Bad start to the day, as Dad gave another installment of The Talk. Mostly the "same old, same old", but what stuck out in this episode was that he kept underlining how he felt he's failed in educating me properly in terms of manners, religion, etc. In other words, I'm an absolutely useless embarrassment as a son. OK, maybe he didn't say that exactly, but now that I think about it, there's never been a time when he has me sit down and tell me that he's proud of me other than during occasions where it'd be cruel not to say so, like graduation. Granted, there's probably not too many non-graduation things I've done of late that would make him brimming with pride, but I dunno - would it kill him to tell me I'm not a total spastic once in a while? If I've got severe self-esteem issues, then I guess they probably came from here and helped me evolve (or is that devolve?) into the mess that I am today. If I can hold it together enough to have kids of my own, I hope I don't inflict similar psychological scars.
Anyway, later on I met up with Yoga, Anita and Peds at Starbucks Melawai. Even though our last meet-up involved karaoke afterwards and I should've assumed as much, I arrived thinking we were just going to sit around and do something else, if at all. But as it turns out, karaoke was on the cards. I was reluctant at first (see above paragraph), but decided to go along so as not to ruin the mood (and it's not like I was going to pour my heart out about it over Frappucinos anyway).
Apparently, apart from being a means in which average schlubs are given license to butcher well-known songs, karaoke also offers endless laughs, especially those El Cheapo videos they come up with for each song, riddled with mistake-laden lyrics. High point of tonight was the rendition of Bon Jovi's 'You Give Love A Bad Name' (my choice, always a crowd pleaser). The video they came up with was hilariously hideous on so many levels: they had the "actors" (I use the term loosely, even moreso than the inverted commas imply) literally act out every word in the song. "Shot through the heart and you're to blame" had the "actress" portraying the song's antagonist (you know, the one who gives love a bad name) waving around a gun, "Blood red nails on her fingertips" coincided with a close-up shot of her red fingernails, and so on. The killer moment was when she shot the bare-chested singer guy, and then they showed him all shot up with red paint indicating where the bullet holes were supposed to be. Camp at its finest. That song came early on in the session, and it practically made my voice go out. Maybe it was because of the shouty nature required in the song's delivery, but I suspect it was due to laughing too much at the video...
