Exciting Boredom

I had a very exciting weekend. Last Friday, I met Yuna (as you may probably have read in my previous post). Saturday I did a photo shoot with a dancer-teacher whom I have tried to arrange for the longest time. Sunday I had 2 sets of photo shoot, one with a part-time model who I call a friend - a friend whom we share secrets and thoughts to each other (not 'acquaintance', not 'contact': again read my previous post to find out my definition for 'friend'); another shoot with her sister's adorable kids. Then in the evening I celebrated early Mother's Day with mother-in-law at Wan Hao Restaurant at The Marriot Hotel. Fantastic and unique dishes that filled our taste buds with pleasure.

Today I applied leave to take advantage of the long weekend as tomorrow is May Day. Unlike the past where annual leave is taken with a great purpose, I now took leave to simply to waste away. I feel so like lying around doing nothing. My whole life seems to be waiting on the arrival of my new baby, although it's still a good 4 weeks to go.

As I laid on the couch in the humid afternoon with the fan in full blast, I listened to this lifeless and quiet moment... and I appreciate.

One month later, I will no longer have the luxury to sit in front of the PC to do all I wanted to do - music, photography, MSN, blogging, surfing. And instead of doing all these while I can, I thought maybe I should get used to NOT going to the PC all the time. I should give my mind a break from doing anything for that matter. I should learn to have no objective in life, because very soon, my sole objective will be right in front of me, crying and wailing and moving and kicking and smiling and sleeping and puking and pooing.

She will be a beautiful objective.

From Virtual to Reality

A week ago, someone invited me to chat in ICQ, and so I did. Very quickly she introduced herself as Yuna from Hong Kong and asked if I am a pianist, for which I replied yes. For the next 3 hours, we chatted enough to arrange for a face to face meeting 5 days later, in Singapore, for she will be travelling here "for business". And in such coincidence, I was available to meet her during her stay.

And so last Friday, I met her, in person, my first overseas online acquaintance whom we spent the shortest time knowing each other before meeting. Luckily I gave her my mobile number, for she discovered 15 minutes before our meeting time that the hotel was not the same as the one she informed me. She called me while I was waiting at Furama Harbourfront, that her hotel was in fact Furama City Center. Fortunately, I realised that the hotel was not far from where I was, so I took a walk and 15 minutes later I reached the hotel.

I found her sitting at the corner of the lobby, and then our eyes met, realising that we were both who we were waiting for. She started talking in Cantonese and I tried to reply back, albeit poorly. I explained that my mum is a Cantonese so I could understand and speak a little, but she had to pardon my broken intonation. It's probably sounds like how the Canto-pop celebrities speak Mandarin.

I took her for a walk around Chinatown before settling at Hong Lim Complex Hawker Centre for a taste of local food, like Char Kway Teow and Rojak. Try as I might, I was unable to find durians for her. I was also unable to locate other popular local hawker fare like satay around the area. Actually, I had it all planned out when she told me she was staying at Furama Harbourfront, for the famous Tiong Bahru Market is just nearby. She would have had better taste of local food there. I also told her that Singapore crabs are great when cooked with chili or pepper, but she had to meet me the next time to try them as the area we were at does not have such delicacies.

After dinner, I brought her to Vivocity. She wasn't at all interested to do shopping here, for she felt that she could get everything in Hong Kong, and it wasn't a totally unfair statement. She had also been to the Merlion and most tourist attractions.

I brought her straight to the viewing deck overseeing Sentosa, and what a shame the ferry terminal stopped operations and so there was nothing to catch her eye about Sentosa (all's to change with the Integrated Resort completes construction by the turn of the decade). Then she saw the cable car and decided to have a go. So at least she saw some night views from up above. We alighted at the Mount Faber station and walked around, showing her the HDB flats and the city skyscrapers, barely visible from the trees and forests. As expected, there was no expression of amazement on her part. Obviously the view was nothing compared to the Peak at Hong Kong.

Then we went for coffee at Coffee Club. We sat there till about 9.15pm where the staff hinted that they were closing. I told Yuna that most shops close by 9.30pm except for the last Friday of the month where Orchard Road stores extend their operating hours. She felt that it was a waste that shops closed so early, but also envied the workers here who need not work for such long hours.

So I brought her back to hotel... and parted at the lobby. The meeting was filled with conversations and the discovering of cultures and interests intertwined with dabs of Cantonese, English and a bit of Mandarin when all else failed. I like to interact with people in other languages, so that I can have a chance to work on those languages. I used to have a colleague whom I speak Hainanese with. I have another lunch buddy whom I speak Mandarin to. So I had fun speaking Cantonese with Yuna, and working my tongue out to get the intonation right. I guess I pulled it off rather fine.


See you soon, Yuna.

...bladdy hell waited at the lobby from 10.15 to 10.45pm without a cab. I saw a lot of cabs turning in but all headed to the People's Park Complex car park. I suspect these guys are 'resting' until 11.30pm when the midnight charge kicks in, or maybe waiting for telephone booking. I ended up calling for a cab and paid $4 for the booking fee. Another love-hate situation with the cabbies.

The Office

You know how we laugh at the sitcom 'The Office'. You know how we snigger at 'Dilbert' the comic strip.

I'd know whether you are an office worker if you do not appreciate these strips.

This week's topic is Rewards and Recognition

Above: The Boss demonstrates his pea-brain intelligence, again.

Above: Now we can define 'lying' as a process.

Above: Dogbert proves his theory of absurd claims works - as long as Asok does not ask questions.

Never Believe in Instant Results

Last night I visited my regular camera store, M S Color, to enquire about backpack camera bags. Florence was there and she wasted no time to sell me the latest dye sublimation photo printing machine from Sony. Dye subliation prints, unlike inkjet prints, are more durable, water-resistant, and closer quality to the lab prints.

Florence first introduced me the DPP-FP60 at $199, and then upsold me the DPP-FP70, which at $50 more, includes CF card slot, additional print features like passport photo and prints 18 seconds faster at 45 sec. I have been thinking about getting one for a while and I thought this is a good time to get one so that I can churn out photos instantly from home. While I procastinated, my wife came to the store after she got our takeaway dinner. Florence saw her big tummy and further encouraged us to get one.

And so I did. The Sony DPP-FP70.

It took me a while to get acquainted with the print characteristics. In other words, the default print results tend to be underexposed and slight yellow colour cast. But after 20 prints, I managed to produce some acceptable prints.

The beauty of this printer is that you do not need to connect to a PC to achieve the following:

- edit image like cropping, rotating, brightness, tint, saturation, sharpness, filter effects, red-eye reduction. And you can save the edited results

- 'Creative Print' feature lets you print in layouts, calendar designs, IC photo, superimpose images/text. And once you are done, you can also save the edited results

That is exactly what I had in mind when I bought this, instead of the more popular and affordable Canon Selphy. The idea of paying more for a fun printer is that SHE can do the prints herself, not me. If I were to buy those cheap Selphy, there is no way that she would want to print the photos herself and she would probably be asking ME to get them printed, which means I would have to spend time selecting, editing, printing via my PC. And if you ask me, I would rather go to the photo labs to produce accurate colour reproduction and professional quality at the same price. But then I would not get the convenience and the ability to get an acceptable print in 45 seconds.

All in all, I think the DPP-FP70 will provide many hours of printing fun (and costs) to our family.