Rant 1113 / The Sense Of Urgency Is Missing

Tito is going to Mars in 2018.

Technologically possible but very iffy.

Although he just wants to fly around Mars and come back in about 500 days, that's a very long time to spend in a small space. I mean, even those guys living in cages in Hong Kong don't normally spend entire days at home.

I have nothing against the apparent nationalistic move to send his own countrymen to Mars but like everyone else is thinking, isn't this a little too early for that?


















Avadon: The Black Fortress.

Been playing that a lot. Quite a long game, old school length. It's not a bad game either once I started playing it in windowed mode so that I can take frequent breaks. The battles feel a little monotonous like all old games do to me these days.

Anyways, this is one of the few indie games I have that hasn't turned into a disappointment.

























Things change as they always do.

Although I planned to switch my phones and internet to M1 from Starhub, the details have changed.

First, M1 has silently removed the Multi-Line Saver for new customers. In its place, from March 2013 onwards, I can only pick the Multi-Service Saver. The first gives me an overall discount on all services when I have at least 3 with them.

I was going to bring both my phones, my home broadband, my bro's phone and get a mobile broadband plan, totalling 5 services that will get me a 35% discount on everything.

Not anymore.

With the Multi-Service Saver, I will need at least 2 mobile lines plus a fibre broadband contract to get a general discount. In my case, I have 3 so that's 20% off.

Not really a bad deal but still worse than before since my mobile broadband won't count.

However, a new complication has occured: I want to get ViewQwest for my home fibre since it's the best ISP here from all the reviews. The only issue is that it's expensive, with it's lowest price plan of 100Mbps costing $60 a month and it doesn't seem to be too interested in offering discounts for anything.

If I subscribe to ViewQwest, I'll not be able to get that Saver discount at M1 anymore.


...


So I'm prepared to sign up for ViewQwest. This is totally screwing up my plans though, because now that I don't get the discount (the reduced Multi-Service Saver discount just isn't worth the crappy M1 fibre service), I have the option of NOT switching my phone service provider.

However, I'm still inclined to transfer both my phones and a mobile broadband modem to a single service provider for convenience.

The thing is that I have no issues with Starfug phones and mobile broadband, only its fibre, and the sole reason for my initial desire to bring all of them over to M1 is for the Multi-Line Saver discount that is no longer available.



Yet I may just bring them over if I can get a cheaper plan since I don't really use my phone much these days, now that I've almost fully converted all my communications with my suppliers to online. Urgent calls don't take more than an hour or two total in a month, so I can actually just get the cheapest plan for one of the phones.

I'm still looking at Sunshare in order to share the talktime and etc between my phones but I'm now confused about the details. Do both my phone need a Sunshare plan or can one of them simply leech off the main phone's talktime?

Emailed them so that I can get an answer in black and white, but it's the weekend so I'll have to wait for the reply.

Also, the phone. Currently, I don't plan to trade in my phone since its 12MP camera is pretty much unbeatable for the prices I'm willing to pay. So now, I'm looking at budget phones and my bro recommended the Nokia Lumia 520. However, M1 doesn't seem to be carrying it anymore in its online store, so I looked at the 620 instead.

S$48 for a SunSaver (and above) 2-year contract or $349 without any contract.

Both the SunSaver and SunLite plans are available under SunShare but I prefer SunLite which is $6.50 cheaper than SunSaver but doesn't get me the phone for $48.

Did the math and found that it's actually cheaper to get SunLite and fork out the $349 for the phone.

$6.50 for 2 years is $312. Add $48 and I get $360. $11 cheaper.

SunLite actually sucks horribly but since I'm planning to use wifi almost all the time (and with a separate 3G data plan on my mobile modem), I think I can actually handle the rather extreme limits of the plan.

SunLite is just $16.05 worth of talktime, SMS and data in any combination. That translates to 10mins talktime, 300 SMS or 1500kb of data.

SunSaver is 100mins of talktime and 500 SMS.

Hence Sunshare. I practically never use my phone's own 3G even now, so I'm keeping the SunLite for just the data in case of emergencies, although 1Mb really isnt much.

Hmm.. now that I'm analysing it this way, I can see that SunLite is really a bad idea. 1Mb isn't worth crap whether its an emergency or not. If I ever have to use it instead of the modem, I'd definitely exceed 1Mb anyway.

So, SunSaver with a second phone leeching off it and a separate mobile broadband plan, probably the 6GB one for $20. Sounds about right.
















I realize that I must change again. It is clear that I have reverted back to my earlier state of mental fuzziness.

I need to do some workouts again.

But I like this fuzziness. I don't have to think. My mind doesn't wander. I don't even know what I don't remember.

Yet I must change. It is a luxury I can't afford at this stage of my life, this un-thinking state of my mind.

It became clear to me when I met the accountant - I could barely talk coherently. This has gone too far; my survival is at stake here.

First world problems.


















Watched Killer Joe. Not sure if I got it. Very weird to me. Is the stupidity supposed to be dark humour?