STOKE CITY FC 2008/09 NEW HOME KIT

Stoke City have revealed their new kit designs for next season and the traditional red and white stripes have been replaced by a shirt with fewer, but broader stripes.

The new look shirt features a predominant red stripe down the front, with le coq sportif's stylish blue logo on both the right hand sleeve and the right hand side of the chest.

The Stoke City club crest is positioned as usual on the left hand side of the chest.

La Brancaia Toscana Il Blu 2003

The top product of the Brancaia brand is the Brancaia IL BLU, IGT (Supertuscan),
50% Sangiovese, 45% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Blackberries, currants and berries with hints of minerals. Full-bodied and chewy, with lots of character.
It's 5pm, Saturday afternoon.... cellphone rings....Buddy calls for a quick bottle at our usual haunt....5.10pm we are sitting around this bottle we have had several times before.... The results is another well spent couple of hours catching up and the accompanying bottle did not disappoint....Still young, it was surprisingly approachable and fun to drink today,... At first the taste had lots of leather.... That too gave way over time first cherry then plumb.... We drank over the course of an hour and a half.... I'm guessing that 3 hours of decanting would have really helped.

As always the downside to drinking in KL is that it will set you back RM268 a bottle retail.

Colchester United 0 Stoke City 1

The wait goes on for another week..... Stoke City moved a step nearer promotion to the Premier League with a narrow win over Colchester in what was the last ever game to be staged at Layer Road. Stoke City were five minutes from reaching the top tier of English football for the first time in 23 years, until Hull City scored a late winner against Crystal Palace.

They still lead Hull by three points, but their inferior goal difference means Stoke can still be caught on the final day of the season. Hull's win looks set to see promotion delayed, rather than denied to Stoke. The Britannia Stadium could yet see a party.

KJ's Cronies Hang Out @ Cafe Chef and Brew, Plaza Damansara

I've known of this place for quite sometime now but never got about to blog about it. I always use as a convenient half way meeting point.It's kind of like the neighbourhood cafe that seems to serve about anything and everything. I was told that the outlet is is owned and managed by the group that runs the Victoria Station Steakhouse.

It's another of those places where the menu reads like a phone book offering everything under the sun. The place is cosy and thats the only thing good i got to say of this place. The food sucks and the coffee is like dish water. Enough said.

The interesting thing of this place is the people that hang around there. I noticed many of those rent seeking crony types occupying many of the outdoor tables. I was right because a big black SUV bearing the registration KJ10Q comes up the driveway and out jumps the PM's son-in-law. He then run's upstairs to his office with all those seeking am audience with him in tow.

I spent a while sipping dish water while watching numerous people carrying thick files go up and down the stairs and hanging around waiting to be summoned upstairs. I must say that KJ must be doing very well for a former Timbalan Ketua Setiausaha Sulit di Pejabat Perdana Menteri to this successful business person. Life must be amazing for this young man.

Elsewhere the father in law our PM is once again going to review the projects he boldly said will be implemented under the 9th Malaysia Plan during his election campaign. Let's face it, nothing has taken off since he took over office. No Crooked Singapore Bridge now its NO PENANG Bridge too because of escalating cost. Fuck why cant somebody tell him that its not going to get any cheaper if you continue delaying things!!

Only people benefitting from his incompetence is his family, son-in law and cronies!!

LIVERPOOL 1 CHELSEA 1

European Champions League Semi Finals First Leg
I'm nursing a headache from not enough sleep. Yup i stayed up to watch the game. Liverpool deservedly took the lead thanks to Dirk Kuyts tireless contribution.
John Arne Risse was brought in when Fabio Aurellio pulled a groin muscle. JAR finally ended his goal drought by heading in an injury time own goal to give Chelsea the edge for the return leg at Stamford Bridge.
Its going to be tough as the Reds have not scored at the Bridge since Rafa Benitez was in charge.

The Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Restaurant and Market @ The Curve

The Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Restaurant and Market is a chain of seafood restaurants inspired by the 1994 film Forrest Gump.
The restaurant is named after the movie's main characters Benjamin Bufford "Bubba" Blue and Forrest Gump who talked about going into shrimping business.

Well here's another of those franchise chain restaurants thats hitting our shores. “Mama always said life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what your gonna get” That’s exactly what was going through my head when I walked into Bubba Gump’s.

Unfortunately this one was no where near my expectations. I've been to many so called themed restaurants and have been predictably dissapointed by most of them. It's a theme restaurant so you have to expect that its going to be busy, noisy and more expensive than it's worth.

It's new so you can expect over enthusiastic waiters that annoy the daylights out of me. So it was good that they had that unique paging system consisting of two license plates on the tables marked "Run Forrest Run" from Jenny's famous quote and "Stop Forrest Stop" based on the signs used to help Forrest when he played football at the University of Alabama. The red "Stop Forrest Stop" sign is used to signal that a table needs service and the blue "Run Forrest Run" means that all is well.

I also had the unfortunate pleasure of sitting next to 2 tables that were celebrating birthdays. You can imagine the racket the staff made with their incomprehensible singing, clapping, foot stomping and booty shaking.

The menu consists mostly of shrimp dishes, but also other seafood, as well as Southern and Cajun cuisine. On the menu, was (quoting from the movie) that "shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo, pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried, there's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. Th-that's about it.

We basically ordered the house specialities of Bubba Dip of artichoke and cheese with tortila chips and Shrimpers Heaven a combination of 4 varieties of prawns and sauces which was nothing to shout about. Only positive was the drinks.

To put it simply, the menu was disappointing, music was too loud, high prices, good service. Not sure if we'd go back next time.

QUOTABLE QUOTES 08/03

Life is just one damned thing after another. - Elbert Hubbard

The Apartment, Curve Mutiara Damansara

Here's my blog where i give my unsolicited, unqualified review on good bottles and places to eat......
i look at restaurants from the perspective of an armchair food critic. Wherever i go, be it street food, restaurants, franchises, trendy, posh, high priced etc. All i want is my moneys worth. I expect good food properly prepared, prices in line with the decor, and an efficient, congenial, but not patronizing staff doing its best to assure return business. That's really not much to ask. Yet, many restaurants I visit fail to meet these basic criteria. I will award the places i eat with one to three stars, where one star for good food in its category, two stars for very good food in its category and three stars for exceptional food in its category. ie. a local Michelin star rating ;-)


I will never forget how the staff in this establishent expalined that their menu is based on favourites from Jamie Olivers cookbook!! The menu on a clipboard was like the indexes on the back pages of a cookbook. The decor was based on a living space with a corner resembling a bathroom with tiles and fittings minus a bathtub.

Since it was a lazy sunday afternoon i ordered the perfect pint of Guiness draft on the menu and what i got instead was the can version. The waiter insisted it was a draft and when i questioned the bartender he told me that that they had ran out of it and thought nothing of informing the customer.

Now on to the food, i get turned off rather then impressed with a menu that has too many items for their own good. As it was 3pm, we thought we would grab a light lunch of tomato and mozarella salad. When it arrived it was swimming in its balsamic dressing. It was like having an oily black balsamic soup with cherry tomato's and mozarella floating about.

Next came the open faced beef bacon sandwich on a bed of rocket with two poached eggs on top. The rocket was dried out and the poached eggs were about hard boiled.

Later for dessert was a chocolate mousse cake that was as hard as a rock and when i mentioned it to the waitress she just shrugged and told me that maybe the cake chiller was turned down too low!! I didn't bother about coffee after that.

All this abuse for around RM70++

Overall the decor was tacky, the food was forgettable and the service appalling.

RATING: NIL

GIANNI GAGLIARDO BAROLO PREVE 2001

GIANNI GAGLIARDO BAROLO PREVE 2001, now thats a name to remember. Buddy of mine made good on our Liverpool vs Arsenal triology.

