It's New Year's Eve today. With the new year looming in less than 24 hours, I think now is a good time as any to look over the year that has passed me by.
At the stroke of midnight, I rang in the new year with "Here's to another year of academic underachivement!" How true that would be.
At the beginning of the year, the big highlight was going to Saigon, Vietnam, in late January and staying until just before Chinese (Vietnamese!) New Year. Saigon is a truly interesting place. Although it is rather dirty - the river Torrens has nothing on the pool water they use there - it is a big place. The people, the places, the shops, the food, the nightlife, I enjoyed most my time in Saigon, going around with children of my dad's friends, whom were mostly around my age, give or take a few years. By contrast, however, when my parents signed us up for and took us on a tour of central Vietnam. Since my command of vietnamese is a little limited (I can hold a conversation, but longer words are beyond my reach - maybe at something like a 10-13 year old's level), most of the history stuff that the tourguide was telling us about the sites we saw went right through one ear and out the other. I much prefer Saigon - I'll never forget those memorable days when we went shopping and those nights when I went out with children of my dad's friends - they were about my age, give or take a few years - and that night we went out for Japanese at this really nice restaurant.
Another highlight was getting my iRiver in late February - it has served me ever so faithfully since.
My friend predicted that something good would happen to me on March 3rd, and sadly nothing did - not that that stopped the wink wink nudge nudge SMS's I got from my other friends.
Semester one came and went from March to June, and it was just horrible - lessons packed together, long marathons of pracs and lectures, and so forth. I won't bore you with the details, just that I was glad to see the end of semester one. However, the exams were equally unkind to me as the timetable - I failed all but one subject this semester, meaning I'll have to repeat. Leading to a low point this year - my parents, when they discovered that I had virtually failed semester one, overreacted - took away my laptop, and imposed huge restrictions on my funtime. Not to mention not ever letting me forget that I failed and using it as justification for trying to confiscate more stuff from me.
But I digress, and I think I've ranted enough about parents.
Near the end of semester one, I ran into an old friend of mine at Shin Tokyo - my one-stop anime goods store - and we got together again, to find that we're still just as good friends as we were when we parted ways in primary school. He still is a friend who is dear to my heart.
I also managed to pick up a PSP over the break, and I have not once regretted getting it. That machine has given me so much entertainment that I would be loathe to part with it now. Now if only I could find a way to just dump anime eps onto my PSP memorystick without having to re-encode it for PSP.
Semester two was much nicer - only one or two days starting at 9am, meaning I can sleep in and then go to my first lesson at 10am, and I can have relatively late nights without it affecting my performance. On the other hand, pracs took forever to do (3 to 5 hours!), but they were in the afternoon and evening, so it didn't affect me too much.
I made my first couple of forays into the dating scene - I asked one girl out at the beginning of the semester, she said yes, but later seemed to reconsider, never giving me a day when she was free so we could go somewhere. The other girl I asked, claimed that she was too busy that mid-semester break. I'm hoping that the CD filled with self-help stuff my friend gave me will help rectify this problem in 2006.
Exams came and went - I did much better this semester, scoring my first HD - even if it was in bioethics - although the other results were rather average. I now am on track for a supplementary exam in February, so fingers crossed I can pass it so I have six months off to do whatever the hell I want.
I started working after exams at the West Lakes pharmacy during the week, and honestly, after almost a month of working there, I am really getting disillusioned with working in a community pharmacy after I leave university. It seems so boring - you fill out forms all day and hand medicine to people. The pharmacy students wearing the "I Sell Drugs" and Colombian drug lord t-shirts are a pale attempt to push some humour into their dry profession. Plus working with the staff, it seems like some of them are absolute assholes - I wouldn't want to work with them longer than I have to.
Well, that appears to be my year summed up in several paragraphs.
Plans for next year to follow in a New Year's Blog!
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Christmas Rush
Ugh ... damn I'm tired. I've been working an extremely busy shop for the last four days, two of them from 9am to 9pm. And as I work retail, I begin more and more to grow disillusioned with it. You can't sit down, you have to stand and work uncomfortably, if your boss is an asshole, you're usually bored out of your mind between customers (especially if they decide to wait 10-20 minutes before coming in), and the customers can be VERY annoying. Since I work lottery, as you know, lots of people come in and ask for the winning numbers/ticket. This is EXTREMELY annoying, as it demonstrates the depth of stupidity some go to. Of course, they probably know that I don't, but honestly, if I did know, would I be there? I usually have to respond as such - if I did know what they were, I wouldn't be there. Next time someone asks for one, I'll ask for the maximum winning prize. Something like this:
Customer: Easipick for tonight please.
Me: Just an easpick for tonight?
Customer: Winning numbers, please.
Me: That'll be $x million dollars, thank you.
Customer: I don't have that sort of money.
Me: Well, then, I'm sorry, but you'll have to settle for a ticket with about as much chance of winning as the Intelligent Design people have of proving God exists.
Customer: ... *holds out money*
Me: Here is your non-winner easipick. Thank you, come again for your weekly gambling fixes.
Of course, the above will be edited a little, to stop customer complaints of me being rude to customers. I've had to be extra vigilant this last week, since the Sunday before, the shop got robbed. Someone snuck into the back and stole about $10,000. Needless to say, the boss was very angry, and we had the cops come in and everything. It seems that the law can't do much, and I dunno what's happening with insurance. I came in later in the week, and got told to be extra careful because someone in a santa suit robbed the lottery agent at Hollywood Plaza, and another place on the other side of town. Of course, nothing interesting happened, but we still had to be wary.
I celebrated my 20th birthday on the 20th, and it was a nice occassion - I met my high school friends again (some of whom I had not seen all year), and we got together over a barbecue. Good food, good friends, good times. Today a Christmas party was held at my place, resulting in a big mess, and two very drunk people - my dad and my uncle. They drank a whole bottle of cognac, and then started drunkenly dancing to french music. They then tried to rope my cousin's Yank relatives (come all the way from California with a group of other relatives from the US to visit my uncle), into drinking some with them. The Yanks didn't do too much, but simply sat back and laughed at my dad and uncle's antics. It was quite funny watching them get up and do a ballroom dance by themselves.
I feel sleepy now, maybe I'll wander off, drink a glass of butterscotch schapps before I hit the hay.
Customer: Easipick for tonight please.
Me: Just an easpick for tonight?
Customer: Winning numbers, please.
Me: That'll be $x million dollars, thank you.
Customer: I don't have that sort of money.
Me: Well, then, I'm sorry, but you'll have to settle for a ticket with about as much chance of winning as the Intelligent Design people have of proving God exists.
Customer: ... *holds out money*
Me: Here is your non-winner easipick. Thank you, come again for your weekly gambling fixes.
Of course, the above will be edited a little, to stop customer complaints of me being rude to customers. I've had to be extra vigilant this last week, since the Sunday before, the shop got robbed. Someone snuck into the back and stole about $10,000. Needless to say, the boss was very angry, and we had the cops come in and everything. It seems that the law can't do much, and I dunno what's happening with insurance. I came in later in the week, and got told to be extra careful because someone in a santa suit robbed the lottery agent at Hollywood Plaza, and another place on the other side of town. Of course, nothing interesting happened, but we still had to be wary.
I celebrated my 20th birthday on the 20th, and it was a nice occassion - I met my high school friends again (some of whom I had not seen all year), and we got together over a barbecue. Good food, good friends, good times. Today a Christmas party was held at my place, resulting in a big mess, and two very drunk people - my dad and my uncle. They drank a whole bottle of cognac, and then started drunkenly dancing to french music. They then tried to rope my cousin's Yank relatives (come all the way from California with a group of other relatives from the US to visit my uncle), into drinking some with them. The Yanks didn't do too much, but simply sat back and laughed at my dad and uncle's antics. It was quite funny watching them get up and do a ballroom dance by themselves.
I feel sleepy now, maybe I'll wander off, drink a glass of butterscotch schapps before I hit the hay.
Monday, December 12, 2005
The 9-5 grind
Yes, I've gotten myself a summer job. Selling lotto tickets. What joy. I suppose I should consider myself lucky, landing a nice retail job instead of being out in Virginia picking fruit and veg. Same as my Sunday job, except now I work 9-5 and have every other day off instead of the whole week. On the upside, I get paid more! So more money to burn (and boy have I been burning cash) and to put towards the Move Out fund. However, this means that I have to get accustomed to getting up earlier instead of later, as my days of getting up at 9-11am are gone. I miss those days. Staying up late, knowing I can have a lazy morning of doing nothing but sleeping.
Still, I can't complain, but I do have some gripes. For one thing, the clientele. I wish that there were more pretty girls and less ... middle age prunes and pensioners. And they seem to be the ones that complain the most, order things in a weird way, or have the most complicated orders. Hormones talking, I know.
Since it's getting close to Christmas, the shopgirls are all wearing hot pink shirts, and since I obviously am not a Pharmacist (it seems only the Pharmacist, the one with a pretty uni degree displayed, therefore making he/she automatically intellectually superior, and therefore below themselves to have to wear some daggy celebration of an over-commercialised holiday, I have to join in the festive cheer as well. So, searching around, one of the girls dig up a reindeer horns headband for me to wear.
Watch me cosplay Chopper from One Piece!
My face is real handsome, isn't it? Gaze upon a close-up of the visage that could turn even Medusa to stone!
I now sort of know how a first-time cosplayer feels like. For the first half-hour or so after I put the horns on and started serving customers, I feel really stupid. I look stupid. And then, it sort of doesn't bother me anymore. Some of the customers come and joke about my horns (the aforementioned middle-aged prunes), and I joke back that I'm one of Santa's reindeer - Dasher. Interestingly enough, my dad is working as the Pharmacist that day, and he tries to get me to wear a Christmas cap instead (you know the one, red, white furry band around where the hat ends and your head is supposed to begin, furry ball on the end), and I decide to stick with the reindeer horns. I reason that it's because my head'll get hot under that cap (indeed, one of the shopgirls actually complains of that the next day), but I don't know, maybe on an unconscious level it's the otaku in me rejoicing in the fact that I'm cosplaying (this is slightly disturbing, since cosplay is the one otaku activity that I swore I'd never do).
Well, my results are in, and I pass half and fail half. Good thing that qualifies me for supplementary exams. However, on further inquiry, it turns out for one of the subjects that I passed the exam (barely) and failed the subject because I supposedly didn't hand in one of my practicals. Bullshit. It was handed in, had my name on it, I don't know what the hell the prac marker was doing. So I speak to the head lecturer for that subject, and then I have to contact my partner to get her to give me the prac for the lecturer to look at.
I do, arrange to meet her after work at uni, only to find out that she forgot to bring it with her. Now, here comes the funny part. She mentioned that she was working in the area of Marion that day (that's about 20-45 minutes drive from the city centre for you non-Adelaidians), so I assumed she lived around there. Lo and behold, I drive her towards Marion for about three minutes, before I find out she actually lives opposite the road to the uni campus, where I had picked her up! I am forced to drive around to get back to pretty much where I had parked to wait for her, and then park in the carpark and follow her up to her room.
I feel this is the interesting part. I come up with her to her room, and she asks me to wait a bit while she tidies up inside. I don't understand what is up with that. I don't think that she likes me, so trying to impress me or anything is out. And it's not like her room is actually that messy to start with (well, it was pretty clean when I came in, so it's not like a minute of cleaning will make anything majorly different). Maybe it's just one of those girl things. Or I'm overthinking things and
*Sigh* I definitely need to get out more.
