(゜v゜)(。_。)”

2007-03-12T10:28:00.000-04:00

No Content!

2005-06-19T03:41:00.000-04:00

Hello! No pictures! No scans!
I have now spent a more-than-full week at school. 'More-than-full' because my classes actually began tuesday but I was so anxious to get started that I spent 7 hours on monday in Freshman Introduction to English. I should have known I was in the wrong class because I chose each one and I didn't sign up for Introduction to English, but I had forgotten... The good news is that I met some girls in the class and I actually went to a movie with one of them on Friday. Her name is Meen (not "cruel" and not "the average"). We're going to hang out later today at a mall...

My real class, Electronic Commerce, is pretty good. The group of people that I'm joining have been together for two years so they all know eachother well. It's an interesting group of people. There are four guys from China, one guy from Columbia, a German/Thai guy, a lot of ethnic Chinese Thais, two Thai girls that have lived in the US (one for middle school and high school), and one ethnic Taiwanese guy that was born in Singapore but spent twelve years in an international school in Bangkok so he only speaks English (perfectly). The teacher is a german guy, U. Werner, that I had actually emailed for the first time about eight months ago. He runs the international program's webpage so he thinks that I'm proof he's doing a great job (I didn't tell him that I accidentally wandered onto RU a year and a half ago, liked it, took a digital picture of the school's logo, emailed it to my friend in Singapore who showed it to her Thai teacher who finally knew the name of the school. Then I spent at least six months trying to get in contact with any of the faculty - my "lucky break" was when I googled the Thai version of the website for "IIS" and found the email address of a student. I emailed her a few times and she gave me the program director's email. So the webpage, to use Werner's expression, "is shit").

It's funny having a German teacher. He paces around the front of the room bolt-upright smirking at his jokes that no one understands. When he gets real hot on a topic he'll lapse into a thick German accent, raise his eyebrows cuz he's so sensible, look for the horizon through the back wall, and whack the projection screen with his pencil. When people talk in class (and they talk all the time) he starts telling them to be quiet very playfully by smiling and making bad jokes. By the end of the day, though, he'll stop pacing, look the person straight in the eye, and say "wouldyoupleaseshutup"... then he waits about five seconds before continuing. The guy commutes about two hours to school every day. He lives way out of Bangkok for some damn reason. About commuting, most students in the international program spend about an hour on the bus getting to school - Meen spends an hour and a half. The international program costs about twenty times more than the normal in-Thai programs, so most of the students are somewhat rich. Being rich, their families live in Bangkok so the students still live at home. After school most of the IIS students hop on a bus to go back home to sit on the computer - a bit annoying actually. The majority of the regular Thai students are from the south so they're away from their families in Bangkok like me. They're much more independent, I think. Bumming around Ram Rd. doing nothing...

Class is definately not hard. Our only assignment so far was a complete/incomplete type thing that I did in about ten minutes. One of the guys conned me into being in his little group and it took twice as long as it should have... Also, the dress code is not enforced at all. You can wear whatever you want. All the girls wear the uniform, though; even the International Program pin. Why? It's cute. Meen wears these white socks and sneakers...

How is everyone on the w-w-w?

12_06_05

2005-06-12T03:31:00.000-04:00

12_06_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

Hmmm... I was able to locate a scanner that doesn't believe in gray tones and this was the result. It turns out the same place won't let me upload pictures so I'd have to go to two seperate internet cafes to post anything. So I'm still looking around...

Let's see. Last update was the gay bar! The next day I paid my tuition and ran into some people that I'd briefly met before:

(I'm having to use Paint to resize and save these pictures before I upload them - Paint compresses them way too much so there's no detail at all. Aiyo, where's some good 'ol Photoshop...) When I first walked on to Ramkhamhaeng a year and a half ago I really just liked the "feel" of the place. It reminded me of the Singapore American School back in the 60's. I still get that feeling, actually. Some things remind me of the old International Baptist Church ... I love the library here. I'll post about 20 pictures of the first chance I get.

Mmm. So I was sitting around with those people for two hours or so. They're all in a club that's for people from a certain province in the south. They actually invited me on their three-day trip down there next month.

The Big Wat at the Grand Palace (could google the name but mee times running out). The girl on the left, Ning, goes to Chulalongkorn. It's the oldest, most prestigious university in Thailand (RU is tamada - "so so")

So we went over to her university to walk around and eat at an ice cream stall that's been around for a long time. Very pretty campus. We wanted to get a look around so we went up to the top (19th) floor of the science building. The other two girls went back to the ground level to use the bathroom when I noticed that one elevator went to "R". So Ning and I went up... those buildings on the right are the school's oldest, I think. I'd seen pictures of them before. Ning was really excited to be on the roof... she was smiling like she was going insane or something...

We went over to MBK to look for a phone for me. This cost 1200baht or $30 which is very cheap for over here. The phones the other girls had were 3000-4000b. I think it's good! Oh, that's my new number too.

So yesterday I was just sort of bumming around. That's when I found the crap scanner. I ran into everybody when I was coming back to the apartment. I went with them to a big dinner then we walked over and sat outside the indoor stadium for an hour or so. Then ice cream. Very, very nice evening lazing around laughing. Today:

School boy.

Drunk!

