Rant 804 / It's Not Here Yet.

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

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

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









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

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

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

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

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

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










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

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

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



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










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

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

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

Probably something tomata-based.










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

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

Too sweet though.

And better than anything I ever made.

Not that that's saying much.









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

That Orange map seriously can go on forever.

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

That's so retarded.

Rant 803 / Diary Products

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

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

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

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

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

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

What am I missing here?










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









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

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
























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









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

Except for a flaw.

The controls.

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

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

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

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

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

What a way to ruin such a great game!

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

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

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

Rant 802 / Yakiniku

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

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










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

For $39.90++ the menu was surprisingly small:

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

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

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

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

The best was the meat IMO.

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

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

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

To summarise, this brunch buffet is for carnivores only.










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

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











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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rant 801 / Wandering Eyes

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

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

...

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
























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

There aren't many places I can choose from.

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

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

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

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

This means I may have to book early.

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

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

...

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

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

I think I've spoilt myself.










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










Heroes of Might and Magic Online has a new expansion.

I am not impressed.

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

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

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









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

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

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

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

Now even TF2 is joining the club.

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

Rant 800 / Time Passes

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

Anyway...



Epic.









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










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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I never did.

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

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

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

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

I stopped liking the music within the week.

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

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

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

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

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










It feels strange.

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

And I have to think about life on my own.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Que sera sera.










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

I could see the numbers on the tape.

Awesome.

Rant 799 / Solar Desktop

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

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

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

...

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

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

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












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

I've been doing the reverse.

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








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

Whoa!

I was so outdated. I probably still am.












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

Salutations Lulz Lizards,

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

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

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

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

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

History begins today.

Lulz Security

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

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

Rant 798 / Ribs For Dinner

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

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

Total monthly bill: $31.03

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But somehow I kept my mouth shut.

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

She's currently using his old phone.

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

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

So of course his way of thinking is different.





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

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





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

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











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










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

It keeps crashing despite the firmware updates.

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

Well, they've all been deactivated now.

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

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

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

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









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

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

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











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

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

Rant 797 / My First Fine Dining Experience

Went to Hokkaido Sushi Restaurant just now for dinner. Used the vouchers from AllDealsAsia that made a $250 10-course meal cost only $68. Per pax, of course. So for the 5 of us, the $1250-meal cost us only $348.

Epic numbers for us.

The meal itself consists of:

Wafu salad (mixed salad with seaweed in vinegar sauce) worth $12
Hassen (3 kinds of appetizer) worth $12
Sashimi (6 pieces) worth $35
Hokkaido Tarabayaki (grilled Hokkaido king crab leg) worth $24
Teppanyaki salmon (1 piece) worth $18
Ebi Saikyo miso yaki (grilled king prawn with Saikyo miso sauce) worth $22
Wagyu tenderloin beef with foie grass sauce worth $35
Sushi and maki (7 pieces) worth $35
Mekajiki Yunomi (double boiled salted fish soup) worth $15
Homemade Ume shu jelly worth $8

(copied from AllDealsAsia)

Great food, all of them (I really like the king prawn in miso sauce, and we thought the miso sauce was cheese lol), but it took me a while to realize I shouldn't judge the price solely on the food.

Fine dining is an experience. It's not just about the food but also about the ambience and, well, everything else involved in the meal.

Initially I felt the food wasn't worth $250 and it was only after I left and saw other restaurants outside that I noticed the environment Hokkaido Sushi Restaurant was excellent. It was pretty quiet, spacious and the waiters were all very attentive, eg our cups of hot green tea was always refilled promptly, 80% of the time without asking.

If I'm not wrong, they automatically refilled our cups at intervals related to the serving of each course. Maybe before and after each course, but I didn't really watch them then.

Except for HX who ordered iced green tea and somehow the waiters were watching the glasses for cold drinks less often.

Despite the apparent quantity of food in each course, it was filling even for me. The servings were really as tiny as I expected. For example, the wagyu beef was only slightly smaller than a McDonald's Hamburger patty while the jelly dessert came in 2 slices about 1.5cm wide, 2.5cm long and 2mm thin.

I'm 100% sure it's all because the chef paced us by serving our food at regular intervals but not immediately after we finish each dish.

This gave us time to talk, drink our tea (or drink more tea) and visit the bathroom without coming back to find our dishes long served and already cooled.

I'd say those 10 courses would have took us 30mins to devour if they had served everything promptly like regular restaurants, but tonight this took us over an hour.

And we didn't complain. I never once felt anything negative about the speed throughout the evening.

It was relaxing, and we left feeling satisfied. Not hungry, not too full (like we do after buffets), but satisfied.

The only complaint I have about it is the single 1cm-long fishbone I found in one of the sushis. I didn't get hurt so I didn't bother to complain, but for an elite chef of such a classy establishment, that's way below my expectations.

As for returning, no thanks, I'm not that rich. I might do so, though, if there are any special occasions in the future. Or maybe I'll try other fine dining restaurants then.

I've always wanted to try Les Amis.

Rant 796 / Baking Powder Everywhere

You haven't seen bad music videos till you've watch this.














I made some (expired) baking soda and sugar mixture when I read that it was a good ant killer. Some also suggested adding yeast but I only have 2 packets of them and I really didn't want to waste them.

I poured some on my desk, my basin, the other washbasin at the kitchen and the dishsink.

My desk was the main reason for my searching for a solution to the ant problem. Of course the first thing I did was to find the thing that was attracting them but, like previous occasions, I had no luck.

