Rant 219 / Red Hot Burning Acer

I just woke up (7am now) from an extremely weird dream. Been so long since I woke up from a dream I can remember.

It was evening, about 6pm, and I was near my home. I went because I needed a haircut (which is true in reality because I may not have the motivation and time to go for a haircut from now on until the end of exams). When I was done, I thought I'd have dinner at the market before going back to hall.

First stalls I saw were some pasar malam fruit stalls starting to set up their stuff. Several young men were there, apparently learning how to operate the machines because they were going to work part time that night for the stalls. I saw one guy from TMC, went to say hi and asked him why he was paying so much attention to some old dude explaining how to operate his juice machine. That's how I knew they were going to work part time that night.

There were some stalls selling Asian artworks like masks (like those they use in traditional Japanese drama that frown instead of smile), calligraphy, chopsticks and even pencils (not artwork here but probably the tools).

First thing I saw and wanted was the beancurd dessert. I ordered one, but the stall owners were confused. I finally understood the problem when I asked for the time they usually open. 12am. Fucking supper stall. Arrived at 6pm to prepare...

So I walked and saw one of the guys I knew in the army selling chicken rice. Or rather, eating a piece of chicken because there's no one buying at that moment. I walked towards him but he seemed be looking at some other random direction. In fact, though I slapped the glass of the counter hard, he did not meet my stare. Why bother disturbing some guy who's deliberately avoiding me? So I continued.

As I wandered I met Ivan and XL. Weird that I'd dream about them, but not weird that even in my dreams they come together. They had just finished dinner and were going to dump their trays somewhere. I greeted him and went on trying to find dinner. Then I saw why they were there - the whole gang was having dinner together there and the rest were finishing their dinners too.

So I walked to the table, greeted them, put down my bag wondering what sort of coincidence it was turning out to be. Then I turned around and saw a relatively new Japanese food stall. They had a large glowing plastic board displaying their food and right there in the center, the largest picture caught my eyes.

It was beef fried in tempura batter and served with Japanese rice.

It was something I've never seen before and sounded like something I really needed to try. (I invent food in my dreams??)

It was called "Tenchi Apocalipse". I can still remember the name exactly how the "y" was replaced by an "i" and it sounded like a game. In fact, I remember all the rest of the dishes were named after video games, but not the names exactly. (Googling the name gave me results linking this name to the anime, Tenchi Muyo.)

But it was then that HX saw how I was staring at it and wondering wtf I was looking at and mentioned how it was too late for me to buy. Then ZY explained that to properly enjoy this dish I'd need to order all the other dishes on that board. Something about having to dip it into the sauces in all the other dishes to make it taste good. Sound like a damn complicated marketing gimmick to me. And no one was still hungry enough to eat with me, which means I could not order it and fully appreciate it at that time.

Right there and then, I realized I didn't know what I should have for dinner at all! So many types of food available but I didn't know what to choose anymore! I've never felt this since a very long time ago. Panic set in and I woke up.

I don't know if I should call this a nightmare. Not frightening, but I woke up from panic. Damned exams are giving me bad sleep.







Worst thing ever to hear from the lips of your girlfriend: "Even my father lasts longer than you in bed!"







So I've been burning my chocolate since my first attempt. Didn't really believe it was burnt even though it tasted mildly that way. Thought it was normal for that brand of unsweetened chocolate until today when I melted the chocolate by placing it on the heater for only a minute or so. I was impatient and it did not taste burnt at all.

How was I to know that I had burnt it? It didn't bubble, it didn't harden and only the flavour was slightly changed. It sounds incredibly stupid though.

Rant 218 / Crichton Died

Here's a really weird idea. Say a relative of yours took photos of you naked when you were a little child. Nothing wrong there. But thirty years later when you have turned into a homosexual pedophile, somehow these photos come into your possession.

Would it be wrong to masturbate to them?

It'll be something like masturbating to a mirror, right? Except worse because of the element of pedophilia. Or is it?

Technically, it's not illegal to have nude photos of yourself even if they were photos of your very much younger self, unless you sell/give them out to others. But morally, it is quite debatable especially if you masturbate using them.

Tricky problem. I'd say it's not wrong except for the incredible amount of narcissism that you would need to have to do such a thing with full knowledge that it was yourself in those pics. Fuck, you're masturbating to yourself, if that's not narcissism nothing is.

But other than that, it might be morally wrong too since pedophilia is inherently "bad", and ditto for homosexuality for many people. Still, it's not that different from masturbating to your own image in a mirror. Is it wrong to do that? I don't see how it can be. Bordering madness, true, but wrong?













Food is a form of entertainment. Not only is eating fun, but so is the cooking process.

First, food can be played with like a toy.


Second, it can be a great time waster.


Third, sometimes it just looks plain funny.

What's there not to like?










Finally feeling irritated by the scorching heat of my keyboard, I finally decided to wipe the vents at the bottom of the laptop with a piece of wet tissue paper. And that was when I felt how it was really burning at the center ventilator. Probably the processor. Seeing that the tissue wasn't dusty, I folded the used side inwards (so that only the clean sides faced out) and placed it right under the vent (doesn't block because I placed something under my laptop to elevate it and give it more room for ventilation). Checked it an hour later and it was dry and warm. I threw it away and used a paper napkin, poured some water on it so that the whole piece was wet, and placed it under the vent.

Again, an hour was all it took to dry up and become warm. In fact, the area right under the vent was flatter than the rest of it, like it was ironed by the hot air blowing out of the vent. No wonder I got the Blue Screen of Doom so quickly. All that heat must have screwed something up inside.

From now on I'm leaving a piece of wet paper under the laptop whenever I remember.

Rant 217 / DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Red Alert 3 requires slightly lower specs than my laptop's. Low settings again. Apparently, the anti-piracy measures employed by EA for this game is much more drastic, requiring some sort of reactivation after using the game every 5 times. Let's see what the major groups in the P2P scene can do. In ViTALiTY and RELOADED I trust.






Wow! China's biggest egg producer has admitted to having unhealthy levels of melamine in its eggs last week! Eggs! FFS! They feed their chickens with melamine! WTF? Wonder what else they can't eat in China now.






It's strange how Muslims seem to hate Jews now. Weren't Muslims less anti-Semitic than Christians historically? In Islam, Jews are seen as something like their equals because they both believe in the Old Testament, therefore the same God/Allah, just that they have different major prophets. Christians, on the other hand, had always been Jew-haters because of many reasons. One is because Jews were the cause of the death of Jesus. Even though Jesus himself was a Jew.

Now, it's like Christians rarely express anti-semitic feelings, especially after WWII. But the situation in Israel is another story. Muslims seem to be the major Jew-hater now ever since the British made Israel a Jewish state and the Americans stupidly stuck their nose into something that is none of their business. The British escaped with their butts unscathed and now the US is taking all the shit from the Muslim radicals.

So different from a thousand years back, when the Romans converted to Christianity and began to attack Jewish temples (Jerusalem and the Second Temple) and blah blah blah. Meanwhile, the Muslim lands would give free passage to the Jews.









Just got my first Blue Screen of Death for this laptop. Fuck. It's only been, what, 5 months? Wtf is with this bs? Was watching Scrubs when I got it and JD kept repeating the same syllable when this error occured. Damn irritating as I took the photo. Good thing I'm using a headset, so I could just take it off. Took a few photos just in case it ever becomes useful. The next laptop I buy will need to be much more lasting than this.


Now the computer isn't performing as well as before. Once in a while it will lag (framerate suddenly lower and etc), for some reason I don't understand.

Rant 216 / Chocolate Every Day

1am.

Rain. It lowers the temperature, but it makes insects fly into my room either for warmth or light. Even with my insect repellant turned on, 2 bugs of significant sizes invaded my privacy tonight. Fortunately, I still have a bottle of Baygon here.





4am.
So I made my first batch of hot cocoa ever. Didn't stir the vanilla enough. My second mug had too much vanilla flavour.







I may have finally to create a temporary solution for my sleep problem. Last night I slept at 6pm, woke at 12am and right now at 8.40am, I'm still wide awake. If this continues till after 5pm, then I'm totally fine with it. Been wondering how I'm going to cope with the exams.

Oh wow, I thought I'd take a short 30min nap at 11am just now. I woke at 7pm despite the alarm I'd set using my handphone. There's no alarm on my phone, but I'm very sure I set the alarm because it was the first thing I did when I went to bed. Must have turned it off asleep...







According to the specs listed on Fallout 3's website, I can play the game!!!! FUCK YEAH!!!! ATI Radeon HD 2400 series is final ATI HD graphics card listed. Means I will be playing at the lowest settings again, like Mass Effect. Better than nothing.

Still, the few times I saw screenshots of Mass Effect at mostly High settings, I learnt what I was missing. All the designs on the aliens were blurred; the little details like tattoos and stuff were almost invisible. The Asari look almost human with weird hair and blue skin on my com, but in those screenshots they were supposed to have some very intricate designs on their faces. :(

Better than nothing.

Another game to be stored for after exams.







10pm

My second batch of cocoa is better than my previous. Nothing wrong with it now, except that the cocoa didn't dissolve completely. Out of milk now, so no more cocoa until I buy more some day.

Rant 215 / Food Is Not Just For Eating

It's 4.20am on a Monday morning. What's the chance of seeing TWO people in a kitchen at this sort of time and day? I must be on one of the extreme end of my LUCK scale today.

Oh yea, my chocolate frosting is fucking epic. Maybe it's because I rarely eat cake, or maybe it really is fucking epic, in the end, only I get to taste it so far. Will make more for other people next time.

And just when I thought I have everything ready to make some hot cocoa, I find out my can of condensed milk is almost empty. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Buying milk later.










Noticed the bicycle shop near Clementi MRT is missing. It used to be located near the Macdonald's, but I didn't see it the last time I went pass it in a cab. Now I don't know where to buy bicycles.
















Here's an epic article that clearly illustrates how people think outside the box. This guy is discussing how the possession of child-pornography is basically a thoughtcrime. For those who aren't familiar with the term "thoughtcrime" go read 1984 by George Orwell, but I think the term is pretty self-explanatory.

But he's got a point in part of his argument - if the person has a computer-generated pictures of this genre that are produced without using any children, is this still a heinous crime? He cited a case in which a person with a clean record was charged with 20 counts of possession and was jailed for 200 years. TWO FUCKING CENTURIES!!! Would the previously described example get the criminal the same sentence? Probably. Would he really deserve it? Logically, doesn't seem so.

The thing is, in the computer graphics example, no one had done anything wrong to anyone. Yet it is still a crime in countries where pornography is legal. Does it really make sense?

And if you're going to give me the reason that such a type of porn will encourage or increase the chance of this happening in real life, eg child molesters, then you really should take a look at what they do to women in Japanese adult videos (JAV). They have, for example, rape and molest porn in which actresses ( I always assume that because they don't seem to react very violently) are raped or fondled in all sorts of settings, including trains and buses.

So that reason is bullshit.

In fact, if computer-generated graphics of child porn is legalised, those disgusting fuckers will have a way of releasing their urges without hurting any children. Instead of going to Cambodia or Russia for the underage girls, or using videos featuring real children, they can just masturbate at home using such media. This is a much less harmful solution.

Yes it may sound horrifying, but let's face it, underage prostitutes do exist. Maybe this will lessen the demand for them. Of course, this may be a little too extreme.

Still, it doesn't make much sense if people download pirated copies of fake child porn and get jailed for 10-20 years for each item. You're not even "enabling" them, if the arguments of anti-piracy organizations are to be believed. Instead, you'll be disabling them! Two wrongs do make a right in this case.

All these doesn't apply to Singapore, since porn is outlawed here. But in the US?







Once I mentioned to my bro that he should stop playing Second Live because Atlantica Online because it's more fun and they pay you to play. He gave me the "Right..." look and told me that if he's interested in the money, Second Life pays more if he sells his accounts online to other people.

I'm really outdated in these stuff. Oh well, nothing wrong with not being a hardcore MMORPG player anyway.

Rant 214 / Another Short Post - Changing My Blogging Habits.

Wonders of wonders! I have found my solution! They sell another type of baking chocolate at NTUC - Special Dark! So instead of buying Unsweetened, I'm buying this. It is "bitter sweet", which is basically slightly sweet but still bitter. It is edible, unlike Unsweetened.

It was probably sold out for the last few weeks, which explains the empty spaces around the stack of unsweetened chocolate.

Since I've got this, I'm using the last ounce of unsweetened chocolate to make chocolate frosting.. for my bread. It's easier and the goal of sweetening unsweetened chocolate has become obsolete.

Anyway, if I'm going to turn the mix back to solid chocolate, I'm going to have to learn how to temper the chocolate. A tedious process, I have little interest in that so far.

Next on list: find out how much chocolate to add to caramel to be able to taste both chocolate and caramel. In the last few attempts, the caramel flavour was minimal.

Playing with caramel is fun because it smells so good. And now that I have a metal spoon, I can make all the caramel I want (plus I have few uses for this bag of sugar I bought anyway). But it IS dangerous because molten dry caramel is freaking hot. Adding water will make it sputter because its similar to pouring water on a very hot piece of metal. It explodes in a mild way.

Still, it's fun. Smells good and you get a very tasty treat. When I feel like it I'm going to make some caramel, roll it around the spoon and cool it to make a lolipop-like caramel candy. Screw the caramel they sell out there, this is the original home made stuff, man. Plus I have a little bottle of vanilla here. Might come into use. Vanilla caramel?

Rant 213 / The Papal Bull And The Sicilian Bull Have Nothing In Common

Oh man, now I see why Arisa Oda disappeared from the gravure scene. She freakin moved to the AV industy! Why, oh why?? Is it the power of the dark side? The money??

Now she's called Mayama Mika. Her move wasn't exactly jaw dropping, but still, with her fantastic figure and her unique style in her gravure vids I thought she'd have went on to TV shows or something. But porn??

My only guess is that she knows she's not getting any younger and her body isn't as fit as before. I noticed her butt isn't as gorgeous as before, but flatter. Nice move, kinda. Millions of men would have killed to see this latest video back when she was still Arisa Oda. Her reputation as one of the best gravure models guarantees the success of at least her first porn vid.

Then again, she's only 26...

I don't know, I've always thought that porn was for women whose looks aren't good enough to make it as gravure idols. It'd be sad for her to just fade away as a porn actress.







Zombie Master has finally got a new version! No patch, only a full install file, which means I have to delete the old version. But... Molotovs are now available to the Survivors, which is basically grenades that burn after exploding. And the Zombie Master can now summon Immolators, suicide zombies that explode upon death. Woohoo!








I'm beginning to prefer to stay in the hall than at home. Except for the inconsistently bad internet connection and lack of air con, I don't have any complaints. Maybe I will next semester, when I leave this single room.

Single rooms are so quiet! And I can cook at 4am with no worries of disturbing my roommate. Or have my roommate keeping me awake with his typing or whatever. I hope the roommate in my next room either doesn't exist or is going overseas for exchange.






Still trying to figure out what is wrong with my chocolate. No clue on the Net, so will have to continue testing. Will be buying vanilla extract tomorrow, together with a spoon and more groceries. Amateur chocolatier in the making.

Bought cocoa powder on Fri thinking I could try making chocolate with it. Turns out cocoa powder + butter = chocolate bar. Fuck. It's basically my baking chocolate without the fats. So now I'm going to use it to make cocoa drink, but it needs vanilla. Another reason to buy vanilla.







Saw this funny post about this american guy who worked in a old folks' home where the old folks were mainly war vets. It was Halloween the day before and they had to dress up in a costume for work. He went as a Vietcong and now he's looking for a new job.