The story so far on my left leg

Well, the reason why my leg still hasn't healed yet because it was a partial LCL tear. And all this time I've been handling it wrong. Back in early February, when I was bending my knee, bad idea. Not only was I not supposed to be bending my knee, but I also wasn't supposed to be walking on my left leg either.

My leg as it is now

And it resulted in that. Aside from the LCL tear, I believe a 2nd tear happened on my lower calf. My silly cameraphone doesn't show the colors right, but it's seriously red there. So, since February 23, I have not bent my knee till now. Thanks to that, I feel my LCL reconnected, but I'm still not going to bend my knee until my lower calf heals. But it's become very frustrating to deal with. I was supposed to get crutches last Monday, but I've yet to get them. My right leg is becoming fatigued from all the hobbling. I have a feeling I may not get them, considering how terrible my luck has gotten, and I really think this language barrier has just about ruined me. Can you believe, since December last year, I've not been able to  hold a proper conversation with anyone without exploding into a coughing fit. And when I finally got a new supply of cough drops earlier this week, the damn things are a factory defect because for some ridiculous reason, the menthol is not present. And this is a brand I've been using for many months now, and in the one time I really needed them, they are a freaking rip off. So now I gotta wait for a new resupply. I'd probably ask about those crutches too but damn my bad luck. I can't believe how much of a mess this whole situation has become. It's not helping my view of this country either. Just when I thought I turned things around ending 2013, 2014 has been off to a really frustrating start for me...

Want to know how bad my luck was? While my knee was bandaged, the only open spot was my knee cap area. A mosquito saw fit to bite not once, but 6 times in the same spot in a crescent moon shape.

Let's not forget that due to a communication error, I was not able to eat eggs in February except for 1 piece (don't ask). The food poisoning in December 2013, the event that started this chain reaction leading to the break down in my leg, and I couldn't eat eggs for the protein when I really needed them because of potential contamination of the eggs that were purchased (no way was I going to risk food poisoning again).

(By the way, if anyone was wondering about the timeline: food poisoning in December, left ankle hurt shortly after a very nasty mosquito bite, during my very slow recovery in January, the severe lack of protein (egg ban for one month) + my over exertion of my legs (I live in a 3 story apt) led to the breakdown in my just recovered left leg (Jan 23). LCL partially torn or separated, muscle in upper calf hurting is where I'm at now.)

The year is young, but my luck is too old for that spit

Health status? 70%. Maybe less. Recovering from my food poisoning incident was a slow process, whether it was my malnourished state or I was just too tired, I neglected the warning signs on my left leg, the same leg that had the ankle-bug-bite sprain. I was too pre-occupied with taking my supplements and watching what I eat (I put a 1 month ban on anything egg related), I did what ever it took to heal my ankle faster since that was more important, but I hadn't realized the slight pain in my knee was more serious than cramps.

I ended up injuring the ligament on my left knee, and it's back to hobbling around again. I am seriously putting way too much strain on my right leg, almost 2 months now I been putting what's left of my weight on it, once my left leg is fully healed I might end up with a kick boxer right leg >__>

And that's the gist of it. I am in a lot of pain and putting a lot of ice on it, wrapping it up, and I've got a few more writing assignments to do and it's just not looking good. Hadn't had a chance to give my 250GB hdd a proper funeral either :/

Health down to 60%

The first 2 weeks of December have not been nice to me, despite getting my new hard drive ahead of schedule. Let me put this in as few words as possible:

1. Nasty cold from November 16 to December 10. I currently have trouble breathing and cannot sustain lengthy conversations.
2. Still suffering back problems related to above cold; due to my inability to sleep properly, I toss and turn too much, and nearly crush my lungs by having my right shoulder jammed to close to my ribcage.
3. During this time, the mosquito's came out in full force, and one of them bit me on the area above my ankle (on the top side of my foot). This was a devastating bite as it paralyzed much of my muscles to the point where I can barely walk, it's as if I have a sprain (still suffering from this at the time of this post).
4. The final killer, I'm currently suffering from food poisoning (bad eggs from the first week of December). I was too pre-occupied to realize it sooner, and this went on for more than a week until my abdomen pains went on long enough.

