Miniature Rojak Buah?

Was at the newly reopened SS2 McDonald's earlier today and took this photo of SS2 with my HTC Desire from the new outdoor seating area (and uploaded to Twitpic on-site):

After reaching home, I had a thought of trying to digitally apply some tilt-shift effect on the photo. I did not use any specialised software but instead used the freeware Gimp (the free Photoshop for poor people who don't want to pirate and have no money to buy Adobe's brilliant program). Here's the result:

Interesting that by blurring the top part of the photo to achieve this miniature effect, a big "Japanese flag" was produced as a side-effect. It was actually a signage with Chinese characters in front of the reddish circle. :P

The Nikon Temptation

I've been tempted to buy a Nikon DSLR for years starting from the time of the D40 to supplement (or replace?) my Lumix DMC-FZ30. Am not sure how long more can I hold on to my Vulcan-like emotional suppression from the temptations of Nikon with the current entry level D3100 and/or as they belt out the delicious D7000 in a matter of weeks (in Malaysia).

Over the years, my dilemma remains the same. What lens would I buy to complement my eventual DSLR? And what DSLR (cheap body or expensive one which would take longer time to outgrow?) would I buy to complement the lens? A chicken and egg thing in photography world, I suppose. I love wide angle because I never had any from my FZ30. I always felt I needed more wide angles. My exploration into wide angle lenses led me to the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 but that wouldn't auto-focus with the D3100. And then, I came across the even wider 8-16mm variable aperture Sigma lens. Even wider but at a higher price.

At the current point of time, I'm most likely going to settle for a D3100 body and the Nikkor 16-85mm variable aperture lens. A cheap body with an expensive lens (and also the kit lens that comes with the D3100) and to save up more money over the next few years to build up an inventory of lenses. The ultra wide angle Sigma would be at the top of my list...

... or could it be the Nikkor 70-300mm VR lens? I've been pampered by the long zoom that came with the FZ30 and couldn't get the telephoto reach out of my mind. Maybe I could settle for the slower autofocus consumer lens from Nikon - Nikkor 55-300mm VR? Or should I be bolder and go for the latest 28-300mm VR?

Maybe I should just forget about all of them and settle for a single D7000 with the 18-105mm kit lens. HMPH! A D7000 has a body complicated enough that I would not get bored of unlike the simpler D3100...

What a lot of thoughts... perhaps I could hold out on any purchase for another eternity...

Carnivorous Android

Not meaning to promote Android nor demote Apple, I find the image below amusing while at the same time, not liking the taste of one OS attacking another OS.

Image via an article from Android Community.

Falling In Place

Have you ever felt at times that everything would just mess up on bad days and on some good or ok days, things tend to go your way? Today seemed to be an ok, not a good nor excellent, but ok day for me. Work was piling up as I was outstation for work very often the last two weeks but schedules for meetings for the rest of this week were all automatically set up without clashing with one another.

I did not even need to intervene or reschedule them. I did not forget I had one meeting and then accept another in the same time slot. Pretty interesting and I am talking about no less than 6 meetings throughout the week. I wouldn't have realised this in normal circumstances but it just came to me when I was having a quiet and late dinner alone just now. Hmmm...

Yet another month end

We have come to the end of September and also the end of another quarter. Sigh and I've been blogging lesser and lesser these days. Not that my posts had been very interesting but I kinda like to talk rubbish and post them online. :P

Unfortunately for me my current job doesn't seem to permit enough time to blog these days. Have been running around rushing this and rushing that and travelling south almost every week chasing for dunno what! Not very healthy but at the same time, due to all these life's been on the fast lane.

Advantages - not a boring job and can be exciting at times. Looking at the end result produces some form of satisfaction.

Disadvantages - time passes by really fast and I have hardly enough time for my personal stuff. The stress can be overwhelming and happens all too often.

That's all for this time. Until the next dunno when time, bye!

Peace Hotel @ Taiping

Peace Hotel
Originally uploaded by IonBuck.

Was in Taiping for work around couple of months ago and was on the way for breakfast when I saw this Peace Hotel. Immediately, I started to wonder if this was related to the Chow Yun Fatt movie way back in 1995.

- Taken with the HTC Desire -

Buried

Am rather curious about the upcoming movie Buried starring Ryan Reynolds. Would like to see how a movie is made with majority of the scenes inside a coffin. Based on what I can make out of the trailer on the official website he is kidnapped for ransom while being buried somewhere in a coffin. He has a lighter, a cellphone and 90 minutes of oxygen (but later in the trailer, he has a pocket knife which the kidnapper commanded he use to cut his finger(!!!) and also a torchlight). Below is another trailer I found on YouTube:

Vaguely, I think the buried is being filmed and posted on the web... which reminds me of the double CSI episodes directed by Quentin Tarantino titled Grave Danger.

I also like the posters from the official website and here is one of them:

Donkey Democracy

A donkey transporting ballot boxes to remote villages before parliamentary elections in Afghanistan:

via Eyewitness.

Day Tracks

Love this photo. It's a combination of various railroad tracks including the express train from KLIA, electric train track, etc. The blue sky with clusters of clouds help to enrich the colours of the photo. Also like how the way the tracks curve and lead towards the horizon intersected by a bridge.

- Taken with the HTC Desire -

Delightful quotes from scientific legend Stephen Hawking

I like these couple of quotes from Stephen Hawking about how intelligent we humans are as a species and the impact we made:

"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach."

"I think computer viruses should count as life. Maybe it says something about human nature, that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive."

via @Time.

Messy Dirty Dirt

When website called TheDirty.com apparently posted a picture of Sarah Jones (a Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader while at the same time is also a high school English teacher - how?) and reported that she had an affair with a player and had contracted two venereal diseases, the cheerleader-cum-teacher sued. The only thing was the website mentioned in the case had a missing "y" to it. TheDirt.com did not respond and was ordered to pay $11 million!

Now TheDirt.com is considering suing while TheDirty.com is asking for an apology for falsely reporting that it had lost the lawsuit when it had not even been served.


via TechDirt thru Slashdot.

Don't think too much this Merdeka Day and beyond...

... because...

via Stuff No One Told Me (but I have to post it here or aliens will kill me).

Beyond Inception

FoxTrot is taking the meaning of Inception to an all new level!

via FoxTrot.com.

The One Called Wally

Hail Wally! He speaks for us employees who earn a leaving on a salary. For the past two days, he's been the voice of our dilemma in waking up to go to work and the need to endure more work after lunch...

Holy Magnetic Heads!

Interesting theory from one of my favourite comics:

via Pearls Before Swine.