Thursday, July 29, 2010

Inception for the Fifth Time and Saving Ten Cents

My sleep kept getting interrupted by Faith. He wanted me to wake up and give him some attention so he was pawing at me and scratching and biting and basically making himself a nuisance. I covered my whole body in my blanket and after walking around my perimeter failing to find exposed flesh, he gave up and went to sleep.

At around twelve o'clock Jared came over so Ian and he could go to Mid Valley to watch Inception and Salt. Their commotion woke Faith up, and he started trying to wake me again. Luckily, Ian removed him from my bed so I could get another hour or so of sleep before waking.

When I did wake up, my Bible reading for the day was the beatitudes. There were eight of them. I wonder if Carmeni thinks they're in the same order as I do. After that Hannah asked where Ian and Jared were and I told her they had left already. She was upset because she thought she was going with them. She was busy at Susanna's birthday party and so she wasn't around when they left. I told Hannah that I could take her to see Inception.

Jan woke up when I was getting ready for the day. I had just finished brushing my teeth and putting in my contacts, so I went to go get a towel and some clothes. Jan took that as an opportunity to enter the bathroom, lock the door, and take a shower before me. Sneaky bugger.

Jan was taking a while, so I contemplated skipping a shower altogether, but I had already been taking two showers a day for the past week and I didn't want to break the streak. I think it's become a habit. Now I'll be losing a little more of my day each day for the rest of my life. I blame Elo and Carmeni for this. Oh well, at least I'll be cleaner.

Anyway, Jan eventually finished doing whatever he was doing, so it was my turn. The water was a lot less cold than it was the past few days. Either I'm getting used to it, or it's just warmer in the afternoon. I hope it's the latter.

After I was nice and fresh I started downloading Let the Right One In on Ian's computer, since I read that Chloe Grace-Moretz was going to be starring in an American adaptation and I wanted to watch the original Swedish version, since apparently it's one of the best vampire movies out there. Also I loaded The Money Song on YouTube so I could hear that since it was stuck in my head.

But yeah, after I had done all that we were ready to leave. Unfortunately there were no cars available, so we decided to walk. We made it to the end of our building's compound before realizing we could just have Aunty Rosie drop us off. We called her, but she told us traffic was too heavy on the way back, so we'd have to take a taxi if we didn't want to hoof it. Right after the call ended a taxi came by, so I hailed it down and we got in.

We decided to split the fare three-ways, and it was decided that if the amount wasn't divisible by three, I'd pay the difference. It was RM5.60, and since I was at the front I paid first. I was going to claim back the money from Hannah and Jan, but I forgot.

Our first stop was an ATM. I withdrew my last fifty of the month. I had hit my float, and with so few days left in the month I was determined not to let it drop any lower.

Jan didn't feel like watching Inception again, because he is a fool. I told him that if he watched Inception and Sorcerer's Apprentice with me, I'd pay for his dinner. Hannah wanted to know what she would do if she didn't want to watch Sorcerer's Apprentice. I told her I didn't know, so she might as well join us.

Since I paid for the fare and the other two didn't want to pay me back, they decided they were going to be nice and stand in line for the tickets while I had lunch at McDonald's. I got a call from Hannah saying that she was going to get the tickets soon because they had just joined a new line exclusively for people who wanted to buy tickets for The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Inception, but a little later I heard an announcement that said the line they had joined was exclusively for people who wanted to buy tickets for any movie EXCEPT The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Inception. I called Hannah to tell her this, but she told me she had just heard and was going to join the proper line.

Anyway, my lunch was pretty delicious (especially by McDonald's standards) and I ended up finishing it pretty quickly. While I was eating I was thinking about how much money I had left and I decided I couldn't afford to watch any movies, so when I was finished I went downstairs to tell Jan not to buy any tickets for me. When I got downstairs I saw that I was too late. He already had three tickets to Inception because he cut in front of the line. Fortunately, he had forgotten about The Sorcerer's Apprentice, so through that loophole I avoided having to pay for Jan's dinner.

After Jan and Hannah finished their lunch, we went to watch Inception. It was Jan's second time, Hannah's third time, and my fifth time. Jan and I managed to pee before the movie, but Hannah thought she could survive without emptying her bladder beforehand. Surprisingly, she was right. Anyway, the movie was still awesome. I was reciting the lines throughout the movie, which annoyed Jan, but fortunately there was nobody to my right so I could ignore him and keep doing it anyway. I did get a little quieter, though, since a group of people came in around fifteen minutes late to occupy the row directly in front of us. Hannah spent most of the movie texting, stopping every once in a while to blush and grin every time Joseph Gordon-Levitt showed up on screen. Jan kept looking around the cinema to see other people's reactions to the movie, so there were still a lot of things he didn't understand one it was over. At the end of the movie Jan and Hannah tried to instigate an applause, but it didn't spread. Instead we sat around until the end of the credits, listening to the score and looking for names that stood out. At the end they played Edith Piaf's "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien", which slowed down and morphed into a different part of the soundtrack before ending. It was pretty awesome.

Jan and Hannah were mad at me for getting them to stay until the credits were over, but I thought it was worth it. We went to get a cab, but right when Jan was asking the driver if he could take us to Bangsar, I remembered about Amanda's birthday present, so we went back in the mall. Jan and Hannah didn't want to accompany me to MPH. Jan was mad that I chided him for not understanding the movie, and Hannah was just too lazy to walk. I told her that I'd tell her more about Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, and she relented. Jan came along, too, because he is a little baby and he's too scared to be alone.

While I was looking for Murphy's Law, I told Hannah how Arthur's real romantic interest in that movie wasn't Ariadne, but Eames. I'm not sure if she believed me or not, but I managed to find the book. I took two copies to the middle of the store; one to read and another to buy. Hannah and Jan got bored of waiting for me to finish the book, so they went home without me.

When I was done reading the book I realized that maybe it might not be Amanda's thing, so I called her to ask if she had any books she particularly wanted to read. She told me about this Louise Rennison book that she wanted to read. She said she had Confessions of Georgia Nicholson series except for books 5 and 7, so I told her I'd try and find the fifth one. I went to the information desk to try and find it, but they were sold out all over the country. I called Amanda to give her the bad news, but I told her that they did have 14 copies of another Louise Rennison book in stock called "Withering Tights" and I asked her if she wanted to get that. Amanda misheard and thought I said "Wuthering Heights", which was a book she wanted to read. I told her that it was a different book, but I'd get Wuthering Heights for her if there was nothing else she wanted. She told me to see if they had a book called "Icarus".

They did not have any copies of Icarus in stock, so I sent Amanda a text. It read: "Icarus is sold out, too. So: Wuthering Heights (classic book; referenced in Twilight) or Murphy's Law (awesome book; cops, thugs, and diamonds)?" I was hoping Amanda would ask for Wuthering Heights, because apparently there was a version that was only RM9.90, whereas Murphy's Law was RM45.90. Amanda replied with "Hahaha... Okie", so I sent back "Wait, aren't you going to choose? Or should I toss a coin?", so she said "Withering heights", so I went to get a copy of Wuthering Heights while I typed out a reply.

There first copy of Wuthering Heights that I found helped me establish the author's name, but it was twenty-something ringgit, so I brought it to the information counter and asked what the difference was between that and the RM9.90 one. The lady behind the counter brought back the RM9.90 version and apparently it came with bonus features, which meant the cheaper one had more content, so that was nice. After paying for the book, I sent Amanda a reply that read "Haha, it's Wuthering Heights. Withering is the one with the Tights. =P".

As I was leaving MPH, Amanda texted me saying "Hahaha... Actually.. Get me tht one la. It sounds so funny...", so I turned around, went back in, and asked the lady to help me find a copy of Withering Tights, too. The moment I read the synopsis I knew I had done the right thing by not buying Murphy's Law. Withering Tights sounded like exactly the kind of thing people like Hannah and Amanda (girls, basically) would want to read. Anyway, Withering Tights was RM35.90, so my total came up to RM45.80, which meant I had spent 10 cents less than I would've if I would have bought Murphy's Law, so that was nice, too.

I called my mum to pick me up so I wouldn't have to pay for a cab fare. As I was nearing the exit of the mall, I was approached by a perfume salesperson. Since I had time to kill, I agreed to try on some cologne. The lady sprayed my arm with one bottle, then told me to hang on a moment while she got another bottle for comparison. She then sprayed that on the exact same place. When I pointed it out to her, she apologized and tried again on my other arm. This time I could smell them. One was citrus-y and nice, and the other was kinda generic. She then told me that the first bottle was something like RM160, and the second one was RM250. I told her that she was maybe marketing to the wrong guy, since I was just a student and I don't even had a job, but I told her I'd tell my dad since I didn't want her to feel like I'd wasted her time.

When she was out of earshot, I mumbled "Two hundred and fifty dollars for a scent..." to myself, and then after a few moments I laughed out loud at the involuntary pun. Everyone looked at me strange, and I was suddenly very glad that I was near the exit.

My mum arrived, we went home, I blogged about the day. I'll wake up early and study for my quiz tomorrow. I'm not sure when I'll ever get to write that other blog post about all the things I'd forgotten to mention. I guess forgetting to write a post about stuff I had forgotten about would be pretty appropriate, or ironic, or whatever.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Tuesday Defeated Me, but I'm Back

I wanted to do some homework and make a few blog posts on Tuesday, but I took a shower too early and my body figured that was the end of the day and so I was lifeless for the rest of the evening. However! Today was different (It is still Wednesday when I'm writing this, but it'll be Thursday in three minutes).

Today I woke up to an alarm, did my Bible reading, climbed the stairs, took a shower, got ready for the day at my own leisure, rode to college, and hung out with people. It's exactly what I did on Monday and Tuesday, too, except for the stairs bit (I only do the stairs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) and the ready at my leisure bit. Anyway, let's start with Monday and work our way back here.

I woke up at six on Monday because I wanted to get to college early so I could talk to whoever was there (I was expecting Carmeni) until their classes began, then meet more of my friends and have more conversations until six o'clock rolled around and I could teach Amanda how to ride my motorcycle in the HELP parking lot. I was going to teach her on Sunday, but it rained, so I had to postpone it. Also I wanted to pass along The Runaways to Carmeni and Indiana Jones and Wall-E to Elo, so I had that to do, too. Also also, I had a Bahasa Kebangsaan meeting at one o'clock.

