By the time we got to Chengdu, I was settling in to a pretty nasty cold, and we were also a little sore from train travel and hiking and general travelers malaise. So when we saw a sign up at our hostel advertising massages for RMB 40/hour, we were easily convinced. We took a bus across town to the recommended place and walked in to what would resemble a storage unit to most folks back at home. But that’s what a lot of shops, etc are like here in cities, where space is at a premium. A lot of them even have metal doors that slide down when they’re closed, just like a storage unit. So we filed into the room and took our places at the massage tables. Soon it turned out that the RMB 40 was just for starters, we had all manner of add-ons to choose from. Lest you get the wrong idea, they weren’t the happy ending sort of add-ons. “Chinese Medicine… good for you” is what they said. Here’s what I looked like when they were done with me.

ouch

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A search for ‘underachiever’ on google returns a host of results. My favorite is the underachiever mastery system. It seems this is ” A Formula for Easily Finding Highly Targeted Markets, Making Products They Rush to Buy & Eliminating Your Competition in the Process.” Nothing says “Good Idea” like initial caps throughout a poorly written psuedo-sentence. I wish I would have thought of this business plan. Targeting markets? Making what they want? Eliminating the competition? What’s next, a horseless carriage?
But I digress, as is my custom. Apparently, underachievement is the new ADD. There are hosts of books on helping…

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“The law in some provinces is that unless you actually commit a violent crime against another individual, the tendency is for you not to get serious jail time.”

–Drug Czar John Walters re: Canadian marijuana (quoted in the Toronto Star)

My goodness John, what’s the world coming to? Next thing you know, radio personalities are going to be abusing drugs and bribing their housekeepers to keep quiet about it. We’ve got to stop those Canadians before they ruin our pure culture with their drugs!

Anyhow, enough of that. I seem to have recovered the greater part of my motivation, so we will be…

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Yes, I’m a bit attached to The Apprentice. My secret vice. In my defense it’s the only reality show I watch.
Moving on, I’m really enamored with the new HP Digital photographyad campaign. Brilliant.
I’m feeling a bit distracted, so on to something else. Zach Braff’s movie (written and directed by and starring) is fantastic. Garden State currently garners a user rating of 8.3/10 on the Internet Movie Database. Zach and his brother Adam are co-writing a screenplay for Andrew Henry’s Meadow, a book by Doris Burn.
And lastly but not leastly, the prime minister of Iraq visited the U.S. recently and spoke before congress. The Daily Show had good things to say about that tonight.

By way of reintroduction:

Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.

W.B. Yeats

You may be reading this because you recieved notification via email. Unsolicited, yes. And for that I apologize. At this time I will direct your attention to the left side of the page, where you will see a form which you may use to remove yourself from the notification list. It seems supercilious to assume my thoughts are interesting to anyone other than myself, but since that doesn’t appear to stop anyone these days, I’m going to indulge my arrogance and, if you like, you may do so as well.