My favorite cafe, Doiffee, is closed today. Strange, because it used to be open all the time, even on public holidays. Which was what I liked about the place. I had somewhere to go for good coffee and quiet environment to do my writing. No biggie, I relocated to Encore today. A pretty good cafe as well, known for its desserts. The coffee here is good, the tables are a bit small if you plan to use a laptop with an external keyboard, which seems to be the only way I write these days. Typing on your laptop’s built-in keyboard is for plebs. Just kidding, it’s just much nicer to type on a proper keyboard.
A few years ago, I wasn’t really into mechanical keyboards. I felt that regular keyboards could do the job as long as you could type on them. Now, I own four of them and I’ve been investing in keycaps to replace the stock ones I have. I’m browsing a lot of /r/mechanicalkeyboards in my free time as well. It’s become quite a hobby, dressing up these pieces of plastic. I guess the next step would be ordering a kit and building a keyboard of my own. I’m not enthusiastic enough to do that just yet. Because it would mean I’d have to pick up soldering skills. Hah! But I’ve learned to never say never. Thanks Justin Bieber! Thanks Seng Yip!
Yesterday I flipped through the newspapers – the first time in a long time. There was nothing that really interested me, and I didn’t feel like I’ve been missing out all that much. I mean, whenever there’s big or important news, I’ll see it on my Facebook feed or on the Reddit front page anyway. That means anything unimportant has been filtered out, and I don’t have to waste time reading about it.
Obituaries are still a thing. I’ve always wondered why people announced the death of somebody. Doesn’t it just draw attention for money-grabbing relatives to crawl out of the woodwork, looking for a slice of the pie? Does anyone have so many relatives that it would be impossible to inform all of them via text or phone call? I guess people use obituaries as a way of celebrating someone’s life, however necessary that may be. Then again, I believe that money can be better spent instead of being used on afterlife amenities. Dead people really don’t give a shit what happens after they’re gone (they can’t).
Last night, I drove by a couple of churches that were counting down to Christmas. I wasn’t interested in joining the festivities. I haven’t been to church to worship for about ten years. The same amount of time I’ve been working. Coincidence? Not really. During my first job, I stopped going to church because I was working six-day weeks and wanted to rest on the seventh day. I started going less, and after a few months I realized that it made no difference to my life. Eventually, I stopped praying and even thinking about God. Then I discovered how funny religious jokes were and how liberating it was to not live my life by some arbitrary rules found in a really old book. I mean, we already have enough rules to live by in this country and at our workplaces – why bother adding another set to the mix?
The best part about this time of the year is the music that gets played in public places. I think we should have Christmas songs playing all year-long. It always makes shopping a pleasant experience. Also, Christmas songs are fun to sing along to.
The world stops running for a day today, at least for most of the world. And in a week’s time, it’ll be another break for the start of the new year.