it's always flyday...

Padang Serai paddy field

2009-05-17T09:54:00.001+08:00

When I’m required to wake up on Saturdays earlier then I hafta wake up for work on weekdays, it doesn’t exactly excite me. But heck, the meeting location was not in the office so it was worth a try. Arrived sleepy-eyed with a bunch of funny fellas and proceeded to the paddy field.

When we arrived, the weather was really quite superb at 7.30-ish in the morning, the so-called magic light. Wasn’t that hot either. Suddenly waking up before the chickens did sounded like a good idea. Nice. Start shooting!

The paddy itself was still quite young and short. So no fields of gold this time around.

Here’s an attempt at a panorama where three longkangs meet.

Looks like the footprint of some giant bird eh? I’d say it was around 190’ to 200’ view. The longkang actually looked quite crappy, but the reflection of the sky made it look like an idyllic stream.

Mr TNB had built a whole bunch of power pylons all around the paddy field. It does kinda spoil the scene a bit, but I think if shot properly, it does have an interesting look to it. Like the subject of the day with my cols with regards to boring photos…. “Nevermindla, as long as got story!”

There was some dude walking around spraying fertilisers or insecticides making a race-track pattern around one of the fields. I waited until he was near enough and facing the right direction before shooting him with a telephoto.

And then I spotted this. I guess my next bag of rice will taste like someone’s feet. “Beras Superior AAA Perisa Belacan”!

I also took this opportunity to give my macro lens a full workout.

Boy macro-ing is difficult. Had a bit of a sore back after that.

After the paddy field, we got conned big time by the organiser, who suggested we climb to the top of a hill to get a nice view. Nice view of the oil palm trees more like it! Came home, had lunch, then KO’d for 3 hours. Hahahah.

Some macro shots

2009-05-01T01:00:00.001+08:00

Thats from my Minolta 100mm f/2.8 Macro. Bought this from dyxum.com. The seller said the condition was excellent. Well excellent my ass!! The lens came with a lot of dust inside, which affected the image quality. I finally got it cleaned out last week in KL, which cost me RM100. Bugger… but anyway…

It’s sharp, being a prime macro. Focusing is slow as heck, being a prime macro. The DOF is extremely extremely thin… a lot thinner than a Tamron SP90, so its hard to get sufficient DOF.

Here are some sample shots I took over the weekend.

Someone told me it looks drunk…

Seeds from some sorta palm tree

Some sorta bug. My brother actually snapped this because he was taller, so he gets more magnification for overhead subjects. Bugger.

The famous overlapping ovals. Not a macro shot, but sharp as heck! We didn’t know the badge had those imperfections!

K O M T A R

2009-03-30T10:41:00.001+08:00

Last Saturday, I went on a photo outing with some colleagues at KOMTAR. Our intention was to learn about photographing architecture and looking lead-in lines. For those who don’t know what that is, its short for Kompleks Tunku Abdul Rahman. Just go to Penang and look for this gigantic cigarette sticking out of the ground, thats the one.

Quite easy to find right? Hahahah!

Before we start shooting, we need to warm up first. Luckily there were a load of birdies around to help us.

On a serious note, I did learn about hyperfocusing, which is really useful for situations such as this where there’s no time for auto-focus. Fun leh!

Here’s what it actually looks like lah..

A few steps to climb to reach the base of the tower.

All 65-storeys of it.

As we found out, there were a lot of hidden gems around the area. Nicely kept but devoid of people… I’m guessing most people dont even know about it. There were even a few enterprising businesses around.

Dun Wan lah… Hahahah.

A shot of the “Lima batang jalan”, an intersection of 5 roads in front of KOMTAR. The light was still good, not too harsh.

While we were looking down at the traffic, I decided to teach some of the newer folks about panning. Hard to get right, but the results are very syiok. This is the best one that I managed to get.

We also practised some longkang shooting. Hahahahh.

You can see the Trader’s Hotel from here. The big round bola is the KOMTAR Dome, which is an indoor hall for concerts and events.

There was a moat around the Dome to protect from invaders, but it hasn’t been used in a while.

Oklah… last tall shot. The sky was really blue that morning.

Doesn’t that shot remind of a certain male appendage….? Hahahahah.

In support of Earth Hour

2009-03-29T16:30:00.001+08:00

Earth Hour is this Eco initiative that asks people to turn off their lights for one hour on 28th March 2009 from 8.30pm to 9.30pm. Supposedly to save energy and reduce the carbon footprint of electricity generation. It doesn’t really make sense if people only support Earth Hour for the heck of it and then continue to turn on the combined 4000W air-conditioning systems and 1000W entertainment systems after that…

But thats besides the point. CEO and myself decided to support also la by turning off all our lights for that one hour. Here’s a picture we took to commemorate the event:

Here’s another shot from a different angle:

HAHAHAHAH! Actually we just switched all the lights off and went to Queensbay Mall la…

Speed test!

2009-03-23T22:46:00.003+08:00

Was supposed to go for a photo outing last Saturday but it rained in the morning! So I slept a while longer then woke up with nothing to do. Suddenly I remembered, I bought this Kingston Elite Pro CF 8GB a few months ago, thinking of replacing my Sony MSPD-thru-converter for my camera. The Sony MSPD ain't exactly the fastest bit of kit around, so I thought at RM78, the Kingston Elite Pro should be a worthwhile replacement. Spec'd at 133x or 20 Mbps some more!

But then hor... it doesn't seem fast la... almost the same as my MSPD only! Even my colleague who shot my wedding for me told me it was slow. And once it reached 200+ pictures, it began moving even slower still.

So I decided to do a very unscientific speed test between the two. I randomly chose 6 RAW and 20 JPGs totally to 112MB and did a copy-to and read-from to my PC, to see if it was really faster or not.

And the result? On average...

Sony MSPD write: 11 Mbps read 20 Mbps

Kingston Elite Pro 133x write: 11 Mbps read 22 Mbps

What the heck?! Writing speed almost the same! Rugilah my RM78... didn't achieve my objective also! Further reading on the internet showed that the 8GB version used MLC flash technology which is slower than the 4GB SLC flash technology. At the time, the 4GB version was selling for RM50. I thought 8GB more worth it mar..

Oh well. Spare memory card I guess. Elite Pro 133X my arse...

Goodbye old friend...

2009-03-16T22:15:00.002+08:00

My Minolta 50mm f/3.5 Macro is going off a new home. Very sharp lens with trademark Minolta bokeh. It's "only" f/3.5 but personally, it doesn't really matter because the DOF at f/2.8 is so thin that its hard to use. Makes a reasonably good portrait lens too, but again DOF is hard to manage.

When I got it second hand from a forummer, my first impression wasn't that good. The box was quite weathered! I thought habislah... sure item condition no good..

But the lens itself was flawless! I suspect it lived in a dry box most its life.

Two things that let it down is 1. Its 50mm focal distance means you gotta get in real close and 2. It's only 1:2 magnification. Coupled with the short focal distance, it means the bugs will see me before I shoot them! Anyway, hope the new owner puts it to good use.

Here are some of the best shots I've taken.

Now Mr Seller... please send me my Minolta 100mm f/2.8 Macro quickly!! Bwahahahah!

Roll 1D20 to strike for 3D6x10 MD

2008-09-30T09:54:00.004+08:00

If you didn't understand the title, it probably means you're under 25 years old. Back in the old days, before computer games had VGA graphics and TV was limited to 3 channels, we used to play pen-and-paper RPGs! Robotech was definitely the favourite in my group. Back then, we didn't have money to buy original copies of the books, so we photocopied each others' photocopied books.

Check it out!

All for under RM200 shipped from eBay. Not in the best of condition, but I can't complain. They're all there!! Except the Macross II stuff.

I foresee myself with the same bunch of great friends, sitting in a kopitiam when we're 80 years old, rolling dice to pass away time. Here's a classic line I remember:

Gamemaster : Invid fires 2 mini-missiles at you

Me: Hmm... my Veritech's speed is higher than the missiles' speed, so I fly full afterburner

Gamemaster : Where can like that one??

Me : Nehh.... see the stats

Gamemaster : Ok, but you're now running low on protoculture... cannot do it anymore

Me : WTF?!

The moon

2008-09-20T00:05:00.003+08:00

I was just about to hit the hay last night when I looked outside the window and saw the big bright moon in front of me. It's not full (that being last weekened with the mid-autumn festival), but heck, it was pretty darned big. So I grabbed my Alpha, snapped on the Minolta beercan and shot a few pics. The moon had a weird orange colour that night:

Must be because of the stupid haze. Anyway, messed around with the white balance of my camera and voila! Normal-shade-o-moon:

Cannot beat Loctor's unfortunately =[

Vista

2007-04-05T07:28:00.000+08:00

I guess Microsoft really made a big splash with their Vista launch in New York City. They had a launch presentation that included an interview with a family that was one of the beta testers of the software. Apparently the lady was the one who suggested to add the "Burn" button when viewing photos or home movies so that people can burn photos to CDs or DVDs with the click of one button right on the picture viewer instead. It's all part of Microsoft's way of telling people that they listened to what the ordinary citizens wanted and developed features based on that.

Little do you all know, I was actually one of the beta testers! In the end I did submit one suggestion for a feature. I even made a quick-proto-mock-up for the guys at Redmond to visualise my idea! I was so sad when they did not included it in the final release. Something about "inappropriate" and "inaccurate representation" and stuff like that.

What was my suggestion? Well scroll down and tell me what you think...

BWAHAHAHAHAH!

Let there be (more) light!

2007-03-31T23:55:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I finally managed to come home early from work for once. Looked at my aquarium and thought... why the heck is the grass growing so slowly when everything is growing like mad?! Could it be that the grass is all the way down in the tank and there isn't enough light reaching it? Maybe... considering the fact that the lights are on the behind-half of the tank. Since I still had a small portion of the aluminium reflector, I thought I'd cram in another 36W PL-L tube at the front portion of the hood.

Went shopping in the morning and started working at noon. You'll need a PL-L tube, 40W electronic ballast, relfector, clips for holding fluorescent tubes and one of those wiring block things. Might as well attach the 2 DC fans to the hood so I can fully close the hood.

Fan grills help to smooth out the holes and make it look slightly more elegant. The left one blows onto the water and the right one sucks hot air out. Gotta flushmount the fans properly one day.

So now I have 80W + 36W = 116W / 45 gallons = 2.6 watts per gallon. I guess that moves me into medium lighting territory. Hopefully the grass will grow and algae won't.

Here's what it looks like after 28 days

Trimmed the Cabomba and Hydrocotyle leucocephala because they've already reached the surface and started growing horizontally. Added Rotala marcandra in the back and middle of the driftwood, hopefully to add more colour to the scape. Split the Hygrophilla difformis to try and cover up the driftwoood a bit. Also bought some unknown small-leaved plant.

Day 20 - A new background

2007-03-25T10:55:00.000+08:00

Here's what it looks like now. The Cabomba has grown quite madly, about 3 inches in a week even without CO2, thought its looking a bit yellow. Lilaeopsis Brazilensis is starting to branch out too, but not as fast as I'd like it to be. For the week that my CO2 tank was being refilled, some black beard algae started growing on the Echinodorus Amazonicus and some green spot algae appeared on the glass. Cleaned off the green spot algae, hopefully the black beard algae will go soon too.
I've added a blue-tone background and bought 3 more plants: the Tiger Lotus Lily on the mid right, Anubias nana in front of it and a reddish plant at the mid-left, not sure of the name of it for now.
Sorry about my photography skills... not much space between the front of the tank and the wall in front of it =p

Specs:
Standard 3-footer ~180L
Eheim 2215 external filter with bio rings, JBL Micromec and foam
Pressurised CO2 with Nirox diffuser
4 x 20W Nirox lighting with DIY reflector
JBL Aquabasis Plus topped with Holland Sand
Fertilised with weekly JBL Ferropol and daily Ferropol24

Flora:
Echinodorus amazonicus
Hygrophilla difformis
Cabomba caroliliana
Lilaeopsis braziliensis
Anubias barteri
Hydrocotyle leucocephala
Microsorum pteropus (Java fern)
Java moss (been trying to grow them without much success)
Tiger Lily Lotus
One not-yet-identified red plant on the mid left side

Fauna:
Paracheirodon innesi (neon tetra)
Corydoras sterbai
Otocinclus
Golden algae eater
El-cheapo shrimp as garbage collectors

Forgot about our neighbours! Silly me!

2007-03-20T11:15:00.000+08:00

Well guess what? Just as I posted the entry yesterday about the PS3, I found out that the PS3 has already been launched in Singapore. Check out the goodie bag:

*drool*

The 60GB Blu-ray whizbang version retailed at S$799, so that converts to RM 1869. Can't find anything on the castritic-inflicted 20GB version. Hopefully with this, the grey imports in Malaysia will drop in price from its current incredulous price of RM 3800 with 3 games!

Curiously, I'm starting to develop a serious itch on my right trigger-finger... *scratch scratch*

10 things to make the PS3 worth buying

2007-03-19T10:47:00.000+08:00

We've heard it all haven't we? There's more negativity surrounding the PS3 than the southern magnetic pole of the earth. Gamespot has an interesting article which has a collection of 10 things Sony can do to make the PS3 worth buying. You can read it here.

What stops me from buying a PS3 is the price. Sony Malaysia... please launch the console proper so that the grey imports dont cost RM3.8k... At least please launch it before the launch of Metal Gear Solid 4. I am loyal to Sony having owned the PS1 for 7 years and PS2 for 5. But my loyalty is wavering...

Discus Jungle - Day 14

2007-03-15T07:26:00.000+08:00

Well... not really. Since I didn't really plan on doing a journal, I'll call this "Day 14" since I reworked it about 2 weeks ago.

Echinodorus Amazonicus and Vallisneria (I think) have been growing for about 6 months now. The Hydrocotyle Leucocephala at the rear left. Java Moss on the driftwood and unidentified small-leafed plant on the right have been in there for a month or so. Latest additions are the Lilaeopsis Braziliensis foreground, Microsorum Pteropus on the top of the driftwood and Hygrophila Difformis (one of my favourites).

Next plan? Would like to get some Anubias nana for the midground and some red plants for the background, probably of the Rotala family, just to add some contrast to the tank. And also to figure out why my moss is melting...

Finally the tank is going my way! =]

Cheapoman Lighting For Your Aquarium

2007-03-06T10:34:00.000+08:00

Last weekend I finally decided to DIY a reflector for my aquarium lighting. I've had 4 20W tubes of lighting in the aquarium but most of it gets out and blasts the top cover and the ceiling. So a reflector is in order to focus the light into the aquarium. I decided to get to work because I found a shop selling polished aluminium deflectors! It's called Hup Seng Lee on Jalan Dato Kramat if you're interested.

Here's a pic of the old lighting arrangement. Crude huh?

Relfector that I got from Hup Seng Lee. Ask for a "2x 20W" reflector and you get this one. Had to cut it down to size to fit my 3-footer. Kitchen scissors worked remarkbly well on the thin sheet. You can see the remaining 1-foot sheet behind. Nano tank ideas flooding my neurons...

Here it is with the tube holders and lights mounted. I used normal fluorescent holders, some nuts and bolts and my trusty power drill.

Shot of the back with the ballasts and wiring. Probably a good idea to somehow protect it from splashing water...

Haven't take a shot of the aquarium after installation... because the water still damn cloudy. And also I was tired and cursed too much to care. Total cost of DIY, somewhere around 30 bucks not including the fluorescent tubes. Happy camper!

Mee ketam pedas

2006-12-20T15:03:00.000+08:00

Been busy with a little potent poison called Final Fantasy XII. Yeap, the latest installment of the series is addictive as heck. I'll probably write a short mid-way review sometime later. Like when I drag myself out of the world of Ivalice. In the meantime, would you like to have some dinner?

A Date With Destiny!

2006-11-28T08:36:00.000+08:00

(click on it for a readable version)

Bwahahahah! Flygja's first 4-panel comic strip. Since I can't draw for nuts, had to use pictures that I've taken. These were those of my recent fishing trip with some colleagues. Fonts were downloaded from Blambot, a site with tons of free fonts (click on fonts at the top then look through the left sidebar, the free fonts are those without blue or red dots). I used AnimeAce 2.0.

If you are geek enough to play lots of video and PC games, go check out VG Cats, freakin' funny stuff!

Fishing trip

2006-11-27T10:04:00.000+08:00

I went for my first "deep sea" fishing trip on Saturday. The organiser promised 90% confidence on getting 2kg groupers and tons of kerapu. So I also went to promise the CEO lah. She said her mum wants to cook those fresh fish that I caught. I said no problem! My only concern is that your mum's pot will not be big enough to steam the fish! After one whole day of tiring fishing and baking in the sun..

Project Aquarium - Stage 3

2006-11-27T09:36:00.000+08:00

Two weekends ago I went to poison central aka CTY to get some more fish and plants. A few bucks only mar! But in the end I bought...

CO2 system! Shit. RM450 bucks down the drain. Consists of nitrous oxide-style 1 litre liquid CO2 tank, manual regulator (to control the rate of release), bubble counter (to measure the rate of release), CO2 diffuser (goes into the tank), some filter/valve thingy and tubing. Dare I say... one of my plants is actually growing after its installed and another one got greener all of a sudden. Hahahah.

And if I decide to get rid of it later, I can use the tank and regulator as nitrous oxide for my car or mini scuba tank for catching abalone. Bwahahahh!

How to make a quick buck

2006-11-17T22:08:00.000+08:00

By spending US$599 on a PS3 pre-order unit or lined up to buy it, then hawk it off on eBay for 5 times the price!

Wonder which suckers are gonna buy it. I mean, if you're serious enough to spend 5 times the amount, I'm guessing you'd be serious enough to plonk down some money on a pre-order or wait in line a day before! Oh OK, you were on a holiday to Mars when they launched it. Go right ahead then!

*checks unit trust prices* Damn! Maybe I should've gone to line up and get one and do this eBay thing...

Nov 17... PS3... mmm....

2006-11-15T08:18:00.000+08:00

88,000. Not the amount paid by some rich dude for the vehicle number plate of the same digits. Not the number of idiotic drivers living in Penang. 88,000 is the number of Playstation 3 units sold in Japan on the first day of its Nov 11 launch. And apparently the 60GB premium version made up 62% of that amount.

Perhaps I should explain. The PS3 will come in 2 different versions, a "basic" 20GB hard drive version and a "premium" 60GB hard drive version. The 60GB version will also come with flash memory (memory stick, compact flash and SD) slots and built in 802.11b/g WiFi. Both units will have the same Cell processor running at 3.2GHz, the same Nvidia RSX graphics engine with HDMI output up to 1080p, the same 256MB XDR system memory and the same 256MB DDR3 graphics memory. Think of the 60GB as the 20GB with chrome trim, a bigger fuel tank and extra cup holders.

The colaboration between Sony, IBM and Toshiba resulted in the Cell processor, a 3.2GHz PowerPC-based core with 7 additional synergistic processing units, unlike the XBOX360's triple PowerPC dual-cores for a total of 6 logical processors. I don't know much about processor technology, but I guess Sony has always favoured parallel processing while the XBOX360 is more closely related to a normal PC type of processing. If you want to know how advanced it is, I highly recommend that you download the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots HD Trailer from Gametrailers.com.

The new controller on the PS3 looks like the trusty Dual-Shock of the PS2 without an umbilical. Thats right, the new PS3 controller is wireless, connected by Bluetooth to the main unit, just like the Nintento Wii. Up to 4 controllers can be connected to a single main unit. The controller is recharged using a USB cable connected back to the main unit and the controller will remain operational during charging. Battery life is expected to be about 30 hours, which isn't that bad considering I can play through Final Fantasy X with only 2 full charges. As with iPods, the battery is not user replaceable and needs to be sent back to Sony.

The reason why its no longer called Dual-Shock is because... it doesn't vibrate anymore! Sony took out the rumble to make way for the motion sensing capabilities. The controller is capable of sensing motion in 6 different axes: up, down, left, right, forward and backward. So now, the controller is more aptly named the sixaxis controller. Personally I think I'd miss the vibration feature. Who can forget the torture chamber scene in Metal Gear Solid for the PS1 where Naomi gives Snake a massage by asking him to put the Dual-Shock on his shoulder? Classic! But then again, motion sensing will open the floodgates of interesting usage models. Maybe Metal Gear Solid 4 will have the player aiming a sniper rifle by attaching an included scope to the sixaxis and waving it aorund. Or Para-para Sakura with 1 sixaxis on each hand. Hahahah.

Here's something that caught me off guard. The PS3 will no longer use the PS2's memory card. There's no slot for it. If you want to use your old cards, you'll need to get an extra adapter. Strange at first but logical I guess, since it comes with a built-in hard drive now. Plus I've never played any PS1 games on my PS2, so I don't expect to play PS2 games on a PS3 either. I wonder... would PS2 games save on a PS3 go into the hard drive or still need the memory card?

The MSRP of 20GB PS3 is $499 and the 60GB PS3 is $599 which makes it the most expensive out of the next-gen consoles. XBOX360's MSRP is $299 and $399 while the Nintendo Wii will go for $249.

