Say What?
I thought having the town of Fingerville in our viewing area was already pretty gross, but that was before I learned this market is also home to Sugar Tit, South Carolina.
So for the first (and possibly last) time ever, I said "sugar tit" on TV.

Facelift!
Yes, you are in the right place. The Stiles and I both got a cool chica named Cat to redesign our blogs using our respective movie themes. Note the crop circles! Teee hee hee hee. Hoping you like. If you have any suggestions about the color/design, we can still tweak. Cat suggested a darker alien green? What do you think?

Um, I'm "It"
It's six something in the morning and I've been up all night (jet lag). Luckily, I noticed Dan tagged me in this ongoing blog tag game, which gives me something to do.

I'm doing the seven answer one, because the five answer one required thinking back ten years, and well, I'm like that dude in Memento.

Seven Things I Plan to Do Before I Die:
Cover something overseas
Learn to write in Chinese
Have a baby
Visit Eastern Europe
Get a backyard with a big dog in it
Write a story I'm actually satisfied with
Come up with the seventh thing I plan to do

Seven Things I Can Do:
Roll my tongue into three folds
Bawl my eyes out
Run a marathon (well I COULD do it, at one point)
Play almost all of Chopin's nocturnes on the piano
Remember faces
Get into PACER, the federal courts database
Get into debt

Seven Things I Can't Do:
Stop my allergies
Play chess
The high jump
Eat crab without making a huge mess
Drive a stick
Exponents and logarithms
Sing "Eternal Flame" by the Bangles

Seven Things That Attract Me To (Matty):
He asks the tough questions
Looong, gorgeous eyelashes
His wit
He notices little things
The way he tells stories
His soft spot for farm animals like goats and burros
The way he gets all congested after eating a big meal

Seven Things I Say the Most (Recently)
Naw, naw.
For real?
I mean, seriously!
Are you effing kidding me?
Okay, so Keith Olbermann said...
Tonight at eleven
Carol...Michael?

Seven Celebrities I Dream About:
Bill Hemmer, pre Fox News
Barack Obama
Matt Bai
Bono
Hank Steuver
George W. (in my dream we went for a run)
Michael Jackson (not in a sexual way, he just appeared)

I Tag:
Stiles
Jimmie
Maral

At Least It's Not SARS
I'm not at "work" because a "Dr. Sprouse" says I have "Acute Conjunctivitis", aka "Pink Eye". I also have some sort of "problem" with "over-using" quotation marks. Thanks "J-Dub", for passing "along" your "over-quoting problem".

This Morning
ME: Hello?
CALLER: Is this E!ise H*?
ME: Yes.
CALLER: This is [some name I forgot] from the FBI office in Spartanburg.
ME: Okay?
CALLER: So, you're back in the country.
ME: Yes.
CALLER: We tried to reach you last week but you were out of the country.

Just when I started to think I was about to get taken away for accidentally forgetting to turn in my customs form or something, he told me he needed to interview me about Jan@e Barker, my onetime college roomie who is getting vetted for a job at the White House. He could have said that right off the bat, you know. Instead, he had to be a tool about it. Later, in the interview, he asked me about J@nae's character (I said it was upstanding), her leadership abilities (I said they were strong), and if I had any concerns about her. I said that I was sorry she was such a hard core Republican. The FBI dude did not laugh.

Photopalooza
Here they are, for your enjoyment.

Back to Life, Back to Reality
Back from the Far East. So great to read blogs again! I'm trying to upload and downsize my photos so I can share them soon. Many thanks to the boyfriend for blogging in my absence, though while I was away he cheated on me with some moody woman named Rita.

China Trip, by the Numbers

Days: 11
Planes ridden: 7 (GSP-ORD, ORD-PEK, PEK-XIA, XIA-SHA, PVG-SFO, SFO-ORD, ORD-GSP)
Longest time in flight: 13 hrs, 30 min (ORD-PEK)
Most populous city visited: Shanghai (municipal pop. 10,996,500)
Cheapest breakfast: 12 yuan for three people, in a place frequented by Beijing locals (About $1.50 USD)
Cost of Starbucks in Shanghai: 25 yuan (just more than three bones, some things never change)
Relatives met: At least 9, but I started to lose count
Bowls of noodles consumed: 5
Terra Cotta Warriors seen in Xian: At least 6000
Watching Dad get stopped by security in San Fran because his titanium hip set off the alarm: Priceless.

Random notes from the Motherland
Huey is having trouble blogging. It's just a hunch, but I'm wondering whether the P-R-C doesn't like free expression. Until she returns, I'll be posting some tidbits from our conversations.

Huey also is...

TOURING: Dawn to dusk
VISITING: Went to Great Wall (a section built ages ago, incidentally, to keep out the Mongolian "Hu" people). Planning to tour Tiananmen Square in Beijing today and have her picture made with some communists. Off to Xian (SHI-an) on Tuesday.
EATING: Duck head
LEARNING: The toilets "for the chicks are on the ground. And when I say that, I mean the toilets are on the ground. Like a hole in the floor that flushes." (Using them is an acquired skill, apparently).
EXPLAINING: Huey's taller than the native women, so people assume she's from a mixed-race family. "My dad will be standing right there, and they ask if my father's white. He's like, 'Dude, I'm her father.' " She and poppa Hu speak "Chenglish" together, btw.
SNAPPING: Has taken many, many photos of hilariously misspelled signs for Fiscosity's other blog. Examples: "evacuation routs" and "afterawards"

Sincerely,
Matty

Danger on the Roadways
BEIJING - On our way to dinner last night I witnessed my first bicycle versus toddler. Little kid got knocked backward, hitting his head on the pavement. Then the dude on the bike started yelling because he said the kid snuck up on him. Uh huh. Kid's father took him to the hospital to get checked out, he was fine, and there was no charge for the visit. Score one for Communism in the healthcare arena.

Culture Shock
Just want to let the six readers of this blog know that I am taking PLENTY of pictures. But I didn't bring my laptop and the internet cafe won't let me download pictures here. Expect much post-China photo blogging the week of the 25th.

Off to the Motherland
Headed to the P-R-C tomorrow. Gonna get some Commie gear. And lots of pirated stuff. Hope to check in when I get there.

Re: Hitting Rock Bottom, a.k.a. Getting on Catster
Some observations:
1. The Catster site may be designed for cats, but the interface is too complicated for this human. I don't know what's going on! So many choices and icons and colors and euphemisms!

2. Contains some choice play on words, like:
"We appreciate Catster users and we're not lion!"
Grumble.

3. You have user options like "Gimme Some Paw." WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN???

4. The most fascinating and troubling part of my two-day Catster experiment is getting emails from other cat owners, pretending to be their cats. For example:
"Please accept our paws in friendship."
"Hi Caesar, welcome to Catster! You are a handsome! We hope you have fun here
and that we can be friends."

This puts me in a difficult spot. I don't like to ignore emails, but since these emails are purported to be from cats, am I supposed to respond as my cats??? What a purr-dicament.

Men of the Week Time!
George Hincapie
Timothy Hutton
My two manly cats
Jimmie English (belated, for visiting last week)

Inspiration from 1996's Beautiful Girls
"So what? I wanna have a kid too but what's the rush? Kathie Lee Gifford just had a kid and she's forty fucking five years old." -Michael Rappaport, as written by Scott Rosenburg

I've Hit Rock Bottom
Why friendster when you can... Catster? That's right, I registered Caesar and Fitz on Catster. After half a day on the Catster market, Fitz has gotten twice the friend requests as Caesar, so I'm a little worried about Caesar finding out and gettng upset.

All French to Me
Before a sit-down with Lance Armstrong yesterday, I told him I was also from Plano, Texas. But Armstrong has no Plano pride:
"I'm persona non grata in Plano. Plano, France, same shit to me."

This explains the resentment.

Take a Haiku
Thought I'd pay tribute to my friends Mr. Gr@bell and Mr. Reddy, who both brought us great tales from the Gulf.

On Gr@bell:

He slept on asphalt
Didn't bathe himself for days
All to bring the news

Bugs ate up his flesh
But Grabell's got work to do
Uh oh, no power

On Supdeep:

Got flown to the Gulf
But copter ran out of fuel
Dropped off at ER

Nothing to do there
Why not write a story then?
Okay, thinks Supdeep

He peed in a drain
At a Nawlins hospital
Hold the number two

Wrong Chucktown, Buckos
In the great flood of recent FEMA fumbles, this is nothing. But I think it's worth a mention anyway.
FEMA gave Charleston, SC officials 30 minutes notice to prepare for hundreds of evacuees coming their way. The city was ready and waiting, only to find out the evacuees were flown to the WRONG EFFING CHARLESTON - landing in Charleston, West Virginia instead.

Somebody Tell Me...
What is wrong with Rita Cosby's voice? She always sounds like she just hacked up a hairball. Does this not bother any of the higher-ups at MSNBC who thought it would be wise to give her an hour-long show?

Men of the Memorable Week
Martin Savidge
Michael Gr@bell
Mayor Bill White (even though he does resemble a middle-aged Opie)
Rob Teter
Coyt Bailey, WLBT helicopter pilot who gave riveting tours of the destruction without channeling an overdramatic TV reporter

Inspirational Quote of the Week From a Movie or TV Series: The How Could I Forget Edition
"There are five letters in the word Blaine. Now, if you mix up the letters in the word Blaine, mix 'em around, eventually, you'll come up with Nebali. Nebali. The name of a planet in a galaxy way, way, way... way far away. And another thing. Once you go into that circle, the weather never changes. It is always 67 degrees with a 40% chance of rain." -UFO Expert in Christopher Guest's Waiting for Guffman