Bali revisited: Day 4

We've moved on to Seminyak. It's not quite what we'd expected: thought we'd find a beach here (yes, that's the depth of research we've done) but instead found a strip of little shops catering to the tourist crowd. Since it seemed to be an extension of Kuta Beach, we decided to walk to Kuta Beach... a whole hour-and-a-half on foot. We had a destination in mind: the Forrest Gump-themed Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. which we share good memories of from the last time we were here. Good food, excellent if a tad over-enthusiastic service.

We both went with pasta options, which on their own were impressive. The shrimp is meaty and fresh; the portions generous. But what really made the dishes sing was not on the usual list of ingredients. We asked for sliced fresh chillies, and we were served a saucerful of pale-looking zingers. Awesome!

There's a promotion going on currently: a free house dessert with each main dish ordered. Strawberry shortcake (above) was a bit doughy for my taste but being served a la mode covered a lot of sins. The key lime pie (below) set the benchmark for my quest for the perfect key lime pie. It was smooth and well-balanced between sweet and sour. This is one dessert you don't need much to reach satisfaction with.

Bali revisited: Day 3

A holiday with me isn't complete without a spin on a quad bike. We booked a morning riding tandem on an ATV at Bakas Levi Rafting, which evidently offers more outdoor attractions than rafting. First time using a manual shift but got used to it pretty quickly. Again, prior experience (as in Port Arthur and Chiangmai) didn't make this ride any easier. Though this ride is much shorter, it's more challenging because of the steep gradients and the narrow dirt track bordering a nasty drop into a ravine. The route was simple: one way down, and then back up the way we came. Part of the challenge was to avoid things on the track like butterflies; the odd working elephant; and a gaggle of PRC tourists strolling to their rafting start point. 

Our guide, Jerry, was a jolly, easy-going fellow who knew how to pace our jungle ride. He was close on hand over more difficult terrain, and kept a distance when I got more confident so I could feel the illusion of independence. Though with June riding behind me, safety was always first in my mind, regardless. Being quite experienced with the camera, he was also responsible for many couple shots on this trip which our holiday albums are usually devoid of.

In the afternoon, we trekked the Campuhan Ridge trail. June copied the route directions off TripAdvisor which up to a point were quite accurate.

The trail offers some gorgeous views of the rural countryside. More locals than tourists frequent this area, and for some reason there were a number of high school students clustering along various parts of the trail today. School's out, maybe? Or is today a school holiday? At the end of this nicely paved trail is a number of well-hidden art galleries; a couple of spas and guest houses... and our directions got real hazy after that.

We could have gone back the way we came, but we took the other option suggesting that we make a huge loop back to Ubud central. "Huge" was an understatement. The road took us up and down steep slopes with vehicles whizzing past us and no sidewalk for a buffer. The area we were walking in began looking increasingly rural, and we had no idea what lay in front of us at the end of the road. Turns out we were going the right way, but if we wanted to take this walk, we should have started in the morning. In the end, we hitched a ride with an obliging young man in a Honda Jazz who offered to take us back to civilization for IDR20,000. We gave him 50K as we didn't have anything smaller after we tipped Jerry (above).

We had sate campur at Coco Bistro to celebrate our return. I was quite impressed with the quality of the skewered diced pork; chicken and beef. Served with a plate of plain white rice topped with a sprinkling of fried shallots, smooth peanut paste and a salad of chopped cucumbers; onions and tomatoes, this dish really hit the spot.

But this was treasure for our parched throats. It tasted like sparkling toothpaste, but it was cold and so thirst-quenching, we felt quite assured that were were home from the wilderness at last.

Bali revisited: Day 2

This sunrise view wasn't easy to acquire, especially for the likes of yours truly. Mt Batur was a challenging climb, moreso than we initially thought. After all, we survived the climb up Diamond Head, didn't we? Batur was no Diamond Head. No smooth paths; regular steps with handrails. It was wild, the path was narrow; strewn with rocks; and in parts the gradient was so steep, neither looking up nor down was in the least helpful. Besides all through the climb, it was raining, it was dark, the way lighted only by flashlight.

