Bad day(s)
I've kind of had an off week. While coming back to China has been great in many ways, there have been a lot of peripheral issues and noise that really beat me down the last few days, some of them the usual minor annoyances, and some of them the more sweeping, unresolvable issues that my mind tends to dwell on when it's been beat down by the minor annoyances to a sort of angsty critical mass.
First: fuck you, Facebook. Seriously. You're kind of a handy way to keep track of some of my friends. I'm in China, which blocks it, but I have fairly decent access to my own server to use as a proxy for access.
So I deal with the slow access, the ads, the suggestions that I "reconnect" with people who only added me to increment their friend count, and the nonstop status updates from those same people.
But when I get a Facebook message from a (real) friend in my Gmail inbox, and instead of being able to reply from there you force me to load your goddamn home page and click through two more screens in order to reply, that's when I get irritated. I understand you're hungry for page views, but making me jump through hoops is not the way to keep me coming back.
So, Han: I liked the USP's style and handling better; the Glocks just looked and felt boxy and kind of… rattly. Hard to describe, just a general impression. I didn't have much time with any of the models, really. And just use Gmail from now on, please.
Second, more and more I just get the feeling that China, as a political entity, just plain doesn't like me.
It's no secret now that I'm thinking about buying a piece of property near Shanghai. I'd be more excited/optimistic about it if they weren't making it so goddamn hard. There are extra restrictions in place for purchasing property if you're a foreigner, new taxes being put in place, and I've been told it absolutely won't help me get better visas down the road.
Apparently the property and sales managers have limited English, and even though I can communicate pretty well in Chinese at this point, I want to be absolutely crystal clear on all fronts if I'm going to be blowing my life savings on a piece of property in a country that doesn't seem to be very fond of me, especially if I may have to rely on the political/legal institutions of that same country for conflict resolution. And this isn't just my personal impression here, I'm getting this all of my Chinese friends here.
Basically the reaction has been along the lines of: "Whew… it was an enormous pain in the ass for ME to buy a house, I'm surprised you have the balls to go through with it."
Third, it is also no secret that work is getting harder to find, and that goes just the same for me. I'm at the point where I'm trawling online classifieds to pick up contacts and contracts, and networking as best I can over here. It's a little encouraging to see that there are contracts floating around out there, but likewise depressing to see that (1) People want much more for much less these days, and (2) even when I'm willing to knuckle down and do the work -- which is any time I feel I could execute the project -- I'm competing with developers and development groups from places like India, who will work for much, much less than I can.
This is fine, and that's their competitive edge. In this environment, and with that kind of competition, I can only really compete on service. This has not, at least for the past week, held much appeal for potential clients when the alternative is outsourcing the job to someone with poor language skills who might get the job done for a tenth of the price.
So we'll see how that goes.
I'm pretty confident I can drum up enough work to keep me going for a little while, but it is growing increasingly clear to me that my market viability is waning pretty quickly. I'm therefore -- as always, and just like everyone else -- looking at my options, while trying to make a real go of this at the same time.
Fourth, don't do "real" business with friends. This was a pretty clear cut rule with me, and it's not like I hadn't heard it before, but I bent/broke it once because I liked the potential project and the partner.
It's coming back to bite me in the ass now, so I've renewed my determination to only trade my labor to friends who want it, like for baked goods and favors. After all, in the shitstorm formerly known as our global economy, returning to a barter economy makes as much sense as anything else.
Fifth, I lost my e-reader. Sniff. I really loved that thing. Now the only thing I can do while on the can is pick locks, which is really more of a visceral activity, and doesn't have any of the intellectual or emotional appeal.
Sixth, my ISP decided to move my site to another server without any notification, so access to my site and email has been crappy for the past couple of days, and my gallery may be broken to the extent I have to just scrap the whole damn thing and start over… won't know until the DNS propagates this way.
So I'm on a train to Shanghai tomorrow, where every cheap hotel room is booked because of the World Expo! At the very least, being on the move may help me get rid of some of this mental baggage.
June 8th, 2010 - 21:02
Heh, I use facebook because it’s faster to communicate with a bunch of people at the same time. (Not talking about that damn wall…i can use PM quickly.) My email checking track record is pretty shitty these days (i didn’t set up all of my email accounts on the phone because __insert excuse here__). And I usually end up not checking it at home. Yeah, it’s bat-shit insane. What can I say. There is an irony here somewhere but I’m too tired to care. Plus, when you’re checking facebook through the so-called smart phone, I sometimes forget that some of your posts are via blog instead of straight up “wall” feature. FFS, this is getting waaay too complicated. I’m going to switch to traditional USPS mail pretty soon and throw all this crap away.
In any case, thanks for the reply. I’m trying to keep sane by talking/wondering about shit outside of my current line of work. I keep forgetting I used to have other interests. That’s why your lock picking hobby is interesting to me. I even talked about religion a little bit with some co-workers. heh.
