Thursday, March 29, 2007

the week in progress

The week has been pretty tame. The routine has been wake up 11ish maybe take a shower. then I go eat lunch at the local food restaurant ( here in china, chinese food is just called food ) then from 2-4 i take a chinese class then after i fuck around going on various adventures around beijing or just nap the rest of the afternoon then off to dinner with various friends followed by a few refreshing evening beverages then if its a good night I go back home to "study chinese" otherwise my roomie and i usually watch a movie until we fall asleep.

Tonight we are off to dinner with huxley owner of the best bar in beijing: HUXLEY'S

its funny how no matter what city or country i am in i make fast friends with upstanding members of the business community, particularly owners of drinking and eating establishments. Apparently they can recognize a true professional no matter the country/race/nationality/language. Professionality knows no bounds!

Monday, March 26, 2007

Pajama-Palooza 2007


Hey Everybody,
Pajama party this Saturday, the 31st, from 8ish until sometime or another, at Gordon and Ben's apartment at dongzhimennei, same place where we had the party in Feb.
Put on your pajamas, pratice your pillow fighting, and get to ready to get funky.
See you Saturday!

Pillow fight and tickle competition to begin promptly at 10:00pm!

can't see my own blog

Just so everyone knows I think they have blocked blog access so i can post updates but i cannot open it or respond to the comments. I now get comments e-mailed so i know they are there but cant respond to them. so if you need to contact me and get a response e-mail me.

weekend wrap up.

It was a long weekend!

Thursday was the big group dinner followed by drinks.

Friday I basically slept all day then at night went to dinner at Liqun for peking duck with an incredibly beautiful young lady. If you have never been to Liqun ask anyone from beijing about it. The first time i went was back in 2002. I remembered it because we got in a bit of a skirmish there with the staff. I ended the nite with beverages at nanjie. We hung a bit with huxley and lou chi the 2 owners. He had bought us drinks earlier and i tried to buy him a drink in return his response was the funniest thing i think i have heard in a while. He said to me "you don't have to buy me a drink... I own ALL the drinks!."

Saturday was a big day. I started off buying a pimp ass bicycle. It is an old school chinese bike. pics will be posted! Then we rode over to hou hai for dinner and drinks. The we headed over to a club to celebrate brazilian carnival with all the brazilian expats. It was at some swanky club but we got in for free because tommy got us VIP passes. The party was kind of lame at first but then they set up a brazilian band. The dance floor was completely empty so tommy and handjob got up on the stage and got funky. Within minutes they were surrounded by brazilian models... how this happened i have no idea. Then we got a text from a friend saying there was a fashion show going on outside in a big tent and they were serving free drinks because it was sponsored by belvedere vodka. Being foreigners we just walked in like we belonged there and started hitting the free hooch. This thing was all futuristic and way fancy. after an hour of free beverages they closed the bar. I then had to use my ninja like abilities to steal a bottle of vodka when the bartenders back was turned. I made a clean getaway only then to realize I had to go back and also steal a bottle of OJ for mixers. Using all of my ninja chi powers i got us a bottle of OJ and made screwdrivers for everyone. We then hit nanjie around 2am had some whiskeys and flaming zambucas and some pizza. The party then cruised back to my casa around 4:30am. I ended up just going to bed while everyone else just hung out in the living room. got some pics from this below not many good ones because my batteries died.

Sunday I hung out all day at 798 the arts district of beijing with a beautiful young lady. coincidentally there was another fashion show/free party going on there but i decided to save my ninja chi abilities for another night. i later met up with handjob and tommy at cox for some buffalo wings. we then cruised to the casa for sunday night movie night. this week we watched "the big lebowski" . we were trying to be good little lebowski urban achievers and went white russian for white russian with the dude.

today (monday) I woke up around 11ish had a power lunch with tommy and practiced my chinese. then i went to chinese class for a couple of hours came home posted this blog and then i am off to dinner a special lady friend.

It is considerably harder than it appears to be a professional man of leisure.

Friday, March 23, 2007

orange crumb pics


orange crumb pics





orange crumb pics





orange crumb pics





orange crumb dinner

my friends nick and beth organized a big dinner last night with like 30 people! the cougers were seperated from the adults and put at the kiddie table! needless to say it got ugly!

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

life is good

Life has never been so good. almost every new day is the best day of my life.

I keep thinking its just like the movie office space but exactly the opposite. except for what I would do with a million dollars thing. that part is the same.

Monday, March 19, 2007

The e-mail that started it all

Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 14:37:23 -0700
From: "Thomas Clouse"
To: benradcliffe@yahoo.com
Subject: Plans


Alright, Ben,
I got two plans for you.
First plan, giant woodstock-like hippee festival less than a mile from
my house in Manchester, Tennessee... 80,000 tickets already sold. Its
sold out, but there are quite a few tickets floatin around on Ebay and my Dad's
workin the bars around town to check the connections...
Members of the Dead, Phish, and Widespread Panic'll be there as well as
a ton of other people... you should check out the website at
www.bonnaroo.com. The second plan, China and/or Tibet for four weeks, from Aug 9th to
Sept 6th. I'm teaching in china for three weeks, and I finish on the 9th of Aug.
Then I gotta get back for a wedding in Sept... (though I'll probably be back
in China in Oct.)
What's your schedule like?
I'm also planning a layover in Chi-town early July, but it sounds like
you'llbe gone by then.
Anyway, I hope things are good there.
Talk to ya soon,
Tom

sunday night movie night



We had another successful movie night here at my casa. a much smaller crowd but it was expected after st pats day. We watched half-nelson. It is really fucking intense.

Please give any recommendations of great for movies for night. the main feature kicks off at 8pm . The main feature is usually a classic. the pre feature is usualy a great comedy.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

st patricks day

crazy st. patricks day like always.

started with a birthday dinner. dinner was wild i only knew few people there. very traditional. lots of soups lots of beers. then tommy got all festive and splurged for a $1 bottle of bijou ( nasty ass chinese rice wine that makes maddog seem like a bottle of Chrys. )

then headed way out across town to wodouko to a bar with 10 kwai gunness' on the way out we were in a taxi and in this giant 3 lane road there was an old woman laying in the middle lane. no one was stopping to help so we full filled our karmic duty and jumped out of the taxi and walked her to the sidewalk. we then hit the bar lush met some friends drank a few Guinness' then tommy hand job and i bailed d22to meet patrick and see some band. ended up chatting with the owner a bit then did some jack daniels shots with him. then we headed all the way back to browns met up with basically everybody. i remember more jack daniels shots and zambuca i vaguely remember dancing on a bar then tommy's ex girlfriend was there then she told me tommy was ill and we jumped in a cab and went home. (and by ill i i meant he was puking in the hallway to the bathrooms )

here are some photos notice the matching green ferrari track suits that tommy handjob and i are pimping!

st pats day photos