Beast Wars – A Series Review

[[image:bwars01.jpg:Rattrap,Optimus Primal, Rhinox and Cheetor… no-prize for guessing who’s who:left:0]]It was just past the mid-90s. X-Files was at its prime on TV and there was news of a brand new CGI Transformers series that will be airing on TV. Being an 80s child, the original Transformers series was one of the shows I followed fanatically. The thought of giant alien robots being able to hide among us in the form of Porsches, Lamborghinis, Lancia Stratos and VW Beetles was very exciting to me and my friends. But after reading the synopsis of Beast Wars Transformers my interest waned. What’s so hot about robots being able to transform into Earth animals on an supposedly uninhabited alien planet? Why is there even a need to hide? I passed on the pilot. But sometime during the middle of the first season, I happened to catch an episode, thanks to the proddings of my […]

Continue reading
Irfan with Bonnie Hunt, Paul Newman, Tony Shalhoub and George Carlin

Today The Light Switch…

… Tomorrow the world!!! Earlier today Irfan realised that he has a new super power: the ability to reach any high switch on the wall with his hands (albeit on tippy toes). So all morning he’s been all over the house flipping switches. Lights. Fan. Forcefields. Directed-energy weapons. Life support systems. But the best thing all week has been his newfound skill of asking to use the toilet when required. Many thanks to Irfan’s Tok & Opah for teaching their grandson while Ain & I were at work last week. The other thing Irfan did with his grandparents was watch Pixar’s Cars together. The first time they watched a movie together, but the third time Irfan’s watched Cars in the theatre. Cars appears to have become Irfan’s favourite movie. He asks to see it again almost every day. He can remember names and tell who’s who on sight. He points […]

Continue reading
Kramer vs Kramer

Star Wars: Kramer vs Kramer

For Round Three of the SWAG Member Theme Art Contest (Link dead), everyone was given the theme of It’s A Trap!… except me who has the task of coming up with Star Wars: Kramer vs Kramer, no thanks to my big mouth the previous month. So, here it is without further ado, Star Wars: Kramer vs Kramer – The Battle for Cosmo. Click on the thumbnail to view a larger image (and use the up / down arrow keys to scroll up and down the pop-up if your screen resolution is crappy like mine at 800 x 600), or check out the larger version of the digital painting at deviantArt.

Continue reading
Hishgraphics H

Blog Upgraded

This is the first entry using the new version of the content management system Pivot 1.30 RC2, as opposed to the pre-upgraded 1.24 version of old. So I might as well say something meaningful. I can’t think of anything at almost 1 am. So I think I’ll put up an image for your viewing pleasure.

Continue reading
Hishgraphics H

HaXX0rzed!!!

This is the first entry after the site was hacked and evil and vile javascript and php codes were written into the blog’s templates and database files. Many thanks to Fairiz Jafar of EasyNet Interactive, our webhoster, for noticing and monitoring the trouble almost a full day before I contacted him for help. His help on a Sunday was very much appreciated, getting the site back up. Two of the most recent entries were lost, but it’s no big deal. The Hishgraphics web journal is back online. Click here to read a description of what happened in the Pivot Support Forums. It was a long weekend, needless to say. But I said it anyway. *sigh*

Continue reading

Cyclops, Shortchanged

Last Tuesday, I finally saw X-Men The Last Stand. But I’m not going to do a full review on the movie itself. The following two paragraph will summarize what I thought about it. Despite the misgivings of having Brett Ratner directing the third X-Men movie, and reports of behind the scene shenanigans that caused Bryan Singer to leave in the first place, I really enjoyed The Last Stand. Sure there were some plot holes and unbalanced screen time for characters, but they delivered what they promised: super-powered mutants beating the crap out of each other in creative ways onscreen. And I’m sure if the writers and director were given ample time without any studio politics involved, they would have given us something much more glorious than what we got. In any case, I because of the amount of details in this movie: a totally spot on Beast with amazing acrobatic […]

Continue reading

Irfan Around Lumut

Last weekend, we were back in Sitiawan to attend a couple of kenduris. On Monday, Irfan’s grandparents decided to take us to Teluk Batik and Lumut. It was great, but the weather was hot and there were too many people about thanks to the school holidays. [[image:tbatik01.jpg:Bike’s getting too small for him:center:0]]Before we went out on Kereta Atok, Irfan was riding his bicycle. He wanted to ride his bicycle bicycle bicycle so much he wouldn’t leave without it. So, we put it in the trunk after which we pretty much forgot about it until we got back. [[image:tbatik02.jpg:Irfan and a tree stump:center:0]]Approaching the beach from the car park in Teluk Batik, both Irfan’s Atok and I tried to get a picture of Irfan. Usually getting a picture of him standing still is difficult, but he obliged us with this pose anyway. [[image:tbatik03.jpg:With Ummi & Opah:center:0]]Ummi and Opah posed for a […]

Continue reading
Good old days

What I Miss Most About Sitiawan

What I miss most about Sitiawan can be summed up thusly: I miss watching movies (at the big screen and home theatre) and discussing them from a geek’s point of view. I miss cycling to Teluk Batik and walking back on foot because of a flat bicycle tyre. I miss going on adventures in and around the mangrove swamps of Kampung Acheh, looking at mudskippers and paddling rented canoes and avoiding water snakes. I miss camping out at the sandy beaches of Pangkor’s Coral Bay, taking the ferry to and from the island and lying on the sand at night to count shooting stars. I miss camping out behind the District Scout House at the mangrove swamps of Kampung Sitiawan, getting up early at dawn to cycle around Sitiawan before everyone wakes up and walking in the middle of the night to the nearby cafe to buy air sirap when […]

Continue reading
Der office

Working in the 21st Century

You know what I like best about working with the technological resources we have now? It’s the interconnectivity and flexibility, as well as the sheer amount of things you can make at home or at the office where before you had to outsource to another company. E-mail, instant messaging, direct file transfers, VOIP… they’re all indispensable tools for any type of work. With a notebook and a wireless connection, you have your files and all the knowledge in the world (well, not quite) at the tip of your hands. Yesterday, I wasn’t in the office. I was at home. But I was talking to at least 4 other people at work via Skype and cellular phone on speaker mode. Out of the 5 people involved only two of us were in the same room. Even with telephones, I can NOT see this happening in a company with a small setup […]

Continue reading
Iron Spider

Peter, Again

Some time last August, I drew Peter with Painter Classic. Here he is once again, this time with the new armored costume Tony came up with for him while MJ and he works as a New Avenger. It has bulletproof armour, enhanced computer-display visors and those extra pincer limbs not shown in the illustration below. I like the design, though because Tony came up with colour scheme, the outfit is red and yellow. Kinda looks a bit like Shiro‘s costume.

Continue reading
Time to Abandon Ship

Time To Abandon Ship!

It’s time for another round of SWAG‘s Member Theme Art Contest (Link broken)!!!!! Well, actually it’s my first submission, and it’s only the second topic ever. The topic is Time To Abandon Ship! and I wanted to do a free-for-all (during the pencilling I decided to pit Wookiees against Imperial stormtroopers). The guy abandoning ship is the one in the back, not involved in the brawl. It took me the entire length of the movie Regarding Henry on TV for me to digitally pencil, ink and colour this piece. Apologies for the shoddy colouring, by the way. Click on the thumbnail to see the full image, or if you’re game for an even larger image, head on down to where it’s at on deviantArt.

Continue reading

Afternoon Storms

For the last month or so, the late afternoons, before the onset of dusk, is usually time for heavy rainstorms. They’re so heavy that sometimes, the hills in front of the apartment on the other side of Pandan Indah are totally obscured. Lightning tear across the sky. Thunder shakes the windows. Each time it hits, there would come a time during the storm when the lightning and thunder would coincide, which indicated that they were extremely close. This could be very disconcerting up here on the tenth floor. But today something new occurred. Not only there was an extremely bright flash of lighting coinciding with a loud thunderclap. The event also producted a strong electromagnetic field which caused my computer CRT monitor’s colour to go all purple. Fortunately, a quick usage of the monitor’s degauss function immediatedly rectified the problem. Thankfully the computer wasn’t damaged in any way.

Continue reading
Sorry

Illustration Friday: Sorry

A late entry to this week’s Illustration Friday is my version of the current topic: Sorry. Once I read the topic, this image popped in my mind and it’ll bug me to death if I didn’t realise it. Well, enough gabbing; let the illustration tell its story.

Continue reading
With the newlyweds

Brief Pahang Incursion

Ain’s good friend from Univerity Malaya, Jalilah, got married last Saturday. It was, of course, another Family Trip to parts unknown; this time to FELDA Lepar Hilir 1 in the state of Pahang to the east. Since the car’s suspension was repaired a couple of days earlier, I felt confident in making the trip without having the car losing its tyres halfway there. So, at 1030 hours on that day, we left the house for Pahang. We didn’t take the new East Coast Highway, cause I miss driving on the old Federal main road east through Karak, Mentakab, Temerloh and Maran, which have better roads now and less traffic thanks to the new highway. It was quite a feat, trying to locate the bride’s home via the map that was on the invitation card. And who would have thought PMG meant “Pusat Mengumpul Getah” (Rubber Collection Centre). Right by the […]

Continue reading