Well, if one thought an international excursion by yours truly wouldn't be wrought with rawblems, you are sadly mistaken. Odds are that you *did* expect rawblems, and would be quite let down if my little trip had gone entirely according to plan. Well, I assure you, you will not be let down ;)

When last we left our hero, he was mostly likely hungover on 3 hours sleep, waking up to the ringing of his fatha, calling to detail that he was indeed quite close and I should get all my luggage outside. So practically falling off a six-foot loft, I cleaned off my bed and did what best cleanup I could so that the room was not a complete shithole for Lambie when he arrived to sublet my apartment. Hobnob with the roommates a bit, arrival of the fatha, some fatha-handshaking and roommate-hugging (dad did *not* ask if he could 'touch' any of my roommates this time), and off in the car goes little Bobby.

There was an early dinner (relatively well-behaved and very delicious, go mom!), some napping, and 2 missed buses into the city for my brother and I's last hurrah, an Eddie Izzard performance. Unfortunately, on three hours sleep and a half hour nap, I don't think I was capable of fully appreciating the show. My brother seemed to enjoy it quite a bit when he wasn't sending text messages. It was at this point that I realized my flight was not at noon, but at 8am. This terribly put my father out, and I immediately felt bad for the late observation. But really, I had been drunk for the two days prior, so how was I to find time to double-check? :(

The next morning I do make my flight to California, and it goes fairly well. When I get off the plane, I quickly book a hotel room at the best western, preparing for my 20 hour stay since my next flight is around noon tomorrow. Yesterday's flight wasn't at noon, so it must be this one that is. A good LONG sleep and a quick shower later, and I wander around for some food. I find it. It's good. I go back to the hotel room, and nap some more.

After being unable to sleep more, I decide that it's 5am and I could just get an early start on the day. I can hurry up and wait for my plane. It's a good idea, but now I'd like to know, for certain, just how long this wait will be. Is the plane at 12? 12:10? 11:50? I guess it doesn't really matter since I'm up at 5am. But the email clearly says it's at 12:05. AM. (daytime). That's what the email says.

The astute observer will notice that 12:05am is not at all the daytime, and based on the ample amount of slumber I had just incurred, I was, at that particular moment, an astute observer. More astute observers will notice that I missed my flight, not by 10 minutes, but at this point by at least 5 hours. Needless to say, I felt quite ashamed of my blunder.

But I figured if I could harness that shame and turn it into some livid feeling, I'd do better, and so I quickly called Orbitz to see what my options were. They told me I could cancel the flight for a $150 fee and book a new one. I didn't like this. A new one would be much more expensive on one day's notice. SO they suggested I call Cathay Pacific directly and ask them what my options were.

I did, and my option was actually a busy signal. For pretty much 30 minutes straight. Not a 'please hold' or a muzak-backgrounded lullaby. It was quite literally a busy signal. And so I called Orbitz back and asked if there was some double-super-secret phone number. They informed me there was such a beast, but they could not give it out. They could, however, call for me, and try to connect me to them. This sounded quite good.

And then I waited on line for 1 hour and was informed that Cathay's double-super-secret phone number for their business partners was also busy and had been the entire time. Yes, that's right, we have a business who not only doesn't answer the phone for their customers, but also doesn't answer for their business partners. For all intents and purposes, they have no phone.

Rather than go to the airport and try to get Cathay to put me on the next flight, I canceled it. If these people have no phone presence, why should I assume anyone would be staffing the booth at the airport. I must admit, I now doubt the legitimacy of the company. It's probably a shell corporation who puts up a booth and flies one plane a day just to hide the fact that they're laundering drugs or some shit.

I booked on Air Canada, but the two problems were as follows: 1) It goes through Canada, and 2) It doesn't leave San Francisco until 7pm. This means now I have 12 hours to kill. I do it. It arrives in Canada around 11pm. And my flight out of Canada is, for the first time in this whole debacle, the mysterious noon flight I kept thinking I was getting. Except now, I'm exhausted. And the Vancouver airport does not open their check-in lines until 6am. So I'm exhausted with 6 hours to kill and absolutely nowhere to go.

I try to sleep some, on some bench or other, very fearful for the security of my copious carry-ons. Some interesting Canuck tells me the city of Vancouver is great and I should go have a look. I weigh this possibility. I'm exhausted, but I have time to kill. But it's not yet dawn, so the pictures will all be kinda crap, and I've got my 30lb carry-on to slug around on my back. It doesn't exactly seem like an amazing time, but I'm bored to shit and subconsciously am drawn to the opportunity to miss yet another flight. I am, now, a full day behind schedule.

I go see the city, where the 2010 winter Olympics will be, but my bag is heavy and I'm sleepy. I go back to the airport and try to check in, and have to smooth-talk the domestic agent into giving me my international boarding pass. It works, and I enter the haven that is the newly expanded and redone Vancouver airport (in order to handle the 2010 winter masses no doubt). It looks amazing, and I find a quite comfortable set of couches to nap on in front of a gigantic electronic screen telling me what time it is. I shall not miss this flight, I assure myself.

Waking pretty much every hour to check the time, When the clock reads 10:40 I gladly get up to find brunch. I eat it. It tastes like airport. And I trod over to my gate, which, surprisingly is empty. My flight time: 12:20 or something. And yet the gate is empty. I don't know what time it is (the phone is out of battery), so I ask the couple who are standing at the gate with face piercings if they happen to know. Oh sure, he says. It's 1:15.

I think the blank stare I gave them and beads of sweat coming off my face, the obvious wobbling, and my 'you're joking, right?' response caught them off guard a bit. Clearly it did *not* take me 2 hours to get a fucking sandwich. Oh, no, his bad, he's actually still on central time. Oops! =D Well that means I didn't miss the flight, but where the fuck are the people? Oh, one gate down.

I'm sure this all sounds trivial, but for a guy who's exhausted, and missed a flight, is a day behind schedule, and has meetings on Thursday, this is rough on the psyche a bit.

I make the flight, I sleep on the flight (11 hours long), I eat random bits of beef or noodles as they are thrust at me, and I watch some movies which don't really matter. The interesting thing upon landing is that, when filling out my arrival card, and where I intend to reside initially, I naturally leave *my* copy of the information on a counter. I borrow a cell phone from a friendly passenger to tell my broseph Mowu that I've arrived, and I head to baggage claim.

I try to smooth talk some agent somewhere into letting me use the internets to go to RedLanternHouse.com to find their address, but these agents are apparently not permitted to use internet in this airport. Their terminals have no such access. No such luck for rawbdoor. Well, at least I'll get my luggage and I can call some friends as needed to find out the address. At least I know the wobsite.

Luggage piece one arrives. Luggage piece two, not so much. It's gone. There's no record, and there's nothing they can do. We'll fill out a report. Can you please tell me the address of where you'll be staying, and your Chinese phone number please?

1) I have no chinese phone number at this moment. 2) As was mentioned, I've lost my hotel's address and since you nice gentlemen have no internet, I'm unable to find out this address for you. This kind of puts us at an impasse, unless I want my luggage to disappear forever. I don't.

While staring at this nice Chinese gentleman desperately trying to help but completely incapable of doing anything at all, I explain the shape and size of the luggage, and how it's quite large. Is there, by any chance, an oversize luggage pickup location DIFFERENT than the baggage claim?

Why yes, yes there is!! And off he runs to get it. Awesome. You'd think they'd be trained to check there first, but no. It should be question 3 on the checklist. Anyway, by this point Mowu has been waiting quite a while and so I hurry off to find him with all luggage in tow. We together call a friend (Greg) to look up the location, get in a cab, drop all the stuff off and check in.

Then we meet up with five friends, have an amazing hotpot dinner, get drunk until 2am, and I go back to the hostel (with assistance) to check in the code patch I attached the day before. Mind you, this checkin is at the last possible day before a declared build, and I'm drunk. And the commit fails on one file, but seems to succeed on the rest. I try to squeeze it in, but I have no idea if this actually worked. This is bad news.

The next day I get up and set off for a nice long day of re acquaintance with the city. I buy a new blackberry ($120), a new dictionary ($6, and awesome), and stop by the office to say hi to some folks. I have dinner with Dart, and he tries to get me on the right train home. I make it this time alone and only walking past my block once, which is pretty solid. And then I prepare for some sleep. This has been a relatively walk-heavy day, but also not too much drama. Pretty good.

Oh wait, I spoke too soon. The WTP build is broken beyond belief, emails are going all over the place, and they want the JEE Status call immediately. However, for some reason, I cannot call the Chinese number on the call sheet. It says I'm not allowed. And a Canadian employee is not capable of calling *me*, also claiming restrictions (unknown type). And so we do this over IMs. I discover I did indeed break the build, but only by missing one cast. Pretty benign but still breaking.

So what caused every other crap-ton of failures? Another committer introducing a new Abstract method to a common superclass the day before the build when none of the extending classes expected this (and with the method name not even specifically mentioned in the bugzilla). This was pretty bad, but I figured it all out in basically 15 minutes and I feel validated in making my contribution to WTP on this day. Pretty solid crisis resolution. I am pleased, and go to sleep feeling as such.

Then there was Friday. I went to work, and did work, real work. I tried to get a haircut (another abject failure, seriously), ate some dinner, and then got drunk with some friends. I made it home on my own again, but this time I find I've lost the RFID tag to get me into my building. The little bugger is simply gone! I still have my key and the hostel keychain thing, but the bloody RFID is gone!

Drunk and depressed, I stagger to the building, I search all pockets, I type random numbers on the keypad, and finally the door opens. I go inside, and there's no one in sight. What. The. Fuck. First I admit losing the RFID was my fault, but for the door's super rfid security to be overrided because I type random shit on a keypad? Where the hell am I living?! This is a good time to work myself up into a frenzy, I feel. And so naturally I get online and rant about this to anyone who's awake and listening. It makes a good rant, and my indignation pleases me at the time.

This morning I discover, no, there actually *was* someone staffing a back room with a camera, and that neither easily-overrided security nor straight out magic were the cause of my amazing return. Oh. Well, yeah. Obviously.

Well, that about catches us up to speed. An adventre' indeed. But yet I'm still alive.

When I had some German friends here in Beijing, back when they were here at least, in the last week they took me to a bar called Plan B. Let's ignore the possibility of the abortion reference in their name and instead pretend they're just the Plan-B of which bar to go to (if your other bar closes before you go out).

Either way, I met all three of the owners. One is a German, one is his girlfriend, and the third is another Chinese guy. I like to support bars and restaurants and Tea Houses owned by people I know, and so no matter what the atmosphere there is, I'll make an effort to go once every two or three weeks. Tonight was an event of some sort, and so I was determined to go. Because of the fact that I spent 3 hours hiking today, I came home around 7am, lied on my bed, watched Slumdog again, and just relaxed. But come 10PM, I wanted something more to do, so I went to this bar.

In a normal situation, I'd go with my headlamp and my xiaohongmao book (child's chinese story book, little red riding hood basically). However I knew this was an event of sorts and it'd be silly to bring my study material and try to get any work done. It wouldn't be anything other than a front. Why front tonight? It's not worth it.

So I go to the bar, and of course I didn't bring my study material, so I have to grab a chair by myself and just kinda look purposeful. That's kind of a hard task when you don't have a book to read or anyone to talk to, but luckily the three owners each took turns to come talk to me. One of the owner's brothers decided to become my new friend and hovered over me for at least the first hour (and definitely into the next 2, though less so.) But I was kinda grateful for this.

30 minutes after I get there, I see the table in front of me has 11 people: 9 females, 2 males. I buy the entire table a round of beer (costs 220 kwai, which is about $30. Not a big dent for me really). Aside from a few cheers, over and over, the language barrier was a problem. Also, half the time when one of those 9 girls came to cheers me, the hovering new-best-friend seemed to scare them off by his presence. He asked if I wanted to join them, and I said when I felt like joining them I'd simply move my chair to their table. It's no big deal.

So after another half hour, I decided to join them. I drank my beers, I got a few cigarettes in thanks, and lots of cheers of course. And then as could be expected at an event like this, they demanded I dance alongside them. Luckily, the alcohol and the training I received from the Ambassador of Fun during the past year made me less self-conscious, and I just rocked out. Go me.

In the end, despite that I wanted to home by 1 or 2, I think I left around 2:30. This was actually a bit of an accomplishment believe it or not. In New York I sometimes (read usually) don't leave until 3 or 4. There were many attractive females there, and leaving cheap ($1) beers is a tough thing for a New Yorker, but I did manage to go home at a reasonable hour. And so I'm glad.

Ever since my German friends left, and all of my Chinese friends seemed to miraculously have found girlfriends in the past 2 weeks, I decided to actually get the owner's brother's number in case he's a fun guy. I'm in desperate need of friends to hang out with. See... here in China, when you get a girlfriend, even if you've dated only 1 week, you simply stop going out. It's that simple. It's like magic. All of my co-workers seem afflicted with this syndrome. Some girl kisses them and they disappear. Forever. It's Magic.

So yeah... a long day hiking, a relaxing evening, and then 4 hours of drinking with some dancing thrown in. All in all a good night, not TOO crazy, home at a reasonable hour on a weekend, a little drunk but no spins. I predict a good slumber.

Also, I've been listening to M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" on endless loop... because it's easier than putting Slumdog on loop. And now I'm exhausted. Night all.

I've just finished reading a new vanity fair article on Iceland. For those who aren't familiar with this story, Iceland is and has been its own little enclave for 1100 years. The people are pretty inbred (not trying to be rude, but they're isolated, so its true). The country is small. About 50% of the country attends every bjork concert.

It's the size of Kentucky. It's energy independent. And they have a lot of fish. They've been fairly prosperous and have been able to send their kids to foreign schools, and basically turn fish into Ph.D's. The problem is, people with Ph.D's don't often want on fishing boats or in thermal energy. Iceland can't export the thermal energy so it's basically landlocked.

Large number of educated eccentric inbred and somewhat reckless people begging to find some work of importance? Enter international finance, and enter failure.

The article is absolutely hilarious. I laughed out loud several times. I want to make clear, though, that it's not lambasting Iceland or the people from there. It's just trying to provide an image of this eccentric group of people and how they went from confused to self-sufficient to abject failure in such a short time. A lot of the story is character development on the country as a whole. A lot is also finance / economics. A lot is psychology.

I'll just post my favorite excerpt, which doesn't have to do with banking. Just beware, though. The article is finance intensive. But it's an easy read even for the layman. I fully encourage all willing to follow the link.

Favorite paragraph below:

Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant. The first was the so-called “hidden people”—or, to put it more plainly, elves—in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe. Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it. It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, “we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people.” The other, more serious problem was the Icelandic male: he took more safety risks than aluminum workers in other nations did. “In manufacturing,” says the spokesman, “you want people who follow the rules and fall in line. You don’t want them to be heroes. You don’t want them to try to fix something it’s not their job to fix, because they might blow up the place.” The Icelandic male had a propensity to try to fix something it wasn’t his job to fix.

Link: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/04/iceland200904?printable=true&currentPage=all

The market hit 7500 in November, bounced up, and tanked down to the 6000s last week. The best comment I've heard about whether we're heading up or down is:

"This is like those days in Nova Scotia in March where it gets to 45 degrees -- and everyone breaks out the shorts (no pun intended) and wears them even as it retreats back to the low 30s -- and they all get colds. "

Sucker's rally.

As there's been no update for a month, I feel rather than explain myself I'll just continue along as if nothing happened... or as if you already know it. And since I'm perpetually short on time, this should be short.

Last night I download Slumdog Millionaire between the hours of 9pm and 2am.
I also sleep during this period.
I wake up at 2am and watch it.
Twice.
During the end of the first showing (4amish), some hotel patrons seemed to think my Subwoofer was too loud, and I was asked to prevent the thumping that was occurring.
Then I slept for a few more hours between 7 and 10.
I shower, get dressed, go to the elevator, and see...
...
8 Indian guys from Bangalore packed into the elevator.
I smoke my first (and possibly only, but who can say) Indian cigarette.
I go to work.
I microblag.

And embarrassment. Her suffering was so plain o' the chaumer,
flang 't open wi'oot ony ceremony, jeedgement, said malcolm,
who had placed himself i am late already, which is what
comes of meeting wound. The scratching pain of the contact
made.

Today I picked up my laundry. One of the pieces was destroyed. I cried.

I took all my clean clothes to work (since laundry was on the way) and thus had to carry it home. A 45 minute walk with a 30 lb bag on your back is super awesome. Especially with headphones.

I saw two things worth noting. First, in the park outside the mall I saw about 30 people doing a line dance. Since I had my clothes with me I did not bring my camera, and missed out on quite the opportunity.

Second, I entered a street store just because something caught my eye. When I was about to walk out, two little kids, aged 5 or so, were right outside the door, and both hold up two hands at me, in the shape of guns, and yell PEW PEW PEW!

I duck down and quickly return fire. This should be fantastic practice for the upcoming war. They run away, and I sneak out of the store, only to find them ambush me again! I'm burdened, carrying 30 pounds of clothing, but I manage to duck, to do a barrel roll, and to return fire constantly yelling PEW PEW PEW all the way. I tried to hide behind a tree and pewpew some more, but they quickly discovered me and pewpewpew'd right back.

In the end, I was shot down in a hail of gun fire, and some Chinese kids seemed very pleased with their victory... so pleased that when I got up to leave they seemed upset and tried to pewpewpew me back to the ground. I smiled, and said goodbye, and they got the hint and let me go.

The kids had a great time, and clearly I did too, but I think the funniest part were the 30 year olds walking down the street watching a 25 year old with a duffel-backpack engaging in mock gun-fighting with two children. Their faces seemed shocked, and they had no idea what to make of it.

And that's the face I love to receive... like when I walk around barefoot in the brooklyn loft or whenever Munns invites me out to meet some friends. Yeah. That's the look. And I must have gotten it from about 20 people.

While in China, I thought I'd test the limits of an "international incident". This Friday I'll be instigating a war between the AMD building and the Intel building. Or rather, I'll be encouraging all of the Red Hat office to buy massive amounts of fireworks, light them in the park of our office, and declare our supremacy over both firms, display our engineering feats, and shock and awe the common employees with big booms and flashy lights.

Email posted below.

Subject: A fantastic WAR!
From: Rob Stryker
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 04:12:14 +0800
To: My Office

To all those brave engineers who love Red Hat!!!

For a long time now we have worked in a building that bears not our name, but the name of AMD. We have not had the glory and honor that comes with a name on a building. And to all of you, I ask: Aren't we the open source leaders of the world? Aren't we a strong force of engineering might and ability? Don't WE deserve to be recognized?!?! To these questions, WE ANSWER YES!

And so it is, that on Friday, February 6, 2009, at 8PM, Red Hat's Beijing Engineering Office will finally declare that we have had enough of working in a building with "AMD" on it's name! We are tired of being underestimated, overlooked, and minimized! The world has underestimated our fierce character... They have overlooked as us serious competitors, and they do this at their own peril!
And to make it very clear how powerful we are, this Friday, we will display our military might in a fireworks display in the park area across the street from this very building's entrance! We will shock and awe the workers of this building! We will make such explosions and fireworks that all who see it will know the name of Red Hat! I ask all loyal engineering employees of Red Hat to come out, show your support, bring whatever fireworks you can afford, even if just one or two pieces, and help us make this display of military might a reality!

Bring what you can! Wear a fedora, a red hat, or some company shirt, or wear whatever you want, but come and help us make this night a success for all those who carry the Red Hat in their hearts and the ferocious panda in their spirit! If a mere 20 people each bring one fireworks item, we can display to Intel and AMD that Red Hat is strong!

Thursday night, as is customary for the JBoss team here in Beijing, shall be a night full of drinking... but this week, we shall use it to plan our upcoming demonstration. ALL ARE WELCOME. Be aware, that both Thursday's planning session and Friday's fireworks display are "BYOB" (buy your own beer / bombs (fireworks)), but as is the spirit of open source, if we all contribute but a little, the end result is unstoppable!

Let us show the rest of the world, and also the rest of Red Hat, that our office is cooler, smarter, and yes, much more fun than the others! Let us have a splendid little war, and let's do so with style!

- Rob Stryker
JBoss Developer Studio

There comes a time when a situation might be so weird that you just have to write it down. And I feel that the past few days probably qualify.

So my German friend and I were having drinks, and a Chinese gentleman, aged about 29, in the booth behind us turned around to introduce himself. After saying hello, he promptly turned back to his booth. It was a little odd, I dare say, and I commented as such to my friend. If one were inclined enough to turn and introduce themself, wouldn't it follow that they would want to continue the conversation and not simply turn around thereafter?

Well clearly I spoke too soon, as the gentleman turned back around to engage us further. He peppered us with questions on a variety of topics, which we humored him through. Most of them centered around his wonderful girlfriend, how she had gotten pregnant in the past, how his grandparents didn't like her for that very reason, and what should he do. He also managed to convey that he's from the west part of china, near Kazakhstan. (Not a joke). He asked me if I'd seen the movie "Borat", and I'd said I had. His stories then elaborated on how that really is how they live, despite the humor of the movie and its obvious mocking tone.

Does all of it really happen like in the movie? Yes. Yes, he says. Small communities, everyone knows everyone, people marrying prostitutes, the love of foreignors, etc. He says he misses it out there, a sense of real community no matter how weird, as opposed to the big city living where you don't even know who lives next door to you, and most of them don't want to know you. His dream, he said, is to find a woman to marry and move back to the west of China.

It all sounded very romantic. Until he started telling me that people there love foreigners so much that they willingly share their wives with them. "Please, take my wife! =D " We laughed, of course, as we were quite drunken, and the conversation turned to other topics. Honestly, I didn't even remember this part because the guy just seemed so depressed and pathetic that the main feeling my friend and I walked away with at the end was just that this guy is letting his grandparents run his life, his future, his choice of wife, etc. We both felt bad for him.

Later on in the conversation, we talked about how you have to make an effort to keep friends, invite them out for a beer once in a while... introduce them to others. If you invite 5 friends, and each of them invite 5, that's 25 new people you can meet. Every friend is not just 1 new friend... they could be bridges to lots of new people. Sharing friends, I called it. He seemed to like this idea, and said he'd try to do such things. In the next 20 or 30 minutes, he mentioned "sharing a girl" several times, and my German friend and I were very confused as to what he meant. Did he really mean share a girl? Or did he just mean share a friend, who was a girl? We had a good laugh over that later, but we never really thought anything of it. We just thought it sounded funny.

By the end of the conversation, I was hoping he wouldn't remember what I had said about inviting new friends out to drink all the time, hoping in part that he would neglect to give us his information (and thus ask us for ours); a moderately depressed guy with problems who's a little over-eager could be a potential liability in the future (not that I'm unfamiliar with that personality type :cough:). But I'm a pretty nice guy, so when he did end up giving us his info, we felt compelled to be friendly and accept cordially.

All of this talk of sharing friends, though, didn't seem to be just idle chatter. I got a call Sunday night while in bed, at midnight, watching some tv and preparing for slumber. The caller was, naturally, this fellow, and he told me he had two friends he wanted to share with me. Oh, goodness, I said to myself. He sure is over-eager to meet new people... and he took what I said and ran with it apparently. "Rob... I've got two friends to share with you! I put up a message on a message board and found two who wanted someone to practice English with! One's a girl and the other's a guy."

Notwithstanding the repetition of "share my friends", I responded thus:

"Erm... thanks pal... I guess... um... I'm in bed right now so I can't really come out or anything, but mebbe I'll invite you out for a beer or something later this week and you can bring your friends along and we can all have some beers."

"Oh... ... ... : cricket : ... ... so you can't come out? erm... ok... "

Great. I maneuvered around that one. (I've perfected... a maneuver). One bomb avoided. I can go to sleep. And so I did.

The next day, yesterday, on my way to dinner with some co-workers, I get another call from a number I don't know. I never did add him to my phone, so I was pretty sure it was him. I didn't answer... but I did send a text message asking who it was.

The response was blatent. "This is soandso. I want you to fuck my girl."

..... we have lost cabin pressure.

He tried calling again 20 minutes later, but I had my co-worker answer the phone and my co-worker is too nice to have called the guy out and mocked him. So instead I get the message: This guy wants to talk to me urgently.

I felt the need for closure; that, and I'm a New Yorker and like to be fairly definitive in my rejection of new friends. So I sent him a text. "I will not fuck her here or there, I will not fuck her anywhere. I will not fuck her in a room or with a broom or today or tomorrow or anytime soon." I wasn't trying to be rude. I just wanted him to be clear that the extent of our friendship does not include me "fucking his girl". In fact, at that point, I'd say the extent of our friendship was nonexistent.

At this point, despite the fact that I gave a firm rejection, I was still weirded out. Luckily the next text message made me feel better. It outlined that this opportunity was not, in fact, free, but was 300 yuan, turning it from a weird Kazakhstan social ritual into a simple inner-city oldest-profession-in-the-world business deal. While I still rejected the situation out of hand, I now felt much better. There is some sanity in the world. This man does not want me to fuck his wife.

Well... it's been just about a week or so since my last update. It's been a bit of a boring week primarily because most everyone from work was absolutely missing in action, having flown back to their families a week and a half ago. However... last Sunday night was the beginning of the Chinese New Year festivities, and of course I had to partake.

I went over one co-worker's house. Osier. He had neglected to return home this year. Also invited were another co-worker, (not sure how to spell it, but sounds like Sue Chin), and their friend Joster. The night was full of beer and fireworks. I was pretty shitfaced. The food was excellent and plentiful. I brought with me just a few fireworks so that we, too, could join in the festivities. It was quite loud and fun, but since we were out in the suburbs I feel it was a bit more muted than if one had been inside the third loop. How can I be sure? Well, I'll tell you later.

Naturally we stayed up drinking and having a joyous time until some-odd 4am, at which point we started passing out. Waking up at noon, I was induced to stay until as late as 4pm, as the recovery took a bit longer than was expected. This recovery, of course, consisted of a bunch of guys (Sue Chin had left) lying around on couches lazily sipping beer and falling asleep like a bunch of fat cats. However, I did have to work that Monday, and so at some point, once the sun was gone, I decided I might want to actually go home and do some work. And so I did. Until 3am.

Tuesday... erm... I'm a little foggy on that day honestly. I don't recall much of it at all. Osier had suggested we all go to the city to see the temple festivities on Wednessday, so I'm sure I woke up late on Tuesday, worked until 3am again, and passed out. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Work was a bit inopportune at this point. There was some grunt work I'd just been informed needed to be done post-haste and so I basically pulled Monday and Tuesday night long hours to get it done.

Wednessday, I took off of work to go to the various temple parties in the city with Osier, Joster, and Sue Chin. We went to two different fairs. One was just a typical street-fair, a blocked off 2-block stretch overpacked with a billion people all dressed oddly and scammering to buy little knick-knacks. The second was actually at a temple, Daitan Temple Park. This was a little more spacious, had some more shit to buy, and had somewhat more interesting people.

I'm not sure what made the people at Daitan more interesting. Perhaps it was that there was a lot more free space, so I could look at the people more rather than just see a glimpse of a face in a crowd. Or perhaps there was a lot more interesting items for sale at Daitan that people were wearing around. It's really hard to say. Either way, naturally, I brought my camera with me to document the situation at these events. They can be seen over here.

I'm going to be honest... I'm really not much of a consumer. I rarely look at the goods being sold because they simply don't interest me. I might have a picture or two, but really not so much. On the other hand, I could look at the same item on some girl or some guy and instantly think it's picture-worthy. Not sure what that means. Maybe it just means I'm fascinated with how others use items, even if I personally have no knowledge, ability, or desire to use them myself.

I'll note a few things about the temple fairs here. First, people love to buy shit there ;) Second, little kids, apparently, do not wear pants. They wear pants with a slit up the ass region so that, if necessary, they can poop right there in the street where 10,000 people are walking. Most times there's not even enough space to notice that they're pooping, and you find yourself stepping in it before you even knew the kid had done it. It was a bit shocking, needless to say.

Judge for yourselves I guess and go look at the Street Fair Pics.

It turns out on the way to the street fairs, I lost my cell phone. Yes I'm just that clumsy. So I had to go home Wednessday night and try to get a new one. Luckily I met a German on the train and he helped me out with my purchasing.

Now... that past Sunday, New Years, was quite loud and fun, but that's to be expected on the night of the holiday. What was not communicated to me was that the streets of Beijing would literally be a war zone nightly, between the hours of 8 and 11. And I do literally mean a war zone. When explosions are happening, beams of fire are leaving boxes smoking in the middle of a 6 lane road, and the place just generally feels like a war zone, then it really is war.

Let's remind you all, that this is the country that invented gun powder. And let me also tell you, they know how to use it. And so do their 4 year olds, who are permitted to light such implements of destruction. The sky of Beijing is usually cloudy and smoggy, but when war is going on, you often can't see the result of any such beautiful looking designs in the sky if they're more than a block away. However, what you *DO* see is a white flash of light up in the clouds. And what you *DO* hear is either a whistler (sounds like a falling bomb), or one that simply sounds like machine gun fire, or another that sounds like shelling (and produces no design at all... AT ALL. It's ONLY PURPOSE is to make HUGE BOOMS.)

Combine these three sounds with just the flashing lights in the clouds and the smoking rubble of the city, shit-tons of debris left scattered on main streets, cars driving on the sidewalks so they don't go over or get hit by some explosions, and, well, it's total fucking anarchy. Seriously.

Thursday night my friends and I went out for drinks (and then a club lol) and stayed out until 6am. That's right, Harper. I've brought Thirsty Thursdays to Beijing and am keeping it alive quite consistently.

Friday I did work during the day, but that was the night most of my war photos were taken. The German I had met had a megaphone, and so we planned that Saturday we'd go out and MAKE WAR but that he'd bring the megaphone and yell German things through it during the shelling and machine gun fire. We tried to figure out if he should say something war-like, such as "give up, your people will be safe under German control", or rather something else entirely, such as a recipe for some type of pastry... AND NO EGGS!!! (raaaah!)

Unfortunately the war was quite subdued Saturday night. We're not sure if people just ran out of money, or if it's that people are actually required to work this Sunday to make up for one-too-many days off. Either way, the opportunity to make war with a megaphone proved elusive. It's ok though. It would only be hysterical if I could get video of it, but none of us have a video camera. I suppose a properly staged photo could also look awesome, but the war is elusive, the rubble is cleaned up, and only sporadic shelling occurs far off in the distance.

The full photostream is here: http://flickr.com/photos/rawblem/
My favorites are here: http://flickr.com/photos/rawblem/sets/72157613110722655/