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cddc, hid headlights, brembo brakes, sound proofing, hks hi-silent exhaust, hks sqv bov, hks racing suction, hks evc 6, hks Boost meter, greddy fmic, apexi turbo timer, rsm, tien super st w/edfc, unichip, hankook evo v12 typres :]
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| Nope, I'm not talking about val ;) After the 534th visit to the mechanic within the last 8 months (we're all pretty much sick of seeing each other on such a regular basis), i've decided to trade in the 17-year old, long-suffering toyota collora 1.6A LB, for something slightly more reliable. And have in fact settled on something... quite a bit more powerful. Heh heh. Here's a hint: 2.5L turbocharged boxer engine (simply mesmerising to listen to), AWD, and totally zenged up to belt out 300+ raw and unpolished bhps :D Can't wait. | | |
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Love this BBC drama about the wizard Merlin as a boy -- a medieval smallville, if you will.
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| Downloaded loads more iPhone apps, including Bridge Baron (invaluable in training up bridge skills), SG mahjong, texas holdEm, boggle, Scrappy (a scrabble word-buidling tool), SkyFighter (for val, she's a fan of scroller games) and Need for Speed Undercover. Also downloaded the bloomberg app for my stocks / news.
Watched 'Rounders' over the weekend, recommended by my card games-mad colleagues. Old movie, but pretty entertaining.
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Also, borrowed 2 more Chris Ryan novels fr the library. This guy is a decorated ex-SAS trooper and hero of Bravo Two Zero, so he knows his stuff.
I've read about 5 of his books now, and from them you learn all sorts of useful information. For e.g., from 'Blackout', I've learnt that:
In any battle between a pick-up truck and a motorbike, the bike was always going to win on speed and agility. But the truck, like a tank, could win on size and strength. From the right position it could attack. And that position was from behind.
Hurting people
I've also learnt that if you want to really hurt a person with your fists/legs/baseball bat, keep hitting him at the same spot repeatedly, rather than all over his body, like they do in the movies. Force applied repeatedly at the same spot (e.g., ribs, face, stomach) can hurt a lot more than wounds spread all over the body.
One way to attack a guy (or woman) by surprise, is to punch him hard on the side of his neck. If he's caught be surprise, the muscles wd be loose and relaxed, and his breath forced out of the windpipe, choking him. Then punch him in the gut, then smash your boot up his groin, which will send "a viscious bolt of pain searing up through the body at the same moment that all the oxygen empties out of his lungs".
When this dude crumples to the floor, grab his throat and squeeze the air out of him -- the shortage of oxygen to the brain would cause him to lose conciousness.
Explosives
I've also learnt how a remote-controlled car's controller cd be used to trigger a detonator from a short distance, and how soap can be mixed in with alcohol in a homemade explosive device to cause more widespread damage (e.g. if the intention is to spread fireballs and burn down a building).
Being tortured
In the 'regiment', one of the techniques they were taught to cope with being imprisoned and tortured: have a 'mental home base' - a mental safe house, "into which you could retreat to protect yourself against the inevitable fits of depression and despair. You need a 'Focus Word', either a prayer or poem that you can latch on to, to help get you through the day. You need to use visualisation to help you cope with the pain, turning the pain into an object such as a football that you can kick away.... use all your imagination and powers of imagery to try and construct fantasy worlds into which you can escape... you have to want to survive". Man, some of these lessons can be applied even to our normal lives.
Always shoot twice
If you end up shooting someone, whether from a distance or at close range, always make sure you go right up to the corpse and put another bullet in his head, just to make sure he's truly dead. Nothing worse than a corpse that's still alive to seek revenge or catch you off guard. The professionals are also trained to 'double tap' - that's why assassins always put at least 2 bullets into their target. Again, something they don't seem to do in the movies.
If you want to make sure you never hear from a man again, you need to put at least two bullets into him.
Etc
The AK47 is still one of the most reliable rifles around, hardly jams despite lack of maintenance - which is why it is such a favourite of terrorists and rebel forces the world over.
The most dangerous moment was just before an opponent died. The oxygen switched off in the brain, yet as the victim lost conciousness they knew that there was just one last chance of saving themselves, and they would throw all their remaining strength into it.
The crown... the skull there was the thickest lump of bone in the body, designed that way by evolution to protect the brain, and if you had to take a hard blow that was the best place to take it.
In London, if you're being tailed, picadilly circus station is a great place to lose your tail, because of it's round shape and many exits.
