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Diary

How I U-turned at Woodlands Checkpoint and Back to Singapore!

People tend to jump to conclusions. When they heard that I navigated to Woodland checkpoint by mistake, it was Apple Maps’ fault. Because I suppose the vast majority are using Google Maps.

But it was totally my fault.

I needed to pick someone up at Woodlands Train station. I picked the checkpoint instead. What I should have done was to pick the taxi stand as my destination.

To U-turn at Woodlands checkpoint by car took around 20 mins. The actual U-turn would have taken a minute. But this was not an ordinary situation.

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Diary

“If you don’t buy the package, I know you won’t be back to see me”

I can count on my 10 fingers the number of people I have been in touch with for over two decades. AY, my senior whom I met in my university days. 33 years. BP, my ex-gf’s elder brother has become my brother-in-law. 29 years. Had I kept in touch with his sister, my ex-gf, that would have been a 32-year relationship. Unfortunately, we don’t keep in touch. The last time I saw her was at a funeral. RC, my ex-manager during my first job. 28 years. Believe it or not, I just met him earlier this month. He found a new job. And he is doing well. As someone older than me, in today’s market condition. I am impressed. Consider the fact that I am still in touch with my ex-wife, due to the joint custody of our dog … 26 years. ML, my partner-in-crime from video gaming to web hosting and all things in between, my ex-bandmates JL and JT, all of whom I still keep in touch with, thereabout 20-ish years.

So, where does my hairstylist SE, or rather, ex-hairstylist as of this moment, stand? 28 years.

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Diary

Highlights of 2023

Over dinner, GZDJ asked about my 2023 highlights. The first thing that came to my mind was snorkeling at Tioman Island. It was something that before this year, I would have never wanted to do. It was too adventurous for my liking. But in the spirit of YOLO, I joined a diving trip with my friends. I didn’t dive, not that adventurous yet. The experience was exhilarating. Floating in the open sea, with eyes on the ocean bed, seeing sea creatures living their lives entirely different from mine. The cold and warm current, the buoyancy. I could float the whole day and not get tired of what I saw. Plenty of small colorful fishes. Then came a few large bumphead fish. Corals, live and dead. Urchins and plenty of other sea creatures that I was not able to name. That trip was the highlight of my 2023.

I had no idea that snorkelling can be that much fun!
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Diary

Finally Upgraded to a Meshed Router Network – Asus ZenWiFi AX (XT8)

When I moved into this current home thereabout five years ago, mesh routers were expensive. And I opted to set up my home network with two routers. One was set up as a router and another one as an access point. With dual-band, I ended up with 4 SSID, which was a nightmare to connect. It also made my Sono connectivity kind of wonky as I had to connect all my Sono devices – Playbar, Sub, two SL One, and Roam – onto the same network and kind of defeated the purpose of a router/access point setup. I should have opted for a mesh router network solution when all SSID collapsed into one!

Paired, from the factory.

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For the Geeks My YouTube

Diablo 4 Early Access First Impression – It’s World of Diablo

In this blog post, I would like to share with you my first impression of Diablo 4. And at the backdrop of this video, I have recorded a recent legion event at World Tier 2 difficulty. It took my character a long walk on foot to reach the very southern end of the map. But it was fun nonetheless.

In a nutshell, does Diablo 4 Early Access meet my expectation? I would say yes. Does it worth its price tag? I still think that Diablo 4 is a very expensive game. But it also has a lot more content compared to its previous iteration released 11 years ago. Compare to recent AAA game launches, I would say Diablo 4 is very stable. I have not encountered any bugs or problems logging into the game. 99.99% of the time, the game runs smoothly. Except for some rare stuttering perhaps due to other players joining the area online.

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Diary

When Thunder Rolls at Five

C moved out about a week ago. The exact date was April 21, a Friday. There is no good or bad timing. I had a one-week medical leave and was there almost full-time through the process. During that week, I was counting all the remaining moments with Bailey. Because Bailey would be moving out as well.

A picture of Bailey taken on that Friday late afternoon, home alone, just he and me. He probably didn’t know that I wouldn’t be moving out with him.

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Diary For the Geeks

My Prism+ X270 Pro 27″ 165Hz WQHD 1500R Curved Gaming Monitor

In a strange way, while I don’t blog on a regular basis, I have never missed an update on my gaming monitors. This traces back all the way to 2004. To recap:

2004 / $1,000 / 17″ Samsung / Resolution unknown
2007 / $550 / 22″ Samsung / 1980 x 1200
2011 / $310 / 24″ Samsung / 1980 x 1080
2023 / $379 / 27″ Prism+ / 2560 x 1440

Back in 2007, I have upgraded my gaming monitor and 16 years ago, my then-monitor had a larger screen then my CRT TV! I had some interactions with Samsung service centre and not unlike my recent encounter with Prism+, I had a 1:1 exchange. My latest monitor is one from Prism+ replacing my 12 years old gaming monitor.

On the left, my 27″ Prism+ curved gaming monitor. On the right, my Lenovo Legion 5 pro 2022 model.
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Diary

I Had An Accident And Visited Singapore General Hospital Twice

What bothers me most is not one day I am fine, another day I end up with a scar on my brow. What bothers me most is that I do not recall how it happened.

I was on a bicycle in the early Saturday morning. I must have been cycling pretty fast because when I collected my bicycle from the security guards who cared for me before the ambulance arrived, it was in the lowest gear (or was I really cycling fast at the moment of the accident?). The bicycle looks okay. In fact, while my face took the most hit, my body besides a few minor scratches with a bit of soreness was okay too.

But how?

If I were to fall off at a high speed, I would have ended up with some nasty scratches on my exposed arms and legs. According to eyewitnesses, I hit a pillar. But how? Wouldn’t the bicycle take the first hit? Wouldn’t I have hit my back while falling down? I was wearing a helmet. How would my eye get hit so badly?

I said I was being assaulted. But no one believes me.

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My Hobbies

Ultimate Escalation – How Long More?

Update: Due to feedback from the players, the developer has substantially increased the boss spawn rate. So it should be a lot easier now. The Emperor protects!

If you are playing Warhammer Inquisitor as I do, you probably would wonder how long it would take to complete season 6. To answer that question, I would look at probably the lengthiest objective to complete, which is Ultimate Escalation.

Ultimate Escalation requires us to take down all 10 unique seasonal bosses. Each seasonal mission requires escalation points to generate and escalation points culminate as we take down Harbingers. Each seasonal mission we generate has a 15% chance to spawn a seasonal boss of a random type. Depending on how fast you can fill up the escalation bar – which in my case is somewhere between 30 mins to 1 hour including the actual gameplay, inventory management, screen loading time, etc., you can work out an estimation on how long more to go.

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Diary

“Shen” the T-Rex in Singapore

I am a massive fan of anything dinosaur. It is fascinating that creatures so giant and out-of-the-world looking existed for hundreds of millions of years in the past, we now get a glimpse of what some of them look like. I recalled years ago I read an online article that one British museum would exhibit dinosaur fossils, I had made a commitment to revisit the UK one day, which I did before the pandemic.