Hallucinations

It was about a week ago, when suddenly I got a nudge on MSN. It was Lee, a friend of mine, who was messaging me.

Lee: Weh. Lets go AFA.
Me: Sot ar. (Are you crazy?)
Lee: Seriously.
Me: You pay for busfare I go.
Lee: Can.

And the deal was sealed. Some what. I whined a lot during the week about how I don't have enough money (I really didn't.) But in the end we managed to make it anyways. This is a trip that took the The Figure Mall members about 2 months to organize and plan out, we just decided we're going within about oh... 15 seconds?

(I shit you not, I looked like this in front of the PC all the way to Yong Peng, in fact, I believe this face remained intact for the remainder of the first day, reasons will be known later. XD)

Let's skip all the juicy details about me whining about money and hotel rooms, or my hissy fits at Lee's ulterior motive to go.

So on friday night, holding the backpack that I packed the night before. I went to my English Language Centre to give the little kids a revision before their exams, and headed directly to Puduraya to catch our bus which departs at 11pm. The busride was pretty calm and peaceful except that Lee was pretty much excited out of his brains and refuses to sleep. Perhaps it was because of the Milo he drank earlier or whatnot. In the end his pacifier was my PSP, cause he forgot to bring his. The driver was pretty cool and responsible, barely over the speed limit and the ride was smooth. At around 4am or so, we reached singapore.

(Roaming the streets of Singapore in the wee hours of morning.)

When we reached Suntec, we had no idea where to queue up, people were lined up all along the floor, considering the fact that it's at least a quarter mile long for our side of the balcony (The other half is an Xmas electronics fair) and the whole damn place was already flooded with people. The tickets booth doesn't even open until an hour later, the actual entry time was another hour after that. Luckily, the TFM members were already there, so we got a good spot. At around 9:30am, we got our tickets.

(Warning, artist depiction for level of happiness. Do not take at face value)

And then there's this guy.

More in my next post: AFA DAY 1!

In this role, I'm a boyfriend.

It has been awhile since I've typed out my blogposts out on notepad first before I put it up.

My girlfriend was worried for me that I was tired of the relationship, that I was tired of her. I would like to dedicate some space on this little corner to her.

I love you. I can't be the gangster boyfriend with the fearless attitude; I can't be the romantic boyfriend that writes you poems; I can't be the reliable boyfriend that can give you a shoulder to cry on when you're upset; I can't be the prince that can give you accessibility to the things you'd want. I can only be myself. I'm not in any of those categories.

I'm not there when you need me; I can't help when I'm there; I never bought you anything you vocally wanted; I never wrote to you anything romantic; I'm a wimp that doesn't even dare to speak to you openly anymore. All I do is look for a corner and whimper. I'm not awesome. Not at all. To be honest I'm scared shitless everytime you mention that I am.

However, from the first time we met; the first time you put your head on my shoulders; the first time I put my hand unto the small of your back; the first time we held hands; the first time we kissed. I felt complete. I can't be any of those things and yet you've accepted me. You are much, much more awesome than I can ever be. I'm very grateful for that.

There are many things that I've said to you before but there is always something that I've always neglected to tell you. Something far less complex than "I love you", something far less romantic.

Thank you, dear. For letting me be your boyfriend.

I'm in a slump. I know what to do, but I've lost most if not all motivation to continue. I can't believe all this is because of an unfortunate event on that date. I can't think rationally, my finances are in the dumps, I'm struggling to fit back into my college life. I can't go back to my original life of a loner. I can't go back to arcades and relief stress, it just doesn't work anymore. I can't write. I can't speak. I have no outlet. Not even this place. I'm trapped in my own rational mind, thinking up million of possibilities of what could've happened and what can happen in the future.

"Congratulations!" Flashed on Yuki's Nintendo DS Lite console. It was the 4th time the screen had shown the word.

I successfully enrolled in college, currently in my 2nd month where all the quizzes, midterms start rolling in as well as the final assignments for the respective subjects.

