a2blog.blogspot.com

Charity Concert - featuring Rynn Lim

2008-07-02T09:40:00.002+08:00

NOTE: I have moved to www.allenang.com/blog

Handsome Paul83.com asked for a favor.

So, allenang.com agreed to help him with that. So here’s the announcement for the event.

This charity concert is to raise fund for a Chung Hwa school here. This charity concert features Taiwan-famed Kuching boy Rynn Lim 林宇中, My FM DJ-artiste Phoebe, Diana and Taiwanese Idol Vic Zhou (of F4-fame).

The details for the charity concert as the following:

Date: 2 August 2008, Saturday

Time: 6.00p.m.

Venue: Sarawak Indoor State Stadium.

If you’re interested, you can contact Paul83.com at 016-883 0565.

Too bad I will be away from Kuching that time, else I would have gone there for the charity, and the photo-taking opportunities.

I have moved...

2008-07-01T11:22:00.004+08:00

I have moved to to new domain. The new url for the domain will be www.allenang.com. Effective from today (1st July 2008), www.allenang.com will be the primary ground for me to blog.

I will not delete this blog, but yet to decide what to do with this blog just yet. Will announce it again when my final decision comes.

So see ya over my new place at www.allenang.com!

Note: The Portfolio link on my index page for www.allenang.com is not working because I am still working on that section of my website, click on the blog link and you will be directed to my new blog. Also please note that, there are still a lot of elements missing from my side bar, and you will get to see a lot of "Coming Soon" as I continue to build the website. Please bear with me for the moment. Thank you.

I'm moving...

2008-06-30T19:37:00.000+08:00

Short note: The phone that houses my digi number is having problem now, I cannot be contacted via that number. However, I'm still reachable via my primary number with Maxis.

I'm packing, and moving to my new place tomorrow!!

I'm going dot com! Finally! :D

Hehe, well, the house isn't 100% ready yet, but there will be on-going renovation after I move in. Hehe. Please do come pay me a visit at my new place tomorrow - 1 July 2008.

Here's my new address --- www.allenang.com.

See you there!

p/s: I wouldn't delete this blog. But have yet to decide what to do with it. One thing for sure though, this wouldn't be my primary blog anymore.

it's almost ready..

2008-06-29T10:11:00.000+08:00

It's almost ready now. I'll be shifting soon. Yay!

Here's a glance at how Sony Alpha a300 looks like, with its battery grip. This is the less advertised model, if compared to a350. Both models made to similar built, with little difference between those two. Lens attached is 18-70 f/3.5-5.6 kit.

End note: I'm not a alphagrapher. This Sony Alpha doesn't belong to me. :-) I love my Canon EOS.

picture of the day

2008-06-27T15:27:00.004+08:00

I haven't been able to update regularly the past few days, much thanks to the mini project I'm working on. I've set a deadline myself, which would be this weekend. Hopefully, I'll be able to meet the target, and unveil the mini-project soon.

To compensate the lack of updates for the previous few days, here's a Picture of the Day.

I'm featuring a toddler this time. This is taken from the maternity fashion show in May. This piece is cropped from the original picture. I couldn't zoom in as I was using my EF 50mm f/1.8 that time.

internet down

2008-06-25T01:39:00.003+08:00

The Internet was down for most of the night. Update was made impossible just now.
Will update much later. :-)

Good night.

suit up my mac!

2008-06-24T00:01:00.002+08:00

My MacBook is suit up now! And it's sizzling hot now! Muahaha! Here's the look of my MacBook's U-Suit.

Taaaa daaaaa~~!!

The MacBook closed.

The slots on my left, we have slots for the power, NIC port, display port, fire-wire port, USB ports (two of them), Microphone, and Headsets.

DVD slot on the right.

Suit up MacBook looks so sexy. LOL!

Hmm.. reminds me of Iron Man. LOL!

So, so beautiful... LOL!

Thanks to Steven, Helen and Louis for my suit! Thanks. It's really nice! I'm loving it.

p/s: Happy Birthday to Geraldine on 23rd June! :D

suit up: preview

2008-06-23T13:46:00.001+08:00

My posts are jumbled up at this point. LOL! Ad hoc events popped up, and it messed up my queue. Anyway, here's a preview of what's coming next.

p/s: Quite inactive for past few days, as I have been quite occupied with stuff. Plenty to follow soon. :-)

tear droplets

2008-06-19T11:23:00.003+08:00

A random picture for today.

Photo Note: This picture was taken in RAW format, and is post-processed with Aperture 2.0, and also converted to B&W with Aperture 2.0. Other image properties, EF 90-300mm at 90mm, ISO 200, f/4.5, 1/640 with Speedlite 580EX II.

p/s: Now I wish I have a Macro Lens. LOL! It must be interesting to see how things are through a Macro lens. Any sponsors? :P

my present 2008

2008-06-19T00:01:00.003+08:00

I haven't got much time to update with photos lately. Well, not much happened. There was no birthday bash, no party, nothing much. It was really just another ordinary day..

Okay, maybe not that quiet, there were text messages kept coming in at constant rate.

I still got some presents however..

The gifts.

U-suit for 13" MacBook.

The birthday hat.

Gift box..

Inside the gift box..

firefox download day

2008-06-17T15:39:00.002+08:00

Oh, I almost forgot about this one.

Firefox Download Day starts today - 17 June 2008.

Go download yourself the latest Firefox now. I'm gonna start my download tonight! :D

Visit the pledge page here. Be part of the World Record attempt today!

26yrs and 1day young

2008-06-17T12:23:00.000+08:00

Well, I'm officially that young! Haha!

Thank you for remembering, and the wonderful messages, coming in form of text messages, IM, email, or even through Friendster and Facebook. I got messages from all over the places! KK, Puchong, KL, PJ, Selangor, Cyberjaya, Kuching.... etc.. etc.. LOL! And even from Carolina, and Melbourne! LOL!

Thanks again!

There was no birthday bash though. Just another day. Spent day time working, had dinner with mom (dad was outstation..). I even got a surprise visit from two friends, they really made effort in putting up this surprise. I was speechless! Thank you guys!

I got a couple of presents, I will take picture of them tonight! I spent my night playing basketball last night. Haha! Yesh! My weekly sweating session!

And I was on a streak with the team last night! We won every match until the last one. My calf was showing signs of cramp, arms are tired, I was out of breath. It was a whole-body workout. Nice! Best of all, I hit a lot of 3 point shots!

Hmm.. I wonder if the Ray Allen video helped or not. Hehe. Speaking of video, here's the video.

Will update more tonight, with pictures!

Thanks a million!

6.16

2008-06-16T00:54:00.003+08:00

The day is here. Well, due to the working weekend, there has been some interruption to the progress, I only managed to get small part of the whole idea done.

So, I'm just gonna do the soft opening here. LOL!

I softly announce the launch of www.allenang.com. I've got this domain since September last year! LOL! I didn't have the time to play with it, and friends have been scolding me for wasting it!

So yeah, It's launched on 16.06.2008!

I'll be shift my blogging platform from here (blogger.com) to there (wordpress). Since the tweaking isn't done, I'll still be blogging on this page until the other side is fully ready.

Please bear with the slow progress.

Here, to make up for the inactivity for the past couple days, here's a Picture of the Day.

Can you guess where this is taken?

p/s: I'd like to extend a thanks to a recently acquired friend, Belle.

brb.. on assignment

2008-06-15T14:02:00.001+08:00

No update just yet, I'm on assignment.

It's a working weekend!

Happy Father's Day!

it was friday the 13th

2008-06-14T00:33:00.001+08:00

.. and I wasn't in time make an entry about that! Haha!

I just lost track of time whenever I bury my head into works.

Will try do a proper entry later!

picture of the day

2008-06-13T02:37:00.002+08:00

Overall, this piece isn't a good one, but, i find a little humor in this one.

Photo note: I think I was using f/1.8 for this shot, hence the very sensitive focusing. Focusing had to be precise, else, you'd probably get something like this.

See how the little boy admired the model? It makes you wonder what runs through his mind huh?

countdown again

2008-06-11T03:03:00.003+08:00

Update: I just filled up the expensive fuel for the first time since the hike. At RM 2.69 per litre, I needed total of RM 77.50 to fill up a almost-empty fuel tank. I pumped in 28.81 litre of fuel, which would have cost me about RM 55.03 before the hike (RM 1.91 per litre).

Another countdown.

Sorry, lack of post. In some sort of transition period now.

Will be back with more post soon, probably something related to this picture for the day:

It's not from recent event, but it's something you don't see every now and then. ;-)

a lonely boy and two cute girls

2008-06-09T02:24:00.000+08:00

Kids.

I find them a gem to capture in photography. Their expressions are so innocent and naive. I caught this kid in my frame while there was this fashion show going on at the time.

"Feel so lonely, so so so lonely.."

Cute, aren't they?

screwed up

2008-06-06T01:15:00.003+08:00

Update: It seems that I have managed to recover the deleted partition, it might not be so bad after all!

I think I screwed up with my hard disk. Most of my previous work is gone!
Argh!

Why is everything going to the wrong end at this time?

I hope I can restore the hard disk, if not, bye bye to most of my portfolios.

petrol price hike in malaysia

2008-06-05T03:12:00.006+08:00

I was inspired to write this piece as soon as I got the SMS regarding price hike after midnight earlier in the evening.

Before you scroll further down, I must warn you that this post may not be well-accepted to everyone. You may not agree with what I say here. Even so, I'd still spill my thoughts out on this sheet.

"Petrol at RM 2.70, Diesel at RM 2.50 after midnight," read one of the text message.

A couple of hours later, when I was on my way out to basketball court, I saw 'chaos' at every petrol station I passed by. People were actually raiding the petrol station for fuel. The number of cars swarming towards the petrol station is just ridiculous.

Each time there is price hike, this happens. I must say, out of the long line, probably small percentage of it really needs petrol, with near-empty tank. The rest, are just rushing to fill up the petrol tank just for the sake of enjoying the last bit of RM 1.91 per litre petrol here. (The price for petrol here in Sarawak is RM 1.91; and it's 1 cent more in the Peninsular.) I'm not sure about the price for Diesel, but the sources available, the increase rate is 63% - from 1.58 to 2.58 per litre.

I mean, is this really necessary? I've seen this when I was in KL, and I'm still seeing it here in Kuching. When I was on my home after the basketball session, the petrol stations are still packed with customers.

I may not see eye-to-eye with many of you guys out there, but what's the point of save up one tank of fuel? How much difference does it make? After that tank, you'll still need to buy the petrol at the new rate! It's not like you can stock up gallons of petrol in your crib!

Annna.net just pointed out there was limit set for each patrons in the petrol station. RM 30 per customers. That's quite a sound move by the gas stations to protect both consumers and the petrol station's interest.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the time used to wait in queue to get into the petrol station for refill, the fuel consumed while waiting with the running engine as the car waits in the line, and also causing horrific jam in the traffic. I bet it was worse in KL. I've seen that before some 2 yrs ago.

Enough on the lining up for petrol issue.

Just what on earth are they thinking when they decide to shock the nation with this decision? Aren't they suppose to review the decision whether to remove the fuel subsidies or not on the 8th this month? I have also read about the decision to raise the petrol rate only in August. What happened to those? Why the sudden decision?

What's the real agenda?

I doubt the money-man in-charge would reveal the true intention to us. I don't know. I am no politic analyst, I am no economist, I'm just an IT graduate, who is better equipped with DSLR in hand than doing IT job.

For more on that, I think this post by JeffOoi.com elaborated the points clear enough.

Everything seems so wrong. Since being appointed as the lead man in the country, it seems that everything is on the rise, except for the nation's economy. Prior to this petrol price hike, we have price rise in flour, rice and etc.

With this going on, we can only forsee the poor become poorer, and the rich becomes richer. It's not helping the nation's economy overall. The backbone is clearly weak.

I mean, inflation will always be there, but instead of blaming on the inflation, couldn't we counter it with a stronger economy? We should improvise, really.

It's 4:22am now, I should really get some sleep now. Again, if you find this bit hard to digest, don't mind it. It's just me letting my inner thoughts out, instead of keeping it in me all the time. I have more to say, but I ain't got the time to write here.

Written at 3:12 am, posted at 10:40am.

hollywood bridal fashion show @ theSpring part 3

2008-06-05T00:02:00.001+08:00

The last part of the show. Models parading the bridal wears on the run, together with the male models.