Still, I can't complain, but I do have some gripes. For one thing, the clientele. I wish that there were more pretty girls and less ... middle age prunes and pensioners. And they seem to be the ones that complain the most, order things in a weird way, or have the most complicated orders. Hormones talking, I know.
Since it's getting close to Christmas, the shopgirls are all wearing hot pink shirts, and since I obviously am not a Pharmacist (it seems only the Pharmacist, the one with a pretty uni degree displayed, therefore making he/she automatically intellectually superior, and therefore below themselves to have to wear some daggy celebration of an over-commercialised holiday, I have to join in the festive cheer as well. So, searching around, one of the girls dig up a reindeer horns headband for me to wear.
Watch me cosplay Chopper from One Piece!
My face is real handsome, isn't it? Gaze upon a close-up of the visage that could turn even Medusa to stone!
I now sort of know how a first-time cosplayer feels like. For the first half-hour or so after I put the horns on and started serving customers, I feel really stupid. I look stupid. And then, it sort of doesn't bother me anymore. Some of the customers come and joke about my horns (the aforementioned middle-aged prunes), and I joke back that I'm one of Santa's reindeer - Dasher. Interestingly enough, my dad is working as the Pharmacist that day, and he tries to get me to wear a Christmas cap instead (you know the one, red, white furry band around where the hat ends and your head is supposed to begin, furry ball on the end), and I decide to stick with the reindeer horns. I reason that it's because my head'll get hot under that cap (indeed, one of the shopgirls actually complains of that the next day), but I don't know, maybe on an unconscious level it's the otaku in me rejoicing in the fact that I'm cosplaying (this is slightly disturbing, since cosplay is the one otaku activity that I swore I'd never do).
Well, my results are in, and I pass half and fail half. Good thing that qualifies me for supplementary exams. However, on further inquiry, it turns out for one of the subjects that I passed the exam (barely) and failed the subject because I supposedly didn't hand in one of my practicals. Bullshit. It was handed in, had my name on it, I don't know what the hell the prac marker was doing. So I speak to the head lecturer for that subject, and then I have to contact my partner to get her to give me the prac for the lecturer to look at.
I do, arrange to meet her after work at uni, only to find out that she forgot to bring it with her. Now, here comes the funny part. She mentioned that she was working in the area of Marion that day (that's about 20-45 minutes drive from the city centre for you non-Adelaidians), so I assumed she lived around there. Lo and behold, I drive her towards Marion for about three minutes, before I find out she actually lives opposite the road to the uni campus, where I had picked her up! I am forced to drive around to get back to pretty much where I had parked to wait for her, and then park in the carpark and follow her up to her room.
I feel this is the interesting part. I come up with her to her room, and she asks me to wait a bit while she tidies up inside. I don't understand what is up with that. I don't think that she likes me, so trying to impress me or anything is out. And it's not like her room is actually that messy to start with (well, it was pretty clean when I came in, so it's not like a minute of cleaning will make anything majorly different). Maybe it's just one of those girl things. Or I'm overthinking things and
*Sigh* I definitely need to get out more.
Friday, November 25, 2005
I'm free!!
Finally, exams are over, and I can face the summer full on! At least, until my results come out and I have to figure out how much bullshitting I can get away with concerning how bad they'll be.
Not much happened within the last two or three weeks between this and the last blog, but a couple of interesting things did happen. I was in the city a few days ago, waiting for the bus, and then some dude comes up to me and asks me if I know where to get weed. What the hell you talking about, you idiot, does it look like I know where to get weed? I'm well-groomed, relatively neatly dressed, and relatively clean, looking (and smelling) like any other normal person - and you're wearing a pair of old-looking jeans, a t-shirt, and smell like you'd probably been smoking too much in one day. I know all kinds of people take drugs, but honestly, is that really the smartest thing you should be doing, walking up to random people and asking if they know where to get weed? I said no to his question, obviously, but then he immediately turned around and then asked the guy sitting next to me. Getting another no answer, he staggered off down towards North Terrace.
The only other event of note happened yesterday, during my last exam. This guy gets up and starts staggering through the aisles, bumping my friend's chair a couple of times, wearing this grin on his face. And then he starts stagger-runnning, making a lot of noise with his thongs, and he runs AT the wall. I'm serious, he ran at the wall. You could see him semi-staggering, semi-running, making a bee-line for the wall. The crappy staggering act didn't mask much, but fortunately the invigilators were looking the other way. He smacks his head into the wall, falls down on the floor, and then the invigilators all rush over to him and see if he's okay and stuff. About ten minutes later, he's being wheeled out of the exam hall by paramedics and wearing a grin like the Cheshire Cat. I wonder what would drive him to deliberately try to feign injury and escape the exam like that. It was an Asian guy, so I can imagine that it was probably due to too much pressure from parents. I am feeling really glad now that I was more of a letdown to my parents, so they can't use the Chinese standard anymore - you MUST get A's, anything else is considered a fail. I feel for you, guy. Parental pressure is a very bad thing.
Now then, how will I spend my summer? It would be nice if I could get a girlfriend, and then I could have a (corny as it sounds) Summer of Love. I suppose I'm a hopeless romantic (or really need to get out more, more likely that). More likely I'm going to spend the summer working and earning money towards that move-out fund. Working three or four days a week should still leave enough time for sessions of WoW, and I should be able to earn enough to buy whatever happens to be the flavour of the week (be it models, games, manga, or something else), and still have some left over for debts, the move-out fund, or whatever.
With the end of exams, and the advent of summer, it's time I embarked on another diet and weight loss phase. This happens every year - I finish one semester/half-semester, and decide to try to lose weight in one way or another. Let's hope this time I'm more successful. I've decided to try for a more basic diet - a liquid breakfast, yoghurt/fruit, and some sort of vegetarian dish thingy for dinner. Let's hope I can stomach the vegetables, since it's only been within the past few years that I've been able to eat vegetables easily, but I still have to force myself to eat things like broccoli, cauliflower or cabbage, and I still would pick something else over a salad if I had a choice.
Here's to hoping.
Not much happened within the last two or three weeks between this and the last blog, but a couple of interesting things did happen. I was in the city a few days ago, waiting for the bus, and then some dude comes up to me and asks me if I know where to get weed. What the hell you talking about, you idiot, does it look like I know where to get weed? I'm well-groomed, relatively neatly dressed, and relatively clean, looking (and smelling) like any other normal person - and you're wearing a pair of old-looking jeans, a t-shirt, and smell like you'd probably been smoking too much in one day. I know all kinds of people take drugs, but honestly, is that really the smartest thing you should be doing, walking up to random people and asking if they know where to get weed? I said no to his question, obviously, but then he immediately turned around and then asked the guy sitting next to me. Getting another no answer, he staggered off down towards North Terrace.
The only other event of note happened yesterday, during my last exam. This guy gets up and starts staggering through the aisles, bumping my friend's chair a couple of times, wearing this grin on his face. And then he starts stagger-runnning, making a lot of noise with his thongs, and he runs AT the wall. I'm serious, he ran at the wall. You could see him semi-staggering, semi-running, making a bee-line for the wall. The crappy staggering act didn't mask much, but fortunately the invigilators were looking the other way. He smacks his head into the wall, falls down on the floor, and then the invigilators all rush over to him and see if he's okay and stuff. About ten minutes later, he's being wheeled out of the exam hall by paramedics and wearing a grin like the Cheshire Cat. I wonder what would drive him to deliberately try to feign injury and escape the exam like that. It was an Asian guy, so I can imagine that it was probably due to too much pressure from parents. I am feeling really glad now that I was more of a letdown to my parents, so they can't use the Chinese standard anymore - you MUST get A's, anything else is considered a fail. I feel for you, guy. Parental pressure is a very bad thing.
Now then, how will I spend my summer? It would be nice if I could get a girlfriend, and then I could have a (corny as it sounds) Summer of Love. I suppose I'm a hopeless romantic (or really need to get out more, more likely that). More likely I'm going to spend the summer working and earning money towards that move-out fund. Working three or four days a week should still leave enough time for sessions of WoW, and I should be able to earn enough to buy whatever happens to be the flavour of the week (be it models, games, manga, or something else), and still have some left over for debts, the move-out fund, or whatever.
With the end of exams, and the advent of summer, it's time I embarked on another diet and weight loss phase. This happens every year - I finish one semester/half-semester, and decide to try to lose weight in one way or another. Let's hope this time I'm more successful. I've decided to try for a more basic diet - a liquid breakfast, yoghurt/fruit, and some sort of vegetarian dish thingy for dinner. Let's hope I can stomach the vegetables, since it's only been within the past few years that I've been able to eat vegetables easily, but I still have to force myself to eat things like broccoli, cauliflower or cabbage, and I still would pick something else over a salad if I had a choice.
Here's to hoping.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Almost there ...
Damn, it's about that time of year. The bane of all students. The Words That Should Never Be Spoken. Yes, it's *gasp* exam time. Thank god (I really should put in Buddha, since I consider myself Buddhist, but meh, I was raised in a Christian society) that I've only got three this year. But oh, what a horrible time table. One exam this coming monday, and then the other two next to each other at the end of the week after. But still ... I'm scared. Usually the lecturers who write the exams usually manage to pull something out of their ass to make us lose marks on it. Well, I can at least console myself with the fact that I'll probably be getting at least a credit on my bioethics, if not a distinction or a high distinction. Hehe, my first D or HD ^_^ ... hopefully.
As well as end of year exams, we're also drawing closer to that time of year beloved of small children, fat men, retailers, economists, and corporate executives - Christmas! I personally am rather cynical about the whole affair - it was originally to celebrate the birth of Christ, so where the hell did all these other things come from? Gift-giving customs? Having to put up and decorate a tree? A suspicious fat man who comes down chimneys to deliver presents to children? Christmas has lost its original meaning, so it is only there as another holiday in the year and a time when buying reaches an all-time high as children nag parents for the latest shiny gizmo. I suppose it's the fact that I've never had a really good Christmas time in a while (heck, it's been a while since I actually got a Christmas present, truth be told), and that I rather prefer spending less time with my family. When you have more fun at home by yourself than with your family, that's generally a bad sign. I wonder why.
Well, at least the impending day of Christmas means another thing - my birthday! At the very least, I'll be a little older and hopefully less fat than I was last year - although that doesn't seem very likely. Curse you sweet and tasty foods!
Recently, I've been playing a lot of bishoujo games. I wonder if it's out of sexual frustration or something. I have no girlfriend, going to an all boys' school meant I had minimal contact with girls, and the chances I did have I blew, mainly by accidentally walking in on them changing when I did have relatively regular contact with girls when my high school collaborated with a girls' only school in doing plays. I swear, it must be like I'm cursed or something. It happened in year 10 when we were doing a rehearsal for our play - I walked in on a girl (that supposedly liked me) changing, and then the same thing happened when I was part of the French play that our school puts on a couple of years later. Obviously, it was a different girl, and I had no idea what her feelings were. Even now, I ain't too good around girls, and haven't had much luck. I asked one out earlier this semester - she said okay, but never really gave me any further response after that, so I imagine she didn't want to. The other brushed me off saying she was busy. Perhaps I should really shape up. But the problem is it's so hard! Not to mention that my mum keeps buying fatty foods all the time. Damn you, it's not a matter of willpower! If it's not there to eat, it's not able to make me fat! But that's not the point. I have had girls on the brain for the past week or two. Especially after this really nice Chinese chick came up to me on Sunday to buy a lotto ticket and I couldn't stop looking at her chest. I swear, I tried to keep looking at her face, but kept unconsciously gazing at her chest, like they were the greatest set of melons that I had seen. Certainly, they were - I won't describe them, for fear of offending female readers more than I alreayd might have - and after she left the shop, for some reason I kept looking at the chests of other young women who came to buy lotto tickets as well. Incidentally, although Asian girls are known for being rather flat-chested (this is not a fact - it's hearsay), that Chinese girl had the best set of breasts that I had ever seen. Not too big, nice and round, and looking soft to touch.
