The Brain Dump - pic_o_the_week

Christmas in Doodleland

noreply@ (Chris) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 21:05:05 +0800

Here we are once again. Christmas. And even here in China t'is the season. Christina went over to the local hypermarket, Dennis, looking for . . . I can't remember what, but she came back with this week's Pic o' the Week:

Oh commercial holidays, is there no place you can't reach?

Sunday Dumplings

noreply@ (Chris) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:15:00 +0800

This delicious Pic o' the Week stars Christina, once again. Our tutor, Cathrine, and her friend, Lucy, came over to our place on Sunday and made dumplings and whole bunch of other food for us. Here is Christina, offering a helping hand. I would have taken a picture of Cathrine and Lucy . . . except my camera ran out of battery. Anywho:

Princess dumplings!

I ate . . . something in the area of fifty thousand of these dumplings. This was mid-afternoon. I did not eat again until the next day. Mmmmm . . . dumplings . . .

Negligent Liar-Face

noreply@ (Chris) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:27:00 +0800

Alright, alriiiiiight. So I fell down on the job again with my Pic o' the Week. Well, here it is. Only a day late (a buck short . . . I'm wri-ting--focus Walsh!).

This week's pic is of my valiant steed, who I have been riding more around Anyang. Here she is, Princess Charm:

That's right! She's a girl's bike. And I ask you this: Is a man less of a men who rides a mare? I submit that he is not. Charm treats me well. And I do the same for her. Though I have to put the "princess" part on the proverbial down-low [shouts from Christina in the other room: "I'm the only princess!"].

Just for funsies, here's a picture of Christina with her bike, Chou Chou:

Chou Chou is so vogue. And I feel the rust makes this picture a meeting of High and Low Art.
Christina est très chic!

I'm sifting through the 100+ photos Christina and I took of Kaifeng that I said I would upload . . . last Tuesday (double-liar-face!). I promise to upload those soon. I must redeem my liar-face!

Doodley Decadence

noreply@ (Chris) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:23:00 +0800

Christina and I just got back from Kaifeng, another of the eight ancient capitals of China (along with Anyang). We saw lots of cool things and took lots of neat pictures, which I will upload . . . I'll say, tomorrow. It was really cool, thousands of years of tradition, blah blah blah . . .

But do you know what else we found!

That's right!

Oh the gooey-goodness!

PIZZAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

And so this Pic o' the Week is thus:

The always-lovely Ms. Christina Brandon shown here satisfying
that cheesey desire. Does she approve? Oh she approves. . . .
Too sexy.

We got it at a place called The Pizza Company. It's pizza was modeled after Pizza Hut. That's right--derivative Pizza Hut. But, omigod, it was so fucking good. Christina also enjoyed a cappuccino with her meal. I . . . I suspect, if she could have, she might have left me for that cappuccino . . .

The check came to roughly 110RMB, making it a rather decadent indulgence . . . and it was worth every jiao.

Presents! Presents!

noreply@ (Chris) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 22:01:00 +0800

Well, tomorrow is my birthday, the big 2-6. But my classes have already begun giving me presents. Yaaaaay!

This was my first present. I'm told the red color is for good fortune and to ward off evil spirits. It's of two fish because I told my students that Christina likes to eat fish. And it's two fish coming together to make a bigger fish to represent our relationship (mine and Christina's, that is). The knots on either side of the fish are special Chinese knots that have some doodle name, but I can't remember what it is. They represent eternity, which is supposed to be how long Christina's and my relationship and our good fortune will last. Isn't that lovely?

Ben Gibbard Shares My Pain

noreply@ (Chris) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 21:02:00 +0800

Mood: Broody

Music: This Place Is a Prison, The Postal Service

China has not made it easy to keep up with my usual Pic o' the Week's (last week we had no power, the week before we had no internet), but I have one this time, so I got that going for me. It's a picture of the new bars that were installed on the outside of our windows. Now I know what you're thinking--Chris, we told you not to make fun of Mao and call them Orientals--no, no. The bars were put there with our consent. We had them installed because last week someone broke into our apartment during the wee hours of the night.

He (She? It? They?) opened the kitchen window, which is loud and woke Christina up. I (he who sleeps through earthquakes) did not stir. Christina told me that she came out into the living room to see what the noise was but couldn't see anything wrong. It wasn't till the next morning when I went to put the kettle on the stove that I saw our kitchen window--a window we never open because there is no screen--was wide fucking open. I asked Christina if she happened to open it. That's when she told me about the noise that woke her up.

So we guess Christina's coming out to the living room scared whoever it was off. I gotta hand it to whoever it was--we live on the second floor and there are some thick wires that would make it hard to get to our window. Robert, the New Zealander, thinks whoever it was thought the apartment was empty. But I ask why, then, would (s)he want to get in?

We made the school officials install better locks on the windows and they offered the bars. We reluctantly assented, and so here they are:

I took this one. It was not a fun picture to take. At least we can sleep a little easier, I guess. . . .

Eight Hundreths of a Second

noreply@ (Chris) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:30:00 +0800

This week's Pic o' the Week happened only yesterday at the Beijing Olympics. Spoiler Alert if you Tivo-ed it or anything.

The American men's 4 x 100 freestyle relay team upset the heavily favored French team . . . by eight hundreths of a second. Eight one hundreths . . . of a second. That's not even long enough to say "eight hundreths of a second." That's not even long enough to say "phrase." It was pretty incredible.

I admit it. I'm getting caught up in all the Olympics craziness. I never think I'm gonna and then I do. But people coming to one place from all over the world and competing is pretty awesome. I could do without the announcers doing everything they can to make every moment as melodramatic as possible (Really, Bob Costas--this is the most important moment in the history of modern China . . . really? The Cultural Revolution begs to differ). But them aside, it's exciting and incredible and just awesome. Anywho, here's the pic:

From left to right: Jason Lezak, Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale,
and Cullen Jones

The picture was taken by Chris Faytok of The Star-Ledger.

Do you have a picture you think is funny or otherwise worthy of note? Email it to me and if I agree it could be the next Pic o' the Week!

Redefining Reading Chair

noreply@ (Chris) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:50:00 +0800

If only I had seen this Pic o' the Week earlier while I was packing, perhaps I would have rethought my packing strategy.

In the words of Anthony "Burrito" Balderrama: "I won't
read for self-fulfillment or to gain knowledge . . . but I'd
do it for decor."

Anthony was, in fact, the one who brought the picture to my attention. He'd seen it on boingboing.net, in an article entitled "Chair made from discarded paperbacks." The mastermind behind the chair is David Karoff.

Do you have a picture you think is funny or otherwise worthy of note? Email it to me and if I agree it could be the next Pic o' the Week!

DEEAAAAAAAD!!!

noreply@ (Chris) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:10:00 +0800

I tried to post this last night, but much to my consternation I found that the internet at my apartment is down. I called RCN, the company that provides it, and it took them thirty-eight minutes to say, "Yes, we know about the problem. We're working on it." Awesome.

Speaking of awesome, though not sarcastically, I saw The Dark Knight yet again--this time in a regular theatre. I gotta say, I think the regular theatre was a better experience of the film. I say this for two reasons: 1) watching a movie on a screen six stories tall can have a very dizzying effect--and, in the case of one scene in particular (involving Batman, two SWAT teams, the Joker's gang, and a sonar-like device), "dizzying" can be read quite literally; 2) the music was manageable. That is, it didn't threaten to deafen me or drown out the dialogue when things started getting dramatic. There were a couple of lines in particular that I hadn't been able to make out in the IMAX theatre that I heard clearly in the regular one. So, there you are; size (conversely) matters.

The movie still kicked ass, only more-so for the above reasons. And I thought I would leave you this week (or, thanks to RCN, begin this week) with a special Batman moment I think we can all enjoy:

Spare the rod, spoil the Robin

I have no idea who gets credit for the writing, penciling, or coloring of this magical moment (I image-googled "batman robin slap"), but they are accorded my unending thanks. Robin can be so insensitive . . .

Pic o' the Week: Special Edition

noreply@ (Chris) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:00:00 +0800

Hello, folks. I've been very negligent in my duties as a blogger lately, and I blame that on two things. The first is finals week at DePaul University--but not just any finals week. The final finals week I will finally finish forever! That's right. Come tomorrow, I will have turned in the final project of my graduate career--the culmination of all of my educational years, starting in 1985 when I first entered pre-school through three elementary schools, one middle school, three high schools, one undergraduate university, four community college summer course, and one graduate university. Twenty-two years I've been in school, people (not counting a year I took off after undergrad), and after 5PM CST tomorrow my work is done. I graduate Sunday.

But before I get ahead of myself, I thought I would give you guys a special edition of my Pic o' the Week. Seeing as I've missed the last two, I'll give you two today. Here you go:

The first: Last weekend I went to Grosse Pointe Woods, MI, because Nic's brother was getting married (after seven(!) years dating his girlfriend). I took Christina and we both had a really fun time. Most of the photos of the wedding, however, are on her camera, so I can't share any of those. But I can share one we took on my camera of the house I lived in for a year and a half:

The ol' homestead. That was my room there on the left.

Christina gets credit for taking the shot, while I was driving and trying not to look like a terrorist scoping out my next target.

The second Pic o' the Week comes from my notebook, and never has a picture looked so beautiful. It is a snapshot of the last class notes I will ever take. The class was Modern Rhetoric--and, yes, it was as exciting as it sounds! A little context might be needed here to help you appreciate my diligent note-taking. The class (at least the beginning . . . when I was taking notes) was on Jacques Derrida--that sexy deconstructionist. Ever since I had to make a presentation on Habermas, I've tried to come up with exciting nicknames for the rhetoricians we've studied (I referred to Habermas in my presentation solely as "The Habernator"). Derrida became "The Derrida-zaster!" We also watched part of a documentary about him in which we saw the following: He owned a cat and American co-eds will fawn over him after he gives a talk. The documentary also described him as having "lightning thoughts," and we witnessed The Derrida-zaster in action! Instead of actually answering the questions an interviewer was trying to ask him, The Derrida-zaster decided to question them about their film equipment (Oh, decontruction . . . are you never not smug?) and during this he asked to know the name of a device they kept adjusting when he would try to talk, disrupting his train of thought. The device was a "reflector."

SHAZAM! Lightning thought: "The reflector does not allow reflection!" --The Derrida-zaster

But enough foreplay. Let's get to the action:

SHAZAM!

I get all the credit for that one.

Just one more day . . .