After my failure at Kung Pao Chicken on Saturday night, I decided to try something else.
I'm still unclear as to why it became just a sweet chicken dish. The two things that were different were:
1) I added a little too much water
2) I didn't marinate the chicken in wine, so I added it while stir-frying the chicken.
Somehow these changed the sauce.
Anyhow the new dish was just minced pork, ginger, onion, chilli, garlic,soy sauce, chicken stock, water and corn flour.
500g of pork, ground once; one onion, thinly sliced; one chilli with embryo removed and inside thoroughly rinsed, chopped; two small cloves of garlic, chopped; a piece of ginger the size of the top section of a thumb, finely sliced; 1.5 tablespoons of light soy sauce; 1 tablespoon of chicken concentrate; 1 cup water; 1 tablespoon corn flour; a pinch of salt; a packet of MCD's garlic chilli.
Obviously some of these ingredients can be replaced by others.
The main thing is just the chilli. Added salt and soy sauce mainly to prevent it from becoming a sweet dish due to the onion.
The chilli has to be cleaned to make sure it doesn't turn the dish spicy. I don't like spicy food. However the chilli flavour makes the dish taste unique.
This is just a random dish. Turned out pretty well considering it's all gone this morning.
If it's bad, my bro wouldn't touch the leftovers. His comments, like I said before, don't matter because they're always the same. But the fact that he finishes the leftovers tells me something.
500g of pork is a pretty large amount for 2 people. I only had like a fifth of it last night. There was like around 200g of it after dinner, and he finished it all this morning.
THU
Stop saying that you have to try everything at least once, or anything like that.
I don't see you trying heroin.
SPAZ.
SPAZ is awesome. For US$3.99, it's been a really fantastic deal so far.
Got it at that price during a Steam sale and I've been playing it for says.
Didn't bother to complete a lot of sidequests and optional missions, especially those involving time limits and defending stuff.
I kinda suck at the game.
Still, it's much more than I expected from an indie game that's going for less than US$5.
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SPOILER WARNING!
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The biggest reason why I'm impressed is the second part of the game. I was totally convinced I was finishing the game when I destroyed the stealth generators and reached the source of the infection.
I went there without upgrading most things and without exploring half the galaxy because I was getting bored. Things were going so well for me and it was becoming routine.
Mainly, it was just going afk at mining stations, buying goons from colonies and bribing my way from one star system to the next. Theoretically it would have been a simple task to find every single inhabited star system in the galaxy.
The only disadvantage of this method versus questing and fighting my way through each warp gate is that I don't gain new ship blueprints as quickly.
By my method, I was getting new blueprints when my mothership gets attacked upon arrival at a new system, or when I'm visiting one station while it's getting attacked by the other faction.
In fact when I decided to "finish the game" I didn't even have the Right Hook and Grinder, and I had almost no progress on the reverse-engineering of the Huge Hulls.
Fortunately I had what I still consider the best Large Hull, the Helix.
The Mule was basically that. It made an awesome mining ship but it's got nothing interesting about it. Its turrets made it slightly better and its stats were about the same as the Helix's, but the Helix had a Bomb slot which could also be refitted with a turret or mine-deployer. Those are far more fun to use than simple cannons and missile launchers, which I've been using for most of the game already.
Initially I'd thought the Big Brother was better than Helix. In many ways, it was. However, drones just weren't my thing. I still prefer mines - just right click and suddenly the whole area's covered in cloaked magnetic mines.
Mines would suck if the enemies prefer to fight while running away, but fortunately, the AI loves to keep changing direction and inevitably back to my minefield.
The Crawler was also very intriguing. 8 turrets sounded really cool. I won't even need to wait for my ship to turn because my turrets could just rotate.
Nope. Boring, just like the Mule.
The Flora would have been a great choice if not for the fact that I was focusing my techs on Cannons. 4 missile launchers and 3 utility slots! With missiles that can home in on targets and have very long range, this ship would have made my battles so easy, and at the same time I could do a lot of things with those utility slots, like scanners and point defense systems (PDS).
The Big Bus was also pretty damn good. Big cannon slot would be great for me but again, boring.
So anyway, just when I thought I'd beaten the game, everything died.
All of a sudden I'm playing an almost different game. Instead of some kind of exploration game, I'm now playing more of a strategy game.
I'm still trying to find new techs but it's far harder than before. Now I can only fight my way through the warp gates and let's just say there are a lot of things to watch now.
For instance, I get attacked regularly by zombie ships after every several jumps. It's a constant thing I cannot avoid and it's annoying.
Oh yea, fighting zombie ships is more complicated than fighting normal ships.