11 photos in total.

Hair Styling by Richard & Iris. The girl looked like a doll here.

The Gents.

Their group photo, take from side.

That's the end of the show, for the bridal wear that is. A few more to come next.

hollywood bridal fashion show @ theSpring part 2

2008-06-04T13:50:00.001+08:00

Part 2 of the fashion show.

The ladies. 10 photos, no words.

Photo comment: All other photos were shot without flash, where this one was shot with fill-in flash. I shot with a bare-naked flash, without any diffuser, flash was pointed to the model directly.

End of part 2.

hollywood bridal fashion show @ theSpring part 1

2008-06-03T21:04:00.000+08:00

After the basketball posts, I'm gonna post on some photos I took on the Hollywood Bridal Fashion Show the other day.

It's a continuation from this event.

We rarely have bridal expo this year, in fact, none yet up till this point. But from time to time, we have this small scale fashion shows around the town. Again, I'm gonna post some big photos here in the blog posts. Well, that is until some changes later this month. Yeah, will touch more on that soon enough. (It's part of the countdown.)

Okay, it could be nicer if this is presented in slide show format with background music, but we'll just make do with still photos only.

Okay, that's it for this part one. I don't wanna add more to the weight for you guys to load now. More to come up next.

End Note: I'm getting myself to familiarize with the Apple's Aperture 2.0, which is one of the best photo management tool, all-in-one tool.

it's harvest season - happy dayak festival!

2008-06-01T09:17:00.000+08:00

It's Dayak Festival here in Sarawak on the 1st June. So there'll be 2 public holidays on the 2nd and 3rd of June, with 3rd June being a replacement holiday, as 1st of June falls on a Sunday. In other words, long weekend in Sarawak here. :-)

Pardon me with the quick work on the Dayak Festival picture, I used bout 15-20 minutes to do it, including searching my own image library to do a photoshop.

Happy Holidays everyone! Happy Celebrating to all the Dayak friends, or anyone who celebrates the festival. :-)

Cheers!

nba playoff 2008

2008-06-01T09:16:00.000+08:00

I'm a little late in posting this, well not that late, but late as in it's no longer first hand news. You've probably read about it on NBA.com, or even watching Sportscenter updates on your sports channel.

Yet, I'm still putting this post up. That shows you how much I love basketball, doesn't it?

Game 6 of Eastern Conference Final was on channel 812 (ESPN) this morning, I didn't get to watch the whole game, only bit of first quarter. I was kinda hoping that Pistons would be able to force a Game 7, and went on to win the series.

Garnett and his buddy Billups.

That never materialized. The Celtics are back into NBA Playoff Finals after long absence. The new Big Three, of Garnett, Pierce and Allen, led the Celtics to reach the finals, where they will play against the already-qualified Lakers.

That also means we'll be seeing the old, long-time rivalry between the Lakers and Celtics being reignited.

The last time people actually hype about this matchup was when Larry Bird was still cladding the famous #33 green jersey, while Magic Johnson donning his #32 purple-gold outfit. And, that, was some two decades ago, at least.

The good o' days - Bird vs Magic.

Lakers parading after their Western Conference Finals victory over San Antonio Spurs.

The Lakers were back into the Finals first time since 2004, the last time the lifted the championship trophy. Kobe proved his worthy as a leader by leading Lakers to the Finals, first time since Shaq's departure. He showed his class when Lakers dethroned San Antonio.

I don't really like Celtics, despite all the hype they have from the media since the start of the season. I find the way they play, was not convincing. yet it's over-rated. They don't play attractive basketball.

Let's take a look into the lineups of both team:

Celtics:
C - Kendrick Perkins, Age 23
PF - Kevin Garnett, Age 32
SF - Paul Pierce, Age 30
SG - Ray Allen, Age 32
PG - Rajon Rondo, 22

Notable Reserves:
P.J. Brown, Age 38
Sam Cassell, Age 38

Lakers:
C - Pau Gasol, Age 27
PF - Lamar Odom, Age 28
SF - Vladimir Radmanovic, Age 27
SG - Kobe Bryant, Age 29
PG - Derek Fisher, Age 33

Notable Reserves:
Jordan Farmar, Age 21
Luke Walton, Age 28
Sasha Vujajic, Age 24

With the glance of that, it seems Celtics are bit older if compared to the Lakers. Nevertheless the Celtics' Big Three should be placed under the radar. Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce shouldn't be taken lightly.

The ever passionate KG, and boy, he looks like a green monster here. Hmm, sounds like 'the hulk'.

Ray Allen, one of the best shooters in history, has the quickest release among all players. Yeah, Allen rocks.

And Paul Pierce has been superb in leading the Celtics this season, just look at the series where the played against Lebron's Cavaliers. In the decisive Game 7, he contended with Lebron James, who dropped 45 points that game, by dropping a 41 points.

So the Lakers will need plenty from their own stars, MVP Kobe Bryant, newly acquired Pau Gasol, and Lamar Odom. Too bad Andrew Bynum is still sidelined with injury. Of course, I really think the bench and supporting players are the key to this matchup. Lakers have the edge over Celtics in this department.

Kobe and Gasol, the new equation to success?

Lakers bench has been superb this season, Ronny Turiaf has been the energizer, Sasha Vujacic and Jordan Farmar are excellent shooters.

Well, I've typed enough. Let's just wait for the show to begin.

Game 1 of NBA Finals 2008 starts on this coming Friday, 6 June 2008 (Malaysian time).

Game on Lakers!

Lakers...

vs.

Celtics.

So, you think Jerry West will enjoy the show all the way? Let's hope so.

hollywood bridal fashion show @ theSpring - the preview

2008-05-31T12:00:00.000+08:00

Bridal fashion show.

This time round, it was a bridal fashion showcase served up by Hollywood Bridal, a Kuching-based bridal studio. The fashion show followed through by the Miss Spring Time, of which I posted a couple of posts earlier.

Let's take a sneak peek on what the show was like that day. You know we could tell if the show is good with just the crowd's attention, right? The larger the crowd, the better the show is, no?

So check item #1 - The crowd.

Okay-lah, there are people concentrating on the model, and the dress, of course, while aiming their camera's crosshair onto their target.

Notice the "xiao bai" (mini white cannon) in the middle of the pack?

*cough* And er.. ahem.. some of you may think the girl in yellow is cute, no? *cough*

Check item #2 - the model.

The model looks cute, right?

So with the two items checked, the show should be an okay one. :)

So, check back again to see the show through my lens. I used my EF 50mm f/1.8 throughout the show. I'm really loving my 50mm. Wanna get other lens, but I'm in financial constrain to do so.

Oh, and i spotted this too. It's my friend in the picture again. LOL! His 'wedding shot'. LOL

Euro 2008 & bridal fashion preview

2008-05-31T10:40:00.000+08:00

Remember the countdown I mentioned earlier?

7 days.

That's all we gotta wait for Euro 2008 to kick-start. So, we still have football to catch even after the leagues in England, Spain, Italy and others have rounded up their footballing season.

16 teams will be competing in Austria-Switzerland to wrestle and dethrone Greece, the winner in 2004. Check out the updates and final lineup of 23 in both these websites -- Soccernet.com or European Championship's official website at http://www.euro2008.uefa.com/.

Note: We will only get to watch Euro 2008 in action on the 8 June 2008, because of different time zone. Check your Astro listing for the matches. Opening match will be between co-host Switzerland and Czech Republic

total randomness: the secret affair.. lol!

2008-05-29T18:03:00.000+08:00

Let's have a break and check out these paparazi shots on someone's 'secret affair'. LOL!

Spotted two familiar figures in the Spring, but couldn't confirm the identities for the two.

Can you see them?

Looks like they're pretty close, hmm... fishy.. If only I can see who they are..

Gotcha! Oh, ain't no secret affair, it's just the dynamic duo of Jimmy & Irene. LOL!

Okay, those were purely random! LOL. Sorry guys, I hope you don't mind. I've gotta clarify that there are nothing in between them. :)

Also, spotted this on Hollywood Bridal's roadshow, my friend was featured in that piece of work. You can see more of him in Hollywood Bridal's website at www.hollywoodbridal.com.

And finally, there was this guy who tried in vain to be Mr.Invisible. I wasn't the only one complained about it. I've heard a few already, and 90% of the time he's in the position as below:

What a sight, isn't it?

crazy videos

2008-05-27T21:54:00.001+08:00

I came across this videos on YouTube, and I thought they're really crazy! LOL.

Basketball fans, you should watch these! LOL!

Kobe Bryant Jumps over Aston Martin

Kenny Smith Spoofs a Aston Martin Jump
(This is a little long, but worth waiting till the end!)

Kobe Bryant Jumps over a Snake-pool for a Dunk! (with Jackass crew)

Compilation of Kobe's new adverts.

There you have it! Some videos to loose up a little.

miss springtime

2008-05-27T13:17:00.003+08:00

Some 10 days ago, there was a World Harvest Festival event in the Spring shopping mall. And, I was so happened to be there with my arsenal. How coincident, not.

I was told that there would be some fashion show going on, so I was there to ~~see see look look~~ check things out.

In conjunction to the World Harvest Festival, they have this pageant campaign going on, which is known as Miss Fair Lady. What happened in the Spring that day was for one of the subsidiary for the contestants. Winner for that round would be crowned as Miss SpringTime. I think I got those info correctly.

The actual Grand Final would be held in Sarawak Cultural Village, of which the event was just recently concluded.

I didn't gather much information on this event, I wonder around and snap a few pictures. I even let my guard down and let other 'paparazi' to snap picture of me. LOL.

There would be cultural performances by the Sarawak Cultural Village's musicians and dancers during the interval of every show.

That afternoon was really hot and scorching outside the building. And for that, the lighting was even more intense when the sunlight breached through the windows from the top. That made things hard for me to get the right exposure.

The contestants were out to help promoting some product from the sponsors.

Smile, you're on camera!

The stage cum runway were decorated to a long house theme, in conjunction to the harvest festival.

We can see the all excited contestant.

Giving her best smile.

So, who do you think is the fairest of all?

#12 was given the SpringTime title.

So did she go all the way and win it all till the end? I don't know to be frank, you've gotta dig up the old newspaper and search for the result. I think I saw the report on frontpage of Borneo Post yesterday.

There were some fashion shows lined up after this 'pageant' thingy. Stay tuned for more photos.

streamyx

2008-05-27T00:49:00.003+08:00

I had problems with streamyx earlier just now. It appears that the problem originated from the area port which I'm connected.

Now that I can go online, I'm already tired and sleepy, much thanks to the 2 hours basketball session. Update shall resume tomorrow.

Goodnight!

countdown

2008-05-26T02:09:00.000+08:00

I haven't been able to update properly over the weekend thanks to the working-weekend for me. I'm totally drained. Now that English Premier League's season is over, weekend nights seem so dull to me. But, it won't last too long, UEFA Euro 2008 is coming up real soon!

There are few dates to lookout for in the coming months, notably...

Hehe, are you guessing what the dates are about? Can you guess which is which?

And, here's a random picture of the day.

Story behind the picture: The baby couldn't stop staring into my lens, so I just snapped few shots. :P The photo was desaturated a little.

scorching weekend

2008-05-25T19:53:00.002+08:00

My weekend schedule was like this:

24-May-2008.
morning - clicking shutter,
afternoon- clicking shutter,
late afternoon - clicking shutter,
almost evening - break, transfer files to laptop, nap,
evening - back to click more shutters,
night - dinner @ rasamas, boulevard,
after dinner - browsed through the so-called auto carnival, which seemed like a pasar malam to me, (p/s: I bumped into pazuzu there too),
late night - went out to attend a 'service request' to fix a 'cannot browse internet' problem.
late late night - yam cha with friends @ padungan.

25-May-2008.
morning - more shutter clicking,
afternoon - tried to click more, but i seriously ran out of things to snap,
late afternoon - revitalizing from the after-effect from the scorching sun,
late, late afternoon - dropped by bing! to have a cup of smoothies (banana chocolate), while I missed (almost) completely of Georgette's event there,
evening - dropped by Padang Merdeka for a random street shooting,
late evening - feeling tired, and really tired, and i'm typing this entry.

