To Sacrifice

With the global economy struggling right now, pretty much everyone's being affected in one way or another, and our company is no different.  Earlier in the week, we had an announcement of a small re-org and unfortunately, a few people had to be "rationalized", "streamlined", "rightsized", "surplussed", "offboarded", or whatever other stupid euphemism you've heard recently..

Regrettably, one person from our creative team had to go.  So obviously the mood in our department wasn't great.  But amidst the bad news, silence, awkward moments, disappointment, and sadness, something pretty amazing happened that showed us the true meaning of friendship and sacrifice.

My boy C.L., who is on that person's team, stepped up and offered to be let go himself so that his best friend could stay.  We were all shocked, but in a way, not surprised, because that's just the type of guy C.L. is.  He just felt that when he compared their two personal situations, he thought he might have a slightly easier time transitioning, so after a few discussions and meetings, they decided and were allowed to make the switch.  Yesterday was C.L.'s last day, and sad as it was, it was also inspiring and uplifting to see the rarity of someone doing something purely for the well-being of someone else out of love, respect, and friendship.

C.L., you're the man.

I'm not too worried about him though, cuz he's got talent.  But if anybody's looking for a good industrial designer, hit me up and I'll put you in touch.

How Do You Spell PAIN?

R-O-O-T  C-A-N-A-L.

For some reason, one of my back teeth had been hurting all weekend, and by Monday morning, it was pretty much unbearable to the point where I just wanted to take a pair of pliers and yank the thing out.  So I went to the dentist to have it checked.  And long story short, I needed to have a root canal.  I was pretty bummed, because up until then, my teeth had been in pretty good shape.  But as the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining (or in this case, a gold one).  Because then I realized that I was gonna be able to get a gangsta looking gold tooth!  I'm actually getting a little psyched about the whole idea, and am almost a little disappointed that it's one of my back teeth, cuz no one's gonna be able to see it!

Bust A Move

While in Beijing, we did a few days' snowboarding at Wanlong Resort. It's actually a good 250km away and takes about 3-4hrs to get there. The boarding was good, and the nightlife was...memorable!

There wasn't actually a village at the mountain, so we stayed a few kilometers away at the nearest town. Next to our hotel, there was a "club". It looked more than a little suspect, but we had no other options after dinner, so we decided to check it out. We had no idea what to expect - but looking at the characters hanging around outside, I only hoped we wouldn't get jumped in there.

However, as I stepped inside, to my surprise, we'd in fact walked into a roller skating rink! Complete with disco lights and music. There were people of all ages there, from little kids to grandparents. I have to admit, I was somewhat relieved that we hadn't walked into a drug den or something. But then we saw another staircase that led down..

We hesitantly descended the stairs and here we finally ended up in the "disco". We all just stood there for a sec, not quite sure what to make of it. It's hard to describe what it was like. It looked like the inside of one of those haunted house rides at the carnival. They blasted really bad techno music. And it was freezing cold in there, so most people were dancing their sexy dance with their winter jackets on. Here's a photo of the dance floor..

Of course it wasn't really our thing, and we laughed and made fun of a few people. But you know what, they were probably thinking the same thing about us. It makes you wonder how they can be so cut off from what is the norm of cool, in terms of music, dance, etc. Yet you see these guys busting a move to any beat, getting crunk on dollar beers. They're just having fun in their own way. They aren't worried about what's considered cool. They're not jaded in that respect. In some ways, I wish I was more like them..

Fix Your Fade?

Old skool barber shop I found as we were walking around one night in Beijing.

Happy Chinese New Year!

I just got back from spending a few days over Chinese New Year in Beijing.  I'm so glad I decided to stay in China for the holidays.  It's the biggest celebration of the year, and people really get into the spirit of it.  The most amazing part though is the fireworks!  I've never seen anything like it.

Remember when we were kids, around Halloween, someone's dad would go to the Indian Reserve and buy firecrackers and fireworks, and that kid would make a killing selling us his Mighty Mites, and Supercharged Thunderbombs, and Jumping Jacks, and my favourite, Whistling Bottle Rockets.

Well, that ain't sh*t compared to what you can buy in China.  We went to this place that looked like a munitions warehouse and they had everything you could think of in there.  We bought a chain of 2000 firecrackers for like next to nothing.  And these things that looked like sticks of dynamite.  And this huge box - the size of a box of oranges - with just one fuse on it (I had no idea what it was going to do).  And I can't even remember what else.  We had so much firepower, I felt like Rambo.

We were kindly invited to a friend's house for a great home cooked Chinese New Year Eve dinner and too much Chinese rice wine.  We ate and drank until close to midnight.  And of course, what do you do when you're drunk off your ass?  Go play with explosives!!

Just walking outside, the air was completely filled with the smell of gunpowder, and it sounded like a war zone.

Here's a video of what the city looked like.  It's unreal.

Beer Testing - Round 6

Still undefeated, Harbin Beer goes up against Snow Refreshing Beer.

Defending Champ

Name: Harbin Beer

Origin: Harbin, China

Alcohol: 3.6%

Price: USD0.40/can USD0.11/100mL

Challenger

Name: Snow Refreshing Beer

Origin: Hangzhou, China

Alcohol: 3.1%

Price: USD0.45/can USD0.13/100mL

Tasting notes:

A literal translation of the large Chinese characters on the can reads something like "Brave Charge To The Corners Of The Earth" (someone correct me if I'm wrong). And you can see a silhouette of a guy mountain climbing. Well, I don't know about you, but if I'm dangling off a cliff, the last thing I want to be is DRUNK! So I find this a weird association. Added to the fact that this is even more watery tasting than the last one, I gave it my lowest score yet: 3/10.

Another easy win for Harbin Beer, with a score of 5.5/10. The winning streak continues!

Remains of the Day

Yesterday we went snowboarding at the indoor snow park.  It was my first time there, so I wasn't sure what to expect, although I set my expectations really low.  Yinqixing park is supposedly the largest indoor park in the world, at 14 stories high and 380m long, which is about the length of 4 football fields.  Above is a picture of what it looks like from the top.

The "snow" feels almost like sand, or like my friend Mike put it, "like riding on a slushie". 

 But the good thing is, it's kind of powdery and never icy or hard packed.  They even have a few boxes and jumps to play with.

The only thing that's not so great is getting up the hill.  They only have this super slow t-bar that I think you can walk faster than.  And I BROKE IT!  It wasn't really my fault, but I basically popped one of the springs inside the bar, so that it wouldn't retract when you let go of it.  They had to shut the whole thing down and make everybody move to the other t-bar which was EVEN SLOWER!  Sorry!! 

But overall, considering it only took us 20 minutes to get there, and it cost about US$30 for the day, it wasn't bad.  The only real downside to the day was that I totally destroyed my bindings. I guess because my board hasn't seen much action in the last couple of seasons, the plastic became brittle.  So throughout the afternoon, it slowly fell apart, until all my straps snapped and I was eventually only connected to my board by my leash!  Someone actually came up to me and wanted to buy my board, even though they new it was busted (I guess Burton boards are expensive here).  I contemplated it as the guy wanted me to name a price, but in the end, I couldn't part with it.  I've had this board for way too long and been everywhere with it - too much sentimental value.  But I guess it's finally time to lay it to rest.  Here's what remains of my little Burton, broken, in it's body bag..

New Kicks

My friends over at Puma sent over these nice looking kicks.  The Deckers are from their Volvo Ocean Race series.  Nice twist on the boat shoe.  I switched out the original waterproof laces and put some fatties on there though.

New Tee for the New Year

Hope you all had a great New Year's Eve!  We had a fun night here.  And what better way to spend New Year's Day nursing that champagne hangover, than over a few beers at Hooters!  It was actually my first time to the Shanghai one, so once the girls knew that, we got the special treatment - they all came over and sang a song for me.  Then we danced around the restaurant together.  Then we met Miss July from the Hooters calendar.  And then to top it all off, we got free t-shirts!  It's actually kind of a dope tee.

MILD SAUCE!!

Yesterday afternoon I was chatting with my friend Mike about random stuff, and we got onto the topic of game show bloopers.  So this morning, as I was eating breakfast, I was searching YouTube for some clips, and I stumbled upon this gem - it's not a blooper, but perhaps the greatest Wheel Of Fortune contestant of all time.  His name is Raymond, and well, just watch..