A Cousin's Wedding > Freedom!

Her's is a story of a classic over-achiever.

She gets straight A's in school, gets her ABRSM Grade 8 in Piano, goes through the University with not much of an effort, found herself jobs and flew all over the world.

She braved the colds on a god-forsaken island in Russia (off the coast of Hokkaido, Japan). She spent time in Europe, and the UK. And in general stay out of the country most part of her life.

It puzzles me all the time, as she does not look the adventurous type, and my guess is, she was running away so she can enjoy more freedom.

Smart minds loved to have the space to roam, to soar without the confines of rules and regulations, or fear the consequences of breaking unwritten rules of the house. We come from a big family with a lot of traditional baggage; her family house is always quiet, except, of course, when I visited them and introduced noise.

So, she has gotten married yesterday, I was the self-appointed photo-documentor for the family, so I brought my camera along and took some pictures (300 in total) of her and my extended family from my mother's side.

She was blissful, he wasn't (and I am not referring to her husband) as they walked down the aisle.

This post is to commemorate her blissful attainment of such freedom. Double-clicking the picture on the right will download a copy of my photo essay of this happy event.

Congrats! May God Bless You with 5 Children, and enjoy life to the fullest!

Yes, I Was There.

I spent a day in Esplanade, Singapore's version of Sydney Opera House, admiring the public installations put together by a group of young Singaporean artists.
What really surprises me was the fact that they allowed Breakdancing and Rollerblading at the Basement of Esplanade.

Try doing this in KLCC's Symphonic hall, and you'll end up in the lockup, awaiting bail. Such is the difference between the people living on either ends of the causeway.

But it was indeed a pleasant afternoon. And I took the above picture (with me in it) as a proof of my existence.

Rosa Parks: Think Different

Let us all observe a moment of silence for the passing of a Hero.

Here's something about her [taken from Apple Computer website]:

Born Rosa Louise McCauley on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama, Parks was the first child of James and Leona Edwards McCauley; her brother Sylvester was born in 1915. The family later moved to Pine Level, Alabama, where Rosa grew up attending rural schools.

When Rosa completed her education at Pine Level at age 11, her mother enrolled her in Montgomery Industrial School for Girls. From there Rosa went on the Alabama State Teacher's College High School, although her grandmother's illness and subsequent death prevented her from graduating with the rest of her class.

Rosa married Raymond Parks in 1932. Raymond supported Rosa's desire to complete her formal education, and she went on to receive her high school diploma in 1934. The couple worked together in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) programs. Rosa became a secretary and later a youth leader of the local branch of the NAACP; she was preparing for a major youth conference at the time of her arrest.

The incident in Montgomery transformed Rosa Parks into a national figure and a major role model as well. She went on to work for U.S. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan. After Raymond's death, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. She also co-authored four books "X'Rosa Parks: My Story" (with Jim Haskins), "Quiet Strength" (with Gregory J. Reed), "Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue with Today"s Youth" (with Gregory J. Reed), and "I Am Rosa Parks" (with Jim Haskins).

Hundreds of American institutions paid tribute to this remarkable woman during her lifetime: Mrs. Parks received a number of honorary doctoral degrees, countless plaques, awards and citations, and keys to several cities. Among her honors were the NAACP's Springarn Medal, the UAW's Social Justice Award, the Martin Luther King Jr. Non-Violent Peace Prize, the Roger Joseph Prize from Hebrew Union College, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

My Mobile Phones > Past and Present

Yes, my mobile communication past began with a Motorola StarTac (this is the 10th anniversary of the phone's existence). That was back in the mid Nineties, it was a black coloured clamshell blocky phone that has a horrendously huge battery charger cum docking station where you can charge 2 batteries at the same time.

Yes, those were the days when you HAVE TO take extra batteries with you if you plan on spending the day out.

Later, I was given a StarTac 8400 International mobile phone, that was a pretty good flip phone with very nice and "big" display. Those days, that was state-of-the-arts.

Then I bought an Audiovox mobile phone, which I upgraded to a Kenwood branded Nortel mobile (they are so rare I can's find photographs of them on the Web).

Anyway, I quickly upgraded to the Panasonic GD90, which was stolen when I was waiting to board a 170 SBS Bus at the bus stop outside the train station in Johore Bahru. On the same day I lost the phone, I replaced it with a Motorola StarTac V (in my humble opinion those days, Motorola is a phone maker, as Omega is a watch maker).

That phone stayed with me for approximately 6 months, and was stolen in my office in Tampines.

Then, I jumped onto the Nokia bandwagon and bought the most expansive of the lot, the Nokia 8850.

That phone became my main mobile communicator and remained by my side for almost 3 years, till Bluetooth became essential. I bought a Tungsten, and paired it with a Ericsson T39m. It worked like a charm until I caught the PDA phone bug, and bought an O2 phone.

That was the worst phone I ever owned. I ditched it and bought the black Sony Ericsson T630.

And then, that was stolen again.

Jumping back to the Nokia 8850 for help, the screen died on me, and I bought a really cheap Nokia 8250 as a temp mobile.

So, last week, I bought the phone I am using now: a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone, the W550i.

It does everything I need it to do except 3G. Since real 3G applications and contents are not out there in the wild yet, I guess I can wait for the W900 to surface.

To date, I have lost 3 mobile phones that cost in total RM7,000.

GOSH! Have I spent so much on mobile phones alone?

My 15 Minutes of Fame

We launched the Asia Pacific YoYo Championship 2005 in Sunway Pyramid last week. With a turn out of about 15 members of the press, we made the announcement that the event will be the largest of its kind in the world, in terms of number of participants.Since I am going to produce a documentary about the YoYo Community of the Asia Pacific, the event gives me great insights into the minds of these people who lives by the thread that clings on to a tiny piece of spinning discs.

I followed the entourage onto the Hills (Genting Highlands) where they performed to a small crowd, and was impressed by the routine they did.

If you can find the time, drop by Genting Highlands on December 9, entry is free.

20% More... PIXELS!

I was busy trying out some broadcast software when my alarm clock reminded me that the special event at Apple was over. As if possessed, my fingers instinctively type the URL and the new PowerBooks were staring squarely at me, on my "old" PowerBook's screen.

20% More Pixels.
Optical Digital Audio Output
Faster System Bus
Dual Layer DVD 8x Writer
2x more Video RAM
Dual Link DVI

Same CPU Clock Speed.
Same Price.

Hmmm... I will wait for the next upgrade.

But if you need a PowerBook, now is the time. The end of the PowerPC Era is near.

Yamaha Presents: teroni-on

Yes, it is now official: the Tamagochi Generation has grown up.

This oversize Tamagochi is not your RM45 plastic toy that yearns for your tender loving care.

It's a musical instrument!

Question is, will you give up 10 years of your piano or violin training to play this monophonic instrument?

I am feeling the 5G iPod Gravitational Pull...

i woke up to the alarm clock reminding me to find out what on Earth is Steve's "One More Thing..."

and as expected. it was the video iPod. and the moment i read the news, my first reaction was: "Thank Goodness I did not buy the Nano!"

I have 9,000 songs on my 3G iPod (now playing happily) and I need space to put the rest of my library into the player. 60GB is great news, and video!!!?? that's fantastic news!

Now I won't need to lug a folder of DVDs when I travel. Yippie!

submission: the housemate

Me, over 15 years ago.

After previewing to friends and foes around me, I have made all necessary edits to make the final cut of my short film more logical till the wee hours of the night last night.

So, this morning, I had to go get my passport size pictures and photocopies of my NRIC... but it started raining cats and dogs later in the afternoon and I was feeling lazy, to go to the photo service centres to have my pictures taken... that was when an idea struck: why don't I make my own pictures?

Digging through my pile of things, I found a stack of 4x6 HP photo paper and printed a picture of mine on it.

After cutting the pictures to size, the pictures looked convincing.

By 4:30pm, I was already on my way to Astro with the package in my bag.

1 day before deadline: I have submitted my entry.

Wish Me Luck.

Happy 20th Anniversary!

Life was a lot simpler back then. I woke up early, skipped breakfast and drove 2 hours to work.

Yeah, 2 hours is on a normal day, back then, Samy hasn't gotten the highway done up yet, but even now, the place is still jammed packed -- Samy still hasn't gotten it right yet.

I drove along Old Klang Road, hitting the old town junction, and drove along Jalan Gasing to work.

Life as a technology journalist wasn't that bad. We attended seminars and learned new things everyday, bitched about people and competition, and played a game or two if you were hustled to be a victim, and had coffee at the coffee place near our office.

It was a simple life.

Good to see that all are happy and well.

Happy 20th Anniversary, in�Etech!

Completion! for now...

After three whole days of moving, rearranging and carrying super heavy stuffs without breaking my back, my place finally took shape.

The new Final Cut Pro studio is finally tied-in to my MIDI system along with all the audio gadgets. And I have finally gotten the video camera in the vocal booth working so I can monitor the voice talent from my studio upstairs.

The next few days will be spent tuning the acoustics of the room and generally finding ways to keep sound from straying out of my place. I am probably the noisiest house in the whole area, so keeping the dBm low is key to peaceful living in my neighbourhood.

Anyhow, the above picture shows a small part of the room, here you'll see my PowerBook, the PowerMac G4 Cube, a Juno 60 keyboard controller, the Akai sampler, loads of sound modules and the classic Roland R8 drum machine, along with my Joemeek tube microphone pre-amp.

Call me hardcore, but this set up is modest among professional musicians.

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Today I finally put GarageBand to a test in a real world scenario: while working on 7's audio project, I decided to give the software instruments a try. With the latest drivers installed, GarageBand detected my Tascam 224 as a 2 in/2 out MIDI interface, so, I gave it a go with the music arrangement.

Though I prefer my Akai Grand Piano samples over GrageBand's built-in offerings, the voicing was respectable. Tones and timbres are rich and I could get away with simpler arrangements without using pads to cover up sample flaws.

On the project, I recorded multiple tracks of vocals and I attempted to comp them into one nice track, this, I find an extremely difficult task to complete in GarageBand: compared to other software such as MOTU Figital Performer or Digidesign ProTools, both of whith I've used extensively.

For an entry level software, it's a pleasant surprise when I noticed the inclusion of pitch corrections. To have this feature in ProTools, you'll need to buy a plug-in, but the feature is a built-in function, so, it'll be super easy for you to create the Cher trademarked "Believe" effect in GarageBand.

Just make sure you sing as well as she does.


But then again, God is fair, isn't it?

Major, Major Makeover

I have that 3-month itch again: to re-decorate my house.

I have been doing this since my secondary school days -- I will move things around, and basically change the position of everything in the room every now and then.

Two days ago, while looking for my missing passport, I felt that itch again, so...

I am still at it, the house is in a mess... but I managed to put some of my Macintosh collections on display...

In one of the cubicles, is Apple's Newton 2000 PDA.

Also, you'll see the ColorClassic, the Macintosh SE, and the PowerMacintosh G4 Cube.

Scattered around are some old Sony Walkman and MD Walkman...

This is still work in progress, and I am dead tired.

Sigh... I am getting old...

14 Days: No More, No Less.

Fourteen days after I sent in my iPod, I have decided to give our friendly AppleCare people a call, since they did not call me to tell me if JerryPod is back in order (and they promised to call).

Since they didn't call, I assumed the stock hasn't arrived yet.

After waiting on the line for a short while, the guy picked up the phone and told me the impossible: the stock has arrived.

But why didn't he call me?

I had to pay him and say think you while he made me wait? what if I didn't take the initiative to call him?

Bloody hell.

God needs to punish people like these.

As for the mode of punishment, I suggest lightning strike.

And hence, I went home with the new JerryPod and retracted my car's radio antennae as I am back to listening to Podcasts in my car.

Speaking of radio, as I was iPod-less for a few months, I have been listening to a local radio station with programming that are not meant for the intellectually challenged, although some of the callers are close to being idiotic, I applaud the station's intent to bring the so-called alternative voice to the public.

Well, the station will officially be closed down on the 15th of October 2005.

Although the station was ordered to close down on August 31, opposing voices made the authority retracted the off-air order. This time around, it's the license holder who is willingly closing down the station.

Do I smell something fishy here, but then again, I might just be imagining things.

So, the public has started a campaign to try to save the station, as follows is an open letter:

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To: Dato Seri Dr Lim Kheng Yaik, Minister of Energy, Water and Telecommunication, Malaysia
To:
1. Dato Seri Dr. Lim Kheng Yaik, Minister of Energy, Water and Telecommunications
2. Media Prima Bhd
3. Natseven Sdn Bhd

We, the undersigned, would like to express our views on Natseven Sdn Bhd decision to make WAFM off air temporarily starting from 15 October 2005:

I. WA FM is a very popular radio station which produces high quality programmes and therefore we feel that making it off air even temporarily would not only amount to great loss to the general public but also detrimental in maintaining competitiveness of the station.
II. We feel that with the established and continuing support from the audiences, WA FM should not have too much problem generating profits for her parent companies though we do not deny there is room for improvement.
III. We also feel that any rebranding and debt restructuring exercises can be and should be performed without disrupting the normal broadcasting function of WA FM

Therefore, we, the undersigned,strongly urge the relevant parties to:

1. Work towards reviewing the decision to temporarily cease WA FM broadcast starting from 15 October 2005.
2. Clarify misperception that WA FM is responsible for the entire debt of Synchrosound Studio Sdn Bhd.
3. Set up and maintain a strong marketing team so as to realize the vast advertising income potential of WA FM.

Sincerely,



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Although I think this is going to ba a futile mission, give them a hand if you think freedom of speech in the public is something really important.

Personally, I think the station's DJ speaks bad Mandarin, and has horrible musical tastes, but it is rather entertaining listening to the so-called experts who called in.

The station is known as Wa FM (in hokkien, "wa" means "mine"), so, you tell me, what's in a name?

Follow this Link to Support Them.