I felt like burnt out! Can someone call the fire department? Someone please pour down icy water to cool down my body.

charity concert - feature: yise

2008-05-23T14:21:00.001+08:00

Warning: There are quite a few numbers of photos in this post, it maybe slow to load for certain internet connection speed. For faster loading, please click on the title to load just this post only. Thank you! :-)

Okay, after Manchester United's European triumph, let's just come back to Kuching instead. Please pardon me for getting carried away with their success. I've been a Manchester United fan for a long time now, probably coming to a decade long.

Here's the 2nd part of the charity concert I was at.

After Andrew Tan, comes Yise Lo (罗忆诗). She's not only a singer, but also a composer herself. She writes her own songs, and filled in the lyrics with her own words. Pretty cool eh? Honestly, she was the main reason why I was there in the concert. I wanted to see how good she is performing on stage.

Well, I must say, she didn't disappoint. Although it wasn't really a live band concert, the music was from a background music track from CD, she still did pretty well. I like her vocal somehow.

She made her appearance with this little jacket on.

Michael Wong 'looking' on from behind, hehe.

I shot the entire sequence with Auto WB, and photos are shot straight to JPEG. There wasn't much editing, or correction done after. The yellow hue was from the color lighting on stage.

From the way she speaks, it sounded like she has nice personality as well. A very easy-going lass.

The red one.

I must apologize for the lack of variety in angle captured. I was just shooting not far from my seat only. I could have bossed around with my camera and just get carried away, but no, I didn't. I thought I shouldn't as I wasn't an invited/appointed photographer. I certainly didn't want to get myself blocking other people there. So, I thought it was best to stay hidden, in stealth.

This shot, I think, is somewhat under exposed. Should have corrected it before posting. I had to get it exported cos a friend needed it for her report. So, it was quite a rush in preparing the pic.

The emcee and the singer. Oh, and yeah, I changed my angle a bit. LOL.

From certain angle, I think she resembles Leehom. LOL.

There were game session during the interval. Right after the little chat with the emcee dude, Yise performed right away again. This time, with her jacket off.

I kinda like this shot, albeit being underexposed, as the far background looked not-so-plain here. Hehe. It looked kinda like a concert in a true concert hall or something.

Now comes my attempts to shoot the effect I wanted.

I liked the effect, the idea, but too bad I was only shooting with a prime 50mm, the only lens I have with a wide/big aperture. Maximum aperture was f/1.8, which made the no-flash shots possible in that kind of lighting.

Bow of gratitude.

Clock was ticking, and I had to go already. Coincidentally, Yise was also done with her performance that night. There were two more performers that night, 曾国辉 and Michael 黄光良.

I couldn't stay any longer though. I was off to the basketball semi-finals in MBKS indoor stadium.

So, up next, what would it be? There was a fashion show going on in the Spring shopping mall last weekend, could the next post be on that? We'll see.

picture of the day

2008-05-23T06:00:00.000+08:00

This time round, the picture of the day wasn't of my own work. It's from NBA.com. I thought it's interesting, so decided to share it here.

Touch of midas. The angle looks as though Derek Fisher (left) has his hand on Tony Parker's (right) head as they faced of in the NBA Western Conference Final.

Story behind the picture:
LA Lakers played against the defending champion San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Final yesterday. The Spurs managed to silence the league's MVP Kobe Bryant, of LA Lakers, by holding him to only 2 points in the first half. Then the LA Lakers superstar broke loose to unleash a classical act to score 25 points in the second half, rallying his team from a 20-point deficit to beat the Spurs 89 - 85.

united triumph: relive the moment in moscow

2008-05-22T21:23:00.003+08:00

Manchester United was crowned as the best in Europe after they ousted Chelsea in Luzhniki Stadium early this morning (Malaysian time). The scoreline after 130 minutes 1 - 1, and the penalty shootout result 5 - 4 to Man Utd.

Let's relive the moment in Moscow, and see how the Red Devils made through 130 minutes of football, plus the penalty shoot-out.

All English affair in city of Moscow.

Before kick-off, the lucrative honour and silverware all managers and players crave for. It will be the Cup to fight for between Chelsea and Manchester United.

Cristiano Ronaldo rose high to the top to meet Wes Brown's cross, guiding in his header to the back of the net. Chelsea defenders looked helpless, and Cech was stunned in his position, he didn't even move.

Paul Scholes were left bloodied after clashing with Claudia Makelele. He suffered concussion, and had momentary blurred vision. He stayed on to play through the match until 87 minutes, that's when Ryan Giggs was introduced into the game. Giggs also made history by breaking Sir Bobby Charlton's club record appearance in Europe.

Manchester United dominated the first half, while Chelsea took charge most of the second. They ended 90 minutes with a 1 - 1 stalemate. Not even a Didier Drogba's red card in the 116th minute could change the scoreline.

The hero, almost a villain the same night, had his spot kick saved by Petr Cech. It was Manchester United's third kick.

A slip of a lifetime. John Terry missed the kick, which could have sent the trophy to London instead, after he slipped while taking his kick. He was left soaked in rain of agony.

A hero's redemption. Edwin van der Saar made it count the most after his save on Nicolas Anelka's penalty kick, the first attempt after the shoot out went into Sudden Death. van der Saar failed to save any in the previous 5 shots, JT sent his shot completely wide.

New crop of heroes. The miss, the save, the luck. Manchester United - the Champion in 2008.

Hope you enjoy the photos. All photos are from Soccernet.com.

champions league final update

2008-05-22T05:22:00.003+08:00

We've gone through 90 minutes of normal time, which ended with a 1 - 1 stalemate. Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 42nd goal of the season in the 26th minute, while Chelsea equalized through Frank Lampard's lucky tap-in in first half's dying second.

There were no breakthrough after 90 minutes, and it stayed almost the same until a dramatic sequence occurred. Didier Drogba was sent off with a red card after he slapped Manchester United's centre half Nemanja Vidic, just right in front of the referee.

The match now goes into a penalty shoot-out, the scenario which I hope for the least.

Update:

Manchester United are the Champions of Europe!!!! Glory to Manchester United!

90 minutes weren't enough to decide the better of the English top two, Extra times weren't sufficient, not even a last minute send-off of Didier Drogba could help it. It has to come down to the wire, just like how the English Premier League title race.

Penalty shoot-out, it was.

Rain was soaking in Moscow, players from both teams try hard to calm their nerve. They know they'll need steel nerve to take those penalties.

Every penalty taker was spot on, that is until Manchester United's third taker - Cristiano Ronaldo. The wonder kid who has 42 goals under his belt this season had his penalty saved by Chelsea's Cech. Advantage to Chelsea.

And captain John Terry was the last of first five to take the penalty, and he could bring the triumph to Chelsea, and their fans. All he had to do was to slot the ball into the net, but somehow, he completely missed everything. Instead of the trophy to Chelsea, he handed a lifeline to Manchester United.

Edwin Van Der Saar left the best for the last, as he stepped up with his heroic moment, saving Nicolas Anelka's spot kick, the sixth and the last one. Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium were filled with contrast, agony and joy. Chelsea's faithful was left with faces of despair and agony, especially John Terry, who seemingly blaming himself for the miss. On the other hand, the Red Devils fan broke into joy as they celebrated with their team.

Sir Alex Ferguson was truly in cloud nine. Why not? He has done it again, 9 years after his treble triumph. He has a double this season.

Congratulations to Manchester United, and thank you for a wonderful season.

Football season has come to the end this year. It was a joy to follow Manchester United's progress. Their style of play is a joy to watch.

Here's the summary of the penalty shoot-out.
Manchester United Chelsea
Carlos Tevez (O) - Michael ballack (O)
Michael Carrick (O) - Juliano Belleti (O)
Cristiano Ronaldo (X) - Frank Lampard (O)
Owen Hargreaves (O) - Ashley Cole (O)
Anderson (O) - John Terry (X)
Ryan Giggs (O) - Nicolas Anelka (X)

O=Made; X=Missed

On second thought, the seaon might not really be over as we have European Championship to follow in Austria & Switzerland.

Long live football/soccer!

champions league final: manchester united vs chelsea

2008-05-21T20:06:00.002+08:00

Photo's from soccernet.com

Football fans. It's the moment of truth. Will Manchester United repeat their heroic in 1999? Will they cap their wonderful season on a high note? Those will be decided after 90 minutes of duel in Moscow.

The clash of two English titans will happen in Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow. Who will prevail?

Catch all the action live at ESPN (Channel 812 on Astro), coverage starts on 2:00 a.m., 22 May 2008. (Note: The time mentioned above is of Malaysian time, check your local TV time at espnstar.com)

I'm off to sleep now. I'm waking up later for the match! See you in Moscow!

charity concert - feature: andrew

2008-05-19T19:00:00.000+08:00

Warning: 13 photos in total, may take a while to load.
Recommendation: For faster loading, click on the title to go straight to this post instead. It will load faster, as there are other photos from the basketball post to load in the main page.

Earlier this month, there was a charity mini concert featuring some of the local chinese artists, they are Andrew 陈势安, Yise 罗忆诗, 曾国辉 and Michael 黄光良. The venue was set at Christian Ecumenical and Worship Center.

I had 3 VIP passes to that event, but then, everyone wasn't free to go. So, I had to go there alone. I was told that we could actually redeem a CD free with a VIP pass, so I thought it wasn't a bad idea after all. At least there are 3 CDs if I use up all the passes to redeem the CDs.

But too bad, I was told that the CD redemptions are only for the normal passes, not Sponsor passes. And, unfortunately, I was holding sponsor tickets. Too bad, no CDs for me.

Also, I find that the passes made no differences at all. There are three types of passes, RM 30, RM 50 and RM 100, with the VIP ones costing 100 ringgit. I didn't have a good shot of the hall cos I was mounting EF 50mm f/1.8 to my 350D.

Then again, shouldn't complain that much, since this one is a charity concert. So, yeah, all for good deeds.

The order of performance should be like this:
1. Andrew 陈势安
2. Yise 罗忆诗
3. 曾国辉
4. Michael 黄光良

Anyways, I wasn't there for long. I was there for the first two performances only. Cos' I had to go to some other location that very night.

The crowd. Note: See the front-most girl with a Nikon camera? She was sitting at the first row, which is designated for the VIPs.

Some people at work.

There was a bit of delay, but it didnt' take long for them to introduce Andrew to stage. Once he got on stage, he went through the routine stuff, i.e. greeting,s introduction, bla bla bla.. and then he started the performance.

Andrew in Kuching.

The evening was quite difficult with the multicolor spotlight on stage. Like Edwin had pointed out, multicolor spotlight can really give photographers headache with the strong color hue. We'll get to see examples of the photos later in this post.

That night, my main focus was to catch a back-lit subject, like the performer's head being back lit by the lighting sets on stage. Took few of those shots, it wasn't easy to get the right one. But the effect is sure nice. It would have been nicer if photos can be taken with a longer zoom lens, like a 70-200mm f/2.8. That would really be lovely.

Here's one of the example of red hue dominating other light/ambiance, but it's fine. I like it, as it reflects the originality. Still tolerable.

While I was trying to capture a back-lit subject, it was pretty hard to avoid lens flare in the picture.

Andrew performed few songs and had an interval break, where the organizers slotted in a game session, where the artiste interacted with their fans. The crowd was really shy, it took them ages just to gather 6 volunteers from the crowd.

Dance, dance, dance.

Andrew and the fans.

So, after the game, Andrew continued his performance with a couple more songs, before he passed the stage on to the next performer.

Waving goodbye.

Andrew came to the entertainment industry via the local talent reality quest show - Astro Talent Search. He was of the same batch with Anthony Chang 郑伟康, but I personally prefer Andrew than Anthony.

The yellow hue from the strobe, too harsh.

Worst of all, this is too red to save. LOL

update delayed

2008-05-18T04:56:00.003+08:00

Update for the day will be delayed a bit. There were fashion shows going on in the Spring on Saturday evening. I was there snapping some photos away.

There'll be some more shows coming up on Sunday. Drop by the Spring to ~~see see look look~~ check out the fashion show if you have got nothing much to do in the day. LOL! I will be there snapping away!

Sports Update: LOL! I can't resist sports lately, Portsmouth qualified for European football next season in UEFA Cup, by beating Cardiff in the FA Cup final played earlier. Kanu scored the only goal.

basketball tournament - kuching open final iii.

2008-05-16T23:18:00.000+08:00

Okay here's the final post on basketball, and sports, at least for a while. LOL.

