Here's My Story

About two working days after our last chat , technician told me they tried what I suggested and there was still no error. That's good news. He also advised me to recharge only when battery got low e.g. 20% because battery life is measured by cycles of recharge and so effectively I was shortening its life by habitually recharging it at 70% (or more). The battery lasts for a long time and more so for me because I don't use it to play games or watch videos. As to the error I encountered, he and his colleagues concluded that an app that I installed was interfering with the security system of the phone. Mainstream apps shouldn't be the problem. To be thorough, I was supposed to test installed app by repeating the recharging process (from 20% or less) before installing the next app. I had 10 apps to install @@. Then I had a thought: 8 of those apps I had installed on my old Samsung phone and that didn't cause the error. Is it then likely they're not the culprits? Technici...

My aunt's friend is convinced that the actual number of daily new cases of Covid-19 is LOWER because we should have achieveds herd immunity already. Her reasons: vaccination rate of around 80% with daily new cases of 20k-30k. So it's not logical that we still have such high number of daily cases. So she told my aunt that the govt is hiding the actual lower number to scare us into obedience, presumedly because they want us to continue following strict SOPs. Well, if that's the case, why are we opening up on 1st April and therefore letting go of many strict SOPs? Maybe it'll be an April Fool's joke 😂 Instead, if the aim is to get us to adopt strict SOPs, the government should be adopting China's zero Covid-19 policy: no opening up until there's no more case. None of the vaccine provide 100% protection vs Covid-19, regardless of variant. Hence, even the vaccinated ones can be infected. Re Omicron, the chances of getting infected is higher than that of other va...

I was surprised that the heir to this kingdom was willing to accept invitation to my court. Maybe he couldn't wait to be king and thought I would press his claim to the throne, something I wouldn't do because it would set war against the whole world. I wanted to grant him one of my titural kingdom title so that when he inherits Sardinia and Corsica, that would fold into my realm. I totally forgot that he had to be at least a count to be granted that titural title. I later created a duchy title, out of the demenses of my vassals. I normally would have granted it to their liege king to improve my relationship with my vassal king but I thought maybe I could grant it to a baron and later grant the newly installe duke a titular kingdom title. So I granted one of my spare baronies to the heir of Sardinia and Corsica but he couldn't accept that duchy title. I then suffered penalty of 15 in opinion, in total, with all vassals by firstly, transferring a count out of my vassal king (...

Since the good new s, it's been bad news since. After some time of not receiving any news from the seller, I messaged them and they gave me the tracking number. Look at these:   ******************************************************************* It was much later that the seller told me that they had been checking up on this daily and even emailed Shopee about this problem. I don't know why they didn't tell me this earlier: I was enquiring every few days and yet there was hardly any initiative from them to update me. Lackadaisical. Then one day, they asked me to contact Shopee to expedite this. Not sure whether it was due to this or simply a combination of everyone's effort, it was finally delivered the next day. Took them 7 freaking days! Courier, my foot! Remember how Shopee said that the seller agreed to change the item for me? Turned out it was conditional upon their technicians confirming that the issue I reported was a manufacturing defect. Logical but oh boy, bum...

I was keen on Kingdom of Iraq, as it was just right next to my realm. I was contemplating whether I should just grant the title for myself, risking the ire of the Pope (-20 opinion for next 20 years for being a "self-serving crusader"). Trying to duplicate the previous strategy, I tried searching for a dynastic member who was a parent to my vassal king but there was none. Then I had this thought: I could make a vassal duke or count, of my dynasty, a king by granting him a titular kingdom title and nominate his parent, whoever was of my dynasty, as the beneficiary of the crusade. I managed to do just that :) I won but unfortunately I forgot to state my stance i.e. to grant the title to my beneficiary. The game, evidently, defaulted to me wanting the title, despite the fact that I had already nominated a beneficiary! Grrr. I planned to take back the titular kingdom title, Kabulistan, when I got much older but then I thought how suitable it was for that vassal that I grant...

It was by chance I noticed their standing banner proclaiming that they sell coconut shake. So I asked Ban to do a u-turn to drop by their shop (at Aman Suria, same row as Hogn Leong bank), which is half of a shoplot, shared with a laundromat. It might be a little hard to spot their shop because the laundromat's signboard is occupying the standard position. It was delicious, especially with the bits of nuts and desiccated coconut sprinkled on top but be warned that it might be a little rich for some people. The gula Melaka version, which I tried next, was too rich for me. My third try was the coconut smoothie, which was more to my liking. It's quite expensive though but then again The Alley has raised my favourite drinks by RM 2.

So, right after this child-king ascended the throne, game told me that Kingdom of Carinthia might leave my realm upon succession. His heir was the King of Nubia and the second in line was the Nubian king's son, who wasn't the heir to Nubia though due to elective succession law. I thought killing the Nubian king would solve the problem, although it might be temporary, depending on whether his son then became next in lin to inheirt Nubia. But my plot power was only about 60% and the single attempt was botched, angering both father and son. Then for whatever reasons, the heir to Carinthia was switched the the young Nubian prince. I wasn't sure and so I checked and confirmed this: where a title leaves or comes into the realm depends on the primary title of the successor. So, if the Nubian prince becomes king and then later inherit Carinthia, the latter would leave my realm because Nubia is his primary title. Hence, the solution, all along, is to kill the young Carinthian king s...

Unfortunately, there was a problem with this phone : at least once a day, after finished charging, it would say, "PIN is required when you restart your device" (I had activated facial recognition) even though I didn't restart the phone before or while charging it. I vaguely recall that this did happen to my old phone every now and then but not daily! I tried a different outlet for charging but it still occurred. Factory reset didn't work either. I was afraid that there was something wrong with the motherboard, one of the reasons given online. So I told the Shopee seller about this problem and asked whether I could get a replacement. They offered to check the phone. I was concerned about the timing: I had like about 3 days left of the "15 Days Return" period and so I reiterated by preference for replacement.  I proceeded with the Return/Refund request via Shopee and said, "It'll be great if I can get a replacement". Understandably they wanted me...

I was surprised to receive a letter from Great Eastern, addressed to the estate of my dad: Terminal bonus is the final bonus paid upon termination of the policy due to claim or maturity. In my dad's case, it was paid, together with "interim bonus" upon claim. So my initial best guess was that this additional terminal bonus was determined after the actuary's periodic analysis in determining bonuses, usually done once a year. However, this came nearly two years after they paid the death claim . So my second guess was that this was an attempt at correcting a mistake in the calculation. Regardless, they could have kept quiet and no one would have known. Terminal bonus rate isn't known in advance and there doesn't seem to be a requirement to disclose its calculation. So I'm impressed that Great Eastern did this. This is the third time we had good experience with Great Eastern. We're grateful. Thank you.

If I had piety to spare, I would have changed the target to a kingdom to the east, next to my realm but my ruler was gunning for Paragon of Virtue. I wasn't keen enough on Maghreb to annoy the Pope by taking the title for myself. So, once again, I tried to find a member of my dynasty who was a parent to a vassal king but there was none. I remembered what happened to Kingdom of Arabia and so started searching for siblings with no children and past child-bearing age. No such luck: all my siblings had children. The I noticed that my daughter didn't have children, although past the normal child-bearing age (although there was still a chance she would have a child soon). She had the Chaste trait too. Nice. So I nominated my daughter and after we won the crusade, I checked and discovered that I was next in line to inherit her kingdom while my son was the second in line. Excellent!   I noticed that after each crusade, there were a few rulers who left defensive pact against me. So, aft...