Galaxy Garden

Weekly Recap: 22 March 2026

2026-03-22T11:06:25Z

Eid al-Fitr 2026

Happy Eid al-Fitr to those who celebrate!

While I am not a Muslim, I live in a majorly-Muslim country, so Eid al-Fitr is an official holiday, though here in Malaysia, Eid Mubarak is more commonly referred to by its Malay name, Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Hari Raya Puasa, or Hari Raya for short, even by English speakers.

On the first day of Eid al-Fitr on March 21, my parents and I visited an open house for Eid al-Fitr hosted by the Chief Minister of our state, and took our lunch there.

Our current home is only around five minutes away from the open house when travelling by car, but once we move to our new home, estimated to carry out this year, we will live too far away to be convenient to visit the Chief Minister's open house any more. Therefore, this may be our last time visiting the Chief Minister's open house.

Started Playing Beastieball

The Steam Spring Sale 2026 started on March 19. I took the opportunity to purchase Beastieball when I saw it in a bundle with Cassette Beasts, my favourite video game ever.

I was already interested in checking out Beastieball after hearing good things from other Cassette Beasts fans. As soon as I started playing Beastieball for the first time, I could immediately see why there's a fair amount of overlap between fans of Beastieball and fans of Cassette Beasts: both are refreshing takes on the monster collecting game, and it helps that both game have pronouns options, including they/them, in the character creator.

Web Browsing Highlights

Interesting things I have discovered on the web this week:

"In Favor of Enjoying Things on Purpose" by Raptitude — I am in favour of paying attention to and appreciating the little things that bring us joy in life, as I have found it a good way to practice gratitude.

Officially Entered Advanced Stage of Retinitis Pigmentosa

2026-03-14T11:57:53Z

I was officially diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) on 30 November 2024 when seeing an eye doctor, then I wrote a post about living with RP in December.

On 12 March 2026, 15 months after my initial RP diagnosis, I went to see another eye doctor for more thorough eye examinations, after a relative who also has RP recommended the doctor. After a series of eye examinations, my new eye doctor further confirmed that I not only have RP, but have also entered the advanced stage of RP. During my initial diagnosis, my previous eye doctor did not clarify how far my RP condition has progressed.

I was not particularly surprised by the news, since RP is a condition that advances with age, although how fast the progress goes varies from individual to individual. Not to mention, I was aware that my peripheral vision has gone weaker to the extent of not being able to see things that are not directly in front of my eyes, and the vision field test performed at my new eye clinic confirmed it.

My new eye doctor was also upfront about the possibility of RP leading to blindness, and thus I may need low vision aids in the future, which I have come to expect since my initial diagnosis.

My sentiment expressed in my previous post about living with retinitis pigmentosa still stands, in that I have already accepted that I have genetic eye disorders that currently has no cure, especially after learning that eye problems run in my family.

Weekly Recap: 8 March 2026

2026-03-08T12:47:01Z

International Women's Day and Women's March Malaysia 2026

Happy International Women's Day!

International Women's Day also means the day the annual Women's March Malaysia will take place. You can read the march's 2026 demands on its official website.

Lantern Festival and Total Lunar Eclipse

March 3 was the Lantern Festival, also known as Chap Goh Mei in Malaysia. Coincidentally, a total lunar eclipse was visible in Malaysia on that day. The lunar eclipse also coincided with the month of Ramadan.

Unfortunately there was a rain at where I live, so I could not enjoy the special occasion of observing a total lunar eclipse.

Car Accident on My Way to School

On Friday, when my father was driving me in our family car to school, we got into a car accident. Our front car plate was damaged as a result.

Luckily, the accident was not serious, as our car was still operational, and I managed to arrived at my school campus without any injuries, though my father's right hand was sprained due to the impact happening while his hand was pressing the car horn.

This means this car of ours need to be sent for repair — again. Just two weeks ago, on the day we were about to travel back home after celebrating Lunar New Year in my parents' hometown, our very same car's front plate was damaged by the car of another villager, so we needed to send our car to a car repair shop.

Fortunately, we still have another car at home, but we had no way to expect we had to send the same car for repair twice within two weeks due to damage to the front plate.

