Top 10 sports people of 2008

I am glad that many other bloggers have updated their blogs recently, so I cannot afford to lose to them. This should be one of my more classic posts where I list my very own top 10 sports people of 2008. Read on to find out who is the winner

Number 10

Lewis Hamilton

He is the Formula One world champion of 2008 and the youngest driver to do so in history. The McLaren Mercedes racer managed to finish 1 point of ahead of Ferrari's Felipe Massa at the end of the last race in Brazil to clinch the title. I placed him last among the ten winners as i do not like his aggressive style of driving and his arrogance. Also he only won by a single point and that was because another driver slowed down due to using dry-weather tyres in the Brazillian Grand Prix which allowed him to finish fifth



Number 9

Micheal Phelps

This human-fish won 8 gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and holds seven world records in swimming. Phelps bagged numerous awards this year which include the Sports Illustrated Sportsmen of the Year 2008 and World Swimmer of the Year 2008. Again, because of his arrogance, he is ranked ninth only just above Hamilton since he has more awards to his name



Number 8

Iker Casillas

The Real Madrid goalkeeper won the La Liga with his club in the 07-08 season and has established himself as one of the best goalies in the world. He was handed the captain's armband for the Spain national team in Euro 2008 and won it with his team. The custodian managed to keep clean sheets in the quarter-final, semi final and final. Casillas is also the first goalkeeper-captain to lift the trophy. He finished fourth in the 2008 Ballon d'Or



Number 7

Boston Celtics

The sleeping giants of basketball. After buying Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, the team started to return to the idolized and glorious days of the Bird years in the 1980's. Plus the captain, Paul Pierce, the 3 formiable players were indispensable in the team. In the Eastern Conference final of the NBA, they beat Detriot Pistons 4:2 to advance to the 2008 NBA Finals where historical rivals, Los Angeles Lakers await. The Celtics went on to defeat the Lakers 4:2 again and win their 17th championship



Number 6

Lionel Messi

Messi won the 2008 Beijing Olympics men's football gold medal with Argentina. He assisted his teammate, Angel Di Maria to score the winning goal in the final. He also displayed fine performances in the other matches which include a semi-final encounter with South American rivals, Brazil. In the current season of the La Liga, the Argentinian has been in red hot form for his club, Barcelona, having already scored 16 goals in 20 appearances in all competitions. That is the same number he scored for the whole of last season and only half of the 08-09 season has passed



Number 5

Rafael Nadal

The King of Clay in tennis won the French and Wimbledon Open titles this year, winning former world number 1, Roger Federer in both finals. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he won the men's tennis gold medal, his first Olympic medal ever. On October 18, he disposed Federer to the number 1 spot in the tennis world. The Spanish was also awarded the Prince of Asturias Awards in the sports category



Number 4

Cristiano Ronaldo

Enough said. Manchester United fans(as well as fans of rival clubs)should know well enough why his name is in this list. The 23 year old has won the Premier League, Champions League and most recently the FIFA Club World Cup with his club this year. Individually, he has won awards like FIFPro World Player of the Year, European Golden Shoe, Ballon d'Or and many others, all in a span of 1 year. Ronaldo deserves a higher place than this but due to his arrogance(and the fact that I dislike Man U), I placed him at fourth only



Number 3

Kobe Bryant

One of my favourite basketball players. Bryant led his team, Los Angeles Lakers, to the 2008 NBA Finals, where they eventually lost to Boston Celtics. The shooting guard won the Best NBA Player ESPY Award and NBA Most Valuable Player. He was named captain for the USA men's national team in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and propelled them to win the gold medal, which is their first since year 2000



Number 2

Usain Bolt

Usain "Thunder" Bolt won 3 gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He broke the 100m world record at 9.69 seconds and the 200m world record at 19.30 seconds. The 22 year old became the first sprinter to break both records at the same Olympics. His third gold came in the 4x100 metres relay and had another world record broken at 37.10 seconds. With all his acheivements, Bolt placed his country, Jamaica, on the athletic map

and the Number 1 is..........
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YOU

