Things that make me laugh

A sneaky retail ninja phone shot. Yes, it's an exfoliant called Bubble Magic Peeing.

For reference, they spelled 'peeling' correctly on the top and back of the box (not that that makes it less of a terrible product name), and my phone did not know the words 'ninja', 'exfoliant', or 'peeing'.

A glitch in the matrix?

I've been ignoring YouTube links out of habit for months now, as knowing that I won't be able to see the content doesn't stop the disappointment when I get the standard time out or connection errors.

Today, because a friend of mine had been raving about this Japanese pianist, I decided to click on a link.  Shock horror, it loaded something.  It was the full page in very basic HTML, and I couldn't watch the video, but it was something.  A few minutes, and more than a few F5s later, and I've got 'the connection has timed out' again.  Damned Firewarr.  Be consistent and stop giving me false hope! 

Going Postal

I've been putting off going to the post office for months, but the build-up of guilt and unsent gifts finally culminated in me spending a significant part of this weekend putting together four parcels to send to various patient friends and family members.

One of the reasons there's been such a delay is that I'm not the usual customer for a Chinese post office, and my transactions take much longer than they probably should.  The staff are used to people bringing their postables [ok, not a word], and putting them into a government-sanctioned green China Post box, and sending them away.  I like to spend some time on my packages, including careful addressing, gift-wrapping, and copious amounts of novelty tape (as you can see above).  I also have to go through a certain amount of stilted Chinese and miming to explain the contents of each box.  I usually get there in the end, and have yet to give in to the post office workers' demands to open the packages to see what's inside.

This time, knowing that there were a LOT of small and difficult-to-describe items contained in the boxes, I took the precaution of photographing the contents of each parcel.  [Each of these boxes contains somewhere between three and nine individually-wrapped presents, as well as at least one letter or card.]

Already running late this morning, I decided that since I'd spent so much time on packing these things, and that it would be way busier at lunch time, I went to the post office before work.  At the sight of my already-taped-up boxes, the staff there immediately started stressing out and asking me what was inside.  I explained to the best of my poor ability, and showed them the photos on my trusty mobile phone.  After a long discussion, including determining that, yes, they were going to four different places in the UK, apparently they still needed to see inside.  This raised a slight panic in me, as I had forgotten to bring any back-up novelty tape, and I had no idea what they would do when they opened the boxes only to find dozens of smaller packages inside.  They called an English-speaking co-worker over, and I explained the situation to her ("No! You can't see inside! You'll only get frustrated, and I might cry!" - paraphrased).  I assured them there were no liquids in any of the boxes (or at least I think that's what I was assuring them of).  They finally let it slide, probably because it was easier to just let me have my way. 

Thankfully, there were no issues with any of the million forms I had to fill in, and after the nice man had mimed 飞机 (fēijī, or aeroplane, a word I actually know) and I had handed over what seemed like a lot of money for air mail, I finally got out of there, just in time to be even later for work.  Success. 

Things that are wrong with the world

Things that are wrong with the world

Every fruit has its day. Except for papaya, which is greedy.

For reasons that are somewhat complicated, I just found out that Monday was National Watermelon Day (and by 'National', I mean 'American', but don't get me started on how annoying it is to find references to 'national' things on the internet with no mention of what nation they are relevant to).  I think that at some point I should get a job with an organisation with a name and function as randomly specific and entertaining as the National Watermelon Promotion Board.  They are still selling boatloads of watermelon in China right now, and I'm sure there are lots of local festivals for them, including this one in Beijing (sorry, the article is from 2008, but we'll have to wait until May/June 2010 for the next one anyway).

Some other odd fruit-related celebrations in the U.S. include, apparently, Eat a Red Apple Day (December 1st) [specific], Poisoned Blackberries Day (September 29th) [I don't know what you would do to celebrate this], and the International Banana Festival (September 21st).  Grapefruits and peaches each get their own month (February and August, respectively), and according to this list, papaya gets two months (June and September).  I don't even like papaya.

That weirdness led me to wondering if there was a National Mango Day celebrated anywhere, as it is the king of fruits and all.  There is, by the way.  In Mali.  BBC photos and interesting back story here. 

Not to be outdone, though, Rubicon announced a whole Mango Week in the UK (25th-31st May this year, so we'll have to wait until next year now).  I'm not sure that something being promoted by a private company with vested interest is as valid as an acknowledged national day, but I don't think anyone can complain about a week of mango.  Except this one guy I met who came from a place where they grow turpentine mangos.  Apparently when ripe, these things smell (and taste) like a combination of, well, turpentine and mangos.  He wasn't a fan.

