A Point Gained

The alarm had been set for 1 o'clock. The plan was simple: Take a quick nap, take a shower, pop out and do the grocery shopping and be back right in time for kick-off at 4 o'clock...

After what seemend like only a few minutes, I was gently awoken by my wife. I grabbed my mobile which these days doubles as my trusty alarm clock. Crap. It was 3. Either I hadn't set-up the alarm properly or I was too exhausted to even notice that it had been going off playing Rage Against the Machines' Wake Up (how's that for a wake-up call, eh?) for the past 2 hours or so.

One hour to kick-off. After taking into account that I badly needed a shower, the traffic and the time needed to actually do the shopping, I quickly came to the conclusion that there was no chance that I was going to be able to watch the whole Birmingham v. Liverpool match that afternoon. And, there was no Plan B either. It was a choice between my kids starving at school on Monday (with a follow-up visit from the Social Welfare folks) or comfortably sitting in my living room with the match streamed live on my laptop. Hmmm...

Fortunately, the kids have a mother so, off I was to the nearest Dunnes Stores to get ourselves some much needed supplies. A quick detour and I was standing right in front of a row of LED tellys in Currys, right in time to catch Liverpool's teamsheet for the afternoon.

Konchesky gets his first start, Lucas partners Poulsen in the centre of midfield in a seemingly more cautious away day set-up. Sktrel gets the nod ahead of Agger to partner Carragher while Maxi Rodriguez gets a start in Dirk Kuyt's absence. New boy, Raul Meireles gets a seat on the bench. No surprises really.

Remembering that I had some shopping to do, I quickly got that over with and we were on our way home. I ignored the urge to go to the loo and headed straight to my computer and loaded up the match. The second half had just started and seemingly, other than two world class saves from Pepe Reina, I didn't miss much.

Konchesky looked decent on the left, like a physiscally stronger version of Insua with less hair but other than that, seeing that it was his first game, it's too early to judge him any further. The same could be said about Meireles who was introduced in the second half. He looked eager going forward although on evidence of the few minutes this time around, he'd probably need to get used to the more physical aspects of the English game sooner rather than later.

As opposed to previous games, the team had a bit more fight about them but it still wasn't enough to pull them out of the overall lacklustre performance throughout the match. As the title suggests, it was a point gained rather than a missed opportunity to bag three...

Oh, and thank God I didn't choose my kids over this match...

Pawangs, Paul and Pil Chi-Kit Teck Aun

Phewww... this week had definitely been some week.

Different deadlines at work were fast approaching and i was in the zone. On auto-pilot or drone mode. I just wanted to get most of the work finished and done with so that I could have a decent, hassle-free weekend. Life unfortunately, seldom goes according to even the best of our plans.

Yes, life took one of its more unpleasant turns when I was abruptly reminded of my responsibilities as a father. My wife rang me at work. Our daughter was unwell and was complaining about it. Bad news. Especially since the complaints were coming from my firstborn who had a strangely high pain threshold.

Yes, when I say high, I really mean high. OK, not Cypress Hill, I Want to Get High kind of high. Just high as if in errr...argghhh just forget it. 

You see, when she was a baby, getting her vaccinated wasn't a problem at all. You could poke a dozen needles into her and all she'd do was squirm or at the very worst, come out with a tiny Ouch! I remember carrying her on my back (in one of those backpacker style baby carriers) during one of our travels - in the mid-day heat of a Barcelona summer and she wouldn't say a word about the excruciatingly painful heat. Scrapes and bruises? She'd just smile at the sight of them. She's like my little SuperGirl or that blonde cheerleader in Heroes - Season One.

Like I said, she's got a very high pain threshold so, when she does complain that she's in pain, it most likely means that it's bad. Very bad.

From the symptoms my wife described to me, my non-medical opinion was that it was appendicitis. I told a friend at work about it and joked...

If it was her appendix, any chance the doctors would move the op until after the match?

OK, bad joke. I know. If my daughter was going to need an operation Germany, Spain and that squid called Paul could wait. Really.

Fortunately, everything went better than expected. My daughter didn't need an operation and was allowed to go home that evening. I had some of my daughter's puke to clean off the carpeted floor in the bedroom but it was all good as I was just relieved that my daughter was fine. Spain beat Germany and for the first time in a very long time, Liverpool would have a World Cup winner in the squad no matter who wins the World Cup.

I was once again looking forward to a good weekend. Life returned to normal and the balance of the universe was restored.

Potentially useful tip of the week: If you think you've got something wrong with your appendix, try to jump. Don't go crazy, a tiny jump will do. If your tummy hurts particularly in the lower right region and you can bearly lift yourself off the ground, there's a good chance you do have appendicitis.

Disclaimer of the week: Like Minyak Angin Chap Kapak or Pil Chi-Kit Teck Aun, this tip isn't medically proven so, if you or a loved is unwell, please seek professional medical help. Local pawang's help is optional.

Now that we're men

It was just an innocent stroll into Currys with the kids while my wife went off to get some groceries she had forgotten to buy just the day before.

The house is pretty much TV-less these days with only a small, pink 14” CRT TV as the family TV. Desperate, I know. So, every chance I get, I’d pop in to a TV shop just in case there’s any good bargains around.

This time around, it was straight to the back of the shop where they kept the new, sexy and slim LED TVs. No chance of them going on the cheap but I suppose, I can always hope. As I was slowly making my way, my 7 year-old daughter gave me a tug.

Daddy, can I go watch some cartoons over there...?

She was pointing at the other end of the shop while my 3 year-old son was jumping up and down, obviously delighted to go along with his sister rather than hang around with boring old Daddy.

Fine. Go on ahead...but don’t speak to strangers and scream your head off if anyone dodgy bothers you.

At least that’s what I thought I said to the kids. Some sort of fatherly words advice, of course.

Anyway, after a couple of minutes of browsing around, I gave up my search of finding a What Hi-Fi award winner for nothing and recalled that I had two other kids (the third one couldn't get away from me as he was strapped in on his buggy) that were glued to some TV somewhere in the shop.

OK come on kids, let’s go find Mummy!

After waiting for what seemed like an age for a reply, the zombie like answer finally came.

Wait...Daaadddyyy...we’re waaatchiiing thisss...

My daughter raised her hand slowly and pointed towards the TV screen in front of her. It was just SpongeBob and Patrick jumping around somewhere in Bikini Bottom but then, the tune made its way into my ears...

Now that we’re men, we have facial hair

Now that we’re men, I change my underwear

Now that we’re men, we got a manly flair

We got the stuff, we're tough enough to save the day!

Aaargh! The tune was now embedded in my head like an X-Factor Xmas single. I couldn't get rid of it. There was no escaping it. It was like an extremely infectious airborne disease...

OK, just a quick note to say that I made it to the Sunday Scooter Service rideout yesterday. I hope to have pics of this posted in the next few days.