Sunday, February 29

Two weeks ago I received an invitation to the special preview screening of Infernal Affairs. Yes, it is hitting the British shores just over a year after the HK release date and has mainly to do with a distributor over here trying to cash in on this blockbuster flick before Hollywood makes a mess (and undoubtedly a killing too) with their own version.

A week ago was the screening, which I went with mum for company. I'd already seen my VCD copy of the movie a good 2-3 times but the main attraction of this event was the presence of Mr. Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, which was timed perfectly with my recent Wong Kar-Wai kick. I had wanted to brag about this a good while earlier but I didn't want to get everyone excited without nothing to show for it in the end, so I had to patiently wait and keep my mouth shut until the roll got developed and printed.

Well, here is the living proof (notice mum in second last pic, smiling with glee as Tony signs her notebook).

The private reception held in the hour before the screening took place in an area of the Curzon Soho complex far too small for the number of people who managed to get on the guest list. There was no sign of Tony upon our arrival so we kept ourselves occupied in the company of the people who kindly sent me the invitation. At around 8:30, everyone's heads starting turning towards the entrance and there was Mr Tony Leung surrounded by his agent, TV crew, and others who tried to look equally important.

In a way it was pretty surreal seeing the guy standing less than 5 metres away. He appeared shy and quiet, probably the combination of jetlag and a fear of speaking English. I was equipped with pen, paper and camera... ready for the whole 13 year old teeny-bop autograph and picture experience. Unfortunately his 15 minutes at the reception was hogged up by the one person who apparently brought him over. Grrr. I'm sure they could've found the time to talk elsewhere at a more convenient time. So we all simply stood around and stared, unable to interrupt them for a word or a snapshot. That of course did not stop us from snapping away like crazy but I had really hoped to get a pic of him with me and mum. One lucky girl broke with decorum and managed to sneak next to him him for a speedily composed portrait. Security freaked out and no one else had the chance to do likewise.

But at the very moment when someone shoved a piece of paper in front of his face requesting an autography, I instinctively lost all sense of courtesy to the people around me and pushed my way to obtaining the very same thing. Just as his press agent was turning everyone away, I managed to hand over my special edition VCD copy and scored a big fat signature right under his image. Mum followed suite, called out "Leung Chiu Wai!" and promptly handed over her notebook, to which he replied "I don't have a pen". Naturally she had one in hand and thus was able to also walk away with his autograph. Ha. It was a good laugh.

I won't comment on the movie itself. Sure it is great, definitely worth seeing, and does his talent as an actor justice, yet it doesn't manage to come anywhere near to the iconic performances immortalized in cult classics like Happy Together or In the Mood for Love. Tony spent a good five minutes before the screening to publicly answer a few questions pertaining to Infernal Affairs, with slight detours here and there on 2046. But gripped by the aforementioned quiet shyness, his answers deviated little from 'yes' and 'no', and certainly did not last for more than the length of a short sentence.

It was too bad that no one else from the cast or crew were able to come along and offer backup support. But then again, when you think about it, none of the other actors and actresses in the film, despite it being a line up of Hong Kong superstars, have enjoyed the kind of international recognition that Tony Leung has. So it was more than fitting that he would come all the way to London to single-handedly bear the full brunt of the film's PR work, as having anyone else along for the ride would've made little difference.

Tuesday, February 24

I could do with a new PC. Nothing top of the line or anything, just something that could run a little better than this sorry excuse of an overclocked Celeron 300A that I put together when I moved to Chicago five years ago. Surprisingly it still runs smoothly on most days but last week I decided to get with the times a notch by going from Windows 98 to Windows 98 Second Edition. Boy was that a disaster. To make the long story short, I've had to make the switch back to the original release and all this computer downtime has brought about a reduction in the frequency of posts.

