Good food and Good Company

Most of us who are working sometimes just do not have the time or luxury to sit back and enjoy the simple things in life. We are too caught up with working and living up to expectation that we do not just enjoy ourselves. Last weekend Amy and I meet up with 2 good friends Veronica and Allan at 1Utama. V wanted to check out Amy's wide angle lens and well Allan was just along for the food and company. 

We settled ourselves into Oriental Cravings and since we didn't have any breakfast. I was famished. So much so I actually forgot to take pictures of the food. In any case recently I have been feeling that the pictures I take are uninspiring and not oomphh to it. Anyway I didn't get food pictures but I got some other pictures.

After we had our fill of pork, V wanted to test out the new lens and I needed more coffee. So we went to Obriens for one of my fav coffee the Irish Coffee. Yes it is not real Irish Coffee but it is as close as it gets without breaking the bank. They use fake syrup but taste pretty good for a black coffee.

Cannot go out with a 50mm lens without taking some people pictures. Hehe.

This time even I got into the cam whoring business and a special appearance from the person behind the camera. Haha.

Last but not least is of course the smile. The smile that breaks hearts. :)

I have to admit though that this wasn't taken by me. I have to give credit to V for taking this picture.

Sense of Humour

No matter how old/mature you get, you need to always keep your sense of humour. After all laughter is still the best medicine and it is true. The more you laugh the younger you are. I was walking through a parking lot recently and I saw this.

Nothing really fantastic right? Looks like a plain old speaker to tell idiots they are idiots for parking like idiots. Unfortunately most of the time the idiots who are idiots because they park like idiots are too idiotic that they do not listen to the announcement. Anyway I digress.

Someone was thinking that this poor speaker which sits 24/7 in a parking lot with all the dust and haze and smog that the cars are producing needs a little help. He/She is such a kind samaritan to do this...

Haha. You always have to keep your sense of humour about you. If not then life will just be plain boring. :)

Mama's Boy

Yesterday the topic on the radio was about adults over 25 years of age still staying with their parents and listening and doing everything that their mothers tell them. I hear all these stories and I realised okay lar I am not that bad. Some of the mothers even decide which girl their son should go out with.

Everyone who is my friend by know should know that I am a Mama's boy. If you do not know I am a Mama's boy then obviously you haven't hang out with me enough.

I still remember one day when Mei Foong and Steph came to my house and we were suppose to go out. They got a baptism of fire on how a mama's boy I am and I think my mum freaked them out a little. Both of them drove to my house and for some reason I do not know why I decided to park both their cars into my drive way. Half way doing that my mum felt something was wrong and she looked out of the window and saw me parking their cars. I got one hell of a firing from the second floor. Steph and MF was telling me nevermind lar they park outside but since I already parked their cars in. I could not be stuffed doing it again so I just said something to my mum and cabuts as fast as I can. Haha. Good times. I could not even remember where we were going that night.

I am about to hit the rightful age of 28 in about a months time. I still stay with my parents because it is economical. However staying with my parents has its disadvantages as De Way found out recently. Last week Thursday both of us were Freedom Ting and Freedom Ng. He decides to call me out for yam cha and he said we should go at 10am. 

DW: Freedom Ting or not tonight?

JT: Still free of course. After this week no more. Haha. You freedom Ng?

DW: Okay, tonight nimum @ 10, leng mou?

JT: Wah so late are? Earlier can are?

DW: Eh 10 to 1130 lidat ok la brader... How often u do dis man

JT: Haha 930 till 1130 lar. My parents won't like me going out so late. If I go earlier then easier. Still mama's boy. Mana?

DW: Yau Mou Gau Chor. Mamak @ USJ9 or coffee bean

So we finally settled on 930 and I decided to leave exactly at 930 knowing De Way sure late one. Guess what? At 915 my parents already ask me "Eh so late already still not going out yet meh". I know my parents too much and I can anticipate them already.

I still have "curfews" on weekdays. It is not like fully enforced but coming back after 12pm on a weekday is frowned upon. That one I am okay with it lar since I do need my sleep on the weekdays or not go to work like zombie.

I think we are all mama's boy/girls to a certain extend. We can help ourselves since we were brought up by our parents anyway. Maybe mine a little on the extreme side. Haha.

