• right shoulder (it hurts to push it).
• tail bone (landed badly, right on the tail bone).
• region to the right of the tail bone (tail bone related injury).
• right butt cheek (kicked too high while doing a mea lua).
• left ankle (rolled it while carrying something, unrelated to martial arts demo).
• neck (landed on my head).
• head (landed on my head).
• 63.725% of my ego.

so, despite all the injuries, i had fun and i'm laughing at it now (with a bunch of swearing involved)... i just think i'm getting too old for this stuff! hahaha... i'm a geezer.

Banjo and/or Ukelele playing dogs are awesome. Please... write about one.  you can even write about how Rover, the only Ukelele playing dog rose to fame after being a slave to his owner...only to realise, that man was his best friend... so he returns to his owner's place (after becoming, like... a super-frikkin'-star in the Ukelele/rock circuits) only to find that his owner passed away from head lice...  Tormented, Rover sinks into depression and drinks his worries away, finding solace in the bottle, and a drug Patches the cat gave him, called Cat Nip.

 

spending all his earnings and drinking from the worst toilet water any dog can drink of, he meets Doodle the Poodle, the queen of the Westminster Dog Show.  She helps Rover recover from all his afflictions. Rover then writes a beautiful ballad called "Rowf Rowf rrrowf", which was dedicated to his owner.  With the catchy chorus and Rover's mad Ukelele playing skills, the song hits number 42 on the charts, the highest a Ukelele soloist ever reaches on the Billboard charts.
 
He then collaborates with all the superstars of the music world. He covers a song by Justin Timberlake, makes a cameo in J.Lo's new video, sings the backups with Snoop Dogg and even remixes a Black Eyed Peas song.
 
After winning several Junos and other prestigious music awards, Rover marries Doodle and has four litters with her.  He then passes away at the age of 91 (in dog years), but lives on in the memory of all for being the best Ukelele playing dog in history...
 

When I go for a drive I like to pull off to the side
Of the road, turn out the lights, get out and look up at the sky
And I do this to remind me that I'm really, really tiny
In the grand scheme of things and sometimes this terrifies me

But it's only really scary cause it makes me feel serene
In a way I never thought I'd be because I've never been
So grounded, and so humbled, and so one with everything
I am grounded, I am humbled, I am one with everything

Rock and roll is fun but if you ever hear someone
Say you are huge, look at the moon, look at the stars, look at the sun
Look at the ocean and the desert and the mountains and the sky
Say I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye
I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye

When I saw Geneviève I really liked it when she said
What she said about the giant and the lemmings on the cliff
She said 'I like giants
Especially girl giants
Cause all girls feel too big sometimes
Regardless of their size'

When I go for a drive I like to pull off to the side
Of the road and run and jump into the ocean in my clothes
And I'm smaller than a poppyseed inside a great big bowl
And the ocean is a giant that can swallow me whole

So I swim for all salvation and I swim to save my soul
But my soul is just a whisper trapped inside a tornado
So I flip to my back and I float and I sing
I am grounded, I am humbled, I am one with everything
I am grounded, I am humbled, I am one with everything

So I talked to Geneviève and almost cried when she said
That the giant on the cliff wished that she was dead
And the lemmings on the cliff wished that they were dead
So the giant told the lemmings why they ought to live instead

When she thought up all those reasons that they ought to live instead
It made her reconsider all the sad thoughts in her head
So thank you Geneviève, cause you take what is in your head
And you make things that are so beautiful and share them with your friends

We all become important when we realize our goal
Should be to figure out our role within the context of the whole
And yeah, rock and roll is fun, but if you ever hear someone
Say you are huge, look at the moon, look at the stars, look at the sun
Look at the ocean and the desert and the mountains and the sky

Say I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye
I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye
I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye
And I don't wanna make her cry
Cause I like giants

 

If you haven't listened to Kimya Dawson's music go now and find something by her and listen away... her music is freakin' brilliant!

