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月曜日, 5月 30, 2005

[Jolin cum Stephanie cum Elva cum Jennifer Love Hewitt]

Alright, was doing the clothes this afternoon for my Jolin cum Elva cum Jennifer Love Hewitt cum Stephanie. Initially, I was exasperated cos I was not getting anything right. Anyway after a few tries I finally got "something". Its still a far cry from my "ideal" standard but I could not go anymore.

Did some details on the hair,remove some stuff from the mouth, added folds to the shirt. I am always bad at drapery maybe due to a lack of patience.

I got people commenting that the hair is nice,the skin tone is nice,the eyes are nice...how abt that lucious pinkicious lips???? hehe. Actually, I am surprised I could have the patience to do stuff to this level. I was going thru my juniors' graduation website last night in the wee hours. Damm some of them were good! Those vector art!!! Those digital illustrations!! Now I got some vague idea on what to throw in for my portfolio.

DMD97 still RULEZ.

Here's the slightly updated pic :

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

elow at 11:59 午後 | (0) comments


土曜日, 5月 28, 2005

[1st digital painting incomplete]

After getting my $450 Wacom Intuos 3 6X8" tablet, I have been embarking on this. Anyway on Monday, I was told to fuck off from office and no need to serve what the fucking cheebye 1 week notice.

Oke temperaments aside, doing a digital painting on ahem Jolin Tsai kept me busy since monday. I did the entire pic on the tablet. Its still incomplete, hair,clothes,face,need quite a fair bit of details.It does not look like Jolin. Oh wait here's the pic :

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

1st try, head was too big but I think I got the challenging pose correct. The way she twisted her body. 2nd try, head too big as well. the resolution was too low for print on A4 size. With advice from a PS pro, I set the correct size for printing on A4,resulting in a 60MB Photoshop file which now is over 100MB due to the high res and multiple layers.

Its quite a shame that ever since learning Photoshop in poly, I never really tried out digital painting tho I was awe struck by some of the masterpieces I saw done by my talented classmates in poly. I did tried out but gave up due to impatience. Anyway, I never had a tablet and doing a potrait with a mouse is suicidal. BUT one of my ex-classmates did it. She did Ayumi, Queen Amidala and alot more visual kei rock artistes all by mouse.

Self comments on my painting : e boobs are too big. Mouth is weird tho I like my rendering of the lips. Eyes did more work, hair need more work. Clothes need MORE work.

So what are your comments ?

elow at 1:07 午前 | (0) comments


火曜日, 5月 24, 2005

[The fucking weather]

Went out ytd in the ultra humid n sickening warm sticky weather. I was perspiring non-stop due to the fucked up weather and the 150% humidity in the air. But I was like sweating cold sweat and I felt I might be falling sick.

Sure enough, after I got home in the evening my body was aching. During the night I developed a slight fever I think cos I rem feeling cold with the fan blowing.

How is the weather like now? sometimes its like this

1)morning - FUCKING HOT, I can feel the sun inching towards me. Its so hot that I can almost choke on the thickness of the humidity in the air

2)ard 1-2, the sky will be partially dark clouded. The heat will intense to ard 35 C. I could sweat as if I just ran 2.4KM with only a short walk.

3)evening time it will rain. Night time, the density of the humidity inside will be so intense I felt as if I am breathing in clouds.

There are other times when the above mentioned order wil go into random mode. Weather is topsy turvy. Hot,wet,cold,wet hot cold,hot hot wet cold wet....What the fuck is happening?! After I got my lunch this afternoon, my back was dripping with sweat. I felt as if I sprint up from the ground floor to my unit.

Anyway, after taking a panadol tablets today did not make me feel any better. I could feel my body heating up a moment, normal the next. As usual, I was on MC. Yes MC. hohoho MC, yeah MC,YAY MC, whoohooo MC.

There was an impulse for me to hit something, eg the wall, i wish i had a punching bag,something to vent off some "frustrations" inside me. Honestly I dunno why but I just felt this urge to purge some mind poison. I guess it mst be some remnants of yester years depresssion acting up again.

Sometimes alone at home, I have this habit of tokking to myself. Cos many a times, I just could not find anyone to tok to. I like Macs,Apple stuff. I got hardly anyone to share my thoughts with,except a few online friends. I like gadgets, most of my closed friends do not. Some of my friends are either too busy or simply MIA at times. I can have a billion and one thoughts going inside my head and I can find no one to tok to, except my dear old self.

I wonder if Im really nuts.

elow at 11:33 午後 | (0) comments


月曜日, 5月 23, 2005

[Star Wars Epi III]

One of the greatly anticipated movies for this yr, the concluding episode to the Star Wars saga. The MRT stations are broadcasting the trailers since dunno when.

The actions scenes are awesome. IT has some of the most spectacular battle scenes fighting scenes I ever seen. I did not really concentrate on the movie cos my right ear's acting up again. The random fade in fade out static noises inside my rght ear is VERY irritating. I dun really know what is wrong with my ears cos I went thru all kinda scans from brain to nose to throat to electomagnetic brain scans but nothing shows.

One thing abt the movie was that there was something very "odd" abt the dialogue. They sound almost excessively exaggerately ridiculously flat and dead and comic like. Did some...pri school kid write the dialogue? they sound awfully like it. I like how General Grevious is designed, esp its Wheelbike.

I felt like getting the Lego version of the chase scene haha which is being sold anyway at $49.90.
http://www.lego.com/starwars/products/episode3.asp?productid=7255

And Clone Turbo Tank which is going to cost like $200-300
http://www.lego.com/starwars/products/episode3.asp?productid=7261

elow at 12:07 午前 | (0) comments


月曜日, 5月 16, 2005

[A Day at my workplace/Soul Erosion]

I guess no one will be interested in how my workplace is like but more for documentation purposes.

Every morning I will wake up to the self composed techno tone of my mobile phone K700i. My phone will ring at 6.40am often jerking me up abruptly. Sometimes I will stir up abit earlier n continue to slp a little. Then I will proceed to the bathroom to washup,brush teeth. Then had breakfast,shit,bath,pick clothes,shave,style hair and set off to work.

Sometimes I will miss the earlier train and I will have to squeeze with the commuters. I realised there is a funny pattern in the way the trains arrive. There will be a 1 min intervals (trains less packed) and a 3-5 min intervals (when the trains will be very packed). I will alight at Doby Gaut, go down all the way to the NEL and then to Chinatown.

Normally I wil reach office at ard 8.45am. There was one period when I wil always go to the toilet to shit 1st. WHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA.

My accountant colleague will arrive shortly after I arrive. Then it will be my manager. There will be always 3 standard phrases which I will speak to my manager daily:

1) Ohayou gozaimasu.
2) Gohan wo tabe ni ikimasu. Used to be hiru gohan wo tabe ni ikimasu. Now is tabeni ikimasu.
3) Saki ni kaerimasu.

Since my manager dun like to tok to me, I guess my Jpn will not improve anyway if I were to speak these 3 phrases everyday. One of the reasons why I wanna quit.

I will need to wait for my lousy AMD PC to bootup which wil take ard 3 min. then I will need to look for relavant emails for me to do. I dreaded last min changes, last min bookings and emails which I do not understand.

Tick tock tick tock, 1.20-1.30pm = Lunch time. For lunch I will have 1) shrimp dumplings noodles, 2)mixed veg rice,3) recently HOKKIEN MEE~!!!! Little snack after lunch will be mostly a big fat curry puff. Since now I lunch alone, often I will have some spare time. So what will I go to use this spare time? Eat loh!!!

For the shrimp dumplings noodles which tasted damm good, I will buy $3 as I will be adding noodles. For mixed veg rice, sometimes the amt is too little and e result will be me buying the fat curry puff. Anyway it all depends if I feel full or not after the main lunch.

If i buy currypuff, I will walk to Chinatown Pt and stand at one quiet corner to eat my big fat delicious curry puff. I wil make sure I have 15 min before lunch time's over to wash up.

After eating, if there's some time left, I wll rest at the life area with some ledges for abt 10 min before making my way to the toilet at my office area to wash face.

The rest is eroding my time,morale in my office until 6.00pm. then its YAY!!! TIME TO GO HOME LIAO. Since young, I always feel elated whenever its time to go home from school or from tuition. I always feel there's a certain attraction for me to just go home. That's why I do not like to go out often which my gf sometimes said im a boring guy.

To me, I only go out to buy things I need, or when I feel like going out to shop.

I feel so eroded. I can almost feel and see myself being eroded and devoured slowly inches by inches by work. My time does not belong to me. Its being bought by $1500 a month by my company. Time sometimes passes by so fast that I feel I cant even have the slighest grasp of what is happening.

Everyday is like what is described above. the only thing I am looking forward is weekends where these 2 days are the only days where I feel like myself. Not someone to be fed into a system to be devoured soul and body for working for the sake of working. It is like losing urself, losing urself for 5 days a week, then only 2 precious days when ur soul will be returned to ur battled body, often so tired and drained out, weekends are better spent at home sleeping n idling.

I REALLY cannot comprehend people who can work like a machine without leaves,MCs offs for a few years. How can such a feat be achievable? Its almost inhumanly possible.

The only thing which kept me going for these 6 months is my Mac and the amt I need to pay back my loan from my mum for my Mac. Now that by next month I will be clearing my "debt". What is/are next to keep me going again? PS3? PSP? D70s? Apple Cinema Display 20" ?

Perhaps I am not in my right element. Perhaps I am just too tired. Perhaps I need a good detachment from work to find my element. Perhaps my element is not in this world.

elow at 11:21 午後 | (0) comments


土曜日, 5月 14, 2005

[Food/Time/Memories/Quitting]

Side note : I tendered my resignation!!! Im outta job again on 31st May, same like last yr!!! YAY!!! Apparently I decided to call it quits than to see my manager's tulan face every morning.




Does some food bring back memories? It does for me. I just thought of the nice hawker food I used to have so frequently when I was staying in AMK Ave 10. (Anyone live/lived there?, I stayed in Blk 471 hehehe) There is a food center and wet market juz oppsite my home then.

Back in sec school days on my way home, I will always buy wanton,chicken feet,braised spare ribs noodles, mixed veg rice or chicken rice for lunch. I really missed those days when I would take bus 853 or 133 from my school back home. There's this economic mixed veg store. The food displayed is a far cry from the spot-light lited,heater warmed dishes u see in food courts.

The food served are served in big round dented alumnium containers. Often on Sat before making my way down to my late grandma's house, I will frequent this store. I especially LOVED the balachan fried kangkong, the balachan stir fried lady fingers, the omelette, the dark soy sauced hard bean curd diced into little cubes, the ever crispy chicken wings, the brinjals...slurp.

Then also this ultra delicious chicken rice store at one of the coffee shops near the bus-stop. The self made chilli is SOOOOOOO good, u can literally drink it as soup.Nowadays chicken rice stalls who make their own chicken rice chilli is getting rare. Alot of those "chicken rice" stalls buy factory made "chicken rice chilli" which is basically grinded chilli 10%, garlic 15%. vinegar 70% and what-have-you. Its watery and simply taste awful. At the same coffeeshop there, there's another store which sell the wanton noodles,chicken feet noodles,spare ribs noodles..this is also one stall I frequented.

There's another zhi char stall which sells fish head steamboat and its famouse stirred fried hor fun. The fried hor fun will have lotsa of bean sprouts, eggs,prawns and slices of pork. Nowadays zhi char stalls are getting lazier,they will pre stirred fry a whole wok of hor fun and dumped them into a container which is supposedly to keep them warm. Do they know that the piping hot hor fun will generate tons of steam which wil turn into water and then be absorbed into the hor fun itself? This will make the hor fun to be bloated,soggy and reeked of some odd plastic.

I really missed the good old days..no wonder they are called GOOD OLD DAYS. Now I can only relinquish them in my memories.

I WANT TO EAT THOSE NICE FOOD AS MENTIONED!!!!! THink I wil be going back to AMK Ave 10 with my mum sometime soon. hehehehehe

elow at 1:33 午前 | (0) comments


月曜日, 5月 09, 2005

[time juz flies...]

Its quite sickening to think,how time just flies past us without us noticing it. In my current company, I started work on the 1st of Dec. Look now!!! Its May!!! 5 months just gone like that. What have I done during these 5 months? Have I done anything constructive?

Since I got a PowerMac, I have been working on a Freehand project. A P.Mac simply for surfing net and writing blogs is under ultilising it seriously and not being fair to the $$$$$$$ I spent on it. Also, I do not wish to lose touch on the stuff I always like. Drawing n designing. Now I got Photoshop CS, I wil embark on digital painting and art. Something which I always wanna do since poly days (gasp...1997-2000 O_O) For 3D, I wanna do something too.

Somehow or rather,after working in a company which deals with Jpn, I realise that dealing with Jpn is not something easy to do. A good example is my manager. Being friends/accuqaintances with Jpn is fine but working with them esp with one who is ur superior is clearly another whole new matter. Ever since working here, there is a "calling" for me to jump back in the design industry where I was specifically trained in, tho I more or less the situation is no better.

But I have alot of rebuilding my portfolio to be done. How much I do not know..but I guess most local companies will wanna see digital works than to see nothing but drawings. So, alot of digital works need to be done. A designer Mac friend told me, if I seriously wanna go digital painting n stuff, a tablet is a MUST-have. But then a Graphire tablet is not cheap, a normal 4X6 inch will easily cost me $450. The drawing area (4X6") is not tat bad but e whole tablet will take up quite some space on my already very cramped computer table. Mayb I shld try out with a mouse first.

I realise most of us (working adults) spend most of our precious time working. Working for that XXX amt of pay monthly. Sometimes some of us have to work or shld I say slave for more than 10 hrs per day. Working like that is no crime but its a by-product of sin. Working life is definitely NOT easy.

I believe time should spent more at home with our family than anywhere else. I am a firm believer that Sundays are NOT for working. And I will say a definite no to any request for me to work on Sundays. My manager has asked me if I were able to standby on weekends for some grp of tourist. One is to standby at the restaurant where they will be dining.

Standby? FOR WHAT FUCK?! Do I need to go into the kitchen to see how they prepare the food? Do I need to make sure evey table n chair does not loose screws and the cushion on them is thick enough for their precious butts? My God, its a restaurant! They prob serve more Jpn guests than we have! IMO, I think the most important thing is to make sure that their dinner or lunch is confirmed. Leave the rest to them. There is no need to walk into the rest. to see how the tables,chairs,chopsticks,spoons,glasses,drinks are arranged.

Then another thing was he asked me to standby at the airport for the guests' departure. Do I need to buy a 1000 feet red velvet carpet for them to walk on? There's a guide to bring them to the airport!!! Why do I need to shove my butt onto something which is beyond my jobscope? Before all these, mr manager has told me this is something abt "care" for the tourist. I SAY THIS IS FUCKING WASTE OF TIME.

Things are more clear now, I am ready to leave any minute. I rather spend time at home doing my portfolio then to standby like a fucking moron wearing a tie and perspiring at a restaurant or airport.

elow at 12:36 午前 | (0) comments


水曜日, 5月 04, 2005

[What do these kids know?]

Our beloved ex President Doctor Wee Kim Wee has passed away. This is not some new news. There is almost a everyday report on this ex President and his life when he was a President. My image of him was pretty scattered, all I cld ever remember was that he was the President when I was stil in Pri school.

On the news, what can u see? U will see people from all walks of life singing the utmost praises for Dr Wee. Oh he is very kind hearted...etc etc. I am not surprised if people of a certain age actually said all these since they probably were ard during his stay as the President. To me the phrase, "The People's President" is so conjured up. It almost sound like a marketing theme or some copy writer's work.

