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Monday, April 16th, 2012
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6:41 am
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| Thursday, November 19th, 2009
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11:03 pm - NEXT STOP BASQUE COUNTRY
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Well I've been back in the old country for a few months now and man have things been busy. We're in our teams at school now and we're sticking into our animation productions for the year - just far too busy to post. But Malaysia eh? I'm happy I went. The lack of art interest there sucks baloney (the closest you'll get to arts out of people there are "Media Students"), but the weather's nice and the food's awesome.
Also, Singapore is like, the shiniest cleanest most well kept city I've ever seen. Nick named "Disney land with the death sentence." - but at least they have art.
And speaking of cities, I've had the drop on me, on a last minute whim I signed up for the Spanish school exchange. I'm off to Donostia-San Sebastian in seperatist Basque Country, just off the border with France, work experiencing at some kind of animation studio I haven't done any research on... but I hear they've won awards. Fun for January!
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
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12:23 pm - Lolaysia
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Sitting in Bahrain airport's transfer lounge, waiting for my flight to Heathrow, watching folk on their last call to Tehran, big beards and full black burkah's all the way - some of whom I just flew with from KL without one hijab in sight.
Well that's Malaysia done with. 3 weeks of strange experiences and strange people calling me family. I went over to see family and family I certainly saw, it was non-stop journeying from house to house for the last few days and I saw a family numbering in the hundreds. It was an experience - an experience I feel privileged to have observed. But I don't know... Even though I saw and spent time with so many welcoming people, I never felt so alienated.
"Hello"
"Salamat Hari Raya, [who are you?]"
"[He's a cousin, son of Auntie Farida, from London]"
"[Does he speak Malay?]"
"[no]"
"[oh, where's the food?]"
And countless more variations on the above. This experience has made me feel less Malaysian than ever before - and at the same time even less English. White folk saw me as local, the locals saw me as white folk. I can't help feeling the need to have an identity, I just don't know where mine is.
Malay national dress. It's basically a kilt crash landing in 1900 Iran.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, September 18th, 2009
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4:57 am - Malaysia Malaysia Malaysia
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Malaysia. It's between Thailand and Singapore.
It's been a funny trip. I arrived with my sister two weeks ago and our first few nights were a hectic spin around with family I've never met. 32 direct cousins I never knew! It's crazies. They're all so Malaysian. And by Malaysian I mean half the family call themselves Indonesian and the other half Malay. But you know how that goes. In many ways I feel Malaysia to be what the US is in its soul: everyone owns a car, the public transportation sucks, everyone's an immigrant, the food's super cheap, and half the people are pretty dang religious.
Um. There I imagine the similarities end, considering that we're talking the Asia Pacific here and the religious half are Muslims with their own separate Islamic police force. Religion is compounded by the fact I'm visiting during the fasting month - if my family break their fast in public they can get fined. Indeed, drinking water is a crime here.
Besides all that, the biggest shock so far hasn't really been the religion, or the police, or the dirt, the drugs, and the terrible transport and traffic jams; the biggest shock was visiting the most welcoming family I've had here and seeing them support a family of five, two with special needs on a single Malaysian Taxi budget. I can't imagine that's more than £30 a week. It brings it home, that old catchphrase that we in the west are rich? Yeah. We are. But only if we change it to Ringits and head to the Pacific.
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
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1:11 am - Malaysian
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So yeah. I suppose you guys know I'm half English on my dad's side and half Malay on my mum's - well I've been meaning to write something on it for some time now. What with seeing my family for the first time in Malaysia looming up on me next week, it's pressing on my mind.
I realise being half something is hardly special these days, it's been around since humans ever got together, but in comparison to the confidence my parents express in their own background it's hard to feel the same. Having black hair, slightly slanted eyes and tinted skin, I can never say I'm fully English, sure, I know all the jokes, the secret hand signals, and I never eat the last crisp on a pub table, but I'm not white. English being as polite as they are don't often ask where you're from, but the question is on their mind, and being in London, not everyone's English enough to stop themselves asking.
So as always I answer "half malay". Frankly, I don't know what that means. I've never been there and the occasional family visit every decade doesn't shine much of a light. Beyond the dark skin and a funny taste in food, I just don't know. Looking to my mum it seems to be beaches, conservative religion, sexism, racism, durians, and a terrible work ethic. But that's my mum. Looking at pictures it seems to be humidity, rainforests, tall buildings, and more beaches. Looking at history, it seems to be British colonialists and jealousy against the Chinese followed by an economic boom and lovely beaches.
Where am I going with all this? Well, I don't want to say my visit to Malasyia next week is going to solve all this and give me an identity, it won't, it won't make me whole, it won't make me grounded and steady and understand what it's all about. I'll still wonder what it is to be a halfie or even just a something - but perhaps the next time someone asks what's it like over there, I'll answer like any true Malaysian "it's hot".
I'm waiting out the last weeks till the flight at my parents near Heathrow; have some drawings
You know how parents sigh when they see their children messy and disorganised? Yeah. I get that feeling every time...
