Here's My Story

In recent months, Digi texted me a couple of times the following message: "Your SIM is not compatible with 4G! Upgrade to a 4G SIM for FREE at your nearest Digi Kiosk NOW! Find yours here https://digi.my/3gsr4" When I first received it, I was like, "Ok, I'll do it when it's convenient and if I remember." The message didn't sound urgent, did it? When they texted me again a month later, I was curious to find out location of the nearest kiosk and so I clicked on the link. Lo behold, the site pratically shouted the message that 3G is ending on 31st Dec this year! Lol, why didn't Digi just blare out this crucial message in the text message? Haiz. I panicked a little because I wasn't sure whether my phone was 4G compatible or not. It's compatible with 2G, 3G and LTE. I totally forgot about my research when I was about to buy this phone.  So I started researching once again. I wanted a small phone to fit into my pocket but the two I found cost betw...

This was my second time dining at this restaurant. The first time I had their Pad Thai, which was one of the better ones I had in recent memory. This time, I had Pad See Ew. Taste was just right but it was a little greasy. Pleasantly surprised over the fresh vegetable. There were 2 pieces of....fried flour? Strange. Mek Siam's Pad See Ew is better but unfortunately that restaurant closed down earlier this year :(

Since there was no improvement at all after taking glucosmaine, chondroitin and MSM for 70 days, I doubted another 20 days would make a difference. Hence I made an appointment to consult an orthopaedic at Pantai Hospital Ampang, who were highly recommended by a friend who is a doctor. The appointment time given was between 10am and 12.30pm on a first-come-first-serve basis. Despite not being a early morning riser, I made the effort to arrive just before 10am and I was glad I did that: I was the third patient when I arrived. After giving a historical account of my knee joint issue, interpersed with questions by the specialist, his preliminary diagnosis was patellofemoral pain syndrome (same as my latest guess ). Physical examination of the knee, and X-ray (taken from 3 different angles) confirmed this diagnosis. The X-ray also showed that the left knee joint is starting to show signs of degradation as well, despite not presenting any discomfort at the moment, but it did so 20 years ago...

This game is based on D&D 5e system, incorporating material from SRD and filling up the rest with their own. I was initially dismayed that it wasn't multiplayer and so it's not simulating the tabletop experience. However, after Ban started playing, I soon followed suit and I loved it! In fact, I am playing a player-made module now. Now, let me say that if you're not a fan of 5e, you won't like this game. I came across a player who complained about the cleric's ability of which later some of us concluded that it is by design, not the game developer's fault. There's, however, one rather major issue for me: except for 2 major encounters, all others were easy past level 5. My best guess is that overall challenge rating (CR) of the encounters was not high enough but if they were, which is quite likely because Solasta follows 5e almost all the way, then I don't know why. Here are some interesting videos: Each time my characters leveled up, game swapped wea...

Grrr it happened again: this time it was the Duchy of Greater Poland and the County of Lesser Silesia. I don't know why! Fortunately, since they are within my de jure empire and their rulers' rank was at least two level below mine, I could easily vassalise them. After about 5.5 years of war, my vassal King of Galicia-Volhynia successfully claimed the Kingdom of Novgorod. I then created a duchy and vassalised a chief of a single county. Luckily gift of some gold managed to persuade him to overcome our cultural difference. Thereafter I granted the duchy title to its de jure liege i.e. my vassal King of Chernigov. So compared to before this 'indendepence' bug happened, I gained one county due to war, one duchy due to inheritance (which i granted to my brother), and one kingdom indirectly due to inheritance by a vassal but threat level jumped sky high. Haiz.   I fabricated two out of three counties that constituted the Duchy of Vologda. Later, I was lucky to notice sudden c...

Top Catch Fisheries @Taman Megah is our first choice shop to get fresh salmon. Before coming across this shop, we got it from Jaya Grocer. Although a little more expensive, Top Catch's fresh salmon is of better quality. Their fresh scallop is also one of the best, easily beating many Japanese restaurant's scallop sashimi. I usually preorder the salmon via WhatsApp and then pick it up on that day, bypassing queue, if any. It's the easiest. I sometimes also got their nori (seaweed) full cut, which is cheap: 50 pieces for RM 40. On a recent trip, just before we left, a staff gave this plant to us: She claimed that it's a small version of pegaga plant. It's cute! Hope it'll survive. Edit: I heard "penaga". William corrected me. Thank you.

King of Chernigov approached me with a marriage proposal for someone else. As expected, he left defensive pact to do that and so I declared war to press a claim for a vassal, which I won. Unbeknown to me, I controlled enough demense within the Kingdom of Chernigov to usurp the title. I remembered that I tried to do that earlier but game told me I couldn't usurp title from someone of different religion. The king was now Orthodox. Maybe he was Pagan previously? Can't remember. I made the mistake of not trying to vassalise remaining rulers before granting the kingdom title to a vassal. However, I'm certain I cannot vassalise them because they were all Pagan rulers, except for one Orthodox ruler. So at most, vassalise only one? The silver lining was that I didn't increase threat level even more by vassalising. I was keen to get the threat level sufficiently down to press my fabricated claims on a couple of pagan rulers. In the midst of my wars, somehow this kingdom gained i...

Best fried banana is the one sold at SS2 by a stall situated underneath a tree at a corner of a road, just opposite a mamak shop. When Ban's grandpa was around, it was a must to make a trip to buy these bananas. They used to have a branch at Dataran Prima but it closed down :( Another place is a stall at One Utama LG floor. We seldom go to that mall but if we do, I almost always buy some. It's expensive though: RM 2.20 each! Well, I rarely have it anyway.

Pope called for the fourth crusade. Target: Jerusalem, for the second time. I was thinking how long would it take for him to do that because it was lost before Aquitine was lost and regained. I had other ideas though: first time I asked to change to target on a pagan ruler that held land de jure of Kingdom of Vladimir, a kingdom that I was interested in because it forms part of the Slavic Union empire. I was tempted to claim the title for myself as I thought it was possible to shoulder the -20 opinon from the Pope but negated by +15 for Crusader trait. However, I tried a different route that's inspired by my previous campaign: nominate a beneficiary who is father of one of my vassals. In this case, it was even better that the vassal was the beneficiary's only son, so that the kingdom would pass to him upon beneficiary's death and, I would think, it would fold into my realm. Yes, we won the crusade and, due to early preparation and the short distance to the battleground from...

Noodle in PJ has gone up in price this year to RM 7 - RM 7.50. It's crazy. This makes me appreciate JJ Budget's RM 5.50 noodle, especially the wantan mee, which is one of the best I've ever had. So usually I refrain from having noodle here in PJ and have more in Butterworth, which cost around RM 2 less at similar establishment. However, due to the various MCOs and the pandemic in general, we haven't been to Butterworth for 16 months until recently to take care of my mum .  The one dish I must have is char kuay teow at this small zinc-roofed coffee shop. Personally, it's the best char kuay teow thus far. It cost RM 4.50 for the small size, extra RM 0.20 for duck egg. More than 4 years ago, it was RM 3.80. Inflation is smaller compared to here in PJ. Thankfully, it was still as delicious! I had it twice haha.