2012 NBA All-Star

the score read 152-149, to the West, and like all good All-Star games there was a heart-stopping finale, but the script of the game was much more than that.

my take before the game was this year's Eastern starting five would be too strong for their counterparts. yes no one takes the All-Star game seriously, but it's not always you get such a disparity in resources.

granted, the West had Kobe, Durant and CP3, but the lineup was completed by Griffin and Bynum. one's a sophomore who's a starter by way of his incredible dunking abilities, but far from the finished product. the other might be probably the league's second-best centre now, but it's no longer a centre game.

the East however owned a list that read LeBron, Wade, Carmelo, 'Superman' and the superlative MVP Rose.

as it turned out, there were a whole bunch of dynamics to take into consideration. the West All-Stars turned the East turtles on their backs from the word 'go'. LeBron and Wade were obviously here to have fun; this occasion is for the spectacular, rendering Superman a fish out of water; Carmelo and Rose visibly lacked game fitness.

and, the key difference was the opposing team possessed Kobe and Durant, probably the two most effective and efficient scorers in NBA now. in between having fun and the mandatory alley-oops, they didnt forget to rack up their baskets.

and like i noted, starters. when it comes to the bench though, the West's more than matched their rivals. Bynum didnt last long and there were Dirk and Love, of starter quality, to deputise. the three guards warming the bench were none other than Westbrook, Parker and the still-effective Nash.

i'll skip the jokers, but the best the East's could offer were Deron, Bosh, Rondo and 'The Truth'. okay Bosh is a joker too, in my opinion. Pierce in all honesty barely made the cut for this year's All-Star, while Rondo is off form. and these two point guards got a lot of minutes in Rose's place.

by halftime, it was 88-69. the West's counter is a record for one half in an All-Star game.

luckily, the good ol' fellas ensured it wasnt a washout. LeBron and Wade took over in Q3, leaving everyone for dead (except Durant). suddenly, we're all reminded once again Miami should be winning titles, not playing second fiddle.

near the end of the game the East All-Stars had incredibly cut the 20+point deficit to a single, soaring on the back of LeBron's 36 points and Wade's triple-double (only the third in history).

even if you're a critic of the fancy that's the All-Star game, you gotta admit the closing seven minutes were the sport at its finest, convincing enough as a playoff game. Wade had broken Kobe's nose, while the players were actually playing defence, can you believe it.

and as expected, the major subplot of recent All-Star games surfaced again - Kobe vs LeBron. the veteran, in the spirit of fun, demanded to mark his rival, and began trash talking heavily, centring of course on the latter's apparent mental weakness.

16 seconds left, two points less, ball in East's hands. what should the play be?

instead, Deron took the last shot. not too surprising considering the New Jersey guard's three-point talents, but one cant help wonder what LeBron said to the coach and his teammates at the preceding timeout.

Deron scuffed the shot unbelievably, the next hundredths of seconds saw incredible hustling by the East players, and the ball was back in LeBron's hands, almost like an act of God.

what did King James do, with Kobe still in his face? a crazy crosscourt pass that was duly intercepted.

then the chance came knocking again. one second and one play left, three points the difference. and guess what, LeBron is out of bounds readying to throw it in.

Kobe was disgusted. so were the millions watching the game. LeBron had chosen to retreat into his tiny hole again, refusing a coronation.

just like last year. just like at Cleveland. just like at the Beijing Olympics.

he throws it to teammate Wade - even more laughable, like an admission: "you're the more important Miami player."

it was a tough shot. baseline, three-point, turnaround, fadeaway, buzzer. but at least Wade tried, to win the game, to shut Kobe up.

MVP expectedly went to Durant, who also notched up 36 points.

other than the US national team, the All-Star game has to boast the most quality on one court. i hope such basketball continues.

also, a shoutout to Kobe, whose third-quarter breakaway dunk put him number one on All-Star points, overtaking MJ.

恩人

又二月二十八了

不过 这次不仅只掏起我们的回忆 不仅像往日只让我感性地回头

这一天 他也求婚了 你也订婚了

你要嫁人了

你曾答应白头相守 却又坚持初恋不可能长久

"the first will never be the last," you said.

你放开我手也快九年了 说要继续做好朋友 但从此成为了最熟悉的陌生人

从不舍 到心碎 从接受 到重生 到和谐 到平静

it was, and still is, the toughest time of my life.

that spring, i died.

and as if the season had spoken but i had missed it, i was later reborn, a different man.

分手后 时常想象这天的到来

--

也该说了 谢谢你的爱

感激你这段最痛 最有意义的爱情

thank you for a most heartbreaking, most meaningful chapter.

thank you for loving me.

you dont and will never know how much you changed me.

你不知道你在我生命的角色 有多少影响力 今天的我 有大半是你塑成的

你不只是个情人 也是个恩人

thanks for the lessons.

