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Exploring the 3D worlds of Secondlife and There.com

Freaking Firefox automatically closed my window before I was done typing! How rude! *angry*

I’m gonna beat you up! I’m gonna give you a fiver and beat you up good!

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Thank you, thank you. A moving experience indeed.

Anyways, I’ve been working on my new layout for my website, rinaz.net which hasn’t been updated for the longest time. Initially, I wanted to do a layout that looked like this:

I’m quite fascinated with rounded corners. However, after much tinkering around by myself and then bugging my dearest, I saw that multiple rounded corners wasn’t as easy as I expected it to be. It was even nightmarish to do.

I had to stick back to something I was familliar with. But I did leave the outer table with rounded corners. And it looks something like this :

What do you think?

Online, I live in a virtual 3D world called, Secondlife. Secondlife is a beautiful world where you could travel and explore, create items as well as intereact with people. Almost the same as real life, without the social stigmas that we encounter daily.

I stay in a beautiful neighbourhood called Arcata with my partner Cartcart. Our house faces the sea and it’s a spectacular scene every time there is a moonlight, sunrise and sunset.

Somtimes we’d go exploring to see whats new in the neighbourhood. For me, it was exciting to see the different changes that people did. To me, these houses, as virtual as it is, was still an expressive part of their selves. And to see these houses show a little bit of the owner’s personalities.

Like this particular house that we stumbled to, I think that the owner was a warm and affable quality judging from the funny things that the owner kept

Cart : Why are we on top of this cactus?
Rinaz : I don’t know! *shrugs*

And sometimes I’d meet old friends. Like Merlin whom I’ve been friends from the days of Cybertown, another 3D world but it uses an older technology, VRML.

Merlin in 2003

Merlin in 2006

And sometimes I’d encounter the most surreal situations in Secondlife. Like the day when I met a novice magician who could conjure up different items. He made it rain fruits and vegetables and a multiple of animals. Holy cow!

But sometimes, one of the best things to do in Secondlife is to just chill out with some friends. Like in this instance where Jeremiah and Jessica and me, chilling out in Jessica’s beautiful house, watching a streaming movie

Sometimes, I’d go to there.com, another 3D world. It’s similar to Secondlife, but the biggest difference is that There.com is a PG rated world. Graphically, there.com is more cartoony. It is still beautiful and I enjoyed travelling around there with different transportation, like the hoverboards and buggys

The people there, are relatively nice if you knew where to look.

And it was always great to explore the different places in there. Like the castles of Tyr, the Crystal Plants and Hoverboarding in Saja. Very pretty worlds. I wonder what’s to come for the future.

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I actually broke a Nokia phone

2 weeks in the new year and I think I’ve settled down a little, more or less. Back to regular blogging!

rinaz.net
The Nokia 3310

My first coloured mob phone, my beloved Nokia 3310 finally busted. It started with the motherboard having problems, making it non-chargeable using the regular method then recently, it wouldn’t ring at all, rendering in many missed calls.

Okay mostly it was really my fault since I’m such a rough person and tend to drop it a lot. Phones should really be built with rubber cushions at the exterior for people like me.

I had to cave in and get a replacement mob phone and decided to finally get a second hand Nokia 7260.

The interesting thing about Singapore is that there are many shops that sells and repairs mobile phones. Just the other day while walking in Jurong East during my lunch break, I counted that there were at the very least 10 of these kiosks selling mobile phones. It made me wonder, if it is such a lucrative business or will it flounder like the bubble tea business during the year 2000?


A big crowd at the mosque for the morning Hari Raya Prayers


Sacrificial sheep which will be distributed to the poor


Boys watching the sacrificial rites

Anyhow, it was 10th January, Hari Raya Haji, and it was the norm for the family to visit the paternal and maternal clans. After the morning prayers, we went to our paternal and then our maternal clan which was located in Tampines.

I saw a mob phone shop. After contemplation, I went in and asked to examine the phone and finally gotten the phone after trading in my old phone for the price of SG$160

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It was a pretty cool phone with radio features, camera features and voice recorder, among other regular features that is expected of Nokia. To me, once you’ve tried a Nokia, you’ll never go back to other phones. After all, Nokia has the human technology.

I played around with it and here are some of the photos that I snapped with it :





The pictures look fairly decent. Of course not as sharp as a regular camera, a little watercolour-eque but for a phone, it was rather good.

I liked the voice and video recording features too. I made my dearest’s voice into my ringtone!

