Ray of Hope

I was bored with surfing the net, ... it had rained pretty much the whole morning.... and when i stopped i went out to stretch my legs and was greeted with rays of hope..... ok that sounded a little corny...

Been playing around with imaging software .... so after fiddling around with the cloud image above i came up with this.....

this one is for you pri......

mo

Desert or Dessert

My sister was in Dubai a few weeks ago and she showed me a number of photos she took during her trip there..... As seen in many documentaries i have watched on Dubai and its expanding development... its just amazing to see Dubai's over the top ambition of reality.... stretching the engineers to their limits to achieve remarkable results... im sure we all have seen the famous Burj Al Arab Hotel right?...

well...,... meet its taller in-land cousin the Burj Dubai... which once completed will be the world tallest building... and when they set about building it ...they weren't kidding about it being tall......


My sister and her colleagues took a tour up the the Barj... all the way up there... since it is still under construction the lift is on the perimeter of the building and its an open lift.... with just a perforated metal cladding around it..... ,,,,,,, ...im guessing that they all dont surfer from the fear of heights ........

I'll leave you with a silhouette sunset of the ever changing skyline of the dubai ......



......... nice pictures CJ, very nice.... u are my sister afterall :P

mo

Just because.....

Well… im sure everywhere you go everyone talking about the new dawn in Malaysian politics ….a 50/50 control between BN and Opposition parties….. Call me a sceptic … but I really need to see it to believe it…. So lets see how things go yeah…..

I have no idea why BN is shocked of the lose of full or majority control and its even worst when all BN can say is how bad its going to be and that the Opposition shld be careful with their new found power…. And many Ministers,… I mean former ministers keep trying to scare us with impending doom as the opposition now have a hand in administrating the country….

I sincerely hope that the opposition will prove otherwise… So for the next 4 years they have got to prove to all of us if not…. BN will just have another landslide win come the next elections…….. hope is all I have for a better Malaysia… where all that talk is not just a façade ……..because for some reason these past few days I have been thinking what if… we, the minority race are still denied unanimity and must still give way to the majority…

The best not given a chance just because ……….…..
The minority still marginalized just because………...

So im going to wait….. wait and see ….to see what the new ‘gorvment’ has to offer us ‘Malaysians’… as a whole and not just as Malays, Chinese, Indians dan lain lain (and Others)


mo

Help carry what???

Imagine what my friends would have first thought when i asked their help to carry my vw engine out of the boot of my Proton Satria..... their first reaction was ... "your what...??!!!"... then the next question was ... "how the hell did you get it in there in the first place?"... and my answer was.... an Indian, an Indonesian and a Bangladeshi (the indian being me ofcos) carried it into the boot of my car.....



Yup... we managed to get my vw beetle engine into the boot of the satria... ofcos with the back seats folded down and you can fit alot of things in there.... but please be warned that overloading your car is dangerous... because your car will handle differently while driving it... not to mention ruining your back absorbers... shorthening its lifespan or even breaking it!! so please ... dont try this yeah...

So... next problem is getting it out of the car...... but with the help of Dono, Alex, Sheev and Gab, ... it was a breeze... sort off... carrying it straight was easy ..... but the witdh of the store room door was too small .... and so we had to turn the engine on its side so that the exhaust pointed up... slowly but surely... we got it into the store room and so as to not damage the floor... we placed it on a stand i made out of 2 x 4 lumber...

Thanks guys, ... i really appreaciate it....

mo

Creatures from THE MIST...... Im a jumppin' out'er here...

What the hell is eating my curry leaf this time..!!!!!!!!!!!!????????? What ever it was its now dead... after a healthy dose of bug spray......... really weird creatures which could just have been conjured up by Steven King for his latest movie adaptation of his horror thriller novel ...The Mist......


Started off interesting enough but for some reason the first creature FX looked so cheap... compared to the the rest of the movie..... Well im not going to waste anymore of your time like how this movie did... cos boy was it a waste of 2 hours of my life...... 3/10 .... reminded me of another stupid steven king movie...
DreamCatcher......

Talking about Mist.... whats with this weather lah... its hazy.... but it rains almost everyday.... chily at times ...hot like hell other times....... Wish i cld "jump" to Siberia or something....


Yeah.... how cool would that be.... just me and my camera... jumping around the world..... taking sunsets of the same day in every major city in the world........ cooooool!..... too bad the movie was crap.... Hayden what's his face was showing me just why i hated him in Star Wars.... (Oh God... not a another flashback.... no...no... NOOOO!!! it never happened... no.... oh please no...... Star Wars 1, 2 and 3... never happened.... no it never happened!!!!!!!!) and what the hell was Samuel L Jackson doing there.... repeating some lame one liner over and over "Only GOD should have this power" or some thing similar............ 3/10 and it cant jump any higher.....


mo

Football Themed Surprise Party with a Taboo Twist

Its so strange... i have so much of free time but i dont blog as much.... am bored out of my wits...
anyway as February was coming t a close ...we had a surprise party for Sheev... like last year we had a theme... a football theme... it was supposed to be a Man Utd ... but since some of us werent fans of that particular team ... we shall just call it a football theme...

As Colin took Sheev out... Priscilla and his mum got the whole place ready.. even G cooked potato salad...

Priscilla decorated the place with a number of man u logos

Colin was on his way home with Sheev so we all got to out stations...

I got behind a TV cabinet while the others hide in the dining

Dono went into sniper mode.....

Surprise....!!!! yeah ... we finally can eat.... :)


The boys kidding around while Sheev opens his presents


Priscilla got all of us a party gifts in the form of stress balls..... some as you can see cldnt stop playing with theirs... anyway there was a string live football gave that nite but we managed somehow i also dont know how ...but we managed to get all the guys to play a few rounds of Taboo.... We found out that the soft spoken Colin is such a hustler at Taboo.....

We played in the porch ... and im sure the neighbours werent too impressed.... co we were noise as ... a bunch of people playing taboo.......

Gunung Stong

Well finally only six people including myself were confirmed in going to Gunung Stong. We could not get train tickets so we had no choice but to drive,,.... the drive will take us to Bentong, Gua Musang and finally to Jelawang which is at the fringes of Kelantan.

The drive there was quite interesting..... we left at 10.30pm from Vads Plaza in TTDI where we picked up Azrul and his two pals. We reached the Bentung turnoff pretty quickly but there was a jam getting into Bentung Town. We where stuck like for more then 1 and a half hours…. My clutch leg was really killing me…. The Long Holiday exodus of Chinese New Year was really showing itself… there was a lot of cars on the road and we were averaging about 70 to 80 kph. We stopped at a petrol station for a toilet break only to find the queue so long we were there about half hour…

We took turns driving and thankfully we reached Jelawang town safely about 7.30am. Stopped for breakfast as Azrul called the guide to inform him of our arrival. Judy, Dono and me had coffee while the others had breakfast... the coffee tasted strange so i only had a few sips and thats it...

My odometer was showing slightly more then 400km (My petrol gauge is busted) so i decided that we shld get petrol..... we found out that the next petrol station was about 60km away.... but the shop owner informed us that we could buy petrol from a house nearby that had a small hand pump operated petrol tank.... before that we picked up our guide at a bus stop nearby.... Jani (our guide) then showed us to the house that sold petrol

check out the petrol pump.... very similar to the pumps in the 1920s

Part of the tour is to visit a few caves in that area. This was part of the reason I agreed to join this expedition. Turns out these caves are situated away from Jelawang, nearer to Dabong town. The caves were pretty good but not as nearly as good as Gunung Senyum and Jebak Puyuh….

After we got out to our cars all dirty and muddy we stopped at Dabong Town for lunch....

Thats Dabong Train Station in the background......

You can get a train at KTM and Central Station KL to Dabong station..... we couldn’t get tickets, being Chinese New Year and all everything was fully booked.... Wish we got tickets because driving here has made my legs ache like hell even before we reached Jelawang.... not to mention jumping around at The Police concert in Singapore.... my left (Clutch) leg was painful....... oh dear....


Jelawang Forest Reserve...... you can see most of the peaks which make up Gunung Ayam, Gunung Stong, Gunung Tera, Gunung Saji, Gunung Koh, Gunung Baha, Gunung Beirut and Gunung Che Tahir and Stong Waterfall from the Dabong Station.... you can do a six day hike to cover almost all the peaks but we were only hiking up Gunung Stong.. the most accessible of the bunch.......

After parking our cars and distributing the food among ourselves ..... it was time to start our 2 hour hike to Baha's Camp....... My legs were already giving way..... but i pushed on.... if i were you i wld make sure to come here by train instead of Driving.......

The waterfall was an awesome sight.... stunningly breathtaking.... powerfull......... the pictures dont do it justice.... you have got to be there ........... Halfway there..... i was holding everyone up.... but i think they didnt mind waiting for me to catchup....

my legs were cramping very badly.... i wobbled and jiggled my legs into place... inch by inch.... the guide let the others go ahead and assisted me.... he had those muscle spray thingys which he used on my legs....but that was useless….. about almost 200 meters to the entrance of Baha's camp...my legs just started shivering and cramping and locking stiff..... it took me an added 40 minutes or more, on top of the normal 2 hours to get to the camp..... Interestingly there is a tuck-shop of sorts which had soda up at Baha’s Camp... most importantly 100plus...... it wasnt iced but it was good.......

well I can go on and on but hey why don’t I let the photos do the talking….. Click HERE
to view more photos our trip to Gunung Stong…

The beautiful view as the sun rises on Baha's Camp

....

....

mo

THE POLICE live in Singapore!!!

What a week I have had.... At the last minute we (Donovan, Rose and I) managed to snap up 3 tickets to go watch THE POLICE live in Singapore last 4th of Feb. The concert was pretty much sold out but due to the overwhelming ticket sales, they opened up the seats facing the back of the stage. The sound wasn’t too good and some of the stage lights move into different position throughout the concert, sometimes blocking our view. Luckily they had 2 projectors facing us.

Nevertheless the concert was good but very Stingyfied’ if you know what I mean. It’s supposed to be THE POLICE concert!!!... Anyway the opening act was pretty good. They were called Fiction Plan… but were disappointed when I found out a few days ago that the front man of that band is Sting’s son…. He sounds just like any other rock band… not unique like his father. Oh well…..

Singapore was a little boring…. It rained pretty much all the way there, and it was gloomy and windy… reminded me of Melbourne… well I guess that’s better then hot and sunny. But what was worst is that my camera was giving me problems……. You see… I had dropped it on the floor on new years day and broke the battery latch…. Now its kept shut with a raffia string…. Yup very high tech wan…. So I taught I will just take my SLR… and as I was taking some shots on the bus I noticed a big black scuff on the photos… AARRRRRRRRRRRggggggggHHH… there was dust and this this this big black dot on the processing chip (CMOS)…. And I didn’t bring any camera cleaning equipment stuff with me..

Rained almost all the way to Singapore......

At Pagor rest stop...... hmmmm whats that black smudge to the right of the lights????.....

MRT.... the life line in Singapore........

Look!!.... its a giant tad pole..........

The Science Centre was pretty cool.....

The Giant Tad Pole is attacking Singapore.... where is Ultraman when you need him....

.

.

They didn’t allow any professional cameras into the stadium, and seeing that my compact camera was out of commission, I only snapped a few shots of the concert with Rose’s handphone…

We left for Singapore Saturday evening 2nd of Feb, and reached the apartment at about 11pm.We were bored so we visited the science centre and ofcos Orchard Road. The concert was on Monday the 4th of Feb. We walked to the stadium becos the buses and taxi stands we crowded. It turned out to be quite a walk from the MRT station; and after the concert, it was even worst…. We managed to walk back to the MRT station to catch the last train but we had to ran across to the other train during the interchange at City Hall. We pretty much walked a lot during our stay in Singapore and I was worried because I was leaving for the Gunung Stong expedition the day after we got back from Singapore….. and boy was I tired……

mo

Ravin Turns Two 19 Jan 08

Proof that Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes is a real Kid. Hansome little Ravin turned 2 years old last month. For enquiries and bookings to pixelate your special moments, please email me at pixelatedmo@gmail.com or geraldmc8@hotmail.com

