So this Earth Hour thingy...

Initially I wasn't sold to the idea of turning off the lights. Yes I know it seems absurd that for someone like me wouldn't be sold the idea. Yea. I thought that turning off the lights wouldn't mean a thing. Yes it means you 'Voted Earth' but then what have you done to 'support Earth'? It's like voting for PR and keep quiet when you're asked to bribe. No point.

Well then my mum saw the ad and asked wanna join or not. Of coz when the parent asked den you say yes la. Takkan say no when they are showing effort?

Come 8.30pm and I prepared to take a walk wit my cam snapping the darkness.

Well my living room was dark, that's a good thing.

But where were my parents? LOL they went out to some place for dinner.

Ok no prob for me. Turned off the computer and everything else in my room. Hooked up the tripod to the cam and went out. It was just hitting 8.30 and lights are still on at the nearby 'temple' and community hall. Mamak stall seemed bright. Went to look for an indicator:

Before (during E.H, to be exact)

You might wanna check out the 'after' pics in the later part of the post.

Another during pic. At first only my home was dark. Second time i walked past it was dark. Well at least the ones you see in the pics are. (screwed up WB. Damn... Worst part is I was shooting in JPG)

One thing that disappoints me is that people are actually driving out to escape from the heat of turning off their fan and stuff.

What difference are you making when you turn off your lights to 'conserve energy and reduce CO2 emissions' but drive out? Mind you these are houses that are blacked out. The CO2 you pump into the air is more than the CO2 you offset in that 1 hour. Mother Earth is gonna thank you for that.

And I see more and more cars leaving their blacked-out houses deeper into 'Earth Hour'.

Get the message straight. Convince the government to invest in renewable energy. It's a whole field, a whole economy by its own. In this economical downturn, the field of renewable energy actually creates jobs.

Enough of those stuff. You can know more from wiki and Al Gore.

Another thing is the way companies are promoting it.


Look at the menu for a dinner organised by a local company. Zoom in on 'organic salmon'. No matter how organic the salmon is, flying it across the pacific ocean juz to get it on someone's plate is just as green as turning off your lights and driving out. If wanna be green, BE green. Dun say that the dinner has it's lights off and entertains you wit acoustic instrument that it's green. Unless that salmon is caught on our country's shores. Than it's a diff story.

And yes, my camera is probably charged by fossil-fuel derived electricity. I could've ran on a hamsterwheel to generate electricity for it though. LOL.

Hrmm... Let's end this post fast, shall we? Some 'after' pics:

See any difference? Screwed up the WB for this as well. Beyond repair.

Saddest part of the whole hour is that as soon as it strikes 9.30pm, my parents reached home. And in a minute all the lights in the house were lit, along wit a shout of 'EARTH HOUR IS OVER'. No doubt I felt embarrassed by that. It's like they feel liberated by the forces of nature and are now re-conquering nature. *Did I juz sounded like a hippie in that last sentence?* LOL I dunno, never had the idea of preaching to my parents. I tried to ask my mom to segregate her rubbish, she did it for one day, and forgot about it the next. LOL.

And the place they went didn't turn off their lights. So much for suggesting the idea of turning lights off.

A pic I took during the walk:

Unknown significance. Juz felt like posting. 8 seconds exposure though.

So how many dinosaurs did you save from flying into the air yesterday night?

Oh yea, pics were taken wit the LX3 but felt that it wasn't worth the space on my flickr. Badly taken, aren't they?

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Old style tidbits/biscuit store

Pics taken on the same day as the previous post.


Pork knuckles w/ rice. Damn tasty! But not for the health-conscious. *insert bad stuff* will shoot thru the roof.


Gramdma doin wut she does for the last 50+ years, sellin biscuits.


Rack of chocolate-coated wafers in red packaging.


Retrieving containers of biscuits.

Seriously, it's rare to see shops selling tidbits/biscuits like this anymore. Most of them are self-service style in supermarkets. Even that also the variety is not a lot.

Dunno wut will happen to the store when my grandparents decide to retire. Currently no plans to do so though.

Muz be reading too much DannyChoo.com. Too much one-liners in recent posts.

Hrmm... Everytime there's something bothering me, I wished I had my cam wit me. The surroudings seemed so beautiful. Le Chatelier's principle applying to life? When you're sober or down, nature tries to lighten you up by making it look beautiful.

Damn... It's like Torro Rosso trying to win Ferrari. Ferrari is destined to win no matter wut. Unless Ferrari screws up, or else Torro Rosso has got no chance of winning, of which was proven when Sebastien Vettel did win a GP when Ferrari screwed up. Wut are the chances man...
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Qing Ming

Went Qing Ming ler. Did it earlier than everyone coz grandma passed away last year. According to customs need to do earlier this year.



Heard from friend the F2.0 of a P&S is no where near the F2.0 of a DSLR in terms of the blurring effect. The physical size of the aperture, I guess?



Is there's a 'lifeless-ness' feel to the pic? Dried plant is the foreground for a grave-visiting ceremony.



This one really tried to have a lifelessness feel coz it's a frame of dried plants.



Check out this ant. There are other smaller ants beside it. The tankers of the colony? DAMN big ok?



Burning incenses. Dunno how to capture smokes ler.

C&C please~~
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The Portugese Kenny Rogers'

Went to Nando's the other day, mom's treat. I mean, it's juz dinner la. First time woi. Thought got wat so special. Mana tau it's juz a Kenny Rogers repackaged.


Tried the Lemon and Herb seasoning. LOL at the flag thingy.

WTF la, right?

As usual dun wanna get conned into getting a 6 dollar bottomless soft drink. Hey you pay 6 bucks and wan to drink how many rounds? You drink 1 cup you also full until wanna explode already la. 6 bucks. Gila ka? That's why I always order plain water. Most of the time it's FOC

But not in Nando's.

I ordered 'plain water', and they gave me this:

I thought their 'plain water' got so good come to you bottled, but no, you can find it in the menu for Rm3.80. And it's not called 'plain water', it comes w/ a fancy name called 'Peri Aid'. Wut's so special about 'Peri Aid - beat the heat'?


It comes from an underground source in Kedah. Did it beat the heat? Drink a real plain water and the effects are the same.

Mom ordered something else:

Some naan break brushed w/ butter. Not bad la, but quite plain and bland. Did I juz contradicted my own statement within one statement?

Lesson learnt. Always ask if you need to pay for that plain 'plain water' before confirming your order. Better still, drink something else.
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My review of P1 W1MAX

I've been reading good reviews about P1 wimax. In fact the service is so good a friend of mine actually uses it at home already.

Coincidentally mum wants to change the BIOS battery of the old PC coz the always-self-resetting time is annoying. And she wants to add another DVD writer to the box as well. Since techshop dun have IDE drives anymore, dropped by at Digital World to see lo. Saw a P1 booth doin the 15 day money-back-guarantee promotion. Persuaded mom to sign up (i'm not the one paying ma... :-P ).

I was totally sold to the idea of a non-streamyx service. I tried it out and WTF streaming Top Gear in HQ (youtube) was... literally streaming. The buffer was way ahead of the playing and by the time it was 3 minutes into the vid the entire video had finished buffering. Done. An entire 10 minute Top Gear HQ vid done in 3 minutes. I forgot how many minutes it was but I remembered it was ahead of the playing time and finished buffering b4 the video was half way.

Impressive. No, it's GOD DAMN IMPRESSIVE. The promoter even showed me a vid of streaming 4 youtube vids simultaneously (on youtube, of coz). I didn't bothered to watch coz I noe they won't show me an evidence of their impressive connection if the video shows that it isn't. So my mom signed up based on the basis that we can return it 15 days later, FOC.

