In case you guys were wondering, this blog is not dead. The long weekend was an exhilarating but tiring one. Went clubbing on Sunday, took the whole of Monday to get over my, erm, hangover, and went out to gym today. Simple things for a simple man. Ok perhaps clubbing isn't so simple, considering I remembered imbibing red wine and champagne like what you do to Gatarode after a race, and then getting really tipsy, followed by a random round of people hugging. But I must say the music, the crowd, and my friends were absolutely fantastic, making it a thoroughly enjoyable experience, albeit in an inebriated way. Nope. The insectosaurus is hardly a party animal, but when the atmosphere is right, you gotta let your hair down.
There were quite a few pieces of sensational news over the weekend which I had wanted to write about, but in between being sword bearer for my friend, dragon boat training and clubbing, I lost the time and energy for it.
First, there was Malaysia's desperate attempts to stake claim at chicken rice and chilli crab - amongst other things - which spurned a whole series of articles about how the nationalities of food can never be accurately determined. This reminded me of a scene from the play MenApause, which claims, on the contrary, that all foods come from India, like how a pizza is actually a hard-crusted masala thosai. Malaysia is so rich in her heritage, cultural diversity and natural landscapes (even Survivor did their pilot series there), she has much to sell rather to harp that "the nasi lemak belongs to me" in their publicity pamphlets.
Next we have the confirmation that Renault has indeed crashed into the wall deliberately to give Alonso an unfair advantage (and eventually the win) for the 2008 F1 leg in Singapore. It goes to show how far people will go, even at the risk of their lives, to get an edge. John Keating from Dead Poets Society said, "Sports is a chance for others to push us to excel." We have seen how Usain Bolt burnt the tracks with his record breaking sprint, and the list of accomplished sportsmen and sportswomen goes on, with familar names like Michael Phelps, Carl Lewis, Lance Armstrong, Roger Federer, and perhaps less familiar ones like Sergey Bubka (as our Coach always love to quote). These figures have inspired generations of athletes to challenge their limits on the playing field, and showed the world, in the words of Michael Jordan, that "limits, like fears, are just illusions".
Yet at the same time we have doping incidents, dramatic "divers" on the pitch, and the lesser known Bloodgate, where rugby player Tom Williams used a red dye capsule to feign a blood injury (not unlike Lady Gaga during her Paparazzi number in VMA 09) and in turn allow the team to receive an unjust player substitution. Bloodgate is further complicated by the fact that Tom Williams was actually pressurised by the team's top brass to use the capsule, and he was asked to undergo a real cut on the lip by a scapel-wielding doctor to make the whole incident authentic.
All involved have been persecuted, including the doctor who agreed to corroborate with the team. Yet, what cannot be undone, is how all these incidents have tainted the reputation of sports, which originally was an event designed to celebrate the feats of the strongest and the fastest. The Olympic Games used to be attended by athletes in the buff, who challenged one another with nothing but their raw strength, grit and determination. Nowadays, performance enhancing suits in the pool separate record holders from mere participants, and as records continue to crash, you wonder if it is meaningful anymore because the athlete with the right sponsors, and not the athlete who trained the hardest, will go home with the gold, the fame, and the glory, at the end of the day. I am not against technology, but the playing field should be level, especially for major international races. FINA has made the first move by making new swimsuit specifications, and I await the new season to see what all effects this will have.
We all still need our heroes; our Muhammad Ali, our David Beckham, or Tao Li, to inspire ourselves onwards. We don't need orchestrated crashes, various forms of steroids, or even blood capsules, in our games. We want real sweat, and real blood, to make us believe that achieving the unimaginable, like Team Hoyt, is possible.
Feel like clubbing again... dang... alcohol is addictive.
*In case you are wondering, I am not against technology, nor am I hoping that Maria Sharapova will start playing tennis in the buff (ok maybe a little for this one). But, it depends on the sport. If it's F1, I am all for higher budgets and faster cars, because the race is about the engines, the carbon fibre, and the driver that learns to wield the vrooming monster. But if it's swimming and you get faster simply by putting on a polyurethane suit, it defeats the entire purpose of racing in the pool.
There were quite a few pieces of sensational news over the weekend which I had wanted to write about, but in between being sword bearer for my friend, dragon boat training and clubbing, I lost the time and energy for it.
First, there was Malaysia's desperate attempts to stake claim at chicken rice and chilli crab - amongst other things - which spurned a whole series of articles about how the nationalities of food can never be accurately determined. This reminded me of a scene from the play MenApause, which claims, on the contrary, that all foods come from India, like how a pizza is actually a hard-crusted masala thosai. Malaysia is so rich in her heritage, cultural diversity and natural landscapes (even Survivor did their pilot series there), she has much to sell rather to harp that "the nasi lemak belongs to me" in their publicity pamphlets.
Next we have the confirmation that Renault has indeed crashed into the wall deliberately to give Alonso an unfair advantage (and eventually the win) for the 2008 F1 leg in Singapore. It goes to show how far people will go, even at the risk of their lives, to get an edge. John Keating from Dead Poets Society said, "Sports is a chance for others to push us to excel." We have seen how Usain Bolt burnt the tracks with his record breaking sprint, and the list of accomplished sportsmen and sportswomen goes on, with familar names like Michael Phelps, Carl Lewis, Lance Armstrong, Roger Federer, and perhaps less familiar ones like Sergey Bubka (as our Coach always love to quote). These figures have inspired generations of athletes to challenge their limits on the playing field, and showed the world, in the words of Michael Jordan, that "limits, like fears, are just illusions".
Yet at the same time we have doping incidents, dramatic "divers" on the pitch, and the lesser known Bloodgate, where rugby player Tom Williams used a red dye capsule to feign a blood injury (not unlike Lady Gaga during her Paparazzi number in VMA 09) and in turn allow the team to receive an unjust player substitution. Bloodgate is further complicated by the fact that Tom Williams was actually pressurised by the team's top brass to use the capsule, and he was asked to undergo a real cut on the lip by a scapel-wielding doctor to make the whole incident authentic.
All involved have been persecuted, including the doctor who agreed to corroborate with the team. Yet, what cannot be undone, is how all these incidents have tainted the reputation of sports, which originally was an event designed to celebrate the feats of the strongest and the fastest. The Olympic Games used to be attended by athletes in the buff, who challenged one another with nothing but their raw strength, grit and determination. Nowadays, performance enhancing suits in the pool separate record holders from mere participants, and as records continue to crash, you wonder if it is meaningful anymore because the athlete with the right sponsors, and not the athlete who trained the hardest, will go home with the gold, the fame, and the glory, at the end of the day. I am not against technology, but the playing field should be level, especially for major international races. FINA has made the first move by making new swimsuit specifications, and I await the new season to see what all effects this will have.We all still need our heroes; our Muhammad Ali, our David Beckham, or Tao Li, to inspire ourselves onwards. We don't need orchestrated crashes, various forms of steroids, or even blood capsules, in our games. We want real sweat, and real blood, to make us believe that achieving the unimaginable, like Team Hoyt, is possible.
Feel like clubbing again... dang... alcohol is addictive.
*In case you are wondering, I am not against technology, nor am I hoping that Maria Sharapova will start playing tennis in the buff (ok maybe a little for this one). But, it depends on the sport. If it's F1, I am all for higher budgets and faster cars, because the race is about the engines, the carbon fibre, and the driver that learns to wield the vrooming monster. But if it's swimming and you get faster simply by putting on a polyurethane suit, it defeats the entire purpose of racing in the pool.
gosh i thought u should know better about the damage alcohol does to your brain, liver and most importantly, the SKIN! and the damage that you have done to your ears by exposing them to a single night of loud music. the hair cells in your cochlea are recoiling in pain...
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