Gianni Gagliardo is located in Piedmont, Italy. The Barolo, one of many to claim the title "Wine of kings, and king of wines".

An intricate, complex nose offering sweet cherries, tobacco, minerals and spices, complimenting an exquisitely structured, balanced palate with a nimble poise of sweet berries, minerality and freshness, great tannic backbone and a complex, very long after-taste. Great stuff!

Major drawback here is that it retails around RM300 a bottle but its worth every drop in my books.

BRICKENDONBURY NO MORE

FIRST THE GOOD NEWS....The sports ministry's "Forward Training Base" at Brickendonbury outside London is scrapped.

It was doomed from the start when that former sports minister Azalina proposed it. It was all an exercise to hoodwink taxpayers to part with over RM490 million.

THE BAD NEWS IS.... I just cannot understand how the former sports minister now tourism minister can still hold office after all those lies of rave reviews reported in the papers about how the U16 football team & squash players using the facilities. They were never there, they were all blatant lies & she's still in fuckin office!!!

"MAJULAH SUKAN UNTUK NEGARA"

QUOTABLE QUOTES 08/02

"I can sympathize with people's pains, but not with their pleasures. There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.”
- Aldous Huxley

LIVERPOOL 4 ARSENAL 2

The Reds are thru to their third Champions League semifinals in 4 years with a 5-3 aggregate win over Arsenal.
Once again Chelsea are their opponents after they secured a 2-0 (agg 3-2) home win againts Fenerbache.

Liverpool was scrappy in the first half & i believe it was Arsenals tired legs which eventually gave way.Though the penalty awarded looked dodgy. However it was down to Liverpools tenacity & hunger that brought them thru.

Didn't get much sleep but i'm not complaining. Got an early morning sms from my buddy..."Which bottle?" and i replied "Any decent vintage will do buddy." YNWA

SUFIAH YUSUF, LIVING THE LIFE SHE WANTS

The Star 7th April 2008 reports that child maths prodigy Sufiah Yusof, the people in our goverment want to help put back on the right path in life is living the life she wants without any regrets.

She's also living the life of a princess and is adamant about continuing with her "career" because "i have a nice life". She's now full of confidence and having the best sex of her life.

So people in the goverment she does not need your help and as i said earlier why the hell are you people so concerned for a foreigner in the first place?

There are thousands of Malaysians out there that need help so why the fuck can't you people in goverment "get it" that this Sufiah character doesn't want your help and that its better to help those who really deserve it.

BADAWI HITS BACK??!!

Today's Star newspaper reported that our so called Prime Minister shows his "tough side" and slams his critics after UMNO meeting. Claiming that disciplinary action will be taken againts UMNO members who sabotaged the Barisans Nasionals chances of winning two thirds majority in Parliament and the states of Kedah and Perak. He seems to be remembering alot of things now that he's down in the gutter.

Previously he could not remember anything about the oil for food scandal, didn't know anything about his son-in-laws purchase of ECM Libra, didn't know that his son's company Scomi was getting the bulk of Petronas contracts etc etc.

But suddenly he remembers so much about his detractors past like reminding Tun Mahathir about Ops Lalang and that UMNO was deregistred during his tenure. HOWEVER HE CONVENIENTLY FORGOT ABOUT THE FACT THAT UMNO WAS DEREGISTRED BECAUSE OF THE SEMANGAT 46 DEBACLE WHICH HE WAS PART OF WITH TENGKU RAZALEIGH AND MUSA HITAM. HELLO! BADAWI DO YOU REMEMBER!!?

He is also accusing Tengku Razaleigh as the reason BN lost Kelantan in 1990 when Semangat 46 join forces with PAS. HELLO BODOHWI YOU WERE PART OF THAT, REMEMBER!!! NOW YOU ACCUSE HIM OF NOT DOING ANYTHING TO HELP BN WIN IN KELANTAN. SO HOW ABOUT YOUR HOME STATE OF PENANG?? WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE FUCKIN RESPONSIBILITY FOR THAT!!!

