Cultivated fish is coming. Would be nice, because the market is flooded by the horrible frozen lye-filled fish fillets. Pretty sure it was inspired by the lutefisk. It's really not too bad, you just have to acidify the fish, or at least bring the pH back to neutral. In my limited experience, a vinegar marinate helps, and so does very thorough cooking. Cultivated fish would be better though, because then I won't have to think about the effects of overfishing on the oceans. It's already been an established fact that we have been eating smaller and worse fish over the decades, by studies involving historic data and old restaurant menus. The fact that I see so many people offering baby oysters, abalones and scallops, and tiny baby fish like barramundi under 400g just very much highlights the fact that we're practically at the bottom scraps now.
Do those baby seafood creatures even have flavour???
What next? Are we going to fight whales for their food too? Hope the fish meat cultivation works and be scaled to satisfy the global demand.
22nd Sep 2021
This is so incomprehensibly senseless.
I have to restart the Body Beast workout.
23rd Sep 2021
Watched the documentaries by Kings and Generals on the Imjin War earlier, although much of it was painful to see, the battle of Myeongnyang was absurdly incredible. With 13 warships that were hastily adapted into their turtle ships, Admiral Yi fought against the Japanese armada of 200-300 ships - and destroyed about 30 ships without losing a single one of his own.
08th Oct 2021
So a fire at the 13th floor, at the diagonally opposite unit, at about 10am. Pretty bad, parts of the window melted and fell off. Fire engines came, Fire Investigation came later. Someone might have been hurt but I couldn't tell because I left my glasses at home, taking only my usual go-out bag with my wallet and keys. Almost forgot my mask.
Got home at about 12pm, can't smell smoke but my nose might be numb right now. Could have returned sooner but they needed to clean up the lifts and lots of people were queuing for them afterwards.
16 Oct 2021
Sometimes life gets interesting.
31st Oct 2021
So there are capsule adaptors for my Dolce Gusto machine that lets me use Nespresso capsules with it, and they only cost about S$11 now. Snapped one up immediately because Nespresso capsules come in such an array of variety and I no longer have to look hard to find any that's under S$0.55 each.
So I am single again. I feel very very sorry for ending the relationship but it had to be done before we invest even more time and emotion into it. We were just such a poor match in the way we think and what we eventually want in life, and I don't want either of us to have to change just to keep the relationship going.
She was giving in to everything I ask for and even things she only thought I would ask for, it makes me feel so bad now. But ultimately that's not what I want in a relationship, and that's not how one should be.
01st Nov 2021
This is the period of my life that is probably the lowest so far. Have to add "so far" because it cannot be overstated just how far down the real rock bottom can be in life. Now I tread on truly dangerous grounds, and I am only glad I walk alone, because I don't know if I will fall further, but at least I am not going to drag anyone down with me.
02nd Nov 2021
If the virus is going to be endemic, and the death rate will be staying or even rising to a higher plateau indefinitely, doesn't this mean it is effectively a massive cut in life expectancy globally?
Should this adjust our expectations for retirement, especially in terms of finances?
Back to the dating apps, and it's matches galore compared to my experience in my late 20s. There were even a few who tried to sustain the conversation when I stop replying. I wish I know how to keep their expectations realistic upfront but the fact is that my life is an unusual mix so I can either make it sound nice or really bleak, and it makes no sense to paint my life as dark AF. For example, I live on my own in a place I do not have to pay rent for. Awesome, right? But I have a dying business, no degree and no relevant work experience for most jobs, so that's pretty fucked. Then on the other hand, I write/talk like this, appreciate musicals and paintings, and keep bottles of champagne for special occasions. Yet simultaneously, I prefer to stay home all day in my underwear. In terms of physique, I am clearly overweight, although I work out 5-6 days a week mostly lifting weights in my full-blown home gym so I look closer to being 80kg than the 95kg I actually am.
Where does a potential partner put me in terms of suitability as a life partner? If you take out all the good points above, I am a 95kg slob with a no career. If you're looking at just the good parts, then I am a completely different creature.
Really love Bard's Tale IV. Wish they can make more. I am at the Stennish Isles, just entered the castle's sewers, and it looks like I might be about 80% done, and there won't be anything similar for a while.
Making shortbread again, after all these years. Might have been over a decade already since the last time I tried, because rarely do I have enough confidence in my metabolic rate to indulge in them.
So it aches still today, in my left shoulder. Gets really stiff if I lift it up above head level. Burns slightly inside from exertion. Guess it's internal swelling to a small degree.
05th July 2021
Wow it's been two weeks since I even thought of typing anything here.
Anyway, rested for a week because various parts of my body was hurting mildly, and they weren't just aches. Feels better now but the leg day yesterday was hell all over again. Can't believe how much progress was lost over the last 9 days.
The electrician will come over on Wednesday. Hopefully the ethernet cable I got was suitable and will arrive in time to be installed for the TV at its new location. This week will be a pain, and I don't even know how my workouts will work out.
13th July 2021
The electrician finished 99% yesterday, leaving just the two wall fans that haven't arrived that he will settle next week.
For S$4k, he did a lot more than expected, not just providing all the lighting but also lighting that I didn't ask for originally, like an extra LED ceiling light to replace one that no longer worked, and an extra bulb for a toilet because he thought the current bulb was too dim. On top of that, he did all the fan installation for me at no extra charge when the job was supposed to be only replacing all the wires, trunking and the circuit breaker box. Typically ceiling fan installation costs S$50 each, or S$30 if multiple fans are purchased in a single order.
Now my home is in a mess, and will continue to be in a mess because the painter is next. He's coming over today to take a look and provide a quote. Given the amount of work he is going to have to do, his job might take another 5 working days. All the old trunking locations had nail holes in them because that was how they used to secure wires and trunking 50 years ago, and he is going to have to plaster every single one of them before he can even think about anything else, like whether to scrape off old paint.
Got my second Moderna jab last Sunday, different reaction this time. For the first jab, it was just weakness in the shoulder, while this time it was fatigue and possibly a mild fever. Didn't check my own temperate, but there was a mild headache I sometimes get with fevers, and a few paracetamols solved everything. Shoulder still felt a little weak yesterday and today, but not as bad as the first time.
28th Jul 2021
Yesterday, after the painter saw the paint on the main entrance door dried on the outside, he complimented me on the colour scheme of my home. I just told him I was lucky. I am, because I am lucky enough to have friends with good taste. I was skeptical about black trunking/pipes, and having dark red walls was a major risk to me, but with all my doors and door frames painted mahogany except for the toilet doors, they all just come together.
Yes it is a little darker than before, darker than what most would prefer, but with enough lighting, this isn't an issue, not when I am using LED track lights.
Tbh, having everything brighter in white harkens back to the days when people spent more time at home, especially with the existence of the now defunct role of "housewives", hence the need to amplify the natural sunlight. These days, I spend most of my time in my room, and nobody comes over in the day, so only the bedrooms should be in white, while the common areas don't matter in the day. Even if they do, there is the lighting. At 3-7W per bulb, I'm actually going to spend a lot less on the power consumption of my lights than ever before.
And I wanted a grandfather clock but turns out they're too damn expensive, so I've settled for a wall clock with pendulum. Wanted to keep it under S$100 but ended up paying S$50 more for one that had a little more history, so the sideboard had a smaller budget from about S$100 to S$60, which turned into a narrow side table instead, which also looked better than a sideboard in that location. I mean, the clock was "Made in Occupied Japan" so how could I resist? There was only a roughly 25-year period when it could have been made, because I don't think I've ever seen any Japanese product from the 70s that used that term anymore.
Maintenance may be a challenge in the future though.
07th Sep 2021
It's been a while! Let's begin from where I stopped the last time: paint.
It's all done but this guy ran out of patience in the last few days, so the brown paint for the door frames were messed up in that he either didn't let the first few layers dry before applying more layers, or the layers were too thick, so now many spots in the door frames are tacky ie sticky. Since I'm too cheap to redo them, the alternative is to apply talcum powder to remove the stickiness and then wait it out, probably for months.
Overall it is not a lot darker than before because we stopped adding dark elements to my home at that point mentioned in the last update, and began switching to brighter colours. And a lot of potted plants at the balcony, though only one is hanging as compared to the three initially suggested.
Got the wall clock for $130+ and it is a lot less user-friendly than modern clocks. The greatest challenge right now is in adjusting the pendulum which determines the speed of the clock. I have been recording notes about it for weeks now, but have been too lazy to do the math. The chime is lovely though, and its volume has been adjusted so it's barely audible in the rooms with the doors closed.
Didn't get a sideboard, but did get a very narrow table, 15cm deep, and I feel it's perfect for the job under the painting.
Also got some fabric from Spotlight for my staff to sew a noren, or door curtain, for my main entrance, so that I can keep the door open while maintaining privacy, and it blocks warm air while letting cool air move.
Maintenance is the issue because I need to have specific daily habits in order to keep my home in its current shape, eg putting everything back to where they're supposed to be all the time. Motivation is going to be needed, and most likely from hosting gatherings regularly.
Met someone, think she might be the one. Even bought me a new mattress, but I'll still get a mattress topper as previously planned, and likely during the coming 9/9 sale. Still got a kitchen hood in my wish list for November.
Haven't restarted my workouts since the electrician started work back then, so it's just over two months so far. A few weeks ago I'd apparently hit 92kg so 3kg of muscle mass was lost by then, and that's frightening! It takes so many months of hell to build all that strength, and then mere weeks to lose so much of it!
Worse still, it's so hard to get back to first gear now.
So, meeting two different matches this weekend. One, interesting, mysterious because I know practically nothing about her, not even her appearance beyond her face. Totally expecting her to be morbidly obese and maybe depressed. Just a coffee, so whatever. The other is not interesting, but it's going to be a mahjong session, so there's that.
I consider a match still valid when her last text was within the 48 hours, so the current count is 2 on CMB, 5 on OKC and 1 on Lovenn. It's not confusing because I no longer care that much beyond the first match I mentioned. Take it easy.
Concerned about tomorrow's Plyo session. Just restarted, taking form very seriously. Chest and Back today had a few exercises using weights, and I had to constantly think about keeping my lower back braced or whatever it's called. Did a lot fewer reps too, compared to my last session in January, in order to save energy to be able to keep my posture correct. Safety first.
Plyo though, that's going to be interesting. The plan is to do squats or knee-to elbow, or a mix, instead of any of the jump moves. On top of that, again I will take it easy, push only to 70%, to conserve energy to keep my posture perfect.
Let's see how that goes.
26th Mar 2021
This is fucked up. Just hurt my back leaning forward while getting out of my chair. Yesterday's Yoga had left my lower back a little sore, but I'd been careful all the time, and it felt ok again when I woke up this morning.
Just by getting out of the chair! What the heck? At least it doesn't seem too bad, I think I can walk normally still, but again I'm not exercising for a week at least.
I hate to admit this but this may be it, this is my last straw, I think I will quit P90X. My lower back is too fragile for it now.
Fuck.
Change is another factor in a relationship. Wonder if that's one of the reasons why fewer couples stay together over the long term compared to the past.
Changes were initiated. I am slow, as usual. Again, don't know why but when it comes to my work, I can have dozens of ideas but something in my head that I just can't put a finger on keeps blocking any motivation to actually act on them.
27th Mar 2021
Requested a capsule opener from Dolce Gusto which they give for free if you ask for it.
Curiosity, of course. What real use is there for an empty capsule? For gardening? Really?
Anyway, opened two espresso capsules and one cafe au lait, and it was surprising on two notes:
1) There is surprisingly little ground coffee in the capsules, it only fills the bottom half cm of the capsule, the rest seems to be empty (after use).
2) Cafe au lait doesn't even contain ground coffee; it's pure instant.
A coffee date today. With my hurt back, wonder how it will go. Heck, this girl is so reserved, even if everything was normal I'd still be wondering how this will turn out.
Wanted to do a walk instead but she wanted to sleep in. Mild back pain, mostly to do with sitting for a long time, then standing up and straightening my back, so it's no big deal.
What does she even look like? This is my first time going out with a girl knowing only how her face looks from a certain side angle, so basically I won't recognize her.
Ok, so I also don't expect much to result in this but... we have to trudge on, and I am genuinely curious what she's really like. Yes I said it, I don't know anything about her at all. She's so intelligently reserved, after a week of conversation she's revealed so little I am unable to form a proper picture of what she's like.
As you can also tell, I am excited despite my fatigue. It's always like that for every date despite the poor outlook. There has been that voice at the back of my head that this is because I didn't treasure what was in front of me earlier, the one who lasted 3 months, but... it really was getting boring and going nowhere with her reservations about everything and mine. We simply didn't fit, and I have to keep reminding myself that just because a girl was willing to go out with me for months doesn't automatically make her the right one.
Tomorrow is open, date cancelled due to miscommunication. Also, not interested enough in the girl to try to salvage this first meet up.
28th Mar 2021
That girl was really extremely reserved, it's pretty hard to communicate with her. Maybe I'll still keep seeing her, maybe I won't. Probably won't. Communication is important.
So I've lost the inhibition about saying hi to any girl on dating apps. Wow. Took me a while.
30th Mar 2021
Yes! Asked a girl out earlier for this weekend and she said yes last night! The excitement is because although she's covered her lips in all her photos, she showed enough for anyone to tell she's hot, likely a 9/10. The hottest I would have gone out with if we really do meet up this weekend. On top of that, she's like one of my closest friends - very very friendly and forgiving. At one point I might have made a faux pas, but she said she was more concerned by whether it was something she did.
Of course, this is always followed by the mental reminder that these dates never amount to anything, and this time it is truly depressing.
Then again, it could be that expecting it to become something is hurting my chances. I really don't know.
Looked more carefully at her photos just now and realized she's probably overweight. Some things are a good hint of being that, and although she's covered what I usually look for, the upper arms, she showed the back of her hand in a relaxed position.
She's still at least an 8/10 so far though. With a personality like that, she's bordering on unicorn.
Someone reminded me of something I knew but had forgotten - love isn't that easy to find, just because you're interested in a girl after a date doesn't make that love. I'd been so focused on scoring dates that I'd neglected to remind myself a few things I'd already figured out in the past.
04th Apr 2021
Doing 100 pushups a day isn't difficult anymore, if I can split them into sets of 10, and can change the type of pushup. Doing 100 of a single type of pushup makes little sense.
05th Apr 2021
Saturday's date was a new lesson. Sunday's didn't happen.
She had most of the qualities I appreciate, except she was very dishonest with her photos (for good reasons, as it turns out when she took off her mask) and there was still no chemistry. We did chat for hours but we were tired soon and the second half of the date was pretty much forced - we remained tired, the conversation kept going but neither of us enjoyed it.
Lesson here is that just because someone has all the qualities you like does not mean you have found the right one. Also didn't help that her looks were 3-4 out of 10.
Let's see what this weekend brings.
06th Apr 2021
Forgot to lock my living room windows before going to work. and the wind in the afternoon storm was so strong it pulled those windows open and got the balcony drenched. Good thing the rain didn't reach the wooden laminate flooring, only soaked the tiles.
Also didn't completely shut the windows at the aircon condenser units because it's got a huge ledge and rain almost never gets in, but somehow the wind direction was unusually westerly and strong during the storm so that area got soaked too. Unfortunately that's all wooden flooring. For the first time ever, I had to mop up rainwater on the wooden floor. It's bad.
I'd love to keep my windows open last night, but the weather forecast said it was going to rain through the evening, so my home was given the full-aircon-drying treatment again. All windows shut, only the master bedroom was shut from the rest of the home since it didn't need drying, and the living room aircon was on Dry mode for the night. My room was on cold mode but it was dry too, just that it was more comfortable to sleep in.
This morning when I got up, it was so quiet - much less traffic noise, no food smell from the market. I got reminded again why some families do this all the time. So bad for the environment, but the mornings become so pleasant.
10th Apr 2021
A few days ago I had signed up for a 1-to-1 matchmaking meal date matched by age and religion preference set up by a SDN-approved agency. Yes, I am getting really tired of the results from the apps and am trying new things.
Ok that aside, I had already signed up for a bargain version of that meal date that's matched only by age preference by the same agency, and I frankly have no confidence in the resulting date. In any case, I am busy tomorrow, so I told the agency it's going to be on Sunday for either lunch or dinner, and thus lunch was set.
Then a few days ago, I read an announcement I had been seeing a few times before but didn't want to sign up more than one date at a time, that said that the agency was really short on guys, particularly Christians and guys from 1987 and older, so since I fit the second condition, I signed up just to help them and because this lunch on Sunday wasn't going to be a guaranteed success.
That was read before and at the beginning of my morning coffee. What I read was
"The date is confirmed on 11 Apr, 6pm."
and I took that to mean that the match would be confirmed on the 11th of April, which was fine, I could look at the match confirmation after the lunch date.
Turns out it really meant that the date itself is confirmed to be on the 11th of April, 6pm. So now Sunday's going to have a lunch date and a dinner date with two different ladies at the same restaurant. This is... well... out of my comfort zone. It can be tiring, but it's easier than asking for a refund when it already said no refund.
The dinner date will be tough, but hopefully they're interesting. People who sign up for these are usually a slightly different breed compared to those who are very active on the apps. Lots of people are active on both, but the fact that they signed up for these 1-to-1 dates say something about them.
16th Apr 2021
So got some capsules from this brand Carraro via Qoo10 since they were on offer and were on par with the current lowest prices I could find for original Dolce Gusto ones, about S$0.50 each. Since the reviews didn't mention hardware problems like stuck capsules, they seemed good for testing especially when I'm down to about 6 boxes, 3 of which have only half left.
At the moment I've tried 4 of them.
Guatemala - mildest espresso I've ever had. If acidity is such a big deal to you that you'd sacrifice everything else to keep it down, this is your cup of... coffee. Frankly though, might as well drink tea.
Kenyan - floral, as expected of Kenyan beans, but slightly unexpected because it's an espresso and I thought the beans would have been roasted to the point where the heat would destroy most of unique characteristics, yet this is the most floral and sweetest espresso I've had from a capsule machine. Memorable.
Brazilian - nutty, acidic, this is just big on everything and overwhelms your palate. Might do well with some milk, maybe. Needs to be tried again, with and without milk.
Crema Espresso - this is just Dolce Gusto's Espresso Intenso with minute differences.
So as for the two consecutive dates that day, not much to talk about. The first was easier to communicate with during the meal, but she's physically not exactly my type - short and overweight. The other was harder to talk to because she doesn't know half the things I mentioned, even the moka pot. She was much taller, probably around 165cm, and slimmer, but decided since I'm not here to fuck around, there's no point keeping in contact with a girl who has trouble understanding the things I say.
After about a week of texting with the first girl so far, I noticed she's finding it tough to keep up with me too, but she's trying to keep the conversation going. Definitely appreciate the effort, but not sure where this would go. Will meet her again this weekend, so we shall see.
Frankly though, this is demoralizing. Maybe I am expecting too much.
Almost done with rearranging the living room, the corridor and half the kitchen. Don't think I will do much with my current room, and lots of stuff need to be rearranged in my previous room. Got to wait for the living room to be cleaned on Sunday so that I can move what used to be a bookshelf in the store room to the right position in the living room, then bring all the decorative stuff and souvenirs to it.
Oh man, so much stuff.
Also, to get rid of all 21 photo albums (they occupy quite a bit of space unnecessarily since nobody has opened them for at least 15 years except to get a photo out for my brother's wedding), the photos need to be digitized, and according to two studios, this will cost over 1.6k SGD (900 more if I want the photos returned into the albums). Another pain.
17th Apr 2021
Retried Brazil. The espresso is just... bold. That's probably the best word for it. It's accurate to say it tries to overwhelm your palate. Might not be great with milk but haven't tried it yet. For an espresso that gets your attention from the first sip, this is it.
As for Puro Arabica, it's probably one of the best espressos from capsules I've tasted. It definitely is sweet, yet... bold but not as much as Brazil. I'm guessing it's a blend of Kenya and Brazil with some Guatemala to round the edges.
Anyway it is the phenomenon in which your expectations in others become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Initially, you have certain beliefs about someone you don't really know that you're meeting for the first time. Your beliefs affect the way you act towards this person. This affects the self-beliefs of this person, which changes the way this person acts towards you, and this further reinforces your initial beliefs towards this person, and so on and so forth.
Is this why schools shouldn't stream their students according to their grades? Because the education thinks you're smart, you feel more confident and more motivated to keep pushing yourself academically, so you get even better grades, and etc. Or the reverse happens to the students with poorer grades.
Could you encourage the better students while NOT discourage the worse students?
24th Apr 2021
Decided to clear the living room a bit to make space for a potential dining table. A friend told me my current round dining table is not big enough for 8, the current limit for home gatherings, so I decided to get an extendable dining table.
To be honest, I'd always been toying with the idea of having a coffee table, or just some way to chill at the balcony. In fact, several weeks were spent looking into tall tables and bar stools for that area, but eventually decided it was not worth it because if I get just 2-3 chairs, as the gatherings grow, people can't just pull up a chair from elsewhere to join us (since we're on bar stools). But if we use a shorter table, it's a little low, my window grills obstruct the view, and the view alone does not justify having a table there.
Now, however, there's a new reason - a longer table is needed while the smaller table is too good to be thrown. So, the plan is to keep both in different parts of my home - the extendable one at my living room/balcony, the smaller round one between the two bedroom doors. This is for testing out the new table, and if it works out, I will put my round table up for sale, or keep both so that in the future, my tenant can have a gathering at the same time as I do. Lets see how it feels to have that table in the balcony first. If it's not comfortable, I will need to keep it at the space where the round table is, then move it to the balcony before each gathering.
Meanwhile my storeroom is a mess. Realized I have too many shelves and racks now, I won't have to set up the new smaller metal rack, and this thing is occupying space. Might sell too, though unlikely to have demand.
01st May 2021
Body Beast, despite being less... vigorous... than P90X, it is just as effective at what it does.
I have not been weighing myself since I started it over a week ago, but the aches from the Build: Legs sessions come only slightly less intensely than those from Plyometrics. Also, I can move myself more now from straight arms upwards when doing chinups. About 30 degrees, estimate. That's far more than about 10 degrees, barely any movement, before I started this.
Impressive.
03rd May 2021
Sometimes just because a thought comes that might seem useful doesn't necessarily mean I know how to make use of it.
For example, just now I figured that elderly care might not be in high demand in the next several decades in some countries due to the pandemic. In fact, if the trend holds and China continues to keep its incidence rates low, the people there might really grow old and require geriatric care, while many others won't see an increase.
I think, there will be a significant inflow of people in that field to China in the next 50 years.
21st May 2021
Huh, ok. It's been a while. The latest wave is worrying, especially with the new pseudo-CB and its limit of 2 guests, and the entire block being tested, while the government is silent on further aids for businesses beyond the F&B sector.
Meanwhile one of my staff has not been vaccinated because she's already on many medications for her ongoing conditions, so I've sent them all home.
Tried some new stuff, not sure if it will work.
Hosted a larger dinner, can't multitask. Need more jugs to avoid refills, a bit of decaf, a bit of tea, go through my box of ceramic plates for good ones for communal dishes.
23rd May 2021
A listing I had been keeping an eye on at Shopee just changed to this Irish oysters that are going for $30 for 24 pieces, ie $1.25 per oyster. Fresh, unshucked, frozen.
Oysters are really no longer a luxury food.
And on that topic, I have so many different food items in my carts in various online shopping platforms that I've had to ignore and whose sales I've had to forgo because there simple isn't enough room to freeze that much stuff.
The latest that had to be skipped is this promotion by a meat wholesaler from whom I was able to get, for S$50, a whole roasted duck (with dang gui, and weighing at least 2.3kg before roasting), a 1kg slab of roasted pork, and two 1kg-slabs of raw frozen pork spare ribs. This is ridiculous!
With only one real meal per day, my food consumption rate has slowed down dramatically, so this is now part of life. However, it also gives me the impression that food prices are falling significantly. Probably true, due to the pandemic.
25th May 2021
My plants got hit by a spider mite infestation, discovered yesterday. They were surprisingly easy to identify, seems to be the only bugs that appear as dark spots, builds webs and leads to mottled leaves. The change came seemingly overnight, at least for my overcrowded brinjals. They were also on my other better brinjals, my gingers, red bean and possibly my either apple or butterfly pea sprout. The last, I'm not sure if it's caused by spider mites because there were no black spots or webs but parts of the tiny leaves near the stem were either eaten or decayed.
Anyway spider mites are really spiders that suck plant juices. Harmless to us but annoying and quick-acting on weaker plants, eg my overcrowded brinjals.
Sprayed some pure neem oil on the overcrowded brinjals and the soil under all the plants, but that was too slow, some of them might die the next day, so I tried a very mild detergent spray, and it seems to have worked by today. Going to have to monitor the leaves closely.
27th May 2021
So this sourdough bread that I see everywhere these days is just an overhyped thing.
First and foremost, we must understand bread. Normally, bread is made with yeast produced commercially. Yeast is everywhere in the air, but somehow some people managed to find a specific breed (or whatever it's called) that is seriously efficient at doing its job, so even now, your instant yeast you bought from the supermarket works ridiculously fast compared to sourdough yeast.
Now, as I've mentioned, yeast is everywhere, literally, that's how anyone can make sourdough out of nothing but flour and water in their homes. However, as you can imagine, if you leave a mix of water and flour in room temperature exposed to the ambient air, it's going to attract all the random bacteria too. Bacteria that feed on the mix tend to produce lactic acid, and that's where the "sour" in "sourdough" comes in. As the bacteria and yeast grow, they eventually begin fighting like some kind of fight between good and evil, where the good gives you bubbles in your dough, and the evil gives you diarrhoea.
Through repeated feeding of more water and flour, you let them fight till the yeast has mostly won, leaving just that little bit of bacteria that will never die off, especially when reinforcement is always airdropping from the air. The result is the stuff you replace yeast with in all your bread recipes, and that's why it's sour. Also, baking will kill off all of them so there's little worry about illness.
But the thing is, it's just yeast with extra steps and icky by-products from bad bacteria. It's not like commercial yeast is expensive in the first place, and you could always grow store-bought yeast the way you grow sourdough. The other difference is flavour produced by the bacteria and yeast just because they happen to be in your home when you left that mixture out in the open. I guess it's completely accurate to say it's going to taste of home, literally.
I'm just going to buy some yeast instead.
03rd June 2021
Replaced the tap at the basin outside the kitchen toilet door. Used to be our morning washup basin a long time ago but isn't really necessary these days, it's only good for when there are more people in the home, so that there is still a basin to be used when the toilet is occupied.
Anyway it's worth mentioning not only because it's the first tap I've replaced, but also because it was a huge pain to deal with, mainly because it's a combination of very narrow space and corroded nut. I couldn't even measure the nut to find out its dimension and had to buy so many tube spanners to trial and error till I finally found that the 24mm one fits, albeit with a bit of shrinking with a pair of pliers.
So it began with me finding out that the regular adjustable spanner can't do the job because it kept slipping off the very flat nut holding the tap tight under the sink in the very narrow space. Also there was barely any room to turn it anyway, maybe enough to rotate 10 degrees.
That was extremely frustrating.
So I googled and found out about the existence of the tube spanner, but as mentioned earlier, there was no room to measure it, so I estimated it to be about 20mm, and bought two sets of them from China. Turns out the biggest one, the 22mm almost but couldn't fit, so since there isn't a 23mm one, I went for the 24mm.
These things took weeks to arrive, so all in all these whole process of getting a 24mm here took months.
Then when the 24mm arrived, it fit but it couldn't turn because the nut was a little corroded, so eventually I found an anti-rust lube spray, but by then I was too frustrated to deal with it, not to mention it wasn't urgently needed, so I merely gave it a generous spray, and left it at that, thinking this would give it time to penetrate.
After a few months, finally remembered about it and had the motivation to do it. Still didn't turn, and it took a lot more trials and error to realize I wasn't holding the tube to fit it completely, but even if I did, it still wouldn't turn. Last resort, another generous spray of the lube and gave it a minute. This time, it turned a tiny bit, and this was a huge progress under the circumstances.
More struggling, blah blah blah, and it finally came loose, allowing me to replace the tap.
Tbh while waiting for the lube for that minute, I was already looking into replacing the entire basin just so that in the future, it would be easier to replace the tap, but standing basins easily cost S$400 each, so... never mind.
13th June 2021
So took my first dose of Moderna today. They announced that from Friday everyone between 12-39 could apply, so I did and immediately got a slot at for Sunday, today. Next jab will be in July.
Wasn't too bad, very well-staffed so there were plenty of people directing us towards where we should go and every step.
One and a half hours after the jab, the weakness set into my left arm. Two hours in, I couldn't lift it above my head without feeling an ache. Tonight, sleep might be an issue, but we shall see.
This reminds me of the time I had the ligament replacement surgery and the same shoulder ached for days, while lifting it up was impossible for months. In fact, I couldn't lift it above my head even by the third month.
Anyway, good thing tomorrow is a rest day, so I'll probably take two rest days for this cycle, no big deal.
Might have met someone, but we shall see. Looks promising, but then again so did several of my past matches.
Got an electrician to take a look at my flat, and discovered on top of rewiring the entire flat and changing all power points and fusebox costing 4k SGD, all power points can be moved during the process. I mean, since he's pulling everything out already, repositioning them doesn't cost any additional effort.
That changed the entire game.
Now I have a friend to come over to help me shift the furniture around for a second time, but this time with a more elaborate plan, much much less make-do and much much more redo. Might as well, why simply adapt to things when they can be changed at no cost? What a revolutionary concept.
I can do a single pullup now. For real, no hop necessary. Since last week. Up to the mouth level though, so to get the chin above the bar, I still have to tilt my face upward. And only with the back grip, as in palms facing myself.
Two straight days of storms, flooding in various parts of Singapore, air so wet one of my (non-calibrated) hygrometers displayed 99% humidity for most of the 1st and 2nd of the year.
It's also not every year that it rains so heavily the air is full of minuscule floating rain droplets that the wind can carry around everywhere to the point where they were being blown into the stairs outside my home, around the wall and into my front door. My doorway was a little wet by evening. Even when the wind wasn't strong, I could feel the droplets getting blown in through the any gap I left in the windows.
Good thing my storeroom has a dehumidifier and my cello case is packed with desiccant. Last I checked, the storeroom remained about 10-15% lower in humidity than outside.
It is now the 3rd last week from the end of the entire P90X schedule. Biggest changes?
Well I've only lost like 4kg in total before Christmas 2 weeks ago, so that's nothing close to "biggest". The first I can think of must be my triceps because not only are they visibly more developed, I can do about 4 proper chair dips in rapid succession, and at least 1 proper diamond pushup. This is on the same level of awesomeness as back when I first begun to be able to do 4 military pushups.
The next would be the weights I'm using - 11kg at least for bicep curls. This is huge because we did not even have those until a few weeks ago when I disassembled the 3.5kg dumbbells and put 5kg plates on every side of each of them.
Speaking of which, the weight of those dumbbells have been a little off. Weighed them last week and it turns out the dumbbells without any plates weigh just over 1.7kg (or a little under 4lbs). This number is so weird, but this also means I've been underestimating all my weights by 0.7kg, so when I said 3.5kg dumbbells, I really meant 4.2kg, and 11kg meant 11.7kg.
And that makes my heaviest dumbbells 14.2kg, and those are currently on standby for when the 11kg dumbbells stop being a challenge for 8 reps of curls. For exercises like bicep curls, less rep with more weight seems to make more sense than more reps with less weight, because in what situation would I need to sustain strength in my biceps?
I don't feel that my biceps are visibly larger though.
Anyway, the weirdest thing to come out of this so far would be me hurting my back doing downward dog. It felt the same as what was diagnosed as a back sprain in the past, so... how the fuck does a back get sprained while holding the downward dog pose???
At least now I'm always on alert for back discomforts so I managed to stop it before it got really bad, like 1-week-rest bad, and it only took 2 days to recover enough this time. Still, bloody weird. Might mention this to the next doctor I visit.
I've also been counting out loud for these upper body workouts. Somehow it seems to help, just like holding my breath in a few specific exercises. The thing is when I'm really pushing myself hard to get those last few reps, I sound like those buff guys in action movies screaming at their enemies. Now I see where they got that from. And any of my neighbours in the corridor during these workouts must be wondering wtf is going on behind that closed door of mine.
Aaaaaand for the first time ever, I'm turning on all three air-conditioners in my home, and on dry mode. Both of these have never happened before. The humidity is crazy, and it's been sustained for over 24 hours so nothing dries, and everything that was dry has been moist, including my laundry, eg a pair of jeans that had been dried since a week ago felt a little moist just now. This is a real issue for clothes and dried foods - there are a number of large bags of dried mushrooms, beans, rice and fish maws stored outside my kitchen that aren't vacuum-sealed - and my wood laminate floor! I didn't even notice it was so sticky from the humidity till I stepped into my regularly dehumidified storeroom and noticed the difference under my feet.
Fortunately, the dry mode is less expensive than the regular cool mode, so hopefully won't make a dent in my bills (maybe it will be compensated by the lesser work done by the fridge and fans), because this month up till the 10th is intended to be used as a comparison in my utility bills to see how much of a difference my bro and SIL made when they used to live here.
04th Jan 2021
So a few things were on my mind and I didn't even link these feelings to overtraining. Fatigue and inability to sleep well should point to overtraining again.
Because I felt sleepy by 9pm, went to bed, fell asleep only after 11pm, and woke up after 4am, not refreshed but also unable to go back to sleep.
Looks like today is a rest day.
My secret Santa was crazy. After fretting over how she couldn't get the items at the top of my wish list, eg a good yoga mat, she sent me a package of snacks that I mentioned as an easy backup idea.
Then she dropped off a little extra package containing a 100SGD bill. Wtf?
Incredibly sweet, serious overkill.
I was happy enough with the snacks, and expected the thing she said she was going to leave in my mailbox to be a card. Turned out to be a tiny crude envelope made with paper and paper tape with money inside.
Now I'm asking her for a way to send it back to her.
So between 5-7am, the humidity did not change, and therefore with all air-conditioners on dry mode since 7pm, it only managed to get the humidity down by 10-15%, with the one previously at 99% now showing 88%, and the one in my room that was showing 80% now down to 64%.
Note that these hygrometers are cheap and were not zeroed, so their initial values are unlikely to be accurate, but the differences are what matters here.
Anyway this made my home feel like a serviced apartment because it's cool everywhere.
And half an hour after I opened my windows for fresh air, all the hygrometers read 5% higher. Not too bad, but also meant that any leakage in my windows, door and drains is minimal.
Starting going through the large IKEA shelf filled with bed stuff (like pillows) and bags (like duffel and backpacks). These things are ancient and some of the artificial fiber packaging had long begun disintegrating. With a touch, they break into pieces, and if I step on them, they pulverize and stick to surfaces like baby powder. So glad I have a handheld vacuum, but eventually even this ran out of juice halfway through the job.
What amazed me so far is that some of the bags are still in good working condition, just a little faded. The ones with old and/or clunky designs were thrown, the rest left in a pile for future sorting. On top of that, the IKEA Gorm cover for the shelf is still in good condition after covering the shelf for over 5 years, so much so that I'm risking disintegration by throwing it into the washing machine (on wool mode) instead of manually washing the dust off it. Totally didn't expect Ikea plastic stuff to last this long under direct sun every morning.
...
The machine washed it but not completely. The plastic is too light and the gentle spin of the wool mode means it was mostly soaking the cover and turning it a little. It's mostly clean now, but needed a little more help under the shower to finish the job.
Realized that if I ever wanted to upgrade my current steel chair, gaming chairs are overrated, and I should opt for a second hand Herman Miller Aeron instead. The prices are similar for the fully loaded (ie with all functions/levers installed) Aeron chairs compared to a good gaming chair, and gaming chair makes no sense for people like me who doesn't turn on the air conditioner in the day. Even in cooler climates, the gaming chairs are still butt sweat factories.
05th Jan 2021
I see why my bro used to switch on the air conditioner almost every weekday night - this room's windows face the market, and it can get noisy even before 6am as they begin to prepare to open at 6-7am.
So again, I got up early, but this time I think I know why. Some people were making some really loud noises, and for some reason there was some shouting too, no idea if they were the same people, but anyhow the noises took me a while to figure out to be heavily loaded trolley moving on uneven hard ground, so it was probably someone bringing goods to the market... at 5am.
So the other day finally went through the drawer holding souvenirs, including postcards. It's proof to me that I'm completely over her when I feel nothing but curiosity while going them, and the postcards I sent were the only things that held any value, if only as a kind of diary.
Postcards tend to be mailed with everything exposed, so nothing I wrote was really intimate, hence they're mostly just thoughts going through my head at that exact moment, making each card more of a diary post/note.
This is also the point where I thank myself for dating every card/letter I write, so these can be arranged in chronological order.
Europe with Contiki was the only trip where I sent tons of cards, one from each stop whenever possible, including short breaks during the Contiki bus rides, so it got old really fast to say the usual stuff, making me write my current thoughts instead so that they don't all just read the same thing.
And one from Montreal.
So here's a redacted version of all of them, grammar mistakes included:
12th Dec 2015 Paris
Arrived in France yesterday, Still can't believe I'm in Paris. London had some grand buildings but in Paris, it's everywhere.
Having a coffee and crepe here at Cafe de Paris sitting at one of these seats facing the road. People-watching is a popular hobby here apparently.
---
15th Dec 2015 San Sebastian
Awesome tapas here. Warm, around 15 degrees C. Windy, reminds me of NZ. Trying to find local sausages but they don't speak English at the butcher shops. 1pm now, siesta time!
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17th Dec 2015 Barcelona
I'm sitting outside this church next to the Gaudi Exhibition Centre writing this. There is a Christmas market along the boulevard next to me but the Spanish seems rather conservative when it comes to the things they associate with Christmas. They sell nothing but tree decorations and miniature Nativity-related objects. Had a good paella earlier and it was very filling. They seem to like their rice really salty. Also, I'm writing this on top of my coat because it's 5pm and I can't find an empty bench nearby and it's too late for coffee.
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18th Dec 2015 Arles
1.54pm here in Arles. Supposed to just have a quick lunch but here I am in the post office writing this. Bad handwriting because in a rush. Nice place. Got to pee.
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19th Dec 2015 Nice
3D postcard yo! Nice is nice. C/est magnifique! People are Nice, salads are Nice, weather is Nice, architecture is Nice. Ok, not really. The locals don't like to speak English and sometimes pretend they don't. Salad Nicoise is just tune with olives or anchovies on the salad. But all the rest are really Nice.
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21st Dec Pisa
Just arrived in Pisa. Took some photos and had a cup of orzo, a barley coffee. No idea how that works but it's quite different. Almost time to go now! Lovely place!
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21st Dec 2015 Florence
In Florence now. Just sent one from Pisa ealier, let's see which one arrives first. They have really nice leather here and they also have these puzzle rings. Ordered tripe from lunch. Let's see how it goes.
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22nd Dec 2015 Sorrento
Sorrento is beautiful. The opposite of my handwriting. Roads are narrow and the drivers have huge balls. People are friendly enough though.
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23rd Dec 2015 Capri
In Capri now. Beautiful island. Tiny too. The view is great, not too touristy at the moment. Photos don't do this place justice.
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24th Dec 2015 Pompeii
In Pompeii now. It was a gigantic tragedy but thanks to the ruins, we learnt many things about ancient Roman life. Apparently this was like the Last Vegas of ancient Rome so one thing we learnt was how the brothels work. It was like... ala carte, with pictures on the walls for each lady in every room. Oh, there were dead people too.
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25th Dec 2015 Rome
In Rome now. Food, food, food, food, food. Now I know what "al dente" really means. Can't send you a card from the Vatican because nothing is open there. Xmas Day, big holiday for the Catholics. Which also means you aren't getting this card till I'm back, so... hi, me!
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26th Dec 2015 Verona
Just stopping in Verona for dinner and Juliet's home (from Romeo and Juliet). It was closed so all I got was a glimpse from the gate. Oh well. Next stop: Venice!
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27th Dec 2015 Venice
In Venice now. It's as beautiful as they say, and as touristy. Just visited a museum, the Gallerie del'Accademia, but the da Vinci masterpiece was not open for viewing. Apparently, they only allow public viewing once every six to seven years but we did not realize it till we've searched the whole place and asked a few security guards.
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28th Dec 2015 Salzburg
In Salzburg now. Freezing. One t-shirt and one long john top under this jacket weren't enough. Anyway, beautiful place, meaty food.
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29th Dec 2015 Cesky Krumlov
In Czech Republic now. Just arrived from Austria and it's so cold! Lost my scarf running for the coach in Austria so I'm going to have to get a new one here. Got to get some Czech Koruna first though. Shops accept Euros but the rate is so bad. 26 CZK to an Euro just now, when it should be 27.
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30th Dec 2015 Prague
In Prague now! Beautiful city. I see the logo of King Charles (or Emperor?) with the two-headed eagle over a yellow background everywhere and I thought that was the symbol of the Holy Roman Empire. Not entirely accurate but not 100% wrong.
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31st Dec 2015 Dresden
Lunch stop here. Problem is it's only 10am. Walked around looking for gloves but only found 60euro ones. No thanks. No heat packs either. It's going to be freezing tonight in Berlin. Happy New Year!
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31st Dec 2015 Berlin
In Berlin now. Almost everything is closed. All pubs and clubs are open though, and so is this one street that will host the biggest open-air party for this NYE. Can't find a stamp for this card yet though so I don't know when I can mail this.
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1st Jan 2016 Berlin
It's New Year's Day so the post office is still closed. The only place to get stamps from seems to be the souvenir shops, and they all sell stamps only if I buy a postcard, so here's a second card from Berlin!
Happy New Year (again)!
Haven't mailed the last two cards yet (Dresden + Berlin) but it doesn't make a difference. Also, kebabs are apparently the invention of Turkish immigrants in Berlin, and seriously, the doner kebabs here are amazing.
---
3rd Jan 2016 Amsterdam
In Amsterdam now. "XXX" here means something other than porn and sex. And satay is everywhere, except they spell it as "sate" and it costs like 10euros for a dish.
Because of their colonies in Southeast Asia in the past, they have quite a bit of our food here, like satay and mee goreng. The Southeast Asian immigrants here are like third to fifth generation so our culture is quite deeply infused with the Dutch culture by now, more so than Indian culture in British culture probably.
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30th April 2016 Montreal
Getting warmer today. The steak from Jean-Talon was awesome. Also found some local stuff like the dream-catcher at Marche Bonsecours. Pretty cool.
Now considering cutting out the stamps before throwing them.
15kg of Jeju mandarin oranges for effectively S$60, ie $4/kg, just arrived. This is such an incredible deal because the only fruit that can beat this would be the dirt cheap South African candy apples going at $1.50 per 500g ie $3/kg. Of course, larger fruits like watermelons and pineapples would be even cheaper by this measure, but rind/peel/skin aside (peels account for about 25% of the weight of these mandarin oranges), watermelons can't keep in my fridge long enough unless I remove and freeze the flesh, and pineapples make my tongue uncomfortable. These oranges, on the other hand, merely got drier by the time I finished the previous 10kg, still juicy but less than when they first arrived. I went through 10kg of them in 3 weeks, almost exactly how I predicted it, so 15kg is doable now that I am aware that the flesh of 4 of these weigh about 230g by the second week, ie I should eat more for each meal.
Anyway, now my veg/fruit section is 99% just mandarin oranges, with the other bit of space occupied by a large bar of baking chocolate.
Tomorrow, there will be 20kg of kimchi which will pose a greater challenge because they're in the form of bags of half an uncut cabbage. These will need to be cut up before going into the fridge.
My meals are going to be really simple for January and February in preparation for the over-consumption that comes with Chinese New Year. Maybe will order a meal once a week to provide some variety, but seriously with proper kimchi and juicy mandarin oranges, plus all the fried food in my freezer, this is going to be great.
07th Jan 2021
Again, when it's dry, it's a drought; when it's rains, it's a flood. But all the matches do is get me excited for a moment, then I remember they usually result in nothing. This time, a mystery girl my age, and a widow a few years older and with kids
Anyway, it's 6pm and I've been clearing the last of the IKEA wooden shelf outside the room, plus the dish rack in the corner of the kitchen where the big bowls are usually placed.
Nothing gross, surprisingly there were only a few bits of lizard shit in the water-collection portion but everything was so dried it was easy to clean. As for the shelf, found a few large sheets of cloth that were in perfect condition. One was so heavy and had tassels so it had to be some serious quality stuff, but just couldn't figure out what it was for. Curtain? Tablecloth? No hooks or loops, so unlikely to be a curtain. Tassels were only on three sides so not a tablecloth. Weird. Maybe it's an old curtain with loops that were too thin to endure the years. In any case, definitely sunning them for a day or two. They don't even have mould spots despite all the bedsheets and towels packed in the same large bag being full of them. These cloths are amazing.
Small furniture is a terrible idea for second-hand deals unless you drive, because the cost of transportation is kinda fixed, and this fee itself tends to be comparable to the price of the small used furniture, so you might as well spend a little more for a brand new one.
08th Jan 2021
Apparently it is possible to zero a hygrometer easily, assuming the difference between each % on the hygrometer is constant and doesn't get smaller or bigger as it approaches each end of the scale.
So that's what I'm going to do. Tired of seeing 75% on one and 99% on another, because that's a gigantic difference in readings!
09th Jan 2021
Calibrating the hygrometers like that didn't seem very useful because the assumption is wrong. They did reach a constant reading after 12 and 13 hours respectively, proving that the humidity inside was unaffected by the outside air, but once the hygrometers were out, readings started to vary slightly even after the adjustments despite being placed at the same spot.
Oh well, you get what you pay for.
This weather is making laundry very difficult. I don't have a dryer because most of the time, it's hot and breezy here, but this monsoon season in 2020/2021 has been particularly wet and full of drizzles and fog.
Strangely no thunderstorms.
The sun was out just now after a drizzle so I got my stuff washed, but half an hour after they were hung at my balcony, another drizzle arrived. It may be necessary tonight to use the aircon dry mode again.
10th Jan 2021
Ok, now that the hygrometers are calibrated, I have a lot more confidence in their readings, albeit with an error margin of about 3% estimated. This time, the windows were shut tightly with all handles pressed down to completely lock them, all curtains drawn to slow down any leakage through the windows, toilet doors shut (drains) and the main door has a foam door gap seal underneath, making the only significant openings being the kitchen drains. The aircons in the two bedrooms are linked to a single large condenser, so only the main one in the master bedroom with a shorter pipe and therefore the more efficient one was used.
Despite raining/drizzling often over the night, the humidity in my home has remained at about 65-70% after a night of aircons on dry mode. It is raining outside at 7.30am and it reads 68%, a very low humidity for the weather. According to the NEA, the humidity in my entire country is currently 95-100%, so the difference made by this is about 30%!
Ok that's big to me. Don't think this will wreck my electricity bill since it's only 2 nights of this for the month, so I'm definitely keeping this in mind.
...
It's been over an hour and the humidity has stayed constant in my house. And so has the rain outside. This is a very good sign.
...
By keeping everything shut as they were, humidity in my home has gone up to about 75-76% as for 1pm. Meanwhile it's still about 95-100% outside. Ok, my home is pretty airtight if everything is done right.
...
Meanwhile in Madrid they've had the most snow in 61 years, and Winnipeg is strangely barely freezing this late in winter.
If I were to make a time capsule, I'd include pemmican, but as well-sealed as possible. Pemmican seems easy to make, it's really meat floss with tallow and maybe some dried berries, so I don't even need to make the first ingredient when this is easily available here in Singapore, though effort is required to find some with minimal other ingredients like sugar or preservatives.
Beef tallow is going to be simple but a pain since it's just cooking beef fats till they separate into a liquid with bits of solids, then filtering the entire pot, keeping just the liquid.
There's finally a significant damage to one of my suede derby shoes that may not be repairable. A crack had appeared some months ago at the back of the topline and had be very gradually growing till about half a cm now.
A break in the leather can't be saved without making it obvious, so this means the end is in sight for the first pair of leather shoes I've ever bought.
Wonder how long it has been. Maybe since 2013? I'm too lazy to search through this blog. If 2013, this would make it about 8 years old now. Pretty good for a pair of leather shoes.
Went to check the brand, and realized both shoes have cracks in that area, and are both under 1cm long. Eastland seems like a pretty good brand then, but too bad their shoes are not very common here.
11th Jan 2021
Humidity this morning was at 80% in my home after the same treatment; humidity outside was about 96% in my area. Did the wet laundry make such a big difference, or did raising the aircon temperature up by 1 degree do it? Does the aircon temperature even make a difference in dry mode??
So the two analogue hygrometers I've been using are paper-metal coil types, one of the least accurate designs, and is best for showing a change in humidity and has an error margin in accuracy for up to 10 degrees.
Well, fuck.
21:39
Just got out of the bathroom. After every Plyometrics session, I'd have to spend half an hour in the evening sitting on the bowl with the hottest water running from the shower on my thighs and knees.
Tonight has been the first time the cramp was so sudden and intense that I screamed," FUUUUUUCK!" before I even knew what I was doing. For just a split second, the pain overwhelmed my senses and I didn't even know I was screaming until halfway through.
BUT! Of course there has been progress. Plyometrics has been the only workout I truly work my hardest because somehow, my legs improve more easily than my arms. In the beginning, I could barely go through the first set (before the first water break) even with poor form/cheating. Now I can survive till after the first exercise of the second set, everything done properly. That includes the 30 reps of touch-the-ground squats and two minutes of lunges during warm up. And today, I could go through the entire session while pressing the pause button fewer times.
And overall, I lost another half kg since last week, this time it's almost entirely fats, according to the scale. Funny thing is, I've been eating an 80g-bag of Calbee potato chips for every dinner since last week.Still. Lost. 0.5kg in a week.
Muahahahahaha!
Thing is though, if I ever go under 85kg, I'll really do my best not to gain weight, because I've come to the conclusion after years of observing myself, particularly the times of successful weight loss, it usually involves entire weeks and months of feeling listless, fatigued and just not my 100% for most of the 15-17 hours that I'm conscious for each day. How is that worth it if my work requires more of my attention than it does now?
For the first time ever, yes another first yes, I'm talking with a girl 4 years older than myself, and she's a widow with kids.
Never considered any girl in those criteria before, but I have now, and so far it's been pretty good actually. Didn't expect this. Didn't expect a good-looking girl to be such a nice person and still single at that age. Going to meet tomorrow, we both want to take it slow. She's tired of getting cheated on, I'm tired of investing much only to realize it's not working out.
I don't think anyone who knows me expects this. Assuming this works out, well, plenty of unexpected stuff has happened before already, so this is a first, but not the first.
In any case, it's entirely possible she's been cheated on because of her personality. It takes two hands to clap after all, and I have only known her through text which is nowhere near enough to get a proper gauge. This could easily be just a fuss over nothing.
And if she looks close to how she does in her photos, she would also be the hottest girl I've ever dated. Her photos look genuine because poor angle and lighting, but we'll see.
Hope it's a legit recipe. Might try it after I'm done with my 10kg of kimchi.
So sometime earlier this month, I came up with this random idea of using silicone caulk to seal older rubber/silicone that's disintegrating as they normally do after many years.
Mainly because these tubes of caulk don't come in tiny sizes which were all I really needed, so with all the excess caulk, there was a need to find a use for them.
At the same time, or, rather, late last year, I found a good suitcase in an ancient suitcase. The outer suitcase was a lost cause, with most hard plastic being very brittle, and in some cases falling apart from just a touch. However, the inner suitcase was still in perfect condition, maybe not mint, but everything was good, no cracks, no brittleness, no rust, no corrosion - except for the rubber/silicone grips on the zips that were becoming sticky. No idea if they are rubber or silicone.
This has to be the shittiest thing about this rubber/silicone material - they all eventually melt no matter how you keep them, so if you're looking for something that's actually long-lasting, avoid them at all cost. Even plastic lasts longer if you keep it in the shade at all times.
So anyhow, I used my fingers to cover these rubber/silicone parts with the caulk before wiping my hands with a wet towel which I then rinsed thoroughly afterwards. Kinda like marinating meat I guess, nothing beats using your bare hands to get a liquid to cover an object completely without submerging it.
It's been over a week, so they're all cured, and I have to say, at first touch, they seem perfect. Maybe a little ugly now that they're all glossy unevenly, but seems to be usable now.
My only concern at this point is how easily it can come off, because it will require an actual use to test this out. If this works well enough, I'll coat the wheels too, since they're also of the same material and are just as sticky. Usually this isn't a problem because they would just get covered in dust and dirt, but the next step is cracking, so maybe the caulk will slow that down.
We shall see.
13th Jan 2021
Ok last evening went really well.
Accidentally omitted Back and Bicep and did Yoga yesterday instead. Oh well, it's already the final week anyway, and next week is like a cooldown with mostly yoga and cardio.
No wonder Wasteland 3 had such an epic soundtrack - they got the music supervisor of Quentin Tarantino to create it using the concept of future civilizations not having the context to understand the meaning of any music they might find.
I couldn't even recognize Battle Hymn of the Republic as that very familiar tune that's been used by everything since I was young.
So the implication is that people in the future found the lyrics but cannot understand the sheet music, so they made up a new tune. Totally possible.
Random thought. Just deduced why there's this idea that avoiding food after a certain time in the evening helps you lose weight.
1) Extended hunger makes you listless after the actual feeling of hunger goes away. If you cannot afford to ignore any decision-making or you have talk to people during the day, being in that mood in that period would be a bad idea, so leaving that for the night when you can pretend you need your sleep or private time is most suitable.
2) Sleeping hungry does not necessarily make you wake up feeling the need to gorge yourself.
This could be it.
16 Jan 2021
Finally made enough space outside my bedroom for the dining table, exchanging its location with that of the IKEA shelf. Now the storeroom can hold a lot more stuff without cramping up the central walkway, and I've even lined every level of the shelf with the anti-bug shelf liner paper. I didn't used to believe that it works, but it's pretty strong evidence to me that it does when all the spots where I should have found bugs, I didn't while the paper was used to lined them or something near them.
That's really referring to the kitchen, of course. The kitchen is the most obvious location of any home if you are looking for traces of a current or past infestation, whether be it a live nest or old egg shells or even cockroach corpses, if you should find any of those anywhere in a home, the kitchen should have some. This is even more true when you consider the fact that the rubbish chute is inside my kitchen next to the sinks. I mean, my brother has even been harassed by cockroaches while in the kitchen bathroom over the years, so cockroaches are guaranteed to have been present in my kitchen, yet... I have yet to find anything cockroach-related, not even a bit of exoskeleton or egg casing, after digging through the two cabinets closest to the chute.
They have been lined with that paper.
In contrast, all the traces of local fauna have been found where the terrapin tank used to be. Due to laziness, concern for the terrapins and lack of trust in the paper back when he set up the area for them, none of the paper was used, so not only was there an abandoned nest of some unknown bug under one cabinet, there was also a splatter of presumably house lizard eggs that have since been petrified into a brown stain with dried brown bits that could be easily vacuumed off but not wiped.
In any case, my next major worry in terms of possible hidden infestations remains the storeroom, since no such liner was used inside while everything inside has not been disturbed for a long time. I'm slowly removing the large boxes on the book shelfs (and I am fully aware that there are silverfishes and dust mites within the books that shall be dealt with another day), and every time I move something, I kinda pause and watch for movement in case I had unintentionally disturbed a cockroach nest.
Cockroach infestations are difficult to find, so it is hard to know until you've seen them. Usually when you actually spot one cockroach, there is a chance that there is an infestation, because they are extremely shy nocturnal creatures, and the only reason you would spot them in broad daylight or in the middle of nowhere is because they have been cramped out of their nests.
So yeah I'm constantly worried when I'm in the room, but as I bring old things out and new things take their places, the plan is to use this anti-bug paper to line every shelf and cabinet, while every shelf that is less than 6cm off the floor will be given legs/stands so that I can send my robot vacuum in and bugs have one less big object to hide under.
18th Jan 2021
Holy shit! Ever since that one-off date with the 39-year-old, I had started to open up to those beyond 37, up to 39, and boom! One whom I'm seriously considering, and four other matches, though one didn't respond after 24 hours so three at the moment. One of the three who was pretty good-looking even initiated the conversation!
When it rains, it pours.
Why am I even getting so excited though? Matches don't matter. Maybe it's because four matches happening at the same time is new. Since the first one whom I already had a dinner date with is still just on a first-date level, no matter that we had even broached the topic of sex in conversation, this is not an exclusive relationship by far, so it's still reasonable to consider the others.
Not swiping anymore though, not till I've cut down the numbers back to one. Can't deal with so many simultaneous dates, even if I couldn't resist starting a conversation with each of them. Let's see if they reply. Logically, it's best that they don't. On the other hand, the first one isn't a confirmed relationship so it's not a bad thing to be considering others too.
There's just the risk of more than one of them ending up liking me enough to move to the next level. Some guys might say that's great, I... am of a different opinion - it is tough to juggle two girls, mixing up their stories might become an actual risk. If things move beyond two dates with more than one of them, I may have to be honest about the situation with all of them.
When it rains, it pours.
19th Jan 2021
It's time to admit that some of my older cutlery cannot be saved. Rust can be removed, sometimes at the cost of tarnishing its outer gloss, but pitting is definitely not salvageable. There are ways to make it shine again probably, but a shiny hole is still a hole.
It's the final week of P90X, a week of light workouts. After Cardio, Kenpo and Yoga, it is now Stretch today.
This is getting too easy though. Should I stick with it and give my body this week of rest? Or should I skip the rest of this week and move on back to the beginning to repeat the cycle?
It's good to give my body a long break after pushing it to the limit so often over the course of the month, but I've also take 1-day breaks whenever my body felt off, so is this final week still necessary? I might even gain weight for once!
Never mind, let's rest. Not going to risk major injury. Stretch it is.
One frustration I get sometimes in these conversations with new matches is that you would sometimes see profiles (match or otherwise) saying they dislike conversations that are practically an interrogation, ie it's mostly the guy asking questions all the time.
Well, there lies the problem because often I'd try to end with a comment that I feel can solicit a response and isn't a question, and receive no reply at all. Here's the tricky part - I don't know if she doesn't have anything to say to that or she has just lost interest in me. If I reply when it's the latter, it is just annoying - I've been on the other end of such a phenomenon before. If it is the former, I feel it's because we don't click.
So, conclusion, if a guy makes it an interrogation, part of the blame goes to all the girls who can't reply and complain that some guys can't make a conversation. He is going for a newbie way of forcing a conversation without understanding that they're not in sync.
I'm an expert at this, but I feel it's just better to let the conversation die off permanently if a girl does not give any reply at all. Even if it's because I'm no charmer, well, fun fact: by my age, the charmers are all taken or have chosen to remain single indefinitely. If you're still encountering sweet-talkers in their mid or late thirties in the dating apps, you're as likely to find one who's really interested in you as a life partner as you are at winning a major prize in a lottery. Guys like that who are still keen on finding a committed relationship by their late thirties, they don't need the apps for it.
Threw away so many things that my chute has been thumping a few times at night every once in a while, because the bags of rubbish I throw were so heavy they give an audible boom when they land, and sometimes even my chute door shakes even though I live quite high up.
Now my store room is much emptier, so much so that there is space to start setting up that 2*1.8*1m large shelf, but after a bit of thought, decided to postpone that.
First, since I'm inclined to keep all the books and bookshelves, it is absolutely necessary to rearrange them to maximize exposure space while minimizing wasted space, eg like maximizing surface area, except shelves has useless surfaces, so what's important is exposing the books and being able to take them out.
Right now, they're all with their backs to the walls and I feel there has to be a more space-efficient method of positioning them.
Or maybe this is fine, and I should just keep clearing more old stuff.
20th Jan 2021
This is definitely the best months to be clearing stuff because it's been so cool and windy, as long as the rain doesn't catch me off-guard while I'm in the store room.
Then again I also rarely stay in there for too long, usually just enough to sort through one large carton box of stuff, like yesterday, it was the box filled with all my notes, assignments and tutorials from my JC days. Probably never even saw it the last time I tried to clear old stuff from the room because 99% of the things in the box just brought back bad memories, including my 'A' Levels cert.
Can't throw that away though, that's my highest academic qualification, unfortunately.
Now I thought some of the ladies were uninterested in chatting since they didn't reply in 24 hours, but it looks like they were just slow at checking the app. Now there are 4 girls chatting with me on top of the widow I had a date with last week, making it a total of 5.
Shit, never expected to get here. Oh well, as long as it doesn't result in 5 separate dates, should be fine. I can't help but try, because sometimes it feels like I can't communicate very well with this widow. Her English isn't very good though she compensates by knowing quite a few languages given that she's Malaysian, so through text, it's been pretty bad. Too early to judge at the moment, it could really be only because of her poor command of English, like how my Mandarin is bad so when I chat with girls who insist on texting in Chinese, it gets a lot more silent on my end.
Really like her so far. So far.
In case I end up being together with another girl and she reads this, surely you're smart enough to see that at this point in time, there is no way to tell who I will choose or whether it will even work out with any of these five at all.
In my experience, it is likely this won't even stay that long in my memory, except maybe for the part where there were five simultaneous chats with girls who seem to be at least remotely interested in me. After all, there were a few occasions when my ex asked me about my previous dating experience before meeting her (after I lost weight) and I couldn't remember which girl(s) she was referring to.
Then again, potential partners you've encountered over the course of your life, who really carries this detail with them for the rest of their lives?
There is possibly one or more ant nest in my store room. Found a few small ants within the kitchen roll I took out from the room a month ago, but when I checked the rest of the rolls, no ant could be seen on the surfaces nor the packaging.
A few weeks after that, a larger ant was spotted crawling on the floor in the room. All were very sluggish, so no idea how they got to where they were. It is also possible they came from one of my neighbours through the window, which would explain the sluggishness, but how the heck did the first ones end up in the kitchen roll? They were still alive, so they weren't from the factory or logistical chain.
Such a mystery. When I am finished with tidying up the room and before I set up the new racks, it will be necessary to place some Terro under all the shelves for a week.
For once in my life, I've cleaned the fruit/veg section drawer in my fridge thoroughly. Was wiping it with the door open till I was 80% done and realized by accident that the entire drawer can be detached, so detached it and found even more areas that was collecting dried juices that really stank.
Once it's dried, I'm covering up that part of the drawer with a plastic liner so that nothing ever collects along that edge.
It's been over a week since I moved the PC to my bro's old room, and... no booting issues.
The only thing I left behind was the multiplug, so that, strangely, must be the root of the problem. Was it not transmitting enough power and that caused the PC to boot with no display signal? How does that even work? So only the GPU couldn't draw enough power while everything else was ok?
I just realized it's because I don't like it when I can't see the back of the shelves. It's better if at least they have a gap behind it and a path next to it so I can walk to the wall and peek at the back with a torch.
21st Jan 2021
I shall arrange the bookshelves such that two of them are back to back, with a third one facing the wall with enough space to walk in and open the doors comfortably.
Just realized, if the PC was only getting issues because of the power, then my old HDD is still in good condition, so I should format it and use it normally instead of leaving it alone.
So after watching Boris play Metro: Exodus, decided to install the second game, Metro: Last Light, to play.
Just when I was about the start the game, I noticed something strange - I already have achievements for the game on Steam. What? The last thing I remember about the Metro games in my own gameplay experience was Metro 2033 where I let the mutants live in the ending. Nowhere in my memory was there any gameplay of Metro: Last Light! But according to my achievements, I've already "passed the Red Line" back in August 2015 - that's only 4.5 years ago!
Wtf?
This shows that I have to record as many things as I can here - my memory is far less reliable than I thought it was.
I miss the cruise, and the food on the cruise, and the cold, and the wildlife we could get so close to, and the weird toast to Shackleton at his grave, the strangest mix of hero and loser I've ever read about. He's kinda like... Archer, from the animated series on Netflix, because of his amazing ability to get his men and himself out of some of the worst shit possible, while simultaneously being the exact reason they were all stuck in that in the first place.
So all the cognac glasses my father left us are made of lead crystals, and if the label on one of them is the same for the rest, then they're all about 20+% lead, which apparently was the norm after word spread that the lead inside can leach into your drinks but before people started to switch to unleaded glass.
Not to worry, this is fine, lead crystal is safe for holding a drink for a few hours. It's only dangerous if you have a decanter made of it, and you're using it to hold the same beverage for years, or if you're pregnant or underaged, in which case you shouldn't be drinking cognac in the first place, nor should anyone be drinking anything other than cognac in a cognac glass.
Have to admit these glasses are perfect - symmetrically beautiful and very functional. I can't throw them out even if they're dangerous to drink from.
Why is everyone only selling light and medium roasts coffee beans out there? Make more dark roasts please! Medium and light roasts taste like shit from my French press and moka pot!
24th Jan 2021
Strangely, the 1-week of low intensity workouts that ended each P90X cycle... actually led to further performance improvement with a much lower risk of injury than most weeks.
My numbers for yesterday's Check and Back improved because I expected no difference or slightly reduced number of reps for the exercises as compared to the last time I had this session on Christmas day, but it did go up and I ended up not pushing hard enough despite going from 8 pushups each time (what I did on Christmas) to 10 each in the second half of the session.
Plyo today was easier too, and Plyo is on every week except rest weeks, so this was a better gauge. I only needed a break after 2 exercises in the second set, 1 more than two weeks ago, and this was mainly due to a lack of morale, because I was not panting particularly hard and my legs were only a little soft.
So this recovery week was really important, and it's something to keep in mind if I'm to keep doing P90X consistently for the rest of my life.
26th Jan 2021
9 chair dips yesterday before needing a break. Never really thought I'd get to this point tbh.
And 14kg each arm for alternating shoulder presses. Saw that I was doing 10 reps per set with 10kg dumbbells a month ago so decided to switch it up to my next heavier, which coincidentally is also my heaviest pair of dumbbells, and managed to squeeze out 8 for the first set. But decided to move it back down to 10kg for the second set before my form wasn't good for the last 2 reps.
My shoulders and triceps are sore today, as expected.
Also, now there's the concern of what happens when I can hit 12 reps per set with 14kg and have to go heavier. My lightest pair, the 6kg (or 7kg with the bar) is needed for tricep exercises, while the non-adjustable dumbbells in my home are only up to 5kg each, and that's too light for... anything!
The barbell weights can be used for this when detached, and they're 15kg each... but they're only 1kg more, or more accurately, about 300g more since all the bars are 1.7kg IIRC. What a waste of time and effort to detach them!
I keep feeling like I'm digging my own grave. Out of the matches on dating apps previously mentioned, a second date with the one I went out with has been planned, three are still chatting, one I ignored on CMB and the chat expired.
The thing is, they're all so busy that they sometimes reply only after around 3-5 days, so I thought they were letting the chat die, and began swiping when only two of the conversations seemed to be active. Then one replied on Sunday while another replied just now, and another girl matched with me this morning.
So now I'm back to 4. Fuck.
If this second date goes well, I may just let them know upfront, and let them decide whether to stay in contact without going on any date with them.
29th Jan 2021
So this widow is definitely into me, and the feeling's mutual. Funny thing is that last night after a long voice call (which she preferred so that we can talk in Cantonese and I felt was a good alternative due to the difficulty of arranging a date amidst her busy schedule), I thought about this and noticed... there is something very Freudian about this.
She's a widow with two kids age 6 and 10, lost her husband to cancer around my current age, comes from another country but is now a citizen here. Pretty close to my mother who lost my father to cancer when she was in her mid-forties, and at that point we were 13 and 15.
To be frank, I am averse towards women with kids even though they seem to constitute about a third of all the available ladies in the dating apps in my age range, but widows seem alright to me, and I do feel more for the children.
She is, however, quite the stereotypical Singaporean aunty in a few ways, like the way she talks and her inclination towards Buddhism, fortune-telling and fengshui, but as long as she doesn't push me or her kids very hard to get into those, things should work out.
If you're reading this in the future, I really hope I've told you the above before.
1) Unlikely you'll read this blog and find this specific post unless there is a strong reason to either understand me or remember me.
2) I have trouble hiding this sort of thing so over the years, it would definitely come up in a conversation. Question is whether I'd remember my initial impression of you like this by then.
Anyway she also told me she would prefer someone who values health and fitness like herself because her late husband did not, and that later caused her to be the same (some may argue about this but I find this a legitimate reason given my experience with friends and my ex), so this means I will be doing P90X indefinitely, or maybe switch to another one like Insanity or X2 for variety.
Also means if everything goes as planned, she's going to stay hot. Speaking of which, she kept telling me nobody has described her as that before, even after she got fit in recent years, so I am puzzled. She is hot as far as I can tell, and pretty sure she meets several common criteria for what most men would consider hot, including her slim figure and long hair. She's not even the skinny fat sort, but the gently muscular lean type, ie the best body type.
But realistically, given my own experience with my own body and my knowledge of her life, I will expect certain features in her body that aren't hot, like stretch marks that I too have all around my abdomen.
Still better than most of the ladies I've dated before her.
Wonder if this will actually work out. Would be a little awkward if I end up with another girl as my partner and she's the one who finds this post.
03rd Feb 2021
At the moment, probably not working out with this girl. Well, fuck. Another fizzle. I hate this because this one felt different from all the others. It's so rare, I really don't want this to end, but I also cannot appear very needy/desperate or that will definitely ruin any sliver of a chance of recovery.
Strangely, I don't feel like I care about her anymore. Maybe the way to deal with stuff like this is to replace it with anger, because I'm now pissed off by how she couldn't even tell me why. Still find myself often checking the phone though. Confused.
04th Feb 2021
So I was wrong - whatever problem my PC had, it still has it now, so whatever it is, it's inside the PC. No idea what, but the next biggest possibility is the dust inside. It does not look particularly dusty, but one common thing that I do that usually precedes the temporary long absence of crashes is my brushing of everything inside and pressing all the connectors. I feel dust is the next biggest possibility, but not going to deny it could still very well be the cable connections being squeezed out of their positions due to the cramped environment inside.
There is hope. Wonder if it works.
06th Feb 2021
Another opportunity. Again, completely foreign to me, but will try. Not much else to try anyway.
07th Feb 2021
I can finally do diamond pushups, heart to heart, SEVEN REPS!
Diamond pushups are one of the more advanced types of pushups in which you put your index fingers and thumbs facing to touch each other, forming a diamond in between, though sometimes the thumbs shift so it forms a heart shape instead. "Heart to heart" refers to touching your chest to that heart shape, but without resting your body on the floor, which makes it even harder than regular diamond pushups.
AND I DID SEVEN FUCKING REPS! MUAHAHAHAHA! I couldn't believe it when I felt good enough to push myself off when I tried touching my chest to my hands during the first rep - the plan was to land my entire body afterwards (which I did in the second set), and I did push myself off without my abdomen touching the floor... seven times.
Feels good, man.
09th Feb 2021
Survived an entire P90X Plyometrics session without a single break or break extension! Fuck yes!
Did change a little bit though - instead of squatting less to keep up with the pace, I squatted as low as I could and kept up as much as I could, usually lagging only by 1-3 reps. Pretty sure in the spirit of this entire workout, intensity is more important than speed.
Someday, I'll be able to do this without needing to slow down.
Feels good, in fact much better than before the workout. But I did gain back a kg this week, probably because among the 3kg lost in the last 3 weeks, 1-2 were from a lack of appetite over that girl before she stopped talking to me, because my weight loss pace had been about half kg per week all along. So now, in 4 weeks I've effectively lost 2kg which is exactly the expected amount.
Got to confess this loneliness is killing me though.
23rd Feb 2021
Hurt my back 2 days ago doing Core Synergistics. The squat x-press was where I got tired enough to start swinging the weights a bit without bracing my back.
Anyway, after my bro told me about his disc degeneration problem, I realized that's probably what I have too. Really really really have to brace my back all the time, or stop pushing that hard.
This time it was very mild, very easy to handle. My increased fitness, or more specifically greater core strength, must be helping the way my bro was able to find his problem much more manageable because of his long history with squats with weights.
Maybe this time it won't take an entire week of rest.
24th Feb 2021
Ok it's 90% back to normal now, and since I intend to give it an extra day of rest after it's 100%, it's definitely going to hit a week, or at least 6 days. Oh well. It's going to suck once I jump back in, because Phase 2 is supposed to begin by then.
:(
27th Feb 2021
The heat is officially back. Actually it's not that hot but there's minimal breeze while being very humid. At 6.30am this morning it was already 28 degrees C with over 80% humidity, and no breeze.
This is the Singapore weather we know and (not) love.
28th Feb 2021
Hurt my back again doing Rock Star Hops(?) on Plyometrics this morning. Managed to complete the rest of the session by replacing the rest of the jumps to squats, and may have to continue to do so for future workouts for at least this week.
Ugh.
Attended a Zoom speed dating session today after the workout. Five matches, twelve minutes each, so that's an entire hour of non-stop talking. Dries the throat, really. Felt ok, 1-2 caught my interest but ended up only entering one name in the questionnaire after the session. Hopefully I caught hers too. We shall see.
Definitely brings to mind the Table Topics segment from my Toastmasters days, except this is twelve minutes long and involves interaction.
It's a lot less scary than I thought, but if I join more it might get awkward as I begin to get matched with ladies I've already encountered through these events.
01st March 2021
Back still hurts, going to rest today. Worried that I may lose a lot of progress but not going to lose even more by getting my back worse.
So I was matched with the girl who seemed the most likeable. Not sure if this will result in anything since it's my first match from such an event, it could be worse or better than dating app matches for all I know.
06th Mar 2021
Got a coffee date with her later.
This is a weird situation because she's the first one I have so many doubts about. Regardless, will give this a try because all the girls before her induced fewer doubts in me yet they still didn't work out or even ghosted me. My reasoning clearly doesn't matter.
A little nervous though since she is out of my league in terms of career (presumably) and intelligence.
Would be funny again if she's not the one I settle down with and my future wife reads this. Funny, awkward, risky, etc. Might end up sleeping on the floor.
But who knows? Maybe this is nothing compared to how I feel about the possibly future match? Or maybe this girl is the one who will spend the rest of her life with me. Would be nice. Would be also nice to finally get out of this hellhole called the "dating pool".
Dug out two old kettles previously but didn't know what to do with them because they were tiny and I already have a glass kettle for using on a hotplate. Almost threw away the smaller one but decided to clean it up since the light amount of corrosion all over the both of them seemed easy to remove.
That's when I noticed it said on the smaller one that it was made of 18-8 steel. Googled it and realized this stuff isn't used for kitchenware anymore (304 is the typical steel now). It's now mostly used to industrial applications because of its superior corrosion resistance. In contrast, 304 is just the basic alloy with nothing special.
No wonder the two kettles only had a light coat of brown that could be easily rubbed off, plus a few spots here and there that needed harder scrubbing. On top of this, they were both made of thicker steel so they are heavier and stronger. I'll clean them up and store them somewhere in case I get tired of my glass kettle or break it.
12th Mar 2021
Another match gone.
21st Mar 2021
So many things to settle. Going to donate all the books, but I will need a trolley.
Not giving a damn about limits anymore, I'm going to chat with as many matches as they come. What's the point of pacing myself if they don't work out anyway? 3 on CMB, 5 on OKC, fuggit, half of them won't respond anyway, and all of them should die out in a week. This is going to be like my gardening - just try to grow a lot of the seeds, most will die anyway, but a few might survive into something interesting. Better than growing a few at a time.
Going to restart P90X tomorrow. Will not push myself too hard this time. Diet is a problem though, since that means I need to cut down accordingly, and I'm running out of fruits but not vegetables. Might have to resort to eating cooked vegetables (contains oil and etc so has more calories gram to gram) in order to clear more space asap in order to bring in more fruits.
