Life, as I see it…

i must warn the readers that there is a possibility that you might be offended with this post, especially if you like photography. if you are easily offended, steer clear from this post. in case you decided to ignore this warning, i am sorry. everyone’s entitled to their own opinion right. although mine could be dead wrong.

happy birthday!

no, not to my blog, although this is the 31st post.

to everyone that celebrated their birthday recently.
my cousin’s birthday is on the 1st day of raya. how fun is that?! haha. so instead of just eating nasi himpit and ketupat and lemang, we ate cake as well. yeay for the soon-to-be overweight us. (and to some cousins that are already overweight. wahaha!)

oh yea, selamat hari raya! lol. that should be the first thing i said. zzz. must set priorities straight next time. and maaf zahir batin juga. or in english, sorry for the obvious and not so obvious things…

hmm. didn’t really have anything to write about. really this time. ah, here’s something. seems like everyone has a degree nowadays. and here i thought i was somehow special because i (almost) have a degree. zzz. how uncool. i dunno if most people know this, but i don’t like to be… similar to other people. i prefer to be different. i don’t think its a cry for attention, i simply dislike being similar to other people, i do not like following trends, i try to break away from the crowd.

example? to be completely honest, i like photography. no, not the art of buying expensive cameras and then showing it off to the world as if the camera makes you a cameramen, the art of taking beautiful pictures, regardless of what camera you use. see, i found out i liked photography a long time ago, before it became a craze, at least it was before the craze, coz i don’t seem to recall anyone talking about it then. and the camera that i used? my VGA quality phone camera. haha. some ppl might notice that in my camera phone, where there should be pictures of myself posing vainly, pictures of other human beings that are close to me, are pictures of inanimate objects, weird things and bizarre scenery. again, honestly, im very stiff, definitely not photogenic, if thats how you spell it. so even though at times i do try to pose and get a good photo of myself, i seldom succeed. haha.

anyways, getting back to the photography thing, i also realised that taking good pictures of other people are hard as well. i prefer candid shots, but its so hard to actually catch a very good one, unless you’re actually talented, which i’m not. haha. so i like taking pictures of things that don’t normally move. hence pictures of scenery, inanimate objects, and other weird things. but i’ve never actually told anyone i like taking pictures. and it really didn’t occur to me to get those expensive cameras to improve the quality of the pictures, coz they aren’t that nice to begin with. haha. its just something i do for my own pleasure.

but nowadays, seems like every single human being is a ‘photographer’. everyone boasting their new DSLR or DSL modem (lol) or whatever it is and are actually going for photoshoots to satisfy their thirst for great photo-capturing or whatever the hell they call what they’re doing. lol. sorry.

i really must voice out my opinion on this one. first off, having a very good camera doesn’t mean you’re a photographer that suddenly has the urge or more appropriately put the caliber or more bluntly put actual talent to actually pull off a photoshoot, it just means you’re a camera owner. that’s it. nothing more. (credit to my friend for telling me this. )

secondly, while the presence of beautiful girls and beautiful scenery does make the photograph more beautiful (obviously), it does not mean that since it was you that took the photograph, it automatically turns you into a talented photographer because the picture was beautiful. any moron can go take pictures of a beautiful girl and the pictures will turn out pretty no matter what he does. BUT, it takes skill to take pictures of a mundane, uninteresting thing and make it look extraordinary, magical.

again, sorry. i do not mean to offend, but there are some things that i just can’t stand. i rarely go rant-ing (without the hyphen it looks like a branch. lol) like this, but when i do, someone’s bound to be pissed off. haha. and who can blame them.

so, er, getting back to what i was talking about previously, i actually do like photography, but since everyone’s doing it now, it really annoys me. haha. poyo giler. but that’s me. i can’t change who i am. i wanted to make a list of things that i do that are different, but there aren’t that many that i can think of at the moment. ah, this blog? why the hell haven’t i moved out of friendster when everyone has already moved on to better places? thats one. handphone? using motorola, instead of nokia / sony-ericsson. laptop? dell. watch? fossil. not that unique nowadays, but have not met another person with the same exact design, ever.

once you think about it, it really does make sense. even my name is unique / different from others. i don’t think ive ever met someone named yasin in person. even abdullah, although a somewhat common name, is not someone i bump into regularly. o yeaa, speaking about names, what’s the deal with Malays naming their children with English / weird names? are Islamic / Arabic / Malay names not good enough for their children? i do not mean to be rude especially to those named this way, but your name will somewhat affect what you will become in the future. the closest example would be me. unique name, very unique, almost alien-like personality / interests. haha.

and sometimes, the names are almost impossible to pronounce. arcturus? nymphadora? obama? haha. you can’t even tell if its a he or a she sometimes. really. in my humblest of opinions, a name should hold a meaning. it should mean something good or worthy of mentioning. if your name is epal merah bin jantan, you can’t even be proud of that. for all we know, you’re someone’s favorite fruit.

lets take my name for example. my real name is abdullah yasin. granted, it’s not the most common of names, but its full of meaning, at least i think so. abdullah means slave of God. yasin, i’m not entirely sure, but i’ve been told it refers to a prophet. now, the actual person might not be much, but the name abdullah yasin represents someone that is religious, devoted to God, perhaps the best man can be, as man was put on this Earth to be a servant of God anyways. Muslims believe that anything that comes out of our mouths is indirectly a prayer, which is why in Malay culture we rarely or try to avoid saying bad things. example, scolding a naughty boy “aih bertuahnye budak ni pergi conteng dinding”. same thing goes for names. we give, or i should say we should have given good names to children in the sense that we pray for the child to live up to his / her name. but people nowadays are so caught up in the glitz and glamour of hollywood, we probably will be seeing names like keanu reeves jonas pitt bin jantan very soon…

but honestly, who am i to judge other people. i’m a nobody really. for all i know, tomorrow or maybe the day after that i will be going out and spending tons of cash on a camera i barely know how to use and post on facebook “I iz expert photographer. I haz expensive camera”. (might just do that, for more sarcastic reasons. haha). or maybe when it’s my turn to name my own son / daughter, i’d probably forget all about my rambles and rants here and name him / her alfonso de al gore-o-bama. or since i like computers so much,  motherboardeina. haha. meaningful what…. computer savvy. motherly. haha. if its a boy, joystickaram sings wall-e. @_@

ok. must stop before i offend more people. but no offense to obama though, the name kinda rolls off the tongue, dont ya think? obama.. obama.. obama… haha. lastly, the most important tradition in my opinion during the raya month, maaf zahir dan batin to all.
peace. take care!