Links

If yr interested, i updated the links at right to the uber-useful sites for anyone who lives in Beijing.

Also, in  a nutshell, Hanzhong w/ Yoyo's family was great. Everything's beeen going great, until we had a "disagreement" yesterday, and now she's not talking to me, although i'm not 100% clear why.

Oh well.

Off to Meet the GF's Parents!

Chinese New Year: the world's largest migration of people, as family members all compete to secure train, plane and automobile seats back to their hometowns.

This year, I will go to Yoyo's hometown to meet the dad's side of the family. The side that is apparently rather less crazy friendly than the mother's side. You know: siblings who haven't spoken in years, etc etc.

But the dad is pretty stoked to meet me, apparently. He bought a cot for me to sleep on months ago! The mom got special slippers for me and my comparatively large (in China) feet.

And i got a crazy expensive bottle of baijiu  as is traditional, and I'm  very curious to see if it actually tastes much better than the cheap stuff.

Yoyo's warned me that I'll be expected to drink quite a bit this holiday, which could be pretty entertaining, though i know that my Chinese skills will make conversation tricky. Plus apparently there's a somewhat different dialect out there, sure to complicate matters.

The town is Hanzhong: one of those little towns that noone's ever heard of, even if it's home to almost 4 million people.  "It's near Xian" is the best you can do to prove its existence.

So, after an extensive fiasco of passport issues (had to renew my passport so CRI can renew my visa, handed in my passport, realized i can't buy plane/train tickets without a passport, applied for temporary passport [which required lying], and dealt with the woman who insisted that i have to get the visa into my temporary passport before my real passport arrives), me and Yoyo will fly out to Xian tomorrow too bloody early.

I'll be there for 7 days, yay, fun.

新年快乐！＝ Xinnian kuaile! = Happy (Chinese)  New Year!

Note: Yes, there is an implied message when meeting the gf's parents.

Sort of Forward-Looking

Well, it's great that I get to write stuff for China Radio International, but the truth is, that website kinda sucks. It's super old-school. They spend all this money on the video team, but the website's videos are so old that most computer systems can't even view them. Lucky I don't do video (yet).

But lots of people at CRI know that their work looks like shiz on the CRI  website, so what they do is make their own professional blog.

And now i've made one too.

Some of what i write for CRI is a bit dull, but some of it's pretty decent, methinks so it's good to have a place for the winners. Also, it's good to showcase some of the photos i shot for CRI (often using their swank camera).

So, if you are either a) interested in whatever the heck i write about for CRI, b) are interested in places around China, or c) hope to spend more time online than you have in the past, then i invite you to check out my page.

Dang, it looks hella better than the CRI Travel Page, though i should say that me and my editor are in the process of redesigning that POS, which will make it way better, but, you know. It'll still look like a CRI website.

Curling and Wikipedia

Like a good Canadian boy, i've done a story about the sport of curling for CRI. And went out to the only professional center in the country. Which has only four sheets of ice. That was ok. i figured me and the intern would have a swing at it, but in the end, after some long interviews and picture takings, we just wanted to get back to the city. 

But today, i'm all pleased w/ myself 'cause i found time to contribute to Wikipedia's curling page, by mentioning comedic electro rockers LMFAO and their video which is a spoof on a curling match. Hell, that was glaring omission from the page!

 

Curling in popular culture

The 2002 Canadian film Men With Brooms, starring and directed by Paul Gross, centres on the sport of curling, telling the story of a curling team from a small Canadian town as they work through their respective life issues and struggle to win the championship for the sake of their late coach. The film grossed over $4.2 million, almost all of it in Canada, making it the top-grossing Canadian English-language film subsidized by Telefilm Canada between 1997 and 2002.
In 2010 electro band LMFAO released the video for their song Yes, which portrays a satirical curling match.

AQI: Off the Charts. Again

Remember when "Crazy Bad" was what the US Embassy had dubbed Air Quality Index readings that went beyond the 500 upper limit? Shit, that seems like the good ol' days when, like today, the AQI flirts with readings of 700. Yuck. You can feel it in your throat. Don't hang out outside more than necessary. On the happy side, it doesn't smell as far as i can tell, and i didn't notice my eyes stinging and i didn't feel headachey. Which happens on rare occasions. 

The Next Thing

First, it was flossing.

Then it was blogging.

Then it was push ups.

Now, it's sitting.

My head's still a bit of a mess, but i recall that when i meditated at the Mount Emei temple last time, that i actually cleared a lot of shit out of my head that i'd been wanting to clear out for a long time. So now my goal is to sit 15 min + for every day this January. An ongoing effort to leave the past behind.

Maybe i can even find time to do a 1 day retreat in there somewhere.

i also got an email today about the 100 day challenge to sit for 5+ min. Dunno. I'll reassess when Feb rolls around.

There's a lot of stuff i want to do these days (in addition to continuing flossing and push ups).

Like a new painting, i got some ideas for.

Like learning how to use Premiere Pro (to make and edit vids).

Like finishing this one guitar song that's been halfway done for like a year.

Like freelancing some stories for Vice or Time Out.

Like completing 5 years of backlogged tax returns (yeah!).

Anyhow, feels good to be busy. And having a job which gives me enough time to have a life outside of it.

Pushing It Up

Like i said, 31 days of push ups. starting w/ a wimpy 20, and then smashing the 5-0 barrier in NYE climax.

Look:

Yup, that featherweight toothpick was me. Can you believe how skinny i was? Unbefuckinglieavable. No wonder the girls at work were picking on me.

But Not. Any. More. No. Way. Jo.Se. My own girlfriend doesn't even recognize me anymore. She's just like, "Wow, who's this musclebound meat head who's trying to crawl into bed with me???"

Merry Holiday

Dang, i haven't been this Christmasy since 1997 when i was on E!

But since i'm w/ Yoyo and she's never done the xmas thing before, i stole a tree branch from the park and we decorated it. sorta like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. Then i figured me and Yoyo and Derrick could go for Indian food for xmas eve, but then thought maybe other people also have no plan. So in the end 15 of us ate out before hiking back to our place for 5 bottles of mulled wine.

A bit of soldering action got the xmas lights going again. Then we listened to Chet Baker xmas songs before singing some w/ the guitar.

Anyhow, that was all pretty fun, and a great Christmas eve. Especially considering that me and Yoyo had a big argument the night before when it was revealed that we're both underhanded liars.

Peace on Earth, everyone!

It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

No, I didn't see the movie. 

But like many people, I'm open to the possibility that December 21st, the end date of the Mayan Calendar may be (approximately) be an indication of some sort of spiritual shift in the collective consciousness. 

Considering that i actually have a deep dark beliefs about humanity catastrophically fucking the environment up the ass (not that there's anything wrong w/ making anal love for those who enjoy it), i wonder if we may be crossing that threshold of this "new era". 

I also wonder if we may shortly witness the end of capitalism (as we know it) and (imo) insanely narrowminded growth models. 
i don't expect these things to happen on Friday. i don't really expect anything to happen. Though apparently 20% of Chinese people are worried, buying candles and stuff. Luckily i already have some at home. 

This Friday, my plan is to finish work, then go to Beihai Park downtown w/ Yoyo and Derrick, and walk around to the top of the hill and have a view of the city as anarchy breaks out. 

At the very least, i think this Friday is a particularly good time to embrace the symbolism of the end of an era, the beginning of an era. i plan to stay squeaky clean sober, be (sort of) in nature and w/ loved ones. Maybe create something, but i haven't thought things through that far yet. 

Interestingly enough, Terrence Mckenna and hisTimewave Zero hypothesis is set to happen this Friday also.  (It was originally calculated for Nov, but he readjusted it to align w/ the Mayan calendar). Anyhow, he believes the universe is a "novelty machine", creating new, never before seen/had experiences, and that this Friday, we'll reach "a singularity of infinite complexity in 2012, at which point anything and everything imaginable will occur simultaneously." Unsurprisingly, he was on mushrooms when he came up w/ the idea. 

i think i may have had a similar experience (on mushrooms, incidentally), and it's truly truly truly like nothing you've ever imagined before. i was completely befuddled by an experience for which words seemed completely inapplicable. Later on i found that Zen Buddhists summed it up impressively with just 3 words: "All is One". 

So there i was walking the streets of Seattle, flabbergasted to experience this thing which was bigger than time itself, this thing which OBVIOUSLY predated the Big Bang and the universe itself. And yes, i still take it as concrete evidence that my experience was real, because of course my tiny little simple mind could never imagine something so unimaginable or REAL. But the incredible thing was that... everything was also totally NORMAL. i'd just noticed something that had always been there. Like noticing a little birthmark on your ankle. Oh hello, you've always been a part of me, but i wasn't paying you any attention.  

So. Just in case there is a shift, and you do notice a birthmark on your ankle, i hope that you can just smile and relax. Some people may see that birthmark and freak out, call the doctor, try to cover it up, try to hack it off.  But i think it would be better to get to know that birthmark, 'cause it's not about to go anywhere. 

But like i said: i don't really expect any birthmarks this Friday. 


For way more information about this than you want to know check out Wikipedia here. 

Bad News. Again.

Running in the snow w/ my running group this morning. An American woman joined us late, visibly distressed, and she informed us about the Newtown shooting. There was some awkward dialogue about other shootings and schoolhouse killings, and one oddly timed joke about gun laws, but then we kept running and talked about other things. 

Now at home, i read a bit more and the gravity hits a bit more. Yes, there's tragedy across the globe everyday of every magnitude, but somehow this particular narrative hits a bit harder. The Connecticut governor said the #1 way to help right now is to pray, so i did. In fact, i believe him. I believe that there's a global connectedness concerning this tragedy, and i felt tapped into that for a few minutes. 

Soon, i'll head out to a Christmas fair, and go about my preplanned weekend entertainments. And maybe you will too. 

Thanks for reading and participating in all the stuff that humans do, menial and otherwise. 

Condolences to all affected. 

Peace,

wiL