During his meditation period, Buddha did sat down at a Bo Tree for Six Days ( But some says Six Years). A lot of people are worried about how he can survived without food and water, but there's something else that I'm worried about.

Now is the question... "How come HE was never struck by lightning?". When we are young, we are always told not to hid under the tree when there is rain/lightning. That's because we will be more easily struck by lightning as tall structures shorten the path of those electric charge to reach ground. There are some explaination that I can think about...

A friend replies me that the young prince (before enlightenment) was sitting on top of a large lotus flower, so if lightning strikes also, he'll be insulated from the ground plane. BUT...that's not funny enough, I came up with my own version of the story:

During those days, a group of Japanese merchants was passing by this Bo tree on their way to India to purchase spices to bring back to the Country of the Rising Sun. They saw a thin young malnutrition man meditating under the Bo Tree. There are a lot of food left over by kind passerbys, some already eaten up by worms and small animals while others have houseflies all over them. These Japanese were thinking, if we give him food, he will not appreciate, we give him money he will not spent. Besides worry about Siddhartha Buddha's hunger, they were also worried that he might be struck by lightning. As kind Japanese people, they offered him ....
...
...
...
...
a pair of Japanese Sandals. =))

Japanese Sandals, get it? Rubber -> Insulator! Haha...not funny. :(

You think you have enough of the Japanese people? No! There's more stories behind them. After they got the spices back to Japan, they were still thinking of all those poor people in India, and those food that might go to waste if left unattended. They did years and years of research to make a food which doesn't get old, but when we need to eat, it can be easily prepared. With the spices they got from India, and the technology they have back in Japan, the finally came out with MAGGIE MEE! (Instant Noodles).

So, that's all the story for today folks. Enjoy the joke? No? Aw~too bad.

Me and my fellow photographers are invited to take photographs during this event. It's done by 100 over students from the faculty of business and law who is taking the International Business subject. Amoung those involved are my juniors Yok Mei, Wei Ling, Xin Yee, Soon Chee, and my mui mui Marimo. There was also a carnival on friday and saturday, which I din join in as I've some other things in mind.

The performance was delayed as usual, waiting for the VIPs to arrive. Sometimes i ask myself why these people want politicians to attend such event and we have to send in invitations months before the event starts. Universities are not supposed to be policitally related, and by inviting politicians and big shots over doesn't mean our university will gain popularity or whatever. Us, students are encouraged to invite these VIPs by being given additional co-curricular points for being able to invite these government people. Maybe I might be wrong, if there are some conspiracy behind our eyes and ears.

The VIP spent forever talking about how good MITC was, and what plans he have for us. And after his speech, he only stayed for 10 minutes before he goes for his next event. Ok, forget about him, let's come back to the performance part. The night starts with a cultural performance by 8 major countries. Then it's followed by a fashion show of cultural dresses from selected countries around the globe.

After a short lucky draw session, there's a stage performance called EMANIO, themed "think global, act local". The storyline is very simple and rather not-related. The actors are nothing if not for the jokes. And the night ended surprisingly early after a few songs by Malaysian Idol 1st runner up Dina.

What i learn about the event is that, besides a decent flash, i need a pair of knee guard. During these events, we photographers are requests to capture the best moments and not blocking the view of the audience. How hard could this be? I always have pain on my knees after taking photographs all night. Maybe it's time for me to get a pair of cheap knee guard which will be useful along the road.

Since the event ends early, i dropped Ming Zheng and the rest of the boys at VJN for supper while i hit home to filter the photos. Thankfully I was taking photos in JPEGs, which save my time downconverting it from NEF format. I'll lose the chance to fine-tune the photos, but i dun find it nessesary as I'm not that well paid. I won't be as innocent as I was months back where i spent sleepless night trying to filter out those photos as no one really appreciate such hard work. After deleting blured and underexposed shots, I just burn everything down into a CD, select a few to put on my gallery, and call it a day.