So the next-gen console war will start in earnest on Nov 17, which is the official PS3 international launch date. Adding to that, Nintendo will launch the Wii on Nov 16. These are interesting times for console gamers. I think I'd still go for a PS3 because all my favourite franchises such as Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy and Gran Turismo are all PS only. I doubt the PS3 will be here at an acceptable price point until maybe end next year though. So gamers, choose your console, engage I-have-no-life-mode and game on!

Litchfield Type 25 Impreza

2006-11-13T12:59:00.000+08:00

If you had an extra £39,995 in your pocket somewhere, what would you do with it? Assuming you're in England, you can probably buy 2 nice family cars for you and your wife, or for both your parents. Or you could take your family on nice holiday to France and Italy and Germany and Austria. Or you could you could renovate your home and add a jacuzzi and a 2-lane bowling alley and a badminton court. Me? I'd blow it all on THIS:

At £13,500 more than the standard 2007 Subaru Impreza WRX STi Type UK (what a mouthful), this version has been tuned by Litchfield. £13,500 gets you a 12L intercooler spray bottle, lightweight panels, rear strut brace, funky badges and improved bits all around. But since Cosworth helped on the engine while Litchfield tinkled with everything including the interior and bodywork, what £13,500 *really* gets you is 415 bhp and 420 lbft directly connected to your right foot. That translates to a face-ripping a 0-60mph time of 3.7 seconds and all the way to 175 mph. Whats that you said? Your Ferrari F340 also does it in 3.7 seconds? Have you been eating cream crackers and drinking rainwater since you blew £130,000 on it?

Litchfield claims that it now outlaps a Porsche 911 (996) GT3 RS (the race-prepared stripped down version) and said Ferrari F340 around a race track. All in a practical 4-door sedan body that is also comfortable to drive around everyday. The GT3 RS probably costs a billion pounds and doesn't even come with a radio. Talk about lousy kit!

The interior is not much changed from the original Impreza. Which is good and bad depending on how you look at it. Its good because they haven't removed the air conditioning and electric windows. Its bad because on the whole, the interior of the Impreza is bland... typical of Jap cars I think.

The exterior is pretty much stock-looking too, though there are little bits and pieces that improve aerodynamics. They've re-used the proven lightweight STi wheels and rear wing, with the addition of a roof spoiler and re-worked front lip.

There's a lot more technical info at Litchfield. Do also read the review on EVO, who said it isn’t the ferocious pace that distinguishes the Type 25 from its peers. What stands out a mile is its polish and cohesion.

So it's a practical 4-door car that you can keep till your kids turn 30 that so happens to pull your face off when you floor the happy pedal. I really want one... really... dammit!!

Just upgraded my seats

2006-11-07T15:10:00.000+08:00

After the long long trip to Kuala Terengganu, I came home with an arse-ache... because of sitting too long in my car seat and driving. Since my back ain't exactly the healthiest in the world, I decided that I should do something about it. So I went shopping for new seats. It's gotta be comfortable and supportive. If possible sporty also lar. I did manage to find a pair of seats at a good bargain. Comfortable enough to sit for hours, and its from a reknown brand so it should be safe and reliable too. It even comes in a colour that the CEO would agree! Forked over the cash and got it installed in my ride.

Check it out...

BWAHAHAHAH!!! Anyone wanna test drive?

Heat problems

2006-11-07T09:48:00.000+08:00

Remember in my previous post I mentioned about there being heat problems with the fluorescent lights' chokes in my aquarium's hood? A few nights ago I found out just how hot it was...

Fulamak! And to think I was gonna leave both lights on 24 hours a day to encourage plant growth! So I went to the local lights shop and asked for alternatives. And the friendly dude introduced me to the electronic ballast *swoooon*. In some brands, the casings were made of plastic, so it had to run cool. Grabbed two and off home I went.

And the result:Ahhh...

Now grow already you stupid plants!!

Back to nature

2006-11-06T12:11:00.000+08:00

That is, after 7 hours of driving to get there. I decided to take the CEO to Kuala Terengganu for a vacation since it was her birthday. After 7 hours of trunk roads through small kampungs and the whole freakin Banjaran Titiwangsa, we finally arrived and checked into the Primula Beach Resort Kuala Terengganu. Interestingly, I only slepy 6.5 hours the previous night, so I drove more than I slept...

That is the view out of the balcony. Hard to imagine this kinda view only 1km from the city centre. All the rooms have a view of the sea too, not like some hotels that suprise you by saying "Oh sir, the promotion is for hill/garden/pool/jamban view only, sea view is not include sir, sorry sir". Hmph!

We decided to go to Rantau Abang to visit the turtle sanctuary. Should be nice to see baby turtles. Drove there and found out it was CLOSED. Where got tourist attraction closed one??! The islands off the coast like Redang, Perhentian and Kapas were all closed because of the monsoon. At least they have a reason for closing lar!

So we just drove along the coast on our way back to Tasik Kenyir. The beaches are nice and clean! The coastal roads really remind of The Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia. With the sea barely 50m away from the road and kampung houses on both sides (of the road that is).

We stayed at the Kenyir Lake View Resort. It was damn quiet, no one there but the two of us. You'd think service would be good, well... it was good, but there were some liberties taken by the hotel since there wasn't anyone around, like stuff outta stock and not turning on the aircond.

