Retro Computing: Windows 98 SE/Setup

7 September, 2024 Scurvy Dawg Leave a comment

Continuing my adventures with UTM SE, the first thing I did was run Windows 98 SE Setup.

Windows 98 SE was the first OS on my first computer, so this was a huge trip in nostalgia. I made an ISO from my old and scratched Windows 98 SE disk, mounted it in UTM SE and let it boot.

Windows 98 SE, Start Computer with CD ROM Support

The boot screen sent me into throes of nostalgia. So did the next steps.

Microsoft ScanDisk, Checking File System — Windows 98 Setup, Formatting Hard Disk

I could feel myself going crazy when the setup GUI came up.

Windows 98 Setup, To begin Setup, click Continue

I got stuck for a while here because I couldn’t make my keyboard and mouse work. Eventually, I figured out that I needed to disable support for USB peripherals and I could continue.

Setup is preparing the Windows 98 Setup Wizard

Windows 98 Setup Wizard, Select Directory — Setup is preparing the Windows 98 Setup Wizard

After the first reboot, I was presented with the famous “first time” Windows 98 boot splash screen. Another huge dose of nostalgia.

Microsoft Windows 98, Getting Ready to run Windows for the first time

The second phase of the setup is (was) my favourite. I especially like the part with the beating drums animation.

Windows 98 is initializing its driver database

Windows is now detecting non Plug and Play hardware in your computer — Windows 98 is initializing its driver database

Eventually, after an hour and 50% of my iPad’s battery, setup was complete and it booted into Windows.

New Hardware Found, Standard Display Adapter (VGA)

New hardware found, Default Monitor — New Hardware Found, Standard Display Adapter (VGA)

More to come, soon.

Motorcycle

Wanderlust: Bangkok Motorcycle Rides Part 1

31 August, 2024 Scurvy Dawg Leave a comment

Continuing my series, below are some motorcycle rides I generally do within Bangkok. These are when I only have a few hours, but still need to fulfil my wanderlust. What better way than to explore the city I have been living in for more than 3 years, but have hardly explored?

Chao Phraya River Ride

Approx 30 kms

This is probably my favourite ride (Till now). I cross the Asok intersection to Ratchadaphisek Road and take the flyovers to Rama 3 road. I take the scenic section next to the river past Terminal 21. Past it, I cross the river on the Krungthep bridge, parallel to Rama III bridge, turn north and then back east crossing the river for the second time over the much bigger King Taksin the great bridge. Then cross Sathorn, Lumpini Park and back home.

King Taksin the great bridge, PC: Anil Kaushik

The entire ride is less than 1 hour and provides a good boost of feel-good.

Suvarnahbhumi Loop

Approx 65 kms

This is a slightly longer ride I do when I want to grab a coffee and also do a ride. I take new Phetchaburi Road, then turn on to Srinagarindra Road where I follow the Yellow Line Monorail, till I reach Bang na-Trat road and turn left.

I generally go to this Starbucks on the highway, have a coffee and make a loop around the airport and come back via a different route.

Movies

Alien : Romulus

24 August, 2024 Scurvy Dawg Leave a comment

My Expectations : 5/10
My Rating : 8/10

I had been looking forward to Alien : Romulus with high expectations for a long time. However, I tempered my expectations down by a lot after watching the boring teaser trailer. Thankfully, the trailer was not an accurate representation of the movie.

Movies in the Alien franchise all had varied themes over the years.

Ridley Scott’s original was a horror/survival movie.
James Cameron’s Aliens was a typical Hollywood action movie.
Ridley Scott’s Prometheus and Alien: Covenant had philosophical undertones. Prometheus is still my favourite movie in the franchise.
The less said about the remaining movies, the better

Alien : Romulus goes back to the basics and is a horror survival movie. Thankfully, the movie is excellent and doesn’t disappoint.

Spoiler Alert

The movie starts with a Weyland-Yutani ship retrieving the Xenomorph from the first movie from the wreck of the Nostromo.

