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You know about the world’s most popular sport. Now, allow me to introduce to you the world’s most popular website (in my opinion) about the world’s most popular sport - ESPNsoccernet.com. Missed a live match on the television? Here, you can find pictures, reviews, match reports and team information about football from almost anywhere on the globe.

ESPNsoccernet is a website fully dedicated to the sport of football. Football played with a round ball, mind you. It publishes the latest reports about happenings in the world of football all over the world. Major incidents are reported within minutes of the event taking place, for example the sacking of Chelsea’s coach Jose Mourinho last year. Reporters from the widely established ESPN are spread out in the numerous countries with major football leagues to provide up-to-date information and gossip in the respective host countries. Galleries of photographs from matches played are updated regularly, giving users a visual feast after reading through the wordy reports.

The website also has a massive database of team information, ranging from titans like Manchester United in the English Premier League to minnows like Xerez from the Spanish Ligue 2. Information about teams includes players, managers, recent form, past achievements and so on. The list is so comprehensive that I still have not managed to browse through all the information available for Manchester United. This is definitely welcome news for hardcore supporters of various teams who want to dig out detailed information about their teams. The use of this wealth of information can be further expanded - by registering for free on ESPNsoccernet, you can actually customize the welcome page, with a toolbar on the right with the latest information about your favourite team. Keeping track of your team’s progress, both on and off the pitch, has never been so easy.

The feature I appreciate most about ESPNsoccernet is the ‘Live Scores’ update section. Ever experienced being stuck in the office while your team is playing live? Stuck at home but your mum refuses to budge from watching her favourite Cantonese drama serial? ESPNsoccernet comes to the rescue. The ‘Live Scores’ feature gives updates on live matches, refreshing every 3-5 minutes. Cautions, bookings, set pieces and goals are all chronologically documented within minutes of it actually happening on the field. Now fans can follow the match even without a television, but of course, without the exciting graphical presentation.

ESPNsoccernet is a very useful website, with a host of informative features. However, the multitude of features and add-on’s make the site cumbersome. Due to the massive volumes of information, the page usually takes quite long to load, especially during peak periods like after a live match. Also, one annoying thing is that the reports lack pictures, or in a few cases only containing one. The reports can be rather lengthy and wordy, and sometimes it can be quite a chore to go through it. I felt that the picture gallery could be incorporated into the respective match reports - at least reading won’t be such a dreadful bore.

All in all, this website is really worth the read. The opinions and insights from the resident analysts are interesting reads and it would make good discussion topics. Everything about soccer under the sun can be found here, and its structure makes it child’s play to track a team’s progress through a cup or the league. I would recommend ESPNsoccernet.com to all football fans out there who have not heard about this yet.

ESPNsoccernet.com can be accessed here.
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The Nintendo Wii is a revolutionary idea from the ordinary console games. Standard console games like PlayStation and Xbox all only require the user to sit on the couch and just press on the controllers. In this new concept of home entertainment, the Wii not only encourages the player to stand up and play the games, but also made some games impossible to play while sitting down. This makes the Wii not only a tool for entertainment, but also an exercise tool for those who prefer staying at home.

The Nintendo Wii was released on December 8, 2006. Despite only being released for a year, it has already garnered much recognition in terms of sales, being declared the current sales leader over its competitors (PS3 & Xbox) by the Financial Times. As of September 2007, there are already more than 13 million units shipped worldwide.

This revolutionary new dimension of gameplay has brought lots of joy to many people. As compared to the PS3 and Xbox, the Wii has attracted much more attention. Although the PS3 and Xbox are also not too bad, they feel like mere upgrades from the older versions with the enhanced graphics without having to change the core of console gameplay. In the Nintendo’s version, the Wii is a completely different concept as compared to its predecessor, the Nintendo GameCube. Perhaps this could be the very reason why its sales were much better off, providing an alternative way of playing console games.

Personally, I experienced first-hand how the Nintendo Wii actually feels like. Despite not having the Wii myself, I’ve been over to my friend’s house to try out the Wii when he first bought it. Seriously, it looks weird just holding onto a stick-like object and swinging it around, controlling whatever it is on the TV screen. Trying it myself, I found it quite fun. Somehow, I feel that the controller is awfully sensitive, especially when moving around the Wii Menu. Perhaps it was me not used to how the controls work. However, not matter how sensitive the remote is, it is still very simple to play the games, especially those that doesn’t require much accuracy while swinging the remote (ie. golf).

