ICT First Cycle

Went back to Changi Airbase for the whole of last week for my ICT, the very first of 10 cycles to go through before I am permanently free from my national duties.

Going in, I had mixed feelings even though I was finally able to see my army friends again, the thought of having to travel all the way to Changi Airbase every day for a week pretty much ruined everything.

When I reported to camp on the first day, I thought the moment I walked into the first security checkpoint, the place I always dreaded to get assigned to for guard duty, I would get struck by a wave of nostalgia, that wave never came.




Going back to camp that day didn't feel any different from booking in when I was still a conscripted soldier assigned to that airbase to do guard duty, everything felt so routine, like that year and a half after I ORD never happened, that was until the soles of my boots started to wither away and began falling apart as I made my way through the car park area to get into the airbase did I realize that year and a half did happened and the boots I was wearing were showing signs of that. I was no longer a conscripted soldier, I was now reporting as an ICT, and as a first time ICT, I decided, against my will of course, that I would leave behind a trial of my broken soles, which were slowing breaking apart and falling off as I walked further into the camp, that walk became a limp as the soles of my boots started wearing off and become more and more uneven.



I had thought it was pure bad luck that that happened to me, but fortunately for me, I didn't have to go through that embarrassing and uncomfortable ordeal alone because two of my friends also had the same thing happen to them, their boots started breaking apart when we were all gathered in the auditorium, so it wasn't that embarrassing for them as it was for me. We all decided since wearing that broken and pathetic excuse for a pair of army boots wasn't going to work, we had to go get new ones, I mean mine was collecting twigs and small rocks on the ground due to the leftover sticky residue of what remained of my soles, a majority of it I had ripped off and thrown in the bin and theirs  just looked like clown shoes with the constant slapping action it was doing when they were walking, so we got new ones at the eMart.

We managed to spend more than half of our credits on the first day from getting army boots, and we weren't the only one, when we got back from lunch, I saw boots soles just laying around the auditorium where we were gathered earlier in the morning, there were whole soles and they were small bits and pieces of them, all just scattered across the room.





There really wasn't much going on on the first day really and I don't think I can blog about the activities that happened because they actually told us not to, the second day was also quite straightforward, the first two days were covering the basic army stuff, just some refresher courses nothing significant , we spend more time waiting for things to happen than actually have anything happen, just like the third day where we spend literally the entire first half of the day waiting for lunch time to come so we can head to the NEWater Plant in the afternoon after we had our lunch.





The third day was suppose to be IPPT day, but because no one actually bothered to train up their bodies, myself included, the commanders allowed us to give it a miss and many of us just ended up waiting in the crew room for 5 hours. 

After 5 hours of doing absolutely nothing productive in the crew room, we went to have our lunch before making our way to the car park area to wait for the bus that was indented for us to bring us to the NEWater Plant, that bus was over an hour late, so we were left waiting at the car park with absolutely no updates about the bus, a whole hour we just stood around the car park area and waited until finally the commander who was in-charge of us finally got some information from somewhere and told us the bus would arrive in 10 minutes, after almost an hour of us just standing around.




When we finally reached the NEWater Plant, which had a really really long drive way, the guide decided it would be best he did a quick tour because we were an hour late and he was suppose to be showing us the place 45 minutes ago, plus he knew we were going to be released for home straight after the tour so none of us really wanted to be there.



The whole group of us were all very disinterested during the tour, the questions the guide asked no one bothered to answer, asked if we had any questions, no one had any and the moment the tour ended, everyone just bolted out of the plant and made their way home. A few guys drove there so they were able to get out of the plant fairly quickly, but I didn't drive, my friends didn't drive and we weren't really comfortable asking people we hardly knew to drive us out of the plant, so we just walked out, and it was a really long walk out, that ended day 3.






Day 4 was pretty straightforward, a final briefing in the morning, quick lunch, another really short briefing in the afternoon and we were released. That was also the first day I booked out in my army uniform, the first few days I either booked out in my civilian outfit or took a cab home, which was cheaper than I thought, but I was too lazy to change that day so I just fuck all and went home in the army uniform, after having to take a 20 minutes ride to the nearest MRT station and another 50 minutes to get from Tampinese Station to Clementi Station, I really couldn't be bothered about how i came across, if someone wanted to STOMP me for sitting down, than so be it, they are going to get flak from Stompers in the comment section for doing that on STOMP anyways, so I just sat down during my final bus ride home. No one really cared.