Bah ... I have to get my mind off breasts and back onto studying for exams ... but it's so fun to procrastinate ...
As well as end of year exams, we're also drawing closer to that time of year beloved of small children, fat men, retailers, economists, and corporate executives - Christmas! I personally am rather cynical about the whole affair - it was originally to celebrate the birth of Christ, so where the hell did all these other things come from? Gift-giving customs? Having to put up and decorate a tree? A suspicious fat man who comes down chimneys to deliver presents to children? Christmas has lost its original meaning, so it is only there as another holiday in the year and a time when buying reaches an all-time high as children nag parents for the latest shiny gizmo. I suppose it's the fact that I've never had a really good Christmas time in a while (heck, it's been a while since I actually got a Christmas present, truth be told), and that I rather prefer spending less time with my family. When you have more fun at home by yourself than with your family, that's generally a bad sign. I wonder why.
Well, at least the impending day of Christmas means another thing - my birthday! At the very least, I'll be a little older and hopefully less fat than I was last year - although that doesn't seem very likely. Curse you sweet and tasty foods!
Recently, I've been playing a lot of bishoujo games. I wonder if it's out of sexual frustration or something. I have no girlfriend, going to an all boys' school meant I had minimal contact with girls, and the chances I did have I blew, mainly by accidentally walking in on them changing when I did have relatively regular contact with girls when my high school collaborated with a girls' only school in doing plays. I swear, it must be like I'm cursed or something. It happened in year 10 when we were doing a rehearsal for our play - I walked in on a girl (that supposedly liked me) changing, and then the same thing happened when I was part of the French play that our school puts on a couple of years later. Obviously, it was a different girl, and I had no idea what her feelings were. Even now, I ain't too good around girls, and haven't had much luck. I asked one out earlier this semester - she said okay, but never really gave me any further response after that, so I imagine she didn't want to. The other brushed me off saying she was busy. Perhaps I should really shape up. But the problem is it's so hard! Not to mention that my mum keeps buying fatty foods all the time. Damn you, it's not a matter of willpower! If it's not there to eat, it's not able to make me fat! But that's not the point. I have had girls on the brain for the past week or two. Especially after this really nice Chinese chick came up to me on Sunday to buy a lotto ticket and I couldn't stop looking at her chest. I swear, I tried to keep looking at her face, but kept unconsciously gazing at her chest, like they were the greatest set of melons that I had seen. Certainly, they were - I won't describe them, for fear of offending female readers more than I alreayd might have - and after she left the shop, for some reason I kept looking at the chests of other young women who came to buy lotto tickets as well. Incidentally, although Asian girls are known for being rather flat-chested (this is not a fact - it's hearsay), that Chinese girl had the best set of breasts that I had ever seen. Not too big, nice and round, and looking soft to touch.
Bah ... I have to get my mind off breasts and back onto studying for exams ... but it's so fun to procrastinate ...
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
When the shit hits the fan
Well, nothing too interesting to blog about in the past few weeks ... up until Saturday. For the past couple of months or so, I've been going over to a friend's place after work to hang out and stuff.
Unfortunately, his mum happened to inform my parents about it. They didn't know and had taken my excuses that I went to uni after work to study rather than my friend's place. Why lie to them you may ask? Well, I'll explain further down. They were almost apoplectic that I was lying to them and that I'd been going to his place. Now, my friend doesn't have the best kind of family (I won't go into details here - if you're reading this, you know what I mean), and well, my parents probably don't want me associating with him because they think his family might be a bad influence. Such is the nature of Asian parents - especially first generation migrant ones like mine. If one or two members of the family have shady reputations, then supposedly by extension the rest of the family is bad. That is most definitely not true. I've known my friend since primary school, and I know for certain that he is nothing but one of the greatest friends that I have ever known. In fact, we were the best of friends up until after primary school, but then we drifted apart as we went to different high schools. But university is truly the springtime of youth. You can do almost anything you want, you're more independent, you can choose whether to go to uni or not.
But I digress. As a result of finding out my "after-work" activities, I can't work on Saturday mornings anymore (the downside of nepotism - your family have you by the financial balls), meaning I've lost a third of my wages, and now have to do something else with my Saturday mornings until I can find another job. I understand how my parents might fear my friend's family to be a bit of a bad influence, but honestly, they've been at least hospitable and haven't done anything my parents had feared that they might have. The reason I have to lie is because I don't think they would let me go even if I told them the truth, and that means that I'm more restricted, as I can't go. As they say, out of sight, out of mind. This incident has demonstrated just what kind of control freaks my parents can be - they MUST know where I am or what I'm doing, otherwise they get worried because it's beyond their control. In fucking fact, they still confiscate my gaming machines like they did in primary and high school, like it's their business to control what kind of fun I have. One has to wonder at the logic that goes on in their heads. I can't play games after having a meal because supposedly that would upset my stomach. However, watching TV is okay. They are both essentially the same activity - staring at a screen, and reacting to what's on it as needed. They are both sedentary activities, and require very little physical strain. So, what's the fucking difference between watching TV, and getting on the computer? Only that you react more to a computer screen. I am supposedly only allowed two to three hours of gaming time a week, and the rest of the time I'm meant to study/amuse myself outside of the room. I don't want to watch TV, most of the time it's mindless, pointless drivel (current affairs programs included), and the only times I tune in are for when I want to laugh or if SBS has a good anime/foreign movie on. Western literature is going down the drain, I swear. The amount of time I supposedly study, you'd think that I had nothing better to do. They seem to believe that quantity is quality. Studying is something that you choose to do, not something that you are forced to. If you're forced, you lose interest very quickly as your mind wanders elsewhere.
Again, I wander off the proper topic. The next day, I was carpooling with my dad to work, and I happened to come out wearing a bandana. In retrospect probably a bad move. His reaction is immediate. He screams at me to take it off, put it away, and then tells me to dispose of it ASAP. I wonder why the hell is he overreacting to an article of clothing. The reason is soon obvious. It's like the reason they banned glo-sticks in the US, they labelled it as "drug paraphernelia" due to its association with rave culture, and therefore, drugs. The same reason with the bandana. Supposedly, it means that I'm a druggie/dealer, or that I'm looking for a fight cause it's like a gangster thing. I do want to get a stylish, gangster look going, but nothing that will provoke other people to the point of getting me into a fight. It's so fucking illogical.
So now, I have to find a way to contact my friend to get anime and stuff with no car - and get a proper job so my parents no longer have me by the balls. And on top of that, the Christmas Rush has started, and some great games have come in. I'm certainly looking forward to Oblivion, but I don't think my 2 year old rig can play it as well as I'd like, so I want to upgrade. That's gonna set me back about $1300-$1500, for new core components. Now, earning only $100 a week, I'm gonna have to get real scrooge-like. Especially as other stuff I want's coming out too ... like the MG Gundam Mk. II ver 2.0 and the MG Zeta ver 2.0 ...
Money is truly the root of all evil in this world.
Unfortunately, his mum happened to inform my parents about it. They didn't know and had taken my excuses that I went to uni after work to study rather than my friend's place. Why lie to them you may ask? Well, I'll explain further down. They were almost apoplectic that I was lying to them and that I'd been going to his place. Now, my friend doesn't have the best kind of family (I won't go into details here - if you're reading this, you know what I mean), and well, my parents probably don't want me associating with him because they think his family might be a bad influence. Such is the nature of Asian parents - especially first generation migrant ones like mine. If one or two members of the family have shady reputations, then supposedly by extension the rest of the family is bad. That is most definitely not true. I've known my friend since primary school, and I know for certain that he is nothing but one of the greatest friends that I have ever known. In fact, we were the best of friends up until after primary school, but then we drifted apart as we went to different high schools. But university is truly the springtime of youth. You can do almost anything you want, you're more independent, you can choose whether to go to uni or not.
But I digress. As a result of finding out my "after-work" activities, I can't work on Saturday mornings anymore (the downside of nepotism - your family have you by the financial balls), meaning I've lost a third of my wages, and now have to do something else with my Saturday mornings until I can find another job. I understand how my parents might fear my friend's family to be a bit of a bad influence, but honestly, they've been at least hospitable and haven't done anything my parents had feared that they might have. The reason I have to lie is because I don't think they would let me go even if I told them the truth, and that means that I'm more restricted, as I can't go. As they say, out of sight, out of mind. This incident has demonstrated just what kind of control freaks my parents can be - they MUST know where I am or what I'm doing, otherwise they get worried because it's beyond their control. In fucking fact, they still confiscate my gaming machines like they did in primary and high school, like it's their business to control what kind of fun I have. One has to wonder at the logic that goes on in their heads. I can't play games after having a meal because supposedly that would upset my stomach. However, watching TV is okay. They are both essentially the same activity - staring at a screen, and reacting to what's on it as needed. They are both sedentary activities, and require very little physical strain. So, what's the fucking difference between watching TV, and getting on the computer? Only that you react more to a computer screen. I am supposedly only allowed two to three hours of gaming time a week, and the rest of the time I'm meant to study/amuse myself outside of the room. I don't want to watch TV, most of the time it's mindless, pointless drivel (current affairs programs included), and the only times I tune in are for when I want to laugh or if SBS has a good anime/foreign movie on. Western literature is going down the drain, I swear. The amount of time I supposedly study, you'd think that I had nothing better to do. They seem to believe that quantity is quality. Studying is something that you choose to do, not something that you are forced to. If you're forced, you lose interest very quickly as your mind wanders elsewhere.
Again, I wander off the proper topic. The next day, I was carpooling with my dad to work, and I happened to come out wearing a bandana. In retrospect probably a bad move. His reaction is immediate. He screams at me to take it off, put it away, and then tells me to dispose of it ASAP. I wonder why the hell is he overreacting to an article of clothing. The reason is soon obvious. It's like the reason they banned glo-sticks in the US, they labelled it as "drug paraphernelia" due to its association with rave culture, and therefore, drugs. The same reason with the bandana. Supposedly, it means that I'm a druggie/dealer, or that I'm looking for a fight cause it's like a gangster thing. I do want to get a stylish, gangster look going, but nothing that will provoke other people to the point of getting me into a fight. It's so fucking illogical.
So now, I have to find a way to contact my friend to get anime and stuff with no car - and get a proper job so my parents no longer have me by the balls. And on top of that, the Christmas Rush has started, and some great games have come in. I'm certainly looking forward to Oblivion, but I don't think my 2 year old rig can play it as well as I'd like, so I want to upgrade. That's gonna set me back about $1300-$1500, for new core components. Now, earning only $100 a week, I'm gonna have to get real scrooge-like. Especially as other stuff I want's coming out too ... like the MG Gundam Mk. II ver 2.0 and the MG Zeta ver 2.0 ...
