[[image:supes00.jpg:Superman Returns:center:0]]I went in to watch Superman Returns with high expectations and I got what I deserved, I guess. It was quite a decent movie, but it isn’t as epic as i thought it would be. First the non-spoilerific thoughts: [[image:supes02.jpg:Transorbital Rescue:left:0]]The stills I saw prior to seeing this movie did not do justice to Brandon Routh. He doesn’t only make a terrific Superman, but he does a fantastic iteration of Christopher Reeve’s Clark Kent. The VFX of Superman flying are perfect, and make us believe a man can fly much more than Superman the Movie. Any scene with him flying for any reason is visually satisfying. There could be a scene of him trying to pick his teeth while floating and it would look great I believe. The space shuttle and Boeing 777 simultaneous rescue is everything I wanted to see in a Superman movie. [[image:supes03.jpg:Keyser Luthor:right:0]]Lots of people […]
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Job Done – Heading Home
I forgot to mention in the previous post that Sam and I spent the night at Ambhara hotel. It was quite a comfortable place to stay, with a shopping mall (whose name escapes me for now) right across the street from it. For some reason we were too lethargic when we arrived all we could do after ordering room service – I ordered the nasi goreng pelangi – is fall asleep until sundown. That night our contact met up with us at the cafe downstairs for the next day’s big meeting preparation, then Sam and I went to the mall across the street where he had bakso and I had nasi goreng omelette. I had no idea it was nasi goreng dumped on a humongous omelette – which was delicious, so I ain’t complaining. After the big presentation the following day, we had to head back to the hotel to […]
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Meanwhile In Indonesia
Greetings from Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. Arrived this morning, I’ll be here until tomorrow for a presentation concerning work and work-related work stuff. The good news is I got some pictures. The bad news is that the pictures were only taken when we reached our hotel room. Here’s the view outside the window. Unfortunately it’s behind the hotel into the alley, you can pretty much see nothing. Here’s the bathroom. You can’t go wrong with picture of the hotel bathroom. Meanwhile behind the cupboard that holds the 21 inch TV, there appears to be signs of life. It’s Sam, Earth’s Supreme Avionics Commander, checking his email and planning for the future of the industry on the planet. Of course, he has to write down his plans first. And finally because Sam is around, I get my picture taken when I’m on one of these trips unlike Germany and Singapore. […]
Continue readingEuropean Adventure IX: Bournemouth
This is the final part of our European Adventure. After saying goodbye to Joanne in Leeds, we drove back to London. It was Friday, May 26th, and we were to fly home on Sunday morning, the 28th. The drive back to London was smooth until we hit the M25 (the ring road around London). It was about 2:30 in the afternoon but Monday was a bank holiday, so we hit the rush hour. Everybody left early in order to start the long weekend. So it took us about 2 hours to get from getting on the M25 to Surrey, and I was cursing under my breath the entire time. Anyway, we made it back to Mei’s place, safe and sound, and we thankfully collapsed on their sofa. We relaxed and waited for Mei and Colin to come home from work. We were having dinner at their favorite Indian restaurant and […]
Continue readingBeast Wars – A Series Review
[[image:bwars01.jpg:Rattrap,Optimus Primal, Rhinox and Cheetor… no-prize for guessing who’s who:left:0]]It was just past the mid-90s. X-Files was at its prime on TV and there was news of a brand new CGI Transformers series that will be airing on TV. Being an 80s child, the original Transformers series was one of the shows I followed fanatically. The thought of giant alien robots being able to hide among us in the form of Porsches, Lamborghinis, Lancia Stratos and VW Beetles was very exciting to me and my friends. But after reading the synopsis of Beast Wars Transformers my interest waned. What’s so hot about robots being able to transform into Earth animals on an supposedly uninhabited alien planet? Why is there even a need to hide? I passed on the pilot. But sometime during the middle of the first season, I happened to catch an episode, thanks to the proddings of my […]
Continue readingTravel Trivia
So I was reading Lilian’s iFantabulous site, and she posted a little map that was generated based on the countries you’ve visited. Of course, I had to try it too. Unfortunately, I have only been to 8 countries! Yikes! Here’s what my map looks like: Create your own visited country map or check our Venice travel guide Then I wanted to see how many states I’ve been to in the US – I’ve been to 27 states (more than half, woohoo!). Create your own personalized map of the USA or check out our California travel guide You can definitely tell I do NOT like cold weather – most of the northern states are not yet visited 😀 and yet I’ve been to Hawaii. And in all my years of living in Boston, I never did make it to Vermont, for whatever reason. Even though one of the things on my […]
Continue readingEuropean Adventure VIII: Return to England (Grantham, York, Leeds)
After almost a week of hot sunny days in Spain, we flew back to England from Malaga. We arrived at Gatwick and it was raining cats and dogs. What a welcome, eh? 🙂 We made our way back to Mei’s place, and that evening we went to a barbeque with Mei and Colin and met a bunch of people from their diving club. Unfortunately no pictures of the barbeque because a) it was night time and b) it was still pouring rain. It’s true – the English barbeque in all weather!! The next morning, Mei and I picked up a rental car before she went off to work, and Vin and I packed lightly for our one-night trip up north to Leeds where Vin’s sister Joanne lives. So we got into the very small car (I should have taken a picture of Vin sitting in it!! Sort of Kancil-sized) and […]
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Illustration Friday: Sticky
One more Illustration Friday piece… and it’s really supposed to be a reminder of what I’m supposed to be doing this week. A virtual Post-it note. Hee.
Continue readingEuropean Adventure VII: Malaga – Departure
After a long delay of finishing up the chronicles of our European Adventure, finally I’m back to do the last few entries. After our fun time in Jaen, it was time to head back to Malaga where we would spend one last night in Spain before heading back to England. We took a bus from Jaen to Granada, and another bus from Granada to Malaga and made it back in good time. It was late afternoon by the time we got to Malaga. We didn’t have reservations at any hotel, so we asked the tourist information kiosk at the Malaga bus station, and they gave us a map of hotels in Malaga. Not only did the map tell us where the hotels were, there was a write-up about the hotel, hotel reviews, and approximate prices. So based on price and proximity to the beach, we decided to try the Hotel […]
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Today The Light Switch…
… Tomorrow the world!!! Earlier today Irfan realised that he has a new super power: the ability to reach any high switch on the wall with his hands (albeit on tippy toes). So all morning he’s been all over the house flipping switches. Lights. Fan. Forcefields. Directed-energy weapons. Life support systems. But the best thing all week has been his newfound skill of asking to use the toilet when required. Many thanks to Irfan’s Tok & Opah for teaching their grandson while Ain & I were at work last week. The other thing Irfan did with his grandparents was watch Pixar’s Cars together. The first time they watched a movie together, but the third time Irfan’s watched Cars in the theatre. Cars appears to have become Irfan’s favourite movie. He asks to see it again almost every day. He can remember names and tell who’s who on sight. He points […]
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Star Wars: Kramer vs Kramer
For Round Three of the SWAG Member Theme Art Contest (Link dead), everyone was given the theme of It’s A Trap!… except me who has the task of coming up with Star Wars: Kramer vs Kramer, no thanks to my big mouth the previous month. So, here it is without further ado, Star Wars: Kramer vs Kramer – The Battle for Cosmo. Click on the thumbnail to view a larger image (and use the up / down arrow keys to scroll up and down the pop-up if your screen resolution is crappy like mine at 800 x 600), or check out the larger version of the digital painting at deviantArt.
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Blog Upgraded
This is the first entry using the new version of the content management system Pivot 1.30 RC2, as opposed to the pre-upgraded 1.24 version of old. So I might as well say something meaningful. I can’t think of anything at almost 1 am. So I think I’ll put up an image for your viewing pleasure.
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HaXX0rzed!!!
This is the first entry after the site was hacked and evil and vile javascript and php codes were written into the blog’s templates and database files. Many thanks to Fairiz Jafar of EasyNet Interactive, our webhoster, for noticing and monitoring the trouble almost a full day before I contacted him for help. His help on a Sunday was very much appreciated, getting the site back up. Two of the most recent entries were lost, but it’s no big deal. The Hishgraphics web journal is back online. Click here to read a description of what happened in the Pivot Support Forums. It was a long weekend, needless to say. But I said it anyway. *sigh*
Continue readingEuropean Adventure VI: Hanging Out in Jaen
We spent a total of 5 days in Jaen, and the days and nights were filled with old friends (new friends for me!), food, and lots of conversations. I was very quickly introduced to doing everything on Spanish time, which is different from the schedule that I’m used to. For instance, when we checked into Hotel Infanta Cristina (Princess Christina) in Jaen, we were told that breakfast started at 8:00 AM and ended at 11:00 AM. I’m used to breakfast hours starting at 6:00 AM in the hotels that I stay at for work purposes in the U.S. Lunch doesn’t even start until 2:00 PM (between 2-4 in the afternoon), and dinner isn’t served until about 9:00 PM. The siesta hours are still observed in Jaen, and Vin and I found ourselves being just about the only people wandering around town during siesta. We did see a few tourists (yes, […]
Continue readingEuropean Adventure V: The Castillo Overlooking Jaen
After we checked out of our hotel in Malaga, we took a taxi to the bus station. We would have to take the bus first to Granada and then from there a bus to Jaen. It was past noon by the time we checked out. In the end, we took the easy way out and just took a taxi to Jaen. We wanted to make it to Jaen before it got too late (no point burning daylight). Happily, we arrived in Jaen in time for a late lunch (lunch is late there anyway). Vin is a professor of Spanish and during his graduate studies he lived in Spain for a total of 4 (non-consecutive) years. His very first year there was spent in Jaen and he first went there 20 years ago this September. So this is truly a return to his Spanish “kampung” (hometown). He lived for 3 years […]
Continue readingEuropean Adventure IV: Malaga – Arrival
After we checked out of our hotel in Amsterdam, we went to the train station and caught the train to Brussels. It was a 2.5-3 hour train ride and I’d love to say that I took beautiful pictures of the passing scenery. We went through Rotterdam and several other cities in the Netherlands before crossing into Belgium. Unfortunately, I was so zonked out I slept most of the way. So…suffice it to say we took the train from Amsterdam to Brussels, and from there we caught a plane to Malaga, Spain. Malaga is a southern coastal city on the Straits of Gibraltar. We were to spend a night in Malaga before journeying on to Jaen (about a 3-hour drive north east). We had decided to splurge and stay at the Parador de Malaga Gibralfaro for the night. The Paradores is a chain of hotels established by the Spanish government and […]
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