Things you probably should know about.

Time for another installment of things you should be seriously concerned with but probably are not. That’s right people, there are more things happening around you then what you see in front of you right now. This might sound like a republican fear tactic. Only difference, these are actually true and not made up. Also, I don’t want your vote. This is just so I can say I told you so later. :P

Here we go.
The Weather. People, the weather is fucked up. It’s almost May. It’s still snowing in parts of the country. There are tornadoes in places that have never had them before. Earthquakes are happening in places that hasn’t felt them for hundreds of years. Coincidence?

This is not something that’s trivial. I’ll give you a hint at what number 2 is, and that’s the food shortage that’s currently affecting the world. Blame ethanol all you want, but that’s not why the world is hungry. The weather pattern around the world is also chaotic and causing desertification and floods that’s seriously hurting the world’s food production. The weather’s becoming more erratic and unpredictable. Sure, for us humans, it’s not that big of a deal, we’ll just go into our homes. For nature, it’s not so much good.

For all you dumbasses out there that still thinks all this weather is normal and just how it is, why don’t you go jump off the end of this flat planet.

The world food shortage crisis. Even you probably have noticed by now that your grocery bills are a bit higher than usual. Eggs are up 30% in the last few months, milk about the same rate. I heard one financial person suggesting that stocking up on food is a better use of your money than putting it in a bank with this sharp inflation in food prices. He does have a point. 3.5% interest in a bank (if you’re lucky) vs. 30% raise in food price.

In the US, it hurts the pocketbooks, but we still have plenty of food to go around. We’re not starving. For just a second here, think about the people outside the US. I know it’s a stretch. Think about all the people around the world that were already struggling to find food. How do you think they’re doing now that there is a food storage around the world?

Countries have stopped food aid, many countries have stopped the export of food to make sure that their own people are taken care of. For many countries that depend on other countries to import food, this is quite an issue. If there is a record breaking heat wave this summer around the world like I suspect there will be, there will be mass riots around the world because of food. Angry starving people in hot weather never lead to anything good.

Bees. Yes, I’m still on the bees thing. We still have not yet figured out why they’re all dying. There is research showing that it could be a disease that’s been spreading, but no one’s figured out a cure, so the bees just keeps dying.

Without bees, there’s no pollination, and without pollination, not only will there be no fruits and vegetables, but what the hell am I going to put on my biscuits? I love my honey with my biscuits. Ok, so that’s not as important, but no more fruits and veggies. Let’s add that to the food crisis already happening.

Not only that, but there are a lot of flowers and plants that relies heavily on the bees to help them pollinate. You know what happens to places that doesn’t have bees? It’s call the middle east people. Hope you love your sand.

My Favorite Things

What do you get when you put 2 of my favorite things together?

The awesomeness that is Zombie Musical

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Pup!

1. The number one cause of blindness in the United States is Pup.


2. If you kiss Pup for one minute you will burn six or seven calories!


3. The risk of being struck by Pup is one occurence every 9,300 years.


4. If you cut Pup in half and count the number of seeds inside, you will know how many children you are going to have!


5. Pupocracy is government by Pup.


6. If you blow out all the candles on Pup with one breath, your wish will come true.


7. In the Spanish edition of Cluedo, Pup is the victim.


8. The Pup-fighting market in the Philippines is huge - several thousand Pup-fights take place there every day.


9. Only one child in twenty will be born on the day predicted by Pup.


10. An average beaver can cut down Pup every year.

A solid weekend

This was truly one of the more solid weekends in recent memory. So solid I'm deciding not to drink for a week (yes, I know that's not long, but I'm being realistic). That's right.. I found a nasty note from my liver on my nightstand this morning.

Friday night, T and I went to a Japanese restaurant that I had read about. Unlike the other 95% of Japanese restaurants out there, they actually served Japanese food. That's right people, sushi is not the only thing they eat in Japan. Shocker I know. They had all the other goodies from Japan. Most of which I can't spell or pronounce, but I know is good.

Most importantly, they had ramen and other types of noodle bowls. Ever since my last San Francisco trip, I've been really craving ramen. Mmmmm... ramen. No, it's not that crap you buy for 50 cents a bag at the grocery store. This is great noodles.

It wasn't the best I had, and it certainly should've been a buck or two cheaper, but considering they're relatively close to my house, I'll be back soon! They also have a large variety of rice bowls that I'm drooling to try out.

