I couldn't help myself

Of course I bought Mata for my FM 14 game!

I'm back!

Warning: long rambling post. These past few days have been quite interesting, to say the least.

I'm a friend of Ryan Giggs

I didn't know this, but apparently you can be someone's friend in FM! Most of the time, if I'm in the "Favoured Personnel" list, I'd be a manager. But not to Ryan Giggs! I'm a friend! This makes me happier than it should have but I don't care.

Welcome, Juan Mata!

I was gonna post this as a tiny part of this one long blog post I'm writing, but I'm too excited to wait any longer.

After the heartbreak of summer's transfer window, I was apprehensive of all transfer rumors this time around. Especially when it's a name as big as Juan Mata. But then the rumors started to sound more believable and I just couldn't help myself but to hope. And, during a press conference, Mourinho came out and said that he had let Mata to take his medical with United. By last Thursday, reports seemed to indicate that Mata would be at Carrington on Friday for his medical, and to be revealed by Moyes on Monday's press conference.

Friday came and I kept refreshing my Twitter feed. Unfortunately, the news that I found was discouraging; the medical was delayed. I didn't find any reasons why it was delayed, so it did worry be a bit. But, I woke up Saturday morning to find pictures of him arriving at Carrington, looking dapper as hell. A part of me couldn't believe it. Chelsea's best player for the past 2 years is a Manchester United player!

A video of his arrival was posted on United's website; I love that fellow countryman David De Gea greeted Mata. Mata has revealed that De Gea's presence did help him make his decision to come to United. During his first interview as a United player, with MUTV, Mata said that he had been texting with De Gea, who was asking him, "When are you coming? When are you landing? Are you coming by helicopter or by bicycle?" Yes, I'm waiting for the bromance to bloom.

Welcome to my brother @juanmata10 just one thing....Not the best clothes!!😜😜🙈🙈 pic.twitter.com/Hn85wd9Nsv
— David De Gea (@D_DeGea) January 25, 2014

I still can't wrap my mind around how big this transfer is. It was so unexpected that I wasn't ready to deal with the news. Not only did we get an amazing player, he's conducted himself brilliantly this past week. Mata really does seem like one of the good guys in football. He seems quite intelligent and well spoken from his interview and press conference. He's been saying all the right things, and seeing his official Twitter account, Facebook page, and website, makes me believe that it's really who he is. His heartfelt letter to Chelsea was wonderful; and his first blog post as a United player was quite delightful. I like this part:

As you can imagine I haven’t had time to spare. After flying from London by helicopter and having a fantastic reception I spent the day completing my medical and, later, I signed the contract. On Sunday I met my new team mates and I had my first training session with them. By the way, the facilities at the Carrington training ground are top level. Spectacular!

He just seems like a pleasant man, and the fact that he's quite handsome doesn't hurt. I'm actually finding it difficult to not fall in love with this guy. Like a couple summers ago, I say that I wouldn't impulse buy a new player's jersey, but I did end up with an RVP jersey. We'll see how long I can stop myself from buying Mata's red #8.

I'm now very excited for tonight's game against Cardiff; not only is it Ole's return to Old Trafford, we might get to see our new man in United's jersey for the first time. Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney have also trained so they might be back in the team.

Welcome, Juan Mata! Hopefully your arrival sparks United's creativity a bit and help us have a better second half of the season.

FM14

Been playing FM14 A LOT lately (since I pretty much have nothing else to do), and I think I'm doing okay. Currently in March 2015, which is approaching the end of my second season as United's manager. The biggest change from FM12 is basically where they put everything. Tabs used to be on the upper left hand side; it's now on the right, under parent tabs. The variety of options for team talks and press conferences also took a while to get used to (especially since they moved around the tone! Why in the world would they do that‽).

I've brought in Thiago and Javier Pastore, and let go of Anderson, Tom Cleverley and Javier Hernandez. And then, as always, I spend all my money on 4+ star potential hot prospects.

Victor Valdes, who I signed for a free agent for ~$10k a week, always has this problem on FM14, unfortunately. Recently there was a post on Reddit about how he retired at the age of 32 because no clubs would sign him! I tried to get him earlier for a much higher wage but as a backup, and he (his agent?) rejected it because he wanted to be a first team regular. David DeGea, is definitely good enough for me in that position so I didn't bother. But I was pretty surprised when I tried again a few months later, and they only requested ~11k wage! Of course I took him in!

In my first season, I actually won the treble (Premier League, FA Cup, and Champions League), so obviously the board now expect me to win pretty much everything. I'm already out of the FA Cup, and they're already disappointed in me because of that; and it doesn't look like I'm gonna win the League, since I'm currently third, 7 points off the leaders Chelsea. So I kinda have to win the Champions League this season or risk getting sacked.

Side note: copied my friend the game and got him to start playing; hopefully he gets addicted!

I love Kimi

About a month ago, it was reported -- although it wasn't confirmed -- that Kimi Räikkönen had picked the number 7 as his permanent drivers number. I, along with the rest of the internet, joked that he just looked at his current helmet and just thought he'd use whatever number he had. This morning, the FIA announced the official list of drivers and their chosen numbers; Kimi did get his #7. And, today, Ferrari's website posted confirming their drivers' numbers, along with their reasons of choosing them. Of course, Kimi answered as expected -- I assume he said less words than was printed.

On his return to racing in red, Kimi Raikkonen will have the number 7 on his car, the same one he had last year. “There’s no particular story linked to it,” the Finn told www.ferrari.com. “It’s the number I already had last year and I saw no reason to change it. I like it which is good enough isn’t it?”

I do like his current helmet's design. It would probably be updated with more Ferrari colors, and definitely Ferrari sponsors, but I hope he keeps it pretty damn close to what it is now.

So I'm cheating...

United isn't doing so well (it hurts me to even type that) and the last FM game that I played was the dropped one. There, my Bromley had just gotten promoted, so it's a bit more difficult to win games. We're pretty much struggling. And seeing as how FM is supposed to be my United safe space, not winning is not really ideal.

So, I started a new game! Well, first, I fired up the FM12 Editor first. I dropped Manchester United all the way down to Blue Square Bet South, and promoted Bromley to the Premier League (sorry, Bromley). I kept all the stats for United the same, which means we're insanely overqualified and overspending for a team in such a low league. For Bromley, I gave them a bit of money (£50m) in the hopes that they'd survive.

I took over United, and after a few friendlies, the season starts. The weird thing is, I had to play one league game before playing Manchester City in the Community Shield (which I lost, sadly). Let's just say, we're having a pretty easy season. We're also competing in the Champions League. Wonder what would happen if I win it, even though the club is competing in the Blue Square Bet South (probably promoted to Blue Square Bet Premier) that season.

My main concern is that my players would drop in abilities and potentials, or that they'd leave the team to get into better leagues. Haven't happened so far; morale is high and all first team players seem to be eager to stay. Hopefully this doesn't actually destroy Manchester United...

2014 People's Choice Awards

Congrats JT! He won 3 awards (Favorite Album, Favorite Male Artist, and Favorite Soul/R&B, I'm pretty sure).

Since the People's Choice Awards actually tells the winners they've won before the show (so they'd show up), I kinda think that Justin said he'd come if his award(s) are announced early on in the show, so he can go up and say a few words, thank his wife to stop (or at least slow down) the rumors, and then just leave not even half an hour into the show.

Edit: Show's still going on, and Justin just tweeted that he did indeed get the hell away out of there pretty early.

What do we do after we win 3 PCAs?!?! Easy... Go to Taco Bell!! People's Champ, baby!! http://t.co/OlCy7Pnpm0

— Justin Timberlake (@jtimberlake) January 9, 2014

I love this guy! And now I want Taco Bell...

I think I've listened to Justin quite a bit last year...

There's probably 1-2 plays from this year, but I still think it's pretty impressive. And this doesn't even include how many times the physical CDs were played in my car! Especially during that road trip I took.

My 2013

A few days late, but I'm finally writing my "what happened last year" post. I think my 2013 had been pretty eventful. I am going back to last year's blog posts, and other social media posts, to help me remember this past year. (As I'm writing this, I realize that this is going to be one very long post).

Road trip!

Well, it was mostly in 2013. I had a few hours of 2014 on my drive home. But that's besides the point.

Since I had a couple months of unemployment before I had to leave the country, I thought that this would be the perfect time to go on that road trip I've always wanted. But just because I really want it, doesn't mean that I'd actually plan it. The only plan I had was that I'd leave on the 18th, and be in Denver by the 23rd. But, on the first week of December (or maybe it was the second week), I got a call from my cousin who invited me to go to Orlando for a week, because she and her sisters are going for winter break. I did want to go to Orlando another time before I leave the country, but I thought I'd go some time in January, after my road trip. So I thought about it a little, looked at a calendar to try to figure out the dates and if it's possible to get to Denver by the 23rd, and I went. Of course I went. It's a 16 hour drive to Orlando, and I was driving alone, but I was sure it was doable.

So, I put as many Nerdist podcast episodes as possible on my iPad, and early morning on December 15th, I loaded my car up and started driving south. It really was an easy drive, because I only had to follow I-95 South the whole day. It does get boring, going straight on a road for hours, but at least it wasn't too tiring. I only stopped 4-5 times, for gas, bathroom breaks, and food. Got to Orlando at around 2 am, spent 3 days at Disney World and 1 day at Universal Studios, and then headed out to the rest of the journey.

Here's the trip I ended up with: