The last photo to Shane

Good High Street Food Game

Earlier in the morning Shane: How’s the new house? How’s things? Me: Getting better. Street food here is good btw. Plenty of chicken. Shane: Good good. Me: Place I moved to has high street food game. Shane: Ooooh. If ya ever get down there take some photos for your boy   Later that evening… Shane: Awesome. Unknown to me at the time, this was to be the last photo I would ever send him. I wish I’d sent him more.

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Facebook image with Shane and Hisham at RARPGBIP page

Be Seeing You, Brother

Once upon a time, I decided to try my hand at illustration Star Wars RPG characters online. I had a GeoCities site names Template Facades. I advertised my free services on Webrings and such (remember Webrings?) and one of my earliest replies was this young Canadian from Nova Scotia barely out of his teens, named Shane. We bonded over all things gaming, and even more important, all thing geeky. From Star Wars and Star Trek to games, comics and toys, we talked about everything, even when we were both on opposite sides of the planet. And we talked and discussed and made dumb jokes. We talked about Wok With Yan. We talked about each others’ family. Our high notes and low notes. Shane passed away today due to complications from cancer. It hurts to type the previous sentence. He was a friend who’s always there. He was a brother in […]

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Nasi goreng butter chicken

Emergency Deep Meeting

After a long time of playing Delta Green and Star Trek Adventures remotely with Dan while he was posted in Sudan, I finally had the pleasure of meeting him. An old friend of Ivan, we all planned a dinner meet. Dan picked me up at Aiman & Zara’s house where we would be spending the night, and rendezvoused with Ivan somewhere in the proximity of Kelana Jaya. We talked for some hours about RPGs, Star Trek (specifically “In the Pale Moonlight” and “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges”) and other miscellanea while having dinner. The nasi goreng butter chicken was delicious, but there was so much of it I was unable to finish it. I would have met Dan earlier as he had planned on taking a vacation in Perlis some weeks ago. Sadly, it was the week I got COVID-19 for the second time.

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All in

First Visitors of 2023

Our first visitors for the year were Teik Sing, Michelle, Ashley, Emma and Ezra. Day One As mentioned before, Teik Sing and I have been best friends since we were 7 years old at ACS Sitiawan. Here we are decades later – with homes timezones apart – still being friends, talking about ideas and stories, old and new. I wish I had the resources to someday visit his home and talk shop there. Because Ain had to take care of her parents who had been visiting since last month, Irfan and I went to their hotel to greet them. Coincidentally we were using similar models of cars. First of all, we went to have some lok chin along the Kuala Perlis shoreline. We talked and the kids got to know each other some more. En route back to Kangar, we stopped at Kota Kayang Museum, but it was about to […]

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Purple voting finger

Purplish Finger

According to the online system, Irfan is registered to vote in Pandan Indah, Ain in Pasir Mas and I in Sitiawan. It appears they set our locations to default to the addresses on our identity cars. This is after I have changed my voting location to Perlis over the counter several years ago. In any case, we will need to change or addresses before the next General Elections. Later that day Ain and I caught up with our old friend Mei, who also returned to Sitiawan to vote. We saw Eva (and her little brother Connor) who last appeared in this blog when she was a little baby. At the time Eva had yet to develop locomotion. Then later that night we continued our gossiping at Chicketory. Why Chicketory? Because its name was Chicketory. We talked about the General Elections of Malaysia, old times, new times, a better Malaysia and […]

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The first night of Raya and we're having dinner at a food court

Aidiladha in Selangor

It was Hari Raya Aidiladha. We drove down south towards Salak Tinggi to Anya’s house even though they were spending their first few days in Kelantan. They would return home when we were still there. For the first few days, we were at their place with Cik Su F as company. On the third day of our visit, I went to call on Shide at his office/events space Area 27 Events and Co-working Space in Bandar Baru Seri Petaling . Then, then next day I met up with my former student Aidil to plan for the MAHSA University meeting. Here are the pictures of the first few days in Selangor. The next day, we visited MAHSA University.

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See you guys next time

Old School Mates in Lumut

Not only is it Labour Day here in Malaysia, but it’s also Hari Raya Aidilfitri! It is very rare for our old school mates to meet up when we return home for the holidays. So it was a welcome pleasure to have met up with these dudes in Lumut. We talked about the future of the county, old times, lost friends and growing old. Never thought we would be talking about things like that.

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One more group photo before we leave

Picnic by the Bendang

Yesterday, a group of colleagues organised a trip away from the bustling metropolis known as Kangar (mm-hmm) to nearby Pokok Sena for a picnic in the sticks. By sticks, I mean the beautiful, recently-launched Loqsakri Agro Farm. First we rendezvoused near Arau along the road to Jitra. Then we formed a convoy towards Jitra, then Alor Setar for brunch at a local kopitiam. After picking up Faten, Zaki led the way towards Loqsakri. The agro farm was welcoming, beautiful and was not even finished yet. There were bamboo huts constructed beside a little canal that separated the landscaped guests’ area and the bendang (the rice field). Although the sun was blazing above, the wind was a cooling, soothing force to be reckoned with. We appeared to have visited just as the padi was at the most vibrant shade of green. The owner of Loqsakri is a cordial, welcoming person who […]

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Ham Slacker character sheet

Ham Slacker Remembered

I have been running Star Wars The Role Playing Game published by West End Games since 1989, two years after its debut on the market. I wish I had saved a lot of the game materials I wrote and the character sheets the players had. I actually began filing my gaming documents beginning from 1991. Not a lot of scraps of papers from before that year survived. Besides this single character sheet from 1989. It was falling apart in my folder, so I had it laminated. According to his player Ming Fang, Ham Slacker – the tongue-tied engineer – was a Twi’lek-Human mix. Is it scientifically possible? Let’s not dwell on that. Ming Fang named the him after Ham Tyler, Michael Ironside’s character in V, and James Tolkan’s Mr. Strickland’s favourite war cry in the Back to the Future movies. Ham Slacker died after a year of play, and Ming […]

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This cover takes guts

Lorn Song of the Bachelor

My friend Zedeck sent me his latest tome. It was a tabletop role-playing adventure inspired by the Bujang Senang myth of the last century from Sarawak. The book is digest-sized but its 48 pages are packed with a plethora of descriptions, creatures, maps and illustrations (wonderfully produced by Nadhir Nor). The prose provides the gamemaster the information needed to referee any such campaigns based on this book. However, Zedeck has crafted a well-balanced text. The information hangs between very evocative and economical. It is dense enough for gamemasters to craft adventures and encounters in a fantasy Bornean riverine campaign. But Gamemasters could also easily inject their own ideas in-between the information given in the text. Here are some photos of the book. What is a wet corpse and why is a catfish there? To find out and forge your own campaign from the book, get it at DriveThruRPG here.

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Friday lunch buddies

A Friday Lunch With Friends

My colleagues have been expressing a long time desire to sample Ain’s bihun goreng tom yam. They loved it when we offered packets of the food to be sold at my workplace. It has been a couple of years since stopped doing so. Recently, Ain invited the ones who has been asking her about her bihun goreng tom yam the most to lunch. Besides the bihun goreng, she also made nasi lemak ayam goreng pandan. They came over one Friday afternoon, bringing with them their own food, turning the affair into a pot luck party. After Friday prayers I took a photo of our guests. Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of the spread on the dinner table. Ain was testing her capacity to cook a meal for a group of visitors with this exercise. It was a success. Therefore, we will see if we can do an Open […]

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Creatures of Near Kingdom

Book: Creatures of Near Kingdoms

Wait for the arrival of an envelope. Steal a peek or two a day at your mail slot at work. You will wait a longer than usually needed. When it arrives you are surprised, as if it knows when to spring its existence upon you. It is tightly wrapped in clear plastic. It heaves a sigh of relief as you tear it out of its swaddle. It opens up and reveals its treasure to you. Its treasure are ideas tightly packs in words. It is the CREATURES OF NEAR KINGDOMS book. Clearly, it has evolved into an expert in camouflaging itself in the wild. Its publisher has categorised it as a comic. But it does not look like a comic. Neither does it smell like a novel. To say it tastes like a gaming sourcebook would be unfair to it. When it speaks, it identifies itself. Still its self identification […]

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Ania and Ayah Ngah

A Solo Return to KL

I got a call from Shide with whom I had several work adventures with years ago who needed me to return to Kuala Lumpur for some minor business. He graciously footed the travel bill for me, so after we decided on a flight ticket. So yay! I get to ride on one of these new-fangled flying machines again. The ride was rough enough through storm clouds that some passengers exclaimed loudly. At the airport, Nia came to pick me up. (Aided by Cik Ma and Cik Su of course.) Being the month of Ramadhan, we all went to buka puasa at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Cyberjaya. I kind of like this stuff. I rarely get to sample such food. A post-meal photo was taken. Thankfully I was able to do jama’ ta’khir prayers because of travel considerations. The next morning I drew stuff for Nia while waiting for Shide […]

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Nak! Nak! Nak! Nak! Nak! Nak! Nak! Nak!

A Vacation of Some Sort

And So It Begins The vacation began when Ivan came a-visiting from Petaling Jaya via the ERL. I picked him up at the Arau station and he gave me an early birthday present: the Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide, which will eventually be its own blog post. Because of work, I had to spend the first day of vacation grading papers. But we did take Ivan out by the sea where we had some grilled lok ching and laksa. Gua Kelam With me on call for the grading work, we managed to take a trip to Gua Kelam. It was a work day so there were not many people at the park. Here are Ain and Irfan at the mouth into the dark tunnel of the shadowy realm. Once we got to the park grounds on the far side of the cave, Ain identified the spot where Irfan, Ayah Cik, […]

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Char Kuey Teow

Brief Lives

When Irfan signed up for school here in a new state, I had no idea how he would adapt. Would there be older, wiser example students there? Will there be anyone in school that would inspire him? Back in Pandan Indah, the answer would be a solid no. Less than a week into the school year, Irfan had already found a close friend. Soon after we were all acquainted with his friend’s family. They live closer to school, in a housing area that we thought we would move in. His friend had an elder brother – a humble, smart, intelligent and witty teenager who received good grades at school with ample knowledge about computers and guitar-playing. He and Irfan’s classmate came over to the house and helped me try installing Linux Mint onto the new laptop. Needless to say, I was very impressed with this boy. However, after a two-year […]

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