killing time

So i've got about 45mins before dinner, I just took a walk through the park so now its time to unwind with some local tv, heres whats showing at 4:15pm on a saturday afternoon in Guangzhou China

Before PETA gets after me about that picture to the left, that creepy crawly crawled into the glass during the night, long after I was asleep, a drunk little cocroach in the morning we woke up to. He was having a nice little friday night and into saturday


Channel
1-6 Red static - I assume its a patriotic thing
7 China pink shirt vs china in blue shirt ping pong, both have short shorts on
8 news, no idea whats going on, some guy moving propane tanks with his bicycle
10 anime cartoons, i'll come back to this later
11 cell phone commercial
12 cell phone commercial, i think its the same one
13 soap opera, 2 cute girls talking about something dramatic, and now their in the doctors office
14 horse racing, yellow helmet is leading at the 1200 mark
17 kite flying by what i imagine samuri's wore in the day, this one deserves a picture, it'll be posted later.
19 british version of blues clues or the wiggles, IN ENGLISH!
24 circue de solei? local version i think
27 old karate movie, mustache wearing hulk hogan haired guy with huge upward pointing eyebrows
29 asian man pattern baldness commercial, hosted by totally bald man
31 scooping of beans, pistachios, and other round objects i dont recognize, now guy in wrangler t-shirt bragging about whats in his bag
33 CMTV, e's in the background as decor
36 ultimate tree house, soap opera occuring in this amazing swiss family robinson looking creation
37 credits of a karate fight movie
44 chinese version of what looks like saved by the bell, but more dramatic
45 looks like the spanish channel sunday programming
47 phil mickelson teeing off in golf tournament IN ENGLISH!
54 walker china ranger, i think, lots of guns, suit wearing guys vs actual army. note to self, bamboo is aparently bulletproof
55 collegiate vollyball
57 monkey dressed guy, seems to be a series show of planet of the apes, riding pony's, and wearing crowns.
64 "cover queen" the local version of proactiv
68 Ernie from burt and ernie puppets on a mans shoulders, giving him advice in song, looks like that e station again. Ends with one of the ernies dressed up in SF Giants baseball jersey.
69 school girls in catholic schoolgirl dress, and guys in male equivalent. leaving school
76 looks like local version of desperate housewives, and guys in sweater vests
77 cirque de soleil is back!
78 karate punch to the adams apple, intro to soap opera
79 Miss Chinese cosmos pageant, this girls talent is gutting a fish with a huge knife, and dancing now... i think i'm going to stop changing channels

82 SpongeBob SquarePants IN ENGLISH! ok now i'm watching this about 15mins after watching and not understanding any of Miss Chinese Cosmos

Now you get the idea of what there is here on TV, its pretty amazing.

Heres some pictures for you visual people















that dragon is about 12' tall, standing i'd be up to about his flames nearest his mouth

Southeast Asia take 3, part I

Well my third and possibly final trip of the year to Asia is underway. A nice little 4hr layover in Narita Japan has left me full of new sushi tastes I’ve not experienced stateside, I guess this is the product of ordering the Deluxe Chef’s Special, it only cost me 3,500 Yen, I’m still not sure how many dollars that is, I’m hoping somewhere around 30$. Uneventful flight seattle to narita, except that I sat next to a doctor who was coughing the whole trip and had bad breath, 10hrs of that was about enough. I still hold my record of going (or rather not going) to the bathroom on a flight only one time in the last 2 years, and that was on a 15hr flight to HongKong. Something about in flight bathrooms make me uncomfortable. I thought I was lost in narita airport for a while, no other humans existed for a good 20mins of my walk, I felt like I was in the movie iRobot, just with how clean and sterile this place is. But alas I’ve joined with my fellow brethren and now sit in a mustard colored leather seat awaiting my ANA flight to HongKong. And let me tell you quick about ANA airlines, they have a camera in the nose of the plane and let you watch takeoff as if you were laying down in the nose of the jet, its on for landing too, a pretty incredible feature.

Its 2am for my body, 6pm for where I am, and soon to be 1030pm when I land in HK. Not sure which one of these timezones I’m in, but I’m approaching the tired one. Japan sure is green, I’d like to make it back in the future to explore it a bit more, they have some really awesome “samurai” tshirts in the duty free shops here but I cant bring myself to spending 20$ per shirt, I’ll haggle a deal in china for something way better.

I feel united with the other gringos I see in the airport. We have a certain unspoken connection, we look at eachother and its like “hey, we could understand eachother if we decided to talk, then again maybe your French so we couldnt” then I continue surrounded by the 90% of other Japanese people who could also understand me, but I don’t feel that same connection.

