....tumbleweed....

First Post of the year (Late Submission Jan 24th).

A full 3 weeks and 2 days after the systematic destruction of the Wolverines. Anyway I did not have a chance to bid you readers a Happy and Prosperous New Year. - (Note the wish for prosperity as an inherited sense of stinginess and materialistic mindset being brought up in a Chinese family.)

Never mind that. I am still pretty inconsistently hitting the fitness center. I think I might have lost a couple of pounds but somehow I got a feeling that as winter is getting colder by the hour, tempts me to eat more and you can actually see the immediate effect of the extra calories.

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Recently, President Bush from the United States of America, also known as USA, as a leader of the coalition of the willing, whose member count is dwindling as long as anyone could remember, passed a notion to send an extra 21k troops to Iraq.

This is indeed great news. Direct stimulation of economic and scientific growth.

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On the sports section, the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears made the front page as well as Amelie Mauresmo. Not so much on NBA, other than Chris Webber's return to Michigan. What can I say as a future U of Michigan alum who's an inactive supporter of the Pistons? Is Webber's return good or bad? Yes or no? Take your pick in the comments section.

Side Note : Serena Williams survives to the Semis, not so good for Martina
Hingis.

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Aiyeee.. Malaysian censorship continues..

Is malaysia a free country? think again. When simple books (my side of story by chin peng), simple movies (Lelaki Komunis Terakhir) gets banned, people don't have to wonder why. Communist sentiments have never been welcomed in Malaysia, even in this day and age.

Just 15 minutes ago, I discovered that Award Winning, Oscars taking movie, Brokeback Mountain, was banned. "Brokeback Mountain" was based off a namesake book written by Pullitzer Award winning author, Annie Proulx. It has also received numerous recognition, including the National Magazine Award. Well, enough said about the background, in a nutshell, the idea behind this is that it's a nice movie, but people back in Malaysia have no idea what they are losing. (hehehe.. of course the Pasar Malam peeps selling pirated VCD would be more than delighted by the government's straightforward declination of big bucks from the publishers of the movie)

Then comes the big question. Why is it banned in Malaysia? well, people here in Yellow-Willow came up with several conjectures.

3. American Sentiment.
Cowboys, cowboys, and more cowboys. Talk about the west. now look around in your thick jungle, people driving their 1940 sedans, riding bicycles or traveling using tree vines. Now the movie probably will persuade people to stop taking LRTs and saddle up their spanish stallion and start riding to school/work/party houses.

2. Disgusting?
Well, most countries did put an age limit restriction. well, the whole point could be summed up in one sentence: The movie probably would have been more popular if it starred 2 cowgirls instead.


Lastly, and probably the most important point is....



1. Anwar Ibrahim.
Former Deputy PM of malaysia was removed of his position due to homosexual activities. It'd make him look not so bad if the movie is shown nationwide??

Well, even God agrees with me sometimes.

Any questions?

Let's go watch american football, for all of you who are not watching right now.
Anyway, after two days, the church decided to change the sign again.

Well, in short, we came short of 3 points due to many factors. I still think we could have won. things could have gone either way easily.
Well, for two weeks, apparently Jesus became a fan of Notre Dame.

Jesus : O Irish you must win your fight.
Leprechaun : Don't think we don't know what you're wishing for.

IRISH!! God Hate Thee
Wow, apparently church people knows net lingo well.
but this last sign sums it all up:

Michigan rematch in the NCG?

from polls:

57% thinks that rematch will not happen

but, 50% would like to see a rematch.

seriously. who wouldn't? after the 3 hours of probably the most exciting football match I've ever seen, Michigan loses to Ohio State in a most surprising shootout which everyone thinks would be a defensive slugfest.

This would be my speculation on the possibility of a rematch.

1) The argument of whether Michigan deserves to play does not reflect whether Michigan should play in the NCG. Kirk Herbstreit is a big spin doctor, answering to a question of whether Michigan will play in the NCG, he said that Michigan got its shot at the NC title today, so the chance should be given to other deserving teams. even so, the BCS system does not go the way he thinks it should. First off, the 1st and 2nd ranked team goes to the NCG, not whether they have played each other before. So, if there is a deserving team that goes to the NCG, it's the team that is ranked either 1 or 2 on dec 2.

