Cosmic Crusader: The Answer is Yes

Posted on March 27, 2007 by Robert Thompson

Note: Use at your own risk (but it works for me)

My brother asked me this question over two years ago. Tech support has arrived.

Question:

I wish I had a computer slow enough to run [Cosmic Crusader]. Anyone know how to slow down a P4 so this game will run? And where I can get a joystick?

Answer:

1. Download Dos Box (a fully functional Dos emulator that runs on your Mac or PC)

2. On a Mac, unzip it, then double-click the DMG, then drag the ‘DOSBox’ application to your Apps folder

3. Whoops! Their site is mysteriously down. Google ‘cosmic-crusader’ and find the Zip

4. Create a directory called games here: Users / You / games

5. Unzip Cosmic Crusader in this directory

5. Double Click DOSBox

6. Type: mount c ~/games in the DOS prompt

7. Type c:

8. Type dir

9. Execute the game

10. To Slow down the game, type CTRL-F11 (not the Apple key, the CTRL key, on Laptops you need to hit FN-CTRL-F11)

Boom, you’re all good to go, with pre-Sound Blaster sound effects and stunning 1982 CGA graphics.

Screenshots (click to enlarge):

Cosmic Crusader

LodeRunr

Police Quest 1

Alley Cat

Bouncing Babies (Waves as levels, and check out the skeletor head on that baby)

What other games did we play? Below the Root, Space Quest, Bruce Lee..?

First Twitter Reference to the Water Buffalo Movie

Posted on March 27, 2007 by Robert Thompson

http://twitter.com/acdha

I got my Twitter account (jazzviolin… why jazzviolin, I dunno, I’ve been using that name for 10 years). Now. If only Twitter didn’t take 2 minutes to load from China, I might actually start using it.

In Relation To… Where is Chuxiong?

Posted on March 26, 2007 by Robert Thompson

I get asked where I live a lot. People don’t seem to realize that Chuxiong is a major player in the international scene. Okay it’s not at all, it’s a small, relatively poor Chinese city really far away from the rest of those good Chinese cities. Chuxiong can only look at it’s thriving neighboring cities (Kunming, Dali, Lijiang) and be jealous, because there this nothing to do here except “san bu”.

Here’s a little comparison (via Google Earth):

	MI	KM
Chuxiong	0	0
Kunming	79	127
Laos	173	278
Vietnam	180	290
Myanmar	206	332
Shangri-La	240	386
Tibet	297	478
India	787	1,267
Hong Kong	791	1,273
Beijing	1,340	2,157
Tokyo	2,391	3,848
Paris	5,390	8,674
San Francisco	7,217	11,615
Boston	7,777	12,516

Ring Me Up

Posted on March 25, 2007 by Robert Thompson

So I was like, I need some socks. Chun Mei was like, No thing Bob, let’s go down to the mini-store downstairs and get you some! Boom, they have the new Adidas soc… Hold up a second, WTF is that?

Someone obviously fell asleep in while studying their (pirated copy of the) Photoshop manual, because that’s a Nike logo! You can’t use a Nike logo with the Adidas URl you frigtard, that totally gives it away!

While I was at it, my Calvin Klein’s were getting a little stale. Time for some new underwear. So I went out to a farmer’s market and guess what, they have this new shit in China called fireproof underwear. And you can stretch these babies with a mini hoola-hoop and they’re not even trippin! Ring me up.

I’m with this idea — house fire or no fire, always project your junk.

Anyway I don’t know about you, but the latest technological advancements in sleepwear always makes me hungry. Doritos, nah. Pepsi Cola? Pass. Shrink-wrapped chicken feet? Hell. Yes. That is exactly what I’m talking about.

This next one falls under the “There-Has-Got-to-Be-an-Explanation-For-This” Category. I needed some toothpaste, and I said, Hey Man, you got Crest?, and the clerk was like, No, but we have Black People Toothpaste, and I was like, WTF??, and they were like, yeah, Black People Tooth Paste, and I looked down at my arm, then back at her and said, Look I just need Crest, you know, WASH TEETH, and she said, Follow me.. Guess what:

She wasn’t joking. Now upon closer inspection, in English it’s all innocent and says Darlie. But the secret is revealed in the Chinese characters!

- Characters: ????
- Pinyin: hei ren ya gao
- Pronounced: “hey ren ya gow”
- Literally: “Black People Toothpaste”

If there are any Chinese people reading this blog, please, WTF is up with Black People Toothpaste? (Update: Whoa, this guy has all the details here! – I want to write him an email but guess what, China blocks Blogger.. DoH! Update 2: See the original “Darkie” box here )

My prediction: Beijing Olympics 2008 and the world sees the racist box! They report on it, global coverage, front page of CNN. Said company goes out and buys 100 boxes of fireproof underwear, yells ‘holy shit’ and comes up with a clever explanation about why ‘they didn’t know’ it was racist. Mark my words, Bob said it first, March 2007.

Why use WD-40 when you can get 20 more with AD-60?

Adidaz, only 5 RMB. Who cares if only five of the letters are right, it almost the same, it’s called “having face” bro (get some), I got the latest Adidaz and you don’t, case closed.

All pictures snapped with my top-of-the-line phone camera which is three years old now.

The Joys of Living in China, Part I

Posted on March 25, 2007 by Robert Thompson

DDG-12 Standard Missile Launch.jpg

Or perhaps living in a new house, where your neighbor’s house is connected to your house. Via six or so inches of brick.

After going to sleep at 6:30 am, I got to wake up (at 10 am) to what sounded like Tomahawk missiles being launched from the USS Enterprise. Or perhaps, them landing somewhere.

In reality, it is a construction worker with a huge sledge hammer, slamming it into the wall against my head.

It kinda sounds like this.

Good morning!

Update: Lucky for me, this is going to go on for three months. (Time to move back to the Kunming place.)

Food!

Posted on March 25, 2007 by Robert Thompson

I just built this web site. I got hungry watching all those photos while I put the site together. It’s the first catering site I’ve ever done.

Also, it is the first time I used SlideShowPro. I highly, highly recommend it for online Flash galleries. It can be customized any way you want, and who ever wrote it thought about every single detail — real designers over there.

My brother Tom took all the food shots – aren’t they great?

Forward Delivery Housing, Continued

Posted on March 21, 2007 by Robert Thompson

Update: I have seen two more shows on CCTV 2 about people getting screwed after purchasing a house before it is built. In the last two days I saw stories about the “new middle/upper class” in Yunnan and Sichuan losing their entire investment, and they have no one to turn to for help. The shows are overly dramatic with sappy soundtracks, which to me seems inappropriate for such a topic. (Is it a news story, or is it a drama to sell ads?)

It is still odd to me why a homeowner’s only option with such a serious crime is to contact the state-run television network to get answers. Obviously, the idea is, they run a show on fraud, millions of people see it, then the fraudulent company is pressured into fixing the problem. (Doesn’t it seem like if you started a property/construction company and built faulty houses, you should go to jail? Or at least get hit with a huge lawsuit? Who is accountable? Are these companies in cahoots with the government? The questions — the questions I have in my head…)

Wow, it doesn’t stop
Here are some of the details from yet another show on housing fraud:

- The companies sold single houses to multiple familes
- After the police found out about the crime, they “arrested” people and stopped construction, but the buyers never got their initial down payment back.
- The houses were condemned and construction was never completed, and after waiting two years, these people are still trying to get their money back.
- They marketed these houses as “American style” houses with gardens, backyards, and parks, schools for kids nearby, and were selling them for 1,000,000 RMB (ie, hella expensive in China).
- They’re saying now in China, “house fraud” is one of the biggest problems.

Oh, here’s one I’m familiar with (from a different story about a completed housing complex) — The realtors promised gardens for homeowners, written in the contract. After the gardens were built, the government wanted to widen the road, so they destroyed the gardens, right up to the entrance of the housing complex. When the people complained to the real estate company (“breach of cotnract!”) they replied, “We promised you gardens, but we never said how long you can have these gardens.”

Advice for Buying Property in China

Posted on March 19, 2007 by Robert Thompson

I can only speak for myself and my situation. After buying two houses and two commercial properties in China, I consider myself one of the lucky ones. I have not been ripped off or lied to (…yet), but I would say:

Do not by any property that is not built yet.

I did, and while the house was constructed without any major problems, I had an advantage. Specifically, we have a family friend who owns the real estate company, therefore, small problems we encountered were easily fixed. I assume most expatriates do not have this luxury.

This GoKunming.com interview sums it up quite well.

One, don’t invest in forward delivery housing – buying property before it’s finished or even begun to be built – the price may be a little cheaper, but the risk is much higher.

Why? Because you could end up with a house you cannot live in — you could lose your entire investment. Just last night, I watched a CCTV story about some Chinese families who bought into a new development and once the keys were delivered, they opened the door to their new house to see two inches of water flooding the living room, and the cement floor crumbled if you walked over it. They said no one will help them. (Where is the government agency to protect homeowners? Why do they have to resort to calling a television station to put pressure on these fraudulent companies?)