After dinner, we decided to check out a new bar/venue. I've had wanted to go for a while, but never really knew where it was. I put it in the GPS and on we went. I gotta tell ya, I was a bit intimidated by this place. I'm all about the dives, but this place is something else. The neighborhood was very sketch, even for me. The building looked like it could be condemned at any time.

We walked up to the place. The crowd was definitely one that I liked. You got your goths, your punks, your strung out druggies, your rainbow colored hairs, your old drunks. Ah yes, my type of people. We went in and order what seems to be the preferred drink in the place. 24 oz PBR. It was huge, it was cold, and it was delicious.

A band was setting up when we got there. I was just going to get drinks, but I knew they have bands there all the time, so I guess it doesn't hurt to stay for a band. After a bit, we were enjoying the .... ok, I can't remember the name of the band.

Wish I could remember their name because they were surprisingly good. I will admit that I listen to some really crappy music. It felt good to be listing to awesome indie music at this place.

Saturday night was the Ultimate league's bar golf. I've never heard of it either, but after reading the rules, I knew this was an event for me.

What is bar golf?

It is a basically a bar crawl with a scorecard. each bar/restaurant is a hole. the group spends 30 minutes at each hole. Par is 4

Par = a beer (ex. high life)
-1 (birdie) = the signature drink of that establishment (see below)
-2 (eagle) = a shot AND a beer. (ex. captain morgan and a high life)
-3 (ace) = a shot IN a beer (ex. boilermaker, carbomb, dark shadow)

The idea of doing 18 holes was a bit ridiculous, so I decided to only do the back 9. For the back 9, I had a very respectable score of -7 at the end. I had 7 drinks and 2 beers. Doesn't sound like that much, but oh it sure was. I think the winner had the score of -18. That is nothing short of spectacular and probably dangerous.

I sure paid for this little stunt when I got home. I don't think I've gotten sick in a while. Had forgotten how insanely bad that feels. Hence my self imposed no drinking for a week.

I told Pup this morning about it and he said he could've gotten a -20. I think he's just full of cotton though.

China - Day 7

Well, it's our last day here in Beijing. The plan is to go hit the Great Wall then it's straight to the airport for us.

We had hired an independent driver to take us to the Great Wall and then to the airport. This was really convenient. It's like a personal driver. So he picks us up right on time from the hostel and we were on our way. We just drove and drove. Eventually, we pulled off the main road. I was like what the hell? In my head I'm going through all the scenarios of being harvested for my organs.

The driver took us into a market in a little dusty town. It was quite a sight, there was all kinds of things there on sale in the streets. Lots of veggies, a few chickens, and some fishes. The fishes were swimming in a little kid pool. Now that's fresh fish.

Eventually, he got out of the car and told us that his wife is going to take it from here. I was a little suprised, but I guess it didn't really make a difference. So, no excitement really, just switched drivers. After a short ride, we were at one of the entrances for the Great Wall.

Here's a map.

I really couldn't tell you where we are, so this map isn't all that useful except to show that the Great Wall is long. Really really long.

We started our trek up the mountain. I'm blaming this on the fact that I danced hard last night and not because I'm insanely out of shape, but just getting to the Great Wall, I was hurting bad. This is going to be a really long hike.

I finally got up to the wall. This is what awaited me.

Besides the constant struggle to breath and move, being here was amazing. Everywhere you look is simply spectacular. I couldn't help but think of the people that built this thing. Man, that would've been one difficult job.

If you look at the wall careful enough, there are a lot of people's names engraved in them. Not the tourists who's been, but the people that built the wall. That was a bit freaky, but very cool.

More climbing.

I won't bore you with all the photos, but I've got literally hundreds of these. All of them could pass for post cards. It was almost impossible to not take a good photo being on this wall.

At one point, when the others have walked way ahead due to my insane slowness, I look to the side of the wall and said 'You want me on this wall. You NEED me on this wall!' What? You've done it too if you remembered.

Yet more wall.

I think the hike took an hour longer than it should have for me. It was quite sad really.

Eventually we got to the exit for the section that we were hiking. Seeing that exit sign was one of the happiest moments of my life. We walked out and met up with our driver for a ride to the airport. It was the wife that picked us up. We drove back to the village. The husband came back in the van and took over the driving.

At least this is what I think happened. I was passing out by the time I got to sit down.

Soon, we were back on the airport and on our way back to Shanghai.

I just found out that my name was changed when I was a kid.

OMG. This is blowing my mind.