China Final

So here is the last day I was in China.  It is a surprisingly full day.  In the morning we hit the Summer Palace which was as beautiful as ever and took many pictures of which I will subject you to some.

Here was the doll selection at one of the stores which reminded me of the doll experiments used in Brown V Board:

The polite sign in the bathrooms reminded me of what we all forget at times:

The many arched bridge which is one of my favorite sights in Beijing:

The 400+ guardians of said bridge:

Another shot of the bridge in case you did not have enough:

Yet another bridge as I was obviously feeling the structure:

 

Back at the office where you can see both Eastern and Western superstition:

After that we went to an art district in the North of the city that I had always been meaning to go to even whilst I lived there but just never made it to.  I am regretting that now.  It was one of the coolest things I have seen in Beijing.  Uniquely Chinese in a lot of ways yet much more modern than going to the UNESCO sites.

A lot of the galleries were closed by the time we got there so here is a snap inside the window:

Graffiti:

The environment was pushing me to try to be more artsy:

Another closed gallery:

Another long exposure night shot:

Cheesing for the camera afterwards at dinner:

Overall this was an interesting trip.  Easily the high point was art area and the food.  Man do I miss the food.

Daily Sites In China

So switching gears a little bit as I had some free time tonight to go through some older pictures.  Here are some photos from the week I spent in Beijing.

Transformers are big there now.  Surprisingly enough though there are no destructicons:

We also got to see someone checking their email on the side of a building which is not something you see every day:

One of the funniest things I saw was this completely inappropriate bottle opener in the most appropriate place, the work kitchen:

An aerial view of kung fu chicken with a Bruce Lee imposter shilling for it:

The one and only little fat sheep:

A California BBQ joint that only exists in China:

The Olympic aquatic center which was lit blue at night.  I had expected red:

Wash me in Chinese:

Spicy Sichuan food at the best place in Beijing:

The wall in the middle of nowhere.  With a door in it.  To nowhere as well:

Bright lights, big city:

The Dilution Of Language

I was reading an article on Frank Luntz for some unremembered reason and came across an amazing essay by George Orwell.  I have been reading it on average about every two weeks and it has really made my writing more direct and concise.  If you have a chance you should peruse it.

It came at a good time.  I felt like my writing was rapidly coming to the point where it was unnecessarily long and made basically no point.  I was falling into the manager speak trap which is not as dangerous as that of doublespeak it still leads to sloppy thinking.  Orwell is keeping me on the straight and narrow.

Essays like this revive the desire to become a university professor in linguistics.

Take That Colonialism

I heard Tata was looking at Aston Martin next.

 

http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2008/03/27/business/business/doc582c0eb30a61e3a1862574180053a3c8.txt

Sightseeing Once Again

This time as a tour operator.  I am thinking of getting some hats made and will start carrying around a flag so everyone can follow me.

So back to China where we tried to pack in as much as we could into one day.  This is an outlier but like I said in 365 I really love the long exposure shots (This was the night before for dinner).

Were we did see the new version of New Edition.  i was disappointed that they decided to take out Bobby Brown:

We started the day off in a cab and managed to even get some seeing in from there, like the new CCTV building.  I would hate to sit in the section that hangs off the building having seen some Beijing construction up close:

Then we headed to the forbidden city and Marcelo decided to hook up a glamour shot:

We even got to see some ghosts with weird heads:

 

A woman in a tree:

And the new time-honored coffee shop that replaced the American-honored coffee shop (AKA Starbucks):

Overall a pretty successful tour day.

Heading To China

I have been meaning to post about my last China trip for a while and have some extra time today.

On the flight there I managed to keep myself busy watching a ridiculous amount of movies and whupping up on Marcelo in Reversi

I also got to sit in my very own row on the flight from Japan to China which was pretty cool.  Not as cool as the lay down all the way chairs but close:

They also had my favorite champagne on the plane so I managed to get through 7 of the baby bottles which made the flight so much more relaxed (At least until my head started to spin):

Next up, being a tour guide in China.

I Have Not Had Enough Snaps Of Random Trips Recently

So these photos are from about 1-2 years ago now and have been sitting in draft form in the Blogger cloud.

They are pics from when I went to Seoul that I thought were interesting for one reason or another.

This was shot on the train going to Seoul from the airport. The landscape looked surprisingly desert like.

This was from the hotel window and was our view of the city.

This was a canal through the city that the government just refurbished and made available to people again. It had been covered with concrete and inaccessible. It was pretty cool seeing so many people out at night enjoying the park atmosphere.

Same place just a little blurrier. I was actually trying to do something like this and was pretty happy with the results.

Same thought for some street traffic.

This was in the canal. I had to wait for 25 minutes for the light show to reset to different colors after I missed it the first time.

A floating cross.

Part of a show we watched.

Santarchy

So I am running a little late in terms of posting pics.  Although after the next post I might have rewritten what late means

In December, Chris, Marques, Tim & I dressed as Santa and went drinking with a bunch of other Santas in the Wallingford / University District area.  It ended up being a great day and a lot more fun than I was expecting.

Here is us meeting up to jam into Yachi's car which is not built for men of such size (at least all at the same time).

Here is the group after one bar.  Like I said there were a lot of Santas.

Marques on the merry-go-round

The second bar where I caught Santa being naughty.

The third bar where we arrived early and got a prime seat for the festivities and drinks.

Still the third bar as we were there for the majority of the time.

Tim having been caught being naughty (If you want to see those photos you can ask me in person)

 

Marquis showing his compassionate side and feeding me a corn dog.

There were many bars after this but the photos just don't do the time justice.

More Lynchian Wisdom

 

Courtesy of my sister Ting.

Have I Mentioned How Much I Love David Lynch?

 

 

How could you not?

What A Sexy Belly

I wish mine was that sexy.  Taken by Chris at Tim's birthday party after getting beat many times over by the undisputed master of flippy cup.

365 Is Back Like The Jesus

And not even the baby Jesus, the fully grown Jesus.

Thanks to the lost and found at King County metro I have my camera back.  It was a pretty painless process once I called and told them some identifying info about the camera.

The only creepy thing is that the guy behind the counter instantly recognized me "from the pictures".  When I looked at the camera here is what he had been gazing at:

 

One of my better photos by far.  Note the heat saving shorts that allow you to loose weight incredibly fast (bought for $2.99 at Tuesday Mornings)

Anyways the feed is back up and today's picture is posted.

365 Ist Tot

I know it was no where near 365 days but apparently my camera was not at work nor was it at the restaurant I ate nor the car.  I think you get the picture, I have lost yet another camera and am looking for recommendations about good ones people have.

365 Started

I took a pic yesterday and then forgot my camera are work with the picture still on it.  for the last two days I have used my camera.

This is the last you will see of the project on this blog as I have decided to just use a Picasa album to host all the snaps.  It will save you all from having to see my grotesque face. 

I added the Picasa feed to my FeedSalon feed but if you just want the pictures they are available here.

Project 365

I have been hearing / reading a lot about 365 projects where the goal is to take a picture of something everyday of the year.  First I heard about it in Tyler's blog and then read a lot about it in DPS.

It has made me interested enough that I think I might give it a shot.  At first I was thinking about trying for some sort of theme (Self-portrait, portrait, music lyrics, landscape, ...) but think I am just going to try to do it and see if any pattern emerges.

I am looking for a partner or two to keep me motivated to do it so let me know if you are interested.  I will probably start this Friday.

Taxes?

Done with 'em. 8 hours of my life figuring out thing that would ordinarily make no difference to me.

My eyes and head hurt something vicious. Does anyone know of a country with no tax? (Besides the US for the ultra-rich, ohhh, zing).

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Now playing: OutKast - Git Up, Git Out
via FoxyTunes

What A Difference A Day Makes

Fuck Seattle Hipsters

And their unwillingness to dance.

