Here's My Story

I finally finished the game. From the previous post , I needed 4 more rulers till the game ended in the year 1453. I managed to increase the score by over 40k since then to a total of 88,555. Quite good considering that best dynasty (the game has a list of historical dynasties with associated individual score) has a score of 100k but then again I was playing on easy difficulty level. By the end of the game, my ruler was Emperor of Britannia, King of Ireland, King of Wales, King of England, King of Andalusia, King of Poland and King of Anatolia. King Gabran the Bold reigned the longest (63 years) while King Zee 1 Mau's reign was the shortest (10 months). The latter died of "Slow Fever". Poor boy. Here was the extent of my territory at the end of the game (marked by the number 12, symbolising the number of rulers): Some of the more significant events since the last post are as follows: 1. After capturing a few more counties in England, I manage...

During my Nov trip to Penang , I came across some really interesting stuff such as the following: This Deepavali decoration ("Rangoli") was found at an Econsave store. What attracted me was the sheer size of it and the contrast of bright coloured rice used on a white background (also made with rice). It was unfortunate that a few days later, I saw that its side was slightly disturbed. Humph. These vegetables (lady's finger and long beans) were found just outside a huge wealthy-looking bungalow near where my sister lives. It was my first time seeing lady's finger plant. Incidentally, that area has many huge multi-storey bungalows. So rich.

In Feb this year, I had a cholesterol test and I wasn't happy with it, especially the borderline ratio of total cholesterol to HDL ("good") cholesterol. Since then, I've been taking oat every morning and exercise more regularly (at least twice a week). Although the frequency of exercise fell short of what I hope so (it's hard to motivate oneself to exercise!), the result of the latest cholesterol test this month bore fruit of my labour:                                         Feb 2012      Dec 2012      Ref. range Total cholesterol             5.4               5.5          ...

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? - Epicurus Update: Ron left a comment casting doubt on this quote (conventionally) attributed to Epicurus. Here's what I found from Wikipedia : " This argument was a type favoured by the ancient Greek skeptics , and may have been wrongly attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius , who, from his Christian perspective, regarded Epicurus as an atheist . [ 14 ] It has been suggested that it may actually be the work of an early skeptic writer, possibly Carneades . [ 15 ] According to Reinhold F. Glei , it is settled that the argument of theodicy is from an academic source which is not only not epicurean, but even anti-epicurean. [ 16 ] The earliest extant version of this trilemma appears in the writings of the skeptic Sextus Empiricus . [ 17 ...

There were many games on sale on Steam sometime during the last week of November (autumn sale), ranging from 25% to 75%. Never in my life had I bought that many computer games within a a few days! I, however, managed to stick to my buying games costing no more than USD10. I bought Crusader King 2 for just below USD10 and that entitled me to the main game i.e. none of the DLCs (downloadable content) were included. I didn't purchase any of the DLCs mainly because I wasn't certain whether I would like the game enough to warrant getting its DLCs. Well, it turned out I do like it :) Ban, who purchased it earlier than me, did a quick research over the net and told me that one recommendation for beginner was to start playing as a character in Ireland. We later realised why: Ireland wasn't united as a kingdom then (default starting year is 1066) and thus didn't have a king. Morever, its neighbours, Scotland and England were still settling down as kingdoms (there were stil...

Have you met someone who refuses to believe in anything until it's scientifically proven by the relevant expert? I have and they come with varying degree of conviction. I would put myself in this category too but not to the extreme. How extreme? Well, I know someone who seems not willing to entertain the possibility, even a small one, of truth of certain claim without scientific proof. Now, imagine if every single person adopts such attitude. What will happen? Let's take an example. Until centuries ago, everyone believed the Earth is flat. If every person say, "I shall not believe anything contrary to that until someone scientifically prove it wrong", what will happen? No one will be bothered to find out, isn't it? In that case, how will knowledge expand? How will mankind progress?

This is a mouse and not rat, right? It looks too small for a rat. Frankly, I don't know how to differentiate them other than their size and that a rat looks...nastier? *shrug* This mouse was found in the room I slept in at my sister's place. I guessed that it managed to squeezed between the window panels and the insect screen panels. For your information, at that time, I pushed the different panels to different sides. I agreed with my brother-in-law that it looked quite cute but naturally we couldn't have a mouse running around the house, especially with a toddler and a dog in the house It eventually left the room through the window after my bro-in-law pushed the insect screen panels to the right, where the window panels were. From then on, we have to make sure panels are shut.

Once upon a time, in the central region of Peninsular Malaysia, my dad boiled soup made of only flower crab with a little salt and nothing else but boy, it tasted very delicious and completely oil-less! Right away I thought of Ban. He likes watercress soup the best but he doesn't like oil in the soup, even if the oil comes naturally from pork or chicken carcass. He also doesn't like the smell of ikan bilis (anchovy) soup although it's oil-less. See? Such a tough nut to crack, right? So I tried replicating the crab soup. Ban couldn't stand the smell of the fresh crab and had to vacate the kitchen. He, however, did help to slice the bitter gourd. Taking out the carapace was as easy as my parents said it would be. The harder part was chopping its body because I am not good at using a chopper. I fear chopping off my other hand should I use it to hold the food. It's not an unfounded fear because at times the part on the food where the knife connected was signific...

As I said before, the internet hadn't been set up at my sister's new place when I was in Penang helping her to move there. So one way I kept myself occupied at night when the couple and their toddler went to bed was to read book. This book was lent to my sister by my other bro-in-law when he and my other sister were down here in Malaysia from Australia a few years ago. It is meant to be an easy reading for people who want to try reading fantasy novel and hence was recommended by my bro-in-law. However, my sister never did get started on it. The story was enganging enough for me to want to read more about it. In fact, on some nights, I read till like 2am - 3am. The story so far promises bigger and better things to come in subsequent books and so this will determine whether I like the series or not. There are some series that disappoint me due to them not fulfilling the expectations that they have (inadvertently or not) created e.g. Tales of Alvin Maker (though apparently ...

One of the few places we frequent quite regularly for dinner is City Star at Taman Bukit Mayang Emas. Ban normally doesn't like to have Chinese food (regardless of restaurant), including noodle, because they're usually too oily for his liking. He, however, seems to like this vegetarian noodle served there, as he orders it quite regularly (it's either this or rice with stir fried chicken with leek with a fried egg added). I too like this noodle and more likely to order this if I already had meat for lunch. They use wantan noodle and has different kind of vegetables .Its price, though, is a hefty RM7! Compare that to the price of fried lou shu fun (RM6). Moreover, the amount of leafy vegetable is usually not as much as shown in the picture above. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised at the attempt to arrange them in this manner. Despite its price, I would recommend it to anyone to try it at least once. It's appetising.