Anyone have recommendations for places to stay in Singapore?
Heidi and I will most likely be there for a few days in May (on our way back from Thailand). Looking for nice but not too fancy (what’s that? 3-4 stars) in a good location (walking distance or good access to public transport).
In related news… any recommendations for Beijing? (I might be there in June)
Update: I’m all caught up on Singaporean history thanks to this:
I’m working on product branding that will require a series of emotional caricatures.
To be honest, I’ve never really been very good at caricature. I find it difficult to capture all the subtle nuances of the subject without just adding a lot of detail. So my drawings end up looking alright… but nothing like the people I’m trying to capture.
Fortunately, my work next week mostly just requires stylised cartoon imagery. So it doesn’t really demand that the image is identifiable as a specific person. Also, it’s all going to be lightly stylised only (no heavy caricatures) meaning that it’s a little more like stuffI’ma bitbetter at.
Anyhow, here are some practise sketches that I did yesterday and today.
It’s me!… kinda:
I emphasised the wrong visual cues in this one: my face isn’t really super thin, and my hair is big in a different way. It’s also the wrong sort of smile (“huh?” rather than “hey”). Gah… moving on… here’s the work-in-progress if anyone is interested. I find it easiest to sketch different colours for different surfaces (eg. hair) and then break it out into layers later on:
After deciding that I’m probably too close to me to be objective in drawing myself, I went through some old photos looking for other interesting faces. I decided upon this photo of Tone doing the “Blue Steel” look (from Zoolander) at iParty 2.0. I tried for fewer, cleaner lines, and basic blocky shading:
Then I added in some colour:
Better I think… but I’m still not really feeling the emotion. I can probably add some spin lines or other iconographic elements in the background, but I want to get as much as I can from just the main figure…
We went to a few classes together including KiMAX by RADICAL FITNESS. I hadn’t been to gym classes before, so it was pretty interesting. Check out this video to get an idea of what I’m talking about:
It’s garish in the same way that almost all sports equipment (especially running shoes and cycling wear) is garish, but it’s also functional. I was pretty tired at the end and a little sore the next day.
I finally had my fitness appraisal just yesterday (since moving to Albany, I seem to spend a lot of time back in Perth) and I’ll receive my personalised fitness regime next Monday.
I mentioned that I don’t want to bulk up, so Terri (fitness instructor) is putting together something with a lot of aerobic “body weight” training – which means that I won’t really be using much of the equipment – which makes me wonder why I’m going to a gym.
Anyhow, I noted rock climbing and parkour (or in my particular case, very amateur gymnastics) as things that I would like to get better at. I didn’t mention anything about weight loss since she was pretty proactive in saying that it’s not required (I’m on around 15% body fat apparently).
I also didn’t mention the term “totally ripped”… maybe I should have…
We’ve finally had our Internet connection upgraded from 512kbps to around 1-2mpbs. It’s still not that much, but the speed increase is noticeable. Hopefully this means that I will be able to do some web development work from home in Albany!
In other news, I bought Heavy Rain while in Perth (thanks Jason for the $74 tip). It’s an interesting take on interactive drama with clear heritage in adventure games. Unfortunately it’s incredibly buggy so far. Seriously, how did this thing make it past QA?!
When I returned at the start of the year, I thought I had one month left here… it’s almost March now and I am still here. But everything has finally fallen into place and I will be gone in two weeks. Anyway… I’ve been fortunate to see some amazing stuff in Extra Time:
Longest Month Ever [...]
got up at 8am after pretty much no sleep. had breakfast at the spa. was quite shit. too much japanese crap.
then walked back to car. stopped at first supermassive sculpture we missed the previous night and took some photos. tokenj went to the top of sapporo tower for 700yen. we walked back to the car and waited.
then back to bic camera. yellowf got a video/still camera, i got a portable 500gb hard drive. we got massive discounts cos i had my passport with me and so we didn't have to pay sales tax and i did some other shit to get further discounts. hard drive ended up being around 8000yen, which is quite good i think. half as much as some other models in other places. and the camera went from 20000 to about 13000.
i absolutely insisted that we goto 100yen sushi. the previous place was good, but i wanted to load up on cheap sushi. ended up getting 14 plates. mostly eel and salmon. tried a scallop one (not that great (was cooked rather than raw)) and a chuutoro (medium fatty tuna (wasn't too bad)) and anago (which was like eel but not as good (smoother texture tho)). the fatty salmon one was really fucking good.