Money is truly the root of all evil in this world.
Monday, October 03, 2005
Drunks, driving and destiny
Gundam SEED Destiny has finished! And after watching the end, I say, "Goddamit, pandering to fans has made it the WORST Gundam series in history. Even worse than Wing." The show started off great, but then started pandering to the fans, turning it into a super-robot show of the highest degree. Of course, nothing wrong with that, except the plot. It had some of the most underdeveloped characters I have ever seen, and the ending didn't really resolve anything.
I managed to get out a bit this last week. Wednesday, I went with my friends to see Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The movie in itself was good, but we had more fun afterwards. One of my friends has become quite the socialite, and so he's been getting called a lot, as well as making many of his own. And turns out he was SMS'ed during the movie. He told us it was a girl who asked him to be her boyfriend, and then picked someone else. So I launched into a rant that she never intended to be his girlfriend, that he was a nice guy like the rest of my friends and that he'd always be emotional support, the shoulder to cry on. He looks me right on the eye, and then tells me *shock horror* she decided he was a better pick. Made me shut right up.
Friday night was the night of the Blue and White, the high-school social at my old high-school. I had agreed to pick my brother, his friends and their dates up from the after-party, at 2-3am no less. So I sit there until about 2:30am just browsing the internet, until my mobile rang. It's my brother, asking me to pick him up at 3:30am. So he rings back up again at 3am and asks me to go pick him up. When I do pick em up, most of his friends are smashed out of their wits. And for some stupid reason, the most intoxicated one jumps in the car first, taking up two seats and forcing me to make a second trip back to the after-party house to pick up the rest of his friends. In addition to that, I didn't even need to drop him off at all.
In fact, the first trip seemed to be more about dropping off the girls, because all of the guys were dropped off at one place in the end. So I end up driving all around Adelaide, starting with Gouger street in the city, making a stopoff at Victoria square because said smashed guy needed to go for a whiz. At first, he wasn't too keen on the idea of going to a toilet frequented by hobos and bull queers at 4am in the morning, but his bladder didn't give him a choice. So after a bit of dangerous driving around Victoria Square (looking for a place to park and let him off), I drive off, leaving him behind and dropping off one of the girls. Drive back, and what do you know, he's vanished. I half-hoped that he'd been taken by a bull-queer hanging around Victora Square, but that didn't happen. He wandered off after finishing his business and tried to find us, hoping it was either a nightmare or a cruel joke. It was the latter, since he was found loitering around in front of the Hilton. On the way back, I try to give tips to the smashed guy to avoid a hangover, and he responds with this:
"I'm not drunk! See, hydrogen is H2, and water is H3O!"
We all laughed quite a bit after this. The rest of the trip wasn't quite as memorable, I took the other girls to their homes in Enfield, swung back around back to the after-party to pick up the last guys, and had to drive all the way to Wattle Park, uphill and really far along the Parade, and then back a bit to drop all the guys off at one guy's place. When I confronted them abolut petrol money, all of em forced the host to pay, and instead of money, he offered girls' numbers and MSN contacts. An interesting concept, although I'm not sure I want the girls' details given my recent bad luck with girls.
My dad complained to me later that day about the car smelling like alcohol.
In other news, I've been mentioned on another blog! I'm not sure what they're referring to, but the blogger states this (who will remain anonymous) :
"Why does sleep always elude the weary? I'm about to konk out on my sister's keyboard while she enjoys Chrono Crusade at my laptop. Oh well, at least I've got TSR downloading nicely. I've decided to collect from Bakakozou instead of Aone since it's faster... though I might switch to Aone once it's licensed... knowing how Aone does licensed and Bakakozou might not. BT is NOT my friend... it's slowing down the bots on IRC so I can only have IRC going while I've got BT paused. Well, I can only get the latest two TSR on IRC cuz the others are off the bots so I guess I'll just live with it..
And my god... Henry, if you're reading this, I'm not turning into Nightbringer I swear! It's just I've been download deprieved all semester and I'm erm... catching up. Yeah, that's it, catching up."
I've been wondering just how the hell they're "not" turning into me ...
I managed to get out a bit this last week. Wednesday, I went with my friends to see Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The movie in itself was good, but we had more fun afterwards. One of my friends has become quite the socialite, and so he's been getting called a lot, as well as making many of his own. And turns out he was SMS'ed during the movie. He told us it was a girl who asked him to be her boyfriend, and then picked someone else. So I launched into a rant that she never intended to be his girlfriend, that he was a nice guy like the rest of my friends and that he'd always be emotional support, the shoulder to cry on. He looks me right on the eye, and then tells me *shock horror* she decided he was a better pick. Made me shut right up.
Friday night was the night of the Blue and White, the high-school social at my old high-school. I had agreed to pick my brother, his friends and their dates up from the after-party, at 2-3am no less. So I sit there until about 2:30am just browsing the internet, until my mobile rang. It's my brother, asking me to pick him up at 3:30am. So he rings back up again at 3am and asks me to go pick him up. When I do pick em up, most of his friends are smashed out of their wits. And for some stupid reason, the most intoxicated one jumps in the car first, taking up two seats and forcing me to make a second trip back to the after-party house to pick up the rest of his friends. In addition to that, I didn't even need to drop him off at all.
In fact, the first trip seemed to be more about dropping off the girls, because all of the guys were dropped off at one place in the end. So I end up driving all around Adelaide, starting with Gouger street in the city, making a stopoff at Victoria square because said smashed guy needed to go for a whiz. At first, he wasn't too keen on the idea of going to a toilet frequented by hobos and bull queers at 4am in the morning, but his bladder didn't give him a choice. So after a bit of dangerous driving around Victoria Square (looking for a place to park and let him off), I drive off, leaving him behind and dropping off one of the girls. Drive back, and what do you know, he's vanished. I half-hoped that he'd been taken by a bull-queer hanging around Victora Square, but that didn't happen. He wandered off after finishing his business and tried to find us, hoping it was either a nightmare or a cruel joke. It was the latter, since he was found loitering around in front of the Hilton. On the way back, I try to give tips to the smashed guy to avoid a hangover, and he responds with this:
"I'm not drunk! See, hydrogen is H2, and water is H3O!"
We all laughed quite a bit after this. The rest of the trip wasn't quite as memorable, I took the other girls to their homes in Enfield, swung back around back to the after-party to pick up the last guys, and had to drive all the way to Wattle Park, uphill and really far along the Parade, and then back a bit to drop all the guys off at one guy's place. When I confronted them abolut petrol money, all of em forced the host to pay, and instead of money, he offered girls' numbers and MSN contacts. An interesting concept, although I'm not sure I want the girls' details given my recent bad luck with girls.
My dad complained to me later that day about the car smelling like alcohol.
In other news, I've been mentioned on another blog! I'm not sure what they're referring to, but the blogger states this (who will remain anonymous) :
"Why does sleep always elude the weary? I'm about to konk out on my sister's keyboard while she enjoys Chrono Crusade at my laptop. Oh well, at least I've got TSR downloading nicely. I've decided to collect from Bakakozou instead of Aone since it's faster... though I might switch to Aone once it's licensed... knowing how Aone does licensed and Bakakozou might not. BT is NOT my friend... it's slowing down the bots on IRC so I can only have IRC going while I've got BT paused. Well, I can only get the latest two TSR on IRC cuz the others are off the bots so I guess I'll just live with it..
And my god... Henry, if you're reading this, I'm not turning into Nightbringer I swear! It's just I've been download deprieved all semester and I'm erm... catching up. Yeah, that's it, catching up."
I've been wondering just how the hell they're "not" turning into me ...
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Holidays? Or simply a break?
Well, as I write this, I'm on my study break for semester two. I was looking forward to this for one reason: I get my laptop back, so I can transfer all my stuff from it to my desktop. Unfortunately, the powers-that-be decide no, after a week-long debate. I had my hopes up after the old dragon (my dad) agreed to let me have it back on the condition it wasn't in my room. What a way to get my hopes up. They decide to let me, and then decide to "have second thoughts." Bastards. Not much I can do, maybe I can try saving up some more and actually buying one (a good one), since if I wanted to flexirent, I'd have to earn at least $20000 per annum. There's no way I'm earning that much on a part time job.
The highlight of the second-last week before the break was the release of Advent Children. Damn, it's a beautiful movie. The CG is simply heads above almost anything Hollywood has cranked out recently, and the fights are simply awesome. It definitely made my week. Now all I have to do is wait for the DVD to come out here in a couple of months and then I can watch it in full home theater goodness, on a nice plasma screen. Another highlight has been getting my hands on Jump Superstars after a 3 week wait. Very nice. One frightening thing I discovered about myself when I played it though. Considering it has some of my favourite anime/mangas in there, I've been shouting attack names as I have my characters use them. A definite sign that you're an otaku. Lots of fun to be had, especially after my brother complained to me about how it annoyed him to hell.
*sigh* I really need to be more strict with my studying. Computer deprivation has made me lose some of my motivation to study as I try to make up for lost time - be it World of Warcraft, catching up on reading manga/watching anime, or trying to work on some models. I'll have to try drawing up a schedule that has me going to the gym regularly, allowing me all my recreational activities, and fit my studies in as well.
Not much other stuff has been happening lately, although it was rather nice scoring an unbelievably high mark for my bioethics essay. Damn, I hate it when I get into these ruts, where nothing seems to hold my interest for long. It's like I go through phases, and there are ruts in between. I go between gaming, anime, and models, so it seems. Right now I'm in one of those transitory phases as I try to decide what will catch my attention next.
The highlight of the second-last week before the break was the release of Advent Children. Damn, it's a beautiful movie. The CG is simply heads above almost anything Hollywood has cranked out recently, and the fights are simply awesome. It definitely made my week. Now all I have to do is wait for the DVD to come out here in a couple of months and then I can watch it in full home theater goodness, on a nice plasma screen. Another highlight has been getting my hands on Jump Superstars after a 3 week wait. Very nice. One frightening thing I discovered about myself when I played it though. Considering it has some of my favourite anime/mangas in there, I've been shouting attack names as I have my characters use them. A definite sign that you're an otaku. Lots of fun to be had, especially after my brother complained to me about how it annoyed him to hell.
*sigh* I really need to be more strict with my studying. Computer deprivation has made me lose some of my motivation to study as I try to make up for lost time - be it World of Warcraft, catching up on reading manga/watching anime, or trying to work on some models. I'll have to try drawing up a schedule that has me going to the gym regularly, allowing me all my recreational activities, and fit my studies in as well.
Not much other stuff has been happening lately, although it was rather nice scoring an unbelievably high mark for my bioethics essay. Damn, I hate it when I get into these ruts, where nothing seems to hold my interest for long. It's like I go through phases, and there are ruts in between. I go between gaming, anime, and models, so it seems. Right now I'm in one of those transitory phases as I try to decide what will catch my attention next.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Life is boring
Gah, not much been happening and worth blogging about these last couple of weeks. At least not worth blogging anyways.
