It's Tok Ayah's Birthday!

Today is Tok Ayah's 60th birthday and what a better way than to celebrate it with your grandchildren. Maisarah is helping her Grandpa by blowing the candles (luckily there are only six candles) and cutting the cake. Ilyas is far too busy playing with Tok Ayah's mobile phone. And Ila (my wife's sister) is helping Maisarah with the cake. She's wearing the Manchester United shirt that my wife bought in Old Trafford.

ANSARA Taiping vs Alumni SMS Tengku Muhammad Faris Petra

Today is the first match of the season for ANSARA Taiping (Tepen) football squad. We are currently in the Division Two of Liga Alumni Malaysia after narrowly avoided relegation last year. Our opponent is Alumni SMS Tengku Muhammad Faris Petra (SEMESTA), the runners-up of Division Three last year so it's going to be a tough match. And indeed it was very tough. The opponent started to attack in the beginning and after many chances they managed to lead through what I'd call a freak goal, something that is similar like Ronaldinho's free kick against England in that famous World Cup match, although this one is coming from an open play. After that Tepen started to push forward and we had several chances but all went wide. The first half ended with only one goal on show.

In the second half Tepen continue to attack and we finally managed to get a break when our star striker broke through the defense and scored. Interestingly, he also scored our first goal of the season last year. Things turned ugly afterwards as heavy tackles came from both sides. However, only one player from SEMESTA got punished when he received two yellow cards and thus given a marching order. I thought it will be easier for Tepen to get the winning goal but the opposite happens. SEMESTA doubled their attack and we got lucky not to get behind again. The weather also turns to worse with heavy rain and the field became flooded. When the referee indicated that the match is over, I think both teams are quite relieved to share a point each.

I'm supposed to play a part in this match by coming on as a substitute but looking at those young and rugged opponents, not forgetting the rain, I thought that I should delay my maiden appearance in this season in the next match.

Half time

Young and young-at-heart supporters

The Tepen manager in the rain

My holiday has just began

Just arrived home in Kajang after 20 hours flight from Manchester Airpot.

First meal = satay Kajang.

And just in time to watch Germany vs Turkey in Euro2008.

Down the memory lane Part 3

One of my old friend, Andre Budiman, posted several old school pictures in his Facebook album and I happened to notice that I was in two of them. I think these pictures were taken in 1990-1991. It brings back all that nostalgic feeling, really. And I forgot how skinny I was at that time :)

Three already married and still in contact except Razeen (far right)

I think this is a club photo (probably tennis club). Can you find which one is me?

Piala Pusingan Presiden KULM

The first futsal match between postgraduate and undergraduate was held in March 2007. The postgraduate won the KULM President Cup that was introduced for the first time with the score of 5-1 (I scored one goal).

This year we invited several other teams to join the tournament such as Chinese Society, Islamic Society and Preston Malays. The Islamic Society won the cup easily. After the tournament the postgraduate had another match with the undergraduate and we won 2-1 (I scored one goal too).

But today I thought of having another go since some of the undergraduate are graduating soon and I am going back to Malaysia for a month. So we had our third meeting indoor in the sport centre. The UG were leading 1-0 at first but we managed to equalise and then leading 2-1. The UG managed to equalise and again we are leading 3-2 until they manage to equalise for the second time. I score all three goals for the PG and then it was a half time.

Second half started differently for both teams. PG only had one substitute and UG had several of them. At first we continued with what we were doing in the first half, basically by scoring goal (this time by Awa). But in similar manned like in the first half, the UG managed to equalise. Again we manage to score through Arif and again the UG managed to equalise. At this time, we have been playing for about 45 minutes and fatigue has started to take a toll on us. And then UG scored a goal, for the first time leading since early minutes of the match. The PG tried their hard to get an equaliser but they put so many players upfront and in the dying minute the UG managed to put final nail in the coffin by scoring another goal.

In the end I think it was a great match. I'm sure next year it will be another exciting match between both teams.

The kickoff

The action

The winners and err.. the previous winners

Hadiff's birthday party

Hadiff is having a birthday party today and everyone is invited. The children are having fun playing games and jumping around in the bouncy castle whilst the parents and friends are having BBQ lunch. The weather is a bit cold but everyone is still enjoying themselves.

Ilyas and Hadiff

Chocolate cake with strawberry on top

BBQ chicken

Maisarah playing games with her friends

All the ladies and their children

Ilyas the artist

He did this all by himself

Injury-prone Ilyas

Ilyas is having a bad day for the past couple of days. Yesterday he hurt his knee whilst playing football with me. Today his finger got stuck between the door so I took him to the Emergency in case anything is broken. Luckily it is just a minor bruise. When he hurts his knee, he cried thinking that he is unable to go to school. Today he cried even more because he thinks he is unable to carry the present for Hadiff''s birthday party tomorrow. After the visit to the Emergency, he is happily playing with Maisarah again.

This finger hurts...

My golden sticker for being a brave boy

One of the many to come...

My backgammon statistics

I came accross one of the discussions in the dailygammon.com forum talking about player's statistics so I asked one of them if he could make one for me. He kindly produced one for me and there are lots of interesting fact. For instance when I compare my win rate for the past 30 days against all matches, it shows an improvement from 47.89% to 57.14%. And my chances of winning a one, three and five pointer match is about 50% (just like flipping a coin, eh). And I am definitely going to win the 7 rounds tournament IF I can reach the final round. All the details can be seen here.

Better chance of winning one point match in nack format

I'm hopeless at nine pointer matches

The main challenge is to win the sixth round, after that it's a breeze

Unbelievable!

I was leading 23-11 in this match against Steve Kong and yet he managed to take a lead 24-23 after 8 games before I managed to get even. And then he took the final game which seals the match. I've already challenging him for a second 25 pointer match.

I'm also in the middle of 25 pointer match against Idlan. I was trailing 11-21 before managed to get a lead of 24-23 after 7 games. Does that means that she will win the next game and I win the final game and thus the match? Hmmm.. I wonder. Such a luck of dice.

Happy faces

Last night there were several visitors coming over to my flat to have dinner and watch Portugal vs Germany on tv. Wan Abdullah, has just passed his PhD viva so I invited him over. Idlan and her friends have just came back from their Euro2008 tour in Switzerland and we heard many stories from them including one exclusive that I'm considering to keep for myself to be used in the near future *evil wicked grin*. Both of Idlan's friends came here from Malaysia for a 10 days trip and I just found out that both of them positioned higher than me in the Premier League Fantasy Football that was concluded last month. Talk about girls knowing more stuff about football than you do!

Family Tree Part 5

This is what a hard copy family tree of mine looks like. Even longer than Ilyas!

How old is old enough?

I just found out last night that one of the ladies that I used to play with in the Lancaster Morecambe Badminton League has just celebrated her 60th birthday last week. So that means she is few weeks older than my mom! Gosh...

Family Tree Part 4

I have printed my family tree diagram and it tooks 36 pages altogether to include all 772 individuals and 8 generations. I'm going to glue all these pages into a one big map and bring it back to Malaysia next week because there are going to be few more additions onto it.

Family Tree Part 3

Finally, after 5 years wait, I have been able to start again my family tree project. I started my project back in 2002 using a pirated software and the tree grows to hundreds of branches of relatives as my father and I started to compile them by going to Kelantan during Raya holiday. Sometimes in 2003 I lost that software CD and to make it worse, since it is an old software, the format that the file is saved is no longer in use.

I've tried to purchase several new softwares (originals not pirated this time) but they cannot be used to change the old *.cgf format to a new GEDCOM format. So I posted my request for help in genealogy.com forum last year. There were several responses but none came nearer to my solution until several days ago when someone said that he is able to help me. So I sent him my old file and today he sent it back in a new GEDCOM format!

I have just opened the file and all the info is still there. I have made several copies of the file and after this I'm going to print it. Better safe than sorry this time!

Minyak Oh Minyak Part 2

After many years of marriage, my wife complained that I never bring her out to an expensive place anymore. So tonight I have decided to take her to the petrol station.

Conquerclub Lancaster League

I started this league about a month ago and after 87 maps it has ended. Congratulations to Rapek for winning the Open Category and to my wife for winning the most editions, points and maps in the Premium Category. Thanks to everybody who participated in the league. After this I am going to create a Conquerclub tournament where I am the eventual winner.

What Ilyas and Maisarah have been doing today

Just came back from a birthday party..

Too tired to go to the bedroom, this sofa should do fine...

I'm painting My Little Ponies picture...

But I'm not feeling better at the moment...

Minyak Oh Minyak

Moorside Primary School Parade

Today Ilyas' school is having a school parade where everybody is parading and displaying to their parents all the artworks that they have been doing for the past few weeks. Each class has their own theme like pirates, Romans, jungle animals, Harry Potter characters and so on. Everybody in Ilyas' class is supposed to be a little dinosaur. There are several other Malaysian boys and girls in the parade. The parade lasted about half an hour and after that the parents have the opportunity to visit their children's classroom.

Bunga Telur

It used to be a hard-boiled egg. Now everyone wants to be creative with their wedding gift to the guest. I wonder if my sister is the first bride in Malaysia to give her wedding guests the custom designed Blackpool rocks!

Drift

My brother has been playing a drifting remote car with two of his friends for the past few weeks. The car is not built for speed but rather for drifting. And since top European national football teams are currently competing in Euro2008 (minus England!) you can see in this video that the cars are also playing football with the the replica ball!

Thank God they found it!

Found this notice near my office. I can see here that at least two owners are missing their pets! So another one is still wandering about... hmmm

B-Active League Prizes

I totally forgot that today our badminton team, Bulu Tangkis A are supposed to receive our prizes for winning the B-Active League in an awards ceremony organised by the LUSU. When I reached the hall, they already packing up but I managed to get the trophies and cash prizes from the Athletic Union president. Too bad we are unable to receive them in our finest suit in front of those Mat Sallehs. Well, there is always next year!

Conquerclub Medals

Just as I was about to win all the maps on offer in Conquerclub (again!), they introduced this medals system, where you need to win certain amount of maps or formats in order to achieve certain type of medals. I have been conferred a gold medal in Cross-Map Achievement but it is still a long way to go for those Standard, Terminator and Assassin Achievement. I can see my ranking plummeting way down to Cook before I can get all those gold medals. If only those are real medals :)

Rembrandt sketch

My family and I went to the Fishergate shopping centre in Preston last Saturday and there is this one photo box which could take a picture of us and sketch it like some Renaissance artist. We opt for Rembrandt style (they have Leonardo, Michaelangelo etc) and it turns out nice. Ilyas looks darker because he is in the shade.

Barcelona and Moscow

Finally I managed to get these two shirts together. But only after I bought my wife a Guess watch that she decided she don't mind me having the 2008 edition. A fair tradeoff!

Awa's Birthday

You know you are getting older when your birthday cake is looking like it's on fire.