Oi, I gotta lil audience? OK, I'll dear diary a tad. Life of the mattman in Tianjin...
Generally up sixish. My bed is very, very hard. Something I will adress when the cash flows, but possibly good for my back so I ain't pushin it. Lie in my hard, hard bed for an hour or two. I can't really sit atm, so I seriously do have to meditate prone. Which takes alot of discipline not to doze. But I am terribly undisciplined. My last argument with a monk (one of my favorite hobbies): Right concentration is MORE THAN BREATHING! But I stray far from diaretic, that was months ago. Usually start stretching at 8. Not so this morning, the neighbors were noising 'til late last night, I give myself a little extra hard tossing and turning interspersed with attempts at right concentration 'til 9. First rep, argh. Get up and hit the head. Second rep not much better, start coffee in the mirqaculous microwave. My apartment came with micro, fridge, stove, washing machine, TV w/ cable (which I can't imagine I'll watch, 1 English channel I'm told, in fact I just unplugged it for my wireless router but that's later...) as well as preposterously hard bed and soft sofa. And my commie landlord took me to the Internet company when the LAN jack didn't work, yes, I have a 10M LAN in my bedroom, o we wax non-linear that was last week and then the tech had to come because while my laptop worked in their store it didn't in the room and being capable of running a protocol analyzer I could tell them more about their network than they probably want me to know but the tech said 'wire too long (o is THAT why I can see the DHCP server but it won't give me an address?) when in fact it was probably just not very good, (the cable that is, the DHCP server miraculously started handing me an address again after CLL (I'll get his name down believe you me but also believe, coming from me Commie Land Lord is a term of endearment) called the ISP. The cable's acquisition's another short-story I doubt I'll have time to write, but he took it and gave me his at any rate so here we sit.
So one more rep while my cup full of bottled water gets up to instant coffee melting temperature (hope you're not reading, S) that's just barely easier but that's gratifying enough. I have finally found an MRI slide that makes quite clear what my surgeon was cartooning about my sciatica, expect it on the front page at any moment. So drink that coffee with a lil milk (milk comes in a box full of bags here, yes, I need to take another picture) and make a PBJ. My nerosis about mixing up meals is on hold while we wait for salary. But some of that may come sooner than expected... the day goes on...
Settle down to work on the unicode problem, move my C/C++ IDE onto the external drive and study some Mandarin. But I never get around to studying. Firefox on Linux is making my sad. Why is it calling totem to stream mp3s in such a way that totem can't do it? Why I ask you, why? And I can't convince it to use any other. At least I get the IDE moved, tested, not broken. Start boiling water for my lunchtime noodles, heavens these are tasty, must buy the brand again. The folks call before it boils. Have I mentioned I emailed the folks about the great firewall of China, my banking woes and Pupkin? No? Well I think I also failed to mention my twice weekly sparring with the drink lady when I allow myself barbecue, the forever broken elevator, the delicious dumplings when I don't, Chicken's misadventures in Malaysia, much at all about Cambodia or a million other things. Where does a gonzo travel writer apply?
Happy happy to hear from them. They sound well and they speak English at least as well as I do. No, money won't do me any good. I mean, yes of course it would rectify the bed and the dietary limitations but those aren't terrible. In fact if I lived in a Wat they might be de rigeur. The problem is that security at my bank is, for lack of a better expression, a circus of immature insecure wannabes who think they're superspys a la Bond when they are in fact mall security a la Seth Rogan. And shitheads. Did I mention shitheads? I specifically intended to say shitheads. Ah, there it is, good. Am I pissed? Shankyamuni reminds me 'there is never a good reason to be angry', so no. I'm venting and I think wrathful is allowed. If I get one of those shitheads fired so they don't fuck over anyone else that's good karma, naw? Seriously, one of the few things you don't want to do if you work for me is ignore my emails. As these goons have done. And they do, alas, work for me. Maybe my folks can help me sort it out. Before I'm forced to buy an international SIM with my food money and stomp a long-distance mudhole in somebody's ass. But enough about them, my parents are good. ~Always look on the bright side~...
So mostly caught up on each other's lives (I realize I didn't rag 'em on what laughable buffoons most Merkins have turned out to be: 'o no, socialism? We'd rather die!' And so you shall, and so you shall. Nobody remembers the admirable ethics of AIG? That's yer insurance industry baby. Have fun!) we part, to catch up tomorrow and see if I gotta flame WF or if my slightly more merciful dad can get them acting like human beings.
Back to linux's inadequacies. Oi this is embarassing. If I can't fix it in a timely manner, and I've been doing linux since .99pl8 what hope does anyone I've been recommending it to have? But, I remind myself, I have done some sich shit to my box. Prolly broke it myself. Except thousands of others are saying the same thing. Well, firefox's inadequacies, sorry Linus. Pause for a smoke. Helen calls (not her real name, we can't HANDLE her real name ;)) I need a bank card because I worked this month. What are the implications? I've no idea, can't imagine it's much money, I'll have worked three days by the end of August, but who knows, I am 'salary'. So I take the half hour hike to the office rather than spend approximately 20 cents US (Y1.5) on the bus; I haven't hiked since Tuesday. We go to the bank a block from the office. Do the deed. The bank had gold bars in the teller's window. How long will I be in China? How much of my Chickenism can I recover from?
Walk back a slightly different route. I'm always looking for the right DC adapter for my Netgear (another looooooooong story), stop a few places to look. Try to take the underground passage across Nanjin and fail. All this time my local grocery store has had the adapter.
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