Fusion

Maybe there's something about Mid-Autumn Festival taking place in the same month as Halloween...I kinda like the creepy feel of this photo of the Lantern Festival. If you look closely, you can almost make out the phatom faces...

Preview

Just got back from my trip to Budapest/Vienna/Ceske Budajovice/Prague. Too busy catching up with work and stuff. Here's a quick preview (it's a pano so you need to click on the image to see the entire photo).

Happy 60th

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

I was having dinner in CWB tonight and happened to catch the big fireworks show afterwards.

When did that happen?

So I woke up this morning and heard on the news that there was a chance of typhoon Koppu becoming signal 8. Instead of looking forward to a day off, the first thought that popped in my mind was "Oh crap...I have a joint unit test with our partner bank in Japan tomorrow. PLEASE don't let this typhoon mess up our timeline"

I actually wished against a free day off?! When did I become the worrying manager...?

I love my new Pany

This is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 (called DMC-ZS3 in the US) . It's a fantastic little compact DC with a 25-300mm lens (with image stabilization) and 720p HD movie recording. What more could you want? It's focal length covers pretty much anything you'd encounter inside and out and it lets you take decent looking HD movies (naturally, it can't compete with an actual camcorder but it still does a good job at casual shoots).

The 300mm is a life saver for shooting photos and videos during wakeboarding. My old Ixy 910IS only went up to 105mm, so after cropping I was left with a tiny image. The Pany's 300mm is more than enough (I find myself shooting at 200mm) to allow for large photos even after cropping. And best of all, it has a Hi-Speed Burst mode, that lets me shoot at 6fps (caveat: the camera limits max resolution to 3MP). This feature makes capturing the right moment a heck of a lot easier than before:

Naturally, it still takes some practice to time it right. Shooting a moving target from a bumpy boat is no easy task. Using burst mode, my friend and I fired off over 700 shots and a majority of them looked like this (that splash you see on the left is me making a landing):

Still, with 700 photos, the odds were in favor of getting a couple of good shots. Amazingly, my wake buddy was able to capture shots of me smiling. That's right: Me...Smiling. People who know me know I generally default to a blank expression. And whenever I wakeboard, I always have a scowl on my face and clenched jaws. So I must have been giddy from all the jumping I did because I was smiling in a couple of photos.

Ah, here we go. Back to Mr. Pouty McScowlington

BTW. I put up a quick and easy review of the Pany on my fotop site: http://www.fotop.net/teruphoto/Panasonic_DMC_TZ7

I've only had the camera for a week but I look forward to getting more acquainted to it.

Uplifting

If your eyes don't water up after hearing this story, there's something very wrong with you.

Source: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/pixar-up-movie-2468059-home-show

HUNTINGTON BEACH Colby Curtin, a 10-year-old with a rare form of cancer, was staying alive for one thing a movie.

From the minute Colby saw the previews to the Disney-Pixar movie Up, she was desperate to see it. Colby had been diagnosed with vascular cancer about three years ago, said her mother, Lisa Curtin, and at the beginning of this month it became apparent that she would die soon and was too ill to be moved to a theater to see the film.

On April 28, Colby went to see the Dream Works 3-D movie "Monsters Vs. Aliens" but was impressed by the previews to "Up."

It was from then on, she said, I have to see that movie. It is so cool, Lynch said.

Two days later Colbys health began to worsen. On June 4 her mother asked a hospice company to bring a wheelchair for Colby so she could visit a theater to see "Up." However, the weekend went by and the wheelchair was not delivered, Lisa Curtin said.

By June 9, Colby could no longer be transported to a theater and her family feared she would die without having seen the movie.

At that point, Orum-Moore, who desperately wanted Colby to get her last wish, began to cold-call Pixar and Disney to see if someone could help. Pixar officials listened to Colbys story and agreed to send someone to Colbys house the next day with a DVD of "Up," Orum-Moore recalled.

She immediately called Lisa Curtin, who told Colby.

Do you think you can hang on? Colbys mother said.

I'm ready (to die), but I'm going to wait for the movie, the girl replied.

