The pretty boy meets The Hitman

Hey, did anyone watch Floyd Mayweather Jr. punish Ricky "the Hitman" Hatton? Ricky wouldn't let a sleeping rottweiler lie, he went and called a 30-yr-old six-time five-division champ out of an early retirement. Floyd hit the Hitman so hard he staggered 3 feet and rammed his head into a turnbuckle. At the end the referee had to hold Floyd back so Ricky's corner man could throw the towel in (and save the Hitman's life). And Ricky's words to the 20,000 British fans that followed him across the Atlantic? "What a fluke... sorry everyone!"

I wonder what Ricky's mate Wayne Rooney thinks of the fight... he said Big Daddy SAF wouldn't let him go to Las Vegas but he would be watching every single punch.

Arsenal 2 - 0 Manchester United

Comment from Jaberwokie on 606:

Two short paragraphs.
Down the line the train came puffing,
Arsenal 2 United nothing.
Down the line the whistle blew,
United zero, [Arsenal] two.

I'm a Chelsea supporter but this is the score I'm hoping for. Why? I can depend on Arsenal's young stars/youngsters to lose confidence for stretches and trip up against one team or the other this season. As far as I'm concerned they're still just the Professor's experimental side that happened to come good.

Again, their squad lacks depth and too many players will not have the same level of long-term replacement when serious injury inevitably comes calling. Cesc Fabregas, Robin Van Persie, William Gallas and Kolo Toure come to mind.

On the other hand Manchester United now have the awesome strength in depth that used to be Xhelsea's preserve. They're an absolute juggernaut right now with Wayne Rooney fit (no broken metatarsal bones) and Nani, Tevez, Ronaldo and Rio Ferdinand (yes, Rio) firing on all cylinders. If Arsenal don't stop them now I'm not sure who will.

So I'm for Arsenal 2-0 here all the way, Xhelsea to benefit.

That's what I want, but I've a sneaky feeling United will be too strong and will edge a draw or narrow win tomorrow at the Emirates.

HTC Advantage x7501

I'm considering buying the HTC x7501 for my next mobile phone. GPS/Google Maps, Pocket Office, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Tri-Band UMTS/HSDPA, Windows Mobile 6 (not necessarily a good thing, it's nearly unusable without SPB Pocket Plus), WiMP (equally iffy Windows Media Player), Opera/tabbed browsing, 624MHz processor, 128MB RAM/256MB ROM, 8GB Microdrive, 3MP Cam, 5" VGA screen, TV/monitor out, detachable magnetic keyboard.

I've had a long and pleasant relationship with HTC/i-Mate. I was (my dealer tells me) one of the first people to get an i-Mate PDA2K in Naija. That one was a helpful little buddy of mine for a long time. Then I got an i-Mate K-Jam for my girlfriend. My brother has also used an i-Mate Jam and an HTC TyTN.

After my lovely PDA2K I ran through two i-Mate Jasjars in less than two years. Both got in trouble: I damaged the mini-USB port on the first one; was visiting a friend in Seattle when his kid got his feet tangled in the sync cable and the connector got bent out of shape. The problem was I actually tried to straighten it out by plugging it into the phone and twisting it back and forth.

That's how the mini-USB port broke off the circuit board. The phone actually managed to keep working until one night in an Abuja dance club when I put it in my back pocket and sat on it, cracked the screen. Was prob'ly distracted by all the pretty ladies :).

Then I was on a bike in Lagos one rainy day when my second Jasjar fell out of my jacket pocket and into a puddle. By the time I went back and found it, would you believe a car had run over it? Very sad.

So I'm looking at the HTC 7501 now, which they say is enormous but extremely functional. All the reviews I've seen are positive, and I hope I can get one before the year runs out. Aren't I a gadget-silly boy?

Veto Vista

Perhaps you've already seen this amusing but surprisingly-close-to-the-truth BlimpTV video.

I was considering buying a new notebook and wondering whether to get Vista or not. I did think to myself, "why do they offer the same notebooks at the same price in XP and Vista versions then leave you to decide which you want?" I begin to understand now.

A friend of mine upgraded his Dell super-notebook to Vista a few weeks ago. His exact words to me (precluded by a bitter naija hiss): "I regret it." Another friend upgraded to Vista and is described as "still fighting with his notebook till today".

I already use one of the bits of Vista, the anti-spyware anti-virus anti-operating-system solution Windows Defender and I'm telling you the video guys weren't exaggerating at all, no MS-bashing, it doesn't catch sh!+ (impressive new DCS technology).

