Welcome to my Nightmares

Oct 29 - far beyond driven

talked to the wifey today for just under 20 minutes. She was asking me when I get to speak to an immigration overseer. She thinks I'm waiting for that, but I'm actually waiting for the damned "blue book" to arrive, then wait for an interview.

I told her I suspect that the Consulate in Hong Kong is taking their time just to spite me. They receive documents, but don't stamp them as 'received' for as long as they can. Why would they try to upset me, when I'll leave? And if the people in immigration don't realize this, but when my wife and I have 2 or more kids, whose army do they want them to join?

I used Songr to find Frank Turner's 'You are My Sunshine.' I'll up it to my wife tomorrow night.

"I'm gonna move to southern China...."





From the Casey Daily Dispatch
Here we see House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk (standing on far right) speaking while colleagues Rep. Barbara Lambert, D-Milford, and Rep. Jack F. Hennessy, D-Bridgeport, play Solitaire as the House convenes to vote on a new budget.

Also, you’ll notice the guy sitting in front of these two to the right is on Facebook and the guy behind Hennessy is checking out the baseball scores.

Oct 28 - 手机 shǒujī

I learned a new word. 手机 shǒu jī . My wife told me that yesterday our conversation got cut off the previous day because her shǒu jī ran out of power. And the text messages I sent her possibly got erased by her 'friends.'

Oct 27 - lots of English

talked to the wifey today. She used lots of English, I think so our biao.mei couldn't understand. I love it when she asks in her southern Chinese accent"So wut u doing?" She learned how to say the word bank but says it 'baaaa' so I have to correct her. She knows that's where she can get my money.

Oct 26 - welcome to my desktop - Zhounian Kuai le!

It's our 2 year anniversary today. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me on the status on my wife I'd be a millionaire. I gave the caf lady a copy of my appeal notice letter.

She bought a rice cooker. With English instructions so I can use it when I'm there and cook for us. Smart girl.

I was watching the Muay Thai champ in K-1 before and after talking.

hmmm

Saw this picture in an article about the Chinese buying up our Canadian Oil Sands, it made me think

new hukou

My wife got her hukou changed. It lists her marital status as married. Her employer is Century 21.

Oct 24, 25 - weekend 我快疯了

I went to my sister's and hung out with my mother there. My mother and my wife talked. My mother told her "Men are always big babies." She agreed.

She got her new hukou finally! She just has to wait for the new ID. Which will take a few months again.

Oct 23 - power off

talked to the wifey today - she went to the doctors for a chest X-ray. Her lung is ok. Then she started complaining about how our Thailand trip went. Then my phone battery died. :)

Oct 22 - geng mao

Talked to the wifey briefly (4:59 if I remember correctly), I noticed her voice was raspy, she's still sick. I need to tell her about eating chicken soup, vitamin C, zinc lozenges - the only things that doctors know that work empirically but not theoretically why. I also think that apples juice (vitamin C) and garlic work.

I just heard about "Happy Farms" an online game causing relationship havoc to people in China. Maybe I'll get my wife playing. She's so bored. Her friend YuánPíng 缘苹 plays Warcraft like a fiend.

Oct 21 - 坏了 huài le

talked to the wifey today - she was in a much better mood. She had to go buy a new rice cooker, hers broke. She says that whenever she is in a bad mood her stuff breaks 坏了 huài le. I still can't get over how much some stuff costs there, a top of the line rice cooker is like 2000 RMB she says, or $300.

I thought she knew I bought a new TV, she says if she makes it over here she wants to bring hers. And wants a TV in the bedroom, I told her I didn't want that as it ruins your sleep.

Oct 20 - !@#$!@#$!!!

talked to the wifey today - she is upset that she helped her friends out for two days, and doesn't think they appreciate it. Her lung is bothering her too she says, she is worried about being able to work. It really sucks with her stuck over there and I can't help her much or comfort her in person, thank you (F**K YOU) Government of Canada for being so slow. Where's my godamn appeal record?

Oct 18 - longer hair?

My wife is still visiting her friend.

I just got a haircut, she wants me to grow my hair longer, at least on top....[puke]

Oct 17 - Uncle lái le!!

My wife was going to go to Shenzhen but she needs to go during the week so she met 阿梅 in Zhangmutou then went to her place instead.

Hurricane Brandon kept saying "Uncle 来了!! Uncle 来了!!" Come here!

Oct 15 - briefly

We only talked briefly, she was contentedly making a cross stitch pillow for my friend. It was cold outside in the parking lot where I usually talk to her.



I wonder if could bungee jump from our balcony

Oct 14 - real estate and names

My wife wanted to see pictures of my sister's cat. She is surprised to see how big the cat is, they don't get that big in China.

Thanks to the gov't being so friggin' slow my wife is in limbo. She wants to return to work, but real estate there is slow, her friends are complaining. She wants to start her own store foremost, but would have to invest into it. Someone that actually wants to start a business and create jobs, the type of person a country needs no?

I taught her the word, 'more', she wrote it down. I also taught her Vietnam.

Améi 阿梅 - her friend's husband is in Vietnam.
YuánPíng 缘苹 - my wife is helping her buy a 'house' in Shenzhen. 365 sq. ft. for 95,000 CDN!!! wtf!!!

Random Thailand picture!!

Oct 12, 13 - huzhao has arrived

I talked to the wifey Monday morning. She had went to Shenzhen that day and met her friends. I had to leave to go to my sisters, she watched me do dishes (I turned the camera) then I had to show her my grocery lists on the fridge. In China if there's writing on the fridge it MUST be from a girlfriend saying something like "I love you" or something. But it was just my grocery list and calendar.

Then today Oct 13 she was mad because she actually woke up early so we could MSN when I was at my sister's so she could talk with my mom. I told her she should have called me. She spoke a lot of English, I don't know where she's learning but she's improving.

Oct 11 - morning

She hasn't worn that outfit in a long time. She's making cross stitch for my friend. A lot of Chinese girls like to do that sort of thing in their spare time.

I learned a new term, 能骗, 就骗 néng piàn jiù piàn, if you can trick them, then trick them.

China Part 2a from Glenn McElhose on Vimeo.

Oct 10 - late

She finally gave me the tracking number for my documents, and they've already arrived. f**K!!! She doesn't understand that I could use the tracking number, and the stupid post office only told her "the documents are in Canada." Chinese are inherently not accurate, it comes from their language.
Piss me off



I watched the Wrestler. I recommend you don't bother. My wife wants me to take her to a WWE event if she gets here. I call her sometimes and she's contently watching it on TV.

Oct 10 - morning

My wife can't understand why it's 7'C here and I'm wearing no shirt. She doesn't understand indoor heating.

She got mad because I had to cut out early to go to Muay Thai. I told her since she wasn't working she could get up early and we could MSN.



She didn't find this that funny. She didn't know the man was looking for the turkey.

random pictures

Cousin Tei'an!!! From back in Guizhou.



My wife at her parents' in the kitchen. Yes, that's what it is. But the best damned Chinese food I've had in the world (and I've been to 7 different provinces) comes from that kitchen. It's like eating a good hearty homemade hamburger...


When I found out my wife was in the hospital for her lung last summer I was in the good 'ole USofA so since we couldn't MSN as scheduled I couldn't sleep so I went out and checked Denny's. Always wanted to.

Oct 9 - Big Buddha Mountain

here's some pictures I took in Feb2008




talked to the wifey today - she went to what I call Big Buddha Mountain (Guan Yin Shan (Kuan Yin Mountain)). She went with our biao.mei (cousin) and boyfriend. She bought something for my mother but has to show me on MSN. I went with her once, it's a lot of steep walking to the top.

She wants to go back to work but has to wait for her huzhou to clear.

Oct 8 - who's the neat freak?

talked to the wife today. She told me that she cleaned for 7 hours. I remember cleaning with her once, I can believe it. And people think I'm a neat freak. I can clean my place in just over an hour if I do it all at once. People get kind of weirded out when your place is too clean though...

Paul Van Eeden says China is going to implode in 3 years. Crap. Maybe immigration will get around to my case by then....



I might have a Vanadium powered car by then.

Oct 7 - you one stoop

Asking the wife again where my docs are. Then she told me because I had sent them to her not express that "you one stoop" as in "Ni di yi stoop." I had to teach her "You are the most stupid." She makes me laugh when she gets angry and tries to use insults.

Oct 6 - "Four is four, ten is ten, 14 is 14, 40 is 40..."

"Four is four, ten is ten, 14 is 14, 40 is 40...", which pronounced in Chinese like "si shi si, shi shi shi, shisi shi shisi, sishi shi sishi," is a widely-known tongue twister in China

But my wife pronounces 4 and 10, and is all the same, dropping the h on 10. So only the tone changes. She was trying to teach me today and was laughing at me saying I was the same as little Brandon.

sì sì sí sì sì sí sì sì sí sì sì sí sì sì sí aaaaahhhhh.

Then I try to argue with her that she does not speak proper 普通话 Pǔtōnghuà, but of course she's in China and Chinese so I'm wrong. Then when I speak to other people in Shenzhen copying her 'Hey y'all' southern drawl they tell me I speak good Pǔtōnghuà. WTF. Well thank y'all very mutch!!

Oct 4, 5 - washing machine 有个好梦

Talked to the wifey, she's never used a dryer and couldn't understand that I had to hang/fold my clothes immediately after to avoid wrinkles. She always irons her clothes, and was wondering how my clothes when I arrive to China are so nicely creased. Then when she understood drying machines she got excited but told me she was going to go buy the best one (if she arrives) and I wasn't allowed to be there because of course I'd stop her from buying the biggest rip off and extended warranty.

Today I called her at work, the signal was bad so I called back. I asked her where my freakin' passport was. She didn't do much during the day.

I'm getting good at telling her yǒu gè hào mèng 有个好梦

washing the vegetables in washing machine...LOL...so very Chinese

Oct 4 - Mickey good, topless dancers bad

My wife likes Mickey Mouse. She went to Disney in Hong Kong.

She hates topless dancers. If we ever go somewhere and it's Girls Gone Wild and a girl takes her top off, I'm not allowed to look. I guess that means shows in Vegas are out.

I told her about the accident I witnessed last night.

Oct 3 - fertility meds

Talked to the wife today, she thought it was Friday, and wanted to talk on web cam, but forgot, and needs to top up her internet account (pay per use). I told her it was her problem she thought it was a different day, she ought to keep track better.

Then we talked about dogs (she wants one more than a cat), she could hear my landlord's dog barking which she thought was annoying - she said if it was during "that time of the month" she would get angry and give it to her father to eat. lol

Then she talked about how her friend is two months pregnant.......I wish she could get over here bloody soon, having a kid over there will complicate things.





Notice how the baby has a golden soother.

This is from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's 1966 essay "Gold and Economic Freedom"...he wasn't always a dumbass

But the opposition to the gold standard in any form-from a growing number of welfare-state advocates-was prompted by a much subtler insight: the realization that the gold standard is incompatible with chronic deficit spending (the hallmark of the welfare state). Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is effected by taxation. But the welfare statists were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale.

Thus, government deficit spending under a gold standard is severely limited. The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. They have created paper reserves in the form of government bonds which-through a complex series of steps-the banks accept in place of tangible assets and treat as if they were an actual deposit, i.e., as the equivalent of what was formerly a deposit of gold.

The law of supply and demand is not to be conned. As the supply of money (of claims) increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. Thus the earnings saved by the productive members of the society lose value in terms of goods. When the economy's books are finally balanced, one finds that this loss in value represents the goods purchased by the government for welfare or other purposes with the money proceeds of the government bonds financed by bank credit expansion.

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.

Oct 2 - more Ennglish

talked to the wifey today - we practiced more English, she was wondering why when after she asked "How are you" and I answered "Good....[pause]....How are you?" Why I didn't ask "and how are you?

I asked her where my hùzhào is, I need it to go to the US. I told her about my contact with the consultant and that I needed to wait more for the 'blue book' then she gave me some details of her immigration interview and how rudely she was treated.

When people ask me when she's coming over, I might something related to this...

Oct 1 - practice English

I practiced English with my wife today on the phone, she complained that she could understand audio tapes fine but not me. It might have been the phones and reception. I taught her 'just' and 'slow' but we made plans to clarify it on MSN.

The immigration consultant I'm using said I'd have to wait a bit more for the 'appeal record.'

From: ___________@hotmail.com
To: ______________@hotmail.com
Subject: Appeal
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 16:46:45 -0400


Dear 月鹰,

How are you!

I left messages to you today.

The lawyer's assistant told me that you will receive the record soon.

If you have any question, please feel free to contact me or the lawyer ____________'s assistant: _______123-456-7890 ext. 227.

Best regards!

Yours truly,

Nice Chinese Consultant