1) Dress differently from the locals.
2) Talk in a foreign accent.
3) Eat overpriced food.
4) Visit places locals rarely go to.
5) Buy junk you
A lot of people do all of these when they're overseas and then return home telling everyone it had been a "great trip" and it was "so much fun", so this list should be pretty accurate.
Spent a bit of time trying the new shoes on and adjusting the shoe laces. The shoes are too new for me to really like the feel of wearing them but they should soften eventually.
Also sprayed the waterproofing spray liberally on the both of them and even on the inside. Opened my window to make sure the living room, where I left them, is well-ventilated.
Luckily the shoe fits well. No problem at all. No money wasted on the shoes.
Yay!
Now to wait for them to dry and then I can wear them. I mean, it's either these or the pair of old jogging shoes that's got the same problem as the one that just broke but to a lesser degree.
...
Applied a second layer for a stronger sense of security. Also deliberately sprayed between the layers where the laces are and inside the shoe, in case I get caught in some heavy rain.
The suede darkened after the first layer but I guess dark brown is fine too.
Bought a shoe tree and a multi-purpose shoe brush from Amazon after I recalled I had about US$20 from my days working at Mturk long ago. Was actually looking for a suede eraser/bar but that should work too.
It's a Allen Edmonds Combination cedar shoe tree, US$25. The US$5-brush has a metal suede brush, a softer rubber brush and a thin "fan" brush for the narrow areas.
Also found out I had over US$26 but none of the suede brushes nor suede erasers could be delivered to Singapore.
Thought about cancelling the whole thing but googled results said shoe trees are rare in Singapore. TBH I've never seen one IRL before.
But I really want one to make my shoes last, so I went for an alternative - VPost.
Coincidentally it was having a promotion that gives S$20 off for new customers like myself.
I calculated that the final cost of the delivery, which is 3.5lbs or 1.6kg, will cost almost S$28 without insurance.
But that offer is only for the first 150 new customers per month. If I don't get it, the other promotion is only 15% off.
Awesome!
Next I remembered that Amazon is offering free shipping to US addresses and both my items are eligible.
WOOHOO!
Net price I had to pay Amazon via debit card: US$3.01
Estimated price I have to pay VPost to get it delivered to Singapore: S$8 or S$24
Final cost: S$12 or S$28
Reasonable. Perfectly reasonable. Both are cheap no matter how I see it - $28 is kinda cheap and $12 is fucking cheap.
:D
Technically I should not consider the US$26 as free money but it totally feels like it is right now.
Found a pair of chino pants in my wardrobe while digging through the stuff for things I can throw away.
For some reason it's almost perfectly new, fits me perfectly, and I had no idea it existed.
Must have dumped it inside as a spare and forgot about it.
It's a little bit mouldy or something because there were a few tiny spots but otherwise it's completely fine.
I overpaid!
I was looking at the box, thinking if I should take it apart and use it at work as a padding as I usually do with all cardboard boxes I come across, when I saw a QR code.
So I scanned it with my iPad just for the heck of it.
What I found was... nothing.
The page wasn't available.
But it led me to Eastland's website where the error was displayed, and it made me curious about it.
I went to the Oxfords and Lace-up shoes category and found my shoe.
US$70.
I paid US$79 for mine on Gilt >:(
I thought about shipping and saw that Eastland doesn't deliver directly to non-US addresses, so I looked for its weight and found it stated as 3.3lbs on the DHL label on the box.
A quick calculation gave me the price of S$27 without insurance, the same as what I was charged for delivery and handling by Gilt.
That was a pretty good deal, getting DHL Express delivery for the same price as what VPost charges for its delivery that would have taken 5-8 days.
A small consolation that does not compensate for the fact that I overpaid US$9 nonetheless. I could have just bought directly from Eastland and waited a bit more.
Oh well, it's just 9 bucks anyway.
But from now on I'll check the price on the original merchant's website before buying anything on Gilt. No matter what, its delivery fee is still a good deal so I will still return, albeit with more caution.
Wii-U actually has a good game? IMPOSSIBLE!
