Monthly Archive for July, 2008

A bigger Asian presence

Published on July 29, 2008 in Usual Ramblings. 4 Comments

In a move only the crazy or the courageous can pull off, the Singapore Slingers today announced their departure from Australia’s National Basketball League (NBL) after two seasons. Their decision was made after two more teams the Sydney Kings and Brisbane Bullets pulled out from the league leaving the already battered NBL at the brink of collapse.

Setting their eyes instead on the 600-million strong Asian market instead of Australia’s 21 million (according to Wikipedia), the ambitious Singapore Slingers is calling for challengers around Asia to meet them at home in the Slingers Challenge Series 2008/09. In addition, they too are calling for powerhouses hailing from countries as far as the Middle East and Europe. Dangling a $10,000 prize money to the team that beats them at home, the Slingers are certain that they will keep the game competitive…oh yes there will be blood.

Moving forward, the Singapore Slingers are set to form their own Asian Pro League similar of that of the NBL targeted to begin in April next year. With the best of the teams from around the Asian region, they will all fight for bragging rights to be called the best in Asia. With the Slingers all set to be history makers with the new league, I am crossing my fingers in hopes that their attempt will give us an experience ever so rewarding and memorable. Until then Slingers, I got your back.

Special Project in Bali

Published on July 25, 2008 in Usual Ramblings. 18 Comments

So this is it! If you are reading this as the latest post, I am heading or am already at Club Med Bali for a special project. Thanks to all my family, friends and colleagues who have been giving me endless support and honestly, I am feeling the love here baby. Hope to return with good news

Photo shamelessly stolen from Q Villaggi Network

Singapore Flyer 2

Published on July 23, 2008 in Usual Ramblings. 2 Comments

A couple of months after experiencing the alluring evening sights of Singapore through the eyes of the Singapore Flyer, my colleagues and I popped over there once again to witness the glory in daylight. Our visit there was rather convenient considering that it was after the completion ceremony of the F1 pit building…and of course after lunch at Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits…

I was able to capture the Singapore landscape with more light this time with my Nokia N95 and with better results. So I guess I will just leave the photos to describe our journey.

Left: Taking off | Right: An early view of what’s to come

Left and right: Roads leading to the F1 pit building

Left and right: Sights as our capsule is at its peak

Left: The Marina Barrage | Right: Marina Bay Golf Course

Left: A turn at the F1 street circuit | Right: The pit building

My wonderful colleagues

More photos in my Flickr album.

The Pit Building

Published on July 22, 2008 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 0 Comments

Popped over to the completion ceremony of the F1 pit building about a few weeks back in a bid to support F1’s first night race and Asia’s first street race. I must admit that I stood in awe as I wondered how remarkable a building like that could be completed in just 10 months. Spanning 350 metres, the pit building will house the biggest name in the racing arena and kicked into full gear from 26 to 28 September this year.

Although I will not be there during race day, my visit there gave me a tiny glimpse of how the atmosphere would be when (perhaps) one of the greatest F1 milestone takes place in a few months time. I took some time standing on the second floor imagining how the cars will pull up below for a few seconds as race engineers scurry away to change tyres, clean engines, and tune up. Honestly I can’t wait for September to come…it is going to be one heck of a ride.

Left: Concrete on the left and asphalt on the right | Right: Podium at the top

Left: Unfurnished VVIP area | Right: Unfurnished Paddock Club

Left and right: Models of the pit building

More photos in my Flickr album.

So it can fall…

Published on July 20, 2008 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 4 Comments

I know this piece of news is quite dated, but for those who feel nauseous at the mere mention of rising petrol prices, I guess this is some piece of good news. Seems that pump prices has fallen for the second time due to price cuts and I am hoping that it will drop further. At the rate things are going, I believe the only way fuel price will go is just up up up. So when it comes to further increase, lets say I am not holding my breathe.

Pump prices down again - taken from Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE – Pump prices at service stations across Singapore have been adjusted downwards for both petrol and diesel.

The prices for all grades of petrol are down another four cents a litre, with top-end 98 unleaded selling at S$2.28 per litre, while the cheapest is unleaded 92 which is tagged at S$2.173.

The move by Shell, SPC, ExxonMobil and Caltex comes a week after the fuel companies made a similar 4-cent price cut, the first after 13 consecutive price rises earlier.

While diesel was unchanged during last week’s pump price adjustments, this time the cuts included a 2-cent reduction for diesel. This brings the price down to S$2.013 a litre, which is still much higher than in the past.

The price of crude oil, which petrol and diesel are derived from, dropped four dollars in trading on Wednesday after staging its biggest fall in 17 years a day earlier. – CNA/sf

Uh oh…busted!!

Published on July 17, 2008 in Things that suck and Usual Ramblings. 4 Comments Tags: inconsiderate, parking.

Adding to my earlier article on inconsiderate parking, Lyn (my boo) and I saw a clamped up vehicle while on our way to Popeyes at the Singapore Flyer. I guess the the management needs to ramp up the number of parking lots there. I do find it a difficulty at times when trying to find a lot and did see a number of errant car owners with some rather creative alternative parking styles. Too bad this one got caught tho…

Sampling the Sampler

Published on July 15, 2008 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 4 Comments Tags: my humble house, singapore food festival, singapore food sampler, space, tung lok group.

My colleagues and I popped over to the Space @ My Humble House by Tung Lok Group last week to sample a Singapore Food Sampler in a bid to support the Singapore Food Festival. As the name suggests, the Singapore Food Sampler is basically a few of our local dishes served in sample sizes, allowing us to savour some and not just one dish at a go. Wanting to dine in style as reward for our hard week’s work, we decided on the slightly eccentric My Humble House instead of the usual hawker centre to sample our local fare.

First up was a pretty unique salad dish which serves four. As fusion food goes, our salad making up of the usual vegetables and nuts were neatly layered in a jar. To add flavour, our friendly waitress poured the salad dressing into the jar and sealed it before shaking it vigorously to get that perfect mix.

Left: The jar of salad with the salad sauce hiding sheepishly behind | Right: Our friendly waitress mixing our salad

After quite a long wait, our sample dishes arrived in four bowls served on a nice tray. Our dishes include lamb Bak Kut Teh, laksa, Mama Leong’s chicken rice and sliced fish noodles. Dipping the local delicacies in accompanying sauces that filled our table, we quickly tucked into the dishes to ease our hunger pangs.

Left: Our salad starter | Right: Our sampler dishes

Left: Mama Leong’s chicken rice | Right: Sliced fish noodles

Left: Laksa | Right: Lamb Bak Kut Teh

Although the food was enough to fill our stomachs, our only grouse apart from the long wait was that some dishes were cold. In my case, the chicken rice was rather cold and the other dishes were just warm. However, as dishes like these go, I guess I can’t blame the chef. It is not easy to prepare four separate dishes and delivering them at a go, let alone serving them piping hot. Adding to that, there were about seven of us dining at Space.

All in all, it was a pretty enjoyable experience. I finally have the opportunity to dine with those good colleagues and sampled something new… . More food to come…

Parking at Dempsy

Published on July 14, 2008 in Things that suck and Usual Ramblings. 4 Comments Tags: dempsy, inconsiderate, parking.

Although parking can be quite a pain as of late as the eateries at Dempsy booms, I guess we still do find some inconsiderate car owners and their unique parking skills. Not to sure which car started it, but the rest sure did follow blindly…

Thank God we were early that day and managed to find a parking lot nearby.

Happy Birthday Justin

Published on July 13, 2008 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 0 Comments

With their birthdays a little more than a week apart, we celebrated Justin’s birthday at Ian and Eva’s place a week after we were done with Junn’s (Justin’s boo). One thing I love about popping over to Ian and Eva’s for celebrations, is the hospitality the lovely couple have always rendered to us. Let’s say we really owe them big time. Adding to that, can I say good food and drinks?

Left: Veal at the stove | Right: Veal on my plate

As birthday parties go, Junn got Justin this really nice mango cake from Madam Kang and stuffing about a good 30 candles or so. Serious birthday parties aside, we made Justin do really funny stuffs to the candles before deciding to stop him for hygiene purposes.

Left: Junn with Justin’s cake | Right: The couple with Justin’s cake

Another thing to note about our party is the number of alcohol we consume throughout the night. Apart from the usual wine and beer (thanks to Ian and Eva again), we got some really nice champagne for the evening.

Left: Justin popping the champagne | Right: We are about to start drinking…again

As the party progressed into the night, Priscilla did her usual quirky bit and tried to shove all the candles into the left over cake and lighted it up. As much as I hate to admit it, we were surprised to see her pull it off without burning the house down. I can’t tell you the number of times we had to help her clean up on other occasions.

Left: Priscilla lighting up the candle as Jim (her beau) watches in surrender | Right: Good try

Yeap, once again another great party thanks to Ian and Eva for their hospitality and HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUSTIN!! More photos in my Flickr album.

Happy Birthday Junn

Published on July 12, 2008 in Usual Ramblings. 0 Comments

With quite a number of stuffs to write in my blog, the hatius due to busy schedules didn’t seem to help in trying to keep my stories fresh and updated. So for I guess the next few posts will be full of backlog stories accumulated for a number of weeks.

About a good two weeks (or more) ago, a number of us popped over to House at Dempsy Road to celebrate Junn’s birthday. It was the usual surprise party where everyone had to excuse themselves upon her party invitation due to prior engagements. The numerous turn down did leave her rather disappointed since no one will be around to carouse her 30th birthday…something we wanted her to think. So when she finally made it there with her beau, Justin thinking that it was going to be a quiet dinner, we all sat there and screamed “Surprise!!” when she entered the room. Yeap, the element of surprise always seemed to make parties more memorable.

From what I gathered, House is a spa by day (and night) and comes alive by night as it transform into a chill out pub/restaurant. With quite a limited number of dishes in its menu (compared to other premium restaurants), House serves up a number of pretty good delicacies. Not too friendly on wallets (especially mine), the price ranges from about low twenties to high thirties per dish.

I would love to go further but I completely forgot to take pictures of the food that night leaving me wondering how the heck they look like now. However, one thing I actually remembered is the unique drinks they served like the Long Island Iced Tea and the Tiffin Punch.

Left: Long Island Iced Tea | Right: Tiffin Punch (photo from Bitchy Witchy)

But food aside, I took back very fond memories of good old friends chilling as we drank into the night. So yeah, although I am late but hey!!…HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUNN!!

Left: Junn | Right: The 624′ians (long story) plus partners