I found this Buddhist monk while I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  As usual, I had my camera so I grabbed a shot of him in mid-alms-motion.

I know that Flickr is full of stalkers, and nothing makes stalking more fun than social networks. So I did this little contest yesterday to see who would be the first to find this girl on Flickr. It took about 7 hours for some people to track her down. That’s not too bad and indicative of my theory that Flickr is full of stalkers (just kidding Lee, sort of)

This is Sam, and she is another photographer I met when I went out with three other photographers one night in Kuala Lumpur. She is friends with Potatoe and Cris, and she is much more photogenic, I assure you, than some guy that goes by the name “Potatoe”.

There was a short interview with me that was posted today. I don’t know what being a celebrity means in those circles, but I am pretty sure that people assume that it means that I wear a lot of black t-shirts and I am a nihilist. Neither is true. I do wear some black t-shirts, but it makes me look a bit like a Scientologist.

In the interview, I was asked about some of my photos where I am surprised that they did not do better. I commented on my Chinese Cemetery set, which I think must be too macabre or too Chinese. Here is a link to the set on Flickr.

And here is one of the pictures from the interview that I forgot to mention. It’s one of my favorites, but again… one that is not nearly as popular as the others, in terms of relative comments/favorites. Oh well… you never know!

And here they are…

This is Amin.

Amin’s dream is to drive a Ferrari. He jokes, and then becomes suddenly serious with a haunting, dark Persian stare before uttering his real dream: that one day our race is “human being”, our religion is “humanity” and our nationality is “citizen of the world.” Amin thinks deeply, and then laughs and says, “Well maybe if I was driving a Ferrari now I would be thinking of this crap!”

Amin is currently working at John Galt Games after being recommended by his fellow Iranian programmer, Ali, who shares the flowing locks of Sayid from Lost and the comic stylings of Cicak Man himself. Amin has recently passed the killer gauntlet programmer test of Hafiz (our lead tech brain) with a score of 85. Nobody has ever scored this high, except for Hafiz himself, who resides with the demigods of C++ in his own heavenly sphere of programming and peace.

This comes from my Portrait Series here.

Here is another shot I took from nearby, of a few Islamic schoolchildren:

This bridge one of the many architectural gems around Putrajaya. Of course, there is hardly any traffic in Putrajaya because it is boring, and they probably just could have made out fine with an old grumpy man, a barge, and one of those long poles to ferry people across the river.

I took a bunch of shots of these bridges and I could not decide which was the best, because they are all cool. But I decided to go with this symmetrical one first… probably meaning I am seeking some kind of structure in my recently chaotic life!

I had a very nice day on the day I visited Putrajaya. It could have been hotter there, but I don’t know how. The best part was the cool shower afterwards.

Putrajaya is the new capital area Kuala Lumpur. It is the most sterile and lifeless place I have ever visited. But there is very nice architecture for photography… so I guess it’s not all bad.

This is my own little part for World Peace.

Since I get over 250,000 visits on my blog per month (and more than that direct to my Flickr pictures), I thought this would an interesting idea.

First, this may be the dumbest-looking photograph, but most hilarious from a pure silly point of view, that I have ever made.

Ali (left) and Amin (right) each work for me at John Galt Games here in Kuala Lumpur. They are two of the sharpest programmers in the world and incredibly funny and cool guys. Truth be told, Ali is a bit overpaid, but that is between you and me.

As a CEO, entrepreneur, and blogger, I think that little guys like me can do more to solve the world’s problems than so-called world leaders. Ali, Amin, and I all agree the that our world leaders are kind boneheads, except for that guy that runs SeaLand, who we think is pretty awesome.

Insofar as people like me making the world come together, this shot was taken at a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur where we took our Malaysian development team (about 40 people) to dinner for Chinese New Year, where I gave a speech in English before handing out the traditional “Hong Bao” or Red Envelope, the traditional “lucky money” gift to people from half a dozen countries.

The amount you put in the Red Envelope is very important and should always be an even number. If you give $4 dollars it is considered very rude because it means that death may be soon. $8 is generally a good number, but as long as it is even, the Feng Shui karma will end up going your way. I also have a theory about the billions of dollars that circle around the Chinese culture every year in these money-switching celebrations — I don’t think anyone actually makes any money, since you have to give Red Envelopes back to all your other friends. It ties up an enormous amount of money so that people can just switch around money and they are forced to keep a heavy cash-balance on hand during the Chinese New Year. However, tying up billions in cash has a net positive effect of a lot of happiness since everyone seems blissfully oblivious the the mathematical net-zero gain.

Anyway, I digressed there… This was supposed to be about Iran and stuff.

So we had a heck of a time taking this picture because Ali and Amin kept cracking up. These guys cannot keep a straight face. I said, “Okay guys act like you hate me and you hate Americans. Remember, we are Imperialists and all we care about is oil, right?” I think we had to take over a dozen pictures to get them to look half-way serious and not-thrilled. The worst thing was that Hafiz (yet another Muslim in the mix) was taking the pictures and constantly cracking jokes to mess up the mood.

Anyhoo, while the rest of the world is completely chaotic, our little international team of creative geniuses is having a blast designing and creating innovative online games for the world to play. We still have to deal with the world at times. For example, I’d love to bring Ali over to the US next week to the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, but there is no way that the US would let in an Iranian — especially one with long hair that looks like that Iraqi swarthy multi-cultural lover from Lost.

Coming up soon, I have another portrait coming up of Amin, which turned out really nice. He has that commanding Picard-like nose that is useful for balance and staying upright in strong winds.

In closing, bringing so-called democracy (my Libertarian spidey-sense thinks “mob-rule” when I hear democracy) to the world is not the answer. The real key is the free trade of goods, services, and ideas. Having little guys like me be able to hire smart, able, and cool guys like these, is the proven answer to the world taking the next step towards prosperity, peace, and really sweet online games.

I am back in Malaysia after a long series of flights. I have determined that I think my frequent flier membership card should change its logo to Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill. I do collect a lot of miles, but, ironically, when I do actually have time off, the last thing I want to do is fly. So I am trying to figure out a way to trade in my frequent flier miles for something that I can actually use - like sleep.

I took that shot above at the Batu Caves just north of Kuala Lumpur. Below is another picture that I took nearby, with the dark black of the cave in the background.

Believe it or not these two shots were taken on the same day within just a few hours. A series of violent storms came through Kuala Lumpur, allowing a few surreal shots of the city. It went from very dark and cloud to torrential downpour to beautiful sunset. It reminded me of the storms on the plains of Texas.

Kuala Lumpur is a very interesting city and is quite unique in Asia. I’d love to get up on top of those Petronas Towers there to take some shots, but I look like a suspicious white guy with my huge backpack. They tell me all white people look alike. …and smell like wet puppies.

Someone made a comment that this looks like the Klingon capital… from some alien sci-fi show that I have never heard of.

The first is a city shot at sunset just after a storm. The second is from the island archipelago of Langkawi.

I think the city has a very unique skyline with green the mountains of Malaysia in the background. This was shot on one of the few sunny days there when the wind changed from the Indonesian firestorms.

Here are a collection of photographs I have collected from Chinese cemeteries.

I got in trouble from a Flickr fan for saying that he sounded like one of the bad wizards from Harry Potter, but here he is, standing 140 feet tall in the jungles of Malaysia.

These shots are normally really hard to grab at night, but this HDR turned out nice. Chaotic, but detailed and nice.