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
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4:22 am
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Sketches for a picture I've been meaning to do for pretty much the whole holiday so far.
It'll get done but there's kinda a rainforest in the way.
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
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2:53 am - Fucking Yes
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Characters from The Wire - signed by David Simon and George Pelecanos after a talk at the Prince Charles Cinema covering their television series.
They both said "wow" - I am so happy.
David Simon also stood next to me and brushed pass my arm while I was waiting trying to wing my way into a sold out venue. See the talk on youtube soon, it was awesome. I now feel team based writing is not a bad thing at all.
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
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3:20 am - Figures
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| Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
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9:26 am - Back pages!
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Bring on the pages of school notes.
 
On the left, attempts at McNulty. On the right, bird thingies and a French lady on the TGV to Paris.
I'm at that stage in drawing where I think I'm a lot better than I actually am - where it's all "Oh yeah that's no problem that's easy" and then it's all "fffffffffffffffffffff-" - actually I don't think I've ever left that stage.
McNulty has a difficult face.
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, July 10th, 2009
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4:21 am - Nearly goodbye book 5
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| Friday, July 3rd, 2009
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7:56 am
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If you don't know W40k, turn back now.
I just read Love Can Bloom - a W40k fan fic based on a Vindicare assassin falling in love with an Eldar Taldeer from Dawn of War. It took me far too many hours to finish and it's now 8 in the morning and the damn thing turns out to be incomplete -
GOD DAMN I WANT THERE TO BE MORE.
Don't make me read the sub-fan-fics.
I know I will.
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, June 27th, 2009
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3:33 am
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| Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
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1:38 am - The open source ocean
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My explorations in Linux have lead to this short little 3D movie. What reason is this movie worth looking at? Why you may ask? Why should it waste your time?
Well, computer 3D is often considered expensive and inaccessible, programmers don't come cheap and neither do animators. However this short was made with an open source 3D animation program called Blender - in fact every piece of software and asset behind this film is open source, free, available, and editable. You can go over there now and download everything that made that movie. It feels strangely satisfying.
I think it's about time I looked at going 3D again.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Sunday, June 21st, 2009
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3:21 pm - Annecy et votre vissage
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As an adorer of film and a first film festival, I don't think you could do any better than Annecy. Annecy Animated Film Festival, the Cannes of the animation world, is out in the French Alps and one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The ice cream is sublime, the backdrop is a fresh water lake with mountains set against an ancient French-Italian-Swiss kind of border town, with influences from all three - and the cinemas, oh my the cinemas. They are the best cinemas I have ever seen. Coupled with the fact it's ALL animation and not to mention their love of comics and it all combines to a cultural cartoon geek's wet dream.
I loved the place so much my arms developed an alergic reaction and I spent half the time dousing myself in icey water. But hey! The movies.
This year Coraline and Mary & Max won jointly the Annecy award, which is reasonable. I didn't get a chance to watch Mary & Max, the story of an Aspergers 40 something American developing a pen pal friendship with a little girl in Australia, but the reviews were positive and I'm glad Coraline didn't win outright. Coraline didn't really have the emotional punch other movies in the festival did, but it was definitely solid and technically amazing.
Blah blah tldr; I am amazed. Annecy amazes me.
PICTURES
And have a montage courtesy of a generic promotional agency: Film d'ambiance Annecy 09
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, June 6th, 2009
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9:29 pm - ffffffffffffffffff-
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9:07 pm - ttyl FRANCE
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| Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
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3:16 am
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| Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
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1:23 am
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| Sunday, May 24th, 2009
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9:47 pm - Je suis un foo'
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Lo. I went to the big Manga Comics & Media Expo at the Excel centre in London on Saturday. I arrived at the steps to see hundreds and hundreds of naruto head bands and enough hair spray to fix a herd of elephants. Even in my finest animator attire I felt under dressed wading through thousands of costumes to the entrance. Apparently they were trying to set a world record or something. Also, lots of them wanted hugs.
So, yeah, once I was there it was cool. It was big. It was highly anime centric. They still wanted hugs. But it had a small tho quality indie comics section, even Claude was there, so I was happy. However I didn't bring any money, so I went to the cash machine and-oh shi- where's my cards? I swear I had them in my coat I'd been swinging around on my arm all day. OMG I HAVE BEEN LOOTED.
I then spent most of the day moping around looking for my cards, telling everyone and being all unhappy and getting empathy discounts. I then went to cancel my bank cards, called my Dad first to send me my bank details and check if I didn't leave my cards at home. He checked, no luck not there, I canceled my cards and all was sad.
Then I got home and hey, there on my desk, right in the middle. My dad had checked all my books, my shelves, under my table, behind the wiring. And there it was. Right there.
HURRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Chopping up my debit card. Feels good man.
P.S.
I'm running Windows Starcraft in Ubuntu - it feels like I'm looking at Windows running around in a little Linux aquarium. It's so cute.
Also - Linux is STILL the easiest operating system I have ever used.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, May 15th, 2009
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4:20 am
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lagthenoggin's journal
