Touching up

Went through a couple of the photos that I'd processed for A&J, and realized that a couple looked pretty awful. So I redid a few.

The itchy-finger bug struck again, and I decided to experiment with selective desaturation:


Flower stands

Whoops, I didn't realize I spent that much time fiddling with the pics. I'll need to kick this late-to-bed habit if I ever want to get up early enough to shoot the dawn.

Wedding season

Chinese weddings in Singapore are wondrous and strange. And that's coming from someone who's already held one. Practically template-ized right from start to finish, kind of like an ad-lib game - fill in names, nouns and verbs, and you're ready to go. In a nutshell anyway.

At last night's wedding banquet, J noted that we had five more weddings to attend up to Jan 12, 2005. But that's not so bad - one or two years ago, I had to attend seven weddings in the span of one month, out of which three were scheduled over a single weekend.

To quote the old adage, when it rains, it pours!

Here's a photo from last night's wedding:


The Toastmaster's Tool

Congratulations to A&J, enjoy your honeymoon!

Some just don't get it

* LuSeR [~aaa@luserhost] has joined channel
02:05PM <LuSeR> hi
02:07PM <LuSeR> can anyone here hear the song that i am playing??
02:07PM <op> why would anyone be bothered
02:07PM <op> lol
02:08PM <LuSeR> op - pls dun talk this way
02:08PM <op> i bo eng to talk to u le
02:08PM <op> me goin for my spa
02:08PM <op> tata !
* op is now known as op_Out
02:08PM <LuSeR> go spa hope your body get burn and die
* mode/#channel [+b *!*luserhost.*] by Q
* LuSeR was kicked off channel by Q (i dun need U to curse me so kindly fark off (from op_Out))

Lingua fracas

Left the office early for the Chan Brothers office at Fook Hai Building to make payment for the tour. They have an arrangement with Citibank, so I opted for a 6-month interest-free installment schedule. Received the obligatory "branded" carry-on tote bags, which I hope stay in storage and never see the light of day.

The lady at the counter fished out a pink travel-info pamphlet and proceeded to brief us on pertinent points: temperature between 4-15 degrees, exchange enough yen before departure, tour to be conducted in Mandarin...

... Mandarin!?

Crap! I sure as heck wasn't aware of that when I signed up!

My proficiency for my mother tongue is best represented by my O- and AO-level grades in the subject, respectively: D7 ("conditional" pass, failed oral exam) and C6 (barely passed, also failed oral exam). I certainly don't relish the idea of being educated about a foreign-language country in another language that I can hardly claim as native.

Kicked up a fuss with the Chan Brothers representative about not being told up front. The lady then put in a request to get an English/Mandarin-speaking guide for our tour. The Japan office was closed for the day, she explained, so her manager would follow up with the request and get back to us tomorrow.

Having worked in a mostly English-speaking environment to date, the fact that a significant majority of our population would be more comfortable conversing in Chinese had completely slipped my mind. :(

Cooling off in Chinatown

'Fingers' K

Baby K is at that stage where stuff that moves freely must be grabbed and inspected, and if opportunity permits, gnawed upon. And smothered with drool in the process, but that's just a bonus.

But the real deal is in uncle varf's hands...


Reach out and ...


... grab!

Luckily, a firm grip on the camera averts instant disaster. With some gentle pressure, and in exchange for my fingers, the neck strap is eased quietly from K's grip. Naughty baby!


What, me worry?

Recuperation

Saturday's nagging sniffles turned into Monday's full-blown flu, replete with throat-cleansing coughs and aches in various body sections. The medicine knocked me out flat; I'm usually fairly resilient to drugs that cause drowsiness, but I spent the whole of Monday afternoon in bed, drifting in and out of a dazed slumber.

J told me, in no uncertain terms, how "happy" she was to also share my 2 sick days at home. Bleah.

