WoooooooHooooooooooooooooo! MILAN MILAN!! MILAN MILAN!!!

I CAMPIONI DEL EUROPA SIAMO NOI !!!!

I watched the match alone at home yesterday. It was one of the most boring matches of the league, a typical final. Milan played very badly and scored a first very lucky goal, and later managed a better executed second goal. Five minutes before the end Liverpool scored but I knew they weren’t going to repeat their feat again. As soon as they won I opened a big bottle of whiskey my father gave me as a present and drank half of it by the time the TV program finished. Of course I still had time to make it to the pub afterwards!!

Yesterday I went to watch my first football match at Lansdowne Road Stadium in Dublin. The title in this morning’s Irish Independent was "Ireland suffer worst defeat at Lansdowne Road in 40 years". Since I’ve been here we had the wettest march, the driest summer and the worst soccer defeat. Hope Lord Mayor is not reading this blog lest he decides to chuck me out of here.

We arrived 10 minutes late and we had to collect the tickets from the ticketmaster stand at the other side of the stadium. By the time we got in Ireland we already loosing 1-0. The game ended 4-0 with 2 goals scored in each half. Pretty bad for my first game but then I’m used to it from back home. The last score I remember between ‘the spot’ and Netherlands was 0-8, so we’re half as bad here.

On a better note, tomorrow I will be finally leaving for New Zealand. This time I’m pretty much guaranteed to at least arrive to LA after I (this is a bit of an overestimation) paid for my first transatlantic ticket with Delta Airlines. I will be spending three weeks in Kiwi land then back to Dublin, so the blog will be pretty quite during this time.

The world cup final should theoretically be about soccer, but what everybody seems to be talking about is what the hell did Materazzi tell Zidane to get head-butted. (See video here). This was Zidane's last official match, in the world cup final in front of billions of people, so what could have elicited such a reaction? Here's a summary of what lip readers from around the world are suggesting:-

... one report suggested he responded with: `I'd rather take the shirt off your wife'. - ESPN SoccerNet

... Italian lip-readers said he had called Zidane's mother a "prostitute". - Irish Independent

He then accused him of being a "liar" and wished "an ugly death to you and your family" on the day the Frenchman's mother had been taken to hospital ill. This was followed by "Go f*** yourself". - BBC Sport

... Materazzi called Zidane a "dirty terrorist." - Associated Press

But what he probably really said was, "you goddamn dirty Algerian faggot son of a gypsy whore with widespread legs waiting for an Arab terrorists riding a rotten camel. And by the way vafan-culo-testadicazzo-figliodiputtana." But again the match would have finished by the time Materazzi would have said this.

Check out this football antidote: Babes of the 2006 World Cup

Biggest pity: Any african team doing well
Most Deserved Result: Italy winning and Brazil knocked out of quarters
Most disappointing player: Ronaldinio
Most discussed action: Zidane's headbutt
Best Player: Cannavaro
Best Goal: Fabio Grosso against Germany (for when it came and what it meant)
Best Match: Italy - Germany (semi final)
Best Coach: Marcello Lippi
FIFA's golden ball award: Zidane

[For the record]

In an effort not to re-invent the wheel, see match record here.

I watched the final at the local pub on the small island with some friends (3 of which were Italy fans and the other 2 non-Italy fans), and some English supporters who were obviously siding for France. After watching the Italians celebrate their well deserved victory we went out carcading with the other Italian supports of the village.

I'm so happy!!! This time the Italians deserve to be where they are, for once they're playing great football.

  

The vibe during yesterday's match was fantastic. We watched the game at Buskers with some other hardcore (real hardcore) Italians. The pub was divided in two with the Germans taking the big screen area and most Italian fans occupying the rest of the TV’s. Superstitiously we watched the match in the same position we watched the Ukraine match. As soon as Italy scored the first goal in the last two minutes of the second extra time half the whole place went into a delirium. On the subsequent kick-off after the crowed calmed down a bit Del Piero scored another goal with the last kick of the game to send us in ecstasy.

I was so excited and lost that I got the wrong bus back home because it was parked instead of the usual bus and I didn’t pay attention to the bus number. I ended up walking about 4km in the middle of the night back home, but it didn’t matter at all, it was all good fun. I cannot imagine all the swearing had the Italians lost and I got the wrong bus. The moral from this: it’s not what happens but how you look at it that counts. Your perspective can make even bad things fun.

While I hold my breath waiting for the final and the potential verdict that Milan are relegated to Serie B after the match-fixing scandal, I'm happy.

You must have guessed why I didn't blog yesterday. I was still incredulous after Milan's defeated in the Champions League final against Liverpool. This game will be written in football history after Milan were winning 3-0 at the end of the first half, and in 6 minutes Liverpool managed to draw the game. After nobody scored in the extra time Liverpool won the penalty shootout after their goalie Dudek played the fool in front of Milan's penalty shooters to induce Serginho, Pirlo and Shevchenko to miss.

I wasn’t as disgusted as I should have been because Milan played well for 110 minutes out of 120. Maldini scored the first goal before the first minute was over, and from then onwards Milan basically trashed Liverpool. Then in the second half while Milan were still attacking to increase the lead, Liverpool scored and disoriented Milan completely. In the following few minutes Liverpool scored twice with their third goal being a penalty given by Gattuso. At 3-3 Milan regained their senses and tried to score the winning goal but it was all in vain after Dudek made several important saves.

The irony of the game was all in Milan's attitude because usually like most Italian teams they are happy with a marginal lead and try their best to defend it. Yesterday they tried to continue attacking even after a 3 goal lead to end losing the match.

This week was a hard programming week at work and I had to reface the hardships of database programming in Java with JDBC. On Monday morning I decided to solve the quotes problem when inserting and updating into the database. As in most programming languages, SQL gets quite upset when certain special characters are used incorrectly. In SQL's case the single quote (') is the trouble maker because it has a special use to enclose a character / string value. If you've got a field and a user types in a single quote the single quote must first be "escaped" by inserting another quote, before adding it to the insert statement. So for example insert into remarks value ('I don't want to drive'); must become insert into remarks value ('I don''t want to drive');.

My first attempt at solving this problem was to use the replaceAll() function in Java to replace all ' by '', for each field. This method is cumbersome and not very elegant, so I had to look for a better solution. The answer was to use the PreparedStatement object instead of the Statement object to update values in the database. Apart from solving the quotes problem the PreparedStatement pre-compiles the SQL statement passed as a parameter, thus making it faster than the normal statement. For more information of the usage of the PreparedStatement object see Sun's Java JDBC basic tutorial.

While I was learning how to use the PreparedStatement object I stumbled across a new connection leakage error. The actual error was: ORA-01000 maximum open cursors exceeded. To help me analyse the fault better I found two SQL statements to document the number of open cursors in the database:-

SQL Statement 1: List of al open cursors, users and the SQL executed.

select user_name, status, osuser, machine, a.sql_text
from v$session b, v$open_cursor a
where a.sid = b.sid;

SQL Statement 2: The number of truly open cursors.

select a.value, b.name
from v$mystat a, v$statname b
where a.statistic# = b.statistic# and
a.statistic# = 3;

The culprit for the error was that I was had an unclosed PreparedStatement well hidden inside a loop. Although it was not so difficult locating the error, the problem was not fixed immediately by changing the code, so I started going around in circles looking for problems that didn't exist. The reason for this was that Oracle frees the inactive connections every 15 minutes (this might be dependent on a database parameter [INITSID.ORA]), so the open cursors had to be freed before the code could work.

This week I had very little time to experiment with common applications but I found a quick way to load Adobe Acrobat faster i.e. without loading the plug-ins. To do this all you've got to do is press [Shift] while the program is loading. Apparently this feature also works with other programs that load plug-ins.

