The secrets of clayness. 090807

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! Check out the angel I made from clay. Kekeke. I always wondered how ppl made their clay like so damn perfect like and stuff so when I came across this website X-Ordinary and saw that they were offering classes, I signed up! Over there they work with clay that's called Angel Clay. It's really cool cuz it's just white colored clay and you can mix in whatever color you want (with paint or marker) and knead the clay til it's that color. You can see pics on their website. I dunno if the other clays I've used can do that. BUT IT'S SO COOL!

So anyway, all this time I've been trying to stick my clay parts together just with clay itself... and they simply stick the parts together using white glue and toothpicks. I'd thought about doing that before too...but it seemed like cheating. But I guess it's the norm. So it's not cheating. Right?

And for each part that you're making, you start from a ball and shape it out to what you want. If there are any cracks, you gotta spray water and start over. Interesting neh? I bought a tub home to play.

Blub blub...in other news, I actually met someone that I think is cool! It's been the LONGEST time. Like an immediate like. :) Not that everyone is not cool. Just that others are like just nice cuz of civility. And then you'll never contact each other ever again unless you need something. Yanno what I mean?

Tangerine? 082307

Been raining a lot the past week. I've also been less than enthusiastic this past week. But not due to the rain. I still gotta learn to calm down my mind so I can handle shiet. Yanno what I mean? Like..yea. I should be able to think clearly but..I dunno.. Like actually if I look at it, stuff's pretty manageable and I should go for it with enthusiasm and confidence. But my mind makes things out to be harder than it really is. So I don't feel happy when faced with "challenges". Not this week at least. :(

Mon pere sent me this mp3 of 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself. One was to have a big goal. Small goals don't energize you. You'll know it's a good goal if it makes you feel like you have a purpose.

Well I guess I could type out my list of short-term goals at the moment cuz long-term is fuzzy.
- Create artwork for the NoiseSingapore.com contest
- Learn Flash
- Draw a frickin' border for my dragon wall painting
- Draw my dragon tattoo

That's doable right? Yet I feel so sleepy in the evenings after work now. i.e. I need that energizing purpose. Oh yea, I sort of had an energizing short goal this morning. I wanted to paint some Air Maestro shirts for Chicken, so it'll be like a uniform kinda thing. It's gotta be stylo stylo tho. But that's more for List of Things To Do rather than Goal.

I did the website for Design Illustrated. That's the social enterprise under Student Advisory Centre that I'm in charge of launching. We concentrate in web design and graphic design. We got one guy that's hella good at graffiti and street art so if you want a website or your wall tagged up, I'll hook it up. jojo@designillustrated.com.sg

A while ago this photo studio called me outta nowhere and asked if I wanted to come down for a free makeover, hairstyling and photoshoot. I was like..SURE. They're called Snapz(?) or something..over on Hong Kong Street. They really try to make it upscale, like you got your own consultant who takes you to each station: helps you pick out your clothes, watches you get your hair & makeup done, watches you during your photoshoot, and escorts you to the backroom where they tell you about their photography services. Everything up til the backroom was cool enough. But the.."senior consultant" (or something like that) in the backroom was...not cool. I dunno..the air of cockiness, the lack of Photoshop skills, and his denseness in not being able to pick up my dislike of his photo editing all combined to piss me off. I still don't know whether I should have blown up like that. (I've been reading stuff like "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" lately.) But eh. I took my two free pics and left.




I actually liked how the pictures turned out too. But anyway the packages were too expensive as well. If you say "free makeover and photoshoot", you shouldn't try to cover your costs by adding it into the photo packages, no? To pay $400+ for 5 raw photos burned on a CD means I'm actually paying for the makeover and photoshoot in the end.

Chew kup dai fei po. 080707

Mwahahahaha!!! I picked up my business cards today. They're so purty! I'm happy. They're smaller than normal business cards. And I bought a corner cutter thingy to make the corners round rather than square. Here's what the design looks like (with normal corners):

Randoms. 080507

1) Check out the website I did for Chicken: Air Maestro Services. I'm hecka obsessive when it comes to programming, so did it all in like a day. Well, add in an extra day for the graphics too. It looks better in Firefox (recommended) or IE 7, cuz I used PNG graphics for a transparency effect.

