Entries in Fun (43)

Saturday
Jul102010

Albert Khan and his Autochromes

Colour photography was actually already in used in the early 1900s.  (1907 is the brith year of autochromes if you wish to know).

I actually watched an episode of The Wonderful World of Albert Khan (6 part series) on the BBC Knowledge channel 2 months ago and I was hooked by the colourful photos (or glass plates if you want to nitpick) shown on the TV.  Naturally, I went to research more on this interesting techniques and found out its actually quite similar to the bayer layer technology we are using currently now in our latest digital sensor!

So I went to amazon and got a copy of the book to learn more about the photos Albert's photographers had took and it was facinating!  Its very surreal to see the beginning of last century in a colourful way.  As I was much more used to the black and white conventional pictorial of that era. 

Another book I bought at the same time is A Century of Colour Photography.  Which shows how colour photography was developed and changed.  Another good read for those who are interested in photography.

Just what I needed!  Books that contains 2 of my favourite subjects!  History and Photography! :D

Sunday
Jun202010

That is one big box of LEGO...

I buy toys for my kids (naturally) and I am a bit selective on the toys I buy.  I refrain myself from getting toys like action figures, barbie dolls and those that I think are just marketing hype.  I prefer toys that stimulate the senses and makes you think and build with it.  In short, toys that boosts creativity and your imaginations.

LEGO is one of the toys then I spend most whenever I get back to Thailand.  That's because they don't have it in Maesai, the nearest shop selling them was in Chiang mai and they are not cheap.  I bought Girl girl's LEGO Duplo (those bigger tiles) at her 2 year old birthday and she loves it.  So when I saw an ad on the newspaper on the Robinson sale.  I plan to get it.  I told my sister and mom about it and they think its a great idea.

I was on shift so I did not had the time to drop by Centrepoint to take a look.  So I got a surprise when I saw an SMS from my sis that she bought the toy as she and mum were at Orchard to do some shopping.

I got home and got a shock.  Haha.  Because its a HUGE set.  SUPER 4 in 1 pack containing over 250 pieces (I think its more that that).  Its a Zoo kit pack with animals, cute accessories and bricks for building the Diorama.  I opened it to inspect the pieces and they were gorgeous.  But the box seems to be to big for me to carry on board.  Most probably need to remove that box.

Girl girl (and boy boy)already has a few set.  One of them is a farm and another a house set which has cute kitchen sink and bathtub :P.  So I guess she will go crazy with this new set.  Need to tell her to share with her little brother though :)

Mum is not allowing me to take the set back to Thailand yet as she plans to be a surprise for the kids when they come to Singapore.  We are planning to have them come over in October when Girl girl has her term break (about a month).  Ah Boy's status has been settled and he is no longer stateless, so we can go to Bangkok this coming July to settle passport and marriage certificate.  Here's one more photo of me with the LEGO set... kekeke  

For those interested in the set.  Its still on sale at Robinson. $189. inclusive of GST and according to my sis, its snapping up by lots of shoppers so better HURRY up for the great SG sale.. BUY BUY BUY!!! :P

Thursday
Jun172010

Don't you hate series 2 - Taking the (M)ass (R)apid (T)ransit

The 2nd list of the series.  Actually a lot of them is some what similar to the list in the Taking a Bus.  So if its not here, please refer to that post. :P

Here we go:

While taking a train (MRT) in Sillypore, I hate

1) Stupid annoucements that kept repeating itselves every 2 minutes. (can't they make it every 15mins?)
2) 6mins of waiting time for peak periods (I'm serious, kena a few times liao)
3) People who does not stick to the left hand or one side of the escalator to let others pass.
4) People who stands in front of the door before the trains come, blocking those who came out.
5) Crowded trains.
6) People who steps into the train and then stop moving, blocking the door and expecting people to move around him/her. (Especially the teenagers who does this)
7) People yaking on the phone loudly.
8) People playing their mp4 or PSP or Nintendo DX loudly with or without a headphone.
9) Parents that allows their kids to use the handrails as monkey bars or conducting an obstacle course in the train by running around,  jumping up and down on the seats and everywhere.
10) People who lean their whole body on those vertical hand rails during peak period. 
11) People who sits in between seats (taking 2 seats) I really no idea why they do this, they like something sticking in their butt crack or ass hole I guess?  I tried it once (just to understand why they enjoy doing this) and its so uncomfortable...
12) Guys who open their legs WIDE open while seating (yes I know you have big balls but you don't need to flaunt them.)
13) People who seats at the staircases around the exits. 
14) Stupid Credit card salesman/woman asking if you are interested in signing up their platinum card (if I can apply I won't be taking the bloody train la)
15) Phamplet Ladies/Guys at the entrance to the MRT (especially cityhall)
16) People with no sense of directions that comes out of the exit/entrance of the station and stops right in front of the escalator to check or talk to their companions while expecting the rest of the people to go around them... (Can't they move to one side to discuss????)
17) People who rushes to exit the train when the alarm starts beeping...(especially to those who don't even say "excuse me" and bumps into you.
18) Gantries that takes a long time to response your card (need fine tuning or maintenance)
19) Confusing signages that leads you to nowhere or get you dis-orientated.  (Especially the Dolbhy Gaut station)

And Finally...


20) Someone committing suicide by jumping off the track (No this is not a joke but a serious one). 
I thought they started to put up barricades on certain stations but what about the rest??? I think they really need to do something about this asap.

Add on if you like

 

Monday
Jun072010

Don't you hate series 1 - Taking a public bus in Sillypore. 

I once wrote a post on graciousness and recently I had this great idea of listing out the things I hate encountering in my everyday life of Sillypore..  Hate is quite a strong word,   I should use the word dislike but I find using the word hate has more oomph in it (apologies if my reasoning sounds silly but I am also part of this Sillypore anyways.. :P)

At first I wanted the list to appear in one post but I found out that its impossible to do that as the list keeps growing and growing... So I decided to break them down into categories but still, I need to further break them down to sub-categories... hahaha... seems like a lot of hate going on here :P

So without further delays.  Here is the first list of the series...

While taking a bus in Sillypore, I just hate :

1) Buses that are late, and I mean really late like around 20minutes which is all filled up to the brim and can only stop to let some people off. 

2) Buses that are driving so fast that they just ignore you or stops 20-50m away from the bus-stop. 
3) Buses who drives so slow that you prefer you should be in the driver seats.
4) People who always rush to the door (cutting queue) and then proceed to fumble for their bloody ez-link card while the rest are stuck. (what's rushing them anyway, can't they take out their card first if they want to board first) Vice versa, the same jokers who rushes to the exit before the bus stops and fumbles for their card when the door opens... 
5) Passengers who are listening to their bloody MP3 players (or phones) and blasting them at volume 10 with their headphones on.  (hope they go deaf soon)
6)Even worse, passengers who plays  mp3s on their bloody Handphones WITHOUT a bloody headphone.  (Yes, I might like Lady Gaga but that doesn't mean you have the rights to force me to hear it!)
7)Passengers who yaks loudly on the phone, like he/she is afraid that the rest of the passengers are not aware he/she has a problem with his girlfriend or boyfriend.  
8)Passengers who seems to get their foot stuck in the middle of the bus (epecially near the doorways) And normally these are teenagers who are not moving in.  They also seems to get stuck there for quite sometime until someone ask them to move it... 
9)Passengers who leave their bags on the seats next to them.  And chatting away on the phone, ignoring the crowded bus and whole world staring on them.
10)Passengers who seats on the aisle seats and giving you a look when you ask to go into their precious empty window seat.  (I once sacartiscally asked a lady if she has an invisble friend sitting next to her when she gave this disdain look to an old uncle who wants to sit) 
11)Passengers who immediately fell asleep when an old person or pregant lady or small childen board the bus.
12)Passengers (espcially kids) who thinks that the bus belongs to their parents, giving them the rights to shout and stomp around on the buses (especially on the upper decks of double deck buses)
13)Passengers who are so tired (and I'm not sure why they are so tired) that they start to nod their heads in their seat and lean against your body.  (But I do love it when they whacked their head on the front seat handles or on the window :D)
14)Male passengers who open their legs wide and shove their knees into the person seating beside them or blocking the aisle. Not sure why leh.. Maybe they got big balls or pricks that they need to show it off by opening their legs so wide. And funny thing is that they normally are not that tall or legs that long..
15)Bus "Captains" that are rude and drives like a lunatic.
16)Bus "Captains" that applies the brake like working out in the gym.  Causing ppl to fly off.
17)Bus "Captains" who drives with a lazy foot... letting go of the accelerator arubtly, causing a jerking motion, making you sick.
18)Buses that are actually suanas when you step into it and you are still force to pay the Air-con price of the ride while suffocating in it.  
19)Buses that are so bloody cold in rainy weathers that you think you are in the wrong country.
20)Passengers who sneaks food into the bus and dine them like they are in a restaurant.
21)Buses that smells like a Smoking Room or Area when it arrives on the bus-bay in the interchange (seems like No Smoking only applies when it is moving,  drivers like to smoke on their buses when it stops)
22)Buses that took ages to come and it comes in multiples of 2 or 3s in a row and they are all empty....
23)Buses that are packed like sardines and yet the bus driver is still insisting the passengers to move in some more to let more to board.
24)Buses that have advertisments all over their windows that you can't figure out where the hell you are now.
25)Raining in the bus (I'm serious about this!)
26)Raining and flooding in the bus cum Suana in the bus. 
There are more but I think these are the ones I really dislike.  Add on if you wish :P

 

Sunday
Feb282010

On the plane....

Its another 2 and half hours flight back from Bangkok to Singapore and I had no videos in my netbook. So I have plenty of time to jote this down in Open office and post this while I'm back in SG. So it's going to be a long post for this one :)

 

The reason why I had no videos is because I had recently formatted my hdd in Thailand and installed Ubuntu on my netbook. Getting sick and tired of the Windows XP constants updates and slow slow slow boot time.

 

Installing Ubuntu Remix was on my mind for quite some time and it works well after the intial setup and updates. I dare say open source software is really getting much more mature since. True, I get less games but hey, I have tons of mame roms and linux has its own Mame emulator too!! :)

 

Enough of my techie stuff and want to write about my family and hobby again.. Being a seasoned photographer (ahem!) I still find it a great challenge to photograph my kids (or other kids). But once in a while you get gems like this photo of my son.

 

 

Wife says I could print these out and sell them :P Since young mothers-to-be like to adore their bedroom with cute baby photographs (this is especially so in Thailand) as they believe that by looking at cute baby photographs, they get to have cute babies too... (genes seems not to be in their equation though)..

 

Anyway, I think it might be a good idea too but with the current sophisticated pirates of the digital age ... I doubt I can make a fotune out of baby photos... :P

 

Talking about photography, these photos (click on them to see a bigger version) were way overdued. I took them once I saw them when I reached home in Maesai on the 18th of Feb but kept on forgetting to post them. These are fruits beared on my tree. Its a family of star fruit but I have no idea what to call them in English, its called Ma Yom in Thailand. Its bloody sour though and they normally eat it with chili here. Pretty thirst quencing as it so sour that it makes you drool saliva even when start thinkin about popping one into your mouth :P. I was bloody delightful and a bit scary to see them when I saw them.. haha.. So much fruits like a mutated tree..

Our home grown chili padi is also overgrown with chilies.. But still not enough for my wife's appetite of them. No photos as all of them in wify stomach liao :P

 

Talking about food, my boy is officially allergic to wheat.. :S. According to our paediatrician in Chiang Rai hospital, she says its quite normal for kids below a year old to have some allergic reaction to wheat which contains a certain protein, Anyway, she adivse us to stay away from such products as boy boy's reactions to them is quite adverse. Medication was given to us to adminisiter once we see the symptoms so at least we can control the reaction. So we have been trying for a week and it seems wheat is the culprit. We fed boy boy apple, banana, strawberries and even egg yolks and he seems fine. One day we were a bit challenging and fed him some bread and immediately he start to go red again... :P so we gave him some medication and the reaction died down.. At least now we know what we cannot feed him :P

 

Girl girl is unusually well behaved for the time we spent here this time.. maybe its because Nai Nai (my mum) was here... hehe. She enjoys her companionship. I also spent some great time with her. Teaching her how to use her new Fuji Instanx Mini Camera and she is pretty good at the framing and composition. Will be scanning them and post them when I have the time. She also starts to like drawing and colouring (like me when I was young) So I printed some Disney characters for her to colour and she also drew some pictures.

 

Finally, on the day we went to Chiang Rai for boy boy's medical appointment. We drop by Amphur Mae Fa Luang again to check on wife's status. We chatted with the Pa Lat and he apologised to me and my wife that he could not keep his promise of getting my wife's citizenship on time as the Head of the Amphur has changed (the orginal one left in Decemember last year). He explained to us that since the new official has changed, he is constanly not avialable to process all the documents. He say that the queue is quite long as there are over 30,000 people currently waiting for the signature from the head. So to shorten our time, he advised us to write a letter to the head and exlpain our predicament. He had did all he could and I sincerely believe him, As I learnt from another official at the amphur office that there is a lot of pressure from other “parties” to kick this good chap out as he refuses to take bribes. (I had tried putting an envelope of money as gratitiude for his help but he rejected it outright and actually scolded my wife for doing this). Anyway I hope he stays on as the Pa Lat as I feel he is one of the rare good officials that I had ever met in Thailand. We have already wrote in and posted the letter so its waiting time again, Again and again, the Pa Lat assured us that my wife will get her citizenship since she has her birthcert. Its only a matter of time. I wonder our Singapore officials will be that assuring anot?