Category: Observing Life

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Concert I See I Write My Favorite

Nokia Remix: Singapore – Pictures from Lifehouse Concert and the Upcoming Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

Will the new Nokia touch screen phone that comes with one year unlimited music download and more redefine what a phone can be?  I was holding one last Friday and I was thrilled by its potential.  And there is no event like a Nokia event.  Lifehouse was in the house, together with the local bands and my favorite radio DJs “The Muttons” too.  I took a picture with them.  It’s priceless.

I couldn’t attend the press conference during the day due to work commitment.  But the Nokia team was kind enough to give me a 1-hour personal demonstration on the upcoming Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.  Again, I tried to distract them and see if I could slip one into my pocket.  Again, I failed like the last time.

Come With Music

When it comes down to functionalities and user-friendliness, Nokia is king.  No doubt about it.  What the world has been silently waiting for is Nokia’s answer to Apple’s iPhone and its clones.  I certainly do.  While Apple threatened to shutdown iTunes early this month due to royalties dispute (current model is 61-29-9 cents split between the record industry, iTunes, and artists respectively), Nokia has worked out a deal with four major labels – EMI, Universal, Sony, and Warner – and more to give Nokia users one year unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalogue across a range of devices.  Is this new service “Come With Music” too good to be true?  Looking at how Nokia gives away free maps to the users, I am pretty sure that the only catch is “go buy a Nokia phone”.  Allowing users to unlimitedly and legally download music is as close to the Internet user behavior as it can get.  I am holding my breath on what the cost structure may be.

Touch, Play, Share

The new phone is a beauty.  If you are familiar with the XpressMusic series, the design of 5800 is a big leap ahead.  Weighted less than an iPhone, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic comes with a touch screen that supports wide-screen format and has an impressive resolution – best in its class.  I checked out a video clip played and the color is stunningly vibrant.  Another surprise is the quality of the internal speakers.  The music played out loud, really loud, and the sound is crisp clear.  These features alone are enough to put my beloved N95 to shame.  Can you visualize how badly I would drool to play the Ayumi music videos on this?

Unable to resist poking at this new baby, I am delighted that everything is literally at my fingertips including being able to put 4 of my top hot looking female contacts (with profile picture) onto the home-screen.  Maybe a bit too convenience.  Imagine one day Cynthia gets hold of my new 5800 while I was away and is able to track down my past communication and their respective blog updates with just a touch onto their profile pictures?!  Disastrous.

To be honest, I was skeptic on how this new touch screen phone handles my obsessive love in sending short messages, jotting down new blogging ideas, and drafting blog entries anytime, anywhere.  I asked for a demonstration and the enthusiastic product manager casually rotated the phone and the screen switched to landscape mode automatically.  Nice!  He then brought up the virtual QWERTY keyboard and I was like: though my fingers are not that fat, no way I can type a message with that!  Like a magician, he pulled out a stylus from nowhere (actually from behind the phone) and started typing.  Not bad.  Being a difficult consumer, I complained that QWERTY is not my cup of tea.

No problem at all, he said.  He then switched to a handwriting recognition mode that if you are from the Palm era, you would probably leap in joy (not to forget to mention the copy-and-paste function this new baby has).  Not bad.  But I am the type of guy who loves the old way of doing things.  The product manager did something to the phone and all of a sudden, I saw a life-size virtual alphanumeric keypad!  I pressed onto the virtual buttons and the phone vibrated in response.  Neat!  Lastly, for the musicians, the phone comes with a plectrum (see picture above … in my language, I call it a guitar pick) as an alternative to interact with the touch screen.  I know.  Who would have thought?

Final Thought

This entry is more like a preview than a review due to my limited time with the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.  There are tons of other cool functionalities I am running out of space to write including the synchronization to the social networking sites such as Ovi by Nokia, Facebook, YouTube, and etc.  I would like to leave you with this final thought.  Towards the end of “Sex and the City” movie, Carrie wanted to call her missing groom and she asked for a phone.  Someone passed her a touch screen phone (that looked like an iPhone).  Her immediate response was like: don’t give me that, give me something I can use.  I can relate to her.  And I don’t think I will have a problem with this new Nokia phone.  It is that easy.

Below are some of the pictures I have taken during the Nokia Remix: Singapore event with Lifehouse in the house with my point-and-shoot camera.  Enjoy!

PS. A big thanks to the Nokia team and the TEXT100 team!

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I See I Write My YouTube

The Unofficial Coverage of Singapore Motorshow 2008 with Pictures and Video Clips

The first thing after I have clocked 848 km driving to PJ Malaysia and back for a band practice was to head directly to the Singapore Motorshow.  Check out the montage below and guess which one is my favorite model?

I have created a video using the clips I have recorded during the stunt performance.  The performance is really awesome and if you have some time to spare, do click onto the link below.

Related Entries: Motor Show Singapore 2008, Motor Show Singapore 2006, Super Import Nights – Worth The S$10 For The Cars And Babes? You Decide!

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I See I Write

So You Really Don’t Want That 60″ Full HD Plasma TV For Free?

Did you know that the higher the resolution of your flat panel TV is, the shorter the optimal viewing distance?  OK.  Your eyeballs or your brain may get fried staring at those life-size-like … erm … eye candies.  Watching that beautiful Korean actress Kim Ah-joong at Singapore blogger EastCoastLife’s home on that 60” TV almost made my nose bled.  What was the gathering about?  I can’t recall a thing.  I want that TV (and that “200 Pounds Beauty” DVD too)!

Fortunately I did take some pictures last Sunday (see above).  Those lovely popiah she made.  Delicious.  Though I am literally (and proudly) a Singaporean and have lived here since 95, rarely do I get to taste home cooked Singaporean food.  Especially when I don’t live with a born-and-bred Singaporean.  Come to think of it, rarely do I get to taste home cooked Indonesian food either.  Something must be wrong in this picture.

Back to that contest I was blogging about, your humble Mr. All-good-things-must-share has made a site visit and confirmed that this 1.5 meter wide 60” beast does exist, in good shape.  I am not sure why Singaporeans are so shy.  If this contest was to host in Hong Kong, people would have dreamed of a hundred-and-one ways to up their chances.  Perhaps even getting your baby to pop out a bit earlier to enter the draw.  Seriously, all you need to do is to read her blog, answer 10 questions from now till October, drop her a snail mail (it is her contest, her rule, so please don’t be lazy!) and viola.  And if you don’t want the 60” TV for whatever the reason, for the love of Kim Ah-joong, please pass that to me.  Thank you.  I promise to cook you a very nice Cantonese meal while we watch “200 Pounds Beauty”, at my living room.  You can have my bottles of wine too since I don’t drink anymore.

On a more serious note, you may wonder why I so passionately wanting to spread the news.  New media is here to change the social landscape and I am glad to be a tiny part of it.  Do I wish to see some positive impacts to people’s life via the blogosphere as a new channel?  Certainly.  Bloggers are getting involved into areas that are dominated by traditional channels, doing impactful things that have never been done before.  To my best knowledge, LG did not ask blogger EastCoastLife to give the TV away.  I wonder what I would do had Nikon given me a D700 DSLR equipped with some of the top lenses and accessories.  Gosh, it is hard to give away an item that comes with a 5-figure price tag.

On a less serious note, forget about bribing EastCoastLife with breakfast and feet massages like many are doing right now.  Now that I know where she lives, I am going to infiltrate her home and invalidate the rest of the application forms except mine when the time comes!  Kekeke!

Related Website: Win a LG 60″ Full HD Plasma TV from ECL

PS. The optimal viewing distance for a 42” plasma TV is 99 inches for a HD-ready quality (720p) and 66 inches for a full HD quality (1080p).  As for a 60” flat panel full HD TV, it is 94 inches (versus 141 inches for a HD-ready one).  Time to reconfigure my living room for a 2.4-meter of viewing distance!

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I See I Write

Jazz Up Your Life with Ovi by Nokia

And the good news is, you don’t have to own a Nokia phone to benefit from some of these cool services.  Check out the ticker below.  Avid readers of my site know my passion in organizing event photos in mosaic style for sharing.  Now, I can share my photos easily in ticker, slideshow, and mosaic styles.  How cool is that?

