Iun

Attagirl, Cube.

I said "tits"

What's that phrase ....? Oh yes: "Tits or it didn't happen".

Wait, wait... Rez is a guy?

Absolutely. Yes, it's a loss of life, but she did this to herself.

I know, it makes you want to go to their houses and punch them in the face, really, really hard. Thankfully they are in the minority. The difference between this and Facebook however, is that the China Daily is part of the Party in China - they will allow nothing on their site that is personally objectionable to the Party. Anything else is fine.

Terrible. A few choice comments from the China Daily website on this news: "Mr Nobel Laureate 2011-07-23 14:56 zzZZzz Wrote 2011-07-23 14:15 "Very sad to see innocent lives lost like that." Innocent my foot. These are the people who wanted to destroy China by doing dirty Nobel politics. No sympathy for the enemies of China. They have received what they deserved. God himself has punished them. " And: "Candidature 2011-07-23 15:00 The persons who executed these attacks should be nominated and given the Nobel Peace Prize. Lets vote for them. He he he he..." As you can see, China sends her sympathies.

If we could absolutely screw the government over on property tax when we sell the house, then yes. If not, no. If you sell the house within five years of purchase, the government help themselves to 5% tax, if after that period, they get 2-3%. As it stands, we'd lose £10,000 to the Chinese Comedy Party. After having given them £5000 last year just for the privilege of buying the place. In the event that she can't get any kind of job, the first thing to go will be the car. Then the house. Meanwhile, the government keeps raising the reserve ration, which increases the mortgage by around £30 a month. All because rich people are buying all the houses and no-one else can afford one. My mortgage goes up, the property price goes down... people who own houses have to sell and can't afford to get back on the ladder. It's actually quite a dangerous path they're treading: disenfranchise the middle classes and you risk revolution. By the way, what happened with the hamster?

Reasons to love China #389: Mrs Iun, a highly commended and twice winner of Shanghai Teacher of the Year award was offered a job by an International School. More pay. More holidays. Chance to improve English and other skills for when we eventually move to the UK. No brainer, right? Wrong. Her "old school" the one she wants to leave, offered her the poition of "Senior Teacher" for the three government-owned schools in the group. No pay rise (government teachers only get payrises after they pass exams, which she has done all of) but a big increase in responsibilities, work hours etc. She turned it down, they were asking why - like they need to ask. They started exerting pressure on her so she spoke to her "best friend" about the new job she wanted to accept at the international school. The "best friend" is deputy principal of one of the schools in the group Mrs Iun currently works in. She gave her advice on how to handle it... ...then the next morning, this "best friend" calls the other school's principal and tells her that Madam wants to leave. Then a volcano erupted. Now, this old school in their fury, is refusing to give Mrs Iun the release letter she needs to work for the new school. If she tries to work for them without having the letter, the government can imprison her. But what's better than that? The old school has simply dropped her, refuses to pay her what she's already worked and now they are refusing to give her the release letter until six months have passed. Net result: Mrs Iun could be legally prevented from working for six months, she'll be blacklisted by the government schools oh, and her son will be prevented from going to his first and second choice schools, possibly any government school. Dark Ages, China... have you met?

She always came off as so wishy-washy and whiny to me.

Wow, I'm watching the Dog Whisperer right now, how apt!

They need to pick up more people to use as "chaff". Though I have to say, it was pretty obvious who was going to die or disappear last time - they got absolutely no exposure.

I have.... absolutely no idea. Whatsoever. I just play for fun occasionally.

Yet to get "in" to Torchwood. Mainly because I have uncomfortable thoughts about John Barrowman whenever he's on screen. Big, throbbing, uncomfortable thoughts.

I play, I'm a fair amateur. Friend of mine is the CEO of Magic Stone - a Taiwan Go company. Truth be told, I'm much better at Mahjong than Go. First time I played, I won 3000 RMB. I wasn't allowed to play with my boss after that.

I dislike political correctness. It's a dangerous line between calling a spade a spade and calling it a wood/metal-hybrid manual digging device. I was brought up in a world without too much political correctness, but a respect for different races and cultures. I used the "N" word once and my mother damn near beat me to death. Yep, she really hated nephrologists.

That's EXTREMELY good advice. That's how I learned to jet ski and the reason I moved to China. By the by, girls in China be muy muy lovin' de non-Chinese guys, so... anyone who is lonely should consider getting a job out here.

There's supposed to be some kind of sound-based technique that can smash them into smaller pieces. However, my understanding is that there's nowhere in Shanghai that can do it. Not to worry though, I'm so masculine and beefy that passing a jagged lump of rock-solid calcium through my tiny pee-hole doesn't scare me in the least.

Hands up all those who were hospitalised last night? *raises hand foppishly* Turns out the cause of the bleeding and sickness was kidney stones after all, but somehow the first hospital missed them. 10pm last night I was peeing like a novelty fish pond gnome, with a lovely burning sensation to boot. Then at 2am this morning I had the mother of all pains in my left flank, and despite my best efforts to control the pain with my Jedi-like self-discipline, after an hour I woke up Mrs Iun who called an ambulance. You would not BELIEVE this pain, it's supposed to be like the worst agny your body can endure next to childbirth: but I was so manly about it at the hospital, all the Chinese people were like "wow, look at that handsome, sexually appealing English guy in his Garfield Pajamas and cheap bamboo slippers...he's clearly some kind of Urban Commando in the way he's standing upright and enduring the most excruciating pain without saying a word." They gave me pain killers which last all of thirty minutes, thanks to my hyperactive liver, but luckily the pain subsided after about two hours. What had happened was that a stone that has been in my left kidney for the last four years had grown so big and dropped into my bladder, that was the cause of the horrific pain. Now I have to pass a 1cm stone throug an opening that, to the best of my knowledge, is about 4mm when fully dilated. I am so looking forward to that.

I did like a ... like a little song there. Y'know? And you just follow it up with...with that... Why didn't you just put a horses head in her bed and have done with it?

I played Resident Evil 5 for 'bout twenty minutes... TALK ABOUT TWO STEPS FORWARD, FIFTY-FIVE MILLION STEPS BACK. Jeez laweez. It's a simple concept: Zombies. Guns. Scares. How is it possible to suck all the fun out of that? HOW? Resident Evil 4 was The Tits. Do you hear me? THE TITS. But somehow, somewhere, someone let a god-damn COMEDIAN into the Capcom office who decided that the best way to capitalise on the success of the AWESOME Resident Evil 4 was to make the next game UTTER, UTTER SHIT. *slow hand clap* Nice. Work. Anyway, the movies: entertaining enough. Actually the cream of the crop of video game movies. Laser scene in the first one was pretty cool, but the movie needed Colin Salmon in it longer. Like, for the entire film.

It's Raining_Again, Hallelujah! It's Raining_Again, Her special day! Short, blonde, hot as hell, Real good fun and sexy smiiiiiiiiile... God Bless Mother Nature! She gave us an angel, She rearranged the sky! So that every heregone forumite Could see her sexy smiiiiiiiiiiiiile... IT'S RAINING_AGAIN, YEAH! Sorry, best I can manage on two hours sleep. *cough*

My sincerest condolences Captain Falcon.

Falcon Punch?

Ah... Too late! Nevertheless, happy birthday to my favourite fellow staffer!