I did visit the East End Exchange for a uni bar night, but unfortunately, the Exchange being the hole that it is, not too many people I knew turned up. I spent the first hour or so imbibing a bit of alcohol and generally looking bored, until they put the funny vids on. Some really funny ones there: a chick with boobs large enough she used em to squash soft drink cans (I kid you not), and this condom ad with a tantrum throwing kid (the end results of not using one methinks). When the dance floor opened, I was one of the first on it. Unfortunately, I was pretty much dancing all alone. Amateurish, at the very least I got some laughs, so not a total waste of the night. I think I smacked people a couple of times with my flailing arms ^_^;;
With some luck, come next week, I'll be working in a booze shop. I'm planning to apply to work at the local BWS shop, and it's not more than a half hour's walk or so from my place, so it shouldn't be too much of a bother. Hopefully the pay should be nice as well.
My parents have agreed to my brother going on a trip to Japan with his friends at the end of his Year 12 next year, and I get to come along! I'm quite happy about that even though it's a year and a half (or so) away. Hehe, lately my dreams have been about picking up hot, cute Jap girls while over there ... considering one passes by every 10 seconds (or so I hear). I'm going to have to redouble my self-learning, and maybe pick up plenty of slang terms along the way ^_^ I've been learning hirakana, and now, knowing about 17 kana, I can pick out some onomatopeic terms in manga!
I've dived back into World of Warcraft, and I think it's starting to take over my life (or at least my home online time). I've come onto the server Spinebreaker, where my friend is playing (and where I hope to lure another friend), and I've started a female priest. It's quite amusing actually, I get a lot of "are you a guy or gal" messages. The funniest one was when this lvl 4 paladin challenged me to a duel. I whooped his ass, and then he asks me how old I am. I ask why, he says he wants to know, and I say I'm 19. I ask his age, he says 13. Then he asks if I'm a guy or a gal, I reply I'm a guy. Then, the kicker: he asks me if I'm "reesin." I have no idea about what the hell he is talking about. He asks and says "are you hot?" and then I go "Dude, I told you before, I'm a GUY." Hahaha, he ran off screaming. One of the reasons why I chose to play a chick. The other reason was so you could trick people out of money. My friend plays Galaxies, and he was telling me about this. Find some dude with the rank of Jedi Master or something similar, which indicates that he is a "loser with too much time on his hands," and then schmooze up to him. Make him think you're a hot chick, and that you're interested. And then, drain away his money til he's got none left, then slap him on your Ignore list. Pure gold. Other notable incidents include some tard ganker of an Undead mage running around the Elwynn Forest area (for lvl 5-10). I have no idea what level he was, I'm guessing about 30-35, since after ganking a few people (slaughtering low-level players), someone called in their level 50 friend and the asshole was too scared to venture out and kill more. So he logged onto the General Chat channel and started whining about it - it was quite amusing watching the asshole get slagged by the rest of the server. My friend's description was quite interesting - "a living definition of a penile infection."
*Sigh* once again, I'm stuck with little to do. I recently picked up again and finished Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories (the end boss of Riku's story is DAMN hard. So hard my brother could hear my screams of frustration from the next room, even with the doors closed), and now I'm stuck. Maybe I'll watch some more PSP anime. The PSP launched here last week, so now I think it should be easier to pick up accessories. And maybe movie UMDs too, if the rumours that Jap PSPs can play Aussie movie UMDs. Damn, I wish I could rent a laptop (I spotted a really nice one at Berlin Wall Software the other day). But I can't.
Apparently, I'm too poor :(
I did visit the East End Exchange for a uni bar night, but unfortunately, the Exchange being the hole that it is, not too many people I knew turned up. I spent the first hour or so imbibing a bit of alcohol and generally looking bored, until they put the funny vids on. Some really funny ones there: a chick with boobs large enough she used em to squash soft drink cans (I kid you not), and this condom ad with a tantrum throwing kid (the end results of not using one methinks). When the dance floor opened, I was one of the first on it. Unfortunately, I was pretty much dancing all alone. Amateurish, at the very least I got some laughs, so not a total waste of the night. I think I smacked people a couple of times with my flailing arms ^_^;;
With some luck, come next week, I'll be working in a booze shop. I'm planning to apply to work at the local BWS shop, and it's not more than a half hour's walk or so from my place, so it shouldn't be too much of a bother. Hopefully the pay should be nice as well.
My parents have agreed to my brother going on a trip to Japan with his friends at the end of his Year 12 next year, and I get to come along! I'm quite happy about that even though it's a year and a half (or so) away. Hehe, lately my dreams have been about picking up hot, cute Jap girls while over there ... considering one passes by every 10 seconds (or so I hear). I'm going to have to redouble my self-learning, and maybe pick up plenty of slang terms along the way ^_^ I've been learning hirakana, and now, knowing about 17 kana, I can pick out some onomatopeic terms in manga!
I've dived back into World of Warcraft, and I think it's starting to take over my life (or at least my home online time). I've come onto the server Spinebreaker, where my friend is playing (and where I hope to lure another friend), and I've started a female priest. It's quite amusing actually, I get a lot of "are you a guy or gal" messages. The funniest one was when this lvl 4 paladin challenged me to a duel. I whooped his ass, and then he asks me how old I am. I ask why, he says he wants to know, and I say I'm 19. I ask his age, he says 13. Then he asks if I'm a guy or a gal, I reply I'm a guy. Then, the kicker: he asks me if I'm "reesin." I have no idea about what the hell he is talking about. He asks and says "are you hot?" and then I go "Dude, I told you before, I'm a GUY." Hahaha, he ran off screaming. One of the reasons why I chose to play a chick. The other reason was so you could trick people out of money. My friend plays Galaxies, and he was telling me about this. Find some dude with the rank of Jedi Master or something similar, which indicates that he is a "loser with too much time on his hands," and then schmooze up to him. Make him think you're a hot chick, and that you're interested. And then, drain away his money til he's got none left, then slap him on your Ignore list. Pure gold. Other notable incidents include some tard ganker of an Undead mage running around the Elwynn Forest area (for lvl 5-10). I have no idea what level he was, I'm guessing about 30-35, since after ganking a few people (slaughtering low-level players), someone called in their level 50 friend and the asshole was too scared to venture out and kill more. So he logged onto the General Chat channel and started whining about it - it was quite amusing watching the asshole get slagged by the rest of the server. My friend's description was quite interesting - "a living definition of a penile infection."
*Sigh* once again, I'm stuck with little to do. I recently picked up again and finished Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories (the end boss of Riku's story is DAMN hard. So hard my brother could hear my screams of frustration from the next room, even with the doors closed), and now I'm stuck. Maybe I'll watch some more PSP anime. The PSP launched here last week, so now I think it should be easier to pick up accessories. And maybe movie UMDs too, if the rumours that Jap PSPs can play Aussie movie UMDs. Damn, I wish I could rent a laptop (I spotted a really nice one at Berlin Wall Software the other day). But I can't.
Apparently, I'm too poor :(
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Watch yourself in the dark
I had a rather eventful day yesterday. The highlights: a prac going overtime and a power cut. That's right, a power cut.
I was working last night about 7:30pm when suddenly, I hear a hum and every single powered item in the house goes off. That's right, EVERYTHING: my stereo, the TV, even the lights. I wait about two minutes, there's a hum and power comes back. Then immediately, there's a third hum and then everything goes off. After realising that it's not a power spike or anything, I decide to go downstairs and investigate what happened. Thank god for the PSP with the bright screen. I picked it up and used it as a relatively effective torch, helping shine light so my parents could whip out the candles and light em, as well as the heavy-duty torch, which was given to my brother. I had great fun, spending the next half hour sneaking up behind my brother and scaring him, placing my hand on his shoulder and making him jump. The parents decided again on a rather early night, leaving my brother and I to chat about crap (from the sex jokes in some of Shakespeare's plays to the rather nasty prank he and his friends played on someone else involving a picture of a muscly, naked man and the poor victim's locker). Incidentally, the power came back about 11pm, in the middle of my playing Fire Emblem on my DS.
The prac was rather boring, so I won't inflict the details on you. Nevertheless - long, boring prac. I hope there aren't too many more like that during the semester.
I was working last night about 7:30pm when suddenly, I hear a hum and every single powered item in the house goes off. That's right, EVERYTHING: my stereo, the TV, even the lights. I wait about two minutes, there's a hum and power comes back. Then immediately, there's a third hum and then everything goes off. After realising that it's not a power spike or anything, I decide to go downstairs and investigate what happened. Thank god for the PSP with the bright screen. I picked it up and used it as a relatively effective torch, helping shine light so my parents could whip out the candles and light em, as well as the heavy-duty torch, which was given to my brother. I had great fun, spending the next half hour sneaking up behind my brother and scaring him, placing my hand on his shoulder and making him jump. The parents decided again on a rather early night, leaving my brother and I to chat about crap (from the sex jokes in some of Shakespeare's plays to the rather nasty prank he and his friends played on someone else involving a picture of a muscly, naked man and the poor victim's locker). Incidentally, the power came back about 11pm, in the middle of my playing Fire Emblem on my DS.
The prac was rather boring, so I won't inflict the details on you. Nevertheless - long, boring prac. I hope there aren't too many more like that during the semester.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Friday, August 19, 2005
Damn, it's been a crap week
I'm going to attempt to self-learn Japanese. One benefit of being an anime nut is that you pick up a lot of words here and there. Not to mention considering for the past six months, I've almost been saturating myself in Japanese media - anime, games, music.
It's been three weeks since I've signed up and STILL not connected to the internet. Grr. Very angry, since I now have a rather large backlog of stuff I have to download: mainly anime, but also my sci-fi shows, consisting of Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Atlantis and SG-1. At least I managed to get some sort of sci-fi fix last night, when they aired a season 8 ep of SG-1 which introduces a character seen in the first few eps of SG-1 season 9.
It really hurts not having internet. I really wish I didn't have such domineering, controlling parents. They say for me to act my age, but it's rather hard to do so when they don't treat me the way I feel a 19 year old should be treated. For gods' sake, they still lock up my computer! If that isn't a sign they still see me as a child, then I don't know what is. They control almost all of my electronic entertainment (I have mentioned before, they have a fondness for confiscating my gaming consoles), and I can only thank my foresight that I got a PSP, enabling me to watch anime when I want. However, having now lost the secret key I had to the computer room, I have to find another way to keep extra anime to load onto my PSP. What's even worse is that to procure another one, I need to persuade my parents to open up the computer room before they go to work so I can then go off to the city and get another one (or three - two for use and one for future reference. I really should have gone and gotten another one or two while I had my current extra key).
Operation Independence seems to be sputtering to a rather unimpressive stop as my parents start buying their usual stuff again (damn, groceries are expensive, and I'm already needing money) - my mum seems to love buying ice cream, chips and chocolates. She doesn't seem to care that I keep telling her to stop buying them, she'd stop for a week or two and then start buying again. It's just stupid, when I tell her not to buy them, she claims it's for other members of the family who might want it, and that if I don't want to eat it, then I shouldn't, but it isn't simple as that. Damn it, she should know that my brother and I are the ones who eat lots of the sweet fattening stuff! And yet she continues to buy them, despite our objections. I should start sticking to my diet more, but it's hard, since they take time to cook, I'm a novice at cooking, and I don't know where everything in the kitchen is. Still, I want to learn how to cook, and then hopefully, I can be back on the road to a thin figure, with culinary skills to boot.
