Monday 31 October 2011

Rant 884 / Inb4 No More Qantas



I don't understand a lot of the lyrics but somehow I find myself playing this video so many times.













WHO WANTS CHOWDER?
















I just noticed someone who arrived at my blog by googling the term "female bodybuilder having sex".



The strange thing is, that's something I just encountered in a JAV online.

Don't ask me how that happened; I don't remember mentioning such a thing ever.

Anyway the video was pretty disgusting. Even the cover was not enticing for us normal guys. I swear I saw a bit of it purely out of curiosity.



I really don't envy the actors in it. Not only did they have to have sex with her, they had to come to her. It takes... quite a bit of horniness, probably. If they could fuck her, they could fuck anything.

As for the top keyword, yea, "Witcher 2 nudity" and similar terms still top the list on a regular basis due to the misleading title I made for one rant.

I'm really not proud of it.













Stopped playing HoMM VI for some time now even though I haven't actually lost interest in it.

It's just that to fully appreciate the game, you need to have nothing much on your mind and plenty of time to play.

I do have quite a bit of free time but they're all split up into small sections.

For example, today is Sunday. I woke up at 10am, washed up, made coffee and compiled a list of things I need to buy soon. Waited till 11am but the cleaner didn't show up. We're not really communicating very well.

Or rather, she doesn't communicate very well. I don't always know when she wants to come over. There are several possible times and I can either ask her every single week or just wait around during those times.

Played till 1pm when my bro got back from NUH after feeding my mum.

Went downstairs to see if the vegetable stalls at the market were still open. Nope.

Speaking of the wet market, the stall that sells roasted meats is pretty cool.

It closes at about 10am. I'm not even exaggerating.

The other day I went down at about 10.30am to 11am to see if I could get some char siew (Chinese BBQ pork). He was already almost done cleaning up and the lights were off.

That's pretty amazing considering that it wasn't open when I went there at 6am once.

How many hours does he work for? 2-3 per day?

Damn!

All he needs to do is hang the meats properly and chop them up after that.

And people thought CEOs have really awesome jobs.

Anyway I got back up after buying some stuff and tidied my room a little in preparation for the cleaner to come. Some things must not be seen, even accidentally, by her now that I have to handle documents for my business.

She never arrived because apparently she had to stay home to babysit her employer's baby.

No big deal.

The only area that needs some attention is the part when my turtle's pool is because the drain keeps getting clogged by its foodscraps. The shedded shells aren't a problem because they're big enough for me to pick up before changing the water, but the tiny bits of fruits and vegetables are a little hard to filter.

I could clean the filter but when the water drained so slowly the last few days, well, the food scraps spread everywhere in that area and dried on the floor . Now they're also going to have to be scrubbed off soon.

Went for a nap at 3pm.

Got up just before 4pm and prepared dinner for me, my bro and his gf.

Wanted to just have a simple dinner consisting of 2 dishes initially: kangkong stir-fried with garlic, and steamed fish on beancurd.

Unfortunately I forgot about his gf until she arrived, so that plan had to be changed.

In the end I just whipped up the good old Kung Pao chicken. Simple dish but something I wanted to avoid because I'd already made it 3 times before this within the last 2 weeks.

Whatever.

The kangkong took a bit more preparation this time because my bro said it was too tough the last time. Not only did I cook it longer I also smashed the stems with the side of my cleaver a couple of times.

Ok, it wasn't really smashing. That's dangerous. All I did was lay the blade flat on the bunch of stems and hammered it with my fist.

You can do the same for garlic too instead of manually chopping it finely. Just slice it up and hammer it like that. Just be careful the blade is lying flat and you're hitting directly on the garlic or the force may propel the garlic bits out from underneath the knife.

Also used 5 cloves of garlic for 2 bunches of kangkong. How much that is exactly, I have no idea. Both the wet markets and supermarkets sell them in bunches of that size but they never state how heavy they are. "As thick as a man's wrist" is probably the best description I can come up with right now.

As for the fish, I placed the tofu on a metal plate, sprinkled some chopped spring onions on top before placing the fish on top and around it. Sprinkled some white pepper on all the fish too in case they had a strong fishy smell/taste.

Steamed for 10mins.

It was too long.

Half the fish and all the beancurd disappeared though. His gf doesn't eat fish.

Truth to be told, I'm running out of easy dishes to try.

If this goes on I'm going to have to start making soups.

Anyway, back to my day.

I was done with all the cooking only at 5.40pm. Most of the time was spent on preparing the ingredients and cleaning the bowls and pans from the previous night.

I quickly sliced up a mango, kept it in a plastic container and went to the hospital. Arrived just in time to see the nurse serving the beds around her. Her food and eating utensils were already prepared. I think the nurses were about to feed her after serving everyone else.

Brought the mango because they kept serving her oranges and apples. Both are too hard for her to eat. Oranges are soft but peeling sliced oranges will get messy. Apples are just too hard.

Had to feed her fruits. I don't know whether the vegetables were going to provide her enough vitamin C but I didn't want to take the risk. Mangoes are cheap at the moment anyway.

Speaking of fruits, I saw some yellow dragonfruits at the fruit stall the other day. From Vietnam, according to the vendor.

Yes I'm so noob I've never seen yellow dragonfruits before.

They were small and looked like underdeveloped versions of the purple ones I usually eat. The leafy growths around them looked more like buds because they were smaller and rounder.

Not my photo

Ok, back to my day again.

Returned home only at 8pm. Washed up and had a slow dinner till 10.30pm. I can eat really slowly at times. Mainly because of the mango and chicken feet. I kept the center of the mango containing the seed for myself. That took some time.

Then the chicken feet one of the factories sent us also can't be eaten quickly. It's the white kind with some vinegar added. The owner knows we like it so she sends us some once in a while together with our samples. It's a PR thing I guess.

Not sure if it's working on me though. My impression of her didn't improve due the deliciousness of the chicken feet - her sweaters/abominations still haunt my memories today.












I think I see the sense of a social safety net and free healthcare.

It makes people save less. Less money is stored in banks, ie more money is being circulated in the economy.

In short, the government spends more and gets even more back.

After all, the economy has always been about how much money is changing hands, not in each hand.

Sunday 30 October 2011

Rant 883 / That's Milk?

FRI















So I tried to order fast food to my office on Deepavali.

MCD doesn't deliver to my office! What kind of fuckery is this??!?!

Fortunately the hawker centre nearby was still opened, so this was the first time I visited that place. Usually I'm out of the office by lunch because... I don't want to eat with my employees. Generation gap.

Would you want to eat with your parents and their friends during lunch on weekdays?

Anyway they have Thai steamboat over there. Who the heck eats in the industrial areas of Singapore when they're free enough to eat steamboat meals with friends?











My bro probably discovered the joy of cooking for someone who appreciates his cooking.

I tell you, you get a nice feeling when someone compliments on your cooking.

Anyway the beef stew he made on Deepavali was pretty good, so he made a larger pot of it today.

On Deepavali, I left a piece of rump steak to thaw in preparation for a stew that night but found more things to do in the office than expected, so I told him to google a recipe like I did and do it himself.

Stews are easy enough that even retards can't ruin it, so I wasn't worried. After all, you just dump everything into a pot of water and cook till they're all mushy. And add a bit of salt and pepper.

Today he went to buy more beef just for this.

I was actually planning to make avocado salad with the extra celery but I was carrying too much when I got home to go and buy the avocados and carrots. This was a fortunate surprise.












So I've decided to send her to Assisi Hospice. The social worker has spoken to me and he has agreed to handle this for me.

The oncologist estimated she has several months left if she manages to avoid a serious infection. Due to the gaping wound on her chest, the risk of infection can't be low. I'm actually surprised she hasn't got a fever yet despite having that wound for months.

The tube to her brain, according to the neurologists, is not a good idea. In better circumstances, that would be okay, but again due to her wound, the tube will create the risk of bringing the infection into the brain. In short, too risky, not recommended.

Surgery is already not an option because of the spread. After scanning her abdomen yesterday, they found that it has spread everywhere.

Chemotherapy is also not recommended due to her age and her physical condition.

In fact the oncologist also recommends palliative care at this stage and spoke to me about the two hospices I can choose from: Assisi and Dover Park.

Stay-in hospices were recommended partly because we don't have a maid, all 3 of us are young and working/studying, and she is going to develop certain symptoms that will required trained specialists to handle.

Because she is not expected to live much longer, hiring a maid is also not a feasible.

The social worker spoke to me this afternoon on some of the same issues, and explained further about the hospices.

Assisi is near Novena MRT while Dover Park, despite its name, is at Tan Tock Seng hospital. One main difference he highlighted was that unlike Assisi, Dover Park offers the option of staying with the patient on her final nights in a private room.

Assisi does not allow visitors to stay overnight.

I'm choosing Assisi. She is going to be unconscious by then. Staying near her won't make her feel any better.

Even now, her psychomotor control is very bad. This morning a friend of hers told me she wasn't eating yesterday and had to be fed. I only visited her in the morning so I didn't watch her eat. She was still ok the day before.

So today I went over during lunch and saw that she was barely able to handle the fork and spoon.

I've discussed this with my bro and his gf, so we'll try to visit her during lunchtime and dinnertime. I can't do much about breakfast. I really don't want to get myself more depressed by depriving myself of my entertainment at night. They can handle dinner much more easily since they have classes till 6pm at NUS nearby.

She'll be transferred to Assisi next week, probably Tuesday. I have no idea what's going to happen then.

Staying in hospices won't be cheap. Without subsidies of any form, it will hit about S$6000 per month.

If my family income is about $2000, I may get 50% subsidy. This is quite possible actually.

However the government subsidy will only last 3 months. Appealing for more will not be possible unless our savings get wiped out by these bills. In other words, I won't get anything beyond 3 months of subsidies, if I get any at all.

The hospice will get someone to assess our finances so that they can decide how much subsidy we need.





The social worker was kinda strange. Maybe it was part of his job but he sounded as if I'm carrying a huge burden by handling everything at home, work and etc. This seemed to be worsened by the fact that I only knew about her condition a few months ago.

What.

This isn't bad. I've been provided with everything I need to survive after her departure. There's nothing terrible about what's happening now other than her imminent death itself.

Emotionally, she's been telling us that she was dying since years ago. We've all long accepted the fact that she's hit the average of 10 years that cancer takes to return. That it took this long was already a fortunate thing for her.

Perhaps if the same had happened to other people, it might have been terrible for them. For me, I have a job with very flexible working hours limited only by how much I'm willing to fork out for transport, so I don't get additional pressure from it. That probably helps a lot.

What's happening to me now is nothing. In a way, I am one of the luckiest people in the world.

In a way.














SAT

For some reason she seemed stronger tonight. My bro visited her in the afternoon and found the nurse feeding her. Just now I merely had to push food onto her spoon with the fork.

Skipped the slice of wholemeal bread as usual. Too chewy. Asked the nurse if I could replace it with something softer but she was too busy to answer me properly. It was medication time, so I wasn't even supposed to disturb her. I only did it because I thought it was a very simple matter.

Apparently it was not. She handed me the menu and told me to choose from it.

The problem is that the bread wasn't mentioned in any of the options, probably because it came with ALL the options. I just thought it was a waste to throw it away every time.

I'm sure some of you would consider eating it. I did, but now I'm old enough to realize that if I ever start eating her food, she might develop this notion that she could eat less so that I could eat more. Who knows? She could very well be imagining that I'm not eating well right now.

That's obviously not true. I just made some awesome chicken breast stir-fried with ginger and spring onion this afternoon.

Then I failed at dinner when my Beijing cabbage stir-fried with chicken breast got way too watery and the starch I tried to throw in... lumped together.

Epic fail.

I learnt then that the starch reacts much faster when thrown into hot water. The temperature is pretty important I guess.

Ah well. At least I feel better now that I know that the nurses feed her whenever we're not around, which means they feed her during breakfast and tea time (at 3pm).

I think the most interesting part of tonight's visit was the old lady who had just arrived today. According to her two visitors, she had "severe dementia". To make it worse, she was pretty deaf.

When I walked into the room, she was already talking loudly to nobody in particular. Or maybe she was talking to someone but whoever that was was ignoring her completely.

According to another patient, she was like that the moment they brought her in.

Even if one could comprehend her mix of Malay, Hokkien and Cantonese (and perhaps some other dialects), it probably couldn't have made any sense.

Near the end of my visit, she kept calling out to me in Hokkien and said some things that sounded like Cantonese. I think she was telling me to bring her home or maybe to the bathroom because she was either urinating or passing motion.

Called out to me lots of times but in Rome, we should all do as Romans do. In this case I just ignored her. At first she kept telling me it was very urgent and at the end, it was out.

Good thing they made her wear diapers... I think. Overheard the female visitor tell the male that she tried to tear off her diaper earlier. Hopefully they had put it back on again.

She wasn't even aware that she had a fractured leg, according to her male visitor. Probably her son, or maybe son-in-law and husband of her female visitor.

I just didn't like how he seemed so irritated.

Then again, I don't have a mother like that.

Thursday 27 October 2011

Rant 882 / I Think This Blog Is Going To Get Pretty Depressing For Some Time

WED
















So the price guide at the NUH website is not completely accurate.

Class C Ward, the cheapest 8-bed ward that's fan-ventilated, costs $33 per night. The 6-bed fan-ventilated Class B2 costs over $60 per night.

Class B1, the cheapest air-conditioned ward and has only 4-beds per ward, costs $260 per night instead of the $180 shown on the website.

This also excludes all the medicine, treatment and consultation fees.

Furthermore, government subsidies only apply for patients staying in the 2 fan-ventilated wards. Apparently I can upgrade from a subsidised ward to a non-subsidised one and still might retain some subsidies, but I cannot get anything if I downgrade the other way.

The upside is that non-subsidised patients get their choice of doctors, although that's useless for me when:

1) I have no idea who's good or bad at NUH
2) We aren't trying to save her life; the point is only to make her end as comfortable as possible

It's not cheap being sick although I'd say Class C wards are still pretty affordable. $33 per night is only $1000 per month. That's the least of one's worries when we take into account the treatment and stuff.

I'll list those when I get the bill in the future, if I'm ever in the mood to dwell on it then.

For my case, I'm prepared to spend half my inheritance on this. I don't expect this to happen but I also understand it is possible that it could exceed that amount.

Not a problem because I also expect my brother to split the bill. I'm not trying to be an ass but I believe in buffers, both in time and money. I need a financial buffer in life constantly, and if I do spend half my inheritance on this, I don't want to think about my buffer for the family business.







So I've been summoned to talk to her neurologists tomorrow morning. 9am. Ugh. I wake up at 9am for when I have to get to the office early.

The doctor told me they had a psychologist assess her and she was found to be unfit to make her own decisions due to her depression and some other problems.

I've already asked her directly last night to confirm this and also judging from her (in)actions for the last 10 years, the answer is simple.

All I'm planning to do is ask them how likely it is to save her, if it is possible to prevent her from suffering if we do not drain her brain and how long it will take before it's over if we don't drain.

At this point I'm very sure it's a waste of their time to save her and they should focus on other patients who are keener on staying alive. Moreover, my mum has already given up on life. Saving her will only make her go through all these crap again in the very near future (her diabetes has to be extremely serious by now since she stopped taking her meds a few months ago, and even a year or two ago, her doctor had already advised her to begin using injections instead of pills).

The expected outcome for tomorrow is that I will ask them to start palliative care for her if possible, and sedation when necessary. I believe right now it's better for her to be unconscious than let her lie on the bed waiting to die, but the next best thing is just to prevent pain.

I've been through a surgery for my shoulder before, so I have an idea what constant pain is like.










So a girl I know who was studying law in Hong Kong the last time we met is now a flight attendant. She was a teacher before that.

Law school must be pretty different from what I thought it was supposed to be.








THU







So it was a very simple conversation with the neurologists. They just told me what to expect and I told them what I expected.

They recommended to the "main team" to refer her to a palliative care team and I got a call from a representative of that group in the afternoon.

The neurologists put my mind to rest when they told me that she will eventually become unconscious sometime in the future due to the tumour in her brain even though it will also give her pain at some point. If it gets painful before she goes completely unconscious, I believe the palliative care people will sedate her appropriately.

Contrary to what some might think, it is nothing like what they show on TV. Family members don't cry all the time, we don't look gloomy constantly and we don't contemplate suicide.

I've lost both parents, so I know.

Crying is of course necessary. IMO it's therapeutic. Holding it in will only cause mental issues in the future.

I still crack jokes, I still laugh and I can still smile when I go to see her despite the fact that she is no longer the person I used to know.

Her memory is messed up, her speech is incoherent and she has been proven to be depressed. Yesterday her employees brought some chicken essence when they visited her. Today when I asked who brought those, she told me it was my bro's gf.

She did buy her chicken essence, but that was weeks ago and that box is still untouched in the living room.

The best thing I can do is to make sure I can handle the business. It's the busiest time of the year, so none of us working here can afford to be too disturbed by this. There are orders to make, goods to check and money to be remitted.

My very first shipment of goods has just been ordered. I'll be finding out for myself what the process is like. Fortunately the factory has agreed to handle the shipping on their end so all I need to do is handle the freight forwarding. I could have handled the shipping too but at the moment, I don't mind the risk of them ripping me off in exchange for a simplification of the process for me.

I think I know what to do. Whatever questions I have, it is now too late to ask my predecessor. I have been given the contact details of everyone I need to call for everything, so I will just call the company I think is the freight forwarder on my end.

All her instructions were given to me in Chinese, so when I made the deal with the new factory online in English, everything's a little less clear for me.

Money is a little problematic at the moment due to some old habits of hers, but I can handle those. I'm a much more honest person, so I dislike owing them money.

Still in the process of getting used to looking at such huge numbers in RMB and recalling that they become very small numbers when converted to SGD.

On the other hand, this new factory demands payment in USD. Hopefully this doesn't complicate things too much.

Hmm... probably not. In fact this could simplify my life a little since unlike the RMB, there is no annual limit on the remittance of USD to China.

For example, I just kinda wasted two trips' worth of cab fare today because of a problem related to this limit. Damn that pointless restriction. Everybody knows it's so easy to bypass it. All it does is inconvenience the very people are who throwing money into their country.

Tomorrow I'll have to go back to the bank and remit again.

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Rant 881 / Such Is Life.

My turtle seems to hate overripe plantains. The flesh of those I threw inside haven't turned black yet, just the skin.

I gave it three and all it did was take 2-5 bites out of each plantain.

Picky little fella.












I know nobody likes to read this sort of unhappy stuff but as you can see, I don't care.

Part of my motivation for typing this comes from my curiosity in whether any of my relatives visits this blog.

So far, no one else except my brother and his girlfriend knows about this and I've been instructed to keep this quiet unless I'm asked as far as my relatives are concerned.

I'm not breaking this rule because I don't believe my relatives visit this blog at all.

As for the friends who come here, I'd very much appreciate it if you guys just act like you didn't see this. I find it hard to enjoy good food in a depressing atmosphere, plus getting away from this is part of the reason why I've been so active in organizing outings.

My mum has finally been hospitalized. I had called 1777 for a non-emergency private ambulance to get her there.

I only did so because she was at the point where she couldn't even stand up anymore. We needed someone to take care of her since she does not want any males to bathe her and stuff, not even her own sons, and palliative care requires a doctor's recommendation.

Paid $80 to bring her to NUH.

I spent practically the entire afternoon and evening waiting due to the bed shortage. Meanwhile they took 3 hours to finish their assessment and another 3-4 to get her warded. After that, they informed me that since it was after office hours (10pm), there were only a few doctors on duty and we would have to wait because we weren't the only people who needed their attention.

While waiting at the A&E for her to be assessed and warded, I saw this giant banner on an opposite building saying "for the future". The rest were covered by trees and I didn't bother to move to read the rest.

Ironic. The future has no place for people admitted through here, the emergency entrance.

Diagnosis is as bad as expected. It is breast cancer, already stage 4. The constant bleeding, which I thought was an old wound that was prevented from healing by her diabetes, was really caused by the sheer mass of the tumour she had been hiding.

Part of it has also spread to her brain and currently blocking brain fluid. Though not urgent, she will soon require a tube to drain that. The problem is that this temporary solution can only last 10 days.

She had already guessed how bad the cancer was and told me as much weeks ago, mainly because things were the same for my father.

Fortunately she is rational, though slightly incoherent. This started on Sunday, when she said I was "金龟独立". She seemed to know what she was saying. To confirm this, I repeated the words back to her and saw her nod.

She is rational as far as I can tell, so I'm inclined to let her make her own decisions until she is no longer so.

Which brings to mind my personal debate about the responsibility of decision-making. I fear making decisions because I fear the consequences of mistakes. However, one of the consequences of pushing this responsibility to others is that I may not get the outcome I desire, and I must accept that.

To avoid the burden of mistakes, I must also lose control of the things around me.

To simplify it further, it's a choice between potentially making things better or just not actively worsen them. And the responsibility.

I had hoped the incoherence was due to dehydration, but after an entire afternoon and evening on the drip, she still said a few things that made no sense to me and the doctors.

I'm fully prepared to respect her decision to not receive treatment. When she is no longer able to make her own decisions, this is the path I will take.

It is over.

At some point in the future, I will request that she is kept unconscious till the end, just like my father was. It would be the best way to go in the absence of euthanasia.

Almost everything after her death has been prepared. She has told me to get her a short Buddhist funeral, just a simple matter of a few monks chanting for 3 days or so. It does not matter if her siblings come.

She has bought her own slot near my father's in the columbarium. It was depressing but she did it.

Her will has been prepared, so everything will be ok for a while. The ownership of the business has been transferred to me and I have been given access to all related bank accounts except the one in Hong Kong.

I have yet to consider that issue. I will be asking whoever handles her will about that matter. If not, I'll just fly there.

As for the business itself, I estimate that I have enough savings to last more than a year as long as I don't do too badly. My mum could do it when my father passed away without showing her how to handle the business at all, and my buyers and employees would find it in their interests to help me keep this business profitable even if all they care about is money.

Everything ends, good and bad. C'est la vie.


I'm not extremely depressed or anything. My bro and I have been thoroughly prepared emotionally for this. She's been telling us that she was dying for years though I'd always thought she was just depressed.

Denial, anger and acceptance. We've been at the third for months. Her hospitalization merely marks the beginning of the end.

I only wonder if I will be able to prepare my children for life after my death as well as my parents did for us, if I ever have any.

Monday 24 October 2011

Rant 880 / Sexual Harassment Laws Are Surprisingly New.



"Smells like fresh vagina in here =D"













Shin Tokyo / Ramen Ten at Clementi Cityvibe has terrible sushi and mediocre ramen. Seen a lot of Ramen Ten offers on the deal websites but never really looked at them.

Then we found this seemingly good discount for Shin Tokyo.

It was only when I got there that I noticed both signboards are above the same entrance.

The sushi was fine at first.

But when it started to get busy, the sushi rice became horrible.

It was way too mushy. Too much water or something.

We practically stopped eating after that. Took a few to occupy our itchy hands and mouths as we waited for the few non-sushi items to appear on white plates on the conveyor belt.

For the rest of 2 hours we just... discovered how bad sushi can possibly get.

Luckily they also served a few plates of potato wedges, onion rings and some other stuff, or we'd just be drinking green tea.














To truly accept life, we must accept death.

Why don't people do that?

Because when we accept death, we become more detached from the world. If we are to accept death, we must understand that everything ends.

We don't want to think about that.

Because thinking about it makes us lose part of our motivation to achieve anything.

It's not going to be there forever anyway.

I'm going to lose it in 50 years anyway.

I have a time limit for how long I can enjoy this.

Titles, awards and everything else don't matter to a dead body.

I believe that's why people in general find it so hard to accept that everything ends in death.

That's why the concept of an afterlife is so well-received in so many civilizations since antiquity.

Those who believe in the afterlife believe that what they have now can still retain their meaning to themselves after death.

Hence, they get more drive to get out and do things.

Who has more influence on society? The achiever or the guy who never really did anything because he understood nothing matters in the end?

It's not a definite thing. I'm not saying everyone who doesn't believe in an afterlife suck in life, but like evolution, it's all about the little differences in probabilities.

When a person dies, it's all over.

There is absolutely no chance that you will ever hear or see that person again.

Even when a person moves to a faraway place and loses contact with you, there is still a small chance that you might get to find him/her again. However improbable that is, the thought would still linger in the back of your mind and comfort you.

Not death.

The absoluteness is disturbing even for those who have felt it at least once.

Probably because nothing else in life is as ultimate as death.

"When there's a will, there's a way."

This is the only situation where this rule does not apply.

There is no way.

There is no reload.

There is no restart.

Even if you watch a video of that person, it can never be the same.

It is over.

Saturday 22 October 2011

Rant 879 / Clearly The Libyans Are Better Hunters Than The Amurikans

 In the news this week...

http://youtu.be/NDS81Ibazdk

But seriously, where were his female bodyguards????










Just got a free copy of Renegade Ops from a friend who bought a 4-pack on Steam.

I didn't even know that game existed until he gave it to me because I don't really go out of my way to keep myself updated on the latest games.

My knowledge of new games these days are really limited to the Steam Store page, my personal experience and random chatter on the Internet. No game review shows or magazines or whatever.

Looks interesting.

It seems to be an action game kinda like Alien Swarm except the players here control vehicles instead of people and the enemies are not aliens.













The Necropolis in HoMM VI is not really my style. This race truly excels in attrition warfare but I prefer something faster.

Necropolis cities can build a structure that stores the dead Undeads the player lost in battles within the last 3 days (or more when more than one of that structure is built). The player can then buy them back at a higher cost than usual before they expire.

Expensive, but in the long term, nothing can beat an evergrowing army that has had zero casualty in the entire game.

The problem with Necropolis is that the top tier unit, the Fate Weaver is rather unimpressive. Sure it's powerful and it's got 2 forms that it can switch to and fro, but the abilities of both forms have melee range.

Maybe it's because I've been using it the wrong way. Perhaps I should see it as a melee unit with a secondary ranged attack instead of a ranged unit with melee defense.











So I've made a rough estimate on my family total expenditure based on the box of cash we take from plus the bank statements I've been looking at.

I've been noticing these numbers only because I've been handling almost everything at home, excluding only laundry and part of the grocery shopping.

Laundry sucks because I don't really have a choice as to when I can do it. When my bro needs clean clothes, we have to start the washing machine. Once the machine's done, we must hang them or else they get very wrinkly after a few hours.

So my bro does it. He's the one who needs clean clothes most often. I go around topless all the time at home.

As for grocery shopping, he and his girlfriend goes to a nearby mall a lot for dinner whenever I'm eating leftover dinner from previous nights (I'm the sort of guy who prefers to cook too much and not risk having too little for dinner) because there usually isn't enough leftovers for more than one.

Since they visit the mall, they can buy things that I can't get in my neighbourhood, mainly because most stalls in the wet market are closed in the afternoon, the only time I go there.

This means I can't get meat and coffee. Coffee is not a problem because I grew up on instant, and fresh coffee is more of a luxury IMO. Meat, on the other hand, is a problem.

I could get from the 24/7 Shop N Save but only rarely. There are plenty of people around here who are lazy like me but not to my degree, so they get out too late to buy from the wet market but early enough to buy up all the meat from the Shop N Save.

There is a catch though - my bro is new to this, just like I was a few months ago. He's made several mistakes like buying a bottle of oyster sauce that's sweet instead of salty and it's scallop-flavoured, and another time he bought 6 packets of chicken breasts when I asked for 6 pieces of them.

The latter wasn't really his fault. I didn't know the NTUC there only sold entire breasts and I had expected them to sell those narrow strips instead.

Just like the mistakes I made before, we can afford to make these mistakes. The oyster sauce problem can be dealt with by remembering to add more salt and less of it when I cook, and the chicken breasts... were completely gone within 4 days.

I think I'll just get him to keep buying chicken breasts in those amounts. His gf apparently loves chicken breasts, so they use it whenever they cook.

They used 2 packets out of the 6. I cooked the other 4. 3 packets for 2 dinners for all of us and 1 for my own consumption. Baked a breast in basil and garlic the other day. Since I wrapped it in foil as usual, it was more like steaming.


I'd like to think that cooking dinner (plus a second meal) almost everyday is keeping my expenditure down. On the other hand, I splurge a lot on transport for my job since my office is pretty inconveniently located. Not the Tuas sort of bad, but still requires one bus transfer. Moreover I've to travel to the buyers and I cannot be late for those appointments.

Employees being late for work is not as bad as me being late for a buyer's appointment. The employees may get some form of punishment at most, but that's nowhere as bad as giving a client a bad impression of me. My livelihood pretty much depends on their impressions of me after all.







I think I'm getting the hang of this family feeding business. If that isn't true, at least I'm now confident I can survive a long time without buying cooked food from outside.

Probably because I just learnt that browning the imitation crab sticks beforehand really improves the flavour. I believe I can survive a long time on that fried crab sticks stir fried with random vegetables.

I feel that it's time we spend a bit more and call for some deliveries sometimes. Not fast food.

Just found this flyer at my gate from this Hot & Spicy Nasi Lemak Family Restaurant. It probably just opened an outlet nearby.

The prices listed are actually quite decent. It looks like we'll get much more from this than even KFC, which is the cheapest fast food with delivery service in my area.

They aren't cheap but they're still cheaper than many other delivery options.

Thursday 20 October 2011

Rant 878 / Halloween Supplies

Been playing some Draw My Thing. One draws stuff, the others guess the word. Quite simple.

The game's on OMGPOP and it's free.

http://www.omgpop.com/?r=dgb7x

Yes that's my referral link.












Stopped playing Die2Nite. Not my cup of tea. Too much dying, which I guess really is the main focus of this game.

Until they allow mega-coalitions again, I'm not going back.













Just received some samples from a factory. I think we were quite clear about what we wanted and the instructions we gave them weren't complicated. Sent them a picture too.

The things I discovered in the package were simply terrible.

They were weeks early if the plan was to give me a Halloween surprise. If that wasn't it, I have no idea what the heck the seamstress was smoking when she made it, although I bet it was something like this:



Don't forget I'm an amateur, looking at those sweaters with an amateur's eyes.

When I showed it to the expert, there were even more mistakes that I didn't notice.

I'm starting to learn more and more about the difficulties of this job.

Clearly part of it is to communicate with retards.

The worst thing is that it wasn't even cheap because it was the factory to which we usually send the more difficult jobs.

I wonder what I would have gotten if I had sent the order form to a worse factory instead. Will it still come out as a sweater even? Or will my instructions for a sweater create an image of a sock in their minds?

DESPITE THE PRESENCE OF A FRICKIN PICTURE.

This is my first time, hence the frustration. The first time I wrote and sent the instructions myself knowing exactly what they should look like. And the first time seeing an actual sample made according to my words... or at least they were supposed to be.

I need to get used to this, or I'm going to be an angry, angry man for a long, long time.














So in HoMM VI, the upgraded Ghoul is the Ravenous Ghoul which just does more damage against living creatures.

Not that cool.

Also, the area damage effect of the healing ability of Ghosts and Spectres do not affect non-living creatures.

In other words, Necropolis vs Necropolis battles are very boring in HoMM VI.

It's almost like watching a Paladin vs Paladin PVP duel in WoW.













I'm nervous about this long-term responsibility. This is my first time I'm taking on one that does not have an end in the foreseeable future.

My life will never be the same again.

What am I saying?

It has already begun.

Two of the buyers apparently have known our business since my father's days.

These shoes are pretty big.

Will I be able to fill them despite having to learn everything from scratch in my mid-twenties?

When will the next time be when I can live without worries once more?

Will it ever come again?

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Rant 877 / How Do I Become Turrent?



I think the guy on the skateboard is the protagonist.












Since we're burning paper cars and electronics for our dead, shouldn't we also burn paper engines, wheels, microchips, instruction manuals for them too?

I mean, are you sure that person knows how to operate a LCD TV of your brand just because he used one from another before?

And what about electricity? Why hasn't anyone burnt an entire power plant for them?

Oh wait... Chernobyl.

So where do they get their uranium in the afterlife?













Ate the apple mango just now. Did the usual of cutting the sides and leaving the centre slice containing the seed, then cutting the flesh in the 2 sides into cubes.

It's not as sweet and juicy as I expected. Fragrant, firm, but not particular epic. Not worth the $7 unless I'm tired of the normal mangoes.














This is so true.











Playing the Necropolis campaign of HoMM VI.

I guess I should start to wean myself off from the habit of surrounding my ranged troops with melee units.

It's significantly less useful for Necropolis armies to do that compared to Haven armies.

The basic Necropolis melee unit, the Ghoul, works best in the offense. It doesn't have the Shieldguard ability like the Sentinel and really doesn't have any special function other than attacking.

But there's a major difference in the basic ranged unit, the Skeleton. While the Crossbowmen don't do much but attack, kinda like Ghouls, the Skeleton inherently has the passive ability to slow its targets.

And if we talk about the upgraded versions of all these units, this makes even more sense.

Crossbowmen, when upgraded, get a piercing ability for their attacks so it attacks everything in a single line (means I can't surround it, which I don't really like). Sentinels, when upgraded to Praetorians, get the ability to attack a nearby enemy if an adjacent ally is attacked by it. Hence Praetorians work best in some sort of tight formation.

In this case, I think the best idea is to use non-upgraded Crossbowmen together with Praetorians.

For Necropolis, the Skeleton slows down the enemies even before it's upgraded to Skeleton Spearman, so it already reduces the need for a meatshield. No idea what the upgraded Ghoul is nor what it does.

Finally, the Ghost and Spectre, which IMO are the same with only a difference in power. They are probably the most important reason why somebody needs to be out there in the midst of the enemy troops.

Their special ability not only heals (and resurrects) an ally, but it also does Dark magic damage to all adjacent enemies, draining part of this damage to the target ally in addition to the heal.

In simpler terms, they can turn any ally into a bomb, albeit only twice per battle.

That's why I say Ghouls work best out there attacking instead of protecting the ranged units.

Furthermore, Necropolis heroes can revive units, so why not focus on the offense?

Monday 17 October 2011

Rant 876 / Sentinels And Praetorians EVERYWHERE!

Just finished the tutorial campaign. 2 missions.

The basic Haven troops are so defensive!

Mainly it's because of the Sentinel. He absorbs 50% of the damage done to allies around it, with 50% of his Might defense applied to it.

I still don't know if it stacks, ie if I place 9 Sentinels around an unit will the damage done to that unit be reduced to 0.5^9 of the original damage?

Never bothered to test that theory but after 2 missions, I'm more inclined to say it doesn't.

Which means it actually hurts me more to surround anyone with more than 1 stack of Sentinels because all the Sentinels get 50% damage, dramatically increasing the total amount of damage dealt from every hit.

But I have no choice!

I still stick to my formation of completely surrounding my ranged and healer units with melee units to prevent them from getting hit.

If I don't surround them with Sentinels, there's no other units I can use until I get a level 4 unit.

And if I don't surround them with melee units, they will get hit by enemy melee units.

What's the point of having a tough melee unit (aka meat shield) such as the Sentinel if not the take the brunt of the attacks for the weaker units?

But if the enemies only consist of ranged units, I use a different formation.

I only place 2 stacks of Sentinels near my ranged unit, 1 in any adjacent tile and another only adjacent to the first Sentinel. The first Sentinel takes 50% damage for the ranged unit while the second Sentinel takes 50% damage for the first Sentinel in case it gets hit directly, eg by an area damage attack.

So to put it simply, the presence of the Sentinel effectively reduces damage taken by Haven troops by half.













So there is a company that stuffs your ashes into bullets and cartridges.

Holy Smoke offers no actual cremation services, but it does promise "care and reverence" when it funnels your ashes, or those of your loved ones, into either 100 rifle cartridges or 250 pistol cartridges or shotgun shells -- all "high quality, hand loaded".

In other words, they will place your ashes in working bullets but they won't fire those bullets for you.

Obviously the rounds are going to be less effective because of the reduced amount of gunpowder, but I don't think that's important here.











A seafood allergy sped up a Vietnamese woman's aging process by about 40 years within 5 years.
“The skin on my face, chest and belly has folds like an old woman who has given birth several times although I have never had a child. But the rapid-aging syndrome hasn't affected my menstrual cycle, hair, teeth, eyes and mind.”

A 60-year old woman who's still menstruating?!?

Phuong was able to have a free consultation at the Ho Chi Minh City Medicine and Pharmacy University Hospital, in Vietnam, with doctors who believed she may have been badly affected with the skin disease, mastocytosis.

From this diagnosis, doctors hope that with medical treatment they will be able to restore between 50 and 70% of her skin.

So which 30-50% of her skin won't be restored?











Dead Rising 2: Off the Record looks more interesting than DR2 itself.

Other than killing zombies as usual, Frank also has to take photos of everything to score points. There are several types of points, like Brutality and Erotica.

One thing that I can't help but notice is that even dead bodies give Erotica points, like an upskirt shot of a dead female. Necrophilia much?

Rant 875 / I've Been Forgetting About Carrots.


This guy was a frickin psychic, I bet.

Also, I don't get the humour of calling someone "adopted". It just doesn't strike me as funny or even insulting. If anything, I think adopted children are lucky. At least they aren't growing up in orphanages.













So I received a coupon catalogue from the Giant supermarket chain in my mail.

Most of the coupons just say "Save $X from retail price".

WHAT IS THE POINT OF THAT???

How the heck am I supposed to know if it's actually cheaper to use that coupon than buy from those independent stores outside?

I know they don't state the retail price because it's basically a turnoff - the discount is not going to help much. It's probably like save $5 on a $50 product that I can get for $30 downstairs, or save $0.50 on a $2.50 product I can get for $1.95 here.

Moreover, there's the transport I have to take into account here. The nearest Giant is going to cost me about $10 or more in cab fare, and I can't take a bus with 2 hands full of groceries. To offset this, 10-20 cents cheaper isn't going to cut it.

This promotion is a big failure IMO.

More scrap paper. Yay.












Made avocado milkshake with the only ripe avocado among the three. Mmmm.....................

It wasn't fully ripened though. About a third was still hard and because I didn't have a use for it, I threw the hard part away.

Also threw some ice cubes into the blender to make it cool and refreshing.











