How you are perceived based on your typing style

The 5-year-old who just smoked crack rocks in the basement and now hallucinates cats. Probably not a child. Probably not on crack. And there are probably no cats involved. This typer is just a sick, sick person who finds pleasure in tainting the web with z’s and lol’s.

The wannabe emo teenager who’s actually an adult and can’t spell for shit. Key characteristics: Uses “2” instead of “two/to/too”. Uses “4” instead of “four/for.” Uses single letters instead of full words (e.g. u = you). Combines letters and numbers to create words (e.g. b4 = before).

The unicorn who just ate a bunch of shrooms. People who type like this need to have their arms chopped off at the elbows. If that doesn’t stop them from coming in contact with a keyboard, shoot on sight.

The lazy college kid who sits around facebook all day. The only thing missing in this typer’s style is a bit of appropriate capitalisation and the occasional apostrophe. But because he’s in college, a lack in motivation is completely understandable. It’s just sad because there’s so much potential! *sheds a tear*

The ADHD princess who can’t be bothered to type full sentences. A plethora of exclamation marks tends to be used, and almost everything is abbreviated into an acronym.

The overweight, balding, 50-year-old gaming nerd who pretends to be a kid in chat-rooms.

The totally awesome Ona (and people who aspire to be like her, but never quite make it).

Halloween

Halloween is probably the most pointless “holiday” on the calendar. It celebrates nothing. No, really. Wikipedia it.

That having been said, it is still celebrated by a gajillion people worldwide. So, in honour of all the Halloweeners (Hollow-wieners? Hahaha I crack myself up), I’ve decided to write a pointless post to celebrate this pointless event. If you’re borderline blind (e.g. Ma) and have trouble reading the captions, a simple click on each image will enlarge it to full-screen.

We begin our tale at the youngest age possible. This stage refers to kids who just learned how to walk, and know enough vocabulary to say “trick-or-treat,” “candy please,” “yummy,” and “please don’t rape or poison me.” Parents dress their kids up in cute little costumes, amp them up with the promise of candy, and gallivant around neighbourhoods, collecting sugary treats.

As these adorable little munchkins grow up, they begin to phase out of the trick-or-treating stage. All of a sudden it’s “lame” to dress up. They’re “too cool” to go around with their little siblings and partake in this sacred family tradition. However, candy is still a motivator, so they roll their eyes and grudgingly force themselves to go door-to-door for a week’s worth of sugar-high.

The next stage is the coolest stage. This is when teenagers realise that Halloween isn’t about silly old candy, it’s about having a reason to throw a costume party! They typically dress up in elaborate costumes and go to someone’s house party. The host’s mom serves chilled non-alcoholic punch and orders large pizzas. Everyone then sits around in their awesome costumes, watching old-school horror films.

Once these teens reach college, their inner demons surface. For the girls, the demon takes the form of a slut-monster. And for the guys, the demon is a giant keg of beer. When these two genders attend a college Halloween party, there’s basically just a lot of drunken sex scenes, and depending on the costumes, it can get really weird. Fact: 90% of girls will be a slutty cat/nurse/devil/angel/witch/you name it, and 95% of guys won’t even bother dressing up. It’s science.

Now that they’ve graduated and have jobs, a new phase of Halloweening takes place. There’s still some dressing up, but because these people are now in their early thirties, the costumes are way less intricate. Usually, both the male and the female will “dress up” as a celebrity they remotely resemble. They then go hang out at the local bar for a couple hours before they have to rush back home to the screaming toddler.

 

The aforementioned toddler has now grown up, and our two main characters are proud, beaming, excited parents. No longer do they need to dress up, rather, it’s time to send the kids out trick-or-treating! Meanwhile, the parents sit at home and dish out candy. Oh, how the tables have turned.

Years later, the kids are out of the house and all that’s left is the nice elderly couple who lives down the street.

And that, my friends, is the end of our journey. I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween (regardless of which stage you’re in) and keep it safe!

