trisected

Tag: memories

  • A Bit of Gaming History : Humble Bundle

    Since I’ve been gaming a bit more these days, I’ll share a little about how gaming used to be years ago. I’ve been quite inspired by a gaming podcast, and I think it’ll be fun to share what I used to do.

    I was a broke kid, like every other broke kid out there. We’ve all gone through that time period when we were relying on our parents for cash and allowance, and then came the days when we were earning something of our own. As crazy as that sounds, we would then buy games with the little income we had, and starve for a good period of time. Or at least, I did that a lot.

    There was a point where I was trying to get the most amount of games for the best pricing. I mean why else would we try to buy games, if not to play them one day, if any day at all.

    I was also adamant that if I could afford games, I should be able to buy as original as possible, but with the biggest sale price. This meant that Steam Summer sales were really all the rage. It was quite fun because Steam would give you points and you could win a little bit of cash for clearing games and getting trophies or card packs.

    Then came along this amazing thing called Humble Bundle. The current Humble Bundle looks very different from what I was used to. It was a service that collated a bunch of games, and sold them to you at a bulk price. It was like maybe 5 games and it would be 5 bucks at minimum. Soon after that it was bundles of about maybe 20 games, and the game collection just kept on growing.

    I think one of the most fun parts of humble bundle was that it soon included comics and books, and I ended up reading a bunch of comics through that bundled means too.

    Eventually, it became a lot bigger, and the bundles were more expensive. Then they sold games at slightly cheaper prices to Steam itself, and I decided that I didn’t really need to hitch on Humble Bundle anymore. Also my steam library was way too big by then.

    I really enjoyed this process of getting games as well, because it was kinda curated for you. Some of my favourite podcasts were dying away slowly, the 1UP show and other older gaming podcasts, and I needed a fun way to find out new games that might pique my interest. It was good.

    Now, I feel old because there are just so many gaming studios, and so many types of games. It’s huge, and its great, but it’s too much for a person like me. I love indie games as much as I love big name triple A games, and it was nice to get an assortment that seemed dependable at that time.

  • A return to Jalan Minyak for a minute

    Today we ran around a bit; I had forgotten to update my residential address, and ended up having to go to Jalan Minyak once again to do my voting. I saw my ex-neighbour’s son, the neighbours were in the hospital, because Uncle had some medical issues.

    Going back to Jalan Minyak, it really hit me how much I missed this area and the joys of living in a smaller place, with less luxury. We had no air con, no heated water, namely because it just didn’t make sense to install the things with the idea that we were moving soon. But still it gave some reference to how the rest of our neighbours lived. At least we had space, which was also another luxury. Less space than what we have now, but still more space the people around us.

    It sounds horrible, and it doesn’t make sense why I would miss any of it, but it was a quite a uniting thought to know that the people next to you weren’t in the best state and everyone was just trying to get by. It’s quite something when humans live through tough times together, due to whatever circumstances we’ve been put through. I don’t have that same uniting point with my neighbours currently. It doesn’t feel like we’re in hardship, other than just being absolutely far from the city center. We are united in that, and yet, no one talks on the train or the bus on the way to work.

    But I remember the strolls from the supermarket back home with the aunties in the evening. I’d have my hands full of food for the dinner soon to be made, and the aunties also with their trolleys. I’d offer to help carry, but they would just shoo me away, and ask me to just walk with them and to let them carry it. We would walk up the hill step by step, and talk about life, talk about the next few days, maybe share tips about what we would cook for dinner and why.

    I don’t have that here, maybe not yet.

    Today’s consumption: Playing tons of Nier Automata, but also a lot of talking with parents. F1 weekend too, so that’s what’s going on in the background, along with the presidential election sample count.

  • The Death of Book Depository

    I still remember the season of Borders at Wheelock.

    Borders was a physical bookstore at the corner of Orchard Road, part of an American franchise of bookstores. It was a place where you could get music, books, movies. I had spent years there, browsing through design books, and fiction, and listening to so much music.

