Take on the international reach

I travel half way around the world and when I look up, I'm still haunted by this orange treacherous f*cker. I don't know how or why he's been able to do this but he's branded his horrible name across horrible properties in many pretty far flung places and it seems to work. I'm not sure what the common sentiment but I've away heard some positive ones is but I'm sure that Trump would be the first to scream that they are eating the dogs and cats. I hate him but somehow he's got half the world under his spell.

Take on the Great Firewall

Leaving China gives you a sense of relief, a bit because you feel like your stomach gets a break but also because not being able to use most of the apps you are so used to, is really disconcerting. You are limited to the CNN in your room which plays the same three stories over and over and the Chinese daily paper. You can't get onto the NYTimes website, you can't use Instagram or Threads or Reddit. You depend on friends and family sending texts with info but those are few and far between. So when you finally land somewhere else, it feels like you have been sprung from jail. Even if that was only a five day sentence

Take on the roller coaster in my stomach.

One of the best things about traveling in China is having incredibly interesting food, drinking incredible quantities of bad alcohol and then driving incredible distances in cramped cars on cramped roads with dudes sleeping on your shoulder spewing their fish breath.   

What is even more fun is when that food and that booze and that turbulence come together and your stomach starts to do its version kung fu and when that start you pull over and you run to a bathroom and find a hole.   

I get that it's all plumbing but when you are an overweight totally inflexible six foot American, the idea of hovering your  swamp ass over a hole is, well, interesting.     

I can't eat spaghetti without spilling it on my shirt and I can't hit a dart board six beers in, so what the hell are chances of this me landing this plane on the runway and not all over the back of my pants??

Sent from my iPhone

Take on shaking hands with gloves on.

I get the idea of wearing a bib when you eat a lobster or even a red sauced pasta but here they wear gloves for anything Walking down the street, sitting in the park or even when they eat food.

I'm not totally sure what the idea is as it might be some Covid era habit but the idea of trying to pound a steak while wearing Trojans while fumbling with my chopstick seems like something I'd be doing at this stage in my life.

Take on Wuhan

You have to love looking at a flight map and seeing the city that basically shut down the world a few years ago.

I've been to Wuhan a few times, the hotel was Ok, the people were nice but the open food market was amazing. I've never found myself surrounded by quite as many delicacies, feeling like a regular Anthony Bordain.

Can't wait to go back.

Take on colon cleansers

You never know what you get when you walk into a market in central China but seeing a plate of what looked like bull dicks was a bit more than my stomach could take. I have absolutely no idea what these things were but to say they look like what you get when you drink that juice before a colonoscopy would be an understatement. I'm all for interesting food choice but ones that look like what I scoop up behind my dog isn't one of the.

Take on the smog

Nothing tells you that you are not I. Kansas anymore than looking out of your windows and seeing the smog as thick as a drape. Not only do you not get any natural sun, the soot enters your windpipes the second you get in and every time you sneeze it looks like you are a character on Stranger Things sneezing out one of those demigorgans

Lucky lungs

Take on the smog

Nothing tells you that you are not I. Kansas anymore than looking out of your windows and seeing the smog as thick as a drape. Not only do you not get any natural sun, the soot enters your windpipes the second you get in and every time you sneeze it looks like you are a character on Stranger Things sneezing out one of those demigorgans

Lucky lungs

Take on the smog

Nothing tells you that you are not I. Kansas anymore than looking out of your windows and seeing the smog as thick as a drape. Not only do you not get any natural sun, the soot enters your windpipes the second you get in and every time you sneeze it looks like you are a character on Stranger Things sneezing out one of those demigorgans

Lucky lungs

Take on the smog

Nothing tells you that you are not I. Kansas anymore than looking out of your windows and seeing the smog as thick as a drape. Not only do you not get any natural sun, the soot enters your windpipes the second you get in and every time you sneeze it looks like you are a character on Stranger Things sneezing out one of those demigorgans

Lucky lungs

Take on the horrible movie choices

Stepping onto a 14 hour flight always brings a bit of anxiety although the second I sit down, I usually feel the excitement of the trip overtake the anxiousness. That excitement doesn't last long when you realize that the movie offerings in English are limited to like 8 choices with half being kids cartoons and adult options as interesting to me as staring the front seat for the duration of the seat. Guardians of the Galaxy, a Million Miles Away, Elemental?? This is worse than Chinese water torture.

Take on terminal 1 at JFK

I've flown to Asia more than two dozen times and although I'm not nearly as antsy about it as I once was, it's still a crazy trip. The country has changed a lot and as my second time back to China since COVID, it's certainly going to be interesting. What never does change is that JFK's terminal one still feels like third world country airport. It's crowded, hot, badly laid out and offers nothing to do while you wait for hours on end. It's crazy that with the upgrades they have done to Newark and LaGuardia as well as the stuff they are doing at other terminals at JFK, that everybody seems totally fine just leaving this the hellhole it is.

Take in tax on unrealized gains.

Although sadly in nowhere near threshold of the unrealized gains tax, I do wonder what it really means. I know we are only talking about the uber wealthy, who can certainly afford it but I prefer a tax that is not somewhat progressive. Being taxed on unrealized gains would be a killer for normal Americans but if we breach it for the ultra rich, how long before they extend it to the crazy rich, the ultra rich and just the rich? the I feel like taxes need to be written with everything and everybody in mind front the start of this is ever going to work.

Take on the new wonder twins

There is no bigger blowhard than Trump....except maybe Elon Musk. The fact these two are playing in the same team now makes me hate my decision to buy a Tesla one I regret even more. I can't decide which of the two of them is more insecure because it's gotta be really close. One thing about both "billionaires" is that neither seems to have done a thing with their money to do anything for anybody other than themselves.

Take on the weird fruit.

We got some weird fruit delivered to work today and when we cut it up I could only describe it as looking like a maggot covered vulva. I don't know what the heck this thing was but it was both crunchy and slimy and tasted like fermented jock itch.

Take on Cheryl Hines

Nobody has disappointed me more than Cheryl Hines in her post Curb life. I always assumed that she was sort of normal but her marriage to RFK Jr has taken any semblance of normal from her. I don't totally get it but the entire thing is hopefully just a giant bit for season 11

Take on the panic-buying toilet paper crowd

I hate people so much. My business will have direct effects to the port strike but that isn't my biggest fear. My biggest fear is that a bunch of inbreds are going to run to every Costco and buy up all the toilet paper. Now I'm stuck having to wipe my ass with the New York Post like a homeless person.

Take on Apple's predictive text

The new IOS sucks for a million reasons but mostly I'm annoyed because somehow the predictive texting and auto correct have gotten miserably bad. I don't know what it is exactly but it's almost totally unusable which is shockingly stupid. But we also can't figure out why when things are supposed to be progressing, we somehow decided to drive ass backwards.