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.

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 ...