My day off yesterday was wasted unintentionally on the stupid little Lomographic Schnitzel Chase. The competition involved clicking around the Lomo World Browser, a kind of interactive treasure hunt, and collecting a set of 8 numbers and characters that, when joined together, would create a passcode that would determine what sort of a discount one was entitled to, depending on how quickly they managed to get it done. But in order to make things a little more fair and exciting, the organizers decided that the clue for the final character would not be revealed on the Lomo site until at precisely 1700 GMT Monday 23rd February.

As you can imagine, this brought the server to a stand still, resulting in many contestants getting utterly pissed off, especially those in Australia and other parts who had to stay up until 3 in the morning or so. To make matters worse, the overload on the server resulted in the clue not being uploaded until an hour and a half later than promised. The whole time I pretty much just sat there, frantically refreshing the page, and rejecting most Solitaire Showdown invitations on MSN as well as keeping my ICQ conversations to a bare minimum.

In the end, after a stroke of luck more than anything else, I got my last character (by then I had given up on the clue being revealed and simply started punching in random characters) and discovered to my delight that I was entitled to a 50% discount from the Lomo shop, meaning that I was one of the first 10 to have entered all the characters correctly.

Yes, a major waste of time if you ask me and I don't even know if I'm going to use my discount coupon after all. In hindsight, the competition was nothing more than a marketing attempt courtesy of the Lomographic Society with the two-fold purpose of a) making people aware of the various functions within the Lomo World Browser - many of which I didn't know about until playing the competition, and b) tricking contestants into buying more useless cameras from their shop - a 50% discount still yields some shockingly high prices. They also tried to set everybody's hearts racing by offering a free limited edition red action sampler ($10 on ebay?) to the first 30 orders purchases made with a Schnitzel discount coupon. As you can imagine, there must've been a truckload of those who rushed along to the online shop right after winning their voucher and blowing money on supposedly 'discounted' items that they didn't particularly want.

Friday, February 20

People can be so darn lazy; and I'm not just talking about those who bring in their cameras asking to have the batteries or film replaced. We actually had someone come in yesterday afternoon, who handed over a slightly creased baby passport photo of himself, requesting that it be blown up and cropped to fit on the front of a belated valentine's day card that he provided, as well as ordering a second enlargement that we were to fit in one of the frames that we carried. What sort of person isn't able to even cut and paste a photo on their own? And you'd think that for something as special as valentine's that he'd at least take a little time browsing our frames to personally handpick the one he wishes to give to the woman he loves. But I guess you kinda have to forgive someone who was already four days behind schedule.

So there he was, instructing me on all the things he wanted us to take care of for him, his uncertainties and slowness creating a long queue of waiting customers. I tried to point out as patiently as possible that we're not some kind of full service one stop gift shop. I mean, did he want us to write the card for him as well? The card was one of those where you could record a short little audio message, which would then get played every time the card gets opened. By then I was ready for him to suggest that it'd be nice if one of us could also record the message.

It must be noted though that the customer was rather nice and polite the whole time about all this, just a little oblivious to how ridiculous it all looked from a different perspective. I guess he had either forgotten about valentine's all together and was running around frantically for a rush job of a gift, or that he had exhausted himself of all creative ideas.

He returned to the lab towards closing time. We had his photo framed and his card ready. It was all meant to be something of a surprise for his girlfriend, yet he decided to take his time by signing the card on the spot, making her wait in the car parked around the corner. After 10-15 minutes had passed she must've smelled something fishy for she walked right into the shop to blow whatever he had of a late surprise away. He covered as best as he could his sorry collection of gifts on the counter, sent her back out, and resumed work on the card. The silence in the lab was broken moments later by a soft and awkwardly rushed 'I love you'. At least that's what I thought I had heard from the back of the shop until Moss confirmed it by repeatedly opening and closing his card in front of me.