Its your job

One thing that I enjoy about my work is that I get to travel once in a while. I am not stuck in an office whole day and on the occasion I would be overseas and get some time off to walk around. The best part about travelling is when you so happen to be at a place where something special is happening. One of the time I was over in Sydney, they were having the Sydney Festival of Lights.

I was fortunate enough to be sent there while the Festival of Lights was going on. Basically what they do is they light up giant buildings with all kinds of patterns and art to make it look nice at night. The most impressive is of course one of Sydney's famous icon the Sydney Opera house.

What is incredibly amazing is that they actually light up both side of the Sydney Opera House. They actually project the image from the opposite side (Overseas Passenger Terminal) of the bay onto the Sydney Opera House. It is a good 1km away from the place the projectors are to where the Sydney Opera House is. Mike and I got curious and we went to check out where the lights we coming from and we started talking to the guy. Apparently they are about the only company in the world that is able to do it. The heat coming out of the lights was intense and he was telling us that they have been doing these sort of things all over the world.

They actually change the patterns projected on the screen every 30-60 seconds and they are amazing.

This is a picture taken from the other side of Sydney Opera House and this one was projects from Sydney Botanical Gardens.

It is in stark contrast compared to the day time picture of Sydney Opera house.

They not only did it for the Sydney Opera house but also did it for the Museum of Contemporary Arts. Day time it looks like this.

At night it transforms to....

This was one of the trips that I can remember the most as it was actually my first trip to Sydney for work and my first trip to Australia for work. I was also lucky to be there to see the amazing sights of Sydney's famous icons in a different light.

TULAN!!!!

I was booking something online recently and it was all good and fantastic until I was at the payment page.  I was about to click on proceed to payment until...

Nothing catches your eyes?

Basket they just congratulated me for saving absolutely zip, nada, 0, nothing. Dem tulan. However since they are only the people doing it. Had no choice but to proceed to payment.

When Life gives you Lemons

One thing which I learned in life that is that the more you want something the further it gets. Life is very ironic in a sense that you seldom (but never) get what you want. It has happened to me many times before and it will continue to happen to me in life. Nowadays I go through life working for the best but not expecting the best but maybe the second best. If I get the best option then it is a bonus.

This allows me to be less disappointed in life when I do not get the best. Sometimes when you think about it, was it that important to get the best? Could I settle for second best?

Everyone has heard of the phrase "When Life Gives You Lemons, You Make Lemonade". I got a phrase of my own, "When Life Gets You Down, Think About People Who Are Less Fortunate". If you go through life this way you will be a better person.

I also heard another phrases yesterday on TV yesterday which is good for all my friends out there who are currently wallowing in self pity about being single or being dumped.

"I know that you think you need to change for people to like you. However I am sure there is someone out there who will like you for all you are and love the things you hate about yourself the most"

I think it is a pretty good phrase. By the way, if you want to donate to Yvoone Foong you can also get mooncakes for her through this link here.

Give to others

When we were young, my parents brought us up to always think about the less fortunate during our happy moments. He always said that while you are happy, there are alot of people in the world who are suffering and not able to enjoy what we have. When there is a happy occasion you should try to do some donations.

Me and my bro have lived with this principle and we are actually practice it even today. That is the reason why I always scold Amy for not finishing her food that she ordered. When we were young when my dad would screw us for not finishing our food because there are people in Africa and even in our country who do not have enough food to survive. Till today I still practice that and I would actually pay more to order less so that I would not need to waste food.

I met Yvonne Foong about 2 years ago when I come to discover she was doing some fund raising for her Surgery in the US. If anyone of you do not know who Yvonne Foong is, she had neurofibromatosis or NF for short. It is a genetic disorder which could be harmless or may cause serious damage by compressing nerves and other tissues. Unfortunately for Yvonne, she has the serious type.

I decided to buy 2 shirts from her. She was and is still selling t-shirts to help raise funds for all her surgery and if there are any left overs she will donate them to other NF patients. You can check out some of her t-shirts through this link here. It just amazes me how this little lady fights to survive and the first time I actually met her face to face was when I went to pick up the T-Shirts.

I found out that she lives in SS15 near Sri KL and instead of her having to send it via post or delivering it to my house, I decided to go to her place and pick it up. I meet her and her dad and unfortunately due to her condition she wasn't able to speak much. I was so grateful that I bought the shirts, unfortunately it doesn't fit me anymore. Yes I was way thinner back then.

