Letters to my future self

20050630

Letters to my future self

jun 30th - a last min post b4 rushing off to work

saw "mirrormask" selling for 41+ at mart today. had to pay 54+ for mine from kino, not knowing that there was a 20% discount if i could get my hands on the coupon or a privilege card. argh.
i consoled myself that the extra money goes into the lucky draw for the 'chance at lunch with neil gaiman' until i remembered that i still havent submited the draw coupon and well... its freaking past its submittion date. I AM AN EEEEEEEEEEEEEEDIOT.

damn it.

am considering taking up the offer that kun offered me the other day, a chance to sneak into the press conference when gaiman comes over. cos theres word going around that for the signings on the 5th and the 6th, u actually have to register with the brit council and its fully booked.will chk back with him on that.

other matters include a job offer recently, so life when the current chapter ends is undergoing discussion. i need to know how much off i can actually claim so that the details can be confirmed.

uh-oh... going to be late for work. haha
-out-

20050627

Letters to my future self

27th jun - the truth cometh to light

a major fire happened near station today. along defu lane, one of the small factories randomly caught fire and spread to a neighbouring unit. the 1st ambulance picked up 3 casualties and left, activating a 2nd to standby at the scene.

we arrived next. i got grounded with 2 bags of equipment to provide 1st aid shd anyone require it, or if anyone else was stretchered out. the vehicle left carrying another person. this the 1st time i'm grounded at the scene, no doubt its only to standby, its still a first. stood under the hot sun for quite a while. the fire was apparently quite big, the biggest we had in the area so far, excluding all the random bush fires.

anyway later that day, i found out during a random chat with the admin clerk that the person that ratted on me back then long ago was actually him. not that he had any ill intentions thou. still i'm sore abt having to get all the posts deleted away. he was jus called into the big boss's office back then to try and identify who the writer was. it was quite tell tale from my descriptions esp so since i was working in the office back then and well, we both work in the same area.

the random chat dabbled into some issues abt politics and at the end of the day we came to this conclusion:

1) singaporeans are highly dependant on the gahmen.
2) the education system is responsible for that, and it is intentional
3) a person that is highly dependant on another can be easily manipulated
4) it was necessary back then so that there will be less opposition to policies and thus rapid growth can be achieved.

interesting? yes, no? then again its jus a personal view... so....

it wasnt much of an audit today actually, more like a briefing, so which means more paperwork until the actual day itself. bah. then again i get to claim off for my efforts put into this, so... no complains... at the moment ;p

ok, off to bed
-out-

20050626

Letters to my future self

26th jun - power of the people

had a pretty ptless meeting aft my last night shift. big boss wanted to address some disciplinary issues, oh well.

the meeting was imo, nothing much, as it probably affected my work group the least. wad was most annoying was that there was an uninvited visitor to the meeting that kept asking stupid questions. *insert ANNOYING in caps*

jus before the end of the meeting i brought up the age old issues abt the allowance again. i've more or less given up hope in the fight already, however, it was more of a testing of reactions then really hoping that the allowance issue will resolve.

imo, he failed the test, horribily. he chose the side the bigwigs, citing that the allowance is an incentive rather then a compensation for the risk we take. very well, if thats the way you put it, i have to rest my case then.

even if he wasnt interested, shdnt he have at least pretended to hear what we wanted to say and tell us that he would 'try' to fight it for us. at least it would appease those in the room.

a gd leader shd nv ignore the ppl at the lower rungs of the ladder. take say... romance of the 3 kingdoms for example, the primary reason whereby liu bei is portrayed as a hero in the story is because he's of peasant beginnings and he build his empire from scratch, from the support he garnered from the people.

for the very same reason, communism flourished in russia and china back then. lenin's "Bread, Land, Peace and All Power to the Soviets", the red army's long march, both impressed many enough to convert to their idealisms.

oh well. at least he did introduce a new system that might result in me getting more leave to clear. so no complains, but to my juniors, gd luck.

on sat, the group gathered for a BBQ night, a refreshing idea from jus bumming around indoors. the inexperiance at organising the activities showed thou, like how we almost went without charcoal.. haha. then there was me who decided that to shewer the chichken wings from the wrong end only becos it looks better that way. haha.

had quite abit of fun, something thats been lacking recently. good job to whoever made it possible and all of u who made urself present.

alright, to bed. long day ahead tomorrow. supposed to have an audit taking place, been stuck doing paperwork for the past few duties jus because of that. hopefully nothing screws up tomorrow.

