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Showing posts from September, 2023

Sticking to exercise

Since the last appointment , my mum's hand's tremor was lessening but later because she stopped exercising for a while (grieving over the death of her beloved dog), it worsened a little. Then it got better after she gradually got back to exercise and still have room to improve when it was time to meet the psychiatrist again. This time, a senior psychiatrist (in terms of experience, not age) attended my mum. She asked the usual questions e.g. "Any problem? Anything disturbing you?" Mum told her that she was still grieving over the death of her beloved dog and that she stopped exercising for a while. She also had trouble with getting good sleep i.e. took sometime to fall asleep and sometimes couldn't really sleep. The doctor advised her to adopt better sleep hygiene e.g. use bed only for sleeping (and not for watching shows on phone), don't watch drama at least 1 hour before bedtime. At the same time, she told mum that it's normal to sleep less as one ages. ...

Shoddy journalism #3

(Emphasis is mine, to show the mistakes) 1. The Star article "New curriculum reflects Education Ministry's commitment to transform education, say parents and teachers". Sentence "...which also takes into account the views of experts, stakeholders and the general publicm was also an effort to ensure..." 2. Malaymail article"MIC veep says Indians won’t be ‘kingmakers’ in Pulai polls". Sentence "He said that Anwar had gave him a year to look at the problems and issues involving the Indian community in this country." 3. Malaymail article"In Johor’s twin by-elections today, can Pakatan harness BN's support to keep Perikatan at bay?". Sentence "PAS candidate Dr Mohd Mazri Yahya, 54, is a consultant surgeon nd former Johor deputy chief for the Islamist party." and sentence "...recently joined PAS’ relief mission toTurkiye this year."

14th anniversary

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We recently celebrated our 14th anniversary. Normally, we would dine at Kinpachi but Ban's mum planned to have her birthday dinner there the next day. Although we didn't mind dining there twice in a row, we decided to have something different: Seremban beef noodle at KBN, followed by souffle at Soufflé Dessert Cafe. We planned to share the souffle, like what we did before, because it is too much for one person. The Seremban beef noodle portion is slightly lighter than the usual meal and hence there will be room for dessert. As usual, we parked at Starling Mall and we were about to walk out of the mall when I noticed on Google that KBN is close on Wednesday. Gah. Ban suggested a few places in the mall itself. Although he let me decide, I chose his preferred venue i.e. Ramen Hitoyoshi. We chose ramen dishes that were more expensive than the usual ones we would have when we dine there. Delicious as usual but I think the size of meat shrank substantially. After dinner, we started w...

Rude but healthy drink

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Sharp left ear

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This earphone , purchased back in 2020, didn't even last a month. So I returned it to Gadgeto for another one. This one, if I recall correctly, lasted for about 2 years. Both, like the previous one, stopped working on the left side. Consistently left side. So this time, I shopped around and bought Lenovo HE05X wireless corded earphones. It cost RM 23.50 (discounted from RM 68), before the cost of shipping was included. I loved the freedom of using wireless earphones. However, about 10 months later, sound from its left side was barely audible. Gah. I'm now considering accumulate enough Air Asia points (via my CIMB Air Asia Saver Award) to redeem the Sony WI-C100 wireless earphones, the same one which I redeemed for Ban (it's been good so far for him), unless someone strongly recommends me another. My sister did recommend Bose but it's that bulky type that covers the ears. Though I don't doubt her claim that it's comfortable, it's too bulky to be transported. ...

Baldur's Gate 3: Destroying goblins

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I didn't kill any goblins in Blighted Village. I did, however, kill a sleeping creature and these two lovebirds:   Next, I poisoned their cauldron of alcohol, just outside the door of the temple. I then killed one of their 3 leaders, Priestess Gut:   I opened the gate of the spiders and let them kill a few goblins around there before they were killed by the remaining goblins. That surprised me. The next leader, Minthara, was my target: Freed Halsin and killed the goblins there: Finally, killed the top boss with a bang: I didn't bother to kill any others. According to Zevlor, goblins are usually disorganised and so having killed their leaders, they should pose no treat to the refugees. However, in my second run as a pallock (paladin + warlock), I may kill as many goblins as possible because Ban said that they are considered evil in Faerun.

Blessings

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Thank you Churn's staff for gamely letting me take this photo:

Cholesterol 2023: Part 3

 Here are the results compared to 4 months ago :                                 May 2023              Ref              Sep 2023            Ref Total cholesterol           5.9               < 5.2                  5.1               <5.2 HDL ("good")              1.59         ...

Baldur's Gate 3: The Grymforge (mis)adventure

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The first neutral/friendly people I met in the Underdark were the "fungus people" at the Myconid colony. They told me of the duegars slaughtering their people, whose leader then gave me the quest of killing the intruders. I also spoke with a gnome who escaped slavery from the duegars, which then started the quest of saving the remaining enslaved gnomes. I was quite pumped up to punish those slavers. First encounter was with the duegar intruders: Except for the "end turn" bug, it wasn't much of a problem. Doing that opened up the next quest by the fungus people's leader: killing the leader of the duegar who, strangely, is a drow. He, the rest of the duegars and the enslaved gnomes were in a seprate area called Grymforge. I needed to take a boat to cross the lake to get there and then this happened: Judiciously use of a particular arrow made this battle quite easy :) At this point, I felt great, already having killed quite a number of these slavers. At dock, t...

Baldur's Gate 3

My wish for a computer game version of D&D 5e came true with the launch of this game. In fact, in general, this game changed certain rules/mechanis that made it better than 5e. The glaring exception is druid's Wild Shape (not elaborating this, not in this post anyway). I was willing to wait for a sale in future to buy it but Ban surprised me buy gifting me a copy. Muack! I've been wanting to play a game that Ban would also play at the same time, so that we can chat about it enthusiastically. Unfortunately, he wasn't interested in Dungeon Siege III , which was the last game I completed (4 playthroughs!). Hence, I in turn gifted him a copy of BG3 since I knew he was keen on getting it :) I decided to choose a class that is absent among the companions (those who are available in Act 1) and going alphabetically, I chose Bard for my first playthrough. So, currently my party composition consists of a Lore bard, Battlemaster fighter (Laezel), Tempest cleric (Shadowheart, respe...