Why does the new version of Word, with Microsoft Office 2007, default to something that isn’t point 12 Times New Roman?
Sure, there are times when I don’t use Times New Roman, but seriously, the first time I heard of that point 11 Calibri garbage was when we got the new version of Office. It was in a sentence with a question mark and the F word.
Our neighbors invited Stick and me to lunch on Sunday. See how nice and normal that sounds?
Our neighbors are Manfred and Xuemei, a retired German and his Chinese wife. They are retired newlyweds, which is hilarious enough, because he’s seventy and the two of them seriously cannot keep apart.
Manfred doesn’t speak any English… or any Chinese, to Xuemei’s dismay and amusement. Stick was in Germany for 3 years in the military, so he can follow a lot of German, even if he can’t respond very well. Xuemei speaks decent German and a few phrases of English. Our conversation was hilarious, if not quite the relaxing Sunday afternoon we usually have.
The highlight may have been Xuemei telling me, in Chinese, that Stick and Manfred are useless menfolk because they won’t learn a second language! Haha!
No, the highlight was when Manfred asked Stick if I was some German word that sounds like steer. We had no idea what he was saying, so he had Xuemei ask me what my birth month is. I told her it was month 4, and she asked the day, and then asked do we call it something niu something? I finally caught on. “Oh, Taurus!” I laughed. “Yeah, I am! Wait… how did you know that?
No, I changed my mind. The highlight was Manfred telling Stick, via gestures, why he doesn’t like German girls.
Of course we had the universal language. Alcohol.
Eins, zwei, gambei!
On a completely unrelated note, I just found out there’s a World Of WarCraft dating site, where WoW gamers can, er, hook up. I’m not making this up, it’s called World Of DateCraft.
The site’s pretty new, with beta warning labels and tempting links without content (One of them is an intriguing murloc link! But nothing’s there yet), but there seem to be quite a few users. I’m not saying that I spent all morning on the site, but the profiles seem to be real people, who really play WarCraft. Romantic WoWers tell their faction, race, level and in-game professions on their profile, as well as the usual location, job, marital status info from other online dating sites.
This profile, though, cracked me up.
Laughable requests to exchange cyber for gold aside, I think this is a pretty good idea. You already have something pretty major in common, so you can just talk about Defias bandits to avoid all that first-date awkwardness. Plus, you won’t be surprised in a few months when your new special friend wants to stay up all night and slay bad guys!
On Saturday, Stick and I roused ourselves from our WarCraft stupor and went out in search of sour cream. Stick thinks that a life without sour cream is barely worth living, and Stick complains so rarely that I mapped out a route from our apartment to the embassy district’s Friendship Store.
We came out of the subway at Yonganli, into a magic fairyland of Christmas lights, classy shops and Western chain restaurants. For a while, we just walked around, trying to decide if we wanted Lavazzo coffee, cones from TCBY or any of the other lovely treats. It was like that part of the Nutcracker ballet where all the different candies from all over the world come out and dance. We passed a DVD shop in our travels, and looked in.
“English DVD? English DVD?” the shop assistant said. I ignored her, actually I tune out any sentences with “hello”, “DVD” or “look, look, you buy” in them. It makes my life so much easier. Stick is fundamentally nicer than I am, so he answered. The shop assistant called over another employee, who motioned us to follow him.
He led us through the classy men’s wear shop attached to the DVD store, and then pushed one side of a full-length fitting mirror in the corner. Behind it was a set of rickety stairs, and at the bottom of the stairs, was a clean, well-lit, extensive American DVD collection.
Of course.
I got a copy of Becoming Jane a few days ago. Do you like the description on the back?
If you like the Chinglish blurb, you can read the rest of it here. It’s from the Amazon.com page for Becoming Jane: The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen, by Anne Newgarden. (Scroll down to “Book description”)
“Stick, I need to get on your computer to print my skit for class.” My skit is a brilliant adaptation of The Emperor’s New Clothes, with Chinese characteristics.
“Right now? I’m in an instance!” That means fighting WarCraft bad guys on a Very Important Mission. “Just connect the printer to your computer. Here’s the USB cable.”
“Ok.”
“NOOOOOOOOOO! That was my mouse! Give me that cable!”
So last night I forgot it was Daylight Savings Time back home and I called my parents at 6:30 AM. They were very nice and didn’t tell me to go away and let them sleep. The lamest part is that I specifically came home at that time to call them, because I thought it was 7:30 AM and I could catch them having their coffee before work. Hahahaha! I mean, sorry.
No, really.
So in my last class today, we were playing Guess Who? (Made extra challenging because all the kids have the same hair color, eye color and are wearing the same uniform) when there’s an awful sound outside the window. It’s the sound of the skies opening, of torrential rain, of… some guy spraying the classroom windows with a fire hose. Not just spraying, it looks like one side of the classroom is going through one of those drive-through car washes.
You cannot hit a classroom window with a firehose and expect 6-year-olds to play attention to class. I mean, I’m a fun teacher and all, but come on! FIRE HOSE!!!
Anyway, we’re just getting back into our seats (kids) and calming our hysterical laughter (me), when there is a crash and a flexible ladder slams against our windows. It keeps moving with the breeze and crashing against the window, which may be even funnier than the power-washing.
Fortunately class was over by this point, so we all went to the window to watch some guys in camo make a formation.
Later, my TA explained that this is the, uh, practice drill for the fire drill tomorrow.
This is Stick making sure he gets every drop from his Guinness.
These are my honors students… you have no idea how hard I tried to convince them NOT to give the peace sign in this picture. I think it’s an involutary reaction, when a Chinese girl sees a camera, she has to make the V sign.