2005-06-10T02:56:00.001-04:00

Hiya! Some very interesting days in Bangkok! I went to Chinatown two days ago to buy some tea. Took the water taxi which goes all the way to Siam Square (veddy Central Bangkok) for 14 baht. The water is sooo black... anyway, it was so different in the "city" compared to where I live. Big buildings, tons of white people walking around, swanky hotels, traffic... not so good, really. But I went to Chinatown, got some oolong tea, and found a chawsiew place to eat at. Got chawsiew mee with wontons. It was really busy so a guy, maybe 45, and his girl friend had to sit at my table. We started talking cuz he spoke good english and it turns out he'd driven all the way from outside Bangkok, parked by the train to avoid traffic, taken the train then a taxi just to eat at this particular noodle stall. It's very famous for its wontons and its noodles, he said. Well the guy was pretty wealthy and he bought my dinner and suggested we all take a cab to his car where I could also get a bus. Very nice! After paying for the cab, he said that Ram was on the way to his place so he actually drove me all the way back. Wah lau. He was an ethnic chinese from Hainan but of the first generation born in Thailand - has a son in Canada. So I experienced a bit of the high-flying Bangkok. Now to the low-flying:

This is the main road I live on. Keep following it into the distance and you'll run into my school (gotta take a pedestrian overpass though). To get to my apartment, you'd turn left where that big white building on the left meets the ground. And you'd see...

See that motorcycle driving down the street (not the red guy)? You'd turn right just where he is to get to my place.

Everyone has been really nice and laid back. It's been fun meeting new people and just walking around. So yesterday I was hanging around with these girls but mostly with those three that I met first from my apartment. We had lunch and dinner (dinner was sooooo gooooood... and a total of $6 for four people - expensive for here).

Room

2005-06-07T02:47:00.000-04:00

Allright, many pics this time. The first one is along one of the 'klongs' were you can hop on a boat to central Bangkok. The second is the pavillion in the pond at Ramkhamhaeng. Nice, eh? Still trying to find a scanner though....
So Bangkok is good! On Sunday morning I was about to go out to look for an apartment (Max, the guy who helped me the night before, wrote down some questions in Thai) so I was about to go out when another guy from the hotel, Teung, asked if he could help me look. Good. We started looking on the other side of the school where there are more shops and, I found out later, it's supposedly safer to live. The first place we went was his sister's room to get try to get some info. We woke her and her roommate up and and it turned out there were no rooms in that building. We kept looking for at least 3 hours, going down one road (soi) until it was too far and then going down the next road. We finally found a place that looked really good and I signed for it. Twas 2500 baht a month which works out to about $65. Not bad. After that, we went over to a friend of Teung's place. We woke him up too. Teung and him had been out dancing the night before and there were glasses of stale beer sitting around. So they emptied those out and went to 7-11 to get some more... we only had a bottle each but I hadn't eaten all day except for some papaya so I was suprisingly "silly". We sat around listening to some bad, cheap reproductions of recognizable songs. They asked me if I knew who the singer was and I just laughed... but I don't want to seem like a music snob or anything. Casual listening is always good; I would rather listen to the music I like alone. Me and Teung ate some lunch then it started to rain and we got caught in Ramkhamhaeng for a while:

Back at the hotel:

And this is the new room. The front door is just to my left:

I've gotta work on the matress... it's just a thin bag of cotton. That "sheet" is from my freshman trip to Bali. We had to buy sarongs so we could go in a temple and I found it recently in a box. When I get a real sheet I'm gonna use it as a curtain.

That fan cost about $20, actually. A heavy son of a bitch. Had to carry that and my water-boiler for about 45 minutes from a department store.

Here's the water plan: 1) Make drinking water with the water-boiler, 2) Pour it into the clear, plastic bucket and let it cool down, 3) Fill up my glass bottle by using the faucet at the bottom of the bucket (not there yet)

Trash. TV and stereo gonna go there.

Hehe, I was shaving this morning when a guy from the apartment next to mine started talking to me. I was a bit shy at first about having a family right outside my window - but who cares. Best not to think about it and just do whatever you'd normally do.
Oh, I was lying bed trying to sleep last night when I got a very unexpected phone call. This was my first night in the room and no one knows my number (including me) but my phone was ringing... I pick it up and its some giggling local girls. They ask me what my name is and everything and I say, "Who.... Who are you?" She says, "My name, Nor." I'm like, "ahhh.... ok.... but, who are you?" "Nor!" It turns out that they were two floors up and had seen me move in. They came down and took me to their room (five of them in a room my size). They were really nice actually, and we sat around trying to talk for about 3 hours. We're gonna go look at a temple on Saturday morning... good! Nice to easily meet new people.
Well, I gotta go to the bank. I walked for a half hour over there then realized I didn't bring my new address... so my break is over. Bye bye.

From BKK

2005-06-04T02:22:00.000-04:00

Well, I've been in Bangkok for two days now. It's good to sweat again. I'm actually wearing pants today because only seriously ah beng guys wear shorts. I'm still looking for an internet cafe with a scanner... may take a while. Maybe there's on at the library....

I went to every little tourist-crap/food/drink shop in Narita looking for one of these babies. I used to drink one of these everyday in High School ... still tastes somewhat off :D

Leaving Tokyo... I was looking for a computer to email matsuri but, alas....

My $7 dollar room... i thought i'd have a connected bathroom but, alas....

