Author: Wilfrid

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Reflection

How Rocky Inspires Me

Few friends of mine know that I am a huge fan of the Rocky movie series. Some whom I have talked to discount Rocky movies as bad acting or what-so-interesting-about-boxing. Rocky is written by Sylvester Stallone himself that mirrors his own struggle to stardom and is a celebration of his entire acting career (including the recent sixth installment “Rocky Balboa”). The first Rocky movie was made in 1976 with a budget of a little over $1 million and a box office result of over $100 million. Rocky was nominated for all 10 categories in the Academy Award and took home three.

I am inspired by the Rocky movies because of the invariant themes: always fight with your heart, training is the key to success, friends around you are your best support, and endorsement from your loved ones is all that matter. Whenever I feel down or wanting to give up, the scene of Rocky taking in 5 raw eggs in one go before his training has always been my inspiration.

I wanted to watch all the five movies before catching his latest “Rocky Balboa”. Initially I wanted to do it with my own Movie Review Squad. Sad to say I have made the wrong assumption that what I adore maybe what others adore and somehow they are not that keen in this marathon exercise. In the end, Tong Kiat was knocked out in round 3 (the third installment) after two visits at my home and Cynthia has painstakingly followed through the journey though in the end, she admitted that she has grown to like the series. Unfortunately, by the time we completed the movie marathon, “Rocky Balboa” is no longer showing in local cinemas. Guess I will have to watch it on DVD.

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My Hobbies My YouTube Oil Painting

My 8th Oil Painting – Battle Of The Ancient

One day while I was chatting with one of my favourite friends whom I have worked with a while ago, she suggested to me that I shall paint her. I asked how? And she said however way she has inspired me to paint. She kept referring to the “Dark Side” (in a career sense) and just recently I have talked to one of my buddy who is still happily staying at one of the companies that is definitely not one of my top 10 favorable places to work at. He told me that he is happy inside because he feels that the outside world may not be as nice. All that prompted me to ponder upon how different organizations appeal to different people. At one end, bosses reward people with good performance and on the other end, because bosses rely on how relationship works with the clients and are able to get away with sub-standard performance, they reward those who treasure relationships like themselves too. To me, it is a battle between the two. What better way it is to paint this tension some of us face everyday?

My Canon camera has once again failed me (vowed not to buy another Canon product) and the picture above was taken by my Nokia N80. I have made a video while I was painting and have recorded the process via my camcorder. It is a less than 4 minutes video and I hope you enjoy watching that. Many have asked me how difficult it is to paint oils. And I hope this video says it all. “Battle Of The Ancient” is my first attempt to paint abstract art.

Click here for my oil painting “gallery”.

Categories
Diary

Finally Gotten Closer to My Jogging Record 5 Years Ago!

Roarrrrrrr!

5-year has passed. I am 5 years older and have gained 5 kg of muscles. Ever since I have started jogging, I have pushed my timing record from 24 mins (for 4.5 km) to 21 mins and somehow, no matter how hard I tried, I could not pass the 21 mins mark. 5 years ago I could complete 4.5 km in 17 mins. My friends they told me that as we get older, we take longer to complete the circuit. But I don’t want to get to that state! I kept pushing myself and regardless if it was a hot sun or a breezy day, I was tired or I was energized, I felt as though I was flying or I felt extremely heavy, my record was always 21 minutes.

Today, I felt good, I have widen my steps, and by the time I have completed 4.5 km, the timing was 20 minutes! I have gained that 1 min and it is 1 min closer to the 17 mins record. I still have a long way to go but I am hopeful.

Gosh, I feel good! I wish that the 17 mins record will soon be a reality.

Categories
I See I Write

How Far Will You Rely On Free Online Services? A First Look At Google Docs & Spreadsheets

Yesterday I had an important appointment to attend and just when I was ready to go, I failed to retrieve the location of the appointment from the Internet. Google was down together with my emails and calendar entries. Panic! At the 12th floor … I waited and waited and somehow many of the International sites could not be reached. Fortunately, the Google Gmail application installed in my 3G Wi-Fi mobile phone has a copy of an old email. From the email address, I figured out the company name. I did a search online at Yellow Pages and found the office address. Barely made it on time.

