The coffee stall owner refused to sell her coffee beans whole.
At first I thought I misheard what she said and that she had also misheard what I said, so she had to repeat herself twice before I knew I heard it right the first time.
What?
How does grinding the beans make any difference as far as her sales are concerned?
Why must she sell her beans in powder form?
This is the first time I am so completely stumped my only guess doesn't even make sense.
And I'm guessing she somehow adds powdered maize as a filler through her grinding machine into the mix and has been doing that all these decades, except...
1) I don't see how the maize can be stored inside without anyone knowing.
2) She weighs the beans before grinding them.
I've never been so puzzled in my entire life.
Floris mod is awesome but there are a few things that really get on my nerves.
First and foremost, the bugged ladder during sieges.
In my first siege, there were two ladders up the wall and everyone got stuck at the top of the right one.
So while everyone who took the left ladder went on to fight the defenders, everyone on the right ladder (and it was packed like a can of sardines) was little more than target practice for the defending archers.
I didn't lose since I was with the Nords (IMO the best at sieges since they have the best infantry) but I got knocked out while trying to bait the defenders to the stuck soldiers after everyone else got defeated after being outnumbered.
Then there's the clear imbalance after the Nords took two cities from the Vaegirs and one from the Swadians without my aid at all. At the point I was just a simple travelling merchant.
I don't really want to play it anymore, yet the troop upgrade trees continue to draw me back to the game.
Went to Queensway Shopping Centre where all the shoe stores are only to discover that it's actually the same or even cheaper to buy leather shoes online.
I mean, I found a pair that's almost like my suede shoes except for a shittier outsole and the price tag was almost the same as what I paid in total for my pair.
The problem is that my shoes' price had the delivery included while that pair I found didn't.
I mean, what?
As for the other leather shoes, they were all priced about the same as what I can find during sales at online stores, even the ones that sell branded stuff.
The only benefit of buying at that mall is that I can try the shoes out, but after my current pair of shoes, that doesn't feel so important to me anymore.
I'm just going to wait till a sale happens somewhere and buy a pair.
One better come up soon. I do not want to think about what would happen if I'm forced to go to work on a rainy morning.
Since I can't use the elastic band, I've been using my bro's dumbbells instead. No idea how much the bar itself weighs but the weights are 1.25kg on each side, making the dumbbells 3 to 3.5kg each.
Life after the ICT is so different I have to say I'm now against anything close to abolishing it.
Sometimes, people like myself need a good hard push to go in the right direction, and the last ICT made me see how much I needed to exercise.
This week, I've noticed that I barely break a sweat throughout my trip to the office even after a trip to the market before that.
I went to the market, cooked breakfast, did some light strength training, showered, had breakfast and then went to work.
In the past, the only way I can get to the office without breaking a sweat was if it was a cool cloudy day and I was half-asleep during the journey. Today, I didn't even notice I had forgotten to take a handkerchief until I was halfway through some work at the office.
Fortunately I always keep a spare.
This ICT made this difference that the one last year didn't because I had been much more physically active this time. For several days I had gone beyond my jobscope to help out with the storemen and armskote instead of waiting for work in the office all day. The storemen, in particular, had a lot of heavy stuff that needed carrying.
For now, I'm content with doing about 10-20mins of arm exercises twice or thrice a day. I don't want to end up like the last time I tried and pushed myself so hard I ended up hating it.
On the other hand, I expect to become less fit by the end of this week, but I don't have the motivation to do more.
The only industry not affected by the flood of Chinese immigrants may be the Hindu and Muslim funeral services.
That is nowhere close to enough. Nothing will ever be enough. The silence will not be forgotten.
Thursday, 19 July 2012
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
Rant 1025 / Sealing
EA is making an Ultima MMO.
There goes another good franchise.
Suddenly feel like getting a seal or two after seeing a discount on wax seal stamp sets on Groupon.
I want to get both a Chinese seal and a Western wax seal stamp. The former is a square seal containing the three characters of my Chinese name (with my family name stretched to fill the space of two characters) that uses red ink while the latter would use the three initials of my English name.
Both aren't cheap and are, frankly, quite impractical.
I think I can get a stone Chinese seal with my zodiac sign for about S$50 in Hong Kong or S$80 locally, and the English one can be ordered online for about S$100. These are higher prices because they need to be custom-made. Most Western stamps come only with a single initial and I want all three of mine in a single stamp. Similarly for the Chinese one, I want the ancient Chinese font and my surname streteched into a rectangle.
In addition, the red ink would be easy to get but the sealing wax is going to raise the costs significantly.
I'm planning to use the Chinese seal for cheques. On the days when I haven't been using a pen for about a week, my handwriting can get noticeably uglier than usual. That's when I can whip out my wooden/stone seal and ink pad instead of signing my cheques. I'm pretty sure seals are accepted too but I'll have to confirm it when I inform them of the seal to be recognized as a secondary signature.
As for the Western wax seal, apparently people only use it for wedding invitations, so I can't use it for my mails in case it causes confusion among the receipients. However, I can also use it on legal documents, but I rarely have to sign any.
Actually I already have a Chinese seal but it's a much simpler and kinda Westernised one in which my name goes from left to right in one horizontal line. I want the square sort with the characters in red and in the ancient Chinese font.
Tue
Got up at 7am today. Hopefully this will become a habit. To encourage this, I am leaving my curtains opened so that the sun can go at full blast into my room through my east-facing window.
Studies have shown that sunlight can wake people up, likely due to natural instincts after millenia of evolution. I can either feel that very well or it's a psychological effect from reading about that.
Also trying to do some strength training in the morning but the elastic band is degrading after a year of neglect, so I've told my bro to order another one. It's just not safe to continue using this old one.
But before the training I went downstairs to the market for some vegetables. All I've got in the fridge is 10 chickens' worth of chicken breasts, bone-in, and three thighs. Although I can simply bake or steam them, I'd rather not do that for all of them.
So I got down to buy lots of lettuce, sweet potatoes, onions, potatoes and a bit of mushrooms before getting the 60 fishballs and, this time, also some yong tau foo.
Just when I was thinking of going home, I walked past the chaw siew stall... AND IT WAS OPEN!
IT WAS ONLY 7.30AM! After so many years of not visiting it due to timing issues, I've totally forgotten about it!
Better still, there was almost no queue since it was a weekday morning.
Straight away I got behind the two people queueing there and started looking around for clues on how to order.
None of them ordered a whole stick of char siew like my mum used to, so I wasn't sure if the system had changed. Regardless, I can't just tell them to give me a whole piece because many of them hanging on the hooks was small round pieces the size of my palm. I could also point at one of the larger ones but since I can't see any difference between all of them, what's the point?
In the end, I just ordered half a kilogram of it. She asked me if I wanted the "heads", and I wasn't sure if she meant the charred ends, but I said "yes" anyway. They are known to be carcinogenic but those are also the best parts of the char siew. Next she asked me if I wanted them chopped and of course I did.
When I got home I put everything but the char siew into the fridge and used the leftover rice from last night that I had forgotten to store in the fridge to make char siew fried rice. The rice was still fine and I made a point to fry the plain rice in the oil a little longer before adding the light soy sauce, char siew and eggs.
I should make more of this.
There goes another good franchise.
Suddenly feel like getting a seal or two after seeing a discount on wax seal stamp sets on Groupon.
I want to get both a Chinese seal and a Western wax seal stamp. The former is a square seal containing the three characters of my Chinese name (with my family name stretched to fill the space of two characters) that uses red ink while the latter would use the three initials of my English name.
Both aren't cheap and are, frankly, quite impractical.
I think I can get a stone Chinese seal with my zodiac sign for about S$50 in Hong Kong or S$80 locally, and the English one can be ordered online for about S$100. These are higher prices because they need to be custom-made. Most Western stamps come only with a single initial and I want all three of mine in a single stamp. Similarly for the Chinese one, I want the ancient Chinese font and my surname streteched into a rectangle.
In addition, the red ink would be easy to get but the sealing wax is going to raise the costs significantly.
I'm planning to use the Chinese seal for cheques. On the days when I haven't been using a pen for about a week, my handwriting can get noticeably uglier than usual. That's when I can whip out my wooden/stone seal and ink pad instead of signing my cheques. I'm pretty sure seals are accepted too but I'll have to confirm it when I inform them of the seal to be recognized as a secondary signature.
As for the Western wax seal, apparently people only use it for wedding invitations, so I can't use it for my mails in case it causes confusion among the receipients. However, I can also use it on legal documents, but I rarely have to sign any.
Actually I already have a Chinese seal but it's a much simpler and kinda Westernised one in which my name goes from left to right in one horizontal line. I want the square sort with the characters in red and in the ancient Chinese font.
Tue
Got up at 7am today. Hopefully this will become a habit. To encourage this, I am leaving my curtains opened so that the sun can go at full blast into my room through my east-facing window.
Studies have shown that sunlight can wake people up, likely due to natural instincts after millenia of evolution. I can either feel that very well or it's a psychological effect from reading about that.
Also trying to do some strength training in the morning but the elastic band is degrading after a year of neglect, so I've told my bro to order another one. It's just not safe to continue using this old one.
But before the training I went downstairs to the market for some vegetables. All I've got in the fridge is 10 chickens' worth of chicken breasts, bone-in, and three thighs. Although I can simply bake or steam them, I'd rather not do that for all of them.
So I got down to buy lots of lettuce, sweet potatoes, onions, potatoes and a bit of mushrooms before getting the 60 fishballs and, this time, also some yong tau foo.
Just when I was thinking of going home, I walked past the chaw siew stall... AND IT WAS OPEN!
IT WAS ONLY 7.30AM! After so many years of not visiting it due to timing issues, I've totally forgotten about it!
Better still, there was almost no queue since it was a weekday morning.
Straight away I got behind the two people queueing there and started looking around for clues on how to order.
None of them ordered a whole stick of char siew like my mum used to, so I wasn't sure if the system had changed. Regardless, I can't just tell them to give me a whole piece because many of them hanging on the hooks was small round pieces the size of my palm. I could also point at one of the larger ones but since I can't see any difference between all of them, what's the point?
In the end, I just ordered half a kilogram of it. She asked me if I wanted the "heads", and I wasn't sure if she meant the charred ends, but I said "yes" anyway. They are known to be carcinogenic but those are also the best parts of the char siew. Next she asked me if I wanted them chopped and of course I did.
When I got home I put everything but the char siew into the fridge and used the leftover rice from last night that I had forgotten to store in the fridge to make char siew fried rice. The rice was still fine and I made a point to fry the plain rice in the oil a little longer before adding the light soy sauce, char siew and eggs.
I should make more of this.
Monday, 16 July 2012
Rant 1024 / I Haz Innernet
Gained 3kgs over the week. It has to be mostly muscle mass because of how I feel right now.
Can't imagine what the high-key ICTs are going to be like, mainly because of the outfield training.
Choosing the concrete floor of the training shed to sleep on was a terrible idea. Together with an already aching lower back from lugging/carrying stuff around all day, I probably spent most of the time trying to sleep than actually doing it.
Next time, I'm going to sleep on the grass. It has to be better there despite the jungle bugs.
Three guys were fell out within one of the days out there. One was from a pre-existing condition, another from the heat (probably didn't drink enough water, which was his own fault since we had plenty of water at every resting point and everyone carried at least a litre each in between) and one more because of the wet terrain after the light rain. Man, reverse fracture on the arm. Very disturbing to me just to think about it, yet I keep doing that.
It also shows how tired everyone was. If you're locking your elbow to break your fall, which I think he did, you're so tired you've become stupid.
Can't say much about the rest because I'm not even supposed to discuss anything regarding this online, though it suffices to say that I slept for a full 12 hours when I got home.
But not before ordering three pizzas for dinner.
...
Lost an inch of my waistline despite the weight gain. Yep, muscle mass.
Because everyone loves the violin and P4.
My Standard Chartered chequebook hasn't arrived. Wtf? I'm going to bring some blank cheques from my bro tomorrow instead :\
Can't imagine what the high-key ICTs are going to be like, mainly because of the outfield training.
Choosing the concrete floor of the training shed to sleep on was a terrible idea. Together with an already aching lower back from lugging/carrying stuff around all day, I probably spent most of the time trying to sleep than actually doing it.
Next time, I'm going to sleep on the grass. It has to be better there despite the jungle bugs.
Three guys were fell out within one of the days out there. One was from a pre-existing condition, another from the heat (probably didn't drink enough water, which was his own fault since we had plenty of water at every resting point and everyone carried at least a litre each in between) and one more because of the wet terrain after the light rain. Man, reverse fracture on the arm. Very disturbing to me just to think about it, yet I keep doing that.
It also shows how tired everyone was. If you're locking your elbow to break your fall, which I think he did, you're so tired you've become stupid.
Can't say much about the rest because I'm not even supposed to discuss anything regarding this online, though it suffices to say that I slept for a full 12 hours when I got home.
But not before ordering three pizzas for dinner.
...
Lost an inch of my waistline despite the weight gain. Yep, muscle mass.
Because everyone loves the violin and P4.
My Standard Chartered chequebook hasn't arrived. Wtf? I'm going to bring some blank cheques from my bro tomorrow instead :\
Monday, 9 July 2012
Rant 1023 / BRB Army (July 2012)
Lost another kilogram. Just weighed myself and discovered this.
Absolutely no idea why this happened. In fact, this defies logic IMO.
Here are the many reasons why this is how I feel about it:
1) I've just rediscovered deep frying at home.
2) I've a box of 20 frozen hashbrowns in my freezer, over half of which has already been consumed over the last three week by myself alone.
3) I have not been cutting down on my fast food deliveries at all.
4) I have been splashing oil liberally when I cook because this makes my food taste better.
5) I have been frying a lot of fishballs before using them as ingredients for other vegetable dishes. In fact I buy at least 60 fishballs a week and usually some fishcakes too.
6) I've been eating breakfast recently, and not light ones at that.
7) More like fried ones, even.
8) I have not been going out much due to a lack of business during this part of the year, ie living a more sedentary life.
On the other hand, there are a few possible reasons for this:
1) I've been having light dinners because heavy dinners make me very sleepy and recently I came to realize I have to, as much as possible, avoid repeating my old habit of sleeping too early and risking waking up at 3am and badly screw up my body clock for several days.
2) I have almost completely cut off my coffee intake, partly because I haven't been needing it and partly because the remaining ground coffee in my kitchen is now stale. Speaking of which, I'm very surely going to buy whole beans from the vendor next time and grind only what I need when I need it. Right now I still have 500g of it that's destined for the bin and it's such a waste.
3) I've been practically preventing myself from having supper ever since I began to brush and floss my teeth again at night. I just don't want to go through it twice a night. My laziness overwhelms my hunger and it's awesome. But it's also like saying I'm so lazy I'd rather starve than eat, which... is actually true in this case. Oh wow. Seriously, I'd rather spend the whole night with a growling stomach due to having a light and early dinner than eat, floss and brush again.
Also, it's 6am and I've been up long enough to be fully prepared for what's to come. A large cup of coffee and final packing stage (toothbrush, deordorant, etc). It's no big deal since it's likely I'll be back for tonight before staying there for the rest of the week, so if I'm still forgetting anything, I can return to get them.
On the other hand, I'm not sure if I should bother coming back if there's nothing I need to take. I'll decide later.
I'm not sure if people are supposed to really want to go home when they're in reservist training, but I don't care. In fact I didn't bother going home the last time I got a night off. There's just nothing at home that I miss that much after merely a few days.
The best thing about this, other than the single night off, is that it's confirmed that I can book out early on the final day, again due to the fact that I cleared my IPPT for this year. Dohohoho!
Absolutely no idea why this happened. In fact, this defies logic IMO.
Here are the many reasons why this is how I feel about it:
1) I've just rediscovered deep frying at home.
2) I've a box of 20 frozen hashbrowns in my freezer, over half of which has already been consumed over the last three week by myself alone.
3) I have not been cutting down on my fast food deliveries at all.
4) I have been splashing oil liberally when I cook because this makes my food taste better.
5) I have been frying a lot of fishballs before using them as ingredients for other vegetable dishes. In fact I buy at least 60 fishballs a week and usually some fishcakes too.
6) I've been eating breakfast recently, and not light ones at that.
7) More like fried ones, even.
8) I have not been going out much due to a lack of business during this part of the year, ie living a more sedentary life.
On the other hand, there are a few possible reasons for this:
1) I've been having light dinners because heavy dinners make me very sleepy and recently I came to realize I have to, as much as possible, avoid repeating my old habit of sleeping too early and risking waking up at 3am and badly screw up my body clock for several days.
2) I have almost completely cut off my coffee intake, partly because I haven't been needing it and partly because the remaining ground coffee in my kitchen is now stale. Speaking of which, I'm very surely going to buy whole beans from the vendor next time and grind only what I need when I need it. Right now I still have 500g of it that's destined for the bin and it's such a waste.
3) I've been practically preventing myself from having supper ever since I began to brush and floss my teeth again at night. I just don't want to go through it twice a night. My laziness overwhelms my hunger and it's awesome. But it's also like saying I'm so lazy I'd rather starve than eat, which... is actually true in this case. Oh wow. Seriously, I'd rather spend the whole night with a growling stomach due to having a light and early dinner than eat, floss and brush again.
Also, it's 6am and I've been up long enough to be fully prepared for what's to come. A large cup of coffee and final packing stage (toothbrush, deordorant, etc). It's no big deal since it's likely I'll be back for tonight before staying there for the rest of the week, so if I'm still forgetting anything, I can return to get them.
On the other hand, I'm not sure if I should bother coming back if there's nothing I need to take. I'll decide later.
I'm not sure if people are supposed to really want to go home when they're in reservist training, but I don't care. In fact I didn't bother going home the last time I got a night off. There's just nothing at home that I miss that much after merely a few days.
The best thing about this, other than the single night off, is that it's confirmed that I can book out early on the final day, again due to the fact that I cleared my IPPT for this year. Dohohoho!
Sunday, 8 July 2012
Rant 1022 / Pingas!
If practising medicine is how I think it is, wouldn't it be relatively easy to replace doctors with a combination of computers and medical assistants?
My impression of what doctors do is that they find out the symptoms displayed by the patient and they judge which condition best fits the combination.
If this is really what it is, then you can just have a computer system containing all the diseases linked to their symptoms together with the relevant probabilities, like how common they are and which symptoms are more common with which disease.
In addition, they can also display the drugs that are routinely prescribed for the illnesses plus the relevant allergies and conditions that forbid the drugs. Non-routine stuff would be sent to a central HQ sort of place where the real doctors are.
Medical assistants will then find out what symptoms there are and input them as using keywords like "rashes" and whatever names they have for whichever body parts, and the computer would display the possible illnesses together with their probabilities.
Of course things like surgeries are still going to need human hands as long as robotic arms currently available are not able to replace surgeons completely.
But diagnosing might get simpler if there is a nationwide system that not only does what I described but also contains the medical records of everyone in the country. This would allow the system to adjust appropriately for whatever bias the genes in the country has for whatever conditions.
This would remove a huge chunk of stuff from the medical schools' curriculum which, for the most part, seems redundant for general practitioners. I mean, they appear to be only good for minor stuff like flu and coughs. Anything more and they refer you to the specialists.
The system and the assistant, who is pretty much a GP without the medical encyclopedia in his head, or who can be seen as a person with only the empirical knowledge for diagnosing illnesses, can theoretically replace the GP.
That would free up a lot of talents in the medical field.
I mean, all those people who qualified for a place in any medical school are pretty smart people. It just feels like a waste if their jobs are as simple as such routine things as prescribing cough medicine day in and day out.
So coffee makes people lazy and yet boosts brain power (at least temporarily).
The good news is:
Only today did I learn that Yu Pin King is under Shop N Save. No wonder I keep seeing promotions for this brand all the time.
Speaking of Shop N Save, I just bought 6 litres of Knife brand cooking oil since it was having a promotion. It was a 5-litre bottle with an extra 1-litre bottle of the same oil. I have to say the timing is perfect. I have almost used up my 2-litre bottle and felt that it was empty too soon. Moreover, I recall my mum used to buy the larger 5-litre bottle in the past which implies that it shouldn't go rancid before I finish it.
Now I have more oil for deep frying stuff.
My NS unit is allowing everyone who cleared his IPPT one night off during the coming reservist training. I've completed mine through IPT for this window! Woohoo!
The remake of Baldur's Gate 2 is going to have DLCs.
What we can be sure they're going to be is that they will be inconsequential events that have little to do with the main story or anyone else in the original game.
Otherwise, they will ruin the game.
My impression of what doctors do is that they find out the symptoms displayed by the patient and they judge which condition best fits the combination.
If this is really what it is, then you can just have a computer system containing all the diseases linked to their symptoms together with the relevant probabilities, like how common they are and which symptoms are more common with which disease.
In addition, they can also display the drugs that are routinely prescribed for the illnesses plus the relevant allergies and conditions that forbid the drugs. Non-routine stuff would be sent to a central HQ sort of place where the real doctors are.
Medical assistants will then find out what symptoms there are and input them as using keywords like "rashes" and whatever names they have for whichever body parts, and the computer would display the possible illnesses together with their probabilities.
Of course things like surgeries are still going to need human hands as long as robotic arms currently available are not able to replace surgeons completely.
But diagnosing might get simpler if there is a nationwide system that not only does what I described but also contains the medical records of everyone in the country. This would allow the system to adjust appropriately for whatever bias the genes in the country has for whatever conditions.
This would remove a huge chunk of stuff from the medical schools' curriculum which, for the most part, seems redundant for general practitioners. I mean, they appear to be only good for minor stuff like flu and coughs. Anything more and they refer you to the specialists.
The system and the assistant, who is pretty much a GP without the medical encyclopedia in his head, or who can be seen as a person with only the empirical knowledge for diagnosing illnesses, can theoretically replace the GP.
That would free up a lot of talents in the medical field.
I mean, all those people who qualified for a place in any medical school are pretty smart people. It just feels like a waste if their jobs are as simple as such routine things as prescribing cough medicine day in and day out.
So coffee makes people lazy and yet boosts brain power (at least temporarily).
The good news is:
“Workers” began to slack off after consuming caffeine. “Slackers” remained slackers regardless of caffeine ingestion.Phew. For a while I thought it could make us slackers slack even harder.
Only today did I learn that Yu Pin King is under Shop N Save. No wonder I keep seeing promotions for this brand all the time.
Speaking of Shop N Save, I just bought 6 litres of Knife brand cooking oil since it was having a promotion. It was a 5-litre bottle with an extra 1-litre bottle of the same oil. I have to say the timing is perfect. I have almost used up my 2-litre bottle and felt that it was empty too soon. Moreover, I recall my mum used to buy the larger 5-litre bottle in the past which implies that it shouldn't go rancid before I finish it.
Now I have more oil for deep frying stuff.
My NS unit is allowing everyone who cleared his IPPT one night off during the coming reservist training. I've completed mine through IPT for this window! Woohoo!
The remake of Baldur's Gate 2 is going to have DLCs.
What we can be sure they're going to be is that they will be inconsequential events that have little to do with the main story or anyone else in the original game.
Otherwise, they will ruin the game.
Friday, 6 July 2012
Rant 1021 / Hype-powered Tide Of Idiocy
I'm thinking I shouldn't be going to China in early winter. If I'm only windowshopping, why pick China?
The problem with being big is that everything cheap is too small for you. Like everything on sale in online Japanese or Korean stores. Looks like I'm destined to own only shoes bought at normal prices or above.
Went to the ENT specialist at NUH today and I'm going to have to do a sleep study to confirm whether I have sleep apnea.
Consultation fee was S$101.65 and the larygnoscopy cost me another $197.95.
The laryngoscopy was just expensive. It was a little uncomfortable but the doctor did what he could to avoid irritating my sinus too much with his cable-like camera. He also took some pictures that his assistant copied for both him and myself, although I have no interest in seeing what my nasal passage looks like.
Apparently other than my weight, I'm also suffering from an allergy and a sensitive nose. I know my weight caused my snoring but I've gotten used to it long ago. It's this allergy that's making it so much worse that when the doctor sprayed something into my nose that was supposed to be stinging and bitter, all I can sense is the bitterness when I swallowed.
The strange thing is the allergy. I have no idea what I'm allergic to because little has changed in my home all these years.
The only thing I'm known to be allergic to is penicillin but if I'm sensitive even to the airborne spores that's present everywhere, it would have caused the reaction a very long time ago.
He's going to test for it in a month. In the meantime, I'm supposed to see if the steroid spray works enough to stop the swelling gradually.
A week before the appointment I'm also going to have to do a sleep study to confirm whether I have sleep apnea.
This is another weird part because for some strange reason, a private practice is able to do it more cheaply than the public hospital.
Both cost about the same in cash of about S$200 but the difference is that, according to the doctor, the hospital charges an additional sum from my Medisave (which is empty btw) which will raise the total bill to a grand.
Moreover, the private practice recommended by the doctor (and he highly recommended this option) is able to let me do it in my own home while the hospital's version has to be done within itself.
A very easy decision there.
For treatments, he presented me with three options.
First, I can just stick with the nasal spray I'm using. It does work but only to a small degree for me.
The second option was a simple procedure to reduce the swelling.
Third was a slightly more complicated procedure to the same effect but lasts longer and has a few slightly possible negative side effects.
Obviously, all three won't work well as long as I continue to be exposed to whatever is causing the allergic reaction. The first will continue to work only for a couple hours and to a small degree. The last two will only last anywhere between several months to several years before I have to go back to him with the same problem again.
Finally, I also bought a backup bottle of the spray from the pharmacy there since it requires a prescription and I didn't want to go back just for it. This doctor prescribed a different spray called "Avamys fluticasone furoate". They're about the same size but this new bottle cost $25.26 whereas the old bottle was $29.
So everything I ordered from Amazon last month arrived.
Couldn't get the $20 off at Vpost even though I logged on at 1.30am on the first of July. Clearly lots of people wait for it on the first of every month since it's only limited to the first 150 people per month.
So I only got the 15% off which, for this order, was about $11.
Regardless, I've paid for it and they have arrived.
The shoe tree was indeed aromatic. I'll have to give it a few months to confirm whether the light pleasant smell is naturally from the wooden shoe tree since I do not recognize this smell nor the smell of cedar wood in general.
More importantly, they fit inside my shoes snugly.
Perfect.
My two bottles of suede waterproofing sprays were also among the packages. It's just unexpected that both came in oversized cardboard boxes filled with these full plastic air bags. I wonder if they could have just used smaller boxes and hence saved on the shipping.
I just used one of them and I'm keeping the other as spare. This bottle's instructions was that I was supposed to soak the leather in the liquid so I sprayed so much they rolled off the leather.
I just hope this doesn't deform my suede shoes, but then again, I had left the shoe trees inside so they could probably help hold the leather properly. So far so good.
The suede eraser I bought from Amazon didn't remove the old sweat stain from the suede but I'll have to try again to know for sure, and this time I'll rub harder.
It's not much so eventually when I visit a cobbler or laundry shop, I'll just get them to remove it, if the eraser doesn't work.
Finally, my book came. It's entitled "Valuation" (5th ed) and is about how to assess and improve the value of a company.
Right now I've only read the very beginning of the book and it's already given me a completely new view on the financial crises.
From what I can understand, most of the financial crises we have today is based on the use of short-term debts to buy long-term illiquid debt (an simple example of an illiquid debt is a home you're still paying for), usually because the investors believe the things they gain from this long-term debt will outweight the cost of the short-term debts.
This is known as "leverage".
This alone does not trigger a crisis. In addition to this, there needs to be some kind of reason for lenders to stop lending, thereby stopping the flow of short-term debts.
In the 1997 Asian financial crisis, an event I never really understood even after reading the Wikipedia page on it, the book explained that it was caused by an explosion of borrowing and building of industrial plants in Asia. When they finally realized there was too much production capacity everywhere and what they were going to produce wouldn't be able to cover their debts anymore, obviously financial institutions became reluctant to lend them anymore money to do something about it.
Since they couldn't borrow money to repay their earlier debts, they had to sell what they built to cover them... except everyone else was also trying to do the exact same thing.
Same with the 2008 mortgage crisis in the US, except this time replace the plants with homes. Banks were offering home loans for very low interest rates for a period of time in the beginning followed by a much higher rate for the rest of the payments, a rate that most people wouldn't be able to afford (up to a whopping 20% according to Wikipedia).
The common reaction of the borrower/home buyer was to think that he/she would get a raise eventually and that would cover the new interest rate when it comes, otherwise they could just sell their homes. The prices of homes there were in an upward trend back then, so nobody worried about the latter.
Except the pays didn't rise enough and US home prices began to stop rising eventually.
So they only had one option - sell their homes - that was essentially a non-option.
The rest has been explained in the previous story.
Oh wait, there's also another complication to this one - the banks sold these mortgage debts as parts of securities thinking it would reduce the risks to themselves by spreading them around, so everyone who bought these (including the banks themselves) also got dragged into the shit, which, in hindsight, there was quite a lot of.
Obviously there are more to these tales than what I've said here but I'm actually just rephrasing what I got from the little I read from the book just to prove to myself that I understand it.
These crises also proved the power of hype. With enough of it, all the geniuses in the world cannot stop the hype-powered tide of idiocy.
The problem with being big is that everything cheap is too small for you. Like everything on sale in online Japanese or Korean stores. Looks like I'm destined to own only shoes bought at normal prices or above.
Went to the ENT specialist at NUH today and I'm going to have to do a sleep study to confirm whether I have sleep apnea.
Consultation fee was S$101.65 and the larygnoscopy cost me another $197.95.
The laryngoscopy was just expensive. It was a little uncomfortable but the doctor did what he could to avoid irritating my sinus too much with his cable-like camera. He also took some pictures that his assistant copied for both him and myself, although I have no interest in seeing what my nasal passage looks like.
Apparently other than my weight, I'm also suffering from an allergy and a sensitive nose. I know my weight caused my snoring but I've gotten used to it long ago. It's this allergy that's making it so much worse that when the doctor sprayed something into my nose that was supposed to be stinging and bitter, all I can sense is the bitterness when I swallowed.
The strange thing is the allergy. I have no idea what I'm allergic to because little has changed in my home all these years.
The only thing I'm known to be allergic to is penicillin but if I'm sensitive even to the airborne spores that's present everywhere, it would have caused the reaction a very long time ago.
He's going to test for it in a month. In the meantime, I'm supposed to see if the steroid spray works enough to stop the swelling gradually.
A week before the appointment I'm also going to have to do a sleep study to confirm whether I have sleep apnea.
This is another weird part because for some strange reason, a private practice is able to do it more cheaply than the public hospital.
Both cost about the same in cash of about S$200 but the difference is that, according to the doctor, the hospital charges an additional sum from my Medisave (which is empty btw) which will raise the total bill to a grand.
Moreover, the private practice recommended by the doctor (and he highly recommended this option) is able to let me do it in my own home while the hospital's version has to be done within itself.
A very easy decision there.
For treatments, he presented me with three options.
First, I can just stick with the nasal spray I'm using. It does work but only to a small degree for me.
The second option was a simple procedure to reduce the swelling.
Third was a slightly more complicated procedure to the same effect but lasts longer and has a few slightly possible negative side effects.
Obviously, all three won't work well as long as I continue to be exposed to whatever is causing the allergic reaction. The first will continue to work only for a couple hours and to a small degree. The last two will only last anywhere between several months to several years before I have to go back to him with the same problem again.
Finally, I also bought a backup bottle of the spray from the pharmacy there since it requires a prescription and I didn't want to go back just for it. This doctor prescribed a different spray called "Avamys fluticasone furoate". They're about the same size but this new bottle cost $25.26 whereas the old bottle was $29.
So everything I ordered from Amazon last month arrived.
Couldn't get the $20 off at Vpost even though I logged on at 1.30am on the first of July. Clearly lots of people wait for it on the first of every month since it's only limited to the first 150 people per month.
So I only got the 15% off which, for this order, was about $11.
Regardless, I've paid for it and they have arrived.
The shoe tree was indeed aromatic. I'll have to give it a few months to confirm whether the light pleasant smell is naturally from the wooden shoe tree since I do not recognize this smell nor the smell of cedar wood in general.
More importantly, they fit inside my shoes snugly.
Perfect.
My two bottles of suede waterproofing sprays were also among the packages. It's just unexpected that both came in oversized cardboard boxes filled with these full plastic air bags. I wonder if they could have just used smaller boxes and hence saved on the shipping.
I just used one of them and I'm keeping the other as spare. This bottle's instructions was that I was supposed to soak the leather in the liquid so I sprayed so much they rolled off the leather.
I just hope this doesn't deform my suede shoes, but then again, I had left the shoe trees inside so they could probably help hold the leather properly. So far so good.
