YongKang’s Blog - Beta! › everything, experienced.

little bits: thursday august 23

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Thought-dumping post, no links.

All the “little bits” posts had “July” in their titles. I wonder why. I’ve fixed them though.
School has been a crazy fun exciting sort of hectic, since I didn’t clear my modules last block I was effectively taking 4 subjects up till yesterday, when I cleared P1. I’m submitting Packaging today, so that should be done too.
I’m doing a sort of experimental light-trail thing for my Landscape/Citiscape photography, more on that soon, will be shooting some test images tonight.
My P1 has received a number of positive feedback and remarks. Makes me feel good.
Been hanging out with some P1 people, we’re all domineering, have strong opinions/thoughts, are blunt/straightforward and get along pretty well.
The above people are considering doing Sage. More on that, if they ever get down to anything.
They’re cutting the power to my block for a few hours, to do some electrical work, at 2pm, so I’ve got an hour to finish my work.
I don’t like creamy peanut butter. Gimme the chunks any day.

Filed in logs/observations | Comments (0)

little bits: monday august 20

Monday, August 20, 2007

More like a linkdump this time round.
A case of how clutter can actually be good.

On a tour of one of his supermarkets, Kishore Biyani notes that shopping carts are getting stuck in the narrow aisles, wheat and lentils have spilled onto the floor, black spots cover the onions and it’s difficult to hear above the constant in-store announcements. He grins and congratulates the store manager.

It’s simply brilliant business sense. If you read the full article, he uses modern technology and methods for his back-end stuff, and his other ventures don’t have the same clutter. Genius, this Biyani.

Gates in China

Gates argued at the time that while it was terrible that people in China pirated so much software, if they were going to pirate anybody’s software he’d certainly prefer it be Microsoft’s.

Indeed, in China’s back alleys, Linux often costs more than Windows because it requires more disks. And Microsoft’s own prices have dropped so low it now sells a $3 package of Windows and Office to students.

When asked how he squares the company’s “alignment” in China with its leaders’ suppression of free speech on the Internet and what many consider to be their general disregard for human rights: “I don’t think I want to give an answer to that.”

A case of Double Standards?

Too Much of a Good Thing

Lauren Tyner was only 15 when, with her parents’ help, she decided to have breast reduction surgery. She played soccer, she rode horses, she was a natural leader – despite the disability of having a bra size of 36-HH.

Is it just me, or is that HUGE. I would love to have seen her, just to get an idea of that a HH is. (Not naked, mind you. Clothes would suffice.)

And I never knew there were boob reduction jobs. Interesting.

Filed in logs/observations | Comments (1)

little bits: friday august 17

Friday, August 17, 2007

First attempt at this “little bits” post-type of thing.

Bebel Gilberto is having a concert in singapore. Pricey though. Doubt I’m going, unless money drops from the sky.

I’m thinking of going for the Oktoberfest dinner thing, this years’ has more dates, seems like the turnout was good last year.

I don’t like the way this theme styles certain objects, like <H4>s and there’s no italics! The <em> displays bold, I think. And it doesn’t play well with the YAPB photoblogging plugin. And I want some custom tags, like a giant quote kind of style, some nice <div> callout displays, and stuff.

I’m going to cut down on my perfectionism, which will in turn lead to greater output and less procrastination.

Roller-coaster ride of events. We never live in the present. It has just happened. 0.01 seconds ago was the present. Somehow everybody lives in the past. (remind me to write more about this next time)

The baybeats photo post layout was rather bad. Need to find another way of putting up such stuff.

Way too much work, way too little time, at least I’m sort of getting into the flow of things again.

Filed in logs/observations | Comments (0)

This very cool xbox 360 game…

Friday, August 17, 2007

I think it’s called DIRT, and the interface just blows you away..

Filed in Design/Advertising, Asides | Comments (0)

The Baybeats 2007 Photos (Set)

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

I didn’t really shoot a lot, as it wasn’t my primary purpose for being there (the great music was, of course) and I was only there on Fri, but here’s my Baybeats set.

Click on the thumbs, it opens up the lightbox gallery.

I should probably CC-license these, but for now, anyone can use them for anything, alright? Feel free to contact me for larger images.

And I can’t stand the small Wordpress thumbnails. How the hell do you make them bigger?

overwhelmed

Sunday, August 12, 2007

am snowed under with too many idle, inertia-collecting projects.
am feeling misunderstood, and with nobody who truly knows me.
am feeling fuzzy over the reaction the Kjwan photo got.
want to post more Baybeats photos but can’t get around to finishing my editing/sorting.
have some ideas for the design/direction of this blog, starting with organizing my categories and getting to work on a design.
am a little upset that 2 of my drafts got published by my own mistake

Filed in self | Comments (1)

Harry’s, Home Club

Friday, August 10, 2007

Last Friday’s, post Baybeats chills.

Expensive Tiger at Harry’s

Had the most expensive Tiger Beer I’ve ever drank at Harry’s. $30 for a pitcher of draft Tiger, which tasted kinda off as well. Oh well. Should have gotten the Erdinger for a couple of dollars more. This guy at the table next to us had a flaming sambuca or something. Pretty funny to see him drink it like some rite of manhood, witnessed his two male companions.

We wanted to drink at DXO but there was like a waiting list for the tables. Apparently a tower (3litres) is only $20?

Me: Why not we go supermarket buy beer, since we so budget.. Nothing beats NTUC!

Jia Cheng: DXO is CHEAPER than NTUC…$20 only…(goes on to elaborate about the cheap towers)

Xu Le: You’re wrong la! IT IS NTUC!

[background: NTUC=National Trade Union Congress, the largest workers’ union in Singapore. They have a chain of supermarkets (NTUC Fairprice), and they also own the DXO Club.

Home Club

I almost almost went inside the club. The guys didn’t want to pay cover, and nobody wanted to wait 1.5hrs till there was no cover charge (3am, music plays till 6am). I already knew lot of Temasek Design people hang out there, but only saw it for myself that night.

I think I saw Ally, Mark, Germaine was definitely there, that ex-KC ADM girl, and one or two others whose names I don’t know. Nicole was there too.

We hung out at the riverside for a while, then went off. Bought a $3 bottle of Stella Artois from cheers, promo.

Filed in Food, logs/observations | Comments (3)

Baybeats 2007 - Reunion, 6 loves and 7 hates.

Monday, August 6, 2007

UPDATE: the full photo set is now up! All you people who got here from Kjwan, do check out the rest of the photos.

Baybeats is Chinese New Year for the Indie Kids

Xu Le once suggested the above theory. Just like Chinese New Year, you meet people that you:

aren’t that interested in seeing
meet only once a year (generally)
have not much in common other than the event (CNY, Baybeats)
know only his/her name and what band he/she plays in/used to play in (in the case of CNY, what occupation the person is in)
say hi and bye just as quickly

I used to observe this, but it really hit me at this year’s Baybeats. I was there at about 6+ on Fri, and just walking down the promenade, I said hi to at least 5-7 people, with each interaction lasting less than 10s on average.

Things I Liked This Year

A suprisingly good band from the Philippines. I can’t remember the band’s name, and the lineup is obviously wrong, it lists some American band for their slot. The lead singer was a little pop-star-ish, and their stuff is very radio-friendly, but boy were they good. Not to mention, they looked good (as a band).

They sounded like an American hard rock band. (i.e. Creed, or a heavier Matchbox Twenty), with post-rock and some prog-metal instrumental parts thrown in. Great tonal concept by the guitarists as well, the solo cut straight through the mix. (compare with the local bands, where the guitarist soloing doesn’t even step forward, and the vocalist is dancing like some idiot, and you can’t hear half the notes of the solo)

EDIT: The band and some others have commented on this, the band’s name is KJWAN, pronounced kwan. Their MySpace has some of their brilliant music. Thanks again, for bringing the freshest experience I’

First attempt at this “little bits” post-type of thing.

Links:

Expensive Tiger at Harry’s

Home Club

UPDATE: the full photo set is now up! All you people who got here from Kjwan, do check out the rest of the photos.

Things I Liked This Year