Mercedes-Benz 520i & Cheena Day, Part 1

so here we go. day two/one [depending on whether you count the eve] of Cheena New Year. we woke up round 10 - 11am, ushering in the new year by being lazy slobs.

trooping over to my granddad's house, we spent roughly an hour being patronized by relatives i wouldn't accept angbaos from or willingly spend that much of my time with, if it wasn't absolutely necessary. i managed to spend some good time unwasted, in talking to my two aunts and my granddad, though. especially with my first aunt, who i thought was going to freak out about me retaining, being the academic sort that she is. [not that that isn't a good thing] but she was very encouraging, which is more than i can say for my mother, who has said nothing positive since the day my retention was decided.

at my granddad-in-law's place, things were much warmer. the adults launched into mahjong, and us kids were left to our own vices, namely the PlayStation and blackjack with my aunt's boyfriend.

my mom left at 6 for another mahjong session. later i would find out that she would not make it home until 9 am the next morning. my second aunt's boyfriend, Samuel, offered to take us out to see a movie later on, but all the tickets for Shanghai Knights were either booked or sold, and i wouldn't watch Hero [a) it's frankly too Cheena for me b) Matt gave it a really lousy review. ok, so he was talking about the subtitles, but it sounded laughable], so we didn't even check listings for that. we ended up blackjacking and PlayStationing until 10 or so.

i made over a thousand Monopolian dollars [we played with Monopoly money, each starting with $500] at blackjack, and won six out of seven races at the PlayStation [Gran Turismo, Gran Turismo 2, Le Mans 24]. i discovered that not only is Garbage featured on the GT2 soundtrack [I Think I'm Paranoid, but i knew this about a year ago], but As Heaven Is Wide is also featured in GT1.

my third aunt sent us home in her Honda Stream. we got home around 11, and i was up till 2 remodeling this site and IMing Matt.

something i noticed today. the BMW 520i is becoming increasingly popular. it's all Performance Motor's fault. they have this overtrade scheme to entice those looking for a cheap means of showing off the wealth they either don't have or desperately need to display. they need to clear stock to accommodate the first new 5-series in what must be 10 years. i mean, more power to BMW [as opposed to an exceedingly opulent [vulgar] Mercedes-Benz E200], but now it's just as common as the Toyota Corolla, Nissan Sunny and, of course, the evergreen towkay's choice, the Merc E-Class. Sheep. Baa-aaa-aaa. Strike one car off the 'my-first-car-list' [second-hand or otherwise]

- "As Heaven Is Wide", Garbage