So I made this mixture and poured it on the part of the surface where there appeared to be more ants (with my stuff removed).

Only a single ant spotted today and a dead one on my desk.

My basin's mix attracted a few ants as far as I can tell, but no dead ones were seen.

The other basin had more traffic and a few dead ones.

Finally, the dishsink's pile has been infested since this morning and they have yet to take a break from their suicidal feeding frenzy. Also, I keep feeding them more.

According to various sources, the sugar (obviously) acts as the bait while the baking soda kills the ants. Apparently baking soda reacts with the stuff in their digestive systems and causes gas. Unfortunately for ants, their bodies aren't designed to burp or fart, so they explode.

It doesn't cause loud noise or anything, more like the pressure inside rips holes in their bodies.

It's not instant but the few dead ants so far is evidence that it does what it's supposed to do.

Whatever works.

More importantly, it's not toxic. Since I'm using it in the kitchen, who knows if the ants might drop their "food" onto some real food or something.











I'm suddenly tempted to buy a coffee machine.

Took some time to look at Nespresso and Jura coffee machines. Looks pretty cool and convenient.

But then I realized this could be considered a vice.

I don't need coffee. I'm not being overworked or something; I'm only drinking coffee because it's good, kinda like why people go to bars for alcohol.

If I get used to the convenience of the coffee machine, it will become a long-term money drain with unnecessary benefits that I "can't live without".

No coffee machine.












I know why I've been the way I am recently. Not enough physical activity.

I just changed the water for my mum's terrapin and cleared the drain's filter. My legs were trembling at the end from all the bending down and squatting.

She actually bought 2 for us, a male and a female, a long time ago but after a few years she was only one who actually cared about them.

Anyway the male one died last year. The neck area was swollen so it probably choked to death.

As for why I was changing the water, she had fed the tortoise an apple this morning. Thickly sliced, thin enough for it to bite but thick enough to require few cuts.

In the end there were bits of apple everywhere in the water plus the slices that were mostly untouched.

I didn't want them all to rot in the water overnight, so I had to pick out the slices and pour away everything before refilling the tub. Who knows what it may smell like tomorrow?

So the bits of apple, probably bitten off by it but were still too big to swallow, choked the drain instead.

That's the same drain where the washing machine's dirty water goes.

The following might get a little disgusting, so skip this section if you're that much of a pussy.

At first I thought I could just put on my gloves and pick up the apple-bits-cum-terrapin-shit from the filter and throw it into a plastic bag, but that didn't work. Too much of it was too small for my smooth rubber gloves to catch, yet too big to get through the filter.

After some work, I managed to pull the whole filter out. I've described it a long time ago, and it's no different now. All the grime hung below that I had to pull off. Of course I didn't look. I put it inside the plastic bag, held it with one side of it and pulled randomly under the filter inside the bag while looking away.

When I was satisfied it couldn't possibly still be as gross,  I took it out and sprayed it with water. Not too hard because it almost splashed the dirty water onto me, but hard enough to clear the rest of the dirt away.

This made me think of how our ancestors lived and how the people in the poorer parts of the world still live today, and how they all handle their drains.

I can't do it with my bare hands, not without a loaded gun pointing at my head. Even with my gloves on I had to clean them with detergent before pulling them off.













Been playing Champions Online. It's probably a City of Heroes ripoff but I wouldn't know because I didn't try CoH. CoH is pay-to-play while CO is free-to-play.

Discovered the game on Steam. No idea why but Steam started introducing free MMORPGs in the store recently. The other 2 are Global Agenda (which I've already been playing before the reinstall of the current Windows) and Spiral Knights.

The last sucks so I'll keep it short. Nobody recommended it and the screenshots didn't look like what I'd want to play.

Global Agenda is ok but playing the same 6-7 instances and arenas over and over again kinda wears off the fun factor fast.

Champions Online, like CoH, is a MMORPG about comic superheroes. Rather than the usual classes in most MMORPGs, players create their own superheroes with their favourite superpowers like shooting ice, running at insane speeds, flying and all that.

Right now, I'm...

:3

I picked Flight for practical reasons, the main one being that it allows me to scout areas from above and/or afar before going in to complete missions (aka quests).

That's one of the free Travel Powers that do not require Tokens (can only be bought with real money). Other free Travel Powers are: Superspeed, Teleportation, Superjump and Acrobatics.

Most of the names are easy to understand, but Acrobatics is less clear. From what I've read, it seems to be a cross between Superspeed and Superjump. With Acrobatics, you get enhanced running speed and jump height, but not to same degree as either.

Just checked the game and found someone that looks like Goku from the anime series Dragon Ball.

Travel Powers that can be bought with Tokens and is available for free for Gold members (ie people who subscribed as this game used to be pay-to-play) are: Ice-Slide, Swinging (a la Spiderman),Tunneling, Jet Boots, Rocket Jump, Fire Flight, Earth Flight and Hoverdisk.

Even more special are Travel Powers that need to be bought even by Gold members: Lightspeed, Rainbow Flight and Rainbow Flight: Cloud.

Finally, there are those that have to be crafted and cannot be found in the store: R.A.D. Sphere, Aethyric Flight and Storm Rider.

I'm not explaining anymore; the wiki is here anyway.

These Travel Powers also affect our combat performance when activated. For Flight, it makes my skills cost more energy and my energy regeneration is reduced.

There are also lots of archetypes to choose from. For mine, it's the Glacier whose abilities are similar to those of Iceman. If I had some tokens, I'd have made Iceman, complete with Ice-sliding and the correct appearance. Anyway this is why I made my character blue.

Rant 795 / Youtube Rentals?

It's ironic that immortality is regarded as bad because you see all your loved ones die. It makes no sense to me.

People often say that it's better to be in a relationship than not because of the happy memories and good times. Some even believe that life is about memories.

If so, seeing loved ones die should not completely offset all the happy memories from the times you spend with them. In other words, the positive effects of a relationship should not be completely negated by seeing the partner die.

Or else, why bother having relationships?

Yet if the negative effects of a partner's death is less than the positive ones of the benefits, wouldn't life get better as you have more and more partners over time, making immortality the best thing since sliced bread?

Unless we're talking about some kind of cumulative effect here.

Yet it still doesn't make sense.

If eventually you keep thinking about all the deaths from before, doesn't this also get negated when you recall all the happier days you had with all your previous partners?

I mean the cumulative effect would work both ways.

Therefore, the argument that seeing loved ones die is a bad for immortals is moot.















At 0:08-0:13, notice how the material displayes her curves to perfectly. Real clothing don't do that, not even the sexy stuff like latex unless they're customized to the wearer's body. Wearing something like this will give you abrasions in all the unnecessary places.

On the other hand, the guy's completely covered up by armour. For all we know he could be an android underneath all the metal.

Therefore, it tells me that this trailer was made to attract boys and young men. Females are not the target audience.

Another thing is the website and forum. The website isn't updated to reflect the OBT and the OBT banner which I pasted here was not well-made. Two of the characters appear more blurry than the leftmost one.







The Cow Room has no cows.













After completing Honest Hearts, everything is so easy now in the main map. The War Club, complete with both upgrades, pwns everything including Deathclaws and Yao Guais. The best thing about it is that in addition to awesome physical damage, it also does Fatigue damage which basically results in stuns.

Now I can go anywhere I want and Deathclaws are merely a hindrance instead of the nightmares they used to be for me.









So I accidentally superboiled my coffee. We had ordered Mac for breakfast on Sunday but I kept my coffee in the fridge since I'd bought real coffee from downstairs.

Today I decided to drink it so I poured it into my cup (styrofoam cups aren't microwaveable) and microwaved it. Then I walked out to spy on my mum talking to her employees on the phone. It's not what you're probably thinking now, but it was one way to judge how well she's feeling today.

Anyway I stayed out a little longer because I thought it wouldn't hurt to microwave the cold coffee more than my usual 2min15s. I returned and stopped it at 2min45s.

At first, there was no problem. I took it out, nothing. I lifted it up, nothing. I brought it into my room, nothing.

But when I poured sugar into it... it foamed!

Straight away there was a thin layer of light brown foam on top.

For an instant, it must have boiled.

Interesting. So even a clay mug's sides are so smooth that it can prevent boiling in a microwave oven. If I had left it inside longer it might have exploded instead when I moved it. Next time I should probably pour in the sugar to allow it to boil then.









Been playing Cities XL again, this time with additional knowledge from the tutorials. Apparently I missed a few things from before because I skipped most of the tutorials.

1) I can sell my excess stuff to the AI company for low prices and buy what I need for exorbitant sums of money. True that they aren't worth it but it provides me with a short-term solution to planning problems.

2) I can choose what roads are used the Square Tiles when I build my zones with that tool. How I wish I had known that before! I've been using the smallest default road all along and have been dealing witht the traffic congestion issue throughout my time playing this game before now.

3) Now I know how to use the Metro and that for both buses and metro, I cannot place too many stops or the people would find it faster to travel by car, thereby defeating the purpose of having the public transport systems.

Now I shall proceed to build my best cities yet.




















Recent posts have been quite uninspired. I'm definitely aware of it, hence the last title. I seem to be more lethargic than usual. No idea why. I think I'm not getting enough exercise.

Everything's foggy until today.

I think it's a bad idea to keep switching off the aircon too early. I may be waking up a lot at night due to the heat without remembering it.

Today was different because for some reason my mum came into my room to use my bathroom while the other was occupied by either my bro or his gf and she switched it back on before sneaking back out.

I woke up freezing.










Starting to brush my teeth with baking soda since last night. Expired baking soda, but I don't think it's any different from unexpired soda because I've only opened it once before.

It's painful. Things I've learnt from 2 nights of this dental treatment:

1) Do not get it on any wounds, ie if you bit your mouth or lips, wait a while or skip it altogether for the day.

2) Water does not help if 1) happens.

3) Even if you rinse your mouth thoroughly with tap water multiple times, there will still be residue of the baking soda in your mouth that will exacerbate the pain from mouthwash if you use it right after brushing.

4) Do not leave it in your mouth for a while after brushing thinking it will increase the effect. Whether or not it really does, it will still get uncomfortable as the soda reacts with the water on your gum and tongue.

But it's cheaper than those teeth-whitening products, so I'll endure the pain.

So techically I brush my teeth thrice a day now. Once in the morning and twice at night, plus mouthwash and flossing at night. Hopefully this will whiten my teeth soon.

I still remember that one time when a (hot) girl told me, "It's a pity you let your teeth turn yellow." That was the first time I learnt that this was important for my image, and now, I need to start thinking about it.

Next step is the step I dislike most - exercise.










A 53-year-old man died from a heart attack while raping a 77-year-old woman.

Authorities say that while he was raping his 77-year-old victim at knifepoint, he told her he wasn't feeling well and stopped having sex with her so he could rest.
Moments later he then went back to fondling her briefly before he rolled over and died.

This, I can honestly say, is wrong on so many levels.













The boredom they must have endured while doing the same action so many times over the years, man, life sucks for them.












That's one talented Super Mario fan.











Awesome Iron Man MK I costume.












[insert blonde joke here]











I've read about blue holes and brine pools in the sea, but this is the first time I'm seeing an underwater river of hydrogen sulfide. Apparently there's one at Cenote Angelita, Mexico.

Whoa!

Rant 794 / Uninspirations

Tried World of the Living Dead. Not what I expected. Very distant.

When one sees something in the "zombie" genre, one would usually think of people shooting undead people while looking for places to hide and scavenging for supplies.

This game is exactly that, except you see none of the actual action.

Imagine there is a war. There are the soldiers who are out there fighting the enemies and the generals at the back planning the action on a map.

In WotLD, you're that general, and the map is a Google Map.

What you do is give orders to survivors assigned to your command in order to save their asses, and these can range from "GTFO AND HIDE!" to "Get in and find something useful" to "Move to this spot and rest".

The next step is Survival Points. These are points players get when their survivors do certain stuff and can be spent on raising their expertise in weapons or scavenging or whatever, or to build temporary safehouses to rest in.

In the larger picture, there are factions. I guess these are the game's version of guilds.

With guilds come PvP. It's logical. There's no point having factions against zombies.

So far I'm still a newbie. Got my party killed when I tried to complete my tutorial mission by going into a heavily infested area. Alright, the game's also not very newbie-friendly too. In my starting area, there apparently isn't any safehouses in the clear zones.

How am I supposed to recover Fatigue points when I can't safely reach a safehouse right at the start?

I mean I tried, and I went through hell for it! Seriously, my survivors had to trudge through multiple red zones, and red according to the map legend means "SUICIDE". What the heck?

Not entirely interested in playing anymore. It can possibly be a great game, but it is too harsh for newbies.











Aliens! When do we get to meet them? Perhaps after we finally eradicate racism among ourselves. Since they're going to look so much more different than people of other races, the racism and xenophobia will be over 9000 times greater.










Prosperous Kitchen is offering a half-price coupon today, $15 for $30 worth of food. But when I called them to ask if it could be used for takeaway, the answer I got was "No". Strange. What difference does it make if I dine-in or buy takeaway? Cost-wise, they should be roughly the same.

I'd have bought two if she'd given me a positive reply because they're one of the few places in Singapore that sells 咸水角 and it's the closest one to my home. It's so rare, they're usually sold out by late afternoon.

咸水角 is a Cantonese fried dim sum with a thick skin made of glutinous rice flour and contains a mixture of pork, chinese mushrooms, chinese chives, dried shrimps and turnips. Usually I can only recognize the pork, but it doesn't matter to me.











My current town in Die2Nite is awesome. They're so strict, one guy gave me a stern warning for using one piece of Semtex to make a Plastic Bag and Semtex, which can be filled with water to form an Exploding Water Bomb.

Actually I did it because I was bored and wanted to make something, and the items required weren't exactly in short supply at that point.

Still, that guy got a into a fit for the waste of one piece of Semtex, as if we were going to have to build a Waterminefield soon.

Anyway it's now Day 11 and we're doing very well. Most of the scavengers are now moving together in a single direction whenever one is replenished. Bad luck with the hacksaw though, because we only found one on Day 10.

In contrast, we've been having fantastic luck with the nightly attacks. Multiple low spikes cannot be anything but good luck. Not doing too good with the DOs (defensive objects) but we're still averaging 10 per day. Could have been more but I couldn't find any for the last couple of days.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy!

Soon. No date specified.
















Whoa! What have they done to incur such wrath from the earth?













Again they're predicting the possibility of a collapse of the Chinese economy.

Not new but has a point. Overinvestment is always a worry, just like what we're seeing in Singapore. All the hot money coming in, it's fun for now but not forever. Someday the investors are going to find a better emerging market and it won't be a pleasant experience for us.

"I was recently in Shanghai and I took their high-speed train to Hangzhou," he said, referring to the new Maglev line that has cut traveling time between the two cities to less than an hour from four hours previously.

"The brand new high-speed train is half-empty and the brand new station is three-quarters empty. Parallel to that train line, there is a also a new highway that looked three-quarters empty. Next to the train station is also the new local airport of Shanghai and you can fly to Hangzhou," he said.

"There is no rationale for a country at that level of economic development to have not just duplication but triplication of those infrastructure projects."

What I think he's saying is that the big numbers we're seeing coming from China may be hollow.

You can either see this as foresight or overspending on image. Right now in some parts of China, it's cheaper to take a domestic flight than a ride on a high-speed train, so I'm favouring the latter. Some of these are built way too early, and they cost tons of money to maintain, so it's not like having them pre-emptively is a good thing.

Rant 793 / Why Didn't They Rob Burger King Of Its Burgers?

I didn't go to the PC Show and neither am I planning to go anymore.

I changed my mind. Even the tablet isn't going to be useful for me. I'm not physically weak to the point where I can't carry the actual jackets in luggage bags. I'd sweat more but hey, it would give me an excuse to take a cab.

Furthermore, the tablet I was seriously considering at the end, a Creative Ziio 7" tablet, made my bro frown when I mentioned it to him.

Of course I asked him for his opinion. He's had more experience with Creative products and I do.

According to him, Creative stuff tend not to last long. Makes sense, since the Ziio 7" tablet was the cheapest among all in the PC Show.

But after further consideration, I thought if that was so, why bother anymore? If my backup laptop breaks down, I could easily get a $400 replacement at Sim Lim Square anyway. The prices at the PC Show, according to veterans, are the same as those in SLS except they give away more freebies in the event.

As for my phone, I found no good deals anywhere. Initially regretted the decision a few weeks back to ignore the promotion sent via SMS from my mobile service provider, but came to the conclusion that I couldn't have known anyway.

In any case, I'll be buying a new phone soon at one of the shops, probably the one at West Coast Plaza. Currently considering the HTC 7 Mozart for its 8MP camera, which is 2MP better than my current phone.

Internal memory of 8GB is a possible issue but I believe I won't be using it for anything else other than a few games.

Main purpose of this phone is only to take pictures discreetly of potential stuff we can sell when I go to Guangzhou in the near future. I'll probably need to buy a additional cheaper phone for my ICTs.


























Spain arrested a few Anons for organizing an online attack against some websites. Not linked to the PSN thing though.

Spanish police alleged the three "hacktivists" helped organize an attack that temporarily shuttered access to some Sony websites. They were not linked to two massive cyber attacks against Sony's Playstation Network that resulted in the theft of information from more than 100 million customers.

I'd expected /b/ to be all over it but nope, not a single thread on this.

Either the Anons are no longer as active on 4chan as before, or the mods are getting really active on banning and deleting anyone and anything related to Anonymous.

After all, even the guys behind Piratebay were sued for merely having illegal torrents and not for making those torrents themselves. By the same logic, 4chan could be sued for having these discussions.










If a person goes into a coma when he was a teenager and wakes up 30 years later, would he have the temperament of a middle-aged man or a teenager?

If he reacts to situations more calmly, wouldn't he be considered "more matured"?

Yet how could he be more matured if his mind never aged beyond the day he went unconscious?

Does that mean that the above criteria is not a right way to judge a person's mental maturity?










Gave a "like" to some random travel agency for some crappy freebies. A $10 voucher and a small mystery gift from Japan.

Means I'll be going on the coming Friday most likely, before the dinner. Since it's closing at 6.30pm, I'll be forced to get to the restaurant early after that. Hopefully I'll be able to slow enough to be merely half an hour early.









Finally bought some coffee. Korean arabica. Accidentally made it too thin just now because I haven't made coffee this way for weeks now. Derp.

Rant 792 / The Current Trend Of Consoles Seems To Be To Maintain The Status Quo In Terms Of Graphics Or Even Retrograde To 20th Century Standards But With "3D" Features

I believe I've finally figured out what kept me going in the Fallout games.

It's the stories of those who survived the Great War in which nukes destroyed the civilized world.

I've been wandering around in Zion in the Honest Hearts expansion looking for diary-like notes written by someone who survived the nukes. It's a sad story that explained the background of the Father worshipped by the tribals living in the region.

**********************************************************************

Spoiler Alert!

**********************************************************************

The "Father in the Cave" was their version of God, except he was a real person (in the game's universe) who survived the Great War in the Zion National Park. Like Las Vegas, the nukes did not hit it, so it had clean water and relatively less radiation, to the point where he could survive short exposure to the radiation level within months.

Randall Dean Clark was some guy who was returning to Salt Lake City from Canada (the US annexed Canada just before the Great War in the Fallout universe) when his engine just stopped. When he saw that the old couple on the opposite lane also had the same problem, he recognized the problem immediately.

The Chinese nukes, as predicted by the media, had finally arrived.

He was lucky he looked at the direction opposite of the explosion, though the old couple was not. They were blinded by the flash that came while he kept his eyes shut once he saw the light brightening everything.

When the bombing ended, he put them of their misery with his gun, then hiked back to Zion National Park which he had passed days before to look for a place to hide.

Fortunately for him, the cave he chose turned out to be some kind of government research site. When the bombs hit, the researchers must have decided to rush home to their families, hence leaving everything behind.

So he stayed in the cave in preparation of the nuclear fallout, and stayed there living on the supplies and whatever water he could find inside.

After two months, he noticed that the water from the stream inside had become drinkable again, albeit with some radiation medicines presumably also from the researchers' supplies, and he could get out for short periods of time to look for help.

Eventually he found new lifeforms outside and edible food.

7 years later, he hiked back to his home in Salt Lake City. Everywhere that wasn't a crater was flattened. He was unable to find his family nor his home at all. On his way back, he found his truck and the other car, but not the bones of the old couple. Nearby, there was tracks of men leading away.

Guessing that they were likely cannibals, he returned to his cave and constructed security measures for his home.

11 years passed before he encountered other survivors for the first time. It was a group of Spanish-speaking people, likely Mexicans. He watched them secretly but never contacted them. Once he helped saved one of the men who accidentally broke his leg by luring the others to him with screams that sounded like that of the injured man. Later when he learnt that the man had an infection, he quietly left a bottle of antibiotics for them.

They thought it was from God.

Sadly, they didn't last long. Hostile survivors from a nearby underground Vault (nuclear shelters built in preparation for the nukes), for some reason, killed the adults immediately upon arrival. The kids and the few women who didn't resist were captured.

Turns out the newcomers saw them as food. None escaped.

Randall, who was trying to find a way to rescue them, had to change his plans. After killing 24 of them (a third of the group), his lair was finally discovered by scouts. He quickly slipped away.

10 months after their arrival, the remaining 34 left Zion. He won.

Unexpectedly, a woman from the Vault people escaped from them and was found by him. Apparently, as a female in their society, life was not good. Therefore he took her in and eventually got her pregnant.

Wanting his new family to live better lives than his last, he even went to the ruins of a nearby city to look for books on medicine to prepare himself for the birth.

Again, tragedy struck. The baby died in a breech position when he started the Caesaeran too late and the mother, who was unconscious from the drugs he gave her for the operation, never woke up.

7 years on, he encountered the Vault dwellers again, though this time he thought the 10 of them were walking corpses. Strangely, they did not smell of decay, but they had turned feral, so he had to kill them all.

He celebrated his 60th birthday 5 years after. Often regretting the deaths of his loved ones and frequently contemplating suicide, he never managed to pull the trigger.

At 70, he discovered a new group of children setting camp at the same spot as the unfortunate Mexican refugees. As before, he secretly listened to them and watched over them. According what overheard conversations, they had escaped from "The School". Its location and purpose was never revealed.

He left them books, starting from storybooks and later moving on to weapons manuals and other practical literature. Other than those, he also left them notes teaching them about morality, always signing as "The Father" because he saw himself as their father of sorts.

At the beginning of the following year, he realized he was dying. He gave them almost everything he had and decided against revealing to them his identity, not wanting to destroy their faith in what he represented to them.

Leaving them his final notes telling them he was going to be silently watching them from then on, he left his cave to find a spot to die at.

And that's where I found his corpse and the final pages of his diary. Not to mention all the loot and his rifle.

The children went on to become one of the peaceful tribes in the region who worship the Father in the Caves as their god and treat his many homes as sacred grounds.


.....




But when I explored the Vault dwellers' camps later, I found a note from the last Overseer of the expedition group saying that they were attacked by the Mexican barbarians, followed by a vengeful spirit who killed the six Overseers before him.

When he was made Overseer, the 34 of them left Zion immediately.

Nowhere did he mention eating the captives.

If I'd read his note before Randall's, it would seem that these explorers were the civilized "good guys" victimized by barbarians and a demon.

Then again, in those times, cannibalism might have started out of necessity.

Hence this story lies in the grey area.

**********************************************************************

End of Spoiler!

**********************************************************************

Not well written at all, the above, but whatever. I just felt like rearranging what I've read in proper order because I didn't find these notes in chronological order and I couldn't shift them in my Pipboy in the game.

And it's stories such as these that keeps me wandering around in the Fallout games to the point where once I'm sure I'm done with random exploration, I'd check the wikis for places I have yet to visit.

The more of these they make, the more replay value the Fallout games have for me, in addition to the multiple endings.

I think what I'd welcome more, if this is true, would be more novels set in post-apocalyptic worlds.

...

Completed Dead Money. This expansion was surprisingly small.










PC Show is here and I feel like buying an ASUS Eee Pad Transformer. It's very close to what I want.

Initially I wanted a tablet in order to store and display images for my work. This means it needs to be light and has a large screen. Tablet sounded good.

Later I learnt that tablets are terrible for typing. This won't do because it may eventually replace my Acer laptop as my backup computer when it dies. Furthermore, I may need to type in other data for work.

However, netbooks aren't light enough. The lightest I've seen so far are 1.27kg. In contrast, tablets are in the range of 600-700g, ie half the weight of netbooks.

Therefore, the Transformer. The tablet itself is 680g and the dock's weight is not an issue. I'll bring the pad alone when I'm outside and put it back into the dock when I'm indoor. Solution found.

The trouble is that it's priced at S$659 without the dock and S$799 with, which is somewhat unreasonable for a product that's sold for US$399 without the dock in the US.

My solution is to talk to the promoter. Apparently they're offering further discounts if we order the products directly from them outside. Ignoring the legalities, this sounds like a good deal. One has even offered S$100 discount in addition to extra freebies, though he has yet to confirm if that discount applies to the Transformer. It sounds so damn good, it may not be true.

...

Okay, I've cooled down enough now to realize how bad the above decision was even with a $100 discount. I really don't need it. It's just a tablet with a laptop-style keyboard. Let me analyze how it would be used:

As a tablet: bring it around outside, leave the dock (aka keyboard) in the office.

As a netbook: use it for data input in office. Secondary purpose is to use as backup computer when PC is giving me trouble

If so, I could easily just get a tablet and a keyboard. I'm most definitely not going to bring the Transformer with the dock when I'm out. That would defeat the purpose of having a tablet.

Let's see what I'll be able to get for less than $500.

Currently considering the ASUS Eee Seashell 1011PX at $349 (bottom left).

But still more inclined to find a cheap tablet.

Also considering the Sony Cybershot WX7 @ S$399 but... I don't need it. My current camera's still working.

Must... resist... temptation...


You know what? At this rate I'm just going to get a random cheap tablet below $400 that has an Android OS, Bluetooth (for a Bluetooth keyboard) and a USB port (for my mobile modem), then recontract with Starhub for a free phone.

And that's about it.

I'm most definitely not spending over $1k here, that's for sure. I already feel guilty enough as it is for my new PC that I shouldn't have needed if I didn't ruin the processor of the last one.

Then again, the last PC was giving me a lot of trouble.




According to personal experience at the last IT Show, the cheapest items won't be found in the brochures online.











I find it disturbing that I have yet to produce anything that can be sold.











So our President has written a book that will become commercially available after his term ends. This book will cover only a tiny portion of his career.

Not interested. His career, on the whole, was far more exciting than that tiny bit when he was just a union representative.

No, I'm more interested in his experience when he was the director of the SID. I've worked there during NS, so I really want to know how the way they work came to be.

Too bad this dream will never come true. Everything about it is such top secret stuff that is unlikely to get declassified in my lifetime, if at all.

It would make a pretty epic biography though.

Rant 791 / Omega Male

E3 Nintendo. Not too exciting. Wii U looks nice but I'm not sure if it's going to be a success.

It might if this becomes reality:

I remember a few occasions when I talked about crumbling empires and how they collapse, that they don't die overnight but slowly decay. What would be visible is that they might get hit hard by some issue and they would have difficulty recovering from it before the next one hits.

I believe there is something else too and that something is similar to our flood issue. Usually, things are peaceful. Shit sometimes happen but never anything particularly newsworthy. Therefore people get complacent and decide it's not worth the money and effort to keep watching out for the big one.

So they stop and they laugh and they think nothing will ever happen.

Then it happens, and strains the overall system. Just one problem, true, but it only takes a single final straw to break a camel's back.

Singapore's flood case isn't as simple as that though. Not only does the monsoon come every year, but according to some experts, our urban development has caused our island to be less efficient at draining away stormwater.

Sounds logical. More road, less grass, less natural drainage. Due to space constraints, drains can only be so big, and is expensive to upgrade after construction. Moreover, some suspect our Marine Barrage is keeping water back on the island.

No linked source because I'm too lazy to google.

I'm not saying this is anything that would cause the downfall of the country. I'm just using this as an example (since it's fresh) for something I'd said before. It's just a heavy storm.

It's similar to the uselessly beautiful castles in Europe. No defensive value but look gorgeous. I'm pretty sure a few kingdoms had been conquered more easily because of that.

And the current economic issues in the EU.









This is so full of shit. This news report warns that whatever they implement to deal with the floods will be expensive.

Why?

In an email response, Mr Martin P Li, a past president of the Singapore Chapter of the Institution of Engineers of Australia ...said the government needs to consider whether it is prudent to construct a drainage system to mitigate the effects of a once-in-25-years occurrence by raising the design parameters to accommodate a 50 or 100 years flood, or accept the consequences of the event once every 25 years.

In general, the less likelihood of the event occurring, the higher the costs of the system, he said.

But didn't our Minister say that he does not expect the weather to improve in the future?

"Personally, I think our weather has changed. I'm actually psychologically prepared for it to get worse."

Did the "authorities" get the hint?










Completed Dead Money. Never found out why the reason behind the Cloud's existence. Apparently it doesn't exist.

Strange. Something like poison gas don't get ignored during the construction process. Too bad they didn't develop that part of the story further, so that's one loose end they never tied up.

And the Vault's full of gold bars. Weighs 35 units each and has a value of over 10k. That gives it a value of over 200 per unit weight, making it one of the most valuable item in the whole expansion.

Unfortunately I only managed to carry 2 out. My max capacity is only 230 and there are weapons and items that are more valuable than that. Furthermore, they are not easy to sell. With only about 45 points in Barter, most merchants have to pay me over 8k caps per bar. Few NPCs have this kind of money.

Worst of all, I can't go back to Sierra Madre after I complete it unless I use console commands. Oh well. 16k caps is still a lot of money. Splurged most of my money after that on an Anti-Materiel Rifle and 2 upgrades on my stats at the Clinic.

...

Now to move on to Honest Hearts.

Rant 790 / Blood For The Water God!

Tried Dead Money, currently at the part where I have all 3 companions and I need to go to the different locations to open Sierra Madre.

Had some bad experience that's completely my fault. For some reason I had somehow missed searching a single desk on the second floor of the medical centre. Just that one desk!

And you know what? That's the very desk that contains the key to the basement!

That usually isn't a major problem since they always allow 2 ways to enter an area that players must go to.

Problem is, my Lockpick skill, at 55, was 20 points short.

To make matters worse, there is no way I can return to mainland to complete some other quests to gain the necessary level.

Since I was only about 160 experience points short of hitting the next level and under the assumption that for some reason the developers had somehow omitted an alternate method, I decided to go explore the map and kill some monsters for it.

I cleared the map, checked every corner multiple times and even discovered that the radroaches were the only thing that respawn in the Villa.

But no, I never got to the next level.

In the end, I gave up and googled for an answer before I resort to using console commands to unlock it.

Apparently I was not the only person who couldn't pick the lock, but I was the only person to have searched the entire second floor and still missed it.

/facepalm



Dead Money is easy on Normal Mode. On Hardcore, the HP is slowly drained so it's much harder. Furthermore, sleeping is not possible, hence the only ways to recover health are to eat and use stimpaks. The catch is that caps are not valid currencies except for a few NPCs (only found one so far) and the Sierra Madre chips don't grow on trees.

I believe they tried to make it a zombie game in the horror genre (instead of a thriller like L4D coz it's not scary) but with a Pipboy and plenty of Stimpak, I have no reason to be scared by anything.

Yea sure it's dark everywhere, the enemies moan and drag their feet, but something is still missing.

I think there needs to be more blood stains everywhere. That would have been positively creepy.

...


Now in the casino. A little hard to get to Sierra Madre but definitely not impossible. Almost ran out of ammo for 2 guns but I had specialized in melee anyway.

Apparently, Pre-war Money is usable inside! Yay! I saved up so much thinking it's the next best thing to caps, which don't seem to exist in Dead Money. Now I have plenty of it to buy the Sierra Madre Chips with.

Guns don't seem to be useful where I am now but I believe the Ghost People outside are going to bash their way into the casino at some point in the future. I think I heard some banging noise as I passed the locked main entrance just now.








Now I'm being told to buy some fashion magazines to read.

