Episode 2 Stark Raving Mad For several weeks, Irfan was asking me if I could run the continuation of his first Call of Cthulhu game where he roleplays SFPD Detective D.J. Stark. Finally I had the time to sit down and write prep notes for a short session. Irfan got into Detective Stark’s shoes, trench coat, shirt and tie, and then got right into it. The game started out where the previous session ended: Captain Greta Hack gives the bruised and battered Stark a week’s off after he shot his turncoat partner Lee Wilson and rescued Paige Riordan from the vicious underground creatures. Stark really has a Glock 9mm, not a revolver Returning to his apartment, he was ambushed by one of the foetid, muzzle-mouthed creatures in his kitchen. He felled it with a shot. The rest ran out the corridor and down the staircase. Stark pursued, but he was […]
Continue readingTag Archives: Irfan
Irfan on the new desktop
When this blog was founded, Irfan was not yet three years old.
He is now an adult with many more leagues to travel.
Abang Ngah’s Wedding
Six years ago we attended Abang Long’s wedding kenduri at Kampung Permatang during a balik kampung trip back to Sitiawan. It was now time for his younger brother Abang Ngah’s wedding, though technically the aqad was performed in Ipoh the previous weekend. As always it was great to see relatives pooling together to get the kenduri running, working the logistics, greeting and serving guests. We had visited the previous night when they were building up the main table and backdrop from scratch. The following morning it looked like this: Here are assorted photos from the kenduri that day. Congratulations again to Abang Ngah & Kak Ngah.
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How Everyone Lost Their Tooth In Sitiawan
We balik kampung to Sitiawan the other week and everyone – Irfan, Ain and I – lost one tooth each while there. Irfan extracted his own tooth even before we arrived at Atok & Opah’s house. He proudly showed his freshly drawn molars. He’s been doing it a lot with his baby teeth lately. Then, we thought we’d visit the government dentist for a check-up, because it’d be less expensive than going to a private clinic in Kuala Lumpur. Ain had a wonky tooth and she had that extracted. Come my turn and the dentist discovered a dead tooth. It was a different colour from other teeth and the top part was brittle. Ain had complained for a long time that my mouth had a strange smell – a rotten smell. A silvery, glistening needle was produced and I swallowed my fear, and allowed the cold metal to plunge into […]
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Small World
Created by Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton, Geek and Sundry’s new biweekly TableTop web series features 30 minutes of tabletop gaming video that shows how much fun it is to pay tabletop games from boardgames like Ticket to Ride to card games like Munchkin to roleplaying games like Fiasco! Each episode, hosted by Wil, shows how each game is played by playing it onscreen. Every episode also has different guests. Irfan and I saw the first episode together and he totally fell in love with the board game they played, Small World. Small World allows a player to control a society of one fantasy race after another, allowing your race to expand or decline each round using the game rules. The game randomly mixes in special abilities and racial abilities, and by planning a combination of these abilities you are able to maximise the number of points you acquire each […]
Continue readingIrfan’s Transmogrifying Present
Irfan received a gift over the mail from Ryan Rhodes. There is a great sketch of Irfan with the octopus plushie at Wan Chor’s house in the inner cover! Here’s hoping Irfan will never stop dreaming. (Although he has been dreaming of zombie attacks these days…) It’s a Calvin and Hobbes collection – which in my opinion is tied with Bloom County as the best newspaper comic ever. Irfan says, “Thanks for the book, Uncle Ryan.” Bo shuda.
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Call of Cthulhu: The First Game Ever
Episode 1 The City By The Bay I’ve had the Call of Cthulhu RPG for a decade now. I’ve never run it… til now. It was a gift from Gary before Irfan was born. We used to joke that if I couldn’t find anyone to run it for, I should someday run it for Irfan – who was then still unborn. And at the time I had yet to discover GOKL. Almost ten years later, I have refereed Irfan in a Call of Cthulhu game, who rolled up his character yesterday: a young detective in San Francisco named D.J. Stark. Here follows the actual play report: Detective Stark and his new partner Wilson hear of an abducted 9-year-old named Paige Riordan and go for a look. Another detective prevents Stark from entering the crime scene, warning him that this was his case. Stark fails to fast talk his way through. […]
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Quick Run To Kinokuniya
I am in school. Second year plus change. Which means I am eligible for the RM200 book voucher giveaway for university students. With voucher in hand, the boy and I quickly dropped by Kinokuniya Sunday morning before the overwhelming weekend herd shambled in. Without consciously deciding to purchase only horror books, we ended up with them anyway! Irfan wanted the Hellboy and The Walking Dead books. I checked out the storylines online before deciding he was old enough for them. I also bought for him Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. I grabbed for myself Charlie Stross’ The Atrocity Archives because one day I want to play the Laundry RPG. You’d think two hundred is a high number and could buy a dozen books, wouldn’t you. Sigh. Well, I suppose four is better than nothing!
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Irfan’s Imperial Entanglements
So the other day, Irfan was in a blaster shootout with some Imperials – perhaps CompForce troopers.
Continue readingAidiladha 2011: Back To Sitiawan
This Aidil Adha we drove back to Sitiawan. As per standard operating procedures, we took a family photo Aidiadha morning, before heading out to visit others. [[image:aidiladha-2011-01.jpg:All who were present at Aidil Adha 2011:center:0]] I love this photo of Irfan on the wooden pier by the river. I should have waited 30 seconds later, because by the time I stowed the camera, a little boat went by with a happy-looking bunch of children. Here follows a selection of photos of our time in Sitiawan. [[image:aidiladha-2011-02.jpg:Behind Opah Long’s house at Kampung Permatang:center:0]] [[image:aidiladha-2011-03.jpg:Irfan and Opah:center:0]] [[image:aidiladha-2011-04.jpg:Huorns! Huorns on the loose!:center:0]] [[image:aidiladha-2011-05.jpg:Beachcombing at Lumut:center:0]] [[image:aidiladha-2011-06.jpg:The Lumut Naval Base can be seen in the back:center:0]] We didn’t stop to have ABC at the Lumut Promenade though. Eid Mubarak everyone.
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Birthday Cake Transforms Into…
Well, the birthday cake was transformed into digested matter submerged in digestive fluids in our stomachs. However, the box with which the cake was transported was transformed into… …Captain America’s shield, after an unscheduled crafting session. The Nerf gun was the one he bought from Richard Chua’s booth during the Kids’ Fair exhibition earlier this year. I did not take a lot of photos myself, and was unable to transfer files that Atok Irfan had in his camera because of a malfunctioning card reader. The above is one of the few photos I took of Irfan posing as his grandfather takes his photo. Click here to see Irfan playing with the birthday present his grandparents gave him.
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Salam Aidilfitri from Pasir Mas
This year it’s balik kampung to Pasir Mas for Aidilfitri! And for the first time ever, we flew to Kota Bharu. Why did we fly there? Cause I don’t think the car can survive an 8 hour cross-country trip. Heck, it can barely survive a trip to Sungai Buloh. Here is our only family photo taken for the celebration. We had so many visitors the first two days there was no time to take photos. Cars upon cars upon cars arrived in no time! A couple of days earlier: Irfan had fun on the porch during the rain. We watched pelepah nyor and stuff fell as the rainstorm did its work. When it wasn’t raining, Irfan performed his favourite chore: raking leaves from the yard. Back to Hari Raya: Thanks to technology stolen from the future during a time travel jaunt, everyone could speak to and see Irfan’s Cik Su […]
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ROBOT GIANT
Irfan’s robot design takes the spotlight in this blog post. It’s a red giant robot with claws on its left hand and a machine gun on its right hand.
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Adventure on Langkawi Island
A couple of weeks earlier, Irfan, Atok, Opah, Ain & I went on a three-day vacation to Langkawi, where I had been on work assignment before twice since 2006 but never had the time to relax there and enjoy the sights. And it ultimately freaking hurt! But thanks to previous journeys to the island, I called a contact and booked a homestay bungalow, the one we rented during LIMA back in December 2009. I had thought back then that it was a great location, and promised I would return there with the family to enjoy it. Usually when tourists travel to Langkawi, they would find a chalet or hotel near the beach. The homestay we rented was situated on the side of a hill, surrounded by a kampung and overlooking a spectacular landscape, not far from the Langkawi Airport. Elsewhere on the island, we stopped by beaches, tourist spots and […]
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Irfan Takes A Train To The Mall
One activity Irfan and I did this school holiday was to take the Light Rail Transit (LRT), the city-wide train network. He rarely gets to ride on it, since we drive everywhere which is sometimes cheaper depending on the situation. So we thought we’d go to the Mall. We set forth to the station after lunch and soon train came along. The Mall is a mall that is named “The Mall”. It’s like a boy who’s named “The Boy”, or a building that’s named “The Building”. The Parkson department store used to have a good bookstore up at the second floor. I used to browse there while waiting for the intercity bus. (The Putra Bus Station is just across the street.) We went to pick up some art supplies at the Big Bookstore, where Irfan bought this book: Later, we went to the Parkson’s toy section to check out the […]
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Irfan Goes To Petrosains
We all went for a trip to Petrosains Discovery Centre located at the fourth level of Suria KLCC today for the first time. It was quite an informative and entertaining jaunt with a lot of interactive scientific experiments that children can participate in. There was even a Science Show where kids (well, one kid from the audience) participated in. There was even a short 3D film in a small theatre they had. It was quite an elaborate set-up and it took us three hours and forty minutes to complete the entire circuit. I tweeted bits and pieces of our visit to Petrosains with photos. You could sift through the timestamped tweets here to the posts in question. But I thought this blog post would be a great way to consolidate all the posts (with photos) and insert untweeted photos as well. We started off in a ride through a dark […]
Continue readingBack to School in 2011
Also, the first post of 2011. [[image:2011-01-03-school-opens02.jpg::center:0]] This year, Irfan began his proper Islamic classes; three hours in the morning, ending about two and a hours before regular afternoon school starts. It was not as difficult as I thought it would be for him. He appeared to like going to the new school, and several of his regular school friends are there. But that seems to be the way of things normally anyway. Here in Pandan Indah, he has more friends and acquaintances than his parents considering the number of other students he socialises with at school. [[image:2011-01-03-school-opens01.jpg::center:0]] He calmly underwent the short interview with the headmaster – a friendly fellow – who asked him some questions to see in which class he would be placed. [[image:2011-01-03-school-opens03.jpg::center:0]] The following day, upon dropping him off we saw him immediately lining up with his class for morning assembly. He appeared to be […]
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