Run away

Distance: 2.5km; 3pm
Time: 14:30min

This is my active recovery day after my exercise ramp up on Tuesday. As such, I was looking for something fairly easy to do. And jogging came to mind, since I’ve not done it for a while.

After going around Greenwood, up a slope and back home, I felt winded and dizzy. But as any exercise junkie knows, it’s temporary. Now, after a bath and an orange, my lungs are cleared and that kink in my neck seems to have receded into the background.

The day’s starting to look up already! :D

Soooo…. we’re flooded

A flash flood in Orchard Road has gotten the social sphere buzzing like bees. After all, the gahmen has taken steps to drain water away. They’ve also made the bold (and now untrue) proclamation that it’ll never flood, which most netizens have dug up and soundly panned.

I’m actually quite nostalgic about it. As Bukit Timah, when I was a kid, used to be prone to heavy floods that reached up to my waist. I hated it whenever I had to wade from school to home in latte-coloured waters.

Peter Chan, who blogs at http://goodmorningyesterday.blogspot.com/, reminisced…

In 1977, I faced an even more challenging moment when my Mini Clubman was caught in a flash flood along Napier Road, just outside Tyersall Avenue. Tactical “interplay” between clutch and first gear ensured that I got through the flood waters. When I inspected the car, I could squeeze water out of the car seats. No wonder my pants were always damp for next couple of months.

It wasn’t the best of times. While I don’t miss the floods, it was a part of my growing up. How things have changed!

Read Singapore Under Water by Peter Chan for more yesteryear tales.

Exercise: Ramp it up

Type: Isometrics + cross-training + weights
Home

I’ve been trying out different bodyweight exercises last week in the interest of rehabbing my joints. Interestingly I found a set of combat exercises that are simply to die for (not just when you’re working on them).

They work your entire body, require very little setup and left me gasping after each set.

Exercises for the day

Set 1 (3 sets each + 1 min rest):

1. Planks (50sec; 40 sec; 30 sec; all 4 sides)
2. Isometric Squats (30 sec)
3. Hindu Push-ups (15X; 12X; 10X)

Set 2 (3 sets; 5 mins + 1 min rest):

1. Skipping (1 min)
2. Shadow boxing; see video below (1 min; jabs, cross, knees)
3. Skipping (1 min)
4. Shadow boxing; see video below (1 min; jabs, hooks, uppercuts, knees)
5. Kettlebell Raises (30 sec)
6. Push-ups (30 sec)

Set 3 (3 sets each+ 1 min rest):

1. Deadlifts (10X 12.5kg per side)
2. Arnold Presses (10X 12.5kg per side)
3. Squats (10X 12.5kg; hold for 2 counts at lowest position)
4. Bent over rows (10X 12.5kg per side)
5. Pull-ups (6 X wide; 4 X narrow)

Kampong Glam: My First Times...

Almost everything about Singapore's Kampong Glam has been hashed and rehashed in travel guidebooks. They do a better job at explaining the history behind each monument.

But I thought I'd show you a personal side to the area.

View Kampong Glam: My First Times... in a larger map

Namely, my first times in Kampong Glam -- from when I first inhaled the flavoured Shisha tobacco to spa pamperings and a case of dark Bak Kut Teh (Klang style obviously).

Whenever possible I tried to recreate the same situations in my photos, but time has bulldozed and changed many places and memories. But the facts still remain: these are my first times, and no one can take them away from me.

Feel free to use the photos, but please give me credit (Edwin Tam) and link back to my Twitter account @skybe077.

Notes: Crank Arm Steady and Klang-styled Bak Kut Teh belong to their owners: Crank Arm Steady & Justeatla.blogspot.com. This map and longer writeups appeared in CNNGo's article on Kampong Glam.

City Harvest Church member flames netizens

Not one of the smartest moves in light of recent terror threats and JI.

Understandably this church-goer is peeved at City Harvest Church’s financial accounts coming under investigation by the police.

But to retaliate with words that’ll live on in electron eternity? Stupid and you’ll get hauled up for tea with ISD.

Evan:
June 2, 2010 at 12:20 am
To all Douches, Faggs, Arseholes, Hookers and Mentally-retarded low-life individuals who have commented here since,

…

And maybe you ****ers should learn a new word today, “Schadenfreude”.
This word sums up your egotastically diabolical actions that will never amount to anything. GOD WILL ALWAYS COME UP VICTORIOUS !

Read the whole rant at  http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=2787534

Heh. I love the internet and the loonies that it so often throws up.

Martial Combat: Mixed Martial Arts in action.

Not a great video of the Superfight on 13 May. But you can feel the energy and cacophony within the place. Just madness. And I wished that my camera’s zoom function worked back then.

You can catch the action for yourself every month from May to Oct 2010.
Fight dates: May 12-13, Jun 16-17, July 14-15, Aug 18-19, Sep 15-16, Oct 15-16
More info at http://www.rwmartialcombat.com/

 

* That beeping sound is my phone camera going off.