One Year Less


I have never liked celebrating my birthday. Birthdays only remind me that I am one year closer to dying.
Last December 28 was my birthday, and were it not for two old friends who actually made the trouble of going to my house to greet me personally, I would probably spend my birthday just like I did the year before (and the year before that): playing a video game.
As it was, the three of us drank and talked about old times.  
I’m glad they came; I actually enjoyed my birthday this year, which surprised me. 

I suspect I am turning into a grouchy old fart, though.
And I find I am content to be a grouchy old fart.
What the hell, I am disappointed and disillusioned with the world—and the world is disappointed and disillusioned with me.
Might as well live with that, and accept my grouchy old fart persona, even if I am not as old as this old fart:



This is probably my last post for 2011. Frankly, I didn’t think this blog would go past this year, given my talent for procrastination.

But then, I discovered that I truly enjoy blogging. Yet another thing that surprises me. I think we should always try to surprise ourselves. In a good way, of course.


For 2012, I’d try writing more about Philippine history; there are many things about this country’s history that are simply fascinating, and I don't think I even made a single post about the subject.
There, I am actually excited about the coming year! Will wonders never cease.

Anyway, have an exciting new year—and may our fuck-ups be small and unimportant.
 Also this:

Comments

Post a Comment

So, what do you think? Post it here:

Popular posts from this blog

The Square Cube Law and How It Killed Giants

Image
We are so used to the idea of giants that we take it for granted that they exist, or must have existed at one point in our history.  You know, those very large and very tall human-like creatures, carrying a humongous club, and being very nasty. Like this: And if you are a typical, god-fearing Catholic Pinoy, you would swear that not only are they true, you even saw one beside that big-ass, scary-looking tree not far from your home, one night when you were going home after an evening of binge-drinking with your buddies. And the bastard’s smoking a cigar as long and as big as your leg! Or you know someone who saw one of those cigar-smoking monsters. This creature is called a kapre —a cigar-smoking giant wearing a loincloth. Or maybe a tikbalang —a half-man, half-horse creature about as tall as a kapre. Unlike a centaur, however, a tikbalang is a giant with the torso and arms of a man, and the head and legs of a horse.  Scary creatures, these—and, if I may add
Read more

Dog of War

Image
Besides ruling the largest land empire the world has ever seen, Genghis Khan apparently is also the ancestor of 0.5 percent of the world’s male population. That’s around 16 million living, breathing great, great, great (and so on) grandkids of the Scourge of God himself. While the Phoenician Empire was built through commerce , Genghis Khan’s empire was built through warfare, with the result that he killed off a good portion of Asia’s population during his bloody conquests.   To be fair though, he also helped repopulate the world . How’d he manage it, though--how did he build an empire that, at its apex, occupied 16% of the world’s total land area? For one thing, he had an efficient, disciplined, well-organized army. For another, he had history’s greatest generals leading that army. One of them was Subutai, widely considered as the military mastermind behind the Mongol Empire. One of Genghis Khan’s legendary “Dogs of War” (there were four) Subutai is arguably the grea
Read more

Where Did Money Come From, Anyway?

Image
It is difficult to imagine the world today without money, or the concept of money. But surely, the first civilizations did not start out using money, right?             Long ago, people did not use money to buy things. They also did not use money to pay the person who repaired their roof, or built their tables, chairs and other furniture. What they did was to exchange the things they had for the things that they needed. If they had a lot of rice, they might want to exchange some of it for fish, so they would find somebody who has a lot of fish, and see if that person wants to trade some of it for rice. Or maybe a person who was very good at repairing roofs or making chairs and tables would get paid with bananas, or whatever fruit was in season. This type of doing business is called barter .              As you can imagine, barter trade has some serious flaws. For example, what if the person who had just repaired your roof wanted, say, flip flops? And you only had bananas? Mor
Read more

Can We Be Good For Nothing?

Image
So, in this season of hope, peace and good will, Catholic League president Bill Donahue has launched a campaign—“Adopt An Atheist,” is what it’s called. Behold : Here’s what our campaign entails. We are asking everyone to contact the American Atheist affiliate in his area, letting them know of your interest in “adopting” one of them. All it takes is an e-mail. Let them know of your sincere interest in working with them to uncover their inner self. They may be resistant at first, but eventually they may come to understand that they were Christian all along. If we hurry, these closeted Christians can celebrate Christmas like the rest of us. As an added bonus, they will no longer be looked upon as people who “believe in nothing, stand for nothing and are good for nothing.”   What he is doing is just perpetrating the bigotry that religious nuts like him have towards people who happen to not share his set of beliefs.  Religion could be dangerous, as it is; combine it with ig
Read more