photos

i have added in quite a few photos on my online photo album. here are some previews. hope you like them...

this is a night shot of the city from 51 storey up. it was a weekend thus the lights on most of the buildings were not fully on.

day scene with the esplanade in sight

it was more than 20 years since i last stepped into the chinese garden. even though the gardens are about 15 mins walk from my home, i still have not made the short walk for ages. today, i decided to pop in and the pagoda shot above is just 1 of the photos i took.

i took these with my new toy and i hope that you enjoyed the photos as much as i did taking them.

handphones

handphones or if you rather, you can call them mobile phones, have become an integral part of our lives. i believe the number of handphone subscribers is equalvent to about 90% of our population. its possible, considering that some of us have more than 1 mobile line.

i remember that my 1st handphone was obtained when i was in uni. that was, oh about, 10 years ago, plus minus. nowadays, i hear my colleagues complaining about their children chalking up high mobile phone bills due to them talking or sms-ing on their mobile. we are talking about kids who are about 13 years old. man... they are starting out really early now, at least 10 years earlier than me. i guess i got to move with the times.

the thing that really got me amazed was the fact that the parents are fearful of imposing measures to cut down their children's talk/sms time. apparantly, the handphone is now as much a part of their lives, it is actually their lives. my colleague claimed that when he threatened to take away his son's mobile, his son exclaimed,"then you might as well take my life!" it has become that serious. we have colleagues warning each other to be careful when dealing with these mobile phone kids, since it can cause some very extreme reactions when you try to curb their usage.

as parents, they have other considertions, of course. mobile phone bills of over $100 are not unusual, with the number of sms showing up as over 1000 per month. i wonder if the clinics are seeing a raising number of cases of young patients reporting that they have sore thumbs?

I'm not sure... i'm just now sure... hmmm... how we have fallen prey to the mobile technology generation...

oh, did i mention to you that i intend to change to a new mobile this week?

blogging again...

its been sometime, i must admit since i last blogged. i wonder if anyone missed me. just that there was not much to blog about. or was it just a case of being too lazy to blog? i wonder...

after a couple of months of thinking and researching, i finally made put down the money for a new digital camera. its costing me 950 big ones but it has been something that i wanted to buy for long now. its a step up for me but i think its a step i wanna take. i am always very impress with some of the pictures taken but some of my friends. i do know that the camera does not matter, i repeat, the camera does not matter, it just helps you to do certain things faster and easier. go google for 'ken rockwell' and you can read up all the technical stuff in there. lots of interesting things if you want to know more about photography.

anyway, i expect to take delivery of my camera by this week and i hope to do a bit more photo blogging in time to come. hope that i can have lots of nice photos for you in time to come.

stay tuned...

the music was loud in the car, and it had to be, to drown out the rain. it had been raining since early this morning and it was almost 8pm now.

over 12 hours of non-stop rain. bet there were quite a few areas that were experiencing flooding right now, he thought to himself. traffic was fairly light, considering that it was a weekday. most of the working population must have gone on leave, since this was a short working week. 3 days of leave will give you 9 days of rest, a good deal by anyone's standard.

there was no letting up from the rain and in fact, as he drove on, it rained even harder. just then a motorbike zoomed passed and in a flash it was almost out of sight.
the rider must be in a real hurry to be somewhere because this was the sort of weather that even a car driver would stay home in. hope nothing happens to him.

as he drove on for another 5 minutes, he started to realised that visibility was getting from bad to worse. he could barely make out the car in front. it did not help that his car wipers were faulty and they could only work at just 1 speed, turtle speed. to carry on driving was just crazy. he knew that up ahead, there was a flyover and it was a perfect place to stop. many bikes stop there for shelter from the rain. i guess this would be one of the rare times when you see a car stop to shelter from the rain.

he just made it to under the flyover as the rain started to lash down with even greater intensity. strangely enough, there was only 1 bike there. as things will have it, it was exactly the same bike that had zoomed pass before.
he stopped his car just a few metres behind the bike. he saw that the rider had dismounted and was busy sms-ing on his phone. he decided to stop the engine and came out of the car. the wind was blowing hard and he could feel rain but it was rather invigorating.

