Not quite a long weekend :(

Well, for most people, this weekend is a long weekend but poor me, I will have to work tomorrow. I know I know, this is nothing compared to my poorer friend Wayne who has to work both Sunday and Monday, that would really suck big time hehe! We were back at Kings Park earlier this evening for another WASO concert, this time with Human Nature. Well, actually it was just a rehearsal for the actual concert that will be taking place at the same venue on Saturday and Sunday :) ...so it was free!

Have a great long weekend guys!

Time out

"Individually, we're limited in how much we can accomplish. But when we join forces, there is no limit to how much we can fail to achieve." - compareshares.com.au

A Gift...

A belated happy Valentine's day everyone! These three shots basically summarized what we did yesterday :) We spent most of our evening at the King's Park, the beautiful waso (West Australian Symphony Orchestra) concert as our background music, lots of food to feast on (ahem...KFC!) and a bottle of cool classic white to keep us going, what more could we ask for? hehe!

The weather wasn't the best though with sporadic spit and threatening cloud, but at the end it turned out to be a great night.

We decided to head down to South Perth on our way back just to remind ourselves how beautiful Perth really is!

(nb last shot - f/11, 15sec, 50mm, iso250, giant wooden pole as monopod :))

Harmony 785

With 5 remote controllers littered around our coffee table, I think it's about time I do something about it. Using multiple remotes is not only cumbersome, but also a little frustrating if you happen to misplace one of them.

Well, not anymore with this clever product from Logitech. The Harmony 785 comes with a docking station which charges the remote when it's not in use. Setting up the remote controller was a breeze with the software package enclosed. All I need to do was list out all the model numbers of devices that I wanted to be controlled by it and the software did the rest by downloading the neccesary codes onto the remote. It also has the ability to "learn" new IR funtions from existing remotes via the software. The harmony 785 has a built-in motion sensor which activate the screen and all the buttons whenever the remote is picked up.

The remote has a small colour LCD screen that will help you navigate through different devices and "activities" installed on the remote. Devices are grouped under various "activities" and by selecting the particular activity, it will turn on all neccessary devices needed to launch the activity while turning off other components that are not needed. For instance, by selecting "Watch DVD" on the menu, the remote will turn on the TV, AV receiver and DVD player with the push of a button. Because it has the ability to "learn", it can be set to control virtually everything that has remote in the house, including the air-conditioning unit, heating as well as my media PC!

Australia Day

These shots were taken from an office building overlooking the Bell Tower and the "mini" ferris wheel (bottom left). Unfortunately, because the window is heavily tinted with some kind of reflective material, I just couldn't get sufficient exposure on most of my shots. To further complicate the matter, I have office background reflections on the window :(

Well...may be will have better luck next year!
(f/10;35mm)

A long day

We headed to Mandurah at about 4am this morning, the plan was to catch as many crabs as possible at the estuary and have them for lunch. Well, at least that's our plan but I was also hoping to snap some good sunrise shots while I was at it. Despite a gloomy forecast by the weather bureau, the weather actually wasn't too bad as it turned out.

Unfortunately, after a long day of hard work, we were only managed to net 6 crabs that were not actually undersized. Nevertheless, it was still a great day out, even though a tired one.

By the way, we had instant noodle for lunch :) As you can see in the second shot, the weather was very overcast.

Non-productive week

This week was a rather non-productive week and hence, nothing much to write here. The stifling summer heat is killing me slowly and I just can't wait for to arrival of autumn and the end of this rediculous daylight saving trial in Perth. I bet there are not many places on earth you can still get sunburn after 7pm!





























Like to share few shots taken at home (anti-clockwise): tailor made ted clothing by Jin, new toy made for me by Jin and a gift from Dao (feeling cooler already by just looking at it, don't you agree? hehe!)

Hot and Cold

Last week, my experiment with the Thailand fried noodle (Pad Tai) was apparently a success according to Jin and my sister-in-law :) This week I thought I might give the Thailand's hot and sour soup (tom yam kung) a go. Here is a simple recipe for the soup, it is actually quite easy to prepare as long as you have all the ingredients ready.

Ingredients:
1.25 L chiken stock
1 tbs Tom Yam stock/paste
4 kaffir leaves (whole)
2 stalks lemongrass, squashed
3 tbs lemon/lime juice
fish sauce to taste
1 large cut red chillli
2 tsp sugar
some straw mushroom
10 raw deveined king prawn

Boil the chicken stock, add the Tom Yam paste, kaffir leaves, lemon grass and cut chilli into the pot and bring to boil. Then, add the rest of the ingredients into the soup and simmer until the prawns are cooked. Add some sugar if the soup turns out to be too sour. Simple as that :) ....The soup is best served with cool air conditioning :)

Earlier today, we went out to Rick Hart and got ourselves an ice shaver. Jin was craving for "ice kacang" for a long time so finally her dream came true today! We gobbled up our first homemade "ice kacang" as fast as we made it and it was indeed a slice of heaven in a long hot week!

Happy New Year!

Jin's mum said your age correlates to how fast you are travelling through life. For instance, a 10 year-old child will proceed through a year at 10km/h whereas an old fart like me will be travelling more than 3 times faster! And that's a truely scary FACT! People always say end of the year is the time to reflect on the past and make new resolutions for the next. As time is running out faster than ever, it's hard to think of any significant accomplishment of the past year let alone making new ones for the next :) Well, shot less photos last year, got 2 speeding tickets (me and her each) and lost some money in shares are hardly called "achievements"!

We started new year with a big clean out of our backyard which was full of weeds and spiders. I must have killed more than 20 spiders (I hate spiders!!) and found one family (or colony?!) of mice near our gas hot water system. I caught three little mice but decided to let them go because they were just too cute (some might disagree) LOL! But we did go to Bunning this afternoon to grab some rodent bait so Jin can feel safe in the house :)

It was a extremely hot day today and the last thing we want to do was to turn up more heat to cook our dinner. Luckily, our friends Dao and Lek decided to come over and cook dinner for us!! A little intro, they currently work in a Thai restaurant and Dao is actually the head chef there and that could only mean a one thing, a restaurant quality meal at home!!

Happy New Year to all my friends and visitors to my little blog and all the best for the 2009!

The magic of Canon

I have used my new Canon 50d for roughly a month now and after nearly 600 actuations, I must say it is a truely amazing midrange camera from Canon. Don't get me wrong though, I still absolutely love my first dSLR, the 400d but this 50d just opens out so much more options for me to play with. The most useful feature that I found (and sadly missing from the 400d but available through later 450d and 1000d) is the auto ISO mode and in the 50d, it switches between 100-1600 in auto mode.

Pairing it with the large aperture of 50mm f1.4 lens, the 50d takes amazing handheld night shots. Another plus is a significantly lower noise level at higher ISO of up to 1600. Although it goes all the way up to ISO 12800, things start to get a bit too grainy for my taste above ISO 3200. Another important plus is the maximum shutter speed of 1/8000 seconds, which allows the use of bigger aperture in bright daylight for portrait work without the need to use ND filters. Oh yes, did I say the 3" HR LCD screen is a godsend? It's just amazing that Canon can pack the resolution of a standard VGA monitor into a 3" screen!

The photo of this beautiful singer was taken at ISO 1250 with minimal lighting at Bistro38, Joondalup Resort. She performed for nearly 3 hours continuously while we were feasting on the buffet. Just in case you are thinking about having your next all-you-can-eat round there, my advice is you are more likely to get your money worth at the Jetty Restaurant at the Hillary Boat Habour. The buffet is worse or on par with the Atrium Restaurant in Burswood and you will be paying through your nose!