I've only selected a few good photos I've managed to take in my galleries. Do feel free to look around and leave your comments. [IB Night 2005]

I was very fortunate these lately...getting a lot of kind friend around. In the earlier post, i did mention that i got a chocolate bar from YokMei, and then there's chang wah who's kind enough to borrow me his CRT computer monitor, and Richard Then who let me use his 17" LCD after he bought a laptop. And today, I'm so lucky that I got to play with Nikon's ultimate flash weapon : the SB-800, thanks to hongyaw, and not forgetting yeejen who make an effort to bring the flash over to me all the way from cyberjaya. So lucky, I get to use a good low light lens: the 50mm f1.8 thanks chinhuat.

Nikon D70s + 50mm f/1.8D + SB-800. Wat else can a person ask for to shoot at a dark,romantic outdoor lounge. That's the most perfect combination I can ever come up with. I purchased the ticket ( still haven't paid richx back yet ) to the SPARC's event. I seldom pay to go for events as I'm usually invited, but I don't mind paying for this one as I get a complementary drink from Coffee Bean, and also a very different outdoor experience. It's a Jazz Festival sort, where we sit in on mats while listening to soothing jazz music under the stars.

People these days always stay indoors. I tell u, this outdoor kinda music is at least 10 times better than any I've heard indoors. We, Malaysians should get out more, breath in fresh air, and experience the nature. You people like to go pubs and discos? Isn't it better to dance under a whole galaxy of stars? That is way cooler than cramping urself with 100 other people. Nature is the IN thing now.

Learnt a lot about this SB800 thing. It can make pitch black night into a bright day. I was standing at the lounge, at the back of the library building, and one burst of flash can light up the whole FET building which is like 30 meters away. With my built-in flash, i've to worry about red-eye and the flash control is limited. But with SB-800, i can bounce the flash, diffuse it, and tilt and turn the flash direction so that it lights up the way i want it.

One unit of SB800 doesn't come cheap, it's a RM1250 unit, and that's the best price i heard thus far. Best part is, I've never met hongyaw before. I only got to know him thru yeejen, but he is so generous to let me use it for the weekend. Too bad yeejen have to go back cyberjaya on sunday morning, if not i might have tried using it as a wireless flash. :( Wonder if i want to make that investment or not...it's not the $$$ that worries me, it's the 400g that i need to carry with me all the time whenever i take pictures. Not forgetting spare batteries to feed this flash unit.

Back to the Musical Lounge thing, I do hope that other clubs will make good use of that piece of land. It's a great place to PARTY!!! Don't restrict urself to just Main Hall and Exam Hall, which tends to get boring after a while. I'm not good at endings, so...good night.

Haven't been posting up anything romantic recently, just feel the urge to start writing some down...

- "DaVinci Code taught me that the distance between our body is very much related with PHI = 1.618. But what it never told me is that how far I have to travel, from my heart to yours."
(达文西密码里..
人体的距离..其实是知道的..
全部都是1.618 的倍数..
可是..
却没有告诉我..
从我心里..
到你心里..
需要多长的距离...)

- "My dear，because of you, from today onwards, I have made every guy in this world as my enemy."
(这位小姐，为了你，从今天开始，我与全天下的男人为敌。)

Haha...the first one is quoted from AliciaGan while the second one is from Jacky's Love930. If only i'm that romantic. This Jacky is really a high EQ guy, hosting 6 shows concurrently, yet he can have so much differnt jokes to entertain his viewers. Impressive guy...all my housemates are his fan.

Thanks Corn for the Cadbury Zip. Even though it's just a simple thank you gift, i find that it meant a lot. Well recall the Kukup trip when i talk about her not knowing how to give others appreciation, guess people change.

She and WeiLing borrowed t-shirts from a few of us from wushu for an event last weekend. They clean it properly before returning the shirt. Thanks for the Cadbury again. Hopefully it'll enrich the calcium level in my bones.

Why i use the word finally? Reason:

My x-Nokia 5210 was already 3 years old and have been giving me a lot of headache indicating "Insert Sim Card" error every other day. The battery is almost drying up. But considering the lifespan of a battery, it already work twice how it's suppose to perform. Usually batteries are being changed every 18 months. There's suppose to be a calculation of how many recharge cycles a lithium-ion can do, and also Nickle-Cadium (Ni-Cad)...but let's not go into too technical stuffs.

