Yee ‘O Lost Souls

Today I had the honor of carrying the gifts for an engagement ceremony. The guy’s mother has been my mom’s tailor for over twenty years and the tailor asked that we follow their entourage. I felt kinda weird. I mean, doesn’t she have any young relatives of her own? We’re not even related. I don’t even know her engaged son.

But I went anyway. With my sisters. Truth be told, this wasn’t the first time I join an engagement entourage. The first time was pretty impromtu. My neighbour’s youngest son was getting engaged and it was just a small, night ceremony at their house so only their very close relatives and us were invited.

You see, these ceremonies go like this: First, both the bride and groom to-be’s families give gifts to each side. They will agree on how many ‘trays’ (small round trays. you know what I mean!) usually around ten to twenty. Depends. Since I was on the groom’s side, there was one tray of ’sirih junjung’ or something/ You know those sirih leaves old people like to chew on and they turn red? Yeah, those. They make like a tall monument of those leaves and it hardly fit in the car that night. Anyway, in addition to the leaves, was a tray of the engagement contract, some money kinda like a brideprice, but just for engagement, and the engagement ring.

When you’re in an entourage, the ring and the leaves go first and the others follow behind them.

So the groom’s family, excluding the groom, will go to the bride’s house where they will be waiting with their own set of gifts for the groom. So we got there, put down our stuff and wait for the old people to read the contract and the groom’s mother or grandmother will insert the ring onto the bride’s ring finger. Then we take the groom’s set of trays and go back home.

Done.

Of course, there was plenty of food to be had in between. But that’s basically how things are.

Today was the second time I did it and there were more trays than the carriers. Everything was fine when we got there, but on the way back, there were STILL more trays than the carriers!

So we had to stuff some at the back of our car. It’s a Lexus so it has a big behind. But I was concerned that they trays’ sharp edges would damage the car so I suggest removing the gifts from the tray and lay the tray upside down with its leg on its head for steadiness’ sake.

And you know what those old people say? I shouldn’t because I would disecrate the engagement.

They went on to say there’s a lot of ‘pantang’ going on in a ceremony such as this. To save me from more blabbering, I relented and put the stuff back in order, but told my sis to drive carefully.

To my agony, it didn’t stop there.

Imagine, for the next fifteen minutes or so the old ladies hitching a ride in our car went on to talk about how some couple’s ’sirih junjung’ topple over during the engagement and after a while, their engagement was broken. They didn’t say why. And how someone dropped the ring from the tray and the groom later died.

And all that crap.

I mean really! Would YOU believe in such a thing??

Get this: While on the way to the groom’s house this morning as we left home, my sis pointed out house of her friend and her ex-fiance. Even though they were engaged, they didn’t buy the houses to be together. They just happen to buy houses in the same neighbourhood.

My sis said they are no longer engaged and that the guy was a childish idiot. He suddenly SMS’d the girl one day saying he’s breaking their engagement because she was fat!

Your mind might immediately wonder if their sirih junjung topple over on their engagement ceremony!

The girl was a doctor. Or at least, learning towards becoming one and it was the guy’s kid bro who talked him out of the engagement.

If you ask me, if say, my sirih junjung fell on my engagement day and my fiance believes it to be a sign that our marriage will not come or something along that line, trust me, I will dump him then and there. Then he’ll see that our marriage won’t ever come because of his own idiocy. Not that I’m asking for it, but you know.

Seriously. Would you marry a guy like that?

Human relationships are not as simple as ‘if your sirih junjung or your trays are all in order during your engagement day, then your marriage will be fine’. Its just those superstitious old people. Believe them if you want, but I prefer to be more practical in these things. Marriage is something you work out on. Not what other people want you to believe.

Heh! Even if I had left those trays upside down in the car, is it my fault then if the guy happens to fall for another girl during the course of their engagement??

Then all those old people would be pointing their fingers at me "Its because you turned the tray upside down that the groom is going out with another woman!!"

I have desecrated the holy ceremony. Forgive me and my tray. The groom need not worry about explaining it to his fiance. He just have to explain it to the fat end of his mother’s baseball bat.

Man. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous this seems. Anybody has any thoughts about this? I would love to hear from you guys.

Ta’ra.

It was just one of those routine stops to Kinokuniya during one of my trips to KL. I think it was somewhere in 2005 or something. I was just checking out anything new from Artemis Fowl or Darren Shan and anything good to read and suddenly…there was ERAGON!

That book sticks out like a sore thumb. Literally. With its thick hardback with the picture of a blue dragon in front. I thought ‘hmmm…another dragon fantasy. Interesting.’ Since I was bored and didn’t have much new books to read, I bought it. Besides, it was listed as ‘New York Times Bestseller’.

It was good enough for someone bored like me.

Man was I in for a surprised. The story was cliche, the characters were inconsistent, and many elements of the books were plagiariased from Lord of the Rings and other similar titles. HOW THE HELL DID IT GET ON THE BESTSELLER LIST!?!? ARE THESE PEOPLE BLIND!?

And to add insult to injury, the author was 15 at the time of creation. Although he was 19 when the book went to publishing.

And now there’s a MOVIE!?

I was starting to think this Paolini guy has some connection to the VERY BIG GUYS on top. Somewhere. Maybe in the publishing world.

Either way, since there’s no use ranting over something that has already happened, I’ll just express my views on the movie anyway since I already watched it. Again, because I was bored.

Eragon was probably the only spin-off movie from a book that I was hoping would get a lot of scenes and stuff shaved off. Like Eragon’s inconsistencies, their long and winding travels, all his weird actions and worshipping going on in the Varden’s mountains.

Unlike the Harry Potter series and the LOTR trilogy. If possible, you want EVERYTHING to be included in the movie.

Looking at the book, I kind of pity the scriptwriter, but at the same time applaude him (or her). By the end of it, I was thinking to myself "So Paolini, wished you had written the book at least HALF as good as that huh!?".

Yeah, I was THAT pissed off at the book. Take my advice. If you don’t want to get disappointed, DO NOT READ THE BOOK!

I hope the message gets across clearly.

But I still bought the second book anyway. Yeah I’m a damn hypocrite.

Still, I was hoping Eragon would look more like Murtagh. But who would have guessed he and Roran almost look like twins. Maybe the actors are real life brothers. Didn’t bother to check.

All in all, a good movie. Just…

DON’T READ THE BOOK!

They should have made Artemis Fowl into a movie first. Damn Paolini.

Ta’ra.

A-A-A-A-AOI!!! Aoi made this long update on their site diary and for some reason I am very happy!!

Throughout the start of their tour (currently in Sapporo), Aoi and Kai (drums) have been updating the site most! Reita and Uruha also showed their faces once but Kai and Aoi have been diligently updating waaaah I’m so happy! And Kai is so cute!

Most of the time Aoi would be bringing people up to date about equipment problems and technical stuff like that while Kai would be griping about food and the weather! Hahaha!

Fangirlism can go a long way, yes. But it cannot be helped! I so want their official picture from the site!

And I should give Totchi some Aoi pics too. hehehehe.

I should somehow get my ass to Osaka by the 24th coz that’s the last day of their tour. But we all know its impossible but hey, like  said before, wishful thinking doesn’t hurt right?

Ta’ra!

I’ve been putting in at least 5 to 6 hours of that game per day. Stress on at least. I haven’t been going out except for the occasional dinner out because I wanna spend as much time with Kujong as possible. It sucks when you’re in a rush to finish a game. sighs.

But it’s been proven that I will not be able recruit all 108 characters in the game so not replaying it is no longer an option. Besides, all I’ve gotta do is make sure to purchase all the best equipments and put them in the stock for my new playthrough. That way I get to use all the best armors very early in the game hehehehe.

