Call of Cthulhu: Happy Endings
Last time on Call of Cthulhu (back in June) our solo protagonist, the young Detective DJ Stark failed to stop whatever unholy occult occurence at Horton Opera House. Stabbed by cultists, blind luck caused a passerby to notice him and call for an ambulance.
Episode 5
The incident cost Stark another two weeks in the hospital, but he insisted on returning to duty quickly. Mr. Chao had all but disappeared, and there was no sign of the cultists in the opera house. There was no clue as to what the swirling bright light that he saw before he fell down the trapdoor.
At the end of his shift he was approached by his new partner Detective Alex Sim, a young Asian woman who knew of Stark's proclivities with investigating strange and unexplained things and getting into severe injuries. She warned him that she did not wish for her career to be jeopardised by such happenings. She said, "If anything happens that is even a tiny bit strange, I will report you and drop you like a bad habit fast."
Soon, Stark returned to the opera house for the first time since he was hospitalised. Armed with a shotgun and a flashlight, he crossed the two-week old police tape and scoured the building.
But he found nothing.
Everything that happened before this point was played when we were in Sitiawan a last month. We were interrupted then. We continued earlier today at home.
Without nothing to go on, Stark started to drive back to his apartment.
At a stoplight, the world shook violently. The quake caused the roads to shudder and the streetlamps to shudder and spark. A streetlamp beside Stark's car fell toward him. He hit the accelerator pedal and screeched out of the way safely. (36 out of 40% Drive Auto)
Those Stories About What Happened...
I might have overdone it with the "Those Stories About What Happened" meme adapted from the latest Star Wars The Force Awakens trailer, pertaining to West End Games' Star Wars The Roleplaying Game material. It probably what Han would tell these kids about the Galactic Civil War shenanigans as played by Star Wars D6 RPG players.
First, here is a general flavour of memories of role-playing games as a general, not just limited to Star Wars.
Then, there was that one time Sila stole Zardra's stun cloak during Tatooine Manhunt when she and Puggles Trodd launched an attack on her party when they were asleep.
Disclaimer! I've never actually played Starfall:
Not to mention the exploits of the Black Curs team.
And finally, from Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments From The Rim, a gag written by a tabloid-esque news outlet in the Galaxywide Newsnet chapter of the book:
Addendum (27/10/2015): Don't forget about the Rabid Mynock swoop gang!
Today Is The Day
...when Griff (and Jason Scott Lee too for some reason) gets arrested.
That is all.
Han Solo and the Princess and the Trailer
Everyone and their pet tauntaun has written something about the new Star Wars The Force Awakens trailer, so here I'll be regurgitating some thoughts about the musical score used for it:
BUT FIRST, here's the trailer, released earlier today.
There are two familiar cues in the trailer, the Han Solo and the Princess cue and the Force theme.
BUT SECOND, a disclaimer: The Han Solo and the Princess theme is my favourite theme ever in Star Wars, and why I think Rebel Fleet - End Titles in The Empire Strikes Back is the best of all Star Wars end titles score, surpassing even Caravan of Courage.
Before the music go on to the full-blown new orchestration of the Han Solo and the Princess cue in the trailer, they play a four-note melody thrice. The first iteration was played on piano - the first notes being the one we hear when we see Rey's masked face during her Star Destroyer dungeon crawl. The second iteration is still on piano, but at a lower octave with some chord variations. The third iteration is played by strings.
These four notes are I believe variations of the basic four chords of Han Solo and the Princess itself, which is why it feels not just like a fantastic transition to the scene below, but an emotional one as well.
That - as well as Nien Nunb - was what gave me goosebumps. Well done, John Williams and the scoring team! I hope I will able to play this trailer music on the piano someday.
Tsuro Picnic
Once upon a time, earlier today, Irfan came up with the idea of setting up a mat out in the yard so he and other neighbourhood kids can play board games outdoors.
Later, there were even sandwiches and apple juice!
Here's hoping the boardgaming will help Irfan and the other children to improve their social and language skills as they interact with one another.
