Singapore recently won the right to host the 2010 Youth Olympics.

I’m proud of my country. It may not be as prestigious as its big brother but it still means that my country is showing promising progress in sports. Most importantly though, I am happy because it means that my country is interested too in sporting merit.

—————-

2 weeks prior to the Youth Olympics announcement, I applied for a grant through the Sports Partnership Promotion Programme from the Singapore Sports Council that could defray the cost of organizing a sporting event or provide financial support to people who are looking to participate in an extreme or adventure sport competition. It says so in the criteria.

Together with my friends, I have qualified for this international unicycling race in Nova Scotia, Canada (the same one I’ve talked about here previously) that would take place in June. To recap, it is an 800km relay race over different terrain over 5 days. To actually qualify for the race, each of us had to submit a race report of an approximately 80km ride on 2 consecutive days.

The difficulty for us, Singaporeans, is that we haven’t the appropriate equipment. Because there aren’t any specialised unicycle shops in Singapore, we are stuck with mediocre budget unicycles with 24″ wheels. Competitors in other countries are using unicycles with a 36″ wheel, brakes and handlebars. Because unicycles haven’t got chains, they require constant pedalling and a 24″ unicycle travels at a slower speed, covering less distance per pedal than a 36″ one.

Being able to complete our qualifying race with such equipment was such an impressive accomplishment, my own ride report made it to the Ride the Lobster blog with kind words from the organizers.

To be competitive, we would need much better equipment than the unicycles we own. Already, we are in the process of having larger unicycles shipped over and will be involved in tinkering with them over the next month after they arrive. Because food and accommodation is already provided by the organizers at no cost to us, all that would prove a financial burden to us would be equipment and air tickets. I’ve worked out the sums and this approximates to about SGD$24,000 for all 4 of us for the week we will be there but almost half will go to airfare. I’m rather certain this sum is not final and the actual amount would be less.

—————-

2 days after the Youth Olympics announcement, I received a rejection email from the Singapore Sports Council. To quote the exact words,

“We have received your application. however, ,my department is handling adventure and extreme sports projects. hence I have passed on your event application to my colleague in Youth sports development for consideration.“

Being rather puzzled by the use of the word ‘however’, I called the lady back to ask if there was any reason why we were rejected. I was told that her department only dealt with extreme and adventure sports and “single-wheeled bicycling was more of a traditional sort of sport”. This is rather surprising to me and I asked what qualified as an adventure or extreme sport. “For instance, adventure races or rock-climbing” was what I was told.

I then brought up the fact that we’ve always been classified in the media as an extreme sport and that an 800km ride sounds rather adventurous in my opinion.

She told me to cite references to these media.

I pointed out that we have included press articles in the appendix section of the proposal I’ve sent.

She then told me that she can’t refer to it because she’s passed on our proposal to her colleague. Well, in any case, she assures me, the proposal will be passed back to her if her colleague feels that it doesn’t suit their purpose and really is classified under her department.

I thanked her and hung up.

—————-

I’m not going to deny that I feel very very bitter about this whole series of events. I wasn’t turned down because my team-mates and I are unworthy athletes or that the proposal and application forms I’ve sent were not comprehensive enough. I wasn’t rejected because my sport was too niche or that we weren’t taken seriously - that would actually be hardly surprising. We were rejected because the people with deciding power can’t be bothered; the lady-in-charge was unabashedly indiscreet about that.

Perhaps I am mistaken but what is the point of having the grant open for public application and then restricting it (invisibly) to select popular sports that, were the athlete good enough to begin with, have less problems with seeking out sponsorship? Whatever happened to being a meritocratic society?

I’m very sure we aren’t the only athletes facing such rigidity. As a nation, we need to see beyond our narrow view of what Sport is. We have a shot at the international stage at rather minimal risk and finances and our country’s sports council is not supporting us because we aren’t a soccer team so as to speak.

The local unicycling community have always been actively involved in the community. We’ve been invited to participate in various community events, from organizing unicycle hockey matches to draw crowds during the National Day Parade festival to participating in town days. We’ve held workshops in various places and have set up unicycling clubs in various schools as part of a focus on fitness. It is sad that the few times we have actually asked for support in our activities, we are turned flat down.

I will still be entering the competition as a Singaporean but without sponsorship support, we won’t have a full Team Singapore in the competition. It’d be interesting to find out if, in the event my team does win the race, Singapore would want any part of the glory.

I got pulled into signing up for Facebook. And there’s this application called ‘Are You Sexy?’ that for some reason unbeknown to me, is on my Facebook page. And it’s all ok because I don’t really go on Facebook anyway.

Then I started getting emails that claim that my friends (all 5 of them) have voted me most eligible/sexiest/hot/my vocabulary fails me here. And I’ve always trashed them because I thought they were spam until yesterday when I noticed the application on Facebook and made the connection.

Today I received yet another email telling me that someone on Facebook says I’m most eligible. So I click it. And it brings me to some registration site asking me to rate my friends’ hotness.

I don’t get it. I’m the hot one here. Shouldn’t I be logging on to Facebook when I receive the compliment so I can hook up with random strangers with good taste in women? Why the hell (insert hot joke here) would I want to log into Facebook to return the compliment to my friends who, I conclude from the scores of emails I’ve been getting, pale in comparison to my hot self?

Now if you excuse me, I’m going off to preen.

 We had a little photo session the other day with our unis. It went pretty well and I like the pics. I look like I’m flying in this.

