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Food For Thought @ 8Q. Open kitchen and merchandise shelf

It's always a rare treat to discover a cozy cafe with decently priced, good tasting food and an ambiance that's just lovely to hang out in. I don't do it often enough, but I always love it when I find time to catch up on a book or have an afternoon tea with a friend. There's a sense of time slowing down, you can pretty much watch the world rush by and your worries of the world are left behind... just for a couple of hours.


Food For Thought @ 8Q - Entrance

Located at Queen Street, just next to the 8Q Museum is a building extension for Food For Thought (FFT). Food For Thought isn't just a clever name for a cafe, but it is also reflective of the theme and mission of the founders to support clean water, feed good food, help end poverty, educate the people and encourage kind acts. FFT was conceived to be a place which would promote exceptional merchandise created by good people for good causes. It would also run events that gathered people to discuss issues and contribute meaningfully to local and regional needs.


Food For Thought @ 8Q - Place-mats with a cause

It never amazes me how blessed I am to be loved by Jesus. Have a faithful Holy Week.

Read:
Psalm 22 (2009)
Lenten Reflection 2009
Be Still this Good Friday (2008)
Anima Christi (2008)
Getting Lent Right (2006)
The Passion (2005)
Lent 2004
Last week of Lent (2003)
Into Lent (2003)

Soaking into the mood of Mosaic Music Festival 2010 at the Esplanade was our attempt to kill two birds with one stone after our night shoot at Marina Barrage. In my opinion, shooting a live concert (at night) is one of the more challenging aspects of photography. There are always inconstant blast of lights, artists jumping around and the occasional surprise element such as the smoke or wind machine and confetti falling. It's always a bonus when you're just a casual amateur in photography, which also means you get to enjoy the music without too much stress.

We couldn't resist free music gigs.


Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Saritah from Australia charms the audience with her eclectic Soul Reggae sound and powerful lyrics.


Check out http://www.saritah.com or http://www.myspace.com/saritahmusic


No Request performs music from the Solid Gold era. Lot of Bee Gees, think there was Grease and they had to end with the classic YMCA!

The result of taking my new toy, the Canon PowerShot S90 out for a snap at the Marina Barrage.









Read:
Canon PowerShot S90 Compact Power!
Sustainable Singapore Gallery at the Marina Barrage
Sony V1: A Baby Camera with all the Muscles

More Marina Barrage City Skyline (Night) Pictures

There is absolutely nothing not to like about the Canon's S-Series PowerShot S90; released late 2009. Finally, a REAL prosumer camera that is a match to my Sony V1. For the longest time, there was nothing as good nor as small. The Canon PowerShot S90 has packed in even more muscles then I could have asked for. Most importantly, the compact camera produces pictures so good, some shots are a close fight to an SLR camera!

Even before I picked up my very own S90 mid this month, I've already convinced 3 friends who purchased the camera and have nothing but great praise for the product. The S90 easily beat Canon's own flagship G11 at its own game. The S90 has the same full-sized sensor as the G11, but adds a faster f/2 lens, a direct control ring and a bigger LCD in a smaller, lighter package for less money.

What Canon really made work:
1) First compact camera with two direct control rings

Nothing feels better then being in CONTROL! I felt right at home having the basic know-how on operating a SLR camera with this baby!

The greatest feature of the S90 has to be the metallic front control ring, which gives a nice clicking sound upon every turn. Few compacts have even one control ring, and DSLRs have maybe one. Control rings mean you can make your settings directly and instantly on the camera without the need to enter into the function screens. My camera is 90% set to Manual Mode, giving me total and instant control to aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

2) Fast f/2.0-4.9 lens
At the release of this camera last year, there wasn't another other compact camera with a small as a f/2.0 lens. The low light capability is greatly enhanced, producing near excellent night shots with shallow depth of field.

3) CCD rather then COMS chip
People who are serious enough care that their processing chip is a Real CCD and not CMOS.


