Star Trail

What do you first think when you look into these photos? Are they computer generated effects, or probably some graphic designed background? These are called Star Trail.

Star Trail is generated by some simple photography techniques. 3 most important aspect to be emphasized, which are ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture. I haven't tried to take this photo before, but I could provide some basic general information on how Star Trail can be taken. However, this really require a more advanced camera.

First thing first, normal compacts would not be able to take this photo due to its limited control on these 3 main components. Therefore, a DSLR would be needed. Then, of course, for its perfection, additional accessories like a remote control, etc would be good for the enhancement of the photo.

"When photographing stars, you can either get a star "field," a static snapshot of the stars as points of light, or star "trails," where the stars' movements streak across the sky. How long you expose the image determines which you get. The first rule of thumb to remember is that the Earth rotates such that the light from a star begins to "move" after about 30-40 seconds. (It's apparent movement is largely dependent on your lens—the longer the focal length, the more apparent the movement; the wider angle lenses won't show much movement till later because of the star point is so small.) Part of your experimentation will be to gauge the timing for how much "trail" you want.

Photographing star trails is technically simple; the main things to keep in mind are:

Timing the light
Compositing the scene
Watching battery power
Experimenting a lot

Most people who get started with shooting star trails want to capture the longest trails they can by keeping the shutter open longer. The inherent problem with this is underestimating the ambient light in the sky, even though you don't necessarily see it. This light may come from nearby cities, or even the diminishing sunset an hour or more afterwards. What your eye sees is nothing compared to a long exposure of a camera, where this residual light can be so overwhelming, you don't see any stars at all. A 20 minute exposure an hour after sunset can look like a day shot, and if the moon is anything more than crescent, you'll be limited to just a few minutes at best. (By comparison, a full moon will make a night shot look like a day shot in about 8-10 minutes at f2.8 at ISO 100.) Picking a faraway place on a night with a new moon (or where the moon hasn't yet risen, or after it's set) is best for getting the darkest skies, which make the light from the stars is more pronounced. This may not be as easy as you think. The photograph of the lit tents shown here was shot in Death Valley (over 300 miles away from Las Vegas), which still had an illuminating effect on the horizon. To illuminate the tent, I spent about 30 seconds waving a flashlight around from inside the tent. This process is hard to get right without overexposing the tent's fabric. Again, the benefits of experimentation. This light also helped bring out detail on the ground." - Adapted from http://www.danheller.com/star-trails.html

Blood Trail

All these while, we were so amazed by the work that we saw in the CSI Series(Crime Scene Investigation), that facing with blood is nothing that hard. Well, I just proved that wrong today, especially for me myself.


One of my house mate, staying at the lower floor room, had just made history of the year. I haven't been seeing so much blood for quite some time, after stop seeing accidents keep happening exactly in front of my sight. What happened today was that my house mate chung, was taking a bath, where suddenly the basin fell off its holder and drop when he was washing his hand. He excidentally stepped on one of the pieces and it made a very deep cut into his feet. His blood was dripping out like opening a water pipe, and he started to rush out and try to get some cloth or tissue to stop the bleeding. That's how he causes the blood trail everywhere in the kitchen till his room.

I had to bring him to the nearest clinic, his wounds are too deep for us to do anything. After the doctor attended to him, he came out 45 minutes later with 8 stitches. Next, we had to go back and clean up the mess in the kitchen and in the toilet. That's where the hard part begins. It's actually much easier to clean up the dog poops than these blood, I almost vomitted when I was wiping the blood off the tiles. The smell of the blood really made me feel sick, but I still had to go on cleaning it. Luckily, with some help of my friends, the cleaning work made easier for me.

Was just about to consider today as a dull, boring day. Before we can see it coming, it ended up with a shocking bloody scene that really made me feel sick.

Fish Day 2008

I shall officially announce this day as our first Fish Day, although we had already done this a few times in the past, didn't manage to keep a record. Thus, as a start, this will be our first Fish Day.

How does the fish day works?

1. A fish day will only be organized if we can't finish the 10kg of rice that we bought. (Meaning when the rice is closing to its expiry date.)
2. And of course if majority feels like having fish for meals.
3. A Fish Day must at least consist of 2 fish dishes, and not more than one non-fish dish.
4. A Fish Day will not be considered as a Fish Day until the bowl is completely empty as the picture shown above.
5. And for every Fish Day, one person must post like the boy in the photo showing peace sign, and another person must wash the dish exactly like in the photo.
6. The founder of Fish Day holds the right to amend the terms of Fish Day.

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Just another crazy idea of brightening the day. We found this restaurant months ago where it had some promotions in conjunction to its new opening. They are selling out this "African" Fish; a direct translation from what we called it in chinese words, at a cheap price. RM8 for small, RM10 for medium and RM12 f0r large.

We ordered for the large one since the price was only a difference by RM2, the fish wasn't that big as I was expecting it to be. But, there's nothing to complain for the price we paid. How much can we expect from a RM12 fish. But still, the fish was nice.

After a fast calculations from a friend of mine, Jun, he said that it is actually much cheaper if we can cook our own rice and just pack the fish back home for meals. So, we actually did pack it back home and eat it along with the rice we cooked ourself, which we can save quite some money on the additional rice which cost RM1.00 per bowl.

That's just how we started on the fish day, in which I now officially named it as Fish Day.

24th July 2008

I didn't knew that the new building in our university is opened, until this afternoon when I accompanied my friend there to submit some documents. The hall was very impressive, nice, comfortable and grand. Even the seats are "cushionised" which made it looked like a movie theater. I really admired those FOM students who got the opportunity to attend lecture session in the those hall. It would really help to motivate the student a little.

Later in the evening, I was drop dead sleeping after came back from classes. Probably not getting better from ill yet, I was so sleepy that I fell asleep almost instantly after I lay down. By the time I woke up, my friends are already down in the kitchen, cooking!

Chef of the day:
After dinner, Jun had to go over to the Mines to collect his long waited under-guaranteed modem. Since we had already traveled far there, we spent a little time hanging around the park and took some photos. Can't really remember when was the last time I went there, probably when i was still in primary school, I can only remember fractions of images of me going there with friends. Anyway, I am still wondering how come they are still able to set such a high price for the entrance fee (RM35 - Adult; RM 27 - Children). It doesn't seem to change a lot, or having any new interesting and exciting entertainment attractions, yet it is still surviving and draws visitors. Well, I am still considering of spending some money and enter the mines just so that probably I could write some reviews on it.

Reviews: Ipoh Chicken Rice, Da Chong Restaurant, Seri Kembangan

Ipoh Chicken Rice

I think most of you would know what's Ipoh famous for. Ipoh had been popular with their various chicken cookings recipe, like "Hak-Yee Gai", "Yim-Kuk Gai" and "Nga-Choi Gai". Nowadays, we can easily find all these food in anywhere out from Ipoh. However, which of them are up to the standard?

Recently, I found this restaurant, which is sort of a Food Court, a corner shop lot with various of mini stalls selling different kind of food. This is the place where I found the Ipoh Chicken Rice. I ordered a plate of chicken rice for one person consumption. I did not mentioned which part of the chicken meat as I prefer to see my luck with whichever part I get(I like the surprise). When my chickken rice arrived, it was a chicken chest meat. I thought it's going to be a hardtime finishing the plate of dry chicken meat, but it was not as bad as I thought it would be.

I tried the chicken rice again on the other day, and I get the drumstick meat. It's definitely scrumptious with very very juicy meat. Along with the crispy bean-sprout, and a cup of sugarcane water, it was rather addictive. If you are not in the mood of having rice, you can order for the noodle soup as well.

The pricing is very reasonable, I usually ordered the chicken rice with bean-sprout, along with a additional large rice, and it cost me at RM5.50. For a normal person without my enormous appetite, the normal one without additional large rice should cost you just around RM4.50.

My overall rating for this food is 4/5 star. The chicken meat are sometimes not hot enough, it really spoil the quality of it. However, it seldom happens. Thus, you have nothing to worry about.

