Fall Season!

Every September is exciting times for TV shows addicts, the fall season signals the return of shows from their breaks. As usual, the four shows I look forward too every week.
The delicious line-up
Tuesday - Prison Break (Season 4 Premiere)
Wednesday - Boston Legal (Season 5 Premiere)
Thursday - America's Next Top Model (Season 11 Premiere), Private Practice (Season 2 Premiere)
Friday - Grey's Anatomy (Season 5 Premiere)

Every day is a day to look forward too....after coming back from college. I shall reward myself by watching them every day for a day's hard work.
Btw, the dates for these returning series are

Prison Break - 1 September
America's Next Top Model - 3 September
Boston Legal - 22 September
Grey's Anatomy - 25 September
Private Practice - 1 October

So I guess things would be at full force by the end of the month. So which of the these shows I just can't wait to start watching. Next Top Model? hmm..predictable at times and after 7 seasons of watching this series, definitely not this. Boston is quite hilarious but not the kind of excitement you would virtually countdown the days for the next episode. Grey's Anatomy, this one would be one to look out for. Interest is still fresh for this show so I'm quite excited by it. Private Practice is relatively is relatively new, but the second season of shows usually gets more attention from viewers. We'll see how much better it does.So this just leaves one show left I am totally excited about. It had the worst season ever the last time. Prison Break ! Time for redemption and the first stride has already been taken even before the show has started.
Photos gives better descriptions. So here is it.

The Return of Sara !!! Looking hotter than ever.
Cast for Season 4!
How glad am I to see her in that picture. I had the worst feeling in the world when we first 'lost' her. Btw, I don't think I see Whistler in the picture...hmm..
Main points from last season's finale.
1)Michael , Whistler, Mahone and McGrady escaped from Sona.
2)Sucre is now trapped in Sona with Bagwell and Bellick.
3)T-Bag has the 'bird' book.
4)Whistler and Mahone seem to have known each other before.
5)Sophia has left James Whistler.
6)Michael found a file on "Jason Leef"

there's just so much to look forward to, with new characters and more information on what The Company wants, it has to be promising. Hopefully it lives up to expectations after a disastrous season 3.

~deyao~

The New Face of Country Music

It's been rather long since I had my last music album review. I wanted to do this review for some time now but I just haven't got real "spare time". University hours may be short but damn hell it takes a lot more of any free time. I don't think I could even manage 1 post per week for the moment, but hopefully things settle a little more and I can post more often.

That aside, this young and fabulous country singer has really surprised me. I knew her for awhile now but only recently I got to experience her entire album, which was a wonderful experience. When it comes to modern country today, I would say Carrie Underwood rules most of it. Carrie came out with her Some Hearts album and it sold like mad, not sure how many platinums she got for "Before He Cheats". But she has tremendously successful. But now comes a new artists and I feel she IS the new face of country. Already nominated for "Best New Artist" in the Grammys, she is no other than Taylor Swift. Her first album and it is already brilliant. There's just not enough words to describe this album. I'll start with Fantastic? For those who like country music , Taylor Swift would be at the top. Not at the at Trisha Yearwood, Leann Rimes or Faith Hill level yet. But believe me, her songs are unbelievable for a new artist turning 19 only at the end of 2008. There's a huge lag between this album's release and this review. But it's definitely worth it.

Let's go to the album, here's the cover.
It is a pretty nice cover. But pictures aren't audible so you really gotta check the album out.

Now to the songs. We all heard Teardrops on My Guitar. Some of us felt it was quite nice and some may have thought it was bad. I can't represent anyone's view but I liked it.

The album is like many of the new albums around, the young and ambitious ones.
Here's the list of the songs. The ones highlighted in ORANGE are the excellent ones. The others are rated 8/10. Check out the videos too.

1. Tim McGraw
   
2. Picture to Burn Video link
   
3. Teardrops on My Guitar
   
4. A Place in This World
5. Cold as You
   
6. The Outside
7. Tied Together with a Smile
8. Stay Beautiful
9. Should've Said No
   
10. Mary's Song
    
11. Our Song Video link
    

I have listened to it about 5-6 times on repeat to make sure it was how I thought it was. Our Song , Should've Said No has already made it big on the charts. Those songs are just wonderful to listen to. The lyrics are very creative too. It's really amazing for a new artist to start off at such a high level. I am totally impressed. Songs are very uplifting, vocals are powerful and everything in this album seems to just fit in perfectly. Anyone has to check this album out.
My rating would be 9.3/10.

I'll leave it here with some pictures.



Elegance.


The shinny guitar in the "Our Song" video.


Nice curls.


And lastly, a full shot.

~deyao~

Join Fantasy Premier League

As the BPL is about to start. Join Fantasy Premier League!


