My body weight is now hovering between 82 and 85 kilograms. I have started doing HICT again but the added body fat really strains my muscles. Add to that my feasting habit and it looks like I won't be seeing 65 kg again for the rest of my life.

Instead of a new phone, I'm using a used Samsung Galaxy Express. It works, but due to its low resolution, typing is a pain and web-browsing feels awfully cramped. At least it has superior battery life to the Galaxy Note, though I still want a much better smartphone than this.

But I cannot get a new phone if I want a new steering wheel set! Watching the new Formula 1 championship has rekindled my motor-racing itches, and I want to try iRacing with my Logitech MOMO Racing again. However, I want a 900° steering wheel so that I can better simulate road car driving, so I'm looking into getting a cheap used Driving Force Pro or G25 so as not to eat into my savings.









Fuck militant Islam

My Samsung Galaxy Note GT-N9000 has gone through so much misery at my meaty hands. The top microphone has failed, the USB module has been dislocated again, and its battery life while browsing the World Wide Web remains one of the most pathetic of any 3G-capable smartphone.

A number of choices have come up for what should be my new phone: Meizu MX4 Pro, Motorola Nexus 6, Samsung Galaxy Note 4, HTC One M9, HTC Desire Eye, Sony Xperia Z3 Compact, LG G3. Man, is it going to be hard to pick only one!

Wow! After spending a week eating only vegetable salad for lunch on weekdays, on top of my existing workload, I lost 1.2 kg of body weight in one week. I hope to keep this up for several more weeks, in the hopes that I get my weight down below 75 kg at least. Below that weight, the probabilities that I will die from a cardiac, circulatory, hepatic, renal or gastrointestinal disorder before I turn 40 will decrease significantly.

Finally, after reading up on playing Gran Turismo 4 with PCSX2 and the jackun USBQemu plugin for PC steering wheels, I gave it a try with my Logitech MOMO Racing wheel and pedal set, and it feels wonderful! To think that this is what I was missing from GT4 all these years: precise analog controls and demanding force feedback.

The optimistic and idealist kid in me screams

Happy New Year!!!!!!!

The pessimistic and realist adult in me says

Good luck.

So many greetings on here! I feel it is kind to reciprocate, so...

Merry Christmas!

Fuck militant Islam - that's all.

No, maybe more.

Fuck militant Islam to the ends of the universe, to the event horizons of every black hole in the universe.

Militant Muslims have every right to condemn unregulated capitalism, consumerism, political corruption and military and police overreach. But time and again, they do so by killing hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians powerless against them, whose deaths do nothing to improve the quality of the lives of impoverished Muslims who need more aid, not more blood.

How does the wanton slaughter of school children and teachers help make the world more friendly to Islam!? The impression I am getting is that they want the world to hate them, to fear them. They are not looking for love, compassion and sympathy. They are just bullies who want to dominate every man, woman and child, dehumanise them and force them by the gun to please Allah by stroking their grossly inflated ego.

Religion of peace my arse.

Today holds the record for the smallest number of FurAffinity submissions in my daily savings haul: 27!

My goodness, what happened here to make it so that not much was submitted in the past 24 to 36 hours here? I normally get 90 to 110 submissions, but then this?

EDIT: An administrator notice just popped up regarding database maintenance. Maybe that's why.

So bread mold and influenza decided to hitch a ride in my body AT THE SAME TIME, resulting in the worst experience at being sick in over 10 years. The horrors I went through cannot easily be forgotten.

Also, my sister's wedding inevitably got peeps asking me when will I get married and with whom, even going so far as to load their questions with suggestions that me getting married WILL happen. Alas, I have no idea what to do. Telling them the truths of my ideology, philosophy, sexuality and social life could make them try to destroy me, but saying nothing only makes them try to wrestle control of my life away from me.

I have a FAR fortunate life than billions of humans alive today, and I still have life-threatening dilemma.

So I was geared up for my sister's wedding this weekend.

BAM! Mum gets down with influenza.

BAM! I ate contaminated bread with nasty results.

MTFCKNBAM! The entire family of one of my aunts falls ill with the cold, AND SO DO I.

ALL HAIL OUR TINY OVERLORDS. [crys]

Monday, 4 August 2014 marked the first time I ever fired live rounds from a gun. I finally participated in my first service revolver marksmanship test, only to fail it with horrible accuracy. Heh, I fear shooting real people. Also, having gunshot residue all over my mouth just stinks.

I feel apprehensive about bearing guns because of what I have read and seen what these do to people. Sure, there are heavily-armed men out there with abhorrent fundamentalist ideals, but even with them I'd hate to see their heads explode, bits of blood and brain flying in all directions and then dropping dead. I'd hate any living thing to suffer a terrible way to die.

