How Did They Mess Up Making Public Transport Payment Actually Convenient?

I spent a large part of my off-hours in the evening attempting to sort out the mess that is auto-reload of my new EZ-link card.

For the busy, I failed: there will be no auto-reloading of my EZ-link card from now on.

For the less busy, here's a longer narrative.

SIN city uses the contactless (wrongly named, since we still need to contact the card to the reader to ensure it gets read properly anyway) card that is run by the EZ-link company. This EZ-link card has a built-in ``expiry date'' of around five years---I suppose there's a technical reason, if not for the policy one of ensuring that any new technology will be rolled out eventually without having to support too many legacy cards out there.

The normal way of topping it up (or ``reloading'' the said card) is to use one of the ticketing machines found ubiquitously at MRT stations and bus interchanges and pay using one of the standard cashless payment mechanisms to add value to the card.

Then there's the auto-reload way of linking it via a GIRO order. For the confused, a GIRO (short for General Interbank Recurring Order) is a system that allows direct payment via bank transfers within SIN city between participating banks and associated billing organisations. This system of auto-reloading for the travel cards has been in place since the late 1990s, from the old magnetic farecards of yesteryear to the current generation of CEPAS cards (check out this CNA article for some details).

To say that it is convenient is to severely undersell it.

Fastforward to today.

My old card is about to expire this year, and so it was time to get a replacement. It's my third overall card ever since the contactless farecards were in use (or my second replacement). I did my due diligence of heading to the EZ-link website to find out about how to enable the beloved feature in my new card.

To my horror, I discovered several things:

1. They phased out GIRO for regular cards, (but kept it for concession cards);
2. Any auto-top up required the installation of yet another app onto one's mobile phone with its associated finagling; and
3. There was a severe restriction of payment methods available for actually doing the top-up.

I verified this myself while going through the process to see if there was any way around it.

I couldn't install the app in my standard phone because my Google Play account was tied to the US for some reason, and the app limits itself only to SIN city Google accounts. Changing countries involved surrendering payment details to the Google Play store, an action that I refuse to partake because I do not intend to purchase anything from the Play store (need to know basis). And even if I did, there were a whole bunch of other waiting times that were just not worth it.

That was not that big a problem---I had an alternative phone that could set it up.

Then I underwent the whole song-and-dance of adding a payment method. I only have a debit card, and the app allowed me to proceed with the whole registration process, only to fail when I tried assigning the card to the auto-top up. Now the debit card that is verified (through Stripe, no less), but is grayed out.

What does it mean? I have no fucking clue.

Reading the reviews, it turns out that the app used to allow debit cards too... but they were mysteriously removed. So now the app is effectively useless for anyone who doesn't have a credit card. There were also other reports on how the NFC feature was a hit-and-miss, and there were weird double-deduction issues for payment, with resolutions taking as long as three weeks.

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I feel like I've dodged a bullet there. It's okay, I can be a peasant and just top it up manually. It works out to be around SGD50 a month for me anyway, so it's not that big a deal. The routes I take tend to pass by some kind of ticketing machine, and there's always the ATM top-up route if I'm really lazy.

``But MT, why don't you have a credit card?''

Good question. Short answer: I don't feel like getting one. I don't spend often enough to justify holding one of these ticking time bombs that implode if I don't pay enough attention to it.

There was an alternative plan of using the so-called SimplyGo account-based payment option. They touted a lot of benefits, but the actual implementation sounded even dodgier to me than the stunts that EZ-link was pulling.

No feedback on the amount left on entry/exit, even heavier dependence on the existence of a mobile phone (with associated app and payment method), more finagling to ensure that the correct payment method is used, and the creation of a definite point of failure that is the mobile phone with dodgy NFC capabilities.

Yeah... hard pass.

I did muse that if I had to have a bloody good reason to spend nearly 100k on a new car, it would be to avoid all these increasingly bullshit nonsense for basic public transport travel.

And yes, I was sufficiently annoyed at the whole sordid affair that I took the time to write something here as we near stupid o'clock, instead of turning in early in preparation for yet another work day of meetings.

