Okay. After returning back from Sarawak a week ago, I was meaning to immediately write in my journal how awesome my experience had been in Kuching, Sarawak, traveling around places and such. Instead, my busy schedule had only gotten worse.

See, my parents still need to inspect our soon-to-be new house before our "official" moving day at the end of this December. This is important because we need to watch over those workers as they slowly renovate our house, making sure that they don't accidentally screw-up while in the job. In the weekdays, my father needs to go to work as usual, so he's unable to accompany my mother while she's inspecting that house. My mother doesn't want to be alone, so I have to take my father's place. Which means I'm having to leave our current house -- and away from my computer and the Internet -- every weekdays.

It's maddening!

I do hardly anything at all while being there, besides occasionally helping my mother do some stuff like carrying a few things around the house. My presence there is mainly just to accompany my mother, keeping her from feeling too lonely as she inspects the house. Most of the time, I only sit there while messing around with my PSP and DS, which luckily I always carry them around as I travel, to let the time passing by. We usually don't return back home (back to our current house) until sunset.

So, for the moment, I'm afraid that I can't be online as often as I usually can. Another bad news, my father just told me that there are no phone lines yet in that housing estate where our new house is located. So it's doubtful whether or not I'll be able to find a way to access the Internet after moving there. Only time can tell. But hopefully, I'll be able to find a solution by then.

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Well, this is probably the best excuse why I haven't been posting much art lately...

It has been confirmed that my parents and I will be moving to that new house we've purchased on this December at the end of this year. We haven't completely moved-in yet; until then, we'll be constantly busy preparing this new house, from fixing new curtains to fixing new ceiling lights. It's tiring, but until we move on this December, I'll have to deal with traveling back and forth between our current house and our new house within this period. I'm not sure if I'll be able to access the Internet there... Until then, let's not worry about this yet, but hopefully, I'm sure I'll be able to try to find a way to access the Internet from there.

Tomorrow, on October 22nd, my parents and I will be traveling to Penang Island for a 1-2-night stay there, to attend one of my cousin's wedding party held in Kedah on the next day.

And on October 25th, my parents and I will be flying to Kuching, Sarawak, for 3 nights. Of all states in Malaysia, I haven't traveled to Sarawak, the biggest state in Malaysia, yet, so I'm taking this chance.

Oh, and October 27th is my 25th birthday. (And yes, I'll be celebrating my birthday in Sarawak.)

Update: My parents corrected me during the trip, so I wasn't able to correct this journal. Actually, I don't go to Kuching on this 25th. It's on this 27th, exactly right on the same day as my birthday. Anyway, now that I've returned home for a short while, I'll be taking this time to prepare myself for that trip to Kuching.

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Today, while returning home from the mall with my mother, I saw a dead dog beside the street.

ZOMG. A dead motherfucking dog. I hope I don't get any more bad luck today.

According to my mother, it may have died since yesterday. She had seen that same dead dog on that same exact spot yesterday, while driving around the street as usual.

It appears that Seto Kaiba had smiled again...

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I wish a happy Eid ul-Fitr for all my Muslim friends this year, maaf zahir dan batin. (In Malaysia, we spelled it as "Aidilfitri".)

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Sorry for the rather sparse updates. I haven't been drawing anything lately; I think it's because of having to fast during this Ramadan fasting month, which may have reduced my will to draw at the moment. Eid ul-Fitr is just around the corner now, though -- assuming that new moon occurs precisely as predicted by the moon observers, it's on September 20th -- so things should be back to normal by then.

Anyway, my parents and I may possibly be moving to a new house in Kedah somewhere in the middle of this October, or maybe on this November. Actually, we've already bought another house in Shah Alam, Selangor, and we were scheduled to move there on this December. However, my father recently got the news that he may be reinstated as a boss again, this time in Kedah, so we may have to move to Kedah instead on this October. No word about this yet, though. My father is still waiting for the letter of confirmation of his reinstatement. The move is only temporary, though: If everything goes well, we might stay there for only around 1-2 years. I shall update the news should there be more progress about this.

Another thing, I've been working my butt off on this animation I'm currently doing. It's just my fursona talking about animation itself, and it's meant to be my CV, should I plan to someday start seeking a job as an animator. The voicing is in English so that even my non-Malay-speaking fans can enjoy it, too, but also because some animation studios here required employees to have a good grasp of the English language. It utilizes several common Japanese animation techniques, mostly as experimentations. I'm not sure if animation studios in Malaysia would accept me for this, but it's not hurt to try, and I really want to promote more anime-inspired animation form in Malaysia. If you're interested to see how far I've been doing it, feel free to drop-by in MSN. (Y!M users may need to note me beforehand so I can also go online in Y!M, too, because I rarely use Y!M nowadays except for serious matters.) If it's finished, I could also upload it here in deviantART, too.

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2 days ago, Shah Alam city's phone network faced a major phone line outage, resulting in several houses in my area unable to make a telephone call via the usual phone line network. Consequently, what this also means is that even Internet connections that relied on the phone cable (such as dial-up and DSL) won't work, cutting several users, including myself, off the Internet.

