Asean Basketball League coming up!

Following last Saturday's game. The Slingers ended their 2008/9 season with a bang with a big win over Barangay Ginebra. Everyone has been asking me when is the next game coming. Well news for you is that the season has ended but we will start a ASEAN Pro Basketball League - Full credit to Slingers Chairman Tony Fernandes who cut through the politics in record time to have the announcement made yesterday when the President and Secretary General of FIBA were in Malaysia.

The ABL is an initiative between private investors from various industries and the South East Asian Basketball Association (SEABA) to create a regional basketball league that will be open to professional teams owned and operated by private owners. For more news refer to the official Slingers website.

Only bad news is that it is slated to open only later half of the year in Sep 2009 lasting till Feb 2010.

Need a manual

Last Saturday as I was on my way out for lunch..my car had an indicator light that came on which I have not seen before or have any idea what it meant. So as I always have a electronic copy of my car manual in my mobile as the original one is in Japanese, since my car is JDM. It took a while on my LG Renoir to search through the manual from my small touchscreen. And found out it was an engine coolant level warning light. So a quick call to my mechanic showed it was not checked during the last checkup and a quick top up using water will do.

Somehow it crossed my mind how good it is if we have a manual for everything when indicators come on to signal something is wrong. This especially apply on the members of the opposite sex. It is one species whom I can never fathom or figure out.
There are so many help books like Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, which I think it's still lacking. Women being so fickle and difficult especially during times of the month which makes them totally irrational and emotional.

I just wish I have a manual to help me through relationships which have failed on me so many times. She says "You decide on what to eat, I have no preference"; reply "Let's eat KFC"; - "NO!" I wish I could flip to page 435 of "Dummies guide to Women 101 Bible" and figure out what they really want.

Is it true that soul mates exists? And there is a "one" out there for each and every one of us that would complement our characters, our needs and goals? I beg to differ as experience showed that relationships really require effort and is the culmination of hardwork. Many men have dreaded the great "M" or "C" word which will kill the freedom we all crave. More boys' time to play PS3? Hang out with the Bros? I've heard the praises of men who remained single and enjoying bachelorhood. But we all desire the opposite of what we can't have - it's just human nature to get what you cannot have. And when you get it, you might really not want it.

In this case, will we ever be happy? How do we really know what we want?

Sometimes happiness treads on a big fat gray line, we just need to stop assuming if we crossed the line and just start living.

Slingers Final Match up confirmed

Yes finally Slingers have finalised the final match up following the boo-hoo by Sathyabama Stars - we will be going up against Philippine Basketball Association team Barangay Ginebra on Saturday Jan 17, Singapore Indoor Stadium, 7:30pm.

Apparently Barangay Ginebra is the most popular professional team in Philippine basketball. Woo I can't wait...but we will be without Shane McDonald, who has recently signed up with Perth Wildcats alongside ex-Slingers Ben Knight, and also Darren "Doc" Ng who might be returning to Aussie for orientation.

I was hoping Bob Turner, owner of Slingers, to persuade the current squad to stay. We have a very deep bench and a very good offensive/defensive team this season.

But saying that, I wish Shane all the best at Wildcats who are 0.500 wins/losses and are in the middle of the 10 team ladder in the Australian NBL.

Let's see how the rest of the Slingers can hold against the Filipinos this Saturday!

Tickets can be found over at Sistic.

Truth hurts

I remembered watching Tom Cruise interrogating Jack Nicholson in the movie "A few good men". And the words which Jack screamed through the skull and etch into my mind.


- You don't have to answer that.
- You want answers?


Tom as Lt. Daniel Kaffee : "I want the truth!"

Jack as Col. Nathan R. Jessep: "You can't handle the truth!"

Seriously in life...do we always want the truth?