Die2Nite is getting less fun. Too many bad players are joining the Mega-Meta Jump while good players got rusty during the long waits in-between.

Each consecutive MMJ town I've joined got steadily worse, although still better than any other towns I've joined so far.

I'm losing hope in this game. Or maybe, I'm missing the point in this game. Maybe, I'm really supposed to find it fun to die, because that's really all I do in the normal towns. Cooperation is almost non-existent in non-MMJ towns, and griefers are rampant.

What else can this game be about other than dying?

I'm going to quit the game if the town I've just landed in doesn't give me a glimpse of light.
















The following is an analysis of a friend that I typed in a discussion in FB. The thread's original topic isn't important.

This is not offensive, but analyzing someone is a very personal thing, therefore he won't like it when many people who know him read this. Since only a few people involved in that discussion visit this blog, I feel it is safer to post it here instead, and with some changes in the names of course.



Initially this discussion was supposed to be me persuading everyone to help the two of you. Now I realize E also needs help.

I'm not saying anything hidden between the lines or something like I do in my blog. This is exactly what it appears to be.

My observations:

1) He hasn't confided in us for a very, very long time, if he had done so at all in the past. The only secrets he shares with us are the positive things, like his job change and pay raise. Nobody has a perfect life.

2) For years, he has openly stated he wanted a girlfriend but has never had a romantic relationship that could last for months.

3) Clearly from this discussion he does not feel in his heart that it is necessary to help friends whom he has known and gone through so much with for over a decade.

4) He treats us like his backup friends. He only goes out with us if no one else asks him out.

My conclusions, based only on what I've seen and my assumptions that he is not a closet homosexual and he doesn't actually hate any of us, are as follows:

Like some of us, he is unwilling to risk revealing weakness even to people he is familiar with. It's like he encased himself in a shell.

This may be because of his childhood as an only son and because of the inadequacies he perceives in himself.

To prevent others from seeing these inadequacies, he simply stopped telling others his private thoughts, something he would have been used to as the only son.

To compensate for these perceived weaknesses, he is ambitious. He believes career, money or whatever he is working for will make him appear a better man than the image he has of himself. It seems to work for many, so I hope it works for him.

But by shutting his soul off from the rest of the world, he is also unable to maintain a close relationship with others. This can be seen from the fact that he never had a stead. Anyone here with experience should know that a long term girlfriend requires a man to open up his soul and reveal his secrets. Doesn't have to be completely, but at least partially.

E simply cannot stand the thought of that. He wants people to see him as the perfect guy - large social circles, involved in multiple charitable projects, hip, successful, etc. That is the image he tries to portray to everyone, whether consciously or subconsciously I don't know.

Also because he cannot open up, he is less empathetic about others than we are. Without truly understanding others nor letting others really understand him, he is unable to properly bond with anyone.

We all have known him for years. Does anyone here thinks he has a very close friend? All of us here kind of do, or at least people to confide in. HX and V have us and their religion, ZY has V and HX and perhaps W, IV has XL and (currently to a much lesser extent) us, and I have my blog and everyone who actually reads my rants.

I don't actually fully understand W. W... is almost as close to us as we are to each other but not exactly there, perhaps because there is always that gap caused by the fact that he joined us several years late. The history can never be compensated and he knows it. He confides in us a little but the rest of it, I have no idea.

Therefore, combined with my third observation, I believe E does not really comprehend what true friendship is in his heart. He does not feel what we feel. I call lots of people "bro" but some of you actually know me better than my own biological brother does.

He has never had a bro, so it is possible he doesn't even understand what a bro means.

The crux of E's issue is that he doesn't open up. 

Unlike ZY's case, I don't know what is underneath because I've never been like him. ZY's case is simple - someday something is going to happen that will either crack his shell of anger and hatred, or he's going to blow up and go insane. The former happened for me, so I'm inclined to think it will be the same for him.


E, I don't know. I can't put myself in his shoes because I don't really see the man under the mask. I have a feeling there is some self-loathing and fear, but that is all I can tell.

Religion can help with that.

This is why I don't dislike religion even though I am not a religious man. I see its benefits. Atheism doesn't help people with issues who are mentally incapable of resolving them by themselves, but the major religions do.

So I'd say one solution is for him to talk to a religious leader, same as what I'd recommend for ZY. This will help them face themselves, and maybe finally they will see themselves as they really are, and be at peace. HX is proof that it works.

It's either this or a shrink, but shrinks cost money. Counsellors are also a viable option but they aren't as good.


He could also talk to us, but I don't think he is going to be able to make himself open up to people he has hidden from for years.

Finally I want to end this by saying I'm just putting into words what I've felt for a very long time. I've never attempted to alienate him from the rest of us despite this. If he wasn't an old friend, I'd not have bothered to type this at all and just let him reap what he sows... or doesn't sow.

Sunday 16 October 2011

Rant 874 / Damned If I Do, Damned If I Don't


Please don't. Even I, a non-American, don't want to see that caption.











S$7 for an apple mango, but I bought it.

Just one. I thought it was ok to splurge a little on fruits since I always go for the cheap 3-for-$1 apples, pears and oranges.

Apple mango. Mmmmmm..............

It's even making my living room smell good. Or at least part of the room.

...

So I bought 3 apples, 3 green apples, 3 avocados (all the apples I chose were 3-for-$1 while the avocados were 3-for-$4), a bunch of unripe plantains and that apple mango. When I got home I decided to place them, except for the plantains, neatly on a plate just because I was in the mood for tidiness.

My bro just came over to ask me if the fruits were for eating or for decoration.

:\



Photo was taken after my bro took a green apple.












So the hairstylists in my neighbourhood whom I usually visit moved to the newer flats slightly further away. Instead of crossing a road to get to them, I'll be having to take a 5-min walk the next time I need a haircut.

They reminded me of that during my last two visits, which translates to about two months. 

As if I'm going to go through all the trouble for "brand loyalty".

There are like 5 other barbers and hairstylists in my neighbourhood. I'll just go to a random barber next to their original location instead. I don't need a wash anyway since I live across the street. I usually just walk home after they brush off as much hair as they can. No sense in changing that for no good reason.

Costs $12 here. Wonder what the barber I visit next time will charge me. Hopefully it will be the same.

And to prevent misunderstandings in the future, I even took a few photos of my hair a few days after my last visit.

Speaking of $12, I was appalled to finally discover, just a few weeks ago, that most of my friends spend at least twice that for their haircuts. They probably need to pay more for the wash because their hairstylists aren't as conveniently located as mine.

My neighbourhood is awesome.












After some thoughts on the glove bargain, I just realized it's not really a big deal.

Even if I order a thousand gloves, the net profit will just cover one month's rent for my office unit. Maybe I'll get enough change to pay one employee for another month.

A mere pittance.

I need to think bigger. Gloves/mittens are small time.

...

Apparently I've been underestimating the price that I will be selling them at. The net profit will be significantly higher but still not a lot. The main problem is that they don't sell quickly, so this net profit will be gained over several months.

Unless I'm making millions off these lousy gloves, I won't be raking in huge profits from them alone.










Played a bit of HoMM VI. Just the first campaign mission. They simplified it somewhat. Now there are only 4 resources - wood, ore, crystal and gold.

The combat has also been simplified in that tiles are now squares. That means now instead of just six, each unit can now be gangraped by nine enemies.

Ghosts are also less annoying now. That is a fantastic move. I love the developers just for that. Ghosts and Spectres were SO FUCKING ANNOYING back in HoMMV because of the 50 and 75% dodge rate.

50 fucking Titans can NOT EVEN SCRATCH a group of FIVE Spectres because THEY FUCKING DODGED FIFTY FUCKING LIGHTING BOLTS WHAT THE FUCK?!

Yea I hate their dodge this much.

Now it makes more sense by replacing dodge with physical damage resistance.

