How was my holiday in Greece? Fantastic! This one picture summarizes it all.


Fantastic views on a beautiful island (Click to enlarge).

Santorini or Thira is an island in Greece, famous for its dramatic and spectacular sunsets. It is essentially what remains of an enormous volcanic explosion - a big crater. The inhabitants of the island have built their homes on the cliffs of the crater, resulting in very unique and quaint towns. Although the volcano in the center of the island is dormant, it is still considered active and could blow at any time. Makes one wonder, if it blows up, that completely wipes out all the island, and everything on it .

Anyway, we had an amazing time and the views were just simply breathtaking. Despite the reputation that Greek/Mediterranean food is dry, the food was fantastic and pretty tasty! You do get a sense that the island is becoming quite commercialized. Some aspects even do remind me of Bali or Phuket. However, to me, it still has its magic and retains its quaint feel.

Will let the pictures do the rest of the talking. The full album is over here with some narration, but here are some highlights from our trip.


In the quaint town of Oia (Click to enlarge).


The sleeping giant (Click to enlarge).


Whoosh! (Click to enlarge)


Moussaka & Mythos Beer! (Click to enlarge)


Quaint towns all built on the edge of the volcano's crater (Click to enlarge).


Sunset from the Caldera Cliffs (Click to enlarge).


Night falls over Oia (Click to enlarge).

Some other shots taken from my last trip back to Ipoh. We dropped by yet another one many Buddhist temples built into the lime stone caves around Ipoh. This one was pretty interesting as there were stairs built into the hill leading up to another part of the temple. Unfortunately it was closed when we got there...


Tung Wah Tong (Click to enlarge).


Lens flare isn't always a bad thing (Click to enlarge).


Try spotting my dad (Click to enlarge).

Literally. Taking macro shots fascinate me. I went back to Ipoh for a quick trip last weekend to see my folks, just before I was headed out of the country again. Gorged myself with comfort food as usual. Having stuffed myself, I sat down in the middle of Mom's garden and started chasing some bugs with my camera and macro lens. Pics are not for the squeamish who hate bugs by the way...


Little black ant scurrying down a leaf (Click image to enlarge).


Another little ant peeking out of a flower (Click image to enlarge).


Fresh kill (Click image to enlarge).

I've also added more macro shots into my Macro Album.

*Ring* *Ring*
Me: Hello?
Woman: Hello? Who's this? You chinese ah?
Me: Who's on the line?
Woman: You're a student ah?
Me: Who's on the line???
Woman: Working ah?
Me: I said who's on the line???
Woman: This is Michelle.
Me: Michelle who?
Woman: I'm doing a survey on video consumption...
Me: Not interested *Click*

Sheesh Some manners would have helped you. I get really annoyed when someone calls and asks me who am I. Identify yourself first damnit. WTF is video consumption anyway???

Orchids and heptagons


I like how the sun's backlighting illuminated the flower


Old man's beard (apparently that's what the plant is called)

These lil guys are as hot as they look


Ripe and ready to blow someone's mouth apart

Okay, this isn't a kinky topic, despite what the title may suggest. I had a conversation with a friend and his girlfriend over some chips and beer yesterday and we got around to talking about... well I'm not exactly sure what to call it really... social networking... or exhibisionism... or internet stalking... or bare-intimate-private-details-about-myself-so-that-I'll-screw-myself-over. You know, since the Facebook/Twitter era started, people have been finding new ways of out-doing each other in broadcasting personal things, which often, no one else really needs to know about. I think this exhibisionism is now getting out of hand. No wait. It's ridiculous... and it's also creepy.

So at some point between the second and third pint and griping over the weird Facebook/iPhone apps out there, my pal's girlfriend starts telling us about this new website which apparently, for people who have recently gone for a lobotomy and are idiotic enough to sign up on, allows the website access to all your credit card transactions and broadcast all of it to the whole wide world. Don't believe me? Read about it yourself. Anyway, I came across that article today and that just got my head spinning outta control into a rant about this whole exhibisionism and voyeurism over the internet thing...

