Socceroos vs Greece - Coming Up in Melbourne

World class football on show in Melbourne this Thursday, well, at least it is European class anyway. The Socceroos will started their warm up games before the Germany 2006 World Cup by playing an international friendly againts Greece, the most recent European Champion, in Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) . I have got a ticket to watch the game so I am looking forward to Thursday evening. It is a pity Harry Kewell of Liverpool FC will not play because of groin injury.

Excuse Me, This is a Robbery, Please.

An article in The Age today really made me giggling. Apparently, there is a female armed robber who has done her crimes as many as 8 times during the last two weeks in Melbourne's eastern suburbs and every time when she did it, she was polite and apologised to her victims. Although she is polite, she produced a knife during the robberies and demanded the victims to hand her money and other belongings. This girl targeted pedestrians either in the early morning or evening and luckily there have been no injuries to the victims so far.


The way this girl expressed her politeness while she robbed her victims made me remember a joke about some Indonesian. There are certain people in Indonesia who are considered as very very polite. They like to smile to others and are acknowledged as being very patient, able to control their emotion and they don't like to show their anger. They are so polite that when they want to kill someone, they will ask for permission first, by saying the following sentences slowly and with a smile:

Excuse me! Do you mind if I kill you?

or

Excuse me, can I shoot you in your head, please?

Call for Papers - IAGI Conference 2006

This is the Call for Papers file of the Pekanbaru 2006 IAGI Conference. To view a bigger version of this file, click on the image. To save it into your computer, right click and save it as another file name.

Haw Wa Ya?

Whether we realise it or not, our answer to a friend who asks "how you're doing" actually shows our state of mind at that very moment. We can put as smiling face as nice as as we want, but when we say "not too bad" as the answer for "How are you?", it means we actually feel a bit bad, but just not "very bad".

Some people would just say "very good" and "good" with confident when they are happy at the time their friends ask how they are, however others may have similar answer with less confidence like: "Yeaaahhhhh.......(a slow yeah...) I am very well." (an expression of not sure about his/her own words).

One interesting thing is, there are not many people who like to tell that they are in a "bad situation", they will just say "not too bad" as their expression.

A Tragic Story of Coffin Mishandling

A member of Australian army died in Iraq recently, by a single shot wound in his head. According to the Army's initial investigation, it his death was most likely due to an 'accident', his pistol somehow was triggered and shot himself.

This man is from Gippsland, Victoria and he was only in Iraq for a month. He has a young family with two kids, and apparently he really lives to become a member of the army since his young age because he likes hunting deers.

So then his body was sent home to Melbourne and his family went to Melbourne airport to receive his body. And then this tragedy happened! The body in the coffin sent back to Melbourne was not his. This was another man, a completely different man, apparently a Bosnian contractor worker in Iraq. Somehow in Kuwait, someone mishandled or misidentified a different person and sent him back to Australia, covered by Australian flag, as an Australian soldier.

The family of the died soldier understandably went ballistic. How could it happen? His death was due to serving his country in a war, but somehow he could not even be correctly identified and sent back home after giving his precious life. It was such a terrible mistake for the grieving family. This mistake made them asking more questions about what caused the death of the soldier, which is understandable. It was indeed terrible.

Spin Doctors

Having get used to reading lots of news from the English press since a couple of years ago, especially football news, I become aware that some section of the press in this country are the best "spin doctors" in the world. Making headlines to sell papers and printing news for certain hidden agenda are normal practices for them. The most recent example is the Luis Felipe Scolari vs English Media saga.

"Big Phil" - the famous name of Felipe Scolari, Brazilian football coach who now works for Portuguese national team, was chosen by the Football Association of England to take over the England national team from Sven Goran Eriksson, after this coming Germany World Cup. Before the FA talked to Phil, the English Media have been campaigning for an English coach, at least a British coach to follow in Sven's steps. Once the news that Phil was talking seriously to the FA broke out, the FA was criticised left and right, front and back, up and down by the media, former national coach, club owner, former national player and so on - you mention it.

So, it was clear then the English Media, most of them if not all, did not like Big Phil, and later some of their journos started to find out more about this man, by parking outside his house in Portugal. Big Phil was shocked by this media attention and finally he backed off, even before he signed any offer and he quoted media pressures as the reason why he did not want to take the job.

Now, you would think the media realised they have put too much pressures to Big Phil therefore they should apologize to the FA because of their behaviour. No, they won't at all, the blame the FA instead, by accusing the FA was not doing their jobs. Fickle? Indeed! More interestingly, some section of the press mentioned Big Phil got death threat from the Portuguese fans. Blimey!

This is not the first time the English media have tried to make a headline of the FA and its national coach. A newspaper even needed to send one of their journos to act as a fake Sheikh and invited Sven, the current national coach, to Dubai to talk about a lot of confidential things about his future and the England dressing room. They spent hundred thousand of poundsterling to fund this "exclusive interview" without Sven knowing he was being interviewed.

Disclaimer:
The links provided in this article is for information purpose only, they are by no means to suggest the correponding websites/news providers are the actual spin doctors.

Bugatti Veyron

For those who do not know what the fastest and most powerful (and weirdest shape) sport car in this planet is (at the moment), please welcome: BUGATTI VEYRON 16.4

Bugatti Veyron 16.4 has 16 cylinders configured in W-shape, 8-litre engine, with 4 turbo super-chargers, giving a maximum speed of 400 km/h and 1001 horse power (HP) at 6000 RPM. It is a 7-speed transmission, and its acceleration is even faster than McLaren's F1 car, taking only 2.9 s to jet off from rest to 100 km/h, compared with 3.2 s of McLaren's. It is also an all-wheel drive car, because this is necessary to control the car during its top speed.

So how much will this car cost you if you want to buy one? Not much, if you are a billionaire! Only 800,000 poundsterlings. Oh, and this price does not include purchase tax yet. And you may want to buy a car insurance as well, just in case, someone driving a Mercedes Benz hit the back of your car.

To see more pics of Bugatti Veyron, go to Bugatti's website: http://www.bugatti-cars.de