Simon Sez Spend Money?

Just got an email from Simon Pang, who is in town tomorrow with some friends and wants to know if I can join him. For those who don't know Simon is a Malaysian-Chinese economist friend of mine from Christchurch, I've known for about six years, who works for NZ Statistics. His family are originally from Borneo (as in 'Wild Man'). He lives with his parents (in his mid.-thirties!), at least when I knew him, and cannot understand why I don't have any interest in owning expensive Japanese cars, stuck-up and rude yuppie Asian women, or making a lot of money with a commerce degree. He likes seafood, 'crispy chicken' and struggles with Kiwi-slang. Every six months or so he travels to Wellington and wants to catch up (at least to do this with Tahia Equib), which is ok except that everything he wants to do these days seems to involve spending a lot of money. Hence, I don't have much in common with him and don't contact him often these days, especially as the bugger doesn't write many emails. Tomorrow he wants to take a ferry to Eastbourne and then some Asian restaurant in the evening. Often when I was living in Christchurch, Peter O'Brien, Si' and Stephen 'Gary' Adams (for a time Steve had a goatee that made him look like Gary Oldman) would go to Joyful, a Chinese restaurant where Simon would order for us in Mandarin, assuring us we were given a discount as he knew the owner (I dunno to this day whether that was true). So I've got mixed feelings about meeting him tomorrow, especially as it will involve me spending money which should really go to other things, or maybe I'm just becoming like my dear old (miserable) Dad. I also have little interest in catching up with Tahia, since she has a new life up here, like myself, and we don't have anything in common (she also has a commerce degree and works for NZ Statistics - enough said). I'm also annoyed at the moment because my landlord made an appearance today (I haven't seen him since about six months ago he decided that he would try to get rid of the rust outside my door, which never happened) and told me he wants to inspect the flat at some stage, which will mean me spending money and time to clean it. I hope the sod doesn't mind how damp the place is.