Funny Flash Amination

Snap shots at Living Cabin

I managed to sneak my camera into the souvenir shop Living Cabin at Leisure Mall where I managed to snap some of the items that were displayed there. Here are some of my work of the shots taken on the Japanese lucky cats and elephants:

Prawn feelings or flavour???

Pauline managed to capture a "funny mistake" in a prawn cracker wrapper. The ingredient used for the prawn cracker was "perasaan udang" which means prawn feelings which actually it should be "perasa udang" - prawn flavour. One more mistake that she did not highlight was the word "Sadium Bikabonet" which is Sodium Bicarbonate. The word "Sadium" should be "Natriam" in Malay.

Having fun using Photoshop

Here are some of my latest work using Photoshop. Click on the photos to get a bigger image:

The red colour of the car stands out in the black and white background. I achieved this by using masking and hue/saturation settings.


I managed to change the colour of the car from red to purple... wow what a different look!!

Happy 1st Anniversary to Great Expectations!!!

Today marks the 1st anniversary of this blog which I started just for fun. This will be the 203rd posting.. well not bad that an average half a blog posting a day for the past year.

I have enjoyed all the postings that I have made in regards to my daily life and to look back to the first posting till today, it will definitely brings back memories a year ago.

Don't worry, this would not be my last log posting because I intend to post as long as I can.

Learning Photoshop CS

Many "good" digital photos have one through some touching up before they are posted. The most commonly used software would be the Adobe suite of software namely Photoshop and Photo Element .

As I need to further improve myself on my digital photography and at the same time make it more presentable to be posted in my blog, I started to learn Photoshop CS.

I started with buying some books hoping that I can read the techniques and practice the steps written in the book. Sad to say, I am not much of a book worm.

I managed to find a DVD which offered steps by steps lesson on the use of Photoshop. I find that learning from movies on lessons more effective because the instructor offers good example on how to use the many features and functions of Photoshop.

I have gone through a few lessons and masking and selection. I managed to come out with some creative presentation of some of my photos.

Here is a sample of what I have learned so far:

WPF 8496

I could not post this posting earlier because of the TOP SECRET work that I have been doing. Yes, you will know from the title of the posting is the registration number of a vehicle. Well, what kind of vehicle am I talking about...it's a new Perodua Kenari Aero Sport - red colour which we took delivery of it today.

The story started about three weeks ago when my daughter want me to get her a car after she got her license. She has been driving proudly in my car which I think is took luxurious and powerful for her. I have taken her around to some used car dealers and she wanted a Perodua Kenari. Her expectations and requirement was high, she wanted a Perodua Kenari not any ordinary Kenari but an Aero. So our trip to the second hand car dealers were just a "trip".

I start scouting around in the classified advertisement for a second hand car. I managed to see a few units up for sale but it cost RM30,000 for a three year old car compared to a new car which cost only RM41,000 on the road. That's only a mere RM11,00 difference where I can get to smell a new car, get a new car registration number, full history of maintenance and most of all it's NEW!!!

I decided to get a new Kenari but I wanted it to remain a secret from my family and to make it as a surprise for my daughter. I called up my previous sales girls who sold me the Accord to get me a unit. Last Tuesday (12 July) I met up with a young Perodua sale representative, George Wong and sign up for the purchase of the new Kenari. I told him that I wanted a loan of RM20,000 and he said that is the minimum amount that I can borrow.... what minimum?? He mentioned that since the price of the Perodua cars were low, RM20,000 is the minimum amount of loan that the purchaser can get, special approval is required if I want to get a loan for less than that amount. Then he asked me what the period of repayment, I said I wanted to settle off the loan within 2 years. Guess what? He said that the minimum repayment period is 4 years. So I said that's find with me. I decided to take a loan from Ambank since their office is just next to mine and it make repayment of the loan easier.

On Monday (17 July) evening, an officer from Ambank called me and asked a few question about my loan application. The next day George called me and said that the loan was approved and requested me to meet up with him to sign some documents and get the motor insurance ready.

