Rant 095 / Mercy On His Ribs

I'd say this year's Lunar New Year is better than the ones before, simply for the number of house visits I've had so far. 3 may be a small number for you, but I've been having merely 1 or 2 each year since I was 5.

The first 2 visits were quiet. The 10-11 of us didn't have much to talk about. We were from all 3 unis, coming from all sorts of courses, having nothing much in common but the fact that we were from the same class in Pri 6. Since I didn't have much to say, and the silence is rather awkward, I tried to ignore it by fishing out my phone and recording the process.

As an amateur cameraman, I must admit taking an interesting video is harder than it seems. I have to keep an eye out for where the interesting stuff is happening and find the right position to place myself.

With the presence of a few cute young ladies, it really was a waste that my camera's video resolution is really low. According to the phone's display, it is 176. I guess it means 1.76 megapixels. None of the faces are clearly displayed in the videos because of this. Seriously, the only thing I can really make out in the videos are JY's face and fl's long legs.

Because of fl's suggestion, I realize that I need to say something when the situation is quiet. A commentary. I did try it out in some situation, and I find it easier than Table Topics. I think I shall do it more from now on.

And in the last video, I made some gasping noise which really didn't come out too well in the recordings. Now Cal wants all the videos. I shall forever be embarrassed by this. I need to keep in mind never to make strange noises when the mic is on.

Oh f*ck it!



Next on the list is the NTU TMC BBQ. MOAR VEEDS!
Then... Charlie's housewarming party! MOAR N MOAR VEEDS!


Perhaps next time I should get a real camera. Wonder if that camera my mum bought for work has a video-record function. Or maybe I should ask Vic to bring his out for every outing.




Somehow I have lost interest in doing all tutorials. I am now lagging behind in Maths. Good thing I don't have Physics classes this sem, and all my electives don't have homework. Only subjects I need to worry about is Life Sciences and Material Science. Both are tough, at least for me.






Just finished watching Rush Hour 3. It was funny, but too short. I felt that everything just happened too suddenly, too quickly. The plot felt... condensed. But the humour was there.

Also just finished watching Dave's Pro At Cooking Episode 2. As usual, Dave was practically oozing ATTITUDE. And as usual, he sacked his pretty assistant halfway through the show. But this time, he also sacked the guest taster. LOL! "If you don't like it, you can go to hell!"




I think my roommate doesn't need to sleep. He merely lies on the bed for a few hours in order to wait for sunrise and then he dresses up for class. He seems to be able to save up all his fatigue for weekends, during which he sleeps all the way till 2pm, provided I'm not there to accidentally wake him up.




This June vacation may be more boring than the last! 2 very important guys are busy with projects during that very sacred period of the year! Projects! What blasphemy!





And it seems that Hx wants to stay in my house if we were to ever organize another overnight stay again. But it is true that my room is bigger. And my bed too. More work for me next time!!

Rant 094 / OMG! The Korean Starcraft Replays On Youtube Are Stunning!

Sometimes things that come out of my mouth sound strange to me. Like a few days ago, a friend was asking me and another friend when we first started wearing glasses. I said I started in secondary school, and my friend gave the same reply.

Then I changed my mind and said I started wearing one when I was born. My mum tried to hand me the milk bottle but I didn't respond because I couldn't see it.

Imagine a baby with glasses.

Where the heck did that idea come from? That friend who asked even asked me whether I thought of it on the spot. Of course I thought it up on the spot, but even I couldn't believe I am capable of spouting such amazingly ridiculous nonsense.

On a more serious note, I find myself in no mood to do any work, even though I know I have to complete all tutorials for this week and the next, in preparation for Lunar New Year celebrations aka 4 days of lazing around.

This is troubling. I have to complete all these by tomorrow, because I'll be going home by Wed afternoon. Homework is strictly forbidden at home. Shit. I better stop blogging and do something about my math.

Hey! Typing out this shit helps!

Rant 093 / To Make Your Jeans Less Baggy, Gain Weight!

It is funny how other people are whining about how their parents are making them upset or giving trouble to them. Their parents either want them to want what they want them to want, or live the way they think their children should.

This doesn't seem to be happening to me. In fact, while other parents are telling my friends to stop wanting so much, I get a unending series of questions of whether I want this or that. While my friends are unhappy about what their parents don't allow to have, my mum worries that I'm not having enough.

Life.

I imagine that my friends would occasionally tell their parents that they want a certain thing. In my family, it is the reverse -I tell my mum I don't want many, many certain things. I don't want those seaweed snacks. I don't want a new t-shirt. I don't need a new computer. I don't need a new belt. I don't want just about 99% of what she asks me about.

To some, this must sound absurd. How many times do I hear my friends rejecting an offer to get free stuff from their parents? Never! Yet I do that as a matter-of-course all the time. And if my mum asks me whether I want a new car, I'd say no just the same - I don't and am not interested in a license.

But I wonder if the problem lies within me or my mum. I suspect it is in me. I have never seen a friend who wears a shirt that has been accidentally, partly bleached. I have not met many who do not want to drive a car. And I don't see anyone wearing shorts/bermudas that are worn to a sort of translucence. I have done and am still doing all the above, and more.

When someone whines about troubles with their mothers (never their fathers somehow), I cannot understand how they feel. My mum is too generous, compared to her peers in Singapore. In fact, the only trouble I can ever have with her is that I don't like to talk to her because she believes she will die soon, which is not altogether impossible given her medical history. It gets very morbid when I talk to her, which I sometimes avoid.

Just the above fact alone will totally shut any of the whiners up, if I tell any of them. But I keep this in, simply because these smart people need to learn special lessons the hard way just like everyone else. Life is harsh.

But I, too, believe her days are numbered. Everything I do to make myself seem more independent, is partly to satisfy her. But unlike most people I know, I believe that death is not horrible thing. For some, I understand that life is a burden. It is not wrong to commit suicide, something I dislike Catholicism for. Life is complex, and no one should make sweeping statements when it comes to life. Life is seldom so straightforward, and as such, death can sometimes be a release.

It is not wrong to kill oneself in certain situations. Take for example a cancer patient. Everyone knows it is horrible to die that way, but how many actually knows how a cancer patient dies?

Chronic pain. This is the reason all terminal cancer patients are pumped full of morphine to induce a semi-permanent coma. Cancer patients die in extreme pain, and it is not a fast death. That is, if he or she isn't killed by some other quicker complications before. In such scenarios, I believe Dr Kevorkian is right. People have the right to choose how they die, and if they choose to die in a more comfortable fashion( eg by injection), fuck any religion that vilify suicide.

Because I saw my father's death, I believe that physician-assisted suicide should be legalised. No one wants to end up lying unconscious in a hospital for weeks or months, completely swollen from the heavy doses of medication, knowing you are just waiting to die. And as if your death isn't enough, the hospital places in front of your family the bill for all their services.

In such a case, I don't want world-class medical attention from some bunch of genius doctors who graduated from Harvard or whatever magna cum laude; I want to die with minimal pain!

And together with the obvious fact that Earth's natural resources isn't able to feed our present population, let alone tolerate our expected growth rate, people should worship Kevorkian! Unfortunately, many of his supporters are dead. Obviously.

Well, that was anti-climatic, but I just couldn't hold it in once I thought of it.




"My aim in helping the patient was not to cause death. My aim was to end suffering. It's got to be decriminalized." - Dr Jack Kevorkian

Rant 092 / Too Much And Too Little

Part 1:
23/1/08
Again, I play Heroes 5. I am now playing the expansion Tribes of the East. Again, I get to play as the Undead, also known as the Necropolis. This race really suits my style. In a long game, the Necropolis always has the advantage, simply from the fact that my armies never lose a single soul in any medium/small battle. In fact, I always GAIN units from battles.

I know the Dungeon has seriously powerful units, but some units are always lost in medium-sized battles, especially against large numbers of neutral ranged units. Well, if in every one of your battles, the enemies are bunched up together into one stack for you to pwn at your own pace, I withdraw my case. But once in a while, a Dungeon player does lose its units, especially the Assassins or the riders, which are rather important when fighting foes with obscenely large armies.

A powerful caster Hero always has a limit. Implosion can only deal 2k or so damage by the end of a CAMPAIGN. When fighting in a battle with each side having zounds of any unit, 2k damage is not enough. Even Meteor Showers of equal level cannot wipe out enough of any of these stacks.

That is the advantage an Undead player has. Sacrificing quality for quantity, Undead units are really poor at killing anything. But with the high Defense and Knowledge of Undead Heroes, they are also hard to kill, and easy to revive. What this means is that killing any Undead units doesn't affect the battle as much as you'd like to believe.

One very good example is the Specter. With a 50%(or is it 75%?) chance to avoid damage, killing it is more of a hassle than anything else. Throw in the Raise Dead spell and you have the perfect survivor. With the annoying ability to avoid attacks, the Hero doesn't even need to keep raising it. In a war of attrition, the Specter is the ultimate unit.

But I hate it because it doesn't have enough damage. It is something I use when fighting against ranged neutral units. In other situations, the Banshees can do the trick.

Both Dungeon and Necropolis Heroes need Conjuration Magic to win. Dungeon players need it to summon stuff to fight at higher levels; Necro Heroes need it to raise their dead units, and summon more units.

In ToE, the AI is much smarter. No longer do they concentrate on the summoned units, or the images, but aim at the most dangerous real units. No more cheap exploitation tactics for us players. Because of this, it is no longer feasible to summon images of everyone. In fact, only the ranged units are worth that spell, and that is if you put enough pressure at the front to prevent the enemy Hero from simply casting an Earth Spike on the image and the unit.

And with the number of images of every unit limited to ONE, this spell is no longer the Holy Grail for caster Heroes.

When I imagine a battle between 2 titanic armies between a Dungeon and a Necro player, my bet is always on the Necro. A Dungeon Hero is not meant to last for such a long time. They rely mainly on their Spellpower, not units. They need to make use of their powerful spells in early and mid game to win devastating victories against their enemies. I mean, what can a really powerful Destruction caster do to a stack of 2-3k skeleton archers?

A Necro, in the worst case scenario, can tolerate a pyhrric victory better than a Dungeon player. I'd expect the most annoying Specter to be the final stack left alive in the army.

But being a Necro is not that easy either. Each Raise Dead spell cast in battle will reduce the max HP of the raised stack by a certain fraction. Once in a long battle, my Vampire Lords had only 1HP each by the end, though I still managed to win without casualty.

In the above case, a basic Eldritch Arrow would have killed all 39 of them, but the enemy had run out of mana while my Knowledge/Defense-based Necro still had half his mana left.

While the basic strategy of all the races is to maintain zero casualties until the very last battle, only the Necro can ENLARGE his armies all the way. Together with extremely annoying Dark spells like Blindness and Puppet Master, it is hard to lose as a Necro.











Another bad day for stock markets worldwide. I hope it's not another economic crisis. Some parts of the world haven't even recovered from the last one. Me included. I'm broke. University education is costing me an arm and a leg. With that loan I'm having, I'll have to slave for DBS until I approach retirement age, that is, if they haven't extended the age again by then.












Recently noticed something really strange. I wonder if she is angry or shy. As an openly insensitive person, I cannot tell. Curious, though.









Part 2:

28/1/08


Been watching what I had recorded of the nydc outing. Until now, I had not realized my voice sounds so unlike what I have always heard. My voice had always sound so deep to me, but I find that it is not so for anyone else. It is normal, but it's something that had never occurred to me.

Watching vids of my outings is always interesting. Should remember to record more often.






Just made a long comment on someone's blog. Made it somewhat serious. Wonder what the response will be like. Probably, it will be quite negative.







I thought Cloverfield was a decent film. Not much of a plot. Reactions that I dislike. But I think I'm cool with the shaky camera. After all, I have watched my amateur vids enough times to be used to it.

Rant 091 / Short And Sweet

Every time you shake hands with someone, do you also note that it's very likely he holds his penis regularly with the same hand?

And the same probably applies to you too?

And that both of you are gripping each other's master(bation) hands?

Isn't that disturbing?

Rant 090 / Why Pay Good Money To Detox Your Body? Just Eat Spoilt Food!

A fantastic in which nothing happened. Life is good when nothing happens. At least nothing that I don't want to happen didn't happen. What's wrong with a life that lacks that special spark? Nothing. You're just greedy wishing for more.

Sometimes I wonder why people wish for an exciting life. Can they handle the price? Or have they ever thought about it? I believe not. I mean, if they had they wouldn't be wishing for it. Like climbing Mount Everest, the chance of a lifetime. One of the greatest honors a person can have in life. Until one starts thinking about why it is such a feat to reach the summit. The countless unmarked graves in the area may be a clue.

Would the goal be worth the price? Is reaching the summit worth the risks? It may be so for some, but not everyone.

Boredom is a reason. The lack of interesting activities can drive one to do things that one wouldn't dream of doing in other circumstances. Kind of like love, drugs and cash.




Excellent weather right now at 4.30am. Windy and sunless. If only it can be the same in the day everyday. I'm allergic to the local climate.




What can one expect from another year of academic work? What is life?



On the bus, I took a seat on the first storey of the double decker. Two girls, also from NTU, were standing in front of me. The seat was one of those that line the sides of the bus. Opposite of me were my friends, but there was no seat for me over there. I saw the seat that I eventually took at the wrong side, and with the weight of my laptop pulling on my shoulder, I sat down.

At one stop, one guy who sat next to my group of friends alighted, together with the person sitting next to me. The two young ladies then started telling each other to take the sit next to me, not seeing the one behind them(they were facing me). I didn't see the empty seat opposite of me either, until a friend pointed at it to me. And while I was waiting for the bus to stop, they started to play "Scissors, Paper, Stone" to decide who sits down next to me.

It seemed ludicrous to me. It was just a seat, and they weren't even carrying anything. So just when they were going to conclude their important decision-making process, I smiled and asked them both to take my seat and the one next to it, while I move to the opposite side next to my gang.

One of my friends said I was a "gentleman". The girls laughed quite a bit and sit down. I was not actually amused, but I smiled politely. I am not a nice person, but I was the most logical person in that situation.

Putting myself in their shoes, if a friend and I were telling each other to take that one seat, I'd not argue and just take it. By the time we finished deciding, we may already have reached out stop. What's the point of putting in effort to decide small, insignificant things?

It is like holding a debate to argue whether a pencil you are going to sell should be priced at $0.55 or $0.54. Useless chatter.

Or is that what makes me less talkative?





I believe in logic, but I am an illogical person. Am I a hypocrite?




How does modern democracy differ from hypocrisy?



Who cares?

Rant 089 / Can You Actually Read My Mind? Poor You!

In the midst of all the madness that is my thoughts, one thought stands out from the rest. We are going to need more monkeys...











Blogging is a job that requires expertise and unique experiences that no one really cares about. Such experiences include ingrown toenails, the right Shift key on keyboard being faulty, and you trusting in your girlfriend whose last name, coincidentally, ends with ".mpeg".

Typing a blog article is a strenuous and tedious task. It is essential for a blogger to have strong fingers, unholy amounts of patience and too much free time. To lack any of these is to lack the ability to be a decent blogger. And no one wants to be an indecent blogger. Kidding...












Recently I saw this bumper sticker on some forum that I can't get out of my mind. It says," Bombing for Peace is like Fucking for Virginity". In a way, it is true, but this is too simplistic a view. As I grew up, I discover a world I had never known to exist - a world where everything affects more of other things that one can ever imagine. Every action has more consequences that anyone can possibly think of before doing it.

For example, if you annoyed someone at one time, this may affect his decision to help you if you ever ask for it in the future. Every bit matters. That one time may just tilt the balance. And every action affects many other things, including that person's impression of you, that person's ability to understand you, the witnesses' impression of you and etc.

And that view about bombing for peace being the same as having sex for virginity is definitely not exactly right. After all, much peace can be created by periods of war and violence.

War is caused, generally, by discontent. Such unhappiness may not appear overnight, but they are most likely bottled up within the peoples' hearts until it reaches the highest point they can hold without resorting to violence to release it. Once that point is reached, one should be able to observe various smaller forms of such release, including protests and riots and diplomatic negotiations between the countries involved.

Anything can make the gauge rise above that level, even if it is not caused by Man. A large number of civil wars were caused by famines, which were in turn caused by droughts. The straw that broke the camel's back. Sometimes war can be sparked by an accident, provided the countries were already planning for it. In this case, that accident, true or not, is really just an excuse to get the armies going. A convenient casus belli.

In order to attain peace, the most direct way is to get rid of those who are discontent. Appeasement works, but it is usually temporary and more costly. Brain-washing is currently the most popular method around the globe. By phrasing everything to make the world sound like a more beautiful place, and reducing the amount of media exposure of the uglier side of our world, we can live happier lives and be less upset.

Bombing for peace works more effectively than negotiations, simply because not everyone listens to reason. All the parties involved may want peace, but they may not speak the same language, so to speak. A very good example is in Israel. An outsider trying to judge the situation usually will have difficulty separating the "wrong" side from the "right" side. Everyone wants peace, but in very different forms of it. Some may want peace in the form of them living alone in that place. Some may want peace in the form of revenge. Some may want peace in the form of everyone living happily together.

Strife is unavoidable until everyone follows the same set of principles. Until then, the world cannot speak the same language and war will always exist. Fighting it out is a temporary solution, but it is the simplest. And after fighting, peace will always return, at least for the victor. Which is why everyone fighting in a war wants to win.













I have started to do it. I have never tried to do it before. It is difficult, but for the future, I must practice. Enjoy guessing.












War is not meaningless. War is not useless. War is not something we must avoid. War is a means to decide who's ideology has a stronger following. Who's beliefs are more popular. Who's followers are better.

War decides lives. War makes life more interesting. War is horrible. War is terrifying. But it is what makes humans human. Not being able to understand each other fully, mistrust is unavoidable. Cultural differences must exist. War must exist.

Go start a war. When I'm safely in my grave, of course.