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.