Archive | May, 2008

Korean Stars – TTDI

So last weekend I was shooting a couple of Korean girls in TTDI, Taman Rimba Kiara park to be precise. You might recognise one of the girls 😉

It was unfortunate that the whole week was glorious weather with beautiful sunsets…but that Saturday the haze came down and flattened the light. I had to play around a bit with a reflector and some off camera lighting (tried to make it subtle). A lot were shot with a SB-800 in a silver reflective umbrella gelled with a CTO gel to warm up the flash light. Rear/rim light provided by SB-600 naked on a stand (about time I got a decent snoot or some grid-spots…waiting for Honl!). Anyway enough photogeeking stuff.

Movie Star

Sparkling

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Continue Reading · 18 Comments · Photography

Great Britain vs United Kingdom vs England

I actually often get asked this, “Dude what’s the difference between Britain and UK, are they the same?”

Actually they aren’t there is a slight difference. There’s a reason why it’s called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Great Britain

Great Britain = England, Wales, Scotland + outlying islands (Wiki)

United Kingdom = Great Britain + Northern Ireland. (Wiki)

British Islands = United Kingdom + Crown Dependences (e.g Channel Islands). (Wiki)

British Isles = Great Britain, Ireland and a number of smaller islands (Wiki)

England is just that, England without Scotland, Wales or Northern Island.

For those that don’t know the history of Ireland it’s somewhat segregated into Northern Ireland (part of UK – capital Belfast) and Republic of Ireland (independent country – capital Dublin).

Ireland

Read more on Wiki about Ireland.

Everyone also assumes I’m from London (no that’s NOT the only place in England..) and every football fan asks “Dude is Manchester near London?”..

No it’s not, see map above..there’s 3 main areas South (London etc), Midlands (Birmingham) and North (Manchester/Liverpool). There are other divisions too (East Midlands, West Midlands etc.) but those don’t really matter so much.

Anyway it’s all rather complicated but there you go.

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Continue Reading · 33 Comments · General Nonsense

Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary – Pahang

So after a morning at Chamang Falls we headed off to our main destination, Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary!

It’s about 20km or so from Chamang and we were to get there by 1pm to make sure we got the activity passes so we could play with the elephants..unfortunately as it was a public holiday the passes were finished – so we didn’t get to play!

There was a huge ass elephant skull though.

Elephant Skull

There were nice murals and paintings around the place.

Elephant Mural

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Continue Reading · 12 Comments · Malaysia, Photography, Trips & Travel

Movie Review – Eastern Promises – Convincing

Eastern Promises

The mysterious and charismatic Russian-born Nikolai Luzhin (Viggo Mortensen) is a driver for one of London’s most notorious organized crime families of Eastern European origin. The family itself is part of the Vory V Zakone criminal brotherhood.

This is a pretty gritty film, I hadn’t actually heard of it – but Suanie recommended it so it must be good! It’s got a strong rating of 7.9/10 on IMDB (One of the highest scores I’ve seen for a while).

The movie revolves around an average British girl (Naomi Watts) getting entangled with the ‘Vor V Zakone‘ AKA the Russian Mafia – a scary bunch at the best of times. There is really quite a number of then in the UK, especially around London and they control a fair amount of territory.

It’s pretty gory, violent, sexual and nasty – there’s betrayal and all kinds of things going on.

Viggo Mortensen absolutely rocks it as the bad-ass Nikolai. He took method acting to the max, he really becomes Russian, the way he tilts his head when he speaks, his mannerism, everything is fantastic!

Viggo Mortensen as Nikolai

Vincent Cassel is also excellent as the narcissistic, confused, violent and down-trodden big-shot mafioso.

After stabbing someone in the eye during a naked fight in a sauna, I have to say Viggo is a real man now!

This is a great movie, an unexpected gem in the rough…definitely a must watch in my books. If you haven’t seen it go and find it now and watch it and watch Viggo ROCK IT.

This is a memorable movie, the noirish setting, the vivid characters, great scripting, character development…it has a the lot!

I give it an eye-poking 8.5/10.

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World Lupus Day & Anything Butterfly Contest and Exhibition

So May 10th came faster than expected and everything seemed to come together just in time, World Lupus Day was here!

The first part was getting the Anything Butterfly Photography Competition running, which we got going with the help of the large member base on Shutter Asia, fellow bloggers giving it a mention and adverts donated by Nuffnang!

Plenty of entries came in, Thursday night was reserved for judging, how we did so is explained here:

Winners of the Anything Butterfly Contest

You can also view the winning pictures there.

Friday night was sticking the winning picks on the mounting boards along with the Lupus posters and information for the exhibition.

The exhibition is on until the 18th of May so please do check it out in 1-Utama near the Oval in the new wing on the 1st floor (You can also buy one of my framed pics for charity!).

Saturday was the event itself, after a late night out at Starbucks it was up and out to 1-Utama, the others had been there since earlllyyyy setting up the panels, carpets and so on.

Freaky was the main organiser + sponsor seeker + everything else + emcee for the day!

Freaky Emcee

Along with the runners up and consellation prize winners we also had stories of lupus displayed.

Lupus Patients

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Continue Reading · 2 Comments · Photography, Serious Issues

Tiesto & Cosmic Gate LIVE at Freedom 08 – Port Dickson, Malaysia

If you’ve been reading my blog for some time you might know I’m a fan of Tiesto – I went to see him last time he was here which was back in 2006 at Sepang (DJ Tiesto – Live at Sepang Malaysia!) so I definitely won’t miss the chance to see him head over here for his Elements of Life tour.