This leads to the ultimate goal of Operation Indepence: to move out and start living on my own. I really need to find a more regular job that will earn me more money than $150 a week. I was thinking that, by the end of the year, I could move out and live with some other people in a house. Still, rent'd kill me, being $120 a week for an inner city place. I know it's a good price, but it really is rather expensive for my budget. As of the time now, it is really getting unpleasant to say the most living at home, where I'm bored, can't do much that I want to do, and the parents focus on studying until I drop. Overstudying is not good, I have a nice pattern established, now please don't interfere with it. As soon as I have some more money stashed away, say $1000 or so credit on my credit card, perhaps I'll get a new laptop on some sort of rental plan, that way I can still do stuff while connected to the internet and continue with my downloading. And the parents can't touch it because I'm paying for it. And I need to get a different job so they counter that by simply stopping me working at the shop in Pennington.
Ahh, man ... if only I could enjoy this semester as much as I did the last ... I'd enjoy it even more thanks to the really ncie timetable - mondays off, nothing until midday tuesdays, wednesdays 10-12pm and then a prac every second wednesday, prac on thursdays from 10-1, and then simply a straight run from 9-2 on fridays. As opposed to a straight 8 hour run on monday from 9-5, tuesday 8-10 and then 1-5 prac for four weeks at the beginning of the semester, 9-12 prac on wednesday and then either 2-5 prac or a 5-6 tute, every thurs 12-2, every other one having a 9-12 prac, and finally, a 5 hour run on friday from 9-2. Much, much nicer.
It's been three weeks since I've signed up and STILL not connected to the internet. Grr. Very angry, since I now have a rather large backlog of stuff I have to download: mainly anime, but also my sci-fi shows, consisting of Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Atlantis and SG-1. At least I managed to get some sort of sci-fi fix last night, when they aired a season 8 ep of SG-1 which introduces a character seen in the first few eps of SG-1 season 9.
It really hurts not having internet. I really wish I didn't have such domineering, controlling parents. They say for me to act my age, but it's rather hard to do so when they don't treat me the way I feel a 19 year old should be treated. For gods' sake, they still lock up my computer! If that isn't a sign they still see me as a child, then I don't know what is. They control almost all of my electronic entertainment (I have mentioned before, they have a fondness for confiscating my gaming consoles), and I can only thank my foresight that I got a PSP, enabling me to watch anime when I want. However, having now lost the secret key I had to the computer room, I have to find another way to keep extra anime to load onto my PSP. What's even worse is that to procure another one, I need to persuade my parents to open up the computer room before they go to work so I can then go off to the city and get another one (or three - two for use and one for future reference. I really should have gone and gotten another one or two while I had my current extra key).
Operation Independence seems to be sputtering to a rather unimpressive stop as my parents start buying their usual stuff again (damn, groceries are expensive, and I'm already needing money) - my mum seems to love buying ice cream, chips and chocolates. She doesn't seem to care that I keep telling her to stop buying them, she'd stop for a week or two and then start buying again. It's just stupid, when I tell her not to buy them, she claims it's for other members of the family who might want it, and that if I don't want to eat it, then I shouldn't, but it isn't simple as that. Damn it, she should know that my brother and I are the ones who eat lots of the sweet fattening stuff! And yet she continues to buy them, despite our objections. I should start sticking to my diet more, but it's hard, since they take time to cook, I'm a novice at cooking, and I don't know where everything in the kitchen is. Still, I want to learn how to cook, and then hopefully, I can be back on the road to a thin figure, with culinary skills to boot.
This leads to the ultimate goal of Operation Indepence: to move out and start living on my own. I really need to find a more regular job that will earn me more money than $150 a week. I was thinking that, by the end of the year, I could move out and live with some other people in a house. Still, rent'd kill me, being $120 a week for an inner city place. I know it's a good price, but it really is rather expensive for my budget. As of the time now, it is really getting unpleasant to say the most living at home, where I'm bored, can't do much that I want to do, and the parents focus on studying until I drop. Overstudying is not good, I have a nice pattern established, now please don't interfere with it. As soon as I have some more money stashed away, say $1000 or so credit on my credit card, perhaps I'll get a new laptop on some sort of rental plan, that way I can still do stuff while connected to the internet and continue with my downloading. And the parents can't touch it because I'm paying for it. And I need to get a different job so they counter that by simply stopping me working at the shop in Pennington.
Ahh, man ... if only I could enjoy this semester as much as I did the last ... I'd enjoy it even more thanks to the really ncie timetable - mondays off, nothing until midday tuesdays, wednesdays 10-12pm and then a prac every second wednesday, prac on thursdays from 10-1, and then simply a straight run from 9-2 on fridays. As opposed to a straight 8 hour run on monday from 9-5, tuesday 8-10 and then 1-5 prac for four weeks at the beginning of the semester, 9-12 prac on wednesday and then either 2-5 prac or a 5-6 tute, every thurs 12-2, every other one having a 9-12 prac, and finally, a 5 hour run on friday from 9-2. Much, much nicer.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Love and aspirations
Well, one week in and its seems I've already lost a bit of the weight I built up over the exam period. One kilo down from 90 to 89kg. Yay. On a worse note, my internet is now gone, so I'm waiting for Adam Internet get a move on and plug me up with ADSL2 already. I swear, broadband is so druglike. Once you go broadband, you can't go back, it seems. And now, since my mum challenged me to find a job, I'm finding it hard to find a good one: within my area (preferably in the city), pays relatively well (not like $7 an hour or something), and reasonable times. *sigh* I suppose I'll wait until the summer and then see if I can't get a nice $200 per week job working in a lab for a project over the summer.
My brother recently got his Ls - and now I can reciprocate all the snide remarks he made about my poor driving skills when we're in the car and HE's driving. Incidentally, he went out for a spin with my dad and apparently almost ran down a dog. I like to think that he was going to sacrifice the dog to the gods of driving in return for great driving skills. Maybe so he can pull some Initial D style drifting shit or something.
My household has gone wireless, as my dad bought the necessary equipment for it all - unfortunately, it's proving a devil to configure for security and for the best placement so all three computers wireless'ed up get the best reception. My room, where I wanted to put it originally, doesn't have enough strength. The computer room is a little better, but when I get my hands on a laptop again, it's gonna cause problems when I want to browse the Net in my room.
With the beginning of the new semester, I'm once again reminded of my New Years' four goals (in no particular order) :
1) Better grades (Dinstinction to High Distinction average)
2) Get into shape (Get down from about 85-90 kg to 75-78kg)
3) Financial Independence (change over from my current job to another one where my parents AREN'T my boss - yes, nepotism got me my current job)
4) Get a girlfriend (it's amazing what games can do to you - I was trying out some Japanese dating sim type games for the hell of it, and after finishing it, I had this sudden craving for companionship of the female kind)
Sadly, I seem to be failing on all fronts. Especially with the atrocious marks last semester, my seeming to have gained weight during the year instead of losing it, and I am nowhere near getting a girlfriend than I was at the beginning of the year. Watching Bridget Jones' Diary on Friday night served only to exacerbate the feelings of loneliness and craving for companionship.
Speaking of aspirations, one thing I want to do is travel to and live in Japan for a period of time. It'd be interesting, I think. I wonder if there is some sort of exchange program between Uni SA and somewhere in Japan, or something like the JET program, especially after reading the hilarious diaries of one fellow who's over in Japan teaching English: http://www.outpostnine.com/editorials/teacher.html. I think perhaps that the second half of next year (gods willing, I pass everything this semester with flying colours), I might take up Japanese formally. I've always been meaning to do it, and I have a very basic command of the language (it's like my German, I can say only a basic type of sentence - " is , only with a greater vocab - oh, and I know some of the expletives, both German and Japanese) - and it'd let me play Jap release only RPGs ^_^
My brother recently got his Ls - and now I can reciprocate all the snide remarks he made about my poor driving skills when we're in the car and HE's driving. Incidentally, he went out for a spin with my dad and apparently almost ran down a dog. I like to think that he was going to sacrifice the dog to the gods of driving in return for great driving skills. Maybe so he can pull some Initial D style drifting shit or something.
My household has gone wireless, as my dad bought the necessary equipment for it all - unfortunately, it's proving a devil to configure for security and for the best placement so all three computers wireless'ed up get the best reception. My room, where I wanted to put it originally, doesn't have enough strength. The computer room is a little better, but when I get my hands on a laptop again, it's gonna cause problems when I want to browse the Net in my room.
With the beginning of the new semester, I'm once again reminded of my New Years' four goals (in no particular order) :
1) Better grades (Dinstinction to High Distinction average)
2) Get into shape (Get down from about 85-90 kg to 75-78kg)
3) Financial Independence (change over from my current job to another one where my parents AREN'T my boss - yes, nepotism got me my current job)
4) Get a girlfriend (it's amazing what games can do to you - I was trying out some Japanese dating sim type games for the hell of it, and after finishing it, I had this sudden craving for companionship of the female kind)
Sadly, I seem to be failing on all fronts. Especially with the atrocious marks last semester, my seeming to have gained weight during the year instead of losing it, and I am nowhere near getting a girlfriend than I was at the beginning of the year. Watching Bridget Jones' Diary on Friday night served only to exacerbate the feelings of loneliness and craving for companionship.
Speaking of aspirations, one thing I want to do is travel to and live in Japan for a period of time. It'd be interesting, I think. I wonder if there is some sort of exchange program between Uni SA and somewhere in Japan, or something like the JET program, especially after reading the hilarious diaries of one fellow who's over in Japan teaching English: http://www.outpostnine.com/editorials/teacher.html. I think perhaps that the second half of next year (gods willing, I pass everything this semester with flying colours), I might take up Japanese formally. I've always been meaning to do it, and I have a very basic command of the language (it's like my German, I can say only a basic type of sentence - "
Monday, August 01, 2005
Of Cash and Casserole
Well, phase one of Operation Independence (my plan to make myself less reliant on my parents) is a go. I've been cooking for myself, and within about an hour I should know how that casserole I (tried to) cook went. Apparently, girls dig a guy who can cook. At least, according to my cousin. Phase two is on the way (own internet), I made an application to Adam Internet for an ADSL2+ account, my brother and I are going to share costs between us. I'm going to have to make sure he pays up ... he's only given me $50 to help pay for a $289 router (the Billion 7402G). Damn that stingy prick and his lazy ways. He was recently told that he was taken off the roster at his job cos his work practices weren't very good. Then he got a call on Saturday and was asked to come back. So what did he do? He gave them the equivalent of a long distance finger (middle finger)and "bugger off, I ain't coming back." Now he has to hoard his lunch money like anything and to make his half of the payments. It'd be funny if he did get beat up by bullies and had his lunch money stolen. Not good, but amusing nonetheless.
I accidentally let it out that I bought a wireless router, and the powers that be went off at me. The way my mum went off at me made me realise that she is the biggest materialist that I ever met. Granted, it's materialism about me getting stuff for myself, but it is still blatant materialism. She disapproves of the things I buy. They go on about how I should save money so that I can buy a car, or for a rainy day. I can manage my own finances, thank you very much. She wants me to finish uni quickly so I have a proper job. It seems I'm repeating first semester next year, and perhaps in a manner befitting Red Dwarf, that repeating would perhaps be one of the best things that happened to me (at least I'm nothing personality-wise like Rimmer. I hope.), since it'll teach me to buckle down and work much harder.
Well, my casserole's ready, so I'm going to have dinner.
Itadakimasu!