Perhaps someday there will be RPG picnics?
15th Anniversary Pizza
Fifteen years since we that day Ain and I got married. We've had a number of anniversaries over the fifteen years. Fifteen years of juking and barrel rolling and Tallon rolling and drop kick Koiogran turn just to stay out of reach of blaster bolts from the rear. Sometimes, we would get it and it would hurt because it would mean I failed to keep my family from hurt and harm. Most of the time, we would pull through by the skin of our teeth.
This was the first year we celebrate our anniversary without anyone attempting to acquire a target lock on us. It was amazing. I felt like it was the first time I managed to get the ship out of the asteroid field and away from the savage squad of pursuing fighters. We were able to spend some on pizza without worrying about the cost killing us like before.
We spent the evening at Shala Pizza.
I got a little Pizza Supreme pan, while Ain got a burger. I did not get enough pictures because the phone ran out of juice.
Irfan had the one slathered with the BBQ sauce.
Even with the last 15 years of running on spit and chicken wire, with oil dripping from the ceiling and everything one step from breaking down into scrap, we kept on fighting the good fight. And we don't plan on stopping to. I would never have come this far if it were not for Ain at my side.
Love you forever, Ain.
The Martian
The Martian is a book written by Andy Weir.
It is also my graduation present from Ain, in lieu of flowers. A book, I thought, would not wilt after a couple of days. I spent the same number of days for flowers to wilt reading the whole book. It was very engaging.
Also, the book did not wilt. Yay.
The premise is simple, astronaut Mark Watney, a botanist - who looks like the guy who Tom Hanks had to rescue back in World War 2 - gets left behind on Mars in a freak accident while his fellow astronauts had to leave immediately because of a dust storm. What should have been a fatalistic "that's it no one knows I'm still alive and doesn't matter not enough food I'm dead anyway good bye everyone" 3- day short story becomes a full length novel for survival that extends for months and years as Watney uses his engineering and botanical skills to keep himself alive using material at hand, like spanners, nuts, bolts, potatoes, hydrogen gas, an RTG buried in the ground some kilometres away and the Mars Pathfinder probe a couple of hundred kilometres away.
Mark Watney is an interesting character. He is a man of the internet. Although he speaks English, he speaks it in the manner of a man who probably knows what 4chan is and are aware of ALL THE MEMES. This is a realistic build of an internet-wired 21st century character. I don't believe there has ever been such a character. No, not even Keanu Reeves in that mind-blowing, sensational cyberpunk movie that everyone knows him for... Johnny Mnemonic.
NASA is interesting. As a red tape bound organisation, there are quite the many problem solvers that put their career on the line to save Mark Watney. And more importantly, they are a multi-ethnic bunch of heroes that attempt to reflect the reality of a multi-ethnic nation and planet. I'm sure they'll find someone race-appropriate to play someone named "Kapoor" and "Park" in the movie.
Wait, the movie's out?
Anyway. Watney's life on Mars is like my life in Kuala Lumpur: One thing after another, where "thing" is usually some form of shit hitting some fan somewhere. He weathers all the problems well though, if you can count being blown up by a hydrogen explosion "well". He survives, probably because he looks like that guy from Elysium, and I'm not talking about Wikus.
Anyway. Anyway... this pain up my nasal cavity is bad and it's pushing into by jaw and eyeballs. And I don't think the meds are helping. So go read the book to see how Watney kills the Pathfinder probe. What did the probe ever do to you, huh? Damned amperage. How do they work?
X-Wing: The Asteroid Gambit
Yesterday, Irfan and I finally started playing the X-Wing Miniature Game that was given to us by Darren when we last visited Kuala Lumpur. What Darren gave us was astoundingly lots, so many thanks to him for letting us have this trove.
We started with the basic game. Irfan controlled an Incom T-65 X-Wing fighter and I controlled two Sienar Fleet Systems TIE/ln fighters. His Pilot Card is Luke Skywalker, and mine were "Mauler" Mithel (apparently the father of Reljii Mithel) and Academy Pilot (a strange name to give your son, Mrs. Pilot). We did not carry Upgrade Cards, like astromech droids and proton torpedos.
