Friday Five 12-May-2023

I was thinking of going back for the backlogs after my holidays, but... I'm feeling lazy. We'll see.

thefridayfive 

1. What was the first album you ever bought?
This brings back memories. I'm not sure exactly which one, but I'm sure it started with one of these Ranma 1/2 opening or closing theme albums, bought with my own money. Mom had started to give us a very small allowance for snacks in school but I decided to forgo the snacks and saved up money of these. Granted, what I bought was bootleg Taiwanese copies, but I didn't know better back then.

And strangely I also remember this one being the first album my Sis bought.

2. What format was it? (cassette, CD, other?)
CD. In my time cassettes did exist, but I think what was available was more mixtapes type of thing.

3. How old were you?
By the time I started to buy Okui Masami albums, I was in Secondary School, so these Ranma albums must have been in around Primary 4 or 5.

4. Where did you hear it?
At home?

5. Did your parents approve?
Couldn't care less LOL. I mean, they couldn't care less what we listened to. It was all in Japanese, they didn't understand (I didn't either at the time hahaha) but they saw it was some "cartoon stuff" (ok anime fans back off. I know the difference to "Cartoons" and "Animes" but again, not trying to sound repetitive, the parents couldn't care less) and as long as it didn't affect school grades, they were cool about it.

F.riday5.com

1. What do you do very quickly?
Less a question of "what", more a question of "when". Normally if I'm given a task I'd do it immediately and have it off my desk ASAP.

2. What do you do very slowly?
Same, less a question of what, more a question of when. When the procrastination mood hits, it hits hard.

3. What caused you most recently to be late for something?
I don't recall being late, so... hm......... if you consider this Friday Fiving on a Saturday being late, then it's just my own scheduling. I've scheduled Saturday mornings to be Friday Five and blogging day.

4. Today is the 132nd day of the year. Have the days gone quickly or slowly?
Quickly. It felt like just yesterday when I got covid (early January) and I was just about to say "it's April already" and then I realized it's really May. So. Time does fly!

5. What will you take your time on this weekend?
I would really like to sort out my iPhone. When I upgraded my iPhone I did the iPhone-to-iPhone transfer. Now I wanted to transfer some old old old music from my laptop, because this is a new laptop, and my new (for 2 years LOL) iPhone had never synced to any laptop ever, so if I want to sync the music from my laptop, I need to re-sync everything. And I'm feeling lazy about that. Yes, Apple music and Music store or Spotify are really convenient, but I do have some really, really old albums that are not available for streaming or online (licensing issues I guess). So I'm still on the fence about that. "Sharing" the music from the apple music app means I need to pay the monthly thing, so it's a moot point :-/

Book: Between Ink and Shadows

Between Ink and Shadows (Between Ink and Shadows #1)
Melissa Wright
Amazon Product Link

Nimona Weston has a debt to pay. Her father’s dealings with the dark society known as the Trust cost Nim her freedom. There’s one way out of the contract on her life and that’s to bide her time and pay the tithes. But when the Trust assigns Nim to a task in the king’s own castle, her freedom is not the only thing she’ll risk.

Warrick Spenser has a secret. As king’s seneschal, he should be the last soul in Inara to risk association with dark magic, but long-hidden ties to the Trust are harder to shed than simply cutting the threads. When the Trust sends a thief to his rooms, Warrick thinks he’s finally found a way to be rid of them for good. But Nimona Weston is hiding secrets of her own.

Magical contracts, blood-debt accountants, and a deadly game. A dark and twisty fantasy that pits magic against kings.

= + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = +

Well... I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it. I did enjoy it. Just some things made me wonder.

So, Nim has all these skills for this and that (not exactly listed and detailed), so you get the impression that she's badass and is a skillful mercenary and such. But then, she faints at many points and needs smelling salts to revive her like any other victorian lady that can't breath because of you know, yet, I don't think she's clothed in one (or is she?).

I enjoyed the playful ending of being able to "wear the pants in the relationship" (corny and eye-rolling as it may be) so I'm open to reading the following book. Have it in the Kindle already, just let me finish up my current 2 library loans first!

Catch up!

Finally sitting down to go through my inbox and such. I've missed SO MANY BIRTHDAYS! I'm so sorry for missing out on sending birthday wishes.

Still reminiscing the good parts of my vacation, and putting my thoughts together:
1. Not going on a "free walker" trip with this particular friend anymore. Only group tours.
2. Highly recommend this Wanderlog app and website. Even just using the free version, it was useful. I created my own account and a dud account (to say "friend") and, I put all my expenses in the app. Those that are just for me, was left at that. Those that were shared expense got marked to split evenly (I didn't try if a custom percentage would work, but since most things are 50/50 anyway) and by the end of the trip, I just clicked on debt summary and it calculated, accurately, what my friend owed me. I did a separate manual/excel expense list and came out to more or less the same figure. More or less because I was doing everything according to the bank issued statements with actual currency conversion rates to MOP, while the app calculated the standard conversion rate to HKD. And then calculating the app HKD rate to my MOP rate, it was still 1.03, which is practically the standard HKD to MOP rate used locally. So. It's accurate.
3. To those who considered me silly for continually complaining about the UK not accepting my cash, the GBP rate I had my cash was at a lower rate, than the bank credit card enforced rate. So, it actually came out more expensive to use the credit card rate than using just cash. *haaarrrrummmmmppphh!*
4. I gained a good whole 5kg on this trip. Ugh. We didn't really have 3 square meals every single day, and we walked so much. Whyyyyyyyyy. Anyway, I've trimmed back down 3kg. Work on the last 2!
5. The Lemon jam or marmelade I got from that church in Hastings is really good! I like that it isn't just sweet like commercial jams are.
6. So far what I miss the most is... the milk. We bought a carton of fresh milk every other day, because I drank a lot of that milk (maybe that's where my 5kg came from haha). So creamy! Not like the processed milk here....

I have an upcoming trip in June to Hong Kong. It was really just a concert that I wanted to go, but I wasn't sure how late the concert would last, and since the venue is somewhere where in my knowledge it's a bit out there so I wasn't sure about transport and such... so I decided I'd spend the night there instead of rushing back for the ferry back to Macau. After much struggling about rooms and where, I decided to just find a balance with getting a cheap private room with the comfort of a private toilet and bathroom. I really just need some place to sleep the night and maybe leave my overnight bag while I'm out.

I extended an invitation to my Sis to join me on the Monday after, since she wanted to go to that Jade Market I went to. She seems to be interested, but hasn't confirmed yet. We'll see, it's weeks away anyway.

And it's about time to work on the potential Italy trip in October/November! First thing: hunt for good flight deals.