OK, time to board my plane, nap time for a few mins, then watching some flight of the conchords, then a nice little evening in HongKong. Not sure when I’ll have internet again, somewhere between weds afternoon for me, so Tuesday midday for most of you, this will get posted. Many pictures to follow, I’m going to look like that crazy camera carrying guy this trip.

RedBull soapbox, wow

I'm exhausted, 3weeks in china working 14hr days then a week in seattle working at least the same on this car, i'm ready to crawl into a hole and sleep for a while. Our performance yesterday was great, MattyO drove the car with perfection and was even complimented by Travis Pastrana, one of our celebrity judges. the redbull staff was alerted to "stand by and ready for cleanup" as our car took to the course, aparently a 17' ski wasnt supposed to make it through the turns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DynbFru9VUY
a special thanks to whomever filmed this for us and posted it, kristen?

The race went well and lots of good times had by all

After the race Joe and I headed to Matchstick's premier, joes the one talking to the announcer at the redbull start, i'm right next to him. Still wearing our ski apparel we fit in well at this video. After the video we headed back to Nectar for a redbull post party with dj cut chemist, it was a dance party if i've ever been to one.

Today its rainy and textbook seattle weather. I'm going to catch up on my sleep now, i'll post pictures of this even shortly

quick note, redbull saturday

Part of my busy time has been filled this past month building a soapbox car for work. We are team Skivalanche in the upcomming RedBull SoapBox Derby in seattle. Tonight we check in, and sat we race down Fremont Ave, should be a kickin' good time. The link to our video is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkP0wVLRW6c

We'll post another video after the race, and let you all know how we fared. Also, on Sat please text on your mobile phone "Team 18" to RBULL.

This weekends gonna be sweet

Deoderant-less, day one

A special thanks goes out to United airlines for loosing my toiletry bag. When my bag reached me in HongKong a pocket was wide open, and that pocket formerly housed my toiletries. Rolling with the punches I shaved my 4 day untouched face with a single blade available at the hotel in HK. I searched every cosmetic/beauty shop at the train station for deoderant, but it seems the chinese dont buy it. Thinking it was a train station thing i continued on my way and after a search of a few grocery-style stores in Guangzhou I still have no deoderant. I made the motion for "wheres the deoderant" to someone at the grocery store, sort of a shrugged shoulders and one and motioning like its applying deoderant under the other pit with a confused look on my face. Besides a little laugh she said "no here," i asked where and she didnt know how to respond. Another grocery store where I was followed around by women and children and i'm back at my room, deoderantless. Really i should be making a post about my weekend in LA but this is whats on my mind. Jet lagged and all, i'm off to bed, and tomorrow I ask my translator about the prohibition the chinese have on deoderant. Heres a picture of hong kong from my hotel window, adios

Seriously... Fritos?

C'mon frontier airlines, I dont wanna eat doritos or fritos on your flights but more than that I dont wanna smell the people around me eating either of these. Who had the genius idea to strike up a contract with this snack company, was it the guy who smells funny and sits by himself in marketing? Really, Its clear on an airplane of all places smell should be a consideration in snack choices, theres a reason chimichanga's and refried beans are not served on any airline. I look to you frontier to change the foods people eat while they travel. Denver's a healthy city, your based out of there, take charge and be the first airline to serve "ants on a log." This conversation is especially embarassing considering i'm the guy who eats hostess cupcakes and energy drinks in the morning occasionally to wake up, my standards are pretty low but you've knocked the bar to the ground. Maybe next time i'll sit in my seat and play "simon" until my neighbors cannot take the sounds any longer, then I'll be served doritos and "simon" wont seem so bad.



sorry, i had an aggravating flight home from boulder, boulder recap to follow shortly

Film the Idea

Well i just finished a private showing in my apartment of the film "Idea" and i think i crapped my pants. I'm sure most of you have no interest in the ski video i'm talking about but to those of you who do, watch the trailer at http://poorboyz.com/node/101 and check out the website at http://filmtheidea.com/ and then go watch the movie when it premiers in your area, then buy it online. I dont get a shout-out in the credits like other guys I work with, Eben, Francois and J, but if i did then what would i have to look forward to in next years film. Anyways I'm not sleeping tonight because i'm so pumped for winter, but surfing next week will help a bit, and frisbee golf this weekend in Boulder will help too. I'll put some sweet pictures and whitty thoughts in here tomorrow.

Oh, also i had a really good buffalo burrito at lunch today, thriftway burritos may take a backseat to Tatanka burritos for the remainder of my days on the island. I recommend bison burritos if you can find them