Last Words of a Working Man

To everybody: I am flying back on September the 5th. And very glad I’m not flying on China Airlines.

Ok, big news to start off the post:
The Office Season 4 Preview with NEW FOOTAGE. Watch it 10 times at least, because it’s hilarious. Thanks to LITO for informing me of the big news.

South Side Sox has some encouraging words about this season. I’m a diehard Sox fan, but there’s just so much a man can take when the team’s payroll is over 100 million and we had some great expectations going into the season. On the plus side, maybe ticket prices will go down and ticket availability will go up. A team that sucks, sucks less when viewed from good seats!

Turning of the Sox that don’t suck this season (that would be the Red ones), Deadspin gets their fans to explain why their nation needs a president. Hilarity ensues.

I don’t know what’s creepier, this video of the four-legged chicken or the numerous links on the page to other freaky stuff found in China. Or that the people in the video are laughing. There’s clearly something wrong in the water supply, their children could be next!

Vegas is known for gambling, sex, and…being environmentally friendly? Other than being green, that development just looks plain cool.

Well, I’ve got to get a good night’s sleep for my last day of work tomorrow! Next time I post, I’ll be a free man! (shhh…don’t mention school)

-Jack
p.s. for all my slickdealers out there, w00t-off going on.

Yi (Finally) Signs with Bucks

And so ends the drama. I suppose that everybody saw this coming, but it’s good that it finally happened. Now Yi can concentrate on improving his game and getting ready for the NBA. I might just have to go to Milwaukee a couple of times this upcoming season to see Yi play dominate.

A note: I wasn’t going to post today, but this news was too big to pass up. I’ll resume posting tomorrow, so until then, just look at Yi’s pretty face…or my Flickr pics.

-Jack

Shameless Plug

I have new photos up. I want to hear what you guys think of them, and definitely share how I can improve my photography skills (I am very much a noob). That is all. You can also click on the photos to go to the page on Flickr, where (if you desire) you may download bigger sizes.

Thanks for taking the time to look!

-Jack

The One About Candy

While perusing my favorite blog about Candy (that would be Candyaddict), I found myself thinking more and more of those delicious treats I miss from the good ol’ US of A. Sure, they have candy here in China too, but I haven’t found any place that sells these. And yes, Twizzlers Sourz are perhaps my favorite sour candy of all, beating out the usual sour gummies that I enjoy. Those of you that know me well know that I’ve bought 5 or more bags at once just to stock up, because sometimes Target runs out.

As for my favorite chocolate-based candy? There are a couple: Hershey’s w/almonds, Milky Way, M&M’s Peanuts (I can’t wait to try the dark chocolate M&M’s!!!), and Rolo. I’ve probably forgotten some, but it’s just because it’s been so long since I’ve had them.

I also like my share of bubblegum, although I don’t exactly have a favorite brand. I’ll blow bubbles with anything from Bubblicious to Hubba Bubba Max (although it’s too bad I can’t do this). Chewing gum is a different story, as I prefer Trident Orange (over Orbit Orange) for it’s awesome-yet-clean flavor. Juicyfruit is also a favorite.

(Oh also, I wrote a short essay for my MIT entrance apps about candy. When I get home (assuming I can find the piece), I’ll be sure to post it with a link back to this post.)

So now that I’ve shared my candy preferences with you readers, how about you guys tell me what kinds of candy you like? Or don’t like? I know a number of you enjoy sourz (judging by the way they disappear whenever people are over), but what are your favorites? And maybe you can even recommend some candy that I haven’t yet tried. I’m always open to new (and better-tasting) suggestions!

-Jack

My Apologies…

…for all the days without a post. I’ve been having difficulties with wordpress and its facebook plugin, so I haven’t been able to access my blog in any way. Anyways, I’m back, so no worries!

I’m slowly getting the pictures from Yunnan up, though I cannot post any of Wenna without getting her permission (which won’t be at least until the end of this week, according to her). I’ll also have a couple of blogs about my adventures, but that may not be for awhile, since I just got handed a LOT of work (and for my last week too!).

I finally went out and bought some things for myself this weekend. Two limited-issue Nike tees and a pair of pretty sweet dunks that apparently were released not too long ago. Check em out yourself. Mine only came with white laces though, but don’t worry, they are legit.

Some random news I’m following:

• Rainn Wilson likes Renaissance Fairs, and so does Universal.
• Jeremy Piven thinks he’s Ari Gold, yells at his mom over dinner.
• I saved this Office Season 4 Promo on my computer so I could watch it over and over again. Is ordering 5 copies of the 3rd Season a little too much?
• Ever heard of Ana Ivanovic? Darren Rovell is out to make sure you do. Click the link, she’s supposedly the next Sharapova (looks and all).
• Bioshock gives you a tough choice, kill or spare little girls. Many articles are soon to appear over the debate. Your take?
• Boo blog censorship in China.
• Vile demon shoes! (Crocs + Uggs)

Sorry to keep it so brief, but I’ve gotta do some work at home too, now that I’ve been laden with all this stuff. If you want to help me with this blog (and think you’d do well at it), shoot me an email: jli5 at ameritech dot net.

-Jack

Blogging is my medicine

So apparently I contracted a stronger cold from somebody on the plane (because it had been getting better with medicine…) while waiting for two hours yesterday. Then I got to the bottom of it, I hadn’t been doing enough blogging lately. Thus, this post is dedicated to curing my enormous headache and stuffy sinuses.

You all know that I like TV shows. Being summer, however, there are no (new) episodes of good shows right now, right? Don’t fret, Entourage has got you covered. If you haven’t watched it before, I highly recommend watching the first three seasons (all available on DVD) before you dive into the 4th season. I’m not going to get into what the show is about (Wikipedia), but this is one of those rare shows that manages to be funny and very well-written, yet at the same time have an engaging storyline. Here are something other facts about it:

• Ari Gold is based off of Ari Emanuel (a native of Wilmette), who is congressman Rahm Emanuel’s brother. Ari Emanuel also once represented Jeremy Piven (who grew up in Evanston), who plays Ari Gold. And oh, he’s an alum of New Trier.
• Vince is a party boy, but would he ever get with this?
• ESPN’s Sam Alipour has an interview with Jerry Ferrara (aka Turtle).

Speaking of ESPN, I hope there aren’t any Orioles fans out there. The Rangers 30-3 destruction obliteration complete annihilation of the Orioles inspired ESPN’s Dave Schoenfield to list his top 100 beatdowns of all time. Tiger Woods and my Bears make the top 10 twice.

Now for my nerdy topics of the day:

Astronomers find a huge hole in the universe, don’t know what to think. My thoughts? It probably leads to an alternate universe where this blog is read by millions, England is a dominant imperialistic power, and Michael Vick maintains his innocence while pleading guilty. Oh wait, that last one belongs to this universe.

Hot on the heels of the iPhone, Microsoft is secretly developing a Zunephone. Luckily I managed to obtain some inside footage of a couple of prototypes.

MIT students will do anything for a bargain on a Segway.

It’s getting late and my headache’s not getting any better, so I’ll bid you guys adieu for now. Until my neurosis compels me to post again,

-Jack

Vacation’s Over…

Hello readers, I’m back after a week’s vacation in the Yunnan Province of China. I’m a bit tired and frustrated (2 hour plane delays will do that to you), so pics and thoughts about the vacation probably won’t be up until this weekend.

Thanks to Johnny Mei for filling in for me during my absence! Johnny, if you’re reading this, definitely feel free to post on this blog anytime you want. You’ve proven yourself more than capable!

With that said, here are some quick notes before I head to bed:

• The Economist has a good article about China’s skills shortage. Maybe I should work in China after graduation…big bucks if nothing else.
• I haven’t gotten a chance to watch “Superbad” yet, but clips like these tide me over for the time being. (Matt from West Lafayette…hahaha)
• Suprnova has re-launched.
• Just in time for school, use the MeeTimer extension for Firefox to track and reduce procrastination.

That’s it for now, work day tomorrow. Oh, and Weekend in Zhejiang Pt3 has been designated for assignment. For those of you that don’t know what that means, watch more baseball!

-Jack

Hello from Urbana-Champaign!

Hi all of Jack’s loyal readers! I’ll be guest blogging for Jack today. I was supposed to have done this much sooner but packing and moving back to school took up a lot of my time. I’m really no good at blogging and I’m bad at finding slickdealz so please don’t blame Jack if this is a terrible excuse for a post.

Now that that’s over with, have you guys ever had to call a friend or family member for MapQuest or GoogleMaps? Maybe you’re a Cubs fan and you want to check the score for a game that you missed earlier that day. In the past, you’d probably call someone up and ask em to help you look that stuff up online right? Well say goodbye to those days and say hello to the wave of the future! It’s called texting Google. And it’s as simple as it sounds. All you have to do is text message your inquiry to 46645 (GOOGL). For instance, to find out the Cubs score, just text Cubs score to the aforementioned number. To find directions, type 211 S. Laflin St, Chicago, IL to 600 N. Michigan, Chicago, IL. Google will text you back the box score and the directions, respectively. It’ll cost you as much as a text will cost you. However, if you don’t have a text plan, this might run up your bill a little bit. The directions usually take 3-5 text messages because Google sends back only 3 steps per message. If you’re going some place far away, the old phone a friend might be a better idea. If you have unlimited texts, you have nothing to worry about. There are a ton of other things you can do with this. “Movies 60608″ will return the movie times for the theaters around the 60608 zip code. Enjoy!

Classes start for me in a few hours and I’m not sure what to expect. It’s been a little different being back at school so far with me living in an apartment now and whatnot. Mike, Cuauh, Sha, Vickie, and Shelagh came down for a night to break in our apartment, which was awful kind of them. If any of you guys see this, thanks so much for all the help and all the fun! Emphasis on the thanks to Cuauh and Shelagh because I know they’re the ones who appreciate gratefulness the most. For the most part, I think I’m beginning to get used to living in an apartment and being on my own (if you want to stretch that term). It’s a lot nicer when you have your own room and when you have the freedom of putting holes in your walls.

Today I bought a speed bag set from Dick’s Sporting Goods. It came unassembled. I didn’t realize that putting the screws directly into the drywall was stupid until the set nearly collapsed on me. Also, knocking on the walls to look for the wall studs is a lot harder than one would think. The good news is, though, that 5 hours and 28 screw sized holes later, the speed bag is up and as stable as I can get it. The screws are all tilted and angled into the wall but hey, at least it’ll stay up on the wall. I don’t really know why I bought the speed bag, I just remember watching a YouTube video of a guy giving a tutorial and decided that being able to work a speed bag is really cool. What’s not cool is having to deal with those holes. Maybe I’ll take some pictures and put em up on this blog. I’m still not too familiar with the options on WordPress but I’ll try if I have some time later.

That’s about all I have.

Good night FTW!

-JM

Pre-vacation Post

Hi, I’ll be doing part 3 of Weekend in Zhejiang sometime over this weekend (if I’m not tooooo busy). I have enlisted my good friend and fellow Bugle Boy Johnny Mei to step in for me and post though. Expect the entertainment value of this blog to go way up with him at the helm. That said, let’s get to what I’m wasting my time with this Thursday afternoon.

From one of my favorite TV shows (Arrested Development), Michael Cera is co-starring in a new movie…you might’ve heard of it…Superbad! EW has a roundtable with MC, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, and Judd Apatow. It’s pretty funny. And check out the video at the end.

WIRED has a story about the NSA Surveillance Case going on right now. Very, very, very important.

Remember my post about Brian Collins? Well he’s not such a bad guy, and he’s pretty tough too. I know if I had a meltdown that was seen by millions of people that I wouldn’t be able to handle it as well as he did. ESPN has an article about how he’s been and what his plans for the future are.

This is a pretty neat PC mod. Then again, old school is good and all, but new school can hold its own too.

Speaking of PCs, Korea is strictly a PC gaming country, many of its children being raised on Starcraft and all. Consoles? Trying to make a push.

Remember Miro? Here’s Ted, another program to help you automatically download your favorite TV torrents. I haven’t tried Ted yet, but Miro’s been serving me well. If you guys try it, let me know how it goes.

20,000 people delayed because of ONE network card that caused delays at LAX. This is why buying shoddy hardware is never good.

-Jack

Weekend in Zhejiang (pt2)

I woke up around 6:00 the next day, groggy and tired from having only slept 4 hours. I tried to go back to sleep, but it wasn’t easy (with the window open and people outside conversing, not to mention the sound of motorcycles and trucks speeding past on the road). Somehow, I managed to get some more sleep and woke up again around 8:00ish. At that point, I went downstairs to have some food, though I couldn’t stomach too much due to a slight fever and persistent digestion problems. We headed out around 8:30 (I believe).

After a long car ride and a lot of bumpy (read: unpaved) roads, we arrived at our destination. It was here that we would be embarking on a river tour on old-fashioned bamboo rafts (sorry for the lack of pictures, but I wasn’t feeling too well). Operating each raft (seating 8 people) was a single raftsman(?) wielding a long bamboo pole of his own and using it to guide the raft to where it needed to go. We also bought some water guns to load up and shoot stuff with (dragonflies and people). Needless to say, there’s not much I can describe about how gorgeous it was, so here are some pictures. The sun wouldn’t cooperate, so a few of the pics are quite dark.

This is the raft that towed us the rest of the way. I couldn’t get a clear picture, but there are 2 chains of 5 or 6 rafts all linked together.

After getting off the rafts, I went on a tour of some islands on a sport boat. The boat always leaned to the left (the side I was sitting on), and I was sure it would capsize any minute, but it didn’t. We ate at a restaurant by the dock and then left for the trip home. I’ll have more details on what my experiences and my thoughts about the whole thing tomorrow in part 3 (conclusion). Because everybody loves trilogies.

-Jack