The night I went back, sure cannot get signal la coz baru saja register. Line also not yet activate la. NVM, I wait for the long night to end.

Since morning the next day I tried to connect from my room. Hrmm blinking red... I guess no connection? What about the study room? HRMMM... No connection as well. Guess I need to try outside? Nope doesn't work. Told mom that might as well go return it that night. Went there, confirmed is not modem prob. At the booth there can get green light summore off my modem. WEIRD STUFF. Coz the dealer is staying juz one row of houses in frnt of mine and he insists that he's having damn good reception and connection. Green light summore. So it's weird that one row behind cannot get any connection. He asked me to try for one more day (coz they don't take returns at that booth, have to send back to HQ by ourselves). If got prob can find the guy directly.

Tried one more time. Nope not working. Called up the guy and he came to my house while on his way home. He tried the study room and a bit outside (coz not logic to be able to get connection outside, I mean practically, it's pointless. Go online outside the porch meh?) He also said he couldn't understand the reason behind it. But we were getting a hint of stable red light.

The next day was determined to get at least some data off this modem. Then finally found this spot at the place where my mom irons clothes where I could get a stable red to orange signal.


Yes. That place. That's why I denied a webcam convo from my friend. Super messy background. I would love to see her face though... LOL (you noe, she might be reading this all the while).

It's juz hopeless. Just when I thought I'm getting decent internet, another problem poped up. Stability. The connection is never steady. I mean steadily steady.

Snapshot from my desktop 'Network Meter' gadget:

It almost resembles a human heartbeat. A while high speed, a while low speed. WTF. And it' PERIODIC.

Snapped seconds later.

As you can see, the speeds are impressive, but it can drop all the way to zero (lowest point on the graph) in a matter of seconds and takes some time to climb back up. And when it drops, there's a 10-20% chance that disconnection will follow. The frequency of disconnection is so annoying that I think it's just not worth it to sit in a tight space just to get high speeds. It was well worth it the first day, but not the second.

In fact I'm typing this post on a Steamyx connection. It sucks, but at least data is slipping thru, and my contacts on WLM dun get annoyed by the periodic "DJFOO has signed in" shit.

Streamyx, you suck, but you win. P1, you rock, but you suck as well, so you lose. Add another transmitter next to my house and I might consider giving it another 15 day trial. For the moment, I'm giving up on day 3.

Yes, 3 days of P1 misery. It rocks, but it really sucks that badly in terms of stability.

I would want to believe that my case is an isolated one. So do give the 15 day money-back guarantee thing by P1 a try. You might find it working great in your house. But mind you, there's a 20GB cap on the 1.2Mbps connection, beyond which your connection will be throttled to a meagre 400Kbps, which is still good, provided IF THE CONNECTION IS STABLE. Streamyx has got no cap, but the connection SUCKS. It sucks so badly TM should pay me for using their crappy service instead.

Now where did I put that tapeworm-like LAN cable from P1?

P/S: oh yea, the reason my mom was sold to the Rm99 package was that we're trying to get rid of the landline. Not using it so often already since everyone has got their own HP. Currently Rm66+ Rm60(for some TM package) = 126 per month. Aiks.

P/S 2: Streamyx, for the record, YOU SUCK!!!! If I have yet to mention why you suck, it's coz your speed is never the one I paid. I PAID FOR A STEADY 512Kbps connection, NOT AN OCCASIONAL/RARE 512Kbps connection.

Update 25th Nov 2009: Since this post is getting so much traffic, I might as well give it a small update.

I upgraded my streamyx package to the 1Mbps WiFi Combo, which is 110 inclusive of landline rental and taxes. Anyone who's not using the landline anymore but wants the streamyx service should consider this option.

To be fair, i was on the 512 package originally, I guess 0.5 Mbps is not that fast...

Yes, another video juz finished loading entirely by the time I finish this little update.

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LOL Long time didn't post pics from the W810i.

