Categories
Diary Photography

For My Parents With Love In The Beautiful Landscape of The Singapore Botanic Gardens

My Parents at the Singapore Botanic Gardens

My 74 years old dad said the funniest thing.  He told me that these days when he went fishing, along the harbor of Hong Kong, young photographers often take him as their photo subject.  And in his tone of reminisce he said, “When I was a young photographer I was doing the same.  Now that I am an old man, it’s my turn [to be photographed by the strangers]”.  We all laughed.  But on what?  We don’t know.  I don’t know.  I don’t want my dad to be old.  I want everything to stay the same.

Reality is, we all get older as time goes by.  Decades ago I was my dad’s photography subject.  Who doesn’t like to see little babies, little kids, so full of innocence, so full of joy on pictures, on prints?  Decades later my parents have become my photography subject.  Kids and old folks – the two most common picks for the photographers on human portraits.  It is the innocence and the wisdom; it is the sign of creation and the mark of time; it is a blank story book filled with possibilities and a memoir that inspires.

Why the Singapore Botanic Gardens?  It’s rare that both my parents are in town, thanks to my sister’s wedding.  It is the green and the fresh air, the flowers and the butterflies.  My family loves to visit parks.  Back when I was in Hong Kong.  A tradition that I still carry with me today.  Some of the happiest moments of my life happen in the parks.

That’s why.

For the viewing of a personal photo collection dedicated to my parents, please click here.

P.S. An entry written with my Nokia N96 the sms style hours before my sister’s wedding dinner at a cafe at China Square Central while waiting for Cynthia’s make up session at Raffle City to be done, synchronised with Nokia free OVI service using the free Wireless@SG wi-fi network.

Categories
Fantasy & Sci-fi Foreign Movie Reviews

K-20: Legend of the Mask – A Japanese Batman?

K20

It’s Takeshi so Cynthia has got to watch it.  So I have got to accompany her.  And I had no idea what to expect.  Besides, I reckon since my parents are going to be in town this week, my sister is getting Singaporely married this weekend (for her wedding tour, click here), I’d better catch up with my Movie Review Squad for a movie, this week.

Nope.  There was no tears.  No Japanese female eye candies either.  Just Takeshi in what seems like a Batman meets Thief Guild kind of western concept set in Japan when World War II didn’t happen.  Cynthia loves it, I love it less.  Just because I feed on tearing moments and eye candies, and none in this.  The film though, is quite a classic.  There are moments of memorable acts.  Moments that I could visualize decades later when some of us play back the scenes and recite the dialogues with the actors.

The special effect is jaw dropping.  No doubt “K-20” is one of those rare big budget Japanese movies.  A fantasy story with the background of Japan entering a class movement separating the rich and the poor.  Naturally – I suppose – someone would stand up and redistribute wealth in his own way.  Lack of originality aside, “K-20” is blessed with the right kind of humor, a storyline in suspense, amazing backdrops, and Takeshi.  I kind of enjoy watching Takeshi in his not-too-pretty-boy look (did someone just stepped onto his face in the set or was it a double?).  He is as hilarious as ever, someone can who put a smile to my face even in his most serious moment.

While watching “K-20”, I couldn’t help but to have flashbacks to Batman, Zorro, Robin Hood, Spiderman, and V for Vendetta – the fighting, the flying, the stealing, and the mask.  It is good to watch Takashi taking a leading role again.  An enjoyable evening, early this week.

Categories
I See I Write

The Outlook of Digital Music Media in 2009 – Comes With Music Part 2

Cynthia and her Nokia phone and her music collection

Before I dive into my personal thought on the current outlook of music industry, here are some interesting facts.

The big four major record labels that Nokia has struck a deal with account for over 80% of total sales worldwide (read previous blog entry for details on “Comes With Music”).  Revenue from CD sales has been heading south.  That is old news.  The big boys blame piracy.  Some disagree.  In 2008, 2 billion dollar revenue was generated via digital music sales.  70% came from Apple iTune Store and the pie is split three-way: 61-29-9 cents between the record industry, Apple, and the artists respectively.

So how does Nokia come into the picture?