I'm also browsing through pages and pages of coats and jackets from around the world. I think if I keep staring at the jackets (and incidentally, the models) long enough, I'll eventually be able to acquire a bit of taste. I'm not even talking about "good taste"; just "taste" would be cool.








Microsoft accidentally announces Halo 4 too early. E3's coming, so everyone's certain that was supposed to be their big surprise for that major event.

I wonder if it's really an accident or if there's a reason behind this action that I do not see.










Fantastic weather yesterday. Rained so much Tanglin Mall was flooded. It was so bad there was a small waterfall from the first floor to the basement.

I wonder how escalators handle floods. Maybe they have drains around the motors below. I don't know.

But it was really cool last night and this morning. Too bad it's getting warm again now at 12am.

Now the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources is saying "sometimes despite our best efforts, we cannot win".

At least he didn't give us that "once every 50 years" bullshit like they did last year. It most definitely hasn't been anywhere close to half a century since the last one.

Still, that does not absolve him of this failure. We get monsoon rain every year since antiquity. A very similar flood occured just last year and possibly more had happened in previous years (but I can't recall and I'm too lazy to search for those archived reports).

Do we have to wait till someone dies before they do something about it?

Major flood at one of the most important commercial district in Singapore - similar flood was not prevented on the same month this year.

Some kid drowns in a flooded drain - PUB builds fences next to that drain within 24 hours.

I think the answer is obvious:

A human sacrifice is needed so that our water god can be appeased.

Blood for the Water God!

:3



So now we're asked to mark on a map where floods are occuring.

On one hand, I guess it's not too much to ask for us to do it.

On the other hand, why is this even necessary??? I mean, seriously, we've been getting floods every year, though sometimes they're just minor ones. But how can the authorities still not know where the flood-prone regions are?!?

Shit, this is just an island, man! How many areas can there be??




Even the businesses aren't happy. The executive director of the Orchard Road Business Association actually made a sarcastic comment expressing displeasure at their failure to prevent this flood.

"It's kind of like an anniversary for us. It happened last year on June 16, almost (around) the same time"

People are usually a lot nicer on the news in Singapore.

Rant 789 / Not Expecting Much From Duke Nukem Forever

So cavemen stayed at their birth places more often than cavewomen.

But I'm more curious about how they survived in caves at night.

I mean, anyone who has ever tried to sleep in a room with their doors and windows closed would know how fast the place can warm up.

In a cave, there would be one opening. It could be large or it could be small for safety reasons. Would make sense, wouldn't it? Using rocks or boulders to block the entrance would provide a small measure of security.

But even if the cave was open, it would be warm. unless the cave was shallow.

In the case that it's deep, wind would generally not go far inside.

Furthermore, night in those days have to start at dusk. No electric lights, no candles. This means they would have been stuck inside their stuffy caves for 12 hours or so every day.

Or maybe they would burn firewood outside in order to stay up longer, but that's going to warm up the air more.

Are we humans supposed to be able to sleep in a hot place?

Coz I sure lost that ability.











Not so confident about my current town. Less organized, laxer rules. Even though we begin with about as much water as my last town, they're apparently going to decide on letting scavengers drink everyday.

I'm not saying it's a very bad idea since my last town had enough to last 23 days and we only had our pump at level 3 out of 5, but it could be. I can't confirm because I have yet to do the math.


No rules or guides or anything. Members had to ask what the water rationing plan was.

But we have plenty of experienced people here and everyone is much more active. That should offset the above differences. Hopefully.














Been watching Waking the Dead. Like most British TV series I've seen, they're short. This one only had 4 episodes per season, each episode split into 2 equal parts of an hour each.

At 2 hours per story, it's no wonder the quality of the mysteries is far superior than American stuff.

On the other hand, they are much less intense. Too many scenes of getting out of cars, walking around, waiting for people, etc. Yea building up the atmosphere, whatever.

I guess due to the shortness of the American episodes, they have to be quick about everything. The pace is much faster and the characters are much more impatient about everything.

But the three episodes in Waking the Dead that I've seen so far have successfully misled me. I have yet to successfully guess the real culprit before the first parts end. Plenty of good twists in this series.

And old people. Old people everywhere.








Maybe I've been on shitty Alicafe for too many days because now Gold Roast Kopi-O tastes good to me.

Or maybe it's actually good? Nah. It's the official Singapore Police Force (SPF) coffee :P

Kidding. It's a joke in some Singaporean forums.

Here, the term used to represent "getting arrested" is "lim kopi", which means "drink coffee". Some time ago, the SPF sponsored something together with another 2 companies, one of which was Gold Roast, so that at one point the logos of the 3 were placed side by side in the centre of the TV screen.

Now the joke is that SPF's kopi is from Gold Roast.

But it's a good substitute until I can drag myself up in the morning to buy fresh grounded coffee at the wet market. Damn stall closes around noon or something.

Moreover, Gold Roast is cheap.

Overall, its far superior to Alicafe and Super Coffeemix and if IIRC, they're roughly the same price, in the $5-$6 range.








Hellgate CBT has begun! Problem is that it's ending in another 2 days and the download of the client has been a real pain. It keeps stopping, it can't be minimized and it stays on top of everything.

I think I'll wait for OBT, which the FAQ says should be soon if nothing big happens during CBT.

Can't used the old Hellgate: London game. I bet it's very different in order to have the item mall.








Watched 22 Bullets, aka L'immortel. Nice film, but not as good as other films that starred Jean Reno, eg Leon: The Professional.

And why is he always a hitman?