Images: Artful Architectural Wonders

It’s Saturday again. Unlike the previous weekends, I didn’t prepare in advance for the pictures I was suppose to put up for this weekend mainly because it slipped through my mind.

So I had only a small inkling on what to show. My main idea was to look for surreal pictures, something like one of the angels in my old Angel Images entry a few weekends ago.

Bah! Since I don’t have them, I dove into my piles of old stuff pictures and looked for inspirations in the ones that caught my eye.

Then it hit me; buildings!

Call it the KLIA roominess aftermath. I’ve made some really nice buildings images entries before, like the epic-ly beautiful portals I’ve submitted before. I loved those and they were part of this complex imaginary world I have in my head.

So I present this week are some stunning architectures that were made by various creative artists.

A Wizard School by Unknown Artist

Hahaha, to tell you the truth, I don’t know who made this. It’s one of the pictures I took out in my really old stuff folders. I loved it for its 3D rendering of the really tall white Gothic-themed building and the lighting used here made it even more majestic.


Old London at Moonlight by Raphael Lacoste

This is an artwork from my ever-favourite games-visual artist, Raphael Lacoste. The candyman behind the eye-candy of Prince of Persia and Assassin Creed games, he made this piece to emulate what it might have been in Victorian London times.

I’m on all accounts an English/England/Englishland/Fish-and-Chips fanatic so I really got to put this up here.


Landing Zone by Dmitry Savinoff

I knew the artworks of Savinoff neither through the game he and his friend had designed nor through 3Dartists.com webring for artists. Rather it was through a Google search for something sci-fi, during a time when I was still overly plagued with pimples that I discovered his fantasy and sci-fi wonders with digital pictures.

This picture of his I have personally colour-printed and hung it on a wall in my room, close to my PC so I’ll be able to see it when I turn my PC on. It’s kind of like a very nice dawn-of-a-new-day thing it got there, don’t you think?


Fallen Beauty by David Edwards

This is also another picture I’ve been thinking of printing it out and getting it hung on my wall. I needed a fourth wheel to get this entry moving so I took an express through CGSociety.com’s 5 Stars gallery.

Oh my God, this is really beautiful. The detailing is exquisite, every part of the ruin provokes thoughts, speculation and questions on what it means to the artist. Was it a ballroom? A church? Was it ruined through neglect? An evil plot?

I tried looking from his main site but I found even more beautiful pictures that rouse the imagination. Duly recommend that you visit all these artists, as their works, if I hadn’t had a blog to write about them, would be best described as... artfully wonderful.

From KLIA to Iran; Bye-bye Parents!

Last night, Friday was Fly-day for my parents to take their next great adventure across the Middle-East. Don’t ask me why, but they do this all the time now, since Ayah retired. Maybe because since all the juniors relations and fellow traveling friends are all scattered around the globe, there’s always a trusted fellow to call on their Celcom line.

From the Matta fair to KL International Airport, they hadn’t stopped talking about it... and reminding me of all the stuff that needs to be checked while they’re gone. Stuff like:
1. Feed the fishes.
2. Feed the cats.
3. Take out any dead fish floating.
4. Clean up after the cats if they pee in the house (males!)
5. Make sure the Proton, MyVi and Kenari have petrol.
6. Don’t let big brother Arsenal drive either one of those cars.
7. Water the plants.
8. Send lil bro Genius back to UniMalaya on Sunday afternoon.
9. Go to the Uptown D’Kota free-food party this Sunday to show face to the neighbours and explain where did Mak and Ayah went.

Those sort of things.

So in two cars loaded with luggage, we head off to KLIA that evening for the 11.30pm flight. Of course, this freaking family go on a road trip further than Mutiara Damansara, there’s always all kinds of bumps.

“Where’s the car key?”
“This one? Or this one?”
“Which car does this trolley bag go?”
“Figure it out yourself-lah!”
“Liza, can you ask the maid to make milk for Nabil?”
“Passport! Passport!”
“It’s with me (insert mother’s name), cepat-cepat pakai tudung.”
“Oh... now where’s my tudung?”
“Which car does this bag GO?”
“(insert MySis name), did you call Abang Huzir that you won’t be home tonight?”
“Alamak-, my cellphone tada bateri-ler...”
“Ami nak susu! Ami nak suuuusuuu...!”
“Nabil, get up from the floor. Now.”
“Ami nak McDonald’s?”
“No McDonald! Susu aje.”
“Which CAR does this BAG, GOOOO!?”

In the end, we left at 8.45pm, almost half-an-hour later than scheduled.

The road trip was not done in the break-neck speed Ayah would have preferred. Firstly, the second car was running out of petrol (Mak had to stop at Shell gas station), and then it was raining heavily on the highway.

