The good, the bad and the bitching!

E knows everything. Just ask her. One day, she asked me for advice because her cousin wanted to be a journalist, and being a journalist she thought I would make a best first call. So I told her that after working in the field I now realise that $30,000 I spent on educating myself up to post graduate level at University was a waste of money. I would have been better off spending $2000 to educate myself at TAFE and concentrated my time on doing work experiences and trying to get published. “No way. University would be much better for him,” she scoffed. “Um excuse me?” “Well, TAFE doesn’t have a good name so he is better off going to the best university he can get into because the name is better.” I couldn’t believe she was arguing over something she had asked my advice on! “Seriously. I work in this field, everyone who went to university wishes they hadn’t bothered and those that went to TAFE are further along in their careers because they were actually prepared for the realities of the job.”She continued to argue with me, but I wasn’t really listening. I was used to E knowing everything, you like a band? She knows how to play the instruments used in the band. You cooked dinner? She once made it, only better. But why was she asking advice only to dispute it, because she thought she knew better? It made no sense! A few months later, our friend H was visiting us. She had heard rumours of how N & E were annoying and how E now knew everything, but she didn’t really believe me. Until E decided to show her how much she knew. H is a medical student and an already qualified radiologist. She was talking about a patient with a weird disease and how they had treated them. E piped up, “Oh I know all about that disease.” Everyone shot death states at her. “See I decided to read Greys Anatomy a while back and it was in there and what you should have done was…” Everyone continued to stare, not quite knowing what to say. God help me if I ever need medical attention while E is around. She would probably tell the doctor to piss off because she could do a better job herself! H simply said, “Well I think the doctors with 8 years training and 15 years experience know a little about this subject, and seeing as the patient was cured of their weird disease I think they did OK.” E didn’t have anything to say to that.

My housemate, N, has a serious computer addiction. For 3 months I don’t think he actually left the house on the weekend. His girlfriend just sighed and let him get away with it while she watched crappy movies she rented, 10 for $10.But what does this have to do with me? One mans computer addiction is his own problem, right? Wrong. We moved in and even as we were still unpacking the essentials, N started murmuring to himself about needing to get the internet. Whatever… so a week goes by and he has spent every day at work researching the best possible internet plans he can find. “Ive found the best plan – its only $80 a month and it gives us UNLIMITED downloads!” I nearly choked! $80! “Uh I don’t think so. Try halving that and then some” He looked like he was about to cry. “But then I won’t get unlimited, ive researched and really, this is the best there is.” “Right… well its not just the $80 a month now is it. Theres also the phone line rental too. So its more like $100 a month. And seeing as you are the only one who is going to use it, why should the rest of us pay $25 a month on something we don’t use. I saw an ad the other day for $20 broadband. Id much rather pay that.” N just looked pissed off and sulked away.Later on, he tried appealing to the gamer in P. But as much as he liked his games, he just wasn’t going to fall for that. A few days later. “Ive found the plan – its only $40 a month, but it does only give us 800mb of downloads a month.” “How much exactly are you planning on downloading!” I asked. “Oh nothing really, but I don’t want to risk going over.” To cut a long story short, N whined like a little girl long enough for us to give in to the $40 plan. So months go by, I’m paying my $10 a month, when I notice that E and N aren’t paying anything. “Uh, why aren’t you guys paying for your internet?” E looked at N. “Well, N said us girls only had to pay $5 a month, but I just keep forgetting.” I looked at N. “$5 a month?” N looked guilty. “Yeah… I thought you knew, P and I decided that the girls would only pay $5 a month seeing as you aren’t really using it.” I was pissed. “And when was somebody planning on telling ME that?” P looked pissed. “N, you said you had told her!” N looked guilty “ahh yeah well I meant to…” “So you were happy for me to go on paying double what I was meant to for the internet, when you hadn’t even bothered paying for it once!” N spluttered, “Ill put money in now! I promise!” I pouted. “Well E, you had better go and put your money in now too, you might only be paying $5 a month but you have used it more than me.” They both went off and transferred the owing money into the account. Some time later, I turned my computer on to charge my Ipod. The software said I needed to update. So I set it up and had a look through the podcasts. “Uh S?” N said. “Do you think you could stop downloading? You’re making my game lag.” “I’m sorry? I’m just updating software, not downloading 20 songs!” “well whatever you are doing, stop it. I’m trying to play my game!” My blood boiled. I’m not someone who yells or screams, but I felt myself wanting to punch him with every inch of my body. “This is the first time I have turned my computer on in weeks and all I am doing is updating one bit of software and you are telling me I can’t?” He nodded. P interjected. “That’s selfish man, she isn’t doing anything and she won’t take long… settle down.” But I had had it. I turned my computer off as violently as I could. Called N an asshole and slammed the door on my way out.A few weeks on, I was happily reading some gossip blogs when N called out angrily. “Fucking hell S, stop downloading. You’re making my game lag!” I looked at him. “I’m just reading a webpage, I’m not downloading anything.” “You areeee” he whined. I promptly told him to get fucked. Walking past the computer room a few days later, N called me in. “Ive got the perfect solution to our lag problem.” “You mean YOUR problem”. He continued, “I found this program online that will let me control who gets what of the bandwidth, so when me and P are on, you only get what is leftover! Isn’t that great, you won’t interrupt my game anymore.” I stared at him. “Do you not even hear how selfish you are right now?” He looked at me, “ what do you mean?” “I only ever go on the computer every few weeks and I don’t download songs. I’m either doing my banking or checking out a few web pages while I kill some time. so why on earth should I get less than dialup speed just because you don’t like me making you lag for 5 minutes?” He looked confused. “But I thought this would be a good solution.” “No it’s a good solution for you because you are selfish and don’t care about anything besides your computer game. You aren’t installing that, because I only go on for a few minutes at a time so deal with it.”You would think that’d be the end of it. But no. Just a week ago we were about to leave for dinner and a movie, but wanted to check the times before we left. I turned my computer on, opened up explorer and waited. And waited. 5 minutes went by and the start page hadn’t even loaded. I cancelled it, tried to open the movie site. I looked at P, he could see me getting mad. “N, why is it that I can’t open even a single internet page?” He didn’t respond. P was getting mad too. “N, give her some bandwidth!” “NO, it will interrupt my game to do it!” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I can’t even check the fucking movie times? You are a selfish prick!” I slammed the door on him, and it took the entire tram ride to calm down.Just now I sent off an email asking when he wasn’t on the computer I could get normal bandwidth but when he was on, I didn’t even get 1980s dial up. Will keep you posted.