2) Pollsters should not vote if they would like one team to go to the National Championship game. Pollsters should vote according to the performance of the team. In this case, it is not hard to see that the 2 best teams in the country faced off today, (sorry USC, you just don't have the team you used to have a year ago, Florida, you're just not good enough with so many close games and a loss to an Auburn that has degraded so much over this few weeks). So based on this argument alone, if Michigan does not suffer too much votes of disappointments from the pollster, Michigan would stay on top (2nd maybe, 3rd probably).

4) USC will have to lose to ND. otherwise I'd say that there's a 70% chance USC will go to the championship bowl, despite their lackluster performance the whole season. Which one is a bigger scar on the face of BCS: sending A team that just could not play well the whole season, having to trail mediocre teams and have to use miraculous comeback magic to win, and even got beat by a very average Oregon State team, or sending a team that got beaten by the other Championship game participant, although the team has beaten many other strong teams convincingly (ND, Wisconsin). Although, I would take back the statement that USC is not good enough, if they are able to beat Notre Dame. I don't think that will happen. Not this year. Not against Brady Quinn.

5) The only argument against Michigan is the loss to Ohio State. I don't want to be called a whiner because the team I am rooting for lost a game. But there are just too many intangible I'd like to point out. We're playing on the road, in a Ohio State stadium where the turf is plainly horrendous, much like its fans. Whatever the pundits on ESPN may throw at us. It is clear that although Michigan may not deserve a second chance. We do have a good opportunity.

6) Yes, and Florida would have to lose to Arkansas. but that's still the wild card. Not USC. USC HAS TO LOSE for the rematch to happen. it'd be tricky if Florida beats once beaten Arkansas (which has beaten Auburn which Florida lost to). The computer might have its statistics screwed up after that.

7) For god's sake. If we're going to play Ohio State, and have a 4th and 3. Go for the run, or get a field goal. I trust Mike Hart more than anything in the world. There are 2 opportunities to get a field goal that could help us win the game, but we squandered both of them. God, if Bo actually saw that game, he'd be so mad. Yes, the michigan community misses him already. Rest in peace.

8) I really don't want to say this out loud, but Bo's untimely (but greatly surreal) death on the eve of the game really had an impact on the staff and the players. You can see tears in Coach Carr's eyes in the post game conference. How did the players react to the news? the beloved figure in the football nation. I thought it was a prank pulled by ESPN or something. turns out I was wrong. I spent some time thinking about Bo's death. I am sure it distracted the players too (judging by the fact that I have not seen Bo in person ever before, while the players often have contact, and invaluable coaching from him.).

I guess Hari Raya is some time soon

Every year around this time of the year, the Malaysian community often find themselves busy with the festive season coming up. This year I missed home a bit more, because I can definitely use the extra holidays to finish up my work, study properly for GRE, blog a bit more, poke more people on facebook, and get some sleep. Usually we get around a week off in Malaysia, but then we don't get anything for Thxgiving or Christmas.

So here I am blaming the dumb person that set the holidays according to the Gregorian calendars. Who'd be dumb enough to set the holidays the same date every year. Thxgiving is also following the Greg calendar coz it's always always always in November, and therefore does not give people a break when they needed it the most.

Here's the list of people who are responsible for such dumb things.
Jesus -> Christmas
It's not his fault his birthday is recorded as 25th Dec, (instead they should use the lunar calendar, and then we'll celebrate xmas in a different season every year) but too bad he did not write down in the bible not to celebrate Xmas, and did not make any effort to tell off his apostles not to use the Greg calendar for his annual birthday parties.

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado -> Thxgiving
he's again dumb coz he said he found his lost chocolate bar on the third thursday of Nov. Why can't he just say he found it on the second day past the 8th full moon of the year.

Jesus -> New Year
It's probably Jesus's fault coz he kind of converted the BC to AD. oh wait. does it make the calendar different and thus the semester system in schools nowadays to change as well? Crap. we can't change that one? ARGH. It's his fault ANYWAYS!

I am sure people will look forward to a different day every year to celebrate. This year it's June, next year it's January. Isn't it more unpredictable and fun?