The simpler life...

"An unexpected encounter, a pleasant surprise
An unexpected discovery, not so nice a find
A moment's jest, then a turn away
I so can't bear to look, he says
Yeah, they're just so gross, he concurred
Suddenly an enlightenment, a revelation
My, i didn't so much concur
Just jealous. Just envious
Revelations in this conjured, imaginary world
He woke up
And hey, he tells him, it's time to wake up"

Haha, i actually wanted to blog about how i seemed to have developed blind faith, something i thought has shunned all the time, how my outlooks of life have changed over the years and the teenage angst period of a few years back. but as so often is the case, i lost the mood to type it all out after i thought i have already thought through in my head. oh well, til next time when i'm all in the mood...

i'm probably gonna kill myself because of this entry and go on an interminable losing streak. but oh well

so yeah. after a mini slump midway through the first two rounds i've been kinda on a roll. few things feel quite like feeling the touch and feeling like the world's best pundit. so the incident of note was a few days ago. poland vs croatia and austria vs germany... one guy at my camp had just lost a few dollars and wanted to recoup it. asked me for a few tips... so after a bit of analysing with him and stuff, it's 1-0;2-0 for croatia and austria eat 1.5. thought poland was utterly crap in the first two matches so they probably can't score. motivatioin wise won't be very strong either cos they need to win and hope austria wins and hope they win by a bigger margin. don't think many of the polish would have thought it possible anyway. then on the austrian side while it's highly unlikely they'd get a win out of it 1.5 quite safe given how they have homeground advantage and germany isn't really playing the best football... and whenever i see 'crisis meetings' between the players where they leave out the coach nothing good usually comes out of it

lo and behold. strike. (if only croatia scored one more. could have earned substantially more. but i'm happy =)) was quite smug going to work the next day. saw the guy in question and guess what? he bought germany to let 1.5 and a draw for poland. lol.

maybe i'm a little insulted by the fact that after asking around for tips and seemingly having no arguments bout it he went for something else instead. but i guess it's human nature. we like to believe things that support what we believe in the first place. even when we're already set on certain decisions many of us still love to ask/research around just to find facts/data to support ur postion and reinforce ur belief. sometimes i fall into the trap too. i already have an inkling what i wanna buy for the day already but still go to some tipsters website and stuff. if they support my prediction, i go away with a confidence boost. if not, more often than not it's taken with a pinch of salt. and i guess tis goes for life in general as well

but i guess this euro has been interesting. always great to have more people watching soccer and talking bout it. it's like 4-5 people at my place who weren't really into epl and stuff started watching and betting on them (already a few have their hands burnt and have withdrawn haha. n00bs! =P). except for the severe lack of sleep everything i'm enjoying it. i love big tournaments, the euros and world cups. the atmosphere and having ball almost daily on the telly. and lady luck seems to love smiling at me during them

if only vishnu, shen hui, vishnu and ravi are still at plt3 haha. my soccer/betting kakis haha. not the same without drawn-out 2hr analysis every day

and as i always like to emphasize, betting for me is mainly just a side entertainment to the games to spice stuff up first and formost. when i started betting regularly a year or two ago, i know right from the start i'm gonna lose money in the long run. the system is against me, and there's no way i'm gonna beat a system that's all about probability. the 'attrition' rate is relatively low as long as i do not get drawn in by that impulse to recoup losses so it's all safe and all. there's been a fair share of uber boring matches that i'm only able to stay awake cos of a few small bets so i would say the money i have donated to the system isn't that badly spent. it's just like popcorn, only u get a real kick out of it when u strike big. oh well, i just can't seem to find the correct words to describe my view of betting, but might as well...

end-note: sheesh. i'm probably gonna be able to sing the italian national anthem if they continue progressing and i keep watching them. i can't shake the tune off my head. sheesh, humming someone else's national anthem haha.

wow. i can't believe i'm still awake, alive and kicking now, awaiting yet another euro match at 12. probably won't watch the 2.30 match though. think i slept like a combined total of 5+h the past 2 days...

so it started with thurs night/fri morning... missed a few euro matches the few days before so decided to watch both matches... can't say the matches won't interesting, but damn frustrating seeing austria having so many chances early on and not able to put any away. like 3-4 one on ones... anyway, so it ended at 4.30 or so... only an hour or so left til it's time to wake up for another duty day. was an absolute zombie when i reached camp. thankfully, got a bit of rest in the morning...

so work, work it was... got a little upset halfway through. cos was helping one guy do one hour of duty cos my detail wasn't all too bad, end up got taken over 20min late... lo and behold, 1h 30min left to sleep til i wake up for the italy match. surprisingly wasn't that tired considering i was dozing off for so many champions league matches earlier in the year. guess watching a team u support is much more exciting. and a small wager doesn't do the entertainment value any harm... any frustrating match to watch haha. sad... like so many times the team i support/bet on play better and then let in the first goal... but at least the match was quite interesting. quite a lot of attacking

2-4am duty next. was planning on finishing my book but my, was dying inside. like read for 15min, dying next, and then pace around for a few minutes before rinsing and repeating. thankfully this time was taken over on time/early... sent arms and next went to watch the holland match. instant revival seeing the 2-0 scoreline (had a small wager on holland overcoming a 1.5goal handicap. 5.5 odds. w00t). real nice match. very impressed with the dutch... and watching with 3 other people helped. i was quite high haha, shouting for all the goals and near misses. so only went to sleep at bout 5.30 til 7 plus

went IT fair next with saw, skiong, bing bing and pong. was zombified earlier during dismount. thankfully some coffee revived me (though it wasn't particularly nice. had it from j.co at raffles city. their donuts are great, but coffee was so-so, reminded me of mccafe stuff)... but after lunch the caffein was waring off.. was damn lethargic on the way back

last min got jio-ed for ball... haha. not enough sleep really affects ur game. none of my shots felt right... was reacting darn slowly for everything. like everyone on the court could outdribble me and i was tripping all over the place... the only useful thing i did for the few games were probably just a few screens. our team lost the first four matches or so... damn sian feeling... i was playing so pathetically haha. the whole team won't clicking too. got a bit rough halfway through too...

but then the last match... was talking to junliang before it and lamenting how sian today was, playing so crappily. began as usual... going both ways. then suddenly an injection of momentum. was tied/close at about 5 or 6 when suddenly an influx of momentum came about. first kelvin (tan) got a steal right after a damn frustrating turnover off the inbound to get our momentum back. then i swatted a low post pass away. it went out and they got the ball back but my, the momentum was turning. really interesting how such plays can really affect morale and stuff even though the actual consequence on the match isn't much... two quick pick and rolls, a nice little hand off and we were cruising. then it became tied 10-all until a nice hook from jl coming off the screen. woohoo! man, i've never felt an adrenalin pumping like that before... hard to describe how damn sweet that victory was

can't help but marvel at how caffeine and adrenaline makes the world go round

***darn, this entry was supposed to be adrenaline rushes and me in general, like how i never really get the 'runner's high' or anything like that. sad it turned out to be so much of a recounting of events and when i got to the point i'm too lazy to elaborate. oh well

and for my monthly post... (not that it's intentional, i just don't really have the urge to blog much nowadays except for some random issues here and there)

well, so was quite a disappointment today. have been looking forward for today (as in, sat night) since last week where i missed it cos i was on duty. alas it was not to be, rain and last minute issues and all. oh well... interesting how i've let the anticipation build up so much i felt so much for the cancellation. usually it'd just be nothing nuch. i guess maybe deep down i'm actually quite a control freak (so much for being hands-off on most stuff most of the time). it's like i can get quite worked up whenever things don't go according to my masterplan, even if they really aren't such a big deal.

oh well, look forward to next week. life's been good to me as usual, so hoping for more of the good stuff, and less of the daily drag and grind. rediscovering a few passions, so the end of the soccer season hasn't really kicked in yet (except for today i guess).... ugh, i'm not making sense yet again. i don't even remember why i came here in the first place. oh well. at least this adds a "June 2008" to the sidebar. it's interesting how it's been 4 yrs since this started. my, i'm getting old. where did all my innocent childhood and sweet teenage years go?