4) 3.0" PureColor II LCD
The large and accurate LCD is crucial to manual adjustments to your shot. Your images will fill the screen nicely, not just the centre as they do on other cameras with "chopped" (16:9) LCDs missing their tops and bottoms.

5) Lens covering the classic 28-105mm range
28mm gives a very decent wide angled shot and in this instant with very unnoticeable distortions. 105mm is equivalent to a 3.8x zoom. Not fantastic but good enough in most cases.

Each of the seven mind-blowing graphical conclusions sum up the printed Twitter (Twitter) mathematical figures in real-life ways and highlight just how much paper and money it would take to print out the entire microblogging site.

Now just try to image what would happen if you tried to print Facebook!

Per the intriguing graphic below, if you printed Twitter …
- the seven billion tweets to date are composed of 104,860,000,000 words, as many as 133,000 copies of the the King James version of the Bible.

- it would cover 350 million sheets of paper, which is 37 times the number of pages used in bills introduced in the United States Congress since 1955.

- the paper would weigh three and a half million pounds, the equivalent of 82 school buses fully loaded with 84 happily tweeting kids.

- and did nothing but read tweets throughout the entire work day, it would take 2,912 years to get through it.

- and laid the pages end to end, they would stretch 60,763 miles or two and a half times around the earth.

- on an average HP Inkjet printer, it would cost you $24,500,000 to print in black ink or $55,606,250 to include the Twitter blue.

- keeping up with the 26 million tweets daily would require 30 inkjet printers working around the clock to print more than 1,300,000 pages every day.



Read:
2009 State of the Internet Explained
Gender Balance on Social Networking Sites - Chicks Rule!
Interesting Twitter and Blogging Statistics
Han Rosling presents amazing data
A Day in the Internet - How BIG is the WWW?
The Global Future of Technology
Social Networking: Understanding Communication Changes

The focus is on exactly who uses the Internet, and how often. It breaks things down by gender, age, income level, and nationality. It even serves up average broadband speeds for both landline and mobile users at the bottom.

It's interesting to note:
- There’s no gender bias when it comes to the Internet; 74% of men use it, and so do 74% of women.

- The older people are, the less likely they are to use the Internet. 93% of people ages 18-29 use it, but only 38% of people 65+ do. 65 is where the big drop off happens, though; 70% of people 50 – 64 are online.

- As you might expect, the higher their income level, the more likely it is that someone has broadband access.

- Education is correlated as well. 94% of college grads are online, while only 39% of people with less than a high school education are.

- Internet use is up significantly in just the past five years. In 2005, 27% of people surveyed used the Internet “several times a day.” Now it’s 38%.

- 58% have a desktop computer. 46% have a laptop. Desktop computers are still much more common than laptops. You wouldn’t guess that in day-to-day life in the developed world — at least not when it comes to personal use.

- Ages 25 – 44 make up the majority of people who blog. Only 7% of people under 25 do — that’s an even lower percentage than people 55 – 64! Have the youngsters latched on to other new media?

- 54% of bloggers consider themselves experts on whatever it is they’re blogging about.

- Norway is the country with the highest level of Internet penetration. The United States is in fifth place. China is not on the graph, but I am sure it wouldn't take long to see an impact.

- Japan has the fastest Internet connections on average. No surprise there.

- The average mobile Internet connection clocks in at around 700 Kbps.




Read:
Gender Balance on Social Networking Sites - Chicks Rule!
Interesting Twitter and Blogging Statistics
Han Rosling presents amazing data
A Day in the Internet - How BIG is the WWW?
The Global Future of Technology
Social Networking: Understanding Communication Changes

I was looking through some old emails and revisited a URL link sent by Terence - Demand Your Dignity. This time, I spent more time absorbing the marvelous video resources on the site. The media bug in me was intrigued by Jean Kilbourne’s Killing Us Softly 3 Advertising's Image of Women. I found the full 30min presentation clip on YouTube. Great material put together to re-empathize what the advertising culture is doing to us all.

Jean Kilbourne's pioneering work helped develop and popularize the study of gender representation in advertising. Her award-winning films Killing Us Softly (1979) and Still Killing Us Softly (1987) have influenced millions of college and high school students across two generations and on an international scale.

In this important film produced in 2000, Kilbourne reviews if and how the image of women in advertising has changed over the last 20 years. With wit and warmth, Kilbourne uses over 160 ads and commercials to critique advertising’s image of women. By fostering creative and productive dialogue, she invites viewers to look at familiar images in a new way, that moves and empowers them to take action.









A study guide and handouts for this video is available online from the Media Education Foundation.

To be released in April this year is an update to the Killing Us Softly series - Killing Us Softly 4. The film marshals a range of new print and television advertisements to lay bare a stunning pattern of damaging gender stereotypes - images and messages that too often reinforce unrealistic, and unhealthy, perceptions of beauty, perfection, and sexuality. The DVD can be ordered online at Media Education Foundation.

Read:
Live Out Love: Let's Talk About Sex

2010 Mosaic Music Festival kicked off their opening act with Grammy-winning pop-R&B superstar, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds. I couldn't resist passing out on watching this great music legend whose credentials and the imprint that he has left on the evolution of contemporary pop music and a universal legion of fans is almost unfathomable.

Edmonds is responsible for writing, producing, and/or performing a staggering 119 Top 10 pop hits as a songwriter, which include, 41 ..1 R&B hits and 51 Top-10 pop hits, including 16 ..1 pop hits. Albums and singles he's worked on have amassed sales that exceed 100 million units. Along the way, Edmonds has garnered countless accolades, winning 10 Grammy Awards including Producer of the Year for a history-making three years in a row (1995, '96, '97), which still stands as a Grammy record. He has released 11 solo albums and created contemporary R&B-soul mega-hits for Michael Jackson, Mary J. Blige, TLC, Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Madonna, Eric Clapton, Boyz II Men, Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston and the list goes on...

Kenny Edmonds was a left-handed, teenaged guitarist in funk megastar Bootsy Collins’ backing unit when he was playfully dubbed “Babyface” by Collins. He joined funk outfit Manchild in the 70s but broke away to form urban funk band The Deele with Antonio “L.A.” Reid.

It was with Reid that Babyface began a successful partnership producing and writing songs for other artists and founded the super-successful label LaFace Records. His distinctive way of fusing the rhythms, samples and production techniques of hip-hop with the urban sound of contemporary pop-R&B made the duo the key producers of the genre. The duo became a hit with 80s-90s megastars, their songs flying to the top of the pop charts, some of them – such as End of the Road for Boyz II Men, Take a Bow for Madonna, and Change the World with Eric Clapton – staying there for unprecedented lengths of time.

Having produced that many significant hits during my growing up days, it was only right to catch the MAN live at least once in my lifetime. I got more - a signed autograph CD of his 2007 "Playlist" album and a great picture to keep!


Babyface, the one-man hit machine on stage at the Esplanade Concert Hall


Babyface - Don't Be Cruel / Every Little Step (Bobby Brown Melody)

After sharing his 'Love' story, Babyface broke out into a 25 min medley of songs he wrote and produced. Audiences were on their feet during the Bobby Brown numbers. It was a crazy trip down memory lane! It totally RAWKED the House!


There were screams and then hands were in the air as the concert hall sang in sync to Boyz II Men's I'll Make Love To You and End Of The Road


Babyface - I'll Make Love To You / End Of The Road (Boyz II Men Melody)


Babyface - Change The World


Babyface's encore performance When Can I See You


Babyface - When Can I See You

More Babyface Live @ Mosaic Music Festival Singapore 2010 Pictures

Read:
Harry Connick, Jr Live @ Mosaic Music Festival Singapore
Hey Harry!
All Ready for Harry Connick, Jr
Mosaic Music Festival "On Air - In the House"

Who would have guessed an animated short about a whole bunch of corporate logos (more than 2,500) can nab an Oscar at the recent 82nd Academy Awards. According to the directors François Alaux and Hervé de Crécy, Logorama took 6 years to put together. That's about a little less then 3 mins of animation footage produced in a year! Incredible!

