Writing Break – Playing With LEGO Day #2

I will be continuing my process of building up the LEGO set. You can read about Day 1 here.

Spiderman Building – Fourth Bag/Second Floor

The fourth bag contains parts for Spiderman and the second floor of his building.

First up is Spiderman himself with Iron Spider Armor.

Laying the foundation bricks for the second floor…

Construction in progress…

After twenty-minutes, the level is completed. Don’t judge me for the slowness. After all why should anyone rush through building LEGO? It’s not your day job with a looming deadline.

Time for a break

I took a quick break to make myself a small jug of green tea.

As I took sips of green tea, I continued with my LEGO construction. Thus far, I am really enjoying myself. Deep down, I really want another LEGO set.

Spiderman Building – Fifth Bag/Third Floor

Then I continued with building up the third floor, which is Spiderman/Peter Parker’s bedroom. I just can’t believe that he’s so unhygienic with pizza on the floor beside the bed. How could anyone sleep in a room like this? =P

After the third floor is done…

After the third floor is done, it’s time to do up the roof of the building.

Spiderman Building – Sixth Bag/Roof

The roof of Spiderman’s building is relatively easy to build.

Laying the foundational bricks. It was during this time I realized that I do have some issue identifying pieces in the pile of bricks.

Once the Spiderman Building is done, it’s time to move on to the third floor of Sanctum Sanctorum. So far, I’m loving how the set is turning out.

Sanctum Sanctorum – Seventh Bag/Third floor

Before I went with building this level, I stood up to do some stretching. After all, I took a break from writing because I didn’t want to use the computer after work to let my body recover. I didn’t want to let LEGO be another contributing factor to my pain.

After laying down the foundational bricks and build up the so call library of books and ritualistic items

Adding the rest of the structure.

And it is time to introduce Iron Man…it does look like he’s giving us the middle finger. Hahaha.

Spiderman Building/Sanctum Sanctorum – Eight Bag/ Everything else

It’s time for the last numbered bag. I got up and did some stretching again. Then, I sat back down and poured out the content inside onto the ground in front of me.

Final Touches/ The End

With the last bag done, it’s time to arrange the heroes and villains in the way I want to present them.

My apologies for the overexposure because I activated flash on my camera.

I put the completed set into a display cabinet and cleared out existing toys that I no longer want. Once in the cabinet, I rearranged parts and the characters.

Poem – Wet as rain

Ominous clouds rolling across the white canvas, coming to a halt above.

Unsuspecting bipedals moved beneath, going about their lives.

A roar, a flash, an inverted tsunami follows, as though gods are crying, turning everything into slippery glisters.

Bipedals, wet as rain, run for their lives, seeking the nearest shelters, waiting for drier days.

Writing Break – Playing With LEGO Day #1

I took a break over the last few days from writing and in general from spending too much time in front of a computer. I needed to get my back and neck pain sorted out. It wasn’t as bad as a week ago but the pain and the aches are still there. It will take time to sort them out with exercises. Patience is key here.

After lunch on Wednesday (04-Apr-2018), I got myself a box of LEGO to entertain myself. The product I got, called Sanctum Sanctorum Showdown, is part of the Marvel’s Infinity War.

After unboxing, there are eight numbered packages and a few scattered pieces. In each of those numbered packages, there were smaller ones to house those smaller pieces.

Instead of going my way, I chose to build the set according to the instruction. Personally, I always saw LEGO as a form of collectibles instead of a toy.

Now, even though I’m on break, it didn’t stop me from wanting to document the LEGO building process.

Start of Day 1

The first thing to build is the corner of the two buildings. It is one of the simplest one of the whole set.

Sanctum Sanctorum/Dr. Strange – First Bag/First Level

The first bag contains parts for Dr. Strange and the first level of Sanctum Sanctorum. I went with fitting Dr. Strange. Well…he looks kind of cute in this form.

Then it was time to construct the first level of the sanctum sanctorum.

This is the back view.

After I was done with them, I put them together just for a photo shoot. I also put on the LEGO parts that represents magical effects.

While doing all the above, I can’t help but recall the childhood I had. Before I had computers or smartphones, LEGO dominates my playtime. And it is also therapeutic because unlike works that you publish, no one is judging you. It is a solo task just like reading a book or playing a single player game.

