Rant 948 / Let's Go Pro-Choice A Baby Out Of A Bitch.

"You giving these girls abortions?"

"I prefer 'self-induced miscarriages'."


"Were you aware that you're not allowed to give girls an abortion without a medical license or after the eighth month?"

"But that's when you pull them out, when they're ripe."


"I just had an abortion. Yeah!"


"Oh, I just had an abortion too. Here's a picture of my fetus."

"This is highly disturbing information!"


How the heck did they ever come up with this?













So the accountant came over to collect the documents to handle my bookkeeping and help settle my income tax.

I could probably learn to handle my own bookkeeping, but it's not happening any time soon.

I also have no idea how to file my income tax so I need her help on that.

Yea I know NOTHING about running a business before I took over, and even now I barely know anything.

Had a talk with her while she searched the entire office area for relevant documents, and it was very enlightening due to the fact that she's been doing this for my mum since my father passed away.

Contrary to what my mum had told me, our business has been shrinking since 7-9 years ago, and the net income really is similar to the salaries of fresh graduates.

I kinda trust the accountant's opinions because she has had access to private documents for multiple firms and companies, including the one she works for, for over a decade. Therefore she's seen more than anyone else I know.

And her advice to me?

GTFO, graduate from my university asap and find a job in a MNC with the degree.

This is no longer the age of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). With the economy being stagnant as it is and with no sign of recovery in the short term, there are few ways large companies can grow, one of which is to get rid of competition.

While running this business will give me a lot of freedom, the job security is far lower than what one can get in a MNC with a degree. You guys may face retrenchment, but I'm looking at bankruptcy here.

Moreover, things are much less routine and hence more complicated for me.

I already understand what "less routine and more complicated" means. I just didn't think it was this bad for SMEs.

To make things worse, the net income of this business has been sliding downwards for years. There's little chance that a complete newbie like myself will turn things around.

Of course I know of one way to expand this, but I just don't want to go for it in the short term.

My short term goal is to hit my mum's net income level within this year and maybe the next. Return to what was the status quo, simple as that.

My medium term goal is to expand to a safer size. Like I said before, I cannot possibly rely on just the current group of buyers for my long term survival. Both the accountant and the buyer friendliest with my mum and I agreed with me on that.

Finally, my long term goal is to go somewhere with a future that I'm more confident about, like Canada.



After receiving this month's gross income, I know things can't be good. The good months are over; it's the lean times again.

My gross income this month is about a third of last month's. My net income for 2011 after I officially took over was in fact a negative value, partly because all my dwindling profits went into buying new goods. My mum ordered nothing for a few months when she got too sick to work, and not sick enough to want to go to the hospital. That few months of nothingness dealt a huge blow to the firm's finances that I've only recently understood.



Another thing is that MNC employees sometimes get free higher education, sponsored by their own companies. Degrees are expensive in Singapore after the first as the government only subsidises the first degrees of Singaporeans.

Then again, I won't need another degree if I were to stay in this business.

She also echoed one of the first things I considered when I came here: that I will find it very hard to adapt to office life if I were to switch over after I'm used to this way of life.

However she also explained to me that it's not just about having a boss and the lack of freedom, but that I'll also find it hard to adapt to office politics. It may be true that relations are important in both this and a typical office job, but I'll have to start all over again if I work in a company.

I'm still young right now, so it's not too late to re-pick, according to her. It will be very hard for me to compete with younger graduates once I get older, especially when my work experience is practically worthless to large companies.

I don't know. I'm very reluctant to let go of this newfound freedom right now. I agree that there are some rather complicated issues I'm only beginning to understand, but... I don't know. I like things the way they are right now.

As long as I can accept this level of income for the rest of my life, it can't be too bad.

I mean compared to the alternatives available to my degree, of course.
















Kinda a downer TBH, this meeting with the accountant. Fortunately it didn't turn this Friday into a bad day because I had something else to compensate for it.

7 tubes of free toothpaste, courtesy of Sensodyne. I have a large extended family living with me here.

They're just the tiny 27g tubes though.

7*27 = 189g

These aren't even equivalent to one of the large 300g tubes I use. Different brands, yes, but I don't actually give a damn.

Still this many freebies received at one go would perk up anybody's day.


Worried about my future, but not totally upset about it.
















Corruption of Champions must be the most disgusting thing ever to give me a boner outside of 4chan.
















Towns still feels interesting. Actually I've only completed the tutorials.

I dislike how the walls block so much of my view, but fortunately I can still get around it because the the popup box next to my cursor tells me what I'm pointing at.

Not very complicated.

It's a game about building a town near the dungeon. Y'know, everytime you play a game that involves dungeons, there's always a town nearby?

In this game, you're building that town.

IMO it's a city-building sort of game with monsters. Not exactly a RTS either because I can't find a way to actually micromanage the soldiers. When there's a route to some monsters opened, any soldier I have would rush to them and kill till they're killed themselves. Meanwhile civilians would follow behind to loot everything.

It's still in beta and barely playable. Still not sure if I should spend 15EU on that. Most likely not unless they show me more.

I'm impressed enough to be willing to fork out 10USD, but that's it. 25 USD is out of the question.

Rant 947 / Google+ Is An Online Google Employee Directory

I finally did what I was supposed to have done last month. Feels good, man.

I never understood why I keep procrastinating about it though.

Anyways, time for more work.



































Holy shit!

Unemployment rate in Greece is over TWENTY PERCENT!

In other words, one in every five non-retired adult Greeks is currently jobless.

Half of young Greeks are jobless.

Whoa!

If the workforce of a country is the goose that laid golden eggs, they're basically no longer satisfied with those and are now trying to amputate parts of its body.

20% unemployment. Man, the social issues that this is going to cause will probably change even their culture.

So now they're also going to make bondholders take a 53.5% cut in the values of their bonds, which has been calculated to be a real loss of 73-74%, in order to reduce their debts.

Yea governments can do that at the expense of their trustworthiness, and private bondholders cannot do anything about that other than stop buying their bonds.

This government cannot possibly win in the next election when it has lost so much of the peoples' trust, and the rest of the EU is worried about whether the next political party/alliance in power will continue to follow what has been agreed upon.

What a mess.
















EDIT: Well, that was stupid. I have no idea what I was thinking when I typed that. Those demographics that don't usually vote for them, anything the party does that benefits them would fit into my description of the budget.

Rant 946 / A Key To Skip The Cinematics, A Key To Skip The Gameplay And A Key To Skip The Entire Game.

Clearly in Bollywood the laws of physics do not apply.

Burning vehicles lying on their sides that were originally moving the same speed as the white car can somehow slide faster than the car after rolling onto their sides.

A man who is moving at the same speed as the car can somehow move faster than it when he moves upward on a wooden ramp.

Also, why did those cars at 0:49 explode? They didn't have anything to do with the entire chase!

Another question is: how did they suddenly end up on a cliff when they were on a highway in an urban area?

Finally, why is that crane parked at the edge of a cliff with the net full of boxes dangling precariously in mid-air?

Apparently there are people who think that fixed deposits require large sums of money.

That is not true.

For example, fixed deposits at Hong Leong Finance in Singapore only require S$500 for tenures of at least 3 months, ie the minimum sum is S$500 if you put it there for at least that long.

Interest rates for such small amounts only hit 0.7% p.a. when it's for at least 2 years. However, one can make a joint deposit, or whatever it's called, with an elderly person to get an extra 0.125% p.a. provided that person is at least 55 years of age.

The catch is obvious but if it's your own grandparent, that most likely won't pose a problem.

0.825% of S$500 is only S$4.125, or S$8.25 after 2 years but it's still free guaranteed money.

Doesn't beat inflation though.

However there are charges that one should note when placing their savings there. For example, only the first cheque withdrawal is free of charge, and subsequent ones cost S$5 each.

I'm not a big fan of Hong Leong, it's just that I've been using it longer than any other financial institutions for FDs. After all, it's been offering some of the best FD rates here for a number of years now.

But at the moment the best in Singapore AFAIK is still Maybank with the awesomely unbeatable 1.38% p.a. that requires a minimum sum of S$10,000 for a tenure of 2 years.

1.38% comprises of the upfront interest and the interest-upon-interest at maturity. In this case, it's 0.25% and 452% respectively.

Deceivingly complicated mathematics to blow up the numbers to humongous proportions.

I'll translate them to simpler terms.

The basic interest rate is only 0.25% p.a. and this is paid to your savings account (or whatever Maybank account you set up to store the money in the first place) 1 day after you set it up.

452% interest-upon-interest paid upon maturity (ie when the 2 years are up) is just 1.13%, ie that's the bulk of the interest rate. 4.52 * 0.25% = 1.13%

1.13% + 0.25% = 1.38%

0.25% paid now and 1.13% paid at the end.

Since the website says that "no interest will be paid for premature withdrawals made within 3 months of placement date of fixed deposit", I believe it means they will just deduct the upfront interest from the total deposit if you withdraw your money after the upfront interest is deposited into your account.




























MOO FOR ME!

Rant 945 / I Do Not Understand Why I Avoid It

Coming out soon, but it's not available for pre-order on Steam yet as far as I can tell.

Looks fantastic but it doesn't actually tell me anything regarding the actual gameplay.
















A burger made from test-tube meat?

 Post's aim is to invent an efficient way to produce skeletal muscle tissue in a laboratory that exactly mimics meat, and eventually replace the entire meat-animal industry.

I'd invest in it if I had the money.

If it's successful our future will be something similar to the future Earth of Isaac Asimov's books in which all food is derived from yeast. Real meat would become a delicacy... but seriously, if nobody gives a damn about what's in our burgers and chicken nuggets, there cannot be such a big taboo on artificial meat.

The meat products we eat are already pretty artificial right now, and I'm not even going to discuss our soft drinks.

The biggest benefit IMO is that it can free up insane amounts of arable soil for crop plants, and that's a far more efficient and cleaner use of land than rearing animals.

















I procrastinate for no reason. What do I fear?


















Alan Wake is released on Steam.

But I already knew the ending from watching streams.

Oh well.

















My bro baked pizza and bread.

Pizza was a basic salami one with thin crust.

Was pretty good other than the bad idea of sprinkling salt on top.

Bread was baked today. Was a basic loaf with oregano, rosemary and basil.

Was also pretty good except he added too much olive oil, making it almost... meaty. The crust at the bottom tasted like it was fried. And the top was burnt.

Good for a first try.

Wonder if he will find the effort worth it, because I don't.







I've been experimenting with chicken breast. Other than my usual oregano-rosemary-basil-black pepper-salt marinate, I tried a completely untested recipe involving worchestershire sauce, cider vinegar, MCD's imitation maple syrup, garlic, black pepper and salt.

The chicken was much softer, most likely because of the vinegar. However it wasn't sour because of the syrup.

Needed more time to marinate but that was not a option because the meat would turn mushy due to the vinegar... unless I don't add vinegar till later.

Hmm...




















Wanted to spend a bit of money on the projects on Kickstarter.com but nothing seemed really worth it.

Thought about Agents of Mersh but costs over US$100 for me. No thanks. I don't even buy games for US$60.

Also considered non-game projects but I haven't seen anything I feel is worth it. Maybe the one about chocolate wasabi peas, but it doesn't appear very successful. Only hit $1600 out of the $5000 needed and just 10 days more to go.

Rant 944 / I Have No Idea What I Am Doing

COD: MW 3 free-to-play for this weekend on Steam.

Didn't even bother to click on the game's store page.

















Played Reckoning all the way till the siege, then stopped. Game got boring after I broke the siege. Don't feel like going back to doing sidequests and stuff anymore.

Battles during the siege were interesting but... those loopholes or whatever they're called disappointed me.

Mainly it was the one in the second fight with the Balor. If I just stand as close to it as I could, I'd be able to take minimal damage as long as I hold Shift to block. My skeleton heals me with its attack, and it gives me back more than enough HP to compensate for the injuries I receive from blocking the claw attacks.

















I've long heard of similar stories like that.

That makes piracy largely a supply problem of pricing and access rather than a criminal conspiracy.

It's kinda similar to animes in Singapore until recent years. The pirates/subbers had far better and faster subtitles hardcoded into the animes than legitimate stores, if they had them at all, so why would we want to buy them?

Of course now there are multiple legal websites showing animes for free and surviving on the ads' revenue so this is no longer an issue.

Still, game prices do not make much sense in a lot of countries.

It found that while a DVD of "The Dark Knight" cost $24 in the United States, that was the equivalent of $75 in Russia, and $641 in India when compared to local purchasing power.
The price of pirated DVDs in those countries were $25 and $54, still more expensive on a purchasing power basis than a legal copy in the United States.

While I wasn't aware of these specific differences, I can imagine how gamers in Malaysia would be turned off by game prices offered by foreign companies because they're often lumped together with Singaporean gamers despite the difference in income levels in the two countries.

In other words, prices are often not adjusted according to the exchange rates nor to the local income levels/purchasing power.

To us consumers, this doesn't make sense at all.

So for those who find the prices too unreasonable, they simply pirate.

Hence the rampant piracy in Asia.

And this isn't just about games!

Why else would China make such good money by counterfeiting everything, to the point where they have some sort of ratings system for counterfeit qualities?

If you really want to stop piracy, first have your prices make sense.

Games are NOT luxury products, and hence should not be priced as such.


Despite their efforts to portray online pirates as thieves who only want free stuff, it isn't true for the more affluent among them. They can and are perfectly willing to buy the products - they just don't see how they're worth their prices.

For some reason I just can't get this image out of my mind and it's making me laugh during inconvenient moments.

Rant 943 / Commit Sudoku!

Wright Brothers had far better rhymes IMO.















Found Stranded II. It's kinda like Minecraft in that it's in first-person view, simple graphics and you build stuff.

Unlike Minecraft, it's always on an island because you're supposed to be stranded on one. Unlike Minecraft, you can only build specific structures.

It's a free game, fortunately, so anyone can download it. Interesting game, but TBH I have no idea what happens once I've built everything.

I guess once I've "completed" the game in both normal and Adventure (aka campaign) mode I'll have to move on to mods.

There are quite a few as far as I can tell but I have yet to try any.

So far I'm only on the second island in the Adventure mode. Easy game because I built more than necessary on the first. I had no idea what the objectives were so I just went ahead to build a shelter, a campfire, wood and stone storage, misc storage, trap, kiwi breeding thing, defense tower, well and even a treehouse.

For tools and weapons, I had a sling, a bow, a hammer, a net, a fishing rod, a piece of flint and several starfishes (used as a throwing weapon).

With just the bow and 40+ arrows it was enough to kill any group of wild animals including all the lions and clawed monkeys I've encountered.

For food, I initially thought I only could eat berries and small pieces of meat from killing kiwi birds.

Later I found wheat and grapes, so I grew about 9 of each.

After that, I made a trap and the kiwi breeding thing so that I can get a regular, albeit insufficient, supply of food.

It was only when I made my fishing rod that I finally got enough food to sustain me for multiple days without looking for more, so that I could focus on other tasks like the treehouse.

I guess that's just like how civilizations came about.


















Wanted to change earphones because the cheap S$2.50 set I'm using has a bad hook design. The hook is comfortable but it's set on a swivel so that it can be rotated.

Apparently this design is pretty common among cheap Chinese-made earphones with hooks.

The trouble with this is that the swivel gets loose. It's cheap so it's expected.

Normally that's not a problem but when I tilt my head, the earphone on the lowered side would just fall. The hook isn't affected but I have to push the earphone back up later.

Not convenient at all when I eat.

So I took out my old pair that has terrible sound but couldn't stand it.

That left me with the most expensive set that cost S$11 from JVC, model HA-E33-S.

Sound's fine but the hook was far too tight.

So now I'm back to square one.

I've already ordered another 3 pairs from DealExtreme but I'm not expecting much. They're cheap just like the ones I've been using.

But if they last as long as these did, I'm buying a good branded set next.















Oh yea invade Libya and ignore Syria. Global politics is so full of shit.
















How ironic that soon after I posted that comment about MCD rarely running out of anything, MCD runs out of something again.

I'm not talking about the second shortage of curry sauce, I'm talking about this morning when I ordered breakfast.

They actually ran out of muffins!

HOW DARE THEY??!

So all muffins were replaced by regular Hamburger buns.

It's actually okay TBH, better than I expected.

Still, I wanted muffins!

Rant 942 / Dad Spice

Ken and Guile don't sing in English, but Blanka, a Brazilian, does.

:\

Not saying Brazilians don't speak English, but that it just doesn't make as much sense.



















Sex with floating head that sinks into the bed.

"Interesting".

I've never really got the hang of using the Demo Knight but I've seen how awesome he can be.
















Found a phone in a cab today.

An iPhone I think. Not sure.

When a phone started ringing in the cab I thought it was the driver's.

But the driver didn't answer the phone and the direction from which the ringtone was coming was like under the driver or to his right, which was the door.

Took me some time to realize it was also much nearer to me than I thought because it would have been much softer if it was blocked by the driver and his seat.

Then I lifted my bag and found it underneath.

So I handed it to the driver and he asked me to answer it because he was driving. By then it had already stopped ringing.

He asked me to tell the owner who was most likely his previous passenger, if he called again, that he was fine with driving back to where he dropped him off to return it to him.

When the phone rang again, I answered. Fortunately it was really the owner. Would have been weird if it was a friend or something.

Strangely he insisted on going to me to get his phone back. His reason was that he didn't know how to contact the driver, not that he didn't trust him.

Whatever. I was already off work, so I told him to meet me at my neighbourhood wet market.

The driver then started a monologue on the history of lost stuff in his cab over the last several years. Apparently all Comfort cabs have GPS so when a passenger loses his stuff, he can just call the company hotline, tell him where he alight and when, and Comfort can find out which cab it probably was.

But if it was a cab stopping at Orchard Road during the peak hours, good luck to you!

So anyway, the driver was grateful that I saved him an unprofitable trip and rounded down my fare to the nearest dollar. 80 cents discount, not much.

In the end the guy actually came straight here right after his call, arriving only 20mins after I did.

Turned out to be an insurance agent, promised me "better deals" if I went to him.

Dude no.

Made up some excuse and went back home.

I wonder if this is some kind of trick to get random legit phone numbers.

Rant 941 / Dubstep On Vinyl

Exciting part at 7:10.

"Have a good day y'all!"

I have to admit my childhood was nowhere close to hers, but now I realize that's probably not a good thing. The privileges that come with adulthood aren't without their prices.

TBH the father was trying to be kind, but he grew up in a far tougher environment and that limits how soft he allows his daughter's life to be. I don't think he could have even imagined that he could be easier on her because his own life was so much harder.

The girl most likely compares her life to those of her peers, while he compares it to his own.














The strange thing in life is that nothing else matters as long as you have what is in demand in the society you're in.

You can completely retarded in multiple ways, or you can be one of those people who are only willing to see the good things in life (ie in denial), and you can still succeed if you are what is needed.

It is unfair, but fairness is a human concept.















Teemo is fun.















I have to say I'm now impressed by Reckoning (I'm calling the game by that name because that's what it uses for its shortcut link in my computer).

I'm currently at Mel Senshir, new arrived with a giant backlog of sidequests.

Game's pretty damn long.

In fact it feels longer than Fallout 3.

Then again, Fallout 3 had a pretty short main questline without the DLCs.

I've been playing for 2 whole days now and I feel I'm only halfway through the game.

I know killing the boss of the Tuatha is unlikely to end the game, and I'm halfway to getting to his part of the map.

At this rate, I'll need four whole days to complete the game.

Four!

I don't remember needing this much time to complete FO3, FNV, Oblivion or Skyrim.

Ok I took a bit more for Skyrim but that's only because I spent a lot of time avoiding the main quest.

For this game, I just did whatever I felt like, never deliberately avoiding the main quests just to delay the end.

That's why I have a huge backlog of quests I haven't completed. By now I should have like 10 or more, plus the 5-6 "tasks" that are basically simpler but repeatable quests.

IIRC FO3 really only took 2 days to complete, plus about a day more because of the sidequests (and I completed almost all that I encountered).



As for my character, I realized investing everything in the Sorcery tree isn't really worth the points. Not enough bang for my buck near the top.

So I've been spending some on Might, getting the passive skills at the bottom right.

I'm not interested in more Active skills but I don't have a choice if I want to continue to invest in Might.

Right now I have only four Active skills - Sphere of Protection, Mark of Flame, Summon Faer Gorta and Heal Surge.

Basically one summon, one shield, one attack and one heal.

My battles are very simple because I mostly just use either Mark or my Chakrams, rarely both. When I do combine both, it's usually on bosses.

I want to keep the game simple, so I'm reluctant to get any other active attack skills.

However, that's impossible because to get to Meteor, I need to spend a few points on Active skills.

Hence I'm considering spending on the Arcana Weaponry branch mainly for the Dodge attack.

I dodge (or in my case, Blink ie short-range teleport) A LOT in battle because positioning is important when spraying the Mark. I blink in, Mark them, blink away, and then activate the Marks when they all have it. If they're barely alive, I finish them off with my Chakrams. If they are nowhere close to dying I repeat the Marking process.

If they're resistant to Fire damage, Chakrams.

Simple battles.

I almost never block because I'm rarely close enough to get hit. If I'm too close, it's usually because I'm already activating the Mark and they will get knocked back by the imminent explosions before they can hit me.

Blocking is only for when I'm too far away and there are homing attacks incoming.

IMO my battles look awesome with all the last-minute blinking and explosions. That sort of action is never visible in FPS games. I guess they're using the third-person view very well. 


There are other ways to do it of course. For example, my bro uses poison and kites everything like a boss. Not as visually impressive but just as exciting.

Probably easier too because the game's auto-aim archery makes bow-users too easy to use.





One complaint about this game right now that I have is the Faer Gorta, or the skeleton summon.

It has very annoying AI.

Most of the time it's alright, but sometimes it just stands around and do nothing.

One time I tested it to see how bad the problem is by kiting the half-dead monsters while it's in its stoner mode. I only noticed it after I had already activated the Marks.

It just follows me as I run away instead of attacking the monsters.

However the moment I attacked them after all the running, it attacks them too and everything returned to normal.

Buddhists aren't happy people because they don't believe in Jesus.

To the Christians, this makes sense. After all, just like in Judaism and Islam, to Christians all other religions must be Satanic because they're false religions created by Satan to mislead the people.

How can misguided people be truly happy?

Don't hate Christians for their beliefs. Just be glad they also believe in religious tolerance unlike in the past.

Of course, if you're a Christian and you don't believe in converting others to your religion, you're probably being very selfish.

Rant 940 / Lightning Freeze Fireballs

Now instead of merely rolling around to dodge I can teleport in Kingdoms of Amalur. It's weirder because I can't teleport through obstacles like large roots nor can I teleport down cliffs (I wouldn't mind teleporting into mid-air if necessary but that option wasn't available).

However, it's just so much cooler than the roll. I roll around so much that his grunt was starting to sound painful to me.

Rolling is a faster way to move around than the normal run. I found that out while accompanying a NPC early in the game when I decided to test both methods of movement. My running pace is slower than the NPC's but I can roll faster than he can run.

IMO the game is comparable to Skyrim if not for the stealth and the many restrictions of freedom of movement. The graphics and animation are much better but Skyrim is just more... free.














The NS IPPT admin system is terrible.

I went to get weighed on last Monday and I have yet to officially clear my IPPT.

Buggers.

I checked NS Portal on Wednesday night, instead of Tuesday like the clerk advised me to due to various work-related distractions, and found that I "have not completed my IPPT" for my current year.

Straight away I emailed them and the next day, the reply email told me to call the camp to clarify.

No number was provided though.

BECAUSE I CAN JUST FIND A MILITARY CAMP'S PHONE NUMBER FROM THE YELLOW PAGES, AM I RIGHT???!?!?!?!

So I called the NS Portal hotline about the IPPT issue hoping I'd get a different result, but in the end the only new information I got was that my lastest recorded BMI in the system was "zero".

As in the number.

Apparently, the SAF has declared me dead and this must be the afterlife.

Unable to get a proper solution to this problem, I asked her for the number so that I can call the camp's FCC to settle things.

I had to call after 4pm, though I have no idea why.

Nevertheless, I waited and called at 5pm.

The guy checked the records and found that my height and weight have been properly recorded in the system, so he asked me to call the NS Portal to clarify.

Very funny, SAF. Very funny.

Obviously I then told him I had called the hotline already and was informed that my BMI was zero. He theorised that they probably didn't receive the information when it was sent from his side, and told me he was going to send again. Tomorrow, I should call them again to make sure.

I think he meant I should check the NS Portal tomorrow and call them if things still remain as they are.

I definitely am going to do that. This is just a simple non-issue that SAF turned into an issue. I got to keep it a minor one.

I can also do nothing and then blame them for the confusion it's going to cause when my window ends, but there's no reason why I should make more trouble for myself. The logic is that since it's not my fault, why should I do all the work?

I'm just mentioning that because I noticed there are people who actually take this approach in life.

It annoys me a little because of the stupidity, but I remind myself that stupidity is the necessary foundation of a capitalistic society.

I bet those people also whine about how much shit they have to take in life.

It may not be your fault that many of those problems started, but it is undeniably your fault that they snowballed and accumulated into a huge avalanche.















Here I am eating my parma ham sandwich and reading on the Greek economic crisis on Wikipedia.

15% unemployment. That's even worse than the 10% in the US just a year or two ago.

Even at 10%, it's probably so bad that everybody knows someone who's unemployed.

15% is so bad, the people are probably happy just to have a job, even if it's a shitty part-time one at MacDonald's.

This graph was the one thing that really showed me how bad things are over there:

Interest rates offered for government bonds are usually proportional to the risks because it's basically a loan to the government.

At 130%, it means even the government itself is pretty confident that it's gone FUBAR, and it no longer gives a shit whether it can repay the money in two year's time. Heck, it probably doesn't even care anymore about whatever is going to happen in two years, as long as it can settle the issues at hand.

When a country defaults on its debts, there's really nothing others can do about it. They can't take everything the country owns and auction them.

According to the Wikipedia article, the creditor nations can seize its overseas assets and in the worst case scenario, invade it.

The latter has been done before many times, eg by Britain and the US.

However, the easier way out for the debter nation is to negotiate a delay or reduction of debt repayment. For the creditor, lesser repayment is probably preferable to nothing at all.

For Greece, it's probably a good idea to start doing that instead of more austerity plans and bailouts.

Just look at some of their latest cost-cutting measures:

• 22% cut in minimum wage from the current €750 per month
• 150,000 jobs cut from state sector by 2015, of which 15,000 shall be cut already in 2012
• Pension cuts worth 300 million euros in 2012
• Laws to make it easier to lay off workers
• Health and defense spending cuts
• Industry sectors are given the right to negotiate lower wages depending on economic development.
• Opening up closed professions to allow for more competition particularly in the health, tourism and real estate sector
• Privatizations worth €15bn by 2015, including Greek gas companies DEPA and DESFA. In the medium term the goal remains at €50bn.

Ouch!

Btw they were actually passed earlier today and had led to massive violent riots in Athens.

Personally I'm not sure if these were even intended to cut unemployment because they definitely don't look so.

It appears they just want to get the money now and whatever consequences this causes don't matter.

I guess the EU is about to get a new source of cheap labour.

Rant 939 / Condescension Condensation

FRI
























So Vic implied I'm a very hardworking boss.

I'm sorry if this blog is somewhat misleading but I don't discuss everything in my life or my mind.

I mean, who does, right?

However this is one misunderstanding I don't really like anyone to have even though it's flattering.

It just doesn't feel right to receive compliments I don't deserve.

So I'll just say it here: I'm not diligent and I've never been diligent since I was a child.

It might have been because I only mention the times when I go back during odd hours to work, but that's because these occasions were noteworthy.

The fact is, I've never gone to work on all five weekdays on any given week since I started working.

Even for this week, which has been quite a busy one for me, I'm only working for four days. Friday, which is today, is free because there's little left for me to do, so I'm just staying at home to do whatever.

That's why I installed Kingdoms of Amalur last night. I thought I was going to have an awesome gaming marathon but that kinda failed badly.

In addition, I do not work throughout the typical office hours that most people do. No 9-to-5 or 8-to-6 or whatever. This week, I went to work between 10am to 12pm and got off work mostly at around 2-3pm, although on Wednesday I left at 4.30pm.

This is because:

1) there is no need for me to stay in the office when there's nothing to be done that can only be completed by myself. I leave all boring repetitive tasks to the employees - what else am I hiring them for? If I weren't this lazy I would have let them go already.

2) Taxi peak hour surcharge begins at 6pm and sometimes it's hard to get a cab even at 5pm.

Unlike most success stories you hear involving entrepreneurs or small businesses, I'm not trying to make this bigger nor am I interested in going public. I don't care about making millions, just enough to make everyone satisfied.

Hence, I don't see the need to become the workaholic my father was.

I go to work at strange times like Friday night because some of the work like carrying large boxes of stuff around requires space. When they're working there, it gets too crowded because space is an expensive commodity.

My solution is to go when there's nobody around so that nothing happens and they don't try to help me even though we all know they can't. Things I can barely move, like the giant bag of paper labels the other day, it's impossible that they can and they know it.

So I just dragged it slowly to its intended destination, taking breaks every few meters when necessary. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do when he's the only man around.

Couldn't use a trolley because it's impossible to lift. Neither did I want to split the labels into multiple lighter boxes first because the original boxes inside had burst and I'd have to re-arrange the giant messy pile of 10,000 labels by the handfuls.

Simpler to just drag it there and let them tidy up the mess inside next time.







When I'm thinking about work at home it doesn't mean I can't do anything else. In any case, it's not like there's so much to dwell on in running a small business that one would be preoccupied for entire days.

As for the other aspects of my work, again, they don't require that much time.





Which is why to the contrary of what some who know me might believe, I do not make much and I don't see myself making a lot more than what my mum used to make in the foreseeable future.

In exchange for rather dead-end-like future career prospects, I get very, very flexible working hours. Meaning although I will never make what one would make in a senior management position in a large corporation, I get to work at hours like 11am to 3pm everyday if I go to work at all.

This fits my personal preference in life which I have stated a long time ago in a very old rant - just a quiet one that involves working less and playing less. I don't want to work hard and play hard; I'm just too lazy for that.



I do have doubts about whether this is going to work in the long term. I certainly find the thought of trading IRL very exciting but I somehow just can't get myself to like the physical work involved.

















SAT





The residents who are against eldercare services in their area for reasons like

They are worried that building an elder-care centre at their void decks may mean more deaths in the area.

are probably planning to die young.


















Iran is concerned about U.S. nuclear weaponry. 

...Americans have the fuel, the facilities, and "everything they need" to manufacture even more weapons-grade fissile material.

"...After all, the United States is a volatile nation that's proven it needs little provocation to attack anyone anywhere in the world whom it perceives to be a threat."

...possibility of the U.S. providing weapons and resources to a rogue third-party state such as Israel.

I must say they have very valid points there. Everyone should be alarmed.















So the guy who came up with all the evidence that red wine is good for the heart has been charged with fraud and current investigations are finding new evidence that contradict his results.

My question is: what about all those people who swear that red wine is the key to their longevity?
















Went back to LoL bot games. Tired of all the tension in normal PVP games, so I thought I'd just relax and play against Intermediate bots.

Turns out people are actually friendlier in bot games, albeit quieter, and it wasn't just because my Mordekaiser was good back then.

The reason I said this is because I began getting friend invites on the second day I started playing against bots, even though I'd been trying out unfamiliar heroes like Galio, Soraka and the new (and badly nerfed) Morde.

I'm seriously not even good in any of these especially since there are now plenty of level 30s who just want to play a relatively relaxed game like I do.

Moreover, nobody complains about noobness in those games, even when someone is actually being terrible at the game and causes the team to lose.



















SUN



Okay, gave Kingdoms of Amalur another shot.

This time, I reused my character as a mage because my bro told me I could respec very early into the game.

Found out it was true, reset my points for about 1.3k and spent all the points into Sorcery.

However, my dark elf race inherently specialized in Stealth and I didn't want to make a new char by then, so this is a mage with 2 points in Stealth that I won't be using.

This game is far better when I'm not raging at its stealth-related inadequacies.

As a chakram-wielding mage, this game is so easy at Normal difficulty.

I have yet to die in the game because the AI loves to stand around. Rarely do any groups of enemies attack me simultaneously, hence I get plenty of opportunities to dodge and kill them separately.

With the chakrams, it gets even easier to hit groups of them although the damage is lower.

Fortunately they get momentarily stunned when I hit them, so mouse-spamming is the key to victory in this game. I don't really need spells as a mage when I can just run around and spam chakram attacks, but they add a bit of variety to the gameplay.

To compensate for the monotony further, the game uses great graphics and epic fighting animations to keep it exciting.

In my case, I love the way the chakrams are used.

And the animation for killing an enemy in Reckoning mode totally reminds me of those in Dragon Age: Origins, particularly the one in which I kill a troll with a melee weapon.

Rant 938 / Herpa Derpa

Played some Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

Totally unimpressed.

I'm only level 2 so I might be changing my opinion in the future... if I don't uninstall it first.

Combat is terrible. Maybe I've been spoilt by Bethesda's Skyrim and Fallout games in recent years, but that's the impression I have right now about this game.

I'm surprised they even have the gall to price it at the same level as Skyrim (now higher because games' prices drop as they age).

First, stealth.

How do you stealth-kill the troll boss in the very first part?

It is impossible.

Even if you had crept your way to the door and crouched as you opened it, the boss battle begins with the three of them staring into your face as you stand upright after the cut scene ends.

What's the point of stealth?

Second, dagger Charge attack.

You cannot adjust the direction of the attack nor move a muscle after you begin charging.

NOT FUNNY, MAN!

These two alone were enough to make me ragequit the game.

50-60 bucks for that?

No. Just no.
















Tried Magic the Gathering: Tactics.

Gameplay is fine. The rest isn't.

I like the tactics but the game isn't solely about battling others.

The cards are simply too expensive. US$2.99 for 14 virtual cards?

No thank you.

The other way to get new cards is to buy more through auctions using another virtual currency, gold.

You get 2 per day via the daily quests, and the cheapest cards at the moment go for 3.

It also costs gold to put a card up for auction.

I used to be a big MtG fan (played between 6th-8th Ed) but this is just too expensive a game for me.

I think they really need to consider the fact that once bought, virtual cards cannot be sold for real money, unlike real cards, without selling the entire account.















Tried Tribes: Ascend for the second time.

The first time was terrible. I entered a Capture-the-Flag game in the America West server and it was a 1v2.

Gave me the mistaken impression that the game is dead.

So when I asked my bro, he was confused because it was nothing like that for him.

That's why I decided to give it a second shot and it was totally different.

That is, until 9pm (+8 GMT). I joined a game and it was a 1v0.

Derp.

So the game is dead at certain hours, which means it's not that popular.

Still, it's a pretty nice game.

The skiing is so fun! Had to play the tutorial to get it (got totally confused when I jumped straight into the game because I was wondering why I was sometimes speeding up and sometimes slowing down when I hold spacebar) and now I'm trying to get the hang of using the jetpack with the ski to maximise all the effect of the downslope skiing.

The most important thing is that all the upgrades and locked classes can be unlocked without spending money. Class upgrades cost only 1000 points and I can easily get that in one or two rounds.

Items (all reusable or passive) and locked classes cost over 10k but that's ok.

The game itself isn't that interesting but as a free game, it's pretty good.

What I learnt after a few games is that camping the flag is quite pointless. Most of the time, it's the experienced players who do the flag-capturing, and they never just run to the flag unless you're lucky.

The most likely scenario is that he would just ski like the wind and snatch it before you even know he's no longer in front of you.

Or he could leap up if the flag is on a raised platform, and that slows him down a bit. However, that's still way faster than a stationary flag camper.

The better players would then ski all the way to the sides of the map before proceeding back to base, thus avoiding all the people in the middle of the map where most of the action occur.

If the guy isn't that good, he would try to ski his way back in the most direct path, but that means he has to run through most of the players in the map.

Either way, he would have a headstart compared to the camping defender in terms of acceleration, though it's far easier to kill the latter flag-capping guy.

There are automated turrets to defend your base, but their heavy-duty shots are so slow even the slowest class can dodge them as long as they see them.

Moreover, they're frequently placed on raised platforms that block their line of sight when you're close enough below them, and they have a limit range.

This means with a grenade-type weapon with the trajectory, you can easily run close to it and destroy it.