Mission complete. His card was finished, he was good to go. We could lock up and go home. Then he started asking if we had any gift wrapping paper lying around for him to make the frame more presentable. Naturally we didn't have anything that came close to resembling gift wrapping paper but we did have some fancy glittery bags that he could put everything in, which I ended up charging only slightly more than cost. I also threw in a couple boxes of the Lindt chocolate that we were giving away for good measure. And THEN he had the audacity to ask for a discount! I gave him the good customer service equivalent of 'In your dreams, now piss off'... and that was the last of him.

Geez. What a cheapskate. It seems that they constantly flock to our lab, despite it being such a wealthy and affluent neighbourhood. I'm continuously baffled by how tight rich people can be with their money. You'd be pleasantly shocked to hear the names of some A-list movie stars who are like that. They always come in expecting discounts and freebies. I suppose it's their one source of security and they'll do whatever they can to hold on to that extra penny to ensure that their comfortable lifestyle is not in anyway jeopardized. Someone once told me that studies have been conducted to show that beggars actually make more from begging in poorer areas of town. No wonder I always see that Big Issue seller on high street with the same number of copies on him. Everyone is too RICH to part with their 1.20.

Wednesday, February 18

March is less than two weeks away and yet we are still experiencing some of the harshest weather we've seen this winter. The incessant cold and wet conditions, along with London buses overcrowded with obnoxious and inconsiderate school kids, make for a pretty miserable journey into work each morning. Let's not forget about the ridiculous amount of traffic that can stretch a 10 minutes bus ride into a half hour crawl. Grrr... people and their cars. And just the other day I came a foot away from getting splashed by one. Thank goodness I only have to put up with this nonsense 3 days a week.

I have discovered though that a little music in the ears to drown everything out does help to soften the blow. Upon the recommendation of Nick Hornby, I picked up Teenage Fanclub's Songs From Northern Britain back in november to welcome in the advent of winter. Since then it's pretty much been my constant companion on every bus journey to and from work. I had not really paid much attention to this band since losing interest in Bandwagonesque back in the early 90s (along with a little Grand Prix) but the genuine sense of honesty and innocence felt across this entire record has come as a pleasant surprise.

In a way, it's sort of like how I absolutely dreaded Come On Feel The Lemonheads when it first came out, yet it unsuspectingly made its way to becoming the most played record on the Unwed Sailor spring tour of 2003, a whole ten years later. But back to Teenage Fanclub. When I listen to Songs From..., I can imagine this is a sound that the Byrds might've created had they grown up in Britain in the late 80s. People might disagree but I think the best music, more often than not, has a connection to the specific moment in time of a particular geographical location, and Teenage Fanclub managed to do precisely that with this overlooked release from 1997.

Tuesday, February 17

Fans of Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express should take note of 36 Nathan Road, a brand new indie flick shot almost entirely within the confines of the infamous Chung King Mansion. But whereas Wong Kar-Wai simply used its dimly-lit corridors as the setting for a story that really had no connection with the building, 36 Nathan Road is actually about the lives of a handful of foreigners staying there.

Apart from the official site, there is little information anywhere on the web for one to read up on about the movie, but I did come across a print interview with the Finnish director Jyrki Rantasuo about a month ago. In it he discussed his fascination with HK (and especially Chung King Mansion - where he himself has stayed for 3 months), thanks to none other than Wong Kar-Wai.

If anything, I'm stoked to see what sort of an angle an indie film maker like Rantasuo will shoot from. The trailer seems to suggest that it'll be a fresh and exciting approach. Too often, we are bombarded only by extremely touristy and stereotypically chinese scenes within foreign films (all of which seem to value HK for little more than a so-called 'exotic' location, as has been the case with Hollywood box office hits like Rush Hour 2 and Tomb Raider 2).

I'll post more info here when I learn about a release date for this film, as all that is available at the moment is a screener DVD exclusive to press, festivals, distributors, broadcasters, etc. And of course if there's something you know that I don't know, please drop me a line.