BUT WTF will some primary/secondary school kids said the same thing? " Oh he is a very kind president, very helpful and warm hearted" When Dr Wee was the President, they were NOT even borned!!! Singing praises for the sake of singing praises is appauling, tho there was nv any malicious intentions. I am 25 this yr and I could hardly remember Dr Wee as the President, except I knew he WAS the President when I was still in Pri school, and that was like 1987??

Now u have these kids saying something as if they know Dr Wee very well? As if they WERE ard in the 80s? This is plain stupid. What do they know? Becos the recent reports said so? These kids probably know Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai better than they know anything abt the late Dr Wee. I bet they only knew he WAS once the President from the news' coverage on his demise.

Today I went back to office dreaded. I was not looking forward to anything except endless emails and endless shit n endless sarcasm.

The first thing my manager asked me was to go down to Meritus Mandarin to check the preparation of a meeting room for some guests. So I did and returned to office at 10+ After lunch, I went to 4 other hotels. 4!!!! in the fcuking hot n humid weather...walking ard outside is not some enjoyable thing when people like me perspire easily. Its jz fucking hot and humid, there was hardly any breeze.

The air is so thick with moisture I could choke. I will describe it as gaseous mucuous. I could hardly breathe. And according to my trusty widget weather forecast. Tml weather will be 34Celsius, Thurs 34Celsius, Fri34Celsius, Sat,Sun and Mon all 35Celsius.

elow at 11:16 午後 | (0) comments


火曜日, 5月 03, 2005

[Joy of working?]

When God created man, man was perfect. Man do not need to work n toil for survival. But after eating the forbidden fruit, man's eyes were "opened". Under God's wrath, man has to work and woman has to bear labour pains.

No, this is no Bible lessons.

I am seriously wondering how many people out there enjoy their work as if its the hobby or as if it were something "enjoyable" like sex and food?

Who enjoy seeing ur bosses' discontented face and hearing words laced with shrapnels of sarcasm indicating ur own incompetence? Who will enjoy cockups due to someone's careless mistake or incompetence? Who like to work at all?? I guess in the common's man case, they have to work for that hard-earned issue of allowances at the end of the month.

I am sure there are rare cases where these lucly people really find the joy of working. Particularly these people manage to find a job which they like. But then, a hobby/interest is still a hobby/interest. When hobby/interest becomes work, it can become rather tainted. When it is stil a hobby, u can take ur time to do, do anything u like. Like designing or 3D modeling. U can do anything u like. there is FREEDOM, that's why u can enjoy whatever u like to do!

When hobbies and interests become work, u have to succumb to the beck and call of the person who is paying u - ur bosses, ur clients etc etc. Honestly, dealing with such people is nv an easy or enjoyable thing. Which designer really like to do something which does not really adhere to his/own likes or taste? Which executive like to listen to his/her manager orders or do some shit work which the managers themselves do not like to do? Who like to face a bloody screen and click n click n type? Who like to waste their own time slogging for the company?

Where is the joy of working, if it ever existed?

Rantings aside.

This morning for some unknown reason or rather, i took leave. Its not that I wanted to do but I just did. Eventually, to.."relieve" myself, I went down to simlim to get myself something. I got a new pair of earphones..I know abt the excellent reviews, on how good it sound but the price has been putting me off. Leaving my precious ipod at home is like giving a cat 1000 dollars/ old antique coins. In Japanese, it is neko ni koban "猫に小判”. It is a waste. I got myself one excellent headphone Grado SR-60 last April. Its great sound and everything.

But since its not isolating, it cant be used outdoors. It is open-aired which mean when u are outside, the outside noise will intefer with ur music and ur music will leak out to the public. Im sure everyone of us has a fair share of the person next to u blasting his earphones for all to hear.

Wat I got this afternoon was Shure E2c, a in ear canal isolating earphones. Its a ear plug type of earphones where u need to insert the phones into ur ear canel for sound isolation. Its an odd shape and I look as if I am a hearing impaired person when I wear it. ahhahahaha. Indeed, the way u insert the earphones need some getting used to but once correctly inserted, the sound is excellent!!! The depth,details and whatever emotion will be revealed like a tidal wave of pure digital sound.