记得我们的约定 一定要幸福！

i like motion pictures

Hugo is, i can only say, precisely what the Academy loves.

it is cinematic magic, it has a heartfelt story and endearing characters, and most of all, it has an award-winning theme: an homage to filmmaking.

how can the Academy resist that?

i would suppose the only dilemma for judges is the small fact that its competition is The Artist, another moving examination of cinema.

(while watching, i couldnt help but wonder, if Hugo's an Oscar hit, the oft-neglected Harry Potter films surely are too.)

coming away, i feel Hugo's greatest edge is its scintillating comparison of life to machines. the film's set in a train station; little Hugo Cabret's a clockwork prodigy, in the footsteps of his father and uncle; Papa Georges run a toy shop; the film's about making movies. films that focus on life and people always work, and when you can expose the dichotomy they have with something as mechanical as mechanics, it just makes the audience applaud in fascination.

Hugo: "I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason too."

i must say, big budgets make things tick, and here it helped me like this film. but i dont adore it at all.

i like motion pictures

how do you care for an estranged wife in a coma?
how do you stop your daughter from hating her mum when you hate her too?
how do you face a father-in-law who believes you messed up and his cheating daughter is "faithful and devoted"?
how do you hide the truth when you meet the family of your wife's lover?
how do you handle a widely-favoured business deal but which helps your wife's secret lover make millions?

these are the kinds of questions Matt King, or George Clooney, has to answer in The Descendants, proof of the critically-acclaimed film's complexities.

with "family drama" written all over, what hit me most about this film is its exposition of the complexities of life. it seeks to debunk cliches often exploited in movies.

quoting my favourite Roger Ebert again: "This is so much more complex than most movie plots, where good and evil are neatly compartmented and can be sorted out at the end."

but im not wholly won over.

the screenplay's impressive, but bear in mind it's adapted. in truth, it's the kind of stuff American tv writers churn out regularly.

i must also concede the film is at times unbearable, and not in a hard-hitting way, but just in a corny way.

i like motion pictures

can see why Brad Pitt was so eager to produce this film and star in it. its story is Hollywood gold with a nice Oscar edge, plus an atypical protagonist whose biggest battle is with himself.

check, check and check.

Pitt is good, i wont say super. Jonah Hill is good too, though there's really nothing much he could go wrong with, in such a one-dimensional character. rather disappointed an actor as brilliant as Phillip Seymour Hoffman has such a limited role.

but my point in mentioning the acting in Moneyball is simply cos i was so impressed, something which should be attributed to the director.

if budding actors (or directors) want a lesson in natural acting, here it is. the people behind this film chose to forgo conventional, perfectly clear dialogue, instead plunging for grittier conversation, much like how real people talk.

note, it's not the content of the script, but the delivery.

what really sets a good film apart from an outstanding film, is whether it draws you in emotionally, not just for random kicks, but to make you ask questions. just when Moneyball was drawing to a close, i unexpectedly felt as sapped as Pitt's Billy Beane character.

and that won it for me.

in its editing and pacing, one can really see why Moneyball is Oscar material.

it's just different, as if from the word 'go', it was destined.

疯神无双 疯秘笈

为民除害

历史上见义勇为
为民除害的历史故事相当多
例如武松打虎 周处除三害

那现代的呢？

现代的啊
有蝙蝠俠 蜘蛛人 还有超人啊

那都是电影里的
有沒有真实人物啊

有 当然有
...
我想到了再告诉你

talent is born, everything else is learnt.

to prove that not all good "writers" are really "writers", Duffy showed us this in COM420: Magazine Publishing. apparently written by AA Gill, renowned Vanity Fair reviewer.

I was sitting in a cafay in downtown Reykjavik atualy there is only downtown Reykjavik and a womman I had just met gave me an od look and said hestantle you wouldn’t like to be a judg for Miss Iceland would you by any chance of all the queschns since the queschon mark was invented where the answer No is not even a concevabl opshn that’s rite up ther with Wood you like to minutly egsamine Christy Turlington for imperfeckshns i knew this was wun of life’s exclmashn marks that the glitering loterry figner from CV hevn was hovring jus over my hed this womman calld Linda, who bychance was aranging the Miss Iceland finals and by firther chance had herself unce been Miss world and was annuther womman id happily examine for imperfeckshns made me a job offer i couldnt refuse.

but one thing's for sure. man, this dude can spot and tell a story.

surfing Munich, Salzburg and Prague

Tobias

a math grad, a safe profile page, and described by previous surfers as shy and quiet, Tobi was the host i wasnt too sure about yet also the one i was sure would be great for me.

well, cos im a virgin surfer and im not exactly crazy too.

Tobi is the first-ever host to accept my couch request, and will always be my first-ever host. and he was great. i feel really lucky he’s the first person to show me what couchsurfing is.

in fact he’s a math PhD, currently a software developer, plays the incomprehensible accordion, and indeed rather reserved and isnt that clear about the city he lives in, but Tobi’s warmth couldnt be buried under the abovementioned.

right from the word ‘go’, he left work to meet me and took my backpack to his office so i could check out the city. he made me pasta for dinner and prepared a queen-sized couchbed for me. he gave me a key to this cosy apartment so i could do whatever i want, and boy, his apartment had everything i needed. every morning he left for work silently and even kept breakfast around for me.

the whole time i was wide-mouthed cos i had expected couchsurfing to be really uncomfortable and at the beck and call of hosts. i was so wrong.

anyway the fella’s doing quite okay. although his lodging expenses are around €700 a month for this tiny apartment, he earns €5,000 monthly before tax (their tax is mad, by the way). he explained he has a good job and his PhD helps too.

what’s interesting is he really epitomizes what we think of Germans. i told him Germany’s like the birthplace of intelligence, which cracked him up. ive always believed the books, films and music belonging to someone tell much about him, and Tobi has columns after columns of books, in English and German, many of them classics. what stood out was a row of books on JRR Tolkien, not just the trilogy, but books about the writer’s notes and even Elvish. being a film lover myself, Tobi has some titles which impressed me too, but it’s probably his music that’s worth mentioning. like his books, he has countless CDs, which are as diverse as they get, ranging from pop to classical, oldies to metal, and he’s even got a 五月天 album!

that fucked my mind.

then i met Gideon.

Gideon

with all due respect to everyone, Gid brought my couchsurfing experience to another level.

his couch was equally awesome, he let me watch his dvds when he retired to his room, and he showed me around Salzburg the whole way! this was one reason i joined CS, to know a city through its people.

Gid's also a really swell guy, and although i spent all my time with him, he kept me entertained throughout. of which one way was through our common interest in history.

we hadnt really chatted long before he started enlightening me on Mozart and WWII. and, like a true historian, at this point i should state history is subjective and he has his version of it.

the first thing he surprised me with was the revelation that although Salzburg is kinda like Mozart town, the music genius actually hated the place. he just happened to be born and grow up here.

and only in Europe can something like this happen: Gid's grandfather was in the SS.

but he sure isnt sympathetic of any sort. Gid feels especially strongly against how his own country likes to portray itself as a victim of Nazism. he liked to remind me that Austria was more an ally of Hitler's, who allowed its son to walk the German forces right in. it saw pride in having an Austrian rule the great country next door, and many Austrians were actually Nazis.

Gid explained that today the War is such a taboo topic simply cos many Austrians have blood on their hands.

enough of heavy talk. haha.

he also shared a piece of trivia: there are still companies existing today that belong to Adolf Eichmann's and Josef Mengele's families. wow.

and when i asked him about religion in Austria, something that intrigues me since Europe is full of churches, he revealed that since their infamous Church scandal a few years ago, up to 60,000 people have quit.

before he began working in an insurance firm, Gid worked at a cinema, which got him interested in films. his dvd collection is impressive, i must say, with many classics represented, just that he's also a big sci-fi fan therefore in that genre he has everything haha.

Salzburg's really small though, and we covered the place in less than a day. but the company was thoroughly enjoyable, and im lucky to get Gid on a weekend, the only time he'd say yes to surfers.

Justin and flatmates Abby, Kendra

then for the first time so far this trip, i arrived at a flat where my hosts arent locals haha. Justin and friends are Americans working in Prague. the trade-off though was their English fluency, meaning i got a lot more information and conversed more.

and when i say information, i partly mean Justin could talk a lot lol.

the copywriter is my age and does seem younger than Tobi and Gid. and on the evening of my arrival i simply couldnt participate in his monologue! hahaha. i thank him cos he's so eager to share Prague with me and to tell me about his life.

what drew me to him on CS was he's a sportsman and in the communications industry too. and he instantly said yes to me as well.

if im not mistaken he's a rather good tennis player. he also hits the gym and does look well built. he majored in sports management and like me, has done some sports writing.

a lot in common? well we didnt chat much about them cos he was talking so much lol. im sure it would have been nice if i arrived on a weekend cos he's eager to show me around. it's a shame we didnt have much time with each other, yet Justin always gave his best, so im very thankful.

special shout-out to Abby! she's like the mum of the house who takes care of everything. in my itinerary's confused state on the first evening, she provided maps and tours and guides, and those practically set my agenda for the rest of my stay in Prague. and she makes heavenly chocolate cake.

and their block is served by an old-school elevator.

first couchsurfing exploits, done!

Manifesto for Bad Music

Bad music is pure and virginal, forever bridesmaid to good music. Bad music makes good music look good. It is selfless and sacrificial.

