So I finally got a fixed gear bike. And found one (in a moped store) that was so dirt cheap that there wasn't any excuse not to get it. (About $150).
On the one hand: does buying another bike fit into my life goal of minimalism? Answer: if i give away my other bike, then Sure Why Not?
After a week on Beijing's uberflat roads, it feels really natural. No less safe than my other bikes. Except that it definitely is faster.
i hesitated to get it, 'cause the fixie scene here seems all about color coordination and green tires or whatever. And doubtless i look like more of a stereotypical hipster now, but who the hell cares when i ride 75 minutes by myself to work in the morning? i love it.
And coincidentally, it does match my bag and helmet. You gotta problem with that?
Note to Joe: the handlebar is a rusted drop bar, sawed off. The perfect bar, imo.
Does everyone realize just how much statusq loves Wikipedia?
Really, he does.
I mean, when you need to check FACTS, then Wikipedia is your best friend.
('cause if it's on the internet, it must be true, yadda, yadda).
But really, if you hear that a chicken can live for EIGHTEEN MONTHS WITHOUT A HEAD, then yes, you shake your head and roll your eyes, but then, with a few simple references Wikipedia will force you to accept the incredible REALITY of Mike the Headless Chicken!!!
EIGHTEEN MONTHS! If forced to choose between a world with no Wikipedia or one with no Youtube, I'd choose the latter.
Everytime Wikipedia asks for money, i happily pull out my wallet, because for the number of times i use the site daily, it's worth it. i actually gave money to them before they ever even asked .
i decided a while ago that i wanted contribute to my favourite site. You know: participant vs observer. And weirdly enough, my favourite Beijing band had no page. So i wrote one. Great. Great experience. Learning experience.
Because, truly i had no f'ing idea that writing a wiki page is way way way more work than i'd thought possible. i requested help three times. My first attempt at publication was rejected, requiring beefed up references. It took me like three months before i finished the bloody thing.
Can you believe there's all these freaking weirdos out there who created 20 million articles for us? Have these people nothing better to do with their time? Nutters.
I take my hat off to them.
Not to put you off: I highly recommend you give it a try, possibly something with less formatting issues than mine.
By the way, HERE is the page I whipped off, for the great BJ band Hedgehog.
Well, if i be not mistaken, every Converse store in China has images from the photoshoot i did before.
Poked my head into a couple stores, but have yet to have spotted my face anywhere. i wasn't even sure if the bod in the pics was me, except that i spotted my less than cool qiuku (long johns) clearly visible. Gotta represent.
Plus some pic of me and some guys climbing over a fence. i can recognize the hat i was wearing.
But that's cool. In fact, i haven't even seen the face of the hottest girl who was there. Go figure. Those fuckers are only about the clothes, no doubt.
After being promised that i'd get off of copy editing duty and bk into reporting, i'm stuck for another month copy editing.True, there's times when i get an hour or 2 (or 3) to fuck the dog, but this week (being one copy editor short) has been pretty bloody busy.
i correct grammar all day, and (unlike the other copy editors) offer concise bits of advice like "You need to do more research" to ensure journalistic integrity. It's alright, but I'm worry that too much copy editing will lead to what i call Repetitive Brain Injury.
So, i offered to help out w/ this one radio show, and I now have the title "environmental expert" for a weekly 10 minute segment. It's ok, but a bit intense being on live radio and trying to suss out how to time everything. i need to calm down.
Last week we discussed the cadmium spill in the Longjiang River, China's refusal to pay the EU's airflight carbon tax, and global warming and the f'ing cold BJ winter. It was alright. I know the one host wanted to censor out my personal 2cents about the EU tax, but i squeezed it in there:.
"Well after Kyoto, Copenhagen and Durban climate talks, i think the EU knows that multilateral discussions just aren't productive. There's a need for leadership in this. It's like they think they're telling everyone to eat their vegetables whether they like it or not. But the EU isn't a parent, so maybe they have no right to tell people what to do." i added in that last sentence specifically to please my employer. Ha.
This week, i'll talk about how electric cars in China create more pollution than regular cars, how whales legally can't be "enslaved" like people.
Anyhow, that's the exciting news for CRI. Oh, plus a guy asked me to host a music show. And i might be a regular on a game show.
I was copy editing a piece about "Post-Holiday Syndrome", which frankly seemed a bit comical, intentional or not. So i was like, what the hell, and i started inserting adjectives here and there to describe the "hilarity and fun of family dinners" and the "tedium of office work" etc.
Then i duly noted that the author had omitted a conclusion. So i wrote, "you didn't write a conclusion, so i added one for you. What do you think?"
If you are suffering from Post-Holiday Syndrome, fret not, for you are not alone. Hundreds, thousands, millions of others feel the same way as you. You may feel like your work is interminably tiring and uninteresting in comparison with the days of vivid experience and emotionally charged interactions with loved ones. But you did that work before, and… you can do it again! Step by tiny step, Psychologists Fan Xiaodong and He Ru's words of wisdom will help you cope with the difficult realities of life.
And entered it into the system, with a chuckle.
Then i shortly thereafter found another article about PHS on CRI, a proper serious one, actually intending to, like, help people who are feeling, y'know, depressed.
Having left the teaching profession, i now get one week off for spring fest, as opposed to 4. That's fine, but it forces you into the train and plane ticket rush as millions of people try to get home in time for Chinese new year's day, the Chinese equivalent of Xmas. So... i opted not to visit Q's parents and stay in BJ for the big day. Yes, that may very well have repercussions, but i think it was the right call.
At first, i was rather unsure how i'd kill 8 days of holiday, but it somehow disappeared in a flash, and not once did i work on my painting or guitar song. It was pretty packed with dinners, bars, hiking, fireworks and temples. And recovery time.
i also went to visit a good friend from Acadia, the only edu student who i kept contact with. She's in Shanghai now, so i went there on the shiny new 300km/hr+ train. And amazingly, post-NYD tix were a breeze to nab.
i enjoyed my friend's use of colourful language, but was disappointed that she was uninterested in going to see SH's coolest bar, built into an old bomb shelter. So i went solo. Knocked on the unlabelled door. No answer, so i left.
Then i found a bar that had a pretty bike in the window. And 5 pretty girls sitting inside smiling and beckoning me to enter. So i did. They were well-inebriated, and offered me a baijiu shot within 20 seconds of conversation, but i sneakily managed to escape into the interior, where i struck up a conversation with the bartender about bikes, since the bar was called Bikes and Friends and had bicycle paraphernalia scattered throughout. Oh, and i just bought a fixie bike myself last week.
He was from Toronto. Nice guy. Introduced me to some guy from New York. Who invited me bk to their table. Introduced me to a couple Taiwanese women and a NYC ABC dude. i tentatively ordered a glass of white, since at the Buddhist temple that afternoon, i thought i might take a break from alcohol that night.
But then as the night carried on, rounds of tequila shots were ordered until the bar ran out, resulting in Shoju shots and other bad mixers etc, a couple boys pulled down their pants to wave their bums around, i failed to elicit interesting commentary about Taiwan's election from the pretty woman, one guy confessed to me how "bad" he was because he had a wife and a mistress, and a good time was had by all. Suddenly it was after 5am.
To sum up: I tripped and smashed my head into a stool, and got a cut over my lip. The taxi pulled over to let me puke over the side of the express-way. And i slept through my alarm and missed the train home.
Well, i know Q doesn't exactly approve of this sort of behaviour, but i think it's good to get it out of my system when she's not around, ha.
i had my first ever flying dream recently. Or, close enough.
i was at CRI w/ a friend and a colleague, walking down a hall that suddenly ended in blackness. But i took a step out into the void and instead of falling to my death/infinity, i found that with difficulty, i could swim in the air. i slowly sank down, and some motion-activated lights revealed a dirt floor a ways below. So i landed and started walking around. My friend and colleague joined me.
We were in a huge room that had a bad odour. It was like a massive aquarium with no windows, but housing some "sea" creatures, like flounders hiding/covered with the dirt. They were sick. We were there to inspect the problem with the animals. But i was on such a rush from the swimming/flying, my mood was high as a kite. My friend was also happy, walking backwards, skimming along the surface of the dirt.
the end.
i discussed the dream w/ my brother, who's well versed with Carl Jung.
1. Going down = deeper into the subconcious. i stepped off the ledge w/out much hesitation, inadvertently revealing my ability to swim in the air. 2. i'm sure the massive, windowless fluorescent lit room with bad ventilation represented China Radio International. CRI stinks. It has problems. And not just the bathroom smell, which sometimes horribly infiltrates the office. 3. And it houses creatures who are sick, who've allowed themselves to get smothered in the surrounding dirt. This metaphor could hardly be improved. 4. But. 5. i'm there with a friend, and one colleague, who i barely ever see or know. He's an older Scottish fellow who is definitely the most positive person i've met at CRI. It's actually already obvious that it's possible to surround myself with good people at CRI. 6. And i can FLY / swim, which feels totally wicked. And i did wonder at one point why i was walking when i could've been flying-swimming. But i had a job to do, and i was doing it. i guess i already had the ability, but the strange circumstance at CRI allowed me to discover it...?
Anyhow, pretty interesting to unravel a pretty direct and surprisingly positive correlation between my dream and my work. One warning inherent in it: don't let yourself become one of those sick flounder thingies. That would truly suck.
Um, i could do one of those Best of 2011 music lists, but the fact is... i'm a lot less of an indie afficianado than i used to be. But anyhow, if yr interested, here's my Best Music of the Last Two Weeks list, which is probably just as good.
Apparently Xiami.com doesn't fly in N.America, but Grooveshark seems to do the trick...
Russian Red http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Fuerteventura/6069642 They call her the Spanish Feist, but i think it sounds like what you'd get if you crossed Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval and Joanna Newsome and put them on anti-depressants.
Washed Out http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Within+And+Without/6141745 I love it: this guy studied Library and Info studies in uni, couldn't find work, recorded an album in his bedroom, put it on Myspace, and then influential music bloggers realized it was the fucking BOMB. Def my most listened to album this year.
Girl Talk - All Day http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/All+Day/5235582 Slightly less schizo than mixes they've done in the past, and w/ enough 80's hits to please norms and cool kids alike, this is a party winner. How can you say no to a mix which mashes together 372 tracks, laying old and nu school hiphop onto the likes of INXS, Phoenix, Belinda Carlisle, Radiohead, U2, Lady Gaga etc, etc, etc, etc, etc...
Real Estate http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Days/7010428 Hey, i'm getting closer to 40 each day, so i can listen to as much mellow jangly guitar alt pop as i want. Apparenlty Wilco is considered "dad rock' now. Fucking hell.
There's a Canadian guy here at CRI, and he does a music show. i finally got around to listening to it, and was happily impressed. Shit, you listen to the radio, and you like here all this like new cool music. How amazingly convenient! And technological.
(Lunar New Year Rezzies undisclosed at this point in time)
1. Throw away my ratty worn out Olympic mascot dolls. 2. Stop paying so much attention to the Republican candidacy race. 3. Buy more CK One to mask the pollution smell. 4. Laugh more often at America's expense. 5. See if somebody can speed up my Taiwan tourist visa processing. 6. Get a new navy blue suit. A traditional one, this time. 7. Sneak in to the gallery to see the Ai Weiwei exhibit. 8. Crack down on corruption, like we cracked down on Tibet. 9. Avert the revolution 10. Stop wasting all my time looking for erotic websites to censor.