At about 12:30 p.m. the Pixar employee came to the Curtins home with the DVD. Colby couldn't see the screen because the pain kept her eyes closed so her mother gave her a play-by-play of the film. At the end of the film, the mother asked if her daughter enjoyed the movie and Colby nodded yes, Lisa Curtin said.

Colby died with her mom and dad nearby at 9:20 p.m.

"When I watched it, I had really no idea about the content of the theme of the movie", said Curtin, 46. "I just know that word Up and all of the balloons and I swear to you, for me it meant that (Colby) was going to go up. Up to heaven."

A perfect 10

It's official: Pixar can do no wrong. A perfect track record after 10 movies straight. Not a single dud. Amazing.

If ever there was a movie that you shouldn't miss the beginning of, this would be it. The narration of the first 20 minutes was better than some feature length movies I've seen.

Oh, and try see it with a date. There are definitely some hankie wetting moments in this movie.

(Disclaimer: I haven't seen "Cars" or "Ratatouille" yet, but from what I've read I won't be disappointed when I do).

Nothin' but air

Ha, I'm finally getting a feel for the Stand Tall manouver. My timing was all wrong in my previous attempts. The key is to crouch low as you approach the wake and then start standing up BEFORE you hit the crest of the wake. You the moment you enter the base of the wake is the moment you need to start standing up.

Oooh, nothing but air beneath my board

Even getting more height on my toesides and ollies

A little move I picked up watching others. Helps me to conserve arm strength while the boat is turning.

Even my wipeouts are looking more impressive. Instead of crash and burn, I glide to a stop. Ooooh.

The shots above were captured from my videos. Here are some nice action shots taken by my WB partner:

"Progress"

Went to the Computer Festival in Wan Chai today. Hadn't been to the Pumpernickel in the Art Center for ages, so I went there with my favorite lunchie.

Damn...what the hell happened? This is what the place looked like a few years ago. Really cool looking light railed stairs:



And here it is today. Yellow bars? Seriously? And streams of cheesy lights with waxed clothing hanging from them? What on Earth where they thinking?

Sigh...just goes to show, you gotta make every moment count. You never know when things might change for the worse.

Sun shine, surfs up

Finally some good weather on the weekend. Only means one thing: wakeboarding!!!

Lost at sea...


Ha, got all tensed up doing the jump. Look at my squint and my clenched jaws.

It wasn't until leaving time that I realized that we were so close to Stanley Prison. Seems kind of wicked to lock up an inmate in a prison with a view of people having fun in the ocean.

123456789

Where were you at 12:34:56 today?

Today is the 7th of August 09, meaning that at 12:34:56 the time/date was:

12:34:56 7/8/9

Neat.

See you again in 100 years.

Ramblings of a hopped up mind

Too much coffee during dinner coupled with 34C nighttime temperature = Restlessness.

So while I was lying there for hours staring up at the ceiling with unblinking eyes, my caffeine-charged mind started obsessing over the most bizarre things. It's funny how ideas that seemed so thought-consuming last night turned out to be so incredibly trivial in the morning.

Submitted for your approval, ideas to mull over the next time you're stuck in traffic, lying awake or just plain bored out of your skull:

Why is it that the numbers 1 to 10 are all monosyllabic except for "Seven"? Why not something short, like "Sev"?

What is so special about the number 12 that we need a unique naming system for the first 12 numbers? For example, all the 20's follow the same naming: twenty-one, twenty-two….twenty-nine. But for the 10's, we only start the "teen" naming convention with 13. There's "eleven" and "twelve" instead of "one-teen" and "two-teen". Why are humans so obsessed with the number 12 (e.g. twelve months) that it needs all 12 numbers to be unique?

Why is it "Thirteen"? That implies the "3rd teen", but in fact it's the first teen (Eleven and Twelve aren't considered teens). And why is it 'Thirteen" and "Fifteen" instead of "Threeteen" and "Fiveteen"? All the other teens are simply the integer + teen.

And while were on it, why "teen" at all? Look at all the later numbers: 20, 21 = twenty and twenty-one, 60, 61 = sixty and sixty-one. So why not "ten-one, ten-two…ten-nine, twenty"?