-out-

20050622

Letters to my future self

21th jun - Gaiman coming to town!

probably old news already, but he'll be in town for a few days during the 1st week of july. on the 4th will be a talk, some previews of a movie and book signings. sucks that i have to be working on that day. will prob try to claim time off and try to attempt the evening event.

following that will be book signing on the 5th at kino which i'll prob miss. 2nd day at work. bah.

last book signing on the 6th at borders, a talk and book signing to be precise.

restricted to 3 books per signing, which means shd i attend 2 events, that would be 6 books... now now, which 6 shd i bring? decisions, decisions....

gaming news, been fiddling around with lego star wars. very cute game, haha. been keeping me occupied with its simple and brainless game play. the grafix is jus too cute, esp when they re-enact the movie scenes, like the one in eps 1 when qui gonn died, hilarious.

found a new way of playing games without having to pay for anything, as of now, heroes of might and magic 4, inclusive of 2 expansions, jedi knight-jedi academy n kotar 2 are making their way into the comp.

life for now... is gd
-out-

20050619

Letters to my future self

18th jun - stealth mode "on"

today we bumped into the very same person that tried to beat me up like abt 1 yr back while i was called out to help a person while conducting a lesson at our division.

she's a diabetic and has a history of problems, in addition to that, i jus found out today that she's quite infamous.

someone reportedly found someone in a near fainting status and we were called up. when we got there, we only managed to catch her back view, which was enuff for both me and my in-charge to guess that it might be her. apparently my in-charge has also sent her in before, on a different case from my previous. she's supposedly a 'regular'. besides that she always refuses help, running away. even on the rare occasions whereby she's sent in, she'll escape without or aft treatment.

anyway, we tried to approach her talking to her nicely, only for her to hide from us initially, then taking off eventually. decided that we shd follow her, jus in case she faints or falls and gets hurt. thou we chose not to follow closely, lest she tries to dash across the road like my last encounter. so we kept a great deal of a distance while keeping her in sight, and hopefully, us out of her sight. but it seems, she's already used to being followed. she literally led us to a wild goose chase by making a big round around a particular estate of flats and ending up on the place where we initially talked to her. ><"

mutiple times she tried to flag a cab down, luckily all her attempts failed. but that doesnt mean that we're making any progress either. we called for police to be at scene, however they arent exactly here yet. the fact that we are constantly on the move doesnt help either.

the chase came to a very unexciting end thou. she began walking towards this bus stop and at this moment a bus turned at the junction jus behind us. she turned around and saw the bus. apparently its the bus she's waiting for, i think. she half ran half staggered towards the bus stop and managed to board the bus jus in time. we on the other hand can only watch from a distance. all we cound do is see that she doesnt get hurt and now that she's boarded the bus, its beyond our area of duty and the police is... well, not here yet.

oh well, it did inject some life into a rather unexciting day...
i have to say... it was quite... fun... haha
-out-

20050613

Letters to my future self

Jun 13th - more then jus a simple defeat.

i still havent gotten over that loss yesterday.

its probably been the worse day ever.

to be fair, the day started with a blast. i had to do my monthly citylink sprint as usual, jus to make it in time for the 1st event. at the sealed tables, i got passed the most ridiculous pile of cards ever. 3 money rares and 2 playable rares. the most beautiful curve i have in sealed to date.

i won my 1st game with ease. at the start of the 2nd round, i got deck checked. got a verbal warning for not tallying my cardpool with the registration sheet and made to remove my 31st card cos i didnt register it in my deck, and a 30 card deck is still legal. the hell.... it was an impt card somemore. argh. overconfidence.

subsequently lost my next 2 games cos i lost the die roll. ridiculous. the most broken decks can be jus foiled by 1 broken card..... irony of it all... lose die roll, death by 2 face.

dropped jus before lunch for the constructed event. fielding the new infinite deck, its probably the deck under the spotlight at the moment. figuring that few ppl in singapore will be putting the deck together and playing it, it would stand a very gd chance in the enviroment of robots.

went over to KFC for lunch. had to wait for my banito meal. bah. took the chance to fill in my decklist at the counter.

by the time i got back to the tourney area, round 1 had started. i went over to the front desk and asked.... is it too late to sign up for the constructed event?
well, apparently i still could, but unless i can find another player who was late, i'll be given a game loss. argh. 1 loss in 6 games, which means i can only afford to lose 1 more game. oh well, at least i have time to finish my my banito.

a promise to myself, i would got 5-1. if i would lose to anyone today, it would only be to myself. nv would i expect, at the start of round 2, i got deck chked ... again. WTF.
twice in a day, how unlucky can 1 get..... brrr.

got called up again. recieved a written warning this time, cos i misregistered a couple of cards in my deck. i got 1 set of card names wrongly, had the quantities of 2 cards wrong and didnt register 2 cards. ack.

round 5, i got paired with ben playing the same deck, it fact it was a card for card copy, cos it was a deck borrowed from eugene and eugene took the decklist from me the previous night. it was a tweaked version of the original deck that i took off the net. he was 4-0 at this pt, shd he concede to me, we would be shoo ins for top 8. which was exact wad he proposed. on the condition that we split. which was fine by me, until he made himself clear, i split him if i end in prizes, not both ways. 30%, no more no less. i proposed cash prizes only for the split but he declined, citing that it would be quite dumb if i finished with prizes but with no cash reward. i gave it some thought and agreed, since the mirror match could go both ways and there would be some risk shd i lose this round.

at the end of the swiss rounds, i top the table, 5-1.
by the luck of it, becos i'm 5-1, a 3-3 made it into top 8. that person had to be noel.
i utterly cant describe how i feel abt him with jus words, my hatred for him traces way back at the 1st LOTR territorials. BRRRR.

anyway he was my 1st round opponent. how annoying.
he was playing BOA, a concoction of kengyin's, with some anti light mods.
before he came over to the table, he went over to ask ben wad i was playing and tips against my strategy. it really annoyed me and how is this behaviour different from terry soh?
ben had splits with both him and me, so it didnt matter to ben as to who would make top 4, he would still benefit from it. besides, i'm not a goblin.

game 1, i went slow, going off on 5. he made feeble attempts to try and stop me from going off with a HAB, but i show him the superiority of the deck by putting the dr light activation targetting rama tut on the chain then going off even before the HAB will ever resolve. realising the futility of his efforts, he scooped.

game 2, was the longest game i had in the whole day. i knew he has a single copy of scarlet witch, so it meant that i was put on a clock to win before it hits play, cos if i dont ... thats game. however, despite my massive card draws, i failed to drew a single copy of dr light, nor sonar, which would allow me to teamup. my situation made worse by the fact that he had an assasin initaite out that was throwing shurikens at my valeria. yet i prevented myself from getting killed by scarlet witch by HABing his metropolis twice to prevent his mountain stronghold from fetching that game ending card. by the time i finally drew into dr light, it was perhaps abit too late. he managed to get a 6 drop mystique out, atking and powering up 3 times with lost city in play. i died on turn 7.

