Here's My Story

Few months ago, I heard from youtubers and some players about a particular weakness of Junkrat : he cannot ensure kills. His quarries often escape and healed by the opposing team's healer, thereby giving ultimate charge to the latter. At first I was quite puzzled as to why this should be peculiar only to Junkrat because surely it's applicable to any hero? I mean, anyone playing, say, Soldier 76 or Reaper, cannot ensure kills each time they engage, can they? Later, after observing some gameplays, I conclude that Junkrat is more susceptible to this weakeness because he can (and some players do) lob "blind" grenades. That is, he can stand, say, behind a wall and lob grenades over it and "hope for the best". I almost never use such "blind" tactic and often engage enemies only after my team mates start the engagement (because I don't want enemies to hunt me haha). Hence, I don't think this "weakness" applies to me but nevertheles...

Remember the Orion build I blogged about? Well, when I played Orion with an online friend, TheJoker, and I cast Fate Transference on him, he sometimes said, "What?! Only 50%? You selfish *******." Lol. Funny, nice fella and quite easy going. Recently, I came across this: When I first watched this, I laughed and laughed. The owl immediately reminded me of TheJoker. I quickly did this:

This year, I join my parents and my sister's family in Butterworth to celebrate my parents' wedding anniversary. My sister, as always (thank you!), organises a nice value-for-money dinner at a restaurant. New place. Hopefully it's good :) There are a few ways I could go to Butterworth. First, I ruled out driving because Ban is not going as his family celebrates Christmas in KL. I don't relish driving alone for that long. So tiring. The ETS would be great except that there's no way of knowing whether it would be cold in the train or not. Sometimes it's the train that goes to Butterworth and sometimes it's the returning train. It could get so cold that my legs felt cold despite wearing long pants. So I decided to take an airplane. Yes, it's extravagant given my current circumstances but this trip was worth it. I checked Firefly and Malindo Air (to fly from Subang airport) for price and time. I was surprised that the latter was significantly cheaper t...

"  New research  from The Brookings Institute, The Federal Reserve Board, and UCLA shows that one of the best predictors of relationship longevity is …  your credit score . Credit scores predict relationship longevity in two key ways: Higher Is Better. People with higher credit scores are both more likely to get into committed relationships and more likely to stay in them over time. Similar Is Better. People who have similar credit scores are more likely to have relationships that last. For example, if you have a credit score of 750 and your prospective partner had a score of 450, you are several times more likely to break up within the first two years of living together than if your scores differ by fewer than 75 points. Why are credit scores so eerily effective at predicting relationship outcomes? The authors posit that your credit score is a proxy for trustworthiness and commitment to obligations. " –  Psychology Today

I buy whatever I want, whenever I want. The trick is that I want very little. - Anita Dhake

Since my last post on Aurora ,  I have experimented with different sets of mods based on my observation of other Aurora players. In the end, I adopted 2 sets (we can save 2 sets and select them in a jiffy). You can look up the exact mod descriptions in Prep Phase . Set 1 - Vain: heal self - Invigorating Cloud: also heals allies - Seeking Flare: through walls - Laser Designator: reveal - Focused Radiance: increases potency Set 2 - Vain: heal self - Invigorating Cloud: also heals allies - Seeking Flare: through walls - Tenacious: unstoppable for self and allies - no mod The impetus for the change is Invigorating Cloud. It's good for situations where enemies stick to Aurora or her allies. Use Ion Cloud to both hit enemies and heal allies. Vain and Seeking Flare are just too good for me. I know Surging Flare is a very popular mod but, again, I don't like it because of its conditional extra heal. So the leftover 3 loadout points are then allocated among Paralazer...

Every now and then, I'm matched with/against some popular Atlas Reactor tournament players. Most of the time, the game could go either way or at least my team could win slightly less than half of the time. However, there was one notable exception: appearance of Avaki, of the top team Thrash, playing to his strength i.e. firepower freelancer. I noticed that the team that won was the team that had him in it. He was in my team once and we won. Two other times he was in the other team and we lost. The second lost was bad because he had his Thrash's teammate, Cranor, in the team too. So when I saw him again in the opposing team, I told my teammates about this "carry". Runebreaker said perhaps Avaki could have bad teammates this time. One could hope so haha. So we were happy when this happened: Yes, we won :) Later, I had a game where there was a tournament player Babymillie, playing support but always played frontline in tournament, and a developer in my...

I saw one other car did this too. Anyone know why?

Love's Coming is quite a fun and light-hearted gay-themed Thai movie but with an important message of acceptance which makes it touching. It focuses on a group of tight-knitted teenage friends who suspect one of them may be gay. Half of the movie is about how 3 of them try various ways to find out the truth while the other half is about the blossoming relationship of the suspect and his neighbour. There were plenty of funny and sweet moments, with occasional serious but heartfelt moments. I would imagine most gay people would recognise the anxiety and fear of being found out, the trepidation of considering coming out to great friends, and the utter hopelessness of finding love in a society where it's still "boys only like girls" culture.  For those fortunate ones among us, we would identify with the feeling of relief and love when family and friends accept who we are; for the rest of us, we wish that will happen when the time comes. After watching it, I was feel...

My first job was with an MNC life insurance company. I was in the valuation team. Later on, I learned a little of the product team's tasks. I wondered, "You mean that's all there is to do with actuarial skill?" My 2nd job was with a consulting firm and oh boy, it was when I learned that actuarial skill could be used in so many tasks/projects! I was involved in general insurance valuation, pension valuation, M&A business research and appraisal, design + establishment + maintenance of pension funds, stock option valuation, audit, establishing regulation, design stock option scheme, design insurance product etc. More importantly, I was blessed for having worked with (yes, worked with; not worked for) a great boss. He was always ready for discussion and listened to all opinion. He believed in work-life balance (it was difficult for everyone) and respected each of us. He never demanded respect but we willingly gave it to him. He never "warned" us not to s...

This song resonates with me as it somehow describes my love life :)   So many nights I'd sit by my window Waiting for someone to sing me his song So many dreams I kept deep inside me Alone in the dark but now you've come along And you light up my life You give me hope to carry on You light up my days and fill my nights with song Rollin' at sea, adrift on the water Could it be finally I'm turnin' for home? Finally a chance to say "Hey, I love you" Never again to be all alone And you light up my life You give me hope to carry on You light up my days and fill my nights with song 'Cause you, you light up my life You give me hope to carry on You light up my days and fill my nights with song It can't be wrong When it feels so right 'Cause you.....you light up my life

One of the food dishes that Seremban is famous for is beef noodle and as expected there are several places that you could go. The one that my grandfather, his children and grandchildren had/have frequented the most is Fatt Kee (stall no. 742) at the main market in town. I usually order their gravy version. Over the years, they had reduced the amount of ingredient and increased its price. Obviously not a popular move with customers. For a much cleaner and comfortable place, I would recommend Quinn Seremban Beef Noodle at Kemayan Square. It's in a proper shop lot and air-conditioned, and so more expensive. To be honest, I don't find much difference between this and Fatt Kee's. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the owners are related. One other shop, highly recommended by relatives, is King's Beef Noodle at Jalan Dr Krishnan. I understand that the owner is the patriach to the other two operators above. I've yet to try because, apparently, he operate on ...

My father tried many times to call the primary hospital (where he had his surgery recently and follow-up for past 8+ years) to find out the procedure to get the kidney sample but only managed to get through twice and was put on hold until his phone nearly ran out of battery @@. We thought the most appropriate specialist to talk to would be the urologist. My dad said that the next clinic day was Tue morning. On that day, upon his enquiry, the nurse at the registration desk told him that there was no more kidney sample since it had been 2 months after surgery. We were surprised because the oncologist with whom we sought second opinion with (Dr A) said that it should be kept for 7 years. So after some discussion, the nurse arranged for him to meet the pancreas specialist as a walk-in patient because, as it turned out, urologist's clinic hours were in the afternoon. The pancreas specialist quite readily said it wasn't a problem to seek second opinion on the histology of the ki...

Since the false alarm , I am still looking for a tenant. In fact, I have asked my agent to lower down the rent as much as needed to secure a tenant especially since I've already missed half of my rental income in the last 14 months :( Besides the rent, I'm also prepared to replace the old tv and mattress, and maybe get some small pieces of furniture if requested. However, I can't do that one thing that recent potential tenants complaint about: the highway. Mind you, there are trees and a field in between my condo's window and the highway and so the "noise" is not significant, something that my ex-housemate, Ban and my parents can attest to. Haiz. It's truly a renters' market in Singapore :(

My dad did seek a second opinion  from an oncologist and he, along with some other specialists that my sister spoke to, pointed at the histology as the first point of review. Although he was impressed with the recommended follow-ups, he was puzzled on why they guessed the primary site is the pancreas. His primary reasons are: (1) My dad's kidney cyst (which turned out to be cancerous) was first detected 9 years ago and had been growing gradually. If it is true that the pancreas is the primary site of the cancer and that it then spread to the kidney, the cancerous pancreas would already had caused, among other effects, much pain earlier but even to today, my dad experiences no pain whatsoever. (2) The gradual growth of the cyst with no other effects is consistent with kidney cancer. Of course the primary oncologist relied on the pathologist's report to conclude that the cancer metastasised from somewhere else and the high tumour marker supports this. Hence, it's import...

Ban and I normally do not dine in KL unless friends organise a get-together. Just not keen on the whole heavy traffic business :) So when a friend did invite us for dinner with a few other friends, we right away agreed. One of the guests had been recommending and raving about this restaurant for sometime and so I was especially keen to try it. The Fat Fish restaurant reminds me of Sydney fish market: fresh seafood for you to specially select and they cook for you. Of course the latter is more in selling the fresh seafood rather than cooking. Moreover cooking is plain and simple: fry :) The Fat Fish, however, had a variety of food on its menu (including many that you simply do not "choose" the exact fish). It was quite expensive though when considering its price vs portion. After contemplating for quite a while, I ordered garlic cream with smoke salmon pasta (RM25 gross): Instead of the normal slices or bite chunks of smoked salmon, it had minced salmon. Prawn roe w...

As foretold , DoC ended on 31 Oct 2016 :( Such a great pity. Uraxor arranged for a Twitch stream hosted by Cucu for the community to come together one last time: Unfortunately, it was very late for me and so all I managed to do was to pop a hello and then a goodbye a few minutes later. Sad day :(

The Orion build I'm using  apparently is not common. Yet, despite trying out other more popular builds, I didn't find success nor enjoyment until I settle on this build. I thought that surely there are other players like me. I did encounter players who used the Quantum Core + Astral Fusion combo. Hence, I decided to put in a guide on Prep Phase . Hopefully it'll help some players.

My dad underwent PET/CT scan  at Beacon Hospital. I was hoping that it would detect the primary site of the cancer to be somewhere where it's feasible to operate. However, it detected nothing abnormal or found unremarkable signs. So at that point, we thought that either the scan was incorrect or the initial diagnosis was incorrect i.e. the cancel cells did not originate from somewhere else and so the kidney was indeed the primary site. We then met the oncologist. Actually, he wasn't the oncologist that my dad was assigned to. I guess he was assisting the doctor in-charge? *shrug* We answered all his questions and before he went off to consult the doctor in-charge, I asked whether it was a good idea to get a second opinion on the test of cancer cells in the removed kidney. I blundered in the way I asked hahaha ("maybe the pathologist made a mistake?") but he got it in the end and said he would include that in discussion. However, after he came back, he merely r...

I find this amusing :)

After I became the fourth player to level up Grey to 20 , I tried to level up Gremolition too and aim for the last 2 slots i.e. 4th or 5th player. I knew, from the game's Discord channel, there was one other person trying the same and he was very close to doing so. So the moment it was announced a 4th player did so, I knew I had no chance and thus abandoned it. Honestly, I was looking forward to play other lancers because somehow I felt I wasn't contributing as much as I would like to as Gremolition. So next I aimed to level up Orion since there was only 2 too. I was a little hesitant because during Beta phase I was much better as Aurora and Quark. I fiddled about some mod combination and I finally found one that I am comfortable with. First off, the list of his abilities and available mods can be found in Prep Phase site . Far easier than reading my wall of text :) Mods I've been using are: (1) Devour Energy (default is Amplified Eruption) (2) Shared Agony (default...

Following the shocking news , our next appointment was with the colon specialist. By then, the tumour marker blood tests ordered by the urologist were already out: normal for liver and prostate normal for colon but was high prior to removal of kidney high for pancreas but was 10 times higher prior to removal of kidney Colon specialist was not particularly worried about colon but because polyps were discovered during the last colonoscopy done a year ago, he ordered for another scope done. Pancreas specialist ended with them (she consulted her "boss") referring my dad to the oncologist for treatment. They surmised that since previous scans couldn't detect cancer, it must be small and yet potent in spreading. After some discussion, aside from the 3-part CT scans (upper, middle and lower body) scheduled in Dec, my dad will be going for PET/CT scan soon. Thereafter, there will be follow-up appointment with the pancreas specialist and of course we'll show the re...

For Naruto fans. Enjoy the nostalgia :) I love it!

My dad's tumor markers for colon and pancreas cancer have always been high but subsequent CT scans, ultrasounds, upper and lower scopes, and biopsy had shown no indication of cancerous cells. By sheer coincidence, it was one of these scans/ultrasounds that picked up sign of kidney cyst. So our family are shocked to learn that the biopsy on the kidney removed during the recent surgery  revealed some cancerous cells. Not only that, those cells originated elsewhere i.e. they were metastasised from another part of the body. According a friend who is a doctor, he said that it's rare for cancer cells to spread to kidney. I later read an abstract of a research paper (found in Pubmed) stating, "Although the frequency of metastases to the kidney in cancer patients is 7-13% in large autopsy series, incidental discovery of a renal metastasis as the first manifestation of a primary tumor is a very rare event." One one hand, it is bad luck for my dad to get such cancer (becaus...

Apparently I misunderstood the "first 5 players" to level up a character to 20. Yes, they were watching out (and announced whenever it happened) for the first player to level up the respective 21 freelancers ("world first" and already done!), they are also taking note of the next 4 players for these freelancers. Once I knew this, I checked a list maintained by a moderator of the Atlas Reactor discord channel and concluded that I could possibly be among the first 5 players to level up Grey to 20. Henceforth, I played her exclusively and grouped with in-game friend whenever I could. I forwent playing any other games, notably Overwatch. Just very early this morning (I panicked after a 3rd player managed to level up Grey lol), I managed to be the 4th player to achieve this :) This was the immediate reaction when the broadcast was made at the end of the game (our team was steamrolled, unfortunately). This was the announcement made by the discord c...

One of our greatest collective weaknesses is a strive for perfectionism and imposing that on others, pioneering actuary and Rhodes Scholar Ian Pollard told delegates at the Institute's Leadership Development Seminar on Monday (8 August). - Actuaries Digital Hmmm food for thought.

All those who purchased Atlas Reactor before the official launch  were able to play earlier (hence the "headstart") since 30 Sep. On the run-up to this date, I dusted off Guild Wars 2  and started from scratch i.e. a new character since there were significant changes. I tried necromancer and quite like it. I now have separate builds for PVE (minion master) and PVP (condi + boon corruption) since boon corruption is usually useless in PVE. However, I'm sad that Arena.net (the developer) has broken the game with the introduction of the last expansion, Heart of Thorns ("HoT"), which comes with a new specialisation tree. It seems that (at least according to forum, reddit etc) it's always the case that the best builds utilise this new tree. That means non-HoT players are at a disadvantage especially in PVP. It also severely reduces the variety of builds. On top of this major flaw, they also increased the amount of grinding for opening up desired traits. This...

When I first saw this from afar, I thought it was just a normal advert for FF's bags. But on closer inspection... Those were actual bags! Though the small bags on the right didn't really fit together with the photographed scene, the backpack did. Clever.

Atlas Reactor ended its Beta phase with 10-day Open Beta from 15 Sep - 25 Sep. I was happy to see an influx of new players and some even bought the game during this period (as I surmised from the presence of many players using the title "Founder"). During the last weekend of this Open Beta, they conducted a second round of ranked match playtest. The 1st round was conducted weeks ago, where I played only 4 matches. My heart couldn't take it lol. Old already :) Needed 10 placement matches to get initial rank. Fortunately, they counted matches from previous round and so I needed to do only 6 more but that too took me a while (because of my damn heart beating fast!). I played Aurora when no one on my team wanted to play support. Otherwise, I played Grey, which I was most comfortable with at that time. At the end of the placement matches, I was ranked this: According to their first post on the 1st round of playtest , there were 7 divisions altogether i.e. Bronze to C...

I was so busy on the day my dad discharged from hospital  (recuperating at Ban's place) that for the first time ever I forgot Ban's and my anniversary until late at night @@. Since Ban had family dinner celebration the next night, I planned to have a more-expensive-than-usual dinner to celebrate two nights later but was concerned about my dad's condition. Fortunately, my dad was fine with our plan and in fact both my parents encouraged us to go out to celebrate by ourselves. For that, I'm grateful :) We had a wonderful time dining at Kinpachi . Besides the usual salmon sushi and amaebi sushi, I also had fried soft-shell crab (with an unusual mild spicy taste) and salmon handroll. All were great but I probably wouldn't order amaebi sushi again (if I can remember!) because of its small size and so it's better to order salmon sushi which is cheaper. We chit-chatted about a variety of topics, taking our time with our dinner. We used Garmin to get home but we t...

I visited my dad the day after his surgery  during lunch time. Although he sounded weak, my mum and sister said he looked better than the night before. However, he was briefly alert when telling me about a powerful Pokemon he caught lol. There is this device that helps patient to exercise his lungs. The goal is to blow hard enough to float all 3 plastic balls to the top. At that time, my dad claimed that he could only support 2 balls but about 5 mins later, he managed to get all 3 balls up :) In the late afternoon during my second visit, yet again he looked so much better. I had high hope that he could be discharged earlier than norm. My only concern was that he felt a little stressed staying in hospital, because of pain (28 staples!!!), bloated stomach, constipation and a bed that caused pain at his lower back (apparently experienced by a few other patients too). Doctors who attended him generally agreed that his pace of recovery was faster than norm. In fact, the head of th...

On the day of my dad's surgery, I arrived at hospital at 12.15pm and discovered that my dad was wheeled into the operating theater at noon. Earlier, we were told that the operation would take about 3 hours. Given what happened to my mum , my dad wanted me to stay within the hospital compound during the duration of the operation. I was in the ward, reading a book and snoozing. At about 4pm, I was a little worried because no one told me anything. I figured that if I didn't receive any emergency call, that meant there was no problem. However, at 5.30pm, I asked a nurse in the ward for status update on my date, pointing out that it had been 5.5 hours since my dad left the ward. In short, she didn't know the actual status but she did say that sometimes patient is left in OT to rest before sent back to ward. Also, she spotted a doctor involved in the surgery and surmised that the operation was already over. About 3 hours later, I again asked for news. This time, they told me ...

In a past Actuaries Digital issue, Geoff Dunsford wrote to the editor giving his opinion "on feedback the Institute provided to the Government on its March Discussion Paper on the Objective of Superannuation." Among the things he said were: " The Actuaries Institute letter suggested that one of the objectives of superannuation should be “To supplement the Age Pension in order to provide a combined level of income that allows Australians to live a dignified retirement”. This statement suggests that the Age Pension is a fixed (universal) amount, whereas for most people on retirement, and for many years after, it will only be a part pension they receive. This is provided in accordance with the Means Test rules then current and there are no guarantees how these might change from time to time –  for then existing pensioners as well as new ones. To suggest that a part pension is the primary element in the superannuation system is arguably misleading. " Andrew Boal...

My dad is scheduled for a surgery to remove a cyst very soon in PJ. As a standard procedure, there will be a follow-up appointment 2 weeks after discharged. After staying at Ban's place for a night , he finally accepted my suggestion for him to recuperate here. He didn't want to because, understandably, he's more comfortable at his own home but ever since he discovered there are many Pokemons here...@@. So the plan is for my parents to stay at Ban's place and I'll be there until bedtime to take care of him. Ban and I will then sleep at his brother's place and return to Ban's place as early as possible in the morning the next day. After 2 weeks, I'll bring him to the follow-up appointment. The plan after that will depend on how well he recovers. I hope his surgery goes well. My mum had a near-death experience while undergoing a simple surgery and also during recovery and so it took us (my family) sometime to calm my dad's anxiety. I also hope ...

One of my favourite songs, especially its lyrics. I'll paint my mood in shades of blue Paint my soul to be with you I'll sketch your lips in shaded tones Draw your mouth to my own I'll draw your arms around my waist Then all doubt I shall erase I'll paint the rain that softly lands on your wind-blown hair I'll trace a hand to wipe out your tears A look to calm your fears A silhouette of dark and light While we hold each other oh so tight I'll paint a sun to warm your heart Swearing that we'll never part That's the colour of my love I'll paint the truth Show how I feel Try to make you completely real I'll use a brush so light and fine To draw you close and make you mine I'll paint the truth Show how I feel Try to make you completely real I'll use a brush so light and fine To draw you close and make you mine I'll paint a sun to warm your heart Swearing that we'll never part That's the colo...

I mentioned in the passing that Ban and I went to Butterworth. We stayed at my sister's place. More importantly, my parents were there too. Yes, it was the first time we stayed together with my parents after I came out to them I believed the 2-week stay went quite well, although Ban said it was quite "challenging" because of the new experience. My dad even took the trouble to remember what food Ban couldn't eat and what he didn't like to eat. My mum made the effort to converse with him. Ban himself made the effort to chit-chat with them. We both read bedtime story books to my nephew at night. My niece was so attached to Ban that on the day we left, she pleaded with him not to "go home" and then later cried wanting to go with us. Poor girl. My parents stayed a night at Ban's place (Ban and I stayed over at his brother's unit) and the next day had lunch with us as well as Ban's mum and brother. It went well...except that twice my dad pla...

Previously all life insurers had a Chief Actuary who typically reported to the CEO.  Of more importance than the formal reporting line was the role the Chief Actuary played.  The Chief Actuary had the necessary seniority, authority, serious board engagement and strategic contribution, that today APRA is requiring.  Over time many or most companies replaced the Chief Actuary title with the AA title.  Subtle though this change has been and minor in terms of replacing the word “Chief” with “Appointed”, I am of the view that this change has been a contributor to the “decline” in seniority / influence from this key actuarial role.  The focus somehow shifted to the listed duties of the AA and hence complying with prudential standards rather than the needed senior, authoritative, strategic contribution at senior executive and board level. - Lindsay Smartt, President of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia 2016 Interesting. Labels affect people of all age...

Just before we departed for Butterworth, Ban realised that his car road tax hadn't been renewed. Since it was going to expire during our stay there, I suggested using MyEG. For past few years, I had been using MyEG to renew my road tax and they had always delivered it the next business day. While that was true for Klang Valley area, their website stated that it would take up to 3 business days to deliver elsewhere in Peninsular Malaysia. Ban ordered his on Tuesday but due to some website/system/internet/goodness-knows-what errors, he ended paying four times. Had to call to get them initiate refund all but one (processed in 2 weeks...hopefully!). Yet by end of Friday it hadn't arrived. According to their website, they can be contacted "9am-7pm daily except for nationwide public holidays" but no one answered his call on Saturday despite trying for half and hour! On Monday, he managed to get them and they said that his road tax was printed on Thursday but they couldn...

I finally managed to dine here after planning to do so a few times. I recently went there with Ban and his brother. Previously, I looked through their menu and determined that the prices were reasonable. I chose their Pho Beef Combination (RM18.90) as a test case of their food. When it arrived, I had expected to be able to smell the beef soup but I couldn't and so I was a little apprehensive. Fortunately, the soup was quite delicious and more fragrant than the usual. Another feature that set it apart was that beansprout and mint leaves were already inserted into the soup (rather than on a separate plate). Both looked fresh. The noodle itself was quite normal. Beef ball was tasty but seems small. There was, however, a clump of rather tough beef: quite a glaring aberration. Overall, its soup is better than that of Vietnamese Kitchen  but portion seems smaller. Since it wasn't too bad, I would try again to ascertain its consistency. Incidentally, sadly Du Vi...

In the process of applying for a job in Singapore , Ban discovered that his passport had expired nearly 6 months ago @@. We were worried because it was a hassle then to renew passport due to limited number of passports issued at each immigration office. If I'm not mistaken, this whole debacle came about because the passport vendor printed passports that didn't meet the new features. So that resulted in severe shortage of passports. After enquiring with friends and family, Ban decided to start queuing at the Kelana Jaya office by 6am @@. The poor guy didn't sleep well the night before and ended sleeping only about 4 hours :( There was already a queue when he reached there. As these queue slots were so precious, an attempt by a man to jump queue was quickly rebuffed and reprimanded. Yay! Once office opened, Ban managed to get queue number 41. Despite lack of sleep, he was alert enough to ask the officer at the queue counter whether it would be a problem if the chip on his...

When I first started playing Atlas Reactor , it was still free-to-play but restricted to a handful of freelancers on a rotational basis. I gravitated to the only support character available during that particular rotation: Aurora. Soon I found her quite difficult to play, despite the supposedly "easy" difficulty classification. Later I found out that except for  Quark , all supports do not have any Dash ability. Hence, playing support was difficult without that obvious escape mechanism. Perhaps because of this or not, Quark became my choice for support. But much later, for reasons that I forgot, I tried Aurora again and prioritised trying to survive should she be cornered or chased by enemies. Hmmm I vaguely remember one particular game where I was amazed by how good an Aurora player survived onslaught by enemies. Perhaps that was an impetus to revisit this character. Her main ability (with no cooldown) is Shock Therapy (Blast), which damages enemies and heals allies...

Back in June, I tried to renew my REP online (expiring in Sep this year) but predictably it wasn't successful. "Are you currently living in Singapore?" No. "Are you currently working in Singapore?" No. (N.B: questions aren't verbatim). However, recently I re-read the e-mail response and noted that I will lose my Singapore PR if I remain outside Singapore without a valid REP. In other words, I get to keep my PR if I stay in Singapore, right? I then e-mailed ICA on a Friday night asking this question and stating that I plan to move back to Singapore in a few weeks time. In addition, I would establish (have to do this anyway) a sole proprietorship business to provide freelance actuarial work for qualified actuaries in Singapore. On Saturday morning, I then re-applied online to renew my REP but this time adding some information explaining why I was not working in Singapore and that I plan to move back to Singapore after my dad's surgery in September. T...

My mum bought this recently from Tesco and knowing that I like this snack, she left some for me. The taste is quite good. Not too salty and can taste the lentil. However, what was more interesting was the writing on the package such as "guilt free", "And all this stuff also lah..." and the best part was in its list of ingredient: "plenty of love and care". Kudos to designer!

Similar to Bastion , Torbjorn is also a scourge of newbies. Actually, it is both Torbjorn and his turret and at times, it's only the latter that matters. His turret is unique because it'll automatically turn and shoot, with unerring accuracy, at enemies that come into view. Obviously that means positioning matters but that itself is not easy to determine because ideally it should be positioned such that it can shoot as many enemies as possible and yet protected from range guerrilla attack. Consider corners and rooms. Maybe even on higher ground but you have to watch for enemies walking up the same way you did to place that turret. When Torbjorn first places the turret, it's only level 1 and has 150 hp with slow firing rate. With 6 swings of his hammer (when it's at full health), he can upgrade it to level 2 with 300 hp and faster firing rate. Level 3 (800 hp and even faster firing rate) can only be temporarily obtained by using his ultimate ability Molten Core. To...

Actually, it's not an alarm. Turns out that my lucky break is false :( My agent said that the (potential) new tenant didn't confirm. He had been quite meticulous in his job so far and hence for this to happen (i.e. to tell me he had "secured" a tenant and yet later fell through) is quite puzzling. So now we're back to marketing my condo unit for sale and rent. Upon my request, he sent me links to the advertisements he put out in a popular website. I noticed that unlike the one for rent, the sell advert had old photos that were taken when I was still staying there. They were the same photos used for the rent advert almost a year ago which resulted me in requesting more recent photos to be used. I immediately asked him to use the most recent photos (or at least the same ones as those in the rent advert) for the sell advert. Hopefully I'll get a genuine lucky break soon!

Sometime last month, I received bad news from my agent that tenant that we got since Feb  had invoked the diplomatic clause because his company his sending him back to home country :( As usual, I checked Propertyguru and URA to get some data on current market rental rate but this time I also checked market selling price too. To my surprise, although the former had dropped significantly the last 2 years, the latter hadn't changed by much. Doing some calculation, I determined that the proceed of a sale at current price - less money to be returned to CPF, outstanding home loan, legal fee, agent commission - could earn more than the current rental rate (net of relevant ongoing expenses and taxes) if invested in shares with dividend yield of 5%. So far, the historical dividend yield of my portfolio is 6% and so 5% is a little conservative. Sounds good, right? However, that would mean all my investment will be in shares and that's scary given the fact that I'm not an expert a...

Imagine you own a company that manufactures and sells bread making machines. You're approached by another company that wants to make and sell bread but doesn't have the machines to do so. They want to lease your machines to do so. You then proceed to make the appropriate calculations and quoted them a leasing fee, which they accepted. Years later, your client decided not to renew the leasing agreement. In fact, they are going to make their own machine just to produce and sell bread. They then propose to engage you to perform regular quality assurance checks on both the machine and the bread. You determine that this cost much lesser than leasing out your machine and so quoted a significantly lower fee for such checks. In the course of your review, you notice striking similarities between their and your machine. In fact, they even copied your unique identification number of the machine you leased to them before. How will you feel? Furious, right? You would have earned so much...

"-grateful that he's healthy," Rahim Khan was saying. "I know, I know. But he's always buried in those books or shuffling around the house like he's lost in some dreams." "And?" "I wasn't like that." Babab sounded frustrated, almost angry. Rahim Kahn laughed. "Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors". - "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini.

"Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. Do you understand?" ...... "When you kill a man, you steal a life," Baba said. "You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a life, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. Do you see?" ...... "If there's a God out there, then I would hope he has more important things to attend than my drinking scotch or eating pork. Now, hop down. All this talk about sin has made me thirsty again." - "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini.

I've been meaning to dine at Dave's Deli ever since I looked at its menu at its outlet in One Utama. However, since I wanted to help my parents to buy a particular muesli at Atria's Village Grocer (which, as it turns out, they don't stock any more!), I went to the outlet there instead. Food were all pre-cooked and so I got mine immediately. I had to order and collect at the counter, similar to fast-food restaurants. Guess that explains why there was no service charge. I had their Dave's Original 1/4 Roast Chicken (RM19.60 nett) which came with mashed potato, salad and coleslaw. I also ordered a glass of warm filtered water (RM0.50 nett). The mashed potato was smooth and tasty. The salad (well, it was strictly only lettuce) and coleslaw were quite normal but of generous portions. The chicken was unfortunately a little dry despite it being made up of drumstick and thigh part. Imagine how dry the breast part would be. However, that was sufficiently compen...

Junkrat is one of my favourite heroes I use mainly for King of the Hill (KotH) maps and some Capture Points maps when on defense. In fact, for the competitive mode, I only use Mercy, Lucio, Junkrat and sometimes D.Va. His Frag Launcher, with no cool-down, throws out grenades. He can throw out 5 grenades before needing to reload. It has both direct and splash damage (the former is bigger). Due to its splash damage, it takes less aiming than, say, McCree or Soldier 76 but on you still have to learn to aim at a certain area to hit them as those grenades would bounce maybe twice before exploding on their own. Since I'm not a good FPS player, this suits me better :) He can also throw Concussion Mine (with cool-down) and manually explode it to damage enemies. It does the same damage as the direct damage of his grenade but with an additional effect: it bounces enemies up in the air. It's great to change the direction of enemies' shot especially then they're using ultimate....

As I mentioned in the passing in this post , my laptop's OS qualified for free upgrade to Windows 10. Since Microsoft will stop (or has stopped already) supporting Windows 8, I really don't see the upgrade as a choice and so I upgraded. It was quite a fast and painless experience. Dell made it easier by telling me my Alienware laptop was ready for the upgrade without issues as they had checked and tested the model. As usual, I searched the internet and changed some settings to suit my personal taste as well as minimise privacy intrusion (especially information passed to Microsoft via Cortana!). Upon completion of the upgrade, this was what I got on the screen: Okkkkkk. Good to know, I supposed. But wait a minute: why would they want to insert this message?Does this mean in previous upgrades, some files were moved?

For almost two weeks, Atlas Reactor (still in beta) was open to everyone and it was great to see many new players trying this game. Even better, I personally heard some players planning to buy or had already bought this game after trying it out for a few days. Awesome :) In the midst of this open access period, they also introduced a new Freelancer: Blackburn, a firepower. So I, along with many people, was keen to try him out. Unsurprisingly, there were duplicates regularly and sometimes I was forced by the game to choose another Freelancer. Seeing that my team didn't have a frontline, I chose Asana whom I've been actively leveling up recently. This game was spectacular for a couple of reasons: (1) We had no death! Yes, we won 5-0 on turn 15. Mind you, I didn't think we were stomping over the opposing team. I suspect that we somehow did more focus firing than them. At the end of the game, our Quark player was amazed that no one died - a first for him as a support :)...

Such a curious advertisement. It appears to say that previously you saved RM11.80 but now you save "just RM1"? Of course it's not meant to be that way but I can't make head or tail out of this. What do you think it should be and how it should have been better stated?

My Quark has finally hit the max level of 10! I then get to unlock what I think is the best skin (Radium) that can be purchased with in-game currency. The default starting skin is Xenon, which is not bad looking. This level 6 skin, Radon, is too garish for me lol. So I never use it: This level 8 skin, Neon, is the next best in my opinion although someone did say that it makes him look like a candy @@. Oh, I also started using a different modifier for his ultimate ability Positronic Surge. Previously , I used the default modifier, Power Surge, which grants allies might for that turn. However, at times this was a waste because my allies were running away instead of dealing damage to enemies. This is not surprising though because Quark's ultimate ability heals allies and so I try to use it when healing is needed for multiple allies. So now I use the modifier Luminosity which heals allies for 5 health a turn for the next 2 turns. I believed this is more co...