12 depressing hours of not being at the beach

I came across this wonderful blog of Polaroid & lo-fi photography called take nothing but polaroids and was tickled pink by the author's writings in this post: "Most of us are out the door at 7 set to embark on our work day, and don't usually roll through the door till about the same time in the pm. That's 12 hours of not being at the beach a day, depressing ain't it."

I love how silly it sounded yet it's so true.

Anyway, my Red Trees Golden Half from The Click Shop arrived today in the midst of the maelstrom of work, just the perfect time to put a smile on my face. I had a great pleasure purchasing from Adrian of The Click Shop - I presume he has all time supply of all the cameras considering the fact I never had to place an order unlike the other lomo blogshops I've dealt with before, and his shipping only took a day. How delightful!

Now I can't wait for the weekends more than ever.

We're all babies inside

How true. (via I Believe in Advertising)

The things I've missed

I’ve been too occupied working towards delivering national mandate (or so it seems) that I was just in time for very very exciting things going on at the same time like: MAP Arts Festival KL 2010 (didn’t get to make it, fell sick during the weekends), my father’s 54th birthday yesterday, turning off the lights during Earth Hour & barbecue-ing with Azry and the cats, going out to watch How to Train Your Dragon and finding out how the dragons’ characteristics in the story are recreated to be so identical to the cats’ (the Night Fury is so Yoda), taking Azry for lamb ribs at Delicious to make it up for my negligence over his stay at the hospital the very same week the project is about to be launched, paying traffic summons for the first time and many more.

To sum it up, I get to claim my life back. But I foresee this is only temporary.

At the end of the tunnel

I might have told you at some point that at the age of 15 I ran off to join the Ringling Brothers Circus, but apparently I lied. Here’s what I have been doing all this while: I am part of the esteemed project management team who is overseeing the implementation of TM’s high-speed broadband project, an important national initiative that will facilitate Malaysia towards achieving its aspiration of becoming a knowledge economy leveraging on ICT, or so it says here. (I have never agreed with the website being done in Flash)

It’s maddening here in the PMO office, never a dull moment with only a few minutes left to spare for prayers, a quick bite off your sandwich and a trip to the loo. We made friends and lose some along the way, then make up, argue again in the name of work & the process repeats itself. Nevertheless, the blood, sweat & tears paid off when we watched the unveiling of our 'baby' over the big screen in the moment of its commercial launch last March 24th.

If you ask me whether I want to do this all over again again, I really can’t give an honest answer. It’s been a hell of a rollercoaster ride and you know how thrilling a rollercoaster ride can be to some people and a nuisance to others, I guess that applies to me too. I just don’t know. I’m just glad it’s done. For now.

Same hill different day

For two years, Chicago photographer Paul Octavious visited the same hill and took photos. "Each time, a new story is told, as if the hill is my stage and the locals are the actors in this daily play," he says. (via A Cup of Jo)

It has got me thinking, why do other places seem so cool and mine isn't? Or is it because I failed to seek something remarkably special about where I live?

Ah the sweet smell of change

(Photo via A Cup of Jo)

There is really no time to think...

Tomorrow will be here before I know it. Phew. Suet I know you're reading this, don't spoil it for me! >_< (Polaroid from New York City Polaroid Project)

Teaser

The happy hours

Have you ever wondered how nice people are when they are not too consumed by the amount of pressure & stress that clouded them? That's how we at the office are - during the day we run rampant almost killing each other discussing business plans, branding guidelines, trying to manage events, running meetings etc. but when the clock strikes 6 pm, that marks the beginning of our happy hours. We dance (yes we FECKIN' dance!) amidst discussing about work, we eat busloads of pizzas, we race office chairs, we rap - fun times.

No weekend for me this week though, I'm gonna have to work. Enjoy yours anyway. (Photo from syin)

Always online

Dr. Urs Gasser of Harvard’s Berkman Center coined the term Digital Natives (via the ever fabulous swissmiss):

"Always online: By age 20, kids will have spent 20,000 hours online –the same amount of time a professional piano player would have spent practicing Urs Gasser, paraphrased Multiple identities, personal and social, shared online and offline (blurring): Online representation is the same as physical representation: what your clothes, friends, vehicles say about you."

20,000 hours, really? Wow we are so screwed. (Photo credit unknown, please let me know if you do, thanks!)

It's not easy acquiring the state of awesomeness on Monday

By posting a link to She and Him's full playlist of their second album, Volume 2 to twittersphere, my Twitter friend Seng Ming is officially awesome in my book! Check out the HD video of their first single, In The Sun. Zooey is too cute!

Comic Sans walks into a bar

(via oneplusinfinity)

I've been having nightmares

... something like the video above. I went to sleep at night and woke up in the early morning screaming, drenched in cold sweat. I wanted to get this over and done with not only because of the murderous workload, but also because it turned me & my colleagues into horrible moody monsters and disorganized zombies. I want them, my fluffy teddybears back, the ones who played office chair race with me every evening! And I want to claim my social life back as well as to go home while the sun still shines brightly, once in a while! (via oneplusinfinity)

Just...10..freaking..days... more.