As you can see I am in no shape to do much of anything. I have many, many things to do, sorting my hard drives in preparation for retirement, I have several GameFAQs guides to update, I have Android development duties, plenty of blog posts I was supposed to write, anime to watch, manga to read, games to play, and I actually have a life.

If you are waiting for me to continue any of the above, do know that I am very, very much got the life sucked out of me. Weight loss, aching bones, can barely walk and trying to stop myself from coughing, it's not easy right now so do have some patience as I do remember everyone and I will do what I can.

My week of November 6th, 2013

I had a little issue earlier in the week, about my ISP and the Nintendo eShop for the 3DS. Long story short, my wireless carrier prohibited large file downloads, making Resident Evil Revelations un-downloadable. Yeah, don't ask why I'm using 3G internet to download it, but it's my only internet access method, so I had to.... use a proxy. Yep, I shoved a proxy into the wifi settings on the 3DS, and got the entire game thanks to a proxy. As you might imagine, this left me completely unable to play my 3DS, so I did what any sane person would do: marathon anime! I finally am current with a number of my shows, such as Arpeggio and Golden Time, first time in a long time I watched so many eps in a row :D

Which was a nightmare because I stayed up late at night babysitting the connection most of the time, as I had to let it run night and day. This of course kept me awake for many hours, many much more hours, leading my left eye to get very, very sore. So sore, that the second night of downloading the game, an eyelash was caught in my left eye, and I wasn't interested in letting it itch me up, so I used the old wash and rinse with water to get the hair out. I then went to sleep and woke up a few hours later with some pain in my head. I naively thought "oh no another headache", but it was much worse. This finally confirms it, I can't let a large amount of water get to my eye anymore, I ran into this problem last time when I found out I cannot cry anymore or else it's instant pain, but I thought that was mostly the tears, now it seems like any sort of liquid cannot come into contact with my left eye. If you're wondering how I even take showers, I had to change that too, keeping my head mostly down, and have the water come down my forehead or around my eyelashes, I've become so paranoid because I'm still traumatized by the unforgettable pain I felt in my left eye during the incident. Trust me, I really thought I'd lose it forever, that's not a trauma to easily overcome.

The reason why I find that worse than my spinal-induced headaches, is because when I have the pain in my left eye, it's inside my head. Back in I can feel this really throbbing pain, and because it's inside my head, applying Tiger Balm or any other ointment/painkiller never helped. Not even an icepack helped. This is now something I just have to avoid completely, because there's no painkiller that can soothe it now. The only remedy I found was wrapping my eye tightly, and leave it closed as long as I can, which also means lowering my rapid eye movement to a standstill. This is now at the top of my list of things to check on when I schedule a checkup at the hospital (whenever that will be).

I then came across some bad news regarding that Seagate Hard Drive I have been keeping alive, the one at 2% health (which oddly went up to 4% just recently). I have to finally retire the drive after 6 years of service, which it just accumulated too many bad sectors since I got my Desktop (went over 2000 bad sectors in less than a month). This drive served me well, if only for a short amount of time, but more importantly, this was the drive that held everything that I did in Germany, from my fansub work, the backups, and pretty much my entire usage history of my time in Germany during 2006-2007, I think it did well, considering it didn't take a dramatic major dump like my WD 1TB did.

Then that typhoon came by, which I hadn't known the seriousness of that until that wind, which was so strong, it slammed my window shut. I found that particularly interesting because it's a rusty window, something you need to put your whole body weight into just to close it, and the wind just boop, slam. I'm very thankful my area didn't get the brunt of it, and my prayers go out to those that felt it's full force, I've experienced many of the storms here over the past few years (particularly the flooding of 2009), and I know it's not a picnic. I've not really spent much time online during that weekend, but I did come across this link at Amazon, so if you can, give a donation, no matter the amount. I really think these folks in the Philippines who are homeless because of the storm need to at least know that people care.

http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_356995202_2?ie=UTF8&node=1297793011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=right-csm-1&pf_rd_r=1JA8C2Y82H2FR3S9PP5E&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1656429182&pf_rd_i=507846

Trust me, it's not a good thing losing what little you have, so stay strong, citizens of the Philippines!