1. i was at a party tonight ( a local b-girl cru's hallowe'en THRILLER party ) and i bumped into some capoeiristas.  talking with them really sparked that desire to go back... given that my Achille's Tendon is hurting, it just felt appropriate (i always had bad ankle and tendon problems...) for this desire to return... when i was playing a lot, the times i wanted to play capoeira the most was when i was injured.
2. i know that i tend to browse for weird things on the internet... but the following two "subjects" have been my recent Google Searches:

A) Koko B. Ware - a former WWF wrestler, famous for his Ghostbuster move and having his pet parrot in his corner of the ring...  

B) Bolo Yeung - This guy was a big muscleman in many kung fu movies, making appearances in Enter the Dragon, with Bruce Lee, and Bloodsport, with Jean Claude Van Damme.  If you were ever into Martial Arts movies, you would know who i'm writing about.

Now, i'm sure you're asking "Why?" That's a fantastic question, which i would love to answer, Why would i go through the trouble of Google-ing these two blokes, but honestly, i wish i had an answer.  I did learn something though... Koko B.Ware's pet parrot perished in a house fire in 2001 (which is sad, cuz the thing probably had some years left in him).  He has a new parrot now... which means Koko is still wrestling. he must be like, 50.  Bolo Yeung, on the other hand, must be around 70. he was 50 when he was in Bloodsport, which was a long time ago already... the guy is amazing too!  he swam to Hong Kong from Canton during the 50's to escape the Communist government!  That's TOUGH!  oh! oh!  i just remembered watching a Bolo Yeung movie when i was in Beijing! he was starring in a COMEDY!  it was an awkward role because he normally plays badguys!

hm... time for sleep.

1. Set up a fixed wake-up time.
2. Create a pre-sleep ritual.
3. wait until you are drowsy before you go to bed.
4. Continue this relaxing activity outside the bed and bedroom for at least ten minutes.
5. Repeat.
6. Get rid of your bedroom clock.
7. It is best to remove all caffeine from your diet.
8. Do not drink alcohol within 4 hours of your pre-sleep ritual.
9. Do not smoke in the middle of the night if you wake up and cannot sleep.
10. Exercise regularly.
11. Make sure your bedroom is sleep conducive.

There you go.  i've just given everyone advice that i myself have a hard time to follow.  With the Daylight Savings time in effect, i might be able to get drowsy by 10:30PM, which is a good thing. i might take advantage of this now to try to actually sleep a full night's rest.

it's been a while since i've updated. i haven't had the opportunity to access my email in a while, so i apologize for the severe lack of updates...

The China trip has been really fun so far.  El arrived from Van and we were almost immediately on an overnight train from Beijing to Xi'an.  if you didn't know, Xi'an is home to the old capital, of the Tang Dynasty (i could be wrong... again) and it is located in the center of the country.  When we first arrived, El and I walked around to check out the muslim quarter and then proceeded to eat some delicious dumplings, which, made us both quite sick.  i dont' know what it was, but i was not good the first day, making me believe that i didn't have the iron stomach i hoped to believe... but the second day, El was hurting quite bad.  when we hit up the Terracotta Warriors outside of town, we were both in a daze from stomach pains and just overall lack of energy... despite our conditions, it was hard to mask our amazement over the three pits of Terracotta Warriors... that was truly amazing... gotta see the pics, to get a better understanding of how it looked i guess.  The next stop was Huaqing Hot Springs.  I'm glad El has a nice appreciation for Hot Springs as I do (stemming from my time at the Onsen in Matsuyama, Japan).  When we saw the words "Hot Springs", we agreed that we both needed to go.  so, packing our swimming gear, we hit up the hot springs, only to find another touristy spot... the hot springs were sad pools that the emperors used to bathe in... it was actually kinda gross because they haven't kept them clean since, maybe the time of the Emperors, so it was really um... slimy.  in our disappointment, we walked around for a while and found some dark alley on the hot springs site... me being really curious, i HAD to walk through it and we came across a small room where this guy was like, "Do you want to bathe in the hot springs?" i looked at El with a big grin on my face... "Hella Yes!"  we got a private room and let our sickness and worry soak away in the scalding hot water...mmmm....