'nice bike you have there.' he spoke to the rider, trying to make small talk. it was a nice looking bike and he had no doubts that it rode as well as it looked. the engine looked big enough to make those small china cars engines look tiny.
the rider looked at him and just nodded his head.
as he walked a little closer to the rider, it was then that he realised that the rider was clad in a full leather suit and he looked rather smart in that. just that something was not really right... something looked out of the ordinary, just by looking at the suit itself. he could not seem to place it and while he was starring - he did not realise it himself - the mystery unveiled itself. the rider took off his full face helmet to reveil a her. oops, looked like he starred a little too hard. he quickly looked away but it was too late. she came walking over. he felt ashamed.

she came over, looked him over and then she suddenly grab his right hand. she held it palm up with one hand and she reached for something in her pocket, all the time she looked straight in his eyes. strangely, he did not feel the need to react. he just stood there with his hand out and waited. she took out a pen and began to write something on his palm. once done, she looked up at him again and then gave a smile. the next thing he knew, she had put on her helmet as she walked back to her bike. she mounted and started it up and she zoomed off, the same way she had zoomed into his life. by now, the rain had lighten to a slight drizzle.

he stood there for a full minute, just looking at the red taillight of the bike as it motored out of sight. he stood there somemore, even after the lights had faded long ago. then he slowly looked at what she had wrote in his hand. he smiled. he turned and headed back to his car. he started it and the music started again. loud enough to be heard by anyone outside. he started to sing along as he drove off.

"Digital Love"

Last night I had a dream about you
In this dream I'm dancing right beside you
And it looked like everyone was having fun
the kind of feeling I've waited so long

Don't stop come a little closer
As we jam the rythm gets stronger
There's nothing wrong with just a little little fun
We were dancing all night long

The time is right to put my arms around you
You're feeling right
You wrap your arms around too
But suddenly I feel the shining sun
Before I knew it this dream was all gone

Ooh I don't know what to do
About this dream and you
I wish this dream comes true

Ooh I don't know what to do
About this dream and you
We'll make this dream come true

Why don't you play the game ?
Why don't you play the game ?
-daft punk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N689QWwYJj4

break in

someone broke into my house on saturday morning. yep, you heard me right.

it was at about 8 plus in the morning. can you imagine that, in broad daylight? i was sleeping soundly because i was working till about 4am. i suddenly heard some commotion and my mum shouting. i leaped out of bed and ran downstairs. i saw my mum trying to open the front the door and i noticed that the window in the dinning area was opened. i immediately knew that something was wrong since we almost never open that set of windows. my mum was also shouting 'robbery! robbery!' and thus that sort of confirmed everything.

i followed her out the door, trying to catch a glimpse of the burgalar. no signs of him at all. i called the police next and the arrived after 10 minutes. they came and started to take down my mum's statement and they got a inspector and a fingerprint expect enroute.

I heard my mum's statement. she was sleeping when she heard some loud noise, sort of like somemore opening and closing drawers. she did not think much of it because our neighbours upstairs are known to be rather noisy. but she started to have a bad feeling so she got out of bed. she opened her bedroom back and she saw a man just walking down the stairs. he was dressed in bright yellow traditional malay costume. she was stunned for a while because she could not make out who was this person. then she suddenly realised that it was not right and she started shouting at the man. the man quickly jumped on the dinning table and out the window, same way he came in from. that was when i was awoken and i saw my mum chasing him, but through the front door.

the police was at my place for the next 3 hours. the inspector came and he asked my mum somemore questions. they then went around to the rest of my neighbours and asked if anyone had seen anyone suspicious. it was quite surprising even to them that it took place at 8am, in broad daylight. apparantly, one of my neighbours opposite my house saw a man wearing a bright yellow traditional costume but he did not suspect anything. it is after all, hari raya period.