He was here for Freedom 08 at Admiral Marina in Port Dickson – the same place I went for that crappy Recharge 3: R3velation – The Aftermath in 2005.

I didn’t meet any blog reading fans this time but I did see Adeline and Nadia from MDG!

Yes yes…3 years isn’t been long I went to my first rave in 1994 for my 16 birthday so yeah work that out.

We reached the front gate around 10:15pm….omg look at the queue, lucky we pre-bought our tickets weeks ago at Axcess in 1-U.

Crazy Crowd

We got inside around 10:45pm – not tooooo bad. Seen as though it was quite late the German duo of DJ Bossi & Nic Chagall commonly known as Cosmic Gate were already rocking the show and the place was pretty packed.

Cosmic Gate Rocking

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Continue Reading · 17 Comments · Parties & Gatherings

What a weekend…

No pictures for once 😛

Quite a weekend…I think I need another weekend to rest from this one! Last week was busy work wise too as we rushing for a tender…Friday was spent doing that and calling vendors.

Then Friday night rushed to James place to help stick/cut arrange the stuff for World Lupus Day on Saturday. Friday night at Starbucks until late…then Saturday morning up too early to head to 1-Utama to help with the final setup and start of the event.

The event was a great success mostly thanks to James! He did an awesome job and did almost everything, second would be Kim with her great PR coverage.

YB Dato’ Liow Tiong Lai was a great sport and really seems to care about the Lupus cause, which is the whole point of us doing the event in the first place – to raise awareness about the issue in the long-term.

Then straight after that – home, shower and out again to nearby KYs place for a quick dinner then off to PD for Freedom 08 with Cosmic Gate and DJ Tiesto!

It was freaking awesome! Cosmic Gate got things up and going – they have some classic trance tracks so they know what to drop.

And then Tiesto really rammed it starting out with tunes from Elements of Life (obviously as it’s his Elements of Life tour) then playing all the classics from Just Be, Parade of Athletes and In My Memory).

Got back to PJ about 5am had some food and passed out until about 6pm the next day.

Lots to catch up with, so expect pictures soon…I tried to upload one of the videos to Youtube for this post but it kept failing – no idea why.

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Continue Reading · 3 Comments · General Nonsense

A Trip to Pahang – First stop Chamang Fall (Lover’s Waterfall) – Bentong

So during the public holiday last week (Labour/May Day) a bunch of us decided to head out to Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary in Pahang.

Our friendly guide Happy Yen also suggested that we check out Chamang Fall and Deerland.

A bunch of us have decided it’s a good idea to explore Malaysia a bit more and get out of the city as often as possible – this was our second trip.

Which reminds me I still haven’t posted about Chiling Fall! Oh well will do that soon.

Anyway we rounded ourselves up pretty early and had some Dim Sum in Taman Megah before hitting the highway, we were heading out to Pahang – this waterfall is nearby Bentong/Raub area.

To get there you can…

1. Head towards Genting, pass Gombak Toll.
2. Follow Bentong signboard, pass Bentong Toll, about 200m, turn left.
3. In Bentong town, follow Raub signboard, about 1km watch out for Camang waterfall.
4. Follow the signs, after turning off the main road it’s about 8km in and you’ll reach the park.

We reached there pretty early around 10.30am – there wasn’t that many people there yet.

Chamang Fall

The noobs arriving.

Noob at Chamang

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Continue Reading · 23 Comments · Malaysia, Photography, Trips & Travel

Movie Review – Grindhouse: Death Proof – Simple Fun!

Grindhouse: Death Proof

Master director Quentin Tarantino indulges his inner fanboy by paying homage to his favorite B-movies in DEATH PROOF. Stuntman Mike stalks beautiful women with his deadly vintage car, but when he picks a trio of tough girls (Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, and Zoe Bell), he learns they arenÂ’t such easy prey. As with any Tarantino film, there are plenty of nods to pop culture.

This is a movie I’ve been meaning to watch for quite a while, it’s part of a double bill ‘Grindhouse’ with Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez – the RR being Planet Terror (I haven’t watched that one yet).

They are supposed to be oldskool exploitation movies from the 70’s – those that come on late at night with guns, hot chicks and lots of car crashes. They generally have no plots and are padded with dialogue to extend the meager budget.

Death Proof is no different! It’s pretty much nailed the genre right down, but then it should with QT being the ultimate movie geek.

It has a lot of references to his previous movies (Red Apple, Big Kahuna Burger, breakfast scene from Reservoir Dogs, lots of references to Kill Bill and more!).

There isn’t much of a plot to speak of but there is loads of lightning dialogue from start to finish, very Tarantino dialogue.

This is not a movie destined to be a box office hit, it’s a movie QT wanted to make himself, it’s not guided by a studio or by commercial success – this is a movie fan movie – a movie for film geeks.

Personally I loved it, the hot chicks, the awesome car chase, the obscure references and the witty lines delivered with sass.

It had some characteristically bad ass female leads too, watch the tables turn in the second half of the movie.

I give it an ass whooping 7.5/10.

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We Ate This Updated – Cavells Restaurant – Hartamas

If you are looking for real Spanish and Italian food and somewhere with real Tapas you can try Cavells, they just launched a new Tapas menu and it’s very tasty!

Tapas at Cavells

They also serve Henry Martin Sparkling Shiraz which is really delicious!

More here:

Cavells Restaurant – Spanish Tapas, American & Italian – Hartamas

*Please comment over at We Ate This!*

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Continue Reading · Comments are closed · Food/Eating