07.28.2006
NEW CAR SMELL //
Yesterday I drove to Dallas to buy a Mazda3. Using Fighting Chance and my own brand of polite hardball I was able to swing a pretty good deal. Most offers I received were $300-$400 over invoice. One guy even offered me $1000 over MSRP without cracking up over the phone. In the end it was worth it for me to drive to Big D to buy at $900 under invoice. I spam faxed all of the dealerships from my parents' dental clinic. But about an hour later my mom tells me that some guy from a dealership called the clinic and was badgering them for a cheap dental cleaning. Referencing information from my fax he claimed that I assured him a discount cleaning because he was giving me a great car deal. The problem was, I'm not a dentist and I never spoke to anyone from his dealership. I decided to call the sales manager to tell him what happened and he thought I was insane. Maybe I am a little insane...insane with savings! Zoom zoom zoom! Top Gun up high double low volleyball scene five! Anyone?



07.23.2006
YOU BETTER SHOP AROUND //
I'm shopping for a car. So far I've been doing all of my searching online. I've learned that we have a misconception about car dealers: they are much worse than we think they are. Sure they seem friendly and like they are giving you a good price, but like every horny teenage guy, they are only after one thing. And just like those over-sexed walking bags of hormones, they will say anything to get it.

Every uneducated car buyer walking into a dealership needs to know they are like a 10 year old spending the night at Neverland Ranch. But if you do your homework you can turn into a Lorena Bobbitt. I clicked to get a free online quote from a few dealerships and immediately they pounced on me like a cougar on a fat kid with my phone ringing off the hook as they tried to cajole me to "come on down!" I was forced into witness protection and changed my answering machine to tell all car salesmen to stop calling.

Let me drop a little knowledge on you. You should NEVER pay MSRP unless you want a car they don't have in stock. If you do the work, the MOST you should pay is invoice. One of the best guarded secrets is how much dealers are getting in factory incentives that can be passed on to you. To learn about all of the smoke and mirrors they pull on you check out carbuyingtips.com. To find out how to get them to give you great deals by you helping them meet their quotas go to fightingchance.com. It costs $34. Now white people know that to make money you have to spend money. But Chinese think to save money you just don't spend money. I gladly shelled it out. We'll see next week if I emasculated those sum' bitches or if I'll be pointing to a doll where I was touched.



07.18.2006
NO CRYING IN SOFTBALL //
I was just watching the championship game of the World Cup of women's softball and the girls were doing what our men's baseball team should've done. Any time you have an opportunity to show the rest of world just another thing which makes us better than them, you step on their throat.

Now what would possess any guy to watch any women's sport without sexual favors from a girlfriend on the table? (except for women's Olympic beach volleyball, ha-at!) Well it was in high def on ESPN for starters, meaning I couldn't watch the same episode of SportsCenter for the 3rd time. I also bleed red white and blue, USA was sticking it to defending champ Japan and their pitcher who is the best in the world, and of course the incomparable University of Texas grad, pitcher Cat Osterman.

The whole thing cracked me up. The female analyst who has a mad on to get the sport attention kept gushing as if every at bat was Pujols vs Clemens. Since she's an American that plays in the Japanese league she felt compelled to translate everything the Japanese players were screaming. "When the short stop was saying 'Oh-kay! Oh-kay!" it means that she was saying that everything is okay and they need to buckle down because they are only down 4 runs and even though there are runners at the corners a ground ball could end the inning." I guess it's not just a generic stereotype that girls read a lot into everything.

I found it hilarious on many levels that while the announcers were touting this as a serious sport (interestingly enough I couldn't find a scrap of info of the game on ESPN.com) they had shots of the teammates rooting on the batter with encouragements like, "You can do it! Come on! You're awesome!" Some of the players also had pink gloves. When a home run was hit in only the 4th inning the entire dug out cleared to crowd around home plate as if the batter just hit a walk off grand slam. I was totally expecting the girls to start a hug train. Just great tv that kept me interested for 2 whole innings before flipping to BBQ University.



07.18.2006
DRIVE ME CRAZY //
There are some bad drivers out there I know. Once I read that a woman taking her driving test at the DMV went forward instead of reverse and pinned her child against the building. But excluding her and all of those small Chinese women that drive large SUVs or mini-vans, my father is hands down the worst driver I know. When he wants to switch lanes he routinely goes halfway cuts back and then changes lanes. He's as indecisive as a woman re-arranging furniture. He always freaks out about cars driving too fast when he is turning out of a parking lot even though said cars are 3 lanes over. And if he's talking while driving he becomes totally oblivious to the world, just like Mariah Carey. I can't count how many times while he was rambling about the Astros or Rockets that he came to a complete stop at a green light. He's even been pulled over because since he drives abnormally slow and swerves around the road the cop thought he was drunk. His parking isn't any better either. For some reason he takes distant spots even though there are several much closer spaces in sight, and then he manages to park right on the dividing line. It's hard to believe that at one point he used to be a parking valet. In summary he's predictably horrible, painful to watch, and embarrassing to all involved, exactly like a Hilary Duff movie.



07.13.2006
EXCHANGE RATE //
I am what you would call spending adverse. Every time I have to open up my wallet I feel like I’m giving my children away. One of the awesome things about China is their 8:1 exchange rate so you don’t need to have a conscience about spending. The past year I only spent about $35 total for my cell phone bill. Amd at $30/month I never had to wash a dish, clean a toilet, make my bed or do any laundry (Since most guys don't do that stuff for free anyhow it may not sound that great).

