This is the amazing High Speed Video Images of the Men's 100m Fly Finals on 16 August of the Beijing Olympics. And I finally FOUND it!
High speed video images of 100-meter butterfly at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Michael Phelps defeats Milorad Cavic by one one-hundredth of a second to claim his 7th (of 8) gold medal.Consecutive hundredth of a second image frames recorded by the OMEGA high-speed video cameras above the swimming pool during the finals of the 100-metre butterfly at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Gold medallist Michael Phelps is in the sequence on the left. Silver medallist Milorad Cavic, in the sequence on the right, touched the wall a one-hundredth of a second behind Phelps, the closest measurable finish in competitive swimming. OMEGA’s electronic timing system had identified the time at which Phelps had exerted the necessary 3 kilograms on the touch pad to stop the chronograph as 50.58 seconds. Cavic’s time was registered as 50.59 seconds. The high-speed video confirmed precisely the same times. Cavic’s coach had originally protested the result but withdrew his protest when he had a chance to view the video images.
Finally... Wow exams for 3 LONG weeks. Finally get a breather. Multi-tasked alot this month. Mugging, watching Olympics and slacking. Heh.
Disclaimer: Rather long entry and ALOT on Olympics.
9 August I shall started from National Day (yes long long time ago). Went to Aud's house to surprise Kat cos Kat's leaving for the States to study and also cos her birthday was on 11 August. Kat, I'm so gonna miss you (:
13 August National A Cappella Championships. Tough fight for everyone but I enjoyed it. Congrats to All Fyne and Resonance! (:
15 August Priscilla's birthday surprise. Click here for more.
16 August Oh ya, Michael Phelps won his 7th Beijing Olympic gold medal. Although I didn't catch it live, it was simply amazing. Just before the wall, he decided to take one more fly stroke and thank God his long fingers, he won the gold medal by 0.01 secs. The guy who took silver actually reached for the wall in the water. If I'm not wrong, it would give more resistance and it'll depend on the power of the stroke you last took. And with Michael taking one more, definitely more power but also less resistance in the air rather than in water.
17 August Women's Volleyball Prelims: USA vs Poland. Honestly, I thought USA would own them but Poland gave them a hard time and pushed them to play 5 sets in total. Very close win indeed. Phew
Michael finally met his target for 2008 Beijing Olympics. 8 gold medals in the month of August in 2008. Okay that's so Chinese... anyway, emotional win for him and his family. Call him a legend, man. I was watching how he swims every time he races and I came to a conclusion (which MAY be inaccurate) but I had two questions. Why doesn't Michael compete in 50m races? Answer is: He takes advantage of kicking off from the wall when he makes a turn. That's when he catches up. Another question is why does he only swims free and fly races, e.g. 200m Fly, 100m Free? Answer is: those two strokes are the first and last legs of the IMb(individual medley) race. Therefore, advantage again.
Those are my answers to my questions and they may be inaccurate ah. Click here to find out more reasons why he's so good.
21 August After the whole week of swimming, back to mugging for the papers. urgh. But I still managed to catch the USA Women's volleyball matches. So USA was through to the quarts after winning all their prelim matches except for one. They faced Cuba in the quarts after Cuba trashed them in straight sets. This time round, USA trashed them in straight sets. MIGHTY COMEBACK. No doubt that Logan Tom was USA's star and key player. Spiking most of the time at the left wing of the court. While they were playing, the commentator asked himself, 'What did the Cubans have for breakfast? They are supposed to be good!'
22 August Watched Men's beach volleyball. USA vs Brazil. Nice match. USA played fantastically well in the last set.
I observed something. USA and Brazil tend to meet quite a lot this Olympics. In the finals - women's soccer, men's vball, women's vball, men's beach vball. And in the semis - women's beach vball. lol
Anyway, since today was the last paper and my body clock is still hay-wire, I stayed up to watch Men's semis for basketball. USA vs Argentina. A very very hard fight for USA to win. Dyawne Wade had knee injury before Olympics and went for an op. The commentator said, 'Who is the surgeon who did the surgey on Wade's knee? I think he deserves an Olympic gold medal.' That's because Wade kept on scoring.
