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...
'Nuff said.
Thanks to: Irene, Citra, Fitri, Hanief, Evit, Dad, Mum 2, Wiwit, Emi, Andhika N., Leti, Isyana, Poppy K., Emanuel, Danis, Halief, Maria, Menik, Dimitri, Astrid, Wanza, Ale, Biggie, Notz, Avie, Mirna, Ikmal, Olive, Rara, Jamal, Yoga, Peds, Rani, Donna, Anna, Dhitri, Lila, Josh, Ardian, Vale and Anita K. Special mention to Silva and Ida for jumping the gun.
Addendum in response to a comment:
My day wasn't too flashy, but it did start nice pleasantly enough in the wee hours of morning, as I watched Liverpool comfortably outplay Monaco in their Champions League game. There are better ways in which to start off a new year of my life, but as the final whistle blew with the score 2-0, I really couldn't ask for much more. Plus everyone else bar football fans were asleep, thus unable to provide any special birthday gestures at that particular time of day.
In the afternoon, I travelled by Busway to the new Hard Rock Cafe at EX (EX stands for Entertainment Xenter. A case of creative spelling or too many drugs consumed by the people who decide these things?) to score a free meal. Not because it was my birthday, but because there was a launching event for this thing that enables 30 second-snippets of songs to be played through your receiver when you're trying to call someone through your cellphone. Can't remember the last time I spent money on a meal at the Hard Rock. In fact, I don't think I ever have.
From there, took the Busway with Dhitri (who works at Aksara Plaza Indonesia, adjacent to EX) back to Al-Azhar, where I'd parked the car. It was the first time I'd taken the Busway during weekday rush hour, and I have to say it was rather lovely. Didn't have to worry about the 3-in-1 regulations, didn't have to get all stressed out at traffic. I think I'll do it more often...
After getting the car back, had a quick bite at McDonald's Kemang where we were greeted by the sight (and sound) of a middle-aged (and probably drunk) Australian expat shouting obsceneties at the staff because they were out of fried chicken and rice. Forget the embassy; the suicide bombers should've just gone to this arsehole's house.
Then it was on to Dhitri's to drop her off, and then to 12 (to be more precise, a row of food stalls located somewhere near SMP 12) to hang out with Rija and bask in the glory of Liverpool's win, and then back home to watch this week's Star World installments of
Buffy The Vampire Slayer and
Angel.
Overall mood of the day: while it's nice that people remembered, there was something that bugged me about the fact that just about everyone mentioned that they hope I get my love life sorted out soon, or words to that effect. I'm sure that: a. they mean well, b. it's just something to say to someone whom they know is currently single, c. a combination of a and b. But factor in my paranoia and neurosis, and I get the impression that my love life (or lack thereof) sucks so badly that my would-be well wishers feel the need to bring it up, especially as I enter another year of life. I mean, they could've just said anything, something vague like, "Good luck in your advanced age!" I know it's hard to be creative about sending greetings without resorting to the usual cliches, but if a cliche does come up, it's to be expected. But in my case, the frequent appearance of one particular cliche makes me think that they're trying to tell me something...
The good news: my PC's finally working normal, more or less. So now my blood pressure can gradually lower itself and I won't have to punch the CPU casing anymore.
The bad news: all the photos I've taken by digicam and stored on the PC from the past year and a half or so have been lost. How'd this happen, even though all my other data files are still intact? Here's the thing: computer repairmen automatically assume that everything that needs to be backed up is in the Documents folder. I assumed that computer repairmen would automatically save all forms of data, regardless of whether it was in the Documents folder or not. This brings to mind that old adage, of assumption being the mother of all foul ups. So yeah, I'm pretty crushed at the moment. Think I'll punch my PC one last time...
Been a while since the last post. A lot of things have happened in the past week or so, which I would have written about if it weren't for the fact that my PC's been more or less dead since Thursday. So I'm writing this after I finally decided to go to the internet rental across the road.
Now, having a malfunctioning PC, while upsetting, really shouldn't be the end of the world. I mean, it happens to a lot of people. And rest assured, I can handle that. What I seem to have difficulty handling is the fact that my PC's been sent back and forth to the repair shop because there always seems to be something new that's wrong with it. First, I couldn't get it to switch on. After they repaired that and I brought it home, it kept resetting by itself. The repair guy came over and said it was a trojan virus, so he took it back to the shop to have it reinstalled. I took it back home again, and then I found that it had a habit of freezing up. It either took ages for a program to work (if at all), or just stopped working completely. On the verge of absolute lividness, I called the shop to have them send the bloody guy again. He'll be arriving tomorrow, and if he still can't get it working properly...then I'll be spending more time at this rental.