Tonight I got the chance to see the Liars live and I am very happy about that.  I was going to be lazy and old and call Marques with some kind of made up story about how I could not go to the show.  Instead I decided to sack up and check the Liars out as I have heard a 7" of theirs but that is about it.

Very satisfied is how I would describe the show.  They managed to combine elements of the Stone Roses, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Trent Reznor and "Beaches and Canyons" era Black Dice into a mix that was uniquely their own.

Their drummer was a force of nature that went through at least three sets of drumsticks during the show.  He never played anything that was really crazy like Damon Che but damn was he solid and one of the better rock drummers I have heard in a while.

The rest of the band was pretty magnificent as well.  The guitarist captured a lot of attention early on because he looked as if he was producing the sound but due to the crazy deductive reasoning of Marques and myself we finally reckoned it was the bassist with the help of a foot pedal system who was making the ridiculous noise.

The show itself was amazing.  The energy peaked in the middle with a set that was good leading to the expected encore (When did that become expected by the way?).  They started off strong with the musicians described above providing ample playing room for everyone.

About half way through their set they played what might be the most amazing jam I have ever heard.  I have seen a lot of shows in my time but this was the most danceable cerebral music I have heard (This might apply to all their music).  I will buy their music bit by bit until I have something that roughfully approximates what I heard tonight.  It had elements of everything yo0u love plus those random things that you don't love but respect.

All in all a phenomenal show.  Peace and good night.

Giggle But True

 

Not sure why this makes me giggle quite so much but it really does.  Kind of rings true as well.

Detroit Represent

 

Brought to you by the mighty Fader.  These guys remind me of home so much I had to bring up the full screen to see if I recognized the musicians. 

The interview also made me hanker for a slightly less hipster area then Capitol Hill as the image of any of these guys riding a single speed bike in tight black pants makes me giggle a little.  Note, this is almost a complete non sequitur related to a long series of posts I was reading on reductionism in music criticism and can very safely be ignored.

Lazy Day?

My respect for those that work from home regularly (Jam glue, I am looking at you) has grown by an order of magnitude today.  I am about to go to bed in the clothes I woke up in.

That by itself would probably be enough to make me a little creeped out by my own laziness but I actually showered and put the same clothes back on.  Also I have not gone outside for over 24 hours now.  I did get a lot of work done though :).

Baby == Nominee VIP Pass

http://www.slate.com/id/2181495/

This was a pretty good idea from someone who both had a baby at the right time and lived in the right state.

It is interesting to see the difference in how the candidates look with the baby.

Underwear Gnomes

Have invaded my neighborhood.  First I saw socks hanging from a tree and not one or unmatched socks but a pair.  Today I say matching underwear hanging from a home sale sign down the street.

I will try to capture some snaps of it tomorrow and update this post but the gnomes might have already taken their booty to wherever they take it to.

Update:  No matter how I searched I was unable to actually find the underwear.  Apparently the gnomes have taken it to where they only know.

I did still find the socks as they must be less of a prize:

Want To Go Back To 1993?

or 2001 or any year between 1986-2003?  You can now do it.  At least if you commemorated your life through tapes as I did.  One of the best presents I got for christmas was the Plusdeck PC cassette player.

This beautiful device has allowed me to record all of my old tapes to wave format to be later ripped to mp3 for iPod delight.  I have been continuously amazed at how easy this whole process is and have gotten through around 24 tapes in about a week.  Only 20 more to go.

Every day has me going nuts over the most recent tape to be transferred.  It is crazy to me how much of my life I have associated with music and how this particular part was relatively inaccessible since I got rid of a stereo.

My favorites so far have been the mixtapes mostly.  Both the kind you make to impress someone you wanted to date and the kind that you make to drop off at clubs and try to have them book you.  I have run across a ton of things that were only captured to these tiny analog reels and am pretty excited about having them back.

Next time you want to convert a tape let me know as I have it down to a science now.   Also if you want to jump in a quick time warp you should swing on by and check out my Primus / Naughty by Nature mixtape.