The previous post was so much about the #15 dude, so I'll try not to highlight him that much in this one.

The whole game was pretty good. Action-filled, and it's really worth watching.

The #15 dude.

Sarawak Energy wasn't the only team who brought in 'imports', Sentosa had their very own import too. They have an imported player in their #8, I forgot his name. He's based in Miri, and represented Malaysia in the junior level, if not mistaken. He's pretty tall at height.

Import vs Import.

Look at his height against the #15 dude. Almost the same, no? This dude could dunk as well. But too bad, I didn't get to see him dunk. Hmm. I was out of luck, I guess. So how good was the actual game? Well, if you ask me, I'll definitely say it's much better than KungFu Dunk. (I dislike that dude in the movie).

The Kungfu element in the game, flying kick? LOL, not quite.

I'd rather watch this game on tape over and over again, than watching that movie. The movie was really a crap.

I think I should make myself a pass, so that I can get a courtside access to cover such event. LOL. Then again, it's not right to do so.

Where's the ball? LOL. Can see?

So, who walked away as the winner?

A little bit of input about basketball game in general before I end this post. Apart from NBA, and NCAA, the two I know of, basketball games are played with the standard regulation set by FIBA, so there should be much different anywhere else.

A basketball game is played through four quarters, two for each half, and each quarter lasts for 10 minutes. Should the game ends in a tie in score, overtime period will be played. I think the overtime period lasts for 5 minutes. During the game, teams must make a shot attempt within the given 24 seconds time frame, this is known as the shot clock. Should any team fails to make shot attempt when shot-clock expires, the possession will go to the opposing team.

LOL. Now I think that is boring enough. Okay. Let's just end this post already.

After teams exchanging shots...

.. like this 3 pointer.

And arguing about referee's calls...

.. like this.

.. or maybe like this.

So, after exciting four quarters of play, we finally have a winner from the two. And the winner is...

... Sarawak Energy!!!

I'm sure Sentosa will return next time as a stronger team.

I think we should have more of such competition going around. It's good for the sports, for the people, and of course, good for the nation. Since it's so good, why don't we form a properly managed league?

Well, my only complain for the day was the stadium and its surrounding. The stadium is pretty old already. I think the planning wasn't wisely done back then when they build for this stadium. The recreational park there was poorly maintained.

Otherwise, the surrounding could be a nicer place than it is now.

Photo notes: All photos posted in the finals are taken with EF 90-300 lens. Photos had to be cropped to 'save' the composition. Flash wasn't used, because if it's used, the photos will look ugly.

basketball tournament - kuching open final ii.

2008-05-15T23:28:00.000+08:00

So the game tipped off, and we were into the finals between Sarawak Energy and Sentosa.

Sometime after the game started, I spotted this by the courtsie. A reporter was covering the game. He's Michael.

I spotted something, but I had to zoom till max length of 300mm to be sure. I saw siao bai!

The game was pretty exciting, both teams exchanged basket constantly. That made the score pretty close, through the first quarter, and much into the second. Sarawak Energy seemed to have bit of edge over their opponents, as Sentosa constantly attempt long range shot beyond the arch. For some reasons, the Sentosa players were less cool about the match, probably stil hyped to be where they had reach then.

#15 tried to slash towards the basket, constantly threatening the opponents' defense.

The #15 dude (this sound so amateur-like, but I seriously don't know what his name is) is a all-around player. Not only he can penetrates from perimeter, play in the box, he can also square up a three pointer in your face. According to the article I read in Sin Chew Daily, his natural position is guard, but he has to make shift to play as a Power Forward cos lack of size in his team.

Triple ball!

Hack-a-Shaq strategy surely doesn't work on him, he hits stroke in his free throws!

For some reason, the crowd cheered whenever the #15 dude touched the ball. It somehow became a 'homecourt' advantage for Sarawak Energy. I guess the crowd was expecting the #15 dude to put on a showcase.

Sentosa piled defense onto #15, resorting all kinds of methods to stop him.

Well, I guess expectations are there when he put up few dunks before the final. I was expecting a dunk the very least. But too bad, there wasn't any. It seems as though the star of attraction laid low, and was deployed as a decoy. When he drew attention from the defense, there is high chance for his other team-mate to be unguarded. Thus, easy offense for his team.

"Not in my house!"

Offense wasn't only his highlight, he also served up top class defense, including the block in the picture above. I thought we'd only get to see this kind of block in the NBA. Hmm.. I wish I could leap that high and block a shot consistently. I must lose my weight first.

High above the rest.

That's all for this part, final round up will follow next.

basketball tournament - kuching open final i.

2008-05-14T14:33:00.001+08:00

I will try to do a quick posts on this part. Let's get it done and dusted quickly so that we can move on to other things.

Kuching Open Basketball Tournament.

I posted the update on semi-finals. Now that you have seen how it was like in the semi, how do you think the final game will turn out to be like?

Well, first major differences was dealt at the door. Throughout the tournament, at least until semi-finals, there wasn't any entrance fee charged. But, it's all different when it comes to the finals. We were charged about MYR 5 per adult, and MYR 3 for children (if not mistaken).

Despite the entrance fee, people are still flocking in the stadium for the final match day of the tournament. We had hard time finding parking for our vehicles.

The finalists were Sarawak Energy and Sentosa. These two met at the same stage last year, with Sarawak Energy as the beaten finalist, as Sentosa walked away with the champion's trophy. This time round, Sarawak Energy reinforced with new acquisition, an foreign player in the #15 Cameroonian, and player #12 who is of Labuan origin.

A battle with vengeance, I guess.

So, let's have a preview on what serves up next in the game's detail.

Former gem of Sarawak, Lau Boon Hui, he was pretty popular back then, one of the best guard in the nation. Believe it or not, he could dunk, despite his not-so-impressive height.

The man from Cameroon, the foreign import. He gave a lot of highlight-reels and a lot for the fans to cheer about throughout the tournament.

The Sentosa team in blue jersey.

Out for the ball.

So who will win the game, and how did they win it?

They'll be up next.

basketball - kuching open semi-final

2008-05-13T13:04:00.002+08:00

Since my last few posts have been sports related, why not make it a series. I hope it doesn't bore the girls out there. At least, you can have your eye candy in Cristiano Ronaldo, right?

This time round, I am not going to the States for NBA, nor I am going to Europe to talk about the football there. I'm going local this time.

I was at Kuching Open Tournament Semi-Finals, which just concluded recently on the 4th of May.

There were two semi-final match scheduled on Friday, but I only managed to catch the second one. I was at other location earlier, as there was a charity concert on the same day. Will post some of the photos from the other event later on.

Kuching Open Tournament was held in MBKS Indoor Stadium, which is located at Pending there. This stadium has been around for quite a while already. The building itself is quite old, and the recreation park, which was built just near the stadium, lacks maintenance. The whole place just look worn down.

Anyways, back to the semi-finals. The first semi-final featured Sarawak Energy, or more keenly known as SESCo, who are one of the two hot favorites to win the tourney. The second game featured the other favorite - Sentosa.

Again, I put my 350D to the test this time. I must say, the angle wasn't great, as I just snapped the shots from the audience stand. The lens I use most of the time was my 50mm f/1.8. Other settings include shutter speed between 1/320 - 1/200, and ISO at 800.

Empty stadium, even no entrance fee was charged, the stadium was rather empty.

We're going to look more into the actions from that night.

Local hoop action.

3-point attempt.

A 3-point attempt.

A break away layup.

A Sentosa player (#7) with a jump-shot attempt.

Free shots, free throw.

The shots here aren't dramatic. Hmm. I wish I could just shoot from court side. I could just be thick-face and wonder around the court side snapping happily there, but then, I don't want to end up being escorted away by security personnel.

Hmm. How nice if I can shoot with a EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS, preferably with at least a 40D body, if not 5D.

LOL. I'm dreaming!

The final match coming up next. I might need to split the next post to multiple part, cos I took quite a plenty shots that night. We'll see how it goes.

barclay's english premier league season round up

2008-05-12T13:52:00.003+08:00

Barclay's English Premier League has come to its end for the season.

Although it was the last match day for the season, there was no shortage of excitement as we were drawn attention to both ends of the table. At the top, Manchester United and Chelsea were in the spotlight for the title showdown. Chelsea were still in the title race, having drawn level on the points in the standings, only inferior by goal difference. Any slip up at JJB Stadium by Manchester United would mean Chelsea's celebration, if they can pull away all three points from their match against Bolton.

The brave cottagers - Jimmy Bullard, and the goal scorer, Danny Murphy.

At the other end of the table, three teams were in fight for the sole survival spot from next season's elite status. Birmingham, Fulham and Reading were all involved in last-day relegation battle, as only one of them will stay up. Fulham will need to win the last game to secure their own survival. On paper, Fulham may have the toughest assignment, as they took on Portsmouth, whom themselves have had a remarkable season. The Pompey are in FA Cup final, which is to be played on 17 May, against lower division team - Cardiff. A win in FA Cup will seal a European football next season in UEFA Cup.

Reading has the easiest among the three as they play against the already relegated Derby. Birmingham's task wasn't any easier, as they face Mark Hughes' Blackburn, who were in contention for European football earlier this season.

At the end of 90 minutes last night, there were a bit of twist, which came from the bottom of the table.

Fulham, under Roy Hodgson's management, has survived the relegation threat with their 1 - 0 win against Portsmouth, thanks to Danny Murphy's goal. That result have consigned Birmingham and Reading to relegation, despite their big wins on the final day. Birmingham surprised Blackburn with a 4 - 1 victory at St. Andrew's, while Reading thumped Derby 4 goals away.

Jimmy Bullard was influential in their recent run, which eventually stirred the team to their survival. Since his return to lineup, he has proved his presence in the team worthy. Too often he was involved in important plays in a game, and he could easily be best player on the pitch in those games. Reading's drubbing of Derby consigned the latter to the worst team ever in the top flight history, it's like adding salt to the wound to Derby.

Back to the top of the table, there were two scenarios before the match:
A) Manchester United beat Wigan, Manchester United will be champion regardless the outcome at Stamford Bridge.
B) Manchester United slip up against Wigan, a defeat or a draw, plus a Chelsea victory at Stamford Bridge will bring trophy to Chelsea's dressing room instead.

Old warhorse for Manchester United - Ryan Giggs, holding the 10th title in 16 seasons.

Scenario B was never going to happen, as Cristiano Ronaldo fired a penalty past Chris Kirkland in the 33rd minute, after Boyce clipped Wayne Rooney in the penalty box. Chelsea was momentarily given some hope, after Andriy Shevchenko scored in the 62nd minute. But all hopes were put beyond doubt when Ryan Giggs were put through, clearly on side, by Wayne Rooney. The Red Devil's loyal old horse made no mistake in putting the ball through to the goal, it was the 80th minute, 2 - 0 was the scoreline.

The kid in sizzling form, Cristiano Ronaldo, with the penalty that put Manchester United a hand on the trophy.

Sir Alex, a very happy man at the end of the match.

Signs of joy was more visible on Sir Alex's face at this point, he knows this better than anyone, and he wanted this so much before his eventual retirement.

Glory, glory! One down, one more to go, in Moscow!

And all was done and dusted for Manchester United when Matthew Taylor scored an equalizer for Bolton on the dying minutes of the match. 1 - 1. All the blues faithful could only stare at their team with agony, and applauding what the team has achieved so far, all done after the departure of their "Special One" -- Jose Mourinho. Avram Grant had since guided to a second place finish in the league, and finalist in UEFA Champions League, where they will play against the English Champion - Manchester United.

Brave Bolton fought till the end.

Captain JT down injured just after 13 minutes.

John Terry was stretchered off from the match, just after 13 minutes, after having a partial dislocation in his elbow. He is doubtful for the season finale against Manchester United in Moscow, at 21 May 2008. Didier Drogba is also believed to have played his last match at Stamford Bridge, as he is linked up with a transfer to Italian giant AC Milan next season.

Humilated Sven condemned to exit from Manchester City?

On other matches, former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson may be doomed for the exit door in Manchester City, after his team was demolished on the final day with a 8 - 1 loss against Gareth Southgate's Boro. His captain, Richard Dunne was sent off after just 15 minutes, and there onwards, the floodgate just opened. Stuart Downing scored a brace, and Brazilian hitman Afonso Alves continued his fine form with a hat-trick, Rochemback, Aliadiere and Adam Johnson completed the rout for the Riverside team. Elano pulled a mere consolation for City in the 87th minute.

