My Rants

...... when we are alone and there is nobody to tell us what fine fellows we are, we come sometimes upon a moment in which we wonder, not how much money we are earning, nor how famous we have become, but what good we are doing."

A.A. Milne

YouTube has just approved my Director status....

What does it really mean?

Absolutely no idea....

But I like the idea of being called ...

..DI-REC-TOOR...

I only read about this from AnakBrunei's and Ranoadidas' blogs this morning and it looks like Richard, the guy who was charged with murdering a couple and their little girl has been acquitted. Now Richard is someone who is within our family's circle of friends, and while I do not know him personally, my parents and my uncles do and work with him as well. He's lost 2 years of his life in jail for what the court has decided a crime he did not commit. While we may never know if he did do it as it seemed like the acquittal was based more on the technicality and shortcomings of the investigation process rather than outright evidence to show that he was indeed innocent, only the Man upstairs will know for sure. Whatever it is, I for one, and I am sure my parents and uncles wish him and his family well and that they can now move on from this episode.

So is the case closed then? I don't think so. There are more questions now than answers and some of them to say the least I think is highly politically sensitive. During the course of the case, it was evident from expert testimonials and many a part time CSI-Miami-New York die-hard fans that someone did not do a decent job of investigating the case. The three victims of this heinous and terrible crime have been let down by individual incompetence that has led to either of these 3 scenarios:

1) The acquittal of a guilty man,
2) A 2 year punishment dished out to an innocent party who just happen to be someone they thought would be easy to pin this crime on,
3) The wasted 2 years of investigation that I am sure the REAL guilty devils would be joyfully laughing and smiling everytime he/she/they see the case takes a twist to nail Richard while he/she/they are sitting comfortably and free in their homes.

In either case, let us not forget the victims. While I certainly hope they are now in a better place and whatever has since transpired, I feel that the families of the victims have been let down by at the very least a degree of incompetence that have failed to bring justice for them and the gallows for the true murderer(s).

I have had a LONG LONG LOOOOOOONG week. Work has been extra draining this week. Sleep deprivation, commuting and having to stand for 7 hours for 2 days talking and talking and talking is EXTREMELY tiring. It was fun, but by Wednesday, I was in LaDeeDa land, singing ZZZZZZZZs in my office but doing it ever so quietly....(In case my boss reads this, No, I did not sleep in my office, but I may as well be cos I was probably operating at 5% of my usual capacity). It's now the weekend but not really a weekend for me yet cos I still have ONE more day, yes ONE MORE DAY of my part time job and I can have my well deserved 2 day weekend for the first time in 3 months! Tomorrow is still going to be a full day of running around, making things happen and getting things done.

Yesterday evening we dropped by at Icklebooks to discuss the proposed plan to shoot a viral ad for them. We had several ideas on how to make the ad work and after a brief discussion, settled on one simple yet interesting idea. We are currently using that mushy-squishy piece of equipment between our ears to work out how we can make the ad work. Suffice to say, our heads are snapping, crackling and popping sunrise to sundown. We've potentially identified some 'actors/actresses who aren't camera shy and who are also not adverse to being popularised through YouTube to the Bruneian community. We'll see how it goes on this one as the weeks progress, as the Icklebook mice is scurrying and scampering around in order to get the shop launched this weekend. The plan is to launch the ad probably sometime early next month before Christmas. I hope to make this project completed successfully, otherwise I will come back in December to disavow and delete all knowledge and evidence of this project from my blog, Mission Impossible style....

I must say though, that this is quite exciting. This is definitely an opportunity to learn even more about videography and Advertising on this project since this is completely NEW territory for me and co.! FUN FUN FUN!

History will record this day as the day
the next generation of gaming began


The Playstation 3
.. ..welcome to the beginning of a new era in gaming....

...model comes as an optional add-on...
*eye-candy*

How can you not laugh at this???

I had an interesting email from a local Bruneian Band a couple of days ago. They were interested in my MVs and wondered if I would be interested to shoot an MV for them. This obviously has peaked my interest, as this would be a real opportunity to put into practice the skills I've learned so far. However as I alluded to the band member who contacted me, my genre of music is a little different from theirs (heavy metal). If you've seen my MVs, you'll know I'm into the kinds of music that usually people listen to when they meditate or when they want to fall asleep! This divergence between the music genres may cause a problem but it may also be a positive as I might be able to bring something different to that genre of music, MV wise. Currently I am thinking about the proposal and waiting for the band to get back to me. So D, if you read this, just let me know. And in case you're wondering, yes, yes, that IS me holding the flowers... I look absolutely Faaaaabulous, don't you agree?

Please oh please oh please let the weekend come soon. I am absolutely knackered to the bone from having to get up at 5ish every morning to go to work. Commuting is tiring and spending two hours of your life everyday Monday to Friday driving is VERY tiring, especially when once you get into the office, it's all hectic! Well as my friend said to me when I switched jobs: I've made my bed, gotta sleep in it, so stop complaining. It's not all bad. I do like the job.. just the commute!!! I can't even sleep like this guy here! Ok off to bed now!

Good Morning and Good Day, my global visitors,

In light of the surprisingly diverse nature of my blog visitors, I have taken it upon myself to learn the languages of the world so I can communicate with our global brethren better. So to start off with, let me greet all you warmly with some native tongue-ing action!

Australian: Good DAIy, Maite!
Canadian: Good Morning, eeeeeh!
Chinese (Mandarin): Knee How!
Chinese (Cantonese): Nei Hou Ma?
French: Bonjour Mon ami!
German: Gutenmorgen mein Freund
Japanese: Konichiwa, ogenki desuka? Watashi no ochin chin totemo okie desu! (...the last part of this sentence if you can figure out what I just said, you get Brownie points!...)
Malay: Selamat Datang!
Norwegian: Adjø meg venn!
Portuguese: Bom dia meu amigo!
Polish: Dobry dzień mój polski przyjaciel
Spanish: buena manana mi amigo!
Welsh: Da ddiwrnod 'm chyfaill!

Phew!! Learning a new language is hard enough but learning 13 is TOUGH!

On the videography front, my fellow vsitors, I haven't had much time the past few weeks to get any sort of DVXing and LETUSing done at all. I am in the process of making a support rod for my DVX and Letus35 so I can fit heavier lenses (such as my Canon F2.2 135mm) onto my DVX so that the weight won't eventually destroy my precious!!! ohh my preciiiiouuuus indeed!! Work proper (my 9-5) is hectic and now we go into FULL swing until middle of December when we'll break for Xmas and off we will go to Taiwan for a jolly good holiday to film a doco (see here). So until then there probably won't be alot of videos coming this way, although let me just say there are a few projects in the pipeline, these being:

1) Another MV! A fun music video with my friends. We're thinking of spoofing a music video in much the the same vain (vein? which vein/vain should I use?) as the Jenny video I featured here. We're thinking maybe Meat Loaf, Extreme (More than Words) or something similar. Wigs, make up and cheesy non-matching lipsyncing will be a definite feature. Expected Project Completion: Hopefully before Xmas!

2) Roll Call, Roll Call! I'm planning to do a small and short feature (5 mins, 10 mins tops)! Anyone who has a decent script/story and who's not bothered not to while away their hours experimenting with making a short film, let me know. As long as you don't have high expectations and only see the project as a fun way to waste time, you're welcomed! Cheesy acting is probably a common feature for this project too. This one has an open time frame. So let me know if you have an interesting story! Docos are most welcomed too.

That's all for now. Back to my work! It's a Sunday and I STILL have to work (preparing for my work for tomorrow!)

P.S. If you've figured out the second part of the Japanese translation above, please do not feel offended by my honest and candid nature. I do not mean any offense by speaking the truth.. (now I've REALLY got you interested in finding out what it means!)

P.P.S. (added): I just had a visitor from Serbia and Montenegro. I don't even know what language they speak so I guess I won't be able to say hello to them...

A quick warning. I have Parallels Workstation running on my Mac so that I can run some Windows programs (like SPSS for example). Anyways I was working on SPSS through Parallels and I was rushing off from work so I just closed the lid on my Mac. Thinking that it went to sleep, I proceeded to stuff it into my black foam sleeve I use to keep my Mac. While walking to the car, I hear a distinctive Windows' c dialog box chyme. I thought, hmm ok, my other work PC laptop is fully shut down, must be coming from my Mac. So I opened it up and lo and behold, the freaking Mac DID NOT sleep because I left Parallels running on the Full Mode and when I closed it, it was running Windows XP. My MacBook Pro was probably almost hot enough to cook some nice scrambled eggs by then and probably would've overheated and gone kaput, retire to Mac Heaven if I hadn't discovered this!!! So a learning point here, my Mac owning friends: If you run Parallels on FullScreen Mode and you shut the lid while it's on Windows, it WON'T sleep. So shut down Windows, exits Parallels, THEN put your Mac on Sleep Mode! Don't say I didn't warn you! Otherwise you'll have this for a Mac:

Seriously, Google's going to gobble up mainstream terrestrial TV. Together with YouTube (if they don't get sued front, right and center, that is) they'll be making even more gajungas of money..... and all they started off was simply designing a piece of technology that helped people search for information faster.... shares IPOed at US$85 and now worth well over US$400++, if only in hindsight ..

I've had this blog going for over a month or so now and I think it'll now pretty much be a permanent feature and a place where I can share my videos (and other mundane thoughts and rants) with the global community. I've checked the stats on people who have been visiting my site and I am amazed at how global my blog visitors have been! My Bruneian hits have increased since getting referred by youparkingidiot and anakbrunei!