Hey me! Talk to me!
Every year at this time of the year, our F1 TV schedule here in Hong Kong would be screwed by the Wimbledon tennis match, and I kept missing the F1 race on TV.
This year is no different.
F1 Magny-Cour France practice sessions start this Friday and:-
the qualifying run is on Saturday at 18:57 HKT on Star Sports
the race is on ESPN instead on Sunday at 19:45 HKT
Race Day commentary starts 45 mins before the race.
Download your copy here.
Reported here.
Michelin may not have sacrificed safety for performance but addition of new chicanes at turn 13 of the Indy track might have turned a silly F1 competition we had at Indy last week into a stupid one; definitely would not have turned it into a “high class” one at all for sure.
Looks like a couple of friends are having mold problems.
The environmentalists are pushing for a 25.5 degree celsius air-conditioning temperature for Hong Kong in order to further protect the environment. The problem with that idea is, unless you have one of the latest mildew and mold proof air-con units, most air-cons over 5 years old and quite a few new ones don’t work so well under these temperatures in HK.
Since HK is such a humid area in the hot summer, add sweat and body odor to a constantly closed office full of workers with some smokers at higher than 23 degree celsius, you’d get smelly air-cons. Add flu to it and you’ll get an office empty of ill workers.
At home, I have older air-cons with dehumidifying mode which uses much less energy than air-con mode. I also have a dehumidifier for day time use since it uses even less energy but generates too much noise for a good night sleep. I also have fans to keep the air circulating so running air-cons at 24 degree celsius would not give that awful smell. Alec’s air-con is new with mold proof function and proven to run at 25 without the smell but then again it is new, I don’t know whether keep running it at high temperatures would make it smelly in the long run.
To save the environment, turn off those idling cars, taxis, vans, buses, trucks, boats… and along with that, quite smoking.
In a radio show this morning, a female host was commenting on how our new CE DonaldT should do his job. She said that DT should personally sneak into the community “微服出巡” (in peasant’s clothing) without all the TV cameras, to check out what the true conditions are.
Some may consider we are in a Dark Age era here in Hong Kong, but DT is not exactly King Arthur where peasants have never seen his face. Every move he makes, every breath he takes, the press will be watching. Besides, the idea is to not let his apprentices know where he is going in order to not to have the place cleaned up before his arrival. Just how is DT, who is under the spotlight practically 24/7, sneaks out during office hours without anyone knowing and without drawing a big crowd and then TV crews to follow? And if he sneaked out after midnight, the paparazzi would be on to him and may say that he is out behind his wife’s back or something. Does anyone truly thinks that anyone would want to go out everywhere under TV cameras constantly? But she is a talk show host, and all local talk show hosts think that they are the authority on governing work these days.
If a CE wanted to know the true condition of the communities, he could hired a new face and shoot some videos. IMO, if a local like DT doesn’t already know what our communities are like before he became CE, he’ll never know.
I know the press should ask the kind of questions that the reader might want to ask, but the press in this interview with Max Mosley, the FIA boss, along with those forum writers who have the same views are a bunch of idiots.
The fact of the matter is, F1 is a sport not a show and Michelin had brought the wrong type of tyres for their teams for the Indianapolis F1 race. That’s the bottom line. Any subsequent words by any party may or may not have been righteous, but any subsequent actions were done by the rules.
Although there have been suggestions for actions to bend the rules but none of them were acted out. Unless there were rules that restrict teams from forfeiting a race, the Michelin runners have their rights to do so for safety reasons. Perhaps Michelin runners should have changed the tyres and take the penalty, but it’s their own choice. The FIA was correct not to have bent the rules during a race. Ferrari was correct not to have agreed or disagreed with any changes since it was not up to them but was mistaken by some that Ferrari had disagreed to all changes and were wrong for doing so. Even Michelin was correct to have announced that they could not guarantee safety under such circumstances… the bottom line again, Michelin had simply brought the wrong type of tyres. Unless everything after that were carried out by the rules, any suggestions for this race are irrelevant and they should only be studied for future races.
For those who wanted a show, go watch Initial D the movie - a cartoon with live actors - suits the BOFI perfectly.
Can’t remember when the last time was when it rained just about everyday for over 3 weeks long. The dark clouded mornings and through out most of the days makes it difficult to get out of bed to say the least. Local retail businesses must be starting to take the toll.
Luckily, the way to and from work no longer flood at the first sign of heavy rain any more. In fact it hasn’t flooded at all so far this year but the red rain signal is up now, perhaps for the first time this season? Fingers crossed.
Here and now at Indianapolis. During the practice sessions through out this weekend, 3 Michelin runners had their rear left tyre damaged with Ralf Schumacher crashed out of the race with a concussion. Michelin wanted to fly in new sets for tyres for their 7 teams; however, 2005 F1 rules dictates that all team must run with only one set of tyre for the entire race weekend. Since allowing the tyre change would mean a change in the rule book, FIA wanted the Bridgestone teams’ consent, but the Bridgestone teams said it is a FIA decision and passed the ball back to the FIA.
Since the tyre change did not look to become an option, Michelin told their teams that they cannot guarantee their safety. There had been talks of putting chicanes in place where the classic Indy Cart type race track high speed bank turn at the last turn to slow the track speed down preventing excessive tyre ware. But Ferrari, a Bridgestone team, who had been suffering from slow type all season, refused the chicane suggestion.
So, after the verbal threats of boycotting the unsafe race failing to get anything done to make the race safer, the 14 Michelin runners did the unthinkable and went ahead to boycott the race!
