Title of Blog that Sounds Really Deep but Actually Doesn't Mean Anything At All

Rant 940 / Lightning Freeze Fireballs

2012-02-13T21:51:00.001+08:00

Now instead of merely rolling around to dodge I can teleport in Kingdoms of Amalur. It's weirder because I can't teleport through obstacles like large roots nor can I teleport down cliffs (I wouldn't mind teleporting into mid-air if necessary but that option wasn't available).

However, it's just so much cooler than the roll. I roll around so much that his grunt was starting to sound painful to me.

Rolling is a faster way to move around than the normal run. I found that out while accompanying a NPC early in the game when I decided to test both methods of movement. My running pace is slower than the NPC's but I can roll faster than he can run.

IMO the game is comparable to Skyrim if not for the stealth and the many restrictions of freedom of movement. The graphics and animation are much better but Skyrim is just more... free.

The NS IPPT admin system is terrible.

I went to get weighed on last Monday and I have yet to officially clear my IPPT.

Buggers.

I checked NS Portal on Wednesday night, instead of Tuesday like the clerk advised me to due to various work-related distractions, and found that I "have not completed my IPPT" for my current year.

Straight away I emailed them and the next day, the reply email told me to call the camp to clarify.

No number was provided though.

BECAUSE I CAN JUST FIND A MILITARY CAMP'S PHONE NUMBER FROM THE YELLOW PAGES, AM I RIGHT???!?!?!?!

So I called the NS Portal hotline about the IPPT issue hoping I'd get a different result, but in the end the only new information I got was that my lastest recorded BMI in the system was "zero".

As in the number.

Apparently, the SAF has declared me dead and this must be the afterlife.

Unable to get a proper solution to this problem, I asked her for the number so that I can call the camp's FCC to settle things.

I had to call after 4pm, though I have no idea why.

Nevertheless, I waited and called at 5pm.

The guy checked the records and found that my height and weight have been properly recorded in the system, so he asked me to call the NS Portal to clarify.

Very funny, SAF. Very funny.

Obviously I then told him I had called the hotline already and was informed that my BMI was zero. He theorised that they probably didn't receive the information when it was sent from his side, and told me he was going to send again. Tomorrow, I should call them again to make sure.

I think he meant I should check the NS Portal tomorrow and call them if things still remain as they are.

I definitely am going to do that. This is just a simple non-issue that SAF turned into an issue. I got to keep it a minor one.

I can also do nothing and then blame them for the confusion it's going to cause when my window ends, but there's no reason why I should make more trouble for myself. The logic is that since it's not my fault, why should I do all the work?

I'm just mentioning that because I noticed there are people who actually take this approach in life.

It annoys me a little because of the stupidity, but I remind myself that stupidity is the necessary foundation of a capitalistic society.

I bet those people also whine about how much shit they have to take in life.

It may not be your fault that many of those problems started, but it is undeniably your fault that they snowballed and accumulated into a huge avalanche.

Here I am eating my parma ham sandwich and reading on the Greek economic crisis on Wikipedia.

15% unemployment. That's even worse than the 10% in the US just a year or two ago.

Even at 10%, it's probably so bad that everybody knows someone who's unemployed.

15% is so bad, the people are probably happy just to have a job, even if it's a shitty part-time one at MacDonald's.

This graph was the one thing that really showed me how bad things are over there:

Interest rates offered for government bonds are usually proportional to the risks because it's basically a loan to the government.

At 130%, it means even the government itself is pretty confident that it's gone FUBAR, and it no longer gives a shit whether it can repay the money in two year's time. Heck, it probably doesn't even care anymore about whatever is going to happen in two years, as long as it can settle the issues at hand.

When a country defaults on its debts, there's really nothing others can do about it. They can't take everything the country owns and auction them.

According to the Wikipedia article, the creditor nations can seize its overseas assets and in the worst case scenario, invade it.

The latter has been done before many times, eg by Britain and the US.

However, the easier way out for the debter nation is to negotiate a delay or reduction of debt repayment. For the creditor, lesser repayment is probably preferable to nothing at all.

For Greece, it's probably a good idea to start doing that instead of more austerity plans and bailouts.

Just look at some of their latest cost-cutting measures:

22% cut in minimum wage from the current €750 per month
150,000 jobs cut from state sector by 2015, of which 15,000 shall be cut already in 2012
Pension cuts worth 300 million euros in 2012
Laws to make it easier to lay off workers
Health and defense spending cuts
Industry sectors are given the right to negotiate lower wages depending on economic development.
Opening up closed professions to allow for more competition particularly in the health, tourism and real estate sector
Privatizations worth €15bn by 2015, including Greek gas companies DEPA and DESFA. In the medium term the goal remains at €50bn.

Ouch!

Btw they were actually passed earlier today and had led to massive violent riots in Athens.

Personally I'm not sure if these were even intended to cut unemployment because they definitely don't look so.

It appears they just want to get the money now and whatever consequences this causes don't matter.

I guess the EU is about to get a new source of cheap labour.

Rant 939 / Condescension Condensation

2012-02-13T01:53:00.001+08:00

FRI

So Vic implied I'm a very hardworking boss.

I'm sorry if this blog is somewhat misleading but I don't discuss everything in my life or my mind.

I mean, who does, right?

However this is one misunderstanding I don't really like anyone to have even though it's flattering.

It just doesn't feel right to receive compliments I don't deserve.

So I'll just say it here: I'm not diligent and I've never been diligent since I was a child.

It might have been because I only mention the times when I go back during odd hours to work, but that's because these occasions were noteworthy.

The fact is, I've never gone to work on all five weekdays on any given week since I started working.

Even for this week, which has been quite a busy one for me, I'm only working for four days. Friday, which is today, is free because there's little left for me to do, so I'm just staying at home to do whatever.

That's why I installed Kingdoms of Amalur last night. I thought I was going to have an awesome gaming marathon but that kinda failed badly.

In addition, I do not work throughout the typical office hours that most people do. No 9-to-5 or 8-to-6 or whatever. This week, I went to work between 10am to 12pm and got off work mostly at around 2-3pm, although on Wednesday I left at 4.30pm.

This is because:

1) there is no need for me to stay in the office when there's nothing to be done that can only be completed by myself. I leave all boring repetitive tasks to the employees - what else am I hiring them for? If I weren't this lazy I would have let them go already.

2) Taxi peak hour surcharge begins at 6pm and sometimes it's hard to get a cab even at 5pm.

Unlike most success stories you hear involving entrepreneurs or small businesses, I'm not trying to make this bigger nor am I interested in going public. I don't care about making millions, just enough to make everyone satisfied.

Hence, I don't see the need to become the workaholic my father was.

I go to work at strange times like Friday night because some of the work like carrying large boxes of stuff around requires space. When they're working there, it gets too crowded because space is an expensive commodity.

My solution is to go when there's nobody around so that nothing happens and they don't try to help me even though we all know they can't. Things I can barely move, like the giant bag of paper labels the other day, it's impossible that they can and they know it.

So I just dragged it slowly to its intended destination, taking breaks every few meters when necessary. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do when he's the only man around.

Couldn't use a trolley because it's impossible to lift. Neither did I want to split the labels into multiple lighter boxes first because the original boxes inside had burst and I'd have to re-arrange the giant messy pile of 10,000 labels by the handfuls.

Simpler to just drag it there and let them tidy up the mess inside next time.

When I'm thinking about work at home it doesn't mean I can't do anything else. In any case, it's not like there's so much to dwell on in running a small business that one would be preoccupied for entire days.

As for the other aspects of my work, again, they don't require that much time.

Which is why to the contrary of what some who know me might believe, I do not make much and I don't see myself making a lot more than what my mum used to make in the foreseeable future.

In exchange for rather dead-end-like future career prospects, I get very, very flexible working hours. Meaning although I will never make what one would make in a senior management position in a large corporation, I get to work at hours like 11am to 3pm everyday if I go to work at all.

This fits my personal preference in life which I have stated a long time ago in a very old rant - just a quiet one that involves working less and playing less. I don't want to work hard and play hard; I'm just too lazy for that.

I do have doubts about whether this is going to work in the long term. I certainly find the thought of trading IRL very exciting but I somehow just can't get myself to like the physical work involved.

SAT

The residents who are against eldercare services in their area for reasons like

They are worried that building an elder-care centre at their void decks may mean more deaths in the area.

are probably planning to die young.

Iran is concerned about U.S. nuclear weaponry.

...Americans have the fuel, the facilities, and "everything they need" to manufacture even more weapons-grade fissile material.

"...After all, the United States is a volatile nation that's proven it needs little provocation to attack anyone anywhere in the world whom it perceives to be a threat."

...possibility of the U.S. providing weapons and resources to a rogue third-party state such as Israel.

I must say they have very valid points there. Everyone should be alarmed.

So the guy who came up with all the evidence that red wine is good for the heart has been charged with fraud and current investigations are finding new evidence that contradict his results.

My question is: what about all those people who swear that red wine is the key to their longevity?

Went back to LoL bot games. Tired of all the tension in normal PVP games, so I thought I'd just relax and play against Intermediate bots.

Turns out people are actually friendlier in bot games, albeit quieter, and it wasn't just because my Mordekaiser was good back then.

The reason I said this is because I began getting friend invites on the second day I started playing against bots, even though I'd been trying out unfamiliar heroes like Galio, Soraka and the new (and badly nerfed) Morde.

I'm seriously not even good in any of these especially since there are now plenty of level 30s who just want to play a relatively relaxed game like I do.

Moreover, nobody complains about noobness in those games, even when someone is actually being terrible at the game and causes the team to lose.

SUN

Okay, gave Kingdoms of Amalur another shot.

This time, I reused my character as a mage because my bro told me I could respec very early into the game.

Found out it was true, reset my points for about 1.3k and spent all the points into Sorcery.

However, my dark elf race inherently specialized in Stealth and I didn't want to make a new char by then, so this is a mage with 2 points in Stealth that I won't be using.

This game is far better when I'm not raging at its stealth-related inadequacies.

As a chakram-wielding mage, this game is so easy at Normal difficulty.

I have yet to die in the game because the AI loves to stand around. Rarely do any groups of enemies attack me simultaneously, hence I get plenty of opportunities to dodge and kill them separately.

With the chakrams, it gets even easier to hit groups of them although the damage is lower.

Fortunately they get momentarily stunned when I hit them, so mouse-spamming is the key to victory in this game. I don't really need spells as a mage when I can just run around and spam chakram attacks, but they add a bit of variety to the gameplay.

To compensate for the monotony further, the game uses great graphics and epic fighting animations to keep it exciting.

In my case, I love the way the chakrams are used.

And the animation for killing an enemy in Reckoning mode totally reminds me of those in Dragon Age: Origins, particularly the one in which I kill a troll with a melee weapon.

Rant 938 / Herpa Derpa

2012-02-10T00:17:00.001+08:00

Played some Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

Totally unimpressed.

I'm only level 2 so I might be changing my opinion in the future... if I don't uninstall it first.

Combat is terrible. Maybe I've been spoilt by Bethesda's Skyrim and Fallout games in recent years, but that's the impression I have right now about this game.

I'm surprised they even have the gall to price it at the same level as Skyrim (now higher because games' prices drop as they age).

First, stealth.

How do you stealth-kill the troll boss in the very first part?

It is impossible.

Even if you had crept your way to the door and crouched as you opened it, the boss battle begins with the three of them staring into your face as you stand upright after the cut scene ends.

What's the point of stealth?

Second, dagger Charge attack.

You cannot adjust the direction of the attack nor move a muscle after you begin charging.

NOT FUNNY, MAN!

These two alone were enough to make me ragequit the game.

50-60 bucks for that?

No. Just no.

Tried Magic the Gathering: Tactics.

Gameplay is fine. The rest isn't.

I like the tactics but the game isn't solely about battling others.

The cards are simply too expensive. US$2.99 for 14 virtual cards?

No thank you.

The other way to get new cards is to buy more through auctions using another virtual currency, gold.

You get 2 per day via the daily quests, and the cheapest cards at the moment go for 3.

It also costs gold to put a card up for auction.

I used to be a big MtG fan (played between 6th-8th Ed) but this is just too expensive a game for me.

I think they really need to consider the fact that once bought, virtual cards cannot be sold for real money, unlike real cards, without selling the entire account.

Tried Tribes: Ascend for the second time.

The first time was terrible. I entered a Capture-the-Flag game in the America West server and it was a 1v2.

Gave me the mistaken impression that the game is dead.

So when I asked my bro, he was confused because it was nothing like that for him.

That's why I decided to give it a second shot and it was totally different.

That is, until 9pm (+8 GMT). I joined a game and it was a 1v0.

Derp.

So the game is dead at certain hours, which means it's not that popular.

Still, it's a pretty nice game.

The skiing is so fun! Had to play the tutorial to get it (got totally confused when I jumped straight into the game because I was wondering why I was sometimes speeding up and sometimes slowing down when I hold spacebar) and now I'm trying to get the hang of using the jetpack with the ski to maximise all the effect of the downslope skiing.

The most important thing is that all the upgrades and locked classes can be unlocked without spending money. Class upgrades cost only 1000 points and I can easily get that in one or two rounds.

Items (all reusable or passive) and locked classes cost over 10k but that's ok.

The game itself isn't that interesting but as a free game, it's pretty good.

What I learnt after a few games is that camping the flag is quite pointless. Most of the time, it's the experienced players who do the flag-capturing, and they never just run to the flag unless you're lucky.

The most likely scenario is that he would just ski like the wind and snatch it before you even know he's no longer in front of you.

Or he could leap up if the flag is on a raised platform, and that slows him down a bit. However, that's still way faster than a stationary flag camper.

The better players would then ski all the way to the sides of the map before proceeding back to base, thus avoiding all the people in the middle of the map where most of the action occur.

If the guy isn't that good, he would try to ski his way back in the most direct path, but that means he has to run through most of the players in the map.

Either way, he would have a headstart compared to the camping defender in terms of acceleration, though it's far easier to kill the latter flag-capping guy.

There are automated turrets to defend your base, but their heavy-duty shots are so slow even the slowest class can dodge them as long as they see them.

Moreover, they're frequently placed on raised platforms that block their line of sight when you're close enough below them, and they have a limit range.

This means with a grenade-type weapon with the trajectory, you can easily run close to it and destroy it.

It's basically a mere decoration. I have no idea why anyone would bother to upgrade them. They don't even slow me down! I can just keep skiing forward so thatas long as I don't stop, I'm safe.

So skiing is the main thing that makes the game fun, but it's hard to hit anyone with my weapons at 110km/h.

:(

Rant 937 / Ain't No One.

2012-02-08T20:58:00.000+08:00

The ending made me go," Oh shit!"

Why is Japan so awesome? WHY?

Rant 936 / Postage Will Be Paid By Addressee.

2012-02-07T19:12:00.000+08:00

My second consecutive good day. How rare is that?

Today I learnt that all those old dusty goods buried deep in the storage area can actually be sold!

I knew about those long ago, but the fact that they haven't been sold for years gave me the impression that there must be problems with them.

Most likely, it's because none of the buyers want them.

So during a conversation with a buyer yesterday, one thing led to another, and I mentioned that I have a lot of old unsold stuff in my office, some of which have never been sold before.

Immediately I was told to bring those today and we could see which could be sold. Otherwise, I could proceed with my original plan of throwing them away as trash or donating them after the next Chinese New Year.

So I brought 10 designs, some with just 10 pieces and some with 60-70. Many do not have a complete size range, eg just 11 pieces of XL brown.

Today when I brought the 10 jackets and sweaters there, I half expected the effort to be only half-rewarded. All of them are so old, it didn't seem likely to me they could all be sold.

Surprisingly, they were all accepted. The buyer even remembered half of them, one of which was an edited version of a very well-received sweater design from my father.

They were THAT old!

My father died 12 years ago, so that design would have to be about a decade old.

I'm selling them at low prices because firstly, they're all outdated fashion. Secondly, I have no idea how much they cost my mum and she had not made a loss overall in her entire career in this business, so as far as I'm concerned they might as well cost nothing.

Moreover, the alternative of throwing/donating would have given me absolutely no money.

As long as the prices were able to cover the transport costs, I didn't really give a damn what the price for each piece.

Except the company's cut is based on the selling price, so it couldn't go too low. In this case, I just let the buyer handle the prices while I agree to every single suggested number without thought.

I'm probably being a terrible businessman for thinking this way though.

Still, everything my business gets from all these sales minus the transport costs is going to be pure profit. No cost price and international shipping costs to worry about.

Tomorrow I shall continue to dig for more old goods to sell while waiting for the factories to make my goods.

Busy day today. Again I didn't eat at all until 6.30pm just now. Didn't even feel hungry first due to anxiety and focus on finding old goods and noting down the amounts, then the excitement of finally having a lot of stuff to sell.

The buyer was happy too, but unhappy that these weren't brought there sooner. If these were sold last year, both our December revenues wouldn't have been as bad as they were.

I might have been able to give my employees more year-end bonus.

Oh well, no point crying over spilled milk. If things continue to go well this year, I'll be able to give them much more this time, maybe even get back to my mum's level.

Went through Little India on my way to my office just now at around 4pm.

Very interesting trip for me, very frustrating trip for the cabbie.

Lots of topless Indian guys in the parade with all the sharp-looking metal things stuck in their bodies.

They also caused a traffic jam in the area.

Looked bloody painful, both those guys and my driver's job.

Saw this white model at the buyer's office, probably going to be featured on one of their posters or calendar or something.

DEM LEGS!

They were so damn long and skinny, which was why I knew she was a model.

Do not be mistaken - I'm in no way saying that she was hot.

She kept looking at me though. Most probably because of my disheveled appearance and the fact that I was lugging two huge bags of clothes.

Hard to look tidy when I spent a whole morning and half the early afternoon digging through dusty piles of stuff, then spent the rest of the afternoon walking with two huge bags of samples.

Rant 935 / Non-Breath

2012-02-07T00:55:00.002+08:00

Passed my IPPT.

For the first time in my adult life I've passed my annual physical fitness test.

Except I didn't actually pass it.

I was in the weight-loss programme in the IPPT Preparatory Training (IPT) and I only had to drop 2 kg to meet my assigned target weight. Once I get there, I'm considered to have passed my IPPT this year.

I dropped 3kgs in the last 3 months, plus 1 more because I've only taken about 500ml of water/coffee and no food the entire day till 8pm just now.

FCK YEA!

However if I gain any weight by my birthday this year, I'll still have to start at the level of my current weight next year, meaning I'll have to lose this extra weight plus the weight I'm supposed to lose for the IPT.

Either way, I'll have to lose a certain amount of weight. The issue is whether I'll gain more weight that I'll need to lose next year.

Probably not.

With my current lifestyle, losing weight is no longer a problem. I've gotten so busy/frustrated I no longer need to eat during the day on many weekdays.

I still eat all sorts of things for dinner though.

Even bought some Magnum mini for dinner dessert, and I'm still losing weight.

I'm not saying my life is awesome. It's far from it, but this is just one of the few things I can be positive about these days.

Rant 934 / Does It Make Sense That A Scarf Costs More To Make Than The Matching Sweater?

2012-02-06T10:39:00.000+08:00

My point is

"Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others"-Otto von Bismark

Think about marijuana. Plenty of people who haven't tried it believe it's bad to legalize it. Those who have have proven it's not physically addictive.

If so, wouldn't it make sense to say that tobacco is a worse drug than marijuana?

Back to my point, someone has already tried it for me, so I can learn from their experience.

Of course, the same example can be use to argue against my point.

Well, someone has to try everything, but why does it have to be myself?

Made spaghetti. Wasn't anything special. Just boil pasta and cook pasta sauce with onions and tomatoes.

The only difference this time was that I went to the kitchen planning to make meatballs with half the 500g-bag of minced pork and use the rest in the sauce.

But when I added an egg into it, the mixture was too watery.

And the egg was much fresher than I thought. In fact the yolk's membrane was so tough I couldn't break it by pinching it.

The first thing I did was ask my bro if he bought fresh eggs to replace the dozen I'd bought like 3 weeks ago.

I'm not kidding. Those eggs are about 3 weeks old. They shouldn't be this fresh even though they were stored in the topmost egg compartment on the door of the fridge.

Apparently, I must be wrong because he didn't buy those.

Anyhow I added the rest of the meat before I remembered I could just add flour to thicken the mix.

Derp.

Also added about 1 teaspoon of oregano, half a teaspoon of salt, half teaspoon of rosemary and half teaspoon of black pepper.

Frying was easy.

I had recently discovered that this small pan that was rarely used was non-stick. Instead of the Tefal wokpan I used this for the meat.

And I made hamburgers instead of meatballs. I didn't think it was solid enough to remain round on the pan.

So I asked my bro if I should go on with spaghetti or if he prefers them with bread (no lettuce, only tomatoes), we settled on the pasta... without meat in the sauce.

The hamburgers were nice, but the salt was virtually undetectable. The herbs saved the day though, or else it would be just plain meat.

This led me to wonder what was added in the burger patties of fast food chains to make them taste so different.

The meat is smoother than the ones I made, with less meaty texture.

Does the bonemeal make such a huge difference together with the more finely ground meat?

Mine was only ground once.

I don't know.

What I did learn though, is that the patty in MCD's Big Breakfast contains rosemary or oregano. I don't know which because I suck at identifying flavours, especially when they're mixed together.

It made sense when I read that even the scrambled eggs from MCD contain preservatives.

Just think about what it takes to run a fast food chain.

It's actually pretty amazing how they can keep supplying food to all its outlets everyday regardless of any logistical reasons including holidays, mechanical failures (they have to have some) and full-blown wars (there are Burger King outlets in US military bases in Iraq).

In WWII, it had been shown that a city's restaurants and markets can run out of food within half a week when its supply routes are totally cut off.

Preservatives allow a fast food chain to keep an immense stockpile as a buffer against any event. Only once in recent history do I remember MCD running out of something, and that was its curry sauce dip.

It was such a significant event it made the news.

A reporter actually wrote a report on how MCD (Singapore) ran out of curry sauce.

That poor journalist.

But the fact is such a thing is huge. A huge failure on the part of the logistics department, I mean. The curry sauce is the most popular dip here other than the garlic chilli sauce, beating the Sweet N Sour sauce, Barbecue sauce and mayo. Probably ketchup too.

The first reason I can think of is that there was something wrong with their curry sauce and they had to recall them all. I mean, it's unthinkable that after so many years of experience, they could actually run out of their buffer stock.

Unless they don't actually have such a thing and they run on a seriously well-coordinated logistical network. Nah, impossible.

My sanity is dangerously low now.

These are the monsters from Amnesia: The Dark Descent if you didn't get it.

Rant 933 / Need New Pants

2012-02-04T03:33:00.000+08:00

MONDAY

After my failure at Kung Pao Chicken on Saturday night, I decided to try something else.

I'm still unclear as to why it became just a sweet chicken dish. The two things that were different were:

1) I added a little too much water
2) I didn't marinate the chicken in wine, so I added it while stir-frying the chicken.

Somehow these changed the sauce.

Anyhow the new dish was just minced pork, ginger, onion, chilli, garlic,soy sauce, chicken stock, water and corn flour.

500g of pork, ground once; one onion, thinly sliced; one chilli with embryo removed and inside thoroughly rinsed, chopped; two small cloves of garlic, chopped; a piece of ginger the size of the top section of a thumb, finely sliced; 1.5 tablespoons of light soy sauce; 1 tablespoon of chicken concentrate; 1 cup water; 1 tablespoon corn flour; a pinch of salt; a packet of MCD's garlic chilli.

Obviously some of these ingredients can be replaced by others.

The main thing is just the chilli. Added salt and soy sauce mainly to prevent it from becoming a sweet dish due to the onion.

The chilli has to be cleaned to make sure it doesn't turn the dish spicy. I don't like spicy food. However the chilli flavour makes the dish taste unique.

This is just a random dish. Turned out pretty well considering it's all gone this morning.

If it's bad, my bro wouldn't touch the leftovers. His comments, like I said before, don't matter because they're always the same. But the fact that he finishes the leftovers tells me something.

500g of pork is a pretty large amount for 2 people. I only had like a fifth of it last night. There was like around 200g of it after dinner, and he finished it all this morning.

THU

Stop saying that you have to try everything at least once, or anything like that.

I don't see you trying heroin.

SPAZ.

SPAZ is awesome. For US$3.99, it's been a really fantastic deal so far.

Got it at that price during a Steam sale and I've been playing it for says.

Didn't bother to complete a lot of sidequests and optional missions, especially those involving time limits and defending stuff.

I kinda suck at the game.

Still, it's much more than I expected from an indie game that's going for less than US$5.

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SPOILER WARNING!

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The biggest reason why I'm impressed is the second part of the game. I was totally convinced I was finishing the game when I destroyed the stealth generators and reached the source of the infection.

I went there without upgrading most things and without exploring half the galaxy because I was getting bored. Things were going so well for me and it was becoming routine.

Mainly, it was just going afk at mining stations, buying goons from colonies and bribing my way from one star system to the next. Theoretically it would have been a simple task to find every single inhabited star system in the galaxy.

The only disadvantage of this method versus questing and fighting my way through each warp gate is that I don't gain new ship blueprints as quickly.

By my method, I was getting new blueprints when my mothership gets attacked upon arrival at a new system, or when I'm visiting one station while it's getting attacked by the other faction.

In fact when I decided to "finish the game" I didn't even have the Right Hook and Grinder, and I had almost no progress on the reverse-engineering of the Huge Hulls.

Fortunately I had what I still consider the best Large Hull, the Helix.

The Mule was basically that. It made an awesome mining ship but it's got nothing interesting about it. Its turrets made it slightly better and its stats were about the same as the Helix's, but the Helix had a Bomb slot which could also be refitted with a turret or mine-deployer. Those are far more fun to use than simple cannons and missile launchers, which I've been using for most of the game already.

Initially I'd thought the Big Brother was better than Helix. In many ways, it was. However, drones just weren't my thing. I still prefer mines - just right click and suddenly the whole area's covered in cloaked magnetic mines.

Mines would suck if the enemies prefer to fight while running away, but fortunately, the AI loves to keep changing direction and inevitably back to my minefield.

The Crawler was also very intriguing. 8 turrets sounded really cool. I won't even need to wait for my ship to turn because my turrets could just rotate.

Nope. Boring, just like the Mule.

The Flora would have been a great choice if not for the fact that I was focusing my techs on Cannons. 4 missile launchers and 3 utility slots! With missiles that can home in on targets and have very long range, this ship would have made my battles so easy, and at the same time I could do a lot of things with those utility slots, like scanners and point defense systems (PDS).

The Big Bus was also pretty damn good. Big cannon slot would be great for me but again, boring.

So anyway, just when I thought I'd beaten the game, everything died.

All of a sudden I'm playing an almost different game. Instead of some kind of exploration game, I'm now playing more of a strategy game.

I'm still trying to find new techs but it's far harder than before. Now I can only fight my way through the warp gates and let's just say there are a lot of things to watch now.

For instance, I get attacked regularly by zombie ships after every several jumps. It's a constant thing I cannot avoid and it's annoying.

Oh yea, fighting zombie ships is more complicated than fighting normal ships.

It took me a while to get it, but now I've realized that I got to watch the number of zombies on board a ship versus the number of crew members onboard when the infestation icon is blinking next to the ship.

Before I "finished the game" I was confused and thought I had to vent the crew everytime it's infested.

I was so wrong and because of this, I was the one making the game much harder than it was supposed to be.

The key lies in the ratios. Once the zombies outnumber the crew, it's almost always hopeless since I haven't spent much on Crew upgrades. I have now, with 2 specialists that boost crew fighting prowess but that just means my crew can kill off the zombies faster. I still haven't been watching the crew till they almost die out; once the zombies outnumber them, I vent the crew then send the ship for repair.

The second partof the game was also pretty hard considering than I didn't get a Huge Hull ship till later when I was almost done with the first star system.

The game felt so awesome once I had the Carrier. Those EIGHT launcher slots were pure fun, especially since I had the SRM launcher. Although I didn't invest much on this weapon type, the thought of 8 showers of those missiles was enough for me to jump on it immediately and never look back.

Then reality set in.

My rapid-fire Particle Cannons, all three of them, were consuming too much power - I was getting the Low Power warning like 3s after I begin spraying, making the guns fire only intermittently and practically ineffectual.

Moreover, the recharge rate is far too low for me to wait for it to get close to full before I fire again while enemies are going at full force on me.

This issue had been around with previous ships but I didn't expect it to get this bad. Should have gotten a new reactor before I went through that special warp gate but it was too late to reload.

I just couldn't stand the thought of playing the game without the EIGHT MISSILE LAUNCHERS.

So I replaced 5 of the launchers with reactor boosters and that slowed down the power depletion enough for the ship to last long enough kill at least a Large Hull ship in battle.

No luck in finding more advanced reactor blueprints yet.

Still, the insane firepower of my three Particle Cannons is great for killing enemy Huge Hull ships.

Moreover, the PDS and SRM missiles really help to kill the zombies trying to enter my ship. The latter and the drones also help kill off the smaller ships in close range that my gigantic cannons just can't hit because they can't turn quickly enough.

As for Drones, somehow I managed to get my hands on the best Drones in the game, the Cloaked Bomber Drones, so once I began to use drones with the Carrier, I decided to spend everything on my Drone tech level just so that I could use them.

Yea I was just buying blueprints indiscriminately before.

So anyhow, they seem pretty good at killing small ships. Can't really feel their effectiveness but maybe it's just me.

I'd also got the best armour in the game, the Advanced Armour, and that really made my ships awesome. It's true that it's expensive, but it's totally worth the Rez to make my ships so much tougher and at the same time, allow them to move fast enough to hit something.

Coincidentally I also had the best shield before moving on to the second part of the game, although that really didn't make as much a difference. Those zombies are just too effective at killing shields. For most of my fights, the depletion of my shields mean little to me. It just means I got to start watching their hull colours. I send them for repairs when they turn yellow, or before if there is a Huge Hull ship aiming them.

The only time when the shield actually matters is when I'm using the Huge Hulls because having over 2000 Shield points means it actually lasts for some time, although the Fortress Shield takes forever to recharge, so it's actually faster to send it for repairs if it's been depleted.

I know I haven't talked about using Bombs.

I didn't like them since an early mission in the game in which I was getting hit by the Civ ally's bombs. At that time I was new to the game, so when my Tiny Hull ship got almost killed by one bomb hit, I was confused as to whether that was really my ally.

Then I found that the more logical conclusion was that bombs were the only weapon in the game that can cause friendly fire.

Nope, not using that. I don't want to risk killing my Tiny Hull ships or breaking their stealth field. I rather like to use them as stealth scanners when possible since their firepower is pointless compared to my other ships. I do outfit them with a weapon or two to deal with enemy Tiny Hull ships but I don't really care ever since I began to use mines.

The mines are magnetic. Enough said.

After I stopped using mines (when I got the Carrier), I was using PDS and drones that benefit from CANNON research, the very weapon I was specialising in. Why would I give a damn about the smallest ships? They aren't even irritating. At worst, I still have 3 SRM launchers that fire multiple small homing warheads.

I don't think those little babies can even damage my Carrier's shield faster than it can regenerate.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

END OF SPOILERS!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Help! I'm being run over by the Innernet!"

Probably one of the most memorable game recordings I've ever watched.

FRI

It's 10pm on a Friday and I'm in the office. I was planning to do some work but things got screwed up by what I expected to be minor problem.

The original idea was to photograph every single list of every item we have in every colour, then photograph every item in every available colour.

It was going to take some work. Taking stock is always time-consuming. I'm sure anyone who has worked in a warehouse or something would know. It's simple and boring.

But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

Spent a few days mentally whining about the work I have to do but feel so unmotivated to begin, but I came to realize there's no way I can avoid them.

As the owner of the business, there is nobody to nag on me or set me deadlines. I do as I please, but the bottom line is that I make a certain amount of profit every month (or on average over a year).

No teacher to get pissed at me me, no exam to fail.

Unless I consider the end of year calculation of total net profits to be my report card.

In which case, I barely made the mark last year thanks to a few people. It could have been worse - I could have failed horribly.

I'm now feeling as if this buyer I'm working with is my second mother of sorts. She's just so nice to me.

Then again, she probably expects me to make as much money as my mum used to, from which she will take a big cut.

Still, she's getting close to her retirement age. Women in her age group tend to be nicer to everyone than other kinds of people.

Hopefully her salesgirls don't read this. According to herself and my mum, they actually fear her, and that's how she likes it.

But that's what a boss gotta be. You cannot be nice to your subordinates all the time. Once in a while, yes, but mostly they've got to fear you to some degree to do the necessary work that they're so unwilling to complete.

Money alone isn't enough to make people work hard these days, but fear is a universal motivator that's been tested and proven since antiquity.

Which basically means I'm a terrible boss. My employees do not even look up to me. They don't actually disobey me and they're very nice to me, but the advice they give me on one occasion implied that the problem cropped up because I didn't dare to speak up.

Still, things are getting done because the employees I have are still doing it for the sake of my mother. After working for over a decade, the elder one is motivated enough by sentimental feelings to do her job without my mum around.

As for that particular issue, it's never happened before. Like totally never. Both that buyer and my mum have never heard of such a thing. Basically, the inside of a jacket was supposed to be the same purple as the outside but using different materials, and the factory gave me jackets with the insides in three shades of that colour.

I have a feeling this bastard is trying to test me.

My solution is to separate all three shades and consider them as different items, so that customers don't get confused about the colouring.

So anyway, I'm in the office but I can't work because my phone's battery has gone flat just 5mins I arrived.

It wasn't a problem - I have the USB cable that I can use to recharge it with my laptop.

The real problem is that the rate is so slow, the phone is consuming more power than it can recharge.

Fortunately I've already prepared to stay overnight. Like who cares, right? I'm the boss, so I can work whenever I want. It also compensates for the fact that I didn't work on Wed, Thu and today until just now when I arrived at 9.45pm.

I'm just awesome like that.

So now I'm blogging while waiting for the phone to recharge enough. Maybe 2-3 bars. Two if I get impatient, three being the preferred number.

Also got an extra shirt and berms because I will be sweating.

Removing packed items, photographing and then folding and putting them back repeatedly for this amount of goods is no easy task.

Next week, I will be prepared enough to tell my buyers how much of which goods I have that they want, and such things.

I cannot ask my employees forever about these issues.

Sometimes I think leaders are born, and I'm not one of them. When I look at HX, I see a natural right there. He doesn't even have to think about trying; he's already doing it without thinking.

Of course he's got issues just like the rest of us, and they're probably stopping him from being the better leader he could be, but I'm not his mother.

Heck, I don't even have the credibility to back anything I say regarding such things.

Me, I don't even like to go to work. In fact I'm trying without thinking to get all my work done at home. I only realized this when I thought about what I've been doing for this business over the last several months.

My parents rarely brought work home. My father brought rolls of price tags home to be separated (they come printed in rolls) during the busier seasons, at most. My mum also brought cardboard boxes home to be torn into smaller pieces because it's tiring work. We need those pieces to protect our items in our boxes so that when people cut the sealing tape they don't cut into the clothes inside.

Today a volunteer said something that reminded me of the pointlessness of my visits.

The last time when I said the steroids stopped working, it was true... only at the point of time.

The doctor had told me he had raised the dose and she didn't react to it, and he informed me about that.

He had also said that he would increase the dose again a few more times and if it didn't work, he would lower it back to a much healthier level (it's already gone far beyond what the NUH doctors prescribed).

Since it stopped working once, I had no reason to believe it would work again somehow.

But it did.

She's able to talk but it takes too much effort to do so unless it's necessary, like if she's in pain.

But this had made me forget that her memory is still screwed up.

Today when I arrived, a volunteer was talking to her and then accused me of not visiting her for three days.

That was nonsense. I came over yesterday morning with breakfast from the Burger King at Novena Square. She managed to finish most of that Big Breakfast equivalent (the one with the French toasts) except for the sausage, and the breakfast provided by the hospice.

But she had already forgotten about it.

What's the point of visiting her, other than when I miss her?

What's the point of doing anything if nobody remembers it except myself?

If absolutely no one other than myself is ever aware that a deed is done, then there is no difference between action and imagination.

Rant 932 / Not Everything Is Cheap In China

2012-01-27T11:34:00.000+08:00

Finally got my package from DealExtreme. Just needed some replacements for the stuff I bought before.

One was the casing. I like the fake leather casing with the cover for the screen, and I accidentally dropped and broke it.

The other was the stylus. It's coming apart. It probably will still last for a month at least, maybe even forever, but I'm getting a spare just in case. Nothing to lose. This thing only costs 3USD and can be used on any other touchscreens.

Speaking of which, I just saw this stylus being offered on some group discount website for S$10 in a package together with a screen protector for the iPhone. It's still cheaper to get them from DealExtreme.

Finally the screen protector. When I dropped the phone it also got scratched, so a new one is in order.

As for the new stuff, it's a simple Bluetooth headset that's really just a tiny Bluetooth mic-cum-earphone that I can hook on my ear.

It also turns out to be a Nokia knockoff, albeit a decent one. The only reason I think it's a fake is that the area where there's supposed to be a bar code, they just print the words "Bar Code" there instead.

Then again, maybe it's the real deal and that stores are supposed to paste bar code stickers on top of the printed words.

It's going to be useful because I keep my phone in my bag and I always can't hear the ringtone when I'm in the streets. If I turn the volume loud enough to be noticeable over the traffic noises, then it's far too loud when I'm indoors.

On the other hand, I just found a Bluetooth headset of the same size being offered on a group discount website for S$15 while this was bought at US$12-something.

Just a lesson that not everything is cheap on that website.

So now I've got CBBE mod, High-Res 4k CBBE Re-Texture mod, Killer Keos armour mod and Catwalk mod for Skyrim, this place is suddenly a much more interesting place to be in.

The only problem is that playing Skyrim now makes me want to fap.

All those comments about how netizens say stupid things are funny.

Funny because all those things being said online is basically the same as the things one would hear if one could listen to the remarks made by everyone, and not just the people near and within your social circles.

Now that's why people up at the top don't really listen to the masses as much as the masses would like. When they try and listen, they inevitably are going to hear some of the idiocy that even you find so damn annoying.

"The internet" is what you sound like to them.

The thing is, you're most likely wrong about those comments you think nobody would ever make in real life, except they're being said by nobody you know.

The world's a huge place despite the Internet. Even in a tiny country like Singapore there are communities that I've never been in contact with.

Haven't been blogging because I wasn't in the mood. Steroids stopped working.

Anyhow, bought SPAZ for US$3.99 after playing the demo. Not a particularly awesome game, but it's a good deal at that price. There are far more expensive forms of entertainment that I can think of.

Compare this to a movie ticket. S$10 for 90mins would be S$6.67 per hour.

US$3.99 is between S$5.20 to S$6. If the game entertains me for over an hour, it would be a better deal than visiting the cinemas.

And I'm not even including the cost of transport, food and laundry.

As for food, I just learnt that Popeye's is offering islandwide delivery. Not a bad idea. Their mashed potato is better than KFC's after all.

Not now of course. I've got to spend less on deliveries now. Heck, I've got to just spend less now.

Just realized I've got less than the desired amount of capital in my bank account for my business. This means I may have to eat into the money my father left me.

I'm not taking any money for myself from the business this year. Left all the excess to my bro because it's likely that he won't get anymore in the near future.

It's obviously still unconfirmed, but I think he's not going to join me. It's not a completely good or bad thing. Having someone less absent-minded than me here that I can trust would be nice, but there is simply not enough money both for his family and myself in the future.

Moreover, my parents' families have bad histories involving money and siblings. It could be in the genes.

I'll just have to find a way to get around this issue of mine, probably by noting everything down all the time.

After reading the article on twins studies in this month's National Geographic Magazine, I think a lot of it makes sense.

For example, they found that difference between our IQs are 75% inherited makes sense. I mean, almost everyone in the ancient days believed in heriditary rule. It can't solely be because the kings, chiefs or whatever are able to provide a better environment for their offsprings to cultivate future rulers.

Furthermore, incest was pretty common among the rulers of many civilizations, eg Japan until recently. If it was just about "nurture" instead of "nature", adoptions would have been just as common.

There has to be some form of wisdom in it if so many are doing it.

But there's also another factor called epigenetics, which is the degree to which the genetic "instructions" are followed.

This is affected by things like stress in the womb (like if the pregnant woman gets robbed?), and makes even identical twins slightly different even though they have the same DNA.

One thing that brought me some relief was that the probability of several diseases being hereditary was not high, including diabetes and breast cancer.

I think it's obvious why I'd welcome this news.

Rant 931 / Rusty Flesh

2012-01-25T13:00:00.001+08:00

The game's really not as awesome as it looks.

If an extraterrestial being gets its hands (or tentacles) on a sheet of printed document, will it try to decipher the meaning behind the symbols or the arrangement of the microscopic inkblots?

There are three equally wealthy philantropists who did the exact same things for charity.

One did them for both public recognition and tax incentives.

The second did them in the belief that he will be rewarded in the afterlife.

The third did them because he pitied the poor.

Nobody ever finds out their true motives.

To the rest of the world, who is the best man?

Man is a creature of ironies. People who stick to their principles throughout their lives are respected because they're rare.

It's just simpler to live with contradictory beliefs.

For example, freedom. They want freedom, yet they also want the security provided by freedom-restricting laws.

For example, money. They want money, which is a physical representation of their productive efforts, yet they don't want to work for it if given a choice.

For example, politics. The vote is meant to represent the (free) will of the people, yet fortunes are spent to tell them who the best person to vote for is... and it works!

Man is a creature of ironies. Deal with it.

Now we see why that Norwegian guy Anders Behring Breivik went on a killing spree last year. Those prisoners have nicer homes than I do!

Rant 930 / Ancient Watermelons

2012-01-22T12:07:00.002+08:00

Tried Popeye's chicken.

Their mashed potato is better than that of KFC's but their chicken really isn't unique in any way.

Their spicy fried shrimps are very salty and not very impressive, although it's still better than KFC since that franchise doesn't even have their fish burger anymore in the seafood category.

EDIT: Just found out KFC brought back its Fish Ole burger again, though probably just for the CNY festival.

Tried Recettear. Pretty interesting game. The translation can be a little poor at times but it's mostly fine.

For example, Tear says," Merde," all the time.

It's French for "shit" and is also an expletive.

I don't believe they say that in Japanese, which is the language spoken in the game. Also, anglophones simply don't say "merde" all the time.

Gameplay is a mix of action RPG and simple number guessing.

This game is about an item shop. Instead of playing as the heroic adventurer, you're the person selling equipment and other items to him.

You start off by buying items from a supplier and placing them on your shelves. Placement is important because items displayed at the window tend to sell better.

Selling itself is a number guessing game because it involves a form of haggling.

A customers would come to you asking for the price to a certain item on display, and you quote a price. He makes a comment, then you quote a lower price till he agrees or he quits.

Next you get to recommend items to customers who don't know what exactly they want. They would come to you asking for a type of item and you would search your inventory for something relevant before moving on to the haggling process.

After that you get customers who want to sell you their items, because in RPGs we always have junk loots to sell.

This part is actually quite humourous because of the things they say to explain why they're selling something.

For example,

WHAT KIND OF MAGICAL SANDWICH IS THIS THAT DOESN'T ROT AFTER ALL THIS TIME?

I don't even want to think about the amount of preservatives involved in the production of that ham.

I don't really want to imagine what kind of things they went through together...

Another one.

CAVE CHERRIES!

Not to mention all those wives nagging their husbands to buy swords and iron armour for them.

And the little girls selling me their cherries.

>:3

Finally you get advance orders that really make no sense to me.

These customers would come to you asking for "2 books in 3 days" or something like that. They do not agree on any of the following before leaving:

1) The titles of the books
2) The prices of the books

So basically they just want 2 random books reserved in advance, and they do not get them cheaper or more expensive than just buying them on the spot.

Seriously I'm just puzzled at how they can just do that, then when the day comes they tell me my price is too high even though what I quoted was not any higher than what I'd usually say.

Beyond the item shop, there is the part involving dungeons and monster-slaying.

You get to hire an adventurer and go with him to explore dungeons. You are supposedly protected by a magical field such that you and everything outside cannot interact with each other. However, the adventurer would not be protected, so he or she would be the one doing the killing and looting. You just watch and control him.

After that, you get free loot that you can sell. Moreover, some things that are requested can only be found in the dungeons.

As for plot, it's very short and kinda dark. Recette's father left one day to become an adventurer and never returned. Tear, a debt-collector, arrived some time later and informed her that she had to repay her father's debt in his absence.

Together, they opened a shop using Recette's home to sell things to adventurers who come to their town.

The game proper is very short but after the credits, the player is given an opportunity to save the Game Clear data. By loading this save file, the Endless Mode is started.

In this mode, it's the same as before except Recette no longer has to repay any debt. She just sells stuff forever.

There is also the option of New Game+, which means you get to replay the game using the items you had when you completed your previous run.

Finally, there is the Survival Mode, in which the debts never end and only goes higher every week.

Couldn't find any yu sheng at the Shop N Save, and the tze char stall that we used to frequent was closed since a month ago. I don't really know where to get it in my neighbourhood anymore.

Looks like we're not going to have yu sheng this Chinese New Year.

My mum asked me to arrange for a home visit again for the first day of Chinese New Year. I wonder if she realizes what she's asking.

We did that for Christmas Day. She didn't like it.

There's nothing to do at home. All she can do is lie on her bed for the entire stay, and it's difficult to feed her because we don't have one of those hospital beds that can push her up into the sitting position.

Moreover, it's not easy to come up with something she can eat since she's limited to soft foods.

Still, I've asked the nurses there to arrange for a round trip transport by ambulance. S$120 because it's a holiday.

I don't know what and how to feed her.

She ate lying down with some extra pillows under her the other time, but she's been weakening every day. I'm not sure if it's alright to let her do that again.

I'm not even sure if she's going to remember that she asked for this home visit tomorrow.

We'll come up with something, as we always do.

I just wonder what her reaction will be when she finds out there is no yu sheng.

EDIT: Bought one set from the newer NTUC at Clementi Mall. It was the last set with fish. All the other remaining sets were vegetarian.

Rant 929 / Whoever Says There Is No Freedom Of Speech In The PRC Doesn't Know What He's Talking About.

2012-01-20T20:40:00.000+08:00

Best thing is that that guy is a professor in Peking University.

At 6:00 he also managed to insult Singaporeans and Hongkongers at the same time.

This man's PhD is probably in Trolling, because he's seriously good at it.

How can I tell?

His arguments are all incredibly offensive and yet contain no legitimate reasoning. Even if someone wants to debate his answers, there's really nothing to discuss.

EDIT: Whoa! Youtube took it down for violating its hate speech policy. Fortunately it's on Yahoo! News now.

In a talk show on Internet news site V1.cn last week, Chinese-language professor Kong Qingdong, who was also a guest commentator, was asked to discuss a recent heated exchange involving some Hong Kong locals and a mainland Chinese family.

A report in The Straits Times quoted Kong as saying, “If a society had to maintain its order through strict laws such as hefty fines for littering, as happened in Singapore, its 'law-abiding' look does not reflect the true nature of its people,” he said. “Instead, it shows they are a servile bunch who can be whipped into line.”

Clearly real men are lawless barbarians. Listen to him! This guy has a PhD, so he can't be wrong!

Also, it's been reposted elsewhere in Youtube so I'll re-embed it here.

FYI kings only fart xenon. Truefax.

I like the idea of staggering school opening hours to spread out the human traffic across Singapore.

In fact, why not change the time zone of half the island so that the eastern half of Singapore is in GMT +9?

Want to reach Changi from Pasir Ris at 9am? Leave home at 9am!

Megaupload was taken down by US authorities for piracy.

To make this case even more noteworthy, it's been endorsed by multiple celebrities like Kanye West and Alicia Keys. There's actually a music video for Megaupload on Youtube featuring them.

In fact, the CEO of Megaupload is the latter's husband.

In other words, the artists themselves don't actually matter in this piracy issue, since the guys in charge don't actually care who or what they approve of.

Rant 928 / Why Can't I Hold All These Cards?

2012-01-20T00:45:00.000+08:00

So I got 3 new cards this week, 2 free and 1 cheap.

First was the PAssion card that cost me S$12 for a 5-year membership. The main attraction for me here is the really tiny rebates and discounts it offers for several supermarkets, including Shop N Save.

The rebates are very little: 1 point per dollar spent, and 150 points for a rebate of one dollar.

In other words, S$1 rebate per S$150 spent, excluding all the cents in every transaction.

This alone isn't worth S$12 even if it's over 5 years, but there are also the other little discounts that may become useful over the years.

To recoup my $12, I'll have to spend $150 * 12 = $1800 over 5 years, or an average of $360 a year, or $30 per month at these supermarkets excluding all the coins involved.

Maybe it's not so bad... I spend like $10 a month just on rice alone at Shop N Save.

Second card to arrive was the Maybank ATM card. It didn't actually "arrive" because I went to Maybank to get it.

I initially wanted to get the iSAVvy savings account, but the banker recommended their normal savings account if all I wanted was to set up that fixed deposit.

So I followed his advice, let him set up a SaveUp account for me for free, then applied for the FD a few hours ago.

1.35% p.a. for 2 years! How can anyone interested in fixed deposits in Singapore (aka time deposits) resist? That's even better than Hong Leong's rates unless you're a frickin millionaire!

Furthermore, all bank deposits in most banks here are only insured up to 50,000 SGD, and I care about this little detail that nobody talks about.

I like safety nets.

So even if I'm a millionaire, I wouldn't want to put all my money in a single bank. Heck, I wouldn't place my million in fixed deposits in the first place.

This is just a Maybank ATM card with just above $500 to cover the minimum sum so that I don't get that stupid "monthly service fee".

The difference between this and what would have happened if I opened an iSAVvy savings account is that when the maturity date comes, Maybank will give me the cashier's order for free and not charge me the S$10-15 fee that iSAvvy account holders have to pay.

The pros of the latter includes the free insurance that comes with the account.

The SaveUp account is basically... nothingness. Its list of benefits is emptier than that of my DBS Visa debit card, which has almost nothing.

This feels like a comparison between vacuum and our exosphere.

Finally, my POSB Go! card. Like my DBS Platinum Visa debit card, this POSB Go! Mastercard debit card has almost nothing and charges almost nothing. No annual fee and stuff.

The only regular fee would be the one I'm going to have to pay to have it replaced when it expires.

Best of all, they're both using the same account, so all I need to care about is which card has the less minute discount.

But TBH they're both just glorified ATM cards with different names.

The most important different for me is that the Visa card has healthcare-related discounts while the other has... nothing that the Visa card lacks.

LOL!

This card shall be cancelled when it expires unless something useful is offered exclusively for it.

At least it's free, so I lose nothing.

The healthcare discounts are important because it's becoming a good idea for me to go for health screening regularly for the rest of my life when my parents are either dead or dying from cancer.

Rant 927 / Firestarter

2012-01-19T01:24:00.000+08:00

So every morning when this man Mark Easton goes to his balcony, he's going to have a slightly different but still beautiful view.

Like 18inches would have made any difference from that distance.

This guy just managed to piss off his neighbour without accomplishing anything.

Our PAP is going for brains, and our opposition parties are going for heart.

The former wants the best minds in the government; the latter wants the most sincere.

That's the impression I've been getting from all the political crap that's being forced into my eyes.

All heart and no brain won't help the country to excel. Case in point: CSJ.

All brain and no heart is risky but when it works, it works wonders. Even if a politician is all about the money, if he's smart he will still see that a prospering country is the way to go.

Of course, if the defecation hits the oscillation, then he becomes totally unreliable.

That's exactly what the PAP risks, although they obviously are trying to minimize the probability of that with the amount of brains they're trying to attract with the money.

The worst part of the article was really the last line:

"Of course, we would like to see capable men and women in the cabinet, but we do not believe that our best people for political office are only those who make the most money,"

I'm frankly surprised that Chen Show Mao could say that. Most people would be more subtle about it but this guy just goes for the ears of the lower income demographics blatantly.

That's not a bad thing, just... lacking in sublety. Opposition parties just don't have a chance at attracting the support of the upper and upper-middle class here, and obviously they need to start somewhere.

Personally I just think that too many people out there expect quick changes and instant gratification when there's a change in leadership. It's the same everywhere globally.

The more people involved, the greater the inertia.

Hence the key is to watch out for the smallest issues before they grow into big ones.

This is the reason why too many politicians fail IMO. They wait till problems become visible to everyone before they try and solve it.

This is also the reason why the current government is receiving so much flak these days. Some of them just didn't manage to solve issues before they become issues, and the PM is responsible for picking them in the first place.

But a change of ministers doesn't make things happen immediately. Trains need time to get built. They don't make them and store them in some humongous warehouse until someone comes over to buy them.

I think the best example would be Obama. The Americans seemed to have been expecting a frickin magic show when they voted for him.

It's just sad that so many Singaporeans seem to be hell-bent on getting the PAP out of the arena.

But all these anger wouldn't have been voiced so often if the global economy was better. Wealth silences issues. When your bellys are full, your wallets are fat and your families are able to get easy well-paid jobs, who cares about... anything?

Just look at Brunei!

Prices of daily necessities, especially food, affects everything. When they go up, it exacerbates any and every issue. Notice how politics changed everywhere when the global economy began to screw up in the last few years?

You can blame China for jacking up the prices of everything, but that wouldn't solve anything.

The world just needs to adapt.

And Singaporeans need to understand the fact that since we have no natural resources, we need to be better than the rest just to be as good as the rest.

I guess it's also about trust.

Simpler people like people they can trust.

People who are more complicated do not need to trust - they just manipulate. Manipulated people are trustworthy to a certain degree, and the manipulator knows exactly how much.

Hence the difference in views.

In the case of the ministerial pay, it's about manipulation using money. Greedy people are the most trustworthy when you can afford their services - you can always trust them to do their best when you have the cash.

Reality is reality. The rhetoric about serving the public being something people want is nonsense to the majority of the world. There are far easier ways to do that that have less impact on their private lives and their public image and are just as gratifying, like offering pro bono law-related services for the poor (apparently they do exist in Singapore and they visit my mum's hospice regularly).

Why else would Mother Teresa be considered as such a great person? People who purely desire to help others are just too rare. They're like perfectly rounded white pearls, or huge natural pristine diamonds - it's just wiser to assume that they're not real until verified by someone you can trust.

I guess this is my way of saying that I just trust greed more in this capitalistic society I live in. It's simply a fact that there are far more greedy people in this world than honest ones.

I'm almost done with Skyrim. I've defeated Alduin once and I think it's going to be the end soon.

Hence I'm diverting my attention to side quests.

I've just completed the quest line in the College of Winterhold. Now I also have this mysterious wooden mask that I found someone out in the open near the entrance of the final dungeon of this quest.

I think I'm supposed to wear it to start a quest.

Also finished the quest about Crimson Nirnroots. Totally wasn't worth the effect but the exploration was fun. This quest basically makes you comb the entire cavern for red light.

At one point I felt too lazy to find the elevator to Blackreach so I used the tcl command to fly. As a result I found some Dwemer treasure up on a mountain near the Alftand Rift Entrance. The weight wasn't worth the price (25 for 888g IIRC), so I just left it there.

I found it intriguing because most Dwemer treasures are indoor, but those stuff were left exposed to the elements.

...

Nvm. Killed Alduin. He's nothing compared to the two dragons guarding the portal.

The only reason I had to reload a single time for this fight was because the Storm Call shout apparently attacks my allies too.

Wow!

I didn't care much about SOPA before, but now I really do!

I depend on the various wikis hosted by Wikia for all my games, and Wikipedia for everything IRL, so when they're down, it's like I've reverted to the ignorant retard I once was.

I think I'm going to have to get used to actually asking someone about things I don't know now, instead of just googling everything.

D:

I feel so... primitive.

Yea I'm against SOPA, not that it actually matters since it's a US law, but I'm against anything the Wikimedia Foundation feels so strongly against.

Hosting a 24-hr blackout worldwide is a serious gesture. I now feel the magnitude of how they feel about SOPA.

Apparently 4chan is also blacking out... in a very different way. Every post made on 4chan is completely blacked out. Only by pointing the cursor on the words or by hitting Ctrl-A can they be read.

Oh wait... Wikipedia is still accessible. It's just a redirect, not a shutdown.

Foreign workers have indirectly widened the income gap in Singapore.

What will the PAP do about that?

“If the middle-class feels that you work so hard and then you try to move up the income ladder but then lo and behold, you‘re competing with all these permanent residents – where’s the home court advantage?”

I think this is the most important issue that they need to deal with now. The lower income groups have never received much attention from them. That's like the opposition's territory.

But the middle and upper classes are where the ruling party tries to get its votes from, so they'd better improve this "home court advantage" asap.

As much as we want this country to prosper through better efficiency, we must remember that this is a country, and a country will always have the burdens that a private corporation does not.

For one, it is one of a country's duties to provide jobs for its people, including those who are less able than the rest. A corporation does not need to care about jobs, just profits.

Holy cow!

My home's electricity consumption just dropped to a level I've never seen before in Dec!

Double digits!

What the heck?!

Of course it isn't exact. It's entirely possible it was reduced from a higher reading to compensate for an overestimation in November. The readings are taken only every alternate month, and November's reading was an estimation based on our records.

It's mainly because my bro and I didn't turn on the air conditioners at all since somewhere in November till Monday. I still have yet to do so even though it's been getting warm again.

I had no idea it makes such a huge difference.

I've tried not switching it on at all myself but the drop was nowhere as large.

I guess the main thing is the compressor. If one of us turns it on, it doesn't really matter as much whether the rest of us follow suit.

Another thing is that this proves that the electricity consumption rates of our computers are nothing compared to those of our air conditioners because our computer usage has not changed dramatically. At most it's only gone down by half.

Rising cost of living?

Pfft...

This month's reading rose so much because it's an estimate again. However, it may turn out to be close or even too low because it's getting too warm on some nights now. Pretty early IMO. Shortest "winter" I've ever seen.

Last year I remember complaining about warmth only in March or February.

I guess CNY is the only long holiday I'll be getting from now on.

The official public holiday for this festival in Singapore only lasts for 2 days, but unofficially plenty of people have holidays for much longer.

For example, the boss of one of the transport companies we work with is only coming back on the first of February.

For my side, my employees are off from tomorrow (half day) onwards till the 30th, although personally whether these days are holidays depends on what crops up when and how urgent they are.

I'd love to state what happens if everything goes smoothly, but after these few months of handling the business, I can safely say that it never does.

After all, a large part of being a boss is to solve problems, while the people under him does the actual work. If problems rarely appear, bosses would be unnecessary.

In my case, I won't have anyone doing anything for me till the 30th, so that makes things a little worse.

I also see any potential issue during this period as a test to see if I can actually handle things without my workers, something which I've always been curious about.

Rant 926 / In The Land Of The Blind, Nobody Wears Clothes But Everyone Wears Lower Body Armour.

2012-01-17T01:53:00.002+08:00

Finally went back to Skyrim. Being a sneaky archer is too easy in most situations that do not involve a dragon.

When fighting a dragon, however, I'm just a simple archer.

The dragon sees all!

Anyway, that's not really hard as long as I stock up plenty of food and potions, and make it a point to keep a certain distance away from it.

Even Alduin was easy when I did that.

Meanwhile, I'm observing that Lydia, my NPC companion, is using all sorts of weaponry to aid in my fights, including bows-and-arrows, shield-and-sword, and double magical staves.

Impressive.

As my personal human pack mule, she has access to the entire arsenal of weapons I looted from various dungeons. I just didn't know she could use them all.

So a cashier's order of mine got lost in the mail.

Pretty serious problem.

I was trying to open a Maybank fixed deposit, but first I had to get an iSAVvy savings account.

So I sent the required documents plus this cashier's order sealed within an envelope that's provided by Maybank itself online. I just had to print it out and fold it properly and postage is on the house.

Then it vanished somewhere in the postal system.

I called Maybank last week, and on Friday, they called me to say that they had checked and nothing from me was received.

That was a pretty big issue but I wasn't concerned about the money being stolen. The main issue was that the money must be recovered immediately and I have to set up everything by Chinese New Year if possible.

The payee was myself so no one else could have used it.

On Saturday, I visited the nearest branch of the bank that issued this cheque and it took a bit of explaining and waiting before I was allowed to request for a replacement. I believe having the receipt with me also helped smoothen the process.

Took one working day before they agreed to cancel the old one and issue me a new cheque on the following working day.

And it's going to cost another S$15 on top of the S$10 that I paid for the first cashier's order.

Not really a problem because the interest from Maybank should cover that, but money wasted is still money wasted.

This time, I'm going to Maybank personally to set up everything.

Jagged Alliance: Back in Action turns out to be a remake of the old game.

I like that.

I never completed the original game mainly because the graphics was a big turnoff. However you want to think about it, graphics (and packaging in general) plays a big part in attracting people and keeping their attention.

It doesn't have to be as good as what we have today because that's going to be old in the future.

It just needs to be better than what we had.

How hard can it be to create a FB event?

Bought some clothes for myself for the first time in my life. In the past, I can seriously wear faded/worn clothes for anything, hence it's always my mum who buys new clothes for me.

Now I need new polo shirts for work. Not button-down shirts because I'm too awesome for that.

Since one shop I'm working with is offering 30% discount for most brands of clothings, I decided to buy some.

I do have some extra shirts in my cupboard but I decided I should buy a few more for two reasons.

First, it's auspicious to buy new pants and probably new shirts for the New Year.

Second, I thought I should get something other than the plain ones that I have and also try out other fabrics at the same time.

In the end, I got two Crocodile shirts for S$180, which is the discounted price.

It was painful but it had to be done.

One was made of "Supima Cotton". It's just American cotton as far as I know. Not sure if I'm supposed to be able to tell the difference between this and the other types.

The other was just mercerised cotton. It looks glossier and feels smoother than normal cotton fabric.

Actually I was shopping around without looking at the price tags. The most important thing to me, initially, was the appearance, or the colour and style.

It was only when the salesperson was searching for the second one for me that I looked and saw that they all exceeded S$100 each.

Stopped there immediately.

Also bought underwear instead of pants to save cost. Both works for the auspicious part.

Now I also got a free pearl for spending over S$50 there. It's quite literally just a pink drop pearl that hasn't been worked on yet and doesn't even come with packaging, most likely because the shop that was giving them away was expecting people to want their pearls in the form of jewellry.

I just took the pearl, rejected all the offers and walked off.

Now I'm not sure what I should do with it. I don't know if it's even real.

Anyway, these shirts better last long.

Rant 925 / Winter Has Ended.

2012-01-16T00:49:00.001+08:00

Work!

D:

Everybody's closing shop next week, so I've got complete everything before Wednesday.

Tomorrow, Monday, I'm going to be busy.

New goods arrived in Singapore on Saturday, and I was told to expect the delivery tomorrow. Due to the quantity, I'll have to lend a hand to unpack/arrange them.

But I had already booked an appointment with a buyer in the afternoon.

To make things worse, I need a haircut badly. At this rate, I'll be unable to leave for work till 11am.

That's alright, I guess. I'll go for the appointment before going back to help them with the goods. I'll just have to ask if I can go earlier.

I've also begun to catalogue all my goods. I think I'll settle most of the work during the New Year holidays. I won't be having much to do anyway.

I know I should have done this long ago but I didn't realize its importance until now. My mum did tell me to do this months before she was hospitalized but I wasn't informed of its purposes. If I didn't know how many sweaters I have, I can just find the list or ask the workers... or so I thought.

I actually prefer to work alone in the office when they're not around. They love to interrupt me when I'm working in the office.

I kinda miss those days when I can get my holidays to myself, unlike now. These days, I get business calls on weekends regularly. Seriously, nothing is sacred to some people.

Want to get an afternoon nap on Saturday? No, we need to ask if you're going to pay me before Chinese New Year.

Want to have a Skyrim marathon on Sunday? No, I need to check if you've received our latest shipment, and if you have any comments for the samples I sent you earlier.

Want to sleep late on Saturday? No, I need to inform you at eight in the bloody morning that your goods have arrived and we'll be delivering them on Monday.

Then again, I no longer have exams. That pretty much trumps everything I can complain about today.

My bro wants a complete replacement of our air-conditioning system.

D:

Costs over S$2000.

D: D:

I'm far more inclined to spend 10% of that for either a 2nd-hand unit for his room or a repair.

Mainly it's because my unit and the compressor are perfectly fine.

Then again, neither option has worked for long for his room. For some reason his unit's the most problematic one, even though my mum used to switch her's to a lower temperature and higher fan speed.

Maybe I should consider his idea since the cheaper alternatives don't seem to be working very well.

Still, 2k.

If I do buy it, I'll need to ask for an extended warranty if available.

Made more roast chicken again. Same success. So it wasn't by random chance.

Used more rosemary and less basil, and set the temperature to 180 throughout.

Less blackened skin and just as well-cooked. Best of all, still no dry patches of flesh, probably due to the basting.

My bro's gf also made a batch of almond cookies that are really good.

Too bad I can't eat too much of them. Only had two today. Got to compensate for the roast chickens I've been having.

I still need to lose 1 more kilogram by next month to get out of IPT.

Rant 924 / Roasted Kampong Chicken

2012-01-15T02:25:00.000+08:00

FRI

Gabe doesn't support SOPA.

"In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the U.S. release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty."

A real bro.

The other reason which I'd also agree on is that games tend to be interesting in the beginning and get boring after the novelty is gone. Piracy helps gamers overcome the hype generated before the release of games to some degree.

I'd compare this to reading a book in a library before buying a copy. If it sucks, I'm not going to pay for it. Same goes for games.

Demos don't help because they're frequently unable to give the gamer an accurate idea of how it would be like to play the entire game. This is because they're usually the first chapter of the game, and the beginning of games are usually relatively bug-free compared to the rest of it.

The way I see it, it's usually gamers with little disposable income who pirate all their games. Not sure how much more revenue they're expecting to gain if they prevent this group from pirating.

As for SOPA itself, I don't know enough about it to make any real comment.

I finally got it.

I shall buy my meat in large amounts from now on.

For example, today I bought 2 kg of minced pork, "半肥瘦", or half lean and half fatty, and coarse grind.

S$24 for 2kg, with another 0.2kg as freebie because he put a little too much meat into the grinder and didn't want to put just that little bit away.

So that's S$12/kg, or S$1.20/100g.

Also told him to split it into 4 bags because obviously I'm storing it in the freezer.

Cooked 1 bag for dinner, minced pork in oyster sauce. Being the fourth time I cooked this dish, I naturally experimented with untested condiments.

The first time, I added light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and sesame oil.

It wasn't good. Either the dark sauce or the sesame oil was the problem, but I couldn't tell for sure which was the one.

The second time, light soy sauce and sesame oil. Then I learnt the sesame oil was the issue. The aroma just doesn't fit.

The third time, nothing else, just the oyster sauce.

It was just like my mum's. Yea, I've been trying to remake her dishes.

Today, dark soy sauce and light soy sauce. It was also pretty good, just a slightly different flavour.

I try to make it very salty by adding minimal water and plenty of soy sauce for cost-saving reasons.

According to my calculations, this delicious meal should cost less than 2 bucks. Best and most filling meal I've ever had for S$2.

SAT

Did another experiment tonight.

Success!

A little too much basil but that's more of an issue of waste than taste.

Marinated two kampong chicken thighs (normal chicken parts were sold out when I got there) in basil, rosemary, oregano, black pepper and salt.

In short, I threw random dried herbs on them and put them back into the fridge for half a day.

I didn't actually know how long I should roast them and I didn't think there were any recipes that were going to give me an accurate timing for this type of chicken, so I made a rough initial estimate of 20mins at 180 degrees Celsius.

Later at 15mins I lowered it to 150.

After skewering them with the skewer meant for a whole chicken (according to the oven's user menu), I thought it was going to be very dry if I just put them into the oven like this.

Then I realized I'd forgotten the honey, so I took out my basting brush and half a tablespoon of honey from my little overpriced tub of honey that I keep in a very cool, dry place that no one else seems to know about.

The honey had turned almost black over the years instead of crystalizing like I thought it would, but it was perfectly edible as far as I can tell.

Nobody here uses honey at all, except for me once in a very long while. For pancakes we have extra tubs of that imitation maple syrup from MCD and for salads we use commercial salad dressings.

So I brushed the honey over the thighs and hooked the skewer inside the oven to form a rotisserie.

This is the first time I've ever used the rotisserie function of this oven.

Hence I'd actually rehearsed the act of placing the skewer into the rotating mechanism in the oven using the tool that came with it (so that I didn't have to hold the skewer with my hands) beforehand.

At 15mins while I lowered the temperature I also rebasted with the remaining honey.

It was not overcooked. The skin was a little burnt but that was to be expected. Moreover, it didn't affect the taste.

This is my best success so far with a completely random recipe I'd made up on the spot.

Rant 923 / Creativity Knows No Boundary

2012-01-13T23:17:00.000+08:00

Best scream ever!

I want to hear that in a horror movie!

Oh yes that's generic alright. It has both the essential ingredients to make a proper Skyrim video - "Fus Ro Dah" and the arrow to the knee.

How to properly enjoy a watermelon:

1) Chill it in the fridge.
2) Wait till you're thirsty.
3) Cut into halves.
4) Get a spoon.
5) Enjoy.

So after some clarifications, I learnt that:

1) the twenty-sixth in the lunar calendar is a Thursday
2) our business will be closing from Thursday till the 30th of January, which is a Monday.

Meanwhile, I can't search for new suppliers during those free days because in China, the New Year holidays last for fifteen days, which means they get back to work only on the 6th of February.

Ugh... what kind of boss am I?

Afraid of Chucky? Just wait till you see Elmo.

So nectarines and peaches are actually the same species, except nectarines' fuzz-growing gene is recessive while the one in peaches is dominant.

Check out the latest abomination from Pizza Hut.

What have they done to that poor piece of dough?

Or rather, what have they done to the definition of "pizza"?

So it's a pizza with pork floss, bbq pork and shrimp wontons.

I just wonder what Italian pizzaioli would think about this.

"Very interesting mix of Italian and Chinese culture," would be my guess :P

Afraid of Elmo? Just wait till you see Pizza Hut.

Rant 922 / The Cracks In The Wall

2012-01-13T00:00:00.000+08:00

I feel like giving up.

It was interesting at first but now it's approaching "uninteresting". I'm going to quit before it reaches "work".

They made organzing outings sound like a chore, so I volunteered to see what it's like.

It felt good at first, but my motivation is waning.

I've long come to the conclusion that they aren't particularly interested in outings anymore. Asking them to go out together for anything is like proposing marriage - they've got to think really long and hard about it.

That's not a really bad thing because there are so many of them, but it's tiring to have to consider so many restrictions set by everyone when planning each outing.

The worst part is anything that's wrong or bad isn't pointed out. Nobody bothers to read the whole description of the proposed event. To me, that means they just don't care enough to want to know what we're going to do.

I have the impression that they're joining to please the rest of us, whatever the reasons.

In the end they just play along till things screw up.

Must I handle every single detail?

I'm not some kind of volunteer manager of theirs, am I?

I'm just trying to get friends to go out together.

I'm just trying to keep friends.

Their apparent disinterest is chafing my desire to keep it going.

Perhaps we are just too different.

Perhaps it's time to let go of the past.

At this point in my life, I'm already letting go of plenty of things from my past.

Such is life.

Rant 921 / 10 J Q K A

2012-01-12T21:26:00.002+08:00

Runespell: Overture was kind of a good game.

Mostly good but far too short. No wonder it's called "Overture" - it's just an introduction to the real game, a tutorial prologue.

First, the battles. I love the poker-inspired mechanics. Simple.

But they're unbalanced. Then again, they're going to need a mathematician if they want to resolve this issue. That's not going to be cheap for an indie developer.

In the early game when HPs weren't high, I go for full house and four/five-of-a-kind. Later I go for royal flush.

Right from the start I'd start assembling the 10,J,Q,K,A of each suit. The trick is to flip my own cards to reveal new cards except for the last act because I didn't want the opponent to steal the last card I reveal in case it was one that I needed.

All unnecessary cards go to one stack, although each of these trash stacks must end up with at least a pair so that I didn't lose HP.

When I got the wolf priest ally, it became even easier. I cast his ability as soon as I could and kept flipping cards till I get the right ones. The game usually end by the time I hit the enemy with royal flush twice, because I'd have more than enough RP to cast more spells at him/her.

The only weakness to this is the Fear spells, especially the one that takes out 75RPs with one hit.

The spells seem unbalanced in their cost-effect ratio. For example, the ally with that 120RP ability that only does 40-50 damage is totally not worth it.

This ability is only good when everything else is on cooldown and you need need to deal a hard blow regardless of the cost.

Except by the time anyone has 120RP, you wouldn't need a hard blow to end the game.

Finally, maybe it's just me, or did they really call Italy by that name back in the 1200s?

Because nobody call China "China" until relatively recent times. Marco Polo, who lived in the 13th century, was responsible for spreading the use of this name in Europe, and the first recorded use in English was in 1555.

So I checked Wikipedia and they did use the name by then. In fact, they'd have been using that name for that region for about seven centuries by the 13th century.

Microsoft is about to give us the PC version of the Kinect.

No surprise there.

I'll probably get one after the hype dies down a little.

Grotesque Tactics: Dungeons and Donuts is a pretty interesting game. Some of the humour is actually humours.

As the title suggests, the combat is turn-based and the characters move on a battlefield split into square tiles.

In the game, the player is an emo shepherd. He wears dark colours, spots an emo haircut and talks like a faggot.

The story begins in an underground dungeon where a celebration party was interrupted by a man-eating magical mist.

Apparently, they were celebrating the end of the monsters in the dungeon.

Apparently, they were wrong.

As hopeless as it seems, the emo shepherd was able to... help in some way. I can't say how because there are three paths and it would be a spoiler.

After regrouping and finding somewhere relatively safe to stay, the emo hero goes on the quest to get everyone out of the dungeon and to safety.

Anyway this is actually the sequel but that isn't important because the hero gets "hero's amnesia" after the tutorial prologue.

This video makes me sad.

Fifty thousand years of existence. Fifty thousand years!

And we're still producing people like that in a developed country.

I think that's how a lot of people feel as they get older.

Anyway, why do people not try and appreciate new music?

I wonder if most of the people I know listen to dubstep.

Or am I just a strange person for liking some of those on Youtube?

I think some people just stick with what they grew up with because they associate it with "the good old days".

They don't actually like the music that much (except for some, but you probably won't be able to tell them apart without some serious analysis); they just like the feelings and perhaps the nostalgia that the music brings.

In other words, they find the present less likeable than what they think the past was like.

People like that need to rethink what they're doing, or recall all the crap they went through before today.

Rant 920 / Deer Penis Soup With Meat Balls

2012-01-09T05:38:00.000+08:00

I'm starting to really respect those guys behind the search engine of Google. When you google "spesskem", you get results for the game Spacechem.

How does it do that??

I'm interested to know the rest of the story in Skyrim, but I just can't find the motivation to play it. Meanwhile, I try to avoid spoilers.

Workers tried to make me give them an extra day off for Chinese New Year.

Fortunately one was honest enough to tell me when my mum used to let them go and when their CNY holidays used to end, because that was one of the many things that she never remembered to tell me.

So their holidays begin on the twenty-sixth day on the lunar calendar, and ends on the third day like everyone else, which means they get only a single free day this year because that day is a Friday.

One kept asking me if I could let them go on the Thursday instead, but I insisted on following my mum's practices.

That was a convenient excuse.

Why on earth would I want to let them go earlier than usual when I have no idea if I am going to get more work for them just before the holidays?

Maybe, just maybe, if things remain quiet for the first three days of that week, I'll let them take the Thursday off. No point making them stay when there's no real work I need them to do.

Moreover, since their wages are calculated on a daily basis, I'll get to save some money by giving them an additional day of holiday.

I can't tell them this. It might give them false hope or something. I'll just see what happens on the Wednesday.

EDIT: Holy crap! I'm glad I didn't agree to giving them another day! New goods are finally coming just before CNY! They're going to be busy!

Blizzard came up with a new offer I almost couldn't refuse: buy 1 year's worth of WoW subscription and get Diablo III free.

I almost subscribed immediately.

Then I saw the price: 180 days cost US$77.

Nope.

I don't play MMORPGs these days. Even when I found out that Lineage II, a game I spent about 2 years on and the first 3D MMORPG I played, has become f2p and removed most of the grinding for players, I still didn't bother to even check out the website.

US$155 for D3 isn't worth it.

Moreover, the WoW today isn't the WoW I used to be addicted to anymore.

Kids in Singapore think that being the President is "the coolest job ever".

Kateline Teo, a 37-year-old mother of two told Yahoo! Singapore, "It's like taking a swipe at the President. I don't think they voted it as the 'coolest or best job' because it's a respectful job."

"The kids probably get the impression that a President's job is easy money and they get paid forever," Teo added.

Other parents echoed this view. Another parent, Mrs Chua, 33, said that "even kids realise that the President doesn't do much but still gets paid a load of money."

If the parents are right about the reason being that they think the President is grossly overpaid for his workload, then this implies that kids today are a bunch of bloody slackers.

I wonder if those parents are proud of this.

These kids aren't going for something they respect, nor are they going for something meaningful.

They're going for something that's easy.

Bloody slackers!

And then you blame the government for bringing in so many foreigners to boost our workforce.

79 per cent of the children said they would prefer to spend time with their families than making money. This was a drop from last year's 96 per cent. The children surveyed gave reasons such as:

- “Money simply cannot provide happiness”

- “We can't buy time and family”

- “Money is always there but my family may not be”

I am not amused :\

1) Money can provide happiness. You're just thinking about those morons who take on too much work for the money in the mistaken belief that they can handle the load.

2) Money can buy time and family. When you spend more to travel faster, you're basically buying time.

With enough money, you can buy a spouse, kids and just about anybody you want. Need blood relation in the family members? Clone them.

You can't buy a perfect clone complete with the original's mind and all that. That's about it.

3) Money is not always there. Think 1997 Asia. Think 2008 US. But neither is your family, so you need think about how you spend your time.

Why do people still insist on feeding our next generation with that simplistic nonsense? This is the 21st century already.

Rant 919 / SpessKem Is Unexpectedly Fun

2012-01-06T16:59:00.000+08:00

My gaming preference took an unexpected turn recently when I somehow just kept playing SpaceChem, a singleplayer puzzle game involving the production of predefined molocules using what was provided.

Currently, I'm at the final stage of the fourth planet, Alkonost, where I'm again allowed to choose between going straight for the final Defense mission or complete an optional challenge named "Going Green".

I'm on the challenge now and this game is starting to get very complicated.

For example, in one of my reactors in Going Green, it looks like this:

This pair of loops assumes that Input Beta always arrives earlier than Input Alpha. The trouble is that this isn't true, and that sometimes Beta takes forever to get here, and which totally screws up the timing.

If Beta arrives later than Alpha, then top most white Bonder slot would be filled by the red loop before the blue loop can arrive at the Sync in the cross-junction the second time. In this case, they would collide, which isn't allowed.

The trouble is, I can't just put another pair of "Sync" down to synchronise their timings because one blue loop is programmed to take as long as two red loops.

My solution: a complete revamp of my entire system of 5 reactors because this reaction requires me to adjust the timing of the two molecules of the inputs which will take one more reactor than I'm allowed.

The tools mechanics are all very easy to understand. The only challenge in this game is that what you're given need to be processed before they can be used to make what is asked of you.

IMO computer programmers would find this game similar to what they do. It's all about logic and perhaps a bit of judgement about the placement of things.

The two main reasons that keep me interested are:

1) the story. I still don't know what's disrupting their operations but the story at this point hints that an external factor is being hidden by the upper management from the rest of the world.

2) the autosaves. I love how everything is autosaved constantly such that I have yet to be annoyed by any bugs, and every step I make is recorded from the very first to the 9000th so that I can just undo each one till I reach the state I want to return to.

3) the completed system. Once you get the entire system working flawlessly, it's... beautiful.

EDIT: OH SHIT I JUST REALIZED I CAN SOLVE THE TIMING ISSUE USING THE SENSOR! I CAN JUST PREVENT ALPHA LOOP FROM WORKING TILL THE SENSOR DETECTS AN INPUT AT BETA!

I'd already erased the entire map and redid things several times. I'll have to replace everything from scratch.

EDIT 2: Nope, that didn't work. The sensor prevents the red loop from delivering its O atoms on its second lap when blue's S atom is already at the centre. Guess I'll have to make a new plan.

Unfortunately this doesn't work here.

All those coupons shown do not have a minimum purchase requirement even though they allow a discount on small amounts of each product.

This is a deliberate omission which never happens for any coupons here.

The most similar coupon I've seen would be the same except it allows a percentage discount. No such thing as a $1 discount with no minimum purchase because what she did was exactly what the marketing people want to avoid.

Believe me. I've even tried to see to if I could combine coupons the way she did, like the ones from Giant.

What I observed was that the guys working there knew exactly what they were doing, so that any overlaps are carefully avoid other than the few products that still aren't cheap despite a combined discount. They seemed to even taunt me with almost identical products that differ only in brand or amount.

The Prosperity burgers from MCD suck, the sole reason being that it's just black pepper.

The black pepper sauce dominates the entire burger so much there is really no other flavour.

The beef version is even worse because the patty is so soft (unless you like mushy patties).

Sauces and gravy are supposed to improve the flavour of a dish, not become it.

No wonder MCD only whips it out during certain special occasions. Its novelty and the fact that black pepper is so popular makes it successful, but only as long as its novelty lasts.

I procrastinate. The reason is different but the result remains the same - I procrastinate.

I no longer have to worry about failure, yet I still try to put off tasks till much later.

It is a reason I do not wish to talk about, yet I must think about it to find a solution.

I must do it, therefore I must overcome it.

I know I've posted this long ago but I just don't get tired of it.

After watching some more Valkyria Chronicles streamed by someone live from his TV, I really feel like getting a PS3.

Yet I know if I do, I wouldn't have the time nor mood to play it.

Heck, I still haven't finished Persona 4 after all these months.

Maybe I'll buy a new TV someday, one that consumes less power than the one in my home.

Then I'll get a PS3.

Valkyria Chronicles brings me such nostalgia, but I'm not longer the person I once was.

To fully appreciate JRPGs and any games that require grinding, one must possess a certain degree of dislike for reality.

I used to be able to handle grinding, maybe because that's an easier way to achieve anything than what I have in real life.

Now I find grinding very boring.

Rant 918 / Everyone Lives In His Or Her Own World

2012-01-03T17:13:00.003+08:00

I've been getting calls from so many girls ever since I took over the business.

I just wish they weren't telemarketers.

And Dell keeps calling me about their new promotions.

The last call was particularly funny.

Telemarketer: Hi, I'm calling from Dell. Is there an IT officer or technician I can speak to?

Me: We don't use computers here.

Telemarketer: HMMMM.............

But it is true.

The highest form of technology we use here is a typewriter and a basic solar-powered calculator.

I can easily switch to a PC because it's much easier to make changes on MS Word, but my mum had bought too many carbon copies of invoices from a wholesaler or something which cannot be used with a computer printer unless I print on all copies separately.

That's a huge waste of ink IMO.

We're so 1970s over here.

Still, it helps to keep the operating costs lower.

I'll make the switch when one of the following happens:

1) The typewriter stops working and I can't find someone to repair it.
2) I cannot find the ribbons outside when ours run out.
3) I run out of blank invoices.

So today a friend on FB was being so excited about getting the Pleasures card from Ritz-Carlton.

That's its loyalty programme.

Costs a crazy S$888 p.a.

I used to wonder why so many people with no money are unable to spend their money wisely.

There are two conclusions I draw from this after some thought.

First, it's a cycle. They can't spend money on only the right things, hence they spend too much compared to their incomes and that prevents them from becoming wealthy.

Second, they spend their money like that precisely because they are not rich enough to spend such amounts casually.

It makes them feel richer, and basically creates the illusion that they aren't as average or poor as they actually are.

Which makes such an act the same as any other forms of distractions like video games, fiction novels, getting drunk and most arts in general.

They take a person's mind away from reality which they view as harsh and maybe even painful.

If life as an average guy with a decent job in a developed country is bad, then how do I describe the life of a child born in the slums of Mumbai?

If you have the money to afford the internet access to read this blog, chances are your life isn't bad at all.

You just think it is.

It's just all perceptions.

Quoting the book Sword of Truth, "truth is perception".

If you can change the perception, you can change the truth.

The objective reality is ultimately of no importance. The moment you have to interpret everything you sense, you are already living in your own perceived world.

Singapore buying electricity from Malaysia in the future?

What the heck?

Responding to this, Prime Minister Lee said Singapore is very open to importing a certain portion of electricity from Malaysia, if the terms are right and if the private sector proposes an attractive offer which Singapore cannot refuse.

I don't know what they're doing.

After all the effort to wean ourselves off the resources Malaysia has been supplying to us, we want to increase our dependence again?

Then what's the point of Newater?

Despite the recently announced pay cuts for our political leaders, their salaries remain extremely high compared to those of leaders of other parts of the world.

I'm not totally against this high pay.

What I find wrong is that this pay cut accomplishes nothing solid.

All this really does is make the public happy for a while, but once the novelty of a big ministerial pay cut wears off, they're going to come to their senses and realize our PM's monthly pay still exceeds most of their annual incomes.

2.2M per year = 183k per month

One would have to make over 15k SGD per month just to have an annual income that matches the PM's monthly one.

That's not even including the annual bonus.

Plenty of foolish people say that the high pay is unnecessary - if people are sincere they wouldn't need that to attract them to public service.

Don't be silly.

A lot of people sincerely want to help charities too. How many people out in this world have a career in non-profit organizations?

Among these people, how many of them can be considered "the best minds"?

Rant 917 / Why Can't We Just Shoot The Dragon In The Knee?

2012-01-02T12:24:00.001+08:00

So the housekeeper I used to hire first introduced me to her friends who seem to be newbies in this line, then she didn't answer my previous SMS.

Together with the fact that she was often unable to work here due to other commitments, I think she wants to stop this altogether and had been hinting to me that those are her successors of sorts.

Today I SMSed one of them to ask if they could work here this week.

Her language was not what I expected.

I'm her employer (kinda), not her boyfriend.

For example, "sorry" became "sowi" in her replies. And there was a "hehe..."

What the heck?

I only wanted a cleaner. The reason I chose her was because she was the first in years to voluntarily clean my filthy fridge. Not even the original housekeeper was willing to do that unless instructed to do so.

It was so filthy we did not leave anything exposed to the air inside when we stored food there. The mild stench just seeped into everything.

Bringing a friend was okay. She was definitely new to this job and there are only men in this flat ever since my mum moved to the hospice. All that I had to do was make it clear that I'm willing to pay for only one person. Her friend can sit around and watch for all I care, as long as the work gets done properly.

So I bought a translucent glass cup for my candles.

I think it makes a good candle lamp.

The only problem is it lacks a cover and I can't find a similar glass one for it.

Definitely need a cover because my fan makes it flicker too much.

Also bought 12 of these little coin-shaped candles.

I didn't know they smelled like milk candy till I opened the packaging.

Burning these makse me kinda hungry.

Also, how the heck do I stop the final bit of wick from falling and snuffing out when the wax at the bottom melts?

As for the second fondue experiment, I learnt that I cannot just use water. I probably added it too late yesterday, so I didn't see that if I add water to cheese and put it over a flame, it curdles after a while.

By "curdle" I mean the cheese turned into tiny hard bits. Not good.

Apparently, alcohol stops this process or something, so I need some kind of wine.

C&C RA3 might not have been a good game but it definitely had some good music.

Rant 916 / I Wonder If That Works

2012-01-02T01:23:00.000+08:00

The Cold Storage at Holland V actually ran out of gruyere cheese!

It's probably because lots of people wanted cheese fondue for their New Year's Day celebrations.

Standard fondue recipes usually call for gruyere and emmental (aka emmentaler), and I was able to find at least 3 brands of the latter.

So I tested my cheese fondue with just emmental and water (no wine at home, only beer and cognac that are not for human consumption) as a simple experiment in which I tested the viability of using aluminium foil, a small steaming rack and a candle for cheese fondue.

The result showed that firstly, aluminium foil alone is not suitable for fondue because it conducts heat so quickly the spot right above the flame will char the cheese.

Second, the cheese does not melt quickly enough with just one of those small candles, even though it chars, before I added water.

Therefore water works, although alcohol works better by lowering the melting point.

I now have a small ceramic ramekin I'll test tomorrow. Theoretically it should work.

The ceramic surface will spread the heat out better, so it won't burn as easily.

I need more of these round, flat candles though.

As for the gruyere, I'll just find some either after 1-2 weeks or at another supermarket.

Arrogance. That's what I observed in myself. Arrogance without a good reason.

I can't help it.

Despite my current income level, I have yet to prove that I can maintain it.

It appears that I can, but I don't know if I will.

I should not feel arrogant just because I made what I made last month.

Yet I was pissed when someone said something to the effect that my friends and I don't make a lot of money.

That was proof enough that it was arrogance growing in me.

Arrogance without a justifiable cause.

How ironic that a person with confidence issues can also be arrogant.

Yet I cannot say anything to deny belittling remarks regarding my income.

It is absolutely important that nobody I work with knows how much I make so that I have more room to lie when haggling prices.

Singapore is a tiny country after all.

Only my mother, brother, accountant and the IRAS can know my income. Not even my wife is allowed this information, if I ever have one, unless she works with me.

