Kevin - SAM SPARRO!!

This is a post for my friend Kevin...Sam Sparro i.e. Black and Gold. I find music helps me put things into perspective. This is one of those jazzy funk albums that you will either like or detest but it is definitely one for the Gym while oggling at those abs!

Hope you are well my friend and enjoying the HARD CANDY!!

Alanis Morissette - Underneath

I remembered seeing her live years ago while still living in Singapore...it was amazing - I still have the Tshirt somewhere! I will wait for the album due end of May...worth the wait!

The Anzac Weekend...

The weekend was spent away at the beach house which was OK but a little depressing due to the cold and wintery weather. The boys had a good time though running along the beach and we did finally manage to go to the tavern that recently opened.

It wasn't great but at least it's somewhere to hang out with the locals...and for your homemade $10 deserts which is a little expensive for a country town. Mum said that the satay sauce is atrocious so we stayed away from having any meals there.

Sunsets are great at Point Turton...the colours changes every evening which is fantastic for phototaking. I try to see the positives....

Indra is finally in remission and he seems to be a new boy. I feel blessed that the treatment has given him a new lease on life but still I am a little worried that he will fall ill again. For the moment, I take comfort that he is happy and healthy. Admiral on the other hand is a little cutie and like all cuties he is a charmer...the little devil.

This week is interview week and I am hopefull that I will find something interesting on the jobfront.

June will see us in Sydney and I am not too sure whether Andrew would then have moved to Sydney?? We are catching Phantom at the Lyric theatre with Anthony Warlow (he is the best) and it will be his last performance, it is worth the trip over. I am planning to meet old friends for YUM CHA as well and if Andrew is already living in town, it will be a good idea to catch up. Who knows... I think I will email him today to find out.

I am also glad to hear Pinoyboy's voice on Ohmypod....I thought we lost him but he is still around though not sounding well. Take care of yourself and get better! Hang around as long as you can coz Ohmypod really needs you as much as we do!!

Also in the pipeline of travels....the trip to the US in 2009/10 covering SF, LA, Vegas, Chicago and NY, Toronto etc. It will be great to be able to get to Texas but I am unsure whether it's going to be possible. I am excited at the prospect of finally meeting Kevin, Brad and maybe Peter and PB. As always, I must plan it right so that we get to the National Parks that we want to see and swing around to see my distant friends.

Why things happen...

Today I am feeling a little philosophical...it always escalate into days of spiralling sleepless nights and a physical aching that just wouldn't go away. On top of that, I then get bombarded by montages of unexplained circumstances when I do go to sleep - a series of disconnected episodes straight out of someone else's personal memoirs that are just emotionally trying to figure out.

Maybe because the quest for happiness is perilous, it is hard to realise where you are in your life without comparing it to something you think is the ideal, tangible. Then I reason the response to be a mental cushion in-built to make me feel better about myself so that my psyche can pull out of this soulful malaise. I think I have too much time on my hands. God and this headache won't go away either!

My thoughts are cacophonous!

I know you...

He brushed my hands, not intentionally I thought, but the sensation was familiar and the scent of his manly being caressed my senses that I felt the tingle of bewilderment and a calmness only felt in warm embrace.

At that moment, just for a second, I seemed to know him in more ways than one - unnerving I thought, being that the only connection I had is based on a long lost memory and a flicker of what I thought was real long ago. I was hasty! Too hasty sometimes for my own good that memories, not my own, overcome my reality. I know you, don't I? Maybe not you physically but you nonetheless.

DESIRE you are indeed cruel, malice unintended!

Another uneventful day...

The city can be rather sterile...everything seems to be systematically organised to ignite the excitement of a 5-year old but then again it is the school holidays. The great thing about it all is that I finally got my iPod Touch back so the past few hours have been spent on updating the software etc. etc. which can be quite testing if you prefer having the hours go by while the computer slowly makes up its mind whether or not to sync from a previous back-up?

The good thing is that the other half bought a nicely gilded 7x5 photo frame for me and 2 really appealing short sleeve shirts...one in red checkerboard design and another orange 100% soft linen which I think is quite divine @70% off. What a bargain!!

I have finally finished the Amber Spyglass and realised why the Church or any religious institution would consider these sort of books 'challenging' i.e. the demise of hell and the non-existence of heaven etc. I cannot imagine it as a movie though...having Angels make war with Witches! What blasphemy...I just love such controversy.

Tomorrow is another nice day with 27 degrees expected and I will be having a mezze lunch in the city overlooking the weekend market on Rundle St. It will be good to finally embrace what Adelaide has to offer. Next week is another trip to Samstag for an exhibition...Primavera in Adelaide and not Sydney? I miss Sydney sometimes and even Melbourne can surprise you...Adelaide will eventually blossom into something grand. It will take time!

I still can recall the hustle and bustle of running to exhibitions opening on Thursdays like bar hopping. It would be good to see Adelaide ignite with new ideas. Still haven't found any controversial art installations or video art aka Mike Parr but abject art is very confronting even for the seasoned artist!

I am excited...life has alot to offer; you just need to keep positive or if all else fail, create a new beginning.

HARD CANDY & E=MC2

What can I say...I have been recovering from a bug and listening to music. Madonna's Hard Candy is good enough for the dancefloor and Mariah's E=MC2 is again another confusing concoction...very very confusing. Still she still looks pretty awesome though!

My verdict, buy Madonna's Hard Candy and leave Physics to the Physicists!

It's officially Thursday

I feel 85%...there must have been a bug that hung around but for now I am sure that my tummy has recovered and only the aches on my back are left lingering. Oh well...at least I am not running in and out of the bathroom all the time.

The workfront has been slow what with me being less enthused after the holidays so I do need to pull my finger out and not fall in such malaise of complacency. The annoying thing is that my Touch crashed yesterday...it just wouldn't power up and I couldn't get it connected to iTunes nor externally charged from the sync cables. So back to Myers to drop it off...it is only about 2 months old. Not too sure what happened but I think it was overworked. 3-4 weeks that's what they say... they're nice but was rather clueless.

Apparently, they informed me that if Apple couldn't fix it, they will either replace it with a 'refurbished' pair or replace parts there of. The chances of me getting a new Touch is out of the question. I guess I was not prepared to hear that Apple is so cheap eventhough they would have you pay squillions just to own one of their toys.

Sadly this week, I purchased an ExtremeMac Tango speakers so that I can put it into the spare room. The sound is fantastic but with the demise of my Touch, I guess I have to revert back to the nano for the time being.

Today I wait for the gas-meter man to come and do his annual reading. The last reading was in 2005 in which we have been trying ever since to get him through the door. Mum will swing around at 11am to pick up a framed photograph I have made of the partner to be displayed at the holiday house.

It is going to be a mundane exercise today...

How I feel today.....

So back to square one with the job-hunting now that the holidays are out of the way. I have set myself a reasonable target i.e. apply for 3 jobs a week and therefore I should have 12 applications out there. The hard bit is trying to find a job that you enjoy and at the same time pays reasonably well...huh?! Are you kidding me?!

Apart from that ,I have gone to 3 galleries today as a morning outing which is great. I used to be able to do that quiet often and working at the Art Museum environment was really good for the senses...I didn't have to go very far. I have also renewed my membership at the Art Gallery so that will see me networking again and enjoy the visual feast I've missed working in Finance.

What now Hadi? Lunch and then home to spruce up the house, run a wash and then start working on resumes. Oh yes I nearly forgot! Need to buy some iceberg for tonight and to the photo store to print an 8x10.

Alas ...all in day's work!

The D80 in constant flux....

A learning process indeed, this trip has seen me tweaking with the D80 beyond words. This image is what I consider 'painterly'. I have been doing all sorts of quirky things but the weather has not been kind especially when you require a constant and unless I stayed on Auto, my shots cannot be a simple Point & Shoot.

Staying on P is also a little unpredictable as you move into areas where light fluctuates so I have been compensating by taking variable exposures just to make sure I get it right on multiple settings, shakes and all. No not HDR...I'm not keen on HDRs. I wish there was a quick fix but I am slowly undestanding the camera a little better.

