Quote:
Brevity is the soul of wit.
(Translation: don't waste my time!)
At last, you can now comment in the forum.new!
HE WOOED her with the promise of grooming her into 'Fann Wong No. 2', and even booked a hotel room so they could get to know each other better.
This claim was made by a second woman who has decided to speak out on Singaporean filmmaker Jack Neo, just days after a 22-year-old freelance model Wendy Chong broke the news of her two-year fling with the Cultural Medallion recipient.
Lianhe Wanbao on Monday identified the latest woman as 25-year-old Foyce Le Xuan, who alleged in an interview with the Chinese evening daily that Neo had sexually harassed her when she was a member of the Liang Jia Ban (Neo's Family Group).
Ms Le, described by the Chinese daily as 'sexy and beautiful' and drew comparisons with Hong Kong pop star Coco Lee, was a member of Liang Jia Ban for a year from 2004.
In the interview with Wanbao, she claimed that Neo wooed her aggresively after she joined his entertainment group. Once, he allegedly told her that he had made a reservation at a hotel and was waiting for her so that they could spend 'quiet and private' time together to 'get to know each other better'. She did not show up.
She also said that when she first started out at Liang Jia Ban, Neo offered to send her home as she lived in Tampines, which was near his Pasir Ris home. But these rides turned out to be more than innocent, she claimed.
Shortly after, she alleged that Neo tried to hit on her. She said once in his car, Neo grabbed her hand and said, 'I want to groom you into 'Fann Wong No. 2'. I will direct a film and make you the lead actress.'
'At that time, I was only 20, just a small girl... I didn't dare to speak out... When he held my hand tight, I didn't even dare to resist,' she told Wanbao.
On her decision to go public with the affair, Ms Le said: 'After reading the reports on Wendy Chong in Wanbao, I was reminded of a very unpleasant period in my life. Jack Neo's wooing methods are the same. He asks for your number, sends you an SMS, and says all sorts of sweet things to his 'prey'.
She added that she 'admired Wendy Chong for standing out to reveal the truth'. This, she hoped, would prevent similar incidents from happening.
You know the saying, "When a man has money, he goes bad...".
Anyway, Jack Neo's action does not change my views on his shows — I still don't like them. They depict very stereotypical Singaporean way-of-life and are laced with overly strong social messages (as with most Singapore productions).
Appreciate your doctor if he gives you two days MC. I got lazy and visited my neighbourhood doctor. He declined to give me a 2nd day MC. The mere mention of it turned his face black.
Fine, I thought, I'm not coming back.
When I was waiting for my medicine, the patient before me asked for her MC. "No MC", the receptionist said. She immediately went to confront the doctor. No luck. Later, I could see her outside the clinic, trying to figure what to do. Should she spend more money and see another doctor, or apply her own annual leave?
I bet she's not coming back either.
It costed me $45 in total. Wow, fees sure have gone up. I was given a bunch of pills — which would promptly go to the bin. I don't need pills for the common cold. I need time to rest. Plus, it was effectively only a 3-hour MC. I was not pleased, to say the least.
Is it really that difficult to give a 2-day MC? Panel doctors, I can understand. They seemed to have very strict instructions not to give MC. That is one reason why I didn't opt for the clinical plan.
No, I'm going back to my regular doctor, where he asks you if you need a 2-day MC. Once, when I declined, he gave it to me anyway, saying I could always go back to work if I felt better. Now, that is how it should be.
Literally.
My CB400F started to leak coolant yesterday. At first, I thought it was water, because I washed the bike in the morning, but it leaked too much to be so. Later, I heard hissing sound and realized it was leaking from a pipe.
(It must have gotten worse that day because I didn't see such an obvious leak before.)
I decided to risk it and rode 15 km to my workshop. I must have rode at least 30 km with the leaking pipe! The radiator light did not turn on. However, I don't know if it is working or not.
The leak must have started a while back. My exhaust pipes had reddish stains for some time. I thought it was rust because I didn't use my bike often, but now that I think of it, it could be evaporated coolant! (However, I thought my coolant was green.)
So, my bike is either a write-off or everything is still fine because the bike was sufficiently cool due to the air intake. (I was never stuck in traffic jams).
Oh ho, Sony is releasing two new prime lenses: the 24 mm f/2 SSM Carl Zeiss lens and the 500 mm f/4 G lens!
Sony is expensive. Carl Zeiss is exclusive. The combination is lethal. I am interested in the 24/2 lens :drool:, but I'm not planning to get it.
I must say that Sony is unlikely to release any more Minolta vintage lenses. Sony would rather use Carl Zeiss designs. I like Minolta lenses even though they are inferior — the best Minolta lenses are often said to be a poor man's Carl Zeiss lenses. However, they are good enough for me.
There are two reasons why I am not that interested in a 24/2 lens — and this is coming from someone who wanted to get a Canon camera just to use the 24/1.4L lens.
First, I'm very weak at the 24mm focal length. 28mm is easy to use and so far, I'm okay with 20mm too. I find it very easy to introduce distortions at 24mm, so I need to compose the photos very carefully.
But more importantly, I feel SLR is a dying system. With ultra-fast sensors, there is simply no need to have 35mm-format lenses anymore. 24/2 is a street lens. A lens that isn't carried isn't used — hence wasted. Portability is important. These days, you can get 24/2 on a compact: the Panasonic LX-3. This is the path forward, I guess.
The SLR makers can see this too. Sony has announced a new line of mirrorless cameras with a new line of interchangable lenses. The existing lenses can be used via an adapter, but I suspect some functionality will be lost. (Or how is Sony going to get you to buy the new lenses?)
We may be entering a turbulent transitional period like the MF-to-AF period again. Time for fortunes to rise and fall again.
As I mentioned before, the 50mm lens is often the cheapest lens in the lens lineup, yet it gives very good quality pictures that often only the high-end f/2.8 zoom lenses can exceed.
The lens is also small and light, not to mention "fast". When photographers talk about fast lenses, they are not talking about focusing speed. They are talking about the light-gathering ability: the faster the lens, the more light it can gather. Even the slowest 50mm is typically f/1.8. That's 1-1/3 f/stop faster than f/2.8. One f/stop = twice as much light = half the exposure time.
With higher ISOs (even ISO 1600 is usable now compared to ISO 400 in the past; that's 2 stops) and Anti-Shake (another 2 stops), fast lenses do not have much appeal left — f/2.8 is a perfectly reasonable fast aperture. The only reason why you want something faster is extremely shallow depth-of-field.
When people ask about the 50mm lens, they usually want to know why the 50mm focal length is special, not the lens.
50mm falls into the so-called "normal" focal length, meaning the perspective is just as our eyes see it. (It depends on the reproduction ratio and viewing distance too, so it is only true if typical values are assumed.)
(What is perspective? You can think of it as the spacing between the foreground and background objects. For wide-angle focal lengths, the background looks very far away. For telephoto focal lengths, the background look closer — usually called compressed.)
Technically, a normal lens is one with a focal length equal to the diagonal size of the film or sensor format. For 35mm film format (24x36mm), that means 43.3mm. Lenses from 40mm to 50mm are considered normal.
Note that while the perspective is "normal", the field-of-view is much narrower than what our eyes can see. This is why people have a lot of trouble with the 50mm lens — they cannot fit their subjects into the frame.
The 50mm lens should not be your first prime lens, especially on a DSLR with 1.5x FLM. It is cheap and good, but it is often not suitable.
