Lately the days have been really kind to me, and so have the people around me. I haven’t written about quite some goodness in my life of late.

Some time back, we went out and watched Transformers II, oh yes a movie lot of people are still waiting to see, but boy it’s an amazing movie, I m planning to go and watch it again soon.

Last weekend I was out with friends and decided to hit the Escape theme park, what we experienced there was plain awesomeness, though we know there was lots missing there and that a lot of rides were for kids, but then again we are kids at some level! so hell yeah we enjoyed that alot, for those who are going to ask for pictures please know that we were having so much fun we couldn’t snap pictures

Anyways, and now we’re planning more goodness for the coming weekend. Ice Age 3 in a 3d cinema is in the agenda

Oh and btw, I kinda lost a 100 SGD :S

Tags: 100 SGD, 3d, balach, escape, fun, go cart, ice age 3, Lost, movie, mufadil, Park, saad, shahzad, theme, transformers 2, water, wet, wild

So about two weeks at out own apartment, it feels really good. The feeling of staying away from office when it’s a weekend is really good. No one actually knocks from the office to wake you up. I love that!

While I was at work on Friday, I got my package, finally. Now I have my awesome threadless T-Shirts.
I bought three, Barrow Bath, The Shower and Let’s get physical. These are awesome t-shirts.

Also since we finally did our product demo, which must’ve gone smooth, I wasn’t there, but I m hoping it did went well.

Also we went for the movie “I love you man” on Friday, man it’s one freakin awesome movie, you’ll laugh till the end, for those who don’t know it’s about a guy who doesn’t have male friends, and he needs a ‘best man’ for his wedding, the movie is about his quest for one.

Also we went for a night safari just yesterday, me, Saad and Balach. In all honesty it wasn’t as awesome, it went fine, wasn’t as ‘awesome fun’. But yeah the awesome part was the awesome ‘black pepper crab’ we had after that. That was awesome. Sadly Saad just puked after that congestion you know

Some pictures here if you’re on facebook. Also which reminds me, I got my facebook username, did you get one ? Mine is facebook.com/dehog

Tags: awesomeness, cricket, demo, night safari, threadless, tshirts, work

This is the first week end at our new place, I m not going to say this weekend has been awesome far, because that would be a lie, I have been trying to work out somethings, sadly it hasn’t been working. I had been busy trying to manage some folks from India, but these guys even though they’re ok with the work they do, they have time problems, which in turn affects out work, product and of course deadlines, which we had decided would be strict, but right now thats a little problem.

Anyways, last night around 3am, I was down right tired, even after a double dose of Red Bull, and I needed some kind of break, I decided to call mom back in Karachi, it’s always a treat to listen to her (One of the best women alive!), I had some 5 minutes chat with her, in which I learned that my grandma’s sister is really sick, her kidneys have failed, and she’s obviously not in her best health. I need to call her today hopefully.

While I spoke to mom, I got to know that Amin (aka Kato) Bhai’s  wife had also passed away, and it is her Soyem today. May Allah bless her and Amin bhai, and all the muslims of the world.

After moving in the new apartment, I m actually going home, and the apartment is not very close to the work place, which I find pretty good, it gives you time to relax and chill out. Otherwise it’s just office, which is pretty looserish in my opinion.

Anyways, I haven’t really posted pictures of my apartment on my blog, but they’re on my facebook presence, check them out here.

Tags: animation, apartment, cricket, flat, home, india, load of work, new, Pakistan, weekend, work

This weekend was awesome, we crossed borders on foot.. and we shifted our apartment !

Most of the Game Ventures team (except, Siddharth and Pete) went to Malaysia for Lunch. It was at Nandos, ok so why didn’t we have Nandos in Singapore..? Because we don’t freakin have Nandos here :S

So anyways, I had to stay up all Friday night, just so I can wake every other guy, to go to Malaysia, because we had to go at around 12pm, but obviously that didn’t happen, we left at around 1pm.

Since we went to Johor Bahru, which is the nearest to Singapore, it felt like I was in Dubai again. Thankfully it wasn’t Anyways we went to where Nandos is, just to discover it’s no more there. So we then called up Zaki’s friend who told us where the other Nando’s is..

Cutting the crap.. we had the best lunch since we had been to Singapore. Thanks to Ahmed on quite some note, because thats why we came here. Any how, we then left to roam around the city, we ended up to some mall and spent like a lot of time there, and I was like really effed up in the mind.. why because I hadn’t freakin slept

Then later that night, Weng had come, so me, Saad, Zaki, Zulfiqar and Weng went of for dinner while the rest of the guys headed off for Singapore, there we had some Shish, but obviously I didn’t and the light food was awesome which was Saate and some other malay/sing food.

Then Weng dropped up to the Customs at Malay, from there we walked, and walked long, really long, to Singapore, which is awesomeness !

Then we come to Sunday, we shopped kick ass today, lots of stuff since we had to move, and  we went to IKEA, Best Buy, Bess Point, and God know’s where else..

We had the last signing thing happen and then we cooked, or lets say, Fraz and Ali did, and the plan was to make Karahi Chicken, or Biryani, but due to the lack of Na’an, they ended up making Karahi Chawal but it tasted good.. like F**k freakin good !

And now we are sitting are a**es.. going to sleep after doing our accounts

Tags: apartment, food, frakin good, fun, malaysia, move, nandos, shift, singapore, team, travel, walk, week end, xuqa

This last week plus the week end has been the best since I came to Singapore, no kidding. Why you may ask..

The deviantArt Meet up

I attended the kick ass deviantart meet up organized by $spyed & $heidi from deviantart. These people are on a world tour, so they are going to be seen in a dozen of places. I met some awesome people there, some of whom have the best art skills I have ever seen, these people know what they are doing and are freakin good at it.

If you’d like to see the pictures, you’ll have to logon to facebook, here’s the link to the album.

The roaming around

Me and Saad had decided that we’ll go out and check out Singapore since we hadn’t really gone far from office that much and hadn’t really seen Singapore even though we have been here for quite a number of days, so this week end, the plan was in place, we left home on Saturday at around 3pm-ish and had the best time of our lives.. found some bachi’s who were super hot.. Man it was awesome I tell ya So yeah we took some time off and enjoyed the week end, we later went for pool table.. that was fun.

Picture, here ya go and here you got too.. Again these are on facebook.

Swatch

I got my hands on a swatch and a swatch on my hand. yo yo yo.. loving it ! I bought this.

Sentosa

Me, Pete, Saad and Balach went to Sentosa Island today, the experience wasn’t as we expected, why ? since we went freakin late, thanks to the f**ked up monopoly session last night.. I m not playing that game again, at least with the folks here.

But I think it was ok, at least compared to sitting at home, it was awesome !

Pictures, thought you’d never ask.. here.

Tags: balach, deviantart, fun, hotness, meet up, merlion park, peter, poland, polish, russia, russian, saad, sentosa, shahzad, swatch, watch, yaay

I m not going to write much on my life in this post, I m going to write about Tea Break here.

For me the project Tea Break started when Asim Imtiaz and me used to sit only rooms apart and me and Zair sat inches apart in Creative Chaos. Asim got me into this project since he had seen me working on freelance projects that had turned out beautiful. Anyways the moment Asim told me about the idea, I knew I was going to be a part of it, but I never got to make the design of the first version since I was busy with some stuff, and Zair managed to bring the first design online.

The second design we pushed online, which is still online as I write this post, was made by me, I did the design and most of the front end code, then Asim had all the development fronts covered, Zair helped me a tiny bit with the CSS, and Ammar was the mastermind when it came to market our little baby that was Teabreak.

