Fashion Elevation

For the long holidays, 1 Utama has organised Fashion Elevation where the tenants of 1 U would feature all their latest fashion. One other thing was 1 U has also generously allowed photographers to shoot their hearts out on the models on the runway. Fashion shows are organised on an hourly basis from 2.00 p.m..

I was there today to snap my heart out with my new camera. 1 U managed to organise the event well. Photographers would need to register themselves. Once you register you are given a tag to wear on your neck with the the word "Photographer". With the tag, you can shoot the whole day of all the fashion events from a specially made stage located at the end of the runway where the models will pose.

When I reach 1 U I managed to see a whole group of photographers there all getting ready with their cameras for the show to start. Wow.. almost all of them are equipped with long long zoom lenses. I was just using my 18mm - 70mm lens which came with the camera. I was having one of the shortest lens there. At the same tie, most of them are also equipped with flash unit as oppose to me I was using the attached flash that came with the camera.

There were only two lady photographers and they are also equipped with long zoom lenses. Guess what cameras are use... the Canon DSLR. outnumbered the Nikons.

One of the lady photographer with a D70s and long zoom lens.

But what the heck, I will shoot with what I have at the moment... just wait lah with more money I will get all the other accessories.

For photos, please access to my photo blog.

Beautiful car... Beautiful girls

Spent the day at 1 Utama today. There's many fashion going on in the city and want to venture out to snap photos of the fashions shows. Off I went to 1 U to see what was installed there.

There was a Honda Civic promotion there, a few units of Civic and one unit of cut-through version where you can see the car interior. If you have followed my blog, I have been following the launching of the Civic in Malaysia. This will be the first time I am posting some photos of the car here. At the same, as bonus, the beautiful promoters who were there to promote the car. They were generous enough to allow me to snap some photos of theirs.

So killing two birds with one camera... beautiful car and beautiful girls. More photos at my photo blog.

The interior of the Civic 2.0 "cut-through"version (please note that the car is not for sale!)

Windows Warning and How Rich is Bill Gates?

Well the day finally came where you can detect a pirated copy of Windows operating system that is running on your PC. Thanks to the pirates, I have been able to learn the wonders of Windows and at the same time enjoyed all the games and applications that run of the OS. But the day has finally come where users of PCs running pirated Windows will find their machines "tattooted" with a message "This copy of Windows is not genuine ...” just like the one in the picture:



If you would also have noticed, the Business Software Alliance has been providing rewards toto informerss to blow the whistle on those who use pirates software and have also worked closely with the Government Agencies to rid the use of pirated software. How many times have they launched such campaigns? I think such campaigns are held all year round but still the pirates are there..Whyy? Because it's people like me who can "enjoy" the use of the software (applications or games) for a "minimal price"




As you know, our good friend Mr Bill Gates is the richest man on earth. However, I heard over the radio about how rich he is and will be. If my memories does not fail me, it was mentioned that they have a "death clock" for Mr Gates and he is expected to live until the age of about 73. Base on the way he accumulate and compound his wealth, he would be a trillionairee by the time he kick the bucket. At that time basing on the whole world's population, his wealth can be distributed to everyone at about US$4-20 each!

I started t o gather information on how rich is our Mr Gates and here are some information gathered from "Bills Gates Personal Wealth Clock" and "Bills Gates Net Worth Page" .

• Based on the closing price of Microsoft shares on 25 April 2006 which is US$27.11, he wealth is US $64.519557 billion.

• Consider that he made this money in the 25 years or so since Microsoft was founded in 1975. If you presume that he has worked 14 hours a day on every business day of the year since then, that means he's been making money at a staggering million dollars per hour, around US$300 per second. Which means that if, on his way into the office, should he see or drop a $1000 bill on the ground, it's just not worth his time to bend over and pick it up. He would make more just heading off to work.

• On March 13, 1986, the day Microsoft went public, according to Microsoft's Public Relations Department, Bill owned 11,142,000 shares of MSFT stock. At MSFT's IPO price of $21 per share Bill's initial fortune was worth US$233,982,000 or US$233.98 Million. Adjusted for splits, if Bill had not sold any stock since then, he would have 3,208,896,000 shares. Those shares would be worth US$89,849,088,000.00 or US$89.85 Billion today.

• When will Bill become a TRILLIONAIRE? (By the US definition: $1,000,000,000,000.) If he can maintain the current 26.69% annual rate of growth, he will achieve trillionaire-hood in 15.20 Years, on Jul 9, 2021. And, just for laughs, what about a Quadrillionaire? At the same continuous growth rate, he will achieve Quadrillionaire-hood in 44.40 Years, on Aug 15, 2052.