1.a) I was hella shopping around for prices and I managed to get the domain (.com.sg) and webhosting for S$95/year. STEAL! Mwahaha. :P

2) Also did a new poster kind of thing, actually will probably edit it a bit and make it a flyer. But I'm happy about the little air-cons depicting different air-con problems like trip, drip, not cold, smelly, etc. Did those in Freehand. Mwahahaha.


As always, call Chicken if you need air-con stuff! (His real name is Jackson.)

3) I made a name card for myself! It's printing now. I don't have the design on this computer though, so no pic for now. But it's purty.

4) The new name card is for the new job I started at like 3 weeks ago. It's okie so far. The best part is that I can dress however stylo I want and I can walk to work. :) More about that next time tho, revamping the website first.

5) I just realized that I never mentioned I adopted 2 rabbits from the SPCA. I had the overwhelming urge to..take care of something. (I was hoping that having some responsibility would give me some inner peace cuz I am very unpeaceful sometimes.) So these two rabbits were friends from before I guess, cuz they were in the same cage. So I got two instead of one so they can keep each other company while we're at work. One is a dwarf rabbit I named lat jeew jai (small chili) and the other is a lionhead rabbit named Roger (that was the name he already had from before, cept we pronounce it old-school Cantonese style like...LOHH-jaa).

5.a) I guess they did give me some inner peace tho. :) Every morning I wake up earlier to clean their area before getting ready for work. It makes it like I'm not just getting up for work.

What'd you say?! 071107

Mwahaha..doesn't this pic look damn intimidating? I was looking at the little figurine and I could hella imagine it coming to life and punching me in the face. eh?

Hehe, so that was the result of trying to make a clay figurine of my Mii. It's supposed to look like this:



...but it turned out more like her gangster dajie slash hired-muscle. I blame the new clay I'm using. ^_- Cuz I went to Art Friend to look for the Aladdin Magicpol clay I used before, but they didn't have it. The only similar kind was Jumping Clay and though it is similar, it's...different.

Also have a little sumo guy here..I'm gonna give it to Chicken's friend cuz it's the logo for his restaurant (Sumo House at Clementi). This pic is before adding paint.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. 071007

So the other day I was browsing through Art Friend at Taka and Daiso at IMM and yanno I love looking at their stuff cuz I get so much inspiration n junk cuz everything's got so much potential right?

So err..I was sitting in the bathroom (ahem) and it hella just hit me to make something with my used up toilet paper rolls. Cuz you know you have hella toilet paper rolls sitting around waiting to be thrown away? And since I need some sorta shelf kinda display thingy for all the useless little thingies I have yet to display, here we are!



Isn't it purty?! It's like the shiet you can buy in stores man. I love the whole wrap-it-in-nice-wrapping-paper-and-you've-got-a-brand-new-thing idea. The wrapping paper is from Daiso, $2 for 2 rolls (comes in a set). The platforms are made from doubling up plastic boards (used up one big sheet, $3.10 at Big Bookstore). The rest of the stuff I had lying around at home.. 3 sheets of A4 white paper, glue stick, UHU all-purpose adhesive, scissors, board cutter, Scotch tape, ruler.

So that's like what..six bucks added up? Damn, that's actually kinda expensive. Shoot. Anyhow...here's a closeup of the first level:



Oh btw, I created a new site at jojo6292.blogspot.com and ported all these posts over there in case I run outta space here at Geocities. I'll copy whatever I post here to there too in the mean time so check either one.

P.S. 070707

in ref to entry below - Maybe I'll make a clay figure for you. contact jojo6292@yahoo.com if interested.

Another round of arts n craft corner. 070707

In this episode of jojo's arts n craft corner, I made houses for my little clay thingies, painted the ones that weren't painted, and made a new clay thingie of a wuya (crow). Beautiful, non? Hehehe...wonderful!