Eat, Sleep, Love

Stage 1: Sleep. This usually takes up most of the day.

Stage 2: Awaken to the sound of something that may or may not sound like a tin of cat food opening.

 

Stage 3: Run faster than the speed of light until the source of the tin-like sound is reached. If there are obstacles in the way, ignore them. Bunch up the carpets, smash into bookshelves while skidding around the corner, trip anyone in your way by darting between their legs, it doesn’t matter. Just get to the source.

Stage 4: To ensure that the owner will feed you the maximum amount of food in one helping, show as much affection as possible.

Stage 5: Eagerly yet patiently await your delicious mound of food.

Stage 6: Eat and enjoy.

Stage 7: Commence the cleaning process. [click image for enhanced enlarged cuteness]

Stage 8: Sleep. Repeat when applicable.

Bart’s long lost twin brother

I stumbled upon this video on YouTube today, and this is exactly what Bart does any time an empty box is left unattended somewhere in the house. Whether you have a cat or not, you’ll appreciate the humour. Even the sound effects are spot on!

The unbearable shittiness of being.

I know that there are billions of sad little people in the world who are worse off than me. However, I’m at that stage of the year my life where I actually need to physically tell myself this. Aloud. To my reflection in the mirror. Let me explain:

I’m supposed to be enrolled in four classes this semester. When I was in the States, I was only able to enroll in two classes online, so when I came back, I had to manually enroll in the other two. This involves getting a piece of paper, filling it out, and getting it signed by some VIPs of my university, then going to the cashier and paying for my tuition, and presto! I will be enrolled. So I did all that, minus the whole paying thing, meaning I’m still not technically enrolled in those two classes. Midterms are coming up, and if I don’t get enrolled in the system, my marks won’t count. So no problem, all I have to do is pay and hand in that paper. But I can’t find it anywhere! I searched my house, I searched the car, I searched my friends’ cars, I searched all my bags, I searched everywhere! And it’s nowhere to be found. And the enrollment deadline has passed, so I can’t just redo the process. Which sucks. And makes me angry. WHERE IS THAT PAPER?!

Ma left yesterday to do an overseas consultancy for like a week. Don’t worry, that’s not the shitty part (just kidding Ma, *wink!* – (party at my house, people! woo!)). What makes my life literally a living hell anytime she travels is the fact that Feb becomes even more demonic than usual. Feb is one of our two cats. Tommy is nice and friendly and does normal cat-like things like eat and nap and purr. Feb, on the other hand, hates everyone, and her sole mission in life is to ruin the lives of others. Now, when my mom’s around, it’s bearable, because she actually likes my mom (kind of). But when Ma’s gone?! Fuuuuck. Yesterday, for example, I came home at night, locked the front gate and the main door, turned off all the lights, and went upstairs to get ready for bed. Halfway up the stairs, I come face-to-face with Dr. Evil, as her eyes glare at me in the dark. “Hey baby Feb, let’s go upstairs and do sleep-sleep!” I said very sweetly. She stares at me, takes a step down (closer to me), smells me for a split second, and then hisses like a devil-tiger and smacks me in the leg with her paw. “FINE!” I yelled at her and kicked her down the stairs a bit. She immediately recoils, and dashes past me up the dark stairs of doom, causing me to trip and nearly suffer fatal head injuries, and then darts into my room. “Uh, no. You’re not staying here. Get out. Go to Ma’s room and slit your wrists or something, but don’t crouch in the corner and stare at me as I sleep.” She ignored me, ostensibly, and paraded around my room, smelling all my stuff. So I left to brush my teeth and hang out with Ten for a bit. When I was ready to go to bed, I turned off the light and got nice and comfy. I set my alarm (on my new phone that actually works, yes!) and closed my eyes to prepare for the dream-realm. Suddenly my eyes pop open. I feel something walking around at the foot of my bed. Propping myself up on my elbows, and squinting in the dark, I can make out a cat-like creature. Oh, it’s just Tommy, I thought to myself. But then I remembered that Tommy was sleeping in Eri’s room that night, so my heart started racing as I realised what was actually happening – Feb was on my bed, probably rearing up for attack-mode. I tried to hide my fear and go to sleep, but she started kneading my blanket and making weird noises. So I turned on my side, hoping that if I just ignore her, she’ll let me live. Sadly this was not the case. She creeped up towards my face, smelling me and my bedsheets the entire time. When we were finally nose-to-nose, she licked my face (aww), and then hissed loudly, slapped me in the head, and bolted out of my room (boo). I hate her so much. And this is only the beginning.