Anyway, when I arrived there was no-one I knew in the corridor except Shannon, so I talked to him. I forgot what we talked about. We talked for about half an hour before I showed him The Runaways. Elo and Arun arrived right when we started watching. I got Shannon to skip to the Dakota Fanning/Kristen Stewart kiss to see Elo's reaction, but I forgot what it was. Can't have been anything too great, then. Shannon loved it, though. But he had to leave for class. I gave Elo her Indiana Jones & Wall-E CD, and then we talked. Again, I forget what we talked about. I think we may have compared accents. Elo gave me maybe one phrase in her New Zealand accent, and I responded with a few sentences in what I hoped was a South African accent, but ended up devolving into Scottish for some reason. Anyway, Elo left for class at 9:30, so I talked to Arun for a while before he went somewhere.

Since nobody was left in the corridor, I went to go get some breakfast. On Sunday I had talked to Yii Huei on Windows Live about McDonald's breakfast and constructing the perfect McMuffin (Buy five Sausage McMuffin value meals, construct a McMuffin with 5 patties and 3 hash browns, use leftover buns and complimentary jam to make 4 jam sandwiches, eat remaining 2 hash browns on their own, and wash everything down with your five ice Milos), so I headed to McD's to satisfy my cravings. Unfortunately my budget did not allow for any indulgences that day, so I opted for a single value meal instead.

When I entered the McDonald's, I spotted Denise and Alysha at a table. The invited me over while I was waiting for my order. I was told about Denise's friend, Meel, and how he always seemed to end up dating crazy ladies (except for Denise, of course). There was this one time he dated a girl online for six months. He only knew what she looked like via her Facebook pictures, and he only knew what she sounded like from the occasional phone call. They'd had a few webcam chats, but they were always one-sided because she was having a bad day or she had just got out of the shower or whatever. You can probably see where this one is going. Anyway, one day he gets a call from a friend to go pick up something from a mall. He heads over, and as he's walking through the Coffee Bean he hears a familiar voice. He turns to look and there is his girlfriend's voice coming out of the mouth of this fat, ugly Chinese girl. Turns out, she had taken her Facebook photographs from some Taiwanese model. All her Facebook friends were fake, too; she had made dozens of dummy accounts to make her account look more authentic. Anyway, Meel broke up with her before she could abduct him and lock him in her basement and do whatever it is that crazy people do to their unsuspecting victims once they're helpless and alone.

After McDonald's we walked back to college and Alysha talked about how she was actually royalty since she had a sultan somewhere down her ancestral lineage. Her grandfather gets a special sticker that he can put on his car to prove that he's royalty I thought it was pretty cool, but she said it's mostly a bore because you have to go to all the official state dinners and learn how to bow and speak with respect and stuff like that.

Anyway, the girls went to the lab so I went back to my spot. There were more people there, but I can't really remember who they were. I'm gonna take a guess and say Carmeni and Arun. Anyway, Arun said that he didn't believe Alysha's claims to royalty, since anyone could claim they were royalty. Also there was a guy near his house that sold the royalty stickers that Alysha's grandfather had on his car. Apparently they go for around RM30 each. Meh, I still believe her.

I gave Carmeni her CD, and then I showed her how to play Snake on YouTube (I had previously shown Shannon, too. I forgot to mention that) a bunch of funny/interesting videos on YouTube. I think I showed her the Kung-Fu Bear, the Ninja Cat, and MRI Sex. Oh yeah, I also showed her Jason and Jeanine's dance, but I've linked that here before. Elo came by since her class was over. At some point I told Carmeni and her that I had decided to see what all this two-showers-a-day business was about, so I had taken a shower that morning and now I felt fresh and nice. The girls said that they already knew, because they could somehow tell from how fresh I looked or something. Girls are scary. I showed her Katy Perry's 2001 interview. Carmeni must've been somewhere else or been doing something else, but anyway Elo showed her the video and she didn't see what was so spooky about it, so I loaded up Ur So Gay for comparison. Soon it was one o'clock and I went to the DSA for my meeting.

The meeting went well. At first it was just me and Mun Lee, so we discussed how to divide the work and when we should compile and stuff and when our next meetings would be and such. Eventually Lee Kening and Roy showed up, so we divided the work, clarified the deadlines, and five minutes later we were done.

I went back to the guys and we hung out and talked some more. I forget the specifics, but I remember informing the group that there's a part of the fetus that will eventually develop into either the penis or the clitoris, depending on the chromosomes it gets, which means that women have as much sensitivity concentrated in a small area right near the front as guys do all over, which is great for women if they know how to work it. We also talked about how frequently guys masturbate. I stuck with my one-to-five-times-a-week estimate, but Arun said it was more like one to five times a day. I said that was only accurate if you were using porn instead of mental images to get off. We also found out that Elo didn't know what a hymen or a clitoris even was. Also we may or may not have talked about South African anti-rape devices and the Ganges, or that may have been Tuesday's conversation.

After a while everyone ended up going home or to class, so I decided that instead of waiting in college until six I'd just go home and come back later. While I was walking to my motorcycle, I got a text from Amanda saying she couldn't make it because of an assignment or something, so I just went straight home instead. Well, not straight home. Due to a misunderstanding I went on a little loop, stopping at McDonald's only to find out that I had misunderstood something. Then I went back.

Once I was back home I started blogging about Hannah's and Ian's birthdays, and that took a really long time. I was interrupted halfway because we were going to Chili's for dinner because it was Hannah's birthday, but that was a welcome interruption. I finished the blog post and then I hung out in Hannah's room for a while. It was then when I discovered how deep her love for Joseph Gordon-Levitt was (hint: she cannot talk about him without blushing and grinning like an idiot).

So anyway I did my exercises and took a shower and went to bed, and I slept very well for quite a long time. After a while I was in college again. I had a thumb drive with five movies on it for Carmeni, but I was willing to share them with anyone who wanted them. I had Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Monty Python's Meaning of Life, Monty Python's Life of Brian, and The Princess Bride.

I don't really remember what happened in the college corridors on Tuesday. I know I shared my movies with loads of people on loads of laptops, except Elo's because she hadn't brought hers. I know I watched The Meaning of Life with Arun and had a tough time with it because how low the laptop's volume was and how loud the corridor was. I think I may have had a conversation with girls about geography and some girl said that Egypt was near "Arab" and Elo said she used to think Africa was a country and she still couldn't identify where in Europe Portugal was. Also the girl who thought "Arab" was a country tried to guess where my mum was from and said "Russia". That was funny. Actually, this whole conversation might have taken place on Monday. Whatever.

I know I met Amanda in the hall at some point, and we talked about this video for a while. Amanda said that girls have an invisible standard that they feel they have to live up to, and if they fall below that standard, even if no-one else will notice or care, they'll still point out how they fell short (eg. "My hair is so shit today" if they didn't have enough time to work on it even though it still looks fine) just to prevent people from pointing it out first. She made a lot of sense and now I feel like I understand girls a bit more.

I spent a lot of time reading Jennifer Government. I had borrowed the book ages ago from a friend after she finished reading it for a school assignment, and she went to Australia before I could return it, so it's been sitting on my shelf for years. I was reading it for the third time on Tuesday. It was still really, really good, and I wanted to lend it to someone so they could appreciate it, too.I had shown it to Arun, and he liked it, but he's not the reading type, so I told Amanda that I'd lend it to her instead.

Eventually everyone once again left for classes or for their homes. I saw Carmeni for the first time that day on her way out of the college, and I asked her if she had her laptop so that I could pass her the movies. She said that her laptop was in the car, but I could follow her there if I wanted, and I did, so I did. Nicholas was in the car, sleeping. He had been there the whole time Carmeni was in college. He had spent all night studying and so he was getting some much needed rest. I asked him if it was worth it and he told me that it wasn't and that I should never do law. I said that he could eventually become a lawyer and put people in prison, but he told me that he would rather be a housewife. I pasted the movies onto Carmeni's laptop and then told her to work hard so that she could support her housewife husband with her psychologist's pay.

I decided to wait until six o'clock by reading the rest of Jennifer Government in the DSA. I pulled some chairs together and got comfortable, but around an hour later I got a call from Amanda asking what type of motorcycle I had brought to college. She was disappointed when I said I only had the one-seater, so she was just going to walk home instead. Apparently her class had ended early or something, so I told her that I'd be outside her house shortly. I finished a few more chapters, then I got up to leave the college.

Along the way out I spotted Joanna and I just had to share my movies with her, so I did. While we were watching The Meaning of Life, a girl came by with some surveys about gambling. We said we could help her out by filling them in, so we did. When the girl came back to collect the surveys, we were informed that we had actually been deceived. The survey was not actually to find out about our attitudes towards gambling, but to find out what we thought other people's attitudes towards gambling were. The deception was necessary to make sure we didn't subconsciously bias the results. I thought that was pretty cool.

After the survey I got a call from Amanda, and I told her that I would be there in fifteen minutes. Around five minutes later, I was outside her house. See, if you're late what you want to do is tell people you'll be arriving even later than you will, so that when you do arrive they'll note your recent earliness and forgive you for your relatively distant lateness.

Anyway, I arrived right when Amanda was getting back from a walk with Walker. After parking my motorcycle I went over to see if Walker still remembered me, but she didn't. She cowering away from me until I extended my hand and triggered her memory via scent or something. But yeah, after reacquainting myself with the dog, I dumped my backpack on the bar and then went outside with Amanda to teach her how to ride a motorcycle.

The terrain outside wasn't ideal. The street outside Amanda's house is sloped, so we would need to move further up to a flatter piece of road before we could actually do anything. But before we even did that, Amanda had to start the motorcycle. She had some trouble with it, but after I gave her a demonstration she managed to figure it out. Either that or she got lucky. Anyway, the motorcycle was started, so after that we moved up the hill in third gear.

Third gear wasn't a very good idea. There was still too much torque for a beginner, and Amanda almost fell over at one point. Fortunately, I had my hands on the bike for most of the training, so she didn't. After kicking it into fourth things were a lot simpler. Less torque meant slower acceleration and a much more manageable motorcycle.

After Amanda got the hang of using the brake, I was ready to let her try riding for a longer stretch without stopping. I asked her if she ever rode a bicycle before, and she said she hadn't. I said that maybe we should have started with that, since learning to ride a motorcycle before learning to ride a bicycle was like learning to run before learning to walk. Anyway, I told her to accelerate and keep a steady speed, and once I was sure she was stable and the path ahead was clear, I let go. She was still doing fine, so I told her that she was riding on her own. This was a mistake.

The moment she heard that my hands were off the bike, she started panicking. Fortunately I was right alongside her, so I grabbed hold again and told her to slow to a stop, so she stopped. She then told me never to take my hands off again, or at least not to tell her if I ever did.

We drove back and forth a bit more, but eventually we were too tired to continue so we went inside. I had some water and went to wash my hands, but it was very difficult to find soap in Amanda's house. There were many bottles in the bathroom, but none of them seemed to have anything inside. Eventually I resorted to borrowing a bar from the shower.

We were going to go back out again so that Amanda could drive on her own, but then it started raining. I went out to bring my motorcycle under some shelter, and I saw a monkey. Amanda pointed it out. I wish there were more monkeys in my life.

Anyway, when the motorcycle was in a drier place, we sat down to watch a movie. I picked The Meaning of Life, because Every Sperm Is Sacred was stuck in my head and I wanted to watch that scene again. Amanda's laptop was really quiet, too, so it was not as great a viewing experience as it could have been. Also I suspect Amanda is not a Monty Python person, but I guess there are worse things for a friendship than finding out the other person does not enjoy British humour, even if I can't think of any at the moment.

We kept getting interrupted, too. First it was six o'clock and Walker needed to be walked. While we were walking her we met one of Amanda's neighbours. I think his name was DJ. He asked if I was Amanda's cousin, and I said that I was actually her friend from college. He said told Amanda that his first impression of me was that I was just some random guy driving by whom Amanda begged to teach her how to ride. I thought that was funny. Amanda denied that she would do something like that, but after a moment's thought she took it back.

I asked if DJ's dogs were friends with Walker, and Amanda told me about the time one of them got into her house when DJ was out of town and she had to call him to ask him what to do because his dog was "raping her dog". Hahaha.

Anyway, Walker found a place nearby to relieve herself, so we turned around and headed back. Along the way I told Amanda about how Elo didn't know what a hymen was. I said that at least it meant that Elo and Arun were chaste, but Amanda said that Elo might just be really stupid instead. I wondered how stupid you'd have to be not to notice all that pain and blood and not wonder where it came from, but Amanda said there wasn't always blood, so I learned something new that day.

We watched a bit more but then Amanda's mother came home and needed a TV moved into her car, so I helped. It was a wide screen CRT, so it was heavy. It was also hard to grip. Somehow we managed to wrangle it into the back seat. After the TV was in we moved this cool wooden cabinet (or drawers. What's the difference again?) into the back. It only occurred to me after we loaded it that we could have taken some bits out and brought it in piece-by-piece. It would have taken a little longer, but it would have been a lot faster. Oh well, it was done.

We finally reached the Every Sperm Is Sacred scene, but Amanda's mum was still around. I'm not sure if that made it harder or easier to laugh. A little later on, Amanda's dad came home. We stopped watching right before Part III: Fighting Each Other. Amanda had to go pick up her sister, so I went home.

Back at home I was super hungry because I hadn't eaten anything the whole day, so I crammed a huge bowl of spaghetti carbonara into the microwave and set the timer for five minutes. In the meantime I did my exercises so I could take my shower because I was all sweaty from holding up the motorcycle for Amanda. When I was done with my shower, my carbonara was ready and at the perfect temperature. I poured myself a glass of ice-cold water and had the best meal I've eaten in a long while. Amanda was right about what she said that time we went to McDonald's when the prosperity burger was most recently re-released: the best feeling you can feel is when, after a long while of starving, that first mouthful of a decent meal hits your stomach and everything becomes better.

I got comfortable and finished Jennifer Government so I could lend it to Amanda the next day. Hannah kept coming out of her room to troubleshoot our internet connection. Every time she emerged she was surprised that I was still reading. Whatever Hannah, it's a good book.

I had told myself I was going to write two blog posts on Tuesday: one about recent events, and one about all the stuff I had forgotten the between when I stopped blogging for a while and when I started again. I also had told myself that I was going to at least get started on my Bahasa Kebangsaan assignment. However, when I sat down at the computer and tried to type, nothing would come out. I couldn't even get the title done. I just felt lifeless and uninspired.

I soon realized that a shower is usually the last thing I do before bed each day. By taking a shower at eight in the evening, I had basically ended the day as far as my body was concerned. So I brushed my teeth and went to bed early.

The next day was today (or yesterday, since it's been, holy crap, three hours since I started writing this). I already described the start of today. Well, after arriving at college, I sat down and gave Elo the movies. Also this is when the geography conversation might have occurred.

Wow, it's late. Wow, I'm tired. How can I not be sure which of three days a conversation occurred in? I wonder how many mistakes, grammatical or otherwise, I've made in this post. Whatever. Let's just finish this so I can take a shower and go to bed.

There was some talking, then I went with Elo and Arun to get ice cream. Along the way we stopped to talk to some of Arun's classmates who were working on their Psychology assignment. They had missed out on a lot of stuff and were in a lot of trouble. I was glad I was not them.

We arrived in McDonald's for the ice creams, but the machine was broken. I ordered a lunch meal and shared my coke with Elo. We sat next to Roshaan and Deborah (That probably isn't how her name is spelt. I am so tired). Deborah and Arun compared accents. Deborah won because she sounded exactly like a white lady, whereas Arun just said a bunch of nonsense and threw in the word "Mate" whenever he could. We also talked about how girls can get away with saying and doing things to each other that would be considered so gay if guys did them, for example complimenting each other's butts and going to the toilet together.

After lunch Arun and Elo went to class or something, but I found Carmeni and I followed her to get some stuff printed. She was working on a group project with Denise and this fellow named Eugene and two other people I know but whose names I have no hope of recalling in this state. Anyway, while Eugene was getting the stuff printed, I saw a CD by a band called Sodom (or perhaps the CD was called Sodom and the band was called something else). Anyway, I said how gay it was, literally, and Carmeni didn't get it. I explained to her that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for many sins, but mostly for being gay, hence the term sodomy. "Didn't you ever read the Bible?" I asked her. She said she didn't have as much time as me. I told her that I only needed the first five minutes of my day to read three chapters daily, and by now I had read it three times over. She quizzed me on whether I knew all the beatitudes, so I tried to recite them, but I had forgotten. She had learned them a long while ago, too, and forgotten them.

As we were leaving the printing place I asked her if she remembered the Ten Commandments. She said that she was sure she could. She got the first one right: "Thou shalt have no other gods".
Her second guess was "thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain", which was wrong. I tried to give her hints by mentioning reality TV, and voting, and Carrie Underwood and Lee DeWyze, but she still couldn't guess that it was the one about not making any idols. When I finally told her she said that wasn't what she learned, and Eugene backed her up. Clearly there was some sort of strange Catholic conspiracy going on, so when we reached the DSA I asked Denise what the second commandment was, and she agreed with me that it was the one about idols.

Fortunately, someone in the group had an iPhone, so I got on Wikipedia and found that apparently the Jews, the Catholics, and the Protestants have different ways of numbering the Ten Commandments. The Catholics include the no idols bit with the no other gods bit, and to make up for it they split up coveting into two parts: your neighbour's wife and your neighbour's stuff. That's silly. What if you're a woman and you're coveting your neighbour's husband?

Anyway, I wondered if the Catholics had any extra books in their Bible or anything, so I looked it up. Apparently they do. Whatever, everyone knows that watching the Director's Cut is better than getting the Deleted Scenes.

After a while of staying to help (or hinder, depending on who you ask) Denise and Carmeni's project, I decided to leave. This was motivated mainly by Carmeni leaving, but also because I had to get my part of the assignment e-mailed to my friends that evening. So I followed Carmeni to her car again, and she graciously offered to drive me to my motorcycle. In return, I moved some cones out of her way so she could get to the exit faster.

I went home and faffed about on the internet. Eventually I tried working on my assignment, but I was stuck. Also the internet wasn't working. So I called up Amanda and asked if I could come over for her help and also to lend her the book and give her her socks back (I had borrowed her socks to go home in because I didn't have time to put on shoes when we were moving the TV into the car and my socks got all soggy and dirty). She said that I could come over and stay until her mum arrived.

As I was driving to Amanda's house I passed Amanda and Walker, so I waited outside the gates for them to arrive. This time, Walker remembered me, so that was nice. Amanda lent me her Malay-English dictionary, which was a godsend. I also found the inspiration I needed to start writing. Amanda's house is cool like that. Also her friend came over to play guitar and he helped a bit. I forgot his name. It might have been Adrian.

At around six o'clock I felt ready to go home and finish on my own, but Amanda was in the shower so I read a magazine about the World Cup while I waited. The Netherlands' odds of winning were given at 1/12.

Eventually Amanda came up looking more fresh (maybe there was something to what Elo and Carmeni were saying on Monday) while wearing similar but different clothes. I wonder if she did that just to see if we'd notice. She probably didn't.

Anyway, I thanked her for the dictionary and the inspiration and I went home. I tried to take a quick nap on the couch, but Jan and Hannah wanted to make Samuel L Jackson on the Wii and they would not let me nap. Eventually they swapped to Mario Kart and I was able to tune them out and start dreaming a little, but then my alarm rang so I woke up. Also it was dinnertime. Dinner was kinda lame, it was dry breaded chicken fillets, but I liked the vegetables. They were boiled and savoury. Typically I don't like boiled vegetables, but as I said, these were savoury.

I am so close to finishing this I can almost taste the sleep.

Anyway, I got on the computer and worked on my assignment for a long time. At eleven o'clock I was done. It took me four hours, but I was done. I sent a text to Amanda thanking her once again for the inspiration and the dictionary, and then I started blogging.

Oh yeah also Jared was at our house for a while and he dropped off some books to read but right now I am done with blogging and I am done with my assignment so I'm going to save these tabs I have open for tomorrow, then I'm going to exercise, then I'm going to take a shower, then I'm going to go to sleep, then I'm going to wake up sometime in the afternoon, then I'm going to go buy a birthday present, then I'm going to study for a quiz that we'll be having on Friday, then I dunno.

But yeah, that's the end for now. Also Carmeni, four is in the afternoon.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Ian's Birthday vs Hannah's Birthday

Hannah's birthday is today, but we celebrated on Saturday, so that is the day I will be blogging about. Ian's birthday was on the 13th, I think. Here is how they went down:

On the day of Ian's birthday I went out with Hannah and Jan to buy presents for Ian. I bought RM75 worth of video games for him at Mid Valley, which meant I had spent RM15 more on Ian's presents than on Hannah's presents (I had gotten her a pretty dress earlier on in the month that she really enjoyed, but she wasn't allowed to wear it until her birthday), so I decided to even things out by getting her a skirt from Cotton On. It soon became apparent that I would not have enough money for the rest of the month. Anyway, we went back home and played some Wii before being interrupted by our dad, who told us we had to come up with something special to give our grandmother for her birthday. We ended up making a photo album/scrapbook type thingy, but that was a few days later and not really related to Ian's birthday.

On the day of Hannah's birthday party, I woke up to my alarm, which was supposed to remind me to pick Jan up from something at nine. I turned it off and went back to bed. When I woke up again it was much later and most of Hannah's friends were already at our house.

In the evening before Ian's party, Ian drove Hannah and me to get some alcohol, some snacks, and some dinner. We ended up buying some vodka and some rum, a whole bunch of crisps and marshmallows. We also ate dinner at Pizza Hut. There were some pretty girls from an international school in the booth behind us, and after a while they started giggling when we talked and mocking our conversation. I should have introduced myself to them. They seemed nice.

In the morning before Hannah's party, I wandered around the house in my glasses and pyjamas asking Hannah, Audrey and Ebony if they were done getting ready because we had to go pick up Jan soon. They told me they would be done in five minutes. Five minutes later I went into Hannah's room in my contacts and going-out clothes, and they still weren't ready. I was told that five minutes in girl time is half an hour of real time. Women scare and confuse me.

Ian's birthday party started with Indian Poker, which moved on to the characters game from Inglorious Basterds, which moved on to a drinking game. The characters game was fun. I had "Winnie the Pooh" stuck on my face, and my first few questions were "Am I the largest among my friends?", "Am I a black guy?", "Do I enjoy alcohol?", "Am I successful with the ladies?", and "Am I Papa Smurf". Joel was Dora the Explorer, and he never guessed his. It took Jared ages to guess that he was Barbie, too. There were maybe ten people during the characters game, but when the time came for the drinking game, only Jared, Jan, Ian, and I were left.

Hannah's birthday party started with Ian driving Audrey, Ebony, Saundra, Hannah, and me over to FGA to pick up Jan from Sri Sempurna's speech day, since 10th KL was doing some band thing there and Jan was on the drums. The car was very noisy on the way there and back.

On Ian's birthday we played King's Cup and Jared and Jan used every rule card they drew to try and get each other drunk. In the end, Ian downed the King's Cup (Contents: Milk, vodka, rum, orange juice, coke, and a single marshmallow) and got very drunk very fast. I only drank a little and felt mildly tipsy, while Hannah only had one sip of alcohol so she could stay sober to observe our drunken antics.

After we picked Jan up, we all went to Mid Valley to get tickets to see Inception. It would be my fourth time and Hannah's second time. The line was ridiculously long and everyone abandoned me to go eat Burger King. I asked Hannah if she would get me a drink so I wouldn't be so thirsty in line. She said she would. She never did.

After Ian, Jan, and Jared were nice and drunk, we ate some Lays and played some Wii. Ian's friend Daniel came over for a short while and Jared tried not to make a bad impression. I think he failed. Daniel left soon after. Jan became fixated with the Lays and so the packet of crisps would follow us for the rest of the night.

When I finally reached the ticketing counter I had to make a decision on my own because Ian, Jan, Hannah, Audrey, Ebony, and Saundra all weren't picking up their phones. The Sorcerer's Apprentice was the next good movie that was showing, but the seats were all over the place, so I got the 5:45 Inception tickets and got a row of five seats right in the centre of the cinema and all the way up front, since the front row was all that was left. I hoped that I had chosen wisely.

When we got bored with the Wii, I had a brilliant idea. We should go downstairs and roam the building. Ian objected, because he's boring and responsible, but we convinced him to go anyway. He expressed continual protest in the form of elevator flatulence. I'm not gonna lie to you guys, it was pretty terrible. We managed to survive, though, and so we stumbled onwards to the playground.

When I arrived a Burger King I was pretty upset that nobody had answered their phones, but then they showed me that there was no reception down in Burger King, so I couldn't get mad about that. Instead, I got mad with Hannah for not bringing the drink she promised me. She gave me five ringgit and told me to buy a drink with that, so I stopped being angry. We then took some pictures. I don't think they're on Facebook yet.

When we got to the playground, I went straight for the swings with Hannah. Jared fell off the slide, and Jan pretended to dump some crisps off the side of the building. I'm not sure if he actually did, but I wouldn't put it past him. I forgot what Ian was doing, but it was probably something equally stupid. Eventually a guard came over and told us that the playground was closed and we would have to keep quiet so that nobody complained. This was a minor obstacle, but I soon discovered that it wasn't that hard to manage the volume level of three drunken idiots.

Everyone ditched me again to go to the Mac store, so I went off on my own to get a sausage croissant for my hunger and a huge Aunty Anne's passion fruit drink for my thirst. They were heaps great. I went upstairs to meet the guys at the Mac store, but nobody was there, so instead I went to the centre of the mall to listen to a surprisingly talented band called Qings and Queens play some surprisingly awesome songs in the middle of some sort of Apple convention. Everything was smooth and round and shiny. It was like walking into the future (if the future had a kick-ass contemporary soundtrack).

Our first stop after the playground was the tennis courts. Ian was reluctant to go down the stairs to them, and he made a fuss. Somehow I managed to get him down the stairs, where he hung around with Jan for a bit. Jan lay down on a bench and declared that he was going to sleep. Hannah looked on in amusement. I issued a challenge to drunk Jared: prove he was smarter than sober Jared by walking around the perimeter of the tennis court without saying anything. Jan wanted to prove something, too, so he came along while Hannah stayed behind to manage Ian. Jan lasted for about five seconds before forgetting what he was doing and releasing a stream of noisy nonsense from his lips, so I had to shush him down every so often only for him to forget again and repeat the process. Jared, on the other hand, stumbled along in relative silence, only opening his mouth when he looked over the edge of the wall at a sheer two-storey drop into the jungle. When he saw what lay below, he turned to me and said "Shaun, if I die, my dad will kill me." It took him a while to figure out why I was laughing.

After a few songs I called up the group and asked where they were, and they told me that they were at another IT store very nearby because Ian wanted to buy an iPod accessory or something for Hannah. I met up with them and soon after we went downstairs to check out the Apple convention to see if they had any iPod accessories there, since there was nothing up where we were.

After making it around the perimeter of the tennis court in relative silence, I congratulated Jared on his accomplishment. Ian grabbed Jared and they talked about how they totally should've invited some hot chicks to the party, because right now they could be getting so laid. I think it was at this point when Hannah and I realized how truly wasted they were. Anyway, they wouldn't shut up about the subject, so I told Jared it was a good thing there were no hot chicks, since if things got too heated none of us would be sober enough to drive down to the 7-Eleven for condoms, but the drunken sexy times would have gone ahead anyway and might have even led to pregnancies, so it was actually a very fortunate thing that there were no hot chicks. Jared looked at me like I had unleashed some great ancient wisdom on him and declared me a genius. Meanwhile, Jan went back to his bench and dozed off for a bit.

Down at the convention Jan got to play with an iPad, but he had to give it back before I could have my turn. Ian found his present for Hannah, and everyone else did girl things and talked about girl stuff (Or so I assume. I wasn't really paying attention, because the iPad was very shiny). A Hitz.fm DJ got on stage and said he was giving away iPod Nanos, an Audrey asked Jan to go win her one. Jan said no, since he wanted to go home and sleep or something. Anyway, we got in the car and went home and I went to sleep for a long while while the girls did girl things and Ian played poker and Jan... I forget what Jan did. Ah, it isn't important anyway; he's only Jan.

We climbed up the stairs from the tennis courts and Jared told me he had to pee, so I took him to the toilets under the playground. Ian objected to this, saying that the restaurant toilets were closer, which was true, but the toilets under the playground were cooler (Davinia and Amanda can attest to this). I told Jared that he might want to sit if his aim was affected, but he told me that it wasn't and to listen up. Sure enough, there was only the sound of liquid on liquid. He probably didn't even get a drop on the porcelain. I think it's some kind of super power. We washed our hands and exited the toilet and I asked if he wanted to see the lady's bathroom (It is an inverse of the men's, and I was hoping it would blow his drunken mind), but he got distracted by a bunch of ants on the floor and decided to assault them instead. His method of attack was a flying kick, which went over as well as you would expect it to. I collected him off the ground and hobbled him over to the restaurant where the rest were waiting. Along the way he asked me if I remembered the time him and I had a crush on the same girl, or the time that he lost a ball and I went to get it, or something else that I forgot. Jared gets nostalgic when he's drunk.

Ian woke me up at five o'clock. I got ready quickly and herded the girls into the car so that we wouldn't be late. Along the way to the mall we played The Platypus Game, which is basically truth or dare without the dares. Don't ask me why it's called that; Hannah named it. Anyway, I learned quite a bit about the girls from that, but they didn't learn much from me.

When we arrived at the restaurant, Jan was asleep on a table. Jared and I sat down and pretended to be cannibals. I found the idea of rump steak a little too funny. Jared, meanwhile, momentarily forgot that we were pretending and tried to take a bite out of Jan, who woke up in a daze and murmured "That's going to hurt tomorrow." Ian was still in the bathroom and Hannah was outside, probably fearing for the worst (Pee everywhere).

We managed to find a parking space under Mid Valley, which was pretty great. We went to the nearest elevator, but it was all the way on the third floor so we took the stairs instead. We were behind the walls of the shopping mall, and it felt pretty cool and backstage, and when I say cool and behind-the-scenes I mean "dark" and "wafting with the odours of the urine of various unsavoury characters". The girls thought I was lost, but I ended up leading us to right outside the cinema, which proved once again that women have no sense of direction and it's a good thing that us guys are here for them to follow.

Fortunately for Hannah, there was no mess to clean up when Ian exited the toilet. However, he was getting pretty tired of being downstairs and wanted to go home. Jared wanted to keep exploring, so I told Hannah to take Ian and Jan upstairs while I took care of Jared, but she wanted to stay and watch Jared, so in the end we all stayed downstairs to wander around the building.

The screen wasn't open when we arrived, so we waited around. Saundra wanted to continue The Platypus Game, so Hannah helped her corner me and she asked me the question she had been formulating since we parked: "When was the last time you jerked off?" Without hesitation I answered "Yesterday." After a few moments I added "Actually, maybe not. I can't remember. But I know that I definitely did the day before." Hannah later informed me that her original question was going to be whether I even masturbated at all, which told me that Saundra knows a lot less about guys than she thinks she does.

Wandering the path along the back of the building didn't yield much excitement. At one point Jan lay down to look at the stars and Jared joined him. Jared turned to Jan and asked him why the stars were all green. If Jan hadn't dozed off again he probably would have told Jared that that was because they were under a tree. As Jan was standing up again he found a leaf, which he put inside the bag of crisps. Hannah asked him why he did that, and he said it was to "trick someone". After that we climbed around to the road inside the front of condominium's compound. Jan and Jared had some trouble getting up the steep road, so I told Ian to wait while I got the others. Ian sat down on a wall, so I told him to just "Stay put, Humpty-Dumpty", which he found hilarious.

The screen opened and we were all ready to go watch, but Audrey wasn't with us. Hannah spotter her and the snack line and we called her to us. She arrived with her arms full of popcorn and drinks. I should have warned her against that. Anyway, I told everyone to go pee before the movie because it is two and a half hours long and if you miss even five seconds of it you have the potential to be lost for the rest of the movie. Saundra and Audrey did not pee because they "Didn't need to go". Foolish girls.

When I got the others to summit the steep slope, Hannah joined up with Ian because he was already stumbling off into the distance. Jan hung around being inconsequential, and Jared walked over to a nearby guardhouse to steal some shoes. The guard was not happy with this, of course, so after getting Jared to put the shoes back I apologized to the guard for my drunk friend and promised I would get him home quietly. We stumbled back up the road for a bit, but Jan stopped midway to look at the stars, and Jared joined him. "Whoa," said Jan, "it's like I'm flying."

Our seating arrangement was supposed to be Ebony-Hannah-Saundra-Me-Audrey, so that Hannah could be between two of her friends and so that Saundra and Audrey could direct their questions at me instead of bothering Hannah and so that Saundra and Audrey wouldn't be talking to each other throughout the movie, but Audrey refused to sit next to me for some reason so everyone just moved one seat down and we ended up being Audrey-Ebony-Hannah-Saundra-Me. The pre-movie advertising was not in the order I remembered them, which kinda disappointed me because I was hoping I could say "Yeah, I've watched the movie so many times that I've memorized the order of the bloody commercials". A few minutes before the movie started, a guy sat next to me and started laughing at something stupid. I was terrified that I might have to face the prospect of sitting through the movie with another laugher. Right before I could articulate this terror to Hannah, Saundra whipped open her phone and started texting. Stuck between a texter and a laugher. Oh, the horror.

I got Jared and Jan off the ground and stumbled them a bit closer to home. Ian had left without us, but I told him we would be back shortly after him so there were no worries there. Hannah stayed with us. I pointed out a red beacon on the roof of our building and told Jared it was a red star. He believed me. I took him into some greenery behind the fence that goes around our building and told him to grab the bars and look out into freedom. He tried, but he was blocked by a sign. He seemed disappointed. His sadness didn't last for long, though, because Jan had started drumming on a sign under Hannah's supervision, and Jared was eager to have a go. I dragged them away before they could wake anyone up.

Fortunately, the guy next to me only laughed at the jokes, instead of at everything, so he was tolerable. Saundra, however, continued to text throughout the movie. Eerily enough, she ended up texting through some of the exact same parts as Amanda. Ebony and Audrey were occasionally texting, too. Hannah told me that Audrey was actually texting Saundra at one point. Women: I simply do not understand them.

Our final stop before going upstairs was the parking garage. I told Jared that he could ride my motorcycle for a bit. He got on the wrong motorcycle, peered at a verse from the Koran on the speedometer, and asked why there was "funny writing" on the motorcycle. I managed to remove him from the stranger's bike and get him to my own. He got on, made some vroom vroom noises, and when he got off he was deliriously happy. Meanwhile Jan mistook the a staircase's handrail for a slide and had himself a jolly good time. We all took a turn on the handrail slide. It was fun.

When the movie was over, people a few rows above us started applauding. That was cool. I thought of joining them, but the rows that were clapping were too far away and I felt kinda foolish. Instead I rounded up the ladyfolk and led us out of the cinema. Ebony's first exclamation when the movie was over was "Someone please explain this to meeee!". Saundra said it was her favourite movie, and Audrey said that she wasn't going to see it again because she didn't believe in watching movies twice, which is one of the most retarded things I've ever heard, and, as you'll soon discover after reading the paragraph below, that's saying something.

Jared needed to pee again, so I took him to another toilet. Once again, there was only the sound of perfect accuracy. Jared washed his hands in the sink, then dunked his face in it. "I could breathe in there!" he told me. Not possible, I told him. "My face is wet," he continued. That is what tends to happen when you dunk your face in a sink of water, I told him. He then picked up a mop and walked over to where Jan was lying on the floor and tried to put the mop in his face. I think he said it would give Jan awesome hair or something. Jan did not agree, so I wrestled the mop off of Jared and put it back in its place. When I came back Jared was telling Jan how his sister was in love with Jan but if Jan ever did anything to Saundra he would kill him. Jan said not to worry because he liked Cherie and was not at all interested in Saundra. Jared said that he liked Trisha. Hannah and I didn't know who Trisha was, but after that we were determined to find out.

Because Audrey and Saundra had ignored my advice at the start of the movie, and also because Audrey had bought those huge drinks, the girls needed to go to the toilet again. We went down to the second floor to avoid the crowd, but apparently all the stalls were still full, so we went down to the first floor, where I got to wait outside the toilet looking like some kind of creep.

We quizzed drunk Jared about Trisha, but all we really found out was that she was a little nice to him and a lot not nice, and that her boobs were just okay and not the reason he was attracted to her. Jared got distracted by a sign in the car park, and walked over to try and remove an arrow from the wall. Jan followed behind and was all "Hey, let's make this car make the noise!" right before attempting to set off an alarm. We stopped him, but a little later we turned around and saw him trying to wrangle the hood ornament off of a Mercedes Benz. We convinced him to quit messing around with luxury automobiles and headed home. As we were heading upstairs, Jan stepped on some kind of moth-like bug. Jared took it off of him and declared that he was going to "kill this at Ian". I did now know what that meant, but I did know that I wanted to be there when it happened.

After waiting for an uncomfortably long time outside the toilets, I finally saw the girls emerge. I took us back through the stairs and urine-stained corridors, and we ended up right nearby the car. At this point Audrey decided to take charge, and declared that the car was this way. I told her no, the car is on that side, so let's go back through where we came. Audrey said that we could just walk around, but I ignored her and went back through the doors, out the other side, and straight to the car, which was right where I remembered it being, because I am a man with a superior sense of directions and I will not be led astray by womenfolk and their faulty interior compasses.

We got home and took some pictures and videos in the elevator. When we came through the house Jan deposited his heels by the door (Did I mention that Jan went downstairs in my mother's heels and that they were with him the whole time? Well Jan went downstairs in my mother's heels and they were with him the whole time), and he went into the room with the rest of us. Ian was lying on the couch, and Jared remembered his bug and got ready to kill it at Ian.

Along the way back home Hannah and I cleared up some misconceptions about Inception for the benefit of the rest of the group, and then we continued The Platypus Game. Well actually I clarified some stuff about masturbation to Saundra and Audrey, because Saundra was not aware how many guys did it (pretty much all of us) and how frequently we did it (one to five times a week, maybe?), while Audrey was convinced it was unhealthy. I told her that studies had shown that it was healthy, and I had online sources that I could cite to back it up. All she had was some book. But yeah, after that we played some more Platypus game as we drove back to drop off Aunty Rosie's Kancil so she could go to church.

Killing the bug at Ian was pretty funny. Jared threw it on Ian's face, Ian threw it off of him, it landed on Jan, who threw it back to Jared, and they tossed it around for a bit until it disappeared into some forgotten corner where it is probably still decomposing in today. After that I managed to convince Jan and Jared to finish off whatever drinks were still in the cups we had been using for King's Cup, then took all the breakable glass objects out of the room and cleaned up all the spills. After that I helped Ian and Jan take off their contact lenses. I also fetched some water for the guys to prevent hangovers. Jared kept going to the toilet, and I kept reminding him to wash his hands. One time he exited the toilet and said he had made a "smiley face". Some time later he came out with a bunch of toilet cleaner and squirted it all over the room of our floor, creating another spill that I had to wipe up. Another time he went in the toilet wearing the very expensive blazer that my dad had bought me for HMC's annual ball. He called it his "toilet jacket". Hannah tried to stop him, but he was too quick for her. I managed to get it off him, but I've been to scared to check it for stains since them. I'll just get it dry-cleaned next time I need it or something. Eventually Jan got bored of Jared having all the fun, so he picked up a Guitar Hero disc and threw it across the room in a rather spectacular fashion. It wasn't fun cleaning up the bits of plastic after that, but it was fun seeing Jan get so angry at an inanimate object. "Let's see it not work on my computer NOW!" he said. I wonder what Saundra sees in him.

As soon as we arrived home we swapped Aunty Rosie's car keys for my mum's. Hannah asked my parents for some pizza money so she could get some Domino's to bring back home and eat. I said that was silly and we should eat in Pizza Hut, because Domino's is only popular for its 30-minutes-or-it's-free promise, and Pizza Hut has better seating for eating in. Hannah and her entourage disagreed vehemently, so I relented and took us to Domino's. I was secretly disappointed because ordering take-away meant less time to play The Platypus Game, but it was Hannah's birthday and dinner was her decision to make.

Jared found some breath spray and thought it was eye-wash. I managed to snatch it off him right before he maced himself. After a while he started to lose steam, but he kept asking for his phone and car keys because he thought parents would be expecting him home and he wanted to drive back soon. He was still drunk enough to get himself killed on the road, so I gave Hannah his keys and told her to hide them, while I kept his phone. While I was holding his phone, he told me to send Trisha a text. He dictated what I should write, and I copied it down verbatim. I think it was something like "I like you because you are pretty and nice but you don't bucket me back. I am drunk." He had meant to say "like me back", but he looked at a bucket and got distracted. I sent the text to Trisha and also to Saundra, because that seemed like a funny thing to do at the time. Once Jared's phone was gone, I tried to get the guys to go to sleep so that they could sleep off their drunken states. I even set my alarm so I would receive a fake phone call from Jared's dad, and I told him that his son was asleep and would be going home at 3am. Jared thanked me for covering for him, and then he asked Ian who had the best boobs.

Hannah and her friends spent a real long time in Domino's getting their pizzas, so I went to a nearby cafe and had some soft drinks and lamb chops. The lamb chops were really, really good. After a while the girls caught up with me and we continued The Platypus Game. I responded to a question of how much someone would have to pay me to kiss Jared with RM30. Jan was worth RM45, and Hannah was RM20. I then asked the girls how much someone would have to take them before they touched each others' boobs, and they said that they would do it for free and proceeded to demonstrate. Girls are so gay.

