Flowers are everywhere. It’s summer even if the weather isn’t quite indicative of it. The GF1 and the 20mm pancake make creative photos, and one thing I have learned from using the Hipstamatic app on the iPhone is that you can always tweak the colours to give it a nostalgic look. It’s not always about great dynamic range, end to end sharpness and the like. Pictures should convey moods and elicit an emotional response. If you have an opinion of the picture, then maybe I’ve succeeded in expressing it to you.

* * *

Since coming back to Melbourne, I’ve just tried to keep busy, doing everything that comes to mind. I usually procrastinate with stuff but these days when something pops up, I will do it immediately or try to get it done at the next available moment.

Perhaps now I feel that life is too short not to express yourself. I just don’t want to wait too long for things to happen. I feel old now, and I’m hesitant to be as carefree as I used to be. Heh, if you read back through the blog, you’d find that I was more free spirited back then. These days I feel like I have more responsibilities, ideals that I have tacked onto myself so that I don’t regret the things I don’t do later on in life.

So I’m adjusting to it, getting things done. Not writing them down somewhere and waiting to do it later. Now I write them down and finish the tasks at hand.

* * *

On a side note, the house is starting to show signs of age. Things are breaking down from normal wear and tear. A visit to Bunnings should solve the inventory problem of replacing older stuff. I might need a hand with fixing things at home, but I don’t think it will be too difficult.

Heh, one is never too old to learn a new skill.

Take the GF1 almost everywhere these days and took a casual picture of the food we eat when dining out. This was with a bunch of friends at a roadside shop selling Bak Kut Teh and various flavours of fish head. Gave the picture a black and white treatment as I don’t like the default colours that the GF1 provides (or it could be the RAW conversion of Picasa not getting the colour profile right).

* * *

Sitting in the corner leaning against a wall with my Eee PC hooked into the LAN cable connected to the modem. Bought a wifi router when I first got back to Malaysia but it barely saw much use before the lightning killed it. Heh, it’s a common occurrence here due to the frequent thunderstorms and other than turning the equipment off at the plug points and pulling out the telephone cable, there’s very little else you can do to protect it.

* * *

It’s a strange end of year this time round, and there’s not much I want to describe about it, but I just needed to write something to take my mind off things. Sometimes I deal with things better when it is familiar, so I know what to expect.

Have always thought that tomorrow is a great unknown, but it’s always good to be positive about it, regardless of the current situation. I have always managed to find something to be hopeful for.

Finally got round to putting some of the spices we have still in their original packaging into little bottles that used to contain sambal for nasi lemak. Have an idea to put them onto a rolling tray to be stowed in a cupboard and labelled for easy access.

* * *

Heh, personally run out of excuses to not sort stuff out around the house. The weather is no longer too cold, neither am I sitting for any exams, so I’ve been tidying up in different areas. I’m also looking into organising my time to get more things done. I recall a time when I used to have too much time on my hands. These days I have more responsibilities, but ultimately you allocate the time to do the things which you feel are important.

The things in the house are haphazardly stored in a location, but it doesn’t always make the most sense in terms of accessibility. I’m doing all this reorganising in the hopes that it will save me time down the road.

Another issue I’ve been having is the spending of money. I’m fortunate enough that I don’t have to live from paycheck to paycheck, but looking at my spending habits over the past few months, I see room to reduce wastage and ways to make my money work harder. I’m just taking all these incremental steps to make it happen.

* * *

It really just takes a little effort to plan out things, so you’re not just blindly going about your daily business. Everyday I have to review conventional wisdom. While at uni, Dell’s just in time process for making computers and lack of a physical store gave it a unique advantage in producing computers cheaper than the competition. They were a model company to me back then as they improved. Then you see Apple having physical stores but having game changers in terms of their product mix and everyone else caught up with Dell in terms of manufacturing prowess. Dell is just another drop in the sea like HP, Lenovo, building lots of generic computers that don’t differentiate themselves from the rest of the market.

Yesterday’s ideal could be tomorrow’s setback where the advantages become disadvantages later on. Also read about the growing German economy and the flailing American economy but that’s a long story you should read and contemplate about yourself.

The world is ever changing, and the rock solid ideals of yesteryear need to be questioned and reviewed to much better cope with the continuously changing landscape we live in today.