After all those zombie games and what seems to be the slow death of this undead genre, A NEW CHALLENGER APPEARS!
The game is called "Dead State: The Zombie Survival RPG" and it's less about returning the undead back to the dead and more about not becoming dead (and hence undead) yourself.
Both are included in the game, it's just that most zombie games these days are solely about killing them.
This isn't the case in Dead State.
It's got the standard RPG stuff like stats and level-ups, and it's got turn-based combat.
But wait, there's more!
It's got "base-building" too!
At this point I have this impression it's a turn-based tactical RPG combined with this game called "Rebuild" (and its sequel "Rebuild 2") on Newgrounds.
The page also mentions a reactive AI that sounds like the Director AI in the L4D games, but I'm not going to expect much from indie developers such as these working on such a low budget. It's just not realistic to hope for something comparable to what L4D had.
Nevertheless I'm very excited by this project and did not hesitate to pledge money to it. I only stopped to think about whether to pledge $15, $30 or more. In the end none of the options had anything I really want so I picked $15.
Made some jelly from these coral weed cubes I had in my fridge.
Technically it's expired since last year but as far as I can tell the jelly is perfectly edible.
Had some ants from back when I first stored it outside the fridge after using one cube but I picked them out.
Boiled it a bit too to sanitize it.
In fact I left it boiling for a little too long and it got a little thick when I got back, so I added a little more water and then poured it into my reusable plastic containers.
Apparently it was too much water. My jelly turned out to be almost fluid except it doesn't break into droplets.
Initally I thought it didn't coagulate at all and was going to boil it a bit to reduce it, but when I pour it into the pot it went down as one whole almost liquid piece.
Derp.
Next time I'll have to remember that when the mix appears a little thick, it's ok. It would probably have become jelly with a little more texture if I had left it at that.
Right now eating it is kinda like somewhere between eating and drinking.
A private company is offering a one-way trip to Mars.
Surprisingly, it's not about sending your ash into space like we already have today.
Mars One co-founder Bas Lansdorp has a very modern approach to funding the project: media exposure. "We will finance this mission by creating the biggest media event ever around it." He said in a company video, adding, "Everybody in the world can see everything that will happen in the preparations and on Mars."
This is a huge double-edged sword. If things go well, this is going to be the event of the century. The first space colony! It screams "sci-fi" so loud my inner ears hurt.
But if something bad happens... the PR fiasco in the Vietnam War would be nothing compared to this.
It's not just about killing the company; it's going set space travel back by decades at least if the pioneers die.
Worse - it's pretty likely they will.
I mean, think about how the Europeans colonised the Americas.
The first permanent colony was set up by the English in Jamestown, Virginia. Of the first 500 colonists who settled there, only 61 survived the first 3 years.
Mars One is also planning to send new people every 2 years. That's not going to be enough.
The problem is that it's likely scientists today, despite centuries of staring at the planet, simply don't know enough about surviving there.
The Europeans had had extensive experience with living there through their interaction with the natives and the Spanish conquistadores, but still they brought their old ways with them and tried to live their original lives in a new and completely different environment.
Whoever goes to Mars will have to accept that their lives are going to be totally different from what they had on Earth.
For one, a Martian year is 1 Earth year and 320 Earth days. How are they going to deal with that? Stick with Earth year? Yea probably at the beginning, but that will lead to inefficiency when the colony grows large enough.
Because of the length of the year, Martian seasons (and Mars as four seasons too) are almost twice as long as Earth ones. How is that going to affect Martian agriculture?
I don't believe in the first colony. It's going to be just an experiment, a lesson for everyone. Success will only come after that.
But it is going to be interesting to see how the English language will evolve on Mars if it succeeds. What will Martian English sound like a century after the arrival of the first pioneers? Or will it be the same as the contemporary Earth (most probably American) English of that time due to the ease of communication with Earth?
What I'm pretty sure about is that they're going to find that they require two-way transport early into the development of the colony.
Some people are bound to get homesick. Someone's bound to wish to be buried on Earth. Something's bound to require the actual presence of an expert or whoever who doesn't wish to be there permanently.
These are eventualities, not merely possibilities.
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