• According to the US Census Bureau, the population of the World on 25 April 2006 was: 6,511,892,342 (That's 6.51 Billion). This means that Mr Gatesl could give US$4.20 to every person on the entire planet! And he'd still have US$31,935,419 left over for incidentals.

• According to the Microsoft Fast Facts web page, on September 30, 2005, Microsoft had 63,564 employees. Though many of them are already millionaires, Bill could afford to give each of them US$430,776.59.

Based on Mr Gates wealth of US$27,381,883,256:

• If you had 27,381,883,256 one dollar bills, and laid them end to end, you would have a line of bills that runs 2,653,480.7 miles.

• If you took 27,381,883,256 one dollar bills, and could actually balance them in a stack, that stack would be 9,793,234.3 feet or 1,854 miles high.

• The stack of 27,381,883,256 one dollar bills would weigh 60,312,518.1 pounds or 27,940.6 tons.

Dream on for all of us, we can never get a wealth like his. But we can still DREAM!!!

Darren's Pinched Face

My son Darren has been toying around with a image software called PhotoImpact. He would distort images what he captured using our new camera. It came a time that he said that he would wan to see how his face would look like when it is distorted using PhotoImpact. So I took a snapshot of him below:



Using PhotoImpact, he distorted his photo using the "pinch" feature, and here is how awful and funny it looks like:

FUNNY...Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

A little bit of goodbye and a little bit of hello!

Well on Thursday, 20th April, we were in the office getting ready to celebrate the resignation of one of staff Valerie. At about 11.00 a.m, I got a call from Siva who asked to have lunch with me. Siva, if you remember in my earlier postings, Siva was at Aberdeen doing his studies. However, her mother suddenly passed away in March and he have to come back to see his beloved mother (May she rest in Peace). Being back home, he spent about a month here before going off back to Aberdeen on Monday 24 April to continue what he was there for.

So it a bit of a goodbye for Valerie and a hello for Siva. But the best thing was when we were having a "makan" session both Siva and Valerie were around.

As for Valerie, she has been with me for the past 4 years in my department. I remembered that I was scouting for some candidates to fill vacancies in my department where I came across this candidate who graduated in Micro Biology. What the f**k would a person who graduated in micro Biology doing in a bank. That interest me and I decided with Mazhar to have a chat with her. Both of us found her very interesting, imaging putting micro biology into our present work processes!!

Time passes by and on 2 March, I saw her hanging arounf in front of my cubicle wanting to see me and I saw a piece of paper in her hands. No need to guess, I knew that was her resignation letter. True to my guess, it was her letter of resignation. I asked her where's she going, she told me that she's getting "married". I later found out where's she's going. Well all the best for her in her other undertaking, from micro biology to banking and now to some where high high !!

By the was I forgot to mention, Valerie fractured her toe when she was packing her things in her apartment and she arrived to office in crutches... a RM60 pair of crutches.

Food!!

Last shots with friends (Valerie is the one in black, while Siva is the darker one!!)

Me and Valerie ( abit blur because the camera man wasn't too familiar with the focusing of my camera)

The "Hello" meets the "Goodbye"

A going away presentation

Valerie with her crutches

All photos taken with my new Nikon D70s

New lens for the D70s

The D70s come with a telephoto lens of 18mm to 70mm.. man the lens is heavy 320 g to be exact. I remember when I have my last SLR which was a Minolta XGM way back in the late 70s, SLR come with standard 50mm lens.

I have studied and consulted my "siu fu" to get a 50mm lens. He showed me his 50mm Nikon lens f1.8, I told myself to get one too since it is relatively cheap less than RM400.


I have hunting for the lens everywhere from Sungai Wang to Mid-Valley, no shop carries the lens. It seem that the lens is very popular and very low in stock.

Finally, I got one today at a shop at Bukit Bintang Plaza (Foto Edar). Paid for it, fitted it on my D70s, wow what a world of difference.. the whole camera was so light. The lens only weights 155 grams as oppose to the 18mm-70mm lens of 320 grams. That's half the weight.

I will definitely use both lens because the 50mm would be light to carry around and would be good in places of low light since it's a f1.8 lens. The telephoto lens will come in handy when I go on sight seeing trips.

The next items that I get for my camera would be the flash and a remote control.. but these items can still be hold on.