I wonder why our gov has yet to do this to get rid of our 'extra baggages'. It's a known fact that we have too much immigrants overstaying. Gov is good, they give citizenship for overstaying.

Went thru some old old exercise books of mine. Ahh the memories...

It's about time y'all. Solution? Make an ad like the one above.

Went to mall yesterday and passed by the P1 stall. Convinced mom to sign up, since they have this 15 day money-back guarantee. HELL YEA I"M MAKIN THE FCKIN SWITCH!!! FUCK YOU STREAMYX!!!

I guess I'm giving them back today. Yes the supervisor said he's staying juz one row in front of mine, but the lack of the magical green light is unconvincing. I have yet to get a stable light, let alone a green one.

FUCK I'M STUCK WIT STREAMYX AGAIN...

YES, THAT'S FUCK, WIT 4 CAPITAL LETTERS.

If only those Korean or Japanese ISPs would come and venture into the local market by THEMSELVES. Celcum+Vodafone is not convincing.

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Moar pics

Inspired by Eugene.









Wanna ask if the angle worked? Or was the straight one better?


Myvi's dashboard.





Focused into the straw.





The logo of the motorola was kinda hard to focus on...

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Spider

Common spider. When you think of it, it isn't that common when yer looking for it.

Damn shaky hands spoilt most of the shots. But if I use faster shutter speed then it'll underexpose even more. LOL I lazy change ISO...

EDIT:

I think this looks better. Damn I need to learn how to better post-process my shots.



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PPSMI!

Was in KL when the whole riot thing happen.


Imagine the faces on the few of us when we see a sea of human walking on the overhead highways. HOW THE HELL ARE WE GOIN TO GET BACK HOME? At first they were walking forward, den suddenly they walked back, then all of a sudden they stopped on the road. WTFFF...

Was discussing the issue wit dudes. I was wondering if you would just go up to one of them ppl, and ask them 'pak cik/bang/boss, nak tanya, apa itu Natrium Klorida?' or 'nak tanya, apakah nilai bagi pecutan disebabkan daya graviti?' or even 'ada berapa tulang dalam tubuh badan?' just to complete the 3 fields of sciences. I bet none of them can give you an answer close to the correct one. As you can see I loosely translated the few terms la.

I saw neneks, atuks, and even kids who have yet to learn a thing about which group is frogs under (of which is learnt in kindergarten or Std 4, at my time of coz). They dunno a thing about science, so I do not agree that their views hold any credibility.

Then decided to take LRT ask ask my mom to ferry the few of us back home. Saw this:


We saw FRUs also but didn't manage to take pics.

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Roach

Normally upon seeing it I'll juz spash it wit some water and it'll either go to some other place or get flushed down. This time I actually rushed to get the camera and started snapping.

Only bad thing was that the flash couldn't reach under the protruding lens (logic la). Tried using my handphone's flash as a light source. Cannot la. On the LCD looks nice but it turned out too dark.

The baby roach was washed down the basin in the end. I bet it's eyes exploded from the multiple exposures to the flash.

Oh yea, upon reviewing the EXIF on the water shots, I realised my obsession wit big apertures ruined the water shots. WTF never realised that should've went wit the smallest aperture since I'm using flash.
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More pics

My first few attempts on water shots:


Literally a fraction of a second too soon.


This shot was worth all the repeating. Too bad it is a little out of focus.

But hard to prefocus la, camera dunno where to focus coz the whole frame's blue (pail color) only. Manual focus could only improve the shot so much. Cannot fine tune la coz again, the whole scene's blue.


Shot of the sky.


Power lines. Dunno how to compose this any better.


My attempt on bokeh. Only regret was out of focus on the flower la... Should've stuck to macro focus.


Nothing much to shout about.

Was getting a few pics for Jon. Realised I never organised my pics from the 6630. Only a few pics remained and thankfully there were the ones that Jon wanted. I think there was once a hard disk breakdown that wiped everything off.

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