Some links:-

Calciomercato.com

This is the most complete source for summer football transfers, covering most of the European clubs. (Calciomercato means Soccer Transfers in Italian)

Perry-Castaneda Map Collection

Need a map? Go here.

Awstats

The best open source web log analyser around. I compared it to analog and webalizer but they are too featureless against awstats.

Ofofo

Photo storage and sharing by Kodak

The first e-mail of the day soothed yesterday’s match disappointment, by proclaiming the jackpot victory of 375Euro to my better half. I didn’t do half as bad as I expected arriving in 5th place, but since I made the right companionship choice I will be getting a free Slavic meal after my bowels are settled.

Quarter Finals
Portugal vs  England  2(6)-2(5)
France  vs  Greece  0-1
Sweden  vs  Netherlands  0(3)-0(4)
Czech Republic  vs  Denmark  3-0

Semi Finals
Portugal  vs  Netherlands  2-1
Greece  vs  Czech Republic  1-0

Final
Portugal  vs  Greece  0-1

About two weeks ago while browsing pipes.org I happened to come across a detailed paper about Sherlock Holm’s smoking habits. The detail and variety of such a minor event in the context of the whole story, lured me to download and read some of Sherlock’s adventures. I'm now in my third story and I have given up trying to listen to "A place to hide" in favour of the English Classic.

This small lesson might come handy in the Marketing 101 class. Lessons in Marketing for women

1. You are at a party and you see a good looking man. You go up to him and say to him “I am great in bed” - That is called Direct Marketing
2. You are at a party with friends and you see a good looking man.. A friend of yours goes up to him, points at you and says “She is great in bed” – That is called advertising
3. You are at a party and you see a good looking man. You go up to him and get his telephone number. The next day you ring him and say “Hi - I am great in bed” - That is called telemarketing
4. You are at a party and you see a good looking man. You get up straighten your dress, go up to him and buy him a drink. You lean in his direction straighten his tie, touch his arm gently and say “Ah yes, and I am also great in bed” - That is called PR
5. You are at a party and you see a good looking man. He comes up to you and says “I heard that you are great in bed”. That is called product awareness
6. You are at a party and you see a good looking man. You go up to him and persuade him to take your friend home - That is called selling a product
7. He however is not satisfied by your friend’s performance and rings you – That is called after sales service
8. You go to a party and on the way you realize that inside all the houses there may be good looking men. You climb up onto the verandah of one of the houses right in the middle of the neighbourhood and scream at the top of your voice “ I am great in bed!!!!” – That is called SPAM!

Three weeks ago we were in Romania watching the first Euro 2004 game between hosts Portugal and Greece. Today the same game will repeat itself in a slightly more important context as the final. The surprise of the finalists is very aptly outlined by William Hill, since there was only one person who bet on a final between Greece and Portugal for a 1/250 bet.

Like all the recent football tournaments the share of surprises has contributed to the suspense and beauty of the tournament. Italy, Spain and Germany got knocked out during the qualifying round while France and England didn’t make it to the semi-finals. What we're talking about here is 5 nations all in the top 8 of the European Nations FIFA football rankings. Greece stand only in the 18th position with only Bulgaria behind in 20th position, from the teams qualified for the Euro.

What happened to the big names Totti, Raul, Beckam, Vieri, etc. Have these players lost their sense of patriotism and national pride, in an age where the club is more financially rewarding then the national team? Does their salary justify such a great national flop? Aren't these player's able to work in a team, or is it that the manager with the limited time to control such busy players didn't find the right team balance. On this point, the last World Cup comes to mind when coach Guus Hiddink took hold of the South Korean team 2 months in advance before the world cup to write his name in the semi-final, controversy apart.

The poor performances of the favourite teams and the results obtained by their less quoted adversaries bring an obvious question; what did the big teams do wrong, and what made the little ones succeed? The most logical answer is teamwork. There is little doubt that on an individual level most major teams have better players but in a team of 11 players the collective whole is the one that counts. All semi-finalists (except Holland) showed great team spirit with humble players ready to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the team.

