Miu Miu Lost and Found.

Almost the last picture we have of Miu Miu - from Jaime's uber-chio Olympus Pen.

Oh sweet relief. Just when we thought we were going to be sleepless and sad for the next few weeks, I spotted something darting across the car-park. I turned the torch in the direction of the moving shape. Cat eyes glowed back. I thought it might be another false alarm after the last 3 but went over anyway, hanging on to a thin sliver of remaining hope. The slinky outline looked familiar. I called out "Miu Miu!" He did not run. He stood there tentatively, probably assessing the situation. The light from my torch fell on him. I couldn't believe my eyes, pink nose! I had found my cat, after 5 frantic hours of searching under cars, lifting up drain caps and sticking my head into sewers. Even Jaime came down, all the way from Hougang, to join in the search and when we found him, she almost cried tears of joy. Although I had not given up the search, I was expecting the worse, my thoughts running wild that he might have climbed into the bonnet of a car that had driven off and burnt to death by the heat of the engine.

When I got closer. He darted under a red car, license plate no. 1297; 4D tomorrow. Don't panic, I told myself, this time, get it right. I didn't want him to run off again. He had calmed down a lot compared to 5 hours earlier, just after his operation; when he was disoriented, confused and scared, but I wasn't taking any chances. I had to have a plan. We had to surround him. So I called home for reinforcements, and 10 minutes later, we extricated him from beneath the car. My brother literally pulled him out by the scruff of his neck. Miu Miu - Lost and Found.

Oh the relief. Sweet sweet relief.

Bumblebee's Announcement.

My Valentine's, Easter, National Day, Birthday, gift.

AYAH

My Uncle Mark sent me this in an e-mail. This little analogy for me, clearly shows how absurd, how lacking in logic, the people behind the latest political row in Malaysia, are.

A man came home from work and his children ran to him and called out “Ayah! Ayah!”

His neighbour got very upset and said to him, “Can you please tell your children not to call you “Ayah?”

The man asked, “Why?”

The neighbour retorted, “Because my children call me Ayah too. They might get confused and mistake you for their father.”

Then the man told his neighbour, are you not ashamed to say that your children do not know who their Ayah is?

So you are saying by using the word Ayah, your children will call me Ayah too without knowing who their father is?

The neighbour said, "Yes! Only my children should use the word Ayah. "

The man said, "Then there is something wrong in what you are teaching your children. They are not sure and do not know who their Ayah is!"

Dip

It was definitely a good idea. A dip in the pool after a long day at work refreshed me. The stiffness around my neck from a day at a desk in front of a computer screen was gone after 6 laps in the pool at the new Sengkang Swimming Complex - which has some Wild Wild Wet like features, at a fraction of its price.

By the way, the first issue of my National Geographic Magazine subscription, last year's birthday gift from my girlfriend, has arrived !

Insanity.

I had a chuckle when I saw the same message on some of my friends' facebook profiles. "If they can make Avatar, they can make anything!" Dr Mahathir, South East Asia's most high profile demagogue displays frightening bigotry and the absence of a brain.

World Cup blues.

If Singapore doesn't get World Cup coverage this June, the PAP could really lose some votes in the next election. In my opinion, Singapore's cable-TV market is too small for de-regulation to benefit consumers. The highly paid decision people in the MDA have got it so so wrong.

2010 here we come!

Third roll, Yashica T AF. View to Fireflies, by Owl City, please.


Good times. Friendship, Love, Happiness, these are things money cannot buy.

Next Saturday

Next Saturday, January the 30th is Thaipusam, which is always a spectacle. I have already made an appointment with Chee Leong, for us to head down to the temple at Perumal road with our cameras. I haven't forgotten; before that, I have to take Miu Miu down to the vet to have his balls removed. Poor boy, but it's for the best.

Textures

Kite

Keep your head up woodstock!! We will find the Sotong kite for you.

Quite the show-off

I am so happy I have 2 photos selected for the 10/24 Gallery for 2009. You can view the gallery at http://www.perceptionthree.net/1024/gallery.html

I am now pondering whether to apply for Shooting Home 2010. The trouble is, if I do get in, I will have to take time off (3 days) from work in March, which will be difficult to secure. No-pay leave maybe?

Service resumes.

The plan last year, after I acquired a copy of KF Seetoh's Makansutra, was that we would visit one place every week to see if we agreed with the review. Inadvertently however, my Dad put a stop to our pilgrimages, after we had only managed to sample 3 stalls, by giving the dictionary thick book away to his Korean friend on holiday in Singapore.

Armed with a new copy, service resumed today. Laksa was on our menu.

Jaime thought it was rather common tasting. I thought it was pretty tasty. At 2 dollars for a bowl, if anything, it was real value for money.

2 more photos from Japan.

:)

Depth of Field for Jaime.

My girlfriend was wowed by some photos taken by an Olympus Pen EP-1. I was bemused while my D700 in the dry cabinet is probably feeling indignant. Front sharp, back blur, all interchangeable lens cameras can do that. It's called depth of field. When you use a larger aperture, say f1.4 or f1.8, the depth of field will be shallow. Front sharp, back blur; as you can see in the first photo below shot using a relatively large aperture of f2,



while the 2nd photo below, was shot with a small aperture of f11; everything in the frame is in focus.



There you go. Depth of field.

Shure-ly

My decision to purchase a pair of Shure earphones is paying dividends now, on the 130pm bus, sparing me from a headache, by shutting out completely, the ruckus caused by the howling and yelling and the incessant chatter, of a mob of newly released primary school kids.

God?

From Louis De Bernieres' Birds Without Wings

If you are a soldier, you are forced to think about God more than those who are at home. All around you is death and devastation. You look at a disemboweled body and you see that a man consists of coils of slime inside and yet he is smooth and beautiful on the outside. You look at a body and you see that it is not a man because the spirit has fled, and so the body does not fill you with grief.

You believe God caused every second of your destiny to be written on the fortieth day after conception, and so you do not complain about hardship and horror, and you will know that every single little thing that happens is because God wills it. This is a great comfort, knowing that God carries us in the palm of his hand. You realise that there is no point in resisting the will of God, and so you recite the martyr's prayer for the hundredth time, and so you say to yourself and your comrades 'Allah koruson', and you go over the trench shouting the name of God, knowing that whatever horror comes upon you, it is only the first difficult step to paradise.

There are very few people, and I was one, who begin to wonder why God wishes such cruelty and suffering upon His flock, and, when people say 'God is merciful', feel perplexity and a contrary feeling stealing over them. It is only people like me who wonder why God does not do just one good miracle , and make the world perfect in an instant.

It is very possible to believe it a miracle from God when you duck down and thereby miss a bullet in the head, but then why does God decree a week later that you will die of dysentry?

January 2010: Miu Miu at 7 mths

People who visit us are always amazed by how much this little rascal has grown in 5 months.

Goodbye 2009. Hello 2010.

Close to midnight, we watch the sky light up with flares from the ships scattered around the harbour.