Mission Accomplished

Today my friend SP-M came over. I was set to move all of my files onto his external hard drive and then reformat my laptop to get rid of that damn file.

Then he told me to download a program called "Unlocker." Amazingly, it deleted the undeletable file! It was so simple. Wow. After this, he showed me how to make my Windows XP look basically like Windows Vista, which was pretty cool. I actually rather like the Windows Vista theme - it's rather sleek. Also, he directed me to a download that allowed me to change my boot screen and logon screen.

Now my boot screen currently looks like this:

And my logon screen looks like this:
Pretty cool eh? (No, my real name isn't Paul, that's just the pic the site had.) It's good to have friends who're good at things you aren't. SP-M: 3. Technology: 0.

And here's a funny pic my friend SN-F sent me:

Epic Fail

Today was a day of epic failures of most amusing variety.

This first part is actually not amusing at all. My youngest brother has been a pain lately. He has his driver's test in about 2.5 weeks and he's not ready at all. While he's the brightest amongst us brothers, he's also the laziest, most rebellious, and the one with the shortest temper. Not a good combination. Anyway, my dad was dragging him out to practice driving yesterday and apparently he almost got into a car accident twice. Holy crap brother!! He's also taking 2 math courses at a local university this summer. He's definitely smart enough to get a solid A with effort and an A- with some effort. My parents are pissed at him that he didn't do well on his last exam because he never studies at home. He spends most of his time at home either on the computer or napping.

You see, that's perhaps the worst combination in front of my parents. And when my parents get really mad, they seem to lose the ability to distinguish the differences between my brothers and I. So we get collectively punished and almost all equally. Though this is clearly my youngest brother's fault. My parents therefore went into "lock down" mode and are going to reinforce the stupid 11pm sleep curfew with vigor now (though I seem to have escaped it tonight) and they threatened to cut off the internet in our house. This cannot be allowed to pass. Thus I now need to go into "damage control" mode and prevent my brother's laziness and stupid selfishness. The internet belongs to all of us and I'll be damned if my brother further tempts the fury of our parents (because they don't bluff very often).

Now today I was cleaning my room for my cousin's imminent arrival. My room had become quite dusty in my absence while I was at the university. I changed the sheets and such, vacuumed, arranged things to make it looked presentable (and thus, untouchable), etc. And then to my great embarrassment and dismay, I noticed the wall at the head of my bed. Yes, on the wall were cum stains. I do remember instances in the near-distant past of having shot past my head that far, but I was surprised to see some of them reach as high as they did on the wall. In any case, I had to somehow minimize their appearance. Too bad the wall's white. A bit of scrubbing with a wet cloth and I thought I had gotten it. But no, upon the wall drying, they were still there. Maybe they were a bit fainter in appearance. Maybe. So, epic fail.

Now for the most epic fail moment of the day. My dad took my youngest brother to go practice driving. My other brother went to a friend's house to watch a movie. My mom, my cousin, and I went out for a walk. When we come back from our walk around the neighborhood, we find the inner door to our house locked because my cousin locked it as he was the last one to leave. A side note: this "inner door" is the door that leads from our house into the garage. We only close the garage and lock the side door, so the inner door doesn't really ever need to be locked. My cousin didn't know this and locked it anyway.

So my mom called my dad and they came back. But they didn't have the house key to unlock that door. They called my brother, who also didn't have the key on his key chain. So no one had the key. Months earlier my parents took the keys off their normal key chains and gave them to my grandparents who were staying for 2-3 months so they wouldn't get locked out. We never got around to putting the keys back onto their normal key chains with all the other keys.

Now were attempting to break into our own house. My brother tried to lockpick his way. He got two of the three tumblers but couldn't get the last one to unlock. My dad tried to pry the door open in a really kind of odd way. Then my brother took a ladder to a window that we knew was unlocked from the inside. We had issues with the screen. Our parents didn't want us to break the screen, so effectively preventing us from removing the screen and opening the window to get in. Back to my brother lockpicking. And then me trying to pry open the door. Then my dad just used a tool to force the lock to break by turning the doorknob. And with that, the doorknob broke off and we were inside. About probably an hour after this whole ordeal started.

So yeah, that was the most epic fail moment of the day. My brother and I still think it would've been cooler to break in via the window, but whatever. I guess we can destroy a doorknob but not a window screen?

---TANGENT---
And now, I present to you an amazing picture I found on deviantART:
I found it at this link.

Also, I read up on this blog and have added it to my blog roll:

gay+teen+sydney

Head over and say hi!

Oh, almost forgot. I made a title banner pic! What do you guys think?
---END TANGENT---

Oh Frustrations

I have a love/hate relationship with technology. Sometimes technology just points and laughs at me, I'm convinced.

About a week ago, YouTube stopped working for me, as well as anything else that's streamed be it audio or video. I didn't think much about it at first. Could've been many things. Could've been a side-effect of my internet being slow for a while. Could've been due to a buggy issue with Firefox 3 that I had just downloaded, or this nifty add-on that allows me to download YouTube vids to my laptop. But as one day became two, and two became three and four, I became more convinced that something was indeed amiss. Every time I'd try to stream anything, it'd run (without sound) for about 2 seconds then stop. Nothing I did seemed to work. And then my add-on stopped working. Well, I was talking to Hish about this and he suggested that I re-install Firefox 3. That I did yesterday, and guess what? It works again!!

Last night my mouse stopped working. It's been giving me the red blinking light of imminent death for a few days. Well, I open it up to take out the dead batteries only to find that one of the two AA batteries had leaked into my mouse! Where the battery acid contacted the surrounding area, a white crystalline powder formed. It also corroded the two metal plates on either end that touch the battery. I spent a good half an hour to an hour scraping out all the battery acid crystals (or whatever it was). My dad gave me a tool that his dad used in the dentist office. So I was using some weird dentist tool to scrape the solid thing from the tiny corners and edges. My grandpa might be turning around in his grave right now - I know my ears were shrieking at the metal on metal scrape. Anyway, in the end, I got the vast majority of it out. My mouse still works and I think the left-click button might be better. It's been twitchy for quite some time, as in it would think I double-clicked when really I only clicked once and held down the button. I guess I know why now.

Now, this next technological frustration I haven't yet resolved. A while ago I downloaded a pic from an email. Whenever pics or videos download from the internet, they download as 2 files: the actual file, and this other mysterious file. The "mystery file" only exists during the actual download process and merges into the actual file upon completion of the download, thus disappearing. Well, the pic downloaded and I could open the file. But I noticed that its mystery file didn't disappear. I deleted the pic and tried to delete its mystery file with it. All it would give me was something like, "Error in deleting: Cannot read from source or disk." Okay, I've seen that before, no big deal right? Well, I tried pretty much everything I knew or had on my laptop to delete the little fucker. I used 3 programs, I rebooted my laptop several times, I closed down program files one by one that I wasn't sure of (perhaps not the best idea). Nothing. I Google'd it to see if I could find an answer. I tried this MS Dos deletion thing, but failed at it because I don't know how to find things with MS Dos. So after being hell-bent on deleting this thing for over an hour this morning, I gave up. It won. Sigh.

Oh, I just found the email with the original pic in it. I re-downloaded the pic, hoping it'd replace and fix whatever went wrong. Well, that didn't seem to work. It still remained in 2 parts. Grrr. I can delete one file or the other, but not both. It looks like I may need to enlist the help of someone who's more computer savvy than I am for this. And this is why I would never be a computer science major, or most engineering majors.

Now lastly, my cousin from Chicago is coming to visit us tomorrow. He's going into his senior year of high school. I feel bad for him for coming. You see, the real reason he's coming to visit is so that my brothers and I can "help" him improve his SAT and ACT scores before he takes them. Honestly, he does suck. He's around national average right now. Funny thing is that my brothers and I didn't used to even like him. When he was younger, he was really ADHD and had quite a temper - he was rather violent sometimes. Now he's mellowed out a lot and is actually rather pleasant to be around, though a bit too quiet. So yeah, he's coming here basically for SAT/ACT boot camp. I hope he doesn't become an academic vegetable when we're done with him . . .

What also sucks is that I twisted my right ankle a bit yesterday. So while I could have ran earlier this morning, I don't think it would've been the best of ideas. I predict soreness and inflammation later if I were to do that. But perhaps I'm jumping to excuses too readily. Running alone is so boring!! Also, when my cousin comes, he'll be sleeping in my room. Which means I'll be displaced to my brother's room because he has a larger bed. Which also means masturbating will be difficult, if not nigh-impossible. 2 weeks of no relief . . . I don't know if I'm going to survive. To be sure, I'm going to work my cousin for this, and I'm going to bring him closer to the Asian standard.

Oh, apparently I failed to realize July 14th was my blogoversary. It turned 1 year old!! XD

Uncomfortable Parent Questions

Today I went on a walk with my mom alone. When I go on a walk with her alone she sometimes asks me uncomfortable questions. Things that I tend to go, "Umm," "Uh huh," "Yeah," etc, about.

My mom asked me how RZ-F was doing. Okay, seriously, my mom only met her twice in person. Other than that, she knows her as a set of academic stats and as a Chinese girl my age. Clearly, the logical leap is evident: RZ-F should be my girlfriend! So my mom keeps asking me, "Does RZ-F have a boyfriend? Do you have a girlfriend? Are any girls interested in you? You should be RZ-F's boyfriend, maybe you guys'll get married! Do you still talk to her? Does she still talk to you?" How does one answer these questions? Even if I were 100% straight I'd feel incredibly awkward in this situation. It's so annoying and frustrating a situation to be in. Also, it is like a slap in the face because it does remind me that I had/have feelings for RZ-F and I blew my chances. It's like scratching a scab to resurface a wound that has almost - but not quite - healed.

Then my mom goes on the marriage tangent. About how I should marry a Chinese girl, if at all possible. How I should get married soon after I finish med school. How I should have 2 kids before I'm like 35. Oh, and how it'd be great if they lived with me and my wife after we got married, so they could take care of my kids and cook and such. Honestly, no thanks. At least not until we're settled and living parents-free for 5 years at least. I don't need them to nag me for my entire life. Again I just go, "Uh huh," "Yeah," "Sure," and "Okay." This is NOT a conversation I really want to be having with my parents right now, if ever.

Okay, granted I do want to get married. I do want to have 2 kids by the time I'm 35. But I don't need my parents (my mom) chiming in about these things every other time I'm alone with them (her). I have too many things to do and think about right now. Every time they say things like this, it takes me away from the center of my person, it almost makes me doubt who (and what) I am. I don't need that right now. I'm confused enough as is about myself, and it's damn hard work to keep together the pieces of me I know are immutable.

And here's the last straw, the one point that makes me really not want to be at home right now. Every night, without fail, if my brothers or I stay up past 12:30am, our parents yell at us to sleep until we turn off all the lights and go to our rooms. Seriously, I'm 22. I think I can set my own bed-time. I don't even go out (as if there's anywhere to go in this town, grrr). It's not even worth getting into an argument about this with my parents. I don't like to get into arguments. I'll sit there taking it quietly, waiting for it to pass patiently.

Sigh. These are the kind of things that remind my why I would feel terribly uncomfortable/guilty if I came out to them.

---TANGENT---
Some new blogs I've come across!

Life of a gay/bi boy
The real ugly duckling

Added them to my blog roll. Worth a read. Others I still need to get through and get up-to-speed. I'll get through them . . . eventually.
---END TANGENT---

Okay, Three Things

Alright, this post may not be entirely coherent, but whatever. There are three things I wish to touch on.
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1. Wang Leehom's sexuality

As a refresher, here's a couple pics to remind you who he is (as if you need it, but it's here anyway):

My friend RZ-F sent me an email today telling me she found out he was gay and was deeply saddened by that. When I asked her later online, she said she has a friend who is a friend of Wang Leehom's agent. And his agent says he's gay or something to that effect. And people know Wang Leehom's boyfriend, apparently. Now, as much as a part of me (and any non-straight male fan of his) wishes this is all true, I find it a little hard to believe.

I give you exhibit A:
Granted, it's possible that this is all for publicity so the public views him as straight. Also, I remember reading an incident where a guy claimed to have homosexual relations with Wang Leehom, and Leehom openly denied and called it "Bullshit." But Wang Leehom is very private about his personal life, much to the chagrin of nosy journalists. While what I say next doesn't mean much, but he doesn't strike me as "being gay." He doesn't seem to fit any part of that stereotype - and again, we all know that statement there doesn't actually mean much. Now to those who say, "Oh he's a music major, it makes sense he's gay," I say, "Wrong!" Take exhibit B, my roommate, AW-M. He's a music major and is now engaged. His relationship with his fiance is . . . interesting. She has control over him like a master over a slave, I kid you not. It's kind of wrong to be so pussy-whipped, as they say.

Okay, I'm going to stop spreading this rumor that I frankly find a little hard to believe (though, wouldn't mind fantasizing about). I just have to get this out of my system after my friend told me.
-----
2. Mom's car accident and the ER

Earlier today my mom got into a car accident. Don't worry, she's fine. She stopped at a red light and a pickup truck rear-ended her. What kind of douche bag rear-ends at a red light in the middle of the afternoon?! The rear bumper has a rather large dent and a big crack, but the car is otherwise fine.

Now, the real issue here is that from the time my mom entered the ER, got the scans, got the results, and left, she had been there for 6 hours. The vast majority of those 6 hours were spent waiting in the ER. 6 hours?! Seriously?! It takes 6 hours for someone to get 2 X-rays and a CAT scan? For all we know, my mom could've had suffered a complication from a concussion during the waiting time. For all we know, the crash could've injured a major artery that could've bled into her brain during the waiting time. 6 hours for this is unexcusable. Seriously US health care, GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER BEFORE I FINISH MEDICAL SCHOOL. Who knows what could've happened in those 6 hours! Thankfully everything turned out okay and all the tests showed nothing wrong.

My mom did also remark that every person she saw - nurses, technicians, doctors - were all women. She was surprised that there wasn't one male technician running the machines or a male doctor. Well, women do make up about 60% of medical school graduates now. And the vast majority of nurses are still female.

Which leads me to my last issue . . .
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3. Academic gender disparities

About a week ago I was talking to my old roommate DvF-M about women in science. Now I must first say he's a math and physics double major, so he's clearly intelligent. However, he's also Republican and voted for Bush twice. And he once said that the biology field never gave society anything useful. I'll never forgive him for that. My friend JR-M refers to this as smart-stupid.

Anyway, he believes that there are inherent biological differences between men and women that may make men better at the "hard sciences" (i.e. physics, math, engineering - he discounts biology and chemistry for some reason) than women. There is also upbringing and culture. I pointed out how girls are doing better than boys pretty much throughout school. How women make up the majority of undergraduate degrees. How women make up about 60% of biology majors and almost as many chemistry majors. And also how women are beginning to increase their numbers in physics and engineering.

I think it's just a matter of time before women take over most (if not all) of the major professions. In my opinion (and the opinion of great many female scientists and professionals), the one thing keeping women out of science is the thing called pregnancy and childbirth - having a child can pretty much end one's career. In any case, women make up 60% of the graduating med school classes now, if not more. My roommate countered that doctors, in a way, are more "humanities" and hardly use science on a day-to-day basis. I'll let this slide . . .

And today I read an article that basically said girls are just as good as boys at math throughout school. The prevailing culture had simply made it hard for girls to want to go into science and math because it was perceived as a "man's realm." My roommate would contest this probably, but whatever. Point is, where academics is concerned, girls are equal to boys at pretty much everything, if not better at some.

Sometimes I wonder if soon it'll be us guys who need more help in school. I mean, genetically women do have some protection against many forms of mental retardation . . .
-----
Well, that's all.

The Source

I seem to have this influence, this aura, about me. I don't know what it is, or what I do for it to express itself, only that it does. I seem to exert this . . . almost calming influence over some of the people I reach out to. It's almost like the voice of reason. But I want to know, what is the source of this? First some examples.

If my brother found out about this he'll ninja his way into my room and kill me in my sleep. Anyway, about 2 years ago my youngest brother began cutting himself, on his arms and legs. He did this for a few months before my parents found out. It was winter, so he had every excuse to wear long sleeves and pants, which did a great job hiding all this. In addition, he preferred to wear long sleeves and jeans anyway. But find out my parents did. See, in my brother's room, he had this blanket. And he would wipe his blood on it, so it looked like little patches of dried blood all over it throughout the course of the months.

My mom went to his room to gather blankets and such to do laundry, and she found the bloody blanket. She confronted my brother and found out he had been cutting his arms and legs. Understandably, she freaked and she called me while I was still at the university. I saw the blanket myself when I came back for winter break. My parents took my brother to a psychologist but couldn't afford more than 3-4 months of therapy or whatnot. My brother had been using scissors and string to cut himself by rubbing these against his skin over and over again until the burn became a wound. And he would pick at the scabs to keep them fresh.

By the time summer vacation rolled around, my parents disclosed to me in secret to find out why my brother was doing this and help him stop. Like I knew the answer. As my parents say, my brothers will listen to me in ways they'll never listen to them. I didn't really openly confront my brother about this. I asked him about it but I knew he probably didn't know the answer - how many really know WHY they cut themselves? So no adequate answer was given.

Yet, in the months I had been home, he seemed to have gotten better. I don't know what it was. He had been sluggish and tired for months, taking really long naps and sleeping way too late for a kid in high school. Then gradually he seemed to regain some of his strength and he stopped cutting. My parents think it was because of me, of something I did or said to him. What that was, I don't know.

I have my guesses. Perhaps I connected with him subconsciously in a way that never of us realized. Perhaps he was sick of being compared to me, because as the oldest I am "the example" that they must either meet or surpass. Perhaps he was lonely after I went to the university as I had been present in his life from the day he was born (obviously). Whatever it was, something about my presence helped. Maybe I was there to ask him to play video games with me, to run with me (which he almost always refused), to just sit around and do nothing but watch TV. Whatever it was, it seems to have worked.

It's not just my brother though, but my cousins as well. My cousin in Chicago, who'll be going into 11th grade in the fall, is coming to visit us for about 2-3 weeks. My parents already paid for his train ticket. However, it's not for fun. While he's here, I'm supposed to get him to do the SAT and ACT and improve his scores. It'll be like a standardized test boot camp of sorts. I feel bad for him. But while I was in Chicago, I was able to get him to work on it, he did listen to me (although he forgot what I taught him just as quick). A few days ago my uncle was complaining how he stopped doing the tests, and wanted me to email him to motivate him again. It seems I'm the only one who can get him to settle down and work on these standardized exams?

My little cousin in California loves me. I think he loves me more than any other relative. Whenever I visit, he would always want to play with me, spend every moment with me. He would drag me around by the hand to do things with him. I gave him attention, I played with him. When he was only a toddler, I fed him for like 3 days. After that he didn't want his mom to feed him anymore, only me. I remember him falling asleep on my stomach, or waking up really early to come wake me up. He would not leave me alone, but I didn't mind much. I love little kids.

And about 6 years ago I was a counselor for a day camp thing that ran for 2 weeks. My group of kids really liked me. They liked my friend, who was my counselor partner, somewhat less. And my friend would always ask me, "Why aren't you tired?" I don't know why, I just couldn't stop. In any case, I could get them to behave. And they liked asking me questions without much inhibition. I even got along with "the trouble kid" and somehow got him to interact better with the other kids.

Amongst my friends, I'm often the secret-keeper - the one they tell some secret and then swear to secrecy. My friends are also surprised when I perceive something, as if they forget that fact for some reason. I guess I am good at detecting others' moods, even if I don't always overtly show it. If I ask just the right way, I can get almost any of my friends to open up to me and tell me their problems. I'm also patient enough to not force the issue.

But why though. Is it because I listen well and ask the right questions? Because it's surely not because I give the best advice. Why would they trust me to their problems, and never inquire about my own? Why can't they see my own insecurities and issues? Do I mask it that well? Sometimes I'm like the patch-up, the one who's supposed to make things - if not better - at least understandable and bearable. I hear it from my parents all the time about my brothers and sometimes cousins, I hear it from friends sometimes as they tell me to help them figure out how to deal with each other.

In any case, I'd like to know the source of how I get people to open up around me. Perhaps it's because I don't generally withhold the good and the bad. Who knows, but I do know this: this influence/aura thing will become useful when I'm a doctor. In the mean time, where's the person who can draw out my issues out into the daylight?

Asian Hotties

. . . lol, did I just say that?

Anyway, David from Some things about me asked me whether or not I like any "hot Asian hotties" as he put it. And you know, perhaps this is contrary, but I'm actually not attracted to the vast majority of Asian guys (different story for Asian women . . . perhaps another post). It's kind of like I don't find most of the guys I see at the gym attractive (don't hurt me). Regardless, with some random mindless internet surfing, I present the following Asian hotties:

Takeshi Kaneshiro
Wow, he speaks English, Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Cantonese, and Japanese.

Angus Guo
I didn't even know his name was Angus. Actually, I didn't even know his Chinese name until today. I only knew him as one of the two cute twins of the Taiwanese band, 2moro.

Bobby Tang
Holy crap he has a hot body. More motivation for me . . . this won't last too long.

Wang Leehom
And how can I leave him out? Not the best pic of him on the web, but hey, he's playing one of my favorite Chinese instruments: the erhu (二胡). And again, he speaks English, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, and French. I think he also knows Japanese too. Oh, and he got a perfect score on his SAT and got accepted to Yale and Princeton. Wtf, why does he become more ultimate everytime I look him up? He was almost pre-med too, and most of his family are doctors.

Suddenly I feel my fluency in English and Mandarin Chinese to be inadequate. At least I can pretty much understand Cantonese fluently (if unable to speak it) and I know some Spanish . . . that slips from me little by little every day . . .