Running about

What a hectic week. We're in the midst of preparing for a corporate event tomorrow, so everybody's putting on their full gear to ensure everything goes well. Also, what's with the hot weather that's been looming over us for the past couple of days, I've been getting seriously addicted to Starbucks Green Tea Frappuccino. At least there's a good alternative to coffee.

As always, when everything else fails and there is nothing much to write, there's always videos! Have I told you that I was indulging myself in a little Coeur de Pirate fix lately? Never mind that I have no idea what lovely Beatrice is singing about.

Coeur de Pirate || Comme des enfants from Dare To Care Records on Vimeo.

In the meantime, I am escaping the blues next Monday because I will be on leave! Ah, solitude is just one of the little things to be cherished in life. I am so turning my phone off.

How to make a baby

That's it. I'm going home and have Azry blow on my fingers. This is also perfect for parents whose kids already began to ask "Mommy where do babies come from?" and are not buying the whole 'baby-dropping through the chimney stork' idea. (via A Cup of Jo)

If I have a speech balloon above my head, it currently says

...big WANT! (via notcot)

In your sigh

One of the rules I set for this blog is to not always write about work. This time, however, I have to make an exception since it involves a great leap of faith.

Recently, at the very same time I found out I was offered a post at another place, we discovered Azry had a facial cyst with a cancerous possibility so it has got to be removed soon. It was a minor surgery, the doctor said, but my world still came crumbling down.

I was about to take the job offer until I found myself having to take one and a half day off to accompany him to see the specialist, to go through the ultrasound & surgery and also to help him with the insurance stuffs and so on. My phone was ringing every hour or so, bearing the office number. They could not care less how my husband was doing, all they wanted was the tasks at the office to be done as soon as possible. I was a person who could multitask pretty efficiently, until it hit me at this point that I didn't want to do so. I wanted to be by Azry's side, updating him with every word the doctor said (he spoke with a deep Indian accent that it took a while to digest) and not having to answer the phone and checking the mails when he had to be wheeled to the operation theater.

The job I was offered made a statement that they would prefer somebody single. For me they would make an exception, they said. That I will constantly be on my toes. That I will be away from home most of the time. Tell your husband that, they said. I said, OK, I am sure he will be fine with it. I made a decision too fast. Not that Azry will not be fine with it, I guess I myself won't.

Azry's condition was probably still minor at this point of time, but something else bigger might come along the way. Even now we don't live to see the daylight during our weekdays. On the weekends if we are not working, we are too knackered we want to sleep all day. I said to Azry, if I want to be busy, I don't want to be senselessly busy and constantly feeling terrible. I want to be happily busy, if that's how they call it. I did also promise something myself that my next job/position will be something that is more closely related to my creative side.

And so, I decided to turn the offer down. I might seem foolish, but it was a tough decision to make and I have given a very intense thought about this. After all, something else bigger might come along the way, isn't it? Which brings us to this video where it reminds us that we need to soak up the sun more. (Photo from The Scout of the new Ace Hotel in New York)

Have you ever

... come across someone whose name you have never heard of, but only when the first time you viewed his/her work, you are intrigued to know them more? That was the first thing that popped into my mind when I stumbled upon Ronan Bouroullec's work. My favorite so far is Clouds, the modular room divider made of textile pieces held with rubber bands. 

I know I want one when I saw it. (via notcot)

Paper shredded tunes

When you hear the word 'whimsical', what are you thinking of? I think of balloons, carousel, paper planes, beautiful blue skies and this video!

Oi Va Voi "Everytime" from Katarzyna Kijek on Vimeo.

Thank you?

I came upon this via twittering @shazahakim today.

I'm enraged. Not only for the fact that the puppy was killed senselessly for wandering into a house compound, but also for Sri Indria's comment: "What they did was wrong but I understand why they did it. It's the culture and religious beliefs."

Dear Sri Indria, killing a pet and threatening its owner was no way stemmed from cultural & religious beliefs. It was pure sickness which knows no cultural or religious boundaries. Why do I say this? Because I have a neighbor (who I won't mention what culture or religious belief this family is from) who owns a beautiful husky but leaves him under the pouring rain day by day on leash. The dog whines all day long, and when he asks for food, they yell at him and sometimes the kids even hit him for fun.  Azry and I often sneaked in some cat food (much to Michael the cat's dismay) by the fence so he would scoot over and eat some.

