Just finished some editing. So what do I do to relax? Do more editing... of still photos that is hehe. It's wierd, spend the last 24 hours editing videos for work and to blow of some steam, I edit some still photos.

Anyway, this is a shot I took earlier on the way from Lumut to Bidor. The composition was good, but the colors was lacking. I added a matte for the sky to seperate the sky and the ground. I then corrected the colour for the sky and the did correction for the ground seperately. That's why the sky had the most awsome colour while the road looked like it was daylight.

Luxenclouds

This is one of the videos from the upcoming documentary I'm shooting. I shot this on the bridge near Lumut. I just love the clouds in this one. I changed the video level of the clouds and shot this on time lapse. Looks like a major epic movie doesn't it?

Busy Busy

I've been really busy the pass few days. I was in Lumut for a whole day shoot on Monday. We left at 6:30AM. I had the company driver drive me there. I decided to not bring a crew along, instead I was going to meet my Perak cameraman in Lumut. The drive there was quite scenic and pleasant. I slept most of the way and woke up to see a wonderful rainbow in front of us.

It was drizzling most of the way there. There were a lot of oil palm trees along the way. Some stretches were padi fields, so you could see until the horizon. It's been awhile since I've seen a flat terrain where you could see till the far end of the horizon. Was invigorating.

The shoot took most of the day. I got to visit the Lumut Port. I never knew Lumut had a port. Was quite scenic, since it was at the mouth of a river. Apparently, it's a deep sea port, about 11 Meters. So that's quite deep.

After the shoot, I had the driver drive us for a visit to the new bridge linking Lumut to Pantai Remis. There are 3 bridges that was build over Sungai Setiawan. Each of the bridge is named after a royalty. The highest bridge offers a really scenic view of the river mouth, Lumut port and Lumut waterfront. I was there at 6PM so the sun was almost setting and the clouds floating over head was breath taking indeed. Other than the noise of the traffic, I could stand there the whole evening just enjoying the view. Good thing we when with a company car with the logo. Cops that drove us were flashing us a hello. We parked right on the bridge, even though we weren't supposed too.

I got back home pretty late, at midnight. The next morning, I woke late for the morning shoot. I rushed out of the house to meet my crew in KL. Good thing traffic wasn't too bad. When I got back to the office, I ran into my GM in the lift. I was already tired from shooting when my GM said he wanted to see me in his office and it was important. I was wondering what trouble did I get into this time. He took out an envelope and said it was about the warning letter they send me previous. I was thinking, oh shit... now what. When I opened the letter, turns out it was promotion letter. Cool. I was too tired to be excited about it. I thanked my GM and asked him what was in store in the future. He said keep doing the same thing. Cool... pay rise and I still get to do the same thing.

I looked at the letter again and it was the standard fill-in-the-blanks letter. It was quite funny as it said I was promoted to producer when I was already a producer. Just that I was on a different pay scale now. Not much of a salary hike, only about RM250 extra a month. Lets see, parking charges go up, inflation increase in KL... so my personal income no change. Damn.

Today I when to Sepang to recee a company for a shoot next week. The map they provided me took me the long way round to get to their factory. I should have gone from the LCCT-F1 Track way instead of from Nilai.

When I got to the office, I was supposed to meet the guest for next week's live show in the office to brief her. As I was walking with her following behind me, one of the other producers, walked next to me and whispered who was the pretty lady behind me. He must have been too pre-occupied because he trip and fell over a chair in front of him. I was laughing my ass of at him. Serves him right.

Had dinner with Chui Yan tonight, both of us had something to celebrate. I hope I can find some time to spend with her instead of just working. I have to seperate work and play!

I'm supposed to sleep early tonight but I'm so used to turning in late. I have to wake up at 4:30AM so I can make it to the office at 6AM. I have a shoot in Lumut for the whole day. I was going to drive their and back in the same day for myself but I decided against it. I'm going to have the driver do the driving instead.