Just a lame excuse why I wasn't around for 2 days. I miss my Internet connection so very much. Good thing they fixed it now.

In another unrelated news, recently, my PSP's memory stick's data suddenly got unexpectedly corrupted, deleting all savegame files which stored all of my game progress I've been saving for the last 3 years. Oh well... Nothing better than having to start anew again.

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Hello, I just wanted to apologize everyone about that pic. I really was very depressed when I drew it. Well, out of some advice from my friends, I've removed that pic.

That picture came to be, because I did something wrong that accidentally caused my friend, ~sailex, to be very angry. He claimed that I'm not his friend anymore, that he would unwatch me and all. I was terrified. For personal reasons, I will not reveal how and why it happened.

It turned out, though, that he had never unwatched me at all. In fact, he just couldn't bring himself to do it; he actually felt very guilty of it. As a result, he had saw that pic and was feeling ashamed. I would like to also thank my other close friends for their efforts to bring us back together.

I hope that something like this would never happen again...

Well, don't worry. Marwan is still fine. He can't die -- even after having a spear impaling through his stomach and bleeding -- because I'm not dead yet. His life is directly tied to mine. That bandage on his chest and back now might remain there for a few weeks, though.

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I've watched G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra yesterday. Awesome movie and anything , although that scene where they destroyed the Eiffel Tower (not a spoiler anymore because it's even in the official trailer) left me wondering if the producers had something against the French.

I remember the old days back when I was still a child when I used to watch this G.I. Joe cartoon series on TV, where rest can be assured that there will be no casualties (the, erm, laser bullets always miss! ), and the losing army is those who can't keep a straight face while laser bullets from the opposing army flew past them. It's a "who can stay their eyes open the longest" contest, except that lasers are involved! (I've read, though, that the comic series are significantly more violent, with deaths and anything.) I think the pulse guns shown in the movie are a direct reference to the laser guns in the cartoon series.

There's something that irked me, though: There's a huge scientific error occurred sometime within that movie. I'm not gonna say when that scene occurred, for spoiler reasons, but I'm gonna just say this: Ice don't sink! My father quickly pointed out that scene after that movie has ended. The only justification I can say is that they're actually not H₂O ice, but heavy water (²H₂O) ice. They look like water, smell like water, and even taste like water, but freeze them and drop one of these heavy water ice cubes into normal water, and they'll sink!

Well, besides that scientific error, it's a pretty okay movie, to say the least. Critics might hate this movie, though, much like they hated that new 2008 Speed Racer movie adaptation, although I seriously really enjoyed that movie.

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I'm updating this journal in order to provide a new repricing for my commissions. They are now as follows:

Sketches/lineart: $5.00 for one character, add $1.00 per subsequent characters.

Fully-colored art (anime cell-shading style): $10.00 for one character, add $2.00 per subsequent characters.

Fully-colored art (complex gradient-shading style): $20.00 for one character, add $4.00 per subsequent characters.

Backgrounds are now free of charge; however, I'll have to limit to only simple backgrounds for now.

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The spread of this virus has gotten alarming enough that it warrants a blog entry from me, because it's serious. If you have not heard about this virus, also known as the "swine flu", then it's obvious that you've been living under a rock, because by now, everyone should've heard about it: the situation is global. But, here are links from Wikipedia, just in case: [link] [link]

In Malaysia, this virus is also sometimes colloquially called the "hee-nee virus", based from pronouncing "H1N1" like a word. So far, the situation in Malaysia is quite bad, with over 1300 confirmed positive cases, and 4 people already died from the virus. Some schools in Malaysia had to be closed down after it was discovered that some students were found to have been infected by the virus as well. The Health Ministry of Malaysia has even urged Malaysians to avoid close proximity with other people, even wearing a mask in public if suspected for having that flu in order to avoid spreading that virus onto others.

Today, I was at the Mid Valley Megamall as usual with my parents. I'm all too aware about this virus, thanks to my parents advising me how to avoid direct contact with everyone in the mall. Which is going to be difficult, because that mall is very crowded. So, I was minding my own business, when suddenly, someone sneezed right at me! I panicked. I quickly emptied my lungs from air, rushed away from him, and even flickered my hand over my face to fan away the air. It wasn't until 10 seconds later that I found a spot with less people on it that I finally take a deep breath again. I hope I don't get infected as well... If I do, I plan to visit the hospital immediately, even if it's just a common flu.

Well, I'm posting this in order to contribute letting more people aware of how serious this situation has...

... gotten... WAIT!!! Edit: Okay, after getting some seemingly-reassuring comments, now I'm confused. Instead of replying to these comments, I'll just put my answer right here.

I've just read some more details about the H1N1 strain. Apparently, it's not really that deadly at all, so people claimed now. People who got infected by it usually recover after a time. In fact, we ourselves may have been infected by it right now, only we don't realize it. It's just that the media exaggerated the news, which is what caused the mass panic.

