Hishgraphics H

Worn Joints Are Worn

It started as a sore right toe, specifically its joints. Right toe in great pain. What do I do about the pain? — Khairul Hisham (@hishgraphics) April 27, 2016 So I went to the doctor. After some questions, the doctor said, “WELCOME TO THE CLUB!” The doctor has the gout. So now I have the gout. Nothing to do but to consume the meds and control my diet to decrease the pain. Which I think might be a whole lot better than watching Showgirls.

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Now that as an experience

Like Flying Polyps But Not Really

THEN It was back in early October after Raya Haji vacation when I began to fall ill with fever, coughs and sniffles. I blew my nose at work and sprayed the toilet at the office with a bowl full of blood. That never happened before. I thought that such amount of blood should not be outside of any human body. The pain was strong and constant. It speared up into the right eye and down into the right side of the mouth. The smell of blood from my nose and mouth was incessant. (My review of Andy Weir’s novel The Martian might have been written when I was right in the middle of it as evident from the last paragraph.) One quick visit to a clinic near home, and a doctor diagnosed just a nosebleed perhaps because of my vigorous nose blowing over the days. A second visit later in […]

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Three structures in the distance

Three Structures

It appears that I have upgraded the blog from Pivot 1.4 to PivotX 2.3.11 after many months – no, years – of fretting if the CMS which has been vaporware for quite some time would die on us without warning. It was either get left behind by technology, or to upgrade. Upgrading runs the risk of causing irreparable damage. Especially to the ones and zeros that made up this weblog’s flat file database. Last weekend, I made the plunge. It took me seven hours plus change just to import the old database to the new and there are still issues to be resolved. For example, the URL of each entry used to be ^blog/pivot/index.php?id=(number). Now their URLs end with ^blog?e=(number). I need to read up on htaccess code to allow all the multitude of links I have dropped all over the internet over the years to be redirected to their […]

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Yes, this is Rafe

Happy Birthday to Little Adik

Happy birthday, Little Adik who is now four solar years old. He is quite the loquacious dude on Google Hangouts as the image to the right reveals. I can’t believe he’s talking to me using text on the internet these days. Maybe someday he’ll be a writer, if he writes as well as his sister draws! May he continue to communicate honourably and wisely throughout he future. Verbally, visually or meta-textually.

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I missed The Force Awakens première? That's just nuts

Yet Another Cousin Arrives

After our inaugural viewing of Star Wars The Force Awakens in Alor Setar, Cikma – who was very far along her pregnancy – was admitted to hospital for blood pressure that went through the roof. So first thing the next morning Ain and Irfan travelled to KL by bus to aid Cikma. But before their bus cruised into the city, young Rania Sumayyah was decantered into this world. Both mother and infant were healthy upon her arrival. Welcome to this universe, Baby Rania! Of course, Irfan is happy because he gets to meet with his cousins!

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Fare thee well

Lost in Translation

We had two weeks to spend in Kuala Lumpur because of my course. Let’s get the unpleasantness out of the way first: I had the flu for two days in the first week, then three in the second. It was unpleasant not just because I felt like a popsicle all day but also because it was expensive, but I did not miss a day of class. During the weekend that marked the midpoint of our adventure in KL, we spend the night at Kak Nor’s house where Irfan played to his heart’s content with his cousins! On Sunday, I went to continue the Modesty Blazing Star Wars Edge of the Empire campaign, picking up where we left off 14 months ago when I still lived in the city. Ain and Irfan bought a Corellian VCX-100 freighter which I put to good use during the game earlier. So the intensive translation […]

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Only posing

Set Course For The City

And so it was that the workplace booked me on a two week course. The course was to be held back in Kuala Lumpur. You know the city: Irfan’s kampung. We drove southbound and spent the night in Sitiawan before continuing on to Kuala Lumpur after a breakfast with Irfan’s Atok and Opah. We stopped at Sekinchan at a restaurant where lunch was to be had on what appeared to be a kotatsu. A novel thing, and it helped that the food was delicious. We arrived in the city and headed for Cikma’s place where we rendezvoused with every sibling of Ain (and their family) where Irfan was reunited with his cousin Aiman once more. Then after, we headed for the building where the course was held way across town from Cikma’s place. Ain had discovered that the place had accommodations for course attendees and they were affordable. Because of […]

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15 years today

15th Anniversary Pizza

Fifteen years since we that day Ain and I got married. We’ve had a number of anniversaries over the fifteen years. Fifteen years of juking and barrel rolling and Tallon rolling and drop kick Koiogran turn just to stay out of reach of blaster bolts from the rear. Sometimes, we would get it and it would hurt because it would mean I failed to keep my family from hurt and harm. Most of the time, we would pull through by the skin of our teeth. This was the first year we celebrate our anniversary without anyone attempting to acquire a target lock on us. It was amazing. I felt like it was the first time I managed to get the ship out of the asteroid field and away from the savage squad of pursuing fighters. We were able to spend some on pizza without worrying about the cost killing us […]

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Northern Haze

The Haze Reaches North

The haze has crept up and enveloped the entire northern region of the country. The last couple of days has been abysmal. Visibility range has been lowered to about 200 metres. Even the night rains failed to scrub the air. Even worse is this cough I am experiencing which started when we went to Kuala Lumpur last month and took a turn for the worse on our way home from Sitiawan after Hari Raya Haji. I joked once that our family motto is Lepas Satu, Satu. In Kuala Lumpur, after we get out of one crisis, it is customary for an even larger crisis to swamp us. I sincerely hoped that this is not one of those instances, now that we are on the brink of being able to live with a small measure of comfort.

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Jalan Duta murk

Murky Depths of the Haze

It’s been some time since I mentioned the haze on this blog. The last time I did it was 10 years ago. In any case, the haze has returned as it is wont to do year upon year upon year. This time it returned with even more of a vengeance than the last. It’s been weeks and the haze does not seem to be going away soon. It cast a murky shade of gray upon everything in Kuala Lumpur during the graduation weekend. The environs of The Mall near the PWTC – now upgraded and renamed Sunway Putra Mall – is thick with the stuff, like heavy mist except for the strong omnipresent smell and taste of smoke. Maybe I should have just gotten the university to send me my degree by mail. The day we headed back to Sitiawan, the haze seemed to be even worse. The view below […]

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Needs even moar people that matter in this picture

A Bit Higher Than College Age

It is nearly impossible for me to form the words to explain and describe the experience of graduating from college with a Bachelor Degree in English Studies at age 42, on top of the multitude of experiences positive and negative I underwent in the last 25 years or so. I know I prefer to harp on the negative, but on the whole it has been gratifying. After all is said and done, I guess here and now having the family, friends and tools that I possess is where I am actually supposed to be. A big thanks to everyone that pushed me in this direction.

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yopwaH!

Hi New New Office

After a week or so of having no office while hardware transportation was being carried out, I have finally moved into the new new office out in the boonies. It is a bit warmer than the old new office, but I do get fresh air. But only if I open the window. And only if there is no life-choking haze from the evil Malaysian agricorps burning the Indonesian jungles across the strait.

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First we break the shell, then we crack the nut inside

Almost Time for Aidilfitri

Hari Raya Aidilfitri looms at the end of the week. Ramadhan is almost over. Last weekend, I was tasked with making a Aidilfitri card at work. As seen in the image above, I am in the card climbing a coconut tree. In fact, everyone in the department is in the card. Click here to view what everyone else is doing and magnify it for full visibiliy on Google Drive.

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Betty on Irfan

Betty Was Missing

A month ago, Betty went out for her daily roams and never came back. The neighbours reported not seeing her. She was gone all throughout Ramadhan. We live close to thick tropical-grade underbrush. One possibility is that she might have come afoul of local wildlife – and I don’t mean squirrels. After three weeks, I had accepted that we would never see her or hear her little mewlings again. For weeks only Comel, the neighbour’s cat, hung around about the house. Here she is trying to persuade me to let her drive us to town. Well, not without a valid driver’s licence, missy. But on Sunday, while Irfan was playing with Comel’s owners from next door, his classmate came a-visiting bringing with him Betty! Thanks to Irfan’s sustained crowdsourcing efforts and detailed descriptions, his friend from school recognised Betty’s markings and her collar at a housing area half a mile […]

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