There's a patio outside my window with a door and it connects to the main hallway. A bit lax on the security. No problem, though. I just gotta carry around my passport and iPod in my bag when I leave.

Yah, so I realize these pictures suck. Sorry, I'll try to get some better ones. The food I've had so far has been really good. I got some Pad Thai last night that was awesome and this guy who was helping me look around for apartments showed me a stall that serves really good kwai teow tom yum. The food at the canteen at school is about 15-20 baht which is 37-50cents and veddy tasty. For apartments, I may rent a little place for about $60/month in a dorm right next to the school. At night there's hundreds of students just loitering around eating and stuff... very cool. Well, i'll try to get some actual content sometime soon...

God Bless America, Land that I snub

2005-05-31T23:59:00.000-04:00

31_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

Well, I am heading to the airport in 3 hours... gotta get a final US blog in (it's actually 4:30 right now, I always change the time to 11:59 if I post after midnight). Today was suprising pretty quiet. Started out by going over to the "Ebay store" where they'll take your stuff and put it on Ebay for a commission. I got rid of about 20 DVDs, an MD stereo, an MD player, an electric and an acoustic guitar, my video camera, my Nintendo 64 and GameCube and some other junk. I should get some money from that stuff in about a month. Then I got another haircut:

Short! The tops of my ears haven't seen the sun since about seventh grade... the second picture is just to convince myself I should get some Lasik surgery. I look better, right? Anyway, I hate damn glasses. Takes all the fun out of walking in the rain. Bangkok has some of the best/cheapest Lasik around...

My final dinner at The Macaroni Grill. This here is some Chicken Marsala; $12.50, I think. It actually wasn't that good. I thought it was gonna be a Chicken Diavalo kena thing (mmmm, Spagedies) but no. The portabello mushrooms on the top were good, though.

My grandmother came over to the house to eat and play cards. I wrote a few weeks ago that she sort of made everyone uncomfortable because you couldn't look at her without thinking about my dead grandfather. For me at least, that's gone now. I'm pretty relaxed around her and enough time has passed that I don't feel I have to be "somber".... but I'm leaving the country. Bye bye!

I drove the golf cart to dinner yesterday because my parents were invited to a cookout at someone's house. It had been raining all day and when I came out of the restaurant I was cold. I hadn't been cold in a month or so. I drove down the little path frowning and rubbing my arms and cursing under my breath. It was a good reminder, though. I made the decision to go to Bangkok about a year and half ago and, since then, I've been dealing with the boring details of actually making it happen... but I always knew it would happen. Everything I've experienced the last year and a half has been colored by the fact I would leave come June. I was only passing through. From that angle, Georgia isn't too bad of a place to hang around for a few months. But shivering in the golf cart I remembered how I felt before I decided to permanently leave the US. I remembered why I'm getting on a plane in a few hours. So I got no regrets about leaving... but I damn wish I knew this S'porean:

SLEEP TIGHT, YA MORONS!

(oh, i gonna be on a plane for a day or so plus lost in bangkok for a day or so ... i'll probably post something in three or four days. gotta rent a flat, lah)

Watch your ass, Gucci

2005-05-30T23:59:00.000-04:00

30_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

I saw Star Wars today. I had read Roger Ebert's 3 1/2 stars (out of 4) review, so I guess I was expecting too much... cuz it sucked. Big fucking time. I don't wanna sit here reviewing the movie because y'all probably care as much about my opinion as I care about everyone else's. I just wanna say that it was depressing. It had all of the Star Wars "stuff" (big space ships, the same costumes, the same locations, the same characters) but it just didn't feel like Star Wars. It was dead. The original three movies were so fun and these are just so fucking boring.

I've heard it rains in Thailand. Must have umbrella. How to carry? Hands? Aiya, don't want to hold umbrella for two years. In my bag? No, gonna soak all my valuable papers. How can?
Got it, lah! I go WalMart, buy some good thread and prickly velcro. Then I throw at my mother:

Super!!!

Superduper!!!

HK Painting

2005-05-29T23:59:00.000-04:00

29_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

Aiya, my dad unplugged the internet-thingy yesterday so I couldn't post anything - but now we're all set up at the new house. This picture is cheating a bit. I painted this back in HK for that chinese painting class I was talking about earlier. Actually, we weren't supposed to paint anything like this; I was just messing around. But this is the only work I have from that class because I threw the rest away. I was planning on saving everything, but when I rolled it all up and tried to shove it in the tube I bought specifically for that purpose, it didn't fit. I had a cab waiting outside to take me to the bus station to get to the airport so I crammed the paintings halfway in - ripping the outer ones, - grabbed all my huge bags, and I stumbled to the cab. In the front seat of the cab I kept trying to get it to fit by removing more and more outer paintings until it was skinny enough to get in. By that time the floor of my side was covered in huge wads of ripped, crumpled paintings. The taxi driver kept shaking his head reprovingly... eventually I got so fed with the whole thing I dumped them all in the trash and got on the bus for the airport.

A Cheesy Grave

2005-05-28T23:59:00.000-04:00

28_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

I'm a bit embarrassed about today. From 10AM to 6PM I helped my dad move things from a storage unit to their new house. I eventually got into "the groove of it" because we were working for so long. So we got better and faster as we went. And even though I hated myself for it, I felt a sense of achievement at some times. I know better, though. I didn't achieve anything - I just hauled my parent's shit around and for free. It'd be like feeling a sense of achievement at streamlining a Nazi death camp or something. For some reason we're hard-wired to enjoy being the best cog we can be.