Share Photos Anytime, Anywhere

And if you do have a Nokia phone, you can upload your photos anytime, anywhere (note: all the features described here, I have experienced them personally over the weekend).  You can even create a live feed channel to have multiple friends of yours contributing on the contents.  What if your friends don’t have a Nokia phone?  Not a problem.  Each public channel comes with an unique email address.  Your friends can email the pictures to this address and they will appear at your channel, live.  Not comfortable to share your media to the public?  Create a private invitation only channel instead.  Truly connecting people as what Nokia inspires to do.

So I was invited for an interactive demo of the new Ovi services at Geek Terminal presented by Raj Sambwani (director) and his team.  Apparently, Ovi means door in Finnish.  And you don’t need to own a Nokia phone to sign up at Ovi.com.  Besides Ovi Share for photos sharing, it features music download too. 

Making Use of My Nokia Music Voucher

After I have bought Shakira’s recent album during initial launch, she released a deluxe edition later that features a new song “Hips Don’t Lie”.  Boo!  I ain’t going to buy another CD because of that one song.  To my limited knowledge, I don’t think we can buy music online via the iTune Store or Amazon.com here in Singapore.  So, the first track I wanted to download from Nokia Music Store was obviously my beloved “Hips Don’t Lie”.

The music download process is relatively painless.  I was required to install a component to my browser and the downloaded song is in Windows media audio file format with a bit rate of 192kbps.  Pretty decent quality and it is comparable to the rest of the online stores.  The good thing is that you can download the same song multiple times and you can play it in any device that support this format.  For some reason, I can’t get it recognized by iTune, which is a bummer because my entire music collection resides in iTune.  Also, first time authentication is required to play the song.  Each song costs S$2 (or for album, S$16).  If you are willing to spend S$176 upfront, you can get it down to S$1.66 per song.  Personally, I think the price is a bit steep compares to iTune Store or Amazon.com.  If Nokia could get it down to S$1.49 per song before discount, that would be really compelling.  Perhaps my music taste at times may not lean towards the pop culture, I do have a bit of challenging time finding what I want.

Other Cool Features from Ovi by Nokia

For the Nokia phone users, Ovi offers maps, games, files, and sync.  In the event, one friendly Nokia personnel helped me to set up my Ovi account and within seconds, all my phone contacts, notes, to-do list, and calendar items are uploaded to Ovi.com via the Wi-fi connection at Geek Terminal.  That is some really powerful tool.  Imagine this, for whatever the reason you don’t have your phone with you, you can still look up your contacts and other personal information from the Internet via the Ovi site.  All the important information from within the phone can be backed up over the air.

Another really neat feature is to the ability to send an attachment that resides in either your PC (that is switched on) or from Ovi.com via your Nokia phone.  You can even preview the contents before sending it off.  For those who are always on the go, I personally think that it is an useful feature to have.  Imagine you are having a nice holiday overseas and you bosses or your clients wants you to send that document to them right now.  And you don’t have the document with you.  Fear not, all you need is to take out your phone, browse for the right document from Ovi.com that you have uploaded earlier on, and send out the link .  You can even set the time of expiry for that link.  The real benefit behind this feature is that you don’t need to pay a hefty fees for the air time.  Effectively, you are simply sending a download link out, not the actual attachment that could be large in size. Subscription fee applies though.

Conclusion

Ovi by Nokia is still in beta.  Though I do encounter some difficulties over the weekend such as multiple files upload and different service offerings within Ovi requires individual registration and sign on, it does have offerings that are ready to face the world.  But how will Ovi flair?  It is easy to say only time will tell.  Personally, I think the success of Ovi will still very much link to the success of the Nokia phones in the short term. What Ovi may have an advantage over others is the seamless extension to our hand-held device – a mobile phone.

PS. A big thanks to the lovely Communications team of Nokia for patiently answering all my questions and helping out this rather low tech user!

Related Website: Ovi by Nokia

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I See I Write

Eyewitness: Upcoming N-Gage Hits ONE and Spore Origins at GCA 2008!

So I was invited to attend the Games Convention Asia and get to N-Gage with the inspiring people behind the gaming industry.  OK.  I will let the professional journalists to cover the media buzz and future road-maps.  What I wish to share with you here is a more personal coverage of their passion and my hands-on experience with the upcoming Nokia N-Gage games ONE and Spore.

Last week, I did a coverage of the PC version of Spore.  It is a great game, no doubt.  And I heard that this smash hit may be ported to other gaming platforms.  Here I am, this very evening, playing Spore Origins with a Nokia phone.  Too bad, I failed to distract the Nokia girl (more like the other way round) and my evil plan of sneaking out with one of their phones didn’t turn out as planned.  Nevertheless, I tried out the game briefly and it was cute, simple, yet fun.  Very much like the 1st phase of the PC version.  N-Gage has retained the customization features too (middle picture above).  The only thing missing is that in the PC version, you perform a “mating call” in order to level up.  I almost wanted to turn to this lovely Nokia girl besides me and asked how do I …

So I was introduced to Ralph Lämmche, the Senior Games Producer from Helsinki.  Ralph is such a fun guy, full of passion, and when he was demonstrating ONE (an upcoming fighting game), he was so much animated.  Ralph showed us the special 3D moves created using the motion capture technique, the customization available, how the world ranking works, and the technical challenges of implementing a game using a phone – all from the perspective of a game developer.  I asked how long it typically takes to develop a game and he said 18 months; I asked how long it took to capture the motion and he said a week; I asked what the budget was to develop ONE and he said … OK, I am not sure if that is a public information so …

I met Dan Scott too.  Dan is best known as the producer and creative director for Snakes, an updated version of the classic Nokia game and he overseas a portfolio of the N-Gage games.  Dan flew in from Canada and he does have this look of immense intelligence.  I asked how he creates games (because I did too as a hobby when I was young) and he took me on a journey of how ideas can strike us from anywhere, how he always have the audience in mind, the iterations of development and he may end up with something completely different from what was being conceptualized – for good reasons.

I asked if it is now easier or tougher for the new generation of game designers and developers (due to the leap of technology).  He said in a way it is easier because of the training available.  But in a way harder as in the old days, people from different disciplines could enter the industry, so long as you are good.  Truly inspiring.  I asked what are his all time favorite games.  He took a moment and replied Dungeon & Dragon games (old school, me too!) as well as the classic first person shooters such as Half Life and Doom (OK, I suck at those).  Which game does he look forward to the most?  Starcraft II.  Me too!

Check this out.  Dan always finishes a computer game (and he studied Robotics).  Gosh!

A lovely evening, certainly an eye opener for an avid gamer of decades years.  I hope you enjoy reading this and if you have a chance, do check out these upcoming N-Gage titles.

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I See I Write

2008 DMC World DJ Championship Singapore Finals Sponsored by TDK Life on Record – See Y’all There!

Beijing Olympic may be over but the DMC World DJ Championship is heating up.  Cynthia and I will be heading to Zouk this Saturday (heats at 9pm, final at 11pm) and see who is going to represent Singapore to battle for the World Supremacy title at London this September.  Sounds exciting?  Damn right it’s going to be!

DJ Kid Fresh – 3 times World Champion – from Germany will be there to rock the house.  I’ve checked out his MySpace and he does have some pretty cool stuff.  I am told that the sponsor TDK Life on Record has commissioned DJ Perplex (2006, 2007 DMC Australian Champ) to mix a CD of up-and-coming artists from around the globe and the CD will be distributed during the show!  His music direction is more into a mesh of hip-hop, electro, and experimental.  Wanna download a sample (I heard it, it is good stuff)?

The rule is pretty simple.  Each contestant will be given 3 minutes at the elimination round to “bring it on”.  Final round will last for 6 minutes.  What the contestants allow to use are two turntables and one mixer as well as any stylus in the Ortofon range.  What this setup does is simply allowing the DJ to creatively mix the music from two different sources.  And because effects and modifications to the setup is not allow in this competition, it is really back to basic and put every DJ on the same ground.

Edit: My insider source tells me that there will be lovely ladies from TDK Life on Record to demo the TDK headphones.  They will be in around the area so do try them out when you have a chance (erm … the headphones)!  Zouk members will receive a discount over these headphones at Cyberactive.  Now, who is kind enough to lend me a Zouk card?!

Note: Zouk admission on Aug 30 for non-members (incl. 2 drinks) – S$18 before 10pm, S$25, S$30 after.

