杂思草记

一复工就被催工，仿佛我休假期间也应该在工作，一复工就有成绩可以呈现那样。

还有那铺天盖地的工作量，滔滔不绝的涌入。

也不过就是休假了几天，有必要这样催命吗？

*****

没有本钱逍遥自在的大瓜继续顽固自我，荒废宝贵的求学人生阶段，沉迷手机和电游。

那么糟糕的成绩还可以那么满意现状，还不是专心求学上进、努力增强自己，而是把时间和精力浪费在无谓的事情上。

那么不成熟的人又那么的自以为是，还要在应该专注于学业的时候去谈恋爱。

唉… 怎么会有个这么不懂事的孩子？

*****

突然就很厌倦了很多东西。

工作、生活、经济状况、家里的负能量、重复又重复闹剧、那电脑游戏…

厌倦了自己的人生。

随兴随想 |系列|

Diablo IV open beta

Been playing the early access of Diablo IV the previous weekend and the open beta this past weekend.

Overall I am enjoying it, not perfect, but I like it. Perhaps because it's still novel, the new toilet syndrome. I hope not.

The one thing that irked me is the skip cut scene function that is not working. Don't get me wrong, Blizzard makes fantastic cut scenes, and there are many in Diablo IV, lengthy ones too. I love them the first time through. The second time, not as much. By the third time, I just want to skip it and get on with progressing my new character.

this cut scene is so awesome I couldn't helped myself taking a screenshot

I submitted a bug report for the skip cut scene not working after trying repeatedly in vain. By my fourth character, I would be clipping my nails, went for bio break, went to refill my water, et cetera during the cut scenes. True story.

As my nature, I tried all the five available classes. Started with sorcerer which I levelled all the way to 25, the max for the beta. Barbarian was next, which I only played to level 11, stopped because the early access weekend was over. Started a druid this past weekend open beta, levelled to 23, this character had some multiplayer dungeon clearing time with an online friend from Diablo Immortal. Then played the necromancer, solely to find all 28 of the Lilith's altars in the region, altar finding and doing the events en route got the character to level 18, then played that character a bit more till level 22 because quite like the class. The last class I played is the rogue, levelled to 18 doing side quests and some dungeons.

28 altars of Lilith in Fractured Peaks, for my own future reference

The class skill tree is so diverse, I can see myself spending a lot of time playing this game just to try skills out. Here's hoping there will be no cookie-cutter 'best' build but instead many viable builds. I really hope Blizzard can balance it so there is no single 'best' min/max build, then we will have variety instead of everybody being the same.

Liking what I experienced so far, my pre-order is justified. I guess now Diablo fans worldwide have to wait three more months for the official release.

Other |geeky gaming| category entries.

Potato mode on!

Taking next Monday and Tuesday off for a four days long weekend to recharge my totally drained state.

My current plan is to turn on the work laptop tomorrow morning after I wake up, okay, maybe it's no longer morning when I wake up if I am really lucky, but the plan is to check the three simulation cases I set to run overnight and save them if they have completed.

Just save them and do nothing else, no post-processing, no analyse and set new cases to run, that sort of things. Use the minimal of time to get that done and then no more turning on the laptop until after my break.

That's the plan anyway. Hope I can stick to it. Goodness knows I need the break.

Actually, probably nobody knows how badly I need the break. Even wifey doesn't seemed to know I need it. *Sigh...*

An antisocial introvert who likes to stay at home really just want to stay at home, sleep, chill, read some novels, play some game, eat some junk and drink some Coke. That's rest and relax, that's quality recharge time for me, especially if it's peaceful and quiet at home.

And since Diablo IV open beta is this weekend, an avid Diablo fan like me will try to maximise the gaming time. Next fix will most likely be the June official release. Can understand, right?

Anyway, potato mode is on, don't contact me for any work related stuff, and unless you are really close to me, don't ask me out because I just want to stay in and chill. Really.

Other |hyped up heads up| category entries.

Low batt

After working through so many weekends, I am tapped out, probably going to burn out.

Initially I thought this week I will have a relatively easier time, a more normal working pace, as the rush for results for the major meeting with customer is over. There is usually a few days decision making time before new direction is set, a few days for me to take a breather.

Too bad, no such luxury. Even as the major meeting with customer A about project A was happening, another meeting with customer B about project B was also underway. I handle both projects, and more.

The meeting with customer B was in preparation for a major meeting in early April, and it's about finding a solution to a lofty target, because, somehow, that 31% improvement that already proven in prototype is not enough. My goodness.

31% is freaking amazing improvement from one generation to the next, okay? All the time and effort I put in to get to that 31%, under the stricter than usual design envelope, and it's still not enough. Bollocks.

Back straight into rush mode, with first set of simulation results from ideas generated in the meeting expected tomorrow. Ya, so much for the few days of breather.

Like I said, I am tapped out, I have taken next Monday and Tuesday off to recharge. I hope it's really going to be four days of break, without having to work overtime.

One can dream.

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Another first

After my first circus show last weekend, I had another first today.

All my life I have been washing my own car ever since I started driving. Until today.

I have been so busy for so long that my car got so dirty I just couldn't stand it anymore, so on the return route after visiting mommi today, I drove to the car wash service in a petrol station and got it washed.

There is a first for everything. Just a bit sad that something I have upheld for so long finally got broken.

Oh well, seldom get what I want in life, this is no exception.

Other |temperamental thoughts| category entries.

Diablo IV first impression

March is a gaming month? I guess every month is gaming month for true gamers, but Blizzard is giving free World of Warcraft: Dragonflight game time last weekend to all players, and this weekend and the coming weekend are early access and open beta for Diablo IV.

I was busy working overtime last weekend so totally missed the free WoW game time, bummer. Still had to work for a bit yesterday morning and night, but at least I got some Diablo IV game time in in between.

Never been a power gamer and as usual I am taking it slow, exploring where I can and a true sucker of the lore and storyline. There are already players with characters at the early access level cap, seriously, what's the rush?

Generally I am liking the game, graphics are good and game play is fun. Could just be because it's new so it's intriguing. Thank goodness none of the Diablo Immortal pay to win bullshit so far, hope never.

The game world is huge, and breaking from the Diablo I, II, and III mainly linear storyline and game progression (yes, I intentionally excluded Diablo Immortal as that rubbish P2W game model a disgrace to the series), Diablo IV feels more like a MMORPG, feels like World of Warcraft when it comes to world exploration. At least the way I have been playing WoW lately, primarily casual solo.

I can just go explore instead of working on the main quest line, there are so many places to go and things to do, there are side quests, dungeons small and big, and events that players can just work on without forming party first and still get bonus of being in proximity of other players, nice touch Blizzard!

I tried the world boss, and died many times to one shot. Well I am way under level, it says it's a level 25 encounter and I am far from it. Think if there were 30 to 40 level 25 players who knows what they are doing, the world boss is doable. Hmm, there is no healer class... but then this is not WoW, hope Blizzard designed the world boss encounter with that in mind. For now I reserve judgement on the world boss encounter because too few were there and many were under level like me in my one time experience.

I don't know how many players are in the early access, and how the server separation works, while I can encounter other players in cities and while exploring the open world, the number is not as high as I thought it would be. To me this is a good thing, I hope it stays like this, could do without the typical MMORPG grief of mob camping, ore node and herb stealing.

Anyway, that's my first impression thus far, still so much to do, places to explore, classes to try, and of course I just don't have the time. Hopefully at least I can get to the early access level cap, that's the goal.

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代价

两头烧的蜡烛双倍速的燃尽。

身体和精神是不能长期承受这样的压力和工作节奏的，所以不是会不会垮，而是几时垮塌而已。

就是今天，身体和精神受够了，直接来个撕裂头痛，是只能在床上做死尸的那种程度。

唉… 揾食艰难，鬼叫我穷！

只好卖命养家。

随兴随想 |系列|

Acrobatic daredevils

Went to the Great British Circus in Autocity, Juru, last weekend.

This is the first time I have been to a real life circus in my whole life. Interesting enough, parents and inlaws, the previous generation, had been to circus at much younger age, and now my children, the next generation, have also been to a circus in their teen.

Just me and wifey who experienced a circus in our matured age. Oh well.

It's not a big circus, but the show was entertaining and enjoyable. I think the younger audiences would have enjoyed it more, because there are things that are obvious for adults, but probably still wonderful or amusing for children or teenagers, like the magic show, or the clown/joker act.

Maybe it's just me. *Shrug*

Those acrobatic, balancing and flexibility acts, many of which done at height without safety harness or safety net, really amazed me though. Hats off to those daring and skillful performers.

Funny how something similar done in a safe setting would have been less captivating, but when it's done with openly perceived dangerous situation, it becomes so enthralling. What does that say about human nature, eh?

Anyway, really just wanted to note down this memorable event, my first circus experience.

Another thing to scratch off the bucket list, if I had a bucket list.

Other |enjoyable events| category entries.

Dumped in the dark

There was a power outage at my area yesterday night, from around 23:30 hours to 03:30 hours.

I know the rough estimate of time because I had just finished working overtime and was feeling rather glad that, for a change from the past few days, I completed my overtime before midnight.

When you have been working overtime for many days in a row, you start to celebrate such thing...

Anyway, so there I was, feeling smug and thinking "finally I have time to take a dump and perhaps I will finally be able to watch my weekly Running Man episode that's due since Monday", and so that's what I did, I took a dump. You know, number two, the big business in the toilet.

And that's when the electricity went out and plunged me into total darkness, pants down and half way through the motion. At first I was hoping it's a jumped fuse, and that someone in the house would eventually go flip the switch when I failed to turn up to do so, but pretty soon I realised that's not that case.

It's not a jumped fuse, and no one was coming to check on me for my prolonged absence in such situation.

The darkness was complete, I could not see my fingers with my hands in front of my face, let alone my arse. Completing the dump was straight forward, don't need light for that, but wiping my arse posed a challenge. How to make sure that I have got it all cleaned, and not smearing faeces around?

So there I was, sitting on the toilet in the dark, waiting for someone to come bearing light, but my absence was ignored, and no one came.

Couldn't stay in the toilet forever, gotta get out there lighting all the candles and making sure everyone was accounted for, you know, things to do when there's a power outage. So feeling my way around I got myself cleaned as best as I could, no way to be sure, so if I had shitty arse, I had shitty arse, so be it.

Ya, that's the incident where I took a dump in the dark and got dumped in the dark.

Other |temperamental thoughts| category entries.

燃烧生命

太忙了。

平时星期一晚上就会看的新一集的原版《跑男》，到今天都还没有时间看。

昨晚加时工作到凌晨三点，还是赶不完工。

今天终于都把那热流模型做好了。很庆幸的第一个模拟就很顺利，明天总算有成绩可以报告了。

我的生命就像两头都烧的蜡烛，不短命都难…

随兴随想 |系列|

Working overtime

To be honest, I did fairly well in January, only worked overtime three times. That's like, insanely low overtime count for a whole month!

I started February okay, still tried my best to not work overtime.

But by mid February all went downhill. Bollocks.

Now, my hope is that after working through this weekend and the next weekend, I will be able to stop working overtime, or greatly reduce the number of days I have to work overtime.

One can always hope...

Other |wretched workaholic| category entries.