Players chosen will get points according to their performances each week. Test your knowledge on the game. Register before 16 August 6.30pm Malaysian Time which is the deadline for Gameweek 1 !
Join my league "Winner takes ALL". League code 76564-144969
Click on the banner to register!!
Post any queries you have.

~deyao~

Of Takeovers and Presidents

Football today is no longer just a sport, it's a money-making business, in fact a very huge one. We have come to see various takeovers in the BPL in the recent years,namely the big ones Chelsea, ManUtd and Liverpool. The scale of earnings in the football has risen so much recently until it has become very attractive investments for the super-rich. An author once said, you will never get rich working under an employer because you are only serving that particular person. The more people you serve the richer you get. True enough, the BPL is broadcast all around the world and it's biggest customer is obviously the most populated continent of them all, Asia. There's no official numbers how wide the audience is, but to simplify things, it's in terms of billions.


We've seen many takeovers in the BPL. Here's the list of them I compiled
Chelsea - Roman Abromovich
Man Utd - Malcolm Glazer and family
Liverpool - George Gillett and Tom Hicks
Aston Villa - Randy Lerner
Newcastle - Mike Ashley
Portsmouth - Alexandre Gaydamak
Fulham - Mohamed Al-Fayed
Man City - Thaksin Shinawatra
Sunderland - Consortium headed by Niall Quinn
West Ham - Eggert Magnusson

10 clubs are have been involved in takeovers and only 1 British ownership has been retained, Mike Ashley, owner of Newcastle United.

Next , the ones under-threat
Arsenal - Alisher Usmanov and Stanley Kroenke
Tottenham and Everton - Dubai Investment Group (DIG)
West Brom - Carson Yeung

So are takeovers good for the game? There's plenty of ways to look at this. Chelsea would be the strongest example for supporting the takeover argument. Russian money indeed has transformed Chelsea from an average to a world-class footballing club. This enabled Chelsea to break the stranglehold of the two-horse race previously. Competition is stiff as ever and obviously this improves the quality of the league. With takeovers at smaller clubs such as Portsmouth , Aston Villa and Man City, those teams are no longer that easy to beat. In fact, those are the teams trying to breakthrough the top 4 and they are mounting lots of pressure on the "Big 4" to be at the top of their game.

Financially, takeovers are extremely good for any club. Injections into clubs allow them not only to pay off outstanding debts but most importantly provide transfer kitties to buy bigger players.

Then why on earth are fans objecting them? It's quite simply because of emotional and ethical reasons. I'm not sure how other fans feel when their clubs are being takeover, but I am quite against any takeover at Arsenal. I do feel that letting foreigners own the club would mean repatriation of earnings to other countries. All the money generated by English clubs eventually does not stay in England and in the long term the BPL is technically a foreign-owned league. That's one part of the argument. I thank owners of the club that do not play any role in the clubs decision-making. This is one of the biggest fears when a takeover occurs. We saw Freddy Shepperd, once chairman at Newcastle signing Patrick Kluivert. I am very sure it wasn't Sam's proposal. We also saw Mr. Abramovich making the decision to bring in Andriv Shevchenko,and that too was definitely not a manager's(Jose) signing. This sort of interference is very disturbing to clubs and it is very frustrating for managers having their roles taken from them. That is what I fear most. If an owner buys a club and leaves the management to do their job,then this could be accepted.

President's control

Now comes the other issue. The huge involvement of president's of clubs. Especially Laporta of Barcelona, Calderon of Real Madrid and Milan's Galliani. I am not sure whether this has been practice for years where presidents exert a lot of control over a manager's role. For example, the pursuit of C.Ronaldo by Real Madrid was done by Calderon all the way, not Bernd Schuster which knows what the team needs and want. That is one sign of corporate side of football using its powers. Is it how it should be , I think not. Another more recent example, Kaka's representatives met on Roman Abramovich's yacht to discuss a move. Kaka's agent's are fine, but shouldn't be Scolari be doing the negotiations instead of an outsider from operations, the owner himself. It just doesn't sound right.
Presidents unveiling new players at the press is still perfectly fine. Corporate executives such as David Gill of Man Utd , Peter Kenyon of Chelsea and Ken Friar of Arsenal who work closely with managers when dealing with transfers are doing it the right way. But for those having little discussions with managers are going make some big mistakes for sure.

The 700mil pounds question would be whether Arsenal needs a takeover to help reduce the burden of paying off stadium debts and having extra transfer funds. I do think this season would be quite a decider whether the the club is able to cope with having to be selling-club (net income from transfers). David Dein is very serious about a takeover, I do understand his view but there's just a lot more in a takeover. Comments and views are welcomed.

~deyao~