After coming home from the test, I decided to chill out to Okami HD and Child of Eden with my PS Move VIBRATING MAGIC WAND! Admittedly, I got pissed at Child of Eden for thinking I was pulling the trigger all the time, so it messed with my scoring. I look forward to playing them again. They're certainly better than DOOM 3.

I am going to upload traditionally drawn sketches for now because I am exasperated with my attempts to draw digitally with my graphics tablet and pen. I feel like my brain is stubbornly refusing to learn any new skills, after having enjoyed a relatively easy life. It still brings home the dough, but still does not match my ravenous spending habits and can endanger the futures of my family and myself.

Speaking of spending habits, any of you invested in a 27 to 30-inch computer monitor with a 16:10 aspect ratio? Also, has it helped you earn back its cost?

And speaking about money, after seeing how hard life has been on many a furry here, I was pondering how setting up a welfare fund for furries might help while still preventing corruption.

1 YEAR!?

My apologies, I've got to pump up guts and post a work soon. Seems people are OK with sketch pages, of which I have lots.

At long last, I have finished putting all the necessary parts of my new PC together, and it is now working well. Bloody expensive, though. I believe I have pushed my expenses too far this time.

Damn, this past month has been eventful. Had to yell at a dad to stop beating his son in public, had a nearby resident stabbed to death while I was having lunch at home, and watched hordes of angry men tear cars apart in the city.

Anyway, time to practice digital doodling with my new PC. I feel guilty neglecting my gallery.

Because my PC's memory controller hub overheated, I could not run it properly anymore. Now that that PC is gone, I also cannot scan and draw. Currently, the earliest I will be able to get a new PC to my tastes is February 2014.

To those who were looking forward to seeing some works from me, I am very sorry. Perhaps I can sneak in a few more scans using other computers. In the meantime, I finally got under way with aerobic training.

I have spent 6 weeks of brisk walking 5 days a week, and I am amazed at my improved timings, though I still suffer bouts of listlessness while going far and fast. Tomorrow, I will perform my 12-minute test, in which I must run as far as I can within 12 minutes, preferably 2.4 km (1.5 miles). Wish me luck?

Here's hoping things get really good towards the end of 2013. Toodles!

Ach! I'm watching videos of 1980's arcade games over and over again. I just love their graphics, sounds and murderous gameplay! Two games that soothed my itch are Tempest 2000 and Robotron 2084. Those are some of the most stellar arcade games I have ever played, no matter how hard they are on an aged body like mine.

In the meantime, I am happy to see my savings balance climb up slowly but surely.

A week ago, I was unfortunate enough to witness a crow attacking a flock of brown shrikes in a small tree. The crow managed to make off with a fledgling. I can only imagine the horrible death that little one felt at the hands of that crow. Definitely the saddest moment in my bird-watching hobby.

Oh well, business as usual in nature. Never fret, coz there's more good to life than that! Signing off for now!

Why 'coming out' 2 times over?

It's because I'm not only not straight.

I don't believe anymore, if you get what I mean.

And I don't know how to convey this to my rather conservative family without making all the good things in my life (possibly even theirs) come crashing down in mere minutes. It is probably impossible.

Still, I have been pretending to be straight and faithful 'like every good man should' to please my family, but in doing so, I keep lying to myself, and I don't like that. I want to be honest with myself, but at the same time, I have this very painful and irrational fear of angering people even the slightest.

I have gone with the flow just to keep everyone around me happy for almost 24 years. That has to end now.

Although not completely dead, my 2005 Dell Dimension 9150 has caused me enough pain after nearly 8 long years of service. Thanks to a damaged Memory Controller Hub (MCH) after one too many BSODs and sudden restarts, it damaged my PCI Express slots, killed 1 PCI slot and damaged the SATA interface, nearly wiping out my precious documents and treasured memories in there.

Add to that its miserable performance even for 2D graphics at 1920x1080 and it is obvious that I must let that PC go for good.



Anyway, WOW 50TH MONDAY BLUES JOURNAL! YAY!

I saw a spider hanging from a tree get snatched away and gobbled up by an European sparrow. Poor spider, but what a sight.

I have been enjoying myself lately watching GTA4 Carmageddon. After all the mayhem and brutality of it all, I realised just how wonderful a simple change of the vehicles' "wbias" integers in the handling.cfg file is.

What starts out as just another open-world crime simulator becomes a hilarious and nightmarish game of survival, where vehicles are waiting to smash you to kingdom come at anytime anywhere you stand, including indoors! I see a lot of emergent gameplay thanks to the many YouTube players, who took it upon themselves to achieve objectives like "Find a boat and sail away from the city" or "Get to the airport and fly away in a helicopter", hopefully without being bludgeoned by a flying bus.

An great example of small changes in code resulting in more engaging gameplay.

More interesting things I saw lately:

A fledgling pigeon escaping from a cat by hiding behind a 7-Eleven ice box.

A cockroach crossing a four-lane two-way avenue.



Anyway, my grandparents and aunt are all safe and sound in their new apartment. Everything is in place.

Also, I got meself a PS3 after all these years. It is a 160GiB CECH-3006A from 2011. I can finally play PS3 games and watch Blu-Ray movies. Man those Blu-Ray visuals are awesome. It would all have been great if I did not fall ill with the flu, though.

Damn it! If forgoing my exercise due to the haze was not enough, the flu had to pummel me into submission. Strangely it coincided with the cessation of regular itchings from my Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection. Maybe the influenza virus was the kicker for my immune system to wake up its bloody idea and help me.

Fortunately, both the haze and my flu have subsided, and I can resume HICT in a few days. Now for some green tea and curry puff.

Toodles!

The haze is taking its toll on everyone living where I am. PSI 150+ smoke billowing in from forest fires on the island of Sumatra. Throats, lungs and eyes sting and hurt.

It is not the worst I have ever experienced, but it is not the worst in the world either.

Oh yesh! My grandparents' new home looks spanking clean and ready for comfortable living. Once we move the furniture and appliances back in later this week, my grandparents can move out of their temporary abode in my house.

So other than a carcass of a baby bird, it is all good.

After yet another long period without exercise, I came back to doing it, only harder.

This time I tried High Intensity Cardio Training. However short 2 circuits of HICT are is rendered moot when it is actually a couple of minutes of hell. Now my muscles and my gut feel like aching jello, which is good I guess because of how pampered it has been.

In other news, my grandparents and aunt's new apartment looks stunning, even without any furniture and utilities. Big windows, a comfy colour scheme and a more manageable living space size. Oh, and add a bomb shelter to that!

It seems that an old worker at the warehouse I work at has tamed a cat! Infrequently, I will see him at the outdoors lockers with the cat meowing at him. Then, as he walks off somewhere, the cat follows him, meowing all the way. I wonder what he fed the cat?

Hello again. I am so happy that I am finally getting some semblance of income tomorrow. Roughly US$200 for 12 days of work is far better than getting nothing for doing nothing for 2 months.

I watched an almost cocooned caterpillar pull its way up over 1.5 metres of its silk thread to get back to the branch it tagged itself to.

I also found a Magic the Gathering card inside a sex education book for conservative Muslims.

As one can see, my life has been relatively uneventful lately, and since I am playing safe with my life so far, nothing dramatic has happened. Excuse me while I think of something to buy with my pay. Toodles!

I am getting by satisfactorily. Not as well as I hoped, but enough to survive.

At my workplace are thousands of books dating from the 1930s to as recently as 2010. In some of them, I found some interesting stuff.

A medical certificate from 2008.

A PRC Chinese primary school girl's notebook on English left behind in an Encyclopaedia Brittanica.

A scratch card with three matching joker card icons, thus winning £50,000...

... for a lucky draw in Britain way back in 2002.



I also saw a tuxedo cat crossing a zebra crossing!

Oh dear, I am at a loss at what to write now. Oh well, toodles then!

Surprise
I thought it would be yet another blazing fast warehouse job. Instead, it was a job that went at a slow, relaxed and reasonable pace. On the downside, it still involves carrying heavy loads, so my body still felt strained at the end of the work day.

DPR 'North' Korea puts missiles back in storage
I guess the South Koreans were right to just carrying on partying to 'Gentleman' in total disregard to the North's actions.



It comes as it pleases.
On Saturday, I was wondering whether all my favourite furries will keep on going as furries well through old age right to their inevitable ends, and how their art may change as they and their audience ages.

Off-hand, I tried seeing if any of the artists in my personal furry gallery, other than those who are MIA such as  groovypants and  trixiemaos, were deceased, and found there were none.

Until yesterday.

---


The eyes you drew were so big, lush and sparkly they scared me!

Something about your art just didn't feel right for me,
though I still yearned to see more of the raunchy adventures your princely bunny and his wolf boyfriend got into.

And the jokes you cracked, the anecdotes from your life you shared and the fun you indulged in made me smile muchly.

Alas, it happened.

My heart broke when I heard you were suddenly no more. Your family and friends were shocked and saddened, and I reckon your English class students really miss you, too.

Nevertheless, you left behind a legacy I appreciate. I will cherish the memories you left behind. Thank you, and

Requiescat in pace



Good news is that I have a new job that regularly pays more than US$50 a week.

Bad news is that it is yet another high-volume, high-work-rate packing job.

Worst news is that it pays US$4.87 an hour, worse than the last warehouse job, though that was relentlessly fast and painful for me.

So while I try fruitlessly to get a good job that makes my brain tick happily and still bring in the dollars for the company, I have to yet again wile away my days in highly strenuous and highly repetitive work for low pay...

... just like millions of other humans.