Sorry everyone, I’ve been really busy selling myself lately. Selling
myself to the HR people that is. 😉 My quest for employment is still
ongoing and so is the search for a good post graduate Masters program.
I will update tomorrow, with a collaborative photo story – “A sliver of
liver”. 🙂 Until then, see ya. I will reply all the comments and mails
tomorrow, my apologies, I didn’t get any sleep last night and I’m so
ready to hit the bed right now.
sibu
I answer to me
NOFX – Lori Meyers
(right click, save target as)
[2:20 minutes 128 KBPS STEREO 44KHZ 2.14 MB .mp3]
[Edit: Mp3 deleted. Won’t want to eat into my August bandwidth, I have to pay several GB extra this month as it is. :)]
Lori Meyers used to live upstairs
Our parents had been friends for years
Almost every afternoon we’d play forbidden games
At nine years old there’s no such thing
It wasn’t recognition of her face
What brought me back, was a familiar mark
As it flashed across the screen
I bought some magazines, some video tape scenes
Incriminating acts, I felt that I could save
“Who the hell are you to tell me how to live my life?
You think I sell my body? I merely sell my time!
I ain’t no Cinderella, I ain’t waitin’ for no prince,
To save me, in fact until just now, I was doin’ just fine!
And on and on…”
“I know what degregation feels like,
I felt it on the floor at the factory,
Where I worked long before,
I took control!
Now I answer to me!
The 50K I make this year will go anywhere I please!
Where’s the problem?”
Disclaimer: The photo above is from my personal stock photo
collection – this one was taken last year, protected by public
photography laws, and has no causal relationship with the lyrics,
implied or otherwise.
Please look at this photo of a lorry carrying a fridge…
while I continue submitting resumes to potential employers and apply for post-graduate studies.
Clarification: The angry post below is directed towards students rather than people in an administrative position.
The Standoff
I want new shoes and a new skirt for the party tomorrow.
You know we can’t afford that dear…
I hate being in this family! Why don’t even you dress up when we go out? You’re such an embarrassment mom!
A woman walks past without listening and the man slouches in his
chair, oblivious of the standoff just a meter away from him…nodding
out in opiate bliss.
Inspired by graceshu [pixelphobia.net].
Picture taken at the back alleys of Channel Road, Sibu.
This is a work of fiction based on a photograph I took about a week ago.
What did I do yesterday?
Take Away Street
Hmm…lemme think. Just give me a minute here. 🙂 Okay, the day started when a went for lunch with Daniel
[geocities.com]. A big thank you to him, he’s the reason why
sixthseal.com has photos again (albeit for a while, coz he’s going back
in a day). He has a digicam too (Sony DSC-F707) and I borrowed it to
take some photos, so yeah, photos are available for a short time. 🙂
The interior.
Anyway, he told me of this place called TakeAway Street in Wisma
Sanyan where every main meal is just RM 1.50 and every drink is just RM
1. That was last month though, the prices have been raised since then.
I had the Taiwan Noodles (which tastes suspiciously like Maggie Mee
Curry Flavor) for RM 2.50, meat stuffed kompia with gravy for RM 0.50,
egg cooked in soy sauce (lu tang in Chinese, what’s the English
equivalent?) for RM 0.50 and kopi peng for RM 1.20.
My food posts are definitely not as good as mum mum
[blogspot.com], so if you’re interested in food, head over to Wena’s
site, it’s GREAT! Always makes me hungry, photos and descriptions of
all kinds of food. She’s from Kuching (about 400+ km from Sibu) and
I’ve lived there for 8 years total (7 during childhood, 1 in college)
and I visit very often so yeah, I’m familiar with most of the places
she mentions. Great food blog, go visit! I’ll like to think of her blog
as “The Best Food Related Blog in Malaysia”. On a narcissistic note,
and borrowing from Phua Chu Kang, I’ll like to think sixthseal.com is
the best drug related blog in Malaysia, Singapore and some say
Australia. 😉
Terminator 3 – I took a shot of the screen inside the cinema.
