YAY China

If there is one thing in life I DO NOT appreciate right now, it would be the beauty and elegance of the Chinese culture, specifically Inner Mongolia and the Gobi Desert. That is where I am for my 4th trip totaling 5 months in a place that I can not stand. But, someone needs to be here and take care of this $120,000,000 machine, so I take one for the team.

My day consists of waking up at 5:45, go for a run, go to work, go home, watch a movie (no English TV here), and go to bed by 10:00. Most of you who know me, this is not my preference of schedule. I need to be around people, do fun things, stay up late, and party on the weekends... yeah I do my work, but I need to play too. Not possible here, everyone is either Chinese or an asshole so I am stuck playing with myself (eww, get your mind out of the gutter). I tried to go to dinner with my Chinese friends, and of course I can't get into the conversation, BECAUSE IT'S IN CHINESE!

Anyway, enough bitching, I am now going to tell you what I do to have a little fun from time to time. There is the ever popular video watching on websites like break.com, entensity.net, liveleak.com, etc but that can only entertain for so long. I think I have reached the end of the internet, I really got a message on my computer that said that the other day... well, not really. So now I look for small things to amuse me. Par exemple, to get to and from the mine I have a driver with a jeep type truck type thing who is trying to learn English. This of course has limitless possibilities, like when he asks me about a word and I tell him it is something else, but even better is when he tries to translate his "engrish" music. A song came on the other day that some of you might know, "Short Dick Man" by 20 fingers (the remix). I am not making this up, it is a song from somewhere in the mid 90's I think, very stupid but has been remixed into various techno songs that the Chinese tend to love. Engulf yourself in this lyrical genius if you are not savvy, to keep up with the story... I'll wait

Ok, so of course the driver wants to know what is being said and asks the other two in the car who are my translators / Chinese counterparts. They say in the most broken English you can imagine, "Does she not rike sick man?" Hahaha, I'm like ooo kay, here it is... dick is penis, and the girl in the song does not want a guy who has a small penis. The whole car quiets for a moment as you and I know the Chinese are not known for being well endowed in this department. After some deep contemplation, and in an effort to break the uncomfortable silence the one Chinese guy goes, "but, Iny weeney?" Hahahaha, so I had to explain this also means small, and figured it was time to go through the rest of the song to enlighten them on some US culture. So you think it's over, nope, the next song that comes on is even more vulgar, and more descriptive that I almost could not explain it. But of course I did... the song you ask? My neck, my back (the dirty version) by a lovely lyricist named Khia. You can look that one up yourself if you want. I do not suggest it though as it is pretty bad, but you can get an idea of how difficult it was. SO, thank God the next song just kept repeating sunshiny day as I don't think they, or I, could handle any more sexual song explaining.

On to another interesting experience... Yesterday the driver had to go to the capitol city for a wedding, but has to leave the truck so we can drive to and from the machine in the mine. I am allowed to drive in the mine, but not on the streets through town if that gives you a little taste of how bad "the streets" are. A mine has 400 ton capacity dump trucks with tires that can roll over you without knowing it. Here is a picture of one in action. Here in China you take a class for about 10 minutes (in Chinese mind you) and you are good to go. Most mines take hours of classes and practice before they let you drive in a mine, which I have done quite a few times. So yesterday the driver did not get back in time, and I figured the best solution is that I drive us home. Everyone agreed that even though it is illegal, we can do it as law here is minimal to non existent. I have seen taxis pass police cars on a hill over a double yellow, passengers DO NOT have the right of way in any case, and if you come to a T in the road and are making a left you DO NOT stop, the person going straight does if he feels like it. Well I think I have had enough training in driving like an asshole, I am from NY and have obtained over 50 tickets for various infractions in the past 14 years in about 5 states. Like mentioned above, I have been here 5 months and seen the way they drive here, just itching to get behind the wheel. They drive like I do, and it's legal! So as you can imagine, I jumped on the opportunity. I didn't hold back one bit too, passed trucks over hills, drove as fast as the truck could go, and even passed a cop! I didn't stop at one intersection... no wait, that’s a lie. This morning I was driving back in to work and this man was walking his little girl to school. All dressed up in her school uniform with the pigtails and all. Well as I am approaching this intersection they aren't slowing down and are ending up right where I am about to be. A normal driver here in China would honk, the pedestrians would stop dead in their tracks and the driver would pass by. Well I made the rational decision and stopped for them, out of the kindness of my heart. As I stopped, the man looks up at me with a sneer on his face as if I just kicked his dog! He had stopped at this point, and slowly started walking again looking at me the whole time like as if I did something wrong. I know in his head he is thinking, "Damn round eye, need to rearn how to drive! Not supposed to be on da road anyway!" Well I made sure not to stop for anyone else on the way to work. Offensive driving, what I have been preaching for years! If everyone is on the defense, you need to have an offence... ying and yang, balanced universe and all. By the way, the cop never accepts that as an excuse either :(

I should be a lawyer

Ever since I was young, I took a little time out of my day to figure out how I could get out of a speeding ticket. I usually take this time as I am careening through some winding back road seeing how far I can push my car or motorcycle. My favorite idea so far was one of my first, and is only my favorite because of how far fetched it is. What I would do see, is keep a bee in a special compartment on my car door that I would have fabricated. Now bear with me, and realize this is how my mind works. What I would do is if i get caught speeding, I would go a little faster and a little more erratic and then pull over. While I am doing this I let the angry bee out (see, I would be training the bee all this time to be mean). Well as soon as I pull over, I would jump out of the car (closing the door behind me as to not let the bee free) and run a few feet (so the cop doesn't think I was running away and shoot me). At this time, the officer will obviously be flustered and yell at you asking why I am doing this. He is angry, suspecting I am drunk or crazy, therefore he is in that aggressive mood. When I explain the story of a bee being in my car, and can prove it, we will both have a laugh and I would be on my merry way. If this sounds familiar, I got the idea from a movie and improved on it, but I won't tell you which one cause that’s how I roll.

Recently, and the reason I am writing this, is because I have come up with a much better excuse. One that just might work, and is a little more thought out, and true... I think. It starts by looking at my history of traffic infractions and realizing I have approximately 50 of them, no joke. You ask here, do you just not learn, and my whole driving life I say, obviously not. I have lost my license, paid more fines, and been to court more than some lawyers. Why? Well I figured it out. I have recently been diagnosed with Adult ADD, and I am taking medicine for it. It has helped tremendously with my focus at work and opened many opportunities for me. I think I have had this for a long time, and it is the reason I have struggled through school my whole life. ANYWAY, now that I take this medicine, I am finally able to read a book. I am reading a book called "Driven To Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood", and I see that a common trait is constantly seeking for an adrenalin rush. I don’t have much time or money to get into skydiving, which I would love and is the ultimate adrenaline rush, so I get my fix by driving my motorcycle or car to the limit of it's capability.

Now, how am I going to tie this into getting pulled over you ask? Funny you should, because that is next.

When I get pulled over, this is how the conversation will go:

Officer: Son, do you know why I pulled you over?

Me: Oh for sure, I was totally going too fast.

Officer: Soooo, You KNOW you were going to fast, and still decided to break the law?

Me: Well, yes and no. I KNOW I was going to fast, but I did not break the law.

Officer: Excuse me son, but in the beautiful state of Georgia, doing 100 in a 65 IS breaking the law.

Me: Sir, I respect your opinion but I disagree.

Officer: How do you figure?

Me: Well I have a condition that has been diagnosed by a doctor, and is medicated to harness some of the issues but not all. See for my condition, there is no fix for an adrenalin rush. I am speeding because I cannot help it, due to this fact. I am currently in a class action law suit against 5 states that have issued me tickets in the past, to get my money back since it is all not my fault that I speed, it is a handicap. Welcome to the bleeding heart liberal/ Conservative, 21st century, sir. And just wait until Hillary Clinton is President, I will take my cases all the way to the top and win.

Guarenteed to get off a ticket. I mean I wouldnt say the end part about the court case and all, because it is not true and kinda stupid, but you get my point. There would be a lot of improv there too.

