F1 Korean GP Aftermath

F1 Korea 2010 – The Game Changer.

After a race event that almost didn’t happen, a lot of events actually happened. First, with a brand new race track in Korea, drivers had to train to get used to a new circuit.

And then it started to rain on Race Day.

Then Kim Jong-Il decided to rack up a weather machine all the way from North Korea so as to bring on some rain and make them stop racing. Must’ve been laughing his head of while watching on his high-powered telescope.

So for the first 17 laps, Mercedes-Benz was getting some good advertising for their new SLS AMG F1 Safety Car.

Bernd Maylander, Safety Car driver, was later seen apparently filling out forms to join the 2011 F1 race. Meanwhile, the Korean contractors were in dispute as to who was in charge of building drains as Vettel complained that there was no place for the water to go. They were overheard saying “Drains? Nobody told us to build any drains”.

The Bulls leaving the rest in the dust (and water).

Rosberg overtakes Hamilton at Lap 18, obtaining 4th place (which later becomes a curse in disguise). Because at Lap 19, Mark Webber swerved as he hit the ker. He couldn’t regain control in time and made a SPECTACULAR CRASH as he spun out of control and hit the right side of the wall.

Unfortunately he ricochetted backwards to hit Rosberg (narrowly avoiding then 3rd driver Alonso!). Puts out the safety car for the second time (and tearing Bernd Maylander from his paperwork) while most of the cars saw sense in pitting and switching to intermediate tyres thanks to the rain. Webber meanwhile hitched a ride on a scooter all the way back to the pit. The “I’m Not Racing” award goes to Webber, who did not wish to race under such conditions, and proved that loud and clear.

Webber: “A massive blow obviously, and I’m sorry for wrecking Nico’s race. It was so slippery out there.”

(Just say it, you knew you had to at least take out the enemy, and you were sorry you didn’t get Alonso instead)

Not much action occurred after that, except many cars swerving around but still able to maintain some form of grip. Then at Lap 33, Ferrari’s Alonso pits and a rogue wheel nut in the front wheel delays him till 3rd place as Hamilton gleefully sped past him. Hamilton’s joy was shortlived however, as Alonso overtook him yet again 2 laps later. The pit crews later claimed they could hear his girlfriend Nicole Sherzinger’s anguish all the way from Mclaren’s pit space.

At Lap 41, Petrov met his untimely end to the race as he crashed into a tyre wall, both front and back of the car damaged. Fortunately it wasn’t concrete unlike some of the areas of the new Korean track (where safety didn’t quite seem to be their first priority) but Petrov was not happy, since he hasn’t been confirmed to stay on in Renault next year. Still, 75% of the race was over, and 75% of Petrov’s car was out in the field.

At Lap 44, Vettel begins to complain about the lack of visibility as the sun began to set (how early does the sun set in Korea?!). And at Lap 46, he gets an engine problem that ends up in a fiery blaze, not unlike Kovalainen (2nd last lap, Singapore). Vettel is forced to retire, pulling to the side and getting out of the car to play Fireman as he douses the back of Luscious Liz, at least I think that’s what he named his 2010 car. He likes to name his cars for no apparent reason. Although Vettel is now out, he is currently in the running for Fireman of the Year award.

Nope, I still think Kovalainen’s winning this award.

Vettel: “Very disappointing, but there was nothing I could do. It’s a shame but it’s not over yet.”

Anyway, Red Bull gets a double DNF (Did Not Finish) and Ferrari’s Alonso finally takes the lead, followed closely by Hamilton! After constantly losing control of his car and endangering everyone else, Sutil attempts to take out Kobayashi at Lap 47 but ends up out instead. Kobayashi remarkably stays in the race. Even more remarkably, Kobayashi hasn’t been racing like the nutcase he always has.

Force India’s Sutil is just upset he didn’t manage to collide with every single car out there.

I don’t like Kobayashi but he sure has a nice Batman car.

Finally at Lap 55, ALONSO. WINS. THE. RACE!

Hamilton at 2nd place, Massa makes it a 1-3 Ferrari, and some German newbie named Michael Schumacher rounded up the top 4 positions. It’s his personal best since his retirement, re-igniting much interest on Twitter (although there was already a lot of interest on the race before that).

After winning race, Alonso decides to defy gravity.

Hamilton also does the impossible by actually finishing a race, that he closes his eyes to stop the tears from rolling.

HELLO Scuderia Ferrari!

So the current Team Championships is as follows:

Red Bull 426

Mclaren 399

Ferrari 374

And the current Driver’s Championships is as follows:

Alonso 231

Webber 220

Hamilton 210

Vettel 206

Button 189

Button was involved in a terrible accident.

Think he lost control on the corner.

.

The real human Button, ended the race at 12th place, and out of the points. Clearly not his day.

Button: “I don’t know what happened. It was undriveable. Am I in the title anymore? Not really.”

He’s 42 points behind Alonso, but he isn’t quite out yet. But it would take a race like this with him finishing the races and the others knocked out before he can win.

