We checked out the night market/snack street in Beijing and came across a bunch of stands selling deep-fried stuff and other foods. There was some creepy stuff but I have to admit it is probably all to attract tourists because who on earth would eat that on a daily basis? I mean, come on, starfish? Pupa? Scorpions? Sheep's penis? Must be something to do with Eastern medicine about virility or something. Either way, ew.
Okay I think this should be enough peeks for a while, I should go ahead and get cracking at putting mini-vids together for my family of the whole trip. That ought to make for an awesome Christmas present for everybody, right? I better get started because I am super slow at editing and it's July. Plus there are a bunch of other vids I've been meaning to do, like our Christmas with Jon's family in Wisconsin last year, friends' weddings, this fun canoe outing, biking to Ipswich, etc. etc. etc. But I'm glad I have a project to do indoors while it's raining outside.
House hunt needs to be ramped up again now that we are back on the correct hemisphere. We are now paying rent month-to-month in our apartment now that our lease is up, but it's significantly more. Either need to negotiate that or find an effing house already!
Jon and I have tickets to the Sox/Mariners game on Friday -- hope it's not going to be rained out! But we are in the grandstand so we should be good if it starts drizzling.
What else to report on... well, I could write more blogs about China but I want to be able to get some pictures up already so maybe I'll work on that too.
Books I've been reading... I finished Pride and Prejudice and Zombies while in China. It was funny but nothing too ground-breaking; I think I'll stick with re-reading the original. Read the latest Ladies' Detective Agency book (comfort read) and am still trying to get through Pygmy but I can only sit through a few chapters at a time before wanting to read something fluffy, like manga.
Movies... I unfortunately wasted 2 1/2 hours of my life watching Transformers 2. It's pretty terrible, unless you're a teenage boy, then it's probably awesome. That was pretty much the opinion -- and demographic -- of the rest of the audience in that theater. I haven't seen Up since I've been on vacation but I will rectify that this weekend. Also definitely want to see Public Enemies as it stars my two favorite actors, Bale and Depp.
TV... So sad that Billy Mays died. Jon and I loved watching Pitchmen. Unfortunately I just haven't really watched a lot of TV this summer. Sci-Fi's last installment of Joan of Arcadia episodes were recorded while we were in China so I need to finish up those and proclaim it the best series ever, and then I think I will be watching the last of DS9 before starting on The Wire.
Happy July everybody!
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jesusfreak526 got some height in this one:( Jump, jump! )
And of course Jon has to steal the shot with his expression/jump:
( Kriss Kross will make you... )
It's funny to note that we took a lot of jumping pictures, one trying to synchronize 4 of us jumping at once, etc., and a lot of people were watching us curiously. By the time we left, pretty much everyone we passed that was taking a picture in front of this stadium was attempting to do a jumping pic. A little boy even shouted at us, repeating our "One, two, three, JUMP!" phrase we had been yelling during our shooting. Awesome.
Of course, we couldn't leave the Olympic center without taking pictures with the big stuffed panda mascots -- each Sia sibling attempting the mimic the panda in front of them. They look a little worse for wear, and they were pretty damn dirty -- but isn't everything in China on some level of dirty?
( Dirty Olympic pandas are dirty )
At work during lunch on Fridays they set up a big grill in the outdoor seating area of the cafeteria. It's busy and fun and they usually have the radio going. Today, of course, the radio station is playing Michael Jackson songs.
During our lunch group conversation one of my friends brings up, in a somewhat oblivious tone, "Oh hey by the way Michael Jackson passed away." He says it pretty innocently, like he's unaware of the entire media maelstrom from every single possible outlet that has been reporting or honoring Michael Jackson's death since yesterday.
"Uh... you're kidding, right?" I asked.
"No, I'm serious! He's dead," he responded. After which he was subjected to a lot of crap for being COMPLETELY out of the loop for the past 20 or so hours. But I think it is a pretty amazing accomplishment to be able to not hear about something that has affected every orifice of communication today. To do that these days you might need to be off climbing a mountain or just happen to completely isolate yourself I'd say. Or live in a country that filters incoming news. It'd have to be a hell of a filter to block something like this out.
Anyway, it's a sad time to witness the passing of a legend. Despite everything that has happened in his life, the twisted stories and all, he ended up being a legend during his life and will continue to be one after it. He was a man, after all. A really messed-up man, and whether that be due to his own faults or the public's, he still made some of the best music that's been out there ever.
So in memoriam I will put up my all-time favorite song by Michael Jackson -- "Human Nature."
Human Nature - Michael Jackson
Yes, blueberry-flavored potato chips. I could not finish the bag, the taste was so off-putting. But it would make for a great fake-out -- it takes like a regular salty potato chip but then there is this horrible aftertaste of SWEET BLUEBERRY. Uggggh! If you see these in your country (or in your party bowl), beware!
ETA: I've currently privatized the video on Flickr because I am just uploading little snippets right now to see if they turned out okay. So this really is a first peek -- enjoy! Even though it really isn't much to do with China at all. Ah well! Also let me know if the player has problems playing a private video.
ANYWAY, yes Jon and I are done packing for our trip to China! Our car service is picking us up at the butt-fucking dawn of 3:30AM, which is T-minus 4 hours and counting. I might try and take a cat nap, I don't know. But to be honest, while I am totally excited to be going to China, for some reason I don't really have any travel anxiety like I usually do. When we went to Tahiti and even Mexico I felt kind of nervous about where we were going and the entire trip. Maybe it's because everything is planned out for the China trip. I read the itinerary and we are going to be doing so much touristy stuff it is going to be EXHAUSTING. Awesome, of course, but exhausting. Plus with my family, there's sure to be the usual family arguments over whose life needs to be micro-managed these days. I'm just kidding, though I'm sure my parents will have plenty to say about my 401k and my real estate search. Needless to say, we are bringing a big bottle of Advil -- no tiny travel bottle for us!
We are going to be gone for 16 days, and I know for sure that the Great Firewall of China blocks LJ, plus with the recent Tienanmen Square anniversary, they have blocked a WHOLE HELL OF A LOT AS USUAL like Twitter and Flickr and stuff. So we may try to upload pics when we can if they work, if not, expect to see a whole crapload of pictures when we get back! Maybe some video too.
Jon's co-worker mentioned this YouTube channel DrunkHistory to Jon one day and Jon being a history buff thought it was extremely hilarious. They basically have someone drink a lot and then try to retell a historical event, and then they film an AMC/History channel-like biography about that event, using the drunk person's own words as the narration and dialogue for the show. What's cool is that there are famous people like Jack Black and Michael Cera who play some of the parts. Hilarious!
I guess I mention this now because my family's all set to go to China next month (barring, you know, World War III between North Korea and, ahem, EVERYONE). What's funny is the first part of our tour in China is a Yangtze River cruise for 6 days or so -- and wasn't the first cases of the zombie outbreak in China? ::shudder:: I know it's silly to be afraid of zombies, but I'm only slightly concerned. I'm more concerned about making it out of the country safely if shit goes down in Korea. Still, zombies are on the list too!
- I got a wedding invitation for my freshman RA's wedding coming up next month. He is awesome and I am so happy for him and I would totally forego any plans to attend his wedding, but as it turns out I will be in China with my entire family for pretty much all of June. And China is, well, China. Sigh! I bet it would have been an awesome wedding, too.
- I just started playing Fallout 3 after my husband's been playing it for months now. I guess I needed a break from exploring the FFXII world and I have to admit that the Fallout 3 world is pretty damn large. We have the PS3 version and it is simply gorgeous and the attention to detail and the low-key bits of post-apocalyptic humor are incredible. At first Jon was kind of bummed that he had purchased the PS3 version because for a while we heard that they weren't going to make any downloadable content available for the PS3 version (as opposed to the Xbox 360), but now there's news that downloadable content is coming out this year! Yay.
- I am so bummed that the only magazine I subscribe to, Shojo Beat, is going under. I love reading shoujo manga but I am starting to reach breaking point at buying manga volumes because I simply just do not have the space. So I resort to the library (which is either limited/slow depending upon the series), a Netflix-like business called Manga Takeout which I'm not too happy with speed-wise (I mean, come on they say they shipped out my latest shipment on April 29 and I STILL haven't received it yet? Unacceptable!), or reading scanlations. I appreciate scanlations, but I honestly would like to support manga in a way that doesn't include having to cut down a bunch of trees and me trying to find a way to cram them on my bookshelf somewhere.
The only solution that would please me is to get an e-book reader and have manga volumes available for purchase on the e-book reader. The Kindle DX is the perfect tool for reading manga. Its screen is pretty much the size of a manga page. I would be willing to purchase a Kindle DX and shell out the $11/volume as long as I can keep them all on an e-book reader and not have it clutter up my living space. Digital manga has got to happen sooner or later, otherwise I may just have to grow out of it for spatially-economical reasons or become a manga-pirate. - I do not really watch a lot of the TV that's been airing so I have no comments on any of the season finales or anything of the sort. I still watch the Joan of Arcadia episodes the Sci-Fi airs in monthly bunches, though. I love that show. It was deep and smart and hilarious. I wish there were still shows like that on. I really need to just purchase the box sets.
- PandaEEE, my new EEE PC, is up and running like a dream. It had some issues connecting to the wireless internet but we found out that wasn't the netbook's fault, but that our router is dying. So we replaced the router with my older one which is still ticking. Everything's peachy. I've got to load it up with some movies (or in my case, DS9 episodes) before we leave for China. The idea is to watch an episode, delete it, and use the extra space to store photos/video during the trip. If that doesn't work, bring USB sticks. Digital storage is so cheap, I love it. Anyway, PandaEEE works great, maybe if I get back from China I will try to install Windows 7 on it and see if I can get away the Windows XP Home distro that's on there.
- We are just starting our search for a home in Massachusetts! Apartment living is good but home equity is better, right? Our realtor showed us around the Chelmsford area and I like it, it's my kind of town. Not too crowded, lots of space, and friendly neighbors. It's in our price range, the school system is good, and the resell value in certain neighborhoods is good. Search kicks in to high gear when we get back from China. I'm optimistic for now. Looking forward to hear what I'll sound like at the end of the summer! Haha.
- I have seen Star Trek twice in its opening weekend and I cannot WAIT until it comes out on Blu-Ray.
YouTube user/partner KevJumba started up a charity YT channel called JumbaFund, where the money gained from all the views of the videos gets donated to a voted charity each month. KevJumba is a funny guy and he's been posting some videos since he's started college. This particular one is kind of silly but is pretty much typical of the college dorm experience as I can recall.
Reminds me of the time Rachel et al would make videos of each other. Man, if only we had Flip cameras and YT back then! Sadly I think those videos have been erased or re-formatted due to being on old PCs. But we did have some crazy awesome times. Go B2!
Of course, I am always welcoming new people to share within Google Reader. I send a comment every now and then. I like discovering new blogs to follow based on what people are sharing, or at least having someone filter all the non-interesting crap from a blog. So if you've got Google Reader set up, let me know yo! Send me an email or leave a message here.
Or otherwise, you can enjoy the fun things I find from my daily reading of blogs. I'd repost my shared items on LJ but, well, that is kind of silly and I am EXTREMELY LAZY. The links/articles I do end up posting on LJ are from feeds I'm not reading, so I came across them through other means. I.e. they are SPECIAL!
Panda-3a
Originally uploaded by Active Media Products Ltd.
Okay so I haven't blogged in a long long while. I've been bulazy! Yes that is my made-up word for busy + lazy. Stuff keeps happening here, fun awesome stuff, and I never seem to want to write a post about it. Ah well. Maybe eventually I will get back into a blogging routine.
Anyway, here is a picture of something I want right the hell now.
I Twitter pretty frequently, perhaps you want to follow me?
I don't know it just seems to me that this area of the ocean is kind of like having to travel down a dangerous alley at night in the middle of a city. Don't you think it would be better to be with a bunch of people or maybe at least a bodyguard? I know it might cost more but couldn't a number of ships bear the cost together? Patrolling the area is nice but only as effective as police cars driving around a neighborhood periodically.
I think my favorite episode arc was probably the one about the Phoenix saga. But my favorite character of the series was probably Cable.
There are some decent tracks, at least to my untrained I-don't-even-enjoy-listening-to-a-cappel
Ben Folds's own attempts at a cappella were pretty interesting. "Boxing" has some crazy stuff going on with the chords in the block, and that soprano part makes this a really weird but fascinating arrangement. I like his fun arrangement of "Effington" (even though it sounds a lot like something Jonathan Coulton would come up with).
I still contend that -- with the exception of "Boxing" -- that "The Luckiest" is probably the most original Ben Folds arrangement on the album. I suppose I am biased on that one. But I really love the ballad-turned-choral style of the arrangement and it's less of a mimic and more of a stylistic adaptation. I still get comments on my YouTube video about how awesome Joc is for the solo and the arrangement. That would be very awesome if he or any of the Amateurs all of a sudden got famous from this album -- and then I can recall stories like when the Amateurs celebrated Joe getting into the group by breaking in to his freshman dorm room at 4AM and singing to him while he was his boxer shorts.
Yes, you heard me.
PLANTS.
VERSUS.
ZOMBIES.
The trailer is both ridiculous but adorable. I do not know for sure if it is an April Fools prank, as it keeps saying it's coming out on May 5th.
The song for the music video is so cute they are offering it as a free MP3 download! They even recorded a Japanese version! Is this for real or a prank? Do I have to wait until May 5th to find out?
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage.
Check out the CADIE blog and the YT channel!
Best Week Ever » Blog Archive » The 50 Best Pun Stores
I posted this up on Facebook, but now I ask LJ: which is your favorite?
There were audible giggles when I saw #7 (Planet of the Grapes), #19 (Florist Gump), #12 (William the Concreter -- check out the address number!! HAHAHA), and #2 (Lord of the Fries). Though honorable mentions are in order for great signage on #29 (Award Wieners - "Best Wiener in a Supporting Roll") and #2 (Thai Tanic).
And because Jon is 12, here were his favorites:
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