BuaHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

For the price of a double storey link house, you get a nice single storey bungalow house. For the price of a double storey semi-D, you get a REALLY nice bungalow over there. Of course, dollar to dollar. We had some time so we went browsing for houses.

Most of the houses have got a driveway. Most of them..

We went to a show village. A whole area filled with showhouses from various builders.

There were lots of them there. And apparently…. these show houses, once they are done, you can buy them… lock, stock and barrel!! can you see yourself living there? I would not mind driving up to one of these after a hard day’s work…

I would not mind. They are tastefully furnished!!

There are one or two.. actually two.. double storey showhouses. But mostly they prefer single storey homes.

And they love their garden. However, their gardens are usually at the back. This is a shot from the front tho..

And they love openess. Everywhere you see large glass doors or windows. This is from the masterbedroom. the doors open up to their own garden. So it’s still private and you would not have strangers walking up to the glass door to see what you are doing in your master bedroom. Only your housemates can do that.

See.. large doors/windows.

More large doors and windows. This is one of the show houses.. the view from the back patio.

Large doors and windows… from the living room.. and kitchen

Another house with large doors and windows.. note the BBQ stuff outside?

The Aussies love their BBQs.

I would love BBQs if I have their weather… and their cheap, yet juicy and tasty beef cuts..

This is the view of my uncle’s backyard.

Another view from just across the street from my uncle’s house. A park just next door. How nice

That’s me… with a cap soo small for my oversized head. Aunt insisted that we brought along a cap each. Sound advice as the sun over there can be rather harsh.

With not a cloud in sight.. and a cooling weather with nice cool breeze, you would not realise that your skin is being cooked by the sun.

A warning sign before you enter the pathway. Apparently the land down under has got the most dangerous/poisonous creatures anywhere.

It was a lovely morning… and we had a really nice walk in the park… and bush

.. and thru wide open fields

I thought this retaining wall was interesting.. so I took a photo of it

Went to Fremantle..

Had fish and chips here…I am not too sure that the lines are for. But I am guess to barr the birds from landing directly unto the umbrellas/tables.

the famous fish and chips. Not so nice lar.

Lots of.. erm.. birds waiting around to pounce on unfinished food

At Kings Park.. the spiral DNA tower.

And the view from the top of the tower.

And we took a stroll through the park. We did lots of strolling and walking in Perth. Weather permitted walking. Here, you would loose a pound or two from sweating!!

Interesting tree. Like ultraman uprooted a tree and poked the three back into the earth upside down.

Lots and lots of flowers everywhere. Even wild flowers growing on the side of roads and around your house. Here, it would be weeds, weeds and more weeds in between lalangs!!

And then we walked some more.

A community mall… looks like Alamanda in putrajaya… or rather.. alamanda looks like this community mall.

a RM12 cup of coffee

Me with the RM12 cup of coffee

A monastary…. that’s my elder brother.. who somehow came into the frame as I was composing.

Errr.. I do not know who this is, but I thought this pic is nice so I posted it up

Aaah.. so peaceful here.

Not the bird park. Still at the monastery. This fella and some of his friends came during lunch. haha. It’s a very nice and tranquil place.
Ok.. here ends part 2

Will work on Part 3 soon Will be blogging about my trip south of Perth.
Check back soon ya?

These are various shots, in no particular order. All taken with my trusty 5mp Ixus55

First day in Perth. A bunch of us going for a morning walk at a park which was just in front of my uncle’s house. How nice

Oh.. I have to tell you guys this. My flight to Perth was at midnight. Which meant that I would touch on in Perth and walk out the airport door into what I thought would be a cold chilly.. and dark… 5am or 6am. So I bought along my jacket/windbreaker which was rather thick. Wasted. I walked out Perth’s airport only to be greeted by the glorious morning sun which casted long shadows. Dem.. I should have taken a picture.

Dem I look fat!!!

The glorious clear blue skies!!

Path meandering through the park… and the clear blue skies… glorious!!

Dem I look a bit ’soft’ here.. hahaha

Better angle??

The park.. very well taken care of. Lots of flowers.. so nice.

This photo was taken when Perth was about 35 celcious. It was hot!!
So, this is about it for today. Have to dig into my archives to find some more photos Check back tomorrow for possibly another update

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..”

I have always been fascinated by touch screen phones. In fact, I have always been fascinated by mobile phones, PDAs and all things electronic including home theatre, in car audio, car security systems, gaming consoles, computers and the lot. Suffice to say that most of the time my bank is empty because I spent too much on these gadgets. And believe you me, these gadgets are definitely not investments or assets. Here in Malaysia, they are a total liability. Unlike in the US or other countries where you can actually sell your gadgets for double the price if you are one of the very first few to own it.

Ok, back to the HTC Tattoo. But allow me to bring in some hind sight. You see, I like touch screen phones. They look hi-tech and I look hi-tech tapping on a device on my palm. Which is why I was one of the very first few to get my hands on the Palm V. You know, the one with monochrome screen and a massive 2mb of memory? Anyways, PDAs seems to last longer with me. PDA phones on the other hand seems to have a very short lifespan with me. The longest I held on to any PDA/Touch screen phones is 1 month. I know, it’s sad. But that’s me. I find using PDA phones cumbersome. They are big, bulky and very often than not, they require you to pull out that little thing they call a stylus to tap on the screen. I do not like it.

I then got a taste of Android.

I have heard of Android about a year back. I got a little exited. Anything not microsoft I would be excited about it. And when I first got to play around with an Android-based phone, I was hooked!! But Android-based phone then was a little bit cranky and expensive, not to mentioned unavailable here in Malaysia. Flash forward to about 3 months back. I played around with the HTC Hero. My goodness, how much it has evolved!! I was hooked. Very hooked. But I tried to resist. The price of RM2.4k helped with the resistance. I knew I would only use the PDA phone for a month and I would get tired of it.

But HTC’s marketting department said to me in a loud booming voice… RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!!!!

.. and then they brought out their latest offering.. the HTC Tattoo.

Selling at RM1,399.00 with WiFi, GPS and High Speed 3G, it’s a STEAL!!

The Tattoo is small. Sleek and slender. Very nice to hold hehe.

It’s 2.8 screen is enough to satisfy the touch screen demon lurking deep within me.

Quite slim as well. But if it’s slimmer, it would have been better!!

The back has the cheek android robot peeking out.

It comes with a standard 3.5mm audio jack. This means you can use your own headset to have a better musical experience. I think this is essential and that all mobile phone makers should take serious consideration to have 3.5mm jacks for all future phones.

This one a bit slack. Not your standard mini-usb port.

Keys are well placed but might be difficult to reach for someone with big hands.

Unfortunately, camera is not the Tattoo’s forte. To cut a long story short, it’s a 3.2mp fixed focus camera which sucks without plenty of bright lights.

I do apologies for I do not have one of those screen capture utilities for Android. Otherwise I would have shown you some of the amazing ‘phone tops’ around. Fortunately there are tonnes of HTC Tattoo Reviews out there. check them out. Look them up. I am here to pen down my own observations.

Now my HTC Tattoo is totally void of any third party application. It’s a bare, straight out of factory HTC Tattoo. You see, I tried to download some free applications but apparently all, well.. all the 3 applications I tried to install require me to give the developer (or someone) complete access to my phone, including contacts, GPS location as well as data. There’s one which states that my phone might activate itself automatically even when it’s sleeping. That did not go well with me, so I opted not to install any applications.

The other thing I am not too happy about the new Android OS is that it does not allow transfer of files via bluetooth. Oh.. and that I am not able to take notes and sync it later to my notebook or mac at home. Of course there are third party softwares available out there which will enable you to send a file or a photo taken from one device to another. But I would rather not

I particularly like the kinetic scrolling. Althought not as smooth as the iPhone, but its alright with me. I also like the way the contact book is integrated with facebook as well as flickr. And this goes the same with photo albums. You may choose to view the photos you took by yourself using the Tattoo’s camera or you may want to browse through your friends photos in Facebook. And the 7 workspaces allows me to put multiple applications, short cuts or widgets for quick access and reference.

For a RM1,399.00 I was expecting some creaks from this sucker but it feels VERY solid. Even the buttons have a confident click to it when you press it. And you would be particularly surprise to know that the Tattoo has interchangeable covers. Usually phones with interchangeable covers tend to have a VERY plastic feel. Not in the Tattoo’s case. It’s solid as a rock.

Now excuse me while I go fondle my Tattoo.

Firstly, my apologies for neglecting this blog for this long. I have been rather tied up lately with both work and my photographic venture, FingerOnShutter. You may want to check it out at www.fingeronshutter.com or the blog at www.fingeronshutter.com/blog. That is my photographic venture with a friend of mine. Just two of us this time around. This is still my personal blog where I update you guys and at the same time serves as my own record keeping if you will, or a journal of what I have been doing.

This month will be a hectic one. Firstly there’s numerous short pre-wedding photoshoots. Then there’s two weddings which FingerOnShutter are covering. One of which we just completed, but now it’s time for the processing and album preparation. The other is an outstation shoot which is coming very soon. Next month we have one wedding booked.

Just a quick one, I was in Perth last month. Quite a nice experience. Here’s a quick photo for you guys

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

Well here in ‘intelligent city’, when its cold, its freezing. I know not if they heard of a thermostat. But it’s ok. I have my trusty windbreaker/jacket with me today. It keeps me warm enough. Actually just nice. THe other jackets store way too much heat for me.

Not much to blog about today. Have not been out for casual shooting for a very long time now. Which explains why there’s not much photo updates. But here’s one from the other day when I went over to see my niece.

So anyways, do check back once in a while. There are bound to be updates

*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.