Everyone loves junk food, even the health freaks that give you the stare when you're munching down on you KFC burger, they secretly crave the bite of the fatty goodness. Now while we all like eating these foods that clog up our arteries, its important to have them in moderation and not over indulge as they will send you to your grave faster than Robert Mugabe takes to step down as Zimbabwean leader.
One of the most popular junk food has got to be the burger, no not "hamburger" we're not American, we call it a burger, some from the retarded country also call it a sandwich but lets not even go there. I, due to my religious beliefs abstain from beef so I mostly eat chicken fillet burgers, but occasionally I like to have the lamb variant. Normally I'd go down to the takeout joint and get one, but they tend to sell those normal patties which is nice but in all honesty, you want something, um thicker? So I decided to make one at home. How hard could be right?
First things first, the ingredients
200g Lamb Mince
2 chilli's (green or red)
1/4 onion
1 egg
1 clove garlic
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp English Mustard
Chop your chilli's, onion & garlic, mix into your mince, then add your salt, black pepper & mustard. Finally use just a tiny bit of your egg white (about a tsp) not too much! you just need a bit to help bind the mixture. Knead it well and form a size patty to your desire.
You can either fry it in a frying pan with some olive oil or braai it. Just remember not to burn it! I did mine on low heat and had it covered so the meat could steam up and get cooked, rather than just let the outside get seared. Well mine was a rather big size patty so its best to have let it get cooked right through. Once done, let your imagination take over in what you want in your burger. I settled for a toasted bun with a bit of mayo, a bed of lettuce, slice of tomato, crumbled greek feta with tomato sauce.
Dying in bed from abnormally high fever on Saturday, very little could lift my spirits and ignite me to move a muscle. Heck, I didnt even tweet for 12 straight hours! Until of course I noticed something fishy going on in my twitter time line (yes I was monitoring it but not tweeting). Ryan Babel tweeted that another player, Lucas had something to tell us, he then tweeted again that maybe it was Glen Johnson who wanted to tell us this. Then tweets flooded in of an expected announcement from LFC.TV.
Its like I was touched my god himself, I got out of bed, jumped around, prayed to thank the lord and informed my followers of this glorious news. Twitter, Facebook, emails and BBM's were flooded with messages of joy an elation. Roy as you know was set to go one way or another, for the owners to ask King Kenny to come back and hold fort was special, because right now we need someone special to inspire the team to be just that, a team again. Many argued that he has been out of the game for too long and doesnt understand the pressures of the modern day game. Bull shit if you ask me, he watches the games, his been back at LFC in the backroom staff and academy for over a year so to say he has lost touch is like saying Hugh Hefner doesnt know what brunettes are. His very first game in charge of Liverpool would be against Manchester United in the FA Cup, could it get any better than this? A revival game of note was on the cards. Now realistically speaking, a win was asking for much, most of all what we wanted was a good all round performance from our team.
Come Sunday the day of the game, I make sure I tune in, in time to see the King step out onto the field. The traveling KOP of 9000 dont disappoint in making his entrance a grand one. Then I saw him, out stepped Howard Webb, who? Acclaimed to be one of the best ref's in the world who for some reason always seems to make the most controversial decisions at Old Trafford against the traveling team. Lets hear it from the United guys now shall we. "Oh f*ck off, you guys are just useless, lame excuse, just finding other reasons besides your team" yeah okay what ever, wonder whats this then. Oh no, what did I do? I just posted facts of a number of games that Webb officiated at Old Trafford in which he made critical decisions that worked in favour of United. The FA are probably going to investigate me like they did to Rafa after he pulled out a list of facts, actual facts that showed proof that the FA favoured Alex Ferguson but lets not bring that up again as it may hurt the United clan as no one has single handedly insulted Fergie like that before.
