Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Sports: 2008 is Great Year for Spanish Sportsmen

Surely 2008 is a great year for Spanish sportsmen. A stream of success in several sports events mark the overall success.

It started with Rafael Nadal who became the new world number one tennis player, ending Roger Federer run of 237 weeks top of ATP ranking, after he won 8 titles this season, includes Wimbledon trophy (after an epic battle with Federer) and the first Spanish to win Olympic tennis gold medal.

Then cyclist Carlos Sastre won the prestigious Tour de France.

Followed by the success of Spain Soccer Team who won Euro 2008 after beating Germany 1-0 with David Villa (didn't play in final) as top scorer of the tournament.

And this week, the Spain Tennis Team won the prestigious Davis Cup trophy after beating Argentina in final eventhough Rafael Nadal was not part of the team due to knee injury.

Bravo Matadors!

FYI: Alien-like Squid Seen at Deep Drilling Site

Source: National Geographic Photos

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Life: News Channel & My Favorite Newscaster

News channel will always be my favorite because this is one way to keep myself up with the latest world news and gain the important knowledge.

During my time in Indonesia, TVRI's "Dunia Dalam Berita" (read: World in News) and SCTV's "Liputan 6" (read: News Coverage @ 6pm) were my favorite news program.
After moving to Singapore, Channel NewsAsia was the news channel that I almost everyday watched before I then stay tune to CNBC channel.

The on-time and quality of the news is the major factor when selecting which news channel to be watched, and the other factor is the newscaster.

Among the Asian news channels, the born of Channel NewsAsia (CNA) gave a fresh competition since it seems trying to compete with the established CNN.
One of CNA's landmark was the coverage of the "tumble" of the twin tower on 911 terrorist attack in USA soil. I watched it live on CNA during that night of tragedy.

CNA's newscaster, Glenda Chong (left), is my favorite. She spells each English word clearly so I can follow and understanding the news... considering my earlier years in Singapore with not-so-English-familiar-ears.
Read her profile in CNA, she graduated summa cum laude from Boston University with a Bachelor of Science in Broadcast Journalism... wow!
She is an award-winning presenter. In 2001, she received an award for Best News Anchor at the Asian Television Awards.
She is now CNA's Shanghai Correspondent.

My other favorite newscaster is CNBC's Erin Burnett (right). She is pretty and indeed a good newscaster. She is one of the alumni of Citigroup Vice President "academy" - in my view, some kind of guarantee quality source of employee, as it also happens to Indonesia's Citibank VPs.
Well, I believe it is one of CNBC's marketing strategy to recruit pretty-cum-capable female newscaster to boost its rating among the news channels.

In the end, it is the viewer who get the utmost benefit... listen to fresh news and watch it with fresh eyes...

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

FYI: 3G on the MRT - In Operation Now

For the past week, I had great experience surfing the net using my Samsung Omnia with my unlimited StarHub MaxMobile (which comes with my MaxOnline Plus subscription) along the NEL MRT track.

Yes! 3G on NEL MRT track (at least from Dhoby Ghaut to Sengkang - my daily journey) is on full operation already! So, riding on the packed MRT during peak hours won't feel that long anymore since I fully concentrated on my surfing... ha ha ha.

And, the other great thing is Skype can be used seamlessly in Omnia to make Skype-to-Skype free phone calls - have tested that last night. So, this means: unlimited-internet-mobile-subscription + Skype = (virtually) free internet phone calls anywhere!