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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Exactly Four Years Ago Today…
… Irfan Shafiq was born just before 5 p.m. in the maternity ward at Kuala Lumpur Hospital. He caused his mother to be stuck at the hospital for almost 12 hours before finally decided it was time to pop out. I was right there with Ain when he popped out. When the nurse handed him to me he gave me his best “Hey… can you tell me what the heck’s going on around here” look. Atok and Opah arrived from Sitiawan today to celebrate the occasion with Irfan, after which Opah made nasi ayam for dinner. There was cake with candles (a hit with Irfan for some reason) and the photos were taken by Atok. We had dinner when Mak Long and Ayah Long came a-calling. I noticed that Irfan was sleepy by 8pm but he fought his drooping eyes until it was after 11pm, because of the occasion. I […]
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Damage Report
As much as I’m extremely happy there’s roof over our heads (and ten floors plus change beneath us), I am very much zonked out by the accumulating damages in our house for the sole reason that the building was 10 years old when we moved in. It’s a great place to be, but we need to move out of here so we don’t spend a bomb monthly on fuel costs and waste hours every day travelling to work, which is right across the city. But before we can move out, we’ll have to sell the place cause we can’t really spend on rent on our income. (Not to mention transporting our stuff would also cost us some money.) And before we can sell the place there are a few things on the wishlist that need to be addressed. Firstly, the building needs to be more presentable. That’s currently being fullfilled […]
Continue readingSpending Nothing For RPGs
The best things on the net are free! Well, not exactly true but roaming the internet I did come across a list of 500 free role playing games. Some are dead links. Some are very lean. Some are PDF, some are HTML and some are Word files. Some are official free products from RPG companies. I’m going through the entire list on my own t… Ooo, lookit… the out-of-print Time Lord RPG. Be right back.
Continue reading28 Days Later… A Review
[[image:28dl00.jpg:Jim guesses he shouldn’t have farted that loudly:center:0]]I never fail to wince watching Danny Boyle’s movies. So far I’ve seen a couple. I winced when watching Trainspotting. I winced watching Shallow Grave. (I’ve never seen Pillow Book or A Life Less Ordinary so I can’t comment on those.) And certainly there are many wince-inducing scenes in 28 Days Later. The story begins when members of an animal liberating group attempt to release a chimpanzee from a lab. A lab technician catches them in the act, implores them not to release the animal. It’s infected, he says. With what, they ask. Rage. Despite the lab tech’s pleas, they uncage the chimp, whose first act was to bite its liberator. The person bitten starts convulsing with her pupils turning blood red and violently attacks her companions in the process throwing up a mixture of blood and vomit onto them. Then everyone starts […]
Continue readingToy Robots In Disguise
Once upon a time in my early teens I had to save my weekly allowance for a couple of months before I could buy an original Transformers G1 toy. I only managed to save enough to buy two: Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Then later when I was overseas, I bought Wheeljack which I was unable to find when I returned back to Malaysia. Last weekend back in Sitiawan I finally found Wheeljack somewhere in one of the cupboards, so I put the three of them together for a photo shoot. Here are Sideswipe, Wheeljack and Sunstreaker, from left to right. One of Wheeljack’s arm is missing due to some sort of unfortunate accident I have no recollection about. I was also disappointed that Sunstreaker’s arm missiles have no spring-loaded firing mechanism, so I made one up myself using a knife and a spring from a pen.[[image:genone01.jpg:Robot Modes:center:0]] Two Lamborghini Countachs and […]
Continue readingMakan Angin Puerto Rico Bab 4
OK So I realize it’s been weeks since we went to Puerto Rico, but work is pretty crazy busy lately and I haven’t been able to finish my final Bab of Makan Angin Puerto Rico. In fact I was planning to write this blog in Malay and publish it on August 31st (Malaysia’s Independence Day). Since I have missed that deadline, I will just go ahead and write the entry in English so as not to show the world that my Bahasa Malaysia (or is it Bahasa Melayu now?) has really gone down the drain since secondary school. This entry is a bit more random and rambly than usual. Sorry! One of the places that was close to our hotel was an old fort called San Geronimo and I went for a walk to see if I could explore it. I could see it from our balcony even! [[image:pr60.jpg:San Geronimo:center:0]] […]
Continue readingKachow!
After months of using other vehicles as substitute of Lightning McQueen from his favourite movie when playing with his toys, Irfan will finally get the real deal thanks to his Atok & Opah. Atok took these pictures and emailed them to us and Irfan was really excited looking at them. (So I’m told, cause I was wiped out before 9 pm thanks to the fever I was wracked with last night.) He’s already got Mater and Snot Rod Rip Stick Racer toys in his collection. I guess Irfan can’t wait to go to Sitiawan and get his hands on it. [[image:kachow1.jpg:Lightning McQueen:center:0]] [[image:kachow2.jpg:Lightning McQueen:center:0]] This is the 300th entry for this weblog, by the way.
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A Colonial Viper Pilot in d20
My friend Shane Welin is now in a d20 game with a difference. The rules might be powered by the run-of-the-mill d20 Modern / Future engine but I believe this is the first time I know of a campaign set in the world of Battlestar Galactica whose third season will be aired this next month. His player character stats is listed below, but I’ll see about getting stats for Colonial Vipers (Mark IIs and Mark VIIs), Raptors and Cylon Raiders up here as well. Anyway, here’s Shane’s Hal Rogero (still no callsign) in d20: Name: Hal Rogero Age: 18 Sex: Male Height: 5’10 Weight : 150 lbs Hair: Black Eyes: Brown Colony: Picon Classes: Smart/Fast/Viper Pilot Levels: 1/3/3 Str: 12 Dex: 16 Con: 14 Int: 16 Wis: 16 Cha: 10 HP: 51 Rep: +2 Wealth : +2 Defense 17 Fortitude Save:4 Reflex Save: 7 Willpower Save: 7 Initiative: 7 Base […]
Continue readingDesperate Prevention of Dilution
This was conceived untold years ago by me, but I forgot about it until recently, and most especially last night when we had teh ais to drink for dinner. Teh ais translates directly into iced tea, but it’s not exactly that. It’s more to the tune of tea with thick sweetened condensed milk in warm water, mixed with ice cubes or ice tubes. Some restaurants serve teh ais with a lot of ice rather than tea, which leads to very diluted tea if you leave it on the table for too long. This would also lead to a very annoyed Hisham. What I propose is this: Hours before taking orders for teh ais (or Nescafe ais or Milo ais for that matter) brew a ton of the drink, pour the liquid onto ice cube trays and freeze the lot of them. When someone orders a teh ais, put the ice […]
Continue readingBU-77, Advanced Recon Clone
Here are the stats and capsule for BU-77, the ARC trooper I played with Team Sabredart on IRC. The game was run by Simon Taylor using the old West End Games‘ D6 system. I had a ball playing this character, as you can see by the actual ad lib quotes which was spoken (or typed in) during course the game sessions. Too bad we didn’t play out the character until the Order 66 massacre. It would have been interesting to see what he would do to Raeree Giin, their Jedi team leader. He used to have a DC-15A blaster rifle, which for the D6 stats I used the official stats of the BlasTech T-21 light repeating blaster, but it was confiscated when they were all arrested for insubordination. Name: BU-77 aka Butthead Type: Non-standard ARC Trooper Sex: Male DEX 3D+1 Blaster 6D Dodge 4D KNO 2D Survival 3D Willpower 3D […]
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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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The Vacation Is Over – For These Younglings
Round Five of the Star Wars Artists’ Guild Member Theme Art Contest (link dead) is almost over, what with September starting tomorrow and all. So here I am after some hours of pencilling on paper, scanning and finally digitally inking and colouring the illustration for contest participation. The theme is The Vacation Is Over. I can’t think of a more brutal wake up call than when the newly-named Lord Darth Vader marching into the Jedi Temple on Coruscant with the 501st “Vader’s Fist” Legion and slaughtering everyone, including the younglings during Revenge of the Sith. Head on down to DeviantArt for a larger resolution of the image above.
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Bumblebee Is Watching You Poop
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.
Continue readingGalaxy Games Online Files For Download
After Phil “Grimace” Hatfield introduced me to Galaxy Games Online, I’ve long thought of customising some .ggo files for use with the old West End Games’ Star Wars RPG. Galaxy Games Online is a program that allows you to run and play pen and paper type role playing games over the internet using a chat window and a dice roller. One feature available on the program allows us to create our own .ggo files, which can be customised player character sheets, dice rollers and even a virtual book where we can write down our house rules, all readable from the main program. You can even create your own random name generator, which is easily adaptable to other uses such as random encounters or random locations. [[image:ggo1.gif:Intro Screen:center:0]] Here for your download are four .ggo files compressed neatly in a zip file. SWD6 Template – An empty player character template with […]
Continue readingToll Tickets Trawls Trenches Twixt Teeth
Do you know what’s one of the best things about driving along the PLUS highway (or the North South Expressway in English) after you had a good meal, especially if you got bits of gristle and such uncomfortably stuck between your teeth? You can use the Expressway’s toll ticket as a very effective toothpick. It’s thin enough to get between your molars. It doesn’t disintegrate easily by moisture (or saliva, if you will). It bends easily and can get into angles and corners that would put a Hound of Tindalos to shame. Plus after you wipe the edge of the toll ticket the crud disappears like magic. It works much better than a regular namecard. OK, don’t ask about the namecard. Sure it’s disgusting. But man, does it work like a charm.
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