Eleventy is Becoming Build Awesome

On March 3, Eleventy, the static site generator that I use to build this very website, officially started to get rebranded to Build Awesome, with Font Awesome, which Eleventy has joined since September 2024, launching a Kickstarter campaign for Build Awesome.

While the Build Awesome campaign reached its funding goal in a day, there are a fair amount of Eleventy users expressing concerns about the rebrand. Eleventy's official blog post about the rebranding attempted to address some of the concerns, but unfortunately, on March 6, Font Awesome announced that they are pausing the Build Awesome Kickstarter campaign, citing email delivery issues, and planning to relaunch the campaign.

Personally, I am taking a wait-and-see approach; I have been using Eleventy to build my websites since April 2024, and it has become my favourite tool to build websites, to the extent that I gave two talks at THE Eleventy Meetup, so I am not ready to abandon Eleventy just yet. Furthermore, my hope is that Eleventy as a static site generator will remain free and open-source, and my process of rebuilding my websites with Eleventy should not be impacted.

That said, if you want to learn more about why there are Eleventy users worried about the rebrand, I recommend reading Brennan Kenneth Brown's blog posts on the subject:

Weekly Recap: 1 March 2026

2026-03-01T11:37:59Z

It is March now, and today being March 1 also means it is Zero Discrimination Day.

Returning to School After Lunar New Year Break

After taking one week off to celebrate Lunar New Year, I have returned to school on last Monday, February 23. Aside from that, not much was going on at school last week.

Pokémon 30th Anniversary

The Pokémon franchise was celebrating its 30-year anniversary on February 27, as 27 February 1996 saw the release of Pokémon Red Version and Pokémon Green Version, the very first Pokémon games.

On February 27, I tuned in to watch Pokémon Presents live on YouTube. Among the announcements made during the presentation, Pokémon Pokopia, a new spin-off game, and Pokémon Winds and Waves, the first games of the tenth generation of Pokémon, piqued my interest the most. However, both are exclusive to Nintendo Switch 2, which I do not have yet, and will not be getting any time soon due to it being too expensive to me, and there is no Switch 2-exclusive games that make me actually want to buy the console for yet.

That said, I am very glad that there is finally a Pokémon based on Pomeranian dogs — Pombon, the Fire-type starter Pokémon in Winds and Waves. Pomeranian dogs are one of my favourite dog breeds, so even though I typically pick the Water-type starter Pokémon when starting to play a main series Pokémon game for the first time, but if I get to play Winds and Waves, I'll make an exception for Pombon.

Naturally, as a huge fan of Cassette Beasts, Pombon immediately reminded me of Pombomb, another Fire-type creature based on Pomeranian dogs in a monster collecting game.

Aside from everything that was announced in Pokémon Presents, logos featuring every Pokémon species to commemorate the 30-year anniversary of the franchise were released. The Pokémon fan wiki Bulbapedia has an article for the Pokémon 30th Anniversary logos.

Games I Was Playing

Scarlet Hollow, an episodic horror visual novel developed by Black Tabby Games, recently released Episode 5, after a hiatus since Episode 4 was released in December 2022 due Black Tabby Games focusing on their other horror visual novel Slay the Princess.

I was immediately hooked again after returning to Scarlet Hollow. There are still two more episodes to be released for the game to be officially completed, but Episode 5 has started to reveal the overarching narrative to the forefront, raising the stakes even higher.

If you are a fan of horror, visual novels, choice-based narrative games, or any combination of the above, I cannot recommend Black Tabby Games' works enough.

Web Browsing Highlights

Interesting things I have discovered on the web this week:

Stardew Valley celebrated the 10-year anniversary of its launch on February 26, and Update 1.7 is in the works.
"Mike Little: the British co-founder of WordPress you’ve probably never heard of (but should)…" — an interview by Nicol Wistreich of Netribution.

Bak Baan's Second Litter of Puppies

2026-02-20T14:23:33Z

One of my uncles is taking care of our family durian plantation, with a dog he rescued as a stray a year ago and named Bak Baan after the mahjong tile 白板.

My parents and I met Bak Baan for the first time in 2025's Lunar New Year. When we saw Bak Baan the next time in 2025's Qingming Festival in early April, Bak Ban was pregnant with her first litter of puppies, then she gave birth in late April. We got the opportunity to see Bak Baan's children ourselves in August 2025.