The soccer-long dilemma of who's the most important between the players and the coach definitely tilted towards the coach during this Euro. Both Luiz Felipe Scolari and Otto Rehhagel illuminated the soccer world with their different perception of the game to reach the same goal. On one side the Brazilian coach with a flamboyant fancy football game exploiting the best characteristics of his talented players. On the other side the German 65-year old dusted the man marking manual from his shelves and reminded the Italians how they should play defensive football.

Biggest pity: England
Most Deserved Result: Italy's failing to qualify
Most disappointing player: Totti
Man with the iron undercarriage: Scolari
Best Player: Maniche
Best Youth: Cristiano Ronaldo
Best Goal: Rui Costa 2-1 goal against England

I am going to hell. I cannot remember getting so pissed of after a football match after watching Italy get drawn by Sweden 5 minutes before the final whistle. I howled, swore and kicked for a whole 20 minutes, all because of the team's behaviour. They played a brilliant first half, except for the 5 missed chances by the good-for-nothing golem in attack. Then with a 1-0 score the team receded into the usual defensive mode with the mister substituting Fiore for Cassano, Favalli for Gattuso and Cameronesi for Del Piero. The funny thing is that I knew beforehand what was going to happen, in fact I managed to guess the outcome of the match. What I forgot was that Italy could actually play good football as they did in the first half.

I am aware that I'm a complete disaster placing bets and it shows from the first four games, but anyway here is what I think will happen in Euro 2004. I spent 5 euros in this and I'm sure they're completed wasted.

GROUP A
	M	Score	Actual	Points
PORTUGAL - GREECE 1 1 - 2 2 0 SPAIN - RUSSIA X 1 - 0 1 0 GREECE - SPAIN 2 1 - 1 X 0 RUSSIA - PORTUGAL 2 0 - 2 2 5 SPAIN - PORTUGAL X 0 - 1 2 0 RUSSIA - GREECE 2 2 - 1 1 0
GROUP B
	M	Score	Actual	Points
SWITZERLAND - CROATIA 1 0 - 0 X 0 FRANCE - ENGLAND X 2 - 1 1 0 ENGLAND - SWITZERLAND 1 3 - 0 1 5 CROATIA - FRANCE 2 2 - 2 X 0 CROATIA - ENGLAND X 2 - 4 2 0 SWITZERLAND - FRANCE 2 1- 3 2 5
GROUP C
	M	Score	Actual	Points
DENMARK - ITALY X 0 - 0 X 5 SWEDEN - BULGARIA X 5 - 0 1 0 BULGARIA - DENMARK 2 0 - 2 2 5 ITALY - SWEDEN X 1 - 1 X 5 ITALY - BULGARIA 1 2 - 1 1 5 DENMARK - SWEDEN X 2 - 2 X 5
GROUP D
	M	Score	Actual	Points
CZECH REPUBLIC - LATVIA 1 2 - 1 1 5 GERMANY - NETHERLANDS X 1 - 1 X 5 LATVIA - GERMANY 2 0 - 0 X 0 NETHERLANDS - CZECH REPUBLIC X 2- 3 2 0 NETHERLANDS - LATVIA 1 3 - 0 1 5 GERMANY - CZECH REPUBLIC X 1 - 2 2 0
		Total Points		55

Yesterday my pals left me alone all morning because they attended the SMS presentation. I juggled some software maintenance and helping a quitting friend write his CV. Strangely enough, the company sent him the first interview by mail as a test.

The company he applied for is a Microsoft based security company, and amongst other questions there was a question about VS API. This is a Virus Scanning API integrated within Microsoft Exchange to ensure that each e-mail message is scanned at least once. The major advantage of this API is that if the message has already been scanned it is not rescanned thus increasing efficiency. There was a question about the NTFS file system and did a quick search to find additional info apart from the usual things everybody knows. NTFS allows security at file level while FAT does not, and theoretically NTFS provides better security against viruses.