There really isn't much to do unless you go for boat rides, hikes and fishing. All which costs money. Come on, even canoening and cycling costs money. They should lend it out for free mah. I decided to wake up in the morning during sunrise hoping to catch the famous mist-rolling-over-the-lake-with-trees trunks-terpacak-pacak-out-of-the-lake photos. Mana tau, there was mist all around and there were no dead trees terpacak out of the water. To add insult to injury, I realised the "mist" was mostly caused by my camera lens fogging up... hahahah!

The included lake cruise did take us a waterfall they call Saok Waterfall. Pristine and untouched, it is probably the best one I've seen in Malaysia.

So after 2 nights in Kenyir, we headed back to civilisation. On the way we bumped into this little fella by the side of the road:
Bwahahah! Caught him in the act of taking a royal dump by the side of the road. Story is that this baby elephant got hit by a truck while crossing the road at night. They've tied him to a tree to wait for him to heal up before he goes back into the woods. How would he survive out of his herd I have no idea. Anyway, people have been feeding him bananas and guavas while he's camping by the side of the road.

So after 1200km of driving, the holiday was over. Kuala Terengganu - highly recommended. Tasik Kenyir - only for adventurous/fisherman/rich people types.

Kingdom Hearts 2 Review

2006-10-31T10:08:00.000+08:00

Yes I know this game has been out for months. On the 28th of October, after 37 hours on the in-game clock (geekchic can verify this), I finally managed to finish the game! And thats only the storyline portion of it, I didn't go out and look for all the ultimate weapons and complete all the miniquests. Guess I'm more driven by story then the I'm-level-99-and-can-kill-the-final-boss-in-one-fell-swoop.

It is a collaboration between Squaresoft, one of the greatest RPG houses in history, and Disney, easily the most recognisable cartoon franchise in the world. I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive at this game at first. I guessed that the game would be too childish and for the first many hours, my guesses were true. I can't fathom carrying a huge-ass Keyblade into a world with Pooh characters really...

The game worlds comprise of Disney universes and franchises such as Pirates of The Carribean, The Little Mermaid, Hercules, Aladdin and much more. There's even a world called Timeless River where it transports you back in time where Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Pete were first drawn. It's based on the first Disney's Steamboat Willie cartoon featuring Mickey Mouse, way back in 1928. Definitely cool!

Interspersed in those universes are Final Fantasy characters such as Cloud, Squall, Sid and Auron. They looked pretty out of place at first, but fit in nicely after my initial shock.

The game is a continuation from Kingdom Hearts 1, and as I have found out the hard way, if you haven't played the KH-I, there would be quite a few instances in KH-II that will make you go "Huh? What the..?" I highly suggest that you play the first installment first. And since I didn't, I cannot comment on the advancements from the first game.

The game tells the story of Sora and his companions Donald and Goofy. Apparently the worlds have been overrun by bad dudes called the Heartless. You will be romping through Disney worlds laying the smack down on said Heartless and bringing light once more to the hapless public. Some of the Disney worlds have you playing a role in the actual cartoons/movies and some have more original storylines.

Within the first hour of this game I knew this is Final Fantasy. It's what kept me going. Truth be told, I haven't played FFX-2 so its been a while since my last FF game. You FF fans will recognise the familiar aspects on the FF genre, with spells such as Firaga and items such as Tent, making fantastic weapons out of raw materials, summoning allies to help in battles and intricate limit breaks.

The action, unlike FF, is in real-time button mashing hack-n-slash mode though, requiring you to run around enemies and clobber them with your Keyblades. This gives rise to the added complexity of selecting items and casting magic while enemies are swarming over you. Donald and Goofy will do their own thing with minimal input from you. There are also special commands called Reaction Commands, which when triggered at the right time, causes Sora to do something bad to the enemy, whether it be climbing onto the back of a flying dragon. Reaction commands can also be chained, particularly in elaborate boss battles, like parrying and enemy's attacked followed by a counterattack. If you've played God of War, you'd know what I mean. Very cool.

The graphics are excellent, capturing the colourful worlds of Disney and its characters. Definitely one of the nicer looking games around with intricate attack combo animations and excellent motion capture. Whats even better than the graphics is the sound. Oh my gosh, its truly Final Fantasy, with its epic scores, punchy sound effects and first rate voice acting. With big names such as Christopher Lee (Count Dooku in Star Wars) and other reprising their original roles such as Ming Na (Mulan), it's truly a feast for your auditory senses. I do have one gripe though, while most of the cutscenes and story bits are voiced out, there are few that are just text on the screen, ala Final Fantasy games for the PS1. Maybe there isn't enough space on the DVD, but I really felt everything should've been voiced out.

The storyline is classic Squaresoft, complicated in some situtations and always dealing with touchy-feeling subject material. In this case, its all about, you guessed it, hearts. I also feel that the Disney worlds were thrown in a bit haphazardly and did't seem to connect to one another. Its like, go to this world, finish the quests, go to the next world. Belle has never met Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas and Pooh has never seen Tron. That sorta stuff. A bit more cohesiveness would've been great.

In the end, 37 hours of my life over 2 months were well spent. A must play for fans of Final Fantasy and Disney and highly recommended for everyone else. I wonder if Kingdom Hearts III will have Lightning McQueen from Cars or Mr Incredible from The Incredibles...

Project Aquarium - Stage 2 - Give us light!

2006-10-31T09:15:00.000+08:00

Finally Project Aquarium Stage 2 has completed! Stage 2 consisted of wiring the lights and getting some plants into the aquarium. At least I can tell people I *am* rearing some living things in there besides dead water with dead gravel and dead wood. Hahahah. Took some pics of the tank-o-liquid.
Front dead on short. Only got 6 plants at the moment, need to run-in the aquarium to see if there's enough light, fertiliser, etc.

