Rant 804 / It's Not Here Yet.

Anjali's so hot, especially her breastplate, emphasis on the breast. I mean, it's quite literally a breast plate. I'm surprised they don't just call it a steel bra.

What kind of perverted blacksmith molds a woman's armour exactly according to the shape of her breasts and nipples? What kind of master blacksmith has the magical skill to predict the cup size of the potential wearer?

Mysteries abound in the kingdom of Ehb in Dungeon Siege 3.









A friend's Gmail account got hijacked and he somehow found out how to see the origins of whoever logged into his email.

So I did a bit of research and found out how he did it.

Apparently, the "details" as indicated by the red arrow in the above screenshot lists the most recent IPs that logged into the account.

This is a very enlightening list if you suspect you got hacked.

In fact, you can log out all other people who're currently logged in. This option is not shown here because I've already done so (this option is available as long as you haven't used it, even if there is really nobody logged in other than yourself).

That's why it says," This account does not seem to be open in any other location."










I don't really like how the protagonist of Dungeon Siege 3 is such an asshole. First I loot the tombs of ancient heroes and even the founder of the organization from which I was from. Next I have to kill primitive tribals who just wanted to be left alone. Now I have to help destroy the greatest monument built by the extinct dwarves.

Suddenly I feel like I'm playing as the anti-hero.

Sure, the looting was optional but life would probably have been pretty hard without all that equipment. And yes the destruction was necessary but still, couldn't there be a way to just disable it?



On the other hand, I do like the humour in the game. It's sparsely spread out in the beginning but later in the game, the robots in Stonebridge are so funny.










Made a simple baked rice with cheese and sausage. We had some jumbo sausage that contained red and green pepper from Cold Storage in the fridge and I wanted to use it before they turned bad.

It was a little too salty because I used Campbell's Cream of Chicken and apparently, 1 can is too much for 2 cups of rice.

Should also use another flavour next time. This was too boring.

Probably something tomata-based.










My bro's gf made some kind of cheesecake the other day. It was a 10X10cm square of something brown that taste like the stuff in granola bars covered by a similar square of cream cheese.

It was pretty good. She made one each of us. But by the time anyone told me it was already in the fridge for an entire day and a tiny bit of the cheese had turned into yogurt. Not disgusting and it was perfectly edible.

Too sweet though.

And better than anything I ever made.

Not that that's saying much.









Playing TF2 also. Nice game. Not sure why I would need to pay for premium account yet.

That Orange map seriously can go on forever.

And bad players everywhere. Sure I may suck at shooting, but at least I know where to place those bloody teleports. Why do some engineers place them behind low cover where the upper half of anyone standing on the exit teleport is in full view of half a dozen enemy snipers?

That's so retarded.

Rant 803 / Diary Products

So members of our military forces in Singapore will be issued an iPad2 each. I have no idea how that's relevant to combat. Furthermore, it's too fragile for life in the field.

The camera combined with internet connectivity may have some use, but aren't there cheaper ways to transmit images in real time? Cheaper and more durable?

And the battery? Despite the fact that the iPad2 battery can last a very long time, it's still not anywhere close to infinity yet. Therefore if the soldiers are hiding in the jungle, what use is it to anyone?

Unless... they're shifting their focus from jungle warfare as Singapore transforms into a concrete jungle. Yea I guess this can be a valid point.

Wait, that can't be right. Even in urban areas you'll still need electricity to recharge, and that can't be taken for granted during a war.

No. There has to be more than meets the eye. It's too obviously a complete waste of money.

What am I missing here?










I didn't know there are so many kinds of winter mittens out there.









Hellgate OBT begins on the 30th of June. Lowered my expectations after figuring out the truth about F2P games.

Stopped playing Champions online. Got boring. Apparently the arenas are pretty lame, mostly just a map for a couple of us to fight each other in. My build was terrible for PvP because it was too tanking-oriented and my main attack needs to be charged up by holding a button.
























What can I say? It's a cute cat video.









Trying Dungeon Siege 3. It's an excellent game with a flaw. Probably due to the absence of such high quality games in the RPG genre on the PC for so many months, I feel that this game was pretty amazing.

Except for a flaw.

The controls.

What's wrong with the WASD? Why must the developers try to give PC gamers a feel of what it's like to play DS3 on consoles?

In Dungeon Siege 3, A and D moves the camera instead of moving the character, thus simulating that of the controller's joysticks. Even though W and S are still forward and backward, it's actually pretty hard to play with WASD. Worse is that A and D are reversed when you're moving backwards, making combat movement extremely clumsy.

The best way that I've found so far is to use a combination of WASD and the mouse. Holding right button to move and using W and S when I'm attacking with the left mouse button partially solves the problem.

If I could, I'd just use A and D and right mouse button, but it's impossible to move in one direction by holding the right button while attacking in the other using the left.

This means players of DS3 need to learn the controls all over again.

What a way to ruin such a great game!

If I wanted to play it like I'm using a console, I'd just get a console.

Fortunately for me, my character has an AoE spell that damages everything around him. Hence, I don't panic when I get surrounded all because I ran into a wall.

And oh yes, bugs. Once in a while I get stuck at random spots while moving using W and S. Pretty annoying during combat. Moving with the mouse solves the problem though. No idea why.

Rant 802 / Yakiniku

Changed my SIM card. Apparently the first SIM card replacement is free. And it was fast.

Now I can SMS everyone. For some strange reason I couldn't send text messages to a number of people in my contact list. I've always thought it was the phone until I got my current N8.










Went to Tajimaya for its yakiniku, which I assume means Japanese charcoal grill.

For $39.90++ the menu was surprisingly small:

Drinks - Pepsi, 7 Up
Sashimi - salmon, tuna
Vegetables - mushrooms (shitake I guess), corn, onions, leek and green pepper
Seafood - ebi (prawn), tuna and salmon
Meat - 6 kinds, I can't recall them exactly. Pork belly was one of the three types of pork on the menu, and there were 2 kinds of beef. And one chicken.

Despite the lack of variety, the ingredients were pretty much top tier stuff. The prawns were huge so that alone could justify the bulk of the price we paid.

(that's just some of the prawns we ordered)

As for the sashimi, though we didn't choose which part of the fish we wanted, some of it was from the belly (not shown in the following photo).

The best was the meat IMO.

I just called it "the platter" when I ordered a second one. We had 3 platters... for 4 of us. Can't recall how many the other 3 of us ordered.

The vegetables were nice. BBQ corn is always good, but they were nothing compared to the other stuff.

This buffet was only 2 hours long but it was enough.

To summarise, this brunch buffet is for carnivores only.










In the foreseeable future, "eating shit" will no longer be a vulgar expression. Telling someone to "eat shit and die" will probably become as offensive as "I wish you to have a burger before you die," because that's probably what it will mean soon.

I guess shit is something we all have plenty of, so that's something important to look into when they research on renewable energy... and alternate sources of food.











Day 24 in Die2Nite. Currently there are plans for what happens after since we won't be lasting for many more days.

After this, once everyone has died, we'll be joining any town for fun. Season 3 is coming soon so we have no reason to last long.

We have over 3900 points in defense now and tonight's attack is between 3597 and 3832. Easy.

We've also covered tomorrow night's attack which will be no more than 3950 zombies.

The problem is that we're running out of structures to build. The rate of increase of zombies is rising faster than the rate of increase of our Defensive Objects. For permanent defenses, we only have The Big Rebuild left unbuilt.

Neither are we focusing on building it because we have decided that most of our APs are better spent clearing the outside and scavenging for more DOs. The Big Rebuild will be up slowly.

As for water, we still have 194 left. Although the Waterminefield will require 20 water rations each time we build it when we have to build it, our Water Pump is still at level 3 out of 5. No problem.

It's just the zombies that's the main problem.

Rant 801 / Wandering Eyes

TF2 is about to become F2P with cash shop. Valve is certainly amazing at figuring out how to squeeze every last dime out of the game. I'm not saying it's bad; in fact I like this move. This is an actual win-win situation for both developer and player.

And it also tells us that TF2 isn't selling anymore. About time.

...

Oh hey TF2 is free to play now on Steam!!!
























Did a preemptive check on the map of Guangzhou, especially the locations of the place I'm planning to go and the airport. Anybody familiar with the fashion industry in China would probably be able guess with some certainty where I'm going.

There aren't many places I can choose from.

Planning to stay in a 4-star hotel in the area, preferably in walking distance, but most likely I won't get anything that close. And yes I'm aware that their roads are pretty dangerous.

It's nice they have an Airport Expressway. Makes life simpler.

But the hotel is a problem. There's only one 4-star hotel within walking distance of my target and no 5-star. There are another 2 within 1km but a click is kinda far if I were to buy anything in bulk.

Oh and don't worry. A night in that hotel is only between S$70-90 for a twin bed room, and includes internet access (though probably not in the rooms). Perfectly affordable.

This means I may have to book early.

As for food, I'm fully prepared to splurge on hotel food. Not room service, that's for sure, but hotel restaurants. I'll probably go for restaurants outside for lunch. Dinner, maybe.

Not touching roadside food this time. I don't have the time to waste on shitting my guts out in the hotel in this trip.

...

Oh wait a min... there are fast food restaurants nearby! Even a 24-hr Mac! LOL! No fear of hunger now. I wonder what China MCD tastes like. Will the coffee be as shitty?

Seriously, I can't take Mac's coffee without creamer. I don't know why exactly, but sugar can't seem to cover up the bitterness. For the Korean beans I'm using right now, I actually drink the coffee black everyday, but Mac's coffee, I tried... I really did. I could barely handle a mouthful of it black.

I think I've spoilt myself.










My eyes wandered. I see why some guys do it now. I did it before I realized where I was staring.










Heroes of Might and Magic Online has a new expansion.

I am not impressed.

"Renaissance" (pronounce "ri-nays-uh-ns") means "rebirth".

"Renascence" is either a Marvel character or a poem by an American poetess.

With the phoenix in the background, it's obvious which one it was supposed to be.









Team Fortress 2 is a MMORPG without quests. Looting, inventories, classes. F2P MMORPG.

From this, I've noticed one thing I used to be mistaken about: the F2P model is for games that the publishers believe won't be blockbusters.

The P2P model is for MMORPGs they are sure will sell. When sales drop or are predicted to be low, the F2P model is used.

This is already happening for a number of games for the last several years, like LOTRO and DDO.

Now even TF2 is joining the club.

Therefore, F2P MMORPGs are actually not very good games to begin with.

Rant 800 / Time Passes

I just discovered Angry Birds. Reminded me of an identical game that was on Newgrounds that I played long ago when I didn't know what Angry Birds was. Didn't play much. It sucks as a desktop game, but is great as a handphone game.

Anyway...



Epic.









Gah! I typed so much but after I looked at another window and returned, I hit backspace before I clicked on this text. The backspace went to the browser instead of the test and the Blogger didn't save anything but the above.










Got to love the alarm of the new phone. I've always woken up to harsher things, so this new alarm is amazing to me.

I remember the in primary school, I used to be woken up in two ways.

First my bro would wake up. He always does. He's better than me at following a routine day in and day out. Though he slept in the same room as me in those days, he usually would be too quiet for me to notice in my sleep. But initially he relied on an alarm clock, and that would wake me up.

When he got up, he brush his teeth, wash his face and switch on the light in the living room. The loud click of the switch would wake me up again. 10 minutes later, my mum would come in and scratch my foot with her fingernails to wake me up. I think it was funny in the beginning.

Later he'd wake up at the same time without an alarm. That went on for many years. So during those days, I'd be woken up by the switch first and I'd almost never heard him get up and leave the room.

During those intervals, I'd be trying to go back to sleep while dreading the end of the final 10 minutes of the comfort of the bed.

I used to tell myself I'd sleep again after school.

I never did.

Nowadays this never works on me anymore because I recognize the fact that I won't feel sleepy when I get home.

Next was the army. It wasn't as bad, but waking up for patrols always sucked. We did try to wake each other up as quietly as possible, but nothing gets your heart pumping like a stroll in the dark within 5mins after the person calls your name.

University was much worse again. I used and I'm still using my handphone exclusively for my morning alarms but back then, I didn't know the current alarm could be this great.

So I thought I'd use music as the alarm and experimented with stuff I like.

I stopped liking the music within the week.

Apparently, whatever music I use as the alarm, I'd inevitably associate it mentally with waking up involuntarily in the morning for classes, and I hate that part of the day.

Finally I realized there was no point using anything pleasant as the alarm, hence I changed it to something I disliked, Macarena, in order to give myself additional motivation to stretch out and turn the alarm off.

It worked. I always spring up and hit the button within 5 beats unless I was really tired.

Now, the N8's alarm is fantastic. I didn't even know it could be pleasant.

It begins with a single soft beep, then gradually progresses to 3 loud beeps. The difference was more than I expected.










It feels strange.

Life used to be simpler but now I am forced to look beyond. I have to do it before I am forced to.

And I have to think about life on my own.

Things used to be simpler. I do as I'm told and I play the rest of the time. Even at work I'm just a robot.

Now the employees are asking me how they should address me. It's awkward. I'm now at the stage where people I meet are supposed to call me "Mr [surname]" instead of addressing me by my first name.

I can also do anything I want and there is nobody who will even tell me to stop as long as I stay within the boundaries of the law.

I knew this day would come but it doesn't make it any less uncomfortable.

I know it's normal but having people older than me addressing me so formally does not feel natural to me.

Perhaps I should end the above sentence with "yet", but I'm not sure.

Soon, I'll have to handle the rest too. That's not fun for me. I dislike losing money, something that is inevitable in my current career. I have plans to stop if I lose too much though it's something I'd very much prefer to avoid.

I'm 95% sure my mum has already spoken to a number of people to make my early career easier, albeit for a finite period of time. I mean, that's what mothers do. In the long term, I don't know.

Que sera sera.










I love the camera of this N8. I've just tried to take a picture of some sample jackets with the measuring tape on top.

I could see the numbers on the tape.

Awesome.

Rant 799 / Solar Desktop

After looking at the solar chargers at the online stores, I'm interested in whether those solar chargers meant for handphones will work on my desktop. A number of them have USB cables, so if I stick them into my desktop, will it help supply my desktop with a small amount of electricity?

I don't care if it's a little. If it can pay for itself over the long term, I wouldn't mind having several. Furthermore I can plug them all into a USB hub and just use 1-2 USB ports for this.

But will it work? Or will it melt my motherboard or something?

...

No it doesn't work. It seems when I plug in a solar charger, my computer would charge up the battery in the solar charger instead.

In order to get such a system that I initially thought of to work, I'd need to connect it directly to my PSU somehow, or construct a solar power generator using things I can probably get from those online stores I've been visiting and maybe the DIY store in my neighbourhood.

I remember seeing plain solar panels at DHgate but it will take quite a bit of research to build a generator and make it supplement our power supply instead of blowing a fuse or something.












So after a bit of research I learnt that brushing my teeth with baking soda can be bad for the teeth. Apparently other than removing stains it can also damage my teeth enamel. However how often I should do it is not clear. One tip I did find is that I should brush my teeth with toothpaste after brushing with soda.

I've been doing the reverse.

Also, I'll still be brushing my teeth with baking soda every night until my teeth turn white. This should happen in a month.








So the Nokia N8 also has a better video resolution than my old DVD-DCR610 which has a VGA resolution of 640*480. The N8 has a 720p aka 1280*720 video resolution.

Whoa!

I was so outdated. I probably still am.












Lulzsec and Anonymous declares war on all governments. This certainly won't end well.

Salutations Lulz Lizards,

As we're aware, the government and whitehat security terrorists across the world continue to dominate and control our Internet ocean. Sitting pretty on cargo bays full of corrupt booty, they think it's acceptable to condition and enslave all vessels in sight. Our Lulz Lizard battle fleet is now declaring immediate and unremitting war on the freedom-snatching moderators of 2011.

Welcome to Operation Anti-Security - we encourage any vessel, large or small, to open fire on any government or agency that crosses their path. We fully endorse the flaunting of the word "AntiSec" on any government website defacement or physical graffiti art. We encourage you to spread the word of AntiSec far and wide, for it will be remembered. To increase efforts, we are now teaming up with the Anonymous collective and all affiliated battleships.

Whether you're sailing with us or against us, whether you hold past grudges or a burning desire to sink our lone ship, we invite you to join the rebellion. Together we can defend ourselves so that our privacy is not overrun by profiteering gluttons. Your hat can be white, gray or black, your skin and race are not important. If you're aware of the corruption, expose it now, in the name of Anti-Security.

Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation. Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments. If they try to censor our progress, we will obliterate the censor with cannonfire anointed with lizard blood.

It's now or never. Come aboard, we're expecting you...

History begins today.

Lulz Security

Since I have a Paypal account, I should probably watch out for news regarding it and change my card or something the minute I see something bad.

Now's probably a good time to specialize in computer security.

Rant 798 / Ribs For Dinner

Bought the Nokia N8 when I recontracted (2 years) with Starhub for the 3G Power Value 100 plan with MaxMobile Lite, Pay-as-you-Roam, Caller ID Display and student benefits.

3G Power Value 100: $25.68/mth for 500 SMS/MMS and 100 mins talk time
MaxMobile Lite: No monthly fees but charges 1.07cents/kB, ie $10.70/MB, capped at $94.16
Pay-as-you-Roam: no monthly fees but charges 20% above regular rates for internet usage overseas
Caller ID Display: $5.35/mth to see who's calling me
student benefits: unlimited SMS/MMS for 2 years which is the entire duration of the contract

Total monthly bill: $31.03

Obviously I don't plan to use the 3G capabilities of the phone.

Spent $98 on the phone but it's got the best camera below $300 at 12MP. That's the only thing I cared about.

But the phone is too smooth. Sleek, but impractically smooth. I predict it will slip off my hands a lot if I don't add something to it.

So I shopped a bit at DealExtreme. It's one of the three shops I'm aware of based in China that deal in electronics and related accessories. The other two are Focalprice and DHgate.

DealExtreme doesn't deal in phones and computers but Focalprice does. However I've heard better things about the former then the latter.

Both of them offer free delivery worldwide, with certain conditions. For DE, they currently stopped EMS (Express Mail Service aka courier) for orders below US$30 and such orders have to pay US$0.01 for (slower) air mail. Not a huge difference really, lol.

Spent US$18.30 on 2 casings (1 hard 1 soft I think), 2 screen protectors, 2 styli and a HDMI-to-3-coloured-VGA cable because our TV doesn't have a HDMI socket. As for the double orders, I wanted to pick the cheapest plus the next cheapest for all 3 items as backups.

If the cheapest work fine, I'll stick with them next time I have to order again. If not, I advance to the next cheapest. Not to mention I'll buy at least 3 for the cheaper bulk rates.

Also asked my bro if he wanted these but he said no, and then asked what phone I bought.

When I told him, he said, "Such an old model?!"

Right away I thought: Dude, if not for work I'd not even have spend an extra dime beyond the contract itself.

But somehow I kept my mouth shut.

His phone was free, but only because my mum's contract with M1 involves a humongous monthly fee (due to work too) and this allowed her to choose from a huge selection of new models for free when she recontracts with them.

She's currently using his old phone.

It's nothing bad really. My mum may be playing MMORPGs but she's not exactly into new handphones. Even the touch screen on his old phone is giving her plenty of headaches.

It would be a waste to let her pick a phone when she recontracts.

So of course his way of thinking is different.





Anyways, why would I want a new and more expensive model?? I don't play games a lot on it. When I take public transport I play Solitaire and Minesweeper if at all.

Currently I can complete the highest difficulty in Minesweeper in under 10mins. Of course, Minesweeper has a lot to do with luck once the logical ones have been cleared, so I can't complete it 90% of the time.





According to DealExtreme's website, they will be delivered in 7-14 days. I don't think they'll be able to squeeze it into my mailbox, so I'll have to wait for the "Attempted Delivery" card and get it from the post office.

And if you're planning to shop at those websites, keep in mind the warranties are not as great as they make it out to be and their quality control can be horrible. Best to stick with the small gadgets and accessories and avoid the tablets and stuff.











So apparently, Indian porn goes by the terms "desi" and "masala". Porn isn't even legal in India yet it has its own names online. I may not be completely right, but I'm pretty sure I'm close about those two.










Spent a large part of the day figuring out my phone and customizing it.

It keeps crashing despite the firmware updates.

Also accidentally downloaded some data from the 3G connection. Apparently a lot of the apps do it automatically.

Well, they've all been deactivated now.

Also, I pulled the 3G connection out of the Internet category and made my phone connect only through the access points in this category, which only contains my home's WiFi network.

But I'll most likely still have to pay maybe a dollar or 5 depending on how quickly I stopped the connections back then.

I'm seriously considering visiting their service centre at VivoCity.

The problem is mainly in the Ovi Store (Nokia's handphone apps store). Keeps crashing all the time. It was a pain just to get the free Swype programme that lets me type by dragging my fingertip over the letters on the onscreen keyboard.









Wow that Hokkaido Sushi Restaurant I visited the other day is offering a new discount again.

Not filling at all, so no thanks. The other items are too expensive to be ordered ala carte.

They're probably not doing too well if they're having so many promotions. I recall seeing more promotions on the sake in the menu.











We're doing so well in Die2Nite but the town that the few members from my previous meta-coalition joined is now on its way to becoming the best. From the stats they're getting almost 20 DOs per day since Day 1, which is incredible. In contrast, we've been only getting 10 and one sixth (10.161616...) DOs per day.

For them, it's actually possible that they may hit Day 40 if they can find enough water outside. On our side, water is less of a problem because we have a water treatment plant within 10 tiles, so the zombies are the main issue.