I think the recalling of the 1918 "Spanish flu" pandemic -- of which over millions of people died -- may have been the cause of this worldwide panic. The culprit virus? The H1N1 strain. Deja vu.

Maybe people today has more immunity towards that H1N1 virus now... I mean, 91 years has passed since then!

Well, blame it on the media as well, exaggerating simple news like that. And my parents really, really believe the news...

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Today, I've managed to meet face-to-face for the first time!

Yeah, considering that we both live in Malaysia and we are both able to visit Mid Valley Megamall in Kuala Lumpur, for months, Phil and I had been thinking of tempting fate and meet each other face-to-face for the first time in our lives there. To make it more challenging, he had refused to allow me to tell him hints of my IRL appearance, claiming that, this way, meeting each other for the first time will be a surprise. The only hints I've told him are that I can usually be found in the arcade room, that I like playing ParaParaParadise a lot, and that I always use a certain string of letters as my "arcade" nickname after getting a high score. (Hint: It's the initials of my IRL name.) This also made possible because it so happens that Phil was free on that Sunday, and my parents also happened to have decided to come on that very Sunday, so it's a lucky chance indeed.

He's exactly the kind of person I've expected, based from the way he typed his sentences during our MSN chats. He took me to a pet shop, and we talked about the various animals, birds and fish that was showcased there. The hamsters are darn so cute... Maybe that's why Hamtaro franchises are so popular. (He even mentioned that the gerbils there resembled my fursona, minus the tail. ) He was supposed to also take me to the bug section as well, but for some reason, that section was no longer there. (Maybe because it's a busy day for that pet shop on that time?) We've even discussed about the stuff we've usually talked about in MSN, though a bit limited because we're in public space.

Well, our meeting lasted for only 2 hours. (He had come just to see me.) But it was well worth it, really. If only we have more chance meetings like this.

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New song: Nikmatilah Detik Ini

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Before I begin, I wanted to say that I have nothing against the Arabic writing system at all, or any writing systems derived from Arabic, such as in this case, Jawi. Arabic is a beautiful script, that I agree. I often like writing my name in Arabic/Jawi: "مروان" Also, I can read Malay text written in the Jawi script, as all Malays had been mandated to learn Jawi so they can also read Arabic so that they can recite the holy Quran. However, because I'm far more used to the modern Romanized Malay script (known as "Rumi"), it took me up to 3-4 times the length of time it takes for me to read a Malay text written in Jawi than if written in Romanized Malay, because my brain was constantly busy figuring out the right vowels to use. Also, as always, what I've written here is purely my own opinions, and mine alone, so feel free to disagree.

So what is Jawi? Well, Jawi is an old form of writing system used to write the Malay language. It was lifted directly from that right-to-left, conjoined-letters Arabic writing system, with additional letters not found in Arabic. Historians agree that it was first used in around 1300, with the discovery of the Batu Bersurat Terengganu (Terengganu Inscription Stone), the first known earliest evidence of the spread of Islam in Malaya (then Malaysia). The Jawi script itself was strongly linked to the development of Islam in Malaya.

Nowadays, people barely use Jawi anymore, in favor for Rumi, the Romanized Malay script introduced by British settlers. (And people wonder why the number of people who read Utusan Melayu, currently the only newspaper in Malaysia that still uses the Jawi script, has dwindled.) Most Chinese and Tamil Malaysians can't even read Jawi at all. Recently, however, the Malaysian government is trying to largely promote the Jawi writing system, to keep that script from dying, promoting it as the "classical Malay writing system". But, really, the Malay language (and its derived dialects) was historically written in several scripts, such as Rencong (which I believed as the "true" classical Malay writing system), Rejang, Kawi and Pallava, which had existed long before the arrival of Islam in Malaya, but which are all now died out and no longer in use anymore.

About the Jawi script itself. Well, in my own opinion, Jawi is a terrible writing system. It's just not suitably tailor-made for the Malay language. The Malay language has 6 spoken vowels; this is represented by only 3 written vowels in Jawi, due to the fact that Arabic, the script it was based on, has only 3 vowels. As with Arabic, vowel letters are only used sparingly, so anyone who wanted to learn Jawi must memorize the correct vowels to pronounce on a word-by-word basis. In Arabic, vowel letters are used only to denote long vowels. The Malay language has no long vowels, so the use of vowel letters in Jawi are often quite unpredictable and are used mostly to avoid ambiguity between words that use the same consonants.

Spelling of some words in Jawi are not even fixed over the years, which is a nightmare for Jawi-Rumi dictionary authors. For example, the word "lima" ("five"). In Jawi, it's historically written like this: "ليم" However, this became a problem when they needed to transliterate a person's name, Lim, to Jawi, also written as "ليم". So what they did? They proposed to change the spelling of the word "lima" to "ليما".