7 mins on the clock going into game 3. i have to win fast. opt for odd inits, that way, shd i be able to go off on 3, he wont even be able to play HAB to disrupt my plans. i almost did it on 3. i had all my components except for 1. rama tut, or a signal flare, or a the ring has chosen. despite having played 3 radiations that turn, my deck refused to spit any of those cards out. that even despite the fact that i KO'ed my own valeria to give dr light 3 counters, jus to drew 3 more cards. i could not decide which irritated me more, the fact that i couldnt draw into my combo or the fact that he had to ponder over each of my moves. i promptly lost my devil's due to his HAB on his build. time was called on turn 3. turn 4, his init. i was behind by 1 life, due to an attempt by him to atk my valeria and me moving her into hiding. he made a recruitment of merlyn, put the assasin initiate behind him and an exhausted talia next to the assasin.

i recruited boris twice, both fetching HAB (foiling his attempt to shoot with merlyn then winning me with a diff of 1 endurance), then rama tut who finally decided that he shd make an appearance, in fact i have not 1 but 2 copies in hand. returned a signal flare back to hand. by this time he realised that something was seriously wrong. his merlyn is his only char that can atk. my dr light is 6/7, compared to his 7/7. judging by his looks, he probably doesnt have a powerup for merlyn. so if i manage to powerup, he's screwed. he cant atk my rama tut either. my kristoff would reinforce him and my light will fly in aft his assasin initiate.

he frowns for abit and did some calculations, it was annoying me to hell. i said "y? nv been atked by dr light before issit?". he finally sent his merlyn into my light, i flared, he aimed a HAB at my MTU naming EE and F4, which meant i could not resolve the flare to look for a light. my comment is jus abt to fall flat on my face. i let the HAB resolve. replaced a char. i aimed my own HAB at my doomstat. replaced a char. aimed my last HAB at my last teamup. replaced a char. my flare got me a random idiot, comment fell flat on my face, light stuns, i lose my game and my chance in top 4. all i needed was another teamup, millenium or MTU or a freaking meltdown jus for that 2 endurance.

i am upset, i missed 2 very gd chances thruout this game that could win me the game, but it didnt happen that way. in fact if i even had another turn, the game would be in the bag. turn 5 is my init, all i needed to do is to boris twice for HAB's to protect from merlyn, rama tut fetching back devil's due and i would be able to go off even before scarlet witch can hit play. but no, i didnt have the liberity of having that 1 more turn, jus becos my opponent chooses to take more time to ponder over not only his, but my decisions too.

my fustration could be felt by those around me and i wasnt afraid to voice it out. where is the honor in this victory?! i've lost... not becos of my own mistakes, but to some grey area in the game. this STINKS.

i really felt like crying. this was a game that i wanted to win more than any others, but i have failed to do so. i can only leave my head hanging in shame....

collected my measly 6 packs and a t shirt. went over to ben to pass him the packs that i'm supposed to pass him. he tried to good guy me by telling me "nv la, u keep ur packs". that was jus adding fuel to fires. in my heart, i was screaming " I DONT NEED UR PITY.... U..U... LACKEY OF A GOBLIN!!! " dog of noel, PUI~~~!! i honor my words, 30% so be it. he had to ask me "so.. how many packs is that...?" i couldnt take it anymore, i jus dropped 2 packs onto the table and left. as a matter of fact, i didnt care anymore, he can have all my packs for all i care. i've lost more then jus a game in that defeat...

"only a friend can betray you" i've nv truly understood wad this phrase meant. i finally do. with no trust there can nv be betrayal....

if there was any reason y i did not want to talk abt this, that would be it. but i dont care anymore...

i hate myself.
-out-

*btw, i would like to thank everyone who shared my pain that day and offered their condolences. it made me feel better.... slightly....*

20050612

Letters to my future self

12th jun - argh

if theres anything i feel now, it would be ...

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!!!!!!!!

i hate myself.
i need a break.
i'm tired.

