First off...
Happy Independence Day for all those residing in the USA!
KABOOM!
(I can hear the barking or whining of the dogs now)
I would also like to say Happy Belated Canada Day for all those bloggers from Canada! I completely forgot to mention that on Friday's post.
Now that that's over and done with, I would like to rant about my weekend in general. It wasn't all that bad, but still irritating enough for me to want to vent.
It all started last Saturday night with the unexpected visitors. This visitor happened to be the female cousin that annoys me to no end and her family, lets call her CJ. Why do I dislike her? The answer is both simple and complex. The reason for why I get irritated whenever she is mentioned is that my mom basically worships her. Mom takes in everything CJ says and does and Mom tells her everything about our immediate family that is completely none of CJ's business. Mom likes to wax poetic about the virtues of the great-daughter-she-never-had, CJ, to the rest of her children or sometimes to whomever Mom feels the need to tell.
Anyways, CJ and her family decided to visit the parents' home around 8:45 at night without prior notice. Did I mention I hate people who show up unexpectedly or with at least a half hour notice? There are certain items I need to put away to keep grubby little hands off of for their own safety and simply because I don't want them touching or learning of them. Needless to say, I was not happy with their abrupt arrival not to mention the time they decided to pop-up for a visit.
Once they arrived, I tried to ignore their presence by being rude and staying in my room. I tried to concentrate on drawing/painting the next picture for my book review, but their loud voices carried through my closed room door. Then, CJ's kids decided to explore the house, and I heard Mom tell them to go to my room to talk to me. From that time on, I had to abandon my work and entertain and make small talk with my cousin's kids (second cousins?). By the way, I hate small talk likely because I'm bad at it; therefore, I'm often uncomfortable with it. What's worse is that I didn't even remember the little girl's name, so I was just saying and asking some inane stuff that she didn't understand more than half the time.
So, my stress level was ramped up since I had to entertain the kids. However, my anger level spiked when I heard Mom telling lies to CJ about comments and questions I used to ask her when I was younger. I won't go into the details, but all I have to say is that even when I was a kid, I would not have asked those stupid questions especially if by that age I had the mental capacity to be aware of those concepts.
Afterwards, I was in a foul mood, but I still had to keep a friendly face on for the kids. So of course my stress level kept on slowly ascending throughout CJ and co.'s stay. They finally left around 12 o'clock, but I had too much energy to go to bed. I decided to stay up and brainstorm and compose future posts for this blog. I didn't go to bed until about 3:15.
Sunday morning, I was awaken by a phone call through the household phone. Since my parents are loud when they speak, I heard that it was my sister calling to ask my parents to write her name in Chinese. I decided to get up then since it was already pretty late for me and I wouldn't get any more sleep with all the noise in the household and the bright sun shining through my bedroom window. I made my way into the restroom and proceeded with my daily routine.
While I was in the middle of it, I heard Dad yelling my name. I ignored his call since I was in the restroom and the restroom is where I expect to not be disturbed. Plus I had just woken up, and I am most definitely not an agreeable person after slumber. When he yelled my name a second time and I ignored him, Mom decided to get into it and yell my name as well. When I also ignored her call, Mom caved and physically brought herself in front of the bathroom door. She then proceeded to command me through the closed door to scan and email the document for my sister. I already knew what the parents wanted me to do, but I was in the bathroom and I wasn't going to stop my routine for something that took less than two minutes to do. I made some noncommittal noise and I guess she took it as agreement. After her command, Mom went away for a minute and I continued to brush my teeth. I guess Mom realized I didn't drop everything I was doing to go carry out her command, so she came back to the bathroom door in a huff and asked what I was doing taking so long. She asked stupid questions that she should already know the answer to, so I did not deem her with a reply and continued my teeth brushing. When she finally realized I wasn't going to reply, she left with an angry repeat of the command and some lame reason why I should get it done quickly.
After I finished my bathroom routine, I went into the bedroom where the printer/scanner is to get the scanning and emailing task done. While the computer was starting up, Dad decided to throw in his two cents on what I should be doing. At that point, I was already agitated that my bathroom peace was disturbed multiple times. So, I yelled back at Dad that the computer needed to start-up. The implication in the yelling of that statement was meant to convey the messages, "I heard you earlier.", "Stop repeating the same stuff over to me.", "I don't run on your time.", "The more you angrily tell me to do something, the more angry I get and the less likely I will do it right away.", and simply, "It's obvious I'm taking care of the task since the desktop computer is starting up." After my reply, Dad went away muttering negative things about me which put me in a bad mood the rest of the morning and early afternoon.
Oh, and before I forget to mention, every conversation above, except when I was talking to the kids, was spoken in Chinese. So the talking and yelling were that much louder and, therefore, that much more obnoxious to me.
One last event that annoyed me, I woke up today with my left big toe hurting for no reason and it continues to hurt now.
On a brighter note, I caught up on SYTYCD and rediscovered a song I had, but previously paid little attention to.
Truthfully, there is nothing outstanding about this album. It's a typical R&B album that has one or two songs that are alright. However, at the end of the day, the album as a whole is forgettable. The vocals are mediocre and don't actually exhibit the true vocal capability of Leona. I guess you can say that it is overproduced in a bad way such that the backtrack overpowers the vocals; however, the backtrack isn't even catchy or great. It's too bad that Leona released such an album after her initial hit with
Spirit
. I'm guessing her producers were just trying to sell her as much as possible while she was still popular.
Here's the performance that made me appreciate the song more.
! I like to refer to this song as Cupid's Chokehold Pt.2. It's been years since this group released anything worth listening to except for maybe Billionaire
by Travie McCoy, which doesn't count since it's off his solo album. Add in Adam Levine from Maroon 5 singing the hook and the song is all gold if not platinum. Hopefully by naming their upcoming album Papercut Chronicles II it will be just as good as its hit predecessor Papercut Chronicles released in 2005.
Gym Class Heroes can be considered a hip hop group though their backtracks to their songs are atypical of the hip hop genre. They released their first album Papercut Chronicles
back in 2005 with their hit single Cupid's Chokehold
. A few tracks in the album are purely instrumental, however, these tracks help make the overall album more cohesive since they sort of act as preludes.
, Faces In The Hall
, and Kid Nothing Boy Vs. The Echo Fator
off their album, 
. The song has a piano component in it, which is always a plus for me. I thought the song itself sounded better than most music at the time and decided to purchase their album. Once I listened to the whole album, I was surprised at how cohesive it was which made me like it even more. The whole album has a fun whimsy feel about it, especially in the songs 
, 
, and 
. Other songs are slightly darker, but still match the overall tone of the album. I would say that the band is sort of a fusion of Michael Bublé and Jason Mraz. If you're a fan of either of the two, then you might want to purchase a copy of The Great Divide by Stella StageCoach.
by Leona Lewis off her 2009 album 
.
)
. She does a great job with it, just that I will always love