Fear the Crab

Well, it certainly has been a while. You can thank Animal Crossing and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for my prolonged absence. There’s just so much to do in Zelda that it’s almost a sure-fire way to lose your social life. Thankfully Maile is very good at bringing me back to reality.

Let’s see, what’s happened so far? I think I’ve gotten into the groove of things at my new job(s). Deliveries for The Lab are becoming a habit, and many of the offices are permanently scarred into my memory. Sometimes I can get done with my rounds in less than three hours, which doesn’t mean good things for my paycheck since I’m on hourly. The Office has been holding steady; at least, I’m able to do the simple things. I haven’t gotten any major projects to work on yet, mostly because there really isn’t anything to do right now. There are still aspects of that job that I have yet to touch, but it seems I have to rely on my fellow student workers to show me the ropes, since the bosses are really busy with fixing another highly-visible project. And being that it’s finals week, I rarely see my coworkers. So I busy myself with checking Postmaster mail and setting up mailing lists while browsing the web pages for weird stuff.

On the homefront, life has been normal for me. I finished off my ICS 241 math class, and feel fairly confident I’ll pass with at least a C. That was my main goal, and if I score better, it’ll be all the more sweeter. Those E-Commerce classes I took were interesting, and I think I learned a few things, but the way they were carried out left something to be desired. The prof stressed communication, but it seemed to be lacking on his part. I would email him with a question, and wouldn’t get a reply for several days, if ever! Thankfully they were 100-level courses and pretty easy, otherwise I’d have more white hairs than I do now.

Life, however, has been anything BUT normal for Maile. Her brother’s back on crack again, and I actually witnessed the demon itself one day. He barged into the room and demanded the money Maile has been holding for him (because he’s so irresponsible with finances). When she refused, he got angry and tried to take her purse. Instead he missed and grabbed her backpack. Despite not having any money in the backpack, he ransacked through it, all the while spewing curses out of his retarded mouth. Maile finally gave him his money and he left. I found out later that everyone’s suspected he’s been on the rock from way before. Apparently he was given money to buy a nice present for his son’s 1st birthday and attend a small party, but instead he spent the money on crack and didn’t go. He’s back with this mental-case girl named Josephine who’s also on the rock (and with whom he had his son). Maile’s brother hasn’t been back for about a week, but he’ll start coming around once he wastes his cash.

The sad thing is that he blames Maile and the mom for his condition. Talk about a lame cop-out. His claim is that he was given too much responsibilities to handle, that Maile and the mom expected more from him than he could produce. Whatever. All they asked was that he help contribute to the house, either by getting a job or something. But no, the mere thought of hard work seems to be like a bad case of SARS for this whelp. Oh, and he also believes he has a mental condition, which is why he acts this way. I would tend to agree, but not for the reasons he gives. He feels it is justification for his behavior. I feel it’s simply stupidity. The guy is just spoiled, thinking the world has to give him what he wants without him working for it. I told him once that I was able to buy a new truck and these video games only because I worked and budgeted my money. At the time he seemed to take it to heart, but I guess he can only think short-term and can’t stand waiting for hard work to bear fruit.

So now the house has become like a fortress, with secured doors and a significant change in lifestyle. It’s like everyone’s on alert, since no one knows when he’ll drop by with some fake-ass sob story to try and wheedle pity and money out of the family. Pretty soon we’ll have to start using passwords and retina scans.

Well, I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that yesterday I changed the oil in my truck, all by myself (thank you very much). Since I’m not that mechanically inclined, that was a real feat for me. I also gave my truck a bath, and later that night I went out to D&B’s with a bunch of friends for a little get-together. Maile, James, Mary, Irene, Tolkien, George, Rei, Min, and Maile’s brother Keoni all joined me there. I ate the Jack Daniel’s ribeye steak, and it was very nice. Rei bought me this drink, I think it was called a crowntini, which is like a martini except they use Crown Royal. At least, that’s what I thought I heard above the noise and my inebriated two-beer state. And I don’t know if it was just the way D&B’s made it, but it tasted really strong, like I was drinking a shot of some kind of flavored whisky.

The bad news. I just discovered that because I’m only taking one class this semester (I had dropped ICS 212, if you recall from a previous post), I am not eligible for that student programmer job I was offered. This sucks, because I had already filled out the I-9 and W-4 forms and quit DFS so I could get this one. Now they tell me I can’t have it. I replied to their email notice and explained my situation, what led me to dropping the class, and how I am now unemployed, and asked if there was anything I could do to save this opportunity. One of The Office guys suggested I talk to one of the community colleges and explain my situation, and ask if they can recommend a 3-credit course that I could take, if there is one with open enrollment. It’s already halfway through the semester, though, and I’m worried that even if I can get that extra course, if I’ll be expected to catch up on the workload for that course. People are already taking midterms, so I’d be hard-pressed to make up that much work in a short amount of time. Not to mention the possibility that I may have to attend the class; that would severely cut into the hours I’d have for jobs. Maile is going to try and ask today if there are any courses, and I’m going to call later on my own, so hopefully a clearer path will open up before me once the end of the day draws near.

The day started pretty badly. I woke up with this stabbing pain in my side. I first thought it was gas, but it didn’t go away. It felt like there was a rock or something inside my abs.

Then I picked up Maile before I went to work, so that I could drop her off at her mom’s workplace. Along the way, there were a lot of stupid drivers, the kind of people who just don’t understand the concept of “right of way.”

Work itself was okay, except that stabbing pain was still there.

Called Maile during my break, and as we talked, something evil happened on her Animal Crossing game. Goes down like this: Maile was visiting my town while I was at work. She finished some errands and some fishing, then she talked to the Porter to get back on the train to her own town. The Porter saved data in my town, and as it saved, she handed the controller to her brother. As soon as he touched the controller, the screen went black, and the System menu appeared (the one where you can set the time, fiddle with the memory card, “Press Start” to play a game, etc). The Gamecube itself was not touched, and by the brother’s account he had only pressed the R button when it happened. And as the manual would explain, my girlfriend’s character lost all her items and her money when the game restarted. Both towns seem fine (items she dropped in my town are still there), but the real puzzler is why the game reset like that in the first place. I don’t think AC has a soft-reset function (aside from when playing the NES games), and even if it did, I doubt pressing only the R button would cause it. I have no idea how or why it happened, and as a result I have no clue how to prevent it from happening again.

Then I came home, and I have to do homework. At least that stabbing pain went away.

Maile and I are planning a double-date dinner with Irene and Tolkien. This was a spur of the moment kind of thing, and I don’t even know where we’ll be going. I do know it’s some yakiniku place called Million, but I’ve never heard of it. It’s for a Tuesday, since both myself and Irene have the day off (and no school), and both Maile and Tolkien finish school around 1630.

In Animal Crossing, I finally got the golden shovel. I don’t know what’s special about it aside from the gold color, but it seems whenever I randomly dig in some place I get a bag of money. There’s no mark on the ground to signify there’s anything there, too. It just appears. Wow. Maile has already paid off her debt for the current house expansion, and so she added a basement. Already she’s planning the theme for her carpet, wallpaper and furniture. I’m starting to consider buying the Gameboy Advance because of the extra options enabled for Animal Crossing, but I still must consider the cost benefits, whether or not it’s worth shelling out the bucks for something I may only use sparingly.

School starts on the 13th, but I will only go to school one day a week. That’s a programming class, ICS 212, and it’s from 1800 to 2040, so hopefully traffic won’t be too bad and there will be parking in the structure. The other class I’m taking is the math class, ICS 241, and it’s an online course, which will greatly benefit my work schedule.

I haven’t been posting that often, mainly because of the holidays, and also because my brother is visiting and using my computer to while away the time playing games. I also got Animal Crossing for the Gamecube, and it’s a very fun game. I already know two other people that have it: Maile (which is uber cool!) and George (tres bien!). I’ve already visited Maile’s town, and I came to find out that when I got back to my town, someone from my village moved to her town. In that person’s place is someone new, and I’m assuming right now that this person is from Maile’s town, but I won’t know until I confirm.