Sanctum Sanctorum/Cull Obsidian – Second Bag/Second Level

The second bag contains the parts for Cull Obsidian and the second level of Sanctum Sanctorum.

I put Cull Obsidian together first. He looked ugly and menacing yet cute at the same time. Most likely because of the LEGO nature.

Then I went with putting together the second floor of the building.

Front View

Back View

Spiderman Building – Third Bag/First Level

I moved on to bag number 3 which contains the parts for the first level of Spiderman’s home.

Front View

Now, I don’t quite remember if there was a pizza place below Spiderman’s home.

Back View

Yes, I know that Cull Obsidian is on the floor doing pushups with his hammers in hand. =) I had to put him aside so that I can do my stuff and he kept falling over anyway.

End of Day 1

Thus far, it has already taken me more than three hour to do up everything above. A big issue that I was having was how my back and neck pain reached a level where I couldn’t concentrate. And I had some trouble searching for the correct parts to install.

I decided to call it a night and shall continue it the next day.

Random Thoughts Collection #1

A nation’s infrastructure is a representation of its wealth and management. Singapore government constantly repairs or repave our roads because it is necessary. A failing infrastructure will cost the nation millions if not billions of dollars. Try imagining poorly maintained roads resulting in traffic accidents or goods tumbling off transport vehicle
I never liked working on legacy systems with limited budget. It feels restrictive… Stifling…maybe part of it is because I wasnt there to build it… Thus never get to see it grow up… So yeah….hate to work on somebody’s stuff
You pay money to subscribe to a service. And then you come with an expectation of how the service should be. So if there’s something wrong you’ll get upset and wonder why you even pay for that service. And if the customer support goes the extra mile, you are happy. It’s the same thing as being an employee. The concept is exactly the same. The company pay you for a service and therefore they expect to get their money worth. So does it make sense for company to continue to pay you for poor service? Are you as the service provider even worth the kind of money?
Glass half full or half empty. Neither. It is simultaneously full and empty.
In your writing, it is necessary to achieve a balance between your privacy, authenticity and vulnerability. You don’t want to be revealing too much details about your life but reveal enough to show that it’s real.

Friday Tech News Roundup #28

Below are 10 tech news that I found interesting and are related to topics I care about.

1Password bolts on a ‘pwned password’ check – Password management service 1Password has a neat new feature that lets users check whether a password they’re thinking of using has already been breached. At which point it will suggest they pick another. Techcrunch

Snips brings its privacy-focused voice assistant to cars – French startup Snips is announcing two things for its voice assistant SDK. Techcrunch

Tinder vulnerability let hackers take over accounts with just a phone number – A newly published attack let researchers take over Tinder accounts with just a user’s phone number, according to a new report by Appsecure. The Verge

Google Assistant will soon detect what language you’re speaking in – Google Assistant is getting some important language upgrades this year. The Verge

Apple’s AirPower said to be released next month, pricing info still unclear – Alongside the iPhone 8 and iPhone X last September, Apple showcased its wireless charging accessory called AirPower. The charging mat will allow Apple users to charge their iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch on the same surface. At the time, Apple teased a 2018 debut, and now it looks like we’re inching closer to that release…. 9to5Mac

New AirPods reportedly coming this year with ‘Hey Siri’ support, water resistant model in development – Apple is working on a new version of the AirPods truly wireless earbuds for release later this year, featuring a new wireless chip and support for ‘Hey Siri’ activation, according to a report from Bloomberg today. 9to5Mac

Nvidia is creating surveillance cameras with built-in face recognition. Uh, great? – Nvidia has partnered with AI developer AnyVision to create facial recognition technology for “smart cities” around the world. Mashable

Fluid HPC: How Extreme-Scale Computing Should Respond to Meltdown and Spectre – The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities are proving difficult to fix, and initial experiments suggest security patches will cause significant performance penalties to HPC applications. HPCWire

Windows 10 updates could be installed much more quickly in the future –
Microsoft is working to make the major updates for Windows 10 more streamlined, so that these currently twice-yearly upgrades don’t take nearly as long to install and configure. Techradar

Tim Cook Says Apple is Always Focused on ‘Products and People’ Over Wall Street Expectations – Apple’s CEO primarily reflected on the iPhone maker’s culture and approach that has led to products such as the iPhone X, Apple Watch, AirPods, and HomePod, and as to be expected, he talked up the company he runs. Macrumors