Rafe - 41 Months

29 May 2015 | sila | | Family Pics
 

The boy is now 41 months old! Almost 3 and a half!

Happy roti canai-filled Adik

That is the face he made after eating his fill of roti canai at the Straits of Malacca.

* Mouse over the pictures for captions

 

82 Months

22 May 2015 | sila | | Family Pics
 

82 months of Yaya!

Yaya and Adik

* Mouse over the pictures for captions

 

Patreon: Lovecraftian Investigators 2

15 May 2015 | Hisham | | Patreon Paperminis, Role Playing Games
 

New Lovecraftian / 1920s Pulp Investigators paperminis have been released on Patreon! For this batch, I drew and setup a range of characters on the pdf, namely: the Librarian, the Hobo, the Dandy, the Alienist, the Grave Digger and Aviator! I've always wanted to draw a hobo. Download from the Patreon page here!

Read some suggestions on how to assemble the paperminis here!

Don't cut your fingers

Let's see how both batches look like assembled after glued, folded and cut as seen above.

Here comes the sandblasting attack

The Alienist, Aviator and Hobo come face-to-face with some Flying Polyps.

This neighbourhood has seriously gone to the dogs!

The Dandy walk down a street at the bad side of town and are tailed by some sort of strange hounds.

The graveyard is where all the food are kept

The Grave Digger: "Why does it have to be Ghouls?"

No fighting in the library. Take it outside... or at least, to Yuggoth

The Librarian break up a scuffle between the Mi-go and the Nightgaunt.

CHEEEEESE!

Here's everybody from both batches, bunched together for a group photo, with the Dandy attempting to grandstand.

Download the Deep Ones and the Hounds of Tindalos paperminis here.

Download the Nightgaunts and Flying Polyps paperminis here,

Download the Ghoul and Mi-go paperminis here.

Also, BLOG POST #1400!!! Huzzah!

 

Boy Spells Words

10 May 2015 | Hisham | | Family Pics
 

Irfan told informed us that he was invited by a teacher to attend some spelling bee. Later he told us the event was held at a local hotel: the biggest hotel in town.

He didn't even tell is it was this contest:

Irfan with buntings

You can read about the contest here.

Irfan with Mom

We arrived and I took some photos before Irfan joined his school contigent for registration. There were 150 attendees from his school.

Now that's one tall First Former

After registration, the teacher in charge briefed his contigent. It looks like there were representatives from every Form.

Irfan with other First Formers

Irfan and the other First Formers take a photo together. He was the only one from his class.

Irfan with Mom, redux

This appeared to be the qualifying round. There was only a preliminary written test for the attendees. If Irfan makes it past the preliminaries, the next event would be the State Challenge which according to the website would be held at Dewan Kapitol on the 8th and 9th of August.

 

Veronica - Hello and Farewell

07 May 2015 | Hisham | | Family Pics
 

Before we left for Kuala Lumpur and Sitiawan last weekend, Ain was enamoured with another stray kitty who hung around at a roadside stall nearby. She took to Ain very well, so she thought we would also adopt her and Betty would have a companion.

Neow neow buddy

We took in the new calico on Tuesday and named her Veronica. Like their namesake, Betty and Veronica did not really get along well. Betty was quite haughty and Veronica was a better-behaved kitty. They did things together, but once in a while they got into hissing slap flights. We thought that after a week or two of acclimatising, the two kitties would be okay with each other.

On Wednesday, while we were having lunch at home a neighbour knocked on our door and told us she saw Veronica get hit by a car. She was at the doorstep limp and lifeless, her eyes looking out to nowhere.

While I returned to work, Ain and Irfan sadly buried Veronica by the canal. We were all shocked by the sudden death. Even Betty appeared to be shaken by the event. She is less energetic and behaves better than she ever did now for some reason. Perhaps she regrets fighting with Veronica.

Here lies Veronica neow neow neow neow
 

So long, Veronica, and sorry.

 

Lords of Nal Hutta

05 May 2015 | Hisham | | Books, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
 

One of the gifts given to me by Kai and the Gamers of KL crew on our trip back to Kuala Lumpur was Lords of Nal Hutta, the recently-released sourcebook for Hutts and Hutt Space for Star Wars Edge of the Empire roleplaying game by Fantasy Flight Games. Bonus: it was co-written by Gary Astleford.

I Visited Hutt Space And All I Got Was A Sha'rellian Toop Infestation

It would certainly help my gamemaster (GM) the campaign I ran for GOKL, entitled "Modesty Blazing", because we were about to meet Sassatania the Hutt, Zeltron pilot Darter Kel's former fling and daughter of Teemo the Hutt.

An illustration of Sassatania can be found in this blog post. Coincidentally, several locations described in the book had been featured in two different Star Wars D6 campaigns I ran for GOKL. (Well, one campaign and one one-shot session.) 

Weequays are teh awesome

Sriluur of course showed up in A Bad Example in the Spacelanes campaign which was never finished.

And I first ran a session with Kwenn in Tatooine Manhunt back in 1989

Kwenn Station was where the player characters started in The Rancid Putrefaction of a Cosmic Caterwauling Cabal one-shot game.

So many other features in this book, from a list of Hutt kajidics, vehicles, weapons and Hutt Space systems from Kintan to Toydaria, that I will try to include in future Edge of the Empire games I run.

Especially ones that lead the players into wretched hives of scum and villainy.

 

A Return To the Tenth Floor

04 May 2015 | Hisham | | Family Pics
 

It's the Labour Day/Wesak Day long weekend. We were unsure if we were able to travel 500 klicks plus change to the old house back on the Tenth Floor in Kuala Lumpur.

We had planned on departing at 3AM, but because we were exhausted we awoke at six, and after gearing up were only able to push off from Kangar at seven. Twitter warned us of slow traffic on the highway ahead of us, which forced us off and into the state roads near Selama toward Taiping. Soon we decided to stop at Atok and Opah's in Sitiawan for a brief rest and Friday prayers.

We resumed our journey at 3PM and reached Kuala Lumpur by nightfall.

It was a strange feeling, returning there after five months away from the city. I don't believe we were ever away from the city anywhere near this amount of time. The strangeness was promulgated by the fact that it did not feel like we were away for five months. It felt like we were only away for a week or two.

Soon we were back at the Tenth Floor. A familiar sight of the Pandan Indah cityscape greeted us. The city lights were still aesthetically pleasing. That night we went for a drive around the city, like old times.

The Tenth Floor was all but a shell of its former self. Despite being our shelter and home base for the last fifteen years - the same number of years I lived in Sitiawan before I had to go away to study - it felt like a relief to finally being able to appoint a realtor to help sell it off. Irfan knew of no other home and it was here that he learnt to swim.

 

Happy 10th Anniversary To This Blog

01 May 2015 | Hisham | | Hishgraphics.com, Recent News
 

This blog is now 10 years old.

I don't belieeeve it!

That means it nearly time for Vin and Sila's 10-year anniversary.