For the past two days (this is day three), I’ve been having severe chest pain. And I can’t figure out what it is or what caused it. At first I thought that it was just heartburn. So I took some Tums, but that did nothing. I tried drinking milk, and again no relief. So I was like, whatever, it’s not heartburn. On day two, it intensified. And the pain is kinda constant, but it comes in waves of severity. To the point that I clutch my chest like a heartbroken woman who just lost her son in the war. And then it kinda goes away again. But it’s really strange. It feels as if I swallowed a tennis ball and it’s now stuck in my esophagus. Breathing hurts. Swallowing hurts. And I don’t know what to do about it. It’s a lot better today than yesterday, so hopefully I can just do what I usually do when I get weird symptoms, which is pretend that I never had them and hope they never return. We’ll see.

Eri had to drive me to school today. This is sort of a two-in-one problem. The first part of the problem is that I have a license and I can drive myself. However, insurance-wise, I’m not covered on my mom’s car until I get an Omani license. And getting an Omani license isn’t a simple snap of the fingers, because I’d need to start from scratch and do all the training and take a bajillion tests, none of which I have time for. Mind you, I’ve been driving illegally for like seven years, and never had an accident. But the ROP doesn’t seem to care. I have to do it like everyone else, unless I can find some serious wasta. Anyway, the second part of the problem of me not being allowed to drive my mom’s car is obviously the fact that Eri has to drive. Eri is Ma’s seventy-something-year-old mother, who has absolutely no sense of direction. And she freaks out quite easily. So we had to leave the house at 06:50, and take the easiest route possible, although it’s also the longest, and hang on for dear life anytime we approach a roundabout. Furthermore, there is little to no talking allowed once the vehicle is in motion, to enable Eri to concentrate to her fullest potential. Music is a definite no. So those forty-five minutes to Ten’s school are pretty hellish. To make matters worse, she doesn’t know how to get from Ten’s school to mine, so I had to show her the way. Twice. Which means, we left Ten’s school, drove to mine, made a U-turn, drove back to Ten’s school, made another U-Turn, and drove back to mine. And I had to draw her a map. Eri said she’d call me if she has any problems finding her way back (which is a simple five-minute route), and she hasn’t yet called me. So hopefully she’s on her way home and not actually in Jordan with no phone signal or something.

I just realised that I’ve been complaining for the past thousand words or so, and although I could continue for another five thousand, I’d rather not. I’ll just list a few more points:

• Normal doses of caffeine no longer have an effect on me, so I’ve become a coffeeholic, even though I can’t really afford to be one.
• I have four hours of accounting today and want to shoot myself in the face.
• I don’t have time to go to the beach as often as I want to.
• My favourite shirt seems to have gone missing.
• I cooked a chicken soup for Omar yesterday because he’s sick, but now my hands smell like garlic, regardless of how much I wash them.
• Ma took my Ten’s gold eyeliner with her, and I look ugly without it.
• I despise malls with a creepishly strong passion, yet I must go to one today with Eri, of all people, to help her get a new phone because she feels the need to copy everything I do.
• Did I mention I have four hours of accounting today?!
• I have a craving for something, but I can’t figure out what it is, and it’s very nerve wracking. 
• The same song has been stuck in my head for the past five days and it’s starting to nauseate me.