So, the question is, how far will you rely on free online services? And how much an online service can promise to deliver when there are many factors such as the network and infrastructure that is beyond control?

I love using Google’s Gmail. I think it is revolutionary to organise emails that bounce to and fro between multiple recipients into one single expandable conversation. No more “RE:” and “FW:” that cluster the mailbox especially when you have 20 recipients reply to each other putting everyone else into the copy list. With an application that enables us to read Gmail on my mobile phone, that is just sweet.

Impressed with Google’s Gmail, I was tempted to try the Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Microsoft Office dominates the market of productivity tools in both office and in some way, our homes. Almost all the documents created nowadays are in Microsoft Words format. Then came Sun’s OpenOffice that offers free applications in creating documents and spreadsheets and even presentation slides that can be saved into Microsoft formats. It is good news to home users like me because I do not need to pay for a software that I seldom use at home and since the same document can be read and edited in both Microsoft Office and OpenOffice, I am not fussy over the occasional incompatibility issues (Microsoft is always one step ahead of OpenOffice for obvious reason).

Out of nowhere came Google that offers a documents and spreadsheets collaboration tool over the Internet for free. Forget about setting up a shared drive in your network to share the document editing task with your co-authors, forget about the clumsiness of sending the document to and fro for your friends to edit via email just because you all are not working at the same place, forget about setting up an access control to give permission to certain groups of people who can view and edit your document, most impressively, Google Docs & Spreadsheets allows you and your co-authors – whom you have invited – to edit the documents and spreadsheets simultaneously. The refresh rate is pretty impressive and you can literally see what changes others have made in real time. To keep a revision is simple and all the documents and spreadsheets can be downloaded and saved in Microsoft, OpenOffice, and PDF formats. And the real beauty of saving my work online? I can work on it almost anywhere that has an Internet access. The same way you can search for contents from the Internet, you can search through your documents’ contents efficiently like your very own little Internet space.

On the flip side, you would probably not to expect all the bells and whistles Microsoft products and OpenOffice offer. And the first question of this blog reminds: how far will you rely on free online services? I did panic when Google was down especially when I am current writing a novel using Google Docs. Having said all these, I still believe that collaboration via the Internet and having the flexibility to work on any computer still the future to be.

Related Sites: Google Docs & Spreadsheets, OpenOffice.org.

Categories
Diary

Four Surprises In One Day

This is possibly the shortest of my blog so far. Some mood I am in.

Ever since leaving the local website design company I had a short stint with – which I am grateful to have known a big group of friends whom we still keep in touch and meet often – my teams were usually small with just the two of us. Today, two of them whom I enjoyed working with immensely and whom I have not met nor chatted with for a long time popped me a message within 5 minutes of each other (I don’t think they know each other). At the same time, my sister in Hong Kong popped me a message saying that she has more or less decided to take up one of offers in Singapore. I think she will stay temporary at my place very soon. While all these MSN messages were flying around, a dear friend of mine who shares one of my many hobbies and his girlfriend was viewing one of the units on the same tower a few floors below me. They happen to like the place. What if, what if …

Some kinds of surprises I have in one day.

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For the Geeks Game Reviews

Supreme Commander – Boys’ Childhood Dreams Come True

There was a time when girls wanted to be Barbie and boys fantasied to take control of one of those robots as inspired by the Japanese anime series, fly high and kick some enemy butts (somehow I have this bizarre image of tomatoes and eggs flying towards my ways from the girls). “Supreme Commander” gives us exactly that.

The concept of “Supreme Commander” is unique, pretty like a game of chess. You are one of the Commanders (don’t you love a title like that?!) who take control of this monstrously huge robot of what looks like a 24 storeys high monument, walk into a warping gate, swish your way through space, and with a big bang, the ground cracks, you are landed right into the planet at war. Now, here is what I like about “Supreme Commander” – its sci-fi realism. How can one machine rage war towards another? Wouldn’t it be lame and boring?

Upon landed onto the war zone, you can start utilising the limited mass (something like materials) and energy you carry to build … ta-dah … mass extractors and power generators. How intuitive it is right? As you start gathering mass and energy and building your base, more and more schemata are downloaded onto your computer and before you know it, you have your team of engineers churning out one of the most formidable armed forces in the planet, top it up with a combined force of army, navy, and air force. This is not only boys’ childhood dreams come true but also grown up men like me and you!

Missions are varied (only cleared the first one) and when you manage to bring down the opposing Commander, he does just die but explode in the most spectacular nuclear-mushroom-look-alike’s fashion very much like the picture I have included in this blog. Like chess, once you checkmate your opponent, that is the end of the game.

I have a feeling that I won’t be able to get far into this game, like many from this genre that I have played. The games these days tend to get too hard too soon. Although it is likely to be another white elephant in my storeroom, it always excites me much experiencing yet another captivating game like “Supreme Commander”. For the geeks, this game is first of its kind to be able to utilise Windows Vista’s DirectX 10.0, multicore processing capability, and can be played with 2 wide-screen LCD monitors – one to see your war plan and another one is the actual execution of your commands. Your pocket must be pretty deep to play “Supreme Commander” in its full glory (as of 2 months ago, the machine without the LCD monitors would cost USD 7,000). For the rest of us, dream on!

Categories
I See I Write

World Heritage Sites – I Want To Visit Them All!

UNESCO Official Site

Over MSN, my good Thai friend, Ja, asked me if I would be interested to join her and her husband’s trip to Lijiang (China). She told me that Lijiang is one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. What is UNESCO World Heritage Site? I quickly did some research mainly to find out more about Lijiang. Too bad, I will be heading to Mount Kinabalu and coincidentally, Park Kinabalu is also one of the 830 World Heritage Sites listed by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

I looked at the list of sites and marvelled at the sheer number of wonderful tourist spots that most of us probably won’t be able to cover in our lifetime. I told another friend of mine through MSN that I may wish to work out a route to cover most if not all the sites with the following considerations: budget, shortest route (i.e. optimise travel time), weather conditions (some locations may be best to visit in certain months), and site condition (some sites are more endangered than others so higher priority should be given in the travel plan).

Anyway, back to the list, I am interested to know how much you all have covered. As for me … (probably need to borrow Cynthia’s memory on this as well)

France (3): Palace and Park of Versailles, Roman Theatre and its Surroundings and the “Triumphal Arch” of Orange, Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris – Banks of the Seine. Holy See (2): Historic Centre of Rome, Vatican City. India (1): Mamallapuram (July 2008). Indonesia (2): Borobudur Temple Compounds, Prambanan Temple Compounds. Italy (6): Historic Centre of Florence, Piazza del Duomo – Pisa, Venice and its Lagoon, Historic Centre of Siena, Archaeological Area of Pompei, City of Verona. Malaysia (1): Kinabalu Park (end March 2007). UK (1): Old and New Towns of Edinburgh. USA (1): Grand Canyon National Park

I am surprised how many sites I have missed during my 6 years of stay in UK (and I could have visited that one site in Mauritius too during my 77 days stay there!). I guess there is now extra incentive for me to revisit UK. The next destination I pick, I will probably consult this list to see if I can fit some World Heritage Sites into my plan. I strongly recommend you too don’t miss out on this.

Related Articles:

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Memorable Events

That One Song I Remember During Road Trip In Melbourne

I usually associate trips that I have been with songs that were aired in the radio at the same period. For instance, Tony Rich Project’s “Nobody Knows” is associated to my first visit to Chicago, USA. Couple of years later, during my road trip to Los Angeles, Jewel’s “You Were Meant For Me” was played all the time. Coincidentally, both road trips (company training) happened right after a major heartbreak. What those heart wrenching songs are! As if God was speaking right to my face.