It took me a while to get it, but now I've realized that I got to watch the number of zombies on board a ship versus the number of crew members onboard when the infestation icon is blinking next to the ship.
Before I "finished the game" I was confused and thought I had to vent the crew everytime it's infested.
I was so wrong and because of this, I was the one making the game much harder than it was supposed to be.
The key lies in the ratios. Once the zombies outnumber the crew, it's almost always hopeless since I haven't spent much on Crew upgrades. I have now, with 2 specialists that boost crew fighting prowess but that just means my crew can kill off the zombies faster. I still haven't been watching the crew till they almost die out; once the zombies outnumber them, I vent the crew then send the ship for repair.
The second partof the game was also pretty hard considering than I didn't get a Huge Hull ship till later when I was almost done with the first star system.
The game felt so awesome once I had the Carrier. Those EIGHT launcher slots were pure fun, especially since I had the SRM launcher. Although I didn't invest much on this weapon type, the thought of 8 showers of those missiles was enough for me to jump on it immediately and never look back.
Then reality set in.
My rapid-fire Particle Cannons, all three of them, were consuming too much power - I was getting the Low Power warning like 3s after I begin spraying, making the guns fire only intermittently and practically ineffectual.
Moreover, the recharge rate is far too low for me to wait for it to get close to full before I fire again while enemies are going at full force on me.
This issue had been around with previous ships but I didn't expect it to get this bad. Should have gotten a new reactor before I went through that special warp gate but it was too late to reload.
I just couldn't stand the thought of playing the game without the EIGHT MISSILE LAUNCHERS.
So I replaced 5 of the launchers with reactor boosters and that slowed down the power depletion enough for the ship to last long enough kill at least a Large Hull ship in battle.
No luck in finding more advanced reactor blueprints yet.
Still, the insane firepower of my three Particle Cannons is great for killing enemy Huge Hull ships.
Moreover, the PDS and SRM missiles really help to kill the zombies trying to enter my ship. The latter and the drones also help kill off the smaller ships in close range that my gigantic cannons just can't hit because they can't turn quickly enough.
As for Drones, somehow I managed to get my hands on the best Drones in the game, the Cloaked Bomber Drones, so once I began to use drones with the Carrier, I decided to spend everything on my Drone tech level just so that I could use them.
Yea I was just buying blueprints indiscriminately before.
So anyhow, they seem pretty good at killing small ships. Can't really feel their effectiveness but maybe it's just me.
I'd also got the best armour in the game, the Advanced Armour, and that really made my ships awesome. It's true that it's expensive, but it's totally worth the Rez to make my ships so much tougher and at the same time, allow them to move fast enough to hit something.
Coincidentally I also had the best shield before moving on to the second part of the game, although that really didn't make as much a difference. Those zombies are just too effective at killing shields. For most of my fights, the depletion of my shields mean little to me. It just means I got to start watching their hull colours. I send them for repairs when they turn yellow, or before if there is a Huge Hull ship aiming them.
The only time when the shield actually matters is when I'm using the Huge Hulls because having over 2000 Shield points means it actually lasts for some time, although the Fortress Shield takes forever to recharge, so it's actually faster to send it for repairs if it's been depleted.
I know I haven't talked about using Bombs.
I didn't like them since an early mission in the game in which I was getting hit by the Civ ally's bombs. At that time I was new to the game, so when my Tiny Hull ship got almost killed by one bomb hit, I was confused as to whether that was really my ally.
Then I found that the more logical conclusion was that bombs were the only weapon in the game that can cause friendly fire.
Nope, not using that. I don't want to risk killing my Tiny Hull ships or breaking their stealth field. I rather like to use them as stealth scanners when possible since their firepower is pointless compared to my other ships. I do outfit them with a weapon or two to deal with enemy Tiny Hull ships but I don't really care ever since I began to use mines.
The mines are magnetic. Enough said.
After I stopped using mines (when I got the Carrier), I was using PDS and drones that benefit from CANNON research, the very weapon I was specialising in. Why would I give a damn about the smallest ships? They aren't even irritating. At worst, I still have 3 SRM launchers that fire multiple small homing warheads.
I don't think those little babies can even damage my Carrier's shield faster than it can regenerate.
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END OF SPOILERS!
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"Help! I'm being run over by the Innernet!"
Probably one of the most memorable game recordings I've ever watched.
FRI
It's 10pm on a Friday and I'm in the office. I was planning to do some work but things got screwed up by what I expected to be minor problem.
The original idea was to photograph every single list of every item we have in every colour, then photograph every item in every available colour.
It was going to take some work. Taking stock is always time-consuming. I'm sure anyone who has worked in a warehouse or something would know. It's simple and boring.
