Hangzhou Lovin’

big news in iran

if it gets to a war look to bush to take credit for it

I’m off to xiamen, then after that to japan, so blogging will be light. Hopefuly I’ll have big juicy posts afterwords.

What do Gary hart, Paul Tsongas, Pat Buchanan, John Mcain and Edmund S. Muskie have in common?

They all won the New Hampshire primary. Don’t take this shit to seriously, it’s not as important as everbody says.

(and as for the Iowa caucus all I have to say is: fuck Iowa.)

(iowa actually isn’t that bad; it’s got kum and go’s and shazaams!)

Shostakovich is either the perfect music to be listening to when you waiste your whole day looking at a computer screen or the music that will make your life seem just that much more grey…

I’ve always had an interest in photogaphy, (I like looking at pretty pictures), but I’ve never really gotten into the actual process of taking them. Lately I’ve been checking out a lot of Photo blogs, there’s something poetic in the way the pictures present themselves. Each one preseting it’s own unexpected slice of life.

I like this one

and of course zboy

though i find this guy a little pretentious

The problem i’ve always had with photography is that you need to get up in peoples faces a lot of times to get intersting shots, maybe I should just get a good telephoto lens.

I’m certainly not the biggest fan of clinton’s but compared to Bush’s scandals, a little felatio got way to much attention.

“WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 — A special prosecutor has begun presenting evidence to a grand jury about the improper disclosure of an undercover C.I.A. officer’s identity and has advised several people who have been employed at the White House that they could be summoned to testify, senior officials said on Friday…

Mr. Fitzgerald’s use of the grand jury could prove awkward for the White House, which has sought to control the damage over accusations that unidentified administration officials leaked the name of the C.I.A. operative, Valerie Plame, in retaliation for her husband’s public criticism of President Bush’s policies on Iraq last summer. This week, a group of former intelligence officers pressed Congressional leaders to open a separate review into the case because they were concerned that the Justice Department was not moving quickly enough. ”

OK, So greg thinks he’s so great with his bar review of Nan Shang lu, (the shittiest lu in town), But I got a review of the hottest strezzit around YO!

Zhou Shan Dong Lu 舟山东路！！！

Plus I got a picture that you can use for reference below.

First a little history about Zhou Shan Dong Lu; Zhou (舟) means boat, ship and amritime vessel, Shan (山) means mountain (duh). So together they mean boat mountain (AND a kick ass city)

On to the picture. The first thing you will notice is the large green area labeled 木人 or “tree people.” This is the dark side of Zhou shan, it is the unvirstiy that wants to be a rival to ZUCC. I am informed that there name actually means book people, but i find this hard to believe since none of them can read, plus they are a bunch tree hugging dope usimng no good punks, so tree people is a good name (but their women are HOT!).

At the bottom in heroic yellow you see ZUCC, where we all fight and die under the banner of Zook, the avenging eagle. (which has nothing to do national socialism)

Aight, onto the bars! On the map, the big street going from left to right is Zhou Shan proper, the little streets to the sides don’t have names, (at least none that I care about.) So a night out will start with us leaving the gate located on the left side of the Zucc campus we go up then turn right, quickly turn left until we get to “Zero dispense” (shrewd readers will note that this is also the name of my compatriot John B’s site. coincidence?)

Zero dispense is your classic chinese hole in the wall. It was a refined atmosphere which is a nice break from the typical gaudiness and 热闹 of your typical chinese bar. (most bars on Zhou Shan lack the extravagence typical of chinese bars, which is a big selling point, I’m not sure why this is, probably because they don’t have the funds to go all out). Despite it’s plus’s I find Zero dispense a bit boring. It dosn’t have the Charm of roof top or the intersting people at wave vibration. We end up going there a lot because it is so close. beers are the standard 5 kuai a bottle for some of the weakest chinse beers you can get (You want to drink something else? forget it, Zhou shan is a beer drinkers street, the only other things you can get at bars are shitty sweet red wine or the 500 kaui bottle of Remy VSOP that somehow made it on the self).

Rating: **1/2 (out of 5)

Next we head over to Man’s Pub. Well actually we never go there. I have a found spot in my heart because I had a little crush on the owner of the place, a twenty 2 year old girl strangely named Man. I actually think this place has a lot of potential, the two owners, man and another girl, are pretty cool and good people to practice chinise with. Plus the atmosphere is laid back and there is lot’s of intersting art on the wall. The major problem is that it is usually filled with chinese dudes singing Korakee love songs to each other. Now that I have a wonderfully intelligent and gorgeous girlfriend I rarely have time to go to Man’s pub, but it isn’t a bad place to practice your chinese on a rainy day.

Rating: *1/2

I note that there is a street missing from my otherwise completely accurate map. Rooftap and Disco disco are actually on the same block, there should be a street between them and man’s pub, OOPS.

Ahh, the crown jewel, Rooftop is bar far the best bar on Zhou Shang and may be the best bar in all of Hang Zhou. First of all it’s on top of an hour hotel. This isn’t quite as sleazy as an hour hotel in the states, (presumably used mainly for prostitutes and dope heads), this hour hotel is mainly used by students looking for a hook up. The hotel fills te need of students for a place of privacy, seeing as how they are rarely alone in their four students to a room dorm rooms, (ZUCC kids have it easy at my old school it was 6-8 kids in a room). So when you go to rooftop, you have the bonus feature of a chance of catching your students checking into the hotel to do the nasty! A source of endless amusement.

The bar itself has the best atmosphere of any bar in China. It’s on a rooftop, (hence the name), meaning that it is usually the coolest place around and the extremly loud and shitty music you find at most chinese bars will float away. Plus the owner of the place is a super cool guy who likes fake nikes and will let you play any music you want. Most of the staff is college girls who are very friendly and like to practice their english without being annoying. Besides being a perfect place to have a cheap beer, it is a perfect place for parties. you just tell the lao ban when you want one and he will oblige by getting extra beer that day. Plus he even lets you pring your own booze and he has two fire pits to get cut the cold of fall or spring.

The only problem I see with rooftop is that it is a three season br, it’s simply to cold in hangzhou to go to an outdoor bar in winter (it’s snowing right now). But god dosn’t give us everythng

Rating *********1/2

Next we would probably feel like dancing and head over to Disco disco, the local dance club. This place plays damn shitty chinese trance music, but it can be entertaining nonetheless. Unlike some of the more hip disco’s in town, where you have western dudes whitting on chinese whores, here you have chinese businessmen hitting on chinese whores. But everybody here is friendly and comoningly someone will ask you to have a drink with you just cause of your white face. plus if you all crunked up it’s fun to dance around the bouncing dance floor. Besides the shite music, this palce sucks because they close at 12 and it’s rather expensive for Zhou Shan

rating ***

Last is Wave Vibration (or vibration wave according to some people), This is my second favorite bar on Zhou Shan. It’s got the cheapest beers, 5 for twenty kaui, and it’s a lively place. The owner is a delightful 30 year old women who will patiently listen to your bad chinese and is actually intersting to talk to. the bar has a tiny little dance floor, which a group of 4 can easily take over and start getting their freak on, plus it is the bar that is always open th latest, while the play soft as a baby kitten porn on T.V. Thankfully, it also lacks any karokee capacity. They are also very generous with free food, you usually get a plate of gua zi, fuzzy beans and a plate of fruit all for free. The drawbacks are of course the shitty music and occasionally annoying chinese people will get drunk and be bothersome.

rating ****

Those are the major bars in te Zhou shan area, but as you can see my map has so much more info! The stars represent other shittier bars. The * with the arrow pointing up, is pointing to 2 bars. One is a horrible KTV place and the other is a small bar similar ot zero dispense but with a pall of failure and dispare hanging over the place. The ** is a new bar that i havn’t been to but has a nbig KTV sign out front so it probably sucks.

The cross at the bottom of the picture representrs the chruch, which i have never gotten around to going to but would like to check it out. it’s got a cool neon cross.

The sickle and star represent the local muslim la mian noodle restuarant, which makes some bomb ass homemade noodles that i could eat everyday and die a happy man.

The !’s repersent street food, which zhou shan dong lu is particularly rich in, but they desrve a post in themselves…

Bush’s Push for Marriage Falls Short for Conservatives

“One of President Bush’s longtime friends from Texas, Charles Francis, now heads the Republican Unity Coalition. At his inauguration, he sat near Mary Cheney, daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, and her female partner.

Ms. Cheney is now director of vice-presidential operations in the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.

In a debate in the 2000 campaign, Mr. Cheney spoke sympathetically of same-sex civil unions. “It’s really no one else’s business in terms of trying to regulate or prohibit behavior in that regard,” he said. Last week, however, Mr. Cheney told The Denver Post that he would back any decision President Bush made on the question of an amendment.”

Maybe it’s time for a little trolling on some conservative sites…

We are ruled by some sick fucks

extraordinary rendition

“Our intelligence agencies have a name for this torture-by-proxy. They call it “extraordinary rendition.” As one intelligence official explained: “We don’t kick the s — out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the s — out of them.”

This secret program for torturing suspects has been authorized, if that is the right word for it, by a secret presidential finding. Where the president gets the authority to have anyone tortured has never been explained.

It is time someone asked. What our government did to Maher Arar is worse than anything the British did to our Colonial forefathers. It was worse than anything J. Edgar Hoover did to alleged Communists, civil rights workers and anti-war activists during his long program of dirty tricks.

According to the Bush administration, we are at “war” with al Qaeda. If so, then delivering a suspect to torturers is a war crime and should be prosecuted as such. But first, we need to know who was responsible, and that will not be easy — unless there is a firestorm of protest.

Isn’t it time to condemn torture by proxy and demand prosecution of the persons responsible? Isn’t it time to question how these watch lists are assembled and used, before more of us fall victim to secret detentions and brutal interrogations based on guilt by computerized associations?”

I really can’t believe how destructive the Bush admnistration is.

Here is a plan to make all emergency declarations go through the white house office of Manegment and Budget. this is because some of the agencies don’t have a strong enough peer review standards. So the solution to that problem is to let the comletely unscientific and politically accountable Office of manegment and Budget to decide what is important to knowledge for the public to have. This will be a good way to get rid of fears about mad cow, out of sight out of mind…

And Bush’s new immigration proposal sucks. It creates a new class of second class citizens, who are beholden to their employers for their right to be here. Plus what happens if they have children here? Their children will be american citizens who we force to move back to Mexico? It’s a shitty plan.