The weird and wonderful 1st week of October: Nintendo 3DS, Army-Navy etc

That was the most strangest week I've had since, a very long time actually. Probably since I had both an HD2 and iPhone 3G at the same day. But I've waited 2 years for this, and I say this feels a lot better than getting 2 phones that were actually useless to me lol (my hands are bad with capacitive screens, at least those old ones back then)

I knew on Sunday September 29, that it was going to be one crazy week. That day I was out very late taking care of stuff, it got so late it ended up as the second time I found myself in a mall well into closing time. In fact it was so late, I had to grab dinner at McDonalds, which actually made me iffy because that was the 2nd time in 20 days (not a  good thing to me).

Get ready for the zombiepocalypse :P

I also got meself a USB wireless adapter for my desktop at CDR King, which you might recall my desktop had nothing of the sort. Lucky for me, the Chinese-looking thing (like most of CDRKing's items) happened to be using a Realtek chip that supported AP Station mode, basically sharing an internet connection over wifi. Which meant I could use my USB 3G Broadband modem to stream it through the wifi to other wireless devices. Such as the 2DS I was planning to get. Of course, I didn't know it would be the 3DS I would get 3 days later:

I've finally joined the 3D race :D (or whatever the Nintendo 3DS group is called, for example PC gamers are "The Master Race" :P) The reason why it was unexpected was because I was originally out with someone to get computer parts (at the same area I got my desktop), but the deal was if the particular parts were not there, I could use the cash to get the 3DS instead. Which of course I was not expecting the parts to not be there, considering it was practically computer heaven. So I went into Game One Gadget and inquired about their 3DS price, and I was expecting it to be in the ballpark of the rival store, Datablitz's php7,600. Imagine my surprise when I was told it's php7,000, which is a little more than $20 USD cheaper. I just had to get that, especially when I consider that if I had pursued the 2DS and imported it into this country, it'd cost a heck of a lot more than that. What's even more complicated, was that I had planned to use my GameFAQ's earnings *cough* reward to get that 2DS, and they had just announced the July FOTM winners were going to be paid. In October! I then wrote off the 2DS because at that rate, it looked like I was going to be paid in January 2014.

It was a good meal...

...Made better by playing Flower Shop in a Krispy Kreme while waiting for a ride.

That night it was late (again), and I said forget McDonalds, twice in 4 days is a disastrophy. Enter Army Navy Burger and Burrito, which I have to say, if you've got one in your area, give it a try, really. Their Starving Sailor sandwich destroys Subway, at 8 inches I wasn't sure I was going to finish my Onion Rings. By the way, their fries are a blast, compared to that stuff at McDonalds :P

My ritual is safe once again.

Enough about food, you might have realized something about that day. I so wasn't expecting the 3DS that it didn't hit me until the ride home, that I didn't get a game >__< Aside from my DS games, but it's all about the 3DS games, right? 2 days later I went out and picked up Fire Emblem Awakening, something I was looking forward to ever since I made an avatar for a member at Animesuki (actually I've been looking forward to it since it's announcement, but the avatar piqued me further). I have to say I am impressed with Fire Emblem Awakening, and it's everything I was hoping it'd be. ( I made it even more hilarious by going to another Army/Navy for dinner, take that McDonalds, twice in 3 days :P)

That's how an adult Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière would look like!

I had originally wanted to get Dead Or Alive Dimensions as my first 3DS game, but they didn't have it at the store I went to (it wasn't where I got the 3DS). I'm serious, I was looking forward to that game 2 years ago, jigglies in 3D uh huh ;) That's actually one of the main concerns about my 3DS purchase, and you might be wondering why I was even considering the 2DS in the first place. You'll recall my left eye, and that I was very worried that it wasn't going to handle the 3D that well. It's one of the main reasons why I considered the 2DS, there's no one in this country that I know that has a 3DS, and I couldn't test the 3D effect on my eyes before making a purchase for the 3DS or 2DS. So it was a tense moment when I eventually got the 3DS, as you cannot test it before buying, the common rule in this country is that you can open it, and see if it works, but if it does work, you bought it already. And with no demo stations anywhere, I couldn't see the 3D without buying it. What's even more weirder, was that this particular 3DS was from Saudia Arabia, and although I was told it can plenty well play NTSC games, I wasn't sure, and the kind folks at the shop where i bought Fire emblem were kind enough to let me test it on my system before buying.

This is not actually my first Middle Eastern device. I had previously used a Samsung i600 Blackjack, which was the most strangest phone I'd ever used:

Check out that keyboard, there's not only qwerty, but symbols and Arabic! It was hilarious to type on XD

NO, I DON'T :P

Now I know what you're thinking, what's a guy like me with an old phone, shakey health, and a whole lot of no time, doing with a 3DS? Well, aside from the cash originally being for something else, I had already notified my superiors about my plans about dealing with my health once all projects are settled, so that's out of the picture. My phone, as ancient as it is, it's qwerty, which a lot of phones these days aren't, and if you hadn't figured it out, I'm not too sure about any decent phone out there for php7k that won't take a dump when my fingers touch the screen. And since I've really been looking forward to the 3DS for years now, it was a no-brainer. My eyes can handle the 3D effect perfectly fine, although I've not tested playing with 3D on for more than 20 minutes. If I can survive more than 1 hour of non-stop 3D, then that would confirm it is incoming light sources that my left eye has a problem with (every device I use is at minimum brightness setting, including my computer monitor.) It's why I do very little photoshop these days, it demands my monitor go up to at least 50% brightness for superior editing. Something I'm afraid I can't do for long periods of time anymore.

But what's that, my weird and wonderful week only went until Friday? Nope, the reason why that will forever be a ironic week is because the next day after getting Fire Emblem, GameFAQs paid everyone. Including me. Talk about irony. Which I promptly donated to the owner of the cash, which I have a mini rant, why the heck is it so difficult to spend USD online while in the Philippines? Always with this US phone number verification this, must have US IP that, I tell you the e-commerce landscape changed since I was last in the USA.

Yes I will get to that post about my BenQ S6. Don't mind that Nvidia sticker, okay? It's not like I went mad scientist and shoved a GeForce into there >__>

The reason why I keep on helping

Yesterday I was feeling down in the dumps, having finally given up on my keyboard(s). For so long typing has been a part of my work, and for some ridiculously ironic reason, on my free time I am..... also typing. A part of the reason why I'm typey typey like crazy is because I do it very very fast. And somehow the help I give people involves typing. It's not helped by my incredible desire for phones with hardware qwerty keyboards, which I've used for years.

Then I had a chat with my mother, who I rarely get to talk to these days, and she was telling me about how difficult it is to deal with folks, people who abuse her goodwill, and how it's just unhealthy to converse with them. It hadn't really sunk into me until midnight was approaching, and I was browsing whatever I missed before I hit the bed, and I came across this wonderful piece:

The reason why my mother keeps helping people, and the reason why I fulfill requests as much as I can, is because my mother taught me when I was a kid that "If someone comes to you for help/something, never hesitate to help them, because you do not know who they might be". And that video above is everything I've stood for, and what helping really means. See that link above? I named it "Endeavors/past projects" for a reason. Granted I'm not able to help people physically, but the time I spend on the internet, if someone has a question, and I know the answer, I'll help. If someone wants an avatar done, I'll help. If someone needs help with their computer, if someone needs advice, if there's anything I can do to help, I'll do it. Whoever they may be, if it's something they needed help with, I'll help what I can.

This is also the reason why I was recently involved in a serious scuffle with someone on Gamefaqs' message boards, concerning the FAQ Bounty system they have up. The love of money blinds people, and it also brings out their true character, and that person who I shall not name was fighting off every suggestion I had for the new system, all because the new system would have rewarded those who think they deserved it, without even realizing the implications the new system has on bounty's smaller than $40. For a person like me whose very first FAQ was speedily toiled on to help others, that was a slap on my face and everyone whose primary purpose is to help, and I called out that person for the hypocrite they were, and not long afterwards the mod closed the thread. One person threw away their humanity for $60. And that wasn't enough for them.

 Money can make people do funny things. --All about the benjamins