The suede eraser I bought from Amazon didn't remove the old sweat stain from the suede but I'll have to try again to know for sure, and this time I'll rub harder.
It's not much so eventually when I visit a cobbler or laundry shop, I'll just get them to remove it, if the eraser doesn't work.
Finally, my book came. It's entitled "Valuation" (5th ed) and is about how to assess and improve the value of a company.
Right now I've only read the very beginning of the book and it's already given me a completely new view on the financial crises.
From what I can understand, most of the financial crises we have today is based on the use of short-term debts to buy long-term illiquid debt (an simple example of an illiquid debt is a home you're still paying for), usually because the investors believe the things they gain from this long-term debt will outweight the cost of the short-term debts.
This is known as "leverage".
This alone does not trigger a crisis. In addition to this, there needs to be some kind of reason for lenders to stop lending, thereby stopping the flow of short-term debts.
In the 1997 Asian financial crisis, an event I never really understood even after reading the Wikipedia page on it, the book explained that it was caused by an explosion of borrowing and building of industrial plants in Asia. When they finally realized there was too much production capacity everywhere and what they were going to produce wouldn't be able to cover their debts anymore, obviously financial institutions became reluctant to lend them anymore money to do something about it.
Since they couldn't borrow money to repay their earlier debts, they had to sell what they built to cover them... except everyone else was also trying to do the exact same thing.
Same with the 2008 mortgage crisis in the US, except this time replace the plants with homes. Banks were offering home loans for very low interest rates for a period of time in the beginning followed by a much higher rate for the rest of the payments, a rate that most people wouldn't be able to afford (up to a whopping 20% according to Wikipedia).
The common reaction of the borrower/home buyer was to think that he/she would get a raise eventually and that would cover the new interest rate when it comes, otherwise they could just sell their homes. The prices of homes there were in an upward trend back then, so nobody worried about the latter.
Except the pays didn't rise enough and US home prices began to stop rising eventually.
So they only had one option - sell their homes - that was essentially a non-option.
The rest has been explained in the previous story.
Oh wait, there's also another complication to this one - the banks sold these mortgage debts as parts of securities thinking it would reduce the risks to themselves by spreading them around, so everyone who bought these (including the banks themselves) also got dragged into the shit, which, in hindsight, there was quite a lot of.
Obviously there are more to these tales than what I've said here but I'm actually just rephrasing what I got from the little I read from the book just to prove to myself that I understand it.
These crises also proved the power of hype. With enough of it, all the geniuses in the world cannot stop the hype-powered tide of idiocy.
Thursday, 5 July 2012
Rant 1020 / Holding My Breath In Anticipation
Japan strikes again!
(Hint: it's an upcoming game.)
And again!
This video is about SquareEnix being desperate for revenue.
Persona 4 got an anime and Persona 3 is.... getting a movie!
And I have yet to finish both games.
And I don't want to play them in my living room.
And I don't have a TV in my room.
Accidentally pureed my onions and tomatoes when I made beef bolognese.
My bro had bought a food processor the day before and I was curious about it.
The problem is that I've never used a food processor to chop food before, so I didn't think to throw in everything before switching it on.
At least it was easy to clean.
What's more interesting was that his gf ate an entire soup bowl's worth of cooked pasta. I boiled a whole kilogram of dried pasta and that bowl was about 2/5 of it.
This isn't the first time she ate this much yet her appetite continues to impress me, probably because of her thin frame. I can't eat that much even when I'm starving.
And I continue to be impressed by my iPad's battery.
For a while I got spoilt by it and didn't bother to close my apps after checking them, like the XE app with which I keep myself updated on the exchange rates of several currencies.
To my surprise, I managed to drain a full battery in less than 48 hours. In comparison, it usually lasts 3 days with about 10-15% battery to spare by the third night.
It turned out that I had like 10-15 apps opened simultaneously in the background by the second day. It was being drained so quickly recharging from the power socket directly was barely moving the battery bar.
So I closed everything except 1 app then left it locked, and within 5 hours it was full again.
Back to Prophesy of Pendor. Now this is much better. I can pick fights more easily now because the random bandit groups are so aggressive and numerous.
I was only building up my army while searching for good trading routes most of the time. It took a number of reloads since there were quite a few seriously overpowered bandit groups on the map like the Jatu raiders whom I think are some of the best cavalry in the game.
Still, I managed to get enough renown to be invited by one of the kingdoms after some time. To sweeten the deal, he threw in a village as my fief. I've never got this before in the past because I've always had to ask to join the kingdoms.
In fact I was considering creating my own kingdom but decided it wasn't worth all the trading I was going to have to do to get an army large enough for to hold just my first castle.
Aaaaaaaaaaaand the castle it was under got taken by another kingdom, so I have no fief now. What a waste of time :|
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