There was a launch party held when we pushed this major update on the website, and I got to meet some really awesome people that includes Madam Jehan Ara, Ramla Akhter, Munir Usman, Imad Qamar and some I knew from before like Dr. Awab Alvi (who I believe is more blogger than a doc ).

We had many updates to follow after that and we covered many blogging events after that, and the response had mostly been awesome, except some tid bits. When ever I got to speak about Tea Break I did so and people got excited when I told them that I designed that website.

Later after quite some time had passed, we thought we needed to upgrade it a bit, and we starting taking feedback from users and also started building up a database of our ideas and new requirements. During this time, I flew to Dubai, where I had no access to a personal computer, only my office iMac, I obviously wasn’t allowed any work on that, so Tea Break suffered some development time on that, but it wasn’t long till I realised Dubai wasn’t the place for me, so I flew back when I had an offer from this another company ‘Xuqa‘, and the thought that it’s a game development company made it even better, so any how, I flew back to Pakistan, but even then due to my work hours I still wasn’t able to work on Tea Break, then the company decided that all it’s employees are going to be moved to Singapore, which is obviously super nice , so we moved here and again, lack of time followed me, but any how, I found a week end and finally did a design. It looks good to me, but sadly due to the amount of work I already have, I will not be working on Tea Break as of now.

Even though it’s been an awesome experience, I m going to go off the Tea Break experience, since I believe my work (both, paid and for Tea Break) was being effected, I could concentrate on only one thing at a time, and I chose money ( ) , no I m quitting Tea Break at least for a while due to the amount of work I have here at Xuqa (now Game Ventures), also since I couldn’t dedicate any time to Tea Break, I didn’t want it to suffer any more because of me. I m sure the rest of the Tea Break team will find an awesome designer to fit into place. I might join Tea Break at a later stage, but for now I m not working on it, I need to focus on my office work first.

It has been an awesome journey with you guys (Asim, Ammar, Asadullah, Zair), I wish you all the best for the future of Tea Break and it’s child projects.

Tea Break is and will always be in my heart and mind, it’s one of the best things I have done

Tags: ammar, asadullah, asim, awab, awesome, break, deisng, designer, development, game ventures, imad, jehan, loose, main, munir, quit, ramla, tea, team, win, work, xuqa, Zair

I m writing this post a few days after by birthday, which I had on the 22nd of April, and why was is this a late post, because I was occupied by by quite some stuff.

The 22nd of April, even though was my birthday, it isn’t that much of a special day, it’s like the norm. I mean I grew a year older, one more year for being alive. Thank you everyone who called, emailed, messaged me a birthday wish.

I’ve also been occupied by the cricket game we’re building, and I m pretty sure it’s going to knock your socks off. I just got started with the animations part, I m hoping it gets interesting for me to develop and for you to play..

Recently when Adobe Flash CS4 launched, they added up some really good features to it, one such tool they added is called ‘the bone tool’, what does it do ? see here.

Also I had a word with my family lately, and I got to know that my mom’s friend’s parents passed away, please pray for them, may their souls rest in peace. Ameen.

Anyways, I m gonna cut this post short, it’s freakin 5:11 am here, I need to sleep a bit. Ciao.

Tags: 22nd April, adobe, birthday, cs4, death, flash, friends, fun, Happening, life, miss, normal, random, work

Ever had the days when the week ends would be just awesome. Well this last week end they partly were. I had some really cool yet weird incidents happening.

First it was Ronnie, I met him at the Reception to the gym, and it was totally unexpected, I as heading for the gym, signing in, and comes this guy, appreciating my hair style, I thank him, while he suddenly asks me if I m a designer, obviously since ‘I am’ I say so.. The next thing I know is I m talking to him standing right there for the next 30 minutes. He’s even more surprized when he gets to know I m from Pakistan, and he’s not only surprized, he’s shocked. I would be too if I were him, Pakistan’s build up a pretty bad image recently. But any how, we parted exchanging numbers. And one thing’s for sure he’s a pretty big Obama Supporter. I was pretty exhausted that day since I hadn’t slept last night, so I went to bed early, and I had described the whole thing to my office mates..