Months later in December 2025, we learned that Bak Baan gave birth again on December 16 in the evening. Like her first litter, Bak Baan's second litter consisted of seven puppies.

Meanwhile, Bak Baan's first litter of puppies had been given to other people for adoption, except one puppy who was named Musang King after a durian cultivar.

Our chance of seeing Bak Baan's new children came with 2026's Lunar New Year. Specifically, on Lunar New Year Eve on February 16, when my uncle and his girlfriend went to our family durian plantation to feed their dogs, after a reunion lunch in my uncle's house with other relatives from my father's side of the family.

A number of Bak Baan's second litter of puppies have black coats, which reminds me of our own dog, Yat Tong (一筒), who like Bak Baan was named after a mahjong tile. One other puppy has a black-and-white dual-tone coat, so we nicknamed it "dairy cow".

On the other hand, Musang King already grew so big that he has become taller than his mum, despite only being ten months old. Aside from the coat colour, Musang King looks a lot like his mum.

While I was unable to take a picture of Bak Baan and all her children together, since the dogs moved around often, but I did manage to capture the moments of them enjoying their lunch and then resting.

Bak Baan's second litter of puppies are enjoying their lunch.

One of Bak Baan's new puppies that have black coats.

The legendary "dairy cow" from Bak Baan's second litter of puppies. 😄

Musang King, the only one from Bak Baan's first litter of puppies who still lives in our family durian plantation.

Bak Baan and her puppies were relaxing after their lunch.

Three of Bak Baan's puppies sleeping together after enjoying their lunch.

Three of Bak Baan's puppies sleeping together under an iron frame after enjoying their lunch.

Weekly Recap: 15 February 2026

2026-02-15T12:40:07Z

Preparing to Celebrate Lunar New Year

This was the final week before Lunar New Year!

As per tradition, my family and I have been preparing to celebrate Lunar New Year, by shopping, cleaning our house, putting up decorations, and so on. We have planned to travel to my parents' hometown tomorrow on Monday, which will be Lunar New Year Eve, to celebrate Lunar New Year with our relatives, after my brother, who is living and working in Singapore, returned to Malaysia today on Sunday.

I also intend to take the opportunity to take a one-week break from school.

(Mis)Adventures with Limeide Mechanical Gaming Keyboards

On the past Sunday, the RGB backlight of my Limeide GTX300 USB mechanical gaming keyboard that is plugged in to my main computer, which is a gaming laptop, suddenly stopped working.

When I ordered and received Limeide GTX300 from a Malaysian store through Shopee back in September 2025, I did not expect that the RGB backlight did not work out-of-the-box on my Arch Linux operating system, so I had to configure my Linux system manually to get the RGB backlight working after searching the web for solutions.

My configuration worked until the last Sunday. After investigating it myself, I realised that a system update I recently performed somehow caused my system to "reset" the device ID of my Limeide GTX300 keyboard, thus unable to properly detect the keyboard to turn on the RGB backlight.

To be honest, I had been kind of regretting buying this keyboard, because not only that the RGB backlight did not work on Linux out-of-the-box, but also the design of the keys made it difficult to read the key characters without the backlight. Therefore, I decided to look for a new USB keyboard.

After searching Shopee, I chose a different model of Limeide's USB mechanical gaming keyboard — Limeide K21 Mechanical Storm, which also has RGB backlight, but one where the key characters can still be read even without the backlight. After placing my order on last Sunday, my Limeide K21 Mechanical Storm arrived at my house two days later on Tuesday.

When I tested my brand new Limeide K21 Mechanical Storm, I was pleased to find out that unlike GTX300, K21's RGB backlight worked on my Linux system out-of-the-gate, and I could freely turn the backlight on and off with the designated backlight key.

While waiting for Limeide K21 to arrive at my house, the backlight of my Limeide GTX300 worked again after I performed a new system update on my computer. Therefore, for now I am still using Limeide GTX300, but I am glad I at least have an extra mechanical gaming keyboard in case I actually need to replace my current USB keyboard one day.

Games I Was Playing

I continued to play Pokémon Legends: Z-A and its Mega Dimension DLC. I have defeated the final boss of the main story of the DLC, but not the post-credits DLC story yet.

