Saturday, October 6, 2007

Da Shan in Wuxi. Irregular blogging.

Da Shan, the most famous foreigner in China, was in Wuxi over the weekend performing in a play.  The play is  a French farce about a dinner party whose object is to see who can bring the dumbest person as a guest.   This play's subject matter did not play well in provincial Wuxi.  I have heard that half the audience left the play after twenty minutes because they just didn't get the humor.

Our School sponsored the play's performance in Wuxi and part of the sponsorship deal was to hold a press conference at our school.  I witnessed this part and it was  a big sham (or I can say a Da Sham).    An English school having a press conference all in Chinese.  How this would promote the school when Da Shan was not to promote our school defies logic.  Da Shan couldn't wait to get out of there.

I am still having trouble with the Internet at home. I got it faster but I got an inferior service.   Getting it installed in the home has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare.  I, hoping to get the Internet installed faster by using someone else's guanxi , created more confusion for myself.  The wife and I had a misunderstanding about accounts.  I shouldn't have told someone that we were getting new Internet when in fact my wife was actually transferring the old Internet from our old apartment.  In the midst of the holiday week,  getting resolution to the confusion wouldn't happen.  I have my wife and someone else telling me differing things.  Trying to resolve it is hampered by the fact that my wife's English is not good enough to explain the bureaucratic niceties of dealing with the telephone company, or rather her side of

 The telephone company are bastards in this saga.  They have managed to make the Internet difficult to use because they had added a service (disservice really) that promising greater speed does not work with foreign sites like Google.  I have to cross my fingers now as I surf.

I am the fool in this because I let my wife worry about the details of the Internet and the phone.  From now on, I must keep on top of things much as I hate dealing with bureaucracies.

So with the Internet at home being what it is,  my blogging is irregular.  I would usually make this kind of entry in my myspace blog but I am writing in blogspot and tumblr because I have to write.  I have the urge to write.  My wife has phoned twice to try to correct the Internet problem I am having now.  They have told they will do something about it.....

In Baseball, it looks like the first round of the playoffs could be all sweeps.   In the National League, the D-Backs and the Rockies have advanced to the Championship series.  Sexy matchup?  Not!!  I don't want to see either of this unnecessary franchises in the World Series.  So much history in baseball is being lost with these extra rounds of playoffs and minor-league style franchise identities coming into and out of the public consciousness.

I went to the Blue Bar on Saturday night.  I talked to the King of Wuxi and watched a Rugby match on the TV between Australia and England.  I can't be drinking three beers anymore.

I have downloaded this program from www.tvants.com that lets me watch TV over the Internet.  I have been able to watch BBC news and ESPN news.  I am listening to a baseball press conference on ESPN and the questions being asked are so banal, as are the answers.  "How you were feeling when you had the lead in the game and were on the verge of winning the series.

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