As for Anwar Ibrahim , YOU MR. PM WILL DESTROY UMNO, MCA, MIC, GERAKAN AND BARISAN NASIONAL(NOT THAT I CARE) AND THE BENEFACTORS WILL BE THE OPPOSITION AND THATS WHY HE'S THE LEADER IN WAITING!!!

QUOTABLE QUOTES 08/01

Truth is not determined by majority vote. ~Doug Gwyn

ADVANTAGE LIVERPOOL

Great result for Liverpool. 1-1 away in Emirates sets the rhythm in the first of this trilogy for next week. I only caught the second half,i vaguely remember much of the match except Arsenal were always in possession and attacking whenever i opened my eyes between my slumber. Overall Arsenal were the better side while Liverpool and Rafa Benitez some how must have made a pact with the Champions League Devil with the kind of results they get in this tournament. With the away goals rule its now advantage Liverpool but theres still plenty to play for. YNWA

"SAVE SUFIAH PROGRAMME??!!"

Bernama quoting Minister in the PM's Department Zahid Hamidi......

The Prime Minister's Department and the Malaysian Missionary Foundation (Yadim) will try to assist former child maths genius Sufiah Yusof, now aged 23 and fending for herself as a prostitute in Salford, Manchester.

Zahid said they would help the gifted girl to return to the right path through the "Save Sufiah Programme".

"The first thing we should try to do is to contact her mother or arrange a meeting with Sufiah to find out the real reasons for her to turn to prostitution, offering her services through the Internet and using the name Shilpa Lee," he told reporters after attending a biefing by Yadim here Tuesday.

It has been reported in the "News of the World" that Sufiah is now a 130- pound an-hour hooker operating from her dingy back street flat.

The "Save Sufiah Programme" is headed by Deputy Minister in the PM's Department Mashitah Ibrahim who will come up with strategies to assist Sufiah as soon as possible.

Sufiah created news when she was accepted into Oxford University at age just 13. Her mother, Malaysian-born Halimaton Yusof from Muar, Johor, and her father, Farooq Yusof from Pakistan both tutored her and her siblings at home.

However, Farooq is now in jail after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting two 15-year-old girls whom he home tutored in maths.

AC_here says...... I'm not really clear about this but isn't she a British subject and she's over 18 and an adult by law. So why are our ministers so concerned about a foreigner. Her father is a sex offender and her mom gave up her Malaysian citizenship so why so much interest in their affairs. It really doesn't make sense to assist someone who makes GBP130 an hour. What makes them think that she wants to be helped in the first place.

Frankly i think these fuckers in the goverment should take care of its own backyard first instead of looking into the plight of a so called flawed math genius from Oxford. There are loads of other deserving cases closer to home that i don't see these goverment jokers giving any attention. Instead they want to help a British subject who don't give two hoots about Malaysia.

So my message to all "Ministers" and "Heads" of Foundations............. CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME.

LIVERPOOL VS ARSENAL

The Champions League has entered the next stage with only 8 teams remaining. Two big English teams have drawn each other, Arsenal take on Liverpool.

Champions League history is the making when Arsenal and Liverpool meet for the first time in this competition in their 115 year rivalry at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday.

The Champions League quarter-final first leg will be the 200th occasion the sides have clashed and although they have faced each other in FA Cup finals and a title decider in the past, few of the previous encounters have had as much at stake.

A place in the semi-finals against Chelsea or Fenerbahce awaits the winners, with May’s final in Moscow looming just over the horizon.

Wednesday’s match is the first of three between the sides in seven days with a Premier League meeting at the Emirates on Saturday to follow before the return leg at Anfield on April 8.

Taking on a buddy of mine in this 3 match series where at stake will be 3 bottles of Barolo or Brunello's from a decent vintage. No matter who wins i know i'm going to have a good week. I love this game :-)