On Friday (21 July) he called me to inform me that the car has been registered with JPJ with registration number WPF 8496. Not a bad number considering that the registration number is taken from the running sequence. Translated to Cantonese, the number roughly meant "Prosperous Forever". I request that the car be tinted since the car has many large panels of windscreen and from my experience with my own car, a good tinting really helps a lot. The cost of tinting the new car cost me RM1,000-00. George mentioned that I can taken delivery of the car on Saturday afternoon after the tint job is finished. On Friday night, I decided to tell the family except my daughter of the delivery of the new car and I would like to surprise my daughter, Carrie.

View of the car during pre-delivery inspection

Every one's happy over the new car

Today, in order not to arouse and suspicion, I asked Carrie out with me to visit car dealers. The whole family tagged along on a pretext that we are going out for lunch. When we reached the Perodua office, Esther and Darren saw the new red colour Kenari Aero Sport parked outside the office and shouted out to say that the car looks nice. Carrie was not aware of the reason why her sister and brother mentioned that. When I parked my car, I told her that the car parked outside office was our car.. she was stunted!!

Carrie was happy, surprise and could not believe that she can drive now with a new car. However, the best was yet to come. The car is a manual transmission car and she has not been driving a manual transmission car since she got her license. Her first assignment was to drive her mother, sister and brother to Leisure Mall for lunch. It was a horrifying experience for Carrie and all in the car. That's natural since she was new to the car but I guess she will get use to the car in a very short time.

Safely and carefully driving away the car

Keep it UP TT!!

A friend of mine, TT who is a regular blogger has been feeling very down of late. She has been "bugged" by her son, WH, who is very active in nature. WH is suffering from autism and TT is finding very to cope with him with his behaviour.

I want to tell you about my brother and niece, Crystal.



My brother and sister-in-law too has a problem, child. My niece, Crystal is partially blind. Crystal was born as a premature twin. Unfortunately, her twin sister did not make it and Crystal weighed below a kilogram when she was born. She was placed in an incubateur to make sure she have a fighting chance. However, too much oxygen made her partially blind. Both my brother and sister-in-law have to bring her up with the help of my brother's mother-in-law. They had they ups and down with her having to take care of her. Due to her poor health problem when she was young, Crystal have to taken to the hospital for her regular check up.

My brother did not give up hope to find a way to restore Crystal's sight. Like TT, he scouted the web looking for a "miracle".



Today, Crystal is 9 years old and is attending to a special school for the blind. She is healthy and very smart too. She rely on her other senses to get her around. She is fluent in Mandarin, English and Malay and is a joy to all of us. My brother and sister-in-law can now be more relax after having to cope with Crystal's ups and down when she was younger. But both of them will still have to look after her for her whole life. I can sense that Crystal realised what her parents are gong through and tried very hard to be independent and to make her parents happy.

I hope I understand what TT has been going through and have offered my advise. That's the best I can do.

SO KEEP UP YOUR HOPES, TT!!!

Bras on display!!

I was at my local Giant superstore today and I could not help but to take this funny picture on how the store is selling bras.

All the bras on sale were carefully placed on a tall rack with layers of bras of different colour. I wonder what the ladies would do if they go near the display rack... from where will they take the bras.. from the tall display rack or those which were place on the rack below!! You would notice that there is a missiing pink bra located on the middle portion of the rack... I woder!!!
Guess the price??? RM9.90 each.

Have apologise on the poor quality of the photos which were taken with my phone.

Problems with my new blog template

You would noticed that I have changed the blog template which looks super. However, I recently encounter some problems with it.

• The template title banner came with a graphic picture.
• On the top side bar also have a picture of a bookmark.
• Graphics appeared on the posting title
• Another graphic also appeared before the comment line
• The background of the postings is of a beige colour

Since yesterday, all the lovely graphics disappeared when I use Firefox to view it. The whole blog looks plain without the lovely graphics. Not satisfy with the result, I boot up Internet Explorer and the blog template looks fine!!

So I would advise my readers to user an IE browser to view my blog where the most benefit will derived.

By the way, this will me the 200th posting in my blog.

Thanks for visiting my blog!!

Update

The new blog temple works well with IE, Mozilla and Opera.. why cannot work Firefox.. beat the hell out of me!!

Service Recognition Award

One of the good things that my organisation has over the rest of other organisations of the same line is that they recognise loyalty of its staff. That's why there are some many people who still stayed on with the organisation from the time they join it till they retire. One of these many staff is me!!

Today, my organisation organised the annual service recognition award for staff at the Head Office. All staff who have served 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and even 35 years are awarded with a token of appreciation by the organisation. Just imagine for today, we have a total of 190 recipients which consist of 3 person for 35 years, 4 person for 30 years, 68 persons for 25 years which include me and the balance are for 20 and 15 years of service.

The front and back of the gold coin

Today I was proud to receive my 25 years recognition award which in the form of a gold coin. Not any ordinary gold coin but a gold coin which was commissioned by my organisation to be mint by Singapore Mint. The gold coin is 99.99% and weight 31.18 grams which is exactly one once.

(I have also the same gold coin which was presented to me to recognise my 20 years of service with the bank. The coin weighed 3/4 oz.)

With the price of gold at its high... gold price closed at RM73.90 per gram today at Kuala Lumpur. The gold coin that I received today is worth RM2,304.20 (31.18 grams).

But the gold coin will not be sold... ehhhh for the moment. It will be kept in my safe deposit box together with the gold coin that I received 5 years ago. I will have to wait for another 5 years to receive the next gold coin which is about 3 oz and by the time I retire, I would receive another gold coin of 5 oz. So if I am able to accumulate all the coins, the total weight will be 9.75 oz which at today's gold price would worth RM20,425.96 (276.4 grams). WOW... I am dreaming with my eyes open!!!

New Blog Template

Guess what?... My blog will soon be celebrating it's 1st anniversary. And to prepare for the "celebration", I have changed the template of the blog to a money classical one. Nice or not???

Gone are the:

1. Clock and replaced with a more fancy one

2. AdSense advertisement which is non-sense and did not generate me much money at all.

Hope you like the new look!!

Strap on your safety belt, please!!

It's been some time since I log into this blog. I have nothing much to write about. Weekends has been plain sitting and lazing around the house. I could leave my blog being empty for such a long time.

Today I want to mention something that has been pissing me off when I am on the road. The road safety campaign paid much attention to motorcycle riders and their pillion riders to wear a safety helmet. But wearing the helmet is only one part of the story, the helmet needs to be strap on well to prevent the helmet from flying out in case of an accident.

Okay, that's for the riders. What piss me off are there are many drivers who do not put on their safety belt. Similar to motorcycle riders where wear helmet is compulsory, drivers of cars are also required to strap on the safety belt. But sad to say, I noticed at least more than 40% of the drivers I see on the road does not strap on their safety belt. Why???

I think it's the attitude of the city folks who just want to rush off when they turn on their car key. Much t say, the police that were stationed on the road were did not notice that the drivers did not strap on their safety belt.

To me putting on the safety belt is second to nature when I put my butt on the drivers seat (it's like that you need to pull down your underwear when you wanna to pee in the toilet, unless if you are not wearing one!!). My car comes with a warning light and sound when the safety belt is not strapped on when the car is in motion after about 2 minutes, strapping on the safety belt will kill off the alarm.

I still remember when Government made it compulsory to wear a safety belt when driving (that is more than 30 years ago), an alert system can be installed in the car where an alarm will sound when the engine is turned on to the driver to put on the safety belt.

So much to today, at least I let off some steam on the attitude of people who does not wear a safety belt. So buckle up and be safe on the road.