I’ve got something else to say about unicycling but it’s 1:20am now and I’ll leave that for another day. I promise it’d be good.

I want to run away and join the circus.

Having watched Alexander yesterday, I’ve got one thing to say.

Colin Farrell does not look 19.

The show is HORRID and I’m so glad that when the film was released, I chose to watch Troy instead of this shit. At the very least, Brad Pitt was hot then and is still hotter than Colin Farrell as Alexander.

I don’t even know how to start dissing the show. It’s bad because Colin dons a blonde wig (I assume it’s a wig because it looks like a little puppy). It’s bad because Colin tries to imbue Alexander with a sensitive side by acting gay with doe-eyes. It’s bad because Angelina Jolie acts as HIS MOTHER and as such, is made up to look mature. And most of all, it’s bad because it’s made as an objective history lesson; a documentary.

To prove my point that it’s boring, the cover (I’ve the director’s cut here) brags that this version is ‘Newly inspired, faster paced, more action-packed’.

The original must surely be torture.

 … you format your hard disk thinking you’ve saved everything you wanted. Great job. Whee. Your disk is reset and you’re happy all the trash is gone and there’s space once again.

Months on, you realise all your important stuff you need periodically is gone.

Like my resume templates. And cover letters. And portfolio.

Ah Japan. Everything common are twice as cool just because they come from Japan. That includes these aluminium bottles here. They look just the same as every other aluminium bottle ever made and claims to be crafted from a single-piece of aluminum that is durable and crack-resistant. But we don’t really care if it’s made from one or ten gazillion pieces of aluminium. What really matters to our easily-impressed selves is that these are from Futura Labs, this designer label that we think is hot stuff because it sounds like ‘future’.

So screw our common aluminium bottles! We want these even though they cost ¥2940. Water would surely turn into wine in them!

Assassin’s Creed is actually pretty decent despite how repetitive it is. It’s saved by the great cinematic moments and shattered my previously-held belief that games flawed in design can’t be saved by great graphics. Well they apparently can provided everything else isn’t broken either. I won’t go as far as to hurl abuse at the designers because the storyline is pretty well-sculpted (although it leads to the repetitiveness.) and the level design is very cool as well.

The game is very reminiscent of Spiderman 3, one of my favorites on the Xbox. The core gameplay is very similar involving getting down and dirty with a few side missions (of only about 3 varieties) and then cumulating in a suspenseful showdown with a main ‘boss’ character (which is ironically your victim in Assassin’s Creed. It’s all good mindless fun especially since the learning curve and difficulty leans towards being extra forgiving and save points are frequent.

It’s usually a good sign if I surpass the 5th hour on a game and am still interested enough to want to revisit it because I’ve a ridiculously short attention span (and less free time too these days). I’m about halfway through the game and it’s still fresh for me. Very impressive.

I LOVE GABRIELLE SOLIS. Eva Longoria is hilarious! And very hot. Very very hot.

—————

I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be flattering - I got mistaken as being in the 17-19 age range twice today. And we’re not talking mental age because I haven’t opened my mouth to say much yet.

Heehee.

This is cool.

Simply because it’s GOT SPY VS SPY ON IT. HOW CAN THAT NOT BE AWESOME?

Read more here. 

Quote of the day - “Ugh!! This game’s an Alzheimer’s simulator.”

Bad boy Hong Kong celeb stupidly sends computer to shop for repairs without deleting the multitudes of porno pics of him getting cozy with his female colleagues (famous stars themselves) in it.

 We all know what he did last summer.

Mystery person with computer smarts gets hold of the pics from his computer and a few years later (which is now) decides to distribute them on the internet. There’re over a thousand photos and since the female leads are rather nubile young things, everyone’s lapping it up. Literally.

While in the West, such stunts have proven to be quite the PR material (see exhibit Paris Hilton), the conservative Easterners paint such girls to be sluts but still good gossip material.  Despite the unspoken moral superiority one and all seem to have over them, everyone’s hanging on every last new detail to emerge about this terrible scandal (or “strange strange ordeal”, in Edison’s words).

Apparently, the latest buzz is that one of the girls has now split up with her husband, Edison’s high school buddy and another hot Hong Kong celebrity, Nicholas Tse (more famous than Edison would ever be too if it weren’t for the pictures, ironically). He’s pissed that she two-timed him with smooth lover-boy here. And here’s where self-righteous netizens come in once more to impose their PoVs. Choice comments left on gossip blog sites include:

“This is quite screwed up tho the pics are nice.. this is screwed up admit it

I think we should stop seeing these images, lol everyone have their own weaknesses should forgive them”

 ”Obviously these ppl do not care about destroying marriages, and leaving a son with a Broken Family…

Although I do view the pics too, but come to think of it this is really f**ked”

This one’s my favorite:

Comment #1: why people say edison will die? who wants to kill him? cecilia’s father? vincy’s dad and uncle? nicholas? i don’t think bobo’s ex-boyfriend can do this, he looks like pussy.

Reply:  Well..if he does look like a pussy, that probably means edison has a set of photo for him as well.

This is Miley Cyrus who was at the Grammy’s.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA.

I’m very rude.

Picked up these Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass figures while shopping 2 weeks or so back.

They’re from these capsule (Gashapon) machines. My luck wasn’t too bad - the only extras I had was 2 more of the Knight dude.

In the process of collecting clips for a unicycling short. Here’s a teaser.