Honestly, this could be one of the most creative and best birthday card that I have ever received. Not that I receive lots of them every year either. I got it two days earlier, in my letterbox.

Upon opening it, I saw these - “Don’t let a stick person be the victim of a horribly clumsy accident. Use this card sensibly.” and “This health warning is brought to you by the Anti-Ouch Association”. I was dumbfounded.

I opened it and was greeted with a small figure on top of the card. Ta-da!

So, that’s a stick people! Can you see his tiny little wooden hand? No wonder they call them the stick people. Damn cute, right?

Flipping over the card, I saw this sentence - “Not suitable for children under 5 years due to small parts”. Sweat. This is a dangerous and life threatening birthday card. Evil!

The price was printed on the back of the card as well, AUD 8.95, that’s a whopping (close to) RM30 for a birthday card. To make sure the money was well spent, the person wrote a message so long that it practically filled up all the available blank spaces on the inside of the card. Heh!

Thanks, you know who you are. ;)

Last Saturday, February 23, was my 24th birthday.

Special thanks to my parents who brought me to this world and also Pei San, Suet Lei and Yih Tian for celebrating my birthday with me.

And of course, thanks to everyone who wished me. Apparently, not many people remember my birthday.

It was around 5PM when I heard someone was knocking on the gate. I walked out of the room to attend a very fair and mid 20’s Malay / Indian adult about 180cm, clad in white T-shirt (with yellow sleeves), light blue cap and a pair of working jeans.

“The landlord has sent me to repair the blockage at the toilet upstairs.”
“Oh okay.”

Without feeling any suspicious, I opened the door and led the guy to the upstairs’ toilet. He inspected it for a while and went downstairs. I followed him and he went outside to turn off the main pipe and in-house pipe. We went back upstairs again while he proceed to further inspec it. He then came back downstairs and proceeded to the back of the house, where all the pipes are visible and connected.

He then asked me to go back upstairs while he would be at downstairs to fix the thing from the bottom by opening the pipe to drain away the stuffs that blocked the pipe. He then asked me to stand by to flush more water into the pipe once the signal was given.

I went upstairs and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Thinking that it would still take some time, I wanted to go back to my room (which is at ground floor) to attend an on-going conversation with Tiuniasing and also to check out the guy, wondering what took him so long.

Just when I was about to enter my room, I noticed that my desk was unusually empty / something was missing from the same spot. I walked to the back of the house (where all the pipes are) and saw nobody there. I hurriedly rushed to the porch where he parked his metallic blue Proton Satria, the car wasn’t there.

And that was how I got robbed at my own house.

Odd enough, he didn’t take my wallet (with RM100 inside) and my dSLR, which I both conviniently left it on top and under of the table. For that, I am slightly grateful.

I don’t think it was fully my fault or due to my carelessness as

1) He knew which toilet was spoilt and the blockage.

2) The guy acted like a real plumber, inspecting the blocked drainage and switched off the main pipe.

3) The landlord does send people to repair stuffs whenever / after we tell him about it but not this time.

4) Usually, there will be people at both upstairs and downstairs (me) to monitor the guy / stranger but I was home alone yesterday.

However, that being said, precautions will be taken from now on after discussing with the housemates by locking the outside gate, getting confirmation with the landlord or other safety precautions.

P/S : Apparently, it wasn’t the first case according to the police who came to my house. For such, our neighbours (student house) had the same thing just not too long ago.

I was robbed, around 5PM. Best of all, in my own house.

My RM3800 HP Pavilion notebook and Nokia N70 mobile phone were stolen.

For safety purpose, I have cancelled my 012-6842434 for the mean time and am not reachable. Please call 016-6403173 to reach me.

I have reactivated my number 012-6842434. Do reach me by calling that number.

I’ll update this soon.

As mentioned before in my “Random Stuffs” post, I have finally got the project kicked off.

I always do my research and ponder the pros and cons before I set my eyes on a gadget and go all out for it. Regardless of the price, if I want it, I shall get it, just like my RM285 Logitech VX Revolution Laser Mouse, RM1600 Nokia N70 mobile phone, RM2480 Panasonic Lumic DMC-FZ30 digital camera and my RM4000 HP Pavilion dv2201tx Notebook. I never hesitate or being doubtful over my choice because I know that’s what I wanted.

However, for this particular project, not only I brought forward my plans due to peer pressure (No thanks to Ah Yong.), I hesitated for many days and even weeks. Even up till the night before, I was doubtful about my choice and whether was it wise to buy it.

