sushipanda

My love affair with Marion Cottillard continues:

• There is no logical reason why Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory" should be stuck in my head all morning. #

• anyone have a google voice invite for me? pretty please? #
• Watching "The Blind Side" now. It's really really awful. The little kid is the worst. #

• Watching "Nine." Movie's kind of a mess, but Marion Cotillard is beautiful as usual #
• RT @thesulk: Just replace the 'b' with an 'f' next time you order a baguette. Cut out the middle man. #
• Just got out of gym, sitting outside Citic Plaza trying to cool down. Steam coming up from head in the cold. People are staring. #
• @Jane_Paris no bangs, no bangs, no bangs, no bangs #
• ICBC rejected our withdrawal slip cuz my assistant wrote "万" slightly wrong. F**king ICBC jerks. #
• 3rd gym visit in 4 days. How come I don't look like Ryan Reynolds yet? He's so dreamy #
• @peijinc where are you watching all these interviews? I'm a huge James Lipton fan. in reply to peijinc #
• @Jane_Paris that can't be a true story. that's too awesome in reply to Jane_Paris #
• RT @CtripEnglish Win a FREE night of luxury at the Shanghai Four Seasons! 5 winners every week! Just RT to enter! http://kl.am/7CZM #
• @meannie sushipanda's right here! in reply to meannie #
• RT @CtripEnglish: Win a FREE night of luxury at the Shanghai Four Seasons! 5 winners every week! Just RT to enter! http://kl.am/7xxW #
• @peijinc 应该是到处都讨厌吧! 除了在 Twitter 上能看懂我们写的那些. in reply to peijinc #
• @galexkeene There's an all you can eat place called 和味 on Changle Lu. Decent, cheap (118 RMB). http://bit.ly/dho6l4 in reply to galexkeene #
• @sueannetay of course, it's a great site, will promote it on mine too. When are you going to show me some tasty Pudong finds? I'm waiting… in reply to sueannetay #
• None of us are invincible. St. Cavish reports that tonight will be the last night for the Vargas Grill: http://bit.ly/aEzrja #
• @meannie you, my dear, are EVERYWHERE! in reply to meannie #

The weather in Shanghai has been pretty nice of late, so I took out the old Panda Cycle for my commute to work this morning. After more than a couple of months of idleness, she was a bit flat on her heels and dirty as hell (just the way I like ‘em, har har). Thankfully, there are a ton of indie bike service stations just sort of around. So today, a gave my girl a little morning bike loving.

Me: Hey Clint, the vendor that —- asked us to work with is from a company called Dragons of Tit.

Clint: What? Ha Ha.

(minutes later)

Me: Well, I thought it was Dragons of Tit. Then I checked the website and it’s Dragonsoft IT. Lame. Dragons of Tit is a way better name.

Clint: You’re immature.

Me: And you only know this now?

Clint: You should refer to them as Dragons of Tit when we have that conference call tomorrow.

Me: I already e-mailed them telling them I’m looking forward to talking to Dragons of Tit.

This is what I had for breakfast today, around the corner from my office. She starts off by slathering wheat dough on her gas powered griddle, then smoothing it out and letting it crisp. In the meantime, she cracks an egg and spreads that out as well. She then tosses on some chives and green onions, evens everything out, and folds the now pancake over before applying some tangy sauce and dropping in a crispy dough cake. Not half bad. Total for one = 2.5 RMB ( about 35 cents USD).

From early 2004 through mid 2005, Chace and Keith were furious consumers of Shanghai’s cheap and unending decadent swill. They were, of course, stars of this blog during the early years, mainly because they were my primary accomplices in plowing through my beloved city’s heady nightlife. Then, Keith moved back to Vancouver and settled down. Although Chace and Mike and I tried to keep it going, we could never really match the tempo that we had when Keith was here. I think party it was because the city was so new to all of us; we had yet to have the smell of it really embed itself into our clothes and hair back then. Keith was Clark to Chace’s Lewis (Mike was more like Sacagawea), and we all explored ever dirty facet of Shanghai until we couldn’t breathe…and Bi Feng Tang stopped serving pineapple buns. Then Chace left last year, and it was all over. No one in my remaining circle would ever leave a club and urinate over a vomiting patron. I missed that.

So it was with great excitement (and a bit of trepidation) that I returned to San Francisco two weekends ago to celebrate our friend Steve’s wedding, an event that both Keith and Chace had committed to not only to honor the happy couple, but to bring back yesteryear. Plans were made, deals were struck, schedules were worked out. And at the end of the day, all of it was thrown out the window when the drinks appeared in front of them. I had some wedding party duties to attend to, and had to implore the darling Cathy Mar (recent returnee to the Bay Area) to host my out of town friends while I attended rehearsal dinner.

Me (at 5:30 pm): I’ll be up there as soon as I can, probably around 10 pm.
Cathy: Sure, no problem, I’ll find somewhere to take them them for dinner and we’ll meet up at a bar afterwards.
Me: Yes, don’t start drinking until I get up there.

And so it was, that at 7 pm I get the following text message from Cathy: “Your boys are so drunk.”

Of course they were. I should have known better. I scrambled out of the restaurant and took the BART up to the city knowing that in short order, glasses would be shattered against the San Francisco pavement, undershirts would be ripped off and thrown at pedestrians, and worst of all, I would not be there to witness it. I had to see the old magic, I just had to be there.

And when I did see them again, trudging up the slick and rainy slopes of SF toward Chinatown, of all places, for a drunken midnight snack, my heart was briefly at home again. Although both of them are now engaged to separate human beings, wonderful women nonetheless incapable of appreciating the sheer pathos of Chace and Keith’s separation, their reunion forged something breathlessly magical. See for yourselves, their path to regal glory:

• I just logged into Friendster for the first time in two years. Coochie cobwebs everywhere. I feel so last decade. #
• @cmar55 YES! Happened to me in LA. I also got way fatter, but that can't be the reason I'm bulging out of my clothes! in reply to cmar55 #
• @cmar55 why so silent these days? Not even sparring on Words with Friends! What gives? You ok? Come back! in reply to cmar55 #
• @ling8 14 and a half hours, actually. Turns out that windspeed varies season by season, so winter in that direction = slow! in reply to ling8 #
• @hooterrific it's your honeymoon, you're not supposed to get any sleep anyway! in reply to hooterrific #
• Best news of the day so far: no one at my gym is picking up the phone. Guess I just have to chill out here… #
• man this logitech touch pro iphone app is pretty sweet. controlling my laptop with my iphone for free, no vnc required #
• @peijinc the cats at le Petit Jardin are always asleep when I'm there. Maybe because I smell like panda. in reply to peijinc #
• everywhere I go is cold. This must be a metaphor for something, just need to figure it out #
• Back home in shanghai. Thought all the annoying firecrackers would be over by now. Guess not. #
• Just landed back in China, listening to Terry Gross interview the late anii-Communist Charlie Wilson. #
• Finally on way back to Shanghai, been away for too long. Food poisoning yesterday didn't help the mood #
• Buddy Mike Wong now in TPE, wants to go to a museum. WHAT? #
• watched notting hill in hotel b4 sleep, then dreamed jessica alba wanted to be my girlfriend. waking up totally sucked #

• Fourteen and a half hour flight, 2 hours to get to the hotel — finally back in Taipei, but I want to do is lie on the bed. #
• Off to Wurtzkuche in LA for some gourmet wieners, yay! #
• My healthiest meal so far on this trip: soup/salad at Literati Cafe in Brentwood: http://twitpic.com/12h2pw #
• @cmar55 I bet the lasagna tasted really good though! in reply to cmar55 #
• just finished another meeting, time for pho in koreatown on this rainy LA day #
• Just want to say again how nice it is to watch football in US. And in HD, too! #
• Wow just saw our (republic's) first ever Superbowl commercial: Flo TV My Generation #
• Snickers Betty White ad was pretty sweet #
• My last drink was over 12 hours ago. Why am I still red? #