Mysterious Visitors Join the Olympics Fun

Sports and the Olympics are truly universal.

Mysterious Aliens Enjoying the Waves

It's amazing how tough these tiny visitors to our planets are and their preferences for sport.

Epilogue - What's after Apple’s September 10 event?

A motion co-processor aptly named M7? Remarkably suitable for tracking motion? May I join the foray and speculate that Apple's wearable device(s?) is coming really soon? O.o

Li Na Becomes First Chinese Singles to Win Grand Slam Title

After reaching her first grand slam final at the Australian Open earlier this year, Chinese player Li Na managed to win her first grand slam at the French Open on Saturday, the first ever Chinese singles tennis player to do so at any grand slam!

She beat  last year's champion Francesca Schiavone (who incidentally was the first Italian to win a women's singles grand slam title) 6-4, 7-6.

via The New York Times.

Lotus F1 Team Numbered 18 and 19

What better way to start my first post for the last month of the year than to talk about our magnificent multi-million dollar Formula 1 team! Our 1Malaysia F1 team is officially named Lotus F1. At first, I thought it would be called the 1Malaysia F1 team but I suppose it would be damn lame and it should not remind that the team is funded by Malaysians.
I must say, that is one damn cool looking car but I don't know how it will look when the sponsor stickers are all up. Anyway, The Star Online reports that our team had been given the numbers 18 and 19, putting them ahead of the other new teams. Ho! Ho! Ho! I guess this does signify something and Christmas is just around the corner!

No drivers were announced yet but our very own Fairuz Fauzy (ok, I'm not a racing fan so I don't know who he is) is expected to be the reserve driver while rumour has it that Jarno Trulli, Kamui Kobayashi, Takuma Sato and Jacques Villenueve are in the running as the two drivers. Yeah, I also don't know who the rest of these people are either. Apologies.

The Uneventful Week That Was

For many, Monday is the beginning of the week but I remembered a teacher telling me that a week actually starts on a Sunday. Anyways, I'm starting this working Monday with a summary of a few uneventful things that happened last week (in no particular order):

1. Our Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix had to stop after 32 laps (of the 56 planned) due to bad weather. All drivers get half of the usual points. Jenson Button of Brawn GP won again.
   
2. TM's High Speed Broadband director came out to defend their efficiency, saying something like "they have 1.5 million subscribers; legitimate customer complaints account for less than 0.2% (3,000) of total subscribers annually."
3. Hindraf members were released from ISA detention but, apparently, terms and conditions apply.
4. Malaysia's got a new prime minister since Friday, 3 April 2009.
5. Update 2:50pm: Oh, one more thing. Our opposition leader was supposed to spring a surprise of some sort but that turned out to be some kind of potong steam, too.

Run For A Cause 2008

It is that time again for the Terry Fox Run, a run for cancer research. You can learn more about Terry Fox from my previous post or from the official website. I received the following e-mail:

Hi there,

The Terry Fox Run KL 2008 will take place on 2 November 2008 (Flag off 9.00 am) at Taman Tasik Perdana (Lake Gardens). Participants are to be at the assembly area by 8.45 am. All participants must run on the designated route. To participate, you can purchase a limited edition Terry Fox 2008 T-Shirt from the following locations:

T-shirts can be purchased at

1) Ms Chan Siew Wan / Ms Lee Siew Bee at the Canadian High Commission, 17th Floor, Menara Tan & Tan, Jln Tun Razak (6th October onwards)

2) Ms Yoon / Mr Peter Kang at the Cancer Research Initiatives Foundation (CARIF), 2nd Floor, Outpatient Centre, Subang Jaya Medical Centre (6th October onwards)

3) Ms Tila at the Foyer, Ground Floor, Menara Citibank, Jalan Ampang (12.00 to 2.00pm, 20th October until 24th October)

4) At the Lake Garden on Run Day (2nd November 2008)

Would you like to be a volunteer? Please contact Ms Jo Tan or Ms Yoon at organizer@terryfoxrunkl.org

If you have any question, please send your email to organizer@terryfxorunkl.org

We are posting latest information at http://www.1.com.my/2008/09/03/terry-fox-run-kl-2008/ too

Pin

On behalf of Terry Fox Run KL

FEI Federal Territories KL Grand Prix - The Leap!

Here is a super rider doing a leap with his horse, taken with severe under-exposure and brightened using Levels in Gimp 2.4:

FEI Federal Territories KL Grand Prix Sequence

Update: Uh oh... looks like when I uploaded the sequence of images below, Blogger some how shrank it. You won't be able to see it much larger even if you click on it. Sorry!

Here is combination of 8 images in a sequence taken in burst mode, cropped to focus on the rider and the horse, resized, and brightened considerably since the original was underexposed to prevent motion blur. You will have to click on the image to view it larger. The sequence starts from right to left:The sequence shows the rider and the horse do a double leap... errr... if that is what you call it. Sorry, first time watching an equestrian event. Don't know the lingo nor the rules of the game. :P

FEI Federal Territories KL Grand Prix Champion

Was at the FEI (Fédération Equestre Internationale) 5-Star KL Grand Prix. Here is the final event (as stated above) where the winner Markus Fuchs (currently ranked 3rd in the world) was posing for a photo-cum-video session with our King with Wan Zaleha Radzi looking on. Wow, it appears that she was looking at my direction! :P

More photos later... IF I ever get to process them. I had to SEVERELY underexpose all the shots in order to capture the action because my camera only goes up to ISO400 (and even at ISO400 it is very noisy, so imagine when I bring up the brightness of the underexposed ones at this ISO!!!). Nonetheless, my Panasonic DMC-FZ30 I love!

INSANE: Malaysia Won China Open Women's Singles Title

I did not watch the match but I am feeling proud after coming across Star Online's "Mew Choo wins China Open", especially after reading this line:

She defeated world No. 1 Xie Xingfang of China, 21-16, 8-21, 21-17.

No public holiday tomorrow, though. :(

Run For A Cause - The Terry Fox Run 2007

The Terry Fox Run 2007 is near. It is an annual event for the last 15 years and, this year, will be held on 4 November 2007, 9 am @ The Lake Gardens, Kuala Lumpur. More details here. Check out last year's event here. Learn more about the Terry Fox Foundation.

Who is Terry Fox? Taken from the official website:

Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, a community near Vancouver on Canada's west coast. An active teenager involved in many sports, Terry was only 18 years old when he was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) and forced to have his right leg amputated 15 centimetres (six inches) above the knee in 1977.

While in hospital, Terry was so overcome by the suffering of other cancer patients, many of them young children, that he decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research.

He would call his journey the Marathon of Hope.

After 18 months and running over 5,000 kilometres (3,107 miles) to prepare, Terry started his run in St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980 with little fanfare. Although it was difficult to garner attention in the beginning, enthusiasm soon grew, and the money collected along his route began to mount. He ran 42 kilometres (26 miles) a day through Canada's Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario.

It was a journey that Canadians never forgot.

However, on September 1st, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 miles), Terry was forced to stop running outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario because cancer had appeared in his lungs. An entire nation was stunned and saddened. Terry passed away on June 28, 1981 at age 22.

The heroic Canadian was gone, but his legacy was just beginning.

To date, more than $400 million has been raised worldwide for cancer research in Terry's name through the annual Terry Fox Run, held across Canada and around the world.

T-shirts, food, drinks, etc. will be sold during this event in Malaysia and all proceeds will go to a local cancer research organization. This year, the proceeds will go to the Cancer Research Initiatives Foundation.

So do stop by if you have the time! I do not have the stamina to run, so a couple of friends and I walked last year. A bit shy to admit, but yeah, did just that. :P If all goes well, I shall be there this year as well. :D

McLaren GUILTY!

Formula One leading team McLaren was found guilty in the espionage case where their chief engineer was found to be in possession of Ferrari's technical documents. Their punishment? USD$100mil fine and all of their constructor's championship points for this season.

However, the team was not banned from competition and their drivers still have their championship points.

Source:

1. The Sun
2. Star Online Sports "McLaren team to lose constructors points and fined US$100mil"
   

No Mistakes In This Game...

This is how you can turn a childhood game into a form of extreme sports (from Best Pic Ever "Deadly hopscotch"):

Ice Skating Without Ice @ 1 Utama!*

Could it be true? Is it real? As true and real as this:* Free advertising for 1 Utama. Stoopid me.

Goalkeeper vs. Player

This has got to be a foul, no? Picture from Reuters Blog "Football, the beautiful game?"

Formula 1 @ Sepang International Circuit Results

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Mercedes	1:32:14.930
2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	+17.5 secs
3	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	+18.3 secs
4	Nick Heidfeld	BMW	+33.7 secs
5	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+36.7 secs
6	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	+65.6 secs
7	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	+70.1 secs
8	Heikki Kovalainen	Renault	+72.0 secs
9	Alexander Wurz	Williams-Toyota	+89.9 secs
10	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	+93.5 secs

Source: The Official Formula 1 Website - 2007 Malaysian Grand Prix

Our Shuttler's World Rankings

Great news! Our recent "super" doubles team Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong are now number 10 in the world rankings! Our other doubles shuttler team in number 6 are Choong Tan Fook and Lee Wan Wah. Full rankings here.