Why Would I Write

  • Rain, rain, go away

    Jimmy’s head was a mess – his hair flat and stuck to his forehead, dripping with rain. A far cry from how it looked at the hair salon an hour ago. His buttoned white shirt was now extra fitting, his nipples showing through the wet fabric. His grey pants looked like he had pissed himself – which was an accurate representation of how he was feeling right now.

    His girlfriend had invited him over to her house for a family dinner and this would be the first time he would meet her parents. He thought he’d make a good impression by dressing up, but the weather decided to throw a wrench in his plans.

    So now he stood, outside the front door of her house, waiting for his clothes to miraculously dry in time for dinner. Despite the traffic, he had managed to arrive earlier than expected. He figured he’d wait a bit before he announced his arrival, there was still time. He sat down on the driest spot of the bench outside the front door and unlaced his wet shoes. He had drenched his socks running from the car to the front porch.

    “Shit,” he cursed to himself.

    Taking off his socks was the last thing he wanted to do, but he couldn’t see an alternative. For as long as he could remember, he had always kept his socks on when visiting his friends’ houses. It was the reason he never wore sandals (despite some of his friends telling him how trendy they were when matched with socks). Growing up, he was bullied for having extra toes on his feet – so whenever he left the house he made sure he was wearing socks and shoes.

    When word spread, he was constantly reminded by his peers that he was a freak and would never be accepted. So when his family relocated and he got into a new school, he made sure that he never left the house without shoes and socks on. But thanks to the rain, it seemed like he would have to face his insecurities again.

    He got up to his feet and started pacing around, hoping that walking around would help him dry his socks. All he did was wet the floor of the front porch. As if the rain wasn’t doing a good enough job. He sat down on the bench again and sighed. He looked at his watch again, it was now dinner time.

    “Maybe they won’t notice”, he thought to himself.

    “The trail of water you leave behind or your twelve toes?” his other voice replied.

    Suddenly, the front door swung open and he saw a familiar face.

    “Jimmy! You’re here!”

    “Babe!” he replied, surprised.

    “I knew you’d be on time, how come you didn’t ring the door bell? Come on in!”

    “I was waiting to dry off a bit before going in.”

    “Don’t be silly, I’ve got a towel for you to dry yourself off.”

    His socks squished audibly as he got up.

    “Urm, babe, you should take your socks off. Mom wouldn’t like it if you made a mess all over her carpet.”

    “Oh, yes, I forgot,” he replied.

    Jimmy sat back down on the bench and started to gingerly remove his socks. He decided to draw her attention away from his feet and started some small talk.

    “So, what’s for dinner? It smells good from here!”

    Jenny beamed with excitement, “you’re in for a treat! My mom’s famous pork in ginger sauce and I’ve also prepared some lovely – what the fuck, Jimmy, your feet!”

    Writing Prompt from Reddit: His socks were wet but he waited patiently.

  • The Selfie ‘Expert’

    I’ve been watching movies in the cinema quite often over the past few months and when you are early, you get to sit through tons of advertisements before the movie starts. I wish we got to see more trailers, but I guess those don’t make any money for the cinemas.

    Anyway, what I’ve noticed recently is that we get tons of ads for phones. While the selling points of phones have changed over the years, one thing remains – the phone’s camera. However, since we’ve reached a point where our phone’s rear cameras are as good as they can be, the focus has now shifted to the other camera on phones – the front facing camera.

    I’m not sure who started the trend, but almost all the phone adverts these days are about their selfie capabilities. It’s like the advertisers are only pandering to the generation of narcissists. What happened to all the other unique features that make a phone great? Battery life, storage, graphics/performance, customization features, UI, security and all would make great selling points. But I guess it wouldn’t pander to the Instagram generation of today.

    When I purchase a phone, the last thing I care about is its camera. Because I know that cameras these days have all pretty much reached a quality that is acceptable on most phones. I don’t take many photographs and Instagram filters can salvage my shitty shots into something presentable. Also, if you have a cute subject (i.e. my dog), you don’t really have to try very hard.

    Maybe I’m too old (LUL age as an excuse) and I care more about reliability than anything else. The last smartphone I purchased and am currently using is the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4. Why? It has amazing battery life – I can be out all day and using the phone actively and still have battery left to spare by the time I get home. I’m not a fan of lugging power banks around just to make sure my phone still runs.

    It is fast – apps run smooth, even multiple apps at the same time with the not too recently added splitscreen feature, and I had no problems with dual-SIM operation (I used to travel a lot for work). The display is standard – nothing to shout about, but it’s large enough to make watching YouTube videos and Twitch streams a pleasant experience. 4G and GPS works well, and there’s a slot for an additional memory card if I choose to use it (64 GB onboard is sufficient at the moment). Oh, it also charges really quickly and looks pretty sleek. And the fingerprint sensor is in my preferred position (behind). With the customizations I made to the launcher so I don’t have to use the default MIUI, it’s the perfect device for me.

    I guess I strayed away from the point of the blog post – basically, phones are much more than selfie machines and marketers should think of other ways to sell their phones. If everybody is doing the same thing, nobody is standing out from the crowd – who is going to remember your phone being advertised? The ads are going to continue and I’ll still sit through them, but I’ll finally be excited once they start showing new or different ones in the cinema, until then, I’ll try to arrive just in time for the film.

  • Battle Bay Review

    I’m not much of a mobile gamer, mainly due to the fact that most touchscreen games have terrible controls and that I’d rather game on my desktop instead of my phone. The best mobile games for me have been quick and simple puzzle games that don’t take a long time to load and play. Games you want to play while waiting in line for something or while taking a shit (though I’d much rather read books or reddit these days). In the past, I scratched the itch with games like Hoplite and Pixel Dungeon. Recently I’ve gotten back in 2048. It’s such a fun and simple game. Not a lot of thinking, but satisfying to make progress in. Easy to drop in and out of.

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