Rant 1119 / Running Green

Fri



My terrapin's getting picky. I throw in leafy vegetables and it eats just the leaves, leaving the stalks cleanly stripped.

It just means I'm feeding it too much because when it's hungry enough, it eats anything I throw in.

I don't like it though; I'm not wealthy enough to let it pick its food because truth to be told, it likes meat more than vegetables. There has been a point where it ignored vegetables because I had been feeding it raw fishballs and squids. It took about 3 days of starving for it to eventually give in to its hunger and accept fresh greens.

Fortunately, turtles can easily handle short periods of starvation, and three days are nothing it can't take. I normally avoid feeding it daily anyway, regardless of how hard it stares.

I just don't want it to end up like my bro's terrapin - it doesn't even eat fresh food! All it accepts are pellets because that's what my bro has been feeding it all these time.

He says it's ok because it's only almost a year old, but how do baby terrapins survive in the wild without pellets?

Anyways, it's his money so whatever, but I'm not letting mine get spoilt.




















It's been so long since I ran this hard. During last evening's IPT, I tried to push myself and jogged 2km without stopping.

I've only recently started on a bit of light cardio, and that's 10-20mins of light cycling on my stationary bike per session. Roughly 100kcal burnt each time according to the electronic display.

Running, for someone with my weight, is very different from cycling on the lower resistance levels.

After that jog, no amount of stretching could prevent the ache in my thighs that persists throughout today and probably tomorrow.

Not to mention there's a slight pain in my left ankle when I turn that's been around since the previous IPT session. Now I wear an ankle guard just in case.


















仙剑奇侠传3 is going to be a little hard to complete. First thing is that, as I've mentioned before, I can't alt-tab. Really sucks.

Second thing I noticed is that the combat can sometimes be irritating. It tried to use the same kind of combat as Grandia and Ocean Story but ended up with an inferior system.

Basically, units can attack when it's being attack. However, when it's attacking someone, all attacks on it will miss. There have been a lot of times when one or two of my guys have exactly the same speed as the monsters so everytime they attacked the monsters, the monsters were already out attacking someone else.

I can solve that by leaving those monsters to other party members or defend, which makes the turns come again faster. Either way, it means I'll have to watch out for the timing.

...

Suddenly, I'm actually grateful for the auto-combat mode in a RPG. I've almost never used this mode in the RPGs I've played because it usually sucks - they simply attack. In this game, it still suck as expected but I don't have to watch the combat and feel annoyed by all the wasted attacks.

I just have to watch the HP at the end of every combat and then play with my iPad during the fights.































I like the car but I like the suggested system even more. I can imagine having some kind of card reader instead of a keyhole so that users can start the car by sticking their credit card or cashcard into it.

Kind of like our electronic road taxes but the taxi meter linked to the reader would not only display the amount charged but also charge the amount in real time so that the user can easily remove the card at any moment.

However, that would require a steady network connection constantly and I'm not sure if it's possible if there is coverage everywhere.
























So it's a terrible idea to deliberately drop down to below 500 trophies in Clash of Clans. That zone turned out to be filled with high level players who are there for a few reasons.

First, there are those who are simply some kind of piñata for other players to farm.

Second, there are the high level players who use that area to protect themselves from similar level players. That's what I tried to do anyway.

In the past, I lose less resources than I make most of the time. For the last two days, I'd been losing almost twice as much as my daily income everyday.

Fortunately, I have been gaining  trophies so I'm returning to the safer zone where it isn't some kind of free-for-all for players of all levels.




















Sun










So I went to the Philips Carnival Sale this morning. First thing I noticed was that there was no free gift for members.

:(

Second was the significantly smaller crowd. This year, Philips neglected to email me about the sale so I guess a lot of other people also didn't find out about the event. I only knew about it when someone mentioned it.

This time, I've finally found out for certain that the discounts aren't actually that great. I'm not sure if I'll be going back there again for irons in the future.

I also bought a new monitor that feels slightly smaller than my old one, 21.5" vs 22", but the display resolution is now larger at 1920*1080 compared to the old 1680*1050. The moment I switched it on, I could feel that everything feels wider and flatter.

But for S$185, this is ok. Model 226V4L.

As for the old one, I have yet to call them about the cost of repair.