I saved money by spending money! :D
Basically, Wesfield shopping centers are having a promotion that give you a $20 gift card if you spend $120 or more at participating stores (which is a quite a long list).
But you ask, how do you spend money, and still feel like you saved money at the same time?
Well............. that's because I bought all my stuff using gift cards collected over the year.
WooooT!!! .......... And thanks to everyone..haha..........
I'm glad I got the opportunity to watch Star Trek the movie (2009). It lived up to the great reviews and hype the audience and critics were giving it.
It had its "WTF, that happened to easily" or "erh, what a coincidence............. not" moments. You know, when things go according to plan without good reason, and we just say "It's Hollywood". But it was only twice.
I was expecting to go into the movie, and keep seeing Spock as Sylar in a new hair-do, but surprisingly, I forgot about it in 15 minutes. The story was told well, and the little Star Trek hints and fan services were noticeable, even from a non-Trekky like me.
Anyways, I won't say anymore if you haven't seen it. It's a good movie and you should see it when you have the time. Okay. That's all, I shall not be emotionally compromised, otherwise I could lose my captain's seat.
I apologise to anyone I may offend in this post, and I will disclaim that I don't know the basketball rules that well, and I have not watched more than 20 or so basketball games.
Recently, basketball has been pissing me off. Why? It's because it's such a non-defensive sport. You hardly see any defense tactics, and if you see it, it's so rare. People are ultimately running back and forth and just shooting the ball in hoop whenever they get the chance.
I understand it's a high scoring game, but it seems like it's a skill based game and not enough tactics. It doesn't appeal to my limited intellect. You see in soccer, you can win a game by either having a good attack, but that can always be countered by a good defense and a goalie. You can win a game in soccer by having a good defense, as long as you win by one point. So overall, the chances are scoring a shot are not high, and hence it comes down to really working with your team, and that's everyone, not just passing it to your ace whenever he's free.
In basketball, you win by two things, shoot alot, and hope the enemy makes lots of mistakes. Not enough time for comebacks, and that's why the game is so stressing.
Eriz has already shown me some good defending in basketball, and I acknowledge they're pretty hard to pull off, but most of them are just steals. Where's the blocks? From what I've seen (which is very little amount of basketball games I remind you), steals, blocks & intercepts are rare to see because they are hard to pull off legitametly. You COULD have a tall defender blocking the ring, but that's ultimately countered by others doing 2 point and 3 point shots. And it would seem it's hard to counter a 3 point shooter, unless...he misses, but most of the time, in professional games, they get it in, unless the 3 point shooter is not experienced enough, or really feeling the pressure of catching up.
One more thing, the word 'foul' is used so many times in the game. That really pisses me off. Every minute there's a foul being called. Most of the time these fouls are due to a little tap or touch on the arm. Surely you can be lenient on a person if they accidently touch your arm while they're trying to steal the ball of you! It's not like they're directly going for your arm. Or when you reach your arm out for a steal, you push your arm out so fast, it's very hard to pull it back quickly, and then attacker runs into it, and that's considered a foul. I know, it's a non-contact sport, but seriously, when most of the time an attacker runs up for a layup, or dunk or something or rather, the defenders 85% of the time are considered to make a foul, and the attacking team then gets a free point shoot even when the they've just scored the point in. Oh come on, they're just trying to defend. Let them defend!! I'm not saying that touching them is okay. If it looks bad, like it was intentional, yes foul them. If unsure about the result, then use a video referee. Catch up with the times.
I know it seems like I don't know the game that well, so whoever reads this, please correct my understanding of this game. I want to appreciate it, but I can't seem to at the moment. The game is good, and it's popular for a reason. In fact, if it doesn't rain tomorrow, I'm playing it. And I'm not a newb, but I'm not pro good. Okay. That is all. Bring on the flame if you like.
Photos taken on Chinese New Year '09.
Bamboo shoots growing in oriental vase.
Oriental dork growing on coat hanger.
At work I have sitting behind me my Boss (Team Leader), my boss's boss (General Manager), my boss's boss's boss (The Director), and in the room behind them, the boss's boss's boss's boss (The CEO). lol. Now don't slouch. Sit up straight. Be a good boy.
Ah @_@ internal conflict between wii and ps3. I'm slowly leaning towards getting a PS3 now. It's all your fault eriz!!!
YAY!!! I got a letter today saying that I received the stimulus bonus. WOOHOO!!!
I was initially scared because I heard other people couldn't get it because they claimed back all their tax back that year. I couldn't remember if I claimed all mine back, and I couldn't check because I lost my 07-08 tax return form.
