Here we have Irfan sleeping soundly in zero-gee aboard the International Space Station’s bunk at Low Earth Orbit after a day’s work of repairing the Hubble Space Telescope. Not really. He did, however, have a fun time at the Planetarium, where there was a presentation at the theatre entitled Passport of the Universe. It was narrated by Colin Hanks’ dad. We lay back in the chairs to experience the hemispherical screen projection of the night sky that took us through interplanetary space past Mars, Jupiter and right under the rings of Saturn. Then the virtual camera went into interstellar drive where we finally saw stars began to move accordingly in the third dimension. We also went really fast as we went just short of a hundred parsecs a second to zoom past the stars of the Orion constellation and zip right into M42’s gaseous mass where we saw lots of […]
Continue readingTag Archives: Kuala Lumpur
Even The Exhibits Mooned Me (With D6 Stats)
Muzium Negara focuses primarily on the cultural history of this magical fantasy realm currently known to the world as “Malaysia”, although some natural history of the land is touched upon. Outside, we were greeted by a number of old train exhibits. In other words, there were more trains here than any one time I’m at the LRT station waiting for a train to arrive. Irfan poses by the Inscription Stone of Terengganu, unearthed at Kuala Berang at the turn of the 20th century. 700 years old, it’s evidence that Islam thrived in that region at the early 14th century. This guy is from my old neighbourhood – The Perak Man. How old is this guy? Take our current year: 9391 Before Guild. Go back about 2000 years we arrive at the dawn of the Common Era at 11391 B.G. Between then and now, we’ve had the Roman Empire, the Dark […]
Continue readingWhere Do These T-888 Infiltrators Go To Eat?
These different models of Tee-Triple Eight infiltrators below: they’re a different series of endoskeletons from the T-800 and the T-850 (model 101) from the Terminator movies. [[image:t-888_01.jpg:Bunch of Metals:center:0]] I might have found the exact place where they all go to eat out. [[image:t-888_02.jpg::center:0]] … which is right around the corner in Pandan Cahaya.
Continue readingIrfan’s Parents: Year Eight Together
Twelve years ago Ain & I met. Four years later, we got married. Strangely enough this year we remembered our anniversary. As opposed to being reminded by Atok Irfan when he wishes us happy anniversary at night. Happy eighth anniversary, Ain. May we still have each other’s backs and make each other laugh for as long as we live. (And maybe some time after as well) Earlier tonight we celebrated with a dinner outside, compliments of Emma: [[image:anniversary2008_00.jpg:Shane… it’s your T-shirt!:center:0]] [[image:anniversary2008_01.jpg:This time we have Irfan in between:center:0]] [[image:anniversary2008_02.jpg:Are these guys twins or what?:center:0]] [[image:anniversary2008_03.jpg:Gesturing for some reason at the camera:center:0]] Now it’s back to getting Irfan to do his homework…
Continue readingA Letter To The United States
I don’t usually write long letters nowadays thanks to the internet, which allows you to communicate immediately to family and friends with concise information almost everyday, if need be. This has the result of never requiring to long letters to tell other people the various things that happen to you in a single long document. Recently I’ve had to write a pretty long email to Irfan and Alya’s Atok and Opah who are still in Ohio playing with little Alya. I should try to summarize the email here, however I will just let you read an excerpt from it. From the Federal Highway we decided to take the Sprint elevated highway that would cut across the University Malaya hills to PJ. As we went up the highway a speed sensor tagged the car in front of us at 65kph. It moved sideways into the left lane and slowed down. The […]
Continue readingA Strange Place To Lie Down and Rest
On the way back from the Sungai Merab area, where the PLUS highway intersects with the ELITE highway right by the exit to Universiti Putra Malaysia, the traffic slowed down considerably. This was strange because I’ve never experienced a traffic jam of this magnitude before at this particular location. Which leads me to believe something’s up front. [[image:toppledtruck00.jpg:Highway blues:center:0]] The road curves downward before climbing back up, and I lost sight of the road before me. [[image:toppledtruck01.jpg:Closer:center:0]] Then finally, TA-DAAHH! [[image:toppledtruck02.jpg:On its side:center:0]] But don’t worry. The drivers were fine although they looked a bit dazed crouching on the far side of the wreck, waiting for assistance to arrive.
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Irfan’s One Utama Walkabout
One fine day, Irfan Shafiq went a-walking about the hallways of the mall known as One Utama. Movie Carnival 2007 weekend was just around the corner. So there were plenty of well-known characters loitering about the concourse of the new wing of the mall. One of the most remarkable things there would be this here thing in the following photo. A Transformers movie Optimus Prime! It’s not on sale yet for another two more days. Apparently the guy bought it off eBay. A stellar looking toy! Not too far away, Irfan got his photo taken with some famous Cybertronians in their latest guises, Optimus Prime and Megatron… ….as well as the gang from Far, Far Away Land… … and the family from the Evergreen Terrace in Springfield, USA. All the way from Zenn-La is the former astronomer turned Herald of Galactus, Norrin Radd. Because he was positioned at a high […]
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Irfan Webs An IMAX Theatre
It’s May 1st. Some might say it’s Labor Dabor Day. Others would say it’s the first day of the general release of Spider-Man 3, beginning 2007’s run of monumental summer movies which will eventually bring us At Worlds End, Shrek the Third, Order of the Phoenix, Rise of the Silver Surfer and Transformers. We just got back from Sitiawan after spending 3 days with Irfan’s grandparents there (and having the sotong celup tepung as well). Irfan made a new friend in the form of Opah Irfan’s friend’s grandson – one Amir from Melaka who was also on vacation in Sitiawan. Today, we got home, grabbed Ain’s two aunts and headed right for Berjaya Times Square where we would be watching the IMAX presentation of Spider-Man 3. There was another reason for the excursion to Berjaya Times Square, and that was Irfan’s Cik Su’s birthday. Labour Day for her is literally […]
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From the Tenth Floor At Night
Atok Irfan took some fantastic night photos from the balcony of the tenth floor here, something I couldn’t have done without a tripod. You can see the Menara Maxisegar and the Menara MPAJ in the first picture. Click on the thumbnails for larger images. Thanks to Irfan’s grandfather for the beautiful photos.
Continue readingNot Really The Eye of Sauron
The Eye on Malaysia is its name and we went for a trip to Taman Tasik Titiwangsa for a look and for a ride. Well, Everyone else took the ride. Ain & I did not because Irfan didn’t want to take a ride on it. We thought we might go later and at night to see the city skyline after dark, which might be beautiful. Unless there’s a citywide blackout. In which case, the lack of a pretty landscape might be the least of our problems. Here’s the Eye on Malaysia, which seem to conceptually rip off the Millennium Wheel (or the London Eye). Welcome to Malaysia. Leave your originality at the door, thank you very much.[[image:eye01.jpg:It’s plainly labeled:center:0]] You can hardly contain the excitement of riding the giant, vertical metal merry-go-round. I’ve never heard anyone referring to it as a Ferris wheel at all which saddened me.[[image:eye02.jpg:The Expeditionary Force:center:0]] […]
Continue readingNot Usually Found On Roads
So the other night I saw something on the road – placed squarely flat on the asphalt – that I’ve not seen before on any roads. It was because we had to drive to Ain’s sister’s house at Taman Bukit Kinrara. We took the Middle Ring Road 2 westbound. The traffic suddenly slowed and moved as like treacle for a kilometre. Then I saw the thing I’ve not seen before on roads. The stretch of road coming downhill from Cheras bent to the right, squeezing between the Giant Supermarket at Connaught and the great big Chinese cemetery. There were people – drivers who had stopped – standing near it, and they too were standing on the road and not on the curb – not that there was a curb by the side of the road. The thing on the road wasn’t big nor small, but it was noticeable enough under […]
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Best Office Space Ever
So after the exam today I headed down to 1 Utama with the new laptop. Using the mall’s WLAN I was on the internet browser connected to the office via Skype in seconds, replying emails, as well as checking up on the work forum. I also took the picture above using the lappy’s 1.3 megapixel webcam, just for the heck of it. By the way if you’re hard up for wireless internet, the benches right in front of the MPH bookstore (top floor) is information supersluice tube. Bathrooms and surau are close by. Who knows… you might even find yourself in a conversation with a friendly passer-by which ends with you yelling at the top of your voice, “Yeah! This is future of office work baby! Go back into your sunless cryp- er, I mean office and sulk!” Meanwhile not far away, a dogfight between an Incom Corporation T-65C-A2 and […]
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Early Morning Raid at the PC Fair
Well, to be honest it wasn’t that early in the morning. It was about 10AM. And it wasn’t a raid as it was us moving slowly through the computer exhibition picking out stuff to buy after we, for the first time ever, have the budget to buy computer-related thingamajigs at one of these PC Fairs. There were no tablet PCs sold as far as I can see. Before the PC Fair opened we had a picnic at the KLCC park with the takeaway nasi lemak which we bought at the LRT Corner outdoors restaurant near the Tenth Floor Headquarters. Irfan had little to eat – just some curry puffys and teh ais. He didn’t seem to mind hunger when the super duper playground was within striking (and spitting) distance. And here’s Irfan’s favourite playground in the world, as well as a few other worlds. He calls slides the “Wheeee!” for […]
Continue readingIrfan at Centrepoint
Centrepoint Bandar Utama, that is. While waiting for his mother to finish work, Irfan took the time doing his usual thing, running about amongst the greenery and going up and down the escalators. I thought I’d put the camera phone to good use. One thing I’ll say for Centrepoint’s garden is it’s really well kept. Shame about the crap people throw into the koi pond, though. [[image:cpoint01.jpg:Going down:center:0]] [[image:cpoint02.jpg:Coming up:center:0]] [[image:cpoint03.jpg:Running up the ramp from the basement car park:center:0]] [[image:cpoint04.jpg:Sitting still long enough for a camera shot:center:0]] [[image:cpoint05.jpg:Playing on the rocks in the garden:center:0]] [[image:cpoint06.jpg:Jumping rock to rock on the artificial waterway:center:0]]
Continue readingSatellite Photos of the Tenth Floor
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. [[popup:satmap01.jpg:(thumbnail):Pandan Indah and such:center:1]] 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. [[image:satmap02.jpg:I’m mooning the satellite, can you tell?:center:0]]
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In Front of Pandan Capital
So the other day I walked from the house all the way across Pandan Indah to the MPAJ (Ampang Jaya Municipal Council) building to pay property tax over the counter. One weird thing about this house is that the mailing address has it in Kuala Lumpur with a KL postcode. The phone line is part of the Cheras – Pandan Jaya local prefix, which also puts it in Kuala Lumpur’s network. But we have to pay property tax to Ampang Jaya, which is part of the state of Selangor. Meanwhile, behind us is Cempaka, which is Ampang, and in front of us is Pandan Indah central, which is also Ampang. It seems like we’re trapped in a thin peninsular of Kuala Lumpur, trapped between alien territories. Anyway here are some photos I took of the street in front of the MPAJ building. Here’s the view up the street toward the […]
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