Liminal Space

i met a boi

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 15:32:57 GMT

a lovely, perfect and wonderful creature, and i am most happy indeed. i met her some time ago now - august 2005 in fact. since then i have been a very busy squirrel and had had little time nor inclination to write here. very naughty indeed but oh well, i have been busy dammit.

i met this girl, now my girlfriend and great love in a bar in BJ of all places. In a gay bar. On a thursday night. The lesbian night, such as it existed back then.

Two young baby dykes from the US were having a series of girl only "ladies nights" at Destination (aforementioned gay club). Each week the night had a different theme:

L Word Trivia Night: consisting of a team event filling out answers to L Word related questions...not the most fun activity when you really want to be socialising, drinking, dancing and having fun... you try getting a bunch of drunken lesbians to fill in a form dammit. for reasons i cannot fathom my team did not win, who knows.. we thought the answers we wrote were correct at the time, but fuck only knows what we actually wrote.

Pink Party Night: despite my dismal failure at L Word trivia, i did however win the competion for dyke wearing the most pink, which was suprising given I was wearing very little of it..others were in head to toe pink - however the vote was based on audience clapping/cheering and the like and of course my friends are the loudest and most obnoxious - so naturally being their "pink" representative, i won hands down, hehe).

Pussy Cat Night: really only memorable for the "Pussy" cocktail which was a very exciting 20rmb creation of something pink and alcoholic dancing about politely in a martini glass, its true i spilt many of them (as is generally the case when i have a glass with liquid in my hand), but managed to drink more than i unintentionally poured over myself and casual passerbys, and in the end had a most enjoyable time.

and then there was

Drag Night: the night where I would meet my beloved Sara.

sorry.. i am very sleepy now.. will finish this tomorrow.. i need to call my sweet prince now and say goodmorning to her.. she lives in NY.. i live in BJ.. 13 hour time difference anyone? yes it sucks, but we will survive it.. soon I will move there.. i am still happy as a little quirrel can be regardless.. i love her very much.. and she, me. .. .details soon i promise.. i promise...

Those were the days: Hannah's Bday 2005

Sun, 27 Nov 2005 08:19:43 GMT

Yes, its yet another example of how to combine work and play. And yet another example of how disturbed my mind really is. I should get a real hobby. Nah, fuckit, this works. Use your skills as a web/new media/multimedia designer/developer.....hmm, I should get a job that doesn't require so many slashes in the title - if only someone could come up with a proper title/descriptor, honestly, business cards are just not designed to handle such long and wordy bullshit titles...oh wait, what was I saying?

Oh yes, below is a fine example of me using my skills for good rather than evil. I held a marvelous birthday party for Hannah in March 2005. Good times were had by all, very good in fact, it all but turned into a mass orgy by the end - this is what you get when you send out an invitation such as I did (viewable below) then put 10 sex starved lesbians in a room and add champagne. A splendid recipie if ever there was. I highly recommend it. We never did get the promised stripshow by Hannah's cracked out girlfriend-of-the-moment, by the time she arrived myself and all my friends werre much too busy sticking our tongues down each others throats like it was our job.

But enough of that sordid story. Below is the Birthday Invitation that I made for the party...apparently the girls took the invitation at face value. Let this be a lesson to you all out there - if you send lesbians an invitation with nudie photos on it and the promise of much raunch and pornography, they will expect exactly that. And we all know dykes get what they want. Well at least my dyke friends do. Good times in Beijing. Good times. If you build it. They will come. Sometimes in multiples. Very loudly.

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How to make a Shtreimel

Sun, 27 Nov 2005 08:00:15 GMT

How to make a Shtreimal 101:
Why the Sabel does not appreciate the Hasidic male

In my endavours at creative procrastination, here is yet another of my "how to guides", this time we look at the furry hat as most commonly seen balancing atop Hasidic Jews as they stroll the streets of Brooklyn, NYC with their polite families during the Sabbath. As aways, simply click on the image below or the link provided to view the image full size.

Below is my ode to both the Sable and old school style 3rd grade class projects. I still have many the fond memory of cutting up old national geographics and using scissors and glue and large sheets of brightly colourd cardboard, rulers and marker pens to construct a presentation on some random topic to hand in as a class assignment. Ah, that and dioramas. Such delights.

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Phallus Envy 101: Lesson #006

Sun, 27 Nov 2005 07:33:24 GMT

Ilsa's Guide to Phallus Envy 101
Lesson #006: Finer Appreciation of the Viet Kong Tank

The following is a guide for all those budding lesbians out there who are working to embrace their phallus envy, future lesson plans will include how to pack in high heels without looking like a drag queen and the finer points of shooting an AK47. Click on the image or the link below to view the full image. Enjoy ladies:

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Chinglish Movie Synopsis Fun For All

Sat, 26 Nov 2005 05:05:45 GMT

Below for your random pleasure are 3 particularly enjoyable movie summaries as printed on the the back covers of random DVDs purchased in Sanlitun, Beijing. All punctuation, spelling, capitalisation etc has been reproduced faithfully to enable full enjoyment of these curious and spectacular attempts at film review. Disturbingly enough, all of these make quite a lot of sense to me, I have no problem understanding (well ok, more or less underrstand) what these films are about. Mostly. Heh.

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory

"The Charlie is a little boy of docile, he was born in a poor family of a large chocolate factory neighbourhood; A person with peculiar character of the Willy Wonka, own an equally peculiar chocolate factory. The Wonka of solitary one person held a field draw prizes, deciding to choose for own chocolate factory an inherits the person. Include the Charlie in inside of 5 ch ild that are luckies take out aureate lottery ticket, and be visit this qualification of the chocolate factory that is filled with the mysterious color. Hence, a few childs have arrived at this f or 15 years, no one to the peculiar factory that lead, attend a mysterious unfathomable and r isky ......"

Roll Bounce

"A flock of with the X( the benefit is fertile) the leader of young man cool love roll the stalk ice-skating( dry ice) sport, the ice stadium of the region is their heaven. The Mile, can with experience personally the pleasant sensation of the youth a nd dream unrestrainedly, let out the disaffection in the growth and cut up rough.B ut very quick, skating rink because of management not Closed well.While X and c rew members The result nobody wins, the X understands the father finally to own love, the youth grows up in the dance of the flair tread, a group of boys returned t o the normally life track again On the vestige."

Saving Face

"A Chinese-American lesbian and her traditionalist mother are reluctant to go A supurb ensemble cast falls in for action in Stanley Kubrick's brilliant saga about the Vietnam War and the dehumanizingprocess that furns people into trained killers, Joker. Animal Mother Gomer Eightball with scathing humot.Full Metal Jacketd from its rigors of basictraining to cinematic direct hit.public with secret loves that clash against cultural expectations."

False information lands netizen in hot water

Fri, 25 Nov 2005 06:44:26 GMT

"CHINA SCENE - From widly read Chinese Media" (courtesy of China Daily)

False information lands netizen in hot water - www.chinanews.com

"A netizen in Jiangxi Province has learned the dangers of spreading false information on the Internet.

The man heard a story about infant trafficing, and he put the information online out of curiosity. Although he did not commit a crime, he was arrested for disturrbance of social order, and helf for seven days"

→ Let this be a lesson to you all. Don't be posting random things on the internet. It could lead to seven days imprisonment. Go China go.

smitten

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 16:43:42 GMT

i am.

Summer dayz - lesbo style

Sun, 22 May 2005 09:28:46 GMT

Chillin with my best friend, naturally a big dyke, chillin in the sun all day, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, the dog hanging out with us, making fun of the lonley planet mandarin book for its use of their own perverse interpretation of pinyin pronounciation bullshit guide, reading the freak section of China daily (aka the rews from around china) featuring such highlights of the week as "12 year old boy gets drunk to find poetry inspiration", and discussing our lesbian friends, whos being irritating, whos cute, whos dating who and whats going on in the world of beijing lesbians, our mutual hatred of other laowais, corneal transplants and lasik eye surgery, retarded international schools, the important of looking in the distance, smsing plans for dinner tonight...then going back upstairs at 4pm to lay in bed a lil more, check emails for any love, see if any new random dykes in beijing have been found in the homo personals, making random conversation about what sterotypical homos we are, chillin in bed, listening to ani defranco and peaches, discussing girls...this is summer, this is lesbians in beijing...love it.

Intellectual stimulation - Lack thereof

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 09:30:48 GMT

Today I have concluded that Beijing is slowly killing me on an intellectual level. There is quite simply not enough intellectual stimulation for me here. I am utterly dying to have a REAL conversation with someone about well, pretty much anything at this point in time. No disrespect to my friends - a few of them are responsible for keeping me sane - if it were not for them my mind would be completely numb already. But its not enough - I need more more more. I have no outlet to discuss design, the web, IT and all the geeky things it entails.

I want to have a long and involved conversation with someone about usability and accessibility issues and HCI and what the new trends of thought are regarding user navigation and what the latest research shows about the way people think when using the web and the WAI and user testing and screen readers and the best way to <alt> tag images and how to achieve the holy grail of cross browser compatibility and W3C compliance while still remaining at the cutting edge...arrrhhh.. help me someone.

I want somone else to know instantly who Jacob Neilson is and not be able to mention his name without engaging in at least a half hour discussion of the latest in usability issues and whos doing what and the delimma of form over function and what size screen resolution is really being used today by the majority of the population and the percentages of each and the validity of such research and polling.

I want to know where research claims the fold to currently be, prime content real estate and the placement of content, max page weight, loading times, file sizes, use of flash and other 3rd party tehnologies, high and low bandwith versions, and all those wonderfully geeky issues that affect everyone in the web world.

I want to know what people think about em's and font size and how much control should you give your user , the problems of better acessibility in controlling font size by the user and the contraints this places on design and the stuctural integrity of of the site - when does design degradation outweight useability? What of graceful degradation, what is the current standard browser - what screen size are we designing for? How many colours, does anyone conform to the web palette anymore, should we, do we? Where do we draw our lines in the transitional sand for now and what should we be aiming for in the near future? Is XML the way? Is is all compliant? What should we name out image folders? How many characters is the limit for a file name?

I want to have a heated discussion about whether it is appropriate to use 2   tags in place of a  tag to control the amount of white spage between text and then edge of a table and the pros and cons of little cheat/workarounds such as closing or not closing your end  tag to reduce some unsightly white space. What about spacer images, table padding and spacing and the use of the non breaking space?

I want to argue about whether the hex colour #333333 is the new #000000 (aka: is grey the new black) and if (the font) Verdana is triumphant over Arial and Helvetica and whether italics are ever appropriate online.

I want to sit with a group of like-minded souls and discuss in depth over lunch the XML schema, the pros and cons of declaring different DTD's, metadata, depreciated and redundant tags, CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) heirachy, the use of CSS to control the layout of a page and the whole markup versus structure argument.

I want to speak of guidelines and statistics and data and research and style guides and documentation and what to do with it all and how to apply it to our own little worlds of design and development and the crossover of the two disciplines.

Please, somone? I need to expand my mind..it is shutting down...fuck.

By the way, in case anyone needs a translation - here is the list:

IT - Information Technology
HCI - Human Computer Interaction
WAI - Web Acessibility Initiative
W3C - World Wide Web Consortium
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
XHTML - Extensible Hypertext Markup Language
XML - Extensible Markup Language
DTD - Document Type Definitions

 - Paragraph tag
  - Line Break tag

lantern festival snow times

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 04:18:34 GMT

Well well well, it seems that China has its own (no doubt much more ancient, historically rich and traditionally important) "groudhog" to predict the coming of spring. Much more complex than the American "tradition" of grabbing some poor sleeping groundhog out of its burrow where it is no doubt nesting happily and avoiding the cold winter outside and seeing what kind of shadow it casts to predict the leng of remaining chilly days, the Chinese take things much more seriously, turning to the sky during the full moon of the mid-autumn mooncake festival..should the lunar globe be obscured by clouds on said eve, it is said that snow will fall on the 15th day of the Chinese New Year festival - more specifically - Lantern Festival Day.

Various Chinese comrades I have spoken to assure me that this ancient method of snow predicion is around 95% accuracy and indeed it did not fail us today. Despite foreign forcasts of a clear day for Wednesday 23 February (January 15 of the Chinese Calendar and the all important end of the new year festivities as marked by Lantern Day), Chinese meterologists across the Middle Kingdom predicted snow snow and more snow. Not to be fooled by the naysayers of CNN and their fancy forcasting techniques based on science I chose to put my faith in the traditions of a nation of 1.3billion and waited politely for the snow to fall. I must admit I was not without a heavy dose of skepticism on tuesday night, as the winds howled in with bone numbing frozen winds from Siberia and the almost full moon shining brightly in the dark clear sky..it was certainlyy cold enough for snow.. but generally one does need clouds from which frozen water particles can fall off to end up with that lovely fluffy frozen white stuff landing on the ground..

