It was the December 08 issue, so they had this whole section of people who are – or, in this case 6 months later- shaping the world in their respective fields.

One of the articles was about a computer game designer who creates these simple but adorable 8-bit games that have a whole deep existential flair to them. His game, Passage, was said to be by tech-reviewers as proof that gaming is in itself a type of art comparable to music or literature.

According to the interview, he lives in a hut on a meadow with his family, keeps electricity to a minimum and does his coding in a super old-school dell laptop. Like, super cool, kan?

Intrigued, I checked out the game, read the reviews and had a few rounds.

So basically it’s just this rectangular box on your screen where you have to keep moving on to get to somewhere you don’t know any shit about. The far corners of both ends of the screen is blurry, and only gets clear as you walk onto them. Your character is a super pixelated blue-eyed brown haired character. It’s possible to move up and down, step on some chests to get more points, but basically moving itself gets the number tally on your upper right screen going on.

Thirty seconds in, you will meet a girl with green eyes, and just as pixellated as you are. Walk into her, and a big heart will form and the whole game will go on with her being beside you. Being with her means you can’t walk into certain passages where you could get more points from treasure chests.

As you play on three minutes into the game, you realize your pixel-hairline is receding, and before you realize anything, your wife’s hair is turning white. The environment in the screen turns from yellow to red to blue to purple. Your character starts to bend double.

And then your wife dies and in her place lies a tombstone. You could move around a bit, but you too, stop and have a tombstone in your place.

There are no monsters to kill, no quests to partake on, and nothing to kill you; except inevitable death.

In the three odd trials I had of the game, I tried marriage. I tried being single. Then some other strategy came to mind. Do any of you remember in one of the old Mario games, in the first 10 seconds of the game, if you don’t land or jump on the turtle-shell, then you won’t ever have the chance to go back and do it?

Well I tried that out. I avoided the girl, ran on in the game, collected about 300 points and jumped on every goddamn chest I could get my square little legs on. Then I ran back to the yellow environment to get to her. It worked.

We fell in love, though seconds later we grew old. Our hair turned white, we bent double, and she shortly died thereafter. My points were about 500+.

I was reading the reviews and there was this really sweet comment from some guy who said when his game-wife died he merely left his character beside the tombstone and died beside her. He played the game with his real-life wife nearby and couldn’t bear to think about leaving the tombstone.

So Passage tells us that it’s possible to go and run after ‘having it all’, to go back and fall in love. That it’s possible to get great points by chasing treasure chests alone, but that 4 minutes in, it just gets boring and pointless.

That at the end of our five minutes, we will all have to die.

That it actually feels better to die knowing you have loved and lost.

Than die alone with nothing but 700 points you will lose anyway.

And yeah, before you have to ask me about the cryptic past posts, and the new Facebook updates in between, I did meet someone with slit brown eyes. We jumped on treasure chests and hid behind library shelves. But our five minutes was up. And we let go.

Passage by Jason Rohrer is available here. His personal page can be found here.

If you are wondering about what I’ve been doing for the past week, or if you were waiting for a disastrously hilarious and amusing post about all the interesting things I’ve come across this week, then you’d be quite disappointed to know that my week had consisted of two main activities.

Reading the weekend paper. And eating.

Well not really. I did go to the gym on tuesday, watch four dvds, go out with my sister’s boyfriend to buy him a laptop, go out for dim sum, walk around Soho, perform experimental cooking and experimental tempera paint making (it’s a long story), and erh, as I have a crappy hazy memory on holidays, nothing much.

Right at this moment, I am also watching Top Gear (yes, very much a Lad show) but I am also thinking about Simone de Beauvoir’s The Mandarins (very much a feminist that woman). I am thinking about a part in the story where Henri, a journalist who owns a newspaper called L’Espoir, and how he at first wants to keep a neutral front on the paper. Meaning how he didn’t want to have any political preference, which was quite the thing for papers at that time, (as much as it is a preference now) as the book is set in war-time Paris.

Now this came out of random really, as I was reading the papers and wondered why my siblings prefered The Times to The Guardian. I usually buy The Guardian, but it has come to my realisation that my family does buy more of The Times, when they can actually be arsed to buy the paper. I remember asking my brother about this a few weeks ago on which political front The Times represents, and he probably answered something that didn’t really etch into my memory, something something centre, (wouldn’t be different if he said front-back-left-right-centre).

Truth is, I can’t find it out myself, as I’m hardly overseas long enough to observe the paper and the local news here, and also because my father is against me wanting to get a subscription to the New Scientist, let alone The Sunday Times. And well anyway, back to the point, it made me realise the fact that when in most countries, even when there are no impending wars or big political ongoings, papers always take sides, may it be left, right, or neutral, subtly but still something there; yet the papers in Malaysia however, blatantly sound the same.

I remember the time when the whole Mahathir/Anwar case was going on and how The Sun (pre-it’s reincarnation into an advertisement infested circular) were anti-Mahathir and therefore did some things unsatisfactory to said politician. Most of the reporters in The Sun were then fired and well, it went completely down hill until it’s new revamp into the circular it is now. Its rise from its fall was admirable, but I can’t help but feel sorry for the insatisfactory being of a paper it is now, a polarised difference from the adamant, passionate free speech reporting it once had. So yeah, that’s meddling with politics for you.

I like the newspapers here, regardless of publisher. Though I must admit, maybe the Guardian’s new layout has made me more attracted to it, but unlike the notion my brother accuses me of; I’M NOT ATTRACTED TO THE SIZE. Having a tabloid size isn’t really a problem to me but the reporting. Though I must admit, The New Straits Times looks like a tabloid now, with it’s size, it’s new logo, AND it’s reporting. So maybe the layout does play a part on how you look at it. Hell yeah.

Another observation with the “DO-NOT-MESS-WITH-POLITICIANS” rule is one I was reading about these entrepeuners in Russia and how when they start to mess with Vladimir Putin they end up in jail or getting exiled. Which is funny. In a sad way.

Now, you may have realised that the title of my post wasn’t refering to stir fried newspapers and a russian politician all at one time as a dish, but more like a train of thought I have right now. The only missing part is the Fry, which is another thing on my mind right now, Stephen Fry. I was watching his movie Bright Young Things the other day and the thought that came to mind was “this movie is awesome.”. After watching the extra features: “this director is awesome”. Why this guy crossed my mind again is because I was just looking around Borders on Friday and I realised a row of books written by him.

I was tempted, believe me, but for that price I would rather buy something I wouldn’t get at home and a hardcover for the price difference. But I didn’t buy a book in the end. Because I bought a Jeff Noon book at Waterstone’s about half an hour before knowing we were going to Borders. But for one thing I know I can’t get that Jeff Noon book in Malaysia.

Then I went to Borders again on Saturday, as this time George wanted to get himself a book (he got Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World as recomended by yours truly), and we were passing by the Gabriel Marquez section which is beside Stephen Fry section and he noticed this book I didn’t really give much thought to until he pointed it out. Moab is My Washpot is the title. I read a bit of it, and it’s good. But it’s an autobiography and I wanted something more substantial. And light. I’m going home on Economy Class with only 20kgs.

So I got Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. And it’s a nice novel and all. But I am STILL tempted to get Moab is my Washpot. But I’m scared I’ll go over the 20kg limit.

Then I realised why his name is so familiar, as I remember watching him get an honorable degree from my brother’s alma matter when attending my brother’s graduation last July. And the fact that he has a show on tv called QI. And that he’s actually more influential around here than I thought.

The book? I’m tempted.