A promise to meet by the city.

Rex stood waiting at the corner of the street, bathed in the yellow glow of a streetlamp. The city was in shades of grey, as sunlight shyly retreated from the towers and into the horizon. Tim was late today. He’d usually be trotting down the street now, and they would both exchange the news of the day. He’d always be accompanied by that scruffy animal of his, which clung to him like a creeper to a wall. Late.

So Rex stood watching  tiny spots of light appear across the city facade, its inhabitants preparing for another night in. Milliseconds turned to seconds turned to minutes. He sat upright when he heard a bark from across the street. Elated, he saw Tim making his way toward him, tail wagging. Beside him his unkempt owner held desperately on Tim’s leash, glasses askew and hair stuck to forehead with sweat. Rex stuck his tongue out in excitement, and barked in reply. His tail was wagging furiously.

Eyes of Scrutiny : Mass Effect 3 (Spoilers)

I finished Mass Effect 3 yesterday, and I think Bioware really did a good job ending a trilogy of this size. Most netizens disagree though, but more about the ending later on. First I’ll cast my eyes of scrutiny onto the game play elements.

Like the two before it, ME3 is a RPGFPS hybrid , that is to say, there are equal amounts of talking with heads as there are blasting them off. The ME series has always been a narrative driven one for me, but if you’re the kind that has a bloodlust stronger than a Krogan, you’d be psyched to know Bioware has presented players with 3 game modes : Combat driven, Normal Gameplay and Narrative Driven. Pretty nifty really.

Fighting is similar to ME2, it’s what you do before fighting that’s different. Players must now choose loadouts before going to battle, and the amount of guns you carry will effect the effectiveness of your biotic powers. Carry too much and you’re a lead spewing machine, but your powers take a negative hit to recharge. Take too little and you’d be throwing enemies around but you’re almost useless in a straight up firefight. It’s a brilliant execution on Bioware’s part really. Oh, weapons are very modifiable this time round, with plenty of mods to tailor to your fighting styles. Me, I went for the big guns + crapload of damage mods, because that’s what I am.

Now to my favourite – the narrative. It was amazingly splendid. The game began with the Reaper invasion of Earth, and as Shepard left Earth to appeal for hep from the Council in The Citadel, the game feeds you tiny pockets of information about the rest of the galaxy. The Batarian Hegemony, gone. Palaven under attack. Thessia preparing. Colonies wiped out. Soon you get an idea about the size of the invasion, and how unprepared the galaxy was. The threat of the Reapers is a looming veil of despair, and it shows in the faces of people you talk too. There’s a sense of loss, tension, fear and uncertainty in every conversation. You can feel the weight of the galaxy riding on your shoulders, sacrifices made haunting you wherever you go.

Sacrifice. That’s the one element that pervades throughout this game. Numbers get tossed around , hundreds, thousands, millions, and subsequently billions dead as the Reaper continue on their cleansing of the galaxy. You experience it for yourself, as friends and comrades give their lives up to stop the Reapers. You read about it in the news : Admiral Hackett sacrificing the entire second fleet so the first and third could retreat. You see it happening in Thessia, the Asari homeworld, you hear the despair in Liara’s voice as she watches her home burn.  During the final battle on Earth, soldiers die left right and centre as you charge right up the centre of the battlefield. And like true ME fashion, you’re occasionally forced to make decisions that would result in the death of thousands either way. It’s all a game of choosing the better devil and living with it. I’ve never remembered so many sacrifices and deaths in a game before.

Which brings us to the ending(s). Like the two games before, ME3 presents you with three endings (depends on how much work you put into the game) . Every ending has a good pro, with an equally devastating con. You are asked to decide which is the best compromise.Each one is a bed of roses, full of thorns. I felt that all three had their own incredible way of ending the series. There is no “Perfect Ending”. There is only a final silent cheer to end all the sacrifices made by those who had hope for the future.

How a mind fart looks on paper.

Did this while writing down ideas for a new Panadol ad in my book. The part where my brain starts to fart is my favourite moment in concepting. If you haven’t guessed it, these people are having headaches.

Click the picture to enlarge. Yes, click it. I know you want too. We live in an age where we crave high definition plasma screens and mobile phones with rich vibrant colours that maul our eyes so obey the voice and CLICK IT TO ENLARGEEEEE.

Thank you.

My desk at 10 a.m.

Days of work have amounted to this. I’ve written over 200 headlines, just to pick ONE out of the whole bunch. Because this is a campaign, I’m going to do this two more times.

To put that into perspective, before the deadline on Friday this week I should have written over 600 headlines and whittle them all down to the last 3, which will go into the ads. Even then, there’s no guarantee those three will be good. Worse, I may realise the strategy isn’t working at 2am in the morning, and rework the whole thing again.

What was it they said about copywriters, that all we do is nap all day?

Mr. Horus, why did you go there.

She was sitting at the corner of the café, reading a novel.

He sat at his usual table, placed his notebook down and ordered a latte from a passing waiter. The chair he sat in gave a perfect view of her, even covering the route she’d take when walking to the café door. The notebook was just pretense. He pretended to study it while stealing glances at her. The waiter returned and placed the cup in front of him. He smiled thanks and continued his routine.

————————————-

He had been scouting her for some time. He liked to think of it as scouting, not stalking. It was a rainy evening a fortnight ago when he walked into this café and found her tucked comfortably in his usual spot the nice table at the corner of the café. It was a good perch, as it had a full view of the room and was furthest from the annoyingly bright hanging lamps favoured by the establishment.

Her jacket was a bright blue, which clashed magnificently with the red painted walls of the café. The sight irritated him. She was reading the same blasted novel authored by an Ernest Hemingway, whoever that was. He was just about to stride over and give her a telling off, when she lifted up her head and their eyes met for a second. Inside of him, an ancient spark, a distant memory reignited. He hesitated, changed course and sat down at the same very table he is in today.

He felt no emotional connection, just a constant nagging feeling that they met before. In a dream, a crowded bus, over the poker table at Johnson’s bar maybe? The question had gnawed his mind over the weeks, choosing to reside in his subconscious and jumping him when he least expected it. He had had enough. Today he was going to discover the truth. He gulped down his coffee, got up and walked over.

————————————-

She put her book down and smiled at him. “Hello Horus. You finally found the courage to talk to me”, her eyes studying him as he sat down. By mentioning his name, she has brought the game against him. Clearly the events put him at a disadvantage, a position he disliked being in.

“How do you know my name?” he asked.

“Mine is a sharp memory, Horus.”

“Are we acquainted … Miss?” She nodded slowly at him. “Your name, Miss ?” he questioned, when she didn’t venture her name forward.

“Anne Marie. You really don’t remember…” her eyes showed a lack of surprise.

“I know as many Anne’s as Marie’s in my life, Miss. I need something better to go on. Perhaps name an acquaintance of ours?” He sensed a bad feeling growing inside, but he wanted the truth to silence his bothered mind.

She thought quietly for awhile. The bell in the front door chimed as another patron walked in. Finally she answered “It was a cool spring day, and we were both young and not yet bothered by the world. Ours was a short meeting, but you fell for me. You presented your feelings, yet I was not ready.” She paused. “ I pushed you into the pond and ran away.”

Horus sat back. The memory he had tried hard to keep buried had came back to him. A fool he was, he had unwittingly unearthed the memory of his first love, and subsequent first rejection. “Thank you, Anne Marie. You have settled my mind’s troubles. Live well.”  He got up to leave.

Although his mind was now free of bondage, yet a distressing feeling still held firm inside. He searched his feelings, and smiled when he finally realized what it was.

He walked over to the counter and asked for a full bowl of water. He then made his way back to Anne Marie.

Much, you have gone through.

A common phrase I hear a lot from people goes like this : ” I’ve spent X years pursuing this dream/dating her/studying for this and now I felt it was all useless, all that time was wasted.”

And then I think to myself, “No it wasn’t, you went through something big, something life changing.”

I know that the thought does seem ridiculously obvious. But the thing is, when you’re going through a tough time it’s easy to just see it as a period of suffering and unfairness. That you probably didn’t deserve it because of all the time and effort you put in. All of it wasted, just because there’s no fruit to pluck and no rewards to reap.

It takes years of maturity and reflection to see it as a period of learning and growth. Until a person realizes that the world doesn’t owe them anything, that personal growth and personal success isn’t always the same thing will they be able to appreciate the years that have been “wasted” on no one but themselves. When they’ve looked past denial they’ll realize that those were probably the best years of their lives. More years indeed, will pass before they get to this point.

But I don’t say any of this to them. All I do is give them a pat in the back and say ” In time, you’ll see…you’ll see.”

One.

When I was young, my family and I would sometimes go to the mall on weekends. I remember staring transfixed at toys on display, and one would always catch my attention. I would mercilessly harp my dad to get it for me, and then hug it all the way home.

Opening a new toy was a special occasion. My tiny eyes would widen and my breath would get caught up as I struggled to rip the package open while my parents watched in amusement. When I finally got it out, I would hold it with some amount of veneration, like a mother holding her child or a millionaire holding his first million or like NASA holding on to an alien spacecraft … whatever.

Months later it would lie aside, sadly neglected. Toy Story this is not.

The point is, this is my fifth blog or so. After struggling with stupid registrations (much like tearing packaging apart) and while writing this, I can only hope it would last longer then the blogs before. Perhaps this would be the final blog I would write, perhaps I would pen more in the future.

A dear friend suggested I start this blog because I’ve explained I had problems with my writing. Good practice, and all that. Perhaps it might even be therapeutic.

Whatever it may be, this is a toast to a new blog. “May the words on it’s pages outlive even the Mayan apocalypse”.