I accidentally let it out that I bought a wireless router, and the powers that be went off at me. The way my mum went off at me made me realise that she is the biggest materialist that I ever met. Granted, it's materialism about me getting stuff for myself, but it is still blatant materialism. She disapproves of the things I buy. They go on about how I should save money so that I can buy a car, or for a rainy day. I can manage my own finances, thank you very much. She wants me to finish uni quickly so I have a proper job. It seems I'm repeating first semester next year, and perhaps in a manner befitting Red Dwarf, that repeating would perhaps be one of the best things that happened to me (at least I'm nothing personality-wise like Rimmer. I hope.), since it'll teach me to buckle down and work much harder.
Well, my casserole's ready, so I'm going to have dinner.
Itadakimasu!
Thursday, July 28, 2005
A Bad Day
The powers that be took my bad exam results a lot worse than I had thought them too. Perhaps I shouldn't have tempted fate by remarking to my brother that they had been taking the news rather well. My mum stormed upstairs, demanded I hand over my laptop. I refused. She started rampaging around in my room for it, and then her eyes fell on the boxes of Gundam models that I had stashed on top of my wardrobe. That was when I lost my nerve and handed it over to her. Then my dad came home ... thank goodness I decided not to wander downstairs for anything - they would have gone off at me like a 10 megaton nuke. Not to mention now they've fallen back on the timeworn standby of taking away privileges - money, broadband, etc. For gods' sake, I'm 19 years old! I'm a little old for taking things away to have much of a positive effect on me! I have resolved to work much harder this semester after slacking off so much last semester. Although I'll probably have to repeat next year, at least it'll only be mostly semester one, leaving the second half of the year free for me to do whatever I like.
If they're going to treat me like a little kid, then I'm going to have to show them just HOW much I can act my age. They say I should act my age, I'll act my age. I'll free myself of them. Let's see how mum likes it when I buy my own groceries, cook my own meals, and then when she remarks about how it's a bother and makes you tired, smile widely. If they try to cut off my broadband, I'll start paying for it myself. They can't touch it because I'm paying for it, not them. I'll get a job, one independent of them. It might not be as cushy as the job I have now, with my parents as my boss, but at least then I won't be financially dependent on them. I'll learn bus routes so that I don't have to take their car anywhere. If they ask me if it isn't hard and difficult to do everything myself, I'll smile widely and tell them that I am dependent on them for nothing except board. And then, I'll throw my HD results in their faces and go "HA! Nothing you did had any impact on my studies! It was all me! Your confiscation of my fun did nothing, You domineering, narrow-minded, egotistical control freaks!"
Now let's hope I have the willpower and courage to follow through.
If they're going to treat me like a little kid, then I'm going to have to show them just HOW much I can act my age. They say I should act my age, I'll act my age. I'll free myself of them. Let's see how mum likes it when I buy my own groceries, cook my own meals, and then when she remarks about how it's a bother and makes you tired, smile widely. If they try to cut off my broadband, I'll start paying for it myself. They can't touch it because I'm paying for it, not them. I'll get a job, one independent of them. It might not be as cushy as the job I have now, with my parents as my boss, but at least then I won't be financially dependent on them. I'll learn bus routes so that I don't have to take their car anywhere. If they ask me if it isn't hard and difficult to do everything myself, I'll smile widely and tell them that I am dependent on them for nothing except board. And then, I'll throw my HD results in their faces and go "HA! Nothing you did had any impact on my studies! It was all me! Your confiscation of my fun did nothing, You domineering, narrow-minded, egotistical control freaks!"
Now let's hope I have the willpower and courage to follow through.
Monday, July 25, 2005
Back to work
I sit here, waiting for the inevitable to come ... and I heave a sigh. I wasted these holidays. I didn't manage to get on a diet, I didn't play that 40K campaign, I didn't manage to finish even one Gundam model. Of course, it didn't help that the holidays had to be some of the coldest weeks I've ever experienced. I'd stay up late, playing games on my laptop, and then go to sleep, and then wake up about 8:30pm, and then curl up in bed with thoughts of "it's too damn cold to get up tnis morning," before cocooning myself with my blanket and going back to sleep for another three to five hours. But it seems those days are over.
I am really worried. I got some really bad results. I failed all subjects but one. There's no way to sugarcoat it, but I'm going to have to figure out the way to tell my parents without them getting really angry and blaming it on stuff. Not to mention hiding most of my gear so they can't confiscate/destroy it. Now I have to try to make it up this semester by really studying throughout the whole 5-6 months, so that there's no big panic crash at the end where I desperately try to cram as much info into my head as I can. I suppose thse were my downfalls, next to no studying (except for tests), and then two weeks of desperate cramming to get as much into my head as possible, with the thought of impending doom.
Let's hope I can still slim down a bit, even though my timetable this semester is really crazy. Mondays and Tuesdays, nothing in the mornings, lessons starting at midday, with every other Tuesday having a *gasp* 5 hour prac. Then I come to the Wedneday to Friday block, which is crazy. Wednesday alone has a 5 hour prac from 2-7pm ... let's hope I never have to stay the whole length of time.
*sigh* Once more into the breach, my friends ...
I am really worried. I got some really bad results. I failed all subjects but one. There's no way to sugarcoat it, but I'm going to have to figure out the way to tell my parents without them getting really angry and blaming it on stuff. Not to mention hiding most of my gear so they can't confiscate/destroy it. Now I have to try to make it up this semester by really studying throughout the whole 5-6 months, so that there's no big panic crash at the end where I desperately try to cram as much info into my head as I can. I suppose thse were my downfalls, next to no studying (except for tests), and then two weeks of desperate cramming to get as much into my head as possible, with the thought of impending doom.
Let's hope I can still slim down a bit, even though my timetable this semester is really crazy. Mondays and Tuesdays, nothing in the mornings, lessons starting at midday, with every other Tuesday having a *gasp* 5 hour prac. Then I come to the Wedneday to Friday block, which is crazy. Wednesday alone has a 5 hour prac from 2-7pm ... let's hope I never have to stay the whole length of time.
*sigh* Once more into the breach, my friends ...
Friday, July 15, 2005
Whew!
What a whirlwind week. It isn't over yet, as later on today I'm going to a friend's house for some Warhammer 40k games ... a good chance to test out my new Tyranid army.
As I type, I'm listening to the music on my new PSP. It is verrry nice. Although all I have now is the 32mb memory stick to play with, the music sounds very nice, and I'm going to try to load Star Ocean on it later on to play. As soon as I can find the damn rom, anyways. Maybe I'll try Chrono Trigger on it in the mean time. My favourite game ever. Speaking of games, I finished downloading Gundam: True Odyssey earlier today, and, as I knew, the whole game is in Japanese. Not even voice-acting to help me identify some semblance of what's happening. Despite that, the game looks and feels very nice. I like the cel-shaded style they're using for it, although I wished they used proper scale instead of SD style Gundams.
I took a seduction test recently: http://www.blogthings.com/seducerquiz/
I ended up with this:
You don't really try to seduce people... it just seems to happen.
Fun loving and free spirited, you bring out the inner child in people.
You are spontaneous, sincere, and unpretentious - a hard combo to find!
People drop their guard around you, and find themselves falling fast.
Hehe, now to see if it actually works. I doubt it though. Haven't had much luck with girls recently. Now that I think about it, I haven't had much luck with girls period. *sigh* a wasted youth. Woe is me and all that crap. Sometimes I really do wish I did go to a co-ed high school instead of an all boys one. They say that chances of a guy coming out of the closet increases if you go to an all-boys school. I sincerely hope that isn't true, and it should be, if my brother's rampant homophobicism is anything to go by. Oh wait ... that might be the sign of repressed homosexuality ... I think I should stop right there.
As I type, I'm listening to the music on my new PSP. It is verrry nice. Although all I have now is the 32mb memory stick to play with, the music sounds very nice, and I'm going to try to load Star Ocean on it later on to play. As soon as I can find the damn rom, anyways. Maybe I'll try Chrono Trigger on it in the mean time. My favourite game ever. Speaking of games, I finished downloading Gundam: True Odyssey earlier today, and, as I knew, the whole game is in Japanese. Not even voice-acting to help me identify some semblance of what's happening. Despite that, the game looks and feels very nice. I like the cel-shaded style they're using for it, although I wished they used proper scale instead of SD style Gundams.
I took a seduction test recently: http://www.blogthings.com/seducerquiz/
I ended up with this:
You don't really try to seduce people... it just seems to happen.
Fun loving and free spirited, you bring out the inner child in people.
You are spontaneous, sincere, and unpretentious - a hard combo to find!
People drop their guard around you, and find themselves falling fast.
Hehe, now to see if it actually works. I doubt it though. Haven't had much luck with girls recently. Now that I think about it, I haven't had much luck with girls period. *sigh* a wasted youth. Woe is me and all that crap. Sometimes I really do wish I did go to a co-ed high school instead of an all boys one. They say that chances of a guy coming out of the closet increases if you go to an all-boys school. I sincerely hope that isn't true, and it should be, if my brother's rampant homophobicism is anything to go by. Oh wait ... that might be the sign of repressed homosexuality ... I think I should stop right there.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Saturday night fever
Another Saturday night. Another night of much eagerly awaited new material in the form of the latest episode of Gundam SEED Destiny. And as I browse through a forum trying to get the latest info on this episode, I scroll through pages and pages of "Shinn sux, Lunamaria is a slut, they both must DIE!" "ZOMG Kira pwnz j00 all" and so forth. I just wish people would stop with such rampant fanboyism and get on with just enjoying the show. It may not be as good as SEED was (perhaps I should watch the whole thing as a marathon when it finishes to see how I interpret it then), but it's still good enough. And while Fukuda is no Tomino, he is probably doing his best under the circumstances to deliver a good half-hour's entertainment. Anyways ... today marked the premier of a new OP for GSD. Having heard the music it's being done to, I don't really feel that much for it, in fact, it's rather "meh" for a Gundam OP, which is usually dance, rock or techno of some sort.
In other related news, Gundam: True Odyssey has come out! The sad thing is that it's in Japanese, which renders the game largely inaccessible to me. Despite that, I'm still downloading it, and hoping that someone will provide a guide so I know what buttons to press. There's only two reasons why I'm downloading it: MS customisation, and I want to hear what the Japanese voice-over sounds like before they decide to port it over to the US. I wonder how long it'll be before that happens.
I went out for dinner with friends tonight. We met at the Cafe Kowloon, and generally had a good time. It's a pity I couldn't catch up with the waitress who gave us the bill, since by the way she said "thank you" and bowing in response to my thanking her for giving me the bill tells me that she just might be Japanese. If so, then there'd be nothing wrong with getting to know her face. Maybe next time I could start hitting on her or something. Gotta work on those skills first though -_- going to an all-guys school for high school and having an inactive social life really hit me hard - lack of experience of hitting on girls. I'm sure that's starting to come back and bite me in the ass now that I'm in uni, where the ratio of guys to girls in my classes are like 60:40 in favour of the girls. Looking at myself in the photos I took, I think I don't look too good. I never fancied my face as being that of a fat man's, but looking at the photos, it seems I have what appears to be a 1.3 chin. Not quite a double chin, but you can see the flab drooping down at the back. Not good. I wanted a nice, chiselled face that girls could fall for. *sigh* losing the weight's gonna be a lot of troublesome work over a long period. And that leads us to ... ugh ... finances.
