Tag: memories

I really love books. You can find some amazing ideas reading them. Some of those ideas will completely change your whole being, leave an impact until you die. But let’s face it, a lot of books, especially non-fiction ones, could easily present all of their ideas with way less text, maybe as a blog post or an article.

I just remembered a funny thing that happened to me recently. And while I was thinking about it, I realized I could use the strategy that actual writers use, and extend that small memory with a bunch of filler text until it becomes literature. And that is precisely what you are reading at the moment.

So. Most of us have had this happen. You go to a shop, buy cigarettes or a beer and the cashier asks for your ID. Even though you are like 35. I understand that, better safe than sorry. Also, nowadays people wear masks so it is even harder to be sure of who you are dealing with. I also wear glasses and I love to wear a hood, which cover my natural looks even more.

Those kinds of misjudgments due to covered heads and faces can get even weirder. Recently, I was walking down the street, wearing my long winter coat with the hood on. And some guy basically catcalled me in Russian. He then walked up to me, said like “Oh. Not a girl.”, and left. I found the whole encounter funny. Did that dude think that girls normally are 190cm (6’3″) tall? I guess it might have ended up not being funny had I been an actual girl. So I feel sorry for women who have to go through that shit on a regular basis.

Back in ’98 I used to be the biggest fan of the TV show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. It was totally my favorite thing. I owned a life-size poster of Sarah Michelle Gellar, which I was too ashamed to put up on my wall as it showed too much cleavage. I also had a coffee mug with her imagery, up until the time that I had a party with my friends where we got drunk at my place, ran naked around the neighbourhood, and after getting back inside I tried to make a cocktail of coke and fortified wine into the Buffy coffee mug, but alas I was too drunk so I broke the mug, and with that came an end to the era of my fandom for her.

Anyway, where I got that mug from – it was a present from a classmate at a school christmas party. The present I received was amazing, and the party was nice. Being an introvert already then, I took a break from the party at one point and went to get some ice cream. The raspberry ice cream with white chocolate toppings was great as always, it had long been my favorite. I ate it and walked back to school. But before I got back, some dudes on the street grabbed me and pulled me into a side alley, searched me, grabbed my cell phone, and ran away with it. I ran after one of them, into the backyard of a nearby house, and demanded my phone back. He didn’t want to return it, instead he asked what I have in my bag. I guess he was hoping for more valuables. I told him that it’s just a coffee mug I have there. Then he just beat me up and left me lying on the ground. Even though I was a fucking little kid. At least I kept the cup, intact for ten more years. Anyway, that’s why nowadays I always carry a knife with me whenever I go out.

A couple of years ago I went to a gathering with friends and one of the guys had organized this game. All of us got a paper slip about someone else there and had to yell “bingo” or something when the person on the slip did a specific thing. The one about me was that I say “lol”. The guy with that slip won almost immediately after I stepped in the door, when he told some silly joke.

I didn’t realize it then, but I just did now – I’ve lost the ability to laugh. I just say “lol” out loud. Even when I’m alone. It’s quite weird. If I think about it, I’m not even sure how long ago it was the last time I actually laughed like a normal person.

I just had another domain expire that I never ended up using. It was for Habitorium, the habit-tracking tool I wanted to develop mostly for personal use.

It sure happens a lot. To get an idea that you deem worthy of spending your time on, register the domain, start working, and a few weeks or months later it is forgotten with negligible progress. I guess I’m not unique in that aspect, the same shit happens to the best of us. Therefore, it is damn impressive when someone actually follows through with their thing.

Here’s a short list of some recent unfinished projects, so that I can feel better about them by letting at least the ideas live on in this blog:

• Habitorium – the habit tracking webpage. I developed it with React.js and Firebase.
• Irlie – an “irlie” is a spontaneous meeting in real life. It was going to be an app which gives you random people that you have to meet irl. Kinda like Omegle for real life meetings. I can only image the amount of psychopaths and serial killers you could have met through it. I built it with react native. This is the one which had the best domain name and i regret losing it.
• Grim Ascent – the predecessor for the current game I’m working on, with a similar basic idea. Both front end and back end with vanilla javascript / node.js.
• Which manga chapter – A website to match anime episodes to manga chapters that they are adapted from. I built the entire thing, in WordPress, with amazon affiliate links for monetization. I dropped the nearly finished project when entering the data turned out to be overly tedious.
• Seateur – a webpage, similar to doodle.com, but with specific focus on organizing board game and card game events. It never got any actual code written for it. I even paid for professional logo design:

What? You say I need to get my shit together and change? Well I already have. For the better.

Me. In high school. I got a new hoodie. It is the first hoodie I’ve ever worn, and for some reason having a hood on my shoulders makes me anxious. I keep adjusting the hood and asking people if it looks okay.

Me. In his thirties. My wardrobe only consists of hoodies. Wearing a hood makes me feel most comfortable, somehow it makes me feel less bad when I’m in the deepest of depressions.

So, there you have it. I’ve certainly improved.