Till the next update then.

``I'm Tired, Boss''

``I'm tired, boss. Tired of being on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. I'm tired of never having me a buddy to be with to tell me where we's going to, coming from, or why. Mostly, I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world... every day. There's too much of it. It's like pieces of glass in my head... all the time. Can you understand?''

---Stephen King, The Green Mile

There are days that I feel like that. Is today one of the days? It is a little too early to tell.

That scene as played by Michael Clarke Duncan in the film adaptation was one that stayed with me throughout all these years. A quiet, simple scene that was full of emotion that I feel ill-equipped to describe properly, despite being some kind of a quasi-writer myself (or was it just a hack, in the sense of the generalised ``hacker'' that I keep alluding to?).

I do feel the compelling urge to just want to hug something or someone and just curl up and sleep with it/them in my arms, forgetting about the world, even for a moment, and feeling that sense of safety and comfort that seems sorely missing in my life these days.

``Eh MT, thought you were a Christian? Doesn't God provide you with that kind of support? If you can still feel like this, does it mean that you're not really that faithful a believer after all, and are just as phoney as those who proclaim the prosperity gospel, right?''

It... doesn't work that way. God's promise in the form of Jesus' sacrifice at the cross and His subsequent resurrection is about fulfilling the law of having sinful humankind be reconciled with God, after the Fall of Adam and Eve for disobeying God. It is about future glory, and the cultivation of the soul through the Holy Spirit to be ready for when we are done with our time on the mortal plane.

It was never about achieving some kind of ``heaven on earth'' state, where there is no pain, no anguish in the now. As long as I am still bound by my flesh, I can and will still suffer whatever nonsensical temptations that my flesh brings with it to me---that's the core concept behind being a disciple of Christ. The realisation that we are all sinners, and even though Jesus has redeemed us from God's wrath through His death and resurrection, we need to live up to our regenerate selves through taking up our cross daily, to deny ourselves against sin, to follow Him.

So yes, while my fate in the far future into eternity is assured, I still need to live through this life first.

Speaking of living through this life first, I recently read Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God's Grand Story by Christopher Yuan. The key takeaway from it is that an ego-centric identity is the true sin that we should all be aware of and work against. Part of the transformation of a believer is to shift the ego away from personal self-interest towards one that is God-centric (or more specifically from the New Testament, that is Jesus-centric since Jesus being both Man and God is infinitely more identifiable by us as humans). People who start declaring this identity or that identity, or prematurely judging people in terms of their actions as being sinful or otherwise have both sinned, no matter their self-declared intentions, the sin being completely ignoring God's ultimate moral authority over all. That as believers in a church body, it is our duty to help our brothers and sisters in Christ to redirect themselves towards a life that is centred upon Jesus, while keeping in mind that we are no better than they ourselves, and that all are sinners who need Jesus to save them (see Matthew 7:1--29). Religious hypocrisy is one of the biggest pet peeves of Jesus that He keeps pointing out to in the gospels, and it makes me sad that despite having the entirety of the Holy Bible today, we still see that as a norm.

Dr Yuan does a better job at explaining all these than I---he is with a PhD on this topic after all---and I think that this overarching theme used in reframing of what has been largely a series of cherry-picked skirmishes is helpful in seeing the world anew.

It does give me comfort. But again, I am still human, and need to work through some crap still.

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Theological discursions aside, I went back to my Minecraft map and did some quality of life adjustments. I moved my Nether wart plot to make space to grow me some cocoa beans that I had grabbed from my deforestation runs in the jungle biome way out in the map. After doing that, I built a couple of automated farms for my melons and pumpkins, and situated them on top of my manual farm.

The last thing I did was to build a small and simple lava farm in preparation for future builds where I would need stupid amounts of lava without necessarily having to hunt for these pools in the world. Unlike the video that is present in the linked-to page, mine is literally just an enclosed lava source block with attached pointed dripstone and a cauldron beneath it. I do have 2 double-chests worth of lava from deep mining before, but it's always good to have a renewable source somewhere within reach as well.

