FA Cup Winners 2009

And yes, the Blues have won the FA Cup for the 5th time, beating Everton 2-1 at Wembley last night and winning their first trophy in 2 years.

After the shock of falling behind after only 26 seconds (a new record) thanks to a great Louis Saha goal, Chelsea recovered to dominate the match and send of Guus Hiddink in style with the the perfect farewell gift. Drogba rose unmarked to head past Tim Howard and equalise at 20', before Frank whipped in a powerful left-footed shot 20m past a despairing Tim Howard at 72'. Beautiful goal. Dancing round the corner flag as a tribute to Frank Sr's winning goal for West Ham all those years ago, his team-mates mobbed him in celebration of what possibly could be the winning goal.

It was. Minutes later, Florent Malouda unleashed another fierce 30m drive that looked to have bounced under the crossbar before bouncing out again and caught by Howard. TV replays showed it to have crossed the line, but luckily it didn't matter. A perfect way to end the season on a high, and just reward for a fantastic season for Frank.

BLUE IS THE COLOUR ~

PS Stats II tomorrow. Pray pray pray that it's do-able. And oh yea, I think I may have gone a little overboard with the pics. It's only the FA Cup, after all.

Kings of Europe

Congrats to Barca for winning the UEFA Champions League last night and becoming the first Spanish club to win the treble. After a rocky 10 minutes dominated by United, Barca turned on the style to demolish United 2-0 with goals from Eto'o and Messi in one of the most lop-sided finales in modern history. It just wasn't United's day and with SAF making some tactical boo-boos and their star players choosing inconveniently to have an off-day, Barca ran circles round the Devils with their mesmerizing passing. Xavi and Iniesta were brilliant, showing off their superb array of passes and making United look like Stoke City. A deserved victory that could have easily been 3 or 4-0. Too bad for United, so much for the quintuple.

End-of-the-Season *Blues*

Sorry it's been a long time since the last post..I actually need to start working a little bit harder than normal here.

But first up, let me introduce you to this year's American Idol..and no, it's not Adam Lambert.

*drum roll please...* And the winner of American Idol Season 9 is....



Kris Allen! Yes, Kris upsetted the odds to snatch victory from heavy favourite Adam Lambert in what has been a gripping and highly entertaining season of American Idol. Rocker Lambert was everyone's best bet to take the coveted crown but at the end of the day, the underdog triumphed to seal a memorable stint on the hit reality show. Well done Kris!



Yea, couldn't resist another picture haha. He's cute isn't he..but I haven't totally forgiven him for taking what was rightfully Danny Gokey's place in the final. All the same, Kris served up a pretty decent show in the finale, singing Marvin Gaye's "Ain't No Sunshine"...umm my favourite, One Republic's "Apologize" and Kara DioGuardi's "No Boundaries". It was neck and neck between him and Adam, but Kris just edged it for me in the third song. I didn't even know that Adam was singing (or screaming) an inspirational song.

Fast forward to the finale on Thursday.

O.M.G. I was totally blown away. I watched it twice, TWICE! I loved every single minute of it, except for some unfortunate blips (like the Top 13 performance of Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours"; they totally butchered it again! and Megan's horrendous duet with Michael Sarver while Steve Martin played banjo. Cacophonous warbling they called it. I'm surprised she even got as far as the Top 13). I loved everything else in between: Lil Rounds and Queen Latifah's duet on "Cue the Rain", Kris and Keith Urban's country-pop "I Wanna Kiss A Girl", Black-Eyed Peas singing "Boom Boom Pow", Fergie and the girls singing "Glamorous", Alison Iraheta and Cyndi Lauper on "Time After Time", The Top 13 with Carlos Santana (I loved "Smooth!"), the guys singing Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" and Danny Gokey with Lionel Richie! I swear, I almost melted into a puddle when he sang "Hello".

But seriously, the night (at least before the results) belonged to Adam. Performing with KISS, he blew the audience away with his fantastic vocals and outrageous costume (platform boots!). And he didn't look out of place, because KISS looked like overgrown silver bats with too-long tongues. But they rocked. And the pyrotechnics rocked too haha. But the piece de resistance was when Kris and Adam dueted on the Queen song, "We Are the Champions" just before the results were announced. Again, Adam shone. He could have been Freddie Mercury's double. Honestly. And Kris...well, he's obviously not a rocker but he provided nice back-up vocals hehe.

And then we all know what happened after that. But it doesn't matter who wins it. It's about life after American Idol. Because people like Jennifer Hudson and Chris Daughtry have proved you don't need to win it to make it. It's about whether you have the mainstream appeal to make that transitional step to the real world.

Talking about mainstream appeal...perhaps it wasn't too surprising that Kris won. After all, after Danny was voted out, it was kinda obvious his fans were going to turn to Kris as the next best option. Let's face it, Adam is a fabulous singer but Kris has got more mainstream commercial appeal, with his boy-next-door cute looks and more pop-friendly voice. And a great knack of giving old songs a more relevant and modern twist, but at the same time maintaining his signature style and sound. Adam won't be too dissapointed. He's already got that recording contract and a brand new Ford Hybrid.

And on to the next set of congratulations...

Frank with manager Guus Hiddink at the Chelsea awards

Congratulations to Frank, who has the won the Chelsea's Player of the Year award an unprecendented third time, making him the first Chelsea player in the club's history to ever win the award three times. Well done, though it's small consolation for not making it into the PFA and FWA shortlist as well as BPL team of the year. But clearly, Chelsea fans recognise that Frank has been the club's most outstanding performer. Memorable moments include that last minute strike against Stoke at the Bridge to snatch victory at the death, his 2 goals against Liverpool in the UCL that killed off hopes of a Liverpool fightback and his chip against Hull that was billed to be a contender for Goal of the Season. Notching double-figures in the goal-scoring charts for another straight season, Frank's proved he can mix it with the best in Europe. In fact, Frank has had the most shots on target in the PL this season (57), joint-top assists with RVP (10) and was one of only 3 others to reach 100 Premier League goals this season.

And hearty congrats to Nicolas Anelka as well, who picked up the Golden Boot award with a fantastic strike against Sunderland on Sunday to open the scoring for Chelsea. It's about time the Golden Boot returned to Stamford Bridge, after Ronaldo won it last year. Anelka only managed to pip Ronaldo on the last day because SAF decided to rest him for the CL final tomorrow. Bet he's throwing a real old sulky now haha.

And of course, condolences to West Brom, Boro and shockingly, Newcastle who were all relegated to the Coco-Cola Championship. I still can't believe the Magpies are relegated, they've been such an ever-present side in the BPL. For 16 years in fact. Even before the BPL was formed.

Final Day results:-

Chelsea 3 Sunderland 2 (Chelsea finish third, and earn automatic qualification to the group stages of next year's Champions League)

Man Utd 1 Hull 0

Arsenal 4 Stoke 1 ( 2 fantastic goals by RVP)

Liverpool 3 Spurs 1

Everton 2 Fulham 0 (Congrats to Fulham as well, highest ever finish in 130 years and Europa League spot)

West Ham 2 Boro 1

West Brom 0 Rovers 0

Villa 1 Newcastle 0

Untitled As Yet

I need a name. And opinions. The ending went a bit funny because I lost my fingering but didn't want to stop.

AI FINALE TODAY!!!!

Chem 6A tomorrow boo.

Done :DDDD

Cheers!!! I finally finished READING Econs 5A! So happy. At least I've done one round before the exam. Am reading Unit 6 now..Chem practical on Thursday. At least Unit 6A will be a paper I'm looking to score hopefully full marks...seeing as my Chem Unit 5 is potentially a disaster, judging on Unit 4! But titration is potentially tricky...KMnO4...I never can see the meniscus.

Oh, and congratulations to all Devils fans for clinching their record-equalling 18th League title, and their 3rd consecutive one. It broke my heart to watch the after-celebrations after the Arsenal game, but one (sigh) must be gracious. :P


Chelsea will probably finish in 3rd place this year but it's okay. FA Cup final to look foward to.

Examples of protectionism are tariffs, quotas, subsidies, Voluntary Export Restraints Agreements, regulatory barriers and embargoes. Hate hate hate Econs.

Mixed

Good: -
Chelsea 4 Arsenal 1. Arsenal's biggest loss at Highbury since 1970, Chelsea's biggest win since God knows when. Enough said.

Bad:-

DANNY GOKEY OUT OF AMERICAN IDOL FINALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm still in shock.

Outrage!

Disgrace! Chelsea get dumped out of the UCL after horrifyingly, 4 or 5 penalty claims were turned down by that absurd referee! Essien gives us the perfect start after 9', but Iniesta breaks Chelsea hearts all round the world by scoring that crucial away goal at 90+4. After being the better team for 93 minutes, fate deals us a cruel card and we're out (no) thanks to that away goal rule.

Stupid referee. I don't blame Drogba for calling him an effing disgrace to the camera, or for Frank and Ballack remonstrating him after the game. He deserved it. That's how badly he screwed up, wrecking our entire European season. I don't care what UEFA says about no conspiracy theories. I'm quite sure the referee must have been under pressure from Platini not to let 2 English teams contest the final in Rome, and the exact same competitors as last year to boot. Yes Barcelona are a fantastic team, best team in the world and all that crap, but this is daylight robbery. Perhaps it looks better on the posters when the 2 so-called best teams in Europe contest in the dream finale.

It's utterly cruel, especially when we were a whisker away from a chance at redemption for last year's finals.

The only thing we have to look forward to is the FA Cup final against Everton late this month. We so better win it, because I don't think I can stomach another trophyless near-misses season.

I'm still seething so I'm in no mood to post up any pictures of the final day of college. Maybe tomorrow.

