Is it wort it?

“Worth what?” I need context.

The phrase ‘it’s worth it’ seems to have taken over conversations, eclipsing other words which would have granted better clarity of meaning. Thus, my reflexes —”is it worth what?! D@#& it, explain!”— and, apparently, my rising temper.

It’s about a ‘Final Fantasy VII: Remake’ dilemma. The fact that I’ve been contemplating its worth somehow causes unease, brings embarrassment, and sets anger in me.

“Is it worth the mental exhaustion of playing 16 hours a day in isolation?” Even though we are already in a quarantine-like mode here.

“Is it worth spending US$300-ish just to be able to play a US$60 game?” Moreover, I’d need a decent pair of wireless headphones and a bigger TV screen. Oh, “and snacks.”

Lebaran sales be d@#&*>?! They say, keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your money closest! Hah! In the end, “no, it’s not.” It’s neither worth buying nor worth getting all worked up.

 

Of course, this would have been a different story had it been for a ‘Xenogears’ remake.

Hear! Hear!

“We are not family! Let’s get paid properly!”

The motto of a fictional IT startup

Are You Game?

One, currently reading Mr Bown’s book “The Playstation Dreamworld”, comes across his essay:

Games are ideological constructions which push a set of values on the user. Like television and film, they often support the ideologies of their context: in the Bush years, American games endorsed aggressive foreign policy; since Brexit, British games advocate isolationism or nostalgia for empire – and the prominence of anti-Islam games in the 2000s tells it all. Alfie Brown, “How video games are fuelling the rise of the far right”

This brings back memories of many grim post-apocalyptic video games one had played once upon a time. How one has been influenced by those games, one still needs to reflect. One thing one noted is that one had come out of those games feeling relieved that “it’s just a game!” But now, watching the real world plays out, those scenarios aren’t so far-fetched after all…

Learning Should Be Fun

These days, I would look at who makes that statement.

He’s an app developer promoting his ‘educational’ app aimed at children (or the children’s parents so they would let their children play with said app). “Oh, well. He needs to sell his products,” I’d say.

He’s a kindergartener. Fine, then. He is in that phase in which having fun playing is his primary learning method.

He’s a freshman and I’d scream, “MY. LEFT. FOOT!!! What are you! A kindergartener?”

 

Since when is learning required to be fun? It can be. But should it always?

Learning how to say goodbye is never fun…

randomise()

18 and 23

18 Gigabytes download in 23 minutes…

Am I in heaven? Or did somebody at my ISP misquote my bandwidth quota? Or… did magic work? More likely, fewer people hog the internet connection at this time of day or night. But I won’t tell when-and-how, lest people try to capitalise on my finding. Huh!

 

63 and 78

The main tablet is giving me weird battery reading these days. On charging, it jumps from 63% to 8X% and then steadily goes up to 100%. Afterwards, it drops to the point where it prompts for charging in less than three hours on heavy use, ie. youtube-ing while messaging or web browsing using the multi-window feature, and podcast playing at the same time.

The weirdest is getting an extended hour of battery power when the battery is at 78%. I found out by accident when I had to unplug the tablet from the charger while the battery was at 78%. Yet I got almost four hours for similar use. This happens a number of times that I’d like to think this is a “pattern” although getting the battery to 78%, considering the jumping numbers, has been quite tricky.

I know there are plausible explanations for the extended hour on 78%. The news apps and other apps, which often give rigorous notifications, may have gone to sleep or laid low. The tablet’s memory space may have been temporarily at larger capacity and thus allowed a better memory management. Et cetera.

The most likely and simplest explanation is that the tablet’s battery is deteriorating. It charges and loses power way faster than before. I am sad because the tablet has been with me through thick and thin. I am also elated for this may give a valid reason to indulge with a new tablet. Since a voice inside my head keeps nagging, “just get a new battery,” I’ll probably do just that.

 

2 and 10

“I will need to learn and practice,” I said as I raised two fingers when a young cousin asked if I could play a five minute piano cover of an anime opening theme. The cover, almost Lisztian in nature, employs techniques that require muscles I have yet to develop.

“Two days? Two weeks?”

I shook my head. “Two years,” and that was me being overly optimistic, “with at least ten hours of practice every day.”

She sighed in resignation.

And I? I finally managed to do the first one minute without “hiccup” after six months yet at much slower tempo than it should be. Then I sprained my wrist. *sigh…*