Apple’s foray into wireless phone business may have accelerated Nokia’s counter response by setting up the OVI Store to rival iTune Store that currently contains over 10 million song titles.  The new Nokia service “Comes With Music” allows users to freely download any of the 4 million song titles within OVI Store for the first year.  The new touchscreen Nokia 5800 XpressMusic together with the upcoming N97 take aim at Apple iPhone covering both high end and mid segments.  And Apple’s response?  All tracks sold in iTune Store will be free of DRM (digital rights management) and will be encoded to 256 kbit/s.  The game is on.  It is round one in year 2009.

In layman’s term, what Nokia says is this: look, just buy our phone and you can download all you like for a year (but you can only play them in your PC or your phone).  And Apple’s reply is: you pay for a higher quality music that you can’t find it anywhere (except CDs) and your music is for you to play in any device.

Tricky situation we have here in Singapore.  There are still a group of people who balk at the Comes With Music’s comes with DRM (digital rights management).  And the discussion on Apple iTune Store is purely academic because, well, it is still not available in Singapore.  Nokia has provided us a legal channel to download music online here at home.  Apple has not.

DRM is a thorny issue – both in music industry and in PC gaming industry.  It is a last ditch effort for the big boys to battle piracy (the very last resort is prosecution).  Without going into the nuts and bolts of DRM, its original intend is to deter piracy.  Well, it doesn’t work.  What DRM hurts most are the legitimate users who pay for the products.  At best, DRM inconvenience paying customers.  At worst, it makes the products unusable for the unfortunate few – the ones who paid.

I talk to those who constantly download music illegally and I have the following observations.  Most don’t see anything wrong with their action.  Most have lots of honorable reasons such as “I will buy the CD later if the music is good”, “I can’t find the music in the local market”, “It is for personal use and not for distribution”, “The music industry is evil and they don’t deserve my money”, and more.  Most tend to massively download music round the clock and I always ask them in puzzlement, “Can you really consume all that you download?!”

Maybe the world has changed.  It is the way we consume music.  I have difficulties in thoroughly understanding and internalizing each music album with my average purchase rate of one CD a week.  How could those who massively harvest all the the tracks out there illegally get to appreciate the artwork within the 24 hours we have a day?  What happens to the days of us listening to the album again and again till we memorize all the lyrics, till we can sing along with the tracks, till we can interpret the messages the artists are trying to convey?

To be fair to the old dinosaurs like I, there are still quite a few friends who purchase and collect albums, go back in time to appreciate certain tracks from an album published a decade or two or more ago.  Maybe these days, there are more and more listeners out there who would briefly listen to some tracks within an album and stick to a few tracks they like.  And then they move onto the next album.  To me, paying for a music album knowing that I would listen to it again and again seems worth it.  To some, maybe not.

Personally, I don’t think it is right to download music against the will of the owners.  If you expect people to work for free, would you too work for free?  Having said that, the business model of the music industry needs an overhaul.  Using revenue generated by sales to fund lesser known artists, to fund all the middle layers in the name of music promotion needs to be changed.  Awareness on respecting the intellectual property of others needs to be raised within the mass public too.  One can never fight greed [of the music industry] with greed [of one’s illegal download action].

In 2000, horror book writer Stephen King published a serialized novel “The Plant” online.  It cost $1 to download each installment.  But here is the deal.  You could download the installment without paying a dime.  Or you could pay the nominal sum of $1.  120,000 paying readers downloaded the first installment.  By the fifth installment, only 40,000 were paying.  Most no longer paid.  I did pay for all 5 installments and after such a disappointing result, Stephen King stopped the series briefly.  Paying readers cried out loud as we wanted to read the ending.  If my memory serves me right, King did publish the remaining installments free.

So, what’s the morale of the story?

In an online world, honor exists, but is rare.  The fact that digital media can be duplicated poses challenges to the art creators, the publishers, and the paying consumers.  The key to success, in my humble opinion, is to give the mass public what they want, their most preferred mode of accessing the media.  Consumers are willing to pay if the experience enhances their lives, and not to cause inconvenience.  The Amazon wireless reading device Kindle and the new Kindle 2 is a good success story.