L: Dinosaur. Inspired by a little stamp thing I bought from Big Bookshop.
R: Egg shooter. Inspired by the egg shooting thingie in the Super Mario games.
BTW, the colored background of the boxes are paint samples that I took from Lowe's two years ago. Hehehe packrats unite! :P


L: Fishken. What you get when you mix a chicken and a fish?
R: Prehistoric turtle. Sorta like a stegosaurus or one of those other dinosaurs with shell protection.


L: Cheung geng luk. Giraffes really do stick their tongues out.
R: Crazy ass wuya. Came out crazier than I planned.

Made some stuff when I was back home a couple months ago too:


L: Earring holder. I made earrings for my mom for Mother's Day and I figured I could make a clay figure as an earring stand to go with it. ...it actually looked really graceful and beautiful in my mind, but it came out looking more and more weird. Hehe.
R: Bunny in an egg. The egg came first.

Up next I gotta make a clay figure of my Wii character. It's a fei po that's hella pretty in an ugly, ugly way. Stay tuned for that. Mwahahaha.

Free photo. 070707

The other day I was in Suntec with Chicken and my dad and there was this exhibition going on by some company that does beauty and slimming and all that junk. Anyway, they were launching a makeup called Renommee so they had a thing where they do your hair and makeup and a photoshoot for free. FREE. So I did it. :P

Anyway so the photo came out alright (I dimmed the saturation in this pic tho cuz it didn't scan well), but I think their marketing plan was flawed. Cuz like all the while the saleslady was harping on how NATURAL-looking their makeup was right? But when she put the powder foundation on me, I said the shade is too light for my skin and she said, yea at first I put the light one on you and it was too light, so I put the darker one on you (which was still too light) but the thing is, doesn't it feel smooth? Our foundation makes your skin look very smooth and natural. Yea...who cares if it's too light eh?

Then the makeup lady seemed like she did the same style of makeup for everyone rather than customizing the makeup to each person to accent the facial structure or whatever. So even though I was not wearing anything remotely blue colored, she put bright ass blue eyeshadow on me just like the person before me had. And what's so NATURAL about bright blue eyeshadow either? It didn't go with the theme of what the saleslady was trying to sell. (Although, I know makeup for a photoshoot has to be more dramatic than regular day makeup but dude, I got home and looked in the mirror and there was a freakin' clown staring back at me.)

So heck no I'm not going to go for your $20 makeup workshop when I am hecka not impressed with the skill I saw there. They should've aligned their marketing plan cuz I left with the impression that they were not that professional even though the saleslady told me they won how many awards for slimming and whateverwhatever.

Clicking salesmen.

I've realized lately that some salespeople just click with me and some don't. It's very clear cut from the initial approach whether or not I'll buy something, cuz I tend to base my purchase on whether I click with the salesperson. Especially if I'm iffy about what I'm buying. I figure, we live in a consumer driven world where everything is so commercial. If you're not treating me well, there are always other places that will treat me better to get my money, yanno?

I hella don't like the salespeople that are always harping on how their shiet is the best. Actually, all salesmen will say their shiet is good, so I guess I'm just trying to say I don't like the ones that sound fake while saying their shiet is good. Like you can tell they're just spouting off a couple of memorized keywords and phrases. For example, the lady above: "our makeup is natural and light...makes you feel very fresh...". That sounds like shiet you read from a brochure, not like her real opinion.

A good salesman example...I was at Taka and they had an exhibition for like bedsheets, pillows, towels and stuff at the main indoor area place. So there's hella ppl trying to sell bedsheets to you, right? I didn't like a lot of them, cuz...I dunno. Some weren't friendly, some had no enthusiasm, some look at you like you're weird, some act like they expect you to buy something...you know, like a combination of those reasons. You can't really pinpoint why you get a bad impression sometimes.

Anyway, so I was browsing (originally, price was my first concern, design second) around and one salesman came up and told me about the brand I was looking at. How it's imported from Spain and how many threadcount and let me feel the fabric. And something about him, I felt more inclined to purchase from him. (Here my concern changed to design first, price second.) I suppose it was his enthusiasm? Like he was very connected to his product. Others seemed like they were just hired and plopped down wherever and told to sell this or that. With this guy, it seemed like THIS was his business.

