it's harvest season - happy dayak festival!

It's Dayak Festival here in Sarawak on the 1st June. So there'll be 2 public holidays on the 2nd and 3rd of June, with 3rd June being a replacement holiday, as 1st of June falls on a Sunday. In other words, long weekend in Sarawak here. :-)

Pardon me with the quick work on the Dayak Festival picture, I used bout 15-20 minutes to do it, including searching my own image library to do a photoshop.

Happy Holidays everyone! Happy Celebrating to all the Dayak friends, or anyone who celebrates the festival. :-)


Cheers!

nba playoff 2008

I'm a little late in posting this, well not that late, but late as in it's no longer first hand news. You've probably read about it on NBA.com, or even watching Sportscenter updates on your sports channel.

Yet, I'm still putting this post up. That shows you how much I love basketball, doesn't it?

Game 6 of Eastern Conference Final was on channel 812 (ESPN) this morning, I didn't get to watch the whole game, only bit of first quarter. I was kinda hoping that Pistons would be able to force a Game 7, and went on to win the series.

Garnett and his buddy Billups.

That never materialized. The Celtics are back into NBA Playoff Finals after long absence. The new Big Three, of Garnett, Pierce and Allen, led the Celtics to reach the finals, where they will play against the already-qualified Lakers.

That also means we'll be seeing the old, long-time rivalry between the Lakers and Celtics being reignited.

The last time people actually hype about this matchup was when Larry Bird was still cladding the famous #33 green jersey, while Magic Johnson donning his #32 purple-gold outfit. And, that, was some two decades ago, at least.

The good o' days - Bird vs Magic.

Lakers parading after their Western Conference Finals victory over San Antonio Spurs.

The Lakers were back into the Finals first time since 2004, the last time the lifted the championship trophy. Kobe proved his worthy as a leader by leading Lakers to the Finals, first time since Shaq's departure. He showed his class when Lakers dethroned San Antonio.

I don't really like Celtics, despite all the hype they have from the media since the start of the season. I find the way they play, was not convincing. yet it's over-rated. They don't play attractive basketball.

Let's take a look into the lineups of both team:

Celtics:
C - Kendrick Perkins, Age 23
PF - Kevin Garnett, Age 32
SF - Paul Pierce, Age 30
SG - Ray Allen, Age 32
PG - Rajon Rondo, 22

Notable Reserves:
P.J. Brown, Age 38
Sam Cassell, Age 38

Lakers:
C - Pau Gasol, Age 27
PF - Lamar Odom, Age 28
SF - Vladimir Radmanovic, Age 27
SG - Kobe Bryant, Age 29
PG - Derek Fisher, Age 33

Notable Reserves:
Jordan Farmar, Age 21
Luke Walton, Age 28
Sasha Vujajic, Age 24

With the glance of that, it seems Celtics are bit older if compared to the Lakers. Nevertheless the Celtics' Big Three should be placed under the radar. Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce shouldn't be taken lightly.

The ever passionate KG, and boy, he looks like a green monster here. Hmm, sounds like 'the hulk'.

Ray Allen, one of the best shooters in history, has the quickest release among all players. Yeah, Allen rocks.

And Paul Pierce has been superb in leading the Celtics this season, just look at the series where the played against Lebron's Cavaliers. In the decisive Game 7, he contended with Lebron James, who dropped 45 points that game, by dropping a 41 points.

So the Lakers will need plenty from their own stars, MVP Kobe Bryant, newly acquired Pau Gasol, and Lamar Odom. Too bad Andrew Bynum is still sidelined with injury. Of course, I really think the bench and supporting players are the key to this matchup. Lakers have the edge over Celtics in this department.

Kobe and Gasol, the new equation to success?

Lakers bench has been superb this season, Ronny Turiaf has been the energizer, Sasha Vujacic and Jordan Farmar are excellent shooters.

Well, I've typed enough. Let's just wait for the show to begin.

Game 1 of NBA Finals 2008 starts on this coming Friday, 6 June 2008 (Malaysian time).

Game on Lakers!

Lakers...


vs.

Celtics.


So, you think Jerry West will enjoy the show all the way? Let's hope so.

hollywood bridal fashion show @ theSpring - the preview

Bridal fashion show.

This time round, it was a bridal fashion showcase served up by Hollywood Bridal, a Kuching-based bridal studio. The fashion show followed through by the Miss Spring Time, of which I posted a couple of posts earlier.

Let's take a sneak peek on what the show was like that day. You know we could tell if the show is good with just the crowd's attention, right? The larger the crowd, the better the show is, no?

So check item #1 - The crowd.

Okay-lah, there are people concentrating on the model, and the dress, of course, while aiming their camera's crosshair onto their target.

Notice the "xiao bai" (mini white cannon) in the middle of the pack?

*cough* And er.. ahem.. some of you may think the girl in yellow is cute, no? *cough*

Check item #2 - the model.

The model looks cute, right?

So with the two items checked, the show should be an okay one. :)

So, check back again to see the show through my lens. I used my EF 50mm f/1.8 throughout the show. I'm really loving my 50mm. Wanna get other lens, but I'm in financial constrain to do so.


Oh, and i spotted this too. It's my friend in the picture again. LOL! His 'wedding shot'. LOL

Euro 2008 & bridal fashion preview

Remember the countdown I mentioned earlier?

7 days.

That's all we gotta wait for Euro 2008 to kick-start. So, we still have football to catch even after the leagues in England, Spain, Italy and others have rounded up their footballing season.

16 teams will be competing in Austria-Switzerland to wrestle and dethrone Greece, the winner in 2004. Check out the updates and final lineup of 23 in both these websites -- Soccernet.com or European Championship's official website at http://www.euro2008.uefa.com/.

Note: We will only get to watch Euro 2008 in action on the 8 June 2008, because of different time zone. Check your Astro listing for the matches. Opening match will be between co-host Switzerland and Czech Republic

total randomness: the secret affair.. lol!

Let's have a break and check out these paparazi shots on someone's 'secret affair'. LOL!

Spotted two familiar figures in the Spring, but couldn't confirm the identities for the two.

Can you see them?

Looks like they're pretty close, hmm... fishy.. If only I can see who they are..

Gotcha! Oh, ain't no secret affair, it's just the dynamic duo of Jimmy & Irene. LOL!

Okay, those were purely random! LOL. Sorry guys, I hope you don't mind. I've gotta clarify that there are nothing in between them. :)

Also, spotted this on Hollywood Bridal's roadshow, my friend was featured in that piece of work. You can see more of him in Hollywood Bridal's website at www.hollywoodbridal.com.

And finally, there was this guy who tried in vain to be Mr.Invisible. I wasn't the only one complained about it. I've heard a few already, and 90% of the time he's in the position as below:

What a sight, isn't it?

Cristiano Ronaldo move to a new club

Cristiano Ronaldo move to a new club
Cristiano Ronaldo has repeated he's pleased at Man United as gossips goes on about his future.English Player of the Year has been related with a move to Real Madrid for some time now.Ronaldo repeatedly admitted that he would like to play in Spain one day, only in an interview released in Portugal newspaper Publiko, he states: "I can guarantee that I am happy at Manchester United and that I would love to continue."



Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro is the most hottest player in the world at this moment and therefore no stranger to transfer rumours and reports had suggested he might leave Old Trafford.

Cristiano Ronaldo video

Cristiano Ronaldo newest moves:

crazy videos

I came across this videos on YouTube, and I thought they're really crazy! LOL.

Basketball fans, you should watch these! LOL!

Kobe Bryant Jumps over Aston Martin


Kenny Smith Spoofs a Aston Martin Jump
(This is a little long, but worth waiting till the end!)


Kobe Bryant Jumps over a Snake-pool for a Dunk! (with Jackass crew)


Compilation of Kobe's new adverts.



There you have it! Some videos to loose up a little.

miss springtime

Some 10 days ago, there was a World Harvest Festival event in the Spring shopping mall. And, I was so happened to be there with my arsenal. How coincident, not.

I was told that there would be some fashion show going on, so I was there to see see look look check things out.

In conjunction to the World Harvest Festival, they have this pageant campaign going on, which is known as Miss Fair Lady. What happened in the Spring that day was for one of the subsidiary for the contestants. Winner for that round would be crowned as Miss SpringTime. I think I got those info correctly.

The actual Grand Final would be held in Sarawak Cultural Village, of which the event was just recently concluded.

I didn't gather much information on this event, I wonder around and snap a few pictures. I even let my guard down and let other 'paparazi' to snap picture of me. LOL.

There would be cultural performances by the Sarawak Cultural Village's musicians and dancers during the interval of every show.

That afternoon was really hot and scorching outside the building. And for that, the lighting was even more intense when the sunlight breached through the windows from the top. That made things hard for me to get the right exposure.

The contestants were out to help promoting some product from the sponsors.

Smile, you're on camera!

The stage cum runway were decorated to a long house theme, in conjunction to the harvest festival.

We can see the all excited contestant.

Giving her best smile.

So, who do you think is the fairest of all?

#12 was given the SpringTime title.

So did she go all the way and win it all till the end? I don't know to be frank, you've gotta dig up the old newspaper and search for the result. I think I saw the report on frontpage of Borneo Post yesterday.

There were some fashion shows lined up after this 'pageant' thingy. Stay tuned for more photos.

streamyx

I had problems with streamyx earlier just now. It appears that the problem originated from the area port which I'm connected.

Now that I can go online, I'm already tired and sleepy, much thanks to the 2 hours basketball session. Update shall resume tomorrow.

Goodnight!

countdown

I haven't been able to update properly over the weekend thanks to the working-weekend for me. I'm totally drained. Now that English Premier League's season is over, weekend nights seem so dull to me. But, it won't last too long, UEFA Euro 2008 is coming up real soon!

There are few dates to lookout for in the coming months, notably...

Hehe, are you guessing what the dates are about? Can you guess which is which?

And, here's a random picture of the day.

Story behind the picture: The baby couldn't stop staring into my lens, so I just snapped few shots. :P The photo was desaturated a little.

scorching weekend

My weekend schedule was like this:

24-May-2008.
morning - clicking shutter,
afternoon- clicking shutter,
late afternoon - clicking shutter,
almost evening - break, transfer files to laptop, nap,
evening - back to click more shutters,
night - dinner @ rasamas, boulevard,
after dinner - browsed through the so-called auto carnival, which seemed like a pasar malam to me, (p/s: I bumped into pazuzu there too),
late night - went out to attend a 'service request' to fix a 'cannot browse internet' problem.
late late night - yam cha with friends @ padungan.

25-May-2008.
morning - more shutter clicking,
afternoon - tried to click more, but i seriously ran out of things to snap,
late afternoon - revitalizing from the after-effect from the scorching sun,
late, late afternoon - dropped by bing! to have a cup of smoothies (banana chocolate), while I missed (almost) completely of Georgette's event there,
evening - dropped by Padang Merdeka for a random street shooting,
late evening - feeling tired, and really tired, and i'm typing this entry.

I felt like burnt out! Can someone call the fire department? Someone please pour down icy water to cool down my body.

charity concert - feature: yise

Warning: There are quite a few numbers of photos in this post, it maybe slow to load for certain internet connection speed. For faster loading, please click on the title to load just this post only. Thank you! :-)



Okay, after Manchester United's European triumph, let's just come back to Kuching instead. Please pardon me for getting carried away with their success. I've been a Manchester United fan for a long time now, probably coming to a decade long.

Here's the 2nd part of the charity concert I was at.

After Andrew Tan, comes Yise Lo (罗忆诗). She's not only a singer, but also a composer herself. She writes her own songs, and filled in the lyrics with her own words. Pretty cool eh? Honestly, she was the main reason why I was there in the concert. I wanted to see how good she is performing on stage.

Well, I must say, she didn't disappoint. Although it wasn't really a live band concert, the music was from a background music track from CD, she still did pretty well. I like her vocal somehow.

She made her appearance with this little jacket on.

Michael Wong 'looking' on from behind, hehe.

I shot the entire sequence with Auto WB, and photos are shot straight to JPEG. There wasn't much editing, or correction done after. The yellow hue was from the color lighting on stage.

From the way she speaks, it sounded like she has nice personality as well. A very easy-going lass.

The red one.

I must apologize for the lack of variety in angle captured. I was just shooting not far from my seat only. I could have bossed around with my camera and just get carried away, but no, I didn't. I thought I shouldn't as I wasn't an invited/appointed photographer. I certainly didn't want to get myself blocking other people there. So, I thought it was best to stay hidden, in stealth.

This shot, I think, is somewhat under exposed. Should have corrected it before posting. I had to get it exported cos a friend needed it for her report. So, it was quite a rush in preparing the pic.

The emcee and the singer. Oh, and yeah, I changed my angle a bit. LOL.

From certain angle, I think she resembles Leehom. LOL.

There were game session during the interval. Right after the little chat with the emcee dude, Yise performed right away again. This time, with her jacket off.

I kinda like this shot, albeit being underexposed, as the far background looked not-so-plain here. Hehe. It looked kinda like a concert in a true concert hall or something.

Now comes my attempts to shoot the effect I wanted.

I liked the effect, the idea, but too bad I was only shooting with a prime 50mm, the only lens I have with a wide/big aperture. Maximum aperture was f/1.8, which made the no-flash shots possible in that kind of lighting.

Bow of gratitude.

Clock was ticking, and I had to go already. Coincidentally, Yise was also done with her performance that night. There were two more performers that night, 曾国辉 and Michael 黄光良.

I couldn't stay any longer though. I was off to the basketball semi-finals in MBKS indoor stadium.

So, up next, what would it be? There was a fashion show going on in the Spring shopping mall last weekend, could the next post be on that? We'll see.