2014, the year of the poster

Know why I have so few photos up these days?

Cuz it's such a bugger to connect the camera to my computer, upload and save the pics (and let's face it, edit the colours because no camera is perfect) and upload them to Blogger again. If I had the money, I would buy a WiFi camera right now. But I'm using that money for a week in Melbourne instead. So maybe I shouldn't be complaining.

I don't know if anyone still reads my blog, but if anyone is interested, I'm working on a bunch of megaposters at the moment. They will be displayed on several (I don't remember now, 15? 20?) university campuses around KL. So that's cool. I'm definitely gonna visit at least one of em to see how they turn out. That's why I love print. It's so exciting to see the end result that you have very little control over.

It seems that the year 2014 is all about posters so far. I've also just delivered a poster design for an exhibition in Rotterdam. If you just happen to be in Rotterdam (or if you live there even) between 31 January and 8 March, there is an exhibition happening in Belvedere called Shanghai Tan. A poster of mine will be up on display there. Pretty fan-friggin-tastic!

Unfortunately, I won't be able to see it in person as I'm only back in NL in April, but I'll make sure to get photos of it and post em up here.

Till the next time...

Housewarming party invite drawing

I'm just gonna quickly post this up on my blog to free one spot on my desktop ;) My desktop is a big mess this week (it normally is as pristine as a minimalistic home) because of my insane work. Had to copy and create folders on the fly and have not had time to organise anything anywhere except on my desktop.

This is the invite I sent to people for our housewarming party. Photos of that coming up btw, although I think most of you will have seen it already on Facebook. I will just select a few of my favourite ones to put here, I guess.

Heading out soon for dinner at a nice-looking restaurant across the bridge on the Kop van Zuid. Looking forward to it!

Poster project

Omagad, this is so fun! I find myself trying to think of something else to post so that I can use my new emoticons

Although based on what you've seen so far, you probably think I have only one.

Anyway, I DID find something to post about. Did I ever 'advertise' my Tumblr site here? It contains all the eye candy goodness the design world has to offer, at least the things that I stumble on.

Visit here: http://goodputty.tumblr.com

Let me also take this opportunity to show my latest poster from my poster project.

Damn, with this old editor I can't resize images the way I can with the new editor. Dilemma! Emoticons vs. images.

Which should I choose??

My purse cries tears of snakeskin and metal

Sigh sigh sigh, I've taken a few pictures for the blog, but someone needs to invent a more convenient way to transfer photos from cameras or phones to the computer! Maybe something like Bluetooth in a camera. Just access it through 2 clicks on a computer, without having to either attach cables or remove the memory card and stick it in the computer.

Anyway, I'll write about past interesting events when I have photos to accompany the stories. For now, all I can say is that the house is really quiet because Schrobbenmaster is off to Bangkok on his own. Why didn't I follow him? Because I don't really fancy Bangkok. Don't ask me why I don't, I don't have a particular reason, it just didn't pull me in like other places have done. Well, except for the awesome Green Curry Chicken with Indian Pancake at Wave Place. That is the most awesome green curry ever.

Yesterday, Schrobbenmaster and I were at Bangsar to pick up my stupendously expensive new spectacles. My previous ones are about 5 years old, so I thought perhaps it would be nice to have a new pair. Think again, JY! I'm gonna use these for the next 10 years!

The lesson I learnt is: Just because you haven't heard of the brand, doesn't mean it's not known.

This particular brand is called Lindberg and is from Denmark. They are amazingly light and minimalistic and cool and... and... all that... well, I just really have to make myself feel better by telling myself how much use I'll get out of them over the next 10 years.

(If you visit their website, you could be forgiven for thinking that they're just some nerdy, glasses manufacturer, but let me just point you in the direction that these glasses are way more expensive than the Prada ones I tried on as well)

Since we were in Bangsar, we just strolled around BV I and II and stumbled into a store called thirtyfour. Oh, woe betide my purse, for I fell in love with their snakeskin cuffs!

And after pondering for the entire dinner at Chatterbox, I finally bought one.

In case you're wondering why I have a picture of my cuff so quickly when I don't have any of New Year's, it's because I took the easy way out and took a photo with my iMac.

Thirtyfour is a bunch of Malaysian designers and smithers who are trained in industrial, metalsmithing and all sorts of other design fields. It's really interesting, so go visit their website.

The founder, I believe, is the one who went to Parsons in New York where she studied metalsmithing, after which she opened thirtyfour there and consequently in Berlin and Singapore. After a few years, she decided Malaysians were finally ready for such sophistication and opened a store in Bangsar Village II in November. This is the story I got from the two shop assistants.

I'm really glad I found it! I love the sophisticated yet tough look of the accessories (not lovin' the sharp chunkiness of the bags as much though, but to each his own).

So go visit if you're in the mood to support Malaysian stuff that is not boringly traditional or berkualiti.

Started drawing again

A quick update for those who are interested in what happened at the embassy...

It's a good thing I read Mumsy Bumsy's comment about printing out all the emails before going to the embassy, because when I got there and explained my business, Mr Bangla Bastard (who is actually a Malay dude) repeated the same thing to me as he did on the phone. Oh boy, do I know his voice really well now.

So I dug into my hat of tricks and pulled out the printouts of the emails. Mr Bangla-Malay read them in silence, then told me to pass him my police report and also to let him take these emails with him to check with Mr Jamal.

In the end, everything worked out, thankfully. Mr Bangla-Malay turned out to be a nice, talkative dude, albeit still having a sort of Melayu manner (more social than work-minded, but that's fine since I don't work with him) even though he's lived in NL for over 30 years.

My translation only cost € 35 (phew!) and although Schrobbenmaster and I waited all morning, Mr Jamal could only work on my report in the afternoon because he had a particularly difficult case to handle before ours. So we were advised to go home and wait for the post to deliver my translation.

It came 2 days later (yay!). So now I'm all set to get the remainder of my life back.

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On another note, although I hated having Schrobbenmaster away from me most of the month of October for the festival, it was a good time for me to start looking into myself again and explore what I like. I decided to start drawing again. It's been awesome therapy and it's great to see a style emerging.

I'm planning to make a recipe book for the kitchen here. A homemade one with blank pages to fill in. Right now we're just using a plastic folder with ugly black and white printouts from Textedit (Notepad for you Windows dinosaurs). I just need to find a lovely, cute, LARGE kitchen hook to hang the recipe book on. (Big hint for my Christmas wish list, anyone?).

Maybe I'll make my own Christmas cards this year. Or if I'm lazy again, Christmas tags like last year.

I have more sketches in my sketchbook at home, but I'm not sure what I wanna do with them. Whether to show them to anyone or just keep them as exercises in expression. Schrobbenmaster calls it my Tree Book, cuz I only draw trees in it :S

Btw, I started a new page on Tumblr to collect designs I find inspiring. Visit it here: goodputty.tumblr.com

In bed at 20.30? I'm a freak!

I'm sitting on the bed now in shorts and fuzzy socks, Schrobbenmaster chatting away in the background to his parents about money and savings, and two half-used tissues beside the laptop, ready to be used for either the annoying chin on my pimple or my occasionally runny nose.

Okay, that was too strange to erase... did any of you notice that I typed "chin on my pimple"? Geez, the pimple is not that big, JY!

I've been doing a bit of indulgent shopping these few days. Been looking at clothes websites like Mango and Topshop and even went to the final step of adding items to my shopping bag, then leaving the page. A bit of fake retail therapy. But it did make me clothes-hungry again, so on Saturday, I went out on my own to look for new clothes. It helped that I haven't spent much this month, so I felt kinda rich. I should really save, though. Really.

I just stumbled upon a new website today, which inspires me to make our home nicer. It's not really the items in the photos that I want, but more the 'feeling' that the pictures invoke. Check convoy out.

I can't wait till the NS Try Out Festival is over. Schrobbenmaster is already getting weaker and weaker by the day because of the long days and drinking at nights with the team. Seriously, how do these people do it? Waking up before 8am and then having drinks at the end of the day till 2am? To be honest, I find it kinda inconsiderate to expect everyone on the team to be able to keep up with that. And after the 3-day festival, they still expect everyone to be able to party it up till 6am. Wow. Maybe I'm just getting old. Or maybe they just don't have a happy life at home like I do.

Time to stop thinking about annoying things and going back to looking at pretty pictures, JY.

Nitey nites! xx.

"If you wear Crocs and step into the pond, can you walk on water?" or Hoorn (Part 2)

Last night I went to a birthday party in The Hague. It sounds awfully grand when you consider the World Tribunal is there. Much better than saying, "I went to a birthday party in Putrajaya.". Got loadsa pics from the party, but will blog about that after I'm done with the past few weeks' worth of posts!

Back to Hoorn then...

When we arrived at the house after a horrendous 1-hour drive after work (which normally takes 15 minuts), Moeder Irma was cooking something fragrant for dinner.

Sweet and sour meatballs with noodles. And in the right corner there you can see my new favourite snack, Bali Kroepoek!

View outside from the dining table. I love those two horses. So arty.

