Arg, I just got home after being on the road for 24 hours. Here's my "itinerary" since 3am (Pacific Time) this morning:
Get up, drive from DC to NYC (5 hours) Drive/walk around NYC (3 hours) Waiting for non-existent subway train (1 hour) Subway/taxi ride to JFK (1.5 hours) JFK to DFW (4 hours) DFW layover (2 hours) DFW delay (3 hours) DFW to SNA LAX (3 hours) LAX to SNA by bus then home (1.5 hours)
I'm going to take a shower and sleep... need to get up in ~3 hours to go to jury duty at Santa Ana.
BTW, I did meet someone "famous" on the plane. I thought the tattoo lady had too many tattoos for a "regular" person. It turned out she is Kat Von D, the tattoo artist on LA Ink. On a hunch, I googled LA Ink and recognized one of the tattoos on her arm that I saw on the flight from LAX to IAD. Cool... maybe she will remember me and give me a discount when I go to her shop for a tattoo!
Katherine Von Drachenberg, aka Kat Von D
I recognized the tattoo on her upper right arm plus some stuff on her hands. She looked like this in real life (makeup and all) but a bit skinnier.
I like DFW airport. It's one of two places that American Airlines connects all their flights through and it's much better than Chicago O'Hare. They even have free Internet access thought it's not wireless. Right now I have about 15 minutes before my flight boards.
Long story short, I walked a lot this weekend. My legs are still crazy sore from walking around DC and NYC. Let's see... after arriving my myself at Dulles on Friday, I took the Washington Flyer bus to the metro and found my way to The Mall. I walked around for a bit, got tickets for the Washington Monument, and took some pictures at the Air & Space Museum. Afterward, I checked in to our hotel and waited for James & Elim. The rest of the day we walked and took pictures around The Mall and Jefferson Memorial and took a night tour of all the major monuments. We were worried about rain but it ended up raining only at the end of our tour.
The next day we went back to The Mall and hit some of the museums. Most of the time was spent at the Air & Space Museum where we watched two IMAX shows. Since James & Elim spent a lot of time at the Met in NYC, we skipped the art museums and went to the National Archives, like Nicholas Cage. We also took a look inside the Museum of Natural History but it was really crowded and chaotic. Finally, this morning we left DC at ~7am since we had to return the rental car in Manhattan. It was about a 4 hour ride so I got a 45 car tour of mid-town NYC and we walked around for about 2 hours. I took a lot of photos.
The last part of the trip was pretty lame though. We decided to take the subway to Jamaica Station and catch the AirTrain to JFK. However, the E train switched tracks (it was running on the F track) and there was no notice. After four consecutive C trains went by, I found out about the switch. By then, 45 minutes had passed and we were running like crazy to catch the N train to get to the E train running on the F track.
Arg! They just announced that my flight is going to be delayed until 10pm (35 minutes late) since the flight crew arriving on another flight are delayed. I hope they don't delay any further; I have jury duty very early tomorrow.
Anyway, back to NYC. So we finally found the E train but it was running the "local" schedule which meant it stopped at all 23 stations between 34th Street and Jamaica Station. We entered the subway system at 2:15pm and didn't get to Jamaica Station until 2 hours later. Running out of the station (AirTrain was too slow), we found an unmarked cab who agreed to take us to JFK (10-15 minutes) for $20. We ended up arriving at JFK Terminal 3 (Delta) at 4:30pm for a 4:50pm flight; I still don't know if they caught their flight. For another $5, the driver dropped me off at Terminal 8 and I was one of the last people to board my flight (they boarded early for once). So after all that running around, I'm just sitting here at gate D21 waiting for my next flight.
In hindsight, I probably should have just ditched James & Elim in DC and flew back home from IAD or DCA instead of JFK. Well, at least I got some photos:
Lincoln Tunnel. The toll was $8!
Chrysler Building
UN Building next to the East River
Guggenheim Museum
NASDAQ display at Time Square. Since it was Sunday, there weren't any stock quotes.
