I’m goin’ to Lanzhou tonight at 8pm. I hear that it’s really polluted, as it’s an industrial city which is nestled in a valley. Apparently it’s about 20km long and runs along a river, but I’m not sure which one. Leyla mentioned that I should get some hand-picked noodles while I’m there, whatever that means. I come back on the 9th and I’m going alone, instead of with Human like I originally thought I would. Sounds like a fun adventure. I’ll bring my backpack, a change of clothes, CD’s, and my camera.
Gutter sent me a copy of the new Jazz Addix album last night, called Oxygen. It’s awesome – so much more than I thought it’d be. I expected a DJ mix CD along the lines of the Trooperz mixes, but this is a full blown album of original material. Really high production values. The third tune on the album with a KRS-1 intro is my favorite, fantastic atmospherics. The album sells for $10 but Ragz was cool enough to hook up a copy for me, so Gutter put it on his server for me to download.
I’m on probation on Something Awful for creating a post “that had no content”. I was the 3rd person to say “Great thread, voted 5” in an MSPaint thread, and the only one who got probation. The SA mod/nazi circumstance is so unfortunate.
I found a new favorite Chinese food, which is actually really typical and traditional. Now whenever I go somewhere I see if they have jow-tdse, which is fucked up pinyin, but means dumplings. They’re really delicious and cheap. Yesterday I went with Dingding to her parents house in some other city 20 miles from Chengdu. Of course they couldn’t speak any English so I attempted to speak broken Chinese to them, with a fair level of “look, he’s trying!” success. Had some great food which I definitely coudn’t identify, though.
Matt and Brady tried to buy some bud the other day while I was with them. Apparently Dingding knows some mafia guys who have some to sell, so they came by the club to drop it off after Matt and Brady had transferred the money to them (which was 800 kuai for ann ounce – exactly $100 US). As soon as they got it, it was wrapped in a napkin, and Brady help it up to my nose and was like “YEEEAH!!”. I took a whiff and was like WTF is that, it smells like potpurri. Get in the car, open the napkin, they bought two bags of scented sawdust with some kind of herb in it. They were in such a state of disbelief that they insisted I roll a joint so they could try it. I did, and they did, and then everyone knew the truth. They couldn’t get their money back, but an important lesson was to be learned: never purchase illicit materials without verifying them beforehand.
I watched Taxi 2 last night, another French film by Luc Besson. Pretty great, it actually didn’t fall into the sequel trap, but it had the added benefit of the full cast from the original returning. I read that Luc Besson was married to Milla Jovovich. That lucky motherfucker. And I also learned that Milla is fluent in Serbian, Russian, French, and English. Pretty impressive considering she could be nearly lobotimized and I’d probably still bone her.
I’m reading about Thailand on The Thorn Tree and really dying to go. I’ll save some cash and go for a month, hopefully this summer. Maybe if I write this down it’ll really happen.
Currently listening to: Jazz Addix – Oxygen