Rant 1032 / Why Can't Hair For Hope Be Held Just Before My ICTs?

Valve and Blizzard are openly expressing their negative opinions on Windows 8.

...the Windows Store in the Microsoft operating system, which could restrict companies' options to sell their software directly. Microsoft will take a 30 per cent royalty cut of every sale made through this store.

Is this like the iTunes and the iPad and iPhone?
















So cruises have additional discounts when it gets close to the departure dates. I can find a cruise from HK to SG for US$885 right now for 23 Oct by Royal Carribean, or around US$1600 if it's a single occupant, the latter price being inclusive of taxes and whatever.

Yet doing this for a business trip is going to be highly risky. So far it seems possible to book a flight cheaply to HK within the next several days, but I will do another check in the coming peak season. I'm in no hurry anyway.

As for whether it's available for non-US and Canda residents, yes it is. There are only three cruise companies that have such a restriction for US cruise agencies: MSC, Princess and Holland.





















Leaving the starting system to a new one in Evochron was a dangerous thing to do. Though I had a tier 3 hull, as a mining ship I had only tier 1 weapons and shield.

That was not a good idea at all.

Instead of sticking around, I just GTFO as quickly as I could till I reached a friendlier area with only non-hostile ships around that had better technologies.

I quickly spent most of the 3 million I had on a tier 7 hull, tier 6 engine, tier 7 shield, tier 8 cannon, tier 3 laser, tier 2 automatic repair system, tier 5 shield booster and a lot of tier 5 missiles.

Now I feel more secured. Any hostile ships who attack me can still kill me if I'm AFK while mining, but if I don't die before I return, I can focus power into the shields in the specific direction it's hitting me from and run.

If it chases me, I turn on Inertial mode, turbo boost, turn around and fire missiles. When every mining trip I take nets me at least 130k credits each, 24k per missile is perfectly affordable.

Now everything in the Rucker system dies if they shoot at me.

To be fair, it's kinda a newbie area so ships are small and flimsy over there.

Rant 1031 / 360 Crop Rotation

Nitro boost - 19mph - 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS

Buy Farming Simulator 2011 now and get pussy all night!

And I love the title of the video.





















Here's an awesome alternative to an upper limb workout: go shop for half a week's worth of groceries in a single trip without using a trolley.


Bought from the vegetable stall that was less crowded but provided printed receipts for purchases. It's the only stall that does it and it helps me get used to the prices of vegetables at the market.

What I bought today:

Cai xin (Cameron) - 0.585kg X $3 = $1.76
Spring onion - 0.13kg X $5 = $0.65
HK veg - 0.27kg X $6 = $1.62
Kailan local - 0.59kg X $3 = $1.77
Garlic bulbs $0.80
Japanese sweet potatoes - 0.855kg X $3.90 = $3.33
Dutch potatoes - 1.355kg X $2 = $2.71
Onions - 1.03kg X $1.50 = $1.55

Total $14.20

"Cameron" probably refers to the vegetable farms in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. The spring onion was only 1 large stalk, hence the weight. "HK veg" refers to baby bak choy aka 上海白菜. Garlic bulbs came in 5 bulbs per bag, $0.80 per bag.

These should cover at least 3 days. Couldn't buy more because vegetables, unlike meat, can't be frozen.

Chicken breasts were $2 apiece and I bought 10 as usual, with bones removed and separately packed (for soups).

Finally, eggs. I asked the vendor for their largest chicken eggs and they cost $3 for 10. Bought 20 but didn't get a discount :(

Got back home, placed everything in the fridge with help from my bro.

Also had to split the breasts into multiple reusable plastic containers as usual. These don't last a week; sometimes they only last 5 days. Pan-fried (I just discovered pan-frying is different from saute) chicken breasts are awesome with just a little salt, pepper and some random herbs like basil or rosemary. Or just garlic and salt.



Then I went back down, initially to Shop N Save just because it's Saturday ie 3% cashback, but I thought it was so early the char siew stall had to be opened.

8am and the queue took forever to move. Although there were only about 7 people ahead of me, a few of them were making large orders that filled like 2-3 large boxes. The stall not only sells good char siew but also roast pork, roast duck and pipa roast duck.

While char siew was only $23 per kg, the pipa roast duck was $30 per duck, and the ducks aren't boneless.

The 1kg of char siew was a big purchase relative to my budget hence it was my only purchase from the stall. This time I asked him the slice them and remove the burnt ends. Can't always have those all the time.

This char siew covers our entire day's meals. That's my plan for today anyway. Might have to use the sweet potatoes somehow to cover the fibre intake. Depends on how lazy I feel later. Steaming them is easy but making a dessert out of them is more interesting.

After that I bought some rock sugar for my sweet potatoes from one of the Chinese pharmacies, $1.10 for 400g.

Of course I didn't forget the trip to the supermarket, but this time I bought just 3 packets of pasta and a large jug of milk. Those were the only things I couldn't get from the wet market that I needed.

...

Ok the char siew wasn't such a good idea after all. I should just stick with 500g next time, maybe 600g at most.






















While playing Evochron, it came to me that when spaceflight becomes common enough like in the game, there's going to be a need to define the X,Y and Z planes to standardise the alignment of ships.

Y'know, the make life easier when communicating to each other. For example, you can't define port and starboard until you know which plane you're talking about. In seafaring, this is easy because there is only one plane you can control, resulting in port, starboard, acceleration and deceleration.

But in spaceflight, just like for our aircrafts, not only can the vehicles control their yaw, pitch and roll, there is no real up, down, left or right in a weightless environment.

To control traffic, the authorities must standardise the definition of all axes the same way SI units are defined. I think they can use the axis going through the Earth and the Sun plus two imaginary axes perpendicular to each other, but what about residents outside of Earth?

The US has already shown how something as small as an ocean will make a people want to use different sets of units for everything. With the distances involved in space travel, that's practically guaranteed!

And it's going to be funny how you can tell where each spacecraft came from just by looking at the angles they are at on each plane as they move in space, mostly in the longitudinal axis, unless space travel evolves in a different direction than expected.

For example, if it turns out that we will build space ports to launch spacecrafts from, the ships may not be designed to have streamlined bodies. What's the point of aerodynamics in vacuum?

Learning from sea travel, such spacecrafts may have smaller shuttles that have a more conventional design to transport people and objects from the ships to planet surfaces while they "anchor" just outside of the atmospheres.

If so, it's going to be hard to tell which direction a spacecraft is really facing. Heck, such a ship can have neither "front" nor "back", and it can have cameras outside so the cockpit is well protected in the center of the ball-shaped vehicle. Windows are, after all, a structural weakness, and in the darkness of space, there is no need to see anything with your naked eyes. In fact, having no windows can help protect space travellers from radiation over long journeys.








So I'm starting to get the hang of the game after finding this map for the game.

Things to do in the game later when I'm really comfortable with it and ready to waste some time doing meaningless activities:

1) Enter a star
2) Explore a nebula
3) Enter a black hole

I'll think of more later.

I've never been satisfied with the space travel in the Mass Effect games just because I can fly through stars. Let's see what it's like in Evochron.






....





Ok it's a rather slow game like Warband. Fortunately the game continues to run while I alt-tab out of the game so mining is simple.




...


Entered a nebula. Wasn't worth the effort. I went to the station within and it didn't sell anything special. Moreover, the nebula's constant electrical storm prevented me from jumping out, so I had to fly out slowly at around 570m/s, my top speed.

Didn't find anything either, and the asteroid field nearby gave me nothing. Without a fuel converter, I couldn't convert the energy from the nebula into fuel, so it was just an educational trip that taught me not to bother exploring nubulae for the time being. Maybe in the future when I can go to the less explored areas, there might still be treasures in those nebulae for me to discover.



...




The star was less spectacular than expected but just as scary just because of its gravity. When I got close enough to convert its radiation into fuel with my newly bought fuel converter, even my maximum thrust was unable to significantly slow down my velocity towards it.

The closer I got the greater its gravity, and when I got too close, I simply exploded. Good thing it didn't prevent jumps like the dense nebulae did.

























Ok I didn't expect to have to pay for insurance for my shoes at ComGateway but they charged me US$0.55 for it in addition to the fuel surcharge of US$3.66 and the original shipping charge of US$25.25 for the 3lb-package.

Fortunately, my DBS card gave me a small discount of US$2.53 and $10 of credit which I redeemed immediately, resulting in the final shipping charge of US$16.93.

Visa's exchange rate today inclusive of 2% foreign transaction fee is 1USD to 1.278672SGD, giving me the price of S$21.65.

The shoe had cost me S$77.56 (exchange rate of 1USD to 1.293744SGD) so the total price for this pair of shoes is S$99.21.

Wasn't really that cheap but it's going to be delivered right to my doorstep.


Meanwhile, I learnt that my suede shoes have EVA soles. EVA is supposed to be pretty good because it's light and is a good shock-absorber. I was only trying to see if it could last but few mention its durability, although those few did describe it positively.
























Read MacArthur's escape from the Philippines in WWII. When I saw the title, it felt like cowardice. A general running away from a hopeless defence? Isn't that like a ship captain bailing from his sinking ship?

The truth is counter-intuitive, I guess.

The main reason is that holding an enemy 4-star general as a POW is only slightly more epic than getting a royal flush in an international poker tournament.

Nobody but snipers should kill enemy officers in war, and whoever shoots a general when it's possible to capture him deserves to be shot for doing so. Not only is a general a big trump card in POW-exchange negotiations, he is also a treasure trove of military secrets. The strategic value of capturing a general is incalculable.

That's what I think anyway.

Which is why when they killed Osama bin Laden immediately upon finding him, it probably meant that he wasn't really a major leader anymore, and might have been little more than a symbol for his side in the war. Kinda like the idea of capturing the White House in games - demoralising but ultimately of little strategic value.

Rant 1030 / And Then I Was Cone.

At first I thought I had overspent horrendously in June but I had forgotten I had used at least $1500 on tuition fees for the coming semester, work and medical fees. In the end, my usual expenditure remains the same but this has made me rethink my estimate of my budget.

Instead of an expected upper limit of $500, I may have to consider raising it to $1000. Of course, it's all in my mind.

I should also consider having porridge for breakfast more often.

If this continues, I could spend up to $25k annually. My income and savings targets simply cannot support that kind of expenditure.

Taking a bus to work seemed like a good idea at first, but according to my calculations using the bus fare calculator it will only cut around $100-150 a month. Pffft...

It would make more sense for me to cut my meal deliveries down to once a week like we used to, which would reduce my expenditure by around $200 a month.

And that will still be ineffective in the long run. Food is the area I believe I spend the most, yet I'm not sure if I can cut any deeper.
















I am pretty sure the police investigators and their superiors have already thought about this before they started arresting people, but I do hope they win this case for their own sake. If the CHC members are found innocent, not only does it undermine the public's trust in the police, CHC might even have a case against them when it's over.

For defamation and whatever. Might even demand for damages, and it's I think it's possible they could win, but only if they're not guilty in the first place.


















I am surprised I have come to the day when I feel that a cotton sweater sample is superior to the woollen sweater sample.

I didn't know that 30% in the mix ratio can make cotton/acrylic feel better than a wool/acrylic one.



















Been playing a lot of Grimrock. Or at least during the times when I have the time and mood for it.

Missed a lot of stuff even though the perfectionist in me went through each level as thoroughly as I could.

I did everything right except deliberately falling into pits.

I missed 6 levels worth of pits due to this, and I'm pretty sure there were some serious goodies in a few of those that I will never get in this playthrough.

...

Ok just beat Grimrock. It reminded me of this really old video.



Didn't spend the time to use the keys I found on the Prison floor because I only noticed them when it was too late and there was no time to stand and look around.

Also didn't find Toorum.

Finally, I had only found 4 out of the 7 secrets. As thorough as I tried to be, clearly it wasn't enough.

Game's pretty good. Simple but good. Length was just right IMO because it was too simple and monotonous to hold anyone's attention longer.

The end came at just the right time - I was beginning to think of jokes to mock the lack of plot in the game. However I wouldn't say the plot was good. It was good that it was simple :P

No really, if they made it anymore complex based on this same storyline, it would really suck. The story sucked, but it was so short and simple we couldn't really feel the badness. On the other hand, if they had fleshed it out, they would have expanded the badness, and we would feel bad for playing it.

There are so many holes in the plot, I don't really know where to begin.

The biggest one has to be how pointless dismantling the cube was. It couldn't climb stairs anyway! They could have just left it there forever when it dropped to that level! They wouldn't have needed to build anythng; they could have just built a gigantic flight of stairs! Far simpler than what they built.

And then they could just spend their old age sitting on one side taunting it forever while living on escargot and sauteed mushrooms. Might eventually die of scurvy but euthanasia was just a few steps down anyway.

















Just watched my bro do his workout.

I guess he's now my role model for exercises.





















My bro bought a jar of turtle feed that turned out to be unsalted dried shrimps... at $7.50 for 55g.

I went to the market to check the price by buying 300g of an unknown type I randomly pointed at and it cost me $6. It's salted so I have to soak it for a while before I can use it as feed.

I believe he can stop buying tuna from now on too since this can also replace it. He can soak it for 30mins and blend it with the lettuce and make ice cubes with the mix. I feed the elder turtle with the ice. I wouldn't say she loves the cubes; it's more "instant feeding frenzy" than "love".























One of my staff has always told me she's poor, mostly because she has to split the costs with her siblings to keep their father in a nursing home.

So I believed her... until she also told me she goes to a private clinic for her annual health screening and recently went to a private hospital to get her knees checked after experiencing discomfort there.

Yeah, poor, right.

Good thing the other one doesn't even pretend that she doesn't really give a damn about the pay.




















Getting Rosetta Stone for Korean. Might be good to know a tiny bit of the language.

The last time I tried French on Rosetta Stone, I find that it's not as useful as taking a semester in basic French, but it's much more fun. The programme doesn't really go into the basics but instead, it goes straight into teaching users pronunciations and basic words and phrases.

Good for learning enough for short vacations but not nearly enough for anything else.

Then again, I've only tried Level 1, so I may not be completely right.
























Had to redo my sleep study last night. They said the pulse monitor on my finger stopped working for half the night. The guy who came over to set up everything seemed to think I had made a fist or gripped something hard but I don't remember doing anything like that.

Hopefully it was ok this time. My doctor's appointment is in the coming week and they need 2-3 days to get me the report.

Slept better this time though. Maybe I was tired (I was already sleepy at 9.30pm when he arrived) or maybe the abdomenal band was higher this time.






















Tried Evochron Mercenary.

I can't say much about the game on the whole since I'm stuck on the very first quest: finding New Hope.

Let's just say the humongous wall of text the developers call "training" was not exactly interesting.

Got bored, didn't listen to quite a few things, but I have the feeling it didn't mention how I could find specific planets until I was close to them anyway.

The game might be good, but still.

Whatever they say about old school games, the style in which this game was probably made, they lacked good design, and by "design" I mean the learning curve.

Nobody picks up a game to suffer. Or rather, relatively few people. I want a game to be fun. If I wanted to read through 6 pages of lecture notes, I go to school.

This could be why computer games weren't exactly mainstream until recent years. Game designers started to realize games aren't fun until they're easy to pick up.

Look at all the popular games around the world: football, bowling, Scrabble, Monopoly, strip-poker, etc.

None of them are hard to learn. None of them require players to read much before they can participate.

They're just hard to master.



I am still interested in the game but it just wore off my patience.

Rant 1029 / Crocodile Mouth

SAT



While boiling the soup for 6 hours yesterday, I realized why double-steaming is a separate technique from simple boiling.

Double-steaming involves a sealed container placed within a larger pot of boiling water, with no direct contact between the smaller container and the water surface in the pot, usually by using a steam stand.

You have to be serious distracted to burn your soup if you're double-steaming it.

The other benefit is that it distributes heat far more evenly than basic boiling, since the steam at the surface of the water can't be much hotter than then steam near the top compared to the temperature difference between the bottom of the pot and the water surface.

I find that as an amateur, I tend to burn stuff too easily. Even in soups, the ingredients at the bottom can burn if I do not remember to lower the heat once it begins to boil. Double-steaming and double-boiling would remove this problem, although these techniques have their own issues.

For one, the containers I have are too small for me to make large batches of soup.



Also, cleaning up the pot after making soup is a pain.


















Not doing shit kills people.

5 million people die every year for not doing anything.

...Lack of exercise claimed more than 5.3 million of the 57 million deaths worldwide in 2008.

Physical inactivity was described for the study as failing to do 30 minutes of moderate physical activity five times a week, 20 minutes of vigorous activity three times a week, or a combination of the two.

30 minutes 5 times a week? Looks like I'm on the right track, unless they mean 30 minutes of continuous moderate physical activity.



















Singapore's economy should be described as "state capitalism", not "mixed economy".


















Feeling down for some reason tonight. Not tired. More like zombified. No appetite, workout felt more strenuous than usual, voice went back down to my pre-ICT volume.

Too inactive?

My guess is the shoulder training is not enough; I need cardio too.

Then again I spent most of the evening researching and booking my first trip to Seoul.

Took hours to make sure I have the best flight times and hotel locations.

According to experience, choosing the most convenient flight times is a little more complicated than choosing the hotels.

For example, I have to take into account the local rush hours. Pre-dawn is the best time for cab trips. Though the surcharge can seriously jack up the taxi fare, it's far better than getting stuck in traffic and risk arriving late for your flight home.

Another factor is the price difference versus stop time between flights. This is no issue if you book so early that you can still find cheap direct flights (e.g. from early bird discounts), but if you're as lazy as I am, you will never do so and the only ways you can get a direct flight that can be even remotely considered cheap is to either have a lot of mileage in your airline membership programme or marry a pilot.

Sometimes it's worth a hundred bucks, even fifty, to stay in an airport for 2-6 hours. The only times it's not is when it's 6 hours in the night and it's during the journey to your destination.

It is pretty hard to sleep alone in a foreign airport regardless of the time unless you're a frequent traveller.

A third factor is the intervals between flight times and the hotel's check-in and check-out times. Too early for check-out and too late for check-in is fine; the reverse is not.

The last factor I will mention, missing the complementary buffet breakfast on the departure date, is subjective. IMO it's not important but still should be avoided unless it is inconvenient or causes the trip to cost significantly more. Personally, I am hooked on the idea of travelling to the airport before dawn, so skipping to leave early is fine to me.

After all, hotel continental breakfast buffets feel the same after a while - cold (and I'm not talking about the temperature) and utilitarian.

There's nothing much to appreciate but it fills the belly until lunch or dinner.

A lot of times, I feel from eating the food that the chefs didn't really want to cook it but they did it anyway because it's the generally accepted hotel breakfast fare.

Or maybe it's just me.

Moreover hotel continental breakfast feel the same everywhere just like Macdonald's. That's probably the idea anyway.


It gets a lot more complicated when I wanted to throw in Hong Kong into the trip. Due to the lack of options, I decided to push that later into my Shanghai trip instead.

















SUN



Tried mixing a little cycling with the workout this morning.

The effect of just 5 minutes of very easy cycling on the second level of resistance (out of ten) was astonishing.

It takes 2 sets of my workout to get me properly warmed up (except for last night, somehow) but it only took 1 set plus 5 minutes of that cycling on my stationary bike to get me so warmed up that I was doing the lateral side raise perfectly, ie no pain, without any special efforts like I normally put in my left shoulder.

I didn't know that a little cardio can make such a great difference.

Also timed myself and found that each set only take 4mins to complete and my breaks last 1-2mins.

















Arranging for my Shanghai trip is so unnecessarily complicated this time.

First, I can't stay at the Bund Riverside because the hotel hasn't updated Expedia for the month I want.

Second, Expedia isn't allowing me to view the available flights separately, thereby preventing me from booking a cheaper direct flight by a separate airline from the one I'm using for the rest of the trip. It's S$200 cheaper and my current option also includes a 5-hour stop, hence my concern.

Emailed them just now and I'm waiting for their response. I expect them to offer to book everything except for the Shanghainese hotel for me manually, but I'm open to other options as long as I get the rest of the direct flights.


I chose Expedia again because apparently Tingo is US only even though it doesn't clearly state it on its website. Tingo's prices combined with air tickets from other websites like Cheaptickets.sg would have been slightly cheaper than the combination at Expedia, even with the combo discount there.

Both Expedia and Cheaptickets have discounts for DBS cards, but the promotional offer by Cheaptickets doesn't apply to budget airlines and is $20 less than the one offered by Expedia.

The offer at Expedia that I'm talking about is the S$60 discount for packages exceeding $1500.

















Teamviewer works! Now I can access my PC through my iPad instead of having to dump everything in Dropbox. On the other hand, I'm reading bad reviews for its paid version. Teamviewer is only free for personal use, so when businesses use it, they have to pay.

Everything lags, which makes sense, and the iPad can't display all the colours that the PC can, so this can't be used for watching videos or playing games. Mainly, it's for surfing the web, working with documents and chatting.
















Skipped the workout before lunch before I forgot. I forgot because I'm tired. Been sleeping late.

But the pre-dinner workout was different. Since the cycling was so effective at raising my metabolism (which made me finally really understand why the PE teachers used to make us jog as a warm-up exercise), I decided to alternate each set with 5 minutes of cycling.

I didn't even have to maintain some sort of pace; as long as I keep moving, it works. I even paused a few times when I was using my iPad (I found out I could safely leave it on the handle resting on the timer display) and it was just as effective.

Result was just more perspiration which I believe means my metabolic rate rose higher than usual.

I'd just cycle but it's so boring to me.



















MON








It just feels a little unusual that only specific parts of my shoulders and chest ache instead of the entire shoulder.

Today shall be my first rest day of the week. Again, I'd cycle but it's too boring.








I am actually kinda worried about the trip to Korea but the many discussions and reviews I've read say that it's possible to survive without knowing any Korean in Seoul.

It's a good thing I'm only staying in one specific tourist-friendly part of Seoul, although I am going to need a 3G connection this time - for an online translator in case shit happens.

So I did some googling on how to get a 3G prepaid SIM card there and... there isn't any.

I can, however, rent a portable 3G modem that's larger than the ones I own for around S$8 a day.

Awesome deal.

It's also super convenient because I can reserve online and the shop is open 24 hours daily at the Incheon airport.

There are also other alternatives since this isn't the only shop that does it.

As long as roaming works for my phone, I don't need another SIM card or phone for calls. I'll have to check when I arrive though.

The reason for choosing a portable modem instead of renting a 3G phone is because I want to keep using my phone and my iPad. Getting the rental phone will mean I have to carry an additional gadget that will still merely serve as a mobile Internet access point for me.















TUE


Holy feck! The sleep study test was more horrible than the one I saw on House.

When I heard that it was done at home, I thought they were going to set up some simple monitoring device like maybe a camera and some simple pulse and breath monitoring device.

No.

Instead I get electrodes planted all over my head, and wired ones at that! Wires! At least the guy bundled them right under my chin to keep them neat.

That's not even the worst part. No, far from it. That was the part I could easily ignore after I got used to sleeping on them.

One of the worst parts was the nasal tube thing that I used to see on my mother when she had her breathing problems near the end, except in her case it was connected to a pump.

Mine appeared to work solely as a device to hold the actual monitor in position. It might not seem obvious, but it blocks airflow into my nose. Not much but enough to annoy me a few times during the night.

The worst had to be the two elastic bands around my torso, one around my abdomen and one around my chest. Whenever I relaxed enough to fall asleep, I felt as if I was being slowly suffocated. My lungs took most of the night to get used to the extra resistance from the bands, so that by the time I woke up for the morning at 6.20am, I badly stank of dried sweat.

Finally, there was the monitoring device about 13cm X 8cm X 4cm (padded pouch included) on the chest band in front. I could lie on it without damaging it but I wouldn't want to. I mean, who would?

When he was nearly done setting all these up, I asked him if it would be the same if I had chosen to do it at NUH. Apparently, yes it would have been, except in some cases he heard the patient also has to stay inclined on the bed. In contrast, I could roll around and even sleep on my abdomen, ie on top of the device, if I was masochistic enough.

Anyway all the electrodes were stuck on me using this adhesive glue produced by Grass, apparently known as "EC2 Grass Electrode Cream". According to this guy, it would solidify within 30mins and it could be easily washed off after in a shower.

And it felt like strong glue when he tore them off.

It's a good thing it was water-soluble because two electrodes were in my hair.

So as for the whole test, I don't know how it's supposed to work. How do people sleep normally with all these things attached to them?

I couldn't, and the results will probably reflect a very bad night of sleep. Heck, anyone who goes through that sleep study will test positive for sleep apnea even if they really don't have it, unless they can somehow detect when I'm actually sleeping.




I am so glad I don't have to go to work today, although I'm going to need to go to the bank to collect my temporary chequebooks. I kinda told them I would, but now I think I'll just ask the banker to courier it to my home address instead.























So while I was researching on the Shanghai-HK trip, I suddenly thought about taking a cruise back to Singapore.

Results were... intriguing.

Initially I thought Star Cruises might have them since they are pretty well-known in this part of the world, but the website shows nothing of this sort.

However, my searches were more fruitful in other websites like this CruiseCompete.com.

From this website, I found out that there are at least 3 seemingly affordable cruises from HK to SG next year that last only slightly over a week.

I say "only" because there are far longer cruises like 21 nights.

From other websites, a 14-night cruise can cost around US$1700. Hence my guess is that these 8- or 9-night cruises will cost around just US$1000.

According to the itineraries I've seen, passengers get to spend a day at each stop during the cruise. Guided tours are also available for each of them, at an additional cost of course.

As for complementary meals, I don't know but they're unlikely.

Therefore, together with all the meals at the classy restaurants onboard (I'm pretty sure they don't have cheaper alternatives like MacDonald's), that US$1000 can easily turn into US$2500 even if you don't take guided shore excursions at all.

Still, they actually look quite possible to me.

Someday.




And someday, I'll book a cabin on that 68-night cruise.

And that's how someone can blow through ten thousand bucks easy.

Personally, I estimate that I spend around S$1500 a month, inclusive of utility bills and my bro's phone bills. US$10,000 in 2 months is just almost quadruple my spending rate.

Actually, US$10,000 wouldn't be enough.

Say each meal costs only US$50 (a rough estimate of the average between meals ashore and onboard), 68*3*50 = 10,200.

Looks like the budget would have to go as high as US$25,000. About $8000 for the cruise alone, $11,000 for the meals and waiters' tips, and $6000 for onboard entertainment, shore excursions, insurance, shopping and etc.

US$25,000 is S$31,500 right now. Split over two months, that's over eight times my average monthly spending rate. Ouch!

Can I hoard combat rations during my ICTs (if they're ever issued) and bring onboard a duffle bag filled with them instead? I heard they taste delicious when we're starving.


...

Ok a 9-night cruise on the Silver Shadow cost around US$5000 minimum. I might have seriously underestimated the cost of the QE2 cruise then.

Apparently there are no inside cabins on the Silver ships, so everyone lives in cabins with windows, and such cabins are always expensive on all cruises.

It also comes with $500 onboard credit per cabin occupant, so it could theoretically cover the food costs.

...

I do see one HK-SG cruise that's going for about US$1500! This price, together with the taxes and fees, comes with $75 of onboard credits. Probably enough for one meal, two if you are trying to slim down.

For a room with a porthole aka window, the room would cost around US$600 more minimum. Very reasonable when you take into account the fact that this cruise lasts 8 nights, ie 10 days.

Prices are for single passengers. Presumably, having more people with you is going to drive down the price per pax because the one guy is going to stay in a cabin meant for at least two people, though I have not confirmed this.

Seriously, this cruise is very possible for me, if not for the dates. The total budget of a 10-day trip to Hong Kong would easily exceed that of this cruise for me.

...

Oh wow I found even cheaper ones when I googled the term "cruises Singapore". One is at around US$850, but it probably has a lot of hidden fees that will only be shown once you submit a booking request.

























Maybe I'm bored, but now I see why the price of Legends of Grimrock on Steam is dropping so slowly compared to other indie games.

It's actually good, just like SPAZ (the fun, not anything else).

The problem is that it's only at 60% off the last time it appeared on sale on Steam, which is 15% too low for me.

However I had previously expressed interest in the game to my bro and the night it got on... he bought it for me.

It was the day I got back from ICT and it went on sale that night, either Flash Sale or Community Choice. Whatever it was, it was on sale after 7pm.

I know that because I was so tired from ICT I fell asleep at 7 that night and slept all the way till 7am the next morning.

Now I think it was Community Choice because I recall wanting to wait for it to come on before I sleep, then rejecting the idea because it was only 60%. However I was so tired by late afternoon I neglected to inform my bro of this second thought.

Anyway, it's worth the money even at 60% off. Moreover the difference between 60% and 75% discount is only US$2.25, so it's not that bad; it's just against my principle to buy anything less than 75% off on Steam.























Ministry of Supply finally sent me the survey to find out what sizes and colours I want for my shirts. This means they're getting ready to ship soon and have the production part ready.

TBH I don't expect them to ship next month as they promised on Kickstarter because the demand had far exceed their initial expectations. So, whatever. If they ship early, awesome. If they don't, it's not unexpected. I'll only have a problem with them if they do not deliver within 6 months of their promised month, August.























I think I actually like shoes. I find myself returning to Gilt and Amazon daily to look at them.

Must... resist... temptations!

And then Amazon sends me a 20% off coupon for sports items. I don't have a pair of sports shoes ever since the last one I had "crocodiled" during ICT. Both shoes.

No idea where the term "crocodile" in this sense came from but I first heard it used by the RSM during my ICT and it kinda made sense so I keep using it after that.

Crocodile

Both my last pair of combat boots and sports shoes crocodiled during the ICT, the latter on the final day of it while the former came apart at the end of the outfield training and I desperately kept it together with superglue for the next few days.

But anyway, so I keep looking at shoes. I even wanted a pair of canvas shoes but thought that I rarely have the opportunity to wear it so it would be a waste of money.

I'm glad my reason is still here, or I'd probably have ordered my third pair of shoes by now. I've already wasted money by buying the suede shoes. It was a matter of want, not need, since I could have just bought a normal patent leather shoes instead of getting those after I had the suede shoes.

Rant 1028 / Double Nothing Everything

I've been so tempted to buy a game for my iPad since all the free games suck.

At one point I went to the confirmation popup before I stopped myself from buying Spectral Souls.

Then I wanted to buy FFIII and FF Tactics.

Now I've to repeatedly remind myself this is not for games, and that all the games there suck compared to those on my PC anyway.



















Ok, now I feel what my bro was trying to tell me. Parts of my shoulders ached since this morning whenever I lift my arms. I'm going to rest today.























The West may call China's investments in Africa "neo-colonialism" but I say that's just their anxiety talking. Even if it's true that it's not a completely fair deal for the Africans in general, with all the infrastructure developed by Chinese investments, I believe this has to be better than everything the West has done for the continent in the last several decades.

Since their efforts aren't working, perhaps we should let the Chinese have a go at it, even if it's to their benefit. It's not like what the West did in Africa all these years didn't benefit themselves anyway.






















Now I feel like applying for SAFRA membership since they're having 40% off to celebrate the 40th anniversary this month.

It's just around S$140 for 8 years, and since they recently announced that the government is spending quite a fortune to improve SAFRA, I'm pretty sure they will be jacking up their membership fees in the future, probably in about 3-4 years' time.

Right now, there isn't much that I'd want from the membership other than the $90-for-$100 vouchers for various supermarkets including the one near my home, and the free financial management programme.

Limited to just 2 sets per member, the vouchers will already offset $20 this year, versus the $17-18 for the membership fee of this year alone. I've also accounted for the transport fee, which would have made the vouchers pointless (I'd have to get a cab to the SAFRA at Mount Faber) if not for the fact that I need to visit an E-Mart sometime this year to buy a new pair of boots for my next ICT.

Moreover, a friend in ICT advised me to forget about waiting for my fixed deposits to mature in 2 years if I have better things to invest in. I'll have to find a fund I want and then do some math before I follow this advice.

What I have on my mind right now is unit trusts because as always, I am looking at the long term. My current investment-linked policy at Prudential is really a trust fund investment combined with a life insurance policy, but I feel that it's not enough.

And apparently it's better to invest in the trusts separately from the insurance anyway.

Since this is not an insignificant sum, I'll have to give it a night or two before I make this decision.


























Made soup. Lotus root, peanuts, a whole chicken breast, a cube of chicken essence and a teaspoon of salt.

Took 5 hours of constant boiling before the peanuts turned soft. At the 3-hour mark I was beginning to get worried that it might stay hard till the next day, but it turned out fine in the end.

Had to set hourly alarms to make sure I didn't burn it, but it's worth it... once in a while.

I'd take a picture but it's just a pot of reddish-brown anyway.

Rant 1027 / Shoulder Workouts

The singer sucks but the song made me want to play Dead Money again.

Then I thought about it and decided it was not a good idea.

The plot of Dead Money was certainly better than those of the other DLCs IMO but I just dislike the dark and creepy setting.



















All those Korean- and China-made shoes are so damn cheap, and that's what I actually wanted when I looked through the catalogues on a few websites.

I need a pair to wear on rainy days until the Christmas sales begin and I can get a real pair of leather shoes that are more water-resistant than suede.

The problem with those shoes I mentioned is that they never seem to exceed US size 11.

I need size 13.

Like I said before, it looks like I will never be able to buy those cheap shoes I saw on websites like Qoo10 and DHGate.




















Now I wonder whether the accident that killed Bashar Assad's elder brother was really an accident.























So I was right. I just asked my bro what exercises he did to get the shoulders he has and of the three he showed me, I've already been doing two of those for the past few days.

The first was the second half of what this website calls the "Alternating Deltoid Raise", which is just this:

Btw I've also been doing the first half since yesterday:

These workouts are hard, especially the sideways one, also known as the "Side Lateral Raise". I even feel pain in my left shoulder where I had my surgery some years back whenever I get tired. Generally, it takes about 10 repetitions (2 sets) before I'm properly warmed up so that I can do it perfectly and feel no pain.

The workout in the second image, aka the "Front Two-Dumbbell Raise" was less stressful on my arms and more on my back.

The other was what the website calls the "Dumbbell Shoulder Press":

This is much easier, so much so that I decided not to lock my elbows when my arms are stretched upwards just to make things slightly harder. My dumbbells are probably too light for this workout but I don't have more weights to add on to them. Moreover, they are more than enough for the Alternating Deltoid Raise.

The third one that he suggested, the one I didn't already know when I asked him, was the dumbbell version of the Upright Barbell Row:

I think it's quite easy to tell how this works with dumbbells.


Another workout I tried was the Dumbbell Raise:

But I thought it was too easy and decided to drop it since yesterday. Now that I see that it's a legit shoulder workout, I think I'll add it into my workouts again, albeit with more repetitions, perhaps ten or fifteen per set. Maybe even as a filler between sets.

There was one workout I tried but found it way too hard for me, which the website calls the " Standing Dumbbell Straight-arm Front Delt Raise Above Head", and was basically the Front Two-Dumbbell Raise but instead of stopping in front of you, you raise it all the way above your head.

 I want the workouts hard but not painful.


Initially I started with just a simple three sets of five for each workout but since yesterday afternoon I'm moving on to four or five sets each.

Per session.

Mostly I've been doing this right before meals. I prepare my food and sometimes I put the food on my desk right in front of me before I exercise.

Just inspired by the story told by a MG gunner in my unit about his company OC during his NS. The man, he said, was really buffed and was into bodybuilding. He also noticed that he worked out with dumbbells before lunch everyday, so he went up to ask him how many he did.

"Until my arms are shaking," was his answer.

And he wasn't kidding. After that, he watched his OC at lunch and noticed that his hands were trembling as he held his fork and spoon.

Though there's no way I can match that kind of motivation, I just find it convenient to work out after cooking since I'll be sweating anyway.

I'm not saying my exercises are light; I have difficulty lifting my arms up to shampoo my hair after each workout, so what I'm doing is hard for my physique.

However, this means I'm showering at least twice a day now instead of only twice a day, so I have to do the laundry more often.



As for why I'm only focusing on my shoulders, it's because I've always needed to strengthen my shoulder muscles to prevent future dislocations due to my already loose tendons, so it's a good place to start.



...

Tried the Iron Cross just now.

Holy feck that's way too hard for me! Did it twice and gave up on it. This workout is far too painful for me. The funny thing is, this workout is labelled as "Intermediate" on the website.







Anyways my bro advised me to take a day off at least twice a week to recover. While I worry that this can ruin my momentum, I think he has a point too. My arms felt weaker this morning, so I might have overworked my arms in the last few days.

Now I'm considering doing much less than normal instead of completely stopping. Maybe two sets in total for the entire day.

However, while I was changing my terrapin's water today, it felt way lighter than it used to. I almost thought I had starved it for too long... then I recalled the last time I fed it was two days ago.

The workout must be working!























Finally got another pair of shoes that will likely cost me about S$90-S$100 in total. The shoes themselves cost US$59.95 on Amazon, the ground shipping within US cost nothing and the international shipping by ComGateway will likely cost anywhere between S$15-20.

Visa tells me that its current exchange rate inclusive of the 2% foreign transaction fee is 1.28615 SGD per USD, Amazon says it's 2 pounds, which slightly over 0.9kg, so yea, it's going to be around S$95 unless they stuff more paper cushion into the box than expected.

It's just a pair of leather oxfords (again), except this time it's not suede.

I just like the simple casual style, I guess. Spent quite some time looking through the oxfords between US$50-100 and decided on this partly because of the simplicity and partly because of its latex sole.

Anyway I bought it from Amazon because it's the only place where I can find decent leather shoes my size right now that cost less than or around S$100 inclusive of shipping.

Initially wanted a pair of chukka boots but decided it didn't seem formal enough for work. Oxfords, on the other hand, seem to be the perfect compromise between work and play to me.

The rains are coming and I don't want to wait till it's raining everyday before I buy a pair, especially since they usually take 2-3 weeks to arrive.

Rant 1026 / It Will Not Cease!

The coffee stall owner refused to sell her coffee beans whole.

At first I thought I misheard what she said and that she had also misheard what I said, so she had to repeat herself twice before I knew I heard it right the first time.

What?

How does grinding the beans make any difference as far as her sales are concerned?

Why must she sell her beans in powder form?

This is the first time I am so completely stumped my only guess doesn't even make sense.

And I'm guessing she somehow adds powdered maize as a filler through her grinding machine into the mix and has been doing that all these decades, except...

1) I don't see how the maize can be stored inside without anyone knowing.
2) She weighs the beans before grinding them.

I've never been so puzzled in my entire life.





















Floris mod is awesome but there are a few things that really get on my nerves.

First and foremost, the bugged ladder during sieges.

In my first siege, there were two ladders up the wall and everyone got stuck at the top of the right one.

So while everyone who took the left ladder went on to fight the defenders, everyone on the right ladder (and it was packed like a can of sardines) was little more than target practice for the defending archers.

I didn't lose since I was with the Nords (IMO the best at sieges since they have the best infantry) but I got knocked out while trying to bait the defenders to the stuck soldiers after everyone else got defeated after being outnumbered.

Then there's the clear imbalance after the Nords took two cities from the Vaegirs and one from the Swadians without my aid at all. At the point I was just a simple travelling merchant.

I don't really want to play it anymore, yet the troop upgrade trees continue to draw me back to the game.




















Went to Queensway Shopping Centre where all the shoe stores are only to discover that it's actually the same or even cheaper to buy leather shoes online.

I mean, I found a pair that's almost like my suede shoes except for a shittier outsole and the price tag was almost the same as what I paid in total for my pair.

The problem is that my shoes' price had the delivery included while that pair I found didn't.

I mean, what?

As for the other leather shoes, they were all priced about the same as what I can find during sales at online stores, even the ones that sell branded stuff.

The only benefit of buying at that mall is that I can try the shoes out, but after my current pair of shoes, that doesn't feel so important to me anymore.

I'm just going to wait till a sale happens somewhere and buy a pair.

One better come up soon. I do not want to think about what would happen if I'm forced to go to work on a rainy morning.















Since I can't use the elastic band, I've been using my bro's dumbbells instead. No idea how much the bar itself weighs but the weights are 1.25kg on each side, making the dumbbells 3 to 3.5kg each.

Life after the ICT is so different I have to say I'm now against anything close to abolishing it.

Sometimes, people like myself need a good hard push to go in the right direction, and the last ICT made me see how much I needed to exercise.

This week, I've noticed that I barely break a sweat throughout my trip to the office even after a trip to the market before that.

I went to the market, cooked breakfast, did some light strength training, showered, had breakfast and then went to work.

In the past, the only way I can get to the office without breaking a sweat was if it was a cool cloudy day and I was half-asleep during the journey. Today, I didn't even notice I had forgotten to take a handkerchief until I was halfway through some work at the office.

Fortunately I always keep a spare.

This ICT made this difference that the one last year didn't because I had been much more physically active this time. For several days I had gone beyond my jobscope to help out with the storemen and armskote instead of waiting for work in the office all day. The storemen, in particular, had a lot of heavy stuff that needed carrying.


For now, I'm content with doing about 10-20mins of arm exercises twice or thrice a day. I don't want to end up like the last time I tried and pushed myself so hard I ended up hating it.

On the other hand, I expect to become less fit by the end of this week, but I don't have the motivation to do more.




















The only industry not affected by the flood of Chinese immigrants may be the Hindu and Muslim funeral services.

























 That is nowhere close to enough. Nothing will ever be enough. The silence will not be forgotten.

Rant 1025 / Sealing

EA is making an Ultima MMO.

There goes another good franchise.






















Suddenly feel like getting a seal or two after seeing a discount on wax seal stamp sets on Groupon.

I want to get both a Chinese seal and a Western wax seal stamp. The former is a square seal containing the three characters of my Chinese name (with my family name stretched to fill the space of two characters) that uses red ink while the latter would use the three initials of my English name.

Both aren't cheap and are, frankly, quite impractical.

I think I can get a stone Chinese seal with my zodiac sign for about S$50 in Hong Kong or S$80 locally, and the English one can be ordered online for about S$100. These are higher prices because they need to be custom-made. Most Western stamps come only with a single initial and I want all three of mine in a single stamp. Similarly for the Chinese one, I want the ancient Chinese font and my surname streteched into a rectangle.

In addition, the red ink would be easy to get but the sealing wax is going to raise the costs significantly.

I'm planning to use the Chinese seal for cheques. On the days when I haven't been using a pen for about a week, my handwriting can get noticeably uglier than usual. That's when I can whip out my wooden/stone seal and ink pad instead of signing my cheques. I'm pretty sure seals are accepted too but I'll have to confirm it when I inform them of the seal to be recognized as a secondary signature.

As for the Western wax seal, apparently people only use it for wedding invitations, so I can't use it for my mails in case it causes confusion among the receipients. However, I can also use it on legal documents, but I rarely have to sign any.

Actually I already have a Chinese seal but it's a much simpler and kinda Westernised one in which my name goes from left to right in one horizontal line. I want the square sort with the characters in red and in the ancient Chinese font.









































Tue


Got up at 7am today. Hopefully this will become a habit. To encourage this, I am leaving my curtains opened so that the sun can go at full blast into my room through my east-facing window.

Studies have shown that sunlight can wake people up, likely due to natural instincts after millenia of evolution. I can either feel that very well or it's a psychological effect from reading about that.

Also trying to do some strength training in the morning but the elastic band is degrading after a year of neglect, so I've told my bro to order another one. It's just not safe to continue using this old one.

But before the training I went downstairs to the market for some vegetables. All I've got in the fridge is 10 chickens' worth of chicken breasts, bone-in, and three thighs. Although I can simply bake or steam them, I'd rather not do that for all of them.

So I got down to buy lots of lettuce, sweet potatoes, onions, potatoes and a bit of mushrooms before getting the 60 fishballs and, this time, also some yong tau foo.

Just when I was thinking of going home, I walked past the chaw siew stall... AND IT WAS OPEN!

IT WAS ONLY 7.30AM! After so many years of not visiting it due to timing issues, I've totally forgotten about it!

Better still, there was almost no queue since it was a weekday morning.

Straight away I got behind the two people queueing there and started looking around for clues on how to order.

None of them ordered a whole stick of char siew like my mum used to, so I wasn't sure if the system had changed. Regardless, I can't just tell them to give me a whole piece because many of them hanging on the hooks was small round pieces the size of my palm. I could also point at one of the larger ones but since I can't see any difference between all of them, what's the point?

In the end, I just ordered half a kilogram of it. She asked me if I wanted the "heads", and I wasn't sure if she meant the charred ends, but I said "yes" anyway. They are known to be carcinogenic but those are also the best parts of the char siew. Next she asked me if I wanted them chopped and of course I did.

When I got home I put everything but the char siew into the fridge and used the leftover rice from last night that I had forgotten to store in the fridge to make char siew fried rice. The rice was still fine and I made a point to fry the plain rice in the oil a little longer before adding the light soy sauce, char siew and eggs.

I should make more of this.

Rant 1024 / I Haz Innernet

Gained 3kgs over the week. It has to be mostly muscle mass because of how I feel right now.

Can't imagine what the high-key ICTs are going to be like, mainly because of the outfield training.

Choosing the concrete floor of the training shed to sleep on was a terrible idea. Together with an already aching lower back from lugging/carrying stuff around all day, I probably spent most of the time trying to sleep than actually doing it.

Next time, I'm going to sleep on the grass. It has to be better there despite the jungle bugs.

Three guys were fell out within one of the days out there. One was from a pre-existing condition, another from the heat (probably didn't drink enough water, which was his own fault since we had plenty of water at every resting point and everyone carried at least a litre each in between) and one more because of the wet terrain after the light rain. Man, reverse fracture on the arm. Very disturbing to me just to think about it, yet I keep doing that.

It also shows how tired everyone was. If you're locking your elbow to break your fall, which I think he did, you're so tired you've become stupid.

Can't say much about the rest because I'm not even supposed to discuss anything regarding this online, though it suffices to say that I slept for a full 12 hours when I got home.

But not before ordering three pizzas for dinner.

...


Lost an inch of my waistline despite the weight gain. Yep, muscle mass.






















Because everyone loves the violin and P4.



















My Standard Chartered chequebook hasn't arrived. Wtf? I'm going to bring some blank cheques from my bro tomorrow instead :\

Rant 1023 / BRB Army (July 2012)

Lost another kilogram. Just weighed myself and discovered this.

Absolutely no idea why this happened. In fact, this defies logic IMO.

Here are the many reasons why this is how I feel about it:

1) I've just rediscovered deep frying at home.
2) I've a box of 20 frozen hashbrowns in my freezer, over half of which has already been consumed over the last three week by myself alone.
3) I have not been cutting down on my fast food deliveries at all.
4) I have been splashing oil liberally when I cook because this makes my food taste better.
5) I have been frying a lot of fishballs before using them as ingredients for other vegetable dishes. In fact I buy at least 60 fishballs a week and usually some fishcakes too.
6) I've been eating breakfast recently, and not light ones at that.
7) More like fried ones, even.
8) I have not been going out much due to a lack of business during this part of the year, ie living a more sedentary life.




On the other hand, there are a few possible reasons for this:

1) I've been having light dinners because heavy dinners make me very sleepy and recently I came to realize I have to, as much as possible, avoid repeating my old habit of sleeping too early and risking waking up at 3am and badly screw up my body clock for several days.

2) I have almost completely cut off my coffee intake, partly because I haven't been needing it and partly because the remaining ground coffee in my kitchen is now stale. Speaking of which, I'm very surely going to buy whole beans from the vendor next time and grind only what I need when I need it. Right now I still have 500g of it that's destined for the bin and it's such a waste.

3) I've been practically preventing myself from having supper ever since I began to brush and floss my teeth again at night. I just don't want to go through it twice a night. My laziness overwhelms my hunger and it's awesome. But it's also like saying I'm so lazy I'd rather starve than eat, which... is actually true in this case. Oh wow. Seriously, I'd rather spend the whole night with a growling stomach due to having a light and early dinner than eat, floss and brush again.



Also, it's 6am and I've been up long enough to be fully prepared for what's to come. A large cup of coffee and final packing stage (toothbrush, deordorant, etc). It's no big deal since it's likely I'll be back for tonight before staying there for the rest of the week, so if I'm still forgetting anything, I can return to get them.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if I should bother coming back if there's nothing I need to take. I'll decide later.

I'm not sure if people are supposed to really want to go home when they're in reservist training, but I don't care. In fact I didn't bother going home the last time I got a night off. There's just nothing at home that I miss that much after merely a few days.

The best thing about this, other than the single night off, is that it's confirmed that I can book out early on the final day, again due to the fact that I cleared my IPPT for this year. Dohohoho!

Rant 1022 / Pingas!

If practising medicine is how I think it is, wouldn't it be relatively easy to replace doctors with a combination of computers and medical assistants?

My impression of what doctors do is that they find out the symptoms displayed by the patient and they judge which condition best fits the combination.

If this is really what it is, then you can just have a computer system containing all the diseases linked to their symptoms together with the relevant probabilities, like how common they are and which symptoms are more common with which disease.

In addition, they can also display the drugs that are routinely prescribed for the illnesses plus the relevant allergies and conditions that forbid the drugs. Non-routine stuff would be sent to a central HQ sort of place where the real doctors are.

Medical assistants will then find out what symptoms there are and input them as using keywords like "rashes" and whatever names they have for whichever body parts, and the computer would display the possible illnesses together with their probabilities.

Of course things like surgeries are still going to need human hands as long as robotic arms currently available are not able to replace surgeons completely.

But diagnosing might get simpler if there is a nationwide system that not only does what I described but also contains the medical records of everyone in the country. This would allow the system to adjust appropriately for whatever bias the genes in the country has for whatever conditions.

This would remove a huge chunk of stuff from the medical schools' curriculum which, for the most part, seems redundant for general practitioners. I mean, they appear to be only good for minor stuff like flu and coughs. Anything more and they refer you to the specialists.

The system and the assistant, who is pretty much a GP without the medical encyclopedia in his head, or who can be seen as a person with only the empirical knowledge for diagnosing illnesses, can theoretically replace the GP.

That would free up a lot of talents in the medical field.

I mean, all those people who qualified for a place in any medical school are pretty smart people. It just feels like a waste if their jobs are as simple as such routine things as prescribing cough medicine day in and day out.























So coffee makes people lazy and yet boosts brain power (at least temporarily).

The good news is:

“Workers” began to slack off after consuming caffeine. “Slackers” remained slackers regardless of caffeine ingestion.

Phew. For a while I thought it could make us slackers slack even harder.



















Only today did I learn that Yu Pin King is under Shop N Save. No wonder I keep seeing promotions for this brand all the time.

Speaking of Shop N Save, I just bought 6 litres of Knife brand cooking oil since it was having a promotion. It was a 5-litre bottle with an extra 1-litre bottle of the same oil. I have to say the timing is perfect. I have almost used up my 2-litre bottle and felt that it was empty too soon. Moreover, I recall my mum used to buy the larger 5-litre bottle in the past which implies that it shouldn't go rancid before I finish it.


Now I have more oil for deep frying stuff.























My NS unit is allowing everyone who cleared his IPPT one night off during the coming reservist training. I've completed mine through IPT for this window! Woohoo!




















The remake of Baldur's Gate 2 is going to have DLCs.

What we can be sure they're going to be is that they will be inconsequential events that have little to do with the main story or anyone else in the original game.

Otherwise, they will ruin the game.

Rant 1021 / Hype-powered Tide Of Idiocy

I'm thinking I shouldn't be going to China in early winter. If I'm only windowshopping, why pick China?
















The problem with being big is that everything cheap is too small for you. Like everything on sale in online Japanese or Korean stores. Looks like I'm destined to own only shoes bought at normal prices or above.






















Went to the ENT specialist at NUH today and I'm going to have to do a sleep study to confirm whether I have sleep apnea.

Consultation fee was S$101.65 and the larygnoscopy cost me another $197.95.

The laryngoscopy was just expensive. It was a little uncomfortable but the doctor did what he could to avoid irritating my sinus too much with his cable-like camera. He also took some pictures that his assistant copied for both him and myself, although I have no interest in seeing what my nasal passage looks like.

Apparently other than my weight, I'm also suffering from an allergy and a sensitive nose. I know my weight caused my snoring but I've gotten used to it long ago. It's this allergy that's making it so much worse that when the doctor sprayed something into my nose that was supposed to be stinging and bitter, all I can sense is the bitterness when I swallowed.

The strange thing is the allergy. I have no idea what I'm allergic to because little has changed in my home all these years.

The only thing I'm known to be allergic to is penicillin but if I'm sensitive even to the airborne spores that's present everywhere, it would have caused the reaction a very long time ago.

He's going to test for it in a month. In the meantime, I'm supposed to see if the steroid spray works enough to stop the swelling gradually.

A week before the appointment I'm also going to have to do a sleep study to confirm whether I have sleep apnea.

This is another weird part because for some strange reason, a private practice is able to do it more cheaply than the public hospital.

Both cost about the same in cash of about S$200 but the difference is that, according to the doctor, the hospital charges an additional sum from my Medisave (which is empty btw) which will raise the total bill to a grand.

Moreover, the private practice recommended by the doctor (and he highly recommended this option) is able to let me do it in my own home while the hospital's version has to be done within itself.

A very easy decision there.

For treatments, he presented me with three options.

First, I can just stick with the nasal spray I'm using. It does work but only to a small degree for me.

The second option was a simple procedure to reduce the swelling.

Third was a slightly more complicated procedure to the same effect but lasts longer and has a few slightly possible negative side effects.

Obviously, all three won't work well as long as I continue to be exposed to whatever is causing the allergic reaction. The first will continue to work only for a couple hours and to a small degree. The last two will only last anywhere between several months to several years before I have to go back to him with the same problem again.

Finally, I also bought a backup bottle of the spray from the pharmacy there since it requires a prescription and I didn't want to go back just for it. This doctor prescribed a different spray called "Avamys fluticasone furoate". They're about the same size but this new bottle cost $25.26 whereas the old bottle was $29.






















So everything I ordered from Amazon last month arrived.

Couldn't get the $20 off at Vpost even though I logged on at 1.30am on the first of July. Clearly lots of people wait for it on the first of every month since it's only limited to the first 150 people per month.

So I only got the 15% off which, for this order, was about $11.

Regardless, I've paid for it and they have arrived.

The shoe tree was indeed aromatic. I'll have to give it a few months to confirm whether the light pleasant smell is naturally from the wooden shoe tree since I do not recognize this smell nor the smell of cedar wood in general.

More importantly, they fit inside my shoes snugly.

Perfect.

My two bottles of suede waterproofing sprays were also among the packages. It's just unexpected that both came in oversized cardboard boxes filled with these full plastic air bags. I wonder if they could have just used smaller boxes and hence saved on the shipping.

I just used one of them and I'm keeping the other as spare. This bottle's instructions was that I was supposed to soak the leather in the liquid so I sprayed so much they rolled off the leather.

I just hope this doesn't deform my suede shoes, but then again, I had left the shoe trees inside so they could probably help hold the leather properly. So far so good.

The suede eraser I bought from Amazon didn't remove the old sweat stain from the suede but I'll have to try again to know for sure, and this time I'll rub harder.

It's not much so eventually when I visit a cobbler or laundry shop, I'll just get them to remove it, if the eraser doesn't work.

Finally, my book came. It's entitled "Valuation" (5th ed) and is about how to assess and improve the value of a company.

Right now I've only read the very beginning of the book and it's already given me a completely new view on the financial crises.

From what I can understand, most of the financial crises we have today is based on the use of short-term debts to buy long-term illiquid debt (an simple example of an illiquid debt is a home you're still paying for), usually because the investors believe the things they gain from this long-term debt will outweight the cost of the short-term debts.

This is known as "leverage".

This alone does not trigger a crisis. In addition to this, there needs to be some kind of reason for lenders to stop lending, thereby stopping the flow of short-term debts.

In the 1997 Asian financial crisis, an event I never really understood even after reading the Wikipedia page on it, the book explained that it was caused by an explosion of borrowing and building of industrial plants in Asia. When they finally realized there was too much production capacity everywhere and what they were going to produce wouldn't be able to cover their debts anymore, obviously financial institutions became reluctant to lend them anymore money to do something about it.

Since they couldn't borrow money to repay their earlier debts, they had to sell what they built to cover them... except everyone else was also trying to do the exact same thing.







Same with the 2008 mortgage crisis in the US, except this time replace the plants with homes. Banks were offering home loans for very low interest rates for a period of time in the beginning followed by a much higher rate for the rest of the payments, a rate that most people wouldn't be able to afford (up to a whopping 20% according to Wikipedia).

The common reaction of the borrower/home buyer was to think that he/she would get a raise eventually and that would cover the new interest rate when it comes, otherwise they could just sell their homes. The prices of homes there were in an upward trend back then, so nobody worried about the latter.

Except the pays didn't rise enough and US home prices began to stop rising eventually.

So they only had one option - sell their homes - that was essentially a non-option.

The rest has been explained in the previous story.

Oh wait, there's also another complication to this one - the banks sold these mortgage debts as parts of securities thinking it would reduce the risks to themselves by spreading them around, so everyone who bought these (including the banks themselves) also got dragged into the shit, which, in hindsight, there was quite a lot of.

Obviously there are more to these tales than what I've said here but I'm actually just rephrasing what I got from the little I read from the book just to prove to myself that I understand it.

These crises also proved the power of hype. With enough of it, all the geniuses in the world cannot stop the hype-powered tide of idiocy.

Rant 1020 / Holding My Breath In Anticipation

 Japan strikes again!

(Hint: it's an upcoming game.)




And again!






















This video is about SquareEnix being desperate for revenue.



















Persona 4 got an anime and Persona 3 is.... getting a movie!

And I have yet to finish both games.

And I don't want to play them in my living room.

And I don't have a TV in my room.
























Accidentally pureed my onions and tomatoes when I made beef bolognese.

My bro had bought a food processor the day before and I was curious about it.

The problem is that I've never used a food processor to chop food before, so I didn't think to throw in everything before switching it on.

At least it was easy to clean.

What's more interesting was that his gf ate an entire soup bowl's worth of cooked pasta. I boiled a whole kilogram of dried pasta and that bowl was about 2/5 of it.

This isn't the first time she ate this much yet her appetite continues to impress me, probably because of her thin frame. I can't eat that much even when I'm starving.



















And I continue to be impressed by my iPad's battery.

For a while I got spoilt by it and didn't bother to close my apps after checking them, like the XE app with which I keep myself updated on the exchange rates of several currencies.

To my surprise, I managed to drain a full battery in less than 48 hours. In comparison, it usually lasts 3 days with about 10-15% battery to spare by the third night.

It turned out that I had like 10-15 apps opened simultaneously in the background by the second day. It was being drained so quickly recharging from the power socket directly was barely moving the battery bar.

So I closed everything except 1 app then left it locked, and within 5 hours it was full again.

















Back to Prophesy of Pendor. Now this is much better. I can pick fights more easily now because the random bandit groups are so aggressive and numerous.

I was only building up my army while searching for good trading routes most of the time. It took a number of reloads since there were quite a few seriously overpowered bandit groups on the map like the Jatu raiders whom I think are some of the best cavalry in the game.

Still, I managed to get enough renown to be invited by one of the kingdoms after some time. To sweeten the deal, he threw in a village as my fief. I've never got this before in the past because I've always had to ask to join the kingdoms.

In fact I was considering creating my own kingdom but decided it wasn't worth all the trading I was going to have to do to get an army large enough for to hold just my first castle.


Aaaaaaaaaaaand the castle it was under got taken by another kingdom, so I have no fief now. What a waste of time :|