Today is Maile’s birthday. I stopped by to see her, and gave her a long-stemmed rose. I couldn’t help celebrate because the Evil Empire had scheduled me for work. Still, it was nice seeing her.

Hm. Everything else sort of pales in comparison to that.

Work today. Blah.

Irene was acting like a spoiled brat today, which doesn’t really befit her 29-yr old status. What started it was the fact that she “was busy” with work and only took a 5-minute break. Her lunch bag was in the refrigerator in the lounge, and she asked the supervisor, Dean, to get it for her. I don’t know if he forgot, but he didn’t get it, and he locked up the lounge and set the alarm. That meant Irene couldn’t get her bag without tripping the sensors. She started going off like a hot tea kettle, “I want my bag I want my bag I want my bag!” over and over again. I discovered her intent was to irritate Dean to the point that he would go and retrieve her bag. Instead, she succeeded in irritating everybody else, because when she wants to, she can have a very loud and very high-pitched voice. Sort of sounds like Minnie Mouse on ice, or like the barking of a chihuahua. On our way to our cars, Irene mentioned idly that she thought she had Dean “wrapped around her tiny finger.” A bit of arrogance on her part, I believe.

Tried to get the point across that there are greater tragedies in life, and she can’t fret about a bag that will still be there when she returns from her vacation. Don’t know if I succeeded.

Visited Maile after work, and ate some of her leftover dinner. She and her family went to Sushi-Ten, which made me highly jealous because I also like their food. I haven’t been to that restaurant in months. I really like the pocket watch, money clip, shoe polish, and electric toothbrush she got me for Xmas, and it was everything I wanted on my list. Woo!

I spent Christmas Day with Maile and her family, and ate dinner there. They had honeyed ham and other goodies like stuffing and salad and mashed potatoes. It was very nice and great company. In fact, I think I shall visit her tomorrow as well.

I had to wake up early today to take my brother to his dentist appointment. After that was done, we went to Ala Moana so he could do some shopping, but he ended up getting nothing except exercise. We tried to go to Costco and Pearlridge, but by then traffic was simply disgusting, so we canceled that. An interesting occurrence befell us as we were leaving downtown; some bloke rear-ended my new truck. It was less than a love tap, and at first we didn’t even realize we were hit. I had just described a scene of a giant robot stepping on something and right when I said “stomp” and dropped my hands down, we felt the car shake like we had run over a pothole. Except, we weren’t moving at the time. I think we were quiet for over a minute as we tried to figure out what happened. My brother asked “Were we just hit?” and when I looked in my rear view mirror there was a car very close behind us. We pulled over to check, and that car followed us. When we got out, there was no damage, not even a scuff, so I suppose in the end one could say nothing happened. In fact, when I went to check I was looking in the wrong area. The driver of the other car had to point out where he tapped us.

Ate dinner with some of the family from my mom’s side, which was weird to me because tomorrow there’s a big family dinner that includes the people we ate with. Had pot roast.

I spoke to Maile for a bit, but she wasn’t feeling very well. It left me not feeling very well, too, but that was because of the my uneasiness in her discomfort and my apparent inability to help. One of the few times I wish I were psychic, I think. Anywho, I can’t sleep now, and while I don’t have anything planned for the coming day (except for the dinner, which I’m still not sure I will attend), I wanted to sleep early so I could run an errand. I will probably still have time enough to do it, since the dinner is at 1700 hours, but one can never tell what the day will bring. Again, that psychic question is ever so pertinent.

After work I stopped by Maile’s classmate’s house and joined them at the tail end of their party. I met the husband, who seems like a nice guy, as well as a few of their friends and neighbors. There was one girl who at first glance looked like a young version of Natalie Portman, but I only had a quick glance before they left. I don’t even remember the name anymore.

I ate some food that was leftover, and I enjoyed Maile’s chicken drummettes, which are always good (despite whatever she thinks).

I must remember to pick up my brother at the airport tomorrow night.