With the right software, I was even able to create my own ringtones and my own wallpaper. I’m so geeked out at this. Previously, I’d have to pay an insane amount for personalised wallpaper and ringtones.

Using the right cable, the Nokia 7260 uses C4-42 (which you can get cheaply from yahoo auctions) and you could transfer data to and from the computer.

I use the Nokia PC suite for the phone data and the Miksoft Mobile AMR converter to create the ringtones

Anyhow, being a second hand phone, I saw that there were some stuff that’s left in there by the previous owner and going through it, I saw that the previous owner was a Malay female and judging from the pictures that she snapped, she was in her early 20’s. (I deleted all her pictures, messages and videos as wouldn’t be nice to keep them)

But going though the messages was like a little soap opera between her and her boyfriend.

“I luvs you so much! Muakz! Muakz! Muakz! Muakz! Muakz!”

“Why do you have to see him? That makes me so jealous! You are my girl!”

And stuff like that continued. People should remember to delete stuff like that before giving their phones away.

And speaking of broken phones. Guess what else I broke this week 🙁

Yes. Another shoe. After breaking multiple shoes in incidents such as this and this. My chicken shoes is part of the next dearly departed.

I love my chicken shoes so much. How can this happen? I was just walking home and the seams just busted out. It could be the overly rainy days that we were having that made the glue melted and my shoes fall apart.

Sigh

I’d better take pictures of my current shoes before they go for their eventual death too.



Green Espadrilles from Tinkerbell for $25 dollars


Camel suede shoes from Noda for $15


Purple Crochet ballerina shoes from Mondo for $25

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Project superblah

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Oh, awesomeness. The order for the new Videocamera arrived today and I had a ball playing around with it. Though the camera uses Mini-DV tapes (Its been around for a while) its much much better than the older, bulky video cam that I used previously. It used Hi-8 tapes (who uses Hi-8 tapes anymore!) and needed all sorts of cables to be connected to transfer it from the camera to the computer. It was very confusing to use. Trying to transfer the video on my computer was a nightmare with all the crashes and freezes and blue screen of death.

But the new digital video camera uses USB 2.0 cable. Thus it was so easy to use and transferring the video was such a cinch. Just plug it in, and switch it on. Then transfer it over with your choice video editor.

I found an old mini dv tape that I used for school and played around with it.

One of the tape contained footage that was supposed to be for my school project during my multimedia class in 2001. I couldnt use it in the end. This was because I couldnt managed to transfer the video in time and my video camera loan was up. So the tape has been lying in my drawer all these years. Until now.

What do you think? I used the software Windows Movie maker to create the clips. It isnt as nice to use as Ulead Studio Video that I used previously as in the software tends to be a little sluggish and there are some tweakings that I cant do (like customizing the audio) and limited transitions. But it was still good enough to use. Anyway it comes in bundled with the winxp operating system. So I wont complain. 😛

I also found footage from the previous school that I was attached to and watching these clips made me reminisce upon how much I missed the kids there and how much fun I used to have.

Its not that I’m not happy with my present work. I do feel pretty satisfied with where I am at the moment. I have many interesting things to do everyday. But the mood here, its a little different. I dont get the chance to have the same type of interaction with the kids as I had previously. And I miss that. A lot.

I like teaching kids IT. I like showing them little tricks that you can do with a bit of clicking and typing. And the beautiful or cute and fun things that you can create with a little bit of thought.

Over here, people think of me more of the:

1)Technical Assistant – fixing computers and printers.
2)Videographer
3)photographer
4)Programmer (aye??)
5)Multimedia conceptualist
6)Loads loads more

I’m not complaining. Really. Really really. Its just that I feel that the mood here is different. Alot of people (teachers even) were surprised that I actually teach!

Well, I miss the kids anyway. I even had a dream scene of some kids a few nights ago with some kids thats I taught with another ex-colleague in the previous school.

In the dream scene, they were entrepreneurs, in a shop, selling some things. And I was walking by and passed through the streets and they noticed me and called me over. The thing about the dream was that I was amazed and even touched that they remembered me.

I’m getting old. Reminiscing about everything.

Their N-Level results was just announced yesterday and I do hope that they get into the institutions that they desire and am happy with the results that they have gotten. Saw some kids looking really happy with their results. They were giving triumphant screams and bursts. But there were also some who looked upset at their results with their teary eyes.

I cant help but wonder, if I am ready for my own exams next year.

Anyways a final video for the moment – a bit of highlights from the year 2003. Its amazing to see the kids looking so small and cute! LOL! They look so much different now that they’ve grown up a little bit.

—

By the way, I hope that the clips doesnt make the regular browser freeze. My apologies if it does – Please let me know. I’d do a manual link if it does. And I know that I told CK that I dislike blogs that has music and video clips in them

It freezes my browser, slows up my computer and is really not pleasant to have multiple music jolting suddenly when you’re listening to your own mp3 player at the same time. I cant even pause it to stop the cacophony. Oh dear.

But the nice thing about YouTube is that it pauses at the beginning has a button that allows you to play IF you want to watch it. I also saw some nice music players like what Chas has got here.

Okay, thats my rant for today.

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Sexy Canon Digital Exus 750

Ted says : Sometimes things never go the way you like it. We all fail. But it’s not failing that hurts. What hurts is that you didn’t do your best.

Have the discipline to do little things you don’t like and you can spend your life doing the big things that you do like.

Err .. thank you for that Ted. I’ll try to remember that.

Anyway, I’ve got a new toy a work and I’m a little excited about it. The new stock of digital cameras arrived and I asked Gavin, who was keeping most of them for one to play with.

Previously, I’ve been complaining about how the school has been using backdated cameras.

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Like the Sony Mavica

I don’t know anyone who uses this any more. It’s so old school that it deserves a museum of its own. In a world full of SD-Cards, CF-Cards and Memory sticks, the sony mavica camera uses a floppy disk! And it’s 1.3 megapixels. Amazing.

And now, behold, the beautiful Canon Digital Ixus 750.

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Sexiliciously sleek and slim with an alluring champange gold body. And so small. It’s much smaller than my palm even. I’m amazed that at a resolution of 7.1 megapixel, the body was so small.

It took a while for me to get used to a point and click camera after my regular use of my regular EOS 350 DSLR, also by Canon. But I’m quite surprised that the Ixus still has a few features that I never thought a point an click would have, like ISO settings and White balance and I saw some nifty features like the photo stitch, which I really liked. (Panoramic pictures! Awesome!)

The Ixus isn’t as good as my EOS 350. The startup time isnt as fast, and each shot takes a split second to do (instead of multi-burst) The colour sometimes isn’t so true to the real thing too. But it’s like comparing apples to oranges. The Ixus is most definitely useful for travelling around and those situations when you just dont want to carry a huge camera around.

Beautiful camera. I like it alot.


Colour may not be true


Sharp images using macro view


Focus on an object and blur the background like a slr 🙂


May not be good for quick moving subjects

But overall, is an awesome camera – so now Imma gonna kidnap this camera for a while 😉

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Shiny things make me go ga ga

My goodness, I can’t believe that we’ve reached December already. It didn’t seem too long ago that we just celebrated the new year. How did time pass by so quickly – a blink of an eye?


My classmates and GP teacher from night class on our final class for the year

During these times, I tend to reflect back on the different things and actions that has been said and done. Sometimes I feel that I am quite selfish and egocentric and only think of myself. That I am quite emotional and take things to heart quite easily.

So, I’m going to do a resolution to try to be less judgemental of other people. Why wait till the new year?


CK asked me, why I haven’t been updating as frequently as I used to. To be honest, I did type in some entries, these past days but in the end, I couldn’t bear to hit the “publish” button. As much as I’d like to express about things that affect me deeply, there is also limits as to what I’d like to share and what I’d like to keep private.

I mean, to what extent would people whom read your blog, take it the wrong way, and use it to pass judgement on you? And to what extent would people use it as evidence to use it against you?

I had to think twice.

Nevertheless, I hope everything goes well, for everyone and for everything goes smoothly.

And enough of the cryptic message. Lets move on 😛

I think I’m getting addicted to the bling virus. The bling virus is where you feel feverish and sick until you see and buy something shiny (preferably gold, or silver or diamond or other gems)

Juli took me to Lee Hwa Jewellery to look at the Purple Gold pendant that she fancied.

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Pretty purple gold with diamonds

It was interesting to me, the shiny purple was actually gold instead of a gem created by an alloy of different metals and gold. Juli looked completely immersed at the purple jewellery.

The salesman proceeded his pitch and we stayed to look around and listen to his explanation for about 2 hours. Admittedly, the purple gold jewellery was very pretty. But I wouldn’t get it for myself since it was firstly a tad bit pricey for myself (about SG$900 and above) and secondly I don’t really wear jewellery that frequently. Even the diamond pendant that mum bought for my 22nd birthday, I don’t usually wear any more. I used to be passionate about pendants – I swore eternal love and devotion to them. I promised to love and cherish them in good times and bad times.

It is now nicely hung, decorating my bedpost.

In the end, Juli left the shop to go to Soo Kee Jewellery to get for herself a cheaper purple gem pendant. “It’s not worth getting the purple gold now, it’s quite pricey” She reasoned. And I agree.

And then I promptly went to buy myself a tiara.

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Royalty suits me well, don’t you think?

Today I finally caved in to get a ring for myself at Heart to Heart Jewellery. I saw the most beautiful ring while walking around with Clement in IMM. He was searching for a gift for a friend of his and decided to get her a pendant and ring set. While he was choosing the designs, I tried one out and fell hopelessly in love with one of the ring.

I didn’t want to to extravagant and blow my budget. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the ring. How pretty it was. The final straw came when I had a dream scene of trying to buy the ring but got to the shop too late and couldn’t buy it. (I kid you not!)

So I spent a while today at the mall, and got this


You like my bling?

And that would be my extravagance for the month. Now I’ll go and skip buying lunch and say that I’m on a diet.

It was not exactly the same one that I saw at IMM but this is still pretty. I like it very much. And I will cherish and love it forever, till bad credit, do us part.

—


Work makes me happy, angry, sad and amazed all at the same time!

I’m still busy at work! I’m amazed that I still have plentiful of things to do even if its supposed to be the holidays.

Lets see:

1. Cataloguing 6 boxes full of CD’s for the multimedia library
2. Creating an animation to prettify the student’s research
3. Poster for the publicizing of the jobs software.
4. Other miscellaneous things

*blinks eyes*

At least I’ve got a new friend at work to accompany me 🙂

Say hello to err .. erm … Ted! Yeah that’s it! Ted! One of the staff workers was just about to throw Ted away when she felt sorry for it and plonked him on my desk. Of course, immediately I fell in love with Ted and cuddled with it.

He’s so fuzzy and soft.

And also great to strangle and to throw around when I’m stressed or angry. Its perfect.

Anyway, think I’ll end my post for the moment. Till the next time. 🙂

P.S

Oh! Shout outs to all the cool people whom visited marina’s bloggariffic!

How on earth did you stumble here? *curious*

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May I have your support please?

Thanks for all the wellwishes. The family is doing fine. Quite a few things to ponder about these few days. *hugs to all*

A slow and lazy day today, didn’t do much except for a bit of housework and other mundane things. An easy Sunday. Initially, I wanted to blog about the typical Singaporean sunday morning. How families would stroll about their nearest hawker center or coffee shop to have breakfast together.

I love hearing the morning chatter from the throngs of people that come around as well as the ever moving stallholders who are busy preparing their food and drinks. I ordered a national favourite, the Roti Prata along one of my favourite drinks, Teh Halia (Ginger Tea).

Didn’t take any pictures though. Really wasnt in the mood to ask for permission from the stallholders for a picture.

Anyway, my prata and the accompanying curry was still wonderfully piping hot when I reached home to eat it. I’m sure my dearest would love a Singaporean breakfast. It’s such a treat!

Anyhow, being a little anti social, I spent the entire day cooped up in my room doing nothing but silly internet stuff.


Didn’t even touched my uncompleted flash animation :

Like neopets. I don’t know what got into me that possesed me to play neopets after a hiatus of many years.

I started playing in 2001 after seeing some kids playing it in the computer lab. Curious to know what the appeal was, I started. It didn’t take me long to get addicted to it. The games were nice, and the activities there were engrossing. I liked taking care of my pet. And this was what he used to look like.


My lupez2k

He doesnt look like that anymore though because of my persistant laboratory experiments on him.

I have to admit that although it has absolutely no value in the real world, I’m quite proud of the so called achivements that I’ve done on neopets. Yes, its childish. But look!

Trophies!

And look!

A high level pet

And I’m quite proud of my paintbrush collection

Anyhow, I stopped playing neopets because of the fact that Neopets took away a lot of the games that I liked and changed a lot of the activities there. It just took away alot of the fun-factor for me. Moreover there was a sheer amount of advertising in it. Every page had at least two banners. Finally I lost interest in it eventually.

Later on in the afternoon, I tried to learn a bit of Italian with this wonderful software called The Rosetta Stone Language Learning Software. Unlike other language softwares that I’ve encountered, this one’s easy to learn. You pick the picture that describes the text.

Il toro calcia l’uomo. The bull kicks the man. Easy.

But when it starts getting to this bit here

Uhh … go left. Go right. No go left. Turn behind. No no no … turn around three times and click your shoes and wish for no other place but home. This is hard!

I had to stop that software for the moment. It was much too confusing for me. Anyway, I came this podcast a few days ago and though that it was quite interesting. It was about a man’s encounter in Italy and how his language learning came in handy.

Later on, I logged in Secondlife for a little bit to say hi to an old friend, Duo. He showed me his dance floor. I must say, that it looked groovalicious 🙂


Rinaz Bijoux hits the dancefloor!

Totally unrelated to today’s post, I thought I’d also include one of my mini obsession.

It started in 1913 when a Lady called Mary Phelps Jacob created this using two silk handkerchiefs and a ribbon. And since then, it has evolved to many wonderful designs. Some curious and some amazing.

What I am talking about, ladies and gentlemen is the wonderful brassiere.


One of my latest buys and the entire set costs only $50 SG dollars!

It’s funny how I used to be embarrassed to step in any lingerie shop but now, friends would sometimes be frustrated when I stop by my favourite Minoshe shop and won’t step out till hours later.

I love Minoshe for its cheaper price and the regularly updated designs. A bra and panty set usually costs less than $30. Which I think is awesome. I’d never buy expensive undies any more.

I had an unpleasant experience of buying a bra from an established lingerie shop. It was kind of expensive but it didn’t last very long.  After a while, it tore and wasn’t good any-more.

See, just as pretty as any Victoria’s Secrets 🙂


I love the different colours. A lot of pink ones lately.

Some of my newer buys. Couldn’t help it when Minoshe had a promotion – Buy two get one free. 3 sets for under 60 dollars.

While I don’t normally wear lacy stuff, I couldn’t help but to get this adorable one. It looks so sweet. I don’t quite fancy the ribbon on the panty but I can cut it away I guess.

And lately I’ve been quite paranoid about my lingerie by the fact that I only hand-wash them and hanging them separately. They always get missing if they are left to be washed in the machine. I don’t know why but since one of my nicer ones got missing, I didn’t want to take a chance any more.

Still, for some of the lovely designs from Minoshe, sometimes they do come out with odd designs.

I thought it was really ugly. The only reason why I got it is because I liked the black chemise that came along with it.

Okay, time to get back to trying to understand heads and tails to what the Rosetta stone software is trying to teach me. Till the next time 🙂

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I’m not gorgeous but its okay

Oh sweet! Look at what was just delivered this morning. Yay!


The coy and demure pose

Tried to call up the vespa showroom but there was no reply. Thought it would be nice to try out the different scooters before making my mind up about which one to get.

I dont mind slightly heavier bikes. (Not too heavy though!) Because they are more stable but I don’t think I could get a bike which is too tall. If the balls of my feet can’t touch the ground, that’s no good.

Anyway, been looking at tomorrow.sg when an article caught my eye.

In a nutshell : A blogger here in Singapore was nominated as the hottest blogger Apparently, she was noticed by a local talent agency to sign her up with MTV.

I read about that a few days ago but I didn’t think about it much. She’s a very pretty girl and she’s very lucky to be signed up with MTV.


What an adorable face

I mean, I wish I was as pretty as she. But I’m not. So I pretty much abandoned all my hopes to become the next popular pop-star/TV host/singer/ and just forget about it. (Haah? No more Marina Carey? Boring)

However, I wonder why talent agencies or TCS or any local media here seem to favour more of the Caucasian look and then the Chinese. There is very little, if none at all Malay or Indian actors and actresses, models used for advertisements.

Even Taufik Batisah, the winner of the Singapore Idol competition, seems to be completely non existent in the TCS 5 world. Save for the one drama series, Shooting Stars and the 7-11 commercial. Sheik Haikal, Norleena Salim, Kumar … Where are they now?

My classmate, Adi, believes that the reason being is that Caucasians have much more appeal than the other races. It all boils down to marketing, people with more appeal, generate more revenue.

But I feel that the lesser fairer races also have their own special appeal. Who is to say that Indians and Malays don’t?

It makes me sad to see biasness in the media when in actual fact, most Singaporeans are in a melting pot. We interact with each other in daily life, we have best friends with each other, we even form relationships with each other. So what’s up with the one sided view?

Yes, I would like to see more diversity in races in the media. What can be done to promote it? I wish I knew.

I’m still hopeful though.

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what a wierd week

Wahoo! Its now been a year since the first entry to Rinaz Bloggariffic has been published. Happy happy birthday to bloggie!

Looking back to this day, about a year ago :

  • I was helping out with the West Spring technology club students in an Animation Competition. We were also getting ready to move to the new campus.
  • My computer was down and I couldnt play secondlife so I used my brother’s laptop to talk on the forums and got to know my dearest better.
  • Started to get extremely stressed out because of my previous company’s antics. Visually apparent from my face. Easily depressed.

One year ago, I’d never thought that I’d experience the things that has happened to me during these 12 months. I never thought that I’d ever leave West Spring and go to Shuqun and I didnt think that I’d take photography seriously. I didnt even think about taking A levels nor did I ever imagine that I’d ever go to Italy and neither did I imagine that I’d fall in love …

As far as maturity goes, I still do stupid things every now and then. Like auditioning for a television programme even though I know that I have absolutely NO chance of getting to the next stage. Breaking a pair of shoes for the Nth time. Setting a date to meet and then cancelling it, and then setting it up again and then cancelling it again. What can I say, I’m impulsive and a little spontaneous.

I dont regret doing stupid things though … We only live once. Life is too short to worry about every single mistake that we do. I want to look forward to the future and learn from the past. I want spend a good day and remember yesterday but just remember … never to linger and dwell too much.

I just want to be happy.

Now that I’m 27, I dont know if I’ve grown any wiser as compared to some years back. Gosh … 27 … I cant even start to fathom that. How did time pass by so quickly? As a kid, I never thought that I’d ever grow up to become 20. Now I cant even imagine being 30. And thats just 3 years from now.

Sometimes I think about the things that I should have done, things that I could have achieved. Goals that I should have accomplished. Just like ‘so and so’. But I know that I can never be like them. I am me. And I’d like the be the best that only I can be.

Anyway, enough with the nonsensical ramblings and lets get down with it. (with MORE nonsensical ramblings)

—

What a week.

I think I got a little too carried away with the graduation video.I was a little frustrated that the program wouldnt let me burn it to a vcd format. I decided to try to do a big no-no which was to try to get a crack for the trial version of the Ulead Video editing program. Before I knew it, I had a few viruses in my computer which I thought my anti-virus was able to pick up.

Confidently, I deleted the virii and thought that it was all good. Chatted with my dearest and decided to restart my computer when firefox decided to hang on me. Compy restarted as usual and went to the desktop as usual. But I couldnt control my mouse anymore and the whole screen just froze.

No matter how many times I restarted the computer, no matter how many times I screamed compy just looked coldly back at me. I was extremely, extremely frustrated. I spent the entire morning editing the video and it was all for naught. All my hard work. How on earth am I going to go to work the next day? Needless to say, I was extremely upset. Stupid virus. I was tired and sick from the flu and sore throat and feeling extremely low.

I was contemplating on reformatting my computer. I was just about to press the reformat key when my dearest adviced against it. “You’ll lose all your work!” and he added “why dont you bring your hard disk to school and see if the information can be extracted”

Which I did, the next day, I asked if Clement, the tech guru (and my current best friend) where I was working at, to see if he could help check out what was wrong with my compy. And he helped to delete away the virii which was *still* residing in the hard disk and extracted a few of the precious files that I was working at.

That cheered me up a little, that my work wasnt completely gone. I thanked Clement for helping me and I installed the hard disk back into my compy. I still had the same problem where it restarted and just got stuck at the desktop. Then I decided to reformat the computer. But this time, I didnt feel so bad since I’ve already saved the important files.

(Why on earth do I have so much issues with computers?)

Anyway, the next day, I found that my mobile phone doesnt want to be charged when I plugged the charger in. “Whats wrong, now?”, I asked it, furiously poking it. I brought it for the mobile phone carts to take a look at. The man who was at the counter fiddled a little with my mobile, took it apart and then fiddled with it some more and eventually concluded that my mobile phone ‘mother board’ had an error in it, making it having problems when trying to recharge. You could get it fixed, but its cheaper to buy a new phone altogether. Anyway, you can use the desktop charger to recharge your battery.

