Alice Cheong

If life is short, would we treasure time, and stop being such superficial political creatures? Would our culture on obedience, ranks and money change? Would we be less self-centered when faced with family and strangers? Would we spend less time in front of the television and game console? What would one do?

What if tomorrow we happen to be the less than 2% statistic? What regrets will one have? When life is cut short, we often lament that life shortchanged us. But, how often have we been shortchanging ourselves, and waste a lifetime away in the spirit of working for a better future?

This is a call for all working adults who had a life (played computer games) when they were still studying, and all students who are interested in the gaming or game developments.

Let me start with the working adults. Do you remember the game Pong? Maybe you are younger than the pong days. What about Pac-Man? Donkey Kong? Mario? Those were the days… So nostalgic… Monochrome computer days. The green dot pixel display. Games loaded from floppy disks, of size in kilobytes. Harddisk were of size in tens of Megabyte. Programming were done in Assembly language or Basic language. Ops… you have a rough guage of my age.

I still remember that some of the games were available on PC, while others were commonly available in arcade or specialized game console. Super Mario was one of my favorite, but I didn’t have the game console, and so could only played it in the holidays at my relative’s home. Those were the days…

Now, you got your chance to have a glimpse of 30 years of gaming culture in the up-coming single (1 concert, only) concert – Video Games Live, the first Southeast Asian appearance at your door-step in Singapore Indoor Stadium (on 19 Jun 2009, starting at 8pm of duration 2.5hrs). Booking is available through SISTIC. Don’t say that I didn’t mention that it is only a single concert, and that it has been the most successful video game concert in the world.

Now, for students who are interested in the gaming or game developments, there isn’t any better chance to experience the entire 30 years of gaming culture than this concert. You can see the development of games from dot display, to crude visual graphics, to the current realistic computer graphics which you can mistaken as real-life. 30 years of development does a great difference to game developments. Err… maybe you want to pause playing Final Fantasy or Warcraft for a while, and make the concert booking. Just kidding, you are reading my blog at the moment, and there is no pause.

There is the details of the concert (Booking is available through SISTIC):

Video Games Live
Date: 19 Jun 2009 Friday 8pm
Duration: Approximately 2.5hrs (Pre-show festival from 6pm onwards)
Interval: Approximately 20 mins
Venue: Singapore Indoor Stadium
Ticket pricing(excluding booking fee): S$115, S$85, S$70, S$55
Discount: 10% discount available for local student
Official Website: http://www.vgl-sea.com/
Articles/Bloglinks: CNET Asia, Sheylara, Precious-Living

I was reading the Straits Times, and is appalled that Singapore actually does license hotels at locations away from the airport to charge accommodation at hourly-rate, apparently with no mention of restriction to only transit passengers. What!? Are we a sleazy city country?

Hourly-rate accommodation (also commonly known as transit accommodation), which is a feature usually at airports, is commonly meant to provide the weary transit passengers with a comfortable private resting area.

However, it is often a different scenario when hourly-rate accommodation is provided at locations away from airport. In the heartlands, and especially within the legally provided red-light district, it’s role is often as a very budget private room for purchased sex. Yes, it is so budget that the hourly rate starts from below the starting charge for a taxi booking made within CBD after work ($10.30)*, to around the cost of an adult ez-link card ($15).

So, with the ease that one can find budget hourly-rated hotel rooms, my view is that we are in effect silently practicing the line of thought that we are just being an open society, where we assume that people are responsible. Sex, regardless of whether being purchased or not (mistress?), is a private issue, and is just a human need (and will not be legally punishable, if it does not contravene any laws).

Sigh… Temptation does not mix well with responsibility. So, now I know that there is another temptation that exists in Singapore. That is in addition to betting, be it with Singapore Pools or our future Casinos. Sounds like writing 此地无银三百两.

* ($3+$3.50+$2.80+$1=$10.30) $3.00 CBD charge, $3.50 Booking charge at peak hour, $2.80 Flag down charge, $1.00 35% peak hour charge on flag down.