Nokia’s “Comes With Music” has taken a major step to the right direction.  Even with the cost of music factored into the phone, having the entire music collection at our disposal 24×7 is as close to what some are experiencing today.  As a market leader having a market share of close to 40%, the first year result of “Comes With Music” is expected to be spectacular.  People would still buy their new 5800 touchscreen phone or the high end Nseries phones anyway with or without “Comes With Music”.  I am keen to see that one day Nokia stripping the DRM technology away to give the consumers total freedom to play the downloaded music in any device.  Whoever – be it as Nokia or Apple or any other brand – able to grant the consumers a complete freedom while having a sustainable business model will be the ultimate winner.  But till that day – since my N96 and N95 are still in pretty good condition – I will stick with CDs and stay away from illegal download like I always do for now.

Categories
I See I Write Photography

Part One: Nokia Comes With Music – Too Good to be True? – A Media Event

Nokia Come With Music - Media Event

Imagine this: you buy a phone and it comes with 4 million songs for you to download for free for a year – via your PC or your Nokia phone.  And you get to keep all the tracks even after the service period is over.

It is not a question if what Nokia is attempting to do is revolutionary.  It simply is.  No doubt about it.  The questions are: Is this a step towards revitalizing a dying music industry that the existing business model is unable to cope with the way the mass public consumes music?  And more importantly, what is it in for Nokia and what is it in for you and I?

October last year, I had the privilege to attend the Nokia Remix event when the upcoming Nokia model 5800 XpressMusic was announced.  Last Friday, I have attended the media launch event of “Comes With Music”, had the opportunity to try out the phone one more time and find out more from the Nokia team on this new service.  In part one of this blog entry, you will get to read more on what this service is about.  And in part two that I will publish next, you will get to read my personal take on the impact of this new service in a larger scheme of work.

Comes With Music and the New Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

The new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic touchscreen phone is awesome.  I will not repeat what I have experienced last October.  What I did try out last Friday though was the browser capability.  Intuitively, I touched the screen, moved my thumb up and down and the web page was scrolled accordingly.  Neat.  I tried double clicking onto the page and it zoomed right in.  Very cool!  All by intuition.  I could zoom in and out smoothly via a side bar too.  In case if you wonder from the pictures below what kinky video I was watching, it was nothing R rated.  I opened up YouTube and watched one of the videos from my favorite French artist Mylene Farmer.  When I double clicked onto the video, the player went into full screen mode.  I may consider an unlimited mobile data plan if I have one of these hot babies.

OK.  Some pictures to show taken during the event.  The band All American Rejects was in the house, our local DJ team The Muttons was in the house, the event was held at Velvet Underground, and many were queuing outside for the band to perform live!

Below are some key facts about the new service “Comes With Music”.

  • Selected Nokia phone models including the new 5800 XpressMusic literally comes with music.  You can download any of the 4 million tracks from the Nokia Store for free for a year.  And you get to keep all that you have downloaded via your PC or your mobile devices.
  • Nokia is yet to announce what the service fee for subsequent years is going to be.  I am not sure how often people upgrade their wireless phones.  Personally I hope that Nokia will take this into consideration when they create a service model for “Comes With Music”.
  • You can only listen to the music downloaded via your PC or your wireless phone.  I asked: what if I upgrade my PC?  According to Nokia, I can deactivate my old PC and then active my new PC.  Pretty much like the DRM (digital right management) model that the gaming industry has adopted.  DRM doesn’t go too well with the legitimate paying gamers.  “Comes With Music” is an interesting case because of the shear amount of songs you can potentially download over the service period that come with the phone.  But if “Comes With Music” comes with a price after the first year, it all depends how much it would cost to justify the inconvenience.
  • No, you can’t burn the music onto the CD.  Again, you are not paying a lot for that 4 million song list at least for the first year.
  • What if I need to upgrade my PC after my “Comes With Music” service period is over?  I was told that there is quite a long grace period.  You can still transfer your downloaded tracks from one machine to another.
  • Which are the music giants on board “Comes With Music”?  EMI Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music, as well as Asian independent labels.

