有感而发：原则·承诺·坦诚

二零二四年七月九日，凌晨三点二十三分起，至凌晨四时十三分。又一个不眠夜。

有原则，是无论心情好坏、对自己有没有利，都做同样的决定和举止。喜欢的时候才做，不喜欢的时候就不做，那是任性，没有原则可言。

同样的，坚守承诺，最能够展现的就是在艰难、不想做的时候，依旧牢牢守着，那才是承诺的意义。随性就改变，想要的时候才守，不想要时就不守，那样的承诺毫无意义，完全抹杀了承诺的用意。

坦诚相对，指的是两个人互相真诚的对待对方，把自己的想法毫无保留的告诉对方。只有心情好或想讲时才说，心情不好或不想讲时就不说，那不叫坦白，那不是直率纯正，毫无隐瞒。

只要心情不好，或不想讲，就保留隐瞒，是没有说谎，因为根本没有讲，所以也许是诚实，但一点都不坦然。看心情、选择性的提供讯息，那不叫坦诚相对，因为少了坦白直率、真实交流。

有感而发 |系列|

Hypertension

Dad was having high blood pressure yesterday. When trying to verify if both the blood pressure monitors are working properly and calibrated, did measurements on myself and wifey, and found that I too, have high blood pressure.

Wifey sent me some information on hypertension, and going through the symptoms list, it suddenly made sense that all those headache episodes I suffered had to be hypertension related.

Severe headache, dizziness, difficulty breathing, nausea, blurred vision or other vision changes, anxiety...

One of the ways to reduce the risk of hypertension, the first on the list in fact, is to reduce and manage stress. Ya... I cannot control the stress others induced, the worse part is I am lousy at managing stress, *sigh*.

I can't really avoid stress from work, I just hope I can avoid stress from home, especially from the elder son.

One can hope. Or die early.

Other |sane side| category entries.

Potato mode on

Next Monday and next next Monday are public holidays, and because I think I bloody well deserved it, I took four days off to make it a ten days break.

May as well admit it that yes, I know I will be working overtime to check on the simulations, and set more to run, but I will try my best to keep that to a minimum. Just need to suppress my sense of responsibility. Something like that.

No solid plan, just need a break from work. Need to wash my car. Would be good to have a long outdoor walk, a few would be better. Won't mind to have a seafood meal, especially crab, haven't had crab for a while. Maybe will consider watching a drama series, or some variety shows that I have never watched. Just chill.

Oh, I absolutely need to properly rest, the over-worked-and-stress-induced headache was so bad yesterday I had to stay in bed zombie-like after the after dinner overtime, barely functional again near midnight after taking the painkillers.

The unruly troublemaker will probably create enough negative energy at home to ruin my break. Nothing I can do about it, unless I have a few days hotel stay or something, hmm...

Anyway, heads up, potato mode is on! Don't contact me for work related matters, you would be put on Santa's naughty list, my hate list and all that.

Other |hyped up heads up| category entries.

有感而发：时间·压力

二零二四年六月的最后一天，时间真的是过得太快了。

半年就这样过了，时间不够用。

今天又加时工作：早上，下午，晚上。其实加起来应该只有四、五个小时，如果是连续不间断的工作，可能效率会好点。但计划跟不上变化，突然来的购食要求和额外的司机任务，让我无法连续工作。

当然，可能就算没有这些打断我加时工作的杂活，我也很可能无法持续，因为做的是令我压力飙升的额加工作。

做那非我所愿的活，但决定就走玩这一次流程，不论结果怎么样，都可以理正词直的说我尝试过了。

前前后后做了一个星期了，还是依旧写写改改，还是无法完成。心里只有乱和烦。

很快就要到截止日期了，还有那些正规项目的活要做呢，都已经被催了，唉…

时间不够用，压力啊压力！

有感而发 |系列|

Breather

Initially I was going to work overtime after lunch today, but watched a variety show with the family instead.

No big deal, I would just work after the variety show, I thought. Seldom get to have quality family time after all.

Halfway through the variety show I started to question myself on why am I working overtime practically every weekend lately?

So I decided there and then to give myself the much needed breather today.

I may or may not work overtime tomorrow, but today I will give myself a day off. I absolutely deserved it.

Other |temperamental thoughts| category entries.

Azeroth rejected

The anticipated two months worth of revisiting Azeroth ended in four days. What a downer.

The latency on the Europe server was simply horrible, up to the tens of thousands milliseconds range. I have plenty screenshots as proof, the highest I have managed to captured shows 22719ms. It's just unplayable.

Blizzard technical support said it's Internet Service Provider (ISP) problem, trace route information seems to support that. However Blizzard technical support could have been a bit more helpful, they kept ignoring my second and third option: change my purchase to an Asia server (which I have verified has good latency), or failing that, refund.

It's until I re-opened the ticket for the third time and listed the options for the third time that Blizzard finally acknowledged it's unplayable and that I had informed them of my request for refund within a short time of purchase (the second day), that they refunded me.

Not the solution I was hoping for, was hoping if they couldn't do anything on their end on the latency, then they could at least transfer my purchase to the Asia server so that I still get to play, albeit is not on my usual Europe server with my existing characters.

But of course that involves more work, and given their repeated haste to close ticket instead of genuinely trying to help customer resolve issue, it's no surprise they went for the refund.

Don't get me wrong, I understand ISP plays a big part, it's not like I didn't engaged my ISP for support. I went through the ISP self check diagnostics tool, which informed me "Poor Network Quality" (well, duh!) and asked me to schedule technician home visit, which I did as well.

Well, the technicians came today, only their competency was questionable. They only know hardware stuff I supposed, as checking the hardware was all they did, which has no issue. I showed them the trace route in real time, they gave me a blank look. My goodness, ISP technicians who don't understand trace route. They ended up giving me the same support number on their website, so much for the home visit technical support.

So back to square one of technical support from ISP. I chatted with their live agent tonight, who knows what I was talking about, who provided me with the information about their seabed fibre cut issue that severed all their direct paths between Europe and Asia, and that currently all traffic destined to Europe is routed through US. Finally, someone knowledgeable and actually trying to help resolve the issue!

Well, the live agent did the necessary escalation, which I got a call back within one hour on confirmation that my poor network issue is indeed related to the seabed fibre cut. I was told their plan to work on the seabed fibre, the timeline, and that they will escalate my issue further so the relevant people can see if they can help optimise the route so I get better network to Europe for the time being. They will call me again tomorrow to update me on the route optimisation effort.

Now that is good customer service. Too bad the World of Warcraft refund has already happened, so maybe next time, Azeroth.

Other |runaway rants| category entries.

Azeroth beckons

I am weak. I gave in to temptation and bought the bundle on the very last day it's on offer.

Goodness knows I don't have the time to truly enjoy this, I just hope whatever available snippet of game time I can manage in the coming two months can amount to something worthwhile.

When I logged on earlier, the latency to the servers I have characters on were not good, so that's almost like an instant regret. Will see if it's any better later, as I have just rebooted the modem and router.

My last subscription ended in August of 2021, there was a three days then another seven days free game time since then till now, but those don't count, so it has been close to three years since I last properly played World of Warcraft.

Well, Azeroth beckons once again, I just hope the latency can at least be playable without too much frustration.

And that I can have enough play time to achieve something meaningful.

Other |geeky gaming| category entries.