The sculpts for these minis are amazingly detailed. One might even want to collect them because they look very nice indeed. I have seen the Corellian Corvette mini in a box back in KL some time ago and it looks fantastic. And still too expensive for me to pick up.
The game is at its core elegant in its simplicity. Initiative, attack, defense, weapon damage, et al are numbers assigend to you on your pilot card. You manoeuvre your ship, then you attack if you are able to. Deciding your move requires a Manoeuvre Dial that you would turn to your choice of move, but you would reveal them from the lowest initiative so the higher initiative players would know what your move is. Moving your ship requires a Manoeuvre Template which would help you move anywhere between 1 to 5 spaces in Straights, Turns or Banks.
Attacking requires the roll of a number of red eight sided dice where you might hit with normal damage, hit with critical damage or "Focus". Defence requires the roll of a number of green eight-sided dice where you might evade or "Focus". A Focus token is used when you declare that the pilot will be Focused after its manoeuvre, which allows the pilot to able to turn any red or green die with a "focus" result to either a hit or an evade respectively.
Hits and Evades cancel each other out. Remaining Hits is the damage dealt out to the fighter being shot at. The X-Wing has Shield Points that has to be depleted by attacks before you start to affect its Hull Points. Deplete a ship's Hull Points and it gets destroyed.
So we used the old West End Games' Star Warriors battlemat, which looks kind of busy and distracting but it is less busy and distracting (and far less embarassing) than our linoleum. Asteroid tokens were scattered all over board as obstacles. We just chased each other around the board for a bit. I attempted to outflank him with my two TIEs, but it was much more difficult that I thought it would be.
Irfan scored some hits with his Taim & Bak KX-9 wingtip cannons on Mithel's TIE early on. One more point of damage inflicted, and Mithel would be all like, "LOOK OUT!" and smash into the Death Star trench wall asteroid. Above, both TIEs had finally gotten the upper hand and flanked Luke, but all my attack rolls were embarassingly bad, like the linoleum. For some reason, although he had higher initiave, he was unable to put the TIEs into his field of fire. He was not able to shoot.
This allowed my TIEs to let loose with their green cannon bolts, which eventually hit a lucky break and depleted Luke's Shield Points and some Hull Points. Ultimately, Luke and Mithel had the same damage result - one more damage would destroy either - but in the end it was Academy Pilot's attack that took out the X-Wing.
The gameplay was quite enjoyable. I even used a soundboard for the relevant sound effects whenever we fire and things explode. We hope to play with more Upgrade Cards and maybe use the Millennium Falcon and the Slave One next time.
The Haze Reaches North
The haze has crept up and enveloped the entire northern region of the country. The last couple of days has been abysmal. Visibility range has been lowered to about 200 metres. Even the night rains failed to scrub the air. Even worse is this cough I am experiencing which started when we went to Kuala Lumpur last month and took a turn for the worse on our way home from Sitiawan after Hari Raya Haji.
I joked once that our family motto is Lepas Satu, Satu. In Kuala Lumpur, after we get out of one crisis, it is customary for an even larger crisis to swamp us. I sincerely hoped that this is not one of those instances, now that we are on the brink of being able to live with a small measure of comfort.
The Quality of Flame
Another practice sketch from several weeks ago, where I tried to paint the dynamics of cloths against the wind.
The fire is actually an afterthought for added drama.
The Quality of Rain
A practice sketch from a couple of weeks ago, where I tried to refine some figure work and painting of skin.
Childhood Friends vs Chicken Wings
I called up Nazri to find out if he was in town for Eid and discovered that a bunch of folks from school were. There was a plan to meet up later that night at Aeon, at a chicken wing restaurant that I never went to before. Before long, Shahmar, Nazri, Sam and I had assembled there to talk of old times and new. Because the meet up went into extra time, the wives and children (including Ain and Irfan) went for a showing of Hotel Transylvania 2. We had to vacate the premises and relocate to the nasi kandar restaurant outside the mall to continue, where we were later joined by Din.
All in all, it was an enjoyable time meeting childhood buddies.
Is that 13 Solar or Lunar Years?
And just like that, our once-newborn son is a teenager. As Irfan is so fond of reciting, "Masa berjalan begitu saja." Although Atok and Opah had treated us to an early birthday dinner with Irfan back in Sitiawan, we went to Burger Republik once more to commemorate the day.
From the urban inner city streets of Pandan Indah (which we rarely allow him to be on unsupervised) to the more relaxed conditions of Perlis! Happy birthday and may you continue to grow and burgeon with wisdom and positivity.
His birthday present, by the way, is a book.
Increments in Double Zero
Fiction is how ideas can be put forward to make one think. I use many methods to help develop Irfan's thinking skills - although I have no clue if they work efficiently.
A lot of fiction for children, when they involve conflict will usually gravitate to an environment with two sides: the right side and the wrong side. You know the cartoon shows. The bad guys make life difficult for the good guys, and the good guys have to surmount this difficulty to achieve some measure of victory.
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 however has a number of sides. Each side has those with a moral conscience and those who are assholes. Even the side that the protagonists are on has factions that are morally reprehensible. So I hope the lesson taught is not to see the person for his uniform or the colour of his skin, but to his intentions and especially his deeds.
And if there is need to act for the betterment of society and mankind, we should.
Meanwhile, Irfan used some of his saved up pocket money (and food sales earnings - a whole another story) over a couple of months to buy the Exia and Dynames Gundams from Double Zero.
Exia is piloted by Suran Ibrahim. Dynames is piloted by Neil Dylandy, then later Lyle Dylandy.
Thanks to some tinkering around, he created an Exia-Dynames hybrid Gundam for some sort of nefarious reason.
Murky Depths of the Haze
It's been some time since I mentioned the haze on this blog. The last time I did it was 10 years ago.
In any case, the haze has returned as it is wont to do year upon year upon year. This time it returned with even more of a vengeance than the last. It's been weeks and the haze does not seem to be going away soon. It cast a murky shade of gray upon everything in Kuala Lumpur during the graduation weekend. The environs of The Mall near the PWTC - now upgraded and renamed Sunway Putra Mall - is thick with the stuff, like heavy mist except for the strong omnipresent smell and taste of smoke.
Maybe I should have just gotten the university to send me my degree by mail.
The day we headed back to Sitiawan, the haze seemed to be even worse. The view below showed how the PLUS Highway looked like upon passing the Jalan Duta toll plaza, heading out of the city.
The view along the LATAR Highway is usually a pleasant shade of green and blue.
It was apparent that the haze would not let up even as we passed Sungai Besar and approached Perak.
I can't wait to get back to Perlis, which is further north, where the chances of haze-smothering is lower than the rest of the country.
A Bit Higher Than College Age
It is nearly impossible for me to form the words to explain and describe the experience of graduating from college with a Bachelor Degree in English Studies at age 42, on top of the multitude of experiences positive and negative I underwent in the last 25 years or so. I know I prefer to harp on the negative, but on the whole it has been gratifying. After all is said and done, I guess here and now having the family, friends and tools that I possess is where I am actually supposed to be.
A big thanks to everyone that pushed me in this direction.
Star Trek Hybrids
So, I drew some cross-species hybridization as Star Trek aliens are wont to do. For example, Spock is a Human-Vulcan hybrid and K’Ehleyr is a Human-Klingon hybrid.
A Tholian-Vulcan hybrid! I only remembered the pointy eyebrows after I finished drawing.
A Horta-Cardassian hybrid. No space beneath the silicon-based body for a Gul Macet-style mutton chops. And think of the amount of hairspray needed to keep that 'do in shape.
A Tribble-Andorian hybrid. How is this even- I- Never mind. Everyone go home. Nothing to see here.
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