In our experience, we quickly realized all the windows needed to be replaced because they were constructed poorly. No one wanted to help and everyone started finger-pointing. Luckily, labor is cheap in China and it only cost us a few hundred US dollars to fix.

Two, make sure the area surrounding the property you’re considering has all the amenities and infrastructure you’re looking for.

We bought into the most affluent community in Chuxiong, Yunnan, called Yi Ren Gu Zhen (????, or YRGZ). Not having nearby stores is not a big problem as the community is only a mile away from civilization — but the 16-hour-a-day “Yizu” music that blares throughout the community “PA rock system” is incredibly obnoxious, playing the same tribe music, all day, every day.

Three, make sure you invest in a property that is managed by a reputable company.

This is, by far, the most important research you should do before handing over any money. And how do you check on which company is reputable? In our case, our company is reputable but the experience is still lacking.

For example, our “wu guan” (??), or property management office/team is a joke. I think it is to be expected, though, because YRGZ probably contracted out the cheapest management company available, along with a bunch of teenagers for our security patrol. The result is insubordinate behavior, lack of professionalism, and for us, no response or action to any comments or questions (and lots and lots of finger pointing). I am guessing this will be fixed within the next five years.

The bottom line is this — there are many properties that are already built in China. Go that route. You can ask the current tenants how the experience is, you inspect the quality of the property, you can talk to the property management company, and you can see the surrounding areas, the list goes on.

Yes, the value of our house went up by about 10% (but, who’s to say that is accurate?) because we bought it before the construction started — but the problems and annoyances we encountered (and continue to encounter) because it is a new development outweigh any monetary gains we may have achieved.

In retrospect, I would buy a flat in downtown Kunming, right next to that big ass mall and call it day.

Cool Places in Kunming, Notes

Posted on March 15, 2007 by Robert Thompson

We have been hanging out in Kunming for the last few days and I found a few places that most people already know about.

Salvador’s Coffee House is an American-owned coffee house/internet hangout/restaurant and was featured in a CNN article last year. The staff is cool and the coffee is great.

The Prague Cafe has two locations, one in Lijiang and one in Kunming. Both have the same atmosphere and have an excellent menu. Rumor has it that all the coffees listed on the menu are the same, that is, Yunnan Coffee. Whether this is true or not, Yunnan Coffee tastes good and is the cheapest, so I just avoid ordering the “Brazil or African” 30 RMB-a-cup versions. Oh, and they play Gotan, which is always all-good.

Both places are located next to Yunnan University, meaning there are a lot of Chinese and foreign students hanging out, studying English, talking about politics, using QQ (the most popular Chinese instant messaging program), and unfortunately, smoking up a storm.

Other news, I visited the official Panasonic repair center in Kunming and got my 3CCD camera fixed for $60 USD in one day. (They couldn’t get rid of the sticky buttons, thought, from that Diet Coke spill.) I also got a few BP-511 batteries for my Canon 300D, $13 each, at the Canon camera shop next to Bai Sheng (big mall in the center of downtown.)

Spring is here

Posted on March 11, 2007 by Robert Thompson

I always tell people California is the best place to live. The people, the vibe, the restaurants, the music… And compared to all the places I have been in the last four years, the weather in Oakland is pretty good.

But there are no seasons to speak of in the Yay. It rains, then it’s warm.

I have yet to see a house in Yunnan that has A/C. That means in summer, it is in the 90s, and in the winter, it gets to the low 40s. No problem right?

Well, when the houses are made out of cement with no insolation, that means that the inside temperatures are very close to the outside temperatures. Which means that you really feel the seasons, especially winter. (Waking up and being able to see your “breath fog” in the morning — while in bed — is quiet an experience.)

So now it’s March 11, and I am sitting on my third floor balcony, overlooking the tourists in this upperclass “Yizu” community of Yi Ren Gu Zhen in Chuxiong, Yunnan, China. There is a couple doing their pre-game marriage stroll with their entourage behing them, walking along the manufactured river that runs just behind our house. There are store owners washing vegetables for dinner, and an endless amount of locals who are here just to see what all the fuss is about.

It means that it’s 75° out, not a cloud in the sky, and it’s all good. Winter wasn’t long, but it felt long with all those cold nights, trying to record in the studio, with brittle fingers and a space heater churning away at 2000 watts.

Spring is here, and I am looking forward to this new year, and to finally going home soon. I haven’t seen Oakland, or the US, since 2004, and I’m ready to get back.