Anyway, I think I'll go for a ride on my bicycle. It feels right, and I've been too tired throughout the week to do so---time to rectify that.

Till the next update.

A Short Entry

Today was rough.

There were times when I was just sitting there, realising that the past had no meaning other than random pangs of pain from memories from those who hurt me, and that the future was not worth it to look at.

It didn't help that I was reading Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, and was at the part where Fat Charlie was prevented from reaching home by Spider, where the latter took the opportunity to... get fresh with the former's fiancée.

That made me irrationally angry.

I'm feeling a bit better as I write this, but that dark cloud still hovers nearby.

I know, because I can feel it.

Anyway, perhaps it is time to do some mindless click booming with Ghostlore.

Sorry this entry is this short. Till the next update.

End of 4-day Long Weekend

And with that, this very long 4-day weekend comes to a close, and the usual daily grind returns once more in about ten or so hours.

Was it a ``productive'' break? Depends on what it means by ``productive''---if it is referring to getting work done, then hell no because I refuse to work over non-working hours if I can help it for the two simple reasons that 1. life is too short to be spent on working for not my owned business and 2. I'm not paid for over-time anyway. Moreover, work is never-ending---if work truly ends, then either one is finally made irrelevant at the job that one was working in, or the company/business is at a dead end and have literally nothing else to do.

Now, if ``productive'' was meant in a way that is more tailor-made to the fact that it was a break, then in some ways, it had been quite productive. I completed Psychonauts 2, and by ``complete'' I do mean 100%-ing it too, collecting all that is collectible and maxing out all my character upgrades.

I like Psychonauts 2. It's a 3D platformer with RPG elements, a genre that I honestly don't play much of due to the general requirement of using a controller [with twin analogue sticks] to operate. The closest in genre to it is those third-person action RPGs (think The Witcher 3, something from the Batman/Arkham series), but those I tended to play with keyboard and mouse... just because. 3D platformers with controllers are something of a recent thing for me, with the latest prior to Psychonauts 2 being Bayonetta for the PC, which I abandoned about half-way through due to some serious input lag issues.

I enjoyed the exploratory aspects of Psychonauts 2. The combat mechanics were a little clunky at times since certain enemies could only be dealt with using one of the eight skills (that were mapped to the four shoulder buttons/triggers for activation). Most of the time though, three of the four PSI-based weapons (or skills) are more or less permanently assigned---one for the AOE fire damage, one for effectively ``fast move'', and one for medium range shooting, leaving only one button for whatever ``special'' skill needed. I usually assign the slow-time skill to that button---that slowing of time allows a higher relative DPS to be applied to the enemies, which is always great and is a more general but effective tactic.

I'm bad at the actual platforming though, mostly because judging distances are hard even when one has control over the camera---this was made particularly worse with moving platforms over void with collectibles (that cast no shadow) overhead. Thankfully, there was an option in the game menu that allowed the negation of fall damage from failed platforming, and that made the gameplay smoother than it should, given my not-so-great 3D platforming capabilities.

It was a fun game, and I definitely enjoyed the 40+ hours that I had spent in it.

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In other news, Vampire Survivors introduced a new mechanic called ``Arcana'' to their basic gameplay loop. At this point, I'm not really sure what to feel about it---it does add a little variety to the builds, but it is starting to feel like it may reach Binding of Isaac levels of randomised gameplay, which sort of defeats the quick fun that is the draw of Vampire Survivors? It's related to the issue I have with the cross-game skills meta---there is really no reason why the order of purchase of a skill upgrade should matter in the cost of getting the next available level. What I mean is, there should be no difference in the overall cost of (say) upgrading in the order ``ABC'' as opposed to ``BCA'', or any other order, for that matter, for the three cross-game skills of A, B, and C.

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On a separate note, Ghostlore is finally in Early Access stage on Steam. Ghostlore is a game made in SIN city, and is based on the mythology of the SEA region. It's a hack-and-slash built along the same vein as ye olde Diablo, but with some interesting mechanics that differ from the regular skill tree. I tried their demo some time back and found it interesting enough to keep an eye out on, and when they finally released their Early Access a few days ago, I just snapped it.

There are some instabilities at the moment, and I will probably play a bit more on it in a few days once the more obvious bugs are fixed. I think this might be a cool game to look forward to, if the developers keep up what they have done so far.

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Okay, game-related stuff aside, there is little else to talk about over the four-day long weekend. I mean, okay I attended church service for Good Friday in person, and the Easter service this morning via live-stream, but those aren't exactly things that I generally write about here anyway. I mean, it's a worship service to God... the general contents are more or less the same, and while there is definitely reflection involved with the message that was preached, much of it probably falls into the ``better to put them into the paper journal instead'' category.

I think that's about it for now. Till the next update.

Good Friday

Today is Good Friday.

It is the day that we remember the crucifixion of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He died on the cross as propitiation for our sins, and through His work on the cross, we are now reconciled with God and have eternal life.

``But MT, this does not make any sense! There is no scientific evidence to prove any of your statements here!''

If I were trying to convince someone [who values the scientific method] with my statement, then I admit that there are no scientific evidence that can be provided ever, for the simple reason that Christ's entering of the world (as divinity entering humanity through history, as Pastor likes to remind us) is an event that cannot be replicated/repeated the way scientific experiments can be. There are many different types of evidence out there, and each of them serve a slightly different purpose in how and what it is that they can support the claims.

God is Creator (another unprovable statement within science), and as such He is situated outside of the natural world (much like how the system administrator of a Linux operating system sits outside of the operating system proper). He encompasses all that is knowable, eventually knowable, and never knowable, by us. He is as real to me as any phenomenon that has actual effects but unexplainable causes to you---the moniker ``God'' is what we have chosen to give Him while referring to Him. His own name for Himself is simply I AM, a simple logical axiomatic assertion that self-substantiates with no need for anything else within the logic framework.

To refuse Him is to refute that single statement that He is, and there will never be a way to prove/disprove that within the confines of what we have to work with. It is, in many senses of the word, a leap of faith, something that one has to make up their minds on to know it ``deep within their bones''.

``Okay MT, you don't have scientific evidence... fine. You claim historicity... then show me the historic evidence!''

The Holy Bible exists. It is the inspired Word of God that is without error. It holds Truth in it---the Truth of what it means to be a human in relation to the literal pinnacle of the Moral Good. The New Testament itself encompasses all that is to be said about Jesus, His Ministry and Mission, what happened after, and what will happen in the end. The remarkable thing about it all is the sheer lack of pomp and overall low-keyness of His work. He did not operate the way kings and other people of high places were ``supposed to'' operate befitting of their role---there were no big flashy parades, there was no hobnobbing with the rich and powerful, there was no demand that people adhere to man-made social rules that had no linkage with God's commandments, and more importantly, there was no distinction of who is to be saved and who isn't by birth---it was all by faith and faith alone.

Events in the New Testament can be matched with other contemporary sources to mark their historicity---scholars have been doing that for years now, and it would be a disservice of me to not acknowledge their efforts. If the New Testament did not stand up to the scrutiny of the work earnest scholars, then it would be the biggest news to hit everyone, considering the sheer number of people who claim to be Christians (cultural or otherwise).

``Okay... I suppose I could look up the scholars' works on the New Testament for historicity. What about the Old Testament and its whole lot of contradictions then?''

The Old Testament is the backdrop of who Jesus is (as well as the mission that He is given), and should be understood as a collection of many different types of writings. Some are more documentary of events (in which case, the moral message is not as the text writes, but as the text appeals to---the actual text records the actions of the parties involved), some are actual prophecies embedded in the record of actions taken by people, and some are songs that are sang by the people. Usually it is the pre-historical stuff that gets people grinding their gears (Genesis, specifically).

How does one conceive and record pre-history in a form that exemplifies the start of history? That in itself is a common problem, both in the Old Testament sense, and in a more regular and ``common'' scientific sense in the secular world. To be precise, even the modern treatment of pre-history is superlatively vague---the actual [physical] evidence that we have of pre-history is actually quite patchy, and the further we go back in time, the larger the spans of time between the samples of evidence that we base our inferences from, and all these under the twin assumptions of a 4.5 Ga Earth and 14 Ga universe. Part of the reason lies with the sensitivity of our detection methods---from the crudest of observations we can only surface the largest of events; with gradual refinements of said observations, we start to surface the more mundane. Eventually the sensitivity of our methods can unearth the most mundane of everyday existence, up to the entropic floor where natural processes wipe out all the other micro-evidence.

We get the benefit of updates over time, while the pre-historical stuff in the Old Testament do not. Hence, we are always seemingly applying the most up-to-date understandings against a piece of writing that has been around for longer than 1.5 ka---an unfair comparison, perhaps? More importantly though, the pre-historical account in Genesis serves as an introduction to the more important theme that the Old Testament wants to convey---that humankind are sinful with respect to the Moral Good that is God, and that God cannot not punish Sin due to His very nature.

As for the contradictions, it's just cherry-picking all the way down. Many love to poke fun at the Holy Bible by claiming contradictions by picking a single verse that says (for example) ``killing is bad'' (say Deuteronomy 5:17) and then pointing out that another says ``killing is justified'' (say Exodus 22:19 or something), and declaring a contradiction.

🤦‍♂️

Literal cherry-picking. I don't think I want/need to say more. For the confused, remember that any and all citations, no matter where, need to be taken in context for them to make sense. A single line conveying a thought may be part of a piece of satire (for example) that completely negates what the surface meaning is. In a similar way, just because a particular verse appears in the Holy Bible does not mean that it is a factual assertion---the type of writing that it is appearing in (recording of an event, prophecy, parable, poetry), as well as the immediate context in which the verse is embedded in, needs to be taken into account as well.

``Alright, alright... I can sense your annoyance, MT. But why are you talking about all these now? Are you trying to say something?''

In a way, yes. I am declaring myself as a disciple of Christ, in a fairly public way; and this is after my baptism some time back. But I am also declaring that this declaration is just my own, and that I have no intention of demanding that everyone submit to the same beliefs that I do. I would be happy to share whatever little I know with whomever is interested, bringing them to the more learned Christian when their interest goes beyond what I have comprehended and can explain, and defend my own beliefs to someone up to the point beyond which it is just bickering for the sake of bickering, but I will not follow the paths of those who rely on force and deceit to evangelise the Word of the Lord.

Because for Him, the means is as important as the ends.

Additional Day Off, and The Mahabharata

Today's an additional day off as declared by the senior of senior management, and it explains why I'm sitting here at home, ``enjoying'' the cloyingly muggy-ass weather.

Sleep is something that is really important to me these days. I find that for each day where I don't get enough sleep (``enough'' being at least 6.5 hours), I tend to start the day really groggy. It gets a little mitigated with the amounts of caffeine I imbibe through the dual outcome of regular caffeining up and clearing out the old stock of 3-in-1 instant coffee satchets in the office (if I don't drink it, it will just be wasted when expired), but like all regular caffeine users, that ``high'' eventually goes away over repeated use due to the body developing resistance to it.

This means that by around 1400hrs, I would start to lose it, despite having yet another milder boost at around 1230hrs or so.

I think I need to take this more seriously, especially since I have started to incorporate alternate-day cycling trips that make use of the modified Northeast Riverine Loop. That loop is roughly 12 mi long (around 18+ km, both numbers pulled from the direct measurement via the GPSr), and takes me about an hour or so to clear. There are surprisingly few stoppage areas throughout the route, most of which occur due to how diversions to the Loop take one out into the main road areas, where clueless pedestrians and lawless food delivery ``heroes'' (or was it just... gangsters?) amble/charge about with zero situation awareness and complete ignorance of basic road etiquette (keep left unless overtaking, and no surprising movements). It's my go-to route in general, due to the lessened need of dealing with people in general.

Tangents aside, having this aggressive of a physical activity schedule for a generally sedentary me means that sleep to clear the brain of waste particles becomes more important than before.

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In other news, I have finally powered through all 18 books of the Mahabharata. Man, what a head trip that was, and this is considering that I have read both The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night and The Illuminatus! Trilogy (not to mention The Holy Bible).

Where do I start?

I suppose we can begin with recommendation. Do I recommend it as reading material for someone? Probably not, particularly if one is operating mostly in the anglosphere. The cultural references are more obscure as compared to the other works in a similar genre [of head trips], and it does get rather preachy at times. Much of the earlier parts of the Mahabharata make little sense until the depiction of the Kurukshetra War, where the seemingly disparate characters are brought together into a great narrative of conflict between the righteous and the unrighteous.

Of particular note is the character of Bhishma (who is very different from Bhima, a son of Pandu). To aid those who want to read the Mahabharata, I just want to point out that Bhishma's appearance in so many disparate places across a loooooong period of time is not merely an accidental appearance of someone with a similar name, it is literally still him throughout. Just keep that in mind, and things will be less confusing.

Oh and Arjuna has many names... not just him, but many of the other [major] characters have multiple names too. Just keep them straight in one's head and it will be alright. Maybe.

It was definitely an eye-opening read, with every translated line oozing with what I think to be the essence of the culture of the people of then. There are fantasy-like moments the way much of important old writing has (I suspect ``non-fiction'' the way we know it came about only from the scientific enlightenment period onwards), but the cosmology has a certain system in it that makes it easier to see what it means to be a follower of the gods of that time.

That's all I want to write about the Mahabharata though... it's fast become unbearably warm, and the only good response to that is a siesta.

Till the next update then.

Aggressive Regimen of Anti-Depressants

Oh boy, look at it! Stupid o'clock! Amazing ain't it?

Anyway, I've started on an aggressive regimen of anti-depressants. No, it's not in the form of some active ingredient buffered with filler material---it's the conscription of aerobic activity to trigger the brain to feed itself with the correct neurotransmitters to make it less depressed in general.

This being SIN city, the choice of aerobic activity is obviously not running---it's bloody muggy here, and the roads are always full of cars belching their usual catalytically converted noxious gases (compared to say the residential streets way back in Chambana).

I've gotten back to cycling once more.

Now, back in the day when I was working in one-north, I had decided to scout if it were possible to cycle to work. That thought process was triggered by the realisation that my office had showering facilities, a must have when considering the use of self-powered motion [over the long distances needed to get from home to the office] to ensure that the effort thus expended does not result in a day of sitting through some stinky sweat-encrusted clothes.

When I left that place and worked elsewhere, I thought I could cycle to work daily instead due to the much closer proximity. Unfortunately I got diverted out to the client's on-site to work, and that location was not conducive for these kinds of activities. When I was eventually relocated back to the office, I did cycle almost daily, and loved every minute of it.

Where I am currently working at, I don't think I can cycle to work---I have not located any shower facilities that are easily accessible.

But that's fine.

My current tactic is to cycle after work, doing alternate days. I figured that since I was ``not in the market for dating'', and have few people/groups to meet in general after the usual work hours [during the week days], I can totally set aside about an hour every other day to go experience that control over the bicycle, speeding through the Northeast Riverine Loop.

It's a new thing I'm starting, and so far, my body seems to tolerate it well. The anti-depressant effects from the... exercise (hur hur) are coming on indeed, and I am pleased. Hopefully I can make this into a habit to provide a more concrete cardio (and leg-strengthening) augmentation to the daily mini-exercises based on the Hacker's Diet that I had restarted again.

All these are sufficiently important to maintaining this Temple of God that I need to trick myself from giving excuses simply by following through and not accord it more thought than necessary.

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In other news, I've started on Psychonauts 2, a 3D platformer with an interesting story line that I got for free some time back from my friend Dwight who had put up the digital key to an extra copy that he had from being a kickstarter supporter. I'm liking it so far; there's lots to explore, there's character progression to think about (quasi metroidvania), the writing is witty and funny, and they have some cool quality-of-life options like negating fall damage, negating combat damage, and overpowering the protagonist's attacks for those who play the game more for the narrative than to ``challenge'' themselves.

