fine whine

Every day here at the Kowloon Hotel I find a newspaper in a bag on my doorknob, and on my way out I usually chuck the paper onto a growing pile atop my desk. Today, however, I opted to bring it with me, leaving the empty bag to look forlorn and devoid of purpose on my doorknob. I must assume that the proper authorities will give it the care and attention that it needs, just as my room is always mystically tidied up when I return with my pajamas folded and my free water bottles replenished. It's magic, I think.

So anyway I grabbed today's Standard and flipped through it during the morning cab ride (5.42 kilometers this time over 10.55 minutes and found some interesting things.

On the second page I discovered that the (Frank Gehry-designed) Los Angeles Walt Disney Concert Hall (which is enough proper nouns to create several smaller buildings) is apparently reflecting heat at some nearby condominiums. I am assuming that Frank never considered what his parabolic sheets of steel would do to the people and buildings at their focal points. Read more about the building here. According to the little bit in the paper, a "A US$90,000 (HK$702,000) makeover of the structure's stainless steel panels is being carried out in an effort to reduce the heat reflected at condominiums whose air-conditioning system is being overwhelmed." So it's not particularly local but it's an interesting to know for no reason at all.

In that category also can be filed an update about the Michael Jackson trial. I'm staying in the dark as to what is going on, so to read about people being trapped in the Neverland fortress make no sense to me, nor stories of Jackson staffers physically threatening the guests, nor rumors of smear campaigns and maligned hypnotists (well, he's only attached to the trial because he shares a publicist with Mike). About those I really do not care, nor will I seek more information. I did find one thing interesting: this former publicist has testified that she had a theory that Sony is actively seeking to let him destroy himself so that they will somehow get their music rights back--to the Beatles and his own and so on. It's an intriguing idea and no doubt merely the first of the new conspiracy theories surrounding famous black men and their trials. Or not.

I discovered that one of the companies with which we work to make our jeans (and other clothes) is also the owner of the Circle K chain of convenience stores. To discover that is to realize that I really don't know much at all about the companies with which we have dealings.

Then again I don't know much in general, particularly about the international community. According to a recent survey (sampled dubiously, mind you) over half of the Chinese people surveyed thought that the "the US is trying to contain the mainland's development" but even more than that "admired or accepted American culture". Just over ten percent considered the US government to be "friendly", citing concerns about US's attitude about Taiwan (and the weapons we apparently sell them) but also noting the war in Iraq being waged under false pretenses. Furthermore four of every five thought that the US and China could come to blows in the future solely because of the whole Taiwan issue. I honestly know very little about Taiwan, and would probably give pretty skewed and scattershot answers to a similar questionnaire given to me about us and China and Taiwan. And in other nearly meaningless metrics, some estimates peg the number of smokers in China at 350 million, which other estimates would indicate to be some thirty six percent of the population. This is also apparently one third the number of smokers in the entire world, according to other estimates. That is a lot of smokers, in any estimation.

China is almost an entirely different world altogether. Up front I must admit that I only got two hours into the Canton province on Tuesday, but I suspect what I saw is representative of much of the country, and I will be generalizing about all of the large country based on a very, very small chunk of one corner of it. China is under construction. All of it. Everywhere we went there were buildings being torn down and thrown up and lots being leveled and streets being paved and overpasses being built. It is a state of utter chaos.

There's a story on page A11 about the government attempting to clamp down on rampant illegal power plant construction. I don't know much about the law, but I think there should be far more involved in building a power plant as compared to, say, having a stall at night selling knockoff Prada and Rolex merchandise, but apparently several plants are underway at this very moment, recklessly so. Moreover they are "often irrespective of environmental procedures and without proper planning procedures." which is good to know, I suppose. Note that down, clandestine megawatters, that you should plan properly and be nice to the environment--not that the government seems to be doing anything of the sort.

And not that this is related to anything, but I need to remember that the "New Mail Notification" wav file that I prefer is ir_end.wav for that special 'woosh' that seems somehow nicer than the generic dings and bings and whatnot.

To have arrived in Hong Kong first, I now realize, gave me something to ease the transition from the red, white and blue to the Red. Hong Kong was different from that to which I am accustomed, and China doubly so.

Hong Kong is busy and runs at a breakneck pace, but there's an overall order (or at least sense) to everything. Not so with big brother China. The entire country is being simultaneously built up and torn down, oftentimes on the same lot. The people and the roads and everything is a chaotic mess, and I was doubly glad that I was in a chauffeured car with a seasoned driver and not behind the wheel myself nor in one of the buses that seemed far more susceptible to being caught in the gridlock. But on the way there traffic was relatively light on the highways and through the streets of Dong Guan.

Much of the scenery was realtively similar once we got past the border (rolling hills covered with trees, low buildings in bad shape, and tall skyscrapers, often all adjacent) so I was flipping through the paper on the way, and I came across my horoscope in both the Zodiac and Chinese systems.

First for Libra I found this:

You've had every right to be furious about the lack of support you're getting from those closest, but they could actually be doing you a favour. As you learn more you'll realise that you were being too optimistic, and their concerns were valid.

And for us Goats:

Don't indulge in rich food and neglect your usual high hygiene standard. You are likely to experience a health crisis which may stem from food poisoning. Likewise, you will need to keep a vigilant eye on your financial matters.

"a health crisis which may stem from food poisoning"? This is not the degree of specificity I usually expect from a newspaper horoscope, nor is this something I particularly want to be reading on my first trip into China, one that will include lunch.

It has come to my attention that I am apparently not the only Michael David Lietz publishing bad poems on the internet. I happened across poetry.com which, ever since I renamed one of my poems ("wet dream" being too racy a title, I guess) and sent it to them, hasn't let me go a week without some sort of mass email about a trophy or a book or a trip to Disney World. You know, for poets.

So anyway, I haven't sent them anything new in a number of years, but imagine my surprise when it was shown to me that I had apparently struck again, writing this poem without knowing it.

It's possible that there's a whole 'nother Lietz, M.D. running around out there however unlikely that may seem. It also does not help matters that my actual submission was done under the name "Mike D Lietz".

So it goes.

So I am left with this mystery: is there another me out there, or, more frighteningly, am I writing poems in some sort of amnesiac haze?

Who am I, anyway? Am I to be defined by what I do and have done, on a professional basis? Am I just a web designer or denim technology coordinator, formerly a computer network analyst? Breaking those down further, am I merely a troubleshooting problem-solver with a keen attention for detail? I don't think so.

I've never had a real business card. My status as an employee has never been so defined (or stable) to warrant such a thing, apparently, and I never take the time to push the right people or buttons. Long ago I considered printing my own through iPrint or Versa or any of a number of sites willing to run off a batch of them for me for the mere price of shipping and a big ad on the reverse side. Though I could do little with the default layouts that inevitably were provided, I had bigger, bolder plans for those things which I could control. Lacking at the time a title more official than "student" I thought instead that I would throw in some carefully-chosen adjectives like "curious" or "interested" or lesser-used ones such as "eccentric" in a tasteful font just below my name in letters with subtle serifs.

The address(es) to put below or to the right of all of this, of course, presented another sticking point. Was I to give my dorm address, which would be out of date well before I could have given out however many hundred cards? Or should I opt instead for my so-called permanent address where my parents (and my lava lamp and encyclopedias and model cars and so on) lived, though I was rarely there?

Anyway, I drove to Evanston this afternoon on my way to B-Fest. It was an uneventful trip, though I did take care to write down a couple things on my way. The first was "nameless creek 109" and that means that I can find the so-called "Nameless Creek" (with its accompaning sign proclaiming such) somewhere between milemarkers 110 and 109 on the Indiana side of U.S. 70 west. I've driven past it some eleven times at least, now, and I'd like to somehow get a shot of it (or rather have a passenger take such a shot) but until now I hadn't found where I'd, er, find it that closely. Perhaps for the return trip. At least now I've got it written down.

Likewise my scrawling of "Gas 240" which indicates the best exit on I-65 North to refuel before hitting Chicago (and its generally inflated gas prices) . This time around the best prices were here, and I was happy to find gallons for fifteen cents less than most places (and in fact far less than stations here in Evanston).

Evanston's changed, and at the same time it hasn't. I wandered into Saturday Audio Exchange (which is also open on Thursdays) and bought a cheap laserdisc about the Apollo program. They led me down into the depths of their labyrinthine basement to check their remaining crate of crap movies, but I had no further interest in any of them.

Not even The secret of my success, even for a mere five dollars.

I was killing time, anyway, looking for Ray. I have since been informed that he was twenty feet directly across the street from me the three times I rang his doorbell, digging his car out of the mounds of snow.

So it goes.

Enough of such mundane things. Tomorrow begins B-Fest, and I need to be rested for it.

Today as we were driving back from Jessica's Aunt & Uncle's place I was struck by something that I hadn't run across in quite some time: boredom. About two hours into the return trip I was completely and utterly bored of driving through northwest Ohio and thereabouts. The flooded roadways and fields and meadows and now-gigantic ponds just blended into the other lackluster scenery, all brown and dead and as devoid of life as they were of other things of interest.

Not helping matters was the fact that this was now the fourth time in eight days that I'd driven these flat and lonely roads. This time around most of the snow was gone and there weren't even any trains or deer or anything else to catch my attention. Most of the roadside stores were still closed, including the mechanic's shop with the sign about "managed by UFO enterprises" now abbreviated to just "UFO". Other sign zaniness that I passed at least four times would be the length of highway adopted by the H2O Church. I tried to look them up but only found some hip house of God based in Florida. The sort of place you can go to listen to Creed and their ilk.

I also noticed, every one of the eight times, that the Blanchard River crosses the highway twice.

Well, I suppose I noticed that seven times.

Moreover, Mobil or Speedway or whoever has painted the giant tank near Detroit that for so long was a baseball into a basketball. I'm not sure what to make of that.

Also, the photo La-Z-Boy on the north side of the Munroe La-Z-Boy sign is far too distorted, perspective-wise, to be "hip" or "edgy" and in fact it is just "cheesy".

Like I said... I was pretty bored. Which is strange for me, as I thought today. Lately I haven't gotten bored very often. There's always something, if not several things, between which I can choose, and it's not even the five channels with nothing on paradigm but several things I would like to do.

But when I'm driving three or four hours through the boring side of Ohio, well, my options get pretty limited.

So I went to New York City today for the first overnight visit on the company's tab.

It took me over a year to write about it, so I forgot most of it. This evening I'll bid farewell to a longtime co-worker, walk the completely wrong direction to my hotel, and then smell the sewers of Times Square. More tomorrow.

We got back from the vacation today, having had a nice spot of weather this morning (it rained all of Thursday) and little to do with it, and tonight we watched The Incredibles. It was, in a word, incredible. Despite the occasional moment where I was totally distracted by the technology (I remember noting that the ice guy's alter ego's leather jacket was amazingly rendered) I was pulled in completely otherwise. The visuals were stunning, and the "production design" insanely great. The home of "E" is magnificently styled but the whole movie reeks of some sixties dream of the future, except in a good way.

Oddly enough, I didn't find myself liking "Bounder" so much as previous shorts they've done. I find myself thinking that they threw that one in just for the kids, since this movie, despite what the audience may have thought (I was surrounded by two times if not three times as many children as adults) this was a movie for grownups. It's the reverse of the traditional (not necessarily animated) "family" movie that is aimed at the kids but throws in the occasional joke only the parents can understand, to make up for all the ones smacking them in the knees.

There wasn't a single fart joke that I could remember in the entire movie. There was however a lot of sophisticated humor and even some breathtaking action sequences that take the promise of the speeder bike chases from Return of the Jedi and makes them, sans Ewoks, into something I'd want to watch again. Fortunately the kids were having a blast, as the movie was more than a bit lengthy, but I was enthralled to the end (whereupon John Ratzenberger as "the Underminer" appears and attempts to steal the show). Being married and working in a job that has no need for my real talents brought nothing extra to the experience for me, of course.

In other Pixar notes, Cars doesn't look all that great from the teaser. I realize that it was little on which to go, but I don't think the reason we haven't seen a movie with slack-jawed yokel talking trucks is because nobody's thought of it yet.

As for their "competition", I maintain my opinion that Shrek and its ilk will never measure up to Pixar's work as long as they aim low with stale pop culture references and fart jokes. Shoot higher, guys, the audience you will lose (if any, gotta give people a little credit) won't remember you anyway.