I am considering calling the SPCA because it looks like they don't need him. He deserves a better home.

And we all as for sure do not deserve another humiliating generalization. (Photo from Myoung Ho Lee)

Enjoy the roses

Dale Carnegie says, "One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon- instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today." (Photo from sine qua non)

Evolution is convenient

Friday. A handful of good news. A handful of bad news. But we do know that good always triumphs over evil. So let's celebrate. Evolution is convenient.

External hard drive

Good morning to you.

While browsing the wonderful streets of the innernet this morning, these two site layouts caught my eye: Include, a creative digital agency from London and AIGA Los Angeles.

On a separate note, I overheard someone said his blog is like an external hard drive of his brain. I think I'm going to start quoting him from now on.

It's a guy love

Our very own Turk & JD, minus Rowdy the creepy preserved dog. Aren't they lovely?

Park your URL here

A quick post about something too good not to mention. Such a simple (smart) idea by Smart: a tiny URLs generator "to park large URL's into tiny spaces (via Adverblog). So far this is the most brilliant idea I've seen all week. 

Now back to my regularly scheduled mundane life (i.e real job).

Another good thing ceased

It saddens me in times like this, we have to see a number of amazing sites closing down. As far as I remember, it started out with JPG magazine and Pingmag, and today a little birdie told me we have to also bid adieu to Speak Up, the very informative, long-running design blog curated by Armin Vit & Bryony Gomez-Palacio.

Seeing weeks and weeks go by where we have only two or three posts (and one of them being the Quipsologies round-up) has become too painful for us. It’s also like watching Ozzy Ozbourne today, still holding on to that rock glory but he can’t really rock no more, not like he used to. I really feel relieved that we are closing it. Its time has come. It served its purpose and it made its mark. Not many blogs can claim that and we are happy with what it’s done. Time to move on to other things.

Quoting from a commenter, I've also absorbed a lot from Speak Up. With the abundance of web sites offering quick visual delights (in which I also adore) Speak Up provides me a discussion in length and also things to ponder upon. It's always good to keep the idea generators (i.e. the brain) running for me.

Thanks Armin & Bryony, it has been an incredible journey. Speak Up will surely be missed by many of us. (Photo of Face Chair from P-ARCH)

Flute of the Commodores

Current love: Flight of the Conchords - the tv series. I'm only down to Season 1 (originally purchased the DVD box set because of the cover). You should especially listen to the songs, they are honest despite their low-key, monotonous manner of how they sing it. My favorite at the moment is Robo Boogie. 

If you happen to like Napoleon Dynamite, I guess you should have a go at watching this adorable New Zealand duo (who often flipped out when they are mistaken for Australians). Now excuse me while I launch into binary solo.

0000001

00000011

000000111

0000111...

Gravity

As you can see, I'm all about interactive installations now.

Gravity - Interactive installation @ Utopia, Bordeaux from 2Roqs on Vimeo.

This interactive animation in real-time makes it possible to send SMS during an event. The words are then built-in geometrical forms falling in top from projection. Conceived by 2roqs Multimedia Creation Studio within the framework of the E.motion festival in Bordeaux.  More information about the work here. (via Elma+Alt+Shift)

A furry tale

How true.

We are currently living with two teenage hooligans - Michael & Lincoln (after the hunks in Prison Break in which these critters turned out to be the total opposite). Michael is on the journey to embrace his newfound adulthood; he is currently courting another girl cat we called Flufflelina because she is so fluffy, and constantly showers her with gifts like dead birds and decapitated rats and stale baguette from somebody's trash. 

Lincoln, on the other hand, if he is a teenage boy, he would probably spend his days listening to My Chemical Romance CD, putting thick eyeliner around his eyes and donning a hairstyle in which a heavily gelled fringe would cover half his face because let me tell you, he is the perfect persona of the emokids you see on the streets because he sulks all the time, especially after we scold him when he refuses to share the food bowl with his little brother (not Michael). He would walk to the corner of the wall, sit there for hours, and give us this look that probably says, "I hate you & the world around me." And try calling him Ling-Ling, he would die before he responds to that.