For you dear. What I promised.

---

"You're cute."

The phrase repeated itself perpetually in Yuki's mind as he was walking up a hill with a mild gradient; grass and trees, both young and husks lined the street on both sides. The bright sin's radiant heat created mirages not far off from his position, they remained forever fixated, moving with him.

"You're cute."

---

"I like you, alot." She whispered timidly into Yuki's ear.

It took him courage to rouse from a corpse-like state, to place his hand unto her waist after an eternity of inner turmoil and doubt. One that his companion of the day seems to have disregarded long ago. Her warmth seeped into him. He held her closer. Resting his head on top of hers which laid on his shoulder.

"I like you, alot." Repeated in his head.

---

"I would like to hold your hand again." he whispered to her.

The bus' engine roared on the ramp leading unto the highway. He was on his way to meet her again. At a shopping complex that he has not visited for a long time. Insecurity laced his mind. The passengers were few and uninteresting, Yuki decided to turn his gaze to the fast moving street. His interest at the passing trees and cars waned as the words weighted in his mind heavily. Eyelids lowered, he contemplated the words carefully. It carried a promise, for her; for himself. A promise that requested for a future when it was uncertain.

"I want to hold your hand again." His silent mutterings carried away by the noise of the bus.

---

"I miss you." a message appeared in the conversational window.

The title in the taskbar flashed incessantly. The message was simple and clear. She missed him. He missed her too even though he was chatting with her on his computer seat. Moreover, he missed her touch; her hands; her smell, when she rested her head on his shoulder. The cursor pointed towards the flashing title, the window appeared; The cursor flashing, begging for input.

"I miss you too." he typed in with a smile.

The kisses. Well, generally everything that happened on Friday.

Touching your hair and jolting you when I ended the call. Holding your hand again, browsing odd stuff in Action City. Getting lost looking for MPH.

The way you supported me when I asked you to be my girlfriend, I know I asked before, but when we were face to face it was a lot harder.

How you didn't mind me not being romantic nor strong enough that I actually told you I have no idea how long it might last.

Not giving a fuck about that old uncle across the lounge.

My first kiss outside Haagen Daaz, playing traffic lights with the shoppers, and then not giving a fuck about them in the end.

Holding your hand more, walking around randomly, the kiss near the weird suspended cola can in river. Going back to MPH.

Using books as an excuse to stay close and hobo'ing at that corner.

More kisses.

The test of trust between us.

Throwing away books completely to snuggle, playing with your petite hands.

Having my world spin round and round by your antics.

The taste of your lips, mouth and even braces. The smell in your hair, nuzzling your neck, your petite frame, your delicate hands.

You're amazing.

First and foremost, let's clear this up. I'm not gay. I'm just an optimistically objective person, I try to see what things are on their grounds. If a boy looks cute. (Like it is shown here, yes, that's a boy.) I will say he looks cute. I won't reel back in horror with the knowledge that he has the male genitalia. He's cute, but I won't hit it. Am I clear on this? I appreciate the fact that he's cute. That's enough. No need to go anywhere else.

Meanwhile. I'm blogging about this dress because I would like to remember it. I will, and yes, -WILL- secure one of it in the future, for a loved one. I will not, in any case, secure it when it does not have a chance to be on someone I love. Or if I do have the extra cash from some sort of weird chance occurence. I will buy in to have it wait for it's proper owner. Yes, I like the dress that much.

Here it is:






They're from a Japanese lolita fashion company named Victorian Maiden, aptly named, I'm sure you'd agree, as the dress is very much inspired from the Victorian era of immaculate details and lots, lots, and lots, of frills. Doesn't contain as much ribbons or laces as I'd like it to be, but this also means the dress is not cluttered and oozes elegance. Just, perfect.

By the way, these dresses are extremely costly, perhaps not as much as designer apparel, but this particular dressed is priced at 24k yen. That's about 800 Ringgit Malaysia. Still very achievable, and much sought after by aficionados of all nationalities.

P/S: The red, of which I have picked out from a choice of three, is no longer available. I believe when I visited the site back when I was 15, the red version of this dress is also sold out.

Assasin's Creed
GRID
Sid Meier's Civilizations 4
Silent Hill Homecoming.
Prince of Persia
Tomb Raider: Underworld
World of Goo

Games I've finished
Pure
(Published by Disney, good for distractions, nice sense of over-the-top racing, a little repetitive and isn't as good as SSX)
Burnout Paradise
(Bustling city, with the 24hours patch it becomes a living one, actual immersion blending nicely with over the top action and speed. becomes repetitive about 20 hours in, overall amazing arcade racer.)
Dead Space
(Flying limbs everywhere, a rare good scifi horror game, shocks become infrequent close to the end of the game, scares become routine. Overall good game, confusing storyline.)
Call of Duty: World at War
(Overall good game, exact same formula as COD4:MW minus some points, Nazi Zombie bonus mission very awesome, even when alone.)
Mirror's Edge
(Amazing visuals, has occasional hiccups, but overall great game.)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
(Effing hard. Also, I found the 360 controller more forgiving. Great game for it's time, non linear.)

Games I gave up on.
DMC4.
(Backtracking is surprisingly tedious and unfortunately boring, even with badass Dante. It might've been good in RE2, but that's a design about 8 years old)
The Club.
(Strictly Multiplayer experience. Single player is so-so. Not very worthwhile.)

Yes, I'm putting in comments for the games I've played now. As a reminder of why I liked and disliked certain games.

Silent Hill:Homecoming is on hold until a good graphics patch comes out for the game, or an unofficial fix. Currently trying to finish Prince of Persia.

Just as a reminder for myself. These are dire times, there are too many games for me to complete.

Assasin's Creed
Devil May Cry 4
GRID
Sid Meier's Civilizations 4
Silent Hill Homecoming.
The Club
Prince of Persia
Tomb Raider: Underworld
World of Goo
Call of Duty: World at War
Mirror's Edge
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2

Games I've finished
Pure
Burnout Paradise
Dead Space

Games I gave up on.
DMC4.

Look at that HUMONGOUS LIST!

I'm not even including the PSP games I have in my PSP or the NDS games I have in my NDSL.

My earlier post mentioned that I only had two purpose for the Singapore Trip. I shall now report like the dedicated journalist I am. Ain't it obvious from the state of frequent updates of this blog? *Ba-dum-dum-plish*

Number 1! Out of the 3 Arcade machines that has uber amounts of potential to sap my pockets dry during the trip, the only one that I've discovered costed less than all other stuff I've played in their arcades. I've managed to find Deathsmiles, thanks to my aquaintance. Review of Deathsmiles coming up after all my reports. BlazBlue is nowhere to be found. Perhaps due to the overwhelming presence of SFIV and Tekken 6. DJMAX technika would've stuck out like a really sore thumb, so it isn't there. Or it might've been shrunk to a molecular size where I can't find it.

In the arcades section. I've tried out DDRX. It's still as americanized as the last time I saw it, the major turnoff for me was Candy without lyrics, and the fact that Breakdown was not on the list. I was sad after realizing that and stopped playing. I've also tried out and sucked at Espagaluda, but I'll definitely play it again for the sheer amount of blood the game gives the players. It's pretty copious for a shmup. Lastly, my beatmania skills downgraded, I suspect it's partly due to overstraining my left hand, which resulted in my left index and middle fingers being numb for 3 days. I nearly thought I had Carpal Tunnel, but from a self diagnostic the symptoms were inconsistent with the ones associated with CTS. Thanks Soo-Ann for the information on the diagnostic tests, you rock, and hope you do extremely well in your exams, enough to cut a year or so of being an in-house. :P

In addition to the above, I've also had the privilege of meeting some very good Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3DX players. As well as acquiring a present card to tryout the new MX-5 introduced in this iteration. Throughout battles and several hours of observation, I've gained a great amount of insight as to improving my own play level. Thanks to Maya for introducing me to them, they're friggin' awesome, as are you, Maya.