It turned out that we were ill prepared for the weather. We both had to rent waterproof hooded jackets from the trek guides at IDR50,000 each, having no idea who had worn them and sweated in them before us. We were just grateful to have them. We were also ill-prepared physically for the ascent. Before long,we both were huffing and puffing from the walk... and that was even before the terrain got steep and difficult. I was convinced that at some point, one of us would throw in the towel and collapse and die from exhaustion. Outside, the rain was soaking my rented jacket, inside my t-shirt was soaking with sweat. That bad. 

In the end, it was a game of mind over matter. Of concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and quashing all thoughts of how far more we still had to struggle. The journey had to become more important than the destination. To think of reaching the summit, looking up and seeing the distance and steepness of the path ahead of us was very daunting. Thinking of having to climb back down after reaching the top was a total OMG moment. But if we had our minds on our fluffy, comfy bed back at the Kamandalu, that would have killed us for sure. So step by painful step, up we went. We also took frequent breaks and let others pass us along the path. No deadlines, no hurry. Our guide waited patiently with us and kept encouraging us by accounting how far we've come already and ticking down the distance we had left to cover.

The view (top) was spectacular, but brekkie being all of a couple of slices of plain bread, a hard-boiled egg and a banana... well, this fellow (above) and his mates looked like they needed a meal more than we did. I kept the banana for the potassium I needed to stave off cramps in my sore legs.

The altitude and rain combined to make it feel cold up top, but the crater comprised many small holes emitting natural steam that warmed us up sufficiently as long as we stood close to one.

Needless to say, we survived our ordeal. Climbing down the volcano was way easier than climbing up as we didn't have to fight gravity any more. Still, we had to be careful of our footing on the slippery rocks covering the path but other than that, it was a breeze. But having given our brekkie to the local inhabitants and returning to the hotel too late for the morning buffet, we opted to sleep until lunchtime. We followed a recommendation from one of our travelling companions and tried the speciality roast suckling pig dish at Ibu Oka. Above is a mixed dish of roast meat, deep-fried meat, vegetables and on the left, a slab of crackling skin. The flavours were so amazingly rich, we realised we should have shared one order instead of having one each. The crackling skin was the best I've tasted, crispy pork fat at its finest, though the second piece nearly did me in with the sudden onset of the law of diminishing marginal utility.

Back at the Kamandalu, we indulged ourselves with a sore muscles massage and flower bath at the spa. The skilful papmpering from the professional and friendly staff made a great end to a tough but eventually satisfying morning.

Bali revisited: Day 1

See this? It's a well deserved tall, cold, drink from Cafe Wayan, Ubud, Bali. We very nearly didn't make it here at all. On the way to the airport, we realised that we forgot to pack our hotel bookings. We had to turn our cab around  for home, scramble to find the printed pages... but they were nowhere to be found. By the time we decided to transfer the booking email to my roaming email account, we were pushing late. And because the taxi meter was still running, we were out of $20+ even before we actually left our front door. Fortunately, we arrived last at the flight check-in counter just before it closed.

Our hotel in Ubud is the Kamandalu Resort & Spa. We have a private villa that's roomy and comfortable with both indoor and outdoor bath facilities... but too bad our first night won't be spent here. We're booked on a midnight trek up Mt Batur, an active volcano, to see the sunrise and have brekkie at the crater. But that's another adventure altogether...

Still walking

Picked up "The Walking Dead: The Game" from Telltale Games. I've been following the gripping, gritty series on TV and wanted to know if the PC game version really deserved the Spike VGA Game of the Year 2012 accolade.

TWD:TG is an episodic point-and-click survival-horror-adventure game. Using the mouse, you trawl the screen looking for clickable 'hotspots' that provide information; dialogue; the occasional side snide comment or an interactive element. There are five episodes so far and all are currently available for download as a package.

This story is set just before the lead character, Sheriff Rick Grimes, awakens from his coma at the beginning of the TV series. In the game, you play Lee Everett, an African-American ex-college professor with a history he regrets. The emotional hook comes in the form of Clementine, a little girl, presumably orphaned during the chaos, whom Everett meets and decides to care for.

Apart from the forced choice of adopting Clementine, the game leaves lots of room for the player to make other choices which stick, changing the outcome of the game. Non-player characters (NPCs) remember their dialogues with you and they note your decisions, which determine how they will respond to you in future interactions. Many of these choices are hard: whom do you side in the frequent arguments that flare up due to the stress and pressure -- and self-preservation responses -- that the other characters experience? How do you negotiate with strangers who hold as much menace as promise? Be pragmatic or compassionate? How will your choices affect your relationship with Clementine and the others in your group?

If you've been watching the TV series, you can feel the pain the characters are going through, living day to day as they do. But in the game, it's not so easy when you have to make those decisions in first person and have to live with what you've done because once your choice is made, it's irrevocable. These choices are not what you can ponder long over as there is a timer that will make a choice for you if you don't decide quickly enough, and that sticks too. Some of your choices hold people's lives in the balance and if they die they stay dead... unless they reanimate and try to chew your face off.

Telltale has innovated quite intelligently with the point-and-click adventure genre. Whether it's finding a target area to hit (especially difficult if you don't set your mouse sensitivity properly) or making a split second decision because there's no time to think, yet balancing that with maintaining a consistent character and a healthy relationship with Clementine and the group, you really feel the tension of the situation. And knowing that the story compels you to complete a series of mundane tasks that will trigger some horrific occurrence as your payoff, well, there's good pacing for you.

Glad the game has eschewed photorealism in favour of animating the comic book version of the story. In a way, it's going back to its roots. The voice acting sounds true to character so despite the cartoony graphics, you still feel like you're interacting with real people. And when you lose people for one reason or another, sometimes you do miss the voice you can no longer hear.

Game of the year? Considering that the production values and gameplay mechanics are not as polished as the big-budget offerings, VGA has taken a stand to honour the indie publisher for strength and depth of immersion in an intense story experience over games that involve long-term grinding. These days, I prefer short, satisfying games over games that play out over hours seemingly without end (like the previous game of the year, "Skyrim" which I never completed -- may not even be half-way through!). So, yeah, odd, brave choice, but one that I can support.

Love and the Singaporean

What's up with all these sex scandals surfacing thick and fast in the media this year? Teachers, principals, uni profs, senior civil servants and parliamentarians: respectable people all, yet publicly disgraced because of some indiscretion causing the affair to be outed for the moral majority to tut-tut over.

Can we really be so shocked that people in our midst would jeopardize promising careers and social standing over some illicit hanky-panky? Perhaps these cases are an indication that our puritanical state is starting to show cracks in the facade we've so meticulously maintained until now and we're finally seeing that biology is a much stronger force than we thought we could control.

Romantic love washes the brain over with a cocktail of chemicals that messes up the logical thought process. The feel-good sensations one experiences when one is in love encourages living for the moment; the sense that nothing else matters; and -- most importantly -- reckless, risk-taking behaviour. Hence, people with the most to lose are also likely to be the biggest risk-takers regarding matters of the heart.

Here, I'm confused because on the one hand our population is suffering a baby-dearth while on the other, we're criminalizing behaviour that gives rise to more babies. Could this strange dichotomy be at the heart of our population problem -- that the people we marry are not the ones we are in love with?

Before you overreact, let's think about the common Singaporean courtship ritual. It's planned, organized, structured. The proposal comprises making plans to purchase public housing for the couple; the wedding is a programmed event that follows a generally predictable order of must-dos scheduled to the second; child-bearing brings a new round of planning; while child rearing likewise follows a narrow, set pathway or bust.

If love is reckless and encourages risk, the Singaporean marriage pact is hardly that. Without allowing room for the chaos of romantic love, the Singaporean couple isn't likely to change its plans regardless of whatever "baby bonus" is thrown at it. And if wild, crazy romantic love isn't found in a Singaporean household, is it so surprising that dissatisfied partners may be finding it elsewhere, in more dangerous places, with more disastrous consequences?

Only mad dogs and Englishmen...

Took a stroll around the Marina Bay area simply because the sun was shining. As I soaked in solar rays, I could feel the symptoms of various maladies melt away. Staying indoors in a sedentary job sometimes requires the occasional venture outside to blink at the brightness of the day.

Here's a view of the Bay I've never beheld before. The new boardwalk almost completely encircles the bay and if not for how solar-averse our population is, it would remind me of beautiful Sidney Harbour. Well, that was my impression, anyway. Odd being a tourist in your own country.

In other news, Doc Nair agrees that Maui's bladder health is improving. The silly boy provided his own evidence.So scared he is of the vet that he peed in his carrier... more pee than I've ever seen him produce in a long time. Bath time when I got him home, which necessarily meant a shower for me too, new scratches and a ruined T-shirt to show for it.

System upgraded

Cybermind is currently offering a 25% discount on MSI Intel mainboard packages. That's an offer I couldn't refuse -- despite what I said earlier about upgrading Mr L33t. Shelled out just over a grand for an i7-based system, 8 gigs RAM and a GTX660Ti video processor. Nice.

The old parts are going to become my in-house project: upgrading the living room antique Win XP-running PC to be compatible with the first decade of the 21st century at least. I've never put together a whole system from scratch, so wish me luck on this one. I'm sure I kept the manuals around someplace... hmm.

What's my beef?

McD's new BLT quarter-pounder with cheese. Good idea putting fresh veggies in the burger. Too bad about the fake bacon. Hence, special order: LT no B.

De-rezzed

I'm peeved and slightly demoralized at this moment. Nearly all the pix I've uploaded here have been wiped out by the closure of Webshots, my once-faithful host. Only the ones on Google+ are still accessible, though I only started using G+ recently so not many. Who knows what it's gonna take to replace those old shots, or even if I really want to do that? What a pain!

(Not quite) Jack of all trades

Jack Neo can make light family drama; social satire and even some verbal comedy, but please do not let him make a war movie. Ever. The opening sequences of "Ah Boys to Men" depicted our beloved home city under attack by enemy forces. Neo went whole hog with the digital explosions and debris-littered ruins of once familiar local landmarks. I suppose our armed forces saw this movie as an opportunity to show off some of the latest military hardware in action. But the on-screen violence was a gratuitous pastiche of bangs, blood and... bad gags. There's too much showing off of the studio's spfx capabilities, but not much focus on what's holding the shots together. Yes, it's a case of trying too hard to wear too many hats that the narrative credibility just falls apart.

Besides, the unidentified OPFOR has no apparent objective. The logistics it brings to bear suggest a conventional invasion, but the tactics and doctrine are that of terrorists on a suicide mission. Taking out civilian targets and civilians themselves on the ground first, while leaving military response bases able to mobilize against the threat practically guarantees a short campaign. Yet, the sequence ends with no clear resolution. The invasion is still in progress, both sides are losing combat-capable troops then, abruptly, a new story begins. Even as propaganda, the pointless introduction fails. While it does set the tone for what turns out to be an emo "Army Daze" remake, the initial emotional impact is dulled by out-of-place humour and a poorly executed montage of people randomly trading shots with each other with various types of ordnance, collateral damage notwithstanding.

Fortunately, the rest of the movie -- which actually involves family drama; social satire and light verbal comedy -- plays to Neo's strengths. Apart from tracing the lead character's journey from Ah Boy to Man through his misadventures in Basic Training, the movie was also a nostalgic comparison of training philosophies past and present. Back then, it was a civilian ARMY; whereas now it is a CIVILIAN army. These sequences I can believe because we've all been there and they're part of our collective consciousness.

