Park Ji-Sung’s move to Manchester United is the highest profile transfer of any Asian player. The 24 year old South Korean winger moved to Old Traford from PSV Eindhoven in a $7.3 million signing. Park was instrumental in PSV's excellent campaign in the 2004-05 Champions League, which saw the Dutch club reach the semi-finals and only just lose to AC Milan. Mikel Arteta has warned Everton that they will have to increase their contract offer if they want to complete his £2.8 million signing from Real Sociedad. The Spaniard impressed in his loan spell at Goodison Park last season, and manager David Moyes is keen to make the transfer permanent. But the 23-year-old said: "Everton’s latest offer is not what I’m looking for. I want to feel more valued by the club. If I take the deal Everton are offering I would be earning less than I would in Spain."

Arsenal striker Jeremie Aliadiere says he wants to join Celtic on a one-year loan deal. Gunners boss Arsene Wenger has given his blessing for the youngster to gain more experience elsewhere, and the 22-year-old said: "The Champions League was a big factor in choosing Celtic. "Everybody knows the Champions League is the competition everybody wants to play in and it would be good if I could help Celtic make an impact it. "It’d be great if we ended up playing Arsenal. That would be special."



I saw SERENDIPITY on cable yesterday morning just before I had to leave for my 3 pm shift. It's a movie I had heard a lot about, especially since it was branded on ZeeMovies (formerly ZeeMGM) as one of the nicest movies about New York. And I have to admit, if compared to Los Angeles, I rather see a movie that is based in New York, especially Manhattan. There is something so beatiful about Manhattan in the winter time (not that I have ever ben there but the outdoor scenes you see in these movies). And then just as the movie is over you see the credits and realise that the movie is mostly shot in Canada!! So much for the beauty of Manhattan.



Claude Lemieux was born on July 16, 1965 in Buckingham, Quebec. He started his professional career playing junior hockey with Trois-Rivieres/Verdun of the QMJHL. Lemieux was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens as their second choice and the 26th overall pick in the 1983 Entry Draft. In 165 games in junior hockey, he scored 127 goals and added 149 assists. When he finally broke into the NHL in 1986, a 20-year-old Lemieux scored 10 goals in the 1986 Stanley Cup playoffs to help Montreal win the Stanley Cup. The 6'1, 215 pound right winger was traded to New Jersey on September 4, 1990 for Sylvain Turgeon. It was in New Jersey that Lemieux truly developed into the remarkable player he is today. He reached the 40 goal mark his first season with the Devils, and in his five seasons at the Meadowlands, he notched 125 goals and another 134 assists.In 1994 the Devils just barely lost to the hated New York Rangers in double overtime of game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals. In 1995, things were quite different. Lemieux led the Devils to the Cup Finals with his clutch play, and New Jersey won its first Cup ever. Lemieux was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy, after scoring 13 goals in the playoffs, many of them with his slapshot from the top right circle.



In the offseason, after squabbles with New Jersey management, Lemieux was shipped to the New York Islanders for Steve Thomas on October 3, 1995 and then promptly to Colorado by the Islanders for Wendel Clark on the same day in a three way deal. It was perhaps the worst trade in Devils history. Claude logged 39 goals and 71 points in 79 games for the Avalanche in 1996, helping them win the Stanley Cup in their first season in Denver, after moving from Quebec. Lemieux recorded the first hat trick by a player in an Avalanche uniform on November 28, 1996, against the Islanders in New York. Claude Lemieux returned to New Jersey early in the 99-2000 campaign. As one might expect, the Devils quickly erased four years of playoff humiliation with another Stanley Cup. The Devils decided not to re-sign Lemieux in the offseason, believing he was too expensive. Lemieux signed on as a free-agent with the Phoenix Coyotes. After two and a half seasons with the struggling Coyotes, Lemieux was acquired by the Dallas Stars, and now has a good a shot as anyone at winning a fifth Stanley Cup.



Paul Winchell, a ventriloquist, inventor and children's TV show host best known for creating the lispy voice of Winnie the Pooh's animated friend Tigger, has died. He was 82. Winchell died Friday morning in his sleep at his Moorpark home, Burt Du Brow, a television producer and close family friend, told the Los Angeles Times. Over six decades, Winchell was a master ventriloquist -- bringing dummies Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff to life on television -- and an inventor who held 30 patents, including one for an early artificial heart he built in 1963. But he was perhaps best known for his work as the voice of the lovable tiger in animated versions of A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh -- with his trademark "T-I-double grrrr-R." Winchell first voiced Tigger in 1968 for Disney's Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, which won an Academy Award for best animated short film, and continued to do so through 1999's Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving.

My favourite Tigger dialogue is, after he see something whiz past the window, he says "Must be one of those Unidentified Flying Omlets"!



Song for the day - "Any Man Of Mine" - SHANIA TWAIN