Corpsman of the Cybertron Sector

Green Lantern Corps – Roll Out!

You know that one of the lifeforms in the universe that most deserve the Green Lantern Corps power ring is the guy depicted on the left. He has no self-doubt. He has no quantifiable fear. The only thing he’ll pause to is to see if an upcoming battle will have unacceptable collateral damage. But if the collateral damage is acceptable, any enemies (Sinestro Corps, I’m looking at you) will have a Lantern-powered energon sword stabbed at their faces. Click on the thumbnail to see the full version. Click here to see a bigger version at deviantArt.

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Irfan and his old daycare gang

The Old Daycare Gang

When Irfan spent two years in daycare with his Opah Cik just across the highway in Pandan Jaya, I always meant to take a picture of him and his fellow daycare buddies but never got around to do it. However recently, we went to Opah Cik’s place to deliver some of the eatables we brought back with us from Pasir Mas and I thought, How nice that phones now come with cameras attached. So I got them together and snapped the following photo. Here’s Irfan flanked by Ika (left) and Afzan (right), both are about a year younger than him. Yes, Irfan’s is really very tall for his age.

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Tok Bah with a melee weapon

There Were Trees, Fruits Grew Off Them

The previous weekend, we were all at Pasir Mas where Irfan’s cousin’s kenduri transpired. However the kenduri photos are still in Cik Emma’s camera so we have instead for this post photos of a bunch of folks (namely Irfan’s Tok Bah, Abang Kie, Emma, Ain and I) invading Tok Bah’s orchard. The invasion would end in the acquiring of several large baskets full of dokong and manggis! The English name for manggis is well-documented and known to us since we were young. However, I can’t for the life of me find out what dokong (also spelled dukung) is in English. So, what could Ain be looking up at? Anyone? Anyone? If you look real hard you can see a plastic bucket among the leaves. Tok Bah is filling it up with the dark purple shells of manggis filled with sweet, juicy white flesh within. Next tree over, bunches of dokong […]

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Irfan dribbling the football

Under Water And On Ground

Last week, Atuk and Opah Irfan came a-visiting to spend some time with their favourite grandkid. (No competition… he’s their only grandkid for now. Right, fellow Hishgraphics blog writer? For now, right?) I took the following picture to show them the camera capability of the phone, including the Bluetooth transfer of the image to the laptop. I love the Bluetooth function. Makes life much easier. Though I have to check whether it also turns my teeth blue once in a while. Then, Atuk took Irfan to the field to play football, also exclusively known as “soccer” to the humans of the United States. It seems like Irfan has the style down pat. Irfan proceeded to display his aptitude for travelling in water to Atuk and Opah. I can’t believe he’s now able to paddle and float his way across the deep end of the pool. His head is submerged most […]

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The predator pounces

Sneak Attack Irfan

Here we have in the living room a pile of pillows of various shapes and sizes. You might think it’s harmless and drop your guard as you unwittingly walk by this scene in the house. But from its natural hiding space, a predator launches itself out from under the pile, illustrating how dangerous the wilds of the living room can be for the unsuspecting visitor.

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Can Anyone Guess This Tune?

[[popup:aota.jpg:(thumbnail):I hope I remember the music theory:left:1]]So my keyboard, an old Yamaha PSR-300, has been out of commission for a while since the power adapter died a glorious death. Then, there was a movie score tune that has been playing incessantly in my mind, so I decided to write it down somewhere. But since the keyboard is non-functional, there was no way I could play the tune on it. So yesterday I thought why not search the net for a virtual keyboard. Bingo. Then playing the tune, I thought… why not write it down. So I wrote it down. Click on the thumbnail to see if: I still remember my music theory and notes and symbols and whatnots. You can identify the tune. P.S. I don’t think I have a category for this type of crap on the blog. Oh well. P.P.S. Playing a virtual keyboard using a graphics tablet […]

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The other side!

Irfan’s First First Cousin

Today begins a new era in Irfan’s life. He is now officially a first cousin to another human, in this case the less-than-a-day-old, yet nameless newborn son of Kak Nor & Abg Kie. He’s a pretty handsome, but quiet and sleepy dude. Which is better than the poor girl in the cot beside him, who seemed to be having a nightmare. What nightmares can a 3-hour old baby have anyway? We’ll go and visit Irfan’s new cousin again tomorrow and see if we can get better photos. The nurse gave Cik Emma a hard time today for taking pictures in the ward. The sleepy one: The sleepy one turns the other way: Irfan decides to join his cousin in the dreamlands:

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Children of the Horned Rat

Gary’s Book Nominated for 3 Ennies

Congratulations to Gary Astleford for getting the book he co-wrote for Black Industries, Children of the Horned Rat nominated for 3 Ennie awards. The nominations are for Best Interior Art, Best Writing and Product of the Year. Product of the Year is a hell of a big deal, of course, but I am very proud of him for the nomination for Best Writing. I seem to remember a conversation with Gary a long time ago. It was on how gaming products nowadays focus too much on rules, or intersperse rules with fluff on the campaign world… as opposed to try not breaking the fourth wall and write the book as if it was genuinely from that campaign universe. Then finally have all the custom rules for the book and such be an afterthought but easily accessible and indexed when required. Now, going by the subtext of the Best Writing award, […]

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Fantastic Four: Meme Redux

Another meme arrives and since my fellow bloggenstein who happens to also be my sister has tagged me… Wait, are there any rules about tagging your fellow blogmate based in the same weblogsite? No matter. I shall give this meme a whatfor like it’s never been given a whatfor before. A blog whatfor! A blorgthwthfor! Four Jobs I’ve Had In My Life Piano Man – Quite a fun job. There was an old man sitting next to me making love to his tonic and gin, John at the bar, Paul the real estate novelist, Davy who’s still in the Navy, and not to mention the waitress and the businessman sharing a drink they call loneliness. The manager gives me a smile cause he knows they all come to see me to forget about life for a while. Starman – As A starman, what I did was I waited in the […]

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Can you see all five of the robots in hiding?

No Sacrifice, No Victory – A Transformers Review

First of all, I along with a couple of other pals, were the dudes who taped the Transformers episodes when the first aired (long before they were known as G1), to try to identify all of them. So yeah, even after more than 20 years later I can still name all 18 of the original Autobots who crash-landed on Earth on the Ark. So this movie is a big deal for me. The idea of seeing photorealistic giant robots prance on the screen, firing missiles at and beating the crap out of each other, transforming into cars and burning rubber on the highway…. is sort of a holy grail. Walking up the hallway to the escalator in Cineleisure that will take me to the Cathay Cineplex (with Irfan in tow), Remembering the first time I heard they were going to produce the Transformers movie, I told Awie, “I’ve been waiting […]

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A Great Old One Rises

[[popup:cthulhu_ascendant.jpg:(thumbnail):Cthulhu Ascendant:left:1]]Up from cold dark R’lyeh, the Great Old One ascends to the surface to greet the weak-willed ones with despair, madness and obedience, and the rebellious stronger-willed ones with slow, painful death. Nothing will stand in Cthulhu’s way in turning the world into his own hellish playground where the seas and rivers will run red with blood. And the screams of tortured beings will never cease til the stars run cold. Yeah, baby.

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Galleon

Tacking Into The Wind

Been a while since I fiddled around with Painter Classic, or have an entry in the Artwork category. So off the top of my head I decided to hammer out a galleon. I wonder why a galleon? Did I read or watch something about pirates somewhere? Click here to see a larger picture at DeviantArt.

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Sea Turtles, Mate – At World’s End Review

[[image:awe00.jpg:Jack Sparrow vs Davy Jones:center:0]] Spoilers ahoy! Cast away your eyes if you haven’t seen Pirates of the Caribbean – At World’s End. Based on the reviews I’ve read thus far, this movie is something that you either enjoy or you don’t. Do you like adventures and treachery in the high seas? Do you like pirates of the olden days of sailing ships? Do you like boardings and broadsides? Do you like tall tales of swordfights, sorcery and magic of the ocean? Davy Jones’ Locker? Pieces of eights? Shrunken heads? Parrots? Monkeys? Cannons? Monkeys shot out of cannons? [[image:awe01.jpg:Leaving Singapore for World’s End:left:0]]Well, if you like all of the above, human nature being human nature, you might still not like the movie. But I enjoyed it! At the end of the last movie, Captain Jack Sparrow and his ship the Black Pearl, was consumed Davey Jones’ pet squid the Kraken. […]

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A reader of books

Irfan’s One Utama Walkabout

One fine day, Irfan Shafiq went a-walking about the hallways of the mall known as One Utama. Movie Carnival 2007 weekend was just around the corner. So there were plenty of well-known characters loitering about the concourse of the new wing of the mall. One of the most remarkable things there would be this here thing in the following photo. A Transformers movie Optimus Prime! It’s not on sale yet for another two more days. Apparently the guy bought it off eBay. A stellar looking toy! Not too far away, Irfan got his photo taken with some famous Cybertronians in their latest guises, Optimus Prime and Megatron… ….as well as the gang from Far, Far Away Land… … and the family from the Evergreen Terrace in Springfield, USA. All the way from Zenn-La is the former astronomer turned Herald of Galactus, Norrin Radd. Because he was positioned at a high […]

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