Who the Winner?

Well, I not exactly talking about the 2010 Soccer World Cup Champion but which 'predictor' is going to get his or it's prediction correct.

Let see.....

Apart from the bookies and bookmaker with their inhouse 'expert';

UBS, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have each came up with their own quantitative analysis method to pick the winner. UBS and Goldman have Brazil as the eventual winner and JP Morgan picks England!. Of course, by now you know that these so called financial experts probably have brains no bigger than a peanut cos they fare much worse than a little bird. Maybe that explains the financial meltdown in Wall Street yah?

Speaking of a little bird, back here in our little red dot, there is a little bird known as Mani who has so far picked the correct semi-finalists and has picked Spain as the eventual winner. Will this little bird be eaten alive by a dolphin or an octopus?

Everybody knows that bird flies and dolphin, well most of the time they just swim around and flop here and there and it is what this little dolphin did - flop after his pick of Argentina to beat the Germans went the way of  the economists.

Of course, by now, everybody with the slightest interest in the World Cup action has heard of Octopus Paul, the English Octopus that picks Germany to beat first England and then Argentina! Who will he picked as the next winner? Apparently, the Spanish are so afraid of his prediction that there is a hoax site that has the Octopus picking Spain as the winner in their game against Germany.

So the bird and the octopus has bested the human and the dolphin. Who will come up the winner? Mani or Paul? Anybody care to take a bet?

7/7/2010 6am - 1 down for the parakeet. Bird picks Uruguay (Netherlands vs Uruguay). Octopus picks Spain(Germany vs Spain) to win. This time it is not a hoax. If the octopus win... hmmm does octopus eats parakeet?

8/7/2010 8am - 1:1. The parakeet is back. But the octopus is now in hot soup, literally. The bird brain has already picked its choice for the winner. Who will the seafood pick?

10/7/2010 12 noon - The battle is on. Mani has Netherland and Paul has Spain. Will the bird be eating seafood or the octopus be picking bird brain from its box?

World Cup Review

Sorry to disappoint but this is not a review of the ongoing matches. It is a review of the venues and no I am not talking about faraway South Africa but here in this little red dot! This is my review of the various means apart from TV and live streaming that one can catch World Cup 2010 live in Sg.

Clubs, pubs and restaurant
So far my experience was limited to standing outside a pub in Clark Quay for all of 10 mins to watch the Argentina-South Korea game and a further 45 minutes of standing outside a restaurant further down the road. The TV screens at both places are 42 inch wide screen LCD TV although the former did have a projection wall at one end but from where I was standing, the angle wasn't good. Also, the TV screen at the first place was inside the pub and the sound could not be hear clearly. There was standing space only for us free loaders at both venue but I guess if we have to pay for something to eat, we would have spend a bomb. Atmosphere wise it was rather mute except when Argentina scores but other than that, there wasn't really much noise.

Screen: So So
Ambience: Not Bad
Atmosphere: Cool
Food: Available but expensive
Recommendation: Go for it only if won on the bets you place and want to impress your date