Sit a spell and tell a tale.

As usual, I was frying my brains out working on my paper tonight when all of a sudden I remember this story from Black Isle's Planescape: Torment RPG I played some time ago. It was a very short tale actually, told by one of your companions in the game during a conversation. But it was very absorbing and deeply mesmerizing, and I absolutely like it, so I thought I would share it here for those who haven't played it. I hesitated for a second and stared at my unfinished assignment on my laptop screen. Sensing my intention to procrastinate, it grumbled and told me, "Hold that thought." Silence for a few seconds, then it threw up its hands in annoyance, "Oh, like you care what I said!!" I nodded and said, "Be right back." So here it is, the short story from the PC RPG Planescape: Torment, in the exact words as it is told in the game. Enjoy and ponder.

"An elderly man was sitting alone on a dark path. He wasn't certain of which direction to go, and he'd forgotten both where he was going and who he was. He'd sat down for a moment to rest his weary legs, and suddenly looked up to see an elderly woman before him. She grinned toothlessly and with a cackle, spoke: 'Now your *third* wish. What will it be?'"

"'Third wish?' The man was baffled. 'How can it be a third wish if I haven't had a second and first wish?'"

"'You've had two wishes already,' the hag said. 'But your second wish was for me to return everything to the way it was before you had made your first wish. That's why you remember nothing; because everything is the way it was before you made any wishes.' She cackled at the poor berk. 'So it is that you have one wish left.'"

"'All right,' said the man. 'I don't believe this, but there's no harm in wishing. I wish to know who I am.'"

"'Funny,' said the old woman as she granted his wish and disappeared forever. 'That was your first wish.'"

Me and la cucaracha; or: Thou shalt move thine arse off the floor to hath something accomplisheth.

This post is originally from last year, but strangely I never got around to posting it. So, since I'm scrounging for unpublished posts in my archive, I decided to have this forgotten little gem posted.

Before I write down what I originally meant to write here, I want to tell a rather... gross experience I just had several minutes ago:

I was sitting cross-legged on the floor, writing an email to my friend. All of a sudden a dark brown, shiny, pretty big cockroach came scuttling towards me at a quite high speed. I made a sweeping glance at the room lazily, and seeing nothing within reach that I can use to kill the cockroach, I raised my left hand and slammed my fist on it, killing it instantly. "PWNED!!" I scoffed in self-satisfaction.

...................
.........................

There was a sort of pregnant pause after that moment as I stared at my left hand (wet with cockroach innards) and then to the squished cockroach. As I washed my hand, I grumbled to myself, "What the hell was I thinking?" I should think that, had I a normal mind, my brain would have instructed me to got up quickly and look for something that would fit the job. But no! Apparently my laziness got the better of me so my brain said, "Oh, there's no cockroach-killing instrument nearby, so I will just use my left hand."

I don't know which is more gross: my laziness, or the fact that I used my hand to squish a cockroach. This post is gross, I don't know why I wrote this down. I'll just write what I originally meant to write in another post.

Ugh! Seriously.

The longest search is the most satisfying one.

Ain't internet grand? After about 10+ years, I finally found the ending song for that silly '80s anime Time Quest, or originally titled Time Travel Tondekeman. The anime was first aired in Indonesia sometime in mid '90s by Indosiar. I've always loved the song, but have no idea nor the means to know what the title nor who the singer was. Now, with the help of the internet, I finally found that song! I feel so nostalgic... Pidip pidip pidip terbaang... teko ajaib...!!

I heart Wall-E.

A few nights ago I went to the cinema to watch Wall-E. Again. For the third time this week. Truth be told, had I my own car, I would have gone everyday. Seriously. It's that good. Pixar's latest masterpiece is nothing short of an instant classic. I've always loved Pixar movies. Theirs are the kind that always made me giddy and excited like a schoolgirl when I watched them (urgh. Remind me not to say that again). And they don't disappoint either. Well, they did, once, with Cars. But they made amends with the stellar Ratatouille. I will eschew any spoilers of the story in favor of giving you a chance to discover the wonders and beauty of Wall-E by yourself. Trust me, you won't be disappointed. And if you were, then you're dumber than dirt.

Oh, that is so mean and unfair. Bad blogger!

But seriously though, Wall-E is a terrific movie. It's also pretty gutsy for an American animated movie, but still has a heart of gold. There's love and romance too, but not in the mushy, Beauty and the Beast-type romance. The movie is more mature than last year's Ratatouille, which is a big surprise (or perhaps I'm the only one feeling that way). Wall-E himself is the cutest character I've ever seen since... since... uhm... well, I'll be damned! I can't remember when the last time was that I used the word "cute" to describe something. Sheesh, how jaded can you get? Anyway, the movie's pretty mature, but certainly not in the same league as Miyazaki's or many other big screen Japanese animated productions. The movie is rated "G," but I can see why it won't win over many toddlers' heart. Wall-E embodies many mature themes and aspects such as satire, social commentary, dystopian future, and science-fiction, but executed them brilliantly. There's plenty of fast-paced actions, but probably not enough to satisfy dumbass nephew John or dim-witted cousin Nancy, both five and eight year old, respectively. Who the hell are they? I have absolutely no idea.

Oh! Name calling is not nice and unnecessarily nasty! Bad, bad blogger!!

Okay, that's rather unfair. I've read people's testimonials that they had brought along some kids to watch it and they seemed to enjoy the movie immensely. Good for them! At least they won't be as annoying as adults can be when they hate it. Like the SURPRISINGLY LARGE NUMBER OF HATERS AND TROLLS ON THE MESSAGE BOARD AT IMDB.COM.

Ahem. Allow me to gwacefully (sic) veer you away from my movie review and turn your attention to what this post is really about: rants. What! More rants? Is that really possible?? Why, yes. But now that I've managed to hold your attention this long, you can't possibly escape, now can you? Okay, okay, it's a half-rant... Oh come now, dearies, I won't be long... this time.

Elementary, my dear Watson. IMDB stands for the Institution for Mass Doofus and Boneheads. No, wait, that's not it... Oh yeah, it's Internet Movie Database. Basically the go-to site for all your movie *cough*andtrollingandflaming*cough* needs. So. I was surprised by the large number of people whining that Wall-E got a very high score and jumped straight to #6 at IMDb's best 250 movies list. Uhh, excuse you? Why is it any business of yours to complain that a movie got a very high review by, like, 99% of movie critics and 90% of general audience, and managed to score big at the box office? And why so disturbed? The movie hasn't been out for a week yet, and already many detractors are complaining that it doesn't deserve to have such a high average score (9.2). Apparently they're bothered that Wall-E had managed to top off Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Casablanca, or what classics have you in the popularity chart. Oh please, popularities come and go. Much as I love the movie, Wall-E has yet to stand the test of time (although personally, I think people will still look back to it 10 years from now). Look at 300 for example, that two-hour mediocrity of pretentious epic which boasted 300 men in skimpy bondage underwear with zero acting ability. Once upon a time it must have managed to score high in the chart because it got a 9+ average score when it first came out (oh!! the horror!), but not anymore, since it has now reduced to a measly 7.9. Sit on it, people! I'm not saying that Wall-E should have a lousy rating two years from now. If anything, I wish whole-heartedly for the opposite. But the more pressing question is, why are people so concerned with charts and popularities in the first place? It's like XBox 360 vs Playstation3 fanboys war all over again. That endless, insipid, console wars waged by prepubescent teenagers with pathetic spelling capabilities and endless arguments like, "XBOX 360 IZ TEH BEST!!" "YOU'RE A FROG! PS3 KIKC AZZES!!" AARRRGGHHH!!!

I'll just stop here and leave you with that unfinished statement and a triple-combo scream of agony, anguish, and distress.

See? I told you it'd be a half-rant!

America, the friendly nation.

