A Series of Random Events

Hello! : )

Again, this entry has taken three days to write. Also, it encompasses the past three days of events, of which randomness seemed to be the only non-random component. So expect nothing consistent in this blog. Strap yourselves in for twists and turns.

Post-surgery

I'm alive and well. Good news and bad news. Life is boring at best and painful when it sucks. But I'm sure people are happy I'm alive and well, especially since I just underwent my first hospital surgery - wisdom teeth extraction for 4 teeth. I think the anaesthetist was a little liberal with the juice; I'm still numb around the bottom teeth and lower lip now, 10 at night. Sure hope they didn't sever a nerve. But for all I know, I'm not even sure Dr ____ took out all 4, can only see and feel the stitches of the bottom 2. Will know soon once the numbness fades.

Also? The anaesthetist is a UQ alumnus, and remembers the "Rec Room", which I assume is the equivalent to the "Red Room" at present. And he was Asian. Seeing his fees, my parents suddenly came to the conclusion that the anaesthetist specialty has a GREAT money-to-difficulty ratio. Plus my mum was surprised that anaesthetists were REAL doctors.

The cannula used to inject the anaesthetic was icky. I mean, it's a hollow needle stuck in a vein. Discomfort++. On the way home, my baby sister Esther thought my ice pack looked funny, possibly because I looked like a bunny.

Seven things:
- Cannulae are icky, hospital robes idiotic, paper underwear appreciated for public decency
- Don't panic in a hospital; nurses can read your pulse. Mine were surprised at my steady 87 despite it being my first time as a patient in a hospital
- The sedative "BLANK" is really really cool
- Don't feel it a need to dribble and speak like a moron when you're on painkillers; I didn't (apparently I'm the king of recovery, speaking with perfect fluency upon waking and not feeling drowsy at all)
- Hospital food sucks, possibly because I was garnishing it was my own blood that was still in my mouth, or because my tongue was still numb. Why flavour the jelly at all?
- Felt a bit weird at being wheeled from place to place like an invalid, but I'm sure wheelchair companies make a good profit
- Boys get blue ice packs and girls get pink ice packs; I wanted a pink one too (~disappointment~)

Home cooking

Some people are aware that I can cook, though I think they just have an instinctive scepticism towards that fact, and have to ask, "O_o, o rly?"........ (~pain~) Wednesday night was my night to cook at home. Went grocery shopping in the morning, during which time I found this.



~Shakes head~



I hope Breaka bankrupts themselves for this unnatural creation.




Anyways, dishes on the menu that night? Stir-fried vegetables with beef, and steamed mince eggs (I'm not sure of the English equivalent, sounds about right). Here are some snapshots.

What do you think? Looks can be deceiving, it actually tasted really good. Do you know how vegetables take different amounts of time to achieve a good flavour? I actually timed the carrots, cauliflower and zucchini so that they were all tasty. And the eggs are missing a chunk because my baby sister Esther had dinner before we did. And she liked it too : ).

But then, Wendy decides to trump me by making the best potato bake + honey barbecue chicken combo the next night (~cry~).

Still, I was rather proud of my creations - proud enough to take photos of them.

The Big City

I was at the city on Wednesday, made some time to get a Starbucks coffee, sit and read for a bit. Coffee was a disappointment. I don't know what America sees in that coffee chain. It was worse than instant (is that even possible?). But the size was good (590ml), ALMOST as big as my cup at home LOL.

While I was sitting, an Aboriginal lady came up and asked me to buy her McDonald's. Why McDonald's? I wouldn't know. Didn't have anymore money on me, but I gave her my box of Shapes, which I'd just opened. She ran off with it, and I was a little speechless, but seeing how dirty her hands were, I wasn't sure I would want them back anyways.

Another elderly Caucasian gentleman started talking to me after this, he had been trying to decipher that lady's almost incoherent speech too. Why did he start talking to me? I don't remember. Really, I don't even remembered what we talked about, but apparently he was a carpenter, and became a backpacker, traveled to Asia, Europe, America, and Australia. Got a good repertoire going there, but I don't like to travel, so I couldn't really relate. Also? He liked McDonald's biscuits dunked in McDonald's coffee, which is ridiculous, because their coffee sucks worse than Starbucks', which is bad enough.