It's going to be about 3.5 hours of driving each way. I hope I get there by 9:30AM, if all goes well. Going to be a long day tomorrow. I'm supposed to meet my cameraman in Sitiawan. Kinda of like a military operations. I got a few objectives (visuals to shoot) when I get there. I hope everything goes well!

I'm holding in my hand here a letter from one of the universities I applied to do my masters at a few months ago. This doesn't matter anymore because I've put it on hold indifinitely considering I've got bigger plans.

The letter is from Goldsmiths University, rejecting my application to do a MA in TV Journalism. Hrmph! Got rejected! Heh... then again I'm not surprised considering I didn't really put my heart into the application process. However, Sheffield Hallam has been sending me e-mails asking when I'm going to arrive to start. Wow, they must really want my money!

The nice people from Chevening e-mailed me and asked if I wanted to be on the waiting list, just in case someone pulled out. I declined their offer. My goals have changed. No regrets!

Night-day at One World Hotel

I was going thru my pictures and I found two pictures I had taken at the exact same spot. I realized I could do a lock camera effect. I dissolved the two shots to get the effect of a time-lapse shot. If you look at the cars parked at the street, you would see that some of the cars are not at the same positions.

Life and Death

On Tuesday, on the way back from a shoot in Shah Alam, I remembered that Sim and See Ming were having a baby in SJMC. I dropped by to see the new boy, Max. When I got to SJMC, it was almost impossible to find parking. I had to park at the housing estate and walk over.

When I got to the operating theatre, everyone was waiting for See Ming to come out. The nurses had already taken Max to the nursery. Since I just came back from a shoot, I brought along my video camera to the hospital. Good thing it was my own camera. Was quite fun shooting the eager parents and the baby.

When I finally got home in the afternoon, my mother had some bad news for me. My uncle in Ipoh who had been sick for a long time finally passed away. I thought, "wow... life and death". I thought about what Buddha said about how this is what life is about. There is birth, and there is death. My mother didn't let me attend the funeral in Ipoh because I was going to get married so that's a big no-no.

So I made a copy of this Buddhist chants on CD for my mother to bring to the funeral. It's in Pali language. It's basically a Buddhist sermon given by Buddha to help us overcome sorrow and lamentation. I had to look the English translation of the chant up in wikipedia.

Some thing I'm pretty morbid because I always talk about death... or may be to practical about it. I believe in the Buddha's teaching... except maybe the part about reincarnation. That's one still a bit strange to me. I believe that we can't avoid death. We just have to accept it. Death will come. The more we accept we are going to die, the easier it is to let go of things. Does that make us lazier? No, I don't think so. Life is about purpose, I believe we have to make things better for the next generation.

Army of One

I've been spending a lot of time at home lately instead of sitting in the office. Not that I've been goofing of at home, but I've been editing and shooting. This new project is taking up a whole lot more of my time then doing the regular live show I do. One thing about live show is that you don't have to worry about editing so much, it's all over in an hour.

For the recorded program I'm doing, it's basically an army of one... me. I have to shoot, edit and do the interviews. The hardest part of course is editing. The subject matter is really boring. Not something easily translated into a TV program. I always don't have enough visuals. I know, sounds like bad production planning. I always have a pre-planned storyboard written out in my head but when I do shoot the thing and later come back to edit, it doesn't always turn out right. In the end, I end up using a lot of post-production effects.

I can't edit in the office because the booked editing time is too little. I rather sit at home in my underwear and edit. For episode 3, I shot the whole thing on my own. Plus there was an opening montage which I needed a hand. I shot my own hand in my bedroom. It was really hard trying to shoot my own hand. I had to hold the video camera at a wierd angle with my right hand, while my left hand was lying on the bed. I set up the lights for a studio shoot on my bed. I had a slight cramp in my right hand from holding the camera the whole morning that way.

Good thing I had money to hire a scriptwriter... although I know I should be writing my own scripts. For one, writing my own scripts let me have more control over the story flow. I'm a control freak when it comes to production. I want to control everything, so that way I can have more control over the overall picture. Right down to how many frames to use for the dissolves in transitions! In a way, I'm a perfectionist. I worry that I'm not doing enough to make the visuals better.