I looked at the mobile phones that was on display. Most of them were above $200 dollars. Which was a fair price for a Nokia 7260. However, I didnt feel like spending any moolah this month after being quite extravagant last month, spending over the same amount over the studio shots. And anyways, I only use the mobile phone for sms’s and calls. I dont really have any need for mms or gprs or camera or those new fangled stuff. My pre paid sim card doesnt allow it either. Undeniably, I’m quite tempted though, the phone looks sexilicious.

The week passed by quite busily with loads and loads of stuff to do, conducting surveys, helping out in alot of things for the graduation ceremony. Teachers came to me one by one to ask me for help in different things (some not related to I.T. even lol!) One teacher even asked me to help edit a password protected document. I had to crack my head at trying to fix that problem. I’m not a hacker!

In the end, I redid the document by scratch. It was much easier to do that compared to trying to guess or crack the password to the document.

Pheeww!

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Thursday. Accompanied the vice principal and the operations manager to Yishun Town Secondary School to have a look-see. The vp tells me that the school was undergoing ‘PRIME’ which means that the school will be going for an upgrade and the current building will soon be demolished. The VP wants to see what things that could be salvaged from the school.

I was quite amazed by the school. The building looked just like Shuqun secondary. The wings were exactly the same. The general office, the library, the corridor. It was like quantum leap where its the same world, but a parallel dimension.

We walked around the the area and I was just amazed at how similar everything was. Impressive school. I saw how disciplined the students was there and watched the students marching in their parade (reminded me of when I was back in secondary school) and observed the students studying in the library. I wondered to myself if this would be a school where I’d enroll my future kids at. Students here looks extremely disciplined. I didnt even see one student with their tee-shirt tucked out. And I think that speaks volumes about the school.

VP says that its a good school where the principal came from a military background. He’s a disciplinarian where he’s like the stern father who looks after his children with an iron fist. He expects the best possible out of everyone and he puts in a big effort too. He believes that before any one can have a positive attitude, the physical environment has to be perfect. If there’s a small crack in the mirror, he’d pester the person in charge to fix it. Anything that isnt working well is to be repaired.

A nice environment makes nice people.

What a nice philosophy.

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Friday. Graduation ceremony. Busy day, with the taking of photos and the video taping of the ceremony (how did I become the publicity team? lol) I took loads of pictures that my finger was so stiff after staying at the button for ages.

It was a nice ceremony. I liked seeing the students looking so happy. (during my time, we never had a graduation ceremony! *waves cane around) Eventually, the grand finale came and I was looking at the students faces while the video was being shown.

They liked it! And the teachers were quite impressed too. (really feeds the ego to have people say that)

I still cant convert it to a full movie, so I did the next best thing, which was to videotape the video. The quality isnt so good, but its something right?

I think I’ll end here for the moment. Till the next time. 🙂

Posted on

Its a no show for the show show

Spent my weekend editing the video for the student graduation ceremony. And I must say, that it was surprisingly addictive. A little music file here, some transition there and it was looking kind of spiffy. I liked it.

And in time, I completed the video and was feeling quite excited. I pressed convert to wmv format and watched the transfer go by. And then it stopped at 80 percent.

Eh? I must have pressed escape by accident. Then I tried again. And the same thing still happened. And I tried again. And still the same thing.

Now I dont know what to do. I guess I could bring the entire Ulead Videomaker installer to school and play it there from the “preview movie” But dang, I really wanted to share it with everyone.

Oh well

Ooh! Anyways, I just collected the photos which I sent to the printshop yesterday and I think I’m a new fan for Fujifilm printing. The picture doesnt look dark and the quality of the picture looks great! I’m so happy 🙂 I’ll do my printouts there from now onwards 🙂

And speaking of pictures, I saw the most magnificent looking dawn outside of my window this morning while talking to my dearest.

6 am

605

610

615

Anyway, am still kind of bummed about the video. Lets see what tomorrow shall bring.

Posted on

Smile! You’re on candid cameraaa

Sorridi, e il mondo intero sorride con te


Inspired by my smiley stress ball. Everyone needs some cheering up every now and then. Smile!

Some teachers at Shuqun asked me to film a montage in preparation for this year’s O level batch students. Initially, the teachers wanted for the students to go to the resource room to make their dedications. Unfortunately, not many people turned up (actually NO ONE turned up) that Pauline, one of the teachers suggested, why not have an impromptu live shot.

And I did, we went around while the students were studying and revising, filmed them in their natural environment while some of them commented here are there. I liked the ‘live’ shots.

