Giovanni Martini wrote:

BauLuo wrote:

All of these instructions employ IMPERIAL MEASUREMENTS! We should know by now that that is fascistic, racist, transphobic, and probably hurts kittens. Ya really gotsa get yer mental shit together Beijinger, or I might cancel my subscription.

OK, you take a buncha flour, a handful of blueberries, a couple eggs, a mouthful of milk. Smoosh it all into a thickness somewhere between your Alzhammered Grampa's drool and the ectoplasm from your last seance. Cook it till it's about as brown as yer dalmatian's poo, top with maple syrup or peach schnapps an' eat. There. Nothing imperial in enny of that.

My Dalmation is a strict vegan, and his poo could not be utilzed for anything but the most pastel of hues. My grandaddy's drool is being analyzed by the the CDC because he is a 108 years old and should have been dead a long time ago, They are trying to figure out where they went wrong.

Giovanni Martini wrote:

BauLuo wrote:

There is apparently a Chinese curse (though i don't know if it is accurate) `may you live in interesting times' We are indeed living in interesting times, and I am glad to be here, and will see this mess through, or until I am dead.

Giovanni Martini wrote:

y y

BauLuo wrote:

There are beginnings and endings, but to beginnings and endings there is no beginning, nor any ending.

So there I was, writin novels, yes writin novels was I. Then I gets up, reads Thomas Pynchon's `V' and realizes all I wanted to write right has been writ! Scurrilous f£nking Thomas Pynchon. So now all I can do is rant and rail against such folk that thinks they gots a brain, and we are in the mid of a pandemic?!

That which hath no end hath properly no midst. Vaccines may wear off, but the reason for them abideth even unto the end of the world.

COVID is cultural-multitasking. First, it's a disease. (How bad and all that is somewhat debatable, but it is a disease.) Second it is a driver for the economy. I mean, consider, a lot of people eat McDonalds. But not everyone does, and maybe not that often. In the case of COVID, EVERYONE has to get a test as often as the authorities say. Plus, while with McD's, you have to pay workers, with COVID you can get volunteers to do it all for free. Talk about widening those margins. Thirdly, COVID does what no big city mayor in America can possibly do. It generates fear AND attaches penalties to disobeying the law. (Compare that to Seattle where the whittled down police recently stopped investigating new rape cases.) Fourth, COVID represents the biggest psychological experiment undertaken in all history. Disinterested researchers can address such questions as "Do we really need an economy anyway?" "Why bother with normal life?" "What if Florence Supermax were a planet, not one small penitentary."

I don't know about any of you, but I am honored to be a part of all this.

Giovanni Martini wrote:

BauLuo wrote:

Believe it or no, i don't care, but i was a strict vegetarian for about 15 years. Also a guy that slaughtered chickens for a living. I bin a lotsa different folk, over the years.

Giovanni Martini wrote:

How about Indiana street food? Last time I was through Gary, Indiana, Skittles, Doritos, and Szzzurp all seemed pretty popular. Not healthy? Hey as long as you got a "rich and vibrant"street scene, youse don't need no stinkin' health.

My good friend homeless Tim had a penchant for street food. On a Friday, Saturday night all the University kids come downtown an get drunk, buy a shitload of pitas, hamburgers and you name it, toss the most of it, which Timmy would recover and have food for a week. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

I ain't et skinned-cat pita in a hound's age. Think TBJ's staff could come up with some plant-based fricassed feline alternatives? "Garbanzo Garfield Burgers" or some such?

Giovanni Martini wrote:

How about Indiana street food? Last time I was through Gary, Indiana, Skittles, Doritos, and Szzzurp all seemed pretty popular. Not healthy? Hey as long as you got a "rich and vibrant"street scene, youse don't need no stinkin' health.

My good friend homeless Tim had a penchant for street food. On a Friday, Saturday night all the University kids come downtown an get drunk, buy a shitload of pitas, hamburgers and you name it, toss the most of it, which Timmy would recover and have food for a week. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

So there I was, me, Gin Martini, Mike Serrprano, (and Tim the homeless street person ((whom I suspect being the wisest of the bunch)). So we're all just sucking on some lollys and having a grand old time, when up pops the issue of free will versus fatalism. Now who coulda thunk such thoughts would arise, save a fatalist, saying such thoughts must so arise, becuzza god or something. Now go figure you out for me that, willya Beijinger. !

BauLuo wrote:

I want now to state clearly and frankly that I am almost completely Anglo-Saxon. Yes almost completely, though there may be a bit of Celt of the Welsh sort back there a few generations. Now i am not sure if I am allowed to so state such things nowadays, so I state them quickly and feverishly.

The reason I state these facts is the fact that within the last week or so, a Canadian politician (Pierre Polievre) was in hot water for using the words `Anglo-Saxon' as, according to some media these were `dog whistle' words to code to right wing fascists that he was their man. Now I use the words `Anglo-Saxon' and `Norman French' regularly when helping students understand the development of the English language, and explain that it ain't the big latinate words that are difficult, it's the itty bitty irregular and phrasal verbs, that are all of Anglo-Saxon derivation that are the problem, and teach that the best way to learn a language is by learning how to LISTEN!

BauLuo wrote:

Giovanni Martini wrote:

Another thing I might mention , is that standard procedure for some foreigners seem to be to get a staff member, or heaven forbid, a student, to act as their Mommy. I know that staff members, certainly students, are hot and sexy, but you should refrain from sexual congress should you so do. Maybe you just need to learn to live without a Mommy? It is called growing up.

BauLuo wrote:

Allow me to relate this tale: Circa 2015 a waiguoren of my acquaintence requested that I assist him in obtaining a train ticket from Suihua, Heilongjiang, to Changchun, there to meet his wife. He had an argument with his wife ( a Chinese woman) who would not talk with wih, and he was thus functionally a 3 year old baby, thus he requested my assistance, ... He had lived in China 12 years, had been married to a Chinese women for 11 years, and could not speak, read, understand or write a word of Chinese. And he was presenting himself as a teacher, a literate, knowedgable person. I have seen this time, and time again. I really don't understand foreign English teachers that have been hear for years and can't understand any f*cking Chinese. I think the Coronafraud virus expelled a buncha them ,

I came to China at age 42. Before that my mom dressed me and came along with me on job interviews and first dates. What's wrong with that? Shoot, she'd have come along on second dates, too. Only I never got any.

Up pops a thought. now thoughts come from hither and yon, so one must best yet look at said thought and be thoughtful about it. Whence came such thought? Be it truthful? Be it satanic? Idono. That is the joy and misery of existing as individual sentient beings.! Suck it up, kiss it on the cheek, or kick it on the cheek whilst out the door. Your choice.

Allow me to relate this tale: Circa 2015 a waiguoren of my acquaintence requested that I assist him in obtaining a train ticket from Suihua, Heilongjiang, to Changchun, there to meet his wife. He had an argument with his wife ( a Chinese woman) who would not talk with wih, and he was thus functionally a 3 year old baby, thus he requested my assistance, ... He had lived in China 12 years, had been married to a Chinese women for 11 years, and could not speak, read, understand or write a word of Chinese. And he was presenting himself as a teacher, a literate, knowedgable person. I have seen this time, and time again. I really don't understand foreign English teachers that have been hear for years and can't understand any f*cking Chinese. I think the Coronafraud virus expelled a buncha them ,

Yer money and my money don't matter worth horseshit . A country's money matters like something. Especially depending on the country, and the money involved.