Why Would I Write

Author: goodnewsgeorge

  • The File

    “Holy shit! Did you hear that?”

    “My screams of agony?”

    “No! The computer, it beeped!”

    “You must be hearing things, now come on, get this cord out of me before the wound gets infected and I get poisoned.”

    “No, I’m serious, George! Look! she said as she turned the laptop to my face.”

    “New device found. What would you like to do with it?”

    “No fucking way! What the hell?”

    “Exactly, we’ve got to check it out!”

    “Please hurry up, it really hurts.”

    She moved the cursor onto open drive and there was a single executable file on the drive. George.exe.

    “Is that it?”

    “Uh huh,” she nodded.

    “Should we be running untrusted executables on your laptop?” I asked.

    “What the hell does that mean?”

    “No wonder your computer’s always full of malware..”

    She slapped me on my arm.

    “Hey!”

    Before I could object, she double clicked the file.

    A little window popped up with a list of options that would normally be found on a computer.

    Explore, run, shut down, restart, sleep, and update.

    “Let’s see what’s in explore,” without giving me a chance to object, she clicked it which and a gallery popped up, showing tons of folders named and sorted by dates. She clicked the folder at the top of the screen and a video clip popped up. It was a point of view video clip, showing me waking up, brushing my teeth, taking a leak and getting dressed before leaving the house this morning. Basically everything that I had been doing until I was at her house where we were wrestled on her bed and the USB cord pierced into my back.

    “Holy shit. What the hell is this shit?”

    She closed the video and selected another date at random, it was a few days earlier. It started off the same way, me waking up, heading to the toilet to wash up, taking a dump, getting dressed and heading to work.

    “You spend a lot of time on Facebook in the office,” she remarked.

    I laughed. “Alright, that’s enough of going through my memories. Let’s try plugging the cord into you.”

    “No way, I haven’t had enough yet!” she responded.

    “Come on, this is way too much, you can’t spend the whole day going through what’s in my head!”

    An evil grin appeared on her face.

    “Don’t tell me, you’re thinking of what I think you’re going to do.”

    Without saying a word, she exited to the main menu and clicked on sleep. I immediately blacked out.

    I don’t know what happened next.

    Writing Prompt from Reddit: While wrestling around on the ground with your girlfriend, you accidentally roll over onto your USB cord and it pierces into your back. You reach around to pull it out, your girlfriend screams and points at the computer where a small window says “New Drive (Q:) Recognized”

  • Drinking Ain’t What It Used To Be

    Yesterday I was at a drinking party and I wasn’t the one making a fool of myself. It felt strange. Like I knew what it was like to be that guy and I was no longer him. Trying my best to appear sober, while downing more drinks than my body could handle. Talking out of line, loudly, and acting ridiculous.

    Younger George wouldn’t say no to that drink. At least that’s what I remembered. Younger George would never say no to any drink. After all, if it had alcohol, it was delicious and bound to be fun. I wonder if there’s a way to measure how many brain cells I’ve had destroyed by drinking past my limit.

    Then again, younger George has been through some shit. Fortunately for younger George, he had amazing friends who looked after his drunk ass when he went down. Honestly, those guys are all champs. Younger George didn’t deserve them, but they were there for him anyway.

    I remember during my initial days of clubbing – a group of us would have trouble even finishing one bottle of whiskey. Then we got more tolerant and could even do a single bottle between two people. Now I can’t drink that much anymore, also I believe I’m much better at controlling my intake. Because even though it was fun talking about the adventures of younger George, it only seems funny because I was being an idiot – and I came out of my incidents mostly unscathed.

    It took a serious car accident to make me realize how stupid I was but in reality, that didn’t need to happen.

    Anyway, I still enjoy some alcohol every now and then, but I can go for weeks without a drink. It’s not a necessity in my life. I’m equally happy having conversation over sips of hot coffee or tea, and a cigarette or vape in my other hand. There’s no need for the high of alcohol when you have the company of good friends around you. Younger George would have suggested afternoon drinks instead.

    “You’re a shadow of your former self! What happened to you?”

    It’s alright, I’m okay with having less ‘fun’ these days – at least my friends and family won’t have to worry about me every time I go out. Also, I won’t have to spend so long shitting out the previous night’s drinks in the toilet or wasting the day nursing a hangover. It’s a win-win situation. Farewell, younger George. It was nice knowing you.

  • Music & Me

    When I was young, I used to listen to my dad strum the guitar while singing his favorite Lobo songs. He had gigantic chord books filled with all his favorite songs. I never appreciated it when I was younger, but it probably planted the seeds of music in me. These seeds were watered by my buddy Seng Yip back in school when we decided to make some music together. It was a two man show – Fuzzbeaterz. Seng Yip, his guitar and pedal and me, with my tape recorder. He played some riffs over drum beats from his pedal, while I sang and rapped terrible lyrics over it. It was far from good, but it was a start.

    In college, we decided to enter the Battle of the Bands, so we learned some songs that I liked (in hindsight, they were probably the wrong choice for the competition, but whatever – I got to jam songs I enjoyed haha) and auditioned. We didn’t qualify, but it was a fun experience. We continued jamming and went through some lineup changes. We even changed got new band names (from Hostile Takeover to dreamingtosleep). Again, we didn’t get anywhere, but at least we landed a few gigs. After recording a demo, the band split up due to the guitarists leaving the country.

    I wanted to continue making music – I had so many lyrics left lying around that I didn’t have any music for. So what did I do? I picked up the guitar and decided to make music of my own. Since I had no experience making solo music, I started from square one again. But it was a good learning experience. I applied what I knew from learning songs by other people. I churned out a bunch of bedroom demos and was content. Back then I had no idea that the singer/songwriter scene in Malaysia existed so that was pretty much it.

    Until one day, a colleague at my first job told me about open mics. She encouraged me to attend my first open mic and that night changed my life. I played my first show in front of a sizable audience, and they enjoyed my set. Whether it was genuine or out of politeness, it didn’t really matter. It gave me the confidence to go out and play more shows. I was spurred on by the feeling I got being on stage. There’s something about the audience applauding and cheering for you that can’t be replicated anywhere else.

    I continued performing at every opportunity I got and wrote more songs. Eventually, I wrote enough music for an EP and recorded it. That was my first time getting songs recorded properly in a studio (dreamingtosleep’s EP was done live with no click track). I learned a lot during my sessions in the studio. Looking back, there were so many things I could have improved on, but hey – that’s always the case. The main thing is I managed to put the record out. Because I can always play better during live shows or on newer songs. Whatever I had recorded is a moment frozen in time. Something I can look back on and laugh at.

    After that, I formed another band with Jason and had the time of my life. Playing music with a band is so fulfilling. Sure, solo can be fun, but when you’re playing music with a bunch of guys – the combination of drums, bass and guitar takes the activity to a whole new level. I can’t explain. Is this what an orgy feels like? Side note: doing things with friends is almost more fun every time (i.e. gaming, checking out restaurants, drinking).

    These days I still play music, but on a less consistent basis. I haven’t written a new song in ages, but that’s okay. It’s not something I should force. Besides, I should channel my energy into my other hobbies (like working on my game) and catching up on cartoons and movies that I’ve missed over the past couple of years.

    Initially, I wanted to write something about reports of Gibson going bankrupt but then I realized I had no idea how to contribute to the topic and it devolved into a story about my music. Kids, playing guitar is fun. Go pick one up and start learning now if you have any inkling of an interest. It’s not going to be easy, but it’ll be worth it in the end. It’s definitely up there as one of my favorite hobbies of all time. I assure you, it’s as fun as wanking.