I really shouldn't have gone into retail therapy as a way of relieving stress for my exams. Net result: my credit card is almost maxed, my bank account has about a hundred and fifty bucks left, and I've become a compulsive spender. Despite that, I am the proud owner of several unassembled Master Grade Gundam models, and a Perfect Grade Strike (which I doubt I'll touch for a while - assembly and painting of the others will take me at least 3-4 months), as well as the Tyranid army to paint. Oh, and the jungle terrain I want to get done by the end of this coming week. *sigh* , so much to do. I think I might have to give up gaming for the week.
In other related news, Gundam: True Odyssey has come out! The sad thing is that it's in Japanese, which renders the game largely inaccessible to me. Despite that, I'm still downloading it, and hoping that someone will provide a guide so I know what buttons to press. There's only two reasons why I'm downloading it: MS customisation, and I want to hear what the Japanese voice-over sounds like before they decide to port it over to the US. I wonder how long it'll be before that happens.
I went out for dinner with friends tonight. We met at the Cafe Kowloon, and generally had a good time. It's a pity I couldn't catch up with the waitress who gave us the bill, since by the way she said "thank you" and bowing in response to my thanking her for giving me the bill tells me that she just might be Japanese. If so, then there'd be nothing wrong with getting to know her face. Maybe next time I could start hitting on her or something. Gotta work on those skills first though -_- going to an all-guys school for high school and having an inactive social life really hit me hard - lack of experience of hitting on girls. I'm sure that's starting to come back and bite me in the ass now that I'm in uni, where the ratio of guys to girls in my classes are like 60:40 in favour of the girls. Looking at myself in the photos I took, I think I don't look too good. I never fancied my face as being that of a fat man's, but looking at the photos, it seems I have what appears to be a 1.3 chin. Not quite a double chin, but you can see the flab drooping down at the back. Not good. I wanted a nice, chiselled face that girls could fall for. *sigh* losing the weight's gonna be a lot of troublesome work over a long period. And that leads us to ... ugh ... finances.
I really shouldn't have gone into retail therapy as a way of relieving stress for my exams. Net result: my credit card is almost maxed, my bank account has about a hundred and fifty bucks left, and I've become a compulsive spender. Despite that, I am the proud owner of several unassembled Master Grade Gundam models, and a Perfect Grade Strike (which I doubt I'll touch for a while - assembly and painting of the others will take me at least 3-4 months), as well as the Tyranid army to paint. Oh, and the jungle terrain I want to get done by the end of this coming week. *sigh* , so much to do. I think I might have to give up gaming for the week.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Stunning revelations
Being somewhat a japanophile, I also have developed an affinity for Asian girls. Not too bad, considering I'm Vietnamese and therefore it doesn't seem as unnatural as white guys. I've been reading the latest entries on a diary by Azrael, a fellow who's living in Japan and teaching English. They provide a huge amount of humour, and a good reason why I prefer Japanese literature to Australian free-to-air and ... aw fuck. My crappy lappy has started chugging. I think it's a sign that I've either finally finished downloading something big on Azureus, or I've left the laptop on for too long (usually the latter) and it needs a reboot. And the results are ... cool, finally finished the 6gb download that is the entire series of Azumanga Daioh. Although I wonder whether I should have simply bought the DVDs, since they came with a little booklet with little notes on the little cultural things western gaijin wouldn't understand.
Mmm ... The Tsubasa Chronicle OST was just released onto the internet by Nipponsei. I love it. I love all of Yuki Kajiura's work, especially her work from .hack//SIGN (the gateway and still the best) and Xenosaga Episode II. The music from Tsubasa Chronicle is just as good, especially "A Song of Storm and Fire." At least now I have something new to listen to, after the last couple of months of j-rock and j-pop. Hmm, the dance style music from Initial D looks like a good bet, especially after my mp3 player somehow wandered from the Z Gundam music folder to Initial D. I swear, that iRiver has a life of its own sometimes. If I leave the thing to play by itself for several hours, I come back about an hour and a half later and it's playing something far away from the folder I'd expect it to be playing music from.
Mmm .. maybe some more internet browsing and then I'll watch some anime or something. Maybe it's time to finally break out that Galaxy Angel S2 DVD and actually watch it. Now that I think about it, I haven't touched the Gundam SEED, Fullmetal Alchemist, or Samurai Champloo DVDs I bought a while ago either. Of course, I've already seen those series fansubbed, but I bought the DVDs so I could watch them again. *sigh* too little time.
Mmm ... The Tsubasa Chronicle OST was just released onto the internet by Nipponsei. I love it. I love all of Yuki Kajiura's work, especially her work from .hack//SIGN (the gateway and still the best) and Xenosaga Episode II. The music from Tsubasa Chronicle is just as good, especially "A Song of Storm and Fire." At least now I have something new to listen to, after the last couple of months of j-rock and j-pop. Hmm, the dance style music from Initial D looks like a good bet, especially after my mp3 player somehow wandered from the Z Gundam music folder to Initial D. I swear, that iRiver has a life of its own sometimes. If I leave the thing to play by itself for several hours, I come back about an hour and a half later and it's playing something far away from the folder I'd expect it to be playing music from.
Mmm .. maybe some more internet browsing and then I'll watch some anime or something. Maybe it's time to finally break out that Galaxy Angel S2 DVD and actually watch it. Now that I think about it, I haven't touched the Gundam SEED, Fullmetal Alchemist, or Samurai Champloo DVDs I bought a while ago either. Of course, I've already seen those series fansubbed, but I bought the DVDs so I could watch them again. *sigh* too little time.
Monday, July 04, 2005
Holidays holidays holidays
Holidays are upon us! At least here where I live. After a semester of long, gruelling lectures and practicals, it feels nice to kick back and do what I like. But still .. so much to do, so little time it seems. I have a stack of Gundam models sitting beside my desk waiting to be built, a Warhammer 40,000 Tyranid army to build and paint, and several RPGs to play: La Pucelle Tactics, Phantom Brave, Disgaea, Xenosaga Episodes I and II, and Suikoden 3. I also have a pile of anime to watch: Tsukiyomi ~Moon Phase~, Tsubasa Chronicle, Turn A Gundam, Tekkaman Blade 1 & 2, Fist of the North Star, Azumanga Daioh, and Galaxy Angel season 2. *sigh* so much to do, so little time (incidentally, I love the way they stylised the 2 on the cover of the GA season 2 DVD, mocking Zeta Gundam ^_^ )
I decided to start the festivities off by watching a few episodes of Turn A. I swear, Tomino is a brilliant director. Having watched many of his other Gundam works, I have to say that Turn A is the most compelling. The mecha design is weird, especially the Gundam (honestly, a mustached Gundam? Controversial), and they do recycle mech designs for a few things, but I really like it. Yoko Kanno does the music, and is brilliant, but my favourite music composer is still Yuki Kajiura. I just love her violin and folklorish compositions, they sound beautiful. Anyways, I watched a few episodes, then decided to stop and wait until Hero-Legends finished fansubbing the entire series, so then I can have a nice Turn A marathon. I just hope they can release the last six or so episodes quickly, otherwise I'll get impatient and watch up to the current subbed episode.
So in order to keep myself busy between the weekly Gundam Seed Destiny fix and waiting for the next Turn A episode to download, I've been watching Tsukiyomi ~Moon Phase~. The subbing is proceeding at a snail's pace, with mahou releasing a new episode roughly once a month. There's a new group doing it too, here's to hoping they're faster than mahou currently is.
In between the normal activities, there are other things. I've been keeping myself busy playing La Pucelle Tactics - and after 10 hours, am still on chapter 1. Never being one for game mechanics and gameplay, I've just been having fun demolishing a whole map full of enemies in one go, setting up a huge purification chain and grinning stupidly as I rack up huge bonuses. Hopefully, I'll get bored of this soon, otherwise I'll be fighting my brother to get off playing Conker's Bad Fur Day on the Xbox so I can get on to play. It is a real bother being forced to have both game systems wired into the same TV, simply because the parents (AKA the tyrants, the supreme overlords, the powers that be) don't like having the machines set up elsewhere. On top of that, it's set up in their bedroom, and they are early sleepers. I swear, it is such a bother.
I'm also trying to squeeze in going to the gym for exercise. I am not a slim man. Rather, the opposite. My BMI claims that I'm composed of about 30% fat, and since Asian people on the BMI enter the obese category at a lower level, this makes me rather worried, since it could be higher, or more unhealthy. Therefore, I'm embarking on a special diet and a regime at the gym that will hopefully help me to shed that extra weight. Maybe it'll attract more girls too. Maybe even one! ^_^;
Well, we'll have to see how these holidays turn out. With luck, I'll be able to do almost everything I planned. And with more luck, my parents won't confiscate my PS2 on the grounds of the fact that I play it too much and am neglecting my studies. Of course, that's only a half-truth. I neglect my studies anyway, if my latest exam results (unreleased) will be anything to go by.
I decided to start the festivities off by watching a few episodes of Turn A. I swear, Tomino is a brilliant director. Having watched many of his other Gundam works, I have to say that Turn A is the most compelling. The mecha design is weird, especially the Gundam (honestly, a mustached Gundam? Controversial), and they do recycle mech designs for a few things, but I really like it. Yoko Kanno does the music, and is brilliant, but my favourite music composer is still Yuki Kajiura. I just love her violin and folklorish compositions, they sound beautiful. Anyways, I watched a few episodes, then decided to stop and wait until Hero-Legends finished fansubbing the entire series, so then I can have a nice Turn A marathon. I just hope they can release the last six or so episodes quickly, otherwise I'll get impatient and watch up to the current subbed episode.
So in order to keep myself busy between the weekly Gundam Seed Destiny fix and waiting for the next Turn A episode to download, I've been watching Tsukiyomi ~Moon Phase~. The subbing is proceeding at a snail's pace, with mahou releasing a new episode roughly once a month. There's a new group doing it too, here's to hoping they're faster than mahou currently is.
In between the normal activities, there are other things. I've been keeping myself busy playing La Pucelle Tactics - and after 10 hours, am still on chapter 1. Never being one for game mechanics and gameplay, I've just been having fun demolishing a whole map full of enemies in one go, setting up a huge purification chain and grinning stupidly as I rack up huge bonuses. Hopefully, I'll get bored of this soon, otherwise I'll be fighting my brother to get off playing Conker's Bad Fur Day on the Xbox so I can get on to play. It is a real bother being forced to have both game systems wired into the same TV, simply because the parents (AKA the tyrants, the supreme overlords, the powers that be) don't like having the machines set up elsewhere. On top of that, it's set up in their bedroom, and they are early sleepers. I swear, it is such a bother.
I'm also trying to squeeze in going to the gym for exercise. I am not a slim man. Rather, the opposite. My BMI claims that I'm composed of about 30% fat, and since Asian people on the BMI enter the obese category at a lower level, this makes me rather worried, since it could be higher, or more unhealthy. Therefore, I'm embarking on a special diet and a regime at the gym that will hopefully help me to shed that extra weight. Maybe it'll attract more girls too. Maybe even one! ^_^;
Well, we'll have to see how these holidays turn out. With luck, I'll be able to do almost everything I planned. And with more luck, my parents won't confiscate my PS2 on the grounds of the fact that I play it too much and am neglecting my studies. Of course, that's only a half-truth. I neglect my studies anyway, if my latest exam results (unreleased) will be anything to go by.
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