I've used it for maybe 18 months and all it's ever done is sit in memory like a fat green toad and ask me almost every single day whether it should allow an Adobe Reader Speed Launcher shortcut to stay in my startup folder. When I scan my PC with it, it says it's fine, 100% clean. I scan it with McAfee AV and AdAware and turn up lots of spyware and an occasional virus.

In fact I'm uninstalling it right now.

Tribute to JM

What can we say? In 3 years JM won every football trophy in England, then left at age 44 with his reputation intact. Guess what they'll be singing in the stands... Jose Mourinho! Jose Mourinho!!

5! YEARS! OF! STERLING! PERFORMANCE!

PRE-CHELSEA

2002 - Replaces Octavio Machado as FC Porto manager mid-season
2002 - Finishes 3rd in SuperLiga 15W 2D 2L
2003 - Winner Portuguese Superliga 27W 5D 2L (82 points out of 102,
new Portuguese record)
2003 - Winner SuperCup Cândido de Oliveira
2003 - Winner Cup of Portugal
2003 - Winner UEFA Cup
2004 - Winner Portuguese Superliga (perfect home record - all wins,
unbeaten run almost till end of season, won title 5 weeks to end)
2005 - Winner UEFA Champions League

CHELSEA

2 Jun 2004 - Appointed manager
15 Aug 2004 - Marks Premiership debut and signals intent with 1-0 win over Man Utd
27 Feb 2005 - Wins Carling Cup 3-2 v Liverpool
30 Apr 2005 - Beats Bolton 2-0 to win Premiership title (95 points out of 114, new English record)
4 May 2005 - Signs new five-year contract
7 Aug 2005 - Beats Arsenal 2-1 to win Community Shield
29 Apr 2006 - Beats Man Utd 3-0 to win Premiership again
27 Feb 2007 - Beats Arsenal 2-1 to win Carling Cup
19 May 2007 - Beats Man Utd 1-0 at new Wembley to win FA Cup
19 Sep 2007 - Leaves Stamford Bridge having never been defeated there in his 3 year tenure

Whilst still at FCP, Mourinho was linked with several top European clubs, including Liverpool and Chelsea. Mourinho publicly stated his preference for the Liverpool job over the Chelsea one.

He said: "Liverpool are a team that interests everyone and Chelsea does not interest me so much because it is a new project with lots of money invested in it. I think it is a project which, if the club fail to win everything, then Abramovich could retire and take the money out of the club. It's an uncertain project. It is interesting for a coach to have the money to hire quality players but you never know if a project like this will bring success." However, Mourinho is currently the most successful manager in Chelsea's history having won 6 trophies for Chelsea in three years.

With Jose in charge Chelsea broke numerous records. In 2004/2005 alone they smashed the record for the highest points total ever in English league football (95 out of 114), the fewest goals conceded during a league season (15), the most consecutive clean sheets during a league season (10), the highest number of Premier League victories in a season (29) and the highest number of clean sheets overall in a Premier League season (25).

Chelsea now also hold the record for the most consecutive clean sheets from the start of a league season (6) (2005–06) and the longest unbeaten home run in the history of English football (67 matches since 20 Mar 2004). On May 19, 2007, they became the first team to win the FA Cup at the new Wembley Stadium, having also been the last to win it at the old Wembley.

Former England manager Graham Taylor believes the beginning of the end came when Michael Ballack and Shevchenko were brought in, reportedly against Mourinho's wishes. Taylor told 5Live: "Once you take away the authority the manager has in signing players, you're on a slippery slope.

"What I would say about Mourinho is his record is with underachieving players and when Shevchenko and Ballack came in [Galacticos], it disturbed the balance. They've never looked as fluid and that's because the manager probably did not himself believe that is the way they should be playing."

The BBC understands the impasse between Mourinho and Abramovich came to a head after their 2-0 defeat to Aston Villa earlier this month. Mourinho has been at loggerheads with the Russian since their disagreement over the lack of funds to sign players during last January's transfer window.

Mourinho's reluctance to play Ukraine international Andriy Shevchenko, brought in by Abramovich at a cost of £31m, and the Russian billionaire's desire to bring in Grant from Portsmouth to work with the misfiring striker only served to heighten the tension.

Grant was recruited in the summer as director of football and Mourinho is understood to have simmered ever since. Former Chelsea player Pat Nevin says that behind the scenes movements were key to Mourinho's departure. "He's a very individual man and he thinks he should be the power at the club," Nevin told 5live.