I've recently come across this fact that those who asked the most questions are lied/deceived the most. Be it little white lies like your wife or girlfriend asking "Do I look fat?" That's an instant knee-jerking reaction by most men to say what you need to say in order to survive the next day and avoid a confrontation. Men are non-confrontational creatures, and unless you partner is a bulimic or anorexic, you have to lie even though she is probably half your weight or not tipping the 50kg mark.

So do we really want to hear the truth? Do we want to hear the fact that our government is probably running a ponzi scheme with our CPF monies? Or we have somehow finished spending our reserves on foreign soil?

Many of us choose to be ignorant, because indeed ignorance is bliss. What you don't know will not hurt you.

"Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit" - Edward R. Murrow


But the truth hurts. So we should all lie. But Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that 'truth is our element', and indeed we all need the element of truth to stay sane. But then again why do we need to lie? We need to lie because because we fear. We fear from being reprimanded, fear of repercussions, fear of being hurt or hurting someone. And sometimes the fear comes from love. And how can something as wonderful as love create fear? The fear of losing the one you love, creates fear.


So you decide, if you can grapple with fear and know when to dispense with the truth and when with the lies, in order to love - love completely.
Sometimes life dealt us cards which despite having a good hand, have to hurt with lies in order to win.

Chicken Indians

The Singapore Slingers learned early this morning that the team from India, Sathyabama Stars, to play in the Challenge Series tomorrow would not be arriving.
Travel hiccups, immigration and clearance issues were given as the reasons. As a result the Slingers were left with no option but to cancel the Sunday game.

Guess how the Indian Stars informed the Slingers? They didn't...Slingers went to the airport to pick the team up and it was a no-show. A case of fight fright? They must have found out Eric scored 22 points with 22 rebounds last week.

Seriously... where's the sportsmanship?

Looks like we won't get to see the Indians play here anytime soon.

Reflections of 2008

It has been just a week into 2009, I finally found some time to look back at 2008 and ponder upon that year and what I should look forward henceforth.

The local media has splashed achievements for 2008 running up to New Year's Eve, achievements we should be proud of and indeed I am.

1) We had the Singapore F1 Grand Prix - First night race, which was exciting and deafening for me, being my first live racing event.
2) We did well at the 2008 Beijing Olympics - paddlers Li Jia Wei, Wang Yuegu and Feng Tianwei finally secured a silver medal in the Table Tennis Women's Team event for Singapore.
3) The world's highest observation wheel started in Feb 2008. - Managed to go for free ride thanks to a friend!

And many more wonderful achievements listed here.

But not forgetting the boo-hoos which I think nullifies and magnifies, dragging Singapore 2008 into doldrums.

1) The sheer "cost" of staging the Grand Prix and the pending 4 possible flagging years as the global economies chews up many teams. I for one, will not be going for the 2009 race. - I wonder if the hotels and the SingaporeGP company will sustain the costs, or will taxpayers' money be used to subsidize?
2) The immediate sacking of table-tennis team manager Antony Lee by its new president, Ms Lee Bee Wah, and the eventual departure of the head coach Liu Guodong as well. - Tsk tsk..where's the grace?
3) The frequent breakdown of the Singapore Flyer and eventually holding 173 tourists and locals in a 6-hour hostage crisis which resulted in embarrassment and caused the Flyer to be suspended from operations pending investigations by the Singapore Police.
4) Escape of Mas Selamat. Where are the apologies? I've seen Indian officials resigning over the Mumbai incident. While ours came out as -

'This should never have happened. I am sorry that it has.' - Wong Kan Seng

That is not an apology.

5) Rising inflation - raised further by more ERP gantries, increased utility bills. Is the ivory tower so high up? Have our leaders forgotten about the common man in the streets?