BPL:-

Man Utd v Man City
Arsenal v Chelsea
Liverpool v West Ham
Bolton v Sunderland
Tottenham v Everton

Going Mad?

Oh Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, please shine down on me...Because I'M DYING HERE STUCK IN MY ROOM, STUDYING REACTION MECHANISMS! AAARGHHH.

I'm obviously going crazy...until the point where I'm quoting nursery rhymes on my blog.

And the nightmare is only beginning...Mr. Francis just announced his little costing test is on Wednesday (!) and we have classes all the way until the 5th. WTF.

And I haven't even mentioned when's the REAL 3 hour paper.

But enough of that.

Yesterday's Stats mock was an indication of how much practice and work is still needed before the real deal. I did the paper hurriedly, a little too nervously and ended up crossing half the thing out because I didn't finish reading the question properly. And I forgot what is positive and negative skewness. Q3-Q2> Q2-Q1 is what? +ve or -ve? Damn it. And Jia Ern, I obviously don't have common sense. I have a bad memory.

So to escape from the horror of that, we decided to go for a little joy-ride to MV's Dragon-I...to eat the RM 1 chicken! It was the first time I was taking public transport and I was pleased to note that the buses were actually quite comfortable, not the ramshackle broken-down contraption that I feared.

At Dragon-I, I ordered my usual fav, siew loong pao and the fried la mian with black fungus and eggs. I swear the serving here at MV is much larger than at Centrepoint! Normally at Centrepoint, my bro and I can share a plate of la mian between us and 3 helpings of the siew loong pao! Wan Joo had this pork and rice dish that was suprisingly tasty while Jia Ern had the same as me. For desert, we had the sago mango pudding with pomelo and again, I was pleasantly surprised. Sometimes when you go out with different people, you try new things whereas with my mum and bro, we always order the same thing. And PS, it turned out that the stupid chicken was only from 6-9 pm sheesh.

We were soon joined by Pooh, Ariff, JJ and Andrew but we had to leave at 1.40 in order to catch the bus. And wth, of all days the shuttle had to come early and we missed it! Omg. We sat down and waited in vain until nearly 2 pm, by which we had to fork out for a cab back to college because we didn't want to wait for the 2pm shuttle and miss Francis' class.

Well so much for being so goody-goody. The others; namely Brian, Debra, Tash and Fei Ni were apparently stuck in a jam at IKEA while similarly, Pooh and Ariff were stuck in a jam at MV. Thankfully, Jia Ern had picked a good driver who took us by a long route, but one which was uncongested. At first Joo and I thought that he was trying to cheat us by using a long route, but it didn't turn out to be the case. And we were the only ones back first! And we were twenty to twenty-five minutes late to boot!

On American Idol:-

I caught the 8TV repeat at 9.33 pm yesterday after watching the results show at 8pm. Omg I was sooo gutted that Matt Giraud had finally left the show for good. I actually loved his rendition of "My Funny Valentine" which I thought was innocent, heartfelt and emotionally moving. Mr. Cowell quite rightly called it "brilliant". But he was still eliminated! T_T

At the same time, I also loved Kris Allen's cover of "The Way You Look Tonight", which I actually enjoyed more than Michael Buble's version. But my fav Danny Gokey stole the show with a show-stopping performance of "Come Rain Come Shine". I had become a little frustrated with him in recent weeks, as his vocals had been consistent but his showmanship had been bordering on clumsy and akward. But yesterday night, Danny showed he's ready to make it a fight to finish by raising the bar one more notch and powering through a fantastic performance Well done!

And the impossible also happened...Adam Lambert was in the bottom 3, and in the bottom 2 no less! It was between him and Matt, and for one heart-stopping (hopeful, I must admit) moment, I actually thought he would get the boot over Matt. Looks like the whole gay and *kissing another man* photos has done him way more harm than good. And as much as I don't like him, he's crazy talented and the show would be a lot less interesting without him. And though I love Matt..between him and Adam, he deserves to go more than Adam. After all, he's already been brought back from the dead twice!

And fantastically, Chelsea rocked Europe by earning a 0-0 draw with Barcelona at Camp Nou on Wednesday night in the CL. It was the first time Los Blaugrana had failed to score at home since May 23 last year, when Man Utd had come a-calling at the same stage of the competition. The Golden Guus had got it tactically spot-on again, and the defensive drills clearly paid off with Bosingwa, Terry et al handcuffing, shackling and harassing Messi and co; and generally keeping them quiet all night. Barca had a whopping 71% possesion, but the Blues stood firm with Petr Cech making some brilliant saves and we take the advantage home to Stamford Bridge with us.

UCL Semis 1st leg:-

Chelsea (A) 0 Barca (H) 0
Man Utd (H) 1 Arsenal (A) 0

Tomorrow night:-

Chelsea v Fulham
Man Utd v Boro
Liverpool v Newcastle
Sunderland v Everton

El Clasico: Real Madrid v Barcelona

Are you sure that we're awake? It seems to me
That yet we sleep, we dream. -A Midsummer Night's Dream