then off to the second mandai store. yellowf pretty much slept in the car for the rest of the trip. this mandai had different, possibly more interesting stuff. didn't find any decent snow pants tho. tokenj got 2 shoes so he could get one for half price.
next, tokenj went to get his haircut while we slept in car. then back to the first mnandai so he could get the jacket he tried on the previous day.
then to mos burger for dinner, then finally back home at night time.
overall a pretty good trip. finally got to see the yuki matsuri, which was awesome. and got to check out sapporo a bit too. pretty cool city. like a smaller version of osaka. possibly back there next week for the big air comp there, and yellowf wants to go drinks with chicks paid to drink with you.
Google Maps has a few new experimental features, like rotating maps. However in the alternate universe where Australia is on top of the world, some other things have also changed:
That missing map label might have been a mistake, but this one surely isn’t:
* * *
So we’ve had about 280mm of rain over the last two [...]
first priority was to find some accomodation. went to a capsule hotel that looked nice, with onsen and stuff and was fairly cheap. no chance of getting booked out so decided to come back later at the end of the night.
first goal for the others: getting drunk. walked around for a bit looking for a bar or something. eventually got harassed at an intersection by random dudes trying to get us to go the establishments they were pimping, including various karaoke places, "hostess" bars, etc. the others wanted to go and drink with "hot chicks" for an hour for 3000+yen, one dude has a seriously severe case of yellow fever. decided to do that later, after having drinks elsewhere first. so we decided to go to karaoke allyoucandrink for 1000yen/hr after some bargaining. decided to do that for an hour.
karaoke was very quite fun. had quite a few songs i'd've never expected. especially: ash - halloween, wtf is a b-side by a not very well known band doing on the song list at a japanese karoke place. awesome. jet - move on, was heaps fun to sing. sadly, i was the best singer out of the three of us. but was on form this time or as best as i can hope for anyway. we extended the time there by 30mins twice, cos it was going so quick and it was heaps fun. and cos it was allyoucandrink, decided to make the most of it. nothing on the list looked very drinkable except kahlua milk, so just kept ordering those everytime yellowf got a beer. had about 6-9 of those by the end of the two hours. guess there wasn't much kahlua in them or something, cos wasn't particularly feeling the effects of them too much. they probably helped with the singing tho.
next, was looking for another capsule place that was closer than the first one we went to. so i could stay there and sleep for the night, cos i didn't want to pay some ridiculous amount of money to drink with some not that great looking chicks (cos i don't have yellow fever) that pretended to like you for an hour. our token japanese companion had far less to drink but continually got lost trying to find it, probably cos he was too busy perving on (mostly too young) chicks with short skirts and (sometimes) exposed legs in close to zero degree temperatures and got distracted.
while looking for the place (bumped/ran into)/stumbled upon/picked up/found two random japanese chicks coming out of somewhere walking around drunk as, all over the shop. one latched on to yellowf and the other needed help to walk without falling. after walking randomly with them in no apparent particular direction eventually went into a cafe for more allyoucandrink and pasta. so more kahlua milks for me. unfortunately, yellowf was in fully wasted sleaze mode and wasn't drinking much anymore. ended up having 3-5 or so there. so 10+ overall, and didn't feel any adverse effects. had to order food there as part of the allyoucandrink deal there. nothing that great. yellowf's chick refused to speak to him in english. and told him (many many times) that he was in japan and should fucking speak japanese. she was also quite surprised at finding out he was only 21, and kept crapping on (multiple times) about how he was too young for her cos she was 28. tokenj was doing a fair bit of translating for them. the other chick was drunk chain smoking, luckily airflow was away from me. it was fun but nobody was gonna get lucky, that much was quite apparent.
after leaving them to somehow stumble their way back home by bus or something or other, we resumed our search for the other capsule place. eventually found it, by then it was after 4am, drinking with chicks getting paid for it was no longer an option for them, yellowf was gutted. so we decided to stay there for six hours for a reasonable price, but not in capsules. just the spa and lounge area. had quick onsen to freshen up and stuff, then went to the lounge area to sleep. 5am by now, and the plan was to wake up at 830am. yellowf passed out straight away cos he was smashed. i didn't get much, if any, sleep. too many people and too much noise, from people moving around and snoring and some fucking cunt watching tv with the headphones out at some fucking ridiculous time.
oh well, end of a long and pretty good and eventful day 1...