As for me, I'm going to buy a mango on the way home.  It will cost slightly more than 2.5 US cents (apparently a good price in Mali), but I think I'll deal with it.


Image: Elite Banana on my pillow.

A journey of self-discovery (or finding my own ways to get around the Great Firewall)

[Not that anyone who is having troubles with it can read this blog, but never mind.]

Disclaimer: This post is in no way intended to be political.  It merely outlines my personal discoveries resulting from frustration from being cut off from the outside world.

1. One little letter

I was doing my general post-arrival work things - checking my email, starting up WinAmp, glancing at Google Reader, etc - this morning, and was having a lot more trouble with Reader than I usually do.  I've been getting used to not being able to see the feeds for the sites that are blocked by the Firewall (Blogger, WordPress, Facebook, etc) - though Reader used to be able to solve these problems - but today it was slow to load, kept booting me out, and every time I clicked on a feed, it would come up with the encouraging message:

Sorry, an unexpected condition has occurred which is preventing Google Reader from fulfilling the request.

Can I refer to China as an 'unexpected condition' now?

Anyway, a quick search for news about the status of Reader in China turned up this post at China Herald, which had a comment from Web Analytics in China, with a very tiny but apparently effective tip.  Use 'https' instead of 'http' in the URL.  According to the tipster, this works 6 out of 10 times for GMail and Google Reader.  According to me, it works 1 out of 1 times, and lets me read the feeds that were blocked without that one little ess.  That's right.  I feel like I'm back in the world, without having to get around the blockades in an active way.

2. One little browser

Desperation kind of set in several weeks ago when I realised that maybe the blocks weren't temporary and wouldn't be lifted after certain major anniversaries.  I was playing around on my Nokia N96, trying to get access to various websites and such.  I had four browsers on it, that I was using in various capacities.  My least favourite one being the crappy default one, and the others being Opera Mini, Opera, and the newly-released Skyfire.  I actually had a preference for Opera at the time (and a 30 day trial of the full browser that I was trying to take advantage of), but because of lack of access to essential sites (mostly Facebook, if I must be honest), I gave Skyfire another go. 

It became apparent that I was able to see everything that had been blocked, including full access to Facebook, Blogger, and even YouTube.  How, you may ask?  Well, it turns out that Skyfire has its own dedicated servers that process all the data and optimise it for mobile phone use, essentially providing a free VPN service just for using their browser (which could use a few tweaks, but generally works really well).  So if your mobile phone can use it, download it now!

3. A couple of little web/mobile services
 
After I'd awkwardly managed to set things up through Facebook and Blogger on my mobile, I started using Ping.fm from my PCs, and Shozu from my mobile.  Ping.fm can be used to update statuses, micro-blogs, and blogs for 40 different web services, including Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress, through web, IM, SMS, email, and a bunch of other inputs.  It's fast, customisable, and very handy for anyone managing more than one or two different services.  If you also sign up for Pinglater.fm, you can schedule future posts as well.  Shozu provides a quick way to upload or email photos directly from a mobile phone, and can also update a number of social media sites (including Flickr, Blogger, Facebook), and can send status updates and blogs as well as captioned and titled photos.  Shozu also keeps you up to date with a limited range of feeds from various sites (e.g. friends' photo uploads and status updates).  For Blogger, I submit posts via email, but I've been doing that for a long time, so it doesn't seem like a new thing to me. 

4. A few VPN/proxy services

These are my least favourite methods at the moment, mostly because the speed and quality of the internet available to me at home and work is extremely unreliable, and VPNs tend to slow it down even more.  I've used a couple of random proxy sites (e.g. youtubeproxy.org, sneakme.net), which work as a quick access solution, but are unreliable and drive me crazy with annoying advertisements.  I had the paid VPN service WiTopia recommended to me by a few people, so I thought I'd try it.  So far it's been patchy, and some services I can use better without it on, so it's frustratingly gratifying at best.  I'm coming up to the end of my trial month, and that might be the end of it for me.  There are a few other services out there that I may try and report back on.

In summary
1. For RSS and Atom feeds to keep up with blogs and the like: Use https://www.google.com/reader/
2. For mobile browsing (for compatible mobile phones): Use Skyfire.
3. For quick status and blog updates using a variety of inputs, use Ping.fm for now, and Pinglater.fm for later.
4. For status, blog, and photo updates using your mobile phone, use Shozu.
5. For blogging, many services have an email-to-blog option where emails get posted directly to your blog.  Disabling comment moderation is risky, but lets those comments get online when you can't moderate them directly.
6. For a reliable VPN service, I don't have a recommendation as yet.  Please let me know if you have any!