouldn’t be stressful but Arsenal are good at making it so and at the rate they play, I will die of premature heart attack soon. I really should get started on making my will.

I was so happy to see Captain Cesc at the match, albeit on crutches. He received a warm welcome from the fans and being the responsible, caring chap he is, went into the tunnel/training room with the team before, during half-time and after the match. Everyone would have understood if he had wanted to just stay away either to get treatment or relax, given he just broke his leg (he did not play with a broken leg contrary to some report). But he came. And unlike loony Shrek, I mean Rooney, who sat in a luxury box and left before the match at OT was over, Cesc limped with his head held high and sat with the team. Djourou and Shava were there too. It gives me the fuzzies to see injured players at the match, cheering their team on, still acting like they’re part of the team and caring about the result and especially if one is the captain himself.

On other Arsenal-related news, Rambo is touched with the goodwill received and misses footie. He spoke about Shawcross, and while he acknowledged that the latter didn’t mean to break his leg, maintained that he should have backed out from the tackle. And bad news: we may miss Song for the match at Nou Camp. Bloody heck.

Hero

I’m going to continue today on Wednesday evening’s match against Barcelona – heck, even Andy Murray had something to say about it! After the match, a crutched Cesc said he didn’t yet know what he’d done to his leg but that he didn’t feel good. And 24 hours later, it was confirmed that he has indeed suffered a small crack in his right fibula against Barcelona and is ruled out for six weeks or effectively for the season but may have a shot at the World Cup. And to add insult to injury (or add injury to injury), we have an additional injury – to Shava, whose mother claimed wouldn’t be able to play until the end of the season either.

As Arseblog puts it, the other thing that defines Arsenal’s season is the mass injuries. It’s like we are a club of the walking injured or the land of the invalid. Or maybe there’s an evil kid with Arsenal voodoo dolls having a blast somewhere.

The Captain had this to say:

Great performance from us, but today I underperformed during the match, I missed many chances. I fear I won’t be able to play for the rest of the season, further X-Rays continue on my leg. I’m sure it might be a fracture. Our most important priority is to focus on the second leg and defend well, even if I’m there or not. Overall in the first half we defended and marked the players well, especially Messi. We created many opportunities. When Theo came on it was a massive boost to me and all the other players. He is incredibly talented and has plenty of stamina and fast pace. He progresses everyday even in training. In my opinion I think he’s the fastest footballer in European football, he’s at a good level for his age. He manages to out-skill everyone with his skills, running and strong shooting. Back on my injury, I made a promise to my family that everyday I’ll continue to improve and give everything towards my performances. Hopefully I will be fit soon. I’m truly sorry if I let my fans down.

Cesc Fàbregas Soler x

Have I ever mentioned how much I love, love, love this guy? He also hailed our fighting spirit and character. And check this out for the Spanish media reaction. They hailed Theo and our broken hero, Cesc - and he was a hero, playing shortly after being declared fit for the match and continuing even though he was in so much pain to ensure our numerical advantage and not let Barcelona get back in the game. He displayed such an awesome commitment to the cause, showed unquestionable loyalty and devotion to the club, and demonstrated amazing willingness to play through pain to help Arsenal come close to winning something this season. If anyone still question his commitment and his future at Arsenal, let me know so I can shoot him. Former skipper Titi, meanwhile, mentioned here and here why the home fans are special to him.

We can still dream of beating Barcelona (hey, it’s OK to dream and hope). And our captain may be back for the final in Madrid (hey, while we’re still dreaming, why not?). But in the interim, we face Wolves tomorrow and let’s hope we score early. Expect to see a very changed squad tomorrow.

Right, have a good weekend peeps and do spare a prayer or two for all those injured out there including those battling diseases. Come on Arsenal.

When You Believe

Cesc: ‘Training,ahead of our game against my old club I used to play for when I was 16.’

I was surprised to see Cesc start for Arsenal against his boyhood club. He and the rest clearly struggled against the dominant Barça side in the first half, and when Ibrahimovic scored two ‘cheap’ goals in the early stages of the second half, it looked like it would be over for Arsenal. In fact, it didn’t look good when we already had to make two substitutions enforced by injuries in the first half. But we fought back and we were also lucky in a sense that Barça didn’t score more (and astonishingly none at all in the first half). Facts: we were only possessing 31% of the game and utterly outplayed for the first 70 minutes, we had a semi-injured skipper playing for us (could he have broken his leg and if so miss the rest of the season too? And the World Cup? Oh dear God. But he’s said that he would have done the gamble anyway and he did insist on playing) who would do anything and everything to face Barça, we were playing the reigning European champions, and we were subject to dubious refereeing. But we battled on even when it looked almost over.

I don’t know why Cesc played in the first place, whether it was not altogether a selfish decision especially considering the magnitude of the risk, because I don’t think we can afford to lose him now. As much as I love him and as much as I know how badly he wanted the reunion with his old pals and to play, I’m not sure if it was a wise decision to play him last night. Of course we can play some matches without him – we have done so on a few occasions - but I’d feel better if we have him fit and playing for us for the rest of the season than to show up for one match and leave it injured. In fact, only two days ago i.e. on 30 March, he shared the following: ‘See you guys tomorrow. Unfortunately I won’t be playing, you probably see me on the bench. I’m positive I’ll be fit for the next match. CESC’, before signing off ‘BYE EVERYONE, SEE YOU TOMORROW, BUENOS NOCHES BESOS, CESC xxx (goodnight, kisses)’. But of course, I also know how much he hates being on the sidelines.

But there you go. That’s our fabulous skipper. He works tirelessly, wants to play no matter whether he is injured or not, oozes class, composure and a strong team ethic at all times. Selfish or selfless, he does it all for Arsenal ;’) despite being yellow-carded and hence ineligible for the match at Nou Camp, he soldiered on. And despite being injured, he insisted on seeing the night to its conclusion. I believe he played with his heart on his sleeve for all to see. As Cesc advised on 30 March: Keep believing and work hard. Don't bother just to better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. The future is not some place we are going to but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination. Faith, confidence and belief are three of the most powerful words in a human's life. If you convert the real meaning of these words into practice, I feel that everything we touch could turn into gold and be a tremendous success in any task we undertake. CESC x

So there, Barça! My Fàbregas is just class! He practised what he preaches and believes in. And speaking to the Daily Star over the weekend, he reiterated that he had no intention of leaving Arsenal.

Does anyone need more proof that what he does and did are all for Arsenal? Fine. From BBC Audio: How was it to score against your old club Barcelona?
Cesc: It was no different. I score for Arsenal.










Positives: We have shown again and again this season and also last night that we can fight back, have strong mentality, and don’t give up. Also Barça don’t always give a good performance for the whole 90 minutes. Puyol and Pique are out for the return match.

Negatives: Gallas, Cesc and possibly Shava are out. We’ll be playing at Nou Camp.

But it’s not impossible to beat them as three managers share here. Can we salvage our Champions League dream? Join the debate here.

To misquote Obama: CESC WE CAN!!!

I wanted to buy this t-shirt but only XL size was left when I checked ;(