He absolutely adores the character and has been asking my wife for her. No, not the toy Ming Ming. Nor the books on Ming Ming, but “I want Ming Ming“!

It seems like there are times when he cannot tell the difference between an animated characters and real characters. I have even shown him how the program was made (thanks to youtube) but he still wants his Ming Ming.

Worse, there was once he asked me to be Ming Ming! (Well I must admit I like to animate characters to him myself, holding a toy etc, and making it talk to him)

Well I hope the infatuation goes away soon….or else I have to be Ming Ming in the coming days…

(This is written by Footywife)

We went to a Christmas party the other day and my little son brought along his most prized car collection, from the Walt Disney movie “Cars”.

He was playing with them when our friend’s teenage daughter, Geraldine, came along to chat with him.

“What is the name of this car?” Geraldine asked.

“Art-sen” my little son replied instantly.

“Art-sen?” Geraldine repeated.

“Hudson” I chipped in, helping my little son to pronounce the letter “h”.

“Oh, Hudson” said Geraldine. “How about this one?” she asked again.

“Pilmore” my little son replied, somewhat a bit more hesitant.

“Pilmore?” Geraldine asked, looking a little confused.

“Filmore” I chipped in again, helping my little son to pronounce the letter “f” this time.

“Oh, you mean Filmore. How come I don’t understand what you say” Geraldine commented.

Then she pointed to another car and asked the same question.

“I don’t know” came the reply from my little son.

Filmore (2nd from left) ; Hudson (2nd from right)

But I’m sure he knew because he knows all the cars’ names by heart. My interference probably made him feel lousy about his diction as Geraldine could understand me but couldn’t understand him. So he chose to feign ignorance than risk Geraldine not understanding his diction again.

Maybe next time I should shut my big mouth and let my little son carry on the conversation in his own way and see what comes out of it.

After 65 million years, they are BACK!

I saw this on TV News one day and was immediately drawn by it. It’s a live theatrical experience where 15 “live” dinosaurs, including the terror T-rex, walk, roar and fight for supremacy in front of your very eyes!

The show is touring North America now. How I wish they will come to Asia, am sure a lot of children (and adults) here would like catching a glimpse.

I stumbled onto this blog HOT THINGS DEAR today and was overjoyed to find an article describing the little animals.

So they are called Pygmy Tarsiers!

Now I can’t wait for my little son to wake up tomorrow to show off my new-found knowledge!

You see, the previous trip to the cinema was partially a failure because my son simply did not want to go into the cinema hall. I think the darkness and loud sound kind of traumatized him. Good thing the cinema was pretty empty then and we could sit at the last row near the exit, moving in and out during the show depending on whether there were “loud” moments.

Today, we knew it would turn out better because he has been looking forward to the trip. For the past week he has seen the trailer of “Madagascar : Escape to Africa” on TV and proclaiming he wanted to watch it in the cinema, while eating popcorn!

True enough, apart for a moment of early hesitation, he was enjoying himself in the cinema so much that  from halfway in the show, he started showing boredom and wanted to climb between row of seats!

He has definitely grown in the last few months…at least in the area of fear of the dark and loud sound.

On the work front, I have been quite stretched as I worked in the financial industry. Needless to say, the current financial turmoil is the reason for the increased workload. Thank you sub-prime, thank you Lehman, thank you investment bankers, thank you FED, thank you structurers for coming up with “wonderful” products that no one fully understood the risks until now…or maybe not even now.

On another front, for the past week after l returned from work, I have poured myself hard working on this wedding montage for a good friend of mine. I had always wanted to do this for him, so understandably there was a very strong desire to make sure I did an excellent job.

You tell me if I can make a career out of this and dump my job! Oops…I forgot recession is coming….

If you find them interesting, you can view some of my other works here.

I really enjoy doing these things despite the hours I spent on them.  The above montage took me about 20hours (!!!) to do, but I really do love working my socks off. The satisfaction I get from the appreciative couples is indescribable.

Oh by the way, for those reading the previous post and wondering who “Mack” is….he is the big truck that “ferries” race cars in the DISNEY PIXAR movie “CARS”.

And I just found out that the name “Mack” came from “Mack Trucks”, one of the world’s leading truck manufacturing companies.

"..But the goal of parenthood is not to produce clones who replicate the lives of their parents, rather to produce mature adult who make their own choices." – Philip Yancey in Reaching for the Invisible God

Speaking of choices, I am sure my son would have chosen not to return to school today after a one-month break. He had already started crying "I don’t want to go to school!" from the moment we reminded him about the re-starting of the school term a few days ago.

Granted he is only 3 years old come this October (some parents are already slamming me for sending him to school so early. I shall explain in another post if I remember), but I must say he is growing smarter. You see, even as he was putting on his school shoes, he was using delaying tactics like saying that his shoes were too big.

Why I think that was smart is because he actually made use of a concern my wife and I had when we bought him the shoes a few days ago. He had answered "OK" when we asked if he felt they were too big. So remembering that was our concern, he actually raised the issue of the shoes being too big at a time when it mattered, thus buying him a few precious moments before heading to school.

I am not sure if I have conveyed this feeling of amazement well. But I am truly pleasantly surprised at how well he is growing mentally.

When my son came back from Joshua’s house yesterday, I took the very first opportunity to show him that very first Crazy Talk animation.

To say he was stunned was an understatement. He simply stood there speechless and watched while spotting a cheeky grin. When the clip finished, I showed it to him again.

This time, he replied to the animation as if it was talking to him! When it finished, I played it again and he replied to Crazy Luigi again!! And again next morning!!! Only thing is he replied differently.

Needless to say, I already think Crazy Talk 5 is money well-spent. The US$50 is a very good investment as he has already started asking for more of his favorite toys to "talk".

Only problem is, this time-strapped father needs to squeeze out even more time to produce more Crazy Luigis!

Well, there you have it!

I would say the Crazy Talk 5 animation software is not that difficult to use. I have no digital animation background and I guess if not for the fact that I wanted to choose my own image (instead of using the templates provided), the project would have been completed in less than 30mins.

What I did to produce this short clip were this:

1) Choose the image I want
(in this case, I used the image from the toy box of a toy I bought for my son recently)

2) Scan the image into my PC

3) Open the Crazy Talk 5 application

4) Import the image

5) Follow the simple instructions that follows from the Crazy Talk 5 software

6) Record my own speech & song (erm yes…..that was my tweaked voice and I sang that song..hehe)

7) Export to the medium of my choice (yes there is a "export to Youtube" resolution option)

And wala!

(Of course I am not going to confuse you with the little steps used in adding some titles and transitions. But feel free to drop me a comment if you really want to know how it was done)

I can’t wait for my son to come back from Joshua’s house to show him this crazy talk animation!