Thought of the day

I thank whatever gods may be / For my unconquerable soul. / I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul. ~William Ernest Henley, Invictus

Government's promises are like the Ringgit, they depreciate with time.



Sunday, June 28, 2009

Infrared Photography

Saw some photos taken with IR film exhibited in the library some time ago and the dramatic effect prompted me to experiment it with some old photos in PS.






乌贼路 Lorong Sotong??

Some cinapek approached me and asked where is 乌贼路 (Lorong Sotong) in Singapore and it caused me ponderous time to search high and low for this street in the directories.

Thanks to the PRC slank.

It's actually Orchard Road. %!#?$%#~*

Anyway, here is the legendary prawn noodle which is said to have draw 10,000 patrons almost every night back in those days when the owner was still operating at an open air food court along Orchard.


You can find it at Food Republic @ Wisma Atria, Orchard Road. Bon apetite.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Unguarded Moments

In Singapore, they can celebrate almost about anything. This time, it's the Singapore River Festival!

We intended to checkout Kangxi Emperor exhibition first and then visit Steve McCurry's photo exhibition, both at ACM. This is the Steve who shot the iconic "Afghan Girl".

Steve McCurry - Self Portrait.

The moment we reached ACM, there was a long queue to the Kangxi gallery. We joined the line but seconds later, Willy Foo walked up to me and asked if I were heading for Steve's gallery instead. I think he spotted my camera bag. Willy is Singapore's top event photographer and I had attended one of his workshop on Photoshop CS4, which he conducted FOC. Due to the overwhelming crowd, we decided to change course and headed to Steve's exhibition hall. Surprisingly, the guru was there to give out prizes to the winners of his photography contest.

Some of the entries for the competition. The standard of the pictures are very high according to the organizer. "Outstanding" and "Astounding" were the terms used. However, as I scanned through the entries, I can't help but to notice some very lame pictures. Some are very weird. Can you spot it?

Here, see? Guess what?

It's Kenny Sia! Hahahaha.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Baby Sakyamuni

There were people everywhere, crowding the dolphin lagoon bay, trying to catch a glimpse of the pink dolphins as the dorsal fins occasionally break the water. I was a few rows back with CM waiting for the show to start. My telelens was on, and I was trying to sneak a snap of others like a paparazzi. I swerved to my right, and there she was, with a pair of glistening eyes fixated on me, lying peacefully in her mother’s arm.

Brick by brick

Walking along the same path, some giants strode centuries ago. And I thought to myself, “How did they come thus far and carve out a way to success?”

Two things learnt this week: The law of physic is unbendable. Trust is essential and hard to come by.

Hopefully it’s just the occasional thorns and thickets everyone runs into every now and then in life. So, I will just withdraw myself for the moment, hibernate to recuperate. Crouch and wait, until I am more certain.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Oh no!

Burnt my fingers today...the "cut loss" muscle is still not strong enough:p
股海无涯,回头是岸。

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Lucky lucky

A switch of hand within 2 days and I am 600 bucks richer this month. Too bad, this can't be replicated everyday. From my 2 cents, the trick is concentrated counters, punch in with volume and a couple of ticks later you can withdraw the net and count your fishes.

And my portfolio return is now 10.2993%:) Sort of know why most unit trust funds would require 3 years to be able to generate capital return. Time to go back to the numbers crunching and screen out some quality companies for my portfolio.

Adios!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Well managed...but er...lots of make-up

CM's sister and her boyfriend are in town and we "as a matter of factly" became their tour guides. Very little things to do in a short 2 days trip here. So we went to Jurong Bird Park, which sadly, I didn't bring my telelens. What a waste. The Night Safari was ok...and Sentosa is really a cut throat.
I hate to be tall...because part of my head gets chopped off most of the time. Gerrram.
Putting this up because out of 1xx shots taken, this is the only one CM commented,"There is something about this picture." Really grateful for the consolation, because not everybody has the eyes of a photograher...tq.

(Front to back) CM's sister, CM's sister's boyfriend, CM's sister's and CM's sister's boyfriend's tour guide for the day.

What fascinates me in this pic is that a child this young is wearing a glasses. Looks like Harry Potter, except that the hair isn't black and the perut buncit a bit:p Damn cute, in cantonese I think we will describe him as," Fey toot toot."? Hahahaha...

This is a common beach view in Singapore with ships and cranes lining up the sea horizon. Well, these are the honey pots of this little nation.

From hearsay, once Singapore was separated from Malaysia, Lee Kuan Yew immediately chartered an economist from Wall Street and an engineer from Japan. The economist advised Lee that the first thing that Singapore must do is to sustain itself - to make money. And without any natural resources, they capitalized on their strategic position in the heart of Southeast Asia and built one of the busiest ports in the world. When the cash started to roll in like nobody's business, then the Nihon engineer is tasked with infrastructure planning.

Today, they have all sorts of man-made marvels like the Merlion, the beaches at Sentosa...And tourists are pouring in from all over the world from what I observed (to be fair, it's school holiday lar), just to catch a glimpse of the legendary lion and fish hybrid, and they don't mind to swim along titanic container ships in the sea. Looking back at the lacklustre manner Bolehland promotes its tourism and the lackadaisical operations at the tourism spots, I think we have a chance to cash in more with our natural waterfalls, highlands, beaches and even historical sites simply with a change of attitude and management.

Or a change of government, maybe?

Monday, June 8, 2009

Come on, come on, you can do it.

Am glad that my alma mater is doing something to live up to the "Aspired to be a world class university" slogan. It's the second conference and I was honoured to meet some of the professors and friends.


Apart from the participation from numerous local uni, we have some attendees from the UK, US, India, Bangladesh, Iran, Indonesia, Japan. Although not many, but I expect to see more to join this conference in years to come.

UTM Boleh!

Friday, June 5, 2009