23 August Women's vball gold medal match: Brazil was simply too good for the USA ladies although USA had set up many nice spikes. Dad just kept on disturbing me while I was trying to watch in peace. tsk.
24 August CEFC's 30th Anniversray service at Suntec Convention Hall. Gurmit Singh was there. He can sing, not bad... I'm so happy that Priscilla managed to nail Joyful Joyful. Initially she was like cannot ah but see Pris, you nailed it with YOUR style. You don't have to sound like Lauryn Hill after all yea? (:
After service, mum asked me if I wanna do my hair. I'm like fine anything. Thinking that the lady would steam and curl my hair, she blew it instead. And by the time I got home which was 10mins later, my hair went back to its original straightness. tsk. wasted 18bucks on it.
25 August Darn, fell ill but still had to go to school to collect blazer for ushering at Marina Barrage. Nice view at Marina Barrage but works were still going on. so yea. Went home to watch the recorded closing ceremony of Beijing Olympics. Not very nice, most of the time I was fast-forwarding everything until it came to Leona Lewis and after that fast-forward again. lol
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Alright, now my blog is up-to-date! (finally...)
Oh yes, artistic gym was excellent. Seeing Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin and the Chinese girls battle it out for the medals. Nastia's so preetttyyy.
I have one unanswered question. Why do the Asians dominate table tennis and badminton so strongly?
My goodness, nearly a week of not blogging. Exams just kill me pls! 2 more papers to go, this thurs and friday and I'm free! (: (: I have ALOT to update on the Olympics esp on the USA swimming team and Aussie's. Oh yea, on USA volleyball too and gym. haha. Prepare for a VERY VERY long post. I'll try to break them up.
I'll leave you with the picture of mummy's boy - Mr Olympics (: I'll be back soon (:
Supposed to be a good match. But after watching, I realised USA against Japan was a lot more enjoyable. USA vs Cuba just now was just predictable. Even though the commentors said that it's a match we're all waiting for, USA was practically owned by Cuba. Even I knew that it was going to be a good match although volleyball is just a once-in-four-years kind of thing for me.
A double block from Kimberly Glass' spike
USA was leading 5-1. Cuba coach called for time-out. Broke USA's momentum. Cuba was leading all the way until the middle of 2nd set. The 2nd was the third time USA lead in points in the whole match. How pathetic... Haneef-Park's spike was excellent but Cuba's serve was lethal and so were their spikes. At first Cuba was giving floating serves then they went deadly. Oh well, USA kenna owned in this match. 3 sets straights. tsk.
Haneef-Park's spike. She's a freaky 2metres tall lady alright.
Swimming today was exciting (: But the female swimmers are darn scary. Their muscles are like guys... Michael Phelps seemed as though he was slacking at his 200m freestyle semis. 200m Freestyle finals later at 7pm. Sarah, photo of him for you la =p
Upset for the day: Yes USA vs Cuba in Women's volleyball. Susilo lost to Lee Chong Wei in straight sets. Expected la. Susilo's taking quite a bit of time to regain his form but Lee is really in form now. Tao Li made it to the finals for 100m butterfly. Too bad for her height, if only she was talling and with her built, sure to have a medal. But really she made quite a history for female swimming to make it to the finals. Results for female 100mm butterfly: Lisbeth Trickett (Australia), Christine Magnuson (America), Jessicah Schipper (Australia), Zhou Yafei (China), Tao Li (Singapore)
Firstly, thank you to Priscilla and JonQ for getting me the CD as my birthday present. I'm enjoying it (:
Well, I'll give it 4.5 stars out of 5. Partly cos I still think I Heart Rev is slightly better. But still this CD is great! Besides the cheena intros and cheena piano parts, it's nice to hear different worship leaders besides Darlene lead. Not that she's not good, she still is (: but like what has been said all these while: next generation, next generation. I'm starting to like Desert Song a lot. Actually uh, I prefer Jill's voice to Brooke's =] and all the songs in there are nice. Heh (:
Helped Simon to get the CD+DVD since he wanted to have this collection thingy of Christian albums. Borrowed it for awhile and browsed through the DVD. Quite pathetic cos it's my first time watching a Hillsong DVD and after watching it, I finally managed to match the faces with the names I knew, heh. Oh yes, I must say my favourite part of the DVD is from Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus till the end of the whole DVD. It's just WOW moment.
Hillsong Music Australia wrote this: On the evening of Sunday, March 9th 2008, thousands of worshippers gathered to fill the Acer Arena in Sydney as Hillsong Church recorded their latest live worship album.
It was an unforgettable night. An encounter with God that left the thousands who filled the stadium humbled and in awe of the wonder and grace of God and the reality of Christ.
We come together and we say, "This is who we are, God. We need You, we love You, and we're going to give everything to You. It's actually about the church coming together and singing with One Voice, One Passion, One Heart, giving all our praise to God" said Joel Houston.
The church was truly united in heart and passion - and the breadth of the Hillsong worship team was reflected as a number of new songwriters, worship leaders and musicians joined Darlene Zschech , Reuben Morgan, Joel Houston and Marty Sampson on the platform to capture the sound of the generations old and new together in worship and song.
It was a night of unified faith and expectancy, with moments all will never forget such as when Michael Gugliemucci, who has battled his own health crisis against cancer for two years, walked confidently on stage, oxygen tank in hand, declaring the promise of God and boldly singing the words to his song 'Healer'.
The evening culminated with a loud and victorious declaration of, 'With Everything' and a holy moment that all who experienced will remember. As the band left the stage and the name of Jesus on display, the people were not ready to leave and with little accompaniment, they broke into spontaneous song and continued to worship God.
The next 3 videos are Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, With Everything and its outro. You've gotta play it immediately after each one ends then you'll get the flow, if not the awkward pauses. So buffer all completely before watching 'em (: enjoy
"WEB breaks my heart before the world breaks it." -Aaron Chooi
"See as God sees, do as God says" -Rev. Edmund Chan
"When we work, we work, When we pray, God works!" -Rev. Edmund Chan
"Husbands are the head of the house; wives are the heart of the house." -Rev. Dr. Chua Chung Kai
"BIG God, small problems; small God, BIG problems." -Rev. Edmund Chan
"Obedience is the key to a right relationship with God." -Rev. Edmund Chan
"Eagles free-fall, fly; chickens free-fall, die!" -Rev. Edmund Chan
"Justice is getting what I deserved. Mercy is not getting what I deserved. Through the cross, God is satisfied. Through the cross, we are justified." -Rev. Tony Yeo
"The hardest person in the world to forgive is ourselves. But because Gos doesn't quit on us, we cannot quit on ourselves. We can finish well because God is NOT finished with us - He's always at work (Phil 1:6)" -Rev. Dr. Chua Chung Kai
"The place of vision is not on the mountain but in our valleys. For there we see God for who He is. And when we do that, we can finish well!" -Rev. Dr. Chua Chung Kai
SINGAPORE: The verdict is out on the best and worst habits in Singapore — at least according to MediaCorp’s Class 95 presenters who had challenged listeners to post videos of Singaporeans’ good and bad habits on podcast.sg.
The entries were judged based on these criteria — Are the habits growing? Are they unique to Singaporeans? Are they compelling enough to effect change?
A Class 95 listener, Ariel Fernandez, won the Bad Habit prize for posting a clip showing masses of people jaywalking.
Presenter Mark Van Cuylenberg, who is widely known as The Flying Dutchman, said: "We really need to get a campaign out that teaches pedestrians how to use the roads. We’ve done it with drivers, now let’s do it with pedestrians. We need it desperately."
Other pet peeves that were featured in short clips include people reserving tables with umbrellas and indiscriminate littering.
On the other hand, in the Good Habit category, a clip showing courteous people on escalators was awarded the top prize.
