Why Would I Write

Category: Random

  • 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.

  • Snus

    Snus

    Snus. I had no idea what a Snu was until a year or two ago I saw a photograph of a Dota 2 player using them. I was like, what the fuck was Snus? So I decided to look it up. On a side note, what do you call people who use Snus? Snusers (dad joke haha).

    Anyway, Snus fell off my radar for a while until a few weeks ago Seng Yip sent me a picture of Snus being sold at a counter. I was like, whoa! They sell Snus here. So yesterday, I had the opportunity to purchase Snus and got myself a tin. I already smoke and vape, I figured one more vice wouldn’t hurt.

    My first Snu was pretty awkward. I couldn’t hold it under my upper lip properly, it kept slipping out. It was then I realized that I could hold it to the side of my mouth instead. I felt proud of myself. Then I googled it and realized that it was what other people did too – it doesn’t matter where you put it in your mouth, just that the upper part of your mouth has less saliva, so you generate less spit with the sachet lodged in upper part of your mouth.

    I purchased the mint variation of General Snus and the experience honestly reminded me of chewing mint gum, minus the chewing action. I might try the regular version once I’m done with this tin. My throat also felt a little rough when I was swallowing my saliva, turns out – it’s the nicotine in the Snus that causes that.

    As for its effects, I guess it’s kinda effective at reducing your cigarette intake. Like today, I only smoked one cigarette at work – because I wanted to have one after lunch. There’s something about the action of exhaling smoke that isn’t covered by Snus (duh). However, during other times, I just popped one into my mouth and kept it there for about 45 minutes. I had two Snus at work. It seemed to solve my nicotine craving. Not that I’m using Snus to quit smoking, mind you. It just happened to work that way.

    While having Snus at my desk, I understood how convenient it was. I didn’t have to get out of my desk to get my fix of nicotine. My colleagues seated next to me were probably happy I didn’t smell like cigarettes the whole day. I can see them being really useful for long meetings and watching films in the cinema. Hopefully I don’t get too addicted to them because I’ve only seen them on sale at Publika and nowhere else. Would be a bitch if I couldn’t get a fix when I needed one.

    Oh George, you can you know, just stop smoking. I guess I could. Writing this post, I realized that I’ve succumbed to the power of indirect advertising. Funny huh?

  • Macroblogging and Dead Links

    Every now and then, I read through some old posts on my blog and go through the comments section. Commenting on blogs used to be a thing. I remember. That’s how I made some friends on the internet. These days, people just comment on the Facebook post about the link instead. If not comments, you just get likes or some reactions.

    I guess it’s just how things have evolved. Back then there was no such thing as microblogging. The only way you could update people about your life was through MSN nickname statuses or blogs. I remember, almost everybody had a blog back then. It was the normal thing to do. Now I think having a blog is probably out of fashion. But that’s okay, it’s my way of practicing writing and putting out whatever is in my head.

    Anyway, back then when people commented on my blog, they would leave links to their own blog so I could check them out. That was one way of meeting new people online. I could check out their writing and if I found it interesting, I’d leave a comment and link their page if I liked it enough. Friendships would live and grow in the comments sections of posts.

    I guess all the long breaks I took in between blogging kinda killed off the steam and interest people had in visiting this page. Blogging is kinda like the YouTube of the past. If content creators don’t constantly churn out new content, they’d be forgotten. It was even worse for blogs because unless you had an RSS reader or subscribed to email updates, you wouldn’t have any way of telling whether the blog had new posts short of manually checking it out yourself. At least with YouTube you get emails or notifications on the site itself telling you about new videos on channels you subscribed to.

    But then again, who has time to read these days? I’m blogging for an audience of less than ten people daily (haha) but that’s okay. It feels good to write anyway. And I might as well make up for all the times I didn’t blog in the past. I mean, keep throwing shit against the wall until something sticks right?

    I don’t even read many blogs these days. I do read a lot of posts on Facebook though. It’s the modern version of blogging. And I don’t have to exit Facebook to read them. I guess that was the Zuck’s plan all along – keep everybody on the site so they don’t have to leave.

    Anyway I was prompted to write this post when I was clicking on links left by people who used to comment on my blog and realized that they were all dead links. IMO blogging died when everybody started doing advertorials instead of content about their lives. Shout out to Albert for keeping it real!