my mum did not think much of it till much later in the day. she must have realised how lucky she was since the man could have easily hurt her instead of running away. she is now quite afraid because the window locks have proved to be quite unreliable. i will need to get something to secure the windows even more. she now sleeps with her bedroom door locked because she remembered that the man actually opened her door.

sometimes, we just think that everything is safe and good. sometimes, we just take things for granted, in this case, security. who can imagine that this will happen? scary...

lucky man

i watched tv12 last night and there was this program where they interviewed actors. michael j fox, of back to the future fame, was the interviewee last night.

he started out with the bubble gummy role of marty macfly in 3 back to future movies but he began to came into his own as he grew older. unfortunately, he is more remembered as the actor who had parkinson's disease at a young age. I believe he must be something like just over his 40s and he already had parkinson's for many years.

so there he was being interviewed and he was talking about how lucky he was. in fact, he had written a book titled 'lucky man'. all the proceeds from the book will go to the foundation he had setup for research into parkinson's.

there was one part of his answer that i remembered deeply.

he said to imagine a room of people standing in a circle. then they were all told to put their problems into the centre of the circle, out for everyone to see. after that, they were told to take one problem, any one, from the centre back for themselves. they will all take back their own problem. sometimes, we just don't realise how lucky we are.

many ways

there are many ways to do a single thing.
you are alone and yet you are not that alone.
no man is an island...


no doubt in our lives, there are many times when we feel that we alone. and yet, if you were to look back, were you really alone? at the very least, your parents, family was always there for you. just that many a times, we just choose to be alone. that is what i feel. i know, because i have been there. then again, you can always just say i don't, but hey, we all live our own lives.

by living our lives, does that mean that you have nothing to do with him and her, and she with them and them with the rest? i always believe that we are individuals and yet so much a group. do you think that you can just leave your friends of 5 years and uproot to another country, with your friends feeling sad that they could be missing a friend? do you think that when you cry alone when something bad happened, you are crying alone? you probably are, because no one else knows about it. but i bet you if given the chance, there will be lots of people who would cry with you and at the end of it all, lend a shoulder for you to rest that wary hear. we just keep to ourselves, thats all.
no man is an island.

you may think that you are a tiny little pebble in the big scheme of things, but think about the ripples you will cause when you are dropped into a pond. the ripple effects affect every part of that pond.

there are 2 ways to get out of a hole. one was to actually imagine and think of all the wonderful things that are waiting for you if you get out of that hole.
the other was to think of all the things that are being affected if you still remind in the hole. by things, i mean the people, sans you yourself, that are affected. sometimes, we just don't know but you can bet that your family is being affected, just that they are family, so they let you be.

so there is the negative aspects that slaps you awake or the positive nice portions that charms you out of the hole. to me, either one will do, as long as the end result is that you are out of your hole.

jake: how did you managed to get out of that hole you dug for yourself? it was quite a bad thing and i have seen you taking it pretty badly. i thought you will never be able to climb out of it.

jack: i thought that i were be stuck in there for forever too. it was damn bad.

jake: so what happened?

jack: i saw the faces around me and how they feel sad with me...

jake: don't you mean feel sad for you?

jack: none. i mean feel sad with me. outsiders feel sad for me. family and close friends feel sad with me. on top of that, i just tell myself to get out, because i hate being stuck in that hole. so i just climb out of it and walked away. then i realised that sometimes, i still came back and looked back down into the hole. and when i did, it threatened to suck me back in. so one day, i went back with a shovel and buried the hole. now there is no hole. and i have no been back since.

jake: must have been difficult for you huh?

jack: it was.

jake: you must be one of the lucky ones.

jack: luck had nothing to do with it. look at that guy, he is driving a merc and he owns his own software house. does that make him a lucky person?

jake: sort of, isn't it?

jack: but did you know that he and his wife has been wanting children for a few years now but they can't? some problems with him.

jake: thats unlucky.

jack: maybe not. he and his wife are very much in love, so they still have each other. luck? sometimes its what we make of things we have, i guess....