Pengerang, Johor
Went on a food/photo trip organized by Stanley and Joanne to Pengerang on Saturday. Apart from the traveling and delays at immigration, it was all good. Great food and good company, with five very sporting lady models to shoot. I didn't do so well on the photography front, though. After a self-review, I felt that most of my photos were rather flat and uninteresting, lacking in creativity. Still plenty of room for improvement.

Note to self: bring more snacks and plenty of water next time.

In retrospect
Snapped this shot from Out of the Pan on Sunday:


Lights, action.. camera?

I realized that to get the "star" effect from spotlights in the scene, I need to stop the aperture down as low as possible - missed several good opportunities during the Pengerang outing as I was shooting mostly at wide-open apertures with a tele lens.

In terms of photographic skill, I've still got a long way to go. Mada mada dane, ka? Guess I won't be giving up my day job anytime soon.

Get SMART

There's something about a cute-looking car that brings a smile to the face far more readily than, say, a souped-up Porsche. Pretty much explains my current ride, doesn't it?





Too bad the SMART car isn't publicly available yet; I wouldn't mind taking one for a spin.

New sensations

My mother is an American Idol aficionado, having followed the last season faithfully to its conclusion. Predictably, with the launch of the Singapore version, Thursday family dinners have become telly-front affairs consisting of snacks, finger foods, small plates and armchair critics.

Sudden vocal experts appraised tonal quality, timbre and dynamic range. Stage presence was assessed and just as quickly dismissed as applauded. He didn't communicate with the audience, what a shame; she sang slightly off-key, tch tch; they simply picked the wrong songs. All from the comfort of a long, black couch. What fun!

Numbers 1 and 2 tonight. Oh, and 8 too. The guys were terrible tonight. Ken was being far too polite. Douglas' comments were almost completely redundant. The contestants all seem to have the idea that giving lip to the judges scores brownie points with the audience.

Oh please. Give me a break.

Cows unite!

I'm a cow. Wahoo!

A matter of patience

Male Singaporean drivers are a hasty lot.

Why the rush? So you might be late for your flight. Shouldn't you have left the office a little earlier? And how much time do you actually save by driving dangerously? I've got nothing against fast driving, mind, it's when it endangers other road users that I take great offense at.

Yesterday, I had the distinct displeasure of encountering a yellow Mitsubishi Evolution 7 while heading up the Rochor stretch towards the ECP. Throttle engaged and BOV screaming, it swung dangerously out to the rightmost lane, overtaking all lesser beings that dared take their own sweet time, cutting viciously into the queue for the east-bound ECP entrance ramp at the last possible moment.

And promptly got stuck behind a slow container truck.

As the cars streamed by on the Evo's left, its engine roared, clearly enraged at its embarrassing predicament. It nosed out dangerously, probing for an opening. Finally, an opportunity presented itself - the car behind me was a fraction of a second too slow - and the Evo muscled in. I cleared the top of the ramp with an extremely impatient yellow Evo 7 glued to my ass.

Tailgated by glaring white headlights and refusing to be pressured, I filtered swiftly to the second-fastest lane as I normally would, waiting for the fast-approaching car on the right to pass by before moving on. The Evo driver didn't bother to wait. He squeezed out from behind me into the fastest lane, causing the car behind to brake hard. And immediately ran up against a road-hogging Mitsubishi Spacewagon.

What the heck, I thought, and slipped in behind him.

You see, I actually like following behind impatient drivers, not too closely, of course. Since 1) they can do all the pressuring/road clearing up ahead, leaving me with a nicely clear ride behind, and 2) they'll get caught by the traffic police before I will.

The Evo pressured the unwavering Spacewagon for a few minutes, then took the next available gap on the left and weaved its way forward through the traffic. By the time I overtook the road-hogging Spacewagon, my dear road-clearer was nowhere to be seen. Oh well.

When two impatient drivers clash
.. sometimes, just sometimes, they both lose.


Cracked under pressure

Splat

Splat.