But most of the times they never fail to make our day driving to work seeing their pawprints on the windshield, and we would have a guess which one was the culprit. Usually Michael was to be blamed because he was always gallivanting around to impress his girlfriend. Or if the pawprints were a lot bigger it was probably their bushy-tailed uncle, Aloysius.

It is also comforting to find whenever we come home from work, they are already waiting at the gates, slapping each other in a friendly, brotherly battle. 

Here's a confession: Aside from the financial situation, these two lovelies (however bratty they may be especially when they knocked on the window at 4 am to show their newly caught prey and we had to praise, "Good boy!" like 5 times before they decided it was satisfying enough to stop meowing all night long) also contribute to one of the many reasons we are delaying our move to the condominium.

Who says being childless is the life of losers and unhappiness? In your face, (not our) parents!

One stop center

Last night I had a dream - the mise-en-scène looked similar to the posted image. I must have been thinking a lot about last Friday's appointment with my potential, eh eh someone concerned might be reading =P 

And guess what? This isn't official, but I decided to take up the challenge.

I'll take your word for it

Photo from Cristo Bedoya via FFFFOUND.

The future is battery-powered

It is so funny back in 1990's when teachers asked how do we envision year 2000, I often went, "Flying cars!" only when the year itself showed up Proton cars still possessed the same average performance level cars would have, if we could say that. Well guess what? The future (specifically 2012) is not about flying cars, it's about a battery-powered rickshaw-like scooter called P.U.M.A (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility). 

Here's what it claims: It increases capacity to two passengers in a seated position; capable of carrying them up to anywhere between 25 and 35 mph (40 - 56 kph) for anywhere between 25 and 35 miles (40 - 56 km) on a single charge.*  It does so while taking advantage of the unparalleled maneuverability and advanced control you get through Segway’s use of dynamic stabilization (balancing technology).  Add in know-how with large format lithium-ion batteries and you have something that’s zero emissions during operation - likely only costing about $.60 in electricity to recharge.

We don't get it much, but in other words, this thing is so mind-blowingly cool.

Just a thought: Did they invent the acronym before the name itself or did they think of the name before coming up with the acronym, because they seem to fit everytime!

Tyger

I watched this and a couple of others while lying sick in bed yesterday, including the MTVs from Yeasayer Wait for the Summer by Mixtape Club & Bright Eyes' No One Would Riot for Less by Lorenzo Fonda.



Tyger is an absolutely magical short by director Guilherme Marcondes based on William Blake's poem, The Tiger. The dreamy short clip blends puppetry, illustration, photography & CGI. You know what I said about something good that tugged at your heartstrings and lingers for days? Well, this is another one of it.

Stop motion love story

This is one of those days where I am not feeling really well, hence the inability to construct words even for some lame blog posts. Luckily we have embedded video option.

Here is one lovely video (another one via Le Love) where the whole video is made out of 4500+ still photographs. I used to work on a stop motion project back in university and knew how tedious (but exciting!) the process can be sometimes. Enjoy!


Notte Sento (English subtitles) from napdan on Vimeo.

Compelling

You know something's good when it tugged hard at your heartstrings and the feeling lingers for days. Like Yasmin Ahmad's Talentime. 

We went to watch it last Sunday and being the one who rarely cries in the movies (the last one which did that to me was the scene in The Patriot when the little sister refuses to let her brother goes to war) I can say that the movie lets me see the things in a whole new light. For the past two days, I decided to live my life not making any quick judgments like I normally do, and even in this short period of time I am surprised at so many things I have discovered; like it's OK to smile first, it's not creepy to talk to strangers if your intention is really pure, and give way. And that friends do change along the way.

I am really starting to love living like this. I have to thank Yasmin for the nudge.

Come on Monday

I arrived at the office at 7.38 am, turned on the PC, plugged in the portable hard disk, transfered all the weekend photos, drafted my to-do list and my thoughts, wrote down this blog post, guzzled down two bottles of Yakult (which, when you think about it, isn't really guzzling down because haven't you seen the size of Yakult bottles?) but this time, I purposely intended to forget about opening up Outlook, which was always the first application I clicked on once the PC is up and ready. Let the massacre that is my inbox commences at 8.30 am. The official crapfest period.