Bought this phone from a local shop in Bukit Beruang. The price is slightly higher than the one offered in some other places. But for a lower end model like mine, the seller can't have much to earn from me right? After checking the condition of my old phone, he offered me RM60 to trade in. Rather than having a useless phone at home, i choose to just give it in even though i paid 10 times the price when i first bought it. After deducting the RM60, I only need to pay RM300 for a new color screen phone.

"Why Motorola?", "Motorola not user-friendly" are some comments I usually receive after buying the phone. But i am still happy with it. First impression is that the box is small (environmentally cautious -> GOOD!), the phone is more feature packed compared to phones from other brands at the same price range. There are "common" features like dailing, SMS, MMS and this one comes with GPRS and WAP2.0. [More specifications can be found here]

Ok, I'm not really into this handphone update thingy...but this new phone lets me put some small mp3 and images as well as a calendar. Best of all is that it uses a more common miniUSB connector, which is widely use for digital camera connection. All i need now is just to find a software which allows me to sync my data from my PC to my handphone. I've tried download an old version of mobile PhoneTools. But it only lets me sync my phonebook and calendar. Fun part is i can use the computer to type SMS and dail (That's something new to me)...

Motorola has been working on communication tools since 1930s. We can consider them as the pioneer in radio communications. Compared to Finnish telecommunications company, Nokia, which only starts working on telephone and telegraph cables on 1967. Yes, no doubt Nokia and SonyErricson produces the most handphones, but for a guy, Motorola phones are more suitable. Samsung works better for girls...at least that's the trend around. Nokia on the other hand is more popular among students who prefer the more "user friendly" environment.

Lastly, I'll like to extend my thank to my Mom who gives me a RM400 budget to get this phone. And not forgetting Irene, who helps me deciding on the model. I'm just lazy in doing research on phones...not like my younger sister, Shan Qi. As most of you know, i'll rather spend the time and money on my Nikki.

Irene told me to wait for a mail she sent yesterday. I was been thinking what would be inside the box....another bottle of stars? Or maybe the photographer's vest that is sold in the Intel's souvenir shop. But what i received is much better - a Ghee Hiang brand Tau Sar Pneah.When i open it, there's a message written inside. Here's what she wrote...how romantic more can a person ever be?

To my dearest Hueng Hueng, (oh..that's me :D)
I know you have been wondering what this is. It's my first time making cookies. I hope you like this "Oatmeal Walnut Cookies" till the very last bit. (of course i do!). I've bought a recipe book on dessert, hoping my effort of preparing you some nice cookies will not go to waste. I've decided to spend my weekends learning it.

I know this will not fill your empty stomach, but I do hope that it will fill up ur heart, and gives you motivation during your exams and while working on your FYP. When you come back this semester, hopefully I know how to bake more cakes & muffins for you.

Hugs & Kisses,
Irene Cute

I love you ChooBee. And guys...her cookies aren't that bad after all. The first bite lets me think about Penang, Chinese New Year, and Family reunion.She knows I don't feel like going back Penang that frequent, mabye that's her way of asking me to go back. It's crispy enough, not too sweet and like the advertisements like to say "melts in my heart, not in my mouth". Too bad she doesnt send enuff to share with everyone. Maybe next time i'll ask her to send more lah.

Note: The language in the letter have been edited to fit the general audience. Contents are close to the message the sender wants to deliver.

For a long time, Malays have been keep track of Chinese soap operas and stuck in front of the TV everyday from 6~8pm which was used to be the normal show times for chinese sitcoms. I haven't been watching the TV for 5 years as most of my time is spent sitting in front of the TV. But according to what I notice, there are also chinese dramas shown after the 8pm news. My mom's malay collegues have been so enthusiast about those shows that they talk about it over tea and lunch breaks.

Since we are developing towards the vision 2020, i don't think people still believe everything shown in the TV are to be imitated. But this incident shows otherwise. Here's the Mandrin version, and thanks to Google, here's the english translated version.

According to GuangMing, the driver is driving a Proton GTi with a sticker imitation from the movie InitialD. He tries to attempt a drift at the coastal highway in Penang island where he accidentally hits a curb/pavement. One of them dies on the spot while the other 2 are sent to the hospital.

Budak budak hari ni...can't you people understand that even JayChow doesn't do those stunts himself? It's a fictional story, while the stunts are only done in a drifting course like Sepang, which have enough safety precautions for the drivers. Aih~kiddos nowadays.

It's his 22nd birthday this year. And this time I'm not sure how these group of friends decide to celebrate it for him on top of A'Famosa fort at the struck of midnight. Usually the place is lit up at night, but closes at around 10pm. When we hiked up there, it's pitch black. The whole lot of 20 people all depend on the light emitted from their handphones to guide the way.

Before going to A'Famosa, the whole lot of us have steamboat at Malim. Since our group consists of a lot of carniverous gluttons, buffet style gathering is the most suitable for us. I found out that one of them is so afraid of the boiling oil that she keeps herself 3 feet away from the table. Never dare to cook for herself and have such a huge reaction even to a small little "pop" which is common during steamboats. Aih~girls nowadays... I'm not sure how many of them still goes into the kitchen since most of them have a mother/servant/boyfriend to look after their diet. Last resort, there's a huge variety of restaurants to feast on.

I was walking with Chyoli on the way up there. Even him, a big boy standing 6 feet high is afraid of the spiritual friends of the 7th month in the Lunar calendar. Marimo on the other hand is holding tightly to ChangWah's hand. The rest is also walking slowly as they are afraid of non living objects floating around this 500 year old castle.

We light up the candles in the middle of A'Famosa. But since there's no table nor chairs to distribute the cake, we decide to cut the cake down at the playground. Alex is doing is crazy stunts as if he's still a 12 year old kid climbing up and down. Marimo and Corn are both tired after working out all day in their training camp this morning. Well gals, you should exercise more...if not it'll be very taxing working out so much all at once.

Anyway, I believe YeeJen should be quite happy to have his birthday celebrated with the load of us. Just to add a little, DAN, yeejen's best friend in cyberjaya also comes down to celebrate his birthday. Not forgetting JyhYian. Hey gal, u've manage to slim down a bit. Keep on the hard work!

The Bibble is our Sword. It is our weapon against things SEEN & UNSEEN. Use it when you need contrast and white balance. Quote the Bibble help page ou have memorized OUTLOUD. If you haven't memorized any Bibble help then write them down. Keepm them handy and read them OUTLOUD. If all else fails, just open your Bibble and press F1. Modified from Ephesias 6.

Not a christian myself, but the Bibble have help me a lot. The one with 2 Bs instead of just one. It's a third party software managed by BibbleLabs which is able to extract the White Balance reading from my Nikon D70s as well as the newer D50. Lucky me cause I've been looking for similar program to bring me up to another level instead on sticking with snapping JPEG files. The benifit of shooting RAW is that i don't have to consider about the White Balance while shooting, and there is a +/- 2EV tolerance in my exposure setting. Meaning to say, lighting consideration can be done on the computer after I've done capturing those photos at the comfort of my own home. Photoshop does have RAW converters, but because of legal issues, they don't have the permission to crack open NEF files from Nikon cameras.

Other than that, Bibble does batch processing. Meaning to say if the photos are all properly exposed and lighting is good, i could just let the software convert all those RAW files into JPEG or TIFF, in case i want to adjust the levels and curves in Photoshop later. Lossless compression is usually preferable when we are working with very minor details and wanting to make prints as large as 20" by 30".

Now that I've learnt about the power of RAW, i would hardly be taking much JPEG files unless if i'm on a week's holiday without a computer with me. Here's where to download http://www.bibblelabs.com/

But there's one problem also if you are running on slower PC. Currently I'm using a 3.0GHz Prescott with 1GB RAM, which i find still works pretty well with all my photography needs. With bibble under my arsenal, i've 4 programmes running to get a photo done:- Picture Project, Adobe Photoshop CS2, Neat Image v4, Bibble.