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Everyday News

Singapore Won A Medal, I am Ecstatic

Early this month, I mentioned that Singapore needs more good news.  Today, Team Singapore delivers us a silver medal.  I don’t know how my fellow citizens feel.  I am ecstatic.  And in my state of ecstasy, two questions still linger on my mind: What does ‘Singapore will at least get a silver medal’ mean?  And how do you measure Singaporean-ness?

The first question is a strange one.  Of course any country that enters the final match will get a gold or a silver medal.  So why this mindset that we would at least get a silver?  No clue.  I have watched the match and I think we have proven to be a worthy opponent against China.  Well done Team Singapore.  You guys have done us proud.

The second question puzzles me too.  No offence to some of my friends who may not regard our national table tennis team members as Singaporean as they could be.  I too come from a far away land and call Singapore my home since 1998 – the year that I sworn in.  Is a one year old Singapore born baby more Singaporean than a new citizen who has sworn in for a year?  Hmmm …

To measure Singaporean-ness, I guess we can only observe actions.  Check these out:

  1. One who is born or sworn in as a Singaporean
  2. … and he/she has done something very patriotic
  3. … and he/she has done something very unpatriotic

To me, only case #3 makes me roll my eyes.  Otherwise, you are my beloved country mate whether or not you have yet exhibited observable patriotic actions.

Last October, I was at the airport waiting for Cynthia’s plane to touch down.  There was a huge crowd with people all cheering.  That puzzled me.  I would be shocked if I was to come out from the gate and meet this crowd.  Some foreigners smiled in awe.  Then I caught the Welcome Back Team Singapore signboard (see picture above).  And that was the first time I heard of Team Singapore.

To those who are in the Team Singapore and are out there in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, many congratulations.  You all have only yourself to challenge and better.  One world, one dream!

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Everyday News

Singapore Needs More Good News, Perhaps? Happy National Day, and Others

OK.  It’s the first time in my life seeing a Singapore flag sticking up from someone’s head.  Cynthia couldn’t resist to take a picture; I can’t resist not to share.

One great thing about having your website is that you can almost trace back on what you’ve done the same day last year, the year before, and etc.  This year there is no jamming session for me.  Instead, I am glued to the TV watching the Beijing Olympics.  Weightlifting games (Women’s 48kg today) captivate me, move me to tears.  The tearful joy of the Turk (silver), the fighting spirit of the Taiwanese (bronze), and the celebrity-like entrance of Chen Xiexia (China) whose first lifts placed her wide ahead of her opponents.  One moment I was wondering if China was going to participate, another moment Xiexia came in and grabbed the gold medal, unchallenged.

And that is precisely my dilemma here.  The Beijing Olympics seems like a bigger event to me today rather than our National Day Parade.  The Obama versus Hilary race seems like a more entertaining piece of news to follow than our local news.  Even our neighbor’s how-many-times-a-man-can-be-charged-with-sodomy is certainly juicer than anything we have here.  Go Anwar, go!  Reformasi!

Change, we can believe in.  That, is one helluva tag line from Obama’s presidential campaign.  Give the polar bears back their homes.  That, is from my recent video blog.  Thank you for not hating it.  End of commercial messages.

So, in this fierce competition of global news squeezing its way into my radar of current affairs, what sort of local news sticks to my mind?  Mas Selamat?  Certainly.  The rise in the price of a bowl of rice and the arrays of electronic road pricing (ERP) gantries added in around the city center?  That too.  And to quote from a gas station attendant in my area: our oil price goes up in a lift and comes down by stairs. 

But there must be some news worth celebrating, right?  After years of dispute with Malaysia, the tiny faraway island Pedra Branca belongs to Singapore.  The catch is, it is not final, awaiting for new evidents to be uncovered.  From this episode, I have learned a new Latin expression: terra nullius.  It means nobody’s land.  Actually, there is one more for you: a titre de souverain.  Go figure.

Now, back to the Beijing Olympics.  I don’t think it is an understatement that the Chinese has waited for hundreds of years to have a moment like this.  Sure, it is the pride of a nation, pride of a race.  And why the Western’s negative media coverage day after day?  Like my African boss said: If you watch CNN and believe that that is Africa, you are so wrong.

Face it.  There is a reason why the smart ones from the West are moving into Asia for a better career and financial opportunity.  The world is changing; China is rising; not even the Western propaganda is going to reverse that.