Neo again goes for the moralistic approach in the debate that follows: Priority to self, or priority to nation, the answer being pretty obvious. While exploring the humour that goes with various methods employed by malingering conscripts to escape training, ultimately selfish choices lead to nasty consequences that have an impact on wider society. That story of a boy's learning to take responsibility for his actions, though melodramatic, is clear. Though what he does with this new found responsibility is a lot less clear because of the sudden...

TO BE CONTINUED

Crowning achievement

It's been like a month of playing a chess game where the pawn finally makes it to the other side of the board and gets crowned. The crown isn't what I expected, however. Instead of a ceramic facsimile that blends seamlessly with my other choppers, I got a gun-metal grey armour-plate that's clearly alien to my dental infrastructure. If I didn't look avuncular already, I certainly do now.

I also got some of my other teeth ground down flatter, so where there used to be edges and ridges, now there are plateaus. I know the procedure is supposed to help even out my bite, but I miss the character each tooth used to have. It feels like I've suddenly become herbivorous but that is, of course, just perception. Give me a couple of days to recover and I'll be back hunting for a mammoth steak, served so juicy rare that ketchup is optional.

In the fridge is a 2 litre canister of milk which, I believe, through copious consumption will speed up recovery and get me my edge back.

Next appointment: six months' time. Great! I've had enough of the dentist's chair for a long while.

Withdrawal

Goodness! What is the repair shop doing with my S3? I sent it in a week ago due to charging problems. The battery would drain quickly, but take forever to charge. Intolerably long, anyway. They said three to five working days. At the close of today, it's been seven and counting.

How difficult a job could it be? Test battery and charger. Replace defective component. Return rectified unit to mobile addict. Everybody happy. But, no... still waiting. Grrr.

In the meantime, I've revived my primitive F480 for basic daily use. No Android, no iOSx, no mobile connection to the 'net. No instant photo upload to Google+, so no daily photos to inspire random, pointless blog entries.

#s3withdrawalsymptoms

Dog eat dog

Public reaction to the new policy of not publishing the names of the top students in the PSLE is understandably divided. But the change is only cosmetic, considering the deeper issues underlying the problem.

If we genuinely celebrated the success of our best and brightest, then there would be a reason to publish their names for everyone to see. Unfortunately, the greater majority of us is more likely to see those names as not belonging to us and are therefore an indictment of our own failure. Yes, even though we passed and got to where we needed to go, because our names aren't spelled out in neon lights we feel like what we have accomplished is hardly good enough.

But now when we choose not to reveal those names, the problem doesn't get solved so much as it is now driven underground. Without transparency, nobody is going to know what the highest scores are and everybody is going to feel like a failure as we are more likely to rue our own inadequacies rather than celebrate our own achievements.

This very narrow band that we perceive as 'success' is probably the root of S'porean discontent. We're told that life is a competition and only the most deserving 'win', while the rest... well, actually no one has ever said what happens to the rest other than eternal suffering and damnation. So, because most of us fall in the category of The Rest, we're living the life we deserve. Self-fulfilling prophecy, S'pore style.

Indeed, life is a competition. The fit, the strong survive; the weak are prey. I will not dispute that axiom. Our mistake is taking on the competition as a solo player. We view everybody as a competitor for the same prize. Whether it's 'foreign talent', the kids that hail from the elite schools, or even our own classmates, everyone who is not us we see as capable of putting a knife into our exposed back.

That's how we've been playing this education game -- and its expansion pack: 'Life of the Working Adult'. Our biggest dream is to discover the key that activates GOD mode, and our biggest frustration is discovering that there is none. In this game, the solo player is screwed.

The true key to winning this game is to play in co-op mode. The trick is to identify friends from enemies, and more importantly to realize that under a common threat, even enemies can be friends.

If we trace our current societal problems back through the school circuit, this is where our schools have let us down badly. Above the passing of exams which we are very good at teaching, this is the one lesson we never passed on to our kids. We let our kids grow up thinking everybody is an enemy, or at least a scheming competitor. Not exactly the foundations of a rock-solid cohesive society, is it?

Dogs hunt in packs and share the spoils. Single, solitary dogs are the spoiled ones that are hand-fed by their indulgent owners and growl protectively over their meagre possessions. In a dog-eat-dog world, which breed of dog is the more likely to survive? Are you, fellow S'porean, bred to hunt for yourself; or to be fed by whomever you think owns you?

Sweet nothing

"Oh, baby, whisper sweet nothings into my ear...!" Ok, some context before you get the wrong idea: there's a thunderstorm going on outside and the two boys have gone into hiding. This here compromising situation is more a game of "sardines" than a surreptitious smooch under the radar. At least, that's what I prefer to think.

Ooga booga booga

Not much happening. The dripping has ceased but the boy isn't quite out of the woods yet. He's still straining at the sandbox and tomorrow we'll find out how he copes without medication. Meanwhile, he's still behaving as normal. He eats, he jumps and he sleeps just like the cat he's been. And now, he's just looking goofy for the camera.

Input equals output

M-i-L brewed a chrysanthemum concoction that she swears will allieviate Maui's urinary problems. It's worked on her human 'patients' before, so it's got to work on cats too.

I can't help feeling a little skeptical of the claim. There is a superstitious association in that the colour of the brew happens to be the same colour as pee, hence input is equivalent to output. Secondly, the fact that people are imbibing larger-than-usual amounts of the brew is probably what is causing the increased outflow at the toilet.

That, of course, is my logical brain at work. The emotional part of me is grateful that more people are taking an interest in doing something to help the boy. And save our floor and furniture from the ghastly yellow peril that follows him wherever he goes. Ew.

Some assembly required

dNYel goes on retreat and we get an expensive toy to put together. This is not the Lego I grew up with. The Lego I remember comprised simple blocks of varying shapes and sizes, though nothing approaching this level of complexity. The manual for this Rhino truck equivalent contained 76 pages of plans and looked not a little daunting at first glance.

Amazingly, the steering wheel really controls the front wheels; the doors open and close; and the lights light up at the flip of a switch... or at least they did for a while, until the batteries ran out, or something.

Building something this complex in the time we had was quite a feat of cooperative work. With a personnel strength of nine at the table, and without prior discussion of resource allocation, the group divided itself into an assembly team and a resource-gathering team and worked furiously to complete the task. None of us would have been happy to leave it partially assembled. It was a matter of pride and an internal assurance that it could be done in time that motivated the effort.

Of course, there was a lot more on today's agenda. The year may be over, but there's a staggering amount of prep that we have to get done for next year. With major personnel redeployments; the pressure of rising expectations; and a brand new year to do better what we did the year before, the team's got to pull together and simply get the job done.

I have a sense that collaboration is the name of the game for 2013. Good. It's the same game the kids will be playing too.

So ready to come home

The boy is so ready to come home. I wish I could say he's completely cured, but the vet is taking a wait and see approach. It's a delicate balance of medications he's been put on. The anti-inflammatory dosage is up 50% and he has to take a quarter tablet of valium a day. How did my cat end up being prescribed valium before me? It's a muscle relaxant. 'nuff said.

He has one week to get better, or else when we see Kasey next week, we'll be discussing surgery. Worst case scenario. I'm not convinced this is the best option, though. It sounds too drastic and permanent. The websites that I've been researching suggest that a stress-free environment and a change of dry food to canned food (bought nine cans of prescription canned food from the vet) might relieve the problem. Well, let's see...

The pre-coronation

Had my pre-crown appointment. First the temporary filling was filed away, then I had to bite down on two moulds (which tasted like chewing gum) from which my permanent crown will be cast. Some time during the procedure, I felt around the gap with my tongue and felt the cuboid peg that had been installed right in the middle of the tooth. I also had some of the sharp edges of the surrounding teeth filed smooth, presumably so the crown will eventually fit better. The final part of the procedure was to cover the gap with a tooth-shaped plastic cap that probably fitted into the peg like a Lego brick. Only two weeks left to wait until my official coronation.

Dentist offered to straighten out my front teeth. I said I'll think about it.