Anyway, let’s see…after that I borrowed Daniel’s digicam to do a bit
of photography, as you can see from the photos of the Knuckles Soccer
photos below. A couple of us went to watch Terminator 3 later at night,
it was the 8:45 pm one, they only charge RM 5 on Wednesday. After that,
it’s off for drinks at SRC, the people I remember there (besides me) is
Alan, Bing Jong, Johnny, Daniel, Christopher, Niny, and Ing Tai. Hey, I
think I remembered, it’s easy to visualize the table and go
counter-clockwise. Heh. Er…not much was remembered after that due to my
excessive alcohol consumption to celebrate my results. So yeah, that’s
my day yesterday.
Sibu’s Parking System
Sibu’s Parking Coupon
It’s been a while but I still hate doing this…basically you have to
punch holes out of a parking coupon (scanned image above – good thing
my scanner is still available) and leave it on the dashboard so it’s
visible through the windshield. There are five sections to remove and
even though I usually like doing things like this (popping bubble wrap,
depressing that thingy on the cover of McDonald’s soft drinks etc.),
this isn’t fun for someone who answers “I don’t know” to “What date is
it today?”. 🙂 It’s a good thing I have a Palm for dates, the time is
alright though, there’s always the car clock and the cell phone one.
The other problem with this is the way it has changed the way people
park…while it used to be (usually) obvious whether a car is parking in
or moving out, it now isn’t. Malaysia is hot, so people leave the
engine running to have the air conditioning going while messing about
with these parking coupons. You’ll all be sitting there waiting and
thinking, hmm…has this guy just parked in and getting the coupons done
or is he arranging his groceries (or whatever) before driving out?
The worst thing with the coupon system in Sibu is the way you have
to put as many as you’re going to park for eg if you want to park for 3
hours, you need to perforate 6 coupons (each lasts half an hour) and
put them all in a row on your windshield. The problem is there is only
one denomination available – the 40 cents (42 cents with tax to be
concise) one, which lasts 30 minutes. The people who need to park for
the whole day needs to put rows upon rows of parking coupons to cover
the time, and making sure to arrange it properly so none is partially
obscured, or they’ll see The Red Ticket (parking fine) on their
windshield wiper. I mean wtf? Am I the only one who thinks there’s
something wrong with this? 6 hours of parking requires 12 coupons and
these things are not small – they’re the length of a standard DVD case
and about 4/6 the width of it. Come out with higher denomination
coupons for Christ’s sake.
Anyway, I got fined yesterday because I over parked for a measly 7
minutes. The parking fine (dubbed the “Overparking Compound Notice”) is
RM 1 per 30 minutes, more than twice the price of the coupon, which
isn’t much, so I don’t really care, I just feel that the system isn’t
practical for long term parking unless they come out with higher
denomination coupons like Kuching has. Oh, the back of the parking fine
has Fine Print that’s quite interesting – have a read:
Well, I’ll just give a quick update (personal stuff) about the things that happened yesterday and today:
I went to Wisma Sanyan early yesterday morning with my gf to buy
some stuff she needs before leaving for KL. The parking fine was from
then, I the parking inspectors usually aren’t that vigilant, so I
figured we could drop by Tops to get something to drink before heading
to the car. We saw the Parking Inspector’s Employee of the Month
walking right past as we headed back, curses. 🙂
Anyway, I also picked up a pirated (unlicensed) VCD of Finding Nemo
to watch in the afternoon with my gf. It was funny how the store
operates – since the raids, they have only legit things on display, but
there are plenty of posters of new movies ie Matrix Reloaded, Charlie’s
Angels 2, Hulk, Terminator 3 etc on display. Basically, they ARE
selling pirated VCDs and DVDs of the pirated movies displayed in the
posters, so just ask at the counter, and the girl will dig around the
back room and be back with the movie of your choice in a few seconds.
😉 Other prices are still selling it openly though, but unfortunately,
Sibu saw an increase in price from RM 5 to RM 8 per movie since the
raids. It should stabilize back soon though, seems that the operation
is over.
I saw heaps of people at the Sibu Town Square last night for the
Borneo Cultural Festival, it was PACKED. People were parking in that
road divider between two opposing roads (the ones that has the street
lights). Man, I wished my digicam was working. I didn’t go though, coz
I was going for dinner.
My gf went back to KL this morning. 🙁 Her semester started about a
week ago, so she’s already going over late. I drove her and her mom to
the airport this morning and we got some breakfast there before she
took the 10:05 am Air Asia flight out. I will be seeing her soon
though, will be heading over to KL in a while as well.
The picture above was taken about two weeks ago (my digicam still
broken – only scanner working), I had wanted to make it PoTD with a
crack about “San Pedro tastes so good, the Mexicans want it back” but
never got around to doing it. That’s okay, since I finally went to eat
KFC’s Bandito Pockett combo meal today (comes with a drink and potato
wedges) with Michelle, friend and pharmacy student. 😉 I was on my out
when she called me so we went for lunch and then visited our ex-high
school. Oh, the Bandito tastes okay…a bit bland (had to keep on adding
Thai chili sauce) and you get to buy a 325 ml can of Pepsi Twist for
just 10 cents if you buy it with the meal. I wasn’t really interested
at first, until I thought of something it would go well with.
Potentiator?
That’s it, the story of my personal life up to now. 🙂
Borneo Cultural Festival Sibu (2003)
Borneo Cultural Festival 2003, Sibu.
This has been going on at the Sibu town square for a while now, and
will continue for a few more days. I took the photos yesterday noon,
but I’ve been busy so I couldn’t post it yesterday. My apologies.
Anyway, the story behind the photos is worthy of a mention, but I will
put the photos up first – it cost me RM 16 so enjoy. 😉
A balloon flying high.
A blowpipe accuracy competition – a blowpipe is a long contraption used
by the Ibans (and other groups) that propels a dart (originally
poisoned and used for hunting) to a target by the user blowing through
the pipe.
Something going on here, I just didn’t say long enough to find out what it was…
Another shot of the unknown event above, gotta run, battery low.
A row of traditional Chinese stalls.
Thirsty?
Setting the stage for the final judging of the Borneo Cultural Festival
Sibu’s Miss Malaysian Chinese 2003 tonight. I took photos of the
candidates about a week ago.
Link: Miss Malaysian Chinese (Borneo Cultural Festival, Sibu) – Miss Photogenic photo shoot [sixthseal.com]
Tug of war.
This is a swing of sorts used by the Melanau at their harvest festival.
It’s a test of manhood, they swing and bungee from this contraption.
This is the main motif of Borneo Cultural Festival – a montage of a
Chinese lantern, a Malay ketupat, and several native symbols which I’m
not familiar enough with to comment about, but I like the tuak (rice
wine) that’s perpetually pouring from the top. 🙂
About the RM 16 photos, I went to the camera repair shop yesterday
morning but unfortunately, my digicam could not be repaired due to
mould (?) in the internal components. The repair guy asked if the
digicam has had water damage before and I told him it had, but that was
a long time ago – about a year back. I forgot to zip my pants pocket
while skiing and snowboarding at Mount Buller (Melbourne) and found my
digicam covered with snow at the end of the session. Anyway, he said
that was probably the cause – the mould slowly manifested itself and
damaged some of the stuff so it needs to be sent to Nikon Service in KL
to be repaired. 🙁 That means I will be without a digicam for about a
week, but I will check other repair shops tomorrow and see if they have
the necessary components.
Anyway, I passed by the town square yesterday noon and just HAD to
take photos, so I went to one of the camera shops and offered the owner
a deal – let me rent a digicam for 15 minutes and I’ll pay him RM 10.
Heh. Well, I had my (broken) digicam with me, and my CF card, so I’ll
just need one for a couple of minutes to take photos. I convinced him
to rent me a new Nikon Coolpix 3500 (it was the only one that could
hold my CF card, the shop is a Sony dealer, so all the other digicams
they stock use memory sticks) and I’ll give RM 100 + my digicam as a
deposit. Well, he was more than happy to do that, so I waited while he
opened the new digicam box and got out everything and charged the
battery.
My gf called me at this point and I told her what I was up to, and
she said it’s already raining at her place (the photos won’t turn out
well if it rains). I went out and sure enough, dark skies abound. I
went back and told the camera guy that I needed it now, so forget about
charging the battery. He said that it wouldn’t last all that long,
since it has only had been charging for about 3 minutes, but I said
it’s okay, since I’m in a hurry. Well, off I ran and upon startup, it
was already showing the low battery indicator so I ran around, hoping
to get a shot of everything before the battery ran out – and I did. 🙂
Anyway, I’m sorry about the quality of the photos, I noticed that
the quality setting was at the default (Low) but the battery was so
drained I didn’t want to risk changing the settings instead of taking
more shots and having it die on me halfway. Anyway, the Nikon Coolpix
3500 seems okay, I like the way the lens fold out. I ran all over the
town square, taking photos until the “Battery Exhausted!” warning came
out. After that, I went back to the dealer, paid him RM 10, got my RM
100 and digicam back and he packaged the digicam back into the box,
probably to sell to another person. *shrug*
Well, I got home later and then thought of something – how was I
going to get the photos out of the CF Card? Windows won’t detect the CF
Card unless the digicam is on, and my digicam is broken (couldn’t even
turn it on). So off I went to the Fujifilm Imagng Center near my place
to get the photos burnt to a CD-R, which cost RM 6. I should have
bought a CF Card reader instead, since it was only RM 45, but I reckon
I don’t need one since it’s just a one time thing. So there you go,
photos from yesterday. 🙂
Photo Friday – Symmetry
Photo Friday – Symmetry [photofriday.com]
Symmetry. This photo was taken yesterday night at around 10 pm at
the ground floor of Central Market in Sibu, Sarawak (Malaysia). It
shows rows upon rows of symmetrical stalls – selling anything from
fresh vegetables to meat products, all wrapped up in tarps and other
coverings in preparation for an early dawn opening.
The shooting data:
Focal Length: 8mm
Exposure Mode: Programmed Auto
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern 1/23.5 sec – f/2.8
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Sensitivity: Auto
White Balance: Auto
AF Mode: AF-C
Saturation Compensation: 0
The post-production work was done in Photoshop 7.0 and involves:
Image Size: Size reduced from 2048×1536 to 500×375
Miss Malaysian Chinese (Borneo Cultural Festival, Sibu) – Miss Photogenic photo shoot
I headed down to Rejang Esplanade for this early this morning. It
was supposed to be at 8 am but I forgot that Sibu is running at GMT + 9
(+1 is Tardy Savings Time) instead of GMT + 8 like the rest of
Malaysia. 🙂 The photographers and subjects (12 girls – finalists of a
local pageant) only started trickling in when it was nearly 9 am. This
is supposed to serve the dual function of providing photos for the Miss
Photogenic judges and a photography contest. There is no charge unless
you want to enter the contest (RM 10) but that requires negatives +
prints so digicams would not qualify. I think I managed to get shots of
all the girls before my battery ran out. I had to use fast flash in a
lot of the photos due to a strong backlight (the sun). To tell you the
truth, it became hard to differentiate which ones I’ve taken and which
ones I haven’t – it didn’t help that most of them were wearing similar
colored outfits so I had to go “red w/ black spots – done”, “red w/ boa
– done” etc etc. It was fun nevertheless – there was a low photographer
to subject ratio so you could get a lot of one on one time with the
candidates, it’s pretty versatile. Anyway, here are the shots from
today:
Girl #1
Girl #2
Girl #3
Girl #4
Girl #5
Girl #6
Girl #7
Girl #8
Girl #9
Girl #10
Girl #11
Girl #12
Couples #1
Couples #2
Couples #3
Candid #1
Candid #2
This is going to be a bandwidth killer.
Sibu, Sarawak 96000
I am back in Sibu. I actually arrived yesterday but most of that day
was spent catching up with people, nursing a comedown + hangover +
jetlag and trying to get my hard disk to work with the home PC. I still
can’t post the photos from the rave coz they were on that disk, but
I’ll try to install Win XP later and see if that helps in detecting and
mounting the disk. Anyway, I’m going out for lunch, thanks for your
comments everyone. I’ll post everything once my HD is fixed and my
serotonin levels are back to normal. 😉
