Monday, December 17, 2007

A Candy Maker

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son.... - John 3:16

A candy maker in Indiana wanted to make a candy that would be a witness of his faith. He incorporated several symbols for the birth, ministry, and death of Jesus Christ. He began with a stick of pure white, hard candy-white to symbolize the Solid Rock, the foundation of the Church and the firmness of God's promises.

The candy maker made the candy in the form of a "J" to represent the name of Jesus, who came to earth as our Savior. It could also be thought to represent the staff of the Good Shepherd with which He reaches down into the ditches of the world to lift out the fallen lambs who, like all sheep, have gone astray.

Thinking that the candy was somewhat plain, the candy maker stained it with red stripes. He used three small stripes to show the stripes of the scourging Jesus received, and by which we are healed. The large red stripe was for the blood shed by Christ on the cross so that we could have the promise of eternal life.

The candy became known as the candy cane-a decoration seen at Christmas time. But the meaning is still there.

During Christmas, do you reflect on the real meaning of the season? It is one season we can use like no other to bring the focus on Christ. Ask God to give you opportunities to share Christ with someone this Christmas.

TGIF Today God Is First by Os Hillman
Tags: Christmas, Os Hillman, TGIF, Today God Is First, God, Jesus Christ, Candy Cane, Candy Maker

Saturday, December 15, 2007

The Right Match

This afternoon was the full dress rehearsal for The Right Match drama.
My co-producer was giving last minute instruction to those in charge of moving the props.
There were some last minute changes on the scenes involved - 14 of them - therefore, we need to explain further.
While my co-producer was explaining at the main hall, I was up at the balcony trying to connect the cables correctly.
My laptop couldn't trigger the LCD projector to work. Panic! Panic! They were about to begin and I couldn't connect properly. Upon checking each cable one by one literally, we found a loose connection with one of the cables. That too was the last cable. How come we didn't start with that cable first?

Third Last Video Shoot?

According to our planning, this should be our third last video shooting. My cinematography guy, Kerk, is getting very tired with all those editings lately. Sleepless nights for him while we were dreaming away and he has to rush it out for the full dress rehearsal on Saturday afternoon.

In this scene, it was supposed to be a flashback, a scenario in black & white with a filmstrip at both sides showing a long time ago situation.

William was trying to invite Esther out for a date but the response was negative each time. We took a few shots with different clothings each time as if he came to her house a number of times throughout the year.

This was done at the main actress house and the video shooting started at 10pm till 12am.
With our creativeness, even darkness cannot stop us. Just use a table lamp as our lighting.....hehe
"He should have faced the other way" said my co-producer, Lud.
After the tough work, we went for mamak at Sri Petaling. At 2am, this was the stuff where 4 of us took into our stomach. Dinner? Supper?









The Right Match will be shown this Sunday. We intend to video shoot even those live stage acting later on and maybe submit this drama for a short drama competition.
Tags: Christmas Drama, Christmas, The Right Match, Video Shoot, Cinematography

Friday, December 14, 2007

Laptop's Harddisk Crashed!

Met a friend yesterday and he said that I must be very busy with the dramas till no time to blog the latest. I told him I was away to Genting on Monday/Tuesday and was in office on Wednesday.

The laptop started the day very slowly till I can't even load my emails. I could see 104 new emails but downloading from the server took ages. Turned it off and concentrated on my work and in between I turned the email on again but it slowed down my other softwares which I was working on.

By 3.45pm, I have completed my assignment and I went to my emails again and since it was slow, I decided to shut down the laptop. It jammed while shutting down and switching the laptop on was the real issue. Can't even read anything. Went straight to the IT Dept which said my harddisk has disappeared. Totally wiped off from the face of the earth! They asked what did I do to my laptop. Can't even detect my harddisk using whatever softwares they have.

The bad news - all my files, datas, 7GB of songs, pictures - ALL GONE! Sat at IT Dept, heartbroken. Sad. Nothing to say.

When I told my boss of the tragedy, he asked how come I didn't do any back-up. I told him my personal external harddisk of 80GB was gone 3 weeks back too, while using it in office. He kept quiet knowing that it was a real tragedy.

All my whatever files that you can think of while working in Sudan, pictures of my travels here and there (overseas and local) for the past 3 years, my Christmas drama scripts, my back-up of 7GB of songs are all gone.

On Thursday, IT Dept called me up to say that since my laptop was a goner they have gotten a new laptop for me. So happened that this new laptop was not allocated to any person yet. This is a surprise to me as an order for an office laptop may take few days as it required a number of approvals.

I got this new Dell Latitude D520 laptop now which is even more powerful than my previous one (a HP Compaq NX5000). A blessing in disguise? When I told my co-director and multimedia guy, they quickly responded by finding the next person with a laptop for our coming dramas.