Anyways, happy birthday Singapore.  What talking me in this post?!

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I See I Write

Little Mr. Sunshine: A Blog Is Not a Book Is Not a Movie – My First V-blog (Prelude) Episode 7

Yes, there is a video and you will get to watch how I humiliate myself later this week.  Think “Little Miss Sunshine”.

Ever since I have started this mini-series, the most common questions I have received from the people around me (whom I am grateful for their frankness) are: Is there a video? Where is the video? What is in the video?  And the most common feedback is: I don’t get it.

A Blog Is Not a Book

Recently – after I have started the series – I read somewhere that publishing a book that reads like a blogger’s website just won’t work.  People simply won’t read such a book.  I can’t recall the reasons why and I wonder if the reverse stands too.  My only rationalization is that online readers probably have the habit to sit in front of the computer and spend only a fraction of their time to read a post before they point-and-click onto something else.  Reading a magazine or a book in contrast captures a much dedicated attention and longer attention span from the readers.

And hence, perhaps online readers prefer a more upfront, direct statement (pretty much how this post begins) rather than to bury the answers of what-where-and-is-there somewhere towards the end the 1st episode of this mini-series.

Little Miss Sunshine

Recently – also after I have started the series – I watched “Little Miss Sunshine” on cable.  It’s an awesome film.  I am not saying this just because I am a big fan of the little girl Abigail Breslin.  The film talks to me.  It really does.

Throughout the film, we are all aware that the seven years old girl Olive has a performance to make, for a competition.  But what’s in that performance?  No one knows, until the very end.  For the benefit of those who have not watched “Little Miss Sunshine”, the little girl’s performance at the beauty pageant is borderline awkward, borderline embarrassing, and borderline obscene.  Her stage performance – that has been kept secret to her family till the very end of the movie – is taught by her grandpa who is a borderline pervert.

Imagine only watching that little girl’s performance on stage and not the rest of the movie, I highly doubt if you would think too highly of this critically acclaimed movie.  The important part of the story, I observe, is the journey itself less of the end goal.  “Little Miss Sunshine” is a touching story on how this courageous little girl Olive manages to move and change the people around her who are disillusioned about their lives.  That is the journey I am talking about.

This mini-series is meant to be a journey for me, the various little steps in getting there.  The video itself, much like Oliver’s final stage performance, is less important.  Maybe I ought to be less subtle next time.

Or perhaps I need to remind myself that it is hard to make a blog to read like a movie.

The Closing of a Little Chapter

This episode marks the end of the prelude series and I know I have been confusing the living soul out of you.  My apologies.  Well, it’s absolutely not my intend.  I have a lot of fun writing this series.  Something different, something slightly more serious yet random, something closer to my heart.

PS. This hand drawn whale by me as seen at the beginning of the post carries a subtle message of “Save the Planet” in my upcoming video blog.

My 1st v-Blog Mini-Series:

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I See I Write

Storyboarding at 24 Frames per Second – My First V-blog (Prelude) Episode 5

“There is no point in teaching a young one to choose his battle.  He is going to fight every single one, refuse to relinquish his power, and only experience can teach him such thing: There is no ultimate victory and there is no absolute righteousness.  As his eyes are cast upon the rain of fire, in this bloody ground of the many fallen, down to his last man …”

OK.  I am not that imaginative and I certainly can’t dream of stories with such depth.  My new story is going to be short and sweet.  Animals, lots of animals, from worm to whale, from human to elephant.  And there are brains too, lots of brains.  It is when technology meets biology, from my childhood to my adulthood, and onto my hood that says, “It’s my birthday tomorrow and I can write whatever I want!”.  Numbers, plenty of numbers.  But none is going to tell you how old I am, ha!

I want to challenge your senses in this multi-tasking, short attention span pop culture.  The theme is the same but what you are going to hear will be different from the words you read and will be different from the animations you see.

The first decision I made for my video blog was the number of frames per second.  The rest, is history.  I still need time to touch up on the video.  Time, we all need more time!

PS. Majority of the images you see above were taken in Taman Safari Indonesia back in January this year.  Then there was me, and my family’s dog in Hong Kong.

My 1st v-Blog Mini-Series: