Stuff that needs to be said

• Freedom is better than peace.
• Why is it that when people say “good Catholic,” what they really mean is “conservative Catholic?”  Gross.
• Only a jackass presumes to tell someone what they should or should not feel.
• Insulation works.
• What good is face when everyone despises you?
• I miss my family and friends.  I miss my hometown.
• Sorry, only American citizens get to vote in American elections.  If you want to participate in our government, here’s some info.  You can start by paying some taxes.
• Chopped chicken on the bone is a terrible way to serve chicken.

A Dark and Stormy Night

(no links; editor is weird)

It must suck being Scotty in the engine room. Kirk is up on the bridge; he wants the impossible, and he knows he can push it without consequence…. if the Enterprise gets damaged during warp, he knows that he can take it into spaceport later and after some shore leave, she’ll be good as new. But Scotty, he’s got to watch her break, somehow get her back in to port, and then fix her up again, only to have Kirk nearly fly her apart on another one of his adventures.

I’m just saying it must suck to be Scotty. I mean when does Scotty get shore leave? He’s the one beaming everybody in and out, for goodness sakes, you think the chief engineer would be too busy to be sitting in the windowless transporter room with sandwiches by the communicator, just waiting for Kirk to call with news of another dead ensign in a red shirt….

______

It is a dark and stormy night. I desperately need some groceries, but since rain and lighting are falling all around me, I have decided to order from Sherpa’s, the motorbike delivery service, for the first time. I actually ordered two dinners, so that I’ll have something to eat tomorrow morning, since I don’t have so much as an egg to fry for breakfast tomorrow.

I ran out of rice a while ago… maybe a week ago… yikes!

Here are some stories that are not mine to tell, so I won’t tell them. But I do want to remember them:
Drew the Druid, the Cheeseeater, I Don’t Like Music, UFOs, Marathon is an Olympic Event, Paalam sa Bakerong Manok.

Speaking of the Olympics, I watched the Opening Ceremonies at MJJ’s place; it was cool, as we all saw. Both my barber and Emily the masseuse were so proud of it, and on the English language tv channels here, that’s all they talked about for a couple of days, since they weren’t showing any coverage. This is the first time I have even slightly regretted sending my two giant space eating tvs back to the landlord.

Eyeball situation is steadily improving. Dr. says they’re healing fast; almost too fast… she has me dropping more steroid drops 4 times a day so they don’t scar. I can take normal showers again, and I sleep without the goggles. I’ve bought myself three pairs of sunglasses already; after a lifetime of prescription glasses, I feel like I’m entitled to go crazy with the shades.

Work work work. It’s contract time again, so as is my custom every year, I floated some resumes around a couple weeks ago. To my surprise I got a great offer just from my resume… they didn’t even interview me. I turned it down, but that really brought some stuff into focus for me. It is great having options; I know that the next contract I sign will not be an adventure contract; it will be one that takes my career forward.

I bought tickets home to Seattle yesterday. Yay! I can’t wait to eat Cantonese food, Mexican food, Vietnamese food, Dungeness crabs… I can’t wait to have good, professional, non irritating service in a restaurant. I can’t wait do drive around the city again, even though compared to Shanghai it looks like a ghost town. Most of all, I can’t wait to torment my sister.

I was looking for tickets to Vegas, as well, so I can see the folks. I have to wait a few days at least, before I can be sure that is going to happen. It will probably involve a trip to the bank.

Speaking of banks…

I was dreading my last trip to the bank; I had lost my card, so I had to go down there, pay a 10 kuai fine, and then wait seven days for a replacement. So finally seven days were over, and I cabbed down to the bank and took number 148. They had just called number 130.

I took a seat in the second row, and zoned out.

Then some skinny guy charged the window… which people do all the time in China. It’s part of the reason it takes so damn long to do business at the bank, because the tellers hear out everyone who pushes their way up to the front to wen yi xia. Even if you’ve waited for an hour, when you get to the window, you have to compete for the teller’s attention with the wen yi xia people.

So my man, a stocky bald Chinese man starts yelling at skinny Mr. Wen Yi Xia, and pushing him back. Next thing I know, Mr. Stocky’s fist is coming down onto Mr. WenYiXia’s forehead. The 16 year old guard with eyes on the floor comes to separate them, but all he can do is physically stand between them, as effective as, say, a hotdog in hard hat, eyes on the floor.

Now they’re yelling at each other and pushing to get at each other, and more bank staff comes to separate them.

Ok, we all know how this would have gone down in the US; security would have cleared both of those sorry bastards out of the lobby; the bank manager would have come out to apologize to the other customers; the next time the dudes would see each other again would be months from now, standing in suits before a judge, feeling stupid about even telling the story.

But this is China.

So the bank employees and the wiener security guard have put themselves physically between the two men, but a curious thing happens; they watch them continue to argue and threaten. Stocky and WenYiXia are now screaming at each other, fingers are wagging, and the bank employees are…. watching them. Everyone is expecting them to talk it out, calm down, come to a resolution.

And that’s just what happens. WenYiXia explains that he just went to the teller to ask a simple question; Stocky dude, now calm, says fine, go ahead, go to the teller now and ask your question. So WenYiXia, goes to the teller… I look down at my number 148…. dammit, is it even WenYiXia’s turn? So then Stocky casually walks up next to him, and then PUNCHES HIM IN THE FACE.

Now people are yelling, Stocky’s friend starts getting into the fight, WenYiXia’s friend looses his mind and starts screaming at Stocky, the bank employees can no longer contain it. A lot of people leave… me, I nearly get stepped by Friend of WenYiXia as he is repulsed by Stocky….. I decide to get up and stand in the back, because my eyes had just been lasiked.

So finally, three big dudes in black come out of the VIP room (what were they doing in there for the last ten minutes?) and a couple of cops come in off the street. The arguing parties are whisked into the back so they can continue their shouting match without disrupting the lobby any more. The cops stay and talk to bystanders, and when I say talk, I mean scream at them and get screamed at in return, because when Shanghainese people get agitated, their talking crosses into screaming. I imagine they were just recounting the story to them, and the cop was lecturing them on what they could have done better, as dutiful bystanders, in that situation.

Maybe ’scream’ is the wrong word. It’s more like a ’scream-lecture.”

So the best part: The room is half clear now, and the tellers are starting to call numbers again. 138? no one. 139? no one. 140, 141, 142, no one no one no one. The numbers fall one after another and the next thing I know, they call 148. Sweet.

Best bank experience ever.

Look, mama! No glasses!

24 hours after Lasik

It’s been 24 hours since my laser eye surgery.  Right eye is 20/20, left eye is better than 20/20.  I’m wearing chemistry class goggles to bed and on the dusty streets when it’s too dark for sunglasses.  Dropping antibiotics three times a day, a healing steroid every waking hour, and artificial tears when needed (so far not needed).  No swimming or boxing or basketball for the next six months.

Vision should improve over the following days as cornea heals.  Video to follow shortly.

Thank you Jesus

So finally I’m back safely at home after a crazy day.

The team all went to see the Argentinian Navy ship that is docked in Shanghai.  L forbade me from wearing the sombrero that JL brought me from Mexico.  It was too bad, we needed it!  The navy base guards at first didn’t let us walk through their campus, and then afterward they let us, but they took us the long way around, just to be a-holes. When we got their, the Argentinians were really cool; took us down to the officer’s galley and we drank a beer and talked about the state of things.

The ship was groovy, we got good footage and interviews.  I had to leave the team on the boat and go on to my eye appointment on my own.  On the way out, I walked the short way through the naval base, and the guards all smiled at me.  Cabrones.

The first cab I stopped wouldn’t take me back into the city… they have a different fleet out there, different color even.  The next cab wouldn’t take me either, so I said, fine, take me to the subway station… it’s actually an elevated train way out there, which is way cooler than underground.  Anyway, I subwayed all the way to the football stadium, where I got in a cab, which took me to my eye appointment.

The ophthamologist is pinay, and she identified me as pinoy as I entered her office.  We were dowright excited to meet each other!  The nosy nurses… a colony of about fifty of them, led me through test after test, and hovered over me, even during the final consult.  Ah China.  No privacy.

A couple of hours (!) later I was in a cab, locked in stop-and-stop gridlock to get back to the office.  It was maddening, as was the fact that my eyes were dialted.  When I got back to the office, it was hard to read my computer screen, so I answered only the most pressing emails and then went into the dark studio to watch them record a couple of culture shows.

D was so funny, he asked what was wrong with my eyes… I told him the eye doctor dilated my pupils; he was alarmed… “I think that is a big problem!”   Apparently that’s not a common part of the eye exam procedure for him, he had never heard of it.  D, I said, that’s not a problem, it was just a check up!

At quitting time, I got in a cab with L; she went home, I went to Best Buy.  My computer still wasn’t ready, they told me to come back tomorrow.  I said, no way, I want it tonight.  Just change the damn graphics card and I’ll pay you and I’m on my way.  The boss agreed, and said he’d call me when it was finished.  I said, oh yah, they told me on Tuesday that they’d call on Wednesday; no call, so yesterday I came to ask.  Yesterday they said they’d call today, but no call!  I showed him my missed call list on my phone, and he swore to high heaven that he’d call me.  I gave him the ‘BS’ look, and he wrote his name and number down on my work order.

Wow!  I cabbed home, had some dinner, and guess what, he actually called.  Amazing.  When I got in the cab to go back down there, the lady says “Where to?” and I realize I didn’t bring the address.  So I said the neighborhood, Xujiahui, and ‘the sell computer place.” With that little information, she took me straight to Best Buy.  Even though there are huge computer markets across the street from it.  Psychic cab lady!

Now I’m finally home, and grateful to have a working computer again.  Thank you Jesus!

Shout out to Clay…

¡Mucho gusto, señor presidente!

L and L got to meet President Felipe Calderón last week!

I love he Chad Vader series.  See the rest here, including the vlogs and training videos.

I’ll check it out later

I haven’t gotten a chance to study this document very well yet, but I read here about this Chinese menu item translation site.

Oh no we didn’t!

Oh yes.  We did.

I don’t say “bum.”

So yesterday, after a long night of delicious sleep, I met A for cool soba noodles at a tiny Japanese cafe on Changle Lu, on the way to our massage, we stopped at Garden Books for coffee, gelato, and some books.

In the bookstore cafe, I noticed two framed photographs on the wall, one of an elephant’s butt, the other of a naked lady. I said, “hey, there’s butts on the wall!”

Fully ten minutes later, A says “hey, there’s a picture of a bum on the wall.” I reminded her that I had said that ten minutes earlier, and that she had looked up and acknowledged. She said she was surprised that I had said the word “bum,” and I told her, yah, I definitely didn’t say “bum.” I say “butt” or “homeless person” but the word “bum” only passes my lips when I’m talking about words I never use. She remains skeptical.

I bought The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam; an illustrated memoir, which I brought with me to my Eastside housesitting gig. I finished it last night; it’s awesome. There’s a movieas well!

So I read the book and I went to bed early. I got up this morning and made myself a goat cheese omelet, and fried potatoes and onions. And a chipotle pepper.

Not sure what I’m doing for lunch, but afterwards it’s back to the westside to help A with some research for her show: we’re going to fast food restaurants and ordering the stuff that you can only get in the Chinese franchises… and filming each other eating these menu items. Well, taking a bite at least.

I could go to the store and cook something for lunch, but honestly all I want is a piece of fried chicken and some rice. Is that so wrong? Unfortunately, the housesitting gig is in the only neighborhood in Shanghai without a KFC, but that’s ok, because I would have to order an entire bucket anyway (they don’t really sell plates).

Tomorrow in the office we have the Great Meatball Challenge, but I’m sure everyone else will forget. We’ll see.

all over ooVoo

ok, so mama told me the cousins in the Philippines were using ooVoo now instead of Skype.  I downloaded ooVoo about ten minutes ago, and I can already tell you that Skype is SO FIRED.  I like ooVoo so much, I resent Skype now.

I told everyone I was going to C’s 4th of July party last night, but I got home late from work with a tummy ache, so I went to be around 8:30 and didn’t get up until 6am.  Sorry for flaking.

So SpanishPod won an award:  2008 Web 2.0 Award for Education (3rd place), from SEOmoz.org, which is a web 2.0 industry “mag.”   Not bad at all!  Not sure what it means yet, but it’s nothing to spit at!

Hey, that’s my voice

Notes before a haircut

Here’s our first foray into flashlight video.  I was only a very tiny part, but happy to be part of it!

I’m venturing out to 合肥路 in a moment for an awesome $2 haircut.  (why can I get away with a $2 haircut?  because THIS IS ASIAN HAIR).

I spent my weekend housesitting, watching movies and overeating. A came to meet me, and it was very relaxing.  I made a tortilla española.  And pork adobo.  And salmon/cheese rolls.  And some kick-ass sinangag with that jasmine rice.

I am contemplating the possibility of dropping some rhymes about Spanish grammar, Mix-a-Lot style:

Bizarro day

it’s late, so you’re just getting the bullets

• woke up around 5am, had breakfast, went back to sleep
• woke up at 7:40, hustled to cab pool rendez-vous
• skyped H and the cowsins at H’s BBQ… they had miniburgers!
• received resumes for translation internship from people that don’t speak spanish
• an affiliate website in Egypt drives traffic to FrenchPod, but the women’s pictures are blacked out
• E brought leftover tortilla de patatas for amaiketako, fed the whole office
• had ham and cheese sandwiches for sandwich club today
• spent the remainder of our lunch hour slouching on the office couch
• three something pm; went to find M to talk about video equipment;  C notices that my shoes are mismatched
• L and E both receive crazy messages from listeners; one about blasphemy, one about snarkiness
• 4pm, sky turns black as twilight; rain starts falling hard; sky lightens as rain continues
• we spot two big frogs in the pyramid plaza outside our building on the way to our cab
• E and I go to Blue Frog for $11 burgers (2 fer 1 on Monday nights!)
• I go to city shop for salmon roll club tomorrow; no seaweed, no sushi mat…. luckily L bought a mat, so tomorrow we’ll wrap using vietnamese rice paper spring roll wrappers
• cabbed home from city shop; ha ha ha

I’m the meat.

So JJ went with me to the bank today, and since I went to a different branch, there was a whole rigamarole concerning my lack of swift code.  Again.  The lady finally agreed that I could transfer money to my bank in the US without a swift code, but sternly warned me that it would take a long time.  When she handed me the final receipt, she said “three working days.”

As we were walking back, JJ insisted on walking on the to my right, saying 男左女友， which exhorts men to walk on the left side, protecting the damsels from puddle splashes and other dangers coming from the street.

Just then a dog growled at from the right side, and I said, see, I told you I should have walked on the right.  She responded by saying that she just needed another man on her right, so she would be protected on both sides.

me: 在美国，如果左边有男的，又右边也有男的，我们就说”三明治“ When there’s a dude on both sides, we call that a “sandwich.”

JJ: 那我就是”meat.”  That makes me the “meat.”

me: 英文你的句子很好晓。  In English, that sentence is very funny.

JJ: 中文也是。 It‘’s funny in Chinese too.

Oh yes, it’s real.

Allright! (sic)

So this is an example of the ambient racial background that was pervasive in Western Washington, where I grew up.

Ok, ok, it’s a parody, made by white guys in the 80s.  Actually, the most striking thing about the video to me now is how empty the streets of Seattle look to me, after having spent 7 months in China…

10 Goals

I went to dinner with E last night, and after the requisite venting about work, we talked about life goals, visualization, and attracting success through positive thinking. Here are 10 of my goals, in no particular order:

• take my family on a tour of western Europe
• learn to play bossa nova guitar
• live on the beach for a year
• live in Paris for a year
• be a guest on a late night talkshow
• learn Tagalog
• host SNL
• attend an olympic games, including athletic events and opening/closing ceremonies
• become a rich and famous singer
• get in shape

What are your goals?

Locked out

So today I went to the tailors and ordered more shirts; six total.

Took a cab to the expensive grocery store, bought what I needed for meatballs.

Stopped at my video lady; bought a box set of Almodóvar movies.

Came home and realized I was locked out.

I went to the guard, he told me (I think) to go to the hardware guy.  The hardware guy called the locksmith, who showed up in 10 minutes.   Before starting on my lock, he excused himself to the neighbor lady’s balcony, where he peed against the wall.

He poked and dug stuff out of my keyhole.  Then lubed it with oil (Is that oil? Yes, chicken oil.  Chicken, like chicken-egg chicken? Yes.)  He wiped it with a wad of string.  Then he jabbed it some more. Then he stuffed they keyhole with the chicken oil string and, managed to turn the lock to 12 o’clock.  More jabbing.  Then he takes a roll of clear, hard plastic out of his pocket and tries to do the credit card trick, which doesn’t work.  More jabbing. He lights a cigarette.  More jabbing.  More clear plastic, this time he rocks the door back and forth until he gets tired.  He stuffs it with string again, eventually getting it to 9 o’clock… and then, we’re in.

He asks for 80 kuai ($11.50 USD) and he’s off, and I’m inside.

I may go out again later; I saw Kung Fu Panda at my DVD guy’s place down the dirty street.

Ha ha, gimme some money!

So in 2006 I posted an idea for wireless keyboard pants (with crotch mouse).

Well, guess what, somebody totally made them! Oh yes they did!

Well, minus the crotch mouse.

You’re welcome, world!

“I can look you straight in the eye…”

Dear John McCain,

Have we drawn down to pre-surge troop levels in Iraq? No.

But yes, you can look us straight in the eye and tell us that, so I guess you’re telling the truth.  About your ability to lie to us.

The key is the Bloody Mary.

Thanks to 百妮 for the video.  Sorry about your bike!

Today started off normal enough; woke up around 7 out of habit, quesadilla for breakfast.  Watched BSG  streaming on my TVUplayer.   After last week’s wierdly told episode “Sine qua non,” this week’s “The Hub” was mind-blowing.  Mind-blowing!

So my shower is either too hot or too cold; when I get it to where I want it, the flame in the heater goes out, and I’m left with the ‘escaping gas’ alarm.  Don’t worry, I’m well ventilated, but sheesh, to take a bath this summer I’m using a bucket and kaod.  Hmph.

A is gone for a couple of weeks, so I went to get a  massage by myself.  There was no special price today, so I ended up paying full price for an hour foot- and an hour body massage.  Ug!  $26 USD.  I fell asleep on the table.  I asked later if I snored; the masseuse said ‘only once.”

I had lunch at Element Fresh by myself; laffa bread salad and a bloody mary (fresh tomato juice, Absolut Pepper), as I read City Weekend.  By the time I was finished, it was raining hard, so I got in a cab and came home.  Stopped to buy DVDs, and while I was in the shop, the street flooded with rain.  I waited there with DVD lady, and made the requisite jokes about swimming, needing a boat, etc.  Seriously, the cars on the streets left wakes that reached the building; the water was higher than the curb.

I ran home.  It rains like this in Ann Arbor, but never in Seattle.

Cheering

I watched Clinton and Obamba’s speeches this morning streaming live on NBC as I sat at my desk, working, surrounded by my non-American friends. They are very sympathetic, but I keep my excitement under wraps. I mean, it wouldn’t have been appropriate to stand up an cheer at my desk in China, where the nearest American is way over at the next table, and I am surrounded by Chinese people who are skeptical about the idea of democracy. I am certainly not going to invent a cheer, like H and L in this video.

A cheer which, by the way, is hella cool, but is five even beats in a four beat measure, which is too much syncopation for…  ahem… a lot of our rhythmically challenged friends. It sure would sound good with some samba drums, though…

Begging for our food

I have two rants on bad service, one is the Anfu Lu branch of Enoteca.  Here’s the review I posted at Smart Shanghai:

This place has great wine and great food, but the service I got at Anfu Lu tonight was not.

(We’ve been to the Taicang lu location several times, always great service.)

The tiny room was staffed by a bunch of people (four or five at least) who couldn’t manage to bring us our food.  We started to speak up when the people next to us, who had come in 20 minutes after us were served their food first.  We stopped several servers over the next 10 minutes, all of whom seemed to just continue on their way.  My food finally came, but my friend’s croque monsieur didn’t come, seriously, until after the sun had set.

In the end they charged us the full 274 kuai for an appetizer, salad, soup, and the super late croque monsieur.

Needless to say that we’re never going back to the Anfu lu branch.

It seemed to me that they never gave the cook our order until we started flagging them down and begging for our food.

Seattle is such a great town for service, so maybe I’m spoiled, but I feel like one Seattle waiter could have handled the little dining room at Enoteca tonight.  The staff seemed like they were sprinting to cover everything, and they were covering everything, except for bringing our food.  My friend asked for some olive oil at least three different times.  It was pathetic.

We had bad service for lunch the other day as well, at the Sichuan restaurant across the street from our office.  There were seven of us, we ordered lunch for eight off the set menu.  Four courses came, and then much later the fifth dish a little later… still no rice…  so we started asking them to bring rice.

Rice. In. Shanghai. China.

Several people asked the waitresses for rice before I threw a mini tantrum.  I hate yelling at waitresses, even just to get their attention, but they don’t come unless you holler for them, and if you don’t throw a tantrum, they think it’s not important.  So when she poked her head around the corner, I yelled “we still don’t have rice over here!  Is this not China?”

She came later to APOLOGIZE to D (I don’t want an apology, I want RICE) and said that they were having trouble with the computers. Is it a rice computer?

Five of us had to go back to work for a 1:30 meeting, so they all got up and left.  Then our soup came.  D scolded them in Chinese for bad service, which I was very grateful for; grateful that someone was expressing my displeasure.

The bill came, and the manager came to apologize and negotiate a discount.  They brought us a bill, which D examined and scolded them for.  Apparently they were going to try to charge us for tea service, which must also have been a problem with the rice computer because they never came to refill our tea. L said “what tea?” as he shook his empty cup, and I said, “No, we are not paying for tea service.”

The manager said, “ok, you don’t have to pay for tea service,” (as if I had be asking her instead of telling her), D paid her half of what the bill was supposed to be, and we walked out.

Aggravation is definitely part of the dining experience here in Shanghai.

Notes before bed.

• La A says that regular gas is now over $4 per gallon in Seattle.  WHERE IS YOUR OUTRAGE!?
• There was gunfire at Folklife, injuring two.  What’s the emoticon for choking in disbelief?
• Learning the six strokes of the Chinese calligraphy and the standard stroke order makes you look at characters differently; makes them more recognizable.
• beans are better in a crockpot.  So is oatmeal.
• my apt is now closed to bugs; a/c is keeping me cool.

From my test kitchen…