So coming back to Texas I'm so shell shocked by the price differences I feel like I just awoke from the The Matrix. I don’t want to drive anywhere because gas is worth more than my own blood and just the other night I spent more on dinner than I normally did on food for an entire month. Here's a health tip: if you haven't had any Tex-Mex in your system for a year, it's not a good idea to pound baskets of Chuy's chips and salsa. Let's just say the next morning I put about 20,000 miles on my toilet, and then 30 minutes later I went back to finish the job.



07.10.2006
HEADS UP //
The World Cup has final come to a close and I'm sure that 2-3 people in America are sad to see it go. Until I lived overseas, watching soccer rated somewhere between watching Arena football and The View. But after America's miraculous quarter final run in 2002 I've been able to appreciate and enjoy not soccer but the World Cup itself.

Riding shotgun on the I Hate France bandwagon I was hopeful that they would get bumped from advancing to the playoff round. When they made it out of pool play I was giddy that they were going to get rolled by the overwhelming tournament favorites Brazil. Amazingly they made it all the way to the finals thanks to a host of dives and flops that would make Manu Ginobili beam in approval. It killed me every time I watched the French coach complain that opposing players were acting like they were gunned down from behind to draw fouls, when his own team got about 98% of their free kicks and penalty kicks the same way.

And what was up with Zidane going completely insane and getting ejected with that headbutt that has to rank as the stupidest play ever in the history of sports? This is the biggest sporting event in the world that happens only once every 4 years, there is 10 minutes to go in overtime until penalty kicks, he's the team captain and the best player and decides to give an Italian a header in the sternum. And why his head and not just deck him? Did he think he would get a hand ball violation if he punched him with his fist? Just a devastating turn of events which tarnished the legacy of one of the sport's greatest players and cost France a shot at the Cup. It couldn't have happened to a better country.



07.06.2006
TO DO LIST //
One of the most popular conversations I had before leaving China was, "so what are you going to do first when you get back?" During the 6 month winter I'd given it a lot of thought and this is how my first day played out: Drank hot and sour soup, played with my birds, waited in the car for 2 hours while my sister had a job interview, played with my niece and nephew, ordered ESPN in high def, downed a Shiner Bock, reformated my computer, then watched the Braves vs the Cards and Sports Center 4 times until 5 am.

People wonder if living in a foreign country for a year is enough to get culture shock. I thought it might be weird driving a car, hearing everyone speak English, watching tv or going to a super market. But I found myself getting irritated when at San Tong Snacks a waitress got irritated with me for not being helpful to her. What was up with that? Didn't she know that I used to be an American Prince? It was nice being in the top 1% of wealth for a bit and being the king in every restaurant. Now I'm going back to 49 cent Budget Gourmet frozen chicken pot pies. Thank goodness girls don't care about money.



07.04.2006
PLANE TALK //
It took me a little longer than I expected to get back to Texas (my ticket was purchased on the wrong day), but 44 hours later I'm finally home. I met an interesting man on my Denver leg. He was a really unassuming affable old guy that has a lot of money. During our conversation I found out that this attorney has a fishing boat outside of his 3 story vacation town home in South Padre. He also has 3 freaking race horses. That's $150/day in basic maintenance. My entire wardrobe isn't even worth $150. For someone who started off dirt poor and was bright enough to be where he is, he asked me something surprisingly dumb. "I've been to Houston myself several times because I have a friend who works at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. That's where they treat people with cancer. Do your people in China have cancer?" How exactly are you supposed to answer an asinine question like that? "They used to. But my people who had cancer are all dead now."

I found it hilarious that even after I told him I was a UT grad and that I went to China as a foreign exchange student, he kept talking to me like I was from China. I thought about playing along by spitting in the magazine seat pocket and applauding when we landed.

I don't even have the words to set up this YouTube video. All I can say is "Wait for it..."



07.01.2006
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN PT 4 //
The zero hour is rapidly drawing to a close on this thing called China. This will be my final entry on this side of the world. Everything has been boxed and shipped and I sit on a crate in an empty room sobbing while I clutch the death of my bank account.

Moving isn't fun. This is #9 for me since graduating. I feel like a peripatetic, or maybe very pathetic. Moving from a different country is even worse. Not only do I have to deal with foreign bank transfers, dodging customs, running out of toilet paper (I don't recommend cheap napkins), and figuring out a way to dispose of 20,000 hangars and alcoholic contra-band (I'm opting for filtering it through my system), but it has to be done in a language I have a vague at best comprehension of.

My last couple weeks here I've been living like an NBA baller. After emptying my savings on moving, currency worth 1/8th the dollar is like Monopoly money now. I'm showing as much regard for hard earned cash like John Daly at the slots. Here's another thing I love about this country: people dress like crap. I was banking today in a ragged t-shirt, paint stained shorts, flip flops that say "I love sports," carrying a Pokemon umbrella and my man purse, and I TOTALLY fit in. This nation has a very under-developed sense of style. Women wear sun face visors that look like welding masks, capes, and Nightmare Before Christmas shirts. Men aren't any better as construction workers typically wear rolled up black slacks, dress socks, dress shoes and no shirt. I'm going to miss that people go to the mall dressed like they are about to mow their lawn. Screw it, I'm dressing the same back in Texas. Rocking my college Old Navy threads wasn't winning me any favors with the ladies anyhow.

And if you aren't reading these entries with their theme song, then you just aren't living.