Here's My Story

Fyi, in Malaysia, Mat Salleh refers to Westerners. Yes, today, I shall talk about them. Just kidding :P Actually, it's the name of a restaurant. It is the latest reincarnation of a particular corner shoplot that in the past never seem to be auspicious for its business owners. We'll see how this one goes. As a first (as far as I can remember), they offered free lunch on their opening day on a Tuesday, the same week as Chinese New Year. By then, I was already back home in Seremban. Nevertheless, I usually do not visit a shop on its first few days, for the fear of big crowd. They have an interesting mix of Western and Malay food plus a variety of fried rice. Malay food was just mixed rice with some mouth watering spicy dishes...not that I try it hahaha. Instead, I tried their Grilled Fish Fillet (RM 14). The fish fillet was soft but a little too salty. The dipping sauce was a little peculiar: it had red and green bits. It wasn't spicy and not sure whether it adde...

After dinner and shopping at Ikea (got replacement sofa cushion), Ban and I passed by this shop on the way back to the carpark at IPC. I decided to try their chendol (RM 3.90) and I was pleasantly surprised that it was quite good. The proportion of coconut milk seems a little more than usual but everything else was pretty good. The sweetness was just right and the ice does melt (instead of in huge chunks). Only small complaint was that it could have more chendol. In any case, it's definitely better than the Penang Road Famous Teochew Chedul @Paradigm Mall (and cheaper too!).

Ever since the inaugural Haven win at the Swiss tournament, I've been aiming for my first Academy win. Usually, my go-to deck for Academy is Akane's spell recursion build, with spells like Geyser, Lightning Bolt, Father Sky's Wrath, Frozen Wave and Ice Meteor. I love this build because, as Ban would tease me :), it allows me to boom-boom a lot :). However, under the current meta, it seems the top Academy deck is Nahla time-lock (ranked among the top 5 by a great player, jkkk89), followed by Myranda's spirit deck plus Free Mage Altar building (ranked just outside top 10). I'm not confident in using Nahla deck because it requires regular skillful use of the event Night of the Rising Moon. I rarely knows what cards to discard. Even if I know, it still requires great skills to stall, clear and finally conquer the board. Just watch this replay . So I'm left with Myranda. I practised playing with this deck while waiting for the format of the tournament to rot...

Yes! I finally won a Swiss tournament using a Haven deck. Yay! :) A few points: Cassandra barrack is a top tier deck in the current meta. A top player ranked it in the top 10. Hence, I decided to try my luck to win the tournament as Haven hasn't been this good for so long. I was playing against lower ranked players. Still, they did present much challenge, especially the second player (using Anastasya). In fact, before turn 6, I thought all was lost. I was down to 10 hp while he still has full health and starting to use her crippling ability too from turn 7 onward. By turn 8, it was 1 hp vs 19 hp. Good thing I maintained concentration and I couldn't believe I managed to win at turn 12.  The final player was playing a Dhamiria breeder deck. If he was lucky to get his potent combo (spell hungry breeder + spawning chamber) going, it could have gotten much worse. Fortunately, it is generally quite difficult to pull off such combo consistently and it didn't happen in my ga...

It had been ages since I played ranked duels. Probably since I completed the Week of Enrolment quest. As a result, although I still have my Champion II rank, my (hidden) ELO (rank points essentially) steadily degraded to the point that I was playing against lower level Champion I and higher level Lord Commander players. At first, it was ok because I was still trying to a variety of deck builds and then later trying to master a few decks I like. In addition, the duels were still challenging despite choosing unranked duels. However, later, as my ELO dropped by nearly 300 points, I was winning duels more often than not. It was something like 80% win rate? *shrug* I'm not sure but I knew I wanted more challenges. So I decided to play ranked duels. There are, however, a few problems: I still suffer from heart palpitation and have to stop playing after 2 consecutive duels! This is crazy @@ I've been ill for nearly 2 weeks :( So I feel oozy and lose more often than not. I...

Such a light-hearted fun song! It's the shortest 90's song I know. He likes Armani suits To wear with ties of silk Bought a herd of cows To milk his own milk I like his heart of gold, his personality He's just too fancy for me He's got a Cartier and a Mercedes Benz And that was all ok When we were only friends But when we're on a date It's all too plain to see He's just too fancy for me I like a man who can roll up his jeans And wade in the water And still has some dreams I like a man who can understand Simplicity Don't want 'em finely tuned Cause quirky men are cool The Concorde's caviar Ain't like Balducci's food Those thousand dollar suits May suit society But they're just too fancy for me Give me a fishing boat Give me a wide eyed grin Don't even try to gloat Cause you won't even win Don't want the courtside seats I want my nose to bleed He's just too fancy for me He's just too fancy for me

Read the words and then look at the drawings below. Hahaha.

I've loved this song for decades already. So meaningful. Some say love, it is a river That drowns the tender reed. Some say love, it is a razor That leaves your soul to bleed. Some say love, it is a hunger, An endless aching need. I say love, it is a flower, And you its only seed. It's the heart afraid of breaking That never learns to dance. It's the dream afraid of waking That never takes the chance. It's the one who won't be taken, Who cannot seem to give, And the soul afraid of dyin' That never learns to live. When the night has been too lonely And the road has been too long, And you think that love is only For the lucky and the strong, Just remember in the winter Far beneath the bitter snows Lies the seed that with the sun's love In the spring becomes the rose.

After nearly 1.5 years since the last post , I picked this game again (as contemplated recentl y). I had to relearn a few things e.g. tactics during battle, the use of the siege crossbow, sieging 'shoot-and-run' tactic etc but fortunately it didn't take long. This was the situation about 2 weeks ago: So Swadia is no more. I captured their last town Praven and initially awarded to myself, in line with my plan of owning towns. However, after their demise. Grainwad defected to my kingdom and I gave him Praven. I had tried for ages to get him over but to no avail. It seems that lords with upstanding personality generally stick with their original liege until the end. Grainwad is quite special. He is one of the few lords whose personality doesn't get randomised for each new game. He is the only lord with reknown value of over 1000. Impressive, eh? Hence, he's the only vassal whom I bestowed a town, castle and a village. Gharmall, another upstandin...

When the dress is first shown in the video below, what is its colour? You'll be surprised to learn that there is no unanimous answer on this. It's basically divided into 2 camps: black & blue and white & gold. I'm in the former whereas Ban is in the latter. Same goes for both my sisters i.e. they're in different camps. Soooooo interesting!

Recently, before helping Ban set things right at his place after his war against bedbugs (and also sterilise my clothes with boiling hot water and put them to wash), we went to Andez for dinner as it was nearby. This time, we brought his brother along as it would be his first time to the restaurant since renovation and under new management. I tried one of their recommended dishes: Fish & Cheese (RM 19.90). It was basically deep fried dory fish coated with bread-crumb with cheese and cherry tomatoes on top and a small side dish of salad. I chose mashed potato instead of fries. The fish was delicious, juicy and light while the breadcrumb was crunchier than the usual dish. The addition of tomatoes and cheese were quite refreshing and interesting respectively but I didn't think the cheese added much to the dish. If the difference between this and their Fish & Chips is only the cheese, then I wouldn't pay extra for this dish. The mashed potato was forgettable. So...