Friday 17 June 2011

Rant 796 / Baking Powder Everywhere



You haven't seen bad music videos till you've watch this.














I made some (expired) baking soda and sugar mixture when I read that it was a good ant killer. Some also suggested adding yeast but I only have 2 packets of them and I really didn't want to waste them.

I poured some on my desk, my basin, the other washbasin at the kitchen and the dishsink.

My desk was the main reason for my searching for a solution to the ant problem. Of course the first thing I did was to find the thing that was attracting them but, like previous occasions, I had no luck.

So I made this mixture and poured it on the part of the surface where there appeared to be more ants (with my stuff removed).

Only a single ant spotted today and a dead one on my desk.

My basin's mix attracted a few ants as far as I can tell, but no dead ones were seen.

The other basin had more traffic and a few dead ones.

Finally, the dishsink's pile has been infested since this morning and they have yet to take a break from their suicidal feeding frenzy. Also, I keep feeding them more.

According to various sources, the sugar (obviously) acts as the bait while the baking soda kills the ants. Apparently baking soda reacts with the stuff in their digestive systems and causes gas. Unfortunately for ants, their bodies aren't designed to burp or fart, so they explode.

It doesn't cause loud noise or anything, more like the pressure inside rips holes in their bodies.

It's not instant but the few dead ants so far is evidence that it does what it's supposed to do.

Whatever works.

More importantly, it's not toxic. Since I'm using it in the kitchen, who knows if the ants might drop their "food" onto some real food or something.











I'm suddenly tempted to buy a coffee machine.

Took some time to look at Nespresso and Jura coffee machines. Looks pretty cool and convenient.

But then I realized this could be considered a vice.

I don't need coffee. I'm not being overworked or something; I'm only drinking coffee because it's good, kinda like why people go to bars for alcohol.

If I get used to the convenience of the coffee machine, it will become a long-term money drain with unnecessary benefits that I "can't live without".

No coffee machine.












I know why I've been the way I am recently. Not enough physical activity.

I just changed the water for my mum's terrapin and cleared the drain's filter. My legs were trembling at the end from all the bending down and squatting.

She actually bought 2 for us, a male and a female, a long time ago but after a few years she was only one who actually cared about them.

Anyway the male one died last year. The neck area was swollen so it probably choked to death.

As for why I was changing the water, she had fed the tortoise an apple this morning. Thickly sliced, thin enough for it to bite but thick enough to require few cuts.

In the end there were bits of apple everywhere in the water plus the slices that were mostly untouched.

I didn't want them all to rot in the water overnight, so I had to pick out the slices and pour away everything before refilling the tub. Who knows what it may smell like tomorrow?

So the bits of apple, probably bitten off by it but were still too big to swallow, choked the drain instead.

That's the same drain where the washing machine's dirty water goes.

The following might get a little disgusting, so skip this section if you're that much of a pussy.

At first I thought I could just put on my gloves and pick up the apple-bits-cum-terrapin-shit from the filter and throw it into a plastic bag, but that didn't work. Too much of it was too small for my smooth rubber gloves to catch, yet too big to get through the filter.

After some work, I managed to pull the whole filter out. I've described it a long time ago, and it's no different now. All the grime hung below that I had to pull off. Of course I didn't look. I put it inside the plastic bag, held it with one side of it and pulled randomly under the filter inside the bag while looking away.

When I was satisfied it couldn't possibly still be as gross,  I took it out and sprayed it with water. Not too hard because it almost splashed the dirty water onto me, but hard enough to clear the rest of the dirt away.

This made me think of how our ancestors lived and how the people in the poorer parts of the world still live today, and how they all handle their drains.

I can't do it with my bare hands, not without a loaded gun pointing at my head. Even with my gloves on I had to clean them with detergent before pulling them off.













Been playing Champions Online. It's probably a City of Heroes ripoff but I wouldn't know because I didn't try CoH. CoH is pay-to-play while CO is free-to-play.

Discovered the game on Steam. No idea why but Steam started introducing free MMORPGs in the store recently. The other 2 are Global Agenda (which I've already been playing before the reinstall of the current Windows) and Spiral Knights.

The last sucks so I'll keep it short. Nobody recommended it and the screenshots didn't look like what I'd want to play.

Global Agenda is ok but playing the same 6-7 instances and arenas over and over again kinda wears off the fun factor fast.

Champions Online, like CoH, is a MMORPG about comic superheroes. Rather than the usual classes in most MMORPGs, players create their own superheroes with their favourite superpowers like shooting ice, running at insane speeds, flying and all that.

Right now, I'm...



:3

I picked Flight for practical reasons, the main one being that it allows me to scout areas from above and/or afar before going in to complete missions (aka quests).

That's one of the free Travel Powers that do not require Tokens (can only be bought with real money). Other free Travel Powers are: Superspeed, Teleportation, Superjump and Acrobatics.

Most of the names are easy to understand, but Acrobatics is less clear. From what I've read, it seems to be a cross between Superspeed and Superjump. With Acrobatics, you get enhanced running speed and jump height, but not to same degree as either.

Just checked the game and found someone that looks like Goku from the anime series Dragon Ball.

Travel Powers that can be bought with Tokens and is available for free for Gold members (ie people who subscribed as this game used to be pay-to-play) are: Ice-Slide, Swinging (a la Spiderman),Tunneling, Jet Boots, Rocket Jump, Fire Flight, Earth Flight and Hoverdisk.

Even more special are Travel Powers that need to be bought even by Gold members: Lightspeed, Rainbow Flight and Rainbow Flight: Cloud.

Finally, there are those that have to be crafted and cannot be found in the store: R.A.D. Sphere, Aethyric Flight and Storm Rider.

I'm not explaining anymore; the wiki is here anyway.

These Travel Powers also affect our combat performance when activated. For Flight, it makes my skills cost more energy and my energy regeneration is reduced.

There are also lots of archetypes to choose from. For mine, it's the Glacier whose abilities are similar to those of Iceman. If I had some tokens, I'd have made Iceman, complete with Ice-sliding and the correct appearance. Anyway this is why I made my character blue.

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