Of Clownfish and Broken Cameras

Well it's Independence day over here in Malaysia. I'm back from the islands, I have a nice tan, a camera that doesn't work properly anymore and a hole in my thumb where a parrot-fish decided to take a chunk of skin off from. Yeah, there must be something about me that makes animals wanna take a piece of me home with them. First the squirrel, now the fish...

I regret to announce my old 2 Megapixel Fijifilm finally kicked the bucket on the island trip. It refuses to mount on my comp anymore, so my pictures are stuck in the camera with no way of getting them out :( So no piccys until I find a way to. Sorry.

But all in all, the trip was great, the company pleasant and wildlife fantastic. Perhentian is one of the more undeveloped islands in Malaysia, and the chalet we stayed in only had the basic essentials, but we never spent much time in the chalet anyway. Typically white coral beaches, (with lumps of coral that makes running around barefoot a bad idea), clear blue water and lots of lots of corals and fishes. We were lucky with the weather, during the day it was sunny and clear, but every night we'd get a full-blown tropical storm which, being on an island, was ten-times more powerful than if we had been on mainland.

I was lucky enough to get to dive with sea turtles (it's turtle season now) and a LOT of VERY colourful fish. Sea turtles are awesome! Luckily I could dive so I could see them up close without having to wait for them to surface and breathe, but we saw them do that anyway. The thing that stunned me were how HUGE they were. The only I followed must have had a shell at least 3 feet in diameter.

It was interesting to note Pixar has pretty much caused the clownfish to be practically renamed 'Nemo' now, because everytime someone spotted an anemone with clownfish in it, they'd yell out (once they got their snorkels out of their mouths) "NEMO! I found a Nemo!". But clownfish are adorable. There were two species of clownfish in Perhentian, the timid smaller species and the other, larger, and more agressive half-black one. But they're still cute, and I don't think there's anything cuter than a baby clownfish the size of the nail on your pinkie finger. You could hear the squeals from my sisters (and admittedly, myself) even underwater.

Plenty of birds too! Aside from the majestic sea-eagles, we spotted Brown Boobies (don't laugh) and Greater Crested Terns, which the locals called camar. I had a great view of them when we were diving at Shark Point; but we were unlucky and didn't see any sharks. Even my bleeding finger from where the parrot-fish bit me didn't help attract them any.

I think I want to get my PADI licence next year if I can. It's sure worth going back to Perhentian for. The best part is that the whole journey, including the 30-minute speedboat ride from mainaland, takes only 2 hours from my house.

God bless Malaysia.

Island!!!!!!

Going on a short trip to Pulau Perhentian. I'll be gone for 3 days to a nearby tropical island for a short holiday. White coral sand beaches, coral reef snorkelling, kayaking, island hiking here we come!!!

(Don't worry, my buffer is nice and thick, and I have most of the next batch pencilled, and gadding about a few days won't affect the update schedule as long as I don't screw up)

I'll bring my camera so maybe some pictures later.

A Nice Day to be Alive

It's cloudy outside, so the scorching sun can't get through. It's pleasantly cool. The birds are singing.

I should be updating Webcomic Finds, writing Chapter 4 and working on the buffer. I should be working on my 3rd year project. Or maybe Gear.

But I'm suffering from some kind of back strain. My back muscles stiffen up painfully when I sit in front of the computer.

Ah, screw it.

I'm going to sit in the grass and do nothing. And enjoy it. It's my life, after all.

*prances off*

Have a nice summer, guys.

Formula One Sunday!

Hungarian Grand Prix today! *wiggles in excitement* I can't help it! Even if Schumacher M is dominating...

Other than that it's been pretty quiet here, although I suspect it may be because the tag-board keeps going on the blink before anyone can post anything.

Other than that, I'm happy to announce the exisitence of two of my secret projects: My guinea pig and my sort-of-journal.

Guinea Pig is actually the paper comic I was doing back in 2000 before I started on The Jaded. For a period of almost three years it went titleless unless Mos finally pestered me to give it a name. Now dubbed The Longest Sojourn, I've finally put it up for all to see. Feel free to laugh at them. Or enjoy them, despite the bad art and unplanned writing. Mos does like this one more that The Jaded, mainly because it unconscientiously takes the piss at a lot of cliched comics. Updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, until I run out of the pages I've accumulated over the period of 3 years.

Webcomic Finds is more of an experimental journal I'm planning to keep. It's sort of the review site, but the reviews expressed on it are more of my opinions. And like I said, it's really more like a travel journal than anything.

By the way, I must point out, that THIS is one of the best examples of wordless storytelling I've seen in a while. Bow to Clint-sensei!!

Anyways, enjoy the comic and see if you can guess who's the baddie. I should be getting a new contest up soon, keep an eye out for it.

We're all human after all

For those of you who missed it: Scott Kurtz's announcement: Scott Kurtz Offers PvP For Free.

Also interesting is the resutling discussion here. At any rate, it was interesting to gauge the reactions... some were supportive, some were disdainful... some were pouncing on every chance they could to denounce Scott as a hack who only published his stuff in the net because he couldn't sell it to the papers.

Frankly, I think when people start making jokes about my name it's the end of intelligent conversation... ;) At any rate, all the yammering in the world will make no difference. I say actions speak louder than words. To paraphrase what I was said to another cartoonist:

They said you can't do it. You say you can. I say to Scott: Go out there and show us you can! That'll speak volumes more than any words ever could.

Maybe it'll be the death of newspaper comics, but I highly doubt so. Things that drag on forever are far harder to kill than one would suppose. Besides, death is sometimes preferable to extended zombified existence.

At any rate, change is coming. Whether it's a big change, or a flash in the pan. Only time will tell.

Raaaagh!! PING SMASH!!

You know, I don't know what's more annoying... certain people asking me how much I'm going to get from Graphic Smash in my next payment when I can't say or certain other people who keep asking me the same bloody ^&%$ing damn question EVERY DAY all the while hinting (and not too tactfully) that Joey Manley is actually using me to make himself rich.

I really hope Joey's cheque gets here soon. Not because of the money, but just so those annoying people would just shut up.

Honestly, since when did my money become everyone else's business?

--Ping, very very VERY irritated.

This is Not Right

I'm seriously considering giving up reading the news. The reason is that everything I read nowadays tends to be depressing as hell. To me at least.

This is Not Right.

This is Not Right.

This is Bloody Damn Just Not Right.

I'm just so sick of it. Coming on the heels of losing my dog of 14 years, it just hurts too much.

Would I be happier sticking my head in the sand and ignoring a world that seems to be going mad? No. But sometimes I wish I could, just to forget, even for a little while.

Site News

Massive update to the site, a facelift for all page, and a particularly massive one to the Gallery. Have a look so all my work in the last few days hasn't been in vain.