With today’s smartphones sporting better and better cameras with more interesting applications like Facebook, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest, more people are taking photos and sharing them online. I read somewhere that in the first half of 2011, almost 100 billion photos were uploaded to facebook. That’s about 64 photos uploaded per second. This number could double by today.

I do upload quite a number of photos to social media sites including facebook, google+ and instagram. I just love the camera on my current smartphone, the HTC One X.

Everywhere I go, my phone is with me. So I tend to flick it out to grab a random snap shot like the one above which was taken as I was on the way to breakfast.

The lobster as I was browsing through the numerous tanks filled with live seafood at a restaurant.

This is rather interesting. The Sony MP3 player which I bought some quite a long time ago. It was laying dormant in my office drawer for a couple of years. Still works fine

This is interesting. A shot of my office’s plotter doing a printhead calibration.

Even when travelling. During my recent trip to Bangkok, i did not even bring along a camera. First of all, my DSLR is too darn huge and bulky. And my current point and shoot camera is a bit dated and my smartphone would perform much better :p

This is my point and shoot. As you can see, it’s very well used. It’s still working fine except for the LCD which is a little wonky. Much discoloration, but Ive excepted it since it was followed me to the beach, construction sites and was used rather roughly.

and with ever more interesting camera apps which emulates film and other effects, it very interesting to take photos like the one above; double exposure.

I think in time we will get to see much more advanced features being incorporated into smartphone cameras.

First of all, the building itself is visually pleasing. Lots of metal, glass and wood combination. I like!

A mixture of modern coldness with the warmth of wood. Nice mix!

Some of us making out way down to their… erm… function area? That’s a water feature that goes round the area.

Hmm.. free flow premium coffee? I like!!

That’s what digi people call the Reload. Basically it’s their makan place. See the umbrellas and tables/chairs. You can have your meetings and discussions there as well. If you do not mind the heat. :p BTW.. the rock feature on the right, there’s some interesting feature there. Wanna know? Pay them a visit.

Our friendly guide into Digi explaining their work concept. Pretty interesting. There’s no permanent place for you. Your desk is practically anywhere where no one is sitting at that moment. Pretty cool eh?

They were pretty good hosts as well.

They fed us well!!

These are very nice otak otak!

There’s wine tasting…

Chocolate tasting..

And coffee tasting as well..

Plus they threw in some entertainment for us..

You can putt

You can PS3

Get online and update your statuses.

Or if you want, have some make up as well

Of cos.. you can also sweat it out with their Wii!!

Oh.. one interesting note. See that building across the car park and it’s green feature? That’s not paint. That’s REAL grass.

Thanks to DiGi and their “I AM CURIOUS” campaign.

After reaching the Southern most tip of Western Australia, we began our journey back up North to Perth. The drive was long. Good thing we had 3 drivers. We took turns to drive. Ensuring maximum alertness.

Seriously, I should have kept track of where we went. I am not able to remember the names of the towns we visited :S But the view was spectacular. This photo above was taken during sunset, or when the sun was setting. Marvellous!

Our accommodation was at this little guest house situated on a hill.

We rented something like a suite. Not bad. Simple yet cosy.

It has a little patio, something like a little balcony with table and chairs.

And the view out was simply stunning.

This was taken in the morning.

There’s some garden table and chairs out on the gorgeous grass with a BBQ pit and wash basin should you want to BBQ.

After checking in, we drove a little bit to get to a very nice place to view the sunset.

Dem.. even a shot from the parking lot looks great!

The place had some sort of rocks formation or something like that. there’s a nice little path for the casual tourist to walk through the rocks. But the younger ones.. or at least the young ones at heart tends to take the path less taken. hahaha.

It’s very nice actually. Not THAT dangerous.

Have to pose a bit. Bottom up angle not very flattering. :p

The sun set… nice! Takes much longer to set over there.

Stunning eh?

And there… a little CLS to bring out the people

The next morning.. we had a nice breakfast out on the patio.

No worries about the sun. It was cool enough I miss the cool weather. Anyways, we packed up, then continued our journey. The next stop? A wine yard for some wine tasting and lunch on another balcony/patio overlooking the beautiful wineyard and blue skies.

Our first stop was a wineyard… but here we were looking out for some nice coffee beans.

… and maybe some crocodiles?

Anyways.. we continued on to several wine yards, the more notable ones.

