Archive for March, 2008

Unfortunately, because I don’t travel back to the States very much I have to rely on a steady stream of bootlegged DVDs to catch up to movies back home. Add to that the fact that I’m extremely picky about picture and sound quality when I watch a film in any setting, and basically I’m stuck [...]

I was taking the bus home a couple of days ago and listening to NPR’s Talk of the Nation podcast from earlier in the week. The topic of that show was about the 4000 American lives that have been lost due to the Iraq war. People were asked to call in to talk about someone [...]

Am I considered a snob for deriding this piece of travel writing that refers to xiao long bao as bao zi and manages to both misspell and misinterpret Cheng Huang Miao as an authentic guidepost to Chinese history? Maybe. But they lose all credibility with me when they write things like this (I’ve emphasized the [...]

So I ended up taking this Shanghainese girl Maggie on a friendly date to hot pot, and then afterwards asked her if she wanted to go get some sheesha. Her eyes got really big. She asked me, “水烟？什么东西啊？从来都没有听过。” (Sheesha? What is that? I’ve never heard of such a thing).
We went to Barbarossa and she picked [...]

I signed up exactly a year ago, but never actually used it. But now, thanks to Dan, I’ve been back at it these past couple of days, and find that it makes things a little less lonely and a lot more geeky. But it’s fun anyway, so sign up and start following me! My username [...]

Opening day in Major League Baseball is right around the corner, and once again, I’ve forgotten the painful lessons of playing in two fantasy leagues with a dozen fanatics last year and have set myself up for a run at the bottom of the fantasy baseball rankings for the next five months. That means that [...]

From Xinhua:
WELLINGTON, March 24 (Xinhua) — Air New Zealand plans to issue its Chinese staff with credit cards after it was revealed last week that Shanghai based cabin crew members received a quarter of their New Zealand colleagues’ pay.
Last year, 59 of the 64 Chinese crew wrote a letter to Air New Zealand complaining of [...]

A few months ago I got hooked on the first season of Friday Night Lights. I was a fan of the movie, directed by Peter Berg, who also executive produced the TV show. The show is impressive because it seems so real, even though it’s a TV drama and accordingly a lot of crazy shit [...]

Slate’s “Dispatches“, in which writers contribute posts detailing their travels to far-off lands, is currently running a series about China’s Xinjiang province. Officially, the segment is called “Dispatches from China’s Wild West,” and has four entries so far. The first three posts have touched on topics related to China’s minority Uighur population, which is actually [...]

Some thoughts while watching Hillary Clinton give her victory speech in Ohio on this mini-Super Tuesday:
- I admire her, I really do. I think she’s a crazy hard worker and has insane discipline; I can’t imagine what she has to go through every day on this campaign and still have the energy to do what [...]