What other people do with what they have

I have always been saying I have been taking crap pictures. Well compared to those other there, I really have been taking crap pictures. Check this out...

TimeScapes: Rapture from Tom Lowe on Vimeo.

 I got this from shoot.edit.learn and it a short film shot by Tom Lowe which will be made into something called TimeScapes. Absolutely beautiful. Enjoy.

Dear Malaysians

I just read this on soyacincau and I think it is one of those really touching videos that more and more companies are producing to celebrate Merdeka day. Most of them talk about how we should celebrate Merdeka day or talk about the less fortunate and how far we have come as a country. 

However this video by Digi is really good. Check it out first.

The great thing about this video like said in the soyacincau blog post that it doesn't make any reference at all to Merdeka or any cheesy jalur gemilang shots. However it shows the things that most Malaysians face such as attitude on the road, attitude towards the less fortunate, attitude towards Malaysian in general but shown in a different slight. However it is given a twist by shown people asking for forgiveness for the things they have done.

I think this is one of the main problems with Asian people is that they are too scared to lose face and hence they seldom ask for apology or say sorry because it loses them face. If you have done something wrong, man up and say you are sorry and people will thank you for it. I think if more people ask for forgiveness and forgive and forget, we will have less problems in Malaysia and Malaysia will benefit from it.

I think it is a very inspirational video that has alot of deeper meaning and I congratulate Digi for that. Well done. I like it and to tell you the truth, I teared abit towards the end. It actually touched my heart.

My 29th Birthday

One of the things that is different about this year's birthday party is the relative calm about it. Yea there is the FB wall post spamming and the few late well wishes and the whatsapp and sms. However this year everything still seems to be calm and cool. The best thing is my birthday falls on a Sunday and there is no one better to spend it with then...

We decided to go low key this year and not get any present but just dinner. After much consideration and also me picking between A,B and C, we finally ended up at...

Dirty Nelly's is basically a small and nice pup in Damansara Jaya near the old Atria and on the same row as Maybank. People have been telling me about how good the burgers are and we decided to give it a try.The place is nicely decorated to look like an english pub and it even has a beer mat for each of the tables.

So first up to be healthy before the unhealthy we ordered some greens....

We have been ordering alot of Caesar Salad recently and it is pretty much established that both of us like Caesar Salad. That is what came along...

Me and Caesar Salad

Now this Caesar Salad is interesting for a couple of reason. 

•  It is the first time we ever had Caesar salad with "Tartar like sauce" and with an option for Balsamic vinegar. The saucer with 2 sauces there? Top is "Tartar like sauce" and bottom is Balsamic vinegar
• They used quail eggs instead of standard chicken eggs
• There was no anchovies in the salad at all

Over all it was still pretty good but it is not a Caesar Salad for sure. After 5 min...

Next to come was something warm and milky and creamy. We ordered a soup to warm up our tummies for the main course.

It is called Yellow Vanilla and it is a pumpkin & squash soup combined with some nutmeg. This took a while to come because they only had 1 cook that night. So.....

Should I order a Guinness?

Or should I not?

Nah I will order it on Arthur Guinness day

Unfortunately after the previous night of drinking, we decided not to have any alcoholic drinks today and went for normal warm water. The soup took a really long time to come so Amy ordered a very unhealthy bar snack. It sounded interesting on the menu but it almost gave me a heart attack. Now what was crazy was the starter came before the soup did.

We ordered the Angels & Devil on horseback and it is prunes wrapped with streaky bacon and fried till crispy and to finish it off a sprinkling of cayenne pepper. This is a very surprising combo. The sweetness of the prunes gelled very well with the savoury taste of the bacon. The streaky bacon was very very very fat and since it was fried, oil was basically dripping off. There was no spicyness of the cayenne pepper though. 

That last piece seriously almost gave me a heart attack. Finally after all the unhealthy goodness, the soup arrived and we could wash down some of those fat and "try" to forget about it.

This soup was not too bad as well, the pumpkin they used was sweet and buttery. Amy said it wasn't creamy enough but I thought it was ok as any more creamy and it would be very "jelak". Half way through polishing off the soup, the big mamma arrived. We ordered their most famous....

Dirty Nelly's which is a burger that has PORK, BEEF and LAMB, English Cheddar and Jalapeno peppers combined into a big thick burger patty. The patty has a couple of friends in tow as well in the form of bacon, mustard mash and a Duck egg sunny side up. On the side we have a bowl of chili, crispy white bait, coleslaw and wedges. On the menu it actually say "As the name itself, not for the faint hearted or the health conscious". What does it look like you might be thinking, well here it is. I give you Dirty Nelly's Burger....

This is how it looks like on the cross section

Starting to drool yet? This burger is quite interesting for a few reasons. The patty was absolutely fantastic. I always believe that beef and lamb burger patties give you a better flavour compared to pork because it has a more meaty feel. It crumbles better then pork to give you a nice more "fluffy" patty. However the burger patty was so tasty that is actually masked the taste of the bacon and the duck egg completely. I took a piece of bacon and ate it alone and it was tasty. So means the other flavours totally masked out the flavor of the bacon.

