Hilmyworks.com

Found this DeviantArt account, whose artist has recently passed away. Found it while browsing other artist whom pointed out her site.

http://hakubaikou.deviantart.com/

It is sad to hear someone as skilled as her being gone (her Pirate “vs” Ninja with rum and sake? Inspirational.), yet it is heartening to note that an archive of her work lives on, accessible to anyone visiting her site. There’s no question of what she loved and lived for because it’s all there for anyone to see. Nor there’s doubt who loved and enjoyed her works; it’s all recorded and visible as per how DeviantArt works.

As Wired puts it when Randy Pausch died, the Internet has created a new phenomenon: a distributed funeral. Being a DeviantArt account means that not only Hakubaikou’s lifework is as permanent and accessible as the Internet itself, her family will also be able to see how people around the world mourned her. On DeviantArt and on the Googleverse.

“Still, at whatever scale and medium chosen, all these death rituals retain their universal purpose. They all provide convincing evidence that though the star may die, the universe continues. Though the Marine is gone, the corps lives on.” – The aforementioned Wired article

Sad news and yet, a pretty cool outcome.

I got a phone call on Wednesday that my old martial arts master, Master Lee, has passed away. The man meant a lot to me and my family, so I took a couple days emergency leave and booked a flight to KB in order to attend Friday’s funeral.

(more…)

Made some chocolate chip pancakes today. A old Canadian friend suggested I use the sandwich toaster instead of a pan, and it sounded like a simple idea. Turned out it is simple; just mix Pillsbury pancake mix with some chocolate chips, and pour a small batch inside each bowl. Didn’t even need to grease the base because it’s non-stick, so the whole batch’s grease free.

(more…)

Those looking up on last Monday night would have seen this interesting treat:

Venus and Jupiter aligned with the Moon to form a smiley. This picture was taken in Australia, and curiously, the more north you are, the more it’s rotated to your left. In Malaysia, you get to see it vertically aligned, like so and so. The Klang Valley view is spectacular because there were no stars visible thanks to the city lights. I saw this in an open parking lot and all I saw in the dark sky was nothing but the suspended smiley. Eerie yet beautiful.

Those in the Western hemisphere get to see a frown. Lucky us! Apparently, those here looking up last night got frowned upon as well, as the alignment has shifted a bit.

Some websites mention we’ll only get to see this again on 2036. Not sure if that means a 28-year cycle, but it does imply the smiling face has appeared in the past. Which brings up an thought…..

… did past Emperors look up and felt the Celestial Heavens were smiling upon their deeds?

On second thought, did Celestial Frowns lead to royal executions?

Am moving house, so a quick update before I lose Internet.

Joe and I went to the pet house to get cages for the cats; a necessity while the movers do their stuff. We needed two cages, each big enough to house four cats.

Anticipating them being unwieldy bulks, we brought two cars to ferry ‘em.

Turns out they’re transformable, and two of these can fit into one car’s back seat with plenty of room to spare.

We were both very, very impressed.

A newspaper report that appeared on page 2 in Thursday’s The Sun.

SERIOUSLY.

On Sept 1998, I was a Tutor in MMU, and I – a fresh graduate- was asked to create a whole new game development course. As a naive 22-year old, I dutifully did the best I could. That was the beginning of a tumultuous eight years of learning game development in order to pass it on to students. Skipping a lot details, I am proud to say that the students I taught and took care of have spread their wings, joining game development companies, winning competitions and making their mark in the industry.

That, and I get to meet a lot of really crazy people whom I’m proud to call friends.

Things didn’t go great all the time. The course had its high and lows, and with a lot of other things mucking things up I had to make a decision around 2006 to quit. I was ready to leave game development for good, but opportunity to apply what I knew knocked and I joined GameBrains Sdn Bhd as a Producer.

Now it’s September 2008, 10 years later from that silly moment I entered game development. The Quest Trio, a game I produced is released. It gained an 8.1 on IGN. I finally have a game out there with my name in the credits.

Life goes on, and I’m glad to be able to say some things end out right.

The latest MSC IP Comics Pitch has a participant pitching his comic, Zomba. The main character’s name is Yazid. I asked him about it later, and no it’s no relation to the real life Zid. He is a fan of Zid, but the character has no relation him at all.

I figured Zid would get a kick out of the shirt design though.

(more…)

First non-art post in this new blog. After reading the excellent Team Medical Dragon manga, I borrowed the boxset DVD of the Team Medical Dragon drama series. The friend I borrowed it from said the drama is really good, so I was intrigued. My thinking was that if it follows the manga, the story should be good, but I did wonder how well the manga would translate into live-action.

Once I started watching the drama, I was floored. (more…)

Migrating to MySQL meant using a new server, so I decided to restart the blog from scratch. Will need to fill this up with links to images, but that’ll be done over time.