Random

It’s Called What’s It Called

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The other day, someone asked me, “Are you happy with life?”
Without thinking much about it, I said, “Yes”.
He continued, “What makes you happy?”

I was stumped. I didn’t know how to respond. It’s something I never thought about. I just assumed that being happy was good enough. I didn’t need a reason why.

You see, I’m easily content – at least with most things in life. I’m not the pickiest eater. I don’t have the strongest preference for particular cuisines over others. It all depends on my mood.

If I’m hungry, I’ll go to a restaurant that doesn’t have a queue. If I’m not that hungry, maybe I’ll explore and try something that I haven’t had in a while. Other times, I simply return to my comfort food, chicken rice.

When it comes to ambitions in life, I don’t dream of being rich and successful. As long as I don’t have to worry about food on the table or having a place to call home for me and my family, that’s good enough.

If I have enough disposable income to fund my hobbies, great! There’s not much else to ask for.

Perhaps I’m speaking from a position of privilege and what I’m easily content with, is something other people can only dream about. But there are also people who have what I have and yet they want so much more to be happy.

Long story short, I guess I can say I’m happy because I’m living the life that I’ve always wanted. Could I be happier? Of course. But so can everybody.

I was too lazy to ramble on about my thoughts, so I simply replied, “Because I’m not sad,” which was also true.
He didn’t let up. “What makes you sad?” he continued.

Again, I was baffled.

I could have given a vapid reply like people and pets I care about passing away and breaking up – but those things make everybody sad. It doesn’t make me special.

I’ve been thinking about it over the past few days and I couldn’t think of anything. Maybe the saddest thing that could ever happen to me right now would be Hot Mulligan breaking up. I would be devastated.

But then again, did I need a special reason to feel sad? I’m just a regular human being, like everybody else. I’m not more important than anybody, in fact, I’m probably less important than a lot of people in this world.

He wasn’t asking me for a unique reason to be sad, yet I was searching for one. Why did I put myself through so much pressure? I have no idea.

In the end, it didn’t matter, as other people arrived and our conversation was drowned out. I took my drink elsewhere and participated in shallow chit-chat with other folks. Perhaps in the future, I’ll be able to answer with certainty.

Are you happy with life?

Less Calls, Replacements

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How many times can I write about having terrible memory? I can’t remember and I’m not bothered to check. Is old age a valid excuse for not being as sharp as I once was? Maybe. Or have I been filling my head with important information that pushed out all my trivial thoughts? Unlikely.

I can still recite most of the lyrics to Stan or The Way I Am even though I haven’t purposely listened to the songs in ages. Those words remain etched in my brain. Why is it harder to remember the lyrics to songs I listen to now? Probably because I put in much less effort.

There are only so many things I want to spend brain power on these days and memorizing lyrics is not one of them. Also, it’s not a very useful skill – unless you perform covers for a living. The only time I find it useful these days is when I’m driving. I get to keep my eyes on the road.

I think memorizing lyrics was a product of the time – back then we didn’t have powerful computers in our pockets. We had to rely on magazine cutouts, album booklets, or transcribing songs on our own. Before I had a CD player or access to MP3s, I would patiently wait for a song to come on the radio so I could record it on a blank cassette.

Then I would play, rewind, and repeat the recording to my heart’s content. It allowed me to listen to songs until I could write down all the words. I have no idea when lyric websites started popping up, but that’s what I did back then. Shit was wild.

These days we just pull up Musixmatch/Genius on our phones. Are we too reliant on technology? Or just making the most of what’s available? I mean, what’s the point of people spending their lives researching and advancing technology if nobody fully utilizes it?

Imagine you work your whole life on something important and life-changing, but people decide not to use it because it makes them ‘lazy’. What would life be like without remote controls or escalators? Maybe we’d be really jacked as a society. Who am I kidding, we’d still find ways to be lazy.

Like the other day, before I left home, I put my wallet in another pocket of my pants instead of its usual spot. As I was walking out of my condominium, I felt different. I put my hand in my usual wallet pocket and noticed the wallet wasn’t there – it was sitting safely in my other pocket.

I was convinced that my wallet wasn’t with me. So I turned around, retraced my steps, went home, and searched for my wallet in my room. It wasn’t there. I started to panic. I looked in my bag, it wasn’t there. Maybe it was in my car, I thought. So I went back down to the car park.

Checked my car, and nope, it wasn’t there. Where could it be? I thought to myself. So I started patting my other pockets. Lo and behold, the wallet was sitting right where I had placed it earlier.

If I had examined all my pockets in the first place, I could have avoided the whole incident. There was no need to retrace my steps, search my room, and make myself panic. Was I so lazy that I couldn’t frisk my own pants before doing all those things? Also, why couldn’t I just recall where I had put the wallet? It was barely 10 minutes ago!

How many times can I write about having terrible memory? There’s a good reason calendar and reminder apps exist.

blorgy.net is (almost) dead

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Long live blorgy.net. I’ve finally done it. I’ve kicked off the migration of this blog from blorgy.net to goodnewsgeorge.com. You’ll be able to access blorgy.net until the 8th of April, 2023. After that, it’ll return an error. At least until some cybersquatter decides to buy it (lol).

Remember to update your links and bookmarks.

I don’t think I’ve ever written about how the name blorgy came about. 16 years on, it’s still as childish as it was in 2007. Blorgy is a portmanteau of blog + orgy. Why did I choose that for a blog name? I honestly can’t remember.

Maybe it was a 21-year-old me trying to will into existence an orgy between the hot bloggers and myself. Sad to say, nothing of that sort happened. Blogging didn’t get me the ladies. Anyhow, I’m glad it’ll soon be left in the past and we can all move forward with the more tasteful alternative.

As you can see, this is what my blog looks like now. I’m mostly happy with it, but still experimenting with it (it’s been a while since I messed around with WordPress themes, holy shit they can be so complex these days). This blog is using Neve, a lightweight theme, that’s pretty customizable.

I’ve wanted to do something vaporwave-inspired but also tone it down a bit. I’m the biggest reader of my own blog and if it’s too much for my eyes, it’s probably too much for other people. So, muted colors, and a white background for the black text to stand out from. I might add a color or two.

The photograph at the top is a highly edited photo of the swimming pool where I live. The content is still the same, and I like my current layout, so I had no reason to change that. That being said, expect some tweaks in the coming weeks. Nobody gets things right the first time around.

I’m going to stick with this for a while until something else catches my eye or I can think of a better design. I have a feeling people may or may not like this font. If I get too many complaints, I’ll change it, but it really gives the vibe I’m going for.

Also, the old blog loaded really slowly for some reason. It wasn’t even a heavy theme, I believe this one should load much faster. I can already feel it on my end. Not much more to say other than I’ve managed to complete one of my goals for this year, so hooray.

Let me know if you have any feedback or comments about this design. I’m all ears.