(no subject)
Sun, Oct. 10th, 2004 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterThe boy has managed to find a video game that even the hand-eye uncoordinated me can play. Also, it's incredibly addictive. It's this weird little game called Katamari Damacy, and I really mean weird. The whole goal of the game is to roll around this thing called a katamari and gather stuff up (magnetically? who cares!). Yeah, that's it. I mean, there's a goal -- you're supposed to get your katamari to a certain size by a certain time, but that's it. And all I have to do is use the little joystick things on the Playstation controller to roll the ball around and pick stuff up. It's really horribly addictive. And it's got these weird Japanese kitschy/retro graphics with psychedelic colors and some weird guy called the King of the Cosmos and music that's a sort of blend of people singing "Katamari mambo!" and swing and electronic.
Really weird, but really fun. Plus, it's horribly amusing watching your katamari grow from several cm in size to a few meters (so far). I can't decide which size I like better... the small size is fun because you get this ant's eye view of a house and pick up thumbtacks and butterflies and marbles and stuff, but when you get bigger, you start rolling into more places and picking up people (who run away screaming) and cows and fences and become a giant, Godzilla-like ball of destruction! Hee, maybe I am enjoying this too much ;).
Other than that, we ventured out to Wal-Mart this weekend because we needed knives (no forks or spoons, just knives), which apparently only Wal-Mart sells individually. I hate Wal-Mart. It is suburban hell. Shopping carts filled with screaming babies in every aisle, people walking everywhere, too much noise, too much stuff, all of it is messy because everyone is just tossing stuff everywhere. Ugh. And giant lines at the register in which you swear to yourself that you'll decapitate the next screaming baby you hear.
And the boy had this assignment for his negotiations class in which he had to negotiate a price for something at a usually non-negotiable place... no flea markets or used bookstores ("Hey!" I said about used bookstores. "We are not price negotiable unless the stock is damaged!"). He ended up getting some slow selling plants from Summer Winds, so now we have even more plants. Yikes. Mostly he's taking care of them, given that I am not that great with plants. Well, I ordered more minis (my last ones were killed off by spider mites, powdery mildew and then negligence), so maybe I will be inspired to be nicer to them. But he came back with three hanging baskets of something with small purple flowers, mint, oregano, chives, and basil. Apparently we will now have an herb garden, despite the non-cookage on both our parts. Oh well. They smell nice.
Sat. was the boy's birthday, which was a great opportunity for me to spend way too much money to buy the rest of the Cowboy Bebop DVDs (we had DVD 2). So hopefully Cowboy Bebop watching will commence soon! I love that series. And we headed up to his parents' place. I think I am getting more used to his parents now, though there was a brief freak out point in which they were mentioning marriage and kids. While it's generally accepted between me and the boy that marriage is somewhere there in the distant future, my brain still sort of went kablooey because eep, in-laws and kid discussion and wedding planning and my god the clashing of two cultures. They were mentioning something about them paying for the reception and my family doing the wedding, and my brain went, "But I think in Chinese society, it's the other way around!" (though I might be confused). Weird. But we got lots of free food to take home (chocolate-covered strawberries! roast beef! cheeses! apple crisp!). And I now feel like it's autumn because their house is decorated that way. The boy's mom is very big on house decoration.
ETA: On the subject of Katamari Damacy, I would just like the add the small note that I rolled over a cow today. I cannot possibly describe just how happy that made me, but it did involve much yelling ("Hee hee hee hee hee look at me I rolled over a cow hee hee hee hee hee!") and laughing so hard I almost fell off the couch.
Really weird, but really fun. Plus, it's horribly amusing watching your katamari grow from several cm in size to a few meters (so far). I can't decide which size I like better... the small size is fun because you get this ant's eye view of a house and pick up thumbtacks and butterflies and marbles and stuff, but when you get bigger, you start rolling into more places and picking up people (who run away screaming) and cows and fences and become a giant, Godzilla-like ball of destruction! Hee, maybe I am enjoying this too much ;).
Other than that, we ventured out to Wal-Mart this weekend because we needed knives (no forks or spoons, just knives), which apparently only Wal-Mart sells individually. I hate Wal-Mart. It is suburban hell. Shopping carts filled with screaming babies in every aisle, people walking everywhere, too much noise, too much stuff, all of it is messy because everyone is just tossing stuff everywhere. Ugh. And giant lines at the register in which you swear to yourself that you'll decapitate the next screaming baby you hear.
And the boy had this assignment for his negotiations class in which he had to negotiate a price for something at a usually non-negotiable place... no flea markets or used bookstores ("Hey!" I said about used bookstores. "We are not price negotiable unless the stock is damaged!"). He ended up getting some slow selling plants from Summer Winds, so now we have even more plants. Yikes. Mostly he's taking care of them, given that I am not that great with plants. Well, I ordered more minis (my last ones were killed off by spider mites, powdery mildew and then negligence), so maybe I will be inspired to be nicer to them. But he came back with three hanging baskets of something with small purple flowers, mint, oregano, chives, and basil. Apparently we will now have an herb garden, despite the non-cookage on both our parts. Oh well. They smell nice.
Sat. was the boy's birthday, which was a great opportunity for me to spend way too much money to buy the rest of the Cowboy Bebop DVDs (we had DVD 2). So hopefully Cowboy Bebop watching will commence soon! I love that series. And we headed up to his parents' place. I think I am getting more used to his parents now, though there was a brief freak out point in which they were mentioning marriage and kids. While it's generally accepted between me and the boy that marriage is somewhere there in the distant future, my brain still sort of went kablooey because eep, in-laws and kid discussion and wedding planning and my god the clashing of two cultures. They were mentioning something about them paying for the reception and my family doing the wedding, and my brain went, "But I think in Chinese society, it's the other way around!" (though I might be confused). Weird. But we got lots of free food to take home (chocolate-covered strawberries! roast beef! cheeses! apple crisp!). And I now feel like it's autumn because their house is decorated that way. The boy's mom is very big on house decoration.
ETA: On the subject of Katamari Damacy, I would just like the add the small note that I rolled over a cow today. I cannot possibly describe just how happy that made me, but it did involve much yelling ("Hee hee hee hee hee look at me I rolled over a cow hee hee hee hee hee!") and laughing so hard I almost fell off the couch.
(no subject)
Mon, Oct. 11th, 2004 08:01 am (UTC)Maybe what we need, is a version where you get to roll your katamari around WalMart, squishing all the annoying people and flattening the lines at the cash registers... ;-)
Re: weddings (now don't panic!), conventional [American] wisdom says that the groom's family covers the cost of the rehearsal dinner, and the bride's family covers the wedding and the reception.
On the other hand, some rules just scream to be broken, and there's no logical reason why you should have to follow ANY sort of conventional standard. Each of my three siblings (and their respective spouses) paid for the costs of their own wedding, not because they had to - the parents were perfectly willing to chip in - but because they felt it appropriate that they launch themselves into this new phase of their life as a couple. So, whenever you get to that "distant future point", do whatever the two of you feel like doing - follow the American standard, follow the Chinese standard, or make up your own rules.
(no subject)
Mon, Oct. 11th, 2004 09:00 pm (UTC)