Why Would I Write

  • Obligated (to myself)

    Hah! Thought I wouldn’t write a post this month? Wrong. This blog is still alive and well, I’m merely alive. I’m just writing for the sake of writing, so this blog isn’t a dead piece of shit. Regardless, I’m alive and well. Not dead yet (damn). Just evading Covid 19 like Sajid Mir the FBI, while keeping Evening Drama Rebooted going.

    What’s been up, George? Well, I’ve been very unproductive in terms of creative projects, since breaking my posting streak for Animal Bus, I’ve lost all momentum, and I’ve let work overtake my free time (that I don’t allocate for relaxing). Kinda sucks, but I’ll bounce back (eventually). On the bright side, I’ve been playing a lot more guitar than before. Wrote a bunch of new songs and I’ve been practising “Both of Us” by You Vs Yesterday (what an amazing band I discovered randomly, will write about them in the future).

    THIS SONG IS FUCKING AMAZEBALLS

    Keyboard wise, I haven’t built anything in a while. I rebuilt my Daisy cos when I initially built it, I didn’t think about the Mini USB port tolerances, which meant I had to use specific cables with the keyboard. Now it’s reset, all of my cables can work with it (yay). Still waiting for a keyboard kit (Terrazzo) which is supposedly in Malaysia but untrackable at the moment. Then I have an ergo version of the GNGKB75 in the works (need the acrylic case cut for it).

    Other than that, life’s just been an endless cycle of work, relax, work, relax. Sometimes work, work, relax, work. Am thinking about taking a long break at the end of the year. Maybe make another trip to Cameron Highlands (if conditions allow). I kinda miss the solace I get from being alone. Probably won’t bring too many things (a single guitar, mic and laptop is enough).

    Speaking of laptop, I made some upgrades to mine. Back in September, my laptop was crashing constantly. Did some diagnosing on my own and learned that the SSD was dying. Decided to pay the Asus service center a visit to find out what I could do. They told me that it would cost RM50 just to find out what the problem was since my warranty was expired (finally). I told them I knew what the issue was, all they had to do was replace the SSD. They told me they were selling the SSD for RM450. Felt like I was going nowhere, so I told the guy, “thanks (for nothing)”, and left.

    Did some searching online and turns out that the SSD they wanted to sell me only cost RM88 on Lazada. Real fuckers. Apparently service centers overcharge you for parts to dissuade customers from coming back to them (if the replacement part fails, they don’t want to deal with it). Not sure if it’s true for all companies, but I got annoyed. Anyway, I decided to give myself an upgrade by buying a larger capacity SSD 512GB for RM270 and replaced it myself. Wasn’t very hard to do. Most difficult part was figuring out where the hidden screws were for my laptop (under the back feet), and replacing the SSD was a straightforward task. After reinstalling Windows, everything is working as normal. I haven’t had a laptop crash since I put in my new SSD. I also replaced my battery since the old one was at less than half the original capacity, which was easy to do.

    With the amount of fixing I’ve had to do over the past few months, I feel pretty confident with my PC building and soldering skills (I had to desolder 6 keyboards for a friend). I enjoyed doing it, a possible change in career? Maybe one day. For now, I’ll keep them in my repertoire of skills.

    One thing I realized ever since I started working is that doing a job related to something you enjoy somehow leaves you with way less time to enjoy it than before. Honestly, when I was in animation, I hardly drew, when I was blogging, I hardly blogged, when I sold books, I hardly read, and now that I’m in gaming… fortunately I still get to spend most nights still gaming, but there have been stretches where I didn’t.

    On the plus side, I’ve resumed reading. I finally finished the book I started earlier this year – Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. It’s a good book, I enjoyed it a lot. And the fact that some of the characters felt so relatable made it even more interesting. I guess you could say I’m a fan of his work now. Can’t wait to get started on his other titles.

    However, I do wonder if any meaning/tone was lost during the translation of his books. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think they did a bad job at all (not that I could tell, since I’ve never read the originals in Japanese, I wouldn’t know), but I wonder if some parts were funnier/sadder etc because of the translation. Something to ponder about. Regardless, he inspires me to write characters who are deeper and more complex than the typical token stereotypes.

  • Momentum (lack of)

    Those few of you who still read this blog have probably noticed the decrease in posting frequency. It all started when I decreased how much I wrote to two times a week, then once, and it devolved into a post a month.

    The lack of momentum is real. But that’s okay. We all grow up and have more pressing things to attend to in life. Can’t be spending time typing shit onto this blog every day anymore.

    Considering I now have a full-time job as a writer, I guess I’ve been getting plenty of practice doing that. But I shouldn’t make excuses. Lazy is as lazy does.

    I had a streak going with Animal Bus for most of the year until I got extremely busy with work and started delaying my chapters just to accommodate all the work I had to do. That kinda sucked. At least Evening Drama has been going on consistently. We’ve already crossed 30 weeks, so I’m proud of us. Let’s see if we can keep it up to the magical 52.

    I haven’t done anything keyboard-related in a while, except desoldering a whole bunch of keyboards for a friend. I have an ergo version of the GNGKB75 waiting to be built, but I need the case for it cut first.

    I still play Dota, but less frequently than before. Kinda ironic how working in a games-related field takes away my time to game. Then again, it’s been the same for every other job I’ve worked in. Does that mean people shouldn’t work in areas that they enjoy? Beats me. Then how are you supposed to “Do what you’ll love, and you’ll never work another day in your life.”? Hm. I guess I haven’t figured it out yet.

    Life’s been busy, life’s been up, life’s been down. Life’s been all over the place. My mind is all over the place. Like this post. But at least I’m writing. Something.

    I posted up some new tracks on SoundCloud, feel free to check them out. I post more Instastories these days. I still rarely tweet (I mostly retweet DGD lyrics).

    COVID has really changed how life has been for me. And a lot of other people. Okay, the whole world. Most things are shitty, don’t think anything has improved. Oh well. At least I really don’t have to go into the office now. Not that I found that to be a problem in the first place.

    I had a dream I went to a doctor and tested positive for the coronavirus. Don’t think it means anything right?

    Stay safe, peeps.

  • Song Requests Over The Air

    While I was driving today, I switched to my car’s music player radio mode by accident, and kept it on after I realized my mistake. I thought I would see if I had been missing out on anything after all these years. After a minute or two, I concluded, “nope” and switched back to Bluetooth mode. But before I switched away, the station played an ad about itself, and one of the voice clips used was a lady requesting for a song.

    I then wondered to myself, “why?”. Why would anyone make a song request in this day and age? It’s 2020, for crying out loud. There’s no reason to make song requests over the air anymore. Do you know how long it takes to: call up a station, wait for your call to get through, hope that your call gets chosen, speak to a DJ to ask for your song, and then wait for your song to come on?

    A very long time. You could probably drive home, slip into something comfortable, lay down on your bed and put on that song in a shorter amount of time. Maybe pour a nice glass of wine too. It’s also very easy to go on YouTube or Spotify to search for a song that you want to hear. You can even rewind or replay the track as many times as you like. 

    If you’re requesting a popular song, why? It’s going to be played within the next hour regardless. Something obscure? The DJs don’t have it, and nobody wants to listen to your shitty taste in music anyway. If you want to share a song with a loved one – send them a link on WhatsApp, and say “thinking of you”. Heck, you could even record your own voice message to accompany it. Or share a link on Facebook and tag that special person. It’s kinda like the same thing. Except that they won’t miss it if they happen to not be listening to the radio at that specific moment. I mean, that is the beauty of music on demand.

    Radio song requests are dead, use that airtime to play shitty prank calls instead. Or run another ad.