Nov 222010
 

I listen regularly to World Football Phone In, on BBC 5Live. It’s a great show with lots of people around the world calling in talking about football and tangential issues with a panel of really good football journalists.

Anyway Tim Vickery was talking about families of Brazilian footballers in Europe and how displacement affects their kids. Apparently a lot of the kids grow up in a sort of no man’s land, people who don’t fit in any culture completely. Tim ends that discussion by commenting how those kids who are born or grow up outside the country their parents were from do get an advantage in terms of bilingualism but there is a worry that they are in no man’s land.

I feel like that sometimes. Not truly Aussie and definitely not wholly Chinese.

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Nov 182010
 

My first post here…and it’s a bloody uber sigh.

Last night, the McGhee’s Revenge (my weekly wednesday indoor team) lost their 2nd consecutive grand final, falling 2-1 to Purple Patch. We defended pretty well (apart from my 2 lapses that led to 2 goals, *MEGA SIGH*) but we also missed a few chances that would have put us in front when we were deadlocked at 1-1.

So in the end, it wasn’t to be, and Mcghees continue on with the Choker tag on their shoulder. It is a disappointing end to a season where we had high hopes of moving to div 1, but for the time being we will still be in div 2.

After catching a glimpse of the 2 finalists in div 1 after our game last night, maybe it isn’t a bad thing.

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Nov 162010
 

This sigh has been a couple of months in the making.

First let’s talk about the silver bullet. I really liked this car, it got me everywhere I wanted to go, was minimum fuss in terms of maintenance and most of all, cheap running costs. It was super fuel efficient and what it lacked in power, it made up for in sheer awesomeness and gusto. But alas, time ran out on this workhorse, after hail damage caused by parents leaving it outside because they wanted to get it clean, and too many kilometres driven, the curtains had to fall on silver bullet (aka Hyundai Excel sports edition). So we traded it in for a new car. This was a few months back now, but I’ve finally gotten around to blogging about it.

Here are a couple of pics of silver bullet’s swan song:

Driving silver bullet
That’s me behind the wheels

Last goodbye
That’s the last photo before we drove silver bullet to trade it in for Silver Bullet v2

So now I’m the half owner of silver bullet v2, aka Hyundai Getz. It’s a nice enough car, and I quite like Hyundai. But I don’t know, it doesn’t feel as comfortable as silver bullet, but I guess it’s a whole lot zippier.

The other sigh is the amount of spiders and cockroaches in my apartment. Even after 3 Mortein bombs, they are still prevalent. Everyday I kill at least 2 cockroaches or spiders. We do have bait everywhere in the apartment and they are meant to lure cockroaches, poison them but leave them alive long enough for them return to their nests for them to spread the poison to their comrades. So let’s see if their numbers decrease over time. Also we are yet to deploy external deterrents or defenses on the balcony. I do have a sneaking suspicion that all the curry cooking in our apartment building is luring those insects in.

You may be wondering why all the sighs Y? Is this a particularly bad period? Well the website is called “Ultimate Sigh” so obviously the content will be skewed towards sighs. It’s a selection bias designed from the start.

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Nov 152010
 

Argh! At work but continuous stomach pains. 🙁

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Nov 122010
 

Last Saturday, me and Salsa went to the last Sydney concert of Powderfinger who are currently on their sunset tour.

We had general admission tickets and got there early, so got a standing spot right up near the stage. 🙂

sunset tour

The above picture was sneakily taken on my mobile. Can you believe that no photos by normal concert goers were allowed, and mobile phone usage was also not officially allowed, with security having the right to kick you out no question asked? That is pretty heavy handed in my opinion, all because pro-filmers and photo takers, as seen in the picture, can do their thing and sell you concert DVDs.

Anyway, the difference in the treatment of General Admission concert goers and those with seats was massive. GA people were herded around by security and had loud warnings about no moshing, crowd surfing, drugs or any other unruly things which we plebs do at the drop of a hat. The seated folks got proper and friendly customer service, and could enter at the actual entrance instead of basement.

The actual concert itself was excellent. The support band, Jet, rocked!!!! I don’t actually like listening to their music usually but when performed live, the energy and sheer wall of sound totally makes it a very enjoyable experience.

One lady in front of us cried when Powderfinger did their last song. I tend to think their songs are alright, with only a few standouts. :p

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Nov 102010
 

In a bid to improve the feedback loop on this blog, and because I’m killing time before 5, I’ve implemented a feedback form that can be accessed if you click on the “Why Sigh? | Contact yman” heading in the menu. Scroll past the vid and there should be a form where you can fill out your details and an email will be sent directly to me. With any luck I won’t get spam. 🙂

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Nov 082010
 

Despite some torrential style rain that fell on me and my stuff, I’m glad to say that I made it to Homebush (west side aiii) without too many hiccups and only a couple of things needed to dry.

SIGHS:

  • The whole apartment building is like some sort of shitty sponge or PMSing chick: retains water like noone’s business. The garbage room had a few mm deep of water around cos it’s in the basement and drainage sucks.
    For some reason there’s water dripping from the ceiling of my balcony like it’s forming a stalactite even when it’s sunshine out for a while.
  • Dumbarse power, antenna and phone outlets or socket: they are placed in the stupidest positions and never in logical places as well as being rare. As a result, I’ve ended up with lots of extension cables, power boards and absurdly long cables in an apartment that is super tiny.
  • Bad ADSL2 SNR: this is related to the above. Out of the 2 phone sockets available, only 1 works. I think the line wiring is super dodge. I’m getting extremely low SNR values, just about enough to hold a sync but not by much. Expect unexpected downtime. This has also forced me to run a massively long line cable to my modem. The whole building is apparently wired in a similar shitty maner. From what some residents have said, the hallway lights can’t be turned off lest TV antennas get no reception. I have never heard of that before.

I’ll put up some pics of the creative wiring soon.

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Nov 052010
 

Moving out of West Penno for the 3rd time. Finally going to take residence in my own place. As a connsequence this blog will be down from tomorrow morning until evening.

Ngai…I don’t know how you will cope.

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Nov 022010
 

They’ve won 2 on the trot now. But really they still look pretty bad. Is this the great Joe Cole or his fatter more talentless twin that Liverpool swapped Benayoun for? Back in July / Aug, I was actually quite excited about Joe Cole joining. Sure he hadn’t had a great WC but then again noone from the England squad did. I’ve always been a huge fan of his. But right now it looks like he’s forgotten how to control, pass or run.

I was also a little excited when Maxi Rodriguez first joined. I hadn’t seen a lot of him apart from some Argentinian matches, but what I saw was pretty good plus FM rated him. :p Oh how bad he turned out to be……….

At least we are out of the relegation zone, with new owners who prevented administration. But this season is prob a writeoff. At least FM11 is coming out around the corner, I’ll have a chance to virtually win with Liverpool.

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