Now, we have only 6 cars racing at the moment, and as Alec put it, that means all car will gain Championship points as long as they finish the race without further accidents.
To me, the official did the right thing for not changing anything for this particular race. One can’t just keep changing game rules all the time right in the middle of a game, and this game started at the beginning of the first practice/free run session. The 14 teams have their choices for not running in a dangerous race track. The Bridgestone runners have their rights not to allow any rule changes in the middle of a game, which is understandable, as basically Bridgestone has seemingly chosen the right tyre for this race track where Michelin has chosen the wrong tyre.
The problem is, however, also boils down to the single set of tyre for the weekend. It was set to save money so that teams with lesser budget could do a bit more to catch up with the big teams. Yet, I don’t see how a set of tyre worth so much that the entire car could have been damaged potentially due to a tyre failure not to mention the life of the driver. A good balance is to allow just one more set totaling just 2 sets of type over the race weekend might solve the problem.
On the other hand, there is a rule where teams are allowed to pit specifically for a tyre change without doing anything else including refueling. The truly sportsman thing to do would be to go thru the race with that option exercised.
Well, it’s late and I think I’ll turn in and forget such a shenanigan that was preamped by a stupid single tyre rule set by a stupid person, who obviously didn’t think the lives of race drivers are worth more than race tyres, and red tapes of admin people all over.
I have been looking into going back to Vancouver for a vacation with M and Alec this July. The best things are that language is not a problem and I could drive anywhere I wanted without any problems at all. Although I would love to go to Japan again with M being able to speak fluent Japanese, driving, however, would be out of the question.
In Vancouver BC, Long Beach and Torfino BC, Victoria BC, Whistler BC, Lake Louise and Banff AB, and Seattle WA were all in the scope.
The problem is - $.
It isn’t so much a problem for lodging as resort prices are expected. It’s the airfare. 4 years ago, we were able to fly ANA to Chicago IL with one night stop over in Osaka Japan on the way over for a little over HKD$5700 each during the same season as this. Today, JAL, a lesser airline, charges HKD$8100 plus a $1100 fuel levy each! Cathay and Air Canada charges over HKD$11000 plus! I can take the JAL fare as prices after normal inflation over the years, but the fuel levy is hard to swallow.
So, in order to cut costs, we could either go fewer places or turn long Beach/Tofino and Whistler into day trips where we used to do when we were living in Vancouver anyway. We could also choose small inns in the suburb areas away from Greater Vancouver and Greater Victoria. That leaves Lake Louise/Banff the second major cost of the trip after airfare.
We would be meeting a good friend in Vancouver and head over to Banff together and share a one bed room suite. We could stay over in some cheap motel en route to and from Banff to cut another two night’s cost down. I was thinking of staying in either one of the two very nice hotels, the Fairmont Banff Springs and Moraine Lake Lodge both within the immediate area for 3 nights, but we are looking at over CAD$600 and over CAD$400 per night respectively. OK, that’s the price for 5 starish hotels right within one of the well known top 10 best scenic locations in the world, but as a fellow Canadian, I can do better than that.
Since Banff and Jasper are two national parks listed as Canadian World Heritage right along side of the border of British Columbia and Alberta, anything within a 3 hour drive radius that’s not world renowned shouldn’t be too bad. We could then do day trips to Lake Louise/Banff and keep the costs even lower.
Kootenay BC comes to mind and I found the Bighorn Meadows Resort right in the areas of Radium Hot Springs.
Map of inner BC
Red Star being Radium Hot Springs
Radium Hot Springs is about a 2 hour drive from Like Louise or Banff. They have a very nice 2 level one bedroom suite with a full kitchen, 1.5 washroom, a King size bed in the bedroom, a sofa opens to a Queen size bed in the living room, a balcony with a private gas BBQ and Fireplace, and all that jazz for a weekly rate of CAD$1140! That’s less than the costs of a 4 star hotel Studio in Downtown Vancouver. It is still deep in the Rockies so the views would no doubt be stunning. Almost makes me want to stay there for 2 weeks and forgo all other areas and friend gathering altogether….
Hmmm, come to think of it now, I might be able to get another friend couple in Vancouver to come with us and share a 2 bedroom suite and save even more.
With a one week stay in Radium Hot Springs, all other areas turned to day trips and leaves a one week stay in both Vancouver and Victoria together for just over two weeks for the entire trip plus airfares still comes to over HKD$45K for the family…
Like I said… dream on.
Seems like I have gone and back and already blogged the entire trip.
Alec is having his P4 final exams. He just had his General Studies exam last week. Some of the questions in his GS exam are from current affairs, so one must know the news quite well to get those answers. In the past, questions like “Who is China’s first astronaut?” or ” Who is Hong Kong’s Secretary of Treasury?” are most common and not too difficult to “tip” the students off for the preparations.
This time around, two of the current affair questions are “Who is China’s Vise Premier?” and “Which Temple does Japan’s Prime Minister visit?”. The answers, I was told, were supposed to be “WU Yi” and “the Yasukuni Shrine” respectively.
However, the problem with such questions is their ambiguities. First of all, Wu Yi is not one of China’s 4 Vise Premiers. So, either someone have got the wrong answer, or got the question mixed up. The form of the question should however be rephrased to “Name one…” instead of “Who is…”. Secondly, for all we know there could be hundreds of other temples that Prime Minister Koisumi visits. The question should therefore show the significance of the visit in order to zero in on the Yasukuni Shrine should that be the standard answer.
Oh, BTW, there was one other question - “What is the current political post in China of the HKSAR exCE, TCH?”
TC who?
WhaUSay?!