The mustard mash taste more like mash potato and I couldn't really taste any mustard in them and there wasn't any hint of spicyness from the Jalapeno peppers. The chili on the side WAS FANTASTIC. It goes well alone, with the burger or even with the fried white bait and wedges. It was really good tasting and it could be made into a nice dish of sloppy joes.

I think they tried to make too much out of this burger that each of the elements were fighting for my attention. I think maybe the better way to eat this burger is using the more civilise way of fork and knife compared to just packing it on top and chowing down. It was still a great burger never-the-less just that some of the flavours was masked or lost out to something else.

After dinner, we couldn't walk or do anything, so just sit around taking photos lor

Now after every good meal, I believe in the western way which is to sooth the stomach with some coffee. Most western dinners if you go for the full course it will be coffee right at the end. We decided to skip dessert and head straight for coffee and Antipodean Bangsar.

Apparently this is the hottest place for coffee nowadays and they even roast their own coffee. Amy and I being coffee drinkers, we decided to cap the night off with a good cuppa coffee. The decor at Antipodean is very chic and classy.

Something about black board with the menu on the blackboard makes me like this place instantly. Maybe it is because those western restaurant overseas usually do it. They do actually have a coffee roaster at the back the shop and man this place must smell good when they start roasting the beans. I usually do not go for anything fancy but just a simple cuppa cappuccino and Amy ordered the cafe mocha.

Cappuccino

Cafe Mocha

The coffee to my taste buds was a little on the bitter side. Usually I drink my coffee milk without sugar but this one I couldn't drink it without sugar. The after taste was just too bitter for me. I didn't think it was a great cuppa coffee unfortunately. It could be that that is how the beans taste or they might have over roasted the beans or burnt the beans while making the cup of coffee. I had to put some sugar then it was more palatable. Even the cafe macho had the hint of over bitterness but it was masked out by the slightly sweet chocolate. Overall, I think the coffee was too strong for my taste. 

The coffee gave us a buzz so Amy came up with a cool shot...

Then I saw a nice shot to play around with the black wall they had at Antipodean. I tried but it not as what I had imagined in my mind.

The patch work didn't help the picture and also the fact there wasn't enough light made this picture not fantastic. Maybe I should have used a flash. Oh well. Next time.

Thanks Amy for the fantastic 29th Birthday Celebration. See ya 28 and welcome 29. Bring on 30 next year. Hehe

A long time ago

I used to be crazy about photography. I still remember I think a good 3-4 years ago when I first bought my first DSLR. It was a Canon 400D and the crazy thing is I bought it on impulse. One day my mum just said "Hey Canon is having a warehouse sale at Peremba Square" and my bro and I decided to check it out. Couple of hours later I came back with a DSLR and 3k poorer. It was the first time I bought something in 12 Months Interest Free payment and vowed not to do it again. Unfortunately I did it again for my house reno. That is another story.

Anyway I wasn't really into photography until I broke my good knee and then was stuck in the house for 2 months. With nothing better to do, I took photography seriously and boom I am now 3-4 years later and my camera hasn't come out for I think a couple of months now.

One time I started thinking about what I can do while I am stuck at home with nothing better to do. I decided heck since I got a screwed knee, lets try to make another screwed up part of me disappear also. So I ended up with....

Yea it was a time when I was still using crutches to walk around. I think I still had my cast on and you can see how bored I was. After that I started to learn on how to selectively alter the color of a picture. I started out with some flowers.

Quite cool right? It brings out the subject that you are trying to take. After a while I decided hey lets move on to people and I did this.

Wah that was the time I used to have Ah Beng hairstyle which was styled by Wella Malaysia and Steph you had curly hair. Hahahahha. I like these photos because of the bright color of the clothes and the black and white of the rest.

Nowadays I just take boring photos and do boring editing. Need to start up my photography again.

When light turns into Day 2

My camera hasn't been out alot recently. I think it is because I am getting lazy and my camera phone is much easier to carry around. I need to take out my camera and go shooting soon. Yesterday I had nothing to do so I took a picture of the scene outside my car window just as I came to office and parked my car.

I took the picture and left and never actually thought what I would do with it. Then when I was about to go home I walked to my car, got into my car and thought to myself, hey look pretty nice out there so I took another picture.

Again I never thought what I would do with this picture. I do take pictures and it stays in the memory card or phone forever and sometimes it gets shown but most of the time it stays there. This morning while driving to work I thought about the pictures I took and decided to do this because here I am at WORK while half the country is sleeping or enjoying a public holiday.

The effect is not fantastic as the photo itself ain't fantastic. Suddenly I am thinking of where I can setup my camera to take some day to night pictures again. I will give it a think and Maybe do it once I find a suitable place. Stay tuned.

Angry Birds on the road

The Angry bird phenomenon has taken over the freaking world. You see them angry birds everywhere, on people's phones, in the supermarket, at the pasar malam, people are bringing it for their pre wedding shoots, portable fans, iPad covers and even REAL LIVE angry birds.

