Weekend was just pure relaxation for once in a long while.

On Saturday was out to see a Malaysian cultural festival at City Square in the city. There was plenty of Malaysian music and food. There was also a stage showcasing Malaysian dresses. Brought my 70-200mm lens and while it’s one big ass lens, it sure does a good job of keeping your hands steady due to the weight of the lens. The bokeh is less harsh on this lens compared with my 28-200 and at f/4 (the 70-200, my 28-200 only allows a minimum of f/5.6 at 200mm) still produces pleasing results.

There were also a few dances and I got managed some nice shots but am lazy to post them all, heh.

and martial arts. Framing is still a little difficult with the lens but I have found that shots I’ve liked from people’s portfolios tend to be on the long end of the zoom.

Performances aside, there was also plenty of Malaysian cuisine on sale, from the various types of kuih to nasi lemak. There was probably more but there were so many people and I was so busy taking photos I didn’t notice much. Heh.

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On a side note, don’t know if I mentioned it but a few months ago I inherited a bicycle from a friend (well, I got it at a good price) but hardly took it out for a ride. The first time I tried I was lugging my camera bag and tripod. Not only was I an unstable mass with a weird centre of gravity, it was freezing and I managed to get only a trip around the park outside my apartment before my knuckles were frozen from gripping the handle bars. That first bad experience plus my phobia of cycling alongside cars on the street made me paranoid about cycling around on the bike. I was also paranoid about theft as I needed to lock my bicycle on a lampost or some object that’s stuck to the ground. The amount of locks and keys my friend left me seemed daunting at first.

Now it’s a few months later and I needed to go to Vyanne’s place. Didn’t fancy walking and out of being spontaneous, just picked up the bike, put on my helmet and rode off! Well, cycling is an exhilarating experience and once you get on the road on the bicycle lane, it’s more a sense of wonder than anything you else as you feel the breeze blowing straight at your face. Slicing through air feels good and you can feel the adrenaline pumping through you.

Cycling is fun and the bonus is that I get free exercise without the need to actually allocate time to do it. For me to be motivated to do something, it has to serve a greater purpose, and getting from point A to B seems motivational enough. Heh. I’ve only done it for two days and I can feel certain muscles aching when I move about (shows how little exercise most of my muscles get). My body eye coordination is still terrible but I still manage to get around with ease and that’s the really fun part.

Let’s just hope I keep it up.

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Made my way into the city today to do some window shopping. Well, it was supposedly “window” shopping. Had an intent to get a Nintendo Gameboy Micro. Last remembered seeing it in Myer for AUD$80, which was astoundingly affordable. Went to a few shops to compare prices and nowhere was it selling so cheap. When I finally arrived at Myer I knew my luck would run out. They didn’t have the item in stock. Heh, I have always fancied playing games and while the Sony Playstation Portable is a technological marvel, it does not enamour itself to me due to the sheer size of it (it’s like holding a slightly oversized gamepad), the less than durable construction (all screens have a knack of being scratched if left unprotected) and most of all, the crummy battery life (3 hours tops? Do I have to recharge it every single day?). On the other hand, the Gameboy Micro was small and lasted 10 hours on a single charge and there were a few other technical issues about it that made it attractive. You’d think that the technologically superior PSP (Playstation Portable) would beat the crap out of all other portable gaming consoles but it lags in market share compared to Nintendo’s Gameboy and DS systems. Why? Just like why Apple’s iPod takes such a large chunk of market share in portable music. Both have common ideas that make them so great. They are simple and so easy to use, you can just unwrap it, chuck the manual aside and within minutes, start enjoying yourself with the device (well, maybe not everyone will do that but it comes close). The PSP is like having a portable PS2 in your backpack, but because of all these advancements, you have to wait for games to load and the higher end games will soak the battery like a sponge due to the high processing requirements. The PSP can be a do all device, running Linux and a web browser or watching movies. Nintendo’s devices don’t claim to do any of that. All it does is allows you to play games and it passes with flying colours in that department. The PSP tries to be a jack of all trades and doesn’t really do any one thing too well.

Heh, all this is based on read reviews, but I have enough experience with new gadgets to know what I like and don’t like about devices. It’s like when I advise someone on what to get for their computer and they refuse to listen, preferring instead to buy into what the marketing department churns out. Well, getting back on track, I never got myself a new gadget, but ended up getting a much cheaper cookbook. Procured myself a Jamie Oliver cookbook that has tons of recipes and what to do with the various types of ingredients out there. Cooking is like a semi obsession to me now, and the most important thing to me is a proper gas stove. You can’t cook properly unless you use gas as electric stove tops just don’t produce enough heat or adjust temperatures fast enough to meet the requirements for getting food to taste good.

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Goodness, haven’t been so chatty or expressive in a long while. Must have been feeling suppressed all this while. Heh.

Nothing much to write, other than to post this pic below. I liked the clouds and the colours, but there wasn’t enough sharpness in it to make it as a full blown pic.

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I like Fridays. You’re just more motivated to get up and get going to finish the day with a bang. Then you have the weekends to get all excited about. Heh.

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Digging the whole web design thing again. A little more systematic in approach. Spend too much time overpromising, underdelivering. Will make a squeak if I do churn out a design.

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If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride

Got my lens on Monday. Got my new PC upgrade on Monday.

Heh, as a techie, I look forward to work now. The new PC is fast AND is actually capable of multitasking. Gone are the days of exploding Excel spreadsheets that die in a ball of flame. No more waiting for the computer and I really do save around 30 to 40 minutes each day without having to need to wait for the computer. Just need to get the usual lot of work done so that I can experiment with more process improvement. Running Excel macros on the new PC should be a joy. Heh, it also comes with two 19″ LCD monitors, which doesn’t add to screen estate space compared to a 17″, but it does allow anyone from halfway across the room to see what I’m doing.

My “new” lens is awesome. It came nicely packed in rounds and rounds of bubble wrap and padding. You can imagine the glee on my face as I opened it up, like what you’d normally expect children to do during Christmas morning as they tear down their presents. My Sigma 70-200 APO HSM lens (APO for apochromatic or something, and HSM is they hypersonic motor) is amazing. With a f/2.8 constant aperture, shutter speed has become less of an issue as I am able to take shots. Sharpness has looked promising so far, but I haven’t had a chance to test it in good lighting conditions under ISO200. Colour contrast is simply amazing, giving very delicious colours out of the box. Heh, it feels different walking around with this lens, you actually stop being shy to point a camera at someone. The lens is so big and looks so professional, you almost get drawn into the idea that you are a pro photographer.

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Rediscovering the digital era like when I was a younger kid. Would go experiment with stuff and picked up Podcasting. Now we have push technology, where users can just download the content they want to as it is updated across the Internet. Watched Battlestar Galactica over the weekend and it was such an impressive episode (to me) that I downloaded the podcast where the producer will do a voiceover commentary while the show is running in the background. Having a half hour to walk to work helps as you have time to slowly listen to someone else’s thoughts and ideas. Heh, it’s amazing how we can multitask. You just set your location on where to go and your feet will take you there, with a little eye coordination from time to time.

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Been hyper of late, feeling bubbly in the morning but at the end of energy limits by 11pm. Sitting in front of computer screens too much I think. You know you can be a good person when you are not worrying about your own problems (when you have none or trivial ones) and focus on channelling your extra energy on other people, and making them happy. Heh.