Yes, my loyal supporters. Without all of you switching on your computers day in day out to visit this blog, how will it survive? Now, that is vigoruos exercise with your hands doing with all typing and clicking and your eyes reading the words from the monitor. You deserve the top spot for my 2008 sports people

Claypot rice for dinner

I had dinner at the coffee shop near my block just now, ate the famous claypot rice. I did not take any pictures as I think it is not necessary. Quite nice and filling

That's all for today

Bye Bye

One more thing, I really hate Vietnam, they defeated Thailand yesterday in the AFF Suzuki Cup

RealBlurPolitics® will take a break tomorrow as today is a public holiday, we will be back next week, sorry for the inconvenience caused

What I did on Facebook

This is apparently what I did on Facebook today, I commented on George Yeo's status although I think it is more like commenting on the comments by other people on his status. And he is really the real George Yeo, foreign affairs minister of our country
Click on the pictures if you cannot see clearly


This is what he wrote
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scroll down
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And this is what I wrote at the bottom

At least what I wrote is of zero percent hypocrisy and pretension

Now, this is a good advantage a person has for not putting a profile photo

TV analysis: The Little Nyonya Part 3 and a TV commercial

TV analysis: The Little Nyonya Part 3 and a TV commercial


More errors from The Little Nyonya. We all know that there are many impossible and illogical scenes in the drama, now even the song lyrics of the theme song is sang wrongly, somehow

While listening to the theme song last Friday at the beginning of the show just like every other night, I noticed that Olivia Ong made a mistake.To confirm it, I listened to it carefully again last night and I was right. In the sentence 几幅女红将以泪缀点, the words 女红 should be sang as nǚ gōng but Miss Ong sang it as nǚ hóng. If I am not wrong, 女红 means the things which women do like spinning(thread), sewing, embroidering etc. So the sentence translated to English literally means some pieces of cloth sewn are done by tears, where women are resigned to their fate(doing chores)and had to suffer in the past

Very "deep" lyrics indeed, but let's forgive Olivia since she is more of an ang moh pai singer since young

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我是王冒 >>fill in whatever you want<< 大使

A TV commercial about this popular beer featuring three celebrities has been airing recently and it is normally the first one everytime when a show takes a commercial break

There is the ageing Alan 乌 with his new long and wavy hairstyle, "飞鸥纳" 公主 and the 30+ years old still want to act cute Miss Chia in the advertisement

This commercial is really one of the worst ones I have seen this year. Miss Chia looks greasy and lethargic in it, an obvious sign that she is getting older but still like to act young

"飞鸥纳" 公主 introduced herself as the health ambassador of the beer brand. Oh my, how on earth can drinking beer be related to being healthy? In short, beer is not healthy and has never been healthy till today. If there is a healthy ambassador, why not a money/prosperity/wealth one or anything else?

Alan 乌 has shown us that despite after so many years, his mandarin is still 十年如一日. There is still a tinge of ang moh flavour when he speaks. Many ABCs in the entertainment industry can change their style for the better but Mr 乌 is still his old self until now

Regarding the guess the animal post which nobody guessed correctly, here is the answer

It looks like this originally

then I have people guessing pig, how on earth does it look like a pig to you, Teck Cheong?
Wai Yuen guessed elephant and crocodile, I think he likes large animals.
Wei Qian said it is a bird.
Nick guessed cockcroach and mouse, he prefers small animals.