6) Foreign workers dormitory location issues as well as companies not paying their salaries. It pains me knowing that these people borrowed, beg, steal in hope of a better future and working hard on our soils to provide us with infrastructure, cleaning services and jobs that many locals won't do - only to be played out. How many times have we seen cases like these?
7) DBS minibonds fiasco - its not just about how these complicated products came about to simple investors who wanted to place them in fixed deposits; but how the Singaporean investors are being treated as compared to the Hong Kong investors. Where was our government? How long it took for them to even make a statement? Where is that million-dollar leadership? If it costs us taxpayers so much $ for such a F#$% up leadership, I wouldn't mind standing in for 1/4 of what they costs!
8) The boastful GIC/Temasek splurging billions on bad foresight and claiming long-term investment. Damn it..and they said I didn't study enough, the number of brains in those enterprises got clouded by their obscene salaries? I can make such bad investments in 8 days as well, in fact give me 3 days, I can make just as bad investments!

But what saddens me most besides the amount of money thrown out - from saving global banks, learning centres (lost count of all the bad investments to date).. etc, to investments by town councils smoking to a tune of $16 million. And this one takes the cake -

We started off with (the name) and after looking at everything, the name that really tugged at the heartstrings was in front of us. The name itself is not new, but what has been used informally so far has endeared itself to all parties." - Mah Bow Tan on the $400,000 exercise to rename Marina Bay as Marina Bay.

$40Gs can feed a lot of people for a very long time!

Will the repressed citizens come forth in making a statement that enough is enough, we need to have people take responsibilities, be accountable; we need transparency in the system - in charities, public corporations, in GLCs. Where is the last straw? Where do we draw the line between acceptance and sheer ignorance? Doesn't that money belong to our forefathers, even us and our future generations? The power of one or an elite class is dangerous as we all have seen in the global meltdown of the financial system. Greed and the elitist thinking of 'outsmarting' the system to their own massive gains is causing the impending great depression we are facing right now.


The elitist should never be encouraged, or even be admired. They have climbed so high up in their ivory tower, they seem to have lost touch with the ground and the need to be empathetic to the less fortunate. This high flying civil servant chose to spend his legally earned tax-payers money learning how to cook, but the sheer arrogance of mentioning about his ivy league undergraduate son, well-to-do wife as well as his superb management skills, makes no sense to an article which I thought was about a french cooking school. The numbers in the article popped out to me like a brag in a pretentious way.

Enough complaining as we all know, there isn't much else we can do about it but accept life. I just hope the government do their bit for the less unfortunate, the sick, the disabled. Hear the sounds of cries of your people before the inevitable happens. And I beg to differ that Singaporeans are apolitical and repressed as the internet will be a forceful weapon in time to come, we all just need patience for an opportunity to present itself.

“It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.” - Henry David Thoreau

I hope to end this entry with at least a positive proud moment I had as a Singaporean. Our very own true-blue Singaporeans with pretty little publicity, support/sponsorship and carrot$ dangling in front of them, doing pretty well.

Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games

Bronze Medal in Equestrian Individual Freestyle Championship - Laurentia Tan

Bronze Medal in Equestrian Individual Championship - Laurentia Tan

Silver Medal in Swimming Women's 50m Freestyle - Yip Pin Xiu

Gold Medal in Swimming Women's 50m Breastroke - Yip Pin Xiu

I salute you! Now let's hope our government learnt some lessons and avoid more hiccups in 2009.

Final Home Match for the Singapore Slingers

We have come to an exciting wrap up of the Singapore Challenge Series 08/09. With almost a perfect victory run besides a close 81–90 loss against visiting NBL team Sydney Spirit, the Slingers are 9-1 at home.

Do show your support for the final game this coming Sunday! Seriously I never seen an Indian basketball team before - this should be interesting.

Details

Opponent: Sathyabama Stars (India)
Venue: Singapore Indoor Stadium
Date: 11 January 2009 (Sunday)
Time: 4.00pm

You can book your tickets through Sistic or save the $1 booking fee and tickets purchased through Singapore Slingers Office - no booking fee - Email Michelle.Johnson@SingaporeSlingers.com or Call Michelle at +65-6346 1004.


Will follow up my review and photos of the game vs Bantang Pier Harbour Centre (Philippines) - ex-Jason Castro team, which was exciting till the last quarter!