Here's My Story

My mum has been following up with the ophthalmologist until one day he finally recommended surgery to remove the cataract , unlike previously where he just asked us to consider. First hurdle was the specialist's concern over mum's heart condition. Fortunately, my mum came across a medical result of either an echocardiogram or the holter that apparently satisfied him. The surgery was scheduled at 11am. She could only have oat (no other food or drinks, except water of course) before that. As instructed, we arrived at 10.45am where they conducted a RTK Covid-19 test, thankfully negative, and got me to sign as witness to two forms before leaving her to their care (due to Covid-19, no carer was allowed in). I picked her up at around 1.30pm after receiving her call. I didn't receive call from staff, as supposed to be, due to a little misunderstanding: upon seeing my mum with her phone, they thought she was calling me and evidently didn't understand her when she asked them to...

My vassal King of Galicia-Volhynia declared war on another vassal, King of Novgorod, for his claim on the latter's kingdom. He succeeded and now he had the largest realm among my vassals. It latter split into two because of differing succession law. Novgorod's ruler was overthrown by a faction but the Galcian-Volhynia's king pressed his claim and reunited the two kingdoms again. Gosh, I have to make sure he's happy with me! Third crusade called by the Pope. I had participated in every crusade and made no exception to this. I didn't really want Egypt and so was just trying my best to land my brother, who was a title claimant to my empire. When we were clearly winning, I had to take a little break to beat off a pagan ruler  (Pruthenia) who declared war on me. As a side note, just a few years later, he turned Catholic and with monetary gift, I vassalised him. Phew!  Anyway, when I was about to return to the war on Egypt, the tide had turned: we had significant ...

Decades ago, to obtain membership fee waiver for credit card, I had to call up the bank to request for it. Later, there was also an alternative for Citibank credit card: log onto their internet banking and composed a mail within it. They usually replied next day. Then I discovered an even simpler way but this time by DBS bank: called their customer service hotline and it would be the very first option (press "0" iirc) after having chosen the language. Now it's easier: log on to their internet banking and then chat with the digibot. A few clicks later, it's done. 😲

On the way to creating the Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia. My previous ruler didn't expand the realm himself (I think his vassals did) because of defensive pacts and that he died quite young. That was disppointing. Right after the conquest of Kingdom of Novgorod, I noticed that Kievan Rus's ruler was also out of defensive pact but that pact was going to be filled up almost immediately after that conquest. So after standing down all my armies, I declared war on him.

When CPF LIFe was introduced and made mandataory for Singapore citizens and PRs, I was still working in Singapore as a PR. There were two or three options then of which one left nothing to beneficiaries, thereby maximising the monthly payout. That was the only option I wanted. However, after a year, CPF Board scrapped that option, citing the reason that few people took that option. I have a few issues with this decision. (1) The only people who could choose within that one year were those aged 55 and above. Any competent statistician would know that that is an insignificant sample size to draw any conclusion. (2) Any changes in CPF rules should have been grandfathered i.e.do not affect those are already CPF members and affect only new members. For Singaporeans, this matters because of voluntary top-up, transfer from OA to SA and usage of OA to purchase property and other uses. For foreigners, rules governing CPF benefits matters when considering whether to be PR or not. Imagine signing...

Although they were in a Pagan defensive pact against me, their total strength was manageable. Moreover, my ruler was already 51 years old, with fabricated claims on 3 out of 4 counties of High Chiefdom or Pruthenia. I thought of waging war on Pruthenia and also press ducal claim, for my vassal, on another pagan ruler. However, since the latter was dragged into the first war via the defensive pact, I couldn't declare war on her. I just need 4 counties to create Kingdom of Lithuania and Wendish Empire! I got super lucky to have captured the leader in the first major battle. Nice! After handily won the war against Pruthenia, I immediately pressed ducal claim on a pagan ruler to finally got the final county to establish Wendish Empire. Woot!

The A&W combo meal for its fried chicken cost RM 15.90, which included root beer which cost RM 3.90 ala carte.  Mineral water cost RM 2.50 ala carte. Swapping root beer in the combo for this drink cost additional RM 1.00. I asked the staff why did this cost more when mineral water was priced lower than the root beer but, as expected, they didn't know the answer. Tea costs RM 4.00 ala carte. Swapping root beer for this drink cost additional RM 1.20, which was a mere RM 0.20 more than the swap to mineral water despite costing RM 1.50 more ala carte. 😵 I chose to swap root beer with tea. Strangely, after verbally telling me the above pricing, they charged me only additional RM 0.50 for the swap. 😵

First time ever declared war on this order. I honestly thought I would vassalise them since I pressed a ducal claim. Hmmm. France, for some reasons, had land in the far east, land that I wanted because it forms part of Wendish Empire. In a previous revocation of infidel vassals and it subsequent civil war, I gave out as many demense to claimants of land that I'm eyeing. I couldn't get some of them because they refused to join court. So when I noticed France was attacking Umayyad Empire, I took the chance to declare war on them to press my (new) vassal's claim on the High Chiefdom of Livonia.

Whenever we have prawns and there are shells, I always use them to make prawn broth and then freeze it until it's used to make a soup dish that consisted (thrown in sequence) onion, enoki mushroom and mock snow crab leg meat. As with all broth, Ban can't stand the smell when I'm making it but he's more than fine to have the soup in the end. He especially loves watercress soup and ABC soup (with slightly more tomato) where I use homemade chicken broth. There was this time, though, where his mum gave us some very fresh prawns. She bought them live and concussed them in freezer before passing some to us. These prawns emitted stronger smell. I didn't mind but not Ban. I thought that as usual the end product, the soup, would be fine for him but he complained about it. First time. So the next time I cooked broth from shells of these prawns, I asked my family for advice on how to lessen the 'prawn-y' smell. Mum suggested ginger but we didn't have any that time....

Right after the crusade, I noticed that the rulers of these two realms had left the Pagan defensive pact against me. Checks in the ledger indicated that their combined army size should be manageable. Hence, I declared war on both. I aimed to finished the war on Mazovia first so that I could grant a county to the Lithuania claimant. I did started building a barony in my capital county as a back up. Fortunately, I inherited a barony and so I quickly granted it to that claimant. Won both wars quite handily. Phew! Now I need another 13 percent i.e. 8 more counties to create this empire. Let's go!