Tuesday, January 23, 2024

What I Did Yesterday-ish

Today marks the last day of the leave that I took to celebrate my birthday. I spent a large part of yesterday (birthday proper) just... walking about under air-conditioned settings. I had a wonderful lunch of fancy sushi at my favourite place, before heading down to Plaza Singapura to check out the Yamaha there (ended up buying a super long flute swab), before walking about Plaza Singapura itself where I found GameMartz which sold the Steam Deck (I didn't buy because I really don't play games on the move---I tend to read a hell lot more, hence the Eirian series, with the latest being Eirian-V).

I made my way to Esplanade after that, wondering on a whim to see if Kelvin was there in The Band World (he wasn't---Liyan was there, and I just went in and kaypoh-ed around the merchandise). I had tea-time Guinness with nachos out at Harry's@Esplanade Mall. The old library@esplanade was completely boarded off (as expected) due to its closure; near it was 《印映》, a visual arts exhibition by Hong Shu-ying that reflected upon 阿炳, the blind erhu player whose most famous piece was 《二泉映月》. Apparently he was also among the earliest to introduce 简谱 notation for writing down Chinese music, but this part is a little sketchy to me.

Before I started heading home, I caught Night Drives with ANNÉ running through their sound checks. The lead singer was Nicole ``Nikki'' Ann Chan, and while her stage dress was definitely eye-catching (white body-con Bardot-style with a really low back and high hemline, matched with white ankle boots), it was her voice that was the more captivating. Her lows had that smokey feel that is always wonderful to hear, and when she was singing high to the rapper (not a fan of, but that guy was decent for sure!), it was clear.

Very lovely. Too bad I didn't actually want to stay for their set at 1900hrs---I wanted to get my ass home before the home-going crowd started to flood the public transport.

------

SimplyGo---a name that will forever be tainted with the infamy that came from a forced adoption that got hastily retracted roughly two weeks after it was first pushed through as the only way forward for public transport.

I won't go into the details of the whole debacle, except to raise the obvious question: what is the end-game here? Will EZ-link cards be phased out after all, but in a much quieter fashion by stopping any new supply and force-converting each and every expired EZ-link card over to SimplyGo? Will SimplyGo be updated to not suck (actually show the balance on the fare card with a similar performance profile as EZ-link)?

The announcement is bereft of all that, which makes me wonder deeply about the possibilities...

------

In other news, I've finally made my way up the Altus Plateau, and have fought my way up to Mt. Gelmir in Elden Ring. It's definitely a much different feel from Limgrave, and damn the Death Blight status effect is horrible; the Scarlet Rot is nothing in comparison. Urgh.

Back in Minecraft, I finally added the top layer of the four round towers that are on the perimeter of my castle-build. I've also added the ``rammed earth walls'' to connect these towers. Soon I will start working on the habitable parts of the castle or something.

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

No comments: