疲れる

Finally managed to post this up. Well originally wanted to post this during the IT Show period, but too tired to post. XD

First time doing a show as vendor, well shoulders' getting heavier as compared to being a promoter previously. I probably clocked more hours during the 4 days there than anyone else in the same booth. Came there early for setup, by the time done, hardly time left to walk around. During the show time, most of the questions that promoters can't answer to customers were directed to me. Even stock levels also ask me.

Hahaha, at least the sales was one of the highest we have done in a show so far. Well, it raised the thoughts of 'Recession? What recession?'

Also, managed to say 'hello' to a certain 'blur queen' from _____.
And got her a venti mango passionfruit + cheesecake from Starbucks as well. . .

And 1 thing I don't like about doing shows, my body condition. Sore throat came out of nowhere on Monday morning and it has been a sore literally till it came down yesterday. But along with it, fatigue plus a serious bout of flu that has been making me lethargic for the week so far. Well, watching early morning Arsenal games does not help my cause either.

Been quite a while since I felt sooo bad. Its Friday, and my nose still acts up once in a while, thank God boss gave me off for today. Time for rest and catching up with SPLA? Who knows. . .

IT Show 2009.

The first main trade show for the year is finally here! Later will have to finalize the setup with the promoters and starts the first day of sales.

Main highlight for this show:

1TB DriveStation @ $159.
320GB MiniStation @ $114.
500GB MiniStation @ $169.
Portable DVD drive @ $99.

Will be there for all 4 days, looking for some extra external storage to work with, just drop by Suntec Exhibition Hall Level 6, booth 6475.

OT, been up since 3 plus to watch Arsenal's game, and what a nervy game it was, concede a stupid goal in the 9th minute and watched them toiled through the whole game without scoring the goal that would put them in the next round within 90 minutes. But they chose the harder way, winning 7-6 on penalties. Grr, long time since I sit through a shoot out from 12 yards. I shouted *peep when Edurado missed his kick. But the next 7 takers were so icy cool and calm with their spotkicks and when the final kick was skied by the poor Roma player, finally can stop the nervy moments.

Now at office preparing some stuff for show later, so those looking for external drives, feel free to look for me @ Buffalo Booth, 6475!

3 days to go. . .

Back with another post. With last Sunday's shoot over, I have effectively putting on hold any shoots for this month, reasons being IT Show closing in and time to work on my assignment. With a 2000 word count assignment to work on, think better to spend time doing research than out snapping away, though I will rather do the latter in any given day.

Last week has been so good so far for my beloved and hated Gunners. Their flip flop performances had me vomiting blood more often than not. But somehow, a Arsenal 11 with Edurado seemed to spark confidence throughout the team. Thank God that he managed to recover from that x-rated tackle 1 year ago. Now, lets see the red and whites from North London reclaim the last CL spot and show whose more suited to play in Europe's elite competition.

Monday soon to be over, and within 3 days, the first show for 2009 will start. Given the current situation, will we see the same spending mindset as the previous shows in 2008 or the current times will have their minds hesitating when it comes to opening up the wallets? Hope that even if the crowd is going to cut down spending, at least it does not affect much.

My bad habit, 3rd cup for the day already, though I tried my best to cut it down.

Preparing for IT Show 2009, getting the slips ready for the hordes of customers starting on Thursday.

Yup, time to get back to work. Another bad habit at times, bringing home work though its supposed to be done within the '9-6' time frame. Ohh well. . .

Most expensive coffee ever. . .

Filling in the little gap from the previous post. As you guys can see from the photos posted by me in the past week or so, thats a rough idea of what have I been doing then.

Well well, last Saturday was quite a day, getting up early for another shoot, then joining the SPLA guys for a session of high tea @ Good Wood Hotel.

Thats the drink I ordered throughout the 3 hours plus there, the Cafe Chocolate. I have a weak spot for coffee and chocolate, so when I saw this in the menu, thats it. "Have I have the Cafe Chocolate? Thanks".

The bill also covers the food served buffet style, didn't take much photos, only got 1 photo of the food to share.

Some strawberry cake and a small slice of a sandwich.

Now, the bill. Round up after adding in the usual +10% and +7%. It cost $38 per pax. Yes, hence it earns the title of 'Most expensive coffee' ever.

Putting the cost aside, at least had a good time with the guys given that its their first weekend after exams. For Shane, probably the last time seeing him before he got his green 11B. Goes the same for Jeffery as well, but his is a Taiwan 11B instead of a Singapore 11B. Yup, he got called back to serve after his studies is done here. Speaking of which, time do fly, it was like 3 years back when he first appeared in SPLA along with Darren, Ben, Wen Bin and others. And now they are more or less grads to be from SP.

Next up, Sunshine Plaza, er, change it to KKnM to be exact. :P

Well, Sharon moved in to the new unit already, but not yet officially opened. But the usual crowds was there, probably waiting for the result of the C75 Cospa exclusive bag lucky draw. Realized that must cut down orders from there, if not boh rui for . . .

Fill in the blanks yourself, and happy guessing where the funds from my anime spending goes to now. . .

4 months into the job now, still getting the usual hiccups, probably due to the fact that I'm a newbie in this trade. Given my lack of experience in this field, getting 'eaten' up is not that entirely unusual, its just how I avoid the 'jaws' from my disti and retailers. Its a dog eat dog world there, politics going around everywhere. That is the harsh reality check. Time to get sober, can't be the boh chup guy 5 years back where I started to get myself in the mess back then.

Time check, 1240. Time to sleep. Up in 6 hours for another day's of work.

So far. . .

My laziness to write out is really putting my blog to a standstill. Basically what have I been doing ever since AFA 2008?

SPLA @ AFA 08.

Basically just a few weeks after AFA 08, I will be getting back my pink IC finally! Also, got a perm job with Blumm, the local trade rep for Buffalo. And to make my post ORD days even better, attended the last EOY held in Expo.

If you are lazy to see the whole album, let me post a few photos here.

#1, Hoihoi-san!!! Die roaches!!! DIE!!!

#2, Sakura. . .

#3, Trauma Centre. . .

#4, Aeris & Zack. . .

With that, concludes the end of EOY 08. And also my first weekend as a civilian finally! Straight after, work resumes, the weekly tasks of stock check, orders taking. Quite monotonous, ohh well, I do need to eat after all. Christmas approaches and the very stupid thing is, the first Christmas after ORD is spent on Courts Roadshow. Since its work, can't do much about it. But at least, during the days at the roadshow, got a 'air-head' in the form of a cute WD promoter to disturb. XD

Christmas over, and very next day, the usual SPLA X'mas and New Year gathering. The guys are still pretty much the same, gift exchange was done with added twist. In the end, my collection of a Maria mug, Nagi mug and Kud mini cushion went to Jeffery (Lucky guy!).

2008 came and went, and what a year it was. Got my very own dslr in the form on my A200, made lots and lots of friends from various backgrounds with the common interest of photography. Started out on my journey of photography since then.

Of course, the rest I shall not elaborate further, regular visitors of this site will know what have I been doing with my camera gear.

2009 came amid the global financial crisis that had everyone worrying the outlook for the coming new year. Possibly being a working adult now does makes me concerned in regards to this situation, need to be to cool headed now, no more of the hot headed ways I have been in the past. The Chinese New Year finally arrived, but strangely, I felt there the usual festive mood is not there, perhaps the current economic situation is playing a big part here?

But celebrations is still celebrations after all! The usual house visitings, and in the meanwhile, got pressed by my cousin why still no girlfriend!! =.="

Anyway, for once in years, a group of us met up and made a visit to our form teacher from secondary school! 

Spent a few hours there, catch up on the times after we left Deyi, and well seems like good old times.

The short CNY holidays ended, but it was few days away from another weekend of visits. SPLA did a series of visiting from Nick's place, to mine and finally Shane. My cache of stuff was quite leeched by them, after I did told them to bring harddrives along to free leech. Hah!

Last stop, Shane's place, practically quite standard, PS3 for some, chit chat for some. Food came and lastly, louhei! "All hail Leopard!!!" as quoted by Shawn. . .

Next up, visiting Mrs Fong with the very very senior librarians and library gang of 2003.

What a lengthy post so far, yes, when I post, confirmed it will be a LONG post. What to do? Given my habit of not writing regularly. February came, and of course its just another month in the year to get by. And I suppose some of you will smell sour grapes coming from me, the 'dreaded V' word was very quiet day, just played some game for lolx. 

So siao on with shoots last weekend that I ended up bringing home around 300+ photos back to review and process. So far the photos from shoot in day 1 is more or less done up, now left with the 190+ photos from day 2 to be reviewed and processed. Increasingly sleep deprived me will still remain sleep deprived for now. . .

Time to end here. . .

-Kenneth. . .

Anime Festival Asia 2008 after thoughts part 1.

Finally its over! The very first anime based event in Singapore, Anime Festival Asia 2008 came to an end on Sunday evening at Suntec Exhibition Hall. On the organisers part, the 2 years spent on planning this event paid off. What a crowd it was on both days. The performances of Ichirou Mizuki ala Aniki and May'n were simply amazing. Can we have them coming to Singapore to perform again? Never had I been so fired up and hot in a concert. May'n live in front of my eyes, hontoni sugoii!

Also, Aniki was really the legend in Ani-songs, Marzinger Z to Captain Harlock, he brought out the garness in my friends who were big fans of old school super robot shows. His actions portrayed what a good aniki (brother) would do. Aniki took a group photo with the fans that welcomed him in the airport. Also, for the signing session, he signed on the personal items brought up by the fans, shook hands and took photos. Nicholas, Calvin and Chin How, do cherish the moment upstage with the man himself. Darren, your Aspire umpc, find a way to preserve the autograph.

Sadly, for reasons unknown the autograph session with May'n was very disappointing to a great extent in my view. What was done on stage was very unprofessional and disrespect to the fans that paid a premium sum for that moments with May'n up close. Her autograph was signed beforehand on a board was bad enough already, to make things worse, it was her representative that passed the board to the fans that came up. Not May'n herself. Yes, it was really nice to shake her hands and exchanged some words, but the way they did it was totally wrong. Yes, I'm really voicing it out. Surely there are many many disgruntled fans out there that felt the same. No autograph on my personal item, no photo with her to keep. Boo, very very negative fan bonding session. Well, I did managed to give a card to her, my time spent running around Suntec, Marina Square and Citylink for a giant 'Thank You' card paid off. Well wishes from splifearts.com, Nakadashi, Bonkuratsu, CDS and KKnM were in it and hopes she like it.

Here's end of part 1 of my after thought. Will do up the rest later.

-Kenneth.

AFA 2008 Announcement.

As you can see from the photo above, this post will be regarding the announcement for Anime Festival Asia 2008. For starters, this event will be a first in South East Asia, celebrating the diversity of the Japanese culture. For this year's showcase, it will be held at Suntec International Convention and Exhibition Center Halls 403 & 404. Dates are 22 & 23 of November with the doors open to public visitors at 10am.

The whole event will be divided into different sections, like the manga showcase where Shounen Jump will be displaying their works as part of their 40th anniversary celebrations. Anticipated titles includes Death Note, Bleach just to name a few. Also there will be mangaka competitions and visitors can views the works as well. 

Next up will be the anime blockbuster. What's a anime festival without the main course? The anime! Currently titles confirmed are Shakugan no Shana, Code Geass, Skip Beat. There will be more titles as the organisers are working out the details.

Other than manga, anime, part of the modern Japanese Otaku culture also includes the plastic modeling (Plamo in short). This year's Bakuc will be held together with AFA and guess what? Kunio Okawara will be gracing AFA as well, expect some tips and hints for the local modelers from the master himself! Before I forget, Okawara-san will be part of the judging team for the Bakuc finals!

For the merchandise collectors, don't worry. There is the Akiba section whereby big names like Goodsmile Company, Alter, Revoltech, Kotobukiya, of course Bandai will be showcasing and selling various collectibles and goodies. Local shops like KKnM and RapidCulture will also be there, so get ready your wallets!

Cosplayers, you are more than welcome for this big event! Register early and you will get free admission! Also, there is a competiton as well.

Last but not least, the big news that we all are waiting for. . .

Nope, Megumi Nakajima aka Ranka Lee WILL NOT be making her way down to AFA. Instead, *drum rolls. May'n, the singing voice behind Sheryl Nome of hit anime series, Macross Frontier will be here for AFA 2008!

No rewards for guessing what May'n will be singing in AFA 08, also she will be having meet the fans session and autographs session. Fans, get ready your single CDs!

More details on May'n's performance here and here.

There will be more updates once Dentsu gets more confirmation of the various arrangements, performances and so forth. Meanwhile, stay tuned!

Happy Birthday 1st Birthday to alphadslr.com!

Finally back here to post again. What happened in between the weeks from the last post? Nothing but more and more shoots. So far already went for 3 TFCDs, and though still in the learning curve, but I'm enjoying every single second of these shoots. From each shoot that I been to, always there are new things to learn. Be it camera settings, model posing, somehow its a brand new experience to me. With September to come, there are more shoots to come, new things to learn.

Last Saturday was the 1st birthday of the Alpha mount user group in here in Singapore. Despite the very spoiler of a weather, but everyone still enjoyed the celebration. From photo hunt, cake-cutting, special talk by Stanley from SLCC on flash photography and also Wilson from Sony for 'helping' to further poison us by letting alphadslr.com members to have first hand try on the new flagship flash. Yes, I mean it, where's the MO for the flash?

With Comex approaching, gearing up to push for sales during the 4 days for Buffalo. Yes, looking for external storage or network solutions, do approach me in any of the 4 days and I will do my best to provide with the best solution possible within my means.

Sign off for now, do look up for more photos as I aim to finish up the TFCDs before September or else its a never ending work for me. . .

-Kenneth.

Tired. . .

Already starting of August 2008, time really flies. What a week so far, started with Garden Festival on last Sunday, went back there again for my first TFCD in the same venue with 2 gorgeous ladies. Then concluded by a ride on the Singapore Flyer on Saturday night courtesy of bro Tan KM. Not to mention the number of photos also piled up as well, still haven't done with the TFCD photos, while just finished the shots taken on Saturday night. With NDP coming soon, gonna find someone to cover my NDP weekend shift and enjoy the 2 days snapping all day long. . .

-Kenneth

Long long long gap since my last post. Its like nearly half a year since I posted. Anyway, in between that long gap, I managed to get myself the Sony Alpha 200 as my first DSLR. Quite amazing I got to say, its like only 4 months since I got myself a decent camera before I finally got the Alpha. From my initial plan of getting the K850i till the ownership of the A200. Wow.

Since then, I have been to a couple of outings with my fellow Alpha brothers from Alphadslr forums
and from them picked up tips, tricks of course, enjoyable hours of photography with them. Firstly was the Formula Drift Singapore, and what a hot event it was. And I do mean hot, went home sun burnt but at least met up with most of the brothers from the Alphadslr. Though did not stay till the end of the event, but the time spent there was already worth while. Some pictures taken during the event.







Yes, the whole group of Sony Alpha mount photographers.



Since then been going around randomly taking photos during off days. Also learnt how to post process the photos in Photoshop and much later on, Lightroom.

Happy Lunar New Year minna-san! ! ! May you readers have an enjoyable holidays ahead and happy ang bao gathering! ! !

For the first time, I tried something different for this CNY countdown Instead of staying put @ home, I went down to Marina for the fireworks display. Goodness me, surrounding me was not the usual masses of avid shutter-bugs with their DSLRs, instead it was hordes of foreign workers, mostly from China. Goodness me, either they ARE dumb or loose screws, messing around even though they are just 1 mis-step away from dropping into the dark waters beneath. And of course, so the 'considerate' to those shutter-bugs by moving around like monkeys, blocking the views or even coming down to knocking down the tripods. Damned, I know that being the CNY, I shouldn't be saying all these, but ZzZ, I can't keep it shut, so just vent it out here. . .anyway, still manage to grab quite a couple of shots during the display. Yes, I DO really need a DSLR, though my T20 is doing fine this early morning, but the difference is quite obvious la, since the T20 is just a point & shoot as compared to the complex DSLR. Also taken some night shots of the surroundings before the display began. . .