Life in China | Dominik Mayer – Products, Asia, Productivity

When I played a movie several days ago I noticed that the VLC icon had changed:

A little bit larger:

“Tor” is German for gate or short for “The Onion Router”, an anonymity network finally allowing me to access the world outside. VPN hasn’t been working for long. Again. Thanks to a great guide I don’t have to rely on it any longer.

The display at the checkout didn’t work. The lady didn’t even try to tell me the prize in Chinese, just took a pencil and wrote it wordlessly on the back of an old receipt: 109,8 Yuan. I would have understood that.

No electricity in the middle of a Skype call. Maybe because of the foaming over washing machine. Always the same when washing the bright clothes. No problems with the dark ones. 房东明珠 is not so happy and told me about the different spoon sizes trying to convince me that I better don’t use any detergent.

I passed my first exam today. But it means more to me that I could read and sing some Chinese songs at KTV this evening.

I want to have a netbook. I want to have this netbook. I will have to wait. :-(

An afternoon at the glasses market. It’s nothing new that I can’t decide which ones to take. This time I just got two of them. No problem for 150 Yuan (about 15 Euro) each.

Seems that I love Shanghai moved to a new location. There was still a small light in the old place, the interior and a blackboard: “Bar for Leasing”.

New clothes, new glasses, new coat, new haircut. Project completed.

A friend’s wall says:

Unlike the link title suggests, there is no way to find out which kind of “special hug” she sent. Instead, you end up on a page where they want you to hug others yourself. And, of course, the “Skip” button doesn’t work.

I hate these applications.

Pandora isn’t allowed to provide its service outside the US:

Using Tor sometimes loads the application without playing the music. And sometimes doesn’t:

It was quite hard for a good friend to adapt to the “new me”. She didn’t know where to look and what to say. As if we had never met before. Strange…

Taking off the glasses helped to ease the situation.

A German friend raves about her hand creme, two Chinese friends explain it consists of snake oil. There were times where this would have surprised me more.

“Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.” (LaCrosse, Wisconsin, October 18, 2000)

“The ambassador and the general were briefing me on the - the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice.” (Washington D.C., October 27, 2003)

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” (Washington, D.C., August 5, 2004)

More at BBC and Evil George.