Muscle and Fitness War 2009 - Part 3

This is the final part for Muscle and Fitness War 2009. A sequence of muscle-flexing of our 1st runner-up of this competition.

You can find Part I and Part II at the links below:
Muscle and Fitness War 2009 - Part I
Muscle and Fitness War 2009 - Part II

Sales Up at Fotolia

I started with Fotolia.com without too high an expectation. As expected, it didn't give me much sale either. =) Then in recent weeks, I have seen quite some improvement in my sales over there. My ranking there is has also gone up too. My 7-day ranking used to be in the 5000-6000 range, now it is at around 3000 range, once it went up to the 2000 range!

When the economy is in such a gloom and doom condition, and everybody complains about sharp fall in demand, it is really good to see something actually is going up, instead of down.

Take a look at their site at the banner below, if you are interested.

Chinese New Year Gathering

Had a Chinese New Year gathering with my friends LHJ, WCH & XYH tonight at the famous Maxwell Food Center in Singapore's Chinatown.

Today is only the 12th day into the Chinese New Year, officially the new year is still not over yet. The Chinese New Year decorations in Chinatown are still shining, blinking, trying hard to create a festive atmosphere among the gloom & doom economic crisis, the worst ever recession faced by this prosperous city state.

I ordered the curry chicken rice noodle. Well, the curry chicken is a bit special. Usually for curry chicken, the curry and chicken are cooked together. In this case, the chicken in fact is steamed. After the rice noodle is cooked, the steamed chicken is then added to the rice noodle. Lastly, curry sauce cooked with bean curd are added to the rice noodle and chicken.

The taste, suprisingly, is not bad. The chicken is tender & delicious. It doesn't taste like normal curry chicken which tends to be a bit too coarse.

What did we talk about at the gathering? What other topics will be better than how many employees each company is going to retrench, how much pay cut each will get, whether a 4-day week work scheme will be implemented. Well, this current crisis is already the 3rd economic crisis we have encountered since we graduated from university. Whatever goes down, will go up again. It is a just a matter of time. It may take a year or two, it may take a decade or two. Nobody knows. But we still have a life to live, days to go by.

Chinese New Year Dinner

Had a delicious Chinese New Year dinner with my current and former colleagues at Mellben Seafood at AMK.

They are famous for their crabs, chilli crab, butter crab. And their crabs are giantic. Can you imagine the claw of the crab is as big as an adult man's hand. However, their crabs are not all that fresh. The meat is not easily peeled, which means it is not really that fresh.

Anyway, it is a rare occasion that so many of us can come together. Some of them had disappeared from our life for a couple of years, but now they are back again. And they still look the same as before.

Under the current economic condition, everybody is uncertain about what is in store in the near future. Many companies have announced plans to cut down on headcounts. Job security has overtaken salary and wealth as the top most priority for almost everybody.

Well, let's hope everybody can survive this most severe economic crisis of the century and come out stronger!

Association of Bloggers, Singapore

A unique association, Association of Bloggers, Singapore (ABS, in short) was born just before the Chinese New Year. It came with quite a bit of fanfare, including a multi-page media interview with My Paper.

Immediately after the establishment of the association, many Singapore bloggers voiced their opinions, most of them negative.

I thought that was quite normal to have some negative views when you start something. That's typical of Singapore, full of skeptics. Then when I came back after my Chinese New Year holidays, alama, 8 out of 10 of the founding members of the association quit! From birth to death is a bit too fast for this association.

In my opinion, the idea of having an association is not bad, but it is the execution the went wrong. As you may have guessed, it first has to do with money!

To be a member of the assoication, you have to pay a one time entrance fee of SGD$60.00, and an annual membership fee of SGD$50.00. This is a bit steep in money terms. If the membership is SGD$10.00 per year, I think the story will be different.

The second reason is related to the 'vision' of the association, which is to 'accredit' Singapore bloggers. People like to blog because they can write anything they like (almost anything). It does not matter whether they have readers, supporters, whatsoever. There is no authority to tell them what they can do, what they can't (in general). They don't have to go for a test to get a license like driving.

Now, all of a sudden, some unknown persons came out to tell the rest of the Singapore bloggers that they need to pay, and they need to get their accredition. Of course, it will make some of the bloggers furious. People will ask who are you? How many hits do you actually get each day? If you have less than 100 hits a day and you want to be the authority to 'accredit' other bloggers who may have hundreds, thousands of hits a day?

Well, let's see how it develops. Give new things a chance.

Their site is available at: Association of Bloggers Singapore

Muscle and Fitness War 2009 - Part 2

This is a continuation from the post
Muscle and Fitness War 2009 Part 1.

Some more photos to share here. If you are one of the participants and if you want to have the high resolution version of your photo, drop me a note. Will be glad at your service. :)

And more photos at Muscle and Fitness War 2009 - Part 3

Model Shoot at Busy Hong Kong Street

When I was in Hong Kong last week, I bumped into a model shoot in a busy street in downtown Hongkong. The female model stood in the middle of a pedestrian crossing, while the photographer hid at one corner of a pedestrian overhead bridge! There was no photography assistant visible. I guess the model has some kind of communication equipment in her ears, as I could see she posed following some instruction, and sometimes you could her totally lost as what the photographers wanted her to do.

Passers-by just gave the model a curious look and then walked on, seldom see anyone slow down to find out what is happening. Maybe it is really something very common in busy Hong Kong, as I know our Big Brother Jackie Chan did that in an even more busy street before.

And I wonder, does the photographer need to get a model release from ALL the passers-by? Haha.... I was one of them, so I am waiting for someone to come up to me asking me to sign a model release....:D Just joking....Fat hope....

My Photo in Commercial Use

During my flight back to Singapore onboard Tiger Airways, I flipped through their in-flight magazine Tiger Tales (Jan/Feb 2009 issue). Somehow my 6th sense tells me that I might bump into one of my own photos being used in this magazine.


As I flipped, flipped, & flipped, and that it is. In the page that they introduce to the readers about the city of Guangzhou, there lays my own photos of Baomo Garden, a rennovated ancient private garden in the outskirts of Guangzhou.


Here is a photo of the magazine.

And here is my photo.


This is the very first time I found my photo in commercial use. Well, I must say I feel happy. Hope to see more in the future :)