Paris VII - Edgar Quinet Market

We had a fight one morning and the woman ran away from 'home'.

I found the woman in Edgar Quinet Market, near our hotel.

It is an ordinary market but somehow I quite like the local feel rather than other tourist places.

There were a few 'special' people turned up in the market. French humour I guess?

Damn retarded.

Tried the paella in the market, not up to the expectation though.

Paris Part VI - Avenue Des Champs

Avenue Des Champs is the famous shopping street in Paris, like Oxford Street in London.

Grand Palais near Avenue Des Champs - Statue of Charles De Gaulle.

Tribute to the general.

Grand Palais - it was closed when we arrived. I visited Paris twice and missed one of the greatest steel and glass structure twice! See some nice photos here.

Where should I go next?

Petit Palais right opposite Grand Palais.

The old couple - taken with beercan at F4, 1/60 sec, ISO100.

I forgot what building is this, an outstanding one along the avenue.

There's a nice Toyota showroom there.

Beneath Arc De Triomphe.

Taken at F22, 20 sec exposure, ISO100.

Summer Sales Begin...

Since I arrived in London last year I hardly do any shopping for my wardrobe. I was thinking that attached already so need not invest so much time and money.

Looking at myself now, it's a bit sad, my 3 years gym efforts all gone in a year and I look and wear more like a middle age man now (in fact I am). I decided that I want to make myself look good again.

My fashion motto is always: "value for money, one can always look good without having to spend on branded and expensive stuff". Bought this pair of white Aldo in Camden Town for GBP20 (originally GBP50). The woman saw this in KL with a price tag of RM406. What a great bargain and I like it much.

And it's summer finally, and the sales begin! Went out with the PLU boys yesterday to Piccadilly Circus, Carnaby Street and Oxford Street to do some shopping.

Bought this nice spring jacket from Zara, for GBP20! (originally GBP30)

Top from GAP, GBP13 (originally GBP25)

The GAP pima cotton jumper in striking color, GBP10! A little bit gayish I think, but I would like to have some different colors in my wardrobe. I bought the same jumper in black color in May for GBP22. Trust me, GAP is not a place to go during non-sales period.

Now I understand why some say shopping can helps to destress, which I needed much lately.

National Disgrace

It has been a while I didn't follow politics in Malaysia, coz the more I read the more I get pissed off and disappointed.

I think all the Malaysians should watch this idiot Minister's behaviours in the parliaments. What a shame and what a disgrace for him, for the person who selected him and for the people who voted for the government.

Read the story and watch the video clip here.

Paris V - Musee de l'erotisme

At the bottom of Montmartre Hill is where the Paris 'entertainment' area located.

Moulin Rouge along Boulevard De Clinchy, famous of its striptease show since 18th century.

Down the road is where all the sex shops, peep shows, and also Museum of Eroticism located. There are 5 floors including a basement exhibition in the museum with some interesting collection.

The naked witch with her flying cock broom.

50mm, F1.7, 1/100 sec at ISO400

Eh... this could be offensive for some people?

A special keris, perhaps Hishamuddin should wave this in UMNO assemblies.

A Japanese dagger.

Ancient pornographic, this is where the incredible sex industry in Japan started from.

The apple and the banana.

A miniature erotic scene.

Torture or stimulation chair?

The top 2 floors are art and photography galleries. I like this chair! It was quite an interesting experience for our third day in Paris.

An anti-racism parade along Boulevard de Clinchy when we left the museum.

Photoshop Technique 3 - Compensating "Too Much Flash"

My flash photography skill still sucks, a lot of time the main subject are blown out despite of the correctly exposed background. Just learn a useful technique to save the errors.

1. Make a copy of the photo layer - Layer > Duplicate Layer

2. Change the layer Blend Mode from Normal to Multiply to bring back the original foreground detail the flash blew out. However, darkening the entire photo made the background too dark.

3. Hold the Alt key and click the Layer Mask icon - to add a black Layer Mask.

4. Switch foreground color to white > use soft-edged brush to paint over the foreground area, in this case, me and the woman who were over-flashed - revealing the darker "Multiply" layer and removing the over flash effect.

5. Avoid to paint the background as the flash wasn't too harsh there - the amount of flash looks slightly balance now.

Petition from JB people

Recently received few emails for this petition organised by Tiong-Hua Association JB.