Cut to present-day, we are introduced to Rain (The female protagonist of this movie) and her android brother Andy who their parents had retrieved from the trash, where he was discarded by the company. He has internal malfunctions, which make him equivalent to an autistic in humans and is prone to sensory overloads. They live in Jackson’s Star mining colony, which is a hellscape they are desperate to escape.

An opportunity to move to another star system appears, but to do that, they need to enter cryogenic sleep and to do that, they need to steal cryo-pods from the derelict twin spacecrafts called Romulus-Remus.

It looks like a simple enough mission as they enter Remus and quickly locate the cryo-pods. However, the cryo-pods are low on fuel and to get more fuel, they need to go deeper into the spacecraft. You know immediately that things are going to go wrong soon.

Long story short, they trigger the thawing of facehuggers that the evil company had been growing, one of whom impregnates one of their crew. The rest of the movie is typical Alien fare with the humans getting picked-off by the Xenomorphs one-by-one.

Worth Mentioning

It was good to see a clone of Ash, from the original Alien movie, played by a cgi-ed Ian Holm.
It was good to see a bit more of the Xenomorph life-cycle, especially between the chestburster and full-Xenomorph stage, shedding its organic skin and replacing its cells with polarised silicon.
I liked the parallel with Aliens where having almost reached their escape craft, the female protagonist goes back all the way to save one more.
The scene where the ship is in zero-g and they have to float through swirling globs of acid-blood was great.
The Xeno-human was terrifying in appearance, especially the scene where it is nursing on its dead human mother/host.
The relatively lesser-known cast acted well.

Overall, I am very happy to have seen that Fede Álvarez didn’t disappoint and made an actually good (and terrifying) movie.

Health & Fitness

12th August Half Marathon 2024

17 August, 2024 Scurvy Dawg Leave a comment

Recently, I participated in a 10k running event called 12th August Half Marathon 2024, also called “Run for mom“. It is organised on the Thai mother’s day every year on the birth day of Queen Sirikit, the Queen Mother of Thailand. The event is held at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center also bearing her name. It was my fourth 10k in Bangkok.

In previous runs one of my main problems was getting transport to the venue so early in the mornings. However, thanks to the motorcycle, it was not a problem this time.

The Run

Queen Sirikit National Convention Center

The run was very well organised and started on time. This run also attracted some important people, including the governor and a handful of ambassadors. Coming from India, it was weird to watch them running with regular people and no security around.

The run was quite fun because we had to go over 3 flyovers and the last 2 had a view of the river, although it was a bit too dark.

The Statistics

12 August Half Marathon 2024 10k statistics

I did slightly better than the last run, but still could not break the 1 hour barrier.

12 August Half Marathon 2024 10k HR Zones — 12 August Half Marathon 2024 10k Splits

I made very good time for the first 5K, but kind of died after that.

12th August Half Marathon 2024 10k participation medal

Keeping in mind that I am not getting younger, I don’t think my performance will get significantly better anymore.

However, turning 40 next year, I would be among the youngest in the next age bracket.

This was also probably my watch’s last 10k, as it is at the end of its legs.

Rant

Why do NRIs and PIOs become pricks?

10 August, 2024 Scurvy Dawg Leave a comment

This article is about how my friends became NRIs and PIOs and went from decent people to being the biggest pricks ever. To start off with, some definitions:

NRI – Non-Resident Indian. Basically an Indian living abroad while still holding Indian citizenship. Prick Level 1.

PIO – Person of Indian Origin. Basically a person born an Indian citizenship, who has since taken up citizenship in another country. Prick Level 2.

I have already written about NRIs in general, this post is specifically how my friends turned into pricks once they moved abroad.

Prick 1

I have written about Prick 1 before. Even though our relationship was strained after he failed to get me into a Ponzi scheme, we used to text frequently and were friendly. Then came the big Australia PR exodus and he left to live in Australia and cut off more or less all contact with me. We still kept in touch, but it was one-sided. He replies to my texts, but has never contacted me on his own, not once in the last 10 years. But at least he replies, which is more than I can say about the next one.