The wine yards were all like a huge mansion! with beautiful gardens. Check out the grass!!

Can roll around like in bollywood movies

Most, if not all of them, have a nice restaurant inside. You can have your wonderously juicy steak paired with a red. Nice!!

And during wine tasting, they have a spittoon there for you. Lucky I know what’s it for. Another group of visitors were asking the lady there what’s that for :p  you would not want to get drunk on your first wine yard stop.

This particular wineyard has got it’s own artsy thingy. It’s labels are a collection of arts.

So naturally they have their own art gallery.

We took one of their tours. Here our lovely tour guide began the tour by introducing to us the history of the wine yard and the estate.

Then she showed lead us through the wine making process. Contrary to the believe that red wine are made from red grapes while white wine are made from green grapes, both red and white wine are pressed from the same red grapes. The color in the red wine comes from the skin which are added to the mix later on in the process. Interesting.

Massive containers containing the wine. Or rather, juices which would become wine.

Hmm… one of the olden pressing machine? Probably a machine which replaced people stomping on grapes in a barrel. Hmm… would be interesting to try it out grape stomping I mean.

More gigantic barrels. Notice these are iced up. I was not paying much attention. I think it had to do with quality or something like that.

And.. finally, the storage. These barrels are not cheap! If I am not wrong, it’s in the 5-figure region.. Aussie Dollar!! Apparently, lower cost wine yards buy these barrels used.

So, after the tour, off we went to another wine yard our lunch.

Nice glass facade…

.. with an even nicer view!! See the building on the left, there’s like a balcony overhanging the yards? That’s where we had our lunch.

The view from our lunch table.

And.. the other view.

I think this is lamb..

This is my prime aussie ribeye.. medium and slightly charred on the outside. Served with a nice big glass of red nicely paired by the friendly staff. Delicious!

And this… hmmm… it’s duck. I think it’s almost raw!

It was a wonderful lunch. Nice weather. Sunny yet cold. Bright blue skies.. taking it all in on a ledge over hanging the wine yards. Pricey, but ok lar. Worth the experience.

After lunch? Photo taking session. Note the photo-taking stance? hehehe

There’s one thing you gotta love down under : The deep blue skies.

It’s extremely blue!!

Really really blue!

Our final stop was Busselton Jetty.. stretching 2km out into the sea.. it’s the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere!

Almost the same view, but love the flare.. hehehe.

Notice the blue blue skies? Check out the ocean as well. Nice clear.. inviting! But also note the darkish clouds looming on the right?

And there’s the dark clouds again far in the background.

And another view of the jetty.. and the deep blue skies.. Too bad it was under construction then :S

aha!! another photo-taking stance.

Oh.. almost missed this photo. I love this. It’s not night, just that I exposed this photo this way to catch the glitters.

And finally, we made the long drive back to Perth. On the way, we managed to catch up to the dark skies.

More like fiery skies to me.

Ok folks. After detouring off the road to take these shots of the fire skies, I was beat!

I hope I will be able to update more on my stay in Perth soon. There’s BBQ and a visit to the Aqua Centre in Perth

Originally a ‘feature’ of lomo cameras, where it’s build is kind of ‘proton-like’. So there’s little gaps in the fittings, allowing light to enter the camera, affecting the light-sensitive films inside. However, the leaky-light effects somehow grew on some people. That and some other characteristics of a lomo-cam is (roughly) how lomography came to be.

This particular photo, however, is digitally enhanced by an application in the camera phone. Not bad lar. But nothing beats the real thing

Financial planning is your own business. You do not need to pay money to have someone else tell you things that you already know. Like, watch your expenditure and credit cards, buy stock low, and sell high, strike when iron is hot.. etc etc. Plus, I will tell you somewhich which financial seminars will NEVER tell you; for every successful stock market player, there’s 50 who have failed have are now in tremendous financial debt.

And about Positive Motivation…. I have this friend of mine whose sister’s boyfriend was a very simple man who rode a motorbike around town and rides to work. Then he got conned into ’setting up his own business’ and dumped a good deal of money into buying stocks from the company. Stocks as in goods. Something you burn then out come magical healing scents. Anyways, as if it was not enough that he emptied his bank account and piled up a huge amount in credit cards, his ‘upline’ then told him that since he is in ‘business’ he should look the part; with new fancier clothes and fancier cars like a BMW. So he went and upgraded himself from a simple kapchai to a BMW. Fine, he can always reject, but these fellas have a way of pushing you to a corner and making what seems to be a guaranteed way of loosing money, seems ok and a very good idea at that time. Needless to say, when things start to go south, his up-line turn a blind eye and left him to himself. Good thing my friend and her sister are very supportive and he is now back on his feet.

About wedding photography; One of the things which I struck a chord for me during a recent photography seminar I attended was this statement

“..you have spent so much money and efforts on your wedding day, why stinge on the one thing which will immortalise it forever?..“

Think about it while I show a photograph…. a blog post without photos is boring

image by Daphne Gan.. thanks girl

.. .and this is my own saying…

“.. to be a good photographer, one must be comfortable to be in front of the camera..”

So anyways, my cousin got married last month and I was back home in Sitiawan for the wedding. He married a friend of mine whom I know since my school days. The function started 15 minutes late. Acceptable. Or rather, an astounding feat by any standards. You see, this is because here in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur in particular, wedding dinners often start 1-2 hours late. It’s a very disturbing culture. I asked several people and they answered…

“Everyone is late. Why should I wait for 1-2 hours?“

or..

“Everyone is late mar, I also late lar”
That’s like saying.. “Everyone ciak sai (eat shit), I also ciak sai lar”
Ok. That’s too extreme. How about this then?

“Everyone throws rubbish everywhere, I also throw lar”
I do not know about you people, but to me, that’s a very selfish thing to say. Ever considered who will be waiting for you for 1-2 hours? Yes, the bride, the groom and the entire family will be waiting for you.

Some people say that its the norm and that everyone is expecting everyone else to be late, and thus expects the dinner to be 1-2 hours late, so they turn up 1.5 hours late, and tell others that they are on time. Maybe this is what a lot of people call “rubber-time” or Malaysian time. Maybe this is the culture. But if you see it as respecting the VIPs of that day, you will see it differently.

I went to a wedding dinner once. The bride’s father has some military background and is rather strict and does not give a rat’s ass to what other people think. So after relatives failed to restrain him, 45 minutes after 7pm (the time stated in the invitation) he told the captain to lock the doors and to start the dinner presentation with the first dish. After 15 minutes of preparation and presentation, everyone settled down and started tucking into the first dish, the captain opened the doors and in came the late comers. One sat down on the table where I was and immediately started to curse and swear.

“Where can like that wan? No gimme face meh? I not yet come.. start dinner liao. Stupid wan meh?”
*sigh*

Maybe we should start a new culture, report to work 1-2 hours late. And then leave 1-2 hours early. Hmmm.. that would be a good thing eih? When you get a warning from boss, you spit at him and tell him to go fly kite for not giving you face. Then when it becomes the standard and everybody does it.. wow..
But hey.. whatever makes you happy man

I leave you with this photo.. taken recently at a wedding where I was on time but the rest were late. So I had lots of time to mingle and… pose pose.

I like this shot taken by JasonW. Good angle. Me not so fat here

*sigh*

So sad. So irresponsible.

Anyways… be a responsible bugger lar. If you got sick liao hor… at least pakai mask lar… like me..

Well.. it has been a while since I last updated this blog. Recently there’s not much to update lar. But here’s something for you to drool

Sorry ah.. but definitely not halal.

And this…

.. is his new monster, the Canon EOS 5D MarkII

Seen here coupled with his Canon EF85mm f1.2L.. bokeh king..

Check it out..

oh.. the handsome model here is Unker Long.

hehe.

Totally random

Take a look back at what you did last year. Yes, it’s a way into 2009 to be thinking of 2008. But if it means a better half of 2009, or a better 2010, why not? Has 2008 been good? If it’s bad, why is it bad. Was it something you did not do? Or was it something you did, but did it in a wrong way? Did you trust the wrong person? Did someone play you out? Or are you the person someone should not have trusted? Was it you who played someone else out?

Can this get any more random?

Lunch today is just some swiss roll. I have been working here in IT central of Malaysia. The food is sickening. The place is depressing. Some people might love this place. But not me. There are so many things which I am not able to do. For example, should I need to do some banking, I would have to take at least half day leave. Yes, there’s a bank here. Maybank. BUt I do not use maybank. Back in civilisation, I can drive out during lunch, do my  banking stuff and still have time for a quick bite before heading back to office. Same with getting my car serviced. Sad. Some people adapted and accepted the hash life here. I have yet to.

