Pictorial

Giveaway!

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 23:52:39 +0800

Win a box of 6 galleys of upcoming Penguin titles!!

All you have to do is reblog this post and they could be yours!

Rules:

Must reblog from PenguinLibrary

Reblog as many times as you like

Winner will be drawn randomly on Monday, April 8th.

Must live in the United States

Here is a closeup of the titles included in the box:

Good luck!

Running Out Of Time

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:26:05 +0800

Sent from my Windows Phone

onthestrand: YOU KNOW YOU TOTES WANT THIS TOTE. (Sorry)

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 01:39:07 +0800

onthestrand:

YOU KNOW YOU TOTES WANT THIS TOTE.

(Sorry)

mediabytes: The most-visited news websites among Americans in...

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:57:07 +0800

mediabytes:

The most-visited news websites among Americans in May, according to Nielsen.

Press 53: 53-Word Story Contest With Meg Pokrass

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 23:07:55 +0800

Press 53: 53-Word Story Contest With Meg Pokrass:

press53:

This week’s prompt: Write a 53-word story which centers around the concept of shedding old habits.Include these words: fast; soft.

Guidelines and Information

(Prompt created by Press 53 author Meg Pokrass)

-53 words—no more, no less—titles are not included in the word count.

-1…

Photographing Culture

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 04:57:33 +0800

I attended a workshop organised by Panasonic and omy.sg titled “Photos make your Blogs go Pop!” The workshop was hosted by 2 bloggers, Jerome and Christine who were kind enough to share their experiences in using photographs to accentuate their blog postings. We also had the pleasant surprise of being the first few people in Singapore to road-test the Panasonic DMC-GF5X cameras.

I was doubly surprised to find myself as one of the photographic subjects in Jerome’s slide which explained the principles of ‘thirds’ in selecting where to position a subject/object within a camera frame so it does not appear static.

The workshop was hosted by Albert Court Village Hotel, a boutique hotel located near Little India, which was handy as part of the workshop involved making a photographic trip through the colourful alleys of Little India and testing out the new camera and the various functions.

The hotel also provided a great opportunity to test out the capabilities of the new cameras during our tea break. As everyone was armed with a camera, the food during the tea break became our first photographic subjects. People might have gotten a little carried away with taking photographs of the food instead of eating it (including myself!) The photographs taken with the Panasonic DMC-GF5X (as seen in the photos) do work very well with close-ups.

Of course the hotel itself was rich in heritage and character too as it was renovated from existing shop houses decorated with Strait Chinese carvings and motifs. The furniture within the lobby was certainly plush looking in a Victorian design. You never feel as if you are in an impersonal hotel space.

It might only have 210 rooms but it is very cosy and there are security features such as keycard access to the various floors so one always feels secure. I spied a jucuzzi through the doors just out of reach.

Besides Little India, it is also within walking distance from Singapore’s arts and cultural precinct, which includes the Singapore Arts Museum, the National Library as well as the LaSalle College of the Arts. Unfortunately we were not headed in that direction. Otherwise the poor camera would have had a workout with so many interesting sights to photograph!

See the full gallery on Posterous

Delish!

Wed, 30 May 2012 16:13:30 +0800

Thank god there’s only eight pieces of it!

Seen At The Singapore Arts Festival

Tue, 29 May 2012 11:36:00 +0800

See the full gallery on Posterous

Food War

Tue, 29 May 2012 11:26:31 +0800

Kristina - Pri oltari (by KristinaVEVO)

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 03:20:23 +0800

Kristina - Pri oltari (by KristinaVEVO)

I am sure it’s not what they REALLY mean…

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:18:53 +0800

I am sure it’s not what they REALLY mean…

Photo

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 11:57:56 +0800

Where Everyone Knows Your Name

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:43:40 +0800

Okay.

I wonder how people have been ordering their coffees in the UK.

After all, we have all that name-calling (based on what they can scribble or spell on your plastic cup/mug) in Singapore for ages.