Prick 2

Prick 2 and I used to be colleagues and really good friends. We frequently met outside work and our families knew each other well. We shared details of our personal lives with each other. Then came the big Australia PR exodus and he left to live in Australia and cut off more or less all contact with me. But unlike Prick 1, Prick 2 went one step further and refused to even respond to my messages. He does read messages, just doesn’t bother to reply. One day, out of the blue, I received a call from him saying that he’s in Delhi and if I wanted the honour of meeting him, I would have to come over within the next hour or lose the opportunity. What “friend”, calls someone to meet on the last day of their trip within a 1 hour time slot?

But still not the biggest prick in this list.

Also, Prick 1 and Prick 2 were friends with each other in India, too, now both live in Sydney but avoid each other at all costs.

Prick 3

To be honest, Prick 3 was a prick from the day he was born (Probably because he was from Chandigarh), but his prickliness touched new heights once he moved to Australia (I see a pattern here). He was my senior and a roommate in college and we lost touch afterwards. I made an effort to re-establish contact in recent years. Unfortunately, soon, he planned a trip to Bangkok and asked to meet. From the second I met him, his behaviour was grotesque. Below are some gem dialogues I got to hear

Scurvy I know you live in Thailand and that is nice and all, but you must make an effort to move to a developed country. There’s no comparison.
I worked on Wall Street for many years. You know, like in the movies.
This club in Bangkok weren’t letting us in, till we flashed our AU/US passports and at that point they fell on our feet.
I hate it when people call me Indian. I am Australian, not Indian.
There’s going to be rain tonight and I am afraid my pools may overflow (Proceeds to call wife to drain the pool many times).
You know I have 2 houses in Sydney.
You know I have 3 cars. One of them is 2-seater.
Ew, your locality feels like Pune.

Prick 4

Prick 4 is still a good friend of mine. But he is kind of a prick now. Prick 4 moved to UK many years ago and although he was not as bad as Prick 1 or 2 or 3, we sort of lost touch. This was till the day Prick 4 and his wife (who is also our friend) received their UK citizenships. That was the only time in many years he contacted me on his own ad had a proper conversation. He also claims not to remember much of his life in India including our time spent together.

Of course, not everyone changes this way. For every Prick, there are the decent ones who also live abroad and don’t have all the attitude in the world.

Recently I got to thinking why some NRIs and PIOs become pricks. Why do some Indians change so drastically once they leave the country? I can think of the following reasons:

Rising from a life in a garbage dump to living in a developed country overwhelms them so much, they lose their minds.
They like showing off their lifestyle to others and get a dopamine hit when people acknowledge it.
They went to show that they are better than others (especially the people still “stuck” in India).

Rant

The Photo Sharing Conundrum

3 August, 2024 Scurvy Dawg 2 Comments

To give you a bit of background on where this is coming from: I was into photography in the 2010s. To the point where I had a camera, multiple lenses and more assorted kit. Eventually I sold all of it, but I still like taking pictures today. This article is about how I struggled with photo sharing on the internet, especially recently. A timeline below, interspersed with completely unrelated photos:

Phase 1: 2004 to Oct 2023 : Flickr

blurred shimmering lights in cafe at night — Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV on Pexels.com

As long as I remember, I have been a loyal user of Flickr. At first, I used to use it as a service to backup and store my photos and share them with family. With the advent of more private cloud storage services, I moved that function to OneDrive and eventually iClown. Still, I kept my Flickr around to share photos publicly.

For most of these 2 decades, I paid for a Flickr Pro membership, too. Although in the initial days it was not required, I paid to support the service and get rid of advertisements. Eventually, they put a 1000 photo limit for free accounts & I was forced to go Pro. Overall though, Flickr has been good to me. It has consistently surfaced my photos in search results and they have been used on almost hundred websites including Wikipedia.

Last year, I started to question why I was paying for this service. It is not like I was earning anything from sharing my photos, they were openly licensed to anyone who wanted to use them. So I decided to take the drastic step of moving away from Flickr.

Phase 2: Oct 2023 to Oct 2023 : Photo Blog

close up photo of mining rig — Photo by panumas nikhomkhai on Pexels.com

I decided to make my own photo blog and host my photos on it. I chose WordPress as my platform because of how ubiquitous it is. As you may know, WordPress natively is not a photo sharing CMS, but there are plugins that can help. I decided to move away from the album format of Flickr and post my photos as part of posts.

I spent a lot of time sifting through my photos and narrowing them down to 2200 photos I deemed worthy of the blog.

It took me 6-7 hours of work everyday for a week to finally put everything up. Time consuming tasks include:

Setting the correct Title and Description for each photo
Setting the correct Caption and Alt Text for each photo
Geotagging photos where location information was missing
Writing posts about the photos
Renaming files
Adjusting the posts for good SEO

And then I made the mistake of restoring a backup for my web hosting (Not knowing it restores all websites) and lost everything.

Phase 3: Oct 2023 to Nov 2023 : Flickr Part 2

person holding lighter — Photo by Kobe – on Pexels.com

Devastated at having lost my blog because of one erroneous click, I decided I couldn’t go through with doing all that one more time and went back to Flickr. Of course, I had deleted my account already, so had to start from scratch.

It took me 6-7 hours everyday for a week to get everything posted on Flickr. Time consuming tasks include:

Setting the correct Title and Description for each photo
Geotagging photos where location information was missing
Sorting photos into albums
Adding photos into groups for visibility

It was nice while it lasted, but within a few weeks, I started to miss my photo blog. Two factors (in de ja vu format) led me to the next steps

Why am I paying for a Flickr Pro subscription when I am not earning anything from it?
Why am I relying on a 3rd party service when I can have my own photo blog.

So I went ahead and deleted my Flickr account, yet again.

Phase 4: Nov 2023 to December 2023 : Photo Blog Part 2

data codes through eyeglasses — Photo by Kevin Ku on Pexels.com

I spent a lot of time sifting through my photos and narrowing them down to 2200 photos I deemed worthy of the blog.

It took me 6-7 hours of work everyday for a week to finally put everything up. Time consuming things include

Setting the correct Title and Description for each photo
Setting the correct Caption and Alt Text for each photo
Geotagging photos where location information was missing
Writing posts about the photos
Renaming files
Adjusting the posts for good SEO

Then I had to go back and ask the people who has previously subscribed to my blog to subscribe again. Embarrassing as fuck. The honeymoon period lasted all of 2 weeks.

Eventually, I began to notice that the traffic on my photo blog was not as per my expectations. Eventually, I found out that search engines were not indexing my photos. In fact, Bing straight up blocked my domain. I request an appeal but it was denied.

After consulting with the wise people of Reddit, I came to the conclusion that WordPress is not good for photo SEO and nothing could beat Flickr when it came to indexing photos on search engines.

So I deleted my blog, yet again.

Phase 5: January 2024 to January 2024 : Flickr Part 3

row of shiny candles near glass wall — Photo by Erkam Hayta on Pexels.com

On my third Flickr account, it took me 6-7 hours everyday for a week to get everything posted on Flickr. Time consuming tasks include:

Setting the correct Title and Description for each photo
Geotagging photos where location information was missing
Sorting photos into albums
Adding photos into groups for visibility

Voila! I had to wait a few weeks, but eventually my photos began to appear on search engines again.

It was nice while it lasted, but within a few weeks, I started getting disillusioned with Flickr. Two factors led me to the next steps

Why am I paying for a Flickr Pro subscription when Iam not earning anything from it?
Why am I relying on a 3rd party service when I can have my own photo blog.

So I went ahead and deleted my Flickr account, yet again.

Phase 6: April 2024 to May 2024 : Piwigo

This time I decided that I won’t use WordPress for my photo sharing, so did a lot of research and narrowed it down to Lychee and Piwigo. I couldn’t get Lychee installed, so decided to go with Piwigo. I immediately ran across a few problems

The interface was dated and the theme selection was limited
There was no SEO to speak of, even with plugins
Like all Open Source software (But unlike WordPress), it required a lot of tinkering in PHP to get it to work correctly .

Thankfully, I didn’t waste time posting 2200 photos, rather posted just 2 albums to see how they perform.

After waiting for a few weeks, I realised that my photos weren’t appearing on search engines and decided to scrap it.

Phase 7: May 2024 to May 2024 : Unsplash

man people art girl — Photo by Sohail Nawaz on Pexels.com

Someone on Reddit recommended me Unsplash so I decided to use it. Again, thankfully, I only uploaded 2 albums. Unsplash is a beast when it comes to surfacing photos. I was receiving likes within minutes and had up to 100 downloads in 48 hours for 20 photos.

Unsplash seemed like a dopamine dream come true, until I read their licensing. Long story short, Unsplash lets anyone do whatever they want with your photos without requiring attribution. I may have been OK with it, till I read horror stories from photographers about their photos being used on other platforms, while being attributed to someone else. This was a deal breaker for me, so I deleted my Unsplash account.

Phase 8: May 2024 to June 2024 : Wikimedia Commons

SpaceCube_2 by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC-BY 2.0

By this time, I was dead tired of doing the same things over and over again, so I decided to take a step back and list down what I wanted and what I didn’t want:

I did not want to earn money from my photos.
I did not want to the dopamine fix of likes and comments.
I did not want to share personal photos and did not want an image storage platform.
I did not want to pay for hosting my photos.
I did want my photos to be indexed by search engines.
I did want my photos to be used freely by others, but with attribution.

When. I thought long and hard around the above requirements, the answer came to me. Wikimedia Commons, one of the most extensive media repositories ever.

I was already an occasional contributor to Wikipedia, I could just extend my contributions from articles to media. Many of my photos have already been uploaded to Wikipedia (and consequently wikimedia) by others, I just had to complete the collection.

It took me around 10 days, working 6-7 hours a day to put around 2200 photos to Wikimedia. Time consuming tasks include

Setting the correct copyright & license information for each photo
Setting the correct Title, Caption & Description for each photo
Assigning photos to the correct category (Quite tricky with nested and overlapping categories)
Assigning depictions to each photo

Finally, when it was done, I heaved a sigh of relief and promised myself not to do this all over ever again. Indeed, even if I wanted to, there’s no easy way to mass delete my photos from Wikimedia Commons.

In fact, once you upload photos, there’s no temptation (or a way) to see stats, likes or comments. Luckily, 1 month in, I don’t regret doing this.

Motorcycle

Wanderlust: Day trip to Nakhon Nayok Province

27 July, 2024 Scurvy Dawg Leave a comment

Continuing my series, this is my latest road trip, to some scenic places in Nakhon Nayok province. The province of Nakhon Nayok is dotted with beautiful places, with more than 10 waterfalls. Covering all of them will take multiple trips, so I decided to do 2 places in this first trip:

Total Distance: Approx 280km

This time, I used the lessons learnt from my previous road trip and did not have to stop many times.

It had rained the entire day and night before my trip, so I was a bit apprehensive about getting stuck in rain. Once again, I stated my journey on rain-soaked streets with BBC World Service in my ears.

Unlike Pattaya, heading out of Bangkok was a breeze. There was hardly any traffic and within 30 minutes, I was on the 6-lane highway 305 to Nakhon Nayok.

Unlike the motorway to Pattaya, highway 305 is much more biker friendly and much less scary. In fact, after 50kms or so, it turns into a 4-line winding road running parallel to a Khlong. The entire route smelled of rain-soaked vegetation which I loved. Reminded me of early morning bicycle rides in Durgapur.

Highway 305 to Nakhon Nayok Adjacent to a Khlong

There are quaint little bridges all over the Khlong for people to cross.

My motorcycle is on its second phase of running in, so I rode at a base speed of 70kmph with bursts up to 80kmph.

Wang Ta Krai National Park

First stop was Wang Ta Krai National park with a waterfall of the same name. You can ride your motorcycle a bit into the park.

I was surprised to see that cars, on the other hand, could go all the way in. Perhaps it is because of the horrible noise that Thai scooters make.

The waterfall is not very impressive; is a series of small falls over a long distance. Next to the gentle stream, you can see people picnicking.

Wang Ta Krai national park — Stream in Wang Ta Krai national Park

I spent an hour there and then moved on to my next stop.

Khun Dan Prakarn Chon Dam

The dam is only a short distance away and the last few kms are winding hilly roads which I loved to navigate. The dam itself is quite imposing.

Khun Dan Prakarn Chon Dam

I was happy to see some fauna there.

Soi dogs at Khun Dan Prakarn Chon Dam — A pet dog at Khun Dan Prakarn Chon Dam

After the dam, I went for a coffee to Nong Coffee, a modern cafe nearby.

The trip back was as fun; I stopped only once for a bio-break. Also, unlike the last trip (where I couldn’t wait to get back, this time I was a bit sad as the distance to home wound down to zero.

Looking forward to many such trips in the future.

Technology

Retro Computing: UTM SE

20 July, 2024 Scurvy Dawg 1 Comment

Last week, something unthinkable happened. Apple finally allowed emulation of any and all OS on iOS and iPadOS. The intended purpose is to emulate retro Windows based games, which matches their recent trend of approval of gaming-system emulation apps. However, for me, it restarts a long-time hobby of running retro OSes purely for nostalgia and hobby purposes. This was not possible before because I don’t have a real computer, just an iPad. The first app to take advantage of this change of heart from Apple is UTM SE.

Now, UTM SE has been available on macOS and jailbroken iOS and iPadOS for quite some time, but this is the first time the app is officially available through the App Store.

Overview

The process to configure a new VM is much like most virtualisation apps out there. You use either an existing image or create a new one, select various parameters like RAM, HDD, CPU architecture, cores etc.

UTM SE: Mount CD/DVD or Floppy image — UTM SE: New VM

Your Bluetooth mice/keyboards can be mapped to the guest OS via USB or PS/2 emulation. For older OS (Pre Windows ME) which don’t have out of-box support for USB peripherals, you need to disable USB support for Mouse/Keyboard so that they are emulated as PS/2. Even touch gestures can be used in lieu of a mouse, although the experience is clunky.

UTM SE: Switch between USB or PS/2 for mouse and keyboard

Another useful feature is that you can map a folder on your iOS/iPadOS filesystem to the guest machine allowing you to transfer files easily.

UTM SE: Select Shared Directory — Select Shared Directory

Also, you can choose to include your VMs in your iCloud backups.

The Bad

Instead of proper virtualisation that is possible on other computing platforms, UTM on iOS and iPadOS uses software emulation, making it very-very slow. Apparently iOS and iPadOS had virtualisation support (only with jailbreak) previously, but they removed it a few years ago.

The other limitation is, iOS and iPadOS don’t allow JIT compilation for apps from the App Store which negatively affects performance further.

For me, the performance is roughly similar to my first Celeron 400Mhz computer. Which, when compared to the 4×3.49Ghz high-performance cores on the Apple M2 means there is an approx 35x performance penalty for emulation. No wonder the “SE’ in UTM stands for “Slow Edition”.

Also, switching to another app causes UTM to suspend the VM after a few minutes. None of this is UTM’s fault, but needless restrictions from Apple to stop iPads from cannibalising Mac sales.

Also, the iPad screen locks after inactivity, which I think is on UTM, because apps (especially games) have been able to keep the screen unlocked through inactivity.

But the good thing is, you can resume from where you left off. Also, you can run multiple windows of UTM itself, even with multiple windows mapping to multiple monitors on the guest.

Battery usage is also extremely high because of the inefficiencies.

Look forward to many (many) posts on this topic.

Motorcycle

Wanderlust: Day Trip to Pattaya Beach

13 July, 2024 Scurvy Dawg 3 Comments

Phrom Phong Bangkok to Pattaya Beach — Phrom Phong to Pattaya Beach

Total Distance: Approx 300km

As you can see from my last post, I bought a new motorcycle. Since then, I had been bitten by the wanderlust bug. My hands had been continuously itching to take the motorcycle on the highway. So, the soonest I could, I decided to drive from Bangkok to Pattaya Beach.

I have done this trip before, but that motorcycle was not suitable for highway riding and I wanted to do it again, the right way.

Bangkok to Pattaya

On the morning of the ride, I woke up to find the city soaked in rain overnight, so I left with caution. The way out of the city was painful with morning traffic, but outside, I opened up the throttle a bit.

Since the motorcycle is new, I had to follow running-in restrictions. I drove at a steady 60kmph with occasional 10-20 second bursts up to 70kmph. At this speed, I could not keep up with traffic on the motorway, so had to drive on the frontage road.

The motorway from Bangkok to Pattaya is highly developed, with 22 lanes (8 lanes on the upper level, 8 lanes in the lower level and 6 lanes frontage) in most places. There are restrictions on where motorcycles can be driven, so need to pay close attention to Google Maps, which is mostly correct as long as you select the motorcycle option.

The route is mostly scenic, passing near some lakes and khlongs and over the Bang Pakong river.

On a bridge over Khlong near Bang Pakong

Near a lake at Bang Pakong — On a bridge over Khlong near Bang Pakong

Stopped to take breaks many times to give the engine a break (and also sneak in some photos). Was quite impressed with the low-end performance of the engine. Gear shifts were mostly not required, as the bike can thump its way up in 5th gear from as low as 35kmph.

In Si Racha district, the view is quite nice as the road passes in between various hills.

Pattaya Beach

Because I stopped so many times, it almost took me 3 hours to get there. Once there, I spent some time chilling at Pattaya beach.

After getting my feet wet, I went to a cafe to drink some coffee and have a snack. It was typical below-average tourist fare.

Bruschetta at a cafe at Pattaya beach — Coffee at a cafe at Pattaya beach

Pattaya to Bangkok

On the way back, I focused on making good time and only stopped at one place to take the below photo of the Bang Pakong river.

On the way back, it only took me 2 hours to get back home.

Tripper

The Tripper proved its worth, as it provided very clear directions and I didn’t have to stop and look at my phone (which was nested safely away in my saddle bag) even once. On the 3 hour ride to Pattaya, my phone lost 23% charge, with tripper navigation as well as audio streaming (And the occasional photo).

Also, found a weird bug in that the tripper’s display and my polarised sunglasses seem to have the same polarisation plane when I am seated normally, which completely blanks out the tripper. If I move my head 10 degrees to the left or right or rotate my head 10 degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise, the display comes back.

This happens only with polarised glasses, regular sunglasses work fine.

Lessons Learnt

Learnt the below lessons which I plan to apply to my next trip(s).

Need to buy thick handlebar grips, as the factory default is too thin and cramps up my hands.
Always wear AirPods even if I don’t want to listen to anything. Active (and worst case Passive) Noise Cancellation is worth it to protect ears from traffic and wind noise.
Always wear sunglasses during the day time, even if it is not too bright, to protect eyes from the wind (I cannot, for the life of me, see through any helmet visor And keep it lifted up).
The USB charger is quite slow. So rather than wait for battery to drain and then charge the phone (Phone gained only 11% on the 3 hour trip back on charge, with navigation and audio), it is better to keep it connected from the beginning.

This trip also pushed my motorcycle over the first stage of running in, next trip should be faster.

Movies

Post-Pandemic Cinema Experience

6 July, 2024 Scurvy Dawg Leave a comment

The Covid-19 pandemic was hard for everyone, but especially for the movie industry. I, too, missed going to cinemas to watch newly released movies. Below, I write about my post-pandemic cinema experience.

Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

My Expectations : None
My Rating : 6/10

This was the first movie we saw after pandemic restrictions lifted and also the first movie we saw in Bangkok. It was good that I went in with no expectations because the movie was dull and forgetful. I remember nothing of what was in it.