The only bad part about having total control is that I'm totally stressed out. I procrastinate a lot and there's so much to be done as the dateline is looming at the end of the month. I used to have so much personal time, now I hardly have any.

Now I tell myself to stop working the evening and only work in daylight, stick to the normal working hours otherwise I'll be too strung out. I still go to the office everyday to touch base with my colleagues. I'm still supposed to run the live show once a week, but I think this month is the last time I'm doing it, after that I'm focusing totally on this new project. I can't handle doing two at the same time, it's suicide!

Here I sit,

Tried to edit,

But ended up blogging

I really should be finishing my editing but procrastination is just getting to me. First of all, I realized I'm missing an interview so I can't edit the whole thing yet.

Anyway, I just remembered the dream I had last night. Normally, we don't remember the dreams we have unless something triggers it. Dreams don't normally turn into memories unless the storyline is so vivid.

I woke up in the morning and I could hear my mother talking to my nephew outside my window. My mother said the last goldfish died. I didn't think much about it until I sat down on my couch and was looking at my cute niece then suddenly my dream came back to me.

I dreamed I was next to a body of water. Could have been a stream or a pond in a tropical setting. The water was very clear and you could see to the shallow bottom. There was a few people around fishing near a wooden jetty that was old and rotten. The jetty was very small and low. There was an excitement and everyone was pointing to an Arowana fish swimming around the jetty. I think it was quite a large adult arowana fish, about the length of my forearm. Some were trying to catch it with their barehands. I remember I was in the water up to my knees and something kept poking my leg behind me. I turned around and it was the Arowana swimming around my legs. I reached down and caught it. It was slippery but I caught it and shouted out for something to put the fish in. Someone came over with a small bucket and we could barely fit the fish inside it.

Some of the chinese guys said it would be good luck if they could make the fish drink rice wine. Now remember, this is a dream so none of this makes sense. I thought, okay so this two chinese guys forced the fish's mouth open and both of them took turns making the fish drink wine. I just watch from behind them. I was wondering if I had a chance to do it too, but I didn't. I think it was because they ran out of rice wine.

Anyway, after awhile I woke up. Now that was a bloody wierd dream. I wonder what triggered it. Could have been the dead goldfish. Not sure where the rice wine part came in. I kept thinking how cruel it was to feed the fish rice wine. Now that I think about it, in my dream, they were calling it the 'dragon fish'. It looked like an arowana fish.

Vista Vs. XP

I spend the whole last night installing a new hard disk. I had problems with this stupid original Vista I bought. A lot of the softwares wouldn't work with it. So I when out to buy a new hard disk and installed it as a slave. I then installed Windows XP on it. It took me a few hours of trial and error before I finally got it right. I had to take out and put back in hardware numerous times. I even had to take the old A: drive from my old PC and install it temporarily. I was going to leave it in the new PC but it was so dusty and a little rusty, I took it back out again and stuck back into the old one. At least now I've learned quite a lot of new things about fixing my PC.

Now I can boot up from two hard disk, one with Vista, the other with XP. XP I use for work, mostly editing. Vista I use for fun! Games work fine so far with Vista. I haven't installed a lot of things into the XP yet, since I'm just going to use it for work. I also have a lot of space in both Hard Disk. Both are 298GB in size. Total current free space for both is 422GB. Not a lot of if you're editing videos. It's 13GB for every 1 hour of DV tape.

I also have an external hard disk that I now carry to work. I put my backup data in there plus my current editing projects. I can edit part of it at work and also bring it back to edit. The original slave hard disk that I stored all my data is now safely tucked away in a new external HD case. I can hook it up anytime, although it runs on USB 1.0. Pretty crappy speed. It's supposed to run at USB 2.0 speed but I think my motherboard doesn't like this old external casing. The new one I got is fantastic. It's got a lock button so that no data can be written on my HD. It's great to use in the office since most of the PC's are full of viruses.