I began to feel a strong antipathy against the Jawi writing system because the university I used to attend to is a major contributor in trying to promote the Jawi writing system. When I was at the end of the second-last semester, I was required to pick a topic from a list of pre-selected topics for my compulsory end-of-the-semester project. To my horror, over 70% of the topics are about developing software for teaching the Jawi writing system. I ended-up joining another friend to do this project for developing a software teaching kids about the Hajj, the gathering of all able-bodied Muslims to the Mecca, because I've been so desperate to pick a topic that has nothing to do with teaching Jawi. Originally written in Romanized Malay, the lecturers then forced her to change everything to Jawi, which gave her stress because she sucked in Jawi and had to consult with Jawi-literate experts to help her out. That is one attitude I don't like about us Malays: The assumption that Jawi must be related to... ]]> =zanoma http://zanoma.deviantart.com/journal/26021363/ http://zanoma.deviantart.com/journal/26021363/ Sat, 18 Jul 2009 07:41:41 PDT

For the sake of those who managed to be lucky enough to escape from getting spoiled by the revelation of a certain plot twist (which is very difficult, considering a certain Internet meme that's been spreading around), I'm not gonna mention what that is here in this blog entry. The way I wrote the title is a hint, though.

I've seen Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince today. I understand that, like most novel-to-film transitions, there will gonna be some minor plot changes, and even entire subplots be removed for the sake of trimming down the feature length time. Well, remarkably, they still managed to maintain that novel's original twist ending, which is a very important plot point, anyway, that should not be removed.

And guess what? It didn't surprise me at all. I knew all along it's coming.

You can blame the Internet meme for this. Since the release of that original novel book, within only a few days, the plot twist instantly became a meme, spreading around the Internet like wildfire. It became so common that practically everyone knows how the sixth book would end by now, even those who had never read the novels before.

Call me a sucker, but I admit, I prefer waiting for the movies to come out first, because I like watching all the action in front of my eyes.

Sorry, I just needed to get that out of my head.

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Unlike many artists, besides my fursona Marwan, I don't draw my original characters that often. In fact, many of my OCs are just one-shot characters -- I only ever draw them once, and just once, and never again after that.

In addition, most of my OCs aren't even meant to be publicly-known, either, only known between my close online friends, usually due to some embarrassing factors. One -- two -- of such cases are my Siamese twin characters, Tug and Heave. These two characters together were the first of my list of "private" OCs which I finally let the world know about them, just so that another friend of mine, who had done a lovely giftart drawing of them, can upload that giftart into his gallery.

Wanna know why I don't draw those twins nowadays? Ever since I've uploaded a picture of them, that picture got faved by people with... a peculiar fetish for conjoined characters. What a twisted world we're living in. See, that's why I don't like revealing my private OCs.

Well, maybe I really should start drawing my OCs more often. What do you think? As a bonus, I might even consider revealing more of my private OCs as well, if anyone are curious. It depends.

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New song: Nikmatilah Detik Ini

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Just discovered this yesterday from another friend: [link]

Whoa, fucking seriously, dude! This has gotta be the funniest (in a sadistic way) scary shit I've seen in YouTube since Angry German Kid. There are multiple copies of this video scattering about in YouTube -- the link I've provided is what I've deduced as most likely the original source coming from the rightful owner (because it's slightly higher quality than the rest, and having the earliest upload date).

So, the story is that this kid's mother decided to cancel his World of Warcraft account. (He's probably a really, really bad kid... serves him right.) Upon finding out about this, he flips out like crazy. His brother, being a bully, decided to secretly videotape him becoming a werewolf (without the transformation) in his room. (Oh yeah, the most famous part is when he even attempts to shove a remote controller up his ass. OMG! )

Some people think that this video has gotta be fake, especially with that "remote controller" part. I don't blame them; I think it's because of that kid's outlandish reaction that's just unbelievable. Me, I'm not quite sure... It does look real to me, though.

As with other memes, this one got subjected to lots of YouTube poops, which shouldn't be hard to find.

Really, in my opinion, assuming that this video is real, both kids should oughta be ashamed of themselves: The kid in that video, because he needs to remember that WoW is just a freakin' game, and his brother, for bullying him like that.

In the end, the moral of the story is that we should never let ourselves become too addicted to games. Addiction is unhealthy. Never let it consume your entire life. Otherwise, you'd become just like that kid in the video.

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New song: Nikmatilah Detik Ini

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Yesterday (Sunday), I went to the arcades as usual as my parents and I went to the mall, which we always visit once every weekends (usually Saturday, but sometimes Sunday). While waiting in line to buy some game tokens, I had a huge shock: A girl in front of me decided to pay RM100!

That's right, RM100 for 100 tokens, no less. RM100 wasted just for playing games all day long.

She even brought along a plastic bag, specifically instructing the vendor to fill it with those said tokens.

Where the hell did she get that RM100 banknote? I hope that she didn't steal it from her parents...

On that very moment, I thought to myself, what's gonna happen with today's youths? Unlike me, who only visits the arcade once every week, these teens get to visit the arcade every day! No wonder those Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3DX players there have like over 100,000km total progress mileage, while currently, I have only about 3900km mileage, even though I've visited that arcade for over a year.

If these teens are currently on the job or something, they better have a very high weekly salary, or all that money they got will be wasted for nothing but games. I recommend spending only 5% of your entire salary for games -- the lower the percentage, the better. Or better yet, don't even visit the arcade at all.

Parents should be monitoring their kids more often...

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So you are traveling in Malaysia. You feel hungry, so you see the first restaurant you can see that's nearest to you, and that happens to be KFC. You go in, and you place your order at the cashier for a regular Snack Plate meal.

Don't be surprised: The next question the cashier will ask is, "Do you want it original, or spicy?"

In fact, in many Asian countries like Malaysia (and possibly Middle Eastern countries, too), KFC offers the "Hot and Spicy", a version of the KFC chicken with extra pungent flavor. That's because pungent flavor (yes, that flavor that gives that "burning" feeling to your tongue) is an unusually popular flavor in many Asian countries, and so the Hot and Spicy chicken was made specifically to cater these tastes. The term "ori or spicy" has become a sort of meme in Malaysia, so much that the god-awfully terrible movie, Cicak-Man, uses it in one scene in a plot about human cloning (the "spicy" being the clones).

Of course, if you want the good ol' Original Recipe Chicken everyone loves, just say "original" to the cashier (duh).

McDonald's also strive to cater local tastes, too. See here and savor the long list of regional menus you'll never get to taste, due to not being in the countries specified. The Bubur Ayam McD (can be translated as "Chicken McPorridge") is very popular here.

Such globalization is important for fast food outlets to expand their empire to other countries, because all countries each will have different tastes and preferences, and to abide the country-specific laws and restrictions (such as having to prepare all foods as halal to attract the Muslim majority in Islamic countries, and no beef whatsoever in India). Some food outlets can resist such localizations and still be successful, but they'd probably won't be as successful apart from its country of origin.

Speaking of KFC again, in recent years, they even serve the Colonel Rice Combo, which probably meant to be KFC's interpretation of the nasi ayam, a popular dish in Malaysia.

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Finally. It turns out that I only need to call TM-Net's tech support. According to the operator who was on duty at the time, there's nothing wrong with my Streamyx Internet connection... Huh? I kept insisting to him that, really, I can't connect to the Internet at all. I told him everything, down to my modem's serial number, and even the fact that my DSL modem's DSL light isn't on at all. (My father was still believing on that time that it must've been the modem that's broken... He even almost bought a new modem because of this.)

The service was crappy: The operator kept telling me to do irrelevant things like checking my Internet connection's ping, and try loading Google even though I'm clearly not connected to the Internet. I guess that, considering that the operator can't see my computer, it makes sense for the operators having to do these totally irrelevant things to their customers. And most Malaysians are IT-blind, so yeah.

In the end, the operator only needed to reset my account's Internet connection status. It worked: Now my modem's DSL light lit-up like a Christmas tree, indicating that I can connect to the Internet once more. I opened Google, and it loads. I opened deviantART as well (obviously!) and it loads, too. I guess that there was something wrong with my Internet connection status after all, something which even the operator can't see.

The fact that it occurred rather coincidentally to TM-Net's service upgrade during the month of May had caused much misunderstandings, and had caused some arguments within my family. Well, the very first clue that there's something wrong with my Internet connection in the first place is that our neighbor was also using Streamyx, too, and there was nothing wrong with their Internet at all...

My father blamed me for not being responsible enough to call the tech support in the first place. Ergh.

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This sucks!

Right now, I can't connect to the Internet as usual, because my country's current broadband ISP, TM Net's Streamyx, is being offline for my area. Again. Since last Saturday. (And everyone wonders why lots of Malaysians complained about TM-Net's buggy services.) This sucks, because I've just came out of depression after watching X-Men Beginnings: Wolverine, and I really needed to browse the Internet to amuse myself so I can feel better again.

I really, really hope that it's because TM-Net is currently performing upgrades to their Streamyx services. In case you're wondering how I'm able to post this entry, I'm using dial-up on my laptop, because my usual desktop computer doesn't have an internal dial-up modem, forcing me to use the laptop whenever I need to use dial-up for emergency reasons.

I'm really sorry for anyone who had been waiting for me for days to show-up in MSN.

Edit: Recently, my mother told me one possible reason why my usual broadband Internet connection is down: While she was traveling outside to buy lunch as usual, she saw a few workers repairing the phone line in our area. That might contribute to why my broadband connection is down at the moment. Still, it's not a stretch to assume that TM-Net's current upgrading of their services to also be the reason, too, and the presence of those workers may just be a coincidence. Only time can tell.

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I've returned from Langkawi Island some many hours ago. It was a pretty fun trip there. I get to visit many places, like the Galeria Perdana, and the Underwater World Langkawi. We even traveled up Mount Mat Cincang via a cable car, one of the steepest cable car inclinations in Southeast Asia. Part of our tour was originally to also visit the late Mahsuri's tomb, but because of my parents' current abstention after visiting a local Muslim traditional healer months ago, we had to cancel that part of the trip.