ALL WERE WRONG

You need to zoom in

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It's a HUMAN, struggling to get out of the ground near a hill. We are all humans and we perceive things differently, this is the raw side of humans that I want to show you all. Humans are also animals, just that our superior brains made us rule the world for many years to date

AFF Suzuki Cup: Singapore 0:1 Vietnam

It pains me to write the title of this post which is also the score of the second leg semi-final played at the National Stadium yesterday. A night when Stamford Raffles' armies were defeated by Ho Chi Minh's troops. I believe many other fellow Singaporeans share the same feeling as me now, so close yet so far. The chances were there but no one converted it to goals




Anyway, the ball is round so anything can happen in football. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. Vietnam won the match but I am not giving any credit to them. They were rough and had no sportsmanship especially the number two, Doan Viet Cuong, who eventually got a red card. If this is really the last match at the National Stadium, it will be a memorable one

Our national team has only trained together for 2 weeks so it is still a great achievement for them to reach the semi-finals. Also, it is seldom that a competition has a winner three times in a row(except for Manchester United in the premier league). We will be back for revenge in 2010 and this time they will not be so lucky

Final score: Singapore 0 Vietnam 1, although it is more like Stamford Raffles 0 Ho Chi Minh 1

AFF Suzuki Cup Preview: Singapore vs Vietnam

Again, our National Stadium will be reopened for the semi-final second leg match against Vietnam the day following today. During Wednesday's first leg in Hanoi, the Lions looked like the weaker team. They were outclassed and outwitted in every department especially on both flanks. Then after the game, people around you and me were using adjectives like "lousy", "disappointing", "sucks", "poor", "terrible" and many others to describe the national team. Actually, Singapore did not play poorly, it was the Vietnam side that played well. They controlled the game and left little space for their opponents which prevented Singapore from playing their normal passing game. Also, another factor that caused Vietnam to play better are tactics and formations of both sides. I shall analyse it in the next few paragraphs

If you know the game well enough, you would be aware that Vietnam's main style of play is to attack down the wings. Wednesday's match has proven that the Vietnamese wingers are too good for the Lions despite their full-backs training extra hard during practice. So how should we deal with them? I myself personally have a plan and if Raddy Avramovic somehow comes across this blog and sees it before tomorrow afternoon, I hope he will consider it

Ok, first of all, play a 4-2-3-1 formation. Juma'at Jantan should replace the ageing Daniel Bennett at left-back. The ang moh was erroneous throughout the first leg, he even threw the ball "out" from a throw-in during the first half. Then, he passed the ball to the Vietnamese players numerous times. Juma'at is a workhorse with a great engine and more of a natural left sided player. Logically thinking, if Juma'at is given a chance to start, he will surely play well to impress his coach for trusting him, so why not pick him? As for the other three of the back four, it would still be Precious Emuejeraye, Baihakki Khaizan and Noh Rahman.

The purpose of using two defensive midfielders is to counter Vietnam's twin terrors on the wings. Mustafic Fahrudin and Isa Halim will each mark one winger since Vietnam seldom play from the centre of the park. Then the playmaker who is also the third and other player in central midfield will be Shi Jia Yi. Jia Yi has shown that playing on the flank is not the best for him when he was deployed to the left on Wednesday. He is more attack-minded and playing him behind a lone striker looks more desirable

As for both flanks, I think Indra Sahdan Daud should be moved to the right from his natural striker role. Ridhuan Muhammad has immense pace which is something wingers should possess but he seems unable to deliver crosses and when he does, they are normally not sharp enough. My observations tell me that Indra should play in a position where no one is directly in front of him. He was used as second striker behind Agu Casmir in the first leg and failed to provide the much needed link from midfield to the frontman, Put him on the right and let him run down the flank himself, it should be more effective. For the left, Shahril Ishak would be my choice. He can play on either side or upfront. Actually, I pity him as he is not used regularly by Raddy since he has good technique and is versatile. A good alternative for the injured John Wilkinson.

Finally, the lone striker would be Noh Alam Shah. Judging from the previous game, Agu has sort of lost his touch where he scored four goals in the group matches. Techniques aside, Alam Shah has greater determination to do well than Agu where he showed it when he got booked after two minutes of his entry as a substitute in Hanoi. The offside own goal was also due to him putting pressure on the Vietnam defender who scored it.