"Everybody follows and stands on one side of the escalator, so that people who are rushing to work can just run up," said Chee Ling Fei, who posted the winning clip.
The two winners walked away with cash prizes of S$950 each.
Stop my report research and sleep cos I've been up since 6ish this morning. But wake up early tmr to finish it up (which is very unlikely gonna be like that) since lecture's at noon.
Continue all the way till I'm done. But then again, brain's not working (it's starting to shut down now btw)
“Batman has no limits,” says Bruce Wayne to his manservant, Alfred, early in “The Dark Knight,” and the accountants at Warner Brothers, which released the movie, are likely to agree. I’m not so sure.
“The Dark Knight,” praised by critics for its somber themes and grand ambitions, has proven to be a mighty box office force in a summer already dominated by superheroes of various kinds. But any comic book fan knows that a hero at the height of his powers is a few panels removed from mortal danger, and that hubris has a way of summoning new enemies out of the shadows. Are the Caped Crusader and his colleagues basking in an endless summer of triumph, or is the sun already starting to set?
The season began with “Iron Man” back in May, which anticipated “The Dark Knight” in striking many reviewers as a pleasant surprise and hordes of moviegoers as a must-see. The July Fourth weekend belonged to “Hancock,” which played with the superhero archetype by making him a grouchy, slovenly drunk rather than a brilliant scientist, a dashing billionaire or some combination of the two. In that case, the reviews were mixed, but the money flowed in anyway. Even the lackluster “Incredible Hulk,” back in June, managed a reasonably robust opening, as did “Hellboy II,” a somewhat more esoteric comic-book movie.
The commercial strength of the superhero genre is hardly news of course. Ever since Tobey Maguire was bitten by a spider back in 2002, this decade has been something of a golden age for large-scale action movies featuring guys in high-tech bodysuits battling garishly costumed, ruthless criminal masterminds. Some of them — the “Fantastic Four” pictures, most notably — are content to be entertaining pop-culture throwaways. But most aspire to be something more, to be taken as seriously as their heroes and villains take themselves.
These movies wear their allegorical hearts on their cartoon sleeves, dressing up their stories with intimations of topicality overt, like the Afghan kidnappers in “Iron Man,” and indirect, like the ruminations on due process and torture in “The Dark Knight.” They are also stuffed with first-rate actors who, rather than slumming for a paycheck as Marlon Brando did in 1978 in “Superman,” at least attempt real, fleshed-out performances.
Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart do some of their best work in “The Dark Knight,” as does Robert Downey Jr. in “Iron Man.” Well-regarded directors like Sam Raimi and Bryan Singer have burnished their reputations with the “Spider-Man” and “X-Men” franchises, as has Christopher Nolan, director of “The Dark Knight” and its predecessor, “Batman Begins.” These filmmakers have become bankable auteurs in the Hollywood economy, affixing their artistic signatures to projects that come with budgets in excess of $100 million dollar, built-in mass appeal and an ever-growing measure of cultural prestige.
There have been missteps and disappointments — Ang Lee’s 2003 “Hulk”; Mr. Singer’s “Superman Returns”; the third installment of the “X-Men” series, directed by Brett Ratner — but these have hardly dented the power of the genre. And its hold over the attention of studio executives and audiences is unlikely to end anytime soon. Already the studios are locking in release dates for the next rounds. Mark your calendars: The first X-Men spinoff, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” will come along next May, and “Iron Man 2” is scheduled to hit the local multiplex on April 30, 2010, two months ahead of “The Green Hornet,” with Seth Rogen stepping into the Van Williams role from the television series.
Still, I have a hunch, and perhaps a hope, that “Iron Man,” “Hancock” and “Dark Knight” together represent a peak, by which I mean not only a previously unattained level of quality and interest, but also the beginning of a decline. In their very different ways, these films discover the limits built into the superhero genre as it currently exists.
