all things me

Does the youngest child have it easier? Or is it only in this family? Or maybe if I had been a typical teenager I wouldn’t be ‘rent whipped now.

I have a sister who is 6½ years younger than me, which is a lot, but I feel like our parents treat us as being about the same age. She also demands things at a younger age on the pretense that I have them (not just material things but privileges too); no matter if I’ve been 6½ years older when I’ve got them.

On Monday she’ll turn 18, and right away she’ll get to be home alone: Mum got a “great” idea that she, Dad, and I (and the dog) go to the summer cottage and leave my sister home because “she’s always wanted to be independent, let her be independent.” I can’t tell Mum that “I really need a vacation from you not with you” so I suppose I’m going (bye-bye to my plans of getting the passport stuff rolling next week). What bothers me is that I was 22 when I was home alone for the first time. Of course, it’s only a matter of circumstance. Maybe I could’ve been home alone when I was 18–21 if only a situation like that had presented itself, but no luck, Mum was always there. Sometimes it would be nice to get some distance between the parents and I. At least I can take comfort in knowing that in February there’ll be 15200 kilometres between us for at least 2½ weeks. (Better not jinx it by thinking that I’ll probably break my leg or catch a horrible disease and can’t go…)

My sister gets everything without having to do anything. When she needs things — we all need things every now and then — she refuses to pay them herself because she’s “saving.” For what? An apartment! Because she’s never spent any money, she’ll probably get together enough to move out first (and I’ll be a bitter spinster left living with the parents — hurray!)! My sister is anxious to move; I worry how my parents would be left with the dog and 4 walks per day. I am, however, musing of and half-planning to move out by the end of next year; if I have the money.

In our previous apartment my sister and I shared the bedroom (I had a tiny room for myself in a walk-in closet), this was over 12 years ago. One time when she was sick and threw up on the carpet I was left alone in the room (and in the stench) and my sister went to sleep in my parents bed.

Maybe I’m just imagining things, maybe it’s just some sort of sibling rivalry and envy. At least I’m better in the brain department.

Ps. Maybe I should create a new category, “Whine.”

I don’t know if it’s my bad luck, poor choice of products, heavy use or a curse but my DVD+VCR combo is kaput again. This time I think even my dad believes me. I can’t remember when was the last time the device was in service but then it may’ve been a false diagnosis on my part… Now the problem started off with a little vertical jiggle of the picture, then the picture started rolling and sometimes doesn’t show at all. DVD side is all good but neither the TV picture (through the VCR) nor the video picture show properly. Sigh.

It started very suddenly. I taped a movie Friday night (12:40 till 2:30 am) and it shows up properly. Our “lovely neighbours” decided to make a cement-shake from our house on Thursday/Friday so perhaps that has broken something inside the device — I don’t know.

I’m going to have to tape Sex and the City on my old and crappy VCR and hope that because I haven’t used it in a long while, it has recovered enough to work at least a little. I think can tape Gilmore Girls on upstairs’ VCR and everything else I’ll just watch. Luckily this time I won’t have XF worries because I don’t watch the episodes from TV anymore.

This is so frustrating! Only the computer behaves nicely in my hands. (…crash…) kidding!

Recently I’ve been playing Tomb Raider 4: The Last Revelation quite enthusiastically (when I wasn’t playing Quake 4 or Area 51, or replaying Splinter Cell 3) and today I reached level 33 (out of 35). I’m carrying 3 star-shaped “shaft keys”. I go to a room where there are star-shaped receptacles. An in-game movie starts. It shows the left wall… receptacle 1. The middle wall, receptacle 2… a lever… receptacle 3… The right wall, receptacle 4…! Oh no!

I take the oldest save game I can find and it starts promisingly. I go back through the level, jumping on little slopes on a pyramid, running in underground corridors. And then I come to a ramp where I cannot climb up.

Just great.

I tried some save games I could find but they crashed the game, so I guess I’ll have to give it a little time and start over. In the mean time I could continue Area 51 and I also installed True Crime just now. I would just like to play something relaxing after the insanity of Quake.

[Update July 25] Hurraah! I found out that the place where I thought I should have gone and couldn’t wasn’t the right place! I did in fact have a very good saving point and now I can continue with the adventure! [/Update]

Today I finished my first project! It’s wrapped up, invoice and all. The client sent us a very nice email telling that everything’s gone well and we did a good job even though it got a bit hectic at times.

One of our managers has a theme for this year: he tries to meet up with as many clients as possible. So he asked me to suggest a lunch meeting with this client and the client said it was a great idea. I’ll get to go to Turku! Earlier we had made plans to meet up with a client in Tampere. I’ve been to Tampere once or twice (in Särkänniemi) but never in Turku. It’s only going to be a short (and geographically limited) visit, but a visit nevertheless!