So what has Proton been up to? Well, to me it’s basically nothing. New MPV with an underpowered 1.6L engine? Please lar. Lame excuses. Can you imagine if Proton never existed? A Honda Civic will only be RM60-70k, same price range with a Waja. Bah!! Dun get me wrong. I drive a proton. It’s not bad. What is bad is the price. Local car.. costs so much. *sigh* Quality also quite bad, but at least improving.

Windows also another sad story. Everyday crash. Kena virus. Memory problems. Microsoft being such a HUGE company, can’t they just take windows’ platform and throw it out the window and start a new, with a completely new base.. and get things right once and for all. YEah, that will cost them too much money. Sad isn’t? It’s called investment. Apple did it. Why can’t Bill?

See… apple. Design nice, stable OS. Only thing is it’s cost. If they drop their pricing a bit, a lot of people would jump over. I am sure Apple can afford a 30% drop in price to achieve 100% up in sales. Their old stock, they should drop 50% then we will see a suddenly increase in mac users.

Times up.

LUnch time.

Darn it! As I was going for another appointment, I needed to drive off soon.
So, guessing that he is going to the bank, I walked over and saw him taking out his wallet to start his banking stuff.

“Excuse me, but your car is blocking my car. Can remove ah? Thanks ah” I said ever so politely.

“oh.. soli ah” He replied.

Expecting that he come out there and then since he had not started this banking stuff yet, I went back to my car and waited.

.. and waited…

.. and waited…

He did not appear to be coming out. So I went back in and saw him pressing at the ATM machine.

“err.. hello.. can you please remove your car as I am in a hurry” I asked again politely.

That bastard turned to me with his eyes wide open. “Haroo.. EXCUSE me ah. I halfway do things”

Hmm… usually I am someone who avoids any kind of concontration. But that morning, I think a fuse blew. So I shot back..

“GET YOUR FnCKING ASS OUT AND REMOVE YOUR CAR NOW!!”

He got taken a back, but shot back .. “I halfway do this leh.. what you expect?”

Fuah.. I mean, you double parked. You still expect people to wait for you to START your banking and then wait for you to FINISH your banking.

I replied “YOU EXPECT ME TO WAIT FOR YOUR START YOU BANKING? I DUN FnCKING CARE WHAT THE FnCK YOU ARE DOING NOW. STOP WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING AND GET THE FnCK OUT NOW YOU MOTHERFnCKING BASTARD!”

And yes. I was yelling. Poor people who were also in the ATM room quickly walked out. A bunch of people sitting outide the bank who were jovially chatting away suddenly stopped and a bunch of people at a bus stop nearby stared. I walked back to my car and he followed closed and, while grumbling away, he removed his car.
This got me thinking. Have I ever done such things before. I mean, even when I was wrong, I believed that I was right, and defended that I was right. That person probably thinks that he had the right to let me wait while he does his banking. I do not really mind if you had started your banking when I told you that you were double parked. By all means finish up your banking and RUN to remove your car. But this fella is a champion, he had not even started his banking. He continued to start banking even after being told he was blocking. And the best thing was there were no queue at all at the ATM machine. It’s not that I am not able to wait 2 minutes. I can wait 5 minutes for you. But the fact that he STARTED with his banking even after he knows that his car is blocking someone. Sad.
Same goes with people driving, say from a adjacent road, taking a slip road to join the main highway. It’s a slip road, you are joining in the main flow of traffic. You are to watch out for the main highway traffic. But no, out of 100 drivers, probably 1 or 2 the max, slows down or accelerates to merge into the main traffic. The rest just cruises into the main highway, expecting others to accomodate him.

Then I realised that these attitudes basically manifest itself in our everyday life. Everyday, everywhere, anytime. Some people genuinely believes that he is right, even though he is wrong. While others will make up stories and cook up a ruse to taint the minds of peers so as to deflect any of his wrong doings or mistakes.

During my drive to my next destination, I realised how stupid I may have looked yelling away just now. If I were one of them guys at the bus stop, I would have been thinking .. “Wah.. stupid fella. Need to yell so loud meh? People doing banking mah.. 2-3 minute oso kenot wait meh?”. 

You see, other people may not have the full story and will immediately judge you.

So if you were in my shoes that sunday morning, what would you have done?