Raya Sitiawan 05

Eid Mubarak from Sitiawan

Eid Mubarak, and Selamat Hari Raya from Irfan Shafiq, Khairul Hisham and Nurul Ain. Here are some family photos from the morning of the first day of Aidilfitri. Present are Irfan’s grandparents and the family of his Opah Ngah. Unfortunately, Tok Irfan wasn’t feeling to good earlier in the morning. He went for a check up at the clinic and discovered his blood pressure was low. So what did the doctor tell him to do? Go back home, eat as many of the Aidilfitri food as he can. If only the rest of us were that lucky. 😉

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Posing for the photo

Pre-Aidilfitri at Pasir Mas

As was blogged earlier, three days before Deepavali were spent at Lubuk Tapah, Pasir Mas. Not only were there the pre-Aidilitri preparations going on, but they were also getting ready for the wedding of Ain’s cousin some time after the festivities, which Ain & I will have to miss. What is there to report at Tok Bah and Tok Ma’s house? I really like the solok lada at dinners. Irfan hoarded all the pillows in the house and buried himself under them. Biscuits were baked (picture below). It rained quite a bit, which was pleasant. We didn’t even leave the kampung in the day, knowing full well that the traffic in the town of Pasir Mas would be horribly jammed because of the balik kampung season. Irfan discovered the joys of Cartoon Network on Astro. Here are some of the pics.   Irfan smiles for the camera at Tok Bah’s […]

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Irfan Goes To Opah Cu’s House

Earlier this year, when we were in Sitiawan we went Irfan’s Opah Cu’s house in Ipoh, the capital of Perak. As usual, upon arriving at a brand new location for him, Irfan took a dump in his diapers. (That never fails, by the way.) Besides that, he had a lot of fun with his great aunt, his aunt and two uncles. Perhaps this Aidilfitri he’ll find some time to return there. Hopefully, since it’s not his first time already, he wont crap in his diapers for the visit. [[image:ipoh01.jpg:Opah Cu’s sliding door:center:0]]A large yard! Much better than the no yard at his own house. [[image:ipoh02.jpg:Opah Cu’s yard:center:0]]Pak Cu trying to get close to Irfan, who’s still shy at this time. [[image:ipoh03.jpg:Opah Cu’s bathtub:center:0]]After finding out his steaming pile, we decided to give him a bath. [[image:ipoh04.jpg:Opah Cu’s bedroom:center:0]]As Cik Emma puts on his clothes, Irfan is unable to contain his […]

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If These Two Critters Can Be Friends…

… why can’t we all? [[popup:chickenfrog.jpg:(thumbnail):The Chicken and The Frog:center:1]] When I lived in Terengganu, at my first rented house, there was for a time a strange thing that occured daily. Each sunset for a long time (I can’t remember how long; it might have been half a year or so) a chicken would fly up and perch atop the fence by the driveway. Then a couple of minutes later, a little frog painstakingly would climb up the chain link and settle down beside the chicken.. as can be seen in the old photograph which I took of them. I tried to catch the frog making its way up the fence, but as far as I can remember I saw it actually climbing up only once. It was a stealthy fellow. Throughout the night they just sat there side by side. And by dawn they were gone. They seemed like […]

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365 Tomorrows

365 Tomorrows is a website that provides one short speculative fiction story a day for a whole year. While obviously the stories cannot match the narrative quality of a novella or a full-length novel, it does have however the ability to feature a new science fiction concept after another daily. The site began posting on August 1st 2005, so you have a lot of stories to read through in the archives and more coming each day until July 31st 2006.

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Ramadhan Activity Updates

Time flew by quickly this Ramadhan. It’s already almost the last week of the month and it’s the longest time ever before I actually checked how many days were left before Aidilfitri. There’re only two more days before I’m out of town until after festival season. Tomorrow is the last exam of the mid-term season, and on Saturday it’s balik kampung time. The itinerary is such: Saturday (Oct 28th) we’ll be driving back to Pasir Mas, Kelantan. There we will stay until Deepavali on the following Tuesday (Nov 1st), when we head on down to Sitiawan to spend the last days of Ramadhan. It’s been a while since we did long distance travel (more so this year, since money is tight) and I’m very excited about it. [[image:train.jpg:Irfan’s Birthday Present:center:0]] Irfan really can’t wait to get to Sitiawan to play with a train set and a bus that his grandparents […]

