Let's Burger Plus menu looks awesome. Decisions, decisions. Salami pizza burger or steak burger...? h/t @beijingboyce

  Some of our friends here have started an annual benefit event called China Prom, which is exactly what it sounds like.  For all of us Peter Pan style 20/30 somethings who are stuck in the past, we get to live out the nostalgia of yesteryear.  And raise some money for a good cause.

  The main cause this year was The Starfish Project, and since I totally believe in what they do, I decided to auction something off for the event.

  As you can see, I auctioned off a crazy hairstyle, which I have to wear around town for a week and a half.  Some other guy online in a green turtle-neck did this and I liked it so much that I made it a choice for the auction.  It was a pretty close race between what I like to call the Front to Back and Evan's personal suggestion from back in the fall: The Statue of Liberty.

  I asked Ingrid to help photoshop some samples of the different hairstyles, but I'll leave those to a different post.  For now, enjoy my double face.

All this week, I kept passing a funny sign hanging in front of a hotel.  I took M by it to take a picture this afternoon and it was gone.  I am forlorn.

It said:

"Warmly Welcome The Great Bustard Specialists"

Apparently, the Great Bustard is a bird species, so there's nothing wrong with the English.  I just think it's a funny sentence.

(In case you're wondering about the title, that's the sound I make for shooting things off.  If any of you have played Desktop Defender, it's pretty similar to some of the sounds for towers shooting.)

A belated happy Chinese New Year to all of you (or Spring Festival as it's known over here.  or just New Year, which would make sense, since they don't call it 'Chinese' food over here, just, well, food). I'm feline a bit tigered of all the tiger puns, but they're not nearly as bad as all the "Happy 牛(niu) year" jokes from last year.

The video backstories:
Our friend K, who lives in the next building over, threw a party for New Year's (since we'd be up anyway with all the fireworks going off), but since it didn't start until 8pm, M and I decided to take the plunge and make dumplings from scratch.  And since I was already halfway there with the dumplings and potstickers, I finally tried to make Xiao Long Bao (Soup Dumplings) from scratch too.  Both of which are deserving of their own post, so you'll have to wait to hear about how those turned out.

Our fireworks adventures from last year were sufficiently lacking in death and dismemberment that I still wanted to set off a few this year just to join in the revelry.  I paid $6 for a small box, exactly the same as one that we had set off last year.  Halfway through the New Year's party, a few of us (including DC, who has already posted an excellent write-up of the festivities over at BBQGrapies) headed downstairs and out onto the street right in front of K's 27th floor window.  We set off our friend Jeremy's $12 box (which happened to shoot just about 27 stories up) and were so pleased with ourselves, we decided to walk down to the fireworks store on the corner and buy some more.

After some haggling, we decided to get the same $12 box and a significantly larger $24 box.  Still feeling that giddy boyish thrill prompted by fire and explosion, we decided to stay in character and treat ourselves to Mcdonald's ice cream.

When we got back, M and CC broke away from a game of scattergories to come set off the small box we'd bought, at which point, our friend John decided to jump over it.  Needless to say, he was shot in the butt by a low-grade explosive, thankfully to no permanent harm.  Cue my hysterical giggling.

The next video is us shooting off the big box, which was actually really exciting to watch.  My favorite part of the whole experience is the bits of cardboard and ash that rain down into my hair.

Where I grew up in California, fireworks were banned, so I didn't have the privilege of doing all this as a kid.  I've got to say, other than the whole "Oops, we burned down a billion dollar hotel" fiasco, the odd firework for New Year's is a total blast.  At midnight, thousands of families around the city set off similar (and even bigger) fireworks, ostensibly to chase away evil spirits for the year. It was quite a sight to behold.

Surprisingly enough, we didn't have any trouble falling asleep, even with the explosions continuing late into the night and starting up again around 7am.  How's that for native street cred?

Earlier this week, M and I were running late, only to discover that the elevators in out building were broken. Mind you, we live on the 25th floor and were planning to scoot to our appointment. So we had to put the scooter away and run down the stairs (we're so out of shape that our legs were sore for days after).

When we got back that night, one of the elevators had been restored to working order. But the other had some strange pump sucking a brownish liquid out of the shaft.

The next night, the elevator was still broken, and they had this contraption going on.

We had a good laugh. But now that I think about it, I'll be entrusting my life to the efficacy of a hair-dryer on a fuse box the next time I step in that elevaor (which, of course, runs under the faulty assumption that the elevator will eventually be fixed).

Back when I was in high school, I had a girlfriend who used to have a daily cry with her mom.  When she told me about it, I remember being dumbfounded; at the time, I hadn't cried since I'd lost my pet turtle in elementary school.  On days when there wasn't anything particularly frustrating or sad to cry about, she and her mom would sit down together and think of something really sad until the tears started flowing.  The idea of it all--crying on command as cathartic relief, was beyond foreign to me.

But lately, I've started having a daily cry, and I've gotta tell you, it's fun.  I get my daily cry in every morning on the way to work, sometimes on the way back too.  Basically, it's been so cold and so windy, that riding into the wind on the scooter, my eyes have been watering profusely.  And even though it's not technically crying, there's a certain amount of relief that I get from climbing off the scooter with my eyes glistening, wind-dried tear streaks running down my face.

Maybe the Ex- wasn't so crazy after all.

The distant future.  The year 2009.

I know, I know.  This is super late, but since I'm playing around with this email posting service over at Posterous, I thought I'd attach a picture.  And what better way to implement social media innovation than through robots.

Definitely took some inspiration from:

and my late 80s, early 90s childhood.

call for desperate measures.  Trying out this new blogging service over at Posterous since we can't get on Blogger without our VPN on.