Looking forward (more like let's get it over and done with)

Whoa hey there were so many product-oriented posts these past few days weren't they? That's because I don't have the time to put into words what I'm feeling right now - butterflies in my stomach, heart in my throat, quite in a flap, having kittens, or any other metaphors to describe nervousness. What's pretty sure if we have 13 more days to go, approximately 9 more working days (gasp!)

What exactly am I awaiting you might ask? We'll see. (Photo from killerxkim)

Dammit Markee!

I had never wanted a DSLR until I saw this. Dayum!

macro kingdom from clemento on Vimeo.

A visionary furniture item that isn't IKEA

... is this Growing Table that stays true to its name, it grows along with you! Not that I am going to get any taller I presume, but I want it for the idea is is is .... stupendous! (throws arms in amazement). (via swissmiss)

Double the fun

I was never made aware of the existence of this delightful little plastic darling until somebody pointed me to The Click Shop, so I proceeded to place an order at that very instant. Well that gives a whole new meaning to 'love at first sight'. Can't wait for it to arrive so I can go out in the sun & play! (Photo sample from itsonlyrain)

Segmentus

Leave it to Art. Lebedev to create Segmentus, a clock that uses traditional clock hands to form numbers like those on a digital display. You can also look over their design process for the concept. (via HELLO BAULDOFF via notcot)

Woke up in the morning feeling like P Diddy

If anyone’s been wondering what it was I mentioned last Friday that could possibly change our lives, as well as driving us off our beds on a Saturday morning, read on. Even Yoda the cat aka my personal cockroach hunter was perplexed. The look on her face and her incessant raving mewing as if conveyed, “What is this buggery? Why is everyone up early on a Saturday? And why are there cameras involved? Where is everyone going without me?”

Well, the truth is this: after years of delay and contemplation, Azry finally went back to school! I was super thrilled; I woke up early in the morning to cook up a nice breakfast (which would usually mean some toasts, baked beans, whipped fried eggs & some sausages) and loaded one of his old backpacks with a notebook & a pen as well hiding a good-luck note somewhere in one of the bag pockets. For a second I felt like a mother sending off her child to school for the first time, minus a packed lunch and irrational maternal worries.

On his first day to school Azry arrived to the class 10 minutes late, forgot his wallet, texted me 20 minutes after that asking me to prepare a bottle of water for his next classes because he forgot that there were no water coolers around (“I thought they’d had one, like in the office!”) and made some good friends in the first hour.

Staying true to being Azry, it seems he is.

Arissa and her crippled Ultraman

Our 2-year-old niece Arissa was born exactly two weeks after the date of our (Azry and I) solemnization, so in a way our marriage progressed alongside with her cheeky self. Despite the fact that I’m her absent ahnteenana (because I am the busy aunt who always fails to show up at family occasions) Arissa is always excited upon the infrequent sight of yours truly. Whenever the little diva, whose favorite pastime includes scurrying around the kitchen ‘helping’ mommy, felt lazy to address me by my full name, I become her ahnana.

Whatever floats your boat, missy, I love you still.

Just another manic Monday

This is a rare occasion, you see, coming to work ready to embrace Monday, however manic it can turn out. I picked up the phone and ready to run my crazy errands based on my Tolstoy-long to-do list, and received my first taste of moody Monday on the other end. I kept my cool, shrugged, uttered ‘what the heck’, and proceeded to do another call. Boy I was wrong. This lady was even angrier she could put Elizabeth Bathory to shame – if I extend another minute of my call she’d probably murder my whole family. By that time I was on the verge on losing it already, then I received a familiar number on my mobile. I answered it and a lady from the marketing group was throwing a whole irreverent tantrums about some quotations, I imagined she was lying on her back under her desk kicking around, undergoing spasm, foaming at her mouth. The next thing I knew, I let out a roar, “HELLO I AM ENTITLED TO BAD MOOD TOO!” and the whole office was staring at me, the introvert member of the communications team, showing her true color. After the whole hoo-ha I can now be at peace.

Have you ever thought that perhaps we are the ones who are not so kind to Monday, instead of the other way round? Also ladies please take note: I know International Women's Day coincides with Monday, but it doesn't mean we're given more esteemed privilege to be extra beechy aight? Girl power! (Film still of John Hughes' The Breakfast Club, thanks to the rightful owner via weheartit)

I love you because...

... I would be needing loads of this because I never run out of reasons to love you. Yes, you. (via swissmiss)

Tomorrow

… our lives are going to change. Want to take a guess at what is lying ahead? (and no, I am not pregnant yet) And I want this pebble mat, hopscotch rug & this map for my home desk. (Photo via weheartit)

There are some truths in this

What about copywriters? Are we failed journalists? (via twittering @shazahakim)

Fear, organized

Brian Rea, organizer of worry, “I discovered like most people I had a lot of fears — after a few months, I began to catalog them: physical fears, natural fears, political fears, random, emotional.” After 11 years in New York, he made lists of his own and those of the people around him to fill up a 7-meter-by-3.5-meter wall, an exhibition at the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona called Murals. (via Bobulate)

Also, speaking of words and also via Bobulate, a poem from Billy Collins, an advice to writers:

Even if it keeps you up all night,

wash down the walls and scrub the floor

of your study before composing a syllable.