The light weight 50mm f1.8 lens 155 grams as oppose to the......
The 18mm-70mm lens that come with the D70s.. 322grams

Change my Profile Photo

Just an update to my profile photo. If you cannot see how it looks like, here it is:

Dinner at Victoria Station

Well once a while have to gather the family for a nice meal outside. Incidentally, my daughter, Carrie just got her first month's pay from her 1 month's job at a silver jewelry store. She was there just to kill time while waiting for her SPM results. So, she wanted to treat the family to a dinner, her brother wanted to slaughter her by suggesting to go to Victoria Station. Carrie was nervous since she knew that a dinner there would cost her a bomb and there would be not much left of ther first inaugural salary received.

Off we go to Victoria Station, a fine restaurant where you can enjoy the ambiance of a train station. It was a good place to try out the new camera too. I have posted some of the photos below. I just wanted to have a steak there and the rest of the family thinking to spare Carrie of her misery ordered meals that we not too on the high cost side.

In the end the bill came and it was about RM200 plus, I took the tab without Carrie paying. It would not be nice to slaughter her since she had sacrifice much of ther time daily from 11.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m. working at the place.

The "liang lui" and the "liang soh" of the family

"Yam Seng"

Esther having a ride on the "train"

Carrie and her grand mother

Photo enhancement

See the difference between the two photos.. same shots but one is the original shot while the other has some "Ajinomoto" added:

Without enhancement



















After enhancement

Photo field trip to Putrajaya

I made a photo field trip to Putrajaya to test out the Nikon D70s. At the same time, I was given a try on a Sigma Zoom lens courtesy of Lye Hock. The zoom lens was a 70mm - 300mm would be great to zoom into great details without much effort. Currently, the D70s is equipped with a 18mm to 70mm lens which is also great covering wide to zoom angle photography.

Here are some samples of the photos. Larger photos are available at my photo blog.

Some shoots taken with my new D70s

Here are some shots from my new Nikon D70s. These photos have been reduced in size by 50%. The actual size is about 1.5MB each which would be too difficult to be upload to the blog.

The picture of me resting on my bed. This shot was done by my son

A close up of a flower

A close up of the fortune bamboo plant which was purchased from IKEA


The cuckoo clock which we bought from Germany during my European tour

My goldfish swimming happily in my tank

X-files - The Truth is Out There

I have been a keen follower of the X-files series where it starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. However when David Duchovny call it quit, I did not follow the series till the end. Luckily for us now, we can get popular TV series in DVD boxes.

I have earlier mentioned that I got hold of the series 24 DVD box set for season 4 (I am anxiously waiting for the arrival of Season 5).

I managed to get hold of the full 9 seasons of X-files series in one single box. The box cost me RM210-00 from Sg Wang. Inside there are 14 double sided DVDs. Each DVD can be played on both side. One side consist of 2 "disc" of about 4 show each. Overall I will need a long long time before I could find all the 9 seasons of X-files. at least I would not miss out on any episodes at all. I can afford to watch the series at my own pace.

The Many faces of Darren Chan

The many faces of my son, Darren. all pictures taken under continuous mode using the new Nikon D70s by his sister, Esther.

An expensive March

The month of March is when I spend much money. If you have notice, I have bought a phone for my daughter, a camera for myself and one more item for my wife.
Well, her birthday is in March, March 27 to be exact (my daughter's is on 21 March).
I have bought her a present. Guess what I bought??
It's girl's best friend.. not the dog but precious stones.
Looks like I will have to rob the bank to sustain this spending habit of mind!!

My latest toy

After much consideration and holding back my urge.. I finally committed myself to get a digital SLR. It was a tough choice between the Nikon D50 and D70s. Why is is so tough? well it's the cost between the two models, the D70s cost RM1,000 more than the D50 but the features of the D70s is much more than the D50.

I was at the shop at Sungai Wang today to get the camera. I was there with my son. At the shop, we took the two models out and made comparison between the D50 and the D70s. The shop assistant also recommended the Canon 350, but I am not a Cannon person and further more, the size of the camera is smaller which I think a SLR should be of larger in size when compared to other compact digital camera. Furthermore, holding a bigger SLR let you have the satisfaction that we are of a different league or breed from those who are using the compact cameras.
My son was not much of a help when I asked him which one of one of the two models should I go for.

Finally, I made up my mind, it's the D70s, what the heck RM1,000 more but I can have much more feature to play with without having regretting not having them when the need the feature.

I bought the camera together with a UV filter which also acts as the lens protector and a Nikon camera bag to house all the accessories when I on the move.

Now after the decision and been made and the camera in my hands, it's time to learn the features and ready for more photo shootings.