Naturally, I used my trusty controller for this. Also as naturally, I suck at the gliding move in the 3D platforming. And because of that, I just turned on the negation of fall damage so that things are not as irritating. Combat so far has a systematic list of counters for each enemy type, though it is not to the extent one must use the correct counter to defeat the enemy---any other combinations of other moves available to the player are also viable, though they may take a little longer.

Therer is a collect-a-thon part to the game that is so far, quite endearing, since much of the collection is relate to lore, with some (not a lot) impact on gameplay.

Anyway, I think I'm really beat. I can feel myself nodding off.

Till the next update then.

Recovery?

You know, I thought that I had recovered my spoons on Sunday.

But after passing through the day that was yesterday, I'm not so sure.

On the second bus leg for my homeward bound trip, I started to tear up for seemingly no reason. It wasn't an all out eyes-bawling thing, but the kind of feeling one gets when struck by a sad memory from out of the blue.

There was, as far as I recall, no stimulus---I wasn't listening to a particularly moving piece, nor was I reading anything traumatic (like The Economist's coverage of the situation in Ukraine). Since ``TVMobile'' hasn't been a thing for more than ten years, and I was clearly not on my phone then, I wasn't watching anything particularly moving to trigger off that either.

I don't know... might it be because of some latent realisation that this life is all there is, and that it was increasingly more meaningless over time? Leaving the mortal coil seems to be preferable, and yet I cannot reconcile the equal outcome of offing myself versus dying through some self-unforeseen process---there seems to be some resistant (however minor) against offing myself as compared to the eerily calm acceptance of just dropping dead from something that I had no control over.

So irrational... so... human...

Anyway, random tearing and feelings of undescribable sadness. Not sure what was going on there.

Today's another day, and as I quickly scribble this down, I'm also in the process of getting dressed for work. Till the next update, I suppose.

Recovery

I mentioned yesterday about how I ran out of spoons and effectively took a day off from whatever I was supposed to be doing normally [that wasn't work related] yesterday.

Today... I think I got back most of my spoons. Which is just in time for the upcoming week.

I spent the morning with the live streaming of the Sunday service. Pastor was covering Psalm 147, or more specifically, Psalm 147:1. The uninitiated might ask, ``how in the world can anyone preach an entire service based on only this one verse?'', but I can provide a little more explicit explanation.

See, it's the first [Sunday] service of the month, and so there's the ordinance of the Lord's Supper to uphold. Then there's also the rather recent relaxation of COVID-19 management rules from the SIN city government, which simplifies to saying that congregational singing [for worship] is now permitted. So much of the service was really spent on singing hymns and other worship songs. Even during the preaching of the service's message there was even more singing---singing (and non-fleshly music for that matter) are among the core tenets of the worship of God.

Thus, in addition to the rather pithy explanation of why the sole verse of Psalm 147:1 was as important as it was, there was also much opportunity to praise and worship the Lord in song.

Worship aside, I spent some time assaulting the ocean monument in Minecraft. I had erected a set of beacons to provide additional boons to make taking out the regular Guardians (and the three Elder Guardians later on, for that matter) much easier, and had the chance to test out the deployment of the conduit to obtain the boon of ``conduit power'', which gave underwater night-vision, as well as negating the gradual loss of breathing air each time one is submerged within the water. I killed enough Guardians to gain enough materials to make my own prismarine blocks, and with that, I had managed to deploy a conduit back in my Great Aquarium.

The last thing that I needed to do there was to populate it with various fish. A problem that I will need to solve is to ensure that those fish do not despawn---unlike farm mobs of sheep, cows, pigs, and chickens, it seems like fish will naturally despawn if they are not named with a name-tag. I'll just have to trade a few more name tags with the villagers in my shopping complex, and if I do get bored, will probably just whip up some more via creative mode if need be.

