Seven Things: Little Rants

01 - "I adore complaining. It calms the nerves." — I came across this quote I wrote down from the book Chime by Franny Billingsley and I thought this makes perfect sense. I had done a lot of complaining on this blog and all my previous blogs and I think it's therapeutic. It may not do anything but I think it's better to let out your complaints than to keep them in. I'm not someone who does a lot of talking so writing is my talking out loud. 

02 - Rachel at Hamlette's Soliloquy is hosting a We Love Fairy Tales Week (February 9-14) — I love fairytales (I prefer the spelling without the space) and used to read any fairytale-like stories/books but these days, I don't read much of those but I'm still adore them. I'm going to post about some of my favorite fairytale retellings which mostly likely featuring some of favorite Beauty and the Beast retellings since that is my favorite fairytale although East of the Sun and West of the Moon is also a favorite and was the inspiration for Beauty and the Beast but with a bear. More about We Love Fairy Tales Week here.
    
03 - I seem to be reading a lot of books where the bad guy/villain/serial killer gets more page time than the main characters and I really hated that — I don't want to know how these people became these asshats, I don't want to sympathize with them, I don't want to know how they kill people. If I want to read such books, there are books solely with these bad guys as main characters. For books that centers on good guys, I would prefer more page time for the good guys. I suppose the question is why do we need to understand the bad guy when the reasons they did those awful things are sometimes just inhumane so I just prefer not to know more than necessary.

04 - Do people think about the noises around them? — It's the level of the noise that we probably don't consider. I didn't until recently with a new vacuum cleaner - why are vacuum cleaners so loud? Sure you hear something earsplitting once in a while which is fine but constant louder than loud noise is probably not good for your ears. The subway trains (where I am anyway) for an example, is really loud and sometimes there are these awful shrieking when a train must hit some metal parts or something while you're inside the train. And hair dryers - those can be loud - I've reduced to using the lowest setting but it's still loud. I've looked for low or no noise ones but they don't exist. So if anyone know of any good noise cancelling headphones, let me know.

05 - Whenever I commented on a Wordpress blog, there is a popup box asking me to subscribe but it wasn't like that before — I have turned on block pop-ups and third-party redirects in Firefox but it doesn't effect these wordpress blogs. It's not a horrible thing but when it does it every time I try to leave a comment, it does get a bit annoying. If I wanted to subscribe to a blog, I would have done so - I don't need constant reminders from the same blogs. 

06 - Music I've been listening to lately — I don't listen to new music often but when I do, they are usually released years ago so they are new to me music. I listen to a lot of Cantonese music  (specifically pop music that may have touches of rock, jazz, dance and others plus some lyrics in English) even though I don't understand the language, I just simply gravitate toward them. Here are the albums I have added to my playlist recently:

EMO (released in 2024) & Lifeline EP (released in 2021) by Jay Fung - Listen at youtube here >

Galaxy Within (released in 2023) & Bloom (released in 2025) by Pandora - Listen at youtube here >

Myself (我本人) (released in 2011), Across (released in 2014) & State of Mind (released in 2013) by Kary Ng - Listen at youtube here >

07 - Blogging from A-Z Challenge April 2026 — I know it's a bit early but I like to make a note of this challenge to remind myself. If you don't know, the A-Z Challenge is when you post every day (except Sundays) for the month of April using the alphabets as a sort of guide (this means exactly 26 posts). For example, day 1, you would post something that starts with the letter A like apples or apes who dance and then day 2 would be letter B for butter or beastly jokes - anything you can think of and you can even do themes.
    For me, I mostly post random stuff with some short fiction. I usually call this challenge '26 days of mild entertainment' since most of my posts aren't exciting things but they can sort of entertain. It's a good challenge for any bloggers who wants to add some stress to their blogging routine for a month or simply to have fun posting random things that may or may not have a theme. I enjoyed the challenge and I always finished it every year and I always seemed to vow not to do it again but fickle me always going see-saw about it but I'll probably do it. For more about the A-Z Challenge, go here.

What's on your mind these days?

Things I like to continue, start or restart

These are not new year resolutions - I don't do those. These are things I may or may not do and I may or may not take some of them seriously but I put them here more as reminders than mandatory tasks I have to do. I think if you force yourself, the results may be satisfactory but the struggle to get them done is probably worst than not doing. Anyway, here is a list of things I may continue, start or restart.

