Here's My Story

We flew Jetstar to Melbourne for our 6-day vacatio n with my sister's family. Her family drove. Unfortunately, this happened:   There were repeated announcement of delays. When they announced the delayed time of 5.15pm, I suddenly recalled that there should be some sort of compensation if flight is delayed by 3 or 4 hours. Well, I was hungry and was hoping for a meal voucher haha. A check on Jetstar website confirmed my suspicion: 3-hour delay -> meal voucher. Jetstar, however, was quite slow in arranging the vouchers. Luckily, Canberra airport doesn't have immigration check (but there's custom check to get into the waiting area) and so anyone can go right up to the boarding gate without boarding pass. Hence, I exited the waiting area and went back to the check-in counter to enquire about meal voucher, which was issued within the next 10 minutes. It was AUD 8 per passenger. Compare that with the AUD 20 voucher from Qantas when flight was delayed by a mere 2 hours. Once ...

It took us a long time to visit De Sundays again. Probably 6 months. There were other eateries to try but I think the most important reason why it took that long was because of Jonnis Pasta stall at Seaview QQ Foodcourt. Sadly, the latter has closed down :( So last month, we dined at De Sundays for a second time and this time I chose something from their ad hoc menu: pan seared chicken leg (RM 23.90, before 10% service charge). Beautiful, isn't it? It was delicious and not rich. Vegetables were lacking though. Still, I would have this again.

Wuahaha. Yes, yet another bunch of statistics. I don't know about Spotify (I started using it this year) but this year is the first time Twitch and Steam provide such recap/review iirc. (1) 15 games played (Steam median = 4). 8 new games. (2) 147 achievements unlocked (Steam median = 16) across 9 games, including 30 rare achievements. (3) Longest streak: 217 days (Steam median = 5), across 13 games. (4) Top 3 games: Baldur's Gate 3 (43% of play time, 468 sessions played), Downfall - A Slay the Spire Fan Expansion (12%, 222), Minion Masters (11%, 159) (5)  25% of games played were new releases (vs average of 9%). (6) 

 

Yes, it's another lovely bunch of statistics 😁 (1) Hours watched: 641 (2) Distinct days visited: 320 (3) Top 5 categories: Overwatch, Valorant, Paladins, Deceive Inc., Minion Masters I don't really watch Valorant. I merely lurked in a supertf's Twitch stream just to support him. As for Deceive Inc., I only watched Fitzyhere played it when he took a break from Overwatch 2 (waiting for Sombra rework). (4) 2.327k chats sent. (5) Apparently I was a top user and so earned a shiny badge for it. (6) Hours watched for top 5 streamers: supertf (221), Fitzyhere (131), rockmonkey (42), BadAsAFish (26), DanielFenner (25)

Every year I visit my sister's family in Canberra, whenever possible. Usually, I take the shortest route with the least number of transits. For example, last year, Ban and I flew from KL to Melbourne and then took a domestic flight to Canberra and vice versa for our return leg. This year, however, is significantly different, for various reasons: (1) KL - Adelaide, MAS flight: To meet Ban's relatives. (2)  Overnight stay at Atura Hotel, next to Adelaide Airport. (3) Adelaide - Canberra, Qantas flight: Where my sister's family is. (4) Canberra - Melbourne, Jetstar flight: Follow my sister's family for about a week holiday in Melbourne. (5) 6 nights stay at Pegasus Apartment Hotel, Melbourne. (6) Melbourne - Canberra, Jetstar flight. (7) Canberra - Sydney, Qantas flight: The start of the return trip. Wants to try flying SIA. (8) Overnight stay at Holiday Inn Express, Sydney. I wanted to meet a friend there but he'll be back in Malaysia haha. (9) Sydney - Singapore, SIA...

1. Listened to 10 genres. Pop is the most. 2. One place that listened like I do: Richmond, Canada (because of Mandopop singers!). 3. Played 568 songs. Top song is a song from The Untamed (sorry, can't type Chinese characters). Played it 17 times. Followed by So Blessed (Mariah Carey), I'll Be There (Johnny), a song from Safe Zone (can't write Thai) (Billkin, PP Krit) and Starting Over Again (Natalie Cole). 4. Listened for 14,485 minutes. Peaked on July 15 at 269 minutes. Toop 25% of listeners worldwide (eh, really??). 5. Listened to 426 artists. Top artist is Borislav Slavov. Actually, he's a music composer and his songs that I like come from Baldur's Gate 3 (a CRPG). September was the peak listening month. The other top artists are Olivia Newton-John (peaked in April), BTS (July), Mariah Carey (July) and Kelly Clarkson (July).  6. Listened to over 8k minutes of podcasts. The British History Podcast took 3,217 minutes. Top 5% fan!  Gosh, I love statistics haha.

In my first playthrough, playing as a Lore Bard , I did the more typical safer route in defeating Gortash: disabled the Steel Watch foundry first (but to do that, I rescued some prisoners beforehand) before confronting him. Steel Watchers are quite a pain to deal with. In this second playthrough, I followed the way of another player, where Gortash was killed in a much easier fashion: However, on hindsight, I should have gotten someone to unlock the next waypoint (should be Baldur's Gate) because the drawbridge connecting South Span and Wyrm's Rock was inexplicably up again, although the guards there acted as though it was down, and so I had to teleport straight to Wyrm's Rock, to be greeted by this: I probably should have made sure the doors of other rooms were close. It might have made a difference.

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One day, I was at the pharmacy to restock my cholesterol medicine, fenofibrate: Pharmacist: You're taking this because your triglycerides level is high? Me: No. It's my LDL that's high. Pharmacist: Then why? Me: When I started taking cholesterol medicine, the GP prescribed atorvastatin. 3 months later, despite the good cholesterol results, he changed it to fenofibrate, citing that it was plant-based and so it was better. Pharmacist: Best you get a second opinion, now that your LDL is the problem, not triglycerides. The GP has already retired years ago and so I consulted another GP, showing her my latest two cholesterol test results. Her advice was either (1) I start on 10mg atorvastatin, or (2) try without taking medicine for 3 months and retest. She said that based on my lifestyle, my comorbidity risk is low and so it's ok if my total cholesterol and LDL is a little high (as long as it's lower than 6 and 4 respectively). I'll try (2) once my current medicine ru...