It must be our lucky day...

Me and wifey were at a hypermarket doing our weekend groceries shopping yesterday. We bought some chicken, prawns, squid, veggies, breakfast stuff for the kids, some fruits for juicing (apples, berries & kiwifruits) and some fruits to eat (jack-fruit, longan & watermelon). While looking for some other stuff, we came across a contest counter. The staff was very persistent asking us to participate in a "Look for Us"contest where we have to find some stuff in the fastest time and also guess the weight of 2 dressed chickens. "Why not, I thought?". Since we had some time to spare we entered just for fun.

1. Eggplant 
2. Peria katak
3. Dragonfruit Size "L"
4. Argentina Mandarin orange
5. Coconut (old)
6. Red onions 1 kg pack
7. Kobis Beijing
8. Baby carrots 250g pack
9. Mangosteen
10. Russet Potato

We didn't expect to win but we managed to beat 9 other contestants for first prize....Guess, what's the prize? A bit of  sheer coincidence or what but we won 3kgs of chicken drumsticks, 2 packs of kiwifruit, 1 pack of apples and 1 watermelon. Those are exactly some of the things we picked up earlier, so out they go and in goes the prizes. 

... must be our lucky day

And then there were two...

After almost one month of late nights, cancelled appointments, morning blues and numerous live matches at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, we are finally down to two teams. Favorites teams; France, Italy, England, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Germany, all past winners of the World Cup have gone. The final will be between Spain and The Netherlands. La Furia Roja (The Red Fury) vs the Oranje, whichever team that wins on Sunday July 11, 2020, a new name will be added to the illustrious list of World Cup winners and the winner will also have the honour of being the first European team to win outside Europe.

The World Cup has been won only by teams from South America (Brazil-5x, Argentina-2x and Uruguay-2x) and Europe (Italy-4x, Germany-3x, England-1x, and France-1x). This World Cup will be seen as a breakthrough for the underdogs, a first of many perhaps...the one that breaks the cycle with two teams that never won the World Cup in the final. Both teams, in fact all four semifinalist displayed one similar trait, all teams played as a team, it was teamwork that won the day...it is after all a team game. England, Brazil, France, Italy, Portugal and Argentina have great world class highly-paid individual players. Some players make RM100k per day more than some people make in a year but they all failed against an efficient team playing with teamwork, courage, confidence and self-belief. England and Argentina lost to Germany by 4 goals, Germany then lost to Spain in the semis while Brazil lost to The Netherlands in the quarters.

What about the teams from Africa and Asia? While Japan, South Korea and Ghana perform respectfully by reaching the round of 16, it remains to be seen who will be the 1st African or Asian winners of the World Cup. Maybe this World Cup will pave the way to show that any team can win. Here's to a great final, may the best team wins the FIFA World Cup Trophy plus bragging rights till Brazil 2014.

Dreaming of Team Malaysia in 2014

"Honey Dew"

Hi guys, it's been some time since I last wrote on the blog....time sure flies and  I didn't notice it till someone sent me an email saying they missed my blog. Reasons? Don't have any though, excuses maybe. I can blame it on the World Cup (my pick Brazil) or being busy with tax computations before the end June dateline or busy running errands for my eldest daughter admission to Uni or maybe it's just lack of inspiration, a case of writers block, whatever. 

Been catching up on things and read some stuff on the news and the Net. Some amusing, some appalling, some inspiring and some disappointing. Sometimes we do look at the same things rather differently, guess that's what makes us unique in every single way. I do notice that for some issues, our tolerance limits have decreased to the point that we jump at our own shadows. When things go wrong we blame others instead of ourselves even when we know we are the one responsible. Sometimes the truth is right in-front of us but we fail to see it and when we get reminders of the "real" issues we become defensive. Do we have a communication issue here?

Maybe we need to learn how to communicate again...in our fast paced lives we forget the basic values of family and friendship. Communicating might seem simple and straightforward but we all know it's not. I have my own problems talking to my other half, she always say I never listen to what she says...I have problems talking to my three daughters, at times I feel they just don't understand me. 

Let me relate to you a true story about an incident I had earlier in my working life (still single then)  after coming back from my studies. We were out having lunch and  stopped by a stall for some fruits. She asked me, "What do I want?" I answered "Honeydew"...guess what? Her face blushed redder than a tomato embarrassed by my answer. I asked her "What happened?" and she said "Be serious, what do you want?". I looked at her trying to figure out which part of  "Honeydew "she didn't understand and pointed to the fruit in the display. Immediately she burst out laughing and said, "I thought you said, I need you". Imagine, one single word can bring about a totally different meaning. So guys be careful next time you say honeydew....

 

"Honeydew": use with extreme caution