Side tall shot. I've got 2 18W 32" fluorescent tubes in there. The chokes get REALLY REALLY hot! So far I don't dare to leave both lights on while no one is at home, else I might need to claim my fire insurance =[ Anyone knows an alternative (that doesn't involve too much money?)

I also went to CTY Aquarium to enquire about CO2 systems. Turns out the cheapest one I can get is about 400 bucks, that comes with a mini scuba-tank, regulator, difusser and hoses. Scuba tanks needs to be refilled every 2-3 months or so. Because the aquarium environment is small, there isn't enough natural CO2 absorption into the water to sustain the amount of plants in the water. *time to save money*

By the way, Project Aquarium has a direction now! Below is what I'm trying to achieve.

Fooh! Damn nice wei! Gonna try my hands on rearing discus fish, accompanied by neon tetras and corydoras! =]

Here's another one by famed aquarium dude Takashi Amano. If you've seen those "designer" aquarium products by ADA, thats his company right there.

Stage 3 will hopefully be CO2 injection system and more plants! Stay tuned!

Flygja is in HD-land!

2006-10-26T14:54:00.000+08:00

Ah... I just came back from a refreshing and relaxing holiday from the 21st till the 25th of October. They were the Deepavali and Hari Raya holidays.

So today is the 26th and I went to work feeling refreshed. No government at work today mar. So it would've been a slow day for me... until I got a call at 10am. Rushed back home and waited... waited... waited until noon and...

w00t w00t!!! My LCD TV has finally arrived! Waited more than 2 months and here it is! Finally Flygja is in HD-land! It only goes up to 720p though, but who cares! Has 2 component inputs, 2 S-video, HDMI and VGA inputs. By the way, I got it when I bought my UncleMobile Toyota Altis 1.6E.

Needless to say, I immediately moved my trust sony Vega 21" aside and hooked up the Bravia. Then proceeded to click through the boring menus and loaded up The Incredibles Widescreen Edition DVD. Fuwwaaahhh....

Since it has a VGA input, I hooked up my laptop and played downloaded episodes of Top Gear on it! No more watching on a 15" monitor! Plus since I've also been in Wifi-land, I can stream stuff from my desktop to my laptop! No need to buy a wireless DMA!!

OK, less time blogging and more time living in HD-land now!

More updates on Richard Hammond

2006-10-26T08:51:00.000+08:00

It's good to hear that he still has his sense of humour. He was quoted here in the Daily Mirror to have said:

"Do you realise how annoyed I am that I've got no marks on me? Absolutely nothing at all, nothing for the pub. "There are people who fall off their trikes at the age of four who've got better injuries than me. I've been through hell and I've got nothing to show for it except a chipped tooth! I'm gutted."

Way to go Hamster! The doctors and experts say he's gonna make a 100% recovery and that is excellent. Let's hope he gets on his feet and filming soon!

One night at Putrajaya

2006-10-09T16:02:00.000+08:00

Good buddy of mine asked me if I wanted to follow him to Putrajaya on Saturday night to take photos. He said he's borrowing the KLIMS 2006 Yaris to drive there and take photos. So I grabbed my Kanon Powershot A70, stole my brother's tripod and I was off! In the end we stuck around for 3 hours in Putrajaya, proving that they don't ever switch off the lights there. Here are some n00bstyle photos to share.

For those who don't know, Putrajaya is now the administrative centre of Malaysia. It draws photographers because of the funky buildings and they never switch off the lights at night.

Here is the KLIMS 2006 Yaris with its imported-from-Japan INGS+1 aerokit and original G-Games 17inch wheels from Rays Wheels.

My lame-o attempts at taking panning shots.

Check out the decals. All the stuff is really in the car! w00t!

Drama "drifting" action!

One of the magnificient bridges in Putrajaya

Like a bright-red cat in a bright-red bush ready to pounce on a stupid rat?

Hamster is making "good" progress

2006-09-25T10:59:00.000+08:00

Richard Hammond has been downgraded from a "serious but stable" to "stable" condition, indicating that the doctors are satisfied with the recovery that he is making. He reportedly has had "significant brain injury" during the accident in which his rocket-powered vehicle veered off the track at about 482km/h.

Let's hope he doesn't lose his wit and his courage. More at the BBC.

The Hamster is in critical condition =[

2006-09-21T09:52:00.000+08:00

Just got this piece of news. Richard Hammond, better known as The Hamster from BBC's Top Gear series has been critically injured while filming. Top Gear was apparently trying to break the landspeed record. More details at BBC and The Age.

I'll be one of them praying for his safety. Top Gear will not be complete without him.

Project aquarium... stage 1

2006-09-19T10:58:00.000+08:00

Finally got off my lazy ass during the weekend to start work on my aquarium. Here's what it looks like:

Ermm... I mean this is what I'd want it to look like when its done. In actual fact it currently looks like this:

*ahem* It's a hand-me-down 170L tank from my cousin. Right now it has about 40-50kgs of fine gravel, some fertilizer and a piece of driftfood. Yeah I'm rearing driftwood and mosquitoes now. Hope to get stage 2 started soon, which is the lighting. Currently only has one fluorescent tube which is not enough to grow a jungle.

p.s. Sorry for grainy pics. A70 will be out of the Canon hospital by this week, all fixed up for free! Yay!