* There might be a change of price with the recent food ration.

Reviews: The Dark Knight

Some reviews on "The Dark Knight":

It had been a long time I did not expect to see such nice movie in the cinema. I always get disappointed with all the movies which shows great trailers, but none interesting storyline(e.g. Hancock, I'm Legend, etc...). "The Dark Knight" would be the second movie that made me feel worthy to spend some money to get a original DVD after "The Lord of The Rings".

Some summary about the story, Batman and Gordon had been fighting to regain security and peace in Gotham City. They had been pushing all the criminals to the limit, where when the Joker appears, he became their only way out to get Batman. Along with the new appointed DA Harvey Dent, they strive with brilliant plans to get the Joker. However, the Joker always seem to be one step ahead of them. I wouldn't elaborate more on the story, it would really spoil the whole excitement of watching a movie. One clue "You can either die as a Hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain." - The storyline is rather complex, you wouldn't expect what to come out next.

Overall rating, I would give it a 5/5 star. It does worth to spend a little money on this movie in the cinema. Furthermore, the duration of the movie is around 2 hours 30minutes, you can get a little more excitement than the other usual 1 hour plus plus movie. Anyway, "The Dark Knight", it's beyond my expectation.

Rage and Furious

Can't seem to shake this thing away from me. Whenever I go, wherever I am, the thing will just be at my sight. All the good, nice and harmonious day will all be corrupted as one sight of it would destroy everything. (Oh yes, I am exaggerating.)

I'm going to talk about "self-centeredism". If someone accidentally broke your cup, what would be your very first reaction? Is it going to be "Hey, what the #*%@??! Don't you have eyes??!!" or "Hey, are you alrite? Don't mind about the cup." I think for most of the people, or majority of the general public would be furious and angry at the person who breaks the cup.

Let me analyze this situation from my point of view. Firstly, a self-centered person would be thinking how precious the cup was, and neglected about how the another person would feel about breaking the cup. He would be so angry at the person, while for the guy that broke the cup, I can't imagine how sorry the person would feel. Consequently, for a inconsiderate person, they would react with a act of furious, rage, unreasonable behavior, and some with unwilling forgiveness. However, a person which are not self-centered will do quite exactly the opposite and try to consider the situation of the person who broke the cup in. He would also make sure that that guy is alright, and ask whether he is fine before thinking about his broken cup.

It's just a very simple situation. Can't seem to understand it? Well, some people always thinks the whole world is hell of a lot of bad people, where in order to live free, one must be also be bad to find yourself a good life, without considering anyone else, but only yourself; and the world is just about you.

Unfortunate Events

Had not been having this sort of feeling for quite some time. Not too sure what happen to me, where I can't seem to accept things easily. I had not been feeling so well for the past two days, perform badly in school, hardly concentrate in class; felt sleepy. Been taking some panadols that I borrowed from gerrard long time ago, yet i still haven't return it till now. Besides that, I had been moody since a few days ago, feeling disappointed, sad, and furious as well; about how a friend can be when they don't need you. (To be more specified, self-centered, inconsiderate, perverted, immature bloody bastard!)

Things are like " A List of Unfortunate Events" for me recently, my car was hit by another car in the neighborhood when I parked it in front of my house. Not too sure whether I should consider myself lucky, but the man that excidentally hit my car waited for me to wake up(I was sleeping after taking some panadols), just to tell me he knocked my car and wanted to pay me for the repair cost. We can hardly find this kind of people in the society nowadays.

Just as I thought things are starting to change for good, my toilet drain got clogged. It's really disgusting, which I don't want to elaborate on that. For those who had experience with clogged toiled, you should know how it looks like. Been trying to fix it for hours, it can't seem to work. I got this info from the net, stated that dish washing detergent and hot water would help to unclog the toilet drain. Probably some chemical stuff, but it's not working for me. Considering to get a plumber now.

Well, haven't been posting for quite some time. Been busy with stuff and almost forgotten I got a blog to update.