Day 5 was the final day of my ICT. We were to report to Tampinese Safra for our cohesion session, I live in Bukit Timah so I didn't look forward to the cohesion, but thankfully I had a direct bus and because I was too lazy to switch to the train and then take a bus again despite it being a faster journey, I just sat in the direct bus for almost 2 hours to reach the place, I'm just grateful my motion sickness did not kick in.




The main event for the cohesion was bowling, at first I wasn't really that keen but after a few throws, it got fun, then my fingers started to hurt and it stopped being fun, after the third game, everyone's finger got sore and that was when we had enough, even up till now, my fingers are still sore and for some reason, so are my wrist, the soreness on my butt cheek was unexpected though, maybe from the long bus ride, so anyways, we just sat around until lunch was served.



After the lunch was a movie screening, they had to screen a movie to kill time because they couldn't release us too early, so while everyone was watching the movie, two of my friends and I decided to go play DOTA 2 at the LAN shop nearby, I haven't played DOTA 2 in a while, I have difficulty finding MOBAs enjoyable because I was never a good DOTA 2 player, so even though it wasn't really a great option, I decided to join them anyway since they would actually be playing by my side, they could offer me advice and instructions on what I should do.




Played a match with another bunch of ICTs, my team having 4 members and theirs having 3 because I'm the 4th member and the fourth member is a complete noob, in fact, having me play against them would be an advantage for them because they can just feed off of me.




Throughout the game, I did nothing to help my team, the whole time I was just sticking to a friend, and when I got killed, I just started walking back and forth choosing which friend to go to, and while everyone was hitting level 20-ish on their characters, I was still stuck at level 8, the highest level I reached was only 13 and that was after 45 minutes of playing, it was pathetic. I was literally spoon fed information on what to get and where to go to by my friends, despite having their strategies typed out in the team chat, they chose typing over speaking so the other team can't eavesdrop of our strategy, of course being the noob that I am, I still didn't really get it and they had look over to my screen and point at the mini map to let me know exactly where I had to go.




The only reason why I wasn't getting raged on is because my team mates are my friends, had this been an actual online match, my team mates would have ripped me to shreds on the voice and team chat.




We played for 45 minutes, made our way back to the gathering spot where the movie was being played and after that, a short debrief and everyone was released, that was the end of the ICT. It feels so weird because the 5 days felt like a really badly planned school camp (minus the sleepover), especially the last 3 days, because we had so many down times, it didn't really feel like ICT and had I actually been working in a proper company and not for my Dad, the 5 days would have felt like a much needed break, but at the end of the day, I still had to travel a lot back and forth from Bukit Timah to Changi so that kind of ruined everything.




My Mum was able to drive me 3 out of the 5 days so that was great, but going home everyday from there was a long and arduous journey. I just hope by the time I get called back again, I would have already gotten my car license because the biggest complaint I have is the distance and the IPPT but the latter was cancelled so it was alright, with a license and my parent's car, distance will no longer be an issue. I bitched and moaned about it to my friend prior to the start of my ICT, complaining mainly about the distance and travelling time, but really, looking back now, it wasn't so bad, it would've been better had more of my friends been called up, but it's better than not having any. 

A lot of assholes today.

Visited the S.E.A Aquarium today with my family at RWS Sentosa. It wasn't really that much fun, I mean after the 100th sea creature, things just got a little bit repetitive, the dolphins were interesting but all the other sea creatures weren't really very fun to watch, it would have been fascinating had they gotten a huge sea creature in their huge tank, like a blue whale or a giant shark, but alas, the biggest sea creature I saw was a only Manta Ray.

After the visit through the Aquarium, we decided to have lunch at the food court nearby, ordered some chicken rice balls, a mixture of fried items and char kway teow. I didn't appreciate the tone the char kway teow guy was using when I went to collect my food, or the tone of the gelato ice cream cashier who served me at the gelato shop in RWS. 

Mr Char Kway Teow was impatient and rude. I just asked him a simple question...

"How many plates did we order ?" .....because I wasn't the one who ordered it, it was my Dad, I was only in charge of collecting what he had ordered.

*looks at me annoyed and proceeds to flips through the  receipts he has taped on the table* 

"Only one lah!"

The tone he used on me is the kind of tone a gangster would use when he's trying to pick a fight with the guy at the other table who's staring at him, except this fucker is not a gangster, he's a Char Kway Teow stall helper who lacks basic manners and etiquette on how he should be talking to a customer... and I was very polite when asking the fucker that question.  

The only time he should reply with that answer and tone should be when people ask him how high his IQ is.

"Only one lah...." because it's so~  fucking obvious.

The gelato guy on the other hand wasn't rude, but he was very sarcastic when I was making payment for my $9 cup of gelato. 

The meme is not related, but the facial expression is similar to this, but maybe dial it down a few notches

Gelato Man : "Want some waffles to go with your purchase?" *with that face*

Me :"No thanks"

Gelato Man : "Want a bottle of water to go with your purchase?" *with that face*

Me: "Nope Thanks"

I don't even know why he felt the need to use that sarcastic tone when he was speaking to me, and he wasn't even trying to be funny, or maybe he was but it didn't come across that way because there wasn't anything humorous about his condescending tone . No! I don't want that bottle of overpriced water to pair with my ice cream, but I would like to pair that bottle of water with your face really really hard and also pair the waffle machine you use to make waffles with with your anal cavity while it's still hot. Fucking prick.

Another thing I bought from RWS is Bean Boozled.

$5 PER PACK. And it stinks.

This is not the kind of candy to have by yourself, so I shared the experience with my Sisters. 

Initially when I had some in the car, I was scared to even bite on it because watching all the Youtubers do the Bean Boozled challenge, I thought the taste was going to be foul, I thought it would be vomit inducing bad, but it wasn't that bad, I mean it's the "Weird and Wild" flavors are definitely not flavors that are easy to swallow, but a lot of times the Youtbers I find are just greatly exaggerating their reactions, like two girls who said they could smell the stench from simply opening the box, I couldn't smell the "stench" when I took what I would assume to be the most foul flavored jelly bean and put it against my nostrils to smell, much less get a whiff of it from simply opening the package. LIES

I have watched videos in which one girl started gagging when she realized she had gotten the toothpaste flavored jelly bean instead of the berries one, and her reaction towards it is like it's the worst thing she has ever eaten, I can't imagine how she brushes her teeth everyday if that's how she reacts to a toothpaste flavored jelly bean. Every time she starts to brush her teeth, she will have this urge to vomit, and when she does vomit, she has to clean out her mouth and brush again, only for her to start vomiting again and repeat the whole process, like that vomiting girl from the Sixth Sense.

Ironically, when the actress grew up, she actually suffered from Anorexia for a while.
Anorexia, Bulimia, same same but not really.

I thought the dog food flavored one was okay until the taste decided to linger in my mouth. Rotten egg and barf were definitely the worst, I didn't have any stinky socks in my pack but I'm very sure those will taste disgusting as well.

Anyways, to backtrack a little, while I was  queuing up to pay for my candy at Candylicious, some fucker actually cut the queue. 

Queue cutting twat.

I was standing behind this lady who had a child in one hand and another 2 running around her constantly, much to my annoyance, and  behind me was a single long line of people who were like us, queuing up to pay for our candy, and right behind me stood this motherfucker.

I could tell he was getting a bit impatient because he kept moving forward even though the line wasn't moving, and the closer he got, the more I tried to keep a comfortable distance between me and him, so I moved up as well a bit, but the problem was I didn't have much room to move forward anymore because there were 2 kids running around their mother in circles like she had her own gravity and her kids were planets orbiting around her , so it was very uncomfortable when I realize I couldn't move up anymore, otherwise I might knock the kids off their orbit. Thankfully, the fucker decided to stop trying to move forward and just stood behind me, but really closely.

There were two cashier counters open that day and both had customers checking out their items, if I'm not mistaken, the next in line to pay for their items would be the lady in front of me with her orbiting kids, followed by me and then the motherfucker behind me, I mean that's how a queue works, ask the Char Kway Teow idiot with 1 IQ and even he will go "Of course lah". Well,  apparently the motherfucker behind me didn't understand how  a queue works because the moment the cashier at one of the counter said...

"Next please!"

... instead of waiting for the lady to move forward, the fucker behind me just walks past me and the lady in front of me without skipping a beat and drops his basket of candies on the cashier counter like there's nothing wrong with that, he didn't even look embarrassed or look remorseful that he just cut 2 people's queue, but I guess when you have the blood of an inconsiderate asshole running through your veins, that nonchalant attitude is to be expected.

No one bothered to say anything, the lady in front of me decided to just wait for the other counter, I also didn't say anything, the last thing I want to do is create a scene in that shop, the cashier didn't bother as well and just checked his items out as per usual, and really by the time the lady and I were done with checking out our items, that cashier was still busy checking out the fucker's items. He did get quite a fair bit of items because he came out of the store with a big bag full of candy and biscuits. I was at a table nearby when he came out of the shop so I managed to take a picture of him in all his fuckery.

Life would have been so much better had that fucker accidentally tripped and fell on his bag of candies and biscuits.... 

Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, or it was 10 minutes ago.


Did some baking for my Family Christmas Dinner, a small contribution on my part. I've baked for Christmas Gatherings before, but that was a long time ago when I haven't really gotten that interested in baking yet, my skills at that time were mediocre at best and if the end product came out looking like a cake, even if it was hard as rocks and tasted like cardboard, I would still deem it a success.





Fast forward a few years later, I've got to admit, I am actually quite proud of how this cupcakes turn out, putting them side by side in a box looked so professional, like I should be heading to a bake sales instead of sharing it with my family, but share with them I did because it's Christmas, the season of giving and it's very rare for me to find so many mouth that are willing to consume the cakes I bake.

Salted Caramel Cupcakes

I had actually made a batch of caramel sauce a few days prior to Christmas, spiked it with a bit of rum because alcohol makes everything taste better, it was pretty good, I kept taking it out of the fridge every once in a while, stuck my fingers into the jar and sucked on my salted caramel coated finger, and I liked to jazz things up by sprinkling a little sea salt on that finger before enveloping the whole thing in my mouth. 

The cake base is chocolate cake, the recipe I got from the bakery, slightly tweaked, taste the same as the the chocolate cake from Awfully Chocolate, which is really good, frosted with Salted Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMBC), topped with chopped up sneaker bars, drizzled more salted caramel sauce followed by a healthy sprinkling of sea salt.  There's actually a  caramel core as well but the core was so thin I could hardly pipe any caramel in it so that was a fail.... I was trying my best to make the cupcake as caramel as possible, but it didn't work because I still have half of jar of salted caramel sauce in the fridge and no ice cream to pour it on.... although, I could always shove my finger in and then roll that finger in sea salt.

This was actually my favorite flavor out of the three I made because of the successful batch of caramel sauce that was pretty much drenched onto this cake, but apparently, my family members didn't think so because they kept taking all the other flavors. 

Cookies and Cream Cupcake

Next up is Cookies and Cream cupcakes.


The cake base is malt cake, the recipe is a combination of the one I got from my bakery and from the Cake Book by Cupcake Jemma which I wasn't really a fan of, I mean I like watching her Youtube videos but the recipes in the book just doesn't work for me, at all. One thing I did managed to get from her book are the cupcake flavor combinations though,so that's good I guess, can just adapt her recipes to the my own one, recipes I know that will actually work in this crazy humid country.




Frosted with some Oreo White Chocolate SMBC, drizzled with more crushed up Oreos and topped with half a mini Oreo that's not shown in the picture. I wasn't really a fan of this flavorful, the Oreo buttercream didn't really have a very strong cookies and cream flavor, probably needed more crushed up Oreo, I was quite stingy with the crumbs because I like my cookies and cream buttercream looking white dotted with pieces of Oreo bits in it instead of just being a grey lump.... but grey lump taste yummier.

All the flavors in one box

I didn't take a picture of the red velvet on it's own because it was the first one I frosted, I had to quickly stash it in the freezer afterwards because I was afraid the SMBC would melt, damn weather in Singapore, but I have a picture of the 3 cupcakes together.



The red velvet cupcake recipe is also from the bakery, honestly, the red velvet cake recipe at my bakery calls for a fruit vinegar and that fruit vinegar really brings out the flavorf of the cake, but sadly because I don't have that particular fruit vinegar, I had to settle for cider vinegar instead, which really didn't do much in terms of flavor., had I had the correct vinegar, this cake would have been amazing because back at the bakery, the red velvet cake was probably my favorite flavor to have, it really wasn't an authentic red velvet taste, but it was delicious. All the red velvet connoisseur would probably go ape shit crazy should I go let them taste the cake and tell them it's red velvet.





I thought the cupcakes would be finished by the time the dinner was over, I was expecting my relatives to bring home some left over to have as breakfast the next day, but no one did and I had about 15 cupcakes left at the end of the day, I had made a total of 36 and only slightly more than half was consumed. My relatives had nothing but praises for it, but I guess it wasn't good enough for them to want to bring home and eat the next day.




Despite all that, I had fun baking it, my Mum took the leftover cupcakes and shared it with our neighbors, so I had 3 left for myself and I really enjoyed the salted caramel, but not so much the red velvet, still have the Oreo flavor one left in the fridge that I will probably only eat when I am super hungry.





On a Gaming note.



One of my online friends recently got me a game off Steam, Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition. I was actually contemplating to get it because it sounded a lot like Monster Hunter, but after realizing I didn't really have a lot of fun with Monster Hunter, I decided to save my money and get DmC instead.




It was a good thing that I didn't buy the game though because that shit is hard. I've barely played for 2 hours and I've been killed so many times it's ridiculous, half the time it's by the skeleton mobs that aren't even supposed to be that hard to kill.


Total play time is slightly more than 2 hours, it's just very hard to enjoy a game that forces you to repeat the game every single time you die, mobs come back to live and your experience drops back down to zero if you don't spend it before you die, this game is brutal and I'm too much of a casual gamer to find this kind of torture remotely enjoyable.  When a game presents me with an option to choose a difficulty setting, I always go for the most insulting ones like Pussy mode, there's a difficultly setting lower than Pussy mode that sounds even more insulting? Alright, I will choose that one. I don't always go for normal settings unless I have completed the game once and find the game play to be very enjoyable like Dishonored and Heavenly Sword, actually I don't think I'VE played anything but easy on Dishonored, but I did play it twice to get a different ending and that's about as uncasual as I get.



I think for someone to be able to enjoy Dark Souls, they must be invested in the game and I'm obviously not invested in that game, the closest genre I've played to Dark Souls and enjoyed is Monster Hunter, and that game already made me want throw my PSP on my bed in rage so many times, I have my nerd rage under control... I will only throw my PSP on soft things, the floor and someone's face is a big no no.




Might uninstall the game pretty soon, at this point it's just taking up memory space on my laptop because I'm hardly playing it, I appreciate the Christmas present from my online friend but not this kind of game, I was actually contemplating whether or not to get this game in the past, but decided not to for good reason and now having own a copy of the game and actually played it for 117 minutes has just reinforced that decision I made so many months ago.

Assassin's Creed U Nit to patch that shit up.

After completing Dragon Age Inquisition, I decided to download my free copy of Assassin's Creed Unity I got from purchasing my laptop a few weeks ago.





The entire game was roughly 40 GB and roughly took me about 6 to 7 hours to complete the download, good thing I was downloading it whilst I was working at my Dad's office, so really even if it did complete the download any sooner, I still wouldn't be able to play it until I actually got home.



So the actual game itself is actually really fun but the technical glitches and the horrible controls this game suffers from caused me so much frustration.



When I'm playing a stealth game, timing and precision is very important, when I see the bad guy turns his back, I know I only have maybe 2 to 3 seconds to get up from the spot I was hiding, sneak up to his back and hit the assassinate button before he actually turns back, notices me and alerts every other enemy in the area to help him out, problem is because of the framerate and stuttering issue this game offers me, that 2 -3 seconds I have to get out of my cover and sneak behind him gets replace with a stuttering framerate, in which case by the time the game's framerate already gets back to normal, I have already been noticed and surrounded by 5 enemies, each taking turns to cut me down and if it isn't the framerate and stuttering issue, it's the damn controls, so instead of getting out of the cover from behind the chair I was hiding, my character ends up climbing ON TOP of the chair and just squats there like a dog, and when I try to get him off the chair, instead of slowing getting down, he jumps across the room right into where the enemy is and I just go "Dafaq?" out loud. The framerate issues gets even worst online, good thing there's no chat or voice system, otherwise I would've probably been scolded by all the other players playing this game in their parent's basement.





I tried to recommend this game to a friend of mine because I wanted to play Co-op with him, told him it was glitchy but did not go too much into detail about it, I have a weird relationship with this game because even though I get really frustrated when I am playing it, every time I quit the game, a few hours later I will want to get back right in and continue playing it, so when I was recommending this game to my friend, I was in the state of "I wanna get back in to play".... and after he did his research on the game and I had just completed a round of Co-op, we chatted again and he decided he wasn't interested in the game anymore because it was buggy and incomplete and at that time, because I had just completed a round of very buggy co-op, I was feeling really frustrated with the game so I just started ranting about how bad it was to him and blah blah blah, which of course made me sound like a hypocrite, and I guess he got a bit pissed that I was introducing such a buggy game to him because he started typing in caps, questioned my motives for recommending him that game and stopped replying afterwards.

So I dunno?

I have actually completed the game's main story line, a new patch was just released so I guess I am now going to pop back in and see if the game has improved or am I gonna quit the game in frustration.

Update.


The game still runs like shit. Even that GIF has a smoother frame rate than what I am getting in the game.  (The game actually runs fine now, turns out I had forgotten to plug in my charger before and the laptop was just running on it's battery, the patch actually works, now the game runs a lot smoother, still not at the framerate I was hoping for it to run at, but definitely a huge improvement from last time.)When I got my new laptop, I was expecting to get at least 60FPS on all the games I was playing, be it Dragon Age Inquisition, TERA or Maple Story, so to have Assassin's Creed running at below 30 FPS on my new $2000 laptop is like getting a freshly baked cookie from a bakery only to have someone walk past, pull down their pants and take a shit all over it, that analogy sounds odd, that's because I just baked a batch of cookies and they are fucking awesome.

Thick and Chewy Milk Chocolate Chip , Hazelnut and Pecan Cookies
It might not look very good but this is probably one of my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.

One good thing I have learned from working at the bakery is now I know how to tweak certain recipes, so these cookies don't spread out so quickly in the oven, look at how thick it is,  that's the kind of cookies I like, really high and chewy and filled with milk chocolate chips, and it isn't Crisco that was used to replace with butter because those sticks of vegetable shortening taste and smell disgusting.



When people say "and the secret ingredient is butter flavored crisco, this taste just like real butter"... I think they are fucking nuts because it taste nothing at all like butter, that's like saying shit taste like chocolate because it has been coated with a layer of cocoa powder and chocolate essence. What the fuck?



Anyways, this cookie is super awesome because not only is it packed with a shit load of milk chocolate chip, pecan nuts and like maybe 10 leftover hazelnuts I had leftover from making a hazelnut brownie, but it's super chunky and the texture is perfect, I have tried other "Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie" recipes online before, those were lies because those cookies came out either spreading like no one's business or it's very cakey, which has happened to me many times and I always considered them a success because a cakey cookie is better than flat ones.

Updates on life.

1.  New Laptop (Gaming Rig)

Purchased a gaming laptop from the IT Fair about 2 weeks ago. This is my very first gaming PC, my previous Asus was a budget laptop, the one before that was a very problematic Acer, that despite being a supposed "high end" computer was really just "high maintenance".



My Asus only failed on me once in the three years I owned it, send it to Sim Lim Square to fix it, one of the more reputable stores, I have learned do my research very thoroughly before stepping into a shop at Sim Lim Sqaure, and it never really gave me any more issues afterwards,  the Acer on the other hand failed me so many times I've lost count the number of times I've had to re install my Windows OS and all the software because the model was known to have hardware issues... to think they did nothing about it and just release it to sell to the public.




The new laptop I've bought is built by a local company called Aftershock and so far, it's been living up to it's name as a gaming rig, bought Dragon Age Inquisition within the week after I bought my laptop and it runs pretty smoothly on High settings, but it does start to get a bit choppy on Ultra settings, not that I can see any graphical improvements from High to Ultra,  I've never played any game released in the past year on high settings with my Asus before, medium at best, so being able to actually run a newly released game on High is very impressive to me.

Tapped that

I've really been having a lot of fun playing Dragon Age Inquisition, exploring the lands, fighting monsters, hooking up with a gay mage that looks like Freddie Mercury and passing judgement on criminals, I'm a gracious ruler it seems because I have yet to pass the death sentence on anyone.

Aiming to be tapped by that

Playing straight is boring, so why not become a promiscuous gay guy instead. I might break up with the Freddie Mercury mage and hook up with the Iron Bull instead.




Was also given a free copy of Assassin's Creed Unity when I made the laptop purchased, entire game was 40GB, took me a good 5 hours to download the whole game, but I'm not going to be touching that game yet until I am done with Inquisition. I always had a bad habit of not completing games in the past, not anymore.




I'm really enjoying playing games at a steady 50 frames per second, it's refreshing to not get a headache every time an explosion happens in the game and mt frame rate drops below playable level when playing the game suddenly feels like loading an image on the internet using a 56k modem.





2. Driving Updates.

Went for my driving lesson 2 days ago and I was almost late for my practical lesson, reached the school literally 5 minutes before my lesson started, quickly went to scan my IC and got my ticket and just my luck, I got the very instructor I complained about in my last blog post.



The very same impatient instructor who was more concerned with what he was having for lunch and what was happening on his iPad than teaching his own student. Normally when I am in the car with my instructor, I will try and ask questions during the lesson to keep the conversation going, wouldn't want to spend 100 minutes in complete silence, but when I saw this instructor's standing next to the car I was assigned to, my shoulders just dropped and my flustered "fuck I am going to be late" face just went blank because I couldn't believe my luck, out of the dozens of of instructors I could have gotten, I got him, again, was it because I was late, that's why I was assigned to him, did all the nice and friendly instructors get taken up ? Is he going to be on my list of permanent instructors because that is going to be fucked up.



So I walked up to him, showed him my IC and whatever else I had to show him, zero enthusiasm on my part and on his, got into the car and off we went to the public road, I couldn't be bothered to start any conversation with him whatsoever or ask him any question I had, I would rather embrace the long awkward silence in the car then to have to deal with him. I made sure to drive really slowly though because the last time, he kept complaining I drove too fast, so I kept my speed at 40km/h, which was extremely slow, he later told me I was driving too slow, which I agreed but I just maintained that speed because fuck all the other road drivers who are going to be late for their appointments. I'm kidding, I'm not a road hogger, I hope.



We drove around for 100 minutes, keeping the talking to a minimum, he kept asking me to "check your blind spot" every time I made a turn, at first I didn't know what was the point so I just turned my head before I did either a left turn or right turn like an idiot, many times way too early and I think the instructor also found it a bit ridiculous that I was checking my blind spot like a good 10 meters before the turn, I of course later came to understand what I was actually looking out for and did it properly.



He also kept asking me to do that during our previous lesson, I didn't know what he was going on about until the lesson 2 days ago because I'm slow like that and I didn't want to ask him any questions because he's not the "patient and friendly instructor" the car says he is.


It was a long lesson but he was less impatient then the last time so that was good, I think maybe it's because he already had his lunch so he's less cranky and I'm not driving at a speed that would endanger his life, so that might have calmed him down a bit, the last lesson he kept on grabbing my steering wheel very suddenly because he wasn't confident I was steering the car enough, which kept freaking me out, one time he actually accidentally scratched my hands when he was doing that, didn't even bother to apologize, I guess it's because I should be the sorry for one trying to crash us into the lorry that I wasn't going to crash into.


I'm hoping the next lesson will be a more friendly instructor, I haven't had a chatty instructor for a while now.



3. McDonalds Frappe



I've been having a lot of McCafe Frappe lately, in fact I have been having so much that my Devotee Card is soon going to enable me to get a free drink from them.


Every time I buy a drink, I get a stamp on the card, now I'm just one stamp away from a free drink. Maybe 4 isn't a lot but it's enough for McDonald's to be close enough to offer me a drink on the house.



Been getting their Double Chocolate Frappe and Red Velvet Frappe, those are really yummy, accidentally bought a Mocha Chip once, reminded me why I don't like Starbucks Frappes.



The drinks are always great, but I have one issue and that's with the baristas, the ones at Clementi Mall to be more specific. I was always served by two Malays girls and if I hadn't checked their name tag, I would have assumed they were the same person because firstly, they both were wearing hijabs, and secondly and most importantly, they never ever smile at all, every time I order a drink from either one of them, they just look annoyed, like fuck me for ordering a drink and forcing them to have to do their job.