My ipod nv sound better! hehehe...

+++Edited+++

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that while in simlim this afternoon, i went to SGL marketing to take a look at the external HDD or rather juz the casing. I was quoted $280 for a Icecube casing and a 160 Seagate HDD. Looks like quite a good deal. I think I should be getting it next month. While I was idling there, came in one 50+ or 60+ ah pek carring a sling bag. He came in asking abt getting ram for powerbook, I got a shock! He got a powerbook in his bag!! WTF!!! This ah pek who looked like almost a jobless old man has a POWERBOOK!!!

After the lady boss slotted in some new ram, he began to test it. As usual busybody, I began to take a look, KAOZ, he is quite a pro oke! He got Photoshop,Dreamweaver and tons of photographs. Turned out he is a art teacher in Meridien JC!!!!! O.O He is also in charge of the photography club!!!! 'o' No wonder there's a saying, nv judge a book by its cover. The lady boss was kind enough to let him install Tiger for free!! (so it seems) Anyway I walked away to get my Shure just in case anything happened during his installtion. I did help him a little tho. WHHAHAHAHAHAHA.



Tml is hell day. I cant imagine the amt of emails those Jpn have sent. Hi to my manager tulan face, hi to his tulan tone.

elow at 8:35 午後 | (0) comments


日曜日, 5月 01, 2005

[Tiger/Dashboard/Widgets]

Tiger is finally here!!! After a long wait, Apple finally delivered its latest operating system, OS X 10.4.0 Tiger. Thanks to a fellow mac user, I managed to get it at a edu price.

The day came when my friend got her 3 Tigers from the delivery man. Soon after we met at Admiralty MRT Station to go to another Mac user's home to "mass" intall and to try out Tiger. He installed it into his 12" ibook and it took like less than an hour before we see the Tiger roaring. Everything worked fine from Dashboard to almost anything else. He did a fresh install which is basically to erase the previous installation and did everything again.

The lady mac user (who ordered the Tigers) did an Archive n Install, which is mainly to preserve the old settings in the previous OS X Panther, but I nv did really see it as soon after she started installing, it was getting quite late and my stomach was not feeling well. It got worse on my way home and I "exploded" inside my toilet once I reached the toilet bowl. WHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I did my installation last evening. Everything seems to be working fine. My old prgms are still intact (thanx to Archive n Install. All seem to be working except one Utility prgm called Onyx which is mainly used to run optimization and maintenance. And finally I got my hands on Photoshop CS.

I wonder if anyone has seen the clarity High Definition TV can deliver? I think anyone who has seen a demo will have his eyes popped out. The clarity and detail is mind blowing. If anyone manages to get Quick Time 7 which is standard on Tiger, try this http://www.apple.com/quicktime/hdgallery/batmanbegins.html or any of the Quick Time High Definition Gallery.

Work is...well work...problems do crop up whether unintentionally or not. Thing is whether u noe how to get pass the emotion hurdle and continue.

New Jpn sensei taught my class ytd! Well not a chiobu sensei but its a guy who sat thru our class the week before last. He taught in all Jpn but understanding my class overall standard, he did speak in a slower pace and each pronouciation is almost like a CD. haha. The new words taught were explained in simple Japanese. He gave examples of cos to further illustrate.

elow at 5:08 午後 | (0) comments


[Me]
Johann Low,Male.

[I Love]
God, church of our saviour, food,animation,photography,games, Jpn culture, pretty gals, high-tech gadgets, comics, Gundam models, layered hair, plucked eyebrows, mascara, blusher, Mika Nakashima,Ayumi Hamasaki, Namie Amuro, Sun Yanzi, Jay Chou, David Tao, Faye Wong, F.I.R, Flowerpod, Yoon Eun Hye,Fiona Xie, Lin Zhi Ling, Yoon Eun Hye

[I Abhore]
hypocrisy, injustice, shallowness, materialism, lies. [Past Entries]
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