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.

My mother-in-law has her own Facebook account!

I'm going to invite her to become my Vampire, Slayer, Zombie, Werewolf, Petrolhead, Speed Racing and buy her as my pet!

When to meet with your advisor

I have tried all options except Saturday/Sunday (obviously since there is no 'pro'). And none is my favourite.

How fitting...

It was morning
and lo! Now it is evening
nothing memorable
accomplished.

- Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862)

Sepak Raga Bulatan

Whenever Malaysians in Lancaster are having a function outside the building, we will always took the opportunity to test our skills in sepak raga bulatan. Watch this video (taken early this month during the BBQ) to see how 'skillful' we are. Just ignore the guy in red shirt, though.

Malam Lambaian Nostalgia 2008

Today we had the annual Malam Lambaian Nostalgia 2008 where we celebrated those who are going to graduate soon this year. The dress theme is summer so everyone is wearing a bright and colourful dress. I've been asked to conduct Kuiz Nostalgia and I wish I could be the participant instead as some of the prizes on offer are really brilliant! In the end I think everyone is enjoying the day, especially my wife since she won three prizes for the quiz, lucky draw (which she has never won one before) and best dress (again, her first!).

Fourth Monkey

Picture of a happy face

Ilyas just came back from his friend's birthday party. Judging from his smiling but sweaty face, he's definitely enjoying it to the max!

Countries driving on the left or right side of the road

I found this picture on wikipedia. Those countries in red are driving on the right side of the road. Those in blue are driving on the left side of the road. Interesting.

Valencia CF

I bought another shirt from Sports World. This time it is a special edition Valencia shirt to commemorate their first league championship in 1941-1942 where they scored 85 goals in 26 matches. The price is £22 and I pretty much like its simple design. Too bad they finished 10th in the league.

Specially for Chelsea fans :)

Funnily enough, this picture was forwarded to me by a Chelsea fan :)

GLORY GLORY MAN UTD!!!

Manchester United became kings of Europe for the third time on a night of high drama and emotion in Moscow as they beat Chelsea 6-5 on penalties after a 1-1 draw after extra time.

(Source from www.soccernet.com)

Conquerclub new maps

Just as I finished all 80 maps on offer at the Conquerclub, they added another 8.. *sigh*. Back to battle plan!

Dailygammon one to one standings

I have been playing backgammon among my friends for quite some time now. The most regular opponent is Idlan who is in Colchester now, but since she lost her password, we are stuck at the 12th game where I am leading 24 to 23 (so close!). I am also dueling with two PhD students here in Lancaster, Kevin Martin (who teaches me how to play backgammon and who still consistently beaten me online although I have won against him three times in a row during our Monday session) and Steve Kong. I am also dueling (or shall I say trashing, hehe) Jun who is currently in Malaysia. You can see all the results here.

Birthday party in the summer

Today Ilyas dan Maisarah are attending Anis' birthday party at her house, just outside the university. The weather is nice so the children are having fun outdoors.

Centenario Inter

I went to the Sports World store today and since most of the European leagues are towards the end or already ended, there are plenty of football shirts on sale. There are also Euro 2008 shirts but they are all still expensive, each national shirt costs around £36. There is a nice PSG shirt but since they are fifth from bottom in the French Ligue 1 I'm not entirely fancy it. Then I came across this Inter Milan shirt, which is currently celebrating their century, and it's on sale for just £22 (The retail price is £45)! Since Inter Milan is currently top of the Serie A, it is indeed a fitting companion to my Manchester United shirt.

Mission Accomplished!

After 546 attempts, I have finally managed to win all 80 maps in the ConquerClub. The last map is the largest, which is the Conquer Man. I won all the maps with a Standard or Terminator setting with an exception of Doodle Earth where I managed to win on the Assassin setting. Now to take it easy and start focusing on the Lancaster League, ermm I mean my PhD study :)

Conquerclub Lancaster League

I have started a Conquerclub Lancaster League among friends and family here in the UK. There are 7 players in the first league and points are awarded like the F1 system where the winner gets 10 points followed by 8 points and so on. There are 10 maps for each league and currently the first league is down to the last one. Whoever win this map has the potential to win the league. The second league has concluded and my wife is the winner. She is such a good strategist. We are currently on the third and fourth league now. You can see all the standings here.

My new website

I have a new website at www.ahmedrazman.com At the moment there is nothing there, just a few pictures and several links. I'm going to update the site when I'm free. At the moment I'm terribly busy, but not too busy to occasionally update this blog!

Ilyas loses his first tooth

Before (few days ago)

After (today)

Funny thing is, we couldn't find his loose tooth. He's probably swallowed it while having his lunch :)

Sparta Rotterdam

My friend, Idlan went to a conference in Rotterdam, Holland and I asked her to buy me a football shirt, any football shirt. The package arrived today and I am quite pleased with the shirt. The tag says it originally cost 55 euro but has been reduced to 12.50 euro instead. Another bargain!

Lancaster City FC

Today I went to the Giant Axe Stadium, home of Lancaster City FC. I entered the office and asked whether I could buy one of their replica shirt. One of the gentlemen there guided me to their store and asked for my size. I asked him the price for one shirt. He replied that it's only cost £20. On top of that he gave me several other items like tax disc holder, key chain holders, a pencil and a ruler. I asked him if I could purchase another shirt for my brother. He said I could have the two shirts for £30. Then I noticed the scarf. He said it costs £8 but I can have it all together for £40! Hah! What a shrewd businessman, but I don't mind paying the £40 because the original price for one shirt is actually £25. We went back to the office because he wanted to give me the receipt. On the way out, he gave me two Lancaster City calendars for free. What a bargain!

My Birthday Cake

Back from a Holiday

I was away for nearly two weeks entertaining my mother, two aunties and a cousin who came here for a holiday. We went to London and Holland visiting many interesting places. I took my family to visit Paris including Disneyland and Walt Disney Parks. The remaining pictures are uploaded in my Facebook album.

Down the memory lane Part 2

Found another old photo from one of my friend's Facebook.

68th Annual Tournament Part 2

This morning Wan Huzaini and I are playing in the Gents Doubles Handicap 'A' section under the Lancaster, Morecambe and District Badminton League 68th Annual Tournament. It's a knock out format with a handicap system put in place. This means that every players will be given a handicap in form of points added or deducted and number of serves allowed each turn. For us, we were given a handicap of +5, meaning that we only need to get 10 more points to win a set. Our opponent is ranked first so their handicap is a whopping -8 and 1 serve. This means that they need to get 23 points before they can win a set and can only do so with only one serve each turn. So who do you think will win?

In the end we lost 10-15 and 12-15. Basically we managed to get 12 points from both sets, much better than what we did last Thursday when we got only 4 points. It was a good match and most of the audience are watching how we fight for every point. I guess somehow it's a good way to end this season by playing against the best players in the league.

Fooling around with Umi's glasses

Final standing in the league

So, it's official. We are moving one step higher in the Division Two of Lancaster and Morecambe Badminton League. Last year we were fourth, winning nine and losing nine. This time we managed to win 12 and losing only six. A much better performance I think, partly because Paul was available since the start of the season and there has not been much disruption to the team line-up, unlike last season. Congratulations to the Bailrigg B as well, since they managed to keep their place in the Division 3. Two years ago they got relegated from the same division and they have done well to remain there this time.

2007 standing

2008 standing

68th Annual Tournament

Wan Huzaini and I are participating in the Lancaster, Morecambe and District Badminton League 68th Annual Tournament. We registered for two categories, Gents Doubles Championship and Gents Doubles Handicap 'A'. The first category was held today and we were grouped in the Group 1 with three other doubles. We need to become a group winner or runners-up if we want to proceed to the semi final. In the end, we lost all our matches.

Considering that the other players hail from Division One, I do not have high hope of advancing to the next round but still hoping that we could win a set or two. Our first match was against one of the top seeded doubles (R Parkinson & C Foote) and we duly lost 4-15 and 1-15. In the second match we lost first set 5-15 to M Kearns & A Forrest but were leading 11-6 in the second set. However, they managed to overturn the deficit and won 15-12. Our last match is against another top seeded (B Stephenson & J Mitchell) and this time the defeat was the heaviest as we lost 0-15 and 4-15.

This Sunday morning we will play in other category and it's a knock out format. Since we are playing at the Morecambe College, the place of a car boot sale, I might as well bring my family along. We are scheduled to play in the quarter final and were given a handicap of +5, meaning that we will only need 10 more points to win the set. Our opponent are more likely to be a certain B Stephenson & J Mitchell and they were given a handicap of -8 1hd, meaning that they had to get 23 points to win a set and were given one serve per turn only. Given that we lost easily to them today, I don't expect them to have any problem of getting those 23 points with one serve. But then, who knows, we might get lucky this Sunday.

Karnival Sukan Lancaster 2008

Today is the big day for all Malaysian in the Lancaster as we are having our annual Sports Carnival. Last year we had badminton tournaments for men and ladies, men futsal and 'sukaneka' for kids. This time it is even bigger. We are having the usual 'sukaneka' for kids but the ladies will be competing in futsal and netball tournaments. As for the men, we are having a futsal tournament which includes participation from Islamic Society (2 teams), Chinese Society and University Central Lancashire Malaysian Students Society. We ourselves have two teams to compete in this tournament.

It is a bright but chilly morning and the carnival starts around 9am. I think everyone is enjoying themselves especially when around noon the snow started to fall down! As for the tournament results, the undergraduate ladies won both netball (12-0) and futsal (3-2) by beating their postgraduate sisters. As for the men, Malaysian A only managed to get third placing and Malaysian B in sixth placing. Islamic B won the futsal tournament by winning all their matches.

Afterwards, the undergraduate men asked for a futsal challenge with the postgraduate. Last year they lost 1-5 and they are confident of getting a revenge this time. However, two goals from Wan Huzaini and myself secured yet another victory for postgraduate team even when they managed to get one goal through Sean Chua. Try again next year, kids!

More pictures can be seen in here and here.

Upgrade Presentation

Today is the big day for me. That's what Professor Ken Peasnell has told me when I came accross him in the office corridor. Why? Apparently the office has circulated an e-mail inviting all lecturers and PhD students to attend my 'Upgrade Presentation' at 4pm today. What exactly is an upgrade presentation? Well, when you first registered in the first year, you are not exactly a PhD student. You are in fact an MPhil student and only through an upgrade presentation that you will be confirmed as a PhD student. If you fail this upgrade, you will be required to submit your thesis for an MPhil degree only. So it seems to be an important process towards getting your doctorate and usually this upgrade presentation is a presentation of your first research paper (you are required to complete three research papers for submission as a thesis towards your accounting doctorate programme). The problem is, I haven't got any complete paper yet since I haven't finish downloading all the data and thus no analysis has been done. So why an upgrade now?

It seems that the department are trying to make sure the student do an upgrade far earlier than previously done. Usually the upgrade is done when the student is in the end of the second year or beginning of the third year. In my case, since I have 17 hypotheses and 16 models to test, it will be more than six months before I can come up with a complete paper. Therefore, they think it is better for me to have some sort of proposal presentation to be followed up by an upgrade presentation when I have all the analysis and results. This way, I can get the academician feedback whether my research do contribute to the knowledge in accounting and what I'm going to do for the next six months will not be in vain.

The presentation was webcasted over the internet since our PhD director is currently in Greece and he need to watch me present my research ideas. There were about 15 people in the audience, mostly lecturers in accounting. And I think only two of them did not ask any questions and both of them are PhD students. In the end I got lots of useful feedback and comments which I will take into consideration when I'm starting my data collection and analysis.

A huge applause towards the end indicates that my presentation is a success and my research is a novel idea? Only time will tell, or in this case, in six months time.

Maisarah's Birthday Party

Lancaster Morecambe Badminton League - League Match Eighteen

The ceiling is ridiculously low though..

Tonight is the last match of the season and we are playing away against Bolton-le-Sands A, currently occupying second place in the league. We are currently at third place but any chance of changing place with them is none since they have far more superior points. Not that we fancy to be in the second place though, we would pretty much like to be as it is. Quite comfortable in the second division, in between win-at-all-cost division and easy-win division.

Paul and I started the men doubles as usual and although last time we managed to get a win, this time we only got a split of 12-15 and 15-10. Tim and I repeated what we've done in our previous meeting, we lost both sets. This time we lost 10-15 and 11-15. Brenda called in sick so Eddie got roped in the last minute. We managed to get split with 8-15 and 15-12. In the end we lost 5-13 overall, last time we met them we lost 6-12.

I think we are going to get 3rd placing in the league but Sunnyside C has not play their last match yet so I will put up the league standing once it is finalised.

Drawings by Ilyas

Ayah watching television

Lancaster Open Badminton 2008

Today is the annual badminton tournament organised by the Malaysians who play badminton regularly in Lancaster University. Last year it was participated among the Malaysians only. This time out of 12 players, 7 are Malaysians, 3 are British (2 of them are Chinese in origin) and 1 each from Indonesia and Oman. Last year the format was round robin but this year is a bit different due to a limited supply of shuttlecocks and time constraint. 6 doubles are squaring each other in the Qualifying Round and the winner for each match will be put in the Winners Pool and the losers will be put in the Losers Pool.

Players selection for each double partner and scheduling were done by a random draw. I got to be partnered with Owen Pryce. In the qualifying round we faced Sean Chua & Romzie Rosman (my neighbour) and we finally won in the rubber set 14-21, 21-13 and 21-12.

In the Winners Pool we managed to beat Steve Kong & Awa (my brother) in another rubber set 16-21, 21-15 and 21-9. Our last match is against Wan Huzaini & Wing. They already won both previous matches with straight sets so we know this is going to be a tough match. In the end we managed to beat them 21-11 and 21-18.

The winner of Losers Pool is Sean Chua & Romzie Rosman who managed to beat Khanif & Ali Al-Belushi 21-15, 18-21 and 21-12 and Jason & Don 21-17 and 21-17.

In the end it was a good tournament day for everyone.

Lancaster Morecambe Badminton League - League Match Seventeen

Tonight we are playing against Overton B at home. Last time we managed to beat them 11-7 at their home ground so we are quite confident of getting a win. On top of that Brenda has recovered from her injury so the team is back to its strongest lineup. And so we managed to chalk a 13-5 result.

Paul was late so I started with Tim first. We won first set 15-6 but lost narrowly 13-15 in the second although we were leading 13-8 at one time. The next match with Paul was also shaky in the first set when we lost 12-15 but we managed to recover in the second set and won 15-4. After that Brenda and I mercilessly beaten our opponent 15-7 and 15-3. Looks like she is back with a bang!