Christmas is drawing near!

Some gifts which you might want to consider for your loved ones! What's more, you can customise whatever you want to create. Quality, hand-made clay figurines in equally presentable display cases. Even better, sign up a loved one or a friend to learn the skill! Enquiries most welcome.

It's a dangerous thing - Passion

If you meet someone with passion (now i'm not talking about people oozing hormones), will you be able to identify it? Passion is an urge or desire that consistently calls us to action, often radical action. The person's infectious enthusiasm, doing things which do not cut corners and going that extra mile that ordinary folks would dismiss as - 'foolish' and 'doing extra work' and 'wasting time' or even more damaging like 'spoiling the market' - as in 'don't spoil the market' and other phrases that speak of nothing but mediocrity. In other words, Passion fosters commitment and determination.

Let's dwell on the passion which Tom Hanks displays in his acting. Tom Hanks was voted the 26th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly. He received the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award, presented by fellow Oscar winner Steven Spielberg, the youngest ever to receive that award (12 June 2002).


-Hanks gained 30 pounds for his role in A League of Their Own (1992)by eating ice-cream

-In the same passionate pursuit, he lost 30 lbs. for his role in Philadelphia (1993), in which he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination.

In a review for People, Leah Rozen stated "Above all, credit for Philadelphia's success belongs to Hanks, who makes sure that he plays a character, not a saint. He is flat-out terrific, giving a deeply felt, carefully nuanced performance that deserves an Oscar."


It is not just the weight loss or gain that makes him great but the attention which he puts into the acting that makes him a true actor.

Tom Hanks quips: "I love what I do for a living, it's the greatest job in the world, but you have to survive an awful lot of attention that you don't truly deserve and you have to live up to your professional responsibilities and I'm always trying to balance that with what is really important."

Passion will be rewarded, despite the green-eyed monsters preying on the flesh, criticising the every move and lambasting every effort of any passionate individual to buck the trend and do something new and radical.

Tom Hanks once shared a record (with Tom Cruise and Will Smith) as the actor to star in the most consecutive $100 million-grossing movies.

I respect this passion and i emulate the passion for my own life.

Coffee Culture !!!

Coffee and wine were two things which i did more research as i like drinking these two beverages. However, in order to remain sober and sane, over the years, i have chosen the way of the coffee. Drinking wine is still an enjoyable and leisurely thing to do but i don't do this everyday. Coffee - oh, that's a different thing altogether. I must have at least two to three shots everyday. And my knowledge has improved. There's a very informative chart which will help any enthusiast. Now that i have a fully automatic coffee-maker i am still keeping my 15-bar steamer / expresso maker. Thinking about the crema is just pure exhilaration!







graphic taken from http://www.lokeshdhakar.com/2007/08/20/an-illustrated-coffee-guide/

Cycling through park connectors

I definitely believe in putting my best foot in my working life. It gives me satisfaction at the end of each working day. People who have worked for years, especially those who have done both - in the public and private sectors - will testify that it is not just the money, period.

It is the passion for the things one believe in and part of it includes doing the task well, even though the sentiments about doing that particular task is sometimes like, pardon the expression - "doing the damn thing." People who share my sentiments will still say - "do the damn thing WELL!"

After work, there is of course the things that one indulge in to balance the life. Recently, i began to explore the park connectors.(Thus little time to reply to some of my clients and fans... sorry) My verdict? You need to be quite fit to carry your bicycle over the overhead pedestrain bridges to access the park connectors (PCN). Like the one from Bishan to Kallang Riverside Park. According to the measurement done by NParks, the distance is 7.6 km. To enjoy this ride, you will have to take 3 overhead bridges - the longest one being the one at St Andrews Village leading to the Whampoa side.

Of course if your are fit enough and game enough, you might like to get a bicycle that is made of aluminium (light) so that you can lug it across these bridges. I have a foldable aluminium one which looks like the one featured here. It allows me to bring it into the MRT as well. NParks has so nicely put this entire journey from Bishan to Kallang Riverside Park onto Youtube. Watch it here in its full 3mins+ glory plus nerve-soothing, muscle-relaxing music. Nice! Total distance for the round trip? 15.2 km. Can surely burn a few hundred calories off! Enjoy!

Animation (using Nikon D60 animation software)

This is my second stop animation project! Quite easy to do on the Nikon camera!

Penguins Cooling Off !

These pair of penguins are about 8 to 10cm in length. They are outside of an igloo, which is made using white air-dry clay, and row by row, built right up the top. It is capped with a white clay 'coin.'

They look cool and chilled in winter wonderland. Winter Wonderland? That's a good idea. This would be my next project - winter wonderland; a gathering of fun-loving penguins doing different fun things.

Maybe this is a hidden desire (now it's not subconscious anymore) to look forward to the Christmas break ???

Learning a new skill in 2009: Inline skating

My personal motto is "Learn, unlearn and relearn." Part of "Learning" includes learning something new every six months to a year. So, i took up inline skating with my son. This is the result of a few lessons. I was so encouraged by a elderly couple who just started blading. The elderly man confessed that he was 62! This defies everything that every normal human being believes in - that everything either becomes softer, more fragile and everything should migrate to the southerly regions. Well, I am enjoying it so far ;-)(Son is the videoman)


At his third lesson, son is better than daddy!

The "PICNIC"

Was it breakfast? Was it tea? Was it lunch? Brunch? In between meals? Well, it looked more like an in-between sort of thing.
But more importantly, 50+ photos were taken and the beautiful faces shown. It's a gathering of cheerful, active, playful (and some of them very mischeivous) people at a beautiful campus, designed by a world renowned *architect on the eastern side of Singapore - the only place where it fronts a stunning reservoir.

HERE ARE THE PICS!!!

(for info on the architect: http://spark.tp.edu.sg/dmr/package3/jamesstirling.htm0

Dough Dog

Finally i got down to experimenting with flour. A schnauzer, of course! I quite like the effects. Just mix flour and water and pre-heat the oven to 190 c and then put in for 30 minutes. No cracks, thank goodness. Beacuse i didn't use self-raising flour, the dog didn't swell. The brown ears are pretty nice.

Next i will be going into saltdough.

But first, here are the pics:

Sending the dog into the oven

The baked dog (like the brown ears!)

Another profile

Michael Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009)

If MJ's story was to be written, it would be a really thick book. I'll leave that to his Biographers. I do better with clay. Different phases of his life are represented here in Jumping Clay.


1990,Height of his fame

1990s, accusations of improper actions towards children

1990s - bizzare behaviour

2003 - hiding from media glare


June 25, 2009 - FARE THEE WELL

Tribute to the King of Pop

Miniclip.com,an innovative giant in the online games business, paid a tribute to the King of Pop.


http://www.miniclip.com/games/michael-jackson-tribute/en/

As i type, i hope he is in a better world as described here:

There's A Place In Your Heart
And I Know That It Is Love
And This Place Could Be Much
Brighter Than Tomorrow
And If You Really Try
You'll Find There's No Need To Cry
In This Place You'll Feel
There's No Hurt Or Sorrow...

A good way to see Malacca (I)

The river cruise did it for me. This family trip to Malacca is made memorable because of the cruise. Chugging down on the calm and relatively clean river on a sunny but warm day with intermittant breezes is a good way to see Malacca for me. The lack of trafic jam after Second Link was a great motivator. The shopping and the meals at Newton were good too. of course the time spent with the family topped it all up. Now for the pics:


The pre-trip check

The landmark

The Welcome sign

The streets of Malacca


The smiles after the thirst-quencher ;-)