Number 2! Cosafe was pretty kewl. From the picture in the link to the left, there's still a Malay(?) girl that wasn't in the picture. But does it really matter? The two Malay girls that works there seems more likely to be temps, since their uniforms are standard and seems nothing out of the ordinary. Either that, or the opposite is true. BTW, my favourite one was the one on the far left, she seems to have her own fan, since my aquaintance seemed to have noticed a certain foreigner only wants to be served by her. The blue ribbon was a nice touch I like attention to details (Her underskirt was red checkers. Contrast.), although I don't think you'd see it in the picture.

I've noticed, that the standard skirts are actually layerred, so they hike up when they bend over a little, just like the ones in mangas. Results were the two Malay(?) girls wearing shorts. Which were surprisingly long since they're actually visible even when they're standing straight. I've had a pretty great time there. Since I've been accompanied by an interesting person. Oddly I didn't pay as much attention as I thought I would on the waitresses, which seems to be the whole point of the cafe... Isn't it?

Price of the place seems reasonable. As long as you stick to coffee and starve. Food is adequately priced for a cafe in a high-end city area (Not to mention this is a novelty cafe). Coffee and Steamed Milk seems to be cheap, considering they're actually cheaper than Starbucks to a certain degree. Alcohol is extremely overpriced in my opinion, regular cocktails were at least 30 dollars. I'm glad I don't drink.

*I honestly do not know their race, they're not chinese, neither do they look too indonesian, in the end, I have to settle with modernized Malays.

No, not the boardgame.

I was playing Ketsui on my DS the other day. It's a Shmup, an arcade styled bullet hell/curtain shmup. As training for my debut with DeathSmiles. Utterly sucking at Ketsui's Very Hard course, I started thinking about what drives me and other people who are into shmups. I can't speak for the veterans, who are absolutely crazy and deserves lots of hentai art for their surprising amount of finger finesse, but I can speak for myself.

I think risk plays a significant major factor here. From the original Space Invaders, we are encouraged to rush the game, since the last few aliens would tentatively move faster as time passes, as well as speeding up significantly the closer it reaches you until the point where they can't be shot, and you die. There's just that much more sastifaction from squeezing that last shot off before they or their shots, or their kamikaze nosedive, reaches you.

This evolved. Free movement was invented. Instead of just sitting there waiting for your death ala Asteroid, you've been granted control over the ships movement, ensuring that you play a much larger part in ensuring your own survival. It fed our desire to be in control and played to our fears of losing. In the end it's a seamless combination of both, with the sastifaction of just plain surviving and sustaining yourself, that drives people to continue playing shmups.

Shmups, after the point of Gradius. was even more gratifying, not only do you get to have control, fear as well as adrenaline to survive, you also get great gratification from bosses. The large nemesis that you are forced to take down after every hair chewing, nail biting stage. The resultant is 2 minutes of even more hair chewing and nail biting, because the bosses are so huge, and obviously overpowering, it feels like you're trying to topple an empire (Built with guns, all firing bullets at you, alone). This serves to positively reinforce the player to continue rather than slump over exhausted. Almost in a self contradicting way. Imagine fighting a leopard in a coliseum and then asking for a tiger. It doesn't make sense, but it sure feels good if you manage to kill it.

Then the extreme forms, almost like cocaine, popped out. Bullet Hells, the arcade variation of Danmaku. Involved raining projectiles on you, challenging you to weave yourself in and out of the trouble, navigating a maze of several pixels thick, of abnormal dimensions and shape, just purely out of the will to survive a session of the game. This proved to be an extreme concept that completes the whole package, I don't think the games' design gets more primal than that. The games gets more advanced in terms of graphics, mechanics, complexity, but the most basic of our mindset, survival, makes it all the more gratifying the harder it is. As long as it doesn't border on unfairness.

