Hah! Thought I wouldn’t write a post this month? Wrong. This blog is still alive and well, I’m merely alive. I’m just writing for the sake of writing, so this blog isn’t a dead piece of shit. Regardless, I’m alive and well. Not dead yet (damn). Just evading Covid 19 like Sajid Mir the FBI, while keeping Evening Drama Rebooted going.
What’s been up, George? Well, I’ve been very unproductive in terms of creative projects, since breaking my posting streak for Animal Bus, I’ve lost all momentum, and I’ve let work overtake my free time (that I don’t allocate for relaxing). Kinda sucks, but I’ll bounce back (eventually). On the bright side, I’ve been playing a lot more guitar than before. Wrote a bunch of new songs and I’ve been practising “Both of Us” by You Vs Yesterday (what an amazing band I discovered randomly, will write about them in the future).
Keyboard wise, I haven’t built anything in a while. I rebuilt my Daisy cos when I initially built it, I didn’t think about the Mini USB port tolerances, which meant I had to use specific cables with the keyboard. Now it’s reset, all of my cables can work with it (yay). Still waiting for a keyboard kit (Terrazzo) which is supposedly in Malaysia but untrackable at the moment. Then I have an ergo version of the GNGKB75 in the works (need the acrylic case cut for it).
Other than that, life’s just been an endless cycle of work, relax, work, relax. Sometimes work, work, relax, work. Am thinking about taking a long break at the end of the year. Maybe make another trip to Cameron Highlands (if conditions allow). I kinda miss the solace I get from being alone. Probably won’t bring too many things (a single guitar, mic and laptop is enough).
Speaking of laptop, I made some upgrades to mine. Back in September, my laptop was crashing constantly. Did some diagnosing on my own and learned that the SSD was dying. Decided to pay the Asus service center a visit to find out what I could do. They told me that it would cost RM50 just to find out what the problem was since my warranty was expired (finally). I told them I knew what the issue was, all they had to do was replace the SSD. They told me they were selling the SSD for RM450. Felt like I was going nowhere, so I told the guy, “thanks (for nothing)”, and left.
Did some searching online and turns out that the SSD they wanted to sell me only cost RM88 on Lazada. Real fuckers. Apparently service centers overcharge you for parts to dissuade customers from coming back to them (if the replacement part fails, they don’t want to deal with it). Not sure if it’s true for all companies, but I got annoyed. Anyway, I decided to give myself an upgrade by buying a larger capacity SSD 512GB for RM270 and replaced it myself. Wasn’t very hard to do. Most difficult part was figuring out where the hidden screws were for my laptop (under the back feet), and replacing the SSD was a straightforward task. After reinstalling Windows, everything is working as normal. I haven’t had a laptop crash since I put in my new SSD. I also replaced my battery since the old one was at less than half the original capacity, which was easy to do.
With the amount of fixing I’ve had to do over the past few months, I feel pretty confident with my PC building and soldering skills (I had to desolder 6 keyboards for a friend). I enjoyed doing it, a possible change in career? Maybe one day. For now, I’ll keep them in my repertoire of skills.
One thing I realized ever since I started working is that doing a job related to something you enjoy somehow leaves you with way less time to enjoy it than before. Honestly, when I was in animation, I hardly drew, when I was blogging, I hardly blogged, when I sold books, I hardly read, and now that I’m in gaming… fortunately I still get to spend most nights still gaming, but there have been stretches where I didn’t.
On the plus side, I’ve resumed reading. I finally finished the book I started earlier this year – Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. It’s a good book, I enjoyed it a lot. And the fact that some of the characters felt so relatable made it even more interesting. I guess you could say I’m a fan of his work now. Can’t wait to get started on his other titles.
However, I do wonder if any meaning/tone was lost during the translation of his books. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think they did a bad job at all (not that I could tell, since I’ve never read the originals in Japanese, I wouldn’t know), but I wonder if some parts were funnier/sadder etc because of the translation. Something to ponder about. Regardless, he inspires me to write characters who are deeper and more complex than the typical token stereotypes.