The Undisputed Truth

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO/SOCA WARRIORS :

STARTERS:

GK Clayton Ince (Walsall)

DEF Osei Telesford (Puerto Rico Islanders), Keyeno Thomas (Joe Public), Dennis Lawrence (Swansea City), Kern Cupid (W Connection)

MID Carlos Edwards (Sunderland), Aurtis Whitley (W Connection), Khaleem Hyland (Unattached), Keon Daniel (United Petrotrin)

FW Kenwyne Jones (Sunderland), Stern John (Southampton)

SUBS:

Ancil Farrier (University Of Southern Connecticut), Akile Edwards (Defence Force), Kareem Smith (United Petrotrin), Kevon Carter (Defence Force), Kevaughn Connell (l’Entente SSG), Jerol Forbes (United Petrotrin), Darryl Roberts (Dutch-based), Jan Michael Williams (Sheffield United), Ataullah Guerra (San Juan Jabloteh)

SUBS In FOR:

Connell for Daniel
Forbes for John
Roberts for Jones
Carter for Edwards
Guerra for Hyland
Williams for Ince
A.Edwards for Cupid
Farrier for Telesford

PLAYERS DROPPED:

Marvin Phillip (W Connection), Akeem Adams (W Connection), Stephan David (Caledonia AIA), Jamal Gay (Under 20s), Anton Pierre (Defence Force), Makan Hislop (United Petrotrin)

ENGLAND/THREE LIONS

GK David James (Portsmouth)

DEF Glen Johnson (Portsmouth), Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United), John Terry (Chelsea), Ashley Cole (Chelsea)

MID David Beckham (LA Galaxy), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), Stewart Downing

FW Gabriel Agbonlahor (Aston Villa), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)

SUBS:

Michael Owen (Newcastle United), Dean Ashton (West Ham), Tom Huddlestone (Tottenham Hotspur), David Bentley (Blackburn Rovers), Wayne Bridge (Chelsea), Owen Hargreaves (Manchester United), Jermain Defoe (Portsmouth)

The game will be played on June 1st 2008 at the Hasley Crawford stadium. It can be seen locally on channel 6 CNMG or internationally on Setanta Sports and (not sure) ESPN. It could probably also be seen on sites such as : Sportingo.com or OleOleFootball.

Tickets are TT $300 for uncovered, $600 for covered and upwards from $1200 for VIP sections ($50, 100 and $200US)

The team Trinidad is fielding was picked based on politics..there is a “blacklist” of players who sued the TTFF over not being paid monies owed to them since their qualification for the WC @ Germany 2006. Hence the notable difference in the starting lineup from the great team in 2006, of which every single player is available for selection, especially the star midfielder Christopher Birchall, Swansea City-based Away Player of the Year (2008), Top Goalscorer of the League (2008), Supporters Player of the Year (200 and YouTube famous, Scottish-football fans’ sensation Jason Scotland and the legendary “Smiling Assassin”, Dwight Yorke of Sunderland. The team for the June 1st friendly is instead mostly made up of scabs, people who they thought they couldn’t leave out (Stern John for example) and grossly inexperienced, outclassed, never seen before players…..NOTABLY Clayton Ince…who was the THIRD choice goalkeeper for the 2006 World Cup, and is a well known screw-up…all against players who already are above the level of the best team had it been picked such as Rooney, Terry and Lampard….a recipe for great international embarassment on the part of Trinidad.

This is the team that played England in 2006 (attached clubs are as of 2006) :

Goalkeepers:

1 Shaka Hislop (West Ham United, England)
21 Kelvin Jack (Dundee, Scotland)
22 Clayton Ince (Coventry City, England)

Defenders:

2 Ian Cox (Gillingham, England)
3 Avery John (New England Revolution, USA)
4 Marvin Andrews (Rangers, Scotland)
5 Brent Sancho (Gillingham, England)
6 Dennis Lawrence (Wrexham, Wales)
8 Cyd Gray (San Juan Jabloteh)
17 Atiba Charles (W Connection)

Midfielders:

7 Christopher Birchall (Port Vale, England)
9 Aurtis Whitley (San Juan Jabloteh)
10 Russell Latapy (Falkirk, Scotland)
11 Carlos Edwards (Luton Town, England)
16 Evans Wise (SV Wacker Burghausen, Germany)
18 Densill Theobald (Falkirk, Scotland)
19 Dwight Yorke (Sydney FC, Australia)
23 Anthony Wolfe (San Juan Jabloteh)

Forwards:

12 Collin Samuel (Dundee United, Scotland)
13 Cornell Glen (LA Galaxy, USA)
14 Stern John (Coventry City, England)
15 Kenwyne Jones (Southampton, England)
20 Jason Scotland (St Johnstone, Scotland)

The TTFF is ruining T&T’s football. Hence I expect a sad display on June 1st..and sadly, ultimately for the team to not qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Mr. Austin Jack Warner is a corrupt, egotistical asshole and megalomanic that needs to be removed for Trinidad’s football to advance.

The following statement was released from RFK Jr. in reference to Hillary Clinton’s comments on dropping out of the nomination run, citing RFK’s assassination in June :

“It is clear from the context that Hillary was invoking a familiar political circumstance in order to support her decision to stay in the race through June. I have heard her make this reference before, also citing her husband’s 1992 race, both of which were hard fought through June. I understand how highly charged the atmosphere is, but I think it is a mistake for people to take offense.”

……….Fatality.

Now if RFK Jr. can say that then Keith Olbermann and the rest of the Hillary haters should immediately go put on a donkey’s costume, run through their neighbourhood for 5 hours while yelling at the top of their voices “I’m a biased jackass”.

The Barack Obama Campaign Headquarters AKA MSNBC has once again showed its disgusting, overbearing bias tonight with Keith ”Oba-man” Olbermann’s “Special Comment” segment where he reacts to Hillary Clinton’s slip up of a statement earlier today.

Responding to a question from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board about calls for her to drop out of the race, Clinton said:

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing the idea of abandoning the race.

Yeah big deal. She said the word ‘assassinate’. This is just a “hard-working White American” comment part 2. Throughout the campaign she messed up a few times in her choice of words in bringing a point across. Here, she obviously just means :

A lot of shit can happen in June, major table-turning events (such as a candidate getting killed) can happen, as has happened before; anything can happen, coincidentally, especially before or in the month of June which can dramatically impact the nomination, so stop bugging me about dropping out.

That’s how I see it. Yes her choice of words was a slip up or is politically incorrect once again, but hell these things happen, right sweetie? We shouldn’t get bitter about it.

However, Oba-mann threw a total bitchfit (see video), red-faced, going verbally ballistic on Clinton to the point of him apparently accidentally breaking a pencil or something on set, repeatedly showing the comments on screen and saying that it was “unforgivable”. He even spun the comment as Clinton calling for Obama’s assassination. WOW.

Its totally sickening. From now on anything political I’ll just inform my own self about it through the net rather than listen to the Obama lovefest between the borderline homosexual fan Chris “Shiver Up My Leg” Matthews and Keith-Obama-man. I know Reverend Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ has proclaimed itself as “unashamedly Black”…well MSNBC is unashamedly Obama. The research to conclusively prove that MSNBC, as well as a lot of other mainstream news networks are slanting greatly towards the idea of Barack Obama as the nominee or even President is beyond me, but on mere observation any random day its pretty obvious that there is a bias in Obama’s favor…and this issue is just another manifestation of that.

The whole coverage is basically : Obama can do no wrong and Clinton is a bitch from the start and we’re just waiting to prove it to you. I expect a flurry of loops of the video of Clinton making those comments, to see the comments scrolling in the ticker at the bottom, numerous comments from their many political analysts and the like. This may even be Hillary’s “YAHHHHHHH” moment.

I’ve already resigned myself to McCain winning so I guess it doesn’t matter.

Yes. Finals are over. 90 Level II and Level III credits have been satisfied. No more group projects, mid-terms or final exams. After 20+ years, I’m finally completely done with school. I say this because anything postgrad I imagine would not be as bad, more complex, but certainly not subject to the rigors of undergraduate life. The gap is so wide that postgrad students usually teach undergrads.

What now? Well, I plan to do like the elderly at Retirement homes. My first impression of retirement homes was “Wow, why do they send their parents there? And What do they do? Just sit around and wait to die?”. Depressing, but in actuality thats what it is. So far I’ve planned to laze around and watch out the rest of  La Femme Nikita Seasons 2 and 3. In a way that can be classified as waiting to die as well, both literally and figuratively, as I still believe university life is one of its own that I am about to lose or lost already, and I’ve heard the saying that scientifically once you start living you start dying.

Oh well. Fact of the matter is, my exams are over. A massive weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Call me crazy but I can see colours brighter and I literally just feel better. Its amazing what stress can do to you. The feeling of relief, exhaustion, accomplishment and happiness is indeed a great one.

Its been a long hard 2 weeks, and finally the Bleach folks have managed to make such a wait worthwhile. Episode 169 was funny, action-filled, suspenseful fanservice…but there a few things about it that are not quite right logically (in terms of the storyline, lets not delve into whether or not there actually are Shinigami in the real-world)..

Firstly, the most obvious : Chad, Rukia and Ishida are there. Now this is just impossible. Especially taking into the consideration the following point about Ishida’s bow which places the timeline of this story after Hueco Mundo or towards the end of the Arrancar arc. This then places them as being either beat up or too busy to be logically placed in the current Amagai Shuusuke arc.

The second peculiarity is Ishida’s bow. In fighting some hollow which surfaced over Karakura Town, Ishida, Chad and Inoue assisted Ichigo and Rukia in disposing of them. Interestingly, Ishida whips out his latest bow, the one he revealed in Hueco Mundo. 

If we were to refer to Episode #144 : Ishida, Chad, the Quickening of a New Power” we would see that this is the first episode where Ishida revealed his new, improved, and certainly more bad-ass bow weapon, Ginrei Kojaku (Silvery Mountaintop Sparrow). Prior to this, Ishida did not show any signs of having the ability to create a new bow or even officially regaining his Quincy powers after losing them as a result of using the Quincy “Final Form” and training with Ishida Ryūken in Episode #126 : Uryū vs. Ryūken! Clash of the parent-child Quincies. Even if he did, the episodes succeeding #126 and #144 were irreversible ; they could not have gone back to the living world, or took a break after having entered Hueco Mundo or beginning the fight with the Arrancar. I would like to see how this is explained.

 Is this “Jumping the Shark”?. Is the entire arc one of Aizen’s illusions? Are the people at Bleach running out of ideas? This is what happens when you try to dilute a series with so much bullshit. I’m interested to see how these inconsistencies are explained.

Is it that they totally ignored the threat of the Arrancar (who also conveniently stopped attacking) and also “vowed never to speak of it again” for the entire arc, even though the only possible timeline where the arc can be placed, with a large stretch of logic is between Episodes 127 and 135 where the Arrancar were an imminent threat? Coming to think of it even that is illogical because we saw a cool, nothing-is-going-on Hitsugaya in Episode 168, and between Episodes 127 and 135 where we are attempting to place the timeline of Episode 169, he was fighting Arrancar!

So in conclusion, Episode #169 of Bleach (New Development, the Dangerous Transfer Student Appears!”) and therefore this Amagai Shuusuke Arc, pending some fantastic logical bending and explanation, doesn’t make any sense at all. This could have well been fanfiction. It is however refreshing to see Ichigo and his dad fight in the morning, Keigo greet Ichigo, Tatsuki, Kon, Ichigo’s sisters, Rukia, Chad and Ishida. Now if only it all made sense.

*EDIT - a fellow fan is telling me that they “went forward in time” with Episode #169…still doesn’t make any sense..so they’re leapfrogging arcs now? Now she’s saying they can “do whatever they want to do” with regards to the timeline. Right…I can dance the macarena naked in the middle of the quadrangle at UWI, but it doesn’t have to make sense to other people…

I tagged and keyworded this like crazy because I really wish the regional manager of the Subway franchise or someone of similar authority from that organization would read this, and yes including the foul language.

Everyone should know about Subway by now, even if there isn’t one close to where you live. We’re all familiar with Jared Fogle’s amazing claims of how he lost like 300 pounds from just eating Subway sandwiches everyday. I’m sure I even saw the question (phrased differently) “Who is the guy who lost a lot of weight from being on a Subway diet?” as a question on Jeopardy for only 100 points.

Needless to say, Subway sandwiches are great : not too filling, tasty and best of all healthy. The price of it is another story, considering you can get a proper “meal” for about the same price of less, but that’s another story.

But, I believe quality at all restaurants is subject to the law of diminishing marginal utility, both in your own mind- “This doesn’t taste like it used to..” (when in fact it does) and on the part of the restaurant who just seem to lower their quality gradually, unintentionally or for the purposes of underhandedly saving costs. This brings to mind the folks at Coca Cola and Heineken. They’ve been around selling something that supposedly tastes the same for X amount of decades. I guess they deserve a lot more credit.

Sadly my Nokia (shitty) camera phone isn’t working and I didn’t feel like using my other phone to walk all the way out there to go take a pic of what made me write this..but someone is going around UWI, St. Augustine campus sticking up petition forms, calling themselves the “Campaign for Truth…For Real!” requesting that we sign our names to protest Subway’s (the branch at UWI) unfair practices, some of which being :

1. Employees closing the store 10-15 minutes earlier than its official closing hours (10 pm)
2. Their policy of not redeeming Subway Cards that don’t have the bill for each purchase attached (basically declaring $240 worth of purchases - average price of a sandwich is around $28TT - and the care to collect all those ridiculous stamps or management signatures worthless)
3. Not having a student special (they didn’t clarify, but I guess they mean something similar to KFC’s “study combo” which supposedly is a deal for students but its a ripoff anyway)
4. Having discourteous staff.

Notably some of the things they didn’t mention, which I always noticed about subway, my own qualms about them if you will, include :

• The ridiculously slow service. This further exacerbates the problem of the length of the lines (at any time of day mind you) because students just can’t get enough of that Chicken Teriyaki on Honey Oat with extra Pineapple..

• The STALE VEGETABLES they put in your sandwiches. They literally give you BROWN LETTUCE. Absolutely hilarious. “Good day sir would you like pickles,onions,tomatoes,blah blah blah”…you say “Yes all the veggies please”..and they proceed to put BROWN, VISIBLY SPOILT, DISGUSTING lettuce in your sandwich! estropeados lechuga!! l’embarras laitue!! Yet their slogan is EAT FRESH! Not for the life of me will I be able to get over this!! They also are frequently out of certain ingredients, sometimes 2 or 3 of them, yet when you ask them about the price they look at you as if you’re crazy. The price of a sandwich includes the veggies, but if THEY have problems with supply or whatever and don’t have pickles, green peppers, etc, which you are PAYING for…then why the fuck should you still pay the full price for it?

However, I’m in two minds about this. Its great to see UWI students attempting to mobilize and organize themselves for a cause…but as usual its petty and parochial. In recent memory of everyone, all we ever came out against as a pressure group of supposedly being the “premier university of the Caribbean” are : not getting into certain clubs at Port-of-Spain, administrative policies regarding residency and “security around campus” because people insist they should walk around Curepe/St. Augustine at odd hours of the night and think nothing should happen to them. The stance against the government construction of the aluminum smelters was something to be proud of, but that was still just a minority group within the student body.

I’ve dealt with the horrors of Subway by doing something amazing : NOT BUYING IT. There is something called power of the consumer, i.e to choose to buy or not buy from somewhere. Why are they bitching about this shit when they can just buy from Boomers, the other local “health sandwich”, bootleg Subway restaurant right which is right next to Subway??? How about KFC which is also right next to Subway?? Or the grill restaurants around the corner or over the highway?? Or Papa John’s or Pizza Hut who deliver to UWI in like 10 minutes??? Or the numerous Chinese restaurants all over the place?? What pussies they are making us out to be!

Yes, the whole policy of not redeeming Subway cards if you don’t have the bills attached is cheap, unfair bullshit, they’re slow, their lettuce is RIDICULOUS, and well they just suck basically but fine, hit them where it hurts and stop buying it! Everyday at lunch time I often see about 30 people in line for Subway, then I see people pass by, look inside, see the line, and happily become the 31st person, knowing fully well they have atleast a half hour wait to get a stupid chicken sandwich!

I’m almost beginning to think that for students to be slaves to something just because it tastes good or because its an international franchise, they deserve such treatment. I’m pretty sure everyone sees that the lettuce is 3 DAYS OLD but they continue buying it, based on the length of those lines everyday.

So shut up and take it, because apparently Trinis and UWI students are married to Subway and continue to accept horribly sub-standard service and products and are blind to other fast-food options and the power to boycott. They could probably pee in the sandwiches are call it mustard and there will still be a mad rush of a line there tomorrow morning.

So fuck that, i’m not signing a petition which basically is me identifying myself as saying : “I need Subway, I can’t help but put up with their bullshit because I can’t buy something else, please put an end to my misery and like, heed to my demands of being a dumbass, captive customer, I need….chick….en…teri….yaki…..now…must…sign…petition…”. Idiots.

As you may have already realized if you’re the average, check-your-wall-every-hour, Facebook
user, they’ve added a chat feature.

I can bet my head on a chopping block that worker productivity atleast across the States and Trinidad have dropped significantly since Facebook introduced this.

Did we really need that? Especially during exam season? No more cyber-stalking people and then sending your friends messages about it later, you can now do it live! I guess this means people’s MSN Messengers will be put down to collect some dust, people who use Hi5 and MySpace instead of Facebook have become even more stupid automatically, and university students and employees who use computers at work may find work and studying even more difficult than usual.

But, you have to give them credit for yet again adding something which we all sorta wanted but didn’t really request. First was Facebook Applications, now Chat. The people at Facebook are like little elves that live in your house who come in when you’re not looking and switch around little things throughout the rooms to make your life easier.

If only it existed earlier