Today I bothered to search how to split a huge file into smaller files in Linux. I split the 1GB web log file into 10 smaller files by "split –b 100m combined_log" . The 100m stands for 100MB and sizes can be defined in bytes, kb or number of lines. Split then creates files with names xaa, xab, xac … I finally compressed them with "tar –czf xab.tar.Z xab"

After work we went to the computer store to replace my 7th million faulty RAM chip and solve the printer ink smudging problem. The ink problem was caused by a small piece of plastic that remained attached to the print cartridge. My RAM was a little more problematic because from three different sets of RAM none was compatible. I got my money back and spent half of them on cat food. She laughed so heartily when I got a 4kg dried food bag that half of the super market starred at us like idiots. My loved ones freaked out when they saw so much food. We played God and showered them with cat food.

FC Porto won the Champions League final beating Monaco by 3 – 0. Like all finals it wasn’t an over enthusiastic game with Porto scoring the latter two goals from counter attacks. Morientes played a dull game but had a number of miscalled offsides to his disadvantage.

At last I am busying myself with Romania Research. Good Boy! These are the accommodation results of the Tulcea Region.

Tulcea

Maliuc vilage
Letea (typically village in the delta)
Mila 23 / Lakes Furtuna & Baclanesti
Crisan
Sf. Georghe
Uzlina

Hotels for Danube Trip

Tulcea

Hotel Egreta, Tel.0240.51.71.03 carmenjolo@yahoo.com
Hotel Europolis, Tel.0240.5124.43
Hotel Delta, Tel.0240.51.47.20
Hotel Ipo, Tel.0240.531.674

Maliuc

Mila 23

La Vica
Guesthouse MARCOV, Tel.00 40 (0)240 546 452, 8 Euro, B & B

Crisan

Silviu Gheorghe
Trifim Sorin, 00 40 (0)240 547 077, 7 Euro, B & B
Calin Maria
Vasiliu Petre, 00 40 (0)240 547 021 petrerotl@yahoo.com, 10 Euro, B & B
Cacencu Trifan, 00 40 (0)240 547 066, 7 Euro, B & B
Gherasim Gabriel, 00 40 (0)240 547 020

Four years ago I didn't even know that the Eurovision existed and like all good things in life I came to love it by mistake. My music preferences don't match the festival's style and most of the time I pay more attention to the signers and their dancers.

Like past years the winning song was definitely the best of the bunch. Ruslana (dubbed Xena / Cave Girl / Warrior Queen) from Ukraine triumphed with her song Wild Dance (MP3). Wild Dance gained a total of 280 points over Serbia and Montenegro who deserved the second place with 263 points. The uplifting rhythm of the song made the difference in an otherwise slow and tedious set of songs. Ruslana's stage performance was the definitive show stopper with her wild dance accompanied by a group of leather clad dancers dancing around the flames. Like the past years, with Turkey and Latvia, the stage performance contributed to give the cutting edge for the winning song.

As usual the comments about the Eurovision were full of 'the neighbourhood voting controversy'. I'm fed up hearing the same comments over and over again. In most cases this accusation is the perfect excuse for a poor song. The retrospective analysis should concentrate on the song and performance rather than the unchangeable voting bias. In all previous festivals the winning song was always the best song no matter the voting structure. This actually contrasts with most other song and beauty contests, where for most part the runner up is better than the actual winner. I will not dare say that neighbours do not make a difference but the impact on the actual result is minimal. No matter how influential Norway's position is, they only got the deserved 3 points for their song. The same goes for other 'strategically positioned' countries like France and Belgium.

My beloved country (ehem!) just managed to secure a place in next year's final. Although I generally over criticise I think that this year we deserved a slightly better result. Our two ambassadors had a brilliant stage presence and were unusually confident during the whole show. Good job!

As usual for this time of the year a number of football leagues have crowned the season's champions. These are this year's winners:-

• Italy – Milan
• England – Arsenal
• Spain – Valencia
• Germany – Werder Bremen

After being positively impressed by the trailer, this evening we watched Van Helsing (Reviews) starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale. Despite the great graphical effects I slept for the second half of the film. The story is virtually non existent turning a multi million film project into a flop. In the first part Stephen Sommers borrows a Q James Bond sequence and inserts it roughly in a vampire film giving the initial feeling of the pathetic story that will follow. What's more the inventor gives Van Helsing an automatic bow, which works more like a submachine gun than anything else.

Sommers tries another attempt to what the "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman" failed to conceive, by combing Dracula and Frankenstein classics into the same movie. Like his processor Sommers fails miserably. Overall the film makes a desperate attempt to be funny, but although the brimming cinema laughed in 3 out of 10 occasions, I found nothing so funny in any. As if this weren't enough, the film tries to get serious in the final part by offering an out of place sad ending to conclude the mess.

I left my blog notes at work so I’ll have to leave the technology part out. Our manager is still sick so the big fight is still suspended. In the mean time I started working seriously on the cleansing of some data.

This evening I watched Deportivo against Porto in the Champions League semi-final. It’s been some time since I watched a game without siding with anyone. It was a refreshing change watching football with no tension. It was a nice game with both teams striving to get the better part of the score. It was Porto who managed with a single goal scored from a penalty. Porto were the better team being very concentrated applying constant pressure throughout the whole pitch. Deportivo were left with little space to play with most of their attempts neutralised in the center. I felt a little bit disappointed with Milan, since if they played their last game against Depo at least 1/10 like the Portuguese time they could have been playing today.

I’ll go and finish off the Da Vinci code now.

The 17th league title was mathematically assured today after a 1-0 at the hands of runners-up Roma beaten in a fiery match at the crowed San Siro. I’ve been craving for this moment for some years now and I’m totally overjoyed. As usual I played the fool in the middle of the road after the game and almost managed to touch my ears with my cheeks with the smile.

I only saw the second half of the game cause each time her highness saw the game against her will Milan lost (we saw only a few games). This way I avoided jinxing them. The second half was barely 20 minutes of effective play because Roma supporters disrupted most of the game by throwing fireworks at Dida.

On such occasions it was so emotional seeing all those hard working man reach their goal. Yeah, I’m saying this cause my team won, so what. This year Milan played a really brilliant season breaking even a number of records. Nobody dare say they didn’t deserve it, so much so that the league was won 2 games in advance.

Links to stories:-

Shevchenko Leads Milan To Their 17th Scudetto
Thousands take to the streets after Milan win title
Rossoneri Clinch Scudetto
Gazzetta Dello Sport
Gazzetta Season Ratings

Although I saw red and black throughout the whole afternoon in the evening I still managed to go and watch a movie. Since I was in a really good mood we decided to watch 50 first dates (Reviews) starring Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore and Rob Schneider. The film was hilarious and I laughed loud. We agreed that this is most probably the best film by Adam Sandler drifting away from the usual toilet humour and interpreting a beautiful romantic comedy. The movie is centered on Lucy (Drew Barrymore) who had an accident a lost her short term memory. Henry (Adam Sandler) is struck by love at first sight the first time he sees Lucy eating breakfast, and starts a surprisingly difficult task to conquest Lucy for more than a day. Apart from the comedy it’s inevitable to spend a though on these unfortunate people and the way they lead their lives. I always took my short term memory fore granted, the problems lie with long term memory, but apparently it’s better that way.

This is my second day as a European citizen and the difference I’m feeling is inexplicable – no I’m joking. If it weren’t for all the hype I wouldn’t even have noticed. Anyway I need to go to sleep because tomorrow the work saga continues with an early morning conflict. Oh lovely weekend why are you leaving me alone.