A face-to-face killing always brings mood swings and flashbacks, no matter how many times you've done it.
These are just the ones that jump to mind as well as the ones quoted directly from the book i'm reading right now. You'd also find many morbidly fascinating descriptions of how it feels like to get shot, littered throughout his books. This isn't tom clancy made-up stuff, this guy's the real deal, drawing on his life experience, and often it feels more like an military how-to book than a novel.
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On that military note, when i went to pick up my glasses at camden medical centre, i parked next to this G-Wagon. Timeless classic - have you seen a finer 4WD. I soo want one.
 
(Apologies to the owner for not hiding his number plate, i don't have all that fancy adobe software)
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| Ok, so first day back at work with the scrabble app on my iPhone. Did not go well at all.
Went for way more tea breaks than usual, just so I could form another word, and even while taking a dump i played out a game. Have been trashing the computer player (set at 'normal' difficulty), without even using the Best Word function once (takes away the fun, really). I think i'm ready for 'difficult' difficulty.
On the way home, i was happy to stop at red lights, so i could play more scrabble during the 60 seconds or so it took for the lights to change.
During lunch, i almost didn't want to join my usual bridge buddies for our 2-hour bridge sessions, coz i wanted to sit by the corner by myself and play more scrabble.
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Speaking of which, i've been playing very badly at bridge. We've had a former banker who also happens to be an ex-bridge tournament national player in our team for the last 3 or 4 months now, which explains why the standard of bridge is so abnormally high in our little department. I mean, they really remember down to the exact card who has what card of which suit. It's amazing. Not to sound immodest, but i have a mensa-tested IQ in the top 1% and i still feel like a total retard in this group.
And then this bridge player -- let's call him BG (bridge grandmaster) -- tells me i have what 'they' call a Lazy Mind.
And it really struck me -- i DO have a freaking, undeniably, LAZY MIND!
I don't remember birthdays of even my own family members, i forget a person's name 2 seconds after i learn it, i suck at mental sums, and i don't remember whether my bridge partner has any trump suit cards left, the other day I even blanked out when trying to recall my own carplate number. I've always deluded myself by saying it's coz i'm soo smart that i'm stupid (you know? like how stephen chow jokes are so dumb they're funny..). But the truth is there, staring at me in the face.
I'm one bloody lazy bastard.
Friends have often remarked that for an ambitious guy (as they see reflected in my career pursuits (or career attempts, more like)), it's remarkable how i'm "so chill". But now i know, it's not coz i'm chill, it's coz i'm too lazy to be un-chill. I just can't really be arsed about... almost anything at all, really.
Further proof that i have a Lazy Mind - val says it's amazing the things / minute details that i can remember, when there are lots of other way more recent events/details that i simply can't recall. It all comes down to what you can be bothered to remember.
So, personal development objective: to get its arse out of my mind... erm, i mean my mind off its arse. As part of my mental aerobics routine, I'm gonna start memorising all sorts of useless facts to train up my memory. Just like Jason Bourne, I'm gonna memorise all the carplate numbers in my office carpark. Or at least, that of my CEO. Always useful to be able to recognise the CEO's car, just in case i decide to get in a drag race with him at the traffic light without knowing that it's actually him.
I think it's 5449 or something like that.
Also i'm gonna go all rainman on the bridge sessions. Shit, if BG can do it, so can I.
I now realise I joined the government service for this period of time, for one or more divine reasons. One of those reasons, is to improve my bridge skills.
Hahah.. but seriously, bridge is an excellent way to train the memory. Another reason could be to meet some great colleagues, one of whom has probably come into my life for a purpose, a purpose that has already revealed itself over the weekend.
We all get stuck in certain patterns and routine, and that encourages laziness too. So I'm gonna try and mix things up a little. Which doesn't take much, really, considering that my entire life revolves around routine. I eat the same thing for lunch every single day. I eat the same dish every single lunchtime on Saturdays. Just ask Val. Just ask the auntie who sells it. I don't even have to order this dish anymore, I just walk up to the stall, look at the auntie and uncle, they give me a nod and wordlessly get the dish ready. I kid you not. Just ask Val.
So i'm gonna shake things up. I'm gonna brush up on my mandarin. Learning a new language requires a lot of memory work. Mandarin definitely qualifies as a new language for me.
I'll start first thing tomorrow. For now, scrabble on my iPhone awaits!
P.S. I'd bet if every girl looked like Katrina Bowden, i'd remember more of their names.
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