Some time around 9pm these folks go out for dinner, and guess who they come across.. Ronnie. He’s having dinner some where near too, and he comes over to my office mates, and asks them if they’re Indian, to which the guys replied they’re from Pakistan, and he jumps up and says I met a Pakistani guy today and he had a mohawk.. and he tells my mates to ask me to call him. and I finally did yesterday, but his cellphone was turned off.

Any how, Saturday we were to get a Cat for the office, how cool is that, isn’t ? Well yeah it’s a kitten and it’s super nice. It’s nice to have a little thing popping around. It’s a little distraction, but a positive one I’d say. We even had some nice dinner at a desi place.

Sunday was mostly stay home kind of day, but I managed to finish off on Ahmed’s university project, which was partly on account of work. Anyhow I’d say this was a better weekend. And I like the new prata place that’s opened up near by.

I also did a Mohawk based desktop background recently, which can be downloaded from here.

Tags: cat, desi, dinner, fun, gym, mates, mohawk, office, Pakistan, pet, ronnie, stray

Ok so here’s the thing, as I kid and seeing that TV series that had Mr. T in it, I wanted a mohawk, but obviously as one can tell, it’s not quite safe to do so in Pakistan, and flying to Dubai didn’t help either, so when I landed in Singapore, I knew I was to do it, but how and when, I wasn’t really certain, so last night, when half my office mates were at a Sheesha place, and I tagged along, they challenged me on this mohawk deal. It was more like a motivation than a challenge, I’d thank my CEO for that.

Anyways, I woke up late today at around 4pm, and the first thing that struck my mind was the hair cut, so I head off to the barber’s place, half an hour into the parlour, I get a call from the CEO that they’re heading off to eat, and I should meet them there with the new look. Agreed !

Around 15 minutes later when I was done and the hair looked like I wanted it to, I paid off the barber (thanks dude, you did a good job), and headed off for food, obviously I had just got up washed my face and headed here, I was hungry, so I met the guys at the food court, where they treid to make fun of me (loosers, it didn’t help ), and I know I was grabbign attention on the way, I prolly was one of the few desi people with that haircut (I haven’t seen any other desi with that hair style). Any how, now thats the hairstyle I have for quite some time, and I m loving it !

Link to the pictures.

Tags: cool, funk, hair, look, mohawk, new, straight, style

It’s been a long time since I wanted an Apple computer of my own, but since these are the expensive machines and not quite in everyone’s budget, I had to stick to the PC for as long as I know, except a few times at I used at my work place, and for quite some time when I was in Dubai.

I had demanded for a Mac when I joined Xuqa, and they finally got me one recently, as I mentioned in my earlier post, and not only did they get me a Mac, I bought one of my own too. Which is a nice deal to happen anyways, now that I’ve been using it like crazy, and loving the details, I m surprised how I have lived on PC and Windows for so long.

I m not really spending alot of money on the mac yet, but even the freeware softwares I have, which are mostly open source, the apps are beautiful, these are superb creatures on their own. They work effeciently and smoothly, and thanks to the Apple GUI guidelines, they look cooler every time I have to use them. But oh, one thing, I noticed that the brand new iMac that I use at work is a little slower than my macbook, which is more than a year old, and used obviously, this has come as a surprize also considering that the Macbook is a ‘Core Duo’ machine, while the iMac is a ‘Cure 2 Duo’ machine, and also the fact that my macbook is with a built in Graphics card and the iMac has a dedicated graphics card. Other than that these are pretty decent machines.

The best app for me has been Adium and Skype, along with my graphics toolkit, infact all my communication softwares have been the best, and yes the best thing is the application installation and uninstallation. Beautifully done Apple. Love you !

Tags: apple, first, GUI, imac, laptop, loving it, mac, macbook, my own