As such, bad music is a companion of the highest order. It will always be there for you, forever and a day. We can always laugh with bad music, and unlike many friends, we can even laugh at it. It is not proud. It is not easily angered.

Bad music is unfailing in its faithfulness. As we have been told, time after time, it will be there with you, until the end of the world. It will not think you are too fat or stupid. It will not think your breasts or penis are too small. Bad music is patient, bad music is kind. It keeps no record of wrongs.

Unlike good music, bad music is devoid of irony, wholly unpretentious, pure and simple every time. It does not boast. It does not require you to 'get' it. You might not 'get' the music of Zappa, but you will 'get' the music of Abba.

In spite of itself, bad music is useful, even potent, in its versatility. Play it at low volume and it will facilitate conversations at a dinner party. Play it at sustained high volumes and a prisoner will confess to all allegations.

We, lovers of bad music, disdain to conceal our views and aims. We openly declare our love for elevator music, pop-classical crossovers, smooth jazz, and mindless pop. Bad music lovers of all countries, unite!

Ang Song-Ming

sound artist, Singapore

From heartbreak to home - the story of Austria's last-minute Olympian

INNSBRUCK, Jan 22 - His buddies were 136 km away, his heart was broken. Then fate took a chance on him. Daniel JAKUBITZKA (AUT) just had breakfast and was on his way to class as usual when his mother called with the message, 'Don’t go to school, you’re in the Olympic Games'.

Austria's Ice Hockey team needed his services after losing a player to injury. To top it off, this happened on January 12, the day before the Innsbruck 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games Opening Ceremony and the team’s opening match.

“It was so cool. I thought it was a joke,” the 15-year-old said. “And I’m here. It means everything to me.”

Currently studying in Salzburg, JAKUBITZKA has been in the national youth team for five years now. To his disappointment, the coaches left him out of their Innsbruck 2012 squad just three weeks before the Games.

An email informing him that he was on standby did not make him feel any better.

“I was sad. I thought I would be in the team. I’ve always played well," he said. "I was surprised, but what could I do?"

“My mother said that s**t happens. At first it was really hard, but I got past it because life goes on. I had wondered why he didn’t pick me, then I thought since I couldn’t change it, I’d work hard and show everyone my abilities,” JAKUBITZKA said.

The call on January 12 changed it all.

JAKUBITZKA’s school released him, he quickly packed, and a family friend picked him up and drove him to the train station.

“I was happy the whole journey here. I never thought about why the coach chose me. I forgot everything else. Only the Olympic rings were in my head.”

Three hours after the initial phone call, JAKUBITZKA, an Innsbruck native, was back in his hometown.

“When I first heard the Youth Olympic Games was coming to Innsbruck, I thought ‘Great', and I hoped I’d be here with the team.”

Harald PSCHERNIG (AUT), the team’s assistant coach, revealed that the decision to leave JAKUBITZKA out of the initial squad for Innsbruck 2012, came after much discussion.

“It’s hard for every player who’s left out. But we knew if one player was injured, we’d call him. And that happened,” he said.

Without doubt, JAKUBITZKA was not in Innsbruck just to make up the numbers. The nature of Ice Hockey and the toll it takes on competitors means every player on the roster is involved every game.

“I always give my best, and I hope my teammates do too when they see that,” the No.23 said about what he adds to the team.

PSCHERNIG, who has been coaching for 18 years, agreed.

“Daniel has a good spirit for the team," he said. "He’s good to coach and listens closely to the captain. He’s very open to the ideas we tell him and he’ll show it on the ice.”

Austria’s Men’s Ice Hockey team was knocked out of the competition after defeats to the sport’s powerhouses Finland, the United States, Russia and Canada.

JAKUBITZKA, a forward, played in all the matches, and despite his side's departure from the competition, he was still planning used the experience to the full.

“We’ll stay around to watch the games, because the teams are very good and we can learn much,” he said.

It is an attitude JAKUBITZKA will require in the long run. His dream is to turn professional and play in North America's National Hockey League (NHL), considered to be the best league in the world.

But it is not an NHL star whom the Austrian youth looks up to. JAKUBITZKA talks fondly of a man named Oldrich JINDRA (CZE), when asked if he has a mentor.

JINDRA is a family friend and an Ice Hockey coach based in Switzerland.

“He taught me a lot in Ice Hockey," JAKUBITZKA said. "As I grew up, he was always on my side, giving me advice. He even came all the way here to watch me play against Finland.”

The humble teenager was keen to thank his mother for all she has done for him as he tries to carve out a career for himself on the ice. “She’s always given me what I need,” he said.

And so the journey is complete, from Salzburg to Innsbruck, from heartbreak to home.

IOC Young Reporter Tan Thiam Peng