I don’t want to start any fights with devout fans or besotted critics. I’m willing to grant that “The Dark Knight” is as good as a movie of its kind can be. But that may be damning with faint praise. There is no doubt that Batman, a staple of American popular culture for nearly 70 years, provided Mr. Nolan (and his brother and screenwriting partner Jonathan), with a platform for his artistic ambitions. You can’t set out to make a psychological thriller, or even an urban crime melodrama, and expect to command anything like the $185 million budget Mr. Nolan had at his disposal in “The Dark Knight.” And that money, in addition to paying for some dazzling set pieces and action sequences, allowed Mr. Nolan and his team to create a seamless and evocative visual atmosphere, a Gotham nightscape often experienced from the air.
But to paraphrase something the Joker says to Batman, “The Dark Knight” has rules, and they are the conventions that no movie of this kind can escape. The climax must be a fight with the villain, during which the symbiosis of good guy and bad guy, implicit throughout, must be articulated. The end must point forward to a sequel, and an aura of moral consequence must be sustained even as the killings, explosions and chases multiply. The allegorical stakes in a superhero are raised — it’s not just good guys fighting bad guys, but Righteousness against Evil, Order against Chaos — precisely to authorize a more intense level of violence. Of course every movie genre is governed by conventions, and every decent genre movie explores the zones of freedom within those iron parameters. Thus “Iron Man” loosens the reins of its plot to give Mr. Downey room to explore the kinks and idiosyncrasies of Tony Stark, the playboy billionaire engineering genius who finally grows up and builds himself a metal suit. And “Hancock” takes the conceit of a dissipated, semi-competent hero — more menace than protector — and turns it into the occasion for some sharp satirical riffing on race, celebrity and the supposedly universal likability of its star, Will Smith.
But in both cases, as soon as the main character is suited up and ready to do battle, the originality drains out of the picture, and the commercial imperatives — the big fight, the overscaled action extravaganza — take over. “The Dark Knight” has some advantages from being the second movie in a series, with less need for exposition and basic character development, and its final act is less of a letdown.
Instead the disappointment comes from the way the picture spells out lofty, serious themes and then ... spells them out again. What kind of hero do we need? Where is the line between justice and vengeance? How much autonomy should we sacrifice in the name of security? Is the taking of innocent life ever justified? These are all fascinating, even urgent questions, but stating them, as nearly every character in “The Dark Knight” does, sooner of later, is not the same as exploring them.
And yet stating such themes is as far as the current wave of superhero movies seems able or willing to go. The westerns of the 1940s and ’50s, obsessed with similar themes, were somehow able, at their best, as in John Ford’s “Searchers” and Howard Hawks’s “Rio Bravo,” to find ambiguities and tensions buried in their own rigid paradigms.
But the cowboys of old did not labor under the same burdens as their masked and caped descendants. Those poor, misunderstood crusaders must turn big profits on a global scale and satisfy an audience hungry for the thrill of novelty and the comforts of the familiar. Is it just me, or is the strain starting to show?
Just watch a video of each set from the DVD and it'd be a good enough reason to buy the DVD (hopefully). It's awesome stuff that you can't really find on his previous albums. Now I think that this DVD is a MUST BUY. Heh, but broke alr
Daughters - Acoustic Set.
Bold As Love - John Mayer Trio Set. One drums, one bass, one guitar.
Belief - Band Set. Just check out the number of musicians!
Gosh, Piquet came in 2nd (Erika cannot believe her eyes). Vettel was a surprise too, snatching the last point.
Honestly I was totally beaten out on Sunday that I almost slept during the race. I barely sleep during races btw UNLESS it's at Montreal (heh) All I knew is that Hamilton drove dirty on Sunday, leaning from Alonso uh... =p
Fisichella's car so slow. Always at the tail end of the pack. haha
Alright, say the top few drivers win a race each that leads up to Singapore GP, Singapore GP would be interesting, hopefully. So will the races after Singapore GP (:
Number of wins so far Lewis Hamilton: 4 Felipe Massa: 3 Kimi Räikkönen: 2 Robert Kubica: 1
Firstly, thank you to Priscilla and JonQ for getting me the CD as my birthday present. I'm enjoying it (:
After painting (:
