South Africa Wins Rugby World Cup 2007

PARIS, 20 October - South Africa defeated England 15-6 in the world cup final at Stade de France on Saturday to add a second Webb Ellis Cup to the one they won as hosts in 1995.

Reigning champions England came into the match on the back of four impressive victories after a poor start to the tournament but were unable to find a way through a disciplined Springboks outfit who were miserly in defence, dominated the line-outs and kicked five penalties.

England fly half Jonny Wilkinson, the hero of their 2003 triumph in Sydney, was unable to turn on the magic this time, missing two drop goal attempts and given little chance to impose himself on the match.

South Africa led England 9-3 at the break after an even first half marked by tactical high kicking and little open play.

Both sides sought to flex their muscle and apply pressure with a series of up-and-unders, though to little avail.

Percy Montgomery opened the scoring with a three-pointer on seven minutes after centre Mathew Tait had slipped and become isolated in the ruck and England were penalised for failing to release.

Wilkinson squared the ledger on 13 minutes after South Africa wing Bryan Habana was called for lying on the tackled player, counterpart Paul Sackey.

Repelled on line

But Montgomery regained the advantage for South Africa three minutes later after team-mate Butch James was adjudged to have been impeded on a kick and chase.

Wilkinson tried a quick riposte but pushed his drop goal attempt wide.

South Africa twice attacked late in the half but were repelled on the line on both occasions.

However, they were awarded a penalty for the second drive and Montgomery kicked truly to push the margin out to six points.

England began the second half in sensational style as Tait cut a swathe through the middle of the South Africa defence with a series of steps and swerves to set Mark Cueto up for a try. But after a long deliberation by the TV match official, the wing was ruled to have been in touch when he crossed over in the corner.

A Wilkinson penalty kick for an infringement earlier in the movement was some consolation, though.

England's hopes were hit on 48 minutes when full back Jason Robinson, playing his last match before retirement, left the field with a shoulder injury.

Montogmery squeezed home his fourth penalty from as many kicks on 51 minutes to restore his side's six-point lead (12-6) after England conceded for handling in a ruck.

Francois Steyn took over the kicking duties on 62 minutes when England were penalised for obstruction and the impressive young centre didn't let his side down, piercing the uprights from 46 metres.

Taken from www.rugbyworldcup.com

CONGRATULATIONS SPRINGBOKS!!!

There was no doubt that the Springboks would win this competition after the upset in the earlier rounds, where the New Zealand and Australia teams were knocked out of the competition.

Forgive my comments, but this is one that's been said to be going around my office at present time, and I tend to agree that there's some truth in it:

The French rugby team should just stick to their underwear modelling after their complete and utter failure to defeat the Argentinian rugby team! hehehe...

Prediction Vs Actual Score

It's the Rugby World Cup's semi-finals this weekend, with England vs France and South Africa Vs Argentina.

Here're my predictions, optimistic scores at best!

England 32 - 28 France

South Africa 48 - 32 Argentina

Well, I'll wake up to good news or bad tomorrow, but let's hope it won't be an upset. Sorry to all the French, but I don't want them to win. I want the Spring Boks to win, and they're the contenders for this year's world cup, unless there's a huge upset.

We shall see, more updates tomorrow morning...

Update 1

FRANCE IS OUT!!! HOORAY!! England beat France 14 - 9, with Jonny Wilkinson delivering a goal-kick on 75 minutes and a drop goal on 78 minutes to clinch the victory! Congratulations England! Now, we have to get rid of Argentina.

Update 2

Argentina is out, as predicted. The Springboks beat them 37 - 13. Far from my expected predictions. My friends tell me this isn't like basketball where the scores are so varied. Rugby depends on the kicks and the drop goals earned, thus the strange scoring system.

Anyhow, the stage is set for the Rugby World Cup Finals between England and South Africa!

I want South Africa to win!

Resident Evil: Extinction

It's been quite awhile, no, correction, a bloody long time since I watched a damn good movie. Of course, it goes without saying that I've watched several horrible ones. However, some of the horrible ones were horrible because the plot was lame and the acting was, well, horrible!

I've been so busy at work, either an action thriller, or a comedy to laugh my heart out would have done wonders to my morale. So, I chose action thriller and what better action thriller than watching Milla Jovovich kill zombies, shoot up bad guys and maybe blow up a few things along the way, in other words, kick @$$!!!

Yes, Milla, she's the newest action-babe on the block. Forget Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise, and (God forbid me to go back so far) Charleton Heston! The 2000 era has ushered in female action heroes. It all started with computer gaming character Lara Croft, the scantily clad archaeologist with C cups, in search of the most mystified treasures on Earth.

>>Warning Some Spoilers Below<<

Anyhow, I won't say that Resident Evil: Extinction was good or bad. I had my own reasons to watch it, more of a de-stress movie for me. I loved the way Milla kicked @$$ and still look pretty! Yes, can you believe it, in all that dry, desert air, fighting zombies and killing black zombie crows and all that shit, her complexion was still beautiful, skin was so supple and moisturised, with lipstick! Wow, if only everyone could look that good in real-life. Perhaps it's her L'Oreal or Mabeline make-up doing the trick - She's [definitely] worth it!

The plot centred around Alice, it wasn't explained what she was doing riding around the desert in her bike saving lives. There was a small convoy of humans who were uninfected by the T-virus trying to find a safe haven free from zombies. Somewhere in the middle, Alice finds them being attacked by zombie crows and uses her new psychic powers to safe them, thus reuniting with Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr) from the second movie. They then journey to Las Vegas, which has been reclaimed by the desert for the past 5 years. Of course, Dr Isaacs (Iain Glen) lays a trap for everyone, to get a sample of Alice's blood, which has bonded with the T-virus and can cure the world of all T-virus mutations. Dr Isaacs get bitten one of his mutant zombies and gets infected, turning into the Tyrant, another new breed of zombies, but gets killed in the end with the help from an Alice clone. The movie ends with room for what will happen next when all the Alice clones awaken, and the original Alice's warning to go after The Umbrella Corporation in Japan.

There you have it, an average hacker, slasher, action-thriller sequel with a little bit of plot. I won't recommend it for hardcore movie-goers who go for all that serious drama. But once in awhile, you need to watch these movies to just entertain oneself from work and boredom.

6.5 out of 10 stars (mostly for all the jumps, suspense, action and zombies!)

A Map Of Humanity

I saw this somewhere and thought, what an interesting idea if the world were rearranged this way!
(You might have to click to enlarge to see the big picture.)

Spear Britney & The Death Of MTV

I really don't know about you all, but I think that MTV has had brain cancer for quite some time now. It's been going on for years actually, and every so often it goes through some sort of chemotherapy and other kinds of hopeless ways to try and save itself and prolong the agonising death-throes. Strangely enough, the annual Video Music Awards have always seemed to help boost the terminally ill channel somewhat, but it's plain to see that there's just no cure for this type of cancer.

The entire Britney Spears comeback on VMA was a total, complete and utter joke. Britney isn't Britney anymore, you can see it in her eyes, the drive and focus is gone, the youth and sweetness (if there ever was) is gone. She seemed to be out of place, confused even, on stage. She couldn't even lip-sync correctly, her hair looked like a hurricane-hit mess. Her overall performance was completely and sadly lame and worse of all, she's fat (at least too fat for her outfit). On top of that, it seems like its a whole bunch of college interns running MTV let alone the VMA's.

Five minutes into the show and they had technical difficulties. Sarah Silverman isn't funny and it was clear the audience didn't like her, she's a dingbat and a complete moron! And the whole Vegas party idea for the show is plain dumb. It's suppose to be an Awards show - not a hotel-room party. You can't advertise "performances by so and so" and only show clips of the performances because they're taking place in some hotel suite upstairs, and not in the main show hall.

They cut to commercials in the middle of a Maroon 5 performance like it was some Tonight Show Band, I was really pissed over that! MTV really shouldn't be on the air anymore. The only MTV series I actually loved was Celebrity Death-match. Those plasticine models were simply hilarious, throw in a murderous celebrity, a cat-fight, and the death match really takes off! I wish they would get those out on DVD soon, I would love to buy those for keepsake.

MTV hasn't been branching out, they've been concentrating a lot (and I mean a lot) to promote hip-hop artistes. Hip-hop isn't the only music in the world, or perhaps that's the way MTV wants to picture themselves. No wonder they're stuck in a cesspool.

Yes, people are allowed to make mistakes, but when you're already sick beyond help or hope, you really can't afford to do anything to help them. It's time for MTV to turn over and die. Perhaps they would consider euthanasia as a more discreet method of killing off.

Somewhere, Kevin Federline is rolling on the floor and laughing his @$$ off...

Dengue Cases Dropping...Why?

Just a few moments ago, my friend and I finally deduced why dengue cases dropped, or rather, she deduced it, I merely told her I'll write it on my blog.

OK, let's backtrack a little bit. For this entire year, the number of dengue cases have been on the rise. I can't remember the last time I walked by a wet area and someone will whisper the word "dengue", almost like they saw a ghost, when pointing to some pond or body of water.

At the same time, today is the last day of the Hungry Ghost Festival and you know what? Before all those ancestors of ours decide to rush back through the gates of hell before they close, us mortals decided to increase the rate and number of times we need to burn joss paper aka hell notes aka money for the dead! A bunch of superstitious people, we think that the more we burn, the luckier we will get, the more money we will strike through some lottery and make us all rich.

The only good that came out of all this is the amount of smoke that is generated in every estate. Smoke, as you all know, drives out insects and most important of all, mosquitoes! So the more we burn joss paper and incense, the less number of mozzies flying around biting us and spreading dengue.

What a simple and efficient solution! Of course, for those of us who hate smoke, be smoke generated by burning something, or cigarette smoke, it becomes smoke inhalation. So, in the other words, whether there's smoke or mozzies, or either, or neither, it's a lose-lose situation for us! If not, then perhaps global warming will get us.

We're doomed!

iPod Touch

With the release of the iPhone in June, this new iPod was bound to come out sooner or later, it was just a matter or when! This is the iPod that everyone has been waiting with baited breath for. A touchscreen music player, that can play movies and surf the Internet. Everything you ever wanted in a touchscreen product, without the phone.

I think whenever Apple comes out with portable products, it's very important to look at the handiness and battery life. This latest iPod Touch boasts a battery life of 22 hours for regular music playback and 5 hours for video playback. It also has Wi-Fi support for you to download your music and surf the Internet. What more could you ask for?

If only Apple will trade in my older iPod model for this new one. I don't even mind topping up the extra cost. Then again, my present iPod cost more than the starting price of this little baby!

Release date 28 Sep 2007

Blogger Picture Element Problem - Need Help!

If you readers of this blog haven't already noticed, some of the picture elements added to the right hand side of this blog are distorted. Distorted not because it was originally distorted, but because there seems to be a bug in the picture element widget.

There was never a problem before, but only recently, these few months, have there been this stretching effect to accommodate the pictures I put up from regular A4 portrait sizes to square CD format sizes.

I've personally written to the blogger support team about 1 month ago, but the problem doesn't seem to have been fixed or solved yet. I'm not sure if it's exclusive to my blog only, so everyone else has to give it a try and give me some comments and feedback below.

I've tried many things, including, completely removing the picture elements and re-adding them to the blog again. Short of deleting this entire blog and starting from scratch, I'm going to try opening another blog to see if the same problem occurs in the new one.

Any help or suggestions from anyone will be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!