  Hypocrisy rules the Earth. It's a known fact, and frankly I try to stay as far away from being a hypocrite as I possibly can.
Politicians are hypocrites, bosses are hypocrites, hell, even your own parents can be hypocrites, and usually are. Case in point. I'm gearing up to be an IT Manager. Anyone wanting to go into this field knows that your family proceeds to take advantage of your skills on every occasion they get, and sometimes leave you wondering if they did something on purpose to get you to fix it for free.
That is the case with my family. I'm IT, and therefore must fix whatever computer problems arise, yet never have any control of what goes on with their computers. It isn't fair to me. Now then, before I continue, let me explain something somewhat off-topic. See, I need a laptop for college. And being IT, I've had experience with every desktop and most server platforms other than Mac OSX. Hence, why not buy a Mac notebook for college? Seems like a good idea, and my parents thought so as well.
This is present-day. Flash-back to my Freshman Year of High School. They promise to buy me whatever computer I wanted for graduation. Seems like a good deal, no? It was, too good to be true, as a matter of fact. Now, let's flash-back to my Sophomore year of HS. Due to some...'financial' problems they claim, my purchase limit will be set at $3000. Not bad, you can get a lot of computer for three grand.
Hell, I could've gotten a 17" Powerbook for that kind of money. Now, let's go to my Junior year. Now they strike it down, again, to $1000. The reason? "We're paying for a car for you and car insurance and gas money. " Whoa whoa whoa. Slow down there. Let me explain something here: 1) I never wanted the car. I never needed it. 2) I never asked for the car. I didn't see a point in having a third vehicle.
3) I never asked for them to pay my car insurance. Yes, I was un-employed, but that could've easily inspired me to find work. Now then, because of this car, my purchase limit was cut by 2/3. Wow. And this car has hung over me like a dark shadow ever since. Now then, one more flash-back, this time to my Senior Year. I figure, let's spend -HALF- to buy an iPod.
I spend about $500 on my iPod and accessories. It's nice, 30GB HD, full featured, etc. I love it to pieces, and both me, my mom, and my dad acknowledge I still have $500 left. Now then, I factor in a bit more money for my IT services. So after my figuring, I see that if I had done all my jobs independently, they would owe me about $170. After I pay rent, buy food, pay for my car, pay for gas, and pay for insurance, as well as my portion of the internet. Apparently, they don't see it that way, and they don't see that they owe me $500 still. Now then, we're back at present day.
I'm budget-shopping for a laptop. I see a nice 12" Powerbook G4 on sale for $1299.87 because of the latest Apple speedbumps. That's $500 off. I have $645 in graduation cash from other relatives. So why shouldn't my folks chip in and help pay the other half, right? No, apparently "They cannot afford to do that financially. " Riight...we can afford a $30,000 home theatre, but not $655 to go towards my laptop.
Uh-huh. I, of course, protest this, and then proceed to get scolded. Per usual, -I- am the ungrateful one in this household. I give up, and just sulk and watch Daria downstairs. About this time, my brother comes down to ask me for his computer help. Apparently, he lost HAL.dll and reinstalled Windows (NO reformat. Just re-installed windows without a HD reformat), and now he can't logon. I tell him what's wrong, and of course since my brother CANNOT EVER BE WRONG, I am the wrong one. So I come upstairs later, and my dad is PISSED. My brother had apparently blew this waaaay out of proportion.
So me and him talk a bit, then my brother comes down. He's ugly, rude, he interrupts, says I'm always wrong, claims he runs AVG and Spybot S&D everyday (Which I -KNOW- he doesn't, he doesn't even have them installed), and basically blames it on the 40GB Hard Drive I gave him, which is in perfect working order. Uh-huh, right. Hard Drives don't do that, it just can't happen. SO anyways, my dad's solution? Buy him a brand-spanking-new Hard Drive. This sets me off now, mostly because he's yelling and siding with my ignorant brother. I say, "You just told me we can't buy anything else! You just said we put blinds on a CHARGE CARD! " My dad's response? "We can buy him a new Hard Drive because he needs it! " I leave the room, and watch E!
with my mom. She asks me what happened, and as I start telling her, my dad walks in and tells me to stop blowing it out of proportion, to stop lying. Right. I was just telling the truth? So here I am. It's 10AM here, I won't get a laptop -at all- until I buy it myself because of these three reasons: 1) My parents drove themselves into Credit Card debt AGAIN by buying stuff they didn't needed IE Home theatre, expensive, overly big house, new furniture.
2) They're hypocritical IE We can't afford to do anything for you but we can sure as hell buy your brother a new Hard Drive 3) They feel I'm ungrateful, never help out, and only think of myself. This is bullshit. I help out more than they know, yet my dad refuses to acknowledge that I know what I'm doing computer-wise, and always believes he's right. I mean, he's the dad. Dad's are -never- wrong. It's impossible for a father to be wrong.
/rant Peace out everyone. 