During my recent road trip in around Melbourne, I remember hearing “Don’t Give Up” all the time in the radio. “Don’t Give Up” is probably one of my top 20 favourite songs of all time originally performed by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush back in 1986. Whenever I felt down during my university days, I played “Don’t Give Up” loud. The version I heard over the radio in around Melbourne is covered by some other artists. “Don’t Give Up” has been covered by Alicia Keys and Bono as well as Australian artists Shannon Noll and Natalie Bassingthwaighte and it was the later version I have heard on the radio. Just a bit of background here. Shannon is an Australian Idol runner-up and Natalie is the frontwoman of the electro rock band Rogue Traders. I do enjoy Rogue Traders’s music (reminds me of an old band Republica) and it is certainly strange to hear Natalie singing a ballad.

Anyway, hail to YouTube, we have a video to watch.

PS. I will try to organize my Melbourne pictures fast so that I can share them progressively with you all a.s.a.p. Stay tuned for koalas next.

Categories
I See I Write

We Saw Ericia Lee (At VivoCity)

We all know what her real asset is besides her pretty face

At first I wanted to write, “We Met Ericia Lee”, but although we were in the same place as her, we didn’t talk except an exchange of friendly smile, it is more appropriate to use “We Saw Ericia Lee”. Or to be more exact, “I Saw A Celebrity” because at that moment, the lady whom I was holding hand with seemed to have vanished (joking!) and seriously, I had no clue what her name is. All thanks to Cynthia’s not-so-correct memory on car park level that got us face-to-face with Ericia Lee (on the evening we watched the movie “The Fountain” at VivoCity). What was she doing? Waiting for her partner to pick her up I suppose. My first impression was: wow! Second impression was: she is very pretty and indeed prettier than she is on TV (though I must say Cynthia does not share the same opinion on that count … on whether she is pretty at all). Third impressive was: she is tiny … and very skinny! So, yes, “I Saw A Celebrity” and no, that picture was not taken by me. Surprisingly, Cynthia remembers her by name.

That day was not the first time I saw a celebrity in Singapore. Not too long ago we saw Glenn Ong dining at one of the restaurants we were dining at VivoCity. And about a year ago, we saw Stefanie Sun at HMV Orchard (see previous blog). I wonder if VivoCity is now the place-to-be for celebrities.

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My Hobbies Oil Painting

My 7th Oil Painting – Endless Ironing

Click to view a larger image

Let me show you how my Inspiration Factory works. One fine day I was staring at the big pile of folded clothes awaiting to be ironed. It was more than usual because of our Melbourne trip (note: this blog was written a while back). So I asked Cynthia casually …

Me: (Nodding at the direction of the pile of clothes) How long will it take to iron those?
Cynthia: (Looking at somewhere else doing something else) Usually about 15 minutes.
Me: No, no … I mean those (pointing at the pile)
Cynthia: Oh, that’s a lot. Half an hour I guess.
Me: Just half an hour?!
Cynthia: Ya (continued doing that thing she was doing)
Me: I have an idea …
Cynthia: (Paused what she was doing and thinking) Uh-oh …

And I told Cynthia that I wanted to paint her ironing. Her immediate response was, “Do I need to stand for FOUR HOURS?!” “No, no, no,” I waved my hands in mid-air and reassured her that she just needed to iron the clothes as per normal. All of a sudden, I was bombarded with questions such as “What should I wear?!”, “What if I look fat?!”, “Will it be shown in your blog?”, and etc. I was surprised that she did not ask if she needed to wear make-up (she did ask what to wear). The only person I can think of who does housework wearing make-up is Paris Hilton in her Simple Life. I explained to her that the main focus of the painting is the ironing board. I did not know if she was delighted or disappointed.

To paint this, I have to do all the sketching before the model stepped into the picture. Once the sketching was done, I worked as fast as possible to sketch the model and to start putting colors and shadows. Whenever the model stepped away, I painted the surroundings. Keeping the perspectives of the composition to me was the most challenging part because there were lots of lines. In the end, I think I needed a different kind of brush to draw those straight lines. It was really difficult for me using those that I have.

Click here for my oil painting “gallery”.