Yawn. It’s about 3am Pacific time and I’m 1.5 hours from Washington DC. I managed to get a bit of sleep but since I’ll probably be really tired when I get to DC. I’m only spending a few days since I have to rush back home for jury duty on Monday morning. In addition, I couldn’t leave work until today since we have our quarterly earnings call today. To fit all this into my schedule, I had to fly out of LAX since there are no redeye flights out of SNA. There were a lot of people flying out tonight on American. It took me about 30 minutes to get through security even though I was in the special line. I decided to splurge and spent 25,000 miles to fly first class so I can get some sleep; coming back, I’m slumming it in coach. The waiting area was really crowded too with late night flights leaving from almost every gate.
When I reserved my tickets, I chose seat 6A since it was the last row of first class and a window seat. On short flights, I don’t really care if it’s a window or aisle seat. I was in my seat for about 2 minutes when someone asked me if I can switch seats with 5E so she can sit with her brother. Actually, it’s probably easier to sleep on a window seat because you can lean against the bulkhead but I agreed. Afterward, I noticed that her shoulders, arms, and even hands were covered with tattoos. It wasn’t one big tattoo but literally hundreds of small/medium ones. I tried to take a stealth picture but was unsuccessful. It was too dark for my Sony DSLR to focus and the auto-focus light on my Panasonic would have given me away (yes, I brought two cameras on this trip). Her brother has some on his arms too but it wasn’t crazy like hers. Maybe she’s on that "Inked" TV show or something.
Only one more hour to DC. My flight is landing at Dulles, which is way outside of town. I tried to get a flight to Reagan International but AA did not have any overnight flights and tickets on other airlines was >$300. Hopefully our flight will land on time since I need to catch a bus from the airport to L’Enfant Plaza. I should be able to make the 8:00am bus; the one after that leaves at 8:40am. This is a public bus and the fare is only $3.10. Plan B is a private bus that goes to a closer metro station but costs $10. Unlike the redeye flight from LAX to JFK on a 757, I’m on a small 737 and there’s no Wi-Fi so I’ll have to upload this when I get to the hotel in DC. I just noticed that they didn’t even play the in-flight movie since everyone is sleeping (except for me).
I'm flying out to DC tomorrow night on a redeye flight from LAX to IAD (Dulles) to meet up with James and Elim. They've been out on the East Coast since Monday. It's a bit inconvenient since there are no overnight flights out of SNA or into DCA (Reagan). Dulles Airport is way outside of Washington DC so I have to take a bus (route 5A) into town. James and Elim are driving in from Pennsylvania so we'll probably meet up around noon at our hotel. Since I'm using my AA miles for tickets and it looks like I won't travel to Canada anymore, I splurged and got first class seats on the redeye flight to DC for 25k miles. On the way back, we're leaving from JFK and I have to stop in Dallas before flying in to SNA.
We planned this awhile back but it looks like it will rain both days (Fri/Sat) in DC. I guess we'll hang out inside the galleries and museums instead of outdoors. I was telling them that even though I've never been to DC, a lot of the metro stations and buildings sound familiar. I played a lot of hours of Fallout 3 (PS3) and it's set in post-nuclear war DC; a lot of the travel between destinations are through subway tunnels. :)
There seems to be a constant battle between YouTube and developers that write programs to download vides from YouTube. I guess last night's YouTube update disabled downloading again. I've been using YouTube Downloader 2.51 and it stopped working today. I updated the version to 2.52 but I think it only addresses the previous YouTube update on Oct 4.
Sometimes I wish I studied programming so I can write apps too. I took Pascal(!), C/C++, and LISP but that's ancient history.
I was trying to download these two videos of Brown Eyed Girls before they got deleted.
Uptown Girl. The bass player does a pretty good job singing backup vocals. I could never sing and play bass at the same time.
You Raise Me Up. Miryo can sing!
They were in New York earlier this month and did a outdoor concert for Chuseok. COME TO LA!
==========
Sigh... another one. I may have to upload stuff I downloaded from YouTube directly to Blogger. It just takes so much processing time to convert large video files so they come under the 100MB limit.
My friend just got back from Korea after a six week trip to see her family. She was sick for about a week over there so she stayed at home and watched TV. She was trying to explain one of the shows to me this morning.
Sunny: I saw this show with a lot of girl bands doing dance/sports competitions...
Me: Uh-huh, there are a lot of K-pop girl bands lately.
Sunny: They were doing other group's dances. I think I saw Wonder Girls...
Me: No, they're in the US right now. It was So Nyuh Shi Dae, Brown Eyed Girls, Kara...
Sunny: Yeah, Kara! How did you see this already?!
Me: YouTube. Somebody already translated and uploaded it.
I don't know where I would get my K-pop fix if it wasn't for YouTube. :)
Part 1 of 9 on YouTube. Sunny thought No Hongchul (MC) was irritating too.
This is crazy... and dangerous. There is a lot of expensive sound equipment just waiting to short out, not to mention shock and/or electrocute performers and technicians. I used to run sound for a small/medium church and our 3 power amps require 28A at 110VAC. The KBS setup must use hundreds of amps of current. I dunno... maybe they managed to waterproof everything.
A sprinkling of rain is okay; this looks like a thunderstorm with mini-waterfalls coming off the stage. And who are those crazy fans? I would have gone home a long time ago. Hmm, I think my dream job is no longer being a sound guy in Korea. :(
Somebody call a rain delay! Isn't it cold mid-October in Korea? At least they're not wearing white hot pants and high heels like SNSD. [replaced video on 12/11/09; previous account was suspended]
BabyVOX from 2004. Seems like they hold a lot of concerts in the rain in Korea.
Leon asked me last month (while we were driving to "meet" the major of Guangzhou here in Los Angeles) what I liked about China. I had written that sentiment in a post that wasn't even about China; it was about crazy K-pop antis in Korea. He said this because I am usually critical of China (mostly the CCP) in my posts. I really dislike the communist government but it frustrates me even more that the local people I meet in China don't care about politics. Anyway, I've been thinking about that question quite often and I'm saddened that I don't have an answer.
Even though I wasn't born in China, that is really my home since that is where my family comes from. My dad was born in Chengdu due to the Sino-Japanese War while both my paternal grandparents are from Zhejiang province (like a lot of the KMT). I'm less clear on my mom's side of the family since they've been in Sarawak (Malaysia) for so long, but they're Teochew from northern Guangdong province. I bring this up because often I feel very un-Chinese, especially when I'm in China surrounded by millions of people that look like me, yet I don't feel American/Canadian though I've lived in North American for 32 years. Sometimes I boast that I have passports from three countries (USA, Canada, Taiwan), but that also means I have no home, no roots.
I've been thinking about this more since I read Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang. She's an ABC (American born Chinese) journalist working for WSJ based out of Beijing, and the book is about migrant factory workers she met and befriended in Dongguan over the course of several years. Part of the story however, is the author's own journey in discovering her family history. It resonates with me because it's so similar to mine (or what I think is mine). My family's history of migration is both unique and common. It is true that most people in the world never leave their ancestral home for generations, but almost every Chinese family that "emigrated" from China => Taiwan => USA/Canada has the same basic story.
I guess a part of me blames the Chinese Communist Party for making me a homeless person. My family, and millions of others, were on the losing side of the Chinese Civil War and as a result, lost everything we couldn't carry with us and were exiled from our homeland. Even now, I only know the name of the city/village where my grandfather is from and nothing else. When a Chinese person asks me where I'm from originally, I'm supposed to say 象山浙江 (Elephant Mountain, Zhejiang) though I've never been there (neither has my dad) nor even find it on a map.
Here's an excerp from Factory Girls:
The Chinese today have a troubled relationship with their past. On the surface, they take pride in it--China has five thousand years of history, one is constantly reminded as an American--but there is an aversion to going much deeper than the level of a Qing Dynasty television soap opera. Why did a great civilization collapse so rapidly when confronted by the West? What made people turn so readily on each other--in workplaces, in villages, in families--during the political movements of the 1950s and 1960s? And how could they pick up their lives afterwards as if nothing had happened?
The last question is easiest: through forgetting. <...>
The past seemed to consist of only painful stories. <...> So much suffering suggest that there will be a historical accounting one day--but the instinct against introspection runs deep in this culture. Perhaps for a long time to come, China will feel the way it does now: a country that is at once tethered to history and unmoored from it, floating, free.
Unmoored... that's how I feel. Sigh... one time I asked Leon if the KMT had won in 1949, would we be living in mainland China today? Would our lives be different? Better?
My parents have been busy looking for a house since they got back from Asia. Originally their budget is ~$500k but the selection is not that great. Most are either really old (from the 1960's) or located next to freeway/railroad. When a decent property is listed, there are lots of offers right away. I'm back to considering living with them again so we can get a bigger and nicer house for now. Most 4 bedroom houses are $650k-$700k around this area (Irvine/Tustin) with lots going for >$1M still.
The 8,000 square-foot home on 3.5 acres is for sale for $675,000. It has newly refinished hardwood floors, a gourmet kitchen, breakfast room and a sitting room. Other features include a library, two-room office suite and a large front porch.
I had to stay a bit later at work on Wednesday to complete an online sexual harassment training course. The bill requiring this in California (AB 1825) was passed in 2007 but we've had these courses for quite awhile now. It helps the company with CYA in case there's a complaint and lawsuit.
Coincidentally, there's recent news that David Letterman admitted on-air that he had sex with his staffer(s) in response to an alleged blackmail threat. If he had taken the training class, he would know this is a huge no-no and potentially a big problem for the CBS legal department. I guess New York is not really Hollywood but hopefully no one was using Letterman as a "moral compass". Let's see if he continues to makes statutory rape jokes anymore.
I used to watch his show back in college. During my freshman year, we would wait up each night to catch the Top 10 List. This was when he was still at NBC and his show aired after Johnny Carson at 12:30am. As I grew older and (hopefully) wiser, I found him to be boring and really not funny. Even though his show is on at 11:30pm now, I haven't watch it in many many years.
And yes, I know Paul Schaffer is Canadian. He's not that funny either... he's actually quite irritating.
There has been a lot of news about Roman Polanski, the child rapist film director, since his arrest in Switzerland last week. Regardless of what you think of his movies (I've only seen The Pianist), he admitted to rape & sodomy with a 13-year old, and skipped bail to hide in Europe during the past 30+ years.
The response to his arrest has been sharply divided. His supporter include Hollywood elites and European "cultural" types, while just about everyone else (including me), thinks he should be extradited back to the US for sentencing on the original conviction and skipping bail.
From Michael Moore's politics to on-screen sex and violence, the movie business is constantly being assailed for not sharing the country's values. Rarely has the morality argument been as rancorous as with the Roman Polanski case.
Hollywood is rallying behind the fugitive filmmaker. Top filmmakers are signing a pro-Polanski petition, Whoopi Goldberg says the director didn't really commit rape, and Debra Winger complains "the whole art world suffers" in such arrests.
The rest of the nation seems to hold a dramatically different perspective on Polanski's weekend capture. Even if decades have passed since he fled Los Angeles before his 1978 sentencing, Polanski must be extradited and serve his time, the thinking goes. There's no excuse for forcing sex on a 13-year-old girl. People who defend him have no principles.
Here's the best part:
In an opinion piece in London's the Independent, Weinstein Co. co-founder Harvey Weinstein, who is circulating the pro-Polanski petition, wrote: "Whatever you think about the so-called crime, Polanski has served his time. A deal was made with the judge, and the deal is not being honored.... This is the government of the United States not giving its word and recanting on a deal, and it is the government acting irresponsibly and criminally."
In an interview, Weinstein said that people generally misunderstand what happened to Polanski at sentencing. He's not convinced public opinion is running against the filmmaker and dismisses the categorization of Hollywood as amoral. "Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion," Weinstein said. "We were the people who did the fundraising telethon for the victims of 9/11. We were there for the victims of Katrina and any world catastrophe."
OMG! I think Mr. Weinstein is either full of himself, retarded, or both. Hollywood is the last place to look for morality... it's all about money and fame. These cowards won't speak up against Polanski because they're worried about loosing their next gig/movie/project. Moral compass indeed... *spit*
When he mentions Katrina, does he mean this?
Sean Penn's Boat Sinks In Failed Katrina Rescue Attempt
New Orleans, Louisiana (AHN) - Political Activist and Actor Sean Penn made his way down to the city of New Orleans with a personal photographer and an entourage in an attempt to help victims stranded by floods caused by Hurricane Katrina.
Penn had planned to rescue children and adults in the flood waters, but apparently forgot to plug a hole in the bottom of the vessel, which began taking water within seconds of its launch.
Penn who is known for his political activism, was seen wearing what appeared to be a white flak jacket and frantically bailing water out of the sinking vessel with a red plastic cup that eventually was not enough for the Academy Award winner.
When asked what he had hoped to achieve in the waterlogged city, the actor tells the Herald Sun: "Whatever I can do to help."
The paper reports that one bystander taunted the actor saying, "How are you going to get any people in that thing?"
Isn't he a millionaire? Why didn't he just donate money so people trained in search and rescue can better do their jobs? Spicoli and his entourage(!) just causes more problems for the real rescuers in NOLA.
I'm actually not sure what this is about but it's SNSD and it's cute. It's some kind of advertising for a brand named Miero. The parent company is Hyundai Pharm ... I think it's supposed to be some kind of health/beauty drink. I need to have my Korean ex-coworker check out the website and tell me what's going on. She happens to be in Korea right now... maybe I should email her to bring some back.
There's one for each of the nine girls. Soshified subtitled a couple of them:
Yuri! She reminds me of a co-worker (not the Korean one mentioned above).
Jessica! She doesn't remind me of anyone. :)
What's chamchamcham (참참참)? From the videos it appears to be some kind of game and these are the pre-recorded responses that's shown depending on whether you win/lose the game. I went on the website but couldn't find any games but it's all in Korean so I may have missed it.
Some scumbag managed to steal my credit card number and charged $200 at a Walmart in Missouri today. I got a call from my credit card company, checking on a few transactions. Actually there was another $200+ transaction at another Walmart that didn't go through yet. The bank assured me that I wouldn't be responsible for the two charges but I still feel violated nevertheless. I'm not sure where they got my number from since most of my transactions are local and pretty regular (PeiWei!). The only one-off transaction recently is to refill my laundry card; I think the company is somewhere in the Midwest. Otherwise someone managed to hack into an online retailer's transaction database... I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon. Anyway, they canceled my credit card and I will get a replacement in a few days. Until then, I'm back to using cash.
Marriage officials will work hard to process wedings, but not divorces
Couples in China's biggest provincial municipality will not be allowed to divorce during celebrations of 60 years of communist rule.
But weddings will go ahead in Chongqing during the eight-day holiday beginning on Thursday, according to China Daily.
Officers at marriage registration centres said they could not cope with the high demand for weddings and also issue divorces.
Seven out of 10 districts told the newspaper they would not process them.
"We will be working voluntarily during the holiday to issue marriage certificates but we will not be making any divorce appointments," officer Wang, who is in charge of the Marriage and Adoption Registration Centre in Yuzhong district in central Chongqing city, told the China Daily.
The communist government also said in order to promote a harmonious celebration, family disputes are not allowed during the week-long holiday. Any couples arguing or children misbehaving will be punished with 4 years of hard labor (劳动教养), just like the good old days during the Cultural Revolution.
I got some free pre-season Ducks tickets from work for tonight's game versus the LA Kings. Since it's pre-season, the tickets are together; usually free Ducks tickets from work are singles. Leon was supposed to bring two kids along but the 6-year old decided not to come at the last minute so it was only the three of us.
We got there pretty early at around 4pm, an hour before the game. Parking was an expensive $15 but I was too lazy to park off-site... more money for Henry I guess. It turned out that there was a kids thing at the back so we went there for about 30 minutes. The turnout was pretty good for a pre-season game... I'd estimate that the arena was about 2/3 full. Since it was dinner time, we got some food at the concession stands. It wasn't cheap but not as bad as I thought after the expensive parking.
There were a couple of huge inflatable balloon things, a bounce house, and some other events. It was pretty hot out and bottled water was selling for $4, though the guy selling it was kind of apologetic about the price.
Ducks girls up close. I sneaked in a picture while they were posing for someone else. :)
Darci getting a Ducks temporary tattoo from a nice lady.
They also let kids wear some pads and shoot hockey pucks at them. For Darci, they slowed down the puck but for some of the older kids, the pucks were flying in pretty fast. I think they should have also provided cups for boys.
I think this was the final pre-season game. There were 3 goals (Ducks 2 - Kings 1) scored withing the first 5 minutes of the first period.
Testing out the 10x zoom on my Panasonic DMC-TZ3. These weren't the same girls outside earlier. Our seats were in row R of section 404, pretty close to the back wall. I've sat here for all the "free" games so far.
At one point, Ducks were down two skaters but they managed to kill off this 5-on-3 penalty.
There were some pretty good hits... one of the panels was knocked crooked so they had to fix it.
During the first intermission(?), the had two people inside plastic balls race around the center circle. I think the winner (and their section) got free ticket to the OC Auto Show. I didn't even know there was an auto show in Orange County.
Since Darci had a short attention span, we left the game after the first period. There was nobody in the parking lot and I got out immediately. Very different from the Angels game (across the 55 freeway) on Wednesday. I saw someone from my building (at work) inside the Honda Center. She also brought her toddler and I saw them leaving after the first period as well. I had to check the score when I got home since it was still 2-1 when we left.
They brought this dish out during one of the business dinners I attended in Chengdu earlier this month. There were red peppers, green peppers, ginger, and green onion. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to eat for this dish... so I didn't. The green stuff at the back was kind of like mochi and it was pretty good.
Array of drinks at the same dinner. Left to right: red wine, some juice like drink, and baijiu (白酒). The baijiu they poured was about 52% alcohol... it tasted horrible.
Ladies making wontons at the shop downstairs from my friend's apartment. I ordered a medium this time and still it was >20 wontons for ¥5. The cheap homey food was much better than the expensive restaurant food for me.
I went with Randy this morning to Sparco's Garage Sale in Irvine. Sparco makes racing accessories and we were looking for seats for our JeepSpeed truck (yeah, we're still building it). Not knowing how many people would be there, we ageed to go stand in line at 7:30am; the sale was from 9am to 3pm. We were about #15 in line and the turnout was pretty good. We met an old guy who does road racing now but used to race off-road. He told us Baja stories for about an hour... definitely cool.
The line outside. This was when we left after about an hour of browsing around inside.
Most of the floorspace was taken up by racing seats. We were looking for their Evo 2 model which are more suitable for off-road racing and a bit wider to fit our large butts. Unfortunately, they didn't have anything we wanted. Sparco also makes racing suits and helmets but we left empty handed. I already have a fireproof racing suit and they didn't have helmets with forced-air ventilation ports.
Since Sparco made racing stuff, there were lots of fancy rides parked outside. This is probably the most exotic. It's an Ariel Atom made by a British company. Stock engine is a 2.0L Honda VTEC with 245hp and it's supposed to do 0-60mph in about 2.7 seconds... that's faster than Steve's Tesla Roadster I rode in last month. I think it can beat motorcycles. However, it's an expensive toy though: base price is $65k (specs).
There were some more cars parked on the lawn. This was a Lexus IS with lots of carbon fiber but not sure what's under the hood.
There were also a couple of WRX's and Evo's. This one looked the most race-ready with lots of buttons behind the "paddle shifter" looking things.
WRX. The front lip/fin was really low to the ground. They were pushing it up the driveway on to the lawn and we heard a loud scraping sound. I do this to my Z sometimes if I'm not careful parking.
Instead of working, our group within finance went to a baseball game at Angels Stadium. I still call them the Anaheim Angels but they're officially The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim... I think. Our seats were in section 404 and cost $24. It turned out to be a pretty good game with some exciting moments, though the Angels lost. The biggest downside was the weather: it was something like 97°F. Good thing it's not humid here like in Asia. We ended up hiding in section 505 since it was in the shade. Almost everyone from our group (FP&A, G&A, and Financial Systems) showed up and we all got official company caps (in black, which would have made our heads hotter).
I brought along my Sony DSLR and the zoom lens.
I went home to change into shorts before going to the game. I arrived during the top of the 2nd inning. The stadium was only 1/2 full. This was taken with the smaller lens at 18mm.
Close up with the zoom lens at 300mm.
It's lonely in the outfield, and probably quite a few degrees hotter than in the stands/shade. This was the widest view with the zoom lens at 70mm.
One of my co-workers was watching the game and knitting at the same time. Good thing we were sitting too far out and up for foul balls.
Somebody moving a trailer home on the 57 freeway.
It was crazy hot today and people were avoiding seats in the sun.
I can't imaging eating sticky cotton candy while hot and sticky from the heat.
A-rod came up in the top of the 9th to pinch hit. He hit a chopper to the 1st baseman for a double play that ended the top of the inning. The Yankees still won though.
By the end of the game, our seats were in the shadows but we were too lazy to move. Too bad they shot a t-shirt to our section during the 7th inning stretch. I didn't think the puny air canon would reach that high.
Traffic on the way out of the parking lot. It took me over 45 minutes to get out of the lot and on to Orangewood. In China, the "lane" on the left would be full of cars. I only heard one person use their horn during the entire time. In China, I would be deafened by the cacophony of horns. I'm still debating whether it would have taken more time or less time to get out of the lot if everyone drove Chinese-taxi-style.
Tesco has been accused of religious discrimination after the company ordered the founder of a Jedi religion to remove his hood or leave a branch of the supermarket in north Wales.
Daniel Jones, founder of the religion inspired by the Star Wars films, says he was humiliated and victimised for his beliefs following the incident at a Tesco store in Bangor.
The 23-year-old, who founded the International Church of Jediism, which has 500,000 followers worldwide, was told the hood flouted store rules.
But the grocery empire struck back, claiming that the three best known Jedi Knights in the Star Wars movies – Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker – all appeared in public without their hoods. Jones, from Holyhead, who is known by the Jedi name Morda Hehol, said his religion dictated that he should wear the hood in public places and is considering legal action against the chain.
"It states in our Jedi doctrination that I can wear headwear. It just covers the back of my head," he said.
"You have a choice of wearing headwear in your home or at work but you have to wear a cover for your head when you are in public."
Sam wrote back and said it reminded him of a skit with Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog. It was actually done by the Late Night with Conan O'Brien during the premier of The Attack of the Clones (the worst out of the three prequel movies).
@9:00 into the video: Triumph: What substance was Han Solo frozen in? All: Carbonite! Triumph: No, no, I'm sorry, I'm very sorry. The correct answer is, "Who gives a @#$%!"
A shop assistant folds a shirt bearing an image of U.S. President Barack Obama's face imprinted over that of China's late leader Mao Zedong, at a shop in the popular tourist area of Houhai in central Beijing September 21, 2009. The shop has sold thousands of products bearing the "Oba Mao" design since stocks arrived just over a month ago, the shop owner said. Reuters Pictures
Dang it. I was in Houhai a few weeks ago. I would have bought one if I saw it, though I would also paint a big circle with a slash through it in red.
Google Maps/Earth finally has updated hi-res images of the West High-Tech Zone in Chengdu. I cut a view out of Google Earth and you can see PMI's new building (bottom right). We're surrounded by huge buildings. Up the street, you can see Intel's assembly plant in Chengdu along with a SMIC fab.
Zoomed in view. The new building is the little white one. I'm not sure what they're building on the lot to the west. Last I heard it was some kind of conference center but construction has been halted for over a year. The huge gray building south of us makes cables and wires (I think) and the building to the NE (across the creek) is a Motorola software development office.
I went to the local laundromat again today to wash my bedding. Since I was also washing my regular clothes in the apartment laundry room, it was 2 hours of loading/unloading cloths and driving back and forth.
Anyway, in the parking lot this afternoon was a brand new Ferrari. I don't know if he (I say the guy) was there to do laundry or if he owned the laundry. Maybe he was there to visit some of the other businesses in the strip mall. There was also a new Mercedes-Benz (E class?) and they (family of 3) were in the laundromat. It looked like they were doing all their laundry, not just special items like me. Maybe they spent all their money on the car.