I think I did mentioned about Neat Image before, a software which does noise removal tool. Actually it's not nessesary to install that once i learn to do noise removal using either CS2 or Bibble, which both comes with Noise removal patch. Down side of this is that I'll be enjoying more sleepless nights understanding this new Bibble. Oh well, that's the fun of it isn't it? At least i learn something new rather than playing computer games, which I'm not good at.

Oh yeah, earlier i did mentioned about Microsoft's Acrylic Beta on July. That software has too much problems which haven't been fixed yet. But Bibble helps me get where I want, when I want. It's so good that I won't be needing Photoshop CS2 if I don't need to resize for web. Levels, Exposure, Noise reduction, Rotation and a lot more function is packed in Bibble v4.3a. I would happily pay for a copy of that if it's avaiable locally. Currently using it's 14 days trial.

Thankfully Melacca wasn't affected by the haze which affects Port Klang and major parts of Kuala Lumpur. There are areas which have API (Air Pollution Index) of over 500!!! Eventually our Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi (Pak Lah) announce Haze Curfew (Darurat Jerebu) in Kuala Selangor and Klang Valley. The similar announcement is published on TheStar.

My sister who's currently taking Biology in University Malaya claims that she can't even see her roommate staying in the same room. JyhYian who studies in MMU, Cyberjaya reports that the situation there is not any better. Look how funny it is for a jogger to do his daily training. But personally i think this guy will improve faster with the extra weight he puts on for the training.

This one is equally bad. I believe some major cities like Bangkok and Beijing might already have such terrible air pollution problems all year round. They even forbids motorist to enter the town area which has worse air quality. This is what i considered not a good panning photo. But if you look properly, you will notice the license plate on top of the front wheel looks something like WJJ 0127 and it's a suzuki (that i'm quite sure).

Anyway I got to know that today's 七月初七 (chinese valentine day). It falls on the seventh day of the Lunar Calendar. Called back to greet Irene only to find that she totally forgotten about the event. Hehe, but i'm not angry as i get back long distance hug and kisses from her. Happy V-Day Choobee!!! Love you loads. We are fortunate that we can meet each other at least once a month (which some considered long distance relationship) but with current technology...we are only a phone call away from each other. Cya again in 10 weeks time cute~

When for Stealth with Ding Wen and Seng Kuang. It's a more "guyish" movie as Irene describe. A person without sufficent background on physics, science and technology will not appreciate the movie to the fullest. Movies.com only rate Stealth 1.75/5 http://movies.go.com/movies/movie?name=stealth_2005&genre=action&studio=Columbia

Stealth talks about an unmanned war flying ship with it's own neural networks and is programmed to learn. Not like humans, robots are not taught what is right and what isn't, so they learnt whatever they see and hear. It features futuristic technology like biometric sensors, artificial intellegence and spaceships which doesn't need a runway to lift up. These spacecrafts can fly at speeds of Mach 4 (4 times the speed of sound).

I like the ending best, when Stealth (the plane) sacrifices itself to save the other 2 pilots which have been flying with "him". Tragic, touching and sad. Hehe...I feel funny, I feel worse when something happen to technology, rather than living people. Why huh? I don't think i'm the only one rite?

A must watch for tech guys, freaks or alike.

Wanted to "experience" what it's like working in a factory for quite some time dy. But everytime i was disapointed because either i'm back for holiday, or have to accompany my other half. Thankfully this 1 week break, yichen got an offer for me. (Too bad one day work only)

Sorting connectors all day, done about 6000 same action between 9am and 6pm. But that's not the important part. What i like about Flextronics is that the canteen sells drinks at a very reasonable price and the workers are friendly.

I learnt that some of those factory workers are paid lesser than RM500/month. I can't believe myself surviving with that amount of money, and have to support a family. Luckily i'm fortunate enough to get tertiary education, which promise a stable income of at least RM1500/month. Now after experiencing some work, I'm more or less relieved that I can land myself with a work, as long as I don't ask too much from the employers.