01.30.07
Posted in China at 6:36 pm by Sulla
24 years ago, I moved from Los Angeles to Seoul, South Korea, where I lived for 18 months. It was my first visit outside the continental US, and a revelation – although there were many obvious differences, much was also the same, or similar enough to help minimize my culture shock. That changed as I later ventured into the smaller towns and villages. But cities, I guessed, were largely the same, wherever they may be.
My experience in China was much the same. I never left the airport in Beijing, which looked like every major airport I’ve been in: huge, noisy, overflowing with shops and cafes, and crowded with sweaty impatient people all eager to be somewhere else. The traffic in the city of Xi’an was insane, but not much worse than I’d seen in parts of Boston. And Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province? West L.A. mashed up with Chinatown, only not so Chinese.
In Korea, the younger me needed the familiarity of the city. In China, I couldn’t wait to escape the cities and get into the countryside. Even when there was interesting stuff to see in the cities – and there was – we had to fight through standard city crud to get to it.
We spent our first week in Xi’an, a city with thousands of years of history but whose attention to its ancient roots is relatively new, starting in 1976 when a farmer uncovered the first of the terra cotta warriors from the Qin dynasty of 200BC. Now it’s a mix of dozens of universities, and dozens of historical sites. But beyond the sites of interest, we found it cold, polluted, chaotic, and not that interesting.
So when we flew to Guilin in south-central China, I learned a new word: karst. Here’s an example:
In the Guilin area, these suckers grow like weeds, and attract mist like magnets. We spent a few hours on the Li River, where views like this were inescapable.
This was the China I came to see, and for the latter half of our trip, we stayed mostly in countryside, small towns, and where possible, the “old towns” of cities. That decision, while often uncomfortable, was also what made the trip most memorable.
More to come.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 12:29 pm by Sulla
Sam, the fan favorite: out. Ilia: out.
Marcel the foul-mouthed molecular gastronomy ferret head: still in.
What is WRONG with this picture?
And much as I like Ilan and Ilia, what is up with that whole buzzcut thing? At least when I did it, I (1) was in college, (2) painted myself blue for Homecoming, and (3) had to because I lost a bet. And (4) no alcohol was involved.
Chef Tom: If Foam Boy comes out on top, You got some splainin’ to do. I’d take Mikey over this grease spatter on the public apron.
Gah!
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01.12.07
Posted in Politics, Uncategorized at 6:24 pm by Sulla
My wife, a Coloradan, forwarded this to me from a friend of hers. I don’t know the original source, but am passing along.
UPDATE: Pet points out that Snopes has Debunked this letter (and those like it). I would take issue with the Snopes wording though. The claims below don’t say that things weren’t received – just that they weren’t DEMANDED, loudly, on national television, with Anderson Cooper tearing up and asking, “is this America?!?”
If I had access to Federal, state, local, private, etc. dollars to get back on my feet after a crisis, I’d take it. I’ve paid plenty of taxes over the years. But would I hire spokesmen, call the LSM, etc. to get what was coming to me?
I hope I never have to find out.
WEATHER BULLETIN
Up here, in the “Mile-Hi City,” we just recovered from a Historic event–may I even say a “Weather Event” of “Biblical Proportions”–with a historic blizzard of up to 44″ inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10′s of thousands.
FYI:
George Bush did not come.
FEMA did nothing.
No one howled for the government.
No one blamed the government.
No one even uttered an expletive on TV.
Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Politics, Rants at 4:06 pm by Sulla
I don’t agree with her on much. But even if I did, I’d still think Barbara Boxer is an idiot.
Sadly, she’ll probably own her Senate seat another two or three decades, until she dies or retires. She’s unlikely to be defeated–not in this state.
Look – I’m not in the military. (I tried. Story for another time.) My dad served decades ago, but nobody in my family serves now. Does that mean I don’t have a stake in this struggle? This affects us all; it’s a war of ideas as much as of IEDs, and at stake is the future of America.
For Boxer to denigrate the Secretary of State for being childless and therefore immune to the effects of this struggle is reprehensible. The gist of Boxer’s response to criticism over her comments: “well, you know what I mean.”
Yeee…ahh. We do. Senator Boxer: you are an idiot. You are the Maxine Waters of the Senate, without the personal charm.
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Posted in Poetry, Politics at 2:29 pm by Sulla
It looks like Mark Steyn has gotten into the act on the “Sandy Berger Lies Contest.” Naturally, they’re quite good.
I’m unlikely to enter, but I did try one just off the top of my head. This, from “How to Handle a Woman?” from CAMELOT:
How to bury a memo?
“There’s a way,” said the man from Hope.
“A way known by every Clinton
Since I had Roger jailed for Dope.”
Do I shred them there? I sought his answer.
Do I stow them in my sock or sleeve?
Am I screwed if caught as a doc-pantser?
Could you grant, sir, my reprieve?
How to bury a memo?
“Mark me well; I will tell you. Hee!
The way to deep-six a memo
Is to bluster.
