Why Would I Write

  • Another sunny day in Kuala Lumpur

    This morning, I woke up at 6ish and thought to myself, this must be what it feels like to wake up on time for work again. Washed up, thought of having an early start to my day, and promptly fell back onto my bed. Woke up at a more reasonable 1pm. Ahh. The life!

    What do you do in your spare time, George? I hear that question a lot. It’s always the same answer though. I game, write, watch shows, play the guitar, and sleep. Basically I keep myself occupied with things I enjoy doing. It’s the best way to make use of your time. I don’t have to go anywhere (maybe except Doiffee, since I can’t make myself coffee that good at home) to enjoy myself.

    However, for the past 2 days, I did make a trip to two malls and I’m reminded of why I hate going to crowded places. Traffic jams and hunting for parking. Definitely not up there in my list of things to do with my time. Today, I was smart and Ubered to Mid Valley instead of driving there. As expected, the place was packed. Having someone to drive me around is so convenient. Promo codes are also great.

    But it does make you wonder – why are shopping malls so crowded even on weekdays? Don’t people have work to do? Is everyone a student or a tourist? Is everyone jobless like me? Speaking of job, I’ve got a job lined up in January, so for those of you worried that I’d be a jobless bum – worry no more!

    I’ve been watching a lot of movies by Martin and John McDonagh. All their movies are great. I have yet to be disappointed by any of them. Each movie I watch from them is turning out to be my new favorite one. They’re definitely going into my movies to watch every year list. I’m also looking forward to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (which is never going to arrive in our cinemas, sadly).

    I finished the first season of Attack On Titan, which is pretty good. However, I’m not a fan of the main character (Eren). He seems so whiny to me. I’m sure it’s because he’s a young teenage boy, but man, he’s probably the most annoying anime character I’ve come across. I should also catch up on Rick & Morty, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Gravity Falls, Archer, and Bob’s Burger.

    I watched The Last Jedi in the cinema, and I thought it was an okay movie. I preferred the previous two Star Wars films that came out recently. It wasn’t terrible but I thought it could have been shorter. Also, I’m not a big fan of the Star Wars universe so I don’t really have much to say about it. I did enjoy some Star Wars games a long time ago though: Jedi Knight 2 and Jedi Academy. Those were pretty good games with solid lightsaber sequences. The Knights Of The Old Republic RPGs were also good (though I only got through half of the second one before I formatted my PC a long time ago, will definitely revisit it in the future).

    Speaking of games, I’ve been playing Watch_Dogs (didn’t deserve the flack it got IMO, the gameplay is solid, with my only gripe being the driving sequences because I suck at driving in video games) and Battle Chasers (probably the best JRPG I’ve ever played so far – the game is also gorgeous). Dota 2 is still a staple, I’m also thinking of attending ESL One Genting if Na’Vi qualify. I tried a PUBG clone on my phone the other day, uninstalled it after one round (lol).

    I’ve been getting visits to this blog from countries like Sweden and South Korea. I’ve no idea who’s living there and cares enough to read this blog, but hello!

  • The Night Out

    The rules are simple: approach within three seconds, be funny, respond appropriately and try to lead the conversation.

    “That’s it?” I said.

    “That’s it,” Theodore replied.

    “There’s no way in hell this is going to work out!”

    “Trust me, I’m better at this than you.”

    That’s it. Typical Theodore. The guy who had it all – brains, looks, and charm. The art of seduction was something he was good at and something I was trying to learn from him. The words that came out of his mouth made so much sense and no sense at the same time. Tell me how a backhanded compliment is supposed to make a girl attracted to me?

    There’s no way what he told me was going to get me laid but then again, I’ve had no success with women – might as well do something unorthodox right? There was nothing to lose and everything to gain.

    The bar was packed with women. There was definitely no shortage to choose from – the only question was if they’d choose me. Theodore was already making his move on a couple of cute girls sipping their cocktails – he didn’t waste any time.

    “Three seconds – one, two, three,” I counted in my head and took a step forward to a pretty girl sitting by herself. Then I stopped. The shoes on my feet felt like they were filled with lead.

    Theodore previously said that I had to let loose, relax and go with the flow. To me that translated into – fill yourself with drinks for that boost of liquid courage.

