whatever, I cant think of a name

Quote of the week (3)

alastor993 — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:05:17 +0000

“My girlfriend got married today…” is what a male friend of mine said to me today…

Quote of the week (2)

alastor993 — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:56:17 +0000

While having lunch in the school cafeteria the other day, I told one of my colleques about my last quote of the week and the promtly said:

“I heard Jesus is a scientologist…”

X-mas: the virus of misery

alastor993 — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 04:39:53 +0000

Christmas, the time of year filled with holiday cheer.
I am glad the holiday season is closing to an end. Don’t get me wrong, I like Christmas and all that… in principle.
Getting together with friends and family is great, so great even that I don’t need a special day that forces us to spent ‘quality’ time together. A day that puts so much pressure on everyone that this dat HAS to be a great day, that nuclear disaster is just lurking around the corner.
I don’t mind some of the carols, the more bluesy ones that is. But even these get in the way of general enjoyment of this season and even the predeceasing season with companies starting to spread this holiday cheer months in advance. Without fail the sight of fat Santa makes me sick within a week and all jingles and carols only nauseate me not long after they start. No wonder with all these Rudulfs and Santa Rocks stuck in my head around late October.
I love Christmas trees (without the tinsel though, whoever thought that up should be shot), but all those presents under the tree? Who made that part of the holiday? Was it the Wise Men from where-ever they’re from, bringing baby Jesus mire and what not? But they didn’t arrive till somewhere in January.
Or was it part of the old light/winter equinox celebration (from which the whole Christmas deal is derived)? Somehow I can’t imagine…. So that must be those big companies again.

What I’m trying to say is, that even though I like Christmas, it often turns me into this stressed out, nihilistic Gringe with murderous tensions. I feel a strong urge to go and shoot dead every Santa in sight and blast away every jingle or carol in hearing distance to oblivion with angry death metal…

Anyone else who feels the same way? Maybe just a teeny tiny little bit?

Lost in translation, part three

alastor993 — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 07:49:19 +0000

Some more great public notices! These I all found in a touristic watertown of which I don’t remember the name… Enjoy!

At the touristic watertown

Still at the water town

At the boats in the watertown

More watertown boats

No flamethrowers allowed in the watertown I guess

No photographs either

Quote of the week

alastor993 — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 01:43:01 +0000

Today, as I was ‘happily’ working away on my students marks, a colleague stopped by my office apparently just to share some wise words with me.

Here is what he said:
“The lower your standards are the more you get done in the day.”

Some of my grade 6 students and their Elvis puzzle

Sleeping people

alastor993 — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 02:57:44 +0000

Besides my collection of Lost in Translation pictures, I have decided to start a collection of Sleeping people! Yeey!

I took these while the school where I work was being renovated with my phone (hence the poor quality).

Sleeping while gardening

Sleeping while doing construction work

Sleeping while fixing the art room

Back from being censored away

alastor993 — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:02:13 +0000

A QuickPressPost just to let everyone know that I’m back (not sure for how long) from being blocked! Some of you might have feared me to be dead or on the run, but no, no, NO! Just virtially swallowed up and bounced back by the three foot thick brick wall that has blocked WordPress at my location. But do not fear, for Alastor (that’s me) is here!
I will start catching up on the Post a Week asap and tell you all about my NaNoWriMo experience!

Weekly photochallenge: DOA wildlife…

alastor993 — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 01:09:13 +0000

During our road trip through Anhui, China we encountered a wide range of insects and other wildlife, here are some pictures of the creatures we saw… DOA (not dead on arrival, but dead or alive…)

Draginfly

Butterfly

Domesticated wildlife, Mr. Zhu's dog... Look at those visious teeth!

DOA…
I have a strange fascination with dead things….

Hollow Zhi Liao

Big ass dead beetle

My favourite: The Dead Mouse

And last, but not least: A runover dog (we had to turn the bike around to take a photo)

Second best couldn’t be better, the grand finale!

alastor993 — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 06:46:34 +0000

Day NINE → Home
By The Boyfriend, edit and comments provided by me.

In planning the trip we had been working under the assumption that we would certainly take a fall at least once. On the last leg of the ride having not really come off yet the time was well nigh. Wer’e made all the more aware of it by the incessant rain. Less than 200 km from Shanghai as I was braking behind a car that was turning left another car decided to turn left as well and swung into my braking distance. A combination of water, lack of experience/space and a very tight rear break slammed all three of us on the wet tarmac. Luckily we had full gear on. Liza’s wasn’t tight enough on the knees so she was hurt a bit but she’s had worse of a push-bike (And I’m no pussy where it concerns pain). All body parts in check we grabbed our stuff off the road. Relieved to be unharmed, though a little shaken we sat a moment, something buzzing in our peripheral hearing about 110 and police. I went back to the spot to take a picture of the bike and move it off the road while the offending driver was waving his phone around with 110 on the dial screen. I was telling him we were okay and there was no need for that when he pointed to some damage on the back of his car, I hadn’t even felt it hit. I looked from the spot on my bike where my license plate is supposed to be to the car and back to the bike and realised that we had a problem.

Me taking my bike from the crash site. You can see his bumber kindof coming off. He left his ar right there in the middle of the road the whole time. Unbelievable

We set the bike up and were ready to just take off but a crowd was surrounding our escape route and, no matter how many spectators we told to piss off, more arrived and there was no way out (after five minutes the road was already practically blocked, I have no idea where these people always seem to come from when there’s been an accident). We had to talk. He reckoned the damage was over 2000 worth. He called a mechanic from across the road and told him to tell me the same. Right in front of me, even though I spoke to him in Chinese he went ahead and tried it anyway. The mechanic told him 1000 and then told him to tell me 2000, I was standing right there. Idiots. Anyway, we gave them what we had on us (the lower figure), there was much arguing and interception of key turning and eventually I told him we were on our way to Shanghai to go home (he thought I meant abroad) and he let it go (the Channel-wife was still being difficult, but – having had plenty enough of this crap, I started shouting at her in English and she slumped off), we were happy to be out of there. I think he was happy with his money too. Damn Chinese love to make a scene though, don’t they…

We stopped to get something to eat and gather our wits and turning a blind corner back onto the G318 we found a car driving the wrong way right into the radius of my turn. I tried to swing it back out but lost grip again and crashed into his front bumper as we slid hurt my knees again). He tried half heartedly to tell us we were driving too fast (which we weren’t) while Ms. Clegg unloaded all her fury at the last driver onto this guy. Wasn’t much to argue about though. We broke his front fender… We just told him to go and we regathered strength. It was still raining and felt very dangerous but we wanted home so bad we pushed on.

A toilet break: as I stopped the bike in a bit of mud we all knew we were going down but I did nothing to stop it (my knees again, but still able to laugh while I shouted at The Boyfriend he was a f’ng dick). To add insult to injury Ms. Clegg was accosted by a swarm of mosquito’s as she squatted. 15 bites in the time it takes to take a leak. Then she had to sit on the bike all the way home, poor girl (yes, poor poor me!).

Finally just to top it off we almost got slabo’ed (slabo is now a proper word for hitting someone crossing barriers to throw themselves on oncoming motorcyclists on Mychinamoto forum) by some young girl who hopped the barrier in the middle of the road and, without looking, took off running across the Huqingping highway toward her mother on the other side. Luckily we missed her. She would’ve been a perfect end to our day, trip and time in China. We couldn’t have been happier to be home.
You know they say all’s well that ends well but the opposite is not necessarily true. Can’t wait for the next trip.

Thanks for reading!
P.S. She (that’s me) still rides with me, if you can believe that (hardly, but yes… I do…)

The Boyfriend partaking in one of the last bit's of bona-fide nature before Shanghai

We stopped outside a Chevvy shop and they invited us in for tea. Only in China

20.000 euro's and it's yours, all yours!

Our route