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Well, I only get to cross one thing off of the checklist from last Monday. I ended up swimming 3 times last week, and, since I started a week and a half ago, I’ve dropped about 3 kilos that haven’t come back. Now I’ll hanging out around 85 (187 pounds for my US friends) kilos, down from the 101 (222 pound) high of last year.

I’m still working on getting the second computer setup. I found a cheap desk a Ikea, but I-Ping’s brother might have something I can use. As soon as that gets setup I’ll put BSD and Linux on it. The CSS book didn’t even get cracked, and Mandarin study fought a losing battle against Tekken 5.

This past week was a good one. I haven’t pulled pictures off of my camera since last Tuesday so I’ll start there. The day adoa and I went to hit golf balls I got to see a prototype of a drop top Honda CRV. Maybe you’ll get to see these over the summer.

Drop Top CRV

Wednesday I rolled over to LongShan temple with Jefferson to do some shopping for little gold trinkets. He needed to pick up some cool little items for some friends back home. Since I had never been to Longshan temple before we decided to do a quick walk through. I took a couple photos and was pleasantly surprised by this.

The LongShan’s

Chuck E Cheese’s animatronic band

Thank Jefferson for the expert angle of this shot. I like it.

A Longshan Fountain

After the visit to the temple we walked over to Mc Donald’s (I had a large fry) to sit down and play with Jefferson’s newly purchased Sony PSP. The game to test, “Ridge Racer”. I was really impressed with Sony’s new hand held. I haven’t read any reviews or looked at the tech specs of the system, but playing it once will show you that this little thing has a lot more power than Sony’s original PS1. It was comfortable to hold and easy on the eyes (how could in not be with that big ass screen?). It also functions as an MP3 player and will play mini DVD movies, or movies converted and put on a (big) memory card.

After I beat a level for Jefferson we split up. My new destination was I-Ping’s brother’s house. We were going to have dinner and cake to celebrate I-Ping’s mom’s birthday. It’s always fun going there because I get to mess with my niece. Her toy of that day was an old camera.

Cheese!

Then I let her take a picture of me.

Uh Cheese?

I got a picture of I-Ping and baby niece #2. I don’t think she has an English name yet and I keep forgetting her Chinese name.

I-Ping and Niece #2

Thursday I had a meeting with Elias (the guy who organized that conference where I won that stuff). His office was near the Asia World department store (a part of town that I haven’t been to in a while). What I saw across the street from it shocked me a little (and will probably shock no one else).

The New Stadium

The last time I walked by here that stadium was a little baseball field, kind of like one you would have seen on that movie the sandlot (I’m serious). To me, it’s almost like that thing popped up over night.

The meeting with Elias went really well. I told him about some of the things I wanted to setup (business wise) and he gave me some ideas about how his company could help get those things moving. He also gave me a lot of extra advise on how to make a business that runs smoothly. So smoothly that you (the owner) would eventually get to step back and watch the business make money for you with out needing to be there ALL THE TIME, otherwise, what’s the point? So, I’m going to take what I learned there to get things planned out a little (lot) better and meet with him again when I’m better prepared. I’ve decided that I’m going to totally focus on web hosting to begin with and slowly add more things to that. But I’ll definitely be working on one new business thing at a time.

On the way back home I noticed a really big Mitsubishi ad and thought I’d take a picture. The ad isn’t all that special, but if memory serves correctly there’s a story behind why all the windows are covered up in this building. I think there was an earthquake that shook that place up real good. So good that building inspectors decided that it’s not safe to rent out anymore. So now it serves as a wall for advertisements. Great story huh?

Could Someone Open a Window?

A didn’t write it yet, but I was pretty late for work on Thursday (maybe 20 minutes). Friday I could have gotten to work on time, but I decided to casually walk to my favorite breakfast shop and get something to eat. I’m not sure what happened between my walk from the shop to school, but something snapped inside me. I decided to quit. So I did. My last day there should be the end of April unless they find someone sooner. Looking back on why I quit it’s mostly a lot of little things and the fact that they didn’t pay me for Chinese New Year when they said they would.

After work I went for a swim and saw a movie with I-Ping. While in line I saw sign I wanted to share with you all. I never noticed it before.

American Friend Chicken aka Little Red Chicken

As if it wasn’t enough that there was a picture of a little Indian kid next to it, the Chinese name is Little Red. That’s about as bad (good ) as the Black Man toothpaste.

Yesterday I swam, learned how to play Mahjong, and played a bunch of Tekken. Today I’m going to take a look at that computer desk, do some Internet things, and hopefully make to game club.

I think I’ll prepare another checklist for the wee tomorrow. The CSS book didn’t get touched because there’s another book I’m finishing up (the one I won). I’ll need to get that computer setup to make room for my mom when she’s here next Friday. That just leaves the everyday study of Chinese. I think I’ll be able to work that into my “busy” schedule.

Later

Blog is sorely losing, but the Tekken hype should wear off soon. I’ll have to get all caught up tomorrow. If I’m going to stay up any later, it’s going to be to play more Tekken . I did go see a movie today. “Be Cool”. I thought it was pretty cool. More about that and other things (hopefully) tomorrow.

The busy bee is me and that’s what I’ve been this day and the last. I have a few pictures to put up and a story or two, but I just didn’t want to go 2 days straight with nothing. I’m here doing things as usual.

How Long is a Chinaman

Pics and stuff tomorrow. Tekken now.

That’s right, all this time you’ve been looking for him and I was right here. You’re little butterfly. OK, this makes absolutely no sense to people who’ve never played or seen DDR (Dance Dance Revolution), but it’ll make some sense shortly (when/if you download the video).

Today was pretty chill. Adoa and I went to hits golf balls, but the place was closed because they were doing something, so we just hung and and bitched about how shitty it is in the US . Then I went over to Xinmending and met up with Frost. From there we hit the arcade and played a few rounds of Time Crisis 3 (very nice) and I played a couple rounds of DDR. I was unknowingly recorded. Here’s how it came out.

Mac and other users beware. This is a WMV file and I’ve heard some people have a problem viewing these (damn you Micro$oft!). I’m the future I’ll probably encode things into something more universally friendly, but this is the easiest for me to do now.

[CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO 4.0M]

After DDRin’ we went to me crib (my house) to play Tekken 5. Boy is it a nice game. I’ll probably be doing a little bit of that before dream time.

and with that I exit (stage right).

[Note: I plan on making a page with vocabulary of locations and people that are frequently mentioned in the blog, just for the sake of Sake. ]

I will do no further reporting until the end of the week, but I got some laps in swimming (even got “proof”) and studied Chinese for a smidgen above the minimum.

I wanted to take a second to thank Frost for pointing out to me that the comments weren’t working properly. They weren’t letting people leave their name, website, etc. but it should all be fixed up now.

Teeken 5 arrived today (I haven’t even popped it in yet). I think I’ll play a bit before I slumber.

The Rooftop Pool

The lights on the left are a chilling out pool with things that spray water and stuff. The greenhouse looking thing on the right is the lap pool. I made a lot of progress from my time last week (the old swimming muscles are recovering). I was able to swim the length of the pool underwater and I was passing up the old ladies today (with no hands, kickboard only ).

There’s still time! Drop a brick (block)!

Peace out!