Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Cavalock and The Lockdown Hobby Rant

Well, this is pretty much all the hoarding we did over the last week. Five cans of SW tomatoes, well, cos cans of the rare Cirio Cherry Tomatoes (our usual brand) are nowhere to be found, online and offline. We didn't exactly hunkered down and we only bought our usual groceries. But it is kinda scary to see all them naked shelves in the supermarket.


We aren't in lockdown (yet) but we are coming close to one. Reports of how folks in the West aren't taking too kindly to lockdowns are somewhat hard to fathom. How they value their freedom to do whatever they want regardless of the consequences and how they think it's 'unconstitutional' to do be told what to do by their governments, it's all rather mind-boggling.

As a nerdy introvert gamer all my life, doing things on my own or finding my own amusement is something I'm very familiar with. And when I hear people saying they don't know what to do when they are forced to be at home is quite amusing. I'm not making this up when I say I know successful working adults who are moaning about the fact that they have no hobbies. Seriously, they are saying in this desolate voice, "oh, I just realised I have no hobbies besides work and watching Korean soap operas." Frankly, I'm surprised too. I go "What you mean, don't you like to read or something?" "What did you do in the last 20 or 30 years of your life that you actually enjoyed, besides working."

I suppose if you have kids, you might not have time for your own hobbies but some of these folks don't have kids, and they travel so I guess that's somewhat of a hobby but since you can't travel now. I imagine they are feeling lost and looking for some new ... er... purpose in life? I think a lot of people out there just know how to "work" and when it comes to hobbies, what comes to their mind are "watching sports/movies/TV, eating, travelling and maybe working out". I'm not saying it's wrong or bad, just a little sad to me. But I ain't judging (or am I?), some folks are perfectly fine with not having hobbies. It's them full-grown adult folks who are groaning bout how they ain't got no hobbies and somewhat regretting it now, that just sounds weird to me. Sometimes I just kinda bitch slap folks who ask me, "what am I going to do when I retire? I got no hobbies."

Meanwhile the Baker-at-Home is cooking up some lard in the kitchen. Hah! This is the first time she's doing this. All part of doing something you enjoy, you try something new, maybe you get to create something new and wonderful too.


Saturday, March 14, 2020

Cavalock and The Vanishing Queues Appreciation

Admit it, despite the Co-vid doom and gloom hanging over the city, there is a part of you that is relishing the fact that eateries that were once besieged by long queues of tourists are now free of them. Case in point, Bacha Coffee at ION Orchard. No more snaking lines of Chinese and regional tourists outside the cafe. We finally got a table! I lost count of the number of times me and the Baker-at-Home walked away from the joint cos of the (at least) hour-long wait.


You can also find a table at the food court as there are folks these days as half the office are working from home. I know business is bad and eateries are losing money but I'm thinking, folks still gotta eat so someone has be benefitting from this. Food delivery services for sure. And supermarkets too cos folks will be cooking their meals at home more often I guess.

Since all our travel plans for the year are grounded. No more Japan trips for now. So I have been busy painting as I definitely foresee more gaming hours ahead. Just painted the new Squig hero for my Warhammer Age of Sigmar miniatures army. I actually like how the colors came out for this model. And my special order from the UK, just came in too. More Troggoths! Or trolls to you mortals. I have just based them white before painting in the colors. Some of my friends are working from home these couple weeks and we have been meeting up for gaming sessions. Hah!



Monday, March 02, 2020

Cavalock and The Balmuda Toaster Reminiscent

Probably one of the weirdest Easter eggs I have ever seen. Guinness Easter eggs spotted at Meidi-Ya over the weekend, I guess of the last few times I'll be there before they move out. Although the Baker-At-Home has managed to wrangle some info on a very likely new location for our favourite Japanese supermarket.


Something that we did bought from Meidi-Ya that evening was this tempting six-pack of limited edition premium Kirin beer. Never could resist a new "flavour" of beer especially if each can promises 5.5% of goodness. 


Saw this Balmuda t-shirt at Liang's Court Uniqlo and I knew I had to get it since it serves as a reminder of how we packed an entire state-of-the-art toaster oven in our luggage three years ago. Secured by our holiday laundry stuffed all around it. That was one heavy piece of luggage! Still using it at least once every week or two. Definitely one of our best buys from Japan. Believe it or not, I still get the occasional email bout getting a Balmuda toaster in Singapore, how to get it working with a transformer and all that. While writing this post, I realised that my original Balmuda post had a couple of enquires bout which transformer to use, been ages since I visited that post so I never read the comments. Real sorry but that. Well, I'm using a 1500 Watt, AC to AC converter. Hope that helps.