Frankly speaking, it is quite difficult for me to keep all the secrets that I do, yet I do not have a choice.

Plenty of other jobs out there require tight lips, so I'm aware that I must get used to it.

The good thing is that I'm quite a miser, so I don't mind not spending on any luxuries, which makes me look like I'm poor.

The only issue I need to keep in mind constantly is alcohol - it loosens tongues.

I know I shouldn't even be revealing the fact that I have secrets, but I feel like I'd burst if I didn't say anything.

Is it because it is overcompensating for my inferiority complex?

Rant 915 / It Was Never There!

2011-12-31T19:45:00.000+08:00

Since I'm not bound by normal office hours, I find that there is no need for me to complete my tasks during weekdays and between late morning and early evening.

In fact, I can work at any time I want, including during holidays.

I'm not bound by the concept of "office hours" directly, although for tasks that involve other people I have no choice but to do them within the proper hours.

For example, since I have nothing going on on Monday, which is a public holiday due to the New Year's Day falling on the preceding Sunday, I'll be working then.

Why not?

Basically, there is nothing separating working hours and rest time for me. As long as I can complete my tasks on time, when I do them does not matter.

Hence I'm working tomorrow and Monday.

Maybe someday, employees will be paid based on the entire company's performance.

I'm not talking about bonuses.

I'm thinking perhaps they will peg their salary to the net revenue of the company.

Maybe 0.007% in a large company, for example.

It would be kinda like shareholders. In fact, employees and shareholders should be regarded as the same, except they contribute differently to the company.

It's like the difference between volunteers and donators - it really isn't that big.

This way, it will be much fairer and it strongly instils into everyone's minds the fact that they're all working together in the same organization.

This will obviously accompany huge changes in the economy, either followed by them or following them.

For example, a company that pays its employees this way can easily create its own currency for reasons like meals and such services provided by the company. Subsequently, it can pay its employees with it.

For example, a meal in the company's canteen can cost 0.00000015%. Obviously they're going to find some way to shorten that. Maybe remove all the zeroes the way we use the term "calories" (they're never in calories, but kilocalories, yet nobody cares because it's shorter).

This way, it won't have to issue actual money, which definitely is a good thing because it can then keep a smaller pool of liquid assets.

This currency will basically be denoted by a percentage of the expected annual performance, that of the previous year or that of each quarter. The exchange rate can then be adjusted on a quarterly or annual basis.

This may encourage employees to hold on to their company's currency longer hoping that it will give them a better rate in the future, especially if a new product launch is planned in the near future.

If these happen, then it will be inevitable that there will be exchange rates between each company's currencies unless it becomes explicitly banned by law, perhaps because it threatens the existence of each country's own currency.

Because to be honest, would you prefer the Indian Rupee to the Apple Inc Dollar?

Rant 914 / Candles. Lots Of Them.

2011-12-30T01:54:00.000+08:00

I totally didn't expect that.

Been buying quite a number of games I've been waiting for.

Solar 2 and Nuclear Dawn were probably my best decisions.

The former was very interesting, although I'm not sure if it's going to last long.

I've already got the achievement award and gone through the Big Crunch. Technically I've completed the game but I don't think the game's merely about growing.

As for Nuclear Dawn, it's just like Empires (HL2 mod) but focused entirely on infantry combat.

Too bad. Tanks would have been totally epic.

Still, it's one of the few lesser-known games out there that's really professionally made and pretty much crash-free for me.

And today, I shall buy New Vegas with all the DLCs that contain campaigns and Sandbox Universe.

I'll most likely open the latter soon to get the achievement.

Speaking of achievements, I've gotten them for the ones I can play on Steam except for Rise of the Immortals and Crimecraft Gangwars. 19 in total at this point.

Other than coals, all I've received are 2 useless 50% off coupons.

My bro got something better, but it was just the Tropico trilogy.

Never got around to giving away any games. That was a bad idea to begin with.

Rant 913 / Art Is Money

2011-12-27T01:18:00.002+08:00

And I thought Malaysian movie trailers were bad.

Then movie trailers from Ghana surfaced on Youtube.

Perhaps things aren't as bad they look. Perhaps it's just my mentality.

Perhaps I just need to find ways to make things more enjoyable for myself.

It doesn't matter what I do anymore regarding my mother, I think.

I wonder if the doctors can raise the dosage and bring her back again.

All she does is stare at me when I visit. She recognizes me but her short term memory doesn't seem to work very well anymore.

She responds once in a while but mostly, she just stares at me as I describe my work to her in my daily monologues.

I wonder if she remembers her short stay at home on Christmas.

She thinks I joke when I ask her whether she recognizes me.

How can I tell if she does when she doesn't react to most of the things I say?

For all I know I could be a total stranger to her.

There would have been too many things that I regret if not for the fact that I wouldn't have known nor learnt if this isn't happening.

Things that one can regret are the mistakes made after the lesson was already learnt.

They aren't these.

Her memory isn't completely gone - she still remembers her phone. She asked me for it today after I forgot to hand it back to her when I accompanied her back to the hospice after the home visit.

But she is confused. Contrary to what she recalled to me, my bro never visited her yesterday.

I wonder what my bro is thinking.

He seems to be thinking that as long as I visit her, it's ok that he doesn't.

Does he treat this as some kind of chore?

Or is he such an escapist?

If the doctor can't revert her condition by raising the dosage again, I don't think she will be conscious by Feb.

There aren't many opportunities for us to talk to her anymore.

Why does he visit her only weekly at most?

He fears too much.

I fear too, but I've long come to the conclusion that not thinking about something will not make it go away. In most situations, ignoring an issue will only make it worse.

One of the volunteers asked me why he rarely comes.

I couldn't answer her.

Neither do I want to talk to him about it.

It is a bad idea to strain my relationship with him because we live in the same flat.

I remind him to visit her once in a while, but I do not want to push.

I'm hoping his girlfriend would do it for me, although I have a feeling that his girlfriend is as much of an escapist as he is.

I wonder if he understands the magnitude of the sorrow he will feel when it finally hits him that he will never be able to talk to her again, and that he never did even when she was around.

For me, I have the rest of my life to feel sad about how I barely know anything about my father's life.

His mother is lonely. We spoke to her at length about some things after the Christmas dinner, but one topic stood out in our conversation - her marriage.

The overall feel I get by the end of the discussion is that she is lonely and unable to let go of him.

It may not be his fault that his heart changed and he got bored of this steady marriage, but it is his fault to act on it despite their mutual trust not to break the matrimony.

On one hand, it is the rest of his life that we're talking about after all.

On the other hand, it also concerns the rest of her life.

In such a situation, the fault lies in the person who acts first for his/her own benefit.

If one had acted in favour of the other's interest, then can one say that nobody is at fault.

The reason is that the root of the problem is the ability of both parties to let go.

If either side is unable to do so, neither should do it.

That she is so eager to talk about such private matters with people she sees only once or twice a year shows how much she needs someone to talk to and how much she needs to release her frustrations.

I wonder if she will become depressed like my mother did.

She probably shouldn't be left alone. If she's anything like my mother, she's going to arrive at strange conclusions after thinking too much on her own.

In the years following my father's death, my mother came up with all kinds of reasons to explain it, including the feng shui of his usual dining chair.

That, IMO, definitely wasn't normal, but I didn't know what to do then.

By the time I realized she was passively suicidal, it was already too late.

What one wants and what one gets are not always the same.

It's like a river - one can try and shift it but one cannot just stop it wherever one wants it to.

Hence, compromise.

I don't want to work but I have to. So I compromise by spending more to make it more comfortable for myself.

Everyone makes compromises in life.

It's like Rule 34 - no exceptions.

People just can't live without compromising. It's as simple as that!

Rant 912 / Why Aren't They Telling Business Owners At Orchard That They Should Just Set Up Their Shops Elsewhere If They Can't Handle The Floods?

2011-12-24T01:07:00.002+08:00

You know something has to be wrong when you think that this teacher had sex with a 14-year-old married father.

I have difficulty deciding how large a bonus I should give my workers.

I know how much my mum used to pay them, yet I cannot give the same.

It's not just about the lower profits this year but also about how much they work.

For once, my mum is not answering my question about work when I asked her this.

Even in her current confused state, she is willing to give me advice, albeit unreliable ones.

This is the only part of the job where she is not telling me what to do at all.

I don't want to give them as much as they are used to but neither do I want to offend them.

What if they complain to me about the smaller bonus?

What if they compare it with what my mum used to pay them?

They have to have less respect for me already by now. I don't want them to dislike me enough to think they can take advantage of my lack of experience.

Why do people seem to envy my job?

In a couple years' time, I'll probably have to sack the older one too.

How do I fire someone who's worked with my predecessor for over a decade and with me for half that?

Yet I won't be able to let her stay. There is simply no work here for someone with a bad back and failing memory, things which are typical of people past their retirement age.

As the owner of this business, I must keep in mind its primary purpose - to profit.

Of course I'll keep her as long as she remains a productive employee, but after that, I wonder if she will understand.

It would be for the best if she would voluntarily retire before that happens to take care of her grandchildren like her predecessor did.

Funny. I used to think that that would really suck because I'd lose an experienced helper.

Now, I see that it is really the best case scenario.

Yet again, I'm learning a new lesson.

I must always book my business trips early. Always.

The nightly rates of the hotel I'm planning to book has just been raised. Now I have to fork out a few hundred dollars more for the trip to Korea.

I will still ask my friends because it feels wasteful to have a twin bed room to myself, which is sometimes the cheapest room available. Even the double bed felt a little excessive.

Despite the prices of the rooms of this hotel, breakfast is not included.

It's not exactly an issue because it's located among plenty of malls, but it just means it's more expensive than I expected for a 3-star hotel.

Coincidentally this hotel also appeared in a "best value hotels in Seoul" list in Yahoo that appeared today.

I wonder if that made the hotel jack up the prices.

I also wonder if I'm looking at the right places.

As of now, I have yet to discover whether there is a place where the Korean wholesalers congregate the way the Shanghainese ones do at Qipu Road.

All attempts at googling for an answer led me to online wholesalers instead.

Since I can't find their physical locations, I'm settling for a shopping trip instead.

I also have the same idea for Milan. If I were to go to Europe, Paris and Milan are the two places that come to my mind first.

I have read and heard a lot about the former, but really little about the latter.

Going to Milan is not a necessity for my job but I'm willing to organize a shopping trip for my friends during winter.

Rant 911 / Luggage Stores

2011-12-22T11:52:00.001+08:00

It used to be normal that I would feel sleepy throughout the day, but not quite to the degree that I'd be able to fall asleep. Just lethargic, and don't want to do anything but sit and play.

I haven't felt that since some time ago.

I still want to sit and play all day but I don't feel lethargic even though I've been sleeping only 6 hours every night since I returned from Shanghai, except for the first night I returned.

Yet I'm not losing weight. I must be eating too much unhealthy stuff, like BK and the durians.

Or I've been gaining muscle mass.

There goes my prediction that I could lose that 2kg by Christmas and get out of IPT.

As much as I'd like to say that things are awesome and I'm going to make my first million by 30, I cannot.

I'm making plenty of mistakes that my mother had warned me about before, one of which was the mistake of forgetting about the other costs of selling something. I've been reminding myself about them for almost everything except that one time when I was deciding the prices for the rejected samples.

Small mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless.

I have a feeling that I'm failing, but I must keep going. It's not about confidence and optimism, nor is it about what I can or want to do; it's about doing what must be done.

This is what I learnt from observing the Chinese mainlanders. They don't just look at opportunities within their limits. Like 50 Cent's album, they "get rich or die tryin'." Plenty of them have died trying but people just don't talk about those.

It's also partly what I learnt from my own parents, because that's exactly what they did. Selling clothing was never the expertise of my father. He was into silk printing for most of his working life before he set up this business in Singapore.

I came to this conclusion only when I found ancient certificates of registration of a partnership firm that does silk printing in the dusty drawers at home, and combined this with the things my mother told me about his life when he first started working in Hong Kong.

For my mother, she was only a seamstress before she took over the business. In other words, she had even less experience in running a business than I did before I took over. My father never taught her anything, unlike how she did for me.

Believe it or not, my bro and I had to lend her sizable amounts of money from our (sacred, almost untouchable) inheritance every year until about 3-4 years ago.

Now it's my turn. In exchange for a ready-made system that's already working fine, I have other prices to pay.

And issues to watch out for.

For example, I just realized a buyer, despite her friendliness, is trying to manipulate me to do part of her job for her.

Unfortunately, doing that benefits me too. It's basically a win-win situation but still, I don't like how she made it sound like it's all about helping me.

Water transport on the Singapore River?

Inb4 they charge river taxes similar to road taxes: ERP - Electronic River Pricing.

Is it just me or does ERP also read like "ear rape"?

Next destination in my list is South Korea. I must go during winter, but due to work commitments and festivals, there is only a short period of time in January in which I can go there.

Currently planning to go on the 9th and returning on the 13th, but the only flights remaining by now leave at midnight of Friday, meaning I need to get out of the hotel on Thursday.

The alternative is Saturday, but Expedia.com.sg is not showing any available flights for pre-dawn on Saturday. Instead on that day, I get that really convenient timing of 8.55am.

So it's either book the hotel for 3 nights from Monday to Wed (check out on Thu), or 5 nights from Mon to Fri (check out on Sat).

I can't get the 5D4N that I wanted unless I pay hundreds more for a more expensive flight that leaves at the time I want.

I guess everyone wants to get home by Saturday afternoon.

As for hotel, obviously it will be in Seoul. I'm only going for one or two parts of the city, because I only want to see the best area(s) for now.

If I go for the 3-night stay, it will be cheaper. The 5-night option is more expensive per night on average, probably because of the Friday night.

Fine, I'll take the Mon-Sat option. Both flights would depart at in the morning and arrive in the evening.

That should give me 4 days.

Rant 910 / Survivalists Are OP In Die2Nite

2011-12-21T21:42:00.000+08:00

That feel when I pay for a S$245 bottle of Martell XO cognac with a S$1000 bill.

That feel, man.

That fricking awesome feel.

There's also another awesome feeling when I realized I had made the cashier clear her store of S$100 and S$50 bills, but that's a lot less significant.

It happened at the duty-free shop at the airport and I forgot about it until now.

It's not going to repeat a lot in the rest of my life, so I've got to note this down in case I forget this forever.

(Note: I'm not filthy rich. That bottle's an offering for my late father.)

It's so ironic when the church near my mum's hospice says "All are welcome," in bold outside, yet the gate and door are always closed.

It gets more ironic when the Hindu temple next door is really always open even though they don't say it with a big sign.

Busy busy busy. Not as busy as my buyers. Those are really busy. It's amazing how long and hard they work.

Personally I don't think it's worth the money, but that's just my opinion.

In the medium term, there are lots of things to do.

In fact I think I'll only stop being busy... oh wait, I'll never stop being busy as long as I want to maintain my current level of income.

Things will cool down a little after the lunar new year though. I'll still not be able to stay home and play as much as I used to, but it will get closer.

I think.

Managers are not merely the central gear of a machine that drives other smaller gears.

No, managers are also the lubricant of the machine.

One person, two jobs (at least).

This year, I will not make as much as I could have.

Too late to do much.

The best I can do is pressure my workers.

Meanwhile I have people to talk to and questions to ask.

Very annoying people.

Buggers received my orders months ago and I'm not seeing a frickin thread being delivered here yet.

It's already frickin CHRISTMAS ON SUNDAY!

I'm going to have to settle for Chinese New Year next month.

This month's Christmas is confirmed FUBAR.

Obviously I'm not happy but on a brighter note, I'm still making more than what I'd ever imagined I'll make.

Hence I'm buying plenty of discounted games on Steam. Stockpiling them before I decide what to send to who just before Christmas.

For example, I've got Recettear and Chantelise and I think I know who to send them to.

Doesn't matter if they give anything back to me - it's stupid to call something a "gift" if you expect something in return.

It would be a trade instead, and there are no freebies in a trade.

Every time someone gives you a freebie for buying something, it's actually covered by the price of the item you bought.

I can sell a motorboat, or I can sell a boat with a free motor for the same price.

Rant 909 / Why Did I Wake Up At 8.30AM?

2011-12-20T19:41:00.000+08:00

My workers are slacking.

I've finally come to this very disappointing conclusion yesterday.

Before, I've never checked the orders that we receive from the buyers. I trust them to process and send everything that is being asked for.

I've received multiple complaints of orders not being fully delivered in recent months, but I'd always thought it was because they were out of stock.

Yesterday, when one buyer gave me two designs to check, both of which were listed in her previous two orders, I discovered we had plenty of those in stock.

Blame, firstly, falls on myself for being too lax.

Being a complete newbie in management, I'd expected the workers to do their jobs just because my mum, their ex-boss, is dying.

If not for me, do it for her, right?

But no, they had to slack despite knowing that the more they work now during this peak period, the larger the bonus I pay them.

I'm too trusting but they, as middle-aged women with children, should have understood the meaning of "obligations" better than I do.

No wonder they're still stuck with a part-time job at this stage of their lives.

I don't want to micromanage.

I don't have a choice now.

I've finally got a reply from Mindef.

It wasn't from Mindef directly, and they didn't give me an answer in black and white.

Whatever.

My interpretation of the answer I've received, which may or may not be accurate, is that they don't even want to clarify what is and isn't allowed to be discussed.

I understand.

Therefore I'll keep it off my blog.

After all, I'm in no position to argue - there isn't a single star on my rank epaulette.

Nobody wants these 909 rants to disappear all of a sudden, least of all myself.

Youtube has surprisingly many girls using their looks to make really bad reply videos that are basically... empty, kinda like that chick whose videos are just her staring into the camera.

Except there are words for these video replies.

Why bother?

Steam Xmas sale is up and I made several impulsive decisions to buy games that I don't really want.

Bunch of Heroes was a particularly bad choice, and it's only the first day of the sale which will end on New Years Day next year.

The game itself really isn't bad, but it just crashes too much.

Rant 908 / Steam Xmas Sale 2011 BEGINS!

2011-12-19T21:31:00.002+08:00

The CEO of SMRT stays for now, but her explanation reeks of bullshit.

"No good leader will leave the field when the battle is on. I am staying put now to do my work, and put everything right."

Right.

Except this issue with the breakdowns began months ago.

If she was actually capable of it, she could have done this long ago, and not after the PM announced a full public inquiry on this problem.

The fact that she started saying that she would fix the issue only after it turned into an actual issue that needed the attention of the PM himself makes her unworthy of managing something as important as our MRT system.

If you need your boss's boss's direct attention to make you really work, you shouldn't be a CEO in the first place.

Mailed some stuff just now, including another 2-year extension of my National Geographic Magazine subscription.

I've long forgotten how to mail anything, so I was planning to queue up to ask the people at the post office.

But there was a long queue when I arrived, so I took my bro's advice to use the SAM machine outside. He wasn't sure if it offered postal services, hence I didn't plan to use it.

The SAM machine, I discovered, doesn't sell stamps.

What it does is it weighs each envelope, tells me how much it costs to mail it to the destination country, and sells postage labels.

The subscription form and cheque costs S$0.26 because they weigh less than 20g, but some of the envelopes cost S$0.32 for weighing over 30g. GST was also not included in these prices.

After that, things were easy. The only payment option was NETS but that was fine with me.

It printed the labels and I pasted them onto the envelopes before throwing them into the mailbox.

No stamps.

Does paying for something justify the act of completely wasting a product made with the sweat and blood of hundreds?

Rant 907 / Tired Feet And Deadened Mind

2011-12-18T22:49:00.000+08:00

First day at Shanghai was a little bad. So is the second day as I type this but it remains to be seen if things will improve.

Brb lunch.

..

Mmm… cabbage and pork dumplings… Not that fantastic. Little meat, plenty of skin. It was from a little shop in one of the back alleys of Qipu Road so I didn’t expect much. It’s just like how I don’t expect good food from the food court at Sim Lim Square back in Singapore.

Anyway, first day.

Checking in at the airport was simple. Hong Kong Airlines was easy to spot. I was one of the first to queue up but discovered that the front seats that have extra leg space cost HK$160 more each.

I was given an aisle seat near the front of the plane and I was fine with that. I really didn’t care where I sat.

First flight from SG to HK was uneventful. A lady in her early 30s sat next to me, kinda pretty but X-Men: First Class was more interesting. There was dinner, some kind of stewed beef with mashed potato and boiled broccoli and carrots.

That last made me realize I could do the same. I had cooked the same before at home, except the broccoli just wasn’t salty enough. The key was the salt.

Intermission…

I’m having the TV switched on to make the room less silent and the ads made me ask myself this:

Do all the companies in China hire the same damn guy for all their ads? Because the voice always seems to be the same one, kinda like how Hollywood trailers always seem to have the same narrator.

End of intermission.

The wait between flights was shorter than expected.

The moment we got off the plane, we were hastily led by one of the air stewardesses to the next gate because it was going to leave in an hour. The gates always open 30mins before departure.

Then at the gate, after everyone rushed to queue up (other than myself and some others), we were informed that the flight would be delayed for another 45mins due to technical difficulties.

I was comfortably seated on one of the empty benches so it was fine. The rest, too bad.

The second flight was slightly more interesting. This time a cute Taiwanese girl, probably just several years younger, was next to me. The catch, and there is always a catch, was that her parents were also next to her on the other side.

Again, I didn’t give much of a damn. It was past 10pm and I was tired from the previous flight. The only reason we spoke to each other at all was because of the arrival card.

Initially when she saw that I took one of those, she asked me if they, as Taiwanese citizens, had to fill that too.

I’m really not familiar with their political situation so I told her I didn’t know.

I also wanted to add that she should just fill it because there was no harm in doing so even if it was unnecessary, while not having it done when it was actually necessary meant they would have to stand that the immigration point to complete it, slowing down the queue.

In the end I just didn’t give a damn.

Then she had to borrow a pen because apparently none of the three had one on them.

:\

The snack was just a chicken mushroom bun.

The tea was pretty good; the coffee was almost decent.

The way out of Pudong Airport was simple. At the immigration point they had a scanner for facial recognition and the officer was pretty friendly.

Then I took the wrong escalator down one storey. I probably wasn’t supposed to bring my luggage case on that escalator but I didn’t see the flat one on the opposite side until I was halfway down.

Nobody cared. It was 1am by then.

The taxi driver was quite friendly and tried to introduce me to the places we passed. I asked him when the shops at Qipu Road opens and he not only replied to that but also told me how to go there from my hotel as we approached it.

He even recommended that I use Hongqiao Airport instead of Pudong due to my hotel’s location. That was not news to me though.

Then when we discovered a different name on the sign outside the hotel, he came up with me to check if it was the right one.

After I confirmed that it was the right one, I asked him for a receipt and he ran back to his taxi for it and back up to the lobby.

Then I didn’t tip him.

I’m so sorry about that, driver of 970-70.853882. I should have just told you to keep the change. It was only 30RMB versus a 221RMB fare.

The hotel kinda small and the girl at the counter who greeted me at 2am when I arrived was probably sleeping on the job.

1) She sat so low I didn’t even know she was there until the porter pointed me to the counter.

2) Red eyes.

While she was getting me my room, a guest (probably local judging from his accent) came up and told her the room he was just given was already occupied by a "lao wai" (Caucasian foreigner) and threw his key card onto the counter.

Amazing. I wonder how awkward it was for both of them.

I made sure I locked the door with both the hook thing and the knob that night, in addition to the Do Not Disturb sign.

The room was pretty damn good, and even had an internet cable for guests.

It was only at that moment when I saw it that I realized I didn’t have the right adaptor for my laptop’s plug.

Oh wow.

The view was quite good.

(These were NOT taken on the first night!)

Explored the TV and realized the OK button was faulty and therefore I couldn’t do much with the TV.

But it was late, past 3am by the time I showered and all, so I just went to bed.

And woke up too late for breakfast. Got up and 9am and down by 9.50am.

Breakfast ends at 9.30am for the normal breakfast buffet for the lower class guests on the 3rd floor, and 10am for the VIPs at the restaurant on the 18th floor.

Didn’t matter. I just went to a nearby store and got myself a bottle of yoghurt drink.

But not before I went back up to apply moisturizer on my face. The wind outside was so cold and dry my face felt like it was freezing (and maybe petrifying) 10mins out of the hotel.

Walked the 1km to Qipu Road and realized that this particular 1km was harder than expected… only because I thought it was going to be a straight, flat path.

Nope. There were staircases to climb, bridges to cross and motorbikes to dodge.

At Qipu Road, I learnt that there was indeed more shops than I could possibly fully explore within the two days I have.

I strolled through the milling crowds, many pulling trolleys and some bringing hot food. Apparently some shops offer lunch delivery service to the sellers there.

Today, I decided to just look and see. I can go back and buy tomorrow.

Honestly, there were so many designs of sweaters and jackets they just overloaded my mind.

Halfway through some random guy persuaded me to follow him to his shop where they sold good imitations. Very secretive.

I was also kinda worried it was some sort of robbery trap but I felt confident enough to follow him. The gate was kept closed until one of their own shouts to the gatekeeper (I guess that’s the best name for him) outside to open it.

I looked through many but in the end, I didn’t buy a thing. I can’t sell those, and I don’t need a new jacket despite the fact that I feel so out of place wearing it.

It’s just such an old design that I pretty much stand out from the crowd. I’m wearing it only because it was the newest jacket for this temperature range that my business has got that had my size and wasn’t sold out.

Not to mention I seem to be the only guy in Shanghai wearing a waist pouch.

Got his business card though.

By 2pm I was tired enough to just call it a day. If the malls were like the ones in Singapore, I wouldn’t be exhausted so quickly, but:

1) The number of different products in each shop on the lower floors is just mind-blowing.
2) There are so many things to dodge while looking, like trolleys and young children. I kicked a few of the former accidentally; fortunately I kicked none of the latter.

I know, probably another wrong move to get out so early but I was tired and hungry.

Bought the bowl of rice dumplings for 20RMB I think. Or maybe 15. Pretty large bowl.

Then got some of the roasted chicken (6 sticks) also for the same price. I definitely got scammed there but she looked so poor I wasn’t about to make a fuss over a few dollars.

Anyway I’m still kinda suspicious about all street foods after my bad experience in Malaysia so I’ve only eaten a single piece so far. It’s good but… suspicious. Smells like satay. It could be a Shanghainese variant of satay.

The biggest issue I have with living here is my nose is suffering from the dryness. I think the winter is freezing the mucus in my nose.

How does one handle this problem? I really need to find out before I return next time.

Today’s catch is more than I thought I’d get. I didn’t even plan to buy anything but I found something that looked pretty nice on one of the upper floors.

At Qipu Road, the height on which a shop is located is proportional to the quality (and price) of its products, as far as I can tell.

Despite its appearance, I fear it probably won’t be accepted by my buyers. They prefer practicality over appearance, and I don’t have much confidence in its insulation.

And it’s really a bad idea to haggle too hard on the upper floors. After she quoted me a price that’s 50% of the one on the tag, I asked for a price that’s roughly 25%. She just gave me a pissed off face, turned away to put it back, and told me it wasn’t negotiable.

EPIC FAIL!

So I bought it at her price. Most likely it’s too expensive but I’m sure it will be lower when I order in bulk.

Intermission

It's been 30mins after I ate the rice dumplings and the piece of chicken. I don’t feel any discomfort. Phew! Maybe I’ll eat the rest when dinnertime comes.

End of intermission.

And now I've just discovered… I'd also forgotten my deordorant.

Bathing 3 times a day in this cold isn’t fun. Luckily the bathrobe provided by the hotel fits me, so it’s not all bad.

Speaking of the cold, it is AWESOME. Well, other than the issues with showering and nasal dryness. I don’t sweat other than my arms from holding my jacket while indoors. How nice.

The best thing about staying alone in a hotel room meant for two is that I get all these extra towels. It's interesting how one can come up with all kinds of uses for towels when there are too many of them around.

For example, I can wipe my lips after meals with one.

Intermission

Just saw a Pizza Hut ad on TV. It's giving away a free bottle of red wine with every order of the Cheesy Bites pizza meal or something.

Then again, it's Chinese red wine. Not sure if want.

End of intermission

Third day.

Breakfast was kinda disappointing but the bacon compensates for the lack of variety. There was also a plate of steamed ribs but it was empty and not refilled by the time I got there.

At least the hotel breakfast had decent coffee.

Took three cups of that with three plates of food because I was planning to skip lunch. Accidently spilled some coffee onto the tablecloth.

After going back to the room to put on my moisturizer, I went straight to Qipu Road. Took an alternate path there, ie a different bridge.

Nothing much.

This time, I walked from 10am till 3pm non-stop. I’m really getting the hang of strolling really slowly.

The guy who pulled me to his secret gallery of imitation branded goods recognized me and tried to start a conversation with me by commenting that I'd finally found something I want (I had bought one item at that point).

I just ignored him.

Got a little lost and went to the same mall twice but in the end I think I had gone through most of the shops along that road.

I’m not saying I’ve seen everything sold there. Looking is one thing, seeing is another. By 2pm I was pretty tired, so I probably missed quite a bit.

Still, I managed to find 3 more items that look good. The prices, on the other hand, are going to be a problem.

Mainly it’s because I just can’t seem to find good stuff till I hit the 3rd floor. Only one of the three was bought on the second floor of one of the buildings.

The worst was probably the sweater that cost me RMB300. It appeared to be selling so well they didn’t even have the time to hang another one after the last piece on the racks was sold. I only saw it because they had one on a mannequin at the window.

I looked at all the important details but pretended to have missed the price tag and asked her for the price. Tag said 980RMB; she said 400. (All prices listed on the tags are fictitious. Any resemblance to real prices is purely coincidental.)

At first I told her directly that that was a little too high, and explained I was buying a sample and may order a shipment from her. She dropped it to 350 and told me there were cheaper designs at the 100RMB and 200RMB ranges. She even showed me a kinda similar one in the latter price range.

I refused 350, then 320, so she stopped lowering and asked me what I was willing to pay instead.

I tried 250 and she just turned and put it back onto the rack like the other one I met yesterday.

When I said 300, she had to ask her boss if it was ok. Either the sweater was that good or it was all an act. Most likely it was the latter, but I seriously never saw another one of the same design before and after that.

Service was good but that wasn’t important. Still, I must say it was nice of her to pack one of the my bags which was starting to break (after like 3 hours of swinging on my hand and getting kicked) into a new bag.

I think they're actually trying to make it feel like a branded store instead of what it actually is.

After 3pm I decided enough was enough. So I went in the direction of my hotel, which was south, and looked for food.

Found a little shop selling beef dumplings at 25 for 7RMB. It appeared to be a family business and the kids were helping out. The boy who cooked my dumplings was probably 12 or something. I gave him a 10 RMB note and told him to keep the change.

Walked back to the hotel. Nice doormen there at the Bund Riverside Hotel. Opened the door for me every time except for once because the one handling that door I was heading to was busy with another guest.

I’m satisfied with the hotel, mainly because of the location. Walking to and from Qipu Road is not boring at all. Even the climbing the stairs to the bridge didn’t feel like an annoyance.

For example, today I watched this old guy pushing his motorbike up the bridge. Couldn’t get my phone out in time to take a picture of that but I did catch him with his bike on the bridge.

I guess that's why motorbikes are more common there than in Singapore. They have an advantage there that bikers here lack: the ability to use the pedestrian pavements and bridges.

4.30pm now. I really should eat the beef dumplings. They must be so damn soggy by now.

No picture for them. They look pretty much the same as the ones from yesterday except for the brown beef soup.

Even if they're soggy, I’m going to eat it. I’m so tired, I’d call for room service if I don’t.

They do have some affordable stuff here, like the dim sum set that included a bowl of fried rice, a bowl of soup, with a platter of dim sum pastries and 3 spring rolls that was priced at 68 RMB. That’s about S$14, and I think it’s pretty worth when I’m this tired.

Decent dumplings. Can’t really tell that it’s beef but at least I can taste beef in the soup.

Intermission

It’s so cold my breath condenses right in front of me when I’m outside. But that stops after a while. I think it just freezes before it even leaves my nose at that point.

And my nose stops being runny outdoors; I just grow nasal icicles.

End of intermission

Tomorrow I return to Singapore.

7.55am flight. That means reaching the airport by 6am, or 5.55am to be exact. I forgot to time my taxi ride the first time. I think I’ll go early just to be on the safe side. Maybe check out of the hotel at 4.30am. If I don’t find a taxi right outside the hotel, I’ll just ask the hotel to call one for me.

This trip has been a failure as far as my main objective goes.

But it’s also been a pretty expensive lesson that drove home a lot of things I didn’t expect to learn, many of which aren’t mentioned here.

Most of the time when people are in my way I just make my footsteps louder. When it’s crowded and noisy, I just nudged them out of my way as I strolled through the largest gap.

The air is so cold I avoid talking and breathing hard as much as I can.

But there was once when there was no gap at all, and without thinking, I just instinctively said,” Excuse me.”

I think everyone turned their heads towards me expecting to see a lao wai.

At least the path cleared quickly.

Speaking of lao wai, I didn’t see any white person there at all. The only one I spotted was eating a roll of waffle near a small Western-style confectionary on my way back to my hotel. For some reason they roll it up when they sell it after toasting (or whatever the process is called) it flat.

I’d expected more to be there given that Qipu Road seemed so well-known online when I was researching it before the trip.

So many people were there touting for secret shops selling pirated goods that I realized that I needed to ignore them like the locals did in order to stop them. After getting harassed by 3 of them in half an hour I realized saying no was only making them more determined to pull me to their shops.

Ignoring them, on the other hand, worked perfectly.

Seriously, one of them went to me three times when I got lost as I had mentioned previously.

Didn’t get to try most of the food I saw. The suspicious-looking food sold by the carts were automatically filtered from my sight and the rest just didn’t seem to interesting.

The sticks of roasted meats seemed interesting but I wasn't hungry at that point, just tired, and they didn’t sell them in bags, I think.

Aaaaaaaand…. I didn’t buy anything for anyone.

On the bright side, I’ve also not spent much this trip. I haven’t and most likely will not spend more than S$1000. Right now there are about 500 RMB in my wallet remaining and I expect to get the entire 700 RMB deposit back from the hotel.

There’s still the 200 RMB taxi ride, so it looks like I’ll be bringing back about 1000RMB. That’s just for the stack I removed from my luggage. I brought more in case I decided to order a whole shipment.

Total expenditure is now going to be about S$800, excluding plane tickets that cost over S$600 but including the hotel charge.

The hotel’s worth the S$65/night mainly because of its proximity to Qipu Road. The walk to Qipu Road in the morning after a heavy breakfast is really pleasant.

And it’s called “Sietong Hotel” or something like that out at the front of the building.

The Bund Riverside Hotel sounds far better than that to me, but I guess they need an English transliteration of its Chinese name for the Chinese citizens who make up the bulk of the guests in this hotel and still maintain a degree of Westernization.

The English name is still carved above the main entrance but it’s hard to notice at night.

I'm typing this now at home at 10pm.

Last night was alright. This morning wasn't.

There was this child getting punished or something next door and he/she kept crying till 2am. I barely got any sleep before 3.50am when I gave up on sleep because I kept thinking about the rest of the day.

Got to the lobby at 4.30am and was pleasantly surprised that this receptionist, although resting her head on her hand and sitting really low, didn't have red eyes.

She did sound a little sleepy but it was 4.30am.

Service was prompt for the most parts although the guy who was responsible for checking my room required several calls to wake up.

He did finish his job really quickly and I was relieved he said nothing, because I was kinda worried I had left something behind or put something belonging to them in my luggage in my haste. I do stupid stuff like that when I'm tired, that's why sometimes in some rants, I make particularly more grammatical and spelling mistakes.

Anyway while they were settling all that, I went to the door to check for taxis. When I arrived the first night, I noticed one just waiting outside. There was none this morning.

So I told the receptionist-cum-clerk-cum-cashier (and now, also -cum-concierge) to call one for me to bring me to Pudong Airport.

She delegated that to the bellboy who walked out and in less than a minute, summoned one right to our doorstep.

Didn't even need to call, so I didn't have to pay extra for booking, if such a thing exists in Shanghai.

The taxis don't have anything explaining the different charges so I don't know.

The bellboy came back to tell me a cab was waiting, so I pointed at the cashier.

The cashier then handed me the receipt which didn't include the final night's charge.

According to her, it hadn't been entered into the system yet.

Kinda understandable, yet not.

4.30am is a rather unreasonable timing, but hotels are supposed to be better than that, especially one that boasts a 4-star rating.

In any case, at least she calculated the total charge right. I thanked her and carried my luggage to the door.

The bellboy came right away and offered to help me with it.

How nice. He could have stayed in his dark corner to rest and I wouldn't have cared, but he didn't.

Got into the cab and told the driver my destination.

He replied that he'd need to go to the petrol station because his tank hadn't been refilled since the day before, which wasn't that long ago given that it was like 4.50am at that point.

So I told him that was fine with me, but I'd like to get there asap to get something to eat.

In the end he just decided against it. Instead, he kept his speed at 80 to conserve fuel. The journey, according to my two receipts, was between 45-50km.

I think the best thing about going for flights at such unholy hours is that there roads are just so empty, so the driver can go at any speed.

Took me a while to realize he was going so slowly because he was conserving petrol.

When I got there, only the 24-hr convenience store was opened, so I got a crappy bottle of coffee at 8RMB. Not worth it at all, but it was the only coffee available in the airport at that point.

The earliest the restaurants open was 6.30am AFAIK.

I sat around, caught a few winks and walked around.

At 5.50am I was the first person not in a group to check in.

Got the same window seat on the same row for both journeys... and later on the way back to Singapore, they were also on the exact same plane.

I wish they could have let me stayed on the plane. I could have slept more if I didn't have to go through all the trouble of walking through the huge airport just to go back to the exact same seat.

The first ride was ok. I was sleeping for the most parts, and near the end, a old man from across the aisle asked me if he could switch seats with me because he wanted to look out of the window.

I got his meaning. I was sleeping the whole time anyway, so the view was completely wasted on me.

Hence I went to his seat and continued with my nap.

Hong Kong International Airport has free wifi internet access for everyone. I didn't even have to log in!

Changi Airport also has the same but I have to talk to the service counter or something to log in.

Anyway, nothing really happened. I got on the plane, and this time the person sitting next to me was some guy in a black suit who really wanted the armrest between us, so much so his elbow kept poking into my body.

I kinda understand. He couldn't fold his arms like I did because it had to be pretty warm in the two layers of clothes, but he could have tried to avoid poking me with his elbow.

>:(

I wonder which one of us made more money last month. Nice suits don't mean shit!

However, I didn't bother telling him because I was just so sleepy. Leaning onto the window to sleep was simpler, and prevents my head from landing on him later.

Not sleeping at all overnight doesn't really bother me at night. The real impact starts only after sunrise. I still don't know why.

So now I'm back. 4 samples I'm not really confident of and lots of experienced gained.

Just don't ask me for advice on travelling to Shanghai. I wasn't there to "travel" exactly, as you can tell by now.

Rant 906 / Those Little Fees And Charges Do Add Up

2011-12-14T09:40:00.001+08:00

First time encountering the situation where someone actually wants to buy from us directly. She wanted to come over to buy directly, but that isn't how things work here.

I don't think I can. Whoa! I'm so new to this I don't even know for sure.

But I don't believe I can sell the same designs to multiple stores.

Walked a lot today. Went to Bugis Junction for the Starhub shop to buy a prepaid SIM card before going to the nearby OG for some luggage locks (I have a membership card there).

Got kinda lost so I went to the Bugis MRT station for the map to reorientate myself. The map in my phone was zoomed into too small an area, such that the first road name I saw outside Bugis Junction couldn't be found in my map.

Went to several other places today to settle other stuff that I normally could spread over several working days.

Then when I finally reached the POSBank near my place, it was 4.55pm and the bank was closed.

That was really annoying.

So now I have to settle that issue after I return on Sunday.

As for my office phone, I'm not transferring it to my bro's phone this time. He's kinda bad at taking down messages for me. I'm just going to have to pay more for my phone bill this month. I don't think I can divert calls to a prepaid number.

I'm kinda surprised by how little I perspired today after so much walking. My hair wasn't dripping by the time I reach OG, and it was pretty sunny until a few hours later.

I think the physical conditioning from the ICT is still effective.

First time using a prepaid SIM card.

I needed one because my current mobile plan only has a on-demand roaming service, ie it charges exorbitant rates. Last month I called someone in China for a total time of over a minute. I was charged over a dollar.

That's more than what my mum pays in some months.

Strangely I'm unable to register with her IDD service. I need to go call them up next time. Been forgetting about it for so long.

So, I paid $15 for a $18 Green Prepaid Mobile SIM Card. The main thing is that it has roaming.

I'm probably being an idiot getting screwed over by buying this card, but we all have got to start somewhere.

I'm so noob at this, I didn't even know why I was being told that I had to register this SIM card after sticking it into my phone for the first time.

I only found out after calling the toll-free customer service hotline that it takes at least an hour after putting it into my phone for it to automatically register.

This could very well also be my final time using a prepaid card, so this knowledge may turn obsolete for me after this trip.

I'm certainly making sure that I can use the Chatchat IDD and roaming services for my next trip.

...

What nonsense is this? It's been 2 hours since I used it and it's still not registered.

Are they talking about office hours?

Because it was 9pm when I opened the packaging.

...

Ok it was finally registered at 12am. Activated a number of stuff including free incoming calls (costs S$0.59 for activation WTF?) and 1GB of data download that expires after 7 days.

I believe the 1GB might be useful if I get lost in Shanghai. Who knows how much I'm going to need when using Google Maps? The next smaller option is 200MB and that sounds really little IMO.

Threw in another $10 because it must have at least $8 for me to make an international roaming call with it.

Total amount spent on this card excluding transport to the shop: $25

"Freebies" I've received:

- incoming calls
- 100 SMS
- $1.50 bonus credit for topping up online
- $3 because it originally contained $18 worth of credit and was priced at $15.

Worth it? No, but I haven't got a better alternative due to my laziness.

Bank of China is rather pointlessly named here in Singapore.

Bank accounts opened at its Singapore branches are not linked to its branches in China.

In other words, they might as well be separate banks.

What nonsense!

The only solution, if I want to spend the money from my BOC account over in China, is to apply for a BOC credit card.

Pffft...

I'd rather use my DBS Visa debit card. At least that doesn't have an annual fee.

Packed everything. Hopefully I didn't miss much, and whatever I do miss I can buy over there. Shouldn't be an issue for most things.

Passport ready. E-ticket ready. Clothes not ready, some still drying. Photocopies of my passport and IC ready. Currencies ready. Laptop ready. Prepaid SIM card most likely ready. Jacket ready. Waist pouch ready. Luggage locks ready. Bathroom necessities (just in case) ready. MFA and Singapore embassy numbers ready. Cheap travel insurance ready (MSIG's TravellerShield Classic, $24)

I just hope I don't get robbed or cheated or fall sick.

Late afternoon flight, reaching there at midnight. I wonder how bad it's going to be.

So far, it's been a educational experience. I'm noting down all my mistakes in this particular rant just in case I forget them.

Rant 905 / There Are No Guarantees In Life - Even Life Itself Isn't Guaranteed.

2011-12-13T16:19:00.001+08:00

I'm in a charitable mood right now and I've just come up with an interesting idea.

From now on, whoever wants to borrow money from me will have to repay me by volunteering at whatever charity I feel like supporting (including the Senor Hybrido Public Transport Fund, which aids this poor person called Senor Hybrido in dealing with rising public transport fares), at a rate of one hour for every $10 borrowed with an interest rate of 10% per annum.

5% p.a. if borrower insists on repaying in cash. The reason is inflation.

For this, I've found some volunteer application forms AND learnt to write a simple IOU which also includes naming a security, eg a car, in case the borrower goes bankrupt.

I predict that this will never be used anyway because I seldom have the money to lend anyone.

If I were rich I wouldn't be buying discounted buns every night for breakfast.

Right now for dinner I've just sauteed two large pieces of chicken breast marinated in sage, rosemary and a pinch of salt.

Chicken breasts go for $10.50 for 5 chickens' worth, or $2.10 for two pieces, at the wet market. The other day he was offering a buy-5-get-1-free deal but he wasn't on Sunday when I bought my current batch.

By sheer luck, I managed to cook them perfectly, such that in the slightly thicker piece I discovered a very thin layer, less than 1mm thick, of pink raw meat.

With the fare revisions by two of the largest taxi companies here, taxi fares have just been effectively raised.

Now we can no longer see peak hour surcharges as extra fees.

The peak hour rate is the new norm; off-peak hour fares are just discounted prices for times when there are low demand.

They might as well use the peak hour rate as the normal rate, then add a discount meter for non-peak hours to calculate how much discount the passenger gets for the ride.

It would probably feel so damn awesome compared to this.

Whoa! Maybank is offering 1.35% p.a. for SGD time deposits that are at least $25,000 and last 24 months, plus 440% on the 0.25% upfront interest at maturity.

That last bit is rather unnecessarily complicated but simply put, it's just an extra 1.1% of the deposit, making the total interest rate 1.90% p.a..

The fees and charges for counter services are pretty annoying though. It's like they're totally discouraging that in favour of online services.

Makes sense, but it's like the bank is trying too hard to hasten the change if you ask me.

I've been exercising less. No motivation.

Still, my LoL win rate has improved dramatically for the last several days.

Then again, that may be because I've been going for a short walk to a bakery nearby at around 8pm for the nightly pre-closing discounts.

My bro doesn't really like those buns, but they make a cheap and convenient breakfast.

No reply from Mindef yet. I wonder how long this is going to take.

Rant 904 / Awaiting Their Reply

2011-12-09T22:25:00.001+08:00

Exercise refreshes the mind. This ICT confirms it again. Things seem clearer than before, or maybe I've forgotten too much.

This ICT was definitely NOT what I expected.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to wait for a reply from Mindef about what I can and cannot discuss in public about my ICT before I describe my 5 days there in this blog.

I was actually waiting for it until Saturday evening because in the late morning they gave me a reply that they're forwarding my query to the "relevant department".

Until then, I'll just rant like it never happened.

Because if I do mention the wrong things and the Military Security Department finds out, it's not going to be pleasant for me.

So true!

The video editing seems much better this season.

Meanwhile, I'm frankly surprised at how the traffic to this blog stayed steadily above 100 Monday through Friday and only dropped on Saturday.

As a matter of fact, my last rant got significantly more views than usual even though it contained nothing particularly interesting IMO.

Now that I've got over 6300IPs in LoL and no champion that I want to buy, I'm considering the option of a whole new rune page for some unorthodox rune strategy.

I'm the sort of player who prefer all-rounded runes in order for each page to be useful for a large variety of champions in case I feel to picking different ones for each game.

I do that sometimes.

I already have one for magic penetration and another for armour penetration, both of which have the same yellows and blues. For the seals (yellow), half of them are flat armour ones with 3 flat mana regen and 1 magic resist (per level). For the glyphs (blue), half are cooldown reductions and the other half are magic resists. Two magic resists are per level and the rest are flat.

I know there are some that aren't exactly right, like the mana regen, the MR seal and the per level MR, but the difference is minimal.

Hence I'm thinking I should get a new page for some new runes.

Perhaps it shall be all about dodge, and I'll name the page "The Dodgemaster".

All seals with be 0.75% dodge and the quintessences with be 1.5% dodge.

With these, the total dodge will reach 9 * 0.75% + 3 * 1.5% = 6.75% + 4.5% = 11.25%

IMO, dodge is no different from damage reduction overall. The real difference is only in the short term.

If I have a graph of damage taken over time for someone with 10% dodge and another with 10% damage reduction, they will both look the same when zoomed out.

Unless the champion is squishy, ie low HP, this short term difference is not going to be significant, and in fact it could even be beneficial.

The disadvantage of 10% dodge over 10% damage reduction is that it is too likely that an insane burst of damage will have its full impact on you, ie 90% * (number of blows dealt within the split second).

The advantage, in contrast, is as follows:

- 10% chance of avoiding a disabling any special effects that an autoattack could cause
- 10% chance of avoiding a fatal blow
- 10% to piss off the other guy

Basically, what I'm saying is that a non-squishy champion will benefit more from dodge than damage reduction.

Unfortunately, Riot Games is phasing out dodge. Their first move was to remove the mastery, and now they're gradually refunding players for their Evasion runes. Eventually, the rune itself will be unavailable.

Their reason for this is because it's imba, probably for the advantages I described.

"...dodge is an entirely new defense type that doesn’t have a series of sensible counters to it."

In other words, imba.

And I figured that out too late.

I just wonder what new runes they're coming up with, because I'm kinda interested in spend a bit of cash on the game if they offer some good promotions for Christmas.

There are still more runes that benefit everyone, like HP and HP regen. Maybe...

HP is obviously better than HP regen. There are many ways to recover HP, but never enough to handle unexpected gang rapes.

Let's see how much HP we can get if I go all out HP boosts.

Marks (red): 9 * 3.47 = 31.23
Seals: 9 * 5.35 = 48.15
Glyphs: 9 * 2.67 = 24.03
Quintessences: 3 * 26 = 78

Total: 181.41

Not worth it at all.

Or I can focus on cooldown reductions. Those are always useful.

The only catch to this is that it's capped at 40%.

Also, it's probably one of the few rune types out there that are more effective when using the per-level sort compared to the flat ones, because more of it in the early game just isn't as awesome as having more of it in late game.

However, the 40% limit means that the runes stop being awesome once my item build is nearing completion, because I can get 35% just from Morello's Evil Tome and Shurelya's Reverie.

Rant 903 / What Will It Be Like?

2011-12-04T23:00:00.001+08:00

Spent a whole evening packing. My bro wasn't of much help since he'd only seen reservists at his Air Force camp, but he did tell me a few useful things.

Now I've got most of the things for my field pack and an incredibly heavy bag for the rest of the stuff. The clothes and other necessities aren't heavy - the SBO (standard battle order) and helmet are.

Since the stuff in the field pack are mainly for show, I've used a few items that I can't use, like a pair of PT shorts that too small for me, because I don't have enough of them. All I have are 2 PT shorts that fit and I have IPPT during the week-long in-camp training. I need one pair as my pajamas.

There were surprisingly few problems with the packing. I had expected worse but the only thing that is unexpected missing is my own field pack aka backpack.

It's GONE!

I'd always thought it was above my cupboard but when I pulled down everything from there, all I got was the camouflaged bottle and my SBO.

Fortunately my bro's field pack is still easily found with all the dangling straps neatly taped, and the straps fit me too.

He had also packed everything nicely due to some sort of field pack packing competition back in his unit before he left, but I didn't need those.

The most major thing that's missing is the torch but I can probably buy one tomorrow.

My in-camp reservist training aka ICT begins tomorrow and ends on Friday, so obviously I won't be blogging for some time.

Phone's mostly prepared too. I've to switch to another phone because I can't bring a camera phone to camp. I've got most of the important (ie work) contacts transferred to my shitty non-camera phone but I'm too lazy to add my friends. If they call, I can probably tell from the voice anyway.

The uniforms are terrible though. Whoever did the measurements, he/she was so damn bad at estimating the length increments for each size. Either that or our body sizes vary too much for him/her to handle.

Either way, the uniforms were badly designed, such that pants that fit my waist are too damn long and shirts that barely fit my torso have sleeves that are too large and too long.

My uniform looks baggy on me now, except it's not. The pants fit my waist nicely but it can cover half my sole if I stand barefooted. My shirt can fit my torso snugly but the sleeves cover half my palm and can probably hold two of each of my arms.

I'm whining so much about this because I handle such design problems in my job. Manufactories don't automatically know how large your sleeves should be or how slim your waists are. That's where the designer comes in and that's part of my jobscope.

As a matter of fact, handling this was one of the first things I was taught when I joined this business.

The pants, in this case, isn't as huge a problem as the shirts, because when we put on our boots, we have garters to tied the bottom of the pants to keep them above our boots.

The shirts, on the other hand, are pure shittiness. The designer was probably not even Asian. If he was, he either didn't know much about Singaporean body shapes or he was told to make sure everyone can wear the sizes they're supposed to wear regardless of any irregularities in body shape so that nobody has to order custom-made uniforms.

In the latter case, it would mean making everything excessively large, which also fits my observations.

I bet if I used my measuring tape on this set of uniform in front of me, my mind would be blown even if I compare it with the standards for thick jackets.

As for my work, I think my bro's prepared. I've given him instructions, photos, keys and phone numbers. As long as I have access to my phone once in a while during office hours everyday, he should be able handle everything.

Quite a bit is happening at work in the coming week though, so I expect him to call me about something I have yet to speak to him about.

I can't teach him everything in a few days; I don't even know what I missed.

Rant 902 / Free MMOs Everywhere!

2011-12-02T16:39:00.001+08:00

It's now 4.30pm on Friday. I'm already 600g lighter than I was on Wednesday during my first IPT session.

I think I'll be light enough even before I get out of camp on the coming Friday.

Did a lot of walking today. Not much yesterday due to bad sleep.

Slept much better last night and got more productive during the day. The fact that I can't do anything next week also helped motivate me to do more today.

Made two fixed deposit today after purchasing 2 cashier's orders from POSB. First was free but the second cost me S$5. If I bought them online they would have been free but for some reason, the max was far lower than necessary. Even stranger was how the service was not available when I tried to get multiple cheques to bypass the limit.

One deposit was at UOB since it was having a promotional rate of 0.95% for 18 months .

The banker tried to get me to sign up for other programmes that offer more interest rates but I decided to spend some time to mull on it.

First thing she tried to get me to get was some long-term thing that offered 3% interest per annum. "Long-term" in this case means at least 15 years, during which I can only withdraw 15% max after 2 years. But it's risk-free and it's got a whopping 3% interest rate versus the 0.95% of the fixed deposit's promotional rate.

The second one had minimal risk and will incur a low fee. Those made my ears switch off and I can currently remember nothing about it. Something about emerging market bonds. Whatever.

I'm also not inclined to get the first because plenty of things change in 15-25 years. After such a long time, the Singapore Dollar can be worth as much as the Indonesian Rupiah is today. Who knows?

Certainly not the Indonesians 15 years ago.

And it felt weird when she kept exclaiming about how young I was to have the money I was depositing.

I have to lose both parents for it. That's one reason I'm not as excited about having it as she seems to think I should be.

After that I went to Hong Leong to upsize my current fixed deposit that had already matured earlier last month.

With my current deposit amount, I qualify for a pretty damn high promotional interest rate.

I agreed to 2 years for the even higher rate.

Honestly speaking, I've never got such a high interest rate before since I started putting my money into fixed deposits, so what I signed up for is fantastic. In fact the highest I can remember getting was around 0.8%.

Right now the lowest promotional rate for 1 year is 1%.

Also received 2 sets of 2-tier ceramic casserole aka tingkat as free gifts. They will cost me S$40 if I make an early withdrawal, which isn't an issue at all but shit happens, so it's something to take note of.

But I don't think it's a good idea to put all my money into one bank, or I'd be getting an even better rate. However, placing all your cash into one bank is exactly what all banks want.

And I like how nonchalant that bank teller was. The amount was about twice that of what I deposited at UOB and she didn't appear to give a damn about it.

Garena is getting Firefall!

The game looked pretty good back when I first saw it but I have reservations about it as usual because games tend to get overhyped a lot these days.

Garena seems to be getting really successful at what it's doing, and surprisingly so given that it thrived on piracy, IMO. Then again, it was standing on this really grey area by saying that it is giving gamers a new platform, kinda like Battlenet except for all games.

The problem is that the games would need to be kinda cracked to be able to play on Garena, which means you can't tell if a player is using a legit copy because it doesn't matter.

And it worked. Now it's even managed to publish good games for free!

I'm looking forward to playing Firefall. Maybe I'll even spend some money to support it... if I survive the coming year.

Corpse Party looks like a really awesome game. Spent more than an hour watching someone playing on live on Vidyavidya. It's a classic JRPG-style game, except it's in the horror genre.

The Japanese are good at horror stuff, so the game turned out to be quite successful, according to Wikipedia.

Too bad it was 3am by the time he finished the first chapter, so I had to go to bed.

I'd buy that game but it's on PSP. Totally sucks. Maybe I'll watch recordings of it on Youtube but it's just never as fun to watch it live where you can talk to the player.

Lineage 2 is now free to play. According to my bro they made it much more casual than the original, ie much less grinding which the game was notorious for.

Still not interested. I'm still haunted by my bad memories of it back when it was first released. I was addicted to it but at the same time I found the grinding so painful.

Rant 901 / New IPT BMI Programme

2011-12-01T00:04:00.001+08:00

First IPPT Preparatory Training (IPT) session tonight. It certainly was informative.

Apparently obese guys like myself can opt for the weight-loss programme aka "BMI programme" instead of the normal one that involves Personal Performance Targets (PPT).

In the former, all we've got to do is to lose a certain amount of weight. Everyone has to fall under a certain height and weight level to begin with, and we must reach the next level by losing weight within 9 months, or we'll have to go for another 8 sessions of Remedial Training spread over 3 months.

Each level is only 3-4kgs apart as far as I can tell, so each of us are expected to lose that much over 9 whole months.

Sounds pretty easy for me, but only because of my current situation.

Ever since I started working where I am now, I've been steadily losing weight. So far I've dropped 7kgs and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. I can't remember how long exactly I've been working but it's probably since March.

If so, that's almost 1kg/month.

I won't even have to attend any of the sessions - I just got to go to work!

At any point within the 9 months after my last birthday, if I'm confident that I've hit the next level's weight requirement, I can just book a session and, before it begins, request that my height and weight be measured.

Then I'll be considered to have pass my IPPT till my birthday.

I'm only 2kgs away from my next level, so I'm not even planning to attend any sessions till I feel like it, probably somewhere in February.

Maybe even just before Christmas, when I'm back from reservist training and Shanghai trip, both of which I believe will make me lose even more weight.

Firstly, I handle a machine gun in my current unit, and that's pretty heavy. Handling it will probably be tiring work.

Second, since I'm going to be alone in Shanghai, I'll probably not eat a lot. Perhaps I'll buy a lot of food back to the hotel for dinner but I won't be eating outside if I can help it. There is only one food that I absolutely won't eat in the hotel - fermented beancurd. I'd be asking for it if I do.

As for the PPT programme, it's significantly harder. Then again, if not for my job, even losing 2kgs would be hard.

Anyway, everyone in that programme fall into different categories depending on their best result since their last IPPT window. They must reach the standards of the next level in order to get out of this.

The main problem isn't that. The trouble really lies in the fact that in the following year, they will remain in the level they had reached and must hit the standards of the next higher level in order to pass regardless of whether their performance had become worse since they last came for training.

I have no idea if it's the same for the BMI programme, and I don't really care. From today onwards I have practically no problem with IPPT till my birthday next year.

Rant 900 / A New Plan For A New Year

2011-11-29T19:49:00.001+08:00

I guess that also explains Japan's population problem.

It's strange how some Singaporeans hate foreigners so much when a number of our leaders of the last generation weren't born here.

For example, our first President was born in Perak, Malaysia.

The collapse of the Euro is going to be huge if it happens. The long-term effects include the likelihood that the European countries are going avoid anything similar for decades to come.

Oh fuck!

I just found an air ticket price that's only slightly more expensive than what I paid on Expedia.com.sg!

Worse still, it's a direct flight by Singapore Airlines!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Like my flight, it arrives at around midnight. It also departs at around midnight, which isn't too different from my flight.

FUCK!

I'd totally pay that difference of JUST A SINGLE DOLLAR MORE for this.

Argh!

The absolute worst thing is that it's able to provide me with a flight + hotel package that's S$30 less than what I'm currently paying.

In short, this is better in every single way possible!

Lesson learnt, oh yes.

I'm so going for this website for my next trip.

Nothing's happening to my mum. She's worried that she may go when I'm overseas, but that's unlikely. I'll only be gone for 4 days after all. There's also the reservist training that will last almost a week but that won't stop me from going there if something does happen.

The patient who stopped eating was gone since Sunday. She was pretty quiet for the few days before then.

Now there's a new patient who's just like my mum. Almost the same age, almost the same number of children, same immobility and same cancer.

As for my goods, it's clear we're not replenishing them as rapidly as they're running out.

This year, we won't be doing as well as my mum used to, as expected.

I really need to get to Shanghai for new stuff.

Rant 899 / Coping

2011-11-27T17:58:00.001+08:00

The hotel reservation has been confirmed!

I've also guaranteed my reservation with my debit card, and together with my special request which mentions my late arrival, the likelihood of them giving away my room is pretty low.

Still, it's China, so it's still slightly possible.

The only way to guarantee that I'll have no problem is if I pay in full now, which the system doesn't allow.

If I pay in full and the hotel is filled before my arrival, they will still be obligated to get me a room somewhere. It's not as good but it beats finding a room by myself.

And at midnight. With my luggage.

I've also found a website that charges even less for the exact same reservation at S$228.06 for the three nights, inclusive of all the extra fees and stuff. That's S$76.02 per night.

And yes, I checked the currency and made sure it was in SGD.

Given that hotels.com does not include breakfast in that reservation, I don't think I mind the $9-breakfast. I'm no morning person, so a hotel breakfast with the convenient location is probably worth the price difference ($8.98 to be exact).

Finally, I've re-checked the location of the hotel and the place(s) I'm planning to go to. They're within walking distance of about one kilometre, so it's great!

What other problems will I encounter next?

I'm aware that there is going to be A LOT of walking during my 2 days there. Even if I exclude that 1-km walk to and fro, which would total 2km, I'll still be spending my day doing nothing but walk and shop.

Fortunately it's winter, so it might not be so bad. However I doubt the Shanghainese winter is going to prevent me from sweating.

IMO it's actually a good thing that I'm having reservist training the week before the trip. I may have to do more walking than usual during that week, and that probably will make a good warm-up.

Bought some durian on Sunday. Wasn't cheap. $8 per packet of the XO durian, each containing two strips of the flesh with 2-3 seeds. $12 for two, so I bought 2.

Most likely it's still expensive but it's not like I eat durians all the time.

In fact it's been at least 5 years since I last ate fresh durian. It's been so long I don't even remember how long exactly anymore.

The XO durian indeed tastes alcoholic, although probably not like XO. Since I've only had a single glass in my entire life, I'm not a good judge of the flavour.

Anyway I could only handle one box. The other box shall have to wait till the next day.

My bro's gf was around and she doesn't like durian, so my bro is barred from eating it as long as she is present.

Burnt my soup yesterday morning. I was bringing it to a boil as usual after I got out of bed, but this time I forgot to set an alarm to remind myself to go back and check after 5mins.

My door was close so I couldn't smell anything until it was horrendously burnt, but my bro's door wasn't.

He smelled the burning, turned off the stove and poured water into the pot.

The soup was pitch black like coffee, but later in the afternoon, he discovered that the pot was still salvageable unlike the last 2 pots I burnt in the last two months.

Those were so bad even the metal scrubs couldn't get rid of the burn marks.

This one merely had a few slightly brown scars.

That I consider lucky. I was so pissed at the thought of losing this pot that I was saying that I'm not making soup anymore.

It's a good WMF pot.

It would have been like losing my Tefal wokpan that I've been using (and shown in my previous pictures).

These cookware is one of the benefits of my job. Working with middle-aged mothers mean I get to know about good discounts on branded cookware when they pop up.

Rant 898 / Because The Three Arrows Through Your Ribs Are Part Of Your Imagination

2011-11-26T22:00:00.001+08:00

These guys are so good at this.

Apparently waiting for my friends to confirm with me whether they want to go overseas with me made me miss a promotion from Malaysian Airlines.

2 days after I first visited the agency, the same flight now costs me just over S$1000.

Obviously I didn't take it.

Today I've bought a ticket for another flight that lands at midnight of that day instead of departing at that time.

It's a different airline too, Hong Kong Airlines.

I feel that it's even worse than the initial one.

First, it's S$13 more expensive, at S$637.

Second, it lands at midnight, so I'll be checking in at about 1am or something.

Third, the return flight is in the early morning at about 8am, so I won't be taking their hotel breakfast even though it comes with the room.

Fourth, I'm going to have to book an extra night for this.

Fifth, because of my late check-in, I think it's much likelier for me to encounter the issue of the hotel being fully occupied.

Come to think of it, what was I thinking agreeing to this? The point of my midnight flight was to avoid this specific problem.

The first point isn't really a major issue. 13 bucks is really nothing when the ticket is over S$600.

The second is slightly more significant because Shanghainese taxis probably have midnight surcharge too, and my hotel is pretty far from the airport I'm landing at. On one website, it calculates my taxi fare to be about S$37 even without surcharges.

The third point I can probably settle by talking to the hotel people. I don't exactly expect success but my booking included a special request regarding changing that breakfast to something else.

Fourth is a bitch. I'm going to be paying the full price of a day's stay for half a night of sleep. Moreover, the 50% increment in the cost of my lodging is no joke. In addition, now that I've completed the booking process, I realized there's "fees and taxes" that weren't included in the $74. With that included, the final rate is actually $85/night. Still awesome though for a Queen bed in a 4-star hotel.

The final point is something I really hope doesn't happen, but it could. The booking system only allows payment at the hotel, so without payment, I think the hotel can still legally reject my booking.

I think.

I don't blame anyone for these inconveniences except the agent at Fairprice Travel for not telling me. Then again, I can't complain since they charge so much less.

Not to mention I expected problems to crop up. This is, after all, my first business trip and I'm going alone. So far I'd like to think I'm doing pretty well since I've basically dealt with all the kinks.

Now for the pros.

Since I'll be able to sleep on the night I arrive, I'll be able to focus better on the stuff I see on the following days.

This is particularly important because I suck at spotting stuff. I'm the sort of guy who only sees what's directly in front of me, and even less if I'm looking at a big messy pile.

I'll be hunting for specific designs, so that really should help.

Next is the food. Although only a snack and dinner are included in my two flights to Shanghai (first to Hong Kong and then to Shanghai), both breakfast and lunch are included in my flights back to Singapore (also because of a transfer at Hong Kong).

Yay.

Better still - no peak hour surcharge for taxis on Sundays in Singapore, so I don't have to rush out of the airport after landing in the late afternoon.

Feels good.

The real problem at the moment is actually the hotel. After making the reservation, the website told me the hotel can't confirm yet. Since this is the peak season, I'm really worried that it may not work out.

At this point, the alternative is that I'll be forced to spend $300 or more by going to the travel agents.

And yea, I changed my mind. I'm not keeping the destination a secret anymore.

Playing as a sneaky archer in Skyrim, I often encounter this very funny situation in which I'm implied to be a figment of the imagination of a minor character in a game.

It happens when I shoot someone and he doesn't die from the triple damage of my sneak attack arrow.

I'm practically never spotted because I fire from far away and I move back after firing in case they get close to my spot.

So when they give up on finding me, they would say something like," Probably just my imagination."

YEAH BECAUSE THE ARROW IN YOUR FACE IS FROM YOUR IMAGINATION!

And after killing them, I'd be thinking," I guess you got killed by your imagination, huh?"

Since I'm just a figment of the imagination of a minor dead character in a PC game, what does that make my readers?

YOU ARE HALLUCINATING!

THERE IS NO BLOG!

WAKE UP!

I cooked 2 dishes tonight and failed in one.

First was the carrot and brinjal in oyster sauce.

The carrot was sweeter than expected, so it made the whole dish pretty sweet, almost like a mild dessert.

I only used one carrot and one long brinjal. Most of the carrot was grated because I was too lazy to cut it into strips. The last part of the carrot was sliced instead before I could risk grating my fingers.

Next was potato and luncheon meat with baked beans.

I've really got to remember that potatoes need to be boiled beforehand because they take forever to cook. At least it smelled really nice, just like hashbrowns.

Threw in a can of baked beans after some of the luncheon meat cubes look browned.

Added starchy water to give it some gravy to make it go better with rice.

This was one dish I knew couldn't go wrong. You have to be pretty bad to fail at cooking potato dishes.

Also, some leftover soup from last night. Soup's fine as long as I boil it before I go to bed and after.

Rant 897 / More Drivel

2011-11-25T18:01:00.001+08:00

After Terraria, I think I understand the absence of appeal.

I'm not as concerned about the bugs as I am about the lack of replayability. Building for the sake of building just isn't fun. I can just go to a beach and build sandcastles all day too, so why aren't I doing that?

Or I can just buy a bunch of Lego bricks. I'm not doing that either.

It takes a lot of imagination and a lot of interest in building your fantasies. Unfortunately the latter is mostly caused by boredom.

RIDING LIKE A BOSS!

Holy crap!

Tried to make 回锅肉 (hui2 guo1 rou4) and failed.

The plan was the stir-fry pork with leeks and another random vegetable, but I ended up adding way too much cabbage, causing the packet of sauce to be insufficient.

The dish was... edible.

At least the soup was a success. The seven sets of chicken bones really worked, and all the cartilage was gone after about 4 hours of boiling on the low heat.

Asked my bro to watch the pot whenI had to go out for work 1 hour after I started making the soup. All he had to do was check the pot every 30mins and make sure the pot was at least half full.

The soup itself was simple. Just the bones and some Chinese shiitake mushrooms.

And the salmon was nothing out of the ordinary. This was the third time I fried salmon and I've already gotten the hang of it.

In the land of Skyrim, the player starts off as a captured terrorist, who has been caught plotting to destroy the golden empire by using dragons. Before the player gets to take control of his avatar, they are asked to create a character, which is purely the liberal’s way of teaching out kids that modifying and gender changing one’s self is fun and normal. Once the player has decided if they want to be a female wood fairy or an black ogre from Stormwind, they get to take control of their hell spawned fictitious demon.

Right off the bat, the gay supporting software company Blizzard, shows the player images of decapitations and after the third of forth head chopping, a necromatic dragon appears and sets the player free from righteous punishment. Now that the player is free, they will spend the next 400 hours robbing people, killing villagers, crafting sexual items, fornicate with elves and other Harry Potter style animals and also learn how to conjure up black magic.

Once they player has finish killing all the people in Skyrim, his final battle is to have a mass dragon orgy with his fellow homosexual warriors he meets on his way and all take turns impregnating the dragon with homosexual dragon eggs. Once the dragon has been backdoor feasted, the player must kill it. The dragon needs to be killed, so the spirit of death and gayness can enter the new eggs and reek havoc onto the rest of the world. This new destruction will be playable in the next Skyrim saga.

This is epic stuff. The writer sounds so much like one of those seriously homophobic guys who are actually closet homosexuals.

In case you didn't get it, the website is about mocking conservative Christians.

Lastly, I'd buy this version of Skyrim, mainly just to see what homosexual eggs look like.

Rant 896 / Is Fairprice Travel The Cheapest?

2011-11-24T19:14:00.001+08:00

Learnt a new lesson about my work today. I was actually going to the mall nearby to look for some stuff so I decided to go to a store I sell stuff to to pass them a document. When they saw me, let's just say they showed me yet another part of my job that my mum didn't properly explain to me.

Didn't hurt or anything since I could handle it, but the trip was just more important than I expected.

Also visited People's Park Centre near Chinatown today to see if I could get plane tickets cheaper than what I found on Expedia.

I had thought Expedia used SGD the other night when I noted the prices but I just realized they were in USD.

Anyway using the wrong price as my benchmark, I visited the travel agencies one by one to ask for the plane tickets for the days I wanted plus other conditions I deem necessary, like reaching there in the morning by departing at night so that even if it's too early for me to check in, I can still leave my luggage with the hotel and start walking, something taught to me recently by someone I know through my business.

Initially all were far above the price I had in mind, although lower than what it actually was in SGD.

A few even tried to pressure me by telling me that their low price was only available at that moment and I cannot take my time to think about it.

Those "low" prices were seriously lower than most, but still higher than what I wanted. Moreover, the lowest price offered by them was exactly the same as the lowest offered by 2 other agencies, which was about S$100 above my benchmark. No big deal.

Finally I entered this agency that offered only plane tickets, called "Fairprice Travel", which actually stated in Chinese on their signboard outside that it's a wholesaler of air tickets. Btw it's not related to NTUC.

I had a bit of hope then but after so many failures, I wasn't expecting much, maybe slightly lower than the lowest at that point.

In the end, they got one that was only $9 over the price I had in mind, so I asked for her namecard and wrote the price and airline down.

It was Malaysian Airlines with one transfer at KL, surprisingly, instead of an airline from the destination country.

Then when I got back and realized Expedia was in USD (after reading their FAQ), I knew I was pretty much settled with this part of the decision-making process.

As for the hotel, Fairprice Travel doesn't handle that, and all the other agencies couldn't go below $90 per night even for single beds (I only wanted a specific hotel), so I'm booking from the internet instead.

One website that I shall not name so that I don't reveal the destination country openly, offered me 2 nights for just $148 at that hotel for a room with either twin beds or a Queen-sized bed.

In other words, even if they could match the $74-per-night rate, I don't believe any of them could match the room.

Ok, so this may not be completely accurate. I didn't actually visit all of the agencies in that mall; I omitted an entire row near the food court, so I probably visited only 90% of them.

One reason why I stopped asking after finding Fairprice Travel is because the expressions of the agents tend to darken when I ask them to find fares that don't exceed the lowest I found at that point.

Obviously this meant that in order for them to compete, they would have to reduce their own commission. And why would they really want to compete for such a small commission from just 1 person's airfare and a few nights' stay at a hotel?

One of them even told me politely she won't bother to search for hotels unless I accept the price of the airfare she offered... which was $186 above the one offered by Fairprice.

The trip itself won't be very comfortable due to the first flight. It's a midnight flight with an hour-long transfer, meaning I won't be getting much sleep. After that, the plan is to go look around right after I dump my luggage at the lobby, so sleep is out of the question for the rest of the day too.

As for the return trip, I didn't care and I don't remember. All I know is that I am going to be back on that day itself (some flights end on the next day due to a long transfer period). I'm really not planning to do more walking on the final day, hence my nonchalance.

The hotel itself was the one thing I could splurge on because in a developing country, it's never a waste of money to spend more on lodgings and even food. When things suck in a developing country, it could seriously suck, and you don't want that to be true for your room.

So when I chose the hotel, I looked at the location first before going for somewhere that's at least 3 stars. The most important factor is always the location when money is not a major issue.

Y'know, I kinda wonder how the other agencies survive. More young people turn to the Internet these days to do their research, so there has to be an increasing number of travellers who don't need a guide.

Without a guide, travellers would only need the air tickets and hotel bookings from agencies.

Yet absolutely none of the real travel agencies could match the air ticket prices of this agency that specializes in that, and the Internet offers far cheaper hotel prices than they can.

How many internet-illiterates are there buying from them to allow them to stay in business?

Tried to order Domino's the other day using my free-pizza voucher that they gave to compensate for a late delivery last month.

Didn't work. Apparently they don't allow certain promotions to be used together with others.

I used 2 other coupons in addition to that voucher, and I've never had any trouble with multiple coupons before. Hence I suspect that free-pizza voucher can only be used alone in each order.

Ordered Canadian 2-for-1 instead.

For some reason I find myself disliking the task of typing order forms detailing the changes I want to the factories.

I have no idea why. My guess is I fear making mistakes in those.

Strange because it's the same even for order forms for samples on which there is little to lose.

Rant 895 / Options Are Optional

2011-11-22T15:07:00.001+08:00

And that's usually how noobs kill the pros once in a while.

Just when I thought $4.99 for 3 dozen eggs was a good deal, I saw a stall selling eggs of similar sizes at $1.60 per dozen in the market.

Then again, with the 3% cashback on my debit card that Saturday, it should be about the same after all. 3% of $5 is $0.15.

Meh.

Last night the right button of my mouse decided to stop responding every so often. Initially I thought it was a software issue but I hadn't updated anything since the last time I used it.

So I changed the mouse to another Microsoft one but I only exchanged that problem with another.

Now the cursor jumps around occasionally.

Time to find more cheap mice. Nothing fancy, I just need a generic one that doesn't fuck up my games.

I just learnt not to fry a frozen egg. My fridge is getting old, so things placed on the top level tend to freeze, and that's what happened when I had to place two of them there after filling up the egg racks on the fridge door the day I bought the 36 eggs.

Frozen egg yolks break by themselves despite the seemingly protective ice shell, probably because the skin of the yolk froze too.

Moreover, there's the problem of frying anything frozen - the outside tends to overcook and/or the inside gets undercooked.

In this case, I simultaneously burnt and undercooked the very same egg.

Finally, the shell cracks when the egg freezes, so boiling is out of the question.

Season 4 of Die2Nite has the coalition limit removed, so I'm back into the game. Unfortunately, I forgot about the jump after signing up with my last mega-coalition, hence forgetting to log in to accept the coalition invite before the jump.

Now I've got to wait for the next jump.

Time to set a daily 11pm alarm on my phone again.

Started doing it when I died once from forgetting to log in. It was particularly unforgettable because the town had some real potential.

Skyrim is getting hard again. It seems I'm not as invisible as I thought. The first time I noticed this was when I fought the Forsworn at the Sundered Towers. They could seriously hear me from 50 meters away and see me when I'm in their line of sight and about 10m away from them even when I sneak really slowly.

This never happened before. I'm usually invisible even when I'm right under their noses.

I think the game actually takes the lighting into account because it was broad daylight when it happened and I was on the steps where there was no shade.

The second was during the main quest when I was supposed to sneak through a garden into this guy's room. They couldn't hear me but they could see me from 10m away when I'm under the sun. In the shadows, they couldn't see me at all even when one of their knees was in my face.

So minced pork goes at $10/kg at the market. And they have fatty pork unlike the Shop N Save where there's only minced lean pork. Probably because of low demand.

And the chicken breasts there cost me $15 for 14 pieces, or 7 chickens' worth, with or without the bones. Apparently I can also choose to have the bones removed and placed in another bag for me.

Awesome. More chicken stock. 7 chicken ribs can make 2 batches probably.

Another cooking failure. I got the fuzzy gourd and dried shrimps right but not the rice vermicelli. Both rice vermicelli and cellophane noodles are called "vermicelli" here, so I just bought one packet of the former.

Then I discovered it was the sort that was meant to be eaten in soup when I cooked it.

Now it's almost wasted. It's actually pretty edible but it just tastes nothing like what it was intended to be.

It's kinda like porridge now because it's been overcooked, and that was because I was initially unsure if the whiteness meant it was not cooked enough.

We're treating it as porridge. It's perfectly edible, but just doesn't taste like what it was meant to be.

Rant 894 / Crockwork

2011-11-19T23:03:00.001+08:00

I'm finding my N8's camera so useful now in my work. Worth every cent.

I use it to take pictures of my samples and label them in my photo editor to remember them and their corresponding numbers.

I also use it to take pictures of new designs that have potential.

Finally and most importantly, I take pictures of work documents instead of saving copies because a lot of them are handwritten. Because of the high resolution, I can take a picture of an A4 size document in a single photo and be able to see everything clearly when I zoom in.

That last is the most important function to me. I no longer need a scanner or photocopier if it's just for my own eyes. I also save everything in my PC whenever I plug it in so nothing is ever lost.

$9 for a haircut! That's what I paid when I visited this barbershop across the street, instead of all the hair salons in my neighbourhood. It's probably the only barbershop here - all the others are hair salons.

Wasn't bad at all since I wasn't into anything fancy, just a trim. Most interesting part was when he took out that large straight razor to shave my sideburns. I've never had such a huge blade so near my throat before.

Also, despite all the "hair saloons" that can be found on Google, it's hair salon!

A saloon is a place you go to get drunk.

And in this case, drunk on hair, I guess.

The only difference I can tell between the hair salons and the barbers is that the latter also handles shaving (facial hair). Shaving alone costs $7.50 there, but a haircut plus shaving costs $12.

But I don't really know why anybody would need a barber to shave for him in this day and age. It's not like there's anyone with a beard in Singapore.

Supporters of Gaddafi want to get out of jail now that the civil war's over.

Too bad.

What did they expect? The Western countries to come and fight for their freedom?

Rain. It's arriving like clockwork everyday for the last 4-5 days. Always at about 2-3pm, when I'm out.

I am not amused.

So the new Giant Christmas catalogue arrived. Apparently the last coupon catalogue can be used on top of these new offers!

Unfortunately, there were too few items that I could buy to justify the cab fare.

For example, the dozen-can pack of Coke Light at $7.75 ($8.25 offer price + $0.50 off from coupon), ie $0.65 per can, is almost definitely cheaper than what I can find nearby.

The Dettol 550ml Shower Gel refill packs at $3.40 ($3.90 offer price + $0.50 off from coupon) might be cheaper too, if its even available at all here. If it isn't, I'll compare with the Show Gel bottles themselves, whose conclusion is obvious.

Everything else that interests me is just not cheaper despite the discounts.

Moreover, I can definitely expect something from Shop N Save in the near future too, although I'm not sure if the outlet near my place is going to participate in whatever sale it organizes.

Either way I'm not visiting Giant for this sale.

So my mum has returned to the point where she's confused even about how much time she has left. A friend of hers whom she recently called and informed of her condition visited her on Saturday.

She called me there and asked me why I'm not hiring a maid and let her stay home.

It was only when I mentioned my discussion with her oncologist at NUH, in which we agreed that hiring a maid was not worth it when she only has several months left, that she revealed to me that my mum told her she had 3 years left.

If only that was true.

One of the doctors told me on the first day that even several months was an optimistic estimate because if an infection sets in, which is very likely due to that wound and the steroids, she'd go much sooner than that.

I've already said everything I needed to say to her. There were a few things I realize I had to say but never got a chance to until I thought she was gone.

Now the most important thing is that her suffering is minimal. So far she isn't feeling any discomfort and that is good.

But it also puzzles me, which worries me slightly. If she's only got a few months left, won't that mean the pain will come suddenly and increase very quickly?

Hopefully she won't be like the patient who keeps whining about pain but it could come to that. Right now she and my mum are the only two patients in the ward who have been there since my mum's arrival. Everyone else has come and gone.

And she's near her end. Yesterday the nurse gave her some sort of medicine because she hasn't passed motion for seven days and, according to my mum, her family agreed to stop feeding her the night before. She could barely eat that day. It's like what the doctor told me - the intestines are among the first organs to shut down.

Within the week she's going to be transferred to a single-bed ward, just like all the others.

...

Y'know, maybe she was trying to lie to her friend to make her feel better.

Rant 893 / More Soup

2011-11-17T02:41:00.001+08:00

I'm beginning to understand the geography of Skyrim. I haven't explored many places yet due to work but it appears that this is a simple East vs West map, in which Windhelm on the eastern edge of Skyrim is dominated by the rebel Stormcloaks while the westernmost city, Solitude, is the stronghold of the Imperial forces.

I'm not actually too interested in their fight nor their cities.

Instead, for some reason, I'm curious about the cities between them on the northern border.

What would they look like after adapting to the cold of the permafrost of Tamriel?

More importantly, why have they remained more neutral than the two I mentioned?

Apparently every single guardsman in Skyrim used to be an adventurer who took an arrow in the knee.

Every. Single. One.

Archers in Skyrim must specialise in knee-shots or something.

Giants. I got pwned so hard I flew. Or at least my corpse did.

How the heck was I supposed to know they were hostile? In one quest I was even told I sold a sheep to one. How do you do that if they kill you on sight?

Holy crap! Now that I have over 85 points in Sneak, I'm practically invisible when crouching. Just realized that I've been underestimating my Sneak ability until just now when I got ambushed by the robots in the buried Dwarven city under Markath, the one past the Excavation Site.

The two robots rolled out behind me about a meter away and I didn't move. Not much of a choice there. The only way to go further away from them was to go through the two, so it was either do that or stay still and hope I remain invisible this close.

And... I was never seen even when I went past them after watching them for a while. I was heard when I was almost right beside one of them but all it did was move towards the direction I was at.

By then, I was already far enough to become undetectable again.

Also noticed a few bugs by now (lv21).

First is the bug which makes it hard to click on the dialog options. I have no idea why it's so insensitive sometimes.

Second is at the temple near Dawnstar during the quest to get to the Skull, where I have to kill the final two monks. If I let the NPC do the deed while I sneak away, the quest remain incomplete even though they're both dead. Fortunately I save all the time so I could just reload to just because I entered the room.

Third is Belethor (IIRC), the trader guy at Whiterun. For some reason he exits when I do, and locks the store behind him. Then he walks back in and the store remains locked for hours. Annoying when I have to get something from my chest in Breezehome and I can't sell it when I get back.

Strange. While making several orders yesterday, I discovered a dilemma - should I listen to what my mum taught me months ago or should I listen to the buyer?

I chose to adhere to what my mum told me and what was written in the documents she left behind when I requested for adjustments to the samples in my orders.

When I told her that today, she told me I should listen to the buyer.

I am now confused.

I'll not change anything for the orders I have emailed, but I'll do that in the future.

What I'm confused about is why she said that.

Did she realize something? Or did she lose her confidence in herself so much?

I was so wrong when I thought I could sleep late in this job.

Looks like I must conform to the norm and be awake during the hours when people are supposed to be out of bed every weekday.

Gah! I've been having a string of cooking failures lately after I started to try new things.

A few days ago I tried to make soup out of soy beans and pork bones. Too thin. I even added half a cube of chicken bones to the small pot of soup but it still tasted like I added too much water.

It wasn't so only the next morning.

Next time I'm going to need more than 300g of bones.

Also realized I've bought the wrong gourd the last time. I wanted to buy 节瓜 (jie2 gua1) but due to my mum's confused memory just before she was hospitalized, I've been buying some unknown gourd that was supposed to be for soup. It's a light green gourd of similar size but with a smooth skin. I still don't know what it's called.

Anyway I bought the right one today when I googled the name and learnt that 节瓜 (jie2 gua1) is also known as 毛瓜 (mao2 gua1). Fortunately I know that the latter is supposed to be fuzzy, so I bought the only fuzzy one I saw.

Apparently it's also a variant of 冬瓜 (dong1 gua1), or at least that's what all the Chinese websites say. Wikipedia says it's an immature winter melon. Don't ask me which is right.

My life has formed routines again, although they are going to be quite temporary.

It's just work, visiting my mum, Skyrim, handling meals and maybe LoL and blogging.

As you can tell, I really don't have much to blog about from this routine. My mum's deteriorating condition is gradual but steady. At the moment she's still the same but definitely bored. I worry she's falling into a depression due to the dying patients coming in and out of the ward but I have no idea what to do about that.

The most I can do is spend at least an hour there everyday except for days when I'm particularly occupied with work or when she tells me not to go. She doesn't want me to visit her everyday but I don't want her to be as bored as she is now.

As for work, I'm not exactly putting in my best efforts. In fact I think I'm slacking. This is so bad.

Unlike employees, I can't slack around. The only person whose income is affected by laziness in my business is myself. I'm just cheating myself.

Yet I find that I simply cannot go through a single day without playing Skyrim as long as I have access to my PC.

Now I'm also told to go to a certain city overseas. I don't have to buy anything; I just need to see what is available and how things work outside of the Internet.

I've also request my bro to go to Europe with his girlfriend after he graduates. I'm not sure if he understands that in my line of work there's really no such thing as a long holiday, unless a week is considered long because that's the longest I can push things away without someone else handling my work.

It will also help him learn more about winter fashion if he goes somewhere in northern Europe.

Rant 892 / Still Unable To Find Any Reason To Dislike Skyrim Yet

2011-11-14T01:28:00.001+08:00

To all gamers and online forum users: take the high road. It works.

I can barely remember the answer. It was such a long time ago.

Sometimes we get so focused in what's in front of us we forget to see the big picture.

Been visiting http://www.eatliver.com

The Dustman's Cairn quest in Skyrim was interesting. The part where I got trapped and Farkas had to deal with those five Silver Hands was particularly surprising. At first I was like "Aw my bro's going to die."

Then "Wait... WHAT?"

And he came back as if nothing happened.

I'm too lazy to type a spoiler warning so I'm not telling why.

One thing that's been really bugging me is how I can't tell if someone far away is hostile or friendly. As a sniper, I need to know whether I should choose to make pre-emptive strike.

Moreover, I don't want to kill a friendly NPC who may possibly give me quests.

Unfortunately the only way to determine if I can just walk pass someone or something is if I do a quicksave and actually approach that person/thing.

That's pretty annoying actually.

Pfft... Singapore does not have a bad traffic problem. It's not bad until you see S$70+ on the taxi's fare meter without surcharges, which is what I've seen in Hong Kong (over HK$350). It wasn't even that far; the actual issue was that a landslide had caused a real major traffic jam along the path the driver took.

I do agree that a few Singaporean taxi drivers drive like they own the roads. The rest just have more balls than the other drivers - they signal and follow all the rules unlike the first group.

So today I read (accidentally) something that was supposed to be inspiring. It was about how as long as you are enthusiastic about your idea(s), there will always be opportunities to succeed.

My opinion:

Hellgate: London

Look at how humongous a flop they made out of it with their enthusiasm.

Try, but don't be delusional. There are more than enough suicides in the world every year.

So when a friend disagreed with my belief that cooking at home is not always cheaper than eating out, I decided to take a good look at what I pay when I buy food.

The truth is, I don't give a damn how much most common raw ingredients cost. I just hand over $10 bills (or $50), grab the change and stuff everything into the wallet. Of course I make sure the notes are there but I don't care about the coins. How much room for error can there be in those?

Coins I use for cab fare. Usually I wait till I have way too many coins before I do that, then pay the entire cab fares in coins.

Taxi drivers are one of the few types of people I know who love coins. In fact, they usually don't bother to count what I hand them, partly because it's not easy to count $7-10 worth of them. Not that I bother to cheat them, but it's just something that could come in handy if the need arises. If it ever does.