    There was no line for ordering drinks, so pretty soon I had a drink in my hand. The girl I wanted to approach had already left the bar – probably dancing with someone else who had more balls than me.

    Theodore was still working the ‘two set’, getting them out of their seats to twirl them around, making them laugh with his ridiculous stories (which were supposed to demonstrate his value) and making plans to ‘bounce’ to another location later.

    Time passed.

    Tonight the beer must have been watered down, because I wasn’t feeling it at all. The fact that I had seven beers and still feeling like a coward said it all – Theodore only had two drinks and already had five new numbers in his phone. There were none in mine.

    “Thanks for bringing me out but I’m going to call it a night,” I told Theodore when he took a short break from chasing tail to order a new drink.

    “The night is still young!” he replied. “There’s so many women here who want to get to know you, you won’t know unless you try!” Then he went back to approaching other women, as though somebody had unpaused a movie.

    Typical Theodore, always full of encouragement and always right. There was no way I would get to know anybody by keeping to myself. There was nobody to blame but me. Taking the final sip from the bottle of beer in my hand I told myself, “fuck it.”

    Then I lit up a cigarette, ordered an Uber and walked out of the bar.

    Writing Prompt from Reddit: Write a story but have the words in every sentence start with the same letter.

  • 1Partridge4Me

    Promo codes are great. Especially when they help you save money on something you were going to buy in the first place. But sometimes, they compel you to spend money on something you weren’t even thinking about. Case and point – today I took an Uber to lunch in Kuchai Lama. Normally, I’d drive there but there were a few factors that pushed me into riding an Uber today:

    1) Parking there sucks – if you can find a spot (a difficult task, especially during lunch hour)
    2) My car was low on fuel, which meant I had to pump petrol before I headed out for lunch
    3) I had entered the Uber Christmas promo code which gave me 4 free rides worth RM4 each (1Partidge)

    Because I had the promo code, I decided to make use of it. It’s not a bad thing. I mean, the ride cost me RM3 after the promo code, which was cheaper than driving there and paying for parking. Also, I saved myself the trouble of looking for parking (I also did the same thing last weekend when I couldn’t find parking in Mid Valley, I drove my car home, parked and took an Uber instead).

    If I didn’t Uber to lunch, I would have been very late. Also, I would have been stressed out in the car looking for a place to park. Fun fact: my Uber driver had over 1,500 trips which I found very impressive. He also didn’t try to start small talk with me. He just drove me to my destination with no questions asked. I gave him five stars, of course.

    Speaking of five stars, do people even bother rating anything other than one or five stars? Very rarely have I encountered a driver who was just average at his job and didn’t warrant a five-star rating. I’ve met more bad drivers than average ones. Maybe Uber’s rating system should change to – would I ride in this car again? Yes/No. It’s not IMDB or Metacritic. There’s no subjectivity to this. It’s either the driver did a good job or he/she didn’t.

    Have you ever bought something from a store just because you received a voucher for it before? I have. A few months ago, Google rewarded me for my contributions to Google Maps (I tend to leave reviews and answer questions on the app when I’m bored). I received a RM40 discount voucher (minimum order of RM160) for Zalora, so I went on the store, signed up an account and did some shopping.

    Because I had the voucher, I felt like I would have wasted it if I didn’t use it. Even though I didn’t have to, and I could have saved RM120 by not spending on anything in the first place. But I guess that’s how vouchers work right? I did the same thing previously on 11street (but my order turned out to be the wrong product in the end and I was refunded after a long and troubling process – never shopping there again).

    Steam sales and Humble Bundles do that to me too. When I see a game I’m remotely interested in playing that’s on a deep discount, I pick it up. Now I have hundreds of games that I’ll probably never play in my lifetime (I’m slowly making my way through them but Dota 2 has consumed me).

    On a side note: I’ve torrented a lot of music, movies, books and porn for free – I’ll never finish them in my lifetime either. There’s just so much content available online, and even if you were strict in what you want to enjoy, you’ll never get to finish everything you want to. Maybe if you didn’t need to work for the rest of your life and you started at a young age. Maybe. If the internet died today, I would have enough content stored locally on my computer to last me for the rest of my life.

    Also, if you don’t have an Uber account yet and are thinking of signing up, you can use the promo code: georgew3261ue ?