But all good now :)
Wonder what I should buy. Maybe that moded Wii, but... I probably will have to wait till July. Or maybe get a new camera lens, like a AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D. Maybe even a 600W Studio Flash Kit, though, I'll probably need a studio to maximise it's usage.
Hmm..... how should I stimulate the economy???.... hmm........ why don't I just save up the money for the car. Decisions, decisions...........
lolz!... Today I was in a car with no working speedometer, traveling from Gosford to Campbletown. I was helping move furniture. This car was very "senior", carrying pots, computers, microwaves, toasters and more, towing in addition, a trailer. In the trailer was a full sized fridge, building material, and several other large pot plants.
I learnt how to judge how fast you are going without the help of a speedometer? How???
Judge it by how fast the other cars around you are going. =)
(hmm........., mozilla doesn't recognise learnt as a proper word)
I've found a new site that'll give us inspiration for M12's future presents. Hehehe.......
http://www.goodsmile.info/top/eng/ They showcase a lot of very cool anime figurines.
DANNNG!!!!!The poses are so well thought out!! ........ so good !___! It makes me want to buy figurines too ~__~
Oh, and I just realised most of them are female figurines... fufufu.......
And .... horror!! Why is Lelouch wearing high heels @___@?
Why is an escalator called an escalator when only half the time it is going up (escalating), and the other time is going down (de-escalating)?
-~-*-~-~-*-~-~-*-~-~-*-~-~-*-~-~-*-~
Anyways, at work, I'm known as Dex! Haha.. it's pretty cool. I've never had another nickname in my life, except for Ray (which really isn't a nickname). The head content-collecter gave me the name, and everyone else seems to have picked it up well :)
The head content-collector also calls me Ze Ray, because I sign off as Ze Ray when I leave him notes to finish off a service job. (WHIP WHIP)
Aahhh.... me and my "awesome" accents XD.......
Talking to colleagues today, we were discussing our eye vision. We talked about the definition of far sightedness and close sightedness, which came to conclusion that close sightedness is clear vision between you and the screen infront of you, while, far sightedness is everything that's further than that. Does that sound right???
Anyways, after the discussion, I decided to play a prank of them. I downloaded an eye chart, printed it out, and then took the same file, and blurred the image.
With those two pieces of paper, one behind the other, I approached them up close, and explained that I was going to work out how good their vision was. All they had to do was read out as many letters as possible. The un-blurred version was shown.
I then walked off with my back towards them. At this stage, I swapped the two around.
I stopped. Turned around. I asked them to start reading.
Everyone was glaring at it, trying to read it.
There was utter silence for 2 seconds.
One then shouted out "We're not stupid ray, that one's blurred"
DAMN!!! HAHAHAHAHA............ Had them for at least a few seconds anyway.
Some people decided to make a site tracker that displays the most recent updates made to Wikipedia. It locates the "anonymous" user and displays the edited topic, section, and area from where they are writing from.
Now that's creepy. No wonder there are paranoid people out there. I seriously don't blame them.
And if you thought that was creepy, there's more. There's one for TwitterVision (http://twittervision.com/maps/show_3d), and actually, my personal favourite , FLICKRvision (http://flickrvision.com/)
Okay. Now you know about, you can't unknow it. Happy stalking!!!
It's pretty ironic how taxis have car sales advertisements on top of their roof because it somewhat takes away the business from themselves.
Next time I go to passionflower, I'm getting this drink. I don't care that it's all red and pink. For all I know, it could be a girls drink, but I don't care. In terms of presentation, this drink has won me over. Looks so nice.
Anyways, after passion flower for Jill's bday, I took this picture of the skyscraper. First thing that comes to mind is Bleach, where Ichigo is standing on the windows. He does something like talk and talk and talk. And then fly away.
Then travelling underground, I took this a picture of the MX stand. For many Sydney-siders, it's the epitome of afternoon information intake.
Earlier that day, I saw an old lady dressed up inthe uniform just like the people below. I thought she was cosplaying something I didn't know about.My funny guess is that they were the Chinese ANZ marching band, taking over Westpac grounds.
Come on band!! MARCH!!!
I just had a $100 bet with my dad.
I bet that the interest rates will go up around July 30. He bet it wouldn't.
Wish me and the Australian economy luck :D
(p.s: I'm writing this up here because it will remind me of this bet later on. lol)
Hahaha, my turn.
This is how I visualized myself as a Simpson Character.
What do you think? Did it work on me? Does it look like me?
Try out the Burger King and Simpson Movie marketing toy at http://simpsonizeme.com/
Didn't really sleep too well last night. It was very late in the night when I felt a sudden itch on my finger. Next thing I heard was the buzzing noise. Put two and two together, and I realised I had been sucked.
It was a mosquito! This mosquito had flew around and sucked my blood.
Dang. Because it's dark it's really hard to locate the mosquito by sight and noise.
I put the covers over my head and covered my entire body. Try suck blood over a layer of blanket.....hahahahaha!!! I am awesome. I heard it flying around and around, and as I listened to it I laughed (in my mind)
After 5 minutes, it must have gave up because I couldn't hear it anymore. I dozed back to sleep.
*flutter*
I opened my eyes again, heard buzzing. I felt a breeze across my arm and leg. Oh no!!! The mosquito probably came and bit me again....... I suddenly felt an itch across my arm and neck.
Dang. I'll be ready next time.
Alright! Let's start of with a question. Would you go 1 week without water, or 1 month without internet?
Why the question? That's because recently I've had renovations done to my kitchen. Clearing out the kitchen, having it knocked down and building everything back up. It's now very nice and pristine. Just the way I like it.
And tada!! New kitchen. We've had this new kitchen for almost 2 weeks or so now, and I still rather like the design. Opening the doors are fun!
Here's a closer picture of the kitchen when everything was knocked down. How spacious.
When the removalists came in to knock down the place, they were very careless. They dropped the whole friggin cabinet onto the stove. If it wasn't for my dad who was supervising them at the time, the whole thing would have landed smack bang in the middle of the stove and cracked the whole thing. The cabinet still fell down, but it was pushed away in time and landed on the stove knob. The small thing shattered into pieces @__@!!! My parents were too nice (or silly) to ask them to reimburse one. Now we're still looking out for a similar stove knob.
Anyways, just below, here's the old stove. Looks very old and tacky aye? Cockroaches used to crawl in that grid area just below the table top. (Oh, and notice how we had 4 knobs before)
And here's the new stove. Very modern.
Looks so much more classier too. We have still yet to use it though. lol. Let's hope it works XD
Anyways, regarding the question I asked in the beginning. I would go for 1 month without internet rather than 1 week without water. It's funny how we take water for granted. When our hands get dirty (like cleaning the rubble, and moving furniture around) we wash our hands; when we become sweaty after a long day, we shower; when we're thirsty, we drink water, etc etc etc.......
That other thing stupid mistake I did was pretty much wrongly filling in a form, and having to drive out to many places to find another form in a super short period of time. Next time I do pick up a form, I'll definitely keep in mind to grab two or so. Just in case.
Okay... and a while ago I said I was learning how to drive a manual car. I haven't drove it for a while now, but I'll say that I was learning it so I could potential drive a manual van. The manual van was for a potential school photographer job. But now I've said no to the job.
But I've spent $270 on lessons. Should I continue with what I've learnt and buy a manual car? I feel safer driving an automatic car though. Much less to control and remember.
Sometimes I make the most stupidest of decisions.......*sigh*
At the post office today I waited in a long line to book for a passport interview. When I got to the counter, the counter staff said a booking just opened at 11:30 due to a cancellation. The time was 10:15, and I didn't want to wait that long, so I said no, because I could go to another post office and hopefully there would be one earlier. Took the post office phone number anyway, just in case I changed my mind, and then walked around the area to do some other tasks. After the tasks were completed, the time was 11:05. I went back to the post office hoping the interview booking would still be open. The booking was taken during the time that it took to decide whether I should wait that long or not. Do'H!! Next available booking was 3:00.
You see, what I should have done is booked the interview at 11:30, and if I decided to go to another place, I could have just called the post office and canceled it.
aya.........
There's one more stupid thing I did today, but I'll explain it another day.
You can never escape the gloriness of fried chips!!! My friend, let me present to you, the friermon:
NEW! FRESH FAST FRIES. Fried in 90 seconds~!!!!!!! At a low low cost of $2.50 (if i remember correctly). This machine was found outside the skate board monster stadium rink in Olympic Park. WOW. And funny how they relate skater boy to chip eaters. lol.
It's an interesting concept, though, I'm not to sure if it'll catch on anytime soon. It promotes the idea of easy-to-go chips, but from a first time buyer perspective, there is skepticism, as it doesn't show any promise into the quality or freshness of the product. I personally like mine made by a person, but I can imagine this concept widely done in say, asian countries. Has anyone tried these chips?
Just in addition, I read this article in the MX that states why there is an enticing aroma to fried chips comes. It comes from the make up of different scents such as butterscotch, onions, hints of cocoa, cheese, flowers, and get this, ironing boards!
Anyways, moving along, I went past ANZ stadium, and had to do this, you know, just to piss the aussies off a little :P
Now sanity! Return!
Ah.. Sun Flower.
So nice. And yellow. With elegant petals, holding a kingdom of pollen.
So nice. And yellow. With elegant petals, holding a kingdom of pollen.
One day, you'll grow big and strong...
......... just like this MASSIVE one!!!!! DUDE! It's like the size of my head! You could probably knock someone out with it. It's that HUUUUUUUUUUUGE.
Fascinating. O-O
By the way, did you know Sunflowers turn around to always follow the sun?
I've had one lesson with a friend trying to learn a manual car. Today, I had another lesson trying to learn a manual van today. Why? I'll explain a bit later.
Right now my throat is itchy. Coughing a bit. I think it's because of the sticky (maybe old) lolly I ate from someone's place last night. Erkk...........
Okay. Guess rest would be good for the body. ACKS>
OmGoSh! I saw a fly as big as a jelly bean today. FREAKING MASSIVE!!! I didn't take a picture because you can't really comprehend how big it is from a picture taken from the camera phone. And it's not like I could have got a ruler and placed it underneath to show the size. lol.
Hmm...... wonder where it is now.......?
Also in preparation for the upcoming Chinese New Year, I did a bit of house cleaning today. One of those tasks included cleaning my keyboard. I vacuumed the keys, and I still thought it was clean enough, so I took out the keys, and found a kingdom of dust bunnies. Absolutely scary and yet, so fascinating.
I saw this really cool billboard advertisement for Qantas today. It's just outside the Domestic airport entrance.
Yup.... 1337!!
NOW UP UP AND AWAY~!!!!!I nearly lost my nice mobile phone today !____! As I got off the bus at the bus stop, stepped on the grass, and checked my pockets, I realised my phone wasn't inside. I frantically searched my pockets, checked my bag, twice, and then realised that it was probably on the bus. I ran after the bus, pounding the side. Some elderly person saw me, and yelled something to the bus driver. The bus didn't stop, and it kept going.
I was devestated. The bus wasn't going to stop, and I really hoped I was wrong. Maybe it was somewhere in my bag. Sometimes I have a tendancy to put my phone into my bag automatically. I searched a third time, and it wasn't there. It had to be on the bus, because I received a call on the way back.
So instead of heading home, I ran to a friend's place and asked to borrow his phone. He lives on the other side of the street. I was panicking. I was thanking them, apologising, and cursing myself (not swearing of course), but still apalled at my stupidity. I looked pathetic in other words.
I rang my mobile constantly, and no one picked up. I was very saddened. And I knew there were two people sitting close to me on the bus. I rang a 2nd long ring. No one picked up. After the 2nd long ring, I was ready to give up. Maybe someone wanted to keep my phone. I made one more last ring, and someone picked up.
It was some lady, and I asked her where she was. She told me "I'm at the bus stop".
Yeah. Guys. Laugh. I'm stupid @_@ Sigh.................
When they invent clothes that stay clean & fresh forever, the Emperor Workstation will be the place you'll find me any time of the day.
I sure hope they also install a handy toiletry in it too.------------------------------------------
On a random story.....
One night my computer decided to stop running. I freaked because I didn't back up some important information. I unplugged everything and opened my computer case. Inside was very dusty and it smelt like smoke.
I suspected the dust bunnies, so I got a balloon pump, and gave it an air-bath. I pumped the motherboard, graphics card, hard drives, cables, etc. After cleaning, it worked, and I was relieved.
The next day, it happened again. I unplugged and plugged the power supply and realised something was missing. There was no start up sound. I suspected the power supply, and took it out. While I was waiting for my dad to scrounge around in his room finding a spare power supply, I decided to air-bath the power supply. Pumping and pumping, a few roach wings flew out. HOW SCARY @_____@!
I've heard of cockroaches living in the computer, but my friend, that's proof~!!!
Well, the computer worked again, and it hasn't failed since then. So that's good :D
What would things look like if they were miniature.
Tilt Shift Maker tries to make it quickly possible for the general public. By choosing which areas to focus on, it blurs everything else, giving depth of field, and hence, the illusion of miniaturism. Check it out!!
I did a couple of tests, and here's how it came out:
So what do you think? Do they look convincing?I had to process them a little further in Photoshop because the online application has limits, such as, objects in the foreground that fall into the "focused" areas will remain focused, and break the illusion.
I think the program works by increasing the highlights, reducing the shadows, and bringing the saturation to +25. It then does a Gaussian blur and masks out the focused areas. A tip is to use nice landscape shots. The illusion doesn't work for portraits or macro shots.
I guess it's quite interesting. Kept me entertained for a half an hour. I guess you really have to make yourself believe they are miniature though, especially for the ones you made yourself.
But nevertheless, good fun :D
@____@ WHAA???
Something really strange just happened. My VLC Media Player just disappeared, but I was just using it a a few hours ago.
I can't find it in the Start Menu, but when I checked the Control Panel, the program is still registered. I open a .mov file, and it still opens in VLC.
It's just ... disappeared from the Start Menu. Is that possible? Has that happened to anyone?
!!!~ Happy New Year ~!!!
I hope everyone had an enjoyable New Years Eve.
I watched the fireworks this year from Pyrmont, and WOW, I was still amazed by the view of the place. It's a marvelous site, and it's not very packed, so that's definitely a good thing.
This year's celebrations was spent with Florence's brother+family, who came all the way from Adelaide to see the majestic Sydney fireworks. I chose Pyrmont because it was the most "family friendly area" without sacrificing a great location. So win on both balances.
This image pretty much shows how vacant the area was most of the day (until 7pm-ish when it became moderately packed)Of course we weren't alone, and our 'neighbours' gradually filled up around us. There are some worth mentioning too.
We named the yellow shirted lady on the left hand side, "klitty woman". Basically she undresed herself for a sunbathe, except for her skirt, layed on her back, and therefore, revealing her "klitty" towards us. We were wondering if we should go tell that she was revealing herself to the world. We decided to let her be, and hope that she would clothe up before the kids arrived.
Then there were the 3 people further in front. I thought the person in the green singlet was a guy. When they finally turned around, it was a girl~!!! Okay... not important. But hey :) ... goes to show never judge a person by their clothes.Anyways, more 'neighbours' came in, and set up a really huge area.
They reserved it all with those two big tarpolines, and I thought to myself. Hey!! I should do that next year. One tarpoline was pretty much the size of my 3 picnic blankets together, and.. it also means I need less objects to weigh down each corner.There was also this guy on our right with two full chip DSLRs, each with an awesome 400mm lenses, mounted on tripods. I was so intimidated/dribbling-over-it that I forgot to take a picture.
When I saw it, I was like "dude, I gotta get me one of those lenses." Second thought was "DOH!! I forgot to bring my tripod"
Later on in the day, a sky writing plane spelt out BOSE across the sky. I later checked it out, and it's some Audio Equipment company. (oh, by the way, if you are working at BOSE, and see this blog entry, can I get some money for giving you advertising?)
Another advertising campaign was from Telstra, spelling out "Call Mum". The message worked, and I did call my mum later that night, but I don't think it made me think of changing to Telstra.
I thought it would be funny to take a picture of the harbour bridge passing time. From the same spot, using relatively the same exposure, I shot an image of the bridge every hour starting from 3.23pm. The time varied, and at times I forgot to take the picture, like the 7ish, 10ish, and 11ish.And it's quite interesting to see how a matter of 12 minutes, between 8:18 and 8:30, made the sky go much darker. Just surreal!!!
Staying there for practically most of the day gave me opportunites to take pictures I usually couldn't be bothered too.
Such as this shot.
The wonderful moon in the clouds.
And I guess I wasn't the only one who realised the beauty of the sky.
When heading for a toilet break, I managed to take this shot. I don't know, it just seems lovely to me. It also reminds me of an Italian city. Can anyone tell me why?Anyways, then came the spectacular fireworks.
The ones below are from the 9pm family fireworks, which were a blast~!!!
During the 9pm fireworks and the midnight countdown, Florence and I spent it playing with the little kiddies. They were insane. lol. But cute at the same time.
Then came the new year, and sure was it spectacular. I spent half the time taking shots of the fireworks.
And yup. That's the pictures :D~!!!!!! Hope you liked them.
Also, thanks to Florence who had to put up with my jokes all day. You pawr girl (XD).... Hope you and your family had a blast anyways :D
This year I'll be blogging up photos just as a way to showcase my work. Also, it's easier because I don't have to think of anything to write. lol.
Okay, looking forward to the new year!!!
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