Monthly Archives: August 2007
The Laowai Psychological Street Fight
I’ve always been a lousy liar. Remembering whom I’ve told what to is difficult for me when it’s the truth, but add in the complexity of deceit, well… forget it. About five years ago my buddies and I started up a weekly Texas Hold’em game, and this taught me the “bluff”. Now here was a …
Chávez’s War On “Democracy”
Big tip of the hat to my friend Tom for suggesting I give War On Democracy a watch. The fantastic film by award winner John Pilger aptly displays the American government’s involvement in manipulating Latin America’s leadership over the past 60 years or so.
Nearly half of the film is spent exploring the topic of Venezuela and includes frank commentary with the country’s president, Hugo Chavez. Chavez, for any unaware, has been in a bit of a hotseat with America over the past decade or so, as he isn’t buying what the “Empire” is selling and that ALWAYS pisses Washington off.
War On Democracy Trailer
An unabashed socialist, Chavez has thrown out American control in Venezuela, and has gone a long way in convincing his neighbours (Bolivia, Argentina, etc.) to do the same. He even went so far as to call Bush “the devil” to applause at the UN General Assembly.
Though Western (Northern?) media is quick to vilify him, and “good” Christians call for his assassination, it’s hard not to admire the guy. I just read his profile on Wikipedia, and for a sight that generally tries to list the good with the bad, the “bad” was tough to come by. I mean, he had the good sense to kick these nuts out of his country – that was enough to win me over.
But more seriously, he’s introduced a series of Bolivarian Missions, which summarize as follows:
The Humanaught v3 Has Arrived
My eyes are cooked, my ass is numb, my fingers are cramped… the redesign is done!
For anyone not reading this in their RSS feed reader or on a splog, the changes should be pretty apparent. But I’m going to run through some of them anyway 
First, I should mention, I’m not a big fan of switching themes. I think a blog develops some of its character from the look of it, and if it’s changing all the time, I feel it takes something away from it all.
That said, I really wanted to have a design that was all mine. Design, coded and styled from the ground up by me. It’s actually a little pecular that this site, my first, was the last one to get its own custom design.
Well, I should give some credit to Chris Murphy at Far From Fearless for giving me some healthy inspiration. His excellent design played a heavy influence in how I wanted my new look to look.
So, what’s new?
The Humanaught v3 – Coming Soon
Just a quick note to apologize for being so craptastic about frequent updates lately. I’ve been bogged down with work for clients (yeah, I’ve got “clients” now, I’m cool like that). I’ve also been fiercely working on a new design for this site. Should be up by end of the day today. Bear with me …
Am I A Racist?
I’ve been pondering this question a bit lately. First I/this blog got called such in the comments on Time‘s rather prominent The China Blog. Then, lately I’ve had a bit of a dimwit spamming my comments with this drivel. I got three separate notifications of his comments being posted. Each notification gave the text of …
More seasons than a spice rack
One of the toughest things for Maggie and I to get used to about living in Suzhou over living up in her home town in the north-east or mine in Canada is the weather. We are both used to four distinct seasons running from a warming spring, a hot summer, a cooling fall and a …
The China Blog Awards: Third To None!
The China Blog Awards winners for 2007 have been announced! It appears I have no taste when it comes to these things, as none but one of my pics took home a trophy. As for myself, I came in 2nd to Beijing Boyce in the Personal Blogs category. I’m tickled, really. I mean, the fact …
Born To Be Mild
Picture, if you will, a slight breeze trying to muster the strength to ruffle your hair as you glide deftly through the wilds of Chinese traffic at a cool 35 km/hr. The slight buzz beneath you hums into your thighs with all the power of an electric pencil sharpener. For only a few thousand kuai …