My vote (and loyalty) goes to Scuderia Ferrari!

Felipe Massa: “A great result at the end of a very difficult race”

Pleaze to support Massa and Captain Eyebrows!

VETTEL (DNF): “Very disappointing, but there was nothing I could do. It’s a shame but it’s not over yet.”

Hello, F1!

It is upon us again.

F1 is now in SINGAPORE!!!

Who will get the pole position, and who will get the coveted top spot?

Will it be…

Vettel or Webber? Vettel’s current odds of winning are 2:1, the highest of all.  By the way, Vettel was born in 1987, making him 23 this year! Wth! He’s so young! I didn’t know sia. He’s one of the youngest in F1 racing, the youngest is like born in 1990 or something.

Webber has a record for being a gung-ho driver (just like his counterpart). If he doesn’t crash, he has good odds too.

Or will it be Hamilton or Button?

Both I don’t like. Button has never been an exceptional driver, he gets maybe 2nd or 3rd place but almost never first. But they are the two with no feuds so far in 2010, unlike the other teams. That might work to their advantage if there’s no fierce rivalry.

So who will it be?

Oh, who am I kidding.

IT’S GONNA BE ALONSO!! Okay he has a 4:1 odds, but that’s second to Vettel. Not too bad. Massa’s gonna help make up the points for a Ferrari championship.

See you at F1! If you’re not watching Mariah Carey, your life is forfeited.

I still say she doesn’t really look pregnant, but she was wearing a maternity dress when she arrived here, looking very tired. We might be the last ones to see her before an official announcement. If she announces it out during the concert on Sunday, I think everyone might just spontaneously combust.

ONE WOMAN. WITH CELEB POWER. OUT TO CHANGE THE WORLD.

I came across this new auction that is the brainchild of Eva Longoria (Gabrielle of Desperate Housewives). Link is here: Twitchange. All proceeds go to the efforts in rebuilding Haiti in aHomeinHaiti.org.

Now, instead of bidding for autographs or memorabilia from celebrities, people would be bidding for three things:

1. To have a celebrity follow you on Twitter

2. To be mentioned by a celebrity in a tweet

3. For a celebrity to retweet you

The celebrities who were enlisted and are currently on board include Eva Longoria  (duh), Nicole Richie, Paula Abdul, the Jonas brothers (a lot of fangirl money coming in), Demi Moore, Perez Hilton (is he considered a celebrity?), Gordon Ramsay (haha! I wonder what he tweets about), Cher, Alicia Keys (New Yooooooork!), Ne-Yo, Sophia Bush, and more.

So who will bid? Fans who admire a certain celebrity, businesses who want to be mentioned to a huge audience (this is worldwide exposure we’re talking about here), and people who just want their money to be benefitted by the children in Haiti, especially the ones with severe autism and cerebral palsy.

Shows how the times are changing and the rising power and influence social media brings to the table.

Personally, I think this idea is FUNKAY. Imagine telling people “Yeah, Oprah follows me. We talk on twitter all the time”.

Okay I don’t seriously think that that will really happen. But it would still be funky to say that, no?

Makes me wonder, does Oprah tweet? As in the real Oprah?

Bidding begins on 15th Sept and ends on 25 Sept. It’s worldwide, so I bet there’ll be REAL competition.

Suraus in Singapore

You know how “you don’t really know what you got till it’s gone”?

I never noticed how hard it is to find a surau (prayer room) in Singapore till I went around consciously hunting for one.

So for my friends who need to know where there’s one, or for friends who’re not in the loop about where they are, here’s a non-exhaustive list:

01) Parkway Parade – Carpark Level 5 It’s been gone since June.

02) Marina Square – Republic Ave – Carpark Basement 1 (Small partition room – Ablution can be taken at level 1 toilet)

03) Royal Plaza – Scotts Road next to DFS Gallery – (An airconditioned room near the toilets)

04) Furama Hotel(River Front) – Havelock Road – Level 3 (Beside Kintamani Indonesian Restaurant)

05) Tampines Mall – Tampines Central – Level 2 (Near the toilet & Loading & Unloading Lift.)

06) IKEA (queenstown) – Basement cpark (Male at the corner back on the left from the pick up point while Female just in front at the pick up point) Door in grey and indicates surau.

07) Serangoon Junior College – 3rd level staircase landing, behind one of the older Lecture Theaters. Ablution facilities, level 1 toilet beside the bookshop, use the fire hosereel.

08) Temasek Polytechnic – Level 3 handicap toilet landing, near the one stop service centre. A lift landing with ablution facilities (handicap toilet).
(There’s another one in Business School on the 6th floor, labelled “Cleaners Room”. However, you need to find a Malay lecturer in order to gain acccess)

09) Police Cantonment Complex (‘A’ Division) – Level 4, behind the partition in officers rest room.

10) SGH Mosque – The large surau beside the Duke NUS Graduate Medical School. It is somehow labelled as a surau although it is large enough to be a mosque and Friday prayers are conducted there as well.

11) SIM Singapore Institute of Management. – In a corner stairwell on the right 1st floor when you enter SIM. No room, its under the stairs.

12) IKEA Tampines – Level 2 – Beside the food court. Ablution available on both male & female rooms.

13) Queensway shopping mall Level 2

14) NUH – Level 6

There’s many more around the island, including the proper mosques. And if you can’t find anywhere, must be thick-skinned and ask around, especially malay security guards and people in charge of buildings and companies, who might be in the know.

At the very last option, try not to pray at the bottom of staircases, particularly if you’re female. Passers-by might not appreciate the sight of white sheets lurking around in hidden corners.

Coming to that, I have one grouse.

Why is it that these prayer rooms tend to be hidden right in one corner, with  dirty floors?

Hidden in one corner is one thing, but it’s so annoying to see the state of these rooms that management have reserved. Toilets are in much much better conditions, at least most of them are well-lit, even if they’re dirty. I cannot stand to see the condition these rooms are left in, because it reflects back to the people in charge exactly how much consideration is put in.

And with dim lighting, no wonder some people think some suraus are haunted.

***Want to talk about 9/11, but I think that’ll be in another post already***

iPantiliner

C’mon people! TELL me that doesn’t make perfect sense!

Sentosa aims to have 12 million visitors a year

I think I’ve discovered a fabulous (and terribly easy) secret to doing hard news.

All Journalism people know, the main component of hard news is to form the 5Ws and 1H. But hard news can be tough and boring, especially in the face of the Internet, where people’s minds gloss over to the next story as quick as anything.

So what I did for this article was: figure out what was the 5Ws and 1H of this press release.

Sentosa (Who) want to double their amount of visitors (What) to their island resort (Where) by the next few years (When) by having more programmes and opening a new dolphin lagoon (How) [because they wanna make more money, of course] (Why).

And from that one sentence, expand everything out to explain what’s going on.

And you get:

Sentosa, one of Singapore’s popular tourist destinations, aims to double their visitor figures within the next few years. Sentosa currently attracts over 6 million visitors a year, up from 3 million visitors in the early 1990s.

Sentosa is an island resort in Singapore that is vastly populated by rainforests. As such, it boasts a variety of attractions such as Underwater World Singapore (UWS), Butterfly Park and Insect Kingdom, Sentosa Nature Discovery and Animal Encounters that revolve around nature. Sentosa also introduced new programmes such as “Living in the Ocean” sleepover targeting children and “Swim with the Dolphins” at Underwater World Singapore’s Dolphin Lagoon.

On 2 July, Sentosa celebrated the official opening of a new Dolphin Lagoon, with Mr S Iswaran the Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Education gracing the event.

In a speech at the official opening, Mr S Iswaran says “To achieve this target, Sentosa will continue to refresh its multitude of unique leisure and entertainment visitor experiences.”

“UWS’ latest attraction will add to the growing buzz and vibrancy of Sentosa’s leisure and entertainment offerings. Together with the recently opened Resorts World Sentosa, WaveHouse Sentosa, MegaZip and Azzura Beach Club, Sentosa is well on track towards becoming a choice international tourist destination,” he said.

At present, Sentosa hosts over 200 leisure and lifestyle offerings. These include gourmet dining, heritage and nature attractions, beaches, championship golf courses, a deep-water yachting marina and exclusive residences. It also operates South East Asia’s first Univeral Studios Theme Park at Resorts World Sentosa, and is Asia’s leading leisure destination.

Simple!

Thundercats, Ho!

Anyone remember this cartoon back in the 80′s and 90′s?

Thundercats was a super super old cartoon I used to watch when I was a kid. The protagonists were cat-like creatures who walked on two legs and talked English. They wielded weapons like bombs and shields. And main man Lion-O (the leader must be a lion, after all since lions are the kings of the jungle) carried a sword which gave him powers like “sight beyond sight” (being able to see into the future), and a way to call the other Thundercats to him, by going:

“Thunder… thunder… thunder… thundercats! Ho!’

(Thundercat Hoes? Probably not their intended objective)

And now Studio4°C, a Japanese animation studio, has paired up with (read: gotten financial backing from) WarnerBros Animation to produce a new Thundercats animation series. Studio4°C’s credits include The Animatrix, Gotham Knights and Halo Legends. The series will air in Cartoon Network in 2011.

Wah, damn old-school can! They better not look like this anymore!

Although the only ones I really can recall are Lion-O the leader, Cheetara, Snarf that actual cat, WillyKit and WillyKat. And the evil Mumm-Ra.

Anyway, they probably no longer look like this. WarnerBros and Studio4°C have supposedly updated the looks of the characters and have given out a sneak preview of what the new Thundercats will look like:

Thundercats are loose!

P.S. This Halloween, must dress up at a Thundercat. Otherwise, when it’s released next year, everyone else will be dressing up as a thundercat.