Six things:
- Starbucks coffee sucks
- Homeless people DO exist in Brisbane
- Smokers should stop smoking
- Wearing sunglasses does NOT make you cool enough to death stare me
- Being Goth is not a good enough reason to death stare me either
- City people are more antisocial than suburban people

Miscellanea

- Hanaichi curry is now 30 cents more expensive (~disappointment~)
- Picked up Wendy from Sunnybank and saw a car with a wayyyy hippy exterior, told her to look right, she looked left first (~funnyment)
- Zaraffa's coffee is tasty, but their baristas are a little over-zealous. My favourite coffee is a good cappucino (currently), most are not too foamy, absolutely fine, it's difficult to make good foam. But Zaraffa's cappucino? Filled to brimming as usual, but then the barista decides to glob on another dollop of foam on top. Nice work (~sarcasm~). How am I supposed to add sugar? How am I supposed to put a lid on? Anyways, Zaraffa's coffee is tastier, Gloria Jean's coffee is cheaper
- Vivian was working at Body Shop; I didn't see her, despite being at Zaraffa's for an hour. I'm either going blind or developing glaucoma (~worryment~)


That's all for now :)


Till next write --

A Creepy Story

Hello! :)

I have no idea why, but last night and this morning, I just felt like scaring myself with scary stories and supernatural tales. Obviously, they're not even remotely believable, but they can still creep you out.

My favourite kind of creepy story is where everything seems fine until the twist at the end. :)

Can anyone else relate?


Anyways, here's one of the ones that made the cut with me. More than half of them were actually more lame than scary, but writing is a dying art after all.

P.S. You'll have to highlight the text to read it, I don't want to unintentionally give someone nightmares or a fear of keyholes and hotels.


A man, at about the age of 30 went to a hotel and walked up to the front desk to check-in. The woman at the desk gave him his key and all, and told him that on the way to his room, there was a door with no number that was locked and no one was allowed in there. So he went to his room, and went to bed. The next night he was curious as to what was in the room, so he walked down the hall to where it was and of course tried the handle. Sure enough it was locked. So he bent down and looked through the keyhole. What he saw was a hotel bedroom and in the corner was a woman whose skin was completely white. She was leaning up against a wall and her head was facing the wall. He stared in confusion for a while then went back to his room. The next day, he went back to the room and looked through the keyhole. This time, all he saw was redness. He couldn’t make anything out, all he saw was red.


At this point he was confused and a little freaked out. He went to the front desk and asked the lady about the room. She sighed and said, "Did you look through the keyhole?" The man told her that he had and the lady said, "Well, I might as well tell you the story. A long time ago, a man murdered his wife in that room, and her ghost haunts it. But these people were not ordinary. They were white all over, except for their eyes, which are red."


Hope you guys enjoyed that. :)

Till next write --

What the freckle is a blog?

Hello! :)

Never thought I'd try a blog again. Never as in "it never snows in Brisbane". But I guess I showed me, hehehe...

Actually, I think it's just that we can never really predict what will happen in life. Or a more interesting take on it is that we like being contradictions to ourselves. Surprising? It shouldn't be, with so many examples of it occurring.

I like the number 6. It's my favourite number. I know a lot of people have 7 as there lucky number, and I suppose with religiosity in mind, 7 would be more appropriate, but I've always thought of myself as 1 below the average. Get it? Also, with 6 being the number of man, and me being just a person, it fits.

It actually reminds me of a lecture I had last semester in applied psychology where we were talking about typical superstitions, one of which is the aforementioned "lucky number 7". The lecturer asked people who considered 7 their lucky number to raise their hands. Then he said, "Why do you have lucky numbers?" Burn!

In psychology, we don't believe in luck in the conventional sense, though we do accept an alternative form of luck, which most of you fortunately don't have to know about. Yeah, psychology sucks the fun out of a lot more things, but I'll live with it.

Anyways, I decided to find 6 examples of these contradictions that people act upon or believe in, and I thought were either funny or interesting:

1. Winning the lottery
People obviously enter lotteries, or the business would have died out long ago. But I always like to hear people recount their stories of wins somewhere in the media, and apparently, the common first response is always something along the lines of "I won? No way! That's impossible!"

Do people know that they actually have a chance of winning? It's slim, but not zero, and that is something after all. Assuming people DO know this, then they're just acting stupid when they say that. Assuming people DON'T know this, then they really are stupid, entering a draw they think they have no chance of winning. Either way, this seems to be a common contradiction not limited just to lotteries.

2. Playing chicken with emergency vehicles
I liked the game "playing chicken" until I found out what the premise was. That is, I liked the name, I thought it was something like Harvest Moon, but it turns out it has nothing to do with growing corn and raising chickens. I suppose it's maybe just stupid and dangerous when you do it with regular cars.

But when you decide to take it to the next level by doing it with a fire engine blaring sirens heading on a crash-course path with your vehicle, that's also stupid, dangerous and contradictory. What's different is that you don't really care what the second car usually does in your off-season away from playing chicken, but the fire engine? If you wake up from your afternoon nap to realize your house is on fire, you'd hate to find out that the fire engine that works your district was the one you totaled in yesterday's chicken match. This is a contradiction I was shaking my head at just tonight. Apparently people driving cars are attracted to green traffic lights and lose the ability to find the brake pedal, and "give way to emergency vehicles" sounds like gibberish to them.

3. Low-carb beer
Beer is the devil's spawn. If one of my high school friends was writing this, he'd say "beer causes cancer", I'm sure. To him, chocolate causes cancer. You should've heard what our art teacher said to him, "XXXX, you're the strangest boy... in the nicest possible way."

Anyways, normal beer is bad enough. Alcohol makes you an idiot, turns your liver to stone, gives you this weird illness called a "hangover" and gives people a reason to arrest you or fire you. Then someone decides, "Hmm... increased beer consumption is correlated with decreased fitness. It must be drinking beer that causes them to get fat and lazy." (By now, good statisticians are ROFL) This is, after all, the rationale for low-carb beer.

But, it's not just drinking beer, but the fact that people spend five or six hours a night at a bar drinking, moving only once or twice away from their seat to go to the bathroom. Or the fact that they disengage from practically all physical activity. I'm sure beer with less carbs will do wonders for the increasingly overweight population.

Actually, with a more sarcastic view, low-carb beer actually makes a lot of sense. Seeing as how low-fat, low-sugar and low-salt foods all taste worst than their unhealthy predecessors, it's reasonable to assume that low-carb beer would taste worse than full-carb beer, which would cause people to go "Yuck!" and stop drinking beer, and start doing something else. It could work, for everyone but the beer companies. I would shout for joy if this scenario came true. BTW, I didn't realize this list of contradictions would last this long, sorry in advance.

5. Beautiful stars and dodgy starsigns
People love to check out their starsigns in the paper, in magazines and on the net. They might even follow these to the letter, doing things they wouldn't usually. But in reality, they would never actually look up into the sky to find out which bright dots compose their astrological sign. Being completely unimpressed with stars in the night sky while being mesmerised by vague generic descriptions sounds like worshiping the priests more than worshiping the deity.

Personally? I like looking at stars. I've almost forgotten what starsign I am. The opposite sounds like a major contradiction to me. (I wonder if people really think a star has a pointy shape in real life?)

6. Pennies for thoughts
People (in general) believe themselves to be creative, insightful and ingenious, sometimes. A reason why they wish to preserve some legacy of themselves after death. A nice sentiment, but that contradicts the fact that people refuse to keep a daily record of their thoughts. I heard it recently, that "diaries are a complete waste of time". There are heaps of things I've thought of, forgot to write them down, and lost them. I think I can accuse myself of this contradictory behaviour, and still manage to do it once in a while.

No diary? Can't afford one? Not a problem. Get one of those mini notepads and mini pen/pencil. I used to carry this setup around in high school, and did get laughed at a fair bit, so you've been warned.

Don't want to get laughed at? No pockets? Okay, you're a challenge, but guess what! We have a thing called blogs now! In fact, you're reading one.

Yeah, the contradiction thing was leading just to this. For once, mankind has managed to suppress a contradiction with a clever new invention, that has since been dumbed down a bit, but luckily still retains its original purpose. Everyone knows exactly what to do on a blog, write, post photos, draw squiggles, post up real/imaginary lists of friends/enemies, broadcast copyrighted music...

But not everyone knows what a blog actually is. If you do, imagine for a moment you don't. For two minutes.

Maybe "BLOG" is an acronym?

B-ig
L-ist
O-f
G-roceries

Maybe... not...

B-ombing
L-ocations
O-ver
G-ermany

Well, the World Wars ended a while ago...

Maybe it's a whole word?

BLog... B-Log... like B's Log? Actually, if you've read B's Log, you'll know it's not a B-Log, it's more of an A-Log. Very intellectual.

LOL - if you get it. Puns are among my favourite forms of comedy.

LOL - if you don't get it. I was laughing, that's all I need.

Um... yeah... I couldn't think of anything else.

Anyways, feel free to Wiki it now if you want to know what a "blog" actually stands for.

Technically, this entry took 3 days to write, if anyone's interested. Credits go to the people who helped me think of the topics, the Blogspot address and the motivation to start it.

P.S. I left out point 4 of the 6 contradictions, because this entry is waaaaay too long, hope you noticed it. Also, 4 is an unlucky number for Asians (psyche! there's no such thing as unlucky numbers!)
P.P.S. I can't believe my mom just temporarily came out of her bedroom just to tell me to go to bed. And it's only 1-ish (~bewilderment~)


Till next write --