We have settled back into life in China and to celebrate our return, the powers that be attempted to throw a middle aged woman under my car on the Tianbei Highway yesterday. Luckily I was paying attention as she cycled casually and without looking, on a path that was to intersect the front grille of my jeep. I swerved around her and it was only then that she looked up and saw me pass by within a centimeter of her. I wonder if she realised that she almost died. I’m sure she wondered something, becuase she had a look of consternation on her face as she hopped off the bike in the middle of the busy road and watched me drive off into the haze.
I first came across the idea of only owning 100 things last year and it intrigued me. I wondered if I would be able to manage it or for that matter even come close and then I thought about books and the idea was ruined. It came up again the other day and it seems (after a bit of research and discussion*) that while many people are doing/have done it for the required year, each person makes their own rules and hardly anyone keeps to the letter of the 100 things law. The idea of including a library as one item struck me as revolutionary, but also as cheating; I could keep my books and still do the 100 things list. Socks and undies being seen as one item was just another string to my bow, it was starting to look like I could possibly participate and then with horror I realised…miniatures. I play two wargames and for one I would have something like 200 miniatures and the other I don’t even want to start thinking about how many WW2 Germans and Americans I have. It was then suggested that each range of minatures be counted as one list item and it was at that point that I might as well not even bother.
I think I probably could do the 100 things list if I really, really tried and was then forced at gun point to keep to it. My music is on my computer and I could join a library to read books. I hardly play war games anymore, I just like painting the figures these days and DVDs are something I just don’t buy anymore because the kids don’t let me watch them. Having said that, my life doesn’t depend on it so there is no incentive (other than it being an interesting idea) for me to do it.
I started making a list of all the things I would have in my 100 things and when I bundled books as one item and miniatures as another it was quite easy. However, I decided to have a look at the things I considered as essential** and see how I went with a top 20 non furniture related items. So here is my top 20:
Nope, no it isn’t, I got to about 30 and decided I was going crazy and stopped. I think my top few items are my laptop, speakers, woofer, camera, clock radio, bike, helmet and backpack. Those are the absolute must haves. I am curious what other people have as their few must haves are.
* This discussion was right up Alex’s alley.
** Definitions of essential my vary
It would have been a terrible thing if a team that blattantly cheated had won the world cup, so the Dutch have done everyone a service. I find it interesting that there is defence of Luis Suarez and his modern day hand of god*, but I wonder how many people outside of Uruguay would call it anything other than cheating.
*Although Maradonna’s hand of god was used in the opposite fashion, so maybe this should be called the hand of satan.
We arrive in Sydney on friday and will be home for about four and a half weeks. Hopefully we will catch up with everyone as we missed a lot of people at christmas time.
There was a water leak from a pipe under the front of the garden between our house and our neighbours house. When they dug it up and turned the water off, you would think that we would have no hot water, but you’d be wrong. The government supplies our hot water so it is a separate system to our cold water. It is made in a factory nearby and I like to imagine I know which one it is; its the one with all the steam coming out the top.
Here is a picture of the hole they dug to get at the pipe.
Everywhere I look there is talk about bad reffing decisions and I agree, this world cup has had some shocking decisions, but I don’t know if a video referee is the answer. Sure, a video ref might seem like the answer and at first it might prove a hit, but as more and more decisions are made away from the pitch, I believe it will snowball as refs feel they need to hand the decision over.
My personal answer is more referees on the pitch. Have the traditional referee stick to one half and another in the other half and they can cross over at the centre circle. Then at either end have an extra 18 yard box referee. I believe this is a better way of removing the cheating and poor decisions, without slowing the game down.
I wonder how I will feel after Australia get ripped off by bad reffing again tonight though.
There is an attitude here that I have been trying to understand for an entire year and I think now that I may have it worked out. I see it displayed on the roads, in markets and in manufactured goods and it is not a positive attitude. It is about getting ahead as fast as possible because there are no consequences. For way too long I thought it was “damn the consequences”, but honestly I see it now as a lack of understanding that there actually are consequences.
This morning there was a guy laying in the middle of the road next to his partially destroyed scooter, while a crowd, including the driver of the car that knocked him over looked on. I didn’t see the accident thank goodness*, so I can’t comment on his personal riding ability, but the fact that he wasn’t wearing a helmet leads me to assume he was riding like all the rest of the people here. I can just picture him zooming out into the traffic without looking and becoming a temporary hood ornament.
There is a T intersection near our compound where a road that skirts the canal joins the main road. Like the rest of the world, the main road users have right of way, but I never drive through there like I have right of way because far too often I have had to brake hard to avoid killing riders, smashing cars and being run over by trucks. The locals just drive round the corner and onto the road like it’s just a continuing part of the street in the form of a sharp bend. These days, more and more I am using alternate routes to avoid the chaos in certain places.
Dying on the road is an extreme consequence, but there are so many other examples of which I will give one that is just frustrating. A freeway can come to a standstill in Beijing without there having to have been an accident for everyone to rubberneck at. All you need is a freeway exit. If the exit is being used, requiring drivers to slow down and line up, instead people will drive down the breakdown lane and jam it up properly. Once it starts to jam up, people will use the next lane out to try and force their way in, which will stall the traffic in that lane and make people use the last remaining free lane. Eventually there will be people two lanes away from the exit trying to get across to use it and the whole freeway will be stopped. Three official lanes and the breakdown lane, all backed up because two or three people couldn’t wait 20 seconds in an orderly line.
*Alex says that the ancient Greek god of luck is too obscure to use here, but as an A** I want to move away from things like “Thank God” and “Bless you.”
**Alex thinks “A” is too obscure for “Athiest”
Alex thinks I am being wierd just for the sake of wierdness.
