dear beloved

i recently opened up a new google email address to use for registering on news websites and so on. the first time i checked the mailbox i was amazed to see that within hours of creating the new address i had already received my first spam email. it was from a mrs. joy bongo of south africa letting me know that i had won the lottery, a cool 20 million rand. more and more of these emails kept flooding in. now, a week later, there are 40 such mails in the google spam folder and a dozen more in my inbox.

the good thing about this sort of spam is it's often hilarious. i especially like the catchy subject lines on the emails I received like "let's do it", "i need your very assistance", "concealed proposal from russian lady", and "sincerest greetings from miss angel edward!!!!".

i took a quick look through and found a lot of lottery winnings, overseas investment offers, and lost next of kins. oddly enough a lot of the lottery mails listed croydon, london as an address which stood out against the usual ivory coast, ghana, and south african mails. sadly, nigeria was in the minority despite being infamous for having started the scam. my weekly winnings/offerings was in the range of US$200m- not a bad reward for opening up a random gmail account.

of them all by far the best story was below:

"I live in Thamesmead-London, United Kingdom with my children. My late husband was a loving, caring and hardworking businessman who died unfortunately In a ghastly auto crash. Before the sudden death of my beloved husband, and father of my daughters, my late husband intended to establish a business
in the united states of America with the sum of $30 million united states dollars, but unfortunately he died before this proposed venture. Following his death, his family members insisted that I am not entitled to his property (Assets and money)
since I am a woman and my offspring's all girls as I do not have a male child for my husband. Well, according to some barbaric traditional laws here in Thamesmead-London, (Europe) which doesn't permit a woman to inherit a man's property,
as they are expected by tradition to take over the management of his business and other properties including myself who automatically becomes a wife to one of his immediate brothers."

thamesmead, a truly barbaric society.

don't panic

visited my local dvd shop the other day and picked up a few movies. they had the usual selection of dodgy new releases and i picked up a copy of the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy as it'll almost certainly not be shown in theaters here.

overall the movie wasn't as good as the bbc series made ages ago and i fell asleep less than halfway through. the good news was it had similar wacky subtitles as the revenge of the sith dvd i bought a couple of months ago which made things a bit more interesting...


translated movie title- 'the galaxy travels extensiv'


appreciate all fishes!

sorry there aren't any more screen grabs but i fell asleep not long after arthur and ford were ejected from the vogon ship.

42

pg-a

one day last week i was watching a pga golf tournament for a while on tv. i noticed a 'parental guidance' warning in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. thought that was a bit odd considering golf is about the world's most boring thing to watch on television- perhaps parents are needed to supervise their kids in case they would slip into a coma. also there were 'abc' and 'espn' logos on the top of the screen. seems the local channel went a bit crazy with the logos and put up whatever looked good.

fast as lightning

saw a great little segment on television this evening so i grabbed my camera to film the last part of it.


it was a quick series of self-defense techniques for a females who might be accosted on the subway. this is was a summary of a combo maneuver- click on the thumbnail above to see the clip (3.8mb). you might learn something!


the above clip (4.3mb) is a complex spin and elbow reversal maneuver, perhaps derived from aikido. it's of course important to smile at one's attacker to show there are no hard feelings.

ningbo-ing

yesterday i made a quick day-trip down to ningbo to visit our office there and a local factory. ningbo is a 30-minute flight but a 4-hour drive as there's no direct driving route, so there are a number of flights between shanghai and ningbo every day. the plane barely gets up to altitude before starting its descent, so the stewardesses have to run up and down the aisles flinging water bottles and peanuts at customers before getting into place for landing.


one thing that caught my eye in the factory was a t-shirt that one of the workers was wearing. it read, 'erotic of mid-summer'.

i worked one summer at university in london taking care of a group of about 60 japanese exchange students. japan is infamous for its bizarre usage of english and at the time there was a popular brand of jeans in japan called 'bitch', though few people (and none of the students I'd later find out) knew what it meant. one day we assembled the group for a trip into london. was only after we were in the city and taking roll that i noticed one of the smallest, quietest girls in the group was wearing a black t-shirt that had the word 'bitch!' written in huge neon pink letters on the front.

after we got back i told her that the meaning could be interpreted as rude to some people so best not to wear it off-campus. she, like other japanese, didn't know what it meant and just liked the look of the letters.

i somehow think the story is the same here, unless she was feeling particularly erotic that day.


after the factory visit we went to eat lunch in a seafood restaurant as i was told ningbo is famous for seafood. the concept was similar to the seafood market in bangkok, except the focus was more on live and less common creatures.

the folks from the factory couldn't tell me what the animal above was except to say it has blue blood and actually isn't very tasty. it reminded me of a trilobite fossil i had when i was a kid. they were all scurrying around the tank quite merrily except for that overturned one who seemed to be taking a long rest break. i declined the invitation to sample one.


this tank was filled with snapper turtles and eels. quite tasty, i was assured.


no one knew what these things were, seemingly including the staff working there. although when i showed interest in something i was usually asked if i wanted to try it, no one offered for me to try this thing.


i went to take some photos of these giant slug/snail things and the chef pulled them out of the tank and placed them on the counter top. he was intent on trying to sell the factory owner one of these things- finally they made it my call, which i politely declined. by the look on the owner's face he wasn't too enthusiastic about eating one of them either.

overall the meal was quite good, a lot more mainstream than these photos would suggest. i'm usually picky with my food but i could eat most of it, though there was a thick yellowish soup about which no one could translate the ingredients into english. the closest they could get was, 'some sort of seafood. like a fish but soft'. i tried not to let my imagination run too wild with that one.


sage advice from a sign in the ningbo airport toilet. if you're going to slip, make sure you do it carefully.


upon arrival back in shanghai we faced the world's longest taxi line. i'm heading back to ningbo again on saturday for work- this time will definitely book some transport ahead of time. people were born, got married, and died of old age in this line.

ningboing!

insert ball joke here

i found this photo the other day while randomly surfing around- a bmw crushed by a giant nike soccer ball outside nooddi in siam square, bangkok. if this isn't a piece of contemporary art then i sure hope the car's owner wasn't inside- what a way to go!

ascii star wars

simon jansen has been laboriously creating an ascii (all text) movie of the original star wars movie. he started it in 1997 and is now about halfway through.

someone has converted it to telnet, so grab some popcorn sit back and click here. oops, i guess they took it down. so you're gonna have to click here instead.

old crow

one of the great things about the internet is being able to travel all over the world from the comfort of one's couch. rather than visit popular spots like hawaii or london or saskatchewan, i like to look at more obscure places- places where it's difficult to get to, where living conditions might be tough, and where there's possibly no mcdonalds or pizza hut (yes, such places do exist). although many such locations are almost invisible to the internet, some are surprisingly well documented.

one such place i 'discovered' this morning is old crow, the only settlement in yukon north of the arctic circle.

click here for a view from space- it took me a bit of time to find old crow on google maps.

for a place with a population of only 300 and no road access, it has a surprisingly well done website. aside from the usual description and photos, there are recipes for roasted muskrat and boiled caribou leg, the town's finances are posted for all to see, there are a number of current employment opportunities, some lively local mp3s are posted, there's an online discussion forum, and an updated news section (titled, 'here are the news') by 84 year-old edith josie:

"here are the news from old crow. old crow weather it was good and wind most the time. old crow is a busy place some people come and have a meeting and just busy place...."

my favorite section is the elders page, where some of the town's more senior folk are interviewed about their lives and lessons for the rest of us:

"everybody make feast when the animals come to us. springtime when ducks, and caribou come through, muskrat in crow flat and all year those animals come and we make big feast and dance with it. we all had good time those days. today we go feast and salad, salad, salad; too much salad now. funny they never make meat salad yet." - tabitha kyikavichik, 81

"i used to work for myself; i go out in winter with dog team for wood, hunting, and trapping. now i sit here and do nothing."

"no freezer then, we dig a hole in the frozen ground and keep it there until it is all taken down to the people. we use dog packs to haul the load down to the community. we stand by it and watch for grizzly while our people make dry meat for the winter months. when bear come around we kill it and its good meat there too. people today change, but someday we do it again."

"when we go crow flat with sled, we make it with babiche, now its wire. have to tie that rope just right or it can bust. not to loose or not too tight or will fall apart that sled. no matter how far we go. mostly pack our own things and have dogs work too. lots of work them days. today we drive boat and everything change, dogs today aren`t good for anything." – andrew tizya, 86

"my grandpa and grandma have stories (i remember) they were good. 1930-40 there was no radio or phone. we hear news next year through mail. now two hour we know everything. my father brother drown august, mail come february 01, i hear then." - john joe kyikavichik, 80

"hard times are going to come again. we have things easy now (used to be hard times to get food from store). had to travel in dog team. still those kids don`t care, they get something sweet and thats it. back then, as long you get raisin and rice it`s good, we were happy for it." – fanny charlie, 83

"1926 my father, he travel in bush when the natives moved around. in 1898 he went to dawson that time during the gold rush, he didn`t know what was going on. they stayed in a mining camp just outside of town that was starting up. lots of people go into restaurant, there was no meat around. those people tell him go get meat, so he did. anything will be good, they tell him, moose, caribou, rabbit, beaver, grouse anything." - dick nukon, 80

"this one french man he help me out, did lots for old crow. he ran out of candles one time and oil for lamp, those old women they make lard candle for him. he come to me one time and ask me if i want light in houses for my people, i tell him sure. must be don`t like lard candle." – alfred charlie, 81

would love to drop by old creek someday and say hello to the folks there.

chevy, keng maak!

last month i spent a few days in bangkok running errands and visiting my friends. one sunday we were driving around in joe's truck and were stopped at an intersection waiting to turn right. i was writing an sms to a friend in shanghai when joe suddenly shouted, "oh... oh... ohhh.. aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!"

i looked in the side mirror just in time to see a taxi quickly bearing down on us with brakes fully locked up. there was a momentary pause and then *crash*, a big impact which pushed us foward.

we pulled off to one side and the taxi followed. took a quick damage assessment and found no one had been hurt so the police didn't need to be involved. the taxi driver admitted that he hadn't been watching the road and couldn't brake in time after he saw us. in typical thai style everyone remained calm and the experience was very casual and friendly. i can only imagine the shouting match that would have taken place back in shanghai.

we called both insurance companies and checked the damage to the cars while waiting for them to arrive.


the toyota was definitely in bad shape. it was braking heavily and turning at the time of the impact so its bumper absorbed the impact at an angle.


the bumper was hanging down, light cluster broken, hood crumpled, side panel bent, radiator cracked and leaking, and so on. wasn't going to be a cheap repair. we never did find the toyota emblem.

fortunately, unlike a lot of bangkok taxis, this driver was fully insured so he wouldn't bear the burden of the repairs directly.


by contrast it was hard to see any damage at all on joe's truck. at first it looked bad but after we brushed off the toyota's paint and plastic chips and whatnot there was barely anything to see.


upon closer inspection we found that the left side of the bumper had been pushed into the body, scratching and denting it. aside from that there was little other damage. joe pointed to the condensation dripping down from the aircon unit and suggested that a shockwave had passed through the truck breaking something in the engine in front, causing the leak. joe isn't a mechanic.

the insurance company reps both arrived on motorbike. they each commented, 'chevy, keng maak!' (chevy, very strong) as they took their notes and photos. the whole process took probably an hour, from accident to finishing up with the insurance reps- quite efficient, though it was incredibly hot in the sun so it felt longer.

i've definitely got a new appreciation of the safety benefits of driving a truck or suv in thailand. chevy, keng maak!

life imitates art

astronaut steve robinson's self portrait taken during the recent spacewalk to remove two gap fillers.


m.c. escher's hand with reflecting sphere.

aye caramba

a sign outside of shanghai's popular mexican restaurant, zapatas.