Make them fluster.
Filibuster–
Bluster. See?”
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01.11.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:08 pm by Sulla
Is like an answering machine that blinks “0 messages” after you come back from a lengthy trip.
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01.10.07
Posted in Rants at 1:38 pm by Sulla
Root Canal or colonoscopy?
Decisions, decisions…
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01.09.07
Posted in Navel Gazing, Tech at 11:29 pm by Sulla
I confess it – the iPhone impressed me, and is probably the first Macintosh I’ve seriously considered buying.
I don’t know if Steve Jobs will call the iPhone a “Mac”, though he did point out that the little wonder is running the actual Mac OS X, which enables many of its “WTF!” capabilities.
It’s an “iPod Nano on Steroids” with a larger screen than the 5G iPod and full video functionality, but it runs on 4Gb or 8Gb of flash memory.
It’s also a phone – available only through Cingular in June 2007 - but more along the lines of the Crackberry/Treo Mobile Communicator stripe, so it’s a floor wax AND a dessert topping, with push-mail (rather than log-in-and-see mail) and Internet functionality. The screen and the input methods are supposed to be “revolutionary” and patented out the wazoo – full, desktop-class web browser that you can actually read, a touch keyboard that you can actually use, a UI that auto-adjusts according to the task, like the LCARS system on Star Trek.
I’ve got decent gadgets now – a Palm T|X, a Samsung MM-A940, an iPod Nano 8Gb, and a drawer full of also-rans that I still use from time to time. Between them, most of my needs get met. I’ve long hoped for a single device that not only does everything, but does it all so well that the other devices I’ve gotten used to go into the drawer. I LOVE my Nano, but the phone and PDA will be replaced or handed down with little remorse when their clear superior comes along. if the iPhone is the Nano of phones/PDAs as well as of media, it could be a winner.
But even if it is, I won’t be an early adopter. Sprint owns my soul for another 18 months or so (curse you, 2 year contracts!) and 18 months is a long, long time in the gadget world. I can only imagine the tech-pr0n goodness with which July 2008 will tempt me.
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01.08.07
Posted in Entertainment, Navel Gazing at 12:04 am by Sulla
I’m still on the mend from various Yuletide maladies, so apart from church I stayed home and did battle with the bacterial invaders with much reality television.
I know I’ve had too much when my wife and I spent over an hour handicapping the remaining contestants on Top Chef. (Our smart money’s on Sam; Mikey, the spitting image of my younger brother, is the sentimental favorite. We want Marcel to die, painfully, in a tragic “accident” with the foaming machine. Were these characters rather than real people, I would expect nothing less.)
I’ve had my own tooth troubles lately, so seeing Mikey take both the quickfire challenge and the elimination challenge with a hole in his mouth and a Vicodin high made my week.
Prime time Sunday was scary, though – we were switching between Beauty and the Geek, the Grease audition, Trump’s Apprentice LA, and Extreme Makeover Home Edition. (Re Trump – the tent city for the losers is sheer, evil genius. But Frank Must Die. Just sayin’.)
I don’t watch much television. What I do watch is essentially social Darwinism in action. If there were gladiator matches, I’d be TiVo’ing them, though I prefer a bit of plot and intrigue, so I’m stuck with WWE. (Hey – John Cena laid the smack down on Kevin Federline. you can’t say Vince McMahon doesn’t give the people what they want…)
but with what I watch on TV, I doubt I’ll be getting a new TV anytime soon. I’ll melt my brain slower at standard definition. If I had to watch Project Runway in HD, I would have to insist on at least one fatality per episode.
With the loser served up as the secret ingredient in Kitchen Stadium.
To the poor suffering Apprentices in Tent City.
ALLEZ CUISINE!
I should point out I don’t wish for the actual death of any actual person. That television blurs the line between reality and fiction – between real people in real time, and real people edited down to characters (caricatures, even) to fit the 60 minute plot-centered role assigned to them often without their knowledge – amplifies the reactions of us, the viewers.
Wannabes of every stripe are competing not just with each other in whatever manufactured crisis has been presented them – they’re also competing with every other channel and show on television. I also had Caligula and 12 Deadliest Animals to choose from last night. throw in the prescription meds and cough syrup, and it all gets a bit confusing.
contestants live 24/7 with each other. We invite them into our homes an hour a week or so. producers give us only what they want us to see, often to “explain” the result of the contests, or to help us feel better – or worse – about a given contestant’s exit.
in the proper dosage, food or medicine or entertainment can nourish. in excess concentrations, anything can kill. So when I wish for the death of “Marcel,” it is for the concentrated, ultra-jerky prefab Marcel I’ve been given by the good folks at Bravo. The real Marcel, who knows; without TV I’d never have cared.
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01.06.07
Posted in Administration at 9:51 pm by Sulla
I’d hoped to be able to migrate my posts from Blogger, but no such luck.
So…welcome to Sulla’s shiny new digs.
The old one will stay up as a backup, and as an archive of old posts.
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