Monthly Archives: September 2009

Soccer Addict

★ Posted on at 09:16 pm ★

MAK_0348

This was taken outside a restaurant in Taiwan. The place was in the middle of some fields and served up some great dishes, where the vegetable were all taken from the plants they grew next to the restaurant. That’s Taiwan for you, with many family businesses, it gives a unique flavour to their food, products.

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Got through my hectic weekend. Supposedly a bucks night for Jun Kit, but with me organising it, it was a simple but fun night. Had a few hours of poker before going off to La Luna for dinner, where we had the 6 course degustation. At under $70 for the meal, it’s one of the better value for money places to dine at. Went back to a friend’s place after dinner for another few hours of board games. Watched Arsenal get crushed by Manchester City while we were at it. Was disappointed that Arsenal got swept aside so easily, but they did have a few chances of their own but luck wasn’t on their side that night.

* * *

I was up until 430am on the Sunday morning watching soccer. You’d think one would be tired after the food and games from the night before. Heh, it was a great match between Tottenham and Manchester United (depending on which team you support anyway). I haven’t seen such slick passing from United in a while and even at 10 men down, they still managed to score another goal, with a great pass from Fletcher, and Rooney out muscling two defenders before slipping the ball between the keeper’s legs.

The Champion’s League starts tomorrow morning, with a match between Manchester United and Besiktas at 445am. Keen to watch it, but I’d rather not kill my sleeping cycles anymore before my cousin’s wedding this Sunday. Heh, the excitement of soccer is starting already.

Seeking Knowledge

★ Posted on at 10:54 pm ★

blossoms

Just wanted to post a different picture, having focused on my Taiwan photos too much of late. Haven’t picked up the camera much since I’ve been back and now the 50mm f1.2 is a permanent fixture on it, for I’ve been wanting pictures with soft, buttery backgrounds.

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I’ve been busy researching information online and am looking to purchase a few books/eBooks to brush up on my knowledge on photography. I’ve been using the D300 for a couple of years now, and SLRs for almost 5 years now so I’m pretty comfortable with getting the kinds of exposures I want and using the focal length to create the artistic effects I want. I’m also pretty competent when it comes to post processing, but I find that I’m stagnating in that department. I can do most basic touchups, get the right kind of colours but there’s still that missing wow factor I get when I look at some of the more talented photographers around. I also don’t think I’m very efficient at organising my photos. The current structure is basically a date and a vague description but other than that, locating a picture is really dependent on my memory and if it’s been a while, I might have to dig through a number of folders before I get what I want. As the number of photos I take increases, I need a better system to manage my photos and I’m looking into one of the video tutorials on digital asset management. The AUD is currently quite strong, coming back to the levels when I was still working in NYC, which makes the conversion when I purchase stuff less painful.

* * *

Find that I’m an IT handyman. Heh, it’s always good to have me around to fix IT related problems. Just the other day I helped a colleague fix up her portable HDD. It didn’t take long to fix, and with most problems, it’s either I can fix it within 5 minutes, or not at all. The drive was placed in a sort of backup device for media cards. For some strange reason, it would not detect the HDD in the backup device. My suspicion is that the USB connection lacked enough juice to power up the card readers as well as the attached HDD (although even so, it seemed to work for my colleague before, so I’m not quite sure what’s up with it).

I basically unscrewed the backup device, took out the HDD, and transplanted it onto a 2.5″ external HDD casing. Plugged it in, did a scandisk and presto, the device works again. Heh, saved the thousands of pictures my colleague took while on holiday. Sometimes it’s as simple as knowing how to tackle a problem, but this is really just solving the problems based on experience.

* * *

Have a packed weekend ahead, with a haircut, some suit measurement and dinners planned. Heh, it’s going to get a little hectic alright.

And Monday Beckons

★ Posted on at 09:59 pm ★

nasi lemak

Nasi lemak is one of those easy to prepare dinner meals, with Vyanne around of course. Heh, she even got banana leaves for a more authentic presentation this time around. Becoming a better acquaintance with my flash unit, and while there are more sophisticated ways to light something, this was a quick and easy way to do it.

* * *

Finished editing my photos for Taiwan. It took a while but I’m happy I have one less thing on my to do list now. I’d really like to visit more places and be able to photograph the locations. These days I’m even more inspired to take the camera for a spin and try something new. Off my training wheels and feel that I can experiment a little more when it comes to photographing stuff and people.

* * *

My weekend’s gone and I haven’t done much. Trying to do my taxes and that’s nearly done, just need to put in some more deductions so I don’t have to pay any extra tax this year. Need to catch up on some reading regarding real estate, and continue my search for that elusive house. Now that spring is here, the market has picked up a bit, so hoping to bite something before the end of the year. My lifestyle has evolved a bit. Don’t spend any time trying to find computer games to entertain myself anymore. The amount of reading I need to do on so many topics is keeping me pretty busy these days.

Quite content to continue being an accountant for the time being. Still want to keep the job security while I learn more stuff, especially on the aspects of setting up and running a personal business. I do realise that the important part is just getting your feet wet in things and it will slowly make sense and fall into place. Will jump on the opportunities as they approach.