THE AUSSIE LIFE AGAIN

William reminded me that my blog is alive, hence I decided to put up this entry. As the title suggest, I’m back to the Aussie life again. Tonight is the warmest night ever – fourteen degrees Celsius. It was four when I arrived two weeks ago.

Anyhow, here are some of my favourite shots taken recently.

Charlene checking out my inbox.

Pizza at Alphonsus’s with the freshies.

With Cassie. Everyone thinks she’s darn hot but I think Charlene’s better.

Outside the bubble-tea store with the German freshies! A cup of bubble-tea here can cost four bucks.

Sneaky Jo with her King of Hearts. The game allows the bearer to issue a forfeit.

NOT READY READING C DRIVE

A friend posted this photo on facebook and I thought I thought this was kinda funny! Picture was taken in a MRT station.

JULY ALREADY

It’s July already. I’m afraid I won’t be able to come up with the new compilation before I go. Neverthless, that gives me more time to fine-tune my music in Australia while I embark on my Sound module next semester. I’ll squeeze the lecturer dry with all my queries and hopefully master Logic Express, Nuendo or something. Here’s a cool shot of my bro taken by Chad’s most trusted Canon EOS 1D-Mark II. As the shot was taken in rather dim lighting, I must say that the 35mm F/2 did a pretty good job. Colours were not so vivid hence I applied a black/white template to make the pictures look more emo/vintage/indie whatever younglings , as coined by Ping would like to call it.

I don’t know but since when the word ‘youngsters’ has evolved into ‘younglings’? It reminds me of the Starcraft’s grotesque zerglings though.

I also don’t understand why people are apologetic when they do not update their blogs – I prefer calling it weblogs actually. From time to time, I’ll chance upon statements like,

“I’m so sorry I’ve not updated for so long!” or

“Feels like a century since my last update, I’m terribly sorry because I have been so busy”

It seems like bloggers have subconsciously subjected themselves to an obligation to entertain their readers like a weekly magazine. I make no apologies though I was inclined to do so after discovering that the previous post was published a month ago. During the recent months, I’ve been taking lots of photos as attested by my facebook gallery – I have more than a hundred albums! And my D90’s shuttercount has crossed over 18,000! That is pretty insane considering I only bought my camera just six months ago. For those who are wondering, a camera’s shuttercount tells you how extensive a camera has been used. Each shot you take piles on to the statistics, so technically, I’ve clicked over eighteen thousand times!

I got this information from the site – http://regex.info/exif.cgi/exif.cgi Tells you everything you need to know about your shot such as lens type, exposure program, hyperfocal distance and lots more. Check it out!

LAST MEETING

Today is the last day of the semester – exams over, essays written, assignments submitted – but strangely I feel a sense of despair. While my peers are gearing up for their final papers, I’m actually devoid from any form of academic commitments. It’s something media students like myself get to enjoy because of the structure in our course work that consists largely of project work. As a matter of fact, my only chore now is to decide what subjects to take for the next semester. I’m pretty torn over what to pick because that would determine the duration of my course of study. I’m pretty reluctant to do a particular philosophy unit though that would help me graduated earlier. My reluctance is objectively based on a proposition that philosophy can greatly leave a person confused, cynical and volatile in his belief system, which, in my opinion, is detrimental and highly life threatening.

I have developed a love-hate relationship with the academics over this semester. I wish I have the simple mind of a five year old but on the other hand, I’m terribly hungry for knowledge and so eager to discover the things that are hidden from me. Also, I made some pretty drastic decisions during the week. Not nice ones but totally essential. I try to rationalize and put my emotions aside to convince myself that I had been sane. Ha.

Anyway, these are some nice shots taken just now.

This is my specialty – Singapore Chao Ta Fried Rice. My mates all love it. You’ll find out why in the subsequent photos.

FRIDAY NIGHTS

Friday nights are always crazy. But the girlfriend will now have a reason to beam. I’m actually loving my soda more than beer. Check out my orangelicious drink below!

It’s tasty orange flavoured soda. And we’re thinking to have a LAN-party next week. Melissa has expressed interest in DOTA. And Surds loves Counterstrike. So we’re good and ready to go! Check out the screen shot below!

JUST CHILLING

I stayed home the entire time today and am proud to announce that I have finally completed my film review.
Now I’m beginning to feel like a film student after having developed an appreciation for non-hollywood films. This is funny but true. I have always loved American films, gearing especially towards romantic comedies. Gay huh? I can still vividly remember two reasons why I chose to study media. This is going to be embarrassing but I’m still going to say it. Firstly, I was told that and have grown to learn that the media industry is where all the cool people are. Secondly, having understood the nature of mass media and the influence it has on people, I knew that there is where I want to make a difference. It may sound a little fatuous but it’s true. Ha.

THE PARCEL

In the midst of breakfast, Kim told me that there was a parcel for me.

So I hurried downstairs to collect it!

It was from the GIRLFRIEND!

Hmmmm …

Some interesting stuff here.

Cars are half-priced here.

Sad but true. Reminds me of Slumdog Millionaire.

And my neat little nest.

NIKKOR 18-200MM

My dream of the month just came to pass. I finally bought my most coveted lens – the Nikkor 18-200mm after some contemplation. In fact, I was also considering Nikon’s counterpart – Sigma 18-200mm. But after some reviews, I decided I had to get Nikkor!

I paid 900 bucks for it and for a second, I really thought I was out of my mind. So I tried to reason with myself over how camera lens are liquid assets that have amazingly high resale value.

I like this red shirt. And some people think it’s nice too.

DROPLETS ARE FOR LAZY PEOPLE

I finally found the time – after a million years – to program a droplet for my photos after several trial and errors. Now, resizing dimensions, adding border, changing contrast and watermarking is fully automated! I simply drag the entire picture folder into the newly crafted droplet and Imageready does everything for me! This beats commercial resizing programs because in my most humble opinion, photoshop yields the best results. Gone are the days when I had to do everything individually. It was so repetitive, I fell asleep many times. I’m dead serious.

A droplet is basically a script that tells photoshop what commands to execute on a picture. So if you wish to learn to make a droplet, talk to me!

These are some shots taken last Saturday at Boat Quay, resized, contrasted, border-ed and watermarked using the droplet. Nice.

3 THINGS TODAY

Firstly, Alan visits Singapore! Welcome my Aussie mate to sunny island’s Orchard!

And a happy & blessed birthday to our chic chick Charmaine Wan! May you grow prettier and smarter each year!

Also, not forgetting Yi Liang and mates!