Category: Photography

Categories
Activism Photography

[597] Of some water, a couple of flowers and a cup

Voila!

Finally, 500px instead of 400px. Looks good.

Anyway, it seems to me that, University of Malaya’s application form for master’s degree is as thick as Princeton’s undergraduate application form. Somehow, it makes filling up tax return form a walk in the park. Well, it depends on how large the park is.

And forgot the mention something for the sake of my vanity. I sent something for theCicak. The stuff is essentially a modification of my earlier post. I notice that there’s a grammatical problem that slipped my eyes when I sent it. And apparently, it also slips theCicak’s eyes. Hah.

And I’m not ReCom.org’s founding fathers as stated in the sort of footnote. But hey, is UMNO really our freedom fighters? Or is it they and the commies and everything in between? Increasingly, it’s becoming, who cares.

So, who cares if I were one of the founding fathers…

Hmm, maybe somebody out there might.

Categories
Photography Travels

[594] Of Kuala Lumpur: first world and third world

I ran a little errand yesterday. My eyes were a bit wilder than usual, ceteris paribus (read: controlling for sexy girls factor). While wandering almost aimlessly, I saw a couple run down wooden squat houses with modern highrise as backdrop.

Two images of Kuala Lumpur in one shot. In my opinion, a good juxtaposition of two realities.

I can’t wait what Selangor – the only self-declared developed state in Malaysia – has to offer. Fantasyland should be better than Kuala Lumpur.

It’s ludicrous for Selangor to declare itself as a developed state. And I still think it’s ridiculous to call Selangor capital of Shah Alam as a proper city. Forgive me for comparing but I think Ann Arbor is larger and more exciting than Shah Alam. Shah Alam doesn’t even have a cinema to start with.

And I think I need a better camera. Or maybe, I just need to stop scaling down my photos for posting purposes. Yeah. Next time, I’ll use 500px for width instead of 400px. Or I just need Photoshop instead of some stupid imaging software.

Argh! I want my old computer!

Categories
Liberty Photography Society

[589] Of flags, flags and more flags (else, photoblog part whatever + 1)

“Fly the flag” campaign (or something like that) has been going on for weeks now. However, certain Malaysian minister has expressed disappointment – there seems to be lack of support for the drive from the public.

I don’t know about cold shoulders but I saw a residential area wrapped with flags about a week ago:

Whatever it is, I’m sure he will be happy with all those flags. And I’m sure, some of us would be happier if a model had gone naked instead draped in Jalur Gemilang. I know I do.

Oh, well. Seven more hours to the 48th anniversery of a free Malaya. Seven hours and 17 days to 42 years of the Malaysian Federation.

Or.

Hai. Tujuh jam lagi untuk ulangtahun ke-48 Malaya yang merdeka. Tujuh jam dan 17 hari lagi untuk menyambut harijadi ke-42 Persekutuan Malaysia .

Goddamn, I took way too much time to translate that into Malay. If anybody could od any better, be my guest.

p/s – finally, Google Adsense. It’s on the left side of the screen, below all the links and other nonsense. I know it’s not a strategic place to have the ads but hey, I’ll think of something when I’m ready to properly update my template.

pp/s – alright, I’ve moved it way down. Way down. I’m making it as unintrusive as possible.

Categories
Photography

[588] Of photoblog, part whatever

I shot nearly 20 photos a couple of days ago and I like these two the best.

The first picture was shot in the KLCC conference center, or something like that. There was a UK education fair there. But seriously go to the US instead. It’s cheaper in the US and sometimes, UK schools are, ahem, overrated.

Next is a photo of a building called Maxis Tower, I think. It stands right beside the Petronas Twin Towers.

Categories
Environment Photography

[581] Of Kuala Lumpur is pedestrian-unfriendly

I haven’t explored as much as I would want to yet despite already being in the city for nearly two months now. I’m excited to rediscover the city all over again. Unfortunately, there are some whispers in the wind, telling me that Kuala Lumpur hates pedestrians with a capital h.

Generalizing is bad and I might be generalizing. Yet, in the several times that I had taken a walk in the city, I found that busy intersections, like the one nearest to the Indonesian embassy on Jalan Tun Razak, have no crosswalk light for pedestrians at all. Even the paint that mark the crosswalk on the street has somewhat faded. Worse, at some junctions, there is no crosswalk at all. Motorcycles and other vehicles that stop on existing ones instead of behind it don’t make the situation any better.

On the same stretch of road, only closer to the national library, there are crosswalk lights and the crossings are clearly marked. However, most of them don’t work or simply broken. And you don’t have to talk about ergonomic design. I have this one picture to demonstrate that common sense is not so common:

Why does the button face the fence instead of its possible users is beyond me. The button up close and personal:

And this is how people adhere to traffic rule. Observe the crosswalk, the position of the car and the position of the motorcycle on the far right:

And do you see the light for the crosswalk?

It doesn’t work. I waited for nearly 15 minutes, which is enough for the traffic system there to complete maybe two or even three cycles, but it never turned green. And I swear I did press the button several times. Note too that the button that I need to request for a crossing is the one button that faces the fence.

And the person on the other side of the road simply ignored the light when he found out that it doesn’t work.

Beautiful, isn’t it? A nonsensically placed button for a nonworkable crosswalk light is definitely an invention worthy of mention millennia to come. Who could have thought of it, I ask you?

As if it is not enough our rivers look like sewers:

Yes, that is actually a river.

Bah! I’m mad. And rawr! I want to be a cat.

Here pussy, pussy, pussy…