When the holding gets tough

As expected, the Jamaicans are in the finals of the 4x100m relays. Both the men and the women. And they look good for the gold, barring any mishandling of the baton. Like what happened to the U.S. The Americans found out that they just couldn't handle the baton properly, the hard way.

First, the men dropped the baton. Tyson Gay just couldn't connect with Darvis Patton and he ended up empty handed. Tyson Gay will now leave Beijing without running in a final. He failed to qualify for the 100m finals a few days back. Then the women followed suit. Lauryn Williams now has two Olympic baton drops on her resume. She and Marion Jones had a slip-up in the 2004 Olympics, a blunder that cost the U.S. a gold medal. Not that it mattered though, since if they did win the gold, it would have been stripped anyway because of Marion Jones involvement with a certain drug.

It must be heartbreak for the Americans, who see themselves as favourites to win the sprint events. Instead, they keep falling short of expectations. For the first time in Summer Games history, the U.S. will leave an Olympics 0-for-6 in the sprint races: the men’s and women’s 100s, 200s and 4x100 relays.

Now Jamaica has the chance of emulating the 1984 U.S. sprint team, which went 6-for-6 in the Olympic sprint races.

Ops! I think I drop something!

You're supposed to hold it, not drop it!

Lightning does strike twice

The fastest man in the world did it again. And it was as impressive as the first time.

Usain Bolt of Jamaica broke the world record by winning the 200m in 19.30 seconds, becoming the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to sweep the 100 and 200 gold medals at an Olympics. Bolt is also the first man ever to break the world records in both sprints at an Olympics.

He was way ahead of the other runners, but instead of slowing down like he did in the 100m race, he went all the way eyeing the old record of 19.32 seconds set by Michael Johnson in Atlanta in 1996. Churandy Martina of Netherlands Antilles was second, 0.52 seconds behind Bolt. But he was later disqualified because of lane infringement, together with Wallace Spearmon of the United States.

Bolt still have another event, which is the 4x100m relay. Jamaica is one of the favourite, with Asafa Powell also in the team. So far Jamaica has caught the headlines with the sprinters winning gold in the sprint event. The women won the 100m and 400m race, and they are also favourite for the 200m and the 4x100m relay.

Another new world record for Bolt

Bolt crossing the line way ahead

Who is Ezora?

So Kiah binti Dogol turns out to be just another makcik with a good heart. But that doesn't stop me from watching, since the end is near and the jigsaw puzzle is almost complete.

As it turns out, Edreen is not the son of Johan and Salmah the maid. Salmah the maid was caught in close proximity with Tony and they were married and had a son, which turned out to be Edreen. So Edreen is not the grandson of Madam Ezzah. In fact, Edreen has no blood relation to Madam Ezzah.

Meanwhile, Fara turns out to be the long-lost twin sister of Sara, the late wife of Edreen. Their parents went their own separate ways after the mother gave birth to the twins, and Fara went with the father while Sara went with the mother. The mother remarried and had a daughter, Amy, who turns out to be Edreen's ex-girlfriend.

To sum it up, Edreen had a relationship with Amy, wanted to marry Amy but was stopped by Madam Ezzah. Amy was heartbroken and she went overseas to heal her broken heart. Edreen then went out with Sara to heal his wounds, but ended up falling in love with Sara. They married without Madam Ezzah's blessing. Madam Ezzah then arranged for Sara to be killed, and she died in a car accident.

When Fara knew all these, she wanted to avenge her sister's death and infiltrated the family by pretending to be in love with Edreen, and working at the hotel. But she ended up being the loser in her own game, when she fall for Edreen and got into a pickle when Edreen, who was supposed to marry Ezora, chose Fara instead. This of course, infuriates Madam Ezzah, who wanted Edreen and Ezora to be married.

Edreen being a man, couldn't decide who to choose. He knows he's in love with Ezora, he's been in love with Ezora since the day he first met her. But Fara reminds him of his first true love, and that puts him in a dilemma. But Ezora is just marying Edreen as a sense of responsibility, when her heart will always be with Reza.