Didnt take long for Webb to show his love and affection to the Red of Manchester, 3 minutes in United cut well into the Liverpool defence, the slightest of touches (if any) by Daniel Agger sends Berbatov into his very own rendition of Swan Lake. Of course Webb being 20 meters or so back, blocked by 4/5 players and no indication from his linesmen could see that this was an obvious penalty. Shocked by the decision the Liverpool players have every right to argue, for me it was pretty much a normal thing for us really. Theres almost always a dubious penalty awarded to United against us, whats that I hear? this wasnt dubious or controversial? Better tell that to Skysports, BBC Sport and Goal.com. I could post other news websites but that would just be petty. Players dive, I agree but at least own up to it, I may have said during some banter to the United blokes that Torres never dives but they managed to dig up the one and only time he did lose his balance in the League and evidently it was against United at OT, but that game was wayyy back in 2008, so who's bringing up the past now ;) Back to the game, the over all shape of Liverpool was good. Kenny resorted to playing Gerrard up front behind Torres, Maxi and Kuyt on the wings with Lucas and Miereles patrolling midfield. Kenny proved I wasnt going crazy by thinking Aurellio was better than Konchesky and had him set at Left back with Konchesky not even making the team to travel to Old Trafford that day. Agger, Skertl, Kelly and Reina made up the rest of the defence.
The team responded well to going a goal down with them creating a few good moves that could have resulted in equalising goals, unfortunately our lucky charm Vidic wasnt playing that day. Rio did well to clear many a shot and low cross that came in. Then the second of the 2 controversial decisions that Webb made in the game occurred. Free ball to be won, Gerrard and Carrick attempt to win it, I'd say Gerrard was fairly closer to it but matter of the fact is what happened next. Play was stopped after Webb felt there was no advantage to United, and after being consulted by his assistants, the United players then telling them to step away he then brandished the red card to Steven Gerrard. My view on the tackle, was it reckless? yes, malicious? no, was he making an attempt to win the ball? yes, was he wanting to damage the player? no, do I want him to damage the player? yes. The challenge warranted a stern talking to and a yellow card at most. Why just a yellow? Many say it was a 2 footed, studs up challenge, I took the liberty of getting screen grabs from the replay to show that he in fact went in with 1 foot, not two. See the back leg is in the other direction, of course once he lands the trailing leg will follow. He cant de-attach his leg. Then they say "why did he lunge?" what did they want him to do? moon walk?
It was a 50/50 but in those cases with you being in OT with Webb its seen as a 99/1 tackle. Carrick rolled around for a few seconds but was fine after that. You probably think Im being unreasonable and a bitter rival, I would post stills and videos of Rafael's stomp on Maxi or Nani's kick to Aurellio's knee but surprise, surprise none of those made the highlights nor were mentioned in any of the articles and both easily card-able offences, plus after Howard Webb gave De Jong only a yellow after his ninja kick on Alonso at the world cup final, I thought he could have been less harsh on Gerrard... oh wait Alonso was a Liverpool player, right that explains it.
Back to the game, 10 men against 12, I mean 11, we did well to hold our shape and quite honestly offered United very little space to attack with only one moment midway in the second half that made the heart skip when Reina was forced into 5/6 consecutive saves from all angles with at one stage his goal gaping open. Kenny made a double substitution which saw Maxi and Miereles depart for Babel and Shelvy. Both youngsters, both pacey and both with attacking mentality, it was clear what Kenny was thinking. They were superb, almost instantly tearing through the field, Babel firing down the left almost found Torres with his first burst, Shelvy showing his brilliance hunted down the United defender to the corner flag, and attempted to find Babel at the edge of the box but the pass was behind the arriving player. Everything we did was leaps and miles of the Liverpool we were used to seeing this season. Im not sure if it was a once of performance by certain players or if this is the Liverpool we going to see till the end of the season. Torres I must admit isnt looking himself yet but Kenny on Monday re-assured fans that they will get him back to the striker we know and love. The funny thing from after the game was the gloating by the glory hunting mancs, fine a win is a win and we are out of the competition, if it were Liverpool whom won under that circumstances I would be disappointed, besides the ref's decisions, having a team with a man short I would have liked to see my team finish them off, at 1-0 anything can happen, so it is critical to make sure of the victory. I'll just leave Uniteds failure of scoring a second down to brilliant Liverpool defence and no one can say we "parked the bus" because we did attack. It was funny reading the after match comments by the managers and players, Fergie claiming everything was fair (give me a break), Berbatov claiming he would never dive (yawn) and Kenny stating both decisions were a joke (lol).
To round of the weekend of laughs, step up Rayn Babel with his tweets. Many mock him but he is a funny yet talented guy. After tweeting "and they say he is one of the best ref's in the world smh" and posting this pic of Webb in a United kit, the FA have stepped in to punish him for such a thing, while the rest of the world laughed along with him... besides United fans of course, this shit aint funny.
Joke being doing the rounds since Sunday:
Howard Webb's kids have denied their Dad is a secret Man Utd fan."He is totally unbiased," Alex, George, Bobby, Matt and Cristiano stated.
I hope this is a signal of things to come for Liverpool as I really liked what I saw on Sunday, we played with reason again. We looked like we had tactics, plan B's, and other options apart from the boring long ball approach. Our defence looked good and had structure even with Kelly stepping in last minute for Glen Johnson. Aurellio showed he still has his set piece radar in check. So Wednesdays game away to Blackpool couldnt come sooner.
On Sunday the 9th of January 2011, was my mothers birthday, apart from this important occasion it also marked yet another meeting of English footballs two greats, Manchester United vs Liverpool FC (the most successful club in England) in the FA Cup. Now like you already know, my team is the red one... the real REDS, we're going through a tough patch as my previous post stated. The reason for this blog post is, on the morning of that Sunday, a good twitter friend of mine that hails from the Cape and who supports Manchester United tweeted and I quote: " I have a question... Why is it that nuetrals always support the team Man Utd is playing? "
Now, where do I start?
[please note I will refer to them as "fan" instead of "supporter", yes there is a difference]
Arrogance- Now dont get me wrong, when your team is winning left right and center, the fan has every right to be be arrogant, but some fans tend to take it to the next level. How you may ask? well for one, if things are not going right for them, the world is against them. Secondly they always have to be right, no number of facts proving otherwise is factual besides what they believe. They'll then turn to pesky name calling (fine there is a fair bit of name calling in footy but these guys just get pathetic at it) then digging up past info to hurl at you for not agreeing with them then insist you are jealous. I could go on about the arrogance level of the fan, but that would just amount to a series of paragraphs explaining the low mentality of these of people.
How do they come about? Well ever since 1999 ( the year of the Devil as some call it ) when Manchester United famously clenched the treble by beating Bayern Munich in a thrilling final which saw them win it in the dying seconds of the game, its almost as if a heavy cloud carrying thousands if not millions of United supporters burst over the earth. Littering countries (and especially ours) with these "Glory Hunters". Strong word to call someone, but thats essentially what they are, couldnt name a starting 11 if their life depended on it. Only thing that was important to them was: Fergie, Beckham, Scholes, Giggs, Solskjaer and the most annoying chant you ever heard in your life "Glory Glory Man United" *wipes away puke*. They'd get up on a Sunday morning (as most games in the league are played on Saturday) see if United have won, whip out that Jersey (real or fake) wear it with pride through out the day, pointing out to anyone that "their team won". Fine some do watch the games, they did so halfheartedly, get annoyed if they didnt see a goal being scored by their team in the ages that they've been sitting in front of the TV (15 minutes) then get excited when one of the few players they do know get the ball but confused as to why they passed it to another lesser known player on the pitch. Now as they years went on from 99, United kept a steady form going by winning the league and various other Cup competitions, so these glory hunters were fed with success, favourtie players changed from Beckham to Ronaldo but that old crock Fergie still remained, good thing too as most of them would be left baffled if he ever left or died.
"OMG! Justin Timberlake is wearing a ManU beanie, Im like sooo supporting that team"
If you ever confronted a glory hunter and told them there are that, they claim they are "passionate", right, refer to the paragraph on arrogant, theres a fine line between passion and being a dimwit. for example, shortly after the game on Sunday, a friend posted something on my facebook wall and by no instigation by myself, so after trying to explain a point a small argument followed.
click to enlargen
Now you see what I said, stubborn, arrogant and resorted to name calling. I wonder if he even read what I typed? I eventually lost hope in trying to educate him so I left it, but of course they always have to have the last say. Its the United way.
Now you see the bad thing with these glory hunters, is that them seem to infect the other true supporters of the said team with the vile they seem is right, hence we tend to get this mixture of arrogant fools all over the place now-a-days. Sure like I said they have a reason to be so but they divulging into the ways of filth that flood us.
Apart from being a supporter of Liverpool football club, I am a fan of the game, so I'll watch any football that is on, especially if its English. So it grates me when these fans of United claim to have knowledge of abundance but in actual fact know diddly squat, but as you can see from that insert, you try to explain that to them. So hence when another team thats playing United defeats them, the footballing world rejoices because most glory hunters go into hiding and we dont need to hear from them till the next time United win, not when they play because they know they are vulnerable to defeat, so its best to come out of hiding once victory is achieved, then they can come out and educate the world on the greatness that is "Sir Alex Ferguson and his team of men"
There are other points I'd like to raise but Im saving them for my next post as this one served just to answer the question that was tweeted. So look out for part 2.
I, just like all of you have seen my team dragged through the gutters of despair over the past season and a half. Now its just getting down right ridiculous, from losing at home to Wolves, to snatching victory at last gasp against Bolton nothing can bring us back from an embarrassing defeat away to Blackburn. Our players look lost, unguided and clueless as to what to do. Tactics seem to be the same no matter what the situation is, and players look unmotivated when they play. One player in particular who seems to have lost hope is Fernando Torres. I dont doubt his talents one bit but I he has looked a quarter the player he use to be. Often gets frustrated with lack of service to him and ends up mucking up the chances he does get. I think team tactics are reason for him to behave in this manner, if you play a certain way and excel in it, why change the system and be forced to do something that doesnt work? Or if it does work only at times. We've been branded a long ball team many a time in the previous seasons by jealous managers but we knew we played a variety, now its becoming clear that the type of game we do play is generally that. The rest of the team has nothing to write home about either, our defense is in a shambles, the midfield is all over the place and our wingers lack the accuracy of delivering a good ball into the box and the very few times they do get it right , theres no one in there to put it away.
You time is up Roy
Overall saying our away performances this season are "poor" is being modest, most of the games we were outplayed and in some cases outclassed by our opposition. The failure by our manager to change tactics or personnel in the team to force a difference has been lacking , quite honestly, like I said in my previous post on Roy Hodgson, he is out of his depth at Liverpool. He might feel he can change fortunes around, which is nice seeing that he refuses to give up but what he must understand is that he's doing more damage to the team than making it any better. He claims that this team he has isnt his, so we should give him a chance. We've got quality players here and by him bringing in the likes of Konchesky and Poulsen makes me shudder to think what "his team" would look like. Joe Cole came out the other day saying the players support the manager, of course he said that. What else was he suppose to say? Saying it is one thing and watching the shenanigans go on during matches tells the true story. Roy, before you make matters worse for yourself, just leave. The supporters have told you, and if you havent noticed, most of the players are telling you on the pitch that you are just not good enough. The sooner you leave, the better it would be for all of us.
If you're in the market for a new cellular phone, the most talked about devices are undoubtedly the Apple iPhone or a Blackberry smart phones. Sure theres 100's of others to choose from, like the Sony Ericssons, Nokia's , HTC's & Samsung's but the top 2 best sellers are the ones that share their names with fruit. Now if you're like me, the most important features to the phone must be:
Fast internet
Good camera
Processing speed
Good screen resolution
Easy to use but not too childish
Oh and make phone calls of course!
Now if you have to go through all of those key facts, one can easily find any other phone on the market that fits for what I need. It get mores technical as choice varies and so does price, plus with call rates differing from various networks it makes things even more complicated! I had the Nokia 5800 express music, and it served its purpose. The 3 megapixel camera was a major down grade from my previous 5 megapixel I had on my N95 but I learnt to live with it. The build quality is what got to me on the 5800, within a week I already started experiencing problems with the slide keylock function on the side, it worked at times, and didnt. That and the back cover clips are more flimsy than light bulb glass, the first of those broke off within the first 2 months. It did how ever hold on with the 3rd clip being more solid. The touch screen interface was simple and easy to use, it did how ever lack good app's and struggled when you installed a lot of them.
Apple iPhone4
Seeing that I already was used to touch screen one would have thought the iPhone4 would have been the obvious choice. Yes it is pricey but at the time Vodacom offered a pretty good bundle at R250 per month with 110mb data, while it had all the quialities I needed I just found it pointless as I am in the market to get the 4th Gen iTouch iPod, which is basically the same thing as the iPhone but without the phone. When I travel I like to listen to music instead of the boring crap certain airlines choose to show. So by me having this one, I couldnt make use of the mp3 player since South Africa Airline Safety regulations require all cell phones to be switched off despite what ever mode it is in. So I'd be wasting a good mp3 player. There were other factors too that weighed in, like is 110mb enough for uploads, downloads, and app use? Then there was the usual worry of my clumsiness and the durability of the LCD screen, I tend to drop things a lot. I was extra careful with my Nokia but some how that stopped but the phone it self still lives on.
Blackberry 9800 Torch
The Blackberry on the other hand meant going back to buttons, and not the kind I was used to, tiny flippin things that when first gazed upon you feel like you might smash 10 at once. There were 2 options I was looking at, firstly the Torch which is both touch screen and has a keypad. The new OS6 it comes with is pretty good so I've heard, and it comes with a 5 megapixel camera so I could take decent pictures again. The other option was the 9700 bold, which is a fairly old model on the market but still has features that would make some of the latest androids look like a toy. The downside for this model was the size of the screen and camera being 3 megapixel. Cost wise getting the a Blackberry worked out the best in terms of internet use. With BIS I have unlimited internet, so I can tweet all day long with out wondering how much my bill is going to be, plus there major plus is BBM. Yes its a glorified instant message chat service and the iPhone has whatsapp but by my god it is brilliant! I now know why most of my friends forced me to get this phone, just for BBM.
Blackberry 9700
Well as per that last sentence you would have made out I have settled for a Blackberry, the 9700, like I said its practical and I love how the internet integrates with most things on the phone. The tiny buttons look daunting but believe me you really have to try to press more than 1 button. The design of the keypad is brilliant with each button at a certain angle so that when pressing it, you press that one alone. The build quality is pretty good and it looks great, there is the cheaper 8520, which some say is the modern day Nokia 3310, but there is a major difference between the 2 phones besides having 3G and Edge, the 9700 has the new OS and a 3 megapixel camera. The screen resolution is much sharper as well. The camera doesnt take the best pictures, even when compared to my old Nokia but I've gotten used to carrying my cybershot around for proper pictures so it doesnt bother me that much. The internet services are quick and the trackball is very responsive. So far the phone seems like a winner in my books, there are certain bugs I've picked up like certain app's freezing from time to time but no major problems to report of as yet.
People who get these phones do tend to take sides, so you're either an Apple or a Blackberry person, I on the other had seem to be partial to the both. They both are remarkable phones and if I had the finances I would have gotten both but for now the Blackberry will have to do.
