Posts from April 2008
April 27, 2008
Twitterpated
I ran into Kaiser and Paul at their personal Starbucks over at Wanda in Beijing, and they were telling me the virtues of Twitter. I said, "I've got enough distractions already. Girls wear white gogo boots in Shanghai. That's distraction enough." Silence.
Obviously neither Paul or Kaiser notice girls in white gogo boots, so we went on to talk about Social Distraction Software, and when I got home I actually installed a Twitter client on my Nokia so I can never have to talk to anybody at a cocktail party again if I don't want to, but can still stand there drinking and looking busy.
Do I need more distraction? No. But I certainly am curious. It feels a bit like those clandestine teenage telephone chat lines where used to dial into a broken number and talk between the busy signal beeps. That was annoying, but when you're 14, you are annoying, so it balances out.
If you feel the need to be distracted as well, my Twitter name is 3q2u.
@3q2u me if you feel like it.
April 22, 2008
20 years and a snack
I'm having a little private celebration today, sitting in a hotel room in Beijing, waiting for a train. Today marks the start of my 20th year here. I stepped off the plane in Taipei in 1988 and thought to myself, "What is that smell?" Now whenever I arrive in Beijing I think the same thing. Actually, to be fair, the past couple of days it's rained the hardest it's had in 40 years apparently (felt like a normal afternoon storm in Taipei to me), so today everything is clear and beautiful and fresh and green with that just rained feel in the air. A good day to mark 20 years.
Anyway, to celebrate this historic event, I went down to the convenience store to pick up one of my favorite snacks, the tasty Twix bar, to enjoy with my afternoon tea and conference calls.
After paying RMB15 for my crunchy chewy snack, I'm thinking, gee how much is that in NT$? Because it seemed to me that a Twix bar in Taiwan costs something like NT$20, which is only RMB5. How's that for Olympic sized inflation?
April 21, 2008
Kill spermatozoom?
The fifth circle on the right is quite interesting...
Thanks to Marc van der Chijs' Shanghaied Blog
April 20, 2008
Saturday night in Beijing
It took over an hour to get out to Haidian in Beijing to see some live music at D-22. Bryce hadn't been out there in 21 years, when he was teaching English at one of the colleges. A-Jie and Paul were along for the ride after some good Italian at Annie's. I'm the one who squeezed everyone in the cab since I have to see live music at D-22 whenever I'm in town.
We wanted to stay to hear Carsick Cars, but the bands didn't start until 11:30, so we petered out after the third band.
13 Dogs played the best set. At least it was loud and interesting and fun. They played short fast songs, the shortest being one a half measure, "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, caonimadebi!" The other two bands, LABF and Fire Balloon were pretty hurting. LABF had a cute keyboard/accordianist, who was their real redeeming quality. Fire Balloon's lead singer had a killer afro but he couldn't sing, and between each song he kept reminding us "Wo ai guo" (I love my country), which means a lot if you've been keeping up with the anti-French, anti-Carrefour, anti-foreign news sentiment building up lately.
13 Dogs
Click here if you are in China and YouTube is blocked.
April 15, 2008
China Business Network
I was asked recently by the China Business Network to to chat about doing business as a foreigner in China. I sound pretty goofy, but hey, it was early. They've got a terrific website with tons of interesting interviews, content, and articles about doing business in China. Definitely check it out.
April 10, 2008
Chinese Hospital Sign
Now that's a bit rude!
April 06, 2008
Quality Fade
Quality Fade
A 3q2u Production
A John Woo Film
Starring: Denzel Washington, Tony Leung, Maggie Q, and Clint Eastwood
In the wake of the devastating US financial crisis, the Chinese government steps in and buys all of Wall Street for 1.4 trillion in cash. Hu Jin Tao (Tony Leung) is now head of the US Treasury, and battles with the newly elected President (Denzel Washington) over who should be blamed and executed for causing the crisis. Hu's mistress, Maggie Q, seduces the President, leading to his resignation, and a hard boiled war veteran (Clint Eastwood) is appointed to now save the country.
Who do we shoot now?
Paul Denlinger has a great blog entitled The China Vortex, and says some really interesting things. I told Paul I liked the way he got into a topic, made a point, and got out, not talking down to his readers.
I've known Paul for a long time, and he's the one who convinced me to get a Mac when he said "Did you know it's built on the BSD kernel?" That was all I needed to hear because my admin had set up BSD servers on Linux boxes many years ago, and they were unbelievably fast and stable, running on anything.
Anyway, recently he wrote something I found very amusing. "So, while Chinese factories have on occasion exported defective products, the US has exported defective financial products. And the US government participated because Treasury sold T-bills which were backed by these defective financial instruments."
Quality Fade: American or Chinese, Which is Worse? - Check it out.
I've never figured out whether it's pronounced "Moe's (like owned by one of three stooges) or Moss (like that guy out of Bonanza), but the one down the hill from me is open until 2am most days, which means that if I get out of the club early enough, I can catch the best burger in town, the muo si la bao or the Spicy Mos Burger. They have lots of jalapenos and 