Here's a non-numerical quandary: what's the purpose of the letter "Q"? There's nothing "Q" spells that can't be spelled with "K" or "KW" (example: Irak, Kwestion"). If "Q" could act alone and make the "kw" sound then it could be considered an efficient character because you could use 4 letters to spell "qick" instead of 5 using "kwick". But the fact remains that "Q" invariable needs to be followed by a "U" for all "kw" sounds, so there's absolutely no difference between 5-letter "quick" and "kwick".

Speaking of efficiency, why do we use "Ge" in words that can be spelled simply with a "J"? Example: "George" -> "Jorj".

And the Grand Unification of all my thoughts: If you insist on keeping "Ge", then get rid of "J". Then, we can get rid of "Q" as well and have 24 letters in our alphabet, which is a multiple of the wonderful number Twelve. Ooooooo….

TGIF

July 31, more than half of the year has passed by and yet today was the first day this year that I took a day off from work. Between being a PM for 7 projects and working in the Release Management team, there's basically no time left between projects to take time off.

So it was soooo nice to have a day away from the office. Slept late, did some shopping, had lunch with my favorite lunchie, then went wakeboarding. I tell you, just floating there in the water looking up at the sun and knowing that it was 15:30 on a workday afternoon was an awesome feeling...

Funny Fate

Seems like this year is a good time for celestial events. A few months back, we got to see the largest full moon in decades, and today was the longest total eclipse in Asia in 500 years, and the longest partial in HK for 50.

Normally, I'd take the day off to capture such an event on camera, but I had some meetings that I couldn't miss. But luckily, upon reaching work Mother Nature saw fit to grant us all a gift. The clouds rolled in at just the right amount so that the eclipse could be viewed safely with the naked eye. As always, I had my trusty Ixy DC with me:

Even with a partial eclipse, the streets were noticeably darkened:

Fate's a funny thing. I saw a segment on the evening news that lots of HKers went up the Shanghai - predicted to be one of the best vantage points - to witness this spectacular site. And yet before the eclipse really began rain came pouring down, blocking any view of the sun. Ironically, conditions here at home were so beautiful that anyone who wanted to could see the event unaided.

Ha, even the best laid plans of mice and men...

Another rainy day

Another rainy day, another water drop shoot.

Different set-up this time. Not very glamourous: a tripod, a bag, a frying pan and a printed piece of paper (to reflect some patterns onto the water). I used the bag instead of the eyedropper so it was a lot easier to adust for the focus, since the drop pretty much lands in the same place each time.


I used a pencil to pinpoint where I wanted the focus to be, then turned off the auto-focus so that the focus was locked on the correct spot. Naturally, I had to recaliber every now and then, since the location of the drop would switch as the bag got empty.

I did these first 2 shots without the color paper. The blue color is because I set the white balance to tungsten, making everything blue.

These next shots were done with the colored paper. I bounced the flash off of the paper so that the red and blue pattern would be reflected in the water.

Am I crazy, or does this first one look like a clown with a long nose?

Near the end, I poked a few more holes into the bag to give a random slash effect. I love the power of photography. I mean, just think: these beautiful patterns happen everytime it's raining outside and yet we never see them because they happen so fast. But with the magically freezing power of photography, voila!

More in my album: http://www.fotop.net/teruphoto/Water_World

Farewell to icons

Don't know what to make of it, but today saw the passing of 2 cultural icons from the 70s and 80s. Farrah Fawcett's 1976 poster is the best selling pin-up of all time, just as Michael Jackson's 1982 Thriller is the best selling record of all time.

So weird; last week I was listening to some old songs, inlcuding MJ's "You Are Not Alone". Seems a couple of the lyrics probably reflect the thoughts of his and Farrah's loved ones right now:

You're not here with me

You never said goodbye

Someone tell me why

Did you have to go

And leave my world so cold

You are not alone

For I am here with you

Though we're far apart

You're always in my heart

But you are not alone.

Live Long, And Prosper

WARNING: SPOILERS!!!

If you're like me and you hate hearing the details of movies before seeing them, read no further. I'm not going to give away huge details, but I can't give an accurate review without giving away key elements.