Its simplicity in gaming provides those who are new to console games to actually pick them up easily. For those who already possess the predecessor, GameCube, the Wii provides an option for those to retrieve the memory of GameCube and allow the original GameCube games to be able to function on the Wii.

All in all, the unique Nintendo Wii remote could most probably be the most revolutionary console idea of 2007.

Buy Nintendo Wii Console

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The realm of magic and entertainment has a new celebrity. Once dominated by the likes of David Copperfield, we have seen the influx of many practitioners of ’street’ magic and arguably, the most successful of them all is David Blaine. It would not be unfair to say that David Blaine revolutionized the entire magic scene.

David Blaine is an American illusionist and stunt-performer who plies his trade practicing magic on the streets of American cities. He is the producer and host of two television serials ‘David Blaine: Street Magic‘ and ‘David Blaine: Magic Man‘, as well numerous special events of himself performing large-scale and high-difficulty stunts.

In the serials, a camera crew follows him on his walks through the city streets as he goes up to members of the public to perform his street magic. A recurring theme that occurs with each episode is that he first starts of with ’sleight of hand’ tricks, before progressing to more spectacular tricks. Usually he makes use of simple tricks, for example making coins disappear then reappearing on a person’s body, to fully get hold of the audience’s attention. When their curiosity is piqued, he then goes on to more daring and more flamboyant displays of his ‘magical’ prowess. My personal favourite is when he levitates in the middle of a street, without any props or assistance, to the bewilderment and shock of the people nearby.

He also attempted several high-profile, highly challenging stunts on national television. His most recent stunt was performed in November 2006, named Revolution. He was chained to a rotating gyroscope which was suspended above a parking lot in Times Square. He was trapped in there for two days before he started attempting to escape from his shackles. It was a breath-taking sight, especially for the audience present at the scene, as he defied very possible death to perform the stunt. He emerged from the contraption unscathed, much to the relief of onlookers.

With the emergence of David Blaine on the scene of magic entertainment, the entire face of magic has altered. Magic used to be a very pompous display, a la David Copperfield, be it running through the Great Wall or making elephants disappear. Expensive props, attractive and scantily-clad female assistances, extravagant light displays and so on. However, the term ’street magic’ shot to insane popularity, and this new wave of magic performance was fronted by David Blaine.

Street magic became so much more compelling to watch, compared to conventional magic. Street magic is engaged on the ‘audience’s turf’, it was impromptu. There is no stage or props or a helping hand to fool the audience. Levitation on a street is just that much more believable than when it is done on a set stage. Making an assistant disappear behind a cloak does not seem that credible when someone else can make your own watch disappear with a wave of his hand.

It is this brand of engaging entertainment that made David Blaine a successful magician. This is so different compared to the magic acts that I grew up with, with all the pomp and glamour. David Blaine’s street magic is a welcome change, to the otherwise dour magic industry, and I would like to thank David Blaine for injecting a spark of life into an industry that was fast becoming monotonous.

Click here to buy some of David Blaine’s DVDs
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Face it, football or as some others call it, soccer, is one of the most popular sports in the world right now. We have individuals earning millions just because of their ability to dribble and shoot with a ball as well as global tournaments being held every 4 years for it, resulting in a huge market for soccer related goods. It has delved into the video gaming market, and Football Manager 2008 is one of the latest games to hit the shelves.

I’m sure many football fans have dreamt of managing some of the most famous clubs in the World, aspiring to lead them to honours, winning championships and leagues, becoming a Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger of your favourite club. In a nutshell, Football Manager 2008 is a game where you assume such a persona, deciding the everyday actions of your chosen club from training to haggling for the best prices for player transfers.

One thing which Football Manager 2008 offers that is able to out beat similar clones like Championship Manager, is that it offers depth. Indeed, when I first booted the game, I was visibly impressed by the amount of information and leagues it contained. It not only provided comprehensive data of the more famous leagues, like the English Premier League in England and the Spanish La Liga in Spain, but also many lesser known competitions and obscure leagues that even I, a moderate football fan, could not even recognize. It even allowed me to manage the players of the clubs in my very own backyard, Singapore, despite the lack of popularity it has even with the locals here.

One slight setback, however, is its continual use of circular 2D markers to represent the players on the field , compared to some other similiar games offering a 3-D representation on a full pitch, it might seem monotonous and boring, robbing the usual excitement of watching a game unfold before your eyes. Also, another little annoyance was the lack of any music within the game, except for the fake cheers you would hear when a match was being played.

