ChuckDoherty.com

Oy, it has been forever since I updated this site.  I know, I know, that whole Facebook thing that all the kids are doing these days makes it so easy to shoot out a quick “I’m having grilled cheese!” status update, and I am as much an abuser of that as anyone. But that is so superficial.  I need to delve deep into my psyche, and here in the “$80 for a 50-minute session” zone of my blog I can ramble on far more eloquently then I ever could in a Facebook posting, or that a 140-character Tweet would allow.  Plus, I can airbrush the pictures better.

In any case, I have been spending the better part of the past few months looking for work and taking advantage of this involuntary downtime by putting some serious miles on the motorcycle.  This past weekend, Nurse N. and I rode to a BMW rally in the Poconos, where we froze our respective asses off while enjoying the countryside and camaraderie of kindred spirits. The rally was great, but ride home was dreadful with cold rain soaking us to the bone.

I am going to update this much more regularly in the near future, and share my pithy observations on the world with all who visit here.  God knows the Internet is sorely lacking for people giving their 2-cents worth on all manner of subjects, and I do not want to dissapoint, or miss out on my chance to speak my mind on every possible subject. 

Stand by.

Let’s be honest;  Asian women are the worst drivers on Earth.   It’s not a subjective observation, it is simply the way things are.  The Sun is 93 million miles from the Earth, cheetahs are the fastest land animal, and Asian women are terrible drivers. Basic facts.

I just returned from a quick trip to and from New Jersey on the motorcycle, and can make this claim with a great deal of conviction after almost meeting my maker several times at the hands of an Asian woman piloting an SUV.

Secondly, (and are you listening to me McDonalds?), if you offer drinks in two sizes, one of them (the bigger one) is large, and the other is considered small.  Saying “we don’t have small, we only have large and medium” makes no sense, so stop it right now.  You cannot have a medium  (look the word up) unless you have at least three sizes anyway, but that’s another matter.  

It does not matter if YOU choose to name your two size offerings ”Flapjack” and “Tuesday”, because the larger of the two is still “large”, and the smaller is still “small.”

From outside the Forbidden City

An illustration that is rarely seen on menus back home.

I knocked off early yesterday after just eight hours of work rather than the usual twelve and struck off for downtown Beijing to meet up with Lesley Lan, a friend who works at our downtown office, for a welcome break from hotel dining and a chance to enjoy a five-cent tour of central Beijing with someone who knows both the ropes and English.  

We started at the Da Dong Roast Duck Restaurant, which itself had been high on my list of places to visit.  The meal was extraordinary and like everything else around here, very reasonable.   Along with Peking duck and sauteed vegetables, we had and an interesting first course of lotus root with glutinated rice; a dish that rarely appears on the McDonald’s Extra Value Menu, though it should.

Lesley and I then ventured over to the Silk Market but arrived just before closing time.  The building is a warren of narrow corridors with small shops set up like booths along the sides of each. Imagine an overstocked and incoherently arranged flea-market cobbled together by the survivers of a nuclear war and you get some idea of the place.  The staff there are extremely aggressive and will literally grab you by the arm and pull you into their shop to pitch you on whatever they are offering.  We only had time to see a tiny sliver of the market last night but we did see was overwhelming.  Pretty much all of the brand-name goods in there there are knockoffs, varying in quality from somewhat convincing to; “that ain’t foolin’ nobody. Rorex??” 

I picked up an erzats North Face Summit jacket for 150RMB (about $21US) after some high drama negotiations getting the price down from the starting offer of 560RMB.   No sale is complete here unless it involves your walking away, them chasing you down the hall shouting “come back” while making three or four more counter-offers, and finally the salesperson moaning that he or she is losing money on the deal (hardly) even as they grudgingly agree to the final terms. 

After slipping on my new jacket and pulling it closed enough to cover my “Free Tibet!” T-shirt, we headed off in a cab to see the awesome Tienananaman Square.   Much more later.

My Web Photos

That’s some goooooood shrimphead!

The Andy Rooney of China