38 Hours

Many things had happened in this 38 hours. This would be a very long story to write. It all started yesterday, where everyone had been preparing themselves for the mid-term examination, circuit theory paper. Nothing much happened before the examination, except for some of my friends that forgotten to bring their calculator to the examination. However, they still manage to find a way to borrow it from someone.

The actual story starts after the examinations, or I should called it the beginning of our mid-term break. There isn't any plan of activities to celebrate the start of the holidays, as most of us were busy preparing for the exam earlier. After the paper, we gathered at the car park for a little talk as to arrange some transportation over to the PIKOM PC Fair. And we just got to know that Jun had accidentally locked his room door and left his key inside, which was quite a disaster for him since everyone are almost "empty pockets" now. Somehow, it ended up paying a lock-smith to come and opened the door.

Later on, we all went out again, thinking probably to spend our time in a cybercafe to have a Dota match of our own, in conjunction of the end of our circuit theory and engineering maths paper. However, we ended up discussing on another activities which are more excited. It really disappointed Kitz since he was really looking forward for a Dota match. After a long time of discussion and invitation to our friends staying at Cyberia, we went Putrajaya, again, to take group photos. However, this time we had some new friends joining us, which are Sue and Shay as well as Wen and Cecelia.

Well, I was really impressed and amazed with all the friends that agreed to join us yesterday. I had never expect such a large crowd to hang out together. Special thanks to our organizer, Jun and Shoong. However, things could be much better once the ice is broken among all of us, cause some of them are still new in our friends network. Apart from that, things could be more perfect without the policemen keep on appearing in wherever we wanted to take some photos.
[In which we could not really blame them since its really really late at night, and they are just doing their duties and responsibility.]

Sue and Shay are having their in-lab assignment in the early next morning, thus we should better bring them back earlier so that they could be more prepared.

~Continued
After dragging myself from continuing to write on this post for quite sometime, I hardly even remember clear what happen that day. Not having a very good memory.

As Shoong was sending them back, we head straight away to the Old Town Kopitiam for our very very late dinner. While waiting for the arrival of the other friends, we spent some time looking through the menu deciding what to order. The statement "Nothing is cheap in Cyberjaya." is rather true. A cup of coffee would cost you around RM2.80 till RM3.80 ++, and the price differ whether you want it cold or hot. Does giving a extra ice really cost that much?
Due to my extreme hunger, I have no choice, but to order a bowl of noodles(maggie type) which cost me around RM 5.50++, along with a drink RM2.20++, the price is really slaughtering me.
During the supper or very early breakfast, everyone was happy chit-chatting. However, things weren't that comfortable since there's very obvious seperation of groups. I talk mine, you talk yours, that kind of thing. Probably caused by the arrangement of the tables. After a while, Hui and Wen went back.

And of course, that's not the end of the day. There is still much more to come and let me remind you that it's already 3.46am. Later on, here comes the basketball fest! The basketball court lights are turned off, but it doesn't stop any of us youngsters to continue our game.
We played in the dark, but there's still light from the surrounding building, the situation aren't that bad after all.

......to be continued.....;

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.

____________________________________________________________________

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.