Archive | PermalinkAmarok 2.0 Woes... Then a Solution!

A few nights ago, I decided to upgrade the Ubuntu operating system from 8.10 Intrepid Ibex to 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope. (Yeah, yeah. I should be at 10.04 Lucid Lynx right now. I'll get around to it.) Everything went along swimmingly with the applications I've had installed... until I ran Amarok.

Amarok version 1.something had been automatically upgraded by the OS level-up to version 2.0. The user interface looks somewhat different. But more important than that, there was no sound!

Upon executing the application the systray warned me, "Phonon: KDE's Multimedia Library. The audio playback device HDA Intel (AD198x Analog) does not work. Failing back to default." Playing any songs, a warning would pop up, "Too many errors encountered in playlist. Stopped playback." When I played the same songs using Totem, they worked perfectly.

So I did a some Googling and discovered this solution which worked.

Keywords: computers,linux

Archive | PermalinkThe Fastball Express Gang

The Eclipse Phase RPG campaign I've been gaming in, gamemastered by Ivan, has been real fun. The posthuman campaign involves the players as "pre-emptive retrieval specialists" who have been plying their trade between Luna, Mars and the asteroid belt. And although I've drawn Hokusai before, as well as Billy Cable Jr. and Bishop-6 in vac suits, here is the first ever visual representation of the entire crew of the cargo ship Fastball Special.

Keywords: artwork,eclipse_phase,rpg

Archive | PermalinkGamera vs. Godzilla

800th blog post!

Irfan's been on a daikaiju kick lately. Checking out all the monster throwdowns on Youtube, he's decided that giant, flying, bipedal sabre-toothed tortoise Gamera is his favourite monster. We quickly illustrated this picture earlier this morning. Click on the thumbnail for the full image.

Keywords: artwork,irfan

Archive | PermalinkLatest Movie With Totoro Reviewed - Toy Story 3

One might be tempted to review Toy Story 3 as such: “The toys from Andy’s room return in the third installment of Toy Story for another wondrous adventure for the children, reuniting the voice talents of Tom Hanks as Sheriff Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head, the Grand Nagus Vizzini as Rex the Tyrannosaur, Major Derlin as Hamm and the ghost of Jim Varney as Slinky Dog”.

But movie is far more than that. It’s a perfect bookend for the trilogy, dramatically and visually. It’s been 10 years since the first movie and Andy’s all grown up and is ready to move out to college. All his belongings are going to be either stored in the attic or thrown away. Andy has decided to store his remaining toys in the attic, much to everyone’s relief.

It wouldn’t be the great and fun life they had before, but at least they would have each other until the end.

Keywords: movie,movie_review,toys

Archive | PermalinkDrawing from After the Fall

Eclipse Phase was on today. I played Hokusai Tarnungshaut the uplifted octopus once again. As we played, I sketched the final scenario as we played it. Here we were, Bishop Six, Billy Cable Jr. and I had to rescue Maria, the advisor to the von Trapp family in spaaaace (a bunch of neotenics, really) from the Nine Lives crime syndicate.

We all wore vac suits because we infiltrated the bad guys' base from outside the space habitat, where I lost my Groucho Marx glasses. I wielded a pair of heavy railgun pistols, the neurachem-stimulated Bishop Six had a sniper rifle slung on his back and Billy wore a pickelhaube helmet for some reason and tried to bluff some guards with a dazzler in his hand.

Ultimately, we figured out how one does solve a problem like Maria.

Keywords: artwork,eclipse_phase,rpg

Archive | PermalinkAvian Visitor at Night

And so it came to pass that as I was relaxing in the living room as the last glow of the setting sun disappeared, a bird flew into the house. At first it just rested on the carpet looking forlornly at me, perhaps wondering into what parallel universe it had travelled to. I called Irfan to approach slowly, but as I edged for a closer look, it flew.

Keywords: around_the_house,critters,irfan

Archive | PermalinkVisit to Putrajaya

A few weeks ago before the school break ended, Irfan followed his tuition centre group on a visit to Putrajaya where they visited the botanical gardens, among other places. This was the first time he went on a trip with the group. Although he came back tired, he said he had fun.

Irfan recently obtained the photos they took during the excursion.

Keywords: irfan,kuala_lumpur

Archive | PermalinkRainy Day at the Mines

The day after the bird park visit, there was another thing that Irfan wanted to do with his grandparents - which was to bowl. Actually the previous day we did attempt to travel to the bowling alley at Midvalley but the arcology was jam-packed with cars, so we instead went birdwatching.

However, on this day we decided to see if the bowling alley at the mall known as the Mines Shopping Fair was good for a game. It was, so there we bowled. 

Keywords: family_outings,irfan,kuala_lumpur

Archive | PermalinkAllie's 23 Month Birthday

And Allie is now another month older. She was 23 months old last Tuesday, and now is not even a month away from her second birthday! How crazy is that? It feels just like yesterday when Allie was born and now, look at her:

* Mouse over the pictures for captions

Keywords: alya,around_the_house,birthday,lily

Archive | PermalinkHappy Father's Day! (Backdated)

This is a backdated entry in honor of Father's Day. I managed to pick out some gifts for Vin (seen below) and Allie and Lily got together and sent Vin an e-card. In keeping with last year's theme, Allie models Vin's presents:

Vin got to play in his Father's Day baseball game, but Allie, Lily and I stayed home since Allie had slept in.

Keywords: alya,around_the_house,baseball

Archive | PermalinkAn Exploration of the Aviary

Atok and Opah came a-visiting for the school holidays, and one of the places Irfan wanted to go with them was the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park. It was quite huge and housed many species of birds, most of which are free to fly about under the park's netting enclosure. Sure, there were a number of cages which housed lots of the wilder birds, but the amount of birds walking, flying, perching and eating among the visitors were just astounding.

Because it rained earlier in the morning, Irfan wore his Atok's hat just in case it rained again. The hat stood by constantly in Atok's car for emergency usage.

Irfan later became a perch for a couple of colourful birds. He was happy the birds didn't poop on him.

Keywords: critters,family_outings,irfan,kuala_lumpur

Archive | PermalinkSubang Airport Pickup

After 10 days back in Pasir Mas, Irfan's Cik Ma returned to KL by way of the old Subang Airport, which is now the new "Subang Skypark". It seemed to have transformed from a musty warehouse airport into a 21st century shopping mall airport. Doors opened automatically for us and stuff! There were two banks in the building accessible from the inside! (Not that we had any cash in them.) One of those new-fangled Starbucks coffee shop too, which probably has coffee!

Irfan posed before the Skypark's big screen computer display of the inbound and outbound flights. His Cik Ma's flight is on there, speeding closer to the airport.

Keywords: family_outings,irfan,kuala_lumpur