Unfortunately, the story didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Plus I figure they really didn't not need to ride on the Pulp Fiction fame. However, it did make me LOL!

What the animation short failed to deliver in story, it delivered in the most brilliant and enjoyable visual treat.





Read:
Oscars 2010 Predictions
Oscars 2009: Boggie with Bollywood!
Oscars 2009 Predictions
Oscars Movie Nite 2009
Slumdog Millionaire: When "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" tells a boy's story (2009)
All Ready for the Oscars! (2008)
And The Oscar Goes To... (2006)
Mo Cuishle (2005)
And the Oscar goes to... (2004)

Predicting 20 out of 24 nominees.
"And the Oscar goes to..."



I must say it's been a great ride leading up to the Oscars. The academy has finally become more generous. The Best Picture entries have doubled from 5 to 10 nominees. Of the 10, I managed to catch 8. The selections are interestingly varied, though a couple I wouldn't consider Oscar worthy enough. I'm sticking with the crowd favourite - 'Avatar'. I'm also pretty certain 'The Hurt Locker' will pick up a couple of awards. And as much as I love Meryl Streep, I'm rooting for Sandra Bullock for 'The Blind Side' this year.

See you on Oscar Night!\

Read:
Oscars 2009: Boggie with Bollywood!
Oscars 2009 Predictions
Oscars Movie Nite 2009
Slumdog Millionaire: When "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" tells a boy's story (2009)
All Ready for the Oscars! (2008)
And The Oscar Goes To... (2006)
Mo Cuishle (2005)
And the Oscar goes to... (2004)

After my recent post on the 2010 remake of "Clash of the Titans"; I had to dig out the pictures I took with the legendary RAY HARRYHAUSEN himself at the 2000 Oz Animation Festival. I can't say enough that it was more then an honour to have met arguably the greatest stop-motion animator in the history of motion pictures. He blazed new trails in special effects from the 1950s to the 1980s creating realistic dinosaurs, fantastic aliens, and imaginative mythological creatures.

Following up to the release of the "Clash of the Titans" remake this April, Terence has requested for me to sheave through my pile of DVDs for the 1980s copy. Something we all want to relive again - the magic of Greek Mythology Fantasy, Stop Motion Animation and Ray Harryhausen.


Ray Harryhausen signs the cover of my Animation World Magazine Print


With Lionel. The man and 2 big fans.


A compilation of every Ray Harryhausen animated creature in feature films, presented in chronological order

More Ray Harryhausen Autograph 2000 Pictures

Read:
Release the Kraken!
Salute to Stan Winston

Watching the trailers of director Louis Leterrier's 2010 remake of "Clash of the Titans" gives me goosebumps. The original 1981 fantasy classic has been an absolute childhood favourite, watched it a million times and still love every inch of it. There's no doubt that this film together with "Jason and the Argonauts" and the Sinbad adventures opened my mind and heart to the world of animation.

Back then we were talking about tedious 24 frames per second stop-motion animation which master animator Ray Harryhausen created with infinite brilliance. I've met the man himself during my school days in Oz. Very much retired and running a series of animation seminars. He packed along his 'toys'; clay figures of Medusa, Hydra, Kraken, Calibos, Skeletons... very rare opportunity to see the real thing up close and personal. Jimmy bought me a signatured "Jason and the Argonauts" movie poster (that I have yet to frame up), I stood in line to get my AWN cover signed and bought myself a Medusa animation festival T-shirt.

"Clash of the Titans" 2010 official trailers:




"Clash of the Titans" 2010 stars Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, a black Pegasus and a fast moving, but still deadly Medusa. In a way I was hoping that the Kraken (king of all beast) wasn't revealed in the trailers, but very glad that it looks darn fierce! I'm really excited for the movie scheduled to be released in April and available in 3D.

"Clash of the Titans" 1981 official trailer:


Watching the 80s trailer makes one realise how far animation has progress...

Read:
Salute to Stan Winston