Ian's response to Jared's question was some movie actress. Jared responded with another movie actress. I don't think I knew who either of them were. I tried to test how drunk the guys were by saying that I thought Kiera Knightley had pretty good boobs, but they didn't get it. After a few moments of silence Ian exclaimed "SHAUN! YOUR FRIEND FROM NEW YEAR'S EVE! AMANDA! SHE HAD AWESOME BOOBS! AWESOME BOOBS! THEY WERE SO AWESOME!" I told him I would be sure to relay the message.

After I was done with my dinner we all got in the car and drove home. Nobody else could come up with any questions, so they deferred them all to me. One of my questions was something along the lines of "On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the foremost expert in the field, nine is someone who's spent all their life dedicated to the subject, eight is someone who has spent decades studying and making a career out of the subject, seven was someone whose primary hobby is learning about the subject, and so on, where would you rate your knowledge of sex and sexual acts?" I said that I was probably a six, and Ebony said that she thought she was a six, too, but everyone disagreed, and eventually we bargained her down to a two or three. After that I drove around in a few pointless loops to see if the girls would notice, and they did. They were hungry and wanted to get home and eat pizza, so they continued to complain to me even when I got us back on the road home.

I tried to quieten down the guys by turning off the lights, but a few moments after flicking the switch I heard glass shatter, so I scrambled for the lights and when they came back on we found out that Jan had broke a McDonald's glass. Again. And it was a blue one, too. That was the best colour. It was hidden under the couch for some reason, but Jan found it anyway and smashed it with his foot. That boy has a knack for breaking McDonald's Coca-Cola glasses when he's drunk. Anyway, I moaned at him for the repeat of New Year's Eve while I tried to collect all the bits of broken glass and dispose of them. It took a while, but when it was over I double-checked for any remaining cups, glasses or bottles. Once I was satisfied with my search I checked Jan for injuries. He only had a tiny little cut from a tiny little splinter of glass, but he kinda deserved so he got no sympathy from me.

Once we got home the girls ate their pizza and drank their coke. Hannah complained to my dad about me disturbing them, so I got a short lecture about giving her space since she was a teenager now and that even though she appreciated me she didn't want me hanging around all the time. I told my dad that I don't really think she appreciates me, but that I would give her some space. I think after that I either went to take nap or went on the computer.

I finally got the guys to quieten down by telling them a story. I tried to make it as boring as possible, but they kept interrupting me and asking questions and they never did really fall asleep. It was about a guy named Leslie who bought a house and painted it a different colour and refurbished the insides so he could sell it for more than he bought it for. Also he had a best friend who was a teddy bear and they found a rainbow staircase to the basement that led to a box made of chocolate with chocolate treasures inside and a dragon that breathed chocolate. I guess in hindsight it wasn't such a boring story after all.

At nine o'clock Hannah woke me up because I had to drop Audrey and Saundra off at their houses. I can't remember the journey. I remember that when I stopped at Audrey's house the girls spent what seems like ages hugging and saying goodbye and that they'd miss each other so much and all that. Girls are so gay.

Sometime during the story Hannah slipped out to go take a shower. My alarm went off at 3am and I got another pretend phone call from Jared's dad, but Jared saw through the ruse and asked for his phone back. Jared insisted that he was seriously sober enough to go home, so I called Hannah and discussed it for a bit. Jared's voice had gone back from his drunk voice to his sober voice (his pitch goes higher when he's drunk. It's great), and he was able to catch keys and stuff so his reflexes were probably okay. Still, we asked him to drink some more water and then go pee one more time to get the remaining alcohol out of his system. In between the water and the peeing, the three of us reminisced about the night. Jared had so many holes in his memory that we had to fill. We thought it was pretty funny that he had drunk to the point of memory loss. Also he told us about how much Saundra was in love with Jan and how she had come back from school one day with Jan's name written on her hand and stuff. I don't know what she sees in him.

I dropped Saundra off at home and there were more hugs and stuff. Wait no. There were no hugs at Audrey's place. We never went to Audrey's place. Why do I remember that? Audrey's parents were at Saundra's house, so I just had to drop them off at the same place. Well, whatever. There were still loads of hugs and goodbyes and nonsense like that. Girls are still so gay.

Jared left our house and Hannah went to bed. I did my exercises, took a shower, made a final inspection of the room for spills and glass and messes like that, but it was spotless, so I went to sleep. All in all it was a nice night.

The next day Ebony came to church with Hannah and the rest of us. I dropped her off at home later on in the evening. On Hannah's actual birthday (Monday, which was today when I started this post but is now technically tomorrow), we went for dinner at Chili's. We didn't have a cake, though, because Hannah doesn't like cake. Silly girl. All in all it was still a nice three days, though.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Movies, Motorcycles, and a Fair Bit of Climbing

So I didn't do my assignment today. I'll do it tomorrow. I had other, more awesome things to do today.

I was just starting to dream of Inception when my alarm started ringing. I woke up, and it was nine o'clock. I got up and got ready for the day. Before I climbed the stairs I figured I should give this whole two-showers-a-day thing everyone's been bugging me about a go, so I decided to take a quick cold shower after my exercise. Well, it was nice. I felt all fresh and energetic. I might do it more often.

Anyway, I got dressed and decided that since I was already so nice and fresh from the shower I might as well gargle some mouthwash and have my breath be nice and fresh, too. While I was in my dad's bathroom to borrow the mouthwash, I noticed an edition of Scientific American on the counter. The cover informed me about 12 events that would change the world, but not in the way I thought. A blurb from a different article asked me "IS TIME REAL?". I decided to bring it along to read in college partially because it would make me look smarter, but mostly because I wanted to know if TIME WAS REAL. There was also stuff about nuclear wars and human cloning and self-aware machines, so that was nice, too.

After grabbing my sunglasses and the copy of The Runaways that Hannah burned for Carmeni, I went downstairs to my motorcycle and squeezed it out of the clutter of motorcycles surrounding it. I only realized that that process had bent one of the mirrors to an unusable angle, but I fixed it on the road and made it to college without dying.

At college I sat down next to Nirai, opened up my Scientific American, and tried to look intelligent. Carmeni's class was finished early because it was a quiz day, so I handed her the disc and we talked for a bit while she waited for Nicholas and I tried to figure out if TIME WAS REAL.

Eventually Carmeni got bored of sitting around in the corridor, so I walked with her down to the lower foyer to sit around there. Amanda and Kaminie were chatting down there, and right after saying hi, Amanda asked if I wanted to see a movie. That was the precise moment when I decided my Bahasa Kebangsaan assignment could wait until tomorrow.

Amanda said that she'd drop some people off first and meet me in Mid Valley, and I said that was cool. While we were walking to our vehicles, she pointed out that my sunglasses looked like a policewoman's aviators because "policemen have squarer ones". If we were being honest I'd say that my feelings were a wee bit hurt, but this here is my post on my blog, so instead I'll say that I replied with a devastating comeback and everyone laughed, even those who were out of earshot.

On my way out of the college, I pulled up alongside Amanda's Kancil. She told me that riding a motorcycle looked so cool and she wanted to try it. That was probably the first time someone has looked at my motorcycle and not called it "cute". After I left the college I remembered that I didn't know where to park motorcycles in Mid Valley, and also that I am scared of being on big roads on my small bike, so I drove home and got Ian to drop me off. He was reluctant, but he did it, so that was nice.

Amanda, Kaminie, and I all arrived outside GSC at the same time. I told Amanda that the next Inception showing was at two o'clock, and she said she was fine with that, which I was not expecting since it was only a little past noon. Still, I was elated that we weren't watching Eclipse even though it had the earlier screening.

After we got in line, Amanda asked me if I could go to her birthday on the 31st, and I told her that was the same day as MTV World Stage, and she told me that I could just come after that was over, so that was great. I asked her if what she said earlier about not needing to bring presents was true or some sort of girl-code for "There's no need to bring presents as long as you want to be HATED AND SHUNNED FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE OF COURSE YOU MUST BRING PRESENTS IT IS A BIRTHDAY YOU HEARTLESS MORON" (Thanks to Hannah and Audrey for that girl secret), and she told me that nope, it really meant there was no need to bring presents, but if I'm going to bring a present then it should be a book.

When we were in line, something completely pointless happened. Kaminie was meeting up with someone, so at first she wasn't going to watch the movie with us. At some point she decided that she would come watch the movie with us, so when we got to the counter we asked for four tickets instead of two. However, when Kaminie saw that the only available seats were just one row from the screen, she decided that she didn't want to watch, so we were right back to where we began. On the plus side, the tickets were only RM14, so that was nice. I love Wednesdays!

I ordered some McDonald's while the girls went to the toilet. While I was waiting I stacked up my nuggets and poured the fries out around them. It was quite a tasteful arrangement. The girls arrived, we shared some food, and Kaminie got a call from her friend and went to meet him in the other McDonald's all the way down on the other side of the mall. She also made him promise not to hug her. I'm not sure if I even want to try to figure out what that was all about.

Amanda and I ate and talked about dancing and learning skills and our dream proposals and our dream weddings. Amanda's dream proposal was either something super public or super personal, so if her boyfriend likes it and wants to put a ring on it, then he's either going to have to get down on one knee in the middle of a crowded hotel lobby or something, or else he's going to have to decorate the room with ridiculous amounts of flowers and enough scented candles to burn down a city before she says yes. Good luck to that guy. I said I'd propose to my girlfriend by taking her for a walk on the beach as the sun sets before pointing out a bottle on the shore, which she would then open, which would reveal my proposal speech, and when she turns around I'd be down on one knee with a ring out asking if she'd marry me. This earned me an "Awww" from Amanda.

After discussing her and my perfect weddings (fashion show reception and skydiving VIPs, respectively), we went to MPH to spend our remaining fifteen minutes before the show started. I read a bit more of Murphy's Law, but I had to stop mid-chapter because the trailers were starting soon and we had to get upstairs. Before the movie we needed to pee (It is two and a half hours long, after all), but our screen wasn't open yet so instead of using the clean movie theatre toilets we had to use the less clean shopping mall toilets. Along the way back from the toilets Amanda mentioned how thirsty she was and produced a bottle of cough syrup from her bag which led to a discussion about how great cough syrup tastes (really great) and what the best cure for a sore throat is (two Strepsils Honey & Lemon lozenges. It has to be Honey & Lemon. I don't know why).