I blogged about this last December. Last Friday, PBS NewsHour broadcast a video segment on this topic. Here's the video:
SHANNON VAN SANT: Qin Xinan is a long way from home. He has traveled from Wuhan, 700 miles away in central China, to Beijing, where he stays in this one-room shack. Every morning, he goes to government offices, pleading for help.
QIN XINAN, petitioner: I strongly ask Hu Jintao and the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee to punish corruption. Save Chinese people, ordinary people, the weak in society. Save China.
I'm not only standing on my own ground. I speak for thousands of people who get persecuted as mentally ill patients.
SHANNON VAN SANT: A former officer in the People's Liberation Army, Qin has been forcibly hospitalized six times, accused of being mentally ill. He says he's not the only one with grievances who's been treated that way.
QIN XINAN: The first time the diagnosis was acute stress disorder. The second time was paranoid schizophrenia. The third time, just like all the other petitioners, doctors diagnosed me with paranoid psychosis.
A former officer in the PLA no less. This is a different China now. Communist ideology is just a cover for corrupt officials looking for personal wealth... how ironic.
One of the popular K-pop boy bands out right now is 2PM, managed by JYPE. I don't really listen to their music, but have seen them on variety shows (Star Golden Bell). Their leader, Jaebeom, is a Korean-American from Seattle and evidently he wrote some stuff on his MySpace page about not liking Korea. I can understand this since there's a lot of stuff I hate about China since I've been traveling to Chengdu (there's a lot I like too), and I bitch about it here. However, the stuff Jaebeom posted was from 2005, while he was still a teenage trainee at JYPE. In Korea, K-pop is like politics here in the US: if you make any small mistakes, people are ready to jump all over you. Antis petitioned to have him thrown out of the group 2PM, and some even said he should commit suicide. This is not funny of course, since pressure from crazy netizens have contributed to several suicides of Korean celebrities. The latest news is that Jaebeom quit 2PM and flew back to Seattle to be with his family.
To me, the celebrity antis in Korea are like the fenqing in China. They hide behind their anonymous avatars and say things that are way over-the-top, stuff they would be too scared to say to someone in real life. They also represent a tiny minority of public opinion but since they're loud and obnoxious, they get the most attention. I think Jaebeom should have apologized (he did) and continued with his music career in Korea. Maybe he'll be back later.
In other news, there's another K-pop girl band called f(x) that just debuted. Since I'm an ex-engineer, my first thought was function?!... I think it's supposed to be "effects" or something. This new group has 5 girls and is managed by SM Entertainment, same as SNSD. The interesting thing (to me anyway) is that 2 of the girls are Chinese, including the leader, Victoria Song. She's actually from Qingdao, China and attended Beijing Dance Academy. Since she's the oldest, SM made her the group leader. Hmm, I wonder how good is her Korean. The other Chinese member is the rapper, Amber Liu, from Canoga Park so she is probably learning Korean too. Another member, Krystal Jung, was born in San Francisco and is the younger sister of Jessica from SNSD. They're actually pretty talented, judging from their first few performances.
Victoria is the one on the left
My Korean friend Sunny thinks Lee Soo Man is evil but he's an evil genius when it comes to K-pop.
LA chA TA - Music Core (Sept 5, 2009)
She's really good. Even the English is pretty decent though she's native Korean.
I read online that counterfeiters are producing more ¥50 and ¥20 bills. I've kind of gotten used to people checking out my ¥100 bills that I just got from the Bank of China but now I have to worry about smaller bills.
I did get a counterfeit ¥50 bill once, or at least my friend though so. We were buying some bike locks and getting a key made from a locksmith. I think the total was ¥30 so I gave him a ¥100 bill. After showing my friend the change, she freaked out and dragged me back to the locksmith. She said the ¥50 was fake and was going to call the police unless he gave us smaller bills. He did so without comment so maybe the ¥50 was fake.
What do you do with a fake bill? I think in China, you try to pass it off to the next guy quietly. If you bring it to a bank, they'll probably detain you and confiscate your "money" as evidence.