What a relieve everything works now. I actually just finished burning Daphne's wedding registration DVD too. In XP, I can preview what I'm editing on my TV monitor to check for colour. NVIDIA doesn't have the video overlay function in VISTA. Plus the scroll button for the Premiere Pro bin doesn't work in VISTA. It's so wierd that VISTA has all these little kinks that drives me nuts.

The worst part is, quicktime doesn't work in VISTA. It wouldn't play any Mov files. It'll just hang for 20 minutes before playing. Not sure what it's problem is. For now, when ever I want to use any Mov files, I'm going to boot up from XP and run from that.

Paul McCartney - Live & Let Die
When you were young and your heart was an open book
You used to say life and let life
(you know you did, you know you did you know you did)
But in this ever changing world in which we live in
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die
Live and let die
Live and let die
Live and let die
What does it matter to ya
When you got a job to do
You gotta do it well
You gotta give the other fellow hell
When you were young and your heart was an open book
You used to say life and let life
(you know you did, you know you did you know you did)
But in this ever changing world in which we live in
Makes you give in and cry

Recently, I've found some of my old university friends through friendster again. It's been almost 10 years since I heard from them. How time flies. Back when we were just kids and now some of them are mothers already. Makes me wonder what happened to the rest of them.

Me and Joe in Hard Rock Cafe in Chicago in 1999. Joe was the guy I hanged with most of the time during my later years in uni. He was from Thailand and had twin younger brothers studying there too. Both of us had a lot of fun visiting Chicago. It was after I graduated and he called me up and asked me if I wanted to take a road trip with him to Chicago for a short break. It was still pretty cold in early spring, so I thought it would be fun. It was my second time to the city so that made things easier like finding a hotel, etc. I love visiting Chicago, it's got all this old skyscrapers and the feel of city is just... wow, so 'kwailoh' haha. Not a place to stay though, I'll get homesick there. I haven't been in touch with Joe since he when back to Thailand. Wonder what he is up too know.

I think it snows half the year in St. Cloud. When spring comes and the snow starts to melt, you get all this 'dirty' sludge snow lying around. Things that were supposed to be decomposing that was frozen up starts decomposing again. This is a picture on the campus. Not sure what building this is, I think it's the performing arts centre where I did my minor in film studies. When it's -20F, you have to run really fast from building to building.

My family didn't make it to my graduation. Back then everyone was still recovering from the Asian Financial crisis. I'm lucky to have just graduated. So it was just me in the hall that day. Notice the floor, it's actually rubber padding on top of an ice rink. Our main stadium was actually an ice hockey ring so that's where we have our graduation. Feels chilly in there. Our gowns were rented, but we got to keep the mortar and tessle. Didn't get much picture of me on stage getting my degree. I don't even remember who was the invited guest speaker because it was obviously forgettable.

What's in a Name

I can tell where I know people by the name they call me. The people I have met through work, I introduce my self using only my family name. So that's simple.

As for personal friends or family members, they know me by my 2 last name. I'm pretty bad at remembering where I have met people so when someone calls me out, at least I can have a pretty good chance of guessing where I have met them before.

Right only a handful of people call me by my last name, my family and chui yan's family. Those who know me from school, college and university call me that too. Not many people pronounce it right too. So those who do pronounce it right and I when I hear it, I usually know who they are right away even though I haven't seen them for a long time.

I also get a lot of people saying to me, "have we met before? you look familiar". I don't think it's a pick-up line because they say it after awhile in a conversation. I just assume every Chinese dude look alike to them. Most of the time, I say I don't remember. Which I don't actually.

First day shooting

Today was a really tiring day. It was the first day of shooting for the new program I'm doing. I spend the whole morning and afternoon shooting it. Good thing it was mostly indoor. Originally, I was going to shoot it myself but my manager talked me out of it. I figured, crap no point saving costs here when we can afford it. I'm just going to tire myself out for no good reason.