That morning at the office, a package had arrived for me. I was so looking forward to receiving it! It was the art piece I'd ordered over Etsy from lauraamiss. Such a lovely piece. She'd previously sold almost the same design, which is the street she lives on in Amsterdam, so I asked if she could make another, and also include my two dogs, whom I dearly miss back in KL, Maxi and Foxy.

She packaged it soooo nicely! I love it when people pay attention to details like these.

So pretty, right? It's all drawn and then sewn in. The lines are threads and the patches of colour are patches of fabric.

Then dinner was ready and we tucked in.

Schrobbenmaster being super full.

And here are a few pictures I found, that should have been in the previous post, about when we cycled into the town centre :P

This is on the really nice bike route we took.

I seriously don't know what's up with Schrobbenmaster's phone camera. I promise, the road is not slanted like that in real life.

I look so pro, biking with one hand like that, but it sure takes some effort. I tried releasing both hands but went a bit dangerously wobbly. Heh.

Cacat camera.

Anyway, after we came back from town, Schrobbenmaster's parents weren't home yet so we sat in the garden with a couple of beers. It was such a nice, sunny day!

If you look closely (or have a good imagination), you can see me on the left side of the mirror there, sitting behind the table.

Two kinky frogs.

One serious work call.

And now ordering our Chinese takeaway dinner.

Hideous menu. It's also quite interesting how on the front of the menu, they decided to insert an image of their delivery motorbikes instead of an appetising dish. I wonder if this is a reflection of the Dutch mentality - they'd rather know this restaurant delivers, rather than knowing it has tasty food.

There were about 200 dishes in there. Schrobbenmaster and I just stared at the menu with our eyes glazed over. In the end, we chose the easiest. The set menu for three.

After ordering, we went all goofy in the garden.

I think he hit his hand on the arch above him.

Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to kick the Croc in my direction...

... as it bounced off me and went straight into the water. Right side up though. Prompted the question, "If you wear Crocs and step into the pond, can you walk on water?"

I made him do it again with a wet Croc.

Being a good boy, watering Mama's plants.

Playing peek-a-boo from the computer room upstairs.

And then dinner arrives...

Do remember that we ordered a set menu for THREE people only.

Don't think this is a lot?

This is after four people had their fill.

Does this remind you of Jesus and the fish and loaves of bread or what?

Before the inburgering exam...

Well, well, things are moving along pretty quickly now. Just found out yesterday that, contrary to what the Dutch embassy told me (grrrrr!!), I don't just make an appointment to do the exam. They should really be more informative and tell me the whole process, or at least direct me to a website which will give me instructions. Isn't one of their functions being a foreign embassy to help citizens of both countries with matters concerning both??

Thankfully, me being paranoid and nervous about the inburgering exam, checked out websites to try and find out exactly what to expect and if anything has changed, seeing that the Naar Nederland package I have is freaking 4 years old. Found a page in Dutch from which Schrobbenmaster then informed me that I had to fill in an application form to register with the IND (Immigration in Netherlands) that I wanted to take the exam. They would then give details for bank transfer of the exam payment. After processing, they would inform me and I could then make an appointment with the embassy to take the inburgering exam.

Apparently all this takes 1 to 2 weeks, so finding this information yesterday was really timely as I want to do the exam in 2 weeks.

Now I feel really pressured with time because before I take the exam, I have loads of things to do! I have to renew my passport at the Immigration Department, get a certificate of "singledom" at the National Registration Department in Putrajaya, and hop on over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to legalise and certify it as a true copy.

Yep, I'm also curious as to why an official document from the NRD, which will have the government stamps and all, has to be legalised and certified yet again by the Foreign Ministry. Oh well. At least they're close by to each other, which is the whole point of Putrajaya, right? I'm about to test it's useability and IT HAD BETTER PROVE RIGHT.

On a more positive note, I took a mock exam last night and did pretty well on it. So I feel a little more confident about going for the real one.

(I'm getting really distracted from writing because I'm watching Friends at the same time, so I think I'm gonna sign off right now.)

Oh, and one more thing... goodputty::paperie has something new - and free - for Christmas.

Designers are vulnerable too!

I was talking to Slavedriver on MSN today and he's currently using this icon:

No doubt in support of this brand.

But before I found out it was the logo of a brand, I asked him, "Is that an obscene picture or is it a toilet bowl?"

No disrespect to the brand, but I really do think it looks like a graphic version of the top view of a toilet bowl.

Slavedriver of course said that it doesn't look like a toilet bowl and it is, in fact, a very cool logo. Goes to show that even when you're a designer, you can't help being biased by products you love and everything associated with it.

Endnote: It's the 'H' from Hollis Gear.