new apprentice

we have a new apprentice at professional man of leisure Inc.

jenny from the block

Here is a photo of jenny. She grew up in beijing. She attended college in london and is now living in hong kong working as a laywer. She is international. She met my friend tommy way back when he visited beijing in 1998. When i visited beijing in 2002 her dad took us out to dinner. He commented on how skilled I was with the chopsticks. I have never forgotten the truths he spoke that night.

Last night we all met up and went to the lao she tea house for the show of traditional chinese performances. because one must always balance cultural endeavors with an equal dosage of debauchery we then ventured onward to hou hai for a few white russians, absinthes, whiskey ginger ales, and flaming sambuca shots. more adventures ensued and around 3am we then ended up in dongzhimen nei for food and a wee bottle of bijou.

all in all typical for a sunday night in red china.

lao she cha guan(r)

we headed to the tea house and watched the big variety show. we saw acrobats, wong the conjurer, face changers, gong fu experts, peking opera, the works! I highly recommend going next time your over by tianamen.

you make a mean caucasian gary!

4 refreshing white russians!

huxleys

here's some pics of huxleys the best bar in beijing

little green fairy

absinthe

biejou its not just for breakfast anymore.

around 3amish after a long night of getting in adventures we hit the bbq meat place for grilled meat and bijou

nanjie 2 year anniversay party

nanjie had its 2 year anniversary party yesterday. i twas free food and beer from 5-9. nuff said!

more holga shots

russian mafia and mongolian hookers

last night would have been the night to have a camera unfortuneatly i did not.

the night started off slow with going to ritan park to watch some like music. after a few refreshing beverages someone mentioned they new of a russian bar close by. We went in and it was a full on sketchy russian mafia bar. it had cheesy live music russian guys eating steaks in pin stripe suits and all. we ordered a bottle of vodka and apple juice??? the brought over some massive glass vodka bong thing. it was tall and you poured the vodka and mixer in and then it came down through some glass spiral filled with ice and came out a spigot cold. I have to go back for photos.

Then we decided to hit maggies which is the notorius mongolian hooker bar. ?Its just your standard sleezy night club but has a 4 to 1 hot girl to fat expat ratio. we had a few drinks there for the entertainment value.

around 4am we then headed to nanjie for a nightcap.

in a few minutes we are off to nanjie for the 2 year anniversary party!

4 more holga shots

trade craft

People keep sending letters asking how can one becomes a professional man of leisure??? Unfortunately it is not as simple as quiting your job and moving to a country that fosters such a lifestyle. I was hand picked from dozens of candidates at an early age for a unique training program and was groomed to be a man of leisure. It was noticed at an early age I possesed a unique set of natural talents. After many years of intense training those dormant natural talents have been transformed into ninja like skills. Here are some photos of me when i first began my training.

3 more holga shots

the rest of the pics will be ready saturday. Then i will pic the top 15 to post as a gallery on toycamera.com. until then here is 3 more i like.

i might take a job....

Hello Ben,
This is Sophie from 21st Century, an English
weekly under China Daily. Our relationship
columnist is leaving at the end of May so we are
looking for someone to replace her. Both of our
previous columnists are women, it'll
be very exciting to have a guy to handle this column.

Our readers are mainly college students and
other young English learners in China. Every
column is around 550 words including two letters and
replies. We expect the columnist to trim readers'
English and provide sensible advice in a witty manner.
I will forward you some previous coulmns in another
mail so you can have a general idea of how it works.

Please don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions.
Cheers!
Sophie

more holga shots from vietnam

I also copied some info about the holga and posted it on the blog as well for those whoa re not in the know.

about the holga

HOLGA FEATURES

Plastic 60/8 Optical Lens
The Holga's heart and soul. A dead-simple multi-element plastic lens that makes colors radiate and makes total image sharpness take a brief holiday. You can also expect a bit of vignetting (darkening) around the edges – especially on a sunny day. The focal length is approximately equal to 38mm on a standard 35mm camera – so it's a little bit wider than the normal perspective.

120 Medium Format Film
From glossy fashion magazine covers, to dead-serious landscape shots, to the "Electric Slide" dance at Uncle Bob's wedding, the camera of choice if very likely to be medium format. Created by the Kodak company in 1898, medium format film has filled the guts of professional cameras for well over 100 years. At four times the size of 35mm film, it offers amazing resolution and deep, fantastic colors. A typical 120 print has an incredible richness and depth that no 35mm image can touch.

Built-In Colorflash
A beautiful and recent feature resulting from the success of our 35mm Colorsplash cameras. A little wheel sits around the powerful built-in electronic flash and allows you to choose a red, yellow, or green filter to tint your burst of flash light. It's mad fun at night or during the day (as a fill flash). There's a clear filter too for those days when you want to keep it real.

Uncoupled Advance and Shutter
After you shoot a Holga image, you can choose to advance it one full frame, a partial frame, or not advance at all. 120 film shows its exposure count on the back, and you can read it through a little red window on the Holga's rear door. This feature allows you to shoot limitless times on the same frame (multiple exposures) and advance only partial frames to create a semi-panoramic overlapping image. Hooray!

Variable Shutter Speeds
You lucky duck. You get two to choose from. The standard daytime speed of 1/125 second or the exotic long-exposure “B” setting – where you can hold the shutter open for as long as you want. Use “B” to capture dazzling night images without a flash. Pair the “B” setting with a flash shot to freeze your sharp, flashed subject in front of a streaming, glowing background. Team the “B” setting with a tripod (via the bottom tripod thread) for a sharp night portrait.

Variable Aperture
A little weather guide helps you out. Choose f/11 for sunny shots and f/8 for cloudy and nighttime shots. Pretty easy, that one.

Zone Focus
Fun, fabulous, and very fast. The lens has four focus settings – portrait, small group, big group, and infinity. Guess as best you can and fire away.

funny sign

This is a bad translation for keep off the grass.

american colonel defects to china!

In america everyone thought the Colonel had passed. The truth is he defected to the other side. The good news here in Beijing is that the zhong guo ren can get a bucket of the colonels finest for only 59 yuan. Unfortunately I think the chinese colonel hates freedom. Here in red china they don't have biscuits. WHAT THE COCK IS THAT SHIT?

Sonic Youth Show

Last night i went to the sonic youth show. Everybody bailed on going because the tickets were like $50USD. I figured that is a small price to pay to see sonic youth in the world's largest communist regime. as for going han solo....fuck it! Some doors you have to walk through alone.

The show was good. I dig sonic youth and it was the first time i had seen them play. the crowd was interesting and there was definately a higher percentage of chinamen to lao wai than are usually at these things. The crowd didn't get crazy at the show they just sort of listened. after gwar i would say this was the best show i have gone to in while.

George Herbert Walker Bush

i thought i would throw this up there. there is a bronze statue of the old Bush at the lao shi tea house. i think he might have visited there or something when it was his turn to drop babies and kiss bombs!