Clean the place as if the Pope were on his way.

Spotlessness is the niece of inspiration.

The more you clean, the more brilliant

your writing will be, so do not hesitate to take

to the open fields to scour the undersides

of rocks or swab in the dark forest

upper branches, nests full of eggs.

When you fiind your way back home

and stow the sponges and brushes under the sink,

you will behold in the light of dawn

the immaculate altar of your desk,

a clean surface in the middle of a clean world.

From a small vase, sparkling blue, lift

a yellow pencil, the sharpest of the bouquet,

and cover pages with tiny sentences

like long rows of devoted ants

that followed you in from the woods.

(P/s: I have a totally absurd fear over UFOs too. My dad used to tease me that the blinking red lights in the sky, which actually belonged to an airplane are one of those UFOs hovering to draw a cattle up their ship. Obviously I watched too much The X-Files.)

London why does it feel so familiar

London, one of my favorite cities, and lomography, one of my favorite photography styles. Nothing can ever go wrong. (via The Whistling Duck formerly Angus Whines)

Polaroid for the lifetime

Was looking for Polaroid filmpacks when I stumbled upon this: Jamie Livingston took a Polaroid every day until he passed away in 1997 on his 41st birthday. His journey with the white framed photos took us through his favorite belongings, his love for the music, his wonderful friends, his engagement & wedding day, until the day he was diagnosed with cancer to his deathbed. Is it possible for 'tragic' & 'beautiful' to go hand in hand in one sentence? Because that's how I felt right now.

Teddy goes traveling

The first time I saw this idea, I went, "Even toys get to travel and I'm still stuck here. What is this nonsense?" (via twittering @gracelook)

Czech Toy Traveling bills itself as "the first global travel agency for teddy bears and cuddly toys", and it offers consumers with toys hankering to see the world a choice of several tour packages. The basic fare of EUR 90 ensures that a ted will communicate by email daily during his, her or its travels and then return home with photographs, a certificate and a gift. The extended fare, priced at EUR 140, adds more photographs, an "aromatherapy service", and an original travel box; while the premium fare of EUR 150 adds a photo album, a "massage" and an original shipment package.

(grabs a stuffed octopus from the intern next to my workstation) Octo, would you like to go to Europe?

Smallish New York

When I was little I wanted to grow up big & strong, and now that I'm big (and not strong enough) I wanted to be small. Small like, Liliputian small. Tilt-shift small.

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

Here's a dare: view the video in HD and don't tell me that it's not a little least life-changing.

I am drunk with the notion of books & knowledge

I saw this latest post by lovely Wani just now and along came a pleasant sunken feeling in my heart when I saw the photo of the library aisle (I haven't been to a real library for years), the thought of lying on the grass while munching pretzels and having a read, and oh, a stack of worn books especially when it involves Freud.

Wishing you all the luck (and the love, and the fun!) over there in Sydney, Wani love.

Here's what I've been up to when allowed to be in the backseat of my own car

... you can tell it's the first time.

I have no idea why this thought occurs me to after reading about 40 pages of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World

When I was a child, I greatly believed that I matured a little earlier than any of kids my age. I greatly detested puppy love, apart from out of the ill-feelings that it had never happened to me it was also because I possessed this belief that this sort of love would never last, and I prefer to have my relationships to benefit something to me in the long run. I was an unattractive kid - skinny, dark, blemishes marring my skin – I saw pretty girls who could have their hands on everything they want just by fluttering their eyelids and I thought, “What if she burned her face with a Bunsen lighter in the physics lab and lost all those desirable features on her face? What if she tripped while running cross-country and crippled her legs? Will she be able to bat those eyes or flash those sexy legs and get what she wants? No. In the end, only intelligence stays.” So I studied harder than the rest, asked more to the teachers than the rest of the class and annoyed the hell out of everybody and gratefully, earned all the knowledge to things I needed to know and felt good about it. But that’s another story.

I always had this sort of talk with Azry – whilst he as one of the prettiest boy in school, liked to have first hand experience of childhood dating, I told him I derived my very own theories from the experiences from my friends. I was (un)lucky (unlucky that they are mean, lucky that I got to learn from their spitefulness about the reality of the world that is upon me) that I had befriended a couple of manipulative folks – you can say they were the mean girls of my era – for once they had their eyes on some boys they would never let that poor thing go away – they would chase him till they fall at their smoothly shaven legs. Once another fish came out of the net that was shinier, fleshier and whatever analogy you could compare a pretty fish to a hunky guy you could ever think of, they would not think twice of passing their current boyfriend(s) to a closer friend so they could feast on the new one.

And you said we had an innocent childhood. Tsk tsk. (Photo from Typcut)

Before and after, in less than 15 minutes

... no banana split of gargantuan proportion could outdo us. NEVAR!!!