    But Borders closed down in 2011. I remember being pretty sad about it but not very sad, because I had already faced some breakups with my bookshops before already. MPH at Stamford Road was a place I had spent a lot of my childhood growing up, and during that time, Tower Records and Tower Books was still around. The bookstores of the past was really what led me to appreciate music, art, and stories the way I have in modern day.

    In the past four to five years, Kinokuniya also closed some of their outlets in Singapore, and now we’re left with the main store at Takashimaya, and their outlet in Bugis as well. I remember literally crying when they had closed their Liang Court outlet, before Liang Court closed down within the next year. It was really a place where I spent years doing magazine collections, and just browsing and learning more about the world around me, because of the publications next to each other.

    And now, Book Depository, an online store closes.

    The move to start buying books online came out of a necessity. It was hard to find some books, or perhaps the different editions that I would find in store would be marked up significantly. I bought a lot of Book Depository books especially when I was at work, during my busy periods. I would come home to my own surprise when the book would arrive, usually three to four weeks later. With every package sent, they would usually send a bookmark as well, and soon I had a thick stack of Book Depository bookmarks in my room somewhere.

    It’s quite something to go through, losing these places that gave me access to much more of the world around. It was my window to the world, beyond the searches that the Internet gives. I was quite happy to actually bump into other people at the book stores, and to hear other recommendation from the different staff, from the different people onsite.

    Digital books have literally no place in my heart. There is no physical element, there is no paper. It is literally just the story. Every entertainer, anyone doing a presentation knows that the way that a story is received changes everything. From the way a music artist cuts an album on vinyl (which part of the album splits into the half), or the movie directors choosing to shoot with film instead of adding grain to 5K cinema quality, each of the creative decisions in the actual medium plays a huge part to the receiving of the content.

    Sure, anyone can also play forward the idea that the story is the most important. But who would want to just listen to an objective telling of a story? A man loses something he really needs, struggles ensue, but he finds it, and it’s great. That’s the premise for most movies, and yet, each one is told differently. The choice of how it is told includes the way it’s told. Is it told loudly, is it told with dramatic pauses, and all the other storytelling cues?

    Books tell that story in that way for me. The choice of the cover design, the way the fonts and the paper comes together, whether publisher, or designer, or the writer made a choice for it, it was a choice and it added to my own reading experience. Even the difference between hardcover and softcover add such a huge difference for me, and I am happy to collect multiple copies of the books that I enjoy. Re-reading would lead to such a different experience, especially if re-read with a new edition, with updated authors notes.

    I will miss Book Depository. I thought of getting myself a Kindle, but I think my heart just aches for the shrinking market of the printed book. I hope one day, maybe I would publish my own, just to keep this hobby of mine going. Maybe that would be my own founder problem.

  • Updates Incoming!

    It’s been some time since writing something here. I have many things on my mind, but I haven’t really been able to put it together just yet. Also, I’m in the middle of my last few weeks of my current job, so I’m really just thinking through a range of things. Thankfully, I don’t find my identity tied to my occupations that much, but its still separating that I’m learning how to deal with better, much like my last post.

    But just to keep things exciting a bit, here’s a piece of music from my own history:

    Remembering my own youth, sitting on my grand pa’s bed, listening to this on his stereo.

  • Reliving Memories

    Today was a fun day out, Clarice went for spin and I went to do my daily readings in the morning. I’m on a 9 month long bible reading course, that I’m leading in my church. It’s pretty fun, it’s my fifth time doing it, and I do enjoy reading through it.

    When we got back, I went through a bunch of my army things, and it was really running through memory lane. There were a lot of things that I had kept in my army notebooks that I had forgotten. I had even written down podcast ideas from way back when just to get things going at that time. Great reminder for me to start chopping up the current recordings that Clarice and I have done.

    Anyway, we spent the day watching a really old episode of Infinity Challenge, where GD, Taeyang, IU, Zion T, Hyukoh were all in on the same episode. I really loved that season, because it was really fun to listen to all the new bands, and to hear their songs. I really enjoyed it then, and I really liked it again today rewatching it with Clarice.

    It’s nice when we make new memories together. It’s a fun process of remaking new things. We did this for Harry Potter too, and I watched through all of it with Clarice over a period of a few weeks. I guess I should definitely cover the books some time soon too.

    Nice simple day, and a lot of fun.

  • Moments of Sadness

    Today was a pretty good day. It was nice and rainy, Clarice and I went for a nice lunch and then a nice dinner. We even got to take a nice nap in the afternoon and we chilled out watching Filthy Frank and Joji evolutions heh.

    But somewhat suddenly, I saw a picture of someone who looked like an uncle I had, that passed away suddenly last year. I saw the picture and I was thinking through when the next time I might see him. And then I remembered that he passed.

    He was a nice guy, very smiley around me. Whenever we had caught up at the different family reunions, he would say hi. He was roundish, not slim, and had a certain look in his eye. It felt like he always was thinking about something, but would always offer you the time if you said hi.

    I didn’t have too much time with him, but it was sad to think that I won’t be able to catch up with him ever again. Or at least not in this lifetime.

    That sadness really hit, like accidentally poking my finger with a staple sticking out of a stack of paper. My heart felt that prick, and it hurt for that bit, to remember the loss.

    It didn’t spoil the day in any way. But it just hurt a little. That prick of sadness.

    Take care Uncle Kevin. I hope you’re having a chill time with God.

  • Revisiting Memories

    Just watched The Matrix today with Clarice. It was really quite interesting to rewatch many of the sequences that I had remembered as a child. And to pair them with scenes from Matrix Resurrections, it was really something I didn’t expect to recall in specific ways.

    The Matrix does hold a special place in my heart, because of its philosophical aspects of it. More than that, I think it was a uber cool mix of computer hacking things, heavy metal music, along with super cool fight scenes.

    I really wonder what type of a child I was when I was growing up, to be so into a movie like that. Not the regular Star Wars (I was into Star Wars, but a lot more into the Matrix), and not the regular fantasy of Harry Potter, but into this cyberpunk world of fight scenes, bullet time, and all those types of things.

    Bigger ideas of the Animatrix, and the expanded universe of the Matrix franchise are really things that I enjoyed thinking about, watching, enjoying. These were really hobbies, thoughts and fascinations that I carried with me into adulthood. It framed a lot of how I saw and viewed the world, and I really enjoyed it.

    I’m thinking of my own narratives, on how the world works, and what I think I should tell to the generations after that. I really hope that I would be able to leave something behind for the rest of the world to watch, and to relate to somehow.

  • Sunday Funday / Simple Sunday

    Having a good meal on Sunday is something I really enjoy. I think I’ve had them growing up, and its become somewhat of a reminder of what Sundays are for me.

    When I was younger, it was Spaghetti’s at Tanglin Mall that really made the day for me. It was a family lunch, and I would have a Fettuccine Carbonara, and finish the extremely creamy meal with Tiramisu. This gave way for a quick visit to the toilet, because of my lactose intolerance, but it was so worth it.

    When I got older a bit more, it would be a meal with my church mates after Sunday School. We ate a heavily seasoned QQ noodle, most of the time adding extra noodles. It was a minced meat noodle with a lot of flavor.

    While serving my National Service, the Sunday meals would be based on the time I had out of camp. Most of the time, I would return to camp stuffed with a good meal, mostly meats then.

    Currently, with Clarice, we make things up as we go along. But today in specific, we had a really nice Bak Kut Teh meal at Song Fa. Clarice is Pescatarian, meaning the only meat she eats is fish. So she had a sliced fish meal, and I had the regular pork rib soup. Finished off with a nice aged Pu-Er Cha.

    A good meal to remind me that it’s sunday, and I can rest. For a bit.