Friday, Feb. 25, 2011

A DINING ROOM WITH A VIEW: Tonight we had dinner with Katie and Terry at one of the restaurants on the top of the Marina Bay Sands Casino--57 floors up. Katie and Terry go back to New York today. This was a good time to use a Christmas gift certificate for Sky on 57. From the balcony, the place had a great view of Marina Bay, including our apartment building (which features two arcing vertical strips of lighting). The meal was excellent. I had some suckling pig. Tried not to think of a certain Warner Bros. cartoon character. An excellent meal for all of us.

CAN YOU WRITE THAT IN ENGLISH, PLEASE? Reading the Straits Times (which, by the way has PLENTY of advertising--classifieds, even) isn't as easy as you might think. Consider two articles in today's Sports pages about yesterday's S-League soccer games here in Singapore. These terms may be very familiar to some of you. They tripped me up, but I would have deserved a linguistic yellow card.

Does It Have Anything To Do With Spoonerisms?

They were derided by some as certainties to be S-League wooden spoonists after being thumped 0-5 in their opening match against Albirex Niigata last week.

Turns out that this is a common term for many in the UK and its Commonwealthians. It basically means the "last place finishers." The origin appears to be academic, but it's used in politics, sports and Realty TV shows, too. A simple definition for the term appears here. A more elaborate discussion is in this academic paper: The Wooden Spoon: Rank (dis)order in Cambridge 1753-1909. The illustration (at right) of surviving elaborately decorated wooden spoons from Cambridge University comes from that paper. Try this out sometime during Spring Training: "Do you think the Washington Nationals will be wooden spoonists of the National League East this year?"

What The Beep Are You Talkin' About?

Four days ago, Qiu Li passed the mandatory Beep test. It was his fifth attempt at the fitness assessment and came one week after the new S-League season kicked off.

The context helps with this one, of course. Still, I had to look that one up. There are variations, what with the Bleep Test or Beep Test. Either way, the test is clearly bleepin' difficult. Oh well. I suppose not many people around here know what a Wonderlic test is--or care for that matter.

TODAY'S CRANE REPORT: Our local crane activity has returned. At our doorstep is the Kota Lambang of Singapore. (Can you believe how many people have taken pictures of this ship on vesseltracker.com?) This might signal a rebound for the Singapore Crane Index Limited Economic Indicator. Good news for investors worldwide. Relax, enjoy the weekend....

Date: Feb. 26
Time: 8:15 a.m. (Singapore time)
Cranes Up (bad): 9
Cranes Down (good): 15
CRANES MISSING (unknown degree of goodness/badness): 4
NOTE: It looks like two cranes are about to rise. The 15 Cranes Down number is SOFT.