It was funny, looking at some of the kid’s antics. Most of them were covering their faces, some of them ran away from the camera. A few weren’t shy and were acting really crazy like laughing maniacally, some were rambling incoherent words.

I cant wait for to edit the footage.

And at the same time, I had a bit of fun (and mischief) playing with the camera. Really. What else would I do? Exams were over, I had no classes, teachers wee too busy to allocate me with any of their IT related stuff. I could make another flash course packaging : But I just had no materials at hand at that time.

So I did a short clip around the office. Played around with Win DVD Creator but I thought that software was quite limited in the editing capabilities. I didn’t fancy it too much but that’s the only video editing software that the school has.

I went to Download.com and search for a recommended software. And I came across Ulead. I really like that software, so simple to use with alot of options like colour adjust and customizable titles. Very nice

I was able to do this in a shorter time compared to the software at school. Tried to compress this, the best I could and its a little big though at 15 megs for a 3 min clip.But its a whole lot better than it being a 90 meg clip in the initial stage. I think I could download Ashampoo movie shrink to compress it even further.

—

Faizal, one of the art teacher saw me fiddling about with the video camera and we had a chat after that. I realised that he knew Amin, Zurainah and Hisyam, all of them teachers from Westspring Secondary, the former place where I worked at. And he started talking about how filming and then asked me if he could perhaps use the video camera for his art class.

“What kind of video camera is this?”

Oh this camera uses a Hi-8 tape (old technology)

“People now use DV”

Maybe you could persuade Mr Gopal (head of departments for IT) to buy some, that’ll be great

“And we could have a special room with a proper computer to do the editing”

That would be so nice.

“I’d like to show the students abit about film. Its part of the options students at ) level could do”

Wah really? I didn’t know that! What about A levels?

“Yes, its just not widely known as some art teachers aren’t very familiar with these, but the ministry of education is pushing art teachers to implement them”

How about 2d animation? And digital design? *excited*

“Yes, that too. In fact, there are many forms of art that you can take for the examinations.

How exciting! I’d like to give it a shot, taking art as a subject at my A levels. I think it would be a whole lot of fun. Why not? I think I’ve got the aptitude for it, even if I never took the subject at O levels. Some people are just naturally gifted 😛

Speaking of A levels, I has a chat with Karen, my economics classmate during breaktime yesterday. It was going to be our last econs class for the year.

Karen: Aww … after this, we wont be meeting each other anymore. It was nice to meet you

Brandon : We’re still going to meet each other, maybe for study groups or just an outing

Me : Wah, don’t say like that, its like we’re going to part and go to different countries. I don’t feel so ready for next year A level exams. Time passes by so quickly.

Karen : Yes, don’t forget to register by march or you’ll never be able to sit for the exams at the end of 2006.

Me : (mouth wide open) March? Wah so fast …

Karen : don’t forget to save up for at least 1k – you know, for every subject you take, its about 100dollars plus. And that doesn’t include our study fees.

Me : (mouth still wide open)

I still want to give it a shot. I’ll just say good luck to me.

—

While on the topic of smiling, don’t you find it interesting that when you smile at people at random, they will small back instantly? Even if they are complete strangers and don’t know them. I find myself smiling more and more. (maybe its the fasting month which mades my mood a little more happier?)

I’d smile at the bus drivers, and they would smile back at me.

I’d smile at random as I walk along, and some of them would take a while, but a smile would eventually form.

Heck, I even smiled at the uncle who was mopping the floor at Burger Kings and he gave me the biggest smile and immediately his eyes lighted up and he quipped a “Eh? Its you!” and then a split second later saw that I wasn’t the person he mistaken for.

There was one incident, that was super funny to me. I was walking with Hema at Sun plaza a while back and while she was at the toiletry shoppe, I went outside and looked around. I glanced at a guy and looked a little and smiled a little at him. And he came up to me!

Guy : Hey I know you. What are you doing now?

Me : Hey man! How are you? I’m teaching computers to kids now.

Guy : I gotta go now, a bit of a rush. You take care okay.

Me : Yeah, you too. Take care okay. Nice to see you.

Bye! (waves)

Hema coming out of the shop

Hema : Who the heck is that guy?

Me : Beats me. I’ve never met him before.

Oh well, the world has interesting people. Verrry interesting people. Maybe I’ll just keep on smiling and see what other interesting scenarios that I can be in. Muhahahaha!