Of little lessons in life : Lazybug

Sunday, 27th Jan

Jo : Surprise! I thought you'd be bored at work, so see what got you^^

Eunice : OMG it's chooooo cute! Thank you! xD




Jo : I'm glad you like it, why don't you take a bite out of it?




Eunice : OK! ^^

*bites, chew chew chew*




*looks at lazybug bread*

Eunice : *sobs* zomg, what have I done? T.T



Jo : OHH NOO...



Moral of the story: Never get your girl a Lazybug bread from Breadtalk. LOL

Of Happy Endings : Memories Off - Sore Kara~

I guess what really makes love novels so popular is their ability to involve the reader in the plot, in other words, make one feel as though one is experiencing the events in the story first-hand.
But sometimes it is inevitable that what the character does in the story differs from what the reader would actually do when faced with a smilar situation in real life. This gives rise to the many instances where the reader (or even spectators of TV dramas) to sigh in disbelief or even curse out loud at the perceived stupidity or childishness of the characters involved.

Perhaps it was playing on these reasons that we have the advent of games such as Memories Off 3 : Sore Kara after the Memories Off anime series. Some call it interactive story-telling, some refer to it as participative love novels, but they all refer to the same thing - a chance for you to have a say in what the main character does in the plot and hence possibly influence the ending of the story. However, just like the real life decisions that such games try to simulate, these decisions are often marred in shades of grey instead of the ideal clear cut black and white, and yet, they carry very significant consequences ( well, in the game at least =P). I guess this is what gives such game their appeal. Maybe there's some truth afterall in the saying that human beings are not meant to be in utopia, as mentioned by Agent Smith in the Matrix movie - For those who do not remember, the failure of the robot's very 1st version of the matrix where a utopia was simulated was a result of human "crops" were unable to accept their existence in a perfect world.

Ok, back to the topic.

Due to the nature of the game, it's very easy to get sucked into the story as you feel a kind of "ownership" towards your own character(hmm, perhaps there is some link to the job ownership concepts introduced by Byham and Cox in Zapp! The Lightning of Empowerment afterall).



This inevitably results in strong emotional attachment to the characters in the story. Whether this is good or bad is controvertible, and it depends a lot on how you "play-out" the game. I have personally messed up the endings of a few games before like Fantasia Sanguo 2(until now, I'm still in denial and have yet to stop blaming CS for lending me a copy of a pirated version that's full of glitches =P). But luckily for me, I've so far been rather successful with MO3 and have already explored quite a few happy endings already. Maybe I'm more sensitive towards Japanese Schoolgirls' feelings than otherwise xD. Having said that, poooooor CS *gloats*

At any rate, one also wonders if these kind of games might provide a fatalistic perception to gamers about real-life relationships. Forgive my immaturity, but just let me off for this once for stereotyping that most people who play this game generally lean towards "nerdy, semi- antisocial" tendencies(that includes me and CS too i guess =P). More often than not, individuals from this group of people either tend to have "limited" insight into interaction with the opposite gender or they are fed up or are haunted by past experiences with the complexities of boy-girl relationships(BGR). Well, if so is the case, might just make matters worse.

Personally, I admit to being quite distraught at certain points in the game and on one occasion, I even had to take a break from the game to go bug Eunice's neighbor Stephie for advice =P.
OK. So the player is offered unlimited number of game saves, but still I'm not comfortable with using too much of those, as the more I resort to that, the more I would feel myself to be a failure in "life". Perhaps it's the man-being-incompatible-with-the-ideal argument all over again.


At any rate, this game was lots of fun for me, and posed quite a few points about life that I'd spend more time pondering over. I've had my fair share of happy endings from playing the game thus far, and just as the sad parts can really get you down, the happy endings are just.. well.. Happily Ever After*goood mood*. Maybe I'm just lucky, or maybe I'm just have a knack for virtual relationships afterall =P


Let me end this post with a thought that I've gotten while playing this game.

People say that happy endings do not exist in real life. But I feel it's just a problem of the frame of reference people use to view life.

For instance what if we consciously pick when to end a story in real life, like ending the story of your 1st start up company when it earns it's 1st million, or like ending the story to your love life as soon as you manage to woo the most popular girl in school? Then your life will always be filled with happy endings, wouldn't it? Contrast this with the common practice of "Oh, my venture into business was a failure. I had to close down after 3 years in operation". What happened to the story about how he managed to start his business despite all odds? What about the story about how he met and is now going steady with this girl that he met while starting up his business?

Sure, life doesn't end there as they do in novels or computer games such as this one. But..

"Choose your happiest points in life to be the ending to your story. What happens next.. is another story.." -Tan Jo ;)

Of animes - Macross 7 and the power to the music

Thanks to Eunice's anime-crazed bro, I got my hands on the Macross 7 series.

One of my favourite songs from the anime :




The story follows the journey of Macross 7, a space colony ship whose purpose is to colonize the habitable planets in space.

The hero of the whole series : (you'd be surprised) An aspiring rock band lead singer - Nekki Basara. This is one anime that really caught my attention and my liking. For one, it's not always about fighting in this anime. As a matter of fact, the hero abhors armed conflict and instead tries to reach the enemy's heart and soul with his music. Throughout the series, Basara only fired upon the enemy twice, but even those incidents are followed by feelings of guilt and regret on his part.

This resounds strongly with me, as a citizen of a multi-racial country that is at it's lowest point in decades in terms of mutual trust between different communities. It can be shown and argued that my country's current undesirable state can be attributed to a lot of factors, but one of it is the lack of sharing of culture among the races. If you think about it, it's not too much an overstatement that only the Malays attend Malay cultural performances, like the Dikir Barat, Wayang Kulit, etc. and similarly for the Chinese with their Chinese Orchestra, and Lion Dances, and the Indians with their own activities too.

Credit for this sorry state of affairs should be largely given to the presence of race-politics practiced by majority of the politicians in power. As for the reasons why these politicians behave so, they will be discussed in another post in some other time when I'm really that free.

For now, I feel that a lot more cultural exchange is needed between the races to really bring about a better sense of understanding each other. Pessimists and stubborn nationalists will probably be quick to point out that language remains a barrier for cultural exchange, but I laugh at their futile attempts to try and apply their flawed logic to the low showing of non-Chinese at musical performances like the 龙吟 Chinese Orchestra performance that was held in Penang last year. Even for performances which involve mother tongue languages, there are always the options of translation or even subtitles. I mean, come on, not having the slightest idea on the Japanese language has never stopped the countless number of people like me from enjoying intriguing anime series such as Macross 7, has it? On a related matter, when theatrical studies students from a local university performed a Chinese Opera episode in Malay in Stadium Bukit Jalil a few years back, how is it so that it received, minimal, if not no publicity at all from the local media?

In conclusion, there are many artificial barriers which prevent cultural exchange. But like the story in Macross 7 shows, even these barriers can be overcome, like how Nekki Basara used his songs to eventually touch the hearts of the seemingly heartless Protodeviln. And when there's exchange, it's not only that understanding of different races and culture grows, but the most important part of it is that maybe, just maybe we, Malaysians of all religion and creed, can finally find something that we can all enjoy and share, just like the Zentradi and Humans in SDF Macross and Protodeviln and Humans in Macross 7.

Idealistic thinking, you say?

Have you tried? I ask you.

I tried listening to Spanish, French, Tagalog, Thai, Japanese, Kelantanese and even Tamil songs, and I grew to really like some of them, perhaps music IS a universal language afterall and should be prescribed as the first step to wider cultural sharing. POWER TO THE MUSIC!

Nekki Basara and his red Valkarie.

Nekki Basara and female vocalist Mylene F. Jenius

The hero and his band, Fire Bomber.

Some more prominent character in the series.

..and for people who liked the song embeded in this post :

Original / Romaji Lyrics omae ga kaze ni naru nara hateshinai sora ni naritai hageshii amaoto ni tachisukumu toki wa GITAA o kakinarashi kokoro o shizumeyou * COME ON PEOPLE kanjite hoshii ima sugu wakaranakute ii kara COME ON PEOPLE inochi no kagiri omae o mamoritsudzukeru MY SOUL FOR YOU omae ga michi ni mayottara hohoemi de yami o terasou omae no kanashimi ga iyasareru nara koe ga kareru made utaitsudzukeyou ** COME ON PEOPLE shinjite hoshii itsumademo kawaranai ore o COME ON PEOPLE taiyou no you ni omae o kagayakaseru MY SOUL FOR YOU Repeat * Repeat **

English Translation If you become the wind, I want to become the endless sky When you're petrified by the sound of the violent rain Strumming my guitar, I'll calm your heart * Come on people, I want you to feel it Because it's all right if you don't understand right now Come on people, I'll go on protecting you With my life- my soul for you If you lose your way, I'll light the darkness with my smile If it would heal your sadness I'd sing until my voice withered away ** Come on people, I want you to believe it I'll never change Come on people, like the sun I'll shine on you- my soul for you Repeat * Repeat **

Translated and transliterated by bluepenguin
http://www.freewebs.com/penguinsjlyrics