And that’s not all, but that’s all I feel like typing for now. So I think the time has come to order another coffee and go to the bathroom and talk to the registrar about my enrollment situation before class, which is in less than an hour. But I thought I’d give you a tiny little taste of the unbearable shittiness of my being so you can sympathise with me. Pity me! Just kidding, don’t. Or do. Your call. Either way, I’m still going to be in a grumpy mood the whole day.

Haha, a bird just flew into the window of Fiesta. I guess it’ll be a good day after all. 

: )

Bento-cat

My mom, sister, and I were at a theme park. It was HUGE and totally awesome, a combination of Six Flags, Disney World, and Aquaventure. Ten and I went on one of the roller coaster rides, and it lasted like eight minutes and somehow ended in one of those river-things that has a slight current, so you don’t really have to swim, you can just kinda float there, and it carries you around. Meanwhile, we had no idea where Ma was.

So we’re just floating around, when we find a little tributary with a sign that says “Extreme Zone –>” so we obviously swam in that direction. We could tell immediately that we were heading towards an extreme zone, because the once calm river transformed into quite a rapid one.

All of a sudden, from the left river bank, this crazy woman leaps out of the bushes and into the rapid river, landing right in front of us. Ten and I just kinda look at each other, and when the crazy woman resurfaces, we both roll our eyes. “Typical,” says Ten. The crazy lady was Ma.

“Hey, I got you guys something!” my mom said to us. Mind you, we’re still careening along a rapid river. So I’m like, “Okaaay, what? What’d you get us that’s so important, it couldn’t wait till we’re on dry land again?” And my mom holds out this bento box, which is divided into six sections, each section containing not a delicious Japanese delicacy, rather, live baby cats. But not kittens. They looked more like fetuses. And they were each tiny, like the size of a Bic lighter. And they didn’t have hair yet either, they were kinda slimy and gross. 

“Uhm, thanks?” Ten and I weren’t sure of what else to say. We were kinda speechless, actually. After a few awkward moments (my mom was just floating there, smiling widely, arms extended, box full-o-fetuses in hand), we finally reached a dock-type thing, where we had to get out of the water and go stand in line. Similar to the line that takes you to Jumeirah Sceirah, for those of you who have been to Wild Wadi.

Anyway, so we’re standing in line, completely oblivious to what we’re getting in to, when these skate-boarder slash surfer dudes approach my mom. “Aww, those cat fetuses are wicked cute! You’re so rad! Where’d you get ’em?” And my mom, thinking she’s so cool (and visibly blushing) starts talking to the punks.

Meanwhile, Ten and I are becoming increasingly worried because as we advance in the waiting line, the screams of terror from people in front of us get louder and louder. Soon, we’re at the front of the line, and we see the death trap before us: it’s a huge obstacle course, in the ocean, with spiky traps all over the place. And since people have fallen and died just recently, there’s blood in the water attracting angry-looking sharks.

The first part of the course involved a tight-rope that stretched for about ten meters, leading to a trampoline. Then there was a stretch of open ocean (with killer jelly-fish lurking beneath the surface), with two rings of fire in between the trampoline and the next platform. Beyond that, we couldn’t see. Ten and I were freaking out, but my mom was too involved in a conversation about extreme sports with the punks to notice the lingering cloud of doom.

I was up first. I managed to make it across the tight-rope and ten waited on the trampoline for Ten. When I saw that she was like a meter away, I jumped on the trampoline, through the rings of fire, to the platform on the other side. There I waited for both Ten and Ma, who managed to get across safely.

The next leg of the obstacle course was tougher, however, because it involved a rope ladder that led to a big bouncy castle, balancing on nothing but a skinny pole, which was floating on the water. So it was really unstable and it looked as though this is where most people died, because there were a lot of greedy sharks surrounding the bouncy castle. I went first. Once atop the castle, there was a notice board that said I must wait a full minute before jumping down onto another platform that would lead me into the next level. So I tried to signal to Ten to wait, because she’d make both of us fall into the water if she didn’t. But she mistook my frantic waving for a sign for help, so she and my mom quickly scampered up the rope ladder. 

