16 more bags

Out of 50 of Tesco Finest Earl Grey teabags, I have 16 more to go to.

Have to endure this one, for I don't want to waste it. If you'd like to help me out, I'm glad to share with you some of the 16 bags. Come around my office for a cuppa.

I'm switching to Twinings' next. Much better aroma and taste than Tesco's. If you have Dilmah's Earl Grey, can I buy one teabag from you for a sample?

There are mixed reviews for Tesco's Finest Earl Grey. Compare the two links I'm providing here:

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/drinks/tesco-finest-earl-grey-tea/

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews9766.html

Me, I'm not buying Tesco's anymore.

Oh, darn it. I have a few more of Tesco's at home, too. Come around this weekend, we'll have a chat over a cup of Earl Grey. Bring your own biscuits.

:)

photography contest

I wonder if there would be any entries for a photography contest, if I were to hold one.

The subject is 'police officers in Malaysia wearing seatbelt in patrol cars'.

So far (at least in JB) it's hard to find one.

Sunscreen song

Heard this song this morning on the radio. Been more than 10 years since I last hear it. Some are good advice, the rest, up to you to judge.

It’s actually a newspaper article eventually turned into a song.

Original article (now lyrics) by Mary Schmich of Chicago Tribune.

The quite interesting history of the ‘song’ is here:

• http://www.bondon.com/sunscreen_song.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_Sunscreen

=====================

Lyrics:

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

Adam

A budding photographer.

Naza always find lots of photos taken by Adam whenever she 'lost' her camera for a few hours left lying around in the house. Sometimes with no more space for other photos. Most of the time, with exhausted batteries.



self-portrait, 2009




It is good to support his keen interest. Perhaps it's a good idea to buy him a Nikon D90 now.


While he learns to compose good photos, I could use the DSLR for other stuff.


Yeah, a good idea indeed.

Have I mentioned before that's he's a bit of a joker, too?

You would've guessed, anyway.

neglected stereo

These past few days I suddenly had the urge of listening back to Counting Crows. Can't really say my favourite band, but I do like their songs. Out of their eight albums, I only have two.

1. Their first album August and Everything After (1993).
2. Across A Wire: Live From New York (1998) - bought because it's a value package - 2 CDs for about RM40.

Okay, and also a few CD singles, mainly from their second album Recovering The Satellites (1996).

After dinner just now, I decided to have an hour round of cycling around Seri Alam, for it has been more than a week without cycling. That decision was overthrown by the sudden thought of listening to CC on the stereo at home.

Popped in the August CD into the DVD player. What awful audio coming out of my floorstanding speakers! I made a quick check, and found the source of that poor audio quality. The left speaker's tweeter unit is not working. No treble coming out of it. Hence, the song doesn't come out right, losing it's balance on the high freq audio output.

Well, to think of it, my poor stereo system (we call them 'separates' in the UK, short of Hi Fi Separates) is neglected since a few years ago. Not really being looked at, a far cry from my student days - the time when I acquired the set. Used to check for dust and corrosion monthly (or weekly, depending on my mood). The funny thing was, the separates hype for me sort of ended some time after I came to Johor and started working here. A classic case of lack of environment filled with enthusiasts, diminishing the flame. Seems that I'm alone in the separates world over here.

It was very different while I was in Manchester (and it seems at that time, among friends across Britain). My peers are proud owners of separates. Wealthy people (like Shell and Petronas scholars) own high end systems, while those with not so deep pockets like me own entry to mid level systems. But yes, most of us would have our own separates. So a house with 3 or four students would have 3 or 4 different sets of separates.

Wherever we go and whenever we chat, there would always be an exchange of separates component models being discussed. Usually a blend of long alphanumeric codes decipherable only to the avid students of What Hi Fi (okay, other Hi Fi mags too) and Hi Fi store frequenters. Yeah, I can still remember a few: SL-PG 580A, CD-63SE MkIII KI Signature (that's a Marantz sweet CD Player - drool...), 733i, AE109, Alpha 7, Coda7, Talk4.1.

Back to my problem with the stereo. I have another pair of speakers, bookshelf type that I have not used since my days in KL with Technip. Took them down from the shelf, dusted a bit and propped on top of the floorstanders. Plugged the speaker cable leads into the speaker lugs. Hey presto, Adam Duritz and his band's music plays oh so beatifully coming out from the small speakers.

Time for a repair, that decade-old Mission 733i speaker of mine. I wonder how much it would cost me.

---------------

Here's my current setup for the home theater/stereo separates system:

• Amplifier: Kenwood KR-V6080 Audio-Video Surround Receiver. Basically a 60 Watt Dolby Surround amplifier that functions as a radio tuner.
• Video Source 1: Pioneer DV-366 DVD Player. Plays DVD, VCD, CD, CDR. Has dimmer function for the dot-matrix display (for ultra better sound quality when playing CDs - no apparent distortion or noise of electrical signal from the electronics. Kononnya).
• Video Source 2: Astro decoder set top. Well, for watching Astro.
• Display: Samsung LA32A450 32" Series 4 LCD Display. Okay, its an LCD TV. Sheeshh...
• Speakers: Mission 733i Primavera floorstanders, Mission 731i black ash bookshelves, Acoustic Energy AE107C center speaker.
• Cables - interconnect: Cambridge Audio Pacific (Yellow) for DVD Player, QED Qnect2 for Astro decoder.
• Cables - speakers: Cable Talk Talk 4.1 Bi-Wire (fronts), QED Qudos Silver Micro (rears), QED Qudos Bi-Wire (center).

The intention initially was to have it set up as surround home theater. With Naza always changing the layout of furniture in the house (used to, but not anymore now), it would be a problem to set up the rear speakers in the living room. Anyway, I have only a Dolby Surround amp. The rear speakers would only give mono quality audio output. Nowadays the minimal norm would be Dolby Digital 5.1 which would give independent audio for each speakers for that realism. The center speaker's tweeter dome was poked by Marsya when she was smaller and experimenting his hand-eye co-ordination skills. With that collectively, I settled for only stereo setup for video and audio.

---------------

Choosing other old CDs to play, I picked up Gary Moore's Ballads & Blues CD. And, found inside the jewel case the SRAM and Rock Shox small stickers that I've been looking for all these while. Woohoo!

...yeap, there's always something related with cycling, my world nowadays.

who's your favourite painter?

I like Vincent Van Gogh's paintings, although not all of them.

Why?

Because his brushstroke is unique. I'm no art buff, but I know what I like when I'm looking at it.

My favourite of his all must be 'Irises'. There's a mystery to the single white one, amongst the other 'normals'. The overall colour blend is nice - blue/indigo and green, the accompaniment of oranges on the top left corner, dashes of yellow, and earth on the bottom left corner.

On the subject of art, my kind of art is more towards geometric and definite. No wonder why among my past ambitions was to be an architect. Well, I guess a mechanical engineer suits me too. Once in a while I get to draw, those geometric and definite lines with Autocad. If I really have the time, I'd go old school: pen, paper, ruler, stencils and geometric stationeries.

I remember during art classes through my school years , I'm more keen towards letterings/typesets, logos, posters and such. I guess that's why I'm into XS - because of the definiteness, while offering a work of art when it's finished.

Some time ago I attempted to convert Irises into XS sheet so that I can make it a major project. However, it turned out to be quite massive and requires many, many different colours. Well, having the painting as my office PC desktop wallpaper is okay too.