Glad to say it was all just a server problem and my MMR hosted blog is now up and running again *Phew*
So guess I will continue to blog over there.

I am not too sure what happened but I cannot seem to access the dashboard of the MMR server WP blog — hence I am unable to post there. And it was working just fine yesterday *sigh* Thankfully I can access all the old posts and copy them over here. So for now it’s back to the WordPress.com blog and hope that hubby can fix the problem for me. It’s great that they are slowly adding more features now, including being able to upload and customize your own header image with some of the themes.

Why my son was overjoyed yesterday — Thanks ever so much Jel!

Our son turns 17 today and I know he’s going to have a Wiggling good time. We printed 2 T-shirts for him, of his favourite Wiggles and Thomas the Tank Engine and got him 2 VCDs (Wiggles and Thomas). Jel managed to find a Wiggles DVD with 2 titles he’s been requesting for a very long time and I am sure he will be ecstatic. No guesses as to what we will have for dinner tonight — his favourite McDonald’s!

The son’s PC finally died 2 days ago. After chugging along for nearly 6 years now, I guess it was time for an upgrade. We bought his original PC back in Nov 2000 and paid about RM1200 for an AMD Duron 600 MHz CPU, 64MB SDRam and Riva TNT-2 AGP 16MB VGA card setup. (we used an old monitor and old 1GB HDD) Over the years we have changed the motherboard, power supply, RAM, graphics card and CD ROM — only the casing, CPU and floppy disc drive are original.

For just a bit more, we got a P4 2.8 GHz machine with 256MB RAM (added in another old 256MB RAM), 80GB HDD, CD ROM and a Palit 6200 256MB graphics card. Amazing how the prices of PC components have come down over the years. However he is still using his old Samsung 15″ LCD monitor which cost about RM1K a few years back. Needless to say, he is delighted with the upgrade. It’s rather ironical that has the faster CPU in the house when the kiddie games he plays only need low-end machines. We still use Win ME as some of his games are pretty old and might have problems running on WinXP, and it is much faster to restore a disc image of his C drive. (see Computer Wars) The upgrade came just in time as well for a birthday present, as he turns 17 this Sunday.

Truly a deserving win for them. The Italian defense was fabulous as usual and got through the whole tournament with only 2 goals conceded — one an own goal, and the other a penalty. I could hardly bear to watch the penalty shoot-out and closed my eyes when Del Piero stepped up to take his shot. (worried he would do a “Roberto Baggio”!) It is interesting to note that the Italian national football team comprises of players who all play in their own country, in a few major clubs. Perhaps that is an advantage they have, as they would play together more often (both with or against each other) and read each others game better.

One of the possible side effects of a trip to Giant on a Saturday afternoon, apart from picking up some bug, is injury to your toes due to the “dangerous” shopping carts. I stubbed my toe not once but twice yesterday and here is the result:

Certainly not a pretty sight is it? I was shocked to see the amount of bruising that tracked right round the toe, and down the dorsum of the foot. (Part of the redness is due to a corn though) What’s more amazing is the fact that it hardly hurts at all — for which I am most thankful — although that sure is a whopper of a bruise!

Feeling very groggy at the moment but it sure was worth it waking up at 3 am as Italy are through! Stunning late extra-time strikes from Fabio Grosso (119 min) and Alessandro Del Piero (120 min) took Italy into the World Cup final at Germany’s expense with a 2-0 win. I actually fell asleep when the game went into extra-time but apparently the Italians adopted an increasingly attacking approach, aware of the Germans’ brilliant record at penalty shoot-outs — and their own none-too-stellar record. (I still remember the Divine Ponytail’s heart-breaking penalty miss in the 1994 World Cup Final) I woke up around the last five minutes just in time to catch the two winning goals. Now to cheer on Italy with they meet with France or Portugal in the Final.
Pic shows our 2 goal-scoring heroes.

It was a weekend of surprises when France, after a very sluggish start to the World Cup, overcame Brazil with a 1-0 victory. (I think a lot of punters would have been unhappy with that result, except those that bet on France!) The other results were kinda expected — Italy getting through with a convincing 3-0 win over Ukraine, the masterful Germans overcoming the Argentinians with a brilliant penalty shoot-out and as expected England crumbling to Portugal when faced with a penalty shoot-out. Not surprising really when they have never won a penalty shoot-out in the World Cup So it’s down to the last 4:

Tuesday, 04 July 2006
Germany 0-2 Italy

Wednesday, 05 July 2006
Portugal 0-1 France

Interesting to note that the last 4 are all European teams. Will try to catch both matches live.

France proved me wrong this morning when they convincingly beat Spain 3-1. The other results were not too surprising, including England’s rather unconvincing win over Equador Portugal beat Holland in a farce that saw 16 yellow cards and 4 red cards and both sides reduced to 9 men by the end of the game. Fifa president Sepp Blatter criticised the referee’s poor handling of the match and thought he deserved a yellow card as well!

Here are fixtures for the last 8:
Friday, 30 June 2006
Germany 1-1 Argentina (Germany won 4-2 on penalties)
Italy 3-0 Ukraine

Saturday, 01 July 2006
Brazil 0-1 France
England 0-0 Portugal (Portugal won 3-1 on penalties)