Once they were on the bouncy castle, it actually became easier to balance, because we formed a triangle that stabilised the entire structure. “Whew, this is pretty extreme!” my mom exclaimed. Then, to my horror, she reached down to set the bento box on the floor of the castle. This threw off the perfect balance of our triangle, and caused the bouncy castle to start bouncing, and bento box flipped in the air, spilling all six cat-fetuses into the air (in slow motion). 

“Nooooooo…” Ten screamed in a deep, slow-motion voice as she bounced over to save the cats. She managed to grab two of them and throw them back in the box, but the other four bounced off the castle, heading for the water. I pushed my mom, with the bento box now containing only two fetuses, off the castle and to the safety of the stable, wooden platform below. Then I pushed Ten off, with one of the fetuses in her protective clutches, to go stay with my mom. And then I went over the edge, to try and save the remaining cats.

I landed in the water and looked around for the cats, but it was kinda difficult because the water was really cloudy. Three sharks started swimming towards me at full speed and I was prepared for the worst. But instead of eating me, they grabbed me and pulled me down to the bottom of the ocean, where I saw the three now dead-looking fetuses. I grabbed them, and the sharks helped me back to the surface at warp speed, where I collapsed onto the platform, gasping for air. The three fetuses looked really dead.

Ten and my mom were in hysterics, and the other three surviving baby cats in the bento box were crying over the loss of their brethren. I performed CPR on the fetuses by using my pinkies on their little chests and a straw (I don’t know where it came from) to refill their tiny lungs with air. Miraculously, all three started sputtering and coughing, and I placed them back into the box while Ma and Ten embraced each other with tears of joy. In retrospect, it was a very lame moment.

Anyway, we somehow managed to finish the extreme obstacle course and were about to get ready to go home when we noticed that the fetuses were now bigger. Like, way bigger. They were popping out of the box, actually. So we stopped and took them out of the box, and they just kept growing! Within seconds, all six fetuses were the size of normal cats. And they didn’t stop there… Before we could say Barack H. Obama, they were the size of panthers. And they didn’t stop there either. They just kept growing and growing and growing, and soon they were as large as whales. And then they stopped. So now we were surrounded by six whale-sized cats. And they looked just as shocked as we did. 

An old gypsy started cackling near us, breaking the silence. “What the hell are you laughing at, freakish old gypsy woman?” Ten asked. “The prophecy has finally come true!” the gypsy shrieked. Ten and I just looked at each other. “Uh, what prophecy?”

The gypsy explained that in Japanese mythology, there were six gods of the six elements (air, water, earth, fire, mind, and heart) who transformed themselves into fetuses, and the “chosen one” would purchase them and subconsciously scatter them into the water element. There, they would take on the Power of the Koi, in which they would grow into the size of their surroundings (hence their whale-like attributes). Then, they would disperse to six different corners of the globe and do something cool. I forgot exactly what. Bring peace to the world? Something like that.

Anyway, after she explained all that, we looked at the cats, and they just kinda sat there. One was licking his butt, another was trying to catch a bird flying near his head, and the others looked bored and cat-like and literally just sat there. “Uh, I don’t see them dispersing,” my mom said. “Yeah, they look like normal cats, just… bigger,” noted Ten. “I think they’re just hungry,” I added. The gypsy looked confused. “No! It’s not supposed to be like this! They’re supposed to gallop into the sunset and do godly things! This is not right!” And then she started getting pissed at us, as if it’s our fault that the giant cats are just being giant cats.

My mom and the gypsy started shouting at each other, and Ten and I jumped on the back of the cutest cat, and started petting it and stuff. Meanwhile, the evilest-looking cat (who had an uncanny resemblance to Feb) yawned, picked up the gypsy with his paw, and ate her. It then picked up my mom, put her on his back, and walked off. The other cats followed. 

And then I woke up, to the sound of the TV blasting inaugural stuff. Yay, Obama!