Good old J.J. Abrams...is there an old series that he can't put a fresh spin on? First he did the awesome "Mission Impossible 3" and now he's single handedly revived the previously flatlines Star Trek.

I'm a total Trekkie (well, maybe not totally since I'm not one of those geeks who insist on being called a "Trekker"). So I guess I fall under the same group that was a bit wary when the details first came out that a remake of the original was in the works. Even worse than remake; a Re-Thinking. Something about time travel altering the established canon of Treklore.

Then I heard the JJ was in charge and a weight was lifted. This guy has an incredible knack for taking old things and offering a new spin to make them interesting again.

Without going into too much detail, his approach on the new version of Star Trek was very refreshing. The first 10 minutes of the film was an excellent mix of action and pathos. The whole scene of baby Kirk being born while Kirk senior "turned certain death into a fighting chance" could have been so cliche and trite, but the way it was presented I actually felt goosebumps all over.

The casting was pretty good. Chris Pine comes across fantastically as a young Kirk, and Zachary Quinto is the PERFECT choice for Spock. Especially the interpretation of Spock in this movie, with his eyes being able to show the seething emotion under his poised exterior. And Karl Urban totally pulls off a young McCoy.

I loved the little pieces placed in just for the fans to pick up on. Visual cues, classic lines, the orgasmic introductory scene of the Enterprise (as well as the kickass-emerging-from-the-ice-clouds shot of Saturn)...all good stuff.

Some hardcore fans have complained that the film has too much action and lacks the seriousness that is a staple in Trek. But I thought it was refreshing to see some fast paced stuff. This is a younger crew for crying out loud. You can't expect them to spend most of their time ruminating about the moralities of the Prime Directive.

If I had to find a negative, I'd say that the movie did fall victim to the usual symptoms of prequel-itis. For example there were just too many coincidences so that the final crew could be assembled together because they were meant to be (like the engineer dying like a jackass just so Scotty could fill his spot). But at least it was much better than the crap that George Lucas pulled in the Star Wars prequels. And the ending, where Kirk is made the captain of the Enterprise (coz that's what he is in the original series) was just a little too much to handle. I mean sure, he saved the earth and all, but that still doesn't justify promoting a 3rd year academy cadet to captain of the Flagship of Starfleet! Excuse me for geeking out here, but cadet, ensign, lieutenant jr grade, lieutenant, lieutenant commander, commander, captain...he skipped 6 grades (we're talking 10~15 years of normal service duty) for crying out loud. No matter how big the accomplishment, the best he could have expected was to be made lieutenant. I"m surprised that there wasn't a mutiny in amongst all senior officers against Starfleet Command for giving such a cherry position to a rookie cadet.

And in the end scene, when Spock comes aboard and offers to be the first officer...that means that there wasn't already a first officer assigned, which is totally ridiculous.

But anyways, great movie overall. Just some minor details keeping it from being totally awesome.

Oooh, and some more goodies inside the theatre (The Grand Cinema, as usual):

Termination Salvation

Went to see it yesterday. Some people have complained that it's not a worthy successor to the Terminator series (hell, those fanboys don't like anything that isn't made by James Cameron) but I thought it was OK. Is it up there with T1 and T2? Definitely not. But as a summer popcorn movie, it was pretty entertaining and delivered on all the action shots. Too bad one of the trailers gave away a key point in the movie though.

I went to The Grand Cinema in Elements (love those vibrating chairs) and discovered that there was a small exhibition of Terminator models and a 1:1 scale of the T600.

Playing with water

Nothing but rain this past weekend, so I spent the day, appropriately, playing with water drops.


Wow, water droplet photography is soooo tricky. There's probably an easier way to do it, but given the equipment that I have, it was mostly trial and error. Here's a shot of my set-up:

I set my camera to bulb mode, clicked open the shutter, used a eye dropper to drip a drop of water and triggered the flash the moment the drop hit, then closed the shutter.

Over 200 shots later, here are the results I got (I adjusted the contrast in post-processing):

More photos at http://www.fotop.net/teruphoto/Water_World