The first ever Youth Olympic Games will be hosted by Singapore from 14 – 26 August 2010. Youths aged 14-18 will come from all over the world to compete in this competition.

In case you do not know,young athletes will be competing in a total of 26 sports – Aquatics, archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, boxing, canoe-kayak, cycling, equestrian, fencing, football, gymnastics, handball, hockey, judo, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, shooting, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon, volleyball, weightlifting and lastly wrestling.

The statistics after the jump!

This post is my personal opinion and research. If you’re a smart consumer, please read what I have to say. If you have comments, I welcome them. I’ll keep this as short as possible.

You might be thinking why I wrote this. It’s definitely not to pull any service provider down. Let me share them.

• I am a SingTel customer, I’ve got a BlackBerry and need BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS).
• I am also a StarHub customer and I have another BlackBerry service activated.

An hour ago, I called SingTel to enquire about their BlackBerry plans. I was told that their BlackBerry Flexi plans cannot be ‘activated‘ and must be signed as a plan. So that means I have to wait till next year to recontract. Next, I was offered 3 plans – 1GB, 3GB and the Unlimited plan. Briefed about the prices and was told 1GB doesn’t include any web surfing and 3GB can surf web but only via BlackBerry APN.

Read more after the jump!

I’m just another professional-wannabe photographer trying to learn more. After finish reading this entry, you will realise how much I hate filters right now.

Here’s what exactly happened. For almost a year, I’ve been using my Nikon AF-D 35mm f/2.0 for uncountable shoots. And after every shoot, I’ll start wondering why this piece of lens, reviewed as one of the great primes out there, produces photos with really lousy contrast. I used a Hoya UV Guard filter. Anyway, I got really sick of the 35mm and nearly sold it (here). On the day of posting, I decided to remove the filter to clean the lens up and realised that shots taken with the filter degraded my photo quality by a lot.

The test was done with:

Nikon D90 (All photos were shot on RAW with NO POST PROCESSING)
Nikon Nikkor AF-D 35mm f/2.0

Read the whole test after the jump!

Actually I just read about the FHM Models 2010 online and thought I would like to share it with you. I remember they used to call it Girl Next door. Can someone tell me if this is still GND and they’re renaming it because the girls look more like models instead?

Wow, this year, a diferent approach was used on the girls! The sportiness was due to World Cup I guess! I’m sure you’re not here to read my words, so scroll on!

Wondering what’s happening? Everyone’s discussing this. Just this morning, there was a mini discussion with the public calling in to share their views.

Here’s what I’ve gathered:

• City Harvest purchased a S$310 million stake in Suntec City Convention Centre. Singaporeans who questioned if registered charities should be allowed to go into business and if the income collected by CHC through its Suntec rentals would be taxed.
• Members of the church are being investigated for the misuse of funds. The Office of the Commissioner of Charities (COC) and the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) is looking into some financial transactions involving several individuals and companies related or connected to the church.
  
  31 May 2010 – 17 people (including Kong Hee) was ‘picked up’ to assist with investigations. Financial records and computers were taken away from home and offices of the people involved.
• Singapore’s City Harvest Church founder Kong Hee and wife Ho Yeow Sun owns two companies. One is International Harvest, which according to company records is a provider of corporate training services and motivational courses. Another is Skin Couture, a fashion company with 3 boutiques in Singapore – Ed Hardy at Heeren, Skin at Great World City and Christian Audigier at Ion.
• According to what I read online, members pay (donate) 10% of their salary and senior members pay 20% or more. Someone please verify this.
• Earlier this year - Kong Hee is now being accused of plagiarism in his books and website. He copied two author’s’ works without due credit in two books he published – Renewing Your Spiritual Enegery in 90 Days’ Volumes I and II.

  12 Jun 2010 – Kong Hee used materials from Leadership Bible, written by three Americans, without crediting any source. StraitsTimes

The Church

• Has over 32,000 members.
• Has 14,000 sq foot office in Suntec and its own SGD$47 million building in Jurong West.
• Has 45 affiliate churches in Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and Australia with a total of 48,000 members.
• Employs 154 full-time staff and has 15 committees overseeing all its operations.
• Spent SGD$40 million in the last financial year.
• The church has SGD$103 million in reserves – 2009’s audit

Ho Yeow Sun

• Rents a mansion in Hollywood Hills for S$28,000 a month. Source
• Last album released – Fancy Free EP (2009-11-16). Sales values of EP unknown.

The above is what I’ve tabulated.

Some say the church is going down, some say that there will still be loyal churchgoers. Now it’s your turn to share with us what you have and know and your thoughts.