It's basically a mere decoration. I have no idea why anyone would bother to upgrade them. They don't even slow me down! I can just keep skiing forward so thatas long as I don't stop, I'm safe.

So skiing is the main thing that makes the game fun, but it's hard to hit anyone with my weapons at 110km/h.

:(

Rant 937 / Ain't No One.

The ending made me go," Oh shit!"

Why is Japan so awesome? WHY?

Rant 936 / Postage Will Be Paid By Addressee.

My second consecutive good day. How rare is that?

Today I learnt that all those old dusty goods buried deep in the storage area can actually be sold!

I knew about those long ago, but the fact that they haven't been sold for years gave me the impression that there must be problems with them.

Most likely, it's because none of the buyers want them.

So during a conversation with a buyer yesterday, one thing led to another, and I mentioned that I have a lot of old unsold stuff in my office, some of which have never been sold before.

Immediately I was told to bring those today and we could see which could be sold. Otherwise, I could proceed with my original plan of throwing them away as trash or donating them after the next Chinese New Year.

So I brought 10 designs, some with just 10 pieces and some with 60-70. Many do not have a complete size range, eg just 11 pieces of XL brown.

Today when I brought the 10 jackets and sweaters there, I half expected the effort to be only half-rewarded. All of them are so old, it didn't seem likely to me they could all be sold.

Surprisingly, they were all accepted. The buyer even remembered half of them, one of which was an edited version of a very well-received sweater design from my father.

They were THAT old!

My father died 12 years ago, so that design would have to be about a decade old.

I'm selling them at low prices because firstly, they're all outdated fashion. Secondly, I have no idea how much they cost my mum and she had not made a loss overall in her entire career in this business, so as far as I'm concerned they might as well cost nothing.

Moreover, the alternative of throwing/donating would have given me absolutely no money.

As long as the prices were able to cover the transport costs, I didn't really give a damn what the price for each piece.

Except the company's cut is based on the selling price, so it couldn't go too low. In this case, I just let the buyer handle the prices while I agree to every single suggested number without thought.

I'm probably being a terrible businessman for thinking this way though.

Still, everything my business gets from all these sales minus the transport costs is going to be pure profit. No cost price and international shipping costs to worry about.

Tomorrow I shall continue to dig for more old goods to sell while waiting for the factories to make my goods.

Busy day today. Again I didn't eat at all until 6.30pm just now. Didn't even feel hungry first due to anxiety and focus on finding old goods and noting down the amounts, then the excitement of finally having a lot of stuff to sell.

The buyer was happy too, but unhappy that these weren't brought there sooner. If these were sold last year, both our December revenues wouldn't have been as bad as they were.

I might have been able to give my employees more year-end bonus.

Oh well, no point crying over spilled milk. If things continue to go well this year, I'll be able to give them much more this time, maybe even get back to my mum's level.


















Went through Little India on my way to my office just now at around 4pm.

Very interesting trip for me, very frustrating trip for the cabbie.

Lots of topless Indian guys in the parade with all the sharp-looking metal things stuck in their bodies.

They also caused a traffic jam in the area.

Looked bloody painful, both those guys and my driver's job.













Saw this white model at the buyer's office, probably going to be featured on one of their posters or calendar or something.

DEM LEGS!

They were so damn long and skinny, which was why I knew she was a model.

Do not be mistaken - I'm in no way saying that she was hot.

She kept looking at me though. Most probably because of my disheveled appearance and the fact that I was lugging two huge bags of clothes.

Hard to look tidy when I spent a whole morning and half the early afternoon digging through dusty piles of stuff, then spent the rest of the afternoon walking with two huge bags of samples.

Rant 935 / Non-Breath

Passed my IPPT.

For the first time in my adult life I've passed my annual physical fitness test.

Except I didn't actually pass it.

I was in the weight-loss programme in the IPPT Preparatory Training (IPT) and I only had to drop 2 kg to meet my assigned target weight. Once I get there, I'm considered to have passed my IPPT this year.

I dropped 3kgs in the last 3 months, plus 1 more because I've only taken about 500ml of water/coffee and no food the entire day till 8pm just now.

FCK YEA!

However if I gain any weight by my birthday this year, I'll still have to start at the level of my current weight next year, meaning I'll have to lose this extra weight plus the weight I'm supposed to lose for the IPT.

Either way, I'll have to lose a certain amount of weight. The issue is whether I'll gain more weight that I'll need to lose next year.

Probably not.

With my current lifestyle, losing weight is no longer a problem. I've gotten so busy/frustrated I no longer need to eat during the day on many weekdays.

I still eat all sorts of things for dinner though.

Even bought some Magnum mini for dinner dessert, and I'm still losing weight.

I'm not saying my life is awesome. It's far from it, but this is just one of the few things I can be positive about these days.

Rant 934 / Does It Make Sense That A Scarf Costs More To Make Than The Matching Sweater?

My point is

"Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others"-Otto von Bismark

Think about marijuana. Plenty of people who haven't tried it believe it's bad to legalize it. Those who have have proven it's not physically addictive.

If so, wouldn't it make sense to say that tobacco is a worse drug than marijuana?

Back to my point, someone has already tried it for me, so I can learn from their experience.

Of course, the same example can be use to argue against my point.

Well, someone has to try everything, but why does it have to be myself?















Made spaghetti. Wasn't anything special. Just boil pasta and cook pasta sauce with onions and tomatoes.

The only difference this time was that I went to the kitchen planning to make meatballs with half the 500g-bag of minced pork and use the rest in the sauce.

But when I added an egg into it, the mixture was too watery.

And the egg was much fresher than I thought. In fact the yolk's membrane was so tough I couldn't break it by pinching it.

The first thing I did was ask my bro if he bought fresh eggs to replace the dozen I'd bought like 3 weeks ago.

I'm not kidding. Those eggs are about 3 weeks old. They shouldn't be this fresh even though they were stored in the topmost egg compartment on the door of the fridge.

Apparently, I must be wrong because he didn't buy those.

Anyhow I added the rest of the meat before I remembered I could just add flour to thicken the mix.

Derp.

Also added about 1 teaspoon of oregano, half a teaspoon of salt, half teaspoon of rosemary and half teaspoon of black pepper.

Frying was easy.

I had recently discovered that this small pan that was rarely used was non-stick. Instead of the Tefal wokpan I used this for the meat.

And I made hamburgers instead of meatballs. I didn't think it was solid enough to remain round on the pan.

So I asked my bro if I should go on with spaghetti or if he prefers them with bread (no lettuce, only tomatoes), we settled on the pasta... without meat in the sauce.

The hamburgers were nice, but the salt was virtually undetectable. The herbs saved the day though, or else it would be just plain meat.

This led me to wonder what was added in the burger patties of fast food chains to make them taste so different.

The meat is smoother than the ones I made, with less meaty texture.

Does the bonemeal make such a huge difference together with the more finely ground meat?

Mine was only ground once.

I don't know.

What I did learn though, is that the patty in MCD's Big Breakfast contains rosemary or oregano. I don't know which because I suck at identifying flavours, especially when they're mixed together.














It made sense when I read that even the scrambled eggs from MCD contain preservatives.

Just think about what it takes to run a fast food chain.

It's actually pretty amazing how they can keep supplying food to all its outlets everyday regardless of any logistical reasons including holidays, mechanical failures (they have to have some) and full-blown wars (there are Burger King outlets in US military bases in Iraq).

In WWII, it had been shown that a city's restaurants and markets can run out of food within half a week when its supply routes are totally cut off.

Preservatives allow a fast food chain to keep an immense stockpile as a buffer against any event. Only once in recent history do I remember MCD running out of something, and that was its curry sauce dip.

It was such a significant event it made the news.

A reporter actually wrote a report on how MCD (Singapore) ran out of curry sauce.

That poor journalist.

But the fact is such a thing is huge. A huge failure on the part of the logistics department, I mean. The curry sauce is the most popular dip here other than the garlic chilli sauce, beating the Sweet N Sour sauce, Barbecue sauce and mayo. Probably ketchup too.

The first reason I can think of is that there was something wrong with their curry sauce and they had to recall them all. I mean, it's unthinkable that after so many years of experience, they could actually run out of their buffer stock.

Unless they don't actually have such a thing and they run on a seriously well-coordinated logistical network. Nah, impossible.

















My sanity is dangerously low now.

















These are the monsters from Amnesia: The Dark Descent if you didn't get it.

Rant 933 / Need New Pants

MONDAY




















After my failure at Kung Pao Chicken on Saturday night, I decided to try something else.

I'm still unclear as to why it became just a sweet chicken dish. The two things that were different were:

1) I added a little too much water
2) I didn't marinate the chicken in wine, so I added it while stir-frying the chicken.

Somehow these changed the sauce.

Anyhow the new dish was just minced pork, ginger, onion, chilli, garlic,soy sauce, chicken stock, water and corn flour.

500g of pork, ground once; one onion, thinly sliced; one chilli with embryo removed and inside thoroughly rinsed, chopped; two small cloves of garlic, chopped; a piece of ginger the size of the top section of a thumb, finely sliced; 1.5 tablespoons of light soy sauce; 1 tablespoon of chicken concentrate; 1 cup water; 1 tablespoon corn flour; a pinch of salt; a packet of MCD's garlic chilli.

Obviously some of these ingredients can be replaced by others.

The main thing is just the chilli. Added salt and soy sauce mainly to prevent it from becoming a sweet dish due to the onion.

The chilli has to be cleaned to make sure it doesn't turn the dish spicy. I don't like spicy food. However the chilli flavour makes the dish taste unique.

This is just a random dish. Turned out pretty well considering it's all gone this morning.

If it's bad, my bro wouldn't touch the leftovers. His comments, like I said before, don't matter because they're always the same. But the fact that he finishes the leftovers tells me something.

500g of pork is a pretty large amount for 2 people. I only had like a fifth of it last night. There was like around 200g of it after dinner, and he finished it all this morning.










THU



Stop saying that you have to try everything at least once, or anything like that.

I don't see you trying heroin.

















SPAZ.

SPAZ is awesome. For US$3.99, it's been a really fantastic deal so far.

Got it at that price during a Steam sale and I've been playing it for says.

Didn't bother to complete a lot of sidequests and optional missions, especially those involving time limits and defending stuff.

I kinda suck at the game.

Still, it's much more than I expected from an indie game that's going for less than US$5.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

SPOILER WARNING!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The biggest reason why I'm impressed is the second part of the game. I was totally convinced I was finishing the game when I destroyed the stealth generators and reached the source of the infection.

I went there without upgrading most things and without exploring half the galaxy because I was getting bored. Things were going so well for me and it was becoming routine.

Mainly, it was just going afk at mining stations, buying goons from colonies and bribing my way from one star system to the next. Theoretically it would have been a simple task to find every single inhabited star system in the galaxy.

The only disadvantage of this method versus questing and fighting my way through each warp gate is that I don't gain new ship blueprints as quickly.

By my method, I was getting new blueprints when my mothership gets attacked upon arrival at a new system, or when I'm visiting one station while it's getting attacked by the other faction.

In fact when I decided to "finish the game" I didn't even have the Right Hook and Grinder, and I had almost no progress on the reverse-engineering of the Huge Hulls.

Fortunately I had what I still consider the best Large Hull, the Helix.

The Mule was basically that. It made an awesome mining ship but it's got nothing interesting about it. Its turrets made it slightly better and its stats were about the same as the Helix's, but the Helix had a Bomb slot which could also be refitted with a turret or mine-deployer. Those are far more fun to use than simple cannons and missile launchers, which I've been using for most of the game already.

Initially I'd thought the Big Brother was better than Helix. In many ways, it was. However, drones just weren't my thing. I still prefer mines - just right click and suddenly the whole area's covered in cloaked magnetic mines.

Mines would suck if the enemies prefer to fight while running away, but fortunately, the AI loves to keep changing direction and inevitably back to my minefield.

The Crawler was also very intriguing. 8 turrets sounded really cool. I won't even need to wait for my ship to turn because my turrets could just rotate.

Nope. Boring, just like the Mule.

The Flora would have been a great choice if not for the fact that I was focusing my techs on Cannons. 4 missile launchers and 3 utility slots! With missiles that can home in on targets and have very long range, this ship would have made my battles so easy, and at the same time I could do a lot of things with those utility slots, like scanners and point defense systems (PDS).

The Big Bus was also pretty damn good. Big cannon slot would be great for me but again, boring.






So anyway, just when I thought I'd beaten the game, everything died.

All of a sudden I'm playing an almost different game. Instead of some kind of exploration game, I'm now playing more of a strategy game.

I'm still trying to find new techs but it's far harder than before. Now I can only fight my way through the warp gates and let's just say there are a lot of things to watch now.

For instance, I get attacked regularly by zombie ships after every several jumps. It's a constant thing I cannot avoid and it's annoying.

Oh yea, fighting zombie ships is more complicated than fighting normal ships.

It took me a while to get it, but now I've realized that I got to watch the number of zombies on board a ship versus the number of crew members onboard when the infestation icon is blinking next to the ship.

Before I "finished the game" I was confused and thought I had to vent the crew everytime it's infested.

I was so wrong and because of this, I was the one making the game much harder than it was supposed to be.

The key lies in the ratios. Once the zombies outnumber the crew, it's almost always hopeless since I haven't spent much on Crew upgrades. I have now, with 2 specialists that boost crew fighting prowess but that just means my crew can kill off the zombies faster. I still haven't been watching the crew till they almost die out; once the zombies outnumber them, I vent the crew then send the ship for repair.

The second partof the game was also pretty hard considering than I didn't get a Huge Hull ship till later when I was almost done with the first star system.

The game felt so awesome once I had the Carrier. Those EIGHT launcher slots were pure fun, especially since I had the SRM launcher. Although I didn't invest much on this weapon type, the thought of 8 showers of those missiles was enough for me to jump on it immediately and never look back.

Then reality set in.

My rapid-fire Particle Cannons, all three of them, were consuming too much power - I was getting the Low Power warning like 3s after I begin spraying, making the guns fire only intermittently and practically ineffectual.

Moreover, the recharge rate is far too low for me to wait for it to get close to full before I fire again while enemies are going at full force on me.

This issue had been around with previous ships but I didn't expect it to get this bad. Should have gotten a new reactor before I went through that special warp gate but it was too late to reload.

I just couldn't stand the thought of playing the game without the EIGHT MISSILE LAUNCHERS.

So I replaced 5 of the launchers with reactor boosters and that slowed down the power depletion enough for the ship to last long enough kill at least a Large Hull ship in battle.

No luck in finding more advanced reactor blueprints yet.

Still, the insane firepower of my three Particle Cannons is great for killing enemy Huge Hull ships.

Moreover, the PDS and SRM missiles really help to kill the zombies trying to enter my ship. The latter and the drones also help kill off the smaller ships in close range that my gigantic cannons just can't hit because they can't turn quickly enough.

As for Drones, somehow I managed to get my hands on the best Drones in the game, the Cloaked Bomber Drones, so once I began to use drones with the Carrier, I decided to spend everything on my Drone tech level just so that I could use them.

Yea I was just buying blueprints indiscriminately before.

So anyhow, they seem pretty good at killing small ships. Can't really feel their effectiveness but maybe it's just me.

I'd also got the best armour in the game, the Advanced Armour, and that really made my ships awesome. It's true that it's expensive, but it's totally worth the Rez to make my ships so much tougher and at the same time, allow them to move fast enough to hit something.

Coincidentally I also had the best shield before moving on to the second part of the game, although that really didn't make as much a difference. Those zombies are just too effective at killing shields. For most of my fights, the depletion of my shields mean little to me. It just means I got to start watching their hull colours. I send them for repairs when they turn yellow, or before if there is a Huge Hull ship aiming them.

The only time when the shield actually matters is when I'm using the Huge Hulls because having over 2000 Shield points means it actually lasts for some time, although the Fortress Shield takes forever to recharge, so it's actually faster to send it for repairs if it's been depleted.



I know I haven't talked about using Bombs.

I didn't like them since an early mission in the game in which I was getting hit by the Civ ally's bombs. At that time I was new to the game, so when my Tiny Hull ship got almost killed by one bomb hit, I was confused as to whether that was really my ally.

Then I found that the more logical conclusion was that bombs were the only weapon in the game that can cause friendly fire.

Nope, not using that. I don't want to risk killing my Tiny Hull ships or breaking their stealth field. I rather like to use them as stealth scanners when possible since their firepower is pointless compared to my other ships. I do outfit them with a weapon or two to deal with enemy Tiny Hull ships but I don't really care ever since I began to use mines.

The mines are magnetic. Enough said.

After I stopped using mines (when I got the Carrier), I was using PDS and drones that benefit from CANNON research, the very weapon I was specialising in. Why would I give a damn about the smallest ships? They aren't even irritating. At worst, I still have 3 SRM launchers that fire multiple small homing warheads.

I don't think those little babies can even damage my Carrier's shield faster than it can regenerate.

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END OF SPOILERS!

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"Help! I'm being run over by the Innernet!"

Probably one of the most memorable game recordings I've ever watched.




















FRI



It's 10pm on a Friday and I'm in the office. I was planning to do some work but things got screwed up by what I expected to be minor problem.

The original idea was to photograph every single list of every item we have in every colour, then photograph every item in every available colour.

It was going to take some work. Taking stock is always time-consuming. I'm sure anyone who has worked in a warehouse or something would know. It's simple and boring.

But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

Spent a few days mentally whining about the work I have to do but feel so unmotivated to begin, but I came to realize there's no way I can avoid them.

As the owner of the business, there is nobody to nag on me or set me deadlines. I do as I please, but the bottom line is that I make a certain amount of profit every month (or on average over a year).

No teacher to get pissed at me me, no exam to fail.

Unless I consider the end of year calculation of total net profits to be my report card.

In which case, I barely made the mark last year thanks to a few people. It could have been worse - I could have failed horribly.

I'm now feeling as if this buyer I'm working with is my second mother of sorts. She's just so nice to me.

Then again, she probably expects me to make as much money as my mum used to, from which she will take a big cut.

Still, she's getting close to her retirement age. Women in her age group tend to be nicer to everyone than other kinds of people.

Hopefully her salesgirls don't read this. According to herself and my mum, they actually fear her, and that's how she likes it.

But that's what a boss gotta be. You cannot be nice to your subordinates all the time. Once in a while, yes, but mostly they've got to fear you to some degree to do the necessary work that they're so unwilling to complete.

Money alone isn't enough to make people work hard these days, but fear is a universal motivator that's been tested and proven since antiquity.

Which basically means I'm a terrible boss. My employees do not even look up to me. They don't actually disobey me and they're very nice to me, but the advice they give me on one occasion implied that the problem cropped up because I didn't dare to speak up.

Still, things are getting done because the employees I have are still doing it for the sake of my mother. After working for over a decade, the elder one is motivated enough by sentimental feelings to do her job without my mum around.

As for that particular issue, it's never happened before. Like totally never. Both that buyer and my mum have never heard of such a thing. Basically, the inside of a jacket was supposed to be the same purple as the outside but using different materials, and the factory gave me jackets with the insides in three shades of that colour.

I have a feeling this bastard is trying to test me.

My solution is to separate all three shades and consider them as different items, so that customers don't get confused about the colouring.

So anyway, I'm in the office but I can't work because my phone's battery has gone flat just 5mins I arrived.

It wasn't a problem - I have the USB cable that I can use to recharge it with my laptop.

The real problem is that the rate is so slow, the phone is consuming more power than it can recharge.

Fortunately I've already prepared to stay overnight. Like who cares, right? I'm the boss, so I can work whenever I want. It also compensates for the fact that I didn't work on Wed, Thu and today until just now when I arrived at 9.45pm.

I'm just awesome like that.

So now I'm blogging while waiting for the phone to recharge enough. Maybe 2-3 bars. Two if I get impatient, three being the preferred number.

Also got an extra shirt and berms because I will be sweating.

Removing packed items, photographing and then folding and putting them back repeatedly for this amount of goods is no easy task.

Next week, I will be prepared enough to tell my buyers how much of which goods I have that they want, and such things.

I cannot ask my employees forever about these issues.

Sometimes I think leaders are born, and I'm not one of them. When I look at HX, I see a natural right there. He doesn't even have to think about trying; he's already doing it without thinking.

Of course he's got issues just like the rest of us, and they're probably stopping him from being the better leader he could be, but I'm not his mother.

Heck, I don't even have the credibility to back anything I say regarding such things.

Me, I don't even like to go to work. In fact I'm trying without thinking to get all my work done at home. I only realized this when I thought about what I've been doing for this business over the last several months.

My parents rarely brought work home. My father brought rolls of price tags home to be separated (they come printed in rolls) during the busier seasons, at most. My mum also brought cardboard boxes home to be torn into smaller pieces because it's tiring work. We need those pieces to protect our items in our boxes so that when people cut the sealing tape they don't cut into the clothes inside.















Today a volunteer said something that reminded me of the pointlessness of my visits.

The last time when I said the steroids stopped working, it was true... only at the point of time.

The doctor had told me he had raised the dose and she didn't react to it, and he informed me about that.

He had also said that he would increase the dose again a few more times and if it didn't work, he would lower it back to a much healthier level (it's already gone far beyond what the NUH doctors prescribed).

Since it stopped working once, I had no reason to believe it would work again somehow.

But it did.

She's able to talk but it takes too much effort to do so unless it's necessary, like if she's in pain.

But this had made me forget that her memory is still screwed up.

Today when I arrived, a volunteer was talking to her and then accused me of not visiting her for three days.

That was nonsense. I came over yesterday morning with breakfast from the Burger King at Novena Square. She managed to finish most of that Big Breakfast equivalent (the one with the French toasts) except for the sausage, and the breakfast provided by the hospice.

But she had already forgotten about it.

What's the point of visiting her, other than when I miss her?

What's the point of doing anything if nobody remembers it except myself?

If absolutely no one other than myself is ever aware that a deed is done, then there is no difference between action and imagination.