-out-

20050610

Letters to my future self

10th jun - leave forecasting

was put in the office to do some admin work today. finished my work fairly quickly, picked up a calender and a copy of our work schedule, i did a forecast of my leave until i ORD.

apparently unlike wad i said previously, i wont be leaving at the end of jul. cos i'll have to take leave for both days of 10K:SG. as a result, i will only be leaving on the 2nd of aug. unless of course... i get to claim extra off or something... hmm...

oh well, either ways, u can start crossing dates off the calendar starting fromt he end of the month.

go me.
-out-

20050608

Letters to my future self

8th may - slacking

as the 'date' draws nearer and nearer, my duties at work have become more slack. delegrating most of my work to my juniors already. when the next batch comes in, my work will more or less be done....

my combo drive has been fixed apparently, the technician called yesterday to confirm that. prob dropby to simlim to pick it up tomorrow, at the same time get some CDRs so that i can backup my stuff and hopefully get this system reformatted by the end of the month.

recently a new deck type emerged for VS that caught my eye. its a new infinity loop deck. its sooo damn bloody stupid and nonsensical, but i like it. wad's better then starting a turn 3 with " i think i can win this turn ..." now, the only problem with this deck is that its threatening the enviroment, so i would assume that an errata would be issued sooner or later. but until then, i'll be having fun with it.... heh

too bad 10K sg is sealed. bah. by the time its KL in sep, either a solution would have been printed else the errata would already have been in place ><"

oh well, cant have the best of both worlds i guess. the most i can do is bring the deck down this sunday to the pcq.

alright, got to catch some sleep
-out-

maaya sakamoto - loop.mp3 (tsubasa chronicle 1st ending theme)

20050602

Letters to my future self

june 1st - oh crap

tsk, one of the silliest things possible in the world happened to me today. at noon, jus as my mum was going out to work, it rained. very heavily.

having no place at her workplace to dry a wet umbrella, my mum requested for me to shelter her to the LRT station which is no more then 5 mins away. she opened the door while i went to grab the umbrella and i closed the door aft me.

walked her to the station and headed back for home, preparing myself to go out.... until i reached the foot of my block.

wait a min... did i forget something?

hmm... ok. great. i think i forgot to bring my keys out.

ARH~~~!!!!!!

all i freaking have with me is a freaking umbrella!!!

OMG!!

i am soooo screwed.

sigh. lucky for me, my mum's workplace is still within walking distance, like say 15 mins walk away from my place. or rather 20+mins given the fact that the rain is heavy and i'm in slippers ( which barely have any friction on wet surfaces). ah dui~. have to walk in the rain....

ack.
at least my mum isnt working like in hougang or amk or anywhere far for that matter. if not i'll REALLY be screwed.

oh well... got the keys and an ezlink card from my mum so at least i didnt have to walk back.
on the lrt trip back, i did catch a very interesting 1-sided conversation btw a guy and a gal, both secondary skool chewren.

gal: arcade very fun meh?
guy: ...
gal: only childish ppl like arcade
guy: ...
gal: omg, i'm so mature~!
guy: ...

me: *facepalm*

went downtown today, cos i needed to help hairul run a tournment. its the 1st time i'm doing this for VS and man, was it tiring. back then when it was LOTR, being a TD was such a breeze, i almost had no problems with players. no cheating, no stalling. i could trust my players. for VS, its a whole different experiance. even prior to the event, i've had several ppl coming up to me and telling me to keep and eye on orry and during the event itself, i had to deal with countless games that ran into overtime. bah.

luckiy there werent any major issues that caused any upsets to the event itself. in fact, the turnout was quite fine.

the zero-stall deck seems to be a viable and fun deck to play, however there is a major flaw in the deck's strategies. unlike most stall decks, this one allows ur opponents to make atks freely. as a result it gives them more chance to 'ponder' over their atk options. having only 30 mins on the clock, its quite possible for them to get ahead of you on life totals and yet deny you of turns 8 or 9.

tourney stuffs aside, i had an interesting revelation today. that is, i can actually type without looking that the keyboard. while this shd nv be a problem with ppl who use the 10 finger typing style, i belong to the grp off ppl who use only 2-3 (or 4 if u consider the thumb on the space bar) fingers when typing. i've actually been using this style of typing for so long, i subconsciously know where the keys are *shudders*

ok, better catch some sleep. back to work tomorrow.
as a matter of fact, i have to report to the academy tomorrow for my AACT, which i didnt go. apparently its compulsary, not becos its impt for me. but they need my attendance for statistical purposes. well done, i say.

-out-