I was in the same car with BabyNabil and he susddenly developed the fits, crying to his Bibik-Yam (the maid) and didn’t stop until we reached the airport. I betcha my dad was a weeeee close to strangling his only grandson.

Aaaah, the international airport. 10 years later and it still runs like slow clockwork.


There’s a lot of people at the viewing area that night, mostly families looking down at their grown kids; some blazer-wearing students getting ready for the flight overseas.

Actually, we couldn’t have bothered. It turned out that their flight, Iran Air, had been delayed by about an hour and a half, no idea why. A full hour and a half or almost totally nothing to do.

Oh what da hell, this is an airport!

Since Nabil was so fidgety to the point that not even Mak’s delicious tandoori chicken meal we all had earlier could help him.

But as babies need to be fed, we ended up buying McDonald’s Chicken Rice Porriage.


Fidgety in the car, hyperactive in McDonald’s.


The bubur-ayam was very hot, so MySis dump a small amount into a paper cup before BabyNabil scoops them with his spoon.

I guess in the end, he got his McDonald’s after all. *sheeeeeesh...*
And it was a good thing we stuck around for a bit. It turns out that Mak forgot something really important and left it back home in Kt. D’sara.

Naturally.

It was the keys to their luggage. Tips on traveling say that we should lock our luggage and so my parents got the heavy duty ones with a key since they can never remember lock combinations.

Ayah, already armed with Iranian currency, flight tickets and passports, handed the luggage responsibility to Mak. And Mak went Ooops! So it was a very good thing the flight got delayed after all. We called big brother Arsenal up quickly and he was free to drive all the way to KLIA with the forgotten keys.

I’m trying to imagine if they flew to Iran and only then just realized they don’t have the keys to their luggage. Maybe they can ask the hotel staff for help?

“Pardon, this is Room-So-and-so. Can you please bring up a crowbar and maybe some shears?”


We hung around the viewing hall while waiting for Abang Arsenal by watching the big planes park in and airport workers drive their golf-carts around. These glass walls are now smothered in a two-year-old’s chicken rice porriage breath and sticky prints.


I took a moment to take my own picture for the blog. I like these kind of dual-view obscure photography that reflects scenes.

Bye Mak! Bye Ayah! See you guys in two weeks. Just remember that I want cheese and chocolates for souvenirs.
*hahahaha!*


We exchange salam and pray for a safe journey.

To Me, From Mak, With Tandoori Chickens

Some of you asked what’s my mother’s inspiration for being quite the chef in the kitchen. I would say the AFC Food Channel on Astro TV but she’s been stuffing the family faces long before cable TV became the vogue.

I supposed it had to do with being the eldest daughter of 9 siblings and miscellaneous relations and friendly neighbours. The entire community knew the Jailani family very well. Anybody had a problem, refer to the freakishly huge noisy family. Country-mice aren’t like town-mice after all.

I can see why my dad, being a very quiet and private person, had to gather some 5 years of courage after meeting Mak before he could formally ask Yayi for her hand.

But I’m wandering here. Mak likes to cook because she grew up pretty much next to the kitchen stove. There’s always mouths to feed and even today, I got uncles and aunties coming in for no reason every other week or so.

But this time, my folks are taking on a long trip, more than 2 weeks. They’re going to fly to Iran to ski on mountain snow and see the springtime flowers. Then they’re crossing the border to Turkey to shop and eat and shop s’more and eat s’more.

So they’ll be nobody to feed me.

Hey, I’m cool actually. I can live on mamak food. I was planning to buy a nice tandoori chicken with naan bread from this restaurant called Fazila Maju. I told that to Mak and was budgeting my finances (secretly, I still want to buy a paperback novel!).

Soooo, as usual before she flies to a land far, far, jet-plane-trip away, she made a feast big enough so I can make myself some sandwiches for the next day. Tandoori chickens.

Red hot from the oven!


Did Mak roast a whole bird? Yup, she did.

Her excuse was that tandoori chickens are much, much healthier than me making pies (can’t argue with that). Mak’s first tandoori chicken cooking was a melting failure and so I guess she’s trying to improve where she did wrong.

I’d say this one was great! It’s not as dry and flaky as the mamak tandoori chickens; quite juicy on the inside and meaty-chewy on the outside. She used a better tandoori mix too, great colour, spicy but not overly tongue-burning hot.

You should have seen the cooking pan under the metal bar-trays thingy used to cook the chicken on it. All the bird fat dripped on it was black and brown to a crisp. I should have taken a photo but it was ugly and I was too distracted by the chicken itself (I’ll have to scrap it clean later too, urg...)..


Yummy setting.


Mm-mmm, better than KFC...

Ayah went out to buy freshly baked naan bread from the mamak. Hehe, I guess I’ll know what Mak will be trying to make next!

Too bad we don’t have instant spicy mint sauce mix so the meal would have been perfect. MySis came for dinner too, since she and I were going to send Mak and Ayah to KL International Airport after evening prayers. And she came early after work too, since she heard that Mak was making tandooris.

So there you have it. Mak may not cook for an extensive family anymore; instead she emulated new food and styles of cooking. MySis inherited her baking skills (once she finds a really good oven for her small kitchen, she’ll be making chocolate-smothered brownies and fruity pavlovas again) and I guess I’ll more into casseroles and meat dishes.

Note2self: Must learn to cook this and get it right before next family reunion/meeting open house at Batu Arang. I now got married cousins to impress.
*hehehe!*


Oh yeeeeeeaaahh! Did I mention that she also made some home-brewed pineapple juice? Of course, she’s anak Pontian...

Games Review: Magic Match Adventures by Oberon Media

Hoooome Aloooooooooooone!!

At last! Gone! Whoosh! Sayonara! See ya!

This is me in a very empty semi-D house for the next 2 weeks. Junk food for dinner and 7-Eleven slurpee for breakfast. It’s like cuti-cuti kosong all over again. Too bad I have no bigger plans than play games, shop for jeans and read paperbacks.

Heh, I’ll let you know if I have anything new to report, but first I’ll like to blab about a really nice game I’ve been checking out during that Thurday’s day off.

Generally, when it comes to writing reviews, I choose games that are not too big on the gameplay and more emphasis on visuals and storyline. Which is a shame because gameplay puts the ‘game’ in the concept’s ‘play’.

Enough paragraph bladding, let’s get to the novel thing I tried out.

Magic Match Adventures by Oberon Media


Match 3 or more elements to accumulate enough items for the Red Spell.

I don’t always fall for the matching games, maybe because I’m kind of bad at it. The tool of the trade here is to be presented with a squarish board of various miscellaneous icons which the player must find the ones neighbouring each other in a set of 3 or more sequence.

If you’ve played games like Bejeweled 2, Cradle of Persia, Zuma or even Sushi Do, I betcha you get what I mean. Though I can fall for a pretty visual and a charming tale (ladies, beware), I can’t judge a game by those two only.


If you’ve suddenly turned careless, Evil must be afoot!


It’s up to you to save the Imp World because everybody’s too busy playing...

Magic Match Adventures is the third game in the series created by Oberon Media, one of the fanciest game-makers you can download online in the current market. This game is a story all by itself and you don’t have to seek out their previous installments to get immersed into the story.

You are welcomed into the Imp World with this ridiculous kiddie song that must have been a reject from the Wiggles TV series (I knew from that moment that Sound/Music is no biggie in this game’s development). The imps, who looked like a product union between chimpanzees and hobbits, are having a party in each of their homeland.

However, an invisible gremlin seemed to have jinxed all their preparations for the festival. Water pumps broken, row boats getting out of control, carts broken, merchandise malfunction and all other sort of absurdities of which nothing but a Red Spell can’t fix.

And yes, you’re the guy who’s going to save the fiesta.


Every imp community uses different elements in their Red Spell potion.


If you’re good at this, you get a trophy for certain milestones.

For an arcade-type game, the storyline is not bad at all. I liked watching the imps at work from my bird’s eye view and they’re as interesting in their antics in all levels on the Cute Factor. The gameplay, enhanced with potion grabbing, mana gathering, spell-casting and iced squares (that one bugs me the most) is definitely a new plus in the matching genre.

Ooo, not to mention that there’s 4 boss battles you’ll have to face too (match your stuff before your opponent does!).

Storyline, very nice; gameplay, very interesting, not bad at all. Visuals? The combination of 3D characters and 2D environment is a nice touch. But it’s the Sound/Music that severely irks me.

I think the music is supposed to make it look cute and one would have thought this is a children’s game. But it isn’t at all; gets damn difficult as you level. The sound effects is nothing grand; in fact the drum pounding indicating me running out of time just agitates me somemore.

I guess the producers know that majority of us rather play with the sound off anyway. Heh.


Yay, you saved the Water Imps. Now run! Go save the other before they make you eat their sun-dried sushi!


The trophy room, naturally, chronicles your achievements to date.

Overall, I like it enough to stick around for a complete finishing, a first for me considering it’s a matching game. In fact, it’s actually really addicting, refreshingly addicting, outrageously addicting.

Oooooo, addicting. What a dangerous thought.

At least my wardens are gone for 2 weeks! *hehehe!*

PS: Downloads for this game can be found at Reflexive Arcade. If you want the cracked version, ask me nicely.

There’s a Fort in My Room

There are at times when I believe that the world that knows me is out to get me. Whatever sin I’ve committed to deserve this absurd punishment, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again, I promise, on my word as a blogger and yada-yada-yada plus sugar on top.

I had to babysit my nephew.

ARRRRGGGHHH!!

Let me give you an introduction to this menace of my current life.

Name: BabyNabil
Age: Terrible ‘2’s, will turn 3 this June
Gender: Male
Status: Only child until little brother comes in May
Intelligence: Too much of it
Energy: He’ll kill the Energizer bunny first

And I tell ya, a kid like this is the best walking advertising for practicing safe sex. The last time, it was vomit on the staircase. This time is less messy but equally obstructive.

His Space is in My Space.

Beyond the blanket/tent is the life force of half what I exist for, namely my Hewlett Packard PC. Unfortunately, Lord Shrimp here had just marked his territory between the bed and the PC desktop, proclaiming the corner as rightfully his in the name of God and Clan Nabil.

This castle/tent/thing had to be erected with adult help (and when I find out which, I’m going to get my hands on that adult, one way or another) which is pretty much big enough to hold him and his feline guardsman.


Tiger on the prowl.

And wenches wishing to pass his territory shall be subjected to servitude towards the 3-feet-high and mighty king. Even his aunt. I started by tickling him to giggling fits and whacking his soft, developing body with a pillow as big as him.

Okay, so there are times when I do like having my baby nephew in da house. But usually he and I have a mutual agreement that ‘da house’ has a second bedroom that’s strictly off limit to anybody in Pampas diapers and headless Ultraman action figures.

I guess I can give leniency for today, as long as he doesn’t mess with my computer.


Oh crap, did he just turned my PC on?

Recipe: Chicken Tartlets

Yeah, this one’s an overdue recipe of the damn yummy chicken tartlets I’ve had ages and ages ago. One of it being was that the white sauce recipe was a kill to make and so I needed to substitute something that’s equally creamy but less time-consuming to boil and stir.

Here goes nothing...

Ingredients:
(The filling)
3 Potatoes
One packet of Ramly mince chicken (defrosted to room temperature)
Finely chopped onions and garlic
Some canned mushrooms (all chopped)
One can of Campbell mushroom soup
Frozen mixed veggies (defrosted)
(Spices)
One dried basil leaf
Some dried rosemary

Instant frozen pastry roll (defrosted to room temperature)
Some foil pie cups for the tarts (I got mine at Tesco hypermarkets)

Serves: A lot

1. Firstly, to the potatoes! Peel all 3 of them and cut them into tiny square chucks, each no bigger than the nail of your little finger.

2. Next, fry the chucks of potatoes into hot oil until they’re half cooked (more yellow golden than golden-brown).

3. Remove all the potatoes from the pan and then start frying the chopped onions and garlic until they’re soft and fragrant.

4. Add in all the mince chicken to the pan and fry the meat. When the chicken is half-cooked, add in about a cup of the mixed veggies and keep on frying. Once the meat and mixed veggies are well mixed-in and soft, add in the half-cooked potato chucks and the chopped canned mushrooms.

5. Reduce the pan to low heat. Open up your can of mushroom soup and dump the whole can into the pan. Add water to only about a third of the soup can and pour it into the mix. The filling should be soft and gooey. You can decide how thick you want the filling by adding water or letting it cook longer to dry the water.

6. For some fragrance and taste to the filling, add the dried basil leaf and scatter some dried rosemary. Mix everything well.

6. After the filling is cooked, leave it to cool in the pan and start on making the tartlet pastries. Use the foil cups to determine how big you want to cut circles in your pastry dough roll. Make sure the dough circles are larger than the foil cups.

7. Mix some egg white with a little bit of water. Use this mix to coat the foil pie cups so that the pastry won’t get stuck to the foil cups when you want to eat.

8. Arrange the pastry dough into the cups. You may have to pinch the pastry on its side walls to make it fit into the cups.

9. Pour in the filling into the cups, as much as you think the foil cups can handle.

10. Next, pull some long strips of pastry and place them cross-sectioned on the pies. Usually about 4 strips each. This is to prevent the pie from getting too dry during baking and keep the pie in one piece when you want to take it out of the foil pie cups.

11. Okay, now set your baking oven to about 190’C. Place the pies on an oven tray and bake them until the pastries are nice golden brown. Serve while still hot, but it’s also great as a picnic food.

Original Link: Invaded by Chicken Tartlets!