Fence Crew at ZEN

Our short film, Fence, grabbed another award. This time, in Japan. It’s actually a video festival called “JVC Tokyo Video Festival 2008“. Yes! and JVC is the electronic company that all of us know about. So, we will be flying to Yokohama to receive the awards, all 5 of us. In the meantime, probably spend another few extra days for sight seeing and shopping in Tokyo.

Anyways, we wanted to celebrate this fantastic achievement, so we decided to do it at ZEN Japanese Restaurant (located above Sunway Pyramid’s Kim Gary). Provided, we also gave 2 of our beloved Senior Lecturers (Kenny & Joanne) a treat. Without their help and support, we wouldn’t have achieve as much too. So, to the food!! to the food!! Sumimasen! menu prease!

The reason we chose a japanese restaurant was due to the fact that not only because the food was nice, but also we are going to Japan mah! So, we wanted to give our lecturers some Japanese atmospheric ambience. The same as to when we won the two U.S.A awards (Horizon Interactive Awards & Summit Creative Awards) that we treated the MM department with Chocolate Cake. It’s all about the culture! Got concept one ah! hehe…

We ordered loads of japanese dishes to fill our empty stomachs. As a true Malaysian, I can’t remember the names of all the dishes. I remembered we had loads of raw fish, baked fish, unagi, teriyaki chicken, soft shell crabs, toufu and more. So, I think I’ll just show the pictures lah!

Haha.. So, in the end, everyone was happy and full. The 5 of us were so eager to go to Japan. Joanne told us her experience in Japan and shared some useful tips for us, Kenny on the other hand was thinking of what he wants us to get him in Japan. Had our group photo taken, but Kenny had to become the human tripod, so we can’t see him in the picture loh! See our faces after food. Smile and all natural! *chik-chak!

Anyways, here’s a shot of the two Senior Lecturers who guided us during the days! Thanks Kenny & Joanne!!!!

Chinese New Year 2008

Yes! It’s Chinese New Year again! This time, it’s one of the most special CNYs in history. It’s the year of the Golden Rat, Year of 2008, Year of Beijing Olympics, Year of all years. But of all that I didn’t buy any new clothes this year, but instead I got myself a new shoe. Got a Nike classic edition and it was stunning. The shoe’s colour combination was simply breathless.

White shoe with red highlights, plus branding using black. Fell in love with it right that instant when I saw it at the shop. I had a budget of not spending more than Rm250, and guess how much this baby was?

Yes indeed, some people might say it’s still expensive, but for a New Year without new clothes, it wasn’t that bad. The black logo on the side of the shoes made the overall design, simple yet glorious. The contrast of the logo had brought the “hard sell”-ness to the next level.

Enough about the shoe, I needed to get ready for my flight home to Kuching. This time, I was so worried that I would be stuck in the jam, that I asked my taxi to fetch me at 5:30 am. I couldn’t miss this important flight home. Not just because it was Chinese New Year, but also because the tickets costed me a freakin big sum of money.

I reached the airport very early and had to pay the taxi a midnight charge for it. But, having to fly MAS again was really an honour. I missed MAS a lot. Have been using Air Asia for the past few years and I felt very happy that MAS was bringing me home this time for the New Year

I get to see how early and effective Malaysia Airlines take care of their planes before taking off. They started checking the plane as early as 2 hours before departure (Unlike Airasia! hmmpff..). Something I really wanted to see for that sum of money I’ve paid to them.

The view from the terminal was beautiful, right from sunrise. I get to see how the sun reflects beautifully on the body of the aircraft from dark to light. The most magnificant view was the tail of the plane. The pride of Malaysia, The logo of the airline and the symbol of a peaceful and comfy flight home.

This shot made my sleepless day fulfilling. I just love how the sun lights up the plane with natural cool & warm colours.

My day wasn’t over when I reached Kuching. I had to get ready and head on to grandpa’s house to give my ancestors some prayers. Had the family reunion dinner then headed home to start decorating my own house. With a new theme of Less Is More for my house, I got the living room’s decoration controlled within black, white and red only. Making it easier to decorate. No more old fashion golden plus red ornaments and angpow papers hanging around. This time, I want to make it more personal.

Mom bought this couple of small cute statues and it was just perfect to start of with the decors. Had some cherry blossom flower petals to bring in the mood plus some mini red crystal to spice up the lighting.

Then near the wallpaper, I put up a small plastic cherry blossom tree to give the living room some organic feel. Near the standing lamp, it gave the tree a comfortably nice shadow casting and soft highlight.

And last but not least, some classy looking Ferrero Rochers up on the coffee table to sweeten up the environment.

The end result was this!

Phew~ finally got things done and ready for Chinese New Year to arrive! Til then Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Christmas 2007 in Kuching

Merry Christmas to Christians and Merry X’mas to non-Christians! Spending another christmas back in Kuching. No snow, no Santa Claus, no stockings, no Christmas Tree. But, there were alternatives.

Mommy had her own fun. Mommy came out with this wacky idea of making her version of a snowman. Well, not really a snowman, but a snowman wannabe. There was this trend of buying those mini sized mandarin oranges. Mommy bought a lot of them and she came out with this. I thought mommy’s idea was funny, she even made a nose for this Orangeman. Hell yeah, it really looks kinda cute too, and tasty! yum!

Well, what about daddy? Well, daddy went out with his friends in the morning to some ulu place in the outskirts of Kuching. He came back in the afternoon with 2 kilograms of big-ass bamboo clams! Nice~ They were so tasty that I forgot to take a shot of them. Daddy brought back something that I find kinda cute. It’s these greenish, furry, little I-dunno-what fruit. Daddy says their edible, but I was suspicious. No one ate it and it’s still on the wet kitchen table since daddy left it there. Here’s a shot of those furry green balls.

At night, the whole family went out for a Christmas dinner. We ate at non other than Thian Court Restaurant at Crown Towers. Mommy ordered some fantastic dishes. I stole a few shots before everyone dug into the food. Here comes the Kung Pow Chicken. Tender and juicy chicken stir fried in kung pow sauce. Looks kinda oily from the surface, but that’s how the chef makes sure the Kung-powness of this dish remains. Scrumptious indeed.

Then we had the delicious Soft Shell Crabs. These crabs make a lazy crab eater the happiest man on earth. Why? It’s because that these crabs’ shell is so damn soft, that you don’t have to peel them off. All you gotta do is eat like usual (gobble for some).

Next, we have the Baked Cod Fish in Japanese Sauce. The fish that we all came for! The size of the fish is so freaking big. This dish was baked with japanese sause (whatever that is). It tasted a little bit salty, but with the tenderness of the fish, it made the other dishes feel cheap.

Last but not least, came the most special dish for the day. The Cold Dish! It was a special order and no one knew what it’s going to contain, until it arrived. The trick was to let the chef of the day to choose 4 types of food and mix them together into one. As everyone anticipated for the arrival of this dish, the moment of truth was here. We could see rolls, pears, dumplings and jelly fish! All looked simply pleasant.

The fried rolls, are actually made from yam. Yam covered with fried flour, made it a very tasty snack. The pear looking ‘things’ are actually curry wrap in glutinous rice. Made to look like a pear for no reason, but who cared. The dumplings, looked like dumplings, but didn’t really taste like one. Til now, I still can’t figure out what was in the dumplings, but it tasted kinda good. Lastly, the Jelly Fish, I think this needs no description at all.

Well, another satisfying dinner for Christmas. This time, it was eating out. Though it didn’t feel like Christmas, but it still made my day. Missing those fried rolls now. hmm… When I’m back to Sunway, I think I’ll miss Kuching food even more. Haizz… Gotta head to bed now, *yawn Goodnight!

Christmas Eve

It’s the morning of Christmas Eve in Kuching and it is raining now. A very bright time for a rainy day. I can still feel the heat from the sunlight whilst seeing raindrops rushing and bashing down on the grass and flowers on daddy’s garden.

As usual Christmas will be spent back home in Kuching. Plans for tonight? Not yet plan ah! I’m not sure actually. I didn’t book for any special places, so I guess I’ll be stuck at home for the night.

Today I will announce the retirement of my old camera the Sony Cybershot T33. Well, not really a retirement, but a demotion to him from my only camera, to my secondary helper. Yes, he is still the slimmest in my camera collection, and also one of the most powerful. With it’s powerful Carl Zeiss lens to magnify details, he is still good to go. Bringing this baby to the library to ’steal’ some nice shots is the easiest. Well, glad that this Cybershot has also been with me for a couple of years since my Canon V3 died, when I was in Foundation Year. Still, it is in good condition and I’m still going to use her for some ’secret’ missions.

So, who is it that is going to replace this beautiful and stunning camera? Another Sony? Another Canon? What is it going to be? Well, here’s a hint. It’s a token from my daddy, for having Graduated from College with flying colours + Won some awards + Found an acceptable job + Christmas. All these add together comes a stunning result, my all time dream wishlist, A Digital SLR camera! OMG! And it’s not just an ordinary Digital SLR, it’s a midrange DSLR by Nikon D80 kit. Thanks Daddy!

Let’s see what came with in the set! It comes with a 18-135mm wide lens, 4GBs of high speed memory SD card, A flimsy tripod, A 90 anniversary Nikon heavy duty bag, a UV lens filter and also an LCD screen protector. Looks quite complete for me to start some shootings.

The Nikon D80 has the power of 10.2 megapixels, 11 areas of focusing, pop up flash, and the most interesting things about this Nikon D80, is that noise only appears when you shoot at ISO 1600 & beyond. Now that is so freakin cool! Meaning, this baby can shoot high quality pictures in lowly lit areas. (I haven’t tried it out, but I’m going to test all the features in my coming days.)

The thing I love about Nikon is it’s design of the camera. It seems that the designers for Nikon DSLRs did very good research on this area. I found that the grip of the trigger button seems almost too perfect where it is positioned right now compared to Sony’s and Canon’s. The button is placed in just the right place and feels very comfortable to click on when you are shooting. The shutter speed dial is located behind the trigger, while the aperture dial is positioned in front of the dial. Making it as user friendly as possible. Though this isn’t the latest and newest camera in town, but still I love it very much. Not because it is costly, but it is really a very high-end camera and it came from daddy.

Now to install that lens, charge that battery, on that switch and shoot shoot shoot!! I mean test first la! Ooo-la-la! so handsome ni! Muaks Muaks Muaks!!

Sony Cybershot please don’t look at Nikon D80 like that. I’m not going to abandon you. As long as you can still take those wonderful closeup shots for me, you will still be in my pocket. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to test it out. BOOM!

KL Foody Goody

My family came to K.L and they had their shopping spree. After my interview for work, I quickly headed downtown to find them. Hehe.. all I had in mind was, My family here means better food to eat. No more Sunway crap food. And so it was. Managed to eat all sorts of stuff downtown, there were really delicious ones and so there were pretty hideous and yucky ones too. Here are some that were kinda nice:

Lot 10’s Isetan’s Sushi

I got these sushis at half price. At around 8:45pm is when all sushis at Isetan will have 50% discounts and time for cheapskates like me to dig into their delicious sushis. Got myself a set of 6 with Salmons and Tofu Rolls. Yummy~

Then there’s Pavillion’s Food Republic. One of the stall’s delicious braised mutton with rice. Though it looks small, but it was simply scrumptious and the tender meat was so juicy and tasty.

Food Republic’s Braised Mutton

In Sunway Pyramid’s Dragon-i, famous for their Xiao Long Bao (Steamed Dumplings) The most interesting about these littles Baos were the soup that was wrapped inside the Bao itself. When you use your chopsticks to pick one of them up, you can actually feel the weight of the soup inside. And only the skilled ones are able to quickly pick them up and put it in their mouths with the soup and dumpling together.

Dragon-i’s Xiao Long Bao

Here is something interseting, the pork intestine lookalike. It is actually made from toufu and it tasted delicious. With the sweet sauce from the Dong Po Meat, it made this ‘intestine’ the most mouth watering.

Dragon-i’s Toufu Intestines

This is La Zi chicken Szechuan style. The spicy delicacy that didn’t really make it to my delicious list, but worth taking a photo of. It was a very hot and spicy dish and we weren’t able to finish that whole basket. You can imagine the pain we went through when we tried to finish it. Just look at the chilies in there.

Dragon-i’s La Zi Chicken

It’s been ages since I talked about food here. I hope to get some nice pictures in Kuching. I’ll be staying in Kuching for 2 weeks til 1st of January. So, please jio me out, or I’m gonna die from all those downloaded videos I have in my computer.

LongXi Creative Forum/Exhibition

Yesterday was a tiring day, it was the LongXi Creative Forum/Exhibition 龙玺大家斗“酷”, held in Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre. The forum started at 9a.m. and ended around 6p.m. Everyone from the multimedia department went and so did I.

The forum used ancient Chinese torture methods as a theme. Showing that Chinese creativity existed back in ancient times, apart from the 4 famous Chinese inventions, the various forms of ancient torture methods were seen as creative as well. The website is beautiful, done by TOA’s Multimedia Team. Ooo.. nice!!! click here to see the site.

The forum was very unique not only because of the theme behind it, but the speakers, I find they are very extraordinary and very well planned compared to the Kancil Awards I went last time. There were 2 sessions, the first was conducted in English while the second was in Mandarin. The mandarin session gave me the feeling of returning back to High School, where lectures and speakers were all speaking Mandarin. It just felt very different and comfortable, after 3 years of experiencing the absence of Mandarin in my college years.

Hehe.. I got my pass which wrote Professional. Ooo.. sounds cool isn’t it. Well, There were many speakers for the day: 3 out of the 4 dinosaurs – Jimmy Lam, Thomaz Mok, Peter Soh and more. The list is here.

Among all of the speakers, the one that captured my most attentio nwas Thomaz Mok’s philosophy of Creative “Yi Jing 易经” based on the oldest Chinese classic text formerly known in Wade-Giles as “I-Ching”. Literally it means Classic of Changes. But, Thomaz’s Yi Jing was very different. Here in the chinese character of “意”, he implemented 11 other “yi” s and to form. It was so extraordinary, it caught my eye just when he showed this slide:

It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, apart from the colours used. The 11 characters used here represents his philosophy of creative advertisements. We all know that creative in mandarin is called “Chuang Yi 创意”, he explained every aspect of his “yi”s from 创易 simplicity, 创异 difference, 创一 originality, 创宜 appropriate, 创忆 memorable, 创艺 craft, 创依 relevance, 创怡 delightful, 创议 talkabout, 创移 expandable, and lastly to 创益 effective. These are the important aspects and elements of a creative advertisement. Here are some examples he showed:

A FedEx Ad to show heavy duty

A medicine for running nose ad

Miller Beer ad, very nice execution of a basketball

Quote from Thomaz “I believe in creativity than vanity, exploration than definition”. It was a meaningful speech from him. Oh oh! See… here is prove that I listened to the talk ok? I took notes here and there. *hehe. Bad handwriting after 3 years of not taking Chinese notes. Hmm… gotta improve on that.

The talk was a also a good place to get fat. We actually had 2 tea breaks and 1 big lunch. Cheesecakes, mini burgers, chocolate cakes, tea and more. After all those food, again we had to sit in our places and listen to the speakers. Lunch was pretty good. Yenny’s herbal chicken soup was taken away by the waitress and she was furious. *chuckles There were 2 drumsticks in her soup and she haven’t even tasted it. Hahaha… she was like “Aaargh!! Where’s My Soup??”

The talk was very educational indeed. The 2nd round of panel judges were very interesting. Their critiques were fabulous, as they touched on every possible angle to talk about the pros and cons of the advertisements shown. From Hongkies, to Taiwanese, to Mainland Chinese and even Malaysian Chinese. Here is a really nice ad I like. It is a traditional Chinese character of “horse 马” spelled into English as HORSE. The product is a translation pen. Very beautiful calligraphy.

RE:VOLT 2008 Sneak Peek

Ohh… No more MMPS! La-la-la.. Freed from burdens and stress! It just felt like God has raptured me into freedom (although I don’t believe in God). But, still there is work to do. As art director for our graduation batch and Leader for the teaser team, I needed to finish up my things, or else I will not be able to sleep well when I return to the magical and enchanting boring island of Borneo. Well, as a result till today, we have quite settled some of the things. Haha.. I won’t tell you cause I feel it’s embarrassing, but Hey, we tried our best OK? Now now…

We have bought re:volt 2008 web server and it will be launching soon. Wee~~ Here is a sneak peek of the site’s splash page. You may click on the image to link to the site. The url is http://www.revolt2008.com. Please note that the site is still under construction until further notice.

We will have a set of things for this campaign. A teaser, a website, posters, invitations, showcase and most important of all, the exhibition. The exhibition will be held at The One Gallery, on the 7th of January 2008. Will update more on re:volt next time, till then… gotta get back to work! Shit! Teaser, trailer references, music, missing shots, RAM shortage, aaargh..how to work peacefully????

Self Promotion

We have this Digital Portfolio class this term, taught by the one and only Wai Khong. We are assigned to complete 2 projects for this subject, and the 1st one is to promote yourself creatively. We need to come out with a concept and an idea to implement. Provided that the 1st project can be from any media from digital to traditional print.

As for me, I prefered to do something I hated most, print! My concept in short is to inform my employer that I am multi-talented in design, solve problems creatively and make big money for the company. I used the idea of the “For Dummies” international icon to implement into my concept. Due to its highly recognised reputation, it gives the target audience a better understanding of what I’m trying to portray in my work. Here is a picture of what I came out with in the end.

As you can see, there are 6 books in this complete set. The topics covered here are: Big Profit, Creative Solutions, Original Ideas, Web Solutions, Design Management and Bonus Items. In the 5 books, they contain all the same content. Which are the 5 big steps:

1st step: Pick up your phone
2nd step: Dial this number: 0169*****5
3rd step: Hire this person: Reuben Teo
4th step: Sit back and relax
5th step: Congratulations! You have mastered the secrets to a big business success!

And the other remaining pages, are note paper for the employer to scribble on, while relaxing when they hire me. Now, you noticed about the Bonus Items book, and you must be asking, what the hell is that? Well, it’s actually a folder that contains an envelope titled :”Most Wanted Secrets” Dum~ Dum~ Dum~ Dum~ *chuckles.

Aiya.. It’s the envelope where I put my resume and cover letter lah! Hahaa.. Cheh!! you guys sure say. Well, hope you guys like it. I sure had fun with this project. It costed me so much money and time. Yes I know the finishing wasn’t that good, Hey, I’m a multimedia designer and I do RGB stuff k? This is considered quite good liao!

Who says Malaysian Police not working?

After the MMPS project internal assesment, there was a feeling of a big burden lifted. It was awkward to not worry about it for a week, but it felt quite good. Hehe… Now, I can concentrate on my portfolio site. But then.. today this happened to be in my mind.

How come got smoke in Bollywood dance? new style kah?

This is the 2nd big rally in Malaysia. This time, not as big as the BERSIH demonstration, but still big enough to show that Malaysians are still brave enough to stand up against the government. I heard from a friend Saturday night about roads being blocked by the police in Kuala Lumpur city, predicting another protest happening and truly HINDRAF supporters have gathered as early as 6am in order to pass a petition signed with around 100,000 signatures and be presented to her Royal Highness the Queen of England. It was to sue the UK Government for US$4 trillion (US$1 million for every Malaysian Indian) for bringing in Indians into Malaya as labourers & exploiting them for 150 years. And also failing to protect the Indians rights in the Federal Constitution when Malaya independence was granted.

Why my Teh-O-Ais got chemical? Go get a new one! Satu lagi!