Closing Note and Coming Next

Now you have read what “Comes With Music” is as well as get to hear more about the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.  I am a passionate music listener and I have had the opportunity to talk with many on the current situation the music industry is facing.  I get to have a better appreciation on what are the different types of listeners out there and their preferred mode of music delivery.  In part two of this blog entry, I will share more on my take on how brilliant Nokia’s move is going up against the successful Apple iTune and its products by defining their own rules and what are the implications.

When Cynthia read the advertisements on the Saturday papers, she got very excited by the new Nokia touchscreen phone that comes with music.  And she asked, “So I can download the entire album of Pussycat Dolls for free?”  I smiled and replied, “Not only that, you have 4 million songs to choose from!”  I looked at the pricing of a new “Comes With Music” Nokia phone and it doesn’t seem excessive.  For what it is worth, you can think of paying a nominal amount that is factored into the price of a phone and that opens up a world of music for you to listen to, a freedom that now you can legally experience.

As you may have noticed by now that I always love to write a small thank you notes on most of the events I have attended.  It is because what I usually enjoy most is the people I come to interact with, time and time again.  So, cheers to the Nokia team especially to the one who was so patiently showcasing the new phone to me last October and again showed me what else 5800 can do last Friday.  And of course to the lovely Text100 team, thanks for the chat and the little walk around at the stage area.  Yes, one day our band would be there and I will get your help!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for part 2.

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby – Getting the Most from Your Software

Lightroom 2 Book by Scott Kelby

I own the full version of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 and have bought and read this guidebook prior to trying out the software, when I was holidaying in Bandung.  And it was not the first time I read a guidebook before even trying out a product.  I read a book on Canon 40D and have decided to buy a Nikon dSLR instead.  Bizarre as it may sound – as people normally do it the other way round – I reckon I value tips and advices from the experts with hands-on experience more than my own initial discovery journey (besides, I am a lazy guy at times).  Also, if I don’t find things that excite me from these experts, I wouldn’t find the product exciting anyway.

But that is just me.  If you are interested in buying a guidebook, I reckon you must have started playing around with Lightroom 2.

As a side note, this is not a review on the product itself.  Stay tune.  I am writing an article on that and more.

If you have read the previous works by Scott Kelby, this book does not disappoint.  Perhaps more a step-by-step approach compares to the short and sweet and humorous style of his Digital Photography Book Vol. 1 & 2, his personality and honestly still shines the same way.  You can clearly see that Scott Kelby has a lot of passion using this software that is designed from ground up for the digital photographers; you can also feel his frustration on some of the functionalities and features that Lightroom 2 does not do too well. 

I know your time is precious.  So here are my thoughts after reading this book once, and then more.

  • In theory, you could learn all the hot keys and where is what from the online manual.  In reality, I find it hard to internalize all these to put them in good use.  This book is a wonder.  It is as though you have a tutor siting by your side walking you through what you ought to know while sharing his experience along the way.  When I first downloaded the Lightroom 2 trial version, I was just a little bit overwhelmed.  I referred to the book every now and then and in no time, I surfed through what I need to do at ease.  In short, I spend more time developing my photos than trying to make the software works for me.
  • This book is organized much like how the software is structured: library, develop, slideshow, print, and web.  In each section, not only does the author tell you all that you need to know, Scott Kelby does share much of his wisdom beyond the step-by-step guide.  From his advise on the digital format that he would use and why, to getting that trendy, gritty portrait look that is highly sought after in the commercial market these days.  And there are lots of tips on how to add punches to your photos.  There is even a chapter on how to merge HDR images in Photoshop.  As a small disclaimer, I did try out some of his highly skilled tricks and somehow, the results are not as fantastic.  I am pretty sure that it was my photos and less on the author’s wisdom.  Most of the tips they work as they should be.
  • What I find most fun (and inspiring) to read is the last chapter on his step-by-step on-location portrait shoot process.  I think in time to come, all of us photographers would develop one work-flow that works best for our individual need and artistic inclination.  But it is good to read how the professionals work in real life, what they use, how they do certain things, and why.