No Time to Die (2021)

My Expectations : None
My Rating : 7/10

This was the first Bond movie I saw in years and it didn’t disappoint. I enjoyed watching it, but don’t remember the details of what happened in it.

The Matrix Resurrections (2021)

My Expectations : 8/10
My Rating : 3/10

I have already written about what a disappointment this movie was and have no energy to dwell on it again.

Spider-Man : No Way Home (2021)

My Expectations : 7/10
My Rating : 7/10

This was my first MCU movie since Endgame and it delivered as per my expectations. It was entertaining, but relied too much on the appearance of Doctor Strange and the previous Spider-Men to carry the movie. Don’t regret watching it, though.

Doctor strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

My Expectations : 7/10
My Rating : 5/10

What a super bore movie! My family left part-way, but I stuck around. For me, this signalled for me the start of the decline in the quality of MCU movies.

Top Gun Maverick (2022)

My Expectations : 7/10
My Rating : 7/10

Time-pass movie that relied heavily on nostalgia.

Thor : Love and Thunder (2022)

My Expectations : 7/10
My Rating : 5/10

Although Doctor Strange was a bad sign for what was to come, I hoped Taika Waititi would make a good movie. But no. What a bore.

Avatar : The Way of the Water (2022)

My Expectations : 4/10
My Rating : N/A – Left in 30 minutes

I didn’t know why I even went to watch this movie when I hated Part 1 and already had such low expectations from Part 2. Never again.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

My Expectations : 7/10
My Rating : 9/10

The best movie I have seen in years and the only MCU movie I enjoyed. I watched it twice in the cinemas and once on Disney+. Deserves a separate post.

Oppenheimer (2023)

My Expectations : 9/10
My Rating : 6/10

Being a fan of quite a few Christopher Nolan movies and the hype surrounding this one, I had huge hopes. But the movie turned out to be only slightly above average. I would still have seen it, but wouldn’t have spent extra on IMAX Laser.

The Flash (2023)

My Expectations : 7/10
My Rating : 7/10

Time-pass movie. Just like spider-man, it relied heavily on the appearance of Keaton’s batman, Affleck’s batman and Clooney’s Bruce Wayne to carry it. Also an appearance from Nicholas Cage’s Superman.

Godzilla X Kong : The New Empire (2024)

My Expectations : 6/10
My Rating : 6/10

We went to watch this movie with very low expectations and weren’t disappointed. Mindless action.

Furiosa A Mad Max Saga (2024)

My Expectations : 9/10
My Rating : 7/10

I went to watch this one with very high expectations, but it couldn’t compare to Mad Max: Fury Road.

Chao Phraya River Ride

Suvarnahbhumi Loop

Spoiler Alert

Worth Mentioning

The Run

The Statistics

Prick 1

Prick 2

Prick 3

Prick 4

Phase 1: 2004 to Oct 2023 : Flickr

Phase 2: Oct 2023 to Oct 2023 : Photo Blog

Phase 3: Oct 2023 to Nov 2023 : Flickr Part 2

Phase 4: Nov 2023 to December 2023 : Photo Blog Part 2

Phase 5: January 2024 to January 2024 : Flickr Part 3

Phase 6: April 2024 to May 2024 : Piwigo

Phase 7: May 2024 to May 2024 : Unsplash

Phase 8: May 2024 to June 2024 : Wikimedia Commons

Wang Ta Krai National Park

Khun Dan Prakarn Chon Dam

Overview

The Bad

Bangkok to Pattaya

Pattaya Beach

Pattaya to Bangkok

Tripper

Lessons Learnt

Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

No Time to Die (2021)

The Matrix Resurrections (2021)

Spider-Man : No Way Home (2021)

Doctor strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Top Gun Maverick (2022)

Thor : Love and Thunder (2022)

Avatar : The Way of the Water (2022)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

Oppenheimer (2023)

The Flash (2023)

Godzilla X Kong : The New Empire (2024)

Furiosa A Mad Max Saga (2024)

Earth bound misfit, I