Red Dead Redemption 2

Just completed playing the final chapter of Red Dead Redemption 2 (not the epilogue) and I am actually feeling very sad right now.

Spoilers.

Arthur Morgan

I knew the main character Arthur Morgan was eventually going to succumb to his tuberculosis and die in the end, but seeing the main character slowly getting worst physically as the story progressed was pretty gut wrenching, I got a lump in my throat when I was watching his "last ride", and then of course when he died, I mean the whole final portion of game was just so heartbreaking to play.

When he admits to a Nun that he is afraid of dying. Holy shit that is a tear jerker. 

There were actually still quite a few side missions for me to complete but I didn't have the heart to do them because of how haggard Arthur Morgan was starting to look.



I actually wanted to end the game as soon as possible so I could get the sad ending over and done with, but boy when they showed the "last ride", I was trying very hard to keep my composure and kept telling myself this was just a game, and then when he actually had his last breath at the end and they fast forward the game years later, I just felt empty that Arthur Morgan had passed on, I mean I have never actually felt so sad about a video game character dying before, this shit hits so hard.


I can now understand why this game was deemed a masterpiece because it actually made me feel for the character like no other game has.

I have actually watched this cutscene on Youtube when I was still pretty early in the game and spoiler-ed the ending for myself, but when I was playing the game and reached this portion, I was not mentally prepared for how sad it would be, I mean I am getting a lump in my throat just watching it again.



To think I almost gave up on this game early on and wanted to get a refund to get Monster Hunter World Iceborne to play with my friend, although if I actually did that, I probably wouldn't be feeling so sad right now.



Update:

I have now fully completed the game and it just doesn't feel as good to play the other character Arthur Morgan actually saved in the end, not that the character is bad, I mean he is the main character in the very first Red Dead Redemption, but he isn't Arthur Morgan.


Sigh, the ending of the game is affecting me a lot more than it should, I could not play the epilogue portion of the game without feeling sad. I was hoping the game would bring up mentions of the character to alleviate the sadness, but when the other characters actually end up talking about it, it just made me even more sad.


End of Spoilers.

Sad stuff aside, there are some funny moments in the game, like when the player chooses to assault a feminist on the street and she fights back.

This is after the main story ends, so that character is actually the gang member Arthur Morgan saved and why his voice isn't as deep as Arthur Morgan.



I just find the initial interaction between him and the random NPC hilarious when he called her a mouse.







Gameplay wise, honestly the controls do feel a little bit clunky, the way the character moves doesn't feel very sharp but the in-game world is really something else and of course the star of the show is the story and the main character Arthur Morgan.



This is one of those games that you don't play for the gameplay, this is one of those games you play for the experience.

Another Budget Bugger

So about a month back, I was given a few leads by my company and I think I didn't bother following up with at least 50% of them because they were pretty bad leads.

Most of them that I reached out to didn't bother responding, and the others that I didn't bother reaching out to had extremely unrealistic budget, a lot of the ones I didn't reach out to never really bothered calling the company to ask about the lack of follow up because most of them apply to meet up Interior Designers through renovation portals and they are always linked up to at least 6 different IDs, so having one out of the six not reach out is not really going to affect them too much and I guess most of them don't really want to spend their time talking to so many as well.

But there are times when some do reach out weeks later either through email like the customer I had blogged about previously  or to the company to ask why the Interior Designer didn't reach out, well today, I had one who did the latter.

So I got her enquiry pretty much a few days after I got the leads of the customer I blogged about previously and at that time, I was already really unmotivated after that last lead and had given up on the company's lead having any sort of potential, this was 2 leads in a row that had the same issue, it was just too tiresome to even deal with, in the enquiry that was forwarded to me by my office admin, the owner was adamant about staying on her unrealistic budget, so I didn't bother reaching out because why waste the time? Eventually all the other Interior Designers from other companies who got assigned to entertain her will come to the same very conclusion and give her the very same answer, that her budget is simply not viable for the works she want done.

Weeks went by and I didn't get any complaints from the customer about my lack of response, so I updated the leads in the company's system and labelled it as "dropped", listing the reason as...

"Extremely unrealistic budget."

... everything was fine until today, when my company's admin suddenly messaged me and asked me if I had reached out to the customer, so I lied and said I did but she wasn't responsive and was immediately send a screenshot of the message the client had exchanged with the admin, asking when would be a good time to have a consultation session.

I wasn't feeling flustered about getting caught not following up with the client, I was actually more annoyed that I had to deal with that customer, my admin then told me the customer wants to have a video conference later in the evening and ask me if I was available, so I said I wasn't and that it would be great if she could reallocate the leads to someone else, because I didn't want to have to deal with leads that will ultimately be a waste of time. Unfortunately, my admin couldn't do that, so I told her very begrudgingly that I will liaise with the client directly.

I reach out to the client and told her I was sorry I got caught, did not reach out sooner, and then suggested that instead of a video call, she can just share her requirements with me via Whatsapp, because I didn't want to waste time doing a video call with a client that I know will go nowhere in the end, and thankfully, she agreed and shared her requirements.

Well, a month has passed since she first submitted her enquiries and her budget has dropped, but so has her requirements, and she sounded like she knew her budget was not feasible, so she told me she only wanted to do a single space and that was it. The budget she set aside was clearly still too low, but it was not as ridiculous as the last time, so I entertained her for a bit, got her requirements and in the end, despite her lowered renovation requirements, it was still a project that would result in a severe lack of profit margin for any designer who decides to take on the job.

