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Showing posts from June, 2017

Family vacation in Ipoh

A quick update as a background: since the last update , my dad underwent radiotherapy and successfully reduced the tumour significantly. Dr D said no further treatment needed. Pain's gone and my dad can walk again and exercise although not as good as previously. My sister from Australia then came here for a 3-week visit. My youngest sister then planned a family vacation (only for 5 of us). After some discussion with parents, they settled on Ipoh. Sister arrived in KL, where Ban and I got her at KLIA2. The next day, she and I took ETS to Ipoh. I was pleasantly surprised that they gave use a brown bag containing 2 packets of different biscuits and a small packet of Milo. I thought I bought Gold class, instead of Platinum. Here's a summary of what we did in Ipoh: (1) We stayed at a suite at Kinta Riverfront. (2) Share a variety of food (char kuay teow, satay, hor fun soup, steamed chicken) at the shophouse next to Thean Chun for lunch upon arrival. (3) Swam (almost?) e

Atlas Reactor: Tol-Ren

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I tried a few combination of mods initially (starting from playing in PTS) and I settled on these ones on my road to first 5 : (please refer to this Wikia for description of abilities and mods) (1) Twin Slashes - Honed Blade (3 loadout points) Unconditional extra damage. Flexibility e.g. broad slash at the front and top-down slash at the back. (2) Ren's Fury - Way of the Monkey (1 loadout point) Good survival mod. Since it's free action, you can use this (and nothing else) and then use full movement to get to safety. Combo well with Second Wind. (3) Spirit Rend - Spirit Master (3 loadout points) 2 cd range ability? Great! Sacrificed slow but I prefer consistency. (4) Rushing Steel - From Very Angle (2 loadout points) Due to how this dash ability works, this mod increases your chance of not getting hit by your target. (5) Showdown - Spirit Wrack (1 loadout point) Sometimes you might ulti next to the target and he is still alive next turn. This helps you sur

Atlas Reactor: first 5 a third time

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Whenever there's a new freelancer, I'll try to be the first 5 players to level it to level 20 if I like it and can play it competently. Back in April, that freelancer was Tol-Ren. I wasn't sure whether I could be make it because there was a day of interstate traveling and for a couple of weeks I was helping family members doing various tasks. Nevertheless I gave it a try and managed to be the 5th player to do so. Unfortunately, I forgot to screenshot the broadcast :( So now I have 3 freelancers with such achievement ( Grey and Khita as 4th player). That's pretty good, eh? :)

Barred outgoing calls

I still have my Singapore Starhub mobile prepaid sim card, on a cheap simple Nokia phone. Every 4 months I will top up its credit so that it doesn't expire. The only reason I keep this is my Singapore Citibank credit card which earns me miles points, which can be used to indirectly redeem air tickets. As for the credits, whenever I call Singapore, I'll use that phone. Due to some problems purchasing movie tickets online, I tried calling Singapore Citibank with that phone but I couldn't because "all outgoing calls are barred". Why??! Called Starhub a few times and we did the following but none is working so far: Take out battery and put it back Use another phone with that sim card Tried *116* (instead of +) to call Cancel "Call divert" Cancel "all barrings" but "request not completed" Reset roaming Starhub checked and confirmed that my account is still active. There's credit. So I'm stumped...and so does Starhub @

Cholesterol 2017: Part 2

Since the last result , I tried to exercised more consistently to bring down the cholesterol level. Emphasis on "tried". Earlier this month, I went for general health screening, which included lipid profile test. Here's that test result compared to previous one:                                Feb 2017          Ref. range          Jun 2017          Ref. range       Total cholesterol           6.0                 < 5.2                      6.4                 < 5.2 HDL ("good")               1.62               > 1.04                   1.50                > 1.04 LDL ("bad")                  3.7                < 2.6                      4.2                 < 2.6 Triglycerides                 1.4                 < 1.7                     1.6                  < 1.7 Total/HDL ratio            3.7                 < 5.0                      4.3                 < 5.0 Not good! Bad cholesterol went up whereas good choleste

Headlamp wiper?

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So cute! I wonder whether it's easy to get replacement or not.

NSK Seremban

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The first hypermart in Seremban was Makro, before such concept became popular. It started off by charging membership fee but later removed this requirement. It couldn't survive though. Later came Giant, Tesco and Rapid. The last one also closed down. Giant have 2 branches but in my opinion, Tesco was more popular...until NSK came along this year. This new kid offers fresh food at lower prices. I'm so curious at how they can do it. Anyway, this post isn't really about its main source of business. Instead, it's about the restaurant attached to it: Citarasa Seafood Market Steamboat. Among its menu are sets of food that are suitable for different number of people, priced as low as RM9.90 that's suitable for 1 pax. Soup is charged at RM1 per person. You can also choose from its shelves various add-on such as eggs, noodle, tofu, lettuce etc. Now, the rather unique thing about this restaurant is that you can purchase raw food (there are live prawns and fishes

Atlas Reactor: Su Ren

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Honestly, I'm more comfortable playing, say, Aurora and Orion, than Su Ren because the latter is a short-range character. That means she is (well at least one would think so!) harmed more often than a long-range character. However, she has at least 2 things (that I can think off at the moment) which help her survivability: (a) She has 2 dashes but the second dash has to be used the turn after the first one; otherwise it's wasted and the cooldown starts. (b) The dashes and buff/debuff ability give her lots of energy while her healing can also give lots if hit multiple allies. This then hastens the time to get her ultimate, which is a good protective ability. The build (and only one) I'm using is as follows: (please refer to this Wikia for more details on his abilities and mods) (1) Martial Master - Zen State (3 loadout points) Doesn't seem to be a popular mod. I see players usually take Bo Staff Skills (get ultimate faster) or Forceful Strike (default). 3 h

Missing petrol

On a recent trip back from Seremban, I stopped at a Shell petrol station at the Seremban rest stop. I was at kiosk 11 and wanted to go inside the shop to "order" RM50 worth of petrol. However, I was instead attended by an attendant who just finished helping a customer at the kiosk just in front of me. As usual, I gave him RM50 and Bonuslink card and then he swiped the card and his access card to start the terminal. He then told me the petrol pump was ready for use. He then sauntered towards the shop. However, when I inserted the pump into my car petrol tank and pressed its handle, no petrol came out! I looked at the screen on the kiosk: the petrol volume and cost figures were not moving (coincidentally, it was showing RM50, presumably from previous customer). The smaller screen initially stated that the terminal was "processing" and then a few seconds later it was "closed". In the meantime, I was looking around for help from any attendant. Two of them

Farmer's Street

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One Sunday evening, Ban, his brother and I were on the way to Uptown to have chap fan for dinner when it started raining quite heavily. Hence, upon my suggestion, we went to Tropicana City Mall instead. We considered both Simple Kitchen and Farmer's Street but chose the latter because its menu was more suitable for Ban. I ordered Nyonya Curry Chicken (RM13): It had 2 large pieces of chicken, including a drumstick, and 2 small pieces. It was delicious, with sufficient amount of spices to differentiate it from normal curry chicken, although a little spicier too. A little aromatic. It would be better if it came with, say, at least half of a hard boiled egg or more cucumber. Later, upon my feedback, the manager/boss said that next time I could ask for more cucumber. The reason why they gave only 2 slices because some customers don't even finish them! Their Specially Brewed Milk Tea (RM 5) was quite normal and so that's good enough. I would definitely bring my