Before I forget, there is Lionel Lewis in goal for the Lions. He looked like the only player in the team when Singapore played Vietnam, saving many shots time and again when his defenders let him down. And there you go, this is the most desirable starting XI Singapore should have tomorrow at Kallang. Tickets are available now. While stocks last

A good example

Today, RealBlurPolitics® shall show you what makes our country a good example that other nations want to follow and perceive that our government is of world-class standard

Firstly, why is our country doing so well in almost everything and always at the top of various rankings(except for football in FIFA)? This is because our ministers carry out their work properly, efficiently and swiftly with zero corruption. So how to have fine leaders to rule us? Simple, they must be clean or rather uncorrupted. Then how to have uncorrupted ones? Simple, better salary. With the highest amount of ministerial pay in the world, who wants to risk being corrupted and have a tragic ending after stepping down like Ah Bian?

Secondly, our leaders know how to strategize their survival in the country. By having GRCs in parliament, they know that they will have a more stable standing. All opposition GRCs were defeated in the last election. Also, during the previous election, the government who is the ruling party proposed that the only 2 opposition seats which were SMCs form a GRC instead. This indirectly shows the plan to capture the 2 remaining slots in the parliament where if both sides send a GRC to battle, residents might favour the ruling party as it has more distinguished candidates.

Next, to elaborate on the part about strategizing their survival. Knowing that the people here are all kiasu, they give out goodies time and time again. For example in the previous election, they started giving out free breakfast during 5am at dawn to residents staying in an "opposition place". Well, but in the end, the plan sort of failed as it was still lost to the opposition. Other goodies include lift upgrading, baby bonus, a million dollars to catch terrorists and many more

Then, there must be family members within the parliament to ensure 100% percent cleanliness and honesty. After the first one steps down, a tall one takes over and to show gratitude for choosing him as his successor, he picks the first one's son to be the third. Yes, they are one big family, regardless of height, black or white hair, age and who is more handsome. With his father as his mentor, the young one should be able to perform well enough and he has proved his country that he is capable to do it. Also, if he dares to be corrupted, his father well be there to scold him in front of the entire cabinet in the parliament house

Lastly, our government have done many things which the rest of the world have never tried before . We have the world-first drinkable recylced water, taxing people electronically on the roads, having a night safari, organizing a night F1 race and many more to show the world that we are very clever and can think out of the box although our statutory boards do otherwise. Whatever we do is to give a good impression to others like what our teachers tell us in school by dressing neatly and have tidy hair etc

Count yourself lucky to be living in this model employee, oops I mean model country where our leaders are all so capable and have wonderful salaries

TV Analysis: The Little Nyonya part 2

Here I have a more detailed analysis of the current 9pm drama, The Little Nyonya, on Channel 8

I shall start by talking about the roles. Firstly, the character of 菊香 and 山本月娘. Around March or April, Mediacorp shortlised 3 potential candidates for the role. They were Fiona Xie, Jesseca Liu and Jeanette Aw, who is eventually the winner after 2 months of consideration. Much to many criticism from viewers including me, Miss Aw has proven her critics right that she is not the perfect person to take up the role. Her expressionless face while filming is her main weakness and rumour has it that the character of 菊香 who is unable to hear and talk was tailored-made to cover up the actress' flaws. Also, Xiang Yun's role was actually assigned to Huang Bi Ren but the 1.75m towering actress left Mediacorp in June due to contract matters

Next is some trivia. The Little Nyonya is indeed the costliest production of Mediacorp to date. This drama is so attractive that even Zoe Tay, queen of Caldecott, wants to have a part in it. And regarding the generosity of our local TV station to air 2 episodes on Mondays, it is actually because of over-runs. It was supposed to be 30 episodes at first but ended up with 4 extra ones. Anyway, it is the first 9pm show to have a 2 hour allocation which has 2 episodes aired in 1 day

As for the errors, impossible scenes, wrong locations, it is clear that everyone has seen it themselves on TV so there is not a need to list them out. Almost every episode has an error in it, if you would like to see one yourself, the next significant one is episode 21 where 月娘, without any money, ran all the way from Singapore back to her house in Malacca.