On Auto, the D80 tends to over-expose and achieving the necessary 'warmth' in your pictures is almost impossible with that setting. And having to go on Shutter Priority accounts for a higher unpredictability ratio. Vibration reduction only gives you less than a few seconds. And then there is that fine line with ISO setting, ISO Auto, P,A,M etc. - a combination that is 'endless' but not infinite. Whinge!?

There is a solution, which means faster lenses i.e. F2.8 or F1.4. I know I know...buying better lenses to compensate for my inability to take pictures in low light is defeatist. I need to get this right and work with the limitations.

Slowly updating Flickr...

I am slowly loading up pictures to Flickr. My connection at home is acting up again and I think there is a conspiracy...actually I have a really crappy laptop with a centrino chip; talk about paranoia!

But hey...sometimes good things are worth the wait.

Narcissus...

I'm not one to indulge in a little narcissism especially when it comes to pictures of myself; I fear waking up the dead...low self-esteem I guess! But here is one of myself at the flight museum in Vietnam/Saigon. The other half kept hounding me to smile....I was soaking in sweat and all he could say was stop trying to be a grump and smile. I acquiesced - sorry! It does look horrid - I like the background better.

Vietnam and Laos is not Thailand, Burma or Cambodia. There is a distinct contradiction between Communism and Capitalism and it feels like moving a piece of metal from one magnetic pole to another - there is an awkward sensation as you move across the land.




Hanoi (North) and Saigon (South) are also such opposites - to say that there is a lack of organisation is a generalisation but you feel as if there is a little resistance to the simplest of rules especially on the roads. Being organised is purely tourism-centric while everything else is everyone for himself. People are confused most of the time - red/amber/green, road rules huh? Central Saigon is bad and I thought India was bad but Saigon is just so congested + the amount of one-way streets where Life is often cheap. In fact, you can say that the French have alot to answer for.

In terms of their physical appearance, I consider them to be more South East Asian Chinese and not your usual Mainland Chinese; a mix bag. Asians tend to see other Asians in layers and they seem to be caught between two hemispheres.

One great thing about the whole trip is that I was able to read all the blogs and did manage to rip a couple of movies to keep me occupied on the plane. The SQ flight out of Adelaide had the old planes i.e. no on- demand entertainment system but the ones heading to Vietnam was fantastic. All in all, the Touch did a remarkable job for its size throughout the trip.

OMG has it been that long....

I have been a recalcitrant...not blogging since I've returned from the holidays. Sorry guys!!

Vietnam and Laos was very draining. The humidity hit me so hard that I was constantly perspiring the moment I stepped out of my room. Not the 'spring chicken' I use to be, I realised. I was lucky and only gained 1kg from the trip which I attribute to the french pastries and the baguettes - it was irresistible.

I have also been trying to recover from food-poisoning that hit me while on my way back -thank god on the last day while on the plane to Adelaide. I plastered the lavatory and I think the next occupant would not have been pleased - I think the belching sound was more disturbing...I was quite the gentleman in leaving the environ rather pristine! It wasn't that bad but I think I emptied the whole day's load short of 5 seconds.

One of the many great discoveries is the fact that moisture is a big problem for the camera and that I needed to keep the temperature constant. The sudden flux causes the camera to fog and it took 10-15 minutes to acclimatise...not good when you are up at dawn - I woke up the next day 1/2 an hour earlier just to make sure I got some pictures that were decent enough. And then there are dust, rain, spots, cleaning cloth, rivers, grey clouds, mist, boats, monks on a running rampage etc. screws up the AF function of the camera - duh! Some cameras are just not made for action shots...I have to learn to live with the limitations.

The next thing to do is to load up pictures in Flickr. Bought 3 new class 6 SDHC cards - 1 x Extreme III 8GB and 2 x Transcend 8GB for half the price. I've noticed that it makes no difference really...I was expecting the Extreme III to be superfast but it was just as effective as the Transcend.