Bring on Monday, you no longer fear me. (Photo from przypadek)

Books

Part of my brother-in-law's bookshelf (he's a marine engineer) and the latter is part of my bookshelf (I'm a, er, self-proclaimed word connoisseur). Nothing to prove, just pictures.

Count our blessings

Meet Katie Kirkpatrick, 21.

Katie had chased cancer, only to find it returning to her and becoming even worse. Her days were spent doing chemotherapy and she could not go anywhere without an oxygen tank as the cancer had clogged her lungs and grabbed hold of her heart.

Despite how cynical the world can be, Katie is a firm believer in true love. Even though her organs were shutting down on her, this would not stop her from planning to marry her high school sweetheart, Nick Godwin, 23, who wanted to spend his life with her ever since he was in 11th grade. In fact, Nick had been accompanying her to her chemo sessions for hours without fail.

Her bridal gown had to be resized a couple of times because she was rapidly losing weight day by day. She insisted on helping with the planning despite her condition. Isn't she beautiful?

Her heart may jump in joy during her wedding day, but due to her condition she had to take a few short breaks then & again. The pain wouldn’t allow her to stand up for long periods.

5 days after their wedding, Katie passed away.

A lot of things went through my mind after reading the article. Love conquers everything, something about strong will, there's still light at the end of muddiest tunnel possible, something about happiness, which is, subjective. At long last I concluded it has to be the sheer individual idealism we planted in our heads. You may have concluded otherwise.

The other day I was on the way back home to Kuala Lumpur from our hometown, and we stopped by a night market along some rural roads. Seeing how the folks there strut their stuffs and cycle around the town, clothed in total unwind, emancipative, looking none less indebted to anything materialistic, it struck me if we would be the same if we haven't moved to the big city. Will I still want the things I want now? Will my idealism in life have any effect to the ones I bore before? Will my idea of materialistic opulence still stand the same?

Life is too short to complicate things. Let’s tell that to our bosses, shall we Azah? (via The Best of Photo Journalism)

Next floor

Sometimes I face an irrational fear the moment the elevator door closes behind me and leaves me enclosed in the small time even for just a tiny miniscule of time. Back at my old workplace the guys knew this so whenever we got into the elevator I would pray hard they wouldn’t jump up and down, and perhaps they could smell my fear they would do so anyway.

A recent installation in at the Design/Art Fair in Verona Italy: Sele-Next Floor turns the elevator into a transporter into a dream like journey. It becomes a truly interactive experience as it is very visual and sensory. Wouldn't mind climbing aboard into one this time. (via Everything Such As)

next floor from dotdotdot on Vimeo.

Looking forward

... for Coraline & Where the Wild Things Are.

Same time yesterday

… I was at Capsquare with Azry to check out on the exhibitions for KL Design Week. We arrived in the middle of after office traffic rush, finding parking was a breeze. It was still early so we walked about and went to see Shafina, whose temporary office (she claims so) is currently at Capsquare since she is in the midst of organizing the KL Flickr booth for KL Design Week. 

They have this idea of ‘geotagging’ the photos to the map of Klang Valley (with the name of the places in Frutiger font as used in Flickr logo) based on where the photographers originate from, which I think is really neat. The whole sort of analogue imitating digital thing. Think of Johanna’s analogue Twitter project.

They also have this analogue commenting & tagging going on printed photos where they supply Post-Its for people to comment and paste on the blank space under the photos. 

This one made me chuckle the most. You may want to embiggen the photo by clicking on it so you could see my point.

To KL Flickr-ites, this is a mighty fine job you have done! It would have been fun if you documented the construction process of the geotag wall like Cody Hudson documented his installation (via Kitsune Noir):

Cody Hudson X gravitytank from Craig Berman on Vimeo.

If I was a robot

... I'd conduct a massive wipeout of human population on Earth. Will Smith will never have a chance at stopping me! Alas, I was not a robot. (via swissmiss)