In addition to that, the interface was not really user friendly. On my first week of playing the game, I frequently found myself going in circles due to confusing signs and markers. Football Manager 2008 does offer depth, however, it displays too much information. Every click in search for any kind of statistics would probably throw a huge graph or ridiculously large and intricate tables of numbers in your face, leaving you confused and dazed.

Personally, I find that Football Manager 2008 would only appeal to hardcore football freaks. The main appealing factor of this game is depth, and any die hard fan would probably be a walking player encyclopedia, a useful skill when playing this game. Casual fans would undoubtedly be turned off by the humongous database of players and complicated system of the game, however, true football fans would find a game catered to utilising every nook and cranny of their soccer knowledge.

Buy Football Manager 2008
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The poster advertising Cloverfield (2008) is an eye-catching sight - the monumental Statue of Liberty in a derelict state, without the head. In a nutshell, it is a show about how the state of New York got thrown into a state of disarray and chaos when a mysterious, gigantic monster unleashes an attack out of the blue. The plot follows the journey of Robert ‘Rob’ Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) and his group of friends as they first try to escape Manhattan, and then proceed to save his love interest Elizabeth ‘Beth’ McIntyre (Odette Yustman).

The show starts off showing a replay of a ‘Top Secret’ video file, property of the Government of USA. It shows Rob playing around with a videocam, capturing early morning New York scenery and Beth sleeping. Then the video feed cuts to a scene of Jason and Lily, Rob’s brother and Jason’s girlfriend respectively, preparing a secret farewell party for Rob who accepted a job in Japan. All went as planned, but the party was interrupted by a tremor and a temporary power outage. News reports mentioned about a tanker capsizing nearby, before it exploded, raining flaming debris in Manhattan. Everyone panicked and ran to the streets, before being stopped in their tracks as they saw the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty hurtling down the street.

It soon dawned on the group that there was a gargantuan creature wreaking havoc in the city. The group initially tried to escape, with Jason killed along the way, before Rob received a voice message from Beth, pleading for help. Beth’s apartment was located at the city centre and going to help her would mean going towards the monster. Despite the very possible dangers, Rob decided to go to her rescue and the others decided to tag along.

Expectedly, the journey was fraught with danger. While hiking through underground train tunnels, they got attacked by smaller spider-like spawns of the bigger monster, resulting in the demise of yet another. They were caught, more than once, in the crossfire between military forces and the monster. When they eventually reached Beth’s location, they saw that her entire block was toppled, supported from collapsing only by the building next to it. Braving the hazards, they managed to scale to the 39th storey and find Beth (who was impaled by a steel rod) and help her out into the streets.

They managed to reach an evacuation point and boarded a helicopter. Onboard, they witnessed a bomber jet unleash a series of bombardment on the creature, seemingly killing it. Yet out of the dust cloud, the monster lunged out, clipping the helicopter, causing it to crash-land in Central Park. Although all 3 of them survived, albeit with injuries, the monster caught up with them, mauling yet another one of them. Rob and Beth, the two remaining survivors, then seek refuge under a bridge. They recorded their last testimonies and pledged their love for each other, before the video feed was cut off, presumably by the bombing runs of the Air Force.

The most striking feature of this film is that it was filmed so that it resembled a home video. The entire movie was seen through the lens of a videocam, with different people operating it. I personally felt that this was a very refreshing idea, as it is totally different from mainstream movies. The video feed was made very realistic by inserting snippets from Rob’s past recordings with Beth, as if one sequence was overwriting the other. Unfortunately, the creativity of the idea was undermined by the actual practice of it. Possibly due to producers wanting to make the movie more real-life, the camera was extremely wobbly and the view was swinging wildly. Granted, it added realism but it was really a sore to watch. The camera panning left and right was really nauseating and downright annoying at times.

Furthermore, some behavior of the characters is outright inexplicable. For example, Rob jeopardized the lives of himself and his entire family by deciding to rescue Beth, who was not even his girlfriend or in any way related to him. When they found Beth impaled upon a steel rod, they merely lifted her off the rod without any medical supplies and she could miraculously walk on her own. Even when braving through the dangers, Hud (Rob’s best friend) did not let go of the camera, even when it was clear he needed another free hand to keep his balance. The most irking thing was that there was no explanation as to why there was a monster in the middle of New York, and I keep getting the feel that it was just there for the sake of producing a movie.

Cloverfield’s new movie perspective has backfired, in my honest opinion. I can recognize the creativity but it has not translated into an appealing movie experience. That aside, this show has its plus points - good acting, an attractive cast and some decent action sequences, but do not expect anything spectacular.

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