But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
Spent a few days mentally whining about the work I have to do but feel so unmotivated to begin, but I came to realize there's no way I can avoid them.
As the owner of the business, there is nobody to nag on me or set me deadlines. I do as I please, but the bottom line is that I make a certain amount of profit every month (or on average over a year).
No teacher to get pissed at me me, no exam to fail.
Unless I consider the end of year calculation of total net profits to be my report card.
In which case, I barely made the mark last year thanks to a few people. It could have been worse - I could have failed horribly.
I'm now feeling as if this buyer I'm working with is my second mother of sorts. She's just so nice to me.
Then again, she probably expects me to make as much money as my mum used to, from which she will take a big cut.
Still, she's getting close to her retirement age. Women in her age group tend to be nicer to everyone than other kinds of people.
Hopefully her salesgirls don't read this. According to herself and my mum, they actually fear her, and that's how she likes it.
But that's what a boss gotta be. You cannot be nice to your subordinates all the time. Once in a while, yes, but mostly they've got to fear you to some degree to do the necessary work that they're so unwilling to complete.
Money alone isn't enough to make people work hard these days, but fear is a universal motivator that's been tested and proven since antiquity.
Which basically means I'm a terrible boss. My employees do not even look up to me. They don't actually disobey me and they're very nice to me, but the advice they give me on one occasion implied that the problem cropped up because I didn't dare to speak up.
Still, things are getting done because the employees I have are still doing it for the sake of my mother. After working for over a decade, the elder one is motivated enough by sentimental feelings to do her job without my mum around.
As for that particular issue, it's never happened before. Like totally never. Both that buyer and my mum have never heard of such a thing. Basically, the inside of a jacket was supposed to be the same purple as the outside but using different materials, and the factory gave me jackets with the insides in three shades of that colour.
I have a feeling this bastard is trying to test me.
My solution is to separate all three shades and consider them as different items, so that customers don't get confused about the colouring.
So anyway, I'm in the office but I can't work because my phone's battery has gone flat just 5mins I arrived.
It wasn't a problem - I have the USB cable that I can use to recharge it with my laptop.
The real problem is that the rate is so slow, the phone is consuming more power than it can recharge.
Fortunately I've already prepared to stay overnight. Like who cares, right? I'm the boss, so I can work whenever I want. It also compensates for the fact that I didn't work on Wed, Thu and today until just now when I arrived at 9.45pm.
I'm just awesome like that.
So now I'm blogging while waiting for the phone to recharge enough. Maybe 2-3 bars. Two if I get impatient, three being the preferred number.
Also got an extra shirt and berms because I will be sweating.
Removing packed items, photographing and then folding and putting them back repeatedly for this amount of goods is no easy task.
Next week, I will be prepared enough to tell my buyers how much of which goods I have that they want, and such things.
I cannot ask my employees forever about these issues.
Sometimes I think leaders are born, and I'm not one of them. When I look at HX, I see a natural right there. He doesn't even have to think about trying; he's already doing it without thinking.
Of course he's got issues just like the rest of us, and they're probably stopping him from being the better leader he could be, but I'm not his mother.
Heck, I don't even have the credibility to back anything I say regarding such things.
Me, I don't even like to go to work. In fact I'm trying without thinking to get all my work done at home. I only realized this when I thought about what I've been doing for this business over the last several months.
My parents rarely brought work home. My father brought rolls of price tags home to be separated (they come printed in rolls) during the busier seasons, at most. My mum also brought cardboard boxes home to be torn into smaller pieces because it's tiring work. We need those pieces to protect our items in our boxes so that when people cut the sealing tape they don't cut into the clothes inside.
Today a volunteer said something that reminded me of the pointlessness of my visits.
The last time when I said the steroids stopped working, it was true... only at the point of time.
The doctor had told me he had raised the dose and she didn't react to it, and he informed me about that.
He had also said that he would increase the dose again a few more times and if it didn't work, he would lower it back to a much healthier level (it's already gone far beyond what the NUH doctors prescribed).
Since it stopped working once, I had no reason to believe it would work again somehow.
But it did.
She's able to talk but it takes too much effort to do so unless it's necessary, like if she's in pain.
But this had made me forget that her memory is still screwed up.
Today when I arrived, a volunteer was talking to her and then accused me of not visiting her for three days.
That was nonsense. I came over yesterday morning with breakfast from the Burger King at Novena Square. She managed to finish most of that Big Breakfast equivalent (the one with the French toasts) except for the sausage, and the breakfast provided by the hospice.
But she had already forgotten about it.
What's the point of visiting her, other than when I miss her?
What's the point of doing anything if nobody remembers it except myself?
If absolutely no one other than myself is ever aware that a deed is done, then there is no difference between action and imagination.
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