Powered by glolg
Display Preferences Most Recent Entries Chatterbox Blog Links Site Statistics Category Tags About Me, Myself and Gilbert XML RSS Feed
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - 02:47 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Ending Of The Route

I realise that I have not managed to blog on many topics which I had planned to, as the holidays fly past. Euro 2008 is long over, and the Spanish probably deserved to win, with Torres bursting past Lahm embarassingly easily; Nadal won Wimbledon in a final that was destined to become an instant classic - I missed the first two sets, but assumed it was curtains for Federer, who was already down 6-4, 6-4.

Then he survived the next one 6-7, and another one 6-7, and my allegiance began to shift - was the indefatigable Nadal getting beaten at his own game? The quality of tennis was quite transcendent in any case, with both players more than capable of making unbelievable shots under pressure. I lost count of the number of scratching-the-edge winners played with the match on the line, which tells a lot about their confidence in themselves. More is on the plate with the Olympics coming up, but in the end sports has to be put into some perspective, hur hur.

None the least by a certain Cristano Ronaldo (who, it must be remembered, is younger than yours truly), ostensibly a poor slave - who are we to question the President of FIFA, who just happens to be a honorary member of Real Madrid, that prince of clubs whom would liberate a downtrodden footballer who has the misfortune to earn in a week of kicking his heels, more than what many might in a whole lifetime?

While the accusation of slavery is ludricious, the legendary Pele's welcome rejoinder that "...if you have a contract then in any job you have to finish the contract." is also not entirely accurate. There is in reality always another option, which is "... or face the consequences.". These consequences are generally pretty well-defined whenever a sufficient amount of money to attract lawyers is concerned, and although what may be legally okay is often morally frowned upon, one can't really ask any individual to discharge more than his legal responsibilities. So what are the options here?

The best scenario for United is for Ronaldo to suddenly forget all about a move to sunny Spain and follow on where he left off last season, which does have precedent - he looked rather likely to move after his bust-up with Ruud and the World Cup incident with Rooney, but was persuaded to stay both times.

Another possibility is that United decide that an unwilling slave is not worth the effort, and allow the sale to go through, certainly for a huge sum of cash - fifty million pounds is not out of the question at all. United however will have well-founded reservations about this; Firstly, they will probably need quality replacement(s), and there aren't many of those around - their owners are likely to jack prices up knowing that the buyers are flush with cash, and the transfer window rapidly closing. More importantly though is that it suggests that they are a less powerful club than Madrid, which is certainly not an image they would want to be stuck with. Beckham and Ruud were different stories altogether, as United were quite willing to release them (and they were going past the prime of their careers). Not so for Ronaldo.

So, if Ronaldo wants to leave but United refuses, what happens? The worst would probably be him intentionally playing in a disinterested way, but that would completely ruin his reputation. Ferguson could then stick him in the reserves, but if I am not mistaken Ronaldo would still be entitled to his hefty pay packet for the remainder of his contract. Bottom line is, if United refuse to let him go, Ronaldo has no right to play for any other club for the next four years, and if Ronaldo refuses to play well, United can't make him. It is up to them to do the sums and figure out if playing hardball is worth it. As for the legal situation, Ronaldo deserves little sympathy - he agreed to the terms freely, he lives with his restricted options; It's that simple.


Anyone ever heard of this brand???

Got around to getting a new router, after this antiquated model (circa 2000) hung on me as I tried to access the web interface for router settings. It was a good excuse to shop around for a shiny new one, and I was leaning towards the Linksys WRT54G series before discovering that it would be too tall for my modem/router rack.

Most of those I surveyed had a D-Link, and the D-Link DI-524 looked good to me. Was a little frightened off by by some of the reviews, but a bit more research revealed that every router has its own horror stories. In the end I found out at Sim Lim that it had been obsoleted anyway, and thus got the sleek new D-Link entry-level router, the DIR-300:


Setting it up was straightforward enough - ring up a normal broadband PPPoE connection, then plug in the router and arrange the cables as per the instructions given on-screen by the easy install guide. Ah, for the days when the average home user had little chance of getting a router running on his own. The wireless connection works too, thanks to tests by the laptops of csq and smk.

Csq also happened to win the best-basketball-uniform-ever award:


Got lost on SOC route (photo credit Alvinny)

Well not really, just that he got mobilized. Wonder when it'll be my turn, not anytime soon I hope.



comments (0) - email - share - print - direct link
trackbacks (0) - trackback url


Next: Time For School


Related Posts:
HST1101: How to Host
Making Up For Lost Time
Glory Glory Man United
The Hundred Thousand
My First Portable
Back to top

Copyright © 2006-2025 GLYS. All Rights Reserved.