Rant 900 / A New Plan For A New Year

I guess that also explains Japan's population problem.











It's strange how some Singaporeans hate foreigners so much when a number of our leaders of the last generation weren't born here.

For example, our first President was born in Perak, Malaysia.














The collapse of the Euro is going to be huge if it happens. The long-term effects include the likelihood that the European countries are going avoid anything similar for decades to come.











Oh fuck!

I just found an air ticket price that's only slightly more expensive than what I paid on Expedia.com.sg!

Worse still, it's a direct flight by Singapore Airlines!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Like my flight, it arrives at around midnight. It also departs at around midnight, which isn't too different from my flight.

FUCK!

I'd totally pay that difference of JUST A SINGLE DOLLAR MORE for this.

Argh!


The absolute worst thing is that it's able to provide me with a flight + hotel package that's S$30 less than what I'm currently paying.

In short, this is better in every single way possible!

Lesson learnt, oh yes.

I'm so going for this website for my next trip.













Nothing's happening to my mum. She's worried that she may go when I'm overseas, but that's unlikely. I'll only be gone for 4 days after all. There's also the reservist training that will last almost a week but that won't stop me from going there if something does happen.

The patient who stopped eating was gone since Sunday. She was pretty quiet for the few days before then.

Now there's a new patient who's just like my mum. Almost the same age, almost the same number of children, same immobility and same cancer.



As for my goods, it's clear we're not replenishing them as rapidly as they're running out.

This year, we won't be doing as well as my mum used to, as expected.

I really need to get to Shanghai for new stuff.

Rant 899 / Coping

The hotel reservation has been confirmed!

I've also guaranteed my reservation with my debit card, and together with my special request which mentions my late arrival, the likelihood of them giving away my room is pretty low.

Still, it's China, so it's still slightly possible.

The only way to guarantee that I'll have no problem is if I pay in full now, which the system doesn't allow.

If I pay in full and the hotel is filled before my arrival, they will still be obligated to get me a room somewhere. It's not as good but it beats finding a room by myself.

And at midnight. With my luggage.




I've also found a website that charges even less for the exact same reservation at S$228.06 for the three nights, inclusive of all the extra fees and stuff. That's S$76.02 per night.

And yes, I checked the currency and made sure it was in SGD.

Given that hotels.com does not include breakfast in that reservation, I don't think I mind the $9-breakfast. I'm no morning person, so a hotel breakfast with the convenient location is probably worth the price difference ($8.98 to be exact).





Finally, I've re-checked the location of the hotel and the place(s) I'm planning to go to. They're within walking distance of about one kilometre, so it's great!

What other problems will I encounter next?


I'm aware that there is going to be A LOT of walking during my 2 days there. Even if I exclude that 1-km walk to and fro, which would total 2km, I'll still be spending my day doing nothing but walk and shop.

Fortunately it's winter, so it might not be so bad. However I doubt the Shanghainese winter is going to prevent me from sweating.

IMO it's actually a good thing that I'm having reservist training the week before the trip. I may have to do more walking than usual during that week, and that probably will make a good warm-up.











Bought some durian on Sunday. Wasn't cheap. $8 per packet of the XO durian, each containing two strips of the flesh with 2-3 seeds. $12 for two, so I bought 2.

Most likely it's still expensive but it's not like I eat durians all the time.

In fact it's been at least 5 years since I last ate fresh durian. It's been so long I don't even remember how long exactly anymore.

The XO durian indeed tastes alcoholic, although probably not like XO. Since I've only had a single glass in my entire life, I'm not a good judge of the flavour.

Anyway I could only handle one box. The other box shall have to wait till the next day.

My bro's gf was around and she doesn't like durian, so my bro is barred from eating it as long as she is present.











Burnt my soup yesterday morning. I was bringing it to a boil as usual after I got out of bed, but this time I forgot to set an alarm to remind myself to go back and check after 5mins.

My door was close so I couldn't smell anything until it was horrendously burnt, but my bro's door wasn't.

He smelled the burning, turned off the stove and poured water into the pot.

The soup was pitch black like coffee, but later in the afternoon, he discovered that the pot was still salvageable unlike the last 2 pots I burnt in the last two months.

Those were so bad even the metal scrubs couldn't get rid of the burn marks.

This one merely had a few slightly brown scars.

That I consider lucky. I was so pissed at the thought of losing this pot that I was saying that I'm not making soup anymore.

It's a good WMF pot.

It would have been like losing my Tefal wokpan that I've been using (and shown in my previous pictures).

These cookware is one of the benefits of my job. Working with middle-aged mothers mean I get to know about good discounts on branded cookware when they pop up.

Rant 898 / Because The Three Arrows Through Your Ribs Are Part Of Your Imagination

These guys are so good at this.











Apparently waiting for my friends to confirm with me whether they want to go overseas with me made me miss a promotion from Malaysian Airlines.

2 days after I first visited the agency, the same flight now costs me just over S$1000.

Obviously I didn't take it.

Today I've bought a ticket for another flight that lands at midnight of that day instead of departing at that time.

It's a different airline too, Hong Kong Airlines.

I feel that it's even worse than the initial one.

First, it's S$13 more expensive, at S$637.

Second, it lands at midnight, so I'll be checking in at about 1am or something.

Third, the return flight is in the early morning at about 8am, so I won't be taking their hotel breakfast even though it comes with the room.

Fourth, I'm going to have to book an extra night for this.

Fifth, because of my late check-in, I think it's much likelier for me to encounter the issue of the hotel being fully occupied.

Come to think of it, what was I thinking agreeing to this? The point of my midnight flight was to avoid this specific problem.

The first point isn't really a major issue. 13 bucks is really nothing when the ticket is over S$600.

The second is slightly more significant because Shanghainese taxis probably have midnight surcharge too, and my hotel is pretty far from the airport I'm landing at. On one website, it calculates my taxi fare to be about S$37 even without surcharges.

The third point I can probably settle by talking to the hotel people. I don't exactly expect success but my booking included a special request regarding changing that breakfast to something else.

Fourth is a bitch. I'm going to be paying the full price of a day's stay for half a night of sleep. Moreover, the 50% increment in the cost of my lodging is no joke. In addition, now that I've completed the booking process, I realized there's "fees and taxes" that weren't included in the $74. With that included, the final rate is actually $85/night. Still awesome though for a Queen bed in a 4-star hotel.

The final point is something I really hope doesn't happen, but it could. The booking system only allows payment at the hotel, so without payment, I think the hotel can still legally reject my booking.

I think.

I don't blame anyone for these inconveniences except the agent at Fairprice Travel for not telling me. Then again, I can't complain since they charge so much less.

Not to mention I expected problems to crop up. This is, after all, my first business trip and I'm going alone. So far I'd like to think I'm doing pretty well since I've basically dealt with all the kinks.




Now for the pros.

Since I'll be able to sleep on the night I arrive, I'll be able to focus better on the stuff I see on the following days.

This is particularly important because I suck at spotting stuff. I'm the sort of guy who only sees what's directly in front of me, and even less if I'm looking at a big messy pile.

I'll be hunting for specific designs, so that really should help.

Next is the food. Although only a snack and dinner are included in my two flights to Shanghai (first to Hong Kong and then to Shanghai), both breakfast and lunch are included in my flights back to Singapore (also because of a transfer at Hong Kong).

Yay.

Better still - no peak hour surcharge for taxis on Sundays in Singapore, so I don't have to rush out of the airport after landing in the late afternoon.

Feels good.




The real problem at the moment is actually the hotel. After making the reservation, the website told me the hotel can't confirm yet. Since this is the peak season, I'm really worried that it may not work out.

At this point, the alternative is that I'll be forced to spend $300 or more by going to the travel agents.



And yea, I changed my mind. I'm not keeping the destination a secret anymore.










Playing as a sneaky archer in Skyrim, I often encounter this very funny situation in which I'm implied to be a figment of the imagination of a minor character in a game.

It happens when I shoot someone and he doesn't die from the triple damage of my sneak attack arrow.

I'm practically never spotted because I fire from far away and I move back after firing in case they get close to my spot.

So when they give up on finding me, they would say something like," Probably just my imagination."

YEAH BECAUSE THE ARROW IN YOUR FACE IS FROM YOUR IMAGINATION!

And after killing them, I'd be thinking," I guess you got killed by your imagination, huh?"

Since I'm just a figment of the imagination of a minor dead character in a PC game, what does that make my readers?

YOU ARE HALLUCINATING!

THERE IS NO BLOG!

WAKE UP!













I cooked 2 dishes tonight and failed in one.

First was the carrot and brinjal in oyster sauce.

The carrot was sweeter than expected, so it made the whole dish pretty sweet, almost like a mild dessert.

I only used one carrot and one long brinjal. Most of the carrot was grated because I was too lazy to cut it into strips. The last part of the carrot was sliced instead before I could risk grating my fingers.

Next was potato and luncheon meat with baked beans.

I've really got to remember that potatoes need to be boiled beforehand because they take forever to cook. At least it smelled really nice, just like hashbrowns.

Threw in a can of baked beans after some of the luncheon meat cubes look browned.

 Added starchy water to give it some gravy to make it go better with rice.

This was one dish I knew couldn't go wrong. You have to be pretty bad to fail at cooking potato dishes.



Also, some leftover soup from last night. Soup's fine as long as I boil it before I go to bed and after.

Rant 897 / More Drivel

After Terraria, I think I understand the absence of appeal.

I'm not as concerned about the bugs as I am about the lack of replayability. Building for the sake of building just isn't fun. I can just go to a beach and build sandcastles all day too, so why aren't I doing that?

Or I can just buy a bunch of Lego bricks. I'm not doing that either.

It takes a lot of imagination and a lot of interest in building your fantasies. Unfortunately the latter is mostly caused by boredom. 












RIDING LIKE A BOSS!











Holy crap!











Tried to make 回锅肉 (hui2 guo1 rou4) and failed.

The plan was the stir-fry pork with leeks and another random vegetable, but I ended up adding way too much cabbage, causing the packet of sauce to be insufficient.

The dish was... edible.

At least the soup was a success. The seven sets of chicken bones really worked, and all the cartilage was gone after about 4 hours of boiling on the low heat.

Asked my bro to watch the pot whenI had to go out for work 1 hour after I started making the soup. All he had to do was check the pot every 30mins and make sure the pot was at least half full.

The soup itself was simple. Just the bones and some Chinese shiitake mushrooms.

And the salmon was nothing out of the ordinary. This was the third time I fried salmon and I've already gotten the hang of it.

In the land of Skyrim, the player starts off as a captured terrorist, who has been caught plotting to destroy the golden empire by using dragons. Before the player gets to take control of his avatar, they are asked to create a character, which is purely the liberal’s way of teaching out kids that modifying and gender changing one’s self is fun and normal. Once the player has decided if they want to be a female wood fairy or an black ogre from Stormwind, they get to take control of their hell spawned fictitious demon.

Right off the bat, the gay supporting software company Blizzard, shows the player images of decapitations and after the third of forth head chopping, a necromatic dragon appears and sets the player free from righteous punishment. Now that the player is free, they will spend the next 400 hours robbing people, killing villagers, crafting sexual items, fornicate with elves and other Harry Potter style animals and also learn how to conjure up black magic.

Once they player has finish killing all the people in Skyrim, his final battle is to have a mass dragon orgy with his fellow homosexual warriors he meets on his way and all take turns impregnating the dragon with homosexual dragon eggs. Once the dragon has been backdoor feasted, the player must kill it. The dragon needs to be killed, so the spirit of death and gayness can enter the new eggs and reek havoc onto the rest of the world. This new destruction will be playable in the next Skyrim saga.

This is epic stuff. The writer sounds so much like one of those seriously homophobic guys who are actually closet homosexuals.

In case you didn't get it, the website is about mocking conservative Christians.

Lastly, I'd buy this version of Skyrim, mainly just to see what homosexual eggs look like.

Rant 896 / Is Fairprice Travel The Cheapest?

Learnt a new lesson about my work today. I was actually going to the mall nearby to look for some stuff so I decided to go to a store I sell stuff to to pass them a document. When they saw me, let's just say they showed me yet another part of my job that my mum didn't properly explain to me.

Didn't hurt or anything since I could handle it, but the trip was just more important than I expected.











Also visited People's Park Centre near Chinatown today to see if I could get plane tickets cheaper than what I found on Expedia.

I had thought Expedia used SGD the other night when I noted the prices but I just realized they were in USD.

Anyway using the wrong price as my benchmark, I visited the travel agencies one by one to ask for the plane tickets for the days I wanted plus other conditions I deem necessary, like reaching there in the morning by departing at night so that even if it's too early for me to check in, I can still leave my luggage with the hotel and start walking, something taught to me recently by someone I know through my business.

Initially all were far above the price I had in mind, although lower than what it actually was in SGD.

A few even tried to pressure me by telling me that their low price was only available at that moment and I cannot take my time to think about it.

Those "low" prices were seriously lower than most, but still higher than what I wanted. Moreover, the lowest price offered by them was exactly the same as the lowest offered by 2 other agencies, which was about S$100 above my benchmark. No big deal.

Finally I entered this agency that offered only plane tickets, called "Fairprice Travel", which actually stated in Chinese on their signboard outside that it's a wholesaler of air tickets. Btw it's not related to NTUC.

I had a bit of hope then but after so many failures, I wasn't expecting much, maybe slightly lower than the lowest at that point.

In the end, they got one that was only $9 over the price I had in mind, so I asked for her namecard and wrote the price and airline down.

It was Malaysian Airlines with one transfer at KL, surprisingly, instead of an airline from the destination country.

Then when I got back and realized Expedia was in USD (after reading their FAQ), I knew I was pretty much settled with this part of the decision-making process.

As for the hotel, Fairprice Travel doesn't handle that, and all the other agencies couldn't go below $90 per night even for single beds (I only wanted a specific hotel), so I'm booking from the internet instead.

One website that I shall not name so that I don't reveal the destination country openly, offered me 2 nights for just $148 at that hotel for a room with either twin beds or a Queen-sized bed.

In other words, even if they could match the $74-per-night rate, I don't believe any of them could match the room.

Ok, so this may not be completely accurate. I didn't actually visit all of the agencies in that mall; I omitted an entire row near the food court, so I probably visited only 90% of them.

One reason why I stopped asking after finding Fairprice Travel is because the expressions of the agents tend to darken when I ask them to find fares that don't exceed the lowest I found at that point.

Obviously this meant that in order for them to compete, they would have to reduce their own commission. And why would they really want to compete for such a small commission from just 1 person's airfare and a few nights' stay at a hotel?

One of them even told me politely she won't bother to search for hotels unless I accept the price of the airfare she offered... which was $186 above the one offered by Fairprice.







The trip itself won't be very comfortable due to the first flight. It's a midnight flight with an hour-long transfer, meaning I won't be getting much sleep. After that, the plan is to go look around right after I dump my luggage at the lobby, so sleep is out of the question for the rest of the day too.

As for the return trip, I didn't care and I don't remember. All I know is that I am going to be back on that day itself (some flights end on the next day due to a long transfer period). I'm really not planning to do more walking on the final day, hence my nonchalance.

The hotel itself was the one thing I could splurge on because in a developing country, it's never a waste of money to spend more on lodgings and even food. When things suck in a developing country, it could seriously suck, and you don't want that to be true for your room.

So when I chose the hotel, I looked at the location first before going for somewhere that's at least 3 stars. The most important factor is always the location when money is not a major issue.









Y'know, I kinda wonder how the other agencies survive. More young people turn to the Internet these days to do their research, so there has to be an increasing number of travellers who don't need a guide.

Without a guide, travellers would only need the air tickets and hotel bookings from agencies.