I mean she has CLEARLY spoken to other designers and have gotten multiple quotes from them, that is why she knew her budget was insufficient and that was the main reason why she decided to reach out to me, because I was the only one left who hasn't entertained her, it is the exact same scenario as the other client, all the other designers very likely told her that her budget was not realistic, which is something I don't fucking get, multiple industry experts have already told you very clearly that your budget is insufficient, so why the hell are you still sticking to that?

Customers like these are the reason why there are so many horror stories of homeowners getting swindled, they are such an easy target because they are so desperate to look for prices that are too good to be true, it's just dumb.

It would be like me trying to get a new iPhone that retails at $1088, seeing a bunch of online stores selling at an average of between $988 - $1088, and then suddenly go to eBay and see a listing for that Brand New iPhone at $299 and think to myself..

"WOW WHAT A STEAL! I WILL BUY THIS IMMEDIATELY BEFORE ANYONE ELSE GETS IT.!"

... and weeks later receive a small box with a rotten pear inside.





So anyways, I have already prepared the quote and it has definitely exceeded her budget by 150%,  if I charge her lower,like dirt cheap, like I don't even get paid charity level kind of low, I can work around her budget, but alas, I am not a philanthropist, so NO. I don't even want to really send her the quote to be honest because I am afraid she will start to bargain and I am in no mood to get into a drawn out discussion with her about why her project is not worth any designer's time.

Just Circuit Breaker Life Update

Haven't really been doing anything at home as well during this lockdown, spend a ridiculous amount of money ordering baked goods from Plain Vanilla because they had a free delivery if the order is above $45, I ordered twice within a spend of 1 week, effectively spending $100 on cakes and cupcakes.

Cupcakes. (From my 2nd Order)

Loaf Cake (Also from my 2nd Order)

They do not have a very long shelf life, so I had to finish everything I ordered within 2 to 3 days and by the third day, the cookie that I ordered to quality for the free delivery got dry af. The cookie wasn't really good if I were to be honest, the recipe I found online makes better ones.






After spending that crazy amount of money, I decided to start baking again, ordered a few baking ingredients from Phoon Huat, took 2 weeks to deliver over and when the delivery came, the cocoa powder and chocolate chips I ordered were out of stock, which was horrible because I wanted to make double chocolate chip cookies, I was actually really pissed off and wrote an angry email to Phoon Huat and they refunded me the money, as they should.




I just don't get why it is out of stock when I ordered those items 2 weeks back, a lot of items I wanted to order, like baking powder and vanilla extract, were listed as out of stock on the website, that means if a product is not available, it can't be placed in the cart, but the chocolate and cocoa powder could, which meant when I had ordered them, they were clearly in stock, I assume that if the product is in stock and I actually ordered those in-stock items, it will be reserved for me once the online payment has been made, but apparently not, so that was very disappointing, I ended up going to the mini mart at my condo car park and got a big bar of Cadbury to replace the missing chocolate chips. The cookies turned out great though.

It is really chunky.


They are suppose to be inspired by the Levain Bakery cookies from New York

This place, which I visited, holy fuck, almost a year ago, I still vividly remember the queue and also the road smelling like piss. 

This is how their cookie looked like and it was still surprisingly moist when I had it on the third day.



Honestly speaking, the cookies I made didn't really taste very similar, the texture was quite different from Levain, not that I am complaining because I actually prefer the texture from the cookie I made, which was a lot gooier, or maybe it is suppose to be similar and the Levain Cookies I had "dried out" and lost it's gooeyness.



After cookies, I made a lemon loaf cake as per my Mum's request, it came out fine, didn't really thought it was nice enough to take a picture so there is that.



I also made carrot cake.

It was meant to be a single loaf....

 ... but I had too much batter, so I made a few cupcakes. Good to know that my piping skills are still semi-decent.



Well, I got super impatient and made the rookie mistake of putting the frosting on the loaf cake before it completely cooled, thus the horrible mess. It was still really good though and one reason why I don't really tend to buy carrot cupcakes outside anymore because the recipe I have is bloody good. I will probably make another batch during this lockdown, and also maybe if possible banana bread and another lemon loaf.



Earlier during the lockdown, I also tried making Dalgona Coffee and was very successful.

It whipped up within 3 minutes thanks to a good hand whisk I owned. I made it at night though, so after I took this picture and had 3 sips, I just threw it away, plus this was with soy milk, so it also tasted gross.

Also a random photo of the doggo just because he has been a great source of entertainment and companionship during this lockdown.






Aside from baking, I have also been gaming and recently completed a game called Disco Elysium, which was pretty good once I actually stop treating it as a game and looked at it more as an interactive novel because that game has a lot of reading. Hated it at first, gave up and left a bad review, when I first bought it earlier this year, the review got 5 likes, but then came back again a few days back, gave it another go, treated it as a novel and ended up really liking it, so I deleted my review and left a positive one, that review currently has zero likes.



The game received "universal acclaimed", so there are plenty of good reviews about it and I was just really bitter when I couldn't enjoy the game like everyone did, that's why I left the bad review like the bitter fuck I was.



I am just fucking slow when it comes to appreciating good games, happened with Witcher 3 and Divinity 2 Original Sin, hated those games at first, didn't understand the appeal, but after giving them another shot, ended up getting the appeal and just got completely enamored by them and lucky me, the developer for Witcher 3 is coming up with a new game called Cyberpunk 2077 and the developer for Divinity 2 Original Sin is coming up with a new game called Baldur's Gate 3.

Well, now I have another game called Pillars of Eternity that I am wanting to love, so we'll see how that goes, or I might just get Red Dead Redemption 2 and enjoy that.