When they moved Wade’s a popular foreign bar, so that it was a block from my house, I didn’t much about it one way or the other. It was the bar I frequented most often, but that didn’t say much. I did figure I would be going there more often, but I was pretty ‘meh’ to…

If I take anything away from this whole Chinese experience, I hope it to be some of the students. I may have mentioned before that for the most part the students I encountered here in China would form the most lopsided, crudely drawn bell curve imaginable if ranked by their intelligence, and thus their ability…

China seems to love being a safe country. There is something to this; I am fairly sure that I will never live in a country that is safer. At least, safer in terms of physical violence; the poor hygiene among the population leaves me convinced of a coming cholera epidemic, the air tastes of cancer,…

With my last posts being about food and Chinese incompetence respectively, I felt like this next one should encompass the two as well as possible. How to go about doing this? By trying a new restaurant of course! My friend turned me on to the idea of checking out a restaurant called Jason’s library. Except,…

There is an old joke with a similar punch line, but I will save everyone the hassle of reading that. At my job I got a bit of a sneak peak at the business end of things. It would have made for an interesting break from the academic side of things, if only the business…

When one first learns of Pareto’s principle (often referred to as the 80-20 rule), one tends to write it off as overly simple. When people start to tell you that you can apply said same rule to most aspects of your life, you start to accuse those said same people of magical thinking. Can it…

Imagine if you will, an everyday shopping mall early some Saturday morning. The mall opens up at 10am, but there is an unguarded service door which can let you in as early as 9:30. You sneak in at about 9:50 and head to the Starbucks for your morning fix (it’s all about that chocolate chip…

I’m not terribly convinced that the Chinese like their own cuisine. I think it is an explanation as to why the people in this country are just so god damn slight. Had they proper food that included flavor, they might pack in a few pounds themselves. I hazard it also does much to explain why…

I was introduced to the game of Russian Roulette when I was living in Estonia, and while I have no recollection of who it was that introduced the game to me, the terrible law of racist nationalism dictates that were it introduced to me by an Estonian, they would have given it a different, likely…

Some time ago I complained about Hangzhou, and I said that it, and pretty much every US city, suffers from the problem of not being scaled to the human being. Well today I offer an anecdote that I hope well illuminate exactly what I mean. Today I decided to spend the evening at the bar…

Well, Here I am with another birthday. I turn 33 years old this year. It’s meant to mean something. I guess. A person who is somewhat important in my life is my cousin. During the 00’s I spent more time with him than my own brother. In a respect, he is very much like a brother…