Transitory States
Edward:
David S Leyman:
Hisham:
Luke:
James Kight:
king:
Hisham and Sila has been writing stuff down on this weblog since 2005. Sometimes they post photos of family, sometimes they talk about film, books and music, sometimes there is artwork and stuff about tabletop gaming.
˙ʞuıɥʇ noʎ ʇɐɥʍ ʍouʞ ǝɯ ʇǝl ¿ɹǝʇʇǝq uıɐɹq ɹnoʎ oʇ ʍolɟ poolq dlǝɥ oʇ ʎɐʍ sıɥʇ sǝlɔıʇɹɐ ǝɹoɯ ǝldnoɔ ɐ ǝʇıɹʍ ǝqʎɐɯ ¿ʇɐɥʍ ɹo pǝʇɹǝʌuı ƃolq ǝɥʇ ǝʌɐǝl ı plnoɥs ¿ʞuıɥʇ ǝldoǝd noʎ op ʇɐɥʍ os ˙uʍop ǝpısdn ǝuıɟ ǝq llıʍ ƃolqǝʍ ǝɥʇ ʞuıɥʇ ı ǝloɥʍ ǝɥʇ uo ʇnq ˙ʎɹʇuǝ sıɥʇ ƃuıpɐǝɹ ǝlıɥʍ puɐʇspuɐɥ ɐ op puɐ ǝsıɔɹǝxǝ plnoɔ noʎ ʇɐɥʇ sı ʇı ʇnoqɐ ǝpısdn ǝɥʇ ˙ɹǝʌo pǝddılɟ ǝq oʇ ʇı ɹoɟ ʇɥƃıɹ sı ǝɯıʇ ǝɥʇ ǝqʎɐɯ ˙ƃolq ǝɥʇ ɹoɟ ǝƃuɐɥɔ ɐ ɹoɟ ǝɯıʇ s,ʇı ʞuıɥʇ ı ʇı ʇnoqɐ ƃuıʞuıɥʇ ǝɯıʇ ǝɯos ɹǝʇɟɐ
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:
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 with stylus is quite a unique experience. Heh!
Before this page disappears off the face of the internets, I would like to bring your attention to why wikis aren't the best source for you to quote your argument or college paper.
However, having encountered the same damned error over and over again on the net, I have to applaud this wiki's writer's spirit in getting the point through to the reader.
We'll be heading out to Ain's parents this weekend to attend a wedding. Tok & Opah Irfan will also we joining us tomorrow there, then they'll be heading back with us to Kuala Lumpur via the Gua Musang road, which they've never been before. Hope to show them some sights there on our way back.
We'll be back Monday, according to schedule. So here's the last post from me in the month of March, a great blog entry I found on FraudWasteAbuse, "Why Men Are Never Published On Dear Abby":
Dear Abby,
I’ve never written to you before, but I really need your advice on what could be a crucial decision. I’ve suspected for some time now that my wife has been cheating on me.
The usual signs… Phone rings but if I answer, the caller hangs up.
My wife has been going out with the girls a lot recently although when I ask their names she always says, “Just some friends from work, you don’t know them.”
I always stay awake to look out for her taxi coming home, but she always walks down the drive. Although I can hear a car driving off, as if she has gotten out of the car round the corner. Why? Maybe she wasn’t in a taxi?
I once picked her cell phone up just to see what time it was and she went berserk and screamed that I should never touch her phone again and why was I checking up on her.
Anyway, I have never approached the subject with my wife. I think deep down I just didn’t want to know the truth, but last night she went out again and I decided to really check on her.
I decided I was going to park my Harley Davidson motorcycle next to the garage and then hide behind it so I could get a good view of the whole street when she came home. It was at that moment, crouching behind my Harley, that I noticed that the valve covers on my engine seemed to be leaking a little oil.
Is this something I can fix myself or should I take it back to the dealer?
So today I made a brand new desktop wallpaper, which I think looks great. Click on the thumbnail over there to the left to view it in its entirety. I'm wondering about that glyph etched into the metal above his eye.
This is where I got the original image, which is substantially larger than what is seen on my desktop.
It's been in the news since last year that China has been censoring internet into the country. So, thanks to a website called greatfirewallofchina.org, I am able to test whether the subject matters of Hishgraphics blog entries are forbidden to be view from within China.
Apparently, we're not blocked! Yay! (Or, who knows, perhaps because of this post we will be before long, heh.)
Greetings to everyone reading from China! Peace, y'all!
Who watched and caught a glimpse of the easter egg in the trailer for Zak Snyder's new film 300? It's been all over the internet now so if you're online most of the time you'd probably have seen a screen capture of it in the last couple of days.
Twenty years ago, plus change, Alan Moore wrote a 12 issue mini-series for DC Comics called Watchmen. It was one of the books (along with books such as Art Spiegelman's Maus and Neil Gaiman's Sandman) that elevated the generally considered lightweight storytelling medium of comic books into serious literature.
Twenty years ago, plus change, Alan Moore wrote and Dave Gibbons drew these panels:
Last week, it was discovered that this image was slipped into the 300 trailer at 1:52 on the time stamp:
Zak Snyder who directed 300 is now slated to direct Watchmen for release in 2008. The image was from a test shot of the Rorschach mask, which looks great from where I'm sitting. This film could ultimately be the best comic book-adapted film ever made, or because of the complexity of Watchmen and fans' high expectation, it could fail spectacularly. I'm hoping for the former to occur, but... there I go putting my expectations high again.
In the meantime I'm going to try to catch 300, an adaptation of Frank Miller's 5-issue miniseries from Dark Horse Comics, which apparently did well opening here last week.
Civil War was announced as the Marvel Comics crossover event for 2006-2007. Written by Mark Millar and pencilled by Steve McNiven, whose art I admired since his Sentry story arc on the New Avengers and two issues of Ultimate Secret it was going to be a total revamp of how super-powered heroes will be regarded by the government and the general public in Marvel's Earth-616.
Superhero Registration Act and whatnot.
I thought I wouldn't read too much into it and get the book once it's been collected into a trade paperback. However, issue #7 was released and it's difficult not to hear the online rantings of almost everyone if you're a comic book fan.
Anyway if you're not physically, psychologically or radiologically allergic to spoilers (SPOILERS! Once again in caps for your attention) check out this Civil War in 30 Seconds post from Chris's Invincible Super-Blog. It distills the gist of the storyline into several hilarious panels with Marvel superheroes as stick figures.
Oh by the way, the image above was obtained without permission but with good intentions from Newsrama.
Click on this link and I double dare you not to go "Awwwwww....."
Click it!!!
Via Fark.com.
Babycenter's analysis of 2006's baby name trends was released some weeks back. Ain & I used to refer to Babycenter a lot while Irfan was happily gestating in his amniotic sac up to the time he started to walk.
The names are obviously American, but there are some issues that can be brought up by looking at the list. Not so much on the boys name though the rhyming names Aiden, Caden and Braden gives me the heebie-jeebies. No sign of Raiden though.
Now it seems that we're unable to connect to servers in the United States and Europe. I can't even access my work email. I couldn't even access this weblog since this morning until about 1342 hours local time. And I hope before the connection flips out again, I'd get this entry written and saved.
According to rumours from Jeff Ooi's blog, last night's Taiwanese disastrous earthquake caused Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 Segment 7 (APCN2 S7) to go tits up and caused internet connections between Malaysia, among other countries, to the United States to be congested.
APCN2 is the longest international seabed fibre cable network, 19,000km in total length, in the Asia-Pacific, linking China, Japan, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, and onward to linking America, Europe and Australia. The network went into operation in October 2002 for the initial phase.
The project was spearheaded by 26 telecommunications companies, namely Advantel, Cable & Wireless Global Network, Cable&Wireless HKT, China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, Concert, Global Network Services, Global One, Japan Telecom, KDD Corpe ration, Korea Telecom, KPN, Layer 2, MCI, WorldCom, Metromedia Giber Network Service, NTT Com, NCIC, OneLink Cable Network, PLDT, StarHub, SingTel, Taiwan Fixed Network, Teleglobe, Telekom Malaysia, Telstra and Williams Communications.
The APCN2 cable system was designed to provide 2.56 Terrabits per second (Tbps) using state-of-the-art Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology to provide upgradeable, future proof transmission facilities. However, APCN2 currently runs on a designated transmission capacity of 160 Gigabits per second (Gbps).
Update at 1823 hours:
Here are two more sources dealing with the current outages. The Star has a couple of articles on it while LowYat.net has the TMNet statement as well as some graphics concerning the regional cable network.
Here's to a speedy recovery of this side of Pacific Ocean's data communications network.
Oh my! Another Transformers entry so soon. I think I should have a "Transformers" category in this here weblog. Yes? No? Maybe?
On the cover of Empire magazine.... is Optimus Prime. The image was eventually found - while I was link-hopping on the net - at Don Murphy's message board. All I can say about it is... what an awesome image.
Excuse me while I take a look at eBay for Adam Sandler's unversal remote control so I can fast forward time to July of next year.
As of last night, the new Transformers trailer went online. This is not the fleeting 2 microsecond glimpse of a silhouette smashing the Mars Rover teaser bit which I caught in the theatre just before Garfield: Tale of Two Kitties. (Yeah, I watched Garfield. Shut up in the back there.) This one shows a whole bunch of Cybertronian aliens, in various modes and transforming. There's even a shot of the protoform stasis pod crashing down.
I am happily surprised that there are no loud rock and / or rap music in the trailer to mark the movie as "cool" to the teens. It's just a bunch of quick cuts of... well, lots of bits that made me and Irfan very happy as we went to bed last night. It's not an adaptation of any of the Transformers sub-universes. I'm not even going to go "But Megatron was a gun!" or "That's not what the Creation Matrix looks like!" kind of purist-mode.
As long as there are giant transforming robots blasting crap up, I'm happy. I'm not going to gripe over differences between the cartoon and this movie.
Before the Deepavali-Aidilfitri vacation I had zero experience working with a Linux machine. Some time fiddling about with Ubuntu in Pasir Mas changed that. (Not by much, but some.)
I wouldn't have understood this joke before three weeks ago, so don't feel bad if you don't get it. When I saw this one on RPG.net it really cracked me up. I have no clue who made this or where it originated, though.
Updated: The webcomic is xkcd is now among the webcomics links found in the left column of this weblog's frontpage.
Once upon a time I checked what the Google Maps' satellite photos had of Kuala Lumpur. They weren't pretty impressive at low resolution.
Today I checked them again and I found that this is no longer the case. It's possible to even see individual cars on the highway. Click on the thumbnail below for a picture of our apartment building and its surrounding environment.
Take a look below for a close up of our building, which is the one on the left. You can even make out the swimming pool on the left side of the building.
I've refrained from posting any leaked Transformers live action movie bot photos... until today when I saw this image of Bumblebee from this site (who will almost certainly be a Chevrolet Camaro, instead of a classic VW Beetle) evidently, with great intent on watching you poop.
So here's what Moriarty from Ain't It Cool News has to report from ComicCon:
ComicCon News!! TRANSFORMERS Announcement! The Voice Of Optimus Prime Is...
So I was reading Lilian's iFantabulous site, and she posted a little map that was generated based on the countries you've visited. Of course, I had to try it too. Unfortunately, I have only been to 8 countries! Yikes!
Here's what my map looks like:
