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State of Tiger - August 2020
5 years ago
General
Wow! It's been SO long since I posted a journal here.
Apologies for that, as well as my apparent lack of updates here. Despite that, I'm still amazed at how many faves I receive on commissioned artworks, as well as +watches from other FA users. So thanks for that.
So what've I been up too? Mostly work and whatnot. I work in Technical Support (for a financial institution) and when this whole COVID-19 pandemic started in my country, everyone at the company wanted to be able to work from home and not have to come into office. So for the period MAR-JUN 2020, Tech. Support was busy configuring laptops for our internal users. We were receiving more service tickets for laptops than we had, so we ended up having to rent laptops, which meant installing our own software on said rentals and giving them a crash course in how to use the VPN portal to be able to connect to our network. Needless to say, that went by fast as in a span of two (2) days Tech. Support had configured about sixty plus (60+) rental laptops. Mind you though, this was costing us money (as they were rentals) so in the background, management was putting thru orders to purchase laptops - which meant that we'd have to go thru the process of configuring them as well. That happened around mid June, and just like the rentals, we had to work two (2) days straight to prep and configure these laptops. But this time around as a bit longer as we had to install software that would encrypt these laptops. So that meant giving the same users another crash-course in how to use these encrypted laptops, as the company implemented another level of Security and who can blame them? With everyone working from home now (globally speaking), it's easier for persons to be hacked and whatnot. Of course, with deploying these new laptops, we had to take back the rentals and ensure that what we received initially from the vendor is what we're returning to them, so that's been fun too.
Anyways, it was during this period that the country reopened, after having been under lockdown for about three (3) months, and there was much rejoicing! Bar, restaurants (for dine-in customers), cinemas, casinos/members clubs, gyms, places of worship, parks/beaches/rivers and other establishments were able to reopen and things seemed as if they were returning to a state of normalcy as COVID-19 cases were on the low. And things were okay for JULY but as August rolled around, well, the number of positive COVID-19 cases started to increase. I think this was due in part to the fact that it was Election Season and a lot of political parties were campaigning, having rallies and doing "walkabouts". Also, our population got "relaxed" with the COVID-19 as persons weren't wearing their masks when out in public, not practicing social distancing, etc.
Well, the elections came and went, and the previous government got re-elected for another five (5) years. Of course, the Opposition didn't like this one bit and so requested a re-count of ballots and poll cards, which is still being done. Until that's completed, the newly re-elected Government cannot be sworn in as yet.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, due to the recent spike (not to mention deaths as well) of COVID-19, the Prime Minister announced last Saturday (15-AUG-2020) that the country will go back into a partial lockdown for twenty-eight (28) days, which took effect yesterday (Monday 17-AUG-2020) at 6:00am. That meant bar, restaurants (for dine-in customers), cinemas, casinos/members clubs, places of worship, parks/beaches/rivers and other establishments would go into lock-down again. Public gatherings would be restricted to just five (5) persons, public transportation would operate at fifty percent (50%) capacity and domestic travelling between our islands would be only for Essential Services. Not to mention, all schools and teaching institutions, which were scheduled to reopen in September, will remained closed till year end and not likely reopen until January 2021.
So, on the eve of the restrictions taking effect, that is on the Sunday, hundreds (if not thousands), of persons flocked to the beaches/rivers/bars/cinemas/restaurants to just enjoy their favourite place(s) before the partial lockdown came into effect. Of course, this meant large gatherings of persons congregating and in one instance, the Police Service had to shut down a party event as there were too many persons gathering, which was in breach of the Public Health Ordinance Act.
So, as of this morning, Tuesday 18-AUG-2020, there are 448 active cases of COVID-19 and twelve (12) persons who have died from it. This number was initially at eight (8) but jumped to its current number in as little as a few days and this has put the country into a panic. Well, not sure about the ENTIRE country but for me at least. It doesn't go without saying that our Chief Medical Officer has advised the World Health Organisation (WHO) that our country is now listed as Community Spread with regards to COVID-19.
Apart from what the Government has already been doing to remind persons to practice the COVID-19 measures (washing hands with soap and water, using hand sanitizers, keeping six [6] feet apart), the Prime Minister is talking with the Attorney General to look into legislation for the mandatory wearing of face masks. They have stopped using persuasion and are now looking into more stricter measures to MAKE PERSONS WEAR FACE MASKS. This doesn't come as a surprise to me, given how lackadaisical our populous has become.
But enough about that, what do I plan to do for this month?
Well, I wanna get back into posting my backlog of commissions on a more regular basis.
As for gaming (yes, I'm a PS4 gamer) I recently completed The Last of Us Part 2 and it was intense. That's all I'll say without spoiling it for those who haven't played it.
Right now, I'm playing Ghost of Tsushima and it's a VAST, open world game with loads of exploring to do. It very much reminds me of Red Dead Redemption 2 but that's just me.
Movies/TV series, I've slowly been re-watching Darkwing Duck, and in between I've started watching BNA: Brand New Animal. Of course, I found a torrent for the version that's Japanese with English subtitles, which persons say is better. But I wanna find the BNA version that's in English. Why? Cuz I wanna hear how the voice actor Benjamin Diskin portrays Shiro Ogami. I mean, I think he did a great job on the voice acting for Legoshi so yeah. Now, I *KNOW* that BNA is on NetFlix and that the English version is there but maybe I'm just lazy? So yeah, if you've got the torrent for the ENGLISH version of BNA, that is the English Voice Acting, and don't mind sharing the link for it, send me a note here.
And to end on a lighter note, I've been following this Cello Player on YouTube. She's been arranging music for 80's cartoon themes and I must say, when listening to them, it makes me feel like a child all over again. I've linked a few of my favourites and if you're old enough to remember these, comment below and make some noise!
So yeah, that's all for now! Thanks again for sticking around and for reading this far! :)
Apologies for that, as well as my apparent lack of updates here. Despite that, I'm still amazed at how many faves I receive on commissioned artworks, as well as +watches from other FA users. So thanks for that.
So what've I been up too? Mostly work and whatnot. I work in Technical Support (for a financial institution) and when this whole COVID-19 pandemic started in my country, everyone at the company wanted to be able to work from home and not have to come into office. So for the period MAR-JUN 2020, Tech. Support was busy configuring laptops for our internal users. We were receiving more service tickets for laptops than we had, so we ended up having to rent laptops, which meant installing our own software on said rentals and giving them a crash course in how to use the VPN portal to be able to connect to our network. Needless to say, that went by fast as in a span of two (2) days Tech. Support had configured about sixty plus (60+) rental laptops. Mind you though, this was costing us money (as they were rentals) so in the background, management was putting thru orders to purchase laptops - which meant that we'd have to go thru the process of configuring them as well. That happened around mid June, and just like the rentals, we had to work two (2) days straight to prep and configure these laptops. But this time around as a bit longer as we had to install software that would encrypt these laptops. So that meant giving the same users another crash-course in how to use these encrypted laptops, as the company implemented another level of Security and who can blame them? With everyone working from home now (globally speaking), it's easier for persons to be hacked and whatnot. Of course, with deploying these new laptops, we had to take back the rentals and ensure that what we received initially from the vendor is what we're returning to them, so that's been fun too.
Anyways, it was during this period that the country reopened, after having been under lockdown for about three (3) months, and there was much rejoicing! Bar, restaurants (for dine-in customers), cinemas, casinos/members clubs, gyms, places of worship, parks/beaches/rivers and other establishments were able to reopen and things seemed as if they were returning to a state of normalcy as COVID-19 cases were on the low. And things were okay for JULY but as August rolled around, well, the number of positive COVID-19 cases started to increase. I think this was due in part to the fact that it was Election Season and a lot of political parties were campaigning, having rallies and doing "walkabouts". Also, our population got "relaxed" with the COVID-19 as persons weren't wearing their masks when out in public, not practicing social distancing, etc.
Well, the elections came and went, and the previous government got re-elected for another five (5) years. Of course, the Opposition didn't like this one bit and so requested a re-count of ballots and poll cards, which is still being done. Until that's completed, the newly re-elected Government cannot be sworn in as yet.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, due to the recent spike (not to mention deaths as well) of COVID-19, the Prime Minister announced last Saturday (15-AUG-2020) that the country will go back into a partial lockdown for twenty-eight (28) days, which took effect yesterday (Monday 17-AUG-2020) at 6:00am. That meant bar, restaurants (for dine-in customers), cinemas, casinos/members clubs, places of worship, parks/beaches/rivers and other establishments would go into lock-down again. Public gatherings would be restricted to just five (5) persons, public transportation would operate at fifty percent (50%) capacity and domestic travelling between our islands would be only for Essential Services. Not to mention, all schools and teaching institutions, which were scheduled to reopen in September, will remained closed till year end and not likely reopen until January 2021.
So, on the eve of the restrictions taking effect, that is on the Sunday, hundreds (if not thousands), of persons flocked to the beaches/rivers/bars/cinemas/restaurants to just enjoy their favourite place(s) before the partial lockdown came into effect. Of course, this meant large gatherings of persons congregating and in one instance, the Police Service had to shut down a party event as there were too many persons gathering, which was in breach of the Public Health Ordinance Act.
So, as of this morning, Tuesday 18-AUG-2020, there are 448 active cases of COVID-19 and twelve (12) persons who have died from it. This number was initially at eight (8) but jumped to its current number in as little as a few days and this has put the country into a panic. Well, not sure about the ENTIRE country but for me at least. It doesn't go without saying that our Chief Medical Officer has advised the World Health Organisation (WHO) that our country is now listed as Community Spread with regards to COVID-19.
Apart from what the Government has already been doing to remind persons to practice the COVID-19 measures (washing hands with soap and water, using hand sanitizers, keeping six [6] feet apart), the Prime Minister is talking with the Attorney General to look into legislation for the mandatory wearing of face masks. They have stopped using persuasion and are now looking into more stricter measures to MAKE PERSONS WEAR FACE MASKS. This doesn't come as a surprise to me, given how lackadaisical our populous has become.
But enough about that, what do I plan to do for this month?
Well, I wanna get back into posting my backlog of commissions on a more regular basis.
As for gaming (yes, I'm a PS4 gamer) I recently completed The Last of Us Part 2 and it was intense. That's all I'll say without spoiling it for those who haven't played it.
Right now, I'm playing Ghost of Tsushima and it's a VAST, open world game with loads of exploring to do. It very much reminds me of Red Dead Redemption 2 but that's just me.
Movies/TV series, I've slowly been re-watching Darkwing Duck, and in between I've started watching BNA: Brand New Animal. Of course, I found a torrent for the version that's Japanese with English subtitles, which persons say is better. But I wanna find the BNA version that's in English. Why? Cuz I wanna hear how the voice actor Benjamin Diskin portrays Shiro Ogami. I mean, I think he did a great job on the voice acting for Legoshi so yeah. Now, I *KNOW* that BNA is on NetFlix and that the English version is there but maybe I'm just lazy? So yeah, if you've got the torrent for the ENGLISH version of BNA, that is the English Voice Acting, and don't mind sharing the link for it, send me a note here.
And to end on a lighter note, I've been following this Cello Player on YouTube. She's been arranging music for 80's cartoon themes and I must say, when listening to them, it makes me feel like a child all over again. I've linked a few of my favourites and if you're old enough to remember these, comment below and make some noise!
So yeah, that's all for now! Thanks again for sticking around and for reading this far! :)
Also...you beat Last of Us pt 2? I haven't even played pt 1!....or God of War....or Horizon Zero Dawn....or Rise of the Tomb Raider....(my backlog's huge).
And as for PS4 titles in your video games library, give this article a read:
https://www.gamesradar.com/best-ps4.....0M6ZmVphgde4mM