Nintendo Wii

2006-09-15T10:30:00.000+08:00

Nintendo's next-gen console is close at hand. The official launch date is November 19. I'm sure everyone has fond memories of Nintendo gaming systems, whether it'd be the 8-bit NES, 16-bit SNES, Nintendo-64, all variations of the Game Boy and probably the Gamecube and Nintendo DS to a lesser scale. Nintendo has also brought some of the most loveable characters to the gaming world; the plumbers Mario and Luigi, the adventurer Link (from the Zelda series) and the hairy ape Donkey Kong.

On September 16, Nintendo diarrhea'd the world with a press event that provides more juicy details about their Wii system. The ones I find most interesting are the US$249.99 price tag at launch and the 101 launch titles that have been confirmed. In contrast, the XBOX360 cost US$299 for the barebones and US$399 for a fully loaded system. The PS3 will launch at an even higher price of US$499 barebones and US$599 fully loaded. Of the 101 confirmed launch titles, the most interesting would be a new Mario game and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Nintendo also have a few "weird" games lined up like one called Cooking Mama... *huh?*

Looks like Nintendo is going the Apple path in terms of design and usage models. The unit itself screams APPLE APPLE APPLE! It looks sleek and would fit right at home in a ultra-chic modern living room. Continuing with the Apple theme, Nintendo is also a major proponent of the "less is more" way of doing things. As such, Wii doesn't boast the 6-core CPU of the XBOX360 or the HDMI output of the PS3. It runs with one CPU and Nintendo proprietary 12cm discs and is backward compatible with Gamecube discs. Heck, if it keeps the prices down I don't mind. One look at released screenshots is enough to tell me its sufficient!

The most interesting feature of the Wii are the nunchaku-type controllers which are a world away from the traditional console gamepad. Nintendo have always tried to be the oddball in the console family and this really shows it. Even the name "Wii" is a bit of an oddball. The controllers are Bluetooth wireless controllers and each console can have up to 4 Wii controllers. The controllers have motion sensors in them so you can wave them around in games that support them. I can just imagine 4 guys, standing in a living room playing lightsaber battles with each other. Or golf. Or dragon dance drums. Interesting, but oddball for sure, which may affect take-up rates in Malaysia. One look at it and I go "Where are all the buttons??!"

There will also be an online service called Virtual Console that will have, among other things, a download service for gamers to download Nintendo games of yesterday to their consoles to play. Big names like Contra and Mario Bros are in the list. It does come at a price of US$10 per game though...

When will the unit be available in Malaysia is unknown at the moment. I do hope someone in my company decides to send me to the States in November for training or whatever so I can try out this funky little console! No money to buy lah!

Check out Nintendo and Gamespot for more on Wii.

Oh how you have been misunderstood!

2006-09-03T18:13:00.000+08:00

Check this out. The UMNO youth has struck again, declaring Mat Rempits as one of Malaysia's biggest assets and they have been sorely misunderstood. All they need is a chance to prove themselves. I'm sure we all have experienced situations where bikers run like mad on the roads, beat the traffic lights and my current favourite, pretend like they're pedestrians by riding on the wrong side of the road.

But wait! They're misunderstood! They need to prove themselves!

Proof: HERE

Gee... way to go!

How low can you go?

2006-09-03T09:28:00.000+08:00

*warning... geeko moment approaching*

So yesterday I realised that my Touch N Go card's balance was pretty low. But after careful calculations (repeated 3 times so that I don't embarass myself at a toll plaza), I realised that even after the day's usage, I'd still have some balance left in my card. How much you ask?

How low can you go babeh? =]

*geeko moment over*

edit: After my ego-geeko stunt, I was left driving around for about 15 mins trying to find an ATM machine to top up my Touch N Go at. HAHAHAH!

Gay deathrows

2006-08-29T07:52:00.000+08:00

My faithful but inherrently flawed Canon Powershot A70 is once again dead. This time it decided to die a gay death... pictures taken all have a purple distortion to them.

I have already repaired it once due to the infamous "Canon CCD failure". You can read more about it here and here. Canon issued a service advisory that if they investigate your camera and its the CCD death problem, they'll repair it FOC even if its out of warranty. Some even got free replacements, which is what I'll be trying to wring from them this time >:)

So the Big Gay A70 has been sent to Big Gay Al's Big Gay Canon Repair Centre. No pics till it's been "straightened" out. Hahahah =]

Korea

2006-05-28T21:52:00.000+08:00

I'm once again in Korea for business. I'm not supposed to be here since, but apparently my boss thinks I'm more experienced so I got pulled into it. Some interesting pics to share...

Darned! I guess they don't do threesomes... =[

This is the Gyeongbokgung palace in Seoul, the biggest and baddest in Seoul. This building is called Geongcheonggung... and I don't remember what its used for in the old days. It just looks to me like Samanosuke will appear at anytime and halve some vital part of my body... *ouch*

Most of the building had central heating by way of ducts underneath the stone floors that people could shove charcoal or wood into and set them on fire. Smoke inhalation was a worry, so they built chimneys. As the picture shows, luckily they remembered the fire hydrants =]

Spotted this fella trying perched along the longkang.

This is actually a model of life in the... old old unclothed days.

This building is called Gyeonghoeru, which translates to Happy Meeting Place. It's also the graphic on the back of a 10,000 Korean Won note. I think the Malaysian RM50 has the Proton City behind it... gotta make a trip there one day.

Ermm... wokay *walks through*