A sad day for Sports fans in Singapore

Breaking News : Singtel had won EPL Broadcast Rights for the next 3 seasons!

Today sports fans in Singapore just need to subscribe a Sports package from Starhub & all you watch Sports events will be presented in multiple Sports Channel within the same service provider. Although Singtel won the rights for Champions League, as the Live telecast times are during the wee hours in the morning. Most scoccer fanatics will call it a miss & check the internet for the results. But this is still OK....

Next year things will change!!! Major EPL will goes to Singtel but the rest will stay with Starhub!

I watches Formula 1, Eric watches EPL. We love other sports like Tennis, so what will be the consequnce???? Consumers suffer. Additional subscribtion to another Pay TV provider...
Most likely my TV console table may be filled with both service providers console plus Wii plus etc..
Argh!!!! I am not liking this!!!!

SingTel wins EPL rights

SINGTEL has won exclusive rights to the Barclays Premier League for three years, it said on Thursday.

The Singapore telecommunications company has won exclusive rights to the League for three years starting from 2010.

These include rights for mio TV, as well as the Internet and mobile. It has also secured exclusive broadcast rights to seven sports channels from ESPN STAR Sports.

Mr Allen Lew, SingTel's CEO Singapore expressed his delight at being able to bring the matches to Singapore. 'Football fans can look forward to a revolutionary way of viewing 'live' soccer matches on TV, the Internet and their mobile phones.

According to Mr Lew, users will not be charged 'more than what they are currently paying to their cable TV operator, while enjoying the convenience of SingTel's integrated platform offering.

SingTel will be working closely with the Premier League and its production partners.

This ends a bidding war between Singapore's two pay-TV giants SingTel and StarHub to broadcast live English Premier League matches live.

The deadline for submitting bids was on Tuesday and SingTel was the first to confirm its interest, releasing a two-paragraph statement at 6pm.

Sources from www.straitstimes.com

I will follow you...

Some one asked me this afternoon... Why I be a Ferrari fan next year?
My ans : Yes!! If Alonso going there next season!!???!!! HAHAHAHA

Alonso admits Ferrari an 'option' for future
To the English-speaking media on Thursday, Fernando Alonso swore blind that reports of a looming Ferrari switch are not true.

The Spaniard however also gave interviews at the Nurburgring to reporters in the native tongues of Spain, France and Italy.

To the Spanish sports newspaper AS, he admitted that Ferrari is an option for the future.

"I have often said that I want to be in a car that allows me to win. In 2005 and 2006 everyone dreamed of the Renault, but in the last ten seasons Ferrari have won more championships than us.

"That's why Ferrari is the option that everyone has in mind, because of their successes of the past decade. You want to go where you will have the best car," said Alonso.

In another newspaper, El Mundo, the 27-year-old insisted he has "always been ready to go to a team like Ferrari."

"What I mean is that I am not demoralized, I am not sad, I am simply in delay.
It's like in the Tour (de France). I'm now in the stage where I am reserving my energy for the mountains, because it's then that I am going to be on top," Alonso added.

He refused to predict how his native country would react to the official news that he is switching to the famous Maranello-based team.

"I don't know, I am not a fortune teller. It is necessary to have this race in Germany, to see what happens in the championship, and what happens in the future is difficult to predict," said Alonso.

E.A. © CAPSIS International
Source: GMM

Dinner Tonight :)

Wanted to leave office before the peak hour surcharges starts @ 5pm but unable to because the 4pm conference lasted longer then expected & also need to complete some incomplete assignments. Why I want to leave early? Well I asked Daddy back for dinner tonight & I'm cooking!

Ya I do cook almost every day, but today got to spend a bit more effort to cook cause got guest. Else.. I will just cook some thing simple. Spend almost an hour cooking & washing up. These were my feast today.

As Cantonese, most meals must have soup. Soup of today is Chicken soup. I boiled 3 chicken drumstick into the pot with some slices of ginger & carrots. Later when the soup was done, add some egg tofu. Forgotten to de-skin the chicken, soup a bit oily.

All meals of mine must have veggies. I water boiled the Kai Lan & put aside. Then stir fried some fresh Japanese mushrooms with chopped garlic & oyster sauce. When mushroom is done, pour on top of veggies. This will make the water boiled veggies taste less blend.

Daddy loves fish, so I steamed a plate of fillets with bean paste mixed with chopped garlic. The garnishes on top are vinegar marinated ginger or 酸姜. Mommy always marinate a bottle for me when I finish the supply from the fridge. After you cooked these ginger, it does not taste that sour anymore.

What is all meal without rice. Cook 2 cups of rice & all finished by the man. I finally invested in a rice cooker after learning it takes 3 x or > energy to cook rice in a microwave oven then a generic rice cooker.

Everybody is satisfied after dinner & it ended with Burp!

My Office "Garden"

The usual comments when other colleagues visit our office & they will say "Wow there are so many plants & fish tanks on almost every desk!" Frankly its really true, almost 90% of the colleagues sitting in IT area either have at least a minimum of 1 pot of plant on their desk or 1 or more fish tanks with either water plants or gold fishes or guppies or even lobster!

Side track on the lobster... The original owner resigned & left the company. Another colleague whom replaces her job also inherit the lobster. Unfortunately he got WFM yesterday & the lobster is out for adoption mention by our dear Sharon... :( One good thing is that every morning cleaner auntie will feed the lobster without fail....

Coming back to the plants! Oh yes there are plants every where. Not loosing out I also have my own as well. Let me present you with my mini office garden!

From the walkway this look like just any ordinary empty cubicle. Ya there were many colleagues whom got WFM & many pockets of empty places all around.

Well if you walk into the cube... here are all my plants!

A closer look on the plants. Let me also introduce these plants 1 by 1 to you as well.

This is actually my 1st plant. A money plant which I inherited from Winnie Teng. Sorry dear, over all these years I only manage to grow 4 stalks of leaves :(

The next plant I brought to the office - Cactus. A gift from my 6th uncle whom has such great green fingers. Anything he plants will grow fat & tall!

Ah... this one is another inheritance - from Yeow Loye after he left an African Violet. Hey YL see it is growing well & blooming with flowers since the past couple of months.

A new addition to the family. Another African Violet just potted last week. I hope it will grow well :)

Lots of Long Weekends

Singapore's 2010 Public Holidays just published couple days ago. OMG!! OTher then Hari Raya Haji which falls on a Wed, the rest are either on Fri, Sat & Sun!!!
The best for us is we shall get Monday off when the PH falls on Sat. Hooray!

Another Team Order?!?!?!

After Qualifying on Saturday, I really thought its going to be different for this this race? Why so different? I really though Vettel may take the lead & win the race being pole other then Button. Unfortunately Vettel lost his grip & spun out of the track. Button overtook Vettel & the race winner had been decided...

What so frustrating is, Vettel was put on a 3 Pit Stop strategy while Webber was on 2! Was it a team order? Was it a punishment for Vettel loosing his position to Button during the 1st 3 laps of the race? Was it?!?!?!?!

During mid race, Vettel was so close to Button - < a fraction of second apart. You can see Vettel was pushing Button hard & almost made Button loosing his foot hold on this position. But the unexpected happen! Vettel being called it pit for a regular pit stop! What kind of strategy is this! I believe if Vettel to continue to push further, Button will loose his cool...



Well its obvious you wouldn't see a happy Vettel on the podium as well....More news from www.f1-live.com
Sebastian Vettel admitted feeling somewhat frustrated following the 58-lap Turkish Grand Prix that saw rival Jenson Button extend his already large championship advantage with another win while poor team strategy cost him second place to team-mate Mark Webber.

After running wide into turn nine and then losing time out of turn ten on the first lap, pole-sitter Vettel dropped out of the lead and behind Button. This would prove to be a decisive as Vettel then focussed his attention to keep the Brawn Mercedes in sight and Red Bull Renault team-mate Webber behind.

However, Red Bull opted to keep Vettel on a three stop strategy in the hope that later in the race he could catch and pass the championship leader to record the race win - an unlikely scenario given the pace of the Brawn in practice and qualifying. This was also a surprise to the young German star as well as to the paddock.

"After the first stint it was more or less clear that I was short on fuel and therefore I was surprised that we still went on a three stop strategy as from there onwards it did not make much sense especially as I caught up Jenson in my middle stint and lost time there," Vettel explained. "I basically lost the race to Mark as well, so all in all we probably didn't do the best job there."

The battle for second however still remained. Following his third stop for fuel and tyres, Vettel quickly closed in on Webber before team instruction told him to save the car and not to try and gain second position.

"I was surprised it was that much and then my engineer came on the radio and said Mark was faster," he continued. "I think I just have to ask you what you would do in this kind of situation. You start from pole, you realise that your strategy doesn't work as it was supposed to and you're not in the position you want to be, so the last thing you do is just go round slowly and drive the car home. I think both of us turned down the engines but I enjoy driving, so I would rather continue to go quickly than start to slow down and carry the car home."

"At this point I haven't spoken to the team but at this point I don't yet understand why we were still on a three stop. I think a two stop would have just secured second position. We tried; it didn't work, so we'll know next time."

Vettel is clearly frustrated this evening as he now trails Button by a massive 32 points, a gap that is almost impossible to regain. Furthermore, Webber's second position moves him just 1.5 points behind.

Team Principal Christian Horner was keen to diffuse the issue in his post race statement claiming that Vettel's lap one mistake had essentially forced the team to remain with a three stop strategy.

"Unfortunately for Sebastian, after a good start and having led on the first lap, he made a small mistake which allowed Jenson to pass," Horner stated. "Our only chance to then have a go at Jenson was a three-stop strategy, which is what we elected to do. It relied on us overtaking Jenson in the second stint, but unfortunately Sebastian didn't manage that today and the time lost was the difference between second and third."

Earl ALEXANDER
© CAPSIS International