I lugged along this huge light kit and the end, we didn't use it. Good thing I had a fantastic cameraman. The reason I like shooting on my own is because I hate working with cameraman who don't take instructions.

I was going to come home to format my alternate hard disk to XP but I guess I just got too tired and started watching CSI for editing and effect tips. Trying to duplicate their editing style. I hate watching fiction with a critical eye because it just looses its appeal after that. I was looking at how CSI does its science sequence and I realized how boring it was. They added music, some visual effects and viola! that's their trademark. Now all I have to do is duplicate that and I'll have a hit!

Wedding weekend

It's been a busy weekend. Daphne asked me to shoot her wedding registration on Saturday. Got to her place kind of late and we rushed to the Church at Changkat Bukit Bintang (near Jalan Alor).

After the wedding, I when home to edit the video. Everything was going fine until I hit a snag. I couldn't import songs into the project. I didn't realize VISTA had this problem with Premiere Pro. Damn.

I did a rough edit and rushed of to Daphne's birthday pool party later in the evening. I picked up Chui Yan from her place and drove to Daphne's in-law's place in Bangsar Hill. Nice place. It was the first time I brought Chui Yan to meet people from my 'other' social world.

In my other social world, I'm quite a different person. For one, everyone in that world is very liberal. What I mean by liberal is that they talk about sex, swear, drink and smoke a lot. I don't drink or smoke but I do take part in the conversation. When I'm with Chui Yan I never swear.

Anyway, the pool party was okay getting to meet new people and some old friends. Sitting around talking about our careers and the good old times from a few years ago.

Daphne's sister, Michelle had us playing games. We all had to sit around the pool and make 3 statements, one of them was a false one. So we all had to guess which of the one was false. Man, all I can say is Daphne has some really strange friends.

Daphne and Ryan's wedding cake. Checkout the cleavage on the bride.

Daphne's birthday-pool-party cake.

All of us sitting around the pool wondering what Michelle had in store for us.

On Sunday, me and Chui Yan both woke up late. We were suppose to catch Transformer at 1U at 11AM. I rushed to her place and picked her up. By the time we got there, there was quite a reasonably large crowd at the cinema waiting to watch the movie already. Good thing we bought our ticket earlier.

The movie was okay. I can see why people are raving it's one of the best action movie of the year. For me, the best is still 300. "Prepare for Glory!" is still my favourite line for this year.

Some of the changes to the robots they made in Transformer was so different from the original cartoon. I didn't mind they changed Bumblebee from a Volkswagen to a Camaro but changing Megatron from a gun to a spaceship was wierd. Soundwave was now a comic relief. I think he still plays casette, although that's an almost obsolete technology in the US now. They don't have any of Soundwave's sidekick, those radio casettes that can transform into a dog, shockwave and another one I can't remember. That movie had sequel written all over it's ending. So like the X-Men. I guest these scriptwriters knew they had a fantastic francise in their hands.

Before watching the live action Transformer movie, I when out to buy the old Transformer the movie cartoon from 1985. Can you imagine that, they had a kick ass animated transformer cartoon all the way back in 1985? I think I enjoyed that one much more. They obviously had more robots in there. All the main character from the original TV series were just minor roles.

I wonder what they will have in the sequel to the live action Transformer movie. Maybe the dinobots! Grimlock rocks!

I'm a little nervous about tomorrow. It's the first day shooting for the new program I'm doing. I still don't quite know what type of visuals I want yet. I have all this high expectation and artistic ideas. I think I'll stick to the simple stuff first. Don't get overtly ambitious.

I'm just waiting for my external hard disk to format before I hit the bed. It's complicated but now I'm going to have two seperate hard disk with VISTA and XP one each so I can boot them up seperately. A lot of stuff don't work on VISTA which pisses me of when I want to work.

I read this in BBC online today.