Usha & Sanjay Engagement 19 Jan 08

From Klang to Nilai for a colorful engagements. For special moments pixelated in time, please email me at pixelatedmo@gmail.com or geraldmc8@hotmail.com for enquiries and bookings.

The Secret Paper Project

For almost a year i toyed at the idea of making a figurine for my good friend Donovan. He has always remembered my birthday and takes great trouble to get me something really nice... every year..... i on the other hand am a doing lah (not on purpose of cos) ..... so last year (Sept 06) i decided to make him something i saw over on the net. It was a figurine of the witchking riding a fell beast from the Lord of the Rings movies....

I researched for almost a year..... ofcos...most of the time i did alot of procrastinating lah ... then on the 1st day of September 2007 i started on the project...... what i thought wld take a few days to make, (his birthday was on the 15th of Sept) turned out to be a hell of a task ....of cos there were weeks where i didnt work on it at all.....but all-in it took me almost 4 months to finish it....

THe idea was to use any kind of material available to me for as minimal cost just for the heck of it.....So i used newspaper, MAsking tape, bits of wire, lots and lots of tissue paper, one small mecha figurine, Aluminium foil, a piece of nylon string and an egg crate. Apart from the mecha warrior, the most i spent on this secret project was poster paint and lots of PVA glue..... The hardest part of this project was to keep it a secret for so many months........... but i actually had fun making the figurine and it turned out well.... but me as usual kept trying to make it better, not satisfied with the outcome....so it took alot of effort to stop and except how it looked, otherwise it would have taken a few more months ...

For more photos of the making of this secret paper project...... click HERE

Betty & Egmont 5th Jan 2008

A simple wedding with a Hawaiian twist...... congrats Betty & Egmont... may your life together be filled with joy...


--mo

A Short Pixelated Christmas Story

So.... December has been ...very interesting (lack of a better word)....... and seeing that i cant put everything down in writing.... (Actually i can but im lazy) i thought i'd just post it with pictures..... (this blog is called pixelatedmo after all...... right.......

APM sang carols at that place next to Mid Valley.... (Yup i still cant remember what its called).... Gardens!!!!!!! yup Garden or the Garden or someting...... hmmm correct ah? Anyway... thats the same day i took the shot 'Dancing on the Skylight'...... hmmm APM didnt do too well the first day but they warmed up and did well on the second day..... fantastic....

Hmmm... seemed to have spend alot of time in Mid Valley in the days leading up to Christmas..... Rose and I found this fantastic curtain material in Kamdar (in 'the' Mid of the Valley) which we bought and had it made into lovely curtains...... i just love it..... a little sheer but ah... very very nice........... gives the living a nice colour.......

Did alot of cleaning and decorating and shopping and present wrapping and washing and shopping and carolling and photographing and shopping..... APM on the other had was busy practising Christmas carols....

We went house visiting and sang carols for two days.... and i got to practise using the Nikon D70 SLR.......... yup ....me with a digital SLR for the very first time...... i'll save that for another post.... anyway a big thank you goes out to my long time friend from school... Adrian Elliot for lending me his D70 to use for my wedding assignments......... thanks dude, i really really appreciate it........ (BTW girls he is single and available)....

Rose went all out with the decorations this yeah..... it really felt like Christmas after she finished..... :) We also bought those snow spray thingys .... but we didnt have time to do anything with it..... Then on the 26th of Dec i woke up and just went out and sprayed the sliding door with the snow spray... armed only with a rough sketch and my finger......

i guess its a little late....... but .... Merry Christmas Everyone and a Happy New Year to all my readers........!!!!!!!!........!!

END