It's been a long time since I've been to Langkawi; so many things have changed. My father said that some of the buildings that we used to visit in Langkawi when I was young (like that shopping mall where my father bought me a remote-controlled red car from) had long since been demolished, and were replaced by bigger malls.

Anyway, at the time I'm typing this, I'm feeling very tired. Got a long day after returning from the airport (my family traveled to and from Langkawi via an airplane). I should probably go to bed after typing this... Whatever happened to the love for this critter anymore?

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Please buy and download my song: [link] I will be uploading another original song after this, soon.

Commission details: [link]

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I think it's better that I post about this early, before I forgot.

This Saturday (that is, tomorrow), my parents and I will be leaving to Langkawi Island for three nights. That will actually be the second time I'll be visiting Langkawi; the first time was around 10 years ago (I forgot).

We'll be leaving the house at exactly 8:00 AM Malaysian Time (12:00 AM UTC/GMT, 2:00 AM CET (Daylight Saving in effect), 7:00 PM US Central Time (Daylight Saving also in effect), @041 Swatch Internet Time), so I won't be online by then.

I should be back on around this Tuesday.

See ya!

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Please buy and download my song: [link] I will be uploading another original song after this, soon.

Commission details: [link]

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I admit, I've been a fan of the Half-Life series.

Really, I'm quite pissed off with Episode Two's depressing ending. I've been waiting for Valve to continue their work on Episode Three, to no avail. Well, can't blame them... They've already stated that Episode Three will take longer to finish, so we can't expect Episode Three to finish any sooner.

But anyway, I found out that there has been some leaked videos of Episode Three already in circulation around the Internet. I finally managed to hunt some of them after some extensive searching in YouTube. You can watch them here:
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]

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Please buy and download my song: [link] I will be uploading another original song after this, soon.

Commission details: [link]

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There's one thing that I couldn't stand with some idiots in my country: People who pronounced the Malaysian currency -- the ringgit -- incorrectly.

Let's say, for example, some value of RM10.00. The official correct way to pronounce this value in Malay is "sepuluh ringgit", or "ten ringgits" in English, plain and simple. Some Malaysians, though, instead pronounced this as "sepuluh ringgit Malaysia" ("10 Malaysian ringgits"). I think it's because Brunei dollar is also called "ringgit" here... I think some Malaysians deliberately use the full name "Ringgit Malaysia" in order to distinguish it from "Ringgit Brunei" (Brunei dollars), so I can't exactly point this as a mistake. However, internationally, "ringgit" is widely understood to refer to the Malaysian ringgit alone, so there's no excuse why I think we should just say "sepuluh ringgit" alone in colloquial usage. (Also, in formal Malay usage, Brunei dollar is called "Dolar Brunei", anyway.)

What I do get pissed with, though, is when some idiotic Malaysians start pronouncing RM10.00 as "ar-em sepuluh ringgit". It's true that "RM" stands for "Ringgit Malaysia"; however, "RM" is also the official currency sign for ringgit, and should be treated as a single symbol, not two letters. "Ar-em sepuluh ringgit" in written form would be "R.M. RM10.00". See how silly that gets?

What's saddening is that even some professionals -- game show hosts, news reporters, etc. -- also used this incorrect way of pronouncing the Malaysian currency. My parents constantly like to mock people on TV who used this incorrect pronunciation.

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Please buy and download my song: [link] I will be uploading another original song after this, soon.

Commission details: [link]

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It appears that I no longer able to send messages through my main e-mail address, zanoma@tm.net.my. In an effort to combat spam, TM.Net, my country's ISP, itself has disabled port 25. I've already changed that to the now-recommended port 587. However, while I can finally able to send e-mails again, it doesn't seem to work...

Apparently, because of the large amount of spam that came from my country using the "tm.net.my" domain circulated all around the world, many ISPs have placed that e-mail domain under their blacklist. The bad side effect is that it also caused legitimate users like me no longer able to send e-mails anywhere, which is bad.

So, from now on, I decided to switch to my other alternative e-mail accounts which I haven't been using for years. I will be using marwangreencritter@gmail.com as my primary e-mail address this time for sending e-mails, and I also recommend everyone to also use that address to send me e-mails, too (so I can start using Gmail more often). However, you can still use zanoma@tm.net.my to send me e-mails, too, and besides, you'll still have to use that address to pay me via PayPal, anyway.

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Please buy and download my song: [link] I will be uploading another original song after this, soon.

Commission details: [link]

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I'm back from Malacca. Actually, my parents and I were not supposed to be home 'till Wednesday -- Somehow, we ended-up returning back home a day earlier. Also, actually, it's been over 8 hours since we've returned home. I just decided to take a long break first prior to writing this entry.

Actually, it's because we were unhappy with the current circumstances. We were supposed to stay in this luxurious hotel we used to stay in around 16 years ago. Well, nothing can stop the change of time: We were a little shocked to learn that that hotel no longer exists anymore. The entire hotel complex was converted into a university. The hotel building itself had become largely unoccupied; now it has been turned into an apartment of sorts, each room owned by different individuals. When my parents saw that building which is what used to be a hotel, they felt deeply saddened. We had good memories within that hotel. From what we learned, the owner of that hotel faced bankruptcy in 2000, so he was forced to sell that building.

So, instead, we ended-up staying in another hotel, just a block away. This hotel was in a sad state. It's reception area is quite poorly-maintained, with lots of dust, holes in the ceiling, and even the elevator is broken since 2 months ago. It has only 50 rooms, but only 20 are open for the public -- The rest are reserved as dormitories for students from that neighboring university I've mentioned above. Well, luckily, the room we stayed in is quite nice, though. The toilet floors are a little dangerously too slippery, though.

At least, we managed to do exactly why we traveled to Malacca in the first place: To travel around Malacca, and to get to "know" it better by visiting historical places there, even paying a visit to the site of the well-known A Famosa fortress, a fortress built during the time when the Portuguese used to seize power over Malacca. (The well-known gate is all that's left of it today.) We even visited a museum there that lets us learn more about Malacca. They don't call Malacca "a historical state" for nothing: It has lots of history, as you can read here for more info for anyone interested: [link] [link]

Well, I should take a rest now.

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Please buy and download my song: [link] I will be uploading another original song after this, soon.

Commission details: [link]

1. Status: 75% (Sorry this is taking a little too long. )
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Tomorrow, my parents and I will be leaving to Malacca for about 3 days. We'll be staying in a hotel there. We should be back again this Wednesday. See you next time. Bye!

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Please buy and download my song: [link] I will be uploading another original song after this, soon.

Commission details: [link]

1. Status: 75% (Sorry this is taking a little too long. )
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I decided to do a little shameless advertisement of my song, because I'm now trying to make a living to myself and my family, so please support me by considering buying it. Really, in another 3-4 years, my father will be retiring. Seriously.

After over 2 years, I decided to do another little update of my over 3-year-old song, Indah. It's currently my most favorite personal song I've ever written, and I always wanted to update it up to professional studio standards. The fact that I own FL Studio now made that possible. The catch? It's not for free.

You can get that updated song via [link] at its full 320kbps glory. The old 2007 version is still available for free, though. Future songs I write may also be pay-per-download as well, but I'm considering uploading lower-bitrate versions of those songs as well, because I'm generous.

I know, SoundClick.com might not be the suitable place for me to sell my songs from, but hopefully that won't be the only way I'll get my money, and currently, I'm trying to look for better means of selling my songs as well. Also, here, in deviantART, I'm probably planning to start selling Prints as well.

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Commission details: [link]

1. Status: 75% (Sorry this is taking a little too long. )
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Now that 2008 is gone, I hope that 2009 will be an even better year for all of us.

Anyway, here's my new year resolutions:

• Draw more drawings.
• Accept more commissions (and able to finish them quickly).
• Write better songs, now that I have FL Studio 8 (and make money out of them).
• Be more involved in the deviantART community.
• Meet new friends, preferably with the same interests as I am.
• Continue my comic, Cinta Pertamaku, because it's in hiatus way too long.
• And so on, which are just too long to include in this list.

Best wishes for everyone.

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Commission details: [link]

1. Status: 70%
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I decided to start a new entry, instead of editing the old one, so that comments for this current progression would not interfere with the old comments for that entry. That entry can be found here: [link]

Anyway, this is just in: I found out that, thanks to fans' extremely negative reaction against the Americanized redesign, Namco Bandai will not consider redesigning their beloved lop-eared character for the American release of the Wii remake of Door to Phantomile. Klonoa fans can now let out a sigh of relief.

I'm sure Namco Bandai has learned a hard lesson this time, kicking away that pointy-eared wannabe bastard who tried to pass as Klonoa.

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Commission details: [link]

1. Status: 100%
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Years ago, I once did a DA poll regarding whether many cartoonists prefer drawing characters with four or five fingers. Four fingers seemed to be far more common for animal characters, while five fingers are typically reserved for humans, although I've seen many cartoons on TV before with four-fingered human characters.

By now, you may have noticed that I've always drawn all of my own characters with five fingers. The reason? Simple: Forget about Disney saying that four fingers enable artists to draw hands with bigger and chubbier fingers, and all that stuff about why five fingers look plain "weird" for some cartoon characters. It actually started as an economical strategy. By reducing a single finger from each character's hands, animators would only have to deal with just the remaining four fingers, and thus able to animate faster. (Western animation puts more emphasis on faster, fluid animation, unlike Japanese anime, which puts more emphasis on as much character visual details as possible for each frames.) Somehow, this practice of drawing hands this way quickly got popular in the West.

