Unrolling A Film

I shot one roll of film through a camera last week before realizing that the shutter did not open at all. Now I've read about unrolling the film from an already wounded roll few years back, but never had a chance to do it. What I did is take another roll of unwanted film, lick it and stick it into the film canister. The saliva is supposed to snag on to the film leader and drag the film out to be reused, but trust me this is harder than it sounds. I managed the feat after half an hour.

Here are some tips that I've learned.
1) Never lick the film. Uggghhhh! The unwanted film had already been developed and the chemicals tasted terrible. Spit or rub some saliva on it, but never lick it!
2) Make sure you insert the unwanted film deep enough. A good measure of how deep is when you see the film canister rolling (the pic below) in response to your pushing, then you know you've latched onto the film.

3) Try turning the film around in the canister. Sometimes when the film has been rewound, the leader has gone too far inside and its difficult to latch on to it. Turn it around a bit and try again, if the leader is in the right position then it will come out easily.

Decision Making

I saw some polaroid cameras for sale last week on an online camera site and it threw me into a dilemma. Buy? Yes? No?

Well money's not an issue here, it will just set me back a couple of hundred bucks but a voice deep behind my kneecaps said (well the voice used to be in my head, but I banished it somewhere else so I can overrule it more often than it can do me) I should not just buy for the sake of it being cheap. Then I realized that we're talking about a polaroid here, a legend in its own right! Having this is my collection will be awesome! Ok hang on, will I have the space for this? Or even the time to use it? I mean look at it, its bulky! While it may not beat my Olympus Trip in weight and ease of use, but surely I've seen the wonderful photos it is capable of producing, right? And not to mention the instant photos I'll be able to file in my journals and all. Oh ho ho, I say that but will I be able to get the films easily? How many vendors carry that nowadays?

Deadlock.

So I tried taking my mind of it and did some mindless net surfing, and as fate would have it I came upon this Newsweek article titled 'The Science of Making Decisions.' In short, it mentions the importance of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, the part of the brain behind our foreheads) in making decisions.

The more complex the problem, the more activity there will be in the DLPFC when looked under a fMRI scan. But with too much information and overANALysis, the DLPFC short circuits and that's when people are more prone to making errors and bad decisions.

So with this information, my next course of action was to sleep on the issue and not give it too much thought for the time being.

END RESULT? After a few days I decided that I really didn't need the camera. What I have in my collection is currently more than enough for me. Ok truth be told, they sold out all the models already...crap! So in a way, this sleeping over the problem thing does help.  Now iPad 2...hmmm....

Jerks

So there's this really interesting article about jerks...

That unintelligent people on average die faster is common sense and proof of natural selection. So the world is constantly getting 'smarter' and more competitive with time. So how about jerks? Is the world a nicer place to be in now than a decade ago? Stupid people die young but how about jerks?

You know we all mostly say we hate jerks and mean people, but nothing can be further from the truth. We worship them.

Yaaa...as if you watch American Idol because of Randy Jackson

A jerk made American Idol the way it is. The jerk has left and so have many of the audience.

Some have said that American Idol based its panel of judges on a tried and tested formula of the personality of presenters at Top Gear, a jerk, a pretty face (prettiest among the lot) and a boring person. And it works very well. Top Gear would not be the same if there were three James May.

This fella needs no introduction. His words may have been responsible in a restaurant owner's decision to commit suicide.

So back to the question, is the world a nicer place to be? Not really. One thing's for sure, jerks may die young but they are getting richer.

Going Postal

During my trip home earlier this month, I managed to get a copy of the Going Postal DVD from my sisters.

I was quite excited by this since Moist von Lipwig is the first Discworld character that I've gotten familiar with, but I had my reservations. Half the fun of reading Discworld novels come from the witty narration and I've always thought that its hard to translate that charm onto the big screen or for telly. Not impossible though. It was enjoyable to watch.

However, I've always had a mental image of Lord Vetinari as this.

And for me, the right kind of person to play this character would be none other than...

As badass as Hugo Weaving may look, the more important feat in portraying the Patrician lies in projecting the cold, cunning yet benevolent character that Vetinari has. And in that respect, Charles Dance has done a great job. Besides, Mr Weaving would have been expensive...

Yes I know I'm nitpicking here. Its a very fun 4 hours to watch and if you're a fan of the Discworld novels, I highly recommend it. I'm looking forward to the next Discworld book on von Lipwig, rumored to be 'Raising Taxes'.

Counting Our Blessings

CNY celebrations this year came to an official end yesterday. It's been a trying two weeks with many highs and lows in between. This one definitely a low - it took 4 hours and close to 100km of driving to renew my work pass yesterday, due to poor communication by the immigration department. So much time was wasted there that I didn't manage to finish my other tasks for the day.

It doesn't really matter much now that I've sat down and thought about it. I must learn to look at the positive things and not dwell too much on the the rest. And so the positive - a couple of days ago my wife and I went to the clinic for a checkup, and I'm pleased to announce that we will be expecting a baby boy somewhere in the middle of this year.

Being an Asian parent, I got down to some hard thinking. How can I best prepare for my future offspring? There will be the obvious buying of many baby items, clothes and accessories, but what else? How can I give him a headstart in life?

The answer? Get him a facebook account.

He'll thank me for it one day. All those points/traps/mechanisms/gold that he will start playing those FB games with when I pass the account over to him will give him a leg up over his peers. Here's hoping tomorrow's facebook won't be obsolete like today's ICQ. Come to think of it...maybe I should sign up for 4 more facebook accounts *grins*.

CNY 2011

Ted's version of Chinese New Year will not be complete without...

Traveling

Food... these prawns were a gift from my mother-in -law to my mom

More food -  I ate close to triple my daily caloric intake during this period

'Tis the season to flood the nation with new RM1 notes

Having fun with the family and relatives

CNY celebrations are always over faster than you can say 'how come you don't give me ang pow anymore? Some people still do leh.' Nevertheless I've had a great time. I hope you enjoyed your CNY break too!

Hare Cut

With Chinese New Year just a week away, I went for a haircut yesterday. The normal salon that I frequent has recently started becoming popular, with me having to wait for an hour the last time I was there. Now changing hairstylists is never easy and sometimes brings regrets, but the long waiting time is a bit too much. So I tried a new salon.

 The first thing they gave me when I sat down was a catalogue of hairstyles. Right from the start I spotted a problem. It can't be considered a haircut if I walk out of there with longer hair then I came with right?

I wish I had hair like that

There was only one picture in that catalogue that was realistically possible and I showed it to the hairstylist. She glanced at it, said 'Oh, so you want short ah' and started work with a shaver. I noticed she didn't even look at the instructions that were on the page, much less follow it.

After 10 minutes I ended up looking nothing at all like what the picture suggested but I knew better than to protest. Genetically with the cards that we've been dealt with, sometimes its not possible to achieve that ideal model look. Well not for 20 bucks and 10minutes anyway. Nevertheless I'm satisfied enough and will probably consider returning in the future.