Kandaqstan

I'll give that 3 bendi! Or words to that effect!

Yesterday, I attended a book launch by a certain Jahabar Sadiq, somebody who's writing I had admired from afar for quite some time. It was great to meet the man himself albeit briefly.

He wrote a book on his appreciation of nasi kandar, traveling from Penang to KL to sample them all and give his review. Rather than stars, each venue were given scores in terms of bendi. You'll catch the flow when you read the books.

The launch was at Coliseum Café at Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman. A fitting venue if not for the errand Facebook directions. I was sent to a different part of Chow Kit upon parking my car at Maju Junction. Should've followed my instinct than the online directions.

Ini kari lah!The launch was scheduled for 4 pm with lunch from 3 at a nearby Ibramsha Nasi Kandar - appropriate plan. Unfortunately it was 4.30 when I finally made it to the door of the café and missed all the talks and speeches. Luckily I managed to grab the very last copy of the book and managed to get the man himself to autograft it. The extra 2 km walk was well worth it ...

Looking forward to read the book and try a few of the venues. I am familiar with some of them - Kudu bin Abdul which was my late Father's favourite came to mind. So, let the nasi kandar hunt begin ...

I am sure Kandaqstan would be available at many good book stores - and some not so good ones - around town. Do try to check it out ...

Back to Intensive Care

It had been an up and down week. After being admitted, my father-in-law had not been completely stable. And it was all down to persistent infection.

He ended up in Intensive Care with an irregular heart beat but this morning had been showing positive signs of recovery. Hopefully he would be going up to the normal ward later today.

Being on call, I had been at hospital all day with Anita coming in and out. Hopefully in another couple of days, he would be allowed home back to stay with us until he is fully recovered.

#ExpoNegaraku Part 2

Part 1 of the entry can be read here.

Dome 2 housed the urban transport infrastructure the Government had planned for the coming decade. All the new LRT connections in the works - with no mention of the exorbitant cost of course or the fact that it would be built using China money. Quite a fun read although the audiovisual presentation that had was more on the lame side. Something I would expect my children could come up with for their school project. But it conveyed the message to the viewing public. And that was what mattered.

The rest of the domes dealt more with the environment and communications services. All in a very comfortable surroundings with good crowd flow control. The presentations were Malay-centric, and it was clear.that the target audience were Malaysians visiting KL during the school holidays.

This was not for sleeping but to watch an immersive presentation. No snoring allowed ...Part of the immersive presentation, onto a dome on top of us ...Back out of the domes ...After I was done with the exhibition domes, I went straight for a bit of a drinks. There was a stage at one end of the Dataran but it was 2 pm, clearly too hot for any sort of shows.

I would definitely recommend visitors to see the expo. A couple of hours well spent, and if this was the kind of expositions we were to expect in the future the quality was definitely there. Shame that despite being media savvy, I only learned about the exhibition when I physically stumbled across it. The expo would run until the 15th December.

#ExpoNegaraku Part 1

After catching an early lunch during my weekend break, I decided to walk around town a bit. There was no real plan. And I didn't even know about the ExpoNegaraku until I stumbled across it at Dataran Merdeka.

After turning around the corner I realised that there were plenty of people walking along. The road towards Jalan Raja was cordoned off. I then saw a row of food trucks. Something must be happening. When I turned towards Dataran Merdeka I soon learned that there were a few domes which housed the expo.

Time to go in.

It was hosted by Kementerian Penerangan and it showcased the urban developments going on around KL. The exhibits as I mentioned were houses in domes erected for the occasion right in the middle of the Dataran. There were 5 domes all together, each with a theme. The first Dome had a long queue heading, so I naturally gave that a miss.

Continued in part 2 ...

The iPhone X Camera

I take my phone everywhere and being an avid photographer, the most accessible phone I had most often were my mobile phone. Over the years I had been carrying many phones and the decision on which phone I chose to buy had how good the camera was being one of the top point of consideration.

The original iPhone did not have a good camera. Back then, the best camera phone I had used was the Nokia N73. Despite only having a 3.2MP camera, the Zeiss optics it carried made for some really great photographs. That sort of crystallised on me the idea that a camera phone may be enough for everyday snapping.

Then came the iPhone 4. For the iOS platform, it showed that Apple was taking photography seriously. A few Android phones then entered the picture with the HTC One being one of my early favourites. In early 2015, I discovered the Nokia 930. It had on it the best camera I had ever seen. And till this day, I could argue that it was still a capable shooter despite being almost 4 years old.

Now, my second phone was the Huawei P10 Plus. With its Leica optics, the photos especially the monochrome were just amazing. I still took it around during weekends as I shot around town. But now, I have a new contender for the best camera phone. The iPhone X.

Right off the bat, there was something natural about the photos. There were some element of over processing from the camera but they weren't as obvious as the Samsung. The photos did not over saturated and at low ISO, they appeared realistic. The focusing was
snappy and there were plenty of third-party apps for post-production of our snaps.

Last weekend, I took the phone out for a spin around Bukit Bintang to capture the Xmas decorations. I was practically blown away. The photos were much better than I expected. Coupled with its capability to capture 4K videos at 60fps, the camera feature is a winner.

In terms of monochrome snaps, it still lacked behind the Huawei. But for sheer overall joy, Apple clearly had the right formula here. Just for the camera alone, it was definitely an upgrade from my iPhone 7 Plus, although I do understand that the iPhone 8 use the same camera module as the X although with a narrower telephoto second sensor.

I'm definitely looking forward to more snaps from the phone...