Archive for the 'Blah' Category

Ring Me Up

Published on March 25, 2007 in Blah and China. 6 Comments

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?

adidas.jpg

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.

underwear.jpg

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.

chickenfeet.jpg

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:

black_people_toothpaste.jpg

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?

wd40.jpg

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.

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

Forward Delivery Housing, Continued

Published on March 21, 2007 in Blah and China. 2 Comments

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.”

Cool Places in Kunming, Notes

Published on March 15, 2007 in Blah, China and Kunming. 3 Comments

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.)

Goodbye Dreamhost

Published on February 28, 2007 in Blah, Internet and Opinion. 0 Comments

dreamhost-sucks.jpgGoodbye.

Down one to many times. Good luck.

Firewiredirect.com has a serious problem

Published on February 4, 2007 in Blah and General. 3 Comments

fwd.gifAnd here’s why. I bought three hard drives from them in the last three years. They all failed.

(2) Stingray 250gb externals – firewire 800
(1) Mach series 80gb (ipod sized) – firewire 400

Today my last Stingray failed, but I managed to get 80% of the stuff off of it before it completely died.

I lost hundreds of hours of work because these drives failures. I returned one drive when I was in Switzerland last year, I had to pay for shipping both ways (almost 1/2 the price of the drive itself), and it took about six weeks to get it back, and it was never properly fixed.

I’m sure some people have had good experiences with Firewiredirect.com, but I just can’t believe that all three drives, all purchased at different times, all died in a matter of three years.

Anyone have any recommendations for other external hard drives companies? Reliable drives?