Skip to content

Let off

United were extremely fortunate to earn a 2-2 draw with Lyon. (Reports: BBC, Soccernet, ManUtd.com, Guardian)

Several United players put in horrible first-half performances. Djemba-Djemba, in particular, produced what was potentially a career-ending performance in the first-half. The Cameroonian frequently gave the ball away and when he wasn’t doing that he was busy giving away freekicks.

To be fair, he wasn’t the only one guilty of that. Giggs gave the ball away in the Lyon half and then conceded a freekick in a dangerous area in his attempt to halt the resulting counterattack. Juninho’s free-kick seemed simple enough to save but Howard spilled the ball and Lyon’s central defender, Cris, reacted quickly to give his side the lead.

It got worse a minute before half-time. O’Shea’s sloppy pass to Ronaldo was intercepted and the Lyon counterattack that ensued was finished in style by Frau. United really looked dead and buried at that point.

When the going gets tough

I was somewhat shocked Ferguson kept faith in the same 11 that had let him down in the first half for the second. The only change he made was to switch Giggs and Ronaldo and it looked like a masterstroke when the duo combined to create United’s first goal. Ronaldo did very well to keep in Giggs’ overhit cross and the young winger manufactured an excellent cross of his own into the centre of the Lyon penalty area. The quality of the cross was nothing compared to the header van Nistelrooy produced. The Dutchman leapt backwards and had to flick the ball sideways to put it out of reach of the Lyon keeper and into the corner of the net. It was a finish that had ESPN colour commentator Andy Gray purring with delight.

United’s second came five minutes later. A deflection off a Lyon player fell fortunately into van Nistelrooy’s path but there no was element of luck about his finishing which was again of top quality.

United had once again fashioned an implausible comeback and it was enough to bring United fans to their feet. Hell, if it wasn’t about 4AM at that moment I would have been yelling in delight and relief.

Even the most die-hard United fan will acknowledge Lyon should have won it, though. Their young Brazilian player, Nilmar, improbably squandered a golden opportunity to win the match while his compatriot Juninho hit the upright in the final moments of the match. There were also occasions in each half when Scholes had to clear the ball off the line. Scholes even got away with deliberately using his elbow in the box to deflect a freekick away from the United goal.

United were very, very lucky to come away with a point and it’s clear Ferguson has a lot of work to do before Monday’s match against old foes Liverpool. The defence has looked fragile and porous for awhile now. Everyone is expecting Ferdinand to be the qwik-n-easy fix once he returns from suspension on Monday but I’m not as optimistic. It’s going to take him time to get back in the groove.

The midfield is another area that needs tweaking. Keane isn’t the force he once was and that other central midfield slot hasn’t been filled to satisfaction. Djemba-Djemba just isn’t capable of bossing the midfield and indeed, going by this match, he is something of a liability.

See no evil

The Guardian’s The Knowledge section is always a good read and the latest edition has some fascinating United-related trivia. One of the readers also asks if there’s ever been a deaf professional footballer. I can’t recall any and am of the opinion that it would be unlikely. For one thing, a deaf player would be oblivious to the referee’s whistle.

That’s not to say there aren’t any individuals who work in English football despite disabilities. For instance, the Premiership does have a selectively blind manager in Arsene Wenger. (The Frenchman has never been able to see one of his team’s transgressions.)

Posted in Football.

Comments Off on Let off

By Gobi – Thursday, September 16, 2004

Udder destruction

I got Warlords Battlecry 3 from Gamers Dotcom today after paying for it yesterday. I think the main reason for that quick turnaround is Pos Malaysia’s improved service.

I’ll post more about the game later but I’d like to leave you with this fascinating snippet from the manual (page 38, fact fans):

Animals can be present on any game map. While they are harmless creatures, they have their uses. For example, cows can be hurled by Catapults, and cause greater damage than usual ammunition …

What a way to go. You’re strutting about, brandishing your weapon, ready to take on the world and the last thing you ever hear is, “Moo.”

Posted in Games, WBC3.

Comments Off on Udder destruction

By Gobi – Thursday, September 16, 2004

Shock, suspense, mystery

No, the title doesn’t refer to a Korean horror flick.

This is actually about the latest Windows security scare.

I had my own problems when I tried to download the patches from Windows Update. I had no problems updating Windows Update but I couldn’t seem to get the critical OS updates I needed.

I snooped around Windows trying to figure out why and was startled to find a program called PowerReg Scheduler V3.exe in my Startup folder. I had no idea how it got there and more ominously, I had no idea what it did.

Googling about it set alarm bells off initially but additional checking revealed the program is relatively benign. PestPatrol rates PowerReg Scheduler V3 a 5 (which is still safe) and both Ad-Aware and Spybot-S&D 1.3 seem unconcerned about it. According to Leader Technologies, the company that makes it, PowerReg Scheduler V3.exe is merely used for online product registration.

But that raised another question: how did PowerReg Scheduler V3 get on my system? What was it bundled with? A bit of digging around revealed it had been installed on my PC on June 10. Hmm, what did I install on June 10 that would require product registration? The blog revealed I had received the Neverwinter Nights expansion, Hordes of the Underdark, and had reinstalled the entire game plus the two expansions that same day. The penny dropped. That game did indeed ask me if I wanted to register with Atari and if memory serves, the two valid options were “Never Register” and “Remind Me Later.” I must have clicked on “Remind Me Later” and this resulted in PowerReg Scheduler V3 being dumped in the Startup folder. Removing the program seems simple enough but this annoys me a little. I had uninstalled Neverwinter Nights so why was that registration reminder still on my system? Shouldn’t PowerReg Scheduler be automatically uninstalled when users uninstall the product it was bundled with?

Anyway, once I solved that mystery, I turned my attention to discovering why Windows Update wasn’t letting me download updates. I kept getting the 0x8024402C error and Microsoft’s solution wasn’t applicable in my case.

Google to the rescue again. Someone else had the same problem and evidently it occurs when users rig the firewall to prevent Generic Host Process for Win32 from accessing the net. I managed to update Windows without further problems once I remedied that.

Posted in Software.

Comments Off on Shock, suspense, mystery

By Gobi – Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Armies of the night

Code red! Terrorists spotted!

Posted in Pix, Toys.

Comments Off on Armies of the night

By Gobi – Monday, September 13, 2004

“Chumbawamba ABBA A-Ha”

Unsurprisingly, I had trouble when I attempted to install KotOR earlier. Upon inserting the first installation disc (of four) in my Sony DDU1621 DVD-ROM drive, I got this error message:

Dirty, so dirty

I had already begun mentally composing an e-mail expressing my outrage over the dubious quality of the product when it occurred to me to try my CD-RW drive, a Sony CRX225E. It worked this time and I somewhat reluctantly deleted the e-mail draft from memory. (All that outrage … wasted.)

It’s worth mentioning the same thing happened when I tried installing the Neverwinter Nights expansion, Shadows of Undrentide, using the DVD-ROM drive. (Oddly enough, the drive had no problems reading the CD-ROM when playing the game.) I would have assigned blame to the DVD-ROM drive if not for the numerous reports of folks who had similar problems installing that game.

Incidentally, a fresh installation of KotOR took up 3.35GB of space and the seven save game slots (including quicksave and auto-save) I’ve used thus far took up about 50MB of space. That’s probably an unimportant piece to trivia to most but if you’re short of hard disk space, that might help you determine if you’ve got enough space to play the game.

SecuROM

Annoyingly, I next had a problem when trying to launch the game for the first time. The CD-ROM spun in the DVD-ROM drive, the mouse icon changed to that rotating CD icon (I think it signifies SecuROM is in action) and then … nothing. The system apparently hung on me. I gritted my teeth, rebooted and began mentally composing another e-mail while waiting to try again.

I tried the CD-RW drive once again and I got the following message on my first attempt:

SecuROM!

I should point out I do not have Disc Emulation Software.

Fortunately, my second attempt was successful and the game has been well-behaved since then.

Mostly.

“A long time ago … (plus 4,000 years)”

I’ll post more about the game later but I’d like to mention a few things based on the three or so hours I’ve played so far.

The game was developed with the XBox in mind and I think its console origins are obvious when you consider the dodgy character movement controls. In most PC games, you select a character, point the mouse and click at a spot to get the character to move there. You can only do that in KotOR if there’s an interactive object like an NPC, door or footlocker in the vicinity. Otherwise you’ll have to use the SWZC keys to move the character around. There is an option to move characters around with the mouse but by default you have to click and hold the right mouse button in the direction you want to go and then click and hold the left mouse button to move there. It’s an absurd combination that’s bound to shorten your mouse’s lifespan. The game does allow you to define the controls so perhaps it’s possible to simplify movement via the mouse.

Sadly, the game is still buggy after three patches with a gamestopper in the Endor Spire. I took out a Sith Trooper with a long sword only to discover I couldn’t move my character. Even the mouse-killing combo move didn’t help. I tried reloading and replaying the sequence several times but the same thing occurred consistently. The workaround is simple enough — just use a ranged weapon when killing that particular Sith — but this does not inspire confidence.

The game has full digitized speech for dialogue and this includes that for the aliens. I thought Marl, one of the duellists in the Upper City Cantina, sounded uncannily like Morgan Freeman but there was no mention of him in the credits section of the manual. There are some recognisable names in the game, though including Ed Asner and several names familiar to Transformers fans e.g. Welker, Berger, Ross, Kaplan, etc.

Listening to the aliens natter on, I felt slightly sorry for the voice actors. Several years at Juilliard to study voice and speech and they end up spouting lines like, “Wooboo Choo Choo Wakka Bakka.”

Posted in Games.

Comments Off on “Chumbawamba ABBA A-Ha”

By Gobi – Monday, September 13, 2004