Whatcha think?

H-E-Double hocky sticks

I think they got it all wrong. And by they, I mean the collective whole namedly... people. I take that back, only the people that believe in in hell. Huh? Yeah, hell baby. See, the hell I was taught to fear involved a lot of heat and fire and a devil that is "red and scaly with a bifurcated tail, and he carries a hay fork" - O brother... So this is where everyone has gone wrong because I have seen this hell, I even lived in it for three years. There was hot chicks everywhere and seemed to be a three year party. I call it Arizona. Well folks, I'm here to tell you what hell is. You know how they say (same they) "When hell freezes over, you can yadda, yadda, yadda!" Well tell them it is frozen over, it's been frozen over. I can stand the heat, it's the cold that's a bitch. Oh and the devil is a Chinese man. That's a whole nuther blog. I came to my abode today to discover the hot water is out. It is about -10 degrees C outside, the place is heated by hot water and I shower with hot water (crazy right?). So it must have just been turned on because I could get the "hot" water to flow just warm enough that I would dare it. By the time I realized it was a bad idea, it was too late... I was all soapy trying my best to get all my parts covered when it started getting colder. Oh boy, I love this place. So, here I am in a freezing cold hell hole surrounded by Chinese people, in less than luke warm water and I get this revelation. This IS hell. Common people, work with me here... whadaya think?
And now a few words from our sponsors:
I wrote this blog because I was told I write good (grammatical error on purpose), and that gave me the confidence, so thank you!
I wrote this last night, and am posting in the morning. After sleeping in 3 layers of clothes and two blankets, my Chinese counterpart tells me, "yesh, da woom is verwy cord. I just turn on da heata" There's a heater in the room?! Awesome! I am so dumb.

Sureal Experience

So there I was running back from the track I found down the street from my hotel at some school. This track is a perfect 400 meter clay track in the middle of this crap hole town, a diamond in the rough if you may, that I take full advantage of at 5:30 every morning. It has been getting darker in the mornings now and the run to and from the school is about a quarter mile of dark back roads with very few people on them. So on my way back I am thinking about a story I just heard about two people being killed at my favorite "hang out" (the local disco). I have my MP3 player blasting some heavy metal, which is great for running, and has come up in my shuffle of a wide variety of songs.

So as I am having these dark thoughts on shady lane, with dark music, I round this corner to a main street just as my music changes. Now this is the surreal experience as it was almost as planned as me being too tired to go to disco Saturday night when the two people got killed. I round this corner as some female vocalist starts out with her trademark piano solo all soft and peaceful. At the exact same time, about 30 kids all wearing the same uniform jumpsuit thingy are riding their bikes to school going the opposite direction of me, and of course they are staring at the white boy running with a mohawk which just adds to the whole experience. Everyone is going slow and synchronized to the music all at the same speed in almost perfect distances from each other to match the piano key strokes. Everything just slowed to the beat of the music and it was the most relaxing thing I have ever felt.

I hope I was able to capture what I experienced this morning as these things happen often and I wish I could share them so let me know how I did ok? I am still in China, as of now, and my visa expires the 25 (which means I have been here 60 days). So I am outta here and traveling the US, so if you want me to come to your town, let me know and I will be there possibly!

I know what I know, and I don't know... you know?

You want to make someone's day, here's how:

Cut your hair in a mowhawk



go to middle of nowhere Inner Mongolia China



Go for a run at 5:30 AM past a crowd of about 1000 unemployed Chinese famers who have been put out of work by the government who runs the mine which pays for the project you are working on and the reason you are in their town

The economical projecting hamburger

This is my theory of the directly proportional relationship of fast food service to the quality of the economy. By this I mean you can determine how the economy is doing by simply going to a fast food joint and observing. Crazy, you say. Well open your eyes and read some of the greatest economical advice you will ever get. Now it is quite obvious that you can get either good service or crappy service at a fast food place, right? We have all experienced that great burger at a Micky D’s and think, damn that is a tasty burger and was actually served to me with a nice attitude. On the flip side, we have also got some ghetto piece of shit slap a burger on your tray that was obviously not had any love put into making it. See, I am not a frequenter of the fast food establishments as of normal operation however, lately I have been traveling a lot and find myself with no other option. Well I am finding that the service is not all that good and I am trying to avoid going at all costs. This is not all bad though, and now on to the meat and potatoes.