But when I told them later in the day that I have received a new and more powerful laptop, the multimedia guy said all the while God wanted to provide me with a better laptop. Yeah, I told him BUT 'minus' all the datas in it.

Went for drama practise yesterday night and there was a HP Sales Manager in our midst. When I related the incident to the group, this lady friend said you must buy a HP laptop .......... hehehe. My co-director voiced out loudly saying that "His previous laptop was a HP!". So, I brought out my new Dell laptop and said "Hello, it was because of that incident, they decided to give me a Dell now" ........... she was looking for a hole to bury her face.............hahaha!

I have to start anew with everything, re-setting all the options again and re-collecting everything right from scratch, ensuring the right files are in place. Really time consuming and may not get some particular files that I wanted to keep for reference as well.

But I can tell you devil, nothing's gonna stop me from getting the Christmas dramas running at an even better performance.
Tags: Christmas Drama, Tragedy, HP Compaq NX5000, Dell Latitude D520, Laptop, Harddisk Crashed

Eggs-Traordinaire

I'm sure you have seen people using dominos to create a landscape and then push the first domino to have a nice effect of it dropping onto the next and the next and the next.







But to see a guy using chicken eggs to make it stand is very eggs-traordinaire.















Not only he made the eggs stood but created a nice picture using eggs alone. Dominos can't break.
Tags: Eggs, Chicken Egg, Unique, Creativity, Domino

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Fabricated Terrorist News

The country of Egypt has been accused of fabricating news that mentioned about a sect which was deemed illegal and said to be linked to terrorist group.

The Victorious Sect, an unknown Islamic group, was said to have caused unrest in the country and had planned to cause some disruptions at tourism sites and gas pipelines (just claims only).

By putting up such news in the media and coupled with its state security investigations, Egypt was accused of arresting 22 people in connection with this Victorious Sect. The arrests were made even though there were little or no evidence in the claims as stated above. The Human Rights Watch said that Egypt's intention in fabricating such news was to allow it to implement the controversial emergency laws which will give sweeping powers of detention to the security forces.

If Egpyt as a country can do the above, it's not surprising to see other countries doing it especially you know which one ..................... the above scenario somehow painted a similar picture happening recently and nearby. Think about it.
Tags: Egypt, Victorious Sect, State Security, Human Rights Watch

Back to Reality

It was a nice holiday up in Genting on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, my group of friends was supposed to meet up at 9.30am for breakfast but some only turned up at 10.30am..... so much for a relaxed holiday. Well, it was meant to be a relaxed holiday so we waited patiently for everyone.............hehe.

It was raining right from the morning and we took a slow drive up to Genting. We reached the Genting Skyways at Goh Tong Jaya around 12.45pm. By the time we parked our cars and bought cable cars' tickets, we boarded the cable cars around 1.10pm. Another 2 cars drove all the way up to the peak of Genting.

When we reached the First World Hotel, the whole hotel lobby was packed like a wet market. I got a waiting list number of 586 on the dot of 1.45pm and the registration counters were only attending to ticket number 296. Yeah, the world's biggest hotel has lots of customers too. We went to grab a bite while waiting patiently again. A good solid 2 hours wait till 3.45pm before we got our room keys. Gave out the keys to the gang and all in all, 6 families, were given rooms at 25th Floor of Tower 2.

Rested for a while and the whole gang walked around the amusement centre and those with kids brought them to whatever rides available. Mannnnnnnnnnnn, the queues were really long. Besides the children having to queue up patiently, the parents have to wait patiently for the kids to queue up and finish the rides (not 1 but many rides) .............. hahaha!

Then on the night itself, we walked up to Genting Hotel for our extravaganza buffet dinner at Coffee Terrace which cost RM48 per adult (kids half price). I think most of us were deprived of proper dinner while in Kuala Lumpur as most adults were filled up to the neck with the food intake, me included. A slow walk back to First World Hotel, which takes about 10 minutes, was a good way of increasing the metabolism rate in burning the food to generate the strength to walk back.

Went into the casino area with 2 other guys at 12 midnite for our cups of teh tarik and thick milo drinks. Drinks were free for casino patrons. All you need to do was to walk into the cafeteria and fill your cup. No questions asked. Enjoyed 4 cups during our chit chat and went back to rooms at 3am.

Nope, I don't gamble but it was fun watching those gamblers having a go at the casino bankers/dealers. Chances of you winning - 99% that you can't win against the casino. Otherwise there'll be loads of millionaires. There were some one arm bandits that we were trying to understand why those fellas like to pit their monies against it.
Tags: Travel, Holiday, Genting, Genting Skyways, Goh Tong Jaya, First World Hotel, Genting Hotel, Coffee Terrace, Buffet Dinner, Teh Tarik, Milo, Casino

Pattaya International Fireworks Festival

Pattaya is definitely firing up its presence internationally. Covid19 has hit many nations really hard and Pattaya wasn't exempted from ...