Malaysia 'convert' claims cruelty

By Jonathan Kent BBC News, Kuala Lumpur
A Malaysian woman held for months in an Islamic rehabilitation centre says she was subjected to mental torture for insisting her religion is Hinduism.
Revathi Massosai, the name by which she wants to be known, says she was forced to eat beef despite being a Hindu.
Miss Massosai was seized by the Islamic authorities in January when she went to court to ask that she be registered as a Hindu rather than a Muslim.
The case is one of a number that have raised religious tensions in Malaysia.
Miss Massosai was born to Muslim converts and given a Muslim name, but she was raised as a Hindu by her grandmother and has always practised that faith.
However, under Malaysia's Islamic law, having Muslim parents makes one a Muslim and, as such, one is not allowed to change one's faith or marry a non-Muslim.
But Miss Massosai married a Hindu man in 2004 and the couple have a young daughter.
Headscarf
When in January she asked a court to officially designate her a Hindu she was detained and taken to an Islamic rehabilitation centre.
Her detention was twice extended to six months, during which time she says religious officials tried to make her pray as a Muslim and wear a headscarf.
However, the claim that will particularly shock Hindus is that the camp authorities tried to force her to eat beef.
A lawyer representing the Malacca state Islamic department responsible for Miss Revathi's arrest, rejected her allegations and said officials believe that she can still be persuaded to embrace Islam.
She is adamant that she will remain a Hindu. In the meantime, Miss Revathi and her daughter have been placed in the custody of her Muslim parents.

Story from BBC NEWS

weddings & saga

Today was another full day. I came to the office and right away I had an interview with a candidate for my scriptwriter position. After that, I had to rush to Carcosa Seri Negara for the live show we were doing there. I gave my colleague Ifa a ride there.

While I was parking my car, I noticed the parking lot was full of this red dots on the ground. I looked down and I realized they were Saga seeds. I picked a few up and showed it to Ifa. I told her we have to collect some later. They make nice decorations once you put them in a nice jar.

I waltz into the Seri Negara building to find that it was a hive of activity. My senior produced walked in and shuffed a walkie-talkie into my hand told me I was going to be one of the floor manager. I barely knew what was going on, let alone manage anyone on the floor. People seeing the walkie-talkie in my hand assumed I knew what was going on and started asking me questions. I just passed them on to the next person.

There were a lot of VIP's there and I had to make sure I was 'extra' polite to them, less I offended them. Though I must say, these ladies had a sense of humour that made them quite pleasant to be with.

After the live show, all the crew rushed to the buffet line. I walked over and saw everyone holding their plates full of food staring around and waiting. I got my food then I realized why everyone was just standing around. They forgot to give us cutleries! There was no fork and spoons. Now how wierd is that? Some resorted to using the teaspoon and I took the soup spoon. By the time the waiters did manage to find any forks and spoons for us, most of us were already done with the food. They didn't even have water for us until we asked them for it. Well, I can't complain much since it was free after all.

After lunch, I noticed the reporters had broken into groups surrounding some of the personalities at the event, namely Datin Norjuma. I bet there's going to be quite a lot to read tomorrow in the papers. I saw Azizah and I asked her what was this rumour I read in the paper about her getting engaged. She smiled coyly and said "yeah, sorry you were the last to know".

After finishing of with the Cristian Dior product launch, me and Ifa finally left the place. She reminded me of the Saga seeds and we spend about 20 minutes picking a few handful up. It was quite tedious work, individually picking up one seed at a time. I did manage to get a picture of the tree. Quite a large imposing tree. I remember there used to be a few in my primary school and we used to play with the seeds. I had a slight phobia of having one of the seeds getting up my nose and getting stuck there. I know, it's wierd.

Anyway, back at the office, I ran into Said. He had just returned from London on his break to write his Thesis. Must have been saving on money because the dude didn't get a haircut. He bought a whole new Apple laptop editing system and was talking about it. Sounds good. Me, I'm sticking with my desktop.