Today was actually my first trip of the week to the market and I was late as usual.

Only bought 5 small potatoes, 2 large onions and a dozen eggs.

$3.70.

Later at home I looked at the 278g of lean pork in my fridge. Coincidentally, it was also about $3.70.

After I bought the eggs and stuff, I had also visited the mixed vegetable rice stall to buy just the dishes without rice. 3 packets: a serving of steamed egg, another of ribs with bitter gourd and finally a serving of tofu skin.

Those 3 cost me $6.50.

Looking through some of my recent receipts from Shop N Save, 500g of kangkong cost me $1.20.

The five cloves of garlic, salt and oil I used to cook it with probably cost less than a dollar.

As for tonight's cooking, I made that garlic kangkong and sliced pork in 海山酱 (hai3 shan1 jiang4).

I estimate the kangkong cost about $2 in total and the pork dish cost about $4.50.

2 cups of rice.

$11 for the 5kg bag of rice.

1 cup of rice is about 200g, so 2 cups make 400g.

0.4/5*11= $0.88

Throwing in electricity, gas and etc, this meal for two probably cost me $7.50, or $3.75 per pax.

That's slightly more expensive than 2 packets of rice with 3 dishes from the mixed vegetable rice stall, but only because of the pork and the larger amount of rice.

He's right.

I should probably buy meat dishes from outside then.

On the other hand, I need the practice.

But yea, if I want to live really cheap, I certainly should go vegetarian, or even vegan.

Rant 891 / This Blog Used To Be Much Less Serious

2011-11-12T01:45:00.001+08:00

MEANWHILE IN DENMARK...

RIP

Sarah Jessica Parker 1965-2011

This is even better than Persona 4 itself.

Skyrim is awesome. Bugs ruin the experience though. For my bro playing on his 3-year-old laptop, they include frequent crashes, like when he loots stuff.

Personally I've only encountered a single bug, likely because my PC is just that good that most bugs get squashed by the brute power of my processor.

Nah, I really have no idea why I see fewer bugs.

That bug is in the tunnel in the very beginning of the game where you are escaping from the dragon. Down in the underground path where there is a stream, there is one part where I could get stuck while trying to jump up the rocks.

I'm so glad the console commands work and are easily found on Google, so I just used "tcl" to toggle clipping to make myself fly through the obstacle.

Of course I turned that back on after that because I don't want to ruin my experience by cheating through my very first playthrough.

Cheating or even reading walkthroughs are forbidden by myself for first playthroughs of most games. I always try to play games as the developers intended, then look for aids to explore the game deeper.

So far I've been playing as a Wood Elf archer. Initially I wanted to be a plain archer, maybe with some mediocre Smithing skills to get great equipment.

Then I realized the most interesting way to play as an archer is to be a sneaky sniper. That's my opinion anyway.

This is because the stealth detection by the AI is quite horrendous. The first time I found that out was when I was fighting Draugrs in the first sidequest in the second town I go to, the first town being the one that got destroyed by the dragon.

I was in sneaking mode and roughly 2m away from the spot I fired from. The draugr came running to the spot, turned around and walked back... right in front of me in my terrible hiding spot that was just a concave hole in the wall.

The undead's head was even looking at me while it was turning.

Seriously, wtf?

Or maybe Wood Elves looked like dead bodies. I don't know.

Whatever the reason may be, what I'm sure of is that Sneaking is very easy to level up in Skyrim. Even easier than Archery even if you're an archer who uses the bow in close-quarter combat like I do.

The only catch to this way of handling combat is that archery really takes some practice because the arrows have a realistic arc... or at least it's kinda realistic because it doesn't take into account the wind.

It's sad. The quiet old lady who was always lying in her bed next to my mum's with her eyes open is gone. She seemed so depressed throughout the times I was there. She was the one who asked for my help to move her leg.

My mum said she was moved to a solitary ward. She wasn't aware of that the room was for patients to spend their final nights with their family until I told her.

But it's strange. She didn't seem tired usually; mostly she just laid there staring at the walls or the floor. I didn't think she'd be dying so soon. Maybe the problem is in my mum's memory.

The place is so depressing. I go there everyday and stay for at least an hour because I had to try to distract her from the general dead atmosphere in that place.

The staff there are friendly and try to attend to their needs as quickly as they could but they don't stay in the wards all the time.

And when they're not around, I imagine it must be like living in a morgue.

Maybe I should see if I could get her back home even though she gets better care there.

I don't know.

I can't take care of her like they do, and if anything happens to her at home, maybe if she somehow falls and injures herself trying to walk, the doctors aren't 5 minutes away like it is in the hospice.

As for her condition, it's evidently getting worse gradually. Her speech is sometimes incoherent now and she takes some time to make certain logical connections.

For example, on Friday she was unable to realize I won't be able to know our gross income for last month until Monday because the employee whose relative is our accountant won't come with the documents until Monday. It took several attempts at rephrasing it before she finally understood I won't be able to tell her on Saturday.

The gross income is important to her because it's basically her monthly performance report, since nothing we sell right now came from me. In other words, it's pactically the basis of her personal pride.

I don't mind letting her get involved with work because it helps to distract her from her surroundings. If not for that, I wouldn't let her think about it, not at this point of her life.

Mainly it's that really pathetic patient on the opposite bed who keeps whining all the time. Maybe it's really painful, I don't know, but she always moans in pain whenever I'm there and absolutely never realizes the button is right next to her hand.

She could just press it to alert the nurses at any time.

And she's on morphine now. Started a day or two ago. Never stopped her intermittent moans.

Maybe she's got a really tragic story, but as long as I'm unaware of it, she would always appear very annoying to me.

Just call a frickin nurse to increase her dosage and go back to sleep.

Or maybe not.

Sometimes the nurses don't do that and call a doctor instead. Happened yesterday. The doctor came in and asked her what sort of pain (acute pain or ache?) and where and why?

She only knew where the pain was and nothing else.

It was a pretty pointless visit. In the end the doctor did something quietly and left.

Sometimes the nurses also ignore her moans when they pass the door. Maybe she's been doing it so much they mistook it for part of the local ambience. I don't know.

Of course I don't say anything aloud about it there, just in case she really does have a tragic story. Maybe she's got brain injuries or something in addition to perhaps terminal cancer.

Rant 890 / And That's How Rainbows Appear

2011-11-10T20:38:00.002+08:00

And this is how parents will explain rainbows to their kids in the very near future.

Not sure if want...

This is the next random item. What's it trying to tell me?

Why does it keeping doing this?

It should be quite apparent that my mood is lighter than before. Mainly it has to do with the fact that she's deteriorating at a slower rate than I expected.

Her memory is still clearly bad but her behaviour hasn't changed and her appetite has not decreased.

I think it's the fact that I can still talk to her tomorrow that keeps my mood up.

Which leads to the implication that I'm still unable to get over the finality of death.

Been cooking plenty of bad dishes due to the sweet oyster sauce. Don't really want to add too much salt just because.

My bro also brought back 3 large packets of beef and pork, all sliced up and meant to be eaten in a shabu-shabu, a Japanese-style hotpot.

He was eating at his gf's place with her family and they couldn't finish the red meats.

So for the first packet, I simply gave the meat a quick toss in some boiling oyster-sauce-water and added a dash of light soy sauce to the sieved beef slices.

The second packet of beef was used to stir-fry in ginger and onion (no spring onion that day and I forgot to buy more when I used it up previously). It was pretty successful.

Those were the successes.

The failures include the Chinese cabbage dish which was too sweet. I stir-fried it in oyster sauce, light soy sauce, garlic and sliced fish cake.

Another was the broccoli which I overcooked and the gravy was sweet due to the oyster sauce and partly due to the sliced carrots too.

The broccoli dish was especially bad.

Today I made beef bolognese linguini. It was successful of course. It's hard to fail at cooking decent bolognese and pasta (in terms of Asian standards, not Italian). The only trick is that I have to remember to add a little sugar because the jars of pasta sauces that we buy are usually too sour for our tastes.

I'm also getting the hang of cooking chicken breasts because I've been using it so much.

I just have to marinate a large batch (and buy in large batches) of diced chicken breasts in cooking wine (花雕酒 in my case), sesame oil, light soy sauce, oyster sauce and some starch for at least 10mins.

I don't always expect to finish all of it in one day and marinating it for 24 hours in the fridge is usually not a bad idea.

After marinating, I fry them till they're barely cooked. Slightly undercooked is fine too because they're going to be re-cooked again with random vegetables.

In my experience this fried chicken goes well with a lot of vegetables, so it's pretty versatile.

By the way I almost never use dark soy sauce because in Singapore, it's always a thick sweet liquid. For some reason Singaporeans just like sweet dishes or something.

I'm also starting to raise the difficulty level by cooking salmon.

Salmon, though expensive, is safe because I'm perfectly ok with eating it raw.

Frying it after marinating in garlic and starch merely provides me with some variety so that I don't always eat sashimi as the sole dish under the Seafood category in my diet in general.

The other day I did that with a piece of salmon belly with a large chunk from the back.

This is a similar piece I bought a few days ago to make a encore performance because it was so good.

The belly part was crispy but the back part was cooked only half a centimetre in on all sides.

And I made sure the skin was fried more to make it very crispy (and to make any undetected scales edible).

Costs $5, so I'll see if I can get it from the wet market next time for a lower price (and a larger piece).

Maybe this time, instead of frying it whole, I should slice up the back portion and make everything crispy.

Hmm...

Nevertheless this is far cheaper than any salmon dish of similar proportions I can get outside. How much would a bit of garlic, some salt, some starch, some oil, the gas, the water and detergent, and time cost?

Found apps that automatically change profile (to Silent and back) but only one is free: Situations. Not sure if it's going to work since I don't have an actual data plan, only the cheapest data plan that charges exorbitant rates per kb but doesn't have a monthly charge.

Not sure if GPS works without an internet connection.

And something kinda good and really confusing just happened.

I found a remittance form that was used to send a large sum of money to a factory in China earlier this year.

This means I don't owe them any money.

I thought I owed them some money, according to the remittance forms I've found, and the bank's pass book did not say to whom the money was remitted to.

The factory boss has been asking for his money because apparently, he doesn't keep records of our payments (yea yea I call bullshit on that too but it's not like I can do anything about it).

Now with this scanned and emailed to him, I can prove that he has been grossly overpaid. Hence I expect him to stop bugging me about money for quite some time.

Feels so good not to owe anyone any money.

Can't blame my mum, who was the one handling everything. She's disorganized but normally she could remember where everything was, or at least the general areas.

Good thing I have yet to send him the second half of what I supposedly owed him due to mistakes on his part. I wonder if the bank is able to cancel the remittance though.

Rant 889 / Predatory Instinct

2011-11-08T01:10:00.000+08:00

An app that syncs with GPS to change the phone to Silent mode and back when travelling in and out of pre-specified areas would be really nice.

I forgot to change it back to General mode the other day and missed work-related calls from two people. Only remembered about the phone late at night and it was already too late.

Or maybe there already is one and I just haven't found it yet.

Learnt about the Terraria Server Client recently so I tried it today. Very nice. I'm now in almost total control of the server on my PC which two friends join everyday (or night on workdays). Only feature I wish it has is the ability to undo damages without having to rebuild anything manually.

The Hellevator is complete. Apparently that's what it's called, according to the Terraria wiki.

Nothing much happening below. I've got enough hellstone to get the complete Molten Armour set plus all the weapons except for the bow. I've even got the gun.

Killed Skeletron with Vic and explored the Dungeon but I feel it's too much work for the loots, even though there are more of them than anywhere else.

I'm... running out of things to do. I find that I don't actually care about great weapons since it's not like there are monsters I can't handle with the current Molten set.

I've even visited the four edges of the 2D world.

The most interesting feature of the game, IMO, was the exploration. All the work for the equipment was to allow me to explore without dying.

Now I think I've seen everywhere the game has to offer.

All I've got now is build new stuff. Vic's getting a floating jungle on our tower and Ivan's been screwing around with lava.

So I realized that I made a major mistake in my first order of goods when I told my mum about it. She's still close to normal now.

Nothing I can do about it. Ordering more to cover the mistake isn't worth it. Just got to avoid this again.

Third day now and I noticed memory problems. The biggest was how she has forgotten that my bro used to cry a lot as a baby and a toddler.

She's probably aware of it due to my reactions but she seems to have accepted that.

At least she still talks normally and ate the sushi and sashimi I bought before going there. Still can't stand. Just sitting upright makes her dizzy.

My bro and I went to visit her yesterday and we noticed that.

She was trying to get to the bathroom to pass motion because the first time she did it in her diapers it made the room stink.

Still does but when the nurses changed her diapers while I was there, I noticed they used plenty of air freshener during the process.

She's the only one who eats healthily in that ward so it's only her who causes the room to stink.

The thought is certainly depressing.

According to the doctors on the first day, the intestines are usually one of the first body parts to shut down in dying people because that's among the least important organs. Therefore they can't eat and don't mind being starved.

In fact if you force food down their throats, they could very easily puke. In their weakened state, the vomit would likely go down into their lungs, causing infection and giving the doctors a new major headache.

So when a person gets so weak he/she stops eating, you can be sure it's almost over.

The old lady next to her can't even communicate properly in any way and she needs help just to turn her body while lying in bed.

I found that out only because she called out to me and tried to get me to lift her leg.

When a person sleeps on the right side, the left leg would curl up. She couldn't even curl her leg in that position.

That was the first time she asked me for help. The next time, I couldn't tell what she wanted and neither could my mum, so she pressed the red button for the nurse instead.

Somehow the nurse knew what she wanted despite her extremely vague and weak hand gestures.

Everytime I'm there she just lies there staring at nothing. Eats very little, almost nothing, even when her sons visit her with food and presumably her granddaughter.

Incredibly depressed, just waiting to die.

The third lady in the ward is suffering from chronic pain and is constantly under some sort of anaesthesia or something. Wakes up once in while to call out in Mandarin for a doctor to help with her pain despite the red button lying next to her hand on the bed.

She does get up to eat what her sons buy, although that does nothing to convince me she's actually aware of much.

Seeing her gives me an idea of what to expect.

The only real person in the ward is my mum. The rest are practically dead.

Fortunately the lady with the insanely thick makeup visited her today just before I was about to leave to cook dinner for my bro and his gf. Moreoever she has a phone, so I don't think she's too bored. Hopefully.

To me that place, however bright both the environment and the nurses are, is very depressing. Still, that's the best place she could be right now.

I like how attentive the nurses are; I guess that's where the money goes to.

From what I've seen, there are probably more nurses than wards, and each ward is usually not fully occupied (5 beds). There are also a few rooms with just a single bed, but I think those are the rooms the social worker at NUH told me about where the families can stay with the dying patients during their final days.

Rant 888 / The Most Auspicious Rant Ever Unless I Publish Another 8000 Rants

2011-11-06T02:33:00.000+08:00

Terraria is a pretty fun game. More things to do than I expected.

Initially I thought it would be like a crappy 2D version of Minecraft but there's strong RPG feel to it. For example you can kill monsters for materials to make armour with and there are different armour sets for each type of material, most of which can be found in the ground.

First I built a tower with dirt blocks. Turned out to be quite awesome because the grass and vines grew onto it and now the tower is almost completely green except for a few parts where stone and glass were used.

After building a few rooms and a large floating platform for plants to grow on, which I now call the "Sky Garden", at a height I thought was sufficient, I realized the sky was the true limit.

So I raised it further till it reached the very top of the Huge-sized world.

When that was done, I jumped off and realized it would be awesome if I didn't just land on the "sea-level".

So I extended the bottom of the tower to the Underworld zone at the very bottom of the world.

Took a long time and it's still incomplete. The bottom is merely at the top of the Underworld where the sea of lava is still not visible yet.

The fall is very long though.

After this, I'll probably adjust my tower so that I can fall from the top of the world to the very bottom. It's going to be a long, long, long way down.

As for armour, I'm trying to get hellstone to replace my silver stuff. Skipped gold. Not worth the effort when hellstone and obsidian are easier to find. It's boring to dig randomly to search for gold deposits.

In fact I really dislike hunting for Demonite back then, but I didn't have a choice. The only alternative was to kill the Eye of Cthulhu, which I could only do with help from friends. Even then we still failed once.

While reading the Terraria wiki on the metals I was finding, I learnt of things I could explore that I didn't expect, like the Dungeon entrance guarded by the Skeletron and the underground jungle.

Looks like I won't get bored of this game for quite a while.

The Greeks are full of shit.

Anyway, why does everyone hate his/her own country?

I think we humans are still adapting to the massive amounts of knowledge our technologies are giving us. Right now, we still know too much about each other and need to adapt.

People have always been this disgusting. In some ways, people used to be much worse. It's just that news didn't travel nor spread this quickly until the radio was invented in the 19th century, so people didn't know so much about everyone else.

Not to mention the absence of the ubiquitous camera and the paparazzi back then.

I guess the thing I miss most is the sense of security of having someone I can always count on to handle anything I can't/don't.

It was the same for my mum when my father passed away.

The fact that she is leaving is not as bad as the fact that I now can only depend on myself. There is nobody acting as my safety net from now on.

I've long prepared myself mentally for her death; I just didn't expect this independence to hit me as hard as it did.

Visited her today. For some reason my bro didn't yesterday after I got back from accompanying her there, even after I told him to go visit her while she's still herself.

Didn't seem too different today, fortunately. I guess they're reducing the dosage really gradually, or maybe the condition just worsens at an increasing rate.

I've been with her far more than I used to when she was fine.

I guess people are like cups - they can only contain this much of any emotion. You can't make a person insanely happy for years, then give him shit for the rest of his life even though it would even out.

Emotions don't work like that.

Same with me and her.

Even if I've been a very good son before, it doesn't make it right for me to stop seeing her now.

In fact, it doesn't even matter how good or bad I used to be. All it matters is what I do now.

I don't think I'm being very clear, but I don't care.

It was a little confusing when I first arrived.

There was this large group of people in the ward, some of whom were talking to her.

One was sitting next to her, a middle-aged lady in a black dress with incredibly thick makeup. Then there was this younger lady standing next to her in a white top and light green short skirt.

When I saw her face, I only thought," Whoa! Must be her apprentice."

To be honest, even with their powder-masks on, I can see why they did it to such an extent.

Apparently these people were masseurs doing volunteer work in the hospice. Nice people. Friendly, trusting. The lady in black even left her bag in the chair when she left to give us some privacy.

Unfortunately if my mum's memory is still normal, a hospice is still not a safe place. It seems she witnessed someone stealing some kind of card in the dark at night, probably an ATM card, and returning it in the early morning.

The only thing she has now that's worth anything is her old HTC phone.

Rant 887 / Brass Chandelier

2011-11-05T01:52:00.001+08:00

Blatant propaganda, but it works.

Of course Bill Gates played it cool when responding to Steve Jobs's remarks about him.

“When you think about why is the world better today, the Internet, the personal computer, the phone, the way you can deal with information is just so phenomenal…Over the course of the 30 years we worked together, he said a lot of very nice things about me and he said a lot of tough things. I mean, he faced, several times at Apple, the fact that their products were so premium priced that they literally might not stay in the marketplace. So the fact that we were succeeding with high volume products, including a range of prices, because of the way we worked with multiple companies, it’s tough. So the fact that at various times, he felt beleaguered, he felt like he was the good guy and we were the bad guys, you know, very understandable. I respect Steve. We got to work together. We spurred each other on, even as competitors. None of that bothers me at all.”

Duh. He was winning so much when he retired. Remember when the Mac was the other computer that nobody really gave a damn about and developers created softwares on Windows before porting it to Mac?

Microsoft only got into this current losing streak after Gates was gone.

I realized that when someone dies in the movies, there's always this person who tells the grieving family/friends that "he/she will live on forever in our hearts".

That's bull.

I can barely remember my father other than he was a nag and a workaholic.

Then when I look at the senile granny in the hospital ward I wonder if she would recognize her parents even if they were standing right in front of her.

Seriously, she asks about where she was every single time I was there. I usually don't understand what she says but the word "hospital" is really quite easy to catch.

And every night she would have a loud argument in Malay or Indonesian with her Javanese maid (heard her mention that when another patient asked her) at about 7.30pm.

The issue?

The maid had to get her to take out her dentures and put them in a glass of water before she could return home every night.

For some reason she always refused to do so. The funniest thing was how the maid kept mentioning the word "doctor". I bet the old lady was asking her why she was in a hospital every time that word was spoken.

Last night it got so bad the maid left in tears and got back with a nurse. It took about 10mins before the nurse told her not to force it if she didn't want to take it out, so she left. Then the nurse came back about 15mins later and somehow managed to complete the task successfully without resorting to raising her voice.

I guess I should be glad that isn't going to be happening to me... unless I get married.

Oh those Russians...

O.O

So I accompanied my mum as she was transferred to Dover Park Hospice this morning. I don't know why it wasn't Assisi but it doesn't really matter.

The ride itself was awesome.

Seriously, I was in the front seat so I saw everything this time.

The driver was going at over 100kmph with the warning lights on, so every car ahead gave way to us along the highway.

A few cars tried to accelerate just so that they didn't have to change lane but when they reached certain points with lower speed limits like tunnels they had no choice but to slow down and do that.

The ambulance didn't give a fuck about speed limits. We continued at over 100kmph even in the tunnel where the limit was 80kmph.

Throughout the journey we stayed on the right lane, and I don't think the driver ever used the brakes except at red lights.

Maintenance must be cheaper for ambulances.

This time I don't really know why it cost me only $35 for the longer trip compared to the $80 to bring her to the hospital from home. Might have to do with the fact that it was the hospital that booked this ambulance for us.

The hospice was a brighter place than expected. Not so well-maintained on the outside but they really put in a lot of effort to keep the inside clean.

Took them a while but they finally assembled the two doctors and the social worker to talk to me in a meeting room.

There they explained what is happening to us and what will happen.

My mum's been more normal since two days ago. Initially I thought it was because of the new air mattress she was using since the night before that.

Apparently the main reason for her improvement was that they've been giving her steroids as her medical treatment for her brain's tumour. This is the alternative to surgery and would reduce inflammation and swelling which were causing her to be sleepy and confused.

Unfortunately steroids can't be taken in large doses for a long time, and yesterday was the last day she was allowed to take the maximum dosage.

No wonder she appeared almost normal since last night. I was worried it could be painful for her before she could go unconscious till the end.

This morning, her doctor at NUH faxed a memo to the doctors at the hospice to gradually reduce her dosage to a level that could be sustained for a longer period.

In other words, she will be deteriorating from now on.

This was probably the worst part. Feels like it reopened an old wound.

As for the pain, they assured me they can handle that.

They also touched on several other issues like whether our relatives know about this and how we're coping.

I feel like shit. Didn't feel like organizing the lunch at Rocky's Pizza for tomorrow, still don't.

Finally the doctors left me alone with the social worker who discussed with me issues like the money involved and the funeral.

Money is a problem. I have no idea how much she used to makes. A vague idea, yes, but no clear picture.

I think I'll have to find some way to see if I can print out her tax report or whatever it's called.

I haven't even paid income tax before; I only just applied for a Singpass (user ID and password for most government stuff online) last month.

...

Hmm... It was easier than I thought. Found the acknowledgement notices from IRAS for income tax e-filing that mention her total income for the year. Printed the one for 2011. Hopefully they accept this. They should. They're not the IRAS.

As for her will, the social worker told me to make sure it was valid by speaking to whoever is keeping it.

From what I know it was an insurance agent who was very helpful to us in the past. Not sure about the legalities regarding insurance agents and wills so I'll have to check.

As for her siblings, the social worker reminded me to think in their shoes. I haven't. I don't want to. I asked my mum several times about this, including once today and the answer never changed. I know the consequences of this but that's why I asked her so many times to make sure it was not a decision made when she was mentally affected by her condition.

Whatever happens, it was not my decision.

The funeral itself was not as simple as I thought, she explained. I should probably call up the various undertakers because apparently they offer "packages" that include things we need in a wake and etc, and they all offer different prices.

After that discussion I went back to the ward and took a look around.

There's an ceiling fan for every bed and an air-conditioning system for the building. The former is for daytime and latter for night.

The facilities are also slightly inferior to the ones at NUH. Older stuff, mainly. I was actually quite impressed by how new everything look in the NUH ward.

Then again, that was the cheapest of the premium non-subsidised wards.

In terms of pricing, it's actually the same as staying in that NUH ward. It's $250 per night in Dover Park, only 1 type of ward, and $260 per night for Class B1 in NUH.

Both are non-subsidised rates. One of the first things they asked me multiple times was our financial status. They couldn't decide how much to charge me without knowing about it.

That was pretty unknown in my case but like I mentioned, I'm just going to try to hand her that notice and see how much they can subsidise. In the best case scenario it could hit the same price range as Class C wards in NUH, which is over $30.

Anyway I think a larger portion of the budget goes to the staff than the equipment. Even the food is crappier. My guess is there are more doctors and nurses per patient in the hospice, hence the price.

There are even lawyers who visit that place, but those are volunteers.

Rant 886 / Nine Days Till Skyrim

2011-11-02T00:04:00.000+08:00

People usually make decisions before they rationalize them. Only sometimes do they actually rationalize their decisions before choosing.

This is what I observe in myself time and again.

This morning I find myself trying as hard as I could to be as vague as possible when a factory owner in China called me to ask about my mum, among several things.

The main thing I observed is that short answers are the best misleading truths.

I hate this.

I enjoy making plans to lower costs but I don't enjoy the process of making money.

It's so troublesome. There are so many little things involved that I must keep in mind all the time, and lots of others that I must recall once in a while regularly.

If my bro joins me, I want to let him handle most of these crap.

Problem is, if I do that, what will my role be then?

Will I just take over the job of the PA which is currently taken by the most experienced employee?

Will I also take over all the organizing and paperwork while he handles the walking and talking?

I don't know.

Neither of us are particularly tasteful, so I don't believe either of us should handle the buying and selling alone.

I just wish he would stop being the "anything" sort of guy. A boss can't just say," Anything," when someone asks him a question. That would beat the purpose of having a boss, and the employee might as well be his own boss since he's making the decisions.

On the other hand it's not like I don't have my own bad habit - I frequently start my sentences with "Er.." or "Uhm.." to give myself time to think while acknowledging the question.

I cannot keep doing that but I don't know how to stop. It makes me sound like I'm hesitating and hesitation can mean plenty of things, none of them good.

So there's this Tafep organization in Singapore that handles problems regarding discriminatory practices against locals.

I bet Singaporeans like that.

So I wonder if it's also a discriminatory practice if a company hires only Singaporeans even if there are better qualified foreigners.

I wonder if that's still fair and meritocratic.

Interesting tips for saving money when shopping for food. I actually follow a few of them.

The first, "eat at home", I follow all the time. Given I do spend a bit to eat out to give myself some variety ( I can't make bread and I find that fish is usually too easily overcooked), I still try to make one meal per day at home.

And I skip breakfast everyday.

Sometimes I also save more by eating leftovers.

It's actually something I've had in mind for a long time, ever since I heard how some of my aunts in Canada cook in bulk and my cousins just reheat the frozen food when they're hungry.

I believe that's cheaper than just eating at home.

The catch is probably that the food needs to be full of gravy or practically a stew because the cold will dry up the food even if it's sealed in an airtight container. It's hard to moisturize a piece of freeze-dried cooked meat without overcooking it.

Then there's "put on blinders" which basically mean you just buy what you had planned to buy.

This is extremely important in most supermarkets because the placement of all their products and the planning of the aisles are in fact done in such a way to make shoppers want to make unplanned and unnecessary purchases. It's a psychological thing.

Therefore to save money, one must ignore these influences and stick with the original plan.

I try to do that, but sometimes when I forget what I wanted to buy, I tend to look around and fall victim to this.

"Avoiding prepared food" is absolutely true. Not only do they taste bad (unless you buy the really expensive stuff), they cost far more than what you can get if you would just take half an hour to cook something simple.

On the other hand, if they were referring to sardines, tuna and baked beans, fuck that.

"Buy in bulk" is totally obvious. Toothpaste immediately comes to mind.

Unfortunately due to the number of shops that sell this at different prices in my neighbourhood, I've found myself buying overpriced toothpaste several times. There are at least 4 stores I can go to to buy toothpaste that come in packs of three and they all have different price tags. I just can't remember which is the cheapest because a few of them change their products once in a while. And not only that, but the different brands of toothpaste also come in different volumes per tube.

Recently I've even placed a shortcut to the calculator in my phone's main menu for problems like this.

Thanks to the calculator, I realized that in one of those stores, the cheapest Listerine mouthwash is actually the 500ml bottle with no free mini-bottle. I didn't expect that to be cheaper than the 750ml ones that come with a free extra 80ml bottle of the same mouthwash. Usually bigger amounts mean lower price per ml but for some reason, it wasn't true there.

"Compare prices and stores" is what I should be doing. I just don't want to walk around so much. Lazy me.

"Shop for sales", IMO, is a pain because I would then have to shop only on specific days or times.

"Watch "Best Before" or "Sell By" Dates" is a must. Even the Shop N Save here can sell expired products.

"Pay in Cash" is the only tip I disagree on. For people in Singapore, get a debit card with no annual fee at least, like the DBS Platinum. It's just like a credit card but doesn't allow loans aka credit. The one I have gives a 0.3% cashback on all purchases and 3% for purchases at the Shop N Save on Saturdays.

Still, this really doesn't justify shopping there for most things. I can get everything but fresh meat and vegetables for cheaper elsewhere. Fresh meat and vegetables, technically, I can get for cheaper too but like I said before, I just can't be arsed to shop in the morning for them.

Rant 885 / The Steam Halloween Sale Was Extremely Disappointing.

2011-11-01T00:29:00.000+08:00

I'm slowly adapting to life without my mother.

The word "adapting" is so short, but the process is so much more complex than that. Everything she used to handle, I have to handle now.

It's true that the load will be lightened after a year when my bro graduates, but right now, I find myself having to make decisions that involve thousands of dollars. With a single mistake I can easily find myself significantly poorer within months.

I'm fully aware that I will definitely be losing some money within the first several years, but I don't really want to cut myself some slack just because of that.

I can't be too cautious either. Running a business costs money. For a small one like ours, it still costs several thousands per month. In other words, my profits from selling goods must also cover rent, salary and etc, not just the cost price and transport costs of each shipment.

Right now I'm like an unborn chicken living off the yolk of the egg. All the old goods and those already ordered by her will allow me to survive a few more months.

After that, it's going to be all me.

It may appear sad for some people, but standing on one's own two feet only in the mid-twenties isn't actually that rare for people around the world.

And I feel exactly like that. My main support in life is gone. I'm on my own now.

Obviously I worry.

There's absolutely nobody I can count on to help me whenever I need it in my work. There's no single person whose answer I can trust if I have questions regarding my work.

My buyer, though a personal friend of my mum's, barely knows anything about the clothings themselves. She's good at her job, which is selling and picking things to sell, but I can't ask her if nylon zips are better than plastic zips.

My workers, though very experienced, are workers and not business owners for very good (and obvious) reasons. As much as they'd like to think their years of experience (one of them's got about 10 years of it) will let them become my advisors of sorts, my few months of apprenticeship under my mum has taught me they really know jack shit about what we sell.

They're good at noticing what sells and what doesn't because they process the goods, but they do not know that just because certain characteristics help certain goods sell better doesn't mean they work for everything else.

These are the only people I can now ask if I have any problems, but their answers are not reliable. Each of them specialise in a specific part of the whole, but even if I put them together, I'm still not going to get the entire big picture that I need.

In short, my own judgement is the only thing that really counts.

The problem now is that I don't always trust it. I'm too rash and sometimes, I don't even make sense to myself.

The only person who has all the answers now lies on a hospital bed, barely able to eat and almost cannot speak. We now have to switch to porridge from rice because she's to weak to chew even that, despite the fact that she's been eating more than before she was hospitalized.

Today at lunch she could barely handle her first and only bite of watermelon.

I wonder what they can feed her in the hospice when she's transferred there.

As for myself, I've just discovered some really cheap food in my neighbourhood that's only available at night.

I'm sure everybody is familiar with the practice of giving discounts when a shop is about to close.

Apparently the two confectionaries/bakeries do that in my neighbourhood too. The last few times when I went to feed her dinner, I got back at about 8pm. I walked past them and saw those signs.

The one I frequent was offering $2.50 for 3 buns/sandwiches and $1.50 for 3 of those tiny buns that are half the size of the standard stuff and taste much blander.

For $5.50 I could buy enough stuff to cover 2 meals. Next time, I'll just spend $6 for 12 small buns. 6 buns per meal should fill me up.

There's also the risk of them turning bad soon after I buy them. Learnt that when I bit into the tuna bun this afternoon. It tasted slightly off even though I stored it in the fridge overnight. Edible, didn't give me diarrhoea but it was definitely close to the definition of "spoilt". Ate it anyway. I trust my body's defense mechanisms to do their jobs. Even if something happens, I wasn't working after that anyway.

Not going to buy tuna buns at night from now on.

Anyway for $5 I could have also gotten 6 normal buns. That would cover slightly over one meal. Probably 1.5 meals. I'd need to get something extra to cover the rest of the second meal.

Doing all these calculations because I'm worried about my finances. I still have to pay for my bro's tuition fees for one more semester. That's about S$4000.

I'm stopping my own for now. Probably take a year off, or at least one semester, to adapt to this new chapter of my life.

It's not easy. Right now I have to decide between lying to the factories that my mum has retired or just tell them straight up that she's dying.

It's not as simple as deciding whether I should be honest or not.

If I tell them she has retired, they will definitely tell me to ask her if any problems arise. If I ask them anything, it will sound strange because I could just ask her. For all I know it may worsen our business relations if I insist on troubling them instead of her.

Moreover, I can't hide her death forever. I know one of them comes over to Singapore once in a blue moon for vacation. I'm not aware of how my mum managed to convince her to not come over to our place but I don't think I'm as persuasive.

Keeping the lie indefinitely is going to be tiring anyway.

If I tell them she's dying, they're going to try to rip me off very quickly for sure, then feed me a lot of bullshit until I learn all the necessary lessons.

The best alternative, if I only look at this issue, is to stop doing business with them altogether. Start over, like a tabula rasa. Finding new ones isn't as hard for me as it was for my mother back then. I no longer need to fly over to China and walk the streets to find new wholesalers and factories.

But that's got its own issues.

The main problem is trust. I know how much I can trust them, and I can trust them more than I can trust new strange suppliers.

So much so that I can pay them too much and trust they will keep the change as advance credit for my next order. This is to my advantage because I can pay them when the exchange rate is favourable, and when things turn sour, I won't be affected immediately. I have yet to know how I can buy and store RMB at the moment.

At home, I suddenly find myself in possession of so many ingredients that I don't really know how to use, mainly herbs for soups. Then there are the unknown things in the freezer that I can't identify.

Other than food, there's the TV and her computer. I think I'll just give either that PC or my old incomplete PC away for Christmas. I can think of at least one person who might like a good PC like these, even if they're second hand. First, I've got to see which one my bro wants.

We'll still need a computer outside to configure the printer and router when the need arises, so maybe he'll want to switch that desktop with his current laptop.

Not going to touch everything else yet. It's too early.

Rant 884 / Inb4 No More Qantas

2011-10-31T01:14:00.000+08:00

I don't understand a lot of the lyrics but somehow I find myself playing this video so many times.

WHO WANTS CHOWDER?

I just noticed someone who arrived at my blog by googling the term "female bodybuilder having sex".

The strange thing is, that's something I just encountered in a JAV online.

Don't ask me how that happened; I don't remember mentioning such a thing ever.

Anyway the video was pretty disgusting. Even the cover was not enticing for us normal guys. I swear I saw a bit of it purely out of curiosity.

I really don't envy the actors in it. Not only did they have to have sex with her, they had to come to her. It takes... quite a bit of horniness, probably. If they could fuck her, they could fuck anything.

As for the top keyword, yea, "Witcher 2 nudity" and similar terms still top the list on a regular basis due to the misleading title I made for one rant.

I'm really not proud of it.

Stopped playing HoMM VI for some time now even though I haven't actually lost interest in it.

It's just that to fully appreciate the game, you need to have nothing much on your mind and plenty of time to play.

I do have quite a bit of free time but they're all split up into small sections.

For example, today is Sunday. I woke up at 10am, washed up, made coffee and compiled a list of things I need to buy soon. Waited till 11am but the cleaner didn't show up. We're not really communicating very well.

Or rather, she doesn't communicate very well. I don't always know when she wants to come over. There are several possible times and I can either ask her every single week or just wait around during those times.

Played till 1pm when my bro got back from NUH after feeding my mum.

Went downstairs to see if the vegetable stalls at the market were still open. Nope.

Speaking of the wet market, the stall that sells roasted meats is pretty cool.

It closes at about 10am. I'm not even exaggerating.

The other day I went down at about 10.30am to 11am to see if I could get some char siew (Chinese BBQ pork). He was already almost done cleaning up and the lights were off.

That's pretty amazing considering that it wasn't open when I went there at 6am once.

How many hours does he work for? 2-3 per day?

Damn!

All he needs to do is hang the meats properly and chop them up after that.

And people thought CEOs have really awesome jobs.

Anyway I got back up after buying some stuff and tidied my room a little in preparation for the cleaner to come. Some things must not be seen, even accidentally, by her now that I have to handle documents for my business.

She never arrived because apparently she had to stay home to babysit her employer's baby.

No big deal.

The only area that needs some attention is the part when my turtle's pool is because the drain keeps getting clogged by its foodscraps. The shedded shells aren't a problem because they're big enough for me to pick up before changing the water, but the tiny bits of fruits and vegetables are a little hard to filter.

I could clean the filter but when the water drained so slowly the last few days, well, the food scraps spread everywhere in that area and dried on the floor . Now they're also going to have to be scrubbed off soon.

Went for a nap at 3pm.

Got up just before 4pm and prepared dinner for me, my bro and his gf.

Wanted to just have a simple dinner consisting of 2 dishes initially: kangkong stir-fried with garlic, and steamed fish on beancurd.

Unfortunately I forgot about his gf until she arrived, so that plan had to be changed.

In the end I just whipped up the good old Kung Pao chicken. Simple dish but something I wanted to avoid because I'd already made it 3 times before this within the last 2 weeks.

Whatever.

The kangkong took a bit more preparation this time because my bro said it was too tough the last time. Not only did I cook it longer I also smashed the stems with the side of my cleaver a couple of times.

Ok, it wasn't really smashing. That's dangerous. All I did was lay the blade flat on the bunch of stems and hammered it with my fist.

You can do the same for garlic too instead of manually chopping it finely. Just slice it up and hammer it like that. Just be careful the blade is lying flat and you're hitting directly on the garlic or the force may propel the garlic bits out from underneath the knife.

Also used 5 cloves of garlic for 2 bunches of kangkong. How much that is exactly, I have no idea. Both the wet markets and supermarkets sell them in bunches of that size but they never state how heavy they are. "As thick as a man's wrist" is probably the best description I can come up with right now.

As for the fish, I placed the tofu on a metal plate, sprinkled some chopped spring onions on top before placing the fish on top and around it. Sprinkled some white pepper on all the fish too in case they had a strong fishy smell/taste.

Steamed for 10mins.

It was too long.

Half the fish and all the beancurd disappeared though. His gf doesn't eat fish.

Truth to be told, I'm running out of easy dishes to try.

If this goes on I'm going to have to start making soups.

Anyway, back to my day.

I was done with all the cooking only at 5.40pm. Most of the time was spent on preparing the ingredients and cleaning the bowls and pans from the previous night.

I quickly sliced up a mango, kept it in a plastic container and went to the hospital. Arrived just in time to see the nurse serving the beds around her. Her food and eating utensils were already prepared. I think the nurses were about to feed her after serving everyone else.

Brought the mango because they kept serving her oranges and apples. Both are too hard for her to eat. Oranges are soft but peeling sliced oranges will get messy. Apples are just too hard.

Had to feed her fruits. I don't know whether the vegetables were going to provide her enough vitamin C but I didn't want to take the risk. Mangoes are cheap at the moment anyway.

Speaking of fruits, I saw some yellow dragonfruits at the fruit stall the other day. From Vietnam, according to the vendor.

Yes I'm so noob I've never seen yellow dragonfruits before.

They were small and looked like underdeveloped versions of the purple ones I usually eat. The leafy growths around them looked more like buds because they were smaller and rounder.

Not my photo

Ok, back to my day again.

Returned home only at 8pm. Washed up and had a slow dinner till 10.30pm. I can eat really slowly at times. Mainly because of the mango and chicken feet. I kept the center of the mango containing the seed for myself. That took some time.

Then the chicken feet one of the factories sent us also can't be eaten quickly. It's the white kind with some vinegar added. The owner knows we like it so she sends us some once in a while together with our samples. It's a PR thing I guess.

Not sure if it's working on me though. My impression of her didn't improve due the deliciousness of the chicken feet - her sweaters/abominations still haunt my memories today.

I think I see the sense of a social safety net and free healthcare.

It makes people save less. Less money is stored in banks, ie more money is being circulated in the economy.

In short, the government spends more and gets even more back.

After all, the economy has always been about how much money is changing hands, not in each hand.

Rant 883 / That's Milk?

2011-10-30T01:44:00.000+08:00

FRI

So I tried to order fast food to my office on Deepavali.

MCD doesn't deliver to my office! What kind of fuckery is this??!?!

Fortunately the hawker centre nearby was still opened, so this was the first time I visited that place. Usually I'm out of the office by lunch because... I don't want to eat with my employees. Generation gap.

Would you want to eat with your parents and their friends during lunch on weekdays?

Anyway they have Thai steamboat over there. Who the heck eats in the industrial areas of Singapore when they're free enough to eat steamboat meals with friends?

My bro probably discovered the joy of cooking for someone who appreciates his cooking.

I tell you, you get a nice feeling when someone compliments on your cooking.

Anyway the beef stew he made on Deepavali was pretty good, so he made a larger pot of it today.

On Deepavali, I left a piece of rump steak to thaw in preparation for a stew that night but found more things to do in the office than expected, so I told him to google a recipe like I did and do it himself.

Stews are easy enough that even retards can't ruin it, so I wasn't worried. After all, you just dump everything into a pot of water and cook till they're all mushy. And add a bit of salt and pepper.

Today he went to buy more beef just for this.

I was actually planning to make avocado salad with the extra celery but I was carrying too much when I got home to go and buy the avocados and carrots. This was a fortunate surprise.

So I've decided to send her to Assisi Hospice. The social worker has spoken to me and he has agreed to handle this for me.

The oncologist estimated she has several months left if she manages to avoid a serious infection. Due to the gaping wound on her chest, the risk of infection can't be low. I'm actually surprised she hasn't got a fever yet despite having that wound for months.

The tube to her brain, according to the neurologists, is not a good idea. In better circumstances, that would be okay, but again due to her wound, the tube will create the risk of bringing the infection into the brain. In short, too risky, not recommended.

Surgery is already not an option because of the spread. After scanning her abdomen yesterday, they found that it has spread everywhere.

Chemotherapy is also not recommended due to her age and her physical condition.

In fact the oncologist also recommends palliative care at this stage and spoke to me about the two hospices I can choose from: Assisi and Dover Park.

Stay-in hospices were recommended partly because we don't have a maid, all 3 of us are young and working/studying, and she is going to develop certain symptoms that will required trained specialists to handle.

Because she is not expected to live much longer, hiring a maid is also not a feasible.

The social worker spoke to me this afternoon on some of the same issues, and explained further about the hospices.

Assisi is near Novena MRT while Dover Park, despite its name, is at Tan Tock Seng hospital. One main difference he highlighted was that unlike Assisi, Dover Park offers the option of staying with the patient on her final nights in a private room.

Assisi does not allow visitors to stay overnight.

I'm choosing Assisi. She is going to be unconscious by then. Staying near her won't make her feel any better.

Even now, her psychomotor control is very bad. This morning a friend of hers told me she wasn't eating yesterday and had to be fed. I only visited her in the morning so I didn't watch her eat. She was still ok the day before.

So today I went over during lunch and saw that she was barely able to handle the fork and spoon.

I've discussed this with my bro and his gf, so we'll try to visit her during lunchtime and dinnertime. I can't do much about breakfast. I really don't want to get myself more depressed by depriving myself of my entertainment at night. They can handle dinner much more easily since they have classes till 6pm at NUS nearby.

She'll be transferred to Assisi next week, probably Tuesday. I have no idea what's going to happen then.

Staying in hospices won't be cheap. Without subsidies of any form, it will hit about S$6000 per month.

If my family income is about $2000, I may get 50% subsidy. This is quite possible actually.

However the government subsidy will only last 3 months. Appealing for more will not be possible unless our savings get wiped out by these bills. In other words, I won't get anything beyond 3 months of subsidies, if I get any at all.

The hospice will get someone to assess our finances so that they can decide how much subsidy we need.

The social worker was kinda strange. Maybe it was part of his job but he sounded as if I'm carrying a huge burden by handling everything at home, work and etc. This seemed to be worsened by the fact that I only knew about her condition a few months ago.

What.

This isn't bad. I've been provided with everything I need to survive after her departure. There's nothing terrible about what's happening now other than her imminent death itself.

Emotionally, she's been telling us that she was dying since years ago. We've all long accepted the fact that she's hit the average of 10 years that cancer takes to return. That it took this long was already a fortunate thing for her.

Perhaps if the same had happened to other people, it might have been terrible for them. For me, I have a job with very flexible working hours limited only by how much I'm willing to fork out for transport, so I don't get additional pressure from it. That probably helps a lot.

What's happening to me now is nothing. In a way, I am one of the luckiest people in the world.

In a way.

SAT

For some reason she seemed stronger tonight. My bro visited her in the afternoon and found the nurse feeding her. Just now I merely had to push food onto her spoon with the fork.

Skipped the slice of wholemeal bread as usual. Too chewy. Asked the nurse if I could replace it with something softer but she was too busy to answer me properly. It was medication time, so I wasn't even supposed to disturb her. I only did it because I thought it was a very simple matter.

Apparently it was not. She handed me the menu and told me to choose from it.

The problem is that the bread wasn't mentioned in any of the options, probably because it came with ALL the options. I just thought it was a waste to throw it away every time.

I'm sure some of you would consider eating it. I did, but now I'm old enough to realize that if I ever start eating her food, she might develop this notion that she could eat less so that I could eat more. Who knows? She could very well be imagining that I'm not eating well right now.

That's obviously not true. I just made some awesome chicken breast stir-fried with ginger and spring onion this afternoon.

Then I failed at dinner when my Beijing cabbage stir-fried with chicken breast got way too watery and the starch I tried to throw in... lumped together.

Epic fail.

I learnt then that the starch reacts much faster when thrown into hot water. The temperature is pretty important I guess.

Ah well. At least I feel better now that I know that the nurses feed her whenever we're not around, which means they feed her during breakfast and tea time (at 3pm).

I think the most interesting part of tonight's visit was the old lady who had just arrived today. According to her two visitors, she had "severe dementia". To make it worse, she was pretty deaf.

When I walked into the room, she was already talking loudly to nobody in particular. Or maybe she was talking to someone but whoever that was was ignoring her completely.

According to another patient, she was like that the moment they brought her in.

Even if one could comprehend her mix of Malay, Hokkien and Cantonese (and perhaps some other dialects), it probably couldn't have made any sense.

Near the end of my visit, she kept calling out to me in Hokkien and said some things that sounded like Cantonese. I think she was telling me to bring her home or maybe to the bathroom because she was either urinating or passing motion.

Called out to me lots of times but in Rome, we should all do as Romans do. In this case I just ignored her. At first she kept telling me it was very urgent and at the end, it was out.

Good thing they made her wear diapers... I think. Overheard the female visitor tell the male that she tried to tear off her diaper earlier. Hopefully they had put it back on again.

She wasn't even aware that she had a fractured leg, according to her male visitor. Probably her son, or maybe son-in-law and husband of her female visitor.

I just didn't like how he seemed so irritated.

Then again, I don't have a mother like that.

Rant 882 / I Think This Blog Is Going To Get Pretty Depressing For Some Time

2011-10-27T19:51:00.000+08:00

WED

So the price guide at the NUH website is not completely accurate.

Class C Ward, the cheapest 8-bed ward that's fan-ventilated, costs $33 per night. The 6-bed fan-ventilated Class B2 costs over $60 per night.

Class B1, the cheapest air-conditioned ward and has only 4-beds per ward, costs $260 per night instead of the $180 shown on the website.

This also excludes all the medicine, treatment and consultation fees.

Furthermore, government subsidies only apply for patients staying in the 2 fan-ventilated wards. Apparently I can upgrade from a subsidised ward to a non-subsidised one and still might retain some subsidies, but I cannot get anything if I downgrade the other way.

The upside is that non-subsidised patients get their choice of doctors, although that's useless for me when:

1) I have no idea who's good or bad at NUH
2) We aren't trying to save her life; the point is only to make her end as comfortable as possible

It's not cheap being sick although I'd say Class C wards are still pretty affordable. $33 per night is only $1000 per month. That's the least of one's worries when we take into account the treatment and stuff.

I'll list those when I get the bill in the future, if I'm ever in the mood to dwell on it then.

For my case, I'm prepared to spend half my inheritance on this. I don't expect this to happen but I also understand it is possible that it could exceed that amount.

Not a problem because I also expect my brother to split the bill. I'm not trying to be an ass but I believe in buffers, both in time and money. I need a financial buffer in life constantly, and if I do spend half my inheritance on this, I don't want to think about my buffer for the family business.

So I've been summoned to talk to her neurologists tomorrow morning. 9am. Ugh. I wake up at 9am for when I have to get to the office early.

The doctor told me they had a psychologist assess her and she was found to be unfit to make her own decisions due to her depression and some other problems.

I've already asked her directly last night to confirm this and also judging from her (in)actions for the last 10 years, the answer is simple.

All I'm planning to do is ask them how likely it is to save her, if it is possible to prevent her from suffering if we do not drain her brain and how long it will take before it's over if we don't drain.

At this point I'm very sure it's a waste of their time to save her and they should focus on other patients who are keener on staying alive. Moreover, my mum has already given up on life. Saving her will only make her go through all these crap again in the very near future (her diabetes has to be extremely serious by now since she stopped taking her meds a few months ago, and even a year or two ago, her doctor had already advised her to begin using injections instead of pills).

The expected outcome for tomorrow is that I will ask them to start palliative care for her if possible, and sedation when necessary. I believe right now it's better for her to be unconscious than let her lie on the bed waiting to die, but the next best thing is just to prevent pain.

I've been through a surgery for my shoulder before, so I have an idea what constant pain is like.

So a girl I know who was studying law in Hong Kong the last time we met is now a flight attendant. She was a teacher before that.

Law school must be pretty different from what I thought it was supposed to be.

THU

So it was a very simple conversation with the neurologists. They just told me what to expect and I told them what I expected.

They recommended to the "main team" to refer her to a palliative care team and I got a call from a representative of that group in the afternoon.

The neurologists put my mind to rest when they told me that she will eventually become unconscious sometime in the future due to the tumour in her brain even though it will also give her pain at some point. If it gets painful before she goes completely unconscious, I believe the palliative care people will sedate her appropriately.

Contrary to what some might think, it is nothing like what they show on TV. Family members don't cry all the time, we don't look gloomy constantly and we don't contemplate suicide.

I've lost both parents, so I know.

Crying is of course necessary. IMO it's therapeutic. Holding it in will only cause mental issues in the future.

I still crack jokes, I still laugh and I can still smile when I go to see her despite the fact that she is no longer the person I used to know.

Her memory is messed up, her speech is incoherent and she has been proven to be depressed. Yesterday her employees brought some chicken essence when they visited her. Today when I asked who brought those, she told me it was my bro's gf.

She did buy her chicken essence, but that was weeks ago and that box is still untouched in the living room.

The best thing I can do is to make sure I can handle the business. It's the busiest time of the year, so none of us working here can afford to be too disturbed by this. There are orders to make, goods to check and money to be remitted.

My very first shipment of goods has just been ordered. I'll be finding out for myself what the process is like. Fortunately the factory has agreed to handle the shipping on their end so all I need to do is handle the freight forwarding. I could have handled the shipping too but at the moment, I don't mind the risk of them ripping me off in exchange for a simplification of the process for me.

I think I know what to do. Whatever questions I have, it is now too late to ask my predecessor. I have been given the contact details of everyone I need to call for everything, so I will just call the company I think is the freight forwarder on my end.

All her instructions were given to me in Chinese, so when I made the deal with the new factory online in English, everything's a little less clear for me.

Money is a little problematic at the moment due to some old habits of hers, but I can handle those. I'm a much more honest person, so I dislike owing them money.

Still in the process of getting used to looking at such huge numbers in RMB and recalling that they become very small numbers when converted to SGD.

On the other hand, this new factory demands payment in USD. Hopefully this doesn't complicate things too much.

Hmm... probably not. In fact this could simplify my life a little since unlike the RMB, there is no annual limit on the remittance of USD to China.

For example, I just kinda wasted two trips' worth of cab fare today because of a problem related to this limit. Damn that pointless restriction. Everybody knows it's so easy to bypass it. All it does is inconvenience the very people are who throwing money into their country.

Tomorrow I'll have to go back to the bank and remit again.

Rant 881 / Such Is Life.

2011-10-25T23:38:00.000+08:00

My turtle seems to hate overripe plantains. The flesh of those I threw inside haven't turned black yet, just the skin.

I gave it three and all it did was take 2-5 bites out of each plantain.

Picky little fella.

I know nobody likes to read this sort of unhappy stuff but as you can see, I don't care.

Part of my motivation for typing this comes from my curiosity in whether any of my relatives visits this blog.

So far, no one else except my brother and his girlfriend knows about this and I've been instructed to keep this quiet unless I'm asked as far as my relatives are concerned.

I'm not breaking this rule because I don't believe my relatives visit this blog at all.

As for the friends who come here, I'd very much appreciate it if you guys just act like you didn't see this. I find it hard to enjoy good food in a depressing atmosphere, plus getting away from this is part of the reason why I've been so active in organizing outings.

My mum has finally been hospitalized. I had called 1777 for a non-emergency private ambulance to get her there.

I only did so because she was at the point where she couldn't even stand up anymore. We needed someone to take care of her since she does not want any males to bathe her and stuff, not even her own sons, and palliative care requires a doctor's recommendation.

Paid $80 to bring her to NUH.

I spent practically the entire afternoon and evening waiting due to the bed shortage. Meanwhile they took 3 hours to finish their assessment and another 3-4 to get her warded. After that, they informed me that since it was after office hours (10pm), there were only a few doctors on duty and we would have to wait because we weren't the only people who needed their attention.

While waiting at the A&E for her to be assessed and warded, I saw this giant banner on an opposite building saying "for the future". The rest were covered by trees and I didn't bother to move to read the rest.

Ironic. The future has no place for people admitted through here, the emergency entrance.

Diagnosis is as bad as expected. It is breast cancer, already stage 4. The constant bleeding, which I thought was an old wound that was prevented from healing by her diabetes, was really caused by the sheer mass of the tumour she had been hiding.

Part of it has also spread to her brain and currently blocking brain fluid. Though not urgent, she will soon require a tube to drain that. The problem is that this temporary solution can only last 10 days.

She had already guessed how bad the cancer was and told me as much weeks ago, mainly because things were the same for my father.

Fortunately she is rational, though slightly incoherent. This started on Sunday, when she said I was "金龟独立". She seemed to know what she was saying. To confirm this, I repeated the words back to her and saw her nod.

She is rational as far as I can tell, so I'm inclined to let her make her own decisions until she is no longer so.

Which brings to mind my personal debate about the responsibility of decision-making. I fear making decisions because I fear the consequences of mistakes. However, one of the consequences of pushing this responsibility to others is that I may not get the outcome I desire, and I must accept that.

To avoid the burden of mistakes, I must also lose control of the things around me.

To simplify it further, it's a choice between potentially making things better or just not actively worsen them. And the responsibility.

I had hoped the incoherence was due to dehydration, but after an entire afternoon and evening on the drip, she still said a few things that made no sense to me and the doctors.

I'm fully prepared to respect her decision to not receive treatment. When she is no longer able to make her own decisions, this is the path I will take.

It is over.

At some point in the future, I will request that she is kept unconscious till the end, just like my father was. It would be the best way to go in the absence of euthanasia.

Almost everything after her death has been prepared. She has told me to get her a short Buddhist funeral, just a simple matter of a few monks chanting for 3 days or so. It does not matter if her siblings come.

She has bought her own slot near my father's in the columbarium. It was depressing but she did it.

Her will has been prepared, so everything will be ok for a while. The ownership of the business has been transferred to me and I have been given access to all related bank accounts except the one in Hong Kong.

I have yet to consider that issue. I will be asking whoever handles her will about that matter. If not, I'll just fly there.

As for the business itself, I estimate that I have enough savings to last more than a year as long as I don't do too badly. My mum could do it when my father passed away without showing her how to handle the business at all, and my buyers and employees would find it in their interests to help me keep this business profitable even if all they care about is money.

Everything ends, good and bad. C'est la vie.

I'm not extremely depressed or anything. My bro and I have been thoroughly prepared emotionally for this. She's been telling us that she was dying for years though I'd always thought she was just depressed.

Denial, anger and acceptance. We've been at the third for months. Her hospitalization merely marks the beginning of the end.

I only wonder if I will be able to prepare my children for life after my death as well as my parents did for us, if I ever have any.

Rant 880 / Sexual Harassment Laws Are Surprisingly New.

2011-10-24T01:31:00.000+08:00

"Smells like fresh vagina in here =D"

Shin Tokyo / Ramen Ten at Clementi Cityvibe has terrible sushi and mediocre ramen. Seen a lot of Ramen Ten offers on the deal websites but never really looked at them.

Then we found this seemingly good discount for Shin Tokyo.

It was only when I got there that I noticed both signboards are above the same entrance.

The sushi was fine at first.

But when it started to get busy, the sushi rice became horrible.

It was way too mushy. Too much water or something.

We practically stopped eating after that. Took a few to occupy our itchy hands and mouths as we waited for the few non-sushi items to appear on white plates on the conveyor belt.

For the rest of 2 hours we just... discovered how bad sushi can possibly get.

Luckily they also served a few plates of potato wedges, onion rings and some other stuff, or we'd just be drinking green tea.

To truly accept life, we must accept death.

Why don't people do that?

Because when we accept death, we become more detached from the world. If we are to accept death, we must understand that everything ends.

We don't want to think about that.

Because thinking about it makes us lose part of our motivation to achieve anything.

It's not going to be there forever anyway.

I'm going to lose it in 50 years anyway.

I have a time limit for how long I can enjoy this.

Titles, awards and everything else don't matter to a dead body.

I believe that's why people in general find it so hard to accept that everything ends in death.

That's why the concept of an afterlife is so well-received in so many civilizations since antiquity.

Those who believe in the afterlife believe that what they have now can still retain their meaning to themselves after death.

Hence, they get more drive to get out and do things.

Who has more influence on society? The achiever or the guy who never really did anything because he understood nothing matters in the end?

It's not a definite thing. I'm not saying everyone who doesn't believe in an afterlife suck in life, but like evolution, it's all about the little differences in probabilities.

When a person dies, it's all over.

There is absolutely no chance that you will ever hear or see that person again.

Even when a person moves to a faraway place and loses contact with you, there is still a small chance that you might get to find him/her again. However improbable that is, the thought would still linger in the back of your mind and comfort you.

Not death.

The absoluteness is disturbing even for those who have felt it at least once.

Probably because nothing else in life is as ultimate as death.

"When there's a will, there's a way."

This is the only situation where this rule does not apply.

There is no way.

There is no reload.

There is no restart.

Even if you watch a video of that person, it can never be the same.

It is over.