Starbucks UK seems to have caught up with the practice but are we making a mistake of substituting am erican ‘faux’ culture for friendliness?

You don’t get summoned to the serving counter by your name in a restaurant and you certainly don’t get ordered to appear by name at McDonald’s. So what makes it any more friendly in Starbucks if they shout out your name on a beverage?

Isn’t all that name calling so that they don’t make a mess of your order and to re-confirm that they had made the right beverage for you?

Are we deceiving ourselves that it’s rea lly american if everyone knows your name?

Get "It"?

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 00:52:39 +0800

This is really a bad idea.

A Basket Of Freshly Squeezed Oranges ((Orange, Books, 2012))

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:58:26 +0800

Well following the subject of International Women’s Day….

here is the longlist of the Orange Prize for Fiction this year (written by female writers)

Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg (Quercus) - Swedish; 1st Novel
On the Floor by Aifric Campbell (Serpent’s Tail) - Irish; 3rd Novel
The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen (The Clerkenwell Press) - American; 4th Novel
The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue (Picador) - Irish; 7th Novel
Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (Serpent’s Tail)&nb sp;- Canadian; 2nd Novel
The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape) - Irish; 5th Novel
The Flying Man by Roopa Farooki (Headline Review) - British; 5th Novel
Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon (Quercus) - American; 4th Novel
Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding (Bloomsbury) - British; 3rd Novel
Gillespie and I by Jane Harris (Faber & Faber) - British; 2nd Novel
The Translation of the Bones by Francesca Kay (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) - British; 2nd Novel
The Blue Book by A.L. Kennedy (Jonathan Cape) - British; 6th Novel
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Harvill Secker) - American; 1st Novel
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Bloomsbury) - American; 1st Novel
Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick (Atlantic Books) - American; 7th Novel
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (Bloomsbury) - American; 6th Novel
There but for the(sic) by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton) - British; 5th Novel
The Pink Hotel by Anna Stothard (Alma Books) - British; 2nd Novel
Tides of War by Stella Tillyard (Chatto & Windus) - British; 1st Novel
The Submission by Amy Waldman (William Heinemann) - American; 1st Novel

So What's So Great About Women

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:41:08 +0800

8 March is International Women’s Day

So should we (as men) be patting the women on the back for a job well done? That would sound condescending.

Given that women outnumber men as part of the human population on earth, it must be a matter of time before society levels out the inequality and make them more if not just as imporant as men.

Hopefully one hears the trilling of glass ceilings shattering everywhere.

Meanwhile, don’t just pay lip services to the women around you.

Help to clean the dishes, will you?

Ninjas and Grandma

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 23:43:30 +0800

Seriously.

A maths word problem for grade 3 with ninjas and grandma killing them?

An unfortunate maths teacher in Washington DC assigned such word problems to his students and ended up being fired.

It was purportedly word problems taken from a website which claimed to use Singapore mathematics worksheets.

I wish I had such maths problem when I was young!

Optimum Temperature

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 15:18:26 +0800

Hmmm.

Not a happy camper. The Ferrero Rocher bought during Chinese New Year is tasting ‘flat’.

Flipped the box to the back and it reads that it needs to be kept at the temperature of 18-22 degrees Celsius.

The ambient temperature in Singapore is around 28-31 degrees Celsius.

How on earth do we attain 18-22 ?

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Irritating or vice versa

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:06:17 +0800

Honestly.

What were people expecting from a movie adapted from a highly irritating book (in my opinion)?

How was the movie going to be shaped by a precocious kid who is on a quest?

Is it any wonder that the movie “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” just grates the nerves and end up incredibly loud and extremely irritating.

It comes across as being smarty pants and as the common consensus seems to be, manipulative

And yes, I feel like slapping the kid in the movie.

1984 in 2012

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:35:57 +0800

It’s been awhile but I am re-discovering 1984 via the Planetbook website which allows you to download ebooks of such classics as 1984 as well as The Great Gatsby as well as Sense and Sensibility.

I miss the sensual feel of flipping the pages of the odd book but I guess we all have to move on.