I told him that I'd come back cuz I still wanted to browse around for designs and eventually I came back to him and he let me take my time picking out what design I wanted. I'm very fickle and go back and forth between the same products trying to decide which one to get, so it's important to let me be and give me space.

BUT his pushy punkass colleague apparently thought I needed help deciding and swooped in to assist us. I didn't like that biatch cuz he acted like money was no object. Like, aiyah get the quilt cover set la (cuz it comes with two pillowcases, rather than buying pillowcases separately)...so I look at the price ($120+) compared to two pillowcases ($21 each). I straight up put that shiet back hella quick, but he still couldn't grasp that price was a factor in my decision. He kept trying to push shiet on me once he realized I'd be buying something. Jeez.

Superficial bother. 062707

Random thinking..I dunno if other ppl feel like this, but I get bothered by certain ppl at clubs. Do you? Like some ppl (to copy Yurika's saying) just have a dumb face. Or in Cantonese, they're just dook ngan dook bei (poke eye poke nose). -- Cuz you can't ignore someone who's poking your eyes and nose right? --

Like for example, at Dragonfly there was a live band playing on stage and there was this guy and girl next to the stage (the guy leaning on the stage). They were just like making out right there. I wouldn't care if it was just that, but they had this lovey dovey gross ass look on their face like "I'm so happy to be with you" for the whole friggin set. DUDE, it's a club. You're right smack in the middle of the dance floor n stage. It's sooo not the place to profess your cutesy teddy bear love for each other. Goddamn. If I was performing on stage, I woulda kicked 'em in the head. Like go find a corner dammit, you're ruining my atmosphere! Plus, both of 'em had dumb faces. So that just irked me. You get what I mean?

It's a very superficial irk tho that I'm talking about. Cuz after all why would you let dumbface ruin your evening right? There was this one fat biatch tho, who was hella crowding me when she don't need to be crowding me cuz there's so much room up at the stage area you know? She was hella dook ngan dook bei cuz she was damn pushy and she fkn kept taking out her cell phone to take a picture of the guitarist in front of us. Like..damn, you loser. I was really straight up ready to push her down but her friends realized we were hella muggin' and pulled her away.

... ... ...think peaceful thoughts... ... :P

Bloatation. 062607

I was thinking..yanno how like different kinds of drinks will make you into different kinds of drunk? Cuz Chicken got a bottle of Hennessy VSOP (cognac) for his membership at Dragonfly and we were drinking it mixed with tonic & lemon. I had like six or seven cups and didn't feel shiet. He said it's supposed to be a slow kick but I didn't even feel a kick in the end. I went from like sober to feeling like I was bloated and gonna barf. Without the kick in the middle. I FELT SO CHEATED!

Anyway, so Dragonfly is pretty okie. There's a live band with different singers and backup dancers that perform a mix of Mandarin, English, Cantonese and even Thai songs. They do like a 45(?) minute live set then break for 45 while the DJ plays weird English retro. (It was like 70's disco on Saturday, but more hiphop-ish on Wednesday I think.) I don't get why they don't just play Mandarin songs in between sets to keep some continuity in their theme.

I like two of the singers there. William Scorpion cuz he's hella crazy ass, movin' around like he 20 year old when he probly already 50some. And the other guy I don't know his name but he's a guitarist and his voice is hella hella raspy and he sings Cantonese songs. Them two are the only ones I've heard sing Cantonese so thas probly why I like them. :P

Boiler Room is cool too. They play hip hop and r&b. They also have a live band playing every other hour or so, tho it's one band per set rather than switching up singers every song like Dragonfly does. Wednesdays the DJ plays trance tho cuz Powerhouse is hiphop. I'm liking St James better than MoS so far. More variety to migrate if you're not feelin' it at a particular club.

Thinking time. 062507

What's up? It's been a long ass while. I don't particularly feel like reflecting on my trip back home for some reason. Though it was hella fun and hella bank and it opened up my eyes to a lotta stuff I didn't realize about the differences between here and there. In a nutshell, BBQ's, Kellogg's, home cookin', recycling, clubbing, movies, BART, snowboarding, longboarding, coldness, and of course, the Walgreens/Longs/Rite Aid runs. All that for another time tho.

