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Showing posts from November, 2019

Another downhill

After taking Oxynorm twice daily , dad's breathlessness is gone. However, during the period before the next appointment, more symptoms (re)appeared: Huge lump going to the back. It's now painful even without touching it. Previously was painful only if touched. Leg pain. Leg pain when first start walking but subside a little if keep on walking. Knee pain.  Back pain.  Eyeball pain. Much better now after eyedrop from Penaga KK. Vomit quite regularly.  Numbness until pain.  Blood in urine. Twice past 2 months. During that period, dosage of adhoc medicine taken was: Oxynorm breakthrough 3 times a day on top of the 2 times daily intake for breathlessness. Norgesic 2-3 times a day. Seldom take paracetamol.  During the next appointment with PCU: Worried about lump (afraid might be the cause of bad bowel movement) Pain: Fentanyl 75mcg (increased from 50), Oxynorm 10gm 3x daily (from 2x). Take breakthrough when needed Constipation: she felt his passing motion was not

Partial deafness

Few weeks ago, after a swim, my right ear was clogged up. This does happen from time to time (to either ear) and it usually goes away after a while but not this time though. I know I shouldn't have done this: I used a cotton bud to try to absorb the excess liquid. I didn't push all the way in though. After it persisted for a few days, I consulted my GP. I visited him like 4 to 5 times for this issue, during which he prescribed: oral medicine and ear drop for inflammation, ear drop to get rid of wax, and papase On the last visit, he said the inner ear looked healthy and so my hearing should gradually get better. Admittedly, it was better than at the start but it was still not normal. So after a few more days, I consulted an ENT specialist at SJMC, Dr Sia. I told him everything. Fortunately I wasn't reprimanded for using the cotton bud 😄 After taking a look at both ears, he proceeded to clean both of them. Boy, there was lots of wax. More on the right side but th

Recurring illness

When I'm healthy, I eat well. Balanced meal. Rarely fried, oily or even spicy. I drink lots of water. I exercise for 40 minutes 5 to 7 times a week. I take multivitamins and mineral supplement. My only vice is sleeping late e.g. 2am. So I supposed this one weakness is the cause of my recurring illness ? Regardless, I should sleep much earlier. I can't remember how often I caught this illness when I was working full-time in Singapore. I definitely slept earlier then. Exercised for 1 hour 3 times a week. Healthy balanced meal overall. More stress though hehehe. The GP that I currently consult regularly seldom prescribe antbiotics. So, unless the symptoms are obviously serious, he won't prescribe it during the first consultation. However, I'm tempted to just ask him prescribe if I know it's this particular illness because in the past, I ended needing them anyway. So why not just cut short my suffering, right? Sleepness night is a torture.

Overwatch: fast capture!

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I rarely record a gameplay. This casual game, though, was interesting not only because of its fast capture but the manner of which we got both points. Oh, also I got Player of the Game :)

Underlords: the jostle for supremacy

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There are currently only two underlords: Anessix and Hobgen. I think there are two more incoming, judging from the pictures and emblems in game. One the first few days, Hobgen was popular, especially with 6-mage composition. Later, and what seems like a long time, Anessix became the favourite after players realised broken was the Break mechanism and her annoying heals. Hobgen came up top after a patch where both of these were nerfed. The sun didn't shine on Hobgen long enough: another patch recently nerfed him and possibly slightly buffed Anessix, depending on your view of the tweaks. It's simultaneously hilarious and sad. The game time is too long. They brought back round damage recently and that cut down the time by about 3 rounds. Still too long in my opinion. There's a danger that this game will slowly die because of lack of mobile gamers. Would you play a 45 - 60 min game on your mobile phone? Not likely, right? Here are the winning matches (29th to 36th win) aft

An Viet @Paradigm Mall

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The first time Ban and I ate at An Viet was at Gurney Plaza in Penang. We met my old-time friend and his boyfriend there. Years later, An Viet appeared at Paradigm Mall, coincidentally taking over the shoplot that used to be occupied by another Vietnamese restaurant. A unique feature of An Viet is this: there is no extra charge for ordering more noodle/rice and so they usually advise customers to take the smaller size if they are undecided on which one to choose (there are 3 sizes). Also, they'll make a 10 cents donation to a food programme for each table where all food has been consumed i.e. no leftover. Their soup is delicate and clear. Definitely not for fans of Seremban Beef Noodle. Admittedly, I prefer heavier flavour but it's nice to have this once a while. Unlike all other Vietnamese restaurants I've been to in Malaysia, you can have as much add-on vegetables and herbs as you want. Other restaurants always give paltry amount of beansprout and so I'm

D&D 5e: Fighter level 1 + Warlock level X

Turned out that our Cleric player couldn't make it and so I rolled out an alternate character i.e. Fighter 1 + Warlock 2 which I later I made permanent (rather than just ad hoc for the 2nd session) for the following reasons: There are 4 players. Ban will run the session as long as there are at least 3 players. So having only one tank means that there may be sessions that the party is without a tank, which had already happened twice in a row. Hence, as Ban mentioned to me privately earlier, we need at least 2 tanks. Key features of this tanky character: (1) One level dip into Fighter gives access to Heavy Armor (essential to be a tank) and Martial Weapon proficiencies, Second Wind every rest (short or long) which synergises with Warlock's feature of regaining expended spell slots every rest, higher starting hit point (by 2) and proficiency in Constitution saving throw which helps with maintaining concentration spells such as Hex and Darkness. This delays character's p

D&D 5e: Tomelock's ritual spells

We had a session where I played Warlock with Pact of the Tome (aka 'Tomelock') and boy the first encounter was much harder than it should be because our Life Cleric, who volunteered to be our sole tank, couldn't make it until much later. Player had emergency in real life. We did win the encounter but our Valor Bard had to roll death saving throws 😓 I might need to roll out my alternate character (Fighter level 1 + Warlock level 2) in case the Cleric player couldn't make it for second session (day after funeral 😢). From the encounter, I realised I underestimated the problem using Unseen Servant and Hex: they both use bonus action to give command and to transfer to another target, respectively. So I decided to drop the former and take up Speak with Animals, after having consulted the Bard player. As I stated in previous post, playing Tomelock effectively is dependent on GM giving avenues of looting/buying ritual spells to be scribed into the tome (same case for al

Bamboo noodle @ Family Mixed Rice

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Our regular chap fan shop moved a few shops away. In time, they also added 3 stalls serving bamboo noodle and Hakka noodle, Western food, and pork noodle. The last two are handled by the same vendor. The bamboo noodle is actually the typical wantan mee but using bamboo noodle. It's not flat like the typical wantan noodle and so far, it had no hint of chemical taste that sometimes comes with wantan noodle. This dish tasted exactly like wantan noodle but better: it was less greasy. The portion above was small and yet the amount of noodle was quite large and slightly more char siew than the typical wantan mee. I also asked for more vegetables. The wantan itself was probably the star of the dish: it wasn't dry and quite flavourful. Sometimes, if I don't particular like the meat dishes offered by the chap fan shop, I would order a bowl of wantan. RM 3 for 6 pieces, if I'm not mistaken, is a good deal, I think. The downside of this dish is its price tag: RM 7

D&D 5e: Warlock

Ban started another D&D 5e campaign, his 3rd time as a game master (GM) after one Ironclaw and one 5e. Because he intends for this campaign to last long enough fort our characters to hit level 12 (from 3), his mad husband scoured the player's handbook and looked at every single class and subclass for its feature up to that level 😅 I managed to trim the list down to 'only' 18 subclasses 😄: (1) Barbarian: Berserker (maybe) (2) Barbarian: Totem Warrior (maybe) (3) Bard: Lore (4) Bard: Valor (maybe) (5) Cleric: Life (if get Shillelagh via Magic Initiate) (5) Cleric: Light * (6) Druid: Moon (7) Monk: Open Hand (8) Monk: Shadow (9) Paladin: Devotion (10) Paladin: Veangence (11) Rogue: Assassin (maybe) (12) Rogue: Arcane Trickster (13) Sorceror: Draconic * (14) Warlock: Fiend * (15) Warlock: Great Old One (16) Wizard: Abjuration (17) Wizard: Conjuration (18) Wizard: Divination * denotes the 3 subclasses that made the cut. As always, I got Ban's