It was then revealed that Ezora might not be Madam Ezzah's granddaughter. For all we know, she might even be Madam Ezzah's daughter, since Pak Zaki and Madam Ezzah were known to have a relationship. And then there is the question of Lisa, who is not Ezora's real sister. Could Lisa be Kak Ton's daughter? We all know Kak Ton had a daughter once, although it has not been revealed yet.

Eight more episodes to go. Two more weeks. And all questions will be answered. Stay tune for more updates.

The end of a hope

A few hours ago, the whole nation was hoping for our first gold in the Olympics. The signs were good. Lee Chong Wei is seeded second, and he played a solid game going through to the finals. But he is up against the world's number one, Lin Dan from China.

Can a Malaysian be mentally strong enough to win away from home?

We saw Venus Williams crumbled under pressure when being heckled by the big Chinese crowd. In the game against Li Na, she lost the handle, committing so many unforced errors and double faults on her way to the exit.

And the Chinese crowd can really be zealous and rowdy. They cheer on every mistakes you make, and disrupt your concentration so bad that you started to make more mistakes.

And that was what exactly happened to Chong Wei. He lost the first set tamely to Lin Dan, 12-21. From the moment the game started, Lin Dan was in control. He played a perfect game, ripping Chong Wei apart mercilessly.

The second set had the same story. Lin Dan raced to an 8-0 lead before Chong Wei finally got on the scoreboard. It ended as quick as the first set, with Chong Wei soundly defeated 8-21. All those expectations, all those hopes, in the end were too heavy for Chong Wei to carry on his shoulder.

Yet another silver medal. And another four years wait for our first gold.

The World's Fastest Man

Manuel Uribe is no ordinary guy. The 42-year-old former mechanic, who has been bedridden for six years, stuffed his face with burgers, pizzas and fizzy drinks and his weight balloons up to
560kg, which is a Guinness World's record.

The World's Fattest Man however went on an intensive diet and dropped down to 320kg, all in the name of love. He plans to marry his longtime girlfriend, Claudia Solis soon and wanted to be able to stand on his two feet while being married.

"We are a couple. We have sex, and in the eyes of God we are already married," he said. Exactly how he does it still remains a mystery, considering the amount of fat covering his private part.

While Uribe is busy gorging snacks and being moved around on his bed with the aid of a forklift, on the other side of the world, another man grabbed the headlines for being the world's fastest man.

Jamaica's Usain Bolt smashed his own world record on his way to an emphatic victory in the Olympic 100 metres final.The 21-year-old clocked 9.69 seconds to win the event and cap an astonishing rise to the top of his sport. No man had ever run below 9.7 seconds before, with Bolt's 9.72 set earlier this year the previous best.

More astonishing even than his time was the fact that Bolt eased down and started to celebrate all of 15 metres from the line.

"I didn’t come here to run the world record because I am the world-record holder," he said. "I came here to win."

And win he did. It took him fewer than 10 seconds to run 100 meters but at least 10 minutes to complete his victory lap.

Up next will the the 200 metres race. If he wins the event, he’ll become the first man to capture the gold in the 100 and 200 since Carl Lewis in 1984. Without anyone as talented as Lewis around to challenge him in the 200, he might be competing against history.

15m to the finish line and Bolt already celebrating

See how far he left the competitors behind?

Proud to be Swiss

Roger Federer finally did it. He finally won a medal in the Olympics. And it is gold in color. And no, it wasn't in the singles.

Federer won the gold teaming up with fellow countryman Stanislas Warinka in the men's doubles tournament beating the Sweedish pair of Simon Aspelin and Thomas Johansson 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-3.

For Federer the victory was a moment to savor in a frustrating year. He lost in the quarterfinals of Olympic singles, his Grand Slam total has been stalled at 12 since last September, and his 41/2-year reign atop the rankings will end Monday when Rafael Nadal becomes No. 1.

But he’s now a medalist for the first time in his three Olympics. It must have been a big relief for the man who was untouchable at the top of the world for so many years. And I hope it is a sign for better things to come for Federer.

