just finished shooting the floorball match between singapore and spain. all i can say - oh my goodness! tio trashed!

in case you're wondering, singapore trashed spain 10-0!

the last time, spain drew something like 4-4 against malaysia... so tomorrow night's match will be pretty interesting...

today's video workshop was pretty fun, picked up the general idea that one simple action should have 2 or 3 different angles to emphasise the actions carried out.

went to shoot the wfc floorball group d match between singapore and hungary last night. it was a jittery time trying to shoot, especially when there were so many near misses! had gone earlier in the morning to st john's island to try spot little critters for videography, but my spotting skills are still so poopy...

friday and saturday were spent at kidzgrow's fabblc event - first asian brain-based learning conference. two days of talking neuro stuff makes me groggy... saw a nice 180/3.5l lens for sale just over $2000. nice macro lens, but overkill for me...

met up with kenneth76, and told him i'd meet him up again soon regarding the 17-35/2.8 lens. reasonable pricing for this discontinued lens, but gotta test it out first. most likely, a "take" situation. hard to survive with a 24-85, because the minimum angle of view i get is only 38mm! argh...

school vacations has started, but i haven't had the time to take a break yet... tomorrow night - another round of floorball action. yaaay! contemplating whether to lug my school notebook along or not though...

fucking pissed now.

welcome to a profession, where you're legally obliged that both of your hands are tied behind your back when students misbehave. i can't be bothered if i get a silly grade d and get booted out, this is just one stupid policy that just stands in the way of boys who don't know right from wrong. when a few boys decide to scoot off to the stage of the hall while you're trying to conduct pe lessons, it's wrong-wrong-wrong-we-condemn-you-to-hell-wrong to grab the offending boy(s) by the collar and yank them. so what if i grabbed them by the ears and lifted them off the floor and dumped them? they're like rubbish. months pass by, but they're still the same, nary a change. still can't listen to instructions. i still get pissed at the end of most days so long as i have a single intended 30 minute period with them. and of which, 15 minutes would be used up just to get them to line up and to get them to the hall. and not forgetting spending another few more minutes just to get those who are hiding behind the drawn curtains to show their face. maybe i'll become someone just like those two a*star accusers, and end up being in the papers BIG TIME. i don't know. there must be something very wrong, if i can get along well with three other pe-only classes and my own p2 form class, but can't get along with this p2 pe-only class. why would that be the case? why would i encounter problems with one out of four classes i take, while the other 3 are still pretty fine?

fuck it. with two and a half more years to go, in the meanwhile i'll do what i have to just to stay afloat and make sure that the deserving boys learn what they should, then i'll say sayonara to this service. i've said it time and again, i've definitely become a "type a+++" personality over the last few months. boys who can't even think, despite of their own relative age groups. like things that will most likely endanger themselves, and just make their teachers really pissed.

legalize this, legalize that. might as well ask schoolteachers to handcuff themselves and get overrun by the boys.

"we don't need no education..." - another brick in the wall, pink floyd

had the opportunity to shoot soccer action, after a long long break.



quite a lot of photographers present today, and we all had free and unrestricted access. of course, not onto the pitch!...

met up with the nparks volunteer group to help stop animal release into the nature reserves today; met up with shawn lum who's also working in nie. we had a good time chatting away, while being on the lookout for people looking forward to release domesticated animals into the reserves. surprisingly, we didn't even come across any at all - which is great news!


one of the opera actors putting on the facepaint, with only the harsh light
from an incandescent bulb providing illumination

went over to ubin to take shots of the teochew opera that ria couldn't attend - and i got to talk to laura, an italian national who's working for a company which does work for one of the museums in singapore - which one, i can't remember... we left changi village together on a cab, and she very generously paid for the cab fare when i hopped off earlier along stevens road. we had a brief chat about the giro d' italia - in fact she said the peloton passed by where her mom in italy stays, only yesterday!

i posted the set of photos on the wildfilms blog, since i can't figure out what else to do with them otherwise...

attended the ccr1 at a camp yesterday. plenty of rain, so the shots were ho-hum - i even forgot how to get proper exposure! met two old schoolmates from my secondary school days - chong heng and one more... whose name i can't remember!

this must be the shallowest letter i've seen from this person named ng shilin, who doesn't have a fricking clue to how critical national service is. defence has no such thing called, "five day work week" because enemy forces will attack when you're complacent.