Unlike the previous Suikodens, Suikoden V was tailored to include all the best features of its predecessor and somehow was meant to be replayed. Sneaky Konami…

Playing Suiko V kinda makes me feel nostalgic towards Suiko IV. Maybe because there are many references of it in Suiko V eventhough these two games are more or less 120 years apart. Still, I can’t even start remembering how many times I replayed that game though. Because the moment the final ending scene finishes, you are instantly prompted to save game. The moment you finish saving, the ‘new game’ opening scene would start and you’ll be obliviously pulled right back into the beginning.

Isn’t that fun?

If I have to place all five suiko games into a timeline, it would be something like this:

Suiko 4 —130 years— Suiko 5 —20 years— Suiko 1 —3 years— Suiko 2 —15 years— Suiko 3

I’m not sure how far exacty is Suiko V and IV because all I know is that Suiko IV and 1 are 150 years apart and in Suiko 2 Georg was 58 years old while in Suiko V George looks like he’s in the late twenties early thirties. So go figure. These returning characters are definitely one of the best parts of the Suikoden series. Suikoden 1, 2 and 3 have the most returning characters while some characters will always appear in every game to fill the exact same role. So Rune Master Jeane are at least a few hundred years old even though she appears in her mid-twenties and Viki is proven to be able to teleport through time.

That said, I miss my Gazette songs. All of them are in Kuja and I’m too lazy to flip him around for it. I have only one Gazette song inside Towers and I’ve listening to it plus a few new songs I stole from my sis. Still, I miss Aoi.

And I recently found out that I’ve been worshipping the wrong speaker! Hahaha! Aoi’s guitar is heard through the left speaker, not the right! Here I was, thinking the right speaker was Aoi’s territory even though all the while I was listening to Uruha!

Hahahaha!

I’ll probably put in more hours in Suiko 5 later tonight. In the meantime, I’m also doing this story that I did in high school. Two years and three books later, it is still unfinished. Hahaha.

Ta’ra!

NOTE: A delayed post from last night. As you can see, it didn’t make it through my crappy connection.

I’ve been at home for approximately 12 days and only today do I get to be online long enough to type a blog post. Let’s hope the connection stays long enough for me to save and upload this one. *prays*

So! I have yet to make plans with friends other than Totchi and we went to Bing last Tuesday. I had a craving for Mars Bar cheesecake unfortunately. And I always felt reluctant to finish my strawberry-banana smoothie. Such a divine package should never be finished so quickly. sighs. The Internet connection at home totally sucks. What’s Telekom thinking anwyay? I thought I already complained to their top brass but they still didn’t do anything about it!

That’s no joke though. I once had the opoortunity to break fast with some of Telekom’s top brass and among them was the guy in charge of Streamyx. He asked what’s the connection speed. I just said the connection is good, its good, but if the connection is bad, there’s no connection at all. One guy pointed out that the problem was the ‘main pipe’ in Sarawak was getting insufficient to support all the connection it supports. The only solution is to expand that pipe.

Looking at the current situation, it seems the only thing that’s expanding are probably the rats living in the ‘pipe’.

Sucky, sucky.

Aaanyway. One afternoon I woke up and ‘hakuna matata!" immediately popped in my head. I mean, I really have no worries. Well, not much anyway.All I’ve been doing is eat and sleep and play game. And I get to eat french bean everyday.

Life is sweet. Hehehehe.

I was eating french eban everyday that my mom got sick of them. Hahahaha.

Man. I’ve been playing Suikoden 5. I kinda hurried in the game coz I only have one month to finish it and go for a second playthrough to REALLY experience it, then finish Valkyrie Profile 2 too. Right now I’m playing Suikoden 5 though. Maybe I’ll finish VP 2 after that and when I finish VP 2, I’ll replay Suikoden for a new game+. VP scares me…

Right. Time for bed. Good night. Tomorrow I shall wake up to French bean. WHeee.