Saturday, February 14

Happy Valentine's Day

There used to be a point in time when I'd half-jokingly tell people that I'd like to see myself married, or at least in a serious relationship, by the time I celebrated my 25th birthday. That age has come and gone, and here I am still ticking the 'single' box in the marital status question of any given application form. In hindsight I'm glad that nothing of that sort worked out as I can't even begin to imagine how different a path I'd have gone down.

It's not that I don't want to be with that 'special someone', 'soul mate', 'significant other', or whatever you wish to call it. I desire an intimate relationship as much as the person next to me. The concept of marriage and all that comes along with it still appeals to me as much as it's always had, but if I'm really honest with myself then I'd have to admit that I can't picture myself sharing the rest of my life with any of the individuals I've had the joy of coming across and getting to know in recent history.

That's not to say that I haven't found myself attracted to anyone or that the thought of getting to know them better has never crossed my mind. But how one can arrive at that point in their life where they feel ready to make a lifelong commitment to another human being is the part of the journey I can't make any sense of. This brings to mind someone I know who recently placed herself in a country she isn't particularly fond of or relates much to, just so she can be with her boy. That's the sort of devotion I'm speaking of and I don't think I could do it for anyone. Not yet.

When you simply 'date' someone, time appears finite and temporary; you can start today and end tomorrow. In many ways it's like a warm-up to the honeymoon. You delight in one another's company, float around on cloud nine, dwelve into life's pleasures as a loving pair. Life is full of wonderul surprises as you discover new things about each other. It's cute and mushy. Flowers, chocolates, movies, walks in the park, candle-lit dinners. Yeah, the very things that most of us associate with today.

Marriage? That's something entirely different. It's not like marriage denies you of the above, but at the same time it really is so much more. And if that 'so much more' isn't something that I'm prepared to dive into with a particular individual, then it doesn't seem to make much sense for me to waste my time (and her's) entertaining the 'going out' phase to begin with.

I think this, along with the dreaded fear of a break up ruining a perfectly good friendship, explains for the most part why I haven't been in a relationship since the age of 18. Being secretly gay would make for a far simpler answer. Of course it also doesn't help that I have an unbreakable habit of falling for girls who are a) on the other side of the world or b) already with someone else, but let's not even go there.

It's hard to imagine myself at 40. It's harder still to imagine whether I'd be happy remaining single at that age. I know loneliness and desperation can get the best of us, but I would much rather spend the rest of my life alone than end up like some of the people I know, blindly hooking up with the first available candidates in sight.

Let's hope most of us will not have to.

Wednesday, February 11

It's close to 2 a.m. and my ears are still ringing in protest from the spectacular Pretty Girls Make Graves show at the Barfly earlier tonight. Generally I try adhere to a strict policy of wearing earplugs, or at least scrunched up wads of tissue paper when forgetful, as I find it absolutely disgraceful for one to lose their hearing to a crap band (the chances of which are particularly in abundance when on the road and being subjected to terrible opening acts on a nighty basis). But in the case of PGMG, I didn't want the little bits and pieces shoved uncomfortably in my ear to get in the way of my enjoyment and I was fully prepared to pay the price for 'uninterrupted pleasure'. Besides, they're not a particularly 'loud' band and a good engineer can always make a band sound 'loud' without hurting people's ears.

They played a blistering set of hit after hit... pretty much every song that I had hoped they would play including liquid courage, speakers push the air, and the get away (no, I'm not really a fan of the New Romance although I had planned on picking it up on the night, but selling records at a show at HMV prices is, in my humble opinion, daylight robbery). In particular, it was a real delight watching the way Nate banged so effortlesly on the drums. Gosh there is just something about a band with a solid and fluid drummer. Even with Unwed Sailor, through out much of the set I'd always just look over to Matt and become totally hypnotized by his exceptional style.

From the first note I found myself bopping and singing along to every word, like the 150 or so others in the room. This was the very feeling that I used to always have watching punk/hardcore bands 7-8 years ago. The sense of sweet anticipation right before the band takes to the stage, followed by this indescribable 'zone' that the music just sucks you into once they start playing. And of course there's the joy that you carry away from a show with, as well as the sincere desire to play and tour around in a band of your own some day.

Sadly there isn't much around these days that gets me excited like things have in the past but tonight was definitely the best show I've been to in quite some time. But it looks like it's there are quite a number of equally promising shows coming up in the next couple of weeks: Death Cab For Cutie, This Beautiful Mess, Blonde Redhead, JR Ewing, Silver Mt Zion... to name a few off the top of my head.

Sunday, February 8

After giving it a bit of thought, I decided to go ahead and upgrade my web hosting plan to one that offers a little more than a mere 20 MB of space. But little did I know that the upgrade would involve moving files around and all that nonsense, and hence the slight downtime interruption that some of you might have noticed yesterday.

Anyhow, it means that from now on I have a gig's worth to play with and that should solve my photo storage dilemma. I think we're looking at the potential to store up to 20,000 640x427 images!!! The new plan also allows me to set up subdomains so if you're in dire need of a place to host your website, drop me a line ;) The real kicker though is that I can finally turn this into a dynamic database-driven site via every self-respecting geek's favorite combo: PHP+MySQL. No more messy static links and it should free up the ways in which I wish to display the photos.

Of course no blog of mine is complete without a little bitching and griping, and today's award goes out to the selfish scumbags who decided to buy up all the tickets for the Pixies reunion tour and re-sell them online for 4 or 5 times the price. The tickets went on sale at 9 am yesterday morning and within a few hours you could already see a bunch of them on ebay with starting bids at like a hundred quid for a pair. As predicted, the shows are completely sold out, leaving unfortunate souls like myself who completely forgot about the sale or those who didn't hear their alarm clock (hi Daniel!) the painful options of a) missing out on THE reunion of decade or b) submitting to the greedy demands of the scalpers.

Friday, February 6

Act I Scene 2
(A quiet and slow afternoon inside a one hour photo lab. Employees Kay, Sara and Nic are lounging around with not much to do. Mrs Phillips returns to collect her order.)

PHILLIPS: (Impatiently hands over collection ticket.) My photos please.
NIC: Here they are. (Hands over 10 sets of prints and rings up total on register.) Your total comes to £107.98 thank you.
PHILLIPS: (Look of surprise on face and meticulously studies price list on counter.) Hmm... it's only £7.09 here. Why are you charging me £12.99 per roll?
NIC: You're looking at the 6x4 24 exposure price but what you had were 36 exposure films done at 5x7.
PHILLIPS: Oh. I was under the impression they were going to be the other price. Sara isn't very good at explaining things is she?
NIC: Sorry. It's stated clearly here that this (Points to price list) is the 5x7 36 exposure price.
Phillips: (Look of disgust. Silence.)
NIC: Did Kay say anything to you about a discount?
PHILLIPS: (Knods head slightly and assumes arrogant composure. Nic walks to the back to discuss matter with Kay.)
NIC: (Returns to counter.) Alright then. You can receive a 10% discount. (Turns around.) Kay, can you please show me what I should do on the register to calculate a discount after the total has already been rung up?
KAY: (Busy with miscellaneous tasks) Give me a second hon, I'll show you in a moment.
PHILLIPS: (Getting increasingly impatient and irritated.) It's not that difficult to calculate.
NIC: (Pretends to not have heard. Voids transaction on register and hands over voided receipt.)
PHILLIPS: Why isn't the total shown here?
NIC: Because I had to void the transaction so that I can give you a discount. It can't be calculated after everything has already been entered in. (Turns around once more.) Kay, can you plea...
PHILLIPS: (Interrupting.) Listen to me. It's a very straight forward calculation. Do you not know how to use a calculator?!
NIC: I have to enter everything into the cashier the right way or it throws off the accounting. Now I need to wait for Kay to show me how it's done properly.
PHILLIPS: (Ignores explanation and sneers.)

(Kay approachese the counter and begins to show Nic how it is done.)

PHILLIPS: I don't suppose you did very well in maths did you?
NIC: (Maintains composure and replies calmly.) Actually... for your information I'm a computer science graduate.
PHILLIPS: (Brief pause.) Well I only have an O level and I know how to figure out 10%.

******************************************************

I can pretend that I casually dismissed the words of that woman and got on fine for the rest of the day, but in all honesty her sarcastic remark cut me open like a stainless steel razor blade. At that moment my emotions found little room for refuge and it was incredibly tempting to comment on her appalling reading skills or observe that a social retard like her must've had a hard time making friends in school. It was just as tempting to walk away and say that I don't speak the language of scumbags. And I'd be lying if I deny that thoughts of physically violence had crossed my mind as well. Thankfully I managed to just hold it all in, and Kay came to the rescue by telling Mrs Phillips that she absolutely had no rights to speak to members of staff like that.

It was definitely a painful lesson in grace and forgiveness. How easy it is to love and forgive those we hold dear, but where there are no feelings of affection or sympathy to begin with, the situation gets a whole lot trickier, which once again highlights just how incredible (and relevant) Christ's teaching of unconditional love is and helps place me in a better perspective the biblical principles of grace, love, forgiveness and redemption.

Wednesday, February 4

Hello from my cozy bedroom. Would you believe it, I'm actually not on tour with Norma Jean as planned. No phone calls or emails since their arrival in the UK meant I wasn't going to take the risk of heading all the way down to Brighton only to find out that there was insufficient room on the bus for me to tag along. Daniel had mentioned they might cut things down to a van if the label wasn't going to fork out the dough for a 12-bed tour bus. A bit of a bummer but it's probably for the best since dad is out of town and I hate the thought of leaving mum all by herself for a week. All I've got to add to this is that they better not try to contact me should they need a place to stay in London at the end of the their tour! Grrr.

Oh yeah, I suppose I should also take this time to break the mystery surrounding the misplaced APS rolls. It turns out that I DID see what I was supposed to see - the numbers on the cannister matched the ones on the order bag perfectly. So Kent was all sorted and I interrupted the saturday afternoon of a few dozen other Kents for no good reason other than to experience firsthand the humiliation telesale callers put up with on a regular basis. What threw Sam and I into total confusion had to do with the other film not matching its order bag in the first place.

Same customer, different bags. Grrr.

I know, a bit of an anti-climatic ending to what had started out as a pretty suspenseful detective chase. I asked God for a miracle but for obvious reasons it didn't quite happen the way I wanted it to. Perspective is such a funny thing.

Tuesday, February 3

Just a short little update as I'm at work and will be meeting up with the Norma Jean boys this evening for a few days and nights of fun on their UK tour so who knows when I'll manage to find the time to post a sufficiently long blog before the weekend rolls around.

I'll fill you in on the misplaced films drama the next time I get on here. Turns out a miracle wasn't quite what I needed after all.

For now I shall leave you with what looks like an interesting twist on the whole online dating thing - Loopwise.com. Yeah right... a community full of lonely (male) guitar geeks is the last thing we need. Oh by the way, a new subset of HK photos can be found on my Lomo.Home.

Monday, February 2

This MyDoom nonsense is becoming a major pain in the butt. There's nothing worse than mass-mailing worms with horribly unoriginal subject headings like 'test' and 'hi'. Seems like I have to clean out my unwedsailor.net account every couple of hours in order to ensure that it doesn't get completely full. Oh well, I'm thinking of pulling the plug on it anyway since people rarely write me there anymore and band-related emails have always been directed at Johnathon. What's been surprising though is the relatively small number of spam that show up in my hotmail inbox these days and it's not like I've increased my security level to exclusive. Odd.

Last night was Xavier's last night in town so I decided to bring his London trip to an exciting end by treating him to some good ol' curry in the East End. At 6:30 pm Brick Lane was still relatively quiet. The cold kept most of the hustlers behind their respective restaurant doors, so we ended up having to only brush off a couple before entering Aladdin's.