Places where I lived for the past 31 years:

• Batu Pahat - 1976 to 1994 (18 years or 58% of my life)
• Johor Bahru - 1994 to 2001 (7 years or 23%)
  
• Kuala Lumpur - 2001 to 2006 (5 years or 16%)
  
• London - 2006 to present (1 year or 3%)

I had spent 7 years in JB, a city notorious of its crime rate. A female friend of mine told me before she got snatched 6 times in 2 years, now she dares not bring her IC out anymore, coz the registration department fined her and suspect she was selling her IC.

I don't think the snatch cases are being entertained much by the policemen, as it happens too frequent and it's almost impossible to track down the suspect, they could be all over the place in JB. Also, the policemen are normally busy hiding behind the bush and setting up road block to wait for the road offenders to come to themselves and to make a deal - summon or kasi chance.

It makes me remember one of my sub-contractor friend Ah Kuang, a 5 ft tall small guy. He hates snatch thief as his 70 years old mother was hurt in front of the house while gardening. There was once he saw a snatch case happened in Taman Sentosa, he chased and knocked the 2 snatch thieves down the bike with his Mercedes. The thieves pulled out the knives and he pulled out a parang and scared them away. He then burned the bike on the spot. Not the best way to solve the problem but I think it's better than making a police report, coz you will be just wasting your time.

I had signed up the petition to show some moral support. Perhaps someone needs to bring a death note to JB, rather than putting hope on the law.

Paris IV - Montmartre

Montmartre is a 130m high hill in north of Paris, also known as a nightclub district.

Caught the taxi on the street of Montmartre.

Paris skyline from Montmartre.

Basilica of the Sacre Coeur.

Great architecture, polarized blue sky.

Movie Marathon

I finished 3 latest movies at home last weekend, some not even shown in the cinema yet. Thanks to ppstream. I don't know how they make this works through the loopholes, but who cares.

Hostel II

Produced by Quentin Tarantino, of which I was expecting to be good, turned out to be a disappointment. Same story line, just that this time they are 3 girls instead of 3 guys who went to Slovakia for a spa vacation. There was one scene where one of the girl was overhung above the bath tub and slashed by the killer for a bloody shower. I was having my lunch when watching it.

Goal II

Initially I thought this one is latest but it's not, released in February 2007, I am really out-dated. Santiago Munez plays for Real Madrid this time. Santiago looks like the slim version of Ronaldo in the poster.

In the movie, Beckham has played for an important role helping Real to win the Champion's League. In real, he has just helped Real to win La Liga, a perfect ending for his professional career, he can now lepak and be a real celebrity in US. What's the odd for him to be called up by England for Euro 2008?

Death Note II




Even though I didn't watch the first one, but i quite like this one, a smart movie, battle of the wits.

Death Note is now online and you can add your entry there, however when I wanted to add the name of the bastard in my office and make him die eating banana, it says: "Kira is going on a date for a while, please come back again later".

You can watch Death Note anime (tv) here.

Malaysian CLEO 50 Most Eligible Bachelors 2007

Forgot that Charles told me he's in this year's Cleo 50 most eligible bachelors.

After I casted my vote for him then only I realised that the contest has already ended (niama Time Net still allowing me to vote and wasted my precious 5 mins)

A few familiar faces from what Malaysian women want. Why lah always the same people?

Like this also can enter Cleo...

"I used to hit my teacher at age 7, so none of my friends dared to tease me (ha, ha!)"

"One of my greatest achievements is that I lost more than 40kg in less than a year, I completed my studies and made my parents proud"

*piak piak* myself, bad habit of laughing at people :p

Paris Part III - Eiffel Tower

The structure that not to be missed when visiting Paris is the Eiffel Tower.

The tower will blinks at the 10th minute past every hour at night and it looks great! This unintentional shot was taken at F10.0, 5 sec hand held, but turns out to be my favourite shot of the trip.


The blinking tower.

I've told the woman that it'll be a totally different feel standing beneath the tower than watching it anywhere else. It's just so hard to imagine how it was constructed 120 years ago and it was supposed to be a "temporary structure" built for the Exposition Universelle.

Taken at second tier of the tower.

Paris night view from the tower; taken on a tripod at F10.0, 20 sec long exposure, ISO 100.

Another shot taken hand held at F4.5, 1/2 sec, ISO 800; Sony A100's weakness in high ISO is noticeable.

Taken on top of the tower and trust me, it was raining and real windy!

There's a 360 degree world map on top of the tower. Malaisie is 10,433 km away; it's lucky that the French translated Singapore as Singapour and not Singapoor.

View of Eiffel Tower from Trocadero. I just found out that the night image of Eiffel Tower is copyrighted!

It's the most visited and most photographed structure in the world.

I am still struggling to handle flash photography.