Well, again the government has proved to us that this is another illegal gathering and warn us all not to participate. Causing fear again to many people in the hearts using tear gases and chemical waters loaded in fire trucks, now making Malaysians having the thoughts of, “Why protest?” “The Police sure catch” “No need lah!” “Don’t stupid lah! Useless one!” or even “Crazy ah? Malaysia can protest meh?” and many more.How is this illegal? because the police did not approve the permit of this demonstration? ~HELLO? It’s a demonstration because something is wrong here and there? Why do we need get approval for such a peaceful rally if we are, so-called DEMOCRATIC by our constitution? even if we did, it will be rejected rite? Unless the rally is about celebrating another Twin Towers, then sure police approve lah! *chuckles

We police also know how to make TEH-AIS! with chemicals!!! Aargh..gulp gulp!!

Well, using tear gas and chemical water to blast the protesters doesn’t seem very democratic when it’s a PEACEFUL demonstration. The police are not supposed to use force on them (although Malaysian Minister Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz says on Al-Jazeera that these are NOT force)… The police’s duty is to protect the citizens from harm, not predict that this demonstration MIGHT become violent, then suddenly blast chemicals on the people. If demonstrations are illegal and can be handled by using tear gas and chemical water, how about gay people being illegal in Malaysia or illegal pirated VCD sellers in Petaling Street, why not use tear gas on them? Hey, how about blasting chemical water on illegal immigrants too huh?

Surely since last few week’s BERSIH protest and thanks to Malaysian local media of having minimal coverage of these HUGE events, even my parents back in Sarawak didn’t know about this protest. They did however found out about how serious this problem was when I addressed them to read articles online. Even me without television in Sunway, I was fortunate to have internet access and YouTube, and know a little here and there about these protests. I’m glad that Malaysians voice out their opinions, this proves that Malaysians are NOT so ‘cincai’ in doing things and they really mean it.

Even tear gases were used at those sleeping at Batu Caves at 4am. Poor people. Here’s some pictures to show how Malaysian police are effective at very rare times. Wow.. looks like fire works during deepavali. Lord Muruga thought it was an early thaipusam!

Notice the riot police’s uniforms Shiny Shiny! Ooo..fire trucks’ kinda cool!

Whoa..now even sleeping together at Batu Caves is considered illegal. Hmm… is sleeping violent too? Maybe dreaming of protest is illegal in Malaysia too. That’s why chemical water and tear gases are used again. Wow.. now Malaysian police can predict what you are dreaming. Just like Santa Claus. He knows if you’ve been sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for UMNO’s sake.

Why you wake us up? Today we don’t want to open mamak stall dy!!

I’ve learned a lot about our cute country. Protest in Malaysia is actually not so serious, cause RTM and local newspapers has minimal coverage on this. But Myanmar’s protest is much more bigger or maybe the International Cat Show at the Matrade Exhibition and Convention Centre is more important than these demonstrators. Even Nurin was on newspaper for a couple of weeks. guess when it comes to hierarchy of media importance, we Malaysians prefer to do it the Malaysian way hor? These protest story can go to newspaper’s page 4 lah.

Watch it on YouTube, guys.

Pictures courtesy of Jeff Ooi

Porky Rock

Being hungry at night, it made me search for more makan sites. This time, I was surfing in those Chinese search engines when I came across a news site related to pork, from this website called sohu.com The title of that particular article stunned me, it said “Natural Pork Rock“. I was shocked, to see that now even rocks wants to be pork. Those crazy rocks seriously look damn delicious, but fattening as well. Just take a look at some of the pictures here. Seems like an ordinary market place huh? But No… its actually an exhibition hall in Suzhou, China. Says in the article that, these porky rocks are 60 yuan (RM30) per half kilograms. These meat-looking rocks has layers exactly like the real thing, from skin to fat oil to even the red meat. Looks like these pork needs hell lots of tenderizers huh! Just look at this greedy guy’s face. Must be a pork eater. Life has just became a little bit more interesting with nature’s jokes. Its really something so extraordinary I had to share this with you all. If someone whoever wants to use these rocks to decorate their house, I think their insane. Who would want some slabs of pork hanging in the living room, It doesn’t sound like good “feng shui” to me. Its “feng oil“, if you asked me. ^^

Oh well, gonna cook some noodles now, no pork for me tonight!!