It's now a Monday. I'm officially on leave for a week and a bit more; I might have mentioned that this leave is a long time coming. For too long I had been bearing the burden of knowledge that a manager is expected to bear, the so-called ``dark'' aspects of being a manager that only business school will teach [since they generally train quasi-psychopathic people who treat humans as ``resources''].
But that is not what I want to talk about today---that would be too damn depressing.
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I did a long-ass cycle on Saturday on my new bicycle. It was a blast---the new bicycle's gears worked wonderfully, and I found myself reaching speeds in excess of 30 km/h on the flats. I did face one problem---my current bicycle pump had troubles with the new Presta valves on the new inner tubes of the bicycle, and I cannot figure out what's wrong. And so, I have made an appointment with the local distributor to have it sorted out.
Sunday, I went to run some errands, getting my meds and a replacement Nikka Whisky from the Barrel to replace the now-emptied Maker's Mark. The purpose of the break is to go round not completely sober, and this means using my titanium tipple from Snow Peak to drip feed high-proof alcohol into my blood stream.
I had a nice lunch at Five Guys, and had walked all about Plaza Singapura. The thought of getting a Steam Deck crossed my mind for the umpteenth time, but I never did get it---as I have to keep mentioning to myself, I did run an experiment before a long time ago with the Dingoo, a smaller and more portable gaming console; I never played on it enough, to the point that the battery was swollen and I had to dump it. A Steam Deck is likely to end up in the same fate, and that thing is not even that cheap (nor small either). Besides, I spend more time reading while commuting anyway; something about the ease of putting down a book as compared to a game.
I did think about getting a 3-octave range melodica from Yamaha, but decided against it since I have two new keyed bawu in the keys of F and G coming in. This is the second time that I'm trying to get keyed bawu, and hopefully the quality is better than the last one. In the previous case, the case itself was falling apart due to shitty pot metal for the zip (I'm thinking it's likely to be some kind of zinc-alloy that ended up with zinc pest and getting brittle as a result), while the ``pads'' (more like uncontrolled blobs of nonsensical epoxy(?)) failed in their sole job of sealing. Maybe this new batch of bawu will do the job and expand the palette of what I can play.
For what it's worth, the original bawu is a bad instrument in terms of [useful] range. It does sound nice, but the range is just... terrible. By extension, it also limits the type of music that it can play in a very strong way.
Today, I ran other errands, and went to solve a mystery that has been bugging me for a while: just what was in Jalan Besar Plaza, the shopping mall that I pass by every day when I'm on bus service 147. Answer: a lot of really cool industrial-centric stores, from lab testing equipment to various motors/hand tools like bench-top press, and a couple of the ``usual'' vocation-ish schools and massage places.
I also explored the TRIO building that was nearby, and noped out of it quickly due to how odd it was presenting itself---there was a cool-looking Cantonese restaurant in it that I might want to return at some point.
Beyond that, I slowly made my way towards Sim Lim Square, and meandered along the side roads for a little exploration.
Sim Lim Square itself was quite different from before. There were significantly more ``Indian Dance Club'' style karaoke/bars [that were likely to be alive once the night comes], and much fewer ``lifestyle'' stores that sold a variety of consumer electronics; gone also were the old stores that sold more server-like equipment---the rising costs of PC/server components due to the AI boom are really showing their ugly heads. It was still a nice walk through the place though.
After that, I walked along Serangoon Road towards City Square Mall for dinner, and yet more walking about, before finally making my way to the nearest bus service 147 bus-stop to head home.
All in all, it had been a nice three days so far. Of course I didn't talk about Friday, where I helped to run a booth at the AI Student Developer Conference, mostly because it was work related, and nothing of note happened---it was just the standard booth-running shenanigans of standing around for a long time, trying to be interesting/entertaining to the visitors, and rapidly refining the story that was told to ensure consistency and ease of paying attention to the visitors' responses as opposed to figuring out what to say. It's not my first rodeo for sure, and things came back to me fast. It was the first time that I could take the City Direct buses both to and from the the exhibition area that was at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre out at Marina Bay Sands.
I'm knackered, and after having hooked up my HHKB Pro 2 to write this post, I'll probably transcribe yet another piece from the song book that I had from a while back for my alto recorder.
Till the next update then.
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