Apart from the conquering of the ocean monument in Minecraft, I also spent a few hours on completing The Room 4: Old Sins, the fourth instalment of the puzzle/escape room series of The Room by Fireproof Games. I like that puzzle series---they are not usually time sensitive, have decent puzzle mechanics, and are generally fun without being overly taxing. The puzzle type is usually limited to quasi-mechanical physics puzzles, with the twisting of perspectives as an added bonus, though probably not at the level that Antichamber is known for (a puzzle game that I really need to start+complete, just like The Witness). Puzzles are gated by the availability of pieces rather than specific tool-limitations for the most part, and all of them can be solved based only on knowledge that is available in-game (i.e. no need external knowledge like morse code or anything along those lines).

I have also miraculously cleared up the gradual accumulated backlog of YouTube videos from my favourite Hololive VTubers too, a first in many months. I attribute this to my new-found ability to consistently watch the videos at 2× speed---previously the maximum that I could go was 1.5× while still doing other things and maintaining cognitive awareness and understanding of what is being said, but with the expansion of the original five from Hololive Myth (and the adorkable Reine of Holoro (HoloID Gen 2)) to include IRyS, the new group of five from Hololive Council, some more Holostars like Oga and Aruran, as well as a few Hololive JP folks (Okayu, Botan, and HAACHAMA)... yeah, I was running out of time to catch up.

Mind you, this was with a fairly aggressive filtering process. I generally follow what Ina and Reine have, then be selective of IRyS's streams. Then the rest of the Holomems videos are chosen more or less based on the game they are playing, favouring games that I have not seen before or games/genres that the particular holomem is skilled at, and of course anything else that is a special event that isn't ASMR or karaoke related (nothing against ASMR/karaoke---these simply won't work at anything faster than 1× speed).

I guess it shows just how much output following a group of content creators can put out.

Am I obsessed with Hololive? Eh... I don't think so. It's just a nice collegial group of content creators to relax to after the end of a long-ass day/week... sort of like the earliest days of the Games Done Quick events, before it got all corporate. It's about that casual feel these VTubers bring about as they stream, and about that peeking into a perennial slice of life that I have always been a fan of even from back in the days of following web comics and watching animated series. Hololive Productions is its own slice of life---it is so good at its own fun to the point that I can't even bring myself to watch any more slice of life animes these days.

No one needs to watch all the 50+ Holomems just to keep up with everything---it's good enough to just watch those whom one is interested in, and rely on the memes and updates from r/Hololive for the rest.

Anyway, that's all I'd want to say. It's getting late---I should take my shower and turn in for the night.

No sense getting my spoons back just to lose them due to not having enough sleep.

Till the next update then.

Out of Spoons

I gave up for today.

I had simply ran out of spoons.

The past week at work saw me having to talk/deal with too many people, under too many intensive situations, for too long.

I just don't like that. It drains a lot of out me. It drained a lot out of me. And so, I just... didn't feel like I wanted to deal with more people today.

And so, I gave up for today.

That means not going for service, and not going for rehearsal. Just staying at home, with my door closed, and looking out of the window with my head empty, no thoughts, and probably have an early night.

I did head out at some point in the afternoon for a short cycle around the northeast riverine loop. There was a diversion due to yet more ``improvement works'', but what made this trip memorable was that it stormed about a third of the way through. The rain came down hard, and visibility was easily reduced to about 10 m. I wore my usual glasses, which helped a little in keeping the direct strikes of the rain drops on my eyes, but whatever did land on my eyes felt quite hard upon my eye lids. It doesn't sting the way sweat does, but it was still rather annoying at times.

The rain did help wash down my bicycle though---it was gathering dust the way everything that sits outside of boxes do.

So, I suppose I had a little stupid but fun thing going. What made me a little happy about it all was that my level of fitness wasn't that garbage that I ended up being winded from it all (it is still, however, pretty bad I think). I'll probably go for a longer trip on one of the off-days that are provided for at work; not another 70+ km trip, but something that is of a considerable distance.

Anyway that's all for now. Till the next update, I suppose.