Within moments of finishing off the pappadam crumbs, in walked a group of extremely familiar faces: Jan & Sarah, Ben Sand, and another Danish friend of theirs. I had failed to meet up with them for dinner (at the very same restaurant) the night before so this came as a rather delightful surprise. Ben I hadn't seen since my gig with Kari back in November and I think my trip to Denmark two and a half years ago was the last time I had seen Jan & Sarah.

An open table next to ours ensured that we were all able to sit by each other and allowed for some wonderful catch-up conversations over fiery hot madras curry (that amazingly still hasn't come out on the other end as a reminder of the experience). Ten minutes later we were joined by Hiroshi, the super hilarious Japanese boy whose amazing massaging skills saved Ergi's badly torn back right before a Mika Bomb performancee a few months ago.

With dinner out of the way and the night still so young, we brought the conversations with us over to the Hamilton Hall pub in Liverpool Street station, where Hiroshi shortly proceeded to treat each of us to a relaxing shoulders/neck/head massage. You know he means business when he carries with him towels for the shoulders and forehead. Naturally this caught the envious stare of pretty much every other patron in the establishment. At one point he even got approached by a girl to provide her with a similar service. After clearing it with the manager of the pub, Hiroshi then went over to her table and worked his magic. He came back with a new phone number and an extra 10 quid to his name.

10 pounds for less than 10 minutes work. I can't even get that working two hours at Snappy Snaps. And I definitely don't get to exchange phone numbers with our customers...

Sunday, February 1

So I did not submit my photos for LWL2003 after all; and despite however noble the notion of a boycott as an act of defiance against the Lomographic Society's greedy capitalizing of the camera may be, the truth of the matter is that I simply did not think I'd cut the deadline. Sure the Royal Mail may promise me next day delivery but who knows whether Vienna is like so many other European cities that shut down on saturdays. My fear was of the photos not arriving until monday, which would then disqualify my entry and put 15 perfectly good prints to waste (assuming they just discard unsuccessful entries).

I did however manage to upload about 50 images onto the Look-Look server so we'll see if I'd have better luck with their competition. I kinda recall seeing some pretty fantastic snaps uploaded by other folks.

Apart from it being the LWL2003 deadline, today also marked my first day back at Snappy Snaps... and boy did I screw up big time. 5 minutes after a customer had walked off with her prints, I spotted a processed roll of ASP film sitting on the bench where we normally place completed orders. Remembering that I had packed her photos without any film, I instinctively grabbed the roll and rushed out to look for her. It just so happened that she had gone up the hill and was on her way back down so I caught her just in time. With light rain dristling over us, I felt uneasy stopping her for too long and so hurriedly asked her to pull out her order bag so we could check if the numbers matched with those on the roll. I handed over the roll, apologized for troubling her, and ran back into the lab.

It must've been one of those moments where I simply saw what I wanted to see, for I was sure that the numbers matched. You can imagine the look of horror on my face when I returned to the lab to find HER roll on the bench (which I guess my colleague had earlier removed). How the other roll (without an order sheet) ended up there in the first place is beyond me. It turned out to belong to an unfulfilled order of reprints. Gosh... I sure felt dreadful. Had that happened to me I'd more probably never set foot in the lab again. Thankfully the other customer never came in that day so I was able to shift the long painful explanation over to the responsibility of my manager, however bad that may sound.

It is my sincere prayer that we'd find a way to track down the first customer so we can return the films to their rightful owners. Unfortunately ringing up every 'Kent' living in the area (about 50 of them) yielded no results. Now I'm just waiting for an unsatisfied Miss/Mrs Kent to storm back into the lab and grumble to us about how terrible the prints look (which happens more than you think with the nouveau riche types who enjoy using cheap disposable cameras)... then we'll smile and tell them that we'd be more than happy to reprint them if she can just hand over the roll of negatives once again.

Miracles CAN happen.