In the men's singles finals, Rafael Nadal will be up against Chilean Fernando Gonzales, the bronze medalist four years ago in Athens for his first Olympic glory. While Dinara Safina and Elena Dementieva will play for a gold medal in an all-Russian women's singles final. Dementieva beat a third Russian semifinalist, Vera Zvonareva, 6-3, 7-6 (3), and five minutes later on an adjacent court, Safina defeated Li Na of China 7-6 (3), 7-5.

In the women's doubles finals, Venus and Serena Williams will play Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain. The Williams sisters won the gold eight years ago in Sydney, but sat out of the game four years later in Athens due to an injury to Serena. They are back and raring for another gold to add to their collections.

The golden smiles

Fascination with holes

I was never a fan of Anwar Ibrahim. Please note the tense in that sentence, because it is meant that way.

To me, Anwar is just someone who is ambitious enough to challenge Tun Dr. Mahathir when he was the Prime Minister of Malaysia, and paid for his folly sulking in prison for a few years with charges so absurd only an idiot would believe that he actually loves ass. Well, whether he really did it with his step-brother that time still remains a mystery, but that is besides the point. The point is he was too ambitious and had his own grand plan that something had to be done to cut him short.

And so came the sodomy charges, and a few corruption charges as well.

But come on, I think almost everyone in politics are corrupt, one way or another. It's very hard to stay clean in politics. Anything that involves power and a lot of money is bound to be corrupted. And that is a fact, an undeniable fact.

Anwar is a free man again, and he is continuing his quest to become the next Prime Minister. But as always, he won't have it easy. Another sodomy charge follows suit, and this time around, his former coffee boy lodged a police report that he was sodomised by Anwar.

I do not know about you, but there is something fishy about all this. First of all, I think the boy is despicable. It looked more like consensual sex to me, and there he went lodging a report about how he was the victim, when all you know, he can always say no when Anwar wanted to do it. The man is almost thrice his age, and not like he was pointing a gun to him and asking him to bend over. There's definitely something rotten going on here, and I hope for once, truth and justice will prevail.

One thing for sure, I am now rooting for the boy to burn in hell.

On a related note, a man in Hong Kong had to call the police to try and free him after his penis got stuck in a park bench after he had apparently tried to have sex with the bench. Emergency workers took four hours trying to free the man after he attempted to use a hole in the exercise bench to masturbate in a deserted park after dark. Eventually they had to take him to the hospital with the bench's eight-foot-long metal base still attached to him after attempts to free him by draining blood from his penis failed.

Doctors said the 42-year-old was lucky to still have a penis after the embarrassing incident. Bet he won't be having anymore dates with the park bench. Maybe he can move on to that tree with the hole near the park. It could be another pleasant experience, depends on the size of the hole.

And how are these two related with each other? Both of them involved inserting a penis into a hole. Go figure.

A first time

There's always a first time for everything.

I remember the first time I had sex. It seemed like an eternity ago. It feels like I've been doing it for a very long time, when in truth, most of the time it took place in my head.

Then there was the first time when I dived into the sea. I even played Uno underwater, and stayed below for almost an hour.

And James Blake has never beaten Roger Federer before. He has now, in the quarter-finals of the Olympics games. The No. 8-seeded Blake, a first-time Olympian at 28, was the lone U.S. male to survive the first round of singles. He had won only a single set in eight previous matches against Federer.

Roger Federer has never won an Olympic gold medal in the men's single tennis before. He won't now, no thanks to Blake. Come to think of it, he has never won any medals before in the Olympics. This is his third Olympics. He lost in the semifinals in Sydney 2000 while four years later, was ousted in the second round in Athens.

Winning the gold is one of his targets for this year. He has one more left, which is to retain the US Open he won last year.

But with the kind of slump he's in, it will be a tall order.

Come August 18th, Rafael Nadal will replace him as the new world number one. Nadal made it to the semifinals of the Olympics, and he will be facing Novak Djokovic next. Winning the gold will just be an icing to the cake to the great year he had so far. Winning the French Open, Wimbledon, becoming the world number one, and a gold medal. Perfect year.

Federer still has a chance to make amends in the doubles. He and Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland advanced to meet Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes of India in the quarterfinals. But if he played like he did today, there is little chance of him getting a medal at all in Beijing.