01 - Continue blogging — I don't have to say it but I like to just to remind myself just in case I go mad and quit blogging. 

02 - Continue to refuse to join any social media or anywhere else to embarrass myself except in a blog.

03 - Restart commenting more on blogs — I may have slacked in this since last year and I have no excuses for it. I just don't seem to have things to say like I used to. Sometimes I re-read a post a dozen times trying to find something to say but just end up with something brief or not leave any comment. It probably doesn't matter what I say but I like to say something worth reading however brief they may be.

04 - Start practicing procrastinating in my sleep.

05 - Restart on finishing my artworks that may have been piling up for years — I have no idea how many unfinished artworks I have but I'm sure it would take a couple of years to finish them all but no one would really finish everything in their lifetime so trying for a couple is at least something.

06 - Continue to not learn any new people skills — I don't know why but my people skills aren't getting better. I always try to be polite but sometimes people are not polite and I can't help but treat them the same way they treat me. I can only tolerate so much crap.

07 - Restart finishing/editing my novels and short stories — I keep working at them and keep not finishing them and even after many tries, I still fail to finish. But I persist anyway. Because I have a need to finish. There is a growing number like my artworks and I may never get to them but I hope I can finish a couple.

08 - Start watching less youtube — This is probably not something I can do too well but I can try. I think less screen time would do me good. At least I'm not watching youtube on a phone.

09 - Start exercising every day or at least briefly consider to consider doing it.

10 - Continue trying to go wireless even though there is no such thing when you have to charge everything with wires.

11 - Continue doing jigsaw puzzles — I haven't done one in a long while but I like doing them and they help me to spend less time staring at screens.

12 - Restart reading more fantasies, science fiction, middle grade books and books that are not murder mysteries — These few years, I had been reading nothing but murder mysteries so now I think it's time to add back the books I used to read. I don't want to say reading too much murders is bad for me but having more varieties in my reading is better.

What do you plan to continue, start or restart doing this year?

Fiction: The Night Shift

This month's Words for Wednesday prompts are provided by Sean Jeating and posted at River's blog over here. This week's prompts are: become, emigrate, every, reliable, soonish and/or disunited, joining, million, referendum, vote. I seemed to have missed using one word 'soonish.'
    Last month's (December 2025) prompts were provided by Wisewebwoman and posted at River's blog over here. That week's prompts were: larch, trifle, multiple, poteen (Irish Moonshine) and/or surprise, quiche, flag, crossword.
 
Fiction: The Night Shift
Poppy didn't like the smell of the larch wood of her cubicle but it often kept her awake during the night shifts. Even with fifteen people hidden in their little alcoves, the office was always quiet but with these new, taller and thicker cubicles, the noise were muffled that Poppy had gotten into the habit of listening for sounds of movements to ensure she wasn't alone in the office. 
    Nothing was decided by referendum but by the top boss' wife, Mrs. Walker. She regularly disunited the employees over what she claimed to be trifle changes. Poppy sometimes wondered if joining the company had been a mistake. Her very pessimistic cousin always said no job is reliable no matter how long they had been in business.
    Drinking poteen from her water bottle also helped to keep Poppy awake. Her co-worker, Paul, made the drink from his grandmother's recipe. She had emigrated to the U.S. with nothing but her recipe book of alcoholic drinks - they were used to raise their family from poverty. Paul had said the drink had many health benefits one of which was making you smarter. Drinking the homemade booze didn't make Poppy smarter or drunk since it had little alcohol in it. But it frequently gave her disturbing and surprising daydreams.  

Things I Quit

Just because I quit something, it doesn't mean I won't restart them but for now, today, these are the things I quit and will likely continue to do so.

01 - Quit buying ebooks — I find no value in ebooks. You buy it, read it, leave it on your device and then nothing - yes, the value of a book is something but if you've read a crappy book, where's the value or where can I sell it without committing a crime? If you don't know, when you purchase an ebook, you purchase the right to read it but you don't own it so selling an ebook, even if you brought it, is not legal.
    So maybe reading borrowed ebooks from my public library is not a great solution either because they have to purchase rights to the ebooks and those rights do get expired which often is fine unless you're reading a book series and then it's either you read audio books (instead of ebooks), skip a book or two in a series, start a series with the third or tenth book because the first couple of books are no longer available, place a hold on an expired rights book and wait for it to be available in about a year or never or not read the last book of a series. I think it would be better if publishers/authors allow libraries to have perpetual or permanent rights to ebooks they purchase so they can have it in their permanent collection like they do with paper books. But that will never happen because that means they make less money and we all know they wouldn't agree to that.

02 - Quit reading books I'm not enjoying — I used to finish every book I started unless I only read two pages which don't really count. I think after reading more than 20%, you will have read enough to judge a book and whether to quit or to continue. Some people might think 20% is not enough to judge a book and to that I say, keep that thought to yourself.
    Also, I quit reading series I'm not enjoying. I think now I will never finish any series I start because 99% of books (I read) are series so the chances of finishing them all is zero. And those who say you shouldn't judge a series by the first book, I say, shut up. People like what they like and people can quit what they like.

03 - Quit chocolate — I only like to each chocolate during the cold season. I find eating them while I'm sweating not that great. Before this year, I might had been eating them every winter but now, I don't seem to care for them. But I've never been addicted to chocolate, I don't think, I didn't like them until much later in life so not eating them doesn't affect me much. Except for those times when I crave sweets and think of chocolate.

04 - Quit watching Korean dramas — It used be Korean shows are only one season and the series is complete and you don't have to slug through 5 or 7 seasons to get the answer but now with multiple seasoned shows, I just don't care to watch. The one-season was why I watched these shows. There is such thing as too much of a good thing. And besides, I rarely seen any second season being as good as the first. But mostly, the service I use to watch Korean shows keep offering romance shows and I don't like to watch those. 

05 - Quit buying digital tv shows and movies — unless I really love a show/movie, there is no chance of buying a series or movie in digital form. Like ebooks, you are purchasing the rights to see the show/movie so you don't own it even if you actually purchase it.

06 - Quit paying for subscriptions to anything most especially tv streaming — Just like ebooks, tv/movie streaming also purchases rights to allow viewers/subscribers to watch shows/movies and when the rights are expired and if the provider does not renew them, viewers have no luck in watching or rewatching them. (This is true for the service I had used so I don't know if this is true for all streaming services). This is one of the main reasons that I find annoying - you can't rewatch your favorite shows because their rights have expired. Some of which does not make sense when the provider is also the owner but I don't want to waste time talking about that.
    I also quit (more like never started) on becoming members of any youtube channels and pay to watch early video releases or exclusive members-only videos. I don't want to be a member of anything that involves having to pay to be a member. I think the benefits does not outweighed the cost. 

07 - Quit shopping online at new places — I still do buy things online now and then and only at a few places but I'm never going to shop (or open a new account) at new web places. With almost all my favorite brick and mortar stores closed, I'm reduced to shopping online for most things. I used to love shopping online but somehow that love had faded away when I keep getting badly damaged packages/products, mixed up orders that took too much time and patience to get right but mostly they are closed - some of the web places I used to shop just closed down their website without notice which is annoying because they still have my information and who knows if they might get hacked but I choose to believe they did the right thing and erase all their customer's data. And if not...

08 - Quit multi-tasking — I only maybe half quit doing this but it's better to quit half than nothing. I had been multi-tasking because of time constrain but now it's become a habit so it's not easy to quit. I've experienced stress from multi-tasking so I try  not to do it often. Naturally the lazy side of me likes multi-tasking because if I finish a couple of things all at once, I'll have time to procrastinate.

09 - Quit blogging consistently — It used to be I post at least five times a week, then it's down to three or four times a week, then it's twice a week and now it's whenever I feel like it. Even when I have posts written and finished with finished artwork, I still somehow managed not to post anything. I like bloggers who can be consistent even if I can't but that didn't mean they have to post on a schedule or all the time. I think blogging is a post-whenever-you-want vocation. If you're a blogger, you don't have to post all the time but you should do it enough so people know you're still alive and kicking. 

What have you quit that you are glad or not glad about?

Happy 2026!

May your new year be filled with good health, new joys and good fortunes. Happy New Year!

(This artwork is full things I wish for you all. I'll tell you a few things that may match your beliefs and thinking: red cat is for good fortune; tangerines also for good fortune, wealth, prosperity; unicorn for magic; yellow lotus for beginnings and openness; all these you can interpret for yourself.)