I think that is pretty cool by the way. Yesterday while driving home and stuck in the jam, I came face to face with an Angry Bird on the road. Don't believe me? Check it out...

See the first photo was dem scary somemore. It has red eyes and this is the black angry bird. The one that you press and it explodes one. I made sure I kept my distance from this Angry Bird. :)

Epic Video

Ok remember a couple of post back there was a post about Kelvin Choo's Bday and how I asked Steph to upload the video she took of me laughing my head off and not able to even drive? Well got it from Steph and here it is. Hope you are not driving when you see this.

During my Birthday there is definately going to be helium baloons for SURE!!!

Weird Stuff I take with my Camera

Nowadays with pretty much 90% of the phones sold have a camera, we tend to take more pictures. I know I do and I have collected a whole load of weird stuff over the year plus since I got my HTC Desire. The picture quality ain't great but it beats carrying a brick around and I always do have access to it. So lets begin with the weird stuff I take with my camera.

First is a pack of keropok that my colleague bought from her home town in Kelantan. Looks like any normal pack of keropok right? But look again...

There is a note on the packaging that says "Dijamin Tidak Gatal". I wonder if we gave this to all the sex offenders out there. Will it reduce their crime rate? Haha.

This is a picture Amy took while we were driving to Dungun. The sign on the main road says "Tak Rasa Bersalah ke...? Buang Sampah dari kenderaan anda?". Good try by the municiple council and kudus for trying but seriously, I do not think people who actually do such thing as well as jumping queue at a traffic light really feels guilty for doing it.

This pictures was taken at craft brews behind the door heading to the toilet. I just got out of the toilet and walking drunk back, I saw this sign and couldn't help but to take out my phone and snapped a picture to say that I just wasted 150-300ml of beer. To my defense, I was drinking green healthy beer and my pee didn't look green. So I am not part of that satistics.

This is what happens when you have 2 crazy brothers with nothing better to do. We were walking around my bro's place in Penang looking for picture to take and I got a great idea. That is where the picture above was born. Check out my big SPIKY head!!!

This is a picture I took from one of the SS2 traffic light areas near RHB. What made me take this picture is the sure kiasu-ness of the person who implemented the traffic light. There are 3 (yes top one also but it couldn't get the exposure right) lights all pointing to the same direction. Why you need 3? 2 I can still understand but 3???? I think that is way too much.

This one is really funny, while I was surfing the net, I found this place selling Android Phone Holders. I thought it was cute so I ordered one in. When I got it and while I was reading the box, apparently the phone holder also comes with URINE? I looked high and low within the box and couldn't find URINE. Up till today I am still wondering what the heck they were thinking when the printed this box. Hahahha.

This is the best key chain I have ever owned ever. I think it was a present I got from some of my friends and I used this for quite a bit. The key chain and not the condom of course. After I came back from Australia and started working, I decided that I needed to portray a professional image and shouldn't use this key chain anymore. Recently when I was digging around for the keys to my new place, I saw this key chain and it brought back memories. Nope the original condom was still in there and NO I never used it as well.

This pictuer also is dem cool, we were having tea and scones at T cafe in cameron highlands and they had a rack of books there. This obviously caught my eye and it is actually an autobiography of Jenna Jameson. For those who don't know this lady, I think she is the most popular porn star out there. I am sure 100% of the guys reading this post know who Jenna Jameson is. Unfortunately the book is not in english. I think it is like Russion or Polish or something. There was some nude pictures of Jenna inside the book and of course I took a couple of pictures. However, uh not so good to post it online lar. Never know who is reading my blog. Hahaha.

I am not proud of this picture and also not proud about myself for thinking about this but I couldn't resist and had to take a picture. When I saw this picture the first thing that hit me, is this the handicap toilet? Enough said. I am sorry for saying it. Don't kill me for it ok?

This sign I think is pretty cool. Amy was shopping and while waiting I saw this. Normally it just ask you to make lemonade. I think this advice is much much better. Haha.

This one is a picture I took at Diaso, first glance the first thought I thought was that it is a bottle of Soya Sauce. Turns out it is a bottle of Cola.

This is interesting, a couple of years back while we were in Australia, Ru Shyuan introduced this ointment to Amy. It is a ointment made from Papaya extract and it apparently is suppose to be some wonder ointment. You can apply it to cracked lips, dry skin, use it as a lip balm, apply to burnt skin, etc. Amy bought one and apparently swears by it too. I saw this recently in Caring Pharmacy. PaPaw by the way is Papaya by Australian Standards.

This is one MEGA HUMUNGUS watermelon. Apparently it is Taiwanese Giant Watermelon. Check out how big it is compared to my hand. If I could remember correctly, this gigantic watermelon cost something like 140 bucks. Who would actually buy such a huge freaking watermelon? CRAZY!!!!

This is my most recent picture which I took at a Japanese Restaurant in SS12 Subang Jaya. I ordered their coffee and it came with the smallest cuppa milk I have ever seen. It was just right for the cuppa coffee that I had but I found it a bit tought to pick up the cuppa milk correctly. Haha.

There you go, those are some of the weird stuff that I have taken with my phone. Hope you enjoyed it. :)