If you feel that you may wish to get the most out of your software, this book is it.  You can spend S$63 to buy one in Singapore.  Or order from Amazon.com, it is US$30 before shipping –The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter).

Categories
Snippet of My Life

Snippet Of My Life Episode 16 – I Quit

The Economist

I jumped out of my bed in the middle of the night, thought I saw lava flowing out from my attached bathroom, with the door left ajar.  My logical mind kicked into action.  The first thing I did was to save my phone that was lying on the floor connected to a charger near to the bathroom door.  I switched on the bathroom light, took my beloved Nokia N96 as far away from the lava as possible, and put it right next to my pillow.  Snuggled underneath my blanket with my half-opened sleepy eyes staring at the bathroom door, minutes had passed.  Reality hit me.  No, there was no lava.  I switched off the light and went back to sleep.

Work stress, economic climate, The Economist that generates more questions than answers, or maybe it was the aftereffect of my frequent visit to the World of Warcraft, my head is stuffed with dreams these days.

Workload is the same.  People are asked to go.  Departments are dismantled.  It’s cost cutting time.  I wonder who is more stressed: the asked-to-go or the left-behind.

For the past decades, time after time, I tried to read The Economist.  The drawings entice me; the article titles entice me; but I could not get pass the first paragraph of any article.  Money wasted.  Decades have passed.  I am none the wiser.  Picked up a recent issue while Cynthia was buying a loft of bread at a convenience store.  Paid twelve bucks.  And I have read almost all the articles within a week.

Oh my.  I actually enjoy reading The Economist!  What an exhilarating revelation.  I said to Cynthia: if I can read 6 issues, continuously, I may consider subscribing to the magazine for a year.

Here are some numbers that you probably won’t get from The Economist.  PC Gamer, I read mostly all the contents including the advertisements every month.  Today, there are 11 million online gamers subscribed to the online game World of Warcraft.  Each month, Blizzard Entertainment receives USD 165,000,000 from the subscribers worldwide, myself included.  That is close to USD 2 billion a year.  The total running cost is USD 200 million for the past 4 years.  Each yearly game expansion translates to one time revenue of USD 400 million from the community within days if not hours.  I am not going into the amount of money some subscribers pay to transfer the characters from one server to another, rename and change the genders of their characters, to pay for the merchandise, and etc.

Economic downturns means more people not having a job, means more work loaded onto my plate, means more people have time to play online games.  USD 15 a month doesn’t seem excessive for a dude who needs to put his talents somewhere (OK, private joke for the WoW community).

If I could choose a time to be born, I wouldn’t have picked this era of capitalism, of consumerism.  On one hand, mother Earth cannot sustain the way and the pace we consume resources.  On the other hand, we ask our people not to stop consuming in order to keep the economy going.  Our progression depends upon how effective and efficient and extensive we consume resources.  But for what purpose?  No one is interested in the true cost [determined by our predecessors] until we hit the problem (think satellite debris up in the sky).  We put our best brains together, created a risk management framework (Basel II), and now we ponder: maybe 20% capital adequacy is more resilient to the financial downturn.  We create a manmade economy and load our future generations with tons of debt.  OK, I quit.  Thank you Mother Earth for having me around.  I am moving to Planet Mars to start anew.

Categories
Linguistic My Hobbies

Our Spanish Teacher Turns to Music for Inspiration – En La Ciudad by Amparanoia

Amparanoia

This has got to be one of the most hilarious Spanish lessons Cynthia and I have attended.  Not because of the bizarre Spanish reggae music piece that the whole class has to listen to not once, not twice, but … I can’t recall how many times.  Rather because I felt so stupid not able to follow most of what our new Spanish teacher Natalia said.  “¡Conecto!  ¡Conecto!”, she kept saying.  I reckon she was asking me to connect the phrases on the exercise sheet given.  I kept repeating certain words that I could recognize like a toddler, and she kept coming down on me like I was a … toddler.  Yes, I could guess what I needed to do.  No, I had no clue what she was saying.  How come I was the only one in the class who was so fascinated by the strange vocabulary and have that unstoppable urge to repeat till the words get registered into my brain?!  OK.  Laughter is infectious.  Soon, the entire class was laughing.  I was in tears trying to keep quiet while listening to the song “En La Ciudad” the …

… umpteenth time.