This was breakfast back at the Atlanta Bread Company. It's sausage, egg, and cheese on a cheese bagel. Very tasty and pretty fast, but I'm sure it's terrible for you. It reminds me too much of McDonald's breakfasts - so one hidden cost is the shortening of your life. I think these go for about $3.50... I'm going to sleep.

No More Kittens!

2005-05-27T23:59:00.000-04:00

27_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

Nothing really happened today. I bought some floss at WalMart...

Instead of sitting peacefully as this picture suggests, I was really only taking pictures of myself and looking at them on the little screen.

Me and the sun.

Just got this today. Had been rather anxiously awaiting it. I mailed my passport, an application, and a chashier's check to the embassy in D.C. about a month ago. It was supposed to take a week and a half total... very glad to have it, though. Maybe I'll be entertaining tomorrow. Bye bye.

Sleeeep

2005-05-26T23:59:00.000-04:00

26_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

One thing I really, really despise is being tired and not being able to just lie down and sleep for a while. That's how I felt all day, but I knew my sleeping schedule would be totally fucked if I took a nap in the afternoon. Whenever I get in a mood like that where I'm annoyed that I can't do something as simple and natural as lie down and sleep, I always imagine how it would be to live on a beach and catch/eat fish. Annoyed isn't a good word for the feeling, though - it's more like a feeling of mediocrity or being dissapointed in yourself. Because if I really wanted to, I could pack up my shit tomorrow and go live on a beach in Malaysia. But I don't. So I have no one to blaim but myself (and my mother when we're driving in the same car and she's assaulting me with that goddam voice of hers....my teeth are going to be ground to dust before I get out of here)

Not sleeping is interesting, though. Up until about 7 or 8 AM you feel really good... then you start looking at the clock: what the hell are you gonna do for 14 hours before you can sleep again? -> boredom -> tired -> cranky. If you didn't sleep the night before, the worst time is always from 2PM to 4PM. Vedddddy bad. You better be away from any sort of bed, in the sun, moving around, and have lots of coffee at hand.

I once stayed up for three nights in HK - about 82 hours I think it turned out to be. It was very interesting. I did it because I had to; I was leaving for Vietnam and I had a ton of shit that had to get done (visas, papers, projects, finals, meetings, planning, packing). At some points I felt seriously great. I'd be listening to music, dancing around my room... but other times I was a goddam zombie. I was doing my final set of chinese paintings for a class a few hours before I left and it was very difficult. I would concentrate as hard as I could but some thought would come into my mind and it would lead to another thought and another and I'd look down and find my brush was in the middle of a huge, growing blot of ink. That happened twice and I had to trash both paintings. After painting, I sat on my bed to write a short letter to a teacher. I took me at least an hour. I would be writing but, again, my thoughts would drift off, my hand would stop writing, and I'd be sitting there with glazed over eyes just think the letter through for fifteen minutes. The finished letter probably went off on a few tangents... I did a few tests at one point and found that when I closed my eyes, it took just five seconds before I started dreaming/hallucinating. Bizarre. After I had done everything, I was seriously contemplating just sleeping like a bastard all day and putting Vietnam off till the next morning. But I had sense enough not to so I headed down the mountain and hopped on the train. I actually didn't sleep for probably 5 hours until I got on the sleeper train from Guangzhou to Nanning... I had the top bunk, the light for the car was right next to my face, there was a speaker blairing something directly over my head, and I was asleep the instant I closed my eyes. Slept for a very solid, very REMy 14 hours...

MASS

2005-05-25T23:59:00.000-04:00

25_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

This drawing I didn't plan very well - too big - so you'll have to click on it if you wanna actually see it. This drawing... took forever! I figured that since there are a lot of frames where not much changes, I would just draw one frame, copy and paste it, then add in the different changes.... JESUS... I probably spent three and a half hours in damn photoshop with this crap... oh my god. It's 4:40 in the morning... I'm staying awake tonight because I gotta be up at in three hours.

I had my blood drawn plus a tetnus booster shot today. The blood was to see if my Hepatitis A & B vaccinations are still good. The rather amazing thing was that the whole thing took less than four minutes. Sit down. "How are you?" Blood gone. Switch rooms. Nurse walks in with the shot. Jab. Tape. Out.

I was gonna scan four of those "sci-fi" paintings from John Harris (buy it here) but it took a hell of a lot longer than I thought it would. So I did two and I'll get the other ones tomorrow...

The first one, After The Fall, is a pretty small picture; probably no more than 2ft x 2ft (I could look it up but I doubt anyone is interested anyway). The second one, Leviathon, is 6ft x 15ft. It'd be pretty cool to see it up close. You can't really see in the scan, but the little black specks in the middle of the middle section are actually planes/spaceships.

This stuff is awesome, I think. I wish I'd had this book when I was 5. I woulda just sat around imagining what it would be like to be on one of these spaceships; exploring. When you're little, you imagine so much more. An older person may look at these pictures technically or historically - speculating on who influenced who, who influenced who - but kids will project themselves into pictures and not feel guilty about it. I think I'm actually going to give the book to a friend of mine's kid (I think he's three). ....or maybe I'll have to buy another one. I really like this book.....

Matsuri is currently Chiba-bound. hehe, not sure what to say about that (safe flight? lets all say a short prayer? I wish I was you? Eat some tasty food for us?). Oh well. I'll be talking to you soon...

thaiPod

2005-05-24T23:59:00.000-04:00

24_05_05, originally uploaded by dragohnx.

Very lazy blogging day - this is a slight detour in the kittens adventure. Will continue tomorrow cuz, like Mr. Gray Kitten, I'm doing my damn Thai and can't be bothered about turning on the stereo. "Doing Thai" is:

I'm loading up my iPod with as much Thai language stuff as I can because I'm not gonna bring a computer to Bangkok. So with this I'll be able to practice all by my lonesome. As promised, two more tree photos:

I'm not sure whether I like or hate the last one. Looks like the early computer-generated images that were classified as "fantasy" ... as in dolphins floating around in space and really terrible models of naked women suspended above the ocean with a full moon directly over head.... terrible stuff. Like these beauties: 1 2

I've only read two good sci-fi books. One was a collection of short stories by Arthur C. Clark - very thought-provoking - and the other was a collection of oil paintings by a guy named John Harris. Harris has only published one book of illustrations (called "Mass") but I think his paintings are ... groovin'? I first saw the book while I was browsing around the graphic design section at Kinokuniya. I went back three or four times to specifically look at it (cost S$60, lah). I eventually bought it though, so it is now the only book of paintings I own. I'll scan some tomorrow...

Auto-mation. Git, git, git, gone.

2005-05-23T23:59:00.000-04:00

23_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

Hopped out of bed at 2:30 today... my parents are kind enough not to disturb me when they wake up, but they've never totally accepted that I sleep in late. My mom called and I told her what time I woke up - the thousandth time I've slept in past noon - she still said, "No!? Are you serious? My goodness...." I think I need an automated menu for my phone:

"If you're calling because you're stressed about things in general, press (1) to leave a message that won't be recorded. If you're calling to talk about people that the user of this number has never met or heard of, press (2) to be connected to someone who gives a damn. If you're calling because you have a question that you already know the answer to but dialed this number instead of thinking for three seconds, press (3) to recieve an electric shock."

This may seriously confuse/disgust some of you. That's cottage cheese. Ever had? I think it's milk that's been halted on its journey towards cheesedom. One set of my grandparents used to feed it to me like mad, so I really like the stuff. I think most people eat it with fruit - my dad likes it with pineapple. That seems pretty damn sick, though, because pineapple is so citric that I can't even drink a glass of milk after eating it. This here cottage cheese was from the salad bar at Partner's Pizza where we had the buffet for dinner. Not helping my Thai-skinny... It was actually only $5.50, though, and the pizza was moderately better than most pizza-buffet places.

This is our "ride". Peachtree City has probably 100 miles of golf cart paths designed for people to get from place to place on. It's kinda dumb. Most people rarely use their carts cuz most people believe themselves to be extremely busy and prefer driving a car at 45mph to driving a golf cart at 15. I think both are too fast... even riding a bike scares hell out of me.

This was up in the sky post-pizza. I took a few pictures of it as we were going through a wooded area and I've been sitting here photoshopping them for far, far too long. Here's two of the four (don't want flickr to explode). Nighty-nite...

TomorrowDay

2005-05-22T23:59:00.000-04:00

22_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

Tomorrow got me! More people have come by today than all other days combined. So scary; strangers running around clicking with their dirty pointers.... Someone was wondering how I know a bit of Singlish - I lived in Singapore for 8 years from '94 until '02. That's longer than I've lived anywhere else, so Singapore is kena my home. I went to the American school out at Woodlands by the way (and Ulu Pandan before that). Used to hang around Orchard quite a lot because I lived near there. Oh! Me and two other friends were sometimes on the show TeenTV which was on Channel 5 on Sunday mornings. Maybe one of you saw me as you were diving for the remote to change the channel...

For the new people, I draw a comic everyday and post it here. Recently, I've been drawing animals and nature-stuff... not sure why (I'm really liking these kittens) And if I eat anything particularly yummy I'll usually put up a picture of it. I also post crap like this:

THE PAPERWEIGHT

This story goes back six years to my freshman year of highschool at SAS. The freshman used to eat lunch and hang out between classes on the second floor patio beside the cafeteria. Between the patio and the cafeteria were about 10 big glass doors. One day I was sitting out there eating lunch when I heard this huge crash. Somebody tripped on a backpack and fell right through one of the doors. The whole thing shattered - the guy was fine though because the door was made out of safety glass. I went over there, picked up a cracked piece of glass, and put it in my backpack. Six years later I find it in a box:

That cafeteria has since been torn down (let record show that I had the last Sze Chuan Chicken ever served in that cafeteria. The Last.) .. yah, torn down, so I figured I'd like to keep the glass and try to make sure it doesn't break. My dad suggested glueing it to something rigid like a piece of metal, but I wanted to be able to see through it. I was in Home Depot with my parents so I wandered around and found some clear, hard plastic and some epoxy that dries clear. Cost about $5.50.

So I cut out a piece, traced the shape of the glass, cut it down to size, and glued it together.

Drying... then I took this drill-kena-sander-thing and shaved off all the extra plastic.

FINISH! Pretty, ah? Now the final step: testing.

(oh, and I realize that Thoreau's "throw the paperweight out of the window b/c you gotta dust it" quote from Thursday slightly goes against today's activity... but Thoreau never lived in Singapore. He never fed left over mee goreng to cats with kinks in their tales. He spent his whole life in Bumblefuck, Connecticut in the damn eighteen hundreds. If I were stuck in some frozen tundra surrounded by Quakers, I'd be throwing stuff around, too.)

XiaXue Speaks: A Four-Step Guide

2005-05-22T03:24:00.000-04:00

XiaXue is a busy girl. She has her blog, her job, and a real life. How does a normal human like me make contact with the Queen of Asian Blogging?

1) Read her blog a damn lot - I happened to witness a phantom post the morning of May the 19th. It was there for a minute and then it disapeared. This is like seeing God vanish behind a cloud. Amazing. I know I'm not crazy because my googlecache saw it too:

2) Scour your life for any connection to her post - The link was to a modeling agency. One of the girls was wearing a shirt that looked pretty similar to one I bought in Little India for S$1:

ha HA! Not just a connection - a unique connection. Perfect!

3) Make a funny picture - XiaXue doesn't want to read "oh, that shirt looks like one i got in little india. lol." Hell, no. She doesn't have the time! I threw on the shirt, took a picture, photoshopped it and came up with this:

4) Get her to look at the picture - You have to link to the picture in your comment and she has to click the link. This is a lot to ask of an internet goddess. Getting XiaXue to click your pathetic, earthly link takes zen-like restraint. The fisherman don't chase the fish around; he gets the fish to come to him. You must be casual. You must be intriguing:

Notice the typo? So did I - makes it seem like its no big deal while we all know it is a HUGE deal. This is XiaXue!

The Result:

FIVE AMAZING WORDS!

Now turn on the aircon and put your feet up cuz your heart gonna POM POM TIAO!

Very tired...

2005-05-21T21:20:00.000-04:00

21_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

Too tired to blog, lah. It's 9:30 and I want to sleep. Quick, quick: we went over to my grandmother's apartment complex today for a BBQ lunch. Crappy food and a bit of awkwardness because there's not that much to talk about. After that, we came back here and I walked around by myself. Five hours later and I'm back at the service apartment. My parents are eating somewhere right now; I'm skipping dinner to get Thai-skinny. MMmm.. sorry for the shit post. Here's a turtle I found!

Crash! Boom! Bang!

2005-05-20T23:59:00.000-04:00

20_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

I woke up at 11:00 AM to a thunderstorm. The lightning was popping just overhead, the wind was screeching, and, oddly, it was really bright out. Being half awake I was sure a tornado was about to rip the wall off and hurl me three miles through the air onto a fence. So I stumbled out of bed and ran into the other room - actually between the two rooms using the divider for cover. No one was here; I was going to die alone! I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. No tornado alert; must be on the next channel. Flip, flip, flip. I went through about ten channels and didn't see any alerts. The wind was dying down now and realized I was getting cold because I didn't have any shorts or shirt on. I changed the station a few more times then turned the TV off. I walked over to the window and parted the blinds - not that windy after all and the lightning was already pretty far away. I was suddenly very glad to be the only person in the apartment. Back to sleep.

That was by far the most interesting thing that happened today - and nothing actually happened. I got out of bed at 3:00 and had lunch at On The Border, which was where I had that Chicken Burrito two days ago.

This is their Margarita Chicken which goes for about $8. It was really good; just what I felt like having. It's basically just seasoned, grilled chicken on mexican rice with grilled squash, red peppers, and cucumbers. I could only eat half of the chicken breast it was so big. Tasty stuff.

The rest of the day was spent at the new house. I would have walked around for a few hours but it was raining. I need to thin up because "fat" is relative to who you're around. In the US I'm moderately skinny, but in Thailand I'm probably a fat-ass. And if I don't want to leave a trail of sweat everywhere I go, I need to get as thin as possible before leaving. But cannot walk today. So I napped.

Actually, I feel like an idiot about this picture. I had to set the camera up, put it on a ten-second timer, then run back over, throw on the blanket, and act like I'm "relaxing". Pretty stupid. But it was either that or a hold-the-camera-at-arm's-length-shot. Neither are very good, eh? But, hey, my fans demand it. hehe...

Alright, here's a gen-u-ine mystery. This is for people who knew me around freshman year of highschool. My church went to a summer camp called Centerfuge in New Mexico one year and this girl was with our group. I found these pictures while sorting through a box. I liked her at the time even though she was a few years younger than me. She had a little brother who wore glasses that was always slapping people with one of those sticky, stretchy hands. Anyway, I don't know her name or who she was ... anyone remember?

The Dentist

2005-05-19T23:59:00.000-04:00

19_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

This is my mom:

Walk out the door and its cloudy - "grrr"

Get a call; the flight is canceled - "grrr"

Sun comes out fifteen minutes later - "grrr"

So no flying today; I think its been rescheduled for Saturday (I'll have the cam just in case...) Instead of the airfield, we drove over to Fantastic Sams to get my head straightened out. I explained that the two sides weren't very even and when the lady saw what I was talking about she just started laughing. And I've been wearing this shit for a week... After she'd cooled down a little, she got her scissors and fixed me up:

Can?

Off to the dentist. I'd never been to this guy before and he turned out to be a total quack. Once he finally showed up he looked in my mouth for all of five seconds then said, "No cavities, you're good to go." He was half out the door when I said, "Hey, I've been having some pain in my jaw because I think my teeth are shifting and its affecting my bite. Is that a problem?" He says, "No that's natural. Teeth move." I'm like, "But could that cause jaw complications in the future?" He looks at me with his black fish-eyes, "It's a 70/30 kind of thing." And he leaves. The nurse is about to leave too and I say, "Wait, what's 70 and what's 30?" She doesn't know. Well thank god for dentists.

So the rest of the day I was helping my parents move their crap around. They're moving houses so they put all their stuff in a storage warehouse and now we're emptying that into the new house. They have so much crap! These last few days has cured me of any lingering consumerism I might have had festing in my gut. It is gone now. I'm one frugal chimichanga. I don't ever want to feel like I'm the bitch of my own stuff. I haul it around. I have to worry about it. If it breaks, I gotta fix it. The only way to get rid of that feeling, that I know of, is to get rid of the crap. Thoreau said in 'Walden' that someone once gave him two slices of crystal to use as paper weights. When he discovered that they had to be dusted, he picked them up and threw them out his window. Hehe, i like.

This is my favorite spot in the new house. It's a little porch on the second floor off of the master bedroom. Veddy nice and quite.

Burrrrr

2005-05-18T23:59:00.000-04:00

18_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

Nothing going on today... but here's a chicken burrito!

Ah, my mom's going up in a little plane with one of our family friends tomorrow. The guy decided he wanted to learn how to fly about six months ago and now he owns two planes and has almost enough logged hours to be an instructor. Rich and bored, I guess. But I'll bring my camera - if they crash/explode-in-midair I'll get those pictures to you FAST (right after I file the Claim of Death with the insurance company).

Notice anything shitty about my haircut? (anything especially shitty, KaTiE)

Look at the ears. What the hell is that!? I'm gonna go back to the haircut place tomorrow and get them to fix that crap (if my mother's still alive cuz I can't drive and it would be too far to walk).

A Ditto Day

2005-05-17T11:59:00.000-04:00

17_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

I did some exciting golf-cart-path-walking today. Sometimes on the left side; sometimes on the right. I'm hard to anticipate. Dynamic.

It's suprisingly not that boring here. Must be me. In Hong Kong I used to sit in my dorm room sometimes and just listen to music. I was doing that once while my roommate, Fat, and his girlfriend, Sandy, were also in the room. Sandy turned to me and said,

"You look boring."

"What?"

"You look boring."

[pause]

"... do you mean 'bored?'"

[confused look] (that luckily turned into a laugh)

Simon, me, Sandy, Fat

Here's some crap that I've found in boxes. This watch is pretty cool looking, I think. Veddy broken, though.

Matsuri knows!

Assisted-Living Canasta

2005-05-16T23:59:00.000-04:00

16_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

A rather unremarkable day. I gotta get out of this apartment more. I sit around and the hours just slide away. Plus my parents raise my blood pressure - no kidding.

This was breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We stopped at a BBQ place on the way to my grandmother's apartment. Got yur pig, some macaroni, a wedge 'a corn bread, and a scoop of brunswick stew. Overall, very so-so. The pork was too dry, man. Too damn dry.

The roof on the place was huge... I was trying to find the restaurant's name with google but no luck. I started using their Map service, though, pretty hard to miss that roof:

So we met up with my grandmother for cards. We walked down the hall to this sitting area, cleared the crowds away (ha), and started playing. Canasta. I think my mom asked how long it had been since we'd played canasta together and, of course, everyone remembered that it had been with my dead grandfather. I doubt my grandmother has played canasta without him for 20 years or so. It's the memories of people in specific situations that stay the most vivid. When I think of "my grandfather" nothing really comes to mind. But when I think of him playing cards I remember the expression on his face when he discarded, the way he hid behind his cards when he chuckled, and other really minute stuff. Yah, he was always fun to play cards with. He had a great laugh, actually; this high pitched, fragmented, on-the-inhale thing. My dad has a terrible laugh - always looking up. My grandfather always looked down.

Slaughterhouse-five

2005-05-15T23:33:00.000-04:00

15_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

Nothing good to report. Went to church. Had lunch. Scott left. Sat around the apartment. Walked around for five hours. Now blogging. So here's something to entertain/scare you:

Family: People Hanging Around You All Day

2005-05-14T23:59:00.000-04:00

14_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

I can't get to the scanner right now (it's 2:00AM) because my brother's sleeping right next to it. He's a bit testy.... I'll update this with a comic in the morning.
We saw my grandmother today and she looked pretty happy in her new apartment. I wouldn't want to be put in an assisted-living facility, but I suppose it would be better than sitting alone in an empty house. She doesn't have to worry about cooking/cleaning and there are a lot of people just walking around with nothing to do but chat... if you found some good friends I think it could be pretty fun.

We all went back to Peachtree City to look at the new house my parents are moving into. Then we took my grandmother back and sat around our apartment for a few hours sorting things from old boxes. I've been throwing away a lot of stuff. I feel sort of weak or burdened if I can't part with something. If I can't throw something away, it means that I need that thing. The more you need to live, the less independent and free you are (or feel)....(or whatever) So I've been throwing away stuff like crazy: stuffed animals from my childhood, old homework & doodles, t-shirts, CD's that I've put on my computer, all my VHS tapes, all of my posters, the little things that used to collect on my desk (sea shells, keys, bottle caps, things I twisted together from wire/paper clips), most of the pictures I've ever taken... As Nick Drake said,
"And all the friends that you once knew are left behind they kept you safe
and so secure amongst the books and all the records of your lifetime. "
No more record, lah.

Went to The Famous Fish Co. for my "Graduation Dinner".

Pan #2 - Two types of fish(??), three shrimp, one prawn, and a big schlop of rice..... in a pan. This was $20 and it was really good. This restaurant started in London (not a good sign), then they added one in Atlanta, and the latest one here in Peachtree City. It's been here for three or four years now.

We got back and ate a "Graduation Cookie" from Publix because my mom's too lazy to bake a "Graduation Cake". Kidding, lah. Cookie OK.

New Haircut

2005-05-13T23:59:00.000-04:00

13_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

Today I
1)Shaved
2)Got a haircut
3)Looked at glasses (but I decided to wait till Bangkok)

What do you think? I got the side-part going now... risky, eh?

After the momentus haircut, I went to Atlanta Bread Company with my dad. It's sorta half fast food, half sit down - you order at the counter then pick up your food. I used to love getting their soup in a bread bowl (especially the Wedding Soup) but now I find out that bread makes you fat/die. Shee-it. But their Bella Basil Chicken Sandwhich is veddy good. I got that and some chili. It could have used more sauce but - hey! - what can't?

I saw The Interpretter - so so. Oh, my brother, Scott, just got into town tonight. This is our last "time together as a family" for about a year because I'm off to Thailand. We're gonna drive down to Atlanta tomorrow morning to see my dad's mother who just moved into an assisted-living apartment. My grandfather died about 2 months ago, so she moved down here to be closer to my parents.
Well, wish me luck on the haircut. The morning after is always the worst...

Walking around...

2005-05-12T23:45:00.000-04:00

12_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

I had lunch at a good Thai restaurant today. About two years ago I had the spiciest meal of my life at this restaurant. A bit odd considering the places I've been to. I had ordered red curry chicken "thai hot" and it was actually painful. I couldn't even finish a third of it - I was crying after about two minutes. And an even worse pain followed a few hours later...

Speaking of painful food, we ate at Ruby Tuesday's for dinner and the turkey burger I ordered was goddam raw. I took two big bites out of it. By the time they came out with a replacement, I was rather nauseous.

Between lunch and dinner I walked around with my Thai flipcards. I followed the golfcart paths (there's about 80 miles of them in PTC) and I took a detour through a raised wetlands walkway.

That's me trying to look like I'm studying my flipcards. I just set up the camera and ran over there... I left about five minutes later because some massive black ants were very interested in my feet.

So things are a bit slow in Peachtree City. It's OK, though. As long as I can get out and walk around by myself I'll be peachy, peachy.

ILoveToParty!

2005-05-11T23:59:00.000-04:00

There were supposed to be ten kegs at a party across the road from my apartment - and there were - but they were empty. I didn't stick around very long, as you can imagine.
11_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

I'm in Peachtree City now and the scanner here really sucks. Look at the quality of that scan versus the other ones.... aiya....

Anyway, my parents came to Athens this afternoon and we walked downtown to get some lunch. When my parent's are paying I usually take them to an expensive place I've never been to before. But this being my last meal in Athens, I decided to go to my favorite restaurant, AMICI:

This is Young and mine's favorite place to drink. They have $1 domestic drafts every day from 4:00-6:30. AMICI and I have slaughtered whole days of boredom. It is a good friend.

This is a green pizza. Pesto. A pesto pizza. A chicken, pesto pizza. This bad boy was $18 but worth oh so much more. The best pizzas I've ever had have come from this restaurant.

The service apartment I'll be living in. Feels like a retirement home.

The whole place is packed full of crap...

...and graduation banners

LEAVE ME ALONE!

Blue Bird Cafe

2005-05-10T18:08:00.000-04:00

10_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

I woke up early to get a final breakfast at Blue Bird Cafe. I'm leaving tomorrow so I'm doing some 'last time' stuff. This place has the best breakfasts around - their Cowgirl omlette kicks ass. The only problem is that one of the waitresses is too nicey-nice. Not a big problem but it gets annoying acting friendly when you just want an omlette. My waitress today was much better. She never smiled. I tipped her well.

The Cowgirl - It's got black beans, green peppers, mushrooms, onions, cheese, salsa, and sour cream. It was $7.25 with coffee and one of their (usually) great biscuits.

Sitting outside Planet Smoothie with goddam Young Jew Choi

I'm here in the Student Learning Center right now. My last time. Boo hoo. I'd much prefer a hot, noisy internet cafe in Bangkok.

Attack!

2005-05-09T20:18:00.000-04:00

09_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

1st post!

2005-05-09T20:06:00.000-04:00

08_05_05, originally uploaded by xdrjohnx.

Hey there,
I tried blogging before but it made me hate my life. So now I'm just gonna post pictures that I'll draw every day. Nice and cheerful.

Oh, I should say that I got this comic idea from http://boredslacker.blogspot.com/ which was featured on www.tomorrow.sg.