Featured (albeit briefly) in the Sunday Times, in an article on people who travel overseas to play boardgames and card games. Siu Hean and Tony also got a mention for Scrabble, while I got cited for Settlers of Catan instead.
Television, check. Print media, check. Now to get on radio, and I will have conquered the media, mwahahahahah!
My right wrist is somehow damaged, such that when I flexed it up or down, it hurt. The pain was first felt on the MRT back from a boardgaming session. I don’t know what caused this, since the whole day I didn’t do anything more strenuous than playing cards (and I’m quite sure that couldn’t have damaged my wrist!), so I am just resigned to it recovering by itself.
I have used my gym wrist guard as a splint to keep the wrist stiff and not flexing. Now I have greatly reduced dexterity that slows my typing and mouse use. My Scrabble study again slowed down for the second week in a row (though no longer Jadeite’s fault). Actually, this may be forcing me to type in the right manner instead (i.e. it will avoid Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and the likes). I now hover my hands above the keyboard and the fingers dangle and dance below – good on wrist but tiring on arms.
But this can’t last. I had to brush my teeth with my left hand, and it had conclusively proven that I am not ambidextrous. Heal, wrist, heal!
I have been having fun with the new Collins Scrabble Wordlist (CSW). I believe I am the first in Singapore, nay, South East Asia to own it as the rest had to wait for shipment from UK to arrive. I owe this “honour” to a friend who had delivered it back from UK. The book is unlikely to hit book stores here until the second half of the year (as the Scrabble Association found out from the local Collins distributor).
The new wordlist, almost 10 years since the last major Scrabble word updates, have absorbed much more dialectic slangs e.g. Aussie and Maori words. But I particularly love Collins because there are many words which are instantly recognisable to me. In fact there were some that I had already played before: SOBA, UDON, MAKI (!!!! darn you Henry !!!!), the lovely portmanteau TANKINI, CORRODER. I know, I’m ahead of my time 
In general the major additions in Collins that are familiar to me are:
+ terms from IT world. From the technical (e.g. SERVLET, SPAMBOT, MOBLOG, etc) to the slangy (WAREZ, GROK, APPS, etc)
+ they finally recognise some Malay words, like MEE, ROJAK, SATAI, JAGA, RIBA, WUDU (the last two admittedly can be construed as Arabic, the true root of the word).
+ food, food glorious food. Beside the Japanese and Malay foods above, there are at least the following that I have eaten myself and are now good: HALOUMI, FISHCAKE, CHIPOTLE, PANINI, ROSTI.
+ brand name and proper nouns. Joining words like XEROX, now we have KLEENEX, FEDEX, PYREX, LINUX (there’s something about brand names ending with X), TEFLON, VELCRO, STETSON, BENADRYL, FORMICA, etc
+ words catching up with how lifestyles have developed in the last 10 years: PRENUP, UPSIZE, JETLAG, LADYBOY (hur hur)
+ slang, many generated by the SMS and online chat generation: ENUF, DIFF, KEWL, HOMIE, LAYDEEZ. And there are some that I attribute as Jadeite words: GAYDAR, FUGLY, SUCKIER, ATTAGIRL, TIGHTASS, PARAPARA …
Another thing about the new CSW is that it has a section on long words. I like browsing it to discover fun long words – something that one can’t do with word search software or the old SOWPODS dictionary. Browsing has uncovered words from the IT realm again (e.g. CYBERSQUATTER), fun words (e.g. GAZILLIONAIRE, WHATSHISNAME / WHATSHERNAME / WHATSITSNAME. And their plurals.), the utterly useless (e.g. AMAKWEREKWERE), and the unspeakables. STARF?CKING. CLEVERD?CK. GANGSHAGGED. Enuff said.
Now to get to play them. Extending F?CKING. Or even, extending KING. Lovely thought. I love new words.
Jadeite has done it again. She has given me new addiction.
First she introduced me to Bill Bailey on YouTube and his most wonderful pub joke told in the style of the poet of early English literature Geoffrey Chaucer (his soul may be stirring now). So I ended up spending time looking at stand up comics online.
And she introduced me to Mock the Week, which is also available on YouTube. I love them Brits for their comedy idea (which I think eventually will be copied by the Yanks, again). Mock the Week is a bit similar to Whose Line is it Anyway in the sense that it is improvisational comedy, but in MtW the participants were acting as panelists in a discussion about current affairs, both world and British local news. Just that the participants mostly shoot off absolutely hilarious lines. And they do have some other games like one player acting as a notable figure (Bush, Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth, etc) delivering a speech, and another player saying what the person actually meant for every line. My new favourite TV show.
And these consumed my whole Saturday evening. A time reserved for catching up on Scrabble study or doing household chores. And mission unaccomplished, thanks to Jadeite.
I did reach a compromise of sorts. Like how I usually multi-task ironing while watching movies (but never comedies, out of fear of accidentally scalding myself or burning a clothe in fits of laughter), I decided to open the YouTube window at the left side of the screen, and the Scrabble study program at the right side continuing to quiz me. So at least I got something done, which I used to justify watching YouTube continuously for almost four hours. Which was bad because a) my Scrabble quiz success rate was much worse than usual :-/ b) four hours of constant laughter caused me to actually felt some pain in my ribs. That was what stopped the YouTube fun eventually.
Darn you Jadeite. And now to search for older clips of Mock the Week…
This week seems to be St Petersburg week for me (the game, not the city). I just played it two more times, and for the first time trying it out as a two-player game with my dearie. It worked out pleasingly well. The play changed perceptibly as opposed to when playing with three or four players.
In the first game, I went for building strategy and pulled away, but constantly looking behind my back at her aristocrat-and-cash strategy. I had almost 40-point lead at one point, but by then she had 9 different aristrocrats to my 4. She reached 10 aristrocrats with upgrades to spare, and slowly hauled my buildings back with excess cash. Final score was 150-165 – much higher total than what a 4-player game would garner. This round also exposed how strong a combination of 2 observatories can be, which she employed very well. Almost comparable to two blanks in Scrabble, can be devastating if gotten not too late in the game. Now to think of a counter to that.
In the second game, she made an early miscalculation that left her out of cash (and out of the game), which highlighted again how in St Petersburg cashflow errors in the beginning can easily doom the game. Still, a valiant fightback, early emergence of many buildings special cards, and balanced use of all categories (game ended with 0 in worker stack, 2 in building stack, 4 in aristocrat) made this a very high scoring game: 245-198. Again, she had 10 different aristrocrats in the end. And I used to think that the 10+ marker on the board was an unnecessary scenario…
We then tried out the Cartagena 2 set which had been unopened for some time. The rule is slightly different than the original Cartagena, the major difference being now you get extra cards not by moving your piece backwards, but moving an opponent’s piece forwards. Slight difference, but enough to make the game very different, and perhaps not as enjoyable. The latter part may be because the tweak made it very difficult for this game to be played for two – at least so I guess – because in a multi-player game you have many opponents’ pieces that you can move forward to get new cards, but in a two-player game, you only have one opponent, and hence not that many pieces, to generate new card into hand. I guess we’ll have to try the game for two-player using the original rule, to test this out.
In any case, I’m now interested in other Euro board games that are good for multi-player but also work nicely for two players. Those will be good for when I’m not going to any of the social gatherings, and also IMHO better for tournaments rather than multi-players like Settlers of Catan, where it’s possible to gang on the leader. So far I only identified Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride, gotta look out for more.
Had a pleasant two-day one-night trip to Bintan as part of the company division annual kick-off for the new financial year. Destination Bintan Lagoon Resort was a nice place, with nice beach, ample choice of activities (or so the list said; we unfortunately didn’t get to try most of them), and nice rooms.
The room I got was at second floor, and it had the additional feature of a sundeck with two bedchairs and a parasol just outside. Sweet. Inside, besides the beds, abutting the full-height window there was a small mini-platform, with mattress and pads etc. making it a nice place for a group of people to just lounge there. As a bonus, for the third time in a row for our kick-offs, I got the room all to myself- this time round courtesy of first roommate resigning just prior to the trip, and new designated roommate taking compassionate leave on the day of departure. I feel like the directors, having single rooms all the time
The mini-platform was made full use of in the evening, when after karaoke (singing Beatles at the top of your lung while playing Chor Tai Tee could be surprisingly fun. Even without beer.) four of us adjourned back to my room to play games. Firstly Taboo (the electronic version) to satiate one colleague’s desire for the game. Then, I started introducing them to European-style boardgame with Boomtown. It was a success. Three of them liked it. Liked it enough to demand immediate rematch after playing first game, even though it was 2:30 pm (“C’mon, we know the rules already, definitely can play faster”. Yeah right.)
And liked it enough that the next day, while waiting for the bus to leave, they wanted Boomtown again. So while waiting in the hotel lounge, I took it out again, and recruited 2 new players. The play got interrupted by the bus arrival, and resumed at the floor of the harbour while awaiting immigration clearance. I sat out to let another new keen player in. And another game started on a pile of bags while waiting to board the ferry. And another in the ferry back to Singapore itself. All in all, 7 new people are now into Boomtown, and boardgame in general. Quite a success, I’d say.
While in the meantime, I roped in some other people for other game in the ferry. One lesson learnt: ferries are not good a place to play St Petersburg. Aside from the fact that there was hardly enough space to lay out the board, the swinging wave made the card pile kept sliding away, ditto the point counters. Not to mention that I almost puked on my aristrocrats – I’ve never had motion sickness before in my life, but I guess this was my limit. Fortunately the game ended early since the trip back wasn’t too long (I still won, thank goodness). And I found out later the intrepid miners also quitted Boomtown halfway because two prospectors felt the urge to ralph too.
Now, to get a boardgaming session in the office pantry! heh.
BBC website carries this article on how WHO now advocates male circumcision as one step that can lower risk of HIV transmission for males through heterosexual relation.
What tickled me was the name of the person who announced it, the director of HIV/AIDS in WHO, a certain Mr. De Cock. How apt a name. He’s born for the job, I say.
The planned pay hike for ministers in Singapore has expectedly attracted strong objections from quite a number of people. An online petition has been started to strongly object to it here; do go have a look and sign if you are for it.
I personally am for a ministerial pay hike, so I won’t be signing it, but I feel it very important that people who object to it get a channel to express their objection. As it is, official channels don’t seem to give much confidence to the people that dissenting voice are treated seriously or any more than a due process of listening out to objections that will have to be placated.
Though I agree to high minister salaries, I don’t think the current formula is the best. I agree with the suggestion in the petition to benchmark the pay to GDP instead of salary of top earners. In fact, my preference is to link the pay to the average wage of bottom x% in Singapore, as proposed by Worker’s Party in the past. Maybe that’s a socialist streak in me, or maybe it’s the influence of various Rainier Knizia-designed boardgames (where score of the lowest element is what matters, and hence the need to develop every element equally), but I think that would ensure that the poor are well taken care of.
In addition, the comment from signatory number 66 is worth a read. I strongly agree that the high pay entails a strong Key Performance Indicator that the minister should be accountable for and made public. I also see some sense with the points on widening the field of professions for benchmarking minister pay, and consideration to benchmark against pay in political arena, instead to other areas. Although on the latter point, I disagree with comparing the fact e.g. US president is paid much lower, so Singapore PM should also has the pay scaled down. Perhaps the US president pay should be higher instead. I mean, to be snarky, the Americans got what they paid for – I definitely do not want Bush as prime minister here! (heh)
Anyway, pay the petition page a visit, and do sign if you agree with it.
“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” – Voltaire
I like those little stickers on the gym stationary weight machines, the ones that tell you the muscles that will be worked on, with graphical illustration of the location on your body. Looking at it really helps me know where certain small obscure muscles are.
Working on the machines, however, helps me to REALLY know where certain small obscure muscles are afterwards. Very accurately. And tangibly. With constant jolting reminder whenever the body part is moved.
Less than that actually. The segment of my interview was finally aired today on Channel 5 in the “Alternative Sports Diary”. I was roped in to be the face of the boardgaming folks, sharing the episode time with other gaming people from cybergaming, arcade gaming, and collectible-card-gaming (or rather, very specificaly, Magic the Gathering folks).
I’m quite pleased that it doesn’t turn out as bad as I thought it was going to be. I didn’t think I handled the interview very well, definitely felt that I was quite inarticulate. Thank goodness for editing. Short airtime = short goof time too, I guess. Though someone already said that I looked geeky – that one, even masterful editing will not save the day, sigh.
Well at least now I can claim to have been on national television in two countries. And now to work on a third one, heh.