The practice of drawing characters with only four fingers seemed to be quite rarer in Japan, however, even with made-for-kids funny animal characters. Sonic The Hedgehog has five fingers. Even Klonoa has five fingers as well. If you look closely, even Pikachu has five fingers, too! In fact, Zorori from the popular Japanese cartoon series, Kaiketsu Zorori, appeared to be the only exception I've seen so far (with only three fingers!).

I drew all of my characters with five fingers, because, well, we were born with five fingers. And it's also because it's my own preference, anyway, and I find five fingers appear more "correct" to my eyes compared to just four fingers. I admit, however, that it's also because if Klonoa has five fingers, then so should all of my own characters, especially Marwan. I don't believe in this economical crap.

Still, I allow everyone to draw my characters with only four fingers, if and only if they're just too used to drawing only four fingers -- It's a good thing that I'm an understanding person. Similarly, when it comes to drawing someone else's characters, if the artist had always drawn his/her own characters with only four fingers, then I'd draw them with only four fingers.

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Commission details: [link]

1. Status: 100%
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Yes, it's now open -- for real this time, people. Recently, after sometime thinking about it, I've finally opened a PayPal account for commission purposes.

Two months ago, I wrote a list of suggested prices I might take for every commissions I might do. Well, screw that. I realized that I gave the prices a little too high. Also, bear in mind that I do not work for linearts, so sketches and linearts mean the same thing to me.

Here are the final prices for now:

Sketches and linearts - $10 per character.
Full-color art - $30 per character. Add an additional $10 if you want me to add a realistic background characters can optionally interact with. (No charges for simple random backgrounds.)

Any payments can be made via PayPal by sending them to zanoma@tm.net.my.

I'm still new to this whole thing, so for now, I'll only allow a limited number of commission slots. Currently, I only accept the first three persons to request a commission from me.

Edit: Okay, after some advice from a friend of mine, I think I should mention why I suddenly wanted to start commissioning: Simple, I needed the money. (Don't we all?) In another few years, my father will be retiring from work... By then, it'll be my turn to support the family. I'm still currently a freelancer, and I'm not sure if, someday, I'm ready to endure everyday office life. (I've had bad experiences during my Industrial Training period, and I don't want to go through that again.)

Also, it has been partly a long-time dream of mine to start negotiating commissions with other artists. I admit, I really wanted to see how other artists depict my own characters, even if it means paying them to do so. So I needed to gather enough money so that I can afford to pay them a commission.

I decided to post commission slots so that everyone will know how many slots there are left (will be updated from time to time):

1. Status: 30%
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Now, I may not be a Klonoa fan at all, but this is surely a WTF moment when I found out about this rumor, and it'll surely gonna upset countless number of Klonoa fans. Before I begin, I bet that some of you are aware that there will be a Nintendo Wii remake of Door to Phantomile, to be released in Japan on this December. Well, recently, I heard of a rumor that, for the Westernization of Klonoa (so I heard), they're planning to do a complete redesign of him, completely sacrificing the very trademark features of him which fans have loved and associated with: His trademark long doggy ears. (They even removed his blue PacMan cap, too, which is unacceptable for most Klonoa fans.)

One of the many news about this shocking rumor, complete with an image of the redesigned Klonoa: [link]

This picture by ~FoxTails (drawn 2 years ago!) exactly sums up my reaction:


So far, it's not finalized yet, and I heard that they are taking a survey and debating whether or not to go for the new design, or keep the old one. If they somehow did decide to change his ears in the end, then at least I hope that he can still be able to fly with them. (Hovering is integral to Klonoa gameplay, after all.)

I'm back from Kulim. Everything was okay... well... almost. The day after the wedding party, my parents and I suffered a massive pain in our stomachs, followed by a bad case of diarrhea. I'm not sure how and why this happened, but it may be because of something we ate during that party. (Though, my father insisted that it must be the breakfast the hotel we've stayed in served in the morning.) Thank god it wasn't so serious, though my stomach is still feeling the aftermath pain at the moment I type this entry.

Oh, and today is my birthday.

Tomorrow (Friday), my parents and I will be traveling to Kulim, Kedah, for a 3-night stay there, because there'll be a wedding party there. See ya!

In case you may have not noticed, there's an asterisk beside my username now. Only this time, I'm the one who did it. With some help from my father.

This 1-year deviantART subscription is my first online purchase ever, using that debit card I've acquired. I've always wanted to buy something on the Internet, which was previously impossible due to my parents not understanding online payment systems, believing them to be not so safe (and of course they aren't completely so, which is why I need to be aware of card thieves and other dirty "phishing" tricks out there). My father was initially a bit paranoid after making the purchase, because this was our first time ever making an online purchase, and he was actually expecting for a "Verified by Visa" page to appear -- the debit card I'm using supports Visa payment method -- which didn't show up. I managed to convince him that deviantART is a legitimate trusted online community, though.

Anyway, I hope that this should be a good motivator for me to get myself drawing again. And also to hopefully someday officially start my commissions, to cover for the cost of the subscription I've purchased. (As of now, I still don't have a PayPal account yet.)