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Chronicles of the Wild Gundark

Chronicles of the Wild Gundark Part I

A Star Wars fiction, based on the Chronicles of Wild Gundark RPG campaign. It all began when the crew of the Wild Gundark was commissioned to deliver twenty tons of bantha milk to the backwater town of Prosperity on the cold tundra of the planet Dellalt. The job went without a hitch, apart from the little tussle with the crew of an Imperial customs corvette (the two-pronged, sleek affair that many tramp freighter captains love to hate) in the Vaxal system. Unfortunately, the result of the little encounter was the spillage of approximately half of the delicious blue milk because of gravity plate failure. Things could have turned out real bad for them, but instead their contact, a imposing and tattooed Herglic named Dapp only paid them fairly in half and left peacefully. There was only one thing known to them as they left Dellalt: They had taken on a […]

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Hishgraphics H

University Exam Hijinks

Last Friday, I was all prepared and psyched up to head on down to Unitar for my first mid-term examination paper for this semester. It was LAN 0023 Islamic Studies. I double checked the Excel file they’d emailed on the 11th and confirmed that the time and place for the last time. Left the house at 8.10 am to make the 9.00 am exam. Made it there with 15 minutes to spare because it was Nuzul al-Quran, Selangor had a public holiday and the streets weren’t that filled with Kuala Lumpur’s accursed traffic. Got a great place to park right in front of where the exam is to be held. Then I walked up to the exam timetable Excel printout they posted on the bulletin board. I discovered to my horror there were no exams scheduled for last Friday. (Though it took about 5 minutes for the horror to set […]

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Passing of the PM’s Wife

Datin Seri Endon Mahmood, the wife of our Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, passed away at 7.55am this morning, after succumbing to her battle with breast cancer since being diagnosed with it in 2002. Condolences to the PM, and make he take comfort in the fact that her passing occured in Ramadhan, the holiest of months. Our prayers will be with her.

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It's freezing without your spacesuit on

Illustration Friday: Cold

Another Illustration Friday entry, with the subject title “Cold”. How could a person be sent out walking the plank in his shorts in space? With the closest star being just a faraway glow, our friend here should be in quite a cold spot. Medium: Digital painting.

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5 years ago

5 Years Ago…

… Ain & I got married. Last night, after Irfan slept early and we left him in the care of his Cik Emma, Ain & I went to see Mr. & Mrs. Smith at GCS Midvalley (where they’re replaying the summer blockbusters for half price), got something to eat in a doggie bag, went home to eat it, and then I gave her the wedding anniversary card I bought earlier. It’s been a great 5 years, with hopefully more to come.

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Jack and Locke

Illustration Friday: Lost

My first Illustration Friday submission for 3 weeks and I’m late for it. It’s almost time for the next topic to come up. This week’s topic is “Lost”… and there’s only one thing that came up in my mind when I heard of the topic: One of my favourite TV shows on the air right now. Media: Digital painting using Photoshop, with image references from screencaps of season 1 episode 4 “Walkabout”. Click on the image on the right to expand it.

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Voyage of the Flying Chair

Voyage of the Flying Couch

Here’s a single piece of artwork that I came up on a whim in about 2 hours. A girl’s adventures to faraway lands on her flying couch. Imagine the possibilities. Maybe there’s an actual story to be written there somewhere, and made into a book. I shall ruminate on it on my armchair.

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Doomsday Scenarios Galore

Are you feeling too cheerful or happy? Are you feeling that you’ve had enough feeling on top of the world? Are you sick of everyone telling you “The sun is shining! The birds are singing! Everything is smelling of roses!”? Then check out Exit Mundi, the website that catalogues the various ways the world and/or the entire universe may end, from scientific and religious standpoints. It’ll sure to wipe that smile off your face. How do you like to read about the accidental extinction of the human race? For example, what happens if genetically engineered crop (actually created in a lab named Epicyte in San Diego in 2002) designed to be a contraceptive, escapes into the real world and are accidentally planted in farms all over the world? We’ll all be eating food that induces infertility by killing all sperm cells. If you’re interested in space-based threats, what if a […]

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