Typewriters - iTs bEtTer tH4N thIs

I just heard that recently, the last company that manufactured typewriters just closed. It was the Godrej and Boyce - a factory based in Mumbai, India. I can just imagine the employees standing before metal gates, watching it shut down forever - ala flashback scenes of  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (I meant the movie. Don't get all hipster on me). A spokesperson, who happened to be one of the employees watching the metal gates shut down forever said in a stereotypical Indian accent "The gates will reopen when the crow turns white, when snow comes to Mumbai, when sand comes to Siberia, when Snooki wins a Pulitzer prize, when Snooki successfully spells Pulitzer, when the epic meal time guy joins PETA, you know I can go on and on with the....wait please let me go on. I don't have a job."

Yesterday, I saw the old family typewriter on the table. In a spin, I was suddenly  an Ophidiophobic professor with a whip and a hat and started brushing the artifact for its archeological significance. That's when I realized a question - when was the last time I used the typewriter?



2001 - a time when kids were embarrassingly playful with WordArt and boastful of  the primitive Wikipedia of that time - Encarta, I was using the typewriter to type such ground breaking essays as "What I did last summer" and "What do I want to be when I grow up". I didn't mind if my homework looked like it was Jack Nicholson's draft on The Shining, whilst my classmates' homework looked like unicorn puke.

It just seemed like yesterday. But that was like 10 years ago. I was 9.

Sometimes, I like using the Courier font. It gives the feeling of nostalgia, when all seemed to be in sepia tone. Many people don't like it. Especially people my age who haven't even had the opportunity to use an actual typewriter. It's weird that the same people aLsO tYpE lIkE diS iN dEr fAcEbUk sTatus.

On a slightly unrelated yet very related note, I think people who easily forget and even shun old technology (or history for that matter) are people who are victims of the darker side of capitalism. They are also the same people who insert the word "like" in between every two words, and are also the same people who think remakes are the original ones. I hate them. But they are the powerful majority that makes up our world. Does that make me a hipster? Slightly.

I like the sound of of a typewriter. It makes me feel like I'm in a World War movie. (Not that the feeling of being in a World War is something to like). I compared it to the sound of my computer keyboard. It makes me feel like in a crappy 90s spy movie where a hacker miraculously breaks into something just by typing extra fast. Makes me remember the last time I used a floppy disk. Believe it or not, it was in 2008.

So Long, Long Hair, So Long!

For the past few days I've been having fever. And the worst part is it was on the night of my birthday that the fever started. It kept on for a couple of days, the fever swelling through my neck. Then one day my mom told me something that would change my life forever (or for the rest of the semester).

"You need to have your hair cut."

It seemed like time and space contradicted each other and I was drawn into the resulting black hole from the collapse of the laws of physics. It seemed like all religious foundations in which nations all over the world had been found had come into total discrepancy. It seemed like the mores and norms, the taboos and folkways of the modern mainstream societies had vanished, causing our world to go back to barbarism and pillaging. In other words:

I didn't want to have the haircut.

"What does it have to do with my fever?" I questioned

"Well, you look more sick with that type of hairdo. And also it looks...itchy."

"It's ugly?"

"Yeah. It's ugly."

Mom was not the first person to hate my do. Mom would be a part of the army of millions dedicated to convincing Asher to have his hair shortened. Mentioning a few members of the said army would be siblings, classmates, professors, friends, and church mates. They had formed a fellowship that aims for the reduction of the follicular production on my head.

Their day of victory has finally come.

I had my haircut last Saturday evening. And I did not have any regrets.

There was a reason I sported a long do. I wanted to at least separate myself from the bland oatmeal that was my school, where everyone needed to conform with everything, from the type of music to the fashion statement to the general opinion on the significance of Snooki's chest cramps to environmentalism. I wanted to be a little bit different. I wanted to be dissimilar.

I guess that college phase really had to end some time.

I now have short hair. Well, actually it's not very short, but I think I'll keep this for the remainder of my college days. I will sure miss the hair that, as Willow Smith puts it, may be whipped back and forth.


*photo was google searched

Over-reviewing sucks!

I hate this day. I spent the whole night last night reviewing for a quiz that involves cranial and spinal nerves. Then, the day for the quiz came, I ate my breakfast and lunch, drank milk, and ate a banana, to energize myself with starch. Finally, the hour of judgement came, and lo, I was judged most tremendously.


Questions. No, interrogations chewed me up the very moment I glanced upon the test paper, and all that was on my mind was "I knew I read this, I friggin' read this somewhere in the book. I even saw a GIF animation of it on the internet, but I cannot remember the name of these hanging things below the pointy thing." After the quiz, I reminisced on the valuable evening I spent  shoving notes down my nasal cavity. I cursed the memory, together with the banana and its freaking starch.

 Maybe I over-reviewed, which is something I usually do whenever the Hale-Bopp comet passes by our planet. I experienced perhaps what laymen call the "mental block". Whatever happened gave disappointment that brought about this thought: What if instead of reviewing the functions of the oculomotor nerve last night, I reviewed more important, significant things, like:


1. Zombie Apocalypse Cosmetology:The science of applying make-up on yourself so that you can pretend to be a zombie and the undead won't lay a finger on you.
2. Internet Marketing Strategies: The proper way of spamming Facebook walls and forums.
3. Popular Adolescent Literary Creations: Writing the next "Twilight".


Now these topics might have given me much more benefit than knowing about preganglionic neurons. But no, I gave up on these significant subjects to give time to remember what the hanging things below the pointy thing were called. And the sad thing was, I remembered it seconds after I passed my paper. Cauda Equina! I knew it sounded something like Megan Fox...or not. 

Pretentious Douchebags!!!

We all know one. We all hate one.

Pretentious douchebags - the worst of all the douchebags (before this would be the Starbucks douchebags). Philosophers the world over contemplates on their existence. Statisticians worry on their increasing population. The military plans on their eradication, and bloggers...well.. bloggers rant on why one is sitting right next to them (good job breaking the rhyme).

How do we exactly detect and categorize one to be included in this group. While some might say the definition of a "pretentious douchebag" is subjective, I think most will agree with what I will list below. (For the sake of my fragile, china porcelain fingers, I shall refer to Pretentious Douchebags as "PD").

PD # 1 - Gadget PDs
That's right. The scum of the technological world. Their script: "I bought 3 IPads from the mall and threw it out of the window, for no reason. While I upload some new pics of me and my cat on my 84 websites and social networking profiles, I'll just play some sex-themed music on my monster D-Bag 2000 Stereo Surround Sound Stereo while I send a tweet to my 7 followers" 


The girlfriend-less scum portrays all their majestic douchebaggery to compensate for the fact that they can never talk to a woman in a bar, and that they never go to bars.


PD# 2 - The Big Words PDs
They sound like Noah Webster being forced to eat page after page of his newly edited dictionary. Their script: "My neurotransmitters are situated as echelons while I divulge to my audience what my cognitive processes mainly focuses on at the moment, the quintessence of my mind: my speech. Also, what I just said did not make sense and I just wanted to impress a dozen of other PDs."


Seriously, what's up with the heavy words? No one thinks your cool, no one thinks you will ever be cool. Whatever you do in life, you will never, ever be cool. That is why you have to stop using those words.


PD# 3 - The Newly-Elected PDs
Somehow, these PDs got elected or appointed in some sort of office. That is why their PD meter grows exponentially high. Their script: "As the newly elected undersecretary of the undersecretary of the Society for the Appreciation of the Yellowness of Mustard, I would like to say, I deserve this so much, and you did the right thing of electing me. Now, I shall officially start ignoring you because I am now formally and on legal documents considered "better than you".


Believe me. I know a lot of these PDs. Those people who suddenly become your BFFs because they see you as one big walking ballot for various beauty contests or elections and ignore you when they win.


Okay, I'm gonna end it here.

So, aside from what I have listed here, what other PDs can you think of? Place it on the comment section below.


(got the photo from photobucket)

Why I hate hallways

My college building is nothing but hallways. My college building has actually won awards for its prolific construction of hallways. College buildings from faraway lands have heard of the tales of my college building hallways. Minstrels sang songs about the legend of my college building hallways.


The college building did not have hallways before. But when they heard I was going to enroll in the university and learned about my lifetime hatred of hallways. They decide to construct hallways. Story of my life.


I despise hallways. Things get really sucky in the hallways. Here are my reasons:


1) The hallway camera gals: The witches of hallway-land. They wait for you, on your tardiest moments. They watch out for you, rushing to your class like a desperate doe yearning for the lake. Then, when the Asher and the witches meet in the hallway, they bring out these devices, called "cameras" by the wise. One witch goes to the left wall of the hallway with the said device, and the remaining witches pose in a rather lustful manner. Then the device flashes out bright light that captures the moment. As you awkwardly wait for them to finish, they laugh in victory, for they have stalled you victoriously. And when you think they are done, they pose some more, leaving you in agony and defeat.


2) The "May I steal a few minutes of your time" dudes: The taboo of the hallway. One must not speak of the "9 words" question. Most importantly, one must not answer "Yes" to the question. If you have already answered affirmatively, then it is too late for you. But for some who will be in future risk, I must warn you. The "few minutes" they propose is actually equivalent to a precious eternity. Then you will have to face the excruciating offers for free toenail products, polls and surveys on "Which is sexier: Edward Cullen's earwax or Harry Potter's nose hair", and opinions on how armpit odor contribute to global warming. You have been warned.



3) S#it, that's my CRUSH: Damn right, its your crush. This is most unfortunate, especially on days when you decide to wear nothing but Tweety boxers to class (wait...thats just me?), and you see your crush, elegantly frolicking down hallway with...with man-arms around her. I should have worn Snoopy boxers that day.



What do you hate most about hallways?

Practical ways to deal with an annoying classmate

Having problems with a classmate? Worry no more! This blogger, who happens to be one of the leading experts on those kinds of crap, has come up with a few practical ways to deal with an annoying classmate.


Now, it will all depend on how the classmate annoys you. (From now on, we shall call the annoying classmate "Jacques")


Annoying stuff 1: The math teacher asks for the value of x. Your classmate Jacques raises his hand and begins to detail the philosophical background of mathematics and the genealogy of Isaac Newton's chihuahua.

How to deal with crap: Stand up and shout - "Shut up loser, you obviously don't know the answer!" Believe me, your teacher will thank you for it.

Annoying stuff 2: It's a Literature exam, Jacques sits beside you and extends his neck like a freaking giraffe over your paper.

How to deal with crap: Always be prepared for cheating classmates. Get an old fashion magazine and tear a page. Use it as a fake exam paper, so that whenever he leans towards your paper, he sees Katherine Heigl. I assume he is dumb enough to believe that Perez Hilton is the most famous character of Ernest Hemingway. After all, he cheats.

Annoying Stuff 3: You try to impress girls in school with your collection of dead cockroaches, but your classmate Jacques tries to steal the spotlight by bringing his collection of famous people's boogers.

How to deal with crap: Try to prove the authenticity of your collection by letting the girls touch and smell the dead cockroaches. Worry not if Jacques tries to do the same, no one would want to touch and smell people's boogers. I mean, Eeew!

Practical solutions to socio-educational annoyances. Good day. I'm off to class.

Ten signs you'll fail the exams

Next week, I will undergo a process millions of students abhor, abominate, despise, detest, disapprove, disdain, disfavor, loathe, look down on, scorn, shudder at, shun et cetera, et cetera. (Whooo, copying thesaurus was harder than I thought.)

It will be my midterms exams next week. One whole week dedicated to a thousand year old ritual observed by millions of educational institutions in the word. And so, foreseeing the approach of the deadly tentacles of the exams speeding before me, with only a few days left to prepare; days that will decide my midterm exam fate with one small move, I decided to do one thing that will definitely define my days to come. I blogged. ( Yes Asher. You almost had it.)

I am no stranger to failing exams. Believe me. In the fourteen years I've been sitting my ass in school, I have come to know and predict the signs that an impending doom is upon your exam results. The impending doom (wow, I love typing "impending doom") has been proven to happen every time these ten things below occurred the night before exams. If you experienced or did these things the night before the big day, you might be on your way to a D minus or a 70. You were warned.

Ten signs you'll fail the exams

1. You blogged about the exams (good thing I steered clear of that.)

2. "Out of nowhere", a case of beer appeared on your table beside your notes.

3. Someone bet you ten dollars to pee on your notes.

4. Your dog ate your notes, then turned into a zombie-eating alligator.

5. Someone bet you ten bucks to pee on your professor's notes.


6. Your name is Peter and this was your quiz paper. (see below)

7. You just became Barney Stinson's new wingman.


8. You created a facebook page entitled, "stop exams = save trees" (which garnered over a million fans.)


9. You didn't review (Yes, scientists had already proven that)


10. Someone bet you ten bucks to pee on your professor. 


Be on guard, if the signs occur, be alert and proceed to the nearest bar. Your beer is all you got for now.


Anyways, you might not see me much next week. I have to pretend to be studying. While I'm gone, please join my Facebook page (on the right, or click here) and also follow me on twitter (on the right too. or click again here.)