Our last impression of Xi'an was kinda funny... after doing too many touristy things, we thought we'd do something cultural and go to see some traditional Xi'an (Tang Dynasty) cultural dance. so, we got directions from the hotel (who had no understanding of anythign we were talking about) and headed to this place called TANG PARADISE... it wasn't really a place for Tang-era dance, but more of an amusement park showcasing the Tang Dynasty architecture and stuff... there are hourly parades and lots of bright lights and we even saw a sound, water and light show... it was really campy and really cheesy, but we enjoyed it none-the-less.

The next morning we were off to Guilin.  Guilin is a city in the Guangxi province... it's home to beautiful mountains that you'd see in many a kung fu movie.  while the scenery was nice, our stomachs were not... but i'll have to save this story for later...

enjoy the rest of the pics.  I'm going to enjoy the rest of my trip!

Eric and I in a meeting room in Beijing... On a Saturday afternoon... :(

my time at my company is finally up. i had to extend my stay a few days to get most of my work done.  while it sounds terrible, i did have a few days to kill before eL showed up, AND... well, i'm not going to complain about staying at a five star hotel (where Yao Ming was staying!!!).  I'm happy to have finished up my work and to get all the loose ends tied up. While the system I worked on is not up and running to the capacity i really wanted it to be in, i am quite happy that it is finally up and running and that i did a decent job at it.  What i'm very appreciative about is that i met my colleagues from Brisbane and Perth, Australia, my colleague from Toronto and all the people I work with in Beijing.  While i wasn't the most popular guy with the security guards, i'm sure I will miss them too.

Today, i went out shopping with my colleague, Eric.  He's only two years younger than me, and to be honest, we could be brothers by our looks... so, we headed to the Silk Alley (Xiushui Shichang), which is in the heart of downtown.  This place is a madhouse of fake goods... everyone's pawing at you to relieve you of your money, in exchange of the cheap wares they have to sell... it was actually quite fun to get there and look for stuff.  In the end, i ended up buying convincingly *real* looking Rolex watches for my parents...(don't tell them they are fake... they won't know the difference)... haha... the tactic that Eric and I devised was that if i was interested in any item, he would ask in Chinese.  Since i look Chinese, they wouldn't suspect i'm a foreigner, so they give him the cheaper price!... then i move in to bargain, while he acts as a translator...it was hilarious.  We did quite well when buying jeans and other products... too funny.

The market itself is crazy though... xiushui Shichang was full of foreigners and the women running the place spoke english and were quite aggressive at grabbing their attention to purchase their fake stuff... I was threatened to be killed by one vendor, which i just laughed at.  I also had a lot of fun commenting on their tactics to sell me product like, "oh! it looks like you need a nice silk table cloth!" to which i would respond, "I don't have a table cloth!" and the other one was, "oh! buy a nice silk scarf! they're beautiful!"... to which i would respond, "it's pretty warm outside. i dont' think i need a scarf!"  i don't think these folk understood what i was talking about, but it made me feel good inside...Eric thought i was crazy.

I also experienced the Beijing Subway today.  Eric and I went to a market that was in the north-west part of town.  the subway was not airconditioned and was quite smelly and hot (and that wasn't only me...), but was pretty clean and efficiently run.  The interesting part of the subway at the station we got on (near Wang Fu Jing, by Tiananmen Square), the subway tunnels are used by the government in case of serious emergency, to truck the chairman/president out of Tiananman Square area to safety. so the subway walkways looked like a bomb shelter in places... pretty interesting.

anyway, tomorrow is my first day outside of the five star hotel... i'm staying at Home Inn, which is like a Holiday Inn, but more Chinese.  The staff wear very loud electric blue Hawaiian shirts and speak less English... it should be FUN!