"If you put someone of that ego, and I say that in a likeable way, in charge and then you tell him you're not quite in charge, then I think it was a recipe for disaster."

Radio 5live football correspondent Legard agreed Mourinho's relationship with Abramovich would break down at some point. BBC sport editor Mihir Bose added: "It's clear this relationship has been breaking up for a long time." Mourinho still had three years left on his contract, worth reputedly around £5m a year, after agreeing a new deal in May 2005.

At the time he signed that deal, he said: "My heart is with Chelsea and the fantastic group of players that I have but the vision of the owner and the board for the future of Chelsea is also one I want to be a part of. I cannot imagine another situation or another club where I could be happier. I am totally behind this project."

But the Chelsea board are thought to have become increasingly unhappy over the team's form at the beginning of the campaign. Mourinho, who has reportedly been given a £10m pay-off by the Blues, will not be short of job offers. Of the 185 games he was in charge of Chelsea, they won 124, drew 40 and lost 21, a record that includes a 60-match unbeaten run in Premier League matches at Stamford Bridge.

The statistics go some way towards justifying Mourinho's famous description of himself as "a special one", made during his first press conference as Chelsea boss. "If I wanted to have an easy job... I would have stayed at Porto - beautiful blue chair, the UEFA Champions League trophy, God, and after God, me."

Mourinho has publicly stated that he wishes to run the Portuguese national team at some point in his career. At the match that gave him his second title with Chelsea, Mourinho wore a Portugal scarf and at the press conference said: "It means I am Portuguese. I wouldn't put on the scarf of another country. I can smell, feel in my country, there are still a few rats waiting to celebrate my mistakes. But when I think of the other 10.5 million Portuguese working all over the world I know what I mean to them. I know they are proud of what I am doing."

No, we haven't heard the last of my favourite over-achieving megalomaniac in the world, Jose Mario Felix Dos Santos Mourinho.

Managing work requirements

Need a vacation. I have rarely been as busy or as tired out from work as I am right now. This office week was pretty eventful. Talk about work-life balance, I remember mentioning to a colleague that these days I just forget about the life part and focus on balancing different kinds of work competently. His reply? Having a personal life in company x? You must be joking.

Well, it gets hard... but I can take it.

Why xzecute?

Why did I choose xzecute for my name on this blog? Because I'd like to lightly protect my identity. Also because I've long known that letters with high scrabble values make for cool screen names :). Interestingly, David Figlio posits that real names with higher scrabble values sometimes influence teachers to give children lower test scores.

The rant-generator that is Iraq

What a shambles this Iraq thing has become. I call it thing because I don't know what it is, just that it's cost many, many people their lives and the United States an unbelievable amount of face, good will and money.

I believe history will show president George W. Bush to have been one of two things: a dogged fool misled by dangerously incompetent advisers or an evil, careless, cruel, corrupt nicompoop. Either way he's an idiot.

Hey, I'm not that smart myself. I've done lots of things in my life that have shown me that. I barely follow current events, I know almost nothing about international politics (in fact I have these things in common with GWB but nobody'll elect me commander-in-chief), but it was clear to me (and every normal, thinking person) that the US and the UK were making a huge mistake starting a second campaign in Iraq.

I remember telling everyone who'd bother to listen that the US was sticking it's head in a bee-hive looking for honey, and that it would struggle with the after-effects of this foolish decision for a long, long time. I remember being alarmed at the catchphrases they came up with; "An Axis of Evil" and "The War on Terror". Well, the war on terror turned out to be a blank cheque and a paranoiac excuse to do anything to anyone at all. And I guess the axis of evil is just another way of saying "our enemies for the month of October".

I also remember my disgust at CNN's slanted coverage of the run-up to the war, and thinking to myself how low they'd sunk since 9-11... into the very depths of journalistic propaganda.

It's coming to light now how sleazy Tony Blair's government is. What other creepy crawlies will be exposed when we examine the underside of the Bush administration? And even then, what will anyone do about it? Both men lied to the world to legalize their war, and then they squandered their countries' resources and killed thousands of people to achieve fairy tale objectives. And when they were found out what happened? Nothing. Both men deserve to be in jail but they're going to get away with it!

Hm. Go 'head George, do your thing. Finish the job, stay the course. You're in too deep now to turn back anyway. And when you've served your term go back to your ranch or whatever and you and your father scheme your little brother into power.

At least now everyone knows for sure you're an idiot.