I caught hold of Azizah and asked her who was the lucky dude that finally caught her. She says I know him, but I can't seem to remember. Probably seen him around but it never clicked. She says he's way younger than her. I told her she's so Demi Moore, picking a younger dude. Surprisingly, we are both getting married in the same hotel in Shah Alam except on different month. Her's is in August, mine is in December. She's probably doing a much larger one in the ballroom. Me, I'm doing a very small one in the function room. We talked about wedding preparations, getting photographers, makeup artists, designers, etc. She certainly knows more people than I do. Me, I got a small budget so I can't afford the people she's using. Heck, I probably just going to rent a tuxedo instead of getting a custom made one.

I'll drop by her wedding and see how's the service at the hotel so at least I have some pointers on how they can make improvements for mine in December.

Still playing with photoshop before I go to bed. I looked through my Pulau Ketam photos and I saw the photo I took near the jetty at the island. It was low tide and you could see the mud flats with all the crabs crawling around. They're about the size of my palm. I just hope the restaurants aren't serving these crabs because its pretty gross where they stay. I know, crabs stay in mud but these guys were right next to the jetty and it was strewn with rubbish, not to mention a layer of oil from the boats.

hehe... still had time to play around with photoshop. I looked at the rose and I was thinking how red it was. I wondered if I could use the magic wand and just select the whole rose with it, well it worked. I copied the rose and put it on another layer and played around with the background. Changed the colour to something softer and added a lens blur. Didn't do this one too well, if you look closely at the edges of the rose, you can see there's an outline. That's because I feathered it at 5 pixels. Too obvious I thing. On second look at the picture, now it looks like the rose was cut and pasted onto the background. Looks like its 'floating'.

Stress!

The whole morning today was pretty stressful. Everyone was complaining about something I did or didn't do. Sometimes I think people take for granted that I am nice to everyone. I go out of my way to be nice to people and everyone just assumes that I am like that all the time. Today, I was rushing and I didn't have time to make small talk with someone and the person send me an sms telling me how rude I was. I apologized but the person persisted. I gave up not replying the person. I didn't have the time and it wasn't worth it. I didn't have time or the energy today to go out of my way to be nice to people when everyone else is being a bitch, hoping to make use of me.



Running two shows at the same time is pretty stressful now. Seems that everyone has gotten their priorities right except me. The way I look at it, for everyone else at work, their private lives come first before work. I think it's time for me to re-examine my priorities too.



Right after work, I came home and when to bed. I didn't even shower, I just took all my clothes of, turn on the air-conditioner and slept. I woke up when I heard my nephew screaming. I when to his room to find everyone holding him down because they wanted to clean his ear. His ear was full of ear wax and he has a phobia of anything going into his ear. He was screaming at the top of his lungs as if he was being tortured. The neighbours must thing we're abusing this boy.

I called Chui Yan and she was pretty grossed out I haven't showered before sleeping. I thought it was pretty funny considering how I always do that. Yes, my bed is full of germs but I am immune to them now!



I did manage to read a page from one of my Buddhist books about anger. I like how Buddhism always tells one to be calm and let go of their anger. Makes me feel better, though its not so easy to do.


Anyway, just uploading some photos I took.

I took a picture of this note Ivy left of the table next to mine. Most hillarious. She does look like Altantuya if you squint your eye and look at her from between your closed fingers.

My mother asked me to take photos of her roses over the weekend. So I did. I totally forgot to get a shot of the whole pot of roses. They're so red, it's almost a pain to look at them in bright daylight. I wonder how did nature come up with something so red. The roses are a little burned out on the edges of the petal, well they are organic roses. Anyway, I think maybe I can use some of the rose petals for decorations next time hehe.

Haze is back

In a few days time, the haze will be back. It's already back in the northern states. The number of hotspots in Sumatra have drastically increased. I monitor the NOAA satellite images ocassionally to see if the number of hotspots increased, however after awhile I forget. Today I read in The Star about the haze returning.

I have inserted a picture of the NOAA satellite map from the Singapore Meteorological website which is updated regularly below.



I'm going to clean out my air filter in my room and get someone to come over to clean out the airconditioner also. I probably have to find my face mask I stashed somewhere in my room. I have a heavy duty industrial mask in my car booth somewhere. Hope it still works.