"little free time in army"

i am appalled at how little time my friends in national service get to spend with their family. most of them book out only on saturday night and book in on sunday evening.

while nsmen are supposed to be operationally ready 24/7, is it fair to rob them of all their weekends? what happened to the five-day work week?

these 18-year-olds wake up at the crack of dawn, undergo strenuous physical activities and get to sleep only late at night. it would only be reasonable to give them the complete weekend to let them recuperate.

surprisingly, in the next page of the st forums in the print version, there was another reader who wrote about the distastefulness of this rsn t-shirt that goes, "threat? what threat?", and the complacency it seems to carry.

i think the former writer, should go serve combat service and not make a blooming fool of herself.

a friend of mine, elise, has just done her preliminary underwater modelling shoot, probably an idea that was mooted by yours sincerely, ah-gong (that's me, to the uwcs people). from the posted shots on her blog, it seems pretty promising! but i wonder...

1. how well my uw housing can hold water out, and...
2. how will i survive without strobes.

argh.


two good shots from elise ng's debut at underwater modelling photography
photo credit/copyright: (c) mchale 2005

the amazing thing about underwater model photography is that it's done in a different medium - kind of like a reversed "fish out of water" situation, where the aesthetics are a lot enhanced. water sucks up light happily, which lends to a light blue to a dark blue fade, which adds a depth factor to the shots. do refer to howard schatz's site for an idea. there's also a finnish university lecturer who has a good variety of shots underwater - and i wonder how he did the lighting. the water is a medium where gravity is somewhat absent, where the subject's hair can be floating in an unrealistic manner that's out-of-the-world, which is great!


one excellent shot that leaves one to wonder how the lighting was done
(c) ilkka keskinen

another underwater model photographer i know of is todd essick.


one of todd essick's excellent works on his site
and in the book, sirens
(c) todd essick

by the way, i came across this very interesting photoblog by a sausage via a thread in togoparts. interesting article about one middle-aged lady lambasting three scgs schoolgirls over donation cans...

a lady, who doted on me when i was a toddler, where she was mother to another of my sister's fellow playmates in the early to late 80's, deceased today.

rest in peace.

on another note, i found some freeware utilities that are pretty good - one of them is analogx and the other is simpli software. actually i've been to the first site quite a few years ago, and using especially the software, whois ultra all along. but the reason why i'm linking the site today, is because of atomic timesync. all you need to do, is to install the program, run the configuration, and copy and paste the url/ip of one of the servers on nist's list, and you're basically done. your system clock will be then synchronized for a really accurate timing, powered by an atomic clock!


a screenshot from analogx's website of atomic timesync

simpli software offers a free non-commercial version of hd tach 3.0.1.0 for usage, just so you can benchmark your installed hard disks.


a screenshot from simpli software's website of hdtach 3

rsd software also has a very handy freeware, hdd thermometer that can poll the temperature of your hard disks in your system, and let you know about it real-time.

why get attached at all?

because the mathematics don't add up correctly if you do...

do download the local movie, tak giu and enjoy a couple moments of good natured fun, laughter and comic relief in there.



only grouse is that the video quality could be higher, but for 42mb, it's not bad already!

i really wonder, after marking the boys' compositions, whether it was really worth the effort to look through all of them, try to figure out how to give them the scores via an arbitary marking matrix.

i also wonder if those exotic names that parents have given their children - if those names mean anything at all. some of these children can't even write their names with proper handwriting to save their lives. probably some of these parents came up with the names because they didn't know how the actual name was supposed to be spelt, even. if that were the case, why bother giving their children those fancy names?

if i were to follow suit, i'd probably call my children, fox, vixen, bushy, plush and rebound. why? because of my fox racing shox f80rlt.

an arbitary scoring system (1 or 2 errors; a few errors; several errors), and an abitary methodology for parents to name the children. do you remember the sunday times feature on those odd names about a month or two ago?

rainy morning, but i decided to ride to work anyway. nearly got my rear wheel sideswiped by a volvo family car coming out from the road leading out from kovan mrt. gave him the big one-up... and he was picking up speed as he was heading out from the side road, to the main road!

had a ride with monster, siva and lau ban yesterday evening. damned funny ride - monster decided to go to bt via the zhenghua park side, while siva and lau ban didn't know about the entry from dairy farm road and went to "chase" via the zhenghua park side... needless to say, we were all over the place...

as usual, i accompanied miss little red bike back home, and she did feel too, that the serac tires were significantly better than her earlier set...

computer at home screwed up on me yesterday morning. so now? i have to rely on the office computer to get me on my email etc... thankfully the other hard disk that actsmart took back was fine. what a relief - ALL my photos, all my works - were on it! just after two or three weeks of reinstalling everything, i hate the probability of having everything wiped out - all those photos over the last two years!

julia popped by my place last night, and i think she's overjoyed with the red tires now...

helping to repost this on my site - please email shaomei if you have any leads (i don't know her, just a forwarded email that i verified...)

Siok Mui wrote:
Date: Wed, 4 May 2005 09:47:29 +0800
From: Siok Mui
Subject: Help... National Day.

Hi people,
I'm working on a National Day project that involves looking for the following:

1) individuals born on 9 August 1965
2) business establised in 1965
3) schools founded in 1965
4) food stalls opened in 1965
5) couples married in 1965
6) HDB dwellers who lived in the same flats since 1965

It's like looking for a needle in the haystack, and time is real tight (I have 1 week or so to work on this....). So I thought you would be able to help me.... If you know of any frens who are national day babies, or any couples who marred in 1965 etc.... Do let me know, yah? I would appreciate any leads.. =)

Thank you very the much!!

gratefully
Shaomei

people can come up with silly ideas to decorate a bike, i thought it'd be more feasible to provide emergency services the information about me, should anything happen.



posted this image in this thread on togoparts on this idea. i've seen a couple of people with the singapore state flag on their bikes before, but it was more of decorative, while my intended purpose is for ema services.

just found out something not so nice that happened to my neighbours, that was so abrupt.

in our conversation in the wee hours, jothi and i chatted about nostalgic places, bus routes, old singapore in general. a dash of family/financial planning, not jumping into the deep end of the pool without knowing how to swim, was also covered.

i'm thankful with the condition of my bike now. just swapped out the arse-hard selle italia flite tt in exchange for a selle san marco era k from a good acquaintance last night. before that, i visited two students of mine who were absent from school, so that i could pass them their books for revision, as well as handing them the worksheets the rest had received. i was glad that the parents appreciated my trip, though i wasn't specifically looking for that.

picked up the illuminite tops from eclipse1 during the early wee hours, had a brief chat about bike stuff... what else did you expect?

"if you want to eat, you must be hungry. if you are not hungry, you will not move." - pm lee hsien loong

just finished watching up close on channelnewsasia, and in summary, three out of about 10 to 12 of the folks who were involved in the dialog session with the prime minister, said they wanted a "vibrant" something. "vibrant" society, "vibrant" culture etc.

hello! we need green areas! how many times have the words, "creative", "vibrant", all been rehashed till death? especially "vibrant" - every damned inch of the island is doomed to die a "vibrant" death too - when we

like dionne has it in her email signature -

Only after the last tree has been cut down
Only after the last river has been poisoned
Only after the last fish has been caught
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten

there's too much of "vibrant" stuff. we need rustic areas, people will need to to unwind.

ria and tom spotted a dolphin as we were on the bumboat ride over to ubin. and of highlight, we had new guide trainees with us - shirley, ashley and zul.

err. and my reebok shorts gave a resounding split as i squatted down to put down a trolley laden with 44 copies of the chek jawa guidebook.

i posted my photos on another clubsnap thread, do take a look if you're free.


an unidentified bird (heron?) looking for food at the chek jawa sandbar

also met zombie and mitaimak at cv after we reached back to mainland; they had just come back from penggerang. what the heck, i don't know how to spell the name of the place!

just randomly thought of that, while i saw this star cruises flyer on my dad's computer desktop. a simple montage, a couple of shells here and there, suggesting to people to go on a cruise where they wouldn't see any live shells. ok, i don't know, i'm guessing.

but in reality, mankind loves death more than life. why do i say so? purty advertisements all the time, have white sandy beaches which are to inviting to probably over 90% of the world's population, while maybe 9% hate getting sand anywhere near them, and it takes jokers like divers and the WildThings (TM, R, P, C) to love the alternative beaches with LIVE shells.

the general human population wouldn't enjoy going barefoot to the beaches with life, because they would go, "walk walk walk OUCH walk walk OUCH OUCH OUCH". on the other hand, divers and WildThings don't even go to beaches barefoot. heck, the beaches we visit, would be, "walk walk CRUNCH CRUNCH" variety...

couple of differences, let's see if i can come up with a top 10 list...

How DWTs (divers and WildThings) are different from Regular Human Beans...

10. DWTs rather NOT walk obscene distances on beaches.
9. DWTs come across "coarse sand grains" more often than the rest of the human population.
8. DWTs come across crunchy sand practically all the time, by choice. coral rubble!
7. DWTs would be happy to come across shells with living specimens in them.
6. DWTs would not be tempted to eat live shells of ANY type, in the name of science.
5. DWTs have less injury because they don't go barefoot.
4. DWTs would get injured more often walking around.
3. DWTs would be far less likely to die from stupoks-induced gastronomical ingestion of the stuff living in shells than regular human beans.
2. DWTs know that shellfish aren't fish.
1. DWTs do actual work, instead of talk, talk, talk...