Rant 749 / Someone Just Did The Impossible And Made Friday Sound Bad

Coffee. Ever since I began using ground coffee, I've been wondering what I could do with the grounds after I'm done with the first cup.

I use a slightly heaped tablespoon of grounded coffee to brew in roughly 8oz of water. I did try using it for a second cup, albeit with about half the water volume, but it was very bland, as if I was drinking canned coffee.

I'm not interested in making coffee-flavoured water the way I do with teabags.

However, the used grounds still smell nice, and they still have some flavour.

All I gathered is that they could be used to cooking coffee-flavoured stuff, like perhaps coffee bread or coffee ribs (if there's orange ribs, why not coffee ribs?).

Too troublesome.








Is there no way to be everybody's friend in DA2? Why must it be so realistic? If I want that kind of realism I'd just shut down the computer!

I try to be a hero, I get +5 Rivalry after the conversation.

I joke a lot, I get +5 Rivalry after the conversation.

I become a complete asshole... and get +5 Rivalry after the conversation.

Must I lose someone? I don't want to make enemies in case the ending is similar to ME2's, where companions not close to you die in the end.

You know what? I'm sick of this. I'll just do what I want and get half the party killed if that happens.

I'm also frustrated by the combat. They're hard, but not because it's really that hard. I believe it's because of the skills learnt by everyone.

The problem is that I never had a plan, so I spent my skill points haphazardly, choosing abilities that seemed useful at that time and probably later, yet not taking into account the synergy (or the absence of) that would result in those skills.

That, in turn, was because I did not know whether I'll be using the same people for the rest of the game.

Now that I no longer give a damn about their preferences, I should probably plan ahead.

Which would mean playing it again.

Which I don't want to.


...



Now I wish there's a way to stop my party members from doing anything. Apparently there's no way to tell them to just stand there and do nothing!

WHY CAN'T THEY JUST WAIT?!?

I want my tank to get out there, make all the monsters focus all their attention on her and then let everyone else attack!

But no, when the monsters appear, they all attack everything separately, like it's a race to see how kills more first.

Oh wait, I can set their behaviour to Passive.

But that's not all. They keep using disabling skills (Miasmic Flask and Sleep) on the same enemies at the same time!

AAAAAA!

Yea I didn't get enough sleep last night.

My tank can't hold the agro on all 10 monsters simultaneously, and it's always better to focus on one enemy at a time.

But even when I tell them all to focus fire on one, whenever that target dies they just attack random target again.

Why can't I make them focus only on the tank's target? WHY?

These are BASIC tactics used in MMORPGS! I'm not even describing anything complicated!

Ugh! I need sleep, but it's so bright.

And why can't I have a simple option to disable all automatic tactics? I don't want them to keep using skills that aren't useful during different situations!

I don't want to keep spamming spacebar!









Somehow I find that Singapore has never been particularly friendly with Japan since independence. Our leaders' responses to Japan's actions have mostly been non-existent, merely lukewarm or, on at least one occasion, offensive.

I suspect that the Lee family doesn't want to do that for 2 possible reasons:

- to compensate for the fact that more than one of the old guards in the PAP have worked for the Japanese during the occupation.

- they had a genuine dislike for the Japanese due to certain things they may have seen/experienced during WWII.

I did consider the possibility that this was to suck up to China, but the fact that we were not friendlier with Japan back when the name "China" referred to "Taiwan" made me dismiss it.

Either way, it now makes sense that Singapore has not done more than send 5 dogs with their handlers and donate S$500k to Japan.

Furthermore, I noticed that Singaporeans did not support LHL when he made that offensive remark. This, in turn, could be due to the following possibilities:

- Singaporeans, despite all those childish hate-mongering propaganda from the opposition about LKY and Nathan working for the Japanese during the Occupation (IMO that's as good as name-calling), are not holding their grudge as long as expected, or at least, as long as the Lee family.

- Singaporeans in general would rather annoy its own leadership than Japan despite the Occupation half a century ago.

After all, what LHL said then did have a point. They were offended their PM's visit to that particular shrine. If people had a little more confidence in Singapore, they'd have said the republic was learning to flex its muscle outside SEA. But that didn't happen, so it allowed us to gauge certain things from the response.

Disclaimer: I did not do exhaustive research before commencing on this rant. It is entirely possible these conjectures are based on incomplete data.








Today was my final real IPT (IPPT Prep Training) session. The official final IPT session will be on the coming Tuesday, which is really an IPPT (Individual Physical Proficiency Test) session. So I'm done with all the workouts till after August, when the new system forces me to try out the brand new IPT system.

According to the PTI (Physical Training Instructor), the new system will affect us overweight people differently from the others. While these other healthier failures will have to meet certain requirements which are basically lowered versions of the actual passing standards, overweight guys will have to reduce their weight instead.

By how much, I have no idea. Nevertheless, I'm definitely going for IPT because there two options for me are:

1) Go for 10 sessions of IPT spread over nine months. If I fail to meet whatever standards I have to achieve, I got for another 8 sessions of RT spread over three months.

2) Go for 20 sessions of RT spread over three months.

Yea, I'm picking 1) even though I get paid $120 less (I get about $10 per RT sessions, nothing for IPT) and IPT is supposed to be tougher. But if they put me in the overweight group, how hard can it get? Furthermore, 20 sessions over three months means 20 sessions over 12 weeks and the variety of toughness I can get ranges from 3 sessions per week for 7 weeks (2 sessions for 7th week) to 2 sessions per week for 8 weeks plus a single weekly session for another 4 weeks.

I can't choose consecutive days.

Nothing can beat 18 sessions over an entire year. Nothing.

As for the coming Tuesday, I'm starting to see the advantages of going to a school next to Maju Camp. Go for IPPT at 5.30pm, finish by 7pm at the very most, then class at 7.30pm. Such a perfectly arranged evening.








After the 2-hour nap I took after the angry rant above and the exercise during the IPT session, I managed to beat that battle that started my anger. Not easily but it wasn't as hard as the ones mentioned in the previous battle.

Tired minds don't perform as well and they're grumpier. True story.

That battle was the one that took place in the old Deep Roads where the end of Act 1 took place, but this time I revisited it for a quest in Act 2.

It had nothing to do with the quest but just one that blocked my path to some loot.

Two waves of spiders. Nothing much.