the beginning of the end

i just got the ol' lady a new sony laptop for valentine's day. what a nice guy, i know. her old one was hanging on by a limb, so hey, why not? when we bought the laptop, they threw in a couple extra goodies as they do in china. one of the free goodies was a laptop table. this table is bad news, i would never buy one in public, and know better than to buy one privately. they threw it in as a bonus- who would say no freebie right?
of course i had to test it out... i sit here lying in bed with my head propped up, just enough to feel comfortable, just enough to slowly ruin my neck and lower back over time. i'm embarrassed to say that it's freaking wonderful to type while lying down, the whirl of the usb fans humming me into a zen-like state as i type away. no more hot computer on the lap as i awkwardly try it maneuver the mouse and keyboard, no more readjusting to reduce the strain. my only fear is that one day i won't be able to get out of bed, that one day i'll be just like the humans from wall-e. this, my dear friends, is the beginning of the end..

a damn shame

to quote a good friend, "It's a damn shame..." that the elites of the US no longer care about the nation as a whole. or at least that's what i got from this essay named The Broken Contract by George Parker. (the link will give you the first couple paragraphs of this rather non-lighthearted topic.) the main thesis is that since the late '70s those that be stopped caring about the whole of the nation objectively and became self-interested instead. so, yeah... they're sticking it to the little guy. nice...

Cream of Okara

What is okara? It's the left over bean carcass from my brand new hand-me-down soy milk maker after the machine is done juicing the soy bean. Score! Not only do I get fresh soy milk every morning, I've got a nutritious addition to my oatmeal blend. The texture from the okara has turned my porridge into more of a Cream a Wheat, and I like it.

Note: The picture comes from justhungry.com; the recipe I've tried before and, while it's pretty good, the all-in-one machine and technique make it a lot easier to deal with.

too a.m.

it's too early in the morning but  i am awake.
checked my email in bed, found out that i'll be hosting for a while.
got up made some hot coco in a bowl which reminded me of two days in Venice.
tried calling grandmother without such luck; didn't leave a message on the machine.
...and there you have it.

超级碗

I'm in the middle of watching the 超级碗 (chāo jí wǎn), otherwise known as the Super Bowl. I don't really know why I'm watching this, but I am. Seldom do I watch sports on television- I'd rather play. Plus, it's just not the same with the Chinese announcers who apparently confuse the players, and say 'beautiful' on every play, as if they lack the adequate vocabulary to express what is happening. Add to all this that I'm sitting alone in my living room on a cold, rainy Monday morning eating oatmeal with a French pressed coffee. Let's just say that 'electricity' is not in the air. And, and... the tradition of Super Bowl advertisements has gone out the window- watching the bowl live through my internet company's streaming television box I don't get bombarded by commercials and instead watch the teams taking timeouts and having their powwows. So that's what really goes on... I think when this is over, I'll take a hot shower and crawl back into bed.


(I did a simple image search for '超级碗' in China's popular baidu.com search engine to find a photo related to the Super Bowl. The resulting images were pretty funny- the epic 'wardrobe malfunction' of lore, the above women's lingerie football, and a couple of trophies. If you're interested in taking a peek yourself, you can click on the picture above to bring up my search. Pretty hilarious!)

Gliding out of Gear

Before I purchased an automobile, a bicycle was my commuting vehicle. On occasion I would even walk. And for a while I was taking the public bus.

Now the matter of public busses are rather mundane to most people; I find busses interesting so I'll explain why detail.

Bus fare is inexpensive: one yuan (15¢) for the non-air-conditioned buses or two yuan (30¢) for those who prefer climate controlled air conditioned variety. Clearly money is not the issue when concerned with choosing one over the other. So what is?

The number of people on board. Much of the time buses are packed so full that the door won’t close shut. This is especially true in the university district where I live on a Saturday or Sunday morning when students have a test to take in the city center. Living only a several stops from the terminal, more than a few times have I not been able to physically get on the bus because of people tumbling out.  Again, quite literally, falling out.

Aside from the fare price and capacity factors, there is also a subtle difference in who you see ride which buses. Perhaps it is the route, perhaps it is the price, perhaps it’s the riders themselves. What I’ve observed were older people, farmers and rather rough characters on the penny buses. On the two cent buses you’ll find everyone else, plus the previously mentioned clientele, though in smaller numbers.

Now I could go into more detail about other trivial observations about busses here, describing the schedule, the sounds, the smells, the cleanliness or lack thereof- but I’ll limit my ramblings solely to an experience last autumn.

It was a typical day in all respects. I had just finished class and boarded the rather infrequent and verily decrepit bus 107 that tours around the outskirts of the suburbs in no man’s land, the area where the government has decided students should live, study, and play. The bus wasn’t crowded, there was little traffic on the road to nowhere…

Some would say this was nothing, most would not even notice- I found it beautiful, even graceful. As we roared down the street at a decent clip the bus driver yelled, “Anyone off?” over the noise of the engine and the vibrations of the bus unbolting itself. No one responded in the affirmative, so he pressed on, failing to stop at the bus stop, failing to break our pace. Up ahead in the distance, a long university block ahead, was a traffic signal just turned red, counting down the seventy seconds we would have to wait once we arrived. Whether by intention or by chance, seconds later the bus engine cut out and, oh the beauty of it! Near silence as we swept down the street at a diving eagles speed, past the bus stop and towards the intersection. Propelled by its mass, the unsightly, aged, and vulgar vehicle exhibited an out of character gracefulness I will never forget. On that otherwise uneventful day, for only one yuan, I was able to experience the serene silence of a carefree coast in absolute contrast to the clatter of city life.

MIUI

After installing and using Cyanogen Mod for about a week, I took plunge and flashed the ol’ phone again. Cyanogen Mod was bare bones… perhaps a little too bare bones. In fact so bare bones, I don’t remember the features (or lack thereof) that inspired me to make their mod my first flash. Perhaps it was that there directions were organized and laid out.

The second mod flash I mentioned above was one made by a Chinese group of enthusiasts, whose creation is called MIUI. Apparently their system has caught on worldwide with several translations into different languages, including English. Their installation directions, on the other hand, weren’t apparently clear for my situation but I dared at last to have a try.

There are quite a few features that I quite like:

• When a new message arrives, I needn’t switch out of the current application in use: a little window with the incoming text drops down from the status bar, along with an input box for a quick reply. Upon sending the reply or canceling the notification, it was like my attention never left the task to begin with.
• There are some tools that let you control data usage per application, whether they use 2G/3G or use Wifi or both or neither. A good way to limit usage.
• There is another tool to cap you data usage per time period. This comes in handy with my plan.
• I’m not much for eye candy, but it’s nice to change the theme once in a while. Not only can you change wall paper and the default things you expect, you can change fonts, lock screen functions and the like. There are plenty more eye candy that can be enabled or not. I choose not to keep it simple.
• Quite clever indeed is battery status indicator. You may choose a graphical icon, text or a pixel thin line that runs the width of the screen above the status bar. This in ingenious. You can gauge more accurately than the icon and save the space that the text would take up in the icon notification area.
• The camera’s flash will turn on to make your phone a torch (flashlight) by holding the home button on the lock screen. A wonderful homage to the ol’ Nokia brick phones with built in LED lights for those dark, unlit dangerously traversed locations.
• The drop down notification area has an expanded toggle switch that I find invaluable. A long press with get me to the extended settings for the function.
• Long press the home button and you get recent apps, something present in the original firmware but expanded to include a longer history and some shortcuts to application task management.
• The file explorer is quite handy. There are several tabs to browse you SD card: Browse (by file types/formats like ‘music’, ‘pics’, ‘docs’, ‘zips’, etc), Browse by standard folder view, and start an FTP server to browse remotely over your wifi connection.

There are some things that I got used to really quickly while using the stock HTC rom and miss, and some features that are just not quite right:

• I miss their built in calendar.
• The clock in the MIUI rom does support more alarms, but they didn’t include a stopwatch or timer function. (Downloaded an app to remedy that, but a little strange/annoying that with all their apparent work, the didn’t include something as simple as that seems…)
• Several widgets for various applications outright don’t work.
• I use my GPS like an addict. Sometimes with all the application switching and enabling and disabling of hardware, the GPS cuts out. I usually reboot the system or tweak the various software switches and I get it back.
• The camera function seems a little less smooth (a bit jerky) than the HTC, and a little rough around the edges. It may be missing a few features as well… (but I can live with it.)

In the future, I’m sure try out another system, but until then, I’m content with MIUI. (And patiently awaiting their next creation!)

North Face Flurry

One of the schools I work with frequently bestows gifts to their staff (I say ‘their staff’ because, in effect, I do not qualify as ‘staff’.) An explanation is in order. First, their staff’s salaries are quite low for teaching at such a prestigious institution: recently the government decided to hold true to its communistic values declaring that all teachers, whether here or there, experienced or less so, should have equal salary. The sounds of jaws dropping at such a notion could be heard through the halls. They also are forbidden by contract to teach outside of their school which, despite all intentions, happens anyway. Here is the plight of the best of the best, the most skilled and once highly paid, now forced to equally share in the fate bestowed upon them.

This episode of life I playfully named the North Face Flurry.

As a snowstorm might sweep in from the north, certificates appeared like gentile snowflakes fluttering down from the heavens. But as we know, each snowflake is unique. And this is where our analogy stops and amusement begins.

Each morning for about two weeks a different teacher in the office would show up with their North Face purchases. Proceed to the ritual of everyone else in the office comparing the design, the color, and the price. Each day another person would be the center of attention, each day the routine would proceed accordingly.

The ironic nature of the whole experience is that most of the people in the office don’t wear that style of clothing, most would not have bought the articles if it hadn’t been for the certificate, few, if any, have ever done any serious trekking (myself included) and, with fashion- is it fashionable if everyone is wearing it? For most it was a symbol of status, expensive clothing that cost the average person a month of salary or two or three.

And perhaps I am a hypocrite because I, too, was the end recipient of some North Face clothing- but not the actual certificate. Quite frankly, there was little desire for me to end up with an expensive jacket. I’ve already three more than I need in the closet. Added to this fact is that I couldn’t possibly show up wearing the same goofy outfit as everyone else. Instead of a practical jacket like everyone else, I almost went for a Russian top hat (apparently called a Hoser Hat) but in the end decided that I might offend people if I make light of this treasured gift certificate experience.

Short story made long story made short- if you stumble into an office and everyone is wearing outdoor hiking gear, and these people don’t look like your typical outdoor enthusiasts- congratulations, and welcome to my upside down world. (In other words, there’s no point to these rambling save to amuse myself either now or in the future.)

Android Phone

For my birthday last year I got a new phone. This was the first *expensive*, non-inherited, new phone I have received/bought in China. Ashamed to mention the price, I won't mention it. But we'll just say it's not anywhere near the $20 of my low-end (but wonderfully function, minimalistic) Nokia brick phone, which I don't hate on one bit.

Long story short, when I heard that Nokia's Symbian OS was retired, I cried. I'm a huge Nokia fan and I hate to see such a reliable system go. I swore by Nokia (sometimes even swore at them when their reliable system wasn't so reliable- but for the most part *by*). So... I figured time to look elsewhere.

I dabbled with the iPhone, but it sucks. It's great but it sucks. Kinda like Sony makes great products but they suck because everything is proprietary. That kinda suck. Good stuff if the world revolved around the company...

Without much research or previous usage, I dove head-first into the Android world. Stupidly (or quite cleverly) I paid full price for a retail HTC Incredible S from the Sunning Electronics store in town. Sure I didn't get the discounted phone that fell off the back of the truck into the black market electronics district, but the full priced phone I got wasn't sold by the phone company and was right out of the box without a questionable history. Well worth it. Why?

I was easily able to tweak the phone. This being said, HTC put together a wonderful stock phone that I used for a week with pleasure. Sort of. Most of the software was loaded for the average Chinese user, and a lot of features were blocked in China.

Once my courage mounted, I rooted it without difficulty and from then on was able to do a lot of fun things. Last night I flashed a custom ROM (Cyanogen 7) that will hopefully reduce a lot of the waste and add feature missing from the stock ROM. Plus it has a pretty logo- a skateboard riding robot. That's hard to beat! So far so good, and no disasters yet. I'm in the process of reinstalling the applications, and backing up my old HTC ROM in case I decide to switch back. I might try another popular Chinese based system (that has caught on world wide if I get the nerve. Still can't decipher whether or not my phone is supported.

Well. That's it. I just wanted to remember to myself this experience. Hopefully this phone will last me until the electrons depart it's malfunctioning body. Or until the phone company decides I need something new. I'm gunning for another five years but more likely it'll be five months.

S'moot'h Point

Today's title is brought to you by lack of intelligence. You see, I may have already said my piece about this piece. To be sure the computer ran a little search. I asked it to find posts that had 'moot' in it. In all sanity I knew that I didn't write 'moot' in my last post yet, the search query returned my last post. I forced myself to click on it, and when I searched the page for 'moot' I came up with this:

Blah, blah blah blah smooth blah blah blah blah blah... blah blah.

Serves me right.

Anyway.

Onto moot...

Students very often ask the question, "May I come in?" after they have already entered the classroom. I mean really- if I say no, are they going to stand outside or stay inside anyway? All they are doing is disrupting the classroom flow. Perhaps they are trying to show respect. If it's the case, I advise them to show up on time or don't shop up at all. I dunno. But it's a complete waste of their breathe and everyone's time, this little exchange.

IMHO... moot