If you are going to be working at the counter and dealing with customers, at least try to put on a pleasant expression, if you are unable to do that, than work at the back of the kitchen so the customers won't think they have offended you for making you do your job. I understand it can be very annoying when you have to prepare the same menu item twenty or thirty times a day, I have been there, but for fuck sake, I was the only customer at the McCafe counter, it's not like after me, you have to prepare another 12 red velvet frappe and 5 green tea ice blended for the long non-existent line of customers behind me.




F&B outlets should really consider whether a person who's applying for any position that has to face a customer has a resting bitch face or are just generally very bitter about life and shows it on their face is a proper candidate because that face is going to affect how the customer feels when making an order.

Driving and Froyo

5th driving lesson today and the end of my Stage 1 Practical Lesson.


The instructor I got today was a lot more stern than the previous few I had, I'm not sure if stern is the correct word, a more accurate phrase would probably be not give a fuck.



He was really impatient when he was pointing out the mistakes I was making, once in a while he would take out his iPad and I assume play a game and also checks the watch occasionally to see how much longer he has to endure my company, that feeling was mutual because half an hour into the lesson, I was already checking the time to see how much longer I had to endure sitting through this practical lesson taught by an instructor who obviously feels like he has more important things to... like eating his lunch right after my lesson. It sucked when I realized only half an hour had passed.




He was pretty much quiet throughout the entire lesson, excluding the times he is reprimanding me for driving too quickly, changing lane without checking the mirror, and really any scenario that might involve him dying in a car crash from my reckless driving, so at the end of the lesson, I was actually quite surprised when he started talking to me more patiently about the problems he had with my drivings and some other things I didn't really bother to absorb.... later I found out the reason why he suddenly stopped being such a sourpuss was because it was lunch time for him.




Worst lesson thus far and probably will be the last weekend lesson I will book that falls before their lunch time, also went for my Final Theory Evaluation and I failed that shit all over again, in fact I scored even worst than my last attempt, so frustrating.





After my driving lesson, i decided to drop by Westmall to try out this new craze of froyo called LlaoLlao, I knew it was frozen yoghurt, but I kept thinking it was going to taste like a regular softee but topped with fresh fruits and drizzled with sauce. I personally am not a fan of yogurt, I don't like how it taste, I don't like how it smells and I don't like how it looks all curdled and urgh!



The queue at that time wasn't very long, probably only had 6 people in front of me, but as I was waiting for my turn, the queue started getting longer and longer. I decided t go for their signature item which was the Sanum.


1 Crunch - Chocolate Crunchy Pearls

3 Fruits - Strawberries, Blueberries, Kiwi

1 Sauce - Raffaello




I wanted it to be as tart as possible, thus my choice of fruits, which was fucking stupid because the yogurt ice cream was already quite tart, the sauce was pretty good though, I had initially thought the sourness came from the sauce, but when I realized it was from the ice cream, I started to really dislike it, it was horrible and because I was taking a bus home, I didn't consume the froyo until I reached home, and by that time, it was already liquid. I actually threw my llao llao away because I couldn't finish it, not because I was full but because I just didn't like frozen yoghurt.




I know I'm not going to queue for it again.

Driving

Went for my third driving lesson yesterday, the weather initlaly started out fine when I was in the bus heading towards the school, there were dark clouds but the school was close by and I thought maybe I could get there in time before it starts to really rain, I was wrong.



The moment I got off the bus, it started pouring cats and dogs, there wasn't any slight drizzling before or any light rain that comes before a heavy rain, mother nature decided to skip all that and jump straight to a heavy downpour. I managed to get into the driving center 50% dry, my top was dry, my pants were half drenched in water and my shoes, well, it was a very unpleasant experience for the next 45 minutes.




The instructor who was taking me that day was very nice, he allowed me to drive barefoot when he realized how wet my shoes were, but now thinking back, it was probably extremely unsanitary, I doubt anyone actually cleans the accelerator and brake pedals, that would mean I was probably stepping on dried human pee, dog shit, dried up vomit, dead animal carcasses and many other things people step on with their shoes, with my bare feet. Urgh.



Got to drive on the public road from the get go, which was quite fun, drove around for about an hour, got to drove past my secondary school, which was quite nostalgic.  After that, went back to the circuit, drove a few rounds around it and the lesson was over, put on my disgustingly wet shoes and went back home after that. This is my third lesson, but the fourth one I have booked, I actually missed the third lesson I booked and ended up wasting $70 because I am a genius, and by genius I mean extremely stupid and forgetful.