So just for fun, I’ve been reading through the posts by fanboy/insane gun-nuts on the interweb regarding both sidearms. And you’re absolutely right about the personal preference part. What intrigues me is the new 4th generation 23c that is supposedly coming out next month. People online have been saying that the 3rd gen 23c is an almost perfect weapon. People are wondering how they could improve that previous gen. HK usp seems like a more “premium” weapon to me, almost like a Cartier watch. I can’t justify this in any way but it’s the feeling I get. it’s as though rich/trustfund gun-nuts love HK but glock fanboys swear by their gun. In any case, I wish you were around so I can try out some of this shit in real life and discuss the engineering.
Sorry to hear about your ereader dude. If it make you feel any better, my monitor died/exploded on me today.
June 9th, 2010 - 13:24
Sorry dude, hope things look up for you soon.
June 10th, 2010 - 08:41
Thanks John.
And Han, that does make me feel better. Muahaha.
I had that exact mindset when I was working in an office; I needed intellectual exercises to keep myself from going insane and/or stupid. Enter the GRE and LSAT, and the carbonator, and I researched stuff just like you’re doing. Fun stuff.
I think you’re finding out what I did… there are a lot of Glock fanboys. That kind of bothers me, because as you know I’m skeptical of brands with cult followings.
My general impression of Glocks are that they’re like the AK of handguns… cheap, functional, and will fire in situations where a lot of others won’t. There’s some video out there where some guy sticks one in a muddy pit, pulls it out, and shoots it a few times.
The reason they have such a big following is specifically because they have that reputation for being reliable. Gun guys have a mindset where if it won’t work everywhere, it doesn’t really work anywhere.
In the end for me it was about ergonomics; the Glock and USP were both too chubby in the grip — and you can’t blame the magazine, they were all 9mm — so I went with the P99.
I won’t deny that part of the reason I liked the USP was just because it’s HK. But then again, I liked the Beretta better than either the HK or Glocks.
You should start reading knife forums too; they are equally crazy as gun people… and there’s usually enough overlap to get a taste of both in the same forum. Surfing EDCForums, it was something of a revelation to discover there are non-military/police out there who carry like three knives and two guns around with them every day.
June 11th, 2010 - 12:09
The conceal and carry fuckers are absolutely batshit crazy dude. They keep saying, “well, whenever I go to the grocery store, I carry my usp compact in a holster and a glock 36 on my ankle.” Seriously?!?!?!? Are you absolutely fucking kidding me? What kind of encounter are you expecting? These fools are like a bunch of little kids trying to play “cops and robbers” in real life. It’s insane! When these fuckers talk about “stopping power” and “car wash” in the same sentence, it makes me want to shoot them in their stupid faces with a sig p230. I’m not saying conceal and carry is necessarily bad, but 99% of the scenarios that these people are in do not require a weapon.
“Hey, I’m going to a baby shower this weekend, should I bring my p99 or just pack an ak 74 in my man purse?”
Really?!!?
Oh, and yeah, my streak of electronic parts blowing up/smoking continues. There must be a technology god and he/she hates me. (Is it Steve Jobs?…that fucking cunt).
Oh, and the cellphone companies here are switching their data plan scheme to capped tier system again. This is total fucking bullshit of epic proportions. ATT has a 2 gig cap or some shit at the high end. And this is starting with the new iphone with VIDEO chat capabilities. I really hate them. I really do. I don’t care if they have to raise the monthly fee for unlimited ffs, just don’t get rid of it. These assholes…
June 16th, 2010 - 22:07
I guess I should remind you that the comments here get posted to the FB thread, so… public forum warning etc. Just in case. I think I can disable that though, let me know if you’d rather I did.
Concealed carry guys are kinda scary, but I guess it’s just the Boy Scout credo carried out to the full.
I guess I shouldn’t be critical; if you include my “man purse” I normally carry around two knives, a set of lockpicks, key extractors, two LED lights and a waterproof compass with me everyday. It’s not like I have to strap on fifteen holsters for my derringers every time I go to the supermarket, but it is kinda overkill. And when I did have my P99 — not that I had a CCW permit anyway — unless I was cleaning it, it was trigger locked, unloaded, and locked in the safe unless I was actually standing at the loading bench at the range ready to put rounds in it. In the end it just felt too creepy having it around. Lost $150 or so on that deal, but I learned a few useful things.
What blew up this time? And tiered data caps are here to stay, man. I’d expect to see it on your cable/dsl connection pretty soon too. Pretty sure the UK and Canada already has it, maybe some companies in the US too.
I also think it’s pretty funny how the iphone with video is a big deal.
June 11th, 2010 - 12:20
HAHA, I love this stuff.
June 11th, 2010 - 14:25
Heheh, blind rage is always fun (and funny) to read, isn’t it?