quiet thoughts

how to design a book cover

2010-03-10T04:01:10Z

youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoDCiTsS7dU

If/when I become published I want to design my own covers. I won't be able to paint or draw them since I'm an awful painter, but I can photoshop and I have definite ideas about what visual elements I want in my book covers.

I have a long way to go and much to learn though. This time lapse video from Lauren Panepinto, the creative director of orbit books shows the amount of skill needed, condensing 6 hours of work into 2 minutes. There's even a brief interview about her approach. My awe of designers just went into orbit (pun intended).

Comments at bb rightly pointed out how effective this was as a marketing tool for the book. I must admit I am not bought into video trailers for books but based on this particular video, I can see myself checking out the book (due out Sept 2010 and is part of a series). Of course it helps that it's steampunk and has vampires in it.

doodle jump 3 million sales

2010-03-09T03:38:32Z

I got my niece hooked on doodlejump and now it's reached 3 million in sales. It's very addictive.

#30: 26 things in red

2010-03-07T21:21:53Z

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

26 things for feb 2010:

structure
follow
covet
triple
hands
eye
fancy
time
rainbow
sadness
stack
line up
wheels
an insect
into the air
direction
new
half
set up
10 mins away
in my mailbox
sometimes
bottle
behind the scenes
corner
a door

In the middle of all the holiday eating, meeting with people, shopping stuff, I decided to do this month's 26things in HK and completing another 101.1001 task, which is to use a colour theme. It wasn't hard to decide on red. Click on each pic for brief notes. Link to full set: here

running

2010-03-06T21:00:48Z

6.26km 41.38min 6.39min/km

The sun was out today, about time I went for a run. It has been a while. My legs felt heavy and sore, so the time is only average. Time to start training.

Standchart results are in. As expected my time was 1:14:59. Within my class I came in 132/243. Overall for the 10k challenge I was 3914/5144. The winner of my class completed in 38.37, very impressive. Like I said, time to start training. I'm now confirmed for the rock and roll half in August.

google picnik

2010-03-06T04:18:30Z

Mixed in with the thousands of articles in my greader is news that google has bought picnik. Heh, this feels like writely 2.0, yet another hidden gem that's been snapped up by the google monster. I hope they keep what's good about picnik, how easy it is to use, how convenient. It's no match for full blown photoshop (although it may be a photoshop.com competitor, I don't know I don't use ps.com), for quick edits I prefer it.

chicago deep dish pizza

2010-03-05T04:52:40Z

We had a visitor from the london office this week, and my nice colleagues took her out for chicago style deep dish pizza. I tagged along to Lou Malnati's, which according to some people, has the best deep dish pizza in town.

The pizza itself was pretty good. We had two: the Lou's which is spinach, mushroom and sliced tomato; and the sausage. Personally I prefer the vegetarian one, the sausagemeat was a whole layer spread on the crust which was too much for me. Man, the slices were thick and the crust as crunchy as expected.

What I can say is that the pizza is the best thing at the place, possibly the only good thing. Service was mediocre, on the slow side. Initially they placed us in a desolate upstairs area when downstairs wasn't even full. We had to ask to be moved downstairs to better surroundings. The pinot noir we ordered with the pizza wasn't bad. Compared with Giordano's I probably prefer the latter.

back to routine

2010-03-04T03:11:20Z

I spent most of today with a parade of people in and out of my office. If they are to be believed, I was missed at work. That's so nice of them to say so. I'm jetlagged so just able to function. Easing back to routine slowly.

home errands

2010-03-03T04:48:12Z

I took today off, it wasn't practical to get home so late and go straight to work the next day. Supermarket, vacuum, make lunch for the rest of the week, the day went by really quickly.

Links to pics for the trip: shunde | hong kong general | eating out start here

home leave day 18 | flight

2010-03-02T05:35:36Z

Long day today, because of the flight. Parents booked the taxi to take us to the airport, I was at the lounge for about 1 hour. Now that I'm "only" at gold level I don't get upgraded, but I absolutely cannot complain. Food was good, watched The Blindside and lots of Deadliest Catch. Up in the Air was also on, and I guess we could have not gone to see it, cos mm is also on a plane today, to London. Nah, it was worth it to go with her.

Layover at LAX was 2 hours. I was worried. You never know what's gonna happen at US airports, they're the epitome of what airports should not be -- unpredictable, crowded, disorganised, bad. I was one of the first off the plane, immigration was fast, but my luggage got mixed in with the regular luggage. X-ray check was painless, so I got lucky. Was able to check my suitcases right outside the exit, and then something surprised me -- 2 staff members were on hand to ask where I was going and to help direct me to my next terminal. Wow. Well impressed.

The American terminal is just around the corner from the international, 2mins walk, no big deal. Security was decent, and I got into the first class lounge for some odd reason. Much needed 45mins rest, and to have some food.

Flight to ORD was full. Long walk to taxi stand. Home at 10.30pm. Door to door, over 21hrs. The snow that I had to drive through 3 weeks ago is still here, looks like they kept it cold for me.

home leave day 17 | marathon

2010-03-01T04:25:39Z

I set the alarm for 4.15am but I was up before then. Excitement. I didn't wake mm up, got all my running gear and was out of the door at around 4.40am.

It's marathon day. Okay, I'm only on the 10k challenge, may be next year I'll do the half. It was dark when I started, I stupidly signed up for the first race at 5.15am. In hindsight, it turned out to be a good decision. 91% humidity made for terrible running conditions. I had my camera with me, so I took my time. I'd wanted to try to break 1hr, and in those conditions I didn't even try. I think my time was around 1:15, it doesn't matter.

The later races were still going on when I got back to mm's. Because of the traffic, she didn't make it to mass, and we stole an hour or so more together time. I tried hard not to cry when we said goodbye. We've spent a lot of time in different countries throughout our relationship, it's nothing new. I just don't know what to do with our future.

Met parents, sis and niece for lunch. While parents went off to do their own things, I went ice skating with sis and niece. I was pretty out of practice, there were too many kids, I was done after half an hour. Tired from the running anyway.

I really didn't want to go out for dinner, so home food it was. Thanks, Mum.

home leave day 16 | bbmm

2010-02-28T05:18:40Z

Time is running out to spend with mm. Originally wanted to meet for lunch, but she was tired so I said let's meet in the afternoon. A few more hours lost. We'll have time, some other time.

Saw Up in the Air. Although I'll never get millions of miles like the George Clooney character, there were a few similarities especially when I was travelling so much a few years ago, not least that I recognise that all admiral's club lounges look the same. There was some serious product placement in that film -- AA and Hilton and Hertz stand out. mm said she never wants me to become like that, I know she always worried whenever I travel.

Dinner at our usual korean place. We didn't even need to discuss -- korean for lunch and dinner were 2 different places, and it was automatic.

She showed me a couple of iphone games she's been playing, and we eventually fell asleep at 1am.

home leave day 15 | sc ak

2010-02-27T04:07:19Z

Lunch at city hall with ubs people. Then an afternoon of errands. Long overdue haircut, massage, last minute shopping.

Dinner with SC and AK. Jap food, naturally. Highlight was fresh sashimi from the fish, then the bones were made into soup. Nice.

home leave day 14 | work

2010-02-26T01:00:27Z

I was at work all afternoon. Joined them for lunch, then showed a few of them a demo of the new system. Talked with R for over an hour. Didn't leave till 7.30pm. Lots to think about.

home leave day 13 | food

2010-02-25T04:50:56Z

The eating continues. I've been over my calorie goal, and no exercising, for more than 2 weeks. But, I'm on holiday, right?

Went with parents to the café marco for lunch buffet. Seniors get a discount so there were quite a few there taking advantage. It was well worth even the full price. Everything was so well done -- salad, seafood, sashimi, 3 hot dish stations, extensive desserts, chocolate fountain, movenpick ice cream. Amazing.

After all the gorging, Mum and I spent our energy hunting for a wii. Went to the golden arcade, but the ones on offer there were too "fixed" -- she couldn't use regular disks, had to download into a flashdrive -- I didn't know where to do that. So we went back to 188 and got the proper version for a higher price. I got a couple of games myself too -- lego star wars and sports resort.

Dinner with sis and my niece at tokio joe. I was stuffed from lunch but couldn't pass up more fresh delicious japanese food.

home leave day 12 | work

2010-02-24T05:38:22Z

Went to the office after lunch. Talked for a bit with my colleagues but mainly it was spending time with mm. She was busy but was able to get away early so we can go to dinner. I had a couple of hours to spare, it was perfect to photograph the wan chai area. There are still old buildings and temples there, not sure how much longer they will be around. I've always always wanted to photograph the blue building, it's kind of a mecca for photographers.

For dinner, mm took me to a Japanese grill place. We had warm sake and the usual grilled food -- ox tongue, fish, chicken wings. Our favourite turned out to be riceball skewers, the rice was grilled to perfection. Yum.

I had a legitimate excuse to stay with her tonight -- I need to use her wifi to upload pictures. There's no wireless at home, I couldn't connect via ethernet, and Sis' network was so screwed up by her network engineer friend that I couldn't find a single connection. So, it's over to mm's place. One click and the airport was on. Of course that's because she has my airport express and I set it all up myself. Heehee.