Well, I decided to just close my eyes and plunge myself into it. I made the jump and gotten myself sucked into a never ending spending spree. I bought this.

Credits go to Sean for loaning me his Sony CyberShot to take this picture.

Yes.

Canon EOS 40D with EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.6 IS USM kit lens.

In fact, I didn’t only get those, I got more accessories to go along with it.

Credits go to Sean for loaning me his Sony CyberShot to take this picture.

1) Battery grip BG-E2N for Canon EOS 40D
2) EF 50mm F/1.8 II Prime Lens.
3) BP-511A Battery
4) SteinZeiser Camera Bag
5) Hoya HMC 67mm UV Filter
6) 2GB SanDisk Ultra II
7) Heavy Duty Tripod

Why Canon?

Simple, because it’s Canon. First of all, the brand name Canon has been around for quite some time and the reputation has spoken for itself. Also, having used a few Canon digital cameras previously, my dad’s Ixus, the office’s PowerShot G2 and G3, I was and am happy with the pictures that Canon digital cameras produced. Not only that, my working environment, where most of the media photographers are seen using a Canon, particularly the Canon EOS 1D Mark II and / or Canon EOS 20D / 30D and many L lenses, it gives me the confidence in Canon. Oh, I also like the orange-y colour and feel in my pictures.

Why Canon EOS 40D?

It was a very tough decision between my initial ideal dSLR, the Canon EOS 400D and Canon EOS 40D. Budget was the biggest factor and the question of “Do I need the semi-professional camera?” kept popping into my mind. I certainly love the weight, LiveView, extra and more powerful features and the unique shutter sound of the Canon EOS 40D compared to the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. Again, budget was a factor.

With much persuasion by Ah Yong and the guy at the camera shop, I decided to spend that extra money to get the better one, hoping that it will cap the upgrade possibility in any near or far future. Getting the Canon EOS 40D is basically the furtherest I would go and the most money I would spend for photography, not more than that. It should be my second and last digital camera for the rest of my life because the next upgrade to Canon E0S 40D are the Canon EOS 5D series (RM8K) or the Canon EOS 1D (RM16K). which are totally out of my league.

Buy first, think later.

I hope that answered most people’s question.

Now, that I have bought a semi professional level camera, I need to get slightly and more serious with photography. The learning curve is going to be very steep from here on and I am really glad that I have a geek sifu Yee Hou who is more than willing to answer my stupid questions and give a pointer or two, provided he is free, of course.

Also, I am starting to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop, so that I can make use of the RAW function of my camera. I shall refrain myself from editing the pictures but to present what I have snapped at that particular moment. I tried to pick up Photoshop sometime ago but I gave up as it was just not my thing. This is my forth time picking up, again.

Well, I am going to do some adjustment to the picture size used in my blog. Previously, most of my pictures are set at a standard 320 * 240 resolution for faster loading time and a neater and uniformed look. Do I sound like a perfectionist? Heh!

However, due to the difference ratio between the old camera (4:3) and new (3:2), the pictures used from this post onwards would larger (420 * 280 resolution), with an average of 60Kb in file size and about one to two seconds longer loading time, depending on your connection. This is to take advantage of the clearer resolution and details captured by my camera.

Also, I am introducing my Flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmumbles/ where I would upload random photos I took with my camera. Well, the thoughts of starting another blog for my photos are still lingering in my head. We shall see.

Last but not least, there are a few people that I need to thank, because without them, this won’t be happening in the first place.

1) Aprilcherrie for the referral.
2) Bryan for the cash advancement.
3) Yee Hou for clearing my doubts on many issues related to dSLR.
4) My mum for loaning me RM1,000, on the very last minute. The catch? 2% interest.
5) Ah Kit for letting me swiping his credit card, or else, I would be carrying really a lot of cash and walking around KL.
6) No thanks, but still thanks to Ah Yong for brainwashing me to getting this instead of the Canon EOS 400D and the peer pressure.

I got my camera from,

Jean / Mr. Lee
Billion Photo Sdn. Bhd.
G9, Ground Floor,
KL. Plaza,
Jalan Bukit Bintang,
55100, Kuala Lumpur.

03-21428970 or 03-21428971

I know what you are going to ask, the price, right? I shall not disclose as my parents are reading my blog its terrifying. LOL.

Well, that’s the story for my Canon EOS 40D.

P/S : To help protect your business, surveillance camera systems can help you a lot. There are a lot of different types of surveillance cameras available to choose from based on how complicated you want the camera to be. For awesome prices on a surveillance camera, check online.