First off, I've posted a new comic on Scary-Crayon that briefly relates one of my encounters on Nanjing Road. For more info about that incident (and numerous similar ones), you can also read the attached SC blog entry.

And now, more photos from Shanghai!

This guy was on a lot of the signposts around the area near the hotel. I have no idea what he signifies.

This is the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium. I didn't actually get to go inside, but I did take several photos of the exterior, including one of this cool plush pufferfish they had outside to advertise the deadly aquatic animals exhibit.

Another photo I took while walking around the downtown area near the hotel. Note the McDonald's in the background! Even with a Mickey D's on every corner, though, the people in Shanghai remain remarkably thin.

Another pic from the area -- I think I took this from outside the local park. I'm a bit puzzled as to how those trees stay so green, because the sun never shines in Shanghai. Which is to say that there is so much pollution that the sun literally is not visible (at least from the ground). Plants receive their energy courtesy of a smog filter.

Here's one from inside the park! There were lots of giant rocks in there.

A billboard with some very happy people and some text I cannot read.

And to think I'd pegged Chun-Li for a Sprite drinker.

Finally, here are two additional pics I took with a certain someone in mind:

I have no idea why Nicole Kidman should make me want an overpriced watch. Speaking of Omega watches, though, a guy tried to sell me a Rolex watch, an Omega watch, and some sort of designer pen for a combined total of 20 yuan (roughly $3). Very cheap price indeed!

All for now, then. Ja! 🙂

So I didn't explicitly say as much in the ol' blog (though I did hint at it in this post), but I left for Shanghai, China, last week on the morning of the 22nd. (However, due to the lengthy flight -- 17+ hours on the way there -- and the +12 hour time difference in that region, I didn't actually arrive in Shanghai until the afternoon of the 23rd. Yikes!) I got back into the area late Sunday night and arrived back in my childhood home around midday yesterday, whereupon I spent a great deal of time sitting on the couch drinking iced tea and watching episodes of "Boy Meets World" (which was so much better before everyone got older and had their IQs halved) and "Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends". Of course, I will write more about the trip later (perhaps in a multi-part SC article), but for the moment I am still too out of it to do much of anything substantial in that respect. The 15+ hour flight was terrible, but the real kicker was the food poisoning that I came down with towards the 2/3 mark of the trip. It pretty much put me out of commission for the remainder of my time in Shanghai and I'm still suffering from the effects (though I am getting better, thanks). If you're ever in Shanghai and find yourself in the Super Brand Mall, avoid New Age Veggie at all costs. Your intestines and anus and non-spasming esophagus will thank you (unless you get food poisoning somewhere else, that is).

Anyway, here are a few pics from Shanghai!

All for now, then. Hope you had a good last week and a great holiday!

I'd been meaning to post these for a while but never got around to it. Well, here are a bunch of photos of my old dorm room from umpteen years ago. Yep. (more...)

But first, a word about today's interview. I think it went really well! Of course, I've been on interviews that I think went fairly well and then either didn't get the job or didn't even hear back from the company, so one never knows. Unless something comes up in the next couple of weeks, I'm pretty sure I'll take the position if they offer it to me, but no big if they don't -- I'll just skip town and head for NYC! So root for me or don't root for me, NYC area folks, depending upon how soon you'd like to have the Wes living in your midst. 😉 In any case, even if I get the job I'll be visiting again in early September -- gotta come up to meet the Beckster, you know. 🙂

So, NYC! I really had a great weekend there, despite learning some rather expensive lessons! I'm planning to go into some other details of the trip in a Scary-Crayon travel piece, but suffice it to say that, at least for me, fine dining is highly overrated, as apparently I have a rather unrefined palate. I know, I know -- "DUH Wes!", -- but still. Whatever. So after walking arriving in da city, I walked around Times Square and spent $40 on sushi 😐 before descending into Chinatown to buy DVDs and tiptoe around with my legs crossed because I realllllly had to pee. (Expect to hear the full story regarding that on SC, too... it's crazy, man.) My purchases appear above! In addition to the swanky AKUMA statuette, the films I got are as follows: (more...)

Hey all! Hope you had a great weekend. I'll say a few words about mine in a bit, but first, let's kick things off off with a new Scary-Crayon Spectare article -- a short review of Lavender! Assuming you've never heard of it, it's about a grieving aromatherapist who learns to love again when an angel moves in with her. It's pretty cute, even with all of the weirdness in the film -- weirdness like the angel's shoe fetish and the woman's flamboyantly gay, afro wig-wearing neighbor. Anyway, read the review here! Also, in the categories section of the blog, I've added one for film! All future film-related commentary, including SC articles and blogged thoughts, then, will be grouped accordingly. Yay! (more...)