Since I've been back, it may seem like I've just been bumming. But that's not true. I decided that my house was too damn cluttered and just full of shiet that I had to clean it up. And that took a long ass time. Especially since I got sidetracked cuz when I peeled off some decorations on my wall, they took the paint along with it. And you can't have ugly walls with paint ripped out right? So I painted a 2.5'x5' dragon mural over 'em and it's not that simple cuz you gotta prep the surface first: taping up the wall, newspapering the sides, wetsanding the surface to make it smooth, priming the wall with a coat of fresh white paint and penciling your design onto the wall. Add in a 3-4 day hiatus between prep and actual paint cuz I think all the exposure to the paint fumes (house paint) or something made me get a 102 fever (along with the body aches, tiredness and lack of strength). Then the actual painting took a pretty long time.

Way over schedule, by way of airbrush and paintbrush, I present thee:


After that I had to really find a place for everything so it's nice n tidy, not just clean, so that took a couple more days and then now I am pretty much done. Just got to find a place to donate clothes, curtains, shoes and bags, and gotta find a place for these little knick-knacks and then I've got myself a presentable house. :)

Cleaning, painting, and fever resting all gave me a lotta thinking time. While I'm still not sure what I wanna do for the rest of my life, I know I am not particularly interested in a regular desk job. I want to do something more applied. Some possible industries I was thinking of are printing & packaging and baking/pastry. Not sure about design, cuz dunno if I'd wanna sit in front of a computer all day (it seems like design is pretty much computer based nowadays?). I was originally thinking of being a bartender or something but after surveying the scene, I'd still wanna be a bartender..but not in Singapore.

Today I am going to go out and chill. Haven't just gone out and walked around for a couple weeks now due to the cleaning/painting/sickness. So I shall keep my eyes open and see if there's anything out there. cya.

Wei yeh gwai, wo can't sleep. 032307

Man..I've been having trouble going to sleep for the past couple days. Like my mind doesn't stop thinking. About stuff I gotta do before I leave and planning for the future.

I guess when it comes down to it, I'm kinda scared to go back. I haven't been back in two years and well, I haven't actually been an ADULT over there. The other times that I went back I was with my dad or I was "on vacation". This time seems different. One, cuz I'm going back alone. And two, cuz I'm out of school already and going back this time is like a conscious choice I made. Ya dig? It's not just like, oh yea it's summer vacation, why not go back home to visit?. This time it's like Should I look for a job here or should I go back and chill for a while? It seems like after graduation is when real life starts and I don't wanna mess it up.

This trip should be fruitful though cuz I'll be working part-time ($15 an hour!) and volunteering at a blind center with Yurika. She's gonna teach me to snowboard too. I'll be hanging out with my mom and my brother too.

Actually..I'm pretty excited. Excited more than scared. But not at ease right now. Like...a part of it is due to leaving Chicken too. Like if I stayed here, I coulda helped him out with company stuff cuz the beginning is pretty important when you start a business. It's a big deal cuz like there's money and time invested so you want it to succeed. And of course the mushy lovey-dovey reason: I'll miss him cuz I haven't been apart from him for such a long period before.

It's funny how in the daytime I don't worry about so much stuff, and then at night my mind won't quit. Jeez.

Yanno how I designed the business cards and letterhead and whatever for Air Maestro? I was reading some design books I got from the library and one said how all your stuff (business card, letterhead, envelope, invoice, etc.) should match and have the same alignment/format. And I was hella trippin last night cuz the business cards don't match the letterhead. I was up trying to redesign it for next time when we reprint. BUT DUDE. Maybe cuz I can't sleep anyway so my brain thinks up shiet for me to worry about.

Anyway, you know you wanna check out my business card designs right? :P



(The price list on the back of the first one is for residential properties. But call Chicken anyway to confirm prices cuz they may be different. If you call him Chicken then he'll know I referred you and it'll probly be cheaper. haha!) Catch ya later.