Alas, when I actually bring myself to sit down and write, I develop all sorts of grandiose plans to write every day, publish articles, win a Pulitzer, blah blah blah, and then the next day those addictive TV series DVD sets turn me into a Ray Bradbury "this is what technology can do to you" TV zombie. You know the culprits, the series that end every episode on a cliff-hanger thus turning the unsuspecting watcher into a TV gunky who, much like a drug addict, only realizes they have a problem when they find themselves rationalizing staying up all night just to find out what happens at the end of season 1. Then 925 minutes and a permanent indentation on the couch later, you know what happens at the end of season 1 - a clever cliff-hanger that can only be resolved by starting season 2...and thus the vicious cycle of zombie behavior continues.
And so now, as I am home early from work on a Friday and am avoiding hooking up the television I-V (that's the letters, not the roman numeral), I plan to blob out lots of brilliant (not to mention modest...) ideas that have been floating around my brain since the last time I wrote 2 months ago...
--------------
Since no one likes to read a long blog entry, I have decided to entice you to read on with this picture of an adorable puppy with whom I have no connection except that that I Google image searched him using the term 'adorable puppy.'<- Awwweee, isn't he adorable?...and confused? Puppy: Why have they put me in this flower pot? Are they trying to plant me? Will I grow into a puppy flower? a puppy tree? Where's the kibble? I smell food... --------------------- First let's get the status update out of the way. I've been in California for 6 weeks since my European excursion ended (I'll be getting to my final thoughts on my time in Eastern Europe later), and in 2 weeks I'm leaving for a 10 day trip down memory lane in Hyderabad for a conference. I plan to visit all my old pals and show around some new pals - I'm dying to see what has changed drastically with all the development (my guess: Hi Tech City, the new modern airport, and the rich neighborhoods) and what has stayed the same (my guess: the Old City and the slums, which have stayed the same since the beginning of civilization). After that I am back in California for a week before I head off to another adventure spending time in Sydney until I am able to move to Singapore. I'm super excited about Sydney, but am definitely worried that once I get there I'll call Yev up and demand that he move there right away so that we can buy a beach house and live in Australia for ever and ever. Not quite sure why I'm afraid of that, since it sounds pretty awesome actually... I've only been there for one week in the past, and I have a sneaking suspicion that over a month there will make me love it even more. The fact that in 2 weeks I'll essentially be traveling for the next year+ is still so overwhelming that I'm in the denial phase. One comforting thought that helps me sleep at night: there is an IKEA in Singapore. This means that if I really go crazy, I can probably re-create my apartment with the same stuff in Singapore (at only twice the cost...). Come to think of it, that thought is equal parts creepy and comforting...
------------
Hmmm...this entry is really long. What else can I put here to keep you reading? How about, pandas riding a rocking horse?
These are not men dressed in Panda suits...these are real pandas at the zoo in Chengdu according to the British news article that published the pic.One of my favorite things about traveling is that it makes me pay a lot more attention to the details of what is going on around me - both while I'm traveling and when I'm back at home. Take, for example, the writing of the brand names on cars. When I was in China, it was so noticeable that the brand names were written in both English characters and Chinese (except the cherries, the Chinese brand), which stuck me as remarkably strange. I've never been anywhere else with an alternative writing system, including Egypt, Kiev, Bulgaria, Greece, India, Thailand, and Hong Kong, where the names of the cars were written in the local writing system.
Not to say that they aren't, but I never noticed them. But in China, every single car had a brand written in Chinese. Wouldn't it be cool if Toyotas had their brand names written in Japanese and English? Then we could learn characters of other languages, and have an idea of where the cars are from (precisely the reason they don't do this, I'm sure) - but it would be exotic and educational! Like those international olympic Coke cans. Note that even in China, American cars have their brand names written in English, unlike any foreign car company's logos in America.
My humanities-educated brain that automatically tries to analyze the root causes of my observations leads me in the direction of the US, about 40-50 years ago when Toyota was first trying to break into the market. Of course they wouldn't write the car name in Japanese, even if it was also in English - the xenophobic American populace of the 1950's and 1960's would have freaked out - it wasn't too long ago that we had thrown Japanese-Americans into internment camps - you bombed Pearl Harbor and you expect us to buy a car from you?
I'm surprised they even used the Japanese name Toyota and didn't come up with some other, more American name, such as the Freedom-mobile (although, they weren't making this decision with the Bush administration in power, or else it may have had a stronger chance of making it - "hey Verne, let's hop in our Freedom-mobile and get us some Freedom Fries!" After all, almost everything sold in America today was made somewhere else, and the more 'American'/'Patriotic'/'Freedom' their name is, the more guaranteed the product is to have been made in China.) If I were their marketing manager I would have created and entire line of Freedom and Liberty mobiles (although, come to think of it, the term 'liberty-mobile' may already be trademarked by the McCain For President campaign), and now I would be a gazillionaire - alas, wrong place and wrong time for my ingenious marketing ideas (GM- you can feel free to give me a high paid marketing job to get you out of the gas-guzzling, ugly-ass, outsourced-labor bankruptcy you're entering any moment now and I might consider offering my services...).
---------------------
On another note, I saw this YouTube video today. Apparently, 'Where in the Hell is Matt' has had quite a following that I missed. A gum company paid for him to go dance a little jig around the world in 43 countries. Can I do that please?
No comments:
Post a Comment