9:25 PM, at Wal-Mart. I was standing in a long line at the self-checkout machine with a cartload of groceries.
A young American man, probably in his late teens, scrutinized the long lines of people waiting to pay their items, “Shit, there's a long line,” he groaned, then he stood behind me. He was only carrying a single liter of Coca-Cola.
Moments passed, I was observing the cover of the People's magazine with “Beyonce and Jay-Z's Secret Wedding” written on it when I heard a voice behind me.
“Don't you hate that shit when that happens?”
“Eh? What?” I turned around. It was the same guy.
“That guy, who's paying with a check at the self-checkout. He has to write down everything on his check, rip it out, then hand it over to the attendant.” He motions his head towards the front of our line.
I glanced at that direction then turned to him, smiling, “Is that how it works?”
“That's how it works.” He turned his attention to my cart and observed it thoughtfully. Then he looked at me.
“Are you a college guy?”
“Yeah.”
“I can tell a college guy by the stuffs he's buying,” he pointed to the contents of my cart. “Cereals, juice, cookies, they all buy that.”
I laughed, “Is that the usual diet?”
“Right! That's the usual diet, yeah.”
“And that's what I've been living on in the past two years,” I said.
“And your parents thought that you're well-off fed over here.”
“They have no idea what I'm going through.” We laughed.
I looked at the bottle of Coca-Cola he was carrying. A thought crossed my mind to allow him get ahead in front of me so he can pay first, but something inside tells me I needn't bother.
“I swore off soda ever since I lived here. I'm trying not to make it a part of my diet anymore.” I said.
He chuckled, “I'm meeting up with some lady friends. We're going to drink alcohol but we ran out of soda. So I got us this Coca-Cola.” He pointed to the words on his t-shirt. Corinthians x:x. “I might be a church-goer, but I do all that shit and get high.”
“What's your religion?” he continued.
The slightest pang of apprehension instinctively shot up inside me. Within nanoseconds, the presumption built up, “Okay, let's see where this goes...” I thought.
I answered the guy, “Islam.”
“Islam?” he nodded. “I'm from Dallas. I'm meeting up with some friends here. I actually went to the mosque there several times, in Dallas. I went there like, 8 or 9 times. But I don't really get what they're saying. They always talked in Arabic, and I didn't understand a single thing. Sometimes the guy in front would speak in English, but most of the time it was in Arabic. I asked my friend, “Hey man, what is he talking about?” But my friend had a hard time explaining it, unfortunately he's one of those guys that's not too good with English.”
I smiled, “Yes, they always do that at the mosque. It's quotes, so it's in Arabic. But it's translated into English.” I explained.
He nodded thoughtfully, then asked, “Where are you from?”
“Oh, Indonesia.”
“No, I mean where are you from in Texas.”
“Ah, I'm from Bryan.” It's the name of the town I live in.
He nodded, “Oh, so you're from Indonesia and now you're studying in Texas?”
“Yes”.
“You've been here for two years?”
“Yeah, I'm trying to finish up in May.”
“And then you'll go back?”
“Uhuh.”
“How d'you like it here?”
“It's good. The people here are nice.”
The lady in front of me had finished picking up her items and left. I moved my cart to the front and started scanning my items.
“But ever since that 9/11 shit, everyone thinks you're a dickhead, huh?” He grinned.
I laughed, “Yeah!” I put my first item into the plastic bag. “You have no idea how difficult it is to get in here.”
The young man's face suddenly turned solemn. “Yeah. Shit like that happens.” His voice was surprisingly sympathetic. “Shit happens,” he repeated and smiled at me.
I finished paying my items. One of my plastic bags snapped as I tried to lift it. I cursed.
“Shit,” I said.
“Too much shit in one bag?” He asked.
“Yeah.” I lifted the bags carefully and loaded them into my cart. The young man moved to pay his Coca-Cola, and as he did so he tapped my arm and grinned widely.
“Hey man, let me give you a piece of advice,” he bent over and lowered his voice. “Get all the pussy you can get while you're here. It would be much harder to do once you get back.”
I burst out laughing, “I'm staying away from pussies. But thanks for the advice.” He laughed, then said,
“Well, see you around, man. Assalamu'alaikum.”
I offered my hand and we shook hands. “Nice knowing you, man. Goodbye.”
He smiled, “Goodbye, man,” and I left.

Maybe I should have let him pay first. That would have been the right thing to do. Because even though we might not meet each other again, and he would probably forget our conversation later in the night when he's drown in alcohol, trash-talking or not, God knows I've made a friend that moment.

But ever since that 9/11 shit, everyone thinks you're a dickhead, huh?
But ever since 9/11, everyone thinks Americans are dickheads.
Prejudices, discriminations, suspicions.
"We are holier-than-thou."
Bullcrap.
Ignorance is bliss.
But it's also hate, prejudice, discriminations, suspicions.

It's a beautiful world of pride and prejudices we're living in.

...did I just say 'beautiful'?

Maybe I'm not as pessimistic as I thought.






But utopia is for fools and dreamers.







...am I... right?

On the Passage.

I'm going to talk a little bit more about video games here...
So there I was, looking for free games to download and play, when I stumbled on Passage. For a very long time, for a very long time, indeed... now I have finally found a new game that can latch itself into my memory, my subconscious, and never let go. Other games have come and go, but the simplicity and elegant execution of Passage just sticks with me. I can't remember the last time a game did this to me... Shadow of the Colossus, maybe? To call Passage a modest attempt at gaming would be a gross understatement. It's a humble project by one man. It's only 5 minutes long, have no sound except one music track, 100x16 in resolution, and yet, it speaks a whole lot more and inject you with a whole lot more meaning and impression than any other video games today, which try to grab our attention with bangsandflashandnoisebutno substance. If this isn't an example of an "art" game, then I don't know what is. I really can't tell you what this game is about, for fear of spoiling its beauty and underlying message. Just... go play it. Download it! (it's only 460 kb for god's sake!) And if you're confused, there's the author's explanation about the whole game. But I urge you not to read it and try to interpret the game by yourself. I didn't, and was mesmerized when everything falls to pieces and discovered the meaning of the whole game by myself. Here's the link. Go play it! And remember: you can go up and down.

http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/

Whiner me.

What is it with me not fated to watch my favorite artists live in concert? In November last year, bodacious Beyonce (yes, yes, I like her. Ya got a problem with that?!) held a concert in Jakarta. And just a couple of days ago, BJORK herself held a concert in Jakarta too!! Lucky bastards. I'm officially smoldering with envy. Beyonce... sure I could live without, but Bjork? I never thought Bjork would held a concert in Indonesia. E...ver. It's like I won the national lottery (with a 1:100 million+ odds), but had lost the ticket when I accidentally washed it in the laundry! I swear to God, if I was in Indonesia, I would've flown there in a second, braving the flying deathtrap that is Indonesian airplanes (Jatayu, I'm looking at you. Oh wait, Jatayu is dead. Huh, no great loss there, eh?), and returned back to Medan, happy and fulfilled, but oh, about Rp. 4 million poorer. BUT!! It's 4 million well-spent, I assure you...!! What are the chances that you get to see your fave international artist live in concert, especially when that artist have never had the history of performing live in your country before? Sigh. Siiigh. Siiiiiiigh. And when I return to Indonesia, I guess she would held a concert in Texas, eh? I'm telling you, such elusiveness is killing me ever so softly.

Ah well. For closing, I'll just put up a list of games that I'm dying to play right now...
- Loom: yes, THAT 1990 Lucasarts' Loom. I've been reading that the soundtrack to this game is incredible. Considering I played it without sound like, 10 years ago (gasp!) just makes me more intrigued. Actually, I have the game in my laptop right now, but it's still soundless. Hmm... I'll have to find a way to make this work. Oh btw, this game's story has got to be one of the most breathtaking and epic of all games that I've ever played in my life. Hmm (#2)... maybe it's time I put this up in my hall-of-fame list.
- Fatal Frame IV: this one's self-explanatory, considering I made a post on this a couple posts back. It's not out yet, so let's wait until then, shall we?
- Virtua Fighter 5: the game that brought tears to my eyes when I saw its vids in Youtube. My favorite fighting game series. EVER.
- Tekken 6: don't laugh. Oh alright, it's not VF5, but it's still makes for a nice, short, mindless diversion. Yes, I know it's not out yet, so smoke it, people.

What? The Odin Sphere post? I completely forgot about that. Well, here's a preview: it's trash (weeell... almost).

Persona 3.

My poor wee neglected child! Oh, my blog! I've ignored you for 2+ months... because I have nothing profound to say and my internet contract died at the start of December. But have no fear! I'm with you now. And what better way to liven up your barren life of recording my endless gripes and complaints on life than notching up yet another pointless gripe and complain!! My beloved, unconditional-love-ing blog. It's 10:47 PM. You know when I update you that means I have an assignment in less than 24 hour to turn in, and that I haven't finished it, and in a lame excuse to procrastinate, I've decided to turn to you and puked my insides into your lap, and then ignore you again until the next assignment comes! You are truly wonderful, child, but really, I wish you could talk back...

And that's how bored my life is. Curhat to a free-hosted, self-made blog that doesn't talk back, converse, care, or a give the slightest hint of saying, "uh-huh, that's nice" in the most bored, jaded way that was as least humanly possible to your life's problems. Boy, do I have problems!

Let's get to what the title of my blog is about. It's a JRPG. Japanese Role-Playing Game. A PS2 videogame that got the honor of being my time-filler for my winter holiday last month. Now, if you're not interested already with the subject matter, let me remind you that you can at any time press that ever-waiting red X in the corner of your browser to close this window. The game, Persona 3, was my first entry into the series, which had quite a long-run before and is one of the spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei series. This game just got the "RPG of the year" award from Gamespot, owing to it's unique gameplay which was a combination of pseudo-The Sims and traditional Japanese RPG. And because of its great, "intense" story from start to finish.

To some extent, I agree this is a good game. It's certainly very unique and fresh in terms of gameplay. Despite giving you countless areas to explore, the game give you very small areas for exploration. What areas you can explore at the beginning of the game are what you get until the endgame. But it gave you tons of things to do, mainly, socializing (shudders). To power up your character you need to make friends, which in turn allows you to strengthen your personas (basically summoned monsters). But that's about it for me. I don't see what makes alot of people say that the story is really good. I mean, it's about... oh wait. Better put this up first:

****WARNING!! WARNING!! SPOILERS BEGIN HERE!!****

Okay, to make a long story short, the story in this game is very, very anime/manga/JRPG cliche. I've played JRPG, read manga and watch anime quite enough to identify cliches when I see one. You have a group of people trying to stop the world from destruction. Check. You have pansy villains who think that the world can be saved by annihilating everything and make a fresh start. Check. You have villains who seemed really evil but turn out to have their own boo-hoo-sob-oh-so-sad-and-tragic story. Check. You have the too-cool-for-you, calm, quiet protagonist. The clownish, blundering guy. The cute, popular girl. The genius, mature, French-speaking, calm, too-cool-for-you-dude-so-forget-about-her chick. The cool, popular senpai guy who's all the rage among the girls at school. The shy, timid, socially awkward, smart petite girl. The elementary-school kid who act so cool and mature but screams "EMO" (as in, alaaah, itu looh, lagu2 rock yg sok nge-rock tapi liriknya cengeng semua!). The mature, yet-another-too-cool-for-you, talks-a-little, wise guy with tormented past and have "EMO" written all over his face. The seemingly soul-less automaton who ponders the meaning of life and finds it. Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check. All the stereotype stock characters in the JRPG book is there, along with all the cliches and twists you can find in other JRPG of its ilk. Its no surprise then that I was not surprised (heh) at all when the story reveals its supposedly nasty/shocking denouement. In fact, I was sorely disappointed. I expected something much more fresh and different.

As for the characters, I don't feel I really connect with them at all. The second emo guy I mentioned joined your party eventually, for like, oh, 2% of the total game time. And then he was dead. Shot by the baddie. And before he croaked he suddenly turned Yoda and spouted wise nonsense to the emo kid, saying yet more cliche lines like, "Don't throw your life away! You're still young! You got your whole life ahead of you!" Oh, that's it! Why do this type of character always yap their trap a hell lot more when they're within seconds of dying compared to when they're alive? He's been an emo guy all throughout the game and he suddenly got the license to lecture other people on how to live life when he died? Oh please. What surprised me even more was the other characters' reactions. They suddenly went all teary-eyed then sit together and start reminiscing on how nice and wise the emo guy (RIP) was. How come? These people have only known him for like, a couple of days and he suddenly became the martyr of the entire group? At one point, one of the character even said something like, "Let's do our best! I bet our late emo friend is watching us from heaven!"

Where's a spittoon when I need one?

And then there's a dog who joins your party. The most useless, plot-significant-less character have never been conceived. Aside from one cutscene and fighting in battles, this dog didn't serve any purpose in the story at all. Why is he even in the game completely mystifies me. He's so insignificant that I'm going to stop talking about him now.

For the "disturbing" factor, on a scale from 1-10, I'd give this game, oooh... a 3. This game is VERY tame in terms of violence and gore. There's nothing disturbing about the story or images in the game (mayhaps, because I'm already a disturbed person?). And I was disappointed with the one catch that hooked me into buying the game in the first place: shooting yourself in the head to summon your persona. It turns out you're not using a real gun at all, but a device which likeness and activation method is similar to a gun. It's just what it is: a gimmick. An interesting gimmick, but a gimmick nonetheless. It's just the game's fancy way of having the character wave his/her hand to cast a spell. So what this means is that, everytime you want to use special skills or magic, you need to shoot your head again. And again. And again. And again. Eventually, overuse leads to this method losing it's intensity on me and I just sort of became jaded towards it. I was expecting something more spectacular, like... oh, I don't know! I was expecting they were using a real gun and went through some gruesome transformations into a monster. But in the end, I still think it's pretty cool though. Watching the main character's head recoiling backwards after shooting himself in the head looks pretty convincing and cool-looking. Now, let me digress for a moment to contemplate why I like this shoot-yourself-in-the-head business... Am I attracted to imageries that give notions of suicide and self-destruction...? Whoa, now THAT's disturbing!

****SPOILERS END HERE!! GET BACK TO YOUR LIFE, PEOPLE!!****

Final thoughts: Persona 3 is my first entry into the series. While partly I'm disappointed with the game being not as fresh as I had hoped, its certainly different and unique gameplay interest me enough to check out the other games (later), and give me, no matter how slight, hope that JRPG is not really dead. It's in serious decline nowadays. There's too much safe approach and not enough innovation. The only thing that distinguish one JRPG from the other is its combat system. Everything else is just make believe.

(gasp!)

I just found out the topic for my next post! It's about another PS2 game I recently beat. It's called... Odin Sphere. Ohhho just you see!

I can't wait for the next assignment to come...!!