Old Friend With A New Soul

I was down south last weekend visiting my dad. Met an old friend, a Roland MP-600 electronic piano that I used to practice on during the 70's for my classical class. Not too fond of the electronic sound but it was the only piano that I could practice at night with the headphones on without waking up the neighbours. In 2005 I retrofitted it with a microcontroller, LCD display and a specially designed interface to connect to modern sound modules and computers via MIDI. Now it can pretend that it is a Steinway or Boesendorfer. Here is my original schematic: http://www.imagefuse.com/info.php?id_pic=11837.

Ships Of 'Paradise'

Finally done modelling all three ships for the feature trailer 'Strangers In Paradise'. Primary model done on Rhino and will be completed in Maya for the finer details and texturing. From left to right, the Pirate Boat, the Main Ship & the Ghost Ship. These are ships that sailed around the waters of South China Sea in the 1800s.

Spicy Sunday

Found a new recipe from the Pakistani collection. No fancy name. Just Ginger Chicken. I was quite curious about the initial preparation. The meat is boiled in water rather than fry with oil or ghee. Though oil and butter are added later. I suggest to go easy on the pepper for those who cannot tolerate hot & spicy. For my standard it is just below the devil's mark. It is tasty with a slight variation of my usual spicy food. Here are the ingredients and operation manual:

Ingredients:
chicken 1/2kg
green chillies 3-4
turmeric (haldi) powder 1/4 tsp
garam masala 1/2 tsp
coriander(dhania)leaves 1/2 tsp
chinese salt 1/2 tsp
oil 1/4 cup
butter 2 tbsp
tomatoes 3-4
ginger 1/4 cup (chop)
garlic/ginger paste 1 tbsp
black pepper 1 tsp
salt 1 tsp
ketchup 1 tbsp
yogurt 1/2 cup
red chillies 1 tsp

Method:
In a pan add chicken, ginger garlic paste,tomatoes cook until water dries. Then add chinese salt, salt, red chillies, black pepper, turmeric powder, butter, oil cook until oil separates. Then add (whipped) yogurt, green chillies, ketchup, tiny slices of ginger, garam masala, cook on medium heat for 3 mins. Then garnish with coriander leaves and serve with raita and naan.

A YouTube Weekend

Yesterday I just hang out with fiends at home. We were talking about music and try to interpret things like Procol Harum's 'A Whiter Of Pale'. It is still an enigma especially by today's generation. Then we visited http://www.youtube.com/. It is quite a surprise that there are also many retros there. I finally got hooked when I learned that I can download the clips and save it on my hard disk. Y'all can try this software at http://www.goldhunt.fsnet.co.uk/Grumpy/youtube.htm

Amin Shahab and His Longest Artwork

This evening I had a dinner meeting with my old friend Amin Shahab and the Ambassador of Yemen at Hotel Le Meridian in KL Sentral. Amin is doing the longest artwork about human civilisation. The artwork when finish would be 1 km long to be presented to the Malaysian government as a gift on the 50th Independence Day or the 'Merdeka Day' as it is known here. He was discussing with ambassador his next research trip that includes Yemen, Mecca and Pakistan. His Excellency gave some insights about Yemen. The food was interesting especially it was Middle Eastern all the way. I thought I saw a belly dancer :)

'Strangers In Paradise' Opening Scene

Here's my first preview for RK Studio's 'Strangers In Paradise' for 2007. Mostly done in Maya except the stormy clouds which was done on Vue 5 Infinite. I need to work more details on the clouds as our director Kumar requested. I will try the Cloud Shader in Maya next time.

The Islamic Exhibition

Went to the 'Golden Age of Islamic Science and Civilization Exhibition' at KL Convention Centre. The exhibition is mostly about astronomy and medicine. A fair effort but it was quite a huge turnout. People said that in KL the ratio of woman is more than man, it is clearly shown here.

At Home In Petaling Jaya

So finally we are in 2007. Not feeling any older. Just an advanced youth. Got to start something new before I grow older. Why not a blog? Let all friends and family living somewhere in this universe know what I am up to lately. Well I am now living in Petaling Jaya, Section 14, just outside of Kuala Lumpur. Up on the 14th Floor of Millenium Place is where I stay. Just beside Asia Jaya train station. That's my room you are looking surrounded by all my toys. While at work or play looking over the city lights and the big wide sky.