ISpyShanghai

btw, clockwise from top left: Card to get on the Maglev, card for “Rose House” food court in the Maglev station, subway card, apartment building entry card, some food court in XuJiaHui (I think), canteen #1 in airport working area.

Well, I thought it was interesting anyway..

Well if you insist on being so promiscuous in your choice of dining and transportation you will have to live with the excessive number of cards. Subway and Maglev card can be combined by taking a taxi to work. And do you really need to vary your diet so much by eating at the canteen one day and then at a XJH food court the next? Doesn’t Emma make you a packed lunch? Do you even need lunch? You’ve given up drink, why not go the whole hog and give up food. And to get into your apartment you can use a combination system instead although memorising 4 digits can be challenging. Card problem solved.

I have a few more but it doesn’t bother me - the Tiffany hairdresser’s discount card that gets me 50% off, the Enjoy card that gets lots of special treatment at Shanghai’s leading establishments (including 10% off at Bamboo but I never use it cause it makes me look like a poor English teacher) etc etc.

(quietly cheering you on).

i like how you put the card types as a comment rather than editing the entry.

though he wasn’t writing about blogging but poetry, the following from Paul Muldoon springs to mind:

“once published, i feel the author has no more right than anyone else to alter a work of art or poetry”

btw, i calculate yourself to be roughly 11% funnier without liquor

I also thought it was odd that James added a comment rather than just changing the post. I guess he was a little sad to see “0 comments” against the post so he wanted to bolster the stats. Quite sad really.

I cannot tell a lie, it was the zero comments thing.

WoAi, I could feel your heckles rising as that rant continued, I reckon I would have felt the firm kiss of a pool cue across the scruff of my neck had we been having that conversation at ‘The Bamboo’. I enjoyed it very much.
[Tiffany hairdressers? Bloody southerners]

Shy- no need to be quiet, hurray for me!

msg- it’s nice to have a comment with such a literary bent. Once when I did a thing like this in Korea, someone said
“the post post-modernistic equivalent of Goya’s ‘Third of May’ framed in a Rashomonesque narrative with a touch of Warholian humor.”
(http://lostseouls.com/blog.php?date=jun-05 check the comments for the 20th June if you don’t believe me!)

While you’re checking the archives for arty stuff, you couldn’t try and find out if you once blogged about a bloggers meet up could you? I’ve a feeling it was you but can’t find relevant post…

I always get a chuckle when people think that somehow the cards they carry 1) carry a strong electric charge, 2) are surreptitiously used to track them, 3) lead to sterility or cancer. The cards carry no charge. They have a coil that works like an antenna. The place you read the card is a powerful field that the card’s coil converts to electricity, powering its microchip and enabling 2-way communication between the card and reader. As soon at the card is away from the field the card is as lifeless as an Itaewon hooker (or so James says).

that’s just what they want you to think max!

daeguowl- I tried to reply to this when you mentioned it a while ago, but these comments are awfully patchy. Anyway I’ve never been to a monthly bloggers meeting and it sounds a bit weird to me. Rival bloggers must be sworn, blood enemies, jealously guarding their hit counts and constantly accusing others of plagiarism. Meeting up over tea and scones goes against everything I stand for.

Max- dingle has a degree in plasticology and he keeps all of his cards in a special pocket in his tin foil hat.

James you can mock all you want about southerners and Tiffany’s Hair Salon, but they do a bloody good head massage and I can have a manicure at the same time which means I have more time to practice my ballet.

James, thanks for replying. I apologise for casting that aspersion on you….I definitely read it somewhere though…too many blogs!

on a kind of related note:
i tried to go dry. i lasted 42 hours before i thought: “this is utter shite! what’s the point?!” and then my aussie friend and i had a bottle of chilled white wine. =)

you are now my new hero.

hey daegouwl, I’ve seen a post on a bloggers meet up on ‘Im a seoul man’s blog. I think you’re refering to that.

Thanks for the shout out Clare…the post I’m thinking of is from quite a way in the past. I read somewhere that there used to be a monthly meet up but can’t remember on whose blog I read it….

WoAi- you looked well in your tutu on Friday night, and your nails were splendid. What shade of pink was that anyway?

Angie- I’ve been thinking that regularly, if it wasn’t for the fact I’d banged on about it to everyone and anyone, I think I’d have quietly quit my quitting. Still, not long to go!

James, it’s no use pretending to be pink ignorant (geddit!), it was a blend of cherry blossom pink and carnation pink, as if you didn’t know!

well, to be honest you’re both good with colours, not to mention light on your feet

Woai- you looked fabulous anyway. Pink is sooooooooooooo now

dingle- I noticed on Saturday you keep your coins in your wallet. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.

Don’t think I haven’t noticed that whiff of lavender every time you walk past James.

Dingle, you give me too much credit. I am not good with colours, I just happen to know my pinks! I am crap with blues for example and don’t even know how to spell turkwoyze! Oh, I was looking for a coin purse the other day - where did you get yours?

BTW My link now actually links to my current blog (as opposed to the now BLOCKED one).