But rest assured... a country that specialises in "weather modification" can't be wrong... if they are reportng snow for the 15th, and the moon and the clouds last year said it would snow.. then dammit.. it will snow. Its amazing what you can achive these days with a bunch of giant fans and a few rockets filled with various toxic chemicals. Or maybe it was all the fireworks the population of Beijing has been illegally firing into the sky for the past 15 odd days...perhaps thats where some boffin of scientific endeavours came up with the smashingly good idea of forcing the sky to release its watery cargo when it wasn't ready in the first place. The Chinese did invent fireworks afterall.. with a 500 year old history of propelling large payloads of chemicals into the sky to combust into decorative light shows to ward off hungry ghosts et al, it was only a matter of time before someone realised that shooting off chemicals into the atmosphere could also bring rain and its more attractive sidekick - snow.

All hail the Beijing Municipal Number One Weather Modification Unit on an oustanding and timely delivery of lovely fluffy white snow which blanketed Beijing today making the Lantern festival particularly pretty. Go team go. Zhong Guo - Jia Yo!

The cock crows: I'm so fuckin' cool

Wed, 09 Feb 2005 13:37:50 GMT

ILSA
I	is for	Intense
L	is for	Lively
S	is for	Savvy
A	is for	Animated

What Does Your Name Mean?
Who cares? Mwahahaha. Mine is cooler than everyone's anyways...

I speak Swedish

Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:58:28 GMT

Hahaha.. yeah right.. words greatest lie, maybe George Bush would give me a job? haha Ok, so I have been very lax in my LJ posting journals since arriving in Sweden land...and I'm not about to start now cause I must go and get dressed because today I am engaging in the Swedish national past time -its going to IKEA day! HAHAHA... Should be highly entertaining for all. I went with Kip to her job last night (she teaches Swedish to immigrants)and sat in on her class which were thankfully all beginners. Unfortunately I missed the classes on basic vocabulary but I did learn a great deal about proper pronounciation of the swedish vowels - there are waaay to fucking many by the way..observe:

a o u å e i y ä ö

THAT is not even legal! But hey, I'm nw a world authority on them..hahah... I also learnt much about swedish grammar et al... which is quite ironic as I still only know about 10 swedish words.. most of them names of animals such as snail, cockaroach and sheep which again.. are not exactly helpful in mastering this entertaining language. Oh well, perhaps I will be struck with some divine vocabulary knowledge while playing in IKEA and then will be able to finally put all my quality Swedish knowledge to use! Hmm.. fantasies, fantasies,, almost as unlikley as having sex with a hot Swedish tjej (chick) in the snow...ahh...am looking forward to Friday (altho not really cause that means my holiday is always over..nooooo!!!!)...Friday is when the next Klubb Lilith (the dyke bar) is...I was waaay too jetlagged at last Friday's...it was all a bit of a blur.. but dammit.. at least I went - YEAH! thats dedication to the homo world for ya!

Love you all longtaim~~~

Öh - do we have a photo of this allison bisexual dj from the usa??? hello.. I am a superficial bitch too remember!

If your crunk and you know it clap your hands

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 03:32:19 GMT

Things I have learnt this morning:

* Beijing wind is completely out of control. Being hit in the face with flying debris and rubbish from local garbage bins is NOT how I want to become familiar with my neighbours.

* Glass cleaner spray is actually a multipurpose all in one - while not great at grime and well dirt it does impart a fantastic shine on both marble and laquered wooden surfaces...and it has that delighful "clean" smell that one is always looking for to reward oneself after all that use of the dishcloth...

* Bathroom cleaner spray is exceptional at cleaning, but get all foamy and requires excessive amounts of rinsing which means everything ends up covered in water and numerous towels later you have a clean surface but a great deal of mess around it requireing attention - not a good idea to play with when you are in a rush. If you feel like a day of playing in hand drying soap suds - go right ahead.

* Marble that changes colour when wet/dry is a really stupid material to use for bathroom benchtops...I don't care how pretty the marvelous brown and cream swirly patterns are.

* Ministry of Sound Label these guys are well known for producing techno and dance party cds, including dance anthem annuals etc. I discovered today however that they also produce some really weird shit such as "Hecho en Cuba Vol 2" which is the perfect Mexican restaurant soundtrack.. it makes me want to invite all my friends over for margueritas and nachos and wear sombreros while re-decorating the house with plastic catcus figurines and old photographs of bullfighters.

* Chocolate Cream Oreos are NOT a suitable breakfast item. Anything with the tagline "Chocolate Sanwich Cookies" is not your friend - that was a read flag if ever I saw it...I must pay more attention and not be seduced by the nearest open packet of "food". They are also very addictive... Perhaps I could cut them with talcum powder and sell in on the street. It could help to pay for more pizza.. See below for details on that world of goodness.

* Peter Pan Pizza is a viable breakfast item, but unfortunately I ate the last slice of it at 4am this morning. Made of all organic ingredients (who knew Beijing even had anything organic, let alone pizza!) it tastes damn fine. However, it is not a good idea to live on for 3 days and use it as a source of food for your dog (who presently is only allowed to eat chicken due to allergies so says the vet). Unfortunately Petet Pan does a very good chicken breast and I in my infinite wisdom concluded that instead of going to Jenny Lou's or walking 50 meters down the road to the local supermarket, it would be much easier to order 200RMB worth of grilled chicken breasts, organic fresh salad, amazing eggplant parmigarna and 4 seasons pizza (mmm - ham, olives, mushrooms & artichokes). I have done this for the past 3 days... at 200RMB++ each time I am starting to think this is not the most cost effective solution to myself and the dogs nutritional requirements. But fuck it tastes good.

it's ok to be bitchy and judgemental if you're right.

Wed, 26 Jan 2005 13:43:15 GMT

Random snippets...with, by, about and for random people.

Any resemblance to actual people, places or events is...entirely possible and likely. Enjoy.

ugh, they're all going to MIX and VICS tonight and said that "EVERYONE" is going to be there and I said no thanks. I hate mix and VICS. why they all think it's so cooool is beyond me. "EVERYONE" eh... so basically ALL the people we would never want to be friends with, will be there. yeah, I’m not cool enough to go to mix. HAHAH, exactly. yeah - I’m a quite fascinated by why VICS and MIX are even still around. they just wander around that damn place like they’re gods or something. yeah, not my cup of tea. Oh no my dear - you're TOO cool to go to MIX.... only losers go there..MWAHAHAHA. actually that's quite true you know. MIX and VICS (altho MIX is by far worse) is something to make fun of... no one is actually supposed to GO there! hahhaha. so says my bitchy socially judgmental self. yeah. I’m still tired. tonight planning on an 8:00 bedtime. so I won't fall asleep tomorrow night when we watch the movies. well we can't have that! no, that's not bitchy and socially judgmental, that's just right. yes - its just RIGHT...well put..hahah. it's ok to be bitchy and judgmental if you're right. I think it's ok for me to be bitchy and judgmental because I’m usually right. muahahahahah. we are ALWAYS right. of course. hahaha. definitely.

alright.... what the hell. RIIIIIIIGGGHHHHTTT. well damn. what the hell. she's being so unfriendly. just shows she's more screwed up than you are. really, I’m starting to think that it's better you never got into it with her. what if you'd started something and THEN she started getting all weird, that would have been even worse and it seems like she can get pretty weird no please on the end.. maybe someone should point it out to her... she likes to think that she is all down with the words...and hello - I find it amusing and quirky but others would naturally find it offensive... hell - you did..haha. I usually find ESL quirky and amusing but she should not be rude to you. AMEN to that shawty! her language skills are good enough to be nice. yeah, she's a little... unstable? not good girlfriend material. I’m being a bitchy judgmental whore now. so shoot me. and you're quite right, she ain't no ESL student when it comes to getting across her moods .exactly, she doesn't have to be rude. like "I will use you for this and I don't care what’s' going on in your life". She is totally TRYING to be little miss ice maiden... .. I fucking laughed. I’m mad that she's being mean to you. that's not nice at all. If I didn't know that she is fucked up and weird and no into me I woulda thought she was being cute and flirty and funny. but alas.. MUAHAH. you are eeevil. hahahah. cause she is socially dysfunctional yeah, it seems like she is out to get you back now or something...by the way - you're not a bitchy judgmental whore.. she is..hahaha anyway, her personality seems like one who might.. hold a grudge. I hate to say it. yeah - I’m kinda getting that impression.. she is being decidedly childish about the whole thing. and it's to her disadvantage that we've been lesbians longer... unfortunately we have played more games than she has...

ah, you're not supposed to date people in the same sign are you? I thought that was the same as death in the horoscope world. yes - in fact you are incredibly correct there. I will now read us a tarot card. oooh! this is like one of those pay $20 to have your tarot cards read via our live online psychic! heheheh. do you accept paypal? hahahaha. hahaha, we got the temperance card in reverse, which means conflict or internal fighting. hahahahahah. Yeah well I coulda told you that one. I just read one card, it was the conflict one. should I read another one? btw.. that was a bullshit tarot reading.. I wanna know more about the spears and cups and shit..haha. have you a question to ask Madame ?

WHAT?!?!? she even went so far as to get the COPYRIGHT SYMBOL tattooed on her lower back! WHAT?!?!? because you two looked alike? woah. she sounds a bit strange. nice. it's sort of a fucked up idea to get tattooed on you, it's the symbol that big ass corporations put on things so that everyone knows it's theirs. it doesn't represent uniqueness, it represents selfishness. ha, well, the ones who are good in bed are always fucked up somehow. I don't think that’s universally true. but in my past it has been. like trekking the Gobi dessert..haha. well, there were a few who were good and normal, but timing was off. yes - cause otherwise we would be fucked up! hahahahaha. hahahahah. that's right. and I am good in bed and COMPLETELY sane. riiiight. yeah... I’ve had out of all... 15 girls I’ve ever tried dating... TWO that were good. and both were cut off early due to timing. it would be nice to meet someone who wants to TRY. Jesus. alright. I’m going to stop bitching about her. I’ve said everything I could possibly say. it took me a good 6-8 months of contemplation before I did anything. It was totally terrifying.. there was nothing technically wrong with our relationship... but we had just grown apart.. it was really awful trying to explain it to her.. she didn't think there was anything wrong.. it was horrible. but in the end I felt soo suffocated. suffocated by the boredom and lack of intellectual stimulation.. I was really really lonely. I remember one day I was lying in bed with her thinking I felt trapped and scared but I didn't want to break up with her. and sometimes I remember that and wonder if it was fear of intimacy then (which I had and can't imagine now) or if it was strange ness with her... THESE are the things that keep me up at night... I’m so lame sometimes. Yes - what happened to girls that wanted to TRY this whole relationship thing eh? Is everyone too fucking AFRAID these days????boredom is not good. if it's not good anymore... no point keeping it going. if it were worth it you would know, but if you just feel like ending it then there's no point trying for more.. ugh. haha.. nah you're not lame at all.. what you said totally sounded like me for the last 6 months with her. except I didn't have fear of intimacy..hehe. I don't have a fucking clue. where are they? usually the girls ALWYS want relationships. and I don't. now I want one. and no one else does. what the fuck. hahahah.

hahah. "no officer, I was just helping that sheep over the fence." there is nothing more pure than the love between a snail and a sheep. apparently pc users can even make their own icons. kewl. Macs are still better. yes..yes they are.. It’s just that Microsoft is trying to repress us! what is the 2? it was supposed to be cat. what is that about my dear? hehehe. cat: good. I think you need some. pussy: good. ahh.. PUSSY is GOOD. work with me people. riiiiight. DUUUHHHH . I’m not very clever.yeah, I’m really a LOT smarter than you. I don't know if we can be friends anymore. that one’s cute. Kudos to you my dear! hahahaha. ik think I feel a nap coming on

the girls can hook me up yeah - well that’s why I’m hoping.. if I can get in touch with the girls and see if there is anything on. Ooh look: The first ever lesbian and gay live aboard trip to Similan Islands, located about one hundred kilometers northwest of Phuket, Thailand, on the 20-meter MV. PARINEE organised by Rainbow-Scuba.Departure: Feb 17 from Phuket. hell yeah! that would be funnnnn. how cool is that! tiiight. that’s' fabulous. ooh.. in Tokyo 10-13 Feb. there is a big homo party thing. TIIIGHT! It’s a 3-day thing. damn shit. I would have been there.yeah - you and I should be there - haha. why didn't we plan to go to Tokyo together dawg? are we stupid? you and your dumb expensive flight. you so coulda got tix for like 2000-3000 return ho. I know, I have wanted to go to Tokyo for so long! I’m pissed at my lack of financial skills. I was flying to Sapporo, it's different. instead of this 4000 one-way stupidity you found. hahaha. not so many flights to Sapporo. yeah yeah Sapporo - whatever dude! I bet they have cheap and fast trains you could a gotten once inside tha country! oh shawty. fly to Tokyo or Osaka or whatever real cheap like then worry bout gettin to Sapporo once you be in da country! YEAH! yeah, I didn't think about everything very carefully. also your 3-week fantasy was hella out of control. hahehehe. but the ice festival was just for three days after I got there and I wanted to see it on time. no one can survive in Nippon land for that long.. I’d blow my entire savings doing that I reckon. oh yes.. ice ice ice. ah shit man I have to take a nap. I’m sleepy. its all about da ice wif you isn't it biatch? hehehehe. I will talk to you soon. yeah me too - but I gotta work and fucking sort out this travel plan fiasco BULLSHIT. thanks for the girls email addys - I will harass them promptly. they will take me out right? good luck. let me know where the hell you're going... you still have about 12 options right now. not that I can't entertain myself just nice there... shops! hehehe. yeah, they will take you out. they're fun. and it sounds like there are a lot of lesbians. Her woman is quite a whore it seems. yeah I know - it’s fucked up... I just need to decide on a country./countries and run with it.. It’s all getting waaaaaayyy outta control. she should know some girls who are looking for an out of towner. Cool - she should be able to sort me out with some ladies..hehehe

disturbed and amused, confused and aroused

Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:56:18 GMT

In Sweden the age of sexual consent is 15. FIFTEEN.

It is totally legal for a 50 year old man or woman to have sex with a 15 year old girl or boy in Sweden.

All I have to say is FASCINATING...

BTW - I will be going to Sweden on Feb 4-13th.

Excessive Attention to Playthings Saps the Will

Mon, 24 Jan 2005 18:14:40 GMT

The fine tradition of chinese idioms continues...
Courtesy of Xianzai.com

I am presently finding this particular idiom (known as a cheung yu in mandarin) to be highly accurate and applicable to my life in general. Essentially it tells us not to get obsessive over any one thing cause its naughty and makes you too tired to go to work in the morning and do the stuff that society says you should do and the stuff you think you want to do, of course there is no advice on what defines something as a plaything...but I have a sneaking suspicion that GIRLS are considered playthings (and rightly so haha)....

I especially enjoy the fine historical story/fable/whatever that dutifully accompanies each idiom. It is almost as entertaining as the root/background story of a chinese character - which is unto itself a whole world of fun and games hiding in all those pretty lines. Opium must have been especially potent and popular back in those days. Even within the first 250 radicals there are some pictograph/ideograph (or is it ideogram?) characters which claim to be representations of various objects and activities which have evolved from simplistic and often quite logical line drawings into the more refined (and often needlessly complex) forms that make up modern chinese characters (aka HAN ZI). However, as with excessive drug consumption of any peoples, the chinese scholars were thinking extreemly laterally - there are numerous characters which apparently closely resemble certain objects.. Now come on people - lets not pretend anymore please? Granted many of the pictographs are in their modern simplified form very very very loose symbolistic interpretations of their original intended image.... but some of them... well..maybe I should start chasing the dragon and perhaps I could manage to penetrate the inner depths of my obviously artistically represed psyche and suddenly and miraculously be able to see how a little dot and a line actually represent anything at all. Fuck, now I sound like one of those wanker laowais whom I hate, the ones that whine and complain that mandarin is too hard to learn and chinese characters are nuts... For the record I do not think any of these things and I actually really like learning chinese characters - its oddly enjoyable. But let me just say my last stupid foreigner comment for the day - hese guys would have done seriously well if they re-born at the peak of the abstract art movement...Only then it wouldn't have been called abstract art....they would have called it photo-realism... ;-)

But I digress...

They (being the idioms) always seem to involve some delightful and dutifully arrogant lord, king or emperor who overthrows some random but important dynasty or kingdom and finds humility along the way.. there usually seems to be a donkey, a basket of rocks, a perillous journey across a great desert or backbreaking labour thrown in somewhere along the way, which appears to be used as a literary device of distraction to the reader, as these donkeys et all generally have little or nothing to do with how the lord/king/emperor/farmer came to his epiphany and breakthru cheung yu goodness but hey, who am I to question such profound wisdom? No wonder I never have any original thoughts..

I hereby devote the following idiom to Hanni who will no doubt enjoy the irony and the tragedy of how very poignant this idiom is at present... now let us all take a deep breath and enjoy...

Excessive Attention to Playthings Saps the Will

Pronunciation: wan(2) wu(4) sang(4) zhi(4)
Tone: Neutral
Explanation: Said of being too excessively devoted to a hobby that it will affect one's ambition

The Story:

After King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang Dynasty, all subservient states presented gifts to the leaders of the Zhou Dynasty to confirm their allegiance. One day, an ambassador from the Lu state in the west presented King Wu with a huge dog. The large dog lay in front of King Wu and nodded its head in a salute. King Wu was very pleased. He accepted the rare gift and rewarded the ambassador generously.

The Grand Guardian Lord of Zhou, Shi, wrote a letter titled "The huge dog of Lu" and gave it to King Wu, which said, "To humiliate others hurts one's own virtue; to pay excessive attention to playthings saps one's will. A great ideal started with difficulty must not be allowed to be ruined overnight."

After reading the letter, King Wu ordered that all the gifts be given among the princes and officials. He devoted all his attention to his government. As a result, the Zhou Dynasty was strong and solid.

And my fine squirrels, how do we apply this to our daily lives you ask? Simple!...

Usage Example (Pinyin): Wo(3) de lao(3) lao chang(2) shuo(4) wan(2) wu(4) sang(4) zhi(4), xiao(3) shi(2) hou(4) ta(1) bu(4) rang(4) wo(3) zong(3) wan(2).

Usage Example (English translation): My grandmother often said that "excessive attention to playthings saps the will", and she did not allow me to play much when I was a child.

May I just say - damn yo granmammy was a bitch wasn't she... not sure what that teaches us about playthings - I suspect we should play with them more - if only to get back those lost childhood memories grandmother took from you by not allowing you to play as a youngster...Hmm.. I'll get back to you on that one...)

OH, and what happened to the giant fucking dog???

Note: The spoken Chinese Mandarin language has 4 spoken tones. We have attempted to re-create those above where after each syllable we tell you (1), (2), (3), or (4) as they correspond to each of the 4 tones.

to our horses, to our women, and to those who ride them

Mon, 24 Jan 2005 18:04:12 GMT

Yes well.. I've nary seen a horse in my time in Beijing, nor for that matter have I seen a horsey anywhere in my travels of recent date. Go figure. What is the world without horses I ask? Actually I don't ask this at all - altho this question is whence applied to the female of the species (in particular the lesbian varietal) does cry out for an answer. Where the fuck are the lesbians in Beijing? Actually that question in itself whilst not an oxymoron is highly moronic.. I know where the lesbians are...they are at Pipe Bar on Gongtibeilu in Chaoyang District, only a 10RMB taxi fare from my house... they are there every saturday, mature types from 2pm-6pm-ish, replaced by the younger crowd afterwards.. ok so I admit they usually they all go home before midnight, maybe they will all turn into a grain of rice, I'm really not sure, but they have been known (particularly of recent weeks) to stay until 2 or even *gasp shock horror* 3am. Outstanding work ladies, you girls are wild I tells ya.. WILD. Ok so what convoluted question am I asking? Do I even have a question? Do I even care for an answer? I suspect if there is one it will crush me. Clearly I am having serious case of mental confusion whatever that entails. My brain in unable to process information and what you see now is the end result.. Not only have I lost the ability to filter between my brain and my mouth I have discovered there is no content to filter.. how disturbing. Hmm, I'm kinda hungry... Oh yes, to those who ride them..amen amen..Yes there are no lesbians in Beijing, Hannah and I killed them all...How clever and talented we are indeed. I will explain all in a later entry when suddenly my seemingly insane and disturbing rantings will become painfully clear. But it would appear at at present I have without the capacity to do so. Oh well, you get that. Goodnite ;-)

Random T-Shirt Slogans

Mon, 24 Jan 2005 17:07:47 GMT

soon to be on a wifebeater singlet near you...well ok.. probably only in Stockholm or Beijing but whatever...

"Pimpin' ain't easy"
"Every woman is 3 drinks away from being a lesbian"
"Save a tree - Eat a beaver"
"Never again will I date a Cowgirl"
"I don't do Cowgirls"
"Embrace The Pussy"
"Ti, Pi, Bufen?"
"Karaoke is not a valid lifestyle choice"
"Buddhists - Ok lah, Prostitutes - No way lah"
"Dead Playmate"
"Hysterical Glamour"
"Who got your toaster"

Salmonberries - the quintessential synopsis

Mon, 24 Jan 2005 16:49:03 GMT

sounds fascinating to no end, my dear.

oh, how about salmonberries...

that one where kd lang plays an androgynous lesbian eskimo living in alaska who falls in love with a german ex-pat librarian with a hang-up about the war and a house full of berry jars

it's a fucking RIOT

and there's this one AWFUL song that they play over and over again by kd lang

something about "i would walk in the snow barefoot" or some mumbo jumbo bullshit like that