But the strangest thing is that despite all the negative comments about the show, it has a high viewership and as of Monday's episode, it has 26.2%. Very high already!

Notice
Event: The Little Nyonya public event
Venue: Compass Point
Date: 27-12-2008
Time: 3pm

Yes, this is the one public event of the show where you can get to see Jeanette, Qi Yi Wu, Dai Yang Tian, Eelyn Kok, Joanne Peh and many more artistes from the drama, so if you have time do drop by
P.S.: wah but Sengkang quite far from my place leh!

I shall end this post with the so called music video of the theme song

Nobody is answering

This morning at 9 plus I switched on my handphone and received 2 messages from Singtel telling me that someone called me while it wasswitched off. One was ET(my classmate, not the alien you guys were thinking) while the other is 82111233.

When I called the latter back to ask who was it, a woman picked up the phone and said hello. Then she kept quiet and I was like hello-ing all the way there for 10 seconds, in the end she hanged up

So called ET but nobody answered and I continued calling for another 3-4 times but still nobody picked up. Actually, she also sent an sms saying that she heard from Vernon that my group is joining theirs for CIP and if we really want to, just give her a call to ask for more information

Since ET did not bother me, I called back the 82111233 woman, this time she answered and said she dialed the wrong number when she wanted to call her mum yesterday. Lame woman, guys if you are free enough to do me a favour, prank call her for me and when she asks just say you dialed the wrong number

Next, I decided to give Vernon a call to clarify and the result is equivalent to ET. No one answered, again. Then I called Zhi Teng who is my group member to enquire and (luckily)he answered. He say he received the sms at 9 plus last night and replied that to ET that he needs to discuss with his group members first. We both wondered who told Vernon about it and did not think that it is Nas. Zhi Teng said he is going to Langkawi later in the evening at 6 and we ended the call

Called Vernon again but still no answer, then after a while he sent me an sms asking if Nas told us about the CIP. Now I am stunned, he did not tell us at all. I immediately called Vernon to ask but again he does not seem to like answering calls on his handphone

Went online and went to my blog and saw Nas' tag asking me to call him so I did it although I do not understand why he cannot call me in the first place. He mentioned that the CIP was on Tuesday and Thursday and my first reaction was to inform him that our dear China friend, Zhi Teng, would be relaxing on some beach in Langkawi during that time. Finally, I just told him no since the venue is at Paya Lebar which is quite far from my house

End of story, and don't forget to prank call that lame woman

Nobody is updating

Sometimes I really wonder if anyone reads what I write, yes there are definitely readers out there, just that they did not tag

Anyway, why am I updating this blog so frequently when no one is doing it? It is been a week or so and some my friends' and classmates' blogs are so dusty. Come on, surely there is something to talk about after one week right? A good update is better than a bad update and a bad update is better than no updates

Some people(the worst kind)even have the cheek to advertise their blogs in their personal message in msn when they have not updated it at all. It is just like hanging a banner to tell people to visit your restaurant when you have not even started to prepare the food for cooking!

Then, there are other bloggers who leave theirs dusty for a month and when someone tags to ask for an update at the tagboard, he is ignored as well for several days and still counting

Finally, some even ask the people around them if they read his blog when it is untouched for quite some time. And the worst part is, when the other person replies no, they will react with a "huh? you never read? go read lah" manner. The problem is not that the guy did not read but is not reading it since it is not updated. My lecturer, if you are reading this, you should know best who I am referring to. I 亲耳
heard you asking another guy in class if he reads your blog and he shyly but politely says no and you were like so overreacting to his answer when your blog is so unupdated