When we got back, the screen was open, which meant that if I had stayed a little longer in MPH and finished my chapter, then we would have arrived just in time to use the nice movie toilets right after the screen opened. Oh well, at least now I know what to change if I ever go time-travelling (After killing Hitler and acquiring the AIDS vaccine from the future, of course).

Anyway, Inception was awesome for the third time. I understood even more than the last two times (though I still have questions), and there weren't any laughing idiots beside me. The girl to my right kept getting calls, though, and Amanda was texting through some of the important parts, but she claims that wasn't a problem ("I could still HEAR").

After Inception Amanda bought an ice cream from McDonald's, and she ate it as I drove her car down the parking garage, which seemed to be a lot higher up than it was. It was the first time I was in that parking garage in a long time. Nowadays I usually park under the mall instead of alongside it.

Anyway, when we were driving back I asked Amanda if she still wanted to drive my motorcycle, and she said yes, so we went to Sri Wangsaria, parked in a spot that someone claims is theirs but never uses, and went down to my bike. Amanda's first concern was that the helmet would mess up her hair, but she got over that quickly enough. She managed to kick-start the motorcycle quite impressively, but she was unable to replicate her success later on. I told her to put the bike in fourth gear so there'd be very little acceleration and thus very little chance of a repeat of the time Jan fell over on the bike and then drove it under a parked car.

We spent the first few minutes practising how to stop the bike properly. Once Amanda realized that she should never, ever take her right foot off the bike when she was moving and never, ever move until both feet were off the ground, things got a lot easier. After that I could teach her how to balance the bike when it was stationary (left foot on the ground as far from the bike as you can manage) and when it was moving (either speed up or stop completely, but whatever you do don't wiggle the handlebars). When she had mastered that she drove from one end of the parking garage to the other with only stabilizing help from behind, so I could show her how to turn off the motorcycle. She picked up on how to do that after just one time. When we were done with the motorcycle, Amanda told me that she never realized how hard it was to ride a motorcycle and promised that she would never insult a rempit again.

I parked my bike back in its place and showed Amanda the difference between my semi-automatic and my dad's automatic, and then I invited her upstairs for some water and perhaps a chance to see the roof again. When we arrived on the 20th floor, I introduced her to my aunt, grandaunt, and grandmother, who were staying at my house for some reason. While Amanda was having some water in the kitchen, my grandmother asked if Amanda was my girlfriend. I replied that she was just a friend from college. My aunt pointed out that my face was still flushed from holding up the motorcycle earlier, except I don't think she assumed that that was what we were doing. I forget if I told her that we were tired and sweaty when we arrived because motorcycles are heavy and require a real effort to move slowly in fourth gear and that is why we looked the way we looked, but I sure hope I did.

I went in the kitchen to get some water and eat some lychees with Amanda. I found a pair of lychees that had been fused together, and I thought they looked pretty funny. Amanda said they reminded her of dog balls. Not a very subtle way of putting it, but that was what I saw, too, so whatever. After that I went to my room to see if we could use the TV to karaoke or play the Wii or something, but Jan had just started a Grand Prix in Mario Kart so I decided to head up to the roof instead.

Unfortunately, the door we had used to get up on the roof for New Year's Eve was locked, and the one that lead to the area above our balcony was locked, too. I was now also too big too squeeze between the stairs and out on the roof like I used to ages ago. Plus the stairs were covered with pigeon shit, so ew.

Instead, I climbed a ladder up to an unlocked hatch that led to a place that I'd never been to before. Amanda followed behind me. It turned out to be a huge water storage unit inside one of Sri Wangsaria's "horns". There was also a ladder that led up another few storeys, so I decided to check that out.

When I was almost at the top, I turned back to see how Amanda was doing, and I froze in place for a while. It was high up there. Really, really high. I finally now knew what was meant when people said "Don't look down". In the end I decided to keep climbing since I was only a few rungs from the end anyway, and I wanted to know what was up there.

It turns out that nothing was up there. Nothing but a ledge and a sheer drop. It was a ladder to nowhere. I threw an apple I had been munching off the edge and watched as it steadily accelerated downwards for a dozen seconds or so before exploding in a truly spectacular fashion. The view from the back side of the building was pretty awesome, too.

I climbed down to Amanda and told her that I could see her house from up there, but if she wanted to climb the ladder then for safety's sake there was something she had to do. I told her that once she made it around a third up the ladder, around the point where the frontwards view could be seen above the water storage unit, that she had to turn and look down and see if she wanted to climb any higher. That way if she could handle it she could keep going, and if she couldn't, then she was much closer to the floor for the climb back down. Amanda agreed, and when she got to the point where she turned around she decided not to go any further. The frontwards view was more than enough anyway.

After that we tried exploring around the water storage unit, but there was nothing to see, so we just climbed back down the hatch. I did have a little trouble closing the hatch, but eventually I settled for slowly lowering it on my head then ducking down a few rungs so it shut quietly. Hatches are heavy, and I think I may have just discovered the cause of the headache I developed while writing this.

Anyway, we got back inside the apartment, Amanda had to leave to go pick up her sister, Jan and Hannah said I was all grimy and that they could smell me from the couch, I took another shower, and I got on my computer and proceeded to not do the thing I had told myself I was going to do today since Friday: My Bahasa Kebangsaan assignment. Deep down inside I had probably anticipated that I would end up procrastinating, which is why I told myself I would do it on Wednesday so that I would still have all Thursday to do it.

Once again, the post about Ian's birthday will have to wait. Maybe I'll do it next Wednesday.

=D

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Back to Blogging with a Long One

A long while ago (but shortly after my last post), I drove my dad down to Kluang for a business meeting. While he was working, I had his car and the freedom to do whatever I wanted in Kluang. That would have been great except that there is nothing to do in Kluang. There was a KFC that I could've eaten in, but I decided instead to try and park the car and listen to the radio. I only managed to get a solid parking spot fifteen minutes before the end of my dad's two-hour meeting. I also found that the parking lot was right on the spot where one of the radio station's broadcast range ended. It was kinda fun nudging the car forward and backwards to hear the songs go to static and back. Anyway, on the drive back I listened to the CD of The Beatles that my dad has in his car. It has now replaced the John Denver disc as the thing we switch to when there's nothing on the radio.

More recently, my dad had me do training for working in Devices World (his company) with iSCADA, which is one of the products they sell. Training was two days. The first day hadn't had much sleep, so I stayed awake by browsing the Most Expensive Journal, which was a blog I found that day about the most expensive stuff in the world. We ate Nando's for lunch and I got to know my fellow trainees better. It was also the best Nando's I have ever eaten. After the break there was a few more hours' worth of stuff to learn, but I had exhausted all the good articles on the blog, so I nodded off a few times. I think I still caught everything I needed to catch, though, because I made it through the second day okay.

The next day was more training. This time it was all hands-on stuff, and most of it was actually exciting, so I didn't need any help staying awake. I got to remotely turn on lights and set off alarms and play with graphs and stuff. It was fun. Nerdy fun, yes, but still fun.

Have I mentioned that there are these incredibly adorable kittens that I see every week when I go to the KPD to do my Bahasa Kebangsaan? Well, there are these incredibly adorable kittens that I see every week when I go to the KPD to do my Bahasa Kebangsaan. Up until recently I haven't been able to touch them, despite my attempts to lure them in with fish and chicken. I have made them a bit fatter with all those treats, though. Anyway, I did manage to stroke one during my last lesson. He was the neglected one of the litter, and I don't think he's going to make it to the end of this year. He's covered in fleas, he's missing patches of fur, and he doesn't have much energy left in him. I approached him when he was napping and treated him like Faith, but gentler because Faith is not terminally ill. Still, it was nice to hear the kitten purr. Later on I had a nightmare that I'm pretty sure was inspired by a species of disgusting aquatic parasite, a dog I know, and the fleas on the kitten, but that's stretching this subject so let's move on.

The next day was a Saturday. Our family was supposed to head up to Ipoh that weekend for my grandmother's eightieth birthday. It was also the day that I had planned to get tickets from the MTV World Stage road show at Sunway Pyramid, so I had set my alarm early so I could beat the crowd. My efforts with the alarm were soon rendered pointless when I fell asleep after my morning Bible reading and only woke up two hours later. By that time, Hannah had gotten back from her horse riding so we could go together to get the tickets.

My mum let me use her car, and she also gave me her credit card so we could fill up the car for the trip to Ipoh. We ate McDonald's for breakfast, and it was delicious. The car was filled without a hitch. On the way to Sunway Pyramid, Hannah noticed that the Fly.fm cruisers were behind us, which meant that the event hadn't started yet and we were perfectly punctual. I dropped Hannah off at the mall and went to find a parking space, which was a lot easier to do in Sunway Pyramid than at Megamall because the second level of the parking lot was empty and because there were lights above each parking space that showed whether they were full or not. All malls should invest in that kind of technology.

The road show was easy enough to find. Hannah and I managed to squeeze our way to the front of the crowd. We found out that it was supposed to last from noon to six, but it was 12:30 and there were no signs of it starting, so I went out to get some mints. I did a loop of the mall and found some of the new Wrigley's gum with the cool packaging at Jusco's. I also picked up some Eclipse mints. The total purchase came up to RM9, which I thought was quite a bit for mints and gum, but whatever. I met up with Hannah and shared some Eclipse with her.

After a bit more standing around, Hannah left to go to the bathroom. A few minutes after she was gone, VJ Utt arrived and kicked off the show by introducing the first act, Bittersweet. Hannah came back during their second song and told me she couldn't get her belt off so she still needed to use the bathroom. The whole time Bittersweet was on stage we tried to figure out what language they were singing in. We never came to a concrete conclusion, but since their song titles were English we just assumed the songs were English, too.

When the band had left the stage, VJ Utt and a dude from Fly.fm got on stage to give out tickets and prizes to the crowd. Their selections were random, but they came mostly from the front row and they tended to be the loudest. One of the people who had managed to get picked was a girl right in front of Hannah and I, so when she went up on stage we managed to get to the front row. The questions that the lucky audience members were asked were easy enough, so nobody left the stage without winning something. Unfortunately for a few, some of the prizes didn't include tickets. I especially felt sorry for a girl who had showed up with a big Tokio Hotel sign and face paint and everything because she ended up leaving with a t-shirt from a sponsoring bank.

The hosts felt that the audience wasn't being enthusiastic enough, and that when the people on stage shouted "MTV rocks!", the audience should shout "MTV rocks!", too. The moment after they said this, I shouted "MTV rocks!". VJ Utt singled me out for my zeal and called me on stage. Six other people were chosen. We were told that there were only five tickets to be given out, so who got tickets and who went back empty-handed was to be determined by a dance-off. This was brilliant. I loved this idea. Hannah's face lit up when she heard that the winners would be chosen by dance. I was glad that I already had the audience on my side and that that meant this was probably going to be the second time that my dancing won me tickets to MTV World Stage.

The first guy to dance was a tall dude in a Star Wars shirt. His dancing was okay, but after the music was stopped, he complained that he had had to dance to Katy Perry instead of Wonder Girls, which won him a bunch of boos from the crowd and meant I was that much more likely to win the tickets. The next person to dance was a transsexual who challenged the audience with a sensual mock-striptease. I was just glad that I only had to watch from behind. Hannah is still trying to forget what she saw that day. Anyway, after that was a girl who tried to emulate the tranny's success with another sensual dance, and I guess she did okay.

When my turn came to dance, the song was changed from "Hot 'N Cold" to "I Kissed a Girl". This was bad for two reasons: one, Hot 'N Cold is a much easier song to dance to, and two, I was caught off-guard by the change in music and I didn't even recognize what song was being played until five of my twenty seconds were up. Nonetheless, I did the best with what I had left, and there was enough applause afterwards that I felt pretty safe.

Next up was a girl in a Green Day t-shirt who lacked enthusiasm and energy. After her was a girl who was slightly better, but still not great. The last performance happened to be the best one. The dude who was dancing was extremely entertaining and actually skilled at dancing, unlike the rest of us. I was impressed. Hannah was impressed, too, but she thought he was gay.

To give the audience one last chance to decide who they liked best, we were all called to dance at the same time. I danced a bit with the best guy and the girl who danced before me, and that was fun. When it came time to choose the two people to send off, the Star Wars guy and the Green Day girl were picked. The rest of us got an MTV World Stage poster, an MTV World Stage t-shirt, and most importantly, two tickets to MTV World Stage on the 31st of July. When I joined Hannah back in the crowd, it was announced that there would be a break for an hour before more tickets were given out, so Hannah went to the toilet and then we went home.

Right when Hannah and I got home we had to leave again, because Ian was napping and Jan had to be picked up from BB. Along the way I forgot where I was heading and ended up in Brickfields. This wasn't much of a problem, though, because I knew a way to Cheras from Brickfields. All it would mean is that we would be a little later. Unfortunately, the route was blocked by construction, so I had to improvise. I ended up lost in a graveyard on a shitty road that lead to a cement factory and a Buddhist temple. After turning around we found ourselves in front of The Alice Smith School, which was not where I expected it to be at all. Near the school was a gigantic pothole that I failed to avoid. A little later I managed to figure out where we were, and soon we were back on track for Cheras. When we picked up a bit of speed, I realized that there was weird noise coming from our car. Hannah said it was probably the mud flap. When we reached Sri Sempurna, I got out to check, and it turned out that the mud flap had been ripped to shit by the pothole and was banging against the body of the car.

Anyway, we picked up Jan and drove home, and then we went to get the car fixed so we wouldn't be annoyed by the noise all the way to Ipoh. The aunty at the repair shop got one of her people to cut off the mud flap as a temporary solution, and so we were good to go.

A little after that Ian, Joel, Hannah, Jan, and I went to Mid Valley to watch Inception. When we got to the ticket counter we found out that all the screens were booked full except for the 11pm showing. I was the only one willing to stay that long. The guy behind the counter told us we could wait five minutes for the reservations to expire so we could claim those seats, so we did. When the five minutes were up, some fat cow of a woman cut in front of us to organize half a dozen tickets for the next showing of Eclipse for her and her family or something. She took ten minutes to figure out that the next showing of Eclipse was absolutely irrevocably totally booked. After her we finally went to claim our Inception tickets, but the dude's manager told him that they couldn't give away the reserved seats. Ian booked four tickets for Despicable Me instead, and then let me book my 11pm ticket. I was just about to do just that, but then I saw that a guy at the counter next to me had claimed a ticket for the Inception showing we were waiting for, so I told our counter guy and he agreed to check for me. I got the last ticket to the show that way.

For dinner I ran down to Burger King. It was at that point that I realized I would have to withdraw more money, which would mean I was going under my float. That realization kinda sucked.

Inception was awesome. On my way to the bathroom after the film I decided that it was the best movie I'd ever seen. I joined the line to the ticket counter to try and get tickets for the next showing. Ian wasn't interested, though, so I decided against it because I didn't want to have to take a cab back. Despicable Me finished short after, and I joined the rest of the guys to go home.

At home I used Ian's computer while Jan and he played poker outside. When Ian lost, he kicked me off, so I went outside to watch the game. After the game I watched TV until Ian fell asleep, then I used his computer to read about Inception until 4am.

The next day I woke up at six AM to the sound of my alarm. I climbed out of bed, turned it off, and went right back to sleep. A few seconds after closing my eyes, Hannah was in the room, the curtains were open, and the sun was streaming in. It was now eight AM, and I had managed to sleep for two hours in what felt like a few seconds. Anyway, I rushed to get packed and ready, and then we went to Ipoh.

The majority of the car ride there was filled with the best music I have ever heard being played from Hitz.fm. They didn't play a single annoying song. I enjoyed it greatly. 150km or so out of KL, we reached the end of Hitz.fm's broadcast range, so I went to sleep.

At my grandparent's place we spent a lot of time napping. Hannah and I watched The Runaways together. The movie itself is an hour and forty-five minutes long, but it took us almost two and a half hours to watch because Hannah kept pausing it every other minute to shoo Susanna out of the room or go check her Tumblr. In the end it was a pretty boring movie, but it was totally worth watching for the scene where Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning have lesbian sex. I cannot wait to hear about Carmeni's reaction after she watches that.

After the movie we went to KFC with Ian and Susanna for a snack and I got served the stalest popcorn chicken I've eaten in ages. When we got back to the house I took a nap and then the whole family left for my grandmother's birthday dinner.

The dinner took a real long time. There was something like seven courses, so I had plenty of time to converse with family while stuffing my face. Good times.

When we got home our aunt showed us funny YouTube videos and we showed her some funny YouTube videos in return. I read some more about Inception before taking a shower, watching an Animal Channel program about the star-nosed mole, and then going to bed.

The next day we packed up, ate breakfast, and drove home. After a bit of packing we left to drive back to KL. I was driving my dad back in his car while my mum drove everyone else in her car. I soon realized that the radio was broken and prepared myself for a very boring trip, but my dad managed to fix it. I guess his engineering degree does come in handy sometimes. Anyway, the drive back was uneventful except for a police checkpoint, but I didn't get pulled over so we got home uninterrupted.

The moment I got back I decided to visit HELP to kill time before I went to Mid Valley with Hannah and Audrey so that they could watch Eclipse. When I got to college, Elo was on Omegle and Carmeni was working on her business assignment. I spent half an hour or so helping Elo find someone else who knew the muffin man before a bunch of the guys showed up and we talked about movies and stuff. I highly recommended Inception. I also told Carmeni that Hannah was going to burn The Runaways onto a DVD so I could give it to her later.

Joanna arrived and I asked her if she'd seen Eclipse, and she said no, so we high-fived, then she said she hated Twilight, so we high-fived again, then we simultaneously asked each other if we had seen Inception, and after that we wouldn't shut up about the movie until everyone else had to go to class. Joanna and I were leaving via the same route, so we walked and talked for a bit. Joanna stopped to buy some chocolate from a statistics student who she sympathized with. She got them to deliver a glittery chocolate that read "The language of friendship is not words, but meanings" to me. Joanna's a good friend. =D

I took my motorcycle home and showed Joanna's chocolate to Hannah. I tried to convince Hannah to do some fake sit-ups so she would have a flat, hard stomach in six months (the difference between real sit-ups and fake ones is that you don't need your arms behind your head or your legs together in fake ones. Also real ones take more effort and therefore will get you in shape much faster) but she was either too later or of the opinion that six months was too long. Whatever, it's her body and her loss.

Audrey arrived and we went to Mid Valley. I spent the drive there trying to convince them to watch Inception instead of or after Eclipse, but they wouldn't hear it. At least Hannah was just watching Eclipse to mock it. I bought two tickets to Eclipse and five tickets to Inception for later that night when Ian, Jan, Hannah, Jared, and I were supposed to watch it. After giving Hannah and Audrey their tickets, I went to MPH to read Murphy's Law, which is now probably my favourite book.

After the movie was over we bought some DVDs so Hannah could burn The Runaways. Hannah and Audrey tried to tell me that Bella was a slut, but I told them she couldn't be a slut because she was still a virgin, and that she was a cocktease instead. Anyway, we went back home to drop off the DVD's and my mum's credit card, and then we left to drop Audrey off at her house.

When we got back home again, Ian told us that Jared had cancelled on us and none of his friends could watch Inception. I sent a text to Jo and asked if she wanted to go, but she was at prayers so I called up Amanda, but she was sleeping in preparation for mid-terms. We ended up inviting our dad to come with us.

Jan, Hannah, and Ian loved Inception. Since they couldn't name any movies that were better, I'm going to go ahead and say on their behalves that Inception was the best movie they've ever seen. My dad thought it was okay.

When we got home we talked about the movie for a bit before turning on the TV and watching So You Think You Can Dance. It was only the second episode I'd ever seen, but I did manage to catch the best dance I've ever seen in my life, so that was nice.

That was yesterday. Today I got Hannah to burn The Runaways onto a DVD, which she accidentally named Inception, but we managed to fix that. After that Hannah gave me all of Katy Perry's songs for me to listen to while I did the 100 taxi fares that I needed for 100% completion in Vice City. It took me two and a half hours, but I finally managed to get 100% completion for a second time. I don't think I ever want to do it again. I've done it now without failing a mission or getting wasted or busted, the only way to go from here is to do it without ever failing a side-mission, which I am not up for at all. After that I started this blog post, and now it is three hours later and I am quite exhausted.

Anyway, tomorrow is the day I finally do some work on my Bahasa Kebangsaan assignment which is due in a couple of weeks. I have to find an editorial in BM, then I have to look up all the words I'm unfamiliar with, then I have to write a draft critiquing it in BM, then I have to find another article about current events in BM and find a way to make a five-minute speech in BM about it. Bleh.

I think I'll write about Ian's birthday some other time. Alcohol was involved.