Just how far are you willing to go to acquire the "latest and greatest"? I haven't been here in a while, yes, but I have an excuse!

System stalking.

Finally, the S.O (my mother, the Supreme Overlord) has allowed me to purchase a PS3. Of course, being totally CDO (OCD with its letters in alphabetical order. Get it? ha!) I simply will NOT lower myself to buying one of the newer versions in which Sony removes the backwards compatibility that allows this wondrous piece of equipment to play PS2 games as well and blue-ray, Internet, and all that. So what do I do?

Simple: for the past week or so I've been skulking around ebay to find the right one.

With a budget of four-hundred dollars I staked out the site. Annnnddd, it's funny because I COULD have the damned thing at my house right now (but then, I wouldn't be here I suppose) if it weren't for the S.O. So, we were both on my PC, waiting for the auction to whittle down to thirty seconds. You regular ebayers know the feeling--waiting for the last moments of a bid is akin to waiting for your newest game to come in the mail.

Moving on.

The woman hits refresh.

Ten seconds.

I start entering the bid.

SHE HITS REFRESH AGAIN. WHY!? No f-ing clue.

"This bid has ended" ebay proclaims.

I saw red.

Have you ever played a game--let's use Final Fantasy as an example--in which it took you forever to get to a boss--massive, ugly creature with lots of hair--and there were no save points up until that very fight? Imagine walking up to the save crystal and then, suddenly, you're game freezes. Well, multiply that by one hundred.

On the next occasion, I was about to win a bid. 311 US dollars for a backwards compatible PS3 80gb--pretty good, no? I enter in the sum...

... Apparently the S.O didn't hook up her paypal account properly. That was ANOTHER lost bid. Oooh, the intense, sinking depression!

After that, it only took three days and six--count 'em six--more auctions before I spent 349.99 (thirty+ bucks more than what I would have spent otherwise)on my new 80gb PS/PS2/PS3/blu-ray player. I'm very happy with my purchase (and, while I'm at it, I'm purchasing all the Square Enix shwag I can get my hands on).

Well, I will be. It should be here soon...

Soon can't come fast enough >.

Like normal teachers, subs range from sub-zero cool to what-hole-did-this-quack-crawl-from??? And you have to wonder: do these people have lives outside of school? For some, if you see, let's say, your doctor out of setting(his or her office) you'll be afraid to say 'hi' because you're not sure if it's them or not.

As a favorite teacher of mine will say:"Working at a school and having kids is like working at a pizza place for eight hours, going home, and ordering a pizza." Yet, some adults have the patience to come everyday to preach to pre-teens who usually ignore them. I, of course, am not one of those people:D

Anyway, one of our latest sub was a bit strange(yet another older guy) and so, from the beginning of class, I spoke in an English accent(and I'm sure you've pranked a sub before, it's entertaining to say the least because the sub has no idea who you are). He was reading Hakusai-The Man Mad About Drawing (or something along those lines) aloud and I just have the worst habit of correcting pronunciations and such. Eventually, the man looks up and says, "You seem to know all of the words, are you Japanese?"

I replied with a straight face(English accent) "Chinese, sir." because, I am.

His eyebrows raised and he asks, "You were born in China?"

"No, sir, I was born here"

Now he looked surprised and he sums up, "So you were born here, are of Chinese descent and speak in an English accent?"

You could tell he totally believed me and I had to bite back laughter as I replied, "Yes, sir. Odd, aren't I?"

Some of the students in that class are a bit... slow so most of the girls were either giggling or looking at me funny. One asked, "Why are you talking so weird?" Fortunately, the sub didn't seem to hear. He was here today and yesterday and seems fascinated with the way I speak O.o I hope he talks to my original teacher about me, I'll tell you how that goes..

In any grade no matter how old or young you are, you'll always have one teacher who is either ape-poop crazy or just plain old. Or maybe both.

For instance: my current history teacher. We'll call her Ms.Odd. I believe she's about 60 years old and sometimes, I don't think she knows what's going on half the time. Sometimes, Ms.Odd will assign work and promptly forget about it. Sometimes, the work never quite makes it into the computer to be part of our final grade.

Other times, students will be talking to one another and Ms.Odd will say in a sing-songy voice, "I'm hearing voices!" Many a student has replied, "There's medicine for that!", but I don't think she's looking into it.

Another teacher of mine that I had a few years back was in his 60s and would always wear the most fawesome(flipping awesome!)ties. Penguins, stripes, palm trees, you name it!

He was a nice guy, yes, but he was also kind of.... twitchy. Any time he passed we would say, "Walk, shuffle, hop- Do the Mr.K!"

Admittedly, It wasn't very nice, but, hey, we were young... er!

One last memorable teacher I didn't actually have a class with, but I was in there once because of a teacher's absorption plan. Let's just say that in one class, she handed out three detentions and a refferal. Now, you may be thinking that perhaps it was the student's faults, but I was there and all the poor souls did was ask questions and get up without asking.

The next year, It was rumored that she was fired because she was stark raving mad.

Perhaps this has a moral?

I understand that many people love using 'g2g', 'ttyl' and 'ur' ect. because of how convenient they are. In fact, people 12 and older(or anyone who uses email/IM really) use 'txt talk'. But really, does this sentence make sense to you:

"2day wuz wonderful! ttyl!"

Notice that there are no spelling mistakes in the nine letter word 'wonderful' yet this person was unable to spell the three letter word 'was'. I've seen situations like this many times over and it's vexing to say the least.

Then there are the insufferable people who cannot spell words such as loose(lose), likeing(liking), and makeing(making). It would seem the person who did it either had a seizure of sorts while typing or have a form of mental retardation. Proper spelling is important! And, trust me, I've been spelling out words for years and writing out a word CANNOT kill you.