Rant 1121 / Claypot Beef Stew

Shoulders and upper arms aching. Mainly the triceps.

I don't usually train my triceps because they aren't practical; I rarely use them for any work.

During the last IPT session, the instructor gave us two options:

1) spend the half the session cycling on the stationery bikes
2) lift some weights

We always cycle for at least half of every IPT session, so I picked weights to add some variety to the routine. Moreover, I wanted to see what real weights training is supposed to be like, albeit a rather light one.

It turned out to be a lot harder than I expected.

We all used light dumbbells between 4-7.5kg. It was obvious of the guys around me don't use dumbbells so they picked heavy ones thinking they can handle it. I asked if I could use 4kg when he told us to pick from the racks containing 5-10kg dumbbells, but ended up with 5kg even though he said yes.

First exercise was bicep curl mixed with shoulder raise.

Next was the upright row.

Third was the tricep extension.

Last was trunk twist.

15-20 reps per set, 50s rest between sets, only 3 sets.

Harder than I thought.


























Bioshock Infinite may be an excellent game but it was nowhere close to the epicness of ME3 (sans ending). This is based on the fact that I can easily quit the game and switch to Chinese Paladin 3 whenever I feel like it.

I'm not saying that it sucks, far from it, but it doesn't have the impact that ME3 had on me.

What's missing?

Compared to DXHR, another great game, I'd say that they're in the same league.

However, I haven't finished the game so whatever I say now might be premature.

Right now I'm at Comstock's home, and I suspect I could be close to the end. If so, I'm going to be disappointed. There better be more to this game than finding Comstock in his home and killing him.

As for the Industrial Revolution minigame, I'm only like 15-20 puzzles in and when I found out that my decisions are permanent, it felt like a bad idea to finish all the puzzles just for the rewards.

I want to finish the game more or less as a neutral character because for all I know, the Vox Populi might be just as bad as their oppressors but in the different way. In that case, I'm not supporting anyone.

As for weapons, the Handcannon is fantastic. It's basically best for short to mid-range and decent at long range. For tougher enemies, I go for the Volley Gun aka Pig but later found the Hail Fire more useful because I can control when the projectiles explode.

But most of the time, I find that the Handcannon is pretty good for most situations. In fact, for lone Mechanized Patriots I just alternate Shock Jockey and this gun to kill them.



The strangest thing in this game is that I'm not allowed to use Possession after the early part of the game. Not only can it never be found after a specific event in the game, no upgrades for it are available as far as I know. It's weird since it's clearly meant to be a legit Vigor and yet there's no way I can use it for most of the game, as if it's overpowered or something.

I don't really get that.





The accuracy of the enemies was kinda lame though. They can hit me as easily when I'm still as when I'm flying around on the rails. I guess that's one way to compensate for bad intelligence.























Made claypot beef stew. It's just beef, and lots of beef tendons. I only used 3 pieces out of the 6 tendons that made up the 1kg of the frozen packet because I didn't want it to overflow nor did I want a stew that had more tendons than stew.

With only 250g of beef in the pot, it quickly became apparent that it would never have enough flavour regardless of how long I boil it.

So I had two choices -  add a beef stock cube or experiment with Bovril that I had bought recently.

I tried Bovril with bread a few days ago, not as good as expected, so I've been looking for a way to use it. Here was an excellent opportunity to see what it can do.

Also added a bit of garlic and a lot of ginger, plus flour just before serving to thicken it.

The whole cooking process started at around 11am and ended at 6pm. 7 hours of continuous boiling at low heat. Actually, 4 hours at the lowest heat but it started to rain and I was reluctant to close the kitchen window since it was hot, so I chose to bring the claypot to a larger stove with a stronger flame instead.

The tendons were boiled for at least 5 hours, and I'm so glad they were covered in fats because the stew was kind of lacking in the kind of flavour only beef fats can give. The beef cubes I had inside were all lean meat while Bovril doesn't even seem to contain oil.

Today, I learn that tendons need to be boiled for 5 hours to become perfectly soft.

This stew was serious business, no doubt about it. 7 hours of minimal gaming because I had to keep going back every 30 minutes to check on it and refill the pot with water, not to mention the claypot had to be soaked in a tub of water since yesterday afternoon to prevent cracking today.

Of course it was a success. It would really suck if it had failed. REALLY sucked.

Forgot about potatoes and the salt was minimal, but all that was no issue because the stew was awesome. In fact, it may possibly be the best thing I've ever cooked so far.























It's really stupid but I can't believe it took me so long to link the timer-power-socket with my fan.

My bro's been using it for his terrapin's lamp so that it turns on for a while every so often. The terrapin likes to bask but it doesn't need too much heat.

I've been aware of it for months yet I never really thought about it until a few days ago when he asked me to get another one when I'm at the market.

Then I realized I could be using this with my fan!!

For years, I've been wishing for a fan with a timer for switching on instead of off so that it can automatically switch on at the same time as my air-conditioner switches off by its timer. That would help me save electricity by having the a/c turn off several hours before I wake up.

Since it's cool at night, I don't think it's going to be a problem if the windows are left closed unless I plan to wake up at 12pm or something.

But if I could have a timer for my window, that would be even better.

So anyway, I'm going to buy several of those for my electrical appliances. I could even use it on the light at my bed in conjunction with my morning alarm, if I ever use it.