After having been released for exactly a week, I finally saw Star Wars Episode III – Revenge of the Sith today. Well, not me alone, I was accompanied by my cohort, Irfan! Yes, true believers. There was a 2 years 8 month old child today in the theatre watching a movie that was rated PG-13 by the MPAA, but “U” by some sleepy guy in a drab office in charge of rating English movies in Malaysia. Bite me, you over-sensitive, politically correct whiners! So, I guess it’s time of me to review this movie. Before you let out another collective “not- another- internet- review- of- ROTS” sigh, I am very much aware that almost every guy with a blog and their one-legged puppy has reviewed ROTS this past week when I was in Sitiawan, so I’m not going to review ROTS. Instead, I will review the experience of watching Irfan […]
Continue readingMonthly Archives: May 2005
Batman: Laughing at the Joker’s Boner
Taking a break from Sila’s wedding, let us now read on the subject of comics. Specifically, DC’s Batman’s comics. It’s nothing to do with the Warner Animation’s excellent animated series, nor will we be talking about Christian Bale in the upcoming Batman Begins… Instead, let’s take a look back at the time when Batman and most probably the entire Gotham City laughed at Joker’s boner. Yes, you heard me. The Joker’s boner! (By way of the Accordion Guy.)
Continue reading
Sila’s Wedding: A Photojournal
Herein lies a selection of pictures of Sila & Vin’s wedding.
Continue reading
Prelude To A Wedding, Part 2
So on Tuesday Vin had to be at PERKIM for a crash course at 10 am. At the same time, Sila’s Marriage Course cert has to be retrieved. With Ain at work, we sent Irfan to day care at his Opah Cik Timah’s. The remaining members of the squad split up. I drove Vin & Sila to PERKIM while Emma went to get the certificate. At PERKIM, we met Arab-born, Indian educated Brother Sayid, whom Sila & I thought would have made a better Islamic studies teacher than most of the ustaz we had in secondary school, and especially boarding school. Return to Sitiawan: First Sortie Ain & I were considering the idea of me driving Vin & Sila back to Sitiawan Tuesday afternoon to help with the transporting of their bags, which would be inconvenient for them to bring back on a bus. So, we decided that I should […]
Continue reading
Prelude To A Wedding, Part 1
The last seven days have been a great experience. Sila and Vin were in Kuala Lumpur manoeuvring through some red tape and purchasing wedding items. Both were of course ably aided by Irfan, his Aunt Emma, Ain and I. We were like a squad of soldiers moving through military manoeuvres timing each other, splitting up at some points to cover more ground. Thus we were kept busy and on our toes at all times. Irfan helped too? Well, he’s mostly in the entertainment department, cracking us up with his antics, including Vin. We tried to teach him to call him Ayah Cik to no avail for quite a few days. But he did like to lie down beside him with his balloon, and spend some time in the pool with him. Meeting Darth Vader Saturday afternoon the whole bunch of us, excluding Sila went to MPH Mid Valley Megamall. We […]
Continue reading
Hishgraphics: The Name
Why Hishgraphics? It’s a given that my name is Hisham and I do some (if not an unholy amount of) art in the last few years. Why not “Hisham Graphics”? Or “HishArt”? Or as was labeled on my old extinct e-mail marketing flyer, “Khairul Hisham Illustrations”? (Or my perennial favourite Exploding Toilets Sdn Bhd… don’t ask.) I chose “Hish” specifically because I’ve grown fond of what the guys over at the Holonet and SWAG usually call me, over instant messaging. (I have no idea how it will sound if someone verbally calls me that; no one has ever done so.) Graphics, because… because…. honestly I have no clue why I chose “graphics”. I’ve used “Hishgraphics” on two occasions in the past: the GeoCities site where my general artwork is on display, and this free hosting site at orgfree where you’re reading this article, and I’ve grown used to it that […]
Continue reading
Platinum Grit
Kris Vanderwater, a great web programmer and 3D modeller, introduced me to Platinum Grit, a awesome Australian webcomic by Trudy Cooper and Danny Murphy. There’s no fantasy some elements of fantasy, no science-fiction a weird alien abduction issue which just defies description, no breaking-the-fourth-wall humour, and no references to video games at all 😉 … just stories about normal (but quirky) relationship between three main characters, Kate, Nils and Jeremy and some hints a fair bit of neuroses (especially masochism on Jeremy’s part). The issue which chronicles Nils and Jeremy’s first meeting features a good deal of turtles exploding, laying waste to a zoo, and breaking the sanity of a zoo-keeper which will return to haunt Jeremy in a later issue. Supporting characters include Jeremy’s wrinkly Aunt Lottie (a far bit of perseverance needed to decipher her thick Scottish brogue), a Jamaican-accented cupboard, Arthur the pig and Zeigfried. I’m still […]
Continue reading
KLIA May 2005
11.15 pm was Sila and Vin’s arrival time at KLIA from Cincinnati, by way of LA and Incheon. We went with two cars, because Sila’s message was quite explicit: “Need empty car boots, we got lots of bags”… or something to that effect. Here are the pictures of the KLIA excursion, which was a fun excursion. Heading back home, all the cars experienced various technical problems… at about 1.00 am. My car tyre’s sidewall bulged threatening us with a flat in the middle of nowhere, Abah’s car’s radiator red-lined and driver’s door window got stuck in the down position…. Those weren’t fun.
Continue reading
Irfan As A Star Wars Planet
Irfan has a planet officially named after him in the Star Wars universe. Specifically, a gas giant in the Vaxal system. Third planet of the system, with seven moons orbiting it. How did it come about, you ask? Thanks to a friend of mine named Gary Astleford, a freelance game writer. He landed a gig writing a Star Wars RPG article for Paizo Publishing’s Dungeon / Polyhedron Magazine (Issue 106, cover date January 2004) and he asked me if he could use Irfan’s name in the article. So, now Irfan is an official planet in the Star Wars universe, since Paizo Publishing at that time is a Lucasfilm licensee for Star Wars RPG along with Wizards of the Coast for the d20 incarnation of the game. Yay. Here’s the scan from the part of the magazine with his name on it. Thanks Uncle Gary.
Continue reading
Robot the Robot
Via Boing Boing, I came across an amazing webcomic known as Robot the Robot. Each issue is a flash file and it opens like a regular book, that is to say it has two facing page each screen. Click on the left page to leaf back the book, click on the right to leaf forward. The stories have a façade of innocence with a hint of underlying darkness. The characters are some of the weirdest and quirkiest I’ve seen in a webcomic. I heartily recommend it to everyone.
Continue reading
Ain’s Graduation Aug 2003
In August 2003, a thousand families flocked to Universiti Malaya to see a family member graduate. Ours were there to see Ain graduate (with a 11-month old Irfan in tow), finally getting her bachelor’s degree in Economics. What I didn’t know was graduation events can have some pretty exciting moments too. Like the time the university guards blocked the road to let the graduates travel from their staging ground at the Bangunan Peperiksaan to the where they were supposed to receive their scroll at Dewan Tunku Canselor. Out of the dozens of vehicles blocked, a single biker tried to run the blockade, right before the thousands of people there. So the guards grabbed hold of the perpetrator and pulled him right off his bike as he passed them. Other guards dragged his bike. They forcibly returned him to where he was with the rest of the waiting bikes and cars. […]
Continue reading
Termite Damaged Paintings
Last few months I had been locked in mortal combat with a termite infestation at home. Last month, the pest control people came and finally they were vanquished. But the damage done was irreparable. Lots of my books and notes had to be thrown out, including a folder filled with my water colour paintings from when I was in Form One. Below are scans of three of the artwork that were destroyed. These were recent paintings though. I don’t have any records whatsoever of the older paintings. 🙁
Continue reading
Irfan the Water Baby
At two and a half years old, Irfan has absolutely no fear of water. Unbidden, he will kick off his shoes, run to the edge of the pool, do a little sing and dance routine (seriously) and jump right into the deep end with a big splash. Recently he started using a child’s life preserver, a full body jacket now, not the small arm band things you see him wearing here, which sprung a leak last month. Every weekend he goes nuts whenever he learns that we’re going to air lompat, which is his term for the swimming pool. I guess I’m quite grateful for his lack of fear for water. It would be quite easy for him to learn to swim later on. Here are more pictures of Irfan the paddler from way back in January 2005. Click on the images to expand them.
Continue reading
Neil Gaiman’s Nebula Awards Speech
The creator of Lord Morpheus aka Dream aka Oneiros aka Orpheus’ Father aka the Thirdborn of the Endless was at the Nebula Awards in Chicago, Illinois last week and he gave a pretty awesome speech which like all of his written works (novel, novella or comic book) is an enjoyable read. If you like books and reading in general, I urge you to read Neil Gaiman’s journal, where he writes of the happenings around him (including the time his daughter hijacked his journal) and answers letters from his fans in a witty and fun manner. If you’re wondering here are the results for the Nebula Awards, which also includes Fran Walsh, Philipa Boyens and Peter Jackson for the Best Script Awards for Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King. Here is an excerpt from his speech: Gene Wolfe pointed out to me, five years ago, when I […]
Continue reading
Camping in ACS 1986
Back in 1986, when I was a First Former, and a Scout, the yearly school session were divided into three terms. During the two term holidays of that year, 1st Troop Manjung organized camp outs in the school grounds. We usually camped out in front of the new canteen, where a new tennis court stands now I’m told. The first campout we I got the Keris Gangsa badge. The second campout I got the Keris Perak badge. I never got the Keris Emas badge. Well, those were the days. You want pictures? You got pictures. I wish we had more photos taken then.
Continue reading
Homemade Computer Generated Landscapes, You Ask?
You’ve seen it in the movies and television. Camera swooping down on artificially-made terrain. The terrain resides in the mind of the computer, and so does the camera. If you ask, can I do this on my home computer? Can I generate an artificial landscape and have it look near-photorealistic? Can I make green fields and snowcapped mountains and beaches and islands and desolate rocky coastline? The answer to that is yes, with Terragen. And it’s freeware! Just download, install and you can start to build landscapes like this nifty sunset snowscape I made: It’ll take some getting use to. But when you can figure it out, the results are spectacular. Try it out.
Continue reading