Web Browsing Highlights

Interesting things I have discovered on the web this week:

Adam Newbold, creator of omg.lol, published a beginner guide for setting up an IRC server.
- Coincidentally, just a day after Adam's guide was published, Discord announced that starting from March, users who want to keep accessing age-restricted chat groups and channels will be required to verify that they are an adult via face scan or ID, which prompts backlash along with conversations about possible Discord alternatives, with IRC brought up as an alternative for text-based group chats, including by major gaming news platforms like PC Gamer.
- Back in September 2025, omg.lol shut down its Discord group, and moved its group chat network to IRC fully. I have been active in omg.lol's IRC network both before and after the shutdown of its Discord group, and I would like to see more people giving IRC a shot.

Weekly Recap: 1 February 2026

2026-02-01T15:08:06Z

My Student Showcase Presentation

My school, 42 Malaysia, just held a roadshow event on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Two weeks ago, I and two other classmates were invited by my school's campus staff to take part in a student showcase during the roadshow event, then in last week we joined a session hosted by the campus staff to prepare for our presentation.

At last, after two weeks of preparation, on the past Wednesday we got the opportunity to present ourselves in front of a bunch of industry partners of our school, mainly from the education industry, to showcase one of our projects and shared our journey at 42 the school.

Fortunately, this was not my first time presenting myself in front of a public; I have had experience doing so in both physical and online events. We needed to deliver our presentation in 5 minutes, so it was not too demanding, and I was fairly satisfied with my performance. After the roadshow event, some members of the 42 Malaysia staff praised my presentation. In conclusion, my presentation was a success!

Virtual Private Server Access Problems

Unfortunately, not everything went smoothly for me in this week. I encountered a major unexpected setback when I woke up in the morning on Monday: I was unable to access my main virtual private server (VPS), which hosts all my websites, including this one, and most of the self-hosted apps I use, and I could not visit any of my websites. On the other hand, I can still access my other VPS, which I rented from a different provider.

I opened a support ticket to Deluxhost, the provider of my main VPS, as I suspected the possibility of the issue being caused by the provider misconfigured my server, with a detailed technical log produced by my attempt to access the server with secure shell (SSH) which would hopefully help them figure out the cause.

Fortunately, I have always kept local backup copies of my VPS data, and I took notes about how I set up my VPS, so I temporarily worked around the issue of my websites and self-hosted apps not being accessible by moving them to my other VPS, which I rented form Chunkserve.

After some back-and-forth between the Deluxhost support and I, I could finally access my Deluxhost VPS again since Thursday, though Deluxhost support did not reveal what they did to solve my issues.

Since my main VPS is back to normal, I moved my websites and most of the self-hosted apps I use back to the server.

Games I was Playing

I continued to play Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Pokémon Legends: Z-A. In the latter, I have finished the post-game main missions by winning 15 reward matches in the Infinite Z-A Royale and catching Zygarde, then started the Mega Dimension DLC.

Web Browsing Highlights

Interesting things I have discovered on the web this week:

"The pioneering path of Augustus Tolton, the first Black Catholic priest in the US – born into slavery, he’s now a candidate for sainthood" by Annie Selak, published on BLK News Now!.

Weekly Recap: 25 January 2026

2026-01-25T09:56:05Z

Preparing for Student Showcase Presentation

I mentioned in my previous weekly recap post that I and two other classmates were invited by the campus staff of my school, a Malaysian campus of 42 the computer science school to take part in a student showcase in an upcoming school event on January 28 and present our projects and share our 42 school journey.

On the past Thursday, the school staff held a shared session with us to prepare for our presentation, by giving us guidelines for how to present in the event, such as what to include in our slideshows and speech.

Games I Was Playing

I had beaten the base game of Pokémon Legends: Z-A in December 2025, and it became my favourite Pokémon game on the Nintendo Switch, so I take my time to go through the post-game.

Currently, I have done 8 reward matches in the Infinite Z-A Royale. In the past week, I finished the post-game quests "The One That Gives" and "The One That Takes", and finally caught a Beldum, which has a notoriously low catch rate.