Heroes can now be used at any turn and do not have their own specific turns. I love this idea. Gives me a lot more strategic freedom.









In case you don't get the pic at the top of this rant, the guy in the last photo is Kevin Bacon.

Saturday 15 October 2011

Rant 873 / STDs: The Gift That Keeps On Giving



This may be the most disturbing video on Youtube. Seriously.

If you thought Britney Spears was crazy,  wait till you see this fan of hers.










So I finally went for some window shopping today. Apparently most of the major stores are either very conservative or they're still trying to find out which colours are popular this year.

Everything's frickin black!

Or white, or grey.

There were some other colours here and there, but only on a few designs.

Also noticed some other things that really stood out. I may use these ideas in the near future.

Certainly an enlightening 30mins.

And it was much less awkward than expected when I browsed the stuff in the ladies' section. Maybe it was because I was too focused on the products to notice any stares. I don't know.











My favourite game on Newgrounds has a sequel!

It's Rebuild 2, which is very similar to Rebuild but with some improvements - exactly what a sequel should be like!

Rebuild 2 is a turn-based strategy game in which you and several other survivors try to reclaim the city from the zombie infestation. Each building has a different purpose and can be modified if you have a survivor with the right skills to do it. Each survivor also has a different set of skills that also can be improved upon, and new skills can be learnt.

There are now more ways to win the game, like defeating the raider gang in the city which I'd just discovered during my first game. Another way is to repair the helicopter on the helipad which has to be reclaimed first.

Friday 14 October 2011

Rant 872 / 1.5 Tablespoons Of Cider Vinegar Is Too Much Vinegar For 375g Of Tomato Paste



I SHALL BLOT OUT THE SUN!










It all started in a simple 4chan /tv/ thread...





And then someone made this:



I'd probably watch that movie.











Too much mana.

That's what I've been noticing about Urgot.

I go for Tear of the Goddess first. That gives me a lot of mana because my max mana increases by one every time I use an ability, and I spam my Acid Hunters a lot.

When I get Manamune, I get practically limitless mana and damage based on the mana.

I'm thinking that I may not need Manamune.

Alright, I'm going to try getting the Last Whisper after Tear of the Goddess instead.












Something's wrong with my memory. I keep forgetting things. Mostly I deal with this by keeping a notepad, but sometimes I cannot use it due to various reasons.

For example, today I was told that one of the stores was lacking one of our products. 30mins later I couldn't remember which one it was. Fortunately there were only 2 possible choices.

This cannot go on.

I think it has to do with not having enough sleep because I have to wake up 2 hours earlier than usual this morning. I've to get to the office very early whenever there is a delivery from our office because the people the delivery company hires sometimes don't give a damn what time we actually open and just assume we open at the same time most businesses do - 8 or 9am.

Well, we don't open this early. That's because while the stores we do business with do, their managers and supervisors don't.  After all, who the fuck goes shopping at 8-9am on weekdays?

Yet I find it hard to choose to sleep earlier because most of the things I find interesting only happen at night.

Perhaps there is another solution.













I think I like this show mainly for the editing and special effects by Dan Flesher. Without all the animation and stuff, this would be a very boring show.











Honestly speaking, games like Metro 2033 are best appreciated by watching someone else play it. Maybe that's why the protagonist is usually silent - the player himself can make a commentary while playing.










So my bro bought tomato paste instead of pasta sauce because he mistook "tomato-based" for "tomato paste". Fortunately I have most of the necessary herbs and some cider vinegar, but I added too much vinegar just now. 3 packets of sugar were used and they barely saved it.

The beef bolognese turned out to be decent.

But he threw away my half a packet of chicken stock :(

He thought the bag was filled with some unknown disgusting crap because there were bits of brown in the yellowish stuff.

I sadden.

The brown bits were blood.

Planned to use it in the bolognese sauce but it really wasn't a big deal. I made it only because I didn't feel like wasting the meaty bones of the chicken drumsticks, and then I wanted to use it in the sauce only because I wanted to use it as soon as possible in anything I cook.

Who knows how quickly it can go bad?

Speaking of going bad, I just learnt that a loaf of sliced bread of a generic brand can last a week past its expiry date if stored in the fridge.

I've never stored sliced bread in the fridge before except for just one time, and I never did learn the limits because it was finished a few days after.

Thursday 13 October 2011

Rant 871 / Urgot!

So I got some photos of the gloves I wanted from the Chinese factory I recently mentioned. They look almost the same as the ones I got from our usual supplier!

I think he's been reselling them to us at grossly inflated prices.

And I do mean "grossly" because the prices this factory is quoting me are a pittance compared to what we've been paying him, and we thought what we've been paying was cheap already.

The best thing about this is that I've been asking for the price for a small order of a few hundred pairs. That's far from the real amount we have in mind, meaning we will get them for even cheaper.

There are only a few issues, like the shipping. I have no idea how much it will cost.

Despite the excitement the latest exchange has given me, I have doubts about this imminent deal. Who knows what kind of issues this sort of low prices can bring?

In any case, it still amazes me the kind of peanuts people are willing to accept for their work.




So now I've to set up a new Paypal account for my business. Paying them via Paypal would be far more convenient than remitting cash at any branch of Bank of China.

Not going to link any bank accounts though. Paypal's kinda notorious for security issues.

Next thing on the "to do" list: set up internet banking for all the bank accounts we use so that I won't have to top up the Paypal account using my personal bank account.













Capitalism, keeping retards poor since 1633.














First time not dying at all in a LoL game after a 5-game loss streak. Totally unexpected. In fact there were a few times when I swapped an enemy only to see that he/she would escape... then my team shows up and gangbangs the target.

In my previous 5 games, that would have failed, I would have been gangbanged by the target's team and I would have appeared to be a noob feeder.

Yes, what I'm implying is that Urgot heavily depends on his team. Urgot himself has terrible, terrible damage because it's almost all attack damage (AD), which is countered by Armour. Armour is easy to obtain in the game and a lot of champions (just realized that's what they're called in LoL, not "heroes) have plenty of it.

His ultimate, the swap skill, also depends on his team because the swapping alone doesn't help himself other then buffing his defenses and slowing the target a little bit. The distance between him and the target remains the same.

If his team doesn't come to his aid, he'd have teleported himself closer to the rest of the enemy team - without reinforcement.

So if the team is bad, Urgot will be much more likely to fail miserably.

Wednesday 12 October 2011

Rant 870 / "Sanitarium" Was A Deliberately Misleading Title

Looking at my match history in League of Legends today really hit home the fact that I'm not such a good player despite playing every night.

There is a logic to that - if most of the matches end in losses, the probability of all the faults lying in other teammates is very low.

Even though my scores are not terrible, the losses just mean I'm definitely unable to offset the inadequacies of my worse teammates.

Which implies I'm an average player at best.

Probably true.

Moreover, this is a team game; everyone has to contribute to the final result, whether it's a win or a loss.

Nevertheless the game's still fun to play.

Maybe I should play as a ranged hero. I've been playing as melee heroes for so long, it's probably time for a change.

...

And I did.

Now I play as Urgot.

Tried one game against Intermediate bots to try it out. Felt alright, score was good.

My first game against human players as Urgot was incredibly bad. Ended up with 2 kills and 12 deaths, mainly because I was with a Teemo laning against a Brand and a Fiddlesticks.

Pretty terrifying combo. Fiddle fears us and Brand burns the crap out of us. We could never run because of Fiddle, and that helped with Brand's spells which require a bit of time.

The rest were better. Urgot's very good at catching running enemies, but not so good at killing. Not much burst damage, and all his abilities do physical damage, meaning they can just get armour and I'll be barely able to scratch them.

Which is why Urgot shouldn't be used as a DPS or tank or whatever, but an offensive support. Urgot's passive causes his attacks to reduce an enemy's damage by 15%, which scales up to pretty huge numbers at late game. To use this effectively, I need to attack multiple enemies one by one, something I have yet to do properly.

The other thing that makes him a good support is his ultimate, which exchanges an enemy's location with his own. This is best used to pull an enemy back, but in desperate situations it can also be used as a stun. I get extra armour and magic resistance when I cast it, so I have a decent chance of escaping if my level isn't too low.

Other than that, the homing missile is just so awesome against players who don't GTFO when they get hit by my AoE Corrosive Charge, which causes my Acid Hunter to be able home in on them.

Acid Hunter's cooldown takes about 1.9s without items, so I can fire 3 of it before the Charge wears off.

Judging by how hard it's supposed to be (indicated in the hero's character sheet in the game), it's clear that how hard each hero is can be very subjective.

I believe the difficulty is gauged by how much precise aiming and coordination is necessary to be successful with the hero. Some people, however, can be pretty good at this sort of thing.

Finally, I cannot help but mention the fact that I got a Godlike streak for the first time ever in LoL using Urgot.











Sanitarium contains so much insanity I don't even know if his brief lapses into sanity are really that. Still, an interesting game. The content is so varied between each chapter, with so many little details that hint at the future chapters.

...

Finished the game.

They really don't make games like that anymore these days. I wouldn't go as far as to say it's got more content than today's RPGs, but it's more unique than most of what I see today.

Still a short game though. Most of the puzzles are just there to slow you down and not stump you.

And the ending has a pretty interesting twist.

As for bugs, it's not a big problem as long as I save often. Too bad they don't have quicksave back then.

Also, the graphics glitch that gave it strange colours could be solved in 64-bit Windows 7 by opening the screen resolution menu by right-clicking on Desktop and then opening the game directly from the game's EXE file.




Next on the list: Gemini Rue.












Now I've come to the point where I need to get an IDD account for my phone because people in China are not that technologically advanced yet.

I didn't know that without any roaming or IDD services, I cannot receive long distance calls. Or that's what I think happened. The factory in China which I recently found tried to call me via my handphone but it didn't work, so they called the number listed on the package containing the sample I sent them, which was forwarded to my mum's phone.

Fortunately I can just use my mum's Chatchat account to refer myself so that I can use their cheap 1526 IDD service.

S$0.08/min to China, or S$0.05/min to a Chinese non-mobile number during non-peak hours, which are between 6pm to 6am from Monday to Friday and the entire 24 hours during weekends .

So far I haven't found any cheaper rate than that.










So the Lip Ice lip balm is here. I haven't used lip balm since I was a kid, so I've totally forgotten what it's like to use it.

I think I need it. My lips crack so much because I've been peeling my lips without thinking about it.

Sunday 9 October 2011

Rant 869 / Crazy Boars

Made ee noodles again, this time stir-fried with imitation crab sticks and bailing mushrooms in half the chicken stock I made the other day.

Surprisingly, the chicken stock had become a jelly. The last time I made chicken stock, it remained liquid in the fridge. Then again, I didn't break the bones when I made that batch of chicken stock.

Boiled the noodles a little too long but it was still ok.

Thought it was going to be bad but it was pretty decent when I ate it.

Initially planned to pour the crab-and-mushroom gravy over the boiled noodles but decided to just dump the noodles into the gravy and stir-fry it.

Saved a bowl of noodles and poured some of the gravy over it so that I have an insurance in case stir-frying was really a bad idea. When it appeared to be ok, I threw the bowl of it in too.

Also tested the effectiveness of frying the crab sticks to improve the flavour. About half the crab sticks were mixed with a little starch and fried beforehand while the rest were just dumped into the noodles to be stir-fried with.

Frying them was better.

Next time, I'll be doing the same but with some sesame oil. Everything tastes better with sesame oil.

Sesame oil is like the bacon of Chinese cuisine - everything you throw it in will taste better.

The only reason there isn't bacon chocolate cake is because I'm not into baking.

Just kidding. Chocolate bacon cake has already been done. I even found a recipe for chocolate bacon cupcakes!

Original Recipe Yield 2 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients

  • 12 slices bacon
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 cups white sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup cold, strong, brewed coffee
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside.
  2. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, 3/4 cup cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center and pour in the eggs, coffee, buttermilk and oil. Stir just until blended. Mix in 3/4 of the bacon, reserving the rest for garnish. Spoon the batter into the prepared cups, dividing evenly.
  3. Bake in the preheated oven until the tops spring back when lightly pressed, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in the pan set over a wire rack. When cool, arrange the cupcakes on a serving platter. Frost with your favorite chocolate frosting and sprinkle reserved bacon crumbles on top. Dust with additional cocoa powder.

Yum!













Playing a bit of Sanitarium, a 1998 point-and-click adventure game about some guy who wakes up in an asylum with bandages around his head.

Saw it played on vidyavidya.com and found it quite interesting because his delusions causes each chapter to have completely different settings, from a town in which all the humans were gone to an insectoid hive where giant intelligent bugs work to take over a world ruled by... cyclopses instead of humans.

In between each of these delusions are brief moments when he comes back to reality and gradually discovers the truth behind his insanity.

So far it's quite fun but I apparently encountered the biggest bug in the game - I cannot enter buildings.

The worst thing about this bug is that a lot players, including myself, mistook it for a hint from the game that whatever I'm supposed to do no longer required entering any rooms.

I only realized it was a bug when I couldn't enter the village store room after obtaining the key from some kid.

Now I have to load the game from the first save in that chapter because I didn't save a lot.

Obviously it's been too long since I last played an old game and I'd forgotten to save like crazy.

Anyway that was quite easy to resolve. When you know what to do, it doesn't take long to finish even an entire chapter.

Now to Chapter 2.













So I tried Taric again in LoL after a very long time. I felt like using it after I watched a friend use it as a tank and not quite succeeding at it.

But Taric isn't a tank as far as I remember.

A support with good armour, but not a tank.

Mainly it's because of the lack of damage and focus on team-aiding abilities like heals and increase stats.

Apparently Taric's been changed since I last used it, just like Kayle.

Now Taric's ultimate does damage and its mana cost no longer increases every second. It's just one shot of AoE damage plus the stat-boosting aura for a limited period of time.

No wonder he was being used as a tank. With the extra damage, I guess he's doing some decent damage, making him an off-tank, or a tank if the team has no one else. Tanks need to be able to do some real damage or else enemies would ignore him.

After all, what's the point of a tank if enemies just run pass him?

The stun is still as pointless to upgrade as before. The damage increase is still pretty bad per level, so I might as well raise my other skills.

One trick I still remember as Taric from before still works - his stun works best on escaping enemies because the further they are, the longer they get stunned.

Which probably means that the best way to deal with Taric is to get really close to him.

Saturday 8 October 2011

Rant 868 / Long Holidays Messing Up My Package Deliveries





These guys are such blatant attention-whores.

But I truly hope someone brings a camera to his funeral.



Too soon?















LOL!















The Humble Bundle is back.

I'm starting to see the pointlessness of it.

Why are we encouraging the development of games that aren't interesting to the vast majority of players on the planet?

I'm not saying they're bad - they're just boring for most of us.

Facts are facts. Ignore all the hype about indie games and suddenly, you find nothing. Nobody talks about the individual games in the Bundles. Nobody mods them. Fansites are rare.

The truth is that even indie games can be overhyped these days.











While the Americans believe China owns them by being their biggest creditor, the Chinese believe they had foolishly stepped into a trap by splurging on US bonds. Now the Chinese debate whether to save the EU. Obviously the Greek bond doesn't look good, but will they spend more to save the world economy?

Because if they don't, China will probably become the strongest economy when a new Great Depression strikes the world. Of course, it may not be as good as what would happen if the world economy stabilizes and they could go on exporting their cheap crap to everyone.