However, the more advanced our shmups have become, the more estranged are the laymen who doesn't know how to play, because if they lack the ability to survive for a decent amount of time, before the gratification arrives, they basically can't see the point of continuing, therefore abandoning all efforts to continue playing.

Perhaps then, in the future, there will be more games that emulate Geometry Wars' success, combining frantic pace, advanced features, as well as letting the players gain gratification, just enough to continue to play; just enough to convince themselves that they can survive. Maybe, the shmup genre will receive new blood in their userbase as well as game variety. To continue the chain of evolution in this particular strain of games.

I'll be heading to SG for a one/two day hiatus. Actually it's for gaming, I've been itching for a round of Beatmania IIDX 16 DJ TROOPERS and the crowd's attention so I want to go to Bugis Jt to get some beatgame fun. Or Plaza Singapura...

Anyways, this will also be a spelunking opportunity for me to check if SG received any good games that deserves good attention. DJMAX Technika being one of them, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is also something I would like to see on one of their cabinets. Lastly, if I see Deathsmiles in their arcades I can't assure that I won't jizz in my pants. Which would be a social faux pas since I will supposedly be walking about arcades accompanied by an arcade racing game vet. One that has proven to be very much friendlier than the Malaysian counterparts.

On a side note. Last time I was in SG, which was in Dec, I've had 2 occasions where I was alone with a female friend, going on activities that vaguely resemble a casual date. Meanwhile, in Msia I have had no similar experience (Or no experience similar to that of the trip in SG). Whenever I do ask, usually I get thrown a lemon. There must be something going on here. Hmmm...

Lastly, I also want to check out that Maid CosCafe around the Raffles City area. I'm sure the coffee will rip burning holes in my pockets the size of jupiter's moons. But meh, I'm still being served by people who get paid for wearing victorian maid inspired dresses (That's Laces and Frills, two of my favourites accessories in female attires) Perhaps I need to check if I need to pay for pictures. Cause if I do have to pay, my pockets will be gone altogether. Maybe I can get my female accompaniment to have a drink there. Hopefully it won't end with Iced Lemon Tea.

Oh BTW, Malaysian arcade vets are 50% pricks. 40% that treats other players with indifference (I belong in there, depending on the game) and the last 10% are kids who somehow are able to excel at the game. They deserve a spot. Nice guys in arcades are rarely found, if they ever existed in the first place. Literate people in arcades are even more rare. It has something to do with images of arcades in my nation, but it's hard for me to go into detail without creating another entry, perhaps next time then.

Who are you and why did you invade my blog?

Just joking. Always glad there's someone here, even though there's not much for these someone's to read.

As you've noticed, I don't update my blog often, because I never made any commitments. Unfortunately, this blog will remain this way unless I can actually find a method to generate revenue off this place, then I'd start blogging for my life, since it'll be considered a job. Most of the articles here are mainly personal anecdotes, testimonials as well as pseudophilosophy, kindly do not take them too seriously. However, when I blog about something, it will be something I feel strongly about, not just "I had a cake this morning", so rest assured that anything recorded here are major events or thoughts that have haunted.

Been catching up with gaming lately, have to finish the following list of games:

Assasin's Creed
Burnout Paradise
Dead Space
Devil May Cry 4
GRID
Pure
Sid Meier's Civilizations 4.
Silent Hill Homecoming.

Unlike blogging, I dedicate a lot of time to gaming, so you can imagine what I'll be busy with for these next few weeks. If I do find anything interesting though, I'll let someone(s) know.

*Insert cue for awkward laugh*

I'm still here! (ba-dum-dum-plish)

That wasn't really a punchline, was it? More like a line that will get you punched.

After that dreadful year working with a call centre, I've decided to call it quits when my contract expiry came up, I'm now official a NEET (Not engaged in Employment, Education or Training). I heard they're in fashion nowadays.

I also got my first birthday cake this year, there weren't any candles, or singing, or wishing, but it was my first birthday cake that I've gotten for my birthday.

Maybe I'll take some of that NEET time to work on this blog. Let me see what I can do.