So, after the final match day, here are how the English Premier League has concluded:
Champions: Manchester United
UEFA Champions League (Automatic Qualifying): Manchester United, Chelsea
UEFA Champions League (3rd Qualifying Round): Arsenal, Liverpool
UEFA Cup: Everton, FA Cup Winner, Tottenham (via Carling Cup)
Relegated: Reading, Birmingham, Derby

Note: Manchester City may be offered a lifeline in European football next season, as they were finished fifth in England's fair play standing. The top four teams have already qualified for European next season, so Manchester City will be next in line for consideration.

Aston Villa and Blackburn may try to squeeze to Europe via Intertoto Cup, this is still not confirmed at time of writing.

Gareth Barry, one of the most consistent players for both club and country this season. Where will he be playing next season? Will he stay with Aston Villa or else where?

It's been a terrific season to watch in Barclay's Premier League, next season starts in August 2008.

Pictures credit: All photos posted here are referred from ESPN's Soccernet.com.

barclay's english premier league final matchday

2008-05-11T22:09:00.003+08:00

It's final match day for Barclay's English Premier League today. Tonight's spotlight will be on these particular two matches, Manchester United visits Wigan, while Chelsea take on Bolton.

Update on Chelsea's match, Chelsea captain John Terry has been stretchered off the pitch with injury.

It's now 19 mins into the match. With 70 minutes remaining, let's see if Manchester United can retain their title.

Update (11:55p.m.) - Man Utd 2 - 0 Wigan, Man U look set to secure their second successive title. Chelsea is leading by a goal against Bolton, but that will not alter the standing on the top of the table. Minute 89 now. Other note, Middlesborough hammered 7 goals past sorry Manchester City. Sven Goran Erikson may be doomed for the exit.

my new mactoy

2008-05-11T12:20:00.000+08:00

Since early April, I have officially apple-ized myself.

It was a huge decision to make, I actually pondered bout the decision for few months already. And, I thought the time was right.

So, I embraced myself to the Mac-side.

Okay, let us see what the specs are for my MacBook.

This MacBook is powered by Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, and it is running on 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM.

Screen capture of the system profiler, it tells you all you wanna know about your mac-hine.

This MacBook is powered by 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, with 4MB of L2 cache, and 800MHz buss speed. The memory running on board is of 2GB. The HDD came with this machine is of 120GB capacity. The optical drive I have for this machine is a SuperDrive, which is a DVD R/W writer.

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.2 GHz
L2 Cache: 4MB
Memory: 2GB
Bus Speed: 800MHz

The MacBook comes with a built-in camera, at 1.3 MegaPixel. Not too bad.

I haven't turned on my desktop for a few days already, mainly because that machine is terribly slow now. It's scheduled for a overhaul in near future. The machine has been running, with little break, for about 2-3 years now.

Allen's MacBook, my MacBook, stamping my ownership.

I've been using this Mac-hine for about a month now, and I have little complain about it. I'm actually loving my Mac.

Mac? Anyone?

happy mother's day

2008-05-11T00:17:00.002+08:00

It's Mother's Day today everyone!

So I'd like to wish a very Happy Mother's Day to moms around the world, including my very own mom.

Happy Mother's Day, mom, and Happy Birthday! :-)

Cheers!

my new kicks

2008-05-09T11:30:00.002+08:00

Early this month, I bought me a pair of new kicks from the Lea Center's clearances sales. All products were offered at 50% discount storewide.

Since my Nike was showing signs of giving up on me already, I thought it was a good time to get myself a new pair. I love my Nike. It serves me well, for more than three years. The condition is still okay, just that the grip, or aka brake, is wearing out.

I was so into basketball shoes when I was much younger, but now, I just simply get a good pair, good enough for me to enjoy my weekly dose of basketball. I don't even what model I bought.

All I know it's a adidas. After discount, this pair cost me about MYR 184.95. Normal price would be at MYR 369.90.

I wore this to basketball last Monday, it's a bit tight at the mid-sole area. Other than that it was just fine. The shoes were the same size as my previous shoes. So, there wasn't much problem when I tried it out at the store. I only felt the tightness after some running on the court. I almost got myself blisters on my right foot after the game.

It'll be Monday again soon, and that means ball time!

sports review - nba

2008-05-08T00:00:00.004+08:00

National Basketball Association, or commonly known as NBA, is also running to end of their 2007-08 season. Teams are now in the Playoff, which is played after conclusion of the regular league games.

The face behind the Iron Man: Movie, attending a playoff game in Los Angeles.

16 of the 30 teams made it to the playoff. First round has been concluded just days ago. Teams progressing to the next round includes:-

Eastern Conference:
#1 Boston Celtics
#2 Detroit Pistons
#3 Orlando Magic
#4 Cleveland Cavaliers

Western Conference:
#1 LA Lakers
#2 New Orleans Hornets
#3 San Antonio Spurs
#4 Utah Jazz

There isn't any major upset yet so far in the playoff run, although eighth-seed Atlanta Hawks almost pulled a miracle, upsetting the Boston Celtics, like what Golden State Warriors achieved in last season.

NBA has also announced few of the individual awards to the players/coach this season, they are:-

Sixth Man of the Year, aka Best Reserve: Manu Ginobili (San Antonio Spurs)
Most Improved Player of the Year: Hedo Turkoglu (Orlando Magic)
Defensive Player of the Year: Kevin Garnett (Boston Celtics)
Rookie of the Year: Kevin Durant (Seattle Supersonics)
Coach of the Year: Byron Scott (New Orleans Hornets)
MVP: Kobe Bryant (LA Lakers)

I only disagree with the Defensive Player of the Year award. Kevin Garnett is no doubt great player, but I thought someone else deserves that recognition better than KG. For example, Marcus Camby, or even Dwight Howard was a better choice. No further elaboration on this.

I thought Byron Scott deserved the award thoroughly. He hasn't made major adjustment to the team, yet he still managed to turn the club around with the same core. I thought that's a job well done. Chris Paul has evolved to a top-class point guard. He, alongside with Deron Williams, could be the next generation of top point guards in NBA for years to come.

At this point, I thought the awards were rightfully awarded. However, I thought there are few players whose hardwork are worth a mention. There are two players in my mind now - Andrew Bynum (LA Lakers) and Al Horford (Atlanta Hawks).

Al Horford's a rookie drafted from Florida, he plays center for Atlanta Hawks. You can find out more about his background in his Wikipedia entry.

The Rookie of the Year may have gone to Kevin Durant, but I thought Al Horford has done tremendous job in helping Atlanta making their first playoff appearance in 9 years. He has averaged almost a double-double in his rookie season with 10.1 points, and 9.7 rebounds per game. That's quite an achievement for a rookie starting at center. In contrast, Kevin Durant was made to be the star for Supersonics. He was the go-to guy in the team, and not to mention, his team failed to make it to the playoff. Sonics finished the season among the bottom pile.

Andrew Bynum could only watch from bench as he recovers from the injury he sustained in Jan '08

LA Lakers finished the season on top of the Western Conference, which is a tough conference to play in this year. The top eight teams in the Western Conference each managed to corralled more than 50 wins in 82 games. The Lakers didn't start the season well, they started slowly, having only won 12 of first 20 games. They looked anything but a serious title contender.

Not to mention, the Lakers locker room were marred by speculation bout Kobe Bryant's possible departure in the pre-season. Eventually, they managed to shrugged off that and kept the whole team going.

Andrew Bynum was also a key factor where the Lakers has finished this season. The young center blossomed into one of the best young centers in the league after a meager performance early in the season. Although marred by injury, which pre-maturely ended his season in January, Bynum still managed to post 13.1 ppg, and 10.2rpg. He also adds 2.1bpg and registering a 63.6% field goal percentage. He was a force to be reckoned in the paint.

Since his injury, the Lakers had to make adjustment to accommodate to the competition need by acquiring Spanish big-man Pau Gasol from Memphis Grizzlies. As till this point, everything seems to be going the right direction for the Lakers.

Kobe, finally a MVP, after 12 years.

As for Kobe Bryant, he was made the league's MVP for this season. We all knew how good a player he was, and how much scoring damage he can do. But he finally showed the total package this season, all the mentioned plus the leadership. His talent was never questionable. It was his attitude and leadership that draws doubts from the fans and pundits.

His infamous clash with then-teammate Shaquille O'neal was highlighted by the media. Since Shaq's trade away from the team, Kobe struggled to show his quality as a leader. But he proved that all wrong this season especially. He has shown his willingness to do everything to put the team in the right direction.

Kobe Bryant with his old #8 jersey.

.. with his new #24

He even proved his decision to change his jersey number from #8 to #24, a right one too.

Latest update on NBA Playoff 2008:

Eastern Conference
#1 Boston Celtics lead 1 - 0 against #4 Cleveland Cavaliers
#2 Detroit Pistons lead 2 - 0 against #3 Orlando Magic

Western Conference
#1 LA Lakers lead 1 - 0 against Utah Jazz
#2 New Orleans Hornets lead 2 - 0 against San Antonio Spurs

sports review - soccer

2008-05-07T12:00:00.002+08:00

It's been a while since I wrote any sports related update. So, I guess it's about time to write one too. At the same time, I can take a break from blogging about the normal things.

Football/Soccer fans out there would know that the football/soccer seasons are nearing the end in Europe. There are leagues where the champions are already decided, e.g. Real Madrid successfully defended their crown in La Liga, the Spanish league. Bayern Munich is expected to close in on their Bundesliga crown, and Inter Milan have points clear on top of the league.

In England however, it is still quite a close call. Chelsea have an outside chance to pip Manchester United for the title. Chelsea are level on points with Manchester United, and the two teams are separated by goal difference. The Red Devils have far more superior goal difference to their advantage, much thanks to in-form Cristiano Ronaldo, who tallied 30 goals in the league. Carlos Tevez chipped in 14 this season too. Rooney has 12.

Ronaldo celebrating with Ferdinand in their 4 - 1 rout of West Ham.

Cristiano Ronaldo, fresh from being awarded as PFA Player of the Year, and FWA Footballer of the year, has 40 goals in total this season. This kid has been in sizzling form since the start of the season. He has certainly matured from the day he arrived from Sporting Lisbon. From a kid with flair, he has shown maturity in his game. He plays football wiser now.

In contrast, his fellow countryman Luis Nani showed the exact opposite characteristic in Manchester United's latest thumping of West Ham United.

Nani, marred the victory with his immaturity. Still a lot to learn, boy.

The young Portugese winger foolishly committed himself in a unnecessary fracas. With United leading comfortably 3 - 1, Luis Nani showed his immaturity, and it wasn't the first time Nani showed such attitude in game, by head-butting West Ham defenders Lucas Neill. If you had seen the replays, Nani is just unforgivable.

Probably he watched to much of Shaolin Soccer, and picked up the head-butting skill from thereon.

Despite down with 10 men, Man Utd was strong enough to add one more goal to make the scoreline 4 - 1. Carrick added his name to the score sheet on 59th minute, and sealed it for the Red Devils.

Another ex-Hammers to score against former club, Carrick joined Tevez in the score sheet for the match.

With that win, Manchester United edged a step closer to retaining their title as champions. Despite that, Chelsea's Avram Grant was still 'optimistic' with his side to win the league. It's good to be optimistic, but they way he put it, he sounded like a Mourinho-wannabe. He tried to sound unique, like The Special One. But really, he's just Mourinho's clone, with a grumpier face.

Avram "The Grump" Grant.

The talk about Chelsea looking for Grant's replacement has been going on since Day 1 he took charge from Mourinho. In my opinion, I think Grant will still get the axe despite his considerably successful tenure in Chelsea's helm. As for Nani, if he doesn't show improvement on his attitude next season, I wouldn't be surprised to see him being shipped away from the club.

Manchester United will play at Wigan in the final match day, while Chelsea face Bolton. Both Wigan and Bolton are safe from relegation threat, there isn't much to fight for for the latter teams. Sir Alex will surely give it all go to secure the win, knowing that his side has vast superiority in goal difference to their advantage. If Chelsea have any wish to muscle Manchester United off from the top, they would need to beat Bolton with at least 18 goals, in other words a 18 - 0 scoreline, to stand a chance.