This is the structure, meet Marcus. Marcus works in an office inputting data for some faceless cooperation making decent money. Yeah so he hasn’t graduated college, barely has a high school diploma, but the economy is good and he has a decent job. Well if Marcus is working in the office, who is serving me my burger…Oh yeah, here is Dwayne, he didn’t even graduate high school, hell he can’t remember if you ordered a number 4 or not! (Jeff). Well, the economy takes a dive and poor Marcus looses his job because he is on the bottom of the cooperate food chain and is expendable. Well, he is getting hard up and maybe he gets some unemployment checks for a month or so… too proud to collect welfare (yes this is rare but does exist). So what is the next step for Marcus? You got it, fast food. Well all the Dwaynes in the world have to figure out what to do (not too proud for welfare) and the Marcuses serve me a damn good burger with a smile! Screw CNN, I am going to Burger King… how has your fast food service been?

what ever happened to crazy

It’s not that I am insensitive, it is I am afraid that I can see into the future. I know, pretty strong statement there, that makes no sense. It will by the end, and will summarize everything I am about to talk about.

This is going to be about the recent “massacre” that happened at Virginia Tech, so if this is touchy for you, stop here so I don’t offend you. I want to start out by saying, wow that Asian guy was a good shot. I mean to take out 30 other people with two 9mm handguns is impressive. I know it was a few times where he left and went back, but say a normal 9mm clip holds 10 bullets, that requires either a lot of shooting, or some well placed shots.

On to the serious side. So now the world… no the media, looks for an answer. Who, or what to blame. This is where I get riled up. They blame the media, they blame violent movies, they blame violent video games, violent music! Millions, possibly billions of people are listening and watching these same things all day, every day, and have been since TV was around. Look at old cartoons and the three stooges if you want to be retarded about this. ONE crazy guy kills a bunch of people and all of the sudden we are aiming at the wrong target, once again.

“Everybody is wanting to know what music were the kids listening to, or what movies were they watching. Who gives a fuck what they was watching! Whatever happened to crazy? What, you can't be crazy no more? Should we eliminate crazy from the dictionary?” – Chris Rock, Bigger and Blacker

You ask yourself why all of the sudden this outrage, if violence has been around for so long? This has to be a new development in the type, or amount of violence available. Not really, see during Vietnam people who did not want to go to war and took the college route instead had to find an easy major. They went with psychology of course because it is easy and they can pass and stay in school while still experimenting with mind expanding drugs. Back to present day, you now have a bunch of quacks who took a few too many disco biscuits back in the day but are trying to justify their life career in psychology by coming up with these insane answers, avoiding the main unanswerable subject of CRAZY. Well, this folks will lead to our demise as we will see as this goes on, and things get less and less violent, and there will be more and more safety and monitoring, where people will be in fear of their own shadow. It’s not that I am insensitive, it is I am afraid that I can see into the future, and it doesn’t look too good. Hopefully I will be dead and gone by then.

Oh also, gun control is going to come up here, and what were the gun laws in Virginia, how could he get these guns and blah blah blah. And they will realize that the rules are not strict enough and eventually you will not be able to own a gun, and then what? Please people, it is called education, the more you know about and respect a gun the safer the world is. Hell, if everyone had a gun, these situations wouldn’t happen. Think about if everyone in that classroom had a gun, you think that dude would second guess his actions… hell yeah. And what were those faggots doing who were hiding behind desks watching their fellow classmates getting “massacred”? Get up and do something about it, he is one guy, take his ass down, be a hero and save some lives!

Indifference: unbiased impartial unconcern

“Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.” – The Boondock Saints

Quick stupid look at other reasons why this is not so bad:

Population control – we definitely need some more of that

Everything happens for a reason – Those people could have grown up to be the next Hitler, or make some bomb that… whatever.