Yesterday I was surfing Facebook and I came across this a post by Yvonne Foong

"Yvonne Foong Ming Niang Challenge to raise RM50,000 in 1 week! An uncle in church told me not to give up. I said, "If I give up, God will be dissappointed". Indeed, no giving up after we have come so far."

I looked her up on her blog which I have not visited in the longest of time and decided to do my bid to donate some money to her challenge. You can also do the same by going to this link here. You do not need to donate a huge sum but every little bit counts. While you are sitting in the comforts of your house or office in the AC. Think about people who are less fortunate and try to do something about it. You can start by donating to Yvonne who will be going for surgery on the 3rd of August 2010.

However do not stop there, I always feel that while we are fortunate enough to live a good live, there are others who do not have the opportunity. However with our fortune we are able to give happiness to others who are less fortunate. I always donate when I have a happy occasion or when I a bonus or increment. It is a principle I hold dearly and will continue to practice as long as I can.

How the World cup has affected everyone?

The World Cup was just over on Sunday and I never actually realised how the world cup affect things around the world.

The top 10 list in no particular order

1. If you have gone to a shopping complex during the world cup season there will be no one
2. There is nothing good to see on TV during the world cup season
3. Mamaks all around Malaysia suddenly have bigger screens
4. Business are giving alot of freebies to capture more patrons
5. More illegal bookies are caught over the world cup season
6. Million and Millions of people hate poor Paul the Octopus and want to chop him up and fry with ham tan
7. More illegal money is washed through sport bookies
8. More people are buying HD TV to see the telecast in HD
9. Millions and Millions of money are lost and won over the world cup season
10. Last but not least

Too funny not to show it. Haha

KL Walkabout

Nowadays I am getting so lazy. My camera is sitting in my dry box gathering dust. I only take it out for like holidays and seldom make planned photography trips anymore. A couple of years back, we used to go out shooting every weekend. I had 2 colleagues (1 Nikon user and 1 Sony user). We used to bash each other systems while walking about taking pictures.

One of the trips we went crazy. We started out in the morning at Bukit Jalil Park. There are many parks around the Bukit Jalil area but this in particular is near to Asian Football Association. We all gather at my colleague's place at Arena Green where I saw this cool shot.

Once we all gathered we went to the park to get some pictures of flowers.

While hanging around this flower area we caught sight of a big beetle moving from one flower to the other. I still remembered I had my macro lens trying to focus on the bugger flying around. My pathetic tries to shoot the beetle.

I think I shot something like 50 shots just to get the 3 not so focused pictures above. Once we were done with the park, we went to KL to the main train station. That was our original plan. We actually went to the park last minute because my colleague at the time was macro crazy.

We as usual instead of contributing to global warming we decided to be tree hugging hippies and take public transport.

We decided to get off at central market and walk towards the train station. On the way at least can take some photos as well.

It was a quite nice day in KL as the sun was out, the sky was blue and it wasn't hazy like it normally is in KL. We finally reached KL Train station and we spent a good 2 or 3 hours walking around taking pictures.

On the way back I spotted this very itchy leg person.

What is cool is that the 2 bolts are at the right place somemore. Time to plan more photography outings so that mushrooms do not grow on my camera.

Getting up close and personal

There is one part of photography that I never can really do well. The reason for this is because I am never a steady guy. My hands shake like I got Parkinsons and I think my cochlear is broken because I can never trully balance myself. However it is sometimes nice to get up and personal with you subject

It is of course easier to do macro photorgraphy on flowers. The reason for that is of course they do not move as much as insects and animals. With a decidated macro lens you can really get in close to your subject.

The crazy thing about macro is that the lens can really capture alot of details and very much more so compared to non-macro lens.

The picture above doesn't look anything special. However using a macro lens, you can actually do this.

You can see how much details a macro lens can capture and if you get right with a tripod the result are surprising.

To do macro on insects, make sure you pick a very slow moving insect.

Trying to shoot macro on flying animals is one the hardest thing to do. Usually by the time you get any where close to them they would have just flown away. However once in a while you can get lucky

Once in long long long long long while you get really lucky and you get something that usually flies away when you get within 2 meters of them.

I think the guy must have just had a big meal. Could not fly away. Haha