Web Browsing Highlights

Interesting things I have discovered on the web this week:

"A Game Doesn't Need To Be ‘By And For Fans’" by Harper Jay MacIntyre — An article published on Aftermath in response to the announcement of Life is Strange: Reunion, the latest instalment of the Life is Strange video game series. I strongly agree with the article, regarding both the marketing surrounding Life is Strange: Reunion and the pitfalls of art that exists to appease fans.
Just the Browser — A project for de-bloating Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge. I realised after checking out Just the Browser's GitHub repository that the website is built with Eleventy, the static site generator that built this very blog, too!
Spawn a Neko! — A widget that you can embed on your website to let users spawn Neko-like kitties the follow the mouse pointer.

Weekly Recap: 18 January 2026

2026-01-18T10:24:23Z

Inspired by the weekly and monthly recap posts by other bloggers, I decided to start writing such form of blog posts myself as a way to share what I have been up to, and interesting things I have discovered.

Quarterly School Gathering and Open Day

This had been a busy week at school. On Wednesday, my school — a Malaysian campus of 42 the computer science school was hosting its first quarterly school gathering in 2026, where the campus staff shared updates and announced upcoming events at the school.

On Saturday, my campus hosted the year's first quarterly Open Day. Some classmates and I volunteered to help to welcome newcomers to learn about our school on that day.

On my end, at the moment, I am the one who has progressed the furthest in our core curriculum among my classmates, with my current projects being about Python fundamentals. In addition, I was invited by the campus staff to take part in a student showcase in an upcoming event on January 28, when the school engages with industry partners, to present one of my projects and share my 42 school journey. Two other classmates were also invited to present their projects and shared their experience during the event.

Games I Was Playing

Animal Crossing: New Horizons released Version 3.0 on January 14, so I took the opportunity to pick the game back up again and return to my island. I immediately started to explore the resort hotel that was added in this new free update, decorate the hotel, and launched an opening ceremony for the hotel.

Fun fact: Not only I own a physical copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which I purchased from a local game store, but also I bought the game alongside the Animal Crossing: New Horizon Edition of Nintendo Switch 1!

Web Browsing Highlights

Interesting things I have discovered on the web this week:

A Kickstarter campaign for creating a .meow top-level domain, where the profits would be used to fund the LGBTQIA+ community. The campaign's fundraising goal was achieved! I wholeheartedly support the mission, and I hope dotMeow Foundation's application to ICANN to launch and operate the .meow TLD goes well.

What I Look Forward to in 2026

2025-12-27T08:49:51Z

2025 is coming to an end. I do not typically plan new year resolutions, because the older I got, the more aware I am of how unpredictable the future can be, and unexpected things that can disrupt our plan can happen anytime.

That does not mean that I do not have anything to look forward to in 2026, however.

Finishing the Core Curriculum of 42 the School

The biggest event in my 2025 was me attending 42 the computer science school. The school is my opportunity to continue learning programming and software development.

Since the bootcamp, I have been working hard in my study at 42, where my efforts were awarded as I got qualified to attend the core curriculum, and become one of the first batch of core curriculum students in my local campus of 42.

Students are suggested to take one to two years to complete the core curriculum, which is divided into 7 milestones, Milestones 0 to 6, each with suggested deadlines.

As of this writing, I am currently in Milestone 2, the third out of seven milestones in the core curriculum. Recently, earlier in December, the 42 school network officially updated its core curriculum worldwide with new projects replacing some of the old ones.

I hope to complete 42's core curriculum in 2026, so I have been attending the campus on weekdays for hours. However, there is still uncertainly for if that goal would be achieved, given the fact that 42's peer-to-peer education model, our progress can be affected by how active our fellow students are to attend their study at the campus.

Moving to a New House

A major event my family and I are looking forward to in 2026, is moving to a new house. The new house will still be in the same city, but in a different residential area.

For more than three decades, the house I am living in right now has been my home since I was born. The only time I was living somewhere else for an extended period of time was me living in a condominium that served as a student hostel, when I was studying in a private university in a different state.

However, my parents eventually considered moving to a new smaller house, as they are getting old, thus having less energy to take care of every corner in our semi-detached house. Earlier in 2025, my parents purchased a new terraced house, located in a new residential area in our city. Said residential area is currently still under construction, but the construction is estimated to complete in 2026. We have also been window shopping furniture to get ideas for what furniture we want in our new house.

While I would be lying if I said I will not miss my current old house, since after all I have been living here for more than three decades, I am looking forward to our new house.