1. Facebook
   The king of social networking & privacy invasion - I had avoided Facebook for a really long time but curiousity got the best of me one fateful day back in July 2008. Facebook was still quite a bit simpler then. Now with all the changes they've made to the privacy settings, no one really knows what's private/public anymore since they've made it downright confusing. In fact, there are people who've started deleting their accounts in protest of Facebook making profiles, not-so-private anymore. But most people are oblivious to their privacy settings anyway and have no clue that whatever they post can be seen by everyone on the internet. And then there are the annoying attention whoring individuals who post every damn link and thing that comes to their head. Check out Openbook, and you'll probably be able to find the latest person on the internet to lose his/her virginity and tell everyone about it. There are just too many infamous and often hillarious misfortunes that have happened over Facebook due to people not realizing what they're posting and who's in their list of friends.
   
   By the way, if you've posted over 10 status updates and links a day regularly, you've probably made it to my shitlist and I've hidden your feed for my sanity's sake.
   
   
2. Twitter
   People who think they're celebrities (unless they actually are), who feel compelled to tell everyone they know every single minute of the day what they're doing. Seriously, are you so close to your friends that you want to know when they're taking a piss or a dump. Okay, props to the dude who used twitter to get someone to pass him some toilet paper when he realized his toilet stall had run out of it. I can't figure out Twitter's appeal and I probably never will. All my blogs run over 140 words most of the time anyway.
   
   
3. Foursquares
   I find this one particularly annoying and have banned all Foursquare posts on my Facebook feed. What the hell is wrong with you people? Honestly, where's the fun in telling everyone what and where you're eating for breakfast/lunch/dinner/supper/tea/snacks? Why why why? Are the conversations you have with your fellow Foursquaremates so compelling and intriguing that you just have to keep "checking in" at even the little burger ramli shack down at some dodgy alley in KL?
   
   
4. Google Latitude / LocateMe / Any application which uses your phone's GPS to broadcast where exactly in the world you are
   If I were a burglar, these kind of apps would be the holy grail of finding marks. I would know where you live. I would know when you're out of your house. I would know when you're out of the country. All in real time too! I witnessed a friend go to Penang and back, on Facebook. All from the convenience of my Facebook feed. Brilliant.
   
   
5. Blippy / Swipely
   Okay the latest and by far the scariest of them all. Let me tell you how I'm gonna go into debt, credit card transaction by credit card transaction. To quote the creator of one of the sites in the article above, "...the purpose is to reveal the stories behind America's stuff and explore how much our purchases reflect our personalities". This, is no different from making copies of your credit card statement, standing in the middle of Times Square, and handing it out to every passerbyer and going, "Check it out! I spend 3 bucks everyday in Starbucks yo! By the way, will you be my friend?". How does anyone think this is even a good idea? Hell, how did they even get anyone to sign up for that? America, are you that gullible??? If you need someone to reveal something about your personality, go see a shrink! It'll probably be cheaper than the fraud you're exposing yourself to.
   

Okay then let's play Devil's Advocate for a bit. Let me change my hat...

Sure, Jon you're one to talk about privacy. You've got a Facebook profile and you post status updates as well. You've got a blog/website/domain which is named AFTER you and easily found over Google. Pffffbt hypocrite!

... and back to my grumpy hat.

Well it's about managing the content you put online isn't it? It's about knowing what you should and shouldn't put up. My personal choice is that I don't mind some amount of my personal details to be in view of the public domain. I believe it's my own responsibility to censor my own content, which I wouldn't want you to read, or think that you probably couldn't care less and wouldn't want to read anyway. In fact, I'm surprised you made it this far down this rant.

I think most of the time the average lay person doesn't realize what he/she posts up may potentially be viewed by everyone with an internet connection. But that argument is moot if you are an attention seeking whore who craves the limelight and thunder of being the center of attention. Then by all means, you deserve to get your house burgled.

... since I haven't posted anything on the blog for a while. I've also run out of interesting things to take pictures off around the house and the trigger finger's a lil itchy.


My Digital Audio Workstation / Digital Darkroom / Gaming Machine / World Wide Web Surfing
Device / Google Reader / Facebook Viewing Console. Oh and yes, that's a condenser microphone.


The Electrics


The Acoustics


The Atomic Amplifier, which my neighbors probably hate


Guitar Pedals for Effects


Ready to be plugged in


MIDI Controller Keyboard & Trigger Pads