Maybe somewhere in the world, right now, someone is learning English by listening to songs written and performed by Bob Dylan.  Political, social, philosophical, and literary lyrics can be an alternative source to learn a language in a fun way.  Like Bob Dylan’s lyrics, “En La Ciudad” is kind of just that.  It is – literal translation here – a song about illegal migrants making a living in a foreign city of noise and waste, mafia and black money, building a city like growing flower of cement, nothing is what it seems.  Pressure in day, passion at night (OK, we did laugh quite hard on that expression too).  There are temples of money and districts made of cardboard, looking at our roots and dream that one day will be better than today.

And it was first time when we learned Spanish idioms.  Like “sin papeles (without paper)” means illegal and without documents.  “Pagar en negro (pay in black)” means to pay in cash without tax.  At home, I did a search on the song by Amparanoia and she is in fact an accomplished Spanish artist whose music is built on reggae and rock and lyrics that offers social critiques.  In fact, I have managed to find the song in YouTube, for now.  Check this out.

And for those who are interested in the Spanish lyrics (I know at least one of you may), I am typing this out for you.

en la ciudad hay mucha tribu, mucho barrio, hay poco saldo, mucho banco, aves de paso que se quedarán.  en la ciudad todo se paga con tarjeta, aquí la gente es muy discreta, y por la calle no te van a mirar.  en la ciudad todo es prisa, atasco, coche ruido, consumo, oferta, derroche, busca el paraíso en tu ciudad.  flores de cemento vi crecer, nada es lo que te parece, día presión, noche pasión.

siempre amanece en la ciudad en la ciudad en la ciudad.

en la ciudad si no te paran te atropellan, sin papeles no vale la pena, nadie trabajo te va a dar.  y en negro te van a pagar.  la mafia se va a aprovechar.  y en negro te van a pagar.  la mafia se va a aprovechar.  ay soledad, no me dejes soledad, no te vayas soledad.  ay soledad, la soledad se apodera de la ciudad.  hay miedo, no hay sistema de seguridad, templos de dinero, y barrios de cartón, busca las raíces y sueña qué será mejor.

en la ciudad …

Categories
Blu-ray / DVD Review

Within Temptation & The Metropole Orchestra – Black Symphony – What A Feast!

Within Temptation - Black Symphony

What a feast, what a proud moment for the Dutch.  KERRANG! magazine wrote: This really is the greatest show on earth.  OK.  Greatest is relative.  “Black Symphony” by the Dutch band Within Temptation and the Dutch Metropole Orchestra is probably one of my top 5 most favorite concert recordings.  The greatest to me is Pink Floyd’s “Pulse” concert (1995) that I happened to be there when it was recorded in UK.

Performed live at The Ahoy in front of 10,000 fans backed by a 60-piece Metropole Orchestra and the Pa’dam Choir, this 22 tracks recording in HD format is perhaps one of the most ambitious project being made in modern time.  Although I have bought the 2 DVD + 2 CD edition, I wouldn’t mind owning the Blu-ray version.

The recording quality – both visual and audio – is awesome.  The sound is crisp clear, the cameras follow where the subtle actions are.  For weeks, I have been listening to the CD recording prior to watching the DVD and I did not jump off my chair.  Combined that with the visual recording, I felt awed by the professional work involved.  So much details that I wouldn’t have been able to catch if not for the video.

“Black Symphony” begins with an instrumental track showcasing the orchestra and the Gregorian chanting vocals by the  choir.  It is a great way to start the show because we get to register in our heads what the instrumental sound is like before the arrival of the heavy metal sound and the lead vocalist of the soprano and mezzo-soprano range.

All blend so perfectly, there is enough visual effects to accompany the acts including firework, smoke, and more.  Another of such similar setting I can think of is Metallica’s “S&M (1999)” that I also happen to own.  It is not easy to pull this one off as the instrumental arrangement needs to be re-crafted for the orchestra and the choir.  It must be a rare moment for the classical players to perform in front of 10,000 cheering crowd.  Towards the end of the 2 hours video, after the last track, the 34 years old Sharon den Adel thanked the audience and the guest musicians for being there at a high point of their 12 1/2 years of music career.  Such emotion, it must have been a proud moment for the the band and the fans.

After watching the DVD last evening, I turned to Cynthia and said, “I wish I have that kind of energy on stage!”  Below is a trailer for the recording.

External Link: Within Temptation Official Site

Categories
Movie Reviews Romance

He’s Just Not That Into You – My Buddy’s Just Not That Into The Signals Of The Opposite Sex

He's Just Not That Into You

My buddy whom I am not going to reveal here must have found the film rather confusing by the girls who dissect signals from a relationship in that kind of detail.  He fell asleep and snored (just a bit) halfway into the show.

Gosh!

Though I am from the male species, I do have my share of trusted moments when consulted by the opposite sex, analysing signals, giving my thoughts on why guys think or behave a certain way.  Girls love to analyse, guys love to theorize – just my observation.  OK.  Maybe “He’s Just Not That Into You” kind of over-dramatized the love relationships in just a bit, I thoroughly enjoy the dialogues and the storyline.

This more than 2 hours movie is loosely segmented into relationship topics such as why he’s not calling, what if she’s not sleeping with you, and etc.  And each topic has a hilarious opening act in form of an interview by an actor unrelated to the storyline.  A film with love stories of different forms and shapes intertwined with one another: a happily married couple with the husband tempted by a beautiful girl (*ahem* voted as the sexist girl alive by FHM in 2006 and I don’t blame the dude – who could resist?!), a girl’s relationship to a guy whom she doesn’t see her future with and involved with another one that shouldn’t have happened, a girl who finds relationships from within the online world, a happy couple who have been living together for 7 years and the girl suddenly wants to get married, and a girl who doesn’t seem to able to find love despite being very active in the dating scene.

There is hope – I think that is the theme of the film.

“He’s Just Not That Into You” has quite an impressive casting including famous actors and actresses such as Jennifer Connelly, Drew Barrymore, Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johnasson, and Justin Long as well as TV stars such as Ginnifer Goodwin of Big Love, Bradly Cooper of Alias, and Kevin Connolly of Entourage.  It is a talented cast with quality scripting.  The only reason I can imagine why this film has a lower than average rating is that if you think too deep on each topic, you may end up dissatisfied.  “He’s Just Not That Into You” doesn’t represent or generalize the guys and girls, the straights and the gays in our world.  It is just a collection of lighthearted stories to entertain.

I wonder which actresses are you favorite ones and why.  Here is my list (and Cynthia likes Jennifer Aniston the most).

  1. Ginnifer Goodwin – She is just adorable and I just love the drama.  I feel her story the most.
  2. Jennifer Connelly – I like the theme of able to deal with any issue in a relationship so long as the couple stays true to each other.
  3. Drew Barrymore – Her role is minor but she puts a smile to my face whenever she appears.  Best line: checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies.
Categories
Photography Travel Blog

Photos of Bandung North – De’Ranch, Maribaya, and Sapulidi (A Ranch, Waterfalls, and A Restaurant)

Cynthia and her mother underneath a tree at De'Ranch, Bandung North, Indonesia

As you may or may not know, the northern part of Bandung, Indonesia, is beautiful.  Approximately an hour’s drive away from Bandung – the Capital of West Java – it is a place of foliage and waterfalls, ranches for the animals, and restaurants against the backdrop of natural serenity.

I am not going to write too much here and let the photos and the lighthearted captions do the talking.

  • Click here to view the photo album with captions in high resolution

I had a lot of fun playing around with the photo processing and the Nik Software Color Efex Pro 3.0.  This Nikon software is developed with the professional photographers in mind and I love it.  There are quite a few photos that Cynthia and I both like a lot.  We hope you enjoy our album too and you may wish to visit Bandung North the next time you plan your holiday.

So, tell us, which are your favorite ones, if any?

PS. Photos taken on December 14, 2008.

Related Tag: Bandung December 2008 Trip