Yet absolutely none of the real travel agencies could match the air ticket prices of this agency that specializes in that, and the Internet offers far cheaper hotel prices than they can.

How many internet-illiterates are there buying from them to allow them to stay in business?











Tried to order Domino's the other day using my free-pizza voucher that they gave to compensate for a late delivery last month.

Didn't work. Apparently they don't allow certain promotions to be used together with others.

I used 2 other coupons in addition to that voucher, and I've never had any trouble with multiple coupons before. Hence I suspect that free-pizza voucher can only be used alone in each order.

Ordered Canadian 2-for-1 instead.











For some reason I find myself disliking the task of typing order forms detailing the changes I want to the factories.

I have no idea why. My guess is I fear making mistakes in those.

Strange because it's the same even for order forms for samples on which there is little to lose.

Rant 895 / Options Are Optional

And that's usually how noobs kill the pros once in a while.










Just when I thought $4.99 for 3 dozen eggs was a good deal, I saw a stall selling eggs of similar sizes at $1.60 per dozen in the market.

Then again, with the 3% cashback on my debit card that Saturday, it should be about the same after all. 3% of $5 is $0.15.

Meh.













Last night the right button of my mouse decided to stop responding every so often. Initially I thought it was a software issue but I hadn't updated anything since the last time I used it.

So I changed the mouse to another Microsoft one but I only exchanged that problem with another.

Now the cursor jumps around occasionally.

Time to find more cheap mice. Nothing fancy, I just need a generic one that doesn't fuck up my games.









I just learnt not to fry a frozen egg. My fridge is getting old, so things placed on the top level tend to freeze, and that's what happened when I had to place two of them there after filling up the egg racks on the fridge door the day I bought the 36 eggs.

Frozen egg yolks break by themselves despite the seemingly protective ice shell, probably because the skin of the yolk froze too.

Moreover, there's the problem of frying anything frozen - the outside tends to overcook and/or the inside gets undercooked.

In this case, I simultaneously burnt and undercooked the very same egg.

Finally, the shell cracks when the egg freezes, so boiling is out of the question.










Season 4 of Die2Nite has the coalition limit removed, so I'm back into the game. Unfortunately, I forgot about the jump after signing up with my last mega-coalition, hence forgetting to log in to accept the coalition invite before the jump.

Now I've got to wait for the next jump.

Time to set a daily 11pm alarm on my phone again.

Started doing it when I died once from forgetting to log in. It was particularly unforgettable because the town had some real potential.












Skyrim is getting hard again. It seems I'm not as invisible as I thought. The first time I noticed this was when I fought the Forsworn at the Sundered Towers. They could seriously hear me from 50 meters away and see me when I'm in their line of sight and about 10m away from them even when I sneak really slowly.

This never happened before. I'm usually invisible even when I'm right under their noses.

I think the game actually takes the lighting into account because it was broad daylight when it happened and I was on the steps where there was no shade.

The second was during the main quest when I was supposed to sneak through a garden into this guy's room. They couldn't hear me but they could see me from 10m away when I'm under the sun. In the shadows, they couldn't see me at all even when one of their knees was in my face.















So minced pork goes at $10/kg at the market. And they have fatty pork unlike the Shop N Save where there's only minced lean pork. Probably because of low demand.

And the chicken breasts there cost me $15 for 14 pieces, or 7 chickens' worth, with or without the bones. Apparently I can also choose to have the bones removed and placed in another bag for me.

Awesome. More chicken stock. 7 chicken ribs can make 2 batches probably.











Another cooking failure. I got the fuzzy gourd and dried shrimps right but not the rice vermicelli. Both rice vermicelli and cellophane noodles are called "vermicelli" here, so I just bought one packet of the former.

Then I discovered it was the sort that was meant to be eaten in soup when I cooked it.

Now it's almost wasted. It's actually pretty edible but it just tastes nothing like what it was intended to be.

It's kinda like porridge now because it's been overcooked, and that was because I was initially unsure if the whiteness meant it was not cooked enough.

We're treating it as porridge. It's perfectly edible, but just doesn't taste like what it was meant to be.

Rant 894 / Crockwork

I'm finding my N8's camera so useful now in my work. Worth every cent.

I use it to take pictures of my samples and label them in my photo editor to remember them and their corresponding numbers.

I also use it to take pictures of new designs that have potential.

Finally and most importantly, I take pictures of work documents instead of saving copies because a lot of them are handwritten. Because of the high resolution, I can take a picture of an A4 size document in a single photo and be able to see everything clearly when I zoom in.

That last is the most important function to me. I no longer need a scanner or photocopier if it's just for my own eyes. I also save everything in my PC whenever I plug it in so nothing is ever lost.












$9 for a haircut! That's what I paid when I visited this barbershop across the street, instead of all the hair salons in my neighbourhood. It's probably the only barbershop here - all the others are hair salons.

Wasn't bad at all since I wasn't into anything fancy, just a trim. Most interesting part was when he took out that large straight razor to shave my sideburns. I've never had such a huge blade so near my throat before.

Also, despite all the "hair saloons" that can be found on Google, it's hair salon!

A saloon is a place you go to get drunk.

And in this case, drunk on hair, I guess.

The only difference I can tell between the hair salons and the barbers is that the latter also handles shaving (facial hair). Shaving alone costs $7.50 there, but a haircut plus shaving costs $12.

But I don't really know why anybody would need a barber to shave for him in this day and age. It's not like there's anyone with a beard in Singapore.













Supporters of Gaddafi want to get out of jail now that the civil war's over.

Too bad.

What did they expect? The Western countries to come and fight for their freedom?











Rain. It's arriving like clockwork everyday for the last 4-5 days. Always at about 2-3pm, when I'm out.

I am not amused.











So the new Giant Christmas catalogue arrived. Apparently the last coupon catalogue can be used on top of these new offers!

Unfortunately, there were too few items that I could buy to justify the cab fare.

For example, the dozen-can pack of Coke Light at $7.75 ($8.25 offer price + $0.50 off from coupon), ie $0.65 per can, is almost definitely cheaper than what I can find nearby.

The Dettol 550ml Shower Gel refill packs at $3.40 ($3.90 offer price + $0.50 off from coupon) might be cheaper too, if its even available at all here. If it isn't, I'll compare with the Show Gel bottles themselves, whose conclusion is obvious.

Everything else that interests me is just not cheaper despite the discounts.

Moreover, I can definitely expect something from Shop N Save in the near future too, although I'm not sure if the outlet near my place is going to participate in whatever sale it organizes.

Either way I'm not visiting Giant for this sale.












So my mum has returned to the point where she's confused even about how much time she has left. A friend of hers whom she recently called and informed of her condition visited her on Saturday.

She called me there and asked me why I'm not hiring a maid and let her stay home.

It was only when I mentioned my discussion with her oncologist at NUH, in which we agreed that hiring a maid was not worth it when she only has several months left, that she revealed to me that my mum told her she had 3 years left.

If only that was true.

One of the doctors told me on the first day that even several months was an optimistic estimate because if an infection sets in, which is very likely due to that wound and the steroids, she'd go much sooner than that.

I've already said everything I needed to say to her. There were a few things I realize I had to say but never got a chance to until I thought she was gone. 

Now the most important thing is that her suffering is minimal. So far she isn't feeling any discomfort and that is good.

But it also puzzles me, which worries me slightly. If she's only got a few months left, won't that mean the pain will come suddenly and increase very quickly?

Hopefully she won't be like the patient who keeps whining about pain but it could come to that. Right now she and my mum are the only two patients in the ward who have been there since my mum's arrival. Everyone else has come and gone.

And she's near her end. Yesterday the nurse gave her some sort of medicine because she hasn't passed motion for seven days and, according to my mum, her family agreed to stop feeding her the night before. She could barely eat that day. It's like what the doctor told me - the intestines are among the first organs to shut down.

Within the week she's going to be transferred to a single-bed ward, just like all the others.

...

Y'know, maybe she was trying to lie to her friend to make her feel better.