JULY
2005: JUNE, MAY, APRIL, MARCH, FEBRUARY, JANUARY,
2004: DECEMBER, NOVEMBER, OCTOBER, SEPTEMBER, AUGUST, JULY, JUNE

Sunday, July 18, 2005 - I feel like I've been at work for 11 years, but I guess its only been 10 hours. I started working long days this week to put together some scratch for my trip to California. I figure I'll need at least a grand to get all these damn dvds through customs, and then there's the price of beer, which I do believe to be $0.40 for 640ml. I've little to report, largely because little of my social life would get past the censors and editors. As for work, there's a damn funny picture of me on my company's website - learning365.com. I take solace in the fact that Amy's picture is much more prominently displayed. I'm going to see Ice T this week at Pegasus. Should be interesting. That's all the news thats fit to print. Sorry if you're really bored at work. Read Mike Krumboltz's critical introspective of Bad Boyz II.

Sunday, July 10, 2005 - Of all the godly hours of the day and night, nine am on a Sunday is not one I should be waking up. I'd actually woken up several times during the morning. Several associates of mine engaged in political discourse to the gentle rhythms of Whitesnake, The Darkness and Motley Crue. My presence was requested at this dark hour of the week. I joined my boxer clad

Tuesday, July 4, 2005 - I was in Kashgar at this time last year, not celebrating the 4th of July. I wore red, white and blue, which is not hard to do, and made jokes throughout the day with the British girl I was with. Good fun. Here in the tiny seaside hamlet of Shanghai, I'm not doing much more. I caught up on a week's worth of sleep, bringing me to 2:30, then finished War of the Worlds. We win, somehow. I'm not sure how. Morgan Freeman does. He finishes the movie with the supercilious observation, "By the toll of a billion deaths, man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain."
I want to have the sort of one minute montage that they have in a lot of movies when the protaganist needs to get into shape very quickly. I don't need to get into shape quickly, but it would be nice to listen to some inspiring, upbeat music, hit the punching bag a few times, shoot free throws by myself in a dark gym or go for a quick run in the rain and then all of a sudden be ready to get in the ring against a big Russian or drop some rex kwon do knowledge on Cobra Kai. Anyone know how I can go about this?

Monday, July 3, 2005 - My restaurant just got invaded. There were about 15 people or so at a few scattered tables, now there are at least a hundred people. The few waiters and cooks are looking on with dread. Crowds form quickly in China, so I've learned. Many people are sitting in between chairs or standing around tables. I'm not sure why some of these people don't go next door or upstairs but maybe this restaurant, of which no English name can be discerned, has the secret sauce. I chose a poor spot to get Where into July. But I've got new tunes, the fruits of eight hours of labor today. Driven into acute internet boredom, where I find myself persuing craigslist and researching my favorite bands on allmusic.com, I found two new Thievery Corporation albums - The Outernational Sound(2004) and The Cosmic Game(2005). Both promise to continue the proud trip-hop tradition of Thievery Corp. I also found half of Kruder & Dorfmeister's first album, Conversions: A K&D Selection. More top-shelf trip-hop. I have my computer, iTunes and headphones volume all up to the highest. During the recesses in the songs the cacophony of Chinese diners overwhelms my dinnerbeats. But when the music crescendoes, I'm golden. Speaking of golden, I tried to name a student golden yesterday. I thought it was one of the best names I'd come up with in awhile, outside of ferret and crunky. I explained what a golden boy was, and how California is the Golden State (despite how our Warriors play) and how much game Kenny Golden has. Someone connected it with the color yellow, which is not a very popular color in most conservative chinese circles. Yellow is associated with pornography. People who like porn are yellow. That doesn't mean they are scurred or chicken, they just like sex in its various forms.
Mike turned 28 last week. We met up for dinner at a Korean chicken hot pot and ordered up a bunch of Korean delights. Pedro, who's living in Shanghai after several years in Korea, said it didn't taste korean. The soju was flowing. We walked a block over to Jinan Temple to Windows and ordered up a bottle of Jack Daniels. $25 for a bottle with ice and coke. It didn't last long with the determined group of social alcoholics, so we ordered another, and contemplated a third after a foos session. On to the Eager Beaver for a to-go drink (not sure why), then to Buddha Bar on Maoming. Finally on to Manhattan's, where a new member of our group got escorted out. We went home, tried to get on the roof, couldn't, and headed to Club Mala, also known as Pedro's pad. It was hot in the mid-morning Shanghai humidity, and his power was out. That affected the air conditioning severely. We slept anyways for a few hours, then returned back to 1201 Kanding Lu.
I 've been trying to come up with a shred of a good reason why I shouldn't join a gym. Mike has a membership near the house, and there is another right next to where I work - one I went to last fall. As far as gyms go, its not bad, though I have a strong aversion to them. It's a no-bullshit kind of joint where you go and do your business on one of ten machines and get out. There is no smoothie cafe, no CNN, no witty banter with the girls on the machine next to you and no spinning class. There is a room next door where there could be such a class, and I've heard there was Tae Kwon Do classes there at one point, but there's never anyone in there. I'm saving myself for Rex Kwon Do when I get back stateside. There are no women; usually there is no one there but a trainer. I'm not sure if he's the trainer or just a guy who lives there. He likes to point out that his muscles are much bigger than mine. I like to point out that he lives there and works out everyday for eight to ten hours a day. He's there whenever I'm there, doing pull-ups, and, um, I don't know the names of any of the other exercises. He’s a nice guy but hangs out a little more than he should when I’m changing. If I haven’t complained about it before, its damn hot here in Shanghai. Its 90 degrees at the coolest point in the evening, and that doesn’t take into account the humidity. Running on a treadmill is joy marinated in simple, unrefined happiness. So no, I couldn’t find any good reasons, and I haven’t been able to find any good reasons why I should skip any days since I joined. I didn’t think it would be so hard to flake on the noble commitment I made to myself, but I am only three days in. Ask me that one a bit later.
I wrote some scathing, right-wing articles addressing the Sandra Day O’Connor (doesn’t she have a coin named after her), the Groene kids and Lance Armstrong, but the Jon Stewart camp got up in arms and called me a muckraker. I suppose they’re right though. I have some Chinese mandarin jello to eat. Hasta…