Home... is where my boxes are

I have finally settled into my new place.

And truth to be said, it is actually a pretty excellent place.
Now all it need is to be filled with gamers, and have a better kitchen!

There is also this weird smell in the common areas, my friend told me it is the new flooring.

Ambiguity part 1

Trust the Japanese to have one phrase that could mean both "Appropriate"/"Suitable" and "Anyhow"/"Random".

That word is 「適当に」

So... do you want me to change the value appropriately, or randomly?

Paths...

謎の旅
おばさんが行く
さようなら

A mystery trip
Auntie has to undertake
Fare thee well, I say

A B C D...

I tend to be very sympathetic with the young kids nowadays. It seems that by primary 1, they are already expected to be able to read and comprehend quite a wide range of materials. I feel that they are being pushed too fast.

I remembered starting to learn how to read and count only from Primary 1. (k - a - ka, k - i - ki, kaki "foot". 1+1=2) I can't really recall much about pre-school, but there seemed to be a lot of play and discovery activities. Look at where I am now. I still function pretty well linguistically.

That reminded me. I overheard a lady sitting beside me complaining about the language that she is learning (quite loudly, I assure you). She claimed that it is weird. She could not find a pattern on how the collective form for this language vary with the item being counted. That was when I guessed that she was talking about Japanese. Sure enough, she started giving an example about counting books.

"?!" But the collective for books is constant...
And then I realized that she must be referring to: 「本」, which is used to count long objects in Japanese. I wonder if I should just have taught her how to.

Anyway, the move is 95% complete, only 1 more box to transfer today.

Plus: Finnish Art of Conversation

What is a game?

I found a nice description of this thing that I really, really like to do.

A game is:

A system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome

Quoted from Rules of Play by Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen.

It came from this article: http://shufflebrain.com/etech06.htm, and I found another very interesting blog that brings multi dimensional views about games: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/

Coincidentally, one of posts in there - How to be an expert - kind of ties in with one comment that I made in another blog today. In that comment I stated that genius are born, while the post said that anyone can be a genius, as long as they are dedicated, willing to put in all the time and focus. Here is the crutch. I believe that people are somehow born with an inclination to certain abilities. Whether they develop it or not, is another story.

For example, assume that person A and person B both put in the same amount of effort (per hour) learning Japanese. However, person A might just need to put in 800 hours of study to clear JLPT1 compared to person B's 1200 hours. They will both end up at similar competency level, but unless person B really, really likes or needs Japanese, he might have been served better by pursuing, let's say Cooking (where person A regularly gets sugar and salt mixed up). The time required is of a different scale altogether.

Sure, I probably could be a Scrabble GM like Sonic by putting in the hours. Why would I want to do that if I can probably learn another language in the time I would need to memorize the scrabble dictionary :P.

Transmigration

Whee! I have finally completed 90% of my move. Got myself quite a nice place (would be a lot nicer with no owner), and transplanted my internet connection! (More on this later).

Unfortunately, my friend who drives does not have a vehicle available to help me move this time (his dad took it to Malaysia), but he came down to help me with the heavier boxes. Thank you Mr D.! Here's where the complications began. I had to make the main move using 3 taxi trips that cost me a total of $15. Not too bad.

However, I found a disturbing trend with the taxi drivers in Singapore. Seems that most of them are not too pleased when being flagged down for the purpose of moving a few boxes. I only took 6 box with each trip, and they were not exactly humongous either. One driver just immediately drove off after I asked him if he's willing to go into the complex and have me load the boxes. Out of the 3 drivers that actually took my stuff, only one even bothered to get out from the cab to open the baggage compartment. One gave quite a sour face at the end of the trip, and the other asked me: "Why did you not get a friend to help?" while keeping his rear glued to the driver's seat as I unload my stuff. (I had help on Saturday, and I made 1 last trip on Sunday for my comp and all the other light stuff.)

I do not think that they are really obliged to load/unload any baggage, but helping passengers should be part of the service no?

The last time I moved, I met a really, really nice taxi driver. I was actually planning for 2 trips due to all the stuff I need to move, but he insisted that we try loading everything in at once (we managed), and even helped with the loading and unloading! I guess I have used up a lot of my "taxi driver luck" when I met that nice gentleman.

I should have obtained his contact number or something...

Inspiration

Inspired by Anonymous_X's link spring cleaning, I have decided to adopt the method to make own list of links that would be a lot easier to manage. (Sparing me the use of the "edit template" steps!) These are for stuff that I do not need to refer to often, but looks like a good source of information on what interest me ^^.

*Drumroll*

Pizza + Geek =
Cooking for Engineers
Presentation Zen
Wonderland - games
Ward-o-Matic - Animation
Animator-John K
http://www.svioklascontext.com/
http://www.kith.org/logos/
http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/ts/index.html
http://nesheimgroup.typepad.com/
http://www.ceebot.com/colobot/index-e.php

Conundrum

I am usually too lazy to clean up my room. Papers everywhere, dust bunnies makes comfy nest under my bed, books form mini hills, coat hangers frolick on my bed...

But, I can't stand it when a location gets real messy at the end/in the middle of a party. Me and the whole class was invited to join a potluck party by one of my classmates. And from the location, she seems to be making better money than me ><. As the party progresses, I was clearing up empty containers/plates/cups that were abandoned near me. (People appeared and left in waves, so there were a constant stream of containers being orphaned.)

After a while, the party hostess asked: "Do all Indonesian males help with cleaning up the way you do?" and I was like: "Erm... I guess most of us do, yes." (What else can I say?) Seems like I was the only guy that was actively demolishing the growing mountain of rubbish.

It is interesting the kind of pre-conceptions each of us carry in our heads and how they influence the way we view the world. Usually these pre-conceptions are very hard to break intentionally. But it looks like I had inadvertedly broke quite a few, and mayhaps introduced some, hopefully better, ones. Like - Indonesian (chinese) guys = makes good butlers :P

I should have probably asked her to observe other Indonesians (when available) as I contradict myself a lot.

Boardgames galore!

To many people, the word 'boardgame' usually brings up the image of a Monopoly board in their mind. This is actually quite an achievement of Hasbro's. They have indirectly managed to monopolize people's *idea* of what a boardgame is. They now control Wizards of the Coast too, but that's another story.

Enter the euro boardgames. People whom I try to introduce these games to usually ask me why is that I am so passionate about boardgames which most people do not even know the name of?

1. They are mighty fun! There are dexterity games [Villa Paletti], matching games [Blink], building games [Puerto Rico], area control games [Carcassone], brain burning games [Logistico], abstract games [Blokus], party games [Jungle Speed], negotiation games [Diplomacy], fantasy games [Runebound], rolepaying games [House of the Hill], auction games [Modern Art], filler games [Holiday!], and many, many more. Plenty of people who has tried a few of these games would come back for more. There are enough variety to suit almost everybody's needs (well, some people just don't dig boardgames at all, and I respect people's preferences). In fact, I think I have not played the same game more than 10 times so far, except for Settlers of Cattan (that was the only one available like 4-5 years ago).

2. Thinking large, I would like to think that I am helping to 'break' this mindset of what people think a 'Boardgame' is. When I say I play boardgames, I want people to ask: "Which ones?" instead of: "You play Monopoly?" or "Is that like Mahjong?".

Now, where to buy these wonderful games? As far as I know, there is only one store that carries a wide variety in Singapore. [Paradigm Infinitum]. However, Singapore is viewed as a small market in this niche entertainment and the suppliers do not really put us in high priority for shipment. (Translation: once current stocks are sold out, you'll have to wait quite a while for new ones to arrive.) It is better to go there when you already roughly know what you want to buy. The staff are quite knowledgeable about how the games works, but as there are literally hundreds of them, you can't really expect them to know all (especially since they do not get to play wrapped items, and new releases.)

How about if you are totally clueless about these games? Fear not. All you got to do is drop by Settlers Cafe with some friends and try out the games. I would regommend going as pairs or groups of 4-5. There are not many 3 or 6 player boardgames. The one in Clarke Quay currently has a better boardgame library. Low on cash? Signup with Singapore boardgamers meetup group (for free!) and join us for games twice a month at very affordable rates. Details are in the website, and do RSVP as slots are limited. You can also read about them in Boardgame Geeks. (I would say that actually playing is a lot more informative though.)

To be fair, there are also at least 2 other game cafes that I am aware of.
The Mind Cafe
Pitstop Cafe
So you could shop around. I have never been to these other two cafes, so I cannot comment on them.

Disclaimer: I *do not* work for any of the above mentioned establishment. (Although I kind of wish I am ^^.)

Figures...

Looks like my "sin" profile is pretty accurate.
And I already know that I am lazy :P

Greed:	Low
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Low
Sloth:	Very High
Envy:	Medium
Lust:	Medium
Pride:	Medium

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