Chelsea and Manchester United will meet again in Moscow for UEFA Champions League showdown on 21 May. Mark your calendar and set your alarm. You won't want to miss the All-English Champions League final.

Glory! Glory!

Hmm.. Must train my body to be like that..

paul's birthday at oregano -- finale

2008-05-06T13:17:00.002+08:00

Okay, the round up for Paul's birthday.

The dinner was a pleasure, everyone was having fun. So, what was for dinner? Here, are some of the shots I took.

Erm.. forgot the dish name.. some mussels.

I think this is some grilled chicken chop?

I know this one! It's the Oregano Chicken .. something.. LOL! Apparently I forgot the full name. I ordered that.

After makan, we just pose, pose and pose for pictures! And of course there are candids also.

There's something about Nana..

Bro and Sis.

Hmm.. tempting eh?

Yummy-licious

Paul & Eve.

"Don't eat my food!" Nana showed her wrath. Haha.

Happy Birthday!

One way.. truth about photography. It's a one way journey, with no point of return.

Last but not least, a group photo. But Eve wasn't inside, she was holding the cam.

paul's birthday at oregano

2008-05-05T14:03:00.003+08:00

Paul of www.paul83.com turned 25 on 17 April.

So, his sista planned a surprise dinner party for him. Well, the end result, was not too bad. Paul was sort of surprised a bit, right? LOL

Well, this whole birthday dinner story erupted at Oregano, Kuching.

Let's see who was there that night. I must say, I didn't take picture of everyone there, so some of you might not be featured.

Eve.

Ting.

Nana.

JF, Irene, Sharon and Tim.

The birthday boy, ahPaul.

Annna, aka Nana, was practicing with her birthday present -- dSLR.

I didn't lie, she was holding a Canon, wasn't she? But this Canon was Rose's. She took some shots, and here are some of her featured works.

Oregano kitchen.

The photos featured are in random order.

Not bad eh? A hot young female photographer is on the rise. Beware y'all! Hehe..

Hmm, that's about it for today's post. Do check in later for second part of this post. This is because a2blog.blogspot.com is going to post some food pictures!

It's not customary for me to do food-related post, or even taking pictures of food.

Now I have some to show y'all... but it's only happening tomorrow!

Do check back again tomorrow.

phua chu kang day 2.. end.

2008-05-04T20:04:00.001+08:00

Be warned: There are a lot of photos in this post, it may take a while to have them loaded. Please be patient. Thank you. (p.s. The images uploaded are web safe, so it shouldn't take too long to load either.)

Okay let us get over and done with this Phua Chu Kang series before all of us get sick of him.

Phua Chu Kang with his fa-mole-s.

After the play-a-PCK-role game, PCK had fun with kids. They gathered bout 15 kids up on stage and played a game. They served up the "Dance-and-freeze" game. Is there such a name for that game?

Anyways, back to the event.

They're sisters.

Children on stage. Check.
PCK on stage. Check.
DJ on standby. Check.

Game on.

I think it's best not to put more words. Let the pictures do the talking.

Kids are surely cute, but sometimes, they can give you erm.. hard time. Just ask PCK. Well, his expression tells it all.

LOL. Priceless. But what to do right? You can't scold them. They're so innocent. Hehe.

She was the last one to get the goodies bags.

Kids are just cute. Hmm.. I wonder how it's like to have a kid of my own. Will just have to wait till that day comes.

After the game, it was time for PCK to perform again. He sang Oh Mandy by Westlife in Day 1, and this time round, he would perform Better Man, made famous by Robbie Williams. That's one of my all-time favourite title.

A better man..

After the performance, it was time to say goodbye to Kuching. But PCK has decided to show his appreciation to people's affection to him by giving his PCK signature.

A superstar contractor.

Paul, Nana and I lined up for the signature, but we didn't make it. I guess he had to catch flight to JB-Singapore after that. Hence he made his departure after signing a number of autographs. Too bad. But at least Nana got to shake hand with him. It happened so fast that even I couldn't get to snap it.

Sorry, nana.

Nevertheless, the weekend sure was fun-filled with the funnyman around. I wonder when we'll see him again.

Gurmit Singh, the man behind the yellow-booted contractor Phua Chu Kang, is sure a talented man.

i'm on twitter!

2008-05-04T13:27:00.003+08:00

You can now follow me on Twitter! I can go mobile to a further extent!

Follow me on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/allenang/

phua chu kang day 2.. part 2

2008-05-03T16:01:00.000+08:00

The first part of the show was the "Imitate Phua Chu Kang" Session. Volunteers were randomly selected from the crowd to participate in this event. You know how shy Malaysians, and especially Kuching folks can be at times, we have to randomly pick a volunteer out sometimes.

"Waaaa.... PCK bullied me.."

The little girl (in white) was one of the volunteers picked out from the crowd, but the poor girl, was scared of the wig Phua Chu Kang handed to her. Her aunt (in orange) had to bring her off from the stage.

So, a replacement was needed. Guess who was the replacement?

Chen KY, aka China Man, was the lucky one.. to be the volunteer's assistant. Haha.

Here are some of the pictures from that play-a-PCK-game session.

The rock stars, PCK Singapore and PCK Kuching.

Eventually the game was won by this cool-voice uncle. He won himself an Zen MP4 player. How nice, right? I should have jump up and down to get attention from the Emcee, if not, I should wave a big "Pick me! Me!" with my 350D in my hand.

Annna (the hand and the Nokia N72) was there.

phua chu kang -- day 2

2008-05-02T13:17:00.001+08:00

Day 2.

I was there again, only this time, I was there much earlier than I was the day before.

Made it into the mall around 3:15pm, 45 minutes before the show starts.

Uniquely Singapore, Uniquely yellow.

People have been waiting for the contractor to make his appearance in the mall eagerly. They waited, and waited. Anxiety was running around in the blood.

Seriously, how did they get up to the top floor in the first place? It isn't opened to the public access yet, no?

The children waited. They sure were excited.

And, finally, he has come. Phua Chu Kang has arrived!

They love Phua Chu Kang so much that they even argue over it, (at least they don't fight over it right?)

"I tell you, the boots are banana yellow! Not lemon yellow!"

So, Phua Chu Kang made his appearance on stage.

"Please make way.. thank you.."

The kids were all excited and they just rushed up to the stage, ignoring all sort of warnings beforehand. Ah... Kids...

So our Mr. Phua just had to shoo them off, the PCK way. Hehe.

So, after he got rid of the intruders, PCK started greeting the crowd, saying hello here and there.

"Hi everyone, I'm Phua Chu Kang."

"Hi everyone up there!"

So the show has begun. What happened next?

We'll be back after this.

commercial break: crazy deal

2008-05-02T11:35:00.005+08:00

Update: This ain't really a commercial break, cos I am not paid for posting this. LOL. No money involved. :P

Late Night Shopping Special is on every first Saturdays of the month.

Sheer Unique is also throwing a crazy deal that time. Do check out the details at Sheer Unique's kiosk at the Spring.

phua chu kang was in town

2008-05-01T18:24:00.004+08:00

The contractor in yellow boots was in town.

Before that, Paul and Rose, I'm gonna show you where I was. Scroll down to the picture below.

Photo credit to Paul. Thanks Paul!

Can see me or not? Big circle there leh! Hehe.. I was in Black, Nana was in Pink. The picture was taken on Day 2.

Now, Day 1.

Singapore's tourism ambassador Phua Chu Kang (or Gurmit Singh) was in town for the Uniquely Singapore weekend, which happened here at the Spring shopping mall. The event was three-day-long, but Phua Chu Kang was only featured on Saturday and Sunday.

I was there both on Saturday and Sunday.

I was held up with some issue in the afternoon, and when I got there, the show had already started. All I could see was heads blocking my view, standing in front of my line of fire. I couldn't get good shot.

Shortly after I arrived, Samantha Poh was on stage. (I missed out on Nana's turn to answer some questions off stage).

When Samantha meets Phua Chu Kang...

She stunned Phua Chu Kang himself by calling him "Chuuuuuu..". Phua Chu Kang's comical reaction drew laughter from the crowd. People just adore him.

Crowd viewing from the top

Heads everywhere.

See how far off I was from the stage? I shot all the photos in Day 1 using my EF 90-300mm USM.

Funny jokes and comical act were PCK's trademark and specialty. But, he surprised the crowd with his sensible vocal. He performed Westlife's Mandy. He sure is talented. His song would have captured all the girls' hearts out there, provided him not using the wig, the mole, and the yellow boots.

That's it for Day 1, and we'll be back for more of Day 2.

"Don't play play~!"

canon ef 50mm f/1.8 II vs 50mm f/1.4

2008-04-30T01:52:00.003+08:00

This post is a reply to Calvin's query on my c-box. Since it's a little long to type everything in the c-box, I might as well make it an entry to reply him.

I own a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II, which cost me about MYR 310, if I remember correctly. On the other hand, I haven't tried using 50mm f/1.4, so I don't have first hand experience with the f/1.4. I wouldn't know how the lens performs.

Based on my personal usage, I find f/1.8 is fine enough, providing excellent photo quality. I believe f/1.4 should have better edge in producing the bokeh. Price wise, f/1.4 costs about 4 times more than f/1.8. Based on Shashinki's price list, a f/1.4 costs about MYR 1200. The notable difference between the two is the built, f/1.8 is a standard auto lens, while f/1.4 has a USM built in. (f/1.2 is of the L series).

I managed to google on the lens comparison, the exact comparison, between the two lenses, 50mm f/1.8 II vs 50mm f/1.4 USM. Here's the entry I found on the comparison, which will eventually lead us to this forum.

There isn't much input from my own experience, but I sure hope the information would assist you in your findings.

happy birthday

2008-04-29T10:26:00.001+08:00

I wanted to to put this as a short birthday note in the previous post, but I forgot. Anyways, Happy Birthday to Louis. Have fun in KL!

extra feature: irene at lake park

2008-04-28T23:35:00.003+08:00

Short note: I had a small gathering with a few old bunch of buddies couple days ago, and man, the girls are already sharing about their thoughts and plans for the wedding day. They actually have their wedding date set. Look at me, where am I now in life? Must face the wall and reflect on what has gone wrong with me.

Some of the extras from the shoot at Lake Park.

"A must see, highly recommended." -- SomeInternationalBrand Time.
"Two thumbs up." -- Try-to-make-this-sound-cool.com

Pazuzu doing what he does best, demonstrate how the posing should be done.

I left out some of the closer look of the people there in the session.

The ever-so-cool Pazuzu.

Jimmy the JimmyChin.net

Edwin with his Nikon.

Love Journey with.. someone ahead? Ahem.. :P

Pazuzu showing his ultimate skill, can easily pwn you, k? Don't play play.

That's all, and that concludes the shoot at Lake Park. So what's next?

My new toy? Paul's Birthday? Or something else? Let me think about it over my sleep.

irene at lake park

2008-04-26T07:46:00.005+08:00

After some delay, here are Irene's photos taken from my 350D.

At first, I wasn't able to make it to the outing. But since there were slight changes to plan, I managed to squeeze this photo session through to my Sunday schedule.

I was inspired by one of Jenny Sun's recent posts in her blog, so, I took this opportunity to test it out. I would like to see how the end result would turn out to be myself.

Jenny uses her 50mm f/1.2 for her shots, and since I don't have a f/1.2 lens, I used my EF 50mm f/1.8 with my 350D instead. My personal main objective is to experiment shooting portrait with widest aperture at f/1.8. Here are some of the results.

Image properties:

ISO: 100

Aperture: f/1.8

Gotcha!

Seduction?

Look, Ma! A heart!

Played with bit of desaturation, actually more like blending a black and white layer on top of original shot.

Adjusted the Levels properties.

Weee....

I used my EF 90-300mm f/4.6-5.6 for this shot.

EF 90-300mm f/4.6-5.6

All photos were taken straight to JPEG, instead of the usual RAW. There were only minimal enhancement added to the photos, e.g. Adjusting levels, exposures, etc. No major alteration was performed.

Up next, some of the blooper shots from this session.

behind the scene: irene at lake park

2008-04-24T23:53:00.003+08:00

Okay, finally. I'm the last to post about this. Gee.

So, I have to squeeze this one in, between my pending stuff.

One fine Sunday morning, there was a photo shoot session at Lake Park, Pazuzu and Edwin arranged for the shoot. I couldn't make it at first, but somehow, I could spare some time that morning.

So, there I was, making a cameo appearance and snapped few shots.

I will show some behind-the-scene shots first.

Pazuzu.

Shen.

The big gunners - Edwin, Pazuzu and Shen.

Up next, some of the shots I took that day.

1st big apple donuts & coffee in kuching

2008-04-23T11:02:00.003+08:00

I know, I'm late in posting this.

Big Apple Donuts & Coffee has commenced its operation since 10 or 11 April 2008, and I only get to post the pictures now.

I was happened to be in the Spring one fine Saturday night, and coincidentally, I have my camera with me. I then snapped a few photos, and now, here they are, posted nicely in this blog.

The pictures here couldn't really show how crazy Kuchingnites really were, the line wasn't clear. You can't see how long the line, people could actually wait for 30 minutes and more just to buy the donuts.

I thought this could only happen to J-Co in KL.

Big Apple in Kuching.

Can't see how long the queue was, but there were surely a lot of people there!

Oh, and I didn't try the donut that night, only get to try it for the very first time when I accidentally met Irene, Jimmy and M few days later.

not quite complete

2008-04-22T22:19:00.004+08:00

Short Note: My desktop PC seems to be okay now, it isn't as slow as it was yesterday. And, I didn't do anything to fix it. Weird, huh?

I feel that it isn't quite complete without some of these shots, so I'm just gonna do a final, final round up for umm.. this entry, stretching back for about 3 weeks ago.

I must warn y'all beforehand, scroll down at your own risk. This is a PG-rated post! LOL!

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Guess who?
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I think it could be his trademark thing to do already.. -_-

Nana with a tiny, tiny cross.

I seriously find the pointing arrows weird. Hmm... Why ah?

Last but not the least, a picture with the birthday girl is a must!

Me + Nana.

a series of problems

2008-04-22T14:01:00.003+08:00

Due to the reason mentioned above, I was unable to update anything. My desktop PC is show a series of problem. For some reasons, the performance was really slow, even after defragmentation, and hard disk clean up.

I haven't had much chance to use my newly acquired Mac-hine yet. And for that reason, I haven't been able to download something, and will not be able to play DOTA with someone.

Last resort to solve the slow PC performance issue is to go through the Format + Re-install/Restore cycle, which I would love to avoid very much.

I guess I will have to put my desktop aside for now, until I got all the pending issues cleared.

Posting will resume by tonight, I hope, with my Mac-hine.

happy bud-day to ahpaul

2008-04-21T00:07:00.005+08:00

Let's take a break, cos it was ahPaul's birthday couple days ago.

I'm late in posting this, and i should add a 'belated' in the caption there, but I know ahPaul wouldn't mind. Hehehe..

Birthday boy with victory sign, posing with his birthday tiramisu. He's only one-year-young.

ahPaul turns a year bigger now! :D hehehe..

You will have to man man wait for the banner/poster from me lar. Will post more of the pic that night later. Time to sleep

End note: It's already 20 days past April. Dang! Time sure flies! >.<

i'm sorry, but i don understand..

2008-04-18T10:10:00.003+08:00

I received a call yesterday around 3:50 p.m.

The display screen on my mobile phone showed this number - +601626137xx. As soon as I answered the call, a lady greeted on the other end of the line, in a Malay language (Bahasa Malaysia).

"Hello, boleh saya cakap dengan En. Allen?" she asked.

"Yes, speaking." I said.

" Saya bla bla bla bla.... daripada ... bla bla bla.. " as she murmured away, I took another look at the caller number. It was a mobile number, and at this instance, I recalled an entry Ann did a while ago.

I put the earpiece back to my left ear, and she was still talking there. I tried hard to catch what she was trying to say, and serious, I was trying very hard!

I was just so nice, and didn't want to waste her time, so I interrupted.

"Er... I'm sorry, but I can't understand what you're saying."

Then she sounded as though she was stunned ~~by a stunner skill in DOTA~~, and tried very hard to say this line, "Er.. I will call you back later.."

"Okay."

Then the call was ended there. Haha.. well, it wasn't really my intention to end it that way. I was curious what trick they wanted to put up, but I just couldn't understand what she was trying to say.

And, guess what I never received any call after that. Haha.

There you go, something out of the ordinary to share with.

TGIF!

revolution begins here

2008-04-16T23:58:00.004+08:00

I have converted myself, by walking to the dark side in white.

The revolution has just begun.

Remember the teaser I posted couple days ago? Well, this is what it's all about. I have Apple-lised myself already, by stepping a foot into the Mac world.

I bought myself a Macbook.

More on ~~Nana's~~ my Macbook next.

update delay...

2008-04-15T01:25:00.003+08:00

I've been trying to defrag my Drive C since the weekend, and never got to complete the defragmentation even till now. -_-

Initially it stopped at 16%, and says that there are some files there are some files cannot be defrag. Then I had to do the disk cleanup, and I managed to free up to around 4GB space. Gosh, temp files stored in your Windows OS can really kill, or at least slow down your PC performance.

Since the built-in Defrag Tools ain't working, I've decided to download a third party Defrag Tool, and give it a try.

So, there will be no update just yet. It's pretty late now, so must sleep first.

Here I include a photo of the day to make up for the no update I have had since Saturday.

Photo Note: Taken at the Spring.

teaser

2008-04-13T02:18:00.002+08:00

behind the scene - speedlite: the wireless way 1.0

2008-04-11T11:14:00.002+08:00

When we run experiments, it's absolutely normal to have failed trials.

I'm gonna post few of those examples here today.

For some reason, the lighting wasn't bright enough. The slave unit was pointed directly towards the camera, and the master unit.

Lens flare resulted from the slave unit's flash. We should really avoid that.

And this too, look at JF's face, very ghouly felt, isn't it?

Scroll down to check out the behind-the-scene for this picture.

.

JF's the man behind the 'back'.

Another flare.

KY Chen, flash from beneath him.

The effects for both the photos are pretty okay.

This shot could have been executed better. If it's executed better, it would have created nicer silhouette of the object.

A little too dark, would have been nicer if the background is brighter.

That's all for my sharing this time. I hope that I can play around with wireless flash more. It sure is fun. Too bad a speedlite can burn a big hole in my pocket, so getting another unit is almost impossible at this stage.

speedlite: the wireless way 1.0

2008-04-10T07:42:00.003+08:00

I had chance to play with wireless flash when Pazuzu's Speedlite 580EX II showed up. We had experimented wireless flash before, coupling Pazuzu's unit with a Canon Speedlite 430EX, but the success rate was awful. We weren't sure why it's like that, what we did was just some trial and error experiments.

This time, we're using two units of Speedlite 580EX II, with mine as the commander/master unit, and Pazuzu's as slave unit. I must say the success rate was much better than our previous attempt.

Here are some of the photos taken that night, most of the time, we tried with the backlit effect.

Backlit = Glow.

(Above) Slave unit was placed behind Rose, and with my master unit bouncing 45 degree upwards. With the slave unit firing behind Rose, it looks as though her head was glowing.

(Above) Slave unit was again placed behind the model, I think the master unit was bouncing straight up towards the ceiling. However, the aperture for this was increased to F/8 or F/10.

(Above) Both the photos have similar setting as the one taken on Anna's.

(Above) This was one of the very first attempts that night. The backlit effect wasn't as strong as I hoped for. The aperture for this was around F/2.8.

(Above) Aperture was increased, or was it the ISO setting lowered? To be honest, I can't remember. EXIF was stripped off the image after I saved this as "Safe for Web.."

(Above) Not exactly a backlit, the slave unit was placed on my right, but behind the subject in this picture. The Speedlite was directed towards the back of the subject.

Multiple Wireless Flash.

(Above) We tried to emulate a studio's lighting setup on strobes and flash, with one unit of wireless slave flash, and the master unit bouncing towards ceiling (or was it to the right?). The flash coming from the right was a bit too much, causing some over exposure. This shot was achieved with aperture at F/2.8, and high ISO. I think it was taken at ISO-800.

(Above) Similar composition, with similar setting, except that the Aperture was tuned to higher number at around F/10.

I had fun, but Pazuzu was high. Hehe.. Just look at him on the right there. =P

p/s: The wireless flash fired off in the last picture there.

the light

2008-04-09T10:59:00.002+08:00

I saw the light...

I was playing with wireless speedlite, and I had this accidental outcome.

I will post some experiment we had that night. I sure had a lot of fun then. Hehe..

mini musical fair @ theSpring

2008-04-07T21:36:00.002+08:00

Let us rewind to Saturday, 4th April.

Before set of Pikom PC Fair, I hung aroundd the Spring while waiting for my friend. There I bump into the dynamic duo -- Irene and Jimmy.

Irene, apparently her hair goes back to normal after wash, no more OL look.

Talented young musician showing prospects with organ perfomance.

The organ performance was captured with my EF 90-300mm F/4.5-5.6 USM. Don't quite like the quality. I think it doesn't perform when it's used for indoor shots, or even low-light environment.

If not mistaken, all the shots were shot at max 300mm.

Then a er hu performance followed after the organ performance.

I like how the sunlight touches the subject here.

... and here too.

It wasn't long before my friend called. I was off to Pikom PC Fair after that.

nana bday post -- finale

2008-04-07T01:19:00.004+08:00

Warning: Pictures overloaded.

Here's the finale for Nana's birthday post, after which, I may have run out of things to blog about. I didn't make it to Wedding Touch's Bridal Fashion Show just now. I had a dinner to attend to, as when I planned to leave the dinner for the fashion show, the show was already over.

No point for me to rush over there also.

TheGirls.

The girls.

Pazuzu.. scary.

JF making a statement as he arrived -- Hello World.

Nana holding one of her gift that night. :-P

Annna and her banana.
Ways to use your banana effectively..

#1 - Use it as a telephone -- "Hello... hello.."

#2 Swing it like a golf club.

Annna and her presents.

Time to open the presents!

Gladys, JF and Eve!

Speechless...

Gladys and Annna.

Signing the poster.

Anna signing on Anna.

I'm sure she felt like a star that night.

That's the end of the post. A picture speaks a thousand words, that explains the little captions and text in this post.

pikom pc fair @ kuching 2008

2008-04-06T09:38:00.005+08:00

I was there.

I toured the hall for one round.

And I left - empty handed.

Pikom PC Fair is only held once a year in Kuching since few years ago, and it is held at the same o' venue ever since.

The location is pretty strategic, but the quality of the venue could have been better. Organizers turned this car-park into a exhibition hall, and in my opinion, the place is bit too small. I hope there will be a better choice for such event in near future, maybe a convention center?

I was told about the air conditioning in the hall this time round was bad. It seems the air condition wasn't working well. Or, was it because of the crowd in the hall?

There is only one thing in my mind -- CompactFlash card for my DSLR, but I knew the price here in Kuching is so blardy expensive. I didn't even bother asking. For some reason, it's so much overpriced. I'd rather order it online, or get it from KL. It's not worth getting it here, cos with the retail price here, you buy two items in KL. (I should have snapped a picture of the item with price tag there.)

The Participating Exhibitors

The booth is nicer this time round, nicely designed and made, and there are a lot more vendors/exhibitors coming up with good looking booth compared to last time.

I think these booths can be better complemented with a better venue.

We still lack the presence of cute promoters here. The only exhibitors with presentable promoter outfit is from Kingston. And that's it.

The Brand

There are even companies flying in from KL/Peninsular to participate in the fair. Irene bought her new toys from a KL exhibitor.

It sounds like it's quite a bargain for her Dell XPS M1530.

Toshiba

Robin has been telling me a trillion times that he doesn't understand why Toshiba notebook in Malaysia is so much overpriced. The price is so much different than they have it back in Australia. And one more notable difference is the keyboards used for notebooks in Malaysia, looks so much cheapskate than the ones used for Australia's.

We only get white, rubber-like material for the keyboard built here. But for the Australia ones, they have metalic, and solid keyboard, which make the notebook a class above the rest.

The Crowd

It was crowded in the hall. But I guess that's mainly because how the booths are arranged, and the hall size has something to do with that too. Remember, Permata Carpark Building is a carpark, not exhibition hall.

There's bottle neck at certain areas in the hall. People had to squeeze through the crowd just to make way over to the other side. There are customers (especially) blocking the pathway, while checking the items out.

~~You might be able to feel how narrow the path is over there from the photos in this post.~~
I didn't get to snap the narrow areas, cos it was so narrow that I couldn't even wield my ~~weapon~~ camera out for snapshots. =P

Flash Memory Drive

Flash Drive has gone cheaper and cheaper over the time. How much does a Gigabyte cost nowadays?

MYR 17.00

I used to buy a 2GB at about MYR 50, and with that price now, I can get myself a 4GB capacity. Cheap eh?

That's all for the PC Fair. My only loot from the fair is just the photographs posted in this entry.

pikom pc fair @ kuching

2008-04-05T11:09:00.002+08:00

I'll be going over to ~~see see look look~~ walk walk see see later..

Finale will resume after I'm back from PC Fair. :-D

finale for nana's bday post...

2008-04-04T00:10:00.004+08:00

.... is retimed.

I have to delay it to a later time cos I have to wake up early tomorrow (Friday).

So, it's just another photo of the day for this post.

Both the old folks are sure happy to witness the joyous moment in the family.

This shot taken at one of the latest wedding I covered recently.

nana bday action highlight 2.0

2008-04-02T22:52:00.003+08:00

Warning: More pichas in this post.

Let us continue with the highlights of the night, and let's get started with something light.

JF posing with Nana.

Nana & Joel series.

Cute?

Let's do the Ultraman! *Zaaaaapp!!!*

Nana seems lost striking an Ultraman pose, but Joel knows the best.

Eve.

I personally quite like this one.

And we have.. Spot the similarity -- CKY edition part 2. =P

Ultranana got excited a bit here. =P

Excitement #1.

Rose aka ahlost presenting the present to birthday girl!

Excitement #2.

Ride of the night goes to....

Joel riding on Tim!

Then, we also have the Nana-kena-tortured session. Pity her la.

Poor girl. Kesian. She dislikes that thing they fed.

Will round up Nana's birthday in next post. :-) Stay tuned.

nana bday action highlight.

2008-04-02T16:36:00.007+08:00

Yup it's still posts on Nana's birthday. Hmm.. I hope you guys aren't getting bored with post on Nana's birthday. :-P It's been few posts in a row now.

Hehe. What to do? So much to show from that day. And I reckon these are the highlights not to be missed. :-D

I think I forgot to mention her in the previous posts, I didn't even posted her pic. Paiseh, sorry..

Vivian aka ahGe

Okay, let's do the highlight for that night.

Highlight #1: Eve did a sexy strike -- thumb-licking action. =P

Hightlight #2, 3 and 4 are from this dynamic duo -- Frankie & Alvin.

Best is below here..

"I won't let you go.. zuzu.. "

And this could easily win you the "Best Couple Pic" award.

I know, I know, it seems my blog here is a bit overdose with Nana's picha. :-P But I think it's never boring to see her expression. Hehe.. So cute!

Normal mode.

Uno more! Cute Mode.

And to balance out the flow, I'm including an abstract piece as the random picture of the day:

Try guessing what it is, and where this pic is taken? :-D Anyone?

nana bday part two

2008-04-02T00:17:00.005+08:00

More of those who made their appearance in Nana's nest.

Tim (aka twvsk) with his Nikon.

KY Chen.

Frankie aka funkye.

Rose aka ahlost.

One of the reason my camera loves Nana's because she has wide range of facial expression.

Expression #1.

Expression #2.

Hehe.. Nice right?

And I love this a lot, just look at her. I think she's cute in this picha! The pose, the expression and the hair.

I should round this up with in the next two posts, or probably just one more.

And here's a random picture of the day:

Photo note: Photo was taken on long shutter exposure, and was taken during my last visit to Tao cafe. The camera was mounted on my then-tripod, before it died off, and before I got my Digipod.

ultranana birthday number double two

2008-03-31T22:53:00.003+08:00

More update from nana's birthday. I have about 200+ shots, after filtering. And here's some of the highlights. :D

Hehe.. Wanna update this before March ends. I have got only an hour to do so. The time's 10:59PM now.

Some of the blogger-gang made time to taste UltraNana's cooking. Here are just a few of them:

Alvin aka Pazuzu.

Eve!

Gladys, KY Chen aka Chinaman, me & JF (and there're more ppl in the reflection behind us)

Sharon & Gladys, with Tim holding his Nikon.

UltraNana: "SWT!!! Banana.... On second thought, maybe can make pisang goreng. Huehuehue.."

Nana unrolling some scroll...

And.. it's a poster..

Anna & Anna.

Some more to post when April comes. :-D

annna's double two @ her nest

2008-03-30T15:15:00.003+08:00

It was her birthday on the 28th.

She joins the rank of double two.

And she also had a new look, new hair.

She is Annna!

A few shots taken on that day.

The birthday girl.

Blowing the double two.

Yummy, Oreo cheese cake.

Nana and Joel.

Lastly, a random sky pic of the day:

A very unique Kuching sunset.

God is such a beautiful painter. More to post on Nana's birthday next.

sigma wide 10-20mm F/4.0-5.6

2008-03-28T07:07:00.005+08:00

Time for update!

Was going thru the pile of photos I took sometime ago. I tested Pazuzu's Sigma 10-20mm on my 350D, and randomly fired off the shutter.

See, the distortion can be used to your creative edge.

The ultramonkey cartoon is courtesy of Annna, and it's here with a purpose to beautify the picture shown above. =P

Pazuzu, posing with that wide angle lens.

And it's 28th March today, so it's Annna's Birthday! Happy Birthday Annna!

Last but not the least, Annna's ultramonkey pose.

End Note: I've been rather busy, so the blog's update is still quite irregular.

photos of the day

2008-03-24T02:44:00.004+08:00

Pictures of the Day

Try guessing where this is taken?

This entry shall feature another photo of the day...

This is Borneo's famous monkey -- The Porboscis Monkeys

malay traditional wedding outfit

2008-03-22T01:13:00.005+08:00

Back in March 2007, I was at Old Court House, Kuching for a Bridal Fair. The organizer arranged a wedding fashion show, catering all ethnics in Malaysia.

It's quite rare to see Malay traditional outfit on the runway. So, I thought I could share some photos I took back then with you. Furthermore, I don't think I have posted those shots before. Hehe.

The photos were taken with kit lens - EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 and zoom lens EF 90-300 f/4.5-5.6. I haven't got EF 50mm f/1.8 back then.

I like the smoke at the background, making her entrance looks much grander.

Traditional outfit are filled with a lot of details on the fabrics.

I haven't got a chance to shoot a Malay wedding before, but I'm sure it'll be quite an experience if chances arise in future.

free seats by airasia.com

2008-03-21T11:37:00.003+08:00

Air Asia offered 50,000 free seats for all domestic flights.

I managed to grab a couple tickets myself to fly to Kuala Lumpur, and was even tempted to get tickets to Kota Kinabalu, cos it's so darn cheap when it doesn't cost a single ringgit. You only need to pay the airport tax.

I have booked mine, have you booked yours? Booking period ends today.

End Note: Again, I have bad track record flying with AirAsia, they may boast their high percentage (improved) performance in their website, but it reflects otherwise with my personal experience. I hope they don't disappoint me again.

happy birthday to smashpop

2008-03-21T00:22:00.004+08:00

Wish-list:
- Mac is March in BM, and I'm thinking of March in BM.
- allenang.com is under construction. Will be focusing on that soon, hopefully.

Was reading Smashpop's blog.

And I read about this entry.. So I decided to follow Pop instruction. See if he could give me a header design for my upcoming project. Hehe..

Happy Birthday to 25-year-young SmashPop!

tribute to lil' guy

2008-03-20T13:34:00.003+08:00

This is a tribute serve to a little guy we've known for a while.

and the name is..

... xiao huang (小黄).

She'll miss him alright.

The happier times.

consider yourself lucky if u see this =P

2008-03-20T10:36:00.006+08:00

Location: Permai Beach
Model: Irene

End Note: Click image for larger view. (I have saved the image for Web use, so file size is smaller already. This is in response to the complaint lodged by Irene herself.) Thanks for feedback

something better than kungfu dunk

2008-03-18T21:55:00.006+08:00

As my experiment continues, I thought that we were actually much, much better than what the J-dude could offer in KungFu Dunk.

He wore like Peja Stojakovic, but didn't shoot like him. At least not in this sequence. Hehe. But one thing for sure, He was on fire that night.

All the shots posted here are not edited, unless stated.

The edited one (above) shows my good o' friend made a crazy attempt to shoot the ball.

So I fired freely for a bit, cos I was waiting for my turn to get back into the game. I lost the opening match. LOL! Not much to talk about really, just fire the shutter away...

I think the lighting in the hall isn't bright enough. If not, I may need better body for higher ISO capability to do such shots. I wonder how the photographers shoot in NBA games. The lightings there are much better?

Jay-C, this is how you dunk! =P

Can you feel the game?

Game on again next Monday!

experiment - no flash + F/1.8 on 350D

2008-03-18T07:15:00.006+08:00

Birthday Note: Happy Birthday to you. :-)

Time for update!

A total workout is what I need at the moment, to tone down my physical size now. And, that is what I got on Sunday.

I went for a Counter-Strike live version on Sunday! LOL. Just kidding. I was at Pasir Pandak for a Paintball session. I didn't bring my camera gear along, cos I thought it was a bad idea, I don't want my camera to be a war casualty right? Some more I don't have a xiao bai (EF 70-200mm F/2.8L IS). Haha..

So, there's no picture to the activity that day. Click here for the website/blog for Borneo Paintball Scenario. I think Ehon wrote about it before.

After getting muddied on Sunday, I went back to my basketball routine on Monday.

I thought it'd be nice to try out some photography setting. I only have a lens capable for the setting.

I started out with F/2.8 and ISO-400, it was dark, even I enhanced the aperture to F/1.8 on ISO-400, it wasn't that nice as well.

I don't have those photos with me, cos I deleted them straight from camera! =P I forgot to leave it for sampling.

Anyways, here are some shots, and the image properties captioned within the pictures. All photos are just as it is straight from camera.

I shot the photos all to JPEGs, no editing or correction done to the photos.

Sequential (Continuous) Burst Shots II

Sequential (Continuous) Burst Shots II

A few more to share in next post.

photo of the day

2008-03-14T00:32:00.004+08:00

Location: Permai Beach.

the right way to dine in KFC

2008-03-13T00:34:00.003+08:00

LOL.

Been busy, so not real update just yet. Meanwhile, I'll have JF to demonstrate the right way to dine in KFC.

Look at the pic below.

Please don't hesitate to click for larger view! LOL!

apple aperture 2.0

2008-03-11T00:43:00.005+08:00

Apple Aperture was regarded as the professional alternative to iPhoto, which came as one of the components in the iLife suite.

Not long ago, Apple has had Aperture revised to version 2.0.

After going through the review, it sounds as though this is one software which can effectively improve your workflow, and definitely increase your efficiency. I haven't tried Aperture original version, but I have had hands on experience with iPhoto, and the amateur version was very impressive.

However, Aperture 2.0 is only available for Mac platform. There is no Windows version.

You can read more about this product in their official website -- Apple.com/Aperture

Alternatively, you can try this product from Adobe -- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. It provides similar functionality as the ones of Aperture.

The only difference is, Aperture is exclusively available on Mac OS, whereas Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is available for both platform -- Windows and Mac OS.

yes, i do

2008-03-09T08:53:00.003+08:00

Short Talk: It was election day on 8 March, and we may be witnessing a political tsunami this time round. Unfortunately, I didn't set a good example to follow, as I didn't register myself to vote. I should have done it earlier.

I received a red bomb, aka wedding invitation, last month, and here some of the many shots I took on that day.

I think I seriously need a couple new gears to improve my workflow, to increase my efficiency, and to produce better quality.

one delievered

2008-03-06T20:38:00.003+08:00

I've been quite busy lately, and still am. I've just got one task checked out from the to-do list, had it delivered. And I have quite a few more to go. It's hard to catch breath again.

I'm sharing a few photos I took end of last year. It was my first trial on wedding banquet with my EF 50mm F/1.8 lens.

Embrace.

Toast.

Smile.

Oh, in case any of you wonders, the wedding was between Kim and Enoch. :-)

picture of the day

2008-03-06T01:19:00.003+08:00

Short note: A newborn is expected in the family by end of 2008. So happy! I'll be uncle by then.

A random picture of the day here.

Can you guess where this photo is taken?