it’s 1-1 at stamford bridge

as the game at stamford bridge between chelsea and aston villa is progressing, it’s only a couple of minutes away from half-time, and villa has just scored an equilizer. it’s 1-1 !!! a great header, with villa showing great spirit througout the half (and the campaign so far). what a difference o’neill has made at the was previously spiritless villa team. awesome game, and i’m hoping villa pulled out an upset!

newcastle utd @ manchester utd

after a hard-fought match at lisbon (of which i predicted oh ah bingo a 1-0 win for man utd!!), man utd is up against the other united, newcastle united this coming sunday at old trafford. scott parker (newcastle’s captain) might get extra motivation after a recent call-up to the england squads, while rooney, continually supported by his team-mates, needs to pick-up his game knowing a both in-form saha-rooney partership might be the key to unlocking’ united ’s inabilities to capitilize on possessions in the last few games. newcastle has a key player in obefami martins, a promising player –of who internazionale’s president, massimo moratti, once called him ‘my little michael owen’ although his true potential are yet to be realized in a tough-tackling natures of the premiership. united, though with heinze back at left back, at least start showing some consistency at the back while carrick and scholes continues to work on their partnership in the middle of the park.

mindcubes’ long tail

playing at home after coming off a good result in europe might give united a little edge over newcastle who seem are still trying to find their identity this campaign. an early lead though might be enough for united to see-off a resilient newcastle. MAN UTD 2 – NEWCASTLE UTD 0.

lenovo is blogging with wordpress

lenovo, the maker of thinkpad laptops is now blogging using wordpress. that’s awesome, another indication to the community that php is growing and started to get more and more recognition by the big enterprises, after all who says php is not secured??

podcast with matt mullenweg (wordpress founder)

check this out guys, php pro podcast with matt mullenweg (the founder developer of wordpress, yep this beloved blog tools that we’ve been able to appreciate). awesome discussion, and pretty inspiring especially for those of you who’s considering trying out php or evangelize php.

the collapse of globalism …

just picked up this book from borders @ orchard. i’m always interested in a forward thinking on globalization and its discontents. well, i’m borrowing the terms from stiglitz, but yes that book is one of the best book that i’ve read. i’m a believer of that globalization for all its good and bad is a force that can’t be avoided, but whether a country is able to adapt or not is another story, and whether countries capitilizing on that will be able to sustain another wave, is yet another cubes to be rolled. i’m hoping this book though will show some insightful thoughts on that and on the history of globalization, i.e. how we get here to this state and why the lookahead are not as promising as what it was once promised … stay tuned for my book review.

where has all the character gone?

matchday 2 @ lisbon for united against benfica in the champions league. a repeat of last year where ronaldo got the headlines for all the wrong reason. as much as i’m a big fan of man utd for the last 16 years, united these days just lack the quality of what made them so awesome, so courageous in the 90s especially during the cantona, hughes, ince, and schmeichel days. they lack the character these days. giggs is one of the last standing squad out of that awesome team in the 90’s that still showing up fighting spirit and the determination that was the character and the symbol of sir alex’s team. it has been disappointing for the last few years (ever since beckham was sold to real madrid –though his qualities for england are questionable, his contribution from the right wing for man utd, honestly gotta be recognized especially playing in the premiership for that pace and crosses are gems), that man utd has been playing for only league cup or fa cup.

the 2006 campaign has started brightly but the last two league games form is worrying and one might wonder if the return of rooney from suspension (and his only 6 games in 6 months) might’ve affected the rhytm of the team who’s been playing so well? it’ll be interesting to see how united youngsters respond to these challanges as they should be able to capitilize on a not-so-strong Group F.

mindcubes’ long tail …

richardson probably will be dropped to bench as he’s wasting too many opportunities in the midfield. brown most likely will come in for vidic, as heinze looks to continue his fine performance on the left back. midfield: i’ll expect scholes and carrick to control the tempo again from the midfield, supported by fletcher and ronaldo on the wings, while rooney and saha should start from the attack. i wouldn’t expect a 5 men midfield as what happened at reading last week as it’s really not so wise to leave saha on the bench especially after a two goals game against celtics. united might be in for a tough game, but benfica will be without rui costa. benfica 0 – man utd 1 !!

yeah !!!

and the broncos beat the patriots as i predicted. 17-7 while i predicted 17-15. not too bad!! check out the highlight, a couple of awesome catches from (javon) walker, 3 catches for over 100 yards day. on the same note, foxworth blocked a field goal adding kicking misery to the patriots (which decision to let go vinatieri doesn’t seem to be as wise as what commonly the partriots decisions are). this is an awesome result for the broncos as they seem to be picking up from the early misfired offense while the defense has continued to carry the team. great result, and tough game ahead against a 3-0 ravens ahead next week at the mile high. i’ll blog more over the weekend on this. for now, so long and yeah!!!

awesome greasemonkey script

i’ve been using this awesome greasemonkey script for quite a while. what it does awesomely is using babel fish engine to translate highlighted text into your preferred language. simply press alt while select the text you’d like to translate into. the default is english-italian, which is just awesome as i’ve been trying hard to recover some italian that i picked-up a few years ago. it won’t help you on the grammar, but as for getting the vocabulary back and adding up some new words for me, that’s amazing! i meant i don’t have to go to altavista or google for a couple of simple words, and the best of all the interface is so clean and cool! check it out!!

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manchester united @ reading

in a little over an hour, it’ll be kick-off at the madejski stadium between manchester united and reading. reading haven’t lost a home game for 24 matches and are playing well at the moment after their long absence in the premiership (in fact, they’ve never been promoted to the premiership ever since the league rebranded it as the premiership). having said that, they look to be enjoying football at the moment, sitting at mid-table while the other promoted championship sides haven’t been enjoying the kind of success they’re having at the moment. man utd on the other hand, just came-off from a disapponting home lost to arsenal. i’m hoping carrick will partner scholes in the midfield, although it wasn’t sure whether van der sar would’ve recovered from the stomach flu he was suffering. kuszczak though is a worthy replacement and should be gaining more confidence after a solid debut against arsenal. giggs will still be out, as well as park ji-sung, with cristiano ronaldo expected to be playing at the left flank along with fletcher on the right flank. at front, saha needs to have a better game than that of arsenal, while rooney needs to pick up his own game as he admitted that he needed to improve his game. at the back, the usual service of neville (c), ferdinand, brown is expected to resume, while evra would probably given the nod ahead of silvestre. on the bench, i’d like to see solskjaer to have some good minutes as well as it would be interesting to see some actions from kieran richardson on the left flank.

mindcubes’ 2 cents:

lineup: kuszczak, neville (c), ferdinand, brown, evra, ronaldo, carrick, scholes, fletcher, rooney, saha.

united will resume normal services after a little tactical slip last weekend, as saha should be firing all cylinders, and a solid midfield controlling the high tempo of the game. READING 0 – MAN UNITED 3

denver @ new england

awesome game coming up this weekend, denver @ new england. a rematch of last year game at denver that brought the broncos to the AFC championship, with stellar display from plummer and solid defense presurring brady into one of his worst games in his glorious recent years. this year, though the story so far is a little different, broncos (1-1) is struggling with its offense –although its defense has been one of the best in the business, allowing NONE, yes no touchdown from a strings of redzone visits from the opponents. new england (2-0) on the other hand, as its trademark always been, is showing its capacity to play as a team even with losing yet a couple of key players. it’ll be an interesting game to watch, the broncos doesn’t really have that much of a good record playing at foxboro, and if plummer hasn’t get into the rhythm, the broncos could be in for a long day..

mindcubes’ 2 cents:

last week game at KC might prove to be sort of the SD game last year where it turned the broncos’ season around. i do believe the offense will start to click, although the key will be again on the defense. if they keep playing with the same intensity, new england would be in for a surprise visit from the ‘master mind’s troops. Broncos 17 – New England 15 !!