Proof that Nirvana Played a Show in Austin, 1991

This makes me happy.

Picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thechunk/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

In other news, you might notice that I'm up at 7:17 AM ... that's because Bill woke me up (again) and I decided to just stay up this time. Good news though!! I watched him take a dump and, without ANY help from me, he squatted properly on the toilet seat like he's supposed to do. Huzzah! All four legs on the seat, didn't miss at all, didn't fall in. I could tell afterwards he was confused about covering up his mess, but I took him off the seat before he could investigate any further and foul things up. Much petting, and a treat, followed. He's now passed out on the sofa.

This means training will go so much easier, since I don't have to teach him how to stand on the toilet seat. I just need to slowly decrease the amount of litter in there (it's already pretty low) and then slowly fill it up with water. I'll probably keep a small amount of litter in there for a few weeks to make sure he gets used to it.

w00t!

My Thought Process Last Night at The Vandals Show

(... aside from loving the music, of course)

- It's really difficult to take good pictures at this show.

- This might be because I'm standing so far back from the stage.

- I would love to get closer to take better pictures.

- There's a giant mosh pit occurring a few feet in front of me.

- I'm wearing glasses.

- It'd be really difficult to take pictures in the middle of the mosh pit.

- I fear physical violence.

- Hey! I should buy a zoom lens.

- Low-light zoom lenses are expensive.

- DAMMIT. I really miss my DSC-H50 with its 15x zoom.


(Followed immediately by putting my camera away and enjoying the remainder of my evening)

An Ode

Okay, not really. As I was wrapping up my American life in November / December I realized that bringing 100+ CDs with me to Shanghai was impractical. The CD case is pretty large and heavy. Not only that, as I didn't have a portable CD player and didn't feel like buying one, the option would leave me tuneless for the 14-hour plane ride (which was still a scary mystery at that point). But mainly it was the thought of keeping track of many small physical objects in the course of moving to, and living in, China.

So I bought an 80 GB iPod and ripped most of my CD collection to MP3. Of course the first iPod came out in 2001, 7 years ago, but I'd not bought one (or any MP3 player) up until that point. The reason was that I had a CD player everywhere I wanted to listen to music. All my music needs were met with CDs.

But the iPod has changed all that. It's perfect for me in so many ways. I commence now with a numbered list for your organizational enjoyment:

1. It holds my entire music collection with room for tons more. Right now I have 1,469 songs or 11.34 gigs of music loaded on there, enough for almost 6 days of non-repeat playtime. I can duplicate that 7 times over ...
2. ... but not really, since it also stores video, and I many episode of TV shows on there. Videos are handy for the plane rides and when I got a divorce that one time.
   
3. No physical media to mess with. No jewel cases and liner notes to buy and then discard. CDs to get lost or broken or stolen. And if my iPod gets lost or broken or stolen, I can just buy a new one, since my media collection is duplicated on my laptop. (If my laptop gets lost or broken or stolen, my media's backed up to an external hard drive.)
   
4. Using iTunes (and Amazon for DRM-free stuff) to buy music means I don't have to worry about finding an American CD store in Shanghai (or anywhere else I happen to travel).
5. It's small and fits in my pocket.
6. It gets near constant use every day in Shanghai as I move about the city. Especially on boring metro rides or long walks home from work. The battery is good for almost a full day of music. From the number of people I see wearing earbuds, I'm not the only one.
   

So I'm done with CDs. When I go back to the States and buy a car, I'm going to get one with a line-in on the stereo so I can just use my iPod. Ditto with any sort of home stereo I buy.

#100: Keyi Chi Yu

This is the 100th post on this blog. Yay!! I honestly thought that, after my insane post-up in January, I wouldn't be able to keep up the pace. And while it's dropped since then, I continually find things to post about. Good times.

This one post is just to say that the best part of last night was seeing a Chinese cover band doing a bluegrass version of "Something in the Way" (the best line of which is in Chinese in the subject of this post).

My ayi is here now and she continues to serve as a great way to learn Chinese. I rarely see her because she usually comes while I'm at work, but this week she is here on Sunday. I told her my grandpa (wai gong, or mother's father) passed away and so I had to go to America last week. I also managed to convey that he was happy that I was in Shanghai -- Ta xihuan wo zai Shanghai kuai le, if I'm not mistaken :-)

Like many things in life, my Chinese (spoken, understanding, and now even a little bit of reading) improves when I don't think about it. So I'm trying a new approach. The idea is still to surround myself with Chinese (which is not difficult to do, given the circumstances) but instead of concentrating on words and sending them straight to my conscious, I'm going to try letting my unconscious do most of the work. Things seem to work better when I do that, even if it might take longer to bring words to the forefront.

Lao Wai on the Move

• I kind of can't believe it, but I found a good pair of rollerblades that fit me! I bought them on the spot and spent a couple hours zig-zagging around the S&T Metro plaza, dodging small children and getting my footing back. I have not rollerbladed since high school, so it was a bit surprising that I could get up and move around swiftly without falling at ALL. I suppose it's like riding a bike.
• I finally got flicker to approximate something resembling normal functionality. I was having serious problems with it all day Saturday, but when I got home from the Live Bar show it was working fine. So I posted a bunch of new pictures, some from this weekend and some from last weekend. Check 'em out if you're so inclined. Here's one from the rock show I went to last night:
  
  
  The show was really fun. Everything about the place reminded me of Austin. The venue felt so much like Flamingo Cantina, Beerland, Room 710, or even Emo's that I was instantly transported back to Texas. And the music was really good too. Even the crowd had a bunch of scruffy-haired hipsters drinking cheap beer and kind of wiggling back and forth in an attempt to evince physical appreciation of the music without displaying too much emotion (because that would be uncool). Ah, just like home. However there were some people having fun, because I definitely saw a mini mosh pit get started :-)
  
  Something else I found amusing was that the lead singer of the first band, The Dropkicks, was definitely Jewish. (I can smell a fellow MoT from a mile away.)
  
  
  
  So that made me happy - a British/Jewish punk rocker in Shanghai. Of course the connection between Judaism and punk rock has been documented before. But I wonder if this guy knew that his band name was a dead rip-off of these guys?
  
• I got some sweet videos also, from both Friday and Saturday night, but our favorite Web 2.0 wunderkind YouTube is blocked right now, so I can't upload anything at the moment. SH-ist seems to think it's because of the protests that have been going on across the country (and indeed, the world). If you hadn't heard, Bjork sparked an international incident here a week or so ago when she made some politically sensitive statements at her Shanghai concert. So I think everyone is a little on edge. Meanwhile the upshot is that I can't upload my videos to YouTube. Ah well, c'est la vie.
  

Meanwhile - I've gotten just two questions. There's still time to send in your questions, if you have any, about Shanghai, China, my experiences here, and so on. Leave a comment :-)