First-person direct (Part 2): Internet history crashed course
Tuesday 26 March 2013, 7.23pm HKT
First-person direct: Who blogs first, brags (1)
Saturday 23 March 2013, 7.57am HKT
Updated 30 March 2013 (new navigation links)
6.37am, 22°C (72°F), sunny with some cloudy periods
A week ago (15 March) was one year ago that I furloughed this blog for 108 days (or 15 weeks). For reasons I can’t get into right now, I’ve been trawling for the lowdown on the oldest, still-running blogs on the Web.
Needs a fag break even before starting…
So now we know, now we know
Thursday 29 December 2011, 9.00pm HKT
We’ve certainly had our pants down on this one…
© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2011. Image via apina.
Top 25 signs that you’ve finally grown up
Tuesday 12 July 2011, 3.31pm HKT
YOUR MILEAGE, in this case, may not even vary at all:
1 – 5
1. Your houseplants are actually living — and you can’t smoke any of them.
2. Having sex on a twin bed is out of the question.
3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
4. Six o’clock in the morning is when you get up, not when you go to bed.
5. You hear your favourite song in a lift/elevator.
6 – 10
6. You pay attention to weather reports.
7. Your friends marry and divorce instead of hook up and break up.
8. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.
9. Jeans and a jumper/sweater no longer qualify as ‘dressed up.’
10. You’re the one calling the police because those damn kids next door won’t turn down the stereo.
11 – 15
11. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.
12. You don’t know what time the fast-food joint closes anymore.
13. Your car insurance goes down and your payments go up.
14. You feed your pet proper pet food instead of McDonalds leftovers.
15. Sleeping on the couch makes your back ache.
16 – 20
16. You no longer take naps from noon to six.
17. Dinner and a movie is the whole date, instead of the beginning of one.
18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at 3am would severely upset your stomach rather than settle it.
19. You go to the chemist/drugstore for Ibuprofen and antacid rather than for condoms or pregnancy tests.
20. A HK$30 (US$4 or £2.50) bottle of wine is no longer ‘pretty good stuff.’
21 – 25
21. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.
22. You replace “I”m never going to drink that much again” with “I just can’t drink the way I used to.”
23. Ninety percent of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.
24. Before going to the bar, you no longer drink at home to save money.
25. You read this entire list looking (or hoping) desperately for one sign that this doesn’t apply to you.
BONUS
26. All of the above 25 signs apply to you 100%.
* * *
QUESTION TIME
What does ‘grown up’ mean to you?
Boils down to money and sex, really — usually spending too much of one and too little of the other. Actually, more like too little of both.
Has it been difficult for you on the road to being ‘grown up’?
Actually, I’ve been 14 years old for a long time. I know I’ll die when I reach age 14, which is an incredible number of years from now. Yes, it HAS been difficult for me, often in the company of those who are either too grown up or too un-grown up.
What do you think ‘grown up’ means?
All depends on your attitude and outlook on life, along with the people and circumstances around you.
‘Grown up’ is a difficult idea to think about. Just like the term ‘normal,’ the words ‘grown up’ mean different things to different people. It even means different things to the same person at different times.
Actually, it’s pretty un-grown up to think that we could get a ‘handle’ on what grown up means.
But it has to mean something, somehow, to some people?
Question is, does it mean you got bigger or older or think differently now than before? Or do you just feel older because you now hang out with an older bunch? If someone older does something, do you act or feel like them if you did it too?
Just because you have the ability to frame a question doesn’t necessarily mean your question is answerable. At best, it might not actually be sensible to ask such a question. At worst, it might set you off on an answer that leads to a false certainty. Where’s your god then?
When was your own moment of sensing all grown up?
When was YOUR moment of feeling ‘all grown up’? How did you know?
Most people seem to think that some sort of adverse event must always precede that moment of being grown up. Or some appreciatively carnal activity like losing your virginity to mark that separation between childhood and adulthood. It can be — and not. It’s actually a bit of both and also somewhere in between.
So what have you noticed? What’s your take?
For many people, the truth of the matter is that a child begins to feel grown up when the child starts to act like an adult — or must act like one because of circumstances.
Not to put too fine a point on things, lots of people in this part of the world (the Far East) seem to think that to reach ‘grown up’ quickly is only sensible and desirable. That, to me at least, seems a pretty childish way of looking on life. Fast-tracking to ‘grown up’ just leads to regarding Life as a set of problems to live through rather than living in a mystery to be enjoyed. It really makes for a dog-eat-dog world.
Your best friend becomes your worst enemy. Your worst enemies are your siblings. The innocent turn into sluts. Detention become suspension. To think that we all couldn’t wait to grow up.
I can relate to the fact that sometimes, for some people, circumstances aren’t wonderful and there is a need to grow up quickly and survive. To that, I pass no judgment: that may well be what it takes for you to survive.
The truth is also that you, me and everybody else are always growing — and growing up — whatever the age. You, me and everybody else are learning new things all the time (or supposed to be anyway).
My point is that to be grown up doesn’t happen overnight. The realisation of reaching ‘grown up’ does occur overnight, however. In all honesty, we are never grown up even when we have ‘